A Time to Die (2 page)

The Jeep’s oversized rear wheels squelched in the dry rocky soil and the truck leaped ahead. The javelina bit at her, snapping its jaws down on the steering wheel and wrenching it. For a split second Erin felt the all too familiar feeling of the top heavy SUV overbalancing, and then they were flipping sideways.

It was only luck that they’d left the cliffs behind before the encounter. The Jeep turned sideways and flipped down the hill three times before crashing up against a huge pine tree and coming to a grinding stop.

Erin came to, dangling sideways from her lap belt, the Jeep having come to rest on its right side. The javelina was inside, the windshield having completely come out of its frame. Her passenger was resting on the door, a bloody gash on his forehead and the animal laying across his legs. “Crazy pig,” she grumbled. Then, the javelina moved. It wasn’t dead.

Erin dangled there for a split second as the animal opened its eyes and looked around, and then she made up her mind. She grabbed the seat with her left hand and pulled herself around, the belt biting painfully into her waist as she stretched as far to the rear of the car as she could. The javelina looked up at her movement and locked eyes with her. The look made her shudder with the intent she saw there. It wasn’t the mad pain filled gaze of an injured animal. It contemplated its situation, and her.

“Damn you,” she hissed, her hand searching blindly behind her. The animal rolled and reached up, snatching her dangling ponytail and jerking. “Ouch!” she screamed as it began chewing and pulling her head closer.

“Wha?!” the scientist grumbled. The javelina released Erin’s hair and turned to see the man it was lying over. The man moved his head and was only inches from the javelina’s snout. “Oh god!” he yelled, and the animal bit him on the nose. Part of Erin’s mind wondered why it was a dainty nip, and not a full on assault with those razor sharp tusks.

As he screamed, Erin’s hand finally closed on what she was looking for. She jerked the weapon free from the paddle holster and she brought it around just as the javelina released the scientist’s savaged nose and turned again towards her. She swept off the safety on the Sig Sauer P226 and fired at point blank range, the .40 caliber a deafening roar in the confined space of the jeep. The round punched through the animal’s head and it jumped, trying to reach for her again. Erin fired twice more, each shot smashing through her ears and into her brain. After a seeming eternity, the javelina lay still.

“It bit my nose!” the scientist cried, blood pouring into his hand as he tried to hold his damaged face.

“Yeah,” she said, letting the gun drop next to the expired javelina before she investigated the seatbelt release. “But look at my hair.”

* * *

Erin tried one more time with the Jeep’s winch. After a few moments of listening to the cable make ominous popping noises, she gave up before it broke for the third time. The truck wasn’t moving without a lot of help.

“Any luck?” the scientist gasped between coughs. She’d since learned his name was Ken Taylor. The attack by the crazed javelina had been four hours ago. An hour after the attack she’d managed to get him out of the Jeep and reasonable comfortable as she assessed their situation. Her radio was busted, cell phones didn’t work on the back trails, and this early in the season no one would likely come along for days. When she’d set to the task of righting the Jeep, he’d looked out of sorts. Now, after a couple hours, he looked much worse, and he wasn’t getting any better. He had a fever for sure, and appeared to be having trouble concentrating. Night was approaching and she didn’t like her choices.

“No,” she admitted as she sat next to him. His nose wound was bandaged from the limited first aid kit she carried in the field, and there was more than enough food and water. But without real medical attention she feared he wouldn’t last. Had the javelina been rabid? She didn’t know what the symptoms of rabies were. Didn’t the animal act irrational and attack for no reason? The damn javelina seemed to be making logical, thought out decisions. A shiver went up her spine just thinking about it.

“Damn,” Ken said and took a sip of water from the canteen. His voice had been slurred from the nose wound, but did it sound even worse now? “I don’t feel very good.”

“I know,” she said. “I think I need to hike back to the landing and use the emergency transmitter.”

“That’s a couple miles, right?”

“Four miles, yes. It will take about two hours for me to get there and contact the ranger station.”

“Won’t they come for us if you just wait?”

“Not until tomorrow morning. Do you think you can wait that long?”

Ken looked at her for a moment, then coughed, deep and rasping. His eyes glazed over for a moment and he looked through her. A spasm ran through his body, like a mild electrical charge, then he calmed again. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Me neither,” Erin whispered. She gathered the little day pack, tossed in a pair of water bottles and a single pack of dehydrated food. A few other essentials rounded out what she took and she finished with strapping on the gun belt and checking the load of the Sig Sauer. There wasn't anything else to hold her up. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“Don't take too long,” he whispered. Erin nodded, shifted the pack on her shoulder, and headed back up the trail towards the landing.

* * *

An hour later, Ken tried to drink some of the water and eat some of the food Erin left for him, only to vomit it up moments afterwards. His head swam with pain and confusion and sweat poured from his forehead despite the cool early evening breezes. Suddenly he stumbled to his feet, not knowing why and completely unable to concentrate. “Wha— what,” he choked at a voice, spinning around and searching for the source with blurred vision.

He heard something from behind, and he spun again to find only darkness. “Damn you,” he snarled and took a step in the direction, only to fall over a root in the gloom and sprawl in the dense pine needles. His mind exploded in lights, pain, and voices. Whispers and screams, thoughts, and ideas he could not understand. “Stop it, stop it, stop… stop… STOP!” The last came out as an anguished wail from the depths of his soul that echoed through the woods and down to the Rio Grande thousands of feet below. He gave a shudder in the brush, and the man that was Ken succumbed.

Small animals and night birds flitted around for a time, sniffing the air and sensing if the man had become food. But after a few minutes he was standing again, eyes searching the darkness with wildness. It noticed the birds, and scurrying creatures, before shaking its head and snarling. The snarl turned into a clipped scream, more visceral than the previous one. It turned towards a narrow goat trail that descended the cliff.

The descent would have terrorized Ken and likely sent him plummeting to the rocks below. The creature that walked in his skin felt no fear and held close to the sharp rocks with single minded, painless determination. By the time it reached the river, its hands were torn nearly to the bone in several places. It paid that no mind to the blood dripping wounds as it looked across the river. Moonlight was illuminating the far shore where it saw a group of people, all moving slowly to the west. A little moan escaped its lips and its teeth gnashed as it jerked forward and plowed into the water.

Chapter 2

Monday, April 9

The sign read ‘Dr. Lisha Breda’ in a rough, simple script as she stepped off the escalator next to the one and only baggage carousel at the Las Cruces International Airport. The bored looking man in a travel-worn faded blue suit was also the only driver waiting for the meager fifty-odd passengers arriving on Southern Airlines Flight 525 from Los Angeles. Lisha walked up to the tall, dark skinned man, also noting his windblown complexion.

“Senora Breda?” he asked with a mild Mexican accent as she approached.

“Yes,” she answered simply. He looked her over with a curious gaze before shrugging. “Is something wrong?”

“My apologies, but you were not what I expected.”

“Not expecting a black woman?” she asked, a little short after the cramped flight. The little commuter jets were bad enough when flitting around southern California, they were hell on earth during a two hour flight to New Mexico.

The man chuckled and shook his head. “No, frankly I was expecting another annoying old white guy who thinks tipping is a city in China.”

Lisha eyed him for a second before noticing the twinkle in his wrinkled eyes, then smiled. His own smile was instant and genuine. “Fair enough…”

“Andre,” he said and offered his hand. She took it and shared his firm, but not too strong handshake. Like the rest of him, his hands were weathered and tough. How a farm hand or rancher had ended up driving a car for hire was probably an interesting story in itself. “Do you have a bag?”

“Yes,” she said and turned to the carousel, only to see that hers was the only unclaimed luggage. Her dark brown Osprey Ariel pack slowly went round and around all by its lonesome. She moved to claim it but Andre was one step ahead of her. She meant to speak up and warn him it was heavily packed, but the stocky Latino man grabbed one of the straps and easily swung it onto one shoulder without so much as adjusting his stance. “Okay then,” she nodded and let him lead the way.

The car was a late model tan sedan with a few scratches and heavier than normal tires. Andre placed her pack in the trunk with care and held the door for her to get in. The air outside the terminal hovered around the ninety-degree mark, quite a bit warmer than the seventy-eight degrees she’d left behind at LAX. Lisha was pleasantly surprised to find the car idling and the air conditioning purring as it wafted cool air to the interior back seat. A soothing salsa mix was churning from the radio as Andre climbed in.

“Sorry for the music, senora,” he said and reached for the knob.

“No, you can leave it,” she said quickly, “I like this artist.”

“Si, thank you,” he said, and buttoned up the car. With the hot air no longer blasting through the doors, the car quickly cooled to a quite comfortable temperature. “Do you want to go to your hotel first?”

“No, straight to the university please.”

“Si,” he said, and took them into traffic. Early afternoon at the Las Cruces International Airport provided the closest thing that area saw to a rush hour. After years of negotiating Los Angeles traffic, to Dr. Breda it more closely reminded her of a 2am jaunt out for a bite with a friend. The traffic at the light before merging onto Interstate 10 took all of two minutes, then they were cruising east towards the town at a smooth seventy miles per hour.

She grabbed her shoulder bag and slid out the tablet inside. Now that she was on the ground, it had already linked with the local cellular network and updated her emails. No news might have been good news, but her box was full of the opposite. Two more companies were threatening to drop their funding of ‘The Project’ after last week’s network expose. She snorted as she read, more like a hatchet job than a report. “Bio-Scientists Attempt to play God” was the story they ran, and boy did it run. Nothing drove the American public bat-shit crazy more than even the slightest rumor that someone was messing with the genome.

There were already three other emails from the senior project partners, all freaking out about the splash the news report was causing. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, especially since they were leasing time at three super-computers from Caltech Berkeley. The moonbats in California had already chased them twenty miles into the Pacific…what was next? She smiled at what was next, but no one had any idea what they were planning.

The car had turned off the freeway and was negotiating the entrance to the New Mexico State University campus, driving along green grass lined avenues that no doubt consumed swimming pool quantities of water to be that green in the New Mexican climate. She recognized the science campus from the email she’d gotten yesterday. An associate from a certain secret government program had tapped her to investigate an anomalous specimen. With The Project entering a critical stage, the last thing she needed was a surprise trip off-site. Then the offer of a good word in the right government ear accompanied the invitation, and the Project senior partners had ordered her plane tickets in minutes. Shit.

“Gods, I hope it’s not a damn chupacabra,” she moaned. The images on the emails showed an all too familiar form. Vaguely predatory, small, lithe, back arched in death, elongated snout, no fur, evidence of decay visible even in the hasty photograph. Something about the Southwest was even more insidious than the Northwest. At least the Big Foot had the good sense to not turn up in half decayed opossum and raccoon corpses. There were no native American versions of primates.

A few minute later Andre was handing Lisha her Osprey bag and a card with a cell phone number. “Call me when you need me, Senora,” he told her, explaining the Las Cruces was not a very big city and he could be there in short notice. She thanked him and she carried her bags into the modern looking medical research building, and out of the New Mexico sun.

“Can I help you?” asked a bored looking woman, no doubt a student, from the stainless and marble reception desk. “Student orientation isn't until next week.”

“Please inform Dr. Amstead that Dr. Breda from HAARP is here.”

The woman looked her over, including the blue jeans, worn top, and backpack, and shrugged before typing on her computer and speaking through the Bluetooth headset perched on her ear. “He'll be out in a minutes,” the woman told her, and went back to whatever she'd been doing before Lisha walked up. True to her word, Dr. Amstead arrived shortly.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” Dr. Amstead thanked her again as they he led the way briskly down the hall. A young intern carried Lisha's Osprey bag behind them, intently listening to the two doctors conversations.

“My pleasure, Dr. Amstead,” she insisted again. “How long have you been part of the Wild Fire team?”

Dr. Amstead missed a step and almost tripped over his own feet. He jerked around to stare at her, then at the intern. The kid looked back in confusion. He held out his hand. “Give me the bag and go back to class. Now.”

“Yes sir,” the young man said and relinquished the backpack. The intern looked over his shoulder in a final furtive glance before trotting back the way they'd came.

“That program is classified, Dr. Breda.”

“And about the worst kept secret in the world,” she replied with a toss of her head. She took her pack back and resumed walking down the hallway, forcing him to trot to catch up. “Organized in the 1960s by the government to respond when aliens land in America, it’s been a multi-million dollar boondoggle sucking up money for decades.” She glanced over her shoulder as the older doctor caught up to her, the expression on his face speaking volumes of his disapproval regarding her opinion. She didn't really care. “It was your Wild Fire network that got me here.”

“You should realize,” he spoke in his rich northerner accent, dark eyes flashing as he brushed some of his thinning hair out of his eyes, “I don't much care for your HAARP project either.”

“Then I guess we understand each other,” she said and turned back, “science is often founded on mutual animosity between researchers.” There was a snort, half laugh, half disagreement, but the older scientist remained silent. “I guess our line of research makes me the closest to thing to what you want on this part of the planet just now, so here I am.”

The lab was state of the art, for what it was built for. The biology lab specialized in research on domestic livestock. Improving the strains of chickens and helping the poultry industry develop more effective nutritional supplements and disease resistant strains. It was chosen for the current project because it had a level two bio-containment lab. Some animal contagions were risky to work with, especially in a country that consumed billions of pounds of chicken every year. 

Dr. Lisha Breda stood with her arms crossed under her breasts and looked around the lab with a critical eye, picking out each piece of equipment she would need. She also noted the sealed chamber at the back and how the lab staff was reluctant to go near it. Something didn't feel right here.

“Better fill me in on the details,” she told Dr. Amstead. He handed her a tablet computer and began explaining the case. She'd read it twice on the way to Las Cruces and once more in the cab, but long experience had taught her to always listen to the facts from the source of the story as well as the written notes. There were often details to be gleaned that didn't make it into print.

Two days ago a ranger in the Brokeoff Mountains Wilderness Study Area had found what he at first thought was a deceased red fox. Upon closer examination he was unable to confirm the species as vulpes vulpes. There had been some decay of the specimen, as well as predation by unknown scavengers. It was an unusual find because the wilderness area was not inside the known range of that species of fox. So he bagged the specimen to return to the ranger station. It was only after returning that he noted the lack of substantial secondary evidence of decay. No odors, and no presence of insects.

Lisha looked through the thick glass into the isolation chamber where the chupacabra, or fox, lay. The pictures didn’t really do it justice. Of course now, only a few meters away, it was obviously a fox. What wasn’t obvious was why it wasn’t decaying like a dead animal was supposed to decay. Inside with the dead animal a technician in a biochem isolation suit was carefully taking pictures, moving the body and examining it in intricate detail. The person, sexless in the bulky protective gear, was using the microscope feature of the handheld camera on the fox’s nose which appeared shredded.

“Can I see the tissue sample images? They weren’t included in the data packet you sent.”

“I know,” Amstead admitted and scratched the thin whiskers on his chin, “we had a new set taken this morning. They should be mounted any time now.”

“What was wrong with the first series?”

“They got tainted somehow.”

On cue a technician brought over an SD card and gave it to Dr. Amstead. He moved to a large display nearby and slid the chip in, accessing the files. In a moment he was frowning. “Same problem.”

“And that is?” Lisha asked, coming up beside him.

The older man pointed to an enlarged image showing muscle tissue biopsied from the fox. “There is no microbiological activity,” he said and ran his finger along a capillary, visible in stark relief due to the dye added to the slide. “Even though the dye would kill all the microbes, a carcass like this should be crawling with bacteria and insect larvae.”

Lisha nodded and leaned closer. The image shifted to another, then another. One after another, all showing the same complete lack of bacteriological life. It wasn’t only unlikely, it was impossible. “Well,” she spoke after a few minute observing, “at least the lack of living insects on the carcass when discovered is less of a mystery.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, if whatever it is that killed all the bacteria was some sort of chemical, it is probably also what kept flies and scavengers away.” The other doctor nodded, accepting her professional opinion in an area outside his expertise.

What she didn’t say aloud was the problem that really bothered her. It could be possible to expose an animal to a chemical that would kill all the microbes and bacteria, even in the gut. But that didn’t account for the remains of the same. All the samples were pure, with no signs at all of foreign organisms. It was almost as if this fox somehow was resistant to all bacteria.

Six hours later she’d learned what she could, having unequivocally confirmed it was a fox of vulpes vulpes, and she took a vacuum sealed case of tissue and fluid samples before calling Andre and heading for the exit. Dr. Amstead saw her off with a handshake and his thanks just as Andre’s late model sedan was pulling up. It was a long day of travel in exchange for such an interesting mystery. All the way back to LA, Dr. Lisha Breda couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the beginning of something very bad.