by Matt Rogers
He snatched hold of the M4A1’s tactical grip with one hand, slicing a finger inside the trigger guard with the other. He recognised his disadvantages — he was effectively operating on one leg, with no understanding of the layout of the top floor.
He had no idea where exactly Forrest would be hiding.
He didn’t know whether there were reinforcements protecting the man.
All in all, a disaster. But Slater figured if he’d come this far, he could manage the final stretch. No matter how dire the circumstances.
Then the elevator arrived at its destination, slotting into place at the top of the shaft with a satisfying click, and the doors whispered open.
And the whole world went horrifyingly mad.
Slater had never sensed animalistic power like this. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled before he even had a proper glance at what lay in front of him. He simply sensed raw strength and sinewy muscle, nothing human. He realised if the elevator hadn’t operated with such pleasant silence, he would have already been dead.
No fucking way, he thought, flabbergasted.
On the steel walkway leading away from the bank of elevators rested a gigantic predator, as tall as Slater and three times as heavy, facing the opposite direction. The beast sat on its haunches, its great back aimed toward him, rising and falling with each panting breath. It was watching, waiting, stalking. Slater stood still as a statue inside the cable car, not daring to raise the carbine rifle in his hands, not daring to do anything but stare in awe at the massive creature.
As his brain started operating again, recovering from the sheer shock of standing in the presence of such a terrifying predator, he connected the dots of what he could see.
It was a lion.
But it was unlike any lion he’d ever seen before.
For starters, the beast sat only a few feet from Slater’s position, so close he could smell its skin. Being in such close proximity to a natural murder machine locked up his limbs, stifling him with terror. On top of that he soaked in the sight of the lion’s hairless body, missing any kind of regal mane or lush golden coat typical of wildlife photos of the predators.
This was a different breed. A less aesthetically pleasing breed.
A savage breed.
Slater realised he had to act only a couple of seconds after the elevator doors swung open. If he remained motionless, frozen in fright, the doors would omit a harsh electronic beeping noise to signal they were about to close. That would put the beast on him in a heartbeat.
He couldn’t fathom the proximity. If he wanted to, he could take a single step forward, reach out, and touch it. But if he moved in the slightest, it would twist on its haunches and launch itself into the cable car, goring him to a bloody pulp in seconds.
You have to do something.
Anything.
Seized by analysis paralysis — something Slater ordinarily didn’t have much experience with — he opted to simply act. He’d made it this far in life operating off instinct, and he feared hesitating would ruin his luck.
Even if every bone in his body screamed to stay completely still.
He knew hell would break loose.
He moved regardless.
In one action he wrenched the carbine rifle up to shoulder height and depressed the trigger, clenching his teeth hard enough to break molars in an attempt to ride out the terror coursing through his body.
Pandemonium struck.
Unsuppressed gunfire erupted, deafeningly loud. At the same time the lion twisted on the walkway at a speed Slater couldn’t fathom, bullets already embedded in its meaty back. He caught a glimpse of wide, gaping fangs and sinewy muscle exploding off the mark before the beast leapt into the elevator, reacting with instinct to the cacophony of noise.
Slater kept firing.
He let the entire magazine unload, round upon round hammering into the hairless lion as it shifted through open space at a dizzying rate. It passed between the doors with a single pounce, lurching off its own momentum. Bullets flew, blood spilt…
…and five hundred pounds of pure unbridled muscle mass hit Slater like a freight train, sending him crumbling off his feet and ricocheting off the rear wall of the cable car.
He lost his footing — and his hold on the M4A1 rifle — which proved useless considering he’d worked the gun dry on the lion. Thirty bullets were embedded in its hide, and the results showed. Instead of leading with its jaws and tearing Slater apart with a single shake of the head, the beast had splayed horizontally across him, treating itself as a battering ram as it succumbed to the laundry list of injuries.
It came down on top of Slater, all five hundred pounds crushing him against the back of the elevator.
His damaged leg screamed in protest, sending a cold bolt of agony up his thigh and through his core. He grimaced as the lion slumped across his legs, pinning him in place. It writhed and bucked in its death throes, bleeding from multiple wounds but hanging on for dear life.
It wouldn’t die quickly.
Slater realised the mortal danger he was in as the lion turned to face him, its bloodshot eyes staring daggers into his soul. Instantly the pain of his leg fell away, replaced by an overwhelming survival instinct.
Still resting on its side, kicking and bucking as it died, it lurched at him. Slater saw a great maw slicing through the air toward him — if he did nothing, the massive jaws would clamp down on either side of his head.
Charged with terror, he shot both hands out and seized each of the lion’s jaws in a powerful grip.
Both parties froze in place.
Slater had never felt strength like this. In a life or death situation he was able to overpower almost any adversary — a lifetime of powerlifting had gifted him with the strength of a bull. But as his veins pumped and the lactic acid burned in his arms and he squeezed with everything he had left in his system, he realised he was fighting a losing battle.
He couldn’t overpower a lion.
Even a dying one, operating at less than ten percent of its usual capacity.
He stared down the beast’s throat, its neck straining as it grunted with exertion. A milky haze had settled over its eyes — death was approaching fast — but it wouldn’t get there in time.
Slater reached the point of failure. His arms buckled slightly at the elbows, relenting as the lion powered its teeth toward him. He sensed a gruesome death bearing down on him and let out a roar of his own, pressing with any reserve he could find within him.
The lion’s jaws slipped back an inch.
It sensed Slater gaining the upper hand and surged forward, unloading all its primal energy into the struggle. Finally, Slater’s arms could do no more. He buckled and collapsed, slumping over as he lost all feeling in his upper limbs.
And the lion took its final breath.
It drooped its head onto his chest, exhaling with the kind of finality Slater had seen hundreds of times before in the men he’d killed.
He’d never quite found himself in a situation like this, though.
The beast faded on top of him, its massive paws going limp, its jaws hanging slack. Slater eyed the sharpened, yellowing teeth inside its gums — only half a foot from his now-unprotected face — and let out a sigh of relief.
He still couldn’t feel his arms.
They’d worked harder than he thought humanly possible to keep the creature at bay.
Working his way free would prove cumbersome. All the crushing pressure of a five-hundred pound monster bore down on him, and as soon as he chose to focus on the situation at hand the pain came screaming back into reality.
His leg was fucked.
To put it mildly.
Ligaments and bones and all manner of juicy tendons in the side of his leg groaned for relief, already injured and pinned in awkward fashion underneath the dead lion.
Slater inhaled sharply to prepare for the agony involved in moving the beast, inch by inch, off his legs. His vision swam — a quick assessment of the situa
tion revealed the M4A1 carbine lying on the other side of the lion’s hulking mass, its magazine empty, a fresh one necessary. Slater had a spare magazine tucked into the belt of his jeans, but without a gun to hammer it into, it proved useless.
He started shifting the lion as best he could, pushing with as much exertion as he could manage against the beast’s stomach…
…and then he froze.
No.
He’d glimpsed it out of the corner of his eye, barely noticeable amidst the shadows draping the other end of the walkway. The path cutting across the vast open space was mostly illuminated by the natural light spearing in through the giant glass-domed roof of the emporium. But a stretch of the steel mesh at the other end hung underneath the lee of a complex constructed in the side of the glass dome, mostly shrouded from the general public’s line of sight but providing a gorgeous sweeping view over both Macau and the emporium itself.
Forrest’s penthouse had to rest within.
There was no other explanation for the strange architectural layout.
But that wasn’t what had seized his attention so abruptly.
Slater stopped moving. He lost all willpower instantly, what little strength he’d been clutching onto sapping out of him in a single moment. He stared straight into the new pair of predatory eyes, wide and menacing and attached to a body just as muscle-clad and destructive as its dead twin’s.
Another lion.
It had noticed him — and it spotted the corpse of its mate, slumped in a bloody heap over Slater’s legs, trapping him in the cable car. It bowed its head and began to stalk, pawing without a peep of sound across the walkway.
Advancing.
Eyes wide.
Gazed locked.
Slater realised immediately he was a dead man.
He could do nothing. The advancing lion was just as vicious as its mate — in fact, even more so. Its muscles swelled with the intensity of an apex predator preparing to strike. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled some nature documentary that said when prey can see the advancing beast, a lion would seldom charge from more than seventy feet away.
Slater figured he had a couple of seconds before the lion broke into an all-out sprint and tore him cleanly in two in his compromised position.
He gave one final heave, wrenching his legs with everything he had left. They barely budged an inch. Pain from his torn ligaments screamed up into his stomach, threatening to bring up the food he’d digested earlier that morning. He slumped back against the wall, panting, sweating, shaking.
The lion crept closer.
He closed his eyes and waited to die.
50
Forrest managed a smirk as he brought up a surveillance feed of Mountain Lion’s lobby on his phone and spotted Jim hustling for the exit as fast as his legs would allow. The man wore simple jeans and a leather jacket, with a faded duffel bag draped over one shoulder.
All his possessions in the world, hanging by a strap.
In some way Forrest envied the man. Jim could disappear and start fresh, worming his way around until the heat died down. Forrest had created something titanic, and he was linked with it. He would go down with Mountain Lion — nothing else was feasible.
Briefly he considered the fact that he could have slipped away. Earlier that morning would have been the ideal time — use his offshore accounts to tuck himself into a third world hole for a few months until he worked up the courage to form a new identity.
But that wasn’t Peter Forrest.
It never had been, and it never would be.
His empire was his life. When it ended, he would too.
He would go out on his shield.
Jim had done his job. It hadn’t taken long to navigate the Tsavo lions onto the walkway — the zookeepers had hurried them along with the use of electric cattle prods, a strangely effective method given they didn’t find themselves in a predicament where they could get attacked. From there they’d left the predators alone, thoroughly confused by Forrest’s demands.
Now, they were nowhere to be seen.
Forrest was alone atop an empire of riches that would soon come crashing down.
He hurried to the viewpoint, in a trance-like state, uncaring about anything except watching the mysterious African-American man get mauled to death at the final hurdle. He gazed out across the walkway — and the vast emporium below — and spotted one of the Tsavo lions resting on its haunches, almost placid, with its back to the bank of elevators. It had chosen the perfect position to rest — any unsuspecting arrivals would be mauled.
What if someone else comes up? One of the staff?
They had no reason to. Forrest hadn’t requested anyone. If they found themselves being gored by a lion it was no-one’s fault but their own. Besides, Forrest had long ago abandoned the idea of remaining morally pure. Killing anyone and everyone had become his bread and butter.
Or, rather, getting his men to do it for him.
Much more effective.
There was no sign of the other Tsavo lion. Forrest imagined it was buried somewhere in the supports underneath him, prowling the darkness, investigating this strange new area.
One of the elevators arrived and the doors opened — Forrest noticed the action out of the corner of his eye. He whipped his gaze around and froze, anticipating madness, drawing every ounce of pleasure and satisfaction out of the situation until the chaos caught up to him.
Gunfire erupted, silhouetting the gigantic beast behind muzzle flashes. Forrest watched in fascination. It was like a horror movie unfolding before his eyes. The lion twisted and pounced, firing like a rocket off the mark as it launched into the elevator.
Then, nothing.
Forrest squinted, but from his elevated position he couldn’t see directly inside the cable car. Nothing happened for a full minute. Cold sweat broke out across his brow.
What the hell’s going on?
He couldn’t fathom the man achieving the impossible. He imagined the Tsavo lion could take a swathe of bullets to the body before it succumbed to pain — and it would have torn the man’s head off by then. The one-way windows running along this stretch of Forrest’s penthouse covered a significant stretch of space. He wondered if he could get a better view in another room.
Moving fast, ignoring the pain coursing through his mangled hand, he hurried through to the next room across. By this point his hand was beyond recovery — he hadn’t received proper medical attention in due time and he’d elected to simply wrap the finger stumps in a bloody cloth. It wouldn’t be long before infection set in.
He didn’t intend to be alive by that point, anyway.
Unless he could pull off a miracle.
He hurried to the far corner of the empty room and crouched down, peering at a new angle along the walkway.
The lion had come to rest on its side, slumped across the same man he’d shared an elevator with earlier.
Just as he suspected.
The guy who had played a major role in bringing his empire to its knees.
Or, in reality, exposing major flaws in the system that Forrest had created himself.
He’d sabotaged himself.
But, as he realised the African-American man was pinned in place, going nowhere, he sensed movement underneath him.
The second Tsavo lion materialised, stalking along the walkway, headed straight for the elevator.
The guy was now unarmed, having exhausted his ammunition.
Forrest grinned maniacally. He forced all thoughts of salvaging the situation aside and focused entirely on enjoying what came next.
You’ve got time, he thought. Get a front seat experience.
His mind racing to the point of delusion, he hurried away from the floor-to-ceiling windows, heading straight for the front door of his penthouse. From there he could navigate to the walkways and hear the sound of the man’s death with his own ears. That would bring him inner peace.
That would be the silver lining for the subsequent coll
apse of his empire.
He hurled the front door open and set off on a mad dash for the grimy concrete stairwell that led to the walkways. He preferred the elevators, but he’d reach the walkways faster taking the manual route, and time was of the essence.
He made it two flights down before he sensed movement directly in front of him. He looked up and jolted in surprise as a tight-knit party of bodies hurrying in the other direction crashed into him. The sharp twists of the stairwell made it easy to tangle up, and Forrest tumbled, dropping hard onto one of the dull concrete steps. He grimaced and reached out a hand to steady himself, barely giving it a second thought.
Wrong hand.
The two stumps where his fingers used to be slapped against the concrete, devolving him into a wreck. He curled into a ball, surrounded by hostile bodies, some of which rained down blows on his exposed liver. He cried out, the confidence sapped from him in a single moment.
Someone had come for him.
This was it.
But who?
The powerfully-built Asian man who reached down and hurled Forrest to his feet with a steady hand sported a familiar face. He thought he would never see the man again. He thought he’d moved on from that part of his life.
He’d thought wrong.
‘What are you doing here?’ Forrest snarled, his pain turning to anger. ‘We settled things. You have my money.’
Jerome leaned in and pinned Forrest against the wall, flecks of spit forming in the corners of his mouth. Surrounding him were five furious triad gangsters, armed with pistols and sub-machine guns and shooting daggers at Forrest from their positions on the stairwell.
‘You thought it would be that simple?’ Jerome hissed back. ‘Fucking me over?’
‘What?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about.’
Forrest couldn’t form a response before Jerome hammered his fist into his gut. He doubled over, coughing, and Jerome backhanded him across the face, knocking a tooth loose. Forrest spat blood onto the stairwell.
‘What do you want?’ Forrest moaned. ‘If you’re here to kill me, just get it over with.’