"We must again locate them, Cage!" shouted Stroud suddenly, getting to his feet, ignoring Anna's protests.
"What?" said Cage.
"They'll disappear for good if we don't find them now! Now! That's what the dream was trying to tell me. We must get aloft! Now!"
"But we haven't got all the supplies," complained Anna.
"Do we have plastique, Saylor? Did you load any plastique aboard?"
"Plenty of it, sure."
"Good, then we'll have to make any other preparations en route, do you all understand?"
Stroud rushed past them like a man on speed, going to the pilot and ordering him to ready the helicopter for flight. "Come on, hurry!" Stroud was shouting.
"Coming," shouted Tulley, dropping a last crate of ammunition and grabbing Saylor's hand to be pulled up just as the helicopter got away.
"What the hell gives, Stroud?" asked Cage, certain his sudden strange behavior had to do with his dream.
But Abe waved him off. "We've all got to do some spotting. Are there enough infrared binocs back there for everyone?"
"These people have to get some rest, Abe."
"No time for that now, Cage. It's crucial we know where they are. Look at this! Look at it!" Stroud had snatched up the complicated geodesic map of the region. Anna More and Saylor came closer to hear and see what was going on between Stroud and Cage in the cockpit.
"What am I looking at, Abe?"
"This region is dotted with limestone, and where there's limestone, there's artesian water, and where there--"
"--there's artesian water, there's underground caves."
"Exactly, and should they retreat to these caves, we've lost them for certain."
"How did you figure this out?"
"Earlier, I was looking over the map ... must have stuck in my subconscious," he lied.
"They may already have gone underground in that case," said Saylor.
"Perhaps not," countered Stroud. "This area right here"--he poked the map--"is a goodly distance even for them to go. If we're lucky, there'll be stragglers."
"What makes you think they'll go for that area?"
"According to the map, it's the likeliest place for a large underground cavern. And if my hunch is right, this lair of theirs has to be large. They've probably used it for generations, living out most of their lives there."
"You don't think for a moment we're going inside with them, do you?" asked Tulley, who had come closer to hear the plan as well.
"I hope it won't come to that. I hope we can place charges at the entry, seal them up."
"And any other exits they might have," said Saylor, enjoying the idea now.
"Whatever we can locate," agreed Stroud.
"Who's going to set the charges?" asked Cage.
"Tulley and me," replied Saylor. "We can handle it."
"We've got to first determine what needs blasting and where. We'll have to do a thorough recon from the air," said Tulley, who had had a great deal of experience with plastique explosives. "If a second blast team is needed, Stroud, you and one of your friends here is it."
"I don't want everyone in those caves," said Stroud. "Prepare the stuff, tell me exactly what to do, and I'll be the second team. Anna and Cage stay with the helicopter."
"I'll go in with you, sir," said the pilot.
"Forget it, Dave. The others need you to fly this thing out of here. Aside from me, you're the only one who can handle the controls."
Abe got up from the seat he was in and started handing out the infrared binoculars. "I want you all on watch. We've got to spot them again, follow their movements."
Abe went among them doling out the field glasses, and Anna More shouted over the rotor blades, "I'm going with you, Abe."
"I said no, Anna! Not this time! Nor you!" he said, lifting a finger at Lou Cage.
"It's something you saw, isn't it?" asked Anna. "Something in your dream."
"Nothing like that."
"Don't lie to me, Abe."
He looked away. "We have a right to know, Abe," Lou said to him. "We all of us have a right to know..."
"It was just a nightmare."
"Your nightmares have a way of coming true," said Cage, "and it was something in your dream that told you about the caves, wasn't it?"
"Priest told me about the caves."
"What?" shouted Tulley. "What'd he say? Priest?"
"And the others."
"What others?" asked Saylor.
"Blue and Nells."
"This is nuts," said Tulley.
Saylor shook his head. "Can't buy this, Abe."
"Buy what you like. But under no circumstances go into those caves. Do you understand?"
"Then how in hell're we supposed to set charges that will bring them down? We've got to clear at least the threshold."
"With every step you go inside, you assure yourself of being trapped there forever," he warned them. "All I'm saying is that we must do this thing with every caution, and then some."
"And you really expect us to believe the ghosts of our buddies came to you and warned you about all this," said Tulley with a snarl. "You're nuts, Stroud ... nuts."
"Just the same," said Cage, "the advice is good and worth heeding."
Saylor took Tulley aside, cooling him down, saying, "These choppers are about as effective as they were in thick brush in Nam, you know, Tulley?"
"Yeah, you got that right."
"Smoke?"
"Sure."
"Tell you what, I'll go out with a grenade before I let those bastards do to me what they did to Blue," said Saylor. "How about you?"
"It'd take more than a grenade to kill you, Earl. Maybe some of that stuff." He indicated the plastique.
"Best get to work on bundling it, huh?"
The soldiers soon went to work on preparing the explosive charges. Stroud, Cage and Anna, along with the pilot, kept a sharp eye out for movement below. In between, Stroud hung up the geodesic map on metal clips to a wire on the gunwale. He frequently studied it, going back to the bubble of the chopper, studying the ground, returning to the map and back, until suddenly Anna More shouted, "I see movement!"
"Where?"
"Three o'clock! Lots of movement down there."
The werewolves were in the area exactly as Stroud has predicted, and this made Tulley even more uneasy about Stroud.
Cage took up the trail. "More on that east ridge," he said.
Stroud, staring through the red glow of the binoculars, saw the movement clearly as well. He tried to calculate the numbers, and the number of locations where they seemed to be disappearing. Each such location might mean another entryway into their underground world.
"They'll post sentries at the entrances," said Saylor, who was now also staring down on the scene.
The light was playing havoc with the infrared at this distance, the sun trying desperately to lift over the horizon.
"Posting sentries would be Kerac's next move," said Cage. "Cunning bastard."
"That won't help them," said Tulley, saddened by the fact Blue wasn't there to take up the chant.
"I count three, possibly four key points where we should explode the stuff," said Tulley to Stroud.
"Show me on the map."
Tulley worked quickly, and what he said seemed to make good sense to Stroud and the others. "Let's do it," said Abe.
"Can we put down, Dave?" asked Saylor, anxious to get started.
The pilot had spotted a place to set the helicopter down, and they buzzed around to this location. In the cargo bay, Stroud took two bundles of prepared plastique off Tulley's hands. Tulley took the other two, indicating that the explosives were wired. All that Stroud had to do was place them. They would be detonated from the safety of the helicopter.
"Let's go, soldier!" shouted Saylor to Tulley, and they were away as the chopper was still settling to land.
Anna More stopped Stroud. "Wait, you need someone to cover your back. I'm going with you."
"I said
no, Anna."
"But Abe!"
"Do I have to tie you up, knock you out, what?"
"All right, all right!" She said it like a curse and he was away. Moments after Stroud left, Anna More rushed out after him, Cage unable to stop her. Cage's eyes met those of the pilot before he cast them to the earth.
"We've got to protect the chopper," Dave said to Lou Cage. "Right?"
"Right," Cage said feebly before turning, grabbing up one of the weapons he'd used so effectively from the air, and went out after Anna More.
Saylor and Tulley moved quickly at a crouch like the trained soldiers they were. Stroud watched them go in the direction of the supposed front of the caverns which could not be seen from here, so covered were they with thick brush. Stroud himself was pushing around to the west side of the hillock. Every outcropping of granite, every ledge, looked like one of the beasts. With their uncanny ability to camouflage themselves, Stroud could not be cavalier. He remembered how the trees had come alive in the fight in the forest. Then he heard something in the brush behind him. He wheeled and almost fired when he saw that it was Anna. She had waited until they were at some distance from the helicopters before allowing him to see that she had followed him out.
Angry with her, he motioned her to try to keep up, turned and continued.
"You'll need a lookout while you're setting the explosives," she said to him when she caught up.
"I didn't want to endanger you any further."
"Just like a man."
"Why, because I'm worried about you?"
"Assuming that you can make all my decisions for me, based on my sex."
"Anna, my decision for you was based on the fact that I care deeply about you," he said, stopping in place. "If anything should happen to you--"
"We're a team now. You're stuck with me."
"Just be certain you stay well within my sight."
"Yes, sir."
They made their way around to the other side of the rocks. There was a natural mound here that went on for perhaps another fifty yards. "We've got to get to the end of this ridge," he told her.
"I wonder how Saylor and Tulley are doing."
"I think we'd better concentrate on what we have to do. Worry about them later."
"Kerac and the others must feel safe down below."
"I'm sure it has been a safe haven for them for generations. Someday, maybe, after all this is over, I'll come back with an excavating team, dig up the ruins, see what we can tell about these beasts from an archeological point of view. There's no telling how long they've inhabited this area and these limestone caves."
"Great idea, Stroud. Why don't you wait until we've buried them before you begin to dig them up?"
Seeing some movement ahead, they went to their knees and fell silent. A loosely organized group of werewolves was straggling into an opening in the rock face ahead.
"There's one sure place for a detonation," whispered Stroud.
They waited for what seemed an interminable amount of time as the last of these stragglers moved into hiding. Among them were child-beasts.
"Just as the old Indian said," Stroud whispered. It was the first they had seen of any of the creatures' progeny up close. Their dwarflike, chimp features masked their ferocious nature and flesh-rending fangs.
They had lost the darkness, save for the long shadows of dawn. Stroud now moved on, Anna keeping close to his heels. In fifteen minutes they had found the place where the small band had disappeared into the rock. The crevice hardly seemed large enough for the big ones to enter, and yet they had squeezed through.
"I need to go in a little deeper, attach the plastique to the ceiling table," he told her. "You wait here, and don't dare enter behind me."
She stared into his grave eyes. "I'll just guard against any of those things coming in behind you."
"In the nightmare, we were all trapped inside this enormous cavern, Anna. We must do all that we can to avoid the interior."
"All right, now go--go and hurry back."
Stroud pushed his large frame through the crevice to find that it opened wide once he was past this point. He had shouldered his weapon and reached deep into the pocket of his khaki jacket to find the plastique he carried. Instantly his nostrils were assailed by the awful odor that had so overpowered him in the dream.
He could see nothing but darkness ahead. Only a pinpoint of light from the shaft where he entered illuminated the slick walls where water bled from the rocks, sending down spirals of color. It did not appear to be a deep cavern, but one eaten out by time, water and wind. The right charges, timed at the right moment, could seal them all here and they would starve for oxygen before they began to cannibalize one another.
Stroud feared using a light, feared making a rock tumble or letting the sole of his foot come down with each step toward the interior. He needn't go far in, but far enough that the blast would not be consumed completely by the entryway. He knew that Saylor and Tulley must be having the same difficulty with their work about now.
Stroud reached up with the plastique, pressing its gummy surface into the bald, dry ceiling of this awful-smelling place, when something grabbed his wrist in so powerful a grip he thought it would be broken. He felt and smelled the hairy thing that had him there in the dark, felt its breath coming into his face as it was about to bite his head off, when a gunshot rang out and Stroud felt the enormous weight of the beast fall over him, knocking him into the stony earth.
Anna rushed to where he lay, helping him to his feet. "Are you all right?"
"Damn it, I told you--"
"I just saved your life!"
"And that shot's going to bring others. Come on, we've got to get out of here."
They started for the crevice when they heard a roaring from the other side and they saw more creatures closing in around it.
"Come on," said Stroud. "We've got to find another way out."
"Christ, I hope Saylor's having better luck than we are."
They raced past the dead gargantuan, finding a choice of several tunnels in the beam of Stroud's light. The fat, smooth walls were slick with droplets of trickling water that reflected back the light. They could hear the roar and den of the werewolves coming toward them from all directions.
"Choose one," he told her.
Anna rushed for the one tunnel that seemed to be going in a northeasterly direction, if Stroud could count on his bearings down here. Behind them, a horde of the wolf-people approached at a frightening clip. Stroud wheeled around, knelt and fired repeatedly into the onrushing beasts, sending their leaders to the ground, dead. Anna yelled for him to hurry on. Stroud got up, raced to her position where she now knelt and fired on a second band of werewolves that arrived through another tunnel.
Werewolf's Grief (Bloodscreams #2) Page 23
