City of Screams

by James Rollins

  How long had it been since she had eaten or drunk anything?

  “That’s enough for now,” Jordan said to McKay. “Let’s get her to medical help.”

  He took out his water bottle and coaxed her to take a sip.

  The girl whispered something so softly that Jordan couldn’t make out the words, if they were words and not just a sigh.

  The professor’s face blanched. Atherton glanced to the two Afghanis, as if to verify they had heard her words, too. Azar backed toward the door. Farshad to the bed, stepping within the ring of salt, bending to fix the area where he’d picked up the salt a moment before.

  “What?” Jordan asked.

  “What the hell’s going on?” McKay echoed.

  Atherton spoke. “That last bit the girl just said. It wasn’t Hazara dialect. It was Bactrian. Like from the recording.”

  Was it? Jordan wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure she’d said anything and, if she had, that the professor would have been able to hear it. He had listened over and over again to that taped SOS. The words at the end certainly hadn’t sounded like what the girl had just said. He remembered those words, deep, guttural, sounding angry: The girl is ours.

  The voice had reeked of possessiveness.

  Maybe it was her father . . .

  “What did she say just then?” Jordan asked. He felt a rising skepticism toward the professor. How could a ten-year-old girl speak a language that had been dead for hundreds of years?

  “She said, Don’t let him take me back.”

  From beyond the mud-brick walls of the home, a ululating yowl pierced the mists.

  A moment later, it was answered by another.

  The leopards.

  Jordan glanced toward the window, noting that the sun had set during the last half hour, falling away suddenly as it did in the mountains. And with the sun now down, the leopards had come out again to hunt.

  Azar darted for the open door, panicked. Farshad called after him, clearly imploring him to come back, but he was ignored. The man vanished into the snowy darkness. A long stretch of silence followed. Jordan heard only the soft hush of falling snow.

  Then, after a minute, gunfire burst out, followed by a piercing scream. The cry sounded both distant and as close as the dark doorway. It rang of blood and pain and raw terror. Then silence again.

  “McKay, secure the entrance,” Jordan barked out.

  McKay hurried forward and shouldered the wooden door closed again.

  “Cooper, try to reach that Ranger battalion parked over at Bamiyan. Tell them we need assistance. Pronto.”

  As McKay trained his weapon toward the door, Jordan shifted away from the table, to the floor, drawing the girl with him. She clung to his side, breathing hard. He freed his machine pistol and kept his sights on the window, waiting for the cats to come through.

  “What now, Sarge?” McKay asked.

  “We wait for the cavalry,” he answered. “It shouldn’t take them too long to get those birds in the air.”

  Cooper shook his head and lifted their radio unit in his hand. “I’m getting no pickup. Just dead air. Makes no sense, not even with this storm.”

  Atherton looked at the little girl as if she had knocked out their radios. Jordan tightened his grip on her.

  “Does anyone hear that?” McKay asked, cocking his head slightly.

  Jordan strained, then heard it, too. He waved everyone to stay quiet. Out of the darkness, through the fall of snow, a whispering reached them. Again it sounded both close and distant at the same time. No words could be made out, but it set his teeth on edge, like a poorly tuned radio station. He remembered thinking earlier that nothing surprised him anymore. He’d have to revise that. This whole situation had him surprised right out of his comfort zone.

  “I think it’s Bactrian, too,” Atherton said, his voice taking a keening, panicked edge. He crouched like a frightened rabbit near the stone oven. “But I can’t make anything out.”

  It didn’t sound like a language at all to Jordan. Maybe the shock of the day had caught up to the professor. Or maybe it wasn’t even Bactrian on the tape.

  Farshad crouched beside the salt-ringed bed. He stared daggers at the child, as if she were to blame for all of this.

  “Remember what I translated from that desperate radio call?” Atherton’s glassy eyes stared past Jordan’s shoulder at nothing. “Those last words. The girl is ours. They clearly want her.”

  The professor pointed a trembling finger at the child.

  Whispers out in the night grew louder, taking on a gibbering sound, a chorus of madness just beyond the edge of hearing. It felt as if the words ate through his ears, scratching to get inside his skull. But maybe those were just normal leopard noises. Jordan had no idea what a leopard was supposed to sound like.

  Atherton clamped his hands over his ears and crouched lower to the floor.

  Farshad barked out words in Pashto, his native language, and raised his rifle at Jordan, at the girl. He motioned toward the door with the tip of his weapon. Between the pantomime and the bit of Pashto that Jordan understood, the message was clear.

  Send the girl outside.

  “Not happening,” Jordan said grimly, staring him down.

  Farshad had gone red-faced by now, his dark eyes wild. He shouted again in Pashto. Jordan made out the word djinn and something like petra. He kept repeating the word over and over again, shoving his weapon belligerently toward Jordan each time. Then a round fired and blasted dirt near Jordan’s knee.

  That was enough for his men.

  Defending him, Cooper and McKay fired their weapons at the same time.

  Farshad fell back across the bed, dead before he hit the girl’s straw mattress.

  The child cried out and buried her face in Jordan’s chest.

  Atherton moaned.

  “What was Farshad yelling at the end?” Jordan asked. “That word petra.”

  Atherton rocked slightly, never lifting his face. “An old Sanskrit word, used by both Buddhists and local tribes people of this region. It translates as gone forth and departed, but it usually means demonic ghosts, those still craving something, unsettled spirits.”

  Jordan wanted to scoff at such a thing, but he couldn’t find the words.

  “Farshad believed the girl is possessed by an escaped djinn and that the ghosts of the mists want her back.”

  “What I photographed out there,” McKay said, “those looked like leopard prints, not ghost prints.”

  “I . . . I don’t know.” Atherton kept rocking. “But perhaps he was right. Maybe we should send the girl out there. Then they’ll leave us alone. Maybe she’s all they want.”

  “Who wants?” Jordan spat back. He wasn’t going to send the girl to her death.

  As answer, a heavy weight hit the thatched roof overhead, raining down dry straw. Jordan swung his machine pistol up and fired through the roof. His men followed suit, the blasts deafening in the small space.

  A screeched yowl—not pained, just angry—met their efforts, followed by a scrambling retreat. It didn’t sound injured—just pissed. Was the creature out there attempting to draw their fire, to lure them into wasting ammunition?

  Jordan checked his weapon. He caught the matching frowns as his teammates did the same. Not good. They were going to run out fast.

  Another feline scream came from near the door. Cooper and McKay swung around, training their weapons there. Jordan returned his sights to the window, staring out at the mist-shrouded ruins. “If you see them, shoot. But be cautious with your ammo.”

  “Got it,” Cooper said. “Wait till you see the white of their eyes.”

  “That roof isn’t going to withstand many more attacks like that,” McKay said. “A few more poundings, and those leopards will come crashing on top of us.”

  McKay was right. Jordan re
cognized the futility of staying holed up here. They didn’t have enough weapons to hold off a pair of three-hundred-pound monsters, especially in such cramped quarters. They were as likely to shoot each other as the animals.

  Jordan regained his feet, scooping the girl in his arms.

  “Do you have a plan?” Cooper asked.

  Jordan stared at the door. “But it’s not a good one.”

  “What are you going to do?” McKay asked, looking worried.

  “I’m going to give them what they want.”

  5:18 P.M.

  JORDAN RAN THROUGH the snow, through the night, staying low but carrying the burden over one shoulder, limp and silent. The girl’s sleeve brushed his cheek, smelling of sweat and fear. He didn’t know if she was the source of all of this, if the leopards were fixed on her scent. He didn’t know if those whispers in the mists were echoes from far away or something else.

  Right now, it didn’t matter.

  If they wanted the girl, let them follow his trail, his movements.

  He fled away from the distant glow of Bamiyan and toward the ruins of Shahr-e-Gholghola. He followed instructions given to him by Atherton, pointing him to the archaeology team’s excavation site. It was only a fast fifty-yard sprint away.

  That graveyard offered the only hope now.

  He and his men had just a few weapons and a limited amount of ammunition left. And these beasts had proven themselves to be crafty, experienced hunters, definitely hard to kill, plainly wary of guns. His best hope was to lure the beasts away and trap them.

  After he was done with them, he’d deal with whoever was out there whispering in the mists.

  Or at least that was his plan.

  As he raced, McKay kept to his heels.

  He’d left Cooper back at the house, covering their flight from the window. Maybe the cats would get into his sights, and Cooper would bring them down and solve all their problems.

  Jordan crossed the last of the way, dodging through a maze of wheelbarrows, mounds of excavated gravel and sand, and stacks of abandoned tools to reach the entrance to the archaeological dig site. Cold wind cut through his shirt. He missed his coat.

  As he skidded up to the mouth of the tunnel, he shifted his burden higher on his shoulder, making sure his weapon wasn’t compromised.

  McKay panted beside him. The exertion didn’t make him short-winded, nor the elevation here. It was simple fear.

  “You know what you have to do,” Jordan said.

  “I’ll see what I can dig up—literally.”

  Jordan grinned, appreciating his friend’s levity, while still knowing the fear it hid. “If I’m not back in ten minutes—”

  “I heard you the first time. Now get going.”

  A screaming howl punctuated that order.

  McKay slapped Jordan on the shoulder, then disappeared with a map fluttering in his hand. Jordan clicked on the xenon tactical flashlight mounted to his weapon and pointed it down the tunnel that had been excavated into the heart of the ruins.

  Now to set the trap . . .

  He ducked low to keep the girl’s clothing from ripping on the rough-hewn walls and set off into the tunnel. He needed the cats to follow him, luring them with his bouncing light, his frantic flight, and the scent of the child’s fever-damp clothes. The low ceiling required him to run in a crouch, his shoulders bumping the walls to either side.

  As he chased his beam of light down into the depths of the dark ruins, he noted a warmer breeze wafting up from below, as if trying to blow him back outside. It smelled of damp rock along with a chemical sting, like burning oil. He was grateful for the warmth, until his eyes began to water, and his head spun.

  He knew some natural caves breathed, exhaling or inhaling depending on surface pressures and temperatures. Was that how the archaeologists knew where to dig, had they noted a section of the Shahr-e-Gholghola sighing out, revealing its inner secrets, and dug toward it?

  Within a few more yards, he had his answer. The excavated walls turned to natural stone. He discovered steps carved into the rock underfoot. The archaeologists must have broken into a section of the secret passages that once riddled the ancient citadel.

  But what had they found?

  A scream of fury chased him, echoed by another.

  He pictured the two cats crouched at the entrance, sensing their quarry was trapped. He breathed a sigh of relief for McKay.

  They’re still coming after me . . .

  Spurred by that thought, Jordan rushed deeper, knowing where he must reach, a place roughly described to him by Atherton, even though the professor had never been there himself.

  Within a few steps, the tunnel ended at a large cavern, a dead end. He slid slightly on damp stone, coming to rest at a pile of bones, a deadfall of limbs, skulls, and rib cages. The scatter of bones covered the stone floor of the cavern, forming a macabre beach at the edge of a pool of black water. More bones glowed up through the shallows.

  Jordan remembered Atherton’s story of the citadel’s subterranean spring—and the slaughter that took place here centuries ago.

  But the deaths here weren’t all ancient.

  Resting atop the bones, at the water’s edge, were the bloody bodies of fresh kills. The corpses were torn, gutted, and broken-limbed. Here lay the remains of the archaeology team, and what appeared to be the girl’s mother. From the gnawed state of their bodies, Jordan knew he had found the lair of the leopards. They hadn’t waited long to take over the newly opened cave.

  As if sensing his violation, a yowl echoed down to him, sounding much closer than before. Or maybe it was his fear accentuating his senses. His head also continued to spin from the fumes that filled the space. By now, his eyes wept, and his nose burned.

  He had to work fast.

  He stepped to the edge of the boneyard and tossed his burden far. The girl’s clothes fluttered open, scattering straw that he’d stolen from the mattress and stuffed inside. If the beasts hunted by scent or sight, he’d wanted to do his best to convince the hunters that the girl was with him.

  Or maybe it didn’t matter.

  Maybe, as with Azar earlier, it merely took his own flight to draw the beasts.

  Cats hunted things that ran from them.

  And if he had failed to draw them after him, he had left Cooper back at the mud-brick house with the girl and the professor. It was the best plan he could muster to keep them safe with their meager resources.

  Jordan unhooked the flashlight from his gun and flipped it to the opposite side of the cavern. The beam flipped end over end, a dizzying effect with his head already spinning. The light landed near the far side of the underground spring, glowing like a beacon.

  Jordan fled away from it, to a cluster of boulders at the right of the tunnel entrance. He crouched down, drew his weapon, and waited. It didn’t take long.

  He smelled the muskiness of the leopards before the first brute stalked into the cavern. It was a sinewy monster, nine feet long, all fiery furred and marked with black rosettes, a male. It flowed like a tide into the space, silent, purposeful, unstoppable. A second beast followed, smaller, a female.

  He caught a glimpse of its dark eyes as it surveyed the room. They burned with an inner fire, much as the girl’s eyes had earlier.

  Jordan held his breath.

  The world turned watery, his head more muzzy.

  Movement became smudging blurs.

  The male rushed to the discarded clothing, snuffling deeply, intent on its focus.

  The second animal slid past its mate, drawn to the light, stalking low toward it.

  A rippling of the water drew his attention to the spring-fed pool. He watched the male cat’s reflection shimmer, wavering. For the briefest flicker, he thought he saw another image hidden beyond the fiery fur, something pallid and sickly, hairless and hunched. Jordan blinked h
is burning eyes, and it disappeared.

  He shook his head and tore his gaze away.

  He dared not wait any longer.

  He slipped as quietly as possible out of hiding and toward the open tunnel, sneaking back the way he had come. He had to steady himself with one hand on the wall to keep upright.

  Then sudden movement made him freeze. The male leopard, its back still to Jordan, lifted its head from the mound of discarded clothes and yowled its frustration at the roof, knowing it had been tricked.

  Under its paws, the bones began to shift.

  To Jordan’s addled senses, they seemed to stir on their own—scraping against one another, knocking hollowly. He gaped, trying to convince himself the movement was merely the massive beast shifting its weight.

  He failed.

  Numb with primal terror, he stumbled backward toward the mouth of the tunnel. The shaking of the bones grew worse. He watched one of the archaeologists’ bodies rise, belly up, back broken.

  He wanted to look away, but horror transfixed him.

  As he stared, the carcass lifted up on limbs twisted the wrong direction. It scuttled across the bone field like a crab. Its head hung askew, mouth open. From that gullet, gibbering whispers flowed. Words in the same archaic language as on the recording.

  A second corpse stirred, missing a lower jaw, throat bared open.

  It added to the chorus of madness.

  Can’t be . . . I’m seeing things.

  Grasping at this thin hope, he turned and fled up the tunnel, rebounding off the walls every few feet. The world continued to churn around him, betraying his steps. He fumbled for the penlight in his pocket.

  He found it, flicked it on, and lost it as it slipped from his fingertips.

  It bounced away behind him.

  Still, the glow offered enough light from behind to help illuminate the way up.

  He ran—while a howl arose behind him.

  As it echoed away, he heard a faint whispering in his ear.

  “. . . hurry. All done here . . .”

  McKay.

  He forced himself upward: buffeted by that foul wind, chased by howls, pursued by things that scratched rock with rotted nails and bone.