Hawkins grinned, thankful for Bray’s humor. “Let’s hope they haven’t had too much fiber.”
Bray stepped through the gate. “You know that’s like all they eat, right?”
Hawkins stepped through and latched it behind them, but it didn’t feel like enough. If that croc was out for revenge, it might be able to make short work of the fence. Alligators in Florida seemed to work their way into people’s backyards, pools, and houses without too much trouble.
Despite Bray’s request that they join them, Hawkins wasn’t quite ready to face whatever waited inside. The adrenaline rush of his brush with death still had his muscles twitching. He was on edge and didn’t feel ready to deal with more disturbing revelations. He strolled out into the field with Joliet at his side. He closed his eyes and turned his face skyward, absorbing the sun’s warmth on his face. Relax, he thought, let the tension go.
“We’ve been spotted,” Joliet said.
Hawkins opened his eyes and saw the goats staring at him. One by one, they trotted up to Hawkins and Joliet, sniffing, licking, and bleating. And then, as though satisfied with their inspection, the animals went back to their ignorant lives.
“Starting to wish I could trade spots with the goats,” Hawkins said. He was starting to feel a little more like himself, but his foot struck something hard. He winced and hopped away.
“What happened?” Joliet asked.
“Stubbed my toe,” Hawkins replied while he looked for what he’d kicked. He expected to find a rock, but instead found a cylindrical concrete tube sticking out of the ground. It stood only an inch taller than the grass and was six inches in diameter. He knelt down to look at it.
“What is it?” Joliet asked.
Hawkins shrugged. “No idea.”
Joliet pointed to the grass around them. “There’s more.” She walked in a circle, pointing and counting. “Eighteen of them. Looks like they’re arranged around that divot.”
Hawkins hadn’t noticed the divot. Concealed beneath a layer of grass, the five-foot-wide indentation was hard to spot.
“There are three circles,” Joliet continued. “Each one a few feet farther away from the center.”
Hawkins was about to say he’d rather not know what this spot had been used for when Bray spoke.
“The concrete cylinders were for replaceable wooden posts. They made them that way because the explosions sometimes broke the posts. So they used strong bases and made the rest replaceable.”
Hawkins cringed when Joliet asked, “What explosions?” He didn’t want to know.
“Bombs,” Bray said. “And grenades. Chemical agents. Biological, too. They bound test subjects to posts at varying distances and then detonated the explosives. The few who survived with nonlethal shrapnel wounds would be operated on and saved. The rest went to the morgue for dissection. They were the lucky ones. The people who survived would be experimented on again.” He turned toward the building. “There’s more inside.”
Hawkins felt the blood drain from his head. More. God, could it really get worse?
“Don’t really want to see more,” he said. He wasn’t sure if it was from the knowledge of what went on here or from the adrenaline wearing off, but he felt queasy.
“I don’t want to be here any more than you,” Bray said. “But I know way more than I want to right now, it’s scaring the shit out of me, and I need someone to help make sense of it. Besides, know your enemy, remember?” Bray said.
Hawkins took a deep breath. Bray was right. “Okay, Sun Tzu, point taken. Just give me a minute. Why don’t you go in with Eight,” he said to Joliet. “Check on Drake.”
Joliet began to protest. “But—”
“I need a minute to think,” he said. “Just leave the rifle with me.”
Joliet took the rifle from her shoulder and handed it to Hawkins. “You’re not thinking of heading out on your own, are you?”
He shook his head no. “Impulsive, dangerous decisions are more your style than mine.”
She smiled and headed for the door.
“If you spot anything,” Bray said, “or need help, fire off a shot and I’ll come running.”
“Somehow that’s not comforting,” Hawkins said.
Bray didn’t smile. “I’m serious, Ranger. We’re going to be lucky if we get off this island alive. You know that, right? Half a day and we’ve nearly been killed how many times?”
“I know,” Hawkins said. “This place is wicked scary.”
Bray couldn’t help smiling in the face of Hawkins’s mimicked Massachusetts accent. “Bastard.”
“I’ll be fine,” Hawkins said as Bray headed for the open door. Bray gave a wave over his shoulder and retreated to the building.
Alone, Hawkins turned and looked at the rings of cement post braces. He knelt down and looked into the top of the nearest hole. Two feet down, water reflected the blue sky above. He suspected the hole was at least another two feet deep—deep enough to securely hold a post and the struggling person bound to it. But that’s not what had him on edge. After just a few years of disuse, the hole should have been filled with dirt and debris. This only held rainwater. And that meant someone was maintaining the site. The building had clearly been abandoned, but the ring was being maintained, as was the fence gate, and the goats with their bright red, plastic collars.
Hawkins stood and placed the rifle against his shoulder. With his finger next to the trigger and the barrel pointed to the ground, he walked the perimeter of the fence. Had this been a fenced-in backyard, it would have been picturesque. Flowers bloomed along the fence line. He wasn’t sure why the goats hadn’t eaten them, but suspected the orange petals didn’t agree with the animals. He walked around the yard until he reached the river. The chain-link fence had been expanded into the water and was attached to two severely rusted but still solid metal posts. The chain link in the water looked newer, as though replaced in the past few years. The newness unnerved Hawkins, but the barrier, coupled with the calmly grazing goats, meant that there were no squid-tentacled crocodiles inside the fence’s perimeter.
The river here was deep and fast moving, but just five feet across. Hawkins backed up and prepared to jump the distance. Two steps into his run, something darted out of the brush at the fence line. Hawkins flinched back in surprise, raised the rifle, and nearly squeezed off a shot. He recognized the creature a moment before removing its head. A rat. A very large rat, but still a rat.
The rat saw him at about the same time, spun around, and retreated through a hole in the fence.
Hawkins caught his breath and muttered obscenities at the rodent. He collected himself, double-checked for the rat, and this time made the leap to the opposite bank without any trouble. He continued his inspection of the fence, looking for holes, gates, another path, or some sign of passage. The trail they’d followed to the gate ended in the grass. Whoever made the footprints had either left through some other route or never left—a possibility that had him finishing his inspection quickly. As he neared the concrete building once more, he came across the ruins of a brick-and-mortar structure. It looked like an oversize wood fireplace, but much of the chimney had crumbled and the rest had been claimed by vines.
The hair on his arms began to rise again. He was sensing danger from every direction, but thought it was just his shot nerves, or his growing knowledge about what had happened on this island. And might still be happening, he thought.
Soot stained the bricks in the fire pit itself, along with a collection of little white bits. He reached down and picked up a fleck of white.
“That’s probably bone,” Bray said from behind.
Hawkins jumped and stumbled back. “Son of a bitch, man. Quit sneaking up on me.”
“Sorry.” Bray stared at the fireplace. Sadly, he added, “They called them ‘logs.’”
“What?” Hawkins asked.
“The test subjects. The prisoners. Victims. Whatever you want to call them. Unit Seven thirty-one called them ‘logs.’ Didn
’t see them as anything more than wood. They’d collect them, cut them apart, and eventually most would end up here, in the fire pit to be cremated. The people brought here had their humanity stripped away long before they were killed.”
“You’re still sure this is a Unit Seven thirty-one outpost?” Hawkins asked.
“There’s more evidence inside,” Bray said. “Old notebooks. Patches on clothes. Stamped-on doors. Drake is looking at one of the notebooks now, but between you and me, I don’t think he’s doing so well. Hard to tell with the heat, but I think he’s starting to run a fever.”
“A fever? Is he sick?”
“Worse,” Bray said. “If I’m right. It’s possible the squid-croc had a second reptilian feature we couldn’t see.”
“Three species in one?” Hawkins asked. “Is that possible?”
“In theory,” Bray said. “Sure. If you can figure out how to keep the disparate parts from rejecting each other, you can combine as many different species as you want. In this case, I think species number three might be a Komodo dragon.”
Hawkins nearly balked until he remembered how Komodos killed their prey. They didn’t disembowel, suffocate, or snap their prey’s neck like other predators. They simply got in one good bite and then backed off. The potent mixture of lethal bacteria in their saliva did the rest. If Bray was right, Drake would be fighting for his life without even setting foot in the jungle again.
“Also,” Bray said, “I came to get you because it looks like someone stayed inside. Recently. And we haven’t checked the top two floors yet.”
Hawkins discarded the flake of what might be a human bone and set off toward the building at a jog.
When Joliet’s scream rolled out of the open door, he ran.
27.
The goats scattered in a panic, their collar bells issuing a frantic jangle, like a platoon of Salvation Army bell ringers. Bleating loudly, the animals parted for Hawkins, allowing him to sprint for the building. As he ran, he noticed a slightly worn path through the grass that led to a gate in the chain-link fence. It was on the opposite side of the yard from the one they’d entered through. He made a mental note of its position and continued past. A small, well-maintained wooden bridge allowed him quick passage to the opposite shore, where he kept running.
Bray, the slower man, had fallen behind, but Hawkins didn’t wait for him. Joliet’s solitary scream was either a good thing or a very bad thing. He couldn’t wait on Bray to find out which.
Hawkins had no idea where he was going, so when he entered the half-light dimness of the building’s entryway, he shouted. “Joliet!”
“Here!” Her voice came quickly and full of dread. “Hurry!”
“I can’t hold her much longer!” Drake shouted.
Hold her?
The entryway held empty lockers along the back wall. A row of coat hooks ran along the outside wall to his right. A single tattered and stained white lab coat hung from one of the hooks. A black rubber apron hung on the hook next to it. A row of rotting wooden boxes were lined up beneath the hooks. The box beneath the lab coat held a pair of black rubber boots and black rubber gloves. Hawkins saw every detail as he pushed through the room, cataloging them for later.
He charged through the open doorway to his left. A metal door hung askew, clinging to the last of its three hinges. It was bent in the middle as though something had pounded its way through the door. Hawkins recognized the damage as being similar to the door to his quarters, but again passed by with little thought.
The hallway ahead followed the octagonal shape of the building, wrapping around at sharp angles to the right. Debris littered the floor, but there was nothing large to slow him down. He ran around the corner and found a long, straight hallway with glassless windows lining the left side wall. The windows looked out over the jungle with a view of the river, and ocean beyond, but he barely noticed. The view inside the hallway drew his focus. “Joliet!” he shouted and sprinted ahead.
At the center of the hallway, a large rectangle of floor was missing. Drake lay next to the hole, his muscular arms reaching down.
“Mark!” Joliet’s voice came from the hole, coupled with a recognizable roar.
Drake’s arms shook. It seemed impossible that the muscular captain couldn’t just pluck the much smaller Joliet from the opening without breaking a sweat. That he was struggling just to hold her spoke volumes about his condition.
“Losing her!” Drake said, his voice something like a growl.
Hawkins flung himself at the hole. He slid on his stomach, stopping at the edge, and thrust his hands down. With his head poking down through the opening, Hawkins could see the river below. Joliet’s toes splashed in the water. Ten feet downstream, the water fell away. Hawkins suspected Joliet might survive the fall into the deep waterfall basin, but she’d be back in croc territory and there was no way to know if the crocodile had come back or been joined by friends.
Joliet let go of Drake with one hand and took hold of Hawkins’s wrist.
“I have you,” Hawkins said, locking his fingers around her wrist.
As though the phrase gave him permission, Drake let go of Joliet. The sudden drop caught both Joliet and Hawkins off guard. Joliet yelped as she swung over the river, closer to Hawkins.
He reached down with his other hand and caught her. She wasn’t heavy, and he could hold her for a while, but he had no leverage. Pulling her up would be nearly impossible. “You’re going to have to climb up my arms.”
Hawkins thought most people might balk at the idea of climbing up another person like a ladder, but Joliet gave it a try. Unfortunately, Hawkins’s arms where bare and slick with sweat. She slipped back down to his wrist.
With a grunt, Hawkins pulled her as high as he could. “Can you grab the edge?”
“I think so,” she said, moving her hand quickly to the linoleum floor. But the smooth floor offered little purchase. Her fingertips slowly neared the edge.
Hawkins got ready to catch her again, but before he did, Bray’s thick hand reached down and took hold of her arm. Together, the two men quickly pulled her to safety.
“The hell happened?” Bray asked, standing back from the opening in the floor.
Joliet sat against the wall, catching her breath. “What’s it … look like? I fell through the hatch.”
Hawkins leaned over the opening and looked down. There were two rusted metal doors hanging down. “Was it a trap?”
Joliet sighed. “No. They were held shut with a pipe.” She pointed to the pipe lying on the floor next to her. “I stubbed my toe on it.”
Hawkins tried to suppress a smile, but failed. “You know, I’ve nearly been killed by a poisonous flying lizard-snake, and came close to becoming a squid-croc snack. And you nearly died from stubbing your toe?”
“Shut up,” Joliet said. After a moment, she smiled. “It would have been a pathetic way to die. Why do you think they put a door in the floor? Seems a little dangerous to me.”
As soon as Hawkins had seen the river below the doors, he knew their purpose. “There are skeletons under the waterfall. In the basin. Hundreds of them. They threw the dead through here. Let the current take them over the falls.”
“They must have only incinerated the ones they infected with diseases,” Bray said. “Fed the rest to Sobek down there.”
“Sobek?” Hawkins asked.
“Egyptian crocodile god.” He shrugged. “I like naming things.”
“I noticed.” Hawkins spotted two long metal rods with hooks on the end lying on the floor beside the open hatch. “Get the pipe,” he said to Bray. He used the hooked rods to pull the two doors up. They were thick, and heavy, but manageable. Once he had them both up, Bray slid the pipe back in place.
Hawkins tested his weight on the doors. They held tight. “Just watch your step next— Where’s Drake?”
Bray ducked inside one of four doorways evenly spaced along the hallway across from the windows. He came back out a moment later. “Not in he
re.”
Hawkins checked the doorway closest to him. The windowless room was dark, but the light coming in through the hallway’s window provided just enough light to see. The large room was divided into ten small cells separated by metal bars. Open metal gates led into each cell. The room smelled of copper, rust, and ammonia. The odor was made bearable thanks to the fresh air pouring through the glassless windows at his back.
Each cell held a wooden pallet that must have served as a bed—a very uncomfortable bed, which might have been the point. A hole had been drilled in the floor of each cell, serving as a drain. For blood? For waste? Maybe Unit 731 hosed down their victims? Hawkins didn’t linger on the drains long enough to decide. Old rusted shackles hung from a few of the bars. Hawkins tried to imagine what it would have been like, chained to these bars, maybe listening to the weeping of your fellow captives, smelling death all around and hearing the splash of bodies being discarded—fed to the crocs. And through it all, knowing your turn would soon arrive, and that no one would come to your rescue. The hopelessness of the place nearly brought tears to his eyes. But the knowledge that someone was still on the island, still maintaining this horror show; that made him angry.
They had missing people. Drake was wounded and ill. But he was beginning to suspect that the island’s demons were still alive and well. And if that were the case, and they found the people responsible—Hawkins gripped the rifle. Howie GoodTracks didn’t believe in the death penalty. He thought people deserved a chance for redemption, a chance to turn their negative contribution to the world into something positive, before they left it for good. It was a little too Zen for Hawkins, and most of the Ute tribe for that matter, but he had experienced GoodTracks’s grace and forgiveness firsthand. It was a powerful thing. Redemption might actually be the right choice, but this.… He looked at the drain again. This was too much. Someone had to pay, now or later.
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