COLD
SANCTUARY
A WOLF HAVEN NOVEL
ANTHONY M. STRONG
West Street Publishing
COLD SANCTUARY
Published by West Street Publishing
www.AnthonyMStrong.com
This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to events or places, or real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Anthony M. Strong
First Published June 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
For S.
even though these things scare you
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
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Some places should be left alone.
It’s been fifteen years since Ben and his father buried the time capsule in the woods. Now Ben is returning to dig it up. But things have changed. The woods are not the happy place they once were. What starts out as a weekend camping trip to rekindle old memories and have some fun turns into a nightmare for Ben and his girlfriend, Sally. By the time they realize their mistake, it’s too late. There’s something evil at the old campground, and it doesn’t want them to leave.
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PROLOGUE
Alaska
At first Jerry Boyle saw nothing but darkness, a deep black cloak that shrouded everything, hiding it, concealing it. He reached for his pocket, his fingers curling around the hilt of the flashlight that he’d brought for this very scenario, and pulled it free. His thumb rested on the switch, tensed in anticipation, but then, as he was about to press down, there was a flicker of brightness overhead, then another, and two more, and then a steady white brilliance that vanquished the darkness as if it were some mortal enemy.
Jerry stepped from the elevator into the wide corridor beyond and waited while the fluorescent tubes, activated by motion sensors in the elevator shaft, did their job and illuminated facility 401-B-6, better known as Deep Sanctuary. At least, that was the name given to the place decades ago when it was a top-secret government facility. Now it lay forgotten and discarded, like yesterday’s newspaper. Which was how Jerry liked it.
Beyond the corridor were offices, sleeping quarters, and most importantly, the research labs. If Jerry’s hunch played out, if he had done his homework, there would be things there ripe for the picking, things that could make him rich, not to mention the people he worked for.
“It’s freaking freezing.” Boyd Atkins stepped from the elevator and looked around. He carried a large red cooler of the type often used to hold beer, but this one was here for a different purpose. “Why is it so cold down here?”
“The place has been abandoned for years.” Jerry glanced toward his companion as he pushed the flashlight back into his pocket. “We may be the first people to set foot in here for a very long time. You don’t need heat when there’s no one around.”
“So why are the lights still working then, genius?”
“Must be triggered by the elevator,” Jerry said. “I bet the place will start to warm up soon too.”
“God, I hope so. I’m not built for these temperatures. Thin blood.” Boyd rubbed his hands together. “If this place is empty I’m gonna be pissed. You’d better be right about those samples.”
“Have I ever been wrong?” Jerry knew the answer to that. In the ten years that he had been doing this job they had never left empty handed. He was a planner, a meticulous researcher who had a nose for finding things other people had forgotten about, or hadn’t gotten round to cleaning up yet. They had salvaged the cutting edge guidance system from a downed Russian test plane, nuclear warheads from a sunken submarine, and from a lab in Iceland, biological agents with the potential to wipe out an entire city if unleashed into the water supply. These were only a few of the dangerous things they had brought to auction, and there were no shortage of bidders, from hostile governments to tin pot dictatorships. The fact that he was making the world a more dangerous place did not bother Jerry. The stuff was already out there anyway. It would end up in the wrong hands one way or another, so he might as well profit from it, and this job would be the best score yet, his crowning achievement. All they needed to do was find the prize and make their escape. Jerry looked at his partner, who had fallen silent. “Have I ever steered us wrong?”
“Not so far.”
“Damn right.” Jerry took a step forward.
“I don’t know how you do it.” Boyd followed Jerry down the corridor until they reached a metal door set into the wall. “It’s like you have some sort of sixth sense for this stuff.”
“There’s no such thing. I dig deeper than most people, go the extra mile, that’s all.” Jerry pulled a key card from his pocket, a flat piece of plastic with raised bumps. Old technology for sure, but without it they would never get into the labs. Hell, they wouldn’t even have gotten the elevator to work. It had cost him a small fortune to acquire the card from one of his sources in the Pentagon. It had also required more than a little tough persuasion. But Jerry was an expert at getting people to do what he wanted, and in the end the man capitulated. They always did.
He pushed the card into a reader next to the door and waited. For a brief moment nothing happen
ed, and Jerry had the awful thought that the keycard might not work, that he needed a second card to access the main complex. He held his breath, his heart thumping, but finally there was a click, and the door swung silently inward. He breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the card back into his pocket.
“We’re in!” Boyd exclaimed. “I can smell the money already.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Jerry cautioned. Over confidence led to mistakes and false assumptions. “We still have to find the stuff.”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve seen your research.” Boyd slapped his companion on the back. “I bet you already know which lab we need.”
“I wish.” Jerry stepped through the opening and found himself in another corridor, this one wide and breezy. Doors led off to the left and right. A plaque mounted on the wall next to each room identified its purpose. They passed rec rooms, a surveillance center, several offices, and a briefing room. The corridor ended at a T-junction.
“The labs should be this way if the maps were right.” Jerry led them left, and soon they came upon a door with a red biohazard symbol stenciled upon it. Underneath was a dire warning.
BIOHAZARD AIRLOCK
HAZMAT SUITS REQUIRED FROM THIS POINT
Boyd eyed the door. “That’s comforting.”
“The place is abandoned. There aren’t going to be any live pathogens in the air.” Jerry reached out and took hold of the door mechanism, a metal wheel with a curved arrow printed above, and turned it. The wheel moved with an ease that surprised him. Beyond the door was a small room in which were hung four white full body suits, with curved glass visors inset into the hoods.
“These things look ancient.” Boyd reached out and touched one. I can’t imagine they would protect us from much.”
“They don’t need too. Like I said, the place is sterile.” Jerry stepped past the HAZMAT suits to a second door. “We’ll need to seal the first door before we can open this one.”
“What?” Boyd exclaimed. “How do you know this airlock still works? What if we end up trapped in here?”
“We’re not going to get trapped. The outer door opens just fine,” Jerry said. “What we came for is on the other side of this airlock. We close the door and hope this thing still works or we go home empty handed. Your choice.”
“Not much of a choice.”
“Do you want to go back to Silas empty handed? Do you want to explain why we have nothing for him to sell?” Jerry asked.
“No.” Boyd shook his head. Silas was the third man in the outfit. A greedy, grubby little specimen who had earned a reputation for being ruthless in his business dealings, he was not a man to cross. Boyd hated Silas with a passion and was thankful that they only had to deal with him infrequently. He would prefer they not deal with him at all, but business was business, and Silas was, without question, the best arms dealer this side of Eastern Europe.
“Then get a grip and shut the damn door so that we can keep moving.”
“Alright. Keep your shirt on.” Boyd turned and swung the door closed, and then turned the inner latch mechanism to seal it. “Now what?”
“We push this, I guess.” Jerry’s finger hovered over a red button next to the inner door. A plaque mounted to the wall above the button warned them to don their suits before activating. Jerry ignored the command.
He pushed the button.
Nothing happened.
“Shit. That’s just great,” Boyd mumbled. “Damn thing is broken. I knew it.”
“Give it a minute.” Jerry stood with his hands on his hips, striking a confident pose despite the slight nag of doubt that gnawed at him. If the airlock didn’t work, then they would have to break down the door, and that would take days. But then, just when he thought Boyd might be right, there was a hiss of air, and a green light lit up above the door.
“It worked.” A grin broke out on Boyd’s face.
“You bet it did,” Jerry said, relieved. He took hold of the inner door mechanism and soon they were looking at a long corridor with what looked like labs flanking it on both sides.
Jerry moved past the door.
He made his way to the first lab and entered, noting the banks of equipment, once cutting edge, now museum pieces, relics of another time. He reached out, sliding a finger through the layer of dust that covered everything. It never ceased to amaze him how the government wasted resources. Instead of relocating all this gear, they had just left it here to rot. Still, if they didn’t, people like him would be out of business, so he shouldn’t complain. He turned and walked from the room. There was nothing of any consequence there. Everything was too old. Besides, he hadn’t come here for the hardware. What he was after was worth far more.
“Hey, Jerry. Look at this.” Boyd’s voice drifted toward him from one of the other rooms.
“What?” Jerry hurried down the hallway and stepped into the lab, looking around. At first he didn’t see his partner, but then he noticed another door wide open at the far end of the room. It was a large metal door, at least two inches thick, with a hefty looking latch system. Jerry knew instantly what he was looking at - a commercial grade walk-in freezer.
In the doorway, standing stock still, the handheld cooler on the floor beside him, was Boyd.
“What on earth are you doing?” Jerry asked, crossing the room.
“You got to see this, man.” Boyd’s voice sounded strange. “It’s messed up.”
“What is?” Jerry reached the freezer. He felt the chill air rush past, escaping into the lab. After all these years the thing was still operational.
“Look for yourself.” Boyd took a step backwards and moved out of the way, a grave look upon his face.
Jerry edged forward, suddenly uneasy. There was something about his partner’s reaction to whatever was inside the freezer that made Jerry want to turn away, avoid seeing what was beyond the door, but even so he stepped past the threshold.
What he saw stopped him in his tracks. A shiver of alarm ran through him.
In the middle of the room was a hospital gurney, and upon the gurney, strapped down, lay a body. Only this was no ordinary corpse. It was deformed, twisted, the limbs misshapen and grotesque. Where the hands should have been were four long multi-jointed digits, partially webbed, with long, curved claws. Its face was strange; the eyes bugged out, the nose nothing more than a small lump with flaring nostrils. But it was the mouth that scared Jerry, the way the lips curled back to reveal rows of small, sharp teeth, and between them, an engorged, swollen tongue.
“Sweet Jesus, what in the hell is that thing?” Jerry suppressed the urge to turn and run.
“I don’t know, man.” Boyd lingered out in the lab, reluctant to step foot back into the freezer. “But whatever the damn thing is, it ain’t right, that’s for sure.”
Jerry moved forward, his eyes roaming the body. Now that he was closer he noticed something else. The skin was wrong. It looked like the creature had the beginnings of scales growing, poking through doughy, pallid flesh. But it was something around the neck of the creature that turned his blood to ice, an oblong strip of tarnished metal affixed to a chain. What’s more, there was writing stamped into the metal. Jerry recognized the item immediately - military dog tags.
“Christ. I think this used to be a person.”
“What?” Boyd stepped up to the doorway but didn’t enter the freezer. ”Are you sure?”
“Damn thing’s wearing dog tags.”
“Let me see.” Boyd came up behind Jerry and peered over his shoulder. “Shit. You’re right.” He ran his hands through his hair and turned away. “We should get out of here. I’m all for making money, but I didn’t sign up for this.” He nodded toward the gurney.
“Just cool it, okay?”
“You cool it.” Boyd’s voice was a few tones higher than normal. “We’re in a freezer with a monster. You think that’s just another day at the office?”
“Whatever this thing is, it’s long dead.”
“So what?”
“Fine.” Boyd turned back toward the door. “But let’s do it quick. I’ve had enough of this place.”
“That much I agree with.” Jerry cast one last glance at the creature on the gurney, and then started back toward the lab. As he turned, his eyes settled on a cabinet with a glass front that stood against the back wall of the freezer. He whooped with joy when he looked beyond the glass door, at the contents within. ”Boyd. Come here.” He changed course and headed toward the cabinet, his excitement growing with every step.
“What now?”
“Get over here. Look at this.”
“I thought we were getting the hell out of this freezer,” Boyd grumbled as he gave the gurney a wide berth. “That damn corpse is giving me the creeps. I swear it’s looking at me.”
“Shut up.” Jerry was studying the contents of the cabinet, rows of sealed vials arranged on the shelves within. Each vial bore a white label with handwriting on the front, a date, a batch number, and some other stuff that he couldn't make out. “Look here. What does this look like to you?”
Boyd peered through the door, wiping away a fog of moisture that had condensed on the surface of the glass. “Looks like a bunch of old test tubes or something. So what?”
“Don’t you get it?” Jerry was shaking with excitement now, the grotesque corpse on the gurney forgotten in the heat of the moment. “These aren’t test tubes.”
“So, what are they?” Boyd raised an eyebrow.
“Vials.”
“Same difference.”
“Not really. These are for long-term storage.”
“They don’t look like much.”
“This is what we came for, I’m sure of it.” Jerry reached out and gripped the door latch.
“And what about him?” Boyd nodded toward the corpse. “If these vials contain what you think they do, then why is that thing in here with them?”
Cold Sanctuary (John Decker Series Book 2) Page 1
