“I’m going to get in a swim then,” she said, “…if you don’t mind?”
“Suit yourself,” he replied.
Erin went down to the water’s edge and sloughed off her pack. It was weeks before the rafting season started, or she wouldn’t have even considered what she was about to do. In an instant, she stripped off her green park ranger jumpsuit, stepped out of it naked as the day she was born, and dipped a foot in the water.
Fifty feet away, the scientist forgot his instruments completely as he unabashedly gawked at the naked woman. The annoying professional ranger had transformed into a centerfold model before his eyes, with the muscles playing under the supple flesh of her behind as she moved her foot back and forth in the water, testing its temperature. She tossed her waist-length ponytail over her shoulder with her right arm, turning slightly so he could see her breasts in partial profile.
She smiled. No doubt he thought it was a show put on entirely for his benefit. She navigated the ancient rock landing until she was knee deep in a natural pool. Erin considered bending over and splashing some water on her torso and arms, but by the look on the man’s face, he’d probably pass out if she did, so she contented herself with squatting slightly and leaping into the chilly water. She’d always been an unapologetic flirt; her job so seldom gave her a chance to practice her art.
Erin paddled in the eddies of the pool, well outside the main channel of the Rio Grande. The occasional glance confirmed the scientist was observing much more than his devices. There was no way in hell he was going to miss her exit from the water. The finer art of flirtation often involved leaving them wanting more…much more. She hadn’t thought to bring a towel, otherwise she might have hidden it elsewhere to avoid giving him everything he wanted.
The chilly spring water chased her onto the shore. She figured she’d play it to the hilt and climbed out slowly, using her hands to wipe some of the water from her legs, belly, sides, and, of course, breasts. The chill made her nipples hard enough to scratch glass. All the while she avoided looking at him. Instead she walked the last few feet up the landing, found a rock still in the afternoon sun, and lounged on it to dry off. Was that a groan she heard? She sunned and half-napped for an hour as the man struggled with his equipment…and his libido.
With her clothes back on, she made the trip back up the trail in silence. Erin smiled mischievously and whistled a tune while the scientist scowled and mumbled to himself. She finally broke the silence. “So, did you find anything?”
“Huh? Oh, not directly. There is some elevated background radiation indicative of meteor activity…”
The rest blurred into techno babble, and Erin tuned him out as they got in the Jeep and started driving back. At least he’d forgotten about his erection that wouldn’t go away. “Look, I was wondering if you—” He suddenly stopped as she brought the Jeep to a jumping stop. “What the hell?” the scientist snapped as he narrowly avoided smashing his balding head on the windshield. She held up a hand to silence him, but he exclaimed, “I’ve had just about enough!”
“Would you shut the fuck up?” she snarled and pointed. In the path ahead was the biggest javelina she’d ever seen. It stood calmly, regarding the Jeep in a most un-javelina manner.
“Is that a pig?”
“Javelina,” she corrected. They were similar, but generally less aggressive than their wild pig cousins. This one was twice as big as any she’d ever seen, and they normally ran from the park vehicles. The porcine creature stared them down, and she felt a shiver run up her spine. Then it charged. “Oh crap,” she said and slipped the truck in reverse.
“What are you scared for?” the scientist asked. “It’s just a pig.”
“You noticed the doors?” she asked as she negotiated an uphill angled corner at 10 miles an hour. The man looked sideways at the Jeep door, apparently realizing for the first time it was nothing more than fabric stretched over a metal frame. “Oh, but it’s still just a damn pig!”
Erin realized quickly the javelina wasn’t going to give up. Rather than hitting a tree or flipping the Jeep in a ditch, she hit the brakes and slipped it back into drive. A second later the javelina was on them. She figured it would bite at the tires or something, and she’d wait until it was alongside and take off down the trail. It might be able to keep up with the SUV in reverse, but not in forward. She knew these trails pretty darned well.
The javelina sped up at the last second, and jumped. Erin gasped as it cleared the hood and crashed face first into the windshield with a sickening Whump! The glass cracked and spiderwebbed, spraying her with little flecks of broken glass. The scientist screamed in a most unmanly fashion.
The javelina’s bloody snout snapped at them, red-tinged saliva flying as it used its razor-sharp tusks to tear at the windshield. In a flash it shoved its head through the compromised safety glass. “Shit, shit, SHIT!” Erin yelped and tried to push back as she jammed the accelerator to the floor.
The Jeep’s oversized rear wheels squelched in the dry, rocky soil, and the truck leaped ahead. The javelina bit at her, clamping its jaws down on the steering wheel and wrenching at it. For a split second, Erin felt the top-heavy SUV overbalancing, and then they flipped sideways.
It was only lucky in that they’d left the cliffs behind before the encounter. The Jeep flipped three times as it went down the hill before crashing into a huge pine tree, where it came to a grinding stop.
Erin came to, dangling sideways from her lap belt as the Jeep had ended up on its right side. The javelina was inside; the windshield had come completely out of its frame. Her passenger was resting on the door, a bloody gash on his forehead, and the animal was laying across his legs. “Crazy pig,” she grumbled. Then, the javelina moved. It wasn’t dead.
Erin dangled there for a split second as the animal opened its eyes and looked around, and then she made up her mind. She grabbed the seat with her left hand and pulled herself around, the belt biting painfully into her waist as she stretched as far to the rear of the car as she could. The javelina looked up at her movement and locked eyes with her. The look made her shudder with the intent she saw there. It wasn’t the pain-mad gaze of an injured animal. It was contemplating its situation, and her.
“Damn you,” she hissed, her hand searching blindly behind her. The animal rolled and reached up, snatched her dangling ponytail, and pulled on it. “Ouch!” she screamed as it began chewing and pulling her head closer.
“Wha—?!” the scientist grumbled. The javelina released Erin’s hair and turned to see the man it was lying on. The man moved his head and was only inches from the javelina’s snout. “Oh, God!” he yelled, and the animal bit him on the nose. Part of Erin’s mind wondered why it was a dainty nip, and not a full assault with those razor sharp tusks.
As he screamed, Erin’s hand finally closed on what she was looking for. She jerked the weapon free from the paddle holster, and she brought it around just as the javelina released the scientist’s nose and turned again toward her. She smoothly stroked through the long trigger pull of the SIG Sauer P226 and fired at point blank range, the 9mm a deafening roar in the confined space of the Jeep. The round punched through the animal’s head, and it jumped, trying to reach for her again. Erin fired twice more, and after a seeming eternity, the javelina lay still.
“It bit my nose!” the scientist cried, blood pouring into his hand as he held onto his damaged face.
“Yeah,” she said, letting the gun drop next to the expired javelina as she found the seatbelt release. “But look at my hair.”
* * *
Erin tried one more time with the Jeep’s winch. After a few moments of listening to the cable make ominous popping noises, she gave up before it broke for the third time. The Jeep wasn’t moving without help.
“Any luck?” the scientist gasped between coughs. She’d since learned his name was Ken Taylor. The attack by the crazed javelina had been four hours ago. An hour after the attack, she’d managed to get Ken out of the Jeep and m
ake him reasonably comfortable as she assessed their situation. Her radio was busted, their cell phones didn’t work on the back trails, and this early in the season it was unlikely they would encounter another human being anytime soon. When she’d set to the task of righting the Jeep, he’d looked out of sorts. Now, after a couple of hours, he looked much worse, and he wasn’t getting any better. He had a fever for sure, and he appeared to be having trouble concentrating. Night was approaching, and she didn’t like her choices.
“No,” she admitted as she sat next to him. She had bandaged his nose wound with the limited first aid kit she carried, and there was more than enough food and water, but without real medical attention, she feared he wouldn’t last. Had the javelina been rabid? She didn’t know what the symptoms of rabies were. She thought rabies made an animal act irrational, but the damned javelina had seemed to be making logical, calculated decisions. A shiver went up her spine just thinking about it.
“Damn,” Ken said as he took a sip of water from the canteen. He tried to hand it back, but she shook her head. His voice was slurred from the nose wound, but did it sound even worse now? “I don’t feel very good.”
“I know,” she said. “I think I need to hike back to the landing and use the emergency transmitter.”
“That’s a couple of miles, right?”
“Four miles, yes. It will take about two hours for me to get there and contact the ranger station.”
“Won’t they come for us if you just wait?”
“Not until tomorrow morning. Do you think you can wait that long?”
Ken looked at her for a moment, then coughed, deep and rasping. His eyes glazed over for a moment, and he looked through her. A spasm ran through his body, like a mild electrical charge, then he calmed again. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Me neither,” Erin whispered. She gathered the little daypack and tossed in a pair of water bottles and a single pack of dehydrated food. A few other essentials rounded out what she would need, and she finished by strapping on the gun belt and checking the load of her SIG Sauer. There wasn’t anything else holding her up. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Don’t take too long,” he whispered. Erin nodded, shifted the pack on her shoulder, and headed back up the trail toward the landing.
* * *
An hour later, Ken tried to drink some of the water and eat some of the food Erin had left for him, only to vomit it up moments afterwards. His head swam with pain and confusion, and sweat poured from his forehead despite the cool evening breeze. Suddenly he stumbled to his feet, not knowing why, completely unable to concentrate. “Wha—what?” he choked, spinning around and searching for the source of the disturbance with blurred vision.
He heard something behind him, and he spun again to find only darkness. “Damn you,” he snarled and took a step in that direction, only to fall over a root in the gloom and sprawl in the dense pine needles. His mind exploded in lights, pain, and voices. Whispers and screams, thoughts and ideas he could not understand. “Stop it, stop it, stop…stop…STOP!” The last word came out as an anguished wail from the depths of his soul that echoed through the woods and down to the Rio Grande thousands of feet below. He shuddered in the brush, and the man that was Ken succumbed.
Small animals and night birds flitted around for a time, sniffing the air and trying to sense if the man had become food. But after a few minutes, it was standing again, wildly searching the darkness. It noticed the birds and scurrying creatures, and it shook its head and snarled. The snarl turned into a clipped scream, more visceral than the previous one. It turned toward a narrow goat trail that descended the cliff.
The descent would have terrified Ken and likely sent him plummeting to the rocks below. The creature that now walked in his skin, though, felt no fear and held close to the sharp rocks with single-minded, painless determination. By the time it reached the river, its hands were torn nearly to the bone in several places. It paid no mind to the blood-dripping wounds as it scanned the opposite river bank. Moonlight illuminated the far shore where it saw a group of people, all moving slowly to the west. A little moan escaped its lips, and its teeth gnashed as it jerked forward and plowed into the water.
* * * * *
Chapter 2
Monday, April 9
Lisha saw a Latino man holding a sign that read, “Dr. Lisha Breda,” in a rough, simple script as she stepped off the escalator next to the baggage carousel at the Las Cruces International Airport. A bored-looking man in a travel-worn blue suit was the only driver waiting for the 50-odd passengers arriving on Southern Airlines Flight 525 from Los Angeles. Lisha walked up to the short, dark-skinned man, noting his windblown complexion.
“Señora Breda?” he asked with a mild Mexican accent as she approached.
“Yes,” she answered simply. He looked her over with a curious gaze before shrugging. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“My apologies, but you are not what I expected,” he said with a shrug.
“Not expecting a black woman?” she asked, a little testy after the cramped flight. The small commuter jets were bad enough when flitting around southern California. They were hell-on-Earth during a two-hour flight to New Mexico.
The man chuckled and shook his head. “No, frankly I was expecting another annoying old white guy who thinks tipping is a city in China.”
Lisha eyed him for a second before noticing the twinkle in his wrinkled eyes, then smiled. His own smile was instant and genuine. “Fair enough…”
“Andre,” he said and offered his hand. She took it and shared his firm, professional handshake. Like the rest of him, his hands were weathered and tough. How a farm hand or rancher had ended up driving a car for hire was probably an interesting story in itself. “Do you have a bag?”
“Yes,” she said and turned to the carousel to see that hers was the only unclaimed luggage. She moved to claim it, but Andre was one step ahead of her. She meant to warn him it was heavy, but the stocky Latino man grabbed one of the straps and easily swung it onto one shoulder without so much as adjusting his stance. “Okay then,” she said, then she nodded and let him lead the way.
The car was a late-model tan sedan with a few scratches and heavier-than-normal tires. Andre placed her pack in the trunk with care and held the door for her to get in. The air outside the terminal hovered around the 90-degree mark—quite a bit warmer than the 78 degrees she’d left behind at LAX. Lisha was pleasantly surprised to find the car idling, and the air conditioning purring as it wafted cool air to the back seat. A soothing salsa mix was churning from the radio as Andre climbed in.
“Sorry for the music, Señora,” he said and reached for the knob.
“No, you can leave it,” she said quickly, “I like this artist.”
“Si, thank you,” he said, shutting the door. With the hot air no longer blasting into the car, it quickly cooled to a comfortable temperature. “Do you want to go to your hotel first?”
“No, straight to the university please.”
“Si,” he said and took them into traffic. Early afternoon traffic at the Las Cruces International Airport was the closest thing the area saw to a rush hour. After years of negotiating Los Angeles traffic, it more closely reminded Dr. Breda of a 2:00 a. m. jaunt out with a friend for a bite. The traffic at the light before merging onto Interstate 10 took all of two minutes to negotiate, and then they were cruising east toward the town at a smooth 70 miles per hour.
She grabbed her shoulder bag and slid out her tablet. Now that she was on the ground, it had already linked with the local cellular network and updated her emails. No news might have been good news, but her box was full of the opposite. Two more companies were threatening to drop their funding of “The Project” after last week’s network exposé. She snorted as she read—it was more like a hatchet job than a report. “Bio-Scientists Attempt to Play God” was the headline they ran, and boy did it run. Nothing drove the American public more bat-shit crazy than the slightest rumor that
someone was messing with the human genome.
There were already three other emails from the senior project partners, all freaking out about the splash the news report was causing. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, especially since they were leasing time on three super-computers from Caltech. The moonbats in California had already chased them 20 miles into the Pacific…what was next? She smiled at what was next, but no one in the media had any idea what they were planning.
The car turned off the freeway, and Andre negotiated the entrance to the New Mexico State University campus, driving along grass-lined avenues that no doubt consumed swimming pool quantities of water to be that green in the New Mexican climate. She recognized the science campus from the email she’d gotten yesterday. An associate from a certain secret government program had tapped her to investigate an anomalous specimen. With The Project entering a critical stage, the last thing she needed was a surprise trip off-site. The offer of a good word in the right government ear accompanied the invitation, though, and The Project’s senior partners had ordered her plane tickets in minutes. Shit.
A few minutes later, Andre handed Lisha her bag and a card with a cell phone number. “Call me when you need me, Señora,” he told her, explaining that Las Cruces was not a very big city, and he could be there on short notice. She thanked him and carried her bags into the modern-looking medical research building and out of the New Mexico sun.
“Can I help you?” asked a bored woman, no doubt a student, behind the stainless steel and marble reception desk. “Student orientation isn’t until next week.”
“Please inform Dr. Amstead that Dr. Breda from HAARP is here.”
The woman looked her over, including the blue jeans, worn top, and backpack, and shrugged before typing on her computer and speaking through the Bluetooth headset perched on her ear. “He’ll be out in a minute,” the woman told her and went back to whatever she’d been doing before Lisha walked up. True to the receptionist’s word, Dr. Amstead arrived shortly.
Turning Point (Book 1): A Time To Die Page 2