Horror Sci-Fi Box Set: Three Novels
Date: 2013-02-03 08:00:00+00:00
Description: “Dunn delivers a brisk page-turner that thrills and chills.” – Scott Nicholson MOON A NASA moon rock “hatches” releasing an alien creature into the Texas countryside. A bush pilot and a biologist discover an ancient terror entombed in an iceberg. A group of locals struggle to save their home after a genetically altered creeper vine invades a small desert town.

A Horror Sci-Fi Box Set

Bryan Dunn

Includes:

Moon Rocks

Thaw

Creepers

Kindle Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Bryan Dunn

All Rights Reserved.

www.BryanDunnBooks.com

Table of Contents

Moon Rocks

Intro

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Thaw

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Creepers

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Moon Rocks

Bryan Dunn

Deep in the heart of Texas…

A NASA moon rock “hatches” releasing an alien creature into the countryside. Now it’s up to NASA geologist, Nick Walker, to stop the monstrous creature in spite of his scheming boss.

www.BryanDunnBooks.com

Intro

Between July 1969 and December 1972, Apollo astronauts brought 842 pounds of lunar rocks, core samples, and sand back to Earth.

To date, 10 states and 90 countries can’t account for loaned lunar samples.

NASA records show that over 500 astromaterials, including moon rocks, have been lost or stolen between 1970 and 2010.

NASA also confirms one researcher lost 18 lunar samples in 2010.

As of today, approximately 140 baseball-sized lunar samples are unaccounted for.

Chapter 1

Nevada Nuclear Test Site, Rainier Mesa, 2007

Inside the nuclear test site’s geology department, Frank Beckman stepped out of his office, killed the lights, and walked through the lab toward 24-year-old Denny Anderson, who was excitedly flipping through a shipping manifest attached to the top of a brushed aluminum case.

“Drink thirty,” Beckman said as he stepped up to Denny. “Time to wrap it up.”

Ignoring him, Denny continued paging through the manifest, his eyes devouring the list of contents.

“Hey. Earth to Anderson. Hello…”

“What?” Denny said, finally looking at Beckman, his voice distracted and far away sounding.

“Last shuttle off the base is in fifteen minutes. Time to wrap it up.”

Denny ran a hand across the top of the case. “Do you know what this is?”

“Yep,” Beckman said with a nod of his head. “Moon rocks.”

“Not just moon rocks—twelve and a half pounds of Spur Crater lunar samples. Rocks, core samples, pebbles, and dust. It’s incredible.”

“Yeah, I’m getting all shivery and weak in the knees,” Beckman said. “But it’s Friday, and I need a break from this insane asylum.”

“Do you know how long I’ve waited to get my hands on these?”

“Yes, I do. Eight months. I’m the lucky guy who put through your request and did the monthly follow-ups. Remember?”

“Oh…yeah, right.” Denny said, trying to look and sound grateful.

“Listen, Anderson, it’s a three-day weekend. If you stay, you’ll be stuck on the base ‘til Tuesday. It’ll be just you, the Air Force guys, and their shiny new bunker buster.”

“Yeah, I know. It’ll be perfect, no one around to bother me.”

“Okay, your call, my brainiac geek friend. I’ll see you Tuesday.” Beckman shrugged on a windbreaker, pulled the door open, and then called back, “Go easy on the Diet Coke, Anderson. And have fun fondling your rocks.”

Denny flipped him off.

Laughing, Beckman continued down the hallway and exited the lab.

* * * *

Three days later, early Tuesday morning, Beckman entered the lab and was surprised to find it empty and mostly dark.

Where was Anderson? Why wasn’t he at work? Why wasn’t he already up and running tests on his precious lunar samples?

Beckman continued through the lab, flicking on lights as he went, the heels of his shoes making a click click click sound as he crossed the polished cement floor.

Up ahead, he saw that the lights were on in Anderson’s work station. He angled toward the station, calling out as he approached.

“Anderson…”

Nothing, no response. Just the dull hum of the AC as it cycled on.

Beckman stepped up to the work station door, leaned in, and was about to call out again, but froze when he saw Denny sprawled on the floor.

What the fuck.

“Denny!” Beckman called, but Anderson didn’t move.

Beckman dropped his briefcase, bolted forward, and pulled up short when he saw the crimson puddle of blood at Denny’s side.

The place where his left arm should have been.

Holy shit.

The arm had been wrenched from its socket, leaving a yawning hole in the torso surrounded by ragged flaps of skin.

“Denny! Jesus, Denny. Can you hear me?” Beckman pulled off his coat and tucked it around the oozing wound as best he could. He reached out to check for a pulse, when—

Denny’s eyes sprang open.

“Jesus Christ!” Beckman yelled, jerking his hand back. “Fuck!”

Denny’s eyes rolled toward Beckman. Two lifeless marbles stared up at him. The muscles in Denny’s face began to twitch, like he was trying to say something. With great effort, his mouth opened, but just as he was about to speak, his jaw collapsed and the skin on his face pooled across his chest.

“Oh, fuck! Jesus fucking Christ!” Beckman fell back from the body. “Jesus, no…”

Something smashed to the floor behind him.

Beckman wheeled around and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark shape flash through the lab and shoot out the door. What the hell?

It moved so fast that he didn’t actually see it. It was more of a blur, really. It looked like a medium-sized dog. A pit bull, maybe. A pit bull. Oh Christ, is that what got Anderson? A pit bull could definitely do that kind of damage.

And then a new thought popped into his mind. A thought that said there was no way that was a dog. Dogs didn’t move like that.

Dogs didn’t run on two legs.

Chapter 2

Three men dressed in black—Manny, Moe, and Jack (those were their heist names anyway)—dropped over a sandstone wall one by one and stared through the night at Casa Bella, a twenty-two bedroom Spanish-style mansion perched on a hilltop overlooking Montecito, a wealthy enclave located a few miles south of Santa Barbara. Built by a steel baron as a winter retreat, the split-level property oozed elegance and old money.

Behind the main house, a contemporary-looking stone and glass structure loomed out of the shadows, a seven thousand square foot private museum—the reason for the men’s visit.

Casa Bella’s current owners, Alistair and Bunny Lambert, had filled the museum with a world-class collection of art and antiquities worth over sixty million dollars. In fact, Alistair and Bunny were in New York right now, hoping to pick up a Jackson Pollock that had just come on the market.

The men pulled ski masks over their faces, then crouch-ran along the wall for two hundred feet until they stood directly across from the museum.

Manny and Moe were the first to arrive, and they immediately flattened themselves against the wall while they waited for Jack, who moved toward them with a pronounced limp.

Manny, the leader, looked at Jack and shook his head, signaling his disapproval at him for not keeping up, then pointed at the museum and made a walking motion with his fingers. The other two men nodded, and then the three of them skirted along a low hedge and dropped down next to a utility box that stood against the museum’s east wall.

Manny looked around, checked his watch, and motioned to Jack, who stepped up and cut the lock off of the utility box with a pair of bolt cutters.

Manny rocked forward, pulled the access panel open, and nodded to Moe, who went to work disarming the alarm and killing the security cameras.

Using alligator clips, Moe sorted through the color-coded Verizon phone lines, bridging them one by one until he was sure the alarm circuits had been bypassed. Next, he reached into a satchel slung at his side, removed a pair of snips, and, after careful consideration, severed three coaxial cables, effectively cutting the security camera’s video feed.

Just as the last cable was cut, the three men heard a rattling sound and froze. A second after that, a hot Santa Ana wind began to blow. It swept over mountain ridges, rifled down canyon passes, and washed across Casa Bella, instantly filling their noses with the menthol smell of eucalyptus from the trees that ringed the estate.

Good, Manny thought as he took in a lungful of the fragrant air. The wind will mask our movements. He looked at his watch. They had exactly twenty minutes before the rent-a-cops would be making their next pass.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Manny whispered, giving the men a direct look. “Ten minutes, in and out.”

Jack handed out black canvas duffle bags, and then the three of them moved to an industrial rollup door located at the rear of the building, picked the lock, and slipped inside.

Exactly ten minutes after they had entered the museum, Manny and Moe stood outside the rear door, duffle bags stacked at their feet swollen with canvasses worth over ten million dollars.

Manny pulled his sleeve up, checked his watch, swore to himself, and shook his head. “Fucking gimp.”

“Shit.” Moe said, as he craned his neck to look into the museum, hoping to see some sign of him.

“Thirty seconds,” Manny said. “He’s got thirty seconds, then we’re gone.”

Footsteps. Both of them turned. A moment after that, they watched Jack round a corner, limping with exaggerated herky-jerky movements as he rushed toward them as fast as his gimp leg would allow.

As he approached the exit, Manny noticed a roll of canvases poking out of the duffle bag – and tucked beneath his left arm – what looked like a grayish-colored rock encased in a Plexiglas box.

“You’re late,” Manny said, trying to contain his anger and keep his voice down as Jack hobbled up, almost dropping the rock on his foot.

“What the fuck?” Moe said, grabbing the box out of Jack’s hand and holding it up for a better look.

“It’s a moon rock,” Jack said, doubling over to catch his breath. “It’s for my collection.”

“We’re waiting, risking our asses, so you could grab a fucking rock?”

“It’s from the moon. It’s a moon rock, for Christ’s sake.”

Moe shook his head and shoved the box back at him. “Dumb fuck.”

Chapter 3

Present Day

East Texas, NASA Geology Field Lab

The NASA lab was located in a rural section of Texas about 80 miles down the coast from the Johnson Space Center and the SSPL—the Sample Storage Processing Laboratory—which was home to 842 pounds of moon rocks collected by Apollo astronauts between 1969 and 1972. The field lab—or annex—was left over from NASA’s glory days when the agency’s future seemed unlimited, and it wasn’t the ineffective, top-heavy bureaucracy it was today.

Standing at the foot of a basement’s landing, Dr. Nick Walker, thirty-six, head of the lab’s geology department, flicked a light switch, and the musty cellar smell filled his nose.

A string of bare bulbs flickered and flashed and then finally shone brightly, illuminating a narrow passage that doglegged before opening into a chamber containing shelves stacked with rocks, all of them dulled by dust, which made it impossible to distinguish one sample from the next.

The rocks had been abandoned by the last department head, Walter Atkins—or Walt, as he was affectionately known—the legacy of a lifetime spent as a rock hound.

When Walt had retired, he had promised to remove the collection, but stage four lung cancer had cut those plans short, so now it fell to Nick to dispose of the rocks.

Nick blew out a breath, smoothed a hand over the back of his head, and moved through the narrow walkway, entering a chamber at the rear of the basement. Turning in a circle, he made a silent whistling sound as he realized for the first time just how many samples had been horded away down here. Must be over a thousand rocks.

What the hell was he going to do with them all?

Nick stepped up to a shelf, lifted one of the rocks, and blew off the dust revealing an ordinary piece of volcanic glass. With the exception of a couple of large geodes, none of the rocks Walt had collected had any real value—either monetarily or for research.

Nick held the rock up to his eyes, thinking that with just a little more sculpting, it would look exactly like Switzerland’s Matterhorn. As he rotated it, looking for just the right angle, he lost his grip and the rock crashed to the floor, snapping off the horned tip that had first caught his eye.

Well, there went the winner of the Matterhorn look-alike contest.

Oops—sorry, Walt.

He bent to retrieve the rock, and just as he moved to grab it, he noticed a sealed plastic bag protruding out from beneath the shelf. Someone had clearly hidden it there.

What have you got here, Walt?

Nick returned the volcanic glass to the shelf, then kneeled down and worked the bag out from beneath the rack. The first thing he noticed was a note taped to the top that read, “My pet rock – W. Atkins.”

Very funny, Walt.

As he went to break the seal to see what was inside the bag, he heard the sound of arcing wires, and a shower of sparks filled the basement. The lights flickered, and a second later, they blinked completely off, plunging Nick into total darkness.

Shit.

“Great, just great.” Nick rose to his feet, the bag still clamped in his hands. He began to blink his eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness. Using a hand, he started to feel his way toward the exit. One step, two steps…and on the third step, he was suddenly hit by a jolt of anxiety. It was like a dam bursting as fear flooded into his stomach and rose in his chest.

He felt an icy line of sweat run down the length of his spine. His heart began to pound. He couldn’t breathe. And as he fell against a shelf, he thought, This can’t be happening. Not now. Not after all this time.

But it was happening.

He was having a five alarm panic attack. The official term for what Nick was experiencing was claustrophobia. A posttraumatic reaction to almost drowning in a lake when he had been in high school. The first time it had happened, he’d thought he was going to die—no, he’d thought he was dying.

Jesus Christ, it can’t be. He thought he was over it—thought the anxiety attacks were a thing of the past. That they were gone. The last attack had been…hell, he couldn’t even remember, it had been so long ago.

And the next thing he thought was, I can’t breathe! Then he heard his brain screaming: Get out! Now!

He gripped his chest, righted himself, and, still clutching the plastic bag, groped his way along the shelves, each step feeling like the last of his life.

After what seemed an eternity, he reached the top of the stairs and stumbled into a brightly lit laboratory filled with new equipment and shiny stainless steel work stations. He then forced himself to cross the room into his office where he lunged for a window, hauled it open, and gulped in the air.

Chapter 4

Nick’s pulse had returned to normal, but he still looked white as a sheet. He sat at his desk, staring at the gray baseball-sized rock he’d just removed from the plastic bag.

Impact melt.

That’s what kept looping through his mind as he studied the rock.

With the exception of a few trace minerals, the surface was almost totally melted. Dollars to donuts it had come from the very center of an impact crater.

He rotated the rock 180 degrees, and as he went to pick it up, he noticed an official-looking tag stuck to the bottom. He removed the slip of paper and read it. “APOLLO 15 – SPUR CRATER – LS 426.”

What the hell? Impossible. He’d just unwrapped an Apollo mission moon rock. There’s no way it should have been there. Or that Walt could have been in legal possession of it.

No way.

Apollo moon rocks weren’t for sale. They belonged to the American people. Illegal possession of a moon rock was a felony.

Nick moved to his computer and was about to access the SSPL database to see if lunar sample number 426 had been reported missing, when twenty-nine-year-old lab tech Ray Turner entered the office, dressed in skinny jeans and his trademark black t-shirt. A schoolboy mop of hair draped his forehead, and geeky-looking black-rimmed glasses completed the disassociated artist look.

“Hey, Chief,” Ray said, holding up a photograph. “This just came in from—” He stopped when he noticed Nick’s ghostly-white complexion. “Whoa, dude. You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah, yeah…I’m fine, Ray,” Nick said, discounting the comment with a wave of his hand. “Just something I ate.” Then thought to himself, Yeah, right, like twenty years ago at the bottom of a lake.

“It’s just breakfast repeating on me,” Nick said, then pointed to the photograph. “What have you got there?”

“An old Magellan image.” He handed Nick the photo. “They—Leland thinks he’s found some sand dunes. At least, that’s the scuttlebutt.” Ray pointed to a place at the top of the image. “There. Below that mountain ridge.”

“Did Leland mention the case of Napa cab he owes me?”

“Nope.”

Nick shook his head. “Right.”

Nick spun in his chair, positioned the photo under a light, and bent down to study it. After a quick moment, a little smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “Leland’s getting careless. For sand, you need erosion—a hell of a lot of erosion—and that means water. All the data I’ve seen on Venus suggests it has very little of either.”

Nick handed the photograph to Ray, then added, “If surface water was ever present, it’s long gone by now.”

Ray studied the image. “So, no dunes?”

“Nope. No way.” Nick rocked back in his chair and smiled at Ray. “Tell Leland when that’s confirmed that it’s two cases of Napa red.”

“Will do,” Ray said, impressed by the quick analysis. Then he asked, “Okay…so, what are they?”

“I don’t know.” Nick said after a long pause, then glanced at the moon rock sitting on his desk. “I’m still trying to figure out where the moon came from.”

Nick pushed back from his desk, stood, went to the window and stared out at a salt flat that surrounded a dry lake bed that ran all the way to the horizon and finally disappeared beneath a purple line of haze.

Staring at the broad expanse of salt always filled him with a sense of peace and timelessness. He let his eyes drift to a chain link fence that cut horizontally across the salt like a line drawn on a canvas, then dead ended next to a series of industrial looking buildings.

“Maybe it’s salt,” Nick said, turning back from the window, but Ray had already gone.

Chapter 5

The buildings that Nick had been staring at were all that remained of the Clayton Salt Mine.

The compound consisted of three large corrugated metal buildings surrounded by rusted machinery and a conveyor belt that chattered its way from the mine entrance to the top of a conical shaped mound, feeding it with freshly mined rock salt.

Scattered around in all directions were similar mounds—which looked like giant white Hershey’s Kisses—and every inch of the compound was covered in a layer of chalky dust. Heat waves from the hundred-plus degree day made the buildings appear to shiver and quake in the bright morning light.

Two hundred yards to the right of the Clayton mine was a guard kiosk with a sign that read: “STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE – GATE 3.”

Tall fences topped with razor wire ran out from each side of the kiosk. Beyond that, massive oil storage tanks, pipes, and Department of Energy workers in yellow hardhats moved around valves and gauges, checking to make sure that the 250 million barrels of crude oil stored in the salt below were safe.

A short distance up the road from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve directly on the other side of the Clayton mine was a humble-looking building with a sign that said, “WELCOME TO SALT SPRINGS CAVERN STATE PERSERVE.” And below that: “Tours by Appointment Only.”

* * * *

Inside the Clayton Salt Mine, a thousand feet below the surface, artificial light illuminated the alabaster walls of a vast, open chamber. Big as a football field, the only things breaking up the cavern were a series of large pillars that had been created by miners to support the ceiling.

Two middle-aged men dressed in coveralls and hardhats—Lucas Redmond, a six-foot-two, 200 pound black man from San Antonio and veteran sandhog who had spent the last fifteen years building the Los Angeles underground Metro Rail system, and Willie Clayton, the son of the mine’s owner—positioned a heavy electro hydraulic drill against a section of salt and buried the bit clean to the chuck in one fluid movement.

Despite the mine’s comfortable sixty-eight degree temperature, sweat streamed down their faces and the taste of salt bloomed in their mouths as they backed the drill out of the wall.

Working together, they pulled the drill free of the salt and placed it in the back of their Kawasaki Mule, an ATV runabout they used to haul their tools around.

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Lucas said, smearing the salt that caked his face as he wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.

Lucas and Willie were all that was left of the Clayton Salt Mine. The operation had been reduced to two men hand drilling holes in the salt, filling them with dynamite, and blasting off a few tons of salt. The salt would then be scooped into ore carts that ran on a rail to the crusher, where it would be ground up and then deposited on a conveyor belt.

The Clayton Salt Mine was a strictly old school, no frills operation. There was no multimillion dollar cutting tool sliding through tunnels effortlessly removing hundreds of tons of salt with each pass.

Long ago, most of the Clayton’s mineral holdings had been sold to the Morton Salt Company. The section that Lucas and Willie were working was soon to be condemned by the government, effectively ending the Claytons’ involvement in the rock salt business.

Lucas filled the holes they’d just drilled with Emulex, a type of dynamite suited for work in mines, then gathered up the detonation wires and ran them over to a crank box, a detonation device with a handle on top, attached the wires, and then called to Willie.

“Clear?”

“Clear.” Willie said, signaling with a thumbs up before ducking behind one of the support pillars for cover.

“Fire in the hole!” Lucas cranked the handle, there was a frozen silence, and then six sticks of dynamite exploded, sending an avalanche of salt onto the mine’s floor, filling the chamber with thick clouds of smoke and dust.

Five minutes later, after the air had cleared, Willie moved in to inspect the blast site. Navigating around car-sized chunks of salt, he assessed the take, calculating how many tons would need loading, and suddenly stopped when a flat rock about the size of his hand caught his eye.

Willie crouched, dug the rock out of the salt, and blew across the top, exposing a perfect likeness of some ancient predatory fish—a fossil. Well, half a fossil, anyway; the blast had broken it in two. Willie studied the sea creature’s needle sharp teeth, row after deadly row, then let out a soft whistle.

“Hey, look,” Willie said, excitedly walking over to Luke, who was adding diesel to a Bobcat loader. “Another one of them fossils.”

“Let’s have a look,” Lucas said, replacing the loader’s fuel cap.

“Some scary-looking fish thing,” Willie said, holding it out for Lucas to see. “Doc Walker’s gonna love it.”

Chapter 6

Nick shook the bottle and two aspirin dropped into his palm. He shook the bottle again, adding a third pill, then popped them in his mouth and chased them down with a slug of cold coffee. His color had returned. He was feeling mostly back to normal. But the morning’s flashback about almost having had drowned left him with a stabbing headache that had settled in behind his eyes.

Pressing on his temples to ease the throbbing, Nick stared at the moon rock sitting on his desk and shook his head. He couldn’t get over how ironic it was that it was here, in his office. His department had just spent the better part of a year modernizing the lab—positive pressure clean room, new slicing equipment, mass spectrometer, sterile glove boxes—all so that they could get certified to do analysis on lunar rocks from the Apollo missions.

He studied it a bit longer, then slipped the moon rock into its plastic bag. He was about to walk it over to their shiny new clean room for safekeeping when Ray leaned into the office and said, “Slade wants to see you in his office.”

Nick looked at Ray, and after a quick pause said, “Now?”

“Yep. He made it sound like it was important. Like he wanted to talk to you right away.”

“Great.” A lousy day made worse, Nick thought to himself, then let out a frustrated breath. “Okay, thanks. I’ll go see him.”

Ray stared at Nick a moment longer and said, “Good luck.”

Nick slipped the moon rock into a desk drawer; the nitrogen chamber would have to wait. He took another belt of stale coffee, then stepped out of his office, closing the door behind him.

He crossed a section of government issue vinyl flooring, his shoes clicking across the shiny surface, and entered a long hallway that ran to a corner office. His boss’s office.

Nick wasn’t exactly sure why Slade wanted to see him, but he figured it had to be bad news. If it were anything else, the peacock bastard would’ve called a meeting and made a big announcement to the staff, which, as of today, consisted of only four or five souls: Ray, himself; another lab tech who was in Houston for two weeks, Slade, a security guy, and Max, a German Shepherd guard dog. NASA had been dragging its feet about staffing up the lab. He had a bad feeling that that was what Slade wanted to see him about.

Nick stepped up to a set of double doors. He took a breath and knocked on the faux wood laminate. A quick beat, and then he heard Slade’s voice calling for him to come in. Nick mashed his lips into a line, pushed through the door, and stepped inside.

The office was large and spacious and lit with soft afternoon light. Apollo moon mission memorabilia filled the room. Mini Atlas rocket boosters. Apollo Command Modules. A detailed model of Armstrong’s Lunar Landing Module, Eagle. And covering the walls were framed photographs of astronauts bounding across the lunar surface under a g-force six times less than that on Earth.

If someone had just happened by and poked their head into the office, they would’ve thought the occupant had been single-handedly responsible for America’s moon missions.

Project Director Mark Slade, forty-five, blew out a cloud of water vapor and then tapped the e-cigarette as if to remove some phantom bit of ash from its plastic tip, then rocked forward, exposing a photograph of himself and Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott shaking hands, and motioned for Nick to have a seat.

“Have a seat, Walker,” Slade said, flashing a mouthful of fluorescent white domino-sized teeth.

Nick acknowledged with a nod, dropped into a chair across the desk from Slade, and thought to himself, Everything about this guy is fake—even the cigarette smoke.

Slade, dressed in a powder blue sport coat, NASA logo tie, and with mousse-slicked hair, looked more like a political spinmeister than the director of a NASA geology lab.

“You wanted to see me?” Nick said, glancing at a model of Lunar Rover 1 climbing out of a plastic impact crater that sat on a corner of Slade’s desk.

“I’m afraid it’s bad news, Walker. Your department didn’t make it.”

Nick straightened in his chair. “What are you talking about?”

“The geology department. It’s being embalmed. Collapsed. Funding for the lab dries up effective June 30th. That’s forty days from now.”

Nick gave Slade a stunned look, then after a long pause, said, “Why?”

“Budgetary reasons,” Slade said, slotting the e-cigarette between his fingers.

“That’s crazy—”

“No, Walker, it’s not. It’s called fiscal responsibility.”

“But I’m operating at a fraction of what NASA spends on most projects. ‘Frugal’ doesn’t begin to describe how we operate around here.”

“Listen, Walker, this isn’t a proposed cut—it’s a done deal.” Slade said, rocking back in his oxblood leather chair. “And if it makes you feel any better, I’m as disappointed as you are. I’ve got a dog in this fight, too.”

What a crock, Nick thought. From the minute Slade had gotten there, he’d been counting the days until he could get back to Houston—the cocktail circuit, the golf—and the chance to charm his way into another promotion.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Nick said, shaking his head. “We just spent a year modernizing the lab, and we’re doing valuable work in data analysis.”

“‘Redundant’—that’s the word the head honchos are using. Houston’s had a change of heart. Your geology department is going to be collapsed back to the Johnson Space Center.”

“Houston? Hell, by those standards, all of NASA is redundant. It’s a space program with no mission. And even if they had one, how the hell are they going to get into space? We don’t have a launch platform anymore. We’re down to begging rides on Russian rockets.”

“Well, whatever the thinking is, they’re obviously through spending millions so you and your team can slice and dice worthless bits of silica.”

“Bullshit. That’s bullshit, Slade. This isn’t about the science; it’s about a top-heavy bureaucracy that’s mismanaged itself out of funds.”

“Listen, Walker…Nick. Like I said, I don’t like it any more than you do.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t start with the ‘how much this job means to me’ crap. You’ve been angling to get back to Houston from the moment you were appointed director. You drag around this place like it’s Siberia.”

“There is no Houston,” Slade said, a grim expression forming on his face. “At least, not for me. And yeah, I did put in a request for a transfer. It was denied. I even offered to take a demotion. All I heard were crickets.”

Slade rolled the e-cigarette in his fingers. He raised it to his lips, then stopped and added, “Things are bad.”

Nick held up a hand and ran his index finger back and forth across his thumb. “ You know what this is?”

“Yeah, yeah…I know. The world’s smallest violin playing; my heart bleeds for you. Very funny, Walker.” Slade rocked back, took a drag on the e-cig, and blew out a stream of vapor. “I’m going to ignore that. In fact, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’m working on a way to keep the lights on here. I’ll be calling in a few favors, and, with your help, we just might be able to get re-tasked. I’m talking about a new mission. Three, maybe four people max. You, me, and a couple of technicians.”

Nick gave Slade a skeptical look. Then, in a dubious voice, he said, “A new mission?”

“Right. If all goes as planned, a new antenna will be installed, and after it’s calibrated and the electronics are in place, we go online as a downrange tracking station for JPL. You’ll be in charge of maintaining equipment and doing data analysis. And I’ll be handling all the administrative duties. I should be able to confirm this in two, three weeks tops.”

After a long moment, Nick said, “Include me out. I’m a geologist, not a radar technician.”

“I’m talking about a job, Walker. A paycheck.”

“News flash—as hard as this is going to be for you to believe, it’s not about the money for me, it’s about the work.”

“Oh, Jesus. Grow up, Walker. You sound like some wide-eyed college kid. Do you know how many people would kill for this opportunity?”

Nick stood. “Are we done here?”

Slade looked at Nick and shook his head. He took a drag on the plastic cigarette, pulled in a lungful of water vapor, exhaled, and said, “Well, you sure as hell are.”

Chapter 7

Wide-eyed college kid. Slade’s words looped through Nick’s brain as he stood at his office window, gazing out at nothing in particular.

Maybe Slade was right. Maybe he should be grateful. Maybe he should have kissed Slade’s butt and jumped at the opportunity. God knows things were bad. The economy was in the tank, and more and more jobs were evaporating every day. He didn’t have to look any further than NASA to see the future, to see how far south things had gone. And the current crop of clowns running Washington seemed to be doing their damnedest to double down on past mistakes.

Nick turned from the window, went to his computer, and logged on. He was about to cross-reference the Spur Crater moon rock sitting in his desk with the SSPL database when he noticed a letter next to his keyboard—the one Ray had given him earlier, the one from the new teacher requesting a tour of the lab. Total hottie. That was how Ray had described her.

He unfolded the letter and read the burgundy-colored logo that ran across the top: “SALT SPRINGS HIGH SCHOOL.” And a line below that read, “Character Counts.”

He scanned the neat, to-the-point paragraph from the teacher requesting a tour of the lab. At the bottom it was signed, “Kylie Sinclair, Science Department.”

“Kylie,” Nick said, reading her name out loud. It was different. He liked the sound of it. Sounded kind of sexy. Then he thought to himself, Jesus, boy, you need to get out more. And that made him think about his ex-wife, Jenny. Correction—almost ex-wife. They’d been married for two years, and after that, they’d been getting divorced for two years. The problem was, Jenny kept going through lawyers. And Nick knew why. Boy, did he. Anyway, he’d just gotten word that the legal documents were on their way and the divorce would be final in a few days.

Nick picked up the phone and was about to dial Salt Springs High School to invite Kylie Sinclair and her students for a tour when there was a knock at the door.

“Knock, knock… Can we come in?” spoke a voice from the hall. Without waiting for an invitation, Lucas and Willie clumped into his office, both of them in overalls, both of them still covered with a fine layer of salt.

“How did you guys get past security?” Nick said, spinning in his chair to face them. “Hodges must be slipping.”

“Hodges,” Lucas said, his bass voice filling the office. “No flies on him. See him every Saturday for poker night.”

“Right,” Nick said. “The legendary Lucas Redmond Texas Hold ‘Em poker game.”

“Bingo.” Lucas grinned, the salt on his face making his teeth look butter yellow.

Most days, Nick would’ve been pleased to see Lucas and Willie, to exchange some friendly banter and catch up on the latest scuttlebutt. But not today. He wasn’t in the mood. Not after his meeting with Slade. He had some thinking to do. Some decisions to make.

“Look what I got, Doc.” Willie had insisted on calling Nick “Doc.” Officially, Nick was a doctor, but he preferred not to use the title. For a month after first meeting Willie, he had tried to get him to stop with the “Doc” treatment and just call him Nick. But he soon realized he was wasting his breath. Willie had made up his mind. Nick was “Doc.”

“Look what I found.” Willie dug into a pocket, removed the fossil, and handed it to Nick. “I found another one of them cool looking fossils.”

Nick took the fossil, gave it a quick look, then said, “Hey, guys, this isn’t a good time. I’m right in the middle of something.”

“What are you talking about? Me and Lucas humped straight over from the mine. I mean, heck, you was so worked up over the last one, I just thought—”

“Yeah, Nick,” Lucas said, giving him a ‘come on, you gotta help me out here’ look. “Tell Willie he found something.”

Nick glanced from Lucas to Willie. Willie’s eyes were locked onto him, boring into him like a birddog waiting for his master to command him to fetch something.

Nick dropped his eyes to the fossil. He turned the fine-grained sedimentary rock over in his hands. Then, after a short pause, he said, “Yeah. This is nice. It’s a good example of a mold fossil. Not sure what period. It’s a shame you only found half of it.”

“Guess it sort of resented the ten sticks of Emulex we used to dig it up with,” Lucas said with a chuckle.

“So it’s good, right?” Willie said, still hoping for a gold star and a pat on the head. “It’s a keeper, right?”

“Yeah, it’s good. Definitely a keeper.”

Nick reached out, flicked on a light, and held the fossil beneath it, studying its granular surface. After a long beat, he looked up and said, “You boys are kind of taking a chance, aren’t you?”

Lucas removed a John Deere cap, mopped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, and said, “How’s that?”

Nick held up the fossil. “I know where this came from. You boys are working the government side of your mine. The condemned side.”

The room fell silent. Lucas and Willie exchanged uncomfortable looks. Beneath the layers of grime that covered their faces, their guilt was plain to see.

“You know my father,” Willie said, an impish grin forming on his face, “He can’t see wasting all that salt.”

Nick smiled and shook his head. He ran a thumb across the face of the fossil, letting his finger trace the delicate mold of the long-dead fish. “You keep working that section of the mine, and one of these days, you’re going to punch right into one of those oil reserve domes, be floating your teeth in two hundred and fifty million barrels of crude.”

“Fuckin’ A!” Willie let out a whoop. “Lucas and me were just talking about that. Wouldn’t that be something. Two hundred and fifty million barrels. Whoosh!”

Chapter 8

Thirty-year-old Kylie Sinclair stood at the front of her classroom, next to a large terrarium that was the temporary home of a hungry diamondback rattlesnake. She was dressed in tan chinos and a black sleeveless top that complemented her broad shoulders, Mediterranean complexion, and dazzling green eyes. Tall and slender, she made an impression wherever she went.

Arranged in an ellipse around the terrarium, twenty fresh-faced students stared up at her, their eyes filled with anticipation at what they knew was about to come.

Kylie picked up a cage containing a small rat and placed it next to the terrarium. The few remaining students still fidgeting immediately settled, tamping down their nervous energy so as not to miss anything. The room fell silent except for the gurgling of a pump oxygenating a saltwater aquarium that sat at the rear of the classroom.

As Kylie looked out at her students, she still couldn’t believe she was actually here, in Texas, teaching science to a group of teenagers.

Four months ago, she had gotten a call from the Salt Springs High School Board of Directors telling her that their science department needed a new teacher and asking if she would be interested in the position.

The call had caught her completely off guard. At first, she’d thought it was a prank. Friends having fun, pulling her chain. She had been looking for a teaching position for over a year, but with no luck. Frustrated and with no real employment opportunities in sight, she had all but given up hope. In fact, she had just signed up for an exchange program and was literally two weeks away from shipping out to China to teach English to eager young minds in Shanghai when the call had come. Apparently, a friend of a friend had recommended her to the school’s principal, and two days after the call, she had the job.

Kylie opened the cage, grabbed the rat by the tail, and as she lifted it out, a chorus of shrieks erupted from the girls and the boys pressed forward, licking their chops with glee at what they were about to witness.

The snake feeding had purposely been planned at the end of class. Kylie told her students that anyone who didn’t want to participate could be excused early.

All had opted to stay. Everyone was eager to see the snake in action; or, at least, no one wanted to be teased later for having chickened out.

Kylie reached over to the top of terrarium, flipped open an access panel, and dropped the rat.

The moment its feet hit the sandy floor, the classroom exploded with the loud buzz of the diamondback’s tail, its twelve rattles moving at a rate of over fifty times per second.

The students’ oohs and ahhs filled the room. One boy summed it up with a loud, “That. Was. Awesome!”

“Watch the snake’s flicking tongue,” Kylie said, focusing the students’ attention. “It uses that plus infrared heat receptors located in pits behind its nostrils to sense the air and locate its prey.”

Saucer-eyed and utterly spellbound, the students watched as the snake’s triangular-shaped head rose from its coiled body and, bobbing and weaving, ghosted forward toward the unsuspecting rat.

Chapter 9

At the rear of Kylie’s classroom, Nick slipped into the room, pulling the door closed without making a noise. Clutched in his left hand was a plain paper bag.

He cast his eyes about the room, taking in a dazzling array of curiosities. The first word that popped into his mind was ‘fun.’ Someone had really knocked themselves out making this a special place.

The Earth’s solar system was depicted by a series of brightly colored spheres that hung from the ceiling by filament. Off to the side, he saw a room designated by a sign on the wall as “Natural Sciences.” Just inside, he could see stuffed animals—a fox with a red coat and a badger, or maybe it was a raccoon. Next to that was a room labeled “Earth Sciences,” which was filled with rocks and shells and a painting illustrating the layered walls of the Grand Canyon. A short distance from that was a large aquarium filled with exotic-looking fish being watched over by the screaming mouth of a full-sized human skeleton. Mounted high in one corner, a model of the Hubble Space Telescope soared above the room.

So far undetected, Nick inched into the room until he had a clear view of Kylie and her students, all of them crowded around the terrarium.

Kylie pointed at the terrarium. “Look—see how the snake has lowered its head? That’s a signal that it’s located its prey.”

Then everyone watched as the snake dropped to the floor of the terrarium and warped forward, its muscular body carving a lazy ‘S’ in the sand. A moment after that, it drew its body up, and wound itself into a tight coil. Then it raised its head, darted forward, and sank its fangs into the rat’s body.

At the same time, a boy grabbed the neck of the girl standing directly in front of him, digging his fingers into her flesh like make-believe fangs.

The girl jumped straight up, grabbed her neck, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

This caused everyone else to jump and scatter. All heads snapped towards the screaming girl, trying to see what was the matter. Roman, a campus jock, pointed at the girl, laughed, and held his fingers up like fangs.

Kylie gave Roman a deadly look and motioned for him to take his seat. The rest of the students watched as the rat wobbled to a corner of the terrarium, convulsed, and dropped to the floor, its body going into paralysis.

“Oh, gross!” said Molly, a 15-year-old student with a blond ponytail.

“Watch,” Kylie said, ignoring Molly. “Look at its mouth. It’s gaping. It’s stretching its specially designed jaw, preparing to eat. Later, after the snake is sure the rat is dead, it will swallow it headfirst.”

“I seen Hayes do that with a hotdog,” blurted a heavyset teen with close-cropped hair.

The other students erupted with laughter. Kylie could see she was losing them. Just as she was about to tell them to quiet down, the bell rang, signaling the end of class.

“Okay. That’s it. Everyone can go.” Kylie began gathering her notes. “Oh, and don’t forget to read chapter nine on reptiles. And yes, there will be a quiz.”

Chapter 10

With students flowing around him, Nick made his way to the front of the room, where Kylie was securing the top of the terrarium.

Nick stepped up to her and said, “Kylie Sinclair?”

“Yes, I’m Kylie,” she said, giving Nick a warm smile. “How may I help you?”

He held up Kylie’s letter. “Nick Walker, NASA Geology Department.”

“Oh right, the tour request,” she said, sounding a little caught off-guard by Nick’s sudden appearance. “I’m surprised to see you.” Kylie straightened and squared her shoulders as a flash of color spiked in her cheeks. “I mean, here…in person. I certainly didn’t expect you to come all the way out to the school. I thought you’d call.”

“Well, I can leave, if you’d like,” Nick said, a grin spreading on his face. “I can go back and call from my office.”

“Please, no.” Kylie laughed. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“My pleasure.” Boy, was that the understatement of the year. He could barely take his eyes off of her. Ray had been right: Kylie Sinclair was a total hottie. “I just figured I’d come by and welcome you to our little corner of Texas. Oh, and I would love to give you a tour of the lab.”

“Great.” Then she quickly added, “Me and my students, right?”

“Definitely. Kids, too. When Nick Walker agrees to a tour, he goes all out.”

Nick moved to the terrarium, looked at the snake, and said, “Live snakes…impressive.” Then he motioned to the classroom. “Just like the rest of the room.”

Kylie smiled, nodded, and said, “If you only give it to them out of a book, you’ll lose them.”

Nick leaned in for a better view of the snake. “Oh wow, that’s a big boy.” Then he asked, “Diamondback, right?”

“Crotalus atrox,” Kylie said, stepping up next to him. She glanced at his hands. Nice, she thought to herself. She had a thing for hands. And Nick’s rated right up there. “Western Diamondback.”

Nick watched as the rattlesnake’s mouth gaped, preparing to swallow its meal. He turned to Kylie and said, “Old Emmett Clayton—the guy who owns the Clayton Salt Mine—he likes to tell about a diamondback that got rousted by a pickup truck, hung its fangs into a tire, got stuck, and then as the tire went slowly flat, the snake blew up as the air passed through its hollow fangs.”

Kylie rolled her eyes and gave him a ‘yeah, right’ look. “Okay, I may be a city girl, but give me a break. That sounds like some country myth or something.”

“Any other state, yeah, but this is Texas.”

Kylie shook her head, obviously not buying it. “I don’t care if you’re talking about Texas or Timbuktu—BS is BS the world over.”

“Fine.” Nick smiled. “Be cynical.”

“I’m not being cynical,” she said, giving him a playful look. “I’m just not being naïve.”

Nick held up his hands, signaling his surrender. “Okay. You’re definitely not cynical.”

Kylie moved back to the front of the room, picked up a teaching model of a pit viper’s head, and placed it on a shelf next to the terrarium.

“I meant what I said earlier,” Nick said. “This really is a great room. Did you do all this?”

“I did some major rearranging of what was already here, then added a few touches. But thanks for noticing.”

“Well, it’s great. I bet the kids love it. Speaking of which…” Nick held up the paper bag he’d been holding and removed the fossil that Willie had given him, then handed it to Kylie. “I thought your students might like to see this.”

Kylie studied the fossil. She ran a finger over the ferocious-looking fish preserved in the leaf-shaped rock. Then, after a moment, she said, “This is fantastic. My students will love it.”

“Great.” Nick stared at Kylie, thinking how lovely she was. “Please consider it a gift.” Then he added, “Sorry it’s only half of it.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame.” Kylie nodded in agreement. “Such a great piece. Any idea where the other half is?”

Nick was thinking he should ask her out. Then he realized it might be inappropriate, that she might think he was taking advantage of the situation. Just before he chickened out completely, he said, “Yes. Yes I do. Agree to have a glass of wine with me; I’ll tell you the whole fascinating story.”

“Excuse me…Miss Sinclair…”

They turned and saw Mitch O’Dell, one of Kylie’s ninth grade students, approaching. His face was flushed and he had an open textbook clutched in his hand.

“Mitch?” Kylie said, greeting the boy as he walked up.

“I was wondering,” Mitch said, stealing a nervous glance at Nick. “I was wondering if you could help me with yesterday’s assignment?”

Nick had to stop himself from laughing out loud, thinking, The kid’s got it bad. Big time crush on Miss Sinclair…and angling hard for teacher’s pet. It was so obvious it was almost painful. And then he thought, Well, at least the kid’s got good taste.

“Just a moment, Mitch.” Kylie looked at Nick, shrugged her shoulders apologetically, and said, “Sorry about this.”

“Not at all. Duty calls. I’ll leave you to it.” Nick dug out his wallet, removed a card, and handed it to Kylie. “That’s my cell phone. Call anytime. We’ll arrange that tour.”

Nick took a step toward the door, but then stopped and called to Mitch, “Hey kid, you forgot the apple.”

* * * *

Four hours later, the classroom door swung open and a heavyset janitor dressed in blue Dickie work clothes entered the room. He shuffled in behind a pushcart loaded with brooms, brushes, cleaning supplies, and a large, plastic trashcan.

He crossed the threshold, flicked on the lights, and stuck a foot out to catch the door, but missed, and it banged shut behind him.

At the same time, across the room, the rattlesnake started. It puffed up its body in a defensive move and disgorged the rat, ejecting the partially digested rodent out of its mouth and onto the terrarium’s floor.

Chapter 11

Nick sat at his desk, feeling groggy from a lousy night’s sleep. It was nine thirty. He’d already had four cups of coffee, but they didn’t seem to be doing much good. Yesterday’s meeting with Slade had kept him tossing and turning, their conversation playing over and over in his head. And there was another thing. A much better thing.

Kylie Sinclair.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her.

He picked up a Post-it note he’d retrieved from his office door when he’d arrived. It was from Slade. Short and sweet, it read, “Forty days, Walker. Had to go to Houston last night. I’ll be in the office at noon. If you want to talk before then, call me. MS.”

Nick took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. He rubbed his face and stretched his neck, trying to get the cobwebs out of his head. He opened a desk drawer. Then, just as quickly, he shut it. Then he opened it again and removed a sheet of paper he’d printed out ten minutes ago.

He unfolded the printout and reread the error message from the SSPL database.

“SEARCH RESULTS: SPUR CRATER LS – 426.

ACCESS DENIED: INFORMATION CLASSIFIED.

ENTER VALID CLEARENCE CODE AND TRY YOUR SEARCH AGAIN.”

Weird, he thought as he stared at the message. He’d only accessed the SSPL database a handful of times, but he’d never been denied access, let alone gotten an error message requesting security clearance. Must have been some anomaly. A software glitch, maybe, or a faulty redirect.

He folded the piece of paper, slipped it in the drawer, and pushed the drawer shut. Then he found himself thinking about Kylie Sinclair again.

* * * *

An hour later, Nick stood outside the newly-installed clean room preparing to retrieve the Spur Crater sample he’d placed inside just a few hours ago. Walt’s pet rock—what a hoot.

The clean room had an airlock—a small entry chamber with double doors that created a pressure differential between the chamber and the outside air.

Nick punched in an entry code. The outer door slipped open. Then he entered, and, without thinking, proceeded directly to the inner door and hit a button to open the lock.

An alarm sounded. From an overhead speaker, a voice boomed a warning: “CONTAMINATION ALERT. ATMOSPHERE CHANGE. CLOSE OUTER DOOR. CONTAMINATION ALERT…”

Jesus, wake up, Nick. Pay attention. As he turned to close the outer door, Ray was suddenly there, staring at him.

“What happened?” Ray asked. “I heard the alarm. Did we have a pressure drop? Is there a leak in the system?”

“No.” Nick keyed in a code to stop the alarm. “Everything’s fine. I just screwed up, that’s all.” He closed the outer door, entered the clean room, and retrieved the moon rock. Then he stepped back into the entry chamber, shut the door, and joined Ray outside the clean room.

“What’s that?” Ray asked, staring at the gray rock cradled in Nick’s hand.

Nick removed the tag indicating that it was a Spur Crater lunar rock, handed it to Ray, and said, “Guess.”

Ray took the rock and turned it over in his hands, studying its melted exterior. “Hmm. I’m not sure. Is it a meteorite?”

“You’re close. It’s extraterrestrial, but not a meteorite.” Nick handed Ray the tag. “Here, read for yourself.”

“‘Spur Crater…’” Ray glanced from the rock to Nick. “This is from Spur Crater? This is from the moon?”

“Yep. An Apollo 15 lunar sample, courtesy of David Scott and Jim Irwin. It was Walter’s.

“Walt?” Ray said with a surprised look on his face.

“Yeah, can you believe it? I found it with his rock collection.”

“No way. It can’t be. We’re not suppose to have this. We can’t have this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember? Five or six years ago, all Spur Crater samples were recalled to Houston.”

“I wasn’t here six years ago, Ray. But I would remember something like that. I would’ve heard about the recall.”

“Yeah, whatever…but I guess you didn’t.” Ray looked at the tag and reread the words, “APOLLO 15 – SPUR CRATER – LS 426.” He stared at Nick and said, “Let me tell you, it was a big deal around here. Came right from the Pentagon. Top secret. Very classified. Very fucking strange. The Air Force even flew out a team to verify that we didn’t have any Spur Crater samples.”

Ray hefted the rock, gave it another look, then passed it back to Nick. “We all got the fear-of-God routine about how sensitive it was. You know, classified.”

“Weird,” Nick said, glancing at the rock. “I can’t believe I never heard about it.”

“Yeah,” Ray nodded. “About a month later, there were rumors about an ‘event’ in Nevada—Rainier Mesa. Some geologist had a breakthrough with a Spur Crater sample. We figured that he pulled some strings and had all available specimens sent to his lab.” Ray glanced at the moon rock in Nick’s hand. “Guess they missed one.”

“It all sounds pretty damn far out,” Nick said, tightening his grip on the rock.

“Tell me about it.”

“If it’s true, NASA has gone from a hot breakthrough to shutting down one of its last lunar research labs.” After a beat, Nick added, “More great logic from the ringmasters in Houston.”

“Yeah,” Ray said, casting a glance around the lab with a wistful look. “I can’t believe they’re pulling the plug.”

Nick held the moon rock up and said, “Cost the American taxpayers thirty billion dollars to collect these samples. Now they’re just museum pieces, trinkets to be stuck on a plaque to honor some puffed up politician or impress some foreign ambassador.”

Chapter 12

Ten minutes later, inside the laser lab, Ray watched as Nick weighed and measured the moon rock, then jotted the dimensions in a small notebook.

The room was filled with electronic equipment, computers, LCD screens, and the centerpiece: a large plasma laser, its rods housed in a long clear tube that took up half the room.

Nick removed the rock from a scale, then walked to a chamber at the front of the laser and placed the rock inside.

“I ran a check on the power supply. You’re good to go. All the juice you need.”

Nick didn’t respond. He was busy positioning the rock on a small pedestal inside the chamber, turning it this way and that, trying to find just the right angle. After a few more rotations, he stood back, double-checked the position, and nodded to himself.

“Nick, come on. Are you gonna let me in on this or what?”

Nick crossed the room, then turned to Ray and said, “I’m going to take the CO2 plasma laser, drive the beam through an expander, polarize it, then hit that rock with two megawatt, ultra short pulses.”

“Jesus,” Ray said after a short pause, “You’ll vaporize it!”

An impish grin formed on Nick’s face. “Hell, I’m going to blast it back to when it was just a gleam in some star’s eye.”

“Why? What’s the point?”

“Science, Ray. And the opportunity to do exactly what Houston’s doing—the unthinkable.” Nick traced a cable with his fingers, double-checking the connections. “Think about it: no one has ever destroyed a sample this large. Yesterday, it would’ve been unimaginable. But now, everything has changed.”

“I don’t know,” Ray said, a dubious tone in his voice. “What if someone else knows about that sample—knows that it was left here? They’re going to want it returned.”

“Ray, Ray—you don’t get it. They don’t give a shit. You should’ve heard Slade.” Nick pulled the cable from its power source, then plugged it back in just to be sure it was properly connected. “What we’ve got here, Ray,” Nick said, excitement rising in his voice, “is the chance of a lifetime. One moon rock. One experiment. With a lunar sample this size, we should get a very accurate measurement of its age. And who knows, maybe something entirely new—a surprise or two.”

Ray frowned. “Yeah, like maybe thrown in jail,”

* * * *

Nick was in a control booth that overlooked the laser lab. He sat at a computer keying in a series of commands. As he typed, words streamed across a large flat screen monitor.

“LASER DATA ON SELECT TARGET.”

Nick typed in another command. A picture appeared on the monitor. A 3-D image of the moon rock.

Nick hit another key, animating the picture. It began to shift, slowly revealing the entire surface of the rock. Below the image, at the bottom of the screen, data streamed across the monitor. The image stopped moving. There was a beeping sound. Then words appeared on the screen.

“TARGET LOCKED - TARGET LOCKED.”

The image shifted, and then a grid pattern appeared over the rock.

“FIRE SEQUENCER READY.”

A pause, and then:

“SELECT TIMER:”

“00 : 00 : 00”

He tapped another key.

“TIMER OVERRIDE.”

And a moment after that, the screen began to flash:

“READY.”

Nick flicked on a mike and then motioned to Ray, who was waiting in the laser lab. “Clear?”

Ray glanced at a panel on the laser and saw that it was green, indicating that it was good to go. He raised a hand and flashed a thumbs-up to Nick in the overhead booth. As he exited the lab, he shouted, “Clear.”

Nick checked the data on his computer one last time and said, “Time for some rock-and-roll geology.”

He tapped a key. An intense beam shot from the end of the laser and struck the rock. One. Two. Three. Three hyper pulses of laser light. As the third pulse hit, the rock exploded with a loud pop.

A moment after that, the laser shut down, its powerful beam vanishing like an invisible hand had suddenly been placed over the end of the gun. The experiment was over almost as quickly as it had begun.

Chapter 13

Nick and Ray rushed into the lab, both of them anxious to see the results, to see what had happened to the lunar rock. The first thing they noticed was that the chamber containing the moon rock was filled with thick smoke.

“Scrub the blast chamber,” Nick said, motioning to a switch on a control panel.

Ray hustled over, hit the switch. A fan whirred. The room filled with a loud hum. The smoke began to clear. After a long moment, the last wisps of vapor were sucked into a duct attached to the rear of the chamber.

Nick and Ray approached the chamber. They could see there was something inside. Something red hot. Something glowing. A step closer, and they saw what it was: a smooth, ovoid object.

Jesus.

“Jesus,” Ray said, his eyes like silver dollars. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.” Nick leaned forward for a better look. “But I can tell you what it’s not: lunar silica.”

Mouth agape, Ray inched closer, then in a low voice said, “It looks like some sort of ellipsoid.”

“You know what it looks like to me?” Nick said, his eyes glued to the object. “It looks like an—”

“Egg.” Both of them said the word at the same time.

* * * *

An hour later, Nick and Ray were in a starkly lit room preparing to scan and X-ray the egg. Slade had returned from Houston and hovered in the background, excitedly pacing to and fro while rolling an e-cigarette in his fingers and leaning over every couple of seconds to see if the experiment was about to start.

Nick placed the object in a plastic tray, then slid it into an axial scanner, which was a sort of mini CAT scan machine for rocks and other objects.

Ray tapped a command into the computer. There was a loud hum. The scanner lit up, and data filled the monitor.

Ray keyed in another series of commands, waited for the data to load, and said, “Whatever it is, it’s not an alloy.” Another burst of typing. The screen refreshed. Ray read the data, taking his time, slowly digesting the results. “The outer layer is some sort of crystalline matrix. And it’s dense. Very dense. Harder than titanium or tungsten carbide. And it looks like… Jesus, it might be hollow. Hold on, image coming up now.”

Ray hit a button on the control panel. “Wait one second—I’m sending it to overhead monitor number one.”

The screen of Monitor One flashed. An image began to form. Then it shifted and disappeared. As the digitized blocks of information stabilized and formed into a solid image, they all saw it at the same time—a creature. Curled inside the pod. Its head, arms, and limbs were tucked into the fetal position.

“My God,” Ray said, rising from the keyboard. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a xenomorph,” Nick said, staring up at the monitor in awe. “Some sort of—”

“Alien creature,” Slade interrupted, barely able to control his excitement. “My God, it’s unbelievable.” Then, after a silent pause, he added, “Do you know what this is? It’s the biggest discovery of the century. Hell, maybe of all time.” Slade moved forward, and as he leaned toward the screen for a better look, the creature’s body contracted, twisting and writhing in one violent movement.

Slade’s heart stood still. He jerked back and, barely staying on his feet, yelled, “Shit!” He grabbed his chest. “Son of a bitch! Goddamn son of a bitch!”

Nick stood with his eyes glued to the monitor, not saying anything, trying to process what he’d just seen.

“Jesus Christ,” Ray said, coming out from around the computer. “It’s alive.”

* * * *

“We can’t keep it here,” Nick said, watching as Slade tapped his e-cigarette on the desktop. “This isn’t a biologically secure facility.”

“What are you talking about?” Slade said, dropping the cigarette. “The thing is sealed inside that pod.”

“We don’t know that. We don’t know anything about it.”

“Oh hell, Walker…all that noise about moon germs was a load of crap.”

“This isn’t some spore we’re talking about. It’s not some bacteria. You saw the scan—it’s a living alien creature.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Slade said, “I know what I’m doing.” He grabbed his cigarette. “My God, Walker, think about the PR boost on this. I’m not sure you realize what we’ve got here. We’ll be able to write our own ticket.”

“Are you out of your mind? Screw the PR boost. There’s a quarantine law. We have a responsibility here. We have no idea what we’re dealing with. If that thing gets out of the lab, it has the potential to contaminate the entire planet.”

“Fine,” Slade said, pursing his lips. “I’ve heard you out. I’ll take your comments under advisement. Your professional opinion as a geologist.”

“It’s not an opinion. It’s policy. It’s the law. A quarantine law.”

“It’s my decision—and my risk.”

“No,” Nick said, his voice rising. Your decision, but everyone’s risk.” Nick stood abruptly, almost knocking his chair over. “I’m going to file my position on this, then I’m calling Houston.”

“No, you’re not, Walker.” Slade stood, placed his hand on the desk, and rested on his knuckles, leaning towards Nick. “Everything on this is classified. Blacked out. You speak to anyone about this without my authority, and I’ll have you arrested.”

After a frozen silence, Nick said, “Unbelievable,” shook his head, and walked out.

Chapter 14

Later that night, in the sample room of the geology lab, a solitary halogen spot illuminated a sealed glass cylinder that sat on a stainless steel workbench. Inside the container, sitting at its center, was the ovoid pod.

The compressor of the refrigeration unit cycled off. The lab fell silent. Then the passive sound of coolant trickling out of the refrigerator’s coils burbled through the room. And just as that sound faded, there was a sharp clinking sound.

The pod had moved.

Clink.

It moved again. And then it began to rock back and forth. The clinking got louder and louder, the pod moving faster and faster, until it dropped off its perch and rolled across the base of the cylinder, coming to rest against the glass with a dull click.

There was a silent moment, then a tendril of smoke curled up from the surface of the pod. There was a sizzling sound and then one of the ends of the pod liquefied, collapsed, and pooled in the base of the cylinder.

There was another swirl of smoke. The pod began to vibrate. Then it swung around like a compass needle pointing north, slamming against the glass, and the creature exploded out of the pod.

Primitive. Powerful. Bipedal. It was utterly alien-looking. Spiked plates on its back made it look like something from the Jurassic era.

It shot across the base of the cylinder and struck the side. The glass tube shattered. The creature dropped to the floor and skated into the shadows, disappearing beneath a workstation.

* * * *

Early the next morning, a Land Cruiser drove along a highway that cut through a section of coastal scrub.

A tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico had sent moisture flooding inland over east Texas, filling the sky with angry-looking purple clouds. As stormclouds roiled overhead, the sky lowered and the light shifted.

Nick flicked on the Land Cruiser’s headlights. He leaned forward, scanned the sky, and just as the words “looks like rain” formed in his mind, the heavens opened and fat, cartoon-like raindrops began to pock the windshield.

Nick hit the wipers and rubbed his neck. For what seemed like the millionth time, he thought about the pod and the creature they had found inside.

It was unbelievable. Remarkable. Impossible. Slade was right: it was the find of the century. It was destined to change the world. And it would once and for all answer the age-old question of whether or not life existed outside of Earth.

It was going to stand the scientific community on its ear. It was going to change his life. It was going to change the lives of everyone connected with the discovery. It was going to rock the world.

Slade’s wildest dreams were about to come true. He was about to be the center of the world’s attention. Every camera and every spotlight clamoring for his attention as billions of people looked on.

It was going to be hard to take.

Nick reached down to the console, grabbed a cup of coffee, and took a sip. One thing was for sure: between Slade and old Walt’s moon rock, he hadn’t been getting much sleep, and it didn’t look like that was going to change anytime soon.

Up ahead, a turnoff loomed. As he approached it, Nick slowed the Land Cruiser and turned into a long driveway that ran to a NASA guard kiosk at the entrance to the geology lab.

He turned off the wipers. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started, the clouds already being swept from the sky as blustery winds sent the squall scudding farther down the coast. The rain had lasted only a couple of minutes, but it had managed to drench the ground, leaving shimmering puddles of water scattered across the plain like lily pads.

Nick pulled up alongside the kiosk and braked, waiting for Hodges to lean out and confirm that it was him so he could open the gate and wave him through.

He tapped the wheel, waiting. After a moment, he stared at the kiosk’s smoked glass window and said, “Come on, Hodges. Get off Facebook and open the gate.” He waited another couple of seconds, then honked the horn. But there was no response; still no sign of life in the booth.

Nick leaned out and yelled, “Hey, Hodges!” Still no response. What was going on?

He opened his door, climbed out, and just as he was about to knock on the kiosk’s door, Ray’s Hyundai pulled up behind the Land Cruiser.

“What’s going on?” Ray called out to Nick.

“I’m not sure. I can’t find Hodges.” Nick paused, raised a hand, and said, “Hang on.” As he went to knock on the booth’s door, a man’s voice called out, “Dr. Walker!”

Nick spun towards the voice and saw Billy Hodges struggling across the parking lot with Max, the guard dog, cradled in his arms.

What the hell?

“Hodges,” Nick shouted as he ran to meet him. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Hodges said, shuffling up to Nick. “I think Max found a rattlesnake.”

“A rattlesnake?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. He’s all shaky and can’t seem to stand up.”

“Jesus.” Nick stared at the shepherd’s quivering flesh. Its body was completely slack and its tongue hung out of its mouth at a freakish ninety degree angle.

“I’ve got to get him to the vet. I put a call in to Webber. He’ll be here any minute to take over. Think you can cover for me until he comes?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course. Go,” Nick said. Then he added, “Do you need any help?”

“No, sir,” Hodges said, already moving to his patrol car. “I got this.”

Chapter 15

Ten minutes later, Nick and Ray were walking down a sterile corridor, both of them nervous, excited, and a little frayed from lack of sleep.

Today was going to be one for the books, Nick thought as they made their way along the gray vinyl flooring. Last night before they left the lab, Slade had told them that he’d be in around nine thirty and to make themselves available for a ten o’clock video conference with Houston, at which time he would announce their remarkable find. Nick had suggested that they pack up the creature, drive to Houston, and make the announcement in person. But Slade had immediately nixed that idea, saying that they needed to control this thing. They needed to make sure the credit went to them and not just NASA.

“I didn’t sleep for shit last night,” Ray said with a yawn.

“Tell me about it. Alien creatures trapped in moon rocks—I still can’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” Ray said, nodding in agreement. After a few more steps, he added, “We’re going to be freaking famous.”

Three quarters of the way down the hall, they stopped in front of a heavy steel door with a small reinforced window. Nick swiped his ID card. A moment later, there was a soft click, and they entered the main geology lab.

Ray flicked on a bank of lights and followed Nick through another door that led to the sample and storage room. Halfway across the room, both of them froze when they saw the shattered container and partially melted pod that lay at its base.

Holy shit! Nick thought to himself.

They continued forward, moving toward the workbench, their shoes making a crunching sound as they walked across the shards of glass that littered the lab floor.

“Jesus Christ,” Nick said, as he stared down at the breached pod. “It—”

“—Hatched,” Ray said, finishing Nick’s thought.

And just as the word “hatched” had rolled off of Ray’s tongue, both of them spun around and frantically began scanning the room, hoping for some sign of the escaped creature.

Nick stepped around the workbench, eyes glued to the floor, and in an even-toned voice, said, “Ray, lock the sample room door. We can’t let this thing get out of the lab.”

Ray shot over to the door, pulled it shut, but just as he was about to lock it, he hesitated, turned to Nick, and said, “Are you sure about locking it? I mean, do we really want to be stuck in here with that thing?”

“Ray! Just do it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” Ray punched a button, locking the door. “Done.”

“You take that side, I’ll start over here. Open every cabinet, check every drawer, sweep every shelf. It’s got to be in here.”

Nick dropped down and began searching the floor beneath a workstation.

Ray moved to a row of overhead cabinets. The top hadn’t been finished and was left open, but the front was faced with doors. He reached up and gripped a handle, then stopped and quickly scanned the floor around his feet. All clear. He took a deep breath, opened the cabinet door, and looked inside. After a brief scan, he quickly shut it and blew out a nervous stream of air, relieved that it was empty. He took another breath and moved to the next door. He yanked it open, saw that it was clear, and pushed it shut with a bang.

Nick lifted a half-full trashcan, turned it upside down, and gave it a shake. Crumpled balls of paper, computer printouts, paper cups, and candy bar wrappers spilled across the floor. Just to be sure, he gave it another shake, then plunked the can down.

Crawling on his hands and knees, he moved forward and reached his hand behind a desk, sliding his arm into the gap between the back of the desk and the wall. All the while, a little voice in his head was saying, This is a bad idea.

He began to paw the floor, sliding his arm farther and farther behind the desk. When he reached his shoulder and could go no farther, his hand fell on an object. He closed his fingers, and felt something bite into his flesh.

Shit!

He yanked his arm back, looked at his hand, and saw two beads of blood on his index finger, about an inch apart. Fangs. It looked like a snake bite.

Nick dropped to the floor, trying to look behind the desk. He cautiously strained forward and saw what had bitten him. Caught between the wall and the desk were a pair of plastic safety glasses. One of the lenses was broken, leaving two sharp points of plastic poking upwards.

Jesus.

Nick let out his breath, wiped away the blood on his finger, and continued searching the room.

Ray moved to the last cabinet door. His heart clearly wasn’t in his work, but he had resigned himself to the necessity of it. He reached up, grabbed the handle, and pulled, and as the door swung open, something inside moved.

Ray jumped, but instead of shutting the door, his fingers caught on the handle and the door swung wide as he lurched back. A bundle of latex gloves tumbled out and spilled across his face, their creepy rubber fingers groping his flesh as the gloves dropped to the floor.

“Fuck me!” Ray yelled, frantically clawing at his face to get the thing off. Jesus Christ.

Nick sprang up, bumping his head on a workbench, and bolted across the room to Ray, thinking he’d found the creature.

“What?” Nick yelled, skidding up to Ray. “Did you find it?”

Ray was beyond responding. He was too busy writhing and stomping, trying to kill the latex gloves with his shoe, still convinced they were the alien creature.

“Ray!” Nick yelled. He grabbed him by the arm, trying to calm him down. “Ray, it’s okay. They’re just gloves. Take it easy.”

After a few more stomps, Ray slowly calmed himself and looked at Nick.

Nick released his arm and said, “What is it? Did you see something?”

“I’m not sure.” He pointed to the open cabinet. “Something moved in there.”

Nick went to the cabinet, gripped the door, and leaned forward, not knowing what to expect. He reached a hand inside and shifted a box of dust masks so he could see all the way to the back.

Another bundle of gloves rolled forward, tumbled out, and bounced off his chest.

Nick jumped back and yelled, “Shit!” He looked down at the pile of gloves at his feet. After his heart started beating normally again, he moved back to the cabinet, gave it another inspection, and turned back to Ray, who had retreated halfway across the room. “All clear,” he said.

Ray stared back, white as a sheet. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Just an overstocked supply cabinet. Now come on, we’ve got to find this thing.”

“Right,” Ray said with a total lack of conviction. “I’m on it.”

Nick resumed searching where Ray had left off, combing the floor and scanning the deep shadows behind some diagnostic equipment.

Ray moved to the other side of the room, away from the alien rubber gloves, and inched along the wall, taking his time, watching his every step. Every so often he’d stop and glance over at Nick, just to make sure he was still there and hadn’t been eaten by some alien bug.

Nick backed out from beneath a workstation, and just as he was about to double check a shelf containing various chemical solutions, his cell phone rang, the ring tone muffled from inside his pocket.

Nick straightened, fished his phone out of his pants, put it to his ear, and said, “This is Nick.”

“Hi, it’s me,” the voice on the other end said. “Kylie.”

“Kylie?” Nick repeated, sounding flustered and caught off guard by her unexpected call.

After an uncomfortable moment, Kylie said, “Remember me? Science teacher. Salt Springs High School.”

“Yes. Yes, of course I do.”

“Am I calling at a bad time?”

“Yeah, no—um, no, not at all. This is a great time,” Nick said, trying to sound relaxed. “Actually, I’m here with Ray. And he—ah—Ray lost his glasses. And now we’re trying to find them. His glasses.”

“Oh,” Kylie said. In an attempt to smooth things over, she added, “I hate when that happens.”

“You wear glasses?” Nick asked, suddenly sounding very interested in the subject.

“Well, no…not glasses glasses. Sunglasses.”

“Right. The reason I asked is that I didn’t remember you wearing any…glasses glasses, I mean.”

“Okay… Um, right. No glasses glasses, just sunglasses.” After an awkward pause, she said, “Anyway, I’m calling about the tour—”

“The tour,” Nick said, cutting her off. “Right, the tour. Perfect. Um, listen, Kylie, let me call you back. I’ve got to help Ray. He’s useless without his glasses. Blind as a bat.”

“Sure…” Kylie said after a long pause, her voice sounding distant and filled with regret, like she was sorry that she’d called in the first place. “Sure, call me back.”

“Great, thanks. Thanks for understanding. I’ll get back to you. Promise.” Nick ended the call and jammed the phone in his pocket, anxious to get back to the business at hand.

Ray, who had heard the whole thing, removed his glasses, held them out to Nick, shook his head and said, “Glasses?”

Nick gave him a look and shrugged. “What was I going to say? ‘Hang on, Kylie, I can’t talk right now. Ray and I are looking for an escaped alien creature.’”

“Right,” Ray said, conceding the point with a nod. “Anyway, nice job, dude. Kylie Sinclair is a total catch.”

Nick didn’t respond. He was already back on the floor, searching for the lost creature.

Ray continued along the opposite wall, stopping when he came to a handcart stacked with boxes that had been left next to a steel utility door. Standing at arm’s length, he began shifting boxes left and right, making sure the creature wasn’t hiding there.

After he rummaged through all the boxes, he took a breath, placed his hands on the cart’s handle, and gingerly eased it back from the wall, all the while expecting the creature to shoot out across the floor. After a long moment, he stepped out, his hands still clamped on the cart, and leaned forward to look behind it.

There was nothing—just polished tile flooring and empty wall space. Relieved, he let out a breath. He went to push the cart back against the wall, but something caught his eye.

On the far side of the utility door, just above the floor, was a small conical pile of granulated cement that looked like a miniature version of the mounds of salt scattered around the Clayton Mine. Directly above the mound, a perfectly round hole about the size of a golf ball had been bored through the wall.

Holy shit, Ray thought as he looked at the hole, that thing went through 18 inches of reinforced concrete like it was nothing.

He moved up to the hole and crouched down for a better look. A halo of precise cuts ringed the opening.

Claw marks.

But not like those that a dog or other wild animal would make. These were freakishly uniform and symmetrical—like a machine had made them. Ray dropped to his knees and looked through the hole. All he saw was Texas sunshine.

“Over here,” Ray said, climbing to his feet. “I know where it went.”

Chapter 16

Standing next to the open utility door, Nick and Ray studied a line of little footprints that ran from the lab and onto the salt and then abruptly disappeared where squall whipped rains had washed them away.

Nick shaded his eyes and stared out over the dry lake, thinking, Jesus, how are we going to find this thing?

“What’s going on, Walker?”

Nick and Ray turned and saw Slade, his hands on his hips, glaring at them from just inside the lab door. Freshly shaved and with his hair coiffed to perfection, Slade was dressed in a navy pinstripe suit, a crisp white shirt, and a red power tie, all set for the big announcement.

Nick glanced from Ray to Slade and said, “There’s been a change of plans.”

* * * *

Back in Slade’s office, Nick watched as Slade paced anxiously in front of a window, every so often bumping into a model of the space shuttle Enterprise that dangled from the ceiling.

Slade blew out a frustrated breath and straightened the sleeve of his coat, then turned to Nick and said, “Tell me again, Walker. Tell me exactly what happened.”

“There’s nothing more to tell. Ray and I entered the lab early this morning about seven o’clock, saw the shattered container, and discovered that the creature had escaped through a hole that it made in the sample storage room wall.”

“But how? It was trapped in that casing—or pod or whatever it was.”

“Like I already said, it wasn’t trapped. It hatched. The outer shell was some kind of cocoon.”

The office fell into uncomfortable silence. Slade moved to the window, stared out, and after a long pause said, “It couldn’t have gone far. The thing is tiny. What could it do?”

“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it,” Nick said, staring at the back of Slade’s head. “But we do know this: it just went through a foot and half of poured concrete like it wasn’t there.”

Slade glanced from the window back to Nick. “Jesus, Walker, we’ve got to find it.”

“You get on the phone to Houston and Washington—tell them what happened, tell them what we know. Tell them everything.” Nick pushed up from the arms of his chair and stood. “Ray and I will start combing the grounds around the lab.”

“Good,” Slade said, firming up his voice, trying to sound in control. He turned from the window and gave Nick a direct look. “But before we involve NASA or Washington, let’s make sure of the situation. Let’s make sure of what we’ve got, what we’re dealing with. Why not see if we can catch it, then—”

“Then what? Are you crazy? It’s over. We’re past keeping a lid on this thing. The White House needs to know.”

A brick red flush swept across Slade’s face. He began to speak, but stopped, his thought disappearing in a bitter swallow. After a long moment, he nodded at Nick and said, “Okay.”

Chapter 17

A translucent line of dust rose from behind Nick’s Land Cruiser as it rumbled across the salt flat that surrounded the field lab.

Ray rode shotgun next to Nick, and Willie Clayton hung on in the backseat. Willie had stopped by the lab earlier to get another look at the fossil he’d found yesterday. He had been devastated when he’d learned that Nick had given it away.

After calming him down and assuring him the fossil had gone to a worthy home, Nick decided to invite Willie to join the search party, thinking a little local knowledge might come in handy and might give them just the edge they needed to find this thing.

The Land Cruiser lurched forward, nosed down, and seesawed through a wash, pitching Ray forward and causing his glasses to slip down the bridge of his nose.

Ray gripped the door handle and righted himself, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I don’t get it. Seems like we should be concentrating our efforts closer to the lab.”

“I thought about that,” Nick said, braking and hauling the wheel over to avoid a mound of scrub. After they were safely past, he glanced at Ray and said, “But I’m playing a hunch.”

He pointed through the windshield at the salt that surrounded them in all directions. “It’s got to be pushing a hundred degrees out there on the ground.”

Ray stared out, watching the heat waves shimmering above the salt. A light bulb went off in his head and he blurted, “Shelter! The creature would want shelter.” The Land Cruiser’s tires found another pothole, sending him shooting up and down like a piston. “Salt Springs Cavern, or the Clayton Mine.”

“Bingo,” Nick said with a nod. “Give the man a stuffed animal.”

Hearing the words “Clayton Mine,” Willie thrust his head between the front seats and cranked his face toward Nick. “What exactly is this thing, Doc?”

Nick glanced at Willie and said, “I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, Willie, I can’t really discuss it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Willie said and immediately asked, “Well, how big is the thing?”

Nick shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. Small.”

“Small…” Willie repeated, mulling over that bit of information. “Small like a lizard, or a rat?”

“A lizard, maybe,” Ray said, “But with—”

“We don’t know,” Nick said, cutting Ray off. “We don’t know what it looks like. We really can’t say.”

“Hell, Doc, it sounds like what you don’t know about this thing is a lot.”

“Willie,” Nick said, his voice pointed. “Just…just keep your eyes open and help us find this thing.”

“Sure, Doc,” Willie said, slumping back in his seat. “Sure, I’ll keep my eyes open. But if I don’t know what it looks like, how am I gonna know if I see it or not?”

“Trust me,” Ray said, “you’ll know it when you see it.”

On Ray’s comment, the cabin fell silent, all of them staring out, scanning the salt for any sign of the creature. They bounced along like that for another minute, then Nick maneuvered the Land Cruiser on to a jeep trail that cut across the salt and emptied out a few miles up ahead on the main road in front of the entrance to the Salt Cavern State Preserve.

“Ah, that’s much better,” Ray said, commenting on the improved ride and then reached out an dialed up the AC.

They continued on for a few more minutes, all of them craning their necks left and right, anxious for some sign of the creature. Nick let off the gas, thinking he’d spotted something. But after a closer look, it was just a piece of scrub tumbling across the salt, pushed along by a gust of wind.

Nick accelerated again, and as his eyes drifted across the salt, he suddenly found himself doubting his gut feeling, thinking that his hunch may have been the wrong play.

“Look!” Willie said. He began excitedly pointing out his window. “Over there. Some animal.”

Nick braked, cranked the wheel over, and sent the Land Cruiser careening through the salt in the direction Willie was pointing in.

About twenty yards directly in front of them, the animal that Willie had spotted lay sprawled on the ground.

The Toyota raced toward it, tires crunching through the salt like it was freshly fallen snow, swerved to avoid a rise covered with Indiangrass, and skidded to a stop ten feet in front of the fallen animal.

Nick, Ray, and Willie got out of the car and approached the animal. Willie blurted out what they were all thinking. “It’s a deer. A buck.”

There, lying helplessly on its side, legs sticking out in the late stages of rigor mortis, was a two hundred and twenty pound mule deer.

“It’s a deer. A dead deer,” Ray said, stepping up to the carcass.

“A dead mule deer,” Willie corrected, then reached out and touched one of the spikes on the buck’s seven-point rack. When he touched it, the deer’s eyes sprang open and rolled toward him.

“Shit!” Willie yelled, jumping back in shock, his heart thudding in his chest. “There’s no way that thing is still alive.”

Nick moved forward and knelt next to the deer. He reached out and gently placed a hand on its ribcage. A panic-filled eye cut toward him, but the rest of the deer’s body remained still and lifeless.

Weird.

“It’s some sort of motor paralysis,” Nick said, removing his hand from the deer’s body. “But it doesn’t seem to be affecting systolic and respiratory functions.”

Nick lifted one of the buck’s front legs, then released it. The leg fell to the ground, stiff and lifeless as a stick.

Willie moved closer and ran a hand across the buck’s back and under its neck, checking for signs of blood or trauma. “Nothing,” Willie said, holding up a hand for the others to see. “No blood…and I can’t see any place where it might have been hurt.”

“Well, something got it good,” Ray said, keeping his distance, not wanting to get any closer to the zombie deer than necessary.

“Very strange,” Nick said. “I’ve never seen anything—” Nick stopped, suddenly remembering something. Max, the guard dog. Jesus—the dog had looked exactly like the deer.

“What?” Ray said, staring at Nick. “What is it?”

“Remember Max?” Nick glanced from the deer to Ray. “This buck…it looks exactly like that German shepherd did. Dead-looking, but not dead.”

Ray stared at the deer. “God, you’re right.”

“Oh, shit…” Willie said, pointing to a spot on the ground that was partially obscured by the deer’s antlers. “Lookee here. A footprint.”

Nick and Ray scrambled over to Willie and looked where he was pointing. They saw it, too: a perfectly formed footprint in the soft soil. The deer’s head and antlers had protected it from being washed away by the rain.

Nick gripped the antlers and shifted the buck’s head, giving them a better view of the track.

The first thing that went through everyone’s mind was that it looked human—only much wider—and each of its six toes ended in a hooked claw. But what really got Nick’s attention was the size of the print. It looked three or four times larger than the track they’d seen outside the lab. My God, the thing is already growing.

Chapter 18

A half hour later, after having no luck finding additional tracks around the deer, the Land Cruiser pulled into the crumbling asphalt parking lot of the Salt Springs Cavern State Preserve. Weeds had replaced the parking lot’s striped lines, and the office, visitor’s center, and picnic area surrounding the cavern’s entrance looked neglected and rundown. What had once been a neat and well tended attraction was now a seedy-looking dump.

Nick crossed the parking lot. He climbed a set of rotting steps that led to the office, and read the “Tours by appointment only” sign. He went to a window, cupped his hands against the glass, and looked inside.

“No one’s there,” Willie said, calling to Nick as he loosened a chunk of asphalt with the toe of his boot. “Ain’t no one ever here these days.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Nick said, as he crossed to the visitor’s center.

He went up to a plate-glass window and took in the friendly-looking reception area. Covering one entire wall were three large diagrams outlining the different tours that were available and their level of difficulty. Colorful brochures were neatly stacked on an information center desk, and directly above that, a sign warned: “CELL PHONES, GPS, AND RADIOS DO NOT WORK UNDERGROUND.”

He moved to a door, tried the handle, and—not surprisingly—found it locked. He pushed on the door and felt the latch give in the weathered frame. He tried the handle once more, then turned and drove a shoulder into the door just above the latch. The rotting jamb split and gave way and the door swung wide.

* * * *

Ten minutes later, Ray and Willie stood in front of the cavern. The entrance looked like a jagged tear in a chalk-colored cliff that was weathered like the Grand Canyon.

Ray and Willie were wearing orange Petzl caving helmets with attached LED halogen headlamps that they’d found stored in a locker in the visitor’s center for emergencies.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Nick said, trotting up behind them wearing an identical helmet and holding a net similar to the kind used to boat game fish.

Ray and Willie turned to Nick, saw the net, and exchanged looks of disbelief.

“A net?” Ray said. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What are you gonna do, Doc?” Willie laughed. “Bag this thing like a trout?”

“If anyone has a better idea, I’m all ears.”

Neither of them did. And a few moments later, they were marching down a well-worn path that led to the cavern entrance. Bringing up the rear, Ray shouldered a daypack and said, “Hey, maybe I should wait here, you know, in case it’s not in the cave.”

“No,” Nick said, adjusting the fit of his helmet. “We need all eyes in the cavern. I know that thing went to ground. Don’t ask me how, I just do.”

Willie stepped up to a length of chain link fence with a locked gate. He bent up a corner of the wire fence where it met the ground. “We can get through here.”

* * * *

As they descended into the cavern’s blackness, daylight fell away and each man switched on his head lamp. With Nick in the lead, they entered the cave. Three swords of light leapt out, slicing through the dark, illuminating the polished rock walls that glistened with moisture.

They descended for twenty yards, emerged from the cave’s narrow entrance, and entered the Grey Ghost, a cathedral-sized room that marked the true beginning of the cavern. The room had gotten its name from the ghost-shaped stain that ran up a wall and covered most of the ceiling.

At the far side of the chamber where the floor canted downward were three distinct openings, each labeled with a brightly-colored number one through three that had been attached to the rock directly above each passageway. Each cave lead to a different part of the cavern. The numbers indicated the level of difficulty of each tour: 1 for beginners, 2 for amateurs with some experience, and 3 for experts.

Nick and Ray stood in awe, glancing around the massive room, taking in the polished walls, the intricate rock formations, and the ghost-shaped stain that lent its name to this part of the cave. It was their first trip into the cavern, and they were both obviously impressed by its scope and grandeur.

Ray cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Hello…” Then he listened as the cave echoed back, “Hello… Hello… Hello…”

“Just like in the movies,” Ray said as silence settled over them again.

“Great, Ray,” Nick said. “Now keep your eyes peeled for anything that moves.”

“Oh, yeah, the creature,” Ray said, sorry for the reminder.

Willie worked his way down the chamber, stopping in front of the three numbered openings and calling to Nick, “Which way, Doc?” His voice pinballed around the chamber.

Nick raised his head, spotlighting Willie with his helmet lamp and said, “You’re familiar with these caves, right?”

“Hell, yes. Me and my brother Scooter practically lived down here when we was kids. Scoot used to call this ‘Chinese Dungeon.’ Said if we found the right passage, we’d pop out in Hong Kong.”

Ray closed ranks with Nick, feeling a little undone by the darkness. The cave’s temperature differential began to fog his lenses, and suddenly he couldn’t see. “It’s creepy down here,” Ray said, cleaning his glasses with the corner of his t-shirt.

Ignoring Ray, Nick kept his light on Willie and asked, “Is there a main water source down here?”

Willie turned, pointed to passageway number three, and said, “Yep. There’s a sulfur spring about a quarter mile down that chamber.”

“Okay, that’s where I want to go.”

“What? You think your lizard-bug thingy is thirsty, Doc?”

“Just lead the way, Willie,” Nick said, moving down to join him.

“Ah, hello, excuse me,” Ray said, holding up a brochure he’d grabbed in the visitor’s center. “Cave number three—tour number three—is an advanced route. Experts only.”

Nick turned and pasted Ray with his lamp. “Fine, Ray. You stay here, then.”

After a silent moment, Ray said, “Alone? Wait here alone?”

“I can get us to the spring, Doc,” Willie said, “but after that, we’ll need climbing gear. Harnesses and rope. Lots of rope.”

“Well, let’s start with the spring, see if we get lucky.”

“Yeah,” Ray said, hustling over to join them. “The spring. Let’s go to the spring.”

Chapter 19

With Willie in the lead and Ray practically glued to Nick’s back, the three men moved through cave three, the damp smell of wet rock filling their noses as they descended toward the sulfur spring below.

After ten minutes of easy walking, the cave’s ceiling plunged, forcing them to crouch and crab along the tunnel floor.

“This won’t last long,” Willie said, calling back to the others, reassuring them that they were almost through the narrow section. “She opens back up just ahead.”

Halfway through the bottleneck, Nick felt his chest tighten and a pocket of fear form in his stomach. With panic rising, he pressed himself against the tunnel wall and motioned for Ray to pass him.

Ray nodded in gratitude, his helmet light bobbing up and down as he scooted past, grateful to get through the narrow section.

After Ray was clear, Nick fell on his hands, pulled in a lungful of air, and thought, Not now, not again…not down here.

Staring out at the narrow passage, he found himself thinking about Charles Bronson and the part he’d played in The Great Escape and the scenes of him digging an escape tunnel. He thought about the part where Bronson confessed to his fellow tunnel king that he hated “little rooms”—his way of saying that he suffered from claustrophobia. And the part where he explained that when he was underground and digging, he was okay, he could hide his fear. But his demons rose when he and his buddy were in the tunnel waiting to get the signal to go. He’d spent months building the tunnel, but sitting down there, waiting, with nothing to occupy his mind, he began to panic.

That was it, Nick thought. That was the key: don’t think. Stay focused on the task at hand. Stay focused on finding the creature. If he did that, he’d be okay.

At the far side of the cavern where the bottleneck ended, Ray and Willie stretched their backs. Ray ducked down and called back to Nick, “Hey, you okay?”

Nick heaved in another breath, rocked onto his feet, and started moving forward. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just an inner ear thing.” A moment later, he popped out next to Ray and Willie, stretched, and felt the panic subside.

“You good, Doc?” Willie said, staring at Nick, noticing that he looked a little rattled.

“Yeah, yeah. Just got dizzy for a moment.” Hoping to change the subject, Nick began searching the ground around his feet, hoping for some sign of the creature.

“You won’t find no tracks in this section of the cave,” Willie said, watching as Nick scanned the path. “It’s solid rock, right down to the spring.”

Nick looked at Willie and then held his arm out, motioning for him to lead the way.

They moved through the cave single file with Willie in the lead. Ray was about to tell Willie to slow down, that he was having trouble with his footing, when something flashed in front of him, grazed his cheek, and flapped toward the cave entrance.

Ray reeled back and swatted the air, almost coming off his feet, then yelled out in fright, “Jesus!”

Nick and Willie froze and spun around. Just as they turned, another bat twisted past them, its wings causing a stroboscopic effect as it warped through the beam of Nick’s lamp.

“Something touched my cheek,” Ray said, checking his face to see if he ‘d been injured.

Willie tilted his head and said, “Bats.” He pointed upwards, where his light revealed hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling directly above them.

“Bats?” Ray stared at them, a look of disgust washing over his face. “No one said anything about bats.”

“It’s a cave,” Willie said, shaking his head. “Place is full of them.”

“Take it easy, Ray,” Nick said. “They’re insect eaters.”

Willie laughed. “Hey, maybe they ate your bug, Doc.”

Five minutes later, they were picking their way down a steep rock staircase. Willie was the first to reach bottom, and he turned to the others said, “Y’all be careful, now. The next section of tunnel is slippery as snot.”

Nick climbed off the steep descent, stepped up to Willie, and immediately felt his boot slip. He looked down and saw that the tunnel floor was coated with a thin sheen of water, and just below that, a layer of greenish brown slime—or “snot,” as Willie referred to it.

Nick scraped off a bit of the slime with the heel of his boot. Willie was right: it looked like snot.

Moving single file behind Willie, each man being careful with his footing, they began to work their way across the slick, narrow path.

At the rear, Ray’s progress slowed to a crawl as he swiped at the darkness, warding off imaginary bats. He thought he saw something and swept an arm in front of his face. A moment later, he put his foot wrong, his boot slipped, and he yelled “Shit!” Groping for a handhold, he slipped off the path and fell into a shallow fissure, tumbling fifteen feet down and landing on the bottom with a thud.

“Ray!” Nick scrambled back, leaned over the fissure, and saw Ray wedged at the bottom. “Ray, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Ray said, running a hand over his back. “But I think I bruised my butt pretty good.”

“Okay, sit tight. I’m coming down.”

“Hang on, Doc,” Willie said, sweeping past him. “I got this.”

Before Nick had a chance to protest, Willie dropped into the fissure and, using his hands like a professional climber, worked his way down to Ray.

Willie stretched out an arm. “Give me your hand.” Ray reached up, took Willie’s hand, and Willie pulled him to his feet.

“Thanks, man,” Ray said and gave him a thumbs-up.

“Okay, I’m going to boost you up to this rock ledge, then we can get you out of here.”

After Ray was safely up and out of the fissure, Willie was about to boost himself up and climb out when he saw something glinting out of the corner of his eye. A shiny object caught by his helmet lamp.

Willie released his grip on the wall, pointed his light at the object, and there, sitting in a corner of the fissure, was a tiny set of needle-like teeth.

I’ll be darned, Willie thought and reached down and picked them up.

Nick knelt by the edge of the fissure and called to Willie, “Here, grab the handle of the net. I’ll haul you up.”

“Hold up, Doc, I found something.” Willie slipped the teeth into his shirt pocket, boosted himself up the wall, grabbed the net, and, with Nick pulling, scrambled out of the fissure.

Willie fished the teeth out of his shirt pocked and held them out for Nick to see. “Looky here, Doc; look what I found. A perfect little set of baby teeth.” As he went to hand them to Nick, one of the razor-sharp teeth punctured Willie’s thumb, causing him to drop the teeth. “Damn, those are sharp son of a bitches.” Willie looked at his thumb and saw a crimson bead of red form on the tip. He pressed it against his shirt to stop the bleeding, but as he stepped forward to retrieve the teeth, he froze in mid-stride.

“Willie? What is it?” Nick said.

“Something…wrong,” Willie said, his eyes filled with panic. “Oh God…”

“Willie,” Ray said, moving up to him just as Willie’s body was wracked by spasms, then went rigid and crumpled to the ground.

“Jesus,” Nick said as he and Ray huddled around Willie. “Willie, what’s wrong?”

Willie didn’t speak. His eyes just stared up at them, his face a cement mask. “Can’t move,” he said after a long moment. Then he whispered, “Scared.”

Nick and Ray exchanged a ‘what the hell’s going on’ look. Nick put a hand on Willie’s shoulder and in a reassuring voice said, “Hold on, Willie. We’re going to get you out of here.” Nick lifted Willie’s hand, examining the wound, but there wasn’t much to see. Just a smear of blood next to a tiny pinprick.

Ray went to where Willie had dropped the teeth. He removed a glove from his pack, slipped it on, carefully retrieved the teeth, and held them up to his eyes for a better look.

He’d never seen anything like it. It was a complete set of upper and lower teeth. There were incisors and canines and molars for ripping and chewing, but there was something else, too, something completely astounding. Next to each incisor was a hollow fang.

Weird.

“Man, you’ve gotta see this,” Ray said. He held the teeth up to Nick. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Ray handed Nick his other glove. Nick slipped it on and took the teeth, cradling them in the palm of his hand and spotting the teeth with his headlamp.

“Remarkable,” Nick said, tilting his hand for a better look. “Teeth like a omnivore; fangs like a viper.”

“You were right,” Ray said. “Your gut rates. The creature is in the cavern.”

“Is or was?”

Ray thought about that, and then he said, “Baby teeth—that’s what Willie said when he found them.

“We don’t know that,” Nick said, trying to bring things down a notch and get the focus back on helping Willie.

“It’s growing,” Ray said. “You saw the footprint under the deer.”

“Stay cool.” Nick turned to Ray. “Give me your glove.”

Ray stripped off the glove and handed it to Nick. Nick took the glove, carefully wrapped the teeth in it, stepped around Ray, and tucked them into the rear cargo pocket of Ray’s pack.

“Wait—stop. Why do I have to carry the creepy teeth?”

Nick zipped the back of the pack and said, “Ray, just come on, will you? We’ve got to get Willie out of here.”

Ray shook his head and took one of Willie’s arms, and as they lifted him to his feet, Ray said, “What if I trip and fall and the teeth puncture my back?”

Nick gave him a ‘man up’ look, gritted his teeth, and said, “Ray…”

“Okay, okay, I’ll carry the killer teeth.” Working together, they looped Willie’s arms over their shoulders, faced the entrance, and slowly began to make their way back to the surface.

Chapter 20

Nick pushed the Land Cruiser as fast as he dared as they raced toward the setting sun. Willie had been laid across the backseat, his legs and chest secured with seatbelts.

Nick dug his cell phone out of a pocket, handed it to Ray, and said, “Call Salt Springs Hospital. Tell them we’re coming in with an adult male who’s received a venomous bite and is going into anaphylactic shock. The number’s in my emergency contacts.”

Ray took the phone and found the number. Just as he was about to call, he stopped, turned to Nick, and said, “Um, what if they ask what bit him?”

Nick looked at Ray and said, “Tell them it was a snake. But we’re not sure what kind.”

“Yeah, an alien snake,” Ray murmured and dialed. When someone picked up, he told them exactly what Nick had said. When he was finished, he leaned around his seat to check on Willie, hoping there might have been some improvement in his condition, but saw that he was just the same: still unconscious, except for his eyes—they remained creepily open, staring up at nothing.

Ray dropped back into his seat, turned to Nick, and in a low voice, he said, “God, you know what he looks like? He looks like that deer.”

Willie’s words hung there in the silence of the cab. Nick tightened his grip on the wheel, mashed his lips into a thin line, and pressed harder on the gas, praying they wouldn’t run out of time.

* * * *

A half hour later, Willie was strapped to a gurney inside the Salt Springs Hospital Emergency Room. An oxygen mask covered his face and a cardio crash cart stood at the ready.

Nick, Ray, and Willie’s partner from the mine, Lucas, watched as a nurse started a saline drip and Dr. Manus, the emergency room physician, inserted a needle into Willie’s arm, giving him an injection of antibiotics.

Slade, who’d been hovering in the background, stepped up to the gurney and asked, “What do you think, doctor? Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

“It looks like some sort of poisoning. A neurotoxin, maybe.” Dr. Manus removed Willie’s oxygen mask and pushed his lips apart, exposing his teeth, which were smeared with blood from his bleeding gums. He lifted Willie’s hand and examined the puncture wound on his thumb. “Bleeding gums and the swelling on Mr. Clayton’s finger are consistent with some sort of envenomation—a viper, perhaps, or possibly some sort of venomous insect.”

Dr. Manus lowered Willie’s hand, turned to Nick, and asked, “Are you sure you can’t provide any more information about what might have happened to Mr. Clayton?”

Nick looked from Willie to Dr. Manus and could feel Slade’s eyes boring into him. Slade had cornered him when they’d arrived at the hospital and had warned him not to mention anything about the creature, that this was bigger than one man’s life.

Nick glanced at Slade, then turned to Dr. Manus and said, “Sorry, doctor. He was like this when we got to him. And there was no sign of a snake or anything else that might have bitten him.” Nick turned back to Willie, hating himself for lying, hating himself for playing along with Slade.

Dr. Manus repositioned the oxygen mask over Willie’s mouth. “Under the circumstances, Mr. Clayton’s vital signs are surprisingly good. Pulse and respiration are normal. Blood pressure is elevated, but that’s to be expected with poisoning. What’s got me confused is the paralysis.” Manus turned to Nick and Ray. “You’re positive Mr. Clayton didn’t experience some sort of bodily trauma? A fall of some kind?”

“Yes. We’re positive,” Nick said. Ray, who was standing next to him, nodded in agreement.

“Maybe it’s just shock,” Lucas said, his voice filling the ER as he gave Dr. Manus a hopeful look.

“I thought about that,” Manus said. “It’s possible. But it’s just a guess.”

Dr. Manus moved to a cart, grabbed a bag filled with clear fluid, hooked it to the stand next to the gurney, and then fed it into the drip line attached to Willie’s arm.

“I’m starting an antivenin drip. I’m going to recommend that Mr. Clayton be flown to Houston first thing tomorrow for a complete neurological examination.”

Lucas stepped up to Willie and placed a hand on his arm. “I’ll stay with him tonight. I called Emmett—Willie’s daddy. He’s on his way in from a fishing trip. He’ll be here as soon as he can.

Chapter 21

Two hours later, inside the NASA field lab, Nick and Slade were viewing an X-ray image of the teeth, which had been clipped into a wall-mounted view box.

“Those are fangs, all right,” Slade said. “Completely hollow. Perfect for inoculation.”

Nick pointed to a place on the X-ray and said, “Look—you can see that the fangs are connected to a canal that must’ve lead to some sort of venom gland.”

“Venom,” Slade said, turning to Nick. “It has to be. That has to be what got Willie Clayton.”

“Envenomation of neurotoxins has two big advantages: you don’t need to run prey down to kill it, risking injury, and it allows the predator to hunt much larger game than itself.”

“God,” Slade said, glancing back at the image of the teeth. “I can only imagine what that animal might be.”

Behind them, Ray entered the lab carrying a wire cage with a mouse huddled in one corner. “What did I miss?”

Slade pointed to the X-ray. “We were just wondering about this thing’s diet.”

Ray handed the cage to Nick, stepped up to the view box, and, after a silent pause, said, “Its diet? Well, we can put a check next to ‘middle-aged men’ and ‘mule deer.’ Oh, and possibly dogs—German shepherds, to be exact.”

Nick placed the cage on a lab bench next to the glass dish containing the creature’s teeth. Sitting in a tray next to the teeth was a syringe with a long, flexible needle.

Nick grabbed the syringe and ran the tip into one of the hollow fangs. He opened the cage, removed the mouse, pricked it in one of its haunches, then returned the mouse to the cage.

“The guys in maintenance aren’t going to like this,” Ray said as they watched the mouse wobble into a corner, fall on its side, and begin to involuntarily shake as its body was wracked by violent spasms. A few moments after that, the mouse lay motionless on the cage floor—completely paralyzed, but still alive. “That’s their mascot.” A second later, Ray corrected himself. “Was. Was their mascot.”

“I’ll handle maintenance,” Slade said, his eyes glued to the mouse as he fingered an e-cigarette out of his pocket and fit it between his lips.

Nick took the glass dish containing the teeth, slipped it into a metal cabinet, and locked the door, dropping the key into his pants pocket. “I told Lucas I’d stop by the hospital in the morning before Willie is flown to Houston. Then we need to get to the cavern and find that creature. Lucas has agreed to help with the search. He’s going—”

“What?” Slade said, stepping up to Nick. “I specifically told you to keep this in-house. Just the three of us.”

“Listen, if that thing is still in the cavern, we’re going to need help finding it. We’re going to need specialized gear. Lucas can get us that gear—stuff they use to work the mine. He also volunteered to help with the search. Lucas was practically born underground. He knows his way around caves and tunnels. We need his expertise. We need his help.”

“Okay,” Slade said, after a long pause. “But just him. I want to keep this contained.” He loosened his tie, moved to the door, and added, “Oh, and I’m going with you. I’ll meet you here at the lab first thing in the morning. Then we can go to the hospital, and after, on to the cavern.”

* * * *

Around midnight, inside the lab’s sample storage room, Nick came out of the vault carrying a grapefruit-sized rock and placed it on the floor in the middle of the lab. Similarly-sized rocks surrounded him in all directions.

Standing next to a workbench a short distance away was a sledgehammer, its yellow handle glowing in the dimly lit room.

Nick went over to the sledgehammer, gripped the handle with both hands, and moved back to the rocks, positioning himself in the center of them. He drew a deep breath, raised the sledgehammer over his head, and brought it down on one of the rocks as hard as he could. Boom. The rock shattered, exploding in all directions. The thump of the sledgehammer ran through the soles of his shoes and echoed up the length of his spine.

Nick blinked away a line of sweat and mopped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked down and stared in disbelief at what he saw.

There, lying amidst the rubble, was an ovoid pod exactly like the one he’d found in the Spur Crater lunar sample.

Impossible.

He wheeled toward another rock, raised the sledgehammer, and brought it down with a bang. The rock exploded and broke apart, and another pod rolled free. Jesus Christ, no. This can’t be happening.

With sweat streaming down his face, he drove the sledgehammer down onto another rock and exposed yet another pod . No! Then, in a manic fit of terror, he turned on the other rocks, smashing and breaking them apart, not stopping until the floor was covered with the alien pods.

Stunned, he released the sledgehammer, letting it slip through his fingers and drop to the floor. His hair was matted with sweat and the front of his shirt covered with a dark U-shaped stain. He turned in a slow circle, staring in horror at the pods that surrounded him.

He lunged forward, grabbed one of the pods, and held it up to his eyes. As the pod settled in the center of his palm, a thread of smoke rose from one end, curling into the air in front of his face. Then the pod began to sizzle.

Shocked, he released the pod and let it fall to the floor. He stumbled back, and another pod began to smolder and sizzle. And then they were all melting. The sizzling became louder and louder. Nick clamped his hands over his ears, trying to stop the horrible, piercing sound. He lurched for the door, slipped, lost his footing, and landed next to an opening pod.

He began to shake, his body wracked by involuntary spasms. The sizzling became louder and louder. He felt something clamp onto his shoulder.

“Nick. Hey, Nick. Wake up.” Ray gave his shoulder another shake and then leaned down and waved a steaming cup of coffee under Nick’s nose.

Nick’s eyes sprang open. The smoky steam from the coffee swirled around his face. He jerked back from the cup, realizing that it was morning and he was in his office. He’d been asleep on the couch having a dream. Jesus.

He fell back on the couch. Thank God—thank God it had just been a dream. He rubbed his face and blinked his eyes and looked up at Ray.

“Take it easy,” Ray said. “It’s just a cup of coffee.”

“Christ, I was dreaming.” Nick rolled up into a sitting position. “Some crazy nightmare.”

Ray thought about that and said, “Can’t be any worse than the one we’re living.”

Chapter 22

Willie Clayton lay in the hospital bed, motionless, eyes taped shut, limbs still frozen and useless. Dr. Manus checked Willie’s vital signs and then moved to the foot of the bed. He pulled back the covers, exposing Willie’s feet. He removed a ballpoint pen from his coat, pressed it against Willie’s right heel, and ran it up the center of his foot. Manus watched as Willie’s big toe turned upwards in response to the stimulus, indicating some sort of paralysis or brain damage.

Manus covered Willie’s feet, and as he went to check on the saline drip, the door swung open and seventy-year-old Emmett Clayton swept in.

“Can I help you?” Manus said, staring at the barrel-chested Texan.

Ignoring Manus, Emmett strode to the bed, looked at Willie, then turned to the doctor. His creased face looked like an old pair of boots that had been dried in front of a fire too many times. He said, “What’s wrong with my boy?”

“We’re not sure, mister, ah—”

“Clayton. Emmett Clayton.”

“We’re not sure, Mr. Clayton,” Manus said, stepping away from the IV stand. “We’re still trying to figure out what exactly poisoned your son.”

Emmett reached down and put a hand on Willie’s forehead. “Oh Lord, boy. You look all fuzzled up.”

Dr. Manus was about to explain to Emmett that it looked like some sort of neurotoxin when Lucas, Nick, Slade, and Ray poured through the door.

“Lucas,” Emmett said, relieved to see him. “What happened? What happened to Willie?”

Before Lucas had a chance to speak, Slade stepped up and said, “We don’t know.”

Emmett stared at Slade, taking in his slicked back hair and unnaturally white teeth. “Who are you? I don’t know you.” Emmett turned to Nick and hooked his thumb in Slade’s direction. “Who is this, Nick? Who is this dude?”

“This is Mark Slade,” Nick said, trying to calm Emmett. “My boss.”

“Lucas said you were down there—that you were in the cavern when Willie got sick.” Emmett gave Nick a searching look. “Lord, son, what happened down there?”

“We can’t say,” Slade said, shouldering in front of Nick.

“Wait,” Nick challenged, “he deserves to know.”

“You’re goddamned right I do,” Emmett said.

* * * *

Kylie stood at the front of the bus taking a head count as fifteen ninth grade students talked and laughed, all of them wound up and excited to be going on a field trip.

Sitting behind the wheel, a middle-aged bus driver stared up at Kylie, admiring her pretty face.

After Kylie checked off the last name on the list, confirming all were present and accounted for, she moved down the aisle, waving a hand through the air and saying, “All right. Quiet, everyone. Listen up.”

Students at the front of the bus stopped talking and gave her their attention, but a boisterous group at the back continued laughing and yelling like she wasn’t there.

Kylie clapped her hands together and in a loud voice said, “Okay, class. I need everyone’s attention.”

The bus fell silent, except for three boys who were hitting each other, seeing who could take the hardest shot to the shoulder.

Kylie stared at the unruly group for a silent beat, then put her fingers in her mouth and let go with a piercing whistle.

Everyone jumped. All heads snapped toward Kylie, amazed she could whistle like that—amazed at how loud it was. The three clowns stopped horsing around, dropped into their seats, and looked at Kylie with newfound respect.

“That’s better,” Kylie said, keeping her eyes on the back of the bus, daring anyone to start up again. “Okay, listen up. We’ll be meeting Ranger Horn at the Salt Springs Cavern State Preserve. He’ll be giving us important instructions about exploring inside a cave. I expect everyone to be polite and listen to what Ranger Horn has to say. Remember, it’s easy to get disoriented and lost in the dark, so stick together.” Kylie gave the group one last look and said, “Any questions?”

A heavyset teen in the back raised his hand and said, “When do we get lunch?”

Kylie shot him a deadpan look and in a flat voice said, “Lunchtime.” Then she wheeled around, went to the front of the bus, and, before she took her seat, she said, “It will take about twenty minutes to get to the cavern. Anyone have a good song to get this trip underway?”

“Led Zep!” a student yelled.

The driver started the bus, ground it into first gear, and as they rolled out of the parking lot, Kylie said, “I’ve got a song.” And as they rolled down the highway toward the state preserve, an enthusiastic version of “Deep in the Heart of Texas” filled the bus.

Chapter 23

Five miles up the road, six vultures wheeled above the coastal plain, their long, graceful wings slicing through the air as they circled down…and down…and down…

Directly below the descending vultures, a deer lay on the ground. A mule deer. The same deer that Nick, Ray, and Willie had found earlier. Its brindle hide was plainly visible against the bleached, salty earth.

But something was different. Something had changed. The deer seemed to have melted. It was as if all the bones in its body had been removed. What remained was a hideous puddle of fur, antlers, and four impossibly placed hooves.

A shadow slipped across the deer. A swarm of flies started and swirled into the air. And a moment after that, a turkey vulture touched down next to the carcass. The vulture tucked in its wings, hopped forward, and landed on the deer. As it lowered its beak to pick at the deer’s flesh, it suddenly lofted into the air, startled by some unseen movement.

The deer was still alive.

A small lump at the center of the furry puddle rose and fell: the deer’s beating heart.

A second vulture swooped down and landed on the deer’s body. It lowered its magenta-colored head, and as it began to feed, one of the deer’s eyes flopped open, protruding out of the socket like a malignant lump. The vulture craned over, dipped its head, and a second later, plucked the eye out and gobbled it down.

* * * *

Back at Salt Springs Hospital, Willie lay strapped to a stretcher, ready for the Life Flight ride to Houston’s Texas Medical Center .

Emmett and Lucas stood next to the stretcher, staring down at Willie who, hour by hour, seemed to be losing his battle with the venom working its way through his system. Dr. Manus removed an IV bag from its stand and tucked it in next to Willie for safe transport to the helicopter.

Lucas placed a hand on Willie’s shoulder and said, “You hang on, now. Goddammit, Willie, you hang on.”

Emmett and Lucas exchanged looks, and then Emmett gave him a nod of gratitude and thanked Lucas for being there and for his support.

Just then, they heard a sound rise from the stretcher. It sounded like “cauld.” Both of them snapped their heads toward Willie. Had he just spoken?

Then they heard it again. Willie said, “Cold.” His lips didn’t move, his voice a barely audible whisper.

“Doctor!” Emmett called to Manus, who was seated at a computer updating Willie’s file. “Willie just spoke! Said he was cold.”

“We need a blanket,” Lucas said. He took Willie’s hand, and as he went to give it a squeeze, it collapsed like an empty glove.

“Jesus Christ!” Lucas yelled, releasing the shapeless lump that a moment ago had been his friend’s hand.

“Oh Lord,” Emmett said, looking down in horror at Willie.

Dr. Manus rushed over to Willie, and as he went to check for a pulse, they all watched in horror as Willie’s arm slipped off his chest and hung from the stretcher, dangling in the air like a wet sock.

Staggered by the hideous sight, Emmett blurted out, “Jesus holy Lord.” Then he slumped over, and right before he crumpled to the floor, Lucas wrapped an arm around him, keeping him on his feet.

Desperate to help, to do something for Willie, Dr. Manus loosened the strap across Willie’s chest. As he went to remove the tape that covered his eyes, an involuntary grunt escaped Willie’s mouth, and his ribcage collapsed like an invisible anvil had been dropped on it.

Willie’s lips twitched. It looked like he was trying to speak. His jaw fell open, and a second after that, his skull collapsed, his face disappearing like the ground beneath a sinkhole.

The tape covering his eyes floated away, and all that remained was a grotesque Halloween mask of melted flesh pooled in the hollow of his pillow.

Before anyone had a chance to react, the remaining bones in Willie’s body collapsed, and he spilled to the floor in a quivering bog of human flesh.

As Lucas went to turn Emmett away from the grisly sight, the door opened, and Nick, Slade, and Ray entered the room.

“Holy God,” Ray said as the group froze in their steps when they got a look at Willie.

“What the hell…” Slade said, staring at Willie, “what the hell happened?”

“It looks like,” Ray said, hardly believing the words coming out of his mouth, “it looks like he melted.”

Nick moved up to Willie and noticed something moving in the puddle of flesh. “Look.” Nick pointed at a contracting lump. “His heart. Willie’s heart. It’s still—”

“Beating,” Ray said.

“Do something,” Slade said, turning to Dr. Manus.

“What?” Manus said, glancing from Willie to Slade. “What would you have me do? My God…the man is beyond help.”

“Something. Anything.” Slade’s expression suddenly changed. The color drained from his face. His stomach rolled, and he clamped a hand over his mouth and bolted out of the room.

Chapter 24

Nick came out of the hospital looking for Slade and found him sitting on a bench by the sidewalk. He watched as Slade took a drink from a paper cup, then chased it with a drag on his e-cigarette.

As Nick stepped up to the bench, Slade rose to his feet, tossed the paper cup in a trashcan, and said, “What did they do with him?”

“He’s gone,” Nick said. “Willie’s heart stopped beating when we tried to move him.”

Slade thought about that, about trying to move Willie. Jesus. He took another pull on his cigarette, looked at Nick and said, “Jesus…”

“Emmett is making arrangements with Dr. Manus about what is to be done with Willie. He’s already agreed to a full autopsy.”

An autopsy. Shit, he hadn’t thought about that. “Listen, Walker, we can’t let Emmett Clayton leave the hospital until he’s signed a waiver. I want a statement from him releasing NASA of any liability for his son’s death.”

“You’re kidding, right? The man just lost his—”

“And I want a signed statement of non-disclosure. None of this goes public until I say so.”

“Don’t you think you should back off for a moment, let the man mourn the loss of his son?”

Slade took a contemplative pull on his cigarette and exhaled a line of vapor. Another quick puff, then he looked at Nick and said, “Okay, fine. Yes, you’re right, of course. But tomorrow, I’ll have documents ready for Mr. Clayton’s signature.”

“Whatever you say,” Nick said, not hiding his contempt. Then he saw Ray come out of the hospital and waved him over.

“Christ, Walker, what are we dealing with here?” Slade said.

“I know what you know,” Nick said as Ray joined them. “Which, when you get right down to it, isn’t much. Maybe a zoologist or a toxicologist might have some insight.” Then he added, “But I have a bad feeling we’re about to find out.”

“Hey, what about Kylie?” Ray said. “She teaches science.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Somehow I don’t think something like this is covered in high school biology.”

“Who’s Kylie?” Slade asked, suddenly very interested. “Don’t tell me she knows about—”

“Don’t worry,” Nick said, cutting him off. “She hasn’t been told. She doesn’t know anything about this.”

“Good,” Slade said with a nod of his head.

“Speaking of which,” Nick said, giving Slade a direct look, “what did you get from Houston?”

“Houston…” Slade said, his lips tightening. Nick watched as a sheepish look swept across his face. He could tell the bastard hadn’t made the call. “I haven’t contacted them yet.”

“What? Why the hell not?”

“Let me explain—”

“What’s there to explain?”

“What was I supposed to tell them, Walker? ‘We found something in a lunar rock, and we have no idea what it is. Oh, and by the way, it escaped. But come on down and we’ll show you the hole it made in the lab.’”

Nick grabbed Slade’s shoulders, spun him so they were eye to eye, and said, “You tell them everything. You tell them now, goddammit.”

Slade jerked back, twisting free of Nick’s grip. “You take it easy, mister.” He smoothed a hand over his hair, then held his hands up and said, “Okay. We’ve got something more to tell now. The teeth, and—”

“A dead man,” Nick said, giving Slade an accusatory look.

“Yes. Thank you. I’m aware of that,” Slade said, looking away, breaking eye contact with Nick. “Let’s see what we discover in the cavern, then I’ll call first thing—”

“No,” Nick said, his face taut. “You call now. Houston needs to know now.” Then he added, “If you don’t, I will.”

“Fine.” Slade threw up his arms. “Fine, I’ll call now. I’ll tell them what happened. I’ll tell them what we know.”

There was an awkward silence. Nick took a breath, relaxing just a bit. “After you explain what happened to Willie Clayton, tell them that the creature came from a Spur Crater sample.”

“What did you just say?

“I said that the creature came from a Spur Crater sample.”

“But…but that’s impossible,” Slade said. “All Spur Crater samples were—”

“Recalled. I know.”

“Why wasn’t I told about this?”

“In all the excitement, I guess I forgot to mention it.”

Ray stepped forward and held up a hand for permission to speak. “Actually, the scans indicated it was a Spur Crater sample.”

Slade turned to Ray. “Well, no one pointed that out to me.” Then he added, “Is there anything else I should know?”

Nick shook his head. “No.” And then he said, “Tell Houston they better conduct an emergency recall of all lunar samples over three kilos. Just to be safe.”

Nick dug into a pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and offered it to Slade. “Here, make the call. No more excuses.”

Slade waved it away. He reached into his coat and brought out his own cell. “I’ll use mine.” Slade started walking in the direction of the parking lot. “I’ll make the call from the car…in private.”

As they watched him go, Ray said, “Do you trust him? Think he’ll make the call?”

“Like I said, if he doesn’t, I will.” Nick turned on his phone and began scrolling through his contacts.

“Now?” Ray said, watching him search for a number. “You’re going to call them now?”

“No. I’m calling Kylie.”

Ray grinned, gave Nick a knowing look. “So you do think she might be able to help.”

“No, I’m not going to say anything about this. Slade’s head might explode.” Nick dialed a number and pressed the phone against his ear. As it began to ring, he gave Ray an impish grin and said, “I just want to hear her voice.”

Ray shook his head, dug his phone out of a rear pocket, moved to the bench, and said, “Maybe I’ll text my ex-girlfriend. See if she’s still dating the guy she dumped me for.”

Nick waited, and then a woman with a friendly southern accent said, “Salt Springs High School, how may I help you?”

“This is Nick Walker, I’m returning a call from Kylie Sinclair.” That was a lie. But he figured there’d be fewer questions that way.

“Miss Sinclair…” There was a pause, and then the receptionist continued, “Oh yes, Miss Sinclair isn’t available. She and a group of science students have gone on a field trip to Salt Springs Cavern State Preserve.”

“What?” Nick said, trying to process what he’d just heard. “That can’t be. Are you sure about that? Are you sure it was Salt Springs Cavern?”

“I can double check, but I’m positive that’s where Kylie—Miss Sinclair—said they were going.”

“Jesus…” Nick said, then asked, “Do you have any way of reaching her?”

“No, not really.”

“How about a cell phone? Do you have a mobile number for Miss Sinclair?”

“Oh, well, I’d have to look that up,” the receptionist said. “If you give me your number, I can—” Nick jammed his phone in his pocket, not waiting for the receptionist to finish.

“Ray,” Nick bolted over to Ray, who was sitting on a bench talking on his phone. “Ray, we’ve got to go.”

Ray looked up at Nick, ignored him, and continued talking.

Impatient, Nick grabbed the cell phone out of Ray’s hand, held it to his face, and blurted, “He’ll call you back.” Nick ended the call, then looked at Ray and said, “Kylie and a group of students have gone to Salt Springs Cavern.”

Ray stood, retrieved his phone from Nick, and said, “Luckily, that was my ex-girlfriend on the phone.”

“Ray, did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah. Kylie and her class have gone to the Salt Springs Cavern State Preserve. Why?”

“They’re taking a tour.”

“Oh shit…”

“Right.”

“You get Lucas and meet us at the cavern.”

Ray stared at Nick, not moving, thinking about what he’d just heard.

“Go!” Nick said, and then he bolted towards the hospital parking lot.

Chapter 25

Nick hauled open the Land Cruiser’s door, climbed in, and looked over at Slade, who was busy scrolling through his iPhone.

“Well? Did you make the call?”

“Yeah,” Slade said, glancing from his phone to Nick. “I talked to Gunnerson. Told him everything. He told me to stand by. Said he was going to have someone get right back to me.”

“We’ve got some more bad news,” Nick said, sliding the key in the ignition. “A group of students from Salt Springs High School have gone—”

Slade’s cell rang. Slade put a hand up to stop Nick, clamped the phone to his ear, and said, “Yes?”

A man’s voice asked, “Is this Director Mark Slade?”

“Yes.”

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Kemp with the Pentagon.”

Slade said, “Thank you for calling, sir.” Then he gave Nick a quick look and said, “Colonel, Nick Walker, head of the geology department, is here with me. I’d like to put you on speakerphone, if that’s all right?”

“Yes, fine. Speakerphone would be fine.”

Slade held the phone up. Nick leaned forward and said, “Good morning, Colonel.”

“Good morning, Mr. Walker.” Then the colonel said, “Director Slade, I just had a very interesting conversation with NASA Director Gunnerson. He told me about your find.”

“Did he tell you about Willie Clayton?” Slade asked.

“Yes. Everything.”

“Sir, the good news is we’ve tracked the creature to the cave,” Slade said, already going into spin mode.

“Listen to me,” the colonel said, an ominous tone in his voice. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. You have no idea how deadly this thing is.” Then he added, “I can assure you, this isn’t some cuddly alien from E.T.”

Slade gave Nick a raised eyebrow look and said, “Wait a minute…Colonel, are you saying that you know what this thing is? That you’ve seen one before?”

After a long pause, the colonel said, “Have you heard of the Genesis Rock?”

“The Genesis Rock?” Slade glanced at Nick, searching for some help. It was obvious Slade hadn’t heard of it, or if he had, he’d forgotten what it was.

“Yes, Colonel,” Nick said, bailing Slade out. “Apollo 15. Dave Scott. He retrieved the Genesis Rock from Spur Crater.”

“Right,” the colonel acknowledged. “In 2007, a geologist working at the Rainier Mesa Nuclear Test Site discovered an egg-shaped pod in a similar Spur Crater sample. It was collected from the same site as the Genesis Rock. Had the same whitish coloring, dated to the same age, everything. A day after the pod was discovered, it hatched, and an alien life form escaped into the surrounding desert. Two days later, it turned up in one of the facility’s vertical test wells. At the time, fifteen men were working in that tunnel. Ten of those men died a horrible death at the hands of the creature. An engineer working in the tunnel detonated a low yield nuclear device, killing himself, the remaining men, and the creature. The test well was sealed for good.”

“My God…” Slade said, staggered by what he’d just heard.

“This time, it’s a cavern in Texas,” Nick said, starting out the windshield.

“Both of you listen,” the colonel said. “We don’t have much intel on this thing, but it should be treated as an extremely hostile alien life form. It stalks. Kills. Survives.” Then, after a beat, he added, “Oh, and from what little evidence we were able to piece together, we know that the creature was big. Taller than any man. It seems to have an almost supernatural ability to grow.”

“Was anyone able to photograph it?” Nick asked, knowing it was a long shot.

“Unfortunately, no. The only thing we got from the test site before it was nuked was a recording of the sporadic chatter of the workers in distress. I’ll have audio transcripts of those communications sent to you when I hang up.”

The SUV fell silent. Nick and Slade exchanged looks. Then the colonel said, “Slade, Major Atwood from Fort Worth is on his way and in the air now. He should be there before noon. In the meantime, you and Walker secure the area around the cavern. Keep the public away. For now, you are to keep local agencies—police, fire, and guard units—out of this. That could change at any time, however. I’m assembling a team. We’ll be wheels-up in two hours.”

“Excuse me, Colonel,” Nick said, interrupting Kemp. “Right before you called, I received word that a group of high school students were on a field trip to Salt Springs Cavern. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but my source is good.”

The colonel said, “Can you contact them? Turn them around?”

“No. But we’re on our way there now. I’ll try and get a mobile number for the teacher and give her a call en route.”

“Okay, stay by the phone. I’ll be in touch. If anything changes, call me.”

* * * *

At the same moment, a hundred feet below the surface, a group of students filed into the cavern’s entry chamber and arranged themselves in an ellipse around Kylie and Ranger Horn, their guide. Normally, it would’ve been as black as a moonless night in the chamber, but Ranger Horn had activated a network of lights tucked in the cave’s walls, making the chamber feel more like a candlelit cathedral than the opening of a cavern. The built-in lights were used to help orient tour groups before they descended into the darkness of the lower chambers.

Straggling behind the group, best friends Molly and Caitlin took their time as they made their way down the sloping path toward the chamber.

“I can’t believe we’re down here actually looking for bats,” Caitlin said, touching the cave wall where the path narrowed, then quickly jerking her hand back, repulsed by the slimy feel.

“Not just bats,” Molly said, “everything that lives in this habitat.”

“Oh, big deal.” Caitlin wiped her hand on her t-shirt, trying to get the cave scum off her fingers. “So I left out spiders…another moronic thing to be looking for.”

“Spiders are cool,” Molly said with a laugh. “They’re—” She stopped in mid-sentence when something caught her eye. Something bright and shiny.

A tooth.

On the ground just to her right lying next to some loose rocks was a slightly hooked, sharp-looking tooth. A fang just like the one Willie Clayton had found—only this one was bigger. Much bigger.

“Look,” Molly said, grabbing Caitlin’s arm and pointing at the fang. “A weird-looking tooth.”

“Gross,” Caitlin said, pulling back, not wanting to get any closer.

Ignoring Caitlin, Molly stepped off the path, clambered over some scattered rocks, and reached out for the tooth.

“Molly! Caitlin! Come on,” Kylie said, calling to the girls, her hands cupped around her mouth. “Come on, stay with the group.”

Molly’s hand hovered above the tooth. As she reached down again to pick it up, Caitlin’s hand clamped onto her shoulder and hauled her upright.

“Molly, come on. We’re going to get in trouble.”

Molly glanced at the tooth one last time, and then both girls ran down the path toward the group just as Ranger Horn began his presentation.

“Welcome to Salt Springs Cavern,” said Ranger Horn, a short, middle-aged man with a gleaming bald head. He was neat and fastidious, dressed in a pressed khaki uniform. Tobias Horn was a retired banker who worked gratis for the Parks Department, conducting tours of the cavern.

Horn stepped up on a pedestal-shaped rock so he could see the entire group. “The temperature in the cavern is a constant sixty-eight degrees. There are twenty miles of explored tunnels and three main caving tours. We will be descending to four of the most accessible chambers today—they are all part of the cavern’s beginner tour. The first chamber we will be entering is called the Ballroom. It gets its name from the huge chandelier-shaped crystal formation hanging from the chamber’s ceiling.”

After he finished his introduction, Ranger Horn talked about the entrance chamber, how it was formed, and how it got its name, the Gray Ghost. “When we leave the Gray Ghost, we will be leaving the electric lights behind and entering the darkness. You and your caving partner have been given a flashlight to share. Everyone with a flashlight, please turn it on now.”

A moment later, twelve flashlights—including the one Kylie was holding—were turned on and waving in the air.

“Good,” Ranger Horn said, nodding with approval. “As we discussed earlier, please stay on the marked paths and use the handrails where necessary. It’s easy to get disoriented in the dark. That’s why everyone needs to stay with their partner, and, most importantly, stay with the group. If you do get lost, the beginner tour is marked by a series of yellow arrows. Follow the arrows pointing upwards and they will lead you to the entrance.”

“Are there any questions?”

One of the students asked, “Have you ever been lost down here?”

Chapter 26

Nick turned the Land Cruiser off the main road and entered the Clayton Salt Mine, crunching along the pea gravel drive to a metal building where he saw Ray, Lucas, and Emmett stacking gear next to a dusty Suburban with block letters on the door that read, “Clayton Salt Mine.”

Nick and Slade dropped out of the SUV and watched as the men unloaded helmets, lamps, harnesses, extra lights, and coils of brightly-colored climbing rope.

“Oxygen?” Sam said as he walked up and saw Emmett placing a mask next to a bottle of oxygen.

Emmett straightened, looked at Nick and Slade, and said, “Never go deep underground without oxygen.”

“Or two-way radios,” Lucas said, dropping a couple of handheld radios into a backpack.

“We’ve got to hurry,” Nick lifted a coil of climbing rope and placed it in the rear of the Suburban. “I just found out that a group of Salt Spring High School students have gone into the cavern.”

Lucas said, “A tour. Ray said they’ve gone on a tour.”

“Right. Some sort of field trip.”

“Lord,” Lucas said. “Talk about bad timing.”

Nick glanced from Lucas to Emmett and said, “Listen, neither of you have to go in that cavern. This is NASA business. NASA’s problem.”

Emmett reached into the Suburban, brought out a shotgun, and said, “If the thing that took my boy is down there, I want a piece of it.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Slade said, holding up his hands. “Who said anything about shooting the creature?”

“Listen, Emmett,” Nick said, staring at the camouflage model 12-gauge Remington pump. “I know how you must feel, but this isn’t a hunting trip. We’re going down there to get those kids. Quick in, quick out. That’s it. If we’re lucky, we got bad information and they’re not even in the cavern.” Then Nick added, “In a few hours, a special government task force will be here to secure the area and hopefully capture the creature.”

The group fell silent as they thought about what Nick had just said. Lucas shook his head and then let go with a deep laugh that rattled the building next to them.

“The government?” Lucas said, forcing himself to stop laughing. “That’s a good one. I’ve never seen a messed up situation that didn’t get more messed up after the government stepped in.”

Emmett looked at Lucas, giving him an approving nod. “You’re goddamn right about that.”

Slade’s back was up, offended by Lucas’s putdown of the government. He was about to say so, but stopped and turned to Nick, instead, saying, “I’m going to take your car and meet Major Atwood when he arrives. I can bring him up to speed and liaise between here and Houston.” Slade held up his cell phone. “Stay in touch. Call me if something changes.”

Ray stepped forward. “Excuse me, sir, but I could go. I could go meet Atwoody. That way you could be here—you know, in case they find the creature.”

“Atwood. It’s Major Atwood. And thanks, but no thanks. I don’t think you’re the first person the major is going to want to meet when he arrives.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Use your imagination.”

* * * *

Ten minutes later, Emmett’s Suburban rolled into the parking lot of Salt Springs Cavern State Preserve and pulled up next to a bright yellow school bus.

Shit, Nick thought as he stared out at the bus. Kylie and her students are here.

Emmett killed the engine. The Suburban’s doors were thrown open, and everyone piled out and began putting on gear, loading packs and checking lights. Nick shrugged on a daypack, and as he went to snug up the shoulder straps, he noticed Emmett place a surplus ammo box with a bright red warning label next to the other gear.

Nick looked at the label, then turned to Emmett and said, “Is this what I think it is?”

Emmett gave him a direct look and said, “If you guessed dynamite, you’d be right.” Before Nick could react, Lucas stepped up and plunked another box with a bright warning label next to the dynamite. “And those are fuses, a crank box, oh—and something special I got from an Army buddy: C-4 demolition charges.”

“I thought I just explained,” Nick said, staring down at the arsenal, “we’re just going to get those kids out of there. That’s it.”

“I don’t think he got the memo,” Ray said, looking at the explosives.

Emmett held up his hands and said, “Just a precaution, son.”

Nick decided to let it go and grabbed a helmet. Besides, Nick thought, adjusting the chin strap, maybe Emmett had a point. What if they did run into the creature?

Five minutes later, everyone was loaded down with gear and ready to go. Nick took the lead as they headed for the cavern entrance. It looked just like it had the day before, only now, the gate blocking the path had been unlocked, pulled back, and left open.

Lucas tapped Ray on the shoulder and said, “What did you say this thing looked like?”

“I didn’t,” Ray said, glancing at Lucas. “But think a lizard – only with arms up top instead of legs.”

“Nice,” Lucas murmured, thinking about that. Then he asked, “But this lizard—it’s small, right?”

“It was,” Ray said as they passed through the gate. “At least, that’s Nick’s theory. He thinks it has some freakish ability to—”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Nick said, giving Ray a look. “Stay together. And stay alert.”

A few minutes later, they gathered in the entrance chamber, which looked completely different to Nick and Ray, as it was now illuminated by lights.

“Lights?” Ray said, looking up in awe as he turned in a slow circle. “There are lights down here?” He turned to Nick. “Why didn’t someone say so? Overhead lighting would’ve been nice when I was being attacked by bloodsucking bats.”

“Only plumbed-in lights are in this chamber,” Emmett said, glancing around the cave. “They went in twenty years ago when this place had a fulltime ranger and a lot more visitors. When we leave here, we’ll need our own lights.”

Nick moved down to the labyrinth of passages that led into the tunnel and positioned himself next to a yellow arrow that pointed the way to the beginner tour. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Kylie!” After a quick beat, he yelled again, “Hello? Kylie? Hello?”

Nick’s voice echoed through the chamber. Everyone fell silent, waiting, listening for a response.

Nothing—only the dripping sound of water seeping from fractures in the cave walls.

Lucas stepped up to Nick, pointed to one of the yellow arrows, and said, “That’s were they went. Has to be. It’s basically a self-guided tour. Willie took me down there when I first started at the mine. Easy descent. Good paths. Handrails. All you really need is a flashlight.”

Nick bent down, picked up a piece of paper, and held it up to the light. It was a copy of the handout Kylie had given to her students. It outlined following the route marked with yellow arrows.

Nick handed it to Lucas and called out to Ray and Emmett, “Come on! We know where they went.”

Ray and Emmett crossed the cavern, and as Emmett stepped up to Nick, he said, “In case you didn’t know, all these caves are connected. Follow any one of them far enough, and you’ll find your way into one of the others.” Emmett hooked his thumbs through the straps of his daypack and added, “Willie’s the one who told me that. He and some friends discovered the passages back when they were in high school. He said there was even a passage that led to the salt mine. They almost got stuck down there. He said he’d never been so scared in his life.”

Great, Nick thought to himself. Hopefully the creature doesn’t know they’re connected.

“Thanks for the uplifting anecdote,” Ray said, giving Emmett a flat look. “Makes it much more exciting, knowing we’re not safe anywhere down here.”

A few minutes later, they were all following the yellow arrows as they descended toward the Ballroom chamber, grateful for the handrails and the well-marked path.

A hundred feet ahead, the path made a sharp dogleg, and as they maneuvered around it, the light filtering in from the entrance chamber disappeared. All that kept them from being swallowed by the darkness were their flashlights and helmet lamps.

Ray, who had positioned himself at the rear of the group, gripped a metal rail and, almost giddy with delight by how it felt in his hand, thought, Nothing says ‘safe’ like handrails.

Walking single file, no one spoke as they moved along the gently sloping path, the beams from their helmet lamps illuminating the damp, glistening walls. They rounded a horseshoe bend and the path straightened. Directly ahead of them, they heard a loud skittering sound.

Nick held his hand up, signaling for the group to stop. Nick and Lucas turned on their flashlights, pointing them this way and that, trying to see what had caused the noise.

A frozen beat, then something flashed out of the dark. Ray’s helmet light raked an inky form. And then it was there, right in front of him. Two glowing eyes floated in the pitch-black, staring right at him. A horrible, silent-filled moment, and then it crashed toward him. It seemed to be all legs as it danced through the dark. It rose up over Ray’s head, clipped his shoulder, and skittered along the path toward the cavern’s entrance. Ray said, “Shit,” when he finally saw what it was. A deer.

Lucas laughed as Ray clutched his chest and said, “Damn,” then slumped against the handrail.

“They come down here for the water,” Emmett said. “That and the salt.”

Ray pushed off the railing and straightened his helmet. “What the hell… It’s like I’m some freaking wildlife magnet.”

Chapter 27

A quarter of a mile below Nick and his group, Ranger Horn, Kylie, and her students were gathered in the Ballroom chamber, all of them staring up at the delicate crystal chandelier-shaped formation that had formed on the cave’s ceiling

“We are now five hundred feet below the surface.” As he spoke, Ranger Horn kept the beam of his flashlight trained on the chandelier. “The next chamber we’ll be entering is called the Fortress of the Blue Giants. It is considered by many to be the most stunning room in the cavern complex.” The ranger leveled his flashlight, illuminating the students’ faces, making sure he had their attention. In a low voice, he said, “If everyone is very quiet, we might be able to hear the giants breathing.”

He always loved this part of the tour. If the conditions were right, the air passing through the warren of passages below made a soft rushing sound, like a set of giant lungs exhaling.

As everyone held their breath, hoping to hear the “giants breathing,” one student stuck his tongue between his lips, made a rude sound, and said, “Or fart.”

The other students began to laugh, some hooting with delight.

At the rear of the group, Kylie waved her flashlight through the air, trying to get the class’s attention. “All right. All right. That’s enough. I don’t know who the comedian is, but if I find out, it’s not going to be pretty.”

Kylie pushed through the group, stepped up next to the ranger, and removed a digital camera from her pack. “Okay everybody, crowd together, I’m going to get a shot for the yearbook.”

A collection of moans went up from the group, but after a minute or so, they were all bunched together and waiting for Kylie to get her shot.

Kylie raised the camera, checked to make sure she had everyone in the frame, and said, “Smile.’”

She held her finger down, the camera’s pre-flash fired, and then something went wrong. Instead of the strobe firing when the picture was taken, the camera’s extra bright pre-flash continued to fire, blinding the students.

The students yelled out and covered their eyes, all of them instantly blinded by the flashing light.

“Sorry, everyone!” Kylie lowered the camera and, after some effort, got the strobe to stop.

* * * *

Fifty yards in front of the class, inside the Fortress of the Blue Giants, a discarded flashlight lay on the chamber floor, its beam pointing up at a sharp angle, illuminating a massive column of salt—one of the chamber’s six “Blue Giants”—that thrust down two hundred feet from the ceiling.

At the base of one of the columns, a man lay sprawled on the ground, his arms jutting from his body at unnatural angles. A yellow hardhat with an American flag sticker and the words “Strategic Petroleum Reserve” stenciled on the front sat upside down next to his head.

Off to his right side, a blue jumpsuit floated in a pool of flesh-colored liquid that looked like melted plastic. It was all that remained of the man’s coworker—the man whose screams had led him into the cavern.

Just out of sight, beyond the light, there was a sound. Something moved through the darkness. Something big.

A swirl of dust was caught in the flashlight’s beam. There was another sound, and then a dark shape swept through the chamber. The flashlight was knocked flat, sending its beam across the chamber, illuminating the worker’s tortured face.

There was a rush of air. The light was blocked. A shadow fell across the man’s face.

The alien creature was right there, towering over him. Seven feet tall now, it looked like a giant bipedal lizard. It had wide-set, lidless eyes the color of dried blood, a sculpted thorax, shiny armored plates on its skin, powerful legs, and bulging arms that tapered to clawed hands with opposable thumbs.

A giant Gila monster. That’s what the still conscious Department of Energy worker thought as he looked up in disbelief at the alien creature.

Two lines of viscous fluid streamed from the corners of the creature’s mouth, and a primal, musky smell bloomed in the man’s nose as he watched the alien position itself over what was left of his coworker. The creature’s lips parted. A plum-colored tongue flicked over a row of glistening teeth.

The conscious worker tried to move back, trying to get away, but his broken body wouldn’t answer his brain’s commands. He watched in horror as the creature lowered its body, opened its mouth, and, in one fluid, shovel-like movement, swept down and swallowed the melted body.

Across the room at the cave’s entrance, Ranger Horn, Kylie, and her students flooded into the chamber, everyone shining their lights around, trying to be the first to see the Blue Giants that the ranger had told them about.

As their lights swept the chamber, raking the giant salt columns and illuminating the bluish cave walls, a girl at the front of the group began to scream.

All heads snapped toward the screaming girl, trying to see what was happening. As flashlight beams fell on the girl, the chamber beyond her was illuminated, and all of them saw what it was.

Startled by the students, the creature lowered its head and disgorged the melted worker, sending his remains spilling to the chamber floor.

A second after that, the creature dropped into a defensive crouch and began moving towards the group.

Recovering from what she’d just seen, Kylie raised her flashlight and yelled over the students’ horrified screams, “Everyone get back! Back against the wall!” She spread her arms and began to corral the group away from the advancing creature.

Chapter 28

Back in the Ballroom chamber, Nick held up a hand stopping the group and said, “Listen.” Everyone came to a halt. Silence, and then they all heard it. Screaming. Kids screaming.

“C’mon,” Nick shouted, motioning with his arm. “Let’s go.”

The men raced down the path toward the screaming voices, the beams of their helmet lamps licking the cavern wall as they snaked down the tunnel.

Up ahead in the Fortress of the Blue Giants chamber, students huddled in a corner, flattening themselves against the cave wall and dowsing their flashlights, trying to make themselves invisible.

Sixty feet in front of the terrified students, Kylie stood facing the creature, her camera still clutched in her trembling fingers. Holy God, she thought to herself, staring at the strangest, scariest-looking thing she’d ever seen. What the hell is that?

Kylie swiveled her head, frantically looking around for Ranger Horn, but he was nowhere in sight. He seemed to have vanished.

She stared at the faces of her terrified students. Some of them had their eyes covered. Some were crying. And some were too petrified with fear to cry.

Where the hell is Ranger Horn?

Ranger Horn was still in the chamber. They just couldn’t see him. When the creature had appeared and the fight or flight response exploded in his brain, he’d chosen the latter. He’d abandoned the group and bolted for a flat piece of limestone, wedging himself between the rock and the ground like a crab disappearing into the depths of a tide pool.

As Kylie searched for some sign of the ranger, the chamber filled with a sharp hissing sound, like steam escaping from a high pressure line.

The terrible sound brought Kylie’s head around with a snap. The creature hissed again. Then she saw its hideous liver-colored tongue flick in and out of its mouth. A second after that, its jaws gaped open. It looked like it was about to attack.

With her legs feeling like they were about to go collapse, she raised her arms, and in a voice she barely recognized, she yelled, “Go on! Get out of here!” She took a step forward. “Go on!”

The creature responded by taking a step toward her.

Shit.

She needed time to think. She needed some help. She needed a fucking elephant gun. Frozen with terror and not wanting to run for fear that it would just encourage an attack, she raised her camera and pressed the shutter button.

Just like before, there was an intense flash and the strobe began firing wildly, uncontrollably.

Startled by the flash, the creature turned its head and closed its eyes, momentarily blinded.

With the camera held high and still flashing like a strobe on the tip of an airplane’s wing, Kylie began to retreat, one careful footstep at a time. Just as she was about to turn and run toward the kids, there was a click, and the strobe stopped.

Shit.

Desperate to keep the creature distracted, Kylie pressed the shutter button again, trying to reactivate the flash. She pressed down again and again, but nothing happened. The malfunctioning strobe had drained the battery. The camera was dead—useless.

As Kylie turned to run, the creature spun toward her, dropped into a crouch, and shot forward, rushing directly for her.

Kylie opened her hand, releasing the camera, and screamed for the kids to duck down.

Nick, Lucas, Ray, and Emmett swept into the chamber, the beams of their lamps raking Kylie and the creature as they skidded to a halt, all of them thinking the same thing: It’s huge!

“Nick!” Kylie yelled as she threw herself forward, thinking that at any second she was about to be grabbed from behind and lifted off her feet.

“Here.” Emmett spun and tossed the shotgun to Nick.

Nick caught the gun as he bolted forward. He racked the pump and leveled the 12-gauge yelling, “Kylie! Get down!”

With Nick’s words echoing in her head, she dove to the chamber floor, sliding on her side. Nick skidded to a stop and planted a foot. He shouldered the shotgun, pulled the trigger, and hit the creature dead in the chest with a load of buckshot.

The creature stopped and made a hissing sound, the plates on its chest shedding the pellets like they were made of Styrofoam.

Nick jacked another shell into the chamber and fired, blasting the creature again, this time hitting it in the neck and shoulder. The creature shook its head and hissed. Then it leveled its eyes at Nick and lowered its body, ready to make another charge. Nick racked the pump, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing—just a dull click. He was out of ammo.

Oh shit. Nick glanced at the shotgun in disbelief, then turned and saw Kylie scrabbling across the floor toward her students. He wheeled back around to face the creature and saw that it was advancing again. As he was trying to think of something to do besides die, a voice boomed through the chamber.

“Fall back!” yelled Lucas.

A moment after that, Lucas was standing next to him, a lit stick of dynamite in his hand. The air was filled with a sizzling, popping sound as the flame raced up the fuse in a halo of sparks.

Oh crap. Nick gave Lucas a quick glance, then bolted back and threw himself over Kylie. Behind him, he heard Lucas yell, “Fire in the hole!”

Lucas leapt forward, cranked his arm back like a fastball pitcher, and hurled the dynamite. It looked at first like it was going to be a direct hit, but the dynamite clipped the roof, causing it to fall short. Lucas had released the dynamite too soon, sending it on too high an arc.

Lucas twisted and dove for the ground. He buried his face in his arms, and the dynamite exploded. There was a loud, concussive blast. Chunks of salt and rock flew in all directions. Above them at the top of the chamber, right where the Blue Giants met the ceiling, there was a low groaning, sound.

As the smoke from the blast began to clear, Nick jumped up and raced to Lucas to see if he was okay. He watched the alien creature as it swept out of the chamber’s lower entrance and retreated farther into the cavern.

“Lucas,” Nick shouted, scrambling up to him. “Are you all right?”

Lucas rolled onto his side, his ears still ringing from the blast. He blinked some grit out of his eyes, looked up at Nick, and then quickly glanced around to see if the creature was still there.

“It’s all clear,” Nick said, helping Lucas to his feet. “The thing retreated. It’s gone.”

Lucas rubbed his ears and made an exaggerated yawning motion, trying to get them to stop ringing. Kylie raced up to see if they were okay.

A low groaning came from above, causing Nick to look up and scan the chamber ceiling. “We need to get out of here.”

Nick reached down, offered Lucas a hand, and hauled him to his feet. Suddenly, a girl’s screams filled the room.

At the far end of the chamber, Molly, who’d gotten separated from the group, was scrambling toward the others as the ground beneath her feet was literally opening up.

“Molly!” Kylie yelled, trying to twist free of Nick’s grip and make a dash for the girl, but Nick held firm as debris began to rain down from the ceiling.

Molly screamed again. A giant column of salt separated from the ceiling and began to crumble. As it toppled around her, she pitched sideways, slipped, and disappeared into a yawning tear that had opened in the chamber floor.

“Molly!” Kylie screamed. “No!” Kylie tried to break away from Nick, desperate to do something—anything. But Nick held on, knowing there was nothing they could do.

Emmett’s voice suddenly boomed in their ears. “Nick, Lucas, Kylie!” Emmett and Ray were gathered with the students, keeping them together as best they could. “Come on. We’ve got to go. We’ve got to get out of here.”

A second later, there was terrible groaning sound. Then another one of the Blue Giants shifted and began to crumble, sending massive blocks of salt cartwheeling to the floor below.

Chapter 29

Ten minutes later, they were all assembled in the Ballroom chamber, having decided to regroup there before making their way up and out of the cavern.

Kylie was busy making sure her students were okay, trying to calm them, giving water to some and hugs to others.

Emmett, Ray, and Lucas were checking gear and working to get more lights going so people could examine themselves and check for injuries.

Nick was talking to Ranger Horn, who’d emerged from beneath his rock just in time to rejoin the group as they made their escape from the Fortress of the Blue Giants. And just now he’d caught the ranger as he was about to skulk out of the Ballroom and make a dash for the surface.

“Pull yourself together,” Nick said, giving him a direct look. He noticed a dark stain had spread out from the crotch of the ranger’s pants, and his jaw was trembling, causing his lips to open and close like a fish pumping water across its gills. “You’ve got to help us get these kids out of here.”

The ranger looked at Nick, nodded, and then mumbled something, but Nick couldn’t understand him, his words garbled by chattering teeth.

Nick gave him a pat on the shoulder and said, “You can do this, okay?”

Fighting to get his shaking under control, the ranger gave another quick nod and said, “Okay.”

“Good,” Nick said. He turned back to the group, readying himself for their trek back to the surface.

Kylie marched up and said, “I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving without Molly. I’m responsible, Nick. I’m responsible for her.”

Nick was already shaking his head. It was a bad idea. With the room about to cave in and the creature still down there, it was practically suicide. “Kylie…”

“No. Uh-uh,” Kylie shot back, hearing Nick’s reluctant tone. “You can’t talk me out of this. Lucas has already agreed to help get the kids safely out of the cavern.”

Surrendering, Nick reached out and touched Kylie’s arm. “Okay.” Besides, he didn’t really have a choice; he could see that there was nothing he could do or say that would make her change her mind.

“We’ve got to find her, Nick.” Kylie reached up and caught a tear beneath her eye. “We can’t let that thing get her.”

* * * *

Slade was behind the wheel of Nick’s Land Cruiser as it raced along the highway in the midday heat towards Salt Springs Cavern State Preserve. He’d just picked up Major Atwood, who was now talking on his cell phone.

“Yes, Colonel, I’m with Director Slade now. We should be at the cavern in about…” Atwood turned to Slade, looking for some help.

“About an hour,” Slade said, glancing at the major.

“About an hour, sir,” Atwood said, then listened as Colonel Kemp gave him instructions. After a long moment, Atwood nodded and said, “Yes, sir. I’ll call when we arrive.”

Atwood ended the call.

Slade held up his e-cigarette and said, “Do you mind?” Not waiting for a response, he added, “It’s just water vapor. But it still upsets people.”

Atwood glanced at Slade’s creepy-looking cigarette. He waved his hand and said, “Knock yourself out.”

Slade took a long pull, cracked his window, and blew a stream of atomized water out of the Land Cruiser. He took another puff, glanced at the major, and asked, “So, how does the colonel plan to trap this thing?”

“He doesn’t,” Atwood said, slipping his phone into his jacket. “If the creature stays in that cave, we’re going to handle it same as Rainier Mesa: explosives. Colonel Kemp is bringing a modified version of Big Blue, the Air Force’s latest bunker buster. Over a ton of explosives. It’s like a small nuke.”

“What?” Slade said, horrified by what he’d just heard, jerking the wheel as he turned to Atwood. “You can’t. You can’t set off a blast like that. Not in the cavern.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s right next to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.”

Atwood gripped the hand strap above his door as the SUV rocked on its suspension. After a profound silence, the major said, “Does Colonel Kemp know about this?”

* * * *

Back in the Ballroom chamber, Lucas had just returned from helping Ranger Horn get the students safely out of the cavern. As he entered the cave and moved toward the pool of light cast by Nick, Kylie, Ray, and Emmett’s helmet lamps, he heard Ray say, “Unbelievable. The thing is big. Huge. How is that even possible?”

“It seems to have gone through some sort of hyper-growth,” Nick said, as Lucas joined the group.

“It’s freakish,” Ray said.

“Maybe even alien,” Kylie said, glancing from Ray to Nick. “Hyper-growth? That could be. Animals have developed all sorts of methods for survival. Who knows with this thing. It may have some accelerated capacity for cell division. Hardwired for growth from the moment it’s born.”

“Hatched,” Ray corrected.

“Hatched,” Kylie repeated. “Think about it. Who knows where this thing came from. Or what part of the food chain it occupied wherever that was. Can it reason? Is it intelligent? Can it use tools? What kind of diet does it have? What’s its main prey?”

“I tell you what it looks like to me,” Lucas said. “It looks prehistoric, like some kind of dinosaur.”

“Yeah, and not the nice, smiley herbivore kind,” Ray said. “A Gila monster—that’s what it looks like to me. It looks like a giant Gila monster, only bigger. And scarier.”

“A Gila monster with all the advantages of bipedalism,” Kylie added.

“And it’s bulletproof,” Nick said. “It took that buckshot like it was a load of confetti.”

“I have a feeling this thing is going to go long and hard,” Emmett said, scanning the others’ faces. “We have no idea what this thing is capable of.”

Nick looked over at Kylie. He could see by the look on her face she was thinking about Molly, wondering where she was and if she was safe.

“We’ve got to go back,” Kylie said, blurting out the words with an urgency that got everyone’s attention. Overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and helplessness, she was desperate to do something. Now. “We’ve got to go back there. We have to find Molly.”

No one spoke. The chamber fell into an uncomfortable silence. The sound of water trickling down cave walls was suddenly loud in their ears as it filtered out from the darkness.

Kylie looked at the others, searching their faces. In a defiant tone, she said, “Well, I’m going back.” She gripped the straps of her pack. “I’m going back now.”

“Hold up,” Nick said, raising his hands. “Wait a minute. We can’t just race back there. We’ve got to make a plan.”

* * * *

With Nick leading the way and Lucas close behind, the shotgun clutched in his hands, the two of them entered the Fortress of the Blue Giants, the halogen beams from their helmets slicing into the blackness beyond.

The plan was this: Nick and Lucas would return to the Fortress of the Blue Giants to see it they could locate Molly, or, at the very least, see if there were any sign that she was still alive. If they were lucky and found Molly, they’d grab her, and the three of them would hightail it back to the others, all the while doing their best to avoid the alien creature. Simple.

Yeah, right.

As they moved farther into the chamber, the first thing they noticed was the dust. Salt dust, to be exact. Suspended in the air and illuminated by their helmet lamps, it looked like mist rising off of a marshy bog.

An icy line of sweat ran down Nick’s back as he strained to see through the thick atmosphere. The creature could be anywhere. It could come at them without warning, from any direction.

Loose rocks, soil, and salt dust rained down from the top of the room where two of the giants had parted from the ceiling. There was something else, too: wind. It swirled around the men, brushing their faces as it flowed up from the fissure in the chamber floor.

“Feel that?” Nicks said, glancing at Lucas.

“Yeah, some kind of draft.”

Nick watched a rivulet of dirt and gravel spill off of a rock ledge and form a mound by his boot, piling up like sand in the base of an hourglass. He raised his flashlight and played the beam around the chamber, wishing they had some way to get more light into the room, wishing he could flip a switch and light the place up like a stadium. “What do you think? Do you think its safe?”

Lucas held up the shotgun and waved the barrel through the darkness. “Hell, no.” Then he added, “And I’m not talking about crumbling walls or the tear in the floor. I’m talking about that creature. I’m thinking about that big, ugly motherfucker that could snap us in two like a pretzel.”

Nick was about to agree when a static crash exploded in their ears. A second after that, Ray’s voice boomed out from the speaker of the two-way radio clipped to Nick’s waistband.

“Nick, do you copy?”

Nick grabbed the Kenwood radio—a special model designed for use in mines—keyed the mike, and said, “I copy, Ray.”

“Have you reached the chamber yet?”

“Roger that. We’re in the entrance. Lots of dust. The room is still breaking up. That blast really tore the hell out of this place.”

There was a pause. Then a clicking sound. Another voice said, “What about Molly? Is there any sign of Molly?” It was Kylie. There was a slight quiver in her voice. She was still obviously upset.

“No. Nothing yet. No sign of anyone—or anything.” Nick glanced at Lucas and said, “Give us fifteen minutes. If we’re not back by then, you and the others clear out and wait for Slade and Major Atwood up top.”

“Find Molly, Nick.” Kylie’s finger remained on the mike, holding it down, so he could hear her breathing. Then she added, “We’re not going anywhere. We’re not leaving the cavern without you and Lucas.”

Nick and Lucas exchanged looks. “Roger that.” Nick clipped the radio onto his belt, poked his flashlight toward the chamber, and said, “Ready?”

Lucas pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face, then turned to Nick and said, “Let’s get this over with.”

Standing shoulder to shoulder, they moved into the inky darkness of the chamber, each of them watching their step, careful not to trip on the blast debris that littered the floor.

Somewhere out in the pitch black, a rock loosened above them and fell to the chamber floor with a loud crash. Both of them froze, then spun toward the sound. Lucas raised his shotgun and Nick pointed his flashlight. Another rock fell and bounced across the chamber floor with smashing hammer blows that echoed through the dark.

Jesus, Nick thought as he panned his helmet light around, it sounds like someone’s dribbling a bowling ball.

They heard a low whistling sound. A second after that, a gust of wind rushed through the hole in the floor. The beam of Nick’s flashlight illuminated a cloud of dust as it swirled through the air.

“I don’t like this,” Lucas said, his finger hovering directly over the shotgun’s trigger.

“Come on, what’s not to like?” Nick said, giving Lucas an ironic look. “We’re five hundred feet underground, the chamber looks like it’s about to cave in, visibility sucks, and some creature from another planet is out there in the dark, waiting for its next meal.”

“Exactly,” Lucas said, his helmet light bobbing up and down.

“Tell you what—how about we take a quick look down that opening, see if there are any signs of the girl, and if not, we get the hell out of here and regroup with the others?”

Lucas looked at Nick and said. “Amen to that.”

They continued forward, picking their way across the chamber, and moved up to the fissure that had formed in the floor, stopping a safe distance from the edge.

The opening was a narrow, lightning bolt-shaped tear about five feet wide and twenty feet long. Nick inched up to the edge, leaned over, and probed the black void with his flashlight, but the beam was too feeble to reach its depths.

Nick played the light around the fissure, illuminating jagged walls and wet-looking fracture lines where new rock had been exposed while Lucas stood guard, his shotgun locked and loaded.

Nick knelt down, placed the flashlight next to him, and cupped his hands around his mouth, calling down into the void, “Molly! Molly! Can you hear me?”

Another puff of wind swirled through the tear, forcing Nick to cover his eyes to protect them from airborne grit.

When the draft stopped and all was quiet, Nick faced the void and again called to Molly, shouting her name at the top of his lungs.

They waited as the echoes from Nick’s voice died amongst cavern walls, hoping for a response, or some sign that the girl was still alive.

Nothing—just more silence and the ever-present darkness.

Lucas stepped up to Nick and glanced over his shoulder to make sure nothing was approaching.

A low moaning sound filtered out of the darkness. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of the chamber.

Lucas spun on his right foot, the barrel of the shotgun leveled at his side.

Nick jumped to his feet, his flashlight slicing through the darkness as both men tried to zero in on exactly where the sound was coming from.

“Molly? Molly? Is that you?” Nick shouted, calling through the blackness.

Silence. Then, after a short pause, the moaning started again.

Nick and Lucas exchanged shrugs. Then, moving as cautiously as possible, they moved in the direction of the sound, taking short, careful steps.

When they were halfway across the chamber, Nick held up a hand, signaling for Lucas to stop, and called Molly’s name again.

But the only response was more moaning.

“There,” Lucas said, pointing to a slide of salt and debris. “It’s coming from under that loose salt.”

Nick turned, cupped his ear, and after a moment, he heard the anguished cries coming from where Lucas was pointing.

“Cover me,” Nick said. He bolted forward, following the flashlight’s beam like it was a zip-line. He fell on the mound of salt and began feverishly digging with both hands, sweeping handfuls of dirt and salt around his body like he was paddling on a surfboard.

Lucas moved up behind Nick, shotgun held high, ready to blast away anything that wasn’t Molly.

Nick continued digging, his hands sending up lines of dust that mingled with his sweat and stung his eyes. A couple more sweeps of his hands, and his fingers struck something hard and smooth.

He shifted his body and exposed the dome of a yellow hardhat.

Working his fingers down beneath the edge of the hardhat, he pulled on the helmet, but it was stuck. Using both his hands, he gripped the helmet, yanked upwards, and the salt collapsed, sending Nick tumbling down in a pile of loose debris.

Right behind him, a DoE oil worker spilled out of the salt and tumbled toward Nick. The worker’s body was partially dissolved, his torso and legs reduced to rubber, his face a twisted mask.

Shit!

Before Nick had a chance to right himself, Lucas was suddenly next to him, firing the shotgun at the dimly lit lump of flesh. Pump. Fire. Pump. Fire. Pump. Fire. Lucas hammered the thing, showering it with buckshot, not taking any chances. The last shot cut the worker in half, spattering the salt with blood and bits of chewed up flesh.

“Lucas!” Nick yelled, jumping up and slamming the barrel of the shotgun up and away from what was left of the worker’s body. “It’s okay. It’s all clear.”

“Son of a bitch!” Lucas shouted, taking a step back, his face beaded with sweat. “Goddamn son of a bitch.”

Nick grabbed his flashlight, moved up to the oil worker who was now lying facedown, and flipped him over. The worker’s eyes opened. His lips moved like he was trying to speak. A second after that, his face collapsed into a fleshy puddle.

Then a horrible tearing sound filled their ears. They snapped around, straining to see through the dark. The last of the Blue Giants slipped its moorings and began to crumble and break apart.

Giant rocks and blocks of salt were flung into the air. Dust rose from the floor, swirling up like smoke, filling the chamber and turning the air thick and impenetrable.

“Come on,” Nick shouted. “Let’s get out while we can.”

“Way ahead of you,” Lucas yelled. Both of them bolted for the entrance, both men almost losing their footing as they clambered over boulders and scrabbled across loose rocks.

Behind them, through the building haze, two glowing eyes tracked them as they fought their way through the chamber. Just as they reached the entrance and were about to reach safety, a low, primal hissing filled their ears. Spine-chilling and alien, it sounded like the end of the world.

A second after that, Nick yelled, “Run!” And both of them shot out of the chamber.

Chapter 30

“Nick!” Kylie saw them first. She rushed across the Ballroom chamber as Nick and Lucas staggered in, both of their faces caked with dirt, both of them just glad to be alive. Without thinking, Kylie flung her arms around Nick.

Nick gave her a look, caught off-guard by the sudden show of affection, then hugged her back, lifting her off the ground. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay, that they’d find Molly, that she’d be fine. Nick lowered Kylie to the ground. They exchanged glances, both of them acknowledging the budding attraction.

Kylie turned to Lucas and touched his arm. “Are you okay?” She glanced at Nick. “Are both of you okay?”

“You boys look pretty rattled,” Emmett said as he and Ray joined the group.

“Here,” Kylie said, holding up two bottles of water.

Nick grabbed the bottles, handed one to Lucas, and took a long pull of his, emptying half the bottle.

“Yeah,” Nick said, then took another drink. “Yeah, we’re okay. I think.”

Lucas took a drink, wiped his mouth, and looked at Kylie and nodded in agreement.

Kylie gave Nick a direct look. “What about Molly?”

Nick pursed his lips and said, “No. Nothing.” Then he quickly added, “But that doesn’t mean she’s dead. We don’t know how deep that opening is, or if it leads to another section of the cavern.”

“We’ve got to go back, Nick. We’ve got ropes, right? One of us could go down that fissure. We might be able—”

“Kylie,” Nick said, touching her shoulder. “We can’t go back there. The chamber is breaking apart. It’s about to collapse.”

“And another thing,” Lucas said, emptying his bottle of water. “That thing—that creature—is still back there, still in that chamber.”

“How do you know?” Kylie said. “Did you see it?”

“More like heard it,” Lucas said, glancing at Nick. “It hissed at us. A creepy-ass sound that almost made me piss myself.”

A hissing sound. Kylie knew exactly what Lucas was talking about. She’d heard it, too. A horrible, ungodly sound that made her not only want to empty her bladder, but also burrow into the ground and disappear.

Kylie gave Lucas a knowing look and asked, “Why didn’t it go for you?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said, “I’ve been wondering about that, myself. Maybe it sensed the place was about to collapse.” He smiled at Kylie and in a joking tone added, “But don’t sound so disappointed.”

“I’m not disappointed. I’m just trying to figure this thing out. What it wants?”

“What it wants is probably the same thing that saved our asses,” Lucas said, panning his eyes around the group. “The half-digested body of a DoE worker, which we found buried in a slide. Fresh meat is what saved us. Had its next meal all ready to go.”

“MREs,” Emmett said.

“MR…what?” Ray asked, giving Emmett a confused look.

“MREs. ‘Meals Ready to Eat,’” Nick said. “It’s a military term for rations. It’s what they give troops in the field.”

Ray grimaced, thinking about the partially-digested oil worker. “Sorry I asked.”

Kylie rolled her eyes. “I could’ve done without that.”

“Hey, here’s an idea,” Ray said, looking around the group. “How about we police up the gear and get the hell out of here.”

“You know what—that’s a great idea,” Nick said. “Lucas, Emmett—get Kylie and Ray out of here. I’m going to take some charges and seal that thing in the chamber.”

“Can’t do it,” Lucas said, shaking his head. “Behind that chamber, the tunnel swings upward again. The cavern is riddled with vents and chimneys in that section. Most of them lead right to the surface. And some of them are big enough for a man to squeeze through.” Lucas looked down and scuffed the floor with the toe of his boot. “Besides, that little girl—”

“Molly,” Kate said. “Molly is back there.”

“Lucas is right,” Emmett said. “Trying to seal that chamber would be like pissing into a twister.”

Ray nodded and pointed at Emmett. “Yeah, what he said. Now, can we all agree to go and just get the hell out of here?”

“Hold up,” Emmett said, raising his hands. “I got an idea that just might tear the hell out of that thing.”

Chapter 31

Nick, Kylie, Lucas, and Ray stood in a circle shining their lights on Emmett, who’d just finished marking off a fifteen by fifteen section of floor located directly in front of the Ballroom’s lower exit—the one leading down to the Fortress of the Blue Giants and the creature below.

Emmett double-checked the area he’d just outlined and waved for the others to join him, beginning to explain exactly what he had in mind.

He pointed at his feet. “The floor here is about twenty feet thick. Below that, it opens into a vast chamber, a giant void a thousand feet straight down, big enough to hold a bunch of Houston skyscrapers.”

“You’re talking about the mine,” Lucas said, giving Emmett a direct look.

The chamber fell silent. Emmett glanced at Lucas and said, “Right.” Then he chuckled and added, “Although, technically, the government currently lays claim to it.”

Lucas gave a knowing nod. “Me and Willie were just working that section of the mine.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the fossil to prove it,” Nick said. He glanced at Kylie an added, “Correction—had the fossil.”

“Let’s just say when the government stepped in, we weren’t quite done with that section,” Emmett said, an impish grin spreading across his face.

“Damn government, huh?” Ray said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

Emmett gave Ray a direct look. “Don’t get me wrong, son, I love this country. The Claytons helped build it.”

The chamber fell into an awkward silence. Ray held up his hands and said in an apologetic tone, “Hey, I didn’t mean—”

“But what I don’t like,” Emmett said, cutting him off, “is when the blue suits fly in and start condemning my private property and spitting on the Constitution.

Ray started to say something, stopped, and then shrunk back into the group.

“Come on, Emmett,” Lucas said, impatient to hear the plan. “We all love the Constitution. Now what’s the plan?”

“The plan is this: we set two lines of explosives across the floor on either side of this exit, and then we wait. And when that critter comes for us, we light off the charges and blast it a thousand feet down to bedrock.”

No one spoke. A nervous silence settled over the group. Ray and Kylie exchanged anxious looks. Lucas screwed up his face and rubbed the back of his neck, thinking about what Emmett had just proposed.

Nick stepped forward and said, “Sounds great, except for one thing: how are you going to get it to run into the trap?”

“Easy peasy,” Emmett said, a matter-of-fact expression on his face. “Couple of you young bucks run back down to that chamber and roust it.”

“‘Roust it?’” Nick said after a long pause.

“Right,” Emmett said, grinning at Nick. He continued, “Now, here’s how we’re going to place the charges…”

* * * *

Ten minutes later, Nick and Lucas were back in the narrow passage that led to the Fortress of the Blue Giants, the beams from their helmet lamps sweeping back and forth as they made their way along the worn path. Both of them had oxygen bottles strapped to their backs that were connected to masks that hung from their sides.

Déjà vu all over again, Lucas thought to himself, remembering the humorous Yogi Berra quote and not feeling the least bit like a “young buck” as they twisted past a dogleg that emptied out ten yards in front of the chamber entrance.

As they approached the chamber, Nick asked, “How long have you worked for Emmett?”

“This month, it’ll be eighteen years that I’ve been working for that old coot.”

“So explain something to me: how is it that you’re still alive?”

“That’s a good one.” Lucas laughed as they stepped up to the chamber, stopping just short of the entrance.

Nick stood in front of the chamber, stared in, and said, “Okay, any brilliant ideas on how to hurrah that thing?”

Lucas brought up the shotgun and handed it to Nick. “You get its attention with a load of buckshot, get it to chase you, and then we haul ass back to the others.” Lucas reached into his pack and held up a stick of dynamite. Nick saw that the fuse had been clipped and was now only a couple of inches long. “I’ll be right in front of you, and if the creature comes on too fast, if it starts gaining on us, I’ll slow it down with this,” Lucas said, motioning to the stick of dynamite. Then he added, “If we’re lucky, it’ll chase us right up to the Ballroom and into the trap.”

“You and Emmett,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Both of you are crazy.”

Chapter 32

Back in the Ballroom, Emmett, Kylie, and Ray were moving as fast they could, busying themselves setting up the trap.

Working with Emmett, Kylie gathered up the dynamite fuses. As she bundled the wires together, she couldn’t stop thinking about Molly, hoping she was still alive, hoping she wasn’t hurt…or worse.

Emmett positioned the last of the dynamite, then straightened and surveyed his work, checking and rechecking the spacing of the charges. He hoped he’d guessed right and hadn’t spaced them too far apart so as not to dissipate the force of the blast.

He took a few steps back and massaged his left shoulder, studying the dynamite. Two neat rows, five sticks to a side. Yep, that should do it. But something wasn’t right; something was off. He moved to get another angle on the trap, and suddenly, he knew what it was.

The dynamite. The charges were exposed.

The sticks of dynamite were lying on the surface of the rock. There might not be enough force projected downward to punch a hole through the chamber floor. If they were back in the mine, he’d simply have drilled twin rows of holes and inserted the dynamite directly into the rock, practically guaranteeing the outcome.

Think. What would work in place of bore holes?

As he played the beam of his helmet lamp around the chamber, searching for some alternative, it suddenly hit him: the solution was right in front of his eyes.

Rocks.

That was it. They could gather rocks and cover the charges. That would concentrate the blast in a downward direction.

Emmett moved up to a rock. He clamped his hands around it, lifted it a few inches off the ground, and dropped it. He straightened, turned to Ray, and shouted, “Ray, come on! I need your help. We’ve got to cover the charges.”

“Why?” Ray asked as he helped Emmett lift the rock and schlep it over to the trap. They gingerly placed it over a stick of dynamite, careful not to damage the fuse. “What’s the point?”

Emmett double-checked the rock’s position, then looked at Ray and said, “So the force of the blast is projected downward and we blast a hole in the floor and not the ceiling.”

Ray thought about that and said, “Oh.”

While Ray and Emmett finished covering the charges, Kylie ran the bundled fuses back to a detonation box they had positioned across the chamber behind a rock outcropping.

Kylie braided the fuses together, placed the end of the wire next to the crank box, and as she stepped out behind the rock wall to join the others, two powerful beams of light danced in the chamber’s entrance.

Suddenly, she heard voices. Men’s voices. They got louder and louder, and a moment after that, Slade and Major Atwood entered, their powerful lights catching the surprised faces of Kylie, Emmett, and Ray.

Slade marched to the center of the chamber, flashing his light this way and that, his head on a swivel. “What’s going on here? Where’s the creature?”

“We’re setting a trap,” Ray said. Then he added, “Sir.”

“A trap?” Slade asked, looking at Ray. “For the creature?”

Ray nodded his head.

Slade and the major exchanged looks. Then Slade said, “Where’s Walker? And what about that group of students?”

“The students are safe. They’re on their way back to the campus,” Kylie said. “All except one, that is.”

Slade raised his light, shining the beam directly in Kylie’s face. “And you are?”

Kylie blinked and covered her eyes. “Kylie Sinclair. I’m their teacher.”

Lucky students, Slade thought, letting his eyes trace down her body. “And what about Walker?”

Ray jumped forward. “Nick and Lucas are the bait—for the trap. They’ve gone back to lure the creature up here.”

Major Atwood stepped up and said, “I have orders to clear this area.”

“Orders?” Emmett said, staring at Atwood’s crisp blue uniform. “Well, that’s fine, Captain, but like Ray just mentioned, we’ve got two men down there counting on us.”

“Major,” Atwood said, leveling his gaze at Emmett. “It’s ‘Major.’ And you are?”

“Emmett Clayton.”

Atwood gave a nod, stepped past Emmett, and moved to where the charges had been placed, studying one of the sticks of dynamite. He shone his light directly on it, seeing how it was poking out from beneath a pile of rocks. Atwood glanced from the dynamite to Emmett and asked, “Are you qualified to handle explosives, Mr. Clayton?”

Emmett was quiet. “Qualified?” he said after a long silence. “Well, I don’t got a degree in it, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve spent the better part of my life blasting salt out of this ground.”

Slade moved up, inserting himself between the major and Emmett. “Mr. Clayton owns and operates the Clayton Salt Mine, Major.” Slade motioned in the direction of the mine. “In fact, his property butts right up to this cavern.”

Chapter 33

“I wonder if that thing already ate?” Lucas said as he and Nick entered the Fortress of the Blue Giants, both of them coming to an abrupt halt just past the entrance.

The air was still freighted with silt and dust from the crumbling walls and toppled columns. The thick atmosphere diffused the beams of their flashlights and helmet lamps, making the pitch black seem even more menacing than it already was.

The chamber was still and quiet, and there was no sign of the creature.

Nick jabbed his flashlight at the dark, motioning to the place where they’d left the DoE worker. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

“Right,” Lucas said with zero conviction in his voice.

Nick took the lead, and with the beam of his flashlight ticking back and forth like a train’s headlight crawling through a low fog, they started into the chamber toward the slide—the place where they’d found the worker’s body—all the while keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of the creature.

Ten feet…twenty feet… Nick suddenly froze when his boot landed on a smooth object. A moment after that, the object collapsed to the floor with a loud crunching sound.

What the hell?

Nick yanked his foot back and lowered the beam of his flashlight, and there, lying on the chamber floor, shattered like a china vase, was the oil worker’s skull, the parietal bone dotted with puncture wounds. The perforations had been made by a set of razor- sharp teeth.

“Jesus Christ,” Nick shouted, reeling from the chilling sight.

The visibility was so poor that Lucas wasn’t able to see what Nick was talking about until he was practically on top of the crushed skull.

Lucas stared down in silence. “Lord,” he whispered after a short pause. “Picked clean.”

Nick took a deep breath, then exhaled, the slow, controlled stream of escaping air calming his nerves.

“Mystery solved,” Nick said. “Dinner has been served.”

Lucas nodded and began to laugh. “Reminds me of something that happened a long time ago.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Years ago, working on L.A.’s Metro—the underground—me and six other sandhogs were digging a drainage tunnel off the main cut, and we got a surprise. It was wet and dark, and we were about fifty feet off the main line, when we hit a column of bricks—red bricks. Looked like someone had taken a chimney and buried it a hundred and fifty feet underground. Well, we kept digging, busting down the bricks, and pretty soon, we realized it wasn’t a chimney. It was an old well that had been lined with bricks. And sitting on the bottom next to a bucket was a human skull, the hatchet used to kill the victim still lodged in the bone.”

“Jesus,” Nick murmured. It struck him how surreal it felt to be listening to one of Lucas’s old war stories while they were in a cave, five hundred feet below the surface, with an alien creature stalking them.

“We figured the guy was murdered somewhere else and then the body was chopped up and scattered around town. One of the guys on my crew—a Korean fellow, I think—was so freaked out by the sight of the skull, he never set foot in a tunnel again.”

“I feel the guy’s pain,” Nick said. “And thank you for that uplifting little story.”

Lucas laughed. “I thought that might cheer you up.”

Nick took a breath and immediately began to cough, the hazy air clogging his lungs. Another breath, and then he remembered something. He reached down, groped at his side, clamped his hand around the oxygen mask that was clipped to his belt. Christ, why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? Both of them were carrying oxygen.

Nick removed the mask from his belt, holding it up so Lucas could see it. The mask had rubber sides and a full facemask, just like the kind firemen used when entering smoke-filled structures.

“Why the hell are we breathing this crap when we have these?”

“Right,” Lucas said, already reaching for his mask.

They opened the valves on the oxygen bottles slung on their backs and adjusted the straps of their facemasks. Both men removed their helmets, slipped the masks over their faces, and took a breath. Their faceplates immediately fogged, the humidity in the cave causing condensation to form on the inside of the lenses.

Crap!

* * * *

Back in the Ballroom chamber, Slade hovered over the trap, a skeptical look on his face as he stared down at the dynamite covered by stacks of rocks. ‘Half-assed’ is the word he was thinking as he let his eyes trace along the bundle of fuses that ran across the floor.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Slade turned from the trap and approached the others. “What if the floor doesn’t collapse? What if the creature isn’t trapped? What if it doesn’t stop that thing?’

Emmett illuminated Slade with the beam of his flashlight. “Then I guess it’s assholes and elbows up to the top.”

Slade shook his head. “That’s your plan? Run?” He stepped up to Emmett. “No offense, Mr. Clayton, but it looks like your track and field days are long behind you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Fine. But what about the rest of us? There should be some sort of a backup, a Plan B.”

“Well, there’s always this.”

All heads swiveled to face Ray, who was standing next to a pile of gear holding up a couple of blocks of C-4.

“Whoa.” Emmett held up his hands. “Now, hold on there, son. No one said anything about plastic explosives. That C-4 is much more powerful than the charges I used to set the trap. It’s too risky. Not worth the chance.”

Atwood moved up to Slade, leaned in close, and said in a low voice, “We need to talk. Now.”

Atwood motioned for Slade to follow him. After they had moved a short distance away from the others he continued, “Colonel Kemp’s instructions were clear. We wait for him and his team to arrive.”

“I get it. I understand,” Slade said. “But when the colonel arrives and discovers that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is located next door, all bets are off.”

“That doesn’t change anything; that doesn’t change my orders.”

Slade didn’t speak. He stared at Atwood, thinking about what he could say to change the major’s mind, to make him understand, to make him see what an amazing opportunity this was. They didn’t have to destroy the creature.

“We can do better than New Mexico. We can do better than what happened at Rainier Mesa. We don’t have to repeat that. There’s a good chance we could trap this thing.”

Before the major had a chance to respond, Slade switched to his most persuasive and charming voice, adding, “Listen, Major, I understand you have orders, but what if Bubba’s half-baked trap doesn’t work?” He hooked a thumb in Emmett’s direction. “What if the creature escapes before the colonel gets here?”

“That can’t happen, not if—”

“It can happen,” Slade shot back, cutting him off. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Listen to me. Ray’s onto something. What if we were to take the C-4 and place the charges just outside this chamber in the tunnel that leads to the surface? That way, if the first trap fails, we can seal the exit and trap the creature down here.”

Atwood shook his head. But Slade could see that he had the major thinking.

“Hell, maybe we can even capture this thing. Think about it, Major. You’ll be famous. You’ll be a part of history. And your career…the sky’s the limit. This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Atwood didn’t speak. “No, I have my orders,” he said after a long pause. “When those men return, whether the trap works or not, I’m getting everyone out of this cavern.”

Slade blew out a frustrated breath and in a defiant tone said, “Until Colonel Kemp arrives, I’m in charge. This is NASA business. And whatever that thing is, it’s NASA property.”

* * * *

Once their masks were cleared and working properly, Nick and Lucas moved farther into the chamber. The effectiveness of the helmet lamps and flashlight beams were halved by the thick atmosphere.

As they moved through the darkness, every few seconds a rock would break loose from the ceiling or cave wall and drop to the floor with a sharp crack, echoing through the chamber like small arms fire.

Nick drew in a lungful of fresh oxygen and said, “I don’t think this is the sort of thing you roust.”

“Right.” Lucas’s helmet bobbed up and down as he nodded in agreement. “Maybe the thing skedaddled. Maybe it moved to a lower chamber.”

“Maybe we should whistle, see if that gets its attention. How’s your whistling?”

Lucas tapped his faceplate. “Through this—not so good.”

Nick was about to suggest they try clapping, when a burst of static erupted from the radio clipped to his belt.

Both of them jumped, startled by the sound. Then a second static crash filled the chamber followed by the sound of someone keying the mike on the other end, and then Ray’s voice boomed out of the radio.

“Nick. Hey, Nick. It’s Ray. Any sign of the creature?”

Suddenly, the chamber was filled with the sound of footsteps. Horrible, pounding footsteps. They echoed through the darkness, making it impossible for Nick and Lucas to pinpoint its source.

“Oh shit!” Lucas shouted.

A moment after that, the creature shot out of the pitch black. It was right on top of them.

“Jesus,” Nick yelled, falling back, the creature’s scaly plates caught in the beam of his helmet lamp.

Lucas fought to level the shotgun. He fired. The grotesque face of the creature was illuminated by the muzzle flash, its lizard mouth flaring in the blast.

The shot went wild, striking the ceiling directly above them.

The creature lunged forward. Viscous saliva streamed from the corners of its mouth as a powerful clawed hand shot out, reaching for Nick.

A cascade of rocks, salt, and dirt rained down from where Lucas’s shot had hit.

There was a loud groaning sound, and the roof of the cave above the creature collapsed, burying the alien beneath a mound of debris, giving Nick and Lucas the chance they needed to scrabble free and run for the exit.

Behind them, the creature rose up, freeing itself from the rubble. It spun around and lunged after them, moving through the blackness at a terrible speed.

Chapter 34

In the tunnel just outside the Ballroom chamber, Slade held a flashlight for Emmett as he inserted the last of the detonators in two blocks of demolition-grade C-4.

After he was sure the charges were correctly wired, Emmett snugged them into a canvas bag and then wedged the explosives into a crack in the tunnel wall.

Then he reached into a pack slung on his shoulder and removed a remote detonation device. He checked to see that it was charged and working, flipped open a cover exposing a trigger button, and flipped the protective cover guard back over the button. As he went to return the remote to his pack, Slade reached out and grabbed it from Emmett’s hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” Emmett said, caught off-guard by Slade’s grab for the remote.

Ignoring Emmett, Slade studied the remote, turning it over in his hand, opening and closing the guard that covered the trigger.

“It’s my call on the C-4,” he said. “I decide if and when we set off the charges.”

“Okay, take it easy,” Emmett said, his eyes glued to the remote. “Be very careful with that.”

“Ya think?” Slade scoffed, then dropped the remote into his jacket pocket.

“Yes, I do.” Emmett pointed to the explosives. “And do me a favor—before you send up that C-4, make damn sure we’re all the hell out of here.”

Slade patted the pocket containing the remote. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Clayton.”

A few feet away inside the chamber, Ray almost jumped out of his skin when the radio on his side buzzed and popped, then exploded with Nick’s shouting voice.

“Set the trap! Set the trap!” Right after that, the sound of pounding footsteps echoed from out of the speaker.

Then Nick was yelling again, “It’s coming…the creature is coming!”

Ray ripped the radio off his belt, keyed the mike, and said, “Roger that. Roger that.”

Emmett bolted into the chamber with Slade in tow and shouted, “Everyone—back to the crank box!”

Slade broke away from Emmett and was the first to arrive behind the safety of the rock wall, letting his eyes fall on the crank box. Slade wanted to capture this thing, not destroy it.

A moment later, he was joined by Kylie, Ray, Major Atwood, and Emmett. Emmett was the last to arrive and stopped short of the rock wall, remaining just outside the blind.

“I’m staying out here.” He pointed to a bolder. “I’ll be behind that rock. That will give me a visual on the trap. Ray—when I yell, you crank the handle on the detonation box, just like I showed you.”

Ray dropped to the crank box, flashed a thumbs-up, and said, “I’m on it.”

“Okay, here we go.” Emmett moved to the boulder and lowered himself behind it, leaving his head exposed so he had a clear view of the trap which was lit by flashlights pointing at the exit.

The chamber fell silent. There was a long, anxious moment. Then, there was a sound of pounding footsteps, and Nick and Lucas shot into the Ballroom, oxygen masks yanked around their necks. With fierce expressions cemented on their faces, they sprinted across the trap like it was a bed of hot coals.

Right behind them, hot on their heels, the creature rushed into the chamber. It entered the edge of the trap and stopped. It lowered its head in a defensive position and then scanned the room, letting its eyes adjust to the light.

The first thing that went through Emmett’s mind as he stared at the creature standing in the cave’s opening was, The thing is fucking huge. And then he thought, And fucking scary!

The creature started to advance. Emmett snapped out of it and yelled, “Now!” just as Nick and Lucas dove to the ground.

The creature continued forward, and as it crossed the center of the trap, Ray turned the handle on the detonation box, cranking it around with such force that his wrist made a loud popping sound.

A split second later, the dynamite exploded. The chamber was filled with a concussive boom. A fountain of debris shot up from the cave floor. Rocks and chunks of salt crisscrossed through the air and hammered the chamber walls like mortar rounds.

Nick and Lucas rolled to a sitting position and saw through the smoke and dust that the creature was still there.

The trap hadn’t worked.

The floor beneath the alien’s feet hadn’t collapsed; it had only fractured into web of narrow cracks.

Momentarily staggered, the creature rose from the floor shedding rocks and debris. It regained its footing and immediately scanned the chamber, its crimson eyes locating and calculating the distance to its prey.

Emmett swore to himself and emerged from behind the boulder, all the while keeping his eyes locked on the creature. Just as he was about to yell to Nick and Lucas to get back with the others, a ghostly figure appeared out of the swirling dust.

Slade.

He stood in the middle of the chamber, staring at the creature, mesmerized by the sight of it, the remote detonator held in his hand.

He flipped open the cover exposing the trigger, raised the remote, and his thumb settled on the button.

Emmett shouted, “No!” at the top of his lungs.

But Slade’s finger was already pressing down, and a second later, the C-4 went up.

Twenty feet outside the Ballroom chamber, there was a massive explosion in the passage leading to the surface. The entire cavern shook. Three hundred feet of tunnel collapsed. A shockwave rolled through the entrance and swept through the Ballroom chamber. It was like a bomb had been dropped on them.

Kylie, Ray, and Major Atwood were thrown to the floor, their ears ringing like church bells. They all scuttled backward as the wall they had taken cover behind began to crumble.

Emmett had been knocked off his feet and tossed ten feet through the air, and was now lying facedown beneath a slide of rocks.

A short distance from Emmett, Slade rose to his knees and blinked, washing the dust from his eyes.

Farther in the chamber, Nick and Lucas coughed, trying to clear the dust from their lungs and were exchanging confused looks.

Then something caught their attention. The creature. It began to move. It took a step toward them. It was about to come for them.

Shit.

Nick spotted a stick of dynamite that had rolled free of Lucas’s pack. He scrambled over, grabbed it, turned to Lucas, and said, “You distract it with the shotgun.” He held up the dynamite. “And I’ll hit it with this.”

Lucas gave a nod and pumped four shells into the chamber of the shotgun. He reached into a pocket, held up a butane lighter, motioned to Nick, and lit the fuse.

They rushed the creature, running at it side by side and yelling at the top of their lungs. Lucas leveled the Remington pump at his waist and began firing until the shotgun was empty. Nick ran ahead a few feet, planted a foot, and hurled the dynamite.

They watched as it cartwheeled through the air, its fuse spraying sparks like a Roman candle. The dynamite bounced into the trap, stopping just short of the creature, and a moment after that, it exploded with a loud boom.

The ground beneath the creature began to shift and tilt. A frozen moment, and then a huge section of the chamber floor broke free from the surrounding walls and disappeared.

Through the smoke and chaos, they watched as the creature seemed to hover above the opening, and then, as if it had been standing on an invisible trapdoor, it disappeared. With limbs flailing, it fell, twisting and turning into the inky blackness of the void.

Chapter 35

Amid the swirling smoke, Nick spit out a mouthful of grit, glancing at Lucas, who had his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Nick said, “Well, that did it.”

Lucas straightened, shook his head, and then laughed. “Guess the trap was light just one stick of dynamite.”

Both of them stared at the hole in the middle of the chamber, amazed by the size of it. A full one third of the floor had disappeared. There was a sudden breeze, and they felt it on their faces. It swirled up, mixing dust with smoke as the pressure differential between the Ballroom chamber and the newly exposed void equalized.

“Come on,” Nick said with a wave of his arm. “Let’s check on the others.”

Nick and Lucas picked their way across the chamber arriving back at the group just in time to see Emmett rise like a phoenix from beneath a pile of rocks, dust himself off, and straighten his helmet. He then marched over to Slade and, without warning, shoved him, sending Slade sailing backwards onto his ass.

“You son of a bitch. You stupid son of a bitch.” Emmett said, staring down at Slade, who was looking up at Emmett in wide-eyed shock. “You could’ve killed us! You could’ve killed us all.”

“The trap,” Slade said, holding up his hands and cowering behind them, expecting Emmett to take a swing at him any minute. “It didn’t work. I didn’t think it was going to work, so—”

“Right,” Emmett said, cutting him off. “Now the only thing that’s trapped is us!”

“What the fuck, Slade?” Nick said, staring down at him. “What the hell?”

“Major Atwood,” Slade stammered. “Major Atwood was in complete concurrence.”

The major stepped forward. “That’s a lie,” he said, looking at Slade. “I was against it. I advised Director Slade not to set the additional charges. I told him to wait for Colonel Kemp and his team to arrive, and I told him that we should get everyone out of the cavern as soon as possible. But the director ignored me. Claimed he was in charge, that this was NASA business, and something about this being ‘the opportunity of a lifetime.’” Atwood turned from Slade to the group. “Director Slade was on a trophy hunt. He deliberately ignored everyone’s safety in an attempt to capture the creature.”

“That’s not true,” Slade pleaded. “When I saw that the trap hadn’t worked, I didn’t want to take a chance on the thing escaping, so I set off the C-4 charges and sealed the passage.”

“What? Wait a minute,” Ray said, a sick feeling rising in his stomach. “We’re trapped? Down here?”

* * * *

After tempers had cooled, they regrouped, huddling around their gear, taking inventory of what they had. All of them were rattled, and all of them were thinking about being trapped five hundred feet underground with that creature.

The chamber was mostly clear now, the dust having been vacuumed through the missing section of floor, but the acrid smell of high explosives hung heavily in the air and clung to bits of shattered rock.

Kylie mopped the back of her neck with a handkerchief, took a sip of water, and moved to the center of the group.

“What if we dig?” she said, motioning to the collapsed tunnel. “Maybe we could open a narrow passage through the tunnel.”

Emmett shook his head. “Not going to happen,” he said. “When that C-4 went up, it sounded like the passage collapsed clear up to the surface.”

Slade removed the cigarette he’d been chewing on and said, “We don’t need to dig. There’s a team on the way, remember? All we have to do is stay calm and wait for help to arrive.”

“A team?” Nick scoffed, shaking his head at Slade. “I think that falls into the ‘moot-fucking-point’ category. Unless, of course, it’s a team of giant fucking gophers.”

“Hold up,” Lucas said, trying to bring things down a notch. “Emmett’s right—there’s no way we can dig our way out of here; we’d need heavy equipment to clear that tunnel.” Lucas pointed the beam of his flashlight at the far exit and then lowered it, letting the light dance around the void in the chamber floor. “But one of the things I learned after twenty years of working underground is that if you can’t go up, try going down.” He glanced from the void to the group and added, “The only way out is down, through that hole.”

“Rope,” Ray said. “We’ve got about a mile of rope.”

Lucas nodded. “Right,” he said, turning to Emmett. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but by my calculations, that hole in the floor should lead right to the Clayton Mine.”

“No question about it,” Emmett said with a nod. “And if my memory serves, about halfway down, there should be an—”

“Access shaft,” Lucas said. “In fact, me and Willie used that shaft about a week ago while we were working that section of the mine. It’s the fastest way up and out to the mine entrance. There’s an old lift that runs from the shaft opening down to the floor.”

“We could use this.” Nick had moved to the edge of the hole and was holding a twisted section of inch-thick cable that was anchored to the wall, its braided wire strands partially frayed. A loop had been formed in the end of the cable and was held tight with a bolted clamp. The cable was a relic dating back to when the cavern had first been discovered. It had been installed as a primitive handrail to assist early explorers on their way to the cave’s lower chambers.

“We could anchor a turning block to the end of the cable, join the sections of climbing rope together, and, if we’re lucky, get down to the access shaft, or even the bottom of the mine if we have to.”

Suddenly, the chamber was filled with laughter.

Slade’s laughter.

He was staring at Nick, shaking his head, and laughing with contempt at the suggestion. “Some plan,” he said, all eyes on him. “We’ll hook ourselves to that line like sardines. If that thing’s still alive, we’ll be lowering ourselves right into its waiting mouth.”

Lucas took a step toward Slade and said, “Yeah, and guess who’s first chum bait.”

Kylie put a hand on Lucas’s arm, trying to calm him. But the truth was, she felt the same way. If anyone deserved to be first down the rope, it was Slade.

Chapter 36

A half hour later, a turning block had been rigged at the end of the cable.

They had taken a pulley and fastened it to the looped end of the cable, then draped the cable over a boulder so the pulley hung out over the hole in the floor.

Coiled next to the cable, close to a thousand feet of climbing rope had been joined together and the knots covered with duct tape to allow the rope to pass through the pulley without jamming in the block.

“Come on, take that thing off,” Lucas said, watching Nick as he stepped into a climbing harness.

Nick adjusted the waistband and glanced up at Lucas. “Forget it,” he said. “I’ve got to do this.”

Seeing that he wasn’t going to be put off, Lucas threaded the end of the rope through a locking rappelling device, leaving a tail of thirty feet that would hang below Nick giving him the option of adjusting his position on the line. Once the line was threaded, he clipped the device to an oval-shaped carabineer and handed it to Nick.

“Clip the rappelling device to—”

Nick was way ahead of him, and before Lucas could finish his instructions, he fastened the rappelling device to the nylon belay loop at the center of the harness.

“I did a little climbing when I was in college,” Nick said, flashing a smile and double-checking that the line was securely fastened to the harness.

“Climbing is one thing. Vertical drops underground in pitch black are another.” Lucas gathered a few coils of rope and dropped them at Nick’s feet, giving him enough play in the line to move to the edge of the hole. “Take your time. Slow and easy movements. Use your light.”

Nick gave Lucas a nod, and as he fastened the chinstrap on his helmet, Major Atwood approached.

“You don’t have to do this, Mr. Walker,” the major said, stepping up to Nick. “Colonel Kemp’s men are good. They’ll find a way to get to us.”

Nick stared at Atwood and said, “I’m sure you’re right, Major. But even if they are able to figure out where we’re trapped, how long will it be before they can dig us out?”

“I can’t answer that. But the colonel has a lot of pull. And considering what’s at stake, he’ll probably have access to all the resources he needs—equipment as well as personnel.”

“Listen, Major, I appreciate what you’re saying, but we’ve got to do something now. With that creature down there, we can’t wait.” Nick gathered some slack in the rope and then added, “Tell you what—if this doesn’t work, if we can’t find a way out, we’ll wait for the colonel’s team.”

Major Atwood stared at Nick. “Deal,” he said at last. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Hold you to what?” Kylie asked as she joined the men.

“I’ve just agreed to the major’s request. If our attempt to find a way out fails, we’ll wait for the colonel’s team to arrive.”

“Oh,” Kylie said and held up the two-way radio she’d gotten from Ray. “Lucas suggested we do a radio check, just to be sure.”

Nick nodded, retrieving the radio that was tethered to his side. While he and Kylie did a radio check, Emmett and Lucas readied the rope, pulling it back from the turning block and threading it through a carabineer brake that would allow them to safely pay out the rope.

Off to one side, remaining aloof from the activity, Slade sat slumped against a rock, watching the others and offering little more than the occasional headshake.

* * * *

Suspended from the rope, Nick dangled in the void’s black maw, his helmet lamp illuminating the opening’s jagged lip as a flow of air sent him twisting in a slow motion circle.

“All clear,” he said, flashing a thumbs-up. “Lower away.”

Stationed at the other end of the rope, Emmett eased his grip on the nylon line, letting the rope run through the carabineer brake, across the pulley, and into the open darkness of the hole.

Lucas hovered close by, ready to lend a hand in case something went wrong and Nick suddenly needed to be pulled up.

Nick felt the line jerk, and as he began to descend into the opening, the term ‘chum bait’ wriggled through his mind.

Kylie moved up to the edge of the opening, holding on to the boulder the cable had been draped across. As she watched the rope run out, she thought about Nick dangling on the line and suddenly felt queasy. Lucas had assured her that the climbing rope was strong enough to hold ten men Nick’s size, but she couldn’t stop herself from worrying. What if one of the knots holding the sections of lines failed? Or what if Nick slipped and fell, or worse, found the creature?

As Kylie watched the first tape-covered knot pass smoothly through the pulley, she grabbed the radio, keyed the mike, and said, “Just passing two hundred feet, over.”

Two hundred feet below, Nick retrieved the radio from his side, raised it to his mouth, and said, “Roger…roger that.”

He released the radio, letting it dangle at his side, and as he passed two hundred and twenty feet, the heels of his boots struck something solid.

The next thing he knew, he was jerked completely around, and a second after that, he was blinded by his helmet lamp as he came face to face with the polished rock wall.

Jesus.

He scooped up the radio and shouted, “Stop! Stop! Hold the line!”

A moment later, the rope lurched to a stop.

He reached out, placed a hand on the wall, and just as he was about to report that the opening had narrowed, he was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of screeching, flapping wings.

Bats.

Hundreds of them. They seemed to be everywhere. Pouring out of a jagged opening in the cliff wall directly in front of his face.

Nick yelled, “Son of a bitch!” and began frantically waving a hand, trying to sweep the swarming bats away.

But they just kept coming and coming. Horrible, beady-eyed faces choking and smothering him.

Then he did the only thing he could think to do: he jerked his knees up, planted his boots on the wall, and mule kicked as hard as he could.

The next thing he knew, he was sweeping through the open blackness, a human pendulum trailing a stream of crazed bats, their flapping wings animated by the beam of his helmet lamp.

Up top, Kylie and the others watched as the rope swept out at a sharp angle.

What the hell was going on?

Kylie keyed the radio and said, “Nick? Nick, what’s going on? Are you all right? Do you want to come up?”

At the same time, three hundred feet below, Nick arced around and slammed into the far wall, the side of his helmet making a sharp crack as it glanced off a section of limestone.

For a frozen moment, he seemed to be hanging in space. He felt a line of sweat trace down his spine, and just as he was about to fall back into the void, he thrust an arm out and the scrabbling fingers of his right hand dropped into a crack, locking in to the wall. His body was yanked outward. He twisted sideways and suddenly found himself drawn and quartered between his outstretched arm and the rope attached to his harness.

Holding his breath, the tips of his fingers going numb, he pulled himself toward the rock. As he was about to latch onto it with his other hand, his fingers slipped, and he was suddenly slicing through the empty blackness again.

He snapped his head up, leveling the beam of his helmet light, expecting to connect with another rock wall, but instead, at the end of the arcing swing, he found himself swinging back through the void.

For what seemed like an eternity, he clocked back and forth in the black pit until he finally ran out of momentum and was left hanging like a plumb line, his body doing little pirouettes in the open space.

Okay, that was interesting, he thought to himself. And hey, at least the bats were gone. And then Kylie’s voice was on the radio.

“Nick, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Nick fished up his radio, and he watched the beam of his helmet light sweep through the darkness as he said, “I’m okay. I’m fine. I just passed a narrow section of the opening…and made some new friends.”

Kylie said, “What?” her voice filled with confusion.

“Bats. I found bats.”

Then he heard Ray’s horror-filled voice filter out of the background. “Bats? Did he say bats?”

“I’m okay,” Nick said, adjusting his helmet. “But for the record, I’m with Ray. I hate bats.”

There was another pause, then a shuffling sound, and then he heard Lucas’s voice. “Nick, any sign of the access shaft?”

Nick stared into the blackness as he turned in a slow circle. “Negative. Nothing, no sign of the shaft.” Then he added, “It’s black as hell down here.”

“Roger that.” Then Lucas asked, “Do you want to come back up?”

“Negative. I’m fine.” Yeah, right. Nick reached up and felt something wet near his temple. He held his finger up to the light and saw that the tip was covered with blood. Great, guess more than my helmet hit the wall. He checked the cut again and was relieved to find that it was just superficial. Head wounds like to bleed.

“How far down am I?”

“Almost four hundred feet,” Lucas said.

“Roger that. Let’s keep going.”

Nick reached up and gripped the rope above his head for added support. He felt the line begin to move, and he was descending again.

As he dropped silently through the open darkness, he felt like a diver, drifting to the bottom of some deep ocean trench. At that moment, he wouldn’t have been shocked to see a school of fish swim by.

Twisting in a slow spiral, he continued down, and down, and down. Twenty feet…forty feet…sixty feet…

He heard something.

A voice.

A girl’s voice.

Four hundred and eighty feet below the Ballroom chamber, he heard it again. A moaning sound. Incredible, he thought. She’s alive. The girl somehow managed to survive the fall.

Nick fumbled for the radio, grabbed it, keyed the mike, and shouted, “Hold up! Hold the line!”

A second later, the line jerked and Nick bounced to a stop.

Nick quieted himself, holding his body as still as possible and listening, strained to locate exactly where the sound was coming from.

Then he heard Kylie’s voice. “Nick, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Hang on.”

A frozen silence as Nick completed a turn on the rope, and then he heard it again. A soft crying sound. Molly.

Still unable to precisely determine her position, Nick cupped his hands around his mouth and called into the dark, “Molly? Molly, can you hear me?”

The void was silent. After a long a pause, the crying started again.

“Molly, honey, if you can hear my voice, say yes.”

Nothing—more silence. Nick shifted his position on the rope. A carabineer on the harness made a clinking sound. He froze when he heard a tiny voice filter out of the darkness and say, “Yes.”

“Great!” Nick replied. “I can hear you, Molly.”

Nick reached down to a pocket, fumbled with the zipper, and pulled out a survival knife.

“Molly, listen to me, sweetheart. I want you to tap on the wall next to you. Find a rock, or maybe you have something in your pocket.” Nick brought the knife up and began tapping the handle on the side of his helmet, making a loud clicking sound.

Tap, tap, tap…

“Can you do that for me, honey? Can you find something and make a tapping sound?”

There was a long silence, and then he heard a dull tapping sound echoing out of the dark, just to the right of his position.

Tap, tap, tap.

Across the void from Nick, wedged in the fissure, Molly struck a rock against the wall.

Tap, tap, tap.

Nick scissor kicked, rotating himself a few degrees to the right until he was facing the sound. He pointed his helmet lamp, following the beam with his eyes to what looked like a V-shaped opening in the wall forty feet directly in front of him.

At the bottom of the opening, protruding from its base, was a rock shelf that looked big enough for him to stand on.

Nick kicked again, adjusting his position. “Molly, honey, I think I found you. Keep tapping, honey. I’m going to try and get to you.”

Nick waited. Just when he thought she’d given up, he heard it again, slow and steady. Tap, tap, tap…

Good girl!

Twenty feet below the ledge, jutting from the opening, the creature dangled by one hand, its razor claws sunken into the wall like pitons, its free arm rising and falling as it hammered a rock against the wall.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

Chapter 37

Kylie was clutching the radio and jumping up and down, unable to contain her excitement at what she’d just heard.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Nick, are you sure? Are you sure it’s her? Are you sure you found her?” Without waiting for him to reply, she said, “Nick, you have to get her, you have to get her out of there.”

With the exception of Emmett, who remained on the line, anchoring it by coiling the rope around his waist, the rest of the group crowded around Kylie, all of them anxious to hear the news about Molly.

Below, Nick gripped the rope, looked up at the light filtering down from the Ballroom, and as he slowly compassed around the void, he said, “Roger that. I’m not going anywhere without the girl.” He lowered his head, illuminating the opening in the wall, trying to judge the distance. “But I’m going to need some help.”

He studied the gap between himself and the rock shelf, and after a couple of quick calculations, he continued, “I’m too high up to reach the girl. I’ll need to be lowered ten feet. And then I want you to swing the line so I can reach the wall. My best guess is that I’m about forty feet away from the opening. From your position facing the hole, swing the line left to right.”

Nick waited for a response and then he said, “Do you copy?”

Back in the Ballroom, Lucas stepped up to Kylie and motioned for the radio, then held it up to his mouth and said, “We copy. Hang on, Nick. Give us a minute and we’ll get you over to the girl.”

* * * *

Five minutes later, Nick was swinging through the void, each pass bringing him closer and closer to the opening in the wall.

Lucas had attached a spring line to the rope, working it as far down as possible, giving him the leverage he needed to get Nick swinging on the line.

On his sixth pass, Nick was just able to get the toes of his boots on the rock shelf below the opening, but he was already swinging back through the open darkness before he had a chance to secure himself.

He swung back toward the wall and the opening loomed once more. His boots dropped onto the ledge, he thrust an arm out, and he locked his fingers onto the lip of the opening, pulling himself forward and righting himself on the shelf, his heart jackhammering in his chest all the while.

Jesus, it worked. He gulped a lungful of air, fished up the radio and yelled, “Hold up! Hold the rope!” After a couple more breaths, he said, “I’m there. I’m at the opening.”

As his heart slowed, he heard Lucas say, “Roger that. Standing by.”

Nick stepped sideways and positioned himself directly in front of the opening, then leaned forward and flooded the fissure with his helmet lamp.

The opening was about ten feet high and no wider than his shoulders, but it looked big enough for him to squeeze into.

Nick grabbed for the radio and was about to call for more slack in the rope when he suddenly remembered the rappelling device on his harness. He double-checked his footing, reached down, and eased the rope, giving him enough play to enter the fissure.

With the tail of the rope dangling over the shelf, he rotated his body sideways and slipped into the opening. Poking his head forward, he saw that the fissure went back five feet and then the ceiling plunged and the opening doglegged, blocking his view.

The girl has to be in here, Nick thought. Maybe she was stuck, wedged out of sight and unable to move. But there was no way he was going to be able to squeeze past that turn in back. Shit.

He slid forward as far as possible, pointed his helmet light at the rear of the fissure, and called out to Molly.

“Molly, can you hear me?”

He waited. Nothing—just silence. He called her name again, “Molly…Molly, listen honey, you’ve got to come to me. I can’t get to you. The opening is too narrow.”

There was no response – and then he heard a moaning sound that turned to sobs. A moment after that, a girl’s face appeared at the rear of the opening, her cheeks streaked with dirt and grime.

Molly.

Nick reached forward, extending his arms as far as possible and calling to her. “Molly, give me your hands. Just take my hands. I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise. Come on, I’m going to take you back to Miss Sinclair.”

When she didn’t make a move toward him, he said, “Are you hurt? Can you move?” But she didn’t have to say anything; Nick could see it in her eyes. Fear.

Molly stared at him, and after a long moment, she began to shake her head. She was afraid to come out.

Nick inched forward and said, “Molly, give me your hands. I won’t let you fall.”

Tears welled up in Molly’s eyes and streaked down her dirt-caked cheeks. Ever so slowly, she inched forward, and then two arms reached up, and she was in Nick’s arms, clinging onto his neck for all she was worth.

“I’ve got you,” Nick said, giving her a hug. “You’re safe now.”

Nick pulled her up and shuffled backwards until they were in a sitting position. With Molly’s face buried in his chest, he asked her, “Are you hurt anywhere?” He glanced down and saw some cuts and scrapes on her legs. “How about your legs, honey? Are your legs okay? Can you stand?”

Molly raised her head and looked at Nick, but didn’t respond right away. “I’m okay,” she said. Then she added, “I think.”

Nick smiled and gave her a hug. He grabbed the radio, and in a calm voice he said, “I’ve got the girl. I’ve got Molly.”

Kylie’s voice burst out of the radio. “Thank God! Nick, is she okay? Is Molly hurt?”

“She’s okay. She has a few cuts and scrapes, but amazingly, that’s all.”

“Molly, honey, I know you’re there with Mr. Walker. Just do what he says. He’s going to get you out of there.”

Five minutes later, Nick and Molly were perched on the rock shelf, ready to be hoisted up. Nick took the end of a nylon strap that he had wrapped around Molly’s waist, and as he clipped it to the belay strap on his harness, Molly pointed down, to beneath the rock ledge, and tried to pull away.

“It’s okay,” Nick said, trying to reassure her. “I won’t let you fall, I promise.” He tugged on the nylon strap. “See?”

Before Molly had a chance to protest, Nick raised the radio to his mouth and said, “Okay, bring us up in five. Swinging out now.”

Nick bent, wrapped Molly in his arms, and said, “Okay, hang on, honey, we’re going to swing out into the opening, and when we stop, they’re going to hoist us up.”

Molly squirmed and shook her head, trying to break free, trying to stop Nick from leaving the safety of the fissure.

Ignoring her, Nick tightened his grip, and as he stepped off the shelf he said, “Hold on.”

They dropped off the shelf and the rope swung out, but instead of sweeping into the void, the line was jerked tight, and Nick and Molly spun in a violent one-eighty.

What the hell?

Thinking the line was hung up on something, Nick snapped his head down, letting his eyes trace along the line, and there, right below the shelf, clutching the end of the rope, was the creature, its alien eyes fixed on them.

The creature twisted its spatula-shaped head, sizing up its next meal. Saliva welled in its mouth and streamed between its razor-sharp teeth.

Oh shit.

Molly screamed and began to climb, clawing her way up Nick’s chest and over his face to the rope above.

“Molly!” Nick shouted, hauling her back down. “No!” He clamped an arm around her, holding her tight, and then using his free hand in concert with his legs, he began to pull and bounce the rope, trying to break the creature’s grip.

When it was obvious that wasn’t going to work, Nick grabbed the radio and keyed the mike, but just as he was about to call up top and tell them to pull them up now, the creature released its grip on the wall, and the three of them went sweeping into the inky void.

* * * *

In the Ballroom, Emmett felt the line jump in his hands. He snapped his head down and saw the rope begin to stretch.

A second after that, there was a loud bang, and the pulley at the end of the cable exploded, sending metal parts flying through the air like shrapnel from a roadside bomb.

“Get back!” Lucas yelled. “Get back from the rope!”

As everyone scrambled to get clear, they heard a loud grunting sound.

Emmett.

He grunted again. The pain was unbearable. What the hell was going on? Then he saw the carabineer brake fail and felt the coils around his waist constrict. Emmett thought he was about to be cut in two, and then, without warning, he was yanked off of his feet, sliding across the chamber’s floor toward the opening.

“Emmett!” Lucas shouted. Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on down there?

Pumping his legs as hard has he could, Lucas sprinted forward, and just before he reached Emmett, he launched himself horizontally. He hit the ground, skidded on his chest, and as Emmett skidded past, he dropped his arms across Emmett’s legs and clamped onto his ankles.

Now both of them were being dragged toward the opening.

“Help! Help us!” Lucas yelled, fighting to hang on to Emmett.

Ray and Major Atwood were already on their way when Lucas yelled, and as they skidded across the floor, Ray and the major dropped across Lucas’s legs and dug their boots in, trying to stop the rope.

By the time Kylie and Slade arrived to help, it was all over. Emmett’s body had slammed into the boulder that supported the cable and then had been wedged beneath it.

The coils around Emmett’s waist were yanked up, crisscrossing his chest, and then there was the horrible sound of snapping bones as his ribcage collapsed.

Emmett’s eyes went wide with shock. He stared up at Lucas and whispered, “Oh Lord,” as blood filled his mouth and spilled across his chin. A second after that, his eyes closed, and he was dead.

“No!” Lucas shouted. “Emmett, no. God, no…”

“Do something!” Slade demanded. But there was nothing to be done.

Chapter 38

Molly screamed. Her hands were ripped from the line as it jolted to a halt stopped by Emmett’s body, both of them left hanging at crazy angles, Nick’s harness the only thing keeping them from plunging to their deaths.

“Help me!” Molly screamed as she hung upside down below Nick.

With his head swimming and the world tilting, Nick gripped the belay loop. He rolled his body up, got a hand on the rope, and then with his free hand he pulled Molly up, clutching her tightly to his chest.

“Don’t look down,” he said, cradling her in the crook of his arm. “Listen to me. Here’s what I want you to do: I’m going to push you up, and I want you to climb the rope until you’re just above my head. And then I want you to hold on using your hands and legs.” Nick pushed a wedge of hair out of her face. “Can you do that for me, honey?”

After a short pause, Molly sniffed and nodded her head.

“Good girl.” Nick moved the carabineer at the end of Molly’s safety line from the belay loop to the rope so she’d be able to climb up.

Then they both felt it. The rope. It began to move. No, bounce.

Nick looked down. The alien beast was moving. It was coming up the rope! It hissed as it rose on the line, pulling itself up with its powerful arms.

“Molly, climb now!” Nick thrust her up, pushing her with a hand, wincing as she kicked off of his shoulders.

She scrambled up the rope until she was hanging just a few inches above Nick’s head. Gripping the line with her hands and clamping it with her legs, she held on with all her might, giving Nick the chance he needed to deal with the advancing creature.

Nick looked down. The creature was still coming, its eyes glowing like burning coals as it hauled itself up, hand over hand.

Nick reached down to a pocket, looking for his knife, then realized the pocket was closed. Zipped tight. He fumbled with the zipper, found the pull, and yanked, but it wouldn’t slide. The damn thing was stuck!

The creature was coming. It was right there. Ten feet… five feet… It advanced another foot, and then a scaly arm shot up and a claw clamped around the toe of Nick’s boot, slicing into the leather upper.

Nick kicked hard, breaking the creature’s grip. He tore at his pocket, the zipper split wide, and he ripped out the knife, snapping the blade open with a flick of his thumb. He reached down between his legs and began to furiously saw the rope.

The creature hissed. It seemed to sense what was happening. It reached up, and just as its razor-sharp claws were about to rake Nick’s legs, the rope frayed and then parted, and the creature was suddenly freefalling through the darkness, the severed line still clutched in its hand.

With his lungs heaving, both physically and emotionally spent, Nick watched as the alien’s eyes grew faint and then finally winked out as it disappeared into the void.

Then he heard a tiny voice above his head say, “I’m slipping…”

The next thing he knew, Molly’s feet were on his helmet and her legs were kicking. Just before she lost her grip and fell, Nick caught her around the waist and pulled her into his arms.

Gotcha!

“It’s okay. It’s gone. The creature’s gone.” Nick lowered his head, illuminating the severed line with the beam of his helmet lamp. “See? Gone.”

And then Kylie was on the radio: “Nick? Are you and Molly okay? Nick, are you all right?”

Nick scooped up the radio and keyed the mike. “Kylie, we’re okay. We’re both okay. It’s gone. The creature’s gone.”

“Thank God.” After a quick pause, she said, “Hang on, Nick—there’s been some trouble up here with the rope. Just hold tight. We’re going to get you up in a minute.”

Molly gave him a wide-eyed look and then began excitedly pointing at something.

Oh shit, was the first thing that shot through Nick’s mind. The creature—the goddamned thing had defied gravity and was on its way back.

Nick torqued his head in the direction of Molly’s arm, expecting the worst, expecting to see the creature, but instead, there, just above their position, the beam of his helmet lamp glinted off of something metallic.

A metal cage.

A lift.

With a flood of relief, he realized they’d found the access shaft.

Chapter 39

A half hour later, the group was reunited in the Ballroom, with the exception of Lucas, who had volunteered to go down the opening and rig a zip line to the access shaft.

Nick and Molly had been safely hoisted up and out of the void, and Emmett’s body had been covered and laid in a corner of the chamber to be retrieved after help arrived.

“It’s a miracle,” Kylie said as she knelt in a pool of light, bandaging a cut on Molly’s leg. “It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

Molly reached out and touched the gleaming white bandage that covered her knee, then looked at Kylie and said, “I don’t know what happened. I heard a blast, and then I was falling, and when I woke up, I was inside the ground. Then I heard that thing—the creature. It was trying to come up the wall. It was awful. And then Mr. Walker was calling to me.”

“Well, I think you’re very brave,” Kylie said, wiping a smudge off of Molly’s cheek. “We’re going to get you out of here safe and sound. Promise.”

A short distance form Kylie and Molly, Nick knelt before a series of Kevlar straps he’d laid out on the ground and was busy mating each strap with a pair of carabineers, one at each end.

Hovering at Nick’s side, Ray held a flashlight, watching as he paired the carabineers to the straps, each becoming a makeshift trolley that they would use to lower themselves down the zip-line to the access shaft below.

“Tell me again,” Ray asked, “how exactly is this supposed to work?”

Before Nick had a chance to tell him what he had in mind, Slade and Major Atwood emerged from the darkness. Slade said, “Yes, Walker. I’d like to know the details, too.”

Nick looked up at Slade and the major. He grabbed one of the straps, rose to his feet, and held it up, making sure they could see the carabineers clipped to the ends.

“See this? One end clips to the climbing harness we’ll be wearing, and the other end clips to the line Lucas is anchoring in the airshaft. After we’re safely clipped to the rope, we climb on, and then, suspended by the trolley strap, we lower ourselves down the zip-line using our hands and legs to the shaft below. It’s steep, but it’s doable.” He panned his eyes around the group and said, “Any questions?”

An awkward silence filled the air as the group exchanged skeptical looks.

“Really? That’s it? That’s the plan?” Slade said. Then he added, “Christ, Walker—it sounds like suicide.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s the plan,” Nick said, giving Slade a defiant look. “It’s a way out, so unless you have a better idea…”

There was a loud clearing of a throat, and Major Atwood said, “Sorry, Mr. Walker, but I’m going to have to agree with Director Slade: it’s too risky. We should wait here. We should wait for the colonel’s team.”

“You’re free to remain here, Major,” Nick said, glancing from Atwood to Slade. “Both of you. It’s your privilege.” He turned to Ray. “No one has to make a try for the access shaft if they don’t want to.” After a quick pause, he added, “But if all goes well, in a few hours, the rest of us will be up top, drinking in the sunshine and breathing fresh air, and you’ll probably be stuck down here overnight, waiting for the colonel, wondering the whole time if the creature is still alive and whether it’s going to find its way back up here.”

“I didn’t say anything about not going,” Ray blurted. “I’m not spending the night down here.”

* * * *

At the same time, five hundred feet below the Ballroom chamber, Lucas was in the access shaft securing the end of the zip-line.

After a few false starts, he had decided to fasten the line to a steel strut that jutted from the shaft’s roof that was used to support the lift.

But there was a problem with that, too. When the rusting metal lift cage was raised, it filled the opening, allowing only those inside the lift access to the shaft.

He ended up deciding to lower the lift so that it hung just below the mouth of the shaft and connect the end of the line to the lift’s support arm so that when someone came down the rope, they would end up directly inside the shaft and not be left dangling over the edge.

After Lucas finished attaching the line, he jumped up, grabbed hold of the rope, and put his whole weight on it, swinging back and forth, making sure it was secure. Brilliant, he thought to himself. It’ll be just like stepping off a ski lift at a fancy resort.

Lucas gave the line one last tug, nodded to himself, and said, “Good to go,” then reached down to his waist for the radio so he could call up and tell Nick to send the first person down.

Chapter 40

Back in the Ballroom, everyone was lined up and ready to go. All of them had been fitted with climbing harnesses, and all of them were ready to make the trip down to the access shaft and the freedom it promised—all of them, that was, except for Major Atwood. After initially refusing to have anything to do with the plan, the major agreed to put on a harness just in case he had to evacuate the chamber, but all the while he made it abundantly clear that he intended to stay behind and wait for the colonel’s team and not risk his life on some half-baked escape plan.

“This had better fucking hold, Walker,” said Slade as he hung from the zip-line like a giant tree sloth.

Earlier, it had been decided that Slade would go first. In fact, Nick had insisted on it, arguing that since this was NASA business and he was the director, it was only fitting that he go first. Besides, who better to be the guinea pig? he thought.

“It’ll hold,” Nick assured him. “Just do what I told you, and you’ll be fine.”

Nick had planned to be the first down, but since he had climbing experience and was familiar with the gear, everyone agreed that he should go last, staying behind to make sure everyone was safely tethered to the rope.

Nick gave Slade’s harness a final check, making sure the trolley strap was securely fastened to the belay loop, then tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Ready?”

Hanging from the strap and looking completely miserable, Slade tried to ignore him. “God, what I wouldn’t do for a cigarette right now,” he said. Then he turned to Nick and said, “Here goes nothing.”

Slade slowly descended on the line, hand over hand, the rope clamped between his legs as he slipped into the void.

The rest of the group gathered nervously at the edge of the opening, watching Slade’s descent, watching as his helmet lamp grew fainter and fainter.

Ten minutes later, the Ballroom filled with a static-like sound and Lucas’s voice flooded out of the radio.

“The Eagle has landed.”

Then they heard Slade say, “Give me that!” There was a fumbling sound. “I’m down. I’m in the shaft, Walker. I’m fine,” he said, not hiding his contempt for Lucas’s smartass comment.

Nick was doing all he could to not laugh out loud at Lucas’s ‘Eagle has landed’ comment. Lucas had seen Slade’s office and knew Slade liked to think of himself as a walking encyclopedia when it came to Apollo Moon missions. After Nick got himself under control, he had decided to add his own dig and said, “Roger that…Tranquility Base.”

He couldn’t help himself.

Then they heard Slade say, “Screw off, Walker.”

Like clockwork, one after another, the rest of the group mounted the zip-line and descended to the access shaft.

It was decided that Ray would make the trip with Molly, the two of them tethered together for added safety.

Kylie had been the last to go, and after Lucas radioed up that she was down and safe, Nick turned to Atwood and said, “Last chance, Major. Are you sure you want to stay?”

Atwood didn’t speak. He stared at Nick. His eyes cut toward the opening. “Yes,” he said, after a long pause.

Nick flattened his lips, nodded his head, and said, “Okay.” He went to grab hold of the zip-line.

“Wait.” Atwood surged forward and put a hand on Nick’s arm. “Don’t go. Don’t leave without me.”

Surprised by Atwood’s sudden change of heart, Nick stared at the major, pleased that he’d finally come to his senses.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Nick said, “it’s just the opposite. I want you to come with us.”

The major released Nick’s arm and began shaking his head. In a defeated voice, he said, “I can’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m afraid of heights.”

Chapter 41

Over the years, the mouth of the access shaft had been widened to accommodate the lift and the supplies that were ferried back and forth to support the mining operation below. The shaft had been out of use for years, not counting Willie and Lucas’s recent use, and was now littered with empty diesel drums and rusted tools waiting to be hauled to the surface for disposal.

Thirty feet back from the opening, the shaft tapered and the ceiling plunged, leaving a narrow tunnel that zigzagged its way up to the surface.

Standing in the mouth of the shaft, Lucas watched as Kylie glided down the zip-line toward him, her helmet lamp getting brighter and brighter.

Ten feet outside of the opening, she pinched the rope with her ankles, slowed her descent, and entered the shaft. Just before she got to the end of the line, she kicked her legs free and dropped to the ground directly in front of Lucas, like she’d been doing it all her life.

Impressed, Lucas smiled at Kylie, pulled the zip-line down so she could unclip the trolley strap, and said, “Welcome.”

Kylie removed the strap from the belay loop and smiled back at Lucas, her face flushed with excitement. “Wow! That was exciting.”

Lucas nodded and laughed. “No shortage of that around here.”

“Right,” Kylie said, glancing at Molly, who was already safely down.

Kylie straightened her shirt, started toward Molly, but then stopped and turned back to Lucas. “What about Nick? He was supposed to be right behind me.”

Slade looked up from the e-cigarette he’d been trying to coax back to life and stared at Kylie and Lucas. He’d been wondering the same thing; where the hell was Walker?

After Slade’s guinea pig run, they’d decided it was safe to double up and send two people down the line at once.

Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know.” He reached for the radio and prepared to call up to Nick and see if everything was okay.

Ray rushed up, looking rattled and out of breath. “It’s blocked!” he gasped. “The tunnel’s blocked!” Then he doubled over and grabbed his knees, fighting to catch his breath. Ray had gotten antsy waiting for the rest of the group to make the trip down the rope and had decided to explore a short distance up the shaft.

“What are you talking about?” Slade demanded, jabbing the plastic cigarette at Ray. “Blocked how?”

Ray straightened and motioned with a hand to the tunnel. “About twenty yards up the shaft, it looks like the ceiling caved in. The tunnel is filled with rocks and dirt.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lucas said. “The blast. It must’ve caused the cave-in; there must have been a weak spot in the tunnel.” He leveled his eyes at Slade. “And then after some super genius set off the C-4 charges, it collapsed.”

“Shit,” Lucas cursed to himself. He’d been so busy rigging the zip-line, he hadn’t thought to check the shaft to make sure it was clear after the blast.

* * * *

“Okay, Major, now swing your feet up and clamp the line between your legs.”

Atwood looked at Nick, gave a reluctant nod, and, with sweat beading on his face and dark circles forming beneath his arms, he pulled his legs up, looped them over the line, and clamped his ankles around the rope like a vise.

“Good,” Nick said, reassuring him with a thumbs-up. He was about to tell Atwood to start down when the radio crackled and Lucas asked, “Nick, where are you?”

Nick keyed the mike and said, “There’s been a change of plans. Major Atwood has decided to join us. I’m sending him down now.”

“Roger that,” Lucas replied. Then he said, “We have another problem. I’ll tell you about it when you get down here.”

“Swell, can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Nick clipped the radio to his belt, turned to Atwood, and said, “Okay, Major, hand over hand, just like we talked about. Slow and steady wins the day. Don’t look down, just keep your eyes on the rope as it passes through your hands.”

The major nodded. “Okay.”

“Good. I’ll be right behind you. We’re going to do this together.”

Atwood scrunched up his face and, looking like he was about to be sick, started to descend.

Nick watched as the major inched downward, waiting for the him to get clear so he could safely mount the line.

White knuckled and quivering like a bowl of Jell-O, the major continued down the rope. Five feet…ten feet…and then he suddenly stopped. A frozen moment, and then Atwood cried out, “No! I can’t do it.”

In a calm but firm voice, Nick said, “Major, yes, you can. Hand over hand. Eyes on the rope. Just keep doing what you were doing. The harness will hold you. You can’t fall.”

Trembling, Atwood began to shake his head. “No…” And then he was moving again.

The wrong way.

He was trying to come up the rope.

“Major, no! Don’t come up. Wait there; I’ll come to you. Then we can descend together.”

The major didn’t respond.

Pulling, clawing, and kicking, he was beyond reason, not even hearing Nick’s voice.

As he bucked and writhed, the makeshift trolley fouled and the strap constricted on the line, stopping him from rising any higher. Atwood panicked with newfound ferocity and then realized the strap tethering him to the line was the problem.

Using his arms and legs, he took the weight off the trolley strap, reached down to his harness, and started to unclip the strap from the belay loop.

Seeing what Atwood was about to do, Nick shouted, “Major, stop! Do not remove that strap!”

On emergency overload, deaf and blind with fear, the major ignored Nick, unhooked the strap, and let it fall away. Then, as he swung his hand back to grip the rope, his legs broke free, and he was suddenly hanging from the line by one hand.

He yelled out, and as he got his other hand back on the line, he started to slip, and the rope began sliding through his fingers.

“Major!” Nick yelled, leaning out as far as he dared. “Your legs—get your legs around the rope!”

But Atwood was beyond help. The rope was racing through his hands, shredding his gloves and then his flesh.

The major screamed out in pain, released the rope, and fell back into the open void, plummeting into the blackness.

Shocked, Nick stared down, watching helplessly as the major’s helmet lamp disappeared.

Chapter 42

Twenty minutes later, Kylie and Lucas watched as the zip-line began to bounce, and a few moments after that, two duffle bags Nick had filled with supplies—explosives, oxygen masks, and extra rope—dropped into the opening with Nick sliding in right behind them.

Lucas grabbed the duffle bags, and as Nick’s boots kissed the ground, Kylie rushed up to help with his tether.

“God, Nick, I’m so sorry,” Kylie said, releasing the trolley strap. “I’m so sorry about Major Atwood. It’s awful.”

Nick looked at her, straightened his harness and said “He panicked. The idiot panicked. I tried to stop him. I tried to get to him, but he removed the strap, and then…”

Kylie gave him a hug. “I’m sorry, Nick.”

“Not your fault, man,” Lucas said, removing the tether from the duffle bags. “It was his choice. He decided to get on that line.”

Nick shook his head. “If he had just trusted the harness, if he had left the trolley strap on, I could’ve gotten to him.”

“Not your fault.” Lucas placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “You don’t have to carry that.”

Nick gave Lucas a nod. Then he noticed Molly huddled in Kylie’s coat, and he realized that Ray and Slade were nowhere in sight.

“Where are the others? Where are Ray and Slade?”

Lucas hooked a thumb in the direction of the shaft. “Digging.”

Nick gave Lucas a confused look. “Digging?”

“Remember that little problem I was going to tell you about?”

“No…”

“Cave in. About a hundred and fifty feet up the shaft.” Lucas held up a flashlight. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

A few minutes later, they had picked their way back to the collapsed section of tunnel. Kylie and Molly had decided to join them, neither of them wanting to wait by themselves in the shaft opening.

Ray was at the top of the slide right where it met the ceiling, digging away dirt and rock and salt with a scavenged metal bar while Slade hovered below, chasing a rock around with the toe of his shoe and thinking about the creature, wondering if they still might be able to capture it.

When Slade saw Nick and the others approaching, he yanked his hands out of his pockets and tried to act like he was actually helping with the digging. He picked up a rock, then tossed it to the side of the slide.

Nick and Lucas stared at Slade; it was plain to see he was goldbricking. Nick called up to Ray and said, “How’s it going, Ray?”

“Hang on.” Ray dropped the metal bar, and using both hands, he removed a large rock that was sitting at the top of the slide and let it roll free. He leaned forward, tilted his head, and looked through the hole left by the rock.

What he saw made his heart leap, and if he’d been able to stand up, he would’ve jumped for joy.

“We’re through!” Ray shouted. “I can see the tunnel!”

Molly jumped up and down, and Kylie gave her a hug. Nick and Lucas scrambled up the slide and fell to their knees beside Ray, and then the three of them got busy scooping away handfuls of rubble.

* * * *

An hour later, the group was assembled in the lift area, gathering their gear, shrugging on packs, and preparing to make the trek up the shaft to freedom.

Everyone, that is, but Nick.

He was going to use the lift to travel to the bottom of the mine and look for Atwood. He felt responsible. He didn’t want to abandon him. He didn’t want to leave the major, not knowing what happened to him. He knew it was a long shot, but if by some miracle Atwood had survived the fall, there was no way he was going to leave him stuck down there at the mercy of that creature.

Kylie stepped up to Nick, and in a soft voice she said, “You don’t have to do this, Nick. It’s crazy. Wait ‘til help arrives. Don’t go down there alone.”

“I’ll go,” Slade said, having been listening in to the conversation. “I’ll go with you, Walker.”

Nick turned to Slade, a look of complete disbelief on his face. Had he just heard what he thought he’d heard? Slade actually volunteering for something that didn’t include cocktails and hors d’oeuvres? What the hell?

“You?” Nick said, not hiding his disbelief. “You’re volunteering?”

“That’s right, I’m volunteering,” Seeing the shock on Nick’s face, he added, “NASA business, remember? It’s on me, too.”

But it was all BS. There was nothing altruistic about Slade’s intentions. When he’d heard Walker was going to go back for Atwood, a plan had formed in his mind. He’d tag along with him, ride the lift down to the bottom of the mine, and when Walker went hot-dogging after Atwood, he’d set charges and seal the mine. If he was lucky, he’d trap the creature. And as far as Nick Walker was concerned…well, he had it coming. What they call in the military ‘collateral damage.’

There was just one problem: the explosives. He had to get them down there somehow. He had to come up with some excuse for wanting to take that much C-4.

“You don’t have to do that,” Lucas said, his bass voice filling the shaft. “I’ll go.”

Nick held up a hand. “No way. This isn’t on you, Lucas.”

“You know how to run that lift?” Lucas said. Then added, “Besides, I know the mine…I’m familiar with the layout down there.”

“Fine,” Nick said, turning from Lucas to Slade. “It’s settled. All three of us are going.”

Slade gave Nick a nod. He was still in. But he wasn’t thrilled about Lucas joining them. It would make it that much harder to execute his plan.

As he was thinking about the explosives, an empty duffle bag landed at his feet and he heard Nick say, “Fill that with C-4, detonators, and three bottles of oxygen.”

Slade couldn’t believe his ears. Hell, he couldn’t believe his luck. The idiot just sealed his own fate. It was all he could do not to laugh out loud. Sometimes life just offered up little gifts on a silver platter.

Slade bent, lifted the duffle bag, and looked at Nick. Pretending not to care about the explosives, he said, “Why the C-4? Why lug explosives down there?”

“Because that thing down there might still be alive.”

Hopefully, Slade thought to himself and then moved to where their gear was stacked and began to fill the pack with explosives.

Great minds think alike.

Chapter 43

“Hand me that adjustable wrench,” Lucas said, pointing to the rusted tool. He was standing on a fifty-gallon drum that had been cut in half, his head craned over the top of the lift, checking to make sure the winch was in working order.

Nick handed the wrench to Lucas, then turned and watched as Kylie, Molly, and Ray disappeared up the shaft on their way to the mine entrance.

Good, he thought to himself as he saw the light from their helmets disappear. It wouldn’t be long until they were safe and sound.

“We’re good to go,” Lucas said, hopping off of the barrel. Then he motioned for Nick and Slade to enter the lift. “Gentlemen.”

Last in, Lucas slid the door shut with a metallic clang, then double-checked the lock to make sure it was securely latched.

“Son of a bitch,” Slade shouted, gripping the side of the cage as it swayed back and forth.

Lucas moved to a Honda generator that was sitting beneath a primitive control panel with an up and down lever. The generator was wired to two truck batteries that sent power to the electric winch. Long ago, the batteries had lost their ability to hold a charge, so the generator had to be running for the lift to operate.

Lucas straddled the generator, gripped the pull cord, and said, “Okay, let’s see if this baby wants to start.”

Horrified, Slade stared at the fraying wires that ran from the batteries up to the rusted control panel. He glanced at Nick and gave him a ‘what the hell are we doing on this death trap?’ look.

Lucas yanked the pull cord. The engine turned over, sputtered, and stopped. He tightened his grip on the cord, yanked once, twice, and then, on the third pull, the engine roared to life.

At the same time, a floodlight mounted on top of the lift flashed and flickered. As the engine settled into a steady hum, it glowed brightly, flooding the lift and shaft with light.

Lucas patted the top of the generator. He gripped the control lever, looked at Nick and Slade, and said, “Next stop—the basement.”

He pushed the lever down. A high-pitched whine filled the air. The lift tilted and jerked. Slade yelled involuntarily when the lift dropped and said, “Shit!” And then they began to steadily descend.

The lift wobbled again as a kinked bit of cable ran through the winch, then settled back into a steady descent. With the light on top, the rickety little cage looked like some sort of makeshift submersible—something Jules Verne might have dreamt up, Nick thought to himself—as it dropped through the open darkness.

Slade hung on with both hands, trying not to look down. “Christ, is this thing safe?”

“I won’t lie to you,” Lucas said, giving Nick a wink, “the thing’s a deathtrap.” Then he pushed the lever all the way down, causing them to drop even faster.

* * * *

Four hundred feet below, in a pitch dark corner of the cavern, the creature slotted its arm into a fault in the wall, ignoring the strip of flesh that dangled from its mouth—the remainder of Atwood’s leg—then twisted violently, causing its dislocated shoulder to drop back into place with a loud pop.

The creature flexed its arm but froze when it heard a sound: the high-pitched whine of an electric motor.

It snapped its head up, eyes glowing, searching, trying to pinpoint the sound, trying to see what it was.

* * * *

“Look,” Kylie yelled as she, Molly, and Ray exited the access shaft. “Light!” And then they were all racing toward the mine entrance.

Kylie grabbed Molly’s hand, and the two of them followed Ray as they skirted around a large ore car and followed the tracks toward the light.

“We’re almost there,” Ray shouted, motioning to the conveyor belt, which led right up to the exit, and then out to the mounds of salt beyond.

A minute later, they burst out of the mine and into the sunlight, shedding gear, hugging each other, and drinking in the beautiful Texas sunshine, all of them thankful to be alive.

Chapter 44

“I’m not going.” Slade stood in the lift that was now resting safely on the cavern floor. The generator had been killed and the floodlight remained on, but the light was already dimming as the charge trickled out of the batteries. “That thing is probably still alive, still out there…waiting for us. It’s not worth the risk. I’m staying here. Besides, the chances of Atwood being alive—of him having survived that fall—are zero.”

Slade stepped out of the lift and continued, “Listen, why not seal this area? Why not seal the mine? Why not take the C-4, set the charges, ride the lift up, seal the mine, and trap the creature down here?” There, Slade thought to himself, that should do it. That should give me time to execute my plan. And I’ve even given them an out, a chance to join me.

Nick scoffed and shook his head. “Why am I not surprised? Why did you even come down here in the first place?”

Well, it sure as hell wasn’t to scrape Atwood’s remains off the rocks, Slade thought. “I’m sorry, Walker, but I’m not going. I’m not going to wander out there in the dark and take the chance of being that thing’s next meal.”

Nick shook his head and removed the two-way radio from his side; Lucas had the other one. He should’ve guessed Slade would fold, that he’d end up being a liability.

“Fine,” Nick said, pushing the radio at Slade. “Stay here. You see anything, you give us a call. If we find Atwood, we’ll let you know.” Then he added, “Think you can handle that?”

Relieved, Slade took the radio and nodded yes.

* * * *

“Best guess—Major Atwood ended up somewhere around here,” Lucas said, playing his light around the chamber’s floor, expecting to see Atwood’s crumpled body at any second.

It had taken Nick and Lucas about ten minutes to work their way from the lift back to the hole beneath the Ballroom chamber’s floor. Those had been ten of the most terrifying minutes of Nick’s life. Around every turn, past every slide of rocks, Nick expected to be grabbed by a claw and sucked into the darkness. In fact, the whole way back to the chamber, Nick kept glancing at Lucas, just to make sure he was still there.

Lucas seemed less distracted. He was a rock, a man on a mission with a ‘let’s get this shit over with’ attitude. Nick figured it was probably due to the fact that he had a 12-gauge shotgun cemented in his hands.

Shoulder to shoulder, they continued forward, both of them noticing the sudden flow of air as they passed beneath the opening above. Rubble from the blast was everywhere, slowing their progress. Lucas held out a hand. He was about to guide Nick around a slide of salt, and then they both saw it at the same time.

A light. A helmet lamp.

Major Atwood’s helmet lamp.

From their angle, it looked like Atwood was lying on his back, the beam of his light pointing straight up.

“Major!” Nick shouted as he and Lucas rushed forward, both of them moving across the ragged surface as fast as they dared.

Twenty feet from Atwood, they slowed, confused by what they were seeing. Atwood’s helmet was there, but there was no sign of the major.

They continued forward until they were standing directly over the light. Nick’s stomach rolled when he realized what they’d found.

Atwood’s body was gone, but his head remained, still strapped in the helmet. He’d been decapitated, his neck severed cleanly just below the chinstrap.

Atwood’s eyes looked up, staring but not seeing. His jaw hung open, frozen in a terror-filled scream.

Nick knelt, and as he reached over to shut Atwood’s eyes, Lucas’s radio buzzed and popped, and then Slade’s screaming voice filled the cavern.

“Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! It’s coming! It’s here, right now. The creature, it’s—”

They heard a crash and then the metallic sound of the lift’s door opening. And then Slade was screaming again. “Jesus Christ! No!” And then the radio went dead.

“Son of a bitch,” Lucas said, staring at the lifeless radio.

Nick and Lucas exchanged looks. Nick surged to his feet, slapped Lucas on the back, and said, “Let’s go!”

* * * *

Back in the lift, Slade bolted the door and fell over the generator. With his chest heaving like he’d just run a sprint, he hauled on the pull cord. A moment later, the engine roared to life. As he reached for the control panel, the cage rocked violently and Slade was body slammed into the wire mesh.

“Fuck me!” Clawing up from the floor, Slade reached the control panel, and using the palm of his hand, he jammed the lever up as high as it would go.

The generator slowed, and a moment after that, a high-pitched whine sounded and the cage tilted, jumped off the ground, and began to rise.

Two feet…four feet…and just as the lift passed eight feet, it was slammed sideways. The lift slowed. The generator bogged and then died completely, and the winch ground to a stop.

The cavern was plunged into silence.

Slade held his breath, pressing himself against the wire mesh. For a second, he allowed himself to think that he’d made it, that he’d escaped. Then a loud hissing sound filled the air. The door of the lift was ripped off, and as Slade felt his bowels let go, the last thing he saw was a set of razor set of teeth closing around his screaming face.

Chapter 45

Nick and Lucas rounded a corner, but slowed when they got a visual on the lift. Both of them surprised to see it swaying ten feet above the ground.

“Looks like Slade tried to make a run for it,” Lucas whispered, panning his head left and right, searching for any sign of the alien beast.

Nick cupped his hands around his mouth and called toward the lift, “Slade? Slade, are you there?”

There was nothing—just the pitch-black darkness beyond the reach of their helmet lamps and the sound of dripping water.

“Slade,” Nick called out again, but there was still no response.

He and Lucas exchanged looks. Nick shrugged and said, “Well?”

“Yeah, yeah…let’s do it,” Lucas said, poking the shotgun toward the lift. “Let’s see if we can find Slade and then get the hell out of here.”

With their heads on a swivel, they approached the lift, the beams of their flashlights raking cave walls and playing across the cavern floor. Twenty feet out, they saw that the lift’s door had been torn off its track and now hung from the bottom of the cage.

What the hell?

A few more feet, and then they saw an arm. Slade’s arm. It dangled from the side of the lift, fingers still laced through the wire mesh. The humerus was exposed, and a line of blood dripped from the arm’s ragged end.

Jesus.

“Bad call staying with the lift,” Lucas said, staring at the arm.

Nick gave a nod. “Yeah.” As he examined the damaged door, his eyes locked on something beneath the lift.

Blood-slick rock.

And beyond that, a glistening trail where Slade had been dragged away by the creature. Nick traced the trail of blood with the beam of his flashlight, following it until it disappeared around a calcite formation. “Jesus…Jesus Christ. I guess we should—”

“Slade’s gone,” Lucas said. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.”

“Right,” Nick said after a long pause. Actually, he’d already come to that conclusion; he just needed to hear someone else say it.

There was something else beneath the lift. Off to one side, lying on the ground, were four blocks of C-4. They must’ve been knocked out of the cage during the attack.

Nick followed the beam of his light over to the explosives, retrieved one of the bricks of C-4, and held it up for Lucas to see.

“Is there a way to seal this chamber?”

Chapter 46

Fifteen minutes later, Nick and Lucas were in the condemned side of the Clayton mine—the same area where Lucas and Willie had been working just a few days earlier.

The electric line that Lucas and Willie had plumbed in was still hot, and Lucas was able to get a string of lights bulbs going.

They flickered, flashed, and then shone brightly, the bare bulbs illuminating the smooth alabaster walls of salt and massive support columns.

“Here…here…here…and here,” Lucas said, pointing at each spot as he paced off a forty-foot section of the mine’s wall. “The plan is to drill set holes every ten feet and then fill each hole with a block of C-4.”

Nick nodded and glanced over his shoulder, like he’d been doing every couple of minutes since they’d arrived. “Let’s do it. Let’s do this thing and go.”

Lucas retraced his steps back over to Nick and lifted an electric drill he’d positioned earlier. He placed it against the wall, squeezed the trigger, and buried the three-foot bit in one fluid movement. He widened the hole by working the drill up and down, then drew it out and handed it to Nick.

“We need three more like that. While you finish the holes, I’m going to wire up the column behind us. If we drop the wall and the column at the same time, we’ll bring the whole damn ceiling down. Nothing is going to get out of here.”

“What are we waiting for?” Nick muscled the drill down the wall, slammed the bit into the salt, and ran it into the wall, just like Lucas had done.

“All right, then.” Lucas smiled and collected the remaining C-4 and made his way over to the support column.

Nick widened the hole and removed the drill. He moved to the next spot, ran the drill up to the chuck, and, as the taste of salt bloomed in his mouth and dust dulled his helmet lamp, he heard Lucas scream, “Run!”

The sound of a shotgun blast rang in his ears.

Still clutching the drill, Nick cranked his head around just in time to see the shotgun cartwheel out and Lucas’s bowels spill onto the floor as his front opened like a Ziploc bag.

The creature towered over Lucas. Its claws flashed again. A second after that, Lucas’s head lolled, and he sank to the ground.

Holy God.

The creature was moving again, coming directly toward him, its eyes locked onto him.

Jesus Christ!

As Nick debated which way to run, the drill began to vibrate wildly in his hands.

Then his shirt was suddenly wet. And then the drill exploded out of the bore hole, ejected by a powerful jet of brine water. The handle slammed into his gut, taking him off his feet and throwing him onto his back.

Nick stared up at the blasting column of water, the roar in his ears like a jet taking off.

What the hell?

Right behind him, right through the roaring water, he thought he heard—no, he knew he heard—racing footsteps.

Then, like some Jacuzzi from hell, water began jetting from the other bore holes. Above the blasting water, Nick saw the wall fracture, and then he watched as a crack in the shape of a giant frown raced across the salt.

Son of a bitch, I’m going to drown. And as that thought flooded in, a shadow loomed over him.

Something flashed at the corner of his eye.

The crack above him widened into a fissure.

A hand fell toward him; a raptor’s claw about to seize its prey.

All at once, the jetting water stopped. It was as if someone had thrown a switch. The mine was plunged into silence.

A ripping, tearing sound filled his ears. Directly above him, the wall began to distort and then warp outwards, like a thousand serpents were writhing just beneath its surface.

Just as he was about to run, the wall exploded, and a house-sized chunk of salt swept over Nick and slammed into the creature. A hideous, otherworldly scream filled the air as the beast was carried across the chamber and pinned to the far wall.

Nick raised his head and then slammed it back down as another chunk of wall was blasted free, warping past him like the hull of a giant ship.

He realized he’d been holding his breath—he’d forgotten to breathe. He gulped a mouthful of air, filling his lungs, and as he exhaled, the floor beneath him rolled, and the cavern began to shake.

He heard a loud bang and a horrible rumbling sound.

Something else was coming.

Heart in his throat, Nick surged to his feet and ran for his life.

Twenty feet. Forty feet. When he was sixty feet from the wall, an avalanche of oil swept through the opening and into the chamber.

Surging. Flooding. Swirling. 250 million barrels of sweet crude crashed into the mine like a tidal wave, sending an unstoppable flood of oil sheeting across the floor.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s underground reservoir had been breached.

Sulfurous fumes filled Nick’s mouth and choked his lungs as oil splashed beneath his pounding boots.

Twisting, turning, and ducking, he blasted through the darkness, abandoning all caution, desperate to beat the oil and reach his only chance of escape: the lift.

Lungs clogged and burning, Nick skidded around a bend. Metal glinted in the beam of his helmet lamp and he saw the lift, but he was suddenly swept off his feet, caught in the tide of surging oil.

Pumping his arms, Nick managed to keep his head above the swirling crude, as he was swept through the cavern by the waist-deep oil.

He pulled his legs beneath him, kicked, and jackknifed his body into a standing position and, half running, half swimming, fought his way towards the lift.

With his eyes burning and feeling like he was about to pass out, Nick pushed ahead until he was standing directly below the lift. His first thought was to jump up and grab the bottom of the cage, but then his eyes fell on the door hanging off to one side. He lunged over, grabbed the door, and with his last bit of strength, clawed his way up and slid into the lift.

Nick surged to his knees and, realizing he was seconds away from collapsing, hauled over a duffle bag, ripped out a mask and bottle of oxygen, pulled the respirator over his face, spun the valve on the top of the bottle, and pulled in a lungful of fresh O2.

Heaven.

He took another long pull on the respirator, drinking in the fresh air, and a moment later, his eyes cleared and the fog in his brain lifted.

Nick adjusted the respirator and slung the oxygen bottle over his back. He went to the generator, gripped the cord, and just as he was about to pull, he suddenly stopped.

Fumes.

Oil fumes. Would the generator’s sparkplug ignite the fumes?

As he thought about this, he looked down and watched as the oil continued to rise, getting closer and closer to the bottom of the lift.

And then he remembered that diesel is much less flammable than gasoline, so, by extension, crude oil should be even safer.

He took another look at the rising oil—only a couple of feet away now—thought, What the hell, this might be my only chance, then grabbed the starter cord and pulled. The generator roared safely to life.

Nick fell on the control panel and slammed the lever to the ‘up’ position. The high-pitched whine of the winch filled his ears, the lift rocked, and he began to rise.

Nick looked out and saw that the swirling oil was keeping perfect pace with the rising lift.

Shit.

Chapter 47

A couple minutes later, the lift jolted to a stop at the mouth of the access shaft. During the ride up, Nick had scavenged two blocks of C-4 and a couple of fuses that had been left in one of the duffle bags. He stuffed the plastic explosives in a pocket and tightened the shoulder straps of the oxygen bottle.

He took one last look around the lift and determined there was nothing else worth taking.

He leapt out of the cage and heard a horrible splashing sound. He snapped his head down, and his face immediately fell when he saw oil lapping at the toes of his boots.

Crap.

There went his plan to beat the flooding oil up the access shaft. No way he was going to be able to outrun it.

He took a hit of oxygen and pulled his oil-soaked jacket away from his chest. He felt like it was going to smother him. He pumped the front of jacket in and out, trying to get some relief, and wondered what the hell he was going to do.

Just as he thought about trying to make a run for it up the shaft, he heard a dull clanking sound.

He spun, and there, next to the mouth of the shaft, he saw discarded diesel drums being lifted off the floor, bumping and clanging into each other as they floated on the surface of the flooding oil.

That was it: the barrels.

Nick waded over and corralled one of the drums. He might be able to ride the oil up and out of the access shaft using a barrel. He released the barrel and grabbed the one next to it. It had a large V-shaped dent in the middle.

Perfect.

As the oil rose to his waist, he draped his body over the barrel, snugged himself into the dent, and gripped the sides. Floating on the surface of the oil, he was carried up the access shaft.

Fifty feet into the shaft, the oil began to ebb, and the next thing he knew, he was being sucked back down toward the mouth.

What the hell?

As if he’d been caught in a riptide, he was suddenly swept past the lift and found himself swirling out into an open sea of crude.

Panicked and desperate to get back to the shaft, Nick kicked his legs, but his efforts were useless against the tide of oil.

Pitching and rolling, he hung on for dear life as he was swept through the cavern, back toward the mine, his head only inches from jagged rocks and jutting stalactites.

He stared out through the oil-spattered faceplate of his mask, wondering how this would end, wondering what his fate would be. His helmet lamp shorted out, and he was plunged into darkness, the pitch-black cave merging seamlessly with the inky oil.

He panicked. He couldn’t breathe. It was like someone had cut off his oxygen, but his mask was working fine. His hands slipped. He felt himself losing his grip on the barrel and his heart thudded in his chest. Suddenly, it was twenty years ago and he was stuck at the bottom of a lake, and he was going to drown.

His throat closed. He was being pulled down, sucked into the oil. Just before he slipped beneath the surface, a profound peace settled over him.

Immediately, his throat opened and he began to breathe. He felt his body rise, as if an invisible hand were pulling him back onto the barrel.

He looked up and saw his hands gripping the barrel again. He shut his eyes and felt himself being lifted and tossed by the flooding of oil. It was out of his hands now. He had to hang on and trust in things bigger than himself. That was all he could do.

At that moment, he knew that whatever happened, he’d be all right. He couldn’t explain it; his circumstances were dire—impossible—but he felt no fear, only a divine sense of wellbeing and peace.

* * * *

Ten minutes later, a dull thud caused Nick to open his eyes and lift his head. The barrel—it had just struck something. A rock, maybe, or was it the bottom of the shaft?

He strained forward. He blinked his eyes. Through the mask he saw a pinpoint of light. The entrance. The oil had pushed him right through the mine, all the way up to the entrance.

He blinked again, looked up, and the light was still there, getting brighter and brighter.

The oil continued to flood and swirl. He was able see the ore car, and then its tracks, and just beyond, the conveyor belt.

He had made it. He was going to get out of the mine alive.

As the flood of oil slowed, Nick felt his boots touch the ground, and then he found himself on his feet, standing waist-deep in oil.

Nick released the barrel, letting it float away, then waded to the oil’s edge. Using his last bit of strength, he clawed his way up onto a dry section of the mine floor.

Wobbling on his feet, he watched as oil drained off of him and pooled around his boots. He still couldn’t believe it—he couldn’t believe that he was alive, that he had somehow survived being swept through the mine in the sea of oil. He reached up, pulled his oxygen mask off, and heard a splashing sound.

Directly behind him.

He torqued around, and there, right on the glistening surface of the oil, a bump had appeared.

It began to move, sliding through the silky crude toward him. A moment later, it broke the surface, and he saw what it was.

The creature.

Its head rose and it located him, shooting forward like a giant crocodile moving in for the kill.

Impossible.

How could it have survived?

Nick threw off the oxygen bottle, shrugged off his pack, and dug out the two blocks of C-4, fuses, and the detonator.

A terrible hissing sound brought his head up, and he watched as the creature attacked the barrel, ripping it in two like an empty soda can.

Jesus.

As the creature swept back in Nick’s direction, he pushed two fuses into the C-4 and dropped the explosives in the pack. He palmed the detonator and turned toward the creature.

As the creature’s body rose out of the oil, Nick leapt forward, planted a foot, and hurled the pack at it.

The creature hissed.

The pack pinwheeled out and the creature caught it in its mouth.

Nick yelled, “Fire in the hole, motherfucker!” He spun around, sprinted to the ore car, leapt up, and grabbed the rail. As he tumbled inside, he pushed the button on the remote detonator.

The creature leapt out of the oil, and just as its feet landed on dry land, the charges exploded.

The alien beast was torn apart in a spray of blood and body parts. Its severed limbs were sent cartwheeling through the air. There was a secondary explosion. Then a massive concussion as the surface of 250 million barrels of oil burst into flames.

A shockwave swept forward, slamming Nick to the ore car’s floor and sending the car flying down its tracks and straight out of the mine.

Chapter 48

Outside the mine, black smoke billowed out of the entrance and filled the sky. As the smoke rose, it was caught in the rotor wash of an Air Force Blackhawk helicopter circling overhead.

The ore car that had carried Nick out of the mine lay at the base of one of the mounds of salt, twisted and bent; it looked like a discarded toy.

“Nick!” Kylie shouted as she and Ray raced past the ruined ore car and began to claw their way up the salt.

Directly above them, halfway up the mound, the salt began to move. Then a slide formed. Kylie and Ray looked up and watched as the slide became an arm, and then two arms, and then they saw Nick’s face.

Nick was alive.

“Nick!” Kylie shouted. She couldn’t believe it. He was alive; he had survived the explosion.

Kylie was the first to reach Nick. She threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. She dusted him off, but it did little good. The oil coating his face and arms made the salt stick to him like frosting.

Nick stared up at Kylie, admiring her beautiful face and said, “Am I still alive?”

Kylie hugged him again. “It’s incredible.”

Nick nodded and smiled, blinking away some grit as Ray scrambled up next to them. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you survived that blast.”

Still a little dazed, Nick looked up at Ray and, squinting into the sun, said, “Hey, Ray…”

“What about Lucas—and Slade? And the creature—is that thing still alive?” Ray looked at the oil that coated Nick’s face and clothing. “And the oil—where did all the oil come from?”

Nick lowered his head. “Lucas and Slade are gone. The creature, too.” After another pause, he looked at Kylie and Ray and said, “Lucas died saving my life.”

Kylie and Ray glanced at each other, trying to imagine what he’d just been through. Kylie wiped away a tear as Ray took Nick’s arm and said, “Come on, let’s get you to the hospital.”

As Ray went to lift him, Nick cried out in pain. He motioned for Ray to hang on, then reached beneath his leg, dug something out of the salt, and held up a flat rock with a jagged edge.

Nick flipped the rock over and was amazed when he saw the tail section of a prehistoric fish perfectly preserved in the rock.

It was a fossil. A very familiar-looking fossil.

Nick couldn’t believe it. It was the missing half of the fossil Willie had given him. “You’re not going to believe this,” Nick said and handed the fossil to Kylie.

Kylie looked at the fossil and immediately recognized it.

“Oh my God. The fossil—it’s the other half of the fossil you gave me.”

“No way,” Ray said, leaning over Kylie’s shoulder. “Amazing.”

Nick took the fossil from Kylie, held it up, and said, “Tell you what—promise to have that glass of wine with me, and it’s yours.”

Ray frowned and rolled his eyes. “Oh God…”

Kylie grabbed the fossil, leaned forward, kissed Nick on the lips, and said, “Maybe even dinner, too.”

Ray threw up his hands. “Okay. All right. That’s it.” As he started down the mound, he said, “I don’t need this.”

* * * *

Inside a Los Angeles apartment located in a seedy part of Echo Park, Todd Gibson—or “the gimp,” as his fellow burglars referred to him—lay sprawled beneath the kitchen table.

A fly buzzed.

He watched the fly circle the darkened room and then land on his face. It walked across the bridge of his nose. He tried to shoo it away, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move his arms. In fact, he couldn’t even lift a finger.

Todd Gibson was completely paralyzed.

Above him, scattered across the table, pieces of shattered rock surrounded a hammer and an acetylene cutting torch.

At the center of the table, a tendril of smoke rose in the air like a charmed serpent. Beneath the thread of smoke, an ovoid pod lay on its side. One of the ends had liquefied and pooled on the tabletop.

The fly buzzed.

A dark shape scuttled across the kitchen floor.

His eyes flicked towards it. There was a frozen, terror-filled moment, and then Todd Gibson began to scream.

Thaw

Bryan Dunn

Arctic bush pilot Harry McNills is minding his own business and dreaming of retiring to the Caribbean--when two scientists from Cryolabs Corporation charter his plane for a scientific expedition. The beautiful young biologist Amy Tyler and her boss, the avaricious Hayden Lockwood, want to explore for freeze-tolerant organisms. Harry gets more than he bargained for when he falls for Amy and discovers an ancient terror entombed in an iceberg. A Navy team is assembled to exhume the remarkable find. But before the job is completed, something goes horribly wrong...and Harry and Amy find themselves trapped in a desperate struggle for survival.

www.BryanDunnBooks.com

Chapter 1

Five Thousand Years Ago, Somewhere In the Arctic

A raw winter sky sheltered a monochrome world. A hunter walked purposefully across an endless sheet of ice, eyes alert, searching. Pushing harder he picked up the pace, then suddenly stopped, spotting a break in the ice. It was what he’d been looking for – a harp seal’s breathing hole.

Moving again, he stealthily approached the seal’s hole. Dressed in three layers of animal skins sewn together with narwhal sinew and topped by a caribou parka lined with fur, he was blissfully unaware of the minus five degree temperature.

Excitement built inside him as he stepped up to the edge of the breathing hole and raised his togglehead harpoon, the razor sharp ivory tip connected to a line he held in his free hand.

The breathing hole was large and well used, and the icy sea was plainly visible inside. Every inch of the hunter’s body was now focused on the opening. He silently exhaled, and, as he drew in a breath, his eyes caught an almost imperceptible pressure ridge on the water’s surface.

Adrenaline flooded his body: pupils dilated, muscle fibers twitched in anticipation. The water inside the hole suddenly rose, surging up the sides of the ice – and a harp seal’s nose broke the surface, flared its nostrils, and filled its lungs.

With an explosive downward thrust, the hunter drove the harpoon into the seal’s neck. The razor sharp ivory toggle sliced through hide and blubber, finally lodging itself deep into the harp seal’s muscle.

The stunned seal exploded upward, then bucked and writhed, desperately trying to flee beneath the ice. The hunter wrapped the line around his hand and, digging his sealskin boots into the ice and snow, began to back up, pulling the line taught.

A violent game of tug-of-war erupted. Five minutes later it ended. In one fluid motion the hunter hauled the vanquished seal up out of the sea and onto the sheet ice, then lunged forward and plunged his knife deep into the seal’s neck.

The fight was over. All movement stopped. The air was completely still and quiet except for the hunter’s labored breathing. He rose, kneeling over his kill. A crimson puddle spread out in a halo around the harp seal’s head – the only color in the otherwise black and white tableau.

A gust of wind swirled across the ice, ruffling the fur that lined the hunter’s hood. He looked up, scanned the horizon, and saw a gathering storm – a massive anvil-shaped cloud had formed and was spilling out of the sky and flattening across the ice like black smoke.

Lightning streaked across the sky. Thunderclaps shattered the silence. A second gust of wind, and another set of icy fingers brushed his face. Spindrifts of snow leapt off the ice, pirouetting around his body. The hunter turned his back to the wind and hurried with his kill. One quick movement with his knife, and the seal’s bowels spilled onto the ice. Another cut, and he began rolling off the thick, blubbery skin. Overcome with hunger he removed a bloody strip of flesh, and, hungrily pushing it into his mouth, began to chew.

Darkness fell. The hunter turned his face toward the howling wind, and – illuminated by flashes of lightning – saw a perfect arctic storm raging across the ice directly toward him.

Racing against the weather, he continued to dress out his kill. As he removed the last of the meat, he was suddenly aware of his own breathing. The storm around him had momentarily stopped. It was like someone had thrown a switch. A primal, musky smell filled the air. He snapped around, looked up – and a fifteen-hundred-pound polar bear rose and let out a deafening roar.

The hunter instinctively yelled out, lunged for his harpoon, and missing it, pitched forward, scuttling away from the butchered seal.

The bear charged, then abruptly stopped, drawn back by the smell of blood and fresh meat. The bear swung around and fell on the seal, greedily devouring chunks of blubber and muscle. The hunter staggered to his feet, watching helplessly from a distance, then turned and silently disappeared into the raging storm.

The storm continued to build. The hunter appeared, then disappeared amid flurries of ice and snow. Bent forward, he moved against the wind, every step a fight for his life. He stopped, tightening his hood around his face. Moving again, he continued forward, and then from somewhere behind him, out of the shrieking wind, he heard a blood curdling scream – half human, half animal.

Terror filled his face and he broke into a run – heart hammering, he struggled to keep his footing. Then he heard it again. Something was running at a terrible speed directly toward him. He turned, and the polar bear shot directly past him. He saw that its shoulder was torn open and red stripes ran down its side like it had been raked by metal spikes.

Before the hunter had time to yell, he staggered forward and spilled onto the ice.

Wind shrieked overhead. Snow swirled around him. He looked up, straining to see through the thick atmosphere. A lifetime of hunting told him something was out there in the dark. He could feel it. Another flurry of snow. Then it rushed toward him, something big.

The hunter’s face was frozen with fear. Horrible wet footsteps raced towards him. Closer and closer. He held his breath, straining to hear – and a hand closed around his leg. Fingers like steel cut into his flesh – and suddenly he was being dragged backwards. He yelled. His screams were instantly gobbled by the arctic storm.

The fetid stench of rotting flesh and congealed animal fat filled the air. The hunter was lifted straight up. Streaks of red crisscrossed the snow. He seemed to be suspended in midair. His hood was ripped off. His face was naked and twisted and tortured with terror. And then he was gone, swallowed up by a boiling cloud of white.

Chapter 2

Present Day

Greenland’s West Coast, “The Iceberg Factory”

A massive glacier surged forward. The air was alive with the sounds of groaning, grinding, shearing ice. There was a sudden loud explosion, then a violent popping – and a great block calved from the mother ice and dropped to the sea. The slab of ice plunged down, kicking up a thirty-foot wall of water – and a brand new iceberg settled onto the surface of Baffin Bay.

* * * *

Harry McNills gripped the yoke and applied a little right rudder, sending the DeHavilland Twin Otter into a slow arcing turn over Newfoundland’s jagged coastline and out across the North Atlantic. As the high-winged plane nosed into the weather, the airspeed dropped and Harry instinctively reached down and nudged the throttles forward.

The two turbocharged Pratt &Whitney engines bit into the icy air, seeming to growl with delight.

Harry glanced down at a lonely, ice-littered section of the Atlantic. A shiver ran the length of his 36-year-old spine and he zipped the front of his fleece jacket in response. He silently swore at himself for not adding another layer of polypropylene before taking off from St. John’s this morning.

It had been exactly one year since Harry had left Florida and come to Canada to take control of Arctic Air Adventures. And since that day, he couldn’t remember ever feeling entirely warm.

He had come north with a simple plan: make enough money as a bush pilot in the dangerous but lucrative Great North, then return to the Caribbean and start an island air charter business. He was all about palm trees and bikinis, not icebergs and parkas. If he didn’t freeze to death first, his plan just might work.

Before heading north to assume control of Arctic Air Adventures, Harry had taken a trip to Jamaica to see friends, and time permitting, scout around for likely spots to set up his charter business.

On the day he was to return to Florida, he’d stopped at a little beachside bar in Ocho Rios to drink a couple of Red Stripe beers, and watch the sunset before joining his friends for a late dinner. The view from the bar had been spectacular. Harry was just thinking about ordering another beer when he was joined by a deeply tanned octogenarian, dressed in a straw hat and faded denim shirt bleached almost white from years of washing.

The man slid onto a bar stool next to Harry, thrust out his hand and said, “Wilkie Collins – ex-pilot, angler, and world-class beach bum.”

Harry shook his hand and said he was pleased to meet him, then he told Wilkie that he was a pilot too, and wasn’t it an amusing coincidence.

A couple of sips of beer later, Harry learned that Wilkie Collins had been an Air Force captain who had spent his youth flying B-17’s on bombing raids over Germany, destroying roads and bridges and factories when most kids his age were chasing girls around college campuses.

It turned out Wilkie was a natural raconteur, and it wasn’t long before he and Harry were talking and laughing like old college friends. For some reason, Wilkie decided to regale Harry with the highlights of his eighty-six years spent knocking around the globe. It may have had something to do with the open bar tab Harry was running – but he didn’t care – the stories were great.

After the sun had set and more bottles of Red Stripe were emptied, Wilkie told Harry how he’d come to the Caribbean in 1958, on his honeymoon, and had never left. The same could not be said for his bride. As it turned out, three months later she returned to Texas, had their marriage annulled, and six months after that, she met and married an insurance salesman and moved to Houston.

The way Wilkie put it was, “Some people need white picket fences – and some people need white sand beaches.”

A year later Wilkie married again, but that didn’t last either. Wilkie was quick to blame himself. Said the married life just wasn’t for people like him. Then he went on to explain that the year of his second marriage, he’d taken up with a mistress – a 1949 DeHavilland Beaver float plane.

From the moment he climbed into that plane, his fate had been sealed. It seems that Wilkie had spent the rest of his years – and most of his money – flying to every corner of the Caribbean, searching for and finding some of the best fishing spots in the world.

Wilkie stopped talking for a minute to polish off his beer, and, after placing it back onto the bar top, said that the only reason he wasn’t out floating in some deserted cove right now was on account of a stroke that he’d suffered two years ago. He went on to explain how the stroke had left him with a slight limp and fifty percent blind in his right eye – and worse than that, unable to fly.

Harry asked him what he’d done with the plane. Wilkie told him he still owned it. Said he couldn’t bear to part with the sturdy little true blue DeHavilland Beaver that had never failed him, that had never let him down. He said that after all those years, it was almost a living thing to him – like a trusty old bird dog that you’ve come to love and rely on. He went on to tell Harry that the plane was kept in a hangar at a small private airport not far from Ocho Rios.

The moment Harry learned that the plane was close by, he told Wilkie he had to see it. That ever since he’d first learned to fly a little piper cub, he had dreamed of owning a float plane and flying to deserted islands and swimming on pristine beaches. Then he told Wilkie of his plans to move to the islands and start an air charter business.

On hearing Harry’s plans, Wilkie turned and, with his one good eye, looked Harry dead in the face, trying to decide if this ‘kid’ really meant what he was saying.

After a long silence, Wilkie nodded at Harry and said, “You can drive us to the airfield tomorrow morning. I’ll be waiting here for you at 9 a.m.”

The next day, Harry and Wilkie drove up to the airfield and spent the next couple of hours poring over the classic float plane like two kids on Christmas morning.

Four hours after first seeing the DeHavilland Beaver, Harry was the plane’s new owner. The deal was struck as both men sat in the plane’s cockpit with the midday heat beating down on the hanger’s tin roof – and both of them grinning and laughing and soaked with sweat.

It was decided that the plane would be kept in Wilkie’s trust, there in Jamaica, until Harry could return, take possession, and put the plane back into running order.

These were the terms of the sale: Wilkie would charge Harry exactly what he’d paid for the DeHavilland Beaver in 1959, almost nothing in today’s dollars. And even better, Harry didn’t have to come up with one cent until his business was up and running. Wilkie insisted on this point, telling Harry that many businesses fail for lack of start-up capital. All Harry had to do was agree to one condition: fly Wilkie to some of his favorite fishing spots whenever the urge struck him.

Harry was overwhelmed by Wilkie’s generosity, and, of course, couldn’t grab his hand fast enough to seal the deal with a handshake.

He told Wilkie that he knew a guy back in Daytona whose specialty was working on old radial aircraft engines, and that as soon as he could arrange it, he would bring the guy down to Jamaica and together they would rebuild the motor. Harry promised he’d keep the plane’s same red and white paint job and that the only thing he would change was the leather on the seats.

Wilkie laughed and agreed that new seat covers were long overdue. Then he reached forward and removed an old color print that was taped to the instrument panel. It was a photograph of the DeHavilland Beaver sitting in a classic little horseshoe-shaped cove trimmed with a white coral beach.

Wilkie looked at the picture, then handed it to Harry.

“Where’s the cove?” Harry asked, staring at the picture.

“When you come back for the plane, that’s the first place we’ll go fishing.”

* * * *

Sitting next to Harry in the right seat, Boots Dalton was studiously unwrapping a cream pie. Hirsute, disheveled, and of indiscriminate age, Boots sole mission in life was to fly shotgun for Harry.

Behind the cockpit, seated in the cargo bay next to a funerary wreath, was a very pale-looking Albert Goodacre. Goodacre was with the Titanic Historical Foundation and had chartered the plane to conduct a private memorial service.

Boots took a bite of pie, looked out the window, then pointed to an iceberg. “Wow, look at that one, Harry. Gonna be a busy year.”

Harry looked to where Boots was pointing, momentarily letting his eyes pause on the old color photograph of the DeHavilland float plane sitting in the tropical cove that he’d taped to the Twin Otter’s dashboard, saw the iceberg, nodded, then called back to Goodacre. “Hold on, Mr. Goodacre…”

Harry pushed the nose over and sent the Twin Otter diving toward the sea. Seconds later he pulled out of the dive, leveling off at 500 hundred feet. Dead ahead, looming on the horizon was a towering block of ice.

Goodacre clutched his seat, grabbed for an airsick bag and retched into it. Boots looked over at Harry – a big grin was spreading across his shaggy face and he had to stifle a laugh.

Harry turned, giving Goodacre a sympathetic look. “Sorry about that. But I thought you might want to see this iceberg.”

Goodacre looked at Harry. “Iceberg?” he said, speaking in a whisper.

Harry smiled, “Yeah, you’re in the iceberg capital of the world.”

Goodacre managed a pained nod, started to speak, then lost his lunch again.

Ocean flashed beneath the fuselage as the Twin Otter hungrily chewed up the distance to the iceberg. Just as they swooped over the blue-streaked block of ice, Harry said: “Get a GPS fix on that bad boy. The Ice Patrol is going to want to track that one.”

Boots reached out, punching the way points into the satellite navigation system. “Roger that, Harry.” After he double checked the coordinates, Boots turned, looked at Goodacre and grinned. “How do you like that iceberg, Mr. Goodacre?”

Boots took a bite of pie. Some custard calved off the mother filling and dropped onto his sleeve.

Goodacre stared at the hanging custard and, trying to swallow, found himself unable to speak.

Boots flipped back around and looked over at Harry. “He’s speechless, Har.”

Harry grinned and pulled back on the yoke. As they gained altitude, another object blipped onto the horizon. He reached for a pair of Nikon binoculars and adjusted the focus. “Well, well, well…”

Boots leaned forward, straining to see. “What is it, Harry?”

“Looks like Roscoe found himself a new iceberg.” Harry leveled the Twin Otter at 1500 feet and aimed the plane directly toward it.

Less than a minute later, a ship chained by the stern to a large iceberg with massive grapples filled the plane’s windshield. The hull was painted bright orange and block letters on the bow read, “ICE MACHINE.” Protruding from the stern was a long auger with wicked steel teeth that tore into the ice, making it look like a giant Day-Glo parasite sucking the blood out of its translucent host.

As they buzzed the ship, Harry waggled his wings and circled to make another pass. Harry called back to Goodacre, “There’s the future, Mr. Goodacre. Iceberg water.”

Goodacre gave Harry a confused look. “I don’t understand, Mr. McNills,” he said in a thin, papery voice.

“They’re mining that iceberg for its water, Mr. Goodacre,” Harry explained. “They say it’s the purest water on Earth. The meltwater is shipped back to Avalon where they’ll bottle it and one outfit is actually producing vodka with it. What do you think about that?”

Goodacre rocked back in his seat as Harry came out of the turn and trimmed the wings. “I don’t drink.”

Boots turned and looked at Goodacre. “What, water?”

Goodacre shook his head. “Vodka,” he said in an exasperated voice.

Boots nodded. “Oh, yeah,” then pulled out a chocolate bar, stripped off the wrapper and held it out to Goodacre. “Want a bite?”

Goodacre’s face turned from alabaster white to mint green. He began to speak, then clamped his hand over his mouth and lunged for another airsick bag.

Boots withdrew the chocolate bar. “No, I guess not.” He flipped back around, “He doesn’t drink.”

“What, water?” Harry said in a mocking voice.

Boots gave him a flat look, not appreciating the gibe, then in an annoyed voice said, “C’mon, Harry…”

Harry motioned towards Boots’s hands. “Boots, try to keep that chocolate off the instruments and punch up a corrected course to the wreck of the Titanic.”

Chapter 3

New York City

Cryolabs Corporation

In the basement of Cryolabs’s Department of Experimental Biology, inside a walk-in freezer, Dr. Amy Tyler, was dissecting an orthopteran insect. Dressed in a heavy arctic parka she was slender and energetic. She had dazzling green eyes that sparkled with intelligence and wore her blond hair pulled back, revealing an elegant jawline.

As she sliced into the thorax, she spoke into an overhead microphone. “Ice observed in all body cavities and most tissues with the exception of the ventral nerve cord. Insect displays excellent freeze tolerance, and – ”

“Amy.”

She put down the scalpel, flipped off the microphone and looked up just as lab tech Rina Washington stepped into the freezer.

“Rina, what is it? I’m right in the middle of a–”

“Dr. Lockwood wants to see you,” Rina said, stopping Amy with a raised hand.

“Right now?”

“I’m afraid so,” Rina answered apologetically.

Amy frowned, “In his office?”

“I’m afraid so, girl.”

Amy blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay, thanks Rina. Tell him I’m just finishing up in the lab and will be there in fifteen minutes.”

Rina nodded, slipped out of the freezer, and let the heavy door swing shut. Amy tidied up the lab bench, stepped out of the freezer, shrugged out of the parka and replaced it on a hook outside the door.

Exactly fifteen minutes later Amy stood outside Lockwood’s office. She reached up, yanked a band out of her hair and shook her head, letting her blond hair fall around her beautiful face. She squared her shoulders and smoothed her navy suit. Then she stepped through the door and announced to the secretary that Dr. Lockwood was expecting her.

The secretary stood, disappeared behind a heavy mahogany door, then returned and motioned for Amy to enter the office. As the door shut behind her, she heard Lockwood’s cultured voice. “Amy, come on in.”

At the sound of Lockwood’s voice, a shiver coursed through her, and she suddenly wished she’d left the parka on.

It was an impressive corner office that was all chrome and black leather. The only concession to color in the entire space was a huge abstract painting largely comprised of two ragged swoops of thick red pigment.

Sitting behind a massive polished aluminum desk fashioned from the rear elevator of a B-25 bomber was the fifty-seven-year-old president of research and development,

Dr. Hayden Lockwood.

Lockwood looked smooth and slick and self-assured – more trial attorney than scientist. He had icy blue eyes that betrayed nothing and usually left the subject of their scrutiny feeling uneasy. All about him was an air of entitlement and self-satisfaction. His silver-blond hair was coiffed to perfection. His shirt was crisp. His Italian suit hung flawlessly off his shoulders. The look was perfect, except for a soft chin that sloped rather than cut into his throat, leaving him just short of handsome.

Amy tried to look relaxed and self-assured as she crossed to the desk, but suddenly felt like a schoolgirl being called into the principal’s office. She had a pretty good idea what this was about.

Amy dropped into a chair that left her craning up at His Majesty.

“I think you know why I called for you, Amy.” Lockwood said flashing a set of perfect teeth, trying to sound disarming, but there was an icy edge to it.

“The research trip?”

Lockwood placed his hands on the edge of the desk, letting his fingers run across rivets and aircraft aluminum with an almost tactile lust. “Yes, of course, the research trip. And I prefer the term expedition.”

She had been right. It was about the upcoming trip to the edge of the Arctic. Everything about the expedition excited her, called to her – except for the fact that it was Lockwood’s party.

Amy looked down at her hands, laced her fingers together, then looked up at Lockwood. “I’m having trouble understanding why me… I mean, why just me? What about Greene and Hill? Shouldn’t they be going too?

Lockwood brought his hands together, leaving them on the edge of the desk. “They’re both fine biologists,” he said trying to sound thoughtful, “but I just don’t see the passion in them that you’ve got for the work.”

“But isn’t a trip like this the ideal way to build enthusiasm?”

“That’s very generous of you, Amy.” Lockwood rose, moved around the desk, and leaned against the edge directly in front of Amy. “It’s a very appealing thing about you. But you see, Cryolabs doesn’t have a bottomless slush fund for financing field work. No, it will just be me and one assistant.”

Amy suddenly realized she was pressing back in her chair, trying to create more personal space. “I just feel funny about it, being singled out.”

Lockwood pushed off the desk and slowly circled behind Amy’s chair. She didn’t like not being able to see him – it was a creepy feeling – and she had to fight her every instinct not to jump up and track his movements.

From directly behind her, he finally spoke. “A trip like this is a career maker, Amy.” Lockwood stepped silently up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Amy recoiled, pulling away – and felt her skin trying to crab back from beneath Lockwood’s fingers.

Lockwood removed his hand, returned to his desk, and as he sat gave Amy a playful smile. “Without field research… well, you’ll just be another pretty research assistant. It’s exceptional people doing exceptional things who rise above the pack.”

What she wanted to do was tell the creep to go screw himself, get the hell out of his office and take a hot shower. But what she heard herself say was, “Okay.”

Lockwood looked completely surprised by her sudden decision. “Okay?” he repeated, still confused.

“Yes, okay. I’ll go. I mean, I want to go. It’s a great opportunity.”

“Well, of course I’m very pleased, Amy.” Lockwood’s face was suddenly all smiles. “You’re making a wise decision. And I think I can guarantee that your future with Cryolabs is – ”

“There’s just one question,” she said, cutting him off. Lockwood stared at her, waiting. “Will there be combat pay?”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, then Lockwood regained his composure and began to laugh. “You are full of surprises, young lady.”

* * * *

Amy stepped into her office, exhaled, and collapsed into her chair feeling totally wrung out and very conflicted. She’d actually made her decision before entering Lockwood’s office. She just hadn’t wanted to seem too anxious in front of him. And the truth was, she really did believe that Hill and Greene should be going, too.

Amy tapped the touch pad on her laptop and the screen lit up as it came out of stand by. She saw that she had two new e-mails. And seeing them made her think of her father… and then her mother who died when she was a baby. Her father had raised her, loved her, cared for her, protected her – doing his best to fill the gap.

She remembered getting him a computer and showing him how to use it. Progress was slow at first, but it wasn’t long before he’d mastered it and tucked into the digital superhighway with a vengeance. After that, he e-mailed her everyday. At first she’d been amused by it. Then she’d found it comforting – and finally had come to rely on it.

Losing him last year had deeply affected her. It had changed her. Life had suddenly become more focused, more purpose-driven. And things like comfort and feeling safe just didn’t seem to matter as much now.

She opened her mail and saw that one of the messages was from Todd Greene. He’d asked her just this morning about the field trip. He knew that if she turned it down, he was next in line. She wondered why she hadn’t told him right then that she’d decided to go. Now she was going to have to tell him using a series of digital 0’s and 1’s.

There was a knock, and her office door cracked open.

“Amy…”

Amy swiveled in her chair, it was Rina. “C’mon on in, Rina.”

Rina had a sheepish look on her face. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No you’re not,” Amy shot back. “You want to know what I told Lockwood.”

Rina and Amy stared at each other, then both broke into big smiles. Rina pointed at Amy. “You did it! You agreed to go, didn’t you?”

“If I said, no, would you believe me?”

“I knew it the moment I saw your face. You know you can’t lie to me, girlfriend.”

“Okay, so now you know, Rina. Just don’t say anything to Todd. I haven’t told him yet.”

Rina looked at her and then shook her head. “All I can tell you, baby, is watch your six o’clock. The man’s got more moves than a Swiss watch.”

“There is nothing going on between us, Rina!”

Rina put her hands on her hips and said, “Uh-huh, he know that, baby doll?”

“Look, the man’s a disgusting pig,” Amy offered, “a brilliant, disgusting pig. I’m going for the science.”

“Yeah, and the first chance he gets he’s gonna want to play doctor.”

Amy rolled her eyes and shook her head. Then they were both suddenly laughing. When she caught her breath, she reached into the top drawer of her desk and held up a small canister. “He makes one move,” Amy pointed the canister at an imaginary Lockwood, “I’m going to pepper spray the horny bastard.”

Chapter 4

The Ice Machine was a 2,100 ton converted ore carrier. She’d been stripped, cleaned, repainted, and refitted with two state-of-the art Caterpillar turbo diesels. Four large stainless steel storage tanks had been squeezed into her hull, and the bridge had been specially modified. But the real genius behind the Ice Machine’s refit was the ninety-foot, auger-vacuuming boom that protruded from her stern.

A tungsten-carbide cutting head at the end of the auger chewed up the iceberg while a pneumatic tube attached to the boom vacuumed up the chunks of ice and sent them streaming back to the stainless steel tanks to be stored as meltwater. The improvised system was no more complicated than coal mining but proved to be every bit as effective. The real challenge was not in removing and storing the ice, but in knowing how much to remove before the iceberg became unstable and rolled over. Even without human interference, icebergs naturally became unstable and often rolled over without notice. Veterans of “Iceberg Alley” knew that birds suddenly lofting into flight over an iceberg could be a warning sign that it was about to roll.

Inside the Ice Machine’s bridge, Captain Roscoe Rains walked over to a Furuno Weatherfax, removed a sheet, and studied the latest weather report. Roscoe’s tanned and deeply lined face told of a lifetime spent fishing the Grand Banks. Two years ago, seizing on the world’s insatiable demand for pure drinking water, he and a “money partner” founded Arctic Iceberg Industries. They and a handful of other adventurous businessmen realized they were sitting on the purest source of water in the world – iceberg meltwater.

One year later, it was clear they’d struck gold. They were already refitting three more ships and had just finished construction of a bottling plant on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula. The possibilities for their five-thousand-year-old product seemed limitless as they watched first brewers, then distillers hit pay dirt with iceberg beer and iceberg vodka.

In fact, the vodka distillers bragged that iceberg vodka was so pure it could be quaffed in unheard-of quantities with virtually no hangover risk – although the Ice Machine’s engineer and first mate would beg to differ.

From a glass-sided booth, welded onto the back of the bridge, Skeeter Anderson worked a joystick that controlled the auger’s movements. LCD panels filled with graphics and lines of telemetry helped him guide the powerful cutting head. Skeeter had the “touch” – the joystick had become a mere extension of his arm – and because of this, he was the highest paid member of the crew.

Skeeter had just finished repositioning the auger and was cutting into a fresh ridge of ice when there was a sudden loud bang. The cutting head had been kicked up out of the ice and was flailing on the surface like a busted chainsaw. Unable to control the boom with the joystick, Skeeter lunged forward, driving his palm into a red kill button, shutting the auger down.

Roscoe’s voice boomed out of the speaker in the control booth. “What happened, Skeeter?”

“I’m not sure, skipper. I think we might’ve lost the cutting head.”

“Okay. Leave it shut down and I’ll send Porter out to take a look.”

Moments later, Skeeter watched Porter, dressed in greasy overalls, work boots and a hard hat, cross the deck and climb up onto the boom. Porter pulled a headset over his ears and adjusted the mouthpiece. “What am I supposed to be looking for, Skeeter?”

Skeeter shook his head. “If I knew that Porter, you dumbass, you wouldn’t be out there freezing your butt off.”

Porter stopped, turned around, and flipped Skeeter the bird. Then pumped his arm up and down for good measure.

Suddenly Roscoe’s voice boomed in Porter’s headset. “Stow that crap, Porter, and move your ass.”

Porter turned around and as he picked his way along the boom mumbled, “Aye, aye, skipper.” He reached the end of the boom, dropped onto the iceberg, and began to examine the cutting head, whistling to himself, then reporting what he’d found. “It’s the cutting head. Cracked bad. I’m amazed it didn’t part from the shaft.”

“Did you hear that, Skipper?” Skeeter asked.

“Yeah, but I wish I hadn’t,” Roscoe answered flatly.

“Do we have another cutting head on board?”

“No. And even if we did, we couldn’t replace it out here. Let’s break it down. You and Porter pull the grapples – we’re heading in.”

Porter fingered a cigarette out of his overalls, lit it, and stood looking at the auger. He’d heard the captain say they were heading in and thought he’d celebrate with a smoke. They’d been chewing on this berg for three days and he was drag-ass tired of it. He’d just taken another hit of his cigarette when the chains on the two grapples began to rattle, then snapped tight.

Porter dropped the cigarette and grabbed onto the boom to steady himself. “Holy shit.” He looked up at the control booth. “You feel that, Skeeter?”

“Hell, yes!” Skeeter yelled in an excited voice. “Let’s get those grapples pulled and get the hell out of here before the bastard rolls.”

The main engines of the Ice Machine rumbled to life and sent black smoke shooting out of the twin stacks.

On Skeeter’s left were another set of controls that worked an articulated cargo crane attached to the ship’s stern. He flipped a switch and the new control panel lit up. Using his left hand, he began to extend the crane and swing it out over the ice. “We’ll pull the starboard grapple first, Porter. I’m lowering the cable now.”

Porter flashed a thumbs-up and moved over to the grapple. Skeeter let the cable spool out until it was dangling directly in front of Porter, who hooked the cable through a hitch, secured it, and backed away. “Clear.”

Skeeter began to retrieve the cable and as it became taught the grapple was torn free of the ice. He swung the crane over the ship where another deckhand was waiting, and as soon as he lowered it the cable was released.

Porter moved toward the remaining grapple when something caught his eye. Something big. Something big and fast-moving. What the fuck was that? It flashed out of sight behind a ridge of ice before he could really see it. Porter remained frozen in place, hoping that it might move again. But nothing happened.

Ignoring the old adage, curiosity killed the cat, Porter flicked his cigarette onto the ice and began climbing. Halfway up the ridge, Skeeter’s voice yelled in his ears, “Porter, what-the-fuck? Get your ass back to that grapple and quit screwing around!”

Porter got to the top of the ridge and, breathless and coughing, began pointing. “I saw something moving out here.”

“Porter, we don’t have time for this shit.”

But he had already disappeared down the backside.

Skeeter yelled again, “Porter!” Then he swore to himself and began to position the cable over the remaining grapple. He’d just have to sit here and wait for mister fuck-up to get back from his field trip. In fact, the only reason Porter still had a job was he could make the skipper laugh his ass off. Sure, everyone liked Porter – but there were times when all you wanted to do was strangle the bastard.

Suddenly, Porter’s desperate voice boomed in Skeeter’s headset. “Oh, God! Oh, Jesus! No – !”

And then all Skeeter heard were terror-filled screams.

“Porter! Porter, what is it? What’s happening?” Skeeter pressed against the glass, trying to locate him. And then without warning, Porter appeared on the top of the ridge. Blood covered his face and was running down his body, staining the ice at his feet like cherry syrup being poured over the top of a snow cone.

Skeeter heard a wet, gurgling sound. Porter was trying to say something. It sounded like, “Mobtar… Mobtar…” Then Skeeter heard him say, “Monster.”

Porter took a step and as he raised his leg, the lower half of his body fell away while his torso tumbled down the ice streaming garlands of torn flesh and bloody entrails.

Skeeter’s mouth hung open in shock. He sat in stunned silence, not comprehending. Just as he was about to call the skipper…

The iceberg rolled.

Thousands of tons of ice swept toward the ship. The auger snapped like a twig. And as the buried grapple disappeared beneath the water, the chain was pulled tight – and the stern of the ship was dragged beneath the crushing ice. Steel plates buckled. A jagged tear yawned in the hull. The anguished moans of rending metal echoed across the ocean’s surface. The Ice Machine foundered. Seconds later the stern parted, and the ship began to sink.

The captain was thrown across the bridge and had to claw his way forward to reach the radio. Bleeding and in shock, he began to broadcast a mayday. “Mayday, mayday… this is the captain of the working vessel Ice Machine…”

* * * *

With the Twin Otter on course and making good time toward the wreck of the Titanic, Harry flipped on the autopilot and was about to pour himself a cup of coffee when Goodacre’s wobbly voice drifted into the cockpit.

“I-I don’t think I can go on. Please, please can we just drop the wreath here and turn back?”

Boots reached over and nudged Harry. “Harry, he wants to drop the wreath here.”

“Thanks for telling me, Boots. I was three inches farther away and didn’t hear him.” Harry motioned to the GPS. “Punch up the elapsed time to the shipping lanes.”

Boots tapped a couple of keys and retrieved the data. “Twenty minutes, Harry.”

Harry leaned out of the cockpit and looked at Goodacre. “Hear that, Mr. Goodacre? Only twenty more minutes and I’ll have you smack dab in the shipping lanes.”

“I don’t care. I can’t go on,” Goodacre mewled.

“The weather looks good. The air should be smooth as butter.”

The word ‘butter’ made Goodacre swallow hard and take a careful breath. “Listen, I paid for this, Mr. McNills,” Goodacre protested. “And I’m telling you I want to do it now! I want to dump the wreath and go back.”

Harry shrugged. It was no skin off his back. In fact, it would save him forty minutes of fuel. “Okay, it’s your nickel, Mr. Goodacre.” He hooked a thumb at Boots. “Go help Mr. Goodacre with the wreath.”

Boots popped his seatbelt, stepped out of the cockpit and joined Goodacre in the cargo bay. Boots clipped on a safety harness, then got Goodacre on his feet and attached a harness to him as well.

Boots grabbed the wreath, handed it to Goodacre, then stepped up to the cargo door and looked at Goodacre. “Are you ready?”

Goodacre nodded weakly. Boots slid the cargo door open – and they were instantly hit by a blast of icy air and the roar of the engines. Boots positioned Goodacre in the center of the doorway and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Okay, Mr. Goodacre, let her rip.”

Goodacre leaned forward, released the wreath – and for a brief moment watched it tumbling through the air before it was whipped out of sight. Then in a shaky, but reverential tone, Goodacre called for a prayer. “Gentlemen, if you will observe one minute of silence for the 1,500 souls lost aboard the Titanic this day ninety-five years ago.”

The cabin fell silent.

Then there was a sudden loud crunching sound as Boots began to chew a mouthful of Doritos he’d just shoveled into his mouth. Goodacre turned, flashing an angry look. Boots stopped chewing, his cheeks still bulging with chips.

Just as silence had been restored, the distressed voice of Captain Roscoe Rains crashed out of the radio. “Mayday, mayday… this is the vessel Ice Machine. We have struck ice and are shipping water. We are down at the stern and in danger of sinking. Our location is approximately twenty miles off the Avalon Peninsula. Last position

48-48N and 55-20W.”

“My God, it’s Roscoe!” Harry reached for the radio, switched channels, then tried to raise the Ice Machine. “Ice Machine, Ice Machine… this is a charter aircraft out of St. John’s. Do you copy?”

There was a moment of dead air. Then a burst of static. Finally Roscoe’s voice answered back. “Affirmative. Roger that. I copy loud and clear. Harry is that – ”

And suddenly Roscoe was cut off. The radio went dead and then hissed a steady stream of static.

“Ice Machine, Ice Machine – you’re breaking up. Repeat transmission.” Harry waited, then tried again. “Ice Machine, Ice Machine... This is Arctic Air Adventures out of St. John’s. Do you copy?”

For the next couple of minutes Harry kept broadcasting, but it was no good.

“What do you think, Harry?” Boots asked.

“I think they’re in deep shit.” Harry handed Boots a slip of paper with the Ice Machine’s last reported position. “Boots, plot a new course and give me a heading.”

Boots stared at the slip of paper, silently reading the coordinates. “Harry, it’s too far. It’s cutting it too close. We don’t have the fuel.”

Harry knew he was pushing it.

“We’ll have a tailwind on the inbound leg.”

“A tailwind ?” Boots shook his head in disbelief. “Harry, we have a tailwind now! It’s gonna be uphill all the way home.”

“Boots, snort a Twinkie, steady your nerves, and get me a course and elapsed time to the Ice Machine.”

“Aye, aye, skipper,” Boots said unenthusiastically, then mumbled something unintelligible.

Harry tried to raise the Ice Machine again but got nothing. He switched channels, contacted the Coast Guard, and notified them of the mayday call and the Ice Machine’s last reported position.

Goodacre, who’d been quietly listening to everything and growing more horrified by the moment, jumped out of his seat and thrust his head into the cockpit. “Captain McNills, this is my charter and I demand we return to St. John’s immediately.”

Harry turned, giving Goodacre a direct look. “Mr. Goodacre, a ship is in trouble and we are obliged to try and help them.”

“No sir, you are obliged to serve your client. And as your client, I insist we return now!”

Boots looked at Goodacre, then back at Harry. Boots watched Harry’s face darken and decided to stay out of it.

“Mr. Goodacre, as your captain I’m going to give you two choices. You can jump out and swim back to St. John’s, or you can make yourself useful by returning to your seat and shutting up.”

Goodacre was about to protest when he suddenly had to bolt back for another airsick bag.

Boots slid a Twinkie into his mouth, bit it in half, then began reading off coordinates to Harry. “Make your course one-zero-five, Harry. We should be over that iceberg in thirty-five minutes.”

“Turning one-zero-five,” Harry confirmed grimly, and then began trimming the plane for the new heading.

* * * *

Thirty minutes later the Twin Otter was circling the iceberg. There was no sign of the Ice Machine except for a telltale oil slick that had formed on the ocean’s surface. Strong currents and a building sea had scattered debris in a mile-long swath.

“Look for survivors, Boots,” Harry said, and kept the plane banking around the wreck.

“I have been, Harry.” Then in a nervous voice Boots said, “Harry… where are the lifeboats?”

Boots’s question hung in the air. Harry had been thinking the same thing. There should’ve been lifeboats or at least a life raft. Roscoe was an experienced captain. He’d know what to do. He’d know how to save the crew. And if men had gone into the thirty- degree water, even with survival suits on, they couldn’t last more than about fifteen minutes.

They circled again. Harry got on the radio, called the Coast Guard and reported what they’d found. The Coast Guard confirmed his report and told him the cutter Disko Bay was en route and a chopper was standing by. Harry informed the Coast Guard they were approaching bingo fuel and could not remain on station any longer.

They circled the iceberg one last time. Harry couldn’t believe Roscoe and his crew were gone. They were all seasoned sailors. Something must have gone terribly wrong.

Boots shucked the wrapper off a Snickers bar, raised it to his mouth and, amazingly, didn’t seem to be able to eat it. He lowered the candy bar. “Harry,” he pointed to the fuel gage. “We’ve got a problem.”
Harry looked at Boots, narrowed his eyes and thought: gee Boots, thanks for pointing that out. I wasn’t aware that we just responded to an emergency and have used up our reserve. “Dammit Boots, I know!” he snapped. The cockpit fell silent, then Harry added, “I’m thinking.”

He pulled off his headset, leaned around his seat and scanned the cargo bay. The first thing he noticed was Goodacre hunched over in his seat writing furiously in a notepad. Not a good sign, Harry thought. He didn’t even want to think about what the jerk was scribbling. Behind Goodacre, secured under a cargo net, were a few boxes of supplies that they hadn’t bothered to unload. Harry’s eyes drifted back to Goodacre. He was still writing. Harry shook his head, turned back around, and replaced his headset.

Boots looked at Harry. The dual emotions of hope and despair vied for dominance in his facial expression. “What, Harry?” Boots asked. The suspense was too much for him. “You got an idea?”

“Yeah, Boots. I’m thinking we need to lighten the load.”

“Lighten the load, Harry?”

“Boots, what do we have back there that is totally useless?”

Goodacre suddenly stopped writing. He looked up and saw Harry and Boots staring back at him. “I’ll have you know, Mr McNills,” Goodacre said in a tremulous voice, “I’m recording everything that has happened here today.” He raised his notepad, shaking it in the air. “My attorney and the FAA and the public in general are going to find out how you endanger the lives of your passengers.”

“Is that right?” Harry scoffed. “Well, Mr. Goodacre, the way I see it you’ve got one little problem…”

Rising to his feet, Goodacre took the bait. “What are you talking about?”

“When the last of the fuel is sucked out of the tanks, and the engines flame-out, and the propellers stop turning, and we plunge toward the freezing sea – you’re going to have to ask yourself one question – how do I keep my notepad dry?”

“Are you saying we’re going to crash?” Goodacre bleated.

“Of course, there is one thing you could do – before we hit the water, you could always cram it up your ass.”

A little color finally returned to Goodacre’s face as he reddened in silent rage.

Boots burst into laughter. Harry stopped him with a raised hand. “Boots, go aft and strip out anything not bolted down in the cargo bay and pitch it out the door.”

“I’m on it, Har.” Boots jumped up, squeezed past Goodacre, dismantled the cargo net, threw open the door and began pitching boxes out of the plane. He quickly worked his way through the stack. There were just two left. He lifted one, moved to the door, then stopped and yelled forward to the cockpit. “Hey, Harry, what about these?”

Harry turned, looking to see what Boots was talking about – and his face instantly fell. “Two cases of Laphroaig single malt,” Harry said, wistfully. “It’s a crime to throw them out. Hell, it’s damn near worth keeping them and taking a chance on crashing.”

Harry’s last comment was too much for Goodacre. “I can tell you, sir, I don’t drink and I don’t approve of the habit. And furthermore, if it’s a choice between a filthy vice and us crashing – ”

“Save the scotch!” Harry yelled to Boots. “And throw Goodacre out!”

Goodacre’s unhealthy pallor returned and he yelled, “What?”

Harry turned back to the controls and after tamping down his rage, said, “Go ahead, Boots, dump it.”

Boots quickly pitched the two cases overboard and slid the door shut.

Goodacre was furiously writing in his notebook again, and, as Boots dropped into the cockpit, the instrument panel caught his eye. “Harry! Look! We’ve got a tailwind!”

“Of course we do,” Harry said nonchalantly. “What did I tell you?”

Chapter 5

The Next Day

Newfoundland, St. John’s Airport

Amy and Lockwood emerged from a 737, deplaned, and crossed the tarmac toward a cargo hanger. They were both sensibly dressed in hiking boots and fleece parkas. Though Lockwood had ditched the Italian suit, he still managed to look pompous and too perfect. Amy looked relaxed and comfortable and could’ve been on a ski vacation.

She took a deep breath of the pure air. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Untamed.”

“Untamed?” Lockwood questioned. “Well, yes, if one disregards the jetport.”

“Very funny,” Amy said. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes. It’s spectacular country.”

They continued walking, and Lockwood suddenly looped an arm around Amy’s shoulder. “Ah, there’s adventure in the air.”

Amy slipped out from beneath his arm, ignoring the move, not letting it ruin the moment.

Lockwood smiled to himself, then angled toward a cargo handler. “Excuse me. But I just want to make sure those crates marked Cryolabs are safely stored in Hanger One. Cryolabs has rented the entire space.”

The cargo handler looked at Lockwood. “And you are?”

“Doctor Hayden Lockwood,” he said, pronouncing his name with royal fondness. The lord addressing the serf.

The cargo handler looked underwhelmed. He pressed his lips together and paged through a clipboard. “Okay, gotcha, right, Cryolabs. Fifteen boxes. Scientific equipment.”

“Excellent,” Lockwood said. “And could you direct us to a Mr. – ?” Lockwood reached inside his coat, removed a slip of paper and read the name. “A Mr. McNills, Arctic Air Adventures?”

“Harry?” The cargo handler smiled and seemed a little surprised. “You’ll find him over at the Frozen Coconut.”

“The Frozen Coconut?” Lockwood asked with a puzzled look on his face.

“It’s a pub. The cab driver will know.”

“Yes, of course he will,” Lockwood said. “Thank you.”

The Frozen Coconut was a local’s spot filled with lunchtime drinkers. The clientele were mostly fisherman and dockworkers, guys in boots and hard hats drinking Jack Daniels and beer. At night they had dancing. Tourists didn’t go there, and if they did drop by, they almost never stayed long enough for a drink. Thirty years ago someone had done a bad job trying to make it look like a Caribbean beach bar. Grimy bamboo lined the walls and trimmed the bar. A net filled with coconuts hung from the ceiling. Tattered Hawaiian prints bookended an old black-and-white photo of Duke Kahanamoku riding an ancient paddle board. Below that, Papa Hemingway stood proudly next to a giant marlin hanging from a scale. Behind the bar, lined up in front of a mirror, a collection of plastic hula dolls completed the look.

Harry and Boots were sitting at a table sharing a pitcher of beer. Harry drained his glass and let his eyes drift across the bar. He loved this place. The Cuban music. The patrons. The ersatz decor. This was as close as he was going to get to Wilkie, his float plane, and his dream of the tropics for a couple of years.

Harry refilled his glass, then raised it and made a toast. “Here’s to Roscoe and Skeeter and Porter and the entire crew of the Ice Machine. If they have pubs in heaven, Roscoe is already shit-faced.”

Harry watched Boots maneuver a gob of gum across his mouth and into a cheek. “To the whole crew,” Boots said, raising his glass and taking a sip.

Harry took another drink, then looked at Boots. “Why anyone would want to drink beer and chew gum at the same time, I’ll never understand.”

“What?” Boots said, a blank expression spreading across his face.

“How the hell can you chew gum and drink beer at the same time, Boots?”

“I always chew gum when I drink, Harry. You know that.”

“Well, it’s uncouth. You’re uncouth, Boots.”

“What the heck is that?” Boots asked defensively. “What is that suppose to mean?”

Harry saw that Boots was getting upset. Not wanting to push it, he clapped him warmly on the back and laughed. “It means you don’t give a shit about what anybody thinks. And come to think of it – that’s what I like about you, Boots.”

Boots looked at Harry, wondering if he should still be upset – then decided to let it go. “Well, alright then,” he raised his glass. “Here’s to being uncouth!”

Harry raised his beer and just as their glasses clinked together, Keith “Nowhere Man” Le Marche, a six-foot-two Coast Guard pilot dressed in a flight suit and holding an empty glass and a pitcher of beer, dropped into a seat and said, “Cheers, boys.” Nowhere Man filled his glass. “Looks like you fellers got a head start on me.”

“We’ve been waiting for over an hour,” Harry said impatiently. “What’s going on, Nowhere?”

Nowhere Man pointed to the empty pitcher. “Looks like you’ve been doing more than waiting, Harry.”

“C’mon, Nowhere, you guys find anyone?” Boots asked.

Nowhere Man took a long pull on his beer. “One person,” he said solemnly. And then added, “Correction, make that half a person. The Disko Bay pulled a body out of the water two nautical miles south of the iceberg.”

“Jesus,” Harry said. “No survivors?”

“Not as of noon today.”

“Who was it, Nowhere? Who’d they find?” Harry asked quietly.

“I made the I. D. No one knew who it was on account of the fact that the top half was missing, head and all.”

“Lord Almighty,” Boots whispered.

Nowhere Man looked down at his beer. “When I saw the tattoo – a clown with a teardrop falling out of its eye – I knew…”

“Porter,” Harry said.

Nowhere Man nodded and took a sip of beer.

The table fell silent. Then Harry asked, “Any theories as to what happened to the rest of the crew?”

“The best guess is the iceberg rolled, tearing off the stern and sinking the Ice Machine in a thousand feet of water. It was probably sudden and violent – and they just didn’t have enough time to abandon ship.”

Boots let out a sibilant stream of air and shook his head.

“They were operating right on the lip of a trench. They just missed the bottom at a hundred and fifty feet before slipping over the edge. We may never know for sure what happened.”

“I can’t believe Roscoe couldn’t launch the lifeboats, or at least get a couple of rafts in the water,” Harry said. “He’s probably the most experienced skipper working out of St. John’s.”

“I agree,” Nowhere said. “The weird thing is they did find one life raft. But it was shredded to shit – looked like some animal slashed it with its claws.”

“Claws?” Harry said, amazed.

“Well, that’s what it looked like,” Nowhere insisted. “Whatever happened must’ve been drastic.”

The table fell silent again. Nowhere Man lifted his pitcher, refilling everyone’s glasses.

“Have they called off the search?” Harry asked.

Nowhere Man swallowed a mouthful of beer and shook his head. “No. An Ice Patrol C-130 has been re-tasked and is flying a grid looking for possible survivors. No one is very hopeful.”

One hour and two pitchers of beer later, Harry had had enough to drink. Nowhere Man had gone home to get some rest in case his chopper was called up again. Boots was trying to get Harry to have something to eat, but Harry kept ignoring him. Roscoe and Harry had been close. He’d helped Harry when he first arrived in St. John’s. They’d become good friends and Harry was taking the news hard.

Harry sat bleary-eyed, looking at nothing in particular, when he noticed two people enter the pub and make their way toward the bar. Immediately two thoughts went through his mind: the guy in front looked like an uptight asshole, and the woman in tow was one hot-looking babe.

Lockwood and Amy looked uncomfortable and out of place as they stepped up to the bar. “Looks like we’ve found the rough trade,” Lockwood whispered to Amy.

Amy didn’t respond and flashed a friendly smile as the bartender, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and wearing earmuffs, moved up and asked what he could get them.

“Nothing to drink, thank you,” Lockwood said in a cultured voice. “We’re looking for a Mr. Harry McNills of Arctic Air Adventures. Perhaps you could locate him for us?”

“Ah, yes, Mr. McNills,” said the bartender, mocking Lockwood’s upper crust tone. Then he turned and pointed to the middle of the room. “His office is the third table down.”

Sensing he was being mocked, Lockwood offered no courtesy, grabbed Amy’s arm, and ushered her toward Harry’s table.

Harry watched as they approached. Heads were turning, and it was Amy who was getting all the attention. The closer she got, the easier it was to tell why – she was something to look at.

Harry wobbled, then quickly straightened in his seat as they stepped up to the table.

“Excuse me, Mr. McNills…?” said Lockwood, releasing Amy’s arm.

Harry stared at them, his eyes swimming in and out of focus. “I’m Han Solo,” he said, then waved his hand through the air, “and you must be Obi-Wan Kenobi and Princess Leia.”

“I think he’s drunk,” Amy said to Lockwood.

Harry’s head snapped toward her, “Yup, that’s definitely something Princess Leia would say.”

“Enough of this nonsense,” Lockwood demanded. “Are you or aren’t you Harry McNills?”

Harry swayed in Lockwood’s direction. “C’mon, I just told you – I’m Han Solo.”

Lockwood looked at his watch, exaggerating his movements in a dramatic way.

“It’s mid-day and you’re drunk, sir!”

Harry raised his hand, and it was all he could do to keep it pointing at Lockwood.

“Yes, but when I wake up tomorrow I’ll be sober – and you’ll still be an asshole.”

Amy’s hand shot up to her mouth, trying to stop herself from bursting out in laughter. Lockwood snapped around, looked at her, then pointed an accusing finger back at Harry. “The man is stinking drunk.”

Harry tried to swat his hand away. “Obi-Wan, are you trying to break my balls? Because listen, I already know that jerk-off Vader is Luke’s papa san… And yeah, I have a couple of drinks every time I lose a close friend and almost ditch the Millennium Falcon in the drink.” Harry grabbed his glass, drained it, then wiped his mouth on his
shirtsleeve. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

“Do you have any idea who we are?” asked Lockwood indignantly.

“C’mon… I just told you – ”

“We’re from Cryolabs,” Lockwood interrupted. “And we have mistakenly chartered your plane for a week.”

Boots, who’d been quietly watching, suddenly reached over and pulled Harry towards him. “Harry, Harry… they’re clients,” he whispered.

Harry looked over at Boots, and just as what Boots had told him was sinking in Goodacre’s shrill voice echoed across the table. “You must have a death wish!”

Goodacre pushed past Amy and Lockwood, then pointed at Harry. “This man almost killed me yesterday,” he said in an accusatory voice. “Charter his plane at your own peril.”

Harry looked up at Goodacre, then had to wait for his eyes to focus. “Hey, it’s

C-3PO!”

Goodacre shoved some papers in Harry’s face. They hovered above the table, rattling in his trembling fist. “Look, look at my hands,” Goodacre demanded. “They’re still shaking!” He dropped the papers directly in front of Harry. “These are legal papers, Mr. McNills. They name you as a defendant in a personal injury lawsuit.”

Harry looked at the papers. Then up at Goodacre. A thought crossed Harry’s mind and he suddenly laughed out loud. “Goodacre, you know who you remind me of – that girl in True Grit. What’s her name…? You know, her and Lawyer Dagget –”

“I can assure you, sir,” Goodacre replied, “insulting me will not help your case.”

“Hell, you haven’t got a case,” Harry said, pushing back from the table and struggling to his feet. He reached down, balled the papers up in his fist, and slammed them into Goodacre’s chest. Goodacre pitched backwards, catching his foot on a chair, spilling to the floor with a thud. “There…” Harry said, “now you’ve got a personal injury to go along with your bullshit case.”

Amy and Lockwood had backed away from the table and stood watching – their eyes ping-ponging between Goodacre sprawled on the floor and Harry staggering at the table’s edge.

Harry tried to take his seat and crashed into the table. Boots jumped up and helped Harry into his chair. “Don’t worry about Harry,” Boots said. “He’ll be ready to go first thing tomorrow.”

“Well, he can go without us,” Lockwood replied, then signaled to Amy he was ready to leave. Amy shrugged, more amused than incensed, and led the way to the door.

* * * *

Amy and Lockwood stepped out of the pub and started down the narrow road.

“Well, it’s obvious I’ll have to inquire about the availability of other pilots and charter companies,” Lockwood complained.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Amy smiling. “It sounded like he had a pretty rough day yesterday – I think he was just blowing off a little steam.”

“Well, what about that Goodacre fellow? He sounded pretty shaken up,” Lockwood countered.

“I can’t stand people like that,” Amy said flatly. “In fact, it made me like Mr. McNills even more.”

Silently, Lockwood shook his head. How she could like that man was a complete mystery. “I’ve already made up my mind about McNills – I’m not going to trust the expedition to Arctic Air Adventures.”

There was a long silence. Amy didn’t respond. Then Lockwood’s mood suddenly lightened. The change in his voice was dramatic. “But enough about him. Let’s go over to the Fairmont and check on our room. I hear we have marvelous views of the harbor and Signal Hill.”

Amy suddenly stopped walking. “Room?” she asked nervously.

“Did I say room?” Lockwood replied, playing innocent. “I meant rooms, of course.”

The hell he did.

Amy’s eyes narrowed and, nodding, she let it go.

“Although I’m open to the possibility,” Lockwood added, probing further.

Over her dead body.

“I’m going to take a walk,” she said, changing the subject. “And try to shake this jet lag.” She flashed a perfunctory smile, and before Lockwood could protest, crossed the street.

* * * *

She walked along St. John’s historic waterfront. It was unseasonably warm, and with every step her mood lightened. All thoughts of Lockwood were swept away. As she passed a refurbished square-rigger that was on display in the harbor, she heard a loud wolf whistle. Then a man’s voice with a heavy French accent called out to her.

“Cherie, please, come for a tour of le ship.”

Amy turned and stared up at three shaggy-looking sailors lining the bridge of a dilapidated four hundred passenger cruise ship named the Seraph. The hull was the color of dirty snow and rust bled from battered hull plates.

Amy laughed, then smiled and waved.

One of the sailors grabbed his chest as if he’d been shot by Cupid’s bow. “Come with us and we shall show you the hidden secrets of the Arctic.”

She smiled again, shook her head, and continued along the waterfront.

Chapter 6

On the far side of St. John’s Airport, opposite the jet terminal, was a weather- beaten hanger declaring itself to be the headquarters of Arctic Air Adventures.

Outside the hanger, a half-dozen brightly painted bush planes – mostly sturdy little Cessnas – were scattered around the tarmac like a flock of gaudy seabirds. Every bush plane in St. John’s was brightly painted in case, God forbid, they had to ditch in the outback, where bright red or yellow or orange gave them the best chance of survival.

Inside the hanger was Harry’s Twin Otter – it made the planes outside look like puddle jumpers. Boots was finishing up washing off the fuselage and the black and yellow paint sparkled in the pure arctic light.

Harry was doing routine maintenance on the port engine – and suddenly yelled at Boots. “Turn down the Led Zeppelin!” Jesus, he couldn’t think. He felt like the living dead after yesterday’s little adventure in the Frozen Coconut.

He had just replaced the nacelle when he noticed a man approaching the hanger. He was dressed like a professor, tweed coat and wool pants, and was smoking a briar pipe. Each time he took a step, a little curl of smoke rose into the air.

He stopped just outside the hanger, removed his pipe, knocked the dottle out on his shoe, then dropped it into a pocket. “Mr. Harry McNills?” he asked in a heavy British accent.

“I’m McNills,” Harry said, wiping his hands on a rag.

“Mr. McNills, I’m Inspector Rolland Hyde with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary,” he reached into his overcoat, removed a small wallet, and showed his ID.

The first thing that flashed through Harry’s mind was that weasel, Goodacre. But he didn’t really think so. There was no way their little scuffle would rate an inspector’s time.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?” Harry asked.

“I’m following up on the report you filed with the Coast Guard regarding the sinking of the Ice Machine.”

Harry gave him a surprised look. “Everything I know is in that report, Inspector. It was my best take from five hundred feet in the air.”

“Yes, and everyone appreciates the effort you made, Mr. McNills. I was just hoping you might have seen something… shall we say… you couldn’t explain or didn’t feel like discussing over the radio.”

“Like in Porter’s filleted body?”

That got Hyde’s attention. “So you did see something that wasn’t in your report?”

“I didn’t see it, I heard about it.”

“The description of the body was never released to the public, Mr. McNills.”

“It’s a small town, Inspector.”

“Yes, I’ll remember that, Mr. McNills.”

“I don’t know much, Inspector, just that only half of Porter’s body was recovered and that it was pretty chewed up. That’s it.” Harry said studying Hyde’s face. “Why, is Porter’s death being treated as a homicide?”

“A possible homicide,” Hyde said. “The circumstances around his death are very odd. We’re not ruling anything out until we gather more information.”

“What about Roscoe Rains and the rest of the crew? Have any more bodies turned up?”

“Officially, we don’t have any information about that,” said the inspector as he reached into his coat. He pulled out his pipe and a pouch of tobacco and began to fill the bowl. “Unofficially, no. No survivors. And no other bodies.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Harry said. “Roscoe was a pro. He was fanatical about safety, too. He was always upgrading his equipment and even kept a list of old sailor’s superstitions he’d never violate: no bananas on board, don’t whistle in the wheelhouse, never leave port on a Friday, never change a boat’s name.”

Inspector Hyde lit his pipe, puffed a couple of times and blew out a plume of smoke. “Yes… everyone I’ve interviewed has a high opinion of Mr. Rains as a sailor. Unfortunately, the Ice Machine is sitting in a thousand feet of water. And we don’t have the equipment or resources to get any forensics from the ship.”

“Inspector, what do you know about Porter’s death? I heard it looked like he’d been literally ripped in half…”

There was a long silence. Hyde puffed on his pipe, then tamped down some loose tobacco and relit it. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. McNills – I’ll strike a bargain with you.

I’ll tell you what we know – and if you get any information from town, you come to me with it straight away.”

“Deal,” Harry said without hesitation.

The inspector puffed a few more times, then removed the pipe from his mouth. “Shortly after Porter’s body was recovered, an arm was found. Blood and tissue samples matched the limb to Porter. The arm revealed some scratches and claw marks and looked like it had been wrenched from the socket by brute force. But it’s what was clenched in the hand and wedged beneath the fingernails that have the department buzzing.”

Harry was hanging on the inspector’s every word, waiting to hear more. “What was it? he asked impatiently.

“Hair,” Mr. McNills.

“Polar bear?” Harry guessed.

“Yes, that was our first thought, too. However, the hair isn’t ursine. It doesn’t belong to a polar bear or any other kind of bear, Mr. McNills. All the tests came back negative. But here’s the part that has our heads spinning – mass spectrometer readings have dated the hair and found it to be at least five thousand years old.”

“What!” Harry said, amazed. “But that’s impossible…”

“Hair follicles retrieved from some of the samples and sequenced for DNA have turned up something else, something even more fantastic – although right now the lab thinks the results are erroneous and that the test sample must’ve been corrupted with foreign matter. They’ve requested another sample, and of course we’ve complied. But what the initial test results showed was that the hair is unmistakably mammalian – a species descended from the genus Homo erectus.

“Okay, wait a minute,” Harry said, raising a hand. “I’m not sure how much of what you just said I understand – but it sounds like you’re saying Porter got attacked by some half-man, half-animal creature that just happens to be five thousand years old.”

“We are not saying anything, Mr. McNills. We are as confused as you are. No one is prepared to make any pronouncements. Like I just mentioned, more tests must be run. And hopefully more evidence will turn up. For now, at least, it’s a mystery.”

“This is bizarre,” Harry said, shaking his head. “There must be some simple explanation.”

“Let’s hope so,” Hyde said. “Until we know more, I trust you will keep our conversation confidential.” The inspector handed Harry a card. “Call me straightaway if you hear anything.”

Harry took the card and looked at it. “Thanks for letting me know what you found, Inspector.” Then added, “I can keep my mouth shut.”

Inspector Hyde thanked him with a nod and walked out of the hanger.

Boots emerged from the shadows behind the plane. “Don’t worry, Harry, I didn’t hear anything about five thousand year old hair.”

“That’s great, Boots,” Harry said flatly. He took the rag he was holding and pitched it into a metal can. “C’mon, let’s knock off early. We can finish up tomorrow.”

Chapter 7

Amy stood in front of Arctic Air Adventures in the morning sun watching Harry wipe down one of the Twin Otter’s wing struts. Harry’s back was toward her and he wasn’t aware he was being watched.

Boots came around the tail pushing a broom and swept his way toward the hanger door, then stopped when he saw Amy staring at them.

“Harry…”

Harry looked up at Boots. “What?” He could see the surprise on his face.

Boots raised his arm and pointed. Harry turned, banged his head on the fuselage, and cursed to himself. Rubbing his head, he crouched out from beneath the plane, spotted Amy, and crossed towards her. “Good morning, ah, miss…?”

“It’s Amy,” she extended her hand and smiled. “Dr. Amy Tyler, Cryolabs. And yes, I know, you’re Han Solo.”

Embarrassed, Harry shook her hand. “Harry McNills,” he motioned to the plane, “Arctic Air Adventures.” Then he turned to Boots. “And this is my colleague, Boots Dalton.”

Boots lifted his ball cap and smiled at Amy. “Nice to meet you, doctor.” Then he turned to Harry. “Ah, your colleague is going to get some breakfast.” Before Harry could respond, Boots beat a hasty retreat into the rear of the hanger.

Amy watched Boots clump away, then looked past Harry and studied the plane.

“Hmm… yes, this must be the alleged Millennium Falcon.”

“Well, not quite,” Harry smiled. “But out here it’s almost as good.”

He motioned for her to come into the hanger and walked over to the plane, lovingly patting a wing strut. “What can I tell you about the DeHavilland Twin Otter?”

Amy let her eyes run down the length of the plane, then leveled them at Harry.

“I don’t know... What can you tell me?”

Harry had to make himself concentrate and not get lost in her beautiful face or shining hair. He turned toward the plane, waved his hand through the air and like a showroom salesman began his pitch. “She’ll take off and land on a postage stamp. Overbuilt. Safe. Heck, I don’t know where to start… All weather, a dream to fly – and it can even back up.”

“Back up?” Amy looked surprised. “Is that something one wants a plane to do?”

“You’d be surprised. Ever drop onto an ice flow, run out of strip, and skid to a halt ten feet in front of an icy river?”

“It’s not on my to-do list,” Amy said emphatically. “Although I’m very impressed. And what about the hyperdrive for light speed?”

Harry smiled, moved around the plane and gripped the blade of a propeller. “Two turbocharged Pratt & Whitney PTA 20s developing 578 horsepower each.”

“Stop,” Amy held up her hands. “You’re giving me goose bumps. What does a girl have to do around here to get a ride?”

Harry was caught off guard by the question, amazed she wanted to go up with him. He figured after what happened in the Frozen Coconut, he’d blown the charter.

“I’m sort of confused, Dr. Tyler. I mean, after what happened the other night – well, I thought I’d lost the charter.”

“It’s Amy,” she said warmly. “And I’m surprised you remembered.”

“Yeah… Listen, that was stupid. I never do things like that. But that little weasel – ”

“Had it coming.”

“I shouldn’t have shoved him.”

“It was an expensive push,” Amy added.

Harry nodded in agreement. They stood silently for a moment. Then he asked, “What about Lockwood, Dr. Lockwood? He still has the plane for a week – if he wants it.”

“Right now, Lockwood is probably calling the FAA to see about having your license revoked.”

“So you think I kind of made a bad first impression?”

They both laughed.

Then Amy motioned toward the plane. “Tell you what. You take me up for an introductory ride, show me your stuff – and I’ll talk to Lockwood and see what I can do about squaring things between you two.”

“Deal,” Harry said, knowing a good one when he heard it.

“Great.” Then she added, “We better get moving, captain, before you lose your license.”

* * * *

Harry leveled the Twin Otter at four thousand feet as they soared over Newfoundland’s jagged coastline.

Amy was sitting across from Harry in the number two seat. He kept stealing little glances at her – he couldn’t help it. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. She could hardly sit still, trying to take it all in.

Harry banked the plane and they were now gliding over a vast, frozen valley. Up ahead, they raced toward great sheets of ice that seemed to go on forever. The plane banked again, and they were suddenly over the ocean: icebergs of all shapes and sizes and colors marched toward the Atlantic.

“It’s beautiful… incredible. I see why you love it up here,” Amy said, still looking out the window.

Harry looked over at her, thinking: the scenery’s got nothing on you, babe. “So, what’s Cryolabs’ interest in this corner of the world?”

“Antifreeze proteins,” she said, turning toward him. “Freeze-tolerant organisms. And in particular, the Arctic nematode.”

“Nematodes?” Harry said in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not kidding at all. Nematodes are like Beanie Babies to cryobiologists. See, they produce cryoproteins that prevent mechanical damage during intracellular freezing. It’s very exciting.”

“You mean like, look ma, no freezer burn?”

“Exactly,” Amy laughed.

“So there are actual animals that completely freeze, then can be thawed out and be totally fine?”

“Well… insects, microorganisms for sure – maybe some fish,” Amy answered. “That’s why we’re snooping around.”

“Fishsicles,” Harry said in an amused voice.

Amy laughed out loud. Then looked over at Harry. “Harry… is it okay if I call you Harry?” she asked, a new tone in her voice.

“Why, yes ma’am,” he said with a smile.

“Well, Harry, right off the bat I want you to know that there is absolutely nothing about you that interests me. I’m not looking to notch my bedpost with some randy bush pilot. In fact, I’m not in the least bit attracted to you.”

Harry turned and gave her a direct look. “Actually, why don’t you go ahead and call me Mr. McNills.”

“I want you to hit on me.”

“What?” Harry gave her an astonished look as his jaw fell open.

“Oh, God, this isn’t coming out right. Wait.” A little desperation entered her voice. “What I’m trying to say is, I’ve got a problem and I need your help.”

Harry studied her face, thinking: and people wonder why men and women have trouble communicating.

“Yeah… Well, may I call you Amy? Well, Amy, you really know how to suck up to a guy.”

“I’m sorry… it’s my boss, Lockwood,” she said apologetically. “Incredible biologist. Lousy boundaries. The man’s all libido. He’s got wandering hands and isn’t used to taking no for an answer.”

“You want that I should break his legs?” Harry said in a mock wise guy voice.

“No!” Amy laughed.

“Listen, why don’t you just confront the creep?” Harry suggested. “Tell him to knock it off. And if he doesn’t, well, he’s a fat target for a sexual harassment suit.” Then added, “You could clean him out.”

“I can’t. Not yet. I need Cryolabs to finish my work. After this trip, if things go as planned, I’ll leave Cryolabs and start my own company.” Amy continued, her voice filling with excitement, “I’m on the brink of developing something that will allow tissues to be frozen indefinitely and suffer no deterioration. It’s something that could have unlimited applications. The venture capital is already in place.”

“Hmm… I get it. It’s sort of a rope-a-dope thing. You suffer along until you have what you need, then leave Lockwood and Cryolabs cold.”

“I guess you could characterize it like that,” Amy said, not letting any defensiveness creep into her voice.

“And, until then, you just smile and take it and do nothing?”

“Well, I don’t plan on doing nothing…” an impish smile flashed across her face. “Listen, Harry, I want you to pretend you’re interested in me – romantically.”

Her comment hung there.

A long silent beat. “And I’ll respond in kind,” she added.

Harry couldn’t believe what he was hearing, what she was saying. “Respond in kind?” he said incredulously.

“You know, act interested.”

Harry laughed. “I see, so I’ll be right up there with the nematodes.”

“Oh, I don’t know why we can’t rank you right up there with a super-cooled fishsicle.” Amy said playfully.

Harry shook his head. The whole thing was totally bizarre. But then he thought: what the hell – he needed the business – and he just might end up having a little fun. Besides, it wasn’t going to be difficult to work up romantic feelings for Dr. Amy Tyler.

Not at all.

“It’s not going to work,” Harry said skeptically. “The guy’s obviously a real hound. I know the type.”

“Well, it can’t hurt. And it’s just for a week.”

“Will I be moving into your hotel room to complete the ruse, Dr. Tyler?” Harry said playfully.

“No, Mr. McNills, you will not,” Amy countered with a smile. “I expect a long and very romantic courtship.”

“And very unconsummated, I assume,” Harry said.

“Very!” she responded emphatically.

“Of course,” he scoffed. “What else?”

Harry banked the plane, giving Amy a good view of an iceberg-littered stretch of ocean. Up ahead on the horizon a dark storm loomed into view.

“That’s a nasty-looking front pushing toward us,” Harry said, applying a little more throttle. “Time to think about heading home.”

Amy was so busy concentrating on the ocean below that she didn’t seem to hear him. “Wow! Look at all those icebergs,” she said, excitement ringing in her voice. “Incredible!”

“Something to see, isn’t it,” Harry said, leveling the plane. “Iceberg Alley. The Labrador Current stacks them up, then pushes them towards the warmer waters of the Atlantic – the big ones can travel hundreds of miles right into the shipping lanes.”

“The Titanic,” Amy said.

“Bingo,” Harry nodded.

“And the Ice Machine,” Amy added quietly.

“The Ice Machine, too,” Harry said solemnly.

Silence, no one spoke. Both of them content to let the thrum of the engines take up the slack.

Then Amy was suddenly pointing excitedly out her window. “Harry, look! Look at that one. It’s huge!”

He leaned over, looked past Amy and saw what she was pointing at. “That’s a big boy,” he said. “A million tons of ice. See how it’s shaped, how it rises to a spire in the middle?” Amy nodded. “They’re called pinnacle icebergs.”

“I can’t believe the size of it,” Amy said, her voice filled with awe.

“I’d guess it to be about ten stories tall and four or five Manhattan city blocks wide,” Harry said, settling back into his seat. “Ten thousand years ago it was just a glimmer in some glacier’s eye.”

“And the color…” Amy said. “Amazing. Cobalt Blue.”

“Blue means the ice is incredibly dense,” Harry explained. “And we’re only looking at about twenty-five percent of it.”

The Twin Otter suddenly hit some turbulence and began to bounce around.

“We’re getting a little chop from that front. Time to beat feet.”

“Harry, wait!” Amy yelled. “What’s that?’

Harry banked the plane, trying to get a view. “What?”

“There,” she said pointing, “right in the middle.”

As the plane circled past, Amy spun in her seat trying to keep her eyes on what she’d seen.

“I can’t see it anymore,” she said urgently. “We’ve got to go back around.”

Harry stepped on the rudder pedal, sending the plane arcing into a hard turn. Below, clouds began stacking up around the top of the iceberg.

As they completed their turn, Amy strained forward, trying to get a clear view.

“Clouds are covering it,” Amy said, turning in her seat, looking for a break. “We’ve got to go lower.”

The weather was rapidly deteriorating. The plane began to jump and bang around, causing Harry to snug up his harness and tighten his grip on the controls.

“We’re already at four hundred feet… I’ve got to climb out of this dirty air.”

“We’ve got to mark it somehow,” she said urgently. “I saw something. I know I did.”

“I’ve got a GPS fix on it. We are history.”

Harry slammed the throttles forward, the powerful engines clawed into the air, and he pulled the nose into a climb. They continued gaining altitude, then banked away from the approaching front and headed for St. John’s.

Amy sat silently staring out the window, deep in thought. Harry chopped the throttles as they reached cruising speed, then looked over and stared at Amy.

“So, what was it? What did you see?”

Amy turned, glancing at Harry, then let her eyes slip back to the window. A long silent beat as she tried to gather her thoughts, to explain. “I’m not really sure.”

“Okay… well, what did it look like?”

She turned, giving Harry a direct look. “It looked like an ancient skin boat – a kayak. And maybe there was a spear or harpoon, too. It’s just a guess. I didn’t have enough time to see. I’m just not sure.”

“A harpoon?” Harry said with raised eyebrows.

“It’s just a guess,” she repeated. “Is it even possible – could something like that end up on an iceberg?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said, thinking. “But why not – it could’ve been trapped inside that ice for thousands of years.” He looked over, their eyes met. “Was it just sitting right on top of the ice?

“No. More like sticking out of it. Like it had been exposed as the ice melted.”

There was a sudden updraft. The plane shot straight up a hundred feet. Amy screamed. Harry jumped on the controls.

“Snug up your harness.”

Amy didn’t have to be told twice, and quickly made sure her seatbelt was tight. “Are we okay?” she asked, a little warble in her voice.

“Yeah, sure. No problem,” Harry smiled reassuringly. He inched the throttles forward, putting the plane into a slow climb. “I’m going to climb above it… Be clear sailing right into St. John’s.”

Chapter 8

The inside of Hanger One at St. John’s Airport was transformed into a field lab.

Desks were moved in. Halogen lights strung. Computers and all manner of scientific equipment installed. Work benches lining two walls contained a small freezer, autoclave, microscopes, a centrifuge, and a stunning array of glassware: bottles, graduated beakers, test tubes, and Petri dishes. The place would have warmed the heart of a mad scientist.

Amy and Lockwood moved around, straightening gear and testing equipment. Lockwood finished calibrating a microscope, leaned back and watched Amy inventorying supplies on a small shelf. An uncomfortable silence had surrounded them all morning.

He sat there studying the curves of her body, fantasizing about making love to her. They’d gotten off to a bad start. He’d pushed it too fast – kidding her with the “room” comment – that had been stupid. But they still had five days together. Five days to get close, for an attraction to form. Five days to make their time together, memorable.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re ignoring me, Amy?” Lockwood asked, his eyes still tracing her every movement.

Amy stopped what she was doing and faced Lockwood. “I don’t know. I’m not.”

“You haven’t said two words all morning. Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong, Dr. Lockwood – ”

“Oh please, it’s Hayden…” he said, rising to his feet.

“Nothing’s wrong, really,” Amy insisted. “I’ve just been running trying to get the lab set up.”

“Yes, and you’re doing an admirable job.” He leveled his eyes at her. And then his tone changed – a hard edge inching into his voice. “I wasn’t at all pleased about you going off on your own yesterday and up with that pilot.”

“Harry McNills knows his stuff,” she said firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“You mean, besides the fact that he’s a raging alcoholic?” Lockwood said contemptuously.

“That’s not fair. He was just blowing off some steam.”

“Hmm… Yes, it’s good to have a release.” He said it in a creepy, insinuating tone that made Amy uncomfortable.

Ignoring him, she stepped over to a cage, leaned forward, and examined some mice that were huddled in a corner. “Well, I think it would be our loss if we didn’t follow through with our plans to use his plane,” she said, without looking at Lockwood.

“Do you,” Lockwood said tersely. Then added, “That must’ve been some airplane ride. I can see he made quite an impression on you.”

Not rising to the bait, she kept her eyes on the mice and changed the subject. “They must know they’re not in Kansas anymore. They’re all smashed together like a little snowball.”

Lockwood stepped up to Amy, approaching with catlike stealth, and he was suddenly lost in her shining hair. It was all he could do not to reach out and take her in his arms.

“Amy, I don’t think you’ll be surprised if I tell you I find you incredibly attractive, alluring…” And just as he reached out to touch her, Amy slipped sideways, moving out of reach.

Her mind was racing. What the hell was she going to do, to say…?

“Dr. Lockwood, I’m here as a professional, doing a job. You’re my boss. Your comment just now was completely inappropriate. Ours is a working relationship. Solely a working relationship. That’s all I’m interested in.”

The whole building seemed to be holding its breath as she walked over to her desk, her footsteps echoing loudly in the otherwise silent room.

She suddenly stopped and looked directly at him. “If you can’t respect that, then I think I should leave.”

Upbraided, Lockwood stared back at her. His face: a stone mask… and then he smiled, but it seemed forced and artificial. There was no warmth behind it. It gave her the creeps. He turned toward the cage, staring at the huddled mice.

“Well, I do apologize,” he said dryly, without a trace of remorse. “I just can’t help myself. Really, it’s just biology, Amy. A simple biological attraction.” He poked an index finger at the mice. “Look at those two… It’s no more complicated than that. Are we really all that different?”

Amy couldn’t believe this crap.

“You’re kidding, right?” she said with complete disbelief in her voice.

Lockwood turned, facing her. He had a strange look on his face. He seemed to be almost undressing her with his eyes. “You need to lighten up, Amy. Relax. Have a little fun.”

Lockwood walked past her, almost brushing her shoulder. Just before he left, he turned and flashed another creepy smile. “I think I’ll go have a talk with Mr. McNills… if he’s sober, that is.”

Amy didn’t say anything. She was just glad he was leaving.

Chapter 9

The Twin Otter was sitting at the base of a vast ice flow, its bold, black-and- yellow paint job making it stand out like a fly on a wedding cake. A small day camp had been erected next to the plane. Boots was busy arranging chairs around a table with an umbrella.

They had lifted off from St. John’s airport at dawn. Harry had flown his passengers, Amy and Lockwood, a hundred miles north to a secret place that tourists never visited – a giant ice cave that led right into the heart of a receding glacier.

Twenty yards in front of the plane, at the edge of a shallow fissure, Harry helped Amy and Lockwood assemble gear for the journey into the cave.

Besides the danger of breaking through the ice – or worse, having the cave collapse – hypothermia was a very real concern. Amy and Lockwood were taking no chances having added layer upon layer of clothing beneath their North Face parkas, Gortex pants and ice boots. Entering and trekking through an ice cave was like wandering around inside a meat locker for four or five hours – the place was one giant heat sink. Many people had been caught unawares by the cold and lacked the strength to return to the surface.

Amy and Lockwood were adjusting climbing harnesses, snapping equipment onto D-rings, and checking the halogen lights on their helmets.

Harry was crouched near the fissure’s edge assembling an aluminum ice ladder that would give them easy access to the entrance of the ice cave.

Amy picked up two anchor bolts and a hand sledge and crunched through the ice joining Harry. “Got that figured out okay?” she asked.

Harry looked up, smiled. “Sure, nothing to it.” He locked the last segment into place, then stood. “What’s next?”

She handed him a bolt and the sledge. “We drive these into the ice and secure the top of the ladder to them.”

Harry took the bolt, looking into her face – and was struck by how beautiful she looked with her hair pulled back, cheeks glowing with excitement, and eyes sparkling with anticipation.

He glanced over, saw Lockwood fussing with his gear, then turned back to Amy. “It just struck me that this might be an excellent opportunity to throw Lockwood off your scent.” Harry took a step closer. “When should I take you in my arms and start kissing you madly on the lips?”

Amy laughed, giving him a playful shove. “Oh, I forgot to tell you – that whole business got straightened out yesterday. You’re off the hook. You can turn your attention back to the indigenous fauna – whatever her name is.”

“What?” Harry asked, genuinely caught off guard.

“Lockwood and I had it out yesterday. He made a pass and I let him know that the only kind of relationship we’re ever going to have is a working relationship. Period.”

“Hang on, let me get this straight… Lockwood, who’s been sniffing around you for the last year and a half – desperate, I might add, to get in your pants – was put in his place by you telling him with a wave of your finger that this is just a working relationship?”

“Well, yes,” Amy said defensively. “He was pretty upset when he left the lab. Believe me, he got the message.”

Harry laughed. “He got nothing. That’s not going to stop him. You’re kidding yourself.” He studied her face, then looked into her eyes. “Well, I gotta tell you, either way that’s disappointing news. I was really looking forward to my assignment.”

A little color bloomed on her face. Amy blushed and laughed.

Thirty feet away, Lockwood had finished adjusting his gear and was now staring at Harry and Amy – watching them talk, studying their body language. The look on his face was that of a scorned lover.

“Well, I just want to thank you again for being my knight in waiting. It was very noble of you,” Amy said warmly.

“I think you’re making a big mistake here,” Harry countered. “I think I should give you one quick little kiss to really throw him off his game.”

“Harry, snap out of it!” She began positioning the ladder, then added: “It’s over.”

“Hey, what happened to the noble knight in waiting?” he challenged.

“Shut up, Harry.”

He held up his hands, surrendering. “You know what this feels like? Being stood up on a first date.”

“Harry…” Amy growled. “Stop.”

Harry turned, looked at Lockwood and saw that he’d been watching and was now staring right at him. If looks could kill.

“Here, let me help,” Harry said, taking one end of the ladder.

They worked silently as they lowered the ladder into the fissure, then secured it to the anchor bolts.

“I see you two are becoming fast friends,” Lockwood said as he joined them at the lip of the fissure.

Harry looked up at Lockwood. “Yes, we’ve developed a close working relationship,” he said and felt Amy give him a kick.

“Is that a fact?” Lockwood said.

“Dr. Lockwood, the ladder’s ready. Looks like we’re just short of the bottom so we’ll have to pick our way down the last six feet or so,” Amy said, shifting the subject back to work. She held up a safety line that was attached to her harness indicating she was belayed and ready to go. “I’d like to lead, if it’s okay?”

“By all means,” Lockwood nodded. “I insist.”

“The coring equipment and safety bucket are already in place at the foot of the ladder.”

“Excellent,” Lockwood said, turning to Harry. “Mr. McNills, if you will be so kind as to monitor from above and make sure our tethers don’t get crossed. We should be able to get all the samples we need in two or three hours.”

Harry nodded, then suddenly wished he was going along too. But it was too risky – if something happened to him, there’d be no one to pilot Amy and Lockwood back to St. John’s. Boots could probably pull it off, Harry thought – but he couldn’t take the chance. If something were to happen to one of his clients with an unlicensed pilot at the helm, he’d be through in the charter business.

Amy swung onto the ladder and began her descent, making sure her spiked crampons rested securely on each rung as she moved toward the base of the fissure.

Standing on the bottom of the ladder, Amy glanced down and saw that she still had about a five-foot drop before she reached the floor below. She gripped the rails of the ladder, then lifted her right foot and toed her crampons into the ice with a kicking motion. After making sure her boot was secure, she lowered herself, then quickly thrust her other boot forward, toeing that into the wall as well. In this fashion, she moved down the remaining stretch of ice before dropping onto the bottom.

“All clear,” she yelled, then stepped away from the ladder and signaled for Lockwood to start down.

Lockwood swung onto the ladder, worked his way along the rungs, and just as Amy had done, used his crampons to negotiate the last five feet of wall.

As Lockwood dropped onto the ice, Harry called down, “Everyone okay?”

Lockwood and Amy smiled up at Harry. Lockwood held up a thumb, then looked at his watch. “It’s 10 a.m. Look for us back here in two hours.”

“Two hours,” Harry confirmed. Then, “Lunch will be served and waiting for you.”

Amy waved at Harry, then both she and Lockwood turned and looked along the length of the fissure to the cave opening.

It was an amazing sight. Thousands of years ago an icy river ran through the heart of the glacier. Over the years, as the ice receded, a perfect tube was left running right through the sheet ice.

Amy and Lockwood broke into broad grins as they stared up at the twenty foot- tall, O-shaped, screaming mouth of the cave’s entrance.

“Amazing,” Amy said, still staring at the gaping black maw. “It’s so perfect. It almost looks man-made.”

“Yes, remarkable,” replied Lockwood. “The only other time I can remember seeing such a symmetrical cave entrance was on the Hawaiian island of Molakai where the hot magma bored perfectly round lava tubes through the surrounding basalt.”

* * * *

Ten minutes later, Amy and Lockwood entered the cave, both of them reflexively reaching up and switching on their helmet lamps.

Two swords of light sliced through the blackness. They found themselves in an enchanted world. Moving across the antechamber, their lights raked the frozen, glistening walls, causing them to glow with a hidden luminescence – the blue ambience shifting to turquoise, then back to blue and, deeper inside the cave, purple. It was magical.

“It’s unbelievable,” Amy said, overwhelmed by the surrounding beauty. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Yes,” Lockwood nodded, equally awed. “Magnificent.”

“It’s surreal,” Amy said, lifting her camera and firing off a couple of shots. Her strobe light streaked through the cave like a jagged bolt of lightning. “It’s like a giant Hollywood set. No… this it better. It’s real.”

Lockwood looked up at the cave’s roof, letting his helmet lamp settle on a formation of ice crystals hanging from the ceiling that were every bit as delicate and beautiful as a crystal chandelier.

“My hat’s off to Mr. McNills,” Lockwood said, still mesmerized by the chandelier. “He’s outdone himself. Really put us onto something special.”

They continued forward, moving deeper and deeper into the ice – and then suddenly found themselves ducking and weaving around a snaggletooth section of icicles that looked to Amy like fangs gaping out of a prehistoric predator’s mouth.

Safely past the icicles, Amy led them on, their helmet lamps raking sculpted ice walls, while the ice crunching beneath their boots echoed throughout the icy tomb.

They were so far from sunlight now that they could’ve been divers swimming through the inky depths of some deep ocean trench.

Amy had moved twenty feet ahead of Lockwood, and just as she was about to take another step, found herself unexpectedly jerking to a halt when she realized the cave’s floor suddenly plunged downward, then leveled again, finally ending in a sharp bend.

She tilted her head, letting her helmet lamp illuminate the sharp drop-off, and thought to herself how lucky she was not to have stepped off the edge. They were going to have to rope down this section of ice.

Just as she was about to alert Lockwood, the ice beneath her feet fractured, then let go, breaking cleanly away from the floor.

Amy screamed.

Then she fell, twisting and tumbling down the slope. And just before she hit the bottom, right where the floor leveled again, her body pitched sideways and she went skidding head first through the cave.

Amy screamed again as she was swept up one side of the tunnel wall – and like she was on an amusement park water slide, warped around a sharp bend and shot deeper into the cave.

“Amy!” Lockwood yelled, rushing forward as his voice echoed through the icy silence.

He scrambled up to the section of collapsed floor, careful not to get too close to the edge. He swept his light back and forth through the darkness below – desperate for some sign of Amy. Nothing.

Shit.

Lockwood cupped his hands around his mouth and called out to her again. “Amy!”

He waited, and just as the last “Amy” faded into the icy walls… he heard her voice.

“Hayden… I’m okay. I’m alright.”

“Amy,” Lockwood called right back, silently thanking God that she was alive. “Where are you? I can’t see you.” Just as he began searching with his light again…

Amy stepped into view and waved up to him, indicating that she was okay.

“Wow! What a ride!” she said, then began to dust chunks of ice off her parka. “Incredible.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m okay – thanks to all this padding.” Amy adjusted her utility belt, then waved for Lockwood to join her. “You’ve got to come down here, Hayden. You’ve got to see what I’ve found.”

Lockwood looped the coil of climbing rope off his shoulder, secured one end to an anchor bolt he’d driven into a section of ice wall, and moved down the rope hand over hand, joining Amy on the ice below.

She gave Lockwood a thumbs up, then surprised him by reaching up and turning off her helmet lamp. Then she told him to turn his off as well.

“What?” Lockwood said, confused by her request.

“Just do it. Trust me. Turn it off.”

Lockwood, still confused, shook his head, then complying with Amy’s request, reached up and turned off his lamp.

As soon as he did, and after their eyes had adjusted to the dark, the entire cave began to glow with the same blue ambience they’d encountered at the entrance.

Lockwood looked astonished that he could now see without his helmet lamp and was about to say so – when Amy took his arm, and began to lead him farther into the cave, to the section she’d just returned from.

“Come on. You’ve got to see this.”

With Amy leading Lockwood by the arm, they rounded the bend in the tunnel and were suddenly standing in a huge open chamber of ice that seemed to be lit from above.

Amy pointed to a vaulted ceiling that looked like it rose over five hundred feet. It ended in a much thinner layer of pure glacial ice that collected sunlight and then transferred it deep into the cave like a sort of giant, opaque skylight.

Lining each side of the ceiling, massive ice columns, more beautiful than anything sculpted by Greek artisans, thrust up to the ice above – giving the entire chamber the feel and majesty of one of the world’s great cathedrals.

“It’s like a giant skylight,” Lockwood said, still looking up at the ceiling.

“It makes me think of Michelangelo.” Amy removed her camera and began to photograph the chamber.

Lockwood made his way over to a section of cave wall and ran his hand over the dense ice. He unclipped his ice axe from his utility belt, swung it against the wall, knocked loose an ice chip, and, catching it, examined it by holding it up to the light.

“The ice here looks perfect, Amy,” Lockwood said, turning towards her and holding up the shard of ice.

Amy lowered her camera, clipped it onto her harness, and joined Lockwood at the cave wall.

“Let’s take samples right along this wall in five-foot increments.”

Amy nodded okay. She couldn’t help noticing that Lockwood seemed to have shed twenty years and seemed to be really enjoying himself.

She flashed a thumbs-up, shrugged off her pack, retrieved the coring bit, and, working in tandem with Amy guiding the coring rod, and Lockwood turning the handle, it wasn’t long before they had a bucket full of neat little pellet-shaped sections of the ten thousand year-old ice.

An hour later, they popped out of the fissure and stepped onto the surface.

“You two look like you just won the lottery,” Harry said, noting their grinning faces and helping them with their gear.

“Oh, Harry, it was fantastic!” Amy said, breaking into a huge smile.

Lockwood thrust a hand out to Harry. “I want to thank you for guiding us to this spot, Mr. McNills. It was really something special.”

“Hey, I’m glad it worked out,” Harry said shaking Lockwood’s hand, surprised by the compliment. “Not too many people have been here.”

* * * *

A half-hour later the group had gathered around the table for lunch.

Boots added a packet of hot chocolate to boiling water and stirred the contents with the end of a Twinkie. The rest of the group, studiously ignoring Boots, laid out a spread of French bread, cheese, smoked salmon, olives, and various salads.

The morning had been a great success, and everyone was smiling and ebullient. Lockwood uncorked a fancy-looking bottle of wine, tipped a small amount into a glass, took a sip and rolled it around in his mouth. He swallowed, then sniffed the bouquet – clearly amused by the little upstart Santa Barbara County chardonnay. He pursed his lips, took another sip, then lifted the bottle, scrutinizing the year and the appellation.

Lockwood filled everyone’s glass except Boots’ who put a hand over his – content with the hot chocolate and Twinkie.

“Do have some chardonnay,” Lockwood said, motioning to Amy and Harry. “It’s quite remarkable.” He swirled his wine, giving it another sniff. “Hints of oak and freshly cut grass…” He took another sip. “And it’s pure butter on the palate.”

Harry lifted his glass. “I don’t know whether to swallow or chew my cud.”

There was a moment of silence as Harry and Amy stared at Lockwood. And then Lockwood burst into laughter, enjoying the jab at his snobbery. “Chew your cud… That’s a good one, Mr. McNills. Very funny.” And they all began to laugh.

Harry took a sip of wine. “Anything that doesn’t taste like paint remover is good stuff. Unfortunately, I’m on duty – one sip is all I’m allowed.”

They clinked their glasses together, sipped their wine, and tucked into the smoked salmon.

Boots shuffled over to the ice chest, lifted one of the core samples, held it up to the light, squinted, then scratched his rump. “Hey, I don’t see any of them ‘nemertoads’.”

Everyone stopped eating and looked at Boots. His pants were sagging around his ankles. An orange hunting cap with earflaps was pulled down low on his head, but somehow tufts of hair still managed to poke out from all sides.

Harry just shook his head, then laughed. Lockwood was speechless.

“That’s because they’re microscopic, Boots,” Amy said, coming to the rescue. “Nematodes are microbe feeders,” she patiently explained, “eight thousand of them could fit in a hyphen.”

Boots quickly replaced the sample, looked at his hands, then wiped them on his parka just to be sure.

“I think you should start with the Beanie Baby analogy and work your way down from there, Dr. Tyler,” Harry said playfully.

Chapter 10

Harry was sitting at his desk, an old door placed across two filing cabinets that had been squeezed into one corner of the hanger. He was on the phone arguing about a fuel bill when Inspector Roland Hyde strolled in, pipe in mouth, blue smoke in his wake.

Harry saw the inspector, gave him a wave, and after a couple of grunts into the phone, hung up.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Mr. McNills?” Hyde said.

“Not at all,” Harry answered.

“I was just hoping you may have heard something that might shed some more light on the disappearance of Captain Rains and crew?”

“No. Nothing, inspector. Well, that’s not completely true. There’s an old wives’ tale circulating about a giant sea monster rising up and swallowing the ship, crew and all. But that’s nothing new around these parts,” Harry said with a laugh.

“Yes, we have many of those colorful accounts on file,” Hyde said, puffing on his pipe. “I was also hoping some new recollection from the scene of the wreck may have come to you. Something that might not have seemed relevant at first.” Hyde paused, then added, “The truth is, Mr. McNills, you’re our only witness.”

“I’ve racked my brain, Inspector. I’ve been over that stretch of ocean in my mind a hundred times.” Harry shook his head. “It’s still a mystery.”

Hyde puffed on his pipe contemplatively, keeping his eyes on Harry.

“Inspector, what about the hair you found on Porter’s body? I can’t get that out of my mind.”

Hyde removed his pipe and dropped it into a coat pocket. “Still has everyone scratching their heads. No one seems to know. We’re waiting for the results from the second set of samples that were sent to experts in the United States.”

“Hair experts?” Harry said, shaking his head. Then suddenly he had an idea. “Inspector, two research biologists from New York City have chartered my plane for a week. They seem pretty savvy – have a field lab set up at the airport and everything. I think we should show them that hair sample… Who knows?”

“Biologists, you say?” Hyde asked, suddenly very curious.

“Yes, from a company called Cryolabs,” Harry said. “They’re studying freeze- tolerant organisms – microbes and nematodes.”

“Nematodes,” the inspector echoed. Then he scratched his nose and narrowed his eyes. “Sure, why not. I’d be interested to hear what they think.”

* * * *

Harry and Inspector Hyde entered Hanger One and were both caught off-guard by all the scientific equipment. They stood gawking, shifting their eyes left and right.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you speechless, Mr. McNills,” Amy said with a welcoming smile.

Harry turned his attention to Amy, who was joined by an officious-looking Lockwood. “Dr. Tyler, Dr. Lockwood, this is Inspector Roland Hyde with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. He’s heading up the investigation of the Ice Machine tragedy.”

A look of surprise flashed across Lockwood’s face. “Are we suspects, Inspector?” Lockwood asked incredulously.

“No, no. Of course not.” Hyde motioned toward Harry. “Mr. McNills suggested you might be willing to examine a piece of evidence for the department. You’d be doing us a courtesy.” Hyde reached into a pocket and produced a plastic evidence bag. “We have quite a little mystery on our hands.”

Amy’s and Lockwood’s eyes shifted toward the bag, suddenly overcome with curiosity.

Hyde held the bag out. Lockwood took it, holding it up to his eyes. “A hair?” he said, his voice full of surprise. He held it up to an overhead light. “Looks like some sort of brindle-colored animal hair.”

Lockwood handed the bag to Amy.

“Everyone’s in agreement on that,” Hyde said. “The tricky part is – what sort of animal did it come from? Oh, and the hair was originally translucent. The sample in that bag is soaked with blood.”

Lockwood arched his eyebrows on the word blood. Amy walked over to a lab bench and held the bag beneath a light to get a better look.

“Even with the blood, Inspector,” Lockwood said, “it should be a relatively simple process of elimination.”

“Every known Arctic species has been crossed against it. It defies identification. All matches come back negative. Oh, and one other thing,” Hyde added. “It’s at least five thousand years old.”

Lockwood’s eyes widened and he flattened his lips. A long silence followed as he thought about what the inspector had just said. “Well, Inspector, we’re microbiologists, not zoologists. I don’t see how we can help.” Then Lockwood added, “Have you done DNA testing?”

“Samples have been sent to labs in Montreal and the United States. The initial results left experts confused and suggested that the data was unreliable and probably false, and that the samples had probably been tainted or contaminated when they were collected. A new group of samples have been sent and we’re still waiting for the forensics.”

Lockwood nodded. “Well, Inspector, I’m sure that waiting for evidence is all in a day’s work. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a freezer full of samples to examine.”

Harry gave Hyde a shrug and a it-was-worth-a-try look.

“Wait,” Amy said, approaching the inspector with the bag. “If that’s blood, we could soak it off in a saline solution, centrifuge it, and do a simple blood analysis. Might reveal something.”

“The department would be most grateful for any light you might be able to shed on the case, Dr. Tyler,” Hyde said warmly.

“Hold on, Dr. Tyler,” Lockwood said, puffing himself up and stepping forward.

“We don’t have time for some wild goose chase. Cryolabs didn’t send you up here to play amateur sleuth.”

“I’ll run the tests tonight, Dr. Lockwood,” Amy said defiantly, “on my own time.”

Lockwood’s face darkened. He gave her an icy stare. “Field work isn’t a nine to five job, doctor. Just be sure that it doesn’t interfere with our work.”

“Thank you, Dr. Tyler,” Hyde said, handing Amy a card. Then he turned and addressed Lockwood. “We won’t take up any more of your time, sir.”

Chapter 11

It was 8 p.m. in the Frozen Coconut, and the pub had already achieved a dull roar.

A couple danced by a jukebox and workers lined the bar, telling lies and tossing back shots of whisky.

Harry, Boots, and Nowhere Man sat in a booth talking and trying to ignore the noise. Boots and Nowhere Man were working their way through a pitcher of beer; Harry was nursing a cup of coffee.

“What’s the deal, Harry?” Nowhere asked, taking a sip of beer. “Why the coffee drinking all of a sudden?”

Harry cut his eyes toward Nowhere Man. “I’m flying tomorrow.”

“Never stopped you before,” Nowhere Man chuckled.

“He’s sweet on that woman scientist,” Boots said, laughing. “He’s trying to impress her – that’s what it is.”

“Boots, shut up,” Harry snapped, but you could hear the defensiveness in his voice. “Don’t listen to him, Nowhere, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Nowhere Man laughed. “If you think sitting here with Boots and me and drinking coffee is going to get you into her pants – you’re kidding yourself, McNills. But by all means, go ahead and suffer.”

“Both of you shut-the-hell-up! Jesus!” Harry exploded. “I’m not the least bit interested in Dr. Tyler. Got it?”

Nowhere Man and Boots exchanged glances. Neither of them dared say anything else.

* * * *

Amy waited for the centrifuge to stop spinning, removed the test, tube and saw that the blood had separated into serum and red and white blood cells. She removed some of the red blood cells and transferred them into a glass dish, then ran a simple precipitin test to determine the origin of the blood. As the test took effect, a thin opaque line appeared between two sets of red blood cells – telling her that the blood sample contained both human and animal red cells, and the animal blood was clearly mammalian.

Amy thought to herself that the results made sense, if this man Porter had encountered some wild animal.

Curious to learn more, she stained a slide with a small amount of the animal blood cells, placed it beneath the Zeiss microscope, and leaned over the stereo eyepiece, adjusting the light and focus.

What she saw amazed her. The red blood cells were the largest she’d ever seen in her life. Under magnification they looked like beach balls. And the blood count was off the chart. She checked and rechecked the equipment, thinking the optics may have been damaged, but everything checked out fine.

She removed the slide, then suddenly got the idea to test the cells for freeze tolerance. After all, that’s what this lab was all about.

Amy flash-froze the red cells in a liquid nitrogen solution, then placed the slide back under the microscope. As she bent over the eyepiece, she suddenly sucked in her breath, disbelieving what she was seeing.

“My God. It can’t be…”

* * * *

Inside the Frozen Coconut the noise had ratcheted up and the dance floor was full.

Harry, Boots, and Nowhere Man were polishing off a round of steak sandwiches. Nowhere Man pushed his plate forward, leaned back, and looked at Harry. “So you’ve fallen for this Dr. Tyler babe, eh Harry?” Nowhere Man, not letting it go, was enjoying the fun at Harry’s expense.

Harry finished a mouthful of food, then looked at Nowhere Man. “I haven’t fallen for anyone,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Dr. Tyler is just a client. Besides, she’s uptight and she’s from New York City.”

“All you have to say is she’s from New York City.”

“Harry…” Boots said in a nervous voice.

Ignoring Boots, Harry added. “For all I know she’s totally frigid!”

And on the word “frigid,” from directly behind them, where she’d just heard everything said, Amy stepped up to the booth. “Harry…”

They all looked up, shocked to see her standing there.

“Good evening, Dr. Tyler. Harry was just talking about you,” Nowhere Man said, breaking the silence and trying to keep from laughing.

“Ah, Amy… I mean, Dr. Tyler…” was all Harry could manage.

“I can’t believe it,” Amy said.

“What?” Harry asked sheepishly.

“You’re drinking coffee?”

Silence. Then it was too much for Boots and Nowhere Man, and they erupted in laughter.

* * * *

Across the street from the Frozen Coconut, Harry and Amy were sitting in the cab of Harry’s pickup truck, talking.

“Harry, it’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Amy said excitedly. “I repeated the experiment, then checked and rechecked the results. There was absolutely no corruption of the cell walls. There was no cell damage at all! Harry, this could be the Holy Grail!”

Harry held up a hand. “Wait a minute. Slow down. Now, tell me again in English.”

“In mammalian blood cells – I’m talking about you and me or any other warm-blooded vertebrate that nurses their young – if the animal or the blood from the animal is frozen, there will be cell damage and ultimately death or destruction of the exposed cells.

Mammals can’t be frozen and then thawed out. But if my results are accurate, then whatever sort of animal that blood came from defies everything we know about intracellular freeze tolerance.”

“Hold on. Are you saying that you think some animal or creature got defrosted on that iceberg, then attacked Porter?”

“No. I think there’s some reasonable explanation for what happened to Porter. But what I saw under that microscope has got my head spinning.”

“Yeah,” Harry said flatly. “I’m starting to feel a little dizzy myself.”

“What did they find on that iceberg, Harry?” Amy asked, her voice making it sound less like a question and more like a demand.

“Nothing. No bodies. No more chunks of Porter, and, by the way, no frozen creatures that had come back from the dead.” Harry let out a frustrated breath. “The iceberg rolled. Any evidence that might have been left was destroyed or lost. Divers were sent down. They picked over every inch of that berg and found nothing.”

“Harry, remember that iceberg we saw – the huge one – the first day we went flying?”

“Yeah, sure…” he nodded.

“I think whatever I saw on it might be connected to this. There could be a link.”

“Oh, come on. What makes you think that?” Harry said skeptically.

“Harry, listen – those icebergs must’ve been made – ”

“Calved,” Harry said, correcting her.

“Calved, at the same time. Right? There’s no other way they could be floating down Iceberg Alley together, right?” Amy was up on the edge of the seat, her eyes shining with excitement.

“Yeah, sure, I suppose that’s right.”

“Okay, all I’m saying is what if some group or village or hunting party got trapped together, frozen, and now thousands of years later – they’re exposed in melting icebergs?”

“Interesting theory,” Harry said, thinking about the possibility.

“Harry, we’ve got to go back to that iceberg,” she said, her voice filled with urgency. “I can’t stop thinking about what I saw. I can’t get it out of my mind – and now, after this…”

“Look, I can probably find it again, no problem. But all we could do is fly over it.”

“No, we’ve got to get on it. We’ve got to land on that iceberg and find out what’s trapped in the ice.”

“What about Lockwood? He’s not going to just let you go off on some wild goose chase – I think those were his words.”

“We’re not going to tell him. Besides, when he sees the note I left him – then checks the results – he’s going to be as excited as I am.”

“Hold it. Hold on a minute. All this excitement is great, but it ain’t going to get you on that iceberg. That’s a tall order. There’s only one way to land on an iceberg – and that’s with a helicopter. And the only chopper capable of getting out there just happens to belong to the United States Coast Guard – and they kind of frown on taking civilians sightseeing.”

“I’m not talking about sightseeing, and you know it,” Amy said tersely. Then she looked at Harry and narrowed her eyes. “What about your friend – you know, the Coast Guard pilot?”

“Nowhere Man – ?” Harry squinted.

“Right. What about him?”

“Ha! He’d never go for it. And I wouldn’t blame him.”

“Harry, please, it’s worth a try. And maybe it’ll shed some light on what happened to your friends.”

Harry studied Amy’s face, and, seeing the determination in her eyes, realized he’d just gotten crossways of an oncoming train. “Why do I get talked into things like this?” he said, shaking his head.

“Oh, and for the record,” Amy leaned over and kissed Harry on the cheek, “I’m not frigid.”

* * * *

Harry and Amy had returned to the Frozen Coconut and were back in the booth with Nowhere Man and Boots.

“You want me to do what?” Nowhere Man asked incredulously.

“I said, I want you to fly Dr. Tyler and me out to an iceberg,” Harry repeated matter-of-factly.

“An iceberg? What iceberg? Where –?”

“Approximately fifty miles southwest of here – I’ve got a good fix on its position.”

Nowhere Man laughed, but his heart wasn’t in it. He looked at Amy, then back to Harry. These guys weren’t kidding. They really wanted him to do it. “Let me get this straight – you want me to boost twenty million dollars worth of government equipment – and go for a joyride?”

Silence. Harry and Amy just stared at Nowhere Man.

Chapter 12

High Above The Newfoundland Coast

A low fog shrouded the coastline in the pre-dawn light. A dull thump, thump, thump echoed across the silent sea.

The low thumping turned into the high-pitched whine of jet engines – and a sleek red and white UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter broke out of the fog and banked toward the Atlantic. Its twin GE turbines, extra fuel tanks, five hundred-mile range, and all-weather capabilities made it one of the Coast Guard’s most effective search and rescue aircraft.

Inside the Black Hawk’s cockpit, Nowhere Man was at the controls and Boots was flying shotgun. Behind them, seated in the crew compartment, dressed in flight suits and helmets, were Harry and Amy.

Harry leaned forward. “What did you tell them this time, Nowhere?” he asked, yelling above the shrieking turbines.

Nowhere Man looked back at Harry. “We’re testing a new rotor,” then he hooked a thumb at Boots, “and this isn’t Boots, it’s Lieutenant Cushman. And you and Dr. Tyler aren’t even on board.”

Harry laughed and nodded. “Well, stay healthy –” he looked at Boots. “Because there’s no way Boots is qualified for the number two seat in this bird.”

“I’m checked out on Hueys, Harry.” Boots said defensively.

“”But nothing this heavy.”

“All cats are gray in the dark.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Hey, Boots, keep your love life out of this,” Nowhere Man said, laughing.

Nowhere Man turned, called back to Amy. “Comfortable, Doctor?”

Amy smiled, then gave him a thumbs-up. “Yes, fine. And please call me Amy.”

Nowhere Man nodded and returned the thumbs-up.

“So, why do they call you Nowhere Man?”

“It’s a long story, ma’am. Amy.”

“It was during Desert Storm, you know, The Gulf War,” Harry said. “Nowhere Man here decides to play Arabian Nights. Takes off one evening for a walk in the desert and gets lost for a week. After that, he was called Nowhere Man.”

“Man, it was something out there,” Nowhere Man said dreamily. “It was like rapture. I could’ve just kept walking and walking.”

“Right,” Harry added, “until a Ranger unit almost ventilated him with .50 caliber machine gun rounds.”

“Yeah, that was sort of a bummer,” Nowhere Man said dryly.

“Excuse me, but will someone please tell me exactly where the heck we’re headed?” Boots asked.

Harry reached into his flight suit, removed a slip of paper, moved forward and handed it to Boots. “Set your course to these coordinates.”

Boots studied the paper, then got busy punching numbers into the Navstar GPS.

Harry dropped back into his seat, fastened his seatbelt, and turned to Amy. “So, what about Lockwood, he give you any trouble?”

“I didn’t give him a chance. I was up and out of the hotel at four in the morning. Besides, when he gets a look at that blood – he’s going to be too excited to be mad.”

* * * *

Inside Hanger One, Lockwood was bent over a microscope. He focused, then refocused, never blinking or moving from the eyepiece. A long silent beat, then he straightened up with a stunned look on his face. “Remarkable…” he whispered in an awed voice.

* * * *

The Black Hawk helicopter screamed above the ocean surface at just over one hundred and sixty miles an hour – and suddenly entered a field of icebergs.

Nowhere Man banked the chopper, sending them hurtling toward a massive block of ice that raked the horizon like an ancient clipper ship running before the wind.

“I think I found your ice cube, Harry,” Nowhere Man said, calling back to the crew compartment.

Harry and Amy lunged forward, looking out of the windshield.

“That’s it!” Amy cried.

“Give the man a cigar,” Harry said, pronouncing it “see-gar.”

“Now all we need are a couple of limes and a supertanker full of gin.” Nowhere Man said, raising the nose to bleed off some airspeed.

Boots whistled. “That thing’s big enough to have its own zip code.”

Nowhere Man brought the helicopter into a slow, arcing turn. About halfway around the iceberg, Amy excitedly yelled out.

“There!” She was pointing out her window. “See it? See that object sticking out of the ice at the base of the tallest pinnacle?”

“Yeah, I see it,” Boots said. “Looks like some kind of boat.”

At one end, the iceberg flattened out and sloped toward the sea. As the Black Hawk approached, Nowhere Man brought the ship into a hover directly over the ice.

“Okay, this looks like a good place to set down,” Nowhere Man said. “Harry, I’m going to ease down – you poke your head out the door, give me a visual, and make sure it’s safe to land.”

“Roger that, Nowhere. I’m on it.” Harry jumped up, slid the cargo door open, leaned out, and watched the iceberg loom up, then inch closer and closer…

With turbines whaling and carbon-fiber blades slapping the air, the powerful ship hovered inches above the ice, then as gently as a butterfly with sore feet, the chopper settled onto its wheels.

Harry and Amy were first out of the helicopter. Salty air mingled with helicopter jet fuel instantly filled their noses. They ducked beneath the spinning rotors, and, guarding their eyes from the wash, ran across the ice. They stopped and made a slow turn, surveying the massive block.

Amy bent down and touched the iceberg with her hand. “My God, it’s huge,” she said, barely able to contain her excitement.

“That usually happens the closer you get to an object,” Harry said flatly.

Amy gave him a playful shot in the arm. “Stop it.” She spun around again and stared up at the towering peak, then broke into a broad grin. “This is really exciting, Harry.”

“You know what all this ice reminds me of?”

“What?” Amy asked, taking the bait.

“Defrosting a refrigerator I had back in college.”

Amy shook her head. “You have a completely undeveloped sense of romance and adventure.” And she was suddenly moving across the ice towards a low ridge.

“Hold on!” Harry called. “One wrong step and you could be gone for good. You’ve got to know how to read the ice.”

“It’s hard as rock.” Amy argued, but stood frozen in her tracks.

“Trust me,” Harry said, and waved her back to the chopper.

Nowhere and Boots were busy securing the helicopter and double-checking the ice around the landing zone.

Back on board, Harry and Amy had changed and were pulling on down parkas.

They dismounted and began assembling their gear on the ice next to the helicopter: daypacks, food, crampons, ice axes, climbing rope, trekking poles, water – and Harry slipped a flare gun into his pack just in case.

Harry stepped up to Amy and clipped a rope onto her harness, linking them together with a safety line. Amy slipped on a pair of Oakley sunglasses, pulled a wool cap over her ears – and smiled gamely.

“Remember, stay close. And follow along in my footsteps.”

Amy flashed a thumbs-up and slipped a glove through a loop of leather attached to the handle of her trekking pole.

Nowhere Man dropped out of the chopper, gave them the once over, and whistled. “Man, you guys look ready to climb Everest.”

“I run a no b.s. outfit,” Harry shot back.

“Now, that’s b.s.,” Nowhere Man laughed. “You’ve got two hours on the ice, Harry – then I’m taking this bird home.”

Chapter 13

Harry stood at the top of an outcrop of ice belaying Amy as she prepared to rappel down the near-vertical wall.

“Okay, Harry, lower away…” Amy said, flashing thumbs up.

“Here we go. Watch your footing.” Harry began to pay out some line, watching Amy as she picked her way down the ice.

Harry quickly followed, leaving the rope anchored at the top for the return trip.

They dropped onto a flat stretch of ice that ran right up to the base of the pinnacle. They continued along single file, Harry in the lead with Amy following close behind, concentrating on hitting each of his footsteps.

With each step they could see their breath as they moved through the chill morning air. All around them ice dazzled with shades of aquamarine and deep blue.

Harry stopped to wipe some condensation off his sunglasses, then prodded the ice around him with the tip of his pole. “Looks like a cakewalk all the way to the ice wall.”

Amy nodded and took a sip of water.

Harry started forward again – and two steps later placed his foot on a weak section of ice and dropped into a waist-deep hole.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled out, more startled than scared.

Amy quickly joined him and, after a few tugs, Harry struggled out of the hole and fell back onto the ice.

“You okay, Indiana?”

Harry gave her a deadly look as he climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. Amy was about to give him another prod, then decided to let it go.

“That was a stupid mistake,” Harry finally offered.

Behind him, Amy nodded her head up and down in an exaggerated manner and wanted to say “duh” but didn’t.

Fifteen minutes later, after carefully navigating the final fifty yards, Harry and Amy stood at the base of the towering pinnacle. It was a sheer wall of ice that thrust up four hundred feet into a cloudless sky.

“My God, it doesn’t seem real. It’s too perfect,” Amy said reverentially.

Harry let his eyes float up to the tip. “It’s humbling sight.” He moved up to the wall and drove in his ice axe. It bounced off the surface like it was a steel plate, hardly leaving a mark.

Harry examined the tip of his ice axe. “That stuff’s like bulletproof glass.”

Amy had moved ahead a few steps, then abruptly stopped – suddenly cemented in her boots. Up ahead, directly in front of her, jutting out of the base of the ice wall, was an ancient-looking skin boat. A kayak!

“There it is!” Amy yelled triumphantly. “Harry, we found it!”

Harry flipped around toward Amy’s voice, then raced over to join her.

“Amazing,” Harry said as they approached the kayak.

“This is fantastic, Harry,” Amy said, unable to control her excitement.

Harry reached out, running his hand along the skin-covered chine. “All these years… untouched.”

Amy was already bent over examining the inside. “Look at the craftsmanship. The skins are still tightly stretched over the armature.”

“Personally, I would’ve gone with fiberglass… but yeah, this is all right.”

Something beneath the kayak caught Amy’s eye. “Oh, wow…”

Harry looked over.

Amy held up a harpoon. “Look at this!”

It still carried its carved bone, togglehead tip, and a small length of frayed line remained attached to the point.

Harry gripped the tip of the harpoon, working the togglehead back and forth. “Man, you could bring down something big with this.”

“These artifacts must be thousands of years old,” Amy said in an awed voice.

Silence as they stood looking at the ancient artifacts, imagining back in time, thinking of the hunter who owned this kayak, and how it had magically come to rest here, trapped inside this iceberg.

And without warning – there was a sudden violent roar – then a whoosh of air…

Amy screamed, grabbing onto Harry and almost leaping into his arms. Together they spun toward the noise – both of them almost jumping out of their skins with fright.

There was another loud roar, then a geyser of water shot through a hole and sprayed across the ice.

They both stood, too stunned to speak or move, trying to regulate their breathing and calm their racing hearts.

Jesus…” Harry finally managed. “Must be some kind of blowhole.”

Amy peeled herself off Harry. “Sorry… I wasn’t ready for that,” she said, trying to mask her embarrassment.

“You and me both,” Harry said, the relief clear in his voice.

“I’ve seen that once before – in Baja California. The wave action causes suction, then surges up, releasing a spray of water.”

“Old Frightful,” Harry said flatly.

“Look,” Amy said, pointing in the direction of the spray of water. “A pool has formed.”

They made their way over to a perfect bowl-shaped pond of water about thirty feet across and too deep to see the bottom.

“Anyone for a swim?” Harry quipped.

Amy stepped down to the water’s edge. Careful not to slip, she dipped a finger into the water, tasted it, and immediately winced. “Yech! Very saline.”

Harry followed her down to the pool, tasted the water, grimaced. “Not only that, it’s salty.”

Amy laughed. “Sorry, but when you become a doctor you have no choice but to speak like that – it’s part of the oath.”

“No problem. Actually, I think it’s kind of sexy.”

She gave him a playful smile, then looked back at the pool. “The salt must delay the freezing.”

“I concur,” Harry added, trying to keep a straight face.

“I wonder how deep it is,” Amy said, inching closer, trying to plumb the depths. She leaned over, placing her hands on her knees, and stared intently into the azure pool.

She moved a bit closer, mesmerized by the pool, drawn to the icy water – and the half-eaten torso of an Inuit hunter suddenly bobbed to the surface directly below her face.

Amy reeled backwards, screaming at the top of her lungs. “My God!” she gasped, falling to the ice.

Harry lunged forward, grabbed Amy, and pulled her back from the pool.

“Son of a bitch,” Harry said when he could finally speak. He lifted Amy to her feet, and they both just stared down at the body floating in the pool.

The hunter’s skin was translucent and waxy and drained of all of its blood. His flesh was ripped and torn and hung in rubbery flaps. His lips were pulled back in a ghoulish grin over his teeth. His eyes were gone and in their place, two milky circles of frozen water looked up at nothing.

“Must be our kayaker,” Harry said.

The torso suddenly righted itself – and for a moment looked like it was staring directly at them. Then, just as quickly, it rolled back into the water.

Amy screamed, and they both jumped at the unexpected movement.

“My God!” she said, letting out her breath. Then they both began to laugh, trying to calm their nerves.

“Okay, alright, that’s it. I can’t take any more surprises,” Amy announced.

Slowly, the body began to settle and sink below the surface.

“Harry!” Amy cried. “Do something. It’s sinking.”

Oh, great, Harry thought: bobbing for torsos.

He leapt to the edge of the pool, then extended a hand to Amy. “Quick, take my hand.”

She jumped forward, took his hand, then clamped onto his wrist with her other hand. Harry leaned out – and with the tips of his fingers was just able to grip a torn piece of sealskin clothing. Then in one fluid motion, he pulled the half-eaten hunter out of the water and up onto the ice.

They stood looking down at the body. Even in death, the hunter radiated strength and nobility. Amy crossed herself and quietly said a prayer.

* * * *

Nowhere Man and Boots had set up a makeshift table next to the helicopter and were playing chess.

“Think about it, Boots… I bet we’re the first people in history to play chess on an iceberg,” Nowhere Man announced proudly.

“Yeah, and check it out –” Boots moved his queen down the board. “You’re going to be the first person to lose at chess on an iceberg.”

Nowhere Man pressed his lips together, studying the board. “You really know how to ruin a beautiful thought,” he said wistfully. He toppled his king signaling defeat, then stood, stretched, and scanned the iceberg for any signs of Harry and Amy. “Those two better get their butts back here right quick,” he said looking at his watch, then turned and climbed into the chopper.

Harry and Amy had bundled the hunter’s body into Harry’s parka and, carrying it like a sling between them, had begun the hike back to the helicopter.

The load was heavy and awkward, and their progress over the ice was slow. Amy kept stopping to adjust her grip on the parka.

“Harry, I can’t hang onto this. We’ve got to come up with another way to carry the body,” Amy said, losing her grip and dropping her end of the bundle.

Harry stopped and lowered the hunter’s body, letting it rest on the ice.

“I’m sorry, but the parka’s wet and my hands keep slipping.”

Harry blew out a lungful of air and, narrowing his eyes, looked at Amy.

“Hey, here’s an idea – maybe we should just leave Nanook of the North here where he belongs. Ever think of that?”

“Are you crazy?” Amy blurted.

“That’s an open subject,” Harry said flatly. “Definitely up for debate.”

“That this is a significant anthropological find is not up for debate, Mr. McNills.

We’re taking it back with us,” Amy said firmly.

Her using his last name was a bad sign, Harry thought to himself. He wanted to object, but something inside him knew the subject was closed and not up for negotiation.

Amy dropped to her knees, resting, and took a drink of water.

“Okay, I’ve got an idea,” Harry said, unclipping the trekking pole from his pack, then stepping up behind Amy and retrieving hers as well.

Kneeling over the hunter, Harry placed a pole on each side of the body, checking the length. “It just might work.”

He removed a Buck knife from his belt, flipped open the blade, cut a section of line in two, then began lashing the poles firmly beneath the hunter’s body. When he was finished, he looped another piece of line through the trekking poles’ handles, then tested them to see if they could stand the load.

“Brilliant!” Amy said, coming over with a big smile and placing a hand on his arm.

“Yeah, not too bad,” he said, soaking up the praise – quietly pleased with himself for having impressed Amy.

They gathered their gear and started toward the helicopter with Harry trailing the body behind him as it rode across the ice on the trekking poles like a sled.

Chapter 14

Lockwood was moving around the lab like a man possessed: clearing a place next to the microscope, cleaning the eyepieces, then stepping over to a small stainless steel freezer and removing a tray containing two blood samples that had been fixed beneath glass slides.

Standing off to one side, Inspector Hyde puffed his pipe, an amused look on his face as he watched Lockwood career around the room.

Lockwood placed the tray next to the microscope. “The blood samples have been frozen at minus twenty degrees for two hours, Inspector.”

He removed one of the slides from the tray, positioned it beneath the lens, and adjusted the focus. After a minute he straightened and motioned for Hyde to have a look.

Hyde dropped his pipe into his coat pocket, stepped up to the microscope and peered through the eyepieces.

“What you’re looking at, Inspector, is a wash of human blood – Mr. Porter’s blood to be precise. It is normal O negative blood in every respect and has reacted exactly as it should when subjected to below-freezing temperatures. Note the blood cells – see how freezing has corrupted the cell walls?”

“Yes, I see…” the Inspector said, too fascinated to look up from the microscope. “They look misshapen and destroyed.” After a few more seconds he straightened and stepped away from the workbench.

Lockwood removed the slide, replaced it with another blood sample, and checked the focus. “Fantastic,” he muttered as he examined the new sample. He stepped back from the microscope and motioned with his hand for the inspector to have a look.

Hyde leaned over and looked into the microscope.

“What you are seeing, Inspector, are mammalian blood cells from an unknown donor. Note how the red blood cells are completely intact and seem unaffected in every way.”

The inspector nodded. “Yes, I see…”

“I think it’s safe to say, Inspector, that what you’re looking at has never been seen before outside this laboratory.”

The inspector continued scrutinizing the blood. After a long silence, he looked up at Lockwood. “What does it mean, Doctor?”

“I’m not really sure,” Lockwood answered frankly. “But whatever sort of animal or creature it was that attacked Mr. Porter – it has capabilities that have never been discovered before. If what we are seeing through that microscope turns out to be true and not some hoax – then theoretically the animal with that blood could survive cryogenic freezing, be thawed out, and be none the worse for the indignity.”

The inspector stared silently at Lockwood, absorbing what he’d just heard, then bent back over the microscope for another look at the mysterious blood.

Chapter 15

Nowhere Man dropped out of the Black Hawk’s cargo door, flipped open his cell phone, punched in a number, and let it ring. “Come on, McNills, answer your damn phone.” After ten rings, Nowhere Man snapped his phone shut. “Shit,” he said in frustration. “We should be in the air and headed home by now.”

“My guess is Harry and Dr. Tyler are making out on the other side of the iceberg right now,” Boots said with an impish chuckle.

“Well, all I can say is if they don’t hustle up, they’re going to have to swim –”

“Look! There they are,” Boots yelled, cutting off Nowhere Man and pointing to the top of the slope. Then he began to wave his arms.

“Hey!” Amy called back to him.

“Finally,” Nowhere Man grumbled.

“Looks like they found something.”

“Great,” Nowhere Man said with a complete lack of enthusiasm. “Boots, go help them with their gear. I’m going to preflight the bird.”

Boots hitched up his pants and began clumping across the ice toward Harry and Amy.

Nowhere Man jumped into the cockpit, and running though a checklist, began flicking switches and turning dials. Outside, the group arrived at the chopper just as the gas turbines began to turn and burn. The keen smell of high-octane jet fuel bloomed in their nostrils, causing Amy to wrinkle her nose.

Nowhere Man suddenly appeared in the cargo door. “You’re late. What kept you guys?”

Harry was unlashing the poles from the hunter’s body. He stopped and looked up at Nowhere Man. “You’re not going to believe what we found,” Harry said.

The tone of his voice made Nowhere Man immediately suspicious. “Well, if it’s not pirate treasure, I don’t think I want to know.”

“It’s better than gold,” Amy said, sounding just as excited as when they first discovered the body.

“Now you’ve got me worried,” Nowhere Man said.

“Have a look at this, you guys.” And Harry pulled back the parka revealing the hunter’s torso – the frozen grin leering up at them.

“Sonofabitch!” Nowhere Man yelled. He and Boots lurched back in shock.

“My Lord…” Boots said, his eyes locked onto the body.

“Jesus Christ, McNills,” Nowhere Man said. “What the hell is that?”

“Exactly what it looks like,” Harry replied. “Half a frozen man.”

“Isn’t it fantastic?” Amy chimed in.

“No, it’s not fantastic. And you’re not putting a rotting corpse in my bird.”

“That’s no way to speak of the dead, Mr. Nowhere Man,” Amy said defensively.

“Oh, really… and digging the poor bastard up, robbing his grave, and dragging him across the ice is?”

“We didn’t dig him up. And we’re not grave robbers, for God’s sake! And this isn’t just some corpse – it’s a significant anthropological find.”

Harry was smiling now, thinking: give it up, Nowhere. You’ve just slammed into a brick wall and don’t know it. “Just say yes, Nowhere. You’re not going to win.”

“The hell I will!” Nowhere Man bellowed. “It’s bad luck. It’s desecrating a burial ground or something. No good can come of it.”

“For your information, it wasn’t a burial ground. It looks like he was attacked and got trapped in the ice and died tragically.”

“Now you sound like Sherlock Holmes,” Nowhere Man said, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he threw his arms up. “Oh, what the hell… By all means, load him up. We’ll give him the cook’s tour of St. John’s. We can play ‘Weekend At Bernie’s.’ He can buy the first round at the Frozen Coconut.” Nowhere laughed, but it was strained and a little crazy sounding. “I’m probably gonna get court-martialed for this stunt anyway.”

“Not likely,” Amy said firmly. “Trust me – you’ll be a hero after everybody sees what we found today.”

“Why do I not feel reassured,” Nowhere Man said grimly. He made his way to the cockpit, then stopped and looked at Amy. “Just make sure he doesn’t start melting in my helicopter.”

Amy rolled her eyes and flattened her lips. Harry and Boots both laughed.

Harry reached into the cargo area, pulled out a tarp, and spread it on the ice next to the body. “C’mon Boots, give me a hand…”

Boots and Harry lifted the hunter into the center of the tarp. Harry grabbed his ice axe and began chipping up pieces of the iceberg. “We’ll pack him in ice so he stays nice and fresh on the trip home.”

Amy shook her head. “You guys have no respect for your elders.” She stepped up next to Harry and began to help pack the body in ice.

Boots pulled a bag out of his coat pocket. “Hey, who else could go for a Moon Pie?”

Silence as Harry and Amy just stared at him. “What –?” Boots said defensively.

Amy laughed. Harry just shook his head, and they continued preparing the body for the ride home.

The body was safely stowed in the crew compartment, everyone was on board, and as soon as Harry slid the door shut Nowhere Man powered up the engines. Kicking up snow and ice, the Black Hawk helicopter lifted off the iceberg, banked into the sky, and began racing across the ocean towards St. John’s Airport.

Nowhere leveled the chopper at three thousand feet and poured on the coals, sending the airspeed shooting up to 140 knots.

“So what are you going to do with the body, Dr. Tyler?” Boots asked, leaning into the crew compartment.

Harry held up a finger, silencing Boots, then pointed to Amy. She had her head resting on Harry’s shoulder and was fast asleep. Boots raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“Yeah, what are you going to do with the stiff, Harry?” Nowhere Man called from the cockpit.

“Jesus, will you guys hold it down,” Harry hissed, checking to see if Amy was still asleep. “I’m going to call Inspector Hyde,” he continued, trying to whisper. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Great, just great. The police,” Nowhere Man said dryly. “Leave my name out of it, Harry. I don’t want to be hearing things like misappropriation of government aircraft and court martial.”

Chapter 16

Gathered in the lobby of the medical examiner’s office waiting for Inspector Hyde were Harry, Amy, and Lockwood. Lockwood paced nervously, stopped, then checked his watch. That was the fourth time in less than five minutes – Harry had been watching and keeping count. Lockwood began pacing again. Harry looked over at Amy. They exchanged a little smile. “What time do you have, Hayden?” Harry asked, winking at Amy. Ever since Harry had shown Lockwood and Amy that fissure out on the sheet ice, Lockwood had insisted they be on a first name basis.

Lockwood, acting like he hadn’t just checked his watch two seconds ago, shot his cuff and glanced at the dial. “The Inspector is fifteen minutes late,” he answered tersely. “It’s now –”

The front door swung open and Inspector Hyde strode in with his overcoat flapping half on, half off.

“Sorry to have kept you knocking around on your pins,” Hyde said apologetically. “I got held up at HQ.”

“We really appreciate you including us,” Amy said, not giving Lockwood a chance to complain about his tardiness.

“Nonsense, Dr. Tyler. It’s you and Mr. McNills I should be thanking.” And then in a gentlemanly gesture, he turned and addressed Lockwood. “Of course, we’re glad to have you here as well, Dr. Lockwood.”

“Thank you, Inspector,” Lockwood nodded.

Hyde rubbed his hands together in a gesture of excitement, looking at each of their faces. “Now, let’s go see Henry.”

He led them through an old-fashioned, wood-framed door with a frosted glass window. Hand painted letters on the glass read: Dr. Henry Chang, Medical Examiner.

As they entered the examination room, the first thing they noticed was not the expected stench of decomposing flesh and disinfectant, but rather the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

In the center of the room were two gurneys, each with a covered corpse. Beyond the gurneys, next to the sink, Dr. Henry Chang stood in front of a Pasquini espresso machine, holding a demitasse beneath the gruppa as it filled with the thick-bodied espresso brew.

When the demitasse was full, he placed it on a saucer, turned, and greeted the group in a chopped Mandarin accent. “Hey, Rolan, look,” Chang said. It was always “Rolan” with Chang, not Roland. He never quite made it to the‘d.’

He held the demitasse up for everyone to see and said, smiling, “The perfect espresso.”

“Yes, well, it smells very good,” Hyde offered. “Henry, I’d like you to meet –”

“Pretty Lady, you try,” Chang said, cutting Hyde off and thrusting the espresso at Amy.

Amy was caught off guard and looked surprised and showed it by laughing nervously as she accepted the demitasse. “Um, thank you.”

“Look at top!” Chang demanded. “See the crema? See? Beautiful brown.”

Amy looked down at the espresso and, seeing the creamy brown top, nodded. “Yes, I see it.”

“Drink, drink,” Chang commanded, then watched carefully as Amy tipped the cup to her lips and took a sip. “Okay, what you think?” Chang asked relentlessly.

“Delicious,” Amy declared.

“Ha!” Chang erupted like a delighted child. “Number one! Very good.” Chang said, pronouncing it “Numbah” one.

Amy nodded and took another quick sip. “It really is delicious.”

Chang turned to the others. “When we through with show and tell,” he waved a hand through the air, “Chang gonna make everyone espresso drink.” Then he broke into a broad smile.

“Well, I think this must be a first – an M.E. and a barista,” Lockwood said. “Mr. Chang, if it’s possible for you to produce a decaf version I’d be delighted to sample your espresso.”

“Decaf? No way.” Chang scrunched up his face and almost sounded insulted. “Decaf fo wimps.”

“Well, in that case you can make mine a double, Dr. Chang.” Harry said, enjoying the fun at Lockwood’s expense.

“Okay boss,” Chang smiled at Harry. Then he turned, looking directly at Lockwood. “Hey, what barista?”

“It’s a compliment, Dr. Chang. A barista is someone who excels in the art of espresso making.”

Chang pointed at his chest. “Numbah one barista,” he said, filled with pride.

“Okay, Henry, how about we have a look at those bodies now?”

“Yeah, sure, Rolan. What you think – I got all day to be barista?”

“I was starting to wonder…” Hyde said with a chuckle.

“You know better than that, Rolan,” Chang said. Then, as if walking onto a stage, his whole demeanor dramatically changed, and he was suddenly the consummate professional.

Chang’s movements were quick and economical as he slipped on two sets of latex gloves, drew a surgical mask up over his nose, and approached the gurneys. Reaching up, he switched on an overhead light and then with a bullfighter’s flair, flicked his wrist – and the bodies were instantly uncovered.

“Henry is going to give us a quick, off-the-record opinion as to any similarities in the wounds found on the two bodies. Then I’ve promised we’d let him alone so he can conduct a proper autopsy,” Hyde said as they watched Chang moving around the bodies.

“Okay. We got two male bodies – both mutilated,” Chang began. “One missing head, arms, and entire torso – the other missing pelvic girdle, legs, and feet.” He stopped, looked up at the group. “Hey, maybe Chang put them together, get whole new man.”

No one spoke. The room filled with a grim silence. Disapproving faces stared back at Chang’s drooping smile.

He held up his hands apologetically. “Okay, maybe Chang not so funny.” He lowered his head, resuming his examination, concentrating on the hunter’s body.

After a few grunts and much prodding, Chang said:

“By the condition of the teeth and general wear-and-tear, I’m guessing the hunter you found to be about thirty years of age.” Chang picked up a pair of tweezers and began probing the chest cavity. “Connective tissues still fully viable, bone and tissue well preserved.” He pulled back a flap of ragged, torn flesh with the tweezers and leaned closer for a better look. He then moved to Porter’s body and examined a bit of flayed flesh stuck to the pelvis. “Okay. Wounds and tears in flesh consistent with both bodies. Chang positive on this.”

“Henry –” Hyde stepped forward and handed Chang a plastic evidence bag containing hair samples. “These hairs were recovered from Porter’s body – we’d like you to see if the hunter’s corpse contains any of the same hairs. A visual examination revealed none.”

Chang took the bag, studied the hairs, then looked at Hyde and smashed his lips together. “Sure, okay. If hair there, Chang will find.” He then slipped on a pair of glasses with powerful magnifiers glued to the lenses.

They watched as Chang began a thorough search of the hunter’s torso. Starting with the head he worked his way down, lifting a flap of flesh or a piece of clothing until he ran out of body.

After his initial search, Chang had come up empty-handed.

“No luck, eh doctor?” Lockwood said.

“Chang not finish yet,” he said dismissively. He removed his glasses, put down the tweezers, moved up to the hunter, and gripped the head firmly – articulating the jaw. Then he picked up a penlight, slipped on the magnifying glasses, and began to probe the oral cavity. His movements suddenly stopped. He leaned closer for a better look.

“Ha!” Chang yelled victoriously. He put down the penlight, grabbed the tweezers, and retrieved a hair that was wrapped around one of the hunter’s eye-teeth.

Chang placed the hair in a small glass tray. Then he removed the hair from the evidence bag and placed that in another tray, comparing the two.

Seconds later he blurted, “Both same,” as if the matter were closed forever.

“I knew it!” Amy said, too excited to remain silent.

“Mind if we have a look?” Lockwood asked in a challenging tone.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” Chang said, yanking his medical mask down around his neck and smiling broadly. “But Chang right.”

“You’re awfully confident for being in a business that relies so heavily on guesswork,” Lockwood said, comparing the two hairs.

“Chang have two good eyes.”

After the others had a chance to examine the hairs and were satisfied they matched, Chang stripped off his gloves and smiled at the group. “Okay, who want espresso?”

Chapter 17

Harry, Amy, Lockwood, and Inspector Hyde were sitting in the formal dining room of the Freemont Hotel. Lockwood was seated at the head of the table, holding court, and looked like he was clearly enjoying himself. It was late, after midnight, and they were the last party left in a sea of white tablecloths and crystal glassware. Outside the night was crisp and clear, and a full moon gave them a spectacular view of Signal Hill and the harbor below.

Lockwood, filled with California Pinot Noir was ebullient and charming as he explained the differences between lowland and highland scotches. When the lecture concluded, he lined up four whisky glasses and filled them with thirty-year-old Macallan highland scotch. He then reached into his coat, removed a leather case, and offered the table a cigar.

Lockwood smiled and said, “Cuban. Montecristos. Obscenely expensive.”

“Delighted. Thank you, Dr. Lockwood,” the inspector said, eagerly accepting one of the prizes.

Lockwood held the case out to Harry and Amy.

“Why not,” Harry said, sliding one of the cigars out of the case. “Nothing like having a ten dollar cigar after a five hundred dollar meal.”

“Ten dollars wouldn’t pay for the cigar band, Mr. McNills,” corrected Lockwood.

Amy, feeling the effects of too much wine, said, “What the heck, you only live once.” She retrieved one of the robustos and ran it beneath her nose. “Okay, who’s got some fire?”

Everyone looked at Amy and then began to laugh. Inspector Hyde yelled, “Bravo, Dr. Tyler!”

After the cigars were clipped and lighted, they puffed away until each cigar tip was a glowing circle of red. Only Amy seemed a little tentative about drawing in the pungent smoke. The cigar looked huge and unwieldy in her hand.

Inspector Hyde seemed to be in a trance and looked as though he’d achieved some personal nirvana. After a couple more puffs, he held the cigar up to his eyes and nodded reverentially.

Amid the clouds of aromatic Cuban tobacco smoke, Lockwood raised his glass and looked at Amy. “To Amy and her iceberg.”

Harry and the inspector raised their glasses, joining Lockwood in a toast. Amy smiled and lifted her glass.

“I’ll drink to that,” Harry said. Everybody clinked glasses and took a sip of scotch.

“And, all agree we must return to that iceberg tomorrow,” Lockwood said, raising his voice.

“Yes,” Inspector Hyde nodded. “After what Dr. Tyler observed, a return trip –”

“Hey, I was there too,” Harry said, interrupting loudly. “What about my observations?”

Inspector Hyde held up his hands apologetically. “Forgive me. After what Dr. Tyler and Mr. McNills observed,” the inspector said, emphasizing the ‘Mr. McNills.’

“Thank you,” Harry said smiling at the inspector. “Just want to keep the record straight.”

“I stand corrected,” the inspector allowed. “And unfortunately, I will not be able to join you on the return trip. The investigation into the wreck of the Ice Machine will keep me busy in the office all next week.” The inspector looked down at his cigar, then raised it to his lips and began puffing away.

Lockwood removed the cigar from his mouth and held it in his fingers, jabbing at the air while he spoke. “Well, I for one can’t wait to get out there.”

Harry took a puff on his cigar and blew a stream of smoke in Lockwood’s direction. “Sounds like you just signed on to a wild goose chase, Hayden.”

Lockwood sighted down the barrel of his cigar at Harry, took a couple of quick puffs, removed the cigar, and let the smoke drift out of his mouth – all the while keeping Harry fixed with his stare. The table was silent, and then Lockwood finally spoke:

“I beg to differ, Mr. McNills. A find has been made yielding compelling empirical evidence and artifacts. A wild goose chase? No, I don’t think so. Besides, this goose might just lay the proverbial golden egg.”

Chapter 18

The UH-60 Coast Guard chopper sat on the iceberg like a giant red-and-white seabird perched for flight.

Spilling out of the chopper, clutching gear, shrugging on parkas, and sipping coffee were Amy, Harry, Boots, and Lockwood. As each of them dropped out of the chopper and onto the ice, their breath became visible in the chill morning air.

They had been lucky. The weather was perfect: calm seas, no wind, and the sun rising in a cloudless sky.

Lockwood, looking like he’d just stepped out of an L. L. Bean catalog, stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together. He seemed completely delighted to be standing on an iceberg fifty miles out to sea.

“Incredible. It’s even more fantastic than you described, Amy.” Lockwood turned, trying to take in as much of the iceberg as possible.

Amy stepped up next to Lockwood and pointed at the towering pinnacle. “There… that’s were we’re going – to the base of that pinnacle.”

Lockwood nodded, staring in awe, then shielded his eyes from the sun for a better look.

Nowhere Man appeared in the cargo door and hopped out of the chopper, leaving Lieutenant Cushman in the cockpit to keep an eye on the bird and be ready to lift off in a moment’s notice at the first sign of any change in the ice. Although an iceberg of that size was usually predictable and relatively stable, only fools took anything for granted this far north in the Atlantic.

Nowhere Man zipped up his parka and crunched over to where Harry was sorting out his gear.

“Hey, Harry, I think I’ll tag along this time – I want to see this thing for myself.”

Harry looked up at Nowhere. “You’re not going to believe it, Nowhere. Damn boat is sticking right out of the ice. A couple thousand years old. Showroom condition.”

“It’s a kayak, Harry, not a boat,” Amy corrected as she adjusted the strap on a digital camera.

“Right,” Harry said dryly, letting it go at that.

Lockwood nodded in Nowhere Man’s direction, then cleared his throat and addressed the group. “All available hands are welcome,” he said, sounding and acting like he’d just been placed in command. “If we are able to free the kayak, it will take all of us working together to transport it across the ice and back to the helicopter. What’s that saying? Ah, yes, ‘many hands make light work’.”

Harry and Nowhere Man exchanged a look, both rolling their eyes.

Harry looked at Lockwood and thought: what a grandstanding asshole.

“After the gear is assembled and has been equitably divided amongst us,” Lockwood continued, “Harry, you take point, followed by Amy, then me and Boots. Nowhere Man can bring up the rear.”

Harry suddenly snapped to attention, did a military pivot, and gave Lockwood a crisp salute. “Yes sir, General MacArthur.”

Nowhere Man slapped his knee and laughed out loud. Even Amy couldn’t keep herself from cracking up.

Lockwood’s face darkened and he leveled his eyes at Harry. “Is there some problem, Mr. McNills? If you have a better plan, by all means enlighten us.”

“Sir, no sir!” Harry answered smartly, giving Lockwood a last jab, then dropped on one knee to lace a boot.

An hour later the team stood assembled next to the chopper. Packs had been loaded, ice axes slung, harnesses adjusted, crampons attached to boots, and water and food divvied up to each person.

“Hold up.” Boot shrugged off his pack, shambled over to the chopper, reached into the cargo bay and retrieved a bag of bite-sized Snickers bars. Then he shuffled back to his pack and dumped the candy into a rear flap, letting out an exaggerated breath. “That was close.”

“Yeah, heaven forbid that Karo syrup you’ve been using for blood clears and turns red again,” Nowhere Man said with a chuckle.

“A body needs energy, Nowhere,” Boots said defensively.

“Forget it, Boots, and help me get everyone clipped onto the safety line,” Harry said, handing him a coil of brightly colored climbing rope.

Harry took the free end of the rope and looped it through carabiners that were clipped to each of the team members’ harnesses.

Lockwood reached down, grabbed the safety line, and held it up.

“Do you really think this is necessary, Mr. McNills?” It was back to

“Mr. McNills” after Harry’s little salute joke.

“No, I’m just a raging control freak and thought it’d be fun to have everybody on a leash.”

“We’ll be going down some pretty steep slopes, Hayden,” Amy said, trying to ease tensions. “You’ll be glad for the rope later.”

Lockwood sniffed. “Yes, all right, fine.”

The sun was now high enough to begin heating the air – and as the temperature rose, the ice began to pop and growl and groan.

“I don’t like the sound of that ice,” Boots said, pulling on his beard.

Nowhere Man laughed. “What do you expect, Boots? Basically, we’re just walking around on an ice cube in a giant salt water cocktail.”

“Well, it gives me the jimjams.”

“C’mon Harry, let’s go,” Amy said, anxious to get moving. “We’re burning daylight.”

“All right. All right…” Harry said, clipping himself to the safety line and moving to the front of the team. “Okay, listen up. Let’s keep it single file. Everybody stay in a line and try to hit each other’s footprints.”

“Yeah, but whose footprints are you gonna step in, Harry?” Boots said, trying to be clever.

“Me, I’ll be following the breadcrumb trail Amy and I left last time, Boots.” Harry shook his head. “Now zip it and let me finish.”

Boots began to scan the ice, contemplating the possibilities of a breadcrumb trail.

“There are a couple of tricky places – but really, Amy and I had no problems last time. We’ve got more gear and bodies this trip, but if we take our time, I don’t see any big problems.” Harry scanned their faces. “Any questions?”

Nowhere Man hooked his thumbs through the straps of his pack and looked at Harry. “Like the lady said, Harry, we’re burning daylight.”

Just as Lockwood had suggested, Harry took the lead and started across the ice to the base of the cobalt-blue pinnacle.

The group fell silent, and the morning air filled with the sound of crunching footsteps as heavy boots and metal crampons bit into the icy surface.

The going was slow at first as everybody concentrated on their footing and adjusted to walking with crampons and trekking poles. Any little undulation in the surface ice had the potential to snag a crampon and send the trekker tumbling face first onto the ice.

The team had been moving for less than five minutes when they had to come to a complete halt so Boots could fish out his sunglasses and secure them tightly around his face.

It was a little before 10 a.m. now, and the sun was strong enough to turn the iceberg into a blinding island of ice. Moving again, with Boots smiling like an idiot and happily wearing his shades, Harry was able to locate the old trail – and with confidence building, picked up the pace.

Chapter 19

A half-hour later they were moving through the interior of the iceberg and fighting up a steep ridge of ice. No one spoke, as all their energy went into keeping their footing.

“This is more of a trek than I expected,” Lockwood said, sounding close to winded.

“Feeling your age, doctor?” Harry said, glancing back with a smile.

“No. I’m feeling the thirty pounds on my back.”

“Well, nothing’s easy, is it?” Harry pointed to the tip of the ridge. “Almost there. Five more minutes and we can take a break at the top.” Harry turned and called back to Nowhere Man, “Everyone okay?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Nowhere Man answered, jamming his boots into the ice and pulling in a lungful of air.

Amy, seemingly unfazed by the climb and as fresh as the moment they started out, unclipped the safety line and shot up to the top of the ridge. Once there she began searching the ice… and after a few more steps bent down, gripped something in her glove, then sprang up and called down to Harry:

“Harry! I found the rope. It’s still here.”

Harry played out some safety line, allowing him to move ahead of the group and join Amy on the ridge top. “Yeah, I left it here. Call it a sixth sense thing. Somehow I knew we’d be back.”

They shrugged off their packs, turned, and watched the others plod up the last few feet.

The moment Lockwood hit the top of the ridge, he doubled over, placed his hands on his knees, and with chest heaving, gasped to catch his breath.

“Too much single malt scotch and Cuban cigar smoke last night, doctor?”

“You may have me there, Harry,” Lockwood rasped, pulling in another lungful of air.

So it was back to first names, Harry thought. Lockwood not holding a grudge about the General MacArthur comment.

Lockwood felt a tug on the safety line, and Boots and Nowhere Man trudged up to join the group at the top.

Boots immediately threw off his pack and sat down on the ice. He pulled open the bag of mini Snickers bars, grabbed one, tore off the wrapper – and like an addict needing his fix, devoured the candy bar in one bite. He immediately plucked out another, shredded the wrapper, popped it into his mouth and, chewing, fell back on the ice with his eyes closed.

Nowhere Man stood looking down at Boots blissfully chewing away. “I swear Boots, you get more worked up over a candy bar than most people do over sex.”

Lockwood had finally recovered and was standing next to Harry taking small sips from a bottle of water. “You have quite a life here, Harry. Very romantic. Living on the edge of the Arctic, bush pilot – and here you are today running around on an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic.”

“Yeah, that’s me… Mr. Adventure. I’ll tell you what, being out here would be a lot more romantic if I was getting paid for it.”

“Well, my understanding was you volunteered. You didn’t have to come along, Harry.”

“Funny, it didn’t feel like it at the time,” Harry laughed. “Truth is, I’m out here for only one reason.”

“Your curiosity got the better of you?”

“Nope. The oldest reason in the world – a woman.” Harry glanced over at Amy as he said it – and Amy, who’d been half listening in, gave him a coy look and said, “Hold on just one minute. I didn’t make you, I asked you.”

“Uh-huh,” Harry said flatly.

“Ah, now I understand,” Lockwood said. “Yes, it’s all coming clear. I’ve noticed you two have developed quite an attraction for one another.”

“What can I say,” Harry grinned. “Bush pilots have more fun.”

“All those years in med school…” Lockwood said, looking wistfully at Amy. “I suddenly lament the fact I never learned to fly.”

“You, a bush pilot ?” Amy said. “I don’t see you as the type.”

“Cruel world,” Lockwood said, shaking his head. “Anyway, I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much, Harry – our Dr. Tyler here is all business.”

“Okay, gentlemen, enough already,” Amy said, throwing up her hands. “Please, let’s change the subject. I’m starting to get self-conscious here. Besides, I think it’s time we began our descent.”

“Fine by me,” Harry said, moving over to the rope that was anchored in the ice.

He lifted the line, tugged on it to check that it was still secure, and glanced over at Boots – who was still flat on his back looking like he’d fallen asleep.

“C’mon Boots, on your feet…” Then he turned to the others and said, “Everybody ready to start down?”

Chapter 20

The safety line had been stowed in a pack, as the team had decided that it would be safer for each person to make their own way down the slope using the anchor line.

Harry double-checked the line and was the first one to step off the lip of the ridge and start down the slope.

Holding the line in one hand and his ice axe in the other – and then toeing in his crampons with each downward step – he reached the flat ice at the bottom in less than ten minutes.

Since Amy was familiar with the ridge, she would be the last one down.

Everyone stood and watched as she picked her way down the slope like an expert climber. As she dropped onto the ice, Nowhere Man whistled and said, “Spider-Man couldn’t have done it better.”

“That was nothing,” Amy laughed. “You should see me moving around Manhattan at rush hour.”

“All these hidden talents,” Lockwood said, staring at Amy. “I’m very impressed, Dr. Tyler.”

Amy stamped a foot, trying to knock loose a chunk of ice that was wedged into the toe of her crampon. “I’m thinking of taking these things home with me.”

“Now that I’d love to see,” Harry laughed. “Crampons in Manhattan.”

The group re-formed and, with Harry in the lead, started forward again.

The trip to the base of the pinnacle was flat and straightforward except for a few large outcrops of ice that would require a detour. The weather was holding and the way was clear.

Harry decided that the safety line was unneeded and, in fact, would’ve been a hindrance – so the group proceeded forward across the ice, walking informally side by side.

They talked quietly amongst themselves, and every once in a while Boots would laugh at something Nowhere Man just said. But most of the time they were too busy staring at the magnificent icy wonderland that they were passing through.

About halfway to the pinnacle, just before they reached the first outcrop of ice, the air filled with a chilling roar! The team froze in their tracks. Everyone dropped into a defensive crouch and looked anxiously around for the source of the sound.

Then, without warning, an adult male polar bear exploded out from behind the outcrop of ice, rose up on its hind legs – and let out another blood-curdling roar.

No one moved. Or breathed.

The bear suddenly dropped to the ice – and like a bullet shot from a rifle, it attacked, charging directly toward them at a terrible speed.

Amy screamed.

Harry yelled, “Don’t run!” Then, “Tuck into a ball and cover your neck.”

The bear was closing fast – a huge white mass of flashing teeth and slashing claws.

Taking Harry’s lead, they all fell to the ice and curled up, locking their hands as tightly as they could behind their necks.

All of them, that is, except Boots.

Boots stood frozen in his tracks, staring dumbly at the bear as it gobbled up the distance between them.

Then he yelled and took off running…

Harry sprang up. “Boots, no! Don’t run!”

But Boots’s legs kept pumping. And deaf with fear, he fled for his life.

The fleeing prey attracted the bear. It locked onto Boots, angling directly toward him – and moving even faster now, had become a churning white locomotive of death…

Thirty, twenty, ten feet… and the bear leapt into the air, crashing into Boots and pinning him to the ice. The bear roared, threw Boots across the ice like a rag doll, then fell onto him, tearing into the pack on his back.

Harry grabbed his trekking pole and was going to try and scare the bear off, when –

Amy suddenly leapt up, threw off her pack, and ran directly toward the bear, yelling at the top of her lungs.

Harry said, “Oh, shit,” shed his pack and racing after her yelled, “Amy! Stop!”

Ignoring him, Amy kept charging forward until she was only a few feet from the bear.

Suddenly, aware of Amy, the bear released Boots and swiveled around. Face to face with her, it displayed its deadly teeth, then shook its head back and forth and roared.

Amy’s heart thudded in her chest. Her vision collapsed, narrowing into a tunnel as adrenaline flooded her system. Her mind was screaming: run!

The bear rose up. Amy planted her feet. Just as she was about to be smothered in a furry death – she thrust a fist directly at the bear’s face – and a viscous steam of liquid shot out from a canister, pasting the bear squarely across its muzzle.

The bear screamed in pain and shock. Then, shaking its head and snorting loudly, it turned tail and ran for the safety of the sea.

Harry skidded up to Amy – and she fell back into his arms.

“What the hell was that?”

Amy held up her hand revealing the small canister. “Pepper spray.”

“Jesus,” Harry said, letting out his breath, relieved that she was okay. “Pepper spray? I can’t believe it! I can’t believe you just chased off a polar bear with pepper spray.”

Amy laughed, but Harry could see she was still shaken. “I must’ve forgotten to tell you I was a Girl Scout.”

“I’ll bet you were a terror.”

Suddenly they heard Boots moan and then try to move.

Harry and Amy rushed to his side, joined by a stunned Lockwood and a silent Nowhere Man.

Harry knelt beside Boots and said, “Don’t try to move.” He placed a hand on Boots’ shoulder. “Boots, can you speak?”

“Jesus H, I think I pissed my pants, Harry,” Boots said in a muffled voice, his face pinned to the ice.

“Boots, can you move your arms and legs?”

“I can make a goddamned snow angel if you want, Harry.” Boots unstuck his face from the ice and looked at Harry. “Now could you please get me off this ice?”

“Hang on, Boots. I want to check your back to see if you’re bleeding anywhere.”

“Let me give you a hand with that pack, Harry,” Nowhere Man said crouching next to Boots. “God, look at this thing,” he said, holding up a twisted piece of aluminum from the pack’s frame.

Harry and Nowhere Man cut the straps. As they lifted the shredded pack, half- chewed candy bars spilled across the ice.

Boots’s eyes fluttered open.

“The son-of-a-bitch must’ve wanted my candy bars.”

Boots’s shirt was ripped down the center and half of it was soaked with blood. Harry lifted the shirt and a quick examination revealed two vertical crimson slashes that ran the length of his spine.

“The pack saved his life,” Amy said, examining the smashed pack.

Nowhere Man reached down and lifted one of the candy bars. “Or very near killed him.”

Harry and Amy began to clean and dress the wounds as best they could. Lockwood bent down, gripped Boots’s wrist, and checked his pulse, timing the beats with his Rolex.

“This man is going to have to be transported to the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Great. That’s just great,” Harry said, pressing a bandage around Boots’s ribcage.

“Hang in there, Buddy,” Nowhere Man said, then pulled out a radio and put in a call to Lieutenant Cushman back in the chopper.

“Hey, Cush, wake up – it’s Nowhere. Boots is hurt. We’re gonna need an immediate medevac.”

Chapter 21

Ten minutes later the Coast Guard chopper dusted off, and Lieutenant Cushman was racing across the iceberg toward the team.

A heavy thumping filled the air. Amy, Harry, Lockwood and Nowhere Man all looked up just as the chopper appeared overhead.

Nowhere Man keyed his radio, and yelling over the noise of the turbines, began barking instructions to Lieutenant Cushman.

“Cush, it’s not safe to land. You’re going to have to come in at a low hover. Harry and I will load Boots, then get the others on board.”

“Roger that. I copy, Nowhere.”

“Wait a minute,” Amy said, stepping up to Nowhere Man. “Why should we all go back? Can’t you and Lieutenant Cushman run Boots back to the hospital and then come back for us? Or maybe you could have them send another helicopter?”

“It’s risky. The weather could change, and we might have a hard time getting you off the iceberg.”

“The weather is picture perfect.”

“Arctic storms can come out of nowhere. Things can go to hell in a hurry on the water. And by the time we drop Boots and refuel we’re talking about two, maybe three hours.”

“What about the weather report?”

“There were no alerts or warnings as of 8 a.m. this morning.”

“See… It’s settled then,” Amy said, her confidence building.

Nowhere Man turned to Harry and Lockwood. “Doctor? Harry? You heard the lady – what’s your vote?”

“By all means, leave us,” Lockwood said. Then he turned and pointed at the pinnacle. “I didn’t come all this way to leave before seeing the prize.”

“Yeah, I think we’ll be fine, Nowhere,” Harry said, then added, “But haul ass back here anyway.”

Nowhere Man shrugged, moved away from the team, and using his arms, guided Lieutenant Cushman into a hover two feet above the ice.

The group was hit by the rotor wash. Amy and Lockwood instinctively retreated from the hovering chopper.

Nowhere Man and Harry ducked, covering their eyes. Then they moved Boots, and with one man at each end of him, hoisted him safely into the hovering Black Hawk.

Nowhere Man jumped into the chopper, pulling Boots away from the door.

Just as quickly he reappeared and yelled to Harry, “Here – take this.” He handed over the radio. “If you get into any trouble, this will put you right through to the air station.” Nowhere Man turned, and grabbed a pistol. “Know how to use one of these?”

“Sure,” Harry nodded.

Nowhere Man passed the gun to Harry. “It’s a Glock 40. Packs a punch. Just in case you run out of pepper spray.”

Harry slid the gun into his jacket and flashed a thumbs up.

Nowhere Man returned the gesture and in his best Schwarzenegger voice said, “I’ll be back.” Then he slid the cargo door shut and moved to the cockpit.

Harry waved and ducked away in a low crouch, then watched as the Black Hawk began to rise in a slow arcing turn, drop its nose, and with engines screaming, race toward the mainland.

Amy and Lockwood moved up next to Harry. All of them suddenly felt a pang of loneliness as the helicopter turned into a dot, then vanished over the horizon.

Chapter 22

The group covered the distance to the pinnacle without further trouble and it wasn’t long before Harry, Amy, and Lockwood were standing in the shadows, staring up at the blue-streaked spire.

“Come on, it’s farther up,” Amy said, pointing ahead. “Just around that wall of ice. That’s where we found the kayak.” And without waiting for the others, she shot forward.

Harry stayed with Lockwood while he caught his breath, then reached into his pack for a bottle of water and took a long swallow. He took another sip, stowed the water, and signaled to Harry he was ready to keep going.

Just as they began to move again, following along in Amy’s tracks…

There was a sudden shrill roar – then a rush of air as the blowhole spouted across the ice.

Lockwood yelled out, and thinking they were about to be attacked again, dropped to the ice, ready to tuck into a defensive ball. After a few seconds he realized it wasn’t another polar bear attack, then looked up in amazement and watched as Harry began to laugh.

“What the hell was that?” Lockwood said, rising to his feet, his face a bloodless mask.

“Blowhole. Can you believe it?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wish you could’ve seen your face when that thing went off.”

“I think I damned near went into cardiac arrest. Jesus Christ.”

“It’s a hoot, ain’t it,” Harry said, still laughing.

“My God, I really thought the polar bear had returned.”

“Sorry about that. I guess we forgot to mention it.”

Lockwood laughed and said, “Hey, just the fact that I’m not a polar bear’s lunch right now is good enough.”

* * * *

By the time Harry and Lockwood caught up with Amy, she was already leaning over the kayak, chipping at the ice and trying to free it from the wall.

Lockwood stood staring at the kayak, marveling at the way it stuck right out of the ice. “Incredible!” he said as he stepped up to the bow and ran his hand along a section of the sealskin hull.

“It’s incredible, alright,” Amy said, straightening up to greet Lockwood. “Incredibly well stuck, that is.”

Lockwood moved up to where the hull disappeared into the ice. “Yes, we’re going to need more equipment to extricate it.”

“Come have a look inside, Hayden. The craftsmanship is exquisite.”

While Amy and Lockwood swarmed over the kayak, Harry thought he’d pick his way down to the pool, and who knows, maybe catch the blowhole spouting.

Standing at the water’s edge, he thought the pool looked bigger, that it had definitely grown in size. Then he thought about the chunk of frozen water he was standing on and how in short order, it would all be assimilated back into the sea.

Standing there, staring at the azure pool, Harry’s eye suddenly caught something new, something that wasn’t there last time. Halfway around the pool’s edge, right where the water butted up next to the pinnacle’s base, a large section of ice had been undercut by the warmer ocean water and fallen away to expose a sheer section of virgin ice wall.

He made his way over to the base of the pinnacle and ran his hand across the smooth, newly exposed section of wall, and just as he was about to step away, he noticed something else…

Something was trapped inside the ice!

It was in a section of wall directly overhead. Harry was too close, the angle too sharp for him to get a decent look. He strained forward, but still couldn’t really see what it was. From where he stood, it just looked like a shadowy section of ice.

Harry moved back about ten, feet and when he turned for a better look, he immediately drew in a sharp breath and froze in his tracks.

There, directly in front of him, suspended fifteen feet in the air, frozen solid in the ice wall, was a giant creature.

It can’t be real, Harry thought. Then he whispered, “Holy God.”

The image that suddenly popped into his mind was that of a creature being displayed in a department store window – or maybe in some bizarre aquarium filled with frozen water.

Harry moved closer for a better look, and what he saw was a large creature, maybe some sort of great ape, but much bigger than any gorilla he’d ever heard of. The creature was covered with hair that was so white that it was almost absent of any color. It was tilted on its side with its back towards Harry. A powerful arm covered with hair was draped over its spine, displaying a clawed hand with long segmented fingers like the legs of a spider crab.

“Whoa!” Harry said, then thought to himself: It’s amazing. Fantastic. Hard to believe. Then he turned and with his hands cupped around his mouth yelled, “Amy!

Dr. Lockwood! Over here, quick!”

* * * *

Five minutes later they were all standing silently, staring up at the mysterious creature trapped in the ice.

“Harry, do you know what this is? Do you realize what you’ve found?” Amy asked, barely able to contain her excitement.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and rule out the mother of all arctic nematodes.”

“I think it might be some sort of primitive hominoid…”

“I believe we may have outdone Dr. Leaky today,” Lockwood said.

Amy pointed at the creature’s legs. “It has all the characteristics of upright posture – and look, that is clearly an opposable thumb.”

Amy reached down by her side, lifted her camera and began photographing the creature, firing off shots as fast as the system could recycle.

“What are we talking about here?” Harry asked. “You mean this could be the missing link or Sasquatch or the Abominable Snowman or something?”

“It’s too premature to make any assumptions,” Lockwood stated flatly. “But clearly it’s some form of subhuman.”

Amy lowered the camera and took a step forward, not taking her eyes off the wall. “My God, it must stand eight, no, nine feet high.”

“All I can say is – I’m glad it’s taking an ice nap,” Harry said.

“What are we going to do?” Amy asked, thinking out loud. “We’ve got to get it out of that ice. But how?”

“How about a couple of sticks of dynamite and a jackhammer?”

“Are you crazy?” Amy gave Harry a horrified look.

“Yeah, most people think so,” Harry said, grinning right back at her. “Well, I can tell you one thing – it’s not going to be like plucking a few microbes out of the ice.”

“Nonsense,” Lockwood said, stepping forward with authority. “I propose we set about getting a biopsy immediately, then return tomorrow with everything we need to exhume this remarkable find.”

“A biopsy? Immediately?” Harry said in disbelief. “Yeah, great idea. Just one little problem – old Chewbacca there is suspended fifteen feet in the air and locked behind three feet of ice. And, silly me, I forgot to pack my chainsaw.”

“Oh come now, Mr. McNills, where’s your initiative? Where’s all that bush pilot can-do and bravado? We’ve got climbing gear and Amy and I have coring equipment that is more than capable of tapping into that ice. With a little luck, we’ll retrieve a tissue sample – and perhaps more importantly, a hair sample.”

“My God, yes,” Amy blurted. “The hair! I’d completely forgotten. It’s got to be a match.”

“Yes, dollars to donuts this is the fellow that dispatched our hunter.”

“And how do we know it’s not a female?” Amy challenged.

“Well, for beginners, the hairy back is a dead giveaway,” Harry said. “Although, I had a nurse back in high school who could’ve given this thing a run for its money.”

Lockwood slipped off his pack and began removing sections of rod that, when screwed together, formed the shaft of a coring device. He placed the segments end to end on the ice, then looked up at Harry.

“How do you propose to get us up that ice wall, Mr. McNills?”

“Right,” Harry said dryly, knowing all along that he would be on the sharp end of Lockwood’s little plan.

Chapter 23

Nowhere Man left the hospital and pushed his Toyota Tundra as fast as he could toward the air station. The doctor had assured him that after fifty stitches and a week of bed rest, Boots would be back to normal – or whatever Boots’s day-to-day condition was called.

Nowhere Man sped through the airport gates and skidded to a halt next to the Coast Guard hangers. He jumped out of the truck, looked skyward, and noticed that the weather was still good. The marine forecast he’s seen earlier said a high pressure system was building over the region, which meant they were in for a few more days of light winds and calm seas.

Avoiding the office altogether, Nowhere Man trotted across the tarmac and made a beeline for his Black Hawk chopper. Lieutenant Cushman had just signed for a load of jet fuel and was moving around the ship doing a visual inspection.

“Let’s turn and burn, Cush,” Nowhere Man yelled as he arrived at the helo

“Aye, aye, skipper,” Lieutenant Cushman said. “We’re good to go. I just filed a flight plan.”

Both men leapt aboard and, as Lieutenant Cushman did a preflight and lit the turbines, Nowhere Man got on the radio and called Harry.

“U.S. Coast Guard aircraft calling, Harry McNills.” Silence, then he tried again. “Coast Guard aircraft calling Harry McNills. Harry, do you copy?”

More silence. He turned to Lieutenant Cushman. “I bet the idiot isn’t even monitoring the hailing channel.”

“I bet the damn radio isn’t even turned on,” Lieutenant Cushman said, laughing as the Black Hawk’s sleek blades began to turn and spin faster and faster until they were an invisible blur.

Five minutes later they were airborne and charging across the ocean toward the iceberg.

Nowhere Man was about to try the radio again when Harry’s voice crashed out of an overhead speaker.

“Hey, Nowhere, do you copy?”

Nowhere Man smiled, adjusted the radio and spoke into his headset. “Roger that, Harry. We’re outbound and should be over your pos at 1600 hours.”

“Copy that. Hey, how’s Boots? Is he okay?”

“Doctor said he was going to be fine – but it was gonna take fifty stitches to patch him back together.”

“Ouch.” Then, “Nowhere – you guys are not going to believe what we found.”

“Oh, no… Not again. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

“It’s a mind-blower, Nowhere.”

“Okay, so what’d you find?”

“Actually, we’re not sure. But something big, fantastic. I’m not going to say any more – you’re going to have to see for yourself.”

“Great. Just great. And don’t tell me you’re planning on putting it in my bird”

“It’s buried deep in the ice. We’re going to have to return tomorrow with more equipment.”

“Great. Just great.”

“Listen, Nowhere, we’re not going to have time to get back to the LZ. Let’s rendezvous where we evacuated Boots. We’re just going to have to load up while you guys come in and hover.”

“Great.” Then, “Okay, Harry. We’ll look for you guys in a little over an hour.”

“Oh, wait. Hey Nowhere – if you get a chance, put in a call to Inspector Hyde. Tell him we’re bringing him a little surprise that may help with his murder investigation.”

“McNills, tell me we’re not talking about another half-eaten body.”

“Just tell him, Nowhere. Gotta go. McNills clear.”

Nowhere Man looked over at Lieutenant Cushman, shook his head, applied more throttle, and the Black Hawk closed on the iceberg.

Chapter 24

Before Nowhere Man’s call, Harry had been busy rigging a way up the wall by driving pitons into the ice, clipping carabiners through the steel spikes, and then running climbing rope through them.

What he had in mind was securing the ropes twenty feet up the ice wall. That would allow him and Amy to drop down over the area where the creature was entombed and hopefully get a biopsy.

Using one of the ropes, Harry improvised a makeshift bosun’s chair – a device that allows a person to sit and be hoisted up the mast of a boat, or in this case, up the side of a sheer ice wall.

The plan was to have Amy sit in the bosun’s chair, then he and Lockwood would hoist her up the wall until she was directly over the buried creature. After Amy had positioned herself, Harry, using the other line, would haul himself up alongside her. Then together they would place the coring rod over the creature, and Harry, with his feet planted against the ice wall as if he was about to rappel downward, would lean back and be in a position to operate the coring rod.

While he and Amy were clinging to the ice wall, Lockwood would be free to watch and bark useless orders at them.

“Okay, I think we’re ready,” Harry said, tugging on a line to make sure it was secure.

“Are you sure it’s safe, Mr. McNills?” Lockwood asked.

“Actually, no. Maybe you should go first and test it, just to make sure.”

Amy was already climbing into the boson’s chair and said, “I’m the lightest. I’m going first.”

Harry looked at her and nodded okay. He couldn’t help noticing her beautiful face and flushed cheeks. It was all over for him. He was in love.

After Amy was secured to the end of the rope, Lockwood and Harry took up the slack and began to hoist her up the ice wall.

“How you doing, how does it feel?” Harry called up.

“Great,” Amy yelled, then flashed a thumbs up. “Let’s do it.”

Lockwood and Harry kept pulling until she was directly over the creature’s shadowy form.

Lockwood then took the tail of the rope, and wrapping it tightly around his waist, acted as an anchor for Amy.

“Think you can hold her okay?” Harry asked.

“Nothing to worry about,” Lockwood responded. “She’s light as a feather.”

Harry secured the other line to his climbing harness, took the tension off the rope, and began to haul himself up the ice toward Amy.

Five minutes later, Harry gave one last pull – and found himself dangling fifteen feet up in the air alongside her.

“Dr. Tyler, I presume,” Harry said, flashing a big grin.

“God, Harry, being this close to the thing gives me goose bumps.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you’re plastered against a giant slab of frozen water.”

“I’m sweating, Harry.”

“Right.”

She reached down, and retrieving the coring rod that was dangling from her harness, positioned it directly over the creature’s back.

“Harry, do you know how exciting this is?”

“It’s pretty freaky. Hard to believe,” Harry said, staring at the shadowy form.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

Amy held the rod in both hands, guiding the shaft as Harry turned the handle. They both watched as the razor-sharp augur bit into the ice and sank toward the creature.

“We’ve got to be careful, Harry. We want to get the biopsy without disturbing the surrounding environment.”

“It’s your call. I’ll stop on your signal.” Harry continued to crank the drill, then said, “Hey, this thing has to be valuable.”

Amy gave him a, “don’t even think about it” look.

“After you guys are through probing it and draining its fluids or whatever – we could stuff it and sell tickets to see the real abominable snowman. When I was a kid there was a casino that had a stuffed grizzly bear in the window. Kids loved it.”

If Amy had the time she would’ve rolled her eyes. “C’mon Harry, pay attention. We’re almost there.”

A couple of seconds later she looked over, giving him a direct look. “Whatever this thing is, Harry, it belongs to science – and not in some carnival sideshow.”

“You mean, it belongs to Cryolabs. Isn’t that what you and Lockwood have in mind?”

“No. I mean the scientific community.”

“What are you two going on about?” Lockwood called up, wondering what all the arguing was about.

“Science,” Harry said with a laugh.

“Harry, stop! Stop turning,” Amy cried out. “We’re almost there.”

Harry released the handle and leaned forward for a better look.

“Okay, very slowly now, keep turning until I say stop.”

“Here we go,” Harry said, then slowly began to rotate the coring rod.

A few more turns – and they both felt the augur come to a stop against the creature’s back.

“That’s it,” Amy said. Then she began to slowly draw the coring rod out of the ice. When the drill had been completely, removed all that was left was a quarter-sized hole that ran directly up to the creature’s back.

“It’s perfect,” Amy said, reaching out and clearing away some ice shavings at the lip of the hole.

“Okay, before my legs start cramping, what’s next?”

Amy clipped the coring drill back onto her harness, then came up with a long flexible instrument that she inserted into the hole, carefully letting it run right up to the creature’s body.

“I get a skin plug with this nifty little scientific instrument –” She began to manipulate a handle at one end. “There. And then we’re on our way back to the lab.”

Amy drew the biopsy out of the ice, then carefully placed it in a specimen container. “Gotcha.” As she was about to snap the lid shut, she noticed one of the hairs protruding out of the skin plug. She raised the container to her eyes for a closer look, studying the biopsy.

“Harry, the hairs – they’re the same as the ones taken from Porter’s body.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. This is getting very weird, Harry. I just got the chills.”

“All I know is, if somehow one of these creatures was alive and it attacked Porter, it’s good and dead now.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because nothing survived after that iceberg rolled. If there was a creature on it – and I’m still not prepared to believe some five-thousand-year-old creature came back to life and whacked Porter – it’s really dead now.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Amy said, snapping the lid shut on the specimen container and slipping it into her parka.

Harry reached a hand towards her. “Here, let me help you with the biopsy doohickey.”

Amy handed him the device, reached into the end of the coring rod, removed a small cylindrical chunk of ice, and then carefully inserted it into the hole, plugging it tightly.

She took one last look at the mysterious creature trapped in the ice, trying not to let her emotions run away with her, and whispered, “Pandora’s Box.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Harry said, giving her a direct look.

“My eyes see, but the brain doesn’t believe. I have to keep telling myself I’m not dreaming. Somebody pinch me.”

“How about a biopsy?” Harry said, holding up the surgical device.

“Excuse me, but if you two are finished up there,” Lockwood yelled up in a strained voice, “then please come down off that wall – my back is killing me.”

Harry looked down at Lockwood and said, “It’s a done deal.” He adjusted his grip on the rope. “I’m coming down first, then I’ll help you lower Amy.” And with a couple of quick movements, Harry rappelled down the sheet of ice and landed next to Lockwood.

Working together they lowered Amy, then got busy stowing gear and preparing for the rendezvous with the helicopter.

“We’ve got to get moving,” Harry said. “Nowhere is an impatient man. If we’re not there when he makes his pass, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Suits me,” Lockwood said. “I’m ready to slip out of these crampons and into a tumbler of single malt.”

* * * *

Amy heard it first. She turned and pointed and they all watched the sleek Black

Hawk chopper come out of the haze and streak overhead, then bank into a tight turn for a final approach to the extraction point.

Last on board was Harry. He slammed the cargo door shut and yelled forward to Nowhere Man, “Let’s head for the barn. It’s Miller time.”

“Deliver us home safely and the drinks are on me,” Lockwood said ebulliently, and then began to loosen the laces on his boots.

Nowhere Man looked back and nodded at Lockwood. “I’m going to hold you to that, doctor.” Then he put the Black Hawk into a gentle turn, increased the thrust, and radioed St. John’s Air Station that they were inbound and gave them their ETA.

“Big mistake,” Harry said, dropping into his seat and tightening his harness. “Nowhere Man’s hollow leg is legendary around the Frozen Coconut.”

Lockwood discounted Harry’s comment by waving a hand through the air. “After what we found today, I feel like buying the whole country a drink.”

“Listen, you two,” Amy said, looking from Lockwood to Harry. “I think we need to be careful about this. I think from now on we should keep this business to ourselves.”

“Aww…” Harry said. “I would’ve looked cool on CNN.”

“You know, in all the excitement, I hadn’t even thought about it. But of course, you’re right, Amy,” Lockwood said. “We’ve got to control this thing.”

“When the news of what we’ve found moves across the wires – it’s going to be a three-ring media circus. It’s going to be a nightmare. We’ve got to keep the lid on this thing until the creature has been safely removed from that iceberg and is in a secure facility.”

Amy turned, giving Harry a direct look. “Agreed?”

“Mummy’s the word,” Harry replied with a grin.

Chapter 25

Harry and Nowhere Man were having a beer in the mostly empty Frozen Coconut. Nowhere Man was still in his flight suit and looked completely spent from having choppered people back and forth across the Atlantic all day. He took a long pull on his Guinness, relishing the strong malted brew as it slid down his throat and soothed his harried nerves.

Harry, on the other hand, seemed to be distracted and edgy and not at all into the cocktail hour.

“Did you see Boots, Har?” Nowhere asked, placing his beer back on the table but not removing his hand from the glass.

“Tried to. He was asleep. The doc said to come back later.”

“I’ll tell you what – that is one lucky son of a bitch. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people would’ve never walked away from that. And I could not believe that Dr. Tyler. Talk about balls…”

“Yeah…” Harry said, but you could tell he wasn’t really listening to what Nowhere Man was saying.

Harry suddenly pushed back from the table and said, “I’m going to go over to the lab and see what they’re doing.”

Nowhere Man looked at Harry, surprised. “I wouldn’t. I got the feeling they wanted to be left alone. Stay out. No molestar.”

“They meant you, not me.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t get that feeling,” Nowhere said and took a sip of beer. “They didn’t even want to see Inspector Hyde. They had Cush run that hair sample you got over to the police station with a note that said positive match.”

“Bullshit,” Harry said and stood up.

“That’s my whole philosophy, man,” Nowhere Man said, staring up at Harry.

“Sorry, Nowhere, but I gotta go.”

“I can’t believe it,” Nowhere Man said, shaking his head. “Lockwood leaves us an open tab – and you’ve only had one beer. Now that’s bullshit.”

Harry was already moving towards the door. He waved back to Nowhere Man without turning and stepped out of the Frozen Coconut.

* * * *

Harry stood outside Hanger One, knocked, then tried the door handle. Locked. He could hear voices on the other side of the door. He waited, then knocked again and wiggled the handle, trying to make noise. Still no answer. Harry gripped the handle and was about to pound on the door, when it was yanked inward and Harry was suddenly face to face with Lockwood.

“Mr. McNills, this door is locked because Dr. Tyler and I are working and wish to be left alone.”

Ignoring him, Harry pushed passed Lockwood, stepped into the lab and smiled at Amy.

“This is private property, Mr. McNills!” Lockwood threatened.

“Please, Hayden – its Harry,” Amy said.

I just came by to make sure Dr. Tyler was okay.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a biologist, you figure it out.”

“Oh, come on, Hayden, let him stay,” Amy said. “Without Harry none of this would be happening.”

Lockwood shook his head. Biting back his anger, he said, “Mr. McNills, Harry, anything you hear or see in here, must stay in here. Just for now, it’s top secret. It’s Cryolabs’s business.”

“Oh, is that right? I seem to remember Dr. Tyler mentioning something about it belonging to the entire scientific community.”

Lockwood let out a sigh and rubbed his neck. “Eventually, yes. But Cryolabs is here now and has already made a sizeable investment. And Harry, Cryolabs can guarantee that America will be the primary beneficiary of the science it yields.”

“Well, that sounds great for you and Cryolabs and the good old USA – but what about the rest of us? And let’s not forget who actually found the creature.”

“Trust me, I’ll never forget. Don’t worry, Harry, if Cryolabs benefits from this find, you’ll be handsomely compensated. You’ll be able to write your own ticket.”

Amy stepped up to Harry and took his arm. “Harry, come look and see for yourself. The results are better than we could’ve dreamed.”

Harry followed her over to one of the microscopes. He leaned over the eyepiece, letting his eyes focus on the hidden microscopic world.

“You’re looking at a cross section of the biopsy we recovered earlier today. The cells you’re viewing are proof positive that this large organism can tolerate ice forming within its body. It means –”

“It means that the creature you found trapped in that iceberg could theoretically be capable of being thawed out, reanimated, and restored to life,” Lockwood said, cutting Amy off.

“So, we’re back to that theory. A creature back from the dead, waking up and killing people,” Harry scoffed. “Give me a break, Dr. Frankenstein.”

Harry turned to Amy. “He’s starting to sound just like you. Creatures being defrosted after five thousand years buried in ice and walking around like nothing happened.” Harry glanced over at Lockwood, then back to Amy. Both of their faces were dead serious. “Oh, come on you guys – this sounds like some hokey sci-fi story.”

“I can assure you it’s science, not fiction,” Lockwood insisted.

“Harry, this might be the find of the century,” Amy said, glancing over at the biopsy sitting in the specimen dish.

Lockwood crossed the lab and stood in front of a small freezer. “Stick around, Harry…”

He opened the freezer and carefully removed a stainless steel tray containing a small white mouse. “I’m about to do my Frankenstein imitation.”

“Warm and serve?” Harry said, as he stared at the mouse.

“Harry,” Amy said through her teeth, then gave him a jab in the arm.

“Before our little friend was super cooled to zero degrees,” Lockwood said, looking down at the tiny mouse, “We removed half its blood volume and replaced it with synthetic blood infused with cryoproteins taken from the creature’s biopsy.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that,” Harry said. “Mick Jagger did the same thing in Switzerland awhile back.”

Lockwood gave Harry a look of bewilderment.

“Forget it. Rock trivia.”

Lockwood moved to a workbench and picked up a shallow glass container filled with clear fluid. “Dr. Tyler, if you’d be so kind as to assist me.”

Amy joined Lockwood at the workbench, and he handed her the tray containing the mouse.

“You do the honors, Amy. After all, it was your curiosity that led us to that hidden treasure.”

What about me? What about my curiosity? Harry thought, but didn’t say anything. He looked at Lockwood, then rolled his eyes at his over-the-top dramatic tone.

Amy took the tray, lifted the mouse by the tail, then gently submerged it in the bowl of clear fluid.

“Let me guess – dry vermouth,” Harry said in a droll tone.

“Afraid not. It’s very ordinary tap water that has been warmed to body temperature,” she said, not lifting her eyes from the bowl. “If we’re lucky, the transformation of mammalian cryoprotectors will have allowed its cells to tolerate freezing and it will thaw back to life.”

“Wow, this really is like Frankenstein,” Harry said. “There should be lightning and thunder – and the mouse should have a little bolt in its neck.”

Amy did her best to ignore Harry’s comments. They crowded around the bowl, anxious to see what would happen.

Lit by a halogen spot, the mouse floated on the surface of the water. As it warmed, its fur spread out from its body at right angles.

“One minute, fifteen seconds,” Lockwood announced, keeping his eyes on the sweep hand of his Rolex.

Fifteen seconds later, one of the mouse’s rear legs twitched. Then another leg moved. Suddenly all of its legs were jumping and kicking.

Harry thought to himself that it looked like a dog having a running dream.

Amy reached in, lifted the mouse out of the water, and placed it in a warm towel, swaddling it like a newborn baby. “It’s a miracle,” she said, her voice full of awe.

Lockwood finished jotting a note in a steno pad, then looked at the mouse. “The miracle of science.”

“That’s a happy mouse,” Harry said.

Lockwood slipped away, leaving Harry and Amy staring down at the mouse, quietly crossed to a telephone, checked a number written on the pad, punched it in, then spoke softly into the receiver.

Harry watched as Amy gently worked the towel across the mouse’s body, drying its fur.

“What does all this really mean?” Harry asked.

“I’m not sure,” Amy said, looking up at him. “There’s that creature back on the iceberg – and what we just saw – I don’t really know, the implications are breathtaking. It could mean that human tissue – heck, whole human bodies – could be frozen alive and thawed out at some later date. Organs could be donated and saved indefinitely until they’re needed. Space travel. Astronauts could be kept in cryo-chambers, sent to the outer edges of the universe, and be awakened decades later.”

Harry let out his breath, overwhelmed by the possibilities, then reached down and stroked the mouse’s head.

“One squeak for man, and one giant squeak for mankind.”

Lockwood hung up the phone, looked across the lab at Harry and Amy, and said, “Wheels are turning. History is being made.”

They looked up at the sound of Lockwood’s voice and saw him walk to the freezer, pull open the door, and remove the specimen container.

Lockwood turned and faced them. “What is buried on that iceberg and the biopsy inside this jar,” he held up the container for them to see, “is the stuff of Nobel Prizes, Dr. Tyler.”

Then Lockwood was moving swiftly toward the door. “This will make the cloning of sheep fetuses seem sophomoric.”

“Dr. Lockwood, Hayden, where are you going?” Amy called out, but it was too late – he was already out the door.

Harry looked at Amy and squinted his eyes. “Now what is he up to?”

“I don’t know,” she said, grabbing the mouse and slipping it into a cage. “But let’s go find out.”

Chapter 26

Harry and Amy exited the hanger just in time to see Lockwood crossing the tarmac towards an Air Coast Guard Falcon jet that was running up its two engines, preparing for take off.

Yelling over the revving turbines, Amy said, “Let’s go!” They broke into a run, making a beeline for Lockwood.

A Coast Guard pilot appeared in the jet’s door holding a small Igloo cooler, then dropped down and jogged across the runway to meet Lockwood.

“Dr. Lockwood?” the pilot asked, joining him.

“Yes, I’m Lockwood.” He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved the specimen container. “I’ve got the biopsy right here.”

The pilot nodded, opened the cooler, and held it out. Lockwood placed the biopsy carefully inside.

“Will that be all, sir?” the pilot asked, closing the lid.

“Yes, that’s it. And lieutenant, please be careful with it.”

The pilot gave Lockwood a salute. “Yes, sir.” Then he turned and hustled back to the jet.

“Hayden!” Amy yelled, but her words were mostly gobbled by the jet’s engines.

Lockwood turned around just in time to see Amy and Harry running across the tarmac.

“What are you doing? What’s going on?”

A hundred feet away, the Falcon jet began to roll, then turned and taxied toward the end of the runway.

Lockwood pointed toward the departing jet.

“The biopsy is being transported to New York, where attorneys for Cryolabs will collect it and immediately file a claim in the name of Cryolabs Corporation with a judge in the United States Supreme Court. This will insure that Cryolabs has all legal excavation rights to that iceberg.”

“So much for all mankind,” Harry said with a smirk.

Amy stepped up to Lockwood and put a hand on his arm. “I thought we agreed to keep this quiet for now, Hayden? We were going to free that creature from the ice first – get it safely back to the lab. Damn it, this isn’t just about Cryolabs – you may have jeopardized the whole thing.”

“Don’t be naïve. I know what I’m doing, Amy. That creature and the science it will spawn will be worth billions. I haven’t jeopardized anything. Quite the opposite – once that claim is filed in New York City, no one else can touch it.” Lockwood’s eyes narrowed, and a maniacal look flashed across his face.

At the end of the airport the Falcon jet powered up its engines. They turned and watched as the jet flashed down the runway, rotated, and lifted into the sky.

Lockwood dug into a pocket, pulled out a photograph of the creature and stared at it, letting his eyes trace the shadowy form entombed in ice. “I won’t be able to sleep until we have this magnificent creature off that iceberg.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Amy said. “I’ve made a cursory list. We’re going to need a recovery team, equipment, transportation – and I was going to add, legal advice – but it seems you’ve got that well in hand.”

“Everything’s taken care of,” Lockwood said in a cocksure tone of voice. “The Coast Guard and the Navy have already granted us full logistical support. We chopper out tomorrow as soon as the team is assembled, at which time we will exhume your remarkable find.”

“Is that enough time, Hayden? We’re going to need personnel, deicing equipment, tech support… I don’t see how it’s possible –”

“Amy, Amy… let not your heart be troubled. As we speak, an Air Force C-141 is en route with everything we’ll need. They should touch down late tonight and be ready to go at first light.”

“How in the hell did you manage that so quickly?” Harry said in disbelief. “We just got off that iceberg three hours ago.”

Lockwood laughed and smiled at Harry, clearly enjoying being so in control. “Cryolabs made its bones by beating the competition to the punch. Founder and CEO Doug Whitmer’s twenty-hour work days are legendary. He’s a freak, says so himself. Only needs three hours of sleep a night. Got the money to start his first company by playing all-night poker games. When all the other players began to get drowsy and lose their concentration, Doug would still be sharp and shear them like sheep. He’s a ruthless bastard. Most competitors find that out the hard way.”

“Sounds like a real charmer. Must be wonderful to have him for a boss.”

“He’s tough but fair. And he knows how to reward excellence.”

“And how’s that, Dr. Lockwood?”

“With money, of course.”

“Of course. Stupid question.”

“But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. He’s flying his Gulfstream GV up here at the end of the week for a first-hand look.”

“Doug Whitmer is coming up here,” Amy asked incredulously. “I’ve never even met him. I thought he never left his Manhattan aerie.”

“Oh, that’s crap. He just doesn’t like dealing with people, hates small talk, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke – and thinks golf is a waste of life.”

“Boy, I can’t wait to meet Mr. Excitement.”

“I think you’ll like him, Harry. The man is passionate, if nothing else – most people are actually drawn to him.”

“The same could be said about Satan.”

“True enough,” Lockwood chuckled, then rubbed his eyes. “Boy, what a day. I don’t know about you two, but I could use a shower and one of those porterhouse steaks they specialize in back at the hotel. What do you say? My treat.”

“Better keep an eye on those free offers, Dr. Lockwood, because right now Nowhere Man is doing his best to bankrupt you back at the Frozen Coconut.”

“Well, good, it would be my pleasure. The man flew his tail off today.”

Amy stretched her back and said, “The only thing I’m doing is taking a long hot bath and then falling into bed. I feel like I’ve been up for two days straight.”

“Well, Harry, what do you say? Want to join Inspector Hyde and myself for a steak? The inspector called anxious for details on your amazing discovery. The truth is, though, I think he just wants another one or two of my Cuban cigars.”

“Thanks, really, but I should go check on Boots. I’m all the family he’s got and I want to make sure he’s okay.”

“Of course. I understand. Please send my regards,” Lockwood said, then turned and marched off towards the lab.

Amy looked at Harry and said, “Would you like me to go to the hospital with you?”

“Hey, thanks, that’s a nice offer. The truth is he’s probably asleep, but I know he’s going to want to see you tomorrow and thank you for saving his life.”

“It must be hard for you. I know how close you are to him.”

“He’s going to be fine, good as new. No, why don’t you go get some rest – tomorrow is sure to be pretty crazy.”

Amy smiled, rose up on her toes, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Harry. Thanks for putting up with me – and thanks for tolerating Hayden.”

She turned and started to leave, then added, “Breakfast on me.”

“Between you and Dr. Lockwood, I may never have to pay for a meal again.”

Chapter 27

Harry handed Amy a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee, pulled open the front door of St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital, and holding it open for her, followed her inside.

Amy took a sip of coffee. “Mmm, good. Thanks.”

“Not up to Henry Chang’s standards, but it’s hot and if you drink enough of it, eventually it will wake you up.”

Amy smiled and took another sip.

Harry pointed to a bank of elevators. “We’re on the second floor.” They walked over, entered one of the waiting lifts, and pushed the button.

The elevator bonged, the doors opened, and they stepped onto 2 East and began down the corridor.

“Boots is in Room 205.”

As they walked toward the room, they noticed a middle-aged RN in the nurse’s station fixing her hair in front of a small compact. After she got it just right, she freshened her lipstick with a couple of deft swipes, gave herself one last look, straightened her uniform, then grabbed a dish containing a spectacular-looking homemade apple pie.

Harry and Amy looked at each other and exchanged smiles, but they both remained quiet, fascinated to see what she would do next. To their utter amazement, they watched as she crossed the hallway, tapped lightly on Room 205, then pushed into the room, carefully balancing the pie in one hand.

Harry laughed and smiled. “I don’t believe it. That nurse is sweet on Boots!”

“If she baked that pie, this is serious,” Amy added.

When they got to the door, Harry put his fingers to his lips and gently eased it open, trying to get a peek inside.

“Harry!” Amy said loudly, chastising him and blowing their cover.

Harry let the door close and looked at Amy. “I was just having fun…”

Amy gave him a playful swat. Then Harry knocked loudly, waited, and pushed into the room.

“Hey, Boots, you decent?”

As they entered, they saw the RN, who’d been sitting on the bed pop up to her feet and nervously smooth her uniform.

“Harry!” Boots called out, obviously pleased to see his flying buddy. “Dr. Tyler! Come in and meet my guardian angel.”

Boots propped himself up on his pillow and made the introductions. “Margarita, I’d be pleased for you to meet, Harry, my boss, and this is Dr. Tyler – the person who saved me from that polar bear.”

Margarita blushed like a schoolgirl. Boots pointed to the pie sitting on the bedside table. “Margarita just baked one of her famous apple pies. If it’s all right with you, Margarita,” Boots gave her a little wink, “Let’s give Harry and Dr. Tyler a slice.”

“Oh, yes,” Margarita said. “I’ll go get some more plates.”

“It really looks delicious,” Amy said.

“So, Boots, looks like you’re making out pretty good here? I’ve never had a nurse – or come to think of it, anyone – bake a pie for me before. This looks serious.”

“You never had a pie baked for you?” Amy said looking at Harry. “Poor baby. I’ll tell you what – I’ll make you an apple pie sometime.”

“You will?” Harry said, genuinely touched.

Amy crossed her heart. “Promise.”

“Uh-oh, Harry – this looks pretty serious,” Boots said, getting in a dig.

“I’ll believe it when I see the pie,” Harry said, giving Amy a playful smile. Then he looked at Boots. “I’m not sure we’re ever going to get you out of here, Boots. Margarita has ruined you.”

“Think I’m going soft on you, Har?”

“I’m not sure what to think,” Harry said, giving him a playful tap on the leg.

“How’s the back?” Amy asked, stepping up next to the bed.

“Fifty stitches, can you believe that?” Boots said, sounding almost proud.

“Harry told me. Does it hurt?”

“Not too bad, really…” Boots said, then laughed. “Only when I breathe.”

“It can’t be that bad, he’s got old Margarita pretty flustered.”

“Come on, Harry. Knock it off.”

Boots reached up and placed a hand on Amy’s arm. “Dr.Tyler, what you did – I don’t know how to thank you. It was the bravest thing. Thank you for saving my life.”

And then Boots suddenly choked up and got teary-eyed.

Amy reached down and gently touched his forehead. “Thank you for those sweet words, Boots. But the truth is, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. We’re both just lucky that bear decided to flee. It could’ve gone either way. And for the record – it happened so fast there wasn’t time for any bravery on my part.”

Boots was mopping his eyes when Margarita swept into the room with paper plates and forks and a pint of vanilla ice cream.

“Look what I found, Edward, ice cream to go with your pie.”

Harry looked at Margarita who was staring sweetly down at Boots. Harry thought to himself, had she been a dove, she would’ve started cooing.

“Edward?” Harry said in an exaggerated voice, giving Boots a look of amazement. “You never told me your name was Edward.”

Boots blushed, obviously embarrassed. “Well, you never baked me no apple pie, neither, now did you?”

“No, I guess not,” Harry said. And everyone had a good laugh.

Margarita began slicing the pie, placing great, tall wedges on brightly colored paper plates.

Amy grabbed the ice cream scoop and said, “How many for a la mode?

The pie was passed around with Boots receiving the largest portion. As Harry was about to take a bite, his cell phone began to chirp. He put his pie down, dug out his phone, and stepped into the hallway to answer it.

“Harry’s probably late on his bank loan again,” Boots laughed, then took a giant bite of pie.

A moment later, Harry stepped back into the room and looked at Amy. “That was Nowhere Man. Everyone has to be geared up and at the airport in one hour.”

Chapter 28

Sitting on the iceberg, Nowhere Man’s Black Hawk looked like a toy next to the Sikorsky H-3 Super Stallion heavy transport helicopter perched directly ahead of him.

Its three General Electric turbo shaft engines began to wind up as the crew went through its pre-flight before dust off.

After much discussion and a certain amount of hand-wringing, it was decided that the big transport copter was too heavy to be left on the ice. In its place, they would use the lighter Black Hawk to shuttle the team and supplies back and forth to the excavation site. Personnel and equipment had been hastily off-loaded. The Super Stallion would return to St. John’s and remain on standby for the return trip and removal of the creature.

Nowhere Man sat in the Black Hawk’s cockpit and watched as the blades of the Super Stallion began to turn, become aerodynamic, and kick up loose chunks of ice and snow.

A safe distance from the spinning blades, four Navy engineers sifted through a mountain of equipment – electric generators, tents, Plexiglass panels, tools, food, water – that littered the ice. Suddenly the whole iceberg seemed to shake. They all stopped what they were doing and shielded their eyes. The Super Stallion’s thirteen thousand horsepower turbines defied gravity and gently lifted the massive machine off the ice, pushing it up and out over the water.

Harry, Amy, Lockwood, and two tech sergeants who had been dropped off at the excavation site earlier that morning all looked skyward as the thunder from the departing H-3 rolled across the iceberg.

Harry was helping Sergeant Sloan assemble the top stage of aluminum scaffolding that, when finished, would run right up the ice wall and allow them easy access to the entombed creature.

Amy, Lockwood, and the other technician, Sergeant Wilbanks, were assembling a sort of jury-rigged deicing machine. They piped in the meltwater from the pond, then channeled it into a tank surrounded by a heating element, a matrix of copper wire that would super-heat the water – and then it would be sucked into the pump and returned at high pressure through a hose attached to an adjustable nozzle. A gas-powered Honda generator would supply all the power they needed to heat the water and run the pump.

“Okay, sergeant, lock it down,” Harry said, as they fit the last section of scaffolding into place.

Sergeant Sloan inserted a pin into one of the tubular uprights, locking it into the section below. As he straightened, he faced the ice wall and got his first good look at the creature trapped inside.

“Sweet Jesus,” the technician said, more than a little awed.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Harry said, smiling at Sergeant Sloan’s shocked expression.

“I bet you’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“Not since my D.I. in boot camp, anyway.”

Harry laughed, then called down to Lockwood, “How are you guys doing? We’re about ready up here.”

“Almost got it,” Lockwood said. “We just have to connect the hoses, and we should be all set.”

Amy fought her way up from the pond with one end of the heavy hose draped over her shoulder, and with a final tug, reached the deicing equipment.

“We’re good to go,” Amy said between lungfuls of air. “The siphon is in place.”

She dropped down onto the ice and screwed the hose into the brass fitting on the pump.

“Excellent,” Lockwood said with a nod, then turned toward Sergeant Wilbanks.

“Ready for a test run, sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.” With that he reached down, started the generator, turned on the heating element, and let water flow into the tank and then back into the pump’s output chamber.

Sergeant Wilbanks felt the hose fill with water and become pressurized. Holding the hose up, he offered the brass nozzle to Lockwood. “Would you like to do the honors, doctor?”

“No, sergeant, we don’t go in for grandstanding around here – you’re doing just fine. You go ahead and run the test.”

Harry, who’d been watching everything from above, laughed out loud at Lockwood’s false modesty. Amy shot him an angry look, but Lockwood seemed to be oblivious.

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Sloan said. Then he pointed the hose at a section of wall and opened the valve. A powerful stream of hot water shot into the ice, instantly carving a deep notch amid clouds of billowing steam.

“Yeah!” Amy yelled, excited by how well it worked. “It’s perfect!”

Lockwood drew a finger across his throat, signaling for Sergeant Wilbanks to kill the pump. The sergeant waved, cut the stream of water, released the pressure, and shut down the generator.

“That was better than we could’ve hoped for,” Lockwood said, all smiles. “It’s like it was made to order.”

Harry turned and patted the section of ice wall directly over the creature. “Hold on buddy, we’re coming. We’ll have you out of there in no time.”

Chapter 29

Back at base camp, Nowhere Man, Lieutenant Cushman, and the four Navy engineers had made good progress in starting to arrange the scattered supplies. Remarkably, they almost had the main tent erected that would house the field lab.

Nowhere Man and Lieutenant Cushman had been given the task of assembling the Plexiglass panels that would form a tank large enough to hold the creature. About five feet wide and ten feet long, the tank would eventually be filled with water or antifreeze or vodka or something – no one knew for sure. Neither of them had seen the creature, but judging by the size of the tank, they both were thinking the same thing – it must be fucking huge!

“Whatever Harry found must be huge,” Lieutenant Cushman said.

“Harry said think of Shaquille O’Neal, only bigger.”

“No shit?” Lieutenant Cushman said, trying to get his mind around a creature that large.

“Harry said it sort of looked like –”

Nowhere Man was cut off by Harry’s voice streaming out of the radio.

“Hey, Nowhere – do you copy?”

Nowhere Man keyed his radio. “Hey, Harry… Yeah, I copy loud and clear.”

“We’re just about ready to get your girlfriend out of the ice here.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny, McNills.”

“I thought you might like that,” Harry said with a laugh. “So, how are you guys coming with the field lab and tank?”

Nowhere Man looked up and saw that the tent had been erected and equipment was already being moved inside.

“We’re on top of it and banging it hard. Everyone’s assholes and elbows around here. We’re almost ready, Harry.”

“Sounds good. As soon as you’re finished, scare up some warm bodies and get over here. We’re going to need all the help we can get loading this big bastard into the sling.”

“Roger that. See you in fifteen, Harry.”

Nowhere Man pocketed the radio, turned to Lt. Cushman and said, “Cush, you finish the tank, get some help and place it in the tent – then fill it three quarters full of fresh water.”

“What in the hell for?” Cush said, shaking his head.

“How the hell should I know? Maybe they figure after few thousand years it needs a bath.”

“Right,” Cush said and began tightening another screw.

Nowhere Man walked over to the tent, joining the Navy engineers.

“Listen up,” Nowhere said, inspecting the tent. “I need a couple of you guys to go with me and help them remove whatever it is they found over there across the iceberg.”

The Navy guys glanced at each other and then in unison raised their hands, all of them volunteering to go. None of them wanted to stay and keep setting up base camp.

Nowhere Man smiled. He knew exactly what was going on. “You, and you,” he said, pointing at the two biggest guys.

One of the unselected engineers sighed loudly and said, “Oh, goodie, more for us to do.”

“Yeah, life’s a bitch,” Nowhere Man said, then motioned to the two volunteers. “C’mon, let’s go see what they found.”

Chapter 30

Meanwhile, back at the excavation site, everything was positioned and ready for the extraction. The hose with the power nozzle was looped up and over the top stage of the scaffolding, and Harry was pulling up some extra hose to take the strain off the line.

Harry had insisted on being the one to carve the creature out of the ice. He argued that since he’d found it, it was only fitting. But it had been impossible to keep Amy off the scaffolding. She would act as Harry’s backup. Not that he had any complaints. He had seen firsthand how capable she was.

Harry continued to haul up lengths of hose hand over hand until he was able to make a few coils at his feet. If he had to move higher up the ice wall, he’d have plenty of line.

Amy stood next to the ice wall taking a few last shots with her digital camera, doing her best to document the creature in situ.

Lockwood paced below, holding an unlit Montecristo cigar, waiting for the right moment – when the creature was safely out of the ice – to light up the celebratory stogie.

Tech Sergeants Sloan and Wilbanks stood at the ready, waiting for Harry’s signal to fire up the deicing equipment.

Harry moved up next to Amy and stared at the creature. “I don’t get it. Why do we have to put this thing in a tank – I mean, why not just carve it out of the ice and throw it into the helicopter and take it home?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“The thing is frozen solid. It’s going to take days to thaw out.”

“In a word – necrobiosis,” Amy said, finishing a shot and looking at Harry. “From the minute we’re born, the main thing we do is decay. It’s like when metal artifacts are recovered from the bottom of the sea after hundreds of years – the very first thing they do is submerge them in water to stop oxidation, to stop them from rusting. Of course, this creature won’t rust – but the moment it begins to warm and thaw in an oxygen rich environment, it will start to decay. And if it’s dead, it’ll rot. The best chance we have of preserving it is to immediately arrest any cell damage and retard the decomposing process.”

“Okay, I got it,” Harry said. Then he added, “You had me at necrobiosis.”

Harry grabbed the hose, placing one hand over the valve handle just above the stainless steel nozzle, then pointed it at the ice. He studied the slick wall, unsure of where to begin his cut. “Okay, how am I going to do this?” he said, thinking out loud to himself.

Amy’s head snapped towards him. “Harry,” she said in an anxious tone, “I thought you said you could handle this?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, raising a hand to allay her fears. “Really. I can do this, no problem.”

“Harry, if you screw this up –”

“Don’t worry,” he said, cutting her off. “I was just thinking out loud. Geez...”

He studied a hairline fracture, a fault line that ran horizontally across the ice wall about a foot above where the creature was lying. Reaching out, he touched the slick, icy surface, then ran a finger along the hairline fracture. He looked at Amy, gave her a reassuring wink, and yelled down to Sergeant Sloan.

“Okay, let her rip.”

Sergeant Sloan pulled the cord on the generator, and as it roared to life, Harry felt the hose swell in his hands.

Using the hairline fracture as a guide, he aimed the nozzle at the ice, pulled open the valve, and a hot stream of water carved into the wall.

He worked the water back and forth, letting it cut deeper and deeper into the ice. Clouds of steam billowed up, filling the air, turning Harry and Amy into ghostly shapes that appeared and then just as quickly disappeared like phantoms in the mist.

After Harry had carved three feet into the ice across the entire length of the creature, he reduced the pressure and moved the jet of water slowly downward. Then he began to winnow the ice away from the creature’s body.

When he had broken through into the chamber, exposing the creature’s back, Amy yelled, “Stop,” and moved forward to cover the exposed portion of the creature with some kind of space blanket material.

The sound of the generator was suddenly drowned out by a dull thumping. And Nowhere Man’s Black Hawk swooped overheard, flared its nose and dropped onto a small, flat patch of ice that had been hewn out of the iceberg to create a makeshift LZ on the otherwise jagged surface.

Harry continued to direct the stream of water back and forth across the chamber, exposing more and more of the creature. As each new section of hair and hide was exposed, Amy was right there tucking the blanket around it.

Nowhere Man and the two Navy engineers ducked beneath the spinning blades and hustled over to meet Lockwood, who was still pacing beneath the scaffolding like an expectant father.

“How’s it going, doctor?” Nowhere Man asked, joining Lockwood at the base of the wall.

“So far, so good. You’re just in time to help us position the sling.”

Sitting on the ice next to the scaffolding was a heavy canvas sling, the kind they use to transport large marine animals.

“We need to get it up on top of the scaffolding,” Lockwood said, pointing to the top stage.

Nowhere Man nodded, then instructed the two Navy engineers to each take a side of the sling. With Sergeant Wilbanks’s help, they began to work it up the outside of the scaffolding.

Harry removed one last little cornice of ice, shut the water off, and yelled down to Sloan to cut the pump. Then he turned and stared at the yawning hole he’d made in the ice wall.

Amy moved up, and she and Harry stared in at the creature that was now balancing on a narrow pedestal of ice – entirely swaddled in what could’ve passed for a giant sheet of aluminum foil.

“You did it, Harry,” Amy said, giving him a hug. “Pandora’s Box is officially open.”

Behind them, Nowhere Man swung a leg over the top rail of the scaffolding, looked inside the gaping hole at the creature, and said, “Nice job, Harry. You found a giant baked potato.”

Harry turned, looked at Nowhere Man, and said laughing, “I told you you wouldn’t believe it.”

“What’s with the aluminum foil?”

“It’s for thermal protection,” Amy said. “And it’s not aluminum foil.” Then she crawled in next to the creature. “Harry, give me a hand with these straps.”

Harry joined Amy and together they worked two thick nylon straps around the creature’s body, cinching them tight to secure the protective blanket.

“We’re ready for the sling,” Amy said, backing out of the cavity.

“Yes ma’am, coming right up.” Nowhere Man leaned over the rail and, with the help of the men below, dragged the sling up and over the top and onto the scaffolding floor. After Harry cleared the hose, he and Nowhere Man positioned the sling below the edge of the hole.

It ended up taking four men to slide the creature out of the ice wall and secure it in the sling.

After much discussion, they decided to lift the creature directly off the top of the scaffolding with the helicopter, as it was too risky to try to lower it to the ice below.

Nowhere Man shook his head, not liking what he was hearing. He knew just how tricky an evac it would be – but couldn’t see any other way to safely remove the creature.

It would be a delicate operation as the helicopter would have to come very close to the sheer ice wall. One misstep or gust of wind could send the Black Hawk’s rotor into the ice instantly shattering the blades and sending the big machine crashing onto the iceberg.

Back in the Black Hawk’s cockpit, Nowhere Man warmed up the turbines and ran through his preflight checklist.

Behind him, strapped into the crew compartment, were Amy, Lockwood, and the two Navy engineers. To save precious minutes, they would return with the creature and rush it into the safety of the lab, minimizing the time it would be exposed to the elements. Crouched next to the crew compartment door, Sergeant Wilbanks readied the hoist.

That left Harry and Sergeant Sloan on the scaffolding to hook the cable to the sling after the helicopter was in position. It was late afternoon. A little breeze had lifted off the Atlantic and was now sweeping over the iceberg.

Harry looked at the dazzling blue sky and bright yellow sun – but something inside told him the weather was changing. Springtime this far north only meant more weather – and many more storms before an all-too-brief summer break.

Harry gave the sky one last look, then turned to Sergeant Sloan. “Did you guys check the weather this morning?”

“Sure did,” Sloan said. “Nothing in the five-day forecast.”

Harry nodded and they both watched as the Black Hawk lifted off and circled to take position over the scaffolding.

Harry and Sloan gathered up the two sides of the sling and lifted the thick wire cables that the helicopter’s hoist would hook onto.

Harry pulled out a radio, keyed the mic and began to speak. “All set, Nowhere. Be advised, there is a little breeze lifting off the water.

“Roger that, Harry. We’re making our approach now. Let’s do this in one shot.”

Harry flashed a thumbs up and watched as the helicopter slowed to a hover. The hoist cable was already paying out toward the scaffolding.

A few moments later Harry and Sloan were blasted by rotor wash. The cable swept by the edge of the scaffolding just close enough for Sloan to reach out and grab the end of it. Fighting the powerful blasts of air from above, Harry and Sloan looped the hoist cable through the wire handles in the sling, then radioed to Nowhere Man that the connection was made.

Inside the Black Hawk, the crew compartment filled with a high-pitched whine as the winch began to spool up, lifting the creature safely off the scaffolding.

Harry and Sloan let their eyes follow the sling as it dangled beneath the helicopter, making slow turns in the air as it swept across the iceberg toward base camp. When the chopper had disappeared from view, they climbed off the scaffolding and began repositioning the deicing equipment to free the kayak and harpoon from the base of the ice wall.

As Harry positioned the hose he thought, this is going to be child’s play after the nail-biting task of removing the creature. A half-hour later, Sloan crouched next to the freed kayak with the harpoon raised over his head as Harry captured the scene with his camera.

Chapter 31

Night fell over the iceberg. The sky was black and moonless and dusted with stars.

Four small tents circled around a larger tent that housed the field lab. The whole area was illuminated by gas lanterns, shrouding the camp in a ghostly glow. Lit from the inside, the khaki-colored tents looked like giant Mexican luminarios that had impossibly been scattered across the end of an iceberg drifting in the pitch black North Atlantic.

Off to one side, squatting on the ice, the Black Hawk loomed out of the darkness like some menacing beast. The night air was calm, and small waves could be heard lapping against the iceberg as laughter and soft voices filtered out from the tents.

Inside the lab tent, a halogen spot illuminated a giant Plexiglas tank that had been positioned in it’s center. The lab was quiet and dimly lit with no one inside. A thin mist shrouded the tank, and gossamer tendrils of steam rose off the surface and ghosted through the air.

An electric motor clicked on, whirred, and a gurgling noise echoed from inside the tank. The mist began to lift and clear, exposing the tank filled with a greenish fluid with the creature was inside.

The gurgling sound got louder. The rest of the steam cleared and the creature was now plainly visible. It had a massive skull and heavy brow ridge, but the look was not really apelike – it was more primitive, more primal. The eyes were rolled back, revealing two yellow orbs. The mouth was a huge, terrible-looking thing, more fishlike than mammalian and filled with long, serrated teeth – the kind that could slice through hide and sinew and bone.

Thick white hair floated out from the body, revealing a sculpted torso and muscular hands with long fingers that tapered to knife-sharp nails. An I.V. bag hung on a stand, and a tube ran from the bottom into one of the creature’s arms.

There was another click. The gurgling stopped. And the mist puddled across the surface of the tank once more in an eerie shroud.

* * * *

Amy stepped out from one of the tents, quickly zipping the door shut to trap the warmth inside. Holding a lantern, she walked over to the field lab.

Sitting next to the entrance of the lab was the perfectly preserved kayak, and propped next to that, the long togglehead harpoon. Amy paused for a moment, reached down and touched the bow of the kayak, enchanted by the amazing artifact. Running her hand across the smooth animal-skin hull, she smiled to herself, then stepped inside the lab.

She hung the lantern up on one of the tent’s ridgepoles, then immediately went over to the tank to check the temperature readings.

After confirming they were all within the safety zone, Amy checked the I.V. The saline and glucose drip was running out, so she hooked up a new bag. She checked a monitor, made a note in the logbook that sat beneath it on a small bench, then went over to the tank and stared in at the creature, marveling at its size.

What are you? she thought to herself. Where did you come from? How did you stay hidden all these years? Can you really defy all we know about cryogenics? Could one of you really be alive?

Chapter 32

Lockwood sat inside his cozy tent, tapping away on a laptop he had propped on a makeshift desk consisting of two packing crates. Next to the laptop was a cut crystal tumbler filled with an amber-colored liquid, and standing next to that, a bottle of sixty- year-old Macallan single malt scotch.

He took a gulp of scotch and as he was positioning his fingers to send another stream of type across the LCD screen, he heard someone say, “Knock, knock,” and…

Amy stepped inside.

“Amy…” Lockwood said sounding genuinely pleased to see her.

“I was just over at the lab and thought I’d stop by and give you an update,” she said, looking for a place to sit in the crowded tent.

Lockwood reached over and cleared some gear off the end of his cot and Amy took a seat.

“All the readouts look good. No change in brain activity. Body temperature is rising and should reach our target of 35 degrees Celsius by dawn.”

“Fine, good…” Lockwood said, tapping a key on his laptop. “I just finished the blood work on a sample from that remarkable creature, its ability to move oxygen through its organs is off the chart.”

“Makes Lance Armstrong look like a schlub,” Amy said with a laugh.

“If Lance Armstrong had this creature’s blood, he could win the Tour de France when he was ninety.”

Amy laughed again and said, “Yes, quite a specimen.”

“I wouldn’t want to go up against it in a javelin throw,” Lockwood said, leaning back and lacing his hands behind his head.

“What are the chances of it surviving? What are the chances of it –?”

“Waking from the dead?” Lockwood said, cutting her off. Then, “In my estimation, almost zero.”

“But you saw the mouse. You saw what happened with just a little of that thing’s blood protein.”

“Ah, the mouse… Super cooled for three hours, then revived. Remarkable, yes – but not a creature back from the dead after spending thousands of years entombed in a glacier.”

Amy nodded, thinking about what Lockwood had just said. “Yes, it’s too much to hope for.”

Lockwood stood, went over to a canvas rucksack and removed another crystal tumbler.

“Even if we managed to reanimate the creature, that would really just be icing on the cake.” Lockwood returned to his desk, lifted the bottle of scotch, added a generous portion to the glass, and handed it to Amy.

“What you found, Amy, will turn molecular biology on its ear. Correction – all biological sciences.”

Amy only half listened, too distracted by the glass of scotch she suddenly held. “Scotch? Crystal glasses?” she said in disbelief.

Lockwood laughed, pleased with her surprised reaction. “I can tell you it took some doing to find this bottle. Very old. Very dear.”

“What about that admonition, ‘only room for the essentials’?”

“Oh, but this is. This is…” Lockwood said, raising his glass.

Amy lifted her glass and they touched rims, the cut crystal filling the tent with a delicate ring.

“Cheers,” Lockwood said. And they both took a sip.

Lockwood quickly drained his glass, refilled it, then offered Amy some more.

Amy shook her head. “No, this is great,” she said, placing her hand over the top of her glass. “It’s really smooth. Good stuff.”

“No, it’s very good stuff,” Lockwood said, correcting her. He chortled, drained his glass again and, just as quickly, added another two fingers of scotch.

Lockwood placed the bottle on the packing crate, turned, and raised his glass to Amy. “To the most beautiful Nobel Prize winner in the history of Nobel Prize winners.”

Amy laughed, embarrassed by Lockwood’s overt flattery. “Well, it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Is there any doubt?”

“Hmm, we’ll see. To tell you the truth, I never had my heart set on winning anything like a Nobel Prize. Besides, you never know. There are always a couple of guys sitting around in a garage somewhere doing something brilliant in complete obscurity.”

“My dear Amy, what you discovered on that iceberg is going to stop the world’s presses.”

“Actually, to be fair and accurate, it was Harry who first spotted the creature.”

“Harry? No, No… it was you, Amy. It was you and your curiosity that lead us to that iceberg. Harry… Harry was really just the bus driver.”

“Bus driver,” Amy laughed. “I think he prefers the term bush pilot.”

“Bus driver, bush pilot… what’s the difference?”

“And what about you, Hayden? What about your glory?”

“That will be completely sated in the form of Cryolabs stock options, and of course, membership in the billionaire’s club of America. Larry Ellison of Oracle said that being a billionaire is great fun and that he can highly recommend it. I’ve never forgotten that – and now I’m going to find out for myself.”

Amy looked at Lockwood and thought to herself: wherever your treasure is, your heart will also be. As she continued to stare, she realized what a small, pathetic individual he really was. Here they were, having most likely discovered a new human species – and all the black-hearted bastard can think about is lining his pockets.

“Hayden, I have a theory about the creature – something to help explain how we came to find it here, trapped in this iceberg.”

Lockwood arched his eyebrows, gave Amy a quizzical look, and said, “Do tell,” then took another sip of scotch.

“Do you remember a few years ago, 2003 I believe, when a group of archeologists excavating in Indonesia discovered a dwarf species of Homo erectus?”

“Yes, yes I do. I remember that remarkable find very well. It was on an island I believe?”

“Right. Flores Island. Carbon 14 dating revealed that Flores Man or Homo florensiensis lived on that Asian island just 18,000 years ago. No one could believe it. The scientific community was shocked. In evolutionary terms, it was an hour ago. One archeologist was even quoted as saying, ‘I would’ve been less surprised if my colleagues had found an alien spacecraft.’”

“Yes, I remember that,” Lockwood said. “And they gave the specimen they found some funny nickname…”

“Hobbit. A female member of the so-called ‘Lost Tribe of Little People’.”

“That’s right. Hobbit. How quaint,” Lockwood nodded.

“Hayden, I did a Google search and got some facts on that find – and I think what we found on this iceberg is the mirror opposite of Flores Man. Because that island was so isolated, its evolutionary processes were unique. Animals, and, in this case, a primitive human species faced virtually no predation and were subjected to a limited food supply – so they adapted by becoming dwarf versions of their larger cousins. Hobbits don’t need much food, but up here in the Arctic –”

“Size matters,” Lockwood said, completing her thought.

“Exactly. Predators abound, but the food supply is also bountiful and rich in fat and protein.”

“So, if you’re big enough, you can dine on everything – maybe even polar bears.”

“Yes. Life is good when you’re the alpha predator.”

“So, you’re saying that much like the isolation of the small island that created Flores Man, the isolation of the Arctic created the monster biped we have thawing out in the lab?”

“Yes. I think our creature could’ve been living up here in great numbers as recently as ten thousand years ago. Then something happened to wipe them out – climate change, maybe, or more likely, a deadlier predator with a bigger brain pan – Homo sapiens.”

“There you go talking about size again,” Lockwood said, the scotch making him end his quip with a giddy burst of laughter.

Amy stood, and ignoring him, finished her thought. “I think our creature got flash frozen in a glacier and miraculously, all these years later, we’re the lucky ones to have discovered it.”

She took a sip of her drink. Lockwood rose to his feet and grabbed the bottle of scotch.

“I think what we found is nothing less than a new genus of Homo erectus, and up until now, an unknown primitive giant human species,” Amy added.

Lockwood pulled the cork on the bottle and reached out to fill her glass.

“No thanks,” Amy said, covering the top of her glass. “I’ve had enough.”

“You’re always saying no, Amy. Always pulling back.” Lockwood pressed and tried to fill her glass again.

“Really, I’ve had enough,” Amy insisted, holding her glass away.

And enough of his boozy tone.

Lockwood, who was well into his cups and really starting to feel the scotch, helped himself to another slug, then recklessly dropped the bottle back onto the crate, almost causing it to spill to the floor.

He turned around, faced Amy, and said, “Let go… it’s time to celebrate.” Then he suddenly lurched forward and looped an arm around Amy’s waist, pulling her against him in a tight hug.

Amy dropped her glass trying to twist free and sent it tumbling across the tent’s floor.

“Jesus, stop! Stop it! Hayden!” Amy yelled. She tried to work her arms free, but Lockwood had them pinned to her side.

“C’mon, relax, Amy. Let’s have some fun. Celebrate. We both need the release.”

“Let me go right now, you bastard, or I’ll scream!” Then Amy began to buck and kick and throw her elbows.

Lockwood dropped his glass and wrapped his other arm around her, then leaned in close with his funky, alcohol-laden breath and said, “Amy, Amy, Amy… I’ve dreamt about you. About us. You know, I almost think I’d rather have you than a Nobel Prize.”

He leaned in closer, pressing against her cheek, trying to steal a kiss…

Amy screamed, twisted, and threw her head back, sending the rear of her skull slamming into Lockwood’s nose and mouth with a wet, crunching sound.

Lockwood released her and staggered backwards, gripping his nose and moaning in pain. Blood bloomed between his fingers and run down his hand.

* * * *

Back in her tent, Amy was sitting on a cot, drying tears. Harry twisted the cap off a bottle of water and handed it to her. She took a sip and said, “The bastard,” then unable to keep it inside, she sobbed. “God, I could feel him – you know, against my side.”

“The scumbag has to be stopped,” Harry said, barely controlling his anger.

“He’s smart,” she said, taking another sip of water. “There are never any witnesses.”

“File a complaint,” Harry said. “Something –”

“Before I joined the company, a few years back, a young intern did just that – claimed Lockwood had been sexually harassing her from the day she got the job.” Amy sniffed and wiped her nose, and then shaking her head, continued. “Lockwood is rich and powerful. His attorneys spun it like she was a delusional slut – claimed she was unqualified and just trying to fuck her way to the top.”

“That was it? Nothing happened?”

“No. The intern lost her job, and now she has a hundred thousand dollars in legal bills.”

Chapter 33

Lockwood lay on his cot, staring at the ceiling. His nose throbbed and he couldn’t sleep.

He rolled over and looked at the clock. It was 5 a.m. – it would soon be light.

He unzipped his sleeping bag, went to a small mirror, flicked on a battery- powered light and began daubing at his nose with a handkerchief. It was swollen and sore, but the bleeding had stopped. Then he thought to himself, at least the bitch hadn’t broken it.

He grabbed a bottle of water, took a sip, splashed some on his face, and toweling off the excess, felt somewhat refreshed.

Even inside the tent, the chill morning air sent a shudder through his body. He grabbed his parka, pulled it on, then zipped it to the collar.

He went over to a small nylon pack, pulled out a bottle of ibuprofen and shook out two pills. After chasing them with a swallow of water, he pulled on a second set of socks, laced up his boots, and stepped outside.

The first thing he noticed was that the weather had changed. A cold breeze was blowing and the surface of the sea looked disturbed and foreboding. The sky had filled with clouds and it felt cold enough to snow.

Lockwood stamped his feet and looked out at the sea. He knew the window to get safely off the iceberg was closing fast. For a moment he thought about going over to Amy’s tent and apologizing. He’d have to make sure they kept their little peccadilloes private – especially now, as they were about to announce to the world that they’d found a previously unknown human species.

He took a step toward her tent, then stopped, and instead crunched over and ducked inside the field lab, zipping the door behind him, saying, “Ahh,” as the warm air inside enveloped his body.

The metronome beep, beep, beep of the monitors and the gurgling sound of water filled his ears as he approached the tank at the center of the tent.

He went over to a bank of monitors, checked the readouts, then leaned over the tank and stared in at the creature. He smiled and nodded, pleased with their efforts to preserve this magnificent find, and then speaking out loud, said, “What are we going to call you? Iceberg Man? Newfoundland Man?”

Lockwood smiled to himself, went over to a laptop, touched a key, and the LCD screen lit up displaying lines of data.

As he scrolled down the page one of the monitors began to beep faster – and then all of a sudden stopped. Then there was a new, louder sound – an urgent continuous beeping. It was an alarm! Lockwood bolted back to the monitors and noticed that a weak heartbeat had suddenly been detected coming from the creature.

Impossible!

It couldn’t be, Lockwood thought to himself. But there it was, on the screen right in front of his eyes – the distinctive jagged line indicating a beating heart.

Just as his mind was beginning to grasp the thought, the beeping quit.

Silence.

The newly beating heart was flatlining again.

“My God,” Lockwood yelled. “This thing is trying to wake up, to fight its way back from the grave!”

He rushed over and looked in at the creature – but it just lay there, completely motionless, a ghostly figure staring up through the water in the tank.

He started for the door, thinking about yelling out for some help – but then he realized it would’ve been useless, there wasn’t enough time.

Instead, he angled over to a medicine cabinet, rifled through some boxes, and found what he was looking for – a Pulp Fiction-sized syringe, the kind used in emergencies to inject adrenaline directly into the heart muscle.

Lockwood tore open the syringe, depressed the plunger to purge any air bubbles, and then moved over to the tank.

Leaning over the edge of the tank he looked down at the creature, trying to guess where its heart was located, and said, “Jesus, I hope twenty cc’s of adrenaline is enough.”

Lockwood positioned the syringe over the tank, then struck down at the creature, plunging it into the water directly toward the creature’s heart, and –

The creature’s eyes rolled forward and the pupils constricted. It jackknifed up out of the water, grabbed Lockwood around the neck, and bit his face off – leaving jagged tear marks that ran down each side of his jawline.

When the powerful hand released him, he staggered back from the tank, literally unable to scream. Where his eyes, nose, and lower jaw had been was now just an open, gooey mass of flesh and bone.

Lockwood took a step and tried to speak – but all that came out of the gory mask was a wet, sucking sound. He took another step, his legs buckled, and he was dead before he hit the floor.

The creature made a low chuffing noise – as if it was clearing its lungs – then vaulted out of the tank, shedding the syringe, and went wild, smashing everything in sight.

Chapter 34

Outside the field lab, the sound of smashing glass and rending metal filled the air.

Harry, Amy, and Nowhere Man ran out of their tents just in time to see the creature slash its way out of the lab tent and grab the ancient harpoon. Running upright like a man, only much bigger than any man the world had ever seen, it flashed across the ice away from the tents with a powerful stride.

When it reached the edge of the camp, the creature stopped, turned, and stared directly at Harry, Amy, and Nowhere Man. It kept its eyes on them, unafraid, not looking away for a full minute – then disappeared into the mist and weak dawn light.

“My God! It’s alive!” Amy yelled.

“Unbelievable,” Harry said, too stunned to say more.

“That has got to be the goddamndest thing I have ever seen in my life. Amazing,” Nowhere Man said.

Behind them, the rest of the camp came to life as men poured out of their tents, trying to wipe the sleep from their eyes to see what was happening.

One of the Navy engineers was staring at Lockwood’s body through a gaping hole in the front of the lab tent. He took a step back in shock, pointed at the tent, then called out to the others. “Over here! Dr. Lockwood… Dr. Lockwood has been hurt.”

The man had just perfected the art of understatement.

Harry and Amy bolted toward the field lab and entered the tent through a six-foot- long slash in the canvas. There on floor, was Lockwood’s body.

Amy covered her mouth, trying not to gag. She looked away and said, “His face… It’s awful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Holy God,” Harry said. Then placed a hand on Amy’s shoulder.

Nowhere Man stepped into the tent with an M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder and asked, “How’s Dr. Lockwood –?” then stopped in mid sentence when he saw the body.

“Jesus-H…”

“His face is just gone, Harry said, still shocked.

“Yesterday wouldn’t be too soon to be off this berg,” Nowhere Man said, examining the ravished insides of the tent.

Harry nodded and looked down at Lockwood. “I wonder if he had something to do with waking the creature up.”

A few feet away, next to the tank, Amy bent down and picked up the syringe. “Look at this,” she said, holding it up for them to see.

“A syringe?” Harry said.

“Used in emergencies to restore a heartbeat.” Amy glanced down at the empty tank. “For some reason Hayden decided to give the thing a massive dose of adrenaline.”

“And that’s how it came back to life?”

“I don’t know. But Hayden must’ve had some reason to use it. There might have been some sign of life. Injecting a dead animal with adrenaline is useless.”

“Well, if he was trying to wake it up – it worked,” Nowhere Man said. “That thing is alive and we’ve got a problem.” Nowhere Man slipped the M-16 off his shoulder, racked the lock, then looked up at the sky through a shredded section of the canvas roof.

“Not to mention the weather is about to go all to shit.” He quickly glanced at Amy. “Excuse my French, ma’am.”

Amy hadn’t heard a word he said; her eyes locked onto the loaded M-16. “Whatever you do – do not shoot it!” Amy commanded, pointing at Nowhere Man’s rife.

“Ma’am, excuse me again, but if that ugly son of a bitch comes anywhere near me – I will not hesitate to empty this clip into its hairy chest.”

Amy was about to protest when the air filled with loud screaming, then a man yelling, “No! No!”

Chapter 35

The three of them bolted out of the tent and saw Sergeant Sloan and Sergeant Wilbanks backing away from the helicopter in a defensive crouch.

Harry yelled, “What is it? What’s going on?”

Then they watched as Sloan and Wilbanks turned, straightened, and began running towards them like they were being chased by a hungry polar bear.

Nowhere Man leveled the M-16, giving them cover as they ran back into camp.

Sloan and Wilbanks arrived next to the lab tent, breathless, both of them with horrified, bloodless expressions on their faces.

“Did you see it? Is it back?” Nowhere Man demanded, nervously scanning the ice.

“Y-Yes,” Sloan stammered. “It was over by the chopper. Lieutenant Cushman and the two Navy guys are…” Overcome with emotion, he dropped to the ice unable to keep talking

“They’re dead,” Wilbanks said

“What?” Harry said, looking at Wilbanks.

Nowhere Man grabbed Wilbanks by the shoulders and spun him so they were face to face. “Lieutenant Cushman… What about Cush?”

“It’s just like Sloan said, sir. They’re all dead. That thing…” Wilbanks looked away, not wanting to remember. “Jesus, it took them all apart in seconds.”

“Come on, show me where they are,” Nowhere Man said. But Wilbanks pulled away, then lurched forward, huddling on the ice with the sobbing Sergeant Sloan.

“Amy, you stay here,” Harry said. “Don’t move.” Then he turned to Nowhere Man. “C’mon, let’s go find them.”

Dawn was breaking and the first rays of light filtered through the heavy cloud cover as Harry and Nowhere Man cautiously approached the Black Hawk.

Stopping about fifty feet short, they scanned the area for any movement or signs of the creature. When they were both satisfied that it was clear, they broke into a trot and slipped beneath the helicopter’s rotor boom, using the main cabin for cover.

Nowhere Man took point and, they inched forward along the side of the chopper, hugging the body for protection. As they approached the nose, Nowhere Man put up a hand – then pointed forward to a bloody patch of ice fifty feet in front of the chopper. Just beyond that, they could see the twisted forms of three bodies.

“Jesus Christ,” Harry whispered.

Nowhere Man scanned the ice, looking for any movement or signs of the creature.

“Cush,” Nowhere Man called forward, praying for some response.

Nothing.

“Shit.” Nowhere Man said, then he and Harry stepped away from the chopper and picked their way cautiously toward their three slain comrades.

Harry and Nowhere Man stood looking down at their ravaged friends. Neither of them spoke, neither of them had the words. Arms and legs jutted out from ruined bodies at impossible angles. Blood soaked through their clothes, staining the ice and causing little puffs of steam to rise in the chill dawn air.

The faces of the two Navy engineers were covered by slash marks. Ragged flaps of rubbery flesh hung open, exposing bloody bits of skull and bone.

Lieutenant Cushman lay face down on the ice. The pool of blood spreading out from his face had already begun to freeze.

Nowhere Man reached down, gripped Lieutenant Cushman’s arm, and with a quick pull rolled his body over. To his complete horror, the head didn’t travel with the body. It remained face down in the ice, connected to the torso only by a twisted strand of gristle and flesh, the bones in his neck having been splintered and crushed.

“Oh shit, Cush…” Nowhere Man whispered, overcome with grief for his stricken buddy.

Harry reached down and put his hand on Nowhere Man’s shoulder. “Come on, Nowhere, there’s nothing we can do – let’s get back to the others. I don’t want to leave Amy alone back there. We’ll have to deal with the bodies later – I want to make sure that son of a bitch isn’t doubling back on the far side of camp.”

Chapter 36

The remainder of the team – Amy, Harry, Nowhere Man, Sloan and Wilbanks –were huddled around a stove in the field lab, sipping coffee and trying to regroup after the pre-dawn attack. Everyone was on edge and even the slightest noise caused the group to jump.

The sun momentarily appeared, then just as quickly vanished behind the dark wall of clouds on the edge of a fast-moving front. There had been no further signs of the creature and it seemed, at least for now, to have vanished into the interior of the iceberg.

Harry moved around the group with a coffee pot, refilling mugs – and Amy ripped open a packet of sweet rolls and placed them on a work bench for those who were able to eat.

“Okay, what do we know about this creature?” Harry said, looking at the group’s expressionless faces, then letting his eyes settle on Amy.

“I can tell you one thing –” Nowhere Man said flatly. “It killed three men without even breaking a sweat.”

“Ah, four men, sir,” Sergeant Wilbanks said, pointing at Lockwood’s covered body.

“Right,” Nowhere Man nodded.

“Okay, I think we can all agree that it’s dangerous and very hostile.”

“We don’t know that it’s hostile,” Amy said, correcting Harry. “It could just have been terrified and all it was doing was protecting itself. Self-preservation is one of the most basic and primitive functions of all living things. I think it was terrified.”

“You may have a point there,” Harry said. “If the first thing you saw after having been frozen in a glacier for five thousand years was Lockwood’s mug – you’d want to kill something, too.”

“That’s not helpful, Harry,” Amy frowned.

“No, but it’s true.”

“Do you think that thing can swim, ma’am?” Sloan asked, obviously still rattled from the attack.

“I don’t know,” Amy said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if it could. It’s very adapted to this environment.”

“Well, what about polar bears? They sure as hell do,” Harry said, grabbing a sweet roll.

“It’s not a polar bear, Harry.”

“No, it’s a goddamn nightmare.”

“That’s not just some animal out there, man,” Nowhere Man said, his voice anxious and filled with edge. “It’s more like a polar bear with a G.E.D. or something.”

“A G.E.D.?” Harry asked, giving Nowhere Man a confused look.

“Yeah, you know – a high school diploma or something.”

“Look, getting upset isn’t going to help things,” Amy said, being the voice of reason and trying to calm frayed nerves.

“I’m not getting upset, ma’am,” Nowhere Man said. Then he patted the M-16. “I’m thinking about getting even.”

“Typical,” Amy said and took a sip of coffee.

“Shit,” Harry said, then added, “Come on, you guys, this doesn’t help.”

“Here’s a plan,” Sergeant Wilbanks said. “Let’s get the hell off this iceberg while we still can.”

“That suits the hell out of me,” Nowhere Man said. “We’ve got about four more hours before that front arrives and shuts the weather down for good.”

“What about the bodies?” Harry asked.

“Like you said, Harry, we’ll have to leave them here on ice until we can return with help. In fact, we’ll have to leave everything here – I’m not waiting around to pack things up and take a chance on that thing coming back for seconds.”

“You’ve got a point there, Nowhere” Harry said, glancing around the destruction inside the tent.

Nowhere Man turned towards Sloan and Wilbanks. “You two go cover those bodies out on the ice. There are tarps in the chopper – and make sure you anchor them together so they don’t get lost.”

“Oh, great,” Wilbanks complained.

“Just do it,” Nowhere Man snapped.

The two sergeants jumped up and hustled out of the tent, anxious to get it over with.

Chapter 37

Sloan and Wilbanks cautiously approached the Black Hawk, both of them acting twitchy and nervous, their heads snapping left to right for any signs of the creature.

“Jesus Christ, it’s freezing out here,” Wilbanks complained. Then he looked up at the sky and added, “Feels like it’s going to snow.”

“Shut up and keep your eyes open, Wilbanks. The sooner we get this bullshit assignment over with – the sooner you can be warming your sorry ass back in the tent.”

Wilbanks scowled at Sloan and thought about telling him to fuck off, but decided to let it drop and continued to scan the area for signs of movement.

Sloan was first to reach the helicopter, and, not wasting a second, hauled the cargo door open and jumped inside.

Wilbanks was right behind him. As he put a hand on the cargo bay floor to hop inside, he was suddenly pasted in the chest by a heavy tarpaulin.

“What the fuck, Sloan?” Wilbanks yelled, letting it fall to the ice.

“Take the tarp over to the bodies,” Sloan said flatly. “I’ll find some rope so we can secure the tarp around them.”

“The hell you say… Why the fuck don’t you hump the tarp over to the bodies and I’ll get the rope?”

“Because I thought of it first, that’s why,” Sloan said defiantly. “Now come on, Wilbanks – let’s do this thing.”

Wilbanks stared in at Sloan, shook his head, then reluctantly picked up the tarp. “Chickenshit. You and this whole deal is chickenshit.”

“Yeah, right,” Sloan mumbled. “Go tell someone who gives a shit.”

Wilbanks tucked the tarp under his arm, turned, and slogged his way forward until he reached the bodies scattered on the ice.

He stepped up to one of the Navy engineers, dropped the tarp next to the body, bent to grab the corpse’s legs in an effort to slide the bodies closer together, and as he lifted upwards, lost his footing. He suddenly found himself flat on the ice, nose to nose with the sailor’s wide-eyed and bloodless face.

“Fuck!” Wilbanks screamed, rolling away from the dead man.

Back at the helicopter, Sloan bolted out of the cargo bay, jumping onto the ice. As he looked to see what Wilbanks was yelling about, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, frozen with fear.

Chapter 38

“Harry, you come and help me preflight the chopper for dust off,” Nowhere Man said, policing up his gear and preparing to leave the tent.

“Wait, we can’t just leave everything here,” Amy said, pointing to a laptop and a bank of monitors.

“Yeah, watch us.” Nowhere Man challenged.

“Well, I’m not leaving without the data we got on that creature – it’s invaluable.”

“Fine, bring all the stuff you can carry under one arm. We’re outta here in ten minutes.”

“He’s right,” Harry said, looking at Amy and shrugging apologetically.

“C’mon, Harry, let’s roll.”

As they moved toward the door, they heard Sloan yelling to Wilbanks. His voice suddenly changed pitch, taking on a new urgency – and at the top of his lungs he yelled –

“Wilbanks! Run!”

Harry and Nowhere Man bolted outside with Amy right on their heels. The first thing they saw was Sergeant Sloan scrambling back towards the Black Hawk helicopter.

“Look!” Amy yelled, pointing to the right of the helicopter.

Harry and Nowhere Man turned, and fifty yards in front of the chopper, they saw the creature closing in on Wilbanks who was still trying to get up off the ice and hadn’t seen the creature yet.

As Wilbanks got to his feet, Sloan vaulted into the helicopter, turned, then called to Wilbanks. “Wilbanks. Don’t turn around. Run. Jesus Christ, run. Run for the helo!”

Wilbanks, confused and still nauseous from his close encounter with the carnage, thought Sloan was telling him to turn around and run the other way. He looked at Sloan and shook his head. “What?” he yelled. Then he turned around – and almost had a heart attack when he saw the creature twenty feet in front of him and closing fast. It looked impossibly huge, standing eight feet off the ice, and moving with the stealth of a wild predator.

Wilbanks said, “Shit,” and ran for his life across the ice toward the helicopter.

Sloan was standing in the cargo bay door waving his arms, urging Wilbanks on. “Faster, Wilbanks. Run faster!”

Suddenly the creature lowered its body – and then without warning, it flashed across the ice at a terrible speed, instantly closing the distance to Wilbanks with lethal precision.

“Oh, God,” Wilbanks whimpered, as he felt the creature directly behind him. A primal musky smell laced with human blood filled his nostrils, and –

He was lifted off the ice, caught in the creature’s grip like a rodent in a hawk’s claw. And then in one violent stroke, the powerful arms snapped past each other in a quick scissoring maneuver, separating Sergeant Wilbank’s torso from his hips. The two halves of his body dropped to the ice with a wet thud.

The creature spun around, retreated back twenty yards, picked up the harpoon it had dropped and, with it held at its side, raced across the iceberg toward the helicopter.

Inside the Black Hawk, Sloan had been watching everything from the crew compartment. Seeing that the creature was now coming for him he yelled, “Shit!” and threw the cargo door shut.

Moments later, the creature slammed into the side of the Black Hawk, causing the helicopter to rock violently back and forth.

The creature raised the harpoon, and then, as if the helicopter was some giant prey to be felled, it began to attack the Black Hawk. The air filled with the sound of smashing glass as the cargo door window exploded, showering Sloan with bits of bulletproof glass.

He screamed for help as the creature moved forward, punching holes in the helicopter’s aluminum skin.

“Son of a bitch!” Nowhere Man yelled. He leveled the M-16 and was about to bolt forward, when –

Amy yelled, “No!”

Harry lunged toward Nowhere Man, grabbed the rifle out of his hands, and firing short bursts into the air, charged directly toward the Black Hawk.

The creature ceased its assault, wheeled around, locked onto Harry, and dropped into a defensive crouch.

Whatever happened to Harry’s legs, they stopped moving. He stood frozen in his steps, staring directly at the creature’s menacing-looking yellow eyes. Harry slowly backed away, keeping the rifle pointed at the creature…

The creature let out a blood curdling scream, and then it was suddenly moving again, directly towards him!

Harry didn’t wait around to find out what was going to happen. He immediately took off running across the iceberg, yelling toward Nowhere Man,” Get into the air – and come and get me!”

“Shoot it!” Nowhere yelled back. “Shoot it, Harry!”

But Harry just kept running, angling across a flat section of iceberg that led to a steep outcrop of ice.

“We’ve got to help him!” Amy screamed.

“Shit,” Nowhere Man said. Then, “C’mon!” He and Amy sprinted to the helicopter, hauled open the cargo door, jumped in over the glass-covered floor and saw Sergeant Sloan plastered to the rear bulkhead, shaking uncontrollably with fear.

“Sloan… Sergeant Sloan!” Nowhere Man shouted at him, but Sloan didn’t respond. Hugging his knees, he continued to tremble without raising his head.

“Shit,” Nowhere Man said, then turned to Amy. “See if he’s okay, and make sure he’s not bleeding.”

Amy crouched over to Sloan and knelt beside him, while Nowhere Man jumped into the cockpit and began to preflight the helo.

Out on the ice, Harry hit the base of the outcrop and fought his way up its slippery face. He made it up just twenty feet before he began to slip backwards. Using the barrel of the rifle like an ice axe, he regained his footing and continued climbing.

The creature hit the foot of the slope, and without pausing, started after Harry using its powerful fingers to dig into the ice like metal pitons.

Harry glanced back, saw the creature coming, and said, “Shit!”

Chapter 39

The Black Hawk’s turbines were screeching at full power and the blades began to turn, kicking up bits of loose ice.

“Sloan,” Nowhere Man said, as he leaned into the crew compartment. “Sergeant Sloan! Snap to! I need you to get on the hoist and hook the harness up to the lift cable.” Sloan looked up at Nowhere Man, but didn’t respond. “Do you copy, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.” Sloan said, finally managing to speak.

“Good. Do it now, sergeant.” Nowhere Man said, then looked at Amy. “Dr. Tyler, you come forward and be my spotter.”

“Right,” Amy said, and scrambled forward into the cockpit, dropping into the number two seat.

“Here we go…” Nowhere Man yelled. Then he pulled back on the controls and the Black Hawk leapt into the air, gaining altitude immediately.

Harry continued to scramble up the ice ridge, pumping his legs, digging his boots into the ice, and every couple of feet driving the barrel of the rifle into the ice to hold his position.

After another minute of intense effort, Harry suddenly realized he’d run out of ice and found himself standing at the top of the ridge.

Trapped!

There was nowhere to run. He looked down – and just beyond the toes of his boots, a five-hundred-foot slope spilled down to the ice below.

Shit!

He flipped around and watched the creature haul itself up five more feet, then stop and look directly at him.

Harry stared down at two yellow eyes that looked like the end of the world.

He knocked the rifle barrel against the side of his boot to loosen any ice, pulled the lock back, and chambered a cartridge.

Harry spread his feet, raised the M-16, and leveled it at the creature that was now right on top of him.

And as the creature rose up, he aimed point blank at the center of its chest. The air around him suddenly turned foul with the creature’s musky smell.

The creature let out an unholy scream, and –

“Fuck you!” Harry said, then pulled the trigger.

The rifle jammed.

Frantically, he pulled on the trigger again, and again…

Nothing.

The creature moved in for the kill. It dug its feet into the ice, raised the harpoon,
and –

The air around the top of the ridge filled with a deafening roar. Seconds later, the Black Hawk screamed up behind them, nosed into a dive and streaked overhead, missing the creature by inches.

Harry instinctively dropped to the ice, thinking they’d both had it.

The creature spun around and slipped, dropping the harpoon, then cartwheeled thirty feet back down the slope before it could stop itself with its powerful arms.

Harry jumped up. He was so elated to be alive he yelled out, “All right! Way to go, Nowhere!”

Then he watched as Nowhere Man threw the Black Hawk into a hard banking turn for another pass.

Inside the cockpit Amy twisted and cranked her head around trying to get a look at Harry to see if he was alright.

“Can you see him?” Nowhere Man asked, too busy with the controls to look himself. “Is Harry okay?”

“Yes, I can see him. He’s okay.” Then after a silent beat she added, “But it’s still coming after him…”

The creature was already on its feet and moving fast up the slope. A dull guttural grunting issued up the ice, filling Harry’s ears.

Shit.

He tried the rifle again. Nothing. He banged on the barrel, trying to free the jam, but it was no good. It was obvious the goddamn thing resented being used as an ice axe.

Harry looked down the slope, and the words, “Fuck me,” flashed through his mind. The creature was now literally leaping up the ice towards him. He scanned the sky and saw that the Black Hawk was lining up for another pass, but Nowhere Man wasn’t going to make it in time – the son of a bitch was coming on too fast.

Shit.

Harry turned and stared down at the five hundred foot drop.

Shit.

He glanced back, the smell of the creature’s fetid breath filled his nose, and –

He yelled, “Oh, shit!”

And on “shit” he jumped off the ridge, twisted in mid-air, jammed the barrel of the rifle into the ice wall, and began spilling down the steep slope.

The rifle bit into the ice, breaking his speed, and he banged and scraped his way down for three hundred feet until the rifle was ripped out of his hands. Then he pitched backwards, pinwheeling the rest of the way down the slope.

The creature tried to follow, slipped, then hauled itself back up to the top of the ridge. It scrambled back down the other side to retrieve the harpoon.

Harry hit the bottom of the slope and tumbled across the ice, finally skidding to a stop on his back, winded and torn and battered, but still alive!

He rose to a sitting position and checked his arms and legs to make sure nothing was broken. He stretched his neck and flexed his fingers – and declared himself to be a total wreck, but still in the game. He climbed to his feet and dusted himself off, still a little stunned from his toboggan ride down the slope.

Inside the Black Hawk, Amy strained forward and spotted Harry standing at the base of the ice ridge. “There!” Amy said pointing. “There he is. He looks like he’s okay.”

“Got him,” Nowhere Man said, then put the helicopter into a hard turn to bring them into a hover directly above Harry.

Back on the ice, Harry looked up as the thwack, thwack, thwack of the Black Hawk filled his ears – beautiful music, he thought – and then he was blasted by the chopper’s rotor wash.

“Sergeant, lower the harness down to Harry and let me know when he’s safely hooked up,” Nowhere Man ordered, leaning into the crew compartment.

“I’m on it, sir.”

Sloan swung the cable out of the door, turned on the hoist, and payed out the cable toward Harry.

The cable dropped right at Harry’s feet, and if there was a World Record for getting into a harness, Harry broke it. After he had secured and doubled checked the harness, Harry looked up at Sloan and flashed a thumbs up.

“He’s good to go,” Sloan reported to Nowhere Man. “I’m bringing him up now.”

“Roger that,” Nowhere acknowledged.

The inside of the helicopter filled with the whine of the hoist as it lifted Harry off the ice.

Up front in the cockpit, Nowhere Man was fully occupied trying to keep the chopper steady in a building wind. He worked the pedals, increasing and decreasing the throttle as needed. The helicopter was turning in a slow pivot and as it came around 180 degrees, Nowhere Man blurted:

“Son of a bitch!”

Through the windshield, he and Amy were suddenly looking directly at the creature. It stood on top of the ice ridge – at about the same altitude as the chopper – and couldn’t have been more than forty yards away.

The creature let go with a bone-chilling scream, locked its eyes onto the hovering helicopter, raised the harpoon, drew its arm back, and –

Nowhere Man and Amy watched with complete incredulity as the creature launched the harpoon. They followed it as it sailed skyward and for a silent, terror-filled beat, it seemed to hang in the air directly in front of their eyes.

The harpoon smashed into the windshield. Glass exploded inwards. The togglehead tip slammed directly into Nowhere Man’s chest – pinning him to the seat and killing him instantly.

Amy was stunned and too paralyzed with shock to move or speak or scream.

The Black Hawk spun out of control. A claxon sounded, warning of an impending stall.

Outside, Harry was thrown through the air, helplessly dangling below the out-of-control helicopter.

The Black Hawk made a crazy series of maneuvers, then angled towards base camp and the edge of the iceberg.

As the helicopter lost altitude, Harry found himself on the crack-the-whip ride of his life. He was plunged to the ice, then just as suddenly jerked back into the air. And then he was back on the ice again. He tried to work his legs, but only made brief contact with the ice before he was sweeping skyward again. A stomach-rolling beat later, and he slammed back into the iceberg, clipping a ridge of snow and went tumbling across the ice…

Then the cable went tight again and he was suddenly cutting sideways, blipping up and down with each snap of the line.

The Black Hawk did a 360. The helicopter slewed, and seemed to wobble in mid-air. The nose rose into a dead man’s stall.

Then it dropped to the ice tail first.

The rotor boom collapsed like an accordion, and the cabin slammed into the iceberg. As the rotor blades smashed and splintered against the rock-hard ice, the crumpled body skidded across the slick surface, finally coming to rest half-on and half- off the iceberg.

It teetered, seesawing back and forth, and then with one last metallic groan, it miraculously defied gravity and stayed stuck on the lip.

A hundred feet behind the ruined Black Hawk, still tethered to the lift cable, Harry skidded to a halt, rolling onto his stomach and sliding across the ice for a final time.

For a long silent beat he just lay there, face down on the ice, not moving. Then he began to cough. One arm moved and then the other, and he pushed himself up off the ice. Somehow he was still alive after having been raked across the ice behind an out-of- control Black Hawk helicopter.

Harry staggered to his feet, dusted himself off, and checked his head to make sure it wasn’t bleeding. Then he stared dumbfounded at the smashed helicopter hanging off the edge of the iceberg.

He reached down, yanked on the cable that was clipped to his harness, and said, “Bungee-fucking-jumping.”

He kept yanking on the cable to get it to release, but it was stuck. The quick-release coupler had been damaged as he was dragged across the ice. He gave it one last jerk, but it was obviously jammed.

Shit.

Then from inside the crumpled fuselage he heard a woman’s voice. It was Amy calling for help.

He yanked at the harness again, but it held fast. Ignoring it, he took off limping toward the helicopter.

The inside of the Black Hawk was total chaos. The windshield was spray painted red with Nowhere Man’s blood. Amy, still in her seat, popped her shoulder harness and clawed her way out of the cockpit, not able to look at Nowhere Man’s impaled body.

As she crawled back into the crew compartment, she heard a low moaning coming from beneath a pile of equipment.

“Sergeant Sloan, are you okay?” Amy asked.

“No, ma’am,” he groaned. “It’s my leg. I think it’s broken. It feels like it’s trapped against the bulkhead.”

“Hang on, sergeant,” Amy said, making her way over to him. “I’m going to try and free you.”

Amy removed the loose debris that was covering Sloan’s body, then positioned herself to have a look at his trapped leg – and drew in a sharp breath when she saw what was wrong.

A metal pipe had been driven clear through his right thigh, pinning him to the helicopter’s floor.

“It’s bad, sergeant,” Amy said. “Hold on, I’m going to try and free your leg.”

She gritted her teeth, placed a hand on each side of his leg and gently lifted up to see if the leg would move. Sergeant Sloan screamed out in pain as blood pooled beneath his leg– and then he went into shock.

Amy placed a hand on his neck and felt a weak pulse. “Sloan! Sergeant Sloan –” she yelled, trying to wake him – but it was useless, he’d lost consciousness.

“My God,” Amy said, looking out the cargo door and seeing Harry. She lurched across the floor and tried to pull the door open, but it was just another piece of twisted wreckage now. As she tried to get out through the cockpit, Harry knocked a jagged bit of glass loose from the shattered window and leaned into the helicopter.

“Thank God,” Amy cried out. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”

“It’s good to hear someone confirm that – because about five minutes ago, I would’ve sworn I was dead… How about you? Are you okay?”

“I’m in one piece, anyway,” Amy said. Then she pointed to Sloan. “Sergeant Sloan is unconscious and pinned to the floor, and…” Amy stopped and glanced forward to the cockpit. “And Nowhere Man is dead.”

“Jesus Christ,” Harry said.

“Harry, it was awful. The harpoon… It went right through his chest.”

Harry nodded and reached a hand through the window. “C’mon, take my hand;
you can get out through the window. Then I’ll switch with you and see what I can do about freeing Sloan – but be careful, this thing looks like it could slip off the ice at any time.”

Amy took Harry’s hand and cautiously climbed through the window. As she stepped onto the ice, there was a loud, metallic creaking and the helicopter shifted, inching closer to the edge, but then seemed to hold.

“Something’s wrong with my harness,” Harry said, holding up the coupling device. “It won’t release. See if you can tell what’s wrong.”

Amy bent to take a look at the harness.

There was a horrible groaning sound. Then the sound of buckling aluminum.

And after a terror-filled moment…

The entire helicopter shuddered, slipped sideways – and fell off the iceberg, plunging into the sea.

Neither of them spoke. Then a scraping sound filled the air – and whipping across the ice and disappearing over the edge of the iceberg was the remainder of the lift cable.

“Shit!” Harry said. And before he had a chance to react, he was yanked off his feet and skittering across the ice right behind the sinking helicopter.

“Harry!” Amy screamed.

She could only stand there helplessly watching as Harry’s body shot off the edge of the iceberg and was pulled beneath the ocean’s surface.

“No!” she cried out, then rushed to the edge of the ice and looked down at the dead green water.

She kept staring at the surface, hoping for some sign of Harry, but he was gone so suddenly, and with such finality, that all she could do was sob. The sobbing turned into streaming tears as she began to cry, not wanting to believe any of this had happened.

She continued to stare down at the ocean, thinking it a dark and cruel thing – when all of a sudden a giant bubble of air exploded on the surface. A moment later, Harry shot up gasping for air.

“Harry! You’re alive!” Amy screamed with delight.

“I’m goddamn freezing!” Harry yelled, then swam to a ledge of ice and began to claw his way up the side of the iceberg.

Amy scrambled to the edge. Leaning over as far as she dared, she got ahold of Harry’s hand, and working together, they hauled him out of the water and onto the ice.

His body shook uncontrollably from exposure. Amy wrapped her arms around him, trying to stop him from shaking.

“It-It’s official,” Harry managed through his jitterbugging teeth, “I hate helicopters.”

“How did you release the cable?”

“I didn’t. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe the pressure… It must’ve just let go.”

Suddenly there was another explosive bubble of air. Both of their heads snapped towards the sea, and they saw a large, white cylinder shoot up and bob on the ocean’s surface.

“C’mon,” Harry yelled, jumping up. “We’ve got to get that.”

“What for?”

“It’s a life raft!”

They scrambled down the ice to the water’s edge and managed to retrieve the raft, dragging it up the side of the iceberg.

Chapter 40

The weather was starting to close in around the iceberg. The wind was blowing a steady twenty knots across building seas, knocking the tops off the waves and sending ghostly white spindrifts scudding across the leaden horizon.

Outside base camp, Harry and Amy cautiously approached the perimeter, staying alert for any signs that the creature might have returned.

Harry scanned the camp, working his eyes around each tent. “Looks clear. I don’t see any signs of that thing.”

Amy searched the camp, anxiously looking left then right for any signs of movement. “Yeah, it seems okay.”

But both of them were thinking the same thing: It could be in one of the tents – waiting, ready to spring out as soon as they were in reach.

Harry looked up, checking the weather. “A few more hours and we’re going to be in the middle of an arctic storm.”

Amy looked at the approaching front. “Great,” she said flatly.

Harry’s body was suddenly racked by a fresh series of violent shakes, his wet clothes sticking to him like sheets of ice.

“I don’t care where that thing is, I’ve got to get some dry clothes.”

Together they moved forward, stepping past piles of ruined equipment – and entered base camp.

Harry made a beeline toward his tent, desperate to strip off the wet clothes, then stopped and called to Amy, “We need to gather food and water, and if you see a radio, grab it – and anything else you can think of.”

Inside his tent, Harry quickly changed into dry pants and a thick down parka. His relief was immediate and he sighed out loud as his body temperature began to rise. His boots were still wet, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He mopped out the insides as well as possible, then put on two pairs of wool socks and slipped the boots back on, lacing them tightly to hold in the heat.

He rifled through his gear searching for something, then found what he was looking for stuffed beneath his cot. It was a bright orange survival suit, the kind sailors don when they have to abandon ship in freezing waters. Living and working in the Arctic, Harry never went to sea without it. He folded it in thirds, then pushed it into a nylon stuff sack.

On the floor of the tent next to the door was a bag filled with plastic water bottles. He grabbed the bag, placed it on his cot, then dumped in a handful of Power Bars he had brought along in case of an emergency – the current situation qualifying big-time.

He stuffed the water, Power Bars and survival suit into a rucksack, slung it on his shoulder, then exited to go search the other tents for supplies, and in particular, a radio.

Amy entered the destroyed field lab, immediately went over to a work bench, and retrieved her laptop, closing it and carefully stowing it in a backpack.

Crunching across smashed glass and busted equipment, she went to a medical locker and began to fill the backpack with anything that looked useful: bandages, a small pack of surgical instruments, syringes, suture kit, morphine, rubber gloves.

She then crossed the tent and bent down to a plastic cooler, propped the lid open, and carefully removed a specimen bag filled with the creature’s blood. She took a soft towel, wrapped it around the bag, then carefully placed it in the backpack next to the laptop.

She straightened, then looked around the tent, still stunned by the amount of destruction that had been wreaked on the lab – then remembered that Harry had told her to look for a radio. They had kept one next to the door on a small folding chair.

Amy moved towards the front of the tent, hoping to find the radio. There was no chair or radio to be found – and no door for that matter. Half of the tent had been ripped away by the creature. She carefully picked her way through a jumble of debris – and there, all the way at the other side of the tent, was the small hand-held radio.

She jumped forward and, as she swept it off the floor, the back fell away trailing wires and bits of broken circuitry. Amy released the radio and let it fall to the tent floor, watching it land in a lifeless pile of broken plastic. Shit.

Amy took a last look around the lab, marveling at the carnage, and decided there was nothing else worth retrieving right now. They would be back. They had to come back.

Amy adjusted the straps on her pack, stepped out of the tent, and as she looked up to find Harry, there it was – the creature, about fifty yards off in the distance moving directly toward base camp!

“Harry!” she yelled. “Harry, it’s back! The creature… it’s coming!”

Harry shot out of his tent with the rucksack clamped under his arm, saw Amy, and off in the distance – the approaching creature.

They watched as the creature suddenly altered direction, angled toward something sitting on the ice, stopped directly in front of it, reached down – and lifted one of Lt. Cushman’s arms. With a nauseating wet crunching twist, he wrenched the arm free from the body, separating it cleanly at the shoulder joint.

With Lt. Cushman’s arm dangling at his side, the creature turned, faced Harry and Amy, screamed its horrible scream – then raised the limb to its mouth and began to tear away strips of flesh.

Amy ran to Harry, too horrified to watch. Harry put his arm around her, then whispered softly. “Sweet Jesus, that’s Cush…”

“I can’t believe this, Harry… It’s horrible. God.” She trembled and turned away, burying her face in Harry’s parka.

Harry watched as the creature finished its meal, then turned its attention back to them.

“Okay listen, Amy,” Harry said softly. “We’re going to get out of here.”

“How, Harry?”

“Shhh… Be very quiet. Follow me. We’ve got to get to the life raft.”

Amy nodded okay and they began to back away, moving toward the edge of the iceberg, the place where they’d left the raft.

Harry glanced back. The creature was advancing toward them again – then it suddenly stopped, drawn back by hunger. It let out another victorious scream and fell back onto Lt. Cushman’s body, tearing out a chunk of flesh and disemboweling him at the same time.

Amy looked back just in time to see it eviscerate the body, retched, and tried to run.

Harry grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her tight against him, stopping her from fleeing. “It’s okay, don’t run. You might attract it.” With Harry half carrying her, they quietly made their way to the raft.

As soon as they’d reached the edge of the iceberg, Harry grabbed the round cylinder containing the four-man Zodiac life raft, then looked up at Amy.

“Okay, I’m going to pull this quick release cord. The raft will automatically inflate – and then you and I are going to put it into the water, climb inside, and move away from the iceberg.”

“Let’s hurry, Harry,” Amy said anxiously.

Harry motioned for her to step back, pulled the quick release cord – and like magic, a fully inflated life raft was suddenly sitting at their feet.

The hexagonal-shaped Zodiac had two rows of thick rubber baffles and was topped by a bright red canopy. Inside, storage pouches contained water, food, and basic survival tools.

Harry unzipped the door flap, looked inside, then turned to Amy. “Quick, give me your pack.”

Amy slipped the pack off her shoulders and lowered it to Harry, who quickly dropped it into the raft along with the items he had collected. Harry glanced back towards base camp – the creature was standing completely still and staring directly at them now.

“Shit,” Harry said. “He’s watching us.” He reached down and, lifting one side of the raft said, “C’mon, let’s get the hell out of here.”

Amy grabbed the raft and together, moving as fast as they could, wrestled the Zodiac over the side of the iceberg, letting it plunk safely into the water. Both of them managed to board the raft without falling into the ocean.

Harry reached out the door, shoved off the ice, sent the raft coasting out to sea away from the iceberg – and then began to pray.

Chapter 41

Inside the radio room of St. John’s Air Station, a dispatcher tried for the third time to contact the Air Guard H-60 Black Hawk of Captain Le Marche and Lt. Cushman at their last reported position – an iceberg drifting somewhere in the North Atlantic.

“This is Air Station St. John’s calling Captain Le Marche…” Then: “Nowhere Man, come back. Over.”

Nothing.

Commanding Officer Noonan stepped up behind the dispatcher and put a hand on his shoulder. “Alright, that’s it – I’m giving the launch order. Rescue One has the mission. Broadcast an emergency bulletin. Even though they can’t hail us, they may be able to hear us.

As the Air Dispatcher put out the emergency broadcast, Commander Noonan stuck his head into the Air Guard ready room where Rescue One (two pilots and two pararescue jumpers, or PJs) were drinking coffee. He said, “Launch. The mission is go.”

This was what they’d been waiting for. The four team members dumped their coffee in the sink and got busy assembling gear. Each man had a Mustang survival suit, harness, and life vest containing basic survival gear, first aid kit, strobe light, ERIPB, food, and water.

The pilots exited the station and sprinted across the tarmac to their freshly fueled H-3 to preflight the ship. The two PJs filled packs with, swim fins, masks, snorkels, rappelling line, ice axes, and crampons. After the jumpers were sure they had everything, they each grabbed a pack, shoved out of the station, and hustled towards the H-3 which already had its three engines running and main rotor blades spinning.

Five minutes later, the H-3 lifted off the runway and nosed into the weather. Every soul aboard began to pray that they could beat the massive front that was rushing towards them – beat it before it made flying impossible.

Chapter 42

The sturdy little Zodiac raft was amazingly comfortable, Amy thought, short of central heating.

Harry was frantically searching the raft’s floor. Inside a flap of nylon Velcroed to the side, he found what he was looking for. A small, lightweight paddle with a telescoping handle. He pulled the handle out, extending it to its full length, then tightened the locking nut.

Harry leaned out the small opening in the canopy with the paddle clutched in his hands. Standing on the edge of the iceberg, no more than forty feet away, was the creature – the hair around its mouth and chest stained crimson with human blood.

A small piece of Lt. Cushman’s flight suit, caught on one of the creature’s eyeteeth, hung out of the corner of its mouth – and a rivulet of blood coursed down the side of its face, disappearing into the thick hair surrounding its neck.

“Fuck me!” Harry yelled. He dug the into the water and paddled with everything he had.

The creature shrieked, and for a moment, Harry thought it was going to dive off the iceberg and come after them. But it just moved back up onto the flat ice, then watched as the raft moved farther out to sea.

Harry kept paddling with a steady stroke. Every once in a while he’d turn back to check on the creature, and each time he’d see it standing there, watching from a distance.

After about twenty minutes of steady paddling, when Harry was sure they were safe, he pulled the paddle out of the water and fell back into the raft, exhausted from the exertion.

“Is it coming after us?” Amy asked, anxiously staring at Harry’s face.

Harry could only shake his head, then after a few more seconds said, “It’s okay. It’s not following us.” Then he rocked up to a sitting position and took one more look out the door just to be sure. “Polar bears can swim, monsters can’t.”

Amy, who had been fishing out a bottle of water, stopped at the word “monster” and gave Harry a funny look. “What –?”

“I’m just setting the record straight. Call it a scientific observation based on empirical evidence.”

Amy laughed. “Well, if you think that entitles you to any of my Nobel Prize – forget it.” A chill shot through her body and she suddenly found herself unable to stop shivering – though she managed to add, “Although if you can get us out of this, it’s all yours.”

“Deal,” Harry said, then watched with concern as Amy began to shake uncontrollably.

Harry grabbed his nylon rucksack, fished out the survival suit, and handed it to her. “Here, put this on. It’s a survival suit. Better than a roaring fire.”

Amy stared at the amazing-looking bright orange suit. It was thick and rubbery and had feet sewn into the bottom and a hood attached to the top with a removable face shield. Safety lines and quick release air valves lined the front, and attached to the left breast pocket was a personal survival kit containing food, water, and flares.

“No, Harry, I can’t take it. It’s yours.”

“Yes, you can. I insist. You’ve got to get your body temperature up.”

Harry was right, and Amy knew it. She had to stop the shakes and hopefully ward off hypothermia. She reached out to take the suit and was surprised by its ten-pound weight.

“Wow, this thing weighs a ton.”

“It’s made big and roomy so you can keep your clothes on and climb right into it during an emergency,” Harry responded. “Go ahead and leave your boots on too. Once you have it on, I’ll help you adjust the fit and tighten the leg straps.”

Amy wiggled into the suit. Harry leaned forward, helping her with the bulky zipper that ran a good deal of the way up the front.

“My God, I’m going to look like a giant orange bunny rabbit.”

“Too bad I left the floppy ear attachments at home,” Harry said, smiling at her.

As Amy worked her arms through the sleeves, she stopped and looked directly at him. “Harry, we’re going to share the suit. Once I’m warm and my body temperature is back to normal, we’ll switch.”

“Sure,” Harry nodded.

“Promise. Promise me you’ll take your turn when I say.”

“Promise.”

Amy smiled, then zipped up the suit and slipped the hood over her head.

Harry began sorting through the survival gear and inventorying the provisions that had been fitted into the raft. In one pocket, he found a plastic orange box with the name Olin stenciled on the top. It contained a flare gun and a number of flares.

“This will definitely come in handy,” Harry said, holding up the flare gun.

“They’ll send someone for us, won’t they Harry?”

“Absolutely.”

Harry returned the flare gun to its box, then looked at Amy. “Did Nowhere Man radio for help before the crash?”

Amy pursed her lips and slowly shook her head. “No. There was no time. He had his hands full trying to lift off and get to you.”

“Good old Nowhere,” Harry said, looking away contemplatively. “He saved my neck.”

The raft was suddenly jolted by a wave, canting it up at a steep angle and then rocking it back down just as quickly.

“Great,” Harry said flatly. “Just what we need – big waves.”

There was a moment of calm and then the raft was bobbing up and over another large rolling wave.

Harry shifted to his knees, pulled open the canopy flap, and leaned outside.

The sky was darker than before and the front that had seemed a long way off was pressing in on their position. Soon it would sweep directly over the raft.

The sharp little wind waves that had covered the surface had all but vanished, and in their place, steep rollers swept across the Atlantic ahead of the approaching storm. The sky was dark and foreboding and the ocean had turned a deep menacing gray-green.

“How does it look out there?” Amy called out.

“Angry,” Harry said.

Just as he was about to duck back inside, something caught his eye, something that flashed momentarily on the face of a swell. Harry strained forward, trying to get another glimpse, but it seemed to have vanished beneath the waves.

Harry ducked back into the raft, retrieved the paddle, then kneeling in the doorway began to pull them in the direction of the shiny object.

The raft rose up a swell, and just as it lipped over the top, Harry glimpsed another flash. He quickly redoubled his efforts to reach it.

“Harry, what is it? Do you see something?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you see a ship?”

Harry, straining harder and harder, seemed to be more out of the raft than in it as he reached forward, spearing another blade full of water, and ripping his arms back, sent the raft scooting forward across the water’s surface.

The raft looped over another wave, dropped into a deep trough, and as it rose to the top of the next wave – there it was – flashing directly in front of Harry’s eyes.

He slid the paddle back into the raft, reached forward, grabbed the object – and fell back inside. He looked down, and clutched in the palm of his right hand was a completely unmolested bottle of Laphroaig scotch.

Harry stared down at the rescued bottle, stunned by his find. After a long silent beat, he laughed and said, “There is a God.”

“What is it, Harry?”

“A magic bottle.” He raised the scotch to his lips and kissed the label.

“A magic bottle?”

Harry nodded. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it… Five days ago I threw this out of my airplane, and now I’m holding it in my hand.”

“It looks like a bottle of scotch?”

“Even better – it’s a bottle of Laphroaig.”

“Well, that’s scotch, right?”

“Not just scotch, a single malt scotch – a very good single malt scotch.”

“Okay, I get it. It’s good stuff. So, why throw it out?”

Harry pulled his eyes off the bottle and looked at Amy. “It was between the scotch and Goodacre. Thank God we threw out the scotch – because I’d hate to run into Goodacre out here.”

“You lost me, Harry,” Amy replied, looking confused and doubtful.

“You had to be there,” Harry said. Then he removed the foil seal, eased the cork out of the neck and raised the bottle up in a salute. “May your lum reek with other people’s coal.” He put the bottle to his lips and took a long swig of the rich amber liquid.

He rolled the lowland single malt around in his mouth, chewing it like it was a piece of filet mignon, then let it slide down his throat.

“Oh, wow, oh… that’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” He held the bottle out to Amy.

“Maybe just one, but that’s all.” She took the bottle. “Harry, that’s all you should have too. Alcohol is a diuretic. It will dehydrate you.”

Amy took a sip, nodded that she thought it was good scotch, then handed the bottle back to Harry, who quickly took another long drink.

“To dehydration.”

And then he took another belt.

* * * *

Rescue One was now fifty minutes into its mission, the H-3 was jumping up and down, loosening teeth and rattling bones as it slammed into a seventy-five knot plus headwind. The weather ceiling had plunged to four thousand feet and continued to drop as they pounded toward the leading edge of the front.

Captain Reece was at the controls and started to be concerned about their rate of fuel consumption as they bucked the weather. A squall of frozen rain suddenly blasted the H-3. Visibility dropped to zero/zero. As the co-pilot flicked on the wipers to clear the windshield, the number one engine flamed out and then completely failed.

“Shit,” Reece said, after repeatedly trying to get it back online. Then he radioed

St. John’s that they had lost an engine and were returning to base.

Just as the wounded H-3 turned and began to run home with the wind on her tail, an Air Guard Falcon jet flashed by their port side and radioed that they were taking up the search.

Chapter 43

The storm had swept over the life raft and was now descending on them with all its fury.

Lightning streaked across a jet black sky. The wind shrieked and howled and lifted up bucketfuls of ocean, spilling them across the Zodiac’s canopy. Arching walls of water stalked across the tilting seas like prehistoric beasts. Thunder boomed. The heavens shook. Another series of lightning bolts swarmed across the sky, illuminating the red canopy of the life raft as it swept over the frothing lip of a thirty-foot swell, then went skidding down the face into a bottomless trough of black water – only seconds later to be sent shooting skyward across another mountainous wave.

Inside the life raft with the canopy buttoned down tight, Harry and Amy were hanging on for dear life – grateful to be mostly dry and alive and praying they didn’t flip over.

Harry was still holding onto the scotch, cradling it in his arms, and as they swept up another swell, he popped the cork and took another slug, leaving the bottle about half full.

He replaced the cork, then looked over at Amy who had her hands wound through two straps that were anchored to the raft’s floor.

“Amy… May I call you Amy?”

“You just did, Harry,” Amy said with a frown, noticing that the scotch had begun to do its thing.

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

Harry suddenly toppled forward as the raft pitched up and then slid down a wave. With some effort, he righted himself, careful to balance the bottle on his lap.

“Amy… I just want you to know that everything about you interests me. In fact, I’m totally attracted to you.”

“Harry, you’re –”

“Amy, I want you to pretend that you’re interested in me. Romantically.” Harry wiped a hand across his mouth, contemplating another drink. “And I’ll respond in kind. Oh, yeah – and I am looking to notch my bed thing-a-ma-jing with a beautiful biologist.”

Amy looked at him, shook her head, but couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “Harry, you’ve had too much to drink. We’re in the middle of the ocean in a life raft in a raging storm and we might die at any minute, and you’re suddenly feeling romantic.

I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Well, in that case, how about a kiss?” Harry said with a goofy smile.

Just as he was about to lean toward Amy, the raft was suddenly hammered by a huge wave. They shot straight up. It felt like they’d been lofted into flight – and suddenly they were tumbling down a cliff of water fifty feet high, freefalling through the air.

And then the wave broke, smothering the raft. Water poured in, swamping the Zodiac’s interior. Harry and Amy found themselves waist deep in frozen ocean water with the raft feeling like it was about to sink.

Then, as if by a miracle, the raft leveled, recovered, and shuddered back to the surface.

Harry, jolted out of his erstwhile happy hour, grabbed a plastic container and began to bail. “Come on, we’ve got to get this water out of the raft.”

Slowly coming to the realization that they weren’t dead yet, Amy rocked up onto her knees, found something to bail with, and began to help Harry empty the raft.

* * * *

After a half hour of bailing, the floor of the raft was free of water, and, mercifully, the howling wind and deadly swells seemed to be abating.

They both lay exhausted on the floor of the raft. The canopy had sustained a tear, but seemed to be largely intact. Harry was soaked from head to toe, and his body shook involuntarily, desperately trying to warm itself.

Swaddled in the survival suit, Amy had remained dry, and, all things considered, reasonably comfortable. She removed a glove, then reached out and touched Harry’s face and was shocked at how cold his skin felt. “Okay, Harry, your turn… We’ve got to get you into the survival suit.”

Harry turned and looked at Amy, and then smiled warmly through trembling lips. “No way. Guys don’t get cold…”

“Harry, you promised me. You promised we’d trade off.”

Harry pushed up to a sitting position, then immediately drew his legs up to his chest in a vain attempt to warm himself. He could feel it – he was slipping away, he was going into shock.

“Listen, Amy, if you take that suit off we’ll both die. My body has already lost too much of its core temperature to recover. It won’t do me any good.” Harry reached out and touched her arm. “Besides, you look cute in Day-Glo orange.”

Amy slid over to Harry and wrapped her arms around him. Harry lowered his head against her chest and shut his eyes.

“Oh, Harry…” Amy said, and then tears spilled down her cheeks.

Harry’s body was suddenly racked by a series of violent shakes. It was all Amy could do to hold onto him. When the contractions finally stopped, she lowered his head to her lap and stared down at him, not believing that this was how he would die.

She looked around the tiny raft and was just starting to wonder how much time they had left, when she got an idea on how she might save Harry. She reached down, and gripping Harry’s head, said, “Harry!” Then louder, “Harry, listen, I’ve got an idea…”

Harry’s eyes fluttered open, then closed.

“Harry, you’ve got to hang on.”

Amy gently lowered his head to the floor, then scooted over to her daypack. She reached inside, removed the specimen of the creature’s blood, placed it on the floor, retrieved a syringe, then quickly tore away its plastic wrapping.

She lifted the specimen bag, jabbed the needle into the top, and drew out a syringe full of the rust-colored serum. Then she moved back to Harry and touched his cheek with her hand. “Harry… Harry, can you hear me?”

He was slipping away fast, losing his battle with hypothermia, but managed to open his eyes and look up at Amy.

“Harry, I’m going to inject you with antifreeze proteins from the creature’s blood.”

Harry’s eyes closed, then opened again. He looked back at Amy and ever so slowly a smile appeared on his face. And then with great effort he whispered, “”Don’t let me get freezer burn.”

And then he slipped into a coma.

Amy, working as fast as she could in the bulky suit, exposed one of Harry’s arms, gripping him tightly above the elbow until an artery swelled beneath the surface of his skin then she expertly slid the needle into the vein and slowly depressed the plunger releasing the serum into Harry’s bloodstream.

Amy flipped open the canopy door and pitched the syringe into the sea, not wanting to risk puncturing the raft with the razor-sharp needle. Then she lay down next to Harry, spooning her body around him – and began to pray for both of their lives as the raft continued to be pummeled by the storm.

Chapter 44

Twenty-four hours passed. The heaving seas had calmed. The wind had blown itself out. And the life raft rolled gently beneath a crisp, star-filled sky.

Inside the raft, Harry and Amy remained motionless, still lying on the floor.

Amy opened her eyes. Instead of howling winds and punishing waves, she listened to the soothing sounds of gentle seas as they lapped against the hard rubber sides.

She rose to a sitting position and looked down at Harry’s motionless body. His face was bloodless, and his skin was waxy, and it had developed a horrible blue cast.

She reached down and checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Oh, Harry…”

She lifted his head onto to her lap. A staggering sense of loss and hopelessness washed over her, and tears began coursing down her cheeks. And then, from somewhere deep down inside of her, she began to cry and sob, her breath coming in great halting gulps.

Her nose began to run and she tried in vain to wipe it with the sleeve of the rubberized survival suit. Using the back of a glove, she mopped the tears off her face.

She sniffed and lowered Harry’s head to the raft’s floor, then grabbed a bottle of water and was surprised by her thirst, draining half the bottle in one long swallow. She went to replace the cap, then stopped and took another sip – and then she heard something impossible. People talking! Male voices!

Impossible.

But there it was again – faint, distant voices skipping across the surface of the ocean.

And then she heard something even more fantastic…

Singing.

Men with French accents singing: “Allouette, gentille Allouette, Allouette je te plumerai.”

Then she heard the best music of all: The dull throb of a ship’s engine.

Amy leapt to her knees, ripped open the canopy, leaned out of the raft – and directly in front of her, about a quarter of a mile away – a brightly lit cruise ship slid across the horizon.

“Oh, God, thank you,” she said, almost breaking into tears. And then she realized that they couldn’t see her.

“The flare gun!” she yelled out, then dove back inside the raft. She swept her hand around the sides of the raft until she found the orange Olin box. She popped the lid, removed the stubby-looking handgun, cracked the barrel and inserted one of the shotgun shell-sized flares, then snapped the barrel back into position.

She lunged back out of the canopy door, leaned out, and – holding her breath, thrust her arm into the air and fired the flare gun.

There was a loud crack, then a bright flash as the flare shot up, arcing across the night sky…

It was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

Chapter 45

Seraph

Two sailors were standing outside the bridge, smoking Gauloises cigarettes, and sharing a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Champagne.

Behind them, a tarnished brass plaque bore the ship’s name: Seraph.

When the flare exploded against the night sky, the two sailors were so taken by surprise that one of them jerked back, knocking the bottle of expensive champagne off the teak rail and sending it tumbling down to the sea sixty feet below.

“Mon Dieu!” the other sailor yelled, keeping his eyes on the blinding white glow of the flare as it floated back towards the ocean, suspended beneath a tiny parachute.

Just as it was about to be snuffed out by the water – another flare popped up out of the sea illuminating the night sky.

“Faites attention! Faites attention!” the two sailors yelled. Then one of them yanked opened the bridge door and yelled at the helmsman who was slumped forward in his chair, snoring loudly.

“Arrete! Stop the ship!”

He bolted across the bridge and jerked the helmsman upright in his chair. “Wake up you idiot!” Then he grabbed the throttles, chopping them back to stop the ship. The whole ship began to vibrate as the engines reversed, backing the screws, and the ship began to slow.

The bleary-eyed helmsman looked dumbly up at his shipmate who’d just jerked him awake, then swore. “Cochon!” He rubbed his eyes and scratched his head, then reached down by his side and retrieved a bottle of claret, burped, and took a long pull.

Amy heard the ship’s engines slow, then begin to reverse and she realized that the ship was stopping – they’d seen the flares!

* * * *

Inside the Seraph’s bridge, a new sailor was at the helm. Although he looked as equally dissipated as the former helmsman, he was at least awake.

A deckhand ran up to the bow and took the cover off a powerful searchlight attached to the top of a metal rail. The two sailors who had seen Amy’s flares remained on the bridge and excitedly shouted directions to the helm.

* * * *

Just to be sure, Amy cracked open the gun and inserted another flare. Just as she was about to fire it off, a bright searchlight from the Seraph’s foredeck raked the ocean’s surface, swept past the raft, then stopped and slowly drifted back, coming to a rest directly on the Zodiac’s bright red canopy.

She was saved.

“Over here!” Amy yelled, overcome with emotion.

The light blinked a couple of times to acknowledge they’d seen her, then the ship began to alter course. It came around and headed directly toward her, all the while keeping the spotlight trained on the little bobbing raft.

Amy knelt in the canopy’s doorway and watched as the ship slowly turned, and followed the searchlight’s beam toward the raft.

Amy dropped back inside. She looked at Harry’s lifeless body and prayed for a miracle, prayed that the creature’s antifreeze proteins would do for Harry what they had done for the mouse back in the lab at St. John’s Airport.

She began to sort through her gear, filling her pack with everything she wanted to save and remove from the raft, then crouched next to Harry, adjusting the collar on his coat and preparing his body for transport to the ship.

Then, she heard a man with a French accent hail the raft.

“Allo, Allo… Ahoy, the raft.”

Amy’s head popped out of the canopy, and she found herself staring up at the Seraph’s rust-streaked hull not ten feet away.

She immediately recognized the ship – it was the same one she’d seen back in

St. John’s Harbor – and the French deckhand hailing her from the bow was the same shaggy-looking sailor who’d whistled at her a few days earlier.

Chapter 46

With the help of an assistant engineer and a deckhand, Amy carried Harry’s body down a narrow, dimly lit corridor toward the medical bay.

The first thing that caught Amy’s attention was the state of the ship. It looked as shabby below decks as it did topside. The carpet was threadbare, and the putty-colored walls were scratched and chipped and covered with grimy fingerprints. The entire ship was in desperate need of a thorough scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint. Any captain worth his salt would’ve been ashamed to go to sea in a ship like this, Amy thought as they passed through a bulkhead and entered the ship’s hospital.

Inside the medical bay, they carried Harry’s body over to one of the narrow bunks that lined the walls and gently lowered him onto the mattress. Amy stepped up to the bunk and placed a pillow beneath his head.

Across the room, passed out on another one of the bunks, was the ship’s surgeon.

“Who’s that?” Amy asked, thinking that the man looked like he’d had too much to drink.

The assistant engineer crossed the room, placed his hands on the doctor’s shoulders, and began to shake him.

“This is the ship’s surgeon, mademoiselle,” the engineer said, still shaking the doctor.

“Is he drunk?” Amy asked, with a note of incredulity in her voice.

“Oui, mademoiselle,” the engineer said, then reached down next to the doctor and held up an empty glass bottle. “Beaucoup d’eau de vie.” Then feigning outrage said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk…” and began to laugh.

“Too much water of life, eh?” the deckhand added, then began to laugh along with his shipmate.

“Do you think this is some sort of joke?” Amy yelled, causing both men to jump. “What the hell kind of ship is this?”

Suddenly the doctor came to. He let out a loud raspy breath, coughed, raised his head, and stared at Amy with a dazed look – obviously baffled to see a woman dressed in a bright orange survival suit standing next to him with a puddle of water forming around her feet.

He blinked and shook his head, not trusting his eyes, then looked up again – and was amazed to see her still standing there staring down at him.

The doctor slowly rose to a sitting position, swung his legs off the bunk, then wobbled up onto his feet. “Bon soir. I am Doctor Rousseau.”

Amy stared at his unshaven face and rumpled shirt and momentarily was at a loss for words. She looked him up and down, and shaking her head in disgust, turned to the slightly less inebriated assistant engineer and said, “I need hot water and blankets, lots of blankets.” Then she stared down at the puddle around her feet. “And some dry clothes.”

* * * *

A half-hour later, Harry’s wet clothes had been removed and he was swaddled in multiple layers of blankets. A saline and glucose bag hung from an IV rack, and the tube led to one of his arms.

Amy leaned forward, and for the third time in less than a minute, checked Harry’s neck for any sign of a pulse.

Dr. Rousseau, who had showered and changed into clean trousers and a fresh shirt, sat on the corner of his desk sipping coffee and watching Amy.

“Mademoiselle Tyler,” Dr. Rousseau said, pushing off the desk and walking over to her, “I am sorry – but it pains me to see you with these false hopes. This man he is mort. Dead. A block of ice, no?”

He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The sea, she has claimed another sailor…”

“He’s a bush pilot,” Amy snapped, giving Dr. Rousseau a direct look. “And he’s not dead.”

“But mademoiselle –”

“I’ve made his body freeze tolerant.”

“Merde,” the doctor scoffed. “Who do you think you are – God?”

“I’m just a biologist,” Amy replied flatly. Moving to the foot of the bed, she spread another blanket over Harry’s body.

“You are obviously distressed from your experience in the raft.”

Ignoring him, Amy reached out and placed a finger on Harry’s neck, checking for a pulse again.

Dr. Rousseau watched her, shook his head, then muttered something under his breath.

“What’s going on around here?” Amy said in a challenging voice, letting her eyes settle on the doctor. “Where are all the passengers?”

“There are no passengers. We are only a skeleton crew.”

“This is some sort of cruise ship, right?”

“Alas, mademoiselle, no more… C’est tout. This is her last voyage. Her final curtain call.”

“Her last voyage –? Well, where are we headed?”

“France, Mademoiselle Tyler. The bone-yard. She is to be scrapped for her steel.

Amy looked around the dilapidated medical bay, not able to find one clean wall or one unscratched piece of furniture. “Well, I don’t see it as any great loss.”

“She was once a great lady,” Dr. Rousseau said wistfully.

It was Amy’s turn to scoff, but she didn’t and instead asked, “Dr. Rousseau, I want to see the captain. We’ve got to radio St. John’s. The Coast Guard must know we’re missing by now. They’ll be searching for us.”

“Of course mademoiselle, but I think it’s best to wait until morning.”

“What?” Amy said with disbelief. “No, it would not be best to wait until morning.” Her voice filled with anger. “You don’t know what has happened. Men have been killed! Men have died!”

“S’il vous plait, mademoiselle,” the doctor said, holding up his hands. “You don’t understand. You see, the capitain is… how shall I say, indisposed. No, he would not want to talk to the Coast Guard just now.”

“You mean he’s drunk?”

“Well, umm, you see – this is very sad for us. So we have a goodbye celebration. Maybe a little drink.”

“Unbelievable,” Amy said with disgust. “Tell me then, if everybody’s drunk – who’s skippering the ship?”

“No, no, no… Do not worry,” Dr. Rousseau said, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “The French, they are excellent sailors.”

And then from behind them, right where Harry’s body was lying – they heard a cough.

Then a sharp intake of air.

Both of them snapped around just as Harry’s chest rose up and contracted in a mighty heaving motion. Then he gulped in great rasping lungfuls of air – like a drowning man finally breaking the surface and getting his first taste of oxygen.

Dr. Rousseau’s eyes bulged with disbelief as Harry began to breathe.

Amy rushed to his side, gripping his arm and rolling him onto his side as he continued coughing, his body involuntarily clearing its airways.

Dr. Rousseau dropped his coffee mug, letting it shatter on the floor. “Mon Dieu!” he yelled, staggering back against a bulkhead and staring in shock. The man who had seemingly been dead a minute ago was coming back to life.

Chapter 47

Harry was back. He sat up in his bunk in the grimy little medical bay, sipping a steaming mug of chicken broth and thawing out nicely as the Seraph quartered into moderate seas. Amy was held one of his hands examining his fingertips, looking for any traces of cell damage.

Harry’s recovery had been nothing short of miraculous. Amy’s hunch had paid off. Cryoproteins from the creature’s blood had worked on him just like they had on the mouse back in St. John’s.

Except for some benign short-term memory loss – Harry had no recollection of events from the moment he lost consciousness in the raft until waking up a few minutes aboard the Seraph – he seemed completely fine.

“Amazing…” Amy marveled, examining Harry’s hand. “Not even a trace of frostbite.”

“Look ma, no freezer burn,” Harry said with a laugh, then looked across the room at Dr. Rousseau who was still gawking in disbelief. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Exactement, Monsieur McNills,” the doctor said, motioning with his hands towards Harry. “Ten minutes ago you were mort.”

“Who is this again?” Harry asked, looking at Amy.

“Dr. Rousseau. We were picked up by the Seraph, a French cruise ship.”

“French?” Harry said, like it was the most impossible thing in the world.

“Mai oui,” Dr. Rousseau responded.

There was a sharp knock on the door, and without waiting for a response Captain Luc Chabot stepped into the medical bay. He was wearing a filthy-looking sweater, rumpled khaki pants and sported a three-day growth. As he pushed into the room, the air instantly filled with a boozy, tobacco-laden funk.

“Ah, mon capitain,” Dr. Rousseau said, greeting the captain with a smile. “Please meet Mademoiselle Amy Tyler and Monsieur Harry McNills, who has just made a most miraculous recovery.”

Captain Chabot nodded and smiled through a set of big square teeth the color of a sandstone wall. “Bon soir. I am Capitain Luc Chabot. Welcome aboard le Seraph.”

“Captain Chabot, we’re grateful for being rescued and for being alive,” Amy said, barely containing the frustration in her voice. “But like I was telling Dr. Rousseau, we must contact St. John’s immediately.”

The captain turned, ignoring Amy, and stepped directly in front of Harry, leaning forward to examine his face.

“You do not look dead, Monsieur Harry,” the captain laughed, pleased with his clever comment, then wiped his mouth with the matted sleeve of his sweater. “Maybe just a little mal de mer, eh?” And still laughing, he reached out and patted Harry on the cheek.

Before he could withdraw his arm – Harry’s hand flashed up, seizing the captain tightly around the wrist.

“Maybe you didn’t hear the lady, captain. We need to phone home. Got it?”

Captain Chabot jerked his arm back, breaking Harry’s grip, and rubbing his wrist said, “All in good time, John Wayne.”

“Bullshit!” Harry snapped, rising to his feet. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on around here, but people have died – and right now, more people are risking their lives trying to find us. If you don’t –”

Suddenly the room began to shake. Then a shudder ran the length of the keel, issuing up the bulwarks and rippling through the spine of every soul on board.

And then it stopped. Everything was instantly returned to normal. A silent, terror-filled beat, and –

Everyone was slammed forward and thrown to the floor as the ship suddenly rose up at a horrible angle. The cabin filled with the awful sounds of rending metal and shattering ice as the Seraph plowed into a massive iceberg.

Harry was knocked back, flattened on his bunk. He rose to a sitting position, rolled off the bunk, went to Amy and helped her off the floor, making sure she was okay.

Captain Chabot and Dr. Rousseau staggered to their feet, both looking around the cabin with shocked expressions.

“Tell me again about the excellent French sailors, captain,” Amy said, giving him a direct look.

Outside, the bow of the ship had lifted out of the water. Its keel ran onto a shelf of ice protruding from the base of the iceberg about ten feet below the water’s surface. As the ship settled back toward the sea, smashed hull plates bit into the ice, digging in like cat’s claws and stopping the Seraph’s downward movement with a mortal groaning.

Silence.

All movement stopped. The ship was left hanging off the edge of the iceberg at a crazy angle – half in and half out of the water.

The Seraph’s spine had been broken and jagged tears appeared amidships in the steel hull. The lights flickered, then remained on. Smoke poured out of the ship’s kinked smoke stack, and the evening arctic air filled with yelling voices, and cries for help.

Chapter 48

Captain Chabot, followed by Amy, Harry, and Dr. Rousseau, made their way along a steeply tilted passageway. They had escaped being plunged into the North Atlantic by the length of one stateroom. The cant of the ship and the spotty lighting slowed their progress as they made their way forward, desperate to get topsides to see what had happened.

After they clawed their way up a narrow flight of stairs and passed through an airlock, the corridor opened up and they entered the ship’s main salon. The room looked like it had been turned upside down. Tables, chairs, plates, glassware, wine bottles (most of them long since empty), and anything else not tacked down, careened across the floor, ending in a pile at the rear of the room.

Pushing aside an upended couch and stepping over the rubble of twisted plates and shattered bottles, they picked their way across the eerily empty room and angled toward the companionway stairs that led up to the main deck and the bridge.

Captain Chabot, Amy, Harry, and Dr. Rousseau stood in the arctic chill on a steel observation deck that circled the bridge, starring out at the towering mountain of ice where the Seraph had impaled herself.

The night was calm and clear, and the sky was filled with so many stars that the iceberg almost seemed to glow with an inner luminosity.

“My career, my life, my ship… Pffft, gone…” the captain lamented, almost breaking into a sob.

Amy stared out at the iceberg. Most of it was cloaked in shadows. She let her eyes drift away from the bow, scanning across the ice – and something flashed in the periphery of her vision. She quickly moved her eyes back and there, fifty yards beyond the bow of the boat, lay a small, shiny object.

“Look,” Amy pointed, keeping one hand firmly locked onto the railing so as not to slip on the slanting deck.

“What?” Harry asked, following Amy’s arm.

“There, out on the ice – there’s something out there.”

Captain Chabot grabbed a small spotlight that was fixed on the observation deck, flicked on the light, and swiveled the spot over the bow, letting the halogen beam sweep the ice. He let the beam pass over the area and then brought the spot back, letting it rest directly on the object.

“Oh my God!” Amy gasped.

There, sitting out on the ice, was Lt. Cushman’s flight helmet!

Harry stared at the helmet, saucer-eyed with disbelief. “It can’t be…”

“Is that a helmet?” Dr. Rousseau asked.

“We’ve got to get away from here,” Amy said. “Now!”

“What are you saying?” the captain demanded. “What are you talking about? It is a blessing we have run up on the ice. The ship she would have sunk.”

“The lifeboats, captain,” Amy pleaded. “We’ve got to get them in the water and get clear of the ice.”

“She’s right,” Harry said.

“She’s wrong,” the captain responded. “You always stay with the ship. We will call for help, and at first light the Coast Guard will come and find us.”

“Eacxtement!” Dr. Rousseau exclaimed, agreeing with the captain.

“Both of you,” Harry said, looking first at Dr. Rousseau and then at Captain Chabot, “You don’t understand…”

“Get them off the bridge,” the captain commanded brusquely, waving to two deckhands who had been standing by waiting for orders. “They’re both suffering from exposure and are apparently delusional.”

The deckhands stepped up and seized Harry and Amy, grabbing them both tightly by the arms.

“Wait! Listen,” Amy insisted. “You must evacuate…” She yanked her arm free of the deckhand’s grip and moved directly in front of Captain Chabot. “Captain, we know this iceberg. It’s the same one we escaped from before you found us adrift in the raft. Captain, we discovered something buried in the ice – something amazing. Unbelievable.”

“Hah! What is this amazing thing you found?”

“Something long lost… A creature,” Amy said flatly. “An evolutionary freak. Something primitive. Deadly.”

“Think of a pissed off polar bear and quadruple it,” Harry said. “Oh, yeah, better give it upright posture and human intelligence, too, while you’re at it.”

“This is some silly joke,” Dr. Rousseau said in a dismissive tone.

“You expect me to believe such a fantastic story? Merde!” the captain said, waving a hand through the air. Then he motioned for the deckhands to take them below. “And somebody get me a fucking damage report!”

Captain Chabot let go of the rail and skidded toward the pilothouse.

As Amy and Harry were led away, Amy called back to the captain, “It killed five men, captain!”

Chapter 49

Deckhands swarmed over the wrecked ship, clearing debris, plugging holes, and assessing the damage.

A team of four men had run the ship’s anchor, still attached to its bow chain, out onto the iceberg. Using shovels and wrecking bars, they carved a large hole in the ice, then pushed the anchor inside and filled the hole with chunks of ice and buckets of fresh water so it would freeze and lock itself in place.

A cargo door on the side of the Seraph’s hull was wrenched open and after a ramp had been rigged from the side of the ship to the ice, deckhands began offloading gear and supplies. The thinking was that if the ship became unstable and sank they could take refuge on the iceberg.

Two lifeboats near the bow were swung out on their davits and lowered to the ice in case they were needed later. More would be lowered as soon as some bright engineer could figure out how to free them from the twisted wreckage.

Back on the bridge, Captain Chabot was studying a chart and jotting notes in a small notebook. There was a knock and a deckhand entered, silently waiting for the captain to acknowledge him.

The captain looked up from the chart. “What is it, Pierre?”

The deckhand stepped forward and handed Captain Chabot a sheet of paper. “Damage report, mon capitain.”

The captain’s eyes traced down the page, then looked back at the deckhand. “Fifteen dead? Over half the crew? How?”

“The aft third of the ship is underwater, sir. Most of the men were in the engine room drinking and playing cards when we hit the iceberg.” The deckhand cleared his throat, trying to stop the tremor in his voice, then continued. “It flooded before they could get out. When the ship rode up on the ice, the force collapsed many of the bulkheads, sealing all the airlocks. And some of the men… they were just too drunk.”

The deckhand broke down and tears spilled out of his eyes and rolled down his grease-smudged cheeks.

“Thank you, Pierre. Now go help the others secure the ship.”

The deckhand straightened and said, “Yes, sir.” Then he turned and left the bridge.

The captain looked down at the casualty tally and an involuntary sob burst from his lips. Then he whispered to himself, “I’ll hang for this.”

An electrician who had been under the helm, trying to get the radio back on line, rose and looked at the captain. “Mon capitain, it isn’t all your fault. It was nighttime. Ships can hit icebergs with the most alert of crews.”

“Shut up. The ship is always the captain’s responsibility.” Then he crushed the damage report in his fist and slumped against the helm.

* * * *

Harry and Amy had been escorted to the officer’s wardroom. It was another dingy affair with nicotine-stained, mint-colored walls. They were sitting at a table – well, not sitting – due to the severe angle of the ship they were plastered into chairs propped up against one of the room’s lower bulkheads.

“Maybe that thing left somehow,” Harry said, wrapped in a fleece blanket, still trying to warm his bones. “Maybe it can swim and it tried to follow us in the raft and drowned. Or maybe it slipped off the iceberg and –”

“Stop it, Harry. It’s out there – and it’s probably watching.”

“What the hell do you mean, watching? You make it sound like it has a plan or something.”

“I don’t know what I mean. All I know is that thing is a survivor – and this is its environment.”

“Well, it looked like a pretty stupid son of a bitch to me.” Harry pulled the blanket tighter around his neck. “Strong as hell, yes – but stupid.”

The wardroom door opened and Dr. Rousseau entered, clumsily working his way across the slanting floor.

“The Coast Guard has been alerted to our position. At first light they will be on their way.”

“Well, that’s something,” Amy said. “I just hope they make it in time.”

“Oh, come now…” the doctor said, trying to assuage her fears. “Stop this hand-wringing. Our situation’s not really all that perilous.”

“You’ve got your head up your… Your head in the clouds, doctor,” Harry said. “How do you say denial in French?”

“Denial. But all we need to do is wait. Besides, we have a ship full of champagne and foie gras. Hah, what more could you ask for?” He laughed, then added, “We should all be praying we don’t get rescued too soon.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Amy said firmly. “But I’d be grateful for some food in the meantime.”

“Of course. Very sensible, mademoiselle. Now you’re starting to sound French.”

“Hey, don’t go and start insulting us,” Harry quipped.

“Tsk tsk tsk…” the doctor waved a finger at Harry. “Ahh, you Americans have got a lot to learn about living.”

“Speaking of living, doctor, do you have any weapons on board? Rifles, pistols… derringers?”

“Weapons?” the doctor repeated with a wide-eyed look, as if he’d just received an electric shock. “Perhaps there are one or two, but only for recreational purposes. The French, well – we are lovers, not fighters.”

“Right,” Harry said dryly. “How could I forget. Oh, and thanks for all the help after 9/11.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying, Monsieur McNills. The French have always stood up when it counted.”

“Yeah, sure. You mean like after the Germans invaded Poland,” Harry said. “Hey, here’s a good one for you, doctor: Do you know why the Champs Elysees is lined with trees? So invading troops will have shade to march in.”

“If you weren’t so mistaken,” Dr. Rousseau said, “I’d be offended.”

“Nothing personal, doctor, but if you want to strike me across the face with a glove or something, I understand.”

Chapter 50

Amy and Harry had been released from detention in the wardroom and invited to join Captain Chabot and Dr. Rousseau in the main salon for food and drink.

The mood was relaxed, or more so than two hours ago, and the conversation congenial, but tense. Amy hungrily tucked into a wedge of pate, crackers, and cornichon and then chased the food with a gulp of Pellegrino water.

Harry only picked at the pate. Instead he consumed a large wedge of brie and was working on his second buttered roll.

Captain Chabot and Dr. Rousseau seemed to be disinterested in the food and were instead quaffing their way through their second bottle of Veuve Cliquot.

“Dawn in four hours,” Harry said, looking at his watch. “What is the Coast Guard’s ETA?”

“In the morning, Monsieur McNills,” the doctor replied. “Please, have a glass of champagne. There is nothing to be done.”

Harry held up his coffee mug. “No thanks. If I’m going to die, I want to be wide awake.”

“Me, I am already dead,” the captain said, draining his glass. “Half of the crew gone… And the ship – she is lost.”

Amy finished a bite of pickle and then looked directly at Captain Chabot. “Captain, there is still time. Please, please get everyone into the lifeboats – just until the Coast Guard arrives. We can stay within sight of the ship.”

“I am in no mood for such silliness again,” the captain snapped. “Remain quiet or be locked up.”

“Then let us go. Let Harry and me go.”

“No one leaves the ship. Enough people have died.”

* * * *

Outside the Seraph, two deckhands lugged boxes down a ramp that protruded from the ship’s hull, carried them onto the ice, then placed them next to a stack of the same. The captain had ordered an emergency salvage operation to empty the ship of valuables, not trusting the Seraph’s precarious hold on the iceberg.

The deckhand stood next to the crate he’d just placed on the ice, stretched and rubbed his back, then said, “Merde.” He fished out a pack of cigarettes, offered one to his shipmate and both of them lit up, staring at the growing stack of crates.

The deckhand with the stiff back took a long drag, exhaled a cloud of smoke, picked a bit of tobacco off his tongue, and said, “The two we picked up… there is a rumor they escaped from some kind of killer monster.”

“Merde,” his shipmate scoffed. “Americans. Hah, too much sugar and too many movies. Merde.”

His buddy laughed, flicked his half-smoked Gauloise onto the ice, turned to start back to the ship, and –

Right there, silently looming out of the shadows was the creature – towering directly over him!

The deckhand looked up at the massive shadowy thing. His nose filled with the creature’s primal musk and the sweet fetid smell of rotting human flesh.

The deckhand opened his mouth to scream, but the air from his lungs never had a chance to reach his vocal cords. Razor-sharp fingers flashed out and circled his throat like a steel cable, instantly shearing his head from his neck.

A whimpering sound issued up from his shipmate’s chest. His bowels let go, and too scared to move, he rocked back on his heels, dropped to the ice, and passed out cold.

The creature dragged its kill behind a stack of crates just as two more deckhands, each on the end of another large box, moved down the ramp and crunched across the ice toward the stack of crates.

A little way behind them, a deck officer followed the men partway down the ramp, supervising the offloading of gear. As the deckhands approached the stockpiled gear, they saw their shipmate sprawled on the ice.

They quickly lowered the box and rushed over to the collapsed sailor. One of the deckhands knelt by the man’s head and raised it up, trying to wake him. And then they were suddenly aware of something staring down at them...

The deck officer, watching from the ship, stood frozen on the ramp and witnessed a horrific scene as the creature fell on the men, turning them into a hideous pile of human pate. When it had finished killing the sailors, it stood in the puddle of carnage and unleashed a terrible victory scream.

The deck officer backed up the ramp, not daring to take his eyes off the creature. Two more steps and he pivoted, then ran for his life, flying up the ramp and disappearing into the ship’s hull.

Inside the hold, the deck officer allowed himself to vomit, then grabbed the edge of the cargo door, and using every ounce of his remaining strength, slammed it shut.

Just before it completely sealed, the tip of a steel wrecking bar was jammed between the hull and the edge of the door, preventing it from locking.

Chapter 51

Inside the main salon, Amy, Harry, Captain Chabot, and Dr. Rousseau fell silent when they heard the eerie sound of the creature’s scream.

“Did you hear that? Oh God, did you hear that?” Amy said, rising to her feet with a terrified look on her face. “It’s here… It’s the creature!”

“Son of a bitch,” Harry said, rising next to Amy, equally terrified.

“Nonsense,” the captain replied. “It’s just one of the men –”

Loud footsteps suddenly echoed toward the main salon. They all looked up as the deck officer arrived in the main entrance.

The officer’s breathing was coming in great ragged hitches, making it impossible for him to speak. Just as his breathing began to normalize and he was about to tell them what had happened –

The blunt tip of the wrecking bar slammed into the back of his head and exited out his mouth in a frothy red spray of broken teeth and splintered bone. It struck the officer with such force that his body sailed across the room until it crumpled against a bulkhead in a pile of ruined flesh.

Amy screamed. “It’s here!”

“Shit!” Harry said, grabbing Amy’s arm. “Let’s get the hell out!”

Captain Chabot and Dr. Rousseau just sat there, not moving, staring dumbly at the slain officer.

“Come on, move!” Harry yelled at the stunned men, reaching out and dragging Dr. Rousseau to his feet.

Recovering, the captain leapt up and shouted, “This way!” then began moving through the bar.

They followed Captain Chabot across the main salon, all the while fighting the unnatural pitch of the deck, entered a narrow passageway and suddenly plunged downwards toward the bowels of the ship, forcing them to use the wall and handrails to keep from falling.

The lights in the stairwell failed, slowing their progress as they continued downward. Amy missed a step and pitched forward, and the only that stopped her from breaking her neck was Harry’s hand catching the back of her parka.

Coming out of the stairwell, they entered a dimly lit corridor lined with flickering bulbs.

“Captain – we’ve got to find a secure room,” Harry yelled forward. “Something with a heavy door.”

“Yes, yes…” the captain replied. “This way,” he said, waving a hand.

They followed the captain, all of them moving as fast as they could down the narrow passageway toward a heavy door at the far end.

The captain spun the wheel that released the locking mechanism at the top and bottom of the door, yanked it open, and they all poured into the room – suddenly finding themselves in the middle of the ship’s galley.

“Seal the doors,” the captain barked, pointing to the far end of the galley.

Harry and Dr. Rousseau each ran to a door, slamming them shut and locking them, then dogged down the heavy metal levers that lined the sides of each airlock.

Amy ran to a porthole and slammed it shut, then screwed down the brass locking nuts that circled each side.

After they were certain that the galley was secure, Harry put a finger to his lips, signaling for everyone to be quiet.

The room fell silent except for the intermittent patter of water dripping from one of the galley’s faucets. A long anxious beat as they all stared at each other’s expressionless faces, and –

Something massive slammed into the door!

They all jumped. Amy screamed and leapt forward, latching onto Harry’s arm.

There was another horrible bang on the door. The creature screamed in rage and frustration. It was a terrible sound that cut through the metal bulkhead like a plasma torch.

“Tell me again there is no other way into the galley,” Harry said, looking at the captain and still holding onto Amy.

The captain had broken into a cold sweat. Mopping his face with the back of his hand, he said, “Only the two airlocks – the room is sealed.”

“Okay, good,” Harry said easing his grip on Amy. “There’s no way it’s coming through a steel door.”

Chapter 52

The chief engineer and a junior officer lurched into the bridge and looked around, astonished to find it empty and seemingly abandoned.

“Where the hell is the watch?” the chief said, clawing his way up to the helm. “Where the hell is everyone? And where the hell is the captain?”

The officer had just bunched up his shoulders and was midway through offering the chief a shrug, when the bridge door slammed open and a terrified-looking Italian deckhand stumbled inside.

“Marko, what is it ?”

“I-I was out on the ice. Hiding. Everyone is dead. Something horrible… huge… It came aboard.”

The chief moved over to Marko, grabbed him, then slapped him across the face. “Get hold of yourself, man.”

The deckhand looked momentarily at the chief’s face, his eyes rolled back in his skull – and he passed out, slumping into the chief’s arms.

“What the hell is going on?”

He lowered Marko to the floor, then went to the phone and hit the page button.

* * * *

Inside the ship’s galley the group had divided into twos, with Harry and Amy slumped against one wall and Captain Chabot and Dr. Rousseau against another, arguing loudly in bursts of French curse words.

And then from an overhead speaker, the chief engineer’s voice boomed into the galley. “Attention, Captain Chabot… This is Chief Leblanc. If you can hear this, call the bridge immediately.”

The captain rose to his feet and moved across the galley to a wall-mounted intercom, punched a button, and leaning into the microphone said, “Chief Leblanc, this is Captain Chabot.”

“Captain! What is going on? I came onto the bridge and it was abandoned!”

“Listen to me, chief. Round up everyone you can and get to a secure cabin. Seal yourselves inside. I am in the galley with Dr. Rousseau and the two people we rescued. Come here to the galley if you can.”

A long, silent beat as the captain waited for the chief to respond.

“Chief, do you copy? The captain demanded. “Chief –”

Still no reply.

* * * *

Inside the bridge, there was a loud scraping sound. The chief’s nose filled with a keen primal musk. He dropped the phone and turned to see what it was. Something whistled through the air, and –

The windows of the bridge went crimson with a film of blood.

“Chief! Chief!” the captain’s voice boomed from the intercom speaker.

* * * *

Back in the galley everyone’s attention was riveted to the overhead speaker. The silent room filled with the terrified screams of the junior officer’s as he was disemboweled by the creature. Then the intercom speaker filled with static and went dead.

Captain Chabot slumped against a wall, cradling his face in his hands.

“God help us,” Amy said.

Harry looked at the captain and shook his head, trying to control his anger, and thought, why hadn’t the arrogant bastard listened to them? Then he said, “What’s the matter, captain? Suffering from a little mal de mer?”

Amy put a hand on Harry’s arm, trying to stop him. She could see the captain was defeated and lost and ruined.

“This can’t be happening,” Dr. Rousseau whispered. “That thing can’t be real.”

The captain raised his head, giving Harry and Amy a direct look. “I owe both of you an apology. I should have listened, but…” The captain stopped himself before he could offer an excuse for his inaction. “It is all my fault.”

“It’s too late for that,” Amy said, her voice filling with resolve. “We’ve got to think…”

The captain went to the intercom and pressed the microphone button. “This is Captain Chabot. All hands… If anyone is able to get to an intercom – call me in the galley.” The captain released the button, then turned to the others. “We’ve got to try and get word to the Coast Guard. The radio in the bridge is out, but there is an emergency radio in my stateroom. If someone is left in that section of the ship, I can direct them to the radio and they can call for help.”

Silence.

They all just stared at the speaker. Waiting. Praying for some response.

“Silence is golden, unless everyone is dead,” Harry said flatly, then looked directly at the captain, letting the indictment hang in the air.

Harry moved along the front of a workbench until he reached a filthy, grease- spattered stove. He began to rifle through a shelf and then pulled open a drawer, looking for anything that he might fashion into a weapon. As the drawer opened, he broke into a smile when a lethal set of Henckel chef knives came into view.

Harry reached into the drawer and pulled out a twelve-inch carving knife, then ran the tip into a chopping block next to the stove, leaving it to stick out of the block at a menacing angle. Reaching back into the drawer, he pulled out two more knives, one of them a boning knife, and stuck both of them into block as well.

“Surely you’re not going to attempt to fight that thing?” the doctor asked, looking at the chopping block now bristling with knives.

“Hey, you guys are the lovers…” Harry said, then held up one of the knives. “I’m an American. Besides, if I have to face that thing, I want to do it with something stronger than your champagne and pate breath.”

“Harry…” Amy implored, “Let’s just keep it together until dawn.”

“I’m not planning anything. I just don’t want to get caught with my pants down if that thing gets in here somehow.”

Harry grabbed a cutting board that had managed to remain on the counter and propped it up against the wall. He grabbed the six-inch boning knife, hefting it to get a sense of the balance, backed up, then holding the knife by its elegantly shaped blade, threw it directly at the cutting board.

The knife sailed through the air, and after four and a half rotations it thudded into the rectangle of wood handle first, ricocheted off, and dropped to the floor.

“Perhaps you should go the champagne and pate route, Monsieur McNills,” the doctor suggested, making no attempted to hide the smugness of his tone.

Amy moved up to the chopping block, removed the 12 inch carving knife and motioned for Harry to stand out of the way. Then she backed up, moving halfway across the room – and holding the knife by the blade – she threw it, snapping her wrist at the last moment. It tumbled through the air, zeroed in on the cutting board, and buried itself in the wood with a sweet “twang” sound.

The captain’s eyes flashed up, and a look of surprise filled his face.

“Bravo!” Dr. Rousseau said, clapping his hands together. “Bravo, Mademoiselle Tyler!”

Harry stared at Amy, and shook his head with amazement. “Maybe you could teach me how to do that.”

Chapter 53

In the Seraph’s bowels, the ship’s three remaining deckhands fled for their lives down a passageway towards the crew’s mess. The floor was wet and slippery, awash with water pouring in from overhead pipes that had been twisted and broken when the ship went up on the iceberg.

“Run!” the sailor bringing up the rear yelled, urging his shipmates on, just as the first two men skidded around a sharp bend, causing them to slam against the far wall, spin along the bulkhead, then regain their footing and continue charging toward an open airlock.

Gerrard was first through the airlock, followed closely by Robert. Both men lost their footing as they landed in ankle-deep water and went spilling across the mess hall floor.

Behind them, the remaining deckhand rounded the corner, then sprinted down the corridor towards the safety of the airlock door, his sneakers making a desperate squealing sound as they splashed through the flooded corridor.

From inside the crew’s mess, Gerrard looked out through the airlock door, then yelled to the approaching deckhand, “Jacques…” And then he saw him try to turn and see what was chasing him. “No! Don’t look back! Move!”

Jacques let his eyes snap forward and saw his buddy. Then his vision narrowed and his whole world suddenly became Gerrard and the airlock door.

From somewhere behind him, somewhere in the shadows of the passageway, horrible wet footsteps thundered up. Just as Jacques was about to dive towards the open airlock, a massive clawed hand clamped over his right shoulder. The feeling that Deckhand Lafond had at that moment was like someone had just driven five railroad spikes into the flesh below his collarbone.

Jacques screamed.

As his screams filled the corridor and poured into the crew’s mess, Gerrard gripped the airlock door – and using his remaining strength – slammed it shut, sending the four locking bolts home by spinning the wheel at the door’s center.

“Jesus Christ,” Robert said, climbing to his feet behind Gerrard, his heart still pounding in his chest like it might break loose from its attachments. “What happened? Where’s Jacques?”

“What do you think happened, idiot? Just like the others… he didn’t make it.”

“Merde,” Robert said, dropping his head. Then, “Gerrard, look at the water.”

Then from behind them, at the far end of mess quarters, the welds around the crushed bulkhead failed and ocean water began to flood, then pour into the room, swirling around tables and chairs and up the legs of the two shocked deckhands.

“Gerrard!” Robert yelled, leaping up onto a countertop. “What are we going to do?”

Gerrard waded over to the leaking bulkhead, running his finger around one edge, hoping there might be some way to stop or slow the water. But it was hopeless. With each passing moment the fissures and cracks in the overstressed steel yawned open wider and wider. And water lapped up over Gerrard’s belt.

“Merde,” Gerrard said, and waded back towards the airlock door. “We’re going to have to get out of here.”

“But how?” Robert asked, looking down at the water as it reached the counter he was standing on, then pooled around his shoes.

“How do you think?”

“No, I’m not going back through that door. No, Gerrard, I’m not going out there. Not with that thing…”

“Shut up. It’s through that door or stay here and drown.”

Gerrard shivered as the cold water moved across his stomach. He reached out, grabbed the wheel, and right before he spun it open, he placed an ear against the metal door and listened to see if he could hear anything… listened to see if he could hear any signs that the creature was standing right there on the other side of the door… waiting in the dark passageway, waiting for them to come out.

Gerrard tightened his grip on the wheel, spun it to retract the bolts, and then tugged on the door trying to pull it open. It didn’t budge. Either it was stuck or the pressure of the water kept it sealed.

“Robert!” Gerrard yelled. “The door is stuck. Come help.”

“I’m not going out there,” Robert said, seeing that the water was now up to Gerrard’s shoulders.

“Robert!” Gerrrard screamed, turning and giving him a ferocious look.

Robert jumped at the tone of Gerrard’s voice. Then, realizing he had no good choice, he stepped off the countertop, crying out in shock as he dropped into the frigid sea water.

Robert made his way over to the door. Gripping the wheel and pulling together, the two men swung the door open. As the water flooded out of the crew’s mess, the deckhands were swept off their feet, carried out through the door, and deposited in the still mostly dry passageway.

They spilled across the floor. Then both desperately looked around, trying to catch any signs that the creature might be there waiting.

Gerrard scrambled to his feet and got Robert out of the flooding water. Then, pulling him by an arm, he led him back up the passageway towards the relative safety of the upper decks. “Follow me. If I say run, don’t think, just do it.”

The two men moved in single file along the passageway. The sounds of flooding water filled their ears, making the journey through the dark corridor even more unnerving. If something was coming for them, they’d never hear it in time. They’d have no warning. No chance. Up ahead, just a few more steps, was the blind corner that they had skidded around not ten minutes ago.

And as the two men approached the bend, the air suddenly filled with a sharp musky smell. Before either of them could react, a huge, shadowy form swept around the corner and rose up and over them. The razor teeth and claws began to bite and tear, and the flooding waters turned crimson with human blood.

Chapter 54

Back in the galley, the mood was tense and anxious. Everybody was counting the hours until dawn broke and help arrived – and each one was wondering whether the creature would return, and whether the door would hold if it did.

After searching and rummaging, Dr. Rousseau had turned up another bottle of champagne and was already a good third of the way through it. Harry found a broom and removed the bristles. Then he bound the handle of the boning knife to one end.

Captain Chabot was a broken man. He sat on the floor with his head in his hands, moaning softly, rocking back and forth, consumed with self-pity.

Amy, who was sitting next to Harry watching him fashion the makeshift spear, stood, went to a porthole, looked out – and in a horror-filled voice said, “No…”

All heads snapped up.

“What?” Harry said, jumping to his feet.

“What is it, mademoiselle?” Dr. Rousseau said, his senses now dulled with wine.

Amy motioned them over to the porthole. Harry got there first with Dr. Rousseau stumbling up behind him and grabbing onto Harry’s shoulder to keep himself from slipping to the floor.

Through the porthole they stared at the iceberg and watched in horror as the creature dropped onto the ice and rolled in the body of a freshly killed sailor.

Dr. Rousseau doubled over and proceeded to vomit up the champagne he’d worked so hard to find.

Then what felt like an earthquake suddenly vibrated along the entire length of the keel – and the Seraph sagged and shifted and then began to slide.

“Son of a bitch!” Harry yelled. “The bastard’s coming off the ice!”

* * * *

Outside, gaping tears spread along the Seraph’s hull, steel plates buckled, and metal groaned. Racing across the ship’s bow, the heavy anchor chain rattled across the deck, sounding like a derailing freight train.

As the stern slipped farther and farther into the sea, the chain was drawn tight, and…

Then from somewhere out on the iceberg a groaning, popping sound filled the air as the anchor was torn out of the hole it was buried in. One of its massive flukes turned and bit down hard into the slick surface, and a wedge of splintered ice sprayed through the air…

* * * *

Inside the galley, the lights flickered off and on. The room filled with the terrible sounds of the hull as it scraped across the ice and slipped towards the sea.

Amy, Harry, Dr. Rousseau, and Captain Chabot watched in horror as water began to rush past the portholes. Then they were all thrown to the floor when the ship suddenly jerked to a stop with another horrible crunching sound.

Amy clawed her way onto her feet and tried to look out of a porthole. “Oh God, we’re under water!”

The others pushed off the floor, staggered to their feet – and all of them immediately saw the dark water pressing in at the portholes.

“Looks like the French navy has a new submarine,” Harry said, not taking any pleasure in the jibe.

The glass lens in one of the portholes went ping – and it cracked. Behind them, across the galley, another porthole cracked with a loud pop, and then another. The twisting ship’s hull was distorting the porthole openings, stressing them far beyond what was ever intended.

From between one of the cracked porthole lenses, Harry watched as a few beads of water quickly turned into a pencil-thin line that arced across the galley and soaked a far wall.

“We’re fucked,” Harry said.

And, bang! The glass in all the portholes failed. Water poured into the galley like it had been shot from a canon, the terrifying roar filling their ears.

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” Harry yelled.

“Monsieur McNills is right,” Captain Chabot said, emerging from his self-pitying funk.

“Welcome back, captain,” Harry said. He grabbed his makeshift spear, then went to the chopping block, pulled out the boning knife, and slipped it into his belt.

Freezing water pooled around their ankles and swirled up their legs as they made their way to the forward galley door.

The captain was the first to reach the door. He knocked open the metal dogs that lined each side, spun the wheel, releasing the locks, then pushed – but the door didn’t move. He leaned forward, putting his weight into it, and heaved. Nothing.

Harry stepped around the captain, placed his hands on the door, and pushing together, they broke the airlock free. The door swept outward against the swirling water.

“Let’s go,” Harry said, stepping into the flooding corridor with the others following close behind.

The team splashed down the corridor, Harry in the lead, spear raised. They swept around a corner and entered a dimly lit passageway just as an overhead light arced with a blue flash and exploded.

They continued forward, pushing toward the bow. With each step, they were relieved to see the water receding around their ankles.

“Where the hell am I going, captain?” Harry asked. “We’ve got to move up.”

“There’s a stairwell at the end of this corridor. It leads to the boat deck.”

Harry grabbed Amy’s hand, and with Captain Chabot and Dr. Rousseau in tow, they moved to the end of the passageway, entered the stairwell, and immediately raced up the companionway.

At the top of the landing, Harry cautiously stepped out of the stairwell, knife-tipped spear at the ready – and entered the ship’s library and sitting room.

Two deeply scarred mahogany bookcases with latching glass doors were filled with ancient-looking leather bound volumes – none of which had probably been read for decades. Overstuffed chairs that had once been arranged neatly around the room were now jumbled and stacked together against an aft bulkhead.

After he was certain it was safe, turned and called back to the others. “All clear.”

Amy entered the room, gripped a handrail that lined one wall and anxiously glanced around. Right behind her, Captain Chabot and Dr. Rousseau pushed inside, and they too immediately grabbed the rail to steady themselves on the slanting floor.

Using the handrail, Amy moved farther into the room and joined Harry next to one of the bookcases.

“Where to now, captain?” Harry called out.

“This way,” the captain said, crossing the room and leading them out the main door at the uppermost bulkhead.

Outside on the boat deck, they gathered along the port rail and saw that the ship had shifted on the ice, and had almost completely slipped off the iceberg. The anchor chain had been drawn piano-wire tight and was the only thing keeping the Seraph from a watery grave.

“My God, the anchor chain…” Dr. Rousseau said, looking down at the chain deck. “It could part at any minute. We’ve got to get off the ship!”

“Au revoir, doc,” Harry said. “I’ll take my chances right here.”

“Harry’s right,” Amy said. “Out there, on the ice – we’d have no chance against that thing.”

“What makes you think it hasn’t returned to the ship?” Captain Chabot offered.

They all turned and looked at Captain Chabot with a, “thanks for bringing that up” look.

Harry glanced up at the ship’s mast, then checked to make sure the boning knife was still in his belt. “I’m going to try for the bridge, see if I can get the radio working.”

“I’m going with you,” the captain said. There was no room for argument in his tone.

Harry stared at him, then gave a nod. “Amy, you and Dr. Rousseau –” Harry stopped in mid-sentence – his eyes locking onto a lifeboat that had been swung out over the rail but was still securely attached to its davits.

“Captain,” Harry said, turning towards Captain Chabot. “Do you think it would be safe for Dr. Tyler and Dr. Rousseau to hide in that lifeboat?”

Captain Chabot smashed his lips together, thinking. Then, with the surefootedness of a veteran sailor, he moved down the deck, stepped up to the lifeboat, and began to examine the lines that secured it to the davits.

“It is safe. All the lines are in good working condition.”

“All right,” Harry said. Then he turned back to Amy and the doctor. “Amy, you and Dr. Rousseau hide in the lifeboat. Keep the canvas pulled across the top. If we’re not back in twenty minutes, get the hell away from the ship.”

“I don’t know, Harry,” Amy said anxiously. “I don’t think we should split up.”

Harry went over to Amy, slipped the knife out of his belt, and held it out to her. “Here. I pity the son of bitch if it runs into you with that.”

Amy took the knife and stared down at the sculpted blade, still unconvinced.

Chapter 55

Harry and Captain Chabot moved through the main salon, The journey back through the ship was much easier as the Seraph had settled into a more forgiving position when it last slipped on the ice.

Moving as quietly as possible, the captain motioned for Harry to pass through a small door next to the ship’s bar.

They entered a narrow passageway lined with teak cabin doors. About halfway down the corridor, one of the cabin doors suddenly swung open – and hanging on a brass clothes hook, the body of a deckhand suddenly lurched out directly at Harry’s face.

Harry yelled. Before he had a chance to stop himself, he ran the tip of his spear clean through the dead man’s chest.

“Shit!” Harry said. Then he staggered back, pulling the spear out of the body.

“Shit.”

“Mon Dieu,” the captain gasped, his face devoid of all color.

“Jesus,” Harry added, staring at the dead sailor. Then he reached out and shut the door, returning the corpse to its hiding place.

“Let’s keep moving,” Harry said, stepping past the door and continuing down the passageway.

“There. On your left,” the captain said, just before they reached the end of the passageway. “That stairway leads up to the bridge.”

Topsides, Harry and the captain moved down an observation deck toward the bridge. As they approached the door, they both crouched down and stopped just short of the opening.

Harry put a finger to his lips and gripped the spear. As he reached for the handle to open the door, the captain put a hand on Harry’s shoulder, stopping him. “I am still the captain of the ship,” he whispered. Then he rose, stepped around Harry, pushed the door open and stepped onto the bridge.

Harry followed the captain inside, and both them stood in stunned silence as they looked around the ruined interior. The helm was completely smashed. The floors and walls were coated with blood, and all the controls and electronics were rent beyond use.

“The radio, captain… Where’s the radio? Harry asked, trying not to slip on the blood-soaked floor.

The captain crossed the bridge and stepped up behind the body of the young officer slumped over the ship’s radio. He lifted the officer, pulling him back into a chair – and as he began to pry the headset from his rigor mortised fingers…

They froze as a scraping sound echoed up toward the bridge. Captain Chabot released the officer and tuned to Harry just as the air filled with an acrid stench.

“Smell that?” Harry whispered.

As the captain nodded, yes, there was a sound outside the bridge. The creature was suddenly there standing right in the doorway!

It was a hideous sight. Its hair was matted with fresh blood, and strips of torn flesh hung from its fingertips.

“Fuck me!” Harry yelled, leaping forward and launching his spear directly at the center of the creature’s chest.

The spear flashed through the air, missed its mark, and stuck the creature in its left shoulder, sending the knife blade deep into its muscle.

The creature screamed out in pain. Then it reached up, snapping the handle in two and leaving the knife buried in its flesh.

“This is bad,” Harry said, nervously stating the obvious.

Captain Chabot leapt forward, grabbed Harry’s arm, and pushed him towards a door on the opposite side of the bridge. “Quickly, out that way.”

Harry rushed across the bridge and hauled the door open. Then he looked back – and realized the captain wasn’t coming.

“Captain!” Harry yelled out.

But the captain ignored him, keeping his eyes locked on the creature. Then without warning he exploded forward, throwing himself directly into the arms of the advancing beast.

“No!” Harry screamed. But the captain was already beyond hearing.

The creature’s claws sank into his flesh and its mouth closed around the captain’s neck. Quick as the falling blade of a guillotine, Captain Chabot’s head rolled free of his body.

Harry flew out of the bridge, pounded down the observation deck, came to the companionway, and threw himself down a flight of stairs, his feet beating out a desperate tattoo as his shoes glanced off the metal treads.

He spilled out onto the boat deck and sprinted toward the lifeboat…

“Amy! Amy!” Harry called as he skidded up to the railing.

The canvas stretched over the lifeboats was torn back and Amy and Dr. Rousseau popped up.

“Harry… Are you okay?” Amy asked, obviously relieved to see him.

“Where is the capitain?” Dr. Rousseau looked anxiously past Harry, scanning the deck beyond.

“He went down with the ship, doctor,” Harry said, then swung a leg over the rail and dropped into the lifeboat. “Come on, help me lower the boat. We’ve got to get away from the ship.”

Harry and the doctor released the lines that ran up to the davits at the bow and stern. As,they let the lines slip through their hands, the lifeboat slowly moved down the hull towards the ocean below.

Amy stripped off the rest of the canvas cover and as the lifeboat slipped past the last row of portholes that lined the hull – it rocked violently and jerked to a stop!

Seconds later, from directly above them, the air exploded with a half-human shriek…

Amy screamed. All heads snapped up. They watched in horror as the creature began to smash and tear at the davits, fouling the lines.

“Goddamnit!” Harry yelled.

The lifeboat fell another ten feet, slamming to a halt against the hull and shearing off an oarlock with a loud crack.

Five feet directly in front of the lifeboat’s bow was an open cargo door.

Harry scrambled forward into the bow, then turned to Amy and Dr. Rousseau and said, “Hold on.” He placed a foot on the rail of the lifeboat, swung out, reached up – and gripping edge of the cargo hold with his left hand, pulled himself forward and somehow managed to tumble into the opening.

“Harry…” Amy called out, hoping he was okay.

A moment later Harry appeared in the cargo hold door and reached a hand out to Amy. “Toss me a line. I’m going to pull the boat over so you and Dr. Rousseau can get out.”

Amy leapt into the bow, coiled a line and threw it to Harry, who snagged it by leaning farther out at the last moment.

Harry gathered up the line and immediately hauled the lifeboat over until it rested at the edge of the opening. “Okay, come on.”

Amy reached out, took Harry’s hand, and he hauled her into the cargo hold.

Dr. Rousseau scrambled forward into the bow and just as he reached out to take Harry’s hand…

The creature ripped the davits out of the ship’s deck, sending the lifeboat plunging downward.

The doctor yelled out. “No!”

Harry’s hand flashed down, clamping around Dr. Rousseau’s wrist, holding him swinging in midair as the lifeboat splashed into the ocean below.

Above them, the creature screamed in frustration and broke apart the railing as Harry dragged the doctor up and into the cargo hold.

Dr. Rousseau sat resting on floor, shaken and out of breath from the close call. When his breathing finally slowed and his heart stopped thumping, he looked up at Harry and smiled. “Merci, Monsieur McNills. You saved my life.”

Harry returned the smile, nodded, and then looked up toward the sound of the creature attacking the Seraph’s boat deck. “Don’t thank me too soon, doctor. It may only be a temporary stay of execution.”

“Where are we?” Amy said looking around the dimly lit cargo hold.

“This is a storage area. The ship’s laundry is through that door,” Dr. Rousseau said, climbing to his feet and pointing toward an airlock. “That is the only way out of this compartment.”

Chapter 56

Harry was the first through the door as they entered the ship’s laundry. The large, open compartment contained two industrial-sized washers, both of which were badly eaten by rust, a large front-loading dryer, stacks of bags filled with soiled uniforms, and corroded, water-stained walls. A toppled soap bin had coated the floor with a dusting of white detergent.

Harry reached down and lifted a laundry bag to clear a path across the room. From somewhere above on the main deck, the creature’s hideous scream echoed through the hull.

“It’s coming, Harry,” Amy said, stepping up behind him.

Harry pitched the laundry bag out of the way, crossed the room to a louvered door, yanked it open, and jumped back when a blood-soaked deckhand slumped down the last few stairs and landed next to his feet with a wet thud. A steady stream of blood flowed from the end of a steel pipe that protruded out of his ribcage.

“Shit,” Harry said. Then he leaned into the stairway, but it was too dark to see where it led.

“That is not the way,” Dr. Rousseau said, “It is a dead end. Over there,” he pointed to another airlock at the far side of the room, “That is the way out.”

Harry pushed past more spilled laundry bags and made his way over to the rusted but still working airlock. He gripped the wheel at the center of the door and spun it. The locks retracted and he swung the door open.

Through the open door, Harry stared at the Seraph’s half-flooded machine shop. Like every other section of the ship, the room was in disarray: pipes, steel stock, grinders, cutting tools, welding tanks, and anything else not tied down lay strewn around a couple of heavy work benches.

Harry passed through the door with Amy and the doctor following close behind.

“Those steps, there,” Dr. Rousseau said, pointing to a companionway opening where a narrow set of steel mesh treads led upwards at a steep angle. “That’s the way up to the main deck.”

As they crossed the room to the stairs, Harry suddenly stopped, and staring out at the flooded section of the shop said, “Wait a minute. I’ve got an idea,” Before either Amy or Dr. Rousseau had a chance to respond, he shrugged off his parka and began to strip to the waist.

“Harry…” Amy said anxiously as he continued to undress down to his underwear.

“Harry, are you crazy?”

He flashed a smile. “I thought we settled that last week.”

“What is this all about, Monsieur McNills?”

Harry stepped into the flooded machine shop, and just before he dove into the water he said, “Be right back.”

He fought the desire to scream as the icy water slipped over his chest and his head disappeared beneath the surface.

Amy and Dr. Rousseau watched as Harry disappeared beneath the surface.

Pumping his arms and legs, he swam to an airlock at the far side of the room, turned the handle, and bracing himself against the floor, opened the door to the flooded room beyond.

Harry swam through the airlock, popped up on the other side and was now in a room where a broad staircase led to the main observation deck.

Shaking with cold, he drew in a lungful of air, slipped back beneath the water, and returned to the half-flooded machine shop.

As he broke the surface and hurried out of the freezing water, Amy raced up to him with a somewhat clean towel and wrapped it around his shoulders.

“Harry, what the hell are you doing?”

He mopped his face with the towel and blinked away some water. “Listen, I’ve got an idea… We’re going to set a trap for that thing.”

“That is preposterous, monsieur,” the doctor snapped, with his typical can-do spirit.

Chapter 57

Amy watched in horror as Harry knelt next to the deckhand who had spilled out of the ship’s laundry and began to smear blood across his arms and face.

“Is that necessary?” Amy asked with a grimace.

“Human blood is like Chanel No. 5 to that thing.”

“Are you entirely sure about this plan, monsieur?” Dr. Rousseau asked.

Harry stood up and gave the doctor a direct look. “Why, do you have a better idea?”

“Ah, no…” the doctor said, shrinking back.

Harry grabbed a towel, wiped the blood off his fingers, and then said, “Let’s go over this one more time.” He moved to the center of the room, and pointing with his hand, ran through the plan. “I come back down the stairs, pass through the laundry room, enter the machine shop, dive down through the airlock at the other end – and as soon as that ugly son of a bitch follows me inside – you two slam the door, and lock it in the machine shop.”

After a silent beat, Harry asked, “Any questions?”

“What if it doesn’t follow you through the door?” Amy asked.

“Then God help us,” Harry said flatly. “But I don’t think it will be able to resist the smell of human blood.”

* * * *

Topsides on the boat deck, the creature moved along in the shadows. It suddenly stopped, sniffing the air. Then, with astonishing speed, it swept into the main salon and disappeared into a dark stairwell.

One deck below the creature, Harry moved down a grimy passageway lit only by a wedge of light spilling out from a partly open cabin door. He took a breath, pulled a knife out of his belt and crept up to the cabin door. Then he reached out with one hand, and pushed the door wide open. The small room was empty.

Harry exhaled and continued down the hallway. Up ahead, he approached a blind corner where the passageway made a sharp right turn.

He slid along the hallway, keeping his right shoulder pinned to the wall. Two feet from the corner, he heard something move on the other side of the wall. He froze, gripped the knife a silent, terror-filled beat, and –

A large rat shot around the corner, brushing past Harry’s legs and scurring down the passageway. He let his breath out and slumped against the wall. Jesus.

Straightening again, he gripped the knife, stepped around the corner, and immediately froze when he heard something move directly above him. Harry glanced up and saw that he was standing beneath a large glass and teak skylight, the kind that can be lifted free to accommodate bulky items.

One deck up, the creature stopped moving, raised its head, sniffed the air, and caught a whiff of Harry’s perfume.

Harry held his breath, straining his ears for some sign of the creature. He looked up, then took a silent step backwards, not wanting to remain beneath the skylight, and –

Without warning, the creature suddenly leapt onto the skylight and came crashing down in a shower of glass and teak.

Before it had a chance to hit the floor, Harry fled for his life.

* * * *

Three decks below, Amy and Dr. Rousseau heard the creature as it crashed through the skylight.

“Mon Dieu!” the doctor yelled.

“Quick, Dr. Rousseau, behind the washers.”

He and Amy scrambled over and as they ducked down behind one of the washers, they heard Harry’s pounding footsteps as he raced through the ship directly towards them.

“He’s coming!” Amy said, gripping the doctor’s arm.

Harry hit the last set of steps. As he entered the companionway, he glanced back, and there, filling the hallway, was the creature rushing toward him at a horrible speed.

Harry’s desperate footsteps got louder and louder…

Amy gripped the washer and peeked over the top just as Harry shot out of the stairwell, flew across the laundry room, passed through the machine shop airlock.

A terrifying roar filled the stairwell, followed by a bone-chilling scream – and the creature crashed into the laundry room, slammed into the dryer, ripping it off its mounts, and swept into the machine shop, hot on Harry’s scent.

Inside the machine shop Harry splashed into the water, dove down, and swam for his life towards the airlock on the other side.

The creature entered the machine shop, screamed when it saw the water – and then shot forward, diving down after Harry.

Harry swam through the submerged airlock, pushed the door shut – and working as fast as his arms would allow, spun the wheel to set the locks, then knocked the dogs into place around the edge of the door.

Back in the laundry room, Amy and Dr. Rousseau leapt up, bolted over to the machine shop door and swung it shut. The doctor leaned forward, throwing his body against the airlock.

And just before the bolts slid into place…

The creature’s arm shot out of the door, and its hand closed around Dr. Rousseau’s shoulder like a metal vise. He screamed in pain as he was lifted off the ground by the creature’s powerful arm.

“Dr. Rousseau!” Amy grabbed onto his belt, trying to stop him from being dragged through the door.

Dr. Rousseau turned and looked directly at Amy. A deep calm passed across his face. He smiled, then pushed her away, let go of the door – and was instantly gone, sucked into the machine shop by the creature’s retracting arm.

Amy yelled, threw herself against the door, slammed it shut, and spun the wheel, driving the bolts into place and locking it from her side.

From behind the door she heard Dr. Rousseau scream out… and then there was a low crunching sound of tearing cartilage and snapping bones.

Amy sobbed and backed away from the door.

The creature attacked the airlock, pounding it with a fist, enraged that it was suddenly trapped.

Amy jumped, staggering back into the laundry room – and then she heard Harry’s voice as he hammered down the stairs.

“Amy –”

“Harry!”

Harry stepped out of the stairwell, soaked and freezing. Water pooled around his feet.

Amy rushed up, threw her arms around him, and hugging him tightly said, “Thank God you’re all right.”

“Where’s Dr. Rousseau?” Harry said, looping his arms around Amy and giving her a squeeze.

“Oh, Harry…” Amy pointed towards the machine shop. “Harry, it was horrible. It got him before we could get the door locked.”

Bang! The creature suddenly hammered on the door again.

They both jumped. “Jesus…” Harry said, looking at the sealed door. “It worked.” And then his whole body was suddenly convulsing with cold.

“Let’s find you some dry clothes, Harry, before you freeze to death.”

“Y-You mean, freeze to death again.”

Harry dug through a laundry sack and found a work shirt and a pair of khakis that were close to his size, stripped, and put them on.

Amy retrieved his parka and held it open for him. Harry slipped into the dry coat, pulling it tight around his chest, desperate for the warmth.

“God, that feels good,” he said, running the zipper up to his neck. “Now what do you say to us getting the hell outta here.”

Chapter 58

Amy and Harry stood on the observation deck and watched as dawn broke over the Arctic. Red streaks of light would soon give way to the rising sun.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so thankful to see the sunrise,” Amy said, keeping her eyes locked onto the brightening horizon.

Harry looked over at Amy, staring at her hopeful face and watching as the morning light picked up the highlights in her hair. “Everything looks better in the morning.”

“I’m not so sure about that. You haven’t seen me before my morning shower,” Amy said with a laugh, then moved up and snuggled into Harry’s side.

“It’s on my to-do list,” Harry said, then leaned down and gave her a kiss. Amy gave him a squeeze and Harry said, “Amy… Thanks. Thanks for the way you’ve handled this… for your help – for keeping it together.”

Amy gave him another little squeeze. “Hey, we’re not out of this yet, Mr. McNills.”

“Good point. Maybe…”

Before Harry could finish his thought, a terrible moan issued up through the steel infrastructure – and the Seraph began to shift on the ice again.

“Harry –!” Amy called out. Their hands shot forward and gripped the rail to keep from falling.

“Shit!” Harry said, cutting his eyes toward the bow. The chain hadn’t parted, and the anchor was holding fast. So the ship wasn’t slipping, Harry thought. Something else was happening.

Then the entire superstructure above the decks shuddered and collapsed, dropping Harry and Amy straight down ten feet. The spine of the Seraph snapped and the keel buckled, sending rivets shooting through the air and ripping open hull plates.

The Seraph teetered and twisted and rolled onto her starboard side settling into a thirty degree list.

Harry and Amy went skidding down the observation deck – and as Amy’s leg swept past Harry, he reached out, grabbing onto it. They tumbled toward the stern, just missing a jagged bit of railing, and mercifully made a soft landing, coming to rest on top of a canvas awning that had fallen across the deck.

After another minute of creaking and groaning, the ship settled onto the ice and all became silent again.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked, his hand still clamped tightly around Amy’s ankle.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said, pushing up into a sitting position. “I can’t believe we didn’t slip off the ice. I thought we were going into the water for sure.”

“The anchor is holding. It’s the ship. She’s breaking up under her own weight.”

“Oh, great, now I feel better,” Amy said with a smile. “For a moment there I thought we might be in real trouble.”

Three decks below, one of the machine shop bulkheads parted from the hull, leaving the airlock door warped and sprung on its hinges.

A scraping sound escaped from the machine shop, then a powerful hand reached out, gripped the damaged door, tore it loose from its mounts, and let it bounce off the floor with a loud metallic clang.

Amy’s head flashed up. “Did you hear that?” she said, giving Harry an anxious look.

“It’s probably nothing – just the ship’s hull settling on the ice.”

Amy looked unconvinced, not buying. “Harry… I think –”

“We should get the hell off the ship,” Harry said, reading her mind, then he jumped to his feet, lifted Amy off the deck, and leading her towards the bow added, “Let’s move…”

Climbing as fast as they could over the battered and twisted decking, they worked their way forward to the bow and then suddenly had to stop – a gaping tear ran across the beam from gunnel to gunnel.

Harry let go of Amy’s hand, and placing his foot on the edge of the tear, leapt forward across the hole. He landed on the sloping deck and stopped himself from slipping backwards by wedging his hand into a scupper at the bottom section of the port rail.

He got to his feet, and keeping one hand locked onto the ship, turned back to Amy, reached out his other hand and said, “Okay, jump and grab my hand. I won’t let you fall.”

“You better not,” Amy said. Planting a foot on the edge of the deck, she sprang forward – and grabbing Harry’s arm, landed safely beside him.

At the very top of the observation deck, Harry saw an empty set of davits that still swung out over the rail with their lines trailing down the side of the ship.

He picked his way across a section of splintered teak decking, then reached out and grabbed one of the lines hanging off the end of the davits and gave it a tug, making sure it was secure. “I think this will work,” he said, looking at Amy.

“Are you going down that?” Amy asked, looking a little skeptical.

“No, we’re going down that,” Harry replied, leaning over the rail to see where the rope ended. “Looks like it’ll take us right down to the ice.”

“Is it safe?”

“Compared to what,” Harry said flatly. “Staying on the ship with that thing?”

“Right…” Amy said. “Let’s do it.”

Harry climbed over the rail, gripped the rope, then stepped off the ship, scissoring his legs around the thick line. “Watch how I do it.” Then Harry let the rope slip through his hands, controlling his downward speed by clamping his shoes on the line as it passed between his legs.

Twenty seconds later he dropped onto the iceberg, landing perfectly on his feet.

“Nothing to it,” Harry said, yelling up to Amy. “C’mon, I’ll hold the line steady.”

Amy climbed over the rail – and just like Harry, she gripped the line, locked her legs around the rope and smoothly descended to the ice below.

Three decks down, the creature flashed across the laundry room and leapt into the stairwell leading up to the main deck.

The sun had cleared the horizon and was high enough in the sky to cast a golden glow across the top of the iceberg. Some light was just beginning to strike the Seraph’s twisted hull.

Harry and Amy hiked up the iceberg, pausing for a moment as they passed the massive anchor – now buried in the ice only by the tip of a rusted fluke. They made their way over to the area where the sailors had been instructed to stockpile supplies. Next to the stacks of crates and boxes was a double-ended, eight-man life boat, its canvas cover still stretched tightly across the gunwales.

Patches of bloodstained ice swept in and around crates and equipment – and off in the distance, a flock of arctic gulls fought over chunks of flesh and picked at human bones.

Amy stared down at a blood-spattered crate, then turned away and thought to herself what a nightmare this had all turned out to be.

Harry busted open one of the crates, removed a case of water, humped it over to the lifeboat, then turned and called to Amy. “See if you can find any food in those crates. I think we should load up the lifeboat just in case.” Harry pulled back the canvas cover and placed the water inside.

“Over here, Harry,” Amy said, lifting the lid off a box. “There’s a bunch of canned food.”

Working together, they sorted through the supplies, stacking what they planned to take on the ice next to the crates. “Keep your eyes open for a radio,” Harry said. “They may have left a portable two-way out here.”

After they were satisfied that the lifeboat was well provisioned, Amy began to stamp her feet and rub her arms, then looked up at the rising sun, willing it to hurry up.

“Do you think they’ll find us, Harry? Will they come?”

“Oh, yeah. No question. Absolutely. Now that the weather’s lifted they’ll be up and flying grids with everything they’ve got.”

Amy nodded and smiled and Harry, feeling a little better now. Then she stamped her feet again and said, “I’m freezing, Harry.”

“Yeah, me too,” Harry said, sympathetically, then moved up and looped an arm around her shoulders. Harry looked up at the sun, then let his eyes drift back down to the supplies stacked on the ice. As he stared at the boxes, a little smile suddenly spread across his face.

Harry slipped his arm off Amy’s shoulders, went over to the stack of supplies and began to break up two of the empty crates.

“Harry, what are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing… I just thought I’d whip us up a little campfire – unless of course you don’t want me to?”

“Oh, God, yes… Let me help.”

They arranged the salvaged wood into a pile on top of wadded balls of paper and bits of plastic packing material. Harry pulled a butane lighter out of his parka, lit the paper – and a couple of minutes later they were warming themselves in front of a crackling fire.

Amy turned to warm her back, while Harry remained facing the flames with his hands stretched out to warm his fingers. He pulled his hands back and slid them into his pockets, then let his eyes wander back to the stack of boxes.

“I wonder if they left any champagne out here… I could sure go for that drink about now. How about you, Dr. Tyler? Could I interest you in a little French champagne?”

Silence. Amy made no attempt to respond. It was like she hadn’t heard him.

Harry turned, looked at Amy, and noticed that she was suddenly standing stiff as a board staring at the Seraph with a look of terror frozen onto her face.

“Amy –” Harry said, still looking at her. “What… What is it?”

She still couldn’t speak, and instead, raised an arm and pointed in the direction of the ship.

Harry flipped around, stared out across the ice – and suddenly understood.

There, standing on the Seraph’s bow, bathed in morning light, was the creature. It looked huge, grotesque. Its arms hung loosely at its side and two yellow predatory eyes zeroed in on Harry and Amy. It raised its head, and then it shrieked…

“No –!” Amy yelled, and then she began backing away as a wave of cold fear knifed through her body.

They watched as the creature swung off the bow, grabbed onto the anchor chain and, moving hand over hand, worked its way down to the ice below.

Running on pure adrenaline, Harry bolted forward, grabbed an empty crate, dragged it over to the fire, and using one of the broken crate slats, began filling the box with coals and as much of the burning wood as possible.

When he’d half-filled the crate, he turned and yelled for Amy to grab some wood and follow him. Then he lifted the crate, leapt forward, and ran down the iceberg towards the buried anchor.

The creature had worked its way down most of the chain and was just about to drop onto the ice…

When Harry skidded up to the anchor and poured the hot coals across the partially buried fluke, letting the embers spread across the ice. Amy rushed up right behind him, and Harry motioned for her to throw the wood onto the fire. Then he busted up the crate he’d transported the coals in and threw that on the fire as well. The fire flared up, burning bright and hot.

The creature dropped onto the ice and was now moving along the anchor chain directly toward them, closing the distance fast.

Harry grabbed their last piece of wood and shoved it into the fire. Then he stared defiantly at the creature. “Come on, you son of a bitch!”

The creature heard him, and dropping into a defensive crouch, kept moving up the chain with deadly precision.

Amy screamed…

It was almost right there, right on top of them… twenty yards… ten… and then… the fire suddenly exploded!

There was a loud pop. Sparks and ice sprayed up as –the anchor broke free from the ice, rising into the air with a cascade of burning coals spilling off its rusted flukes.

As the Seraph slipped off the iceberg, the anchor looped up into the air, twisted, slammed back into the ice, jumped back up, and was now flying directly toward the advancing creature.

Just before it reached the creature, one of the giant flukes rotated downward, and slammed perfectly into the creature’s chest, impaling the beast like a giant fisherman’s gaff.

The creature cried out with a hideous scream as it was torn back off its feet…

As the Seraph slipped off the iceberg and plunged down to a watery grave, the creature was dragged helplessly across the ice. At the last moment it was yanked into the air, pulled down into the water, and sucked into the black depths of the North Atlantic – both ship and beast lost forever.

Harry and Amy stood holding each other, not quite believing what had just happened.

Then off to their left, the fifty-plus gulls that had been feeding on human carrion lofted into the air. Twisting and flapping and screeching, they circled into the sky above the iceberg.

Harry’s eyes flicked toward the fleeing gulls. Then in an ominous voice he said, “Oh, shit…”

“What?” Amy snapped urgently, looking at Harry’s terrified expression. “What is it?”

“It’s going to roll! The iceberg’s going to roll!”

“What? What are you talking about?” Amy said, not comprehending.

“The birds!” Harry yelled and pointed to the wheeling gulls. “Quick, the lifeboat! It’s our only chance.” He grabbed Amy’s hand and they sprinted across the ice, scrambling into the lifeboat and pulling the canvas tight – just as their world began to move and tilt…

And then the iceberg rolled.

Harry and Amy braced themselves, locking their arms and legs against the hull –
and then they suddenly tobogganed down the iceberg toward the water in their little bullet-shaped lifeboat.

The massive block of ice rolled forward towards the sea…

At the last moment, just before the iceberg completed its roll, the lifeboat lifted off the ice and pitched into the sea, landing on its port rail and skidding along the ocean’s surface.

As it righted itself, the lifeboat was picked up by a giant wave that swept from beneath the rolling iceberg.

Amy screamed, “Harry!”

Harry popped up from beneath the canvas – and working the tiller, steered the boat as they rocked over the lip of the wave and squirted down its steep face. As the boat coasted to a stop on the sea’s glassy surface, Harry and Amy turned back and looked at the now unfamiliar-shaped iceberg.

“I can’t believe that just happened! I can’t believe any of this happened,” Amy said, then leaned back and gave Harry a hug. “I can’t believe we’re still alive… And I can’t believe that creature is finally gone.”

“It’s impossible,” Harry said. “No one is going to believe it – to believe us.”

And then, high above – the air filled with the thrum of a plane’s engines as a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 circled overhead. They jumped up, yelling and waving their arms. Harry began to laugh and Amy burst into tears of joy. Maybe they were going to live after all.

“God, I love those Coast Guard boys!” Harry reached forward, grabbed Amy, and gave her a big bear hug – then watched as the flock of arctic gulls swooped down and returned to the iceberg. “Okay, that’s it. No more of this bush pilot crap. From now on I want my life to be completely boring and predictable.”

Amy lifted her head off Harry’s shoulder and gave him a direct look. “Too late, Harry…” And then she rose up on her toes, leaned forward, and kissed him hard on the lips.

Harry looked at her smiled, and whispered something, but his words were drowned out by the roar of C-130’s engines as it made another pass above the iceberg.

Chapter 59

One Week Later

Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland

A gibbous moon rose off the Atlantic in the spring night sky, sending a sword of light cutting across the bay where it struck the shore and rent upwards across a steep gravel beach.

The tide was ebbing, but every so often a large wave would break with enough force to send a sheet of water racing to the top of the beach.

After one of the big breakers hit and the ocean receded, an object deposited at the top of the beach flopped around in the moonlight. It was about three feet long and eight inches thick and looked as though it had been ripped in half – maybe a piece of insulation, or part of a life preserver or life raft.

Another wave roared up the beach, flipping the object over and exposing a line of block letters that read: C E M A C H I N.

It was wreckage from the Ice Machine that had somehow defied the prevailing winds and currents and had been tossed up on the Avalon Peninsula.

Sitting on a rocky point overlooking the gravel beach was a weathered fishing shack, cobbled together with stones and bits of driftwood. Smoke curled up from a crumbling chimney and soft yellow lantern light spilled out the crooked doorway.

Inside the shack, a man warmed himself in front of a log fire as he worked his way through a bottle of aquavit, pouring double shots into a small water glass.

His name was Jens Jensen, a crane operator from St. John’s. When the weather permitted and he had a few days off, he’d come here to his little shack on the steep gravel beach to surf fish and get drunk on the strong, vodka-like alcohol his father had taught him to drink.

Jens lifted his glass, draining it in one swallow. As he reached for the bottle to refill it, he heard a strange sound outside the door…

A scraping sound.

He turned, letting his bloodshot eyes settle on the door’s weathered planking, straining to hear the sound again.

Nothing.

He was just about to turn back to the fire, thinking it was nothing, when he heard it again – a loud scraping sound, this time right at the door. He rocked forward, and as he stood, a primal animal musk filled his nostrils – rank and horrible.

Jens reached out and grabbed an old side-by-side 12 gage he kept handy next to the fireplace in case he had to scare off a hungry polar bear. He moved to the front door, yanked it open, and –

Before he ever had a chance to level the shotgun, a hairy arm flashed through the air and fingers like steel circled his throat. Jens Jensen was already dead when he was dragged through his doorway and out into the still arctic night.

Creepers

Bryan Dunn

Doc Fletcher, an eccentric biologist in the remote Mojave Desert, has finally created the ultimate drought-tolerant plant: a genetically engineered creeper vine. It’s destined to change the world, but not according to Doc’s plans. Instead, this vine has a mind of its own. Mayhem ensues as the residents of Furnace Valley (pop. 16), along with campers at the nearby hot springs, run for their lives— led by wannabe date rancher Sam Rainsford and the nerdy yet gorgeous botanist Laura Beecham, who has come to the desert for a reunion with the father she has never known…

www.BryanDunnBooks.com

Chapter 1

A man pushed aside a large bromeliad, the sweat beading on his face as he reached up and gripped the tip of a fleshy leaf—ficus elastica—pulling it down so as to examine its lustrous surface. He bent the leaf to eye level. A silver bead of water rolled across the waxy surface—and just before it lipped off the end, he ducked forward, deftly catching the drop in his mouth.

“Ah,” he said, smacking his lips with delight. He looked and acted like he’d just had a sip of Dom Perignon. His name was Henry Fletcher, Dr. Henry Fletcher to be precise. In school, everyone had called him Fletch. And now, forty years later, friends just called him Doc.

Fletcher was dressed in his “uniform”: khaki shorts, white T-shirt, and dirty sneakers. His bald head was deeply tanned, and a dusting of white stubble covered his face. Humming softly to himself, he took a couple of steps, parted a wall of trumpet vines, stepped through the opening, released the vines—and let the lush foliage press in around him. Standing there, he could almost feel the jungle as it hissed and throbbed, striving up towards the filtered light.

Up ahead, looming out of the shadows, flowering epiphytes beguiled with fleshy, naked-looking petals. And higher up, a hubcap-sized leaf tilted toward the morning light, exposing a stand of bamboo bristling with new growth as its shiny epidermis drank in the life-giving energy.

There was a sudden movement. One of the bamboo leaves twitched, and then swiveled completely around. What had moments ago looked exactly like a leaf morphed into a chartreuse-colored grasshopper. It waggled its antennae—further shedding its disguise—then clambered over to a tender shoot of bamboo and quickly devoured it.

There was a rush of air as a shadow fell across the grasshopper. It twisted its head just in time to see the open maw of a quick little bird—and then it was snapped up. The bird gripped the grasshopper by its thorax and darted to a vine, lighting on a sinewy-looking stalk covered with medusa-like tendrils.

The vine looked strange, almost primordial. Everything about it was menacing and unnatural-looking. The leaves were alien-blood green and covered with tiny scales that looked like the back of a boa constrictor. Raised liver-colored splotches mottled its stalks and roots.

The bird finished its meal and then cleaned its beak by wiping it across the stalk at its feet—the sharp little beak making a swick swick sound, like the blade of a knife being worked along a steel. Then the bird fluffed its feathers and began to preen.

A moment later it froze, sensing something was wrong. It tucked in its wings and lifted its head, waiting for any danger to pass.

The air was completely still now as an eerie silence surrounded the bird. A beat, and the silence was shattered by a sharp rustling sound—like a rake being swept through a pile of dead leaves. There was another rattle—and the bird was suddenly caught in the vine! It kicked and flapped its wings, but it was no use. Something was horribly wrong. Panicked, it began to flail madly about, desperate to escape.

The bird let out an anguished screech, unable to free itself, then fell on its side and stopped moving. It was trapped! Something was holding on to it!

In a last attempt to gain its freedom, the bird twisted up and spread its wings, but they wouldn’t work. With every movement, the vine’s wispy tendrils locked tighter and tighter around its body. Then, as quickly it had begun, it ended and the bird stopped moving. There was another sharp rattling of leaves, and the bird disappeared, swallowed up by the strange-looking vine.

Silence.

At the foot of the vine, littered across the ground, dead birds stared vacantly up at nothing. They looked shriveled and dehydrated.

Like something had sucked them dry.

Chapter 2

A minute later, the air around the vine filled with a loud crunching sound as Fletcher brushed aside a cycad leaf and stepped up to the strange-looking vine.

He stared at it for a moment, taking in its height and girth, then reached out and lifted one of the scaly-looking leaves, lightly pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. Almost reptilian, he thought to himself.

He released the leaf, reached into a pocket, retrieved a small plastic ruler, and measured one of the vine’s stalks, noting the distance between two leaf nodes. “Remarkable,” he mouthed to himself.

He moved to another section of the vine, lifted a stalk, and repeated the measurement. “Amazing,” he said, this time right out loud. He pocketed the ruler, exchanging it for a Sony handheld recorder.

Fletcher held the recorder up to his mouth, and continuing to study the vine, began to speak into the microphone. “June one. Day five. No water. Growth unabated.”

He clicked off the recorder, then reached out to collect one of the remarkable-looking leaves. As he went to pull it free, he yanked his hand back, yelling “Ouch!” Then he thought to himself, Did that stalk just move?

He held a finger up to his eyes. A perfect little red bead formed on the tip. He popped the finger in his mouth, washing away the blood, then spoke into the recorder. “Note to self, select out thorns on the Fletcher Creeper.”

He reached out to collect another sample—then froze when he heard a mysterious sound. What the heck was that? He retracted his hand, keeping his eyes glued to the vine.

Silence, nothing moved.

He continued to wait, but nothing happened. Just as he was about to discount it, the vine came to life and began to shake and rattle, trembling from within. Then, without warning, a stalk shot up into the air, striking him in the center of the chest. Fletcher yelled, pitching back from the vine, and—

The air in front of his eyes turned bright red. Then yellow. Then green. And his ears filled with a skull-splitting sound, “Squawk-Squawk-Squawk.”

A second later, a scarlet macaw exploded upwards, freeing itself from the vine’s thorny clutches. It tumbled through the air, somersaulted above his head, and landed haphazardly on a ficus branch. Then it swung its body forward until it was hanging upside down directly in front of Fletcher’s startled face.

“Darwin! Jesus Christ! You scared me half to death.” He bent down, picked up the recorder, dusted it off, and took a step toward the macaw.

“You’re one bad move away from a hatband, Darwin.”

Using his head and outsized beak, Darwin righted himself on the branch and challenged the doctor with another series of ear of earsplitting and unmelodious squawks. Then, as if daring him, Darwin shook his head and fanned his tail, displaying a blaze of gaudy feathers.

Fletcher’s lips flattened into a thin line. Then without warning, he lurched toward Darwin, trying to get his hands around the bird’s feet.

“You’re a feather duster, Darwin!”

Right before his fingers closed around the macaw’s feet, Darwin leapt up. Screeching and flapping his wings, he looked like a tie-dyed T-shirt that had suddenly anthropomorphized and been tossed into the air.

Fletcher lost his footing, pitched forward, and spilled headfirst out of his rainforest and into the hundred-degree heat of a desolate section of California desert—a place called Furnace Valley.

Shangri-la, if you happen to be a rattlesnake.

Fletcher lay in the sand, sprawled on his back, staring up at the cloudless sky. He’d already forgotten about Darwin and was thinking about the vine again. No water and the thing was growing like a weed! And just as new thought formed in his head, his concentration was shattered by a loud screeching sound.

Seconds later, Darwin shot out of the greenhouse like a scarlet-colored fighter jet, buzzed Fletcher, and swept into the sky. High overhead, the macaw leveled its wings and made a graceful banking turn as it circled above.

Darwin’s view from four hundred feet up made the Fletcher compound look like a tiny green thumbprint in a sea of brown. The green thumbprint consisted of two buildings with a small pond off to one side. There was the aforementioned greenhouse, and next to that, the main building—or rather, the house that did double duty as Fletcher’s laboratory. The house had a peaked roof, rough-cut redwood siding, and a deep-shade porch that surrounded it on three sides, making it look like something out of an old western.

Fletcher Exotics. That’s what botanist and geneticist Dr. Fletcher called his operation. He specialized in creating and breeding exotic plants for medicinal and agricultural use.

Five years ago, he had unceremoniously parted company with his academic colleagues after the university where he worked cut funding for his research project—a project that would later produce groundbreaking results in the area of high-yield row crops.

He had pleaded with the administration for more time. Another six months, a year tops, telling them that he was on the brink of having the science hammered out and that the university would soon have something to show for its investment.

The Dean was unmoved and impatient. He demanded results. The university demanded results. But Fletcher had stood firm, not willing to rush his work and publish his findings prematurely. They gave him one week to change his mind and get his head right. And when he refused, the administration pulled funding for the entire department.

One week after that, Fletcher severed his relationship with the university—but not before firing off a round of scathing e-mails proclaiming the Dean and his sycophantic minions to be a bunch of four-footed, risk-averse bean counters—bereft of imagination.

In the end, as it turned out, Henry Fletcher had the last laugh. Six months after resigning, he sold a genetically engineered strain of corn to a consortium of ethanol producers for a cool ten million bucks. With one handshake, Dr. Fletcher had become wealthy—but more important than that—now he had all the funding he needed to continue his work, untrammeled by the whims of picayune-minded bureaucrats.

Chapter 3

Seven miles from the Fletcher place, down a bad stretch of gravel road, was the Rainsford Ranch—home to a hundred-year-old adobe, a barn that slanted in the direction of the prevailing winds, a water storage tank, and a shiny metal pumping station.

But the thing that got everyone’s attention, the most astonishing feature of the ranch, were the date palms. Twenty acres of them, row after perfect row. Just in case any would-be visitor was unsure of what they were seeing, a hand-painted sign on a plank nailed between two gateposts read: Rainsford Ranch, Future Home of the World’s First Seedless Date.

Sam Rainsford maneuvered the deuce and a half army truck, a 6x6 troop carrier that had been stripped of its benches and converted to a water tanker, through a section of the orchard. Sam loved the date palms—how it felt to be right in the middle of them—like a dream, or being lost in some exotic land. They were Deglet Noor dates, a variety prized for their plentiful, semisweet fruit and newfound antioxidant properties. They were especially well suited to the arid climate of California’s low deserts.

Sam wrestled the wheel, threading the tanker between a row of palms and out onto a dirt siding, letting the truck’s tires drop into two deep ruts that ran down its center. He reached over to the glove box, opened it, and pulled out an old Polaroid snapshot. It was a picture of his family at Lake Tahoe, all of them lined up along a boat dock, ready to dive into the lake on his dad’s signal.

As the truck settled into the twin grooves, he instinctively added a little gas and loosened his grip on the wheel. With the truck guiding itself now, he relaxed and allowed his mind to wander. He began to think about his life—and how he’d come to the desert.

Three years ago during a family vacation, while traveling down a Los Angeles freeway, his parents and baby sister, Alex, were all killed trying to avoid a drunk college student who was going the wrong way. The motor home they were riding in was forced to make an impossible maneuver as it swerved to avoid the kid’s BMW. The motor home skidded sideways, hit a railing, and rolled down a hundred-foot embankment, bursting into flames before it reached the bottom. No one inside had a chance. They were all dead by the time the paramedics arrived.

The student was, of course, completely unscathed—except for the head-splitting hangover that would arrive in the morning. It was made worse by the fact that Sam’s dad had just retired after forty years of guiding commercial jets safely in and out of LAX airspace. This was to have been their first trip in the family’s new motor home.

Besides missing them everyday, the thing he couldn’t get over was how permanent death was. Open and shut. Here… and then suddenly gone forever. All those things left unsaid. And now no chance of ever saying them.

It was going to take a lot more time before he could let them go. To say goodbye. That was why, after the accident, Sam left the construction company he’d help start and came to the desert, to this farm. It was his last connection to his family. His dad had loved the orchard—and now Sam, too, had fallen in love with the place. There was something about the desert… a timelessness. That, and the solitude—no next-door neighbors. All Sam really wanted was to be left alone.

He looked at the photograph one last time, then returned it to the glove box.

Chapter 4

Thirty years ago Sam’s dad, Jack Rainsford, had bought the place from his boss, Bucky White—whose wife, as it turned out, was not a fan of the desert, or of date palms for that matter. After just one visit, she refused to return, making it clear she would have nothing more to do with the place.

Bucky was heartbroken. His private dream of retiring to the desert and growing dates had been dashed forever on the rocks of his wife’s discontent. Actually, his wife had said, “Fine,” he could go. Only, as she made it abundantly clear—he’d be going without her.

It was a tough choice, touch and go for a short while. But in the end, Bucky capitulated, not wanting to break up the family over a piece of land, and he agreed to sell the place. In fact, Bucky already had a new plan. What he’d do was take the money from the sale and buy a yacht—a big-ass cruiser. And if his wife didn’t want to go to sea, so be it.

After deciding to sell, Bucky created a professional-looking flyer with a color picture of the date palms lit by the morning sun. Below the photograph was a short descriptive paragraph listing the orchard’s assets.

When Jack Rainsford took his morning coffee break and saw the flyer taped to the water cooler, it was all over. It was love at first sight. Something about all those palms lit by that golden desert light, and all that open space surrounding them…

A man could have his own private oasis!

Anyway, as they say, one look was all it took. Jack had to have it. And he couldn’t believe the price! Bucky was almost giving the place away. Twenty acres for less than what he’d paid for a small tract home thirty years ago.

The deal was struck that very day. Bucky allowed that Jack could put twenty percent down and then pay off the rest over the next ten years. Before they shook hands, Bucky wondered if maybe Jack should check with his wife first, telling him it had been his personal experience that some women didn’t care for surprises. But Jack quickly pooh-poohed the idea, waving his hand in the air, and said he was positive she’d love it as much as he did.

It was a no-brainer, she loved to garden.

As fate would have it, the curse of the date orchard was paid forward. After just two trips to the Rainsford Ranch, his wife had had enough. Whereas his dad had found living in the primitive adobe quaint and adventurous, his mother had declared the structure, not deigning to use the word house, unsanitary, dangerous—unfit for anything but the lowest of vermin. She pronounced the orchard, and the entire town of Furnace Valley, to be a “Blasted, godforsaken hellhole!”

Undeterred by his wife’s rejection, Jack had refused to let the place go. For the next couple of years, he spent much of his free time—weekends, mostly—tending to the orchard and soaking up the stark beauty of Furnace Valley and the surrounding hills. He never tired of it.

* * *

Sam let the truck roll to a stop as he thought about the first time his dad had brought him to the ranch to “camp out.” He was only six years old, but he could still remember his first time running through the palms. The cool, filtered shade. The dry rattle of dusty fronds. And, most of all—the sublime relief from the midday sun.

He lowered his head as tears brimmed in his eyes…

He was never going to stop missing them.

Chapter 5

Curley watched from just inside the barn as Sam rumbled up in the tanker, made a U-turn, and positioned the truck beneath the large water tank.

The truck door kicked open, and Sam let his six-foot-two frame slide out of the cab and drop to the ground. He scanned the compound, then faced the barn, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Curley!”

Not waiting for a response, Sam moved to the water tank and started up a ladder that was welded to the side.

As he stepped onto a catwalk that ran along the top of the tank, he turned and yelled again. “Curley! Get your butt out here and help me fill the truck.”

A moment later the barn door swung open, and Curley clumped out into the daylight. He was dressed in dust-covered work clothes and a tattered John Deere cap that rode on the back of his bald head. The nickname “Curley” was given to him by the locals on account of the bushy red beard that covered most of his face.

Curley was a thirty-something Furnace Valley mystery. No one seemed to know where he’d come from—or, for that matter, how he’d gotten there. He’d just appeared one day in town, wandered out to Sam’s place, and never left.

He and Sam struck a deal. In exchange for chores around the ranch, Sam let Curley move into the tack room attached to the rear of the barn. Delighted, Curley seized on the offer and now spent most of his free time upgrading his new digs. What exactly Curley meant by upgrading, Sam had yet to figure out.

But it was clear Curley loved the place.

And Sam knew why.

All those palms.

“Okay, okay… I’m coming,” Curley waved, moving completely out of the barn’s shadow. “Jeez, Sam, where’s the fire?”

As Curley angled toward the truck, Sam did a double take when he noticed Curley’s boots. “What in the hell, Curley,” Sam said, pointing to the boots. “You been drinking?”

Curley looked down, staring at his scuffed Justin work boots. They had been laced up backwards—right on left, left on right—so the toes pointed comically outward.

After a moment he looked up and said, “Yeah, yeah, I know…” Then he stared down at the ground self-consciously and added, “You seen how I walk, Sam, all pigeon-toed like. Well, it come to me in a dream. A voice says, put them sonsabitches on backwards, Curley. Take a corrective action. Straighten things out.”

“Unbelievable,” Sam said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, pretty smart, huh?”

“No. Unbelievably stupid.”

“Oh, don’t say that… don’t say that, Sam.”

And then, without warning, directly behind Curley, a fat Mojave green rattlesnake warped out from beneath the barn and slithered towards his feet.

Chapter 6

Sam couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the snake zero in on Curley. It was moving directly toward him at a good clip.

“Curley! Behind you! Rattlesnake!”

“Yeah, right Sam.” Curley hooked his thumbs in his pockets, rolled his eyes. “You must really think I’m stupid.”

Sam moved to the edge of the tank and in an urgent voice said, “Behind you, Curley. Move!”

Still not buying, Curley said, “You just want to see me jump forward and fall flat on my face.”

“Curley, look down. Look between your legs. Now!”

Sam watched as a little fear crept into Curley’s eyes. And then he saw a look that swept across his face that said, Maybe Sam’s not joking.

Curley swallowed, then slowly lowered his head until his eyes were staring at the toes of his boots. Then he carefully lifted his right foot—and there, only inches from the back of his legs, was a four-foot-long rattlesnake. Its tongue flicked in and out as it sized up one of Curley’s ankles.

Curley’s head snapped up. His mouth fell open. And, saucer-eyed, he leapt forward, took a few steps, but with the toes of his boots going in opposite directions, all he managed to do was fall and land flat on his face.

“Curley!” Sam yelled just as Blossom, a three-hundred-pound sow, came trotting around the side of the barn, shot over to the unsuspecting snake—and, with a couple of fancy moves, did a pig’s version of the Mexican hat dance, killing the snake and severing its head with her sharp hooves.

Blossom gave a victorious snort. She grabbed the snake in her mouth, violently shaking it back and forth—and then, with a flick of her head, sent it sailing through the air, landing in a ruined heap next to one of the tanker truck’s tires. Blossom snorted with delight, trotted over to Curley, and began slurping his face up one side and down the other.

“Blossom, no!” Curley protested, pushing up into a sitting position. “Blossom, now cut that out!”

“That pig hates snakes,” Sam said, breaking into laughter.

Curley shooed Blossom away, then climbed to his feet and dusted himself off. But it made little difference in his appearance. A cloud of dust just seemed to follow Curley around.

“Jeez, Sam, I thought you was kidding,” Curley said as he made his way to the truck.

“Yeah…” Sam answered flatly, then he lowered a pipe from the top of the water tank. “Now, if you think you can handle it, how about swinging that fill pipe over to the truck?”

“I can handle it, Jeez…” Curley protested. He grabbed a rope that hung from the end of the pipe and swung it towards the truck, positioning it directly over an open hatch at the top of the tank.

“Okay, let her rip.”

Sam spun a valve and water rumbled through the pipe, a moment later flooding out the end with a loud whoosh.

Curley, still clutching the rope, instinctively took a step back to avoid being splashed and tripped over his ill-fitting boots. As he fell to the ground, the fill pipe swung out from the truck and poured its contents directly across his face.

Chapter 7

A wedge of water kicked into the desert sky. There was a loud roar, and a speedboat towing a water skier shot down the center of the California Aqueduct, a four hundred and forty-four mile long, cement-lined river that runs north to south, supplying water to the thirsty metropolis of Los Angeles.

The water skier screamed with delight as he illegally skied along the aqueduct, carving its glassy surface at over forty miles per hour.

* * *

A couple of miles away, just out of view, a Honda Civic drove through the nothingness of California’s interior desert.

A hundred and five degrees on the asphalt.

Not a cloud in the sky.

The jumping off spot for flyover country, the elite’s name for anything other than the two coasts.

Behind the wheel of the Honda was 33-year-old Dr. Laura Beecham. She was on unpaid leave from her job heading up the botany department of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

Not her dream job.

Not by a long shot.

What she really wanted to be doing was field work. Tramping around a Venezuelan rainforest, maybe. Or exploring some exotic volcanic crater in East Africa.

Before she went on leave, she had promised herself to redouble her efforts and start shopping her resume. She needed to find work in the private sector. That was where the juiciest overseas research opportunities existed—the chance for real achievement and advancement. She was going bonkers at the museum, and besides, there was nothing divine to her about living in the City of Angels.

As the midday sun hammered down, Laura let her eyes drift up to the horizon. Wall-to-wall silica out there. And hot enough to make glass. Her mind leapt right past the common term, sand, and spit out the scientific classification, silica She laughed and thought to herself, What a nerd.

But she sure didn’t look like one.

Laura reached up, pulled back her hair, then released it. A waterfall of thick chestnut locks spilled down around model-perfect cheekbones. She was tall and fit and had a swimmer’s body.

Only she didn’t swim.

Women that looked like her were born that way, the recipients of a genetic windfall. A bitter reality for the envious.

Other women of course.

Just another thing to overcome, was how Laura thought about her looks.

Yes, it was nice to be attractive—but in her line of work, women that looked like her were usually married.

To the CEO.

They weren’t whip-smart botanists who dreamed of unlocking nature’s secrets, or maybe finding a cure for lymphoma in an undiscovered plant hidden in some remote rift valley.

Her unpaid leave was about taking some personal time. About tying up loose ends. About mending fences. About forgiveness—making some family peace—or at least trying to.

Family peace.

What a concept.

Chapter 8

The strange noise that issued from deep inside the Honda’s dashboard sounded like a death rattle. A moment later, an uneven thrashing sound filled the car. Metal on metal. Laura reached forward and thumped the top of the dash, trying to stop the mechanical arrhythmia.

This had happened before.

She thumped the dash again. The car’s cabin fell silent. The damn AC had just flatlined.

In the middle of the desert!

“Shit.”

She rocked forward and pushed a button, clicking it in and out. Then she worked a lever, toggling it back and forth, trying to coax the thing back to life. It was useless. Shot. Alert the next of kin. The thing had gone legs up.

“Great. Just great.” Why hadn’t just she spent the money and rented a car for the trip? Laura rolled her window down and was immediately blasted by the desert heat. It looked like she was going to have to revert to the old 2-70 air conditioning for the rest of the trip. Both windows down at seventy miles per hour.

With air blasting in, she reached up and pulled her hair back, twisting it in a loose ponytail as the Civic dropped down a gentle rise and she found herself skirting along a straight section of road that paralleled the aqueduct.

Laura slowed the car and took a deep breath. She could smell the water and thought she could detect the slightest hint of a cool breeze blowing off the aqueduct’s surface.

As she leaned out for another breath, she was suddenly pasted across the face by a sheet of water that appeared out of nowhere. It crashed across the car’s hood and sent water racing up the windshield and over the roof.

Shocked and momentarily unable to see, she groped the steering column, found the wipers, flicked them on—and, just as the road came back into view, she heard a man’s voice.

“Hey, beautiful.”

She whipped her head around—and there, not fifty feet away, a sunburned man on a water ski was smiling and waving at her!

“Want to go skinny-dipping?”

Laura laughed and smiled, then waved back. The water evaporating off the front of her top made her feel like the air conditioning was suddenly back on.

“You don’t know how good that sounds,” she said, yelling out to him.

The skier dropped a hand, pretending to unfasten his trunks.

Laura laughed. Naughty boy. She shook her head—stepped on the gas—and sped away, leaving the boat and the skier behind. And then she thought, Besides, waterskiing naked sounds kind of dangerous.

Chapter 9

Sam was surprised when he saw the gate closed. He let off on the gas and braked, letting the water tanker roll to a stop. Then he saw the sign, bright orange and nailed to the center of the gate. It read:

PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESSPASSING

Trespassers Will be Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law

(That means you, Frank Desouza!)

Sam read the sign and laughed. Good for you, Doc.This Frank Desouza was also known as Frankie “Nickels” Desouza—a two-bit thug out of Vegas who favored gaudy Hawaiian shirts and had made his bones squeezing old ladies for nickels and dimes from a string of shabby bingo parlors.

Strictly small time.

But Frankie had a new idea. A big, bright, shiny plan that was going to change everything.

The brass-fucking-ring, was how he thought about it.

Frankie had just cut a deal with a local Indian tribe to build a two hundred thousand square foot casino and resort smack in the middle of the Furnace Valley Indian Reservation.

It was the perfect set-up. The ultimate scam. And the whole thing entirely legal. Frankie wasn’t reinventing the wheel here, he was just the latest shark to exploit a government policy allowing gaming on the nation’s Indian reservations.

Sam, on the other hand, thought of Indian casinos as the new firewater that threatened another generation of Native Americans, dollar bills being substituted for whiskey. Nothing wrong with money. Very handy stuff when you got right down to it. But there was just one small problem—you can’t buy a life, or have one given to you, for that matter.

Not one that’s meaningful, anyway.

Chapter 10

There was only one thing standing between Frankie Desouza and his dream of the Furnace Valley Casino.

Fletcher. Dr. Henry Fletcher.

Fletcher’s land offered the only economically feasible access to the reservation. Frankie desperately needed the Fletcher place, and he was determined to get it.

Furnace Valley was surrounded by mountains on three sides and a hundred miles of sand dunes to the south. To call it geographically isolated was like referring to Mt. Everest as tall.

Freeway access was crucial to the proposed casino’s success—and that meant cutting a four-lane road dead through the heart of Fletcher’s land.

Never gonna happen.

That’s what Frankie found out after spending most of last year trying to get Fletcher to sell his land. Frankie even lowered his sights—instead of trying to buy the entire parcel, he started jockeying for an easement of a hundred acres, just enough for a road and a gas station.

Fletcher refused, asking Frankie: “What part of no don’t you understand?” And calling him scum for trying to corrupt the local Indian tribe. The gate went up after Desouza’s last visit. Doc had had enough. He told Frankie to stay the hell off his land or there would be trouble.

Frankie had just laughed in his face, telling Fletcher, “See you around.”

* * *

Sam opened the gate, pushing it as far as it would go, then suddenly froze. Something had happened.

The truck! The engine had just quit.

Crap!

He propped open the gate, climbed back into the truck, and tried to start the engine.

Nothing, not even a click.

He tried it again. This time a weak clicking sound echoed from the starter. Sam had known the starter was on the way out. At least, he hoped it was still on the way out. He sure didn’t want to have to hike all the way back to his place. Not in this heat.

Cell phone service in Furnace Valley was nonexistent. If you got stuck and didn’t have a CB radio, you were flat out of luck. Sam reached for the CB, then stopped, thinking he should try and fix it himself before bothering someone in town.

He pulled a hammer from under the seat, dropped out of the tuck, slipped beneath the engine—and, applying just the right amount of English—gave the starter two sharp taps.

He climbed back behind the wheel, looked skyward, crossed his fingers, then mashed down the starter button. The engine began to crank—and a moment later, it roared to life.

“Stuck, my ass.”

But he knew he was pushing it. Starters like this one, with worn brushes, could only reliably be tapped back to life a handful of times. It didn’t take long before that method stopped working—and then you were really stuck.

Sam had a new starter on order, but his supplier was having trouble finding the right one. Which was understandable—the truck was over thirty years old.

Hang in there baby, he thought as he dropped it into first, chugged through the gate, and bumped across a gravel wash.

Chapter 11

Laura stepped out of the roadside diner’s bathroom wearing a black cotton tank top and khaki shorts that flattered her long, tan legs. More accurately—it was her legs that flattered the shorts.

She had entered the bathroom dressed in jeans and a cotton blouse. As she stepped out of the restroom and walked past the counter filled with lunchtime patrons, every head turned to follow her out the door.

A long cool woman in a black top.

Just as she stepped outside, a potb ellied rancher wearing a GMC cap and drinking a Coors whistled after her.

In his dreams.

Laura started the Honda, cut across the road, and pulled into an ancient-looking gas station. The pumps were those old-fashioned rounded kind that looked like toy spaceships from the 1950s. Mounted on a pole to the right of the pumps was the original sign with the flying horse.

A hatchet-faced man stepped out from the service bay and walked up to Laura’s car. He was dressed in mechanic blues and wore glasses with Coke-bottle lenses that were held together by a band of clouded scotch tape.

“Good afternoon,” Laura said with a welcoming smile.

The mechanic bent over, resting his spiny fingers on his crooked knees, and stared in through the open window.

“Miss.”

“Gas, please. Fill it up.” She reached over and pawed the map off the passenger seat, then turned back to the mechanic and said, “Oh, and I could use some directions.”

“So, what’ll it be? The good stuff or near beer?”

“Excuse me…”

The mechanic laughed. “Premium or regular?”

“Regular,” Laura said, catching on. “Regular unleaded.”

The mechanic nodded, then walked back and began filling the Honda’s tank.

“I’m looking for the road to Furnace Valley,” Laura said, leaning out the window and pointing to the map. “But it doesn’t seem to be on here.”

“Nope. It wouldn’t be.”

The mechanic locked the handle on the pump so it would keep filling and moved up next to Laura. “That’s the way folks like it around here. Anon… Anonymm…”

“Anonymous,” Laura said, helping him out.

“Bingo,” the mechanic nodded. He reached out, took the map, then held it right up to his eyes. “Let’s see now… Yeah, it’s about fifty miles south. He lowered the map, then pointed to a section, holding his finger right above it. “Directly off this road here.”

Laura took the map and then traced along the road with her fingertip.

“As I remember, that turnoff is marked by a wooden sign,” the mechanic said, watching Laura follow the squiggly line.

“Think I’ll be able to find it?” Laura looked up at him, a little concern creeping into her voice.

“Well, it’s a bit like picking pepper out of fly shit… ah, fly dirt. Sorry, ma’am.” Then he added, “But you shouldn’t have no trouble.”

The mechanic moved to the rear of the car, removed the hose, and returned it to the pump with a metallic clank.

“Sounds like it might be tricky to find.”

“Normally, I’d say you were right.” He tightened the Honda’s gas cap, wiped his hands on the front of his shirt, and then stepped up to Laura’s window. “But yesterday, about this time, a trucker wandered in here on foot. Said he got his rig stuck right close to that turnoff.”

“He got stuck?”

“Yep. Said he fell asleep. Drove clear off the road.” The mechanic shook his head and then rubbed his neck. “Just look for an eighteen-wheeler—a tanker, the man said—sitting right out in the sand. That’ll be your turn.”

The mechanic removed his glasses and pinched the bridge, making sure the tape was still sticking. “This business you got in Furnace Valley—it really necessary?”

“What do you mean?” she said, caught off guard by the mechanic’s question.

“I mean a pretty girl like you, traveling all by herself, shouldn’t be taking no off-road trips.”

“I can handle myself okay,” Laura said, on the verge of getting defensive.

“Never said you couldn’t,” the mechanic said, slipping on his glasses, his eyes morphing into two giant blue marbles. “Only the roads out here got teeth. Make one wrong move, or lose your concentration for even a second—and you could rip the belly out of a little puddle jumper like this.”

“It gets too bad, I’ll turn around.”

“It’s one lane over Furnace Mountain. The only part that’s paved is the top and then down into the valley a ways, and then the county ran out of money. The rest is dirt—sand and gravel mostly.”

“I’ll be fine, Laura said. This guy was starting to give her the creeps.

“Won’t argue.”

“How much for the gas?”

“Thirty-five bucks. Can you believe that?”

Laura pulled some bills out of her purse. A twenty, a ten, and a couple of fives. Good, she had exact change.

As she turned to hand him the money, something about the guy’s face struck her. “You know, you look familiar. It’s like we’ve met before. No wait, I know what it is—you look like someone famous.”

“I get that a lot,” He laughed. “Just have one of those faces. Photogenic was how one customer put it. But I ain’t no movie star or nothing. I’m just no one from nowhere. All I got is this wide spot in the road.”

Unconvinced, Laura kept staring at him. Then she shrugged and laughed and started the engine. “Well, thanks for the help.” Laura waved, and as she pulled onto the road, the mechanic called out:

“Good luck, missy.”

And then it struck her. The guy was a dead ringer for Stephen King.

Chapter 12

Sam finished transferring twelve hundred gallons of pure artesian water to Fletcher’s pond. It had made a big difference, almost filling the reservoir to the top. He coiled the heavy hose he’d use to fill the pond—and, not wanting to stop the truck and take a chance of it not starting again—he was about to hail the main house and let Doc know he had been by with the water, when Fletcher appeared on the porch and called out to him instead.

“Sam!” He looked flushed and excited. Darwin was perched on his shoulder, and he held a bottle of scotch in his right hand.

“Hey, Doc!” Sam hooked a thumb at the pond. “Just finished pumping your water.” Fletcher didn’t seem to be paying attention. It was like he hadn’t heard a word. And why was he drinking? It was barely past noon.

“Sam…” Fletcher waved for him to come to the house. “I’ve got to show you something.” Sam motioned to the truck and was about to explain how he had to leave it running and couldn’t come—but something about the tone of his voice, and the look on his face, made him realize he had no choice.

* * *

Darwin exploded into a series of loud squawks as Sam followed Fletcher into the lab and over to a sturdy workbench.

“ A little early for that, isn’t Doc?” Sam said, pointing to the scotch.

Fletcher looked affectionately at the bottle of Macallan single malt, then placed it on the bench and gave it a loving pat.

“I’ve done it, Sam. I’ve created the perfect plant. The ultimate groundcover. The Fletcher Creeper. Never has to be watered. Can be planted anywhere.”

“The Fletcher what?” Sam asked, looking a little confused.

“The Fletcher Creeper. It’s a creeper vine. Just engineered. It’s an entirely new creation!”

“Really… Well, that’s a catchy little name you’ve picked for it.”

“I thought so,” Fletcher said, laughing and flashing a broad smile. “It’s the ultimate drought-tolerant plant.” He gave Sam a playful swat on the shoulder, then asked, “Do you know what this means for people living in dry, non-arable lands?”

“Ivy in every pot?” Sam shot back with a straight face.

“Life where none was possible,” Fletcher said, ignoring Sam’s flip comment. “Wastelands made fertile. Marching dunes held back. Watersheds where none existed. Rich topsoil… fooling Mother Nature herself.”

“Marching dunes, eh? Hmm… sounds like a real hardy little plant you’ve got there.”

“Hardy isn’t the half of it.” Fletcher motioned for Sam to follow him. “See for yourself.”

Chapter 13

They stood in front of a workbench looking at a small planter filled with potting soil. Fletcher picked up a graduated beaker, placed his thumb over the end of the glass pipe that was sitting inside, removed it, and held it over the planter. He lifted his thumb. Three drops fell from the tip of the siphon, moistening the soil below.

The results were breathtaking.

As the first drop made contact with the soil, there was an astounding transformation. The barren planter instantly turned bright green with a fuzzy layer of new growth. A few seconds after that, shoots emerged. And moments later, the entire planter was filled with six-inch blades of grass!

Sam just stared, awestruck, not saying anything.

And then, just as quickly as the new growth appeared, it began to wither and die.

“Isn’t that fantastic? Isn’t that the most fantastic thing you’ve ever seen?” Fletcher’s eyes twinkled with delight as he held up the beaker of clear fluid. “Guess what this is?”

“Rogaine?”

“Ordinary tap water! Just three drops—and pow! Isn’t it fantastic?”

“Yeah, really great, Doc.” Sam patted him on the back. “But I don’t think there’s going to be a huge demand for lawns that grow a foot a day and then immediately die.”

“No, no, no—you’re missing the point, my boy.” Fletcher returned the beaker to the bench. “This was just a stepping stone. See, I rewired the biology of this ordinary fescue—sort of hotwired its genetic code.”

Fletcher walked over to where he’d left the scotch, grabbed the bottle, poured two fingers into a glass, and held it out to Sam.

“You want a drink?”

“No thanks, Doc. I don’t want any of this to start making sense.”

Fletcher shrugged, took a gulp of scotch, then pointed toward the now completely brown planter. “Anyway, as it turned out, fescue was the wrong choice. Couldn’t tolerate the hyper-growth. I began experimenting with all types of grains and grasses, and came up with nothing.”

Fletcher took another belt of scotch, emptying the glass.

“Then I had a breakthrough. I found a particularly resilient subtropical vine that proved the perfect choice. Nature had left its genetic backdoor wide open. Reengineering its genetic code proved a snap.”

He grabbed the scotch, poured another slug, then held the bottle out, offering it to Sam. “18-year-old stuff. Sure you don’t want some?”

Sam held up a hand. “No thanks, Doc, I’m good.”

Fletcher plunked the bottle down and moved to a sink. Then he retrieved a creeper vine clipping and held it out to Sam. “Here…”

Sam took the clipping, eyeing it with skepticism.

“A Fletcher Creeper. Plant it out at your place. It’ll be a test.”

“A test?”

“Oh, just one thing—and this is important—don’t plant it near a steady source of water. It grows like a weed. Could be a real dickens to get rid of. The biology of this thing is still in its infancy. It seems to be mutating, evolving on its own.”

“You sure about this? You sure we should be messing around with it?” Sam asked, turning the vine over in his hand. “Planting it around… fooling Mother Nature?”

“Yes. Positive. Not a problem. Don’t worry. If you think about it, we’re living in the middle of a giant sterile lab.” He swept a hand through the air. “Basically, this place is just one big hotel lobby ashtray. Besides, I was down at Nguyen’s Place. Gave clippings to everyone. The whole town is in on the fun.”

Sam held the clipping up to his eyes, examining the stalk and scaly-looking leaves. “It’s covered with little thorns.”

“Yes, I’m painfully aware of that,” Fletcher said, glancing down at his sore fingertips. “It’s something I plan to breed out of the vine. Fletcher Creeper 2.0 won’t have them.”

Sam gave him a direct look, then said, “Hmm… just like my dates, huh?”

Fletcher suddenly remembered. “Your dates! Any luck with the last batch of grafts?”

“Full of seeds,” Sam said with a frown.

“Well... no one’s perfect.”

“What?”

“Just kidding,” Fletcher laughed. “Just kidding, my boy.”

“Well, I hope so…” Sam said, caught off guard by Fletcher’s breezy tone. Doc had promised he could do it.

“Don’t worry, son…” He reached over, giving Sam a fatherly pat on the back. “Next week I’ll have a new set of grafts ready to go. Trust me, we’ll solve this.”

Darwin swooped over and landed on Fletcher’s shoulder, nibbling and nudging his ear. Fletcher reached up and scratched Darwin’s neck, then moved to the bench, grabbed the scotch, raised the bottle and said, “Now, how about that drink?”

Chapter 14

Even with both windows down, Laura felt like she was about to melt from the heat. She watched through the windshield as heat waves bent and distorted the blacktop like a funhouse mirror.

She had left the gas station over an hour ago, and still no sign of anything that looked like the Furnace Valley turnoff. She glanced over at the map, lifted it, dropped it back on the seat. Useless.

Where was that sign?

Where was that truck?!

And then she saw the eighteen-wheeler out the right side of her windshield, the midday sun flashing off its massive stainless steel tank. Two minutes later, she pulled to a stop alongside it.

It was just like the mechanic said—stuck in the sand. Really stuck. About twenty yards off the road and mired up to its axles in loose sand. It was a perfectly straight section of highway. The driver must’ve been telling the truth when he said he fell asleep.

It was going to take a crane to get it back on the road.

There was a brightly painted logo on the side of the tank—green and yellow—and the company name looked like it started with the letter R, but from Laura’s angle, she couldn’t quite read it.

Up ahead on her left, just past where the truck went off the road, was a pocked and sandblasted sign. She strained forward and could just make out the words:

Furnace Valley 20 Miles, Summer Population 16, Winter Population 150, No Outlet.

At the bottom of the sign an arrow pointed to a lonely-looking dirt road that wound up and disappeared over a small rise, then appeared again as it wound up the face of Furnace Mountain.

Laura pulled the Civic forward until she was even with the sign and then stopped. She stared at the turnoff, letting her eyes trace along the uneven dirt road. More of a Jeep trail than a road, she thought.

Did she really want to do this?

* * *

A loud crunching filled the Honda’s cabin as she swung onto the dirt road. Everything inside the car instantly began to rattle and shake.

She maneuvered the Civic up the small rise—and just as she crested the hill, she had to slam on her brakes and swerve, narrowly missing a fallen stand of cactus. The Honda skidded, but she managed to keep all four tires on the road. When the dust settled, another sign came into view, nailed to a slanting fencepost:

CAUTION—SUBSTANDARD ROAD

Laura shook her head as she read the sign and said to herself, Ya think?

Chapter 15

With Darwin on his shoulder and the bottle of scotch clutched in his hand, Fletcher stepped off the porch. As he walked to the pond, he broke into a favorite childhood rhyme:

“There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,

He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile,

He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.”

He finished the rhyme and laughed at himself for remembering it. Darwin called out with an approving squawk.

“You like that one, Darwin? Maybe I’ll have to add a new line about a little crooked bird with a little crooked squawk.” Fletcher looked up at Darwin. “What do you think about that?”

Darwin answered with another squawk.

Fletcher stepped up to the reservoir, placed the bottle at the edge, and called to Darwin, “How about a little birdbath?”

Darwin knew the drill. With a series of squawks, he leapt into the air and landed on top of the nearby nursery, keeping a safe distance from the water—and Fletcher’s bath hour.

Fletcher placed a foot on top of a valve handle. Then, using it as a step, he boosted himself up. Just as he was about to drop into the pond, his foot skidded across the spoke wheel, cracking the valve open.

A moment later, at the base of the pond, water began to trickle out of a drainpipe.

Fletcher regained his footing, threw a leg up and over the side and splashed into the water, not bothering to remove his T-shirt, shorts, or even his tennis shoes.

Chapter 16

The Cadillac Escalade smashed through the wooden gate, reducing it to kindling, and sent the no trespassing sign wobbling through the air like a misshapen Frisbee.

The front of Frankie Desouza’s SUV had been outfitted with one of those cowcatchers—a matrix of heavy metal tubes bolted to the front bumper. Made smashing through things a breeze.

Frankie had even coughed up the extra dough to have the thing chromed, telling the dealer, “Of course I want it chromed. It’s a Cadillac, for Christ’s sake.”

The only reason Frankie even thought to get a cowcatcher was the deer he slammed into seven months ago while making a speed run to Los Angeles. It happened last year on a hot summer night, no traffic, when Frankie was really pushing it to get to the coast.

He was going over ninety when he hit the deer. Big fucking mule deer was how Frankie told it. Caught the thing right in the chest. Dumb fucking animal, just standing there, not moving.

The impact was so violent that it severed the fully grown buck’s head, driving its eight-point rack right through the Escalade’s hood. Frankie was shaken up but unhurt. The airbag saving the scumbag from smashing his face into the steering wheel.

When Frankie staggered out of his car, he knew he’d hit a deer but hadn’t got a good look at exactly how big it was. When he saw the buck’s head sticking out from his car’s hood, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Some fucking hood ornament.

Frankie began to laugh. Wait till Sonny and Tony and Big Jackie D get a load of this. It was a great big belly laugh that echoed through the desert night. What stupid fucking luck. “Fucking matchsticks,” Frankie said, glancing in the side mirror at the smashed gate.

“Didn’t feel a thing,” Frankie’s driver laughed.

“The guy’s loaded. Millions in the bank—and he puts up a balsawood gate.”

“Yeah,” the driver said. “What a cheapskate.”

“With that kind of money, you think the guy would’ve done something nice in wrought iron. Something ornamental.”

“The guy’s a bum. No class. Just look at the dump he lives in.”

Frankie thought about that, then grunted, “Go figure.”

The driver looked over. “Hey, boss… you think I should stop, see if we got any wood stuck in the grill?”

“No. I don’t think we should stop and see if there’s any wood stuck in the grill. Just keep driving. And watch the fucking road!”

“Sure. Okay, boss,” the driver said, gripping the steering wheel at the defensive ten and two position.

Frankie stared out at the desert. “When we get back to town, have the car detailed.”

Chapter 17

“Ah, this is the life, eh Darwin?” Fletcher pushed off the side of the pond and floated over to the bottle of scotch. He took a drink and slipped it back onto the cement rim.

Darwin raised his head, then waggled his beak approvingly.

“Here we are in our own private swimming hole, enjoying cocktail hour, doing the laundry and bathing all in one fell poop. Correction, Darwin. Make that—one fell swoop.”

Darwin tilted his head and gave Doc a confused look.

Fletcher splashed water at the macaw and said, “Come on Darwin, sing along…” And then he broke into a favorite ditty.

“We have a little garden, a garden of our own,

And every day we water there the seeds that we have sown,

We love our little garden, and tend it with such care,

You will not find a faded leaf or blighted blossom there.”

* * *

At the base of the pond, a rivulet of water flowed away from the open valve, snaking across the sand and disappearing beneath a greenhouse wall. Inside, the atmosphere was thick and breathless. All was quiet except for the tick tick tick of dripping water.

The rivulet coursed through the lath house, winding across the floor, past a palm, around a stand of bamboo and disappeared directly beneath the Fletcher’s creeper vine, feeding its roots.

Something was different now…

The creeper vine.

It had doubled in size! It was a now a giant throbbing green mass.

Closer in, surrounding the creeper, a more delicate sound could be heard—like a hatchling breaching its shell, or a chrysalis splitting in two.

It was the sound of growth.

Unbridled.

Insatiable.

Alien.

It was as if some freaky form of time-lapse photography had been projected onto the creeper vine, making it look like a Hollywood special effect.

Leaves opened and spread apart, drinking in the sunlight. Streamers rose, snaking out in all directions. Medusa-like tendrils danced in the air like jellyfish tentacles caught in an ocean current.

With each drop of water, the creeper grew and grew and grew.

It spread through the nursery—a thirsty predator choking and killing other plants—unable to slake its bottomless thirst.

At the back of the lath house, a jackrabbit flushed. It shot across the floor, zigzagging for the exit.

High above, close to the nursery’s ceiling, there was a sudden movement. A flash of green. A whistling sound. And then something swirled through the air.

A creeper stalk.

It dove downward, whipsawing from above like a striking snake—and fell on the rabbit, coiling around its body like a steel spring.

The rabbit screamed and kicked, unable to free itself from the creeper’s grip. The stalk constricted again, adding coil after deadly coil.

The rabbit pumped its legs. Then its eyes bulged. And then its body convulsed and fell quiet as the creeper patiently smothered its prey.

A short while later, the tip of the tendril loosened, freeing itself from the rabbit’s body. It rose straight into the air, bobbing and weaving like a charmed cobra. Then without warning, it struck down—and like a straw being driven into a soda cup’s lid, it plunged into the rabbit’s neck.

If you’d been there, with your ear pressed close to the rabbit, you would’ve heard a tiny sucking sound as the fluids were drained from its body.

Chapter 18

Darwin heard it first and let go with a shrill squawk.

Fletcher turned to see what it was and couldn’t believe his eyes when Frankie Desouza’s pearl-white Escalade rolled past the main house and pulled up directly in front of the pond. What the hell was he doing here? And how did he get past the gate?

Then he remembered he’d never gotten around to putting a lock on it.

The doors of the Escalade winged open, and Frankie and his driver climbed out. They walked around the SUV and approached the pond, both of them looking slick and out-of-place in the open air setting.

Frankie, sweating in the afternoon heat, was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with a bamboo motif, linen pants, and calfskin loafers. Frankie’s driver, an ex-Vegas bouncer, wore a shiny designer T-shirt, knife-creased slacks, and black patent loafers with little gold bars across the vamp for a touch of class. Yeah, right.

The driver’s neck and arms were laced with tattoos—tats, he probably called them—that presumably illustrated the story of his pathetic life. He could’ve saved a bundle if he’d just had DUMBASS stitched across his forehead. As if that weren’t enough, the guy’s name was actually Vinny. Vinny Carpito. He was a walking, talking, 250-pound cliché that stood six feet tall and looked desperately short on IQ.

“What happened, professor? You get drunk and fall in?” Frankie said, motioning to the bottle of scotch.

That caused Vinny to burst out laughing. Fucking Frankie, what a ball-buster.

Fletcher swam forward and gripped the side of the reservoir. “What the hell are you doing here, Desouza? This is private property.”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to answer a question with a question?” Frankie glanced at Vinny. “I think the professor is drunk.”

“What would you know about manners? You’re a two-bit crook.”

“Now, now. Let’s not get personal, professor.”

“Oh, sure… let’s not get personal,” Fletcher said, smoothing a hand across his scalp. “Now get the fuck off my land. Nothing personal.”

“Alright, okay professor, we’re going to leave—but there’s some business to take care of first.” Frankie went to the SUV and put a hand on the door. “Got the papers right here in the car.”

Chapter 19

Fletcher boosted himself up and out of the pond, stripped off his T-shirt, wrung it out, and looped it over a shoulder. “I’m not selling, Desouza. Never. You and your slippery partners will never ever get your hands on this piece of land.”

“This is a new offer,” Frankie said, holding up the contract. “We sweetened the pot. We’re going to guarantee you another million bucks on the back end.” Frankie smiled through a bank of unnaturally white teeth. “Be just like winning the lottery, professor.”

“You see the gate, Desouza? Huh? Or maybe it’s that your boy doesn’t read so good?” He hooked a thumb at Vinny. “What about it, Desouza? Can your ape here say his a-b-c’s?”

Rage swept across Vinny’s face. He took a step toward Fletcher.

Frankie reached out, stopping him with a hand. “Let it drop, Vinny.” He looked at Fletcher and said, “The gate? Yeah, sure, we saw it.” He gave Vinny a wink. “Didn’t we, Vin?”

“Sure did, boss,” said Vinny, working hard to regain his cool.

“Very unfriendly of you, professor. And you never return my calls. So what am I gonna do? I gotta come all the way out here and visit you in this…” Frankie cast his eyes about, finally letting them come to rest on the main house. “In this shithole.”

“That’s it, Desouza. I’ve had enough of your crap,” Fletcher said, and marched towards the house. “I’m calling the sheriff.”

“You mean, Sheriff Templeton?”

That stopped him in his tracks. He looked at Desouza. “Who else?”

“Bought him breakfast just this morning,” Frankie answered, enjoying the look of surprise on Fletcher’s face. “That old boy sure loves his biscuits and gravy. You know, I think the only thing Dale Templeton likes to do better than fill that hog belly of his is play high-stakes poker.”

Fletcher’s face fell, suddenly understanding. “You and Templeton?”

“Like this,” Frankie laughed, holding up a hand with crossed fingers. “In fact, I’m helping Sheriff Templeton out with a—how should I put it—personal problem.”

“You? You’re helping the sheriff?”

Frankie gripped the front of his shirt, pumping it in and out, trying to coax a little air across his chest. “Oh yeah… seems the sheriff’s into a couple of associates of mine for thirty grand. Like I said, old Dale loves his Texas hold ‘em. And professor, that’s a lot of doughnuts for a public servant to come up with.”

“The bum is a degenerate gambler,” Vinny added, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Spitting on his badge.”

“Now, now, Vinny. Take it easy on the sheriff. Besides, we don’t say ‘degenerate gambler’ anymore. We say—he’s got a disease. It’s just like the guy who drinks too much. He’s not a drunk, or an alcoholic—he’s got a disease. He can’t help it. It’s not his fault. No one’s to blame for anything anymore. Isn’t that right, professor?” Frankie laughed, adding, “What a racket.”

“Well, trespassing sure as hell isn’t a disease.”

“Ha! Very funny. You got me there, professor. But hey, just give the touchy-feely crowd time—and they’ll work some wiggle room into that, too. Wait, I know—I’m not trespassing—I’m boundary challenged.” Frankie laughed at his cleverness and pumped his shirt again. “Anyway, I decided to help the sheriff out with his problem—and wouldn’t you know it—he’s agreed to come on board with the casino project. You know, to help smooth things with the locals.”

“You mean, help coerce citizens off their land.”

“You’re on fire today, professor.” Frankie watched Fletcher as he crossed the porch and entered the house. Then he motioned for Vinny to go around back.

Chapter 20

Fletcher came out of the house with a 12-gage Remington pump, stepped off the porch, leveled the shotgun at Desouza, and racked the pump, jacking a shell into the chamber.

Frankie stared at the shotgun. He held his hands up, but you could tell he thought it was some joke.

“You a stone cold killer, professor?”

Fletcher sniffed, jerked the barrel a couple of inches to the right, and pulled the trigger. The sand next to Desouza’s feet exploded, showering his gleaming loafers with dirt and sand.

A new look bloomed on Frankie’s face. A look of respect.

Fletcher racked the pump. “Now get the hell off my property, Desouza. If I ever see you here again, I’m going to just start shooting and tell everyone it was self-defense.”

“Sure, sure, professor,” said Frankie, the amber draining back into his olive complexion. “We’ll just see what the sheriff has to say about that.”

By the time Fletcher saw him, it was too late. All of Vinny’s 250 pounds hammered into his right side, knocking the shotgun loose and sending both men tumbling to the ground.

Fletcher’s legs were pinned, but when Vinny loosened his grip to go for his arms, Fletcher twisted, thrusting one leg up like a piston and driving his knee into Vinny’s chin with a snapping thud. Fletcher grabbed for the shotgun, just as—

Darwin swooped down from above, raked Vinny’s skull with his claws, then shot straight up, disappearing into the sun with a loud squawk. That gave Fletcher just the opening he needed to sweep the shotgun around and point it at Vinny’s chest. He dropped his finger to the trigger, and—

A shot rang out.

A nine millimeter slug slammed into Fletcher’s neck, tearing out a piece of his throat—and instantly killing him.

Still stunned from the blow to his chin, Vinny staggered to his feet, looked over, and saw Frankie pointing his Glock. Then he watched as a curl of smoke looped out of the barrel and vanished in the thin desert air.

“What the hell, boss? What the hell just happened?”

“I just saved your neck is what happened.”

“Jesus,” said Vinny, staring at the pool of blood around Fletcher’s head. “What are we gonna do now?”

“We’re not going to do anything,” said Frankie, walking over to Vinny. “Sheriff Templeton will take care of everything.”

“The sheriff?”

“That’s right, the sheriff. Now give me your hand.”

Vinny reluctantly held out his hand and watched as Frankie placed the Glock in his palm. “Okay, grip it like you just fired it.”

Vinny did what he was told, being sure to position his finger across the trigger.

“It was a simple case of self-defense. Fletcher came at you with the shotgun. He fired. He missed. The shot went wide. You had no choice but to protect yourself—and returned fire.”

“But, but… it was you,” Vinny protested.

“But what?” challenged Frankie.

Vinny stared at the Glock with a look of defeat. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

Frankie rolled Fletcher onto his back. “Hand me the shotgun.”

“What for?” Vinny said, a nervous edge to his voice. Maybe Frankie was about to kill him.

“Just fucking do it!”

“Yeah, sure boss.” Vinny retrieved the shotgun and handed it to Frankie, who gripped it with his handkerchief, wiped Vinny’s fingerprints off the barrel, and placed it on Fletcher’s chest, like he’d just fired it.

Suddenly there was a strange sound in the air. Like a high-pitched whistle, thought Vinny. The kind birddogs obey. He looked up, searching the sky.

But it wasn’t a dog whistle. It was wings stressed to the limit of their aerodynamic capabilities.

A macaw’s wings.

Darwin streaked down from above like a bullet shot at hell.

A moment later—feathers exploded in Vinny’s face, lava-red and fireball-orange. Claws tore at his skull, then Darwin flapped his wings to regain altitude and banked away, disappearing behind the lath house.

“Son of a bitch!” Vinny grabbed the top of his head. “I’m gonna kill that fucking bird!” Then he took off in the direction of the lath house.

Chapter 21

Frankie studied his handiwork and decided it was good enough. Then he realized his hands were covered with blood. Fletcher’s blood.

Shit.

He tried to clean them with his handkerchief—but there was too much blood, and his fingers were starting to stick together.

After a couple more wipes, he walked over to the reservoir. He was about to climb up and wash his hands, but stopped when he saw the tickle of water flowing from the drainpipe at the base of the pond.

Frankie crouched, studied the pipe, and then spun the wheel atop the valve. Seconds later, he had a steady stream of water to wash in.

After his hands were free from all traces of blood, he stood and called out to Vinny. “Vinny! Let’s roll.” Frankie bent to turn off the water, then thought to himself, Fuck it, and walked back to the SUV.

* * *

Vinny stood in the nursery doorway staring at the funny-looking plant that almost seemed to be moving. No, vibrating. Weird. He’d never seen anything like it.

He entered for a closer look, then froze when he heard Frankie calling him.

“Vinny!” Frankie’s impatient voice echoed across the compound.

“Shit,” mouthed Vinny. As he turned to go, he saw a flat of ten little pots, each with a clipping of the funny-looking plant.

He had to have one.

Vinny grabbed a pot and held it up to his eyes, studying the creeper’s leaves and razor-sharp thorns. Snakeskin, is what Vinny thought when he looked at the leaves. Cool.

Outside, Frankie dusted sand off one of his loafers, his foot propped on the Escalade’s bumper. Fucking desert, he thought to himself.

“Jesus!” Vinny said, approaching Frankie. “That’s a huge fucking bug!”

“What?” said Frankie, pulling his foot off the bumper, a confused look on his face.

“Look.” Vinny pointed to one of Frankie’s sleeves.

Frankie glanced down at his arm and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw the four-inch-long grasshopper that was sizing up one of the faux bamboo shoots printed on his sleeve.

“Fuck me!” Frankie yelled, knocking the grasshopper off his shirt with a downward karate chop. “That’s the biggest fucking grasshopper I’ve ever seen!”

He raised a foot—and just as he was about to squash the grasshopper, it buzzed away, disappearing over the top of the reservoir. “Did you see the size of that thing?” said Frankie, still a little rattled.

“You should’ve seen your face, boss…” Vinny shook his head and laughed.

Frankie was about to tell him to go fuck himself when he noticed the small pot in Vinny’s hand. “What the hell is that?” he said, pointing at the creeper vine, erasing the smirk off Vinny’s face.

“It’s a souvenir,” Vinny said, raising the creeper. “I’m going to plant it—see if it grows. They look really cool when they’re big.”

“What the fuck do you know from plants?”

“I don’t know…” he mumbled. “They just look cool.”

“Jesus.” Frankie shook his head, stepped around the Escalade, and yanked open the door. “Come on, Martha Stewart, let’s go see the sheriff.”

Chapter 22

Sam was at the counter drinking coffee in Nguyen’s Place—a combination dry goods store and grill. It was the place you came to get your mail, or buy a box of nails, or have a cup of coffee and wedge of apple pie—or maybe catch up on the latest Furnace Valley gossip over a couple of beers.

It was early morning at Nguyen’s, and the whole place smelled of freshly brewed coffee, sizzling bacon, and crispy waffles.

Other than Nguyen’s Place, downtown Furnace Valley consisted of a garage and two dozen weather-beaten buildings sprinkled along a dirt road, most of them only occupied in the wintertime. Since summer was almost here, the town was mostly empty now. Someone with a real sense of humor had lined the boardwalk with a series of hitching posts—as if a posse of cowboys might ride up any minute and stop for a shot of whiskey.

Out here, in the middle of the desert—a caravan of camels would be more likely.

Tommy Nguyen grabbed the coffeepot, leaned across the counter, topped off Sam’s cup and asked, “Hey Sam, how about some breakfast? Carla’s making her famous blueberry waffles this morning.”

“Blueberry waffles?” Sam took a sip of coffee. “Can’t say no to that.”

Tommy flashed a big smile. Everyone liked Tommy’s smile. Then he called back to the grill. “You hear that, Carla?”

“Yeah baby, I heard,” said Carla, coming out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron. Carla was short and round, the polar opposite of Tommy’s willowy hundred and forty-five pounds. “You want bacon and eggs with that, Sam?”

“Tell you what, if Tommy helps load my irrigation line, I’ll take the whole caboodle, plus a glass of orange juice.”

“What do you think, baby?” said Carla, looking at Tommy. “You want to help him?” Carla adored Tommy. They met thirty years ago in Los Angeles, and they’d barely spent a day apart since.

“Of course I’ll help Sam!” answered Tommy in a clipped, excited voice. “I always help the customer.”

“Well then, bring it on, Carla,” Sam said with an exaggerated wave of his hand.

Tran “Tommy” Nguyen had fled Vietnam in the late seventies and had come to America as one of the boat people. After arriving, he made his way to California and quickly melted into Los Angeles’s Little Saigon.

Tommy Nguyen’s people were farmers. He’d been raised on the edge of a rice paddy. The need to be a part of the land was in his DNA. It was etched in his soul. Living in Los Angeles, he’d longed for the lush hills and exotic mist-filled valleys of his homeland.

So, whenever Tommy had a free weekend, he wandered inland, soaking up California’s wide-open spaces, and in particular its deserts. He was fascinated by them. So much of nothing. And yet they brought him a profound sense of peace, like a good dream. To Tommy, the desert was a place where a troubled past could be buried by the sand and wind and finally be forgotten.

Sam and Tommy were placing the last of the irrigation line in the back of Sam’s 4x4 pickup when a loud backfire caused both men to start and jerk their heads toward the street. A moment later they watched as Rufus Smoot’s battered Dodge Dart rolled up in front of Nguyen’s place and parked next to a shiny new Jeep Cherokee. There was another loud bang, then the engine stopped.

Rufus climbed out and looked at the steam billowing from the sedan’s hood. There was a sudden hissing sound, then a geyser exploded out of the Dart’s grill, spraying a sheet of scalding water across the right side of the Cherokee.

“Aww, come on! No! Rufus—you’re getting water all over my Jeep!” yelled Tommy, as he ran over to inspect the damage.

Rufus Smoot—self-proclaimed water witch and erstwhile prospector—scratched his rump, looped his thumbs through the straps of his Carhartt coveralls, and then shrugged apologetically at Nguyen.

After the thermal eruption had ceased, Tommy double-timed it to the back of the store, and—moments later emerged pushing a gas-powered washer, rolling it up next to his Jeep. “Shoot, Rufus, when you gonna fix that radiator?”

Rufus thought about that. He rubbed his neck, pursed his lips, then pointed to a redwood tub mounted on slanting stilts. “Same day you fix that water tower, Nguyen.”

“Sam!” Carla yelled, stepping onto the porch. “Your breakfast is getting cold.”

Sam waved, then motioned he was coming. “Be right there, Carla.”

Carla turned to go inside, then saw Rufus scratching his rump and looking at the hood of his car. “Hey, Rufus… I got your bowl of chili and a chocolate sundae all ready to go.”

Breakfast! He’d almost forgotten, distracted by the car’s exploding radiator. Rufus was suddenly all business as he hitched up his coveralls and came trotting towards the grill.

“I’m going to have a go at them facilities first, ma’am,” said Rufus, as he slipped past Carla and entered the store.

“I swear Rufus, I think you come here more for the indoor plumbing than my home cooking.”

“I’m not one to ignore nature’s call,” Rufus said as he yanked open the restroom door.

“Or a soft roll of toilet paper,” laughed Tommy, stepping up to Carla.

Chapter 23

Sam and Rufus were seated at the counter in front of their steaming hot breakfasts. Sam pulled his plate closer and noticed the waffles were golden brown and crisp on the outside. Just the way he liked them. Heck, the way anyone with a lick of sense liked them.

Next to the waffles on another plate were two eggs over easy and four extra thick strips of bacon. Sam took the strips of bacon, arranged them across the top of the waffle, then slipped the two eggs on top of that.

The perfect monument to arterial plaque, he thought to himself, then chuckled.

To the right of his food was an eight-ounce dispenser filled with maple syrup. It had a stainless steel handle with one of those slide tops. Sam hadn’t seen it here before. Carla
must have ordered it out of that restaurant supply catalog she kept in the kitchen. Nice addition…

Sam lifted the syrup and clicked the slide in and out a couple of times. Neat. Then, doing his best Jackson Pollock imitation, he splashed syrup across the whole mess—being sure to coat the eggs and bacon as well. Some people never grow up.

Tough.

Rufus had already tucked into his food and was halfway through his chili, leaving the countertop littered with chopped onions like a hailstorm had just scudded through.

A short while later, Sam swept his last bite of waffle through a puddle of syrup and popped it in his mouth. He drained his coffee, then listened to the click click click of Rufus’s spoon as he scraped the last bits of chocolate ice cream off the bottom of the sundae dish.

Sam looked over, shook his head, and was about to say, Why not just pick the damn thing up and lick it clean, when the grill—and the entire town—filled with a loud roar.

It could only be one thing.

Sam and Rufus ran out the door and onto the porch with Tommy following, just in time to see a bright yellow biplane emerge from Eller’s Garage, taxi onto the road, then pivot on its tail wheel until its nose was pointed at the center of town.

“I can’t believe it!” yelled Sam above the engine noise. “Karl did it!”

“Son of a buck,” croaked Rufus. “Took him the better part of three years to get that old bird running.”

“Engine sounds good! Really nice…” Tommy said, flashing one of his megawatt smiles.

The biplane was a 1941 Boeing PT-17. It had a 220 horsepower radial engine and a two-person open cockpit. Most people knew them as the Stearman Crop-duster—the sturdy little planes familiar to anyone driving through California’s agricultural heartland, the Central Valley.

Boeing built ten thousand of them. A thousand are still thought to be in use—or at least airworthy. Karl Eller inherited the plane when he bought the garage. The last owner had dreamed of restoring it and spending the rest of his days hopping around the southwest in the nimble little two-seater.

Never happened. As it turned out, the previous owner’s remaining days were cut
short by a massive heart attack. But his dream had lived on in the form of Karl Eller—and two and half years later, the yellow bird had been restored to flight.

Karl ran the engine up, creating a cloud of dust that swirled around the elevators, then quickly let it coast back to an idle, not wanting to stress the rebuilt engine.

“Way to go, Karl!” Sam jumped off the porch and jogged toward the plane for a closer look.

“Yeah!” screamed Carla, hopping up and down.

Karl revved the engine again. Then he stood up in the cockpit and waved back to the group, not caring that his ball cap was ripped off his head by the sudden blast of prop wash. Not usually given to displays of emotion, Karl was grinning ear to ear. A kid in a candy store.

He dropped back into the cockpit, and—just as he was about to add power and taxi into town—the engine hiccupped and sputtered, then finally stopped altogether.

The town plunged into silence. Sam thought he’d suddenly gone deaf as he watched the Stearman’s prop make a final revolution and then stop. Tommy’s smile faded, and Rufus’s face fell.

Inside the cockpit, Karl was momentarily confused. What happened? A look crossed his face. He reached forward and tapped the gas gauge. The needle jumped, then fell back, indicating the tank was empty.

He’d run out of gas!

A pilot’s cardinal sin.

Karl laughed at himself for being so careless. He patted the dash and whispered, “That won’t happen again.”

Chapter 24

It had been almost an hour since she left the highway. Laura gripped the wheel, bounced over a rutted section of road, then had to add power as she wound up a steep, rocky hill—the final bit of elevation before the road leveled at the top of Furnace Mountain and then turned down towards the valley below.

She slipped the car around a horseshoe bend, crested the hill—and got her first good look at Furnace Valley and the handful of buildings that made up the town.

Directly ahead, the road widened into a turnout. It looked like a rest stop or an observation point. Laura slowed the car, then turned off the road and pulled into the rest stop, driving right up to where the land fell away and parking next to a giant saguaro that loomed over the turnout.

The cactus was huge—tall as a tree—and looked like the kind depicted in those Roadrunner cartoons. The top was shaped like a giant fork or trident, with the middle tine jutting fifty feet into the air.

She turned off the engine and let the dust settle as she marveled at the saguaro through the windshield.

“Carnegia Gigantea,” she said out loud. One of the most impressive specimens she’d ever seen. And then she suddenly felt like a nerd again. Nothing she could do about it. It was in her DNA. Beecham’s the name, knowledge of the obscure is the game. What was that Huey Lewis song? “Hip to be Square.” Always made her smile.

It really was an impressive sight. But definitely not indigenous to the area. A saguaro cactus that tall had to have been planted over a hundred and fifty years ago!

Very cool! And thank you, Johnny Cactus-seed, wherever you are.

Laura climbed out of the car and shut the door, sending a fine layer of dust sheeting down the windshield. She stretched, glanced around—and then was suddenly aware of the blowtorch heat, the hot sun beating down on her arms and legs.

She thought about getting back in the car, but noticed a pencil-thin line of shade offered by the cactus. She moved to the shade, positioning herself so she was completely protected from the sun’s rays.

Laura looked out over the valley and was overcome by its stark beauty. An abstract canvas done in taupes and browns, prostrated beneath a flawless brushstroke of azure pigment. And so utterly silent, you could almost hear the heat.

Right on the back of that thought, a wave of self-doubt washed over her. What was she doing out here? What was she thinking?

This was a mistake.

This was never going to work.

It was hard enough reconnecting with friends after a couple of years. The person she’d come to see—her father—she hadn’t talked to in a lifetime. Or at least her lifetime.

It was hopeless. It was going to be awkward and horrible and embarrassing. Might as well just turn around and hug the cactus.

Chapter 25

Back at Nguyen’s Place, everyone had gathered at the grill to celebrate the resurrection of the old Stearman biplane and congratulate Karl on a job well done.

Carla and Nguyen had gone all out, telling everyone, “Coffee and apple pie is on the house.”

“Daisy, that’s what I’m gonna call her,” Karl said. He had finally settled on a pet name for the plane.

“What happened to Chronic Bitcher?” Sam asked, stirring his coffee. “Much more colorful.”

Karl forked in a chunk of apple pie and washed it down with a gulp of coffee. “Too cynical. I don’t feel that way towards her anymore. Nope, it’s going to be Daisy. Besides, it has sentimental attachment.”

“Let me guess,” said Rufus. “Name of the girl that stood you up for your high school prom.”

“No. God, no!” laughed Karl. “Daisy was the name of the best dammed Labrador retriever I ever owned.” He pushed his plate away and leaned back from the table. “And unlike you, Rufus, you old hermit—I actually went to my high school prom.”

Rufus chewed on that for a moment, then shot back with, “Didn’t know they allowed dogs to them things.”

* * *

Outside, a VW camper bus pulled up and parked in front of the store. The engine stopped, but the music continued. Pounding speed metal—loud industrial stuff—Metallica, or maybe Nine Inch Nails, echoed out from the van and filled the town.

Dust and dirt had turned the white camper a dirty beige. The rear window and back hatch were papered with bumper stickers: Free Tibet, Coachella 2011, Question Authority, Nirvana, Dog is My Co-Pilot, Mystery Spot, Peace, I Survived Burning Man, The Cure, Ministry, Bad Religion.

The doors were flung open, and a collection of San Francisco street kids—a Goth, two rivetheads, and a couple of wannabe hippies—poured out onto the hardpan. Odd bedfellows indeed!

The group was made up of two girls and three guys, all in their twenties. Lander and Maya, dressed in sandals, shorts, and tutti-frutti T-shirts, were the two 60’s throwback hippie impersonators. The remaining three—Kristin, Donnie, and Spider—were clad in a mix of camo pants, leather jackets, and Doc Martin boots. In true rivethead style, Donnie and Spider’s jackets were heavily studded front and back.

Kristin was working the Goth thing big time. Dead girl makeup. Jet black hair moused into liberty spikes. And a pyramid-shaped stud protruding from her lower lip that completed the stay-the-fuck-away-from-me look.

Donnie and Spider bounced into the middle of the street and began playing air guitar, writhing to the music.

Maya began brushing Lander’s hair, trying to coax it into a ponytail, and Kristin, looking totally bored, lit a cigarette and wandered over to Nguyen’s porch.

* * *

Inside, Tommy was watching the group through the store window. He moved to the register when the door banged open and Donnie entered yelling, “Resupply!”

Behind Donnie, the rest of the group surged through the door, descending on the isles like starving jackals.

Sam, Karl, and Rufus remained in their seats, happy to watch the commotion from the diner. Carla removed her apron and hurried over to help Tommy with the rush of customers.

“Look what the coyote dragged in,” said Rufus, shaking his head.

Karl chuckled. “Got that about right.”

“Those are the kids camping up at Big Caliente Hot Springs,” said Sam. “Tommy said they came in last week, bought up half the place.”

“Looks like a damn zombie movie over there,” added Rufus. “Je-sus.”

“The undead,” laughed Sam. “Well, I for one don’t want to get bitten on the neck and turned into a crazed flesh eater.” He pushed back from the table and stood. “Besides, I better get back, make sure Curley hasn’t burnt the place down.”

The counter next to Tommy had been stacked with supplies—cases of beer, potato chips, canned food, bread, cold cuts, Gatorade, candy bars, cookies, you name it. Spider grabbed a jar of Slim Jims that was next to the register, started to remove a few sticks, then stopped, dropped them back in, and placed the entire jar on the top of the stack. “That too,” he said, a triumphant look on his face.

“You want the whole jar?” asked Tommy.

Spider flashed a goofy grin and nodded his head like a bobblehead doll, looking totally buzzed. Which he was.

“Okay. How would you like to pay?”

“I wouldn’t,” said Spider. He turned and yelled to Lander who was standing by a rack, trying on sunglasses with Maya. “Lander, dude… we need plastic over here.”

Lander slipped on a pair of sunglasses with bright orange frames and looked at Spider. “What do you think? Are they me?”

“Perfect. You look like a complete douche bag.”

Lander flipped him off, then started to remove the sunglasses, stopped, pushed them
up the bridge of his nose and stepped up to the counter. “American Express okay?”

“Sure. As long as it’s yours,” said Tommy.

That caused Spider to bust out laughing. “Trust me, it’s his. His old man owns half of Silicon Valley.”

Tommy studied the card, nodded, then looked up at Lander. “You want the sunglasses too?

Lander removed the sunglasses, then slipped them back on. “Add to cart.”

Donnie was at the far end of the counter studying a cool little plant. It was a creeper clipping that Doc had given Nguyen earlier in the week. Donnie grabbed the pot, held it up, and yelled to Tommy, “How much for this?”

Without missing a beat, Tommy fired back, “Twenty dollars. Very rare.”

Donnie looked at Lander…

“Cool. That’s totally wack-looking. We’ll take it.”

Chapter 26

Sam was lashing down his load of irrigation line when he noticed Kristin come out of Nguyen’s and march directly towards the camper van. She was walking with purpose, like she was on a mission.

A minute later, a loosely packed duffle bag was tossed out the side door, then Kristin climbed out, retrieved the bag, and started back to the store.

Sam stopped what he was doing and watched her, thinking, She’s probably about the same age as my little sister would’ve been if she were still alive. But never in his wildest dreams could he imagine Jenny being into the Night of the Living Dead, Goth look.

Kristin noticed him staring. She stopped, dropped her bag, and then gave him a direct look. “What are you looking at, Perv?”

“I don’t know. Are you a zombie?”

“Very funny, creep.” She picked up her bag, started walking again, then stopped, cast her eyes up and down the street, and looked at Sam. “I don’t suppose there’s a motel in this bumble-fuck town?”

“Nope. Furnace Valley isn’t exactly a tourist destination. You should’ve brought a camper van. Oh, wait—”

Kristin flipped him off just as Maya, Lander, Donnie, and Spider all crashed out of Nguyen’s Place, arms bulging with supplies, and made a beeline for the van.

After they’d loaded up, Donnie jumped in behind the wheel, then noticed Kristin standing on the porch next to her duffle bag. “Hey, Kris… Come on, we’re outta here.”

“I’m not going,” she said, flicking her ash. “I’m staying here.”

“What?” Donnie kicked open the door, dropped out of the van, and went to her. “What are you talking about? Of course you’re coming.”

“I’m not,” said Kristin, in a firm tone.

“But I thought we had a good thing. I thought we had it going on.”

“A good thing?” Kristin laughed and shook her head. “You mean—me letting you fuck me when you’re not too wasted to get it up?”

“What?” Donnie took a step back, not really knowing what to say. He started to speak, then stopped. It was clear he was hurt by her comment and wasn’t able to hide it. He looked at Kristin, shook his head. “You know what… fuck you!”

Donnie spit on the ground. He turned and started back to the van, then stopped and yelled back, “I only fucked you ‘cause no one else was handy. Skank!”

Kristin was about to flip him off and yell back when a couple of arms clamped around her, stopping her from raising her hand.

“Sweetie, no… no baby, what are you saying,” said Maya, who was suddenly hanging on her, tears forming in her eyes. She gave another squeeze. “You can’t leave us. You’ll ruin the chakra, the balance. We’ve got a whole vibe going. A groovy love energy working.”

“Stop! For fuck’s sake stop. Stop with the new age bullshit, Maya.” Kristin twisted, breaking her hold. “The whole Haight-Ashbury, Summer of Love, flower-child thing was pretty much bullshit back in the 60’s—watching two spoiled brats from Sausalito trying to relive it is pathetic. You and Lander make me want to puke.”

“Screw you!” Maya said, her eyes instantly drying.

“Oh, and the free-love, open marriage thing your parents have going on… sick! It’s warped and creepy. They’re both perverts. Your dad need to sober-the-fuck up. And your mother needs to shave her armpits and strap on a bra before she starts tripping over her tits!”

“Fuck you! Fuck you, Kristin! Fuck you, you Goth-bitch-freak!” Maya covered her mouth to keep from crying. She started for the van, then stopped and said, “What about your parents? Look at you. What happened to you, freak?”

“My mom’s an alcoholic. She lives month-to-month waiting tables in Vegas. And my dad’s doing ten years in Pelican Bay on a counterfeiting rap. He’s very artistic.”

“Come on, Maya,” Lander said, stepping around the van. “Forget her.”

“Yeah, let’s go, Maya,” added Donnie. “We’ll leave the freak here.”

Tears welled in Maya’s eyes. She ran to the van and into Lander’s arms.

Kristin cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, Donnie, it’s a bad sign—”

“What?” scowled Donnie. “What’s a bad sign?”

“Your eyes—”

“What about my eyes?”

“They’re too close together!”

Donnie started the engine. Then he stuck his hand out of the van, flipped her off, and yelled, “Fuck you!” He jammed it into first gear, hit the gas, and the van disappeared in a cloud of dust.

“Now I guess you really do need a place to stay,” said Sam as he stepped around the truck and approached Kristin. He’d heard everything. He’d watched the whole melodrama unfold. The Summer of Love, indeed.

Kristin looked at him, then smirked. “Let me guess. I could come stay at your place and we could get drunk, and then you could screw the shit out of me?”

Sam laughed and shook his head. The girl had one hell of a mouth on her. Why even bother? He should just get in his truck and leave the little train wreck to sort things out on her own. She could sleep in Nguyen’s storeroom for all he cared.

But what he said was, “Two no’s and a yes. Yes, you could come to my place and stay in the spare bedroom. No, we won’t be getting drunk. And no, I don’t want to sleep with you.”

“I get it now. You like little boys.”

Sam laughed. “Wow, you really do have a way with people.” He moved to the truck, hauled open the door, climbed into the cab, and was just about to start the engine, when—

“Wait. If you really do have a spare room—I’d appreciate it.” Then she added, “Just for the night.”

Sam stared at her, thinking about it. Taking his time. Making her sweat it just a little bit. Beneath all the attitude, Goth makeup, and gutter punk clothes—there was just a young girl trying to find her way in a crazy world. Plus, despite her mouth, he could tell she had potential, that she was bright and probably not some druggie burnout.

Chapter 27

It was late afternoon when Laura’s road-weary Honda pulled into downtown Furnace Valley. A thick coating of desert grit covered the car, and a branch of mesquite hung from the front bumper.

Laura slowed, and as she pulled to a stop in front of Nguyen’s Place, her windshield was suddenly blasted by a stream of water. A moment later, and a second stream joined in.

As the opaque layer of grime was washed off, Laura found herself staring at two 13-year-old boys. The Grogan twins—Billy and Josh—both of them pointing Super Soaker squirt guns at her car.

The Grogan twins were a plague that descended on Furnace Valley with their mother every spring. They usually stayed through the beginning of May, leaving with the summer heat. It was June, and for some reason they hadn’t left yet.

After they had emptied their guns, one of the twins blurted, “No charge for the car wash, lady!” Then they stuck out their tongues, screamed with laughter, and ran off down the street.

Laura shook her head and killed the engine. Lovely kids, she thought to herself. Then she climbed out of the car, stretched, and took in the town. She looked flushed and hot and bone tired. It had been a long and nerve-wracking trip.

Laura crossed the porch in front of Nguyen’s Place, and as she pushed through the door, she was greeted by Tommy who was standing by the register. “Welcome to Furnace Valley, miss,” Tommy said, flashing one of his famous smiles, wondering if she was a model out on a photo shoot.

“Thank you,” Laura said, smiling as she glanced around the store.

“Can I help you find something?”

“Actually, I was hoping to get some directions. I’m looking for the Fletcher place.”

“Doc Fletcher?” asked Tommy, a hint of surprise in his voice.

“Yes, that’s right. Dr. Henry Fletcher.”

“Really? I don’t think Doc’s ever had a visitor before. Heck, he hardly even comes to town.”

Carla, who’d seen Laura come in, walked over and held out an ice-cold glass of lemonade. “Here darlin’, this will knock the dust out of your throat.”

It was like Carla had read her mind. Laura took the drink, and before she realized it, she’d gulped half the glass. “Oh God, that was fantastic! Thanks so much,” Laura said, genuinely grateful.

Carla smiled, a wistful look on her face as she admired Laura’s shorts and her slim figure.

“Lord, I wish I could wear shorts like that.” Carla said, glancing at herself. “But let’s face it—that train left the station about thirty pounds ago.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Laura said politely.

“Oh, stop.” Carla waved a hand through the air. “We both know you’re just being nice.”

Laura, feeling suddenly self-conscious, looked down at her legs and smoothed the back of her shorts.

“So, how do you know Doc?” Carla asked.

“I don’t really… know him. It’s sort of a surprise.”

“You don’t know him?”

“Hey, come on,” said Tommy. “It’s not our business. No more questions.”

“I’m just being friendly,” said Carla, discounting Tommy with a flick of her wrist. “Jeez-Louise.”

“No one likes a busybody,” Tommy insisted.

“I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Right, busybody,” said Tommy, as if to rest his case.

“Dr. Fletcher and I met a long time ago,” Laura said, putting an end to Tommy and Carla’s bickering. “I’m an old acquaintance, that’s all.”

“Well, Tommy’s not interested… But I am,” said Carla, getting a dig in.

“Is the Fletcher place hard to find?” Laura asked.

“No, not really. Just a few more miles down the road.” Carla turned to Tommy. “Hon, get me some paper, I’m going to draw her a map.”

A few minutes later, Laura came out of Nguyen’s, map in hand, crossed the porch, and as she stepped down to her car, noticed the Grogan twins loitering in a wedge of shade at the end of the building.

A thought crossed her mind, then appeared on her face in the form of a sly smile.

She opened the Honda’s door, reached across the windshield, fiddled with something, then slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled forward until she was parallel with the twins.

She stuck her hand out and waved a dollar bill at the boys. “Hey… Here. It’s for the car wash.”

The twins looked at each other, exchanged confused looks, then figured what the heck—and, laughing at their good luck, hustled over to get their reward.

Just as they stepped up to her window, Laura hauled back on the windshield washer lever—and a stream of water shot out sideways, blasting one of the boys right between the eyes. He screamed out in shock, grabbed his face, and dropped to the ground.

“Free bath. No charge.” Laura laughed. Then she stuck her tongue out at the little monsters and sped off, leaving them choking in a cloud of dust.

* * *

Fletcher’s body lay right where Frankie and Vinny had left it. The air was still and breathless. A cloud of blowflies covered Fletcher’s face. Their angry buzzing filling the air.

Across the way, the drip-drip-drip sound of water echoed from the base of the reservoir as the last of its contents pooled on the ground, then quickly disappeared beneath the sand.

Something moved. The flies started, all of them moving in unison like some unholy school of fish, causing them to swarm up and away from Fletcher’s body.

A moment later, Doc’s body contracted, jerking off the ground. Then his legs began to dance on the sand like they were attached to strings manipulated by some invisible puppeteer. A creeper rose up between his legs and snaked across his chest. It continued until it reached his head, weaving back and forth through the air. A second after that, it struck down, plunging into his neck, the force causing Fletcher’s head to cant to the side and release a knot of boiling maggots that spilled out of his mouth and rolled onto the sand.

Another creeper appeared. It raced toward Fletcher’s body, raising a trail of dust as it rippled across the desert floor like an eel sliding through water.

Chapter 28

Laura gripped the wheel as one of the Honda’s tires banged into, then shot out of yet another pothole. The road seemed to be one giant divot. The good news was, all the bumping and banging had jolted the air conditioner back to life.

She grabbed Carla’s map, rotated it in her hand, tried to make sense of it, then dropped it in her lap and shook her head. “I think I’ve driven off the map,” she said to herself in a frustrated voice.

It was getting late. She thought about turning around and heading back to town when she saw a weathered sign slanting out from one side of the road. It read: Lester Moon’s Goat Farm. Beneath that, a cartoon hand pointed the way.

She looked at the sign, unsure what to do, then pulled off the road, following the pointing finger into a driveway that was really no more than a beaten path through the scrub. What did she have to lose?

After a minute or so, she came to a roughhewn wooden house with a corrugated tin roof and a series of animal pens attached to one side. A man stood in one of the pens surrounded by six goats. He looked up and waved as the Honda pulled up alongside the pen and parked next to a section of the split rail fence.

Laura waved back. Then she stopped the engine, climbed out of the car, stepped up to the fence, and looped her arms over the top rail.

“Hello,” she said, smiling warmly.

“Hello back, young lady,” answered the frail-looking man. He was dressed in khaki pants, a soiled work shirt, and a battered Resistol cowboy hat.

“You must be Lester Moon.”

“The very same,” said Lester, his weathered face crinkling into a smile. “Say, do you like cheese?” He reached down and gave one of the goats a loving pat.

“Um, yeah. Sure,” said Laura, thinking, oh-kay.

Lester picked up a handful of hay, then leaned forward and dropped it into a feed bin. “The thing about goats is—they’ll eat just about anything. Had one chew off my back pocket once.”

“Really?” said Laura. Here we go.

“Yep, chewed it right off and swallowed it.” Lester shook his head, thinking about it. “I’m raising these here for goat cheese.”

“Oh. Great. I love feta cheese. Good stuff.”

“Me too. I’m a cheese-eatin’ son-of-a-gun. I love all cheeses—gouda, swiss, jack, cheddar—heck, you name it. No processed cheese, though. No, sir.”

“No, of course not,” Laura agreed, stifling a laugh.

“Remember the movie Treasure Island?”

“Sure… Long John Silver.”

“Right. And Ben Gunn. Remember Ben Gunn? He was the guy in the cave surrounded by all that treasure.” Lester leaned forward, his eyes widening at the thought. “And when they finally discover him—all he wants is cheese.” Lester laughed, then slapped a knee. “So old Ben Gunn trades all those doubloons for a giant wheel of cheese. I believe it was cheddar.”

“Hard to imagine,” Laura said, playing along.

“I’m like that. Heck, I’d have done the same thing.” Lester stooped and picked up another handful of hay. Just as he went to drop it in the bin, there was a flash of green, alien and unnatural-looking—a Fletcher Creeper had been mixed in with the feed. It was a clipping given to him by Doc a few days ago.

“Actually, I’m looking for the Rainsford Ranch,” Laura said, finally getting to why she had wandered by. “I think I may have missed the turn?”

“Oh, Sam’s place. You’re almost there. Just go back to the main road and keep going for five miles and you’ll run smack into it.”

“Great,” said Laura, relieved she hadn’t missed the turn. She turned back to her car, then waved and said, “Thanks again.”

“Come back in about a week, and I’ll have some cheese for you.”

“That’s a deal,” said Laura, pulling open her door.

Chapter 29

Sitting on the house porch, Sam watched as Curley tried to scramble up a sandy bank—two steps forward, one step back. Kristin was inside reading one of her books, a zombie thriller, but had only made it through a couple of paragraphs before drifting off to sleep. The end of civilization as we know it would just have to wait until she woke up from her nap.

“Stop right there, Curley.” Sam rocked back in his chair, took a sip of beer. “Put it there and we’ll see if it can hold back that marching dune.”

“What?” said Curley, twisting toward Sam. “What did you say?”

“Just plant it there, Curley,” Sam said, pointing at Curley’s feet. “That’s the perfect spot.”

Curley waved and nodded okay. He dropped to a knee, scooped away a handful of sand, making a shallow hole, then placed the creeper clipping—the one Doc had insisted Sam take—in the hole. Using both hands, he carefully pushed sand around the creeper, being sure to tamp it down on all sides.

Satisfied with his work, Curley struggled to his feet and looked at Sam. “I swear, Sam, half the time I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, Curl, I know. It’s why we get along so well.”

* * *

The sun was setting when Laura’s car passed beneath the Rainsford Ranch sign, pulled into the compound, and parked next to the water storage tank. The sky had turned amber, bathing everything in soft golden light, and the noonday heat had finally begun to ease.

Sam came off the porch when he saw the Honda pull up. He didn’t know the car, and was straining to see inside, when—

Laura flung her door open, and in one graceful movement, slipped out onto her long, elegant legs.

What happened next caught Sam totally off guard. He stopped in his tracks, unable to move or even speak. Stunned is really the way to describe it—stunned by Laura’s lovely presence. It was like an electric shock. A pulse that overwhelmed his senses.

Laura felt it too. An adrenaline rush. A spontaneous attraction. An unguarded outpouring of love. Or lust? And right on the back of that, she suddenly wished she had changed and fixed her hair and brushed her teeth.

“Hello,” said Laura, pulling her hair back and at the same time breaking the spell she had unwittingly cast on Sam.

Carla was wrong, Sam thought, staring at her. She had said to keep on the lookout for a pretty girl that might be stopping by. This woman wasn’t pretty—she was drop-dead gorgeous.

“Hey,” said Sam, as he walked over to greet her, relieved to be able to move his legs again.

Laura held out a hand. “Laura Beecham.” For some reason, she suddenly felt the need to include her last name.

“Sam Rainsford,” he said, taking her hand. “Welcome to the Rainsford Ranch, home of the seedless date.”

“Oh right, yes…” Laura pointed to the entrance. “I saw the sign.”

“Want a date?”

“I can’t remember the last time I had a date.”

Sam smiled, took a step back. Then using his hands, he framed her face like a photographer. “Hair. Wardrobe upgrade. Maybe a touch more makeup…”

“Ha, ha. Very funny,” said Laura, giving him a flat look.

“I am, of course, kidding,” Sam said, giving her a warm smile. “Actually, you’re incredibly perfect just the way you are. Just a little date humor. We’re big on that around here.” Then he thought to himself, What the hell’s come over me?

“Date humor?” she said, a skeptical tone in her voice. “How quaint.”

“Quaint? Oh, we’re very quaint around here. In fact, it’s why I moved here. I was looking for quaint. In my opinion, the world could use more quaint.”

“Well, it’s working. You’re very quaint.”

“Thank you.”

Sam went over to a workbench next to the water tank, grabbed a basket filled with dates, and offered one to Laura. “Here, try one.”

Laura reached out, took a date, then held it up and examined it. “Deglet Noor, right?”

“Right,” said Sam, instantly impressed. Beautiful AND smart. What had he done to deserve this?

Laura was thinking she should mention why she was here, that she was looking for the Fletcher place, but she was having fun—and there was something about this guy… So instead, she said, “I’m familiar with the trees. Actually, I’m a botanist.” She looked over, staring at the rows of palms silhouetted by the fading light. “They’re majestic.”

“My favorite time of day. Always reminds me of an ancient oasis.”

Laura held the date up, examined it. “I just never think to eat them.”

“That’s because of the seeds. They’re a real bummer. Hey, who ate grapes before the Thompson Seedless, right?”

She thought about that. “Maybe you’ve got a point there.”

Sam held up a date. “Rainsford Seedless Dates. Jewel of the Mojave.”

Laura popped a date in her mouth—and right before she began to chew, Sam said, “Careful! Watch out for the seed.”

She gave him a funny look, finished the date, then let the seed slide into her fingers. “Wait a minute, I thought you—”

“Um, yeah. They’re not exactly seedless yet.”

“Well, despite the seed, it was very good. Very tasty.”

“The Deglet Noor is the king of dates,” said Sam, motioning towards the palms. “Doc and I figure by next year we’ll be growing the seedless version.”

“Doc? Laura questioned, suddenly forgetting the dates. “Dr. Henry Fletcher?”

“Right, I should’ve mentioned that…”

“That’s why I’m here. I’m on my way to see him.”

“Yeah, I know. Carla called, said you might be stopping by.”

“Oh,” Laura nodded.

“So how do you know, Doc? Dr. Fletcher?”

“We met once, years ago…” she said, letting her voice trial off. “He’s not expecting me.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Oh…?”

“Doc doesn’t get any visitors. Especially good-looking women.”

“Hmm,” she nodded, saying to herself, glad he thinks so. “Well, won’t he be surprised.”

“Very.”

“I understand it’s not far from here… do I just follow the road?”

“Basically, yeah. But not in that,” said Sam, pointing at her car. “That Honda will never make it. The road up to Fletcher’s is like the back of a camel. Four-wheel-drive only.”

Laura frowned. “How far is it?”

“Two hours… on foot.”

“By four-wheel-drive, I mean,” she said flatly, stopping just short of rolling her eyes.

“I seen Sam make the run to Doc’s in twenty-five minutes,” said Curley, stepping out of the shadows and giving Laura a wide-eyed look. He’d never seen such a good-looking woman.

“Yeah, but not at night,” said Sam, putting a hand on Curley’s back. “Curley, say hello to Laura.”

Curley raised his cap. “Hey,” he said. You could see the blush on his cheeks clear through his beard.

“Nice to meet you, Curley,” she said, warmly. “Quaint name,” she added, giving Sam a little smile.

“Quaint?” said Curley, giving her a confused look.

“Just say thank you, Curley,” Sam laughed. “Trust me on this.”

Curley threw up his hands and shook his head. “I don’t understand you any better than Sam.” He turned to go, then looked back and said, “I swear, Sam, one of these days I’m just gonna up and walk off this place.”

“Fine, Curley. You do that,” challenged Sam. “But just remember, your bunk will always be here waiting for you.”

“Aww… how am I ever gonna get out of here…”

A loud snorting sound erupted next to the barn. They all turned and watched as Blossom trotted over to a bag of chicken feed and tried to open it with her hoof.

“Curley! Didn’t I tell you to keep that pig penned up?” said Sam, a little anger edging into his voice.

“Shoot! Sorry, Sam…” Curley hitched up his coveralls and ran toward the pig. “Blossom! Blossom, no! Get away from there!”

Sam looked at Laura, shrugged, and gave her a What am I gonna do look.

Laura just smiled. She could see that Sam was really fond of Curley and had taken him under his wing. “So, how about running me up to the Fletcher place?”

“Love to.”

“Great,” said Laura. She moved toward her car. “I just have to—”

“First thing tomorrow morning,” he said, cutting her off.

“What’s wrong with right now?”

“It’s too late. That road is bad in the daytime. At night, it’s suicide.”

What’s this guy playing at? She suddenly thought to herself. Is he working the situation, trying to come onto her? And then, Would that be so bad?

“You’re kidding… are you sure?”

“Cross my seedless heart.”

Laura frowned. “Great.”

“You’re welcome to stay here tonight.”

There it was… Mr. Suave. Mister Smooth Operator makes his move. She mashed her lips together, glanced at the house, then issued an equivocal, “Hmm…”

“Or, I’m sure Tommy and Carla would put you up for the night.”

Laura sighed. There was no way she was getting back in that car. “I couldn’t face the drive,” she said, dropping her defenses. “Not after today.”

“Good. Then it’s settled. You can stay here.” Sam plucked a date out of the basket and flipped it to Laura. “Besides, you don’t want to miss the Rainsford Ranch house special.”

“What would that be?” she asked, flashing a skeptical look.

“Date loaf,” Sam said, a dead serious look on his face.

Laura’s face dropped. “Date loaf?”

“Just kidding!” he laughed. “Tonight it’s roast chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, and grilled asparagus.”

“Thank God,” Laura said, genuinely relieved.

Chapter 30

Kristin was still crashed out on the couch when Sam and Laura entered, and neither of them noticed her lying there.

Sam set Laura’s bag down, then waved a hand through the air. “Welcome to my humble abode. Mi casa es su casa.”

“Nice,” she said. Then she cast her eyes about the room, taking in the fireplace, oriental rugs, tastefully framed landscapes, leather furniture. She was about to say how cozy it was, too, when she saw Kristin sprawled on the couch, a copy of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War perched on her chest.

“Mrs. Rainsford, I presume?” Laura said, pointing at the couch.

Sam glanced over and saw Kristin. His eyes widened and he looked skyward. How could he have forgotten!

“Ah, I can explain that. That’s Kristin, she—”

On hearing her name, Kristin’s eyes opened and she sat up, sending the zombie novel tumbling to the floor.

She stared at Laura. What was she doing here?

“Kristin, I’d like you to meet, Laura,” Sam said, motioning towards her. “She’s going to be staying here for the night. Oh—and she’s going to need the spare bedroom—so you’ll be bunking on the couch.”

“What?!” said Kristin, swinging her feet onto the floor. “Someone else is staying the night? She gave Sam a look, then: “What are you, some mac daddy, now? Some Charlie Sheen wannabe collecting strays?”

“Okay… this is interesting,” said Laura, taking in Kristin’s dead girl makeup and leather outfit.

“And why do I have to stay on the couch? That’s bullshit!”

Sam glanced at Laura and gave her an apologetic I can explain look.

“Because it’s my house, and I say so.”

“Authoritarian bullshit,” Kristin said, flatly.

“Yep. My place, my rules.”

“Oh, gawd…” Kristin stood, squinted at Sam, then stormed off to the bathroom.

* * *

Laura and Kristin sat at a table that divided the kitchen from the living room. Plates filled with chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus and grilled vegetables sat before them. Sam opened a bottle of red wine, stepped up to Laura, and filled her glass.

“Sea Smoke Pinot. Santa Rita Hills. Great stuff.”

“Thank you,” she said, lifting the glass and taking a sip. “Mmm… that is great.” Laura looked at an empty place setting. “So, where’s Curley?”

Sam took a seat, filled his glass. “Curley… Well, Curley pretty much does his own thing. That rarely includes sit-down dinners. Too domesticated for him.”

“Um, hello.” Kristin pointed to her wine glass. “What about me? You forgot to fill my glass.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you’d want any,” said Sam, giving her a chilling look. “Something about… coming here and getting drunk.”

Kristin looked at him, frowned. He had her on that one. “I changed my mind. Safety in numbers.”

“And you’re twenty-one?”

“No. Twenty-two.”

“In that case, sure. You can have a glass of wine.”

Sam filled a glass and handed it to Kristin. Then he stopped and stared. Something was different about the way she looked. And then it struck him.

“So, what happened to the Transamerica Building?”

“What?” Kristin said, looking totally confused.

“Your lip? The stud thingy?”

Kristin self-consciously raised a hand and covered her mouth. “I don’t always wear it.”

“These are good,” Laura said, paging through a sketchpad that Kristin had left on the corner of the table, trying to bail her out of an awkward moment. “Really good.”

“Oh? What is it?” Sam looked at the pad. “What’s really good?”

“Kristin’s sketches.” Laura continued paging through the pad. “Detailed drawings of various buildings.”

“Architectural renderings,” Kristin corrected.

“Really,” Sam looked genuinely surprised. “Let me have a look. I’m a builder. Well, used to be.”

Laura handed him the sketchpad. Sam flipped through the pages, stopping on certain ones, then nodding. All of the drawings were expertly done and showed a definite style. Trapezoids, ellipses, and sweeping slabs of steel that would have done Frank Gehry proud.

“Wow. These are good.” Sam flipped through to the last page, then handed the pad to Kristin. “I could’ve used you on a few projects, believe me.”

“They’re okay,” she said, embarrassed by all the fuss. “I always liked drawing. Designing stuff. I used to think I would be an architect someday. I fantasized about going to CalArts.”

“But you still can.” Laura said, her voice filled with encouragement. “You’re really talented. Go for it!”

“Right,” said Kristin. “You know how much school costs?”

“Yes. It’s outrageous,” Laura agreed. “But there are programs, scholarships.”

“Where?” she said, sounding completely discouraged.

“I’d start with CalArts, see what they have to offer.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I guess.”

“Hey, how about a toast?” Sam raised his glass.

Laura and Kristin lifted their glasses.

“Here’s to new friends,” Sam said, staring at Laura. Then to Kristin, “And to hidden talents.”

They all clinked their glasses, then sipped the excellent garnet-colored wine.

Sam stood, went to the kitchen counter, grabbed his phone, and came back and faced the table. He selected the camera function and said, “Smile.”

Click.

There, he’d documented the event. The first real dinner party he’d had since moving to the ranch.

“Now, please dig in. The chicken’s getting cold.”

Chapter 31

At eight-thirty, the sun had been up for a few hours, and the day was already heating up.

Sam dropped the pickup into 4-wheel-drive and hit the gas as the Ford F-150 bucked up and onto the steep incline. Sand and gravel flew in all directions as Sam expertly worked the gas and wheel together, walking the truck up the hardscrabble slope.

Laura gripped the door handle and looked over at Sam. She’d been stealing glances at him all morning. She couldn’t help it.

Uh-oh.

As the pickup reached the top of the hill and leveled, Laura took a sip of coffee and looked at Sam. Again. There was something about him. A quiet confidence. A low-key Alpha thing that she found totally sexy.

“You’re a good cook. Last night’s dinner—and this morning, a Denver omelet.”

They had gotten up at first light. Showered. Had a quick breakfast, and with Kristin still sound asleep on the couch, set off for the Fletcher place.

“Thanks.” Sam looked over, smiled. He couldn’t help noticing how she was dressed. White cotton tank top, jeans, hair pulled back beneath a navy ball cap. Perfect, Sam thought, everything about her. And somehow she was here, with him, in the middle of nowhere.

“I was sort of forced into it,” said Sam. “Learning to cook. It’s not like there’s anyone around here to do it for me.”

“Another one of those hidden talents,” Laura said, giving him a smile.

Sam laughed. “Yeah, who knew…”

“Was there ever a Mrs. Rainsford?”

“Actually, yes. Briefly. Lasted exactly one year.”

“Oh?” Laura looked over, waiting for the details. No, wanting the details.

“I was building spec homes in Las Vegas. That’s where we met. I was commuting out there from Los Angeles every couple of weeks. It was perfect. We were always thrilled to see each other. It was fun. So we figured that being together full-time would be really fun. She ended moving to L.A. with me. The first couple of months were great. We decided to get married. And six months after that, we discovered the bliss of seeing each other every day was, well— not so blissful.”

“Oh…” Laura nodded, sounding sorry. “So, it was so traumatic you gave everything up—moved to the desert—and became a recluse.” She glanced at him. “Sounds lonely.”

They drove along in silence for a minute, Sam gathering his thoughts.

“Actually, my marriage had nothing to do with me moving here. My family—father, mother, sister—were all killed in a car accident. Happened a couple of years ago. Life stopped making sense to me. So I moved out here.”

“Sam…” Laura reached over, touched his am. “I’m so sorry. I have a big mouth sometimes.”

“No,” Sam shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I’m glad you know.”

He looked over at her. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. This was it. He didn’t want her to leave… ever.

Uh-oh.

The cab fell silent again.

Laura stared out through the windshield. “How much farther is it?”

“Not far. Couple more miles.”

Chapter 32

The pickup truck was stopped by the side of the road. Sam held a piece of splintered wood in his hand, a remnant of Fletcher’s gate.

Laura kicked a piece of the gate with her hiking boot, saw a glint of metal, bent down, and retrieved an emblem from a car. A Cadillac badge from the front grill.

“Look.” Laura walked over, handed it to Sam. “Off a Cadillac.”

Sam held the emblem, studied it. “Frank Desouza,” he said flatly. “Has to be.”

“Who’s that?”

“Vegas scumbag. He’s been after Doc to sell his land so he can build a casino.”

Laura studied Sam’s face. “But he won’t sell.”

“No way,” Sam said, turning the Escalade badge over in his hand. “Not in a million years.”

“You think he’s the one that smashed the gate?”

“Has to be. Like I said, the guy’s a scumbag.”

“You think he’s here now?” Laura asked, a little concern entering her voice.

Sam moved to the pickup, held her door open. “Let’s go find out.”

* * *

Sam braked and hauled the wheel over, narrowly missing a pile of debris, and lurched to a stop in front of Fletcher’s house.

Or what was left of it.

Sam and Laura stared out through the windshield, not believing or even comprehending what they were seeing.

The place had been transformed.

Half the main residence and the nursery had been engulfed by a Fletcher Creeper! It looked like a giant, chartreuse-colored octopus had been dropped on the entire place.

The green mass pulsed and throbbed as fleshy stalks, thick as a man’s arm, snaked out, searching for something, anything. Creepers swept through the air, deadly as patrolling Great Whites, their stalks covered with bony thorns shaped like shark’s teeth. And at the organism’s center, wispy medusa-like tendrils rose up, bristling in the morning light.

“My God! Whatis it? What’s that?” Laura yelled.

“Holy Jesus… I don’t know.”

They cracked their doors, then together they dropped out of the truck, both of them on high alert.

Sam placed his hands around his mouth. “Doc! Hello! Dr. Fletcher!”

No one replied. The only sound was a low rasping of teeth as creeper stalks crisscrossed one another.

“Hello…” Laura called out, straining to see if anyone was in the house.

“I can’t believe it,” said Sam. “It’s unbelievable. The entire place is gone, covered by this…” And then it came to him. “Fletcher Creeper.”

Holy shit.

Then the sound of splintering wood issued up from the rear of the house. Both of them spun towards it.

“Doc! Doc!” Sam yelled. Then he motioned to Laura, and both of them rushed toward the house.

The landing and most of the front entrance were still free of the creeper. Sam and Laura cautiously approached and stepped onto the porch. As they passed beneath a bay window, the glass shattered and a thick creeper stalk looped out, shot up, and smashed into the overhang, burying its boney tip deep into the wooden eaves.

Startled, Sam and Laura leapt back, both of them yelling out in fear.

There was a clinking sound. Then a bottle tumbled out the window and smashed at their feet—an empty bottle of scotch.

“Shit!” Sam said, hauling Laura back a little farther, both of them wide-eyed and in shock.

“Jesus Christ,” Laura said as they backed off the porch.

Sam stared at the shattered bottle, then whispered to himself, “Doc…”

Laura looked at him. “What? What is it, Sam?”

“Wait here. I’m going inside.”

“No! Are you crazy?! That thing—”

But Sam was already moving across the porch. He stepped up to the door, placed his hand on the handle, twisted, pulled, and—

Fletcher’s body spilled out in a gout of ruined flesh.

“Jesus Christ!” Sam yelled.

Inside, the creeper heaved. Fletcher’s body lurched up, then dropped onto the landing, his limbs bent and twisted and hanging from his body at an unnatural angle.

Sam stared in horror at what used to be his friend’s face. The skin was split and leathery and drawn drum-tight across the skull. His lips were wrinkled and shriveled, having permanently receded over the gums, leaving his face frozen in a ghoulish grin. His eyes hung from their sockets, dangling like bloody rubber balls beneath a puddle of gore.

“God. Jesus Christ. No…” he took a step back, not believing what he was seeing.

A loud rustling sound erupted—and, without warning, something shot directly at Sam’s face!

The space in front of his eyes suddenly turned bright green—then a shrill squawk, squawk, squawk exploded in his ears—and Darwin slammed into Sam’s chest.

“Darwin! Shit! Goddamn it! Son of a bitch! Goddamn son of a bitch!”

With a beat of his wings, Darwin shot past Sam, swept beneath the porch, and landed safely inside the pickup, lighting on the steering wheel.

Then Laura screamed, her panic filling the air. Sam wheeled towards her as a creeper stalk raced up, wrapped itself around her ankle, and jerked her off her feet.

Laura screamed again. She watched in horror as the creeper coiled tighter and tighter around her leg, its teeth-like thorns tearing through her pants and slicing into her flesh.

She felt the blood—hot and wet—as it spilled into her boot. “Sam!” she yelled, then tried to crab back as the creeper snaked up her leg towards her groin.

Sam flew off the porch, and barely touching the ground, sprinted to his truck, grabbed a shovel out the back, raced up to Laura—and, with the shovel raised overhead, knifed down, slashing at the creeper stalk again and again, not stopping until he’d severed it cleanly in two.

Twisting, writhing—and three feet shorter—the creeper stalk drew back and sucked inside the house, disappearing through the broken window.

Laura scrambled free, kicking her foot in the air, trying to rid herself of the severed bit of creeper.

Sam fell next to her, put his hand on her leg, and, using the handle of the shovel, pried the remaining section of creeper off her ankle and pitched it out, making sure it was well clear of them.

“You okay?” he said, helping her sit up.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“My God,” said Sam, staring at the undulation mass that had engulfed the nursery. “Look at that thing.”

Laura stared at the creeper, awestruck. She started to speak and then stopped—she didn’t have the words.

Sam turned back to Laura, lifted her foot, then gingerly pulled her pants leg up and over three scarlet-red lacerations where thorns had raked her flesh.

“The cuts aren’t deep—just superficial wounds.” He rolled her pant leg back down, covering them. “Okay, let’s get you up.”

Laura nodded. Sam took her arm, draped it around his shoulders, then pulled her to her feet, keeping ahold of her while she tested her leg.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Come on,” Sam looped a hand around her waist. “I’ve got everything we need to clean and dress your ankle at the house.”

They started back to the truck, Sam checking to make sure she really was okay. Then Laura suddenly stopped, turned back to the house, and stared at the body lying on the porch.

“Was that—”

“Yes. It’s Dr. Fletcher. He’s gone. There’s nothing we can do now.”

“No!” Then, in a muffled voice, she said it again. “No…” It sounded like someone had squeezed all the air out of her lungs. She slumped against Sam, gripping his arm as the strength went out of her legs.

Sam held her, lifting her up, her sobs dying into his chest. He stroked her head. Then, gently using the back of his hand, he wiped a line of tears from her cheek.

“You two were close… who was he to you?”

Laura sniffed, wiped her eyes. She lifted her head, looked at Sam. “We weren’t really close,” she said, blinking tears away. “We only met once. The day I was born.”

Chapter 33

“Blossom! Blossom, get in there!” Curley yelled, trying to herd the sow into its pen.

Blossom tried one last end-run, but Curley darted left, blocking the way. Relenting, Blossom snorted, started into the pen, then suddenly bucked, twisted around—and shot to freedom between Curley’s legs.

Curley’s feet were knocked apart. He was stuck in the mud. Helplessly off balance, all he could do was wave his arms and watch as he fell into the wallow. Splat.

“Damn it, Blossom… ” Curley sat up, then yelled to the pig, “Go ahead! There’s nothing out there to eat. Nothing but sand and cactus.”

Ignoring him, Blossom trotted past a row of palms, then went straight up a sandy bank and stopped directly in front of the creeper Curley had planted yesterday.

Blossom sniffed the clipping, snorting up a cloud of sand. Then, using her nose, she rooted around the base, scooped it up, and gobbled it down.

The pig swung around, looked at Curley, shook her head up and down with delight, then trotted over to the water trough, plunged her snout in, and began to sop up the water.

Blossom continued to drink—and then she suddenly stopped, jerking her head up out of the trough.

Something was wrong.

Blossom plowed straight back in a freakish movement that made her look like she was on wheels, did a 360, and then began to squeal at the top of her lungs.

The pig began to swell. It was like Blossom had suddenly been connected to an air hose. A moment after that, bumps appeared all over her back, moving in and out as if someone had crawled inside and was poking her with a stick.

The pig kept squealing. Her body began a series of unnatural twists and turns that would’ve given Linda Blair a run for her money. Then Blossom froze. She turned her head creepily sideways—and without warning—exploded into a creeper vine!

A pink mist floated above the pig as tendrils and creeper stalks sprung out in all directions, pouring out of every orifice.

Within seconds, what used to be a three hundred pound sow was a giant, undulating creeper, its stalks decorated with chunks of bloody pork.

Curley scrambled to his feet, horrified. “Jesus Lord,” he said in disbelief. “What in God’s name is it?”

He moved closer, trying to see just what had just happened to his pet pig. As he leaned in for a better look, the creeper snapped out, coiling one of its stalks around his boot.

“Shit!” Curley yelled, pitching back and spilling to the ground.

He looked down, then watched in horror as the creeper coiled tighter and tighter, its thorns slicing into the leather upper of his boot.

Curley boosted himself up, reached down, pulled on the laces—then, using his other foot, kicked the boot off, letting the creeper have it as he pulled his leg free.

Curley crab-walked back, jumped up, then watched in utter amazement as the creeper crushed and shredded his work boot.

What the hell?

“Okay. Alright. So you want to play it like that…”

Curley marched over to a tool shed, yanked open the door, and moments later stepped out holding a gas-powered Weed Eater with a metal chopping blade.

He moved toward the creeper and pulled the starter cord. The engine caught and sputtered, then stopped. Two more rapid pulls. Then, on the fourth try, the engine roared to life as the creeper poured a dozen arms into the water trough—and began to drink.

As the water flowed into the thing, the growth was freakish, spectacular, geometric. It voraciously emptied the trough, then sent tentacles out in all directions looking for more water—or whatever…

Curley revved the engine, pinning the throttle until the Weed Eater’s two-stroke engine was screaming, and—advancing in a shroud of blue smoke—drove the blade deep into a knot of flashing creeper stalks.

“Suck this! Suck this, you sick bastard!” Curley poured on the juice, a crazed look on his face.

The Weed Eater tore into the thing, slicing and dicing and sending bits of creeper cartwheeling through the air.

“Yeah!” Curley yelled with delight, screaming at the top of his lungs. “Bite this!”

He jerked the trimmer sideways, slicing a fat stalk in two. Then wheeling right, he took out another arm just before it reached the trough. As he sliced into a third stalk, the engine bogged and began to miss. The plug fouled. And then the Weed Eater quit, plunging the compound into silence.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of green. And then the machine was ripped from his hands.

Curley reeled back as the creeper coiled around the Weed Eater, bent the shaft, and broke it in two. Snap!

“Son of a bitch!” Curley said, taking a step back. “What is it?”

And then, without warning, the freshly gorged creeper sent a stalk flashing out—caught Curley around the waist, flipped him off his feet—and began dragging him towards a hundred thirsty suckers.

“Jesus Christ!” Curley yelled, as he slid through the sand. “Help!”

Chapter 34

Kristin came running out of the house, looking very un-Goth-like in slippers and a pink robe. She raced to the tool shed, grabbed a machete, sprinted to Curley—and, with the machete raised over her head, yelled, “Fuck me!” as she brought it down, severing the creeper arm and freeing Curley.

Just to be sure, she slashed down again. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. “Ugly fucking weed!”

Curley rolled free and wobbled to his feet. He stared at Kristin, the machete slung at her side. Then in wide-eyed disbelief, he said, “You just saved my life.”

Kristin stared at the creeper, watching its medieval-looking arms writhing on the ground. “What the fuck is that?” Kristin said.

Then both their heads flicked towards the gate as Sam’s pickup came roaring up and pulled to a stop directly in front of them.

“Get back!” Sam yelled, dropping out of the cab, shocked by the sight of another writhing creeper—this one next to his house! He ran to Curley and Kristin, pulling them over to the truck as Laura climbed out.

“You guys okay?” Sam asked, seeing how shaken Curley was.

Curley nodded. “I’m okay. But it got Blossom. Jesus... Sam.”

“If this is a date orchard… then what the hell is that?” Kristin asked, pointing at the creeper.

“A bad idea,” Sam said, thinking about Doc and his creeper experiment.

The sound of rending metal filled the compound.

All heads snapped up. They watched as the creeper crushed the trough like an empty soda can and spread across the ground like a cancer.

“I ain’t never seen nothing like that,” said Curley, still rattled. “It’s like really bad Bermuda grass… on crack.”

“It’s identical to the one we just saw at the Fletcher place,” Laura said, staring at the writhing green mass. “How is that possible?” Then she added, “It’s got to be some mutation. A genetic freak.”

“That’s exactly what it is,” said Sam. “A genetic freak. Doc Fletcher created it. Named it the Fletcher Creeper. Claimed he’d invented the ultimate drought-tolerant plant.”

Laura considered that. “Yep, from what I’ve heard, that sounds like dad.”

Curley looked at Laura, his mind turning, trying to make the connection. And just as he was about to comment…

“Look,” Kristin said, pointing at the creeper. “It’s trying to locate something.”

They all watched as tendrils rose up from a creeper arm and began to sniff the air.

Chapter 35

“The date palms!” Sam yelled.

And with that, a creeper stalk wriggled across the sand, looped onto a palm, and began to snake its way up the trunk. When it was halfway up, it stopped and plunged its tip into the palm. Then hundreds of little suckers burrowed into the trunk and began to drain the fluids out of its pulpy flesh.

“Incredible,” Laura said. “It’s completely predatory, voracious for fluids.” She glanced down at her leg, adding, “Any kind of fluids.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, then he thought to himself, Leave it to Doc.

Behind them, the air filled with the chilling sound of something scratching across a metal surface. And then like a drill team, they all wheeled in unison—and saw a creeper stalk probe the water storage tank, looking for a way in.

At the top of the tank there was a sudden clank, clank, clank. A creeper stalk had slithered up the back side and was trying to slip beneath the metal hatch on top.

“Jesus! The water supply!” Sam leapt forward and sprinted to the tanker truck, which was parked next to the water storage tank.

“Sam! No! Stay away from that thing!” Laura yelled.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” added Kristin, tightening her grip on the machete.

Laura turned to Kristin, frowned, and gave her a look that said: Nice language.

“What!” Kristin said, giving her a look right back.

“I’m not giving up my ranch!” Sam yelled, then stopped in his tracks when a giant stalk slammed down, blocking his path.

Sam held his breath and stood frozen as a statue. The tip of the creeper rose in the air, moving this way and that, sniffing, trying to locate him.

“My God! Sam!” Laura yelled, thinking he was done for.

Sam remained perfectly still and thought to himself, The only way to get to the truck is up and over that thing.

He took a breath, measured the distance between himself and the creeper, crouched—then sprang up, vaulting cleanly over the bristling stalk, tumbled onto the sand, regained his footing, and sprinted for the truck.

Sam skidded up to the tanker, slipped along the driver’s side, hauled open the door, climbed in, and—just as he shut the door, a creeper stalk sailed through the air and slammed into it. Thud.

Creeper leaves tinkled across the hood like falling snow.

Sam turned the key, then felt another creeper bang off the side of the truck and hit the ground. Jesus Christ, what is this thing?!

He mashed down on the starter. Nothing, only the dull click-click-click of brushes unable to make contact.

Shit!

He raised his foot, then drove it hard onto the starter, praying it would catch this time. More clicking… and then the thing died completely.

* * *

“Hang on, Sam!”

He jerked his head up—and there in the rearview mirror was Curley! Sam watched as he raced towards the tanker, hammer in hand, then disappeared beneath the truck.

A moment later, he heard the tap, tap, tap, of the hammer striking the starter, trying to coax it back to life.

Sam waited, eyes skyward, and then stood on the starter. The cab filled with a loud grinding sound, and a second after that, the roar of the Cummins diesel flooded the compound. Way to go, Curley!

“Yes!” Sam revved the engine, letting the turbocharger scream.

The passenger door was yanked open, and a dusty, grimy Curley tumbled into the cab.

Sam raised a hand. They bumped fists. “Way to go, Curl! That was balls-up.”

“Maybe now you’ll fix that damn thing,” Curley said. But Sam could tell he was proud as hell of himself.

Sam dropped it into gear. The truck rumbled forward. He added power, jammed it into second, then reached down and pulled a lever.

At the rear of the truck, twin jets of water shot out from the bottom of the tank.

Sensing the new source of water, the creeper retracted its stalks. Then, like some ancient sea creature, it peeled its tentacles off the water storage tank, heaved up, and sent eight deadly sucker arms whistling through the air after the tanker.

Sam slowed, looked in the mirror, and watched as the creepers raced after them. He continued another twenty yards, then stopped, letting the greedy suckers catch up and attach themselves to the rear of the truck and begin to drink.

Chapter 36

Sam killed the engine and looked at Curley. “Okay, we’ve got to get to the main water tank. We’ve got to blow the valves. All of them!”

“But, Sam…” Curley protested. “That’s exactly what that thing wants!”

“Just do it, Curley. It’s our only chance to save the ranch.”

“Yeah, sure Sam. Okay…”

“On the count of three, we make a run for the tank.”

Curley gave him a dubious look, then nodded okay.

“Here we go… One, two—”

And on three, they slammed open their doors, dropped to the ground, and ran hell for leather towards the storage tank.

Sam got there first, fell on the primary valve, and began to open it, his hands becoming a blur as he spun the valve. Water flooded around Curley’s boot as he rushed up to Sam.

“Curley, get the drain at the rear. I’m going up top to open the hatch. It should increase the flow.”

Curley hustled around the base of the tank and opened the secondary valve.

Sam leapt onto the ladder, scrambled to the top of the tank, worked his way to the hatch, and then popped it open.

“Sam!” Laura yelled, not believing what she was seeing. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Get off there!”

Kristin whipped her head around at Laura, giving her the same disapproving look that Laura had given her earlier.

Laura stared back, shrugged. So…

Sam jumped on the ladder, then came down it like a fireman on a pole and grabbed Curley. As water pooled around the base of the tank, they sprinted across the sand, rejoining Laura and Kristin at the side of the compound.

Chapter 37

As the last drops of water drained from the tanker truck, a malevolent rasping filled the air. They looked over and watched as the creeper freed itself from the truck, its swollen stalks dropping off the tank like ticks from a dying animal.

As each arm thudded to the ground, it snapped around, then went skittering across the sand, ready to gorge on the fresh supply of water pooling around the main storage tank.

“It’s working,” said Sam, as thirsty creeper stalks raced to the tank, preparing to feed.

“Are you crazy?!” Laura looked at Sam. “That’s exactly what it wants.”

“No, look…” He pointed to the ground around the tank.

They all watched as the water pooled, but just as quickly disappeared beneath the sand.

“The ground is like a sieve around here. By the time that thing repositions itself—most of the water will be history.”

“Man, look at that mother go,” said Curley, saying what they were all thinking. Creeper stalks encircled the tank like a squid’s tentacles around a clam. And then began to drink.

“Come on,” Sam said, motioning to everyone. “We don’t have much time.”

“What about the palms, Sam?” Curley said.

Sam looked over at the rows of stately palms and frowned. “There’s nothing we can do. There’s no stopping this thing. But at least it doesn’t have access to more water.”

He waved to the group. “Come on.” With Sam in the lead, they fell into a line and trotted over to the tanker truck. Sam grabbed Laura’s hand, boosted her into the driver’s side, then jumped in after her as Curley and Kristin scrambled around to the passenger’s door.

A shrill squawk erupted across the compound. Darwin swooped down, landing on a storage rack bolted to the roof of the tanker.

Curley got his hand on the door and pulled, but it was stuck. He yanked again and again—but it wouldn’t budge.

And then directly behind them, a whistling sound…

“Come on! Open it!” Kristin yelled, anxiously hopping up and down.

There was a thud. Kristin wheeled. Not ten feet away, a creeper stalk raced directly towards her, thorns brisling.

“Son of a bitch!” Curley yelled, jumping up on the truck’s kick. Then using both hands, he hauled on the door again.

In the cab, Laura leaned over and banged on the door from the inside.

One last mighty pull, and the door popped open. Curley swung out and grabbed Kristin’s hand. As he pulled her inside, the creeper shot up, wrapping around his ankle.

“Jesus!” Curley yelled, feeling thorns bite into his skin through the coveralls. And just before Curley was pulled from the side of the truck and turned into a human Slurpee—

Kristin yelled, “Fuck me!” Then sliced down with the machete, cleanly severing the stalk and freeing Curley.

Curley leapt in next to Kristin and slammed the door. Sam cranked up the diesel, the starter motor working perfectly this time.

There was another high-pitched sound, then a thump, as a creeper stalk dropped across the hood, glanced off the windshield, then made a hideous sound as it scraped along the side of the tanker.

In perfect unison, they all yelled, “Shit!”

Sam jammed the truck into gear and dropped the hammer. The truck jumped forward and roared towards the exit…

A moment later, there was another thump as the truck bumped up and over something and bogged down…

A massive creeper slid around the rear axel, coiled, and began to slow the truck!

Sam eased off on the gas. He reached down, slipped the deuce and a half into six wheel drive, dropped it into low, then stood on the gas. Black smoke shot up from the truck’s twin stacks. The turbo charger screamed—and as the powerful diesel wound up, the front rose, straining against the load.

The creeper coiled tighter, stretched to its limit. There was a tearing sound, then a loud snap! The stalk parted and the tanker rocketed forward, shot out through the entrance gate, and sent Darwin leaping into the air.

Inside the cab, everyone let out their breath with a sigh of relief, glad to be free of the thing. Darwin settled back on the roof as Sam backed off the gas, letting the truck find a safe track on the road.

“My God,” said Laura. “What has my father done?”

Chapter 38

“Come on, baby,” Amber said, pulling on Vinny’s arm, trying to get him to join her in the bedroom. “Let’s get busy. I have to be back at the casino in less than an hour.”

“Am I gonna see you later?”

“You know I can’t.”

Vinny looked at her for a moment, then jerked his arm free and went to the kitchen.

Amber threw her hands up and said, “Your loss.” Then she disappeared into the bedroom.

Vinny stood at the kitchen sink, poured himself a shot of Jack Daniels, gulped it, and was about to have another when he noticed the little pot containing the clipping he’d taken from Fletcher’s place.

He reached out, turned on the water so there was a steady drip coming out of the faucet, lifted the clipping, and placed it in the sink. Then he stripped off his T-shirt, grabbed the bottle of JD, and went to the bedroom.

* * *

Rufus Smoot stepped out of the ancient-looking outhouse located behind Eller’s Garage, let the door slam shut, then stared at the old structure with a look of pure satisfaction.

As he went to hitch up his pants, something fell out of his pocket and dropped to the ground. Rufus bent and picked it up. It was the clipping that Doc had given him earlier in the week. He’d forgotten all about it. Rufus was about to slip it back in his pocket, then changed his mind. He turned, opened the outhouse door—and, grinning ear-to-ear, leaned inside and pitched it down the hole.

“If you can make it down there, you can make it anywhere.”

* * *

At the front of the garage, Karl was leaning over the fender of Rufus’s old Dodge, fixing something in the engine compartment.

“Nice crapper, Karl,” Rufus said, rounding the building and joining Karl beside his car.

“I didn’t know you were a connoisseur, Rufus,” said Karl, backing out from beneath the hood with a laugh.

“A nice crapper is a nice crapper.”

“Okay… if you say so,” he said, wiping his hands on an oil-stained shop rag.

Rufus put a hand on the fender, leaned into the engine compartment. “What about my radiator?”

“Needs a new hose.”

“I know it needs a new hose, Karl. That’s why I’m here.”

“Yeah, well… I don’t exactly have the right one.”

Rufus straightened, gave Karl a direct look. “Well, shit… fake it, Karl.”

“That’s what I’m doing now.” Karl leaned back under the hood and tightened a hose clamp. “This is off an old Impala. Can’t guarantee it, though.”

“Karl, look at this car. The thing’s got more spare parts than Frankenstein’s monster. A used Chevy hose is perfect.”

Chapter 39

Lester Moon’s goat farm was completely quiet except for the sound of buzzing flies. Thousands of them. They crisscrossed back and forth through the hot desert air—all of them headed for the same place—the feed trough.

The pens were empty. There was no sign of Lester—or any goats, for that matter.

But they were there, just the same…

You just couldn’t see them. Because all six goats had been transformed into creeper pincushions. Their backs were exploded open, and hide and hair had been replaced by writhing creeper stalks—some of them waving goat entrails through the air like flags.

The loud buzzing was momentarily drowned out by the sound of the tanker truck as it rumbled into Moon’s farm and pulled up next to the house.

Sam killed the engine and everyone climbed out, with the exception of Kristin and Darwin—both of them happy to wait with the truck.

“Lester!” Sam yelled. Then he turned to the house and yelled again. “Hey, Lester!”

“Maybe we should look for a cave filled with gold,” said Laura looking around.

Sam gave her a funny look. “What?” Then he reached in the truck and grabbed the machete.

“Nothing,” she laughed. “It has something to do with cheese. Lester loves cheese.”

“I like cheese,” Curley said, then looked at Laura as if she might suddenly produce a block out her back pocket.

“Jesus.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Curley, go check the barn.”

“By myself?” Curley asked, a genuine look of concern on his face.

“Yes. Think you can handle it? We’ll go check the main house.”

Curley took a step in the direction of the barn, stopped, then wheeled around. “Hey, maybe she’d like to go check the barn with me?”

“She’s going with me,” Sam fired back, his voice louder than he had intended. Laura looked at Sam, a curious smile forming on her face.

“Curley. Please. Go check the barn, see if Lester’s there.”

Defeated, Curley started for the barn, then said, “It’s just not fair. You’ve got the machete and the girl.”

Sam looked over and saw Laura staring at him, her eyes boring right in. He suddenly felt embarrassed.

“I had no idea I was so popular.”

“I just figured you’d rather see the house,” said Sam, sounding more and more flustered. “That’s all I meant.”

“Yes, well, I’m flattered,” said Laura, letting him twist in the wind.

“It’s no big deal. What’s the big deal?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

“Right,” he said, as they started towards the house…

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, lord…” Curley stood at the edge of the goat pen, staring in at the six eviscerated goats. “Oh, Christ.” Then he slumped against the fence.

Sam and Laura raced over, joining Curley at the pen.

“My God,” said Sam, looking at the goats.

“Lester must’ve had a clipping,” added Laura.

They all jumped as the air exploded with a loud metallic bang-bang-bang…

All eyes cut to the feed hopper’s metal lid. It was bouncing up and down.

Bang-bang-bang….

Sam tightened his grip on the machete, slipped between two fence rails, entered the pen, and cautiously approached the feed bin.

Bang-bang-bang…

He edged closer until he was standing directly in front of the hopper.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“Sam,” Laura called out, her voice on edge. “Be careful.”

Sam raised the machete, slipped the tip of the blade under the hopper lid—and, just as he was about to flip it open—

Lester Moon’s head shot out and sprang directly towards him, looking like some hideous grinning jack-in-the-box skewered on the end of a bobbing creeper stalk.

“Jesus Christ!” Sam yelled, pitching back to avoid the springing head. Then, running on pure adrenaline, he regained his footing, raised the machete, lunged forward—and, like an executioner, sliced down and severed the creeper stalk, sending Lester’s head tumbling into the pen.

“Shit!” Sam yelled, backing away. “This is crazy. This is fucking crazy.”

Curley inched toward the truck. “I’m scared.”

They were all scared.

Sam crossed the pen, slipped through the fence, and was met by Laura. She placed a hand on his arm. Then in a soft voice, she said, “Let’s get out of here, Sam. There’s nothing we can do.”

He looked at her and nodded, his lips becoming a thin line. He placed an arm over her shoulders, and as they followed Curley to the truck, he said, “We’ve got to get to town. We’ve got to warn the others.”

* * *

Frankie Desouza’s Escalade was parked outside a crummy-looking apartment complex in a rundown section of Las Vegas. He had driven himself there.

Times were tough.

He punched a number into his cell phone—waited—then left a message.

“Vinny. Vinny, pick up…” Frankie glanced out the window. “I’m outside your place. Get your ass out here. We got some new business. Oh, and don’t worry—I’ve decided to leave the sheriff out of that other thing—at least for now.”

Frankie slapped the phone shut, expecting to see Vinny any second. He waited. He checked Vinny’s apartment again. He tapped on the steering wheel. He turned the radio on and off. He was starting to get pissed. Here he was, waiting on Vinny-dipshit-Carpito.

Dumb fucking wop.

Frankie pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights, monkey-fucked up a cigarette, plucked the smoke out with his lips, then tried to light it with a gas lighter.

Flick, flick, flick…

“Cheap piece of shit.” Frankie said. He tried again, then threw it onto the dash. He reached down to the console, grabbed a book of matches, started to open it, then stopped and cupped them in his hand.

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, looked at it—then tossed it out the window thinking, fucking coffin nail.

At the same time, across the street, the inside of Vinny’s apartment was being redecorated. Couches, tables, chairs, lamps—everything—had been smashed against the walls. And in their place—a writhing, pulsing, throbbing creeper.

The apartment smelled like rotten eggs, and there was a hissing sound coming from the kitchen. Behind the stove, a creeper stalk had wrapped itself around the gas line, pulled it out of the wall, and ruptured it.

In the bedroom, Vinny and Amber hadn’t been the only thing that was busy. Their naked bodies lay pinned to the bed like lifeless kewpie dolls as dozens of creeper stalks sucked them dry.

Frankie stood in front of Vinny’s apartment door. He knocked. Waited. Then knocked again. Frustrated, he yelled, “Vinny! Vinny, wake-the-fuck-up!”

Nothing, no signs of life.

Frankie shook his head, pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, and was about to light it—when he remembered something.

He bent, lifted the welcome mat, and saw the key. And as he grabbed it thought, Dumb shit, hiding his key under the front mat.

Frankie slipped the key in the lock, cracked the door, and struck a match to light his cigarette as he stepped inside.

The explosion bounced chips on a poker table two blocks away.

Nothing was left of the apartment.

Or of Frankie “Nickels” Desouza, for that matter.

Chapter 40

Through an open window, the Grogan twins watched as Tommy hummed along with an old Eagles tune while polishing the front of his prized possession—an antique Wurlitzer jukebox.

As Tommy bent to polish the base, one of the twins brought up his Super Soaker, slipped it through the window—and tagged Tommy in the butt with a stream of water.

“Aaahh!” Tommy yelled, snapping to attention and wheeling around, just in time to see the twins duck away.

Tommy bolted over, leaned out the window, and yelled, “You little Gila monsters are on notice!”

The boys turned, stuck their tongues out, laughed, then took off running through the center of town.

“Run! That’s it, run!” said Tommy, then slammed the window shut.

The twins cut left, rounded Eller’s Garage, separated, and dove for cover behind two rusted-out cars. Then they took turns popping up, trying to blast each other. Finally Billy decided to make a move. He jumped up, and firing all the while, charged over and ducked behind the outhouse, crouching below the door.

Josh rushed forward and began to pelt the side of the outhouse with his gun. “Ha! I’ve got you trapped next to the shitter.”

Billy gripped his gun, poked his head around the corner, and—

Took a direct hit as Josh fired a stream of water, pasting his brother squarely in the forehead.

Billy ducked back behind the outhouse, wiped his face, and silently swore to himself. Then he stood, yanked open the outhouse door, started in—then quickly jerked back, letting the door bang shut. He made a face and grabbed his nose. “God! It smells like something died in there.”

He leaned against the closed door, and still holding his nose, gulped in some fresh air. Directly above him, through a little half-moon cutout over the door, creeper tendrils poured out and sniffed the air.

Behind the outhouse, Josh was preparing to bomb the hill and charge his brother—when a hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him around.

“How many times do I have to tell you kids to stay-the-hell-away from here!”

“We weren’t doing nothing,” said Josh, trying to pull away.

“Bull.” Karl Eller pointed Josh toward the street, then gave him a kick in the seat of his pants. “If you two little monkeys aren’t off my property in five seconds—I’m gonna stuff both of you down the shithouse.”

Josh ran to the street. When he was a safe distance from the garage, he turned and yelled to his brother. “Come on! Old Man Eller is after us!”

Billy, still plastered against the door, heard his brother, thought about it, then said: “Liar! You’re just trying to trick me.”

At the top of the door a creeper stalk looped from the cutout, and—just before it reached the top of his head—Billy lunged forward and raced after his brother.

The creeper flicked left and right, and finding nothing, retreated up the door and back through the cutout.

Chapter 41

It was twelve noon and a hundred degrees in the shade when the tanker truck ground into town, rumbled past the water tower, and pulled up to Nguyen’s Place in a cloud of diesel smoke and dust.

Inside the diner, Karl was sitting at the counter eating a hamburger and shooting the breeze with Tommy.

Both men turned when the front door banged open and Sam, Laura, Curley, and Kristin entered—all of them looking hot, dusty, and shaken. There was a loud squawk. Then Darwin shot in and swooped up, lighting on a ceiling rafter.

Squawk, squawk, squawk.

“What’s wrong?” Tommy said, coming around the counter. “You guys look terrible.”

“Could I have a glass of water?” Kristin asked, slumping against a barstool.

“Yeah. Sure, sure…” Tommy grabbed a pitcher of ice water, filled a glass, and placed it in front of Kristin. He motioned to Laura with the pitcher. She nodded her head, Yes, she’d love some.

“You guys aren’t going to believe this,” said Sam, stepping up to the counter. “It’s completely crazy.”

“Man-eating plants,” said Curley. “Huge. Like giant octopuses.”

“Bull,” said Karl. “Quit talkin’ out your ass, Curley.”

“It’s true,” said Laura, joining Sam at the counter. “It’s horrible. Unbelievable.”

“Will someone please start making sense?” Tommy asked, plunking glasses down in front of the others and filling them with ice water. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“We need to call the sheriff,” Sam said. “Doc Fletcher and Lester Moon are dead.”

“What?” Tommy said, almost dropping the pitcher. “But how?”

“That crazy experiment of Doc’s.”

“You mean that vine thingy?” Carla asked, stepping out of the kitchen. “The whatchamacallit?”

“The Fletcher Creeper,” said Sam. He reached over and touched Laura’s arm.

“That’s it,” Carla nodded.

“Listen, did Doc give any of you clippings? You know, something for you to plant?”

Chapter 42

Rufus climbed into his battered Dodge, started the engine, gave it a rev, nodded. Sounds good. He dropped it into gear, backed out of Eller’s Garage—and as he passed the outhouse, the radiator blew. Pssshhh!

Rufus stood on the brakes, bringing the car to a stop—then watched as the front of his car morphed into Old Faithful. Geysers of water shot out of the grill and began soaking the outhouse door.

“Well, don’t that take the rag off the bush,” Rufus said, banging on the steering wheel and putting the car into park.

He stared through the windshield and blinked to check his eyes. It looked like the outhouse was moving! No, not moving. Swelling up! Planks began to bow. The siding ballooned like the place was being pumped full of air.

He clicked open his door and was about to get out for a better look—when the outhouse exploded. Siding blew apart. Redwood planks went twisting through the sky. And the outhouse roof was launched straight up, twenty feet in the air.

And in its place, all that was left was a giant, undulating creeper vine.

Rufus sat there with his mouth hanging open and his face white as a ghost. “Jesus H,” he whispered, pressing back in his seat. Within seconds, flesh-ripping creeper arms dropped onto the Dart, thump-thump-thump– raced up the hood—and probed the windshield with boney tips the size of a man’s fingers.

Click, click, click.

“Jesus Holy Christ!” Rufus yelled, slamming his palm into the horn, calling for help.

* * *

Sam was the first out the door, then Karl, with Laura and the others following. They flew off Nguyen’s porch and charged into the street.

“Over at my place!” Karl yelled, hightailing it towards the garage.

“It’s Rufus,” Sam said, right behind him.

They raced up to the Dodge—both of them pulling up short of the car to avoid flashing creeper arms.

“Get me outta here!” Rufus screamed, staring at them through the window. Suddenly overcome with fright and not willing to wait any longer, he cracked his door just as a creeper crashed into it—slamming it shut and throwing him sideways across the seat.

One of the creepers dropped off the windshield, ran down the side of the car, and began to coil around the door handle.

“Don’t open the door! Stay put!” Sam yelled, signaling with his hands. “Hang on Rufus, I’ve got an idea.”

Sam turned to Karl. “We need gasoline, a jar, and a rag.”

“Gasoline?” Karl questioned, giving Sam a concerned look. “Wait a minute… you’re not thinking of a Molotov cocktail?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Sam said, as the creeper continued to smother the Dart. “Come on! There’s no time.”

“What can I do?” asked Tommy. Behind him, Laura, Kristin, Carla, and Curley all hung back, keeping a safe distance.

“Wait there.” Sam bolted over to a pile of scrap metal stacked next to the garage, grabbed a four-foot section of pipe, and returned to where Tommy was waiting.

“Here’s the plan. I’m going to chop that creeper off the door—and when it’s clear, you open it and pull Rufus out of there.” Sam looked at Tommy. “Okay?”

Tommy flashed a thumbs-up. “Okay.”

With Tommy in tow, Sam gripped the pipe with both hands and inched toward the car. Just as he raised the pipe, there was a scraping sound as a creeper stalk lifted off the Dart’s roof and swept sideways, narrowly missing both of them.

“Shit!” Sam yelled. Then he lunged forward, slashed down with the pipe, and cleared the creeper from the door handle, giving Tommy just the opening he needed.

Tommy kicked a section of ruined creeper out of the way, leapt forward, yanked the door open, and pulled a shaken and speechless Rufus free of the car.

The three of them scrambled back, putting a safe distance between themselves and the creeper, all of them grateful to be alive.

“You saved my bacon,” Rufus said, looking at Sam and then Tommy.

Then all three of them watched in silence as Rufus’s car was smothered by writhing creeper arms.

* * *

“Here we go, Sam,” Karl said, rejoining the men, a jar of gasoline and a rag in his hands.

“Perfect.”

Sam took the jar, removed the lid, soaked the rag in gasoline—then inserted one end in the jar, screwed the lid back on, and left the tail of the rag hanging out.

“Okay. Something to light it with.”

Karl held up a Bic lighter. “Say the word.”

All heads whipped in the direction of shattering glass. The creeper broke a window and poured itself inside the Dart.

“I’ve owned that car for forty years. Got a slant six—fantastic engine—and now it’s getting eaten by a plant!”

“Just be glad it’s not you, Rufus.” Karl said.

Sam held up the Molotov cocktail. “Torch it.”

Karl stepped up, flicked the lighter, and the rag burst into flames.

Sam moved forward, planted a foot—and hurled the flaming jar at the center of the seething creeper.

The jar pinwheeled through the air and shattered on the side of the Dart. The gasoline exploded, instantly engulfing the creeper in a hellish orange fireball. Wispy tendrils were vaporized, and undulating creeper stalks collapsed and crumpled like dead spider legs.

The air filled with sounds of snap, crackle, pop as flames burned the creeper to a crisp.

Chapter 43

Twenty minutes later, everyone had gathered inside Nguyen’s Place, all of them crowded around the lunch counter.

Sam placed a bowl on the countertop, filling it partway with water. “Okay, watch this.” He held up a paper bag, reached inside, removed the creeper clipping that Carla had given him, and placed it on the counter next to the bowl.

Everyone stared at the clipping, waiting. At first, nothing happened—the creeper just lay there, dormant, not moving. Then, without warning, it twitched, causing everyone to start with fright and take a step back. Laura gripped Sam’s arm, ready to haul him back. Kristin latched onto Laura and blurted, “Holy shit!”

And just as everyone began to relax, the creeper twitched again. Then like a compass needle pointing north, it swiveled directly towards the bowl!

“I’ll be damned,” said Rufus. “That thing dowses better than I do.”

Karl scoffed. “My hind end dowses better than you do, Rufus.”

Carla cracked up, laughing out loud—then quickly stopped herself by covering her mouth. Darwin, who seemed to have found a new home in the diner’s rafters, joined in with a loud squawk!

“That’s the most amazing example of hydrotropism I’ve ever seen,” said Laura, leaning in for a better look.

The diner suddenly fell silent. All heads swiveled in Laura’s direction, giving her a What did you just say? look.

She glanced up, saw their confused expressions, and said, “What?”

Sam cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence. He picked up the creeper, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, careful to avoid the thorns. “Now, watch this.” He positioned the creeper over the bowl, opened his fingers, and let the clipping drop into the water.

The results were instantaneous. Astounding. Breathtaking. The moment the vine hit, the bowl began to empty. And as the water was consumed, the creeper exploded with new growth—thick and lush and deadly.

It was like watching time-lapse photography. Wispy tendrils sprouted up, and baby creeper stalks spilled over the bowl’s sides and snaked around, already thirsty for more.

“Wow! It’s the chia pet from hell,” said Carla, her eyes bulging.

Sam continued, “When Doc gave me a clipping, he said the vine was still mutating. From what I can tell, the ability of these things to sense fluids has gone off the chart.”

“Hey, I threw a clipping like that down Karl’s crapper,” said Rufus, scratching his rump.

Karl looked at him and shook his head. “Hell, Rufus, there was a brand new roll of toilet paper hanging on the door.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, “I didn’t… you know… use it,” Rufus added, sounding more and more embarrassed.

“Without an available source of water,” said Sam, cutting off Rufus and Karl, “the thing is mostly harmless. The creepers at Doc’s, Lester’s, and my place are contained… at least for now.”

“There is nothing harmless about that thing,” Rufus said, thinking about his car.

“Excuse me.” All turned in Kristin’s direction. “What if it rains?”

Holy shit.

Her comment hung there, filling the room with dread.

Rufus laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it. “Well, honey, that would sure be a concern someplace else—but this is Furnace Valley. Our annual rainfall can hardly be measured.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Laura, staring at the alien-looking clipping. “Because if just one of these things finds an unlimited supply of water—it could devastate the entire state, maybe the country.”

Tommy placed a protective arm over Carla’s shoulders. “But that can’t happen, right?”

“No. Not if we keep it together,” said Sam, reassuring the group. “Listen, if any more clippings turn up—bring them here to Nguyen’s, and one of us will destroy them.”

“And for God’s sake, keep them away from water,” Laura added.

“Or Karl’s crapper,” Rufus chortled.

Chapter 44

The first stars appeared in the dying twilight above Big Caliente Hot Springs as the skies darkened over Furnace Valley.

Steam rose from a large spring-fed pool, the mineral-rich, hundred-degree water filling the air with the pungent smell of sulfur.

Next to the pool, a mesquite wood fire crackled and popped, the dense logs shooting jets of orange flames into the night sky. And next to that, Donnie and Spider lay passed out in a litter of empty beer cans.

On the other the other side of the pool—as far from Donnie and Spider as possible—Lander and Maya stood in a circle of candles arranged on a slab of sandstone that jutted over the water. Golf ball-sized crystals hung from their necks, and both of them wore Puck-style crowns fashioned from twigs of sage.

Lander clapped. Then both of them put their hands together and bowed their heads.

“Mind. Body. Spirit,” Lander said, in an earnest, guru-like voice. “See with the inner eye. Listen with the heart.”

He clapped again. “Air I am, Fire I am, Water, Earth, and Spirit I am. The circle shapes us, body and mind, heart and soul are one.”

“Repeat after me… “We are one with the infinite sun, for ever and ever and ever.”

Together they began to chant, “We are one with the infinite sun, for ever and ever and ever… we are one with the infinite sun, for ever and ever and ever…” Their flat, monotone voices ran together, creating a buzzing sound that drifted into the desert night.

After about two minutes of that, Lander clapped again. Both of them stopped chanting. Then they raised their heads, taking in deep breaths to center themselves.

“My guide, the great Xander, says that with discipline and focus it is possible to attain complete consciousness. Earthly needs for sleep and food will cease. And we will be nothing but light.”

Lander clapped again. Then, in reverential voices, they said, “Gaia carry us home. Gaia be praised.”

Maya went to Lander and gave him a hug. She looked up at the sky. “I love it out here. We should come more often.”

“It’s cool,” Lander said. “Very spiritual.”

Lander stepped off the rock, careful to avoid the ring of candles. He lifted a kettle off a camp stove, filled two mugs with tea, handed one to Maya, then waved his cup beneath his nose, inhaled deeply and took a sip.

“Mmm, what is it?” she asked, tipping the mug.

“Bedtime.”

Maya laughed. “You mean, Sleepytime.”

“Oh… yeah, Sleepytime.”

“Bedtime sounds good, too,” Maya giggled.

“Yeah, it does,” he said, letting his eyes trace the length of her body.

Lander took another sip of tea, swirled it in his mouth. Then he reached into a leather pouch slung at his side, removed a sprig of sage, and crumbled it into his tea. He was about to taste it when he stopped and reached back into his pouch, removing the creeper clipping he’d bought off Tommy.

He stared at it for a moment, thinking to himself, Did that thing just move? Then he shook his head, pinched it in half, and was about to drop it in his tea—when Donnie emerged from his stupor, grabbed a bong, filled it with Humboldt’s finest, and held it up in Lander’s direction.

“Hey, douche bag. Want a hit?”

Ignoring him, Lander waded into the pool. He dropped the clipping in his tea, took a sip, then tilted the mug and drained it—and just before it was empty, he felt something slither down his throat! Lander jerked the mug away from his mouth and looked inside. The sage was there, but creeper clipping was gone. Lander stared at the bottom of the mug, then shrugged and said to himself, I must have swallowed it by mistake. And then he thought, But it didn’t feel like a mistake… it felt like it slithered down!

Lander shook the creepy feeling off, cleared his throat, and took a few more steps into waist-deep water when he suddenly clutched his chest—and, unable to speak, yelled, “Aaaarrrghh!”

“Lander!” Maya called. “What is it? Are you having an epiphany?”

Choking and grabbing his throat, Lander tried to say something, but all that came out was, “Mmummphf… Aaaarrrghh… Ummph…”

He suddenly straightened. Then he arched his back—and, like a replay of that scene from Alien—his ribcage split apart, and a fist of baby creepers thrust out of his chest, whipped back and forth, then plunged their tips into the water, and began to drink.

Lander’s eyes bulged. Tendrils poured out of his ears. His tongue swelled, then exploded with thorns like an overripe prickly pear. A moment after that, there was a loud bang! His skullcap popped, and his head was suddenly covered by a freakish halo of medusa-like tendrils.

Maya screamed and backed away in shock.

“Fuck me!” Spider yelled, as he and Donnie scrambled to their feet.

“Help him!” Maya pleaded, waving for Donnie and Spider to do something.

Donnie just stood there, frozen, staring slack-jawed at the sight of Lander turning into a bush. Spider lurched forward, ran into the water, and stopped, realizing Lander was already way beyond help.

And then, before Spider knew what was happening, he was hauled off his feet and dragged beneath the surface, a submerged creeper wrapping around his ankle.

“No! God, no!” Maya screamed. Then she turned and ran as fast as she could to the camper van. Behind her, the creeper literally exploded with new growth as it gorged itself on the mineral-rich water.

Chapter 45

Early the next morning in Nguyen’s Place, Sam, Laura, Kristin, and Curley were lined up at the counter, drinking coffee and trying to recover from a long night spent on the floor with nothing more than blankets.

Kristin’s Goth look was completely shot to hell. She had washed off her make-up and wore a flannel shirt borrowed from the store’s rack.

Tommy stood behind the counter clutching a cordless phone. He started to dial, then stopped and looked at Sam. “Um, what exactly do I tell the sheriff?”

“Tell him to leave his gun at home and bring a Weed Eater,” said Karl, stepping up to the counter.

Tommy held the phone out. “Sam…”

Sam took the phone, frowned. “I thought Carla called earlier.”

“She was going to, then she wanted me to, and then with Rufus and all…”

“Is there someone else? Someone closer we could call? Another agency?” Laura asked.

“Not really,” Sam said. “Maybe the CHP. But they have an even bigger territory. No, Templeton is the one to call.”

Sam raised the phone, punched in the sheriff’s number, and—

Nothing, not even a dial tone.

“It’s dead.”

“What?” Tommy said.

Sam hit the redial button. Waited. But the phone was clearly out of service.

“Nothing,” said Sam. He shook his head. “Maybe the line’s down.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” said Karl. “We haven’t had any high winds. Only time the phone goes down is when we get a blow.”

“Maybe it’s—”

But Curley was cut off when the front door opened and Donnie stumbled in, calling, “Help! Help me!”

“Donnie!” Kristin yelled, shocked by his condition.

He looked like he’d been to hell and back. His face was streaked with blood and dirt. His arms and hands were covered with welts and scratches. His clothes were tattered and
torn from staggering through cactus and desert scrub.

Donnie took a couple more steps—but his legs gave out, and he spilled to the floor.

Sam and Tommy rushed over, lifted Donnie, and carried him to a corner booth in the diner. Kristin gently covered him with a blanket, then put a hand to her mouth and shook her head—overwhelmed by the sight of Donnie and what was happening.

Laura came over with a bowl and a damp towel and began to mop away the grime and blood that covered his face.

“What happened?” she asked, as Carla arrived with a glass of water and a first aid kit.

Donnie looked up at Laura. With a trembling hand he grabbed the glass of water and took a drink. Then he needed help placing it back on the table.

“Something, something horrible… Something horrible has happened up at the pool.”

“Big Caliente Hot Springs, you mean?” Sam asked.

Donnie nodded. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out, slumping against the wall in shock.

“Get his feet up,” Carla said.

“I’ll get another blanket,” Laura said. She squeezed Sam’s arm, giving him a concerned look, then went for the blanket.

Chapter 46

Karl Eller’s wrecker, a heavy-duty 4x4 International, climbed the steep pass that led to Big Caliente Hot Springs—and the world beyond Furnace Valley.

It was late morning, and the air temperature had already crossed the hundred-degree mark. Inside the cab, Karl was behind the wheel, Curley was seated in the middle, and Sam was on the far side, riding shotgun.

Sam reached out and flipped on a two-way radio, then grabbed the mic and keyed it. “This is Furnace Valley Towing, come back…”

Sam waited a minute. He was about to try again when Karl looked over and said, “Don’t waste your time, Sam. Signal won’t carry over the mountain.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. The thing came with the truck. Useless as tits on a boar.”

Curley reached up, tapped Sam’s shoulder, then in a soft voice said, “Sam…”

Ignoring him, Sam returned the handpiece to the dash, leaving the CB on just in case.

“Sam,” Curley insisted, his voice rising an octave or two.

“Jesus Curley, what?” he snapped.

Curley raised his hand. Then using just one finger, he pointed out Sam’s window.

Sam cranked his head over, looked out—and immediately saw what Curley was referring to.

It was a creeper stalk—huge and thick as a sewer line—snaking down the hill directly toward the road!

“Holy Christ!” Sam yelled, stunned by the size of the thing.

“What? What is it?” Karl asked, tightening his grip on the wheel.

“Over there. Hard right.” Sam pointed. “Moving down the hill.”

Karl leaned forward, looked past Curley—and saw the giant creeper, its thorns glinting in the sunlight as it snaked down the slope.

“Son of a bitch. Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s huge,” Curley blurted. “How? How can it be that big, Sam?”

“I’m guessing one of Doc’s clippings found some water. A lot of water.”

A moment later, the truck dropped over a rise—and, looming directly ahead, a towering knot of creepers rose off the desert floor in the shape of a fountain.

Primitive. Malevolent. It looked like something out of Greek mythology. Giant tentacles danced in the air—pulsing, throbbing, hissing—as it grew and grew and grew.

Karl jammed on the brakes and the truck skewed sideways, skidding to a halt on the hardpan.

The three of them remained in the cab, saucer-eyed, staring through the windshield at something the world had never seen before.

The cab filled with a loud rasping as stalks with giant thorns rose up from the creeper’s center, spilled outwards, and splashed onto the desert floor.

They opened their doors and cautiously emerged from the cab, all of them trying to get a better look at exactly where it was coming from. Then they heard a hissing like the sound of escaping gas. It was the sound of the creeper transferring water to its extremities.

“Makes the others look like houseplants,” Karl said in awe. “That big bastard’s gotta be sitting right on top of the hot springs.”

“All the water it needs,” Sam added grimly.

“I don’t like this, Sam,” Curley said, taking a step towards the truck.

“Keep it together, Curl,” Sam said in a low voice.

“Wow. Oh, wow…” Karl pointed. “Look at that!”

Sam and Curley turned and saw a matrix of creeper stalks knitting themselves around a high voltage tower and snaking out along the power lines.

“That’s what happened to the phones,” Karl said.

Sam nodded, then said, “At least the power’s still on.”

Just then there was a loud pop! and a white flash as the power lines arced, sending sparks cascading to the ground.

“Well, maybe not,” Sam said flatly.

“Come on, let’s go!” Curley said, his hand on the truck door. “That thing could be setting a trap, doubling back on us.” He yanked open the door and swung into the cab.

Sam was staring up at the pass. “Jesus…”

The main road leading up and out of Furnace Valley was now completely covered with undulating creeper stalks.

“The whole damn valley is sealed off,” said Sam as the creeper threw stalk after stalk across the road.

“Shut tight as a frog’s ass,” Karl said, shaking his head.

Chapter 47

Sam and Karl moved back to the wrecker—and, just as they were about to climb in, Sam heard a girl’s voice. It was muffled and distant. It echoed up from the canyon below. It sounded like she was calling for help.

“Wait,” Sam said. He moved past the truck and walked over to a dirt track that disappeared into the scrub. It was more of a deer path than a road—and it looked like it led right to the edge of the advancing creeper.

Shit.

“What is it, Sam?” Karl asked.

Sam shushed him. “Listen.” There it was again—the muffled pleading of a girl’s voice. “Help. Please, someone help me…”

“Gotta be one of those kids who came in yesterday… the campers,” Karl said, straining to see where the voice was coming from.

Sam placed his hands around his mouth.

“Hello! Hey, we can hear you. Keep yelling. We’re coming.”

They waited. Then they heard the girl again—louder now, and with hope in her voice.

Sam was in the lead as he and Karl picked their way down the hill, hiked over a rise, then came to a stop when the path disappeared beneath a thicket of writhing creeper stalks.

From twenty yards out they could hear the girl’s voice loud and clear—but they still couldn’t see her.

They continued forward, a few feet at a time, ever-watchful for striking creeper arms, and then both of them froze when they saw—

Two yellow eyes peering out at them from inside the tangle of creepers.

Headlights.

A van’s headlights.

“Hey! Is that you? Are you in the van?” Sam yelled.

The horn began to honk in a series of short blasts. Honk-honk-honk-honk…

Then it stopped.

“Okay. We got you,”

The horn sounded again. Honk. Honk.

“Alright, sit tight. We’re going to get you out of there,” Sam said, trying to sound reassuring. “Honk if you understand.”

Honk.

“Better turn your headlights off to save the battery.”

A moment later the headlights winked out.

Karl grabbed Sam’s arm. “Are you crazy? We can’t go near that thing.”

“Come on, Karl—there’s no time.” Sam started back up the trail. “I’ve got everything we need back in the truck.”

Chapter 48

Sam opened a door on the side of the wrecker’s utility box and pulled out a duffle bag.

“What the heck is that?” Karl said, huffing up behind Sam.

“An insurance policy.” Sam unzipped the bag. “Or, Plan B as I like to think of it.”

“Plan B?” Karl gave Sam a look that said, I don’t have a clue .

“Right. Plan B. As in B for bonfire.”

Curley dropped out of the cab, feeling safer now that Sam had returned. “What are you talking about? Nobody said anything to me about a Plan B.”

“That’s because the only thing you ever hear is what comes out of your own mouth, Curley.” Sam reached into the bag and removed a can of gasoline, jars, and torn strips of cotton rag.

“That’s not true, Sam,” Curley protested. “I always got one ear to the ground.”

“Right,” said Sam in a skeptical tone. He turned to Karl. “Go ahead, Karl. Tell Curley about Plan B.”

Karl looked at Curley, scratched his chin. “Near as I can tell—the B stands for bullshit.”

“Bullshit my ass.” Sam grabbed the can of gasoline and shoved it into Curley’s hands. “Fill these halfway with gas, Curl.”

Curley took the gasoline, lined up the jars, and began to fill them.

Meanwhile, Sam reached into the truck, retrieved one of the Grogan’s Super Soakers, and held it up for Karl to see. “Instant flamethrower.”

Karl looked at it and shook his head.

“A squirt gun? Okay, it’s official. The plan is bullshit.”

“You’ll see.” Sam knelt next to Curley. He took the strips of cloth, inserted one end into the filled jars, then replaced the lids.

* * *

Sam, Karl, and Curley approached the creeper. All of them were amazed to see it had increased a third again in size during the short time they were gone.

“Is it my eyes—or does that thing look bigger?”

“It’s your eyes,” said Sam. “Now help me find those headlights.”

He moved forward cautiously. “Hello in the van! We’re back. If you can hear me—flash your headlights.”

They waited. Nothing—no lights—no sign that she was still alive.

* * *

Just then, inside the van, Maya screamed as the rear window cracked and shattered, the safety glass fragmenting into hundreds of opaque pellets. She dropped low in the driver’s seat and began to toggle the light switch back and forth, praying they’d see her.

“Help me! Please hurry…”

* * *

Sam was about to yell again when the headlights snapped on—then began to flash. But they were harder to see now, buried deep within the burgeoning creeper.

Karl and Curley lined the jars up next to Sam, arranging them in a neat row for easy access.

Sam tossed Karl a gas lighter, then faced the creeper and yelled to Maya.

“Okay, can you start the engine?”

There was a long silence—then the sound of a whining starter motor. The engine caught and roared to life.

“We’ll mark that down as a yes,” said Sam, grabbing the Super Soaker.

“Alright, when I say floor it, drop it into gear and hit the gas. And don’t stop till you’re in the clear. Then he added, “Honk twice if you understand.”

Honk. Honk.

“Go time,” Sam said, as he turned to Karl and Curley. “Okay guys, light the jars—and on my signal, throw them as far into that thing as possible.”

Sam pumped the handle of the Super Soaker, pressurizing the gasoline he’d added earlier. He adjusted his grip on the gun, then advanced towards the creeper. When he was about ten yards out, he raised the Super Soaker and began to coat writhing tentacles with a thick stream of gasoline, waving the barrel back and forth like a lawn sprinkler.

After half the gasoline was drained, he scrambled back and yelled for Karl and Curley to throw the jars.

“Now!”

With flaming jars in their hands, Karl and Curley rushed forward and hurled the jars, sending them up and over the mass of boiling creeper arms.

Two seconds later the first jar exploded—and the crown of the creeper erupted in a giant fireball, filling the air with thick black smoke.

Sam charged up, raised the Super Soaker, and began to hose down writhing creeper arms. Using the gun like a flamethrower, he picked up flames and looped lines of fire across the entire organism.

When the Super Soaker ran dry, Sam dropped it, raised his head, and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Floor it!”

Above the roar of the flames, they heard the engine scream, then redline, as—

The camper van exploded out from the inferno in a spray of burning creeper stalks, sending flames sheeting across the ground like napalm.

The three of them were forced to dive out of the way as the van blasted past, its roof ablaze with gas-soaked creeper arms. The van rocketed forward three hundred feet, then lurched violently sideways as Maya braked, skidding to a stop in a cloud of dust and smoke.

Sam raced up to the driver’s door, reached for the handle, touched it—and yanked his arm back. After covering his hand with the cuff of his shirt, he pulled the door open, and Maya—sweat-soaked, white as a sheet, and slipping in and out of consciousness—slumped into his arms.

Karl ran up and joined Sam. Working together, they lifted Maya out of the van—pulling her clear just as the camper’s gas tank let go, lifting the rear wheels off the ground and engulfing the vehicle in flames.

Chapter 49

Night settled over the town of Furnace Valley. The air was still and quiet, and the temperature finally eased, dropping into the eighties. The excited calls of a pack of coyotes issued out of the blackness as their first meal of the evening was run to ground.

Inside Nguyen’s, Tommy was in the middle of passing out cold beers to Sam and Karl when the lights dimmed and flickered—and then grew bright as the diesel generator hiccupped and caught again. They all let out of sigh of relief as the generator settled back into a monotone hum.

Across the room, using a table as a makeshift surgery, Laura and Carla tended to a burn on Maya’s leg.

“This doesn’t look too bad.” Laura daubed a patch of reddened skin. “There’s no blistering or swelling—it’s probably just a first-degree burn.”

“You’re going to be fine, hon,” Carla said, adjusting a pillow beneath Maya’s head.

Maya looked up at them, her face filling with gratitude. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She managed a smile, then whispered, “Thank you.”

Laura smiled and touched her arm.

“We should probably get some ice on this.”

“Coming right up,” Carla said, taking off for the kitchen.

Kristin and Donnie were at a corner table eating wedges of apple pie. Carla had insisted they have some, telling them it would make them feel better.

“I can’t believe what happened to Lander and Spider,” said Kristin, chasing a bit of crust around her plate with a fork. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” Donnie managed, barely acknowledging her. “Unbelievable.”

“It must’ve been horrible.”

Donnie just nodded, still traumatized.

“Oh, and your eyes—what I said before—I didn’t mean it.”

“What?” Donnie looked puzzled.

“They’re okay. Not too close together. Your eyes.”

“What?”

“Jesus.” Kristin grabbed her plate and stood. “What’s the use.” She shook her head, then left for the kitchen.

Sam took a swig of beer. He placed it on the counter and spun the base around a couple of times.

“That thing was flowing out of the spring like hot lava.”

Karl nodded. “A day, maybe two—it’s going to eat the whole town.”

“You say it’s coming down the valley?” Tommy said, the fear plain on his face. “It’s headed this way?”

“You should have seen it,” Curley said. “This one was huge. Not like the others. Had arms on it like giant—”

“What are we doing sitting here?!” Tommy said, cutting him off. “Let’s go! Let’s get out while we can!”

“Good idea, Tommy,” Karl said, finishing his beer and clapping it down on the bar. “Only the road is completely blocked, covered by that thing. Like I told Sam—blocked up tighter than a frog’s ass.”

“Wait. We could walk out,” countered Tommy, a hopeful look on his face.

Karl shook his head. “A hundred miles on foot… in this heat?”

“Karl’s right,” Sam nodded. “Walking is out, and the road’s not an option. I saw one tentacle that must’ve been a mile long, running right down the pass.”

Chapter 50

“That tentacle sounds like a scout,” said Laura, joining the group at the bar. She held a bowl covered with a towel and placed it on the counter.

They all turned in her direction, eyes on the bowl.

“A scout?” said Sam, giving her a direct look. “You mean like ants?”

“Right. A parasitic sucker that acts like an above-ground root. It’s searching for new sources of water.”

“Or fluids from anything else,” Curley added, rubbing his neck.

Laura continued, “From what I’ve observed, this thing employs aerial roots. After it puts down the radical—the first root—it spreads and then roots again. The secondary roots act like anchors. They prop up the spreading limbs. That’s how this thing creeps so successfully.”

Sam nodded and took a sip of beer, pondering what Laura had said.

“You really think this is a good time to be drinking?” she asked, staring at the bottle in his hand.

“This isn’t drinking. We’re just having a cold beer.” Sam took another swig.

Laura rolled her eyes, exaggerating her movements. “Oh, that makes a lot of sense.”

“I do some of my best thinking over a cold beer.”

“Great… someone alert Bill Gates, Sam Rainsford is having a beer.”

“Hey, it’s how I got the idea for seedless dates,” Sam said, a little defensiveness creeping into his voice.

Laura scoffed. “Are you referring to the dates back at your place? The ones full of seeds?”

“Alright, go ahead—it’s easy to be skeptical—but it will happen, it’s just a matter of time.”

“And I’m sure you’ll be widely celebrated by the fruitcake industry.”

Karl erupted in laughter. “Ha! The fruitcake industry. Good one!”

Sam shook his head, took another sip of beer, then defiantly blurted, “Yeah, well Ms. Beecham, right now we need a plan. We need a helluva good idea—because in a few hours, we’re all gonna be plant food for daddy’s little experiment.”

The room fell silent.

“C’mon,” Tommy said anxiously. “We should leave, we’re wasting time. That thing’s on its way right now.”

“Actually not,” said Laura, in a calm, controlled voice.

“How do you know that?” Sam asked.

“Because it doesn’t move at night.”

As everyone tried to get their heads around that, Karl leaned forward. “Excuse me ma’am, but you weren’t there. You didn’t see that thing. It’s huge. Totally out of control. And growing like a cancer.”

All eyes were on Laura, waiting for her to respond. Instead, she picked up the bowl, then motioned with a finger and said, “Follow me.”

With the group in tow, Laura walked to a dimly lit corner table. A desk lamp had been placed there, and next to it, a glass of tap water.

She positioned the bowl beneath the lamp and removed the towel. An inch-long section of creeper sat in the bottom. Then she faced the group.

“Watch.” She looked at Sam. “Although I’m aware it’s easy to be skeptical.”

Sam gave her a look. He mashed his lips together and shook his head.

Laura grabbed the glass and filled the bowl partway up. The clipping bobbed on the surface, rising with the water.

Everyone watched, waiting for the creeper show, expecting to see it spring up and spill out of the bowl.

But nothing happened.

The creeper remained unchanged, floating harmlessly in the swirling water.

Just as Rufus was about to make one of his observations, Laura reached out and flicked on the lamp. The bowl was instantly flooded with an intense beam of light.

The creeper twitched and sprang to life, greedily consuming the water. Thirty seconds later, the bowl was drained, thirsty creeper arms spilling over its sides.

“I don’t see how that proves anything,” said Curley, adjusting his cap.

“Sunlight,” Sam said, watching as the creeper probed and searched the tabletop. “The thing needs light to grow.”

“A phenomenon commonly referred to by my colleagues as— photosynthesis,” Laura said flatly.

“I knew that.”

Laura reached over, grabbed the beer out of Sam’s hand and took a sip.

“You’re right. This does focus the mind.”

Chapter 51

“We could walk out at night,” Tommy said, talking to Carla who sat next to him at the bar. “It can’t move then. It would be safe.”

“Baby…” Carla said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “If you’re talking about walking out of this valley—you’ll be going without me. Nighttime. Daytime. Anytime. My feet hurt after a day of running around the kitchen. A hundred miles on foot? Uh-ah. Not me.”

Loud footsteps echoed on the front porch. A moment later, everyone’s faces fell when the door swept open and the Grogan twins, followed by their disheveled-looking mother, clattered into the diner.

Billy Grogan, still in possession of his Super Soaker, spotted the creeper that now lay dormant in the bowl. He raced over and pointed his gun at it.

“Hey!” Karl yelled. “Keep that thing away from there!”

Mrs. Grogan stepped up behind Billy and yanked him back from the table. “Listen to Mr. Eller! Put that gun away.”

“That stupid thing’s not going to go after a squirt gun,” Billy protested. “What an idiot.”

Mrs. Grogan’s hand flashed out, smacking Billy squarely on the side of the head.

“My ear!” Billy screamed, dropping the gun and clutching his ear.

“Shut your ugly mouth,” Mrs. Grogan said, shaking him for good measure. “A hot ear is gonna be the least of your problems if I hear you smart-mouth anyone else.”

“So that’s the way to communicate with them,” Karl said to Rufus, covering the bowl with the towel.

“Those kids should be Velcroed to a wall somewhere,” Rufus said under his breath.

Josh Grogan spotted Sam and made a beeline for him. “Hey!” Josh said, looking up at him, the corners of his mouth clotted with the remains of a chocolate bar. “Where’s my Super Soaker?”

Sam gave Laura a little smile, stepped around the counter, reached underneath it, and then held up the squirt gun. Its body was scorched and covered with soot and dust.

He held the Super Soaker out to Josh. “There you go, squirt.”

Josh took it, his mouth falling open with disbelief as he examined the charred weapon. He stared at Sam, started to say something, stopped, then turned and yelled, “Mom!” Then went running off to show her what the mean man had done to his toy.

“Hey, it still works,” Sam said. Then whispered to Laura, “Except for the melted trigger.”

When Josh approached his mother, Billy pointed at the ruined Super Soaker and burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter. “Ha! What a loser.”

Carla swept over and put an arm around Josh, who was about to burst into tears.

“You kids come with me. Let’s see if I can find you some ice cream.”

“How about a little ratpoison,” Rufus whispered to Karl, both of them watching as Carla ushered the twins and their mother to a booth, then grabbed a bowl of potato chips from the next table and set it in front of them.

“Why don’t you and the twins stay in the spare room tonight?”

Mrs. Grogan nodded okay, her mouth already filled with potato chips. Then she mumbled, “You got any samwiches to go with the chips?”

“Sure. Sure we do.” Carla gave her a smile, walked to the bar, and joined Tommy behind the counter.

“Fix the Grogans up with some of those ham sandwiches. They’re going to be spending the night.”

“What?” Tommy said, giving her a Have you lost you mind? look. “The twins, staying here?”

“Yes,” Carla said. Then she faced the room. “In fact, maybe you’d all like to bunk down here for the night.”

Laura looked at Sam, nodded. Kristin frowned. Maya had her eyes closed, trying to sleep. Donnie slumped, slipping further into his chair. Karl, Rufus, and Curley stared at the counter, silent. Darwin ruffled his feathers but held his squawk.

“Sure. Why not?” said Tommy, throwing up his hands in surrender. He went to the kitchen, returned with a plate filled with ham sandwiches, and placed them on the bar.

“You might as well eat on the house, too.”

Curley reached out and fished a sandwich off the plate. “That offer include a wedge of Carla’s pie?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure,” Tommy said, not hiding his contempt. “Since I’m giving away the piano… might as well throw in the bench, too.”

Chapter 52

“You realize this makes two nights in a row…”

Sam reached across the table and took Laura’s hand as they sat in a booth illuminated by a single candle, the soft glow catching the highlights in her hair. The generator had been turned off for the night, and everyone else was tucked into bedrolls scattered throughout the diner.

He couldn’t stop looking at her. God, she was beautiful.

“What do you mean?” Laura asked. But she knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Sleeping together. Two nights in a row.”

“We haven’t been sleeping together.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Sam said, drawing back a little. “What I meant was—what I’m trying to say is—it just struck me, you know, like maybe there’s some destiny at work here. A higher power, or whatever…”

“No.” Laura pulled her hand free. “This whole trip… Sam, it’s been a disaster. And now we’re all one bad move away from being devoured by some genetic freak my father created.”

“I don’t feel that way,” Sam said, looking right into her eyes. “Not at all. It’s been good for me. Personally. It’s been a wakeup call. I’ve been on the run from life—not wanting to feel or think or look at things. Now, for the first time, I want to stop. I want to forgive. I want to rebuild.”

Laura felt a rush, just like the first time she saw him. Right in the pit of her stomach.

Love is spontaneous. She believed that.

But she just couldn’t go there. She couldn’t let her guard down, not now, not with what had happened to her father, Not with that thing racing towards them. Vulnerable was the last thing she wanted to feel. So, instead, she played it cool.

In a flip tone, she replied, “Great. I’m happy for you. Cancel your plans for therapy. Hey everybody—Sam Rainsford just had a breakthrough. Forget the fact that four people are dead—one being my estranged father—and in a couple of hours the town is going to be swallowed by a predatory plant the likes of which the world has never seen.”

Laura stopped. They fell into an awkward silence.

Sam stared at her, smiled, then dropped his eyes and shook his head. “Hey, sorry… forget it. Forget I ever brought it up.”

Suddenly feeling like he might suffocate, he slid out of the booth, went to the front door, quietly pulled it open, and stepped outside. He drew in a deep breath, then went to the edge of the porch and stared up at the stars.

* * *

Six hours later, twilight broke, washing away the stars as the predawn temperature inside Nguyen’s Place fell to a chilly forty-eight degrees.

Sam lay on the floor with only his jacket covering him, drifting in and out of sleep, his legs drawn up, trying to stay warm.

A few feet away, tucked beneath a blanket, Laura lay awake, staring at the ceiling.

She turned her head towards Sam, then smiled. A moment later, she rose, went to him, and gently covered him with the blanket.

A moment after that, she found herself slipping in next to him, spooning against his back. She slid her arm across him, letting her hand run down across his chest.

Sam’s eyes fluttered, then momentarily opened.

“Laura?”

She gave him a hug. “Sshhh…” Then closed her eyes.

Chapter 53

The first rays of sunlight spilled across the valley and ran up the center of town, painting the front of Nguyen’s Place a dusky orange just as the Grogan twins snuck across the front porch—Josh cradling the bowl containing the creeper, and Billy toting his Super Soaker.

Billy ran through town and tucked beneath the base of the water tower, careful to avoid the pool that had formed where the tank’s warped staves sent rivulets of water coursing down its sides.

“Over here,” he called to his brother. “Bring the bowl over here.”

Josh trotted up, placed the bowl on the ground, removed the towel, and took a couple of steps back, just as—

Billy blasted the creeper, aiming a perfect stream of water directly at the bowl.

Responding to the fresh supply of water, the creeper instantly sprang up, sending tendrils dancing in the air, already on patrol for more.

“Oh, man…” said Josh, jumping up and down at the sight. “That is awesome!”

“Unreal!” Billy said, continuing to rain water on the thing.

Josh went up to his brother and tried to get his hand on the gun. “Let me!”

Billy jerked away, keeping the stream trained on the creeper.

“C’mon. My turn. Give me a try.”

“This is gnarly, dude!”

Josh made another grab for the gun. Billy held it away, kept firing, and after a couple more direct hits, relented and let his brother have a turn.

The creeper had tripled in size, covering the bowl and sending wriggling stalks in all directions.

“Go on. Tag it,” Billy said, encouraging his brother. “Tag that mother.”

Josh leveled the gun, took a step forward—and, filling in where his brother left off, hit the creeper with a thick stream. It thrust up and out, its stalks increasing in diameter right before their eyes.

And then, without warning, a couple of stalks whipped around and snaked directly for their feet. They jumped back.

“Fuck me!” Billy said. “You see that? It’s like it wanted to get us or something. Fucking awesome.”

“Yeah… I seen it,” said Josh, looking scared shitless. “Maybe we shouldn’t be screwing around with it.”

“What a pussy,” Billy said, giving him a contemptuous look.

“C’mon… it could be dangerous.”

“Give me that, dickhead,” Billy said, yanking the gun out of Josh’s hands. He worked the pump, slamming more pressure into the reservoir.

Then he lowered the barrel and soaked the creeper again, pouring water directly into the heart of the plant.

“Eat it! Eat it! Eat that up, you freak!”

The last drink that Billy gave the creeper was just enough to send a stalk skittering beneath the water tower and plunging into the pool below, its tip sucking up water like a bilge pump.

As the pool emptied, a visible wave of growth rippled through the creeper. Stalks rose and danced in the air, lethal as poisonous snakes.

What the fuck? Billy thought as he watched the plant. Both boys moved back, the fight or flight response taking over, as a new look of respect crossed their faces.

A low rasping filled the air.

Billy and Josh froze. They heard a high-pitched whistling sound, right in their ears. Then they watched as a thick stalk dropped directly in front of them with a wet thud, kicking up a cloud of dust and chipping some of its teeth as it banged off a rock.

Saucer-eyed and unable to breathe, the twins stood board-stiff as they stared down at the alien-looking thing at their feet.

“Oh shit!” Billy yelled, the air returning to his lungs.

Just as Josh was about to second that—Billy was yanked off his feet as the stalk twisted forward, looped up, and began to coil around his ankle.

Next to them, another creeper skittered across the ground, fell on the discarded Super Soaker, and—using its bony tip—smashed through the body of the gun, draining the water like sucking marrow from a bone.

“Help!” Billy screamed, his voice shrill and hysterical as the creeper dragged him towards it throbbing nucleus, his fingers leaving grooves in the ground as he clawed and scratched, trying to break free.

“Help! Help! Somebody help…” The panicked voice of Josh echoed through the town as he sprinted to the diner.

Chapter 54

Inside Nguyen’s, Sam’s eyes snapped open at Josh’s calls for help. He jackknifed to a sitting position, then suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. Laura was right there.

Lying next to him!

He’d thought it had been a dream. Laura coming to him in the night, then snuggling against his back.

Not a dream.

Holy shit.

“Sam?” Laura said, her voice groggy with sleep. “Sam, what is it?” She looked up at him blinking her eyes, trying to focus.

Sam gave her a funny look that said, What are you doing here next to me?

Feeling suddenly embarrassed, Laura pulled the blanket over her.

“Ah, I was cold, and…”

“Help! Someone help my brother!” Josh leapt onto the porch.

Sam pulled on his boots and jumped to his feet. “The Grogan twins… This better not be some prank.”

He went to the door and pulled it open just as Josh crashed inside. Sam caught him with one hand, steadied him, then gripped his shoulders and spun him around.

“What? What is it?”

“Water tower,” Josh managed. His words came in fits and starts. “The thing… the plant. It has my brother.”

“Stay here.” Sam released him, then bolted out the door with Laura and Curley in hot pursuit.

Billy’s screams hit Sam full force as he sprinted forward. The creeper was now the size of a bus and had sent stalks swirling up the water tower’s legs.

Billy’s hands were clamped around a large rock, and he hung on for dear life as the creeper continued to pull, straining his legs like an anchor line.

“Hang on, kid!” Sam yelled, skidding up to Billy like a runner sliding into home plate, then clamping his hands tightly around Billy’s arms.

“Gotcha!”

Sam adjusted his grip, then looked down and saw flayed flesh where the creeper’s thorns had worked their way into Billy’s leg.

“Don’t let it get me,” Billy pleaded. Then his face crinkled, and he began to cry.

“Try and stay calm. We’re going to get you free.”

Curley raced up and put a hand on Sam, just as another creeper—the one that drained the squirt gun—rippled over and latched onto Billy’s other leg!

“Oh God! No!” Billy screamed, new terror rising in his voice.

Sam watched as the creeper knotted itself around Billy’s leg—and then both of them were being dragged toward the creeper!

Shit.

“Sam!” Laura screamed, seeing that he was being dragged along with Billy.

Then another creeper snaked over and attacked Sam’s leg, trying to latch on. Sam twisted, kicking it away, but lost his grip on Billy, who was now racing across the sand, the two stalks reeling him in like a billfish.

“Hang on, boy!” said Rufus. He charged up, ax held high, and chopped down. Then again. As Billy rolled free, the severed creepers recoiled like bungee cords.

Curley went to help Billy, then suddenly yelled, “It’s Frenching me!”

Billy jumped to his feet and raced back to the others.

Rufus whipped around and saw that a creeper had coiled around Curley’s boot and was slipping up the inside of his jeans.

Rufus spread his feet—and then, in one fluid movement, swung the ax like he was striking a golf ball and cut the creeper in two. Curley hopped free, kicking his leg to shake the end of the creeper out of his pants.

Curley gave him a grateful look and was about to say thanks—when Rufus was slammed to the ground by three whipping stalks and dragged towards the creeper.

“Rufus!” Curley yelled, grabbing the ax. But before he could attempt a rescue, Sam clamped a hand on Curley’s arm, hauling him back.

“No! It’s too late, Curley.”

Rufus yelled…

Then they watched helplessly as he was lifted up into the air and attacked front and back by two massive stalks—their sharp tips flashing back and forth like giant knitting needles—lacing up his chest like a football.

Then his body rose one last time—and he was sucked into the creeper, disappearing for good.

“Everyone back! Get back!” Tommy yelled, as he raced down the center of town, a plastic jug cradled in his arms. He charged right past the stunned faces of Sam, Laura, and Curley, and shot directly towards the creeper.

“I got something for you!”

About five yards out, Tommy stopped and popped the cap on the bottle. Then, using an underhand pitch, he sent the bottle sailing up—and right into the heart of the throbbing creeper.

“Drink it! Drink that, you devil!”

And then out of nowhere, quick as a striking snake, a creeper shot up, looped around Tommy’s waist and began to contract.

Tommy yelled, arms flailing, trying to free himself.

Sam charged up behind him, ax at the ready—but just as he was about to cut the stalk, it went slack, uncoiled from Tommy’s waist, and fell to the ground.

Sam grabbed Tommy, pulling him back to safety, both them out of breath and drenched in sweat.

Then they watched in complete amazement as tendrils shriveled and flashing creeper arms withered and wilted and collapsed to the ground, flaccid and useless.

The plant was dying right before their eyes!

Chapter 55

By 10 A. M., hundred-degree heat descended on Furnace Valley, driving everyone back inside Nguyen’s Place to cool off, mourn the loss of Rufus, and regroup. It had been one hell of a morning. With the sun up, that thing was growing again—and they still had no plan or way to get out.

The Grogan twins, contrite, were huddled with their mother in a booth. Billy’s leg had been expertly cleaned and dressed by Carla.

In another part of the diner, Kristin approached Donnie, walking heel to toe with Darwin balanced on her head.

“Check it out. I’m Carmen Miranda,” said Kristin, smiling at Donnie through a mask of colored feathers.

He looked up, grunted something unintelligible, then let his head fall, staring down at nothing.

Kristin shrugged and then continued across the diner like she was walking on a tightrope, heading towards Maya, hoping to get a rise out of her.

Carla could be heard in the kitchen, banging around with her pots—and Tommy was behind the counter topping up glasses of ice water for Sam, Laura, Curley, and Karl.

Sam lifted his glass, drained half of it, and looked at Tommy.

“What exactly was that you threw on it?”

“Weed killer,” Tommy said, a triumphant look on his face. “Half a bottle of Weed-B-Gone.”

“Nice,” said Curley. “Way to go, Tommy.”

“My God!” Laura said, jumping to her feet. “That’s it!”

“What?” said Sam, taking the words out of everybody’s mouth.

“Poison. A systemic poison. It’s how we can stop it. Kill it.” She pointed at Tommy. “Tommy found its Achilles heel.”

“Commonly referred to by my colleagues as— the short hairs,” Sam said.

Laura cocked her head and gave him a flat look.

“Jeez, will someone please explain to me what she just said?” Curley asked.

“This plant… this thing…” Laura said, pausing to look at each of their faces, “has an incredibly efficient fluid transfer mechanism. I’m not sure how it works, but it’s something to do with an almost supernatural metabolic rate.”

“Um, right…” said Tommy, nodding his head. “I kind of figured that. Its meta, metabolic rate—”

“Apply the right kind of poison to this thing,” Laura said, cutting him off, “and it will travel through the entire organism in a matter of seconds.”

“Great. Sounds great. A grand theory,” Sam said, holding his hands up in a hallelujah gesture. “But that little bush outside was the minor leagues. It was just a little whippersnapper compared to what’s headed our way.” Sam shook his head, adding, “Hell, it would take a whole truckload of that stuff to kill it.”

“Exactly,” said Laura, grinning like a cat.

* * *

The mustard yellow biplane stood in front of Eller’s Garage, the sun glinting off wings and struts. The name Daisyhad been lovingly painted on the fuselage just behind the engine cowling.

“You sure about this?” Karl asked, watching Sam as he climbed into the crop duster’s cockpit. “I just got it running. It needs more work, testing. By all standards, it’s not flight-worthy.”

“Yes, Karl, I’m sure.” Sam dropped into the captain’s seat. “It’s our best chance. We’ve got to risk it.”

Karl frowned and nodded. He knew Sam was right. But it didn’t make him like it any better.

Sam began to familiarize himself with the cockpit, scanning the instrument panel, checking the stick and rudder pedals.

Karl went to the front of the plane, mounted a ladder positioned next to the engine, leaned into the cowling, and began checking and rechecking plug wires, seals, oil lines—anything he might have overlooked.

He shut and locked an access panel, climbed down, and pulled the ladder back. Then he called up to Sam and said, “Okay. See if she’ll crank.”

Sam flashed a thumbs up, placed his fingers on a button, and yelled, “Clear.” Then he pushed the starter. The engine began to turn over. The propeller wheeled through the air. There was a loud pop and a series of backfires.

Soot and smoke poured out of the exhaust port. Sam kept his finger on the starter. The motor sputtered, then caught—and the powerful radial engine roared to life—shaking windows and kicking up a cloud of dust.

Yeah!

Grinning like a schoolboy, Sam released the starter, pushed in the choke, and began working the throttle, running the engine up and down, letting it warm up, the taste of exhaust and sand coating his mouth.

“Alright!” Karl yelled, a big smile on his face. “Sounds good!” Then he thought to himself, At least for now.

Chapter 56

The biplane sat at the edge of town, engine running, nosed out towards the empty desert—and an uncertain fate.

Sam was in the cockpit dressed in an old leather flight helmet, goofy-looking goggles, earphones, and a headset. A silk scarf around his neck would’ve completed the World War II flying ace look.

Lining the road for moral support were Carla, Tommy, Curley, and Kristin.

Sam glanced over and felt a sudden pang of disappointment that Laura wasn’t there. She hadn’t come to see him off.

Karl stood at the front of the plane, where Sam could see him, and gave a signal. Together, they began the pre-flight check.

Sam worked the joystick and foot pedals, causing flaps, elevators, stabilizers, and the rudder to flip-flop back and forth. All was in working order.

“Clear for take off.” Karl yelled, flashing a thumbs-up, then moved clear of the plane.

Nodding, Sam returned a thumbs-up. Then he ran the engine, gripped the controls—and, just as he was about to release the brakes—

Laura ran up, hopped onto the wing, and climbed into the passenger’s seat, pulling the ball cap she was wearing tight on her head.

Sam backed off the throttle, letting the engine coast to an idle. He released the controls, then cranked his head around and looked at her.

“What are you doing?! Get out!”

“I’m going with you,” she said, yelling over the engine noise, a defiant flush rising in her cheeks.

“No, you’re not!”

“Yes, I am. I want to get a look at this thing from the air.”

“Forget it. Absolutely not. It’s not safe. The plane’s a flying coffin.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Jesus,” Sam said, completely frustrated. It was like trying to reason with a charging grizzly.

“C’mon… Please, just get out.”

“I’m going,” she said, buckling her safety harness, signaling that the discussion was over.

“Fine Then we’re both probably going to die.”

“Here…” Karl yelled, stepping onto the wing and handing Laura a headset and mic. “So you can talk to each other.”

Laura nodded, placed earphones over her cap. Karl leaned in, showed her where to plug them into the com system, checked her safety belt, then dropped off the plane and moved back with the others.

“Sam. Sam. Can you hear me?” Laura said, talking into her mic.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Copy that.” Then she added, “Is that right? Is that what you’re supposed to say?”

Behind the goggles, Sam rolled his eyes and said, “Hang on…” Then he jammed the throttle forward. The plane started to roll and quickly gained speed.

“Tallyho!” Laura yelled, thrusting an arm in the air.

Karl, Tommy, Carla, Kristin, and Curley all watched as the tail wheel rose. Seconds later, after a couple of tentative bounces, the plane lifted off the road, dipped its wings—causing everyone to momentarily catch their breath—leveled, and then climbed steadily into the desert sky.

“Woo hoo!” Kristin yelled, jumping up and down.

Carla clapped. “Way to go, Sam!”

Curley thrust his cap in the air. “Yeah!”

Karl smiled, quietly pleased with Daisy’s performance.

Chapter 57

High above the desert, endless lines of hills and dunes, all intricately carved by knife-sharp winds, disappeared beneath the biplane’s wings.

Sam edged the joystick over, sending them in a slow, banking turn towards Furnace Mountain and the pass beyond.

Laura reached forward and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “This is fantastic. It’s beautiful up here.”

Sam looked down, nodded. “Incredible.”

“When did you learn to fly?”

There was a long pause, then—

“I didn’t. What I mean is, my dad taught me. We had a little Cessna when I was a boy.”

“Oh…” Laura said, a horrified look on her face.

“Aren’t you glad you came along?” Sam asked, enjoying the moment, wishing he could see the look on her face.

After a quick grimace, Laura replied, “I trust you,” then crossed her fingers.

“Big mistake,” Sam laughed. Then he said, “Hey, it just struck me, this is kind of like Out of Africa—you know—the biplane scene.”

“Not even close,” Laura laughed. But it really kind of was. Except for the monster below them that was racing down the valley. “Just keep it in the air, Redford.”

Sam rocked the wings, pretending to lose control.

“Sam!” Laura screamed, gripping the sides of the cockpit.

* * *

Ten minutes later, as they approached Furnace Mountain, beads of moisture appeared on the windshield and collected along the leading edge of the wings.

The light shifted, and the air turned dense and humid. It was like they’d just entered the tropics.

“Sam. Feel that? The air…” Laura said, removing her sunglasses to clean the lenses.

“Yeah. It’s almost tropical.”

Then they saw it—at their 4 o’clock—an ocean of bristling creepers.

It had made amazing progress since Sam had last seen it. It now covered the entire face of Furnace Mountain and was spilling partway down the valley.

“My God!” Laura said, looking down.

“Incredible,” he said, leaning out. “It looks like the Amazon down there.”

“It doesn’t seem real,” Laura said, an awestruck look on her face.

“Say a prayer. I’m going to see if the old girl can climb over the pass.”

Sam added max throttle. The airframe began to shake and shimmy. He pointed the nose of the plane at a “V” cut in the mountain, the place where the road dropped over the top. The little yellow plane labored up—three thousand feet, four thousand feet—and, as they passed forty-five hundred feet, Sam nosed the plane forward and they slipped over the mountain, clearing it by a couple hundred feet.

They both let out a deep breath.

“That was close,” Laura said, stating the obvious.

Sam didn’t respond. Something else had his full attention: the oil gauge. The needle was lying flat, indicating they had no oil pressure.

Shit.

Sam leaned forward and tapped the gauge. Nothing, the needle didn’t budge—or even jump. Another couple of taps. Still nothing. Great.

“Great… just great.” Sam let out a frustrated sigh, shook his head.

“What? What is it, Sam?” Laura said, leaning towards him.

“Oil pressure.”

“Oil pressure in regards to—”

“The engine. The gauge says we have none.”

Laura thought for a moment, then said, “Tap on it. Maybe it’s broken.”

“Why didn’t I think of that…” He gave the gauge a couple of sharp taps. Nothing—the needle remained stuck on zero.

“Yep. That did it,” Sam lied. “Just like in the movies.” The engine seemed to be running fine, so hopefully it was just a faulty gauge.

Relieved, Laura smiled. Then she was suddenly hanging out the side of the cockpit, excitedly pointing at something.

“Sam! There. There it is!”

Sam looked. Fifteen hundred feet below, a tanker truck sat off the side of the road. He banked, sending the plane in an arcing circle over the truck’s position. It was right where she had last seen it—untouched—its axels still mired in sand.

Sam circled one more time, checking the road, making sure it was straight enough to land on. “Okay, get ready,” he said. “I’m going to set her down.” He reduced their airspeed to 60 knots, lined up with the road, and began his approach.

A couple of minutes later, the nimble little crop duster’s wheels kissed the ground and ran smoothly along the blacktop. Sam let the plane taxi forward until they were parallel to the spot where the tanker ran off the road.

He revved the engine and turned the plane around, putting it in takeoff position, cut the power, and peeled off his goggles. Then he climbed out of the cockpit as the propeller made one last rotation and stopped. Stepping off the wing and dropping onto the road, he circled the plane and thought to himself, I can’t believe I just pulled that off.

As he came around to Laura in the passenger’s seat, he said, “How was that for a landing?” sounding very nonchalant. “Ha, I would’ve made a helluva carrier pilot.”

Laura popped her safety harness, unglued herself from the seat, climbed onto the wing, and stepped down next to Sam.

“I wouldn’t know. I had my eyes shut.”

“I thought it went pretty well,” he said, eyeballing the plane again, checking to see if they’d shed any parts on their way over the mountain.

Laura went up to Sam, surprising him with a hug and an affectionate peck on the cheek. “Thanks for not killing us, ace.”

She took his hand.

“C’mon.” Then she led him across the road until they had a good view of the tanker, and, specifically, the logo painted on the side.

“See, just like I said.”

There, directly in front of them, a giant logo emblazoned on the side of the tanker read: Round-up —Weed Killer.

Chapter 58

Outside Eller’s Garage, Karl, Tommy, and Curley were fueling vehicles, checking tires—getting ready, just in case they had to make a run for it.

Tommy pulled his Jeep up to the pump. Curley grabbed the hose, flipped the handle, and began to fill the tank. Karl was beneath the deuce and a half working on the balky starter motor, blowing the contacts clean with compressed air.

While Curley filled the tank, Tommy got out of the Cherokee and went to see if Karl needed any help.

“How’s it look?”

“The starter motor is about to take a dump, but I think it will hold for now,” Karl said, sliding out from beneath the tanker. “If we need to run, this baby will plow through anything.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Yeah. You can top off the diesel.” Karl pointed to a 55 gallon drum. “Use that barrel there, it should already have a drum pump attached. Just crank the handle to start the siphon.”

“Got it,” Tommy said, then moved to the barrel and prepared to top off the deuce and half’s fuel tanks.

Inside Nguyen’s, Maya and Donnie sat in a booth, talking. Behind them, a couple of tables away, Kristin was busily sketching on her pad.

“It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing anyone could’ve done,” Maya said, picking at the label on a water bottle. “Lander… he had one of those things inside him.”

“Yeah,” Donnie said, his face shadowed beneath the hood of his sweatshirt. “I should’ve…” Then his voice just trailed off.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” she said, reaching across the table and placing her hand over his.

Donnie lifted his head, looked at her hand, and nodded. “Thanks.”

Maya pulled her hand back and reached inside her purse. She removed a joint, held it up. “We could do this?”

Donnie shook his head. “It won’t help.”

“It won’t hurt,” she said, flashing a quick smile.

“I’m done with that shit,” Donnie said, his eyes on the joint. “I’ve been high since I was fifteen. Every fucking day, yo. I don’t even know who I am.”

Maya nodded, then palmed the joint. “That’s cool. That’s good…”

She bucked out of the booth, looked at him, and said, “I’m going outside. I need to get high.”

Donnie stared up at her, nodded, then looked down at his hands.

A moment later Kristin walked up, tore a sheet off the pad, and placed it on the table in front of Donnie.

Donnie glanced up at her, then reached out, picked up the sketch, and looked at it. It was a simple line drawing of Donnie and Maya holding hands.

Kristin reached down and touched his shoulder.

“Thanks,” Donnie said. Then a tear fell from his eye, causing a section of the sketch to blur and run.

Chapter 59

Sam had repositioned the plane, moving it as close to the tanker as possible while still keeping the wheels on the blacktop.

Using four of the truck’s hoses, they cobbled together enough line to reach from the eighteen-wheeler to the crop duster’s belly tank.

Sam held the end of the hose over a funnel that was positioned in the biplane’s tank, while Laura crouched beneath the tanker, waiting for Sam’s signal that the plane was full and it was time to shut the valve.

“Okay! That’s it. Shut it off.”

Laura leapt into action, spinning a valve beneath the tank, cutting the flow of Round-up. She scrambled out from beneath the tank, stripping off a pair of rubber gloves. As she trudged through the loose sand toward the road, she yelled, “How much do you think we got?”

“Hard to say,” Sam said, removing the funnel and screwing the cap back onto the tank. “I’m guessing we got around three hundred gallons.”

“If we get a good drop—if we can concentrate it—it might work.”

Sam lifted a water bottle off the plane’s wing, took a long pull, and handed it to Laura. She raised it to her lips, and as she drank, Sam reached over without thinking and dusted some sand off her arm.

Laura finished drinking, looked at Sam, smiled at him. Something felt so right about this, about being with him. About being together.

Sam coiled the hose, clearing it from beneath the plane and dragging it a good distance off the road, just to be sure. He made a quick circle, checking tires, flight surfaces, wing struts. Then he joined Laura, who was standing in the shade beneath one of the wings.

“Well… you ready?”

Laura stared at him, then reached up and straightened his collar. “Bombs away.”

Sam reached out, pulled her to him, and kissed her. “That’s for good luck.”

Chapter 60

Fifteen minutes later, the biplane lifted off the desert floor, labored into the sky, banked, and headed for the mountain pass.

At 4,500 feet, Sam eased the stick forward, leveled the plane, and he and Laura looked down as they slipped over the top of the mountain and back into Furnace Valley.

Sam glanced at the oil gauge. The needle was canted over and lifeless, still pointing to zero. He reached out. Tap, tap. The needle didn’t move. He shrugged, then thought to himself, The engine is running perfectly. There’s nothing you can do. Don’t sweat it.

“Okay, I’m heading for the mineral spring.” Sam banked the plane, nosed over, and reduced air speed, putting them on a gentle descent into the valley.

Laura had her camera out and was taking pictures. This was one for the book, she thought. Then: Ha, that didn’t begin to do justice to what she was seeing in the viewfinder.

As the plane settled in at two thousand feet, Sam pointed and yelled, “There. The spring’s on the other side of that tower.”

“What tower?” Laura leaned out, straining to see. Then she saw it, protruding out of a sea of green. “You mean that?”

The high-voltage tower was at their 3 o’clock. It had been completely overgrown by waving tendrils and flashing creeper arms—its legs and metal framework acting as an armature for the unholy piece of topiary.

Thick stalks, knitted together, rose up the tower’s sides and came together in a pulsing topknot, spilling off the crown and dangling like giant dreadlocks.

“Sam… Sam… Look!” Laura pointed at a bright green circle that used to be Big Caliente Hot Springs.

“Got it!” he nodded.

“It’s the ganglion, the thing’s nerve center.”

Sam moved the stick and pressed on the rudder pedal, sending them in a slow circle that would bring them directly over the top of the spring.

As the plane completed its turn, the spring came into view. It was dead ahead now.

“Okay, this is it. Final approach. Wish us luck…”

And with that, he nosed the plane over and dove toward the spring.

The airspeed jumped. The engine screamed. They shot past the high-voltage tower, leaving it on their right, just as—

One of the creeper stalks hanging off the tower whipsawed out and shot into the air. Seconds later, an ear-piercing whistle filled their ears—and then they saw it, a giant creeper stalk floating in the sky—directly in their path!

“Holy shit!” Sam said, shocked by the sight of the airborne creeper.

“Sam!” Laura yelled. She grabbed onto her seat as he hauled the stick over, putting the biplane on its ear in a desperate attempt to slip past.

But the geometry was all wrong…

The creeper flew onward, swinging up and out and slamming point blank into the plane’s propeller.

The fuselage shuddered and shook, and one of the struts parted from the wing. As the propeller shredded the stalk into creeper mulch, the engine bogged and choked. Smoke and flames poured out. A man-sized chunk of creeper flew off the tip of the prop and tumbled back, tearing off a section of tail and most of the left stabilizer.

The plane nosed over and plummeted towards the ground, spiraling down in a death roll. Flames shot from the engine and rolled along the fuselage, licking the windshield inches from Sam’s face.

“Sam! Do something!” Laura screamed, holding on for dear life.

“Hold on…” Sam wrapped both hands around the stick. Then, using his feet, he worked the rudder and elevators, fighting to gain control.

With one last mighty heave, he pulled back on the joystick. The biplane shuddered. The wings bit into the air, the nose lifted and just as they leveled…

The landing gear clipped a dune. The plane jumped up, then nosed over, tearing off a wheel as it struck a boulder—then shuddered, dipped, dropped to the ground, skidded sideways, spun in a 360—and finally ground to a stop, coming to rest on the tip of a lower wing.

Chapter 61

Stunned and dazed, but miraculously unhurt, Sam and Laura crawled out of the plane and quickly scrambled back from the burning wreckage.

They made their way to a large rock, both of them falling against it as they watched the biplane burst into flames.

“That thing swatted us like a fly,” Laura said, dazed.

Sam nodded. “Unbelievable.”

There was a concussive explosion as the plane’s fuel tanks went up. Laura jumped into Sam’s arms, and both of them ducked as engine parts, wing struts, and chunks of fuselage were hurled through the air.

A few minutes later, after the air had cleared, they rose to their feet and stared at the ruined biplane.

“Sorry about that, Daisy,” Sam said. “I doubt Karl will ever forgive me.”

Laura gazed up at him. “That was some landing, ace.” She leaned forward, kissing him. “Thanks for saving our necks.”

Sam looked at Laura. Her face was streaked with grime and engine oil, and her hair was a wind-whipped tangled mane. But her eyes remained determined, filled with hope.

He reached out, pulled her up, and kissed her. Grateful to be alive. Grateful to be with her.

“Thanks for saving my neck too,” Sam said, brushing the hair back from her face.

Then their heads whipped around as the plane settled with a loud crunch. And both of them had the same thought: We’ve blown our one chance of stopping this thing.

* * *

The sun had set, and night was fast approaching. Flames from the wreckage danced against the bank of a shallow arroyo, casting a warm glow on the sand as if someone had stopped for the night and made camp.

Off to one side, Sam and Laura huddled next to a mesquite fire that Sam had built and lit with a piece of burning wreckage. They were taking inventory of what they had been able to salvage from the plane.

It wasn’t much. Laura had found her jacket, and Sam had lucked into a mostly full canteen and his Gerber survival knife. Other than that—the rest was lost, burning, or already burnt.

Sam stared out at a square section of fuselage that lay at the center of the smashed plane. He went over, examined the piece of wreckage, then knocked on the side. It was the plane’s aluminum belly tank—the one filled with Round-up.

Using his knuckles, he tapped down the side of the tank, listening to the dull thud indicating the tank was full. He couldn’t believe it.

“What is it, Sam?” Laura asked.

“The Round-up. All of it survived the crash.”

“Great… perfect…” Laura gave Sam an ironic look and pulled on her jacket. “Any idea how we get out of here?”

“Yeah. The road’s not far. Then it’s five hours on foot back to town.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, considering the alternative.” She glanced at the burning plane.

“It’ll be a march,” Sam said, shaking the canteen. “But without the sun hammering us, we should be okay.”

He slung the canteen over his shoulder, fastened the knife to his belt, and rolled down his shirtsleeves. “We should get moving. Let’s take advantage of any head start we have on that thing.”

Ten minutes later, Sam and Laura left the crash site and began dead reckoning to the road—meaning up and over every rise, wash, outcrop, or patch of scrub.

They picked their way through a maze of razor-sharp Coachella cactus, pushed through a patch of creosote, scrambled up the loose face of a dune—and, as they crested the top—both of them froze, shocked by what they saw.

Deadly creeper stalks.

Everywhere.

They were completely surrounded. The creeper snaked out in all directions, disappearing into the twilight.

Holy crap!

“Sshhh…” Sam held his arm in front of Laura. “Don’t move.”

There was a rustling sound. An inky shape rushed through the dim light. Dust swirled up…

And then they saw the creeper stalk—skittering across the sand, twenty yards directly in front of them. It snaked up, swirled around the base of the dune, then stopped and raised its tip, like it was trying to sense something.

Then without warning—it shot towards them—racing straight up the face of the dune like it wasn’t there.

Laura screamed.

Sam grabbed her arm. “Run!”

They wheeled around, charged back down the dune, and headed in the direction of the plane. Right behind them—hot on their heels and gaining, the creeper looped over the dune—and cut across the desert like it was on ball bearings.

Sam and Laura rushed forward, boots pounding the ground, Sam in the lead, guiding them through an obstacle course of gullies, rocks, and cactus spikes.

A couple of minutes later, they shredded down a gravel rise and pitched forward into the crash site—racing right up to the smoldering plane—surrounding themselves with the little spot fires that continued to burn.

Sam motioned to Laura, and together they collected twigs and branches, anything that would burn, feeding the fires, closing the circle around them.

The creeper slithered into the crash site, probing the air, searching…

Sam gathered a handful of branches, stripped a length of wire off the plane, and bound them together into a makeshift torch, waiting for the creeper to make its move.

The creeper edged up to the ring of fire, made a few tentative probes—then dropped to the sand and retreated into the desert after easier prey.

Chapter 62

Inside Nguyen’s, the generator roared to life. Light bulbs flickered and blinked on, canceling out the waning light.

Karl and Curley were at the counter, Karl sipping coffee, Curley having a soda. Kristin was sketching Darwin who was perched at the end of the bar.

“What do you think?” Tommy said, stepping behind the counter.

“I think they’re deader than yesterday,” Karl said, staring into his mug.

“Don’t say that, Karl,” Curley said, frowning. “You don’t know. You can’t say.”

“What I know is—that biplane’s a deathtrap.” Karl shook his head. “I should’ve never let him do it. I should’ve never let Sam talk me into it.” He frowned, made a fist, and drove it into the top of his leg.

“Maybe they just ran out of gas. Or the engine quit, but maybe Sam was able to set her down,” Tommy said, offering some encouragement.

“That’s a lot of maybes,” Karl shot back. “I’ll tell you what—maybe that thing out there got them”

“No!” Curley stood. “Don’t say that.”

* * *

Back at the crash site, most of the spot fires Sam and Laura had set surrounding the plane had burned out. It was completely dark now, and the sky dazzled horizon to horizon with stars.

A rock loosened in the center of the arroyo’s bank. Rivulets of sand and gravel streamed down the face as the boulder lifted, tilted, and then tumbled free. A moment after that a hand appeared. Then an arm. Then Sam and Laura clambered down the embankment and dropped to the desert floor—dusty, dirty, filthy—but very much alive!

They scanned the area, their heads flashing left and right, checking to see if it was clear. They dusted themselves off with slow, quiet movements, careful not to attract the attention of anything lurking beyond their view.

“What do you think?” Sam whispered.

“I’m glad I’m not a gopher.”

Sam smiled at her. He shook his head, glad to see she was maintaining a sense of humor.

“Yeah, me too,” he said, brushing dirt out of his hair. “What I meant was—do you think it’s dark enough to move?”

“I’m not sure,” Laura said, her eyes straining ahead. “It’s not going to get any darker. The creeper should be dormant by now.” She turned to him. “But really, your guess is as good as mine.”

“No…no, it’s not as good as yours. It can’t be. You’re the botanist here. I defer to you on all matters concerning man-eating plants and their nighttime activities.”

“Nocturnal,” Laura said. “Nocturnal activities. Actually, I prefer the term crepuscular. Crepuscular activities.”

“See,” Sam said, motioning with his hands. “Spoken like a true man-eating plant expert.”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “My guess is superior to yours. And, well—it’s not like we really have a choice. We can’t stay here.”

“Right,” Sam agreed. He slipped the canteen off his shoulder, blew off the dust, and held it up to Laura. “Want a drink?”

She nodded. “God, yes.” She unscrewed the lid, took a drink, and then another. She held it out to Sam, who took a swig, wiped his mouth, then looped the canteen over his shoulder. He patted his belt, checking to make sure the knife was still attached.

“Do you think anyone will come for us?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “They probably figured the plane crashed and we’re dead.”

Laura looked at the ruined biplane. “How could they possibly come up with an idea like that?”

“Right,” Sam said, staring at a crumpled wing.

Chapter 63

Sam and Laura picked their way through the night, trying not to end up like cactus kabobs—or worse, creeper kabobs.

So far, so good. Their luck seemed to be holding. They had maneuvered around six creeper stalks, and none of them seemed to be moving. Or hunting.

Sam scrambled up an embankment, crouched, scanned the area.

“See anything?” Laura asked, moving up behind him.

“No. All clear.” He straightened. Then, without an ounce of conviction in his voice, he proclaimed, “We own the night.”

“We own the night?” Laura said, joining Sam at the top of the rise. “Where have I heard that before?”

“I think it came from Vietnam—referring to the superior ability of our soldiers to conduct night missions.”

“Oh yeah, Vietnam.” She gave him a look. “Gee, that fills me with confidence.”

“Right…” Sam said, catching her drift. “Just a saying. But our guys did own the night.”

“Okay… if you say so.” She stared out into the dark and added, “Tell you what—I’d settle for just owning tonight.”

“Me too,” he agreed, moving to the edge of the rise. “Come on.”

The two of them descended the embankment, each footstep causing mini sand avalanches. Halfway to the bottom, Laura lost her balance, pitched forward, and tumbled down the slope—spilling over a creosote bush and ending up face-to-face with the business end of a thirsty creeper stalk!

When she realized what she was looking at, her eyes went wide with shock. She opened her mouth to scream and then immediately choked it back. Behind her, Sam bounded down the slope and pulled her up—both of them crabbing back, putting a safe distance between themselves and the creeper.

“God… I thought I was dead,” Laura gasped, finally able to breath again.

Sam brushed sand off her cheek and pulled a twig of creosote out of her hair. “Couple of scratches, but otherwise you’re fine.”

“It didn’t move. It didn’t seem to know I was there.”

“No… you were right. The thing seems to be dormant after dark.”

Sam pulled the knife off his belt and cautiously approached the creeper.

“What are you doing?”

He stood directly in front of the creeper. “I want to make sure this thing is tucked in for the night.”

He reached down with the blade and touched the top of the creeper, giving it a tentative poke. Nothing, the stalk lay as still as a section of garden hose.

“Seems okay,” Sam said, turning to Laura.

He inched closer, raised the knife, then brought it down, stabbing deep into the creeper’s fleshy epidermis.

The reaction was immediate. Violent. With the knife still sticking out of its tip, the creeper whipped around and knocked Sam off his feet. But instead of attacking further, it retracted, coiling into a tight ball.

Sam scrambled back and fell to the sand before allowing himself to yell out in shock. “Shit!” Then he yelled again, anger and relief flooding his voice. “Shit!”

“Sam!” Laura rushed up and knelt next to him.

“Jesus. Did you see that? What the hell was that?”

“I’m not sure,” Laura said, helping him sit up. “Probably stored energy. Some residual nastic motion.”

“Nastic motion?” Sam said, giving her a look. “Nasty motion is more like it. Next time, I’ll just take your word for it.”

Chapter 64

Carla stood at the entrance to the kitchen, dialed the phone, and held it up to her ear. It was completely dead—no buzz or hum—just silence.

She shook her head at Tommy, who was watching from the counter.

“Dead. The line’s still down.”

Tommy nodded and frowned. Then he noticed Karl hadn’t touched his meatloaf. He loved Carla’s meatloaf.

“What’s the matter, Karl, something wrong with the meatloaf?”

“No,” Karl said, obviously up in his head and only half paying attention. “The food is fine. It’s me.”

The Grogans were huddled in a booth. Mrs. Grogan paged through a gossip magazine while the twins mowed down their second bowl of ice cream.

Kristin walked past Donnie, who was curled on the floor sleeping, and went up to Maya, who was sitting in the lotus position, hands in her lap, chanting in a monotone voice. Kristin looked down, rolled her eyes, and said, “Really?” then proceeded over to Tommy at the counter.

“Do you think Sam and Laura are okay?” Kristin asked, crossing her arms, tucking them tight across her chest.

“I don’t know, honey,” Tommy said, a kind expression on his face, trying not to upset her any further.

Carla came over, put an arm around Kristin.

“Sam knows the valley. I bet that old plane just broke down and they’re on their way back here now.”

“I can’t take this.” Karl stood. “This waiting around is making my neck itch.” He moved to the door. “I’m gonna get that big-ass truck of Sam’s and take a run up the valley. See what I can see.”

“Are you crazy?” Tommy said, coming around the counter.

“Probably,” Karl said, opening the door. “But it beats sitting around here not knowing and watching the goddamn clock.”

“I’m going, too,” Kristin said, jumping forward to join him.

“No.” Karl held up a hand, his voice firm. “It’s too dangerous. I’m a damn fool for even trying it.”

“Aw, hell,” Curley said, clumping over to Karl. “I’m coming, too. And don’t tell me no. Sam’s my friend.”

Chapter 65

Low in the valley a hissing sound echoed through the night. Something was different now. Fog—no, steam—filled the air. It rose off the ground in ghostly white columns, the moisture condensing in the cool night air.

But it wasn’t coming from the ground… it was coming from the creeper stalks themselves. Thousands of them!

Glistening. Swollen. Bloated. Bursting with mineral-rich water, they crisscrossed the sand in a deadly thatch work.

* * *

Sam and Laura picked their way directly through the carpet of creepers, marveling at the sudden change in atmosphere. Dark stains had formed on the front of Sam’s shirt, and both of them were drenched in sweat.

“This is totally bizarre,” Sam said, pumping his shirt, trying to cool himself. “It’s like a giant hothouse out here.”

“Amazing,” Laura said, mopping sweat from her forehead. “Must be close to a hundred percent humidity.”

“Maybe these greedy suckers finally got their fill.”

“God…” she said, looking around. “What was my father thinking?”

Sam placed his foot between two creeper stalks before replying, “It was something about wastelands being made fertile. Watershed. Holding back marching dunes. Fooling Mother Nature herself.”

Laura followed Sam, placing a foot where he had just stepped. “He actually said that?”

Sam nodded. “Those very words.”

Directly ahead, they were forced to skirt around a thick patch of Mojave yucca, leaving them no option but to claw up a rocky escarpment.

Laura pushed ahead and was first to the top, going up the rock face like Spider-Man.

“Look!” She stared out at the horizon. Sam boosted himself up and over a rock, and as he stepped up next to her, she said, “The moon.”

They stood there and watched as the moon cleared Furnace Mountain and rose in the night sky—round and full and perfect as a bullet hole.

“I totally forgot. Tonight’s the full moon,” she said.

“Great,” Sam said. “Now we’ll be able to see what we’re tripping over.”

They made their way down the rise, this time assisted by the soft glow of the moon, and continued on to the main road.

* * *

Off in the distance, a low rasping issued up from beneath one of the pockets of steam.

Under the silver haze, a creeper stalk contracted and then writhed to life, warping forward through the sand. The creeper had changed. It looked different. It had shed most of its leaves—and in their place, plum-colored pods had formed.

There was an audible pop as one of the pods burst open, revealing a milky white flower. Another pop, and another pod exploded into a flower.

Then, across the entire valley, distinctive pop, pop, pop sounds could be heard as the pods matured and blossomed.

* * *

“Did you hear that?” Laura asked, freezing in her tracks.

“Come on,” Sam said, trying to get her moving again. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“No. Listen,” Laura insisted. “That popping sound.”

Sam stopped, raised his head. Then he heard it too—the pop-pop-popof opening pods.

“Yeah, I hear it.”

Then they watched as the fog that hung across the valley began to lift. A moment after that, they saw what it was…

The entire valley had bloomed! Lily-white flowers covered the desert floor.

“My God,” said Laura. “It—

“Bloomed,” Sam said, finishing her sentence.

Sam made a slow 360. The flowers were everywhere, as far as he could see. And the popping was getting louder—and closer.

“Great. Just great. What next?”

Both of them spun around as a rattling filled their ears. And then they saw a creeper stalk—rising and falling—heading directly towards them!

Sam grabbed Laura’s arm. “Run!”

* * *

The deuce and a half rumbled through the valley, Karl putting the powerful 6x6 through its moves.

“I don’t like this,” Curley said, giving Karl an anxious look. “I ain’t never seen fog this time of year.”

“Yeah,” Karl agreed, shaking his head. “But you gotta admit—it fits right in with giant man-eating vines.”

“Jeez… I wish you hadn’t said that.” Curley tightened his grip on the handle of a machete that rested next to his leg. “You think Ms. Beecham was right about them things not moving at night?”

“Hell, Curley, you were there. You saw it with your own eyes.”

“Yeah, sure,” Curley said, an uncertain look on his face. “I guess…”

The cab fell silent. Then a whistling sound filled their ears…

Through the windshield they watched as a giant creeper arm waggled up and dropped across the road, fifteen yards in front of the truck.

Karl hit the brakes. Curley slammed forward against the dash. The wheels locked, sending the truck skidding right towards the creeper.

Curley rocked back in his seat, raised the machete, and cracked his door—tempted to bail out, make a run for it.

Karl’s arm flashed up, his hand clamping tight around Curley’s arm.

“Curley, no! Stay with the truck. It’s our best chance.”

* * *

Racing through the desert, lungs on fire, running flat-out for their lives, Sam and Laura vaulted over a patch of yucca and angled toward a ravine.

Thirty yards behind them, and gaining with every footstep, two large creepers swam through the scrub, dust trails rising above their swirling serpent bodies.

“There! Over there!” Sam yelled, pointing to a large cement pipe that loomed out of a gravel wash.

Arms pumping, they shot toward the pipe, ready to jump inside—and pulled up short when they saw a grid of steel bars and wire mesh blocking the entrance.

Shit.

Sam threw himself at the metal grate, grabbed the bars, braced his foot—then, thrusting back with all his might, tried to pry them open.

Laura fell in beside him, latched onto the bars, and together they yanked and pulled, trying to break them free. Behind them, one of the creepers closed the gap and moved within striking distance.

At the bottom of the grate, Sam noticed the cement had begun to crack and crumble. He lowered his grip, pulled, and saw an anchor bolt loosen.

“Down here.” Sam dropped in front of the loose bolt. “Help me pull on this side.”

Laura placed her hands above Sam’s. They tightened their grip, pulled—and, just as the corner of the grate bent up enough to let them slip inside —

The creeper smashed into the mesh, fractured its bony tip, and split in two, spraying geysers of sticky white sap across the pipe’s entrance and littering the floor with white flowers.

Defeated by the grate, the creeper writhed and twisted, fell back, and disappeared into the night.

Inside the cement conduit, Sam and Laura fell against the sides, gasping, exhausted, covered with creeper sap. After a few minutes, Sam recovered enough to rock onto his knees. He went to the grate and stared into the night.

“It seems to have retreated. Looks clear—at least for now.”

He slid back from the grate, dropped against the side of the pipe. “So much for those things not moving at night… What the hell?”

“It’s the moon. Has to be. I’ve never seen such sensitivity to light.”

“Tell me about it.”

Laura reached down, lifting one of the silky white flowers that covered the bottom of the pipe. She raised it to her eyes, trying to see inside. Then, using her fingers, she spread the petals, revealing a perfect set of reproductive organs.

“Stamen. Anthers. Pistil,” she said, separating each of the parts as she cataloged them.

“What?” Sam asked, staring at the flower in her hand.

“Look,” she held it up. “A complete set of reproductive organs.”

Sam studied it, then said, “As in—”

“Baby creepers.”

“Wonderful,” Sam said, picking up a flower from the bottom of the pipe. “More great news about Doc’s little experiment.”

Laura frowned, nodding in agreement. Then she turned and looked down the black maw of the pipe.

“Any idea where this leads?”

“It’s part of the old aqueduct. It runs about a quarter mile. It should lead us right to the main road.”

Laura gasped, then stared at Sam—a thunderstruck look on her face.

“What?” he said, looking at her.

“Sam… That’s it! That’s where this thing’s going!”

“Slow down.” he raised his hands. “What are you talking about?”

“The creeper. It’s moving down the valley straight to the aqueduct.”

“And the world’s biggest happy hour,” Sam said, suddenly understanding.

Chapter 66

Working the gas and clutch, Karl tried to rock the deuce and half free as the rear end hopped back and forth.

“Christ! We’re hung up good,” Karl yelled, letting off on the gas.

Outside, creeper stalk after creeper stalk attached themselves to the truck, coiling around bumpers and axels, snaking up and over the radiator grill.

“Hang on!” Curley yelled, clutching the machete.

“Curley… No! Stay in the truck!”

But it was too late. He was already out the door, standing on the running board, preparing to climb on the hood to get at the creepers. Just as he put his foot on the fender—a creeper swung up and locked onto his leg.

“Shit!” Curley yelled, then brought the machete down, slicing the creeper in two and freeing himself.

Wasting no time, he scrambled forward onto the hood. Wielding the machete like a whirring blade, he sliced-and-diced creeper stalks until the grill and bumper had been cleared. “That’s for Blossom!”

Curley rolled off the hood, slid down the fender, danced along the running board—and as he swung into the cab, yelled, “Hit it!”

Karl dropped it into gear and mashed down on the accelerator. The engine screamed as the big 6x6 rose up, shredding creeper stalks as it bulldozed free and shot back onto the road.

“Son of a bitch!” Karl cursed. “Goddamn son of a bitch.” He brought the tanker around—made a U-turn—and sent the truck roaring back to town.

Just as Karl hit third gear, another creeper whistled through the night, arced over and gunned for the truck. But he saw it coming this time. Instead of trying to avoid it, he cranked the wheel and aimed the truck directly for it.

Seconds later, two and a half tons of steel slammed into the creeper with a thud. The stalk was instantly destroyed, the front of it vaporized by the bumper guard, coating the windshield with milky white sap.

“Jesus H,” Karl shouted, backing off on the gas and hitting the wipers.

“We knocked the snot out of that one!” Curley cheered, shaking a fist in the air.

* * *

After a quarter mile crouch, Sam and Laura emerged from the abandoned section of aqueduct, stood, stretched, and scanned the area.

“You see anything?” Sam asked, searching the surrounding desert.

“Yes.” Laura pointed to Sam’s left. “The road!”

A moment after that, they saw headlights—the twin yellow beams diffused in the thick atmosphere.

Then they heard the rumble of the diesel engine.

“I know that sound,” Sam said, straining in the direction of the lights. “That’s my truck!”

“Let’s go!” Laura yelled, and they took off running.

* * *

The headlights bounced up and down and swept around a curve as the truck settled onto a straight section of road. Karl was about to add power when Curley yelled—

“Karl! Watch out!”

There—standing in the road—were Sam and Laura, both of them waving like mad.

“Walkin’ talkin’ Jesus!” Karl said, taking his foot off the gas, letting the truck slow and coast right up to where they were standing.

Curley leapt out of the cab with the truck still rolling and ran up to Sam and Laura, hugging them both, grateful that they were alive.

Chapter 67

The sun should’ve been rising in the sky as morning broke over the town of Furnace Valley, but a high layer of eerie-looking clouds obscured it. The air was moist and tropical, like hurricane weather. Only there weren’t any storms brewing off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, ready to roll into California’s low deserts.

Lining the front of Nguyen’s Place, gassed up and ready to go, were Sam’s deuce and a half, Tommy’s Jeep, a 4x4 pickup, and Karl’s tow truck.

Inside the diner, the group was preparing to leave, packing clothes, rolling up bedding, and having a last bite of breakfast.

“I hate the thought of just up and leaving. Turning tail. Running,” Karl said to the group gathered around the counter. “The garage. This town. It’s all I’ve got.”

“Hey, maybe we should just wait. With the power down, there’s sure to be help on the way. Why not wait and let them come to us?” Tommy asked, giving the others a hopeful look.

“Even if help is on the way,” Karl replied, looking at Tommy, “how the hell are they going to get past that thing?”

“In two hours there won’t be a town,” Laura said, echoing what everyone was thinking.

“I hate the thought of leaving, too,” Sam said. “Coming here, to Furnace Valley, to my family’s place… it was my escape hatch.”

Tommy and Karl looked at Sam and nodded. Both of them felt the same way.

“But we have no choice,” Sam continued. “We’ve got to put distance between us and that thing out there. What Laura and I saw last night…”

“Okay! Let’s go now!” Curley blurted, cutting Sam off. “What are we waiting for?”

“Our best hope is to make a run down the valley,” said Sam. “See if we can find that old catwalk that leads up and out the back way.”

“We should’ve done that yesterday,” Tommy said, pacing anxiously behind the bar. “Run down the valley.”

Karl looked at Sam, nodded. “All right. Then it’s across The Devil’s Anvil, and God help us, up that catwalk and out the backdoor.”

The counter fell silent. Laura reached over, grabbed Sam’s arm, and in a low voice asked, “What’s The Devil’s Anvil?”

“It’s a hundred square miles of sand and salt that sits between us and that Jeep trail that leads over the mountain.”

“Oh,” she frowned. “Sorry I asked.”

“Something’s weird,” Kristin announced, stepping in from the porch. “The sky. Check it out.”

Sam and Laura jumped up and went out the door, the others following. All eyes turned toward the ominous-looking clouds that had formed in the sky. They were purple and round and piled one on top of the other like scales on a fish—gravid-looking orbs ready to burst at any moment.

There was a loud crackling sound as static electricity shot through town. Everyone ducked as the hair on their arms stood straight up. A second after that, their upturned faces were illuminated by blinding white bolts arcing between the eerie-looking purple clouds.

There was another flash as a jagged lightning bolt struck the water tower, ran down one of the legs, and grounded out on the desert floor—but not before splaying the wooden staves and rupturing the tank.

A girl’s voice filled the air, shrill and haunting…

All turned to see Maya standing on the edge of the porch, head thrown back, chanting as she addressed the sky.

“Air I am, fire I am, water, Earth and Spirit I am… Air I am, fire I am, water, Earth and Spirit I am…” Her voice rose as she stepped off the porch and wandered into the street.

“Air I am, fire I am, water…”

“Maya!” Kristin yelled, horrified by the sight of her possessed-looking friend.

Carla swept out and put her arm around Maya, comforting her as she led her back onto the porch.

“Hush now. Hush now, honey.”

Just as Carla got Maya inside, there was a loud thunderclap—and a moment after that, a powerful wind swept down the valley.

“Feel that?” Karl said, raising his hand.

They all faced Furnace Mountain as the wind swept over them—hot and humid—like a tropical squall or the inside of a greenhouse.

“Look,” said Sam, pointing. “It’s coming.”

All eyes followed his hand to the low hills on the outskirts of town. They seemed to be moving, rising and falling like they’d been wrapped by Christo with some diaphanous material as an art installation.

But it wasn’t a Christo installation. And it wasn’t billowing material. It was creepers moving down the valley, zeroing in on the town.

“My God, look…” said Laura, pointing to their escape route at the far end of town and out to the desert beyond.

They all whipped around and followed her arm to a thin green line that had snaked along the mountain ridge and was now running down across the valley.

“Jesus… it’s making an end run,” Karl said, staring out at the ribbon of creepers flowing off the mountain like hot wax. “It’s trying to cut us off. It’s trying to trap us.”

Chapter 68

Inside Nguyen’s the mood was black as Sam, Laura, Karl, Tommy, Carla, and Curley gathered around the bar, their haunted-looking faces filled with defeat.

Karl pulled a revolver out of his coat, hefted it, then placed the .38 on the counter in front of him. “I’ll tell you what—if it comes down to it, if comes to me and one of those things out there—I’m not going to let it do me like it did Rufus.”

“Put that thing away, Karl,” Carla said. “We’re not finished yet.”

“I’m just saying…” said Karl, grabbing the revolver and slipping it back into his coat.

Tommy stepped into a storeroom behind the bar, then emerged with two gallons of Weed-B-Gone and plunked them down on the bar.

“We’ve still got these…”

“What the hell good is two gallons of weed killer against that monster outside?” Karl said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Wait! Wait a minute,” said Sam, rising to his feet. “That’s it!”

“What, Sam?” Laura asked. “What’s it?”

“The biplane. We’ve got to go back to the plane.”

“What are you talking about?” said Karl. “I thought it was smashed to pieces.”

“It is. It’s completely destroyed. Except the belly tank. It survived. There’s over three hundred gallons of Round-up sitting out there, ready to be picked up.”

“Great, Sam. Good thinking,” said Laura. “But there’s just one little problem—the rest of the plane isn’t attached to it.”

“We don’t need the plane.”

Sam marched out of the grill and into a room behind the counter. A moment later, he wheeled out Nguyen’s power washer, knocking into a candy rack as he pushed it ahead of him.

“How will that help?” Tommy asked, staring at the power washer.

“Think of it as a Super Soaker on steroids,” said Sam, grinning at the group. “We mount this baby in the back of a pickup truck, fill it with Round-up, and blast our way through that son of bitch that’s blocking our escape route.”

Silence filled the room as everyone considered what Sam had just said. Then Karl banged his fist on the countertop. “Damn if that might not just work. Be like one of them water cannons they use to break up riots.”

“Ah, excuse me…” Laura said, with a dubious expression. “How do we get the Round-up? It’s back with the plane, and the plane is surrounded by creepers, and—”

“Good question.” Sam cut her off as all heads swiveled in his direction. He grabbed one of the gallons of weed killer and held it up. “We use this. We put it in a Super Soaker, and maybe we can find something else… I don’t know, maybe a—”

“How about this?” Tommy stepped up to the bar holding a backpack sprayer. It had a plastic reservoir on top and a pump handle fixed to the side.

“Perfect, Tommy,” said Sam. “That will work great.”

Laura raised a hand to get their attention, then said, “Okay, so you actually make it back to the plane without getting killed—how do you get the Round-up back here?”

Sam stared at her and compressed his lips. He had to think about that one.

“I know,” said Karl. “We use a drum pump. We could siphon the poison into 55 gallon drums. I’ve got everything we need at the garage. We could put three or four barrels in the back of the tow truck.”

“Yeah,” said Curley. “Just like we do with the diesel.”

“Sam, it’s too dangerous,” Laura said, looking him right in the face. “The road back to the plane is probably completely blocked by now.”

“Look, you said it yourself,” Sam said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “That thing is going for the aqueduct. From what I can tell by how it’s moving—how it’s running along the top of the mountains—I think you’re right. I think it’s putting all its efforts into moving down the valley.”

“Sam, it’s just a theory.”

“I know… but we don’t have a choice. We can’t stay here. And we can’t outrun that thing.” Sam turned and looked at the others. “We’ve got to fight it.”

Chapter 69

An hour later, under a darkening sky, Sam, Laura, and Curley rumbled down the road in the tow truck towards Furnace Mountain and the crash site.

Sam was driving, Laura was next to him, and Curley was riding shotgun with the charred-looking Super Soaker filled with Weed-B-Gone resting on his lap. The damaged trigger had been replaced with a piece of aluminum that Karl had glued in place.

A drum pump and three barrels had been loaded in the back of the wrecker and lashed down with heavy nylon straps. Next to one of the drums was a box containing jars filled with gasoline, ready to be turned into Molotov cocktails at a moment’s notice.

“There, that’s it,” said Sam as he downshifted, slowed the wrecker, and turned off the main road onto an overgrown Jeep trail.

A second later, Laura bounced up, hitting her head on the cab liner as the truck lurched into a pothole, then leveled again.

“Sam!” Laura said, gripping the top of her head.

“Sorry…” he said, just as they banged into another hole, sending Laura shooting up again.

“SAM!”

“Hey, it’s not me,” he said, glancing at her. “The road is completely overgrown.”

“What road?” she said.

“Exactly,” said Sam.

“How far is it, Sam?” Curley asked, a nervous warble in his voice. “How far to the plane?”

“Not far. Less than a mile.”

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe there aren’t any creepers,” Laura said. “They should be all over the place.”

“Yeah… weird,” agreed Sam. “Maybe it’s like you said, maybe they’re putting all their effort into running for the aqueduct.”

“I know where they are,” said Curley, in a solemn voice. He raised a hand, then pointed out his window.

Sam and Laura leaned forward and turned to where Curley was pointing. A thousand feet above them, just below the ridge, was a quarter-mile-wide river of creepers heading east down the valley towards the aqueduct.

“Holy shit!” said Sam. Then he pressed down on the accelerator and sent them seesawing forward through the scrub.

* * *

Sparks spouted from the bed of a Ford 4x4 pickup at Eller’s Garage as Karl arc welded the last of three metal plates into place. Tommy’s power washer had been secured in the center of the truck, and the washer’s wand had been mounted on a swivel, making it look like a .50 caliber machine gun in an up-armored Humvee.

Karl flipped up his helmet, checked the weld, and proclaimed, “Hell, this thing’s ready for a tour in Afghanistan.”

Tommy hopped up into the truck next to Karl, grabbed the power washer’s wand, and swung it back and forth like a machine gunner mowing down an invisible enemy.

“Yeah… this is great, Karl. This’ll knock the hell out of them!”

* * *

Sam, Laura, and Curley stood next to the tow truck that was parked on a rise above the smashed biplane. Or what you could see of it…

The plane was covered with swarming creepers. Their thorn-encrusted stalks wove a deadly wreath that circled the wreckage.

Behind the plane, creepers had fanned out and split into two groups. Half streamed up the mountain and joined the river of creepers flowing along the ridge. The other half continued on its path towards town.

“Look at that,” Curley said, pointing to the right of the crash site. They all watched as a writhing creeper snagged the biplane’s rudder and dragged it up the face of the mountain.

Laura turned back to the biplane and studied the matrix of creeper stalks shrouding the crash site. “Sam, supposing we can actually clear a path to the plane and get to the Round-up… how are we going to get the drums back to the tow truck?”

“We’re not.”

“What?”

“I’ve got a plan,” Sam said, flashing a confident grin.

“Where have I heard that before?” Laura asked in a dubious voice.

* * *

Karl yanked on the power washer’s pull cord, and the engine hummed to life. “Okay, Tommy, give her a try.”

Tommy gripped the handle of the wand, pulled the trigger, and a wide fan of spray shot from the tip.

Karl raised a hand and made a cutting motion across his throat. “Kill it, Tommy.”

Tommy released the trigger, stopping the spray. Karl moved to the end of the wand, removed the tip, replaced it, then stepped back around Tommy and said, “Okay, try that one.”

Tommy raised the wand, pulled the trigger, and a thick stream of water shot out three hundred feet and began to drench one of the rusted-out hulks at the side of the garage.

“Yeah!” Tommy yelled, as he worked the wand back and forth.

Karl watched the stream of water, then thought to himself, That should do it. That should kick the hell out of it.

Chapter 70

Fifteen minutes later, Sam had moved the tow truck down to the crash site and backed it up to the edge of the arroyo. Below the truck, less than thirty yards away, a mass of creepers boiled across busted wings, torn bits of fuselage, and broken engine parts.

Sam and Laura stood next to the truck, Sam holding the Super Soaker and Laura wearing the backpack sprayer, both of them looking like Ghostbusters about to do battle with some hideous apparition.

Curley was positioned at the rear of the truck, waiting to play out the winch cable on Sam’s signal.

“Ready?” Sam said, glancing at Laura and Curley.

Curley indicated he was ready with a nod. Laura adjusted her rubber gloves, then gave Sam a thumbs up.

“Okay, one more time,” Sam said, then went over the plan. “Laura and I will clear the crash site and locate the belly tank. When it’s safe—Curley, you haul ass with the winch cable and cargo net. We’ll keep the creepers back while you hook up the belly tank, then everybody back to the tow truck, and we’ll haul the tank up to the truck with the winch.” After a moment, Sam said, “Any questions?”

“What about the Molotov cocktails?” Curley asked.

“When the belly tank is safely out of the arroyo, we’ll pitch them into the wash and put a wall of flames between us and the creepers.”

Sam turned to Laura. “I’ll go first, you stay on my right flank. When I give the word, we’ll hit them with everything we’ve got.”

Laura gripped the backpack’s pump handle, then nodded okay.

Moving as stealthily as possible, they picked their way down the embankment and dropped into the arroyo. Then, very slowly, they inched toward the deadly creeper arms.

They made it five, then ten, then twenty feet, when—

A whipping sound filled their ears, and out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw a creeper stalk shoot up and sweep directly towards them.

He pivoted, raised the Super Soaker—and as the creeper descended—blasted it with a stream of poison. At the same time, he and Laura lunged to the right.

By the time the creeper thudded to the ground, it had already started to wither and die, the tip turning an ashen color.

Just as they caught their breath, another creeper shot towards them…

Laura yelled, “Sam!” Then both of them blasted it at the same time, causing it to drop to the ground, shrivel, and curl into a ball.

“Now!” Sam shouted. He waved an arm through the air and both of them charged forward, yelling at the top of their lungs and blasting the creeper, coating the
writhing stalks with a thick sheen of weed killer.

As the Weed-B-Gone took effect, creeper stalks withered and atrophied, exposing the biplane, bit by bit. Thirty minutes later, an ashen halo of crumpled and shriveled creeper stalks surrounded the crash site.

After creating a protective wall of flames with their Molotov cocktails, the crew retrieved the plane’s belly tank and winched it out of the arroyo. Sam and Curley siphoned poison from the tank into the 55 gallon drums, while Laura stood guard at the edge of the arroyo, watching the creepers.

She noted that the poison had only affected the outer edges of the vine. The stalks had withered back thirty feet, but the rest of the organism seemed healthy and completely unaffected—not what you would expect after applying a systemic poison.

How could that be? And then she saw it. Clever plant.

She turned and waved. “Sam, you’ve got to see this.”

Sam motioned for Curley to take the drum pump, then joined Laura at the edge of the arroyo.

She pointed. “Look, only the outer part of the creeper is affected by the poison.”

“How is that possible? The stuff should go right through them.”

“Their aerial root network allows them to defeat the systemic poison. It’s an incredibly clever mechanism. What it does is, it breaks away from the closest secondary root and then reforms.”

“Jesus,” said Sam.

Both of them watched as the creepers did exactly what Laura had just described—parted from their withered ends, re-rooted, and started to grow again.

* * *

Back in town, the armored pickup sat in front of Nguyen’s Place. Metal cages were welded across the driver’s and passenger’s side windows, plus protective shielding for the “gunner” around the pressure washer’s gun.

Karl and Tommy paced anxiously back and forth on the porch, both of them checking the road every couple of seconds, hoping to see the tow truck, hoping that their friends were okay.

They stopped pacing when the diner’s door clattered open and Donnie wandered out, then went over to examine the fortified pickup truck, taking in the steel plates and power washer mounted in back.

“This is sick, yo,” Donnie said, looking at Karl and Tommy. “Totally Road Warrior.”

Karl acknowledged with a nod, then glanced at the pickup. “I have to admit, it does look badass.”

“It’s them!” Tommy pointed excitedly at the road. “They made it!” He leapt off the porch, followed by Karl, and ran to meet the tow truck.

Chapter 71

An hour later, a small convoy of vehicles lined up in street, ready to make a run at the quarter-mile-wide ribbon of creepers that lay between them and their freedom.

The modified pickup, bristling with armor and its rear-mounted gun, was positioned as lead vehicle. Three drums containing a hundred and fifty gallons of Round-up had been secured in the truck’s bed, ready to be fed into the power washer’s reservoir.

Behind the pickup was Karl’s tow truck, then Tommy’s Jeep, and lastly the deuce and a half in case they got flanked. The thinking was, the large tanker would offer them the best protection.

Across the street, standing on Nguyen’s roof, Sam, Laura, Karl, Tommy, and Curley stared out at the valley, trying to get a better look at the gauntlet they were about to face.

The others—Carla, Kristin, Maya, Donnie, and the Grogans—had already loaded up and were waiting in the vehicles.

Sam raised a pair of binoculars, panning along the ridge and down to the valley floor, following the column of creepers that flowed along the mountainside. Then he turned to the group. “It’s a quarter mile wide for sure, maybe wider.”

“I don’t like it, Sam,” Curley said, a tremor in his voice. “That’s too much. We won’t be able to cut through that. No way.”

“Yes, we will!” said Laura, color spiking in her cheeks as she leveled her gaze at the others. “The key will be to keep moving, no matter what happens.”

“Tell them what we saw back at the plane,” Sam said.

Laura nodded. “The Round-up won’t kill this thing, it will only slow it down. When a creeper senses it’s dying—it breaks from its secondary root, stopping the poison from spreading—then begins to reform from that point.”

“Secondary roots, my ass…” said Karl, a confused and worried look flooding across his face. “That doesn’t make sense. You saw what the poison did to the creeper that got Rufus. The thing shriveled right up and died.”

“That was a small plant,” said Laura, in a calm and controlled voice, trying not to upset the group. “It hadn’t developed an aerial root network. It was defenseless.”

“Then how are we supposed to kill it?” asked Tommy, fear rising in his voice. “How can we get past that thing?’

“If we stay together and keep moving, it will work,” Sam said, reassuringly. “Based on what we saw at the crash site, the poison will wither the creeper back about thirty feet before it starts to re-grow. That should give us enough time to pass safely through.”

“Think of our column of vehicles like a boat,” Laura added. “As the hull moves forward it displaces the water, pushing it out from the boat. The water only closes back in after the boat passes. That’s how we’ll move through the band of creepers.”

“Hmm,” murmured Karl. “I don’t know…”

“It’s not like we have a choice, Karl,” Sam said. “It will work. It has to.”

Chapter 72

Sam was in the back of the pickup truck manning the power washer’s gun as Karl guided the 4x4 across the desert beneath a welt of purple clouds. Curley was crouched next to Sam, ready to man the drum pump and keep the power washer supplied with Round-up.

Behind the 4x4 was Karl’s tow truck driven by Tommy. Then came Tommy’s Jeep with Donnie at the wheel, and bringing up the rear was the deuce and a half driven by Laura with Kristin riding shotgun, the Super Soaker slung across her lap. The lead vehicles disappeared, then suddenly popped back into view, lit by intermittent arcs of flashing light as they ran under stormy skies towards an uncertain future.

Inside the pickup, Karl spun the wheel, guiding the caravan around a lunar-sized divot, then slowed as the wall of creepers loomed before him in the windshield. The convoy continued forward another half mile, then Sam leaned over and banged on the cab’s roof, signaling for Karl to stop. They were almost there. The creepers lay directly in front of them, a hundred yards away.

Karl let off on the gas, put the truck in neutral and rolled to a stop.

Sam faced the other vehicles, cupped his hands to his mouth, and addressed the group. “Okay, we’re almost there. Stick to the plan. Give us a thirty-yard lead. We’ll advance and hit the creeper with Round-up. As soon as we’ve created a large enough opening, Karl will honk his horn. That’s your signal to join us. After that, there’s no stopping or turning back. We’ll go through that thing like a hot knife through butter. We’ll pour on the Round-up until there’s nothing in front of us except sand and cactus.”

Sam paused and let his eyes run down the line of vehicles. He raised an arm, then yelled, “Drivers… If you’re ready, signal by flashing your headlights.”

A second later headlights flicked on and began to flash.

Sam gave a thumbs up, then turned to Curley. “Fire up the power washer.”

“I’m on it,” Curley said. He straddled the little engine, hauled on the pull cord, and the power washer roared to life.

Sam waited for a moment, letting the washer pressurize, then squeezed the trigger. A thick stream of Round-up shot into the air. He released the trigger and moved the wand up and down, left and right, checking to make sure it swiveled freely.

Sam flashed another thumbs up, then leaned forward, banged on the cab and shouted, “Let’s roll, Karl!”

A second later, the pickup truck lurched forward. Sam and Curley grabbed the armored sides as the other vehicles idled, waiting for a gap to form. After a moment, they fell in behind the pickup, following its path.

Overhead, thunder boomed and lightning swarmed like a mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong. Ragged trails of dust rose from the vehicles as they sped towards the river of creepers that cut across the valley, blocking their path.

Up front, Sam and Curley readied themselves as the pickup pulled within striking distance of the undulating creeper stalks. Sam tightened his grip on the gun as Karl slowed, dropped the truck in low, and continued to advance.

Sixty yards… thirty yards…. and, when they were twenty yards out—

Two massive stalks detached themselves from the quarter-mile-wide rope of twisting, churning creepers, rose into the air—and shot directly at the pickup truck. With all three of them yelling SHIT at the top of their lungs, Karl kept his foot on the gas—and Sam opened up, blasting both creeper stalks with a thick stream of Round-up.

As the poison slammed into them and the Round-up took effect, the stalks wobbled in midair. Seconds later, they collapsed to the ground, the systemic poison withering their tips and moving up their arms like a grey-colored stain.

“Way to go, Sam!” Curley whooped as he furiously cranked the drum pump, transferring more Round-up into the power washer’s reservoir.

Karl continued thirty more feet, then slowed and inched the pickup forward until they stood directly in front of the writhing creeper river.

Sam leveled the power washer’s wand, drew in a lungful of air and, as he released it, began to blast the churning creeper stalks. With the power washer’s engine going full tilt, Sam worked the stream of Round-up back and forth, coating stalks in front of the truck in a fan-shaped pattern.

The effect was immediate, dramatic, amazing. Glistening with Round-up, creeper stalks began to melt and wither and die. If plants could talk, this one would be screaming in horror.

A few minutes later, after a gap had formed, Sam leaned out, banged on the cab, and yelled, “NOW, Karl!”

Karl acknowledged with three loud blasts of his horn, signaling the others it was time to roll. As the truck moved into the creeper river, Sam felt like he was on a road plow entering a snowdrift, with tall banks on each side.

With the sound of Karl’s horn echoing in her ears, Carla leaned across the tow truck’s cab, kissed Tommy, and whispered, “I love you, baby.”

Tommy kissed her cheek, smiled, gripped the wheel, then pressed on the accelerator and joined the pickup for the push through the creepers.

Inside the Jeep, Donnie glanced in the rearview mirror and blurted out, “Grab your dicks!” He dropped the Cherokee into drive as the Grogan twins dove onto the backseat floor next to their mother’s feet.

At the same time, in the deuce and a half, Laura stepped on the clutch, put the truck into gear, and glanced at Kristin. “Ready for this?”

Kristin tightened her grip on the Super Soaker and shot back, “Let’s get some.”

Up at the front, Sam swept the power washer back and forth in a 180 degree arc, cutting a thirty-foot-wide swath for the vehicles to pass through.

It went like clockwork—the Round-up was knocking the hell out of it. In matter of minutes, they were three quarters of the way through the band of creepers. Curley was securing the drum pump to the last 55 gallons of poison when the power washer engine began to sputter—and then completely stopped!

Sam whipped around, checked the power washer, then shouted, “Curley, what the hell?”

Karl slammed on the brakes when he heard the power washer stop. Curley jumped on the power washer’s engine, grabbed the pull cord, and yanked for all he was worth.

Nothing—the engine turned over, but wouldn’t catch. And then Curley remembered…

The gas!

He’d forgotten to top off the power washer’s gas tank.

Shit!

Curley lunged to the rear of the truck, grabbed a gas can, ripped off the lid, removed the power washer’s fuel cap, then filled the tank, not caring that gas flooded down the sides and onto the toes of his boots.

“Jesus Christ, Curley,” Sam yelled. “Get that thing running!”

Curley dropped the gas can, yanked on the pull cord—and the power washer roared to life, just as a creeper stalk whipped out and smashed into the armor plating, soaking Sam and Curley with sticky sap.

A second after that, the pressure came back up and Sam banged on the cab for Karl to roll. As the pickup surged forward, Sam blasted away, beating back advancing creepers. Less than a minute later, it was over—the pickup made it through the remaining creeper stalks and into the safety of the open desert, followed by the tow truck and the Jeep.

Meanwhile, the creepers were coping exactly the way Laura had predicted. The stalks that had withered back thirty feet broke away from secondary roots and began to reform. At the rear of the column, behind the deuce and a half, creepers were already closing in.

Laura noticed the tanker had begun to slow. She added gas, but the truck continued slow and then bogged down as reformed creepers raced up and attached themselves to the vehicle.

“We’re stuck!” Laura shouted, as the tanker bounced to a stop.

“Holy shit!” Kristin yelled back, just as a creeper dropped onto the hood and attacked the windshield. She grabbed the Super Soaker, rolled down her window, thrust the gun out, and blasted the creeper. The stalk twisted up, writhed along the hood, and fell from the truck.

Using both hands, Laura wrestled the deuce and a half into six-wheel drive just as another creeper T-boned the truck, denting her door and rocking the tanker sideways.

Shit!

Outside, five creepers had attached themselves to the rear end, swirling around the water tank like a Kraken’s tentacles around a ship’s hull.

Inside, Kristin kept blasting creepers through her window as Laura revved the engine, then dumped the clutch. The big diesel screamed. The front of the truck rose up. The rear wheels began to hop up and down… and seconds later, Laura and Kristin were slammed back in their seats as the tanker broke free of the creepers and shot towards the open desert beyond.

Standing next to their vehicles, Sam, Karl, Curley, and Tommy watched as the deuce and a half blasted out of the creeper wall and rocketed into the clear, leaving torn creeper stalks spouting sap like freshly severed arteries.

Seconds later, like water flowing around a boat’s hull, the path they’d just blazed through the creepers disappeared, already covered by newly formed stalks.

Laura and Kristin screamed for joy as they rumbled up to the waiting group. Laura brought the tanker to a stop, and as she killed the engine, Sam hauled open her door, swept her into his arms, and kissed her. And then everyone was hugging each other.

“Sam… we did it!” Laura exclaimed, as he lowered her to the ground. “It worked!”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed with relief and broke into a smile. “Who knew?”

“Holy Lord, look at that!” Karl said, staring back towards town.

Everyone turned to watch as creepers swept into Furnace Valley, crushing everything in their path.

“Come on,” said Sam. “We’ve got to keep moving.”

Chapter 73

Beneath the threatening sky, the little caravan regrouped, rolling towards the mountain pass and the safety beyond. Sam was on point, wrestling the deuce and a half through a tortured pieced of desert littered with razor-sharp rocks and thick patches of cactus. Snaking along behind were the 4x4, Tommy’s Jeep, and Karl’s tow truck.

Sam eased his grip on the wheel as the scrub thinned and they settled onto a smooth section of desert.

Laura leaned out her window, drew in a deep breath, and turned to Sam.

“My God… I think it finally might—”

“Rain,” Sam said.

And sure enough, the heavens opened, and it began to pour. Gigantic raindrops soaked the parched ground and hammered the top of the cab like someone was throwing gravel at it.

“Incredible,” Laura said, looking out at the desert monsoon. “What was it Rufus said…?”

“Right…” said Sam. “I wish he was here to see this.”

Laura nodded, and they both fell silent.

Outside, the visibility shrunk to zero as the rain continued sheeting down. Sam slowed the truck and leaned forward, straining to see through the windshield.

“I can’t see a thing. We may have to stop.”

Just then, Sam’s hands were thrown from the wheel. The tanker swerved violently to the left, its right side lifting off the ground as it slid into a shallow ravine and came to rest on its side.

Laura was thrown across the cab and slammed into Sam, who had just managed to put the truck in neutral and kill the engine.

“Jesus Christ. Are you all right?” said Sam, his face mashed against the window.

“I’m okay,” she said, but she sounded pretty rattled. “Nice catch,” she added, peeling herself off his side.

The next thing they knew water, was splashing down on them as Karl opened Laura’s door, stuck his head inside, and said, “Jesus, you guys okay?”

* * *

Behind them—no, all around them—creepers spread across the valley. Their fleshy-looking flowers yawned open, greedily gulping the torrents of water.

With each drink, the creepers literally exploded, gobbling up acres like starving animals. The town of Furnace Valley was gone, swallowed up. And now, farther down the valley, the unthinkable was happening as they reached the California aqueduct and poured stalk after stalk into the limitless supply of water.

Chapter 74

Sam and Karl walked around the fallen truck, checking the damage, seeing if they might be able to right the tanker with Karl’s tow truck.

The others remained in their vehicles, staying out of the downpour. All of them wondered if they were about to be overwhelmed by slithering creeper stalks—wrapped up, smothered, sucked dry.

“What do you think?” Sam yelled over the roar of pounding rain.

Karl emerged from behind the rear axle, yelling in return, “I’m not sure if—”

All of a sudden he stopped talking—the sound of his voice hung too loud on the air. The rain… it was over! Just like that! Like someone had turned off a valve.

Sam and Karl exchanged shocked looks as Laura ducked out of the cab. “The rain?”

“It stopped.” Sam held up his hands. “It just stopped.”

The clouds began to lift. A moment later, the air was filled with a piercing whistle… like the sound of a five hundred pound steel bomb falling through the air. W-h-e-e-e-e-e…

The whistling got louder and louder… and then they saw what it was…

The entire desert floor surged up. A giant green swell rose before their eyes. And a hundred-foot wave of writhing, bristling creeper stalks swept across the valley towards them—the leading edge snapping and whistling as spindrifts of tendrils peeled off the lip.

“Jesus God…” Sam said, as they stood watching the destruction.

Curley ran up with Kristin and Tommy in tow, the three of them pulling up short when they saw the approaching wave of creepers.

And then Curley suddenly yelled: “Bugs!” He danced up and down, swatting his face and neck as grasshoppers plowed into his body.

Kristin screamed and covered her face. Then they were all ducking and swatting, trying to dodge the grasshoppers that appeared out of nowhere.

“My God!” Laura pointed at her feet. “Look at the ground!”

The ground literally moved beneath their feet as grasshoppers emerged from the wet sand, spread their wings, and leapt into the air, their brightly colored bodies as big and fat as sparrows.

“What the hell?!” Karl yelled, scattering grasshoppers with a swipe of his hand.

“Locusts!” Laura yelled back. “They’re swarming.”

Sam looked at her. “You mean like… a plague of locusts?”

“Right. Desert locusts. Emerging because of the water.”

Inside the Jeep, the Grogan twins began to cry, bawling like little girls as grasshoppers—shot like bullets from a gun—thudded into the Cherokee, denting door panels and shattering windows. Darwin flapped in the back, squeezing between the roof and a duffle bag.

“Mom!” Billy cried. “Mommy…”

Behind the Jeep, in the pickup, Maya screamed and latched onto Donnie when her window shattered and locusts poured into the cab.

“We’ve got to find cover,” Sam yelled.

“Sam… Look!” Laura pointed out at the valley.

Sam whipped around and saw a black wall rising on the horizon—a maelstrom of airborne locusts—rolling across the desert like an advancing army. Brush, scrub, cactus—anything edible—was instantly devoured.

“Sam, help…” Laura screamed, wiping handfuls of locusts away from her mouth as the air around her face choked with wings and legs and snapping mandibles. “I can’t breathe!”

“The tanker!” Sam yelled. “Get everyone inside the water tank.” He bolted to the toppled deuce and a half and hauled open the hatch.

Karl and Tommy went to get the others, covering their faces, crouch-running to the vehicles.

Laura and Kristin scrambled to the tanker. Sam made a stirrup with his hands, boosting them up to the hatch and inside the tank. Karl, Tommy, and Carla were next, leaving Darwin, who refused to move from his hiding spot in the back of the Jeep.

After everyone was safely inside, Sam hauled himself up and pulled the hatch shut—leaving it cracked just enough for air.

Packed like sardines in the pitch-black tank, everyone fell silent as the plague descended. Grasshopper bodies slammed into the truck, ricocheting off the metal tank like spent rounds spit from a million machine guns. The unbearable racket made everyone cover their ears and bury their heads. Everyone was thinking the same thought: Are we about to die?

Chapter 75

Outside their protective cocoon, directly overhead, a pitched battle raged as the boiling creeper-wave slammed into the swarming locusts.

Grasshoppers tore into flashing creeper stalks, devouring leaves, flowers, tendrils, thorns—everything!

The surging creeper lashed out—left, then right—but was helpless to defend itself against the plague of locusts. They swarmed and ate and swarmed and ate—airborne piranhas, stripping life and limb from everything in their path.

An hour later, it was over. The desert was flattened, like a nuclear bomb had been detonated.

Nothing was left except sand and silence.

The sound of scraping metal broke the calm as the hatch on the water tank clanged open. Sam poked his head out, took a tentative look around, and then called to the others, “It’s over.”

He emerged from the hatch, dropped to the ground, and stared out awestruck at the denuded landscape. He took a step, then stopped when a crunching filled his ears. Dead grasshoppers carpeted the ground—their broken and ruined bodies already returning to the soil from whence they sprang.

“Sam,” Laura said, her head appearing in the hatch.

“It’s okay.” He went to the tank, took her arm, and helped her out.

“Thank God…” she said, stepping onto the ground.

Sam was about to release her, but then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. They kissed again—holding each other—happy to be alive.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Curley said, watching them from the hatch.

“Nothing,” said Sam, releasing her.

“Hmm. It didn’t look like nothing.”

“Come on, Curley. Get out of there and help me with the others.”

Sam, Laura, and Curley helped the others out of the tank, all of them amazed by what they saw—and all of them grateful to be out of the dark, humid enclosure.

“Jesus H,” Karl said, looking at the naked landscape. “I can’t believe we survived.”

Tommy bent down and retrieved a dead grasshopper, holding it up for Karl to see. “You can thank these little buggers.”

Karl looked at the grasshopper, then nodded.

“They’re actually good to eat—considered a delicacy in some parts of the world,” added Tommy.

“Oh, stop,” Carla said. She took the grasshopper and threw it down. “You’ve never eaten a grasshopper.” Then she gave Tommy a big kiss.

Sam and Laura stood side by side, staring out at the desert—collecting their thoughts—still not believing what lay before them.

“Well,” Laura said, “My dad always was kind of a showoff.”

Sam looked at her. Then they broke into laughter.

Donnie shuffled out of the truck, his feet making a trail through the litter of grasshoppers. He stopped, then turned in a slow 360.

“Fuck me.”

“Been there, done that,” Kristin said, giving a teary-eyed Maya a hug, seeing if she was okay. Maya sniffed and wiped her chin, laughing in spite of herself at Kristin’s comment.

“Put those down!” Mrs. Grogan yelled, waving to Billy and Josh who were busy collecting dead grasshoppers, both of them ignoring her.

Mrs. Grogan was about to yell again when a loud squawk caused everyone to wheel towards the Jeep. Another squawk, and Darwin flapped out, scattering grasshoppers and landing on the roof.

“Darwin!” Kristin yelled, running to greet the macaw.

Good bird, Sam thought to himself, glad to see Darwin had survived.

And then something miraculous happened…

The sun came out.

The clouds lifted. A palpable wave of relief swept through the group. Everyone was grateful for the warm, life-giving rays that flooded down, lifting their spirits and drying the soaked earth.

Chapter 76

Battered, windowless, but still running, the deuce and a half—with the Jeep and the tow truck following—rumbled up to the edge of downtown Furnace Valley. They were immediately stopped by a CHP officer who dropped out of a Chevy Tahoe with flashing lights, his hands held high, indicating for them to stop.

Behind the officer, Caltrans plows were busy clearing the road of grasshoppers as two more CHP vehicles rolled into town.

Overhead, a sheriff’s helicopter circled, then banked away towards Big Caliente Hot Springs.

Amazingly, the town was mostly intact. Some of the smaller houses on the outskirts had been flattened, plus the water tower, but Nguyen’s Place was still standing—and Eller’s Garage had survived, too.

Sam and company dismounted their vehicles and were met by the officer, who looked amazed to see them.

“What are you doing out here?” he said, stepping up to Sam and Laura.

“We live here,” Sam said. “Furnace Valley is our home.”

The officer stared at Sam. Then he said, “Okay—maybe you can tell me what-in-the-hell happened out here? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Just as Sam was about to explain, Curley lurched up—and in a rush of words blurted:

“There were these huge man-eating plants. They had octopus arms, but instead of suckers they had these thorns and they would grab you and wrap you up and suck you dry. They were everywhere—the hills, the valley—everywhere. Sam tried to kill them with Karl’s biplane, but he crashed. The plants got Doc and Lester and Rufus and a hippie and some guy named Spider. And they almost got me. Then they bloomed and it rained. And then the grasshoppers came. Millions of them. Then we hid in the water tank—and when we came out—they were gone. Everything was gone. The grasshoppers ate everything.”

Curley stared at the officer, catching his breath, waiting for him to respond.

The officer frowned, then turned to Sam with a skeptical, give-me-a-break look. But Sam was nodding in agreement.

They were all nodding.

“Yep,” Sam said. “That’s what happened.”

* * *

An hour later, Tommy and Carla were busy sweeping out the store with Darwin supervising from his favorite spot in the rafters. Karl and Curley had gone to check on the garage. Kristin, Donnie, Maya, and the Grogans were being loaded into CHP vehicles for transport back to Los Angeles.

Next to the store, Sam and Laura stood together, an awkward silence surrounding them as they tried to say goodbye. So many things left unsaid.

“Anyway…” Laura said, looking suddenly very uncomfortable.

“Laura…” Sam said, scrambling for the right words. Any words. But they wouldn’t come.

“I should probably go,” she said, pointing to the waiting CHP vehicles.

“Oh, yeah, right… Yeah, you should go.” But everything inside him was screaming, I can’t believe you’re leaving! Don’t go! We should be together!

“I told them about my father. About Doc. They’re going to send a coroner up to his place and have the remains sent to L.A. I’ll let the family know.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Sam…” she reached out and put a hand on his arm. “I thought I came out here to make some sort of peace with my father. But that’s not true. I came out here to confront him. I came out here to tell him what a jerk he was for abandoning me and my mother, for walking out on us when I was a baby. I wanted to say it to his face. I wanted to hurt him like he hurt me.”

Sam reached up, took her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“Now that he’s dead—all that anger, and all those feelings of wanting revenge, have drained away. I just feel sad. Not for myself, for him. For what he missed.”

“It sounds like you might be ready to forgive him.”

She looked at Sam, nodded. “Maybe I am.”

“Will you stay in L.A?”

“I’m not sure.”

Sam was about to tell her he didn’t want her to leave, that he loved her, when—

“Mr. Rainsford, Sam…” Kristin said, approaching them. “I wanted to say goodbye. And to thank you for the room and letting me come to your place. And to tell you that you’re definitely not a perv.”

Sam laughed. “Well, I’m glad we cleared that up.”

“Here,” Kristin handed him a sketch. It was a beautiful line drawing of the palms. “I hope your trees are okay,” she said, then leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Sam looked at the sketch, suddenly overcome with emotion. “Thanks. It’s a beautiful drawing.”

Laura pulled a card out of her purse, jotted her number on the back, and held it out to Kristin. “Here. If you’re serious about CalArts, call me. I know people who can help.”

“Thanks,” Kristin said, taking the card. “I’m definitely going to call.” She gave Laura a hug, then hurried back to one of the waiting CHP vehicles.

Laura looked over Sam’s shoulder at the drawing. “God, Sam, I hope your place is okay.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But the important thing is we all made it. Houses can be rebuilt. Trees can be replanted.”

“Excuse me…” They turned to see an officer waving. “Ma’am, we’ve got to go.”

“Okay,” Laura said, waving back.

“Hey,” Sam looked at her. “Come see me sometime.”

She smiled, then gave him a kiss goodbye. “I’ll do that.”

Sam watched as she was escorted to one of the waiting cars. I already miss her, he thought to himself, then walked to his truck and climbed into the battered cab.

He reached for the starter, stopped, opened the glove box, and pulled out the battered photo he kept of his family. He looked at it for a moment, then reached back into the glove box and pulled out his phone. He turned it on, then scrolled through his saved pictures, stopping on the photo he took of Laura and Kristin sitting at the kitchen table having dinner. It was the day they’d met. He stared at the picture for a moment longer, then placed the phone on the seat.

Maybe it was time for him to move on, too.

Chapter 77

Like the rest of Furnace Valley, the Rainsford Ranch looked like a bomb had been dropped on it. The main house was still standing, but the barn and tack room were gone, reduced to a pile of sticks.

The palms were still there, too—well, the trunks, anyway. But everything else that resembled a palm tree had been stripped. It looked like someone had planted twenty acres of totem poles.

Sam and Curley made a sweep through the ranch, picking up debris, saving what was useful, and stacking the rest in a pile to be burned at some later date.

Sam straightened a fence rail, grabbed a shovel, and then walked to edge of the compound, the spot where the palms started, and stared out at the trees, wondering if they’d come back. Wondering if he really cared.

Curley stopped what he was doing and watched Sam, noticing how he looked at the palms. He was worried about him. Sam seemed so… sad.

“Don’t worry, Sam. They’ll survive. Palms is scrappy things.”

When Sam turned to look at Curley, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

A Highway Patrol SUV rolled up, lights flashing, and pulled to a stop in the middle of the compound.

Inside, Laura turned to the driver. “Thank you, officer. I’m sorry about the confusion.”

The officer smiled, killed the flashers. “No problem, ma’am. You sure you don’t want me to wait? Just in case?”

“Yes, I’m sure. But thanks.”

Laura grabbed her bag, waved goodbye to the officer, and walked to Sam.

As she walked, she passed her Honda. It looked like it had been in a wreck, like it was ready for the junkyard. Then she noticed the neat piles of stacked wood.

“Looks like you’re already cleaning up.”

“More like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” Sam said, letting go of the shovel. Then he walked towards her, hardly able to contain his excitement.

Laura dropped her bag. Then she was running. They were both running. And as they came together, Sam swept her into his arms and they kissed. Again and again, Sam holding her up off the ground now, turning in a slow circle.

“Okay, that’s it!” Curley said, watching. Then he threw his rake down in disgust. “I’m through. This time it’s for real. I’m leaving.”

Sam eased Laura to the ground, looking over at Curley.

“Curley, what are you chipping your teeth about now?”

“As if you don’t know,” Curley said, clumping up to them. “You’ve gone and ruined everything. You broke our number one rule. No women.”

Laura looked at Sam, then gave him a wink.

“Sorry, Curley. I didn’t know the rules. I guess I’ll have to go now.” She went up to him, gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to miss you, Curley.”

“Aww…” Curley said, blushing. “You’re as bad as Sam. Now I got both of you to look after.”

“Looks like you’re stuck here, Curl.”

Curley waved him off with an arm, angled over to what was left of the tack room, and began to kick the debris around.

Sam looped an arm around Laura’s waist, pulling her close.

“Did I ever tell you about the idea I had for seedless dates?”

Chapter 78

A ’74 Camaro swayed around a bend and dropped onto a straight section of blacktop that cut through a corner of the Mojave Desert. Triple digit heat bent and twisted the road like a licorice whip.

As the car accelerated on the straight, a beer bottle sailed out the passenger window, bounced on the shoulder, and tumbled into desert scrub.

Inside the car, two Kurt Cobain lookalikes rocked to the Meat Puppet’s grunge hit, Backwater.

“Yo, I gotta take a squirt,” the passenger said, reaching into a cooler and grabbing a fresh beer.

The driver glanced over, then shook his head.

“What the fuck? You went like ten minutes ago?”

“I gotta go.”

The driver reached over, yanked the beer out of his hand, and twisted off the cap.

“What a douche.” He took a swig of beer. “Shit, we’re never gonna get to Vegas.”

“Just do it, bitch. Pull this shitbox over.”

The driver flipped him off, but moved his foot from the gas pedal to the brakes and rolled to a stop at the side of the road.

“Hurry the fuck up. Then tie a knot in it, ‘cause I’m not stopping again.”

With the Meat Puppets hammering away, the passenger got out, walked behind the car, and stood next to a sign that read: Furnace Valley 20 Miles, Summer Population 16, Winter Population 150, No outlet.

He unzipped his pants and began to urinate, taking his time, looking around.

Just as he was finishing up, an empty beer bottle flew out the car and the horn began to honk, the driver still pissed he had to stop.

“Fuck you,” the passenger said, zipping his pants. Then he walked back to the car and climbed in.

As he reached to close his door, the driver revved the engine and dumped the clutch,
slamming the door shut. Rooster tails of sand shot up from the rear tires as the Camaro fishtailed onto the road and then rocketed down the highway in a cloud of exhaust and tire smoke.

* * *

Next to the sign, a grasshopper lay in a circle of wet sand—the place where the passenger had relieved himself—its body ruined and palsied.

The grasshopper twitched, then contracted violently. Then its thorax ruptured—and a baby creeper stalk shot up, flashing back and forth as it sniffed the air.

A moment later, a scorpion wandered onto the wet sand and angled hungrily towards the grasshopper. It lumbered up, raised a claw—and just as it was about to seize the grasshopper, the creeper lashed out, struck the scorpion, and coiled around its body.

The scorpion’s tail struck the creeper, its venomous tip flashing down again and again. It arched its back and twisted up, trying to free itself. But the creeper held on—constricting and squeezing—tighter and tighter, pulling the scorpion to its death.

Finally, all movement stopped. And then, if you’d been there with your ear held close, you would’ve heard a tiny sucking sound as the creeper drained the life from the scorpion’s body.

Thank you!

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