by Ancestor
Without stopping to think, Magnus crammed himself into the tiny space. He kept the MP5 close to his body and dug with the flashlight butt, a rabid badger clawing for cover amid a shaking strobe light. He had to make enough room to turn around.
Roars filled the cave, their echoes bouncing off the fallen rocks with ear-piercing intensity. Magnus grunted as he curled into a near-fetal position, working himself around. His shoulder and face wedged against the wall, like he was being squeezed by a giant earthen fist. Frozen dirt scraped his cheek raw. He ignored the pain, forcing himself around until he sat on his ass, legs straight out in front of him, the shoulder-high dirt-coffin space forcing his head down and to the left.
An over-wide head shoved into the crawl space, filling it. The mouth gaped but couldn’t open all the way. The upper jaw knocked dirt from the ceiling, the underside of the bottom jaw pressed down against Magnus’s shins and feet, pinning them flat. Hot breath turned to vapor as it billowed out. The shaking flashlight’s beam shot all the way to the back of its throat.
Was that a tonsil?
The thing felt Magnus’s legs beneath its jaw. Teeth snapped as it tried to twist its head to the left so it could bite down on his knees, his thighs.
Magnus fired three bursts. Nine bullets snapped off teeth, ripped into the tongue, drove into the brain. Blood splattered everywhere, on Magnus’s hands, his coat, his legs, even on his face to mix into his own oozing cuts.
The creature made a choking, gurgling noise. Its mouth half closed, revealing wide, black, unfocused eyes. It slid limply from the hole and fell away.
Out in the shaft, Magnus saw another patch of black and white. He fired two more bursts but couldn’t tell if he’d hit anything.
He waited.
No more heads appeared to fill his tiny hole.
Magnus contorted his body and dug a fresh magazine out of his pocket. Slapping it home, he waited for the next attack. But none came.
He’d never really been afraid in combat, but this … this was something else. Fear was no reason to back down, though. If they came again, he’d fight.
There were far less glorious ways to die.
He heard a sound like a body being dragged across frozen dirt, then noises that reminded him of wolves tearing into a deer on some Discovery Channel special.
His back against the end of the crawl space, he pointed the flashlight out, playing it against the far wall. He saw nothing. Whatever was going on out there, it was a few meters away from his spot.
He could hear them back down the shaft, hear their breathing, occasionally hear small whines and growls that could have easily come from big, playful dogs.
The ancestors were waiting. Waiting him out.
Soaked in the blood of his new enemy, Magnus tried to readjust himself, tried to get comfortable. That was the essence of combat—he’d had his abrupt moment of sheer terror, and now, apparently, it was time for the long period of boredom.
If he made it out of this mess, he knew exactly how he’d celebrate—with a little help from his old friend Clayton Detweiler.
6:18 A.M.
GUNTHER PULLED HIS blanket tighter and shivered. This was bullshit. Pure and utter bullshit. He looked out the tower-house windows, unappreciative of the sprawling, predawn view afforded him by the ten-meter-high wooden tower, which itself was perched on a high ridge. He could see almost the whole island—north and south shores each just over a click away, the mansion about eight clicks southeast, North Pointe just under eight clicks northeast.
Floodlights mounted under the tower’s small cabin cast a fifty-meter-wide patch of light down on the white snow beneath. Twenty below zero and he was in a wooden shack with only a piece-of-shit kerosene heater to keep him alive. But still, it was better than being around Magnus.
Gunther looked at the spinning green line on the radar system’s circular screen. He saw the same thing he’d seen for the last five hours: absolutely nothing. He tried to pull the blanket tighter. He’d had it. When he got off this island, he was quitting Genada. Freezing to death, suicides, crazy transgenic shit, Andy “The Asshole” Crosthwaite, freezing to death, sabotage, waiting for the CIA to storm the place, and freezing to death—just not worth it.
The radar unit beeped.
A green triangle now sat at the screen’s outermost circle. Gunther watched as the green line slowly spun around its center point until it hit the triangle and produced another beep. The bogey was approaching from 50 kilometers south.
He picked up the landline phone and dialed the security room extension. It rang. No one answered.
“Come on, come on … where the hell are you guys?”
Wherever they were, it wasn’t near a phone. Magnus had given specific instructions. Gunther’s eyes fell on the button for the old air-raid siren that could be heard anywhere on the island.
He hit the button.
6:20 A.M.
AT JAMES HARVEY’S farm, Colding stood straight up when he heard the siren’s far-off echo. He and Rhumkorrf had been going over their crude hand-drawn map of the island, trying to formulate a battle plan for finding Sara while simultaneously avoiding the ancestors.
Rhumkorrf looked out the window. “What is that sound? An alarm?”
Colding had bandaged the man’s head and hands with some gauze he’d found in a first-aid kit. The gauze covered up Rhumkorrf’s ears, so Colding had taped his glasses onto the gauze with medical tape. Even in these darkest of hours, Colding had to admit that Rhumkorrf looked more comical than ever.
Rhumkorrf had returned the favor, cleaning and dressing Colding’s gunshot wound. Not much more than a scratch, apparently. Considering Rhumkorrf was an actual doctor, Colding assumed he got the better of the exchange.
They listened to the siren for a few seconds, staring off like dogs hearing a distant call, then Rhumkorrf spoke.
“Does this mean we’re saved?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing someone is coming, either an aircraft or a boat. Gunther must not have been able to reach anyone on the phone, so he set off the fire alarm.”
“Wouldn’t he have called the mansion?”
Colding nodded.
“So where’s Magnus? Where’s Clayton?”
“Hopefully Clayton’s not in the same place as Sven and the Harveys.”
The Harveys’ ruined living room and the broken window told the story. There wasn’t much blood, mostly because something had eaten the carpet where the big spots might have been. The few remaining splatters told Colding the Harveys were no more. He’d risked a run out to the barn and seen much the same scene. The Harveys and their cows were now just biomass added to the growing ancestors.
A lone sheet of plywood had been sitting in the living room. Colding and Rhumkorrf had boarded up the broken window, kept all the lights off and stayed as quiet as they could. A brutal night, hiding in the house, wondering if Sara was out there, if she was safe, if she was sheltered from the cold. Searching for her in the dark would have been suicide. The ancestors moved fast, they moved quietly, and their black-and-white fur made for perfect camouflage in the winter night. He’d planned on waiting for full daylight, but the siren changed everything.
“We have to get to the landing strip,” Colding said. “If it’s Bobby coming in, he’ll be in the Sikorski. That’s twelve seats. We can use that to get everyone off the island.”
“The landing strip is two miles away. The ancestors are out there.”
Colding threw on his coat. “So is Sara, Doc. And if we can get that helicopter, we can use it to search for her.”
“Is this the part where you tell me I can stay here if I don’t like it?”
“No. This is the part where I tell you I will beat your ass until you get on that snowmobile.”
Rhumkorrf shook his head and put on his coat.
Colding ran to the door and peeked out—still no sign of the ancestors. Beretta held firm with both hands, he walked off the porch and started the Arctic Cat’s engine.
6:22 A.M.
A NEW NOISE.
Magnus had spent the last seven hours listening to breathing, the rustling of movement and the most disturbing noise of all—the growing rumble of the creatures’ stomachs. So many, blending together, sounded almost like the purr of a huge cat.
The new noise was faint, a far-off sound, something constant that he couldn’t quite make out. The creatures apparently heard it as well, for their hidden rustling sounds increased, faded away, then disappeared.
He waited for five long minutes, but heard nothing other than that far-off drone. He flicked on the flashlight—nothing in the tunnel. Nothing he could see, anyway.
Magnus slowly worked his big body out of the hole, trying to be as quiet as possible. After seven hours mashed into that freezing, confined space, his cramped and sore muscles didn’t want to cooperate. He slid out and almost fell, catching himself clumsily. Crouched low, he aimed the MP5 and the flashlight beam up the tunnel, waiting for the rush of creatures to come tearing around the corner.
No attack came.
Magnus walked quietly to the bend and peeked around it.
Empty.
They had finally given up on him. MP5 still at the ready, he trotted up the shaft. When he reached the entrance, he finally recognized the sound—an air-raid siren.
Oh, no. No-no-no. Bobby Valentine was coming in, and Danté would be with him.
Magnus looked outside. Still dark, although the light of dawn filtered through the woods from over the horizon. Nothing outside the shaft save for trees, and fifty meters away, the Bv206.
He had to warn his brother. Magnus sprinted to the zebra-striped vehicle. His eyes scanned the woods on all sides, but he saw no movement. He jumped in and slammed the door.
An armored vehicle. A defensible position. That gave him a second to think.
He couldn’t call the heli. No radio in the Bv, thanks to his own goddamn security rules. The helicopter would come in, and it would be loud. That noise would probably draw the creatures.
He pulled out Clayton’s keys to start the Bv, then paused. Clayton had keys for every building on the island, including those in the old town.
Magnus turned on the flashlight and set it on the seat. He held the keys in front of the beam and examined them one at a time. Black Manitou Lodge key—tarnished all over. Sven’s hunting shop key, the same. The church key …
… the flashlight beam played off fresh scratches.
Soon, he would deal with them all, with Clayton, with Sara, with Tim, but first he had to get to the landing strip and protect his brother.
6:24 A.M.
SARA POPPED OPEN the trapdoor and climbed out onto the turret, then helped the limping Tim up top. Stars flickered above, slow in relinquishing their place to the oncoming dawn. The noise that had been faint inside the thick church rang loud and clear in the open air.
“An air-raid siren?” Tim said. “What’s up with that?”
“Not sure. But obviously whoever is in that tower wants to let everyone know something’s coming.”
“Or he’s trying to call for help.”
Sara shivered from the cold. “Well, if those monsters aren’t there already, they’ll sure come running. They seem to go after noise. I hope whoever it is moves fast.”
“Unless it’s Magnus,” Tim said quietly.
Sara nodded. If only they could be that lucky.
6:28 A.M.
GUNTHER HELD HIS gloved hands over his ears, but it didn’t do much to stop the ear-piercing siren blaring underneath the small shack. Amazingly, he’d found a way to make his shitty situation even worse.
He forced himself to lower his hands so he could scan the horizon through his binoculars. Far off, he saw a tiny black speck. Bobby’s Sikorski. Bobby didn’t need any help bringing that thing in. Gunther had done his job. Time to head back to the lodge. Time to get warm.
He hung the binoculars around his neck, turned off the heater, walked out of the tiny cabin onto the wooden catwalk and started down the tall ladder. He was three meters from the ground when his eye caught movement from his left. Instinctively, he stopped and looked.
A flashing yellow color, but it wasn’t a light … more like a flag or something, like triangular fabric, lifting up and down in an irregular pattern. It was about fifty meters away, just at the edge of the tower’s cone of light, centered in an odd-looking patch of snow spotted with black rocks.
Holding the ladder with one hand, he lifted his binoculars, leaned out and looked.
Even in the dim illumination cast off by the tower’s floodlights, he saw it. A spear of fear stabbed through his chest. Not a flag in a patch of snow, an animal … a huge, strange-looking, dangerous animal. But what was it? And why was it just sitting there?
He heard movement to his right. Gunther lowered the binoculars and turned.
Another creature running full-tilt in an odd crouch-waddle, like a half-upright Komodo dragon. It gathered and leaped, huge mouth opening wide to reveal rows of long white teeth.
Gunther grabbed a rung with both hands and lifted his legs high.
The creature slammed into the ladder where Gunther’s feet had just been. Wide jaws snapped down just before momentum carried the big body through the ladder, shattering the cold dry wood into a hundred splintery shards. The remaining upper part of the ladder shook from the impact, so hard that it almost flung Gunther free.
The creature fell clumsily into the snow, its monstrous mouth working the ladder’s remnants in short, vicious bites.
Gunther’s legs desperately kicked open air as he tried to pull himself up. The ladder wobbled wildly, accompanied by the sound of grinding, splintering wood. He looked above—the right ladder post had snapped. Only the left one remained fixed to the tower.
More motion from below. The creature seemed to realize it had missed its meal. It violently shook away a mouthful of bloody splinters, then turned and gathered for another jump.
Gunther pulled hard, lifting himself enough to plant his foot on the wobbling ladder’s bottom rung. He scrambled up just before the leaping creature’s jaws snapped on open air.
He climbed, the wood wobbling with each step. His hands grabbed the platform just as the left post snapped loose and the ladder fell away. Feet dangling free again, he kicked them under the cabin, then pulled himself up when his body rocked back. He had to get to the phone.
Down below, the creature roared in frustration, a lonely, deep, guttural sound that echoed off the trees, clearly audible despite the blaring Klaxon. Gunther realized that it wasn’t just one roar. He stopped on the catwalk and looked around.
More creatures, dozens of them, coming out of the woods from all sides like some childhood nightmare, rushing forward with their strange waddling gait. Big as goddamn tigers. They gathered at the tower’s bottom, long claws digging into the wood as they tried to climb up, teeth flashing from mouths as wide and long as a grown man’s chest.
His hands squeezed down on the wooden rail. He took in a deep breath, then let it out. Control. Just another kind of combat, that’s all it was. Had to stay calm, make logical decisions, just like Magnus had taught him.
Whatever the fuck these things were, they couldn’t get to him up here. They couldn’t jump ten meters. He ran inside the cabin, grabbed the phone and hit the page-all button.
The phone rang.
No one answered.
The tower started vibrating under his feet.
Small tremors at first, but after a few seconds he had to put his hand on the wall to keep his balance.
Someone answer, goddamit, answer!
No one answered.
The shaking grew worse.
He set the receiver down, ran back onto the catwalk and looked.
The creatures were attacking the four thick wooden posts that supported the cabin. Biting and clawing, they tore out big, splintery chunks and tossed them aside before coming back for another try. Rough wooden daggers dug into their noses, their
lips, their tongues, coating their black-and-white mouths with fresh spurts of red. Still they bit, they tore, climbing over one another to get at the wood.
Logical decisions didn’t cover this. Nothing covered this. Fear settled into a waiting pattern in his stomach and balls. He was fucked and he knew it. Gunther drew his Beretta and held it, knowing it would do nothing to help him.
The tower lurched to the left, then stopped. Gunther grabbed at the rail in a desperate grip for survival. His bladder let go, the urine a final, brief sensation of warmth amid the bitter cold.
A second post gave way with a resounding snap. The ten-meter tower tilted to the south, slowly at first, but it quickly picked up speed, dropping like a falling tree. Gunther’s scream locked in his throat as the tower slammed into the snowy ground. The cabin shattered, as did Gunther, dozens of bones breaking on impact.
Unfortunately, the fall didn’t kill him.
Groggy but still conscious, Gunther rolled to one shoulder and looked back toward the base of the tower. The crash had broken all the tower’s lights save for one—that last light projected back toward the tower’s base, illuminating oncoming death in a morbid spotlight. They came like a tidal wave, a black-and-white tidal wave with a frothing crest of wide-open mouths and long teeth.
Oh, he wished he could have written that one down … that was the shit right there.
Gunther was too weak to scream as they tore him to pieces.
6:34 A.M.
WITH DAWN BREAKING across the angry waters of Lake Superior and wind whipping across their backs, the Arctic Cat screamed like nature herself. Colding couldn’t believe how fast the machine moved on the open ice—at eighty miles an hour he felt like a cruise missile streaking across the surface.
This open ice hadn’t been there just a few days earlier. Black Manitou continued to grow, reaching out like a spreading stain of white ink.
They had taken advantage of the new ice to circle around North Pointe, searching the snow-covered wreckage dotting the frozen-over Rapleje Bay. No sign of Sara. Now they headed southwest, the coastline passing by quickly on their left. Colding prayed they wouldn’t hit a patch of weak ice; any accident at this speed meant certain death. He wondered if the creatures were somewhere up on the coast, just inside the tree line, watching them.