Vector Borne

by Michael McBride

  Pike took a deep breath of the crisp night air and forced down his rage. The cold rain helped him focus. Brazelton was right. Surely they’d be able to contact the ship before any forward party was launched, or, failing it at that, if they really kicked it in gear, there was still the slimmest of chances that they could reach the most accessible beach before the Huxley settled in and deployed a landing party.

  That plan still left one glaring problem. If he was right about whatever stalked the island trying to lure the ship to shore, they would be sprinting headlong into the teeth of its trap, as well. And if this thing was smart enough to concoct such a cunning plan, then surely it knew the Huxley could only come so close to land.

  Pike didn’t care if he had to stand on the beach and fire shots at the vessel himself to drive it away. This was going to come down to him against their pursuit, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  The fact still remained that if it had taken out Montgomery and Pearson as he suspected, they still had a huge head start on it. There was no way it could cut across the steep forest of the volcanic interior and beat them there.

  If nothing else, at least he was certain of that.

  He memorized the view and committed the spot to memory for when it came time to collect the woman’s remains. There was no time for anything more.

  “Forget the Tasers,” he said. “No more screwing around. If you get a shot, take it. Aim to incapacitate. Kill only if absolutely necessary. We still want this thing living, but not if it means our lives. Are we all on the same page?”

  The other men nodded.

  “Good. Then from here on out, we go on the aggressive. We know exactly where we’re headed, and so does this thing. We need to get there first.”

  Pike drew his Beretta, chambered the first parabellum, and reveled in the snick of the slide snapping home.

  He sprinted into the jungle without a backward glance, barreling northward through the dense foliage, one eye on the western horizon in hopes of catching the Huxley’s running lights, the other on the tangles of trees and shrubs, praying to see the whites of the monster’s eyes.

  Thirty-Six

  R/V Aldous Huxley

  Bishop opened the door to the hallway. The guard posted outside of the stateroom shook his head, smiled, and patted the sidearm holstered to his hip. Bishop was confident that the man wouldn’t use it on them. It was a display of control more than anything else, but Bishop still wasn’t prepared for the confrontation. His body was at the mercy of exhaustion and his brush with death. And besides, he still needed time to figure out what they were going to do before he made any kind of move. At least they hadn’t separated him from Courtney. The last thing he would have wanted was to have his focus divided by worry for her while he tried to plan some sort of escape.

  “What are we going to do?” Courtney asked. She sat on the edge of the bed, tears rolling down her cheeks. Behind her green eyes, Bishop saw neither the fear nor the resignation he would have expected.

  He stopped pacing and plopped down next to her on the bed. The honest truth was that he simply didn’t know. Everything was happening too quickly and he was still struggling to rationalize it himself. He sighed and squeezed her hand. His stare wandered the room. There was a private head in the corner, military clean and freshly stocked with towels. A desk and a bureau, both of which were bolted to the floor, lined the wall opposite the bed. They were effectively cut off from the world they could see speeding past through the twin porthole windows.

  “We’ll get out of here soon enough,” he said. “It’s what happens afterward that concerns me.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about it. Why didn’t they immediately have us airlifted to the nearest emergency facility when they rescued us? And why haven’t we had the chance to communicate with anyone off of this boat? There’s the armed guard outside our door, of course, and the fact that no one seems willing to tell us what’s going on when they obviously know more than we do. Yet still they’re keeping us here in hopes of extracting information I don’t think either of us has.”

  “They can’t hold us prisoner. If we wanted to, we could walk out of here right now.”

  “After the bum rush we got earlier, do you really think there’s any chance of that?”

  “Watch me.”

  Courtney rose in a huff, stormed across the cabin, and threw open the door. The guard whirled smoothly from his post against the wall to bar her passage.

  “Out of my way. I need to speak with whoever’s in charge.”

  “Sorry, princess. I have orders to keep you in there until I’m told otherwise.”

  “What are you going to do? Shoot me? I’m a citizen of the United States of America, and, last I knew, that entitled me to the right not to be confined like a criminal.”

  “You’re a world away from the good old US of A out here.” The badge on his chest read: S. Aronson. While the crew cut, granite-jawed man wore the uniform of a civilian mate, his posture and physique spoke to his naval training. “Look at it this way: They’ll be fishing bodies out of the South Pacific for the next five years. Who’s to say yours couldn’t be among them? Now be a good girl. Close the door, lie back and relax, and soon enough all of this will be over.”

  Bishop saw Courtney tense. While he believed the man wouldn’t shoot her, he wasn’t about to take that chance. He’d been out here on the open sea long enough to know that a different set of rules applied. If she made a move, she was going to get hurt. And there was no way in hell he was going to allow that.

  “Step aside,” Courtney said. The tremor in her voice confirmed that she was about to do something she’d regret. “I’m going to go talk to Dr. Bradley right now, and neither you nor anyone else on this godforsaken vessel can keep me from doing so.”

  Bishop leaned back and pulled the pillow out from beneath the covers. Silently, he pulled off the pillowcase, twisted it tight, and gripped it in his fists.

  “Lady, you really don’t want to do this. Trust me.”

  Courtney glanced back over her shoulder at Bishop.

  “I’m leaving now. Are you coming with me or not?”

  The moment she returned her attention to the hallway and took the first step forward, Bishop sprung from the bed and lunged toward her. The guard grabbed for his pistol. Whether he intended to use it or just to brandish it, Bishop needed to make sure it never cleared the holster. He shoved Courtney aside, wrapped the pillowcase around the man’s wrist, and gave it a solid twist, pinning it behind his back and up between his shoulder blades. The man grunted and Bishop heard the clatter of the gun hitting the floor. He used his momentum to swing the man around and drive him forward toward the opposite wall. Transferring his grip on the ends of the pillowcase to his right hand, he used his left to palm the back of the man’s head and ram his face into the trim around the doorway at the moment of impact. There was a crunching sound and the man dropped like a sack of grain.

  Bishop released the pillowcase, which fluttered down onto the crumpled body, and stumbled back toward the room. His eyes found the starburst of blood on the wall where the man’s nose had broken. A familiar sensation of numbness flooded his veins. He grew lightheaded as he knelt over the man’s crimson-spattered face and felt for the carotid pulse at the side of his neck. Fortunately, there was a slow but steady tapping of the vessel against his fingertips. He breathed a sigh of relief. For the briefest of moments, he feared he might have killed the man. As it was, they were already in deep enough trouble.

  Everything had happened so fast that he hadn’t thought his actions through. What were they supposed to do now? They couldn’t walk back into the command room and pretend like nothing happened, nor could they just sit back down on the bed and wait for the man to wake up. And since no one was willing to evacuate them from the ship, it stood to reason that they probably had a pretty good reason for it, even if he couldn’t fathom what it was. There was always the distinct possibility that their leaving this ship had
never been part of the plans, which left only one safe option.

  They needed to get off this boat, and they needed to do so right now.

  He grabbed Courtney by the hand and sprinted toward the stairwell.

  Thirty-Seven

  Dr. Henri Renault stood on the starboard bow, saved from the worst of the torrent by a gaudy yellow slicker and the overhanging lip of the deck above him. Waves blasted up over the gunwales in flumes and washed back down into the ocean through the scuppers in a choreographed nautical dance that had been performed since man had first set out to conquer the seas. The island passed before him through the fog, which granted intermittent glimpses of steep, sharp slopes so densely forested it looked as though it would be impossible to find the space to even walk between the trunks. Lightning flashed in the clouds, framing the outline of the dormant caldera he had yet to clearly see. Thunder boomed as though the electrical siege were tearing the island apart. It was a view he would have ordinarily enjoyed, were it not for the fact that his Dramamine had worn off while he was absorbed by Dr. Walter Partridge’s files. At least it helped to some degree to see the horizon, sporadic though the glimpses might be. Coupled with the calming influence of the rich smoke from his pipe, he would be fine until the dimenhydrinate worked its magic again.

  It was a blessing to be out here on his own, besides. He knew the men inside loathed him for his position, and while inconvenient, he frankly didn’t care. He had invested capital into a fledgling biotech corporation in order for it to get off the ground, just like any of the rest of them would have done had they the means. And he had earned his just rewards. Granted, the risk had been minimal thanks to the enormity of the fortune from which he’d drawn the funds, but that didn’t mean he didn’t deserve everything that had come to him. What he didn’t deserve was the overt contempt with which even the inner circle of the scientific team treated him, as though his presence were merely tolerated, like he didn’t have the requisite medical skills to have rightfully claimed his spot on this vessel.

  He set aside his frustration and focused on the task at hand. He was stalling and he knew it. The prospect of inspecting the rotting remains of the men they had recovered from the island was daunting. There wasn’t the time for proper study, least of all with the dozens more to come from the sunken research vessel once they returned to the eastern bay. He would simply have to give each a relatively topical once-over, establish cause and approximate time of death, and move on to the next.

  Two more solid pulls from his pipe and he tapped it out on the railing. The island continued to roll past through the mist to the east. It truly was a beautiful sight, an untamed vista like Magellan and de León must have seen once upon a time when all of the world was a discovery.

  He headed back into the ship and hung the heavy slicker on the rack by the doorway. His wet shoes squeaked on the slick floor. The sound echoed hollowly away from him. He glanced through the open door into the makeshift command center, where Bradley and various members of his entourage were still gathered around a monitor shivering with static, as he passed. The submersible hanger was at the end of the corridor, but he could have found it by smell alone. They would all be better off once he was done with the cadavers and they were moved down into cold storage, where, if nothing else, at least the fragrance would be contained.

  They had better have properly equipped him, he thought as he opened the door and stepped into the vast space beyond.

  The brilliant lights overhead required a moment to adapt. His eyes found the deep sea vehicle first, seated on its trolley in front of an iron staircase that ascended to a platform nearly hidden by myriad couplings and cables. The office at the top of the room to the left was dark. In the center of the hanger, the bodies rested on a series of tarps as if they’d just been thrown there with a despicable level of disregard. He grunted his displeasure as he scanned the vicinity for a rack of proper tools. Not even a bloody box of examination gloves.

  This was entirely unacceptable. He was going to have to talk to Mr. Van Horn, who had assured him that—

  He stopped halfway to the spread of bodies.

  The light reflected from an ebon puddle just past the remains. His mind fought to rationalize what he saw. There were five bodies side by side, and a sixth several paces away, its face a shimmering mask of blood. The gaping wound in its neck glistened. No. This wasn’t right at all. There had been no mention of the sixth. This was not proper protocol at all. And where had this additional one come from? It was obviously far too—

  He held his breath when he heard the clacking noises behind him, sounds not dissimilar to those of his prized Pomeranians on the marble tiles in his foyer.

  Everything was out of context. Renault was a man of science, a man whose life was defined by organization. He struggled to return some semblance of order to his surroundings.

  Brow furrowed, he turned toward the tapping sounds.

  A flash of silver.

  The whistle of something sharp cleaving the air.

  A sudden sensation of pain in his throat.

  Damp heat on his hands when he clutched at it.

  Twin circular reflections of light.

  Rows of sharp teeth that curled under like those of a great white shark.

  A scream that would never pass his lips.

  The cold anesthetic of darkness.

  Thirty-Eight

  Courtney clung to Bishop’s hand as he bounded down the staircase ahead of her. He stopped when he reached the stairwell on the main deck and pressed her back against the wall beside him. Beyond him, she could see only a small section of the deserted corridor. She closed her mouth to quiet her breathing, and over the jackhammer of her pulse, listened for the sound of footsteps. When she heard none, she spoke in a whisper.

  “Where are we going?”

  She could see the indecision in his eyes when he turned to face her.

  “We have to get off this ship.”

  “What?”

  He took her by the shoulders and brought her face close to his.

  “Don’t you see? They have no intention of ever letting us go.”

  “That’s absurd. Why would they—?”

  “Didn’t you see the security tapes? That thing we saw on them, that thing that was dragging all of the bodies down into the hold… That’s what they’re after. Surely you saw the excitement in their eyes. They don’t care that everyone on the Mayr is dead. They want whatever killed everyone before it sank. And they think it’s still out there somewhere.”

  “We didn’t have anything to do with that. You and I were locked in the isolation chamber while all of that was going on.”

  “But it started before that. With the accident in the lab. That’s why they were desperate to salvage the batch reactor, why they needed the doctor’s notes on your brother.”

  “They think…” They were so painful that she choked on the words. She had struggled against the revelation as hard as she could. “They think that creature is my brother.”

  “Listen, Courtney. Whether it is or not is irrelevant. What matters is that these people are bioengineers who think they’ve stumbled upon the find of a lifetime and they don’t want anyone else to know about it. Why else wouldn’t they have called for help searching for the survivors on the island? For us? They want this thing all to themselves.”

  “So what are they planning to do with us? Keep us on this boat forever?”

  “I don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t want to stick around to find out.” His eyes locked on hers. “Do you?”

  She remembered the shine of the crimson eyes through the Plexiglas shield, the hours of slow asphyxiation, being rescued only to find herself studying security tapes of the violent deaths of her colleagues, describing Ty’s rapidly deteriorating condition to men who couldn’t get enough of it before being imprisoned in a cabin with an armed guard stationed outside the door. She thought about what would happen to them, what would be done to them, when those that controlled th
is ship learned that they had incapacitated the guard. No one else even knew they had survived. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, she and Bishop could easily have gone down with the Mayr, even if their bodies were never found.

  Surely these men weren’t capable of something like that…were they?

  She made a split-second decision.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Bishop nodded and took her by the hand again. He craned his neck around the threshold and peered out into the corridor.

  Besides, if there was a chance that her brother was still alive, she needed to find him first. Whatever his condition. And it was readily apparent that the only way to do so was to get off of this vessel.

  “Come on,” Bishop whispered, and tugged her out into the hallway.

  They ran toward the stern, then ducked into the short hallway that led to the starboard rail. At the hatch, they paused long enough for Bishop to crack it just wide enough to scan the deck. The bow was clearly visible from the pilothouse, and last she knew the stern was a hotbed of activity as the men loaded and stowed the salvage from the Mayr. The inset door in front of them was recessed below the 01 Deck. They would be invisible until they approached the rail.

  Bishop threw the door all the way open and dragged her out into the storm. Raindrops pummeled her from a sky that was a battlefield of lightning. Spray from the thundering waves added to the torrent, through which she could barely see a wooded island in the distance.

  “Can you swim?” Bishop shouted into her ear.

  “I’m a marine biologist. Of course, I can—”

  He jerked her by the hand and sprinted toward the rail. The moment they reached it, he helped boost her up on top of it. Her wet hair slapped her face. Her hands slipped on the slick rail.

  “We should take one of the lifeboats,” she shouted down to him. She could barely keep her eyes open with all of the water in the air. “Or at least life jackets.”