Toby marked the passage with a ribbon and closed the Bible.
“I don’t know if that has any relevance or not,” he said with a shrug.
“Sanders had some kind of heart attack and stopped breathing,” I replied, reasoning out loud. “You think what you read explains his recovery?
Toby sighed wearily. “No, not really,” he replied. “Theologising is pointless; we just have to trust God and try to set a good example.” He pocketed the Bible and got up.
“Sorry about the preaching,” he said, “I should know better.” He gave me a tight lipped grin. “Well, I’m very glad to see that you’re getting well again. I’ll leave you alone to get some more rest.”
He was almost out the door when he stopped and turned.
“Do you think the Devil can perform miracles too?” he said. Then he left before I could answer.
* * *
Wheeler sat at his office desk and mulled over the events of the previous three days. His plan had worked too well. Images of the changed Sanders and Abby Mackie ran through his mind. And now Georgia too! By the looks of it, Sanders had contracted some sort of weird disease from the meteorite and spread it to Abby and Georgia. The women were easy for a big meathead like Sanders to manipulate.
He dismissed lingering feelings of guilt. How the hell could he have known this was going to happen? Georgia was a bit of a loss but there were plenty of other sexy, available girls around who liked rich sugar daddies. It had been interesting to watch the scenario play out, but now was the time to stop it. From here on, he wanted a pleasant vacation.
How could he fix it? Get a professional search outfit up here to find the missing trio and take them back to Vancouver, put them in quarantine? It would end up a publicity mess and the families would file suit for massive damages. Ambulance chasing lawyers on his tail were not a good idea. They’d force him to testify in court and all that shit, never mind the millions of dollars he’d have to shell out in ‘shut up and go away’ money. The press would portray him as a ruthless shark and his house guests as helpless victims. It was all so predictable. He couldn’t let any of that happen to the Wheeler Corporation.
Not for three individuals who were probably beyond help already.
He took his feet off the curved mahogany desk and stared out the window, unsettled by these thoughts. What if it really was a virus they’d caught, a lethal one that spread like wildfire, some monster disease that had survived the intense cold of deep space and the searing heat of entry into Earth’s atmosphere? Wasn’t it his duty to eliminate it at the earliest possible opportunity? He’d be saving mankind, for God’s sake!
A numbing realisation came to him. If it was a virus, how come he hadn’t been infected too? He’d handled Sanders’ body and stood close to Abby Mackie often enough; and he’d pawed Georgia as often as she’d allowed him. Something had got into those three, he was sure of it. And the timing was mighty strange, almost as if it had been able to choose when, and pick who was next.
If it was a deadly virus then sending them back to Vancouver would be a mistake. What if it couldn’t be contained and spread all over North America, the world? Not only would his business empire be ruined, but he’d get blamed for all the deaths. That wouldn’t be fair, so he couldn’t let it happen.
A grim smile creased his face. The solution was obvious really and he’d been toying with the idea all along. It would protect his reputation and his assets, and also keep the threat from spreading. A quick, private solution that no one need ever know about and it meant that he would get some hunting in after all.
Yes, a decisive leader cleans up a problem before it spreads. If Julius Wheeler was anything in this world, he was a decisive man. He was the main player and the rest of these dolts were just chess pieces on his board. Now it was time to make his next move and regain control of the game.
He rose, locked the office behind him, and found Peterman and Marie in the kitchen. They both looked surprised when he walked in, as if sensing what was coming.
“We’ve finished making the buffet lunch, sir, just as you ordered,” Peterman said. “The guests can have whenever they want. I’ll supervise Nick and Nora serving.”
“Marie will have to do that, I need you for an outside job,” Wheeler replied shortly.
Peterman nodded. He knew better than to argue when his boss was grim faced like this. Instead, he took off his apron, handed it to Marie, and followed Wheeler out the door.
* * *
Twenty minutes later Wheeler checked that the kitchen was empty and left quietly by the back door. Peterman was waiting for him behind the storage shed with the equipment they needed. It was another hot, sweaty day and the sun had moved high in the sky. They shouldered a rifle and a backpack each and made for the forested slope behind the house.
Deep in the trees, birds sang and chirped in lofty branches. They walked at a steady pace, Peterman in front for once. He was the tracker and every so often he would stop and stoop low, examine the ground, note shoe prints and broken twigs. The same faint lines and indentations meant nothing to Wheeler.
“They went this way, sir.”
“Good, I knew your hound dog skills would come in handy.”
Further up the hill they emerged from the dense forest into a sparsely treed area where bright, searing sunlight beat down on their heads again. Soon Wheeler called a halt and wiped sweat off his arms and face with one of his brightly coloured bandanas.
“Damned humid,” he complained.
Peterman, just ahead of him, bent low to the ground and checked for tracks. Despite his age, the house manager was fit and lean, with a tough, wiry frame around hard bone. His grey hair, worn long, belied his years. Wheeler was well aware that for Peterman a major attraction of living in this remote location was having easy access to the wilderness all year round. A trek like this was nothing to him.
“Do you still go on those two-week day camping trips?” Wheeler asked the older man.
“When Marie allows me, sir," Peterman replied, “These days she doesn’t like being left alone in the house for too long.”
Wheeler smiled. He couldn’t imagine being henpecked like that. “So how do you escape her clutches?”
“I go over the alarm system and satellite communications you’ve installed, sir, make sure she knows how to work everything. That puts her mind at ease.”
Wheeler nodded curtly in reply, not really interested. There was another security feature in the house, which even Peterman didn’t know about. “Come on; let’s get out of this damned heat,” he said, changing the subject, “It’s burning my ass off.”
“Over there, due west there’s a stream that feeds into the river,” Peterman replied, “The tracks lead that way. We can refill our water bottles when we get there.”
Wheeler hadn’t known about the stream. In fact, he didn’t know much about his surroundings, except the most important thing – it all belonged to him. Everything for scores of miles in every direction was his property; he’d made sure of that before having the house built. And on his property, he could do whatever he liked, without anyone ever knowing.
They arrived at the little tributary. Wheeler found a shady tree, shook free his bandana and ran his fingers through his hair. Hot beads of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He unshouldered his rifle, sat down, and closed his eyes. His thoughts drifted to the hike he’d taken with Peterman several weeks earlier, the hike that had started this all.
* * *
Old Peterman had carried the heavy gear and they’d travelled all day long, searching for hours, pushing deeper and deeper into the forest. With evening about to set in they’d almost given up, but Wheeler had swallowed down the frustration and persisted out of sheer bloody single-mindedness. If the meteorite existed, it was on his property, which meant he had legal claim to it. In the end, his stubbornness paid off and he found it.
As soon as he laid eyes on it, he knew it was special. Black as hell, far taller than a man, li
ghter-coloured seams ran across its uneven surface and shone deep cadmium red in the setting sun.
Until then, Wheeler hadn’t even been sure it existed. The journal story of its discovery could have been a tall tale fabricated as an excuse for failure. A lot of old pioneer stuff was like that; exaggerated yarns that grew in the telling, or pure fiction that came out of beer bottles and broken dreams. But not this time; this was the equivalent of a prospector’s ‘lucky strike.’
Wheeler kept well away from it, thinking that since this much of the story was true, then perhaps the rest of it was true too.
It turned out he was dead right. The book wasn’t the elaborate nonsense of a lonely old trapper gone crazy. When Wheeler first stood in front of the massive rock he realised the damn thing would spook anyone.
Now, sitting under the tree, Wheeler’s fingers stroked the sleek Anschutz rifle he cradled in his arms. Over four thousand dollars of German craftsmanship; it was just about the most expensive hunting rifle on the market. He’d had it with him that day too, and pointed it at the meteorite before signalling for Peterman to come forward. The plan was to use the house servant as the perfect lab rat.
At first Peterman shook his head but, as usual, it only took a scowl from Wheeler to get the old man moving. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bulging in his scrawny throat, stepped forward and stretched out his hand to the rock, his fingers about to touch one of the burnt sienna seams.
“Wait! On second thoughts, keep back. Don’t touch it.” It had been fun toying with Peterman, but Wheeler couldn’t risk losing the old man’s services. Not yet anyway.
Wheeler still needed to find out if the rock was safe or not. That’s when the solution came to him. He would get someone really expendable to do it. It would only take a little while to arrange, and in the meantime the rock was going nowhere. He had plenty of other pleasurable things to do until then.
“That what it says in that old book you took the map out of?”
Wheeler frowned. Peterman wasn’t supposed to know about the journal. Snooping again? No matter; by then Wheeler was tired and hungry. He ordered Peterman to stand back and they got the hell out of there.
By the time they reached the edge of the clearing, Wheeler had it all figured out.
“I’ll take a group up here in a few weeks’ time,” he explained. “Not real friends, just hangers on. We keep this a secret until then. Understand?”
Peterman nodded. When Wheeler looked back, he saw veins in the rock throb with the stirrings of life. The memory of that still shook him today.
* * *
Wheeler sighed and opened his eyes again, dispersing thoughts of the past and bringing himself back to the present. Today he had a different task; today he was the hunter. It was time to get to it.
They were just about to set off again when Peterman spotted a woodland caribou drinking upstream, on the opposite bank. “It’s upwind, sir,” Peterman alerted Wheeler, “And this type of deer has poor eyesight. It would be an easy kill.”
Wheeler thought about it, then ignored the animal and kept moving. He had bigger prey in mind.
They walked for another hour and the landscape gradually changed from heavily forested to rocky and barren. By now, Wheeler was regretting his decision.
“Are you sure you’re still on their tracks?” he asked Peterman.
“I’m certain, sir. They haven’t tried to hide their trail at all, maybe they don’t know how to. They might as well have signposted it.”
“You’re sure it’s them?”
“There’s no one else it could be, sir. Anyone else would be trespassing. And these footprints are of one large male and two small footed females.”
“Okay, Peterman, keep it up. I just hope to God they aren’t much further.”
“They know we’re after them, sir.”
Wheeler frowned. “How can you tell?”
“The newer tracks are different, more hurried,” Peterman explained, “They’re running away. That’s why they’ve gone so far from the house. We’d better be careful.”
They reached another stream and Peterman followed footprints in the muddy ground along the water’s edge. Further up, they came to large stones interspersed among shattered scree that crunched under their shoes. A tall, pitted rock formation rose up before them. Wheeler stopped and stared at the strange, almost cathedral like, natural formation. A high double arch capped a narrow passageway in the rock.
“What the hell–?”
“It’s called a ‘karst street’ sir. Natural acid in rainwater dissolves the limestone, forming long, narrow openings. Some of them go on for miles.”
Peterman approached the entrance to the rock passage, knelt down and examined the ground. “They’re definitely in here,” he concluded. He picked up a broken piece of stone and studied it.
Something about the man’s cool, calm behaviour collided with Wheeler’s coiled up tension. He strode up and knocked the stone out of Peterman’s hand.
“We don’t have time for rock-hounding. Let’s get this business over with.”
Peterman stood up and slowly turned around until he was facing his boss.
“I know what you’re going to do, and I don’t approve,” Peterman said. “I want you to know that. I won’t use this rifle unless there’s a bear coming at us. I only shoot animals; anything else is up to you.”
Wheeler looked stunned, then tilted his head back and laughed. “I always knew you were chicken,” he scoffed. “Don’t piss yourself; I’ll do the hard work.”
He pushed Peterman aside, slipped the rifle from his shoulder and clicked off the safety catch. Then he stepped carefully into the narrow opening of the karst street, Peterman behind him. Loose stones underfoot made walking difficult and when Wheeler glanced behind he noticed that Peterman had pointed his rifle at the ground.
“An accidental discharge and ricochet here could be fatal,” Peterman warned.
Wheeler gave him another sneering laugh.
The passage twisted and turned, deep into the rock formation. They rounded a wide bend and Wheeler stopped.
“There’s a big cave up ahead,” he whispered.
“Sanders might know about this place from guide books, or his rock climbing friends,” Peterman replied quietly, barely breaking the silence.
Wheeler nodded. “That could be. It won’t do him any good.”
The karst street curved to the right, with the cave on the left side at the end. The dark, semicircular opening was jet black and impenetrable to his gaze from this distance. He’d have to get a lot closer to see inside. For all he knew, the cave could be twenty feet deep and the three runaways huddled at the back of it. If that was the case, then so much the better.
The sun beat down on the cracked, eroded limestone, making everything a harsh, glaring white. Regardless, Wheeler removed his sunglasses in preparation for seeing into the cave. He approached it with slow, careful steps, rifle raised and a cartridge ready in the chamber.
Everything looked undisturbed so far; no signs of human presence. Perhaps they weren’t here at all. Peterman was a useful man-tracker but even he could make a mistake. Or perhaps the fleeing trio were being cunning. Sanders was capable of setting a trap. And whatever the hell was infecting him had made him smarter still.
“Brett, Abby, Georgia, come on out,” Wheeler called, “I’ve brought you food and water. Come out and get it.”
There was no reply. He tried again, watching for the slightest movement at the cave mouth. There was none. His senses now on high alert, he almost tiptoed the last few yards, motioning with his hand for Peterman to keep close behind. Peterman would now do his duty or get sacked on the spot. They stopped a couple of feet from the cave entrance.
Wheeler took two more slow steps and pointed his rifle barrel into the darkness.
Nothing. He was just about to step inside when he caught a flicker of movement along the left side of the cave. He swung the rifle muzzle in that direction, his finger tig
htening on the trigger. Before he could pull off a round, a large figure leapt out at him from the right and charged him down.
Sanders exploded like a bull into Wheeler’s chest. He toppled backwards, dropped the rifle, and crashed to the ground on his back, his head landing on Peterman’s boots. Air whooshed out of his lungs and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. His flailing arms latched onto Peterman’s legs and the older man came clattering down on top of him, his rifle butt banging Wheeler in the face.
Wheeler gasped and fought to get air back into his winded lungs. By chance, his hand closed around his rifle and he hoisted it aloft. His finger pulled on the trigger and the round discharged straight up into the air.
Sanders scrambled over the mound that was Wheeler and Peterman, his hiking boots crushing Wheeler’s groin. Abby Mackie and Georgia Benton then emerged from the cave and followed Sanders without even glancing in Wheeler’s direction. Fifteen seconds later Wheeler shoved Peterman off and started breathing again, but Sanders and company were long gone
Wheeler brushed himself down and cursed over and over again. His chest ached as if he’d been hit by a cannonball and he wondered if he’d cracked a rib or two. He picked up his rifle and swore some fresh profanities. It made him feel a bit better.
His prey had been lucky, executed a surprise counter-attack. “I won’t be caught like that again,” he muttered.
Peterman offered him some water. Wheeler grabbed the bottle and cursed Peterman too.
“You weren’t much fucking use,” Wheeler said.
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