by Greig Beck
Hammerson tried to track the rapidly moving figure. He was astonished when, instead of seeking cover, the man came to his feet and sprinted directly towards him in a blur of white. The man’s speed made it impossible for Hammerson to draw a bead; and when about fifteen feet out, the figure dived, Hammerson didn’t have time to recalibrate his aim or even dodge. The six-foot-two-inch missile hit him mid-chest, slamming him painfully backwards.
The man easily wrenched the gun from Hammerson’s hand, and a blow just under his diaphragm knocked the wind out of him. Hammerson heard the crack of his ceramic armour plating as the man’s fist connected, then pulled back to strike again.
The HAWC commander felt himself lifted and spun. He struggled in his captor’s unnaturally powerful grip, but might as well try to break lengths of steel cable. There was a hand around his neck, the other holding the gun up beside his face – but it was pointed not at him, but at Alex. Hammerson realised that he had never been a real threat . . . it had been about Alex all along.
Hammerson was pushed towards his former protégé, who seemed to be focused on something along the top of the ridge rather than what was going on in his immediate vicinity. Hammerson knew exactly what was happening – the masked soldier was using him as a shield to get himself close to Alex so he could take him out at point-blank range.
Hammerson struggled again, but every time he did, the grip on his neck tightened. Breathing was becoming difficult. He strained against the iron-like fingers around his throat and tried to reach down to the last weapon he had – the shorter Ka-Bar strapped to his leg. It was only seven inches long, but lethally sharp. Unfortunately, the way he was being held kept it just out of reach.
*
Alex was aware of Hammerson shooting at the last white-clad figure and then being overpowered, but his attention was elsewhere. There was something moving stealthily along the top of the ravine, trying not to be seen or heard, but he could tell that it was big and breathing deep and slow.
Alex knew the creature was hunting them, stalking them.
THIRTY-NINE
Hammerson saw Alex turn his head slightly so he was staring towards him and his captor, but he seemed to be looking through them rather than at them. There came a thundering roar from behind Hammerson – the undeniable sound of a challenge – followed by a loud thump, and then blinding pain as he and his assailant were smashed to the ground.
The HAWC commander tried to roll over, but his arm wouldn’t work. His shoulder was much lower on his frame than it should have been. Lying in the snow, his face half-buried, he saw a colossus standing where he and the ski-masked soldier had been seconds ago. Hammerson’s eyes travelled upwards, but the creature seemed to go on forever. At last he caught sight of an enormous crested head framed by the moonlight.
Well, Chief, he thought wryly, looks like the Kearns kid was right – there is something up here, after all.
The white-clad man got to his feet, his super-charged physicality allowing him to recover much more quickly than Hammerson. He brought his gun up at the giant and fired. The bullet struck its leathery hide but elicited no more than a howl of annoyance.
The beast reached forward, seized the man by his gun arm and pulled him off his feet as easily as lifting a doll. In its grip, the man’s unnatural strength counted for little. The creature outweighed him by easily 1000 pounds, and its bunched simian muscles gave it more than enough power to deal with his smaller frame. It roared again, and brought its broad gargoyle-like face close to the man’s head, its enormous mouth opening wide to reveal long curved canines. It closed them around the soldier’s skull, the ski mask affording a perfect non-slip surface. The man rained blow after frantic blow on the creature’s broad face, but it ignored them.
Hammerson grimaced as the massive jaws shifted their grip with a grinding noise. For the first time, he heard the unnatural soldier react to pain – his screech made him sound all too human. There was a crunch and pop as his head burst, to splash thick fluid onto the snow at the creature’s feet.
The beast flung the body down the ravine. It disappeared into the trees fifty feet below. Hammerson lay still, hoping to be taken for dead. Years of watching Animal Planet had taught him that, to a carnivore, a dead animal was far less interesting than a live one.
‘Hey!’ a voice yelled. Alex’s.
Oh, shit no, thought Hammerson.
*
The silence stretched – the only sound the slight squeak of leather as Alex clenched the knife handle tighter, readying himself for the beast’s charge.
It came, fast and heavy, its arms opening wide. Alex knew what it intended: to crush him in an embrace, then tear him to pieces. But when it reached Alex, he was no longer there. He’d darted under one of its seven-foot-long arms and flicked his blade across the leathery torso, opening a gash that splashed crimson blood onto the snow.
The beast spun quickly, then paused and blinked. A huge hand came up to touch the wound. It snuffed and blew out its cheeks, then smashed fists the size of basketballs into the snow. It screamed in rage and pounded the ground again and again, its fury building.
Alex moved around to its side, judging his next point of attack or defence.
The creature came again, but, unbelievably, it feinted to one side. Alex was forced to step and then correct himself. He had underestimated its intelligence and ability to adapt. In the split second it took for him to change his balance, the mighty beast charged again.
Alex dived, but it threw out an arm in a backhanded motion that caught Alex’s hip and spun him in the air. When he got to his feet, he felt his hip joint grind beneath the skin.
Hammerson was limping towards them, at the creature’s rear. He had the gun up, but his injuries made it difficult for him to aim. The enormous beast glanced briefly at the approaching HAWC, then returned its attention to Alex, circling him. With a flash of speed incongruous for something so huge, it twisted and flew towards Hammerson, grabbing him by the shoulder and flinging him bodily at Alex.
Hammerson had no chance; he spun in the air, arms and legs loose. He crashed into Alex and both men went flying, skidding several feet through the snow.
Alex flung the older soldier’s body off him. He knew what was coming next – the creature had used Hammerson as a diversion. And it had worked. His knife was trapped beneath him and the thing was already on top of him. It leaped and landed across his body, pinning him beneath its bulk of muscle and stinking fur and bringing its open mouth close to Alex’s face. Its jaws were as wide as his entire skull, and its hot breath smelled of rotten meat and death.
Alex used both arms to hold the thing back from him, one hand on a throat that was as broad as his own waist, and another grasping a tree-trunk-sized arm. But even his unnatural strength struggled to contain the titan, and slowly the tusked jaws came closer. Eyes that held a cunning intelligence met his, and Alex was sure that the corners of its vile maw turned up in triumph.
Just as the teeth grazed Alex’s skin, he heard a scream from behind and a small figure landed on the creature’s back. Adira. She screamed again and stabbed a metal spike into each side of the beast’s neck.
It arched its torso and roared down into Alex’s face, the sound near deafening, the vile shitty stench even worse. Its jaws pulled back, but it still lay across his body, crushing him deeper into the snow.
Before the Israeli woman could leap out of the way, an enormous arm flew up to grab her. The beast pounded her body into the ground, then flung her roughly to the valley floor, where she landed hard with a grunt, seemingly dazed.
The creature tried to pull the spikes free from its neck, but they were too deeply embedded or too small for it to grip with its giant leathery fingers. It gave up and leaped furiously to its feet, the motion grinding Alex’s body further into the ground.
Alex felt rather than heard the cracking of multiple ribs being fractured in his chest as the beast’s 1000 pounds of pressure was magnified by its sudden movement. Immediately,
breath was gone from his lungs and his heart ceased beating, making his vision swim and giving a sensation of falling into a dark pit. But like a car receiving a jump-start, his body refused to give in, and commenced to pump blood once again. Strange chemical combinations in his body rushed to repair the damage, as Adira’s sounds of pain acted like an electrical charge across his consciousness. Enough – finish it! His mind screamed to him.
The giant rose to its full height and gave a booming whoop that turned to an enraged roar. It rushed towards Adira and lifted a massive foot over her prone body. Adira weakly held up one hand, as if it were possible to ward off the crushing blow that was about to stamp the life from her.
As the foot came down, Alex struck the creature’s torso like a missile. This time, he buried his steel blade all the way to the hilt in the tough hide. As the creature reached to grab hold of him, he used the swinging momentum to twist his knife and open the wound even further.
A massive fist pounded him into the snow. He looked up to see the beast pulling the blade from its side. It flung it away into the dark, then, in a human-like gesture, felt its side, looked at its bloody hand and whined.
Alex rolled and shook his head to clear away a fog of pain and disorientation. Slowly, he moved his hands about in the snow, searching for something he knew should be there. As he stretched out to search a wider area, the beast came down hard on his back. Cartilage and ribs popped under the weight, and he felt the hot blast of its foul breath on his neck. He guessed the giant mouth was opening over the back of his head. His time was up . . . unless he could defend himself.
His hand closed on the object he sought and he rolled under the massive weight, coming around to jam the gun that had belonged to one of the masked soldiers into the creature’s open jaws. The blast of high-velocity projectiles blew out the top of its crested skull and it thumped flat across his body.
FORTY
Alex lay still for a moment, breathing heavily, blinking away pain from a hundred different spots on his battered body. Then he lifted one of the creature’s shoulders and eased out from under the massive torso. He knelt in the snow for a few seconds, sucking in deep breaths.
Adira lay some distance away, and he crawled to her. Blood smeared her lips, and her face was disfigured from the beatings she had received. She took his forearm and tried to smile through split lips.
‘I think I’m broken.’
He put his hand over hers. ‘You always turn up when I need it most.’
‘I am your guardian angel . . . didn’t you know?’ she replied softly.
Alex half-smiled. He would never trust her again, but, for a time, he had loved her; and she had loved and protected him.
She groaned as she shifted, and looked away from him. ‘I can’t go back. Better I die here, Alex.’
He shook his head. ‘Not a chance.’
He quickly ran his hands over her body, feeling the breaks and for other injuries. He pulled her to a sitting position and she grunted in pain and coughed blood.
She squeezed his arm. ‘What is there to live for? I know I have lost . . .’
She couldn’t finish her sentence, and he saw that her eyes were shining with tears. She gritted her teeth and pulled him closer.
‘I need to tell you . . . Everything I did, I did for you. I lied to you because I had to. Now it doesn’t matter.’ She swallowed. ‘You are Alex Hunter, a HAWC agent, part of the American Special Forces. You were dying with an incurable sickness and your superior, Jack Hammerson, took a big risk and sent you to us, to Israel. We saved you . . . I saved you! I took you to my homeland, and you were cured there . . . but not fully. Your memory did not return, and so you lost your old life. I thought I could fill the gap for you.’
Her voice became urgent. ‘Your people wanted to kill you, Alex, to cut you up to see what makes you what you are. They still do. And now I think my people want to do the same.’ She glanced over at Hammerson. ‘But not that man. He is not your enemy. It was through him that you were saved.’
Alex stared at her, absorbing the information. Everything seemed to click into place, as though the missing details had plugged themselves into the blank areas of his memory. He reached down and pushed the hair from her face, but sticky blood held it there.
She turned away from his gaze. ‘I was weak and selfish, Alex. I thought we could both run away from our lives. I wanted you for myself . . . Stupid.’
A small pack landed in the snow beside Alex. He looked up to see that Hammerson had dragged himself over to them. The stocky man didn’t look in much better shape than Adira. Alex stared at him, the shattered fragments of memory rebuilding themselves. ‘Jack?’
Hammerson nodded and smiled. ‘Welcome back, son.’ He gestured to Adira. ‘Get her on her feet.’
Alex picked up the packet and tore it open, then broke the gel cap under the battered woman’s nose. ‘Breathe in,’ he told her.
She did and coughed, before inhaling several more times. Then she pushed his hand away from her face, and he grabbed her around the waist to help her up. Adira shook her head as if to clear it, and sucked in a few deep breaths. She staggered a bit, but managed to remain upright.
Hammerson rolled a shoulder under his shattered armour. ‘That’ll give her an hour or so. After that, she’s going to need help, or she’ll probably die. In fact, we all need to get the hell out of here.’
Alex walked over to the creature’s massive corpse and pulled the spikes from its neck. He returned and handed them to Adira. She lifted her dark eyes to Hammerson and Alex edged between them. He knew what she could do with the deadly throwing spikes.
After another second, she spun the weapons in her fingers, bringing them back towards herself, and they disappeared into a small sheath at her belt. She pushed her hair back with a shaky hand and looked across to the massive corpse. She inhaled deeply and then slowly let her steaming breath out through her nose before speaking.
‘So, now it’s over.’
Alex remained still for a few moments before his eyes moved from the creature’s body, up once again to the sharp edge of the ravine. He shook his head slowly. ‘No, not yet, but soon. She’s close – my answers are close, I can sense it.’
*
Matt and Sarah came out of the trees a few hundred feet down the hill. Matt’s curiosity had overridden his sense of self-preservation, and now the fight was over, he needed to see if Jack Hammerson had survived . . . and maybe get a glimpse of the massive creature they had encountered.
Leading Sarah cautiously over the rim of the ravine, he looked down to see Hammerson and the HAWC woman standing by the body of the most magnificent thing Matt had ever seen. He climbed as swiftly as he could manage down the rock face, keeping an eye on Sarah, who followed him more slowly. She had been subdued ever since they’d fled the cave and its grisly sights.
When they reached the valley floor, he noticed the HAWC woman’s face was ravaged by more than just her wounds. She looked as if she was grieving.
He looked around. ‘Where are the guys in white?’
‘Dead,’ the woman replied, her eyes lifeless.
‘And Alex Hunter?’
She looked up at the snow-covered ridge towards the dark peak. ‘Gone.’
‘Gone where?’ Matt asked, frustrated by her terse replies.
‘To fight his demons.’ She shrugged and turned away.
Matt looked at Hammerson, but he just shook his head.
Matt pointed at the large creature. ‘Is it dead?’
‘All yours,’ Hammerson said.
Matt knelt beside the beast, and Sarah joined him. She placed her hands on the massive back, her eyebrows pulled together in a frown.
‘It’s real. It actually exists,’ she said, her tone incredulous. She ran her hands over the creature almost tenderly, brushed the blood-matted fur off its gargoyle face. ‘An inglorious end to a magnificent creature. Its first encounter with humans in 10,000 years, and it turns out to be its last. No wonder the
y rebelled against us all those millennia ago. Now, we may never –’
‘It killed Charles and Emma Wilson.’ Matt’s voice was flat.
Sarah pulled her hands back as if burnt.
*
Alex scaled the sheer rock wall. In a few seconds, he was standing in the cave’s entrance. The revolting stench he’d smelled on the creature itself became stronger the further he went into the pitch-dark interior.
He ignored the cave drawings and the battered headless body of an old Indian man on the ground, only pausing to lift a large Colt revolver from the dry soil. He could smell that the big handgun had been fired. Opening it, he saw there were two bullets left. He tucked the weapon into his belt and continued towards the rear of the cave and the passages that led off it.
The light was so faint it was barely enough even for Alex’s enhanced vision, but he could just make out the scuff marks in the dirt that told him which passageway to take. A short way in, he made out a ledge, a tiny shelf of bloody stone, and as he stared harder, the row of grisly trophies come into focus. He recoiled – the pain, suffering, and terror pressed into the flesh of their faces was horrifying. Pale windpipes and red and blue tendons, stained with dried black blood, hung from the ragged stumps of the necks of men, women and children. Just when he felt able to tear his eyes away, he saw her, his mother, or what was left of her. The skin was drawn tight on her skull, and the ligaments of her jaw had shortened in the dry atmosphere, setting her face in an eternal scream.
He reached out to touch the cold flesh. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you,’ he said. ‘I was never there for you.’
He kept his hand on the dead woman’s cheek and rested his head against the cold, damp stone. The soft rustling sounds from deeper in the caves, the stench of death and decay, faded; time became meaningless as his mind retrieved fragmented images of his mother, his parents, his childhood, and played them over and over.
He couldn’t tell how long he stood there remembering. After a while, the memories became distorted, a soft fuzziness, like white noise, interrupting them.