Project U.L.F. (51 page)

The mud plug flew off the center of the dais like a hatch under pressure and two fleshy tentacles shot skyward, as fluid as jets of pink water.

In that horrible instant Wyatt knew that Kit’s luck had just run out.

The predator had been smart and had played a waiting game until one of the two signals gave itself away as genuine. Kit’s shout had done just that. Just the sound of his voice and the vibrations that accompanied it had been enough to give him away. He had effectively put the gun to his own head, pulled the trigger and found the loaded chamber.

He heard the commotion behind him and saw the look of horror on Wyatt’s face. By the time he turned around the slender limbs were already snaking their way towards him with frightening speed.

Two strides. That was all that lay between him and safety.

Total fear paralyzed him for a second and then that same fear galvanized him into action. He bolted.

He barreled into Wyatt, grabbing him firmly in a bear-hug tackle. One foot landed on solid ground off the dais, the other did not follow.

One tentacle wrapped around the ankle, just above the boot. The other grabbed his thigh.

It all happened so quickly and yet so slowly. Kit’s face was in his face for the second time in half an hour. He staggered backwards, Kit’s weight knocking him off balance. The big man’s features seemed bigger than normal, exaggerated by their proximity. His eyes were closed in relief and the shaggy black beard was breached by a show of teeth. A huge grin of satisfaction.

Instantaneously his face melted into a mask of horror. Wyatt hadn’t thought that Kit could make it. Now he knew he hadn’t.

The tentacles snapped taught like elastic. Immensely strong, they yanked Kit off his feet with ease. Wyatt was on the brink of falling over backwards, but Kit held him fast. Now he was hauled the other way and landed heavily on his front in the dirt.

Together the pair of them represented a considerable burden but the tentacles continued to retract, pulling them slowly, but surely, to the hole in the ground and whatever awaited them below.

“Help me, Wyatt!” Kit’s eyes were full of panic as he desperately tried to claw his way up Wyatt’s arm.

“Let go of me, you stupid son-of-a-bitch! You’ll kill us both!” Wyatt grappled with him, trying to pry open the fingers on the hands that held him, vise-like. Suddenly the grip tightened even more. Wyatt looked up to find Kit’s face and didn’t like what he saw there.

Kit’s features were grim. He realized the hopelessness of the situation and knew now that he was not going to walk away from it. Had he let Wyatt go earlier then maybe something could have been done, the tentacles attacked with a knife or a gun in an attempt to make them release their hold, but now they had all but gone, retreated back into their hole which Kit’s foot was now over. It would be a matter of seconds before he was following them down.

“Kit! What are you doing?” Now it was Wyatt’s turn to be afraid.

The familiar sneer crossed Kit’s features. His fear had been replaced by malicious intent. “I ain’t dying here alone, Wyatt. You’re coming with me.”

Wyatt fought the rising panic and Kit, but Kit was stronger than him. Desperately he tried to maneuver himself around.

“If I ain’t getting away from this place, then neither are you. None of you!”

Wyatt frowned and then it clicked. The hyperdrive unit. Shit! He had it and right now it was on his back. He’d been an idiot. He’d put himself in mortal danger while he carried, quite literally, the others’ hopes of escaping.

Kit was in the hole now, up to his waist with just his torso above ground. Wyatt had managed to scurry around so he was in a sitting position facing him. The big man’s hands were still locked onto his arm.

“We’ll die together, Wyatt. Like brothers. Criminals together. A fitting end.” The sneer never left his face. “We’re the same, you and I, just like I told your girlfriend back there.”

From underground there was a crack, the unmistakable sound of splintering bone, and Kit lifted his head and screamed. His grip released slightly and Wyatt used the advantage. “You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe we are the same,” and with that he lashed out with his foot and caught Kit across the face, snapping his head back viciously.

Kit let go and then instantly realized his mistake. He grabbed for Wyatt’s leg but found nothing but air. With alarming speed the rest of him was pulled into the hole. The frantically grasping hands raked through the dirt and then were gone. There was one awful scream and then silence.

Wyatt scampered to his feet and ran for the edge of the dais. His only chance of escape, he knew, was to get away now while the beast fed. Even so, he half expected to feel the tentacles reaching out for him, to prevent him from reaching the edge, and safety. They never came.

He stopped once he knew he was safe and leaned against a tree. His breathing was shallow and rapid and his heart pounded with exertion, adrenaline and fear. He retched until he had nothing more to bring up, and as he wiped away spittle and bile with the back of a hand he looked back toward the dais just in time to see one fleshy tentacle retrieve the mud plug and replace it in the center.

The tentacle disappeared but the mud plug continued to move, the creature rotating it from underground until it was set in place. Then it lay still.

There was nothing to mark the drama that had unfolded here. Wyatt would be the only one to ever know. He turned on his heels and followed his tracks. He wanted off this place. Now, more than ever, he just wanted to get away.

CHAPTER

18

Kate felt betrayed. Hadn’t he said just yesterday that he wouldn’t leave her again? Then he’d just gone without a thought to chase Kit. How quick he had been to break his promise to her. The sentiment had just been empty words.

Why?

It seemed like a reasonable question. She too had entertained thoughts of just letting Kit run. He had nowhere to go. Just let him go. Maybe he’d come to a grisly end.

She brought herself up short. She had never thought ill of anyone before now, but then, before now she’d been a completely different person. That was the old Kate, and that young innocent girl had been left behind on the moon-base.

Why was Wyatt bothering to give chase? She couldn’t fathom it. Surely all that mattered now was getting the hyperdrive unit back to the others. Surely all that mattered now was the two of them.

She might have been cross with him, but she was also desperately worried. Over an hour had passed since the two men had bundled off into the bush and she had neither seen nor heard anything from either of them since. Her mind was playing tricks on her now. Every crack of twig was a footfall, every rustle the passing of a body through the trees, every muted call seemed to take on a voice-like quality which called her name. “Kate! Kate!” the creatures of the forest called her mockingly.

But something was coming. A noise in the distance, becoming louder. It wasn’t just her imagination. Gon-Thok heard it too. The alien was on its feet, both alert and wary.

Wyatt stumbled onto the trail behind them. He was disheveled, mud-streaked and still bloody.

“Oh, God, Wyatt! I was so worried about you.” She started down the track towards him but slowed on getting nearer. He looked different. Battle-weary, deflated, and wearing a look she had never seen on his features before—shock. He seemed to collect himself in her presence, pulling himself together before he walked slowly up the track to join her. He laid a hand on her arm.

“Are you all right?” His voice was quiet.

“I’m fine. Where’s Kit?”

He took his hand off her arm and then brought it up to his face. Covering half of it he rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand before letting it slide down to pull at the skin of his cheek and temporarily distort his features. “Kit’s gone,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Gone? Where?”

Wyatt was already past her. It seemed the matter was not up for discussion. “C’mon,” he said, rapidly regaining his composure. “We gotta get out of here.”

“Not before we get you cleaned up.” Her voice was firm.

Wyatt turned back to her, a pained expression on his face. “We don’t have time, Kate, we’ve lost enough as it is.”

“So five more minutes won’t make a blind bit of difference, will it?” It was a challenge not a question and an argument would just waste even more time.

“Five minutes,” he said, holding up a hand in submission and displaying his agreement in fingers.

Five minutes turned out to be nearer ten. She cleaned off the caked blood with some of Chris’ med-wipes and then set to work on his nose. “This might hurt a little,” she said as she laid a small plastic splint along the bridge of his crumpled nose. Over this she laid some padding material and held that in place with porous tape. Not once as she went about her task did she look above the injured area and into the eyes above. Eyes which she felt burning into her. Eyes that were admiring her features and taking them all in. She feared that if she did she would simply collapse into his arms from the relief of getting him back.

“There, finished,” she announced, pushing herself up from her knees, hoping those same knees would not buckle like her resolve threatened to. She stepped back to admire her handiwork.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

She thanked God that they didn’t have a mirror between them. Chris would die laughing at her efforts.

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Chris turned off the welding arc and lifted the visor. “There. Finished.” The three of them exchanged glances and breathed a collective sigh of relief. They’d done it. They had survived their own little nightmare and now they could relax. Only now did the three of them realize the pressure they had been working under. The tension had been tangible, and now that it had lifted their muscles ached from the relinquishing of the invisible burden.

Now they would simply wait in silence. Wait for the monster to leave for the last time and for the others to return.

Bobby glanced up at the sky. Black was invading the deep blue like a relentless wave of ink. The first of the night’s stars were winking their arrival just above the horizon.
They wouldn’t be back tonight,
she told herself.
They’d be mad to try and make it there and back in two days
. She slid the door shut and locked out the fast-approaching night.

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Wyatt winced.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Kate said as she carefully tried to remove the rest of the bandage from his broken face. Her previous effort had been a disaster and had begun to fall off Wyatt’s nose within half an hour of it being taped in place.

“I’ll re-bandage it for you,” she had said.

“Kate, we don’t have time. I’ll do without.” he had replied.

“No,” she had insisted. “I’ll bandage it for you again, and this time it will be better.”

So now they had stopped again so Kate could work in the last of the day’s fading light. Wyatt watched her as she went about her task, her hands, delicate and nimble as they rummaged around the small medical kit, her eyes, compassionate yet focused underneath the frown of concentration.

“I killed a man.” The admission spewed forth from his lips, almost involuntarily.

Kate faltered in her work, then slumped back from her knees to sit on her calves. “I know,” she said. The color had drained from her face.

“What?”

“Kit.”

“No!” he said, appalled that she could even think that of him. She frowned. “Last night. In the DSM. You wanted to know what it was I had done, what I’d been jailed for. I killed a man.”

“Oh.” She seemed lost for words.

“Look, I’m sorry for getting angry with you last night. I don’t know why I did,” and he really didn’t know why. The truth was that he had meant to tell her, he had wanted to tell her, but he’d wanted to tell her on his own terms. Kit’s disclosure of his past had caught him unawares. He’d not been ready for the sharing of his dark secret. He had felt exposed, like a nocturne caught in a trapper’s flashlight beam and only one instinct had come to him. Fear. That fear had then been replaced with anger and he’d lashed out at the closest thing to him. Closest in every sense of the word. Kate had taken the brunt of it and he’d never meant to hurt her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It was none of my business.”

“No, no. It’s not okay.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault. It was a reasonable question to ask.”

There was a minute of silence when neither of them knew what to say or to add and then Kate got back up on her knees and set about fixing his new bandage. “What happened?” she asked as she reached for some tape.

Wyatt sighed. “My father was a brutal man. Not only was he brutal, he enjoyed his drink. The man and his bottle were a frightening combination. When I was young I would dread the nights that he came home late. His coming home late only meant one thing—that he was hitting the bottle. I used to hide in my room when he came home and I’d hear him shouting and screaming at my mother and then I’d hear her screaming too. That was when,” he faltered, “…That was when he started hitting her.”

Kate put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. That’s awful.”

“That’s just the start of it. Most of the time he would just beat my mother, but sometimes that wasn’t enough. He’d beat her to within an inch of her life, but when that hadn’t vented all his anger, well, that’s when he’d start on me.”

Kate’s other hand went to her mouth.

“My mother tried to protect me, but she was weak and had taken enough battering as it was. The first few times it hurt. Really hurt. But after that I got used to it. I let him come and I learned to hate my father.

“When I was twelve I took on some casual work, nights after school and weekends. I lied about my age to get the job and saved all the money I earned. It kept me out the house and out of his way. With the money I’d saved I got a membership for a high-G gym. It was nothing special, low weights, high gravity…it didn’t feel much like a workout but the muscles piled on fast. I’d decided that I’d make my father pay for what he’d done to us and this was the first stage of my plan.

“He noticed the change in me almost immediately and started to leave me alone. Sometimes I’d step in and take the blows meant for my mother but often I’d come home and find her cowering in a corner of the house somewhere, bruised and bleeding, and my father nowhere to be seen.

“When I was fifteen years old I got called into the principal’s office at school. He told me that he’d just been on the telelink to my mother, who had been upset. My father was dead, killed in a hover-vehicle accident. I didn’t feel sadness, only bitter disappointment, simply because all that I had been working towards for the last three years had just been snatched away from me. Most people regret that they’d never said ‘I love you,’ or said it with real meaning or enough times. I regretted never giving my father the beating he had meted out to my mother and me so many times, that was all.

“I finished my schooling and then convinced my mother to sell the house. So we left it and all its bad memories, and that’s when we came to Chicago.

“We found a small apartment in Evanston. To begin with, everything was fine. We had a new life. A life without fear. It was a fresh start for us, but then my mother began to miss San Francisco. She missed her friends, and for reasons I could never understand, she said she missed my father. Often she would just want to sit and talk about him, but I refused to indulge her and wouldn’t talk about a life that I had hated and had left behind. The memories brought nothing but pain for me. It was a source of constant conflict between us. I moved out a year later.

“What happened to your mother?” Kate inquired.

“She stayed a while but then sold the apartment and moved back to San Fran, where she thrives. That’s where her life had been. Chicago was where mine was just starting. I see her occasionally, but things are difficult between us because of what’s happened since…the imprisonment, and what I do now.”

“Go on.”

“I got an apartment downtown where I had a good job, nothing special, but it was roomy and comfortable and secure. My neighbors were an old couple. Howie was a heavy smoker and mean card player. I spent many enjoyable evenings around their place listening to their stories and then, when Grace, his wife, had gone to bed, I’d lose most of my week’s earnings on the turn of a card.” Wyatt laughed, then looked sad again. “But Howie was dying and he knew it. One night, after we had thrown down our hands for the last time he leaned across to me and asked me to promise to look after Grace when he had gone. Of course, I told him to stop talking like that, but he begged it of me and I said I’d do the best I could. It seemed to relieve him a great deal. He told me he had made provision for her, a small nest egg he had tucked away, but that wasn’t the same as looking after her. Six months later Howie passed away.