by Nate Granzow
Clayton slapped his Beretta in Olivia's hand, forcefully adjusted her hand to a proper grip, and flicked the safety off. "All right, she's hot. Pull the trigger until you run out of fun, all right? Just like the movies. But it's only good for targets within about 15 to 20 feet. You, especially being a novice shooter, ain't gonna hit shit beyond that except by accident."
"Hell of a way to learn to shoot," Olivia said, staring at the pistol in her hand.
The others stacked up behind Clayton. Jeremy crossed himself, checked his Cobray's chamber, and crossed himself again for good measure.
"Okay. Let's do it," Austin nodded to the mercenary. The big man relinquished his hold on the door latch, and before it flew open, had swept his rifle to his shoulder and fired twice into the chest of the nearest hekura.
A dissonant chain of gunshots filled the air as the crew opened fire. Christian lunged beneath the fuselage, crawling on his hands and knees toward the spinning propellers. He ripped the first wheel chock from its place under the Skytrain's rubber tire and swung it toward an approaching hekura, striking the beast in the temple and staggering it. Austin, kneeling and firing, placed a round in the creature's neck. The hekura instinctively shoved its chin into its sternum, pinching off the blood flow.
They locked eyes.
The beast held a look of human contempt; even a transformation as drastic as the one the hekura had undergone couldn't mask that glare, that human rage.
The Brit emptied his revolver, the following rounds striking the creature in the torso and lower mandible. The hekura growled angrily as it toppled to the dirt, still holding its chin against its chest.
"Get the other one!" Austin barked to the young man as he snapped open his revolver's action and slipped his last rounds into the cylinder.
Before the Brit could reload, one of the hekura swung its body from atop the Skytrain's wing and dragged him to the ground.
Arms raised defensively, Austin watched the jaws of the beast open, the fetid stench of decay emanating outwards. As the hekura moved to strike, Christian leapt forward, tackling it off of the pilot. His slight frame couldn't hold the hekura down long, and within seconds, the monster had the young researcher pinned to the ground. With a triumphant cackle, it sank its teeth deep into the flesh between Christian's throat and collarbone. Crying out in pain, the young researcher reached one hand toward Austin as the other beat weakly against the hekura's skull.
"Christian!" Olivia cried as she fired the last of the Beretta's magazine into a hekura leaping toward her.
Austin, out of ammunition, grabbed hold of the Webley's barrel, sprinted toward the fallen researcher, and slammed the revolver's steel butt against the base of the hekura's skull, crushing it inward—only the creature's thin skin holding its brain matter in. Christian continued to scream in agony, but his cries grew softer as dark blood pooled under his body.
Kicking the final set of wheel chocks free, the Brit grabbed a fistful of Christian's shirt collar, sodden with blood, twisted, and began dragging him toward the plane's doors—the heels of the young man's shoes scraping shallow depressions in the dirt runway. Olivia leapt aboard, tossing away her empty sidearm as she prepared to receive the young researcher. Clayton and Jeremy emptied the last of their rounds at the still persistently attacking hekura.
Lifting Christian onto his shoulder, Austin shoved him through the plane's doorway and shouted for Clayton and Jeremy to board. Leaping up behind them as the plane crawled forward, Austin suddenly felt his legs pulled out from beneath him, his hands instinctively latching onto the doorframe as his chest clanged against the cargo bay's steel floor.
I'd almost made it, he thought, his heart racing as the pressure pulling him down increased. He could faintly hear the others screaming for him to hold on over the roaring engines and the growing airstream as they accelerated down the runway.
FORTY-SEVEN
Gripping the Englishman's wrists, Clayton planted his feet against the doorframe and leaned back with what little strength he could muster. Olivia stood behind the mercenary, her fingers bound in fistfuls of her hair as she tried to think of a way to help.
Austin glanced down, and through the tears in his eyes brought on by the fast-moving airstream, locked his stare with the hekura pulling him down. An enormous male, muscular arms wrapped tightly around Austin's ankles, dragged its feet on the runway—the friction working against the pilot's hold.
Austin looked up at Olivia and smiled. In all the panic and scrambling to get away, he'd forgotten an important fact: He'd been doomed from the onset. Why had he fought so hard to preserve his life? So he could return home and die in his bed? The end result was the same. His goal had been to get the others out. He'd done the best he could. But the rest, well the rest was strictly gratuity.
The Skytrain lifted off the runway, rising above the trees. Olivia glanced from Austin, his fingers white as they strained to hold on, to Clayton, pulling the Englishman toward him with the last of his strength, to Christian, eyes rolled back in their sockets, his prostrate form covering the steel floor in his lifeblood as his head rocked back and forth with the engines' vibrations. Her eyes finally settled on a survival kit bolted to the back of the passenger seats.
A survival kit would have a flare gun.
Ripping the case open, letting a package of metallic emergency blankets and a wind-up radio fall to the floor, she grasped the unwieldy flare pistol, stuffed a plastic 25mm cartridge in its chamber, and thumbed back the hammer. If she missed, she would strike Austin. But what choice did she have but to risk it? Aiming a little high to be safe, as carefully as the sightless pistol would allow, she squeezed the trigger. The flare burst from the barrel amidst an incendiary eruption, slung through the doorway into the evening sky.
A miss. She hurriedly reloaded the pistol with another flare.
She couldn't afford to miss again. Austin wouldn't be able to hold on much longer.
Thumbing back the hammer, she stepped closer, hair blowing before her eyes as she leaned forward, hand outside the plane, and sighted the pistol on the beast's head.
The hekura clinging to Austin's leg snarled at her, jaws wide, its mouth covered in a fluorescent glow.
The Cyalume of a glow stick.
It was the same beast that had come so close to discovering her and Austin when they'd gone to retrieve the plants. Olivia set her jaw and furrowed her brow. It hadn't gotten them then, and it wouldn't now.
She aimed again, and squeezed the trigger. This time, the flare shot forward and buried itself into the creature's throat.
The hekura clung on for a few seconds—writhing in pain but unwilling to let go as the flame smoldered inside its gullet—before it slid from the Englishman's leg and tumbled into the canopy of trees hundreds of feet below.
Exhilarated by her success, she tossed the flare gun aside and reached down to help Austin into the plane.
He looked up at her, eyes soft. Olivia took his hand.
"Not bad for a green wonk," he shouted, squeezing her fingers together and giving her a knowing wink.
And then he released his grip.
Austin's hand slid through her grasp, his body sailing above the treetops, poised and tranquil as he disappeared into the emerald sea below.
*******
It took a full minute before Olivia realized she was the one screaming. Her mind had stepped away from the scene entirely, leaving behind only reflexive action; hands rubbed raw as she anxiously scraped her palms against the cargo hold's floor. Back and forth, like rocking a sobbing baby to sleep.
He'd just let go.
After everything they'd endured, he'd just let go.
Olivia crawled over to Christian's body and began pushing her palms against her assistant's sternum in staccato pulses. Her efforts were met only by the squish squish of the young man's shirt, soggy with blood.
She couldn't lose him, too.
Clayton, ignoring the scene, stared out the window. The sun had nearly vanished behi
nd the horizon.
"Breathe, damn you." She pinched Christian's nose and forced his lips apart with her other hand as she blew air down his windpipe.
Nothing.
"Please, Christian, breathe," she pleaded, battling the memory of how, only two days before, she'd convinced Austin to let Christian join the expedition. She should have listened to the pilot and forbid her assistant from coming along.
Arms burning as she jammed her palms against Christian's sternum, fatigue eventually forced her to break from her efforts at resuscitation. She stared helplessly at Christian's lifeless form. She'd lost everyone.
"It's the survivors that face the worst of it," Clayton said, his eyes following the camber of the river below. "Christian, the old man, Austin, their pain is done. But it's got to go somewhere. You get to carry their burden now."
"But why? Why'd it have to end like this? My mentor, a father to me, was a fraud. Christian was just starting his life, and he gave it so we could escape. And Austin didn't…he didn't need to—"
Clayton shook his head.
"Austin's the exception. He got exactly what every man of action hopes for: to go out on his own terms. Men like him expect to die in a pile of their own excrement at the bottom of a shell crater, or worse, languishing in their beds, old and feeble. Austin knew he was a dead man before he took one step on this expedition, but he saw to it that you got out of that hellhole alive. His mission was over, and he walked away from the table like a true man." Clayton folded his massive arms before adding, "I'm sorry for your loss, Doctor."
"Insincere bullshit," Olivia choked, staring at the mercenary's back through tear-filled eyes. "You don't care about him, or me, or anyone we left back in that fucking jungle."
Clayton turned and looked at the researcher, his dark eyes empty of emotion as he spoke.
"I came here to kill you, Ms. Dover. If anyone deserved to die out there, it's me. I should never have come back. Your whole crew deserved to live. But you know what? Here I am."
"What's your point?" Olivia asked, her voice low as she rocked back on her heels, wiping her eyes with the back of her blood-covered hand.
As he shifted his stare back to the horizon, the dying sunlight reflected in his eyes, Clayton said, "My point is, Doctor, life's a cruel joke. Some worthless fuckers like me are born lucky and outlive the rest, while good ones who deserve a long life die of childhood leukemia. There is no God. There is no justice. There's only dumb luck. My compassion or indifference doesn't change that."
Olivia found herself at a loss for words, staring at Christian's motionless body. She considered crossing his hands over his chest, or placing his head atop a rolled-up jacket—anything to give her some sense that he was merely resting. She walked toward the cockpit, instead.
Now, she had to figure out how to give Jeremy the news of his friend's death.
FORTY-EIGHT
San Cristóbal, Venezuela
Sipping the lukewarm froth at the bottom of her beer bottle, Olivia nudged her sunglasses to the tip of her nose and waved to Jeremy as he entered the open-air bar, polished shoes crunching on a carpet of discarded peanut shells.
Easing into a seat facing her, the Brazilian flagged down a waitress and ordered a round of beers for the two of them. He unslung the tie from his collar and unbuttoned his white dress shirt. A dusting of short hairs lay on his shoulders; he'd remembered to shave only after getting dressed.
"Looks like you've gotten some sun since I saw you last," he observed.
"Life's too short to spend it all indoors," she replied, rubbing her thumbnail against her bottom teeth as she followed the green verdure besieging clusters of white, tile-roofed buildings into the foothills of tree-covered mountains. San Cristóbal had none of the bustle and urgency of an American metropolis. Even the city's busiest days felt more akin to a sleepy Sunday morning. A pair of children giggled loudly as they ran by, pushing a bicycle too large for either one to ride. The throaty tremble of pigeons pecking food scraps from the concrete and the indistinct dialogue of distant conversations filled the air. "How was the service?" Olivia finally asked.
Jeremy nodded and shrugged. "Beautiful. Candles, Libera Me, prayers, he would have hated it."
Olivia smirked.
She was sorry to have missed the ceremony, but after the emotional drain of the services held for Christian and Henri in recent weeks, she couldn't bring herself to attend. Besides, she had work to do. Work to bring Hygeia to justice for what they'd done. Olivia figured Austin would appreciate that more than paying her respects at a religious ceremony he himself wouldn't have attended.
She glanced at Jeremy as he flicked breadcrumbs, left behind by the table's erstwhile patrons, at the birds. This was the first time they'd sat down together since their return from the jungle. It'd been too hard for the two of them to spend any real time together.
"You said he'd meet us here?" Jeremy asked.
"He called a few minutes ago. He's on his way. In fact…" she glanced over his shoulder, "…that's him now."
A middle-aged man of average height and build, hair the color of straw, and eyes a striking Aegean blue, entered the terrace, stopping at the bar to order a double shot of tequila. At first glance, he appeared a well-dressed American tourist. Further scrutiny painted him as an American tourist who might have started out well dressed several days before, but had then gone on a bender, gotten beaten up, hog-tied, thrown in the bed of a pickup truck, and dumped onto a gravel road.
"Him? That's him?" Jeremy asked, looking back at Olivia skeptically.
"He's very good at what he does."
"He looks like hell."
"You should see me on a Monday," the man said as he approached, glass in hand. "If you can believe it, this is the well-rested version of myself on vacation. I heard they had great cigars down here, but I'm beginning to think cigar was code for something else entirely." Extending his hand to the Brazilian, the man introduced himself. "Grant Cogar, Chicago Herald."
"I've heard good things," Jeremy said, dragging a plastic lawn chair around the table for their guest without leaving his seat.
"You have? Well don't trust the rumors. The majority are completely unfounded," the reporter said.
"You look like you had a rough trip," Olivia said, pointing at a ragged tear in his suit jacket.
"Eh. Let's just say that not all the women here are strictly interested in my charm and good looks. Some really like American wallets. And they have boyfriends with big arms. They like American wallets, too." He turned to Olivia and, spreading his arms, moved in and embraced her. "It's been too many years, lady."
"It has."
"You've changed since I last saw you."
"How so?"
Cogar swept imaginary lines around her face with both hands. "You look confident. Hardened. You remind me of what I looked like the first time I got back from Iraq. Kinda have this thousand-yard-stare thing going on."
"We've both been through a lot since college."
"Life has a funny way of doing that to people." The reporter drew his sunglasses—lenses deeply scratched—from their perch atop his messed hair, folded and tossed them on the table, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and dropped into his seat. "So. You two are gonna bring this Hygeia Pharmaceuticals to the ground."
"That's the plan, yeah," Jeremy said, leaning forward. "We were hoping you were going to help us."
"I'll be honest, this kind of story is outside the scope of what I typically write. But hey, I'm willing to try anything once."
The waitress set a beer in front of Olivia and Jeremy. Cogar stopped her on her way back to the bar and flashed her a winning smile. "I'd like one of those, too. And…" he tossed back the tequila in his glass and handed it to her. "Another of those, when you get a chance."
Olivia withdrew a stack of documents from her bag, the straps wrapped around the leg of her chair to prevent quick-handed purse-snatchers from getting an easy score, and slid them over to the reporter.
"Whe
re'd you find these?" Jeremy asked, stretching his neck to see the photos in Cogar's hands.
"I went through IT's storage closet at the branch. I found an old backup computer that management didn't know about when they went into damage-control mode."
"That's highly illegal," Jeremy said, cracking a broad smile. "Good for you."
Running a hand along the rough stubble of his cheek, Cogar said, "You've got construction-company invoices, a photo of a cold war bunker in, what, Cuba? And you tossed some interoffice email correspondence in for flavor. I'd like to remind you that I flew 2,700 miles to meet you here because you didn't feel comfortable emailing these to me. I'm beginning to think you were a little overcautious."
"It all paints the picture, Grant. That's not a bunker in Cuba, that's the laboratory we found abandoned in the heart of the Amazon rainforest where over fifty Hygeia researchers mysteriously disappeared years ago. The one almost entirely stricken from company records." She lowered her voice. "The one where the hekura were formed."
Cogar winced at the mention of the mutated researchers as though he'd been poked in the eye. He predictably found it a difficult story to believe.
"Plus, we've got Clayton's anonymous testimony about Denver hiring him to kill us, and the obvious: the deaths of our crewmates," Olivia added.
Cogar sighed. "I know you think that's a lot to work with, but it's largely circumstantial. I'll have to argue one hell of a convincing case for this to even see print, and what I've got here…" he slapped the papers with the back of his hand, "…I just don't know if it's enough."
Jeremy looked crestfallen. Olivia didn't blink. She only crossed her sun-bronzed arms and leaned back in her seat expectantly.
Cogar cleared his throat. "But I know you, and I know how bright you are, and I know you wouldn't waste my time with this if it didn't matter."