by Greig Beck
Sarah glanced around, then crowded in close to him, the small boot still tucked under her arm. ‘He’s not here. I didn’t see him go.’
Matt swung his flashlight back and forth, taking a few steps deeper into the cave. ‘Charles . . . Charlie Brown . . . you there?’
Sarah joined in the calling, her voice bouncing away into the darkness.
‘Keep your voices down,’ Thomas said sharply.
Matt turned his flashlight on the old Indian. His usually impassive face held a look of resignation, and something else . . . fear perhaps. Matt didn’t like it. In the flashlight’s glare, Thomas was bleached of all colour, and even the cynical half-smile he seemed to permanently wear had fallen away.
Thomas motioned with his head towards the cave’s dark interior. ‘Mr Schroder’s tracks lead that way . . . along with tracks from the thing I feared we might find.’ He looked briefly back the way they had come. ‘I say it again: I think we should leave . . . now.’
‘We’re not leaving without our friend, or without knowing what happened to Emma Wilson,’ Sarah said.
Thomas lifted his arm and pointed to one of the passages off the main cave. ‘He went in there. If you choose to follow, I think you will find what you seek, Ms Sommer.’
Sarah moved towards the passage, but Matt grabbed her arm. ‘Hang on a minute.’ He turned to Thomas. ‘What if . . .’ He couldn’t finish. The words he wanted wouldn’t come. Already his mind was becoming crowded with memories of a terrifying journey miles beneath the Antarctic ice . . . a trip that had ended badly for a lot of people.
‘Can you . . .’ Matt swallowed and tried again. ‘Thomas, can you please stay here . . . and, ah, cover us?’
Thomas unzipped his jacket, the noise extraordinarily loud in the darkness, to expose the oversized grip of the Colt Anaconda. He touched it briefly as if for reassurance, but didn’t pull it free. Instead, his hand travelled up to the small leather bag around his neck. With a swift tug, he ripped it free and wrapped the leather string around his fist, tucking the cord ends under the loops to keep it fastened to his hand. The gesture seemed so . . . final. It scared Matt more than the sight of the huge gun sticking out of the old man’s belt.
‘I will wait for you,’ Thomas said.
Sarah made a tsking sound at the sight of the gun, then pulled away from Matt and stepped into the smaller cave. Almost immediately, she vanished into the darkness.
Matt took a half-step after her, then turned back to Thomas. He felt his heart pounding in his chest. ‘Okay . . . thanks,’ he said, and held the old man’s eyes.
‘Matthew Kearns,’ Thomas said softly, barely above a whisper.
Matt blinked as if a spell had been broken.
‘Be careful . . . some legends are real.’
Matt nodded. He’d heard that phrase before, but couldn’t remember where. He turned to jog after Sarah and found her fifty or so paces ahead along the dark tunnel.
A rank stench filled his nostrils, and he held his hand over his nose and mouth and spoke in a pinched whisper. ‘Holy crap, this can’t be good for you.’
Sarah stumbled, and stopped. She moved her torch beam in broad arcs over the cave floor. ‘Bones,’ she said.
Matt caught up with her and grabbed her upper arm. ‘Slow down. If Charles isn’t here, we’ll try the next cave. I don’t want to go too deep . . . Huh, what did you say?’
He took another step and heard something brittle crunch underfoot. He swung his beam to his feet and saw a piece of smashed moulded plastic – part of the dart gun Charles had been carrying.
‘Charles?’ he whispered, and swung his beam in wider arcs, stopping it on a rivulet of dark lumpy fluid that ran down the wall twenty feet in front of them.
‘Oh no, that’s clotting blood,’ Sarah said.
Together, they lifted their flashlights up along the blood trail . . . to illuminate a ghastly sight.
Sarah screamed, a high-pitched sound that threatened to damage Matt’s ears in the small space.
Charles’s head sat at a slight angle on a natural rock shelf, his mouth pulled open in a scream that would never end, the stump of his neck ragged and uneven where it had been torn from his body. It rested next to other heads – some fresh, some desiccating.
Matt doubled over, a whining mewl coming from his mouth in the instant before he vomited onto the bones at his feet. The repulsive, pervasive stench was in the air all around him – in him, in his nose, his mouth, his lungs. I killed him, he thought. I brought him here and now he’s dead.
He straightened, wiping his mouth, and lifted a shaky hand to take hold of Sarah. Behind him, a sound smashed out, so loud and close it was like a physical blow to the back of his head.
Matt spun quickly, nearly slipping on his vomit. At the back of the cave stood a hulking form, so large he could barely adjust his eyes to take it in. Its face was that of a gargoyle, with pink boiled-looking skin, flaring nostrils, and patchy hair that peaked to a crest on its crown. Its mouth looked like that of a grotesquely painted harlot, its lips garish red with blood. From one of its shovel-sized hands dangled Charles’s limp and mangled remains.
The monster roared again, revealing enormous yellow canines as long as Matt’s fingers.
Matt did the only thing he could think of. He threw his flashlight into the creature’s face, grabbed Sarah and yelled, ‘Run!’ as loudly as his strangled voice would allow.
*
Thomas’s scalp crawled when Sarah’s scream came bouncing out of the dark cave. He had hoped they would find nothing, but in his soul he had known it was a vain wish.
A small glow appeared in the passage, becoming a beam of light that waved around madly as Matt dragged Sarah and her torch back to the main cave and the exit. He grabbed at Thomas as they passed, but the Indian shrugged out of his hand. He could see Sarah’s white face, hear her terror in her panting breath. Matt was babbling something about heads and bones, but there was no time for talk.
‘Go!’ Thomas shouted into the young man’s face. ‘The killing must stop tonight. Tooantuh will come and you must be ready for him. Help him to push the beast back into the mountain, or you will all die – like your friend.’ He gave Matt an almighty shove towards the cave mouth. ‘Go!’
Matt looked as though he was about to speak, but Thomas turned away. In another few seconds, he was inside the passageway and swallowed by the dark. He closed his eyes for a moment, trusting his senses. The warm breeze that flowed from the inner caves was snuffed out, as if something had moved to block the source of the draught. It is here.
Thomas began to chant softly. The words that he had only half-believed for most of his life, he now sang as if they were the only words that had ever mattered to him. He called on his forefathers for strength and courage. He asked them to prepare the welcome fire for he would be joining them soon.
It is close now.
He opened his eyes, but could see nothing in the pitch dark. A revolting smell enveloped him, along with a sensation of body warmth – something was moving stealthily around him, displacing minuscule amounts of air.
Thomas raised his gun and fired. The recoil jolted his thin arm all the way back to the shoulder, and his ears rang with the sound of a thousand sirens. But in that split second of muzzle flash, he saw the face of his ancestors’ enemy above him, a harbinger of agony and death. He brought the gun up again and fired, trying to locate the thing by the flash – but it was useless after the bullet had already flown. The only way he was going to hit it was through luck or the will of his ancestors.
He stood in the blackness, the ringing in his ears making them as useless as his eyes. His arm shook from the strain of holding up the heavy Colt, but as he contemplated changing hands a savage blow smashed into his forearm, its force almost dislocating his shoulder. His hand immediately felt light. He knew the gun was gone, but there was no pain. He brought his other hand up to rub his forearm, but there was nothing there – the arm had been severed at the elbow. His f
ingers came away hot and wet with blood.
Thomas sank to his knees, and hoped he had given Matt and Sarah enough of a head start.
He laughed softly in the dark and tilted his head upwards. ‘Oh, Great One, may your next battle be with a stronger warrior than an old man.’
He didn’t feel the horrific blow that came down on his upturned face.
*
The cold, the darkness, the closeness of the trees pressing in all around them; it was just like last time beneath the ice. Matt’s frightening memories began to overwhelm him. He sprinted down the path, trying to keep pace with Sarah, whose long legs seemed to dance over the deepening snowdrifts rather than sink into them like his did. He glanced frantically over his shoulder many times, even though whatever had been pursuing them seemed to have fallen back. He didn’t think for a moment it was Thomas; he’d heard gunshots from inside the cave. He also didn’t believe they’d outpaced their follower, and was damned sure he wasn’t going to stop or let it get in front of them.
Sarah carried the only flashlight, and he prayed that she was following the trail Thomas had brought them up on. It was too dark and too cold to get lost. He almost laughed; the cold was the least of their worries right now.
He thought again of Charles, his waxen face that would sit screaming in that dark cave until it dried to a leathery skull; a grisly trophy for a creature that he’d only half-believed existed. A wave of nausea washed over him. He wasn’t going to let Sarah or himself suffer the same fate.
‘Faster!’ he screamed at Sarah’s back, even as he knew that if she had any speed left in her legs, he certainly didn’t.
THIRTY-TWO
‘Give me something, Reid. It’s getting real dark up here.’
As Hammerson’s voice sounded in his ear, Sam Reid was already changing the VELA imaging vector to thermal to pick out the heat signatures of the various bodies on the mountain. The image slant dipped another few degrees, and he tried again to improve the angle but it still dragged to the side.
Shit! Not now, he thought, as his fingers flew over the satellite commands. Nothing made a difference; the image still slipped.
‘Sorry, boss, only got a few more minutes here. About to move over the horizon and lose my line of sight. But frankly, it looks like goddamn Main Street down there. Gotta be a dozen people moving on that mountainside now.’
Sam pulled back to look at the multiple fluorescing blips. The two HAWCs carried tracers in their suits that allowed them to be easily identified.
‘Okay, I got two bodies coming down at you fast. I also got five, repeat five, warm bodies I can see intermittently in and out of a satellite shadow . . . they must be in an overhang or ravine.’
The HAWC commander grunted in reply, his breathing ragged as he ran up the steep slope. ‘That’ll be Logan and his team. Go on.’
‘Then I got multiple groups coming up from different angles. Four bodies coming at a rapid rate, approximately three miles back on your five o’clock. They’re in a standard tracking formation – my guess is they’re your Mossad ghosts.’ He moved to another section and zeroed in. ‘Okay, I got two more coming up from your seven, one of them moving at extreme speed . . . and he’s hot . . . very hot. Body heat off the scale. One guess, boss.’
‘That’s our man. Can you –’
Sam cut him off. ‘Wait – that’s not all. You got another three bodies on their way, also at extreme speed. Oh shit – they’re hot, boss, way too hot for anyone normal, and they’re . . .’
Sam’s words froze in his mouth as he saw an enormous shape appear on the slope behind the two figures coming down from above the HAWCs’ position. It moved downwards first, then shifted sharply in another direction. To a military man like Sam, its intention was clear – intercept or ambush.
‘Boss, something huge just appeared a few klicks above you. I’m about to pass over the horizon any second and my window will close. But looks like you’re about to have a massive new guest at your party – definitely non-human.’
The screen image fuzzed momentarily and then cleared. Sam focused on two particular shapes – the enormous one moving into an ambush position, and the one coming up towards it at a speed faster than any normal human could manage.
In another second, the screen fuzzed again and went white.
‘Sorry, boss . . . I’m over the rim and blind. You’re on your own. Good luck.’
Hammerson responded with a brief acknowledgment and signed out.
Sam sat back in his chair, frustration balling in his stomach. He wanted to be out there . . . he needed to be out there. If it was Alex coming up the slope, as they suspected, Sam was the best person to talk to him. Sam’s size, skill and experience also made him the best choice to deal with the unknown adversary approaching Hammerson and Franks.
Or used to make me the best, he thought.
He stared at the white screen, unaware that he was punching his fist into one of his dead thighs, over and over. Finally, he lifted his hand and brought it down hard on the steel armrest of his wheelchair.
‘Fuck these legs, and fuck this chair!’
*
Hammerson and Franks jogged up the slope. It was now full night, and they’d inserted night-vision contacts into their eyes, which made them bulge slightly. The tiny discs included infrared and thermal-vision technology operated through a combination of eye blinks – another useful tool from the HAWC weapons labs.
Hammerson pulled in deep lungfuls of air as he made his way up the slope. The forty-five-degree incline and the soft snowdrifts made a good spring-off impossible; the result – each stride sapped a lot of energy. The communication pellet in his ear pinged and he touched it briefly. It was Chief Logan.
‘Jack, me and the boys have tracked the Kearns party to where they entered a small cleft in the mountainside. With the amount of vegetation growing over the top, it’s more like a dark green tunnel. We’re holding for the moment. What’s your position? Over.’
Hammerson sucked in another breath. ‘Good work, Bill. Hold it there. We’ve had intel that there are bodies coming down at us – two of the Kearns’s group we think. Also multiple bodies on the way up – not sure if they’re friendlies, so you need to dig in deep there. We’ll pick up the two coming down in approximately ten minutes, then return to your location ASAP. Over.’
Hammerson thought Logan sounded relieved as he signed off. He didn’t doubt for a minute that Logan’s men would consider trekking any higher in the cold dark as smart an idea as rolling in the snow naked.
He looked up at Franks and saw she was starting to leave him behind, even though she paused every so often to change her vision from light-enhancing to thermal imaging to scan the steep slope ahead. He reached into a pouch in his suit and pulled free a small foil pack. He tore it open and extracted a small gel capsule, which he broke under his nose, inhaling the stimulants. The chemical explosion went off in his head first, then travelled down his chest to bloom in his extremities. Suddenly, old legs became young. He increased his pace.
*
Markenson had pulled off his gloves. In each hand, he held a mug of steaming coffee. He handed one to Chief Logan, then took a drink from the other. ‘Can we light a fire, Chief? It’s freezing up here.’
Logan looked at his team; the bulky clothing they wore made them look like overstuffed bears. They’d been grumbling for a while now as it got darker. To his credit, Markenson had made sure they each had a coffee to warm them up. Logan wished he could agree to the fire.
‘Sorry, Ollie, this isn’t a cookout. Hammerson tells me there are people above us coming down, and more people below us coming up – we’re about to be sandwiched. Best we keep a low profile until we see what everyone’s up to.’
Markenson shrugged. ‘Hey, maybe some of them are the three Jordan brothers.’
Logan nodded. ‘That wouldn’t be a bad thing – we could sure do with their help.’ He motioned towards the other three officers with his head. ‘Tell the boys to
keep it quiet. I’m going to have a quick look around. And no fire, Ollie. Got it?’
‘Got it, Chief.’ Markenson raised his mug in a salute, then sipped again.
*
Salamon held the scope to his eye. Captain Senesh was in sight now, moving slowly in the snow; he could tell she was heavily fatigued. He scanned the terrain but could find no trace of Alex Hunter. He switched back to Senesh. The tracks she moved in told him that she was following the ex-HAWC, but had probably dropped well back. They’d take her first then.
He made a single flat chopping motion in the air and his men fanned out, running fast and drawing their weapons.
Salamon lifted his gun. The long silencer would deliver a high level of sound-baffling, and the extended barrel added projectile stability for greater accuracy. He held the gun in a two-handed grip and sighted high on Senesh’s back and just at the base of her neck – a kill shot. He gently squeezed the trigger. The hammer drawing back and releasing made no more noise than the tick of a clock.
The gun spat softly and the figure jerked forward and fell into the snow, partially obscured by a massive tree trunk.
That’s for my first team, traitor. Now for Hunter, he thought confidently.
*
Alex came to a stop. He swivelled his head . . . behind, sideways, then back up the slope. So many people, so many noises. He could hear men laughing in one direction; and Adira’s heavy breaths far behind him as she continued up the slope; and rushing footsteps – multiple bodies, heavy, moving without any fatigue. Elite soldiers, two teams, he thought. Further up, there was a larger group, spread out.
He closed his eyes to concentrate, and placed his hand against the bark of a tree. He immediately felt the vibrations of the moving people. He ground his teeth and focused harder, searching for something else . . . There it is. Its footfalls were slow and stealthy, as if it was tracking something.
An explosion of pain rippled from Alex’s forehead all the way to the back of his skull and down his spine. An image of his mother screaming in the dark blasted his senses, almost causing him to cry out in anguish. His fingers gripped the tree trunk, tearing away a length of bark, and the rapid increase in his body heat melted the snow around him.
