Different

by Tony Butler

  “Clear!” Blake said.

  Blake inched into the room, swinging his gun from side to side before bending his arms so that the pistol pointed towards the roof. Russell crossed quickly to the cellar door and opened it. Something hit him in the chest, sending him sprawling. The dog seemed huge with saliva dripping from its mouth, and it seemed to be grinning as it launched itself at Russell’s throat. He raised his arm to protect himself and waited for his arm to be shredded by the dog’s wicked looking fangs. The dog was hurled sideways and the sound of shots from Blake’s automatic filled the room. Russell barely had time to raise his own gun and loose off a burst to take out the second dog, which had silently emerged from the cellar behind Blake. It fell into an untidy heap and Russell

  regained his feet. Stepping over the dog’s body, he descended the cellar steps. Nathan lay stretched out on the table, his body torn and mutilated by his own dogs. There were bloody paw prints everywhere.

  The steel door of the cellar was open and Russell knew that somehow the freak had escaped. He swore under his breath. There was something not quite right, something that he couldn’t quite put a finger on and he looked at Nathan’s corpse again.

  There was a neat cluster of bullet holes in his chest. He looked at Blake in surprise. “He’s been shot!” he exclaimed. “That means there must have been someone else here. Let’s get back outside and check it out.”

  They were climbing back up from the cellar when the sound of gunshots came from outside. They reached the doorway just in time to see the car containing Scott Williams and the British woman careering away down the dirt track. Some of his men were firing futile shots after it and Blake shook his head. The idiots knew the car was bullet proof.

  Their other car refused to start. Some of the wiring had been wrenched free.

  “Call up a chopper, Blake!” Russell ordered. “You lot, scout around. There was someone else here and I want to know who.”

  The men scoured the area, carefully scanning the ground and then one of them found the tracks.

  “There’s some footprint’s over here. It looks like a child’s or maybe a woman’s, but they’re heading towards the cabin alright!”

  Russell and Blake joined in the search and, casting around, found a second pair of tracks leading up into the hills. Russell recognised the distinctive pattern left by the sole of a trainer. They were Mary’s and in one of her shoes he’d planted a tracer bug. But who was the other woman? By the time the helicopter arrived, they had found the spot where the footprint vanished and a vehicle had been parked.

  There was definitely another player in the game, an unknown, and Russell didn’t like that one little bit.

  * * * *

  After Janine and Mary had left, Jay lifted Nathan’s dead body onto the table and then went outside to fetch his dogs.

  The first dog leapt for her throat but she side-stepped it with ease, and caught the animal by the fur at the scruff of its neck. She held the ferocious beast out at out at arm’s length while it scrabbled in mid-air and tried to twist itself out of her grasp.

  “Bad dog!” she said and cuffed it around the ears, shaking it. “Bad dog!” She released it and, as the dog fell to the ground, the other one attacked.

  It took about five minutes of repeating the lesson before the dogs reluctantly sat when they were told. She led them out of the compound and down the steps of the cellar and they went wild when they smelt Nathan’s blood.

  “Good dogs!” Jay said as she ascended the steps and shut the dogs in the cellar with their former master.

  Suddenly, she reeled back against the wall as a vision filled her mind. She saw a man who had black hair and piercing blue eyes, a man who looked vaguely familiar. The boy in the ice! Jay remembered him now. It was the same boy. Although he looked older now, it was definitely the same boy.

  HE WAS LIKE HER! How she knew that she didn’t know, but she was as certain of that as if she’d seen it verified in print. He was coming to her now, and she had an almost overwhelming urge to go and meet him. But she couldn’t. She had to stay and help Rebecca and Scott. The boy would find her, she knew.

  Jay left the cabin door open and knew that the absence of the dogs, coupled with the open door, would alert Russell to the fact that something was wrong. She thought that he’d be so preoccupied with checking it out that he would be careless about his prisoners. Not that it mattered too much. She would free Rebecca and Scott anyway, but if she could avoid hurting anyone, so much the better.

  There were no trees by the parking lot, but there was a grassy mound a few feet to her left. It would have to do. Russell and his men would be focusing their attention in front of them. Walking over to the mound, she sat on it and waited.

  It was getting to dusk when she heard the vehicles approaching. Slipping out of her clothes, she rolled them up and pushed them behind the mound. When the headlights of the cars drew nearer, Jay lay down on the mound and, after wriggling herself into a comfortable position, she became. Two cars pulled up and stopped less than fifteen feet away from her. She saw the rear door open and Scott and Rebecca sitting in the backseat. Russell had his gun out and was pointing first to the compound and then to the open door of the cabin. The men from the other car ran around the back of the cabin while Russell and his driver cautiously entered the cabin. Jay moved quickly. Not even bothering to dress, she simply tucked her clothes under her arm. The driver’s door of the rear car was open and Jay reached behind the steering rack and wrenched free a handful of wires. A shot sounded from inside the cabin.

  They’ve found the dogs, she thought.

  Opening the driver’s door of the other car, Jay slipped behind the wheel and tossed her clothes onto the passenger seat. “Hi, gang,” she said, grinning over her shoulder at Rebecca and Scott. “Shall we go for a ride?”

  She was a little disappointed that she wouldn’t have to display her new knowledge of how to hot-wire the car. The keys hung from the ignition. She turned it and the engine started. Accelerating, she swung the car around in a wide arc and sped away from the cabin. There was a metallic pinging sound at the rear of the car and, in the rear view mirror, she saw the flash of gunfire. Then she swept the car around a bend and out of range. She kept her foot down on the accelerator though; she wanted to find a drive off amongst the trees where they could hide until morning. About fifteen minutes later, she found a turnoff that she thought would do and pulled into it. About a mile along the narrow dirt road, she decided that it would be safe to stop. Turning off the engine, she looked into the rear and Scott looked at her anxiously.

  “Mary?” he asked.

  “She’s safe, Scott.” She wouldn’t tell him about the foiled rape now. She thought that he’d go back after Russell in a rage. “This woman, Laura Green, came along and saved her. She’s taking her somewhere safe. Now, let’s get you two out of those handcuffs.”

  “I must get to the British Embassy and contact the Prime Minister. He’s the only one I can think of who could help us,” Rebecca said.

  Jay examined the handcuffs and fashioned a paperclip into a crude but effective key, freeing them both. While both Scott and Rebecca started to massage their chafed wrists, Jay, realising that she was still nude, slipped on her clothes, but the others seemed not to notice. She heard the helicopter approaching slowly, obviously searching for them and so, restarting the car, Jay drove them deeper into the trees.

  “You’ve changed,” Rebecca said, as she peered anxiously up through the trees towards the sound of the helicopter. “You seem older somehow and I have something to tell you. There’s a boy over here looking for you. He’s like you and was born on The Devil’s Footprint. His name’s Adam.”

  “Adam. I dreamt about him being trapped in the ice and today I saw him in my mind. He’s older now and on his way to find me.”

  “The helicopter’s leaving!” Scott said excitedly. “It’s going away!”

  He was right. Jay could hear the machine turning away from them and she
smiled at Rebecca.

  “We’ll find Mary and then go to the embassy.”

  They sat for a while on the grass and recapped on their adventures. Scott frowned. “When you say you’re the future, the next step in the evolutionary chain, what do you mean exactly?”

  “I have an increased awareness, an understanding of how things work. It’s as though my IQ has not just increased but shot off the scale. Take your watch, for instance. It’s simply driven by a battery driven micro-chip impulse drive. A few days ago, I would never have known that, but now I not only understand how it works, I can see that it could be made much more efficient and less energy consuming. It seems quite primitive to me now.”

  “This mystery woman, Laura Green, you have no idea who she is?” Rebecca asked.

  “She was consumed with the need for revenge against Russell Downey.” Jay kept her knowledge of Janine’s identity to herself. Janine had saved Mary’s life and, although she wasn’t aware of it yet, she had changed. If the hatred for Russell did not destroy her, Janine could have a new life too.

  “Well, I suppose we’d better make a move if we’re going to find her and Mary before it gets dark.” Rebecca said. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know, but they would have gone south and I’ll sense it when we’re near them.” Jay accepted her new abilities easily. She was herself at last.

  They climbed back into the car and Scott drove them back onto the road, heading south. Rebecca, who was sitting in the back, suddenly cried out. “Stop, Scott. Pull over!”

  Jay could hear the fear in Rebecca’s voice and, as soon as the car rolled to a stop, she climbed in the rear next to her. Rebecca was looking at what appeared to be a small video screen and in the centre a small red dot pulsated on and off. The other door opened and Scott poked his head in.

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s a trace!” Rebecca cut him off, pressed a button and a map appeared with the red dot in the centre. She pressed another button and zoomed in and they could read the name on the map, The Deer Lodge Motel and in smaller letters above the trace were two letters. MS.

  “That’s Mary!” Rebecca said. “They’ve planted a bug in her clothes and know exactly where she is!”

  “We’ve got to get to her!” Scott said. “Where the hell is the motel?”

  Rebecca pressed the button and the map re-focused. She pointed at a stationary green dot at the left hand corner of the map. “I think this is our car and this” —she pointed a few inches above it and they saw an identical green dot moving steadily away from them— “is the other car. You know, the one from the cabin. They must have fixed it. According to the map they’re almost two hours ahead of us and they’re heading towards the motel!”

  * * * *

  Russell surveyed the debris around him. Sinking to his haunches, he scooped up a handful of the powdered rust. Henry was right. With a weapon like this, they could control every nation on earth. Straightening, he went into the Williams’ house where the intelligence agents had set up their headquarters. Walking past rows of men and women operating computers, he went into his temporary office and made a secure video call to Henry.

  Henry was sitting scowling at the TV news and he swivelled his chair around to face the monitor. He nodded to Russell. “I’ve been waiting for you to check in. There’s been a God damned leak! Some hunters have been telling reporters how their guns and all the other metal they had with them simply disintegrated. They claim Aliens armed with space guns attacked them.”

  “So what? No one’s going to believe them. What’s the cover story?”

  “A spillage of corrosive gas from a military aircraft. We’ve isolated the area to protect the public. Now listen, Russell, I want that boy. But even more, I want that weapon of his. You’ve got all the men and equipment you need to find him and the girl, so get on it. Use the military, CIA, FBI and anyone else you need, but find the girl before he does. We need her for bait!”

  “She’s changed, Henry. We found a shed skin, and it’s hers. She’s like a damned reptile and just as dangerous. I need a cage made of high tensile steel to be sure of containing her.”

  “Have you any idea where she is?”

  “I know exactly where she is. She’s heading for a motel where Mary Slymond is staying with the woman who helped her escape. Blake’s in one of the two cars heading there to take them out, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the freak will turn up there and, when she does, I’ll be waiting for her.”

  “Who is the woman who helped her escape and why didn’t Jay Williams go with them? Why did she stay behind?”

  Russell shrugged. “I don’t know who the woman is but I think that she went down into the cellar and surprised Nathan. After she’d killed him, she and Mary took off, leaving the freak behind. I’ve told you what happened back at the cabin, when the freak took off with the prisoners in my car. But it doesn’t make any difference. Blake will take out both Mary and her mystery friend. When the freak turns up I’ll see to her personally and dispose of the others. Then all we have to do is to wait for

  Adam to show. Believe me, Henry. I’ll have the area so well covered that even a snake couldn’t wriggle its way out of it.”

  “Forget the cage. Just dispose of Adam and the girl. That’s a priority. We have to silence them. And, Russell, make sure to check that this conversation remains secure.”

  “I intend to. I’ll check back with you later, hopefully with some good news.”

  Henry’s monitor was switched off and Russell closed the link. It was time to get back on the job.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  They had been driving for hours and it was getting dark before Janine pulled into one of the motels that were situated along the freeway. Mary remained in the jeep while Janine booked them in as Mr and Mrs Green, hoping to throw anyone checking the motel for two women off their trail.

  “Mary, we have to decide what you’re going to do,” Janine said after they’d finished their TV

  dinner. “There’s no way of knowing what’s happened to Jay or the others. I’m sorry if I’m being too blunt but, for all we know, they could be dead.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Mary said miserably. “I can’t go home or go to the police. I just don’t know what to do!” She looked at Janine helplessly.

  Janine looked at the wretched girl and swore silently. A few weeks ago, she’d have simply walked away and left Mary to get on with it, but now, somehow, Janine felt responsible for her.

  “Well, we’ll get some sleep and tomorrow we’ll go shopping and I’ll pick you up some hair colour and plain glasses. We’ll try to make you look a little less attractive and then head for New York. We can lose ourselves in the city until we decide what we’re going to do.”

  Mary smiled gratefully and nodded before undressing and slipping into one side of the king-size bed. Within minutes she was asleep, but tossed and turned. Janine guessed that her dreams were anything but pleasant. Standing, Janine stretched and decided that she would have a cigarette and stroll around outside. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while. It was warmer outside than she’d expected and, as she strolled past the other cabins, she heard snatches of conversation from some of them.

  “Please, Marie, you promised!” a man’s voice sounding aggrieved.

  “But I’ve never done that to another girl before…” a young woman said. The crunching of tyres on the gravel parking lot made her step back into the shadows between two cabins. There was no engine noise just the swish of tyres on gravel and then she saw the car, its lights extinguished. A dark shape that looked just as predatory as the shark had, freewheeled down towards the cabin where Mary lay asleep.

  As she ran to the jeep, Janine wondered how they had found them. Unlocking it, she reached behind the driver’s seat and grabbed the pump action shotgun. Without bothering to shut the door, she wheeled round and sprinted after the car, pumping a cartridge into the breach. The car coasted to a stop abo
ut fifty feet from the cabin and about two-hundred-yards in front of her. There was a brief betrayal of light from the interior light as the car door opened and a man holding what looked like a rifle with a bulbous end aimed towards the cabin.

  “No!” she screamed, but even as the cry left her lips there was a muffled explosion and the bulbous thing arced through the air and crashed through the cabin’s window. The cabin seemed to explode in a ball of flame and the man with the weapon lifted his arm to protect his eyes from the heat.

  Raising her shotgun, Janine fired from a distance of thirty feet and the man was hurled forward away from her. Without slowing her pace and ignoring the alarmed cries from the occupants of the other cabins, she chambered another round. She looked into the open passenger door, pointing the weapon at the driver.

  She recognised Blake immediately and he stared at her in surprise and then swung the pistol that he was holding towards her. Janine pulled the trigger of the shotgun and he screamed as his arm was torn off. Blood sprayed the interior of the windscreen. He fell back against the door.

  “Who are you?” he croaked, trying to stem his bleeding with his remaining hand.

  “Janine! You fed me to the sharks, remember?” She chambered another round. His eyes widened in shock. “But you’re dead!”

  “Join the club, Blake,” she said and pulled the trigger.

  * * * *

  Adam waited until the car Jay was in was about five hundred yards away and then stepped into the middle of the road, facing it with his arms folded. The headlights picked him out and he heard the

  car start to slide into a skid as the driver trod on the brakes. Whoever was driving it quickly brought it back under control and it stopped a few yards away.