Most of the plexiglass stalls held an extremely pregnant cow, each suspended in a flight harness, hooves dangling just a half inch off the ground. IV tubes ran into each of their necks. The animals seemed surprisingly calm. Their vacant expressions showed no awareness of the danger around them, of the gale-force winds that would soon shake the plane like a martini mixer.
Sara pulled back her parka hood. Short blond hair stuck up in all directions, much like it did after several hours of lovemaking. “We have to wait.” She looked at them both, but Colding knew the words were meant for him. She was begging him to back her play. “I’m telling you it’s insane to fly out in weather like this. We could lose the whole project, not to mention the collective asses of me and my crew.”
Why didn’t she get it? This was her shot to get off the island, away from Magnus. “Fischer could be on the way,” Colding said. “We have to get you out of here now.”
“Come on, guys,” Sara said. “It’s not like anyone is going to land here in this weather. Just wait for the main part of the storm to blow over. We’ll fly out while it’s shit weather, but still doable.”
“I’m done with this,” Magnus said, his voice suddenly so loud even the docile cows turned to look. “You fly out of here right now.”
Colding mentally begged her to stop complaining, to just play ball.
“I refuse,” Sara said. “Flights are my call, we’re waiting. I just don’t like it.”
“Shut up,” Colding snapped. “Nobody said you had to fucking like it. Just do your goddamn job and fly the plane!”
She stared at him, her eyes showing more than a bit of betrayal. Colding instantly hated himself, but he had to get her off the island before her complaints made Magnus change his mind.
Magnus smiled, looking from Sara, to Colding, back to Sara again. “And remember, princess—total radio silence. If Fischer is out there, we can’t tip our hand. No radio until you’re thirty miles out from Manitoba, got it?”
Sara nodded.
“Good,” Magnus said. “You’re flying southwest to get out of the storm as quickly as possible. From there you’ll circle around the storm, then northeast to avoid the radar at Thunder Bay International. After that you’ll head for the home office. Jian, Gunther, Colding, Andy and I are staying here for now. Colding, let’s go.”
Sara looked uncomfortable at the mention of Jian’s name, but she said nothing.
Colding followed Magnus out of the cage and down the ramp. Sara’s safety, and the safety of the others, now rested squarely on her piloting skills.
NOVEMBER 30: 8:46 P.M.
A BRUTAL DOWNDRAFT swatted the half-million-pound C-5 Galaxy, dropping the plane a rattling two hundred feet in the blink of an eye. Sara wondered—for the seventh time in the last fifteen minutes, by her count—if this was it. She pulled back on the yoke, fighting the hurricane-class winds. The gust abated as suddenly as it appeared, and she dragged the C-5 back to five thousand feet.
Alonzo looked white as a sheet, an impressive barometer of his nervous state considering his dark complexion. His head moved with sharp, birdlike movements as his eyes flitted from instrument to instrument.
“This is nuts,” he said. “We’ve got to put her down.”
“Where exactly would you like to do that? We’re over the middle of Lake Superior.”
A crosswind slapped the C-5, shaking it, rattling metal hard enough to make Sara’s teeth clack. She’d flown in some bad shit before, but nothing like this. “We’re here, ’Zo, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Now quit whining and help me get through this.”
If she could take a step back in time, maybe she’d have pulled her Beretta and taken her chances in a shoot-out rather than flying into this storm. Was Peej’s note for real? Was Jian actually dead, or was that just a trick to motivate her to fly out in this ridiculous weather? Was he just using her again?
No. Couldn’t be. He wanted to get her and the boys away from Magnus. Peej had no choice—Magnus had already killed Jian, which meant everyone else’s life wasn’t worth a plugged nickel. If this was her one chance to get off the island, to get her crew to safety, she had to take it.
The plane lurched right, yanking her body against her seat restraints. Even though the cows were another deck down, she heard them mooing, braying. The sound carried tangible terror. She shared the sentiment, wondering at the power of a storm that could knock the C-5 around with such ease.
Alonzo snapped a peek at the instrument panel, then looked at her, his eyes wide. “That last gust was sixty-two knots.” Sweat drenched his face, but he kept his hands firmly on the yoke.
“Just be cool, ’Zo. Nothing to it.”
She focused on the instruments. She didn’t bother looking out the window; there was nothing to see but snow and ice.
NOVEMBER 30: 8:52 P.M.
THE C-5 FELL again, but only slightly this time. Compared with the roller-coaster ride of the past thirty minutes, the drop was barely noticeable.
“Wind down to forty knots,” Alonzo said. He looked better, relieved. They were now on the blizzard’s edge, still in significant danger, but it was nothing the C-5 couldn’t handle.
“Cue the Barry Manilow,” Sara said, “’cause it looks like we made it. I’d better see how the civvies handled that mess. Keep on this heading for another five minutes to get us some distance from the storm, then circle around it. See, ’Zo? I told you there was nothing to it.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Right, boss, nothing to it as long as you don’t mind wet-vaccing the poo streaks off my seat.”
She grabbed the handset to the in-plane intercom. “Deck two, deck two; everything okay back there?”
Rhumkorrf’s voice came back. “Are we quite finished with that tumultuous experience? I wouldn’t exactly call that the friendly skies.”
“You holding up okay, Doc?”
“I’m fine. I’m afraid I had some difficulty in retaining my preflight meal. I assume I am now free to mop about the cabin?”
Sara laughed. “Sure, Doc. Get yourself cleaned up. Don’t worry about it—I almost blew chunks myself. How’s Tim?”
“One of the cows fell out of the harness during flight. Tim is working on her.”
“Bad?”
“Not good,” Rhumkorrf said. “Not good at all.”
“I’m coming down,” Sara said, then put the handset back in the cradle. “Take over, ’Zo. I need to see what’s going on down there.”
NOVEMBER 30, 8:55 P.M.
COAT IN HAND, Sara descended the fore ladder. The second deck was a total mess. Two or three cabinets had popped open during the flight. Debris littered the lab like scientific shrapnel: scattered papers, sterile vacuum packs, broken test tubes and petri dishes. Miller scurried about the area, picking up loose equipment and cleaning up in general.
Pitiful cow sounds filled the air. Sound wasn’t the only thing that escaped them—the lab smelled like a shithouse. Froth clung to the big animals’ mouths and noses, glistening sweat covered their coats. Wide black eyes looked for a way out.
At the far end of the barn near the folded-up rear ramp, Sara saw an open door at stall three. Tim Feely and Cappy were in the aisle, Cappy kneeling and pushing all his upper-body weight on the cow’s head to keep it still. Its eyes blinked spasmodically, its tongue lolled. Tim Feely had one knee pressed heavily on the cow’s big neck. He held up a vial and tried to slide a syringe needle into it. Bright blood covered the sleeves of his jacket.
Sara ran to them. Standing up, the cows had a decent amount of room in their stalls—lying flat, hardly any. The cow lay on its right side, legs pointed toward the front of the plane. Blood seeped from the cow’s ruptured stomach: a ragged, glistening tear ran from the udder almost to the sternum. A small, bloody, clawed foot hung from the tear, flopping limply in time with the cow’s twitches. The fetuses. The predator fetuses. Holy shit … it hadn’t seemed real until this second. If the cows gave birth, were the fetuses dangerous? No, even if they happened to be born
at this very moment, they were still just babies.
The cow’s chest rose and fell in an arrhythmic pattern. A crack in the stall wall told the story—the crack was where the harness’s anchor used to be. The rough flying jostled the cow so much that the anchor ripped free and the cow fell, its overly pregnant belly splitting from the severe impact.
A sign, drawn in Magic Marker in Jian’s scrawled handwriting, hung from the stall door. The sign said MISS PATTY MELT. Sara felt a sharp pang of loss for her murdered friend.
Tim kept trying to get the needle into the vial. The C-5 still shook and lurched from the storm, but not bad enough to make him miss like that.
“Tim-dog,” Sara said, “you need some help with that?”
“I can handle it.” His words sounded slurred.
Sara looked down at Cappy, who mouthed the words he’s drunk.
Oh joy. Great timing, Tim.
He finally slid the needle into the vial, then drew back the plunger. A yellow fluid filled the hypo. He put the bottle in his pocket and flicked the syringe a few times, then gave the plunger a test push. Liquid shot out the needle.
“Hold her,” Tim said, and knelt harder on the cow’s neck. Sara leaned in next to Cappy, put her hands on the animal’s head. Even a halfhearted twitch betrayed the cow’s massive strength.
Tim grabbed at the IV line still stuck in the cow’s neck. He slid the needle into a port on the IV line and pushed the plunger all the way down. The cow’s twitching slowed, then stopped.
Sara watched Tim. The man didn’t move, didn’t breathe—he just stared at the cow. Finally, after a few seconds, relief washed over his face.
Tim stood and let out a long, cheek-puffing breath. “Well, time for a drink. I was getting very worried there for a—”
The cow lurched to life with an earsplitting bellow. A front hoof snapped out and hit Tim in his right knee, so fast and powerful it knocked the man’s legs out from under him. He dropped, his legs in the aisle, his body falling into the stall and sliding down the cow’s bloody, torn belly.
Sara dodged the kicking hoof and stuck her left arm into the stall to grab Tim’s hand. She pulled and Tim started to scramble out, but the front leg came back hard, the hoof’s sharp edge clipping Tim’s forehead. His head snapped back, blood instantly pouring from his scalp and sheeting down his face. Sara kept her right hand on the stall wall for balance, her left locked on Tim’s hand.
“Cappy, help me get him out of there!”
Cappy hopped up, his hands grasping either side of the open door. He raised his knees high and came down with his shins pinning the cow’s front legs. A part of Sara’s brain wanted to stop and applaud the brilliant move. Miss Patty Melt’s struggles slowed. Cappy reached deeper into the stall and grabbed the front of Tim’s jacket.
She and Cappy leaned back to pull Feely free. In the same instant, a bloody thing slid out of the cow’s ruptured stomach. Sara saw a flash of wet red, a gaping, triangular mouth and long white teeth that snapped down on Cappy’s left arm. The sound of cracking bones joined the cow’s bellows, followed instantly by Cappy’s agonized scream.
Within the tiny cage, the fifteen-hundred-pound cow thrashed about in a braying, blood-splashing panic. Tim flopped limply, unconscious, thrown about by the cow’s torn body and its kicking rear legs. Cappy’s right hand punched madly at the thing biting his left arm.
Sara drew her Beretta and fired at the cow’s head, the gunshots thinly echoing through the confined space. The first bullet removed most of the lower jaw in a spray of blood and splintering bone. The second missed Miss Patty Melt’s thrashing head and ripped through the floor. The third turned the cow’s eye into a gaping red hole of negative space.
Miss Patty Melt convulsed harder, legs and hooves twitching violently. She let out a strange, sad yell that sounded achingly human, a noise Sara would never forget despite the horrors that were to follow in the coming days.
Sara dropped hard, planting her knees on Miss Patty Melt’s muscular neck. She put the barrel in the cow’s ear and pulled the trigger once more. Blood splashed up, splattering her coat, her face.
The cow stopped screaming.
Cappy did not.
His face contorted in agony, he punched madly with his right fist, raining blows down on the bloody creature locked on his left arm. “Let go let go!” He lurched back into the aisle, pulling the slimy, jaw-locked monstrosity all the way out of the cow’s stomach.
Holy shit it’s as big as he is holyshitholyshit. Sara reflexively jumped back a step, instinct screaming at her to stay away from the thing.
Suddenly Miller was there, throwing himself on the bloody creature, wrapping his arms around the thing. “Sara, shoot it!”
Sara put the barrel against the abomination’s skinless head, angled the Beretta so the bullet wouldn’t hit Cappy’s arm, then pulled the trigger. A baseball-sized chunk erupted out of the skull, spraying blood and brains and bone.
The thing fell limp, its dead jaws opening just enough for Cappy to slide his ravaged arm off the embedded teeth.
Sara wiped the back of her hand across her face, scraping away wetness. Some of it remained, hot but rapidly cooling in the plane’s frigid air.
The remaining cows lurched and bucked against their flight harnesses, probably driven to panic by the screams of Miss Patty Melt. Hooftips scraped the floor, filling the plane with a clicking, scratching chorus.
Sara saw Rhumkorrf in the veterinary area, holding tight to the edge of the lab table.
“Help … me,” Cappy called out in a weak voice, drawing her attention back where it belonged.
“Got you, pal,” Miller said. He leaned in to examine his best friend’s wound.
Sara stood and took in the carnage—two wounded people, a huge cow, a dead thing the size of a Great Dane and more blood than a slaughterhouse.
“Miller, how bad is it?”
He moved so Sara could see Cappy’s arm. She heard her own automatic gasp—the monster’s teeth had broken Cappy’s radius and ulna in several places. Blood spurted from the wound, spilling on his lap and on the floor where it mixed with the blood of the dead cow and the blood of the creature. His hand wobbled sickly each time Miller moved it, as if only a few strands of muscle kept it attached.
“We need help, fast,” Miller said. He tore off his jacket and wrapped it around his friend’s wound, trying to stop the bleeding with pressure. He looked at the bloody fetal corpse. “Sara, what the hell is that thing? ’Cause it sure as fuck ain’t no cow!”
“It’s dead, that’s what it is,” Sara said. “And as soon as we get out of this weather, we’re opening the back doors and dumping every last one of these fucking cows out the rear ramp and into Lake Superior.”
She rushed to an intercom panel and punched the cockpit button. “Alonzo, call Manitoba right away. We need an alternate landing site.”
The speaker crackled with Alonzo’s voice. “But Magnus ordered radio silence.”
“Cappy’s hurt bad. Get Manitoba on the line and tell them we need a landing site with medical facilities. We need it now. If they can’t find us one, tell them we’re heading for Houghton-Hancock.”
“Got it.”
Sara sprinted back to stall three, passing the still-anxious, still-lurching cows. Straps and buckles rattled, hooves clacked hard against thick plexiglass.
The dog-thing remained in the aisle, its blood spreading in a slowly expanding puddle. Redness clung to fur: white with black spots. The heavy, triangular head looked almost as large as the rest of the body. A strange growth stuck out of the back of the skull, like a single antelope horn but parallel to the stubby body. The growth wasn’t bone, though; it looked flexible. Skin ran from the growth down to the bloody creature’s back.
She tried to think, tried to process. She wasn’t trained for this. No one was trained for this. She looked back to the vet lab, where Rhumkorrf was still standing, his hands locked on the black lab table.
“Doc! Get your
ass over here, we’ve got wounded!”
He let go of the table with an obvious act of will, then jogged down the aisle. Sara couldn’t bear to look at Cappy, so she focused on the fetus. She could see why Miss Patty Melt had kicked that way despite the poison coursing through her veins. Skinless little arms, still folded against its body, ended in paws with six-inch-long needle-claws.
That … thing, it didn’t want to die. It felt the poison … it tried to get away.
Then Rhumkorrf was next to her, kneeling by Cappy and Miller, his knees dipping into puddles of mixed blood. He took one long look at the wound, then started pulling his belt out of his pants.
“Hold him,” he said to Miller.
Rhumkorrf looped the belt around Cappy’s arm, just above the horrific wound, then slid the tongue through the buckle. Miller grabbed Cappy’s good arm and a shoulder. Sara reached over the top of Rhumkorrf and put her hands on the wounded man’s ankles.
Rhumkorrf leaned close to Cappy’s ear. “I have to put on the tourniquet to stop the bleeding. This is going to hurt very much, yes?”
Cappy’s eyes remained squeezed shut, but he nodded.
“Hold him,” Rhumkorrf said again, then firmly pulled the belt tight.
Cappy threw his head back and screamed.
Rhumkorrf tightened it further, then looped the free end of the belt around the arm and tied it fast. “Get him to the infirmary. I’ll look at Tim and come up as soon as I can.”
“Sara,” Miller said. “Get Cappy’s legs.”
She turned her attention to the task at hand. They carried their wounded friend up the aisle, past the stalls to the lift. The elevator platform lowered. Still holding Cappy, she and Miller rode the lift to the second deck.
NOVEMBER 30, 8:59 P.M.
THEY LAID CAPPY down on the infirmary table. His blood trailed out the door all the way back to the lift, like some twisted version of Hansel and Gretel.
“This fucking hurts,” he hissed through clenched teeth.