by Hunter Shea
After she positively ID’d her husband’s clothes, wallet and wedding ring, she became eerily calm. She didn’t say a word on the way home. He walked her to her door, handing her his card should she have any questions or need any help. She quietly thanked him and shut the door softly.
By the time he got back in his car, he was hours past being done with his shift. He needed a break. The station was a madhouse. He walked through it all as if he was on another plane, somehow avoiding the chaos, shutting out the voices and bodies and clanging of phones and computers. He was alone in the locker room as he changed into black jeans and a blue pullover.
He thought someone called his name as he left but he didn’t bother to linger around and see who wanted him. Flipping the AC on high in his Subaru, he found AC/DC on the radio. Between the throaty wailing of Brian Johnson and rush of air piping through the vents, the outside world couldn’t penetrate the car.
The Subaru cruised to an even seventy on the Montauk Highway. All he wanted right now was a couple of beers and the biggest, greasiest cheeseburger money could buy. The Fair Weather Tavern just outside of Montauk proper fit the bill.
Sharp sunlight glinted off the car’s hood, so he slipped on a pair of sunglasses he’d bought for ten bucks at a gas station. Looking down to change the station, his eyes flicked back to the road. His body stiffened.
Jerking his right leg, he pushed as hard as he could on the brake. The Subaru fishtailed, crossing over the dividing line. Mickey turned the wheel into the spin, correcting the trajectory. Slamming the car in park, he jumped out, leaning on the doorframe.
Several dozen pairs of eyes stared back at him. Some wore small caps, but most of the closely shorn heads were bare and dappled with sweat. Two olive transport trucks faced each other, blocking off the road.
“What the hell is going on here?” he shouted. “Are we under martial law or something?”
One of the soldiers, a sergeant by the bars on his sleeve, approached the car.
He looked at Mickey with hard, calloused eyes.
“Not yet.”
Dalton was sure Meredith wasn’t even aware she was squeezing his arm hard enough to cut off his circulation.
“Is that what you saw?” she said, her eyes glued to the monstrosity lazily nosing around the bloody muck.
At first glance, the animal resembled a wolf, though one with some kind of debilitating skin disease. The gray and black of the hunks of fur that still clung to its flesh looked oily, the fibers clinging to one another like spikes. It had a strange, blue corkscrew tail that flicked left and right with agitated twitches. If he judged right, Dalton figured its shoulders would stand level with his hips. So much of it looked like the one he’d encountered with Anita, but the face, the horrid skull swiveling on a bull’s neck was completely different.
All of the fur was missing from its head, revealing sickly, mottled skin. Like its neck, the face was very much like that of a bull’s, with eyes black as onyx, a wide, flat nose with large, flaring nostrils that rippled the blood and froth when it exhaled close to the lake of death it waded within. But the lower jaw was all wrong. This creature had a massive underbite. Long, sharp teeth jutted along its snout, at times scraping the flesh. When the teeth caught on its nose, the calloused flesh flicked upward for a moment before settling back in place, unscathed.
“Were they out of their goddamn minds?” Robert spat.
Maybe because he had already come across one at much closer quarters, Dalton was able to think clearer and not become swallowed up by the horror in the cattle pen. He started to make connections, loose as they may be, but perhaps a line of logic that could explain how this had happened.
He said, “If the government wanted to create Franken-creatures for military purposes, why not make them as strangely terrifying as possible? The fear of seeing them alone would be enough to cause widespread panic. Add to that whatever twisted disease they seem to carry in their bite and you have all you need to throw a military camp, town, shit, a whole fucking city into chaos. Think of it. You drop these things on a known terrorist village in Afghanistan. All you need to do is sit back, let them do the dirty work, wait until everyone is dead and the virus or whatever they carry dies off and sweep the place clean.”
So far, the creature hadn’t taken notice of the spectators. It spied a swath of cowhide, opened its jaw so wide it could swallow a man’s head whole, and clamped down. When there was no resistance, it dropped the hide and looked for more prey.
“The big problem is, we don’t know how many of these things exist, and out of that number, how many made it to Montauk and other parts of the island,” Meredith said, mesmerized by the walking nightmare. She had the presence of mind to take out her phone and snap off a dozen pictures of the creature. “I wasn’t crazy,” she murmured to herself.
Robert took a heavy breath. “That’s only half the problem. If they carry some kind of biochemical agent, there’s got to be an antidote somewhere. Nothing was created in the labs without an antidote. The big question is, where do we find it?”
“This is a big place. Where do we even start to look? Maybe we should grab some boxes, load them up with every thumb drive we can find and any files that look remotely related to this,” Meredith said, pointing with her crutch the way they’d come, back toward the offices.
Something dropped in the cow pen. The creature crouched into a fighting position, its massive head swerving about, looking for the source. During its scan of the room, it caught sight of them through the Plexiglas. It fixed them with a glare of raw hunger. From what Dalton had seen, these things were smart. There was no way it was going to plunge headlong into a solid wall. Unless it was that mad with bloodlust.
As it neared a metal door at the rear of the pen, it leapt, hitting it with its front paws. The door swung open easily, revealing bright sunlight and the scattered remains of stained clothes left behind by Plum Island workers trapped on an island, fighting to contain their own creation. The creature skidded in their viscera as it rounded the corner, slipping out of sight.
“Shit!” Robert shouted. “I have no idea how many entrances have been breached.”
As if in answer to their question, a door slammed somewhere below them.
“I think it’s safe to say it’s inside,” Meredith said.
Robert sprang into action, shouting, “Move it, move it, move it!”
Slinging an arm around Meredith’s waist, Robert practically carried her down the hallway. Halfway down, she dropped her crutch. Dalton’s shoes skidded on the floor as he stopped, turned and ran back for it.
The moment his fingers touched the cold aluminum, another door down the hall sprang open, banging off the wall.
“Leave it, Dalton!” Meredith screamed. She bobbed up and down in Robert’s embrace, helpless as a dog toy.
He made the mistake of looking down the hall. His eyes met the soulless orbs of the bull-headed wolf. It paused long enough to take him in and assess that he’d make a very tasty target. Dalton pulled at the snaps around his hood, throwing it off. He was going to have to make a mad dash and he didn’t want the disadvantage of compromised sight lines. If there was some disease floating in the air, so be it. Sometimes you have to pick your poison.
The beast didn’t make a single noise, not even a growl, save for the ticking of its claws off the tile floor.
Were they bred for stealth, too? he thought. If that was the case, it was going to be even harder to track them down, and near impossible to hear them coming.
The harsh crack of Robert kicking open the door at his rear let him know Meredith was at least safe for the moment.
“I should have brought a cape and a sword,” Dalton said to the creature. It cocked its head to one side as if trying to understand the strange words being spoken to it. These things were monsters in every sense of the word. It was a safe bet that during their creation and subsequent raising into adulthood, no one had spent much time addressing them in any manner other than, at
best, harsh commands. Maybe if he kept talking, he could stall it long enough to make his escape.
Tightening his fingers around the crutch, he said, “That’s a good boy. Just stand there and look ugly. That’s right. I’m just going to take this crutch and give it back to my friend. Nothing to get excited about.”
The creature’s eyes compressed into tight slits. Its fathomless nostrils flared.
That was not good. All that was missing were a few paws at the ground before the charge.
He heard Meredith cry out to him. She sounded far away. Good. Robert was doing what he should. He’d seen how fast these things were. She wouldn’t stand a chance in a footrace. Hell, neither would he.
As soon as he pulled the crutch from the floor, the creature made a beeline toward him. Its mouth opened wide, ready to deliver a killing blow.
This time, there would be no hesitation.
CHAPTER 25
Dalton drew his Glock, firing four shots in rapid succession. Two traveled down the monster’s open maw, exiting the back of its head with a bright explosion of blood and bone. The other two hammered into its chest, stopping it in its tracks. It flipped over backward and was still.
“Fool me once,” Dalton grunted.
He stared at the crimson and blue body, glad he’d shot it at enough of a distance so it didn’t bleed on him. If its bite was that toxic, God knew how diseased its blood was.
Dalton turned to join Robert and Meredith, running down the hall in case any other strange beasts were lurking about. All he wanted to do was jump on that ferry and get back to Montauk. Robert could alert the feds that the entirety of Plum Island had been compromised. Dalton would have to relate everything to his superiors and hope they didn’t throw him in a straitjacket. Hopefully, having someone who worked on the island would be an added boost to his credibility.
Hitting the double doors leading out of the Animal Testing sector, he jogged down the breezeway to the main labs. He got there in time to see Meredith arguing with Robert. Both of their hoods were off. Her neck was tilted as high as it could go, her eyes just to his square chin. When they heard him come in, she turned and her face visibly brightened.
“Christ, I thought it got you. I heard the gunshots but I didn’t know—”
She threw her arms around his neck, holding him tight.
“Did you kill it?” Robert asked. He looked none too happy about the affection given Dalton’s way.
“Shot it four times, all direct hits. It’s dead. We need to get the hell out of here now. Let the military come in and clean this place out. This is their mess anyway. We have to get to the mainland and stop these things before they hurt more people.”
“He’s right, we have to go back,” Meredith said. When Dalton offered her her crutch, their hands touched.
Robert’s jaw pulsed as he thought their situation over. His eyes were fixed on the other end of the hall, obviously waiting to see if Dalton had been wrong and hadn’t killed the creature.
“This is bigger than what the three of us can do,” Dalton said. “How many people were on the island when these things got loose?”
Robert rested his chin in his chest and said, “Fifty-seven.”
“Any of them armed Homeland Security?”
He nodded.
“If fifty-seven people couldn’t stop them, we don’t stand a chance. Come on. Like my father always tells me, live to fight another day.”
He grabbed the loose arm of Robert’s protective suit, leading him out of the building. He followed, but with palpable reluctance.
They had just closed the door to the decontamination room when something heavy hammered into it from the other side. Menacing snarls emanated from the airtight door.
Robert turned on him. “I thought you said you killed it.”
“I did. Looks like it has a friend. We’ve made enough noise to alert any of those things that someone’s here.”
The door jounced on its hinges. A small dent popped within its center.
“That’s a steel door,” Meredith said, pulling the suit down around her ankles.
The creature slammed into it again and again, making the dent more pronounced.
“I’m not worried about it bending through the door, but I’m not hopeful about those hinges,” Dalton said. They’d started to separate from the doorframe. They quickly doffed the bulky suits, concerned about bringing any contaminants outside the lab with them, and stopped at the exit door.
Robert said, “Meredith, you stay behind us. We’ll go out shooting if we have to. No telling what’s waiting for us out there.”
Dalton counted his bullets in his head. He didn’t have a spare clip on him. If there were any more than two of those things, they were in trouble. It was going to take more than one shot to get them down, and they weren’t going to sit still and wait for them to take aim.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The creature stepped up its efforts. The top hinge went with a sharp pop.
“Time to go,” Robert spat, swiping his card over the reader. A buzzer sounded, which to the creatures may as well have been a dinner bell. He kicked open the door. Blinding sunlight hit them in the face. For a terrifying moment, they had only their sense of sound to tell them if there was a welcome committee waiting.
“Oh, thank God,” Meredith sighed.
The walkway to the dock was clear.
Crash!
Their heads swiveled in unison to the outer door of the decontamination room. The Franken-animal had made it inside.
“Just in time,” Dalton said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“No!” Meredith shouted, pointing.
The outer door was still in the process of closing. A gap wide enough for an adult to slip through sideways mocked their momentary revelry. Dalton and Robert aimed at the dark gap.
They could hear claws scraping on the ground, ticking madly as the creature sped for the opening.
When the door flew open, both men fired low, estimating where the head and body should be. They miscalculated. The new monstrosity bounded through the door, hitting it high and above the whizzing bullets.
Had it seen what happened to its brethren and learned?
It pounced on the walkway just a few feet from them. This one was mostly canine, except for the pair of tusklike teeth that hung from either side of its lower jaw. Its ears were wide and pointed, like a bat’s. Similar to the others, it appeared to have a sort of mange, again exposing ripe patches of bluish skin. Its maw dripped red. They must have interrupted its feeding time.
As the creature craned its deformed head to give them one last withering glance before tearing their throats out, it suddenly recoiled with a loud whimper. Scrabbling on its hind legs, it retreated to the shaded sliver by the closed door.
“You think it knows what the guns can do?” Dalton said, drawing a bead on its head.
“I think it’s the sun,” Robert said.
They pulled their triggers at the same time. The creature jumped as each bullet found a home in its hide. One took out its lower jaw, another created a blossoming, scarlet hole in its throat. Dalton and Robert walked backward as they fired, careful to avoid any spatter. Blood splashed the side of the decontamination room. It was a mural that would have been right at home at the Guggenheim.
Pointing his gun to the ground, Robert said, “That must be the fail-safe.”
“Fail-safe for what?” Meredith said. Again, she took pictures of the ruined animal.
“If you’re going to create a weapon like this, you need to program a weakness so you can extract it when the time is right. That thing acted like the sun would kill it.”
“In a way, it did,” Dalton said.
“Exactly,” Robert said. “Come on. Keep an eye out. No telling if the sun rule applies for all of them.”
Going down the walkway was difficult for Meredith. Dalton pulled beside her to take the brunt of her weight. “I learned this in Boy Scouts,” he said with a wink. Holding her that
way was awkward, and at one point the barrel of his smoldering gun scorched the side of his thigh.
As they ran, they continually looked to their sides, wary of anything hiding within the wild vegetation. If the groundskeepers had done their job, there would have been clear sight lines. Either these things broke loose weeks ago or all nonscientific functions on the island were suspended while they completed their deadly masterpieces. Sequestering everyone on the island was like the cram session before a final exam. In this case, they passed with flying colors while failing at the same time.
Robert was a good ten feet ahead of them, his gun at the ready. He paused and raised his left arm when he got to the dock, giving it a quick survey. “All clear!”
Dalton swept Meredith off her feet and carried her the rest of the way. She didn’t protest.
Robert was already throwing off the lines that moored the ferry. Dalton sprinted on board, setting Meredith into a plastic chair on the outside lower deck. “Take this.” He handed her his gun. He was off before she could say a word.
Robert jumped onto the rear of the ferry, rummaging through a metal chest. Dalton’s blood froze.
To Robert’s back was a long awning. Under the awning was a storage shed made of corrugated metal. In his haste, Robert hadn’t realized that he was completely enveloped in shade.
He also didn’t see the mother of all the creatures they’d encountered so far squatting under the awning, preparing to pounce.
“I really don’t have time for her highness’s crap today,” snarled Grace Bavosa, of the Bavosa Land Development Corporation. The megarich contracting company had built half the homes in every affluent suburb in New York over the past fifty years. She was dressed in a red, white and black stained-glass-printed dress by Alexander McQueen, checking her makeup in a jewel-encrusted compact. She looked around to make sure none of the cameramen were lurking about. Food services had opened up the buffet, which usually gave them all a merciful break from the traveling dog and pony show.
