by Bryan Dunn
“Okay, sit tight. I’m coming down.”
“Hang on, Doc,” Willie said, sweeping past him. “I got this.”
Before Nick had a chance to protest, Willie dropped into the fissure and, using his hands like a professional climber, worked his way down to Ray.
Willie stretched out an arm. “Give me your hand.” Ray reached up, took Willie’s hand, and Willie pulled him to his feet.
“Thanks, man,” Ray said and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Okay, I’m going to boost you up to this rock ledge, then we can get you out of here.”
After Ray was safely up and out of the fissure, Willie was about to boost himself up and climb out when he saw something glinting out of the corner of his eye. A shiny object caught by his helmet lamp.
Willie released his grip on the wall, pointed his light at the object, and there, sitting in a corner of the fissure, was a tiny set of needle-like teeth.
I’ll be darned, Willie thought and reached down and picked them up.
Nick knelt by the edge of the fissure and called to Willie, “Here, grab the handle of the net. I’ll haul you up.”
“Hold up, Doc, I found something.” Willie slipped the teeth into his shirt pocket, boosted himself up the wall, grabbed the net, and, with Nick pulling, scrambled out of the fissure.
Willie fished the teeth out of his shirt pocked and held them out for Nick to see. “Looky here, Doc; look what I found. A perfect little set of baby teeth.” As he went to hand them to Nick, one of the razor-sharp teeth punctured Willie’s thumb, causing him to drop the teeth. “Damn, those are sharp son of a bitches.” Willie looked at his thumb and saw a crimson bead of red form on the tip. He pressed it against his shirt to stop the bleeding, but as he stepped forward to retrieve the teeth, he froze in mid-stride.
“Willie? What is it?” Nick said.
“Something…wrong,” Willie said, his eyes filled with panic. “Oh God…”
“Willie,” Ray said, moving up to him just as Willie’s body was wracked by spasms, then went rigid and crumpled to the ground.
“Jesus,” Nick said as he and Ray huddled around Willie. “Willie, what’s wrong?”
Willie didn’t speak. His eyes just stared up at them, his face a cement mask. “Can’t move,” he said after a long moment. Then he whispered, “Scared.”
Nick and Ray exchanged a ‘what the hell’s going on’ look. Nick put a hand on Willie’s shoulder and in a reassuring voice said, “Hold on, Willie. We’re going to get you out of here.” Nick lifted Willie’s hand, examining the wound, but there wasn’t much to see. Just a smear of blood next to a tiny pinprick.
Ray went to where Willie had dropped the teeth. He removed a glove from his pack, slipped it on, carefully retrieved the teeth, and held them up to his eyes for a better look.
He’d never seen anything like it. It was a complete set of upper and lower teeth. There were incisors and canines and molars for ripping and chewing, but there was something else, too, something completely astounding. Next to each incisor was a hollow fang.
Weird.
“Man, you’ve gotta see this,” Ray said. He held the teeth up to Nick. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Ray handed Nick his other glove. Nick slipped it on and took the teeth, cradling them in the palm of his hand and spotting the teeth with his headlamp.
“Remarkable,” Nick said, tilting his hand for a better look. “Teeth like a omnivore; fangs like a viper.”
“You were right,” Ray said. “Your gut rates. The creature is in the cavern.”
“Is or was?”
Ray thought about that, and then he said, “Baby teeth—that’s what Willie said when he found them.
“We don’t know that,” Nick said, trying to bring things down a notch and get the focus back on helping Willie.
“It’s growing,” Ray said. “You saw the footprint under the deer.”
“Stay cool.” Nick turned to Ray. “Give me your glove.”
Ray stripped off the glove and handed it to Nick. Nick took the glove, carefully wrapped the teeth in it, stepped around Ray, and tucked them into the rear cargo pocket of Ray’s pack.
“Wait—stop. Why do I have to carry the creepy teeth?”
Nick zipped the back of the pack and said, “Ray, just come on, will you? We’ve got to get Willie out of here.”
Ray shook his head and took one of Willie’s arms, and as they lifted him to his feet, Ray said, “What if I trip and fall and the teeth puncture my back?”
Nick gave him a ‘man up’ look, gritted his teeth, and said, “Ray…”
“Okay, okay, I’ll carry the killer teeth.” Working together, they looped Willie’s arms over their shoulders, faced the entrance, and slowly began to make their way back to the surface.
Chapter 20
Nick pushed the Land Cruiser as fast as he dared as they raced toward the setting sun. Willie had been laid across the backseat, his legs and chest secured with seatbelts.
Nick dug his cell phone out of a pocket, handed it to Ray, and said, “Call Salt Springs Hospital. Tell them we’re coming in with an adult male who’s received a venomous bite and is going into anaphylactic shock. The number’s in my emergency contacts.”
Ray took the phone and found the number. Just as he was about to call, he stopped, turned to Nick, and said, “Um, what if they ask what bit him?”
Nick looked at Ray and said, “Tell them it was a snake. But we’re not sure what kind.”
“Yeah, an alien snake,” Ray murmured and dialed. When someone picked up, he told them exactly what Nick had said. When he was finished, he leaned around his seat to check on Willie, hoping there might have been some improvement in his condition, but saw that he was just the same: still unconscious, except for his eyes—they remained creepily open, staring up at nothing.
Ray dropped back into his seat, turned to Nick, and in a low voice, he said, “God, you know what he looks like? He looks like that deer.”
Willie’s words hung there in the silence of the cab. Nick tightened his grip on the wheel, mashed his lips into a thin line, and pressed harder on the gas, praying they wouldn’t run out of time.
* * * *
A half hour later, Willie was strapped to a gurney inside the Salt Springs Hospital Emergency Room. An oxygen mask covered his face and a cardio crash cart stood at the ready.
Nick, Ray, and Willie’s partner from the mine, Lucas, watched as a nurse started a saline drip and Dr. Manus, the emergency room physician, inserted a needle into Willie’s arm, giving him an injection of antibiotics.
Slade, who’d been hovering in the background, stepped up to the gurney and asked, “What do you think, doctor? Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“It looks like some sort of poisoning. A neurotoxin, maybe.” Dr. Manus removed Willie’s oxygen mask and pushed his lips apart, exposing his teeth, which were smeared with blood from his bleeding gums. He lifted Willie’s hand and examined the puncture wound on his thumb. “Bleeding gums and the swelling on Mr. Clayton’s finger are consistent with some sort of envenomation—a viper, perhaps, or possibly some sort of venomous insect.”
Dr. Manus lowered Willie’s hand, turned to Nick, and asked, “Are you sure you can’t provide any more information about what might have happened to Mr. Clayton?”
Nick looked from Willie to Dr. Manus and could feel Slade’s eyes boring into him. Slade had cornered him when they’d arrived at the hospital and had warned him not to mention anything about the creature, that this was bigger than one man’s life.
Nick glanced at Slade, then turned to Dr. Manus and said, “Sorry, doctor. He was like this when we got to him. And there was no sign of a snake or anything else that might have bitten him.” Nick turned back to Willie, hating himself for lying, hating himself for playing along with Slade.
Dr. Manus repositioned the oxygen mask over Willie’s mouth. “Under the circumstances, Mr. Clayton’s vital signs are surprisingly good. Pulse and respi
ration are normal. Blood pressure is elevated, but that’s to be expected with poisoning. What’s got me confused is the paralysis.” Manus turned to Nick and Ray. “You’re positive Mr. Clayton didn’t experience some sort of bodily trauma? A fall of some kind?”
“Yes. We’re positive,” Nick said. Ray, who was standing next to him, nodded in agreement.
“Maybe it’s just shock,” Lucas said, his voice filling the ER as he gave Dr. Manus a hopeful look.
“I thought about that,” Manus said. “It’s possible. But it’s just a guess.”
Dr. Manus moved to a cart, grabbed a bag filled with clear fluid, hooked it to the stand next to the gurney, and then fed it into the drip line attached to Willie’s arm.
“I’m starting an antivenin drip. I’m going to recommend that Mr. Clayton be flown to Houston first thing tomorrow for a complete neurological examination.”
Lucas stepped up to Willie and placed a hand on his arm. “I’ll stay with him tonight. I called Emmett—Willie’s daddy. He’s on his way in from a fishing trip. He’ll be here as soon as he can.
Chapter 21
Two hours later, inside the NASA field lab, Nick and Slade were viewing an X-ray image of the teeth, which had been clipped into a wall-mounted view box.
“Those are fangs, all right,” Slade said. “Completely hollow. Perfect for inoculation.”
Nick pointed to a place on the X-ray and said, “Look—you can see that the fangs are connected to a canal that must’ve lead to some sort of venom gland.”
“Venom,” Slade said, turning to Nick. “It has to be. That has to be what got Willie Clayton.”
“Envenomation of neurotoxins has two big advantages: you don’t need to run prey down to kill it, risking injury, and it allows the predator to hunt much larger game than itself.”
“God,” Slade said, glancing back at the image of the teeth. “I can only imagine what that animal might be.”
Behind them, Ray entered the lab carrying a wire cage with a mouse huddled in one corner. “What did I miss?”
Slade pointed to the X-ray. “We were just wondering about this thing’s diet.”
Ray handed the cage to Nick, stepped up to the view box, and, after a silent pause, said, “Its diet? Well, we can put a check next to ‘middle-aged men’ and ‘mule deer.’ Oh, and possibly dogs—German shepherds, to be exact.”
Nick placed the cage on a lab bench next to the glass dish containing the creature’s teeth. Sitting in a tray next to the teeth was a syringe with a long, flexible needle.
Nick grabbed the syringe and ran the tip into one of the hollow fangs. He opened the cage, removed the mouse, pricked it in one of its haunches, then returned the mouse to the cage.
“The guys in maintenance aren’t going to like this,” Ray said as they watched the mouse wobble into a corner, fall on its side, and begin to involuntarily shake as its body was wracked by violent spasms. A few moments after that, the mouse lay motionless on the cage floor—completely paralyzed, but still alive. “That’s their mascot.” A second later, Ray corrected himself. “Was. Was their mascot.”
“I’ll handle maintenance,” Slade said, his eyes glued to the mouse as he fingered an e-cigarette out of his pocket and fit it between his lips.
Nick took the glass dish containing the teeth, slipped it into a metal cabinet, and locked the door, dropping the key into his pants pocket. “I told Lucas I’d stop by the hospital in the morning before Willie is flown to Houston. Then we need to get to the cavern and find that creature. Lucas has agreed to help with the search. He’s going—”
“What?” Slade said, stepping up to Nick. “I specifically told you to keep this in-house. Just the three of us.”
“Listen, if that thing is still in the cavern, we’re going to need help finding it. We’re going to need specialized gear. Lucas can get us that gear—stuff they use to work the mine. He also volunteered to help with the search. Lucas was practically born underground. He knows his way around caves and tunnels. We need his expertise. We need his help.”
“Okay,” Slade said, after a long pause. “But just him. I want to keep this contained.” He loosened his tie, moved to the door, and added, “Oh, and I’m going with you. I’ll meet you here at the lab first thing in the morning. Then we can go to the hospital, and after, on to the cavern.”
* * * *
Around midnight, inside the lab’s sample storage room, Nick came out of the vault carrying a grapefruit-sized rock and placed it on the floor in the middle of the lab. Similarly-sized rocks surrounded him in all directions.
Standing next to a workbench a short distance away was a sledgehammer, its yellow handle glowing in the dimly lit room.
Nick went over to the sledgehammer, gripped the handle with both hands, and moved back to the rocks, positioning himself in the center of them. He drew a deep breath, raised the sledgehammer over his head, and brought it down on one of the rocks as hard as he could. Boom. The rock shattered, exploding in all directions. The thump of the sledgehammer ran through the soles of his shoes and echoed up the length of his spine.
Nick blinked away a line of sweat and mopped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked down and stared in disbelief at what he saw.
There, lying amidst the rubble, was an ovoid pod exactly like the one he’d found in the Spur Crater lunar sample.
Impossible.
He wheeled toward another rock, raised the sledgehammer, and brought it down with a bang. The rock exploded and broke apart, and another pod rolled free. Jesus Christ, no. This can’t be happening.
With sweat streaming down his face, he drove the sledgehammer down onto another rock and exposed yet another pod . No! Then, in a manic fit of terror, he turned on the other rocks, smashing and breaking them apart, not stopping until the floor was covered with the alien pods.
Stunned, he released the sledgehammer, letting it slip through his fingers and drop to the floor. His hair was matted with sweat and the front of his shirt covered with a dark U-shaped stain. He turned in a slow circle, staring in horror at the pods that surrounded him.
He lunged forward, grabbed one of the pods, and held it up to his eyes. As the pod settled in the center of his palm, a thread of smoke rose from one end, curling into the air in front of his face. Then the pod began to sizzle.
Shocked, he released the pod and let it fall to the floor. He stumbled back, and another pod began to smolder and sizzle. And then they were all melting. The sizzling became louder and louder. Nick clamped his hands over his ears, trying to stop the horrible, piercing sound. He lurched for the door, slipped, lost his footing, and landed next to an opening pod.
He began to shake, his body wracked by involuntary spasms. The sizzling became louder and louder. He felt something clamp onto his shoulder.
“Nick. Hey, Nick. Wake up.” Ray gave his shoulder another shake and then leaned down and waved a steaming cup of coffee under Nick’s nose.
Nick’s eyes sprang open. The smoky steam from the coffee swirled around his face. He jerked back from the cup, realizing that it was morning and he was in his office. He’d been asleep on the couch having a dream. Jesus.
He fell back on the couch. Thank God—thank God it had just been a dream. He rubbed his face and blinked his eyes and looked up at Ray.
“Take it easy,” Ray said. “It’s just a cup of coffee.”
“Christ, I was dreaming.” Nick rolled up into a sitting position. “Some crazy nightmare.”
Ray thought about that and said, “Can’t be any worse than the one we’re living.”
Chapter 22
Willie Clayton lay in the hospital bed, motionless, eyes taped shut, limbs still frozen and useless. Dr. Manus checked Willie’s vital signs and then moved to the foot of the bed. He pulled back the covers, exposing Willie’s feet. He removed a ballpoint pen from his coat, pressed it against Willie’s right heel, and ran it up the center of his foot. Manus watched as Willie’s big toe turned upwards in response to the sti
mulus, indicating some sort of paralysis or brain damage.
Manus covered Willie’s feet, and as he went to check on the saline drip, the door swung open and seventy-year-old Emmett Clayton swept in.
“Can I help you?” Manus said, staring at the barrel-chested Texan.
Ignoring Manus, Emmett strode to the bed, looked at Willie, then turned to the doctor. His creased face looked like an old pair of boots that had been dried in front of a fire too many times. He said, “What’s wrong with my boy?”
“We’re not sure, mister, ah—”
“Clayton. Emmett Clayton.”
“We’re not sure, Mr. Clayton,” Manus said, stepping away from the IV stand. “We’re still trying to figure out what exactly poisoned your son.”
Emmett reached down and put a hand on Willie’s forehead. “Oh Lord, boy. You look all fuzzled up.”
Dr. Manus was about to explain to Emmett that it looked like some sort of neurotoxin when Lucas, Nick, Slade, and Ray poured through the door.
“Lucas,” Emmett said, relieved to see him. “What happened? What happened to Willie?”
Before Lucas had a chance to speak, Slade stepped up and said, “We don’t know.”
Emmett stared at Slade, taking in his slicked back hair and unnaturally white teeth. “Who are you? I don’t know you.” Emmett turned to Nick and hooked his thumb in Slade’s direction. “Who is this, Nick? Who is this dude?”
“This is Mark Slade,” Nick said, trying to calm Emmett. “My boss.”
“Lucas said you were down there—that you were in the cavern when Willie got sick.” Emmett gave Nick a searching look. “Lord, son, what happened down there?”
“We can’t say,” Slade said, shouldering in front of Nick.
“Wait,” Nick challenged, “he deserves to know.”
“You’re goddamned right I do,” Emmett said.