Ancestor (49 page)

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.

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.

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.

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 around 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.