The little pig-man caught the look. “I am Hungarian. I was before the bad people change me. I love my own country.”
“I do, too,” the pilot replied.
Oh great, another war about to break out, Harry thought as he surveyed the scene. The guards, two men in brown and red Russian uniforms, came out of the room. One of them took out a package of cigarettes. He offered one to the other man and they lit up and started to talk.
Squinting through the darkness, Harry saw that they were wearing pistols at their sides. Both men had machine guns slung around their shoulders. Some good news appeared, though. Behind the sentry box was a jeep. That would be useful. “First off, guys, cool it. We have to get by those two dudes up ahead.”
Both men quit bickering and the pilot trained his pistol on the guards. “I kill them both,” he said.
An idea popped into Harry’s head that didn’t involve shooting anyone. “I have a better plan,” he said and pointed to the guards. “Istvan, take a walk.”
The little pig-man turned to him, startled. “You want me to walk in front of them?”
“That’s the idea.”
Looking extremely doubtful, Istvan strolled out of their hiding position, holding up his hands and saying slowly in English, “I surrender. I surrender.”
Both guards ran over to Istvan and immediately started yelling at him. The little man sat on the ground and repeated his I-give-up message. The Russians continued to yell at him, with one of the guards punctuating his questions by kicking Istvan in the butt a few times.
Harry got ready. “Take the man on the right,” he said to the pilot. “Hand to hand—I got the one on the left.”
A grunt came his way. “One Serb is better than two Russians.”
Swiftly and silently, they converged on the soldiers. Istvan put his head down and covered it with his arms. The Russians never saw what was coming as the pilot smashed his target behind the head and the man fell. Harry spun the other Russian around, caught his shocked look and clocked him with a right hook that knocked him cold.
The pilot observed the short and sweet fight with respect in his eyes. “Nice,” he commented. “We tie up, yes?”
“Good idea.”
After tying up the soldiers, they relieved them of their weapons and took the extra ammo they found in the sentry post. “What we do now?” the pilot asked.
“Start searching and follow him,” Harry said and pointed to Istvan who’d dropped to the ground and was already snuffling around.
The pilot searched the guards, came up with a key and after pocketing it, smashed the radio and computer in the guardhouse as a precaution. He went to the jeep, fired it up and joined Harry. “What we look for?” he asked.
“We’ve got our tracker,” Harry said. “We wait for him to catch a scent.”
A second later, Istvan said excitedly while waving his hoof, “Something was here. I have found something.”
The pilot eyed the ground with a dubious expression on his face. He shivered slightly in the cool wind. Siberia was not the warmest place around even in the summer and had an extremely short growing season. Harry also shivered, but stopped shaking when Istvan suddenly broke off his search. “What’s wrong?” the pilot asked.
Dark though it was Harry saw the look of uncertainty in his companion’s eyes. “I have lost trail,” he said. “They enter here and now... I do not know.”
With his admission, Harry felt his heart sink a little lower. The pilot suggested finding shelter as soon as possible. “It will be very cold soon.”
After Istvan climbed in the back of the jeep, they set off. Every hundred yards or so, they stopped so that Istvan could continue his search-and-sniff routine. He maintained his on-all-fours stance, kept his nose trained to the dirt, but he didn’t find any clues as to the whereabouts of Anastasia or the mutant army.
After another twenty minutes of fruitless searching, the pilot called a halt to things. His teeth had begun to chatter, Istvan was weaving and Harry felt strung out by the tension. “We must find shelter,” the pilot said. “I keep driving.”
Istvan hopped in the back seat and curled up. The jeep shot forward through miles of empty land. Harry wondered if they’d ever find some place to pass out in this wilderness. It seemed that only the truly hardy or the foolhardy would live out there.
Fortunately, a few minutes later, they happened upon an abandoned farmhouse in a state of severe disrepair. They cautiously entered and found nothing of note, but there were some threadbare blankets strewn around a small room with wooden floors that creaked under their weight.
The pilot made a quick check of the upstairs and came down again, shaking his head. “There is no one here but us. We stay here tonight and try tomorrow,” he said. “I no leave without your friend. General Slobovic order me to do so. You and pig-man sleep. I stand guard.”
Harry gratefully accepted, but even though Istvan immediately passed out, he couldn’t. The thought of what might be happening to Anastasia kept him awake for a long time. He listened to the sounds of the wind and for the sounds of monsters approaching in the night.
Chapter Twelve: Predator and Prey
Morning came and it was cold. Harry awoke in the middle of the bare room, shivering. Immediately, he sprang to his feet, his body tensed for a possible attack. There was none. His body felt stiff and sore so he took a few minutes to stretch out and limber up. Opening up the door, he stepped out to survey the land. The plain was empty save for the three of them and a field of grass that blew from the early morning wind.
Fingers of yellow and orange poked through the cloud cover and a few seconds later, the sun came out, accompanied by a harsh gust of wind. Glancing behind him, he saw Istvan still sleeping soundly, snoring away. It seemed as if he could sleep through anything.
As for the pilot, he remained on duty, walking around with his pistol at the ready. He, like Slobovic and Bartok, enjoyed his tobacco. A plume of bluish-gray smoke, heavy and foul smelling, came Harry’s way. The stink made him wrinkle his nose in disgust.
A second later, the pilot strode over, rubbing red-rimmed eyes. “I see nothing and hear nothing all night,” he said in a soft voice and then yawned. “I listen for anything strange, but I hear nothing. You... you can smell these people?”
“Sometimes,” Harry answered. He was testing the air, checking for anything unusual, but all he got were odors of mice, rats and worms as they turned over the earth. Nothing pungent or gamy was out there. When Istvan woke up, he’d try to find the trail again. “Sometimes I can. Not now. Nothing’s out there.”
He wondered how they were going to get back, assuming they found Anastasia and survived. For him, there was no going back, not until he did what had to be done. If he couldn’t be with his girlfriend, then there was no point in returning. As a just-in-case idea, he asked the pilot. The man, still bleary-eyed, rough and coarse in manner, shrugged and ground the cigarette out under his foot.
“That is hard to say,” he finally said. “We have no plane and no radio. From here, we got two choices. Either we go to where mountains are, or we turn back.”
“I’m not going back,” Harry declared. “Not until I find Anastasia.”
“Who is that?”
“She’s my girlfriend. She’s, uh, like me.”
A grunt came from the pilot, something unintelligible. He coughed out a wad of mucus and spit it out into the wind. “She is on our side?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
The man scratched his head with a dirty fingernail. “Why you look this way?” he suddenly asked. “I see pictures of others... the bad animal people... but I no understand why you look this way?”
The question had been asked with no malice. Harry realized that the man simply wanted to know, so he gave him the Cliff Notes version. “The Russians we’re looking for, there’s a scientist who started a project, to, uh, change people years ago. I want to find him and stop him. I also want to get Szabo. He’s helping the scientist
.”
A nod came from the other man. “Okay, I no need to know more. General Slobovic tell me how bad these people are. I see pictures. Other men talk about the attacks. I do not know so much, but those things, they kill people. They kill Serbs and others. We will find them.”
Just then, a rare smile formed on his face, showing off two rows of straight white teeth. “Let’s get pig-man up.”
Harry walked over and shook Istvan’s shoulder. “Hey, get up, we have to move out.”
Istvan blinked his eyes, narrowed them at the sudden influx of sunlight, and got to his feet. A second later, he dropped to all fours. His voice came out in a very nasal tone, less distinct than before. “Do we have some food to eat for breakfast?”
He would have to ask, Harry thought. Our chief tracker has to be fed before doing his job. “We don’t have any food,” he answered. “We might find some berries along the way.”
Swiveling around to face the pilot, he asked, “Which way?”
The pilot pointed to the mountain range beyond. “That is the only area I would go to. There is no other place to hide, unless there is big hole in fields. Closest signal over border was near mountain. If I am hiding, I go there.”
Turning his gaze on Istvan, the pilot dug into his pocket and came with a slightly mashed candy bar. He tossed it to Istvan. “Eat up, little piggy. We have long journey.”
A sour expression appeared on Istvan’s face, but apparently hunger won out over a possible angry retort and he quickly tore off the wrapping and scarfed the chocolate down.
Since they had no better plan, going to the mountains seemed like the best thing to do. They set off riding in the jeep once again, with Istvan doing his sniffing routine while on the ground and in the lead. He put his head down, snuffled this way and that and grunted out tiny noises of either satisfaction or frustration. Harry couldn’t tell which.
However, he did notice that Istvan had become even more porcine now. His ears were more pronounced and he tended to stay on all fours. His body had also become rounder and his hooves broader. The devolving process had somehow accelerated. Harry didn’t know why, but he’d figure it out someday. He wondered if Istvan truly knew what was going to happen. Later, he thought. I’ll tell him later when the time is right.
After ten more minutes, though, the jeep started to sputter. “We are out of gas,” the pilot said and smacked the wheel. “We must walk.”
They abandoned the jeep and the pilot took both machine guns and slung them around his shoulders. “We go now.”
A cold wind blew across the fields, carrying with it smells of flowers, wheat and something else Harry couldn’t figure out. He despaired of picking up any new clues when Istvan stopped and pawed the ground. “I smell something,” he announced. He pointed with his hoof toward the mountain. “The trail stop before, but it start here again. I do not know why.”
“What are those mountains, anyway?” Harry asked. “What’s so special about them?”
The pilot arched his eyebrows. “You do not know? They are Lena Mountains, for tourists. This place in Siberia is near Volga River. I remember studying this place when I join army. Many tourists take trips up and down river.”
Looking more closely at it, distant though it was, Harry’s vision enabled him to see four distinct columns. “Yeah, I see them.”
A wave from Istvan got his attention. The little pig-man pointed to some footprints in the earth. They looked like paw prints, but much larger. “These are more creatures?” the pilot asked.
Harry nodded. On the surface, they resembled a dog’s footprints with long, narrow toes and claws, but he saw other marks as well. Talons... he saw talons. Apparently, Istvan also saw the marks, as he started to shiver. His voice came out somewhat garbled, but Harry made it out as vadasz.
Hunter. Right now, it became a matter of who hunted best. They continued walking, searching, and Istvan continued smelling. He started to speak, mumbled something incoherent and then slurred out, “The trail, it continues to mountains.”
“Keep on going,” said Harry as he picked up the pace.
Although many hours passed, the mountains seemed to be the same distance as before, even though the sun overhead showed that it was at least noon if not later. Istvan began to complain about not having had anything to eat. Harry felt his stomach rumble as well. Still, nothing but empty farmland greeted them. “We keep walking,” he said, feeling tired, but knowing there was no other choice but to continue on.
Fortunately, a few minutes later, the pilot halted. He shaded his eyes with a meaty hand and asked, “What is that in distance?”
Harry squinted. A structure that appeared to be a farmhouse lay in the distance. “I think it’s a barn or farmhouse,” he said. “I’m not sure which.”
“We go,” said the pilot. “Maybe they give us food.”
Immediately, he set off at a fast trot with Harry urging the complaining Istvan along. Once they got within ten yards of it, though, the little man balked. “What’s wrong?” Harry asked.
Istvan shook his head. “I smell blood,” he said.
“Fah,” the pilot offered as a retort. “It is still cold, I am hungry and thirsty and we need to eat. We enter,” he said with a sneer and pushed the door open.
However, Istvan stood his ground. “I smell something... something bad,” he whined. “This is bad place.”
Making a rolling eyes gesture, the pilot said, “I check,” and took out his pistol. He walked in, his head darting left to right. A couple of minutes later he came back again, his face white. “You were right,” he said and swallowed. It looked as though he’d puke any second. “There is blood here, lots of it.” He pointed with his gun to the second floor.
Harry took the cue and ran inside and up the stairs. The first room he came to—a bedroom—had been smashed, with the furniture ripped apart and crushed. The remains of two bodies lay around the room. From what he could make out, they were elderly, a man and a woman. They’d been torn apart. The smell of blood and entrails was horrible. A note lay at their feet. We are waiting for you.
Sick at the brutality of the attackers, he found a blanket and covered the corpses up as best he could. Job done, he picked up the note and wandered downstairs again. The pilot was in the kitchen and Istvan stood at the doorway. “They were here,” the little pig-man said in a flat voice.
“Yeah, they were,” replied Harry and showed him the paper. “They left a message. We’re close... but they’re closer.”
Crumpling up the note and tossing it away, he went into the kitchen and found the pilot in the process of raiding the cupboards. A loaf of half-eaten bread and a jam jar sat on a rickety wooden table in the center of the small room. “It is not much, but it is food,” he said. “It is bad upstairs, but we must eat.”
Pulling out a drawer, he rummaged around and took out a knife with which he sliced the bread into three sections. After handing Harry two of them, he stuffed the last piece in his mouth, chewed it rapidly and turned on the faucet. Water came out and he drank it down thirstily, using his hands as a cup. “This is good. Your friend must eat.”
Wordlessly, Harry took the bread out to Istvan and took the jam jar as well. Istvan walked inside the doorway, but remained in his position as if unwilling to view the carnage. He ate slowly this time, a look of shock on his face. “They want us to know,” he said. “They want us to be scared.”
“They’re doing a good job of it,” replied Harry, chewing on the bread. It was dry, stale and tasteless. Nevertheless, he choked it down. Inside the kitchen, he guzzled some water from the tap. It tasted clear and sweet and the influx of food made him feel a little more normal.
Semi-full now, he sat down on a rickety chair and wondered what to do next. The pilot sat across the table from him, lit a cigarette and puffed contentedly away. “We should stay here tonight,” he said, drawing on his cigarette. “We have food and water. I see more bread and tin of biscuits in cupboard. Anyway, we must walk and it will tak
e another day to get to mountain.”
“Will they come back?” asked Istvan in a fearful voice. He’d hesitantly entered and stood fidgeting in the doorway.
A harsh chuckle came from the pilot. “What you think?”
He took out his pistol, thumbed back the hammer and laid it on the table. He then went through the same process with the machine guns, checking to see if the action was smooth. Satisfied, he smiled grimly. “They will come back and we will be ready for them.”
In a situation where there was nothing to say, Harry said nothing. The enemy was out there, taunting him. With a sense of the inevitable, he realized that there was nothing he could do about it. He promised himself, though, that when the time came, he would not hold back. He would tear the man-shark’s head off.
Darkness came early in this part of Siberia so they made a fire from the simple stove. It was a signal, and the enemy would surely see it, but Harry wanted them to see it. “We need something else, though.”
Istvan looked up at him. “What do you need?”
“Do you know what bait means?”
“Oh no... no,” he repeated. “This is just like guard house at the border.”
The pilot shoved him out the door—gently—and said he’d be waiting, guns at the ready. Harry stayed on the alert up on top of the roof. These things might have night vision, but one way or the other he was going to deal out some payback.
The night grew quiet and the wind died away. Soon, the smell of unwashed fur and leathery skin wafted through the air. From its foul smell, he knew it was one of the transgenics... but what type, he wasn’t sure.
Below him, Istvan quivered in fear and looked up at the roof. “They are coming.”
Right, great way to give away my location, Harry thought. “Don’t look at me,” he hissed back. “Let them come to you.”
Revolution Page 17
