by Paul Kearney
“Here they come again,” Fox said, at the rear. “They’re circling us.”
“Keep moving,” Willoby snarled.
The Dromaeosaurs were moving through the tall ferns in arcs to their rear and to the left and right. Back down the slope they could see a knot of them feasting on Brice’s body, fighting and squabbling over the fresh meat.
“God, I hate these things,” Doody said with disgust.
“Shut up. Keep your eyes open. Fox, take the rear arc, Doody, you’re on the left. I’ll take the right. Cutter, keep them moving, no matter what. Don’t stop for anything.”
They charged through the ferns, their lungs burning in their chests. Stephen moaned in pain as he was pulled along by the arms, his legs trailing behind him.
The sun came out, a startling brightness that dazzled their eyes. As it did, the Dromaeosaurs moved in.
“Keep going,” Willoby said calmly. He looked off to where the pink light had been, but they were in dead ground here, and it was hidden from them. He fired three quick bursts, and one of the creatures collapsed ten metres from him. The others barked at one another, weaving back and forwards in the ferns, creating dark lines through it which bisected their own trail.
They came in on the left, two of them. One leapt at Doody, and the other jinked around to burst through the other members of the party. Connor slashed at it with his knife as it whipped past him.
Doody went down, then was up again, clubbing the creature back with his rifle, yelling wordlessly. The creature got its claws around the weapon and ripped it out of his hands. It stood a moment, holding it, and then bit down on the metal. Doody drew his bayonet and stabbed it in the head. The blade snapped off. He threw down the handle and began running.
Cutter fell, and the pole snapped under him. He threw one sharp fragment to Abby and jabbed the other at a creature that banked close to him, snapping out like a gull trying to nab some chips. The jagged wood took it in its mouth, and Cutter rammed it home as hard as he could. The creature leapt away, tearing the makeshift spear out of Cutter’s hands. He bent, grabbed Stephen’s arm, and helped Connor drag him along.
They crested a small rise, and before them, not a hundred metres away, was an anomaly. It was truncated, glimmering, a mere parody of its full shining itself. It was about to disappear.
A few metres from it, a pink flare was lying on the ferns, burning smokily as it too began to sink. And beside the flare, James Lester stood with an automatic rifle in the crook of his arm.
“Get a move on!” he shouted, and waved his arm at them.
They ran on, the Dromaeosaurs weaving through them, snapping and snarling. Willoby brought up the rear. The creatures that had been feeding on Brice’s body had left their meal and were now powering up the slope to join their fellows. Willoby halted, panting, then looked back at the rest of the party, still tottering towards the dying anomaly.
He knelt on one knee, took careful aim, and then began firing single shots at the Dromaeosaurs.
One was brought down just as it had locked its jaws around Stephen’s boot. Another was wounded as it prepared to leap on Doody’s running back, and it toppled, squealing and thrashing in the ferns. A third took a bullet in the leg as Abby was frantically beating it off with the other half of Cutter’s stick. It fell on its side, and she stabbed the makeshift stake into its throat, then turned and kept running.
Everyone was running except Willoby. He kept his breathing steady, took careful, aimed shots, and brought down or wounded one by one the members of the Dromaeosaurid pack that were hounding the rest of the party. He saw the others reach Lester, who was also firing his rifle — though not, Willoby noted, with much effect. He saw Cutter and Connor drag Stephen through the anomaly, then Jenny and Abby went through, then Doody and Fox, and finally Lester.
He was alone.
The second group of animals was loping up the slope now, almost on him.
Cutter came back through.
“Willoby!” He shouted. “For God’s sake man, come on — save yourself!”
Too late for that. He took careful aim as the foremost of the Dromaeosaurs launched itself through the air at him. The rifle clicked on an empty chamber.
Sloppy, Willoby thought, just as the animal landed on him, smashing him onto his back.
TWENTY-TWO
Cutter came back through with a face like stone. He stood blinking as the anomaly swirled and withered, and finally winked out behind him.
The other two phenomena went with it. Guns Island opened up around him, a fresh breeze winnowing the ferns and playing upon the granite of its bones.
“Where is he? Where’s the boss?” Sergeant Fox asked.
“He’s dead,” Cutter said dully.
French soldiers were milling around by the dozen, with blankets and mugs of hot coffee. Like it was the scene of an accident, Cutter thought.
Stephen was being seen to by a French doctor and a whole team of medics. They were setting up a drip. He opened his eyes once as Cutter stood over him, and their gazes locked. Stephen nodded slightly, and then drifted off again. The medics covered his face with an oxygen mask.
“I call that cutting it rather fine,” Lester said. He looked at the gasping, sweating, shivering survivors of the team as they hunkered on the ground around him, exhausted, bloody and blasted by what they had seen and experienced.
“You have no idea,” Cutter said to him.
Connor was still clutching his bloody knife, as though afraid to let go of it. Cutter knelt beside him.
“Who needs guns, eh? You did well, Connor. You all did.”
“What happened to Willoby?” Connor asked. “I didn’t see, Professor.”
“He didn’t make it.”
“Oh, God.” Tears welled up in Connor’s eyes. Cutter set his hand on the boy’s head. Except he wasn’t a boy, not any more. His eyes were middle-aged.
“You did well,” he repeated, not knowing what else to say.
A helicopter landed not thirty metres distant, the down-wash of its rotor making them all turn away. It was a French Puma. The doctor and his team lifted Stephen onto a lightweight gurney and carried him to the aircraft, then set him aboard. It took off again, a roaring monster of aluminium and steel.
“He’ll be all right,” Lester said. He took a notebook out of his breast pocket. “It would seem you’re missing a few people Cutter. I need their names, and what happened to them. We have to get this thing sorted out as soon as possible. For the families, you understand.”
“For the families, right,” Cutter said. He was in a daze. A passing French marine handed him a cup of coffee, and he stood looking into it as though it were an oracle.
“Their names,” he said. “Right now, I’m not sure I can call them to mind.” He handed the mug to Lester. “Hold this, will you?” Then he turned and was sick into the grass.
Lester sighed and looked away.
“I quite understand,” he said, sounding anything but understanding.
Cutter wiped his mouth.
“It was good of you to come through looking for us.”
“All part of the service, Professor.”
“I’m surprised you risked your own neck that way.”
Lester shrugged.
“It was that, or leave it to our friends here.”
“Ah, the French. You must tell me, sometime, just how they got here.”
“Believe me, Cutter, by the time you have written your report and I have written mine, and you’ve given statements to a couple of subcommittees, and hashed and rehashed the events of the last few days, you will know everything there is to know about this place, and everything that happened here.”
“Why don’t you settle for telling me why a bunker was built around an anomaly here, fifty years ago?” Cutter said, glaring now.
Lester looked up at the shifting clouds that were drifting across the sky. There were seagulls flying in raucous skeins below them, calling out across the island as though reclaim
ing the place from the storm. And the things that had been in the storm.
“Ah, now there’s the little sticking point. Some things, Cutter, are better not known, not by you, and not even by the great and the good of our fine country.”
“In other words, you just won’t tell me.”
“I could tell you,” Lester said. He smiled. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
He walked away, tapping his notebook against his chin.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Cath Trechman, for her professionalism, good humour and great patience; to Tim Haines and Adrian Hodges for their invaluable insights and input; and to Nancia Leggett for keeping the whole process on track.
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