Authors: Lance Horton
Shadow Dragon (40 page)
Atop the windswept bluff, Carrie frantically pressed the button on the radio again. “Hello?” she yelled. “Can you hear me? We need help. Please respond.” She held the walkie-talkie against her ear, but again, there was nothing but static.
Carrie looked back down the trail. She wondered how Kyle and the sheriff were doing. She hoped to see them just behind her, climbing the rise out of the gap, but it was now too dark to see more than a few feet in front of them.
Beside her, Bennett had pulled down his visor and appeared to be surveying the mountain across the valley. Carrie looked at him, puzzled. He seemed like an odd duck, and his behavior now was only adding to it. She still didn’t feel comfortable being alone with him. She slipped her hand into the pocket with the Glock.
Apparently, he sensed her watching him. He flipped the visor up. “It has a night-vision display,” he explained.
“Oh,” Carrie replied. “Did you see anything?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything.” He looked behind them. “The dragons will be stirring any time now. We should go.” He slid the visor back down and began carefully making his way across the ice-glazed rock.
Carrie looked down the trail behind them once more, back into the black depths of the trees. The bad feeling in the pit of her stomach grew until it threatened to overwhelm her. Finally, she forced herself to turn away and scrambled after the doctor.
*
Neither Kyle nor George spoke of it, but as the storm blotted out the sky and twilight turned into night, it became obvious they weren’t going to make it in time. They were still struggling to make their way through the defile, and their progress was slow at best. Nevertheless, they struggled onward. Between them, Javier slipped in and out of consciousness, his head lolling about like a rag doll’s. He mumbled deliriously, uttering short passages of prayer to the Virgin Mary and calling out to his mother. Occasionally, he became more animated and cried out, “
El Chupacabara es aqui, aqui!
” before he lapsed back into silence. Kyle worried that Javier’s ramblings would give them away, but there was nothing they could do to stop him. Fortunately, the spells didn’t last long.
Despite the icy wind, sweat trickled down Kyle’s back and under his arms. The muscles in his arms and back screamed in agony. Between holding Javier and the shotgun, they felt as if they were being slowly pulled from their sockets. He and George had switched sides several times, trying not to overwork one side or the other, but it didn’t matter anymore. They were both past the point of exhaustion.
Kyle tried hard to focus on everything but the pain. He scanned the treetops, wary of any movement. At Dr. Bennett’s suggestion, he had put on Javier’s helmet, which provided a night-vision display inside of the visor. The otherwise pitch-black forest came to life in luminous shades of green. At first, it had been disconcerting to watch the display and walk at the same time—it was like trying to hike down a mountain while playing a virtual reality game—but after a few stumbles, he seemed to adjust. He had offered to switch off with the sheriff so that he could see as well, but the big Indian had refused, saying he could manage just as well without it.
In front of them to the right, something moved in the treetops. Branches swayed and snapped, and the sound was followed by a heavy thud.
Kyle jumped. Turning, he accidentally squeezed off a shot. The gun kicked hard against his hip and an explosive
boom
echoed through the gap. The treetop disintegrated in a cloud of powder and needles.
“Shit,” Kyle cursed. It had just been a tuft of falling snow. “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed by his jumpiness.
“Perhaps the noise will keep the monsters at bay,” the sheriff offered, even though they both knew it was doubtful. The creatures had been intentionally designed to be aggressive killing machines. They hadn’t been afraid to attack the recovery team. A little noise wasn’t going to scare them away now. If anything, it was more likely to attract them, like blood in the water.
The cold wind chafed Carrie’s face and burned her lungs. Her hands and feet had gone numb long ago, and her legs felt leaden. She stumbled and nearly fell as weariness, darkness, and the rugged terrain continued to take their toll. Her body begged to stop, but she forced herself onward. They had to make it to the ranger station before it was too late. They had to.
Just audible above the wind, a low, rumbling sound that might have been the echo of distant thunder rolled down the valley.
Carrie stopped and looked back up the mountain.
She stood still and strained to hear over her own heavy breathing.
Was that gunfire?
It could have been one of the shotguns.
Dr. Bennett reached out and took her arm. “We must go,” he panted. “There’s nothing … we can do. We must go. Now.”
She nearly attacked him again. God knew she wanted to. She wanted to hit him and scream at him and wail on him for being a part of it all, for having the audacity to play God, for destroying her life. But even as she glared at the doctor, his face hidden behind the black helmet, she knew it was too late for that. All that mattered now was that they get to the ranger station as soon as possible. She refused to give up hope that Kyle would make it.
She jerked her arm free and took off again, moving as fast as her exhausted legs could carry her. She dared the doctor to try to keep up.
Another distant
boom
rolled down the mountain. This time, there was no mistaking it. It was gunfire. “No,” she whispered, biting her bottom lip to keep from crying out.
No. God, no. Please, not again,
she begged as she strained to move faster.
*
After what seemed like an eternity, Kyle and the sheriff finally topped the bluff. The rocky shelf was about fifteen feet wide, the snow scoured away by the vicious winds. Only a few twisted, scraggly trees had managed to force their way up through cracks in the weatherworn limestone. The expanse was covered with loose scree and slick veins of dark ice.
They began to creep across. To their left, the stone face dropped away forty to fifty feet straight down, as if a large chuck of the mountain had broken away and fallen into the valley below.
They never saw the dragon.
It slammed into the back of them like a meteor smacking the earth. Bodies went flying. One of the shotguns, knocked from the sheriff’s grasp, skittered across the stone and toppled over the edge.
Kyle was driven to the ground, face-first. The shotgun roared as he fell, chips of rock and ice exploding as the pellets shattered the stone. His vision bloomed in a shower of green and white sparks as his head slammed against the stone. The helmet saved him from cracking his skull, but the blow left him dazed. The night-vision display flickered, and then everything went black.
Screams rang out in the dark.
It took Kyle a moment to regain his senses. Ears ringing, he rolled over and sat up. The visor blinked a few times before it came back to life. A glowing silhouette rose before him. It was massive. It stood seven or eight feet tall on a pair of thick, powerful legs like those of a raptor. A pair of wings flared from its broad torso, fluttering and twitching as it knelt over something. There came the hideous
snap
of breaking bones and the
pop
of rending muscle as the thing raised its head, a man’s arm in its mouth. The long, toothy maw clacked open and closed several times in rapid succession, swallowing the limb whole.
The screaming had stopped.
As it turned its head, the creature’s eyes glared balefully at Kyle. With a rumbling growl, it pounded across the ledge toward him, its claws raking the icy stone.
Kyle kicked backward, driving himself back across the ledge. He raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger.
Click.
He had forgotten to pump it.
Desperately, he continued to scuttle away from the thing. The edge of the cliff drew nearer.
Then it pounced.
It landed on his legs with crushing force and pinned him to the ground. The claws ripped through his snowsuit and dug into his thighs. Warm, slippery blood welled forth. It crouched over him, its wings spread like a demon from hell. He could feel its hot, steaming breath; he could smell the fetid stink of it. Frantically, he tried to pump the shotgun, but it was too late.
He just prayed that Carrie had made it to the ranger station in time.
A piercing, ululant cry erupted from behind.
The creature whipped about. George Greyhawk charged across the ledge, slamming into the beast. Its breath exploded from it in a throaty cough, its wings flapping wildly as it struggled to maintain its balance. But the force of the blow was too much. The dragon stumbled backward, its claws scrabbling across the stone, failing to find purchase.
Then the ground was gone. It toppled backward over the edge with a screeching yowl. Its tail lashed out and wrapped around a scraggly tree at the edge, but the weight was too great. The brittle wood snapped.
“George!” Kyle cried out as the dragon and the sheriff disappeared.
Kyle crawled forward, peered over the edge and scanned the jagged rocks below. There were a few dark objects, too indistinct to make out in the green glow of the visor, but nothing moved.
“Sheriff Greyhawk!” Kyle yelled. The sound of his voice was ripped away by the wind.
“George!”
There was no answer.
After several long moments, he struggled to his feet, wincing in pain with every movement. He picked up the shotgun, racked a shell into the breech, and hobbled to the edge. He looked for a way to get down the cliff and into the valley below. It was hopeless.
Leary of another attack, he panned the sky to make sure another dragon wasn’t bearing down on him. He didn’t see anything, but just as he looked away, he caught the faint glimmer of something out of the corner of his eye. He spun around and braced himself for an attack, but like the flickering of a distant star on a cloudless night, it was gone.
Then he noticed the display at the top of the visor ticking off a series of numbers: 300, 320, 340. Something was out there. It was out of range of the visor’s night-vision capabilities, but the helmet was tracking it, displaying the distance from his position in yards. It had to be another one of the dragons. Bennett had surmised that several of them might have survived the team’s assault. Kyle was relieved to see it was moving away from him.
But then he realized it was headed up the valley.
Toward the ranger station.
And Carrie.
Heedless of the pain in his legs, Kyle rushed across the ledge and onto the trail leading down.
In the distance, the glow of lights from the ranger station came into view just above the tree line. It looked to still be a mile or more away, but at least it was in sight. Here in the lower elevations, the road leveled into a more gradual descent, and Carrie took advantage of it. She twisted the throttle and felt Bennett’s arms tighten around her in response. They flew down the last stretch of the road, slowing just enough to make the turn as they reached the final bend leading down to the river.
They shot across the bridge without slowing. Disregarding the road that curved away on the other side, Carrie took them straight across the ground in front of the ranger station and killed the engine as they slid to a stop just short of the front porch.
The night became deathly quiet.
Carrie jumped off the snowmobile and hurried up the steps, Bennett behind her. She grabbed the door, but it was locked.
“Hank! Help! Please … someone help us!” she called out as she banged on it.
Behind them, the wooden floorboards creaked.
“Whoa, don’t turn around,” said a strange voice.
Carrie felt something hard shoved in the small of her back—the barrel of a gun. “Hand over your weapons, nice and easy,” he said. Carrie complied, slowly reaching into her pocket and pulling out the Glock, which was quickly snatched from her grasp.
She was confused.
Where was Hank
?
Had he been relieved by another ranger, and if so
,
why were they doing this?
“You don’t understand,” she said. “We need help. Where’s Hank? Didn’t he tell you what was going on?” She tried to get a look at the man out of the corner of her eye but was unable to make out anything.
“Okay, now you, buddy boy,” the man said to Dr. Bennett.
“I … I’m unarmed,” Bennett stammered.
The gun was removed from Carrie’s back, but she knew it was still trained on her as the man frisked the doctor. “All right,” he said. “Step aside.”
He moved to the door, unlocked it, and then motioned for them to step inside. It was too dark for Carrie to make out any details of his face, but she did notice his coat had the US Forest Service emblem on the breast. The door opened with a groan. The light caused her to squint as she was shoved inside.
The man closed the door and locked it behind them. As he walked past Carrie, she caught a whiff of something familiar—gum, cinnamon gum, the same sickly sweet smell of the man who had attacked her.
He wasn’t a ranger.
Her breath caught in her throat as the man turned around. He held a silencer-equipped gun aimed at her midsection. He was muscular, with broad shoulders and burr-cut reddish hair. Smacking the gum, he grinned lasciviously as he looked her up and down.
Carrie shivered.
On the floor in the aisle between the counters, she noticed the body of a man wearing the dun-colored uniform of the US Forest Service. A pool of blood spread out from beneath him.
Hank.
“Oh, dear God,” Bennett gasped as he spotted the body on the floor.
“Where are the others?” the man snapped. He casually backed to the counter and picked up a shotgun which he leveled at them before he tucked the pistol into the front of his pants.
Dr. Bennett began quivering. “They … they—”
“They’re dead,” Carrie interrupted. It was the only thing she could think of that might give them a chance. “Are you happy? Those
things
, whatever they are, killed them. We’re it, the only ones who made it back.” To help sell it, she let tears well up in her eyes. After all she had been through, it was easy to do. Bennett looked at her, a mix of confusion and fear on his face. She hoped he knew enough to keep his mouth shut. She just prayed that nothing had happened to Kyle and the sheriff. Otherwise it wouldn’t matter.
“Huh,” the man snorted, seemingly unconvinced. “We’ll see about that.” He grabbed a sturdy oak chair behind the desk and shoved it across the floor in front of them. He tossed a pair of handcuffs to Carrie. “Cuff him to the chair,” he said, nodding at Bennett. “With his hands behind his back.”
Bennett started to protest, “But—”
“Do it,” he shouted, which caused Carrie to jump.
“Okay, okay,” she said. She pulled off her gloves and tossed them onto the counter.
Reluctantly, Bennett sat in the chair. Carrie’s hands shook as she snapped the cuffs on his left wrist. She ran the other bracelet around one of the slats on the back of the chair. If something happened, Bennett might be able to break free.
“Unh, unh, unh,” the man grunted, waving the gun back and forth like a schoolteacher shaking her finger at a student. “Run it around at least three of them,” he said. “We wouldn’t want the good doctor to accidentally break one of them during his interrogation.” Bennett looked up at Carrie in desperation. The terror was clearly visible in his eyes. He would crumble at the first hint of violence.
“I’ve got to admit … you surprised me,” the man continued. “I didn’t think you would make it back alive, much less bring back one of our own employees. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what to do with him. I guess I’ll have to get clarification regarding his current employment status.”
“I … I don’t understand,” stammered Bennett. “What are you doing here? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The man chuckled. “We’ll see about that.”
“But we work for the same company, you and I,” said Bennett.
“Not exactly. Let’s just say I do all my work outside of regular office hours,” the man replied. “You might say I’m sort of like … the cleaning crew,” he said with a wicked smile.
“Cleaning crew?” Bennett asked, bewildered.
As Carrie’s hopes collapsed, so did the restraint she had placed on her anger. “Don’t you get it?” she snapped. “He’s been sent to get rid of us. They’re trying to cover up the link between GenTech and those creatures.”
“But … why?” the doctor asked.
“Because it’s all falling apart on them,” Carrie said. “First, the monsters started killing people. Then Charlie and I uncovered the truth. So they killed Charlie and sent him here to kill me. Then they sent you and the others to catch that
thing
you brewed up in your lab, but they all wound up getting butchered by it instead. So what do you think will happen if word of that gets out? Huh? Have you thought about that? The bigwigs at GenTech have decided to pull the plug. Your lab is probably going up in flames even as we speak. They intend to make sure there are no witnesses left to tell the story. Including
you
.”
“Oh, God—” Bennett muttered.
“Now, now, doc,” the man chuckled. “Things aren’t quite as bleak as she would have you believe. If I’m convinced of your honesty and loyalty to the company, once I take care of her, we’ll simply whisk you back to your lab. I’m sure General Colquitt would love to hear what happened to the rest of your team. Why, I bet you could be back to work as soon as tomorrow.”
The man picked up a hunting knife from the counter and held it up, twisting it so the light reflected off its surface.
“Nooo,” Bennett moaned, shaking and jerking the cuffs against the chair.
“Oh, don’t worry, doc,” the man said. “This isn’t for you. It’s for
her
,” he said, looking at Carrie. His eyes seemed alight with an unnatural fire. She had seen that look before. She knew he intended to do more than just interrogate her.
Her mind screamed at her to run, but the cold emptiness in the pit of her stomach seemed to have frozen her entire body. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as he took another step. She had to do something while she still had a chance.
She bolted for the door, but he was too quick. Before she could reach it, he grabbed a fistful of hair. She yelped in pain as she was jerked backward and thrown to the floor.
She looked up to find him stepping toward her, a maniacal grin on his face. An image of her lying in the street as Bret walked toward her flashed through her mind. She waited as he took another step. Then she ducked her head and kicked out with her right foot, catching him squarely on his right kneecap.
“You fucking bitch!” he roared as he stumbled and hopped backward.
Then the plate-glass window behind them imploded.
Shards of glass blew into the room. A log skittered across the floor and banged against the counter.
The instant she saw it, Carrie knew what was coming.