Unnatural Selection td-131

by Warren Murphy

  And the animal purr of satisfaction that rose from deep in her throat chilled the spring morning.

  Chapter 21

  "Excuse me?" Remo asked. He shot a glance at the Master of Sinanju. Chiun's expression was stone.

  "Don't waste my time, sugar," Elizabeth warned. "Get down on the ground now and you'll get out of this alive. Of course, I've seen you in action so I know enough not to take any chances. For our own protection, we'll have to make it so you can't harm us. A few broken bones, cut hamstrings. But I promise you'll live."

  One of the males nuzzled Elizabeth's hand. His eyes were trained on the Master of Sinanju.

  "What about the old one?"

  She smiled. "Use him as a scratching post."

  Remo frowned at Elizabeth. "What do you want with me?"

  "Me?" Elizabeth replied. "Nothing. If it was up to me, you'd be nothing more than a meal. But this isn't my show. So do we have a deal? Or do we take you down the hard way?"

  Remo's face steeled. "I don't deal with vegetables, minerals or animals."

  "Suit yourself."

  A subtle nod. The pack began to close in.

  Elizabeth was the focus for those in front. The others circled in around her. Following her moves, mirroring them. The same was true for the larger groups. Eyes flicked from prey to their respective leaders and back again.

  In the pack to the left, Remo spied three familiar faces.

  The TV homemaker had found a pair of work gloves in the bottling plant. She thought they would be a pair of good things that would keep her hands clean for craft work, vegetable gardening or everyday disemboweling. Unfortunately she'd misplaced one. If she had looked a bit closer at her neighbor, she would have noticed a suspiciously glove-shaped bulge near the AA brassiere of the kleptomaniac actress.

  Behind all of the others lurked Bobby Bugget. The singer seemed as out-of-place as he did frightened. At the front of the closing pack, Elizabeth nodded to the Master of Sinanju.

  "He looks even stringier in daylight. Looks like we'll be cleaning our teeth on your bones, Grandpa." Chiun's neck craned from the collar of his simple black robes, offering a tempting target.

  "You are welcome to try, perversion of creation," the old Korean replied.

  Smiling, Elizabeth stopped abruptly, still several yards shy of Remo and Chiun.

  "Don't assume just because a species is new that it's necessarily stupid," she warned cryptically.

  Her dark eyes flickered for an instant to the blind spot beside Remo and Chiun.

  Remo nodded, a tight smile on his thin lips. "And don't assume that just because a species has been around the block a few times, it can't hear what's going on right behind it."

  And as he spoke, the thing behind him lunged. Remo caught the flicker of movement, felt the pressure waves as it flew for his throat.

  Without looking, he reached out and plucked the creature from the air. Forward momentum brought it up and around. Its spine cracked loud against the toe of Remo's loafer.

  The creature exhaled like a punctured air mattress. "Chalk one up for Homo sapiens," Remo said, tossing the carcass aside.

  A thrill of fear and confusion rippled through the frozen ranks. It culminated in the full-throated roar that rose from deep in the belly of Elizabeth Tiflis.

  As one, the pack charged. Remo and Chiun became swirling blurs in their midst.

  Long claws tried to rake Remo's throat. He redirected the talons into the soft belly of a charging male. The television housekeeping expert tried to lash Chiun with her gloveless hand. Animal rage became incomprehension when her arm came back, minus the hand.

  She howled in pain at her bloody wrist stump, which, as far as she was concerned, was the very worst of bad things. The cry of terror and animal fury lasted only as long as it took Chiun's long nails to pierce her forehead.

  More creatures flooded in. Dozens upon dozens crushed toward the two men in the center of the maelstrom, all fangs and claws and hissing evil.

  A male vaulted over the rest in a dizzying leap, paws extended, mouth eager to tear out Chiun's throat.

  Chiun's flashing nails-more sturdy and lethal than any mere hunting blades-speared the creature in midflight. Ivory talons opened skin and muscle.

  When the male flipped in midair, landing on feet and knuckles, the soft impact of its body caused his exposed organs to flop to the road. He joined them an instant later.

  At the Master of Sinanju's side, Remo caught the nearest with a spinning toe to the chin. Vertebrae cracked like snapping twigs.

  A thrum of uncertainty washed through the pack. The leaders had already begun to fall back. With them was Elizabeth Tiflis, fear wide on her ashen face.

  This should not have been happening. She had been too busy making her escape back in New York. She hadn't seen enough. She had assumed that sheer numbers would overwhelm these two. Yet here they were, darting left and right. More bodies fell before their flashing hands.

  Elizabeth was ready to concede defeat, ready to run for the safety of the woods. But to her great relief just as she was about to make a dash for the underbrush, there came from the forest a terrible, ungodly roar.

  It was like thunder from the depths of Hell, echoing through the Maine woods. At the frightful sound, birds in treetops took terrified flight, scattering to the heavens.

  On the road, Remo and Chiun felt a new fear wash over the dozens of gathered creatures. It was terror mixed with reverence. Heads lowering to sniff the ground, the beasts ceased their attack. One by one they fell away, passing to the sides of the road.

  The underbrush deep in the woods cracked and snapped as something made its way toward the road. Whatever it was wasn't small. The ground shook with pounding footfalls. For a moment Remo wondered if Judith White had found a petri dish of Tyrannosaurus DNA. And as the thought flitted through his mind, the trees finally parted and the unseen behemoth stomped out onto the road.

  An awed, frightened hush fell over the other creatures.

  Remo glanced from the monster on the road to the Master of Sinanju and back again. He put his hands on his hips.

  "You gotta be greasing my pan," he said at last, shaking his head in disbelief at the sight of the world-famous boxer.

  The Weiss and Associates client had abandoned the rest of the creatures. He had been stalking the woods for the past day, only to be drawn out by the sounds of fighting.

  "This is a terrible situation that you have unwantingly rendered upon my quietude," admonished the boxer loudly, in a voice far too delicate and highpitched for his three-hundred-pound frame. "I will remedy the ignomoronious conflagration by bitin' your noise-making head off."

  And with a roar that could be heard from Bangor to Portland, he charged. The earth trembled. Shivering trees rained fragile leaves. The other creatures watched in anticipation.

  Remo yawned, checked his fingernails and-when the lumbering behemoth was within striking distance-reached out and snagged the charging boxer by the chin. As the dangling man thrashed, snarled, bit and kicked, Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju.

  "See, this is what I'm talking about," he insisted. "I know I'm supposed to be careful and all that, but look." He waggled the snapping boxer in Chiun's face.

  The old Korean's expression grew irritated. "Do not point that thing at me. Hurry up and finish it off." Remo remembered a rhyme from childhood that used to work with dandelions.

  "Momma had a baby and its head popped off," he recited.

  And with a thumb under the chin he proceeded to pop the boxer's head off his shoulders. He bowled it up the road where it got stuck under the front tire of a Dodge.

  He held out the body of the boxer, shaking it like a headless Kewpie doll for all the others to see. "Where's Judith White?" Remo demanded.

  For an instant, three dozen sets of eyes darted toward the bottling plant. And in the next moment, three dozen sets of legs flew off in every direction.

  There was a mass stampede for the woods. Elizabeth and the
other pack leaders were first to vanish. Brush crunched under running feet as the creatures rushed to put distance between themselves and the two terrifying humans.

  Back near the bottling plant, a lone creature turned tail and ran back for the building.

  In a matter of seconds there was only one left on the road. He stood near the Master of Sinanju, shaking fearfully in his clam diggers and Hawaiian shirt.

  "Holy guacamole," Bobby Bugget muttered. When Bugget saw Chiun's leathery death mask turn his way, he let out a terrified yelp. Like an Olympic diver who had misplaced his pool, he dove headfirst into the thorny bushes at the side of the road.

  "What about that one?" Remo snapped, pointing to the nearby bushes where Bugget's bloodshot eyes stared out in panic.

  "Leave it. Come! One has fled to her lair!" Spinning on a black sandal, the old man bounded up the road toward the low concrete building that was the Lubec Springs bottling plant. Remo flew after him.

  Behind, Bugget's frightened eyes watched them go. He scanned back from the two fleeing figures to the dead scattered across the road. Howls of fear filled the woods.

  "Sweet shit-in-a-shoebox," he gasped.

  With a whimper, he began desperately trying to extricate himself from the brambles. Before the two men who were scarier than any old run-of-the-mill half-human tiger returned.

  Chapter 22

  Moments before Remo and Chiun began racing toward the bottling plant, the object of their wrath slipped through the shadows of the Lubec Springs warehouse.

  Dr. Judith White had been drawn from her office by the scent of blood. One silent foot dropped assuredly before the other as she crept across the drafty room.

  Her acute sense of smell was focused on the familiar metallic tang that clung, rich and heavy, to the clean Maine air, guiding her to the place of slaughter. Judith padded up to the pool of dark, coagulating blood.

  The truck driver's face was wax. Glassy eyes stared at the iron rafters. His chest was an empty red husk. Huge toothy tears shredded the meat of biceps and thighs.

  She knew the man. He had come to the plant twice to pick up loads of tainted water. With an angry glare, she noted the wedding ring on the man's left hand.

  The ring meant family, meant this human would be missed.

  A soft growl formed at the back of her throat. "Idiots," she said to the silent walls.

  As if in response to her growl of complaint, the side door of the warehouse suddenly burst open. Owen Grude bounded inside, eyes wide and frightened.

  Judith sneered at his approach. So clumsy. Yes, he was stealthy by the pitiful standards of humans, but he was still light-years from being completely like her.

  But that was part of the plan. This wasn't about creating an army to combat man. Not yet. Emil Kowalski and Genetic Futures had helped her create a watered-down version of the formula. Without the genetic material that had made her whole, Owen and the rest were not like her.

  Owen had yet to shed the extra weight he'd inherited from a lifetime of slothful humanity. Loping, panting, the spring bottler raced up to Judith White. "They're here!" Owen announced.

  Her cat's eyes narrowed. "Who?" she demanded.

  "The two you told us about!" He glanced back, as if he expected the two men to appear on his tail at any second.

  The fresh blood of the dead truck driver had distracted her. Smell conquered all other senses. She redirected her attention to the front of the building.

  And she felt it. The thrum of fear from her creatures.

  Judith was surprised by her own reaction. She thought she would be cool and ready when the time came. Instead, the oldest animal instinct overcame all else.

  Panic washed over Judith White.

  "You're certain it's them?" she demanded.

  Owen nodded frantically. "They've killed many of us. I barely escaped. What should we do?"

  Judith sensed the male's fear. The bottling plant was Owen's den, his shelter. Instinct told him that he would find safety here. But Judith knew that it was only a building. With wide-open doors and easily shattered windows.

  "We aren't doing anything," Judith replied. "I'm escaping. And since I know you'll try to follow me..."

  Her hand was up faster than he could see. Thick, hard claws attacked. With a violent tear, she ripped the life from Owen's bulging, throbbing neck.

  Even as Owen was falling to the floor, Judith was wheeling. Alarm collapsed her pupils to yellow pinpricks of fear as she vaulted to the open loading dock. Nose in the air, she sniffed deeply.

  The smell of blood came to her. Soft wind blew from the front of the building to the forest. They were still out front. Out back was woods. The woods were safety.

  Powerful legs tensed. Judith flew from the dock to the driveway. She was running the instant her bare feet touched the ground. She headed for the woods. Branches snapped at her face.

  Animal instinct she had thought she could control compelled her to put distance between herself and the very men she had schemed to bring to this place. But in her heart she was still an animal and her animal mind screamed flee!

  Judith White ran like the wind. Away from those she knew could deal her death.

  Chapter 23

  The Master of Sinanju avoided the stairs. Sandaled feet left the hard-packed front path and the tiny Asian vaulted to the porch in one bound. Plain black robes billowed around pipe-stem legs. He marched for the door.

  By the time Remo flew up to join him, Chiun's hands were already blurs. With sharp strokes of savage fury, he reduced the front door to kindling. Both Masters of Sinanju swept inside the Lubec Springs offices.

  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the foyer. Receptionist's desk and outer offices were empty as they moved deeper into the building.

  Each man understood he was facing prey beyond the ordinary. Both strained their already heightened senses to the maximum as they headed along. But though they pressed to feel, they detected no telltale signs of life.

  Owen Grude's office door was open. Ever alert, Remo peered inside.

  The room was clear. A wide picture window looked out on forest at the rear of the building. There was no sign of Judith White or any of her cubs inside.

  "She's not in here," Remo said thinly, ducking back into the hallway.

  Chiun's face was dark. Wisps of hair were trembling thunderclouds as the Master of Sinanju turned from his pupil.

  The next door they stopped before was closed. An odor came from within. One with which both Masters of Sinanju were all too familiar.

  It was the smell of death.

  Remo raised a foot, striking hard with his heel dead center in the heavy door. With a shriek, the door whistled around on twisting hinges, burying itself with a vicious crack into the interior wall.

  Even before the door struck, Remo and Chiun were sweeping inside.

  The scene within was a vision torn from the darkest depths of Hell.

  Judith White and her cubs had used the office to nest. Bales of hay stolen from a nearby Lubec farm had been broken open and spread around the floor. Animal smells mixed with the stink of rotting flesh.

  The gristle-smeared bones of Burt Solare mingled with bits of dried grass. Tipped back in a carefully arranged hay bed, the grinning skull of the dead cofounder of Lubec Springs stared with hollow sockets at the two Masters of Sinanju.

  Near Burt Solare's remains, a second skull peeked timidly from out of the grass. Wet hay clung to broken bone. All that remained of Helen Solare.

  Arm and leg bones had been chewed to sharp fragments. They littered the room's damp floor. Against one wall, nestled between a small desk and a filing cabinet, a half-eaten cow carcass lay rotting.

  "Puss has been busy," Remo commented with thin disgust as he surveyed the sick tableau.

  Chiun's face was impassive.

  There was no one in that small room but ghosts. Leaving the dead to their final rest, the two men moved back into the hallway. On the way out, Remo tugged the door out of the wall, swi
nging it back into place.

  The few remaining offices were empty. At the rear of the attached wooden structure was the connecting corridor to the bottling plant and warehouse.

  The plant was free of life, as well.

  Even before they stepped through the door to the warehouse, Remo had detected the thready heartbeat. It came from behind a stack of cardboard boxes near the open bay door.

  He didn't need to ask the Master of Sinanju if he had heard the sound. The old Korean's bright hazel eyes locked in on the source.

  The heartbeat was almost but not quite human. It was the heartbeat of one of Judith White's monsters. But it was near death.

  Side by side, the two men moved swiftly across the cold concrete floor.

  They found Owen Grude tucked back from the main floor, chest rising and falling with shallow panting breaths. He had dragged himself up against a pallet loaded with boxes decorated with the familiar Lubec Springs waterfall logo.

  Remo squatted beside him. Owen seemed barely to notice his presence. Now in death's embrace, he had become fully animal. There was little pain. The look on his face was that of a creature confused by its own mortality.

  "Where's White?" Remo demanded.

  A glimmer of recognition. A flicker in his eyes. Owen shook his head. A fresh gurgle of blood leaked from the claw marks raked across his throat. He tried to snap at Remo's neck, but there was no strength left. With a wet sigh, Owen's head dropped forward.

  A final wheeze of fetid air and the creature grew still.

  Remo stood. "There's no one else here, Little Father," he said.

  The Master of Sinanju sensed nothing, as well. Walking slowly, the two men crossed over to the open door to the loading dock. As they passed, they noted the freshly shredded body of the Lubec Springs truck driver.

  Cool air carried the scent of pine as they stepped out onto the concrete platform. Outside, a truck half-filled with cases of Lubec Springs water sat silent.

  Dense woods began only a few dozen yards from the back of the building.

  Remo began to hop down from the platform, but a bony hand on his forearm held him fast.