Island 731 (24 page)

It was too close to shoot, so Hawkins swung at it with the rifle. But his aim was low. The creature cleared the weapon’s barrel and found Bray’s ax swinging toward it. For most people, the blow would have been impossible to dodge and, given the force behind it, impossible to survive. But the nimble creature placed its hands atop the flat edge of the swinging blade and pushed its body up and over the weapon.

Bray’s missed swing pulled him forward. He crashed into the shelf, clearing the rest of the specimen jars to the floor, and expanding the pungent puddle.

Hawkins spun with the creature, abandoning the rifle and reaching for his knife. He expected the fast creature to press the attack. It clearly had the advantage in a close-quarters fight. It could outmaneuver the larger, slower men and, using its teeth and claws, could probably inflict a lot more damage. But when it landed, it gave a quick look back at Hawkins, shrieked angrily, and bolted for the stairs.

In the next second, Hawkins felt a wash of relief—they wouldn’t be killed by the creature—followed by a surge of panic: It was headed for Joliet. He ran to the stairs. When he reached the top of the stairwell, he saw the creature dive toward the next flight.

“Joliet!” he shouted as loud as he could. “It’s coming to you!”

“Here!” Bray shouted.

Hawkins turned to find the rifle already in the air, tossed to him by Bray. He caught it and launched himself down the stairs, taking them three at a time. But it was too late. By the time he’d reached the second floor he heard Joliet shout, followed by a savage shriek.

“Joliet!” he shouted again, descending the stairs to the first floor. His panic rose when she didn’t answer right away. “Joliet!”

When he rounded the corner into the first-floor hallway, he wasn’t sure what to make of things. The metal doors in the middle of the hall hung open again. Had she fallen through them again? But then he saw a speargun spear buried in the wall just ahead of the opening. Unlike the others, this spear still had the wire attached. The wire, which had been designed to reel in large fish and could hold a person’s weight, hung through the opening. Had Joliet dropped the speargun through the hatch, or had she fallen in again? Hawkins ran toward the doors, picturing Joliet clinging to the thin wire. “Joliet!” he shouted, looking over the edge.

The water surged past below before falling over the waterfall. Cool, fresh air billowed up, erasing the scent of formaldehyde from his nose, but did nothing for his nerves. Joliet was nowhere to be seen. Hawkins filled his lungs to shout her name again.

“In here.”

Joliet’s voice spun Hawkins around so fast he nearly fell through the hole. Bray held on to his arm, helping him get his balance. Skirting the opening, he entered the room where he’d left Joliet and Drake.

Joliet sat on the floor, hand to her head. “Heard your warning. Opened the doors and when I heard it get close, I shot the spear. Intended to hit it, but the spear missed and stuck into the wall.” She stood and looked at the open doors. “When it saw me, the thing focused on me. Never saw the line. Tripped it up. But it was heavy. Yanked me forward. Hit my head on the doorframe. I dropped the speargun. It must have gone over the falls.”

Hawkins moved her hand away from her head, looking at the goose egg forming.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a bump.”

Hawkins ignored her.

She pulled away and smiled. “You sounded pretty worried.”

He had no reply to that. He
had
been worried. Very worried. His growing feelings for Joliet weren’t exactly subconscious. But he also knew that she was a kind, attractive woman he had spent nearly every day with for the past month. As a single guy, he couldn’t not be attracted to her. But what he felt just now, when he thought she might be harmed … it felt bigger. He stared dumbly at her, no answer coming to mind. Bray unknowingly came to his rescue.

“I don’t see it anywhere.” Bray stood by the open doors, looking down into the river. “Probably went over the falls.”

Hawkins retreated from Joliet’s eyes and moved across the hall. He picked up the metal hooks and started pulling up the doors. “Wouldn’t want that thing jumping up and pulling you in.”

Bray took a quick step back. He’d seen the way the creature could move.

Hawkins tried to pull the speargun up, but the line was taut and unmoving.
It’s snagged
, he thought.

Bray tried to pry the spear from the wall, but it held fast. “This isn’t moving, either. Just leave it.”

Hawkins pulled the doors shut and Bray slid the pipe back in place, locking them once again. Bray leaned against the outside wall beneath a window and slid to the floor. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. Hawkins knew how the man felt, but didn’t let his guard down. He leaned against the cool concrete wall, but kept his eyes, and the rifle, facing the building’s lone entrance. He didn’t think the creature would return, if it survived the falls and croc waiting below, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

“What
was
that thing?” Joliet asked.

“Another chimera,” Hawkins said. That it was another chimera, Hawkins had no doubt, but he couldn’t peg exactly what species had been used. Lacking hair, the reptilian chimeras’ individual parts were easy to see. But this had been a mammal, and its dark black hair concealed most details.

“It was just two species,” Bray said. “They were harder to see because the parts were more integrated. It wasn’t like a crocodile with squid parts, or a sea snake with draco limbs and wings.”

Hawkins took his eyes off the entryway and turned to Bray. “But you saw what it was?”

Bray turned to the floor. “Wish I hadn’t. Because it means we’re really in the shitter here.”

“
Bray
,” Hawkins said, the tone of his voice adding urgency.

“The jaw. The teeth. The eyes. The fur. The tail. Maybe the underlying musculature. All one creature.” Bray shifted uncomfortably. “They’re all panther.”

“You’re sure?” Joliet asked.

He nodded. “Even saw the faint spots when it jumped past me.”

“And the other half?” Hawkins asked, though he’d already begun to suspect the answer.

“The rest of it,” Bray said. “The body. The mind. The hands—it had thumbs. Those…” He shook his head. “Those were human.”

30.

Twenty minutes after the encounter, the lab building’s outside door was wedged back in place and held there with a stack of wooden pallets. It wasn’t an impenetrable blockade, but anyone breaking through the door would be slowed down and make a hell of a lot of noise. Their only way out would be the hatch in the floor, so they were essentially trapped, but the long hallway was a far more defensible position than outside, where an attack could come from any direction.

It had been hours since they’d blocked the doors and the sun had fallen below the tree line. Hawkins sat in the hall, leaning against the wall next to the hatch in the floor. He finished reloading the rifle—eleven shots left; ten in the rifle, one in his pocket—and chambered a round. From his position, he could shoot anything coming down the hall and, if need be, quickly kick away the pipe holding the doors up. In terms of strategy it was basic, but simple strategies were usually harder to screw up. And none of them was in any shape to try anything fancy.

Hawkins ached all over from his encounter with the crocodile. Bray was exhausted from exerting himself far more than he was accustomed. Drake’s fever hadn’t gotten any worse, but his wound wasn’t clotting and the captain had yet to awaken. Joliet’s arms were sore from falling through the hatch, but she had weathered the journey better than the rest thus far. But the physical pain couldn’t compare to the emotional toll their journey had taken on them.

Hawkins fought to ignore the recent memories of near-death encounters trying to replay in his mind. But forgetting an eighteen-foot crocodile with writhing tentacles, or a hominid panther-child, wasn’t easy to do. In fact, he felt sure every horrible detail of this island would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. He turned his head to Bray, who sat against the opposite wall, twirling the ax handle in his hands.

“Hey, Eight,” he said.

Bray rolled his head toward Hawkins.

“You’re braver than I thought you’d be.”

A slight smile formed on Bray’s face. “Thanks. Sort of. But I think I’m done being brave. Comes a point when bravery and stupidity cross paths.”

Hawkins nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing.

Joliet appeared in the doorway of Drake’s makeshift medical bay. She leaned against the frame and crossed her arms. “Drake is still hot, but I think he’ll be okay.”

“He’s strong, but that doesn’t mean he can beat the infection without help,” Bray said. “Unchecked bacterial infections can kill healthy people, especially if the saliva of that crocodile is something like a Komodo dragon’s. Not many people can survive a Komodo bite without modern medicine. It’s what makes them so deadly.”

Joliet looked defeated. She slid down and sat on the floor, her back still on the doorframe. “What can we do?”

Bray looked at Hawkins and said, “Should you say it or should I?”

Hawkins and Bray hadn’t talked about what to do, but they knew each other fairly well and typically came to similar conclusions. Joliet, on the other hand, often thought differently. She had a passionate personality, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to disagree with a consensus. The thing was, even when Joliet was outnumbered ten to one, she wouldn’t back down if she believed she was right. And as much as that frustrated certain people—Bray among them—she often
was
right.

So when she spoke first, saying, “We need to cut our losses and leave,” Hawkins just stared.

“I don’t like it,” she continued. “Not at all. But we don’t know if Kam and DeWinter are still alive. There are four of us, armed with weapons, and we were damn lucky to survive the day. I hope you guys don’t hate me for saying this—I know it’s a morale killer—but with Drake knocked out and two spearguns missing, not to mention being exhausted, we’re going to be lucky if all of us, or any of us, makes it back to the
Magellan
alive.”

“The one time she agrees with us,” Bray said to Hawkins, “and it’s on the subject of ‘we’re all gonna die.’”

Joliet grinned. “You want me to change my mind?”

“Nothing to change it to,” Bray said. “We stay, we die. We leave, we die.”

“We’re not going to die,” Hawkins said.

“And now
he’s
disagreeing,” Bray said. “You know, if you two ever get together, you’re going to fight all the time about—”

“
Bray
,” Hawkins warned.

Joliet shoved Bray’s shoulder with her foot. “We agree that you’re an asshole.”

Bray laughed and the others joined in. The heavy weight of their predicament lifted for just a moment, but quickly settled again, pulling their smiles down.

“So,” Hawkins said. “We’ll leave. But we’re going to have to spend the night here. We’ll sleep and keep watch in shifts. Two sleeping, two watching.”

“Which means one sleeping, two watching,” Bray said. “Drake is out for the count.”

Hawkins nodded. “Would love to say we can all sleep, but that’s not going to happen, and keeping watch with just one person is too dangerous.”

No one argued, so Hawkins moved on. “We need to make a stretcher for Drake. We can rotate carrying it, but…” He turned to Joliet. “Please don’t hate me for this. If we’re attacked and the only way to survive is to leave Drake behind, don’t hesitate. Run. Both of you.”

Hawkins could see Joliet’s jaw muscle flexing as she ground her teeth. But then she said, “I get it.”

Despite her agreement, Hawkins felt the need to elaborate. “It’s what he would—”

“I said I get it,” she said firmly. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Hawkins said, and was glad for Joliet’s reluctance to discuss the topic. If things went south on the trip back to the lagoon, he wanted Bray and Joliet to run to the
Magellan
and not look back. But he had no intention of leaving Drake behind. Not until the man’s heart stopped beating, or his own did. Kam and DeWinter were unknowns, and it was clear to him that finding the pair and escaping without a casualty was impossible. They’d be lucky if one or two of them survived. If they followed the trail back, were careful to avoid the croc, and rang the hell out of the goat’s bell while traveling through the draco-snake territory, they might make it back with their lives. Jones wouldn’t like it. Not at all. But their best chance at saving Kam and DeWinter was to return with help—the kind that carries machine guns and wears body armor.

“We’ll leave after dawn,” Hawkins said. “Most land predators hunt in the twilight hours. And it will be brighter in the jungle. We’ll take only what we need for the return trip—water and weapons. The rest stays here.”

“Even if we make it back to the ship,” Bray said, “we’ll still need to convince Jones to leave his daughter behind.”

“Sounded like Bennett might be able to handle things if we help him get the ship out of the lagoon,” Joliet said.

“All he has to do is point us east, gun the engines, and hope we don’t run into another storm,” Hawkins said.

Bray shook his head, but his smile revealed amusement. Then the smile disappeared. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Ranger. The Mr. Positivity routine. But you know better than anyone that man versus nature scenarios usually don’t work out well for man. Modern man, anyway. When we’re wrapped in the blanket of technology, we’re the top dog. But out here? We’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There might not be another human being for two hundred miles in every direction. And even if there were, we have no way to contact them, nor do we know where we are.”

“Bray,” Hawkins said.

“Let me finish,” Bray said, his voice nearly a shout. “The point is, I’d appreciate some realism.”

“We made it here,” Joliet said. “We can make it back.”

“Being allowed inside the lion’s den is one thing,” Bray said. “Turning your back on the lions and walking out is something else. And I don’t appreciate—”