Ancestor

  Magnus kept coming, moving with his smooth athletic grace. She had to control her fear, be a soldier, take that killer down. She could do it. Had to do it. Sara aimed, squeezing her hand against the Beretta’s knurled handle, feeling the cold metal press into her flesh. She’d take Magnus halfway between the wooden lodge and the well, where he had no cover at all.

  Just a few more steps …

  MAGNUS STOPPED. SOMETHING was wrong. He could sense it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and it wasn’t from the bitter cold. Grief had blurred his decisions. Grief and a need to lash out, to avenge … these things had put him in a terrible tactical position. Open space, no real cover. His instincts told him to turn around, find another approach.

  But the ancestors were coming. There wasn’t enough time.

  And that bitch had to pay.

  SARA SQUEEZED THE trigger slowly, like her daddy had taught her when they hunted deer in Cheboygan. She squeezed … and twitched a little when the gun’s roar rang out.

  HE HEARD THE pistol’s report only a millisecond before the bullet ripped into his meaty left thigh. Pain splashed through his leg, but it wasn’t the first time Magnus had been shot. Automatic impulses drove him to his right.

  Another shot rang out, a miss.

  He landed on his right shoulder, thumbing the MP5 to full auto as he rolled.

  A third shot. That cunt was staying calm, aiming, trying to shoot straight, but still she missed. He heard the bullet whiz by his right ear as he came upon his feet.

  Magnus fired on full automatic, ripping off ten rounds in less than a second.

  SARA BARELY HAD time to duck—bullets sparked off the granite walls, filling the air with flying stone splinters that dropped lightly onto her trembling body. She’d hit him, she knew she’d hit him, so why was he still firing back?

  “Tim, stay down!” Meaningless advice—if Tim got any lower, he would have been part of the stone floor.

  Sara fought to control her breathing. If she could get just one more shot …

  ONLY FIVE SECONDS since the bullet had ripped into his leg, and the real pain was already starting to set in.

  Magnus limped backward, MP5 still pointed at the church tower. He squeezed off another five-round burst. The bullets kicked up little firework flashes when they slammed into the granite tower. He’d been such a dumb-ass. The church was like a fortress against small-arms fire. He needed the plastique. Shit, maybe even the Stinger. That would fix her fucking wagon, and fix it good.

  Ignoring his screaming leg, he pulled out the empty magazine and slammed home a fresh one, all while moving backward and never taking his eyes off the black tower.

  SARA WANTED ANOTHER shot, wanted to finish him, but she couldn’t make her body get up, couldn’t bring herself to look over the edge, to expose herself to flying bullets. She told her body to move. It refused.

  From somewhere behind the lodge, Magnus’s voice echoed out loud and deep.

  “You didn’t kill me, Sara. You can’t kill me.”

  His voice seemed to fill the woods, as if the trees were possessed with a supernatural spirit come to tear her to pieces. She suddenly wanted the monsters to come back, come back and bring Magnus down. But they were nowhere to be seen.

  “It’s going to be bad for you now,” his voice rang out. “Real bad.”

  She shouted back without lifting her head above the rim. “Why don’t you come give it to me? Just come and get it on right now?”

  “Reallllll bad,” Magnus yelled. “I’ll cut your wrists so you can watch yourself bleed to death. I’ll burn you until your bones blacken. I promise, you rotten whore, I promise that you’ll beg … and when you do, I won’t listen.”

  Sara squeezed her eyes tight against the tension building in her brain, in her chest. How much more could she take? Now Magnus knew exactly where she was. She couldn’t run, not with those creatures out there. Magnus wouldn’t be dumb enough to step out in the open again—she had to find another defensible spot.

  Magnus would kill her, bleed her out slow, burn her …

  No, she couldn’t let the terror take her now. She’d fight that fucker, fight him till she had nothing left.

  “Tim, get your ass up. We have to get downstairs.”

  Tim crawled for the trapdoor. He descended gingerly, still troubled by his ruined knee. Sara followed him down, wondering how long it would be before Magnus came after them again.

  6:52 A.M.

  THE ARCTIC CAT rode heavy under the weight of three men, but it reached the Sikorski. Had the monsters heard the snowmobile’s whine? Were they coming?

  Colding brought the sled to a stop. Rhumkorrf scrambled off and climbed into the helicopter, mittened hands shutting the door behind him. Clayton stayed on the back of the snowmobile, his good arm wrapped loosely around Colding’s waist.

  Colding revved the engine, making it as loud as possible. He had to draw them in so he’d know where they were, know they were behind him. If he drove right to the old town, the creatures could attack at any point along the way. They might even be in the old town already. And if they were, how could he save Sara?

  He scanned the tree line but saw no movement.

  Colding revved the sled’s engine again. The motor’s whine filled the clearing, bounced off the hangar, so loud it hurt his ears. The smell of exhaust filled his nose.

  Colding felt Clayton’s grip around his waist change from a manly barely-holding-on-to-you to a clutching, desperate grip of fear.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Clayton said.

  A quarter mile away, the creatures broke from the trees and poured onto the landing strip. At least thirty of them, huge and strong and savage, a phalanx of muscle and teeth.

  “Clayton, hold tight.” Colding gunned the throttle.

  The Arctic Cat still felt a bit sluggish, but free of Rhumkorrf’s extra 150 pounds the machine raced back up the one-lane road toward the mansion. Colding turned right at the main road, following the same path Magnus had taken. He’d outdistance the creatures and have maybe ten minutes to gather up Sara and Tim, if they were still alive. Then, if they could either kill or avoid Magnus, they could wait for Rhumkorrf to come with the helicopter and they’d be off this godforsaken island.

  Overall? Shit odds. But it was all they had.

  Running wide open, the Arctic Cat pulled away. The monsters gave chase.

  6:55 A.M.

  MAGNUS SAT IN the Bv’s front seat, a first-aid kit open next to him. His right hand held his Ka-Bar knife, his left pressed a bloody ball of gauze against his thigh. Had to stop the bleeding. Blood had already soaked his sock, his shoe, and his pants leg from the knee down. He wondered if the ancestors could track a blood trail.

  He’d underestimated her. He’d deserved to get shot for being so fucking stupid, walking out in the open like an idiot. First Clayton, now Sara—Magnus had lost his edge.

  He’d used the knife to cut open his pant leg. Funny to have his own blood on his knife, but it wasn’t the first time. He pulled the gauze back for a look. The torn flesh instantly filled with thick red.

  Fuck. She’d hit an artery. He jammed the gauze back in, pushing until the pain radiated through his entire leg. He’d been to this dance before. Pressure alone probably wouldn’t do the trick, and he didn’t have time to wait.

  The wound sat on the outside of his thigh, close to the knee, so he knew it wasn’t the femoral artery. Maybe it was the … what was it called … the lateral circumflex? Didn’t matter, he had to stop the bleeding and go kill that murdering cunt.

  He pinched the Ka-Bar between his knees, point up. With his right hand he reached into the back of the Bv, digging around in his canvas bag until he found what he needed—the propane torch.

  How ironic.

  How many people had he burned with a torch just like this one? How many lives had he taken with it? And now that same device might save his own.

  He used his left elbow to keep the gauze jammed into his wound, then opened
the valve on the propane tank. He fished the lighter out of his pocket and lit the torch. Magnus pointed the blue flame at the tip of the knife and waited for the blade to heat up.

  He’d have to cauterize the wound. Pull off the gauze, stick the knife in and sear the artery. Then a pressure bandage, and he’d be good to go. No telling if the wound would open up on him again, but it would buy him time, let him move.

  The blade started to glow red.

  “You’re going to pay for this, Sara. I’ll find a way to make you pay over and over again.”

  He wondered if this knife would make it back to Manitoba, if it would join the others on his office wall.

  He shut off the valve and dropped the propane canister. He held the knife handle with his right hand. The glowing tip hovered just a half inch from the gauze.

  “And where the offense is, let the great axe fall.”

  His left hand pulled the bloody gauze clear, his right stuck the hot knife point into the bullet hole. Blood bubbled and muscle sizzled, filling the Bv’s cab with the stench of burning flesh.

  6:58 A.M.

  CLAUS RHUMKORRF SAT slouched down in the pilot seat. Only his eyes moved as he watched the last of the ancestors filter past the Sikorski and up the road leading to the mansion. They were the last stragglers from the pack that chased after Colding and Clayton.

  He was on the helicopter’s right side, looking out the plexiglass pilot’s door window. And if he could see out, they could see in, so he had to stay very still … hard to do when his body shook from both the cold and piercing terror.

  How could he have been so damn blind? From the first moment the embryos started to take shape, he’d known—somewhere deep inside—that they meant death, not life. It all lined up now, all made a twisted kind of sense. He had shorted Jian’s meds to bring out her staggering genius. But doing that also brought back her manic-depressive symptoms, her suicidal urges, and she’d manifested those urges by creating these things.

  The last of the ancestors turned down the main road toward the old town. He would wait just a few more minutes, make sure he had time to lift off in case the Sikorski’s engine noise drew them back.

  Only now, with death all around him, did Claus realize what kind of a man he was. The ancestor project wasn’t about saving lives. Not really. It was about creating a living creature. From scratch. Not some bacterium or a virus, not a simple thing with only a few thousand genes, but a large, advanced mammal.

  Creating life was the sole domain of God.

  God, and now, Claus Rhumkorrf.

  He’d conveniently deluded himself until it was too late. And when there could be no more delusion, when he’d watched his creation almost kill Cappy, he’d had yet another chance to stop everything. When the plane crashed, he should have let the cows die, but his overwhelming hubris controlled his actions.

  Claus’s breath caught in his throat. Back up the trail, a lone ancestor trotted back out from the main road. It stood at the intersection a hundred yards away from the helicopter.

  It seemed to be looking right at him.

  “No,” Claus whispered. “Please, no.”

  The ancestor’s sail suddenly stood straight up, the translucent yellow membrane catching the morning sun. Its toothy maw opened wide. Claus couldn’t hear it inside the cockpit, but he knew the creature was roaring a hideous roar, calling its brethren back.

  He sat up straight in the seat, reached over his head and pushed the start button for engine one. His frostbitten finger howled in protest, but he easily ignored the pain. The blades started spinning up.

  His body shook uncontrollably. The lone creature sprinted toward the helicopter with the crazy gait of a top-heavy pit bull. A hundred meters away and closing fast.

  He turned back to the controls. The N1 gauge read 54 percent and climbing. He hit the button to start the second engine.

  He couldn’t stop himself from looking up again. The ancestor had closed half the distance, enough that he could see its beady black eyes and massive muscles rippling under black-spotted white fur. But that wasn’t what froze Claus’s heart in his chest. Behind the monster, the woods seemed to erupt, spewing forth a horrific wave of black and white. They barreled down the narrow road like some barbaric army bearing down on a hated enemy.

  He pushed the throttle on engine one to the fly position, felt the rotor blades spin up faster. Just a few more seconds and he’d lift off.

  Something hit him from the right, driving him into the controls that separated the two front seats. Too much weight to bear, crushing him, then the sensation of something sliding away. He opened his eyes to see a sheet of plexiglass, flopping free and smeared with thick wetness—the window of the pilot door. He started to sit up and push it off when the weight hit him again, driving the back of his head against hard plastic knobs. Plexiglass smashed against his face, flattened his nose until he absently registered his eyelashes brushing against it with each rapid blink. Through the plexiglass, inches from his face, the ancestor’s gaping mouth opened wide. It shot forward and snapped shut, but the inwardly curved teeth scraped against the plexiglass. It opened again, snapped again, and again the deadly points couldn’t catch. The helicopter lurched with each lunging bite. Claus heard and felt claws scratching at the plexiglass, scrambling like a sliding dog trying to find purchase on a linoleum floor. The abomination slid back out a second time.

  The plexiglass slid out with it.

  Claus pushed himself up, his glasses gone, his vision a blur. The ancestor had fallen on its ass. Feet kicked against the snow-covered pavement as the big creature awkwardly started to rise.

  Oh god oh god oh god …

  Claus reached into his jacket and pulled out the gun Colding had given him. He held it with both hands, his elbows pressed tight to his ribs.

  The ancestor coiled to leap into the Sikorski.

  Claus heard the first two gunshots before he realized he was firing. His finger danced on the trigger again and again, faster than he knew a gun could fire. The scientific, observant part of his brain noted with fascination that all eleven shots hit the creature in the face.

  The slide locked on empty.

  The monster fell, blood gushing nearly neon red against the snow.

  And beyond the dying animal he had created, Claus saw the pounding black-and-white blur of the ancestor horde, now only thirty meters away.

  He dropped the gun. Eyes flicked about the cabin even as his hands reached up, moved the engine two throttle to the fly position. He saw his glasses on the floor and snatched them up. One arm was broken off. The other arm he jammed into his head bandage. The lenses were a little cockeyed, but he could see clearly again.

  The horde closed to ten meters.

  The spinning rotor blades finally lifted the Sikorski. Claus felt his breath rush out as the leading ancestors reached up for the hull … reached up, and missed.

  He urged the damaged helicopter forward and headed for the ghost town.

  The horde of hungry ancestors followed.

  7:01 A.M.

  COLDING AND CLAYTON stopped in the trees at the edge of town, a good twenty yards from the nearest building. The tattered, one-eyed moose head of Sven’s hunter shop stared at them. Colding needed just a minute to think, but didn’t know if he had that much time.

  He shut off the Arctic Cat’s engine and listened. The wind had died away. The woods seemed deathly silent save for the distant sound of the Sikorski’s rotors slicing through the air. At least Doc had made it off the helicopter pad.

  “Anything behind us?” he asked Clayton.

  “Haven’t seen them since we got on da road. If they’re coming, then we’re way ahead of them.” Clayton cocked his head to the side and looked up. “You hear that?”

  The helicopter sounds grew louder. They were out of time.

  “I hear it,” Colding said. “If Sara is in the church, where will she be?”

  “If I was her, I’d be in that bell tower. Stairs at da back right
side of da altar go up to da choir loft, then a ladder up to da tower.”

  Colding looked up at the tower, hoping to see her face. He saw no movement. Someone could be up there looking right down at him, and if they stayed still he wouldn’t see them at all.

  He chewed on his lower lip. They didn’t even know if Sara and Tim were here. Maybe Gary had made it, taken them off the island. Maybe Magnus had already killed them. No way of knowing. Colding could, however, make sure they weren’t still waiting. And all he had to do was risk his life to find out.

  “Clayton, we’re going as soon as Doc flies over. That might draw Magnus out, give us a chance to kill him.”

  Clayton leaned out and looked across the open town circle. “We’ll be exposed for looks like ten or fifteen seconds. Can Magnus get us that quick?”

  Colding nodded. “If he’s ready, or if he heard us coming, yeah, he could take us out. Just depends on where he is.”

  “And if we get to da church and he’s already inside?”

  Colding paused. Anger started to replace his fear. “Then we kill him.”

  Clayton nodded fiercely. “That’s da first time I’ve ever heard you say something that made sense. You drive, I’ll shoot.”

  Colding started the Arctic Cat and waited for the Sikorski to fly over.

  7:03 A.M.

  INSIDE THE CHURCH, Tim looked up at the ceiling.

  “Sara, do you hear that?”

  Sara listened. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “It’s getting louder. I think it sounds like …”

  She heard it, faintly, but she heard it. “Like a helicopter.”

  They rushed up the ladder to the turret’s trapdoor.

  7:04 A.M.

  MAGNUS HEARD THE flutter of rotor blades. Helicopter approaching. He’d seen both Danté and Bobby go down—that left only one person who could fly the Sikorski.