“Let’s get some rest,” Anastasia said.
She leaned against him. Soon, he heard her quiet, rhythmical breathing. The rhythm of her breathing carried over to him and he began to nod off. A second before he did, he hoped that his girlfriend’s prediction wouldn’t turn out to be true.
“Hey, get up, we got company.”
Anastasia’s voice, urgent and hoarse, broke into Harry’s stay within the void known as sleep and he awoke, springing off the couch. “What kind of company?” he asked, noticing that her hair stood up on the nape of her neck. She began to growl, a low sound that reverberated across the room.
“The worst kind,” she answered and sniffed the air. “This one’s big, very big.”
In a flash, Harry thought about his dream. It seemed that his nightmare was about to manifest itself in reality. Both agents turned around at the warning with alarmed looks on their faces. “What is it?” asked the taller man.
“Something’s coming,” answered Harry, baring his claws. “Get ready.”
While Anastasia also bared her claws and settled into a fighting stance, the agents drew their weapons and took the safeties off. The taller agent stepped back from the door a few paces while the shorter agent kept watch at the rear window. “I got nothing,” the latter man said. “You see anything?”
“Nothing here,” the taller man said.
Istvan woke up suddenly and started to tremble. “I smell something. It is Szabo. He is here.”
Anastasia turned on him, hissing out, “You set us up!”
“No, no, I did not,” Istvan cried and scuttled over to hide in the corner near the shower area. “He knows about us, he knows!”
A loud growl that sounded like a bear crossed with a demon from hell sounded from outside. The growl quickly turned into a bellow that made the windows shake. Anastasia took two steps backwards and then whirled around to warn the agents. “I smell him, he’s coming through the front door!” she cried. “Get ready!”
Her warning wasn’t enough, though, as the door burst inward and a monster, right out of Harry’s dream, stood in the aperture. Clad in a pair of khaki-colored trousers and a ripped up lumberjack’s shirt, at roughly six and a half feet in height, it had the body of a bear, furry and hyper-muscular. However, the head resembled a shark’s, with a long snout, grayish-blue skin, and teeth that had to be at least three inches in length if not more.
And were those gills on his neck? They looked like gills, pulsating in and out. Massive hands ending in long claws completed the picture of a manufactured killing machine.
“Sweet Jesus,” the tall agent croaked out and got off three shots. They hit the bear-shark thing dead center in its chest. It would have killed any human, but this thing couldn’t be considered anything remotely human, and the bullets didn’t slow it down for a second. It lunged at the agent’s midriff, twisted its neck and fastened its jaws around his waist. With a sharp snapping sound of teeth meeting teeth, it bit him in half. The force of the bite was so powerful that the agent’s body exploded and blood and entrails showered everything and everyone in the room.
“Shoot him!” Harry yelled out.
The shorter agent took aim and blew six holes in the shark man’s torso. More blood sprayed out and he staggered, but didn’t go down. Instead, he let out another fearsome bellow and charged the man, picked him up in his massive arms and squeezed. A loud crack resounded through the room and the agent’s head lolled.
With a smile, the bear-shark tossed the corpse away and turned his head in Istvan’s direction. With a shock that wasn’t really a shock, the thing’s wounds healed in the blink of an eye.
“You, you little traitor, I thought that I would find you here, and I was right.” The monster’s accent sounded vaguely Russian... but not. Accent or no, every word carried menace and he swiveled his stare, empty and dead, to Harry. “My name is Szabo. Little men are nothing. You, you are next,” he said.
Szabo... the name wasn’t Russian, but Harry wasn’t concentrating on that at all. As the monster spoke, Harry froze as a sense of dread enveloped him. Throat suddenly dry, he swallowed and found that he had no saliva in his mouth. The old memories of him getting punked in grade school and junior high years back came through and rooted him to the floor. In situations like this, it was normal to be scared. His instincts told him to run, to find somewhere safe, but his mind told him to stay and face down his fear. Both ideas jockeyed for supremacy and he wasn’t sure which would win.
However, if he was scared, then Anastasia was the exact opposite, as she spread her arms wide and issued her challenge. “Come and get some,” she yelled.
With a shout of rage that shook the walls, Szabo charged, jaws wide open, and Harry’s instincts of self-defense kicked in. He jumped aside at the last second, but twisted around and stuck out his leg. Szabo tripped and sprawled on the floor. Anastasia seized that moment to leap onto his back and slashed away at his head. “You try to mess with us, this is what happens!” she cried.
The monster roared while his blood jetted into the air, but he didn’t seem to be seriously hurt. With a lightning-fast move, he rolled over while grabbing onto Anastasia’s tail and proceeded to toss her across the room.
The sight of his girlfriend being assaulted awoke Harry’s courage and he charged. “Take me on!” he screamed and lashed out with a right hook that actually staggered the man-shark.
“You hit back... good,” Szabo said, rubbing his snout. “Try again.”
Evading the first slashes, Harry bore in close. He used his own claws to rake Szabo’s face, all the while ducking and weaving in order to avoid the snapping jaws. His comeback continued until the monster clubbed him on the back of his head. Stars exploded in Harry’s field of view and shock paralyzed his system.
In a mocking voice, Szabo asked, “Is that the best that you can do?”
Harry felt the other man-thing lift him. A second later, the air rushed by and the window rushed forward. Sailing through it, he landed on the grass in a shower of glass and his own blood.
“Damn it,” he muttered. After getting to his feet, he unsteadily ran inside to find Anastasia still clawing and slashing at the enemy for all she was worth. Drawing in a deep breath, Harry joined in. Pain and rage helped fuel his assault and he cut and chopped at the much larger man-thing. Szabo replied with swipes of his own. Soon the air became thick with the smell of sweat, blood and fur.
“Enough of this,” Szabo growled and with a mighty backhand, knocked Anastasia against the far wall, where she collapsed in a heap. He turned around and grabbed Harry by the throat. The man-thing’s strength was incredible. Harry slashed the monster’s forearms, kicked and squirmed, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t break the hold.
“You are less than nothing.” Szabo smiled, and after practically crushing his larynx, tossed him to land on top of Anastasia. He then took off through the door and into the night with an astonishing burst of speed.
“You’d better get off me,” Anastasia said with a groan.
His body screaming with pain and his breath coming out painfully, Harry fell to the floor, trying to calm the hammering in his chest. That thing had scared the ever-loving hell out of him. Szabo was truly a nightmare come true. “Are you all right?” he rasped. That monster had almost crushed his throat. He could have—but didn’t.
She panted out, “I’ll make it, but this is really going to hurt in the morning.”
With another painful groan, she got to her feet and wended her way over to the couch, where she collapsed in a heap. Harry wearily took his place next to her, noticed that her body had already begun to heal and also noted the same thing happening to him. At the same time, though, he cursed himself for hesitating. Seconds counted, and he realized that hesitation could be costly.
Perhaps Anastasia sensed his uncertainty and fear and perhaps not. With a gentle, loving hand, she patted him on the shoulder. “You did fine,” she said, casting her gaze to the ground. “He’s... way too
much for me.”
It was a rather astonishing admission on her part. She’d never backed down from any challenge before, never admitted defeat. Perhaps this was one adversary she couldn’t fight against... and Harry had to own up and say the same. “Yeah, he’s got the edge in strength, but not in speed. We have to work together. We can take him.”
Anastasia lifted her head and nodded. “Let’s figure that out another day.”
Her gaze then shifted from one of softness to one of steel when it locked on Istvan. He hadn’t moved from his position, but when he saw her face, he started to whimper once more and curled up into a ball. “Don’t you try that I’m afraid don’t hurt me crap on me,” Anastasia said.
She got off the sofa and with an iron hand, dragged him over to the couch. There she slung him onto the cushions like a student tossing his backpack down after a hard day at school. “We heard what Szabo told you. He called you a traitor. If you don’t want to end up like those two agents,” she pointed at their remains, “then you’d better start talking, and you’d better start now.”
Istvan gulped and nodded, fearfully looking around him. “I will tell you,” he said in the faintest of all voices, “but he will come back for me. He wants me. He wants this man,” he pointed to Harry, “and he wants to kill. I cannot fight him. I cannot win, and I cannot escape what I am.”
A second later, he dissolved into tears and his body shook uncontrollably. While he cried, Harry took one of the dead agent’s cellphones and dialed the number for FBI headquarters. A minute later, he hung up and turned to Istvan. “I just called the FBI. An agent—his name is Farrell—is going to be here as soon as he can. If you have anything to tell us, then you’d better start now. Stop crying, or else we’ll do this on our own and leave you—”
The threat got through to Istvan, for he stopped crying and got on his knees as if begging for mercy. “No, please do not leave me. I will tell you what I know.”
Anastasia crossed her arms over her chest in the manner of a detective during an interrogation. “Then start talking. We’ll listen.”
Chapter Four: The Plan
“It is true,” Istvan said, still sniveling and wiping the tears from his eyes. “I am a traitor, but not to you. I am against that thing which came here.”
Apparently, the idea of the word traitor didn’t make Anastasia feel all warm and fuzzy, as her eyes bugged out and she made a grab for Istvan. Harry did his best to restrain her, but she shook him off, saying to Istvan, “You little punk, don’t tell me you were actually working for him!”
“I was.”
Anastasia continued to struggle and Harry grabbed her again. Istvan backed up against the wall, crying that he was innocent. “Not here, not now,” Harry cautioned. “We need to talk to him.”
She calmed down, Istvan calmed down and soon the details emerged. Snatched by Grushenko’s men slightly over a year before, he was transformed into a pig. “He wanted to use me—Grushenko did—as a way of testing drugs as well as reversing the process. I knew that he was ill. He had cancer and needed someone who could not only regenerate, but also not contract the disease. I am that person.”
“Why did he choose you?” Anastasia wanted to know.
“Pigs,” Harry supplied, recalling his basic knowledge about medicine. “They react to human diseases pretty much the same way humans do. Their organs are arranged almost the same way as a human’s are.”
An angry cough came their way. Istvan’s face was a study in terror and fear, but when he spoke, it was with total loathing. “Yes, that is right. I was the perfect subject,” he said. “Once they transformed me, they conducted more experiments. I do not have powers and I am not strong, but Grushenko wanted me around. He kept me chained up like any other animal. I am not a pet and I am not a guinea pig.”
His sniffles had stopped, but his lower lip quivered something awful. “I did not want to be a test subject for Grushenko. I stayed in cell next to Szabo and one day when guard is not around, Szabo whisper to me, I will help you if you help me and I say yes. What choice did I have? I did not know his plan then.”
Harry and Anastasia exchanged glances. Silence hung in the air until Harry took the lead. “What plan are we talking about?”
In a reply that both perplexed as well as infuriated Harry, Istvan said, “I am not sure.” His brow furrowed in concentration. “I only hear things between Grushenko, other scientists there, and sometimes Grushenko talks on the telephone. It had something to do with transposing genes. I do not understand the science. I was geography major in university.”
A slight hiss got Harry’s attention. It came from Anastasia and her eyes clicked right in the direction of the back door.
“Excuse us for a second,” Harry said and he walked over to the rear end of the cabin. There was less blood there, but the scent hung in the air and it made him sick to his stomach. Once Anastasia joined him, he asked, “So what’s the deal?”
Her voice came out guarded. “I’m wondering if he’s telling the truth this time. He led that thing right to our doorstep. I can’t smell Szabo now, but no way is he going to give up that easily.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Harry had been thinking the same thing, but also wondered about the Grand Plan. “Do you think that Szabo really wants me?”
“Maybe,” Anastasia shrugged and leaned against his chest. “I’m just tired of this,” she whispered. After a moment, she put her arms around his waist.
He returned the gesture and wished things could have turned out differently, but there was no going back now. Their moment of peace was shattered by Istvan asking, “Are you two married?”
Anastasia chuckled. “No, not yet, we, uh,” and then her manner suddenly turned supremely shy as she ducked her head and averted her gaze, “we just share a room.”
Harry felt the blood rush to his face. Having someone else bring up the subject of their relationship embarrassed him. Marriage—he’d spoken to Anastasia about it, but she didn’t really give him an answer. Teenager or not, he knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and now Istvan had inadvertently brought up the subject again.
No one had ever bothered questioning the relationship. Not many people outside of Farrell knew, but those who did never said anything about it. It was an open secret, though, as they were the only two of their kind. Clearing his throat and ignoring Istvan’s stare, Harry asked her, “Do you want to clean up first?”
She swept her hands over her fur and lifted them to her nose, recoiling as she did so. “Yeah, I do. I stink.”
Without another word, she padded her way over to the shower room and walked inside. A second later, Harry heard the sound of running water. With nothing better to do, he started to straighten up the room. Istvan observed the action and said, “If you have rags, I will help you.”
A quick search in the storage closets netted them a few rags and they set about wiping up the excess blood on the floor. There wasn’t anything they could do about the agents, so Harry found a couple of blankets and covered them up. It was the least he could do.
Anastasia came out of the shower a couple of minutes later wearing a towel around her torso. “I’ll be in the bedroom,” she said.
Istvan’s eyes followed her to the door. Mildly exasperated by the little man’s action, Harry smacked him on the shoulder. “Eyes on the job, got it?”
“I am sorry,” Istvan replied, his face turning a deep shade of pink. “I just think of how I like girls and that there is no one for me.”
His answer, delivered in a sincere tone, forced Harry to reconsider his opinion of the new arrival. He doubted that any of the transgenics had asked to be changed over. Istvan hadn’t asked for this to happen. “I was lucky,” he said.
Anastasia chose that moment to walk out, wearing a pair of floppy yellow pajamas. Loose or not, they still showcased her figure, and Harry took note. However, love was going to have to wait for now.
“Your turn,” she said. Harry went inside
the shower and quickly rinsed off the sweat and blood. After exiting with a towel wrapped around his waist, he went to the bedroom and threw on a pair of fresh boxers and a t-shirt. When he came out, Istvan had already entered the shower room. “I don’t think we have anything in his size,” said Anastasia as she hunted around the drawers for something mini-sized. “I guess he’ll have to rough it for now.”
Istvan came out wearing the same suit as before. “It is still dirty, but I feel cleaner,” he said. Harry tossed him a towel. “Thank you for this.”
With his thanks, the trio took their places. Anastasia elected to stay on the couch. Istvan curled up on the floor and soon passed out. Harry elected to stand guard. While he couldn’t smell anything dangerous coming, he wasn’t sure that Szabo wouldn’t want to get a little revenge.
“You need to rest,” Anastasia said. “We still have some time before Farrell gets here.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
She nodded and after pulling the remains of one blanket over top of her body, she curled up and went to sleep.
Harry stood at the window, listening to the sounds of the crickets and night birds. On any other night, it would have been relaxing just to take in the sounds of nature, but after what had happened, he knew that his existence as well as Anastasia’s could never return to normal.
Additionally, a stray thought, something that Istvan had said, wouldn’t let Harry relax. Istvan had said something about transposing genes. Or, at least, Szabo had mentioned it, but if he was a prisoner, then would he have the knowledge to do that? Would he have the equipment?
Backers, suppliers, other scientists, telephone conversations—those words echoed in Harry’s mind, playing themselves over and over. There had to be a connection. While he thought about things, he also hoped he wouldn’t have any more nightmares about running into a monster. He’d already met his nightmare in the light of day and knew that he’d meet him again. The only question was when.
Revolution Page 4
