Deadly Genes td-117

by Warren Murphy

  The three men climbed out. As they were collecting their shotguns from behind the seat, Evan glanced around. Cornfields rose high on either side of the road. There was evidence that some of the fields had been trampled by trucks. Evan looked at the ruined sections of field through boozy eyes, wondering why someone would drive over perfectly good corn.

  "Why are we here, Ted?" Evan asked as his shotgun was passed to him.

  "This is where she killed a bunch of guys," Ted informed them. He handed a sullen Bob his shotgun.

  "That tiger broad?" Bob asked. He balanced his beer on the roof of the cab as he fumbled with the safety switch. It took three tries to flip it off.

  "Duh," Evan commented.

  "Why are we looking here?" Bob pressed, squinting at the cornfield. "Everyone else is in Boston."

  "Exactly," Ted said proudly. "If you were a tiger lady everyone was looking for, would you go where everyone was, or where everyone wasn't?"

  "Wasn't," answered Bob with only a moment's hesitation.

  "And where's the last place you'd think people would be looking for you?"

  "Bob's bed," Evan offered, giggling.

  "Shut up," Bob barked.

  Ted was looking at the wide expanse of field crushed by police and rescue vehicles that had gone in after the HETA bodies.

  "You think she'd come back here?" Bob asked.

  "Let's find out," Ted replied. He had a tingling sensation below his belly that for once had nothing to do with his bladder.

  They took the path of least resistance into the field, following the tracks made by authorities. The toppled corn stalks were still fresh enough that they didn't crackle underfoot. Deep tire treads had torn into rich earth, creating muddy pools. Several hundred feet in, the men took a left into the more dense field. Several even rows lined this vast section. A lot of ground for only three of them to cover.

  They split up. Bob went alone down a long path. Evan took another. Ted struck off in the same direction as the others but several rows down.

  As he walked along, he idly felt the safety latch on his shotgun with his thumb. Forward. The safety was off.

  Ted pulled the switch back, just to make certain. It slid with a tiny click.

  The metallic noise was answered by a rustle of movement somewhere up ahead.

  He glanced to his right. The others were far away. Neither Evan nor Bob could have made the noise. Carefully, Ted slid the safety off once more. With cautious steps, he closed slowly in on the spot from which the sound had originated.

  The green stalks were dense and high. While bright sunlight streamed down from above, not much reached the ground. But beyond the stalks of corn to his left, the light seemed brighter.

  It was the same impression Ted got standing at the last line of trees before a wooded lake. A sense of emptiness not present in the rest of the field. From this area, there issued a persistent humming.

  Peering carefully, Ted noted an expanse of brightness beyond the nearest stalks. Like the area trampled by vehicles farther back in the field, someone had knocked over the corn here, as well.

  Cautiously, slowly-adrenaline pounding in his ears-Ted eased apart the two nearest corn stalks. The source of the humming noise became instantly apparent. A mass of black flies swarmed around the open area. Their collective buzzing was akin to the drone of a persistent, tiny motor.

  The corn had been trampled flat in a circular area about the size of Ted's truck. As he stepped into the bowl-shaped zone, flies swarmed up around him.

  Ted recoiled, stumbling backward. As he did so, his foot snagged in something.

  For a moment, he thought he'd stepped in a hole. He soon realized that it couldn't be. Few holes in the ground could be lifted into the air along with one's foot.

  He looked down, squinting through the fluttering haze of a thousand swirling insects. What he found made his alcohol-soaked stomach clench in a terrified knot.

  His boot had caught in an open chest cavity. His toe was snagged up just under the sternum.

  Ted saw the rest of the body then. The head had been concealed behind a mask of flies. It looked up at him now, eye sockets teeming with maggots.

  Another body lay near the first. As stripped of life as an ear of shucked corn.

  Ted was too horrified to scream. He exhaled puff after puff of frantic breath, never pulling in fresh air.

  Shaking, he collapsed back into the corn. Crackling stalks snapped loudly beneath his deadweight. Frantically, he shook his foot. Trying to knock loose the body that still clung furiously to him in some morbid final act of desperation.

  His crazed, terrified blundering appeared to stir the very earth. As Ted watched in growing horror, the ground began to rise up before him.

  No, not the ground. Something beneath the trampled corn. Something that had been lying in wait. The thing that had been hiding in the corn stalks before him turned rapidly, fangs bared.

  Even in his panic, Ted recognized the face from his dashboard. The woman he was after. Judith White.

  Sleep clung to her eyes as she dropped to her hands. Blood dripped from her open mouth as she shoved off on tightly coiled legs.

  As she sprang toward him, she screamed loudly. Ted screamed, as well. As he did so, there came a terrible explosion nearby. The sound rang in his ears.

  Another explosion. This one close, too. Like the first, it came from somewhere near the end of his arm. A gunshot.

  In his panic, he'd fired his shotgun.

  Judith's expression changed from savage fury to cautious rage in midleap.

  Ted was still lying on his back on the ground. She dropped beside him. Pummeled stalks were further crushed beneath her weight. A heavy paw clamped on his chest. She snarled menacingly, flashing blood-smeared teeth.

  Footsteps. Running. Shouted voices.

  Judith raised her nose in the air, wiggling her ears alertly. Her paw stayed pressed to Ted's unmoving chest. He held his breath.

  A decision. Instinctive.

  She turned. Bounding on all fours, Judith dived into the field in the direction opposite that of the voices. In a second, she was gone. The most brilliant geneticist of her generation had been forced to abandon her makeshift nest to hunters.

  And flat on his back in her corpse-strewn lair, Ted Holstein could take no pride in successfully fending off the creature that had terrified so many.

  He had passed out cold.

  Chapter 27

  After a futile night of searching, Remo had finally given up hope of finding Judith White on his own. Defeated, he had returned home. Morning found Remo sitting morosely in his living room watching the back of Chiun's head.

  The Master of Sinanju had brought a quill, an ink bottle and a few sheets of parchment down from his bedchambers. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, the old Korean was writing furiously. Every time Remo tried to steal a peek at what he was writing, Chiun hunched forward, blocking the papers with his frail body.

  Remo finally gave up trying to see and instead turned his attention to the wide-screen TV, hoping for some fresh news concerning Judith White. If the latest reports were to be believed, there was nothing.

  "I should have stapled one of those radio tags to her ear like they do on Wild Kingdom," Remo grumbled.

  "Shush," the Master of Sinanju admonished. The great plume of his quill swooped gracefully. Remo couldn't take it anymore.

  He was sitting on the floor a few feet behind Chiun. He leaned forward as he had before in order to get a glimpse of the parchment. Mirroring his pupil's movements, the old man tipped farther over. As soon as he'd lowered himself enough, Remo slapped both palms to the floor and unscissored his legs. He executed a flawless somersault, twisting in midair. Briefly, both men were back-to-back as Remo slipped over his teacher. He dropped back, cross-legged to the floor.

  "Ow." Remo cringed, now face-to-horrified-face with the wizened Korean. He clapped a hand to his injured shoulder even as he read some of the upsidedown words on Chiun's parchment. "How
are you eclipsing Na-Kup?" he asked.

  The Master of Sinanju's shocked expression flashed to anger. "None of your business," he retorted. He snatched the parchments to him. Flipping them over, he hugged the papers to his narrow chest. "Instead of irritating me with acts of childish acrobatics, why not do something useful? The rain gutters need cleaning."

  "Gonna hire someone," Remo informed him.

  "Why? It is a job for a street arab or other common vulgarian. I will buy you a ladder."

  "I think I liked you better when you were writing screenplays," Remo said as he pushed himself to his feet. A fresh ache ran from shoulder to chest along his healed scars. He headed for the livingroom door.

  As he passed the phone, it rang. When Remo scooped it up, Chiun was already spreading his parchments out once more.

  "Judith White has been seen," Smith announced without preamble.

  "Where?" Remo demanded.

  "In Concord," Smith explained rapidly. "She had made a nest for herself in the same field where the BETA Bos camelus-whitus exchange was supposed to take place."

  "I'm on my way."

  "Wait," Smith called quickly. "She escaped on foot."

  "Dammit," Remo complained, jamming the phone back to his ear.

  "It is not as dire as it sounds," Smith explained. "She apparently feeds at night. I suspected as much before. That is why most of the murders took place after dark. She is no longer accustomed to daylight hours, as is a normal human."

  "She's not a freaking vampire, Smitty."

  "She might just as well be," Smith replied. "For in daylight, she is exposed. People will see her. More so now that she has been identified as the killer."

  "But we still don't know where she is," Remo argued.

  "We cannot pinpoint a precise location," Smith agreed, "but there have been three sightings since the incident this morning. One in Minute Man National Historic Park, one in Winchester and the third in the woods near Middlesex Fells Reservoir. She appears to be heading back to Boston."

  "I thought she was the thinking man's animal." Remo frowned. "Doesn't she know there are hunters everywhere around here? What's she doing coming back?"

  "I could not begin to speculate," Smith said. "But that appears to be the pattern. Do you still have your Department of Agriculture identification?"

  "Yeah, why?"

  "I am sending an unmarked state police car for you and Chiun. It would be simpler if the officers believe you to be agriculture agents."

  "I've got a car, Smitty," Remo stressed.

  "Yes, but no radio. I want you on the ground in case she makes an appearance." He hesitated for a moment. "Remo, if you are not up to the challenge, I can send Chiun in alone," Smith suggested.

  "If I'm healed enough to clean rain gutters, I'm healed enough to pull one measly cat out of a tree," Remo muttered.

  But as he replaced the phone, he felt the unaccustomed tightness of the still healing scars on his shoulder.

  Remo hoped his words to Smith were not simply idle boasting.

  MASSACHUSETTS STATE TROOPER Dan MacGuire didn't know why he was being pulled away from his stakeout post outside the BostonBio complex. His was one of a number of unmarked vehicles that had been assigned to the area.

  The FBI and Boston police had been having a pissing contest over who was in charge of the whole Judith White mess. No one seemed to be able to get the jurisdiction straight. While the agency infighting raged over the past two days, MacGuire had been waiting patiently in an empty lot across the street from the genetics firm.

  He had heard several hours before that White had been spotted, seemingly en route to Boston. There were only two places she seemed likely to go. Her apartment which was under around-the-clock surveillance-and BostonBio itself.

  Dan was betting on BostonBio.

  Laurels awaited the man who finally managed to bag the psycho doctor. Dan was already counting on the promotion that would come from being the one to take down the Beast of BostonBio.

  He was understandably upset therefore when, after two days of sitting alone drinking stale coffee, the nasal voice of his shift supervisor informed him over his car radio that he was to go and pick up some Department of Agriculture agent. The man would be bringing along an assistant. Both had high security clearance.

  Dan had objected strenuously, to no avail. He had his orders. Muttering something about being a "god-damn taxi service," he abandoned his BostonBio post to collect his charges.

  The Department of Agriculture agent wound up being some faggy-looking guy in a maroon T-shirt and tan chinos. Dan was a good half foot taller than him and had at least a hundred pounds of beefy muscle on the wimp.

  The Agriculture guy's assistant was worse. The hundred-year-old man looked as frail as a wicker chair at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. On top of that, he was dressed like Fu Manchu's grandmother.

  Both men were waiting on the sidewalk in front of the address MacGuire had been given. As he pulled up to the curb, he noted that it was a hardware store.

  "You Agent Post?" Trooper MacGuire asked across the front seat, clearly hoping that he had the wrong man.

  "Gimme a sec," Remo said seriously. He examined the last name on his own ID. It was hard to keep track of all his aliases. "Guess that's me today." He nodded as he climbed in the front seat beside MacGuire.

  "Great. A comedian," MacGuire muttered.

  "What is this?"

  The squeaky voice was so loud and so close MacGuire almost jumped out of his skin. He spun around.

  The trooper was startled to see the old Asian sitting in the back seat. MacGuire hadn't heard the door open or close. The old man was aiming a slender finger at the bullet-proof shield that separated the rear seat from the front. It was a standard safety precaution. MacGuire told him this.

  "Remove it," Chiun commanded.

  "I can't," MacGuire replied, irked, as he turned back to the wheel. "It's permanently affixed."

  "Why not just leave it, Chiun?" the skinny guy said over his shoulder, as if the old geezer could actually do something about the thick sheet of Plexiglas. By the looks of it, he was lucky just to haul himself out of bed in the morning.

  "It annoys me," Chiun sniffed.

  "So what?" Remo said.

  "So, I already have to put up with you. One annoyance is quite enough."

  As the two of them prattled on, Trooper MacGuire checked the traffic situation. He was about to pull out into the street when he was shocked by a horrible tearing sound over his right shoulder.

  Spinning around, MacGuire was stunned to see that the protective shield-which could stop a .357 round fired point-blank-had been wrenched free from its casing.

  The old man's hands were stretched out as wide as they could go. A set of bony fingers curled around each end of the shield.

  As the state trooper watched in shock, the Asian brought his hands together. The sheet of thick plastic bent into a bowed U, straining until it could no longer take the pressure. All at once, it snapped with the report of a gunshot. MacGuire ducked behind the seat, hoping to avoid the inevitable spray of plastic shards he was sure would be launched forward.

  There were none. Just another louder, quicker snap.

  When he picked his head up over the seat, Trooper MacGuire found that the old man had placed the panes together, forming an inch-thick sheet of glass. These he had snapped, too. The four smaller sections he'd stacked atop one another. As MacGuire watched in amazement, he broke these, as well.

  "Can we hurry up and go already?" the Department of Agriculture man complained from the seat next to MacGuire. "There aren't any doughnuts back there." He seemed oblivious to the action in the back seat.

  Nodding dully, the trooper turned back around. He swallowed hard, forcing his Adam's apple back down his neck. It seemed suddenly to want to escape his throat.

  As he pulled out into traffic, MacGuire heard the snap-snap-snap of increasingly-smaller sheets of Plexiglas coming from the rear seat.

  T
ED HOLSTEIN HAD BEEN flown by helicopter to College Hospital in Boston. As the first known survivor of an attack by Dr. Judith White, it was feared by some authorities that the young hunter might begin to manifest some of the same man-eating characteristics as his assailant.

  "She's not a freaking werewolf," Ted complained as blood was drawn from his arm for the umpteenth time.

  "Yes, sir," replied the nurse. She appeared to not even be listening to him.

  They held him for hours, testing and retesting, finally proclaiming that in spite of having the liver of an eighty-year-old-he was perfectly normal. Ted was clearly not a threat to society at large.

  The hospital released him. Directly into the grasping claws of the Boston press corps.

  He granted dozens of impromptu interviews in the College Hospital emergency room.

  "What was it like to be attacked by Judith White?"

  "Did she say anything to you during the attack?"

  "Are you afraid she might come back for you?" Fortunately for Ted, five o'clock was approaching and most of the reporters had to get back to their respective stations to edit their miles of tape into the three seconds of material that would actually make it on the air.

  Some of the stations tried to get him to come on the air live for their 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. news, but he'd firmly refused. Even so, a few cameras still lingered on him as he sat alone in the blue molded-plastic chair near the automatic doors of the emergency room.

  Ted tried to ignore the glaring lights. His eyes and head hurt from not drinking. He hadn't had a beer since morning. All he wanted to do was to get away from here. Out of the public eye.

  As he checked his watch for the hundredth time in the past half hour, the doors next to him slid open. "Hey, hey, hey! There he is!" yelled a happy voice.

  Bob came bounding through the doors, grinning broadly. The powerful stench of stale beer clung to his clothes and breath. Evan Cleaver trailed Bob into the hospital.

  "It's about time," Ted said, annoyed. He got to his feet, stretching uncomfortably.

  "Hey, the Feds were asking us all kinds of questions," Bob said defensively. "You ain't the only celebrity here."