Closing the door behind her, she placed the pills and the book on her nightstand and was about to start brushing her teeth when something out the north-facing window caught her attention. She walked over and peered into the night.
Sydney could see the lights of two Land Rovers driving off into the reserve. She watched them until they gradually faded into the blackness.
It brought back a memory from the first day. Ramsay had been concerned about getting back before the sun went down for some reason and he hadn’t even gotten worried about the strange attack on the wildebeest.
Something didn’t quite add up but she felt much too tired to think about it. Instead, she looked out the other window towards the lights of the laboratory, which were still on. Then she witnessed something else.
Down on the ground below her, a figure dressed entirely in black moved towards the treeline. As they crouched and turned back to see if they were being spotted, she caught a glimpse of their face.
It was Jones.
“What the hell are you doing?” she muttered.
Sydney watched as he continued into the treeline and was swallowed up by the night.
She shook her head. Had she really seen that? It didn’t look like he was just out for an evening stroll. She’d have to tell Andy about it in the morning.
Then her fever started to come back, her head heating up once more. She grabbed the pills off her nightstand, tossed them in her mouth, and washed them down with some water from the bottle Ramsay had given her the day before.
She brushed her teeth quickly and got into bed without pulling the sheets over her body. She didn’t want to burn up.
Then, finally, she drifted off to sleep.
CAVE
Walking further into the endless dark, Richard Jones briefly turned on his flashlight to make sure he was headed in the right direction, then clicked it off again. He was moving along the edge of the trees, the lights of the laboratory off to his left. His eyes had adjusted as much as they could to the blackness, but the sliver of a moon wasn’t providing much support and the flashlight would draw attention to him if he used it for too long.
He knew that Sans had electromagnetic emitters in a perimeter around the lodge, airstrip, and laboratory to prevent the animals from coming near, otherwise he would have been more worried. Still, he wasn’t entirely sure if where he was going was inside the safe zone. It made him wish he had his old Glock with him, but he hadn’t thought to bring it on the trip. Of course, he hadn’t expected to be in this predicament.
He’d tried to make Chang see things his way, he really had, but she was too much of a believer in Billy Sans. Something wasn’t right here and with the amount of money at stake, he couldn’t stand by without knowing. He needed to get into that building.
The schematics he’d seen showed another entrance to the laboratory, one a few thousand feet away from the structure itself. He didn’t get why Sans needed some secret passage or tunnel, but then again, he didn’t get many things about that man. It was a fool’s errand to think he could run the company from out here forever. It’d clearly made him think he was untouchable.
That night, as he hiked through the humid gloom, swatting mosquitoes away from his face, Jones was determined to correct that assumption.
He was currently clad in a black turtleneck, dark jeans, and a rugged pair of boots. As soon as Sans and Ramsay had gone out into the reserve for whatever reason, he’d slipped downstairs to the library without anyone seeing him and exited through the back doors. There was no alarm system to sound off a beeping noise through the lodge when he did so; after all, why would Sans need an alarm system in the middle of the African wilderness? Then he’d slipped away along the edge of the forest, reasonably sure he hadn’t been seen.
The lights were on off in the distance of the veterinary labs. What the hell are people still doing there at this hour? he thought. Jones supposed he’d know soon enough. He didn’t know how far he’d get, but he just wanted to catch a glimpse. It was his right to, after all. The employees here all worked for SansCorp, which meant they worked for him. And if anyone caught him, that’s exactly what he’d tell them.
He clicked on his flashlight again, aiming the beam up ahead. The trees had ended and he was now wading through the grassland beneath the starry sky. It was amazing how much of the galaxy you could see with the naked eye when you had no light pollution. His thoughts returned to the task at hand. A rock formation jutted up a hundred feet away or so at the top of a small hill.
Jones swung the light around him, making sure he was still alone. No people or predators were in sight and there was no sound other than the soft symphony of the insects. He knew the emitters were roughly the size of lawn sprinklers, too small to look for at this hour unless you happened to accidentally trip over one. But he was certain Sans would have them extend past this second entrance; it wouldn’t make sense to have it unprotected.
Still, there was a persistent sense of trepidation that gripped him as he finally reached the formation. Perhaps it was just all that he didn’t know, starting several months ago when the strange expenditures had really begun to catch his attention. Perhaps it was the calm, measured way Sans had assured him and Chang that the project would pay off with the precision of a rehearsed performance. The whole thing had felt forced. Nothing added up.
Jones swung around the corner of the rocks and found himself staring into the black mouth of the cave. He shined the flashlight around the frame; it was about ten feet tall and fifteen feet wide. He swept the beam across the ground inside. The gray rock had been smoothed with time and dirt lay scattered around the entrance in almost trail-like formations, as if somebody had been in and out recently.
He inched forward and the cave engulfed him. The ground became more craggy and uneven as it sloped downward, requiring him to maintain the light on the floor before each footstep. Why the hell would Sans use this? It must be a bitch trying to bring anything through here.
Jones knew Sans didn’t release animals brought in for care this way; they were driven back out into the prairies and let loose as they started to regain consciousness. This cave was clearly a natural construct; maybe Sans had built an emergency exit for the lab here since it was already next to where he was building. Of all the fire escapes in the world, this one didn’t seem like the most direct or safest to climb out of, but he supposed it beat burning to death.
The tunnel widened into a more open space. There was the faint dripping of water from somewhere within the cavern and Jones shone his light towards the ceiling to see stalactites dangling above him like pointed daggers.
“Richard, what the hell are you getting yourself into?” he muttered.
The ground was much more level here, but he had to be careful of an edge about ten feet ahead of him. Getting closer, he could see it overlooked a roughly five-foot drop that led into the rest of the cave system, which appeared to be heading deeper. Suddenly, his right boot stepped on something and there was a soft crunch. He lifted his foot and aimed the flashlight downwards.
It was a bone. It looked worn, gnawed on, and it was caked in dried blood.
Shining the beam in a circle around him, he realized there were several others scattered all over the floor. And along the walls were more complete skeletons clumped in piles of animal skulls and shattered vertebrae. As his heart began to pound faster, Jones suddenly realized where he was.
A predator’s den.
He backed up, beads of sweat rolling down his face. His throat tightened. That didn’t make sense. Why would Sans have an underground door that backed into an animal’s territory? Had the emitters malfunctioned around this area and allowed some of them to get in or–
The ground gave way behind him and he fell backwards, turning around in midair and twisting his right ankle. The flashlight tumbled off into the dark as he landed chest-first on the hard rock five feet down, the impact driving the breath out of his lungs.
Jones gasped, inadvertently inha
ling some dust on the ground. He turned over and lurched upright, coughing. His ankle hurt like hell.
The noise echoed throughout the cavern.
He glanced around in the pitch blackness. The dripping sounded louder now, but he couldn’t pinpoint its source. The flashlight was about ten feet behind him, leaning against a small boulder and shining at an angle deeper into the cave.
“Christ,” he muttered, getting on his hands and knees. He was pretty sure he’d just sprained his ankle or at least hurt it pretty badly, so he began crawling towards the shining beacon.
Fuck, this was a bad idea, he thought. Fuck the board, they’re not worth this shit.
Then a sound reached his ears and he froze.
Coming from back the way he came was the unmistakable growl of an animal, low and rumbling like a snarling dog. It grew louder for a second, then ceased entirely.
Oh Jesus, Jones thought, holding perfectly still. Goosebumps ran along his arms and every hair on his body felt on end. Where had that come from? He knew sound traveled farther in the cave. It had had a certain echoing quality to it, as if the animal was still back near the entrance.
He scurried forward towards the flashlight, expecting to hear a closer growl at any second. Instead there was only the dripping of water, which was really starting to get on his nerves.
Jones finally reached the beam, grabbed it, and turned around, shining it back past the edge into the main cavern. He glimpsed a shadow dart away from the beam, gliding through the dark like a wraith. It was gone in a flash.
Whatever it was, it was huge. It had to be at least the size of a lion.
Maybe even bigger.
But he had seemingly scared it off. Stupid animal, he thought. Scared of a fucking flashlight. He allowed himself to laugh a little, just a light chuckle. It made him feel better. His death grip around the flashlight loosened slightly as he began to stand up, being careful to only put pressure on his left foot. His right ankle was still throbbing, but it probably wasn’t sprained. He could limp back to the lodge, he’d just have to climb back up the ledge and then get out of this goddamn cave. He brought the flashlight back up–
And the thing was right fucking there, perched on the ledge and ready to spring.
Jones only had time to briefly register the ugly head with its horrifyingly sharp teeth and gleaming red eyes before the beast leapt. It collided with him in mid-air and he felt his body fly back several feet before crashing onto the rock floor, several of his ribs breaking as the creature pressed its entire weight into him.
He lifted his head and opened his mouth to scream when the thing swiped at him out of the darkness. Its claws hooked under the left hinge of his jawbone and the entire lower half of his mouth was ripped free.
Somehow, he didn’t black out immediately from the pain. His eyes bulged out of his head, staring up at the monster as blood clogged his throat and spilled out onto the cave floor. The predator’s red eyes came down towards him through the black. Jones felt hot breath on what was left of his face just before the animal wrapped its jaws around his cranium. Its bite pressure was immense and he felt its fangs piercing through flesh and bone. The agony seemed like it would never end–
Then, with a final hideous crack, his skull imploded.
PART II
PREY
DEPARTURE
She walked through the savanna beneath a crimson sky. The blood-red sun was perched on the horizon dead ahead of her, unmoving next to the silhouette of an acacia tree in the distance. A sense of fear slowly seeped through her body, but she was utterly transfixed by the glowing ball before her. It was as if it was pulling her closer by way of some magnetic force.
Abruptly, she felt the sensation of being watched and stopped dead in her tracks. She turned in a circle, glancing at the surrounding empty plains with a growing sense of dread. Some fifty feet off to her right, a shadow crouched in the grass. She stared at it for a moment, squinting to try and make out any defining features.
A pair of red eyes stared back at her. Then the shadow began to close in, moving like a lion.
Turning on her heel, she sprinted full force towards the sun. The red ball was sinking now, and disappearing fast. Despite her speed, the distant tree came no closer, fixed in the far-off reaches of the grassland. The sun vanished and the red sky dimmed to an overwhelming black.
She felt the shadow right behind her–
Sydney bolted awake to find herself drenched in sweat. She put a hand to her forehead and found it was cooler than yesterday, but still warm. Her fever must’ve broken. It made her want to feel relieved, but she was still aching all over. It was as if every part of her, inside and out, was recovering from a massive workout. Groaning, she got out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. Her belly rumbled loudly and she was at least glad that her appetite seemed to be returning.
She stopped and looked at herself in the mirror. There were bags under her eyes and she looked pale and tired, which echoed how she felt. Sydney took a moment to assess herself. At five-foot-eleven, she’d always been tall. It was one of the reasons her mother had insisted she play volleyball in high school; besides, she had said, being on the team would help her make friends. At first, she hadn’t wanted to but some of her best friends back then came from the team, especially once they realized Sydney was a good player. It was why she had continued the sport at Georgetown. That, and it motivated her to stay fit.
Grabbing the pill bottle, she took out a primaquine tablet and tossed it onto her tongue. Then she filled the empty glass next to the faucet with water and took a large gulp. All these fucking shots and meds and I still catch something, she thought, feeling it slide down her throat. Even her esophagus felt achy.
She tried to take her mind off the discomfort as she completed her morning routine of brushing her teeth, showering, and getting dressed. Afterwards, she slowly made her way downstairs and entered the dining room. A few other people were already there.
Brandon was hunched over his French toast and bacon, looking like shit. His eyes also had bags beneath them and it seemed he could fall asleep and faceplant onto his food at any moment. He is sick after all, Sydney noted. At least now she knew this had something to do with the carrion of the wildebeest. Before she could figure out what though, she needed some breakfast. She was starving.
She sat down across from Andy; Courtney hadn’t arrived yet. As usual, Sans was at the head of the table reading something on an iPad next to his plate. Chang was by his side, but Jones was nowhere to be seen. She was wondering what he’d been up to the night before when a servant saw she had arrived through the open kitchen door and brought her some slices of French toast with a side of potato hash. She quickly dug in and polished everything off in a couple minutes.
The server came back out a moment later to collect Andy’s plate and saw she had finished. “Would you like some more?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” she said, rubbing her stomach.
Andy raised an eyebrow. “Feeling better?”
“A little,” she said. A burp escaped her lips and she covered her mouth in embarrassment.
Andy shook his head. “Always a shining model of elegance.”
Just then, Courtney stormed into the room and slammed both of her palms down on the table. Her eyes stared dead ahead toward Sans.
“I need to leave.”
Sans looks baffled. “I don’t understand.”
“I need to go home.”
“Why?”
“It’s an emergency!”
“It must not be a family emergency,” Sans said. “You’ve had no contact with your family since getting here. You signed a non-disclosure agreement. We can’t risk a data breach.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply, then regained her composure. “It’s a personal emergency. I can’t take being here anymore. I need to leave. Now. Today. You can’t hold me here against my will.”
“Courtney, look around,” he said. “No one here is holding you
against your will. However, the next supply flight isn’t until Monday and it's only Thursday. Besides, your commercial flight from Nairobi doesn’t leave until next Sunday.”
“Reschedule it. I forsake the internship, I forsake any recommendation letters, everything. Just get me out of here.” She looked frazzled, her finger nails digging into the wood.
Sans sat still, gears clearly turning in his mind. He finally said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” Courtney said, relieved. She turned back into the foyer and disappeared up the stairs.
Sydney was baffled. What did she think she was doing? This internship was the opportunity of a lifetime and she was throwing it away.
The servant came out with Sydney’s seconds a moment later. As she ate, she glanced over at Sans. He looked deep in thought as he scratched his chin. Chang looked perplexed as she continued with her breakfast, but ultimately remained silent.
Since both Brandon and Sydney weren’t feeling well, Ramsay decided to give them the day off. She went to the library and finished the Crichton novel, which gave her time to flip through some of the Capstick books.
She was reading a chapter on leopards in Death in the Long Grass when Andy walked in.
“I told her not to do it.”
Sydney looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I told her not to leave. She insisted she had to go,” he said, taking a seat. “We talked a fair bit over the past few days. She liked it here at first, but then she started getting weirded out by things.”
“Like what?”
“She was just getting paranoid about dumb shit, like why the lab basement was off limits. I told her that’s probably where they worked on some of the company’s more high-level projects. Things that would be, as they say, ‘above our paygrade’.”
Safari: A Technothriller Page 6
