The Kielder Experiment (Book 2): The Alaska Strain

by Fernfield, Rebecca

  An hour later, and the sex had been ... good, although Rachel had had to do much of the work, and Michel’s ardour had quickly disappeared as soon as his own needs had been met. With a promise of more later, she lays with a deep and unsatisfied ache that she hopes Michel will help relieve at some point during the night. She doesn’t feel that she knows him well enough to ask for him to ‘finish’ the job; it would be impolite to demand.

  As the wind howls outside, her thoughts turn back to George and the lodge, and she decides to share her suspicions. “This place,” she gestures to the faded wallpaper and threadbare carpet, dim in the bedside light, “it looks shabby, like it’s been neglected.”

  “Yeah, times have been tough for George and Casey.”

  “Casey?”

  “George’s ex-wife. She left during last season. Carmel is his new wife. She was here when I arrived. I guess he got married in the spring or something.”

  “I hate to ask, but do you think she’s a mail-order bride?”

  Michel presses his lips together, curling them over his teeth as he suppresses a laugh. “Yes, I do. It’s so obvious, isn’t it. I mean, where did he meet her? He hardly ever goes off the island, and when he does, it’s only for supplies in Kodiak. He’s always on the internet though.”

  “I bet he bought her. And I bet he bought her at the same time as he bought that new boat, and his car, and, has he got a new laptop recently? That one in his office is a top of the range MacBook Pro, they cost around two thousand dollars.”

  Michel whistles. “Expensive.”

  “It is, and so is the surveillance cameras that have been set up, yet this place is falling down around his ears.”

  “So, what’re you saying? That George has come into some money recently?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, and it has something to do with Chris’ disappearance.”

  Michel frowns. “How do you figure that out? Perhaps he won the lottery and just hasn’t had time to start doing this place up? Carmel has done wonders downstairs.”

  He’s right. The money could have come from some random outside source. “Sure, but I think it’s more likely that he’s done some deal, maybe agreed to something illegal. That’s why Chris died, because he found out. The institute-”

  “Ah, it’s all so far-fetched, Rachel. Your friend Chris was an amateur adventurer. He just didn’t have the skills to survive.” She remembers the box of food left in the tent and the other ‘luxury’ goods that any serious survivalist would never have brought along. “Alaska is an unforgiving place. The weather can turn within minutes, and on the day that Chris disappeared a storm blew in no one with any sense would have been out in. I warned him, Rachel, I told him that there was a storm coming, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was on skid row, he told me, and going out into the wilds and surviving the harsh weather would help get his career back on track. Don’t ask me how that works, but he was certain it would. Desperation made him rash, and inexperience mixed with desperation is a dangerous combination, and I think that’s what killed Chris. There was no reasoning with him, even George advised him against it, but to be honest, none of us realised just how harsh the storm would be.”

  “I don’t think he would have gone onto the water if it hadn’t been for that creature on the beach. It tracked him through the woods and scared him into the boat. But whatever it was, it wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before. At first, I thought it was a hoax, but the prosthetics were too good not to be real. I’m still not sure what I saw, none of it adds up. It was standing on two legs, but had this huge jaw and massive teeth, and it was covered in hair.”

  “Sounds like a bear to me. A bear on the attack will stand on two legs.”

  “Sure, but it wasn’t hairy enough to be a bear.”

  “Could have had mange? Some of the bears had it last year.”

  Embarrassment slides over Rachel. Michel is absolutely right. In her mind’s eye, the creature standing on two legs could have been a bear, the shot was unclear after all. Her brain befuddled with alcohol, her memory merges with this new image, and she becomes unsure. “Damn! I wish I had the video to show you. I’m sure it wasn’t a bear, well, I was sure, but now that you’ve explained it like that ...”

  “It could be?”

  “Yes, I guess.” In her mind the image of the hairy woman is now a mangey bear. “You’re probably right.”

  “So perhaps ... your friend just had a very unfortunate accident?”

  “I guess.”

  A finger trails around her nipple. “And maybe, Chris being so desperate, capitalised on its appearance, and exaggerated the story in his video. He would have been terrified, bears are dangerous, and he had no experience, but adding the ‘George’ factor just made it all so much more intriguing?”

  Rachel’s thinking becomes unclear, confused by Michel’s reasoning as he strokes her tingling flesh. Increasingly aroused, she lays back on the pillow. In the distance a howl cuts through the night. She sits up, tingling flesh forgotten. “But that,” she says jabbing a finger towards the window, “is not something I’m imagining.”

  Michel sits up. “It is not. It’s that dog they’re looking for.” He laughs, pulls at her shoulder, then presses it back to the bed, and slides his leg between hers.

  “The institute-”

  “There isn’t an institute.”

  “There is ...” Michel kisses her throat. “Peter mentioned it ... when we were stranded ...” His kisses lower, across her chest, and then to her belly. Here it is ... at last.

  “Nope, there’s no institute on the island, Rachel.” He kisses the sensitive skin below her navel, then flicks at her bud with his tongue. Yes! He is going to be a gentleman. He raises his head. “I’m a bush pilot, I’ve seen the entire island from the air, and if there was an institute here, I would have seen it.” Michel straddles Rachel’s hips.

  “But the men in black uniform?”

  Michel scoots up to her chest. “Hunters.”

  Rachel’s hopes weaken. “They said they were Special Ops.”

  Michel’s excitement is obvious. “Maybe the institute is off-shore then?”

  His shadow falls across Rachel’s face – Her hope is lost. He’s not going to be a gentleman - and pushes his hips forward.

  “Offshore? But they took Peter, and there was something in-.” Rachel’s flow of words become garbled as Michel fills her mouth.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Peter wakes, disorientated and unsure of where he is. It takes a moment for realisation to hit, then with a sinking in his belly, he takes his glasses from the bedside table, and checks the clock; three-fifteen am. He flops back on his pillow, knowing that sleep will elude him. The minutes pass as he stares at the ceiling, his eyes adjusting to the light, unease suffusing every cell of his body. Closing his eyes, he is taunted once more by images of Laura: her face smiling at him as she turns from the altar, newly-wed, the joy in her eyes unmistakable as she walks out of the church, her arm hooked with Max’s, Laura dressed in evening finery at another awards ceremony, Max on the stage receiving his award for his breakthroughs in stem cell therapies. The memories flash and pulse, pushing at each other: Max taking his first steps into Kielder Institute, Max’s face drained, and ridden with guilt as Peter opens the door to Marta bending over him, her shirt open, her breasts pushed to his shoulder, Laura offering her point of view in one of his seminars, Laura sitting across from him in Starbucks showing him her engagement ring, Max’s face contorted in pain as his body succumbs to the virus. The memories jostle and push, refusing to fade. Laura ... Laura ... Laura. Oh, sweet Jesus, save me! Her contorted face, unconscious in a drug induced sleep, but still, gut-wrenchingly, recognisable, covered in dark hair that sweeps from her temple to her cheeks to her chin, and the elongated jaw, incisors grown sharp, ready to jump from the box, and bite down into his flesh, tearing into his muscles and bone the moment she woke. He shudders, turns in his bed, opens his eyes, then sits.

&n
bsp; He has to see her.

  The walk to the laboratory is surprisingly easy and comfortable. The doors swing open at the touch of the identity card that had been supplied during the afternoon, and the corridors are lit with a low light, and the air is warm. He flashes the card at the locked laboratory door; a light flashes green, and he’s inside. It is not quite the state-of-the-art facility Marta had promised, but it is functional, warm, and secure; a place he can easily work in although every fibre of his being wants to resist the temptation to delve deeper into the project. It is grotesque, unethical, that is all true, but it is also utterly fascinating, and Marta was right, they were pushing the boundaries of what was scientifically possible, and that, Peter realises, is a scientific aphrodisiac, and made the project ‘sexy’ as some of his crasser colleagues would say.

  He steps inside, pushing the door to, and the overhead lights flood the laboratory with light. Unlike the corridors with their warm glow, this one is a stark white, illuminating every corner of the space; he’s thankful for that.

  Laura remains in the box at the centre of the table. He had wanted to place her in the larger cage, but keeping her beneath consciousness made it far easier to take her temperature, and bloods, and enable him to gauge her menstrual cycle. From the information he has, she will be ovulating in another seven days. However, that is according to the human female’s cycle, and Laura is no longer purely human. He makes a note to research the menstrual cycle of dogs and wolves, both domestic, and wild, and turns with a startled yelp as the door opens.

  “Sorry, Doctor Marston, but I saw that the light was on ...” Kendrick, the soldier from Marta’s office, and the one who had rescued him from the beach, stands in the doorway, fully dressed. Peter fidgets with the cord of his dressing gown.

  “I needed to take some more observations,” he lies.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Kendrick returns.

  “Me too,” Peter admits with relief; he is not the only one struggling. He returns to Laura in the box, Kendrick joins him. Both men stare down at the comatose woman. As Peter reaches in, Kendrick draws his breath. “It’s perfectly alright, she is absolutely harmless in this state. I have given her a large dose of a sedative.” His fingers brush long chestnut hair away from her cheek. Gold glints at her ear. He fingers the lobe.

  “An earring?”

  “Yes,” Peter replies, stroking a thumb over the gold earring. It dangles by a single link from a diamond stud. “It’s a honeypot. Max used to call her his little bee because she made everything so sweet. They were a birthday gift from him the day after they married.”

  “You were that close?”

  “Yes, I taught her at university, and obviously worked with Max. They were good friends.”

  “Must be tough ... seeing her like this.”

  “It is. I’ve been working on a cure, but my efforts have been severely limited as I’ve had so little access to materials and information, but now that I’m here ...”

  “I don’t think Doctor Steward is interested in a cure.”

  Peter strokes the unconscious face. “No, she’s not.”

  “Obviously you know that the plan is to breed them.”

  Peter nods.

  “And implant some device in the embryos, in-vitro. Katarina told me, though she wasn’t supposed to, that Doctor Steward was working towards creating some sort of dog soldier. Katarina was having real trouble with the whole project, and talking about handing in her notice before ... before she was killed.”

  “She may not be dead.”

  “No, but she might as well be.”

  Peter notices the emotion in Kendrick’s face and wonders just how close he had become to Katarina.

  “It’s like something out of a sci-fi film – fucking fucked up – they’ll be half bot-half man-half wolf.”

  “That would be a third man, third wolf, third bot.”

  “Whatever, it’s still screwed up. It’s all fantasy though; I can’t see it ever really becoming a reality. You know, Marston ... I’ve seen some shit in my life, but this ... this has got to be the most disturbing.”

  Peter nods, still staring down at Laura’s hair-covered face, then asks, “So why are you here? Why are you working on this project?”

  Kendrick stares straight into Peter’s eyes. “I get to be in charge. And the pay’s good.” There is no sense of shame, or struggle with morality in his gaze, and Peter, remembering his conversation with Marta and how the promise of publication in respected journals, and the temptation of a professorship, along with the massively increased salary, had been the driving force that broke down his own defences, realises, to his shame, that he and Kendrick are really no different; both are here out of self-interest.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The scent of her ... the One ... Laura .... the most beloved ... is lost among the stench of decay and, mouth-watering, blood-full life that rises through the forest, and Max’s nose rises to find it, the pain of grief riding him in waves. She is locked away with them, the Screamers, the men that shoot pain, and break bones, destroy flesh. Anger burns in his belly and he throws back his head and screams his rage. He will take her from them, tear their flesh from their bones, rip their veins ... he snickers ... spray their blood. Another howl, a frenzy of anger that suffuses each particle of his flesh. Her name repeats: Laura ... Laura ... Laura.

  Behind him the Red One crouches, tearing at the flesh of the man ... fat man ... Max cackles at the memory, of how his chin had disappeared into his neck as he’d screamed, the scream cut short as claws had gouged through his neck, ripping it apart, the blood spraying high into the trees. The Red One had dragged the fat man back to the cave, an arm missing where She, the Katarina, had ripped it from its socket. Max cackles. He will rip them, rip their arms, and their legs, stop their screams with teeth clamped around their open jaws, crunching down on bone until it splinters. He will take back his Laura ... the most beloved ... Blessed be the One. He tears at his own flesh as rage whirls, scratching talons along his chest. Blood trickles through dark hair as his frustration turns in on himself. The blood oozes, slows, then stops, the torn flesh mended.

  The stench of their fear, the men with his Laura, carries on the breeze through the forest. It is stronger now, but Max waits. Soon they will be ready, but the time is yet to come.

  He licks at the wind, it carries the taint of others, their sweat, and their sweet perfume, mingles with the stench of sour decay. He growls, the Red One rises from his crouch, he jabbers sniffing at the air. Katarina cackles. The second female, the Small Dark One, rises and sprints to his side, crouching beside his leg. Katarina claws at her, pushing her away. Bared teeth snap, and Max snarls a warning. Cowed, the females stand at his side, the smaller one yapping her excitement. Max jumps from the rock, down to the earth, and disappears with a sprint into the forest, excited for the hunt. They follow as he darts between the trees, at his shoulders, falling behind, passing between the trunks, jumping worming roots, never faltering as he picks up his pace, arms sliding to and fro in a steady rhythm, legs powerful and pumping without fatigue. Excited yaps fill his ears, and he snickers, a small cackle at the joy to come; the gnashing, and biting, and tearing, the soft flesh parting between his jaws, the delicious meat, the hot blood that will trickle down his throat.

  As the trees thin he slows, and listens to the sound of the sea as it laps its waves against the stony beach. The women are at his shoulder. The second woman sniffs at the air, the stench of rotting is rich, and the woman follows its trail. He allows her to leave the group, but watches each movement. She skirts the building, ignoring the doors that will take her to the screamers, and follows a scent Max has already noticed; beyond the house and its living, breathing prey ... their food, their sustenance, their drink and their meat – thank you lord for what we are about to receive - Max snickers - is the stench of death, of rotting offal and faeces, and fish. He allows her to follow the scent, but turns his own attention to the house.

  The b
uilding below is dark, no light inside, but higher up a light shines as a hazy rectangle, brighter where the fabric is parted. The voices behind are muffled, a man and a woman. Below the window is a box; its surface chills his feet as he jumps to it. Closer, only feet from the window and his prey ... Oh, thank you Lord, you are my bread, you are my wine. He muffles a small cackle, licking his lips as his mouth waters at the thought of sinking his teeth into warm, moist, screaming flesh ... Lord, Thou art my shepherd ... The noises inside are familiar; a rhythmic banging and creaking, the woman moans her pleasure, the man grunts his. Excited, Max grasps the pipe that runs at a diagonal across the wall, pulling himself up to the window - I trust in you, to provide - another snicker and saliva drools between bone-white and pointed teeth. The noise of their rutting grows and he draws level with the window, long talons sinking into the wooden frame, the ache at his groin sadistic and twisting, his needs not to be ignored.

  Muscular arms pull him up and he watches as the man thrusts, the woman, blonde hair spread over the pillow, eyes closed, mouth open, throat exposed, breasts full and bared to the room. Max licks his lips, erect, the need to fornicate as strong as his need to sink his teeth into her throat and drink from her life blood. The male is strong; broad shoulders are carved with muscles, arms wormed with throbbing, pulsing blood as he ruts, his buttocks twin mounds. Max watches with fascination as the man pulls back, the muscles of his back rippling, the wings of a tattooed eagle flapping with each thrust into soft flesh. Strong, lean, and muscular. Max gnashes his teeth; the man will be his, one of them, to follow where Max leads ... thank you Lord, those who believe shall not go without ... a low snicker. He will follow where Max leads, to tear the One from the men with fire. Below him the second female yelps. Leaving the rutting male and his mate until later, he jumps to the ground and runs to Katarina and The Red One beside the boat. The Small Dark One yelps again.