Frank is pushed off Bridgette, who shouts, "What's out there, Frank? Something's in the camp."
"Probably Tom trying to scare us. Come on, forget it."
He continues kissing her, caressing, trying to recapture the moment.
"Damn it, Frank!" She pushes him hard away.
"Tom!" Frank shouts. "Get the hell outa here, will you? Messin' up my night, boy!"
There is no answer from Tom, but a large shadow floats across the exterior of the blue, shining nylon tent, followed by another and another, reflected from the last embers of the campfire.
"My God, Frank, what was that?"
"Don't worry, honey." Frank pulls forth a long-barreled Remington .45. As he does so, they both hear the screams of pain and horror coming from the second tent.
"Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod!" she shouts, pointing to the formidable shadow now standing over the tent.
Frank fires the six shots from the Remington, the revolver cranking around in rapid fashion, the explosions dissipating in the vast night. The shadow over the tent is still there. Tom's screams can still be heard.
Frank tears past Bridgette, leaving her lying naked as he crawls out the back of the tent. Behind him he hears her screams and sees the enormous claw that cut a swath in the back of the tent in an effort to grab him. The hole cut by the claw reveals the hideous sight of wolf-snouted, hairy beasts fighting over Bridgette, ripping parts of her off and gorging themselves with her flesh. Frank trembles, falls, scrapes his way away and races for the camper.
He no longer hears Tom's anguished screams, but he now hears Bridgette's as she is being devoured alive.
Frank reaches the camper door, tears it open with all his energy when something reaches him round the neck from overhead, lifting him to the top. He is bitten once sharply, the fangs like two needles going quickly in and out. He is then lifted toylike over the head of the enormous, satanic thing that has him in its grasp. Kicking and screaming, Frank is hurled down into a circle of others awaiting the prize captured for them by their leader.
The flight and fall of Frank's body, some forty yards, mercifully knocks him into a daze, but it also paralyzes him. Frank can't feel a thing, and yet he knows that they've lifted him again and are passing him hand over hand along a line of them, each ripping at him and all of them howling like mad dogs. His eyes register the fact that they are dancing, cavorting with their prizes--all of them, the pieces of Frank's friends--all dead and beyond knowing or feeling. Frank wishes for a swift end, but it does not appear he will get it.
Frank sees the wolfmen, women and children as each fights for a piece of Bridgette's flesh. For some reason he is being held, not given over to the frenzied feeding. Then the largest one, the one that had captured Frank by the neck and thrown him to the others, bays at the half-moon, and the others stop what they're doing, and they, too, bay up at the moon.
When the leader stops, he turns his burning, red devil's eye on Frank, and with saliva dripping, he sinks a fang into Frank's throat, choking off his screams.
Abraham Stroud's body twisted in anguish, his hands covering his own throat as he felt the Kerac-like things taking bite after bite of his flesh. His body tumbled and he lay next to the cell holding Kerac, careening into it with a clash that alerted Anna, who alerted Cage. A sickening, air-escaping noise came from Stroud. He seemed in a fit, as if attacked by an invisible enemy. Kerac had been disturbed by Stroud and was crawling toward him now, about to grab through the bars at him, his eyes wild, the claws extended.
Anna More rushed to Stroud, trying to pull him to safety. Cage fought with his seat belt, and the pilot looked over his shoulder, sending the craft to a sharp left, causing Cage to fall, the stun gun skidding from his grasp.
"Stroud, Stroud!" Anna was shouting.
Kerac's firm hold on Stroud's arm dragged him closer to the cell.
Anna pulled her gun and forced it into Kerac's eyes, slowing the creature, but Kerac wanted Stroud badly. He tore at the arm, bringing Stroud out of his sleep with a scream.
Cage fired the stun gun; Kerac instantly stared at the source of his pain, and from the hypo his eyes lifted to Cage. All the while, he never let go of Stroud. He tried desperately to get his snout and fangs through the bars to bite Stroud, but Anna, with Stroud's help now, kept him from doing so. Stroud thought his arm would be pulled from its socket when suddenly Kerac loosed his grip, stumbled and went to his knees. Kerac's watery, pitiable eyes met Stroud's just before the creature fell again into a deep, forced sleep.
"Christ!" shouted Abe. "What happened?"
"You rolled into the cell, and Kerac took advantage," Anna told Stroud.
Stroud's arm was bleeding where the creature's claws had ripped into it.
"Better put something on that immediately," said Cage, coming around to them. He began ministering to Abe's upper arm where the muscle was lacerated and bloodied. "Nasty wound. Must ward off any infection. No telling what could happen if this thing festered."
"You had a bad dream," said Anna, holding Stroud's head in her lap.
"It was more than a bad dream," he said quietly.
Cage applied a sodium-based cleansing solution after ripping away the tattered shirt sleeve. "This isn't going to be enough," he was saying when he took a small vial from his pocket. Inside the vial was a mercurylike substance. "Silver," he told Stroud, who was staring at the vial. "Who knows ... can't hurt in the dosage I'm going to apply, and it might do some good."
As Cage worked a minuscule amount of the silver nitrate into the sodium cleanser, and went about the business of applying this, he and More listened to Stroud's description of a camping party that had just been mutilated and consumed by a large band of werewolves in the area of the woods they themselves were speeding toward.
"But it was just a nightmare," said Anna.
"It was no dream, Anna."
She shook her head. "Will he be all right?" she asked Lou Cage.
"No," said Stroud. "None of us is all right ... none of us is safe, Anna."
She looked to Cage for an answer. He said, "I've learned one thing about this bugger, Stroud. I never question his visions."
Stroud said, "Where we are going, we will find more dead."
-16-
At dawn the helicopters had arrived at the appointed area. Aboard chopper one, the aerial maps and the view were near identical. Stroud called for the geodesic map that would show any unusual rock formations and depths, rivers and streams. The geodesic map was almost fifteen years old.
"Something down there!" shouted the pilot. "Catching some reflection. Looks like metal."
"Bring us closer," said Stroud as he strained to see the over-turned camper. As they drew nearer, the sight of torn, flapping tents--two of them--came into view amid the thickly forested area. The campers had come off the road about twenty-five yards in from a dust-track ribbon that led to a bridge and another dirt road which they had found off a country road that hadn't been repaved in a very long time. There was a stream nearby that threaded its lazy way back to the bridge and beyond in zigzag fashion. A canoe lay on the earth beside it, its paddles missing or beneath it. At the center of the scene was a large circle of stones--almost too large--where a fire had been.
"Can you find a safe place to set us down?"
"Wide bend in the road back a piece."
"Do it."
With the others remaining aloft, hovering and circling, Stroud, Anna More and Cage went in to investigate. Stroud had shared his premonition with Saylor's people as well now, and from the look of it, the awful foresight had been true. The chopper pilot in number one wasn't pleased with the idea of remaining alone with Kerac, despite the fact the creature appeared sedated still. Lou left the pilot the stun gun. Stroud told him under no conditions was he to go within ten feet of the cell.
Now they entered the camp site, the odor of carnage striking their nostrils even before they did so. The large stone pile over the fire was partially a bone pile where burned flesh and bones s
till lay. All about the dirt, amid the leaves and wild grass, there were scattered body parts, most shorn of flesh down to a few tendons and stringy matter.
The three living people stood in stark silence for a time, in horror and rage and reverence at what they saw. The camp was strewn with the remains of the werewolf meal.
Then Stroud noticed a silence overhead. The other two choppers were gone. "Damn them," he said aloud.
"This is awful--unbelievable and awful," said Anna.
Lou found a place to vomit, but as he did so, he heard the approach of living things all around them there in the woods. He rushed to Stroud's side, with Anna coming to them as well. They all heard the movement inward toward them. Stroud readied his weapon, one of the AK-47s from Saylor's store, the bullets having been silver-doused before leaving Illinois. He rammed home the speed loader and was prepared to fire. Anna More steadied her weapon, as did Cage.
Cage said, "Sounds like they're all around us."
"Hold your fire!" It was Saylor's voice. "We're coming in."
Stroud breathed a sigh of relief, but he shouted, "You were told to stay airborne."
Saylor and the others stepped into the clearing. Priest, Blue, Nails, Tulley--all of them at equidistant points around the circle, all pointing their deadly weapons.
"God!"
"What a slaughter."
"Ain't seen nothin' like this since the Chicago stockyards closed down."
Stroud shouted, "Saylor! What the hell're you doing here? I told you to--"
"We're paid to fight, Abe, not piss out a helicopter. Besides, we want to see what's happened here as well as you."
Anna frowned, looked at Abe, and then said to Saylor, "Look around ... have a good time. I'm going back to the chopper."
"No one goes alone," said Stroud.
"I've seen enough," said Lou. "I'll see she gets back safely."
Saylor shouted to Blue and Nails to escort the two of them back to the road. The soldiers complained about it, but did as they were told.
Saylor then turned to Stroud and said, "You're crazy to come into an unsecured area like this, Abe. What're you paying us for? My men are here to ensure the success of this mission, and you endanger yourself this way, without buttoning up the perimeter--"
"Earl, I knew there were none of them around. That they were long gone."
"Oh, I get it ... you sensed it?"
"Something like that. A place of death usually speaks very loud to me. Remember those three days I lay out in a death field in Vietnam with a hole blown in my head? That kind of thing ... it sticks with you."
"So, if you were so sure, why were you about to blow my friggin' brains out with that?" He touched the barrel of his weapon against Stroud's.
"Instinctive reaction. You were told to stay aloft. I wasn't expecting you. And when I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed."
"So long as the order makes sense, Abe ... so long as it makes sense, I won't second-guess you. But my people have a right to see this."
"Okay, we start here ... from this point, with Kerac," said Stroud, not wishing to argue with Saylor, knowing he could not win--especially in front of his men.
"We let him loose here," said Saylor, nodding. "He picks up the scent of his kind ... follows their trail ... sure. Good move."
"Your men aren't above carrying a heavy load, I hope?"
"Just so long as the mother's out ... and I mean cold."
"He's still smarting from his last dose."
"And what about you, Stroud? How's that arm?"
Cage had bandaged the wound and it had oozed a stain of rust.
"I'm fine."
"Good ... good. Let's do it. Tulley, we're pulling the freak in the cage; settin' it down here and lettin' it go on its way. See to it."
Tulley and the others made their way back. Stroud and Saylor stayed put, surveying the terror that lay before them.
Meanwhile, Lou Cage and Anna More made their way back to the relative safety of the helicopters. Lou had to test the effectiveness of the remote cameras and the monitors that signaled the vital signs of each of the soldiers on the ground. Anna More had become silent and withdrawn; Lou understood her fears and concerns.
Kerac was kept under sedation there in the clearing until what was left of the four bodies of the campers had been given benefit of burial. Stroud took charge of whatever wallets and other identification could be found, to be turned over to the authorities when they got back to civilization. Stroud thought of the families who would be searching uselessly for the four campers. He stacked a series of flat rocks atop one another, creating a steepling cairn. The heap of stones served as a marker and a crude headstone.
The soldiers had become unusually quiet during the burial detail, as if each man and woman was alone with, and fearful of, his own thoughts.
With the burial detail completed, Stroud said a handful of words over the young strangers, and then the group went quickly to work, grateful to be busy, grateful to walk away from death.
They now deployed the metal cage and its unconscious cargo atop a slight grade, so that the cell door, when Stroud removed the lock, swung open on its hinges. In front of the cage, Stroud spread out a meal of raw meat for the creature.
Within half an hour the cage holding John Kerac was jiggling, Kerac coming around. Stroud and his mercenaries had long since moved off cautiously, looking back from time to time, their shoulder cameras documenting their actions.
Back at chopper one, high overhead and out of Kerac's visual range, Anna More and Lou Cage watched the monitor. Cage hurried those on the ground out of the area, saying, "If Kerac picks up on your scent, he'll follow you, Stroud, instead of going in the direction you want, in pursuit of his pack."
"Copy that, Lou," Stroud replied. "Vacating as fast as we can."
The party of mercenaries followed Stroud back toward the other two waiting helicopters. With Kerac still woozy, Lou Cage told Stroud that the electronic bug in Kerac's forearm was sending a clear signal. "You can break off visual contact now. Get clear of there, Abe!"
"We copy you, Lou, and we're coming up!"
"Roger that," replied Lou, "and thank God."
The additional machines went aloft.
Lou kept the channel between them open, saying, "Signal is working perfectly, Abe. Should be a piece of cake, following Kerac."
"I expect that'll be the easy part, Lou."
"He's on the move, Abe."
"Say again?"
"Kerac--he's moved from the cage."
"How far?"
"Just a matter of a few yards, but he's up and moving, clearly out of the cell."
Stroud pictured the blood dripping from Kerac's fangs as he tore into the present of raw meat left him. "Now, people, we pray."
Kerac awoke to find himself alone in the forest with the confining cell door swinging open. He might have ripped the cell apart, bent its bars to his bidding, if they had not chemically controlled him. He still felt woozy and weakened. But they left him with a lion's share of red meat, which he now feasted on. As he ate, his eyes were alert to the scattered leavings all around him. His nose was alert to the odor of humans, and to the odor of his own kind. After feeding and prowling about the camp, Kerac made his way northeasterly, following the scent of those who were like him.
Werewolf's Grief (Bloodscreams #2) Page 17
