Nocturnal

by Jami Lynn Saunders

“I’ve outrun death for over twenty years now. This mission won’t be my last,” Gabriel said.

  Jack walked up to the man and gazed into his eyes. Gabriel stared back into the hollow globes and knew the doctor was serious. “If you go, you will die.”

  “Don’t go,” Pippa said. “Trust the doctor. He knows. I can feel it.”

  “I must do my duty,” Gabriel said. “I’ll be back within a few hours.”

  “Gabriel Hunter, do not go!” Piper said with as much urgency as she could muster.

  But regardless of the consequences, the man was as married to duty as he was to his wife. Reluctantly, he exited the building with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. At least I saw my girls, he thought. If this is my last day, it has been my best.

  The entire city of Olympia prepared for a feral attack. Never in the thirty years since they’d founded the safehold had a threat of such magnitude arisen. Gabriel had not returned, and the nocturnals had to wait for darkness before they could take to the sky.

  Hyenas took up positions at the base of the mountain. They were the first line of defense. The second line, further up the mountain, was led by Rathbone. He had refused to stay behind in the city, the last line of defense. He placed some of his troops in trees, for cover and for the view it afforded, and other soldiers built makeshift parapets.

  Rebecka focused on fortifying the city, while Aiden, Pippa, Abby, Salvatore and the new nocturnal creature known as Ryan remained in the lab, serving as Jack’s personal guards. Jack knew they had found the cure, though the scientists worried that the effects might be only temporary. Jack assured them the cure was permanent. The problem was how to administer the cure to thousands of ferals. Considering that thousands would soon be swarming the city, the problem was a pressing one.

  “What if we save as many ferals as we can and inject them as we create the cure?” Doctor Timothy Adel asked.

  “There isn’t enough time and not enough solution,” Jack said. “But I believe I can create it synthetically, by cloning the girls’ blood cells.”

  “But we don’t have any more test subjects,” Dr. Angelica Adel said.

  “And it doesn’t solve the problem of how to administer it more quickly,” Abby noted.

  Rebecka came in, and Pippa asked if she had heard from Piper.

  “She’s still waiting for Gabriel to return.”

  Rebecka turned to Jack. “I want to apologize for drugging you and masking our scent. I know in my heart that we can trust your nocturnals. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have dropped the smoke bombs.”

  “Smoke bombs!” Abby cried out.

  The group stared at her.

  “Jack, didn’t you say earlier that you can tap into the knowledge of the three fathers of the nocturnals?” Abby asked.

  Jack nodded.

  “And didn’t you say that they created the original feline virus—an airborne virus?”

  “Yes.”

  “So isn’t it safe to say that you can tap into their knowledge to figure out how to administer the cure not as an injection but as an airborne cure?”

  The doctor’s black spheres widened from circles to ovals. “Abby, that’s brilliant! And we can use smoke bomb canisters to administer the cure among large groups of ferals!”

  Abby nodded and smiled.

  Night came and with it the arrival of the nocturnals. They landed around the building harboring their leader. The doctor lifted his head, sensing their presence, then went outside.

  Piper had returned to her children. “He should’ve been back hours ago,” she said.

  “If anyone can make it back safely, it’s Gabriel,” Rebecka said as Jack reentered the building, Ryan at his side.

  “The ferals are much closer than we thought,” Jack said.

  “How close?” Rebecka asked.

  “They’ll reach the base of the mountain before dusk tomorrow night, which means we’ve got to work fast to create an airborne cure, or else it will be total devastation.”

  “Surely we can handle a few thousand ferals,” Aiden said.

  “Try tens of thousands,” Jack said. “My nocturnals say the ferals are swarming together from the south and the east, and their numbers are growing.”

  “Did they say anything about the storm?” Piper asked.

  “They did,” Jack replied. “The storm is coming. It’s already raining in the foothills, and it will be upon us shortly. Our first line of defense is most likely drenched by now.”

  “The rains will dampen their sense of smell,” Pippa said. “They might not sense the ferals until they’re on them.”

  “I’ll send more men with firearms to the first line with the hyenas,” Rebecka said. She departed to dispatch more men.

  Jack returned to his work, knowing time was short. With the aid of Olympia’s doctors and scientists, and dozens of city workers delivering gas canisters to the small hospital lab, they worked together to clone the cure, then convert it to a gas. By morning, they had successfully made fifty gas grenades, each capable of affecting two hundred ferals.

  “This isn’t nearly enough for the swarm that’s coming,” Jack said. “We’ll need more canisters. I believe I can inject teargas bottles with the cure as well. Your lines of defense can use the teargas for both controlling and curing the ferals.”

  “What about our own men?” Rebecka asked. “Will they be affected? Will a werecat return to a human? Might humans become sick?”

  “No,” the doctor responded.

  “How do you know?” Timothy Adel asked. “We haven’t tested any subjects other than the ferals we injected.”

  “Because I know,” the doctor said.

  The prophetess Mariana entered the room. “We are close, I can feel it,” she said. “I’ve heard that there will be thousands of ferals upon us soon. The prophecy is being fulfilled.”

  “We should have enough of the cure to slow them down,” Jack said.

  “That’s good news,” Mariana said. With that, she left the room.

  “She claims she’s psychic,” Piper said. “I have my doubts.”

  “Why is that?” Jack asked.

  “Because the original prophecy said the time was still another year away. When I requested leave of absence to search for my children, she seemed agitated but then supported my request before the council. Before I left, she told me she had another dream that the prophecy would happen sooner, so I’d better hurry.”

  “She’s not a prophet,” Jack said. “She wanted you to hurry to get you killed. She conceals lies behind her eyes. I can sense it. I sense that she’s the cause of the feral infestation, but I can’t probe her mind to prove it. It’s as if she’s blocking me from entering her thoughts. But I know she’s upset that we’ve created the cure.”

  A humanly inaudible frequency swept across the air, bringing Jack, Aiden, Pippa, and Abby to their knees. Excruciating pain filled their minds, driving them toward rabidity.

  “What’s wrong,” Salvatore yelled as Rebecka ran to lift Jack from the floor. Unlike the hybrids, he couldn’t hear the sound.

  “Some sort of frequency,” Jack rasped. “The prophetess—find her.”

  Salvatore, Piper, and Rebecka darted from the door, the two werecats morphing as they ran. Piper and Salvatore sniffed the air and found Mariana’s scent. It led them to a small, heavily guarded prayer room.

  “The prophetess Mariana wishes not to be disturbed,” a guard said. Rebecka kicked the man, and the others backed away as Piper and Salvatore bared their teeth. They swept into the room and found it empty. The werecats sniffed out a set of stairs hidden behind an altar. Mariana was at the bottom of the stairs, twisting a dial on a large electronic machine.

  The prophetess turned and hissed. Rebecka smashed her face and dropped her to the ground. “Destroy the machine,” she shouted to the two werecats beside her. Piper gave her a look of uncertainty. “Just do it!”

  In seconds, they reduced the machine to a pile of rubble.

>   “What was it?” Salvatore asked.

  “It produced frequencies to keep ferals away,” Piper said.

  “Apparently she adjusted it to draw them here, which is why I had you destroy it,” Rebecka said.

  The woman lying on the ground began to stir, and Rebecka nudged her with her foot. “Why, prophetess? Why did you do it?”

  “Because I’ve had other visions,” the woman croaked. “Horrible visions. It’s better we all die and let the ferals take the city. Eventually, they’ll die out on their own. If we save them all, we’ll repeat the same mistakes our forefathers made. We’ll experience global destruction again and again.”

  “That’s not your choice to make,” Piper said. “I think a meeting before the council will correct this fault.”

  “It won’t correct it,” Rebecka said. “But it’ll put her away for a long time. That is, if the rest of us survive.”

  Piper took the prophetess Mariana before the council, while Rebecka and Salvatore returned to the doctor and the others. Destroying the machine had ended their distress.

  “She reprogrammed a frequency generator we had for repelling ferals,” Rebecka explained to Jack. “She recalculated it to attract them. It’s probably been drawing them for months.”

  “All we can do now is keep making more canisters,” Jack said.

  “I’ve been thinking, Jack,” Abby said. “If we cure some of the ferals, won’t the uncured attacked the cured?”

  “It’s a possibility. What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest we pull back the hyenas, let the ferals cross the bridge into that large clearing and then gas them all at once. We could mask the men with the un-scenting salve like they used on you, then hide out in the trees. We keep our defensive line above the clearing in case some ferals make it through.”

  “I like it,” Jack said. “If it works, we can save thousands on both sides. But the salve won’t stick with all the rain. Still, we’ll apply it anyway.”

  “I’ll contact Rathbone,” Rebecka said. “If this works, the population of Olympia is going to skyrocket.”

  The rain continued. Piper finally accepted that Gabriel was dead—until they received a signal. The Morse code simply stated, “Ferals moving in fast. Rains too heavy. Had to land. Return soon.”

  “Gabriel,” she whispered. Her tears mingled with rain as she returned to the hospital lab.

  “What’s wrong, momma?” Pippa asked.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. “Your father is still alive. They had to land because of the storm.”

  Jack listened, knowing Gabriel’s hours were numbered. The doctor continued to facilitate the creation of the airborne cure, Rebecka serving as his eyes. The city of Olympia was on edge, its fear palpable, but its determination still strong.

  “It’s organized,” Abby shouted as she and Salvatore entered the small building, dripping wet from the downpour.

  “Rathbone and the hyenas are above the clearing?” Rebecka asked.

  “Yes,” Aiden said. “They’re situated in the treetops and ready for action. But Rathbone says we need more bombs. They don’t have enough.”

  “We just sent another load,” Rebecka said. “They’ll receive it within the hour. Jack is working on the final batch.”

  Jack Tanner, Rebecka Hayes, the Reyes women, Salvatore, Aiden, Rathbone, and every human, werecat, hyena, and nocturnal spanning the mountain continued to work nonstop, despite the rain. They knew they had only one chance, and they worked tirelessly throughout the day. Dusk finally settled. Jack Tanner’s black eyes widened, and he stared blindly around the room at his friends. He set down a small gas-filled canister and quietly announced, “It’s begun.”

  Rathbone looked down the slope, staring through night vision goggles, but nothing had stirred. All remained quiet except for the constant patter of the rain.

  He was surprised that the hyenas had agreed to Salvatore’s command that they follow only Rathbone and work together as a single pack of humans, hyenas, and werecats. But the hyenas had mixed with the larger group, which was now spread throughout the brush, everyone ready to fight to the death.

  Rathbone caught sight of several ferals. They were working their way up slowly, sniffing the air. Rathbone passed the word to the young man standing next to him, who ran several yards to the next, whispering the words “show time.” The words spread from man to man and spread downhill, into the bushes and trees.

  The ferals came. They swarmed the bridge that spanned the crevice and poured into the lower clearing that led to the hidden city of Olympia. Hungry for flesh, they screamed and howled as they ran. Rathbone continued to watch through his goggles, almost feeling pity for the beasts. He knew they were human, and he was ready to save them. He was also willing to kill every one of them. Either way, he planned to end this war as quickly as possible.

  Teargas bottles containing the cure rained down on the ferals from the treetops. Several turned to run back across the bridge, but Rathbone set off a dozen gas bombs that had been strategically placed there, keeping them confined. More than a thousand ferals were now trapped inside in the cure zone. As the smoke cleared, he saw more than a thousand naked men and women lying on the ground.

  Before hope could take root in his bosom, a second wave of ferals appeared. They rushed through the crowd of confused men and women, killing several of them.

  “Second wave, go!” Rathbone shouted. More bombs were dropped as defenders rushed the fields to confront the oncoming horde of ferals. Modified rocket launchers shot canisters down the hillside. When it was over, more than three thousand ferals had regained their sanity and their human form. But the cost was more than a hundred humans, including some of Rathbone’s men and many newly converted ferals.

  A new cadet fresh out of the Olympia training program appeared, breathing heavily and wearing a worried look on her face. “Rathbone, sir. They’ve radioed from the city. Something’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The call was full of static, but it was from Rebecka Hayes. I heard her say, ‘They’re here, they’re here in the city.’”

  Rathbone’s chest began to pound. “Spread the word, humans and werecats stay here, hyenas follow me back to the city!” The word spread fast. As he ran uphill to his Jeep, hundreds of hyenas were racing up the hill behind him.

  Gabriel flew the shell of a plane, anxious to make it back to his wife, daughters, and people. The engine had died moments earlier, and he struggled to keep it airborne to save himself and the men with him. By the wall of smoke a mile ahead of them, he knew the clearing below the city would not suffice. He’d have to glide up the mountain and onto the mountaintop landing strip. He knew it would take a miracle.

  Jack paced the floor, unhappy with Rebecka’s decision to keep his small group secure within the city. “We should be down there with them,” he said.

  “Even if we win this round, we still need you, Pippa, and Abby,” Dr. Timothy Adel said. “There’s still much left to be learned. Rebecka is right to keep you all here, safe and together.”

  “It’s night. My nocturnals will be here soon. Then we’ll fly to Rathbone’s aid.”

  Rebecka took his hand. “Jack,” she whispered. “I know we’ve only known each other for a short time, but I beg you to stay here. Let your nocturnals go if you want, but stay here—for me.”

  “For you? But why?”

  “Because I think I love you. And I’ve never loved anyone.”

  “You think you could actually love someone like me?”

  “If you could love someone like me,” she replied, before kissing him.

  Jack pulled her close and kissed her back. But he pulled away as if bitten by a snake.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No. There are ferals in the city! Thousands of them!”

  Piper, her children, Aiden, and Salvatore sniffed the air and morphed. Gunfire and screams filled the city streets, and the group inside the
small lab ran out into the night to fight for their home and their lives.

  Rathbone and the hyenas raced full speed ahead. “Come on, come on!” Rathbone shouted as the Jeep’s wheels spun in the mud as it fought to climb the hillside. Just above his head, a small plane whizzed by, and seconds later, he heard a crash. He’d have to leave the hyenas to fight the battle. He had to reach his friend.

  The city streets became a killing field. Citizens caught off guard fell to the ferals’ onslaught. Abby and Pippa went rabid, releasing the secrets held within their cells. Piper fought as she watched her daughters out of the corner of her eye. Pippa and Abby were beyond werecat, almost feral, their features a beautiful yet horrific blend of leopard and human, teeth and claws longer and more vicious than she’d ever seen. Ferals attacked them but couldn’t even pierce their skin. They fought side by side, a pair of killing machines.

  Piper was fierce in battle, but if not for Aiden racing to her aid, she would have been killed. Aiden was another anomaly, almost as dangerous as the girls he protected. Still, there were too many ferals for them to handle.

  Piper saw a small plane overhead and then heard the crash. Fear filled her eyes.

  “Go to your husband!” Aiden yelled.

  Piper hesitated for a moment, heard shrieks in the night sky, saw the nocturnals joining the fight. The pack of hyenas appeared, ripping at every feral within their reach. Rathbone sped through the crowd, knocking ferals over like bowling pins. “Let’s go!” he yelled to Piper, grabbing her hand as he spun by, whipping her overhead and into the Jeep. In an instant, they were gone, heading for the crash site.

  The fight continued. With no medicine left to administer to the hordes that had swept in from the east, failure was inevitable, yet they continued to battle. Nocturnals dived at the ferals, killing them as they came. Hyenas and werecats fought alongside one another, and humans emptied rounds of ammunition into the beasts. But the ferals kept coming, Olympia would soon fall. All they could do was fight for a few more minutes of life. Then Jack found the answer.

  Ferals were drawn to the two rabid girls, anxious to taste the blood of the ones who possessed so much power. Pippa and Abby tore the ferals to shreds as they came, but the battle was taking a toll on them. But one feral animal that Pippa had bitten had escaped alive. As it crawled away, it began to change. It turned and bit its brother, who bit the next. The bitten ones fell to the ground and began to morph back into human form.