Taking one hand off the coyote’s mouth proved even more foolish. The beast gulped the severely eroded rock down like a tic tac and snapped at her arm. She whisked it out of the way and clubbed it upside the head, making the coyote stumble halfway off her. Moni delivered a kick to its ribs that propelled it away. She heard it collide with something, then nothing. The purple eyes disappeared. Its mental signature didn’t vanish, and neither did its awful odor.
In the darkness, their voice rose within her. This animal could work for her, and many hundreds beside it, all at her command.
“We’re offering you an army. Imagine what we could do with more beasts like this. The humans hate you. They’ll jail you, strap you to a table and dissect you. We can protect you.”
Moni thought of Aaron waiting for hours and hours in the car on the side of the road for her return. Would she greet him with a human face, one he could smile back at, or as a monstrosity? If left up to them, she’d never hear his laughter again.
“Not like this. I’ll do it myself, not with an army like the one that destroyed my home. You won’t manipulate me again.”
The nano demons inside the coyote roared with rage. Without making an audible sound, its mental hellfire shook her as if she set foot inside an active volcano. Her eyes darted around uselessly. She recalled the sound of her father screaming at her from outside the closet and how she trembled. This time when the door opened, she’d fight back.
Its purple eyes ignited as it shot out of the darkness. Moni darted right, not sure where she’d land. It didn’t matter as the beast closed in too fast. She aimed a front kick straight at its glowing eyes. The coyote leapt over her outstretched foot.
Falling backwards on one leg as the beast’s sharp incisors neared her face, Moni grabbed its ears in both hands and rolled. She smashed its head on the unforgiving cave floor. Its hind legs raked at her thighs, its claws slicing through her pants and drawing blood. Grimacing in silence, Moni swung her hips around and bashed her knee over the coyote’s chest. This time she had it pinned down beneath her. Using its ears as levers, she drove the back of its skull repeatedly into the rock-solid floor.
Its cranium cracked. The mental signature of the aliens inside persisted. She twisted its neck, snapping its spinal nerves so they couldn’t control its helpless body.
Moni dragged it outside. She wouldn’t leave this carcass intact for vultures to pick at so the aliens transferred to more hosts. Moni doused it with gasoline. She hated to waste her precious remaining beverage on this, but she’d see Aaron soon enough. The thought of him warmed her heart, even as she performed such a grim task.
Ranger Blake might also see the smoke and check it out. As much as she wouldn’t mind running into him again, better she didn’t for now. She couldn’t create a cover story for this scene.
As she dug a match out of her bag, Moni examined the dead coyote once more. They had inflated its muscles and lengthened its claws for both slashing and climbing. Its gums were purple. She didn’t see any signs of acid burns on its face, like the kind she caused after she spat on it a day ago. Had the aliens repaired them during mutation?
She set the corpse on fire. Moni stood there until the alien signal within its brain extinguished.
“You chose me when you gave me that pill and now you’re stuck with me. You got a problem with that, sugar?”
They offered no reply.
23
Nina Skillings flew into Las Cruces with such a promising lead that she could practically hear the pop of the bullet discharging before it smashed through Moni’s skull. Not only had Aaron’s mother received a long call from a burner phone in the area, the dipshit had logged onto his email from a computer at the city’s library. Those FBI trackers were good. Nina and FBI Special Agent Cam Carter walked through the tacky, salmon-colored building’s doors and obtained the video showing Aaron shuffling through the library. He was alone. None of the physical evidence from the scene or witnesses pointed to Moni’s presence.
If Aaron hadn’t turned off his phone, Nina would have paid him a visit and made sure.
As Nina dragged herself up to her hotel room, her holstered weapon itched at her ribs. She felt like a slugger who came to the ballpark with a homerun on his hands, only to watch the whole game from the dugout.
The hot water ran over the scars on her face and massaged her bruised back as Nina took her first full lathering in three days of investigation and pursuit. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t even remember whether she had applied conditioner to her hair. In her mind, she replayed the video of bare-ass Moni crawling out of the lagoon, without the girl, into Aaron’s waiting arms. When Nina had emerged from the hospital, no one had greeted her. The only man who might have, Detective Sneed, had died by Moni’s gun.
She could be waiting in the desert night outside her window. Sleep seemed like such a waste. Nina slipped on her Brevard County Sheriff sweat shirt and jeans, adding her sidearm underneath, and left the stuffy room. The back brace stayed in her bag this time, two weeks before the doctor said she should stop wearing it.
Figuring Carter wouldn’t take kindly if she wandered off without telling him, Nina knocked on his door one room over.
“Nina, I had a feeling I’d see you again before dawn.” Carter flashed a bleach-toothed smile that contrasted with his deep tan. He had lost the tie and jacket. “Come in.”
That wasn’t why she came, but the twinkle in his eye when he looked at her, something she rarely saw in a man, changed her plans. When she stepped into his room, she saw his laptop open on his bed. “You working overtime?”
“The tech team imaged the hard drive on Aaron’s library computer and sent me a copy,” he said. “Not only did Aaron check his email, he searched for research assistant jobs at universities around here.”
“He’s looking to plant roots. Moni must be close.”
Carter grinned at the anticipation in her voice. “You think so, huh? How do you know she didn’t ditch him between Louisiana and here? That’s a long way.”
“Because I’ve known that fucking flake since the academy. She doesn’t have the resolve to handle this herself. She always hides behind stronger partners and lets them take the risk, just like she did in the car chase when I took the worst hit. Now she has a lovesick idiot running errands for her.”
“With her face all over the media, she’d stay out of public view. I doubt she’s following him close by, but not in plain sight.”
“She better hide. She killed my brothers, my mentor. Everything I’ve worked for is in shambles.”
Carter placed his hand on her shoulder, generating heat waves through her body. A man hadn’t touched her tenderly in a long time.
“Your life has changed, but it hasn’t been shattered. If you serve your country well here, you’ll be in line for bigger and better things.” Carter eyed her with a knowing smirk.
Nina focused her eyes on the computer as she caught her breath.
Does he want me to serve my country, or him? That’s not what I came with him for, but I’m not letting him send me home.
“Your chance will come soon,” he said, cutting off her thoughts. “Our team has been closing in on him.”
Carter explained that the FBI called all the hotels in Las Cruces asking whether Aaron Hughes stayed there but they came up empty. However, his mother had wired cash to a money service business in the city and Aaron was caught on camera picking it up, still alone. Paying in greenbacks would make his transactions difficult to track. Carter suspected that he contacted the universities in New Mexico and West Texas with open research positions so the FBI would monitor their incoming communications. And next time he turned on his phone, they could track him.
“We’ll find him soon,” Nina said. “The kid’s no genius.”
“Obviously not.” Carter gradually unbuttoned his shirt halfway down. His chest was smooth, cleanly shaven. Despite all the time on the road, she hadn’t noticed a whisker on his face. “He was in a room
with you and Moni, and he chose that bitch.”
A smile pulling at the corner of her lip, Nina gazed in the dresser mirror.
I don’t have to stay for this. No one’s looked at me like that in so long. What’s he see?
Her stout body, with muscular thighs and forearms, hadn’t drawn many compliments from guys and the fading scabs on her face certainly didn’t enhance her looks.
“Even after we find him, Aaron won’t give her up so easily,” Nina said.
Chuckling, Carter untucked his shirt and crossed his arms. “I’m sorry, but we don’t know each other well, yet. I haven’t had a chance to tell you about my stay in Guantanamo Bay. The methods I used down there were reserved for terrorists, country-less enemies of the state. These aliens are just another form of terrorism. They sure as hell don’t follow any human rights laws because they aren’t human. If Aaron’s an alien sympathizer, he’ll be treated like one of them.”
Checking out his hardened hands, Nina didn’t doubt that he could make a man scream a confession. She wondered what else he could do with his hands. She hadn’t experienced an erotic touch in so long, but when she got some, she liked a guy who could keep up with her physicality.
“Something tells me you enjoy putting your hands on people,” Nina said. “I’d like to see what you’d do to Moni’s boyfriend.”
“What else would you like to see?” Carter’s shirt fell away and his toned pecs and six-pack abs emerged. She’d seen plenty of guys shirtless in the past year, walking around the precinct, drunks on the street looking for a cell to sleep in. This was different. The intimacy of her and him in this tiny hotel room and his body radiating warmth made Nina break into a sweat. Of course this was a bad idea. The sparks in her stomach overruled her logic.
“That’s not a bad view.” Nina pointed out an American flag tattoo on his sculpted shoulder that covered an old bullet hole. “I hope you got the asshole who did that. Where’d it happen?”
“The tattoo artist is okay, but the motherfucker who shot me while I was raiding an al-Qaida cell in Boston is the only one of his brothers who’s not in jail right now. He’s in a pine box.”
She smiled and treaded a little closer, smelling the cool breeze of his aftershave.
“We all have our scars.” Raising his hand to her face, he caressed her cheek. At first Nina flinched. He did it so softly so that her wounds didn’t sting. “Be proud of your scars.”
She grabbed his tattooed shoulder hungrily. “When I make the woman who’s responsible for my scars pay, then I’ll be proud every time I see them. You’ll lead me to her. I’ll do anything to get my hands on Moni.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Carter wore a coy smile. “You’ll be a national hero.”
Sharing this bond would make them stronger, Nina thought. His ego needed stroking. She’d stay on the front lines of the hunt for Moni.
“On your back, FBI man.” Nina shoved him, making him fall flat on his back on the mattress. She seized his belt buckle and ripped it open.
24
Flying jets through hostile territory and enduring brutal boot camps in the summer heat hadn’t prepared Brigadier General Alonso Colon for this. He descended on the rope ladder into the black, watery pit in the floor, the one that had swallowed a teenage girl and her father last night. Normally, a unit leader wouldn’t risk his life on the front lines, but he resolved that his men would follow his example and summon courage when they faced the unknown. He’d caught wind of what they whispered about him, that him surviving the attack on Patrick Air Force Base when so many of his troops died showed his aversion to being the point of the spear.
The mother, the only survivor in the house, had said she heard a third voice, with a deep, sinister tone, taunt her husband and daughter after they fell into the hole. Colon had spoken with her when he arrived, and she insisted she heard that same voice echoing laughter still.
An eerie chill penetrated Colon’s body as he landed in the round raft. It felt like he’d walked the grounds of a massacre. He heard nothing but slow, deliberate water dripping. Earlier, a Polk County Sheriff dive team had scoured the bottom of the pit for bodies. They came up empty, but noted that narrow passageways led further on, beyond what they were prepared for.
The military and federal scientists disguised themselves in county rescue uniforms. The sheriff told the skeptical media camped outside the house that it was another sinkhole tragedy, a cruel act of nature.
Soon after settling into the pit, Colon saw this was anything but natural.
The four lights on the base of the raft shone upward, illuminating a limestone ceiling. The part that had caved in over her room bore the hard edges of sudden impact, not the gradual rounding of erosion. The rest of the ceiling, made more brittle by the attack, looked like it could crack and barrel down on them at any moment. Colon held his breath until he could rationalize this. Why risk his life for two people who were probably dead?
I promised my wife and son that I wouldn’t let the aliens hurt them. I can’t let this monster remain on the loose.
“Whoo-ee, look at that indent there.” The Lagoon Watcher circled his laser pointer around a curved gash into the ceiling right below the living room. “That matches the pattern of the four-armed mutant’s claws. It’s the same wound we found on the victims at the lake.”
Astrobiologist Leonard Ho, his face looking like he ate a piece of bad fish, snapped a picture. “I think you’re right. I’ll have someone go up there and make a cast for further study.”
“Oh so now you’re too much of a big shot to climb up there yourself?” the Lagoon Watcher asked. “Sure, have the interns do it.”
“Mr. Trainer, there are no interns on my team,” Colon said. “We’re highly trained military specialists and we’ll gladly make a mold for our NASA partner here.”
“Thank you.” Ho’s cheeks turned purple, and not from an infection. “Can we get out of here now? I think I’ve gathered all I need.”
“What? I thought NASA men liked tight spaces. Try this.” Cackling, the Lagoon Watcher stroked his hand through the water, spinning the raft so it went further from the hole. Without the lights shining down, they couldn’t see the surface of the water for more than a few feet from their craft.
While Ho hyperventilated, Colon quietly shivered. What if the mutant hadn’t left? What if he craved more flesh? He shined his flashlight across the water, scanning it for signs of a bony tendril or a hideous face. His beam of light covered only a small fraction of the angles it could approach them from. He thought of the faces of the boy and his father along the lake, smashed, hollowed out, consumed. His family had always held open casket funerals. That would be out of the question if the mutant got its claws on him.
Something lapped through the water to his left, closer to Ho. The NASA man yelped.
“Calm down, you baby,” the Lagoon Watcher said. “It’s probably a snake, maybe an alligator if you’re lucky. Why don’t you reach out and pet it?”
Colon swept his light toward it. It disappeared. His instincts told him to grab the rope ladder and get the hell out of there, yet he knew his team watched from overhead. “You two, scoot away from the edge of the craft. I’ll take the forward position.”
He drew his gun and grabbed a paddle, which he gradually dipped into the water, waiting for something to seize it. He aimed his gun at the point of immersion just in case. Waiting a few seconds, he paddled the raft towards the light from the hole above. Suddenly, something black grabbed the rear of the raft, preventing it from going any further. Colon jerked his gun around at it. Ho curled into a ball. The Lagoon Watcher nonchalantly aimed his camera at it while sitting perilously close to Colon’s line of fire.
“Give me a clear shot,” Colon ordered. “Get down.”
“What that hell are you shooting at?” the Lagoon Watcher asked, incredulously.
“You want to be bait? That’s fine with me,” Colon said. “I’ll shoot him while he bites your head off.”
The Watcher laughed like a man unhinged. Ignoring him, Colon focused on the limb tugging on their raft. Something shiny emerged behind it. He couldn’t discern the location of its head, especially with such poor lighting. It resembled night vision goggles. Wait a minute, Colon thought, he had ordered a diver down there 40 minutes ago, well before he’d entered the pit.
You can’t stop the enemy from shooting at you, but you can prevent them from breaking your focus. Damn.
Lieutenant Louis Pierre lifted his head out of the depths. Colon couldn’t see much of the Haitian-American Navy SEAL besides the whites of his eyes until he slinked onto the raft. He wore a night vision scope, a model especially for underwater viewing. Pierre removed the regulator from his mouth and sucked in a deep breath.
“Reporting back, sir,” Pierre said. “That was different. I grew up diving for clams and I’ve done plenty of ocean and lake runs, but I was cave certified only five months ago.”
“Florida is the capital of freshwater cave diving,” the Lagoon Watcher said. “It’s so popular, in fact, that clumsy divers have ruined precious cavern habitats with souvenir hawking and touching fragile rock formations.”
Ho shook his head. “Here we go again.”
Deciding against telling Pierre that he’d nearly shot him, Colon asked what he saw down there.
“There’s a chamber with an air pocket after a 60 yard swim through a tunnel. That’s where I found their remains. I took photos. I wouldn’t recommend viewing them until you have a paper bag or garbage pail handy. You ever see what the Libyan mob did to Gaddafi? That looked merciful by comparison.”
Silence the Living Page 12
