Ancient Echoes (30 page)

She headed east.

She traveled slightly over an hour when she heard something
following her.

A beast, tall as a man, but hairy, its fur the color of
flesh, appeared in front of her. The nose was flat, the eyes spaced far apart,
and the ears small and pointed. Long claws and even longer teeth looked sharp
and frightening.
When it snarled, its teeth appeared a dark
yellow, and dripping with some sort of mucous.
The eyes were sharp and
eerily intelligent.

She pulled out a long knife. She had been trained in
hand-to-hand combat; she could handle it. Another beast appeared behind her.

Then a third, and a fourth, a fifth.

She had expected to encounter one beast, and to fight it
off, but not an entire pack.

All were large and misshapen. Some were tall and walked
upright; some walked on all fours. Some had six legs, insect-like, yet furry as
mammals. Others didn't seem to have fur, but instead a hard shell. Strangely,
all had some part of their bodies that glittered like gold.

One snarled and roared
hungrily,
and soon all the others took up the cry. The forest shook with the sound.

They moved forward, their eyes fixated on her, poised to
spring.

She heard a loud
thwack!
The forward-most beast fell
with a long arrow piercing its brain.

The others fled as a volley of arrows flew at them.

Kohler, Durham and Tieg stepped out from the brush, long bows
in hand.

Melisse stared at Kohler and the others who had saved her.
They must have followed her closely and knew those creatures were out there.
“Those beasts,” she said, “they look like mutants of some sort. What are they?”
She started towards the one that had fallen.

“Stop!”
Kohler hurried toward her.
“They're diseased. Keep away, or we may not be able to save you if you become
infected.”

Melisse froze. “But…it looks like its claws are made of
gold!”

“You would be wise to forget about them,” Kohler warned. He
pushed her to walk in front of him toward the village.

They walked in silence back to the community house.

Once there, Kohler's face twisted into an ugly, brutal grin.
“I don't blame you for trying to escape,” he said. “If I were somewhere I didn't
want to be, I'd be doing the same thing. Unfortunately, my understanding does
not equal my forgiveness. You must, of course, be punished for your crime.”

A chill went down Melisse's back, but she said nothing and
entered the building alone.

GOMEZ KEPT HIS AR-15 on his
shoulder. He was on night patrol.
Alone.
The Hammer
sent him out to keep watch so the others could get some sleep. Tomorrow night
would be his turn to sleep, if he could.

He doubted it. This place was too screwed up. The Hammer
wouldn’t admit it, but Gomez sensed that even he was on edge.

A heavy, musty odor drifted toward him, damp earth mixed
with something decaying. Perhaps, he thought nervously, perhaps the smell of
death.

The scent grew stronger. Everything in him wanted to run
back to the others, wake them, and tell them something was wrong. Instead, he
took a deep breath. He needed to check the perimeter, control the situation,
neutralize
the danger. Only after that, if he found more
work to be done, would he disturb the others.

The last thing he needed or wanted was anyone mocking him
for being scared.

A dark blur passed him.

It startled him.
I’m just seeing things.
In
starlight, of course the surroundings looked dark and mysterious.
Probably just some large branches of a tree blowing in the wind.

Except that no wind blew.

He spooked himself. Nothing was out there.

Again, a dark blur whistled by, eye level. His blood ran
cold. The thick, heavy stink ventured so close he taste it with every breath.

He gripped his rifle tighter and shifted it on his shoulder
so he could quickly aim and shoot the way he’d been trained to do. Maybe he had
been wrong not to warn the others. Slowly he backed toward his comrades.
Something neared him, closing in. He couldn’t hear it; he couldn’t see it. But
he knew it lurked there.

The world seemed to slow down, so slow he could almost see
it spinning on its axis. A sharp pain touched his neck,
then
something red and warm splashed in front of his face, every individual droplet
visible. He lifted his hand to his neck, touched the torn, jagged skin.
Blood.
Too much blood.

Long, sharp claws ripped through his clothes, through his
skin from chest to groin, piercing and slicing. As he watched his stomach torn from
his body and lifted into the air, he opened his mouth, but no sound came. He
fell to the ground, silently praying for the mercy of death.

o0o

No one said a word.

When their companion hadn’t woken them at the end of his
night patrol duty, they went in search.

Now, the Hammer and his men looked down at the body and
wondered what could have done that to a man. After they buried Gomez, they
walked away from the grave.

“This is wrong, man
,“
Nose spat out
the words. “This is so wrong.”

“Fuck,” Fish muttered, which meant he agreed.

“It had to have been a grizzly,” Hammill said.
“Nothing unusual.
Nothing supernatural.
We increase our patrol. No one goes it alone. We watch each other’s back.”

A twig snapped.

They pulled their guns and aimed them in the direction of
the noise. They aimed at each other.

Hammill took out his nyala hunting knife, strong, sharp, and
brutal. Whatever was out there, whatever did that to
Gomez,
wasn’t going to get away.

They hunted it, following its blood trail deep into the
forest, and eventually, they smelled it and knew they were near.

Hammill saw it first, and his courage nearly gave out at the
sight. The creature looked more apelike than anything he had ever seen in the
Americas. The possibility of this being the infamous Sasquatch flashed through
his mind before he dismissed it. For one thing, it was no bigger than a man. It
had to be some kind of bear.

He motioned to his men to stand still, to stop talking.

It turned at that moment. With a roar, its mouth opened
baring fangs. He tightened his grip on the knife. It leaped, and he felt the
fangs dig into the arm he raised to protect himself.

He stabbed at the monster’s gut, twisted and ripped upward.
He didn’t want to think he heard his own voice screaming, joined by his men as
they unleashed the fear and anger held inside since entering this strange land.

Blood squirted onto his face, his hair, his hands, and he
didn’t know if it was his own or that of the creature as his men joined in the
frenzied attack. They also used knives. They stabbed it over and over. They
wanted it to suffer. They wanted to kill it in the same way that it had
slaughtered Gomez. Still, it fought hard.

Then the creature slumped down, its life gone.

None of the men looked back at it. They didn’t know, and
didn’t care to know, what it was. They dragged their leader away to flush the
bites with antiseptics, sew him up, and try to ignore the panic-stricken dread
that consumed them all.

AS MICHAEL REACHED the spine of a
high, jagged ridgeline, he saw a plume of smoke. He motioned for the others to
drop down as they crept forward to the edge of a cliff.
All
gaped in wonder at the scene below.

Beyond the sheer drop they saw a clearing, and within it, a
fenced compound. It appeared to be a grim, bleak place. The smoke came from the
chimney of a tall, central building. A figure sat in a tower beside it. Michael
wondered what he guarded against.

“I saw a man and woman carry firewood into the compound,”
Michael said. “The man appeared middle-aged, wavy brown hair streaked with
gray. The woman was tall, fit, with short blond hair.”

“Could be Melisse Willis,” Jake said. “But the man wasn’t
one of the missing.”

“She didn’t look or
act like
a
prisoner,” Michael said.

“Women’s looks can be deceiving,” Quade murmured, causing
Charlotte to give him a quick glance.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to let them know we’re here
until we learn more about them,” Michael said.

He watched the man in the guard tower leave it. No one
replaced him.

Jake noticed that a split rock face below them formed a deep
crevice, one he might be able to climb down. “This is a good opportunity to
scout around. I don’t want to lose it. I’m going down there.”

Charlotte went with him to the point of descent. She stared
into the steep, vertiginous, and narrow fissure. “You could get stuck in
there,” she said. “I should go first, and if I get into trouble, you’ll be able
to pull me out.”

“That’s crazy,” Jake countered. “No way I’d let you do
that!”

Let me?
Her anger flashed. Hands on hips, she said,
“If you get stuck, you big oaf, who would rescue you?”

She’s worried about me?
He felt both infuriated and
elated. “And you could break your damn neck,” was his retort. “What do you know
about mountain climbing?”

She was stumped a moment. “I’ve climbed pyramids.”

“Whoop-di-do!”

“She’s got a point,” Michael offered as he peered through
his rifle sights at the compound. “If you two go in that direction, Quade and I
will head north and see what’s on the other side of that village.”

Jake nodded, then mulled over Charlotte’s words. God save
him from such a stubborn woman. “All right, we’ll both go. But if they capture
us, Michael, we’ll give you a sign only when we’re sure they can be trusted.
Until then, be wary.”

Jake looped a rope around Charlotte’s waist. As he tied it
securely he tugged on it, drawing her toward him so they stood only inches
apart, each too aware of the other’s nearness. Their eyes met and held before
he broke it off to concentrate on making sure the knot was strong. He next
looped the rope over his own waist, chest and shoulders, in effect, binding the
two of them together. He made sure his jacket cushioned the rope, intending to
use his body as a brake in case she fell.

He wore gloves, but she removed hers for the climb, not
trusting them to grip the rock sufficiently tight. She walked toward the
crevice. It created a wind tunnel and an icy breeze struck her, numbing her
fingers and chilling her face. She took quick, urgent breaths as she eased herself
onto the face of the cliff. She looked back at him. Despite the worry that
lined his face, he gave her a nod of assurance. She felt flustered and at the
same time warmed, which was good because the very next moment she felt she had
stepped out onto nothingness.

The loose, spongy ground let small rocks roll under her foot
and clatter against the cliff as they dropped. She shifted left and breathed
easier when the ground felt solid once more. Slowly, she descended, trying not
to think about the sharp pain in her cold hands.

She put her foot onto a slightly jutting boulder that
appeared secure, only to have it tumble free under her weight. She began to
fall, but almost immediately, the rope tightened. Jake, she thought, reassured,
yet wondering what kind of insanity possessed her that she volunteered to
dangle more than a hundred feet off the ground and trust her life to a man
she'd just met.

As the boulder plunged straight down taking smaller rocks
with it, Charlotte found solid footing on the cliff face and clung there. She
held very still a moment and wondered if the people in the compound heard the
noise. The angle of the crevice made it impossible for her to see the compound
or surrounding area.

From the top of the cliff, Jake could see the compound. When
he saw no movement, he gave her
a thumbs
up, then
nodded and gestured downward.

“So far, so good,” she said, then drew in her breath and
took another step. The next boulder held.
Then another.
Suddenly, her footing gave way and once more she dropped straight down the
slope until she jerked to a stop, the rope tight around her chest as it caught,
bunching up her jacket with it. She felt smothered by the rope and jacket. She
was just about to tell Jake to relax the tension of the rope and allow her to climb
the rest of the way to the bottom when she saw something coiled just below her
foot. “Jake! Stop! Don’t let me slip!”

He strained to hold her in place. “What is it?”

“A rattler,” she gasped.

“Shit!” He braced himself.

“He's leaving,” she said. “Give him time.”

Just then the rope that had been wedged against the jacket,
slid up and over the material. She dropped down in a sudden, jerking movement,
before the rope caught again under her arms. The rattler lunged, fangs
protruding. She cried out.

“Charlotte!” Jake yelled. The rope relaxed and fell past
her, followed by a cascade of large and small rocks. Suddenly, Jake slid past
her then somehow managed to stop himself and scramble up to her side, his face
stark. “Where did he get you?”

“I don’t know. I saw him spring at me, but I didn’t feel
anything. There’s no pain. He must have hit the sole of my boots.”

They climbed down to the ground where he wrapped his arm
around her waist and ran with her to the shelter of the brush. He checked and
double-checked her legs and ankles. He found no bite marks. The two then lay
low listening for any sign they had been spotted. She heard his breath, felt
his heartbeat. Her senses came alive, and it had nothing to do with the danger
they faced.

All remained quiet around them.