Forsaken

by Michael McBride

  “I don’t need to explain to you what we’re up against,” Barnett continued. “Between trying to track down both Subject Zeta and the adversary that we drew out in Mexico, we’re stretched beyond thin and to the point of breaking. I’m asking for your help.”

  “You’re asking for more than our help,” Evans said. “You’re asking for a commitment.”

  “There are things you will see in this facility and through the course of your work that must never leave this building, things you can’t be allowed to see unless I can trust you explicitly.”

  “What if we say no?” Kelly asked.

  “Then I will do everything in my power to convince you otherwise.”

  “And what if you can’t?” Evans asked.

  “I don’t think any of you are prepared to walk away,” Barnett said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  He looked at each of them in turn. None of them could hold his stare.

  “I’m in,” Jade said. The words were out of her mouth before she realized she’d reached a decision.

  Barnett nodded and looked at Evans.

  “There are obviously things you aren’t telling us,” Evans said.

  “Obviously.”

  “If I sign on, I not only want to know everything you know, I want carte blanche to come and go as I please.”

  “I can offer a reasonable amount of autonomy, but make no mistake, Dr. Evans, this is my unit.”

  “What about our research?” Anya asked.

  “I’m confident you’ll be able to continue your research through the course of your work here. After all, that’s what attracted us to you in the first place.”

  “It’s not like we’d be able to publish any of our findings, though,” Tess said.

  “Are you searching for answers or acclaim, Dr. Clarke?” Barnett asked.

  “If what Hollis said is true,” Jade said, “then we have an obligation to try to do something about it.”

  “Do you believe him?” Kelly asked. “I mean, really? Do you believe strongly enough that you’re willing to risk your life? Because that’s precisely what he’s asking us to do.”

  “I’ll be the first to admit how crazy it all sounds, but considering everything we’ve seen, can any of you just return to your old lives, knowing what’s out there?”

  “What the hell,” Evans said. “Count me in.”

  “Me, too,” Anya said.

  “I’m not wearing black fatigues,” Kelly said. “And I’m not stripping the color from my hair, either.”

  “I want access to all of NASA’s databases,” Tess said. “And the Hubble Telescope. Oh, and the Allen Telescope Array.”

  “Does that mean you’re all on board?” Barnett asked.

  “What do you say, Martin?” Evans asked.

  All eyes fell upon Roche, who deflected to Barnett.

  “Mr. Roche has generously agreed to serve as team lead and liaison.”

  “Team?” Jade said.

  “As one of his conditions, Mr. Roche has requested that you be granted a degree of separation from the larger unit, while retaining access to its considerable resources.”

  Roche shrugged.

  “So are we doing this or what?” he asked.

  There was a chorus of assent.

  “Then allow me to formally welcome you all into the ranks of Unit 51,” Barnett said. “Now get to work. We’re wasting time we don’t have.”

  EPILOGUE

  What now is proved was once only

  imagined.

  —WILLIAM BLAKE

  Location: Unknown,

  March 30

  The vaulted chamber was round and built from bricks quarried from the surrounding mountains. The only illumination came from the recessed windows, which admitted slanted columns of moonlight that struck the broad pit in the center of the room. It was ten feet in diameter and built from the same polished granite as the rest of the floor. In the middle was a blue marble inset of the black sun: a ring from which lightning bolts struck at the circle in the center.

  A procession of six figures in black cloaks entered through the heavy oak door, their breath trailing them in clouds from their drawn cowls. They carried a coffin between them. It was made of solid gold and inlaid with esoteric symbols. They set it on the floor, opened the lid, and carefully removed the body from inside. It was absurdly tall and wrapped in layers of gauze through which they could see only the hint of its emaciated form. They stepped down into the ceremonial pit and placed the remains gently onto the marble design.

  The figures took their seats on the raised sides of the circle and awaited the arrival of their final member, who entered wearing a white cloak and carrying a lantern inside of which burned a copper flame. The green glow flickered on the walls as their leader used it to light the circle of ancient bronze torches. The flames burned high and hot and issued twirls of black smoke toward the ceiling.

  The white-cloaked figure descended into the pit and knelt over the head of the bundled corpse.

  “Come,” the figure said in an undeniably female voice.

  There was an awful bleating sound from the outer corridor. All of the hoods turned toward the open door and the cloaked figure that carried the lamb into the chamber, its legs bound together at the hooves. The woman raised her arms and waited for the animal to be brought to her. She accepted the offering and cradled it to her breast.

  The others converged upon the corpse, unwrapped the layers of gauze they’d used to swaddle it after meticulously cleansing its mummified flesh, and laid bare the remains. The woman leaned over the crocodilian face and removed a ceremonial dagger from beneath her robe. The hilt was a golden Irminsul, the blade forged of steel and sharpened to a deadly point.

  The lamb struggled and bleated.

  “Shhh,” the woman whispered, and thrust the blade into the side of its neck.

  Rich arterial blood pulsed from the wound, spattering the woman’s white cloak and pouring onto the animalian mask. It ran in rivulets down the scaled snout and beaded on the aged feathers.

  The bleating degenerated into gurgling, and finally to silence marred by the patter of the lamb’s lifeblood dripping through the ragged holes where the reptile’s eyes had once been and onto the concealed face of the deceased. It pooled in the sunken sockets, which slowly appeared to bulge—

  The eyes snapped open and the dead man gasped.

  “Soon . . .” the woman whispered.

  Want to know how the invasion began?

  Keep reading for a special preview of SUBHUMAN, the first Unit 51 novel.

  On sale now, wherever Pinnacle books are sold.

  THEY ARE NOT HUMAN.

  At a research station in Antarctica, five of the world’s

  top scientists have been brought together to solve

  one of the greatest mysteries in human history. Their

  subject, however, is anything but human . . .

  THEY ARE NOT NATURAL.

  Deep beneath the ice, the submerged ruins of a lost

  civilization hold the key to the strange mutations that

  each scientist has encountered across the globe:

  A misshapen skull in Russia. The grotesque carvings

  of a lost race in Peru. The mummified remains of a

  humanoid monstrosity in Egypt . . .

  THEY ARE NOT FRIENDLY.

  When a series of sound waves trigger the ancient

  organisms, a new kind of evolution begins. Latching

  onto a human host—crossbreeding with human

  DNA—a long-extinct life-form is reborn. Its kind

  has not walked the Earth for thousands of years. Its

  instincts are fiercer, more savage, than any predator

  alive. And its prey are the scientists who unleashed it,

  the humans who spawned it, and the tender living

  flesh on which it feeds . . .

  PRAISE FOR MICHAEL MCBRIDE

  “A fast-paced and frightening ride. Highly recommended
for fans of creature horror and the thrillers of Michael Crichton.”

  —The Horror Review, on Predatory Instinct

  “McBride writes with the perfect mixture of suspense and horror that keeps the reader on edge.”

  —Examiner

  PROLOGUE

  Man is not what he thinks he is; he is what he hides.

  —ANDRÉ MALRAUX

  Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

  December 30, 1946

  Their compasses couldn’t be trusted this close to the pole. All they had were aerial photographs taken six days ago, which were useless in this storm. The wind propelled the snow with such ferocity that they could only raise their eyes from the ground for seconds at a time. They couldn’t see more than five feet in any direction and had tethered themselves to each other for fear of becoming separated. Their only hope was to maintain their course and pray they didn’t overshoot their target, if it was even there at all.

  Sergeant Jack Barnett clawed the ice from his eyelashes and nostrils. He’d survived Guadalcanal and Saipan, two of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific campaign, with no more than a few scars to show for it, but no amount of experience could have prepared him for what he’d found down here at the bottom of the world. When his commanding officer assigned him to an elite expeditionary squad, he’d assumed he was being sent back to the South Pacific with the rest of the 2nd Marines. It wasn’t until his briefing aboard the USS Mount Olympus that he learned he’d been drafted for Operation Highjump, whose stated mission was to establish a research base in Antarctica.

  His mission, however, was something else entirely.

  Jagged black peaks materialized from the storm. He’d studied the aerial reconnaissance and committed the configuration of the Drygalski Mountains to memory. They had to be nearly right on top of the anomaly they’d been dispatched to find.

  The Nazis had made no secret of their interest in the South Pole, but it wasn’t until eighteen months ago, when two German U-boats unexpectedly appeared off the shores of Mar del Plata and surrendered to Argentinian authorities that the intelligence community sat up and took notice. All charts, books, and identification papers aboard had been destroyed, and the captains had refused to divulge the nature of their mission to Antarctica, the whereabouts of a jettisoned dinghy, or the reason their passengers were covered with bandages.

  The Counterintelligence Corps had been tracking various networks used to smuggle SS officers out of Europe and into South America, but none of those so-called ratlines passed through the Antarctic Circle. During their investigations, however, they’d encountered rumors of a mysterious Base 211 in Queen Maud Land, a veritable fortress commissioned by Hitler in the face of inevitable defeat. They couldn’t dismiss the stories out of hand and potentially allow the Nazis to regroup and lick their wounds, so nearly 5,000 men had boarded a squadron of aircraft carriers, destroyers, and icebreakers under the auspices of scientific research and embarked upon a perilous four-month journey through a gauntlet of icebergs and sheet ice. Sorties were launched in every direction in an attempt to reconnoiter the entire continent, upon which, in addition to vast stretches of snow and ice, the cameramen aboard the planes photographed surprising amounts of dry land, open water, and what appeared to be a bunker of German design nestled in the valley ahead of them, which was why Barnett’s squad had parachuted into this frozen wasteland.

  The wind screamed and nearly drove Barnett to his knees. The rope connecting him to the others tightened and he caught a fleeting glimpse of several of his men, silhouetted against coal-black cliffs rimed with ice. Barnett shielded his field glasses from the blizzard and strained to follow the course of the ridgeline eastward toward a peak shaped like a shark’s tooth. He followed the sheer escarpment down to where it vanished behind the drifted snow. The ruins of a rectangular radar tower protruded from the accumulation.

  Barnett lowered his binoculars, unclipped his line, and unslung his M3 carbine. The semiautomatic assault rifle had been equipped with an infrared spotlight and a special scope that allowed him to see in complete darkness. The Nazis had called the soldiers who wielded them Nachtjaegers, or night-hunters, which struck him as the perfect name as he struck off across the windswept snow, which broke like Styrofoam underfoot.

  The twin barrels of a FlaK anti-aircraft turret stood up from the drifted snow, beneath which a convex slab of concrete protruded. Icicles hung from the roof of the horizontal embrasure like fangs, between which Barnett could see only darkness.

  He crouched in the lee of the bunker and waited for the others, who were nearly upon him before they separated from the storm. Their white arctic suits would have made it impossible to tell them apart were it not for their armaments. Corporal Buck Jefferson, who’d served with him since the Solomon Islands, wore the triple tanks of his customary M2 flamethrower on his back. They’d rehearsed this scenario so many times that he didn’t need to be told what to do. He stepped out into the open and raised the nozzle.

  “Fire in the hole.”

  Jefferson switched the igniter, pulled the trigger, and sprayed molten flames through the embrasure. The icicles vaporized and liquid fire spread across the inner concrete floor. Gouts of black smoke churned from the opening.

  Barnett nodded to the automatic riflemen, who stood, sighted their M1918 Browning automatic rifles through the gap, and laid down suppressing fire. The moment their magazines were empty they hit the ground in anticipation of blind return fire.

  The thunderous report rolled through the valley. Smoke dissipated into the storm. The rifleman cautiously raised their heads.

  Barnett waited several seconds longer before sending in the infantrymen, who climbed through the embrasure and vanished into the smoke. He rose and approached the gun slit. The flames had already nearly burned out. The intonation of their footsteps hinted at a space much larger than the unimpressive façade suggested.

  He crawled into the fortification, cranked his battery pack, and seated his rifle against his shoulder. The infrared spotlight created a cone of what could only loosely be considered light. Everything within its range and the limitations of the scope appeared in shades of gray, while the periphery remained cloaked in darkness, through which his men moved like specters.

  The bunker itself was little more than a storage corridor. Winter gear and camouflage fatigues hung from hooks fashioned from exposed rebar. A rack of Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles stood beside smoldering wooden crates filled with everything from rations to ammunition. Residual puddles of burning gasoline blinded his optics, forcing him to direct his sightline toward walls spattered with what looked like oil.

  “Sergeant,” one of his men called.

  A haze of smoke collected near the ceiling amid ductwork and pipes that led him into a cavernous space that reflected both natural and manmade architecture. To his left, concrete gave way to bare stone adorned with Nazi flags, golden swastikas and eagles, and all kinds of ornate paraphernalia. Banks of radio equipment crowded the wall to his right. He recognized radar screens, oscilloscopes, and the wheel that controlled the antenna.

  “It’s a listening station,” Jefferson said.

  There was no power to any of the relay boards. Chairs lay toppled behind desks littered with Morse keys, handsets, and crumpled notes, both handwritten and typed.

  “Give me some light,” Barnett said.

  He lowered his weapon and snatched the nearest man’s flashlight from him. He didn’t read much German, but he recognized the headings Nur für den Dienst-gebrauch and Befehl für das Instellunggehen. These were top-secret documents, and they weren’t even encrypted.

  Barnett turned and shined the light deeper into the cavern. The rear wall was plastered with maps, the majority of which were detailed topographical representations of South America and Antarctica, all of them riddled with pins and notes. His beam cast the shadows of his men across bare rock etched with all sorts of bizarre and esoteric symbols before settling upon an orifice framed with wooden cribbing, like
a mineshaft. Automatic shell casings sparkled from the ground, which was positively covered with what could only have been dried blood.

  “Radioman,” he said.

  A baby-faced infantryman rushed to his side, the antenna from the SCR-300 transceiver on his back whipping over his shoulder.

  “Open a direct line to Rear Admiral Warren. Ears-only.”

  A shout and the prattle of gunfire.

  Discharge momentarily limned the bend in the tunnel.

  Barnett killed his light and again looked through the scope. The others followed his lead and a silent darkness descended.

  A scream reverberated from inside the mountain ahead of them.

  Barnett advanced in a shooter’s stance. The tunnel wound to his right before opening into another cavern, where his infrared light reflected in shimmering silver from standing fluid. Indistinct shapes stood from it like islands. He placed each footfall gently, silently, and quieted his breathing. He recognized the spotted fur of leopard seals, the distinctive patterns of king penguins, and the ruffled feathers of petrels. All of them gutted and scavenged. The stench struck him a heartbeat before buzzing flies erupted from the carcasses.

  He turned away and saw a rifle just like his on the ground. One of his men was sprawled beside it, his boots pointing to the ceiling, his winter gear shredded and covered with blood. Several hunched silhouettes were crouched over his torso and head. They turned as one toward Barnett, who caught a flash of eyeshine and a blur of motion.

  His screams echoed into the frozen earth.

  1

  RICHARDS

  Two possibilities exist: either we are

  alone in the Universe or we are not.

  Both are equally terrifying.

  —ARTHUR C. CLARKE

  Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

  Modern day: January 13—8 months ago

  The wind howled and assaulted the command trailer with snow that sounded more like sleet against the steel siding. What little Hollis Richards could see through the frost fractals on the window roiled with flakes that shifted direction with each violent gust. The Cessna ski plane that brought him here from McMurdo Station was somewhere out there beyond the veritable armada of red Kress transport vehicles and Delta heavy haulers, each of them the size of a Winnebago with wheels as tall as a full-grown man. The single-prop plane had barely reached the camp before being overtaken by the storm, which the pilot had tried to use as an excuse not to fly. At least until Richards made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. There was no way that he was going to wait so much as a single minute longer.