by Ancestor
When he reached the snowcapped Horse Head Rock, Colding slowed and stopped, taking stock of their tactical situation. Boyd Bay was frozen over all the way out to Emma Island. What had been treacherous, rocky water two months ago was now solid ice. The mansion perched high up on the bluff, looking like some gothic bulwark straight out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
He saw the approaching aircraft. A helicopter. He squinted his eyes against the rising sun … yes, it was Bobby’s Sikorski. Danté could be on it. If Magnus was alive he would surely go out to meet his brother, giving Colding a small window of opportunity to enter the mansion and get heavier weapons—for protection both against the ancestors, and against Magnus. If Andy was alive and staying home, then this would end quickly one way or another.
But what about warning Danté and Bobby about the rampaging ancestors? Danté might have known about the bomb plot. Known, and done nothing to stop it. Hell, Danté himself could have authorized it. But Magnus might have acted alone. If Colding didn’t do something, would two innocent men die? If he did try to warn them, would they kill him? Would Magnus? There were no right answers, and every course of action or inaction led to death.
Rhumkorrf tugged at his shoulder. “Are we going to meet them at the landing strip? They can fly us out of here.”
Colding shook his head. “We’ve got to get some weapons. Those monsters could be anywhere.”
“Which means we have to go up the stairs, on foot, and into the mansion, where Magnus could be waiting for us?”
“Exactly,” Colding said. “So, you ready?”
“I could not possibly be less ready for this insanity. Let’s go.”
Colding waited for Rhumkorrf to squeeze tight, then gunned the engine and shot across the ice toward the shore.
6:41 A.M.
COLDING CRAWLED UP the last few steps. He pointed his Beretta just over the stone patio deck, sweeping left to right, looking for any motion. Would he even see Magnus? The man was so well trained, so dangerous. What about Andy? Had he made it back? And where was Gunther? Whose side would Gun be on?
Colding licked dry lips. No choice. He had to get better weapons, and get Claus armed as well. Colding half stood and walked forward. He heard Rhumkorrf following close behind.
They walked across the porch and into the lounge, Colding leading, Beretta up and at the ready. Moving quickly but carefully, quietly, they worked their way downstairs to the closed security room.
He turned to Rhumkorrf and whispered, “You stay behind me. Keep a couple of feet back. If you see me turn, you run like hell. If you see me fall, you run even harder, got it?”
Rhumkorrf nodded quickly. His taped-on glasses bobbled against his bloody head bandage.
Colding punched in 0-0-0-0, then opened the door to a dark room. He heard a grunt.
Fighting back the fear of an ancestor or Magnus waiting inside for him, he reached his hand in and flipped on the light switch …
… and saw Clayton Detweiler, taped to a metal folding chair that sat in a pool of blood. Colding reached back and grabbed Rhumkorrf, pulled him inside and shut the door. The two men stepped into the puddle of blood to untie Clayton.
“Get him ready to go, fast,” Colding said. He ran to the ammo rack, grabbed a first-aid kit and tossed it to Rhumkorrf.
“This is duct tape,” Rhumkorrf said. “I need a knife.”
Colding tossed him one of the white Ka-Bar boxes. Rhumkorrf started cutting while Colding slid behind the desk and flipped through the security channels. If he could spot Magnus and the others somewhere on the grounds, that would help dictate next steps.
“Wake up,” Rhumkorrf said to Clayton. “Come on, wake up.”
“Wha …?” The old man’s eyes opened, and he blinked a few times.
Colding kept his eyes on the monitors as he spoke. “Clayton, why did Magnus do that to you?”
Clayton coughed, then spit blood on the floor. “Wanted … to know where Sara was.”
The words hit Colding like a boot in the stomach. “Sara’s alive?”
“I stashed her and Tim in da church. I told Magnus she was in da mine, to buy time.”
“Time for what?”
“For Gary,” Clayton said. “My son, he was coming out on da boat. He probably got them and is already back on da mainland. I can call him on da secure terminal, see if he’s back.”
Sara might not only be alive, she might already be off the island.
Rhumkorrf rolled some gauze into a small tourniquet. He looped it around the stub of Clayton’s pinkie. “This is going to hurt very much, yes?”
In response, Clayton grabbed one end of the tourniquet with his free hand, and put the other end between his teeth. He snarled and jerked tight the tourniquet with a grunt of pain and anger. He wiped blood away from his mouth with the back of his good hand, then stood and walked to the desk. “Let me sit down. I’ll call Gary.”
Colding stood and made space, but kept his attention on the video monitors. He saw the Bv206 rolling down the road to the hangar, still about two minutes away.
“Clayton, is Magnus driving the Nuge?”
The old man nodded. Colding looked at the next monitor, which showed the view from the front of the hangar. The Sikorski had landed, its slowing rotor blades still kicking up a cloud of powdery snow.
The helicopter doors opened. Bobby Valentine and Danté Paglione got out and walked to the hangar.
And beyond them, in the woods, small blurs of movement.
Colding switched the view to infrared.
The screen lit up with white blobs that glowed brightly against the cold wood’s gray and black.
“Dear God,” Rhumkorrf said. “We have to help them.”
Colding shook his head, wondering if he’d made the right decision. “Nothing we can do, Doc. Nothing we can do.”
DANTÉ AND BOBBY walked out of the hangar and started up the snowy, one-lane road toward the mansion.
Baby McButter, now 510 pounds and so very, very hungry, sat quietly and watched her prey.
She and the others had heard the noisy thing up in the air, stalked it from the cover of the trees. They saw it coming down, saw where it might hit the ground. Baby McButter knew prey liked the open areas, so that is where her pack mates waited.
The other animals, the bigger ones, those had been easy to take down. But the tall, thin ones … they could be dangerous. They had a stick. A stick that could kill.
She and her siblings had learned not to rush in when they smelled the stick. They had a new way to hunt, a patient way.
Baby McButter softly flicked her dorsal flap three times, signaling to the others. Saliva welled up in her mouth and dripped onto the snow. Small whines escaped her closed mouth.
Whines of hunger.
MAGNUS KEPT THE gas pedal flat on the floor. The Bv could not go fast enough. Down the hill at the end of the narrow, snowbank- and tree-lined road, he saw the Sikorski’s rotor blades spinning down. And walking away from the hangar, Bobby Valentine and Danté.
His brother.
His only family.
“Come on, come on!” All the yelling in the world wouldn’t make the Bv206 move any faster.
DANTÉ STRODE UP the trail toward the mansion, Bobby Valentine at his side. Up ahead, Danté saw Clayton’s snow-plow machine plodding down the road.
“Not exactly a hero’s welcome,” Bobby said. “Clayton’s shit-mobile. I would have thought Magnus would be here with the Hummer.”
Danté said nothing. In all his life, he had never been this angry. The hangar was empty. The C-5, gone. Magnus had defied him, moved the lab. The wonderful project was over. Raw fury blurred Danté’s concentration.
He felt a hand on his chest. Bobby had reached back in warning, his eyes focused up the trail. Danté followed Bobby’s gaze. About ten meters ahead, something was lying half buried in the roadside snowbank. Something black and white. One of the cows? It moved slightly, with the small motions of an injured animal. The snow all aro
und the animal was churned up and lumpy, beaten down to the ground in some places, in others still a meter deep. It looked like the animal had been on the losing end of a fight.
Bobby took one cautious step forward, looked hard, then backed up. “Get to the chopper, and move slow, ’cause that sure as fuck ain’t no cow.” He reached into his leather flight jacket and drew a pistol.
Then Danté made the connection. Cow skin, sure, but the head was too big, too wide. And the body, all muscular, narrow hips …
… narrow, like a Synapsid.
“It’s an ancestor,” Danté said. “Rhumkorrf … he did it.”
Years of work, billions of dollars, and they had finally pulled it off.
They had won.
Spellbound, Danté walked toward his creation.
Bobby’s hand on his chest again, stopping him. “Boss, no way, back to the Sikorski, right now.”
Danté blinked, looked at Bobby, then at the creature. The huge, powerful creature. Yes, maybe the helicopter was the best place to be.
“Okay,” Danté said. He turned to walk back.
The snowbanks exploded in a cloud of white. Seven huge creatures erupted out of them like demons spawned forth from a frozen hell.
Bobby reacted quickly. He brought his gun up to fire at the closest creature, but it lashed out with long claws that slid through Bobby’s neck like knives through a balloon filled with red water. His severed head flipped through the air and landed at Danté’s feet. Before the decapitated body could fall, two of the creatures opened their huge mouths and lunged. One creature bit into the midsection. The other clamped its jaws high on the chest. Both yanked savagely, tearing Bobby in half just below the sternum. The first creature violently shook its bloody mouthful, making Bobby’s dangling legs flop like those of a cloth puppet. Danté saw internal organs fly through the air. Some landed on the ground, some were caught in mid-arc by the other creatures.
Danté turned and sprinted back down the road.
“NO, FUCK NO, fucknofuckno!”
Just a few hundred yards from the landing strip, Magnus watched the creatures bound after his brother.
COLDING WATCHED THE infrared monitor. The white glow of several huge creatures broke out of the dark-colored woods on either side of the narrow road.
They chased another white blur … a human-shaped one. Danté Paglione.
Rhumkorrf’s small fist, the one that wasn’t frostbitten, lightly punched the desktop over and over. “What have I done? What have I created?”
The first white blur picked Danté off in midstride. For just a moment, the blurs of predator and prey merged, becoming one on the screen. Danté’s blur, minus a leg, cartwheeled through the air, a trail of heat-white arcing from the new stump. Like a receiver and a defensive back going for a wounded-duck pass, two of the creatures leaped and caught him before he hit the ground. They jerked their heads, tearing the man apart. Three more animals smashed into the glowing white pile and joined the feeding frenzy.
Just like that, Danté was gone. The pack of monsters sprinted to the Sikorski, surrounding it, noses to the ground.
Rhumkorrf kept pounding the desk. “What have I done?”
Colding switched back to normal vision. The Bv206 had stopped. It stayed still for just a couple of seconds, then turned left, slowly driving down the road that led to the rest of the island, to the old town.
The road that led to the church.
“Clayton, tell me you reached Gary.”
“He’s not answering, eh? I don’t think he made it back to da mainland. I gotta find him.”
Colding turned to Rhumkorrf. “Bobby’s helicopter, you can fly that thing, right?”
Rhumkorrf nodded.
On the monitors, more ancestors trotted out of the woods to join Danté and Bobby’s killers. They surrounded the Sikorski. Colding counted at least thirty of them. The stocky animals sniffed around, dorsal fins twitching up and down. Then, as a group, all their heads turned to look down the length of the landing strip.
Colding switched to a wider view. At the edge of the long, curving strip stood a black dog, left leg held up as if it were hurt, its body shaking with the intensity of its repeated barking.
Like a perfectly trained army, the creatures took off as one unit, sprinting toward Sven Ballantine’s dog.
Mookie’s body convulsed with one more round of barks, then she turned and ran into the woods at the strip’s northeast end. The creatures lumbered down the same curving strip that had once handled the C-5’s landing and takeoff. They followed Mookie into the dense trees.
Colding knew they might not get another chance at the helicopter. “Clayton, we’ve got to move, you good?”
“Good enough. Let’s get to da church. Maybe Gary is there with Sara, and if not we go from da church to da harbor.”
Colding shook his head. “No, you’re going on the helicopter with Rhumkorrf. I can’t trust him not to take off on us. Sorry, Doc, but I can’t.”
Clayton reached up and grabbed Colding’s arm. “That motherfucker Magnus cut off my fuckin’ finger and he could be going after my son. I’m taking one of those guns, and I’m going to kill that big bastard. You got that, Colding?”
Colding looked into the older man’s eyes, saw fury, hatred, stubborn determination.
“I won’t run,” Rhumkorrf said. “I … I swear it. This is my fault, everyone is dead because of me. I swear, P. J., I won’t leave you.”
Colding looked at Rhumkorrf. The scientist had a pleading expression on his face. He seemed desperate for at least some shred of redemption. Could he be trusted? Colding looked back at Clayton and knew that he didn’t have a choice.
“All right, Clayton. But you fall behind and you’re on your own. This isn’t some story you made up about bow hunting with Charles Bronson or whatever, and I won’t die because you can’t keep up.”
“Fair enough. But I don’t know why you’re babbling on about Charles Bronson, never met da guy.”
Colding grabbed the British SA80 assault rifle. He stuffed five full magazines in his snowsuit pockets.
Clayton held up one of the Uzis. “This will do just fine. Me and Charlie Heston used to shoot these back in da seventies.”
Colding took a Beretta 96 from the rack, loaded a magazine and handed the weapon to Rhumkorrf. “You know how to use that, Doc?”
Rhumkorrf looked at the pistol. “I would imagine I point the small end and pull the trigger.”
“Yeah, and if it’s one of your monsters coming after you, you keep on pulling it till the slide lock’s empty, got it?”
Rhumkorrf’s eyes filled with a sick fear, but he nodded.
Colding looked at the rack, then slipped out of his snowsuit. He grabbed a bulletproof vest and threw it to Clayton, then put the second one on himself. He pulled the snowsuit back on, feeling bulky from the thick vest. He had weapons, some protection, a vehicle—what he didn’t have was time.
“All three of us will ride the snowmobile to the helicopter. Doc, you take the helicopter up. Maybe the noise will draw the ancestors, give Clayton and me a chance to reach the church before Magnus does. Look for me to wave you down after we kill Magnus. You land by the well. Remember, we won’t have much time before the monsters come, so be ready to take us up right away. We lift off and head for the mainland.”
“That plan is fucked,” Clayton said.
“You got a better one?”
Clayton shook his head.
“Then let’s move.”
All three men ran out of the security room.
6:49 A.M.
MAGNUS PARKED THE Bv206 behind the abandoned log lodge, putting the building between himself and the church. He shut off the engine and hopped out, the MP5 slung over his shoulder.
He was alone.
All alone.
And Sara Purinam was to blame.
If she’d flown the plane like she’d been ordered, blown up over the water, then the ancestors would have died … and Danté
would still be alive.
He’d never really known loss before. Dad had died, but Dad had been old, with a bad heart. Magnus had years to mentally prepare for that. This … his brother, his only family. Magnus could have never prepared for this pain, for the anguish that tore through his very being. He hurt, and in a way physical pain had never affected him.
Sara. All her fault.
He hadn’t seen any ancestors following him, but that didn’t mean they weren’t coming. He’d driven slowly at first, hoping the engine would be quiet enough to avoid drawing their attention. But after a quarter kilometer, he’d opened it up, pushing the Bv to top speed. Had they heard it? He didn’t know. If they had, it would take the creatures at least ten minutes to run from the hangar to here, if they sprinted all the way.
He had enough time to do what needed to be done.
He took a long, 360-degree sweep of the area. No movement. The church was only about 50 meters from the lodge.
Time to get yours, cunt.
“OH NO.” SARA crouched lower in the tower, just her eyes peeking over the stone wall. “Tim, keep still, I think that’s Magnus.”
Tim slowly moved to the edge of the bell tower and looked. “Oh fuck. He’s coming for us. He’s coming this way! Shoot him!”
Sara felt Tim’s fear, empathized with it because she felt the same thing. The killer strode across the town circle, calm as all get out. His hands held a submachine gun. The morning sun blazed off his bald head. Dirt and bloodstains coated his clothes.
Blood from who?
If Magnus didn’t see her up here, she’d get at least one clean shot before he could react. One shot, with a pistol, from almost four stories up, while her hand shook from the subzero cold.