Replica

by Bill Clem

  Holy shit! That’s near The Triangle, right where he suspected the 747 went down last week. Johnston got back on the horn. “All right. Do you know where the highest point is?”

  “I’m not sure.” Carlson looked at Baker. “Can we find the highest point around here?” Carlson kept the phone pressed to his lips.

  Baker nodded. “Tell him yes. We know where it is. There’s a huge cliff near the beach.”

  Carlson relayed the message.

  “Okay. Get to that point. I’ll have a chopper out to you inside of two hours. Good luck.”

  Fifty-Three

  * * *

  PETER CARLSON FELT LIKE HE was moving through a nightmare as he stepped out onto the aluminum gangway of the GenSys compound. He stopped at the end, having no desire to step out into the jungle abyss ahead.

  Baker led the group with Carlson close behind him. Everyone else followed in single file as he stepped onto the narrow trail that led away from the compound. The image before them made Peter recoil in horror.

  “Oh God!” Peter stared, unable to believe what he saw. Bodies, and pieces of bodies, littered the ground. The guards.

  Everyone stared in stunned silence.

  Ellen Choy closed her distance from Peter and gripped his arm like a vice. “Peter—“

  “I know... just stay close. We’ll be alright.”

  “Okay, let’s move,” Jack Baker said to the group. “Stay close together.”

  With Baker carrying one of the guards’ assult rifles, Peter began moving into the jungle with everyone else behind him.

  They’d only gone two hundred feet into the trees when they heard a terrifying shriek. One of the guards came tearing out of the trees thirty feet in front of them. Jack raised the rifle to shoot, then hesitated as the guard cried out... “Wait... don’t shoot...” He barely got the words out.

  The creature hit instantly. Peter stood frozen in place as the spectacle unfolded only a few feet away.

  * * *

  The guard felt the creature’s oblong head crash into him with unimaginable force. A razor sharp clamp tightened on his upper arm, slicing to the bone and locking on. A flash of white-hot pain exploded as the monster torqued its powerful jaws and shook its head violently, tearing the guard’s arm off his body. Other creatures moved in. Claws like knives stabbing at his legs, torso, neck. He had no breath to scream in agony as the creatures ripped huge chunks of his body away. The last thing he saw was a gorge of yellow teeth clamping down across his face.

  Then his world went black.

  * * *

  Ten feet away, Jack Baker raised the rifle and unleashed a torrent of bullets into the creatures. The beasts shrieked their high-pitched calls and bolted into the jungle. Baker turned toward the others.

  “Is everyone all right?”

  Everyone nodded. Then Baker realized something was not right.

  “I thought there were seven of us,” he said.

  “It’s Tibek,” Michael Whiting said. “He ran. Just like the coward that he is.”

  Fifty-Four

  * * *

  THE AUSAR HH-66 HELICOPTER was still ten miles away from its destination. The pilots knew many of the small islands were fog shrouded most of the time. Even with GPS locators, it was sometimes impossible to locate people. They typed the coordinates into their navigation system and hoped for the best.

  Fifty-Five

  * * *

  THE SCREECHING HOWLS THAT PIERCED the air frightened Frank Tibek more than anything ever had before. Mainly because he knew where they were coming from. Or more precisely, what they were coming from. Though he’d not seen the complete metamorphosis of the beasts he unleashed, he was well aware of what they were capable of.

  With Carlson and the others ahead of him, Tibek made a decision to turn back. Let them be the bait. He’d find a hiding spot and hold out until night. The one thing he’d engineered in to them was bad vision, especially at night. He would be virtually invisible to them, even with their incredible sense of smell, if he waited until dark. In the daylight, they could get close enough by smell to see you. Then it was too late.

  Tibek spotted a cave off to his right about fifty yards. He darted toward it, even as Carlson and the others faded from sight. The howls persisted and Tibek cowered behind a tree and waited before making a break for the cave. Directly ahead was a wall of dense foliage. But beyond it, Tibek could see the cave opening. Once inside, he dropped to the ground, gasping for breath.

  Then he heard it clearly. A low rumbling growl, almost like a purr. It was coming from the foliage in front of the cave. It sounded like the biggest cat he’d ever heard. A fetid odor also reached him at the same time, a disgusting carrion smell that hinted of rotted flesh.

  Thylacine.

  Tibek felt his bladder give way. His heart was pounding in his chest.

  A second later they appeared. Three of them, an adult and two smaller ones. Tibek scrambled to his feet, unsure of what to do. As the snarling trio approached, he could see they’d changed yet again since he’d last seen one. The head was much too big for the body, an anatomical necessity to accommodate teeth the size of steak knives. And the paws were elongated with razor-sharp nails that look more like retractable switchblades. Even the smaller ones had the adult-size appendages. They were pure killing machines.

  “Get the hell away from me,” Tibek yelled. “I made you. Now get away!”

  The smaller ones came closer as the large adult watched. Their hands were covered with bits of flesh and blood. He could smell the carnivores, as they got ever closer. Then he smelled something else.

  It was shit. His shit.

  He tried to run, but the large one blocked his way and slapped him hard with its outstretched paw. Instantly, Tibek saw blood spurting from a huge gash in his shoulder. For a second, it was quiet. Then the two small ones leaped onto him and bit down decisively on his arms. The bones crunched beneath the flesh.

  Tibek screamed in pain. He tried to get away but each time he did, they took another bite, until he could no longer move at all.

  The large adult then joined her two young, and with a single bite, bit off his ear to the bone, taking a good piece of scalp with it. Tibek howled. He saw the two young ones chewing his fingers. Blood was glutting out of him like a clogged shower-head. Then the big one rolled its eyes back, opened its gaping jaws, and bit Tibek’s head in half.

  Fifty-Six

  * * *

  JACK BAKER ANNOUNCED THE CLIFF about twenty yards ahead of them. “There it is,” he said to the others. “Be careful when we start climbing, it’s very slippery. Hold on to the person next to you.”

  Near the top of the cliff, Peter Carlson stumbled. His glasses fell and smacked against a rock before tumbling over the edge to the chasm below. Carlson regained his footing only to find his world appeared as if his eyes were covered with Vasoline. “I can’t see anything,” he said to Baker.

  “Look out!” Michael Whiting cried out a second later.

  A snarling creature jumped toward Carlson, blind to his attack. Baker ripped his knife from its sheath, swung it high over his head and brought it down with all his might into the creature’s shoulder. The scream it let out was so shrill, it seemed to shake the rocks around them. With a cry that was half scream and half roar, the thing tore the knife from his shoulder and threw it aside. With murderous intent, the snarling beast turned toward Baker, foam spewing from its mouth. It was about to jump on Baker, when Michael Whiting charged headfirst and drove into the thing’s chest with all his might. Whiting screamed in pain as the monster grabbed Whiting’s back to keep from falling. But it was too late. As Whiting had intended, the blow sent the two of them over the edge, to their death on the jagged rocks below.

  “Oh God, no,” Tracy Mills cried.

  “What’s happening?” Carlson asked, still unable to see.

  “It’s okay,” Baker said.

  When the commotion quited, Carlson sat on the rocks and dug through his leather b
ag he’d grabbed before they left. It contained all his notes, his grandfather’s notes and luckily, an extra pair of glasses. “Thank God,” he said, adjusting the thick spectacles.

  In the distance, he could hear the sound of a helicopter. A minute later, the HH-66 broke through the cloud cover and hovered above them. In minutes, it winched the five survivors, one by one, onto the chopper. “Who’s in charge, mates?” the pilot asked. “I am,” Jack Baker said.

  Fifty-Seven

  * * *

  PETER CARLSON WATCHED THE ISLAND grow smaller out the window of the rescue chopper. From the air, his first thought was that he was seeing things, but as his eyes traced the forms running on the ground, he saw something else.

  There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds... all different sizes!

  As Carlson sat back in his seat, an unsettling realization began to swell in him like a volcano. He turned and looked out one more time.

  But... that’s impossible!

  Suddenly the truth came crashing down. The realization felt like it was going to bury him. Peter now understood. They’ve been out there all along! He pressed his nose against the window. A huge wire fence ran the perimeter of the far side of the island. Tibek had corralled them to keep them away from the compound. But he made one fateful mistake; he unwittingly allowed male and female together. Something they had strictly prohibited in their initial plan. Not only had Tibek sent mutated embryos to Gem/BioTech, he had allowed other mutations to cohabit unchecked with horrifying results. He had done the unthinkable with an unknown species. And...

  They had bred.

  Fifty-Eight

  * * *

  Six Months Later

  AT THE DUNALI MEDICAL CENTER, the doctor in charge of Prince Habib’s son was Raheed Jamaal. He had been with the boy since he entered the facility six months earlier. Habib had carefully selected him as the utmost authority in his field of Genetic Serumunology. They had begun an unprecedented treatment in the preceding months that had saved the boy’s life.

  He entered the boy’s suite this morning as usual. Habib waited in the lounge to make some calls, while Jamaal proceeded with the examination. Checking the monitors as he entered the room, he made notes on the chart and did the usual routine work. He noted the boy’s appetite had increased tremendously over the last three weeks and his patient had begun to gain weight rather rapidly. The normally sickly child was fast becoming a muscular teen. The serum was certainly doing its job, he thought. He also noticed that the boy was unusually quiet this morning. He sat on the edge of the bed to check the blood pressure and noticed something that sent the hair on his neck standing up. He ran to the lounge. “Your highness, I think you should come in here, now!”

  When Habib entered the room, he froze in place.

  The boy looked as though he was having some type of seizure. His body twitched and turned and his hands contracted.

  Habib looked at Jamaal. “Do something!”

  Jamaal took a step toward the boy. But one step was all he took.

  Abruptly the boy’s face bulged. Not symmetrically, but rather, more in some places than others. His skull pulsed as if something writhed beneath his skin.

  For a moment Prince Habib could not move. He was paralyzed by fear, unable to even blink or draw a breath. He could hear bones crunching and popping inside his beloved son, reshaping themselves with impossible speed.

  The boy gurgled an unholy moan as his skull swelled upward and swept back into a bony crest. His face, now more resembling a hideously-misshapen jackal than a human, bulged as fiery demonic eyes settled into its new form with the ease of hot wax.

  At last, Habib lashed out explosively. “Do something, Dr. Jamaal.” His heart pounded so hard it hurt.

  His son’s jawbone lengthened into a wide snarl that split back to his ears and revealed double rows of immense, sharp teeth. He hissed at Habib and yellow threads of thick saliva drooled from his upper lip.

  Habib couldn’t think of it as his son. That was too terrifying.

  Jamaal started to move, but with lightening speed, a gigantic furry hand flew from beneath the bed sheet and caught Jamaal by the throat. It lifted him in the air as if he were made of paper and flung him across the room. He hit the wall with a sickening thud and slid to the floor, his legs splayed out beneath him.

  The Prince’s security team rushed into the room, weapons drawn, ready to stop any threat to the Prince. When their eyes took in the hairy mass in front of them, they stood dumfounded. What in Allah’s name is...

  “Shoot him,” the Prince said.

  “But—”

  “Shoot him, for God’s sake!”

  The beast swelled its chest, making it seem twice as large, and let out a horrific howl, like the scream of a burning man filtered through a ringing bell. A sickening stench replaced the air in the room. Terrified, the guards stood frozen in place, unable to believe what they were seeing.

  The thing snarled once, then howled at his father. The Prince could not comprehend how Khalid had become what he now was, but he half-remembered that a word existed for them, and in a moment, it came to him. Werewolf: monstrous half-breeds, part human, part wolf. His son was no werewolf, no unfortunate freak of nature. Then he thought of another word.

  Monster.

  This wasn’t happening; this couldn’t be happening. This was some kind of a mistake. A horrible mistake.

  Maddeningly, the Prince knew he had no one to blame but himself.

  The still-mutating creature sprang out of bed in a shot, stopping directly in front of the Prince. It sniffed the shaking man. Habib wondered if it recognized him, if it knew, on some level, that he was its father.

  The beast then reared back and howled at his father, almost nose to nose. Rancid spittle stuck to his face, burning like acid. The monster took one last look at Prince Habib, then crashed through the window in a blaze of fury.

  The Prince tumbled backwards against the bed. Regaining his footing, he staggered to the window just in time to see the creature, his son, running toward the open desert.

  Epilogue

  * * *

  One year later

  Washington National Zoo

  PETER CARLSON GAZED AT THE newest exhibit in the marsupial house. Ellen Choy stood beside him, her arm folded around his.

  “He seems to be doing really well,” Ellen said.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “What do you two think?” Peter said to Jack Baker and Tracy Mills.

  Jack smiled. “I think he’s a lot nicer than his cousins.”

  “And a lot better looking, too,” Tracy chimed in.

  Peter took a last look at the tiny Tasmanian Tiger. He had finally fulfilled his grandfather’s, and ultimately his own, lifelong dream. The young pup was perfectly healthy and had quickly become the most popular attraction at the zoo. As they walked toward the exit, Ellen looked up at Peter. They were alone now, since Jack and Tracy had stayed behind to take in some more exhibits.

  “What about Poguba, Peter?”

  He shook his head. It was the last thing he wanted to think about. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  WAIT!

  Turn the Page for a sneak preview of Bill Clem’s next thriller!

  ANOMALY

  PROLOGUE

  April 23, 2004

  Kisangani, Central Africa

  It was a two-hour ride to the site during which everyone was mostly quiet. Only the hum of the Rover’s engine and the grinding of the worn clutch kept Frank Pierce awake. Pierce had endured forty-eight hours of one rickety plane after another to reach the Congo, then had boarded a recently defunct helicopter that was quickly repaired, which sole purpose was to get his team of five anthropologists to a point where they could take a Land Rover to the excavation site.

  As they approached a ridge, Pierce could see an elaborate system of tents scattered at the base just beyond an expanse of prairie. The Rover weaved through the maze of canvas and pulled up alongside a large
field tent.

  Seven high-tech solar panels were set up to collect the sun’s energy and transfer it through a tangle of black cables and into the tent. The panels powered specialized machines; DNA analysis, carbon dating, gene typing and other unique operations. A few laptops sat outside on an aluminum fold-up table. Pierce noted a satellite uplink dish set up behind the tent.

  Whoever is bankrolling this thing has some big bucks.

  Samantha Coulter, a twenty-three year old graduate student from Princeton greeted Pierce when he climbed out of the Rover behind the rest of the team. He had met her on a dig the year before and was very impressed with her tenacity and intellect.

  “This is big, Frank,” she said.

  “You must be walking on air.”

  “You want the nickel tour?”

  “Sam, I want to see it.”

  She’d told Pierce that this find was something not recorded in any fossil record. As he followed Samantha up a gentle slope, all other matters disappeared from his consciousness. She had found in a cavern something that might finally vindicate him.

  They approached a rocky overhang, the entrance to a system of caves on the northeast ridge. Two men with AK-47 rifles stood up as they approached the roped-off entrance.

  “It’s okay,” Samantha said to the taller man.

  She lifted the rope and held it for Pierce. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the light, then Samantha handed him a miner’s helmet. They followed the stream of light to the back of the cave, where Pierce noticed a smaller opening. They squeezed through the tight seam and into the next chamber. Huge folds of volcanic rock dominated the tight cave. A few feet ahead lay a large blue tarp, supported by a framework of thick planks. Pierce stopped.