by Chris Fox
He wasn’t done. Blair bounded forward in the same manner the beast had used. The fury inside him was a living thing, fed by all the pain, shock, and stress of the last few days. This thing was the reason for all of it, and if he could eradicate it, then perhaps the pain and rage would vanish.
Well done, Ka-Dun. Few master the change so quickly. You are strong. It bodes well for your species.
Blair ignored the voice. It was responsible for Liz’s death, or at least it hadn’t prevented it as promised. A distant part of him knew that was irrational, but he brutally repressed it. There was only rage right now. This beast would die at his hands. Maybe he couldn’t kill the voice in his head or change what he’d become, but he could ensure that the thing in front of him didn’t kill anyone else.
You do not understand, Ka-dun. This IS your she. I have done as you asked.
26
Held Accountable
Jordan steeled himself as he ducked inside the lofty command tent, raising the zipper on his jacket until it covered his neck. His stomach roiled, and his forehead was beaded with sweat despite the frigid Peruvian morning. The sun hadn’t cleared the eastern peaks around the pyramid’s ravine, but scarlet streaks foretold its coming.
He’d rarely experienced this type of trepidation, the fear of confronting one’s superiors. But then he’d never failed quite so spectacularly as he had with this operation, particularly in Villa Milagros, where he’d allowed the creature to not only slaughter his men but also drive him from the field of battle. Jordan straightened, squaring his shoulders. He had to take responsibility for what was ultimately his screw up. He could make excuses, but he’d been commander of a failed operation.
He strode boldly between banks of laptops on tables manned by white-clad technicians. He made for the cluster of people at the far side of the tent. The outer ring consisted of white-coated scientists flanked by black-clad soldiers. All were focused on the pair of men standing before a gigantic flat-panel monitor that currently displayed a map of the Cajamarca region sprinkled with alarmingly red dots.
“What are you telling me?” the taller man rumbled, each word clipped for efficiency. The Director stared down at a quailing scientist, his silvered widow’s peak transforming him into the bird of prey. “Are you seriously going to stand there and say that you have nothing?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” the smaller man shot back, defiantly adjusting his glasses. “I know you want to get into that sarcophagus. We all do. But wishes aren’t going to change anything. We don’t even know what it’s made of, much less how to open it. Or even what the power source is. We’ve tried everything from explosives to laser torches. Nothing has even scratched it. All we do know is—”
“Shit!” the Director roared, silencing the man with a swipe of his hand. “What you know is shit. You’re supposed to be the top minds in your field. You have every resource money can buy. I need answers. I need them now. If we can’t get inside that thing, hundreds of thousands of people could die. Millions. Isn’t that what you told me? If you need more equipment, we’ll get it. If you need more people, we’ll find them. Now find me a way to get inside that sarcophagus, or get me someone who can.”
Slipping past the last few tables to the empty area surrounding the large screen, Jordan moved closer as the tongue-lashing continued. Nervous technicians hunched over glowing screens as they analyzed data, doing their best to ignore the Director’s tirade. Thick black cables snaked from the tent and toward the pyramid, which explained how so many of the screens displayed feeds of its hallways and chambers. Hard lines were the only way around the signal dead zone.
It really underscored how little they knew about this place. The room was littered with Ivy League scientists, men and women from across the world. Scholars with resumes that boasted dozens of languages and degrees he didn’t pretend to understand. Yet the pyramid and its contents baffled them. What did that say about their society? Just how much more advanced had the builders been?
“Get out of my sight until you have something useful to report,” the Director growled. The knot of figures surrounding him wilted under his gaze, all clearly wishing they had anywhere else to be. Jordan cursed his height as the Director’s gaze settled on him. “Commander Jordan. I have to admit I’m surprised you came back. Most men have enough instinct for self-preservation to flee after they have fucked up as monumentally as you have. Get your ass up here.”
Jordan didn’t flinch under the weight of that gaze, though he certainly wanted to. Instead he cut a path through the crowd, their relieved faces slipping eagerly out of his path as they realized he was the Director’s next target. Only one showed sympathy, one he was surprised to see. Sheila had donned a white coat like the rest of the scientists. She gave him a tentative smile and a squeeze on the shoulder as he passed. It helped more than she knew.
“The report I received an hour ago can’t possibly be correct, can it?” the Director barked, eyes so hot they threatened to ignite the very air. “They claim you not only let Subject Alpha escape, but that you lost two of our best squads doing it. Can you even begin to comprehend the magnitude of that fuck up, Jordan? Answer me. It’s not a rhetorical question.”
“No, sir,” Jordan gave back evenly, stopping next to the Director.
The man lapsed into his famed silence, like the eye of some implacable storm. He gazed fixedly at the monitor with hands clasped behind his back. Anyone who didn’t know him might have called the stance languid, yet Jordan recognized it as the deceptive pose of a lion about to pounce. The Director’s midnight suit was pressed and crisp despite the heat and humidity. His tie was perfectly centered at the nape of his starched white shirt, shoes glowing under the halogen lamps on tall titanium tripods.
“This could be the end of everything. They’ll say that your failure today marked the beginning of the end, the moment when humanity lost the battle for its own survival,” the Director began, voice low and calm despite the gravity of his words. He gestured at the map. “There are seven instances, all within twenty miles of Villa Milagros. Seven, Jordan. Do you see them?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, studying the map. The points formed a clear dispersal pattern with the village at the center. They were spreading. Fast. “Do we have eyes on the ground?”
“No, we don’t fucking have eyes on the ground. You were the eyes on the ground, before you tucked tail and ran. What we do have is a panicked populace who have no idea what you and your team have unleashed on them. Specialist Gage, put up some media feeds for Commander Jordan,” the Director growled over his shoulder, gaze flicking back to the screen as he waited to be obeyed.
The map flickered and disappeared, replaced by four panels. Each displayed a local news feed, and although Jordan didn’t speak Spanish, interpreting wasn’t hard. They were all variations of the same grisly scene. In one, a blond reporter spoke outside of what appeared to be a local bar. The door had been shattered in its frame, and a bloody handprint streaked the wall. The woman’s face was pale under her tanned skin. Her eyes held a haunted look, and her tone was somber.
Each of the other three were similar. Ghastly murder scenes spattered with blood. Numbers flashed across two of the screens. Seventeen. Twenty-four. If they were accurate, over a hundred people had died, and this was only the beginning. How many more would be slaughtered in the days to come?
“I can see you’re beginning to grasp the situation,” the Director said, voice pitched low. He turned from the screen and caught Jordan’s gaze. “At least three more of these creatures originated in Villa Milagros. Whatever plague we’ve unleashed spreads as these things kill. It’s too early for accurate projections, but ops guesses roughly one in twenty killed will come back as one. Five percent of the victims rise as another monster, spreading this thing.”
“My God,” Jordan gasped, sudden realization crashing down on him as he did the math. “Sir, if they reach a sizable population center, we could be facing hundreds. Thousands. Two
of our best squads couldn’t even kill one.”
“You’re thinking too small,” the Director said, loosening his tie. His shoulders sagged, a tangible sign of exhaustion. Not in all the years they’d worked together had Jordan seen him unbend even that much. “If we can’t contain this, we’re looking at the extinction of the human race. Gage, put the projections up, please.”
“Yes, sir,” the white-coated tech said. The news feeds disappeared, this time replaced by a global map. Red dots bloomed across South America, beginning in Peru. They surged through Central America and into the United States. Dots appeared in Europe and then on every continent. By the end of the sixty-second simulation cancerous red covered the world.
“We stop these things here, or we don’t stop them at all. The next few days are critical. We need to learn everything we can about them: their weaknesses, how they can be killed, how they hunt. Most importantly, we need to understand how the disease is transmitted,” the Director explained, a little of his fire returning.
“Understood, sir. What’s our next step?”
“I want you to meet with the science team for a debriefing. They’ll explain what we already know. Then we need to locate Subject Alpha. He’s the source of the contagion, so studying him might be our only hope of understanding what we’re dealing with. We’ve got ops working around the clock and have feelers out to the Peruvian government, offering them help in containing the spread.”
“Sir, do we have any way of knowing which of these attacks could be him?” Jordan asked, already considering options for finding Smith. He studied the map on the screen, keenly aware of the gravity of his failure.
The Director was silent for a long moment. He squared his shoulders, turning to face the room full of busy technicians. They worked diligently under the halogen glow, processing data and no doubt looking for the shred of evidence that would deliver their quarry. They were the best, but what they were searching for was tantamount to a black grain of sand on a white beach.
“No. We have to hope he makes a mistake. Uses a credit card. Ends up on camera somewhere. We’ve already arranged taps for his families and associates, and I’ll alert you if anything comes of it. In the meantime you’re going to have to think like him. We assume he’s probably trying to find a way back to the States,” the Director replied. He turned his gaze back to Jordan. “I understand I’m asking a lot, but you need to find him, Jordan. Quickly. Don’t fuck up this time. We won’t get another chance.”
27
Naked
Liz had to pee. Urgently. Her teeth chattered as a breeze caressed her bare back. She blinked away sleep, pushing herself into a sitting position. There were mountains to the east. A surf pounded somewhere in the distance. Where was she? And why was she naked? Her heart nearly stopped when she realized there was a well-muscled arm draped over her legs. What the hell was going on? She scrambled away from the strange man, pain spiking through her left foot as it came down on a jagged rock. She careened off a tree that had somehow snuck up on her, barely catching herself on the sycamore’s lowest limb. She was trembling violently, and not just from the chill.
Her heart thundered, and she could only manage shallow breaths. What was the scarlet mess all over her neck and chest? The dried ichor flaked when she brushed it with her index finger. It was blood. She raised her hands to her cheeks. They were covered with the stuff. Where had it come from? What had she done? She remembered dimly lit dreams, horrible and dark. She remembered rending. Ripping. Rutting like an animal.
Her head whipped toward the stranger as she caught a flash of movement. He scooted sleepily into the spot she’d just occupied, scratching a mop of dirty-blond hair. He had an angular face that might border on handsome had it not been covered in gore. A chest wide enough for the cover of a trashy novel bore tendrils of tattered medical gauze—familiar gauze. She dimly recalled the clinic in Villa Milagros. Yes, he was the unconscious stranger. What had his name been? She’d lost it in the chaos. Apparently she’d lost a lot more than just that.
She scanned the beach to the west. A two-lane road dotted with gas stations paralleled it. To the north lay a smattering of buildings maybe twice as large as Villa Milagros. There would be a phone there. Maybe even police. The hike was a good ten miles, most if it through thickly tangled bushes or over rocks that would soon grow intolerably hot. Wonderful.
Hot, coppery anger flooded her. She didn’t even have shoes. It was time to get some answers.
“Hey,” she said, steeling her courage and hobbling toward the man. She prodded him roughly with a foot and then hopped to a safe distance. “Wake up. I said wake up.”
“Wuzzat?” the man asked, drowsily sitting up. He patted the ground next to him as if he were searching for something. Glasses, probably. Liz knew what that was like. Speaking of which, where were hers? And how could she see so clearly without them?
“Wake up,” she demanded with all the authority she could muster. It wasn’t easy when naked, lost, and covered with blood. “Where the hell are we? How did I get here? There’s plenty of rocks, and I’m going to start aiming for your head if I don’t get some answers.”
His deep brown eyes blinked into focus as he drank in her legs and ever so slowly lifted his gaze to her chest. He was blushing by the time he reached her face. In other circumstances she might have welcomed the attention, but right now the behavior only stoked her anger.
“I, uh, I don’t know. Look, I know this has got to be confusing,” he said, averting his gaze as he rose gracefully. At least he had manners. “Your name is Liz, right? You’re a doctor too? A medical one?”
“No,” she snapped, hackles relaxing slightly. There had been such strange nightmares, but they grew more distant as the sun picked skyward through the clouds.
“No? I could have sworn that Jefe guy introduced you as Dr. Liz. Anyway, my name is Blair Smith. I’m an anthropologist—well, a teacher with an anthropology degree, anyway. How much do you remember from the clinic?” He spoke gently without looking at her, as if placating a wild animal. Did she really look that hysterical? Maybe she was.
“I…” she trailed off, tugging at the thread of memory. “Jefe drove me up to Villa Milagros. The villagers were dead. Killed by…” Killed by what? Fangs flashed in the jumbled corners of her mind.
“Killed by me,” the man interjected, heavy eyes finally returning to her. His face was stone. “Or by something inside me. A monster. The same one inside of you. I realize how crazy that sounds, but it’s true. We’re dealing with something I can’t even begin to comprehend, much less explain.”
“Yeah, great. Monsters. Got it. How did we get here? Why did you kidnap me, and for the love of God, where are my clothes?” she growled, anger surging as the tirade gained momentum. She didn’t know what was happening, but this man was at the heart of it. She fished a rock from the ground and hurled it at his face. Much to her surprise, it hit, snapping his head back as his mouth filled with blood.
“Oh my God,” she said, horrified by her own actions. It didn’t matter what he’d done. This wasn’t like her. She looked around the brush-covered hill for anything to staunch the flow.
Blair’s face twisted, and he took a threatening step toward her.
“Don’t. Do. That. Again,” he said, taking another step forward. He was taller than her and obviously stronger, but she didn’t budge. There was a curious lack of fear. “Whatever happened to me also happened to you. Where do you think all that blood came from? Look at yourself. Take a long look, Liz. You might not be a doctor, but you’ve been to college, right? Examine the fucking situation.”
She did. She was naked, but so was he. He was covered in blood, but so was she. Whatever was going on had affected him just as it had her. If he’d wanted to kidnap her, he’d be clothed and would probably have a gun. He’d also have bound her. The anger ebbed, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
“Tell me what you mean by monsters. Explain everything. Talk slow, like I’m stupid,” she sa
id as calmly as she could manage.
“It’s complicated.”
“So uncomplicate it. How about something simple? Where are we?” she asked, anger returning in a sudden surge. She actually took a step toward him. They were inches apart now, each refusing to back down.
“I don’t know,” he growled, glaring down at her. “I was just woken up, remember? How the hell do I know where we are? And what is it you think I did, exactly? Carried you naked down a mountainside and rolled you around in some blood?”
Liz didn’t have an immediate answer, and that just made the anger worse. She wanted answers and he didn’t have them. Yet he was the only target for her rage. She seethed silently.
“Listen, I know this is all a lot to take in, but we don’t have time for you to get hysterical. Think you’ve got it bad?” he blared, voice thundering over the waves. “I’m in a foreign country. I don’t speak the language. I’m naked. I have no money. My friends are dead. Oh, and I’m a fucking werewolf.”
She just stared, counterargument dying unspoken. His lip was knitting itself back together, the flesh literally closing before her eyes. Blair started to cough, raising a hand to his mouth. When the hacking ceased, he showed it to her, palm up. There were two broken teeth, clearly expelled from his mouth. In their place were two brand new replacements, clear and white in stark contrast to their neighbors.
“Wha-what just happened?” she asked in a tiny voice, though she was positive she didn’t want to hear the answer.
“You can probably answer that better than I can. That isn’t the only thing. Look,” he tugged at the remains of the bandage around his midsection, exposing smooth, pale skin. “If that isn’t proof enough for you, think back to that clinic. Do you remember the helicopter? Your friend dying, the guy in the leather jacket?”
