Bitter Cold (18 page)

“They might try what they did to me,” April agreed. “They might run us off a cliff.”

“That’s why I think we should take the back roads.”

“Is there a back way out of Jack Falls Road?”

“No. It’s a dead end.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Great. That’s how they’ll do it. They’re probably setting up their ambush right now. You know they cut the phone lines. That means the internet’s down for sure. And even if you did get cellphone service, they probably have something that jams the damned signals. They’re just toying with us, setting the trap.”

“And so is that monster,” he gave her a grave face.

“A rock and a hard place,” she returned the look.

“It’s almost too much to believe. What the hell’s going on? It’s like the whole world’s gone crazy.”

She nodded. “It could get worse. That thing could spread.”

“How far do you think it can go?”

“No telling. But if it’s gotten out of that canyon, there’s no stopping it from spreading all the way to Portland.”

“We can’t let that happen. We have to warn somebody.”

She nodded. “You’re right. I guess I was just scared.”

He kept his eyes locked on the window. “I’m scared, too. We all are.”

“Okay,” Logan emerged from the kitchen, Amy not far behind. He held a plastic grocery bag up for his dad to inspect. “We got it.”

“Are you sure you got enough,” Jeff stared at it. “Maybe we should bring some more water.”

“Dad, we got all the water we could find. It’s plenty.”

“We could always melt snow if we ran out,” April suggested.

“Not if the snow’s black,” Amy stared into space.

April took one step toward her and reached out a hand, but she raised a shoulder and turned away. Jeff knew it hurt April’s feelings.

“Don’t worry about it,” he got close and whispered. “She’ll come around.”

He felt her flinch at the sudden, forceful sound of rapping. For a brief moment, Jeff thought it was a gun. It wasn’t.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Someone’s at the front door,” Jeff said. “I think.”

Logan said, “Well, it’s not the monster.”

The knocking became even louder, more insistent.

“You said you had a shotgun?” April raised an eyebrow at Jeff.

“Yeah but,” he ran his hand along his near-shaven head. “I told you. I’m not gonna get into a firefight with a bunch of guys armed to the teeth.”

The knocking became pounding. It rattled the walls.

“Anything’s better than nothing at this point,” she stared into his eyes.

“Wait here,” he took a shaky breath and went to retrieve his only firearm—an old Winchester double-barrel.

April smiled when Jeff resurfaced from the back room, striding down the hall. “I’ve seen one of those before. My grandpa had one. He let me shoot it once.”

He lifted it triumphantly. “Hey, I know. It’s old. But it still packs a hell of a punch.”

“It’s a classic. A model twenty-one, right?”

He suddenly felt a little more respect for her. “Very good,” he opened the breech, slid in two shells, and slammed it shut. Then a man’s voice called out and made his trigger finger twitch. It scared everybody. The looks on their faces were clear.

“Who is it?” April stared at him.

He shook his head. “Hard to tell from down here.”

“Dad, I think we should go and—”

“Shhh!”

The man at the door yelled again.

“Did you hear that?”

“What did he say?”

“Shhh!”

Jeff watched the windows near the top of the wall on either side of the stone chimney. Two long, narrow, clear panes of glass letting in small fractures of early morning light.

A shadow streaked across the window on the right.

“Shit! Jeff!” April yanked his arm.

Jeff’s skin crawled with millions of tiny bumps as the shadow crossed behind the chimney and approached the other window, slowing down and darkening the glass.

“Shhh,” he was paralyzed. “Don’t move. Don’t anybody move.”

The shadow got darker until it merged with its owner, a man wearing a heavy, blue coat. Jeff’s bowels turned to quivering Jell-O. He swore it was someone from NWP. Then he saw something that made him exhale. Lustrous against the navy blue jacket, pinned over the left breast, he saw a silver star badge.

“Jeff!” the man hollered through the window. “Jeff Keller! It’s Tom Jenkins! Open up, I’ve got to talk to you!”

April hugged him. He wasn’t hating it.

TWENTY-SIX

“ARMSTRONG! YOU SON of a
bitch
! You meant to miss!”

“No, sir! I swear! It’s this rifle…the scope must be off!”

Strawn pointed his Beretta at Armstrong. “Put the rifle down.”

“But…but I tried to hit them. I tried. The trees…the glare…”

“I thought the scope was off,” Strawn stopped him cold with that one. “Armstrong, I know you’re not that incompetent. I have the file on you. You’ve done wet work before. What happened? Have you gone soft?”

Armstrong looked defeated. He lowered the rifle and leaned against the seat. “Sir, there’s no reasoning this one away. There are kids down there. Kids. I just can’t do it.”

“Enough!” Strawn aimed the gun between his eyes.

“Sir!” the pilot interrupted, pointing to the ground. He rotated the helicopter so his boss could see. Though Strawn had already witnessed the anomalous entity in action, it made his pulse race when he saw it, moving through the dense forest, playing a game of cat and mouse with the shadows.

“My God!” Armstrong’s eyes were wide, his mouth wider. “It’s growing!”

Strawn noticed the thing did seem larger—and getting even bigger right before their eyes. He leaned closer to the glass, clouding it with his breath. Annoyed, he wiped the fog away.

“Magnificent!” he felt his pocketbook getting fatter. Then a notion hatched in his head. “Anybody have an idea how we can lure this thing to the house where that reporter is hiding?”

His employees went silent. Neither man so much as looked at him.

“What?” he searched them both.

“What do you want to do?” Armstrong asked finally.

“Just a little experiment. Kill two birds with one stone. If it goes right, we can eliminate Miss Murray, and at the same time, we can see if that organism’s as efficient as you say it is. This is a perfect testing ground, cut off from the world. All we have to do is nudge our creature along a little, guide it to where we want it to go.”

Armstrong stared a hole through Strawn.

“What!” Strawn glared at him. “I know you want to say something, SAY IT!”

Only the steady
Thump! Thump! Thump!
of the rotors.

Strawn let his gaze roam to the dark entity as it snaked along in the ice below. It looked like a giant pool of oil with whip-like projections reaching out, feeling the way, cresting over rocky embankments and rolling through flat meadows.

“You know I’m right. That amazing organism could be the next great discovery in military science. Think of it. It could be a real game-changer in future wars. Think of how much of a deterrent it could be, the lives it could save. Don’t be naive, Armstrong. Civilians died when they were developing the atom bomb. Civilians die all the time for the greater good. It’s like the old saying goes: ‘You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.’”

He felt something touch his shoulder and turned, seeing exactly what he’d expected—the business end of the M14. Armstrong had it trained at his heart.

“Why am I not surprised?” his calm seemed to unnerve Armstrong.

“Shut up! Shut up right now!” a bead of sweat formed on his forehead. “We’re not doing this, not anymore! Change of plans, Henderson! We’re going home! Then we’re going to call in a proper biohazard team to take care of this thing. No more killing! We can’t do this, Gary! We just can’t!”

“But we can,” Strawn kept his cool, even tone. “We can, and we will. It’s our duty to the betterment of mankind. You might not see it, but I truly believe we’re on the cusp of a major discovery, here. Something our grandkids will be telling
their
grandkids. Something for the history books. We can’t just let this slip through our fingers.”

“Gary, you’re insane,” the rifle barrel trembled in Armstrong’s wobbly hands. “This whole thing’s insane, and I won’t have any part in it!”

“You see, that’s where you’re mistaken,” Strawn smirked. “Sadly mistaken.”

‘Pop!’

A nine millimeter slug hit Armstrong in the chest, blood peppering his chin and cheeks, painting his jacket with a splotch of red. Eyes bulging, he dropped the rifle and fought for breath, gurgling up a mouthful of crimson froth instead. Strawn didn’t dare shoot him again. He wasn’t sure if it mattered, but he wanted his ‘bait’ to be alive, just in case. No room for error on this little experiment, and he wanted badly to get it right.

“You…you shot me!” Armstrong managed in a scratchy voice.

“The most accurate thing you’ve said all day,” Strawn unbuckled his harness and stepped through the small space between the two captain’s chairs, careful to keep his weapon aimed expertly at Armstrong.

He kicked the rifle away. It clanged against the metal passenger chair.

Armstrong wheezed when Strawn pistol-whipped him in the head. The blow split open his skin and looked like it took a nice little divot out of his skull. The stricken man pushed his fists toward Strawn’s arms, but seemed to have no strength. The wound in his chest pooled blood in his lap. The gash near his temple looked fatal, still the man had fight left in him. Strawn felt relieved. He didn’t mean to hit Armstrong so hard.

He stepped over his bait, his worm, and slid open the hatch. On the floor, he found the hoist harness. He pressed the winch release button and yanked the cable to create some slack, enough to reach Armstrong’s feet.

“Hey, what’re you doing,” Armstrong slurred. His head rolled side to side. “Stop it…don’t…”

Strawn looped the cable and fastened the buckle, pulling the harness tight. “Remember when I said sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet?”

Armstrong’s head stopped rolling. He looked at Strawn.

“Cluck, cluck,” Strawn pushed him toward the door.

“No! Please don’t…you can’t do this…NO!”

He heaved Armstrong with his feet so hard his calves buckled and cramped. No time to stop now. The worm kicked and thrashed on the end of his hook, reaching and holding the edge of the hatch. That didn’t matter to Strawn. It just gave him the time to aim.

He grabbed Armstrong’s collar and dragged him over the threshold, dangling him above the skids. The frost-covered fir trees were inches below, between them breaks of white areas, clearings besieged with snow.

“Where’s the organism!” he yelled at Henderson. “Find it!”

Wordlessly, the pilot positioned them above the large, dark blemish. Strawn looked close and noticed it was circling a dog, that German Shepard who’d helped those children.

“This is your lucky day, pooch,” he whispered to himself, then turned to get his bearings, locating the road, and then the house where the reporter and her friends were hiding. He licked his lips. It was time. He gripped the safety rail and shoved the two hundred pound man hard, careful to make sure his own feet were clear of the cable. Didn’t want to be cast out with the worm.

Armstrong screamed even louder than the chopper. The winch whirred and spun as he fell. Strawn slowed it down just enough to save the worm from breaking every bone in his body when he landed. The deep powder cushioned him, too. He was on his back, writhing and bleeding from his chest and head, but alive. Exactly the way Strawn wanted him. Perfect bait. Jerking and screaming, trying his damnedest to loosen his bindings.

Strawn’s pulse began to flutter when he noticed the blackness had stopped chasing the dog and began sending thin projections, zigzagging, toward Armstrong.

“Perfect! Go ahead…MOVE!” he commanded his pilot. The chopper drifted forward and the harness held. The worm spun violently when the cable pulled taut. They were trolling, on a direct course for the organism. For his part, the worm was behaving exactly as Strawn had hoped—frantic and loud. He made an uproar even the dead couldn’t ignore.

It became obvious Armstrong saw the dark snow, and tried hard to keep from being dragged into it. Leaving an irregular red streak in the pure white, he snatched at everything he passed, desperate for a lifeline. He managed to catch a branch from a mossy old apple tree. It snapped easily under the force of the chopper’s twin D24 Whitney and Pratt Jet Turbine Engines.

Armstrong’s face contorted. He wept for mercy, flinging his hands to the air, staring straight up at Strawn. His pleas went unanswered. Strawn remained expressionless, watching his bait aproach the blackness. A countdown had begun inside his head. He suspected one had started inside Armstrong’s, too.

It seemed to go in slow motion, yet at the same time so fast. The helicopter’s swiftness slung the worm through the snow, casting aside a three-foot-tall rooster tail. Before he knew it, Strawn was witnessing bio-warfare history.

Armstrong hit the dark patch feet-first. Right away, Strawn saw steam, or smoke—he couldn’t tell which. It rose in a large plume, suggesting an immediate boiling or searing of the worm’s clothing, possibly his skin. By the time his upper body hit the blackness, a dense fog had formed, with it came the stench of death, drifting all the way to the chopper. The worm beat his arms, splashing into the strange organism. It looked like he was sinking, like he’d been pulled feet first into a pool of ink and was dropping to the bottom.

Then the rescue cable began to spin out of control, smoking and sparking. Finally, it seized. The helicopter jolted hard to the side, hurling Strawn nearly off his feet. He reached for the safety railing, missed, reached again and managed to catch it, preventing a fall from the hatch.

“What the hell are you doing!” he couldn’t believe Henderson’s clumsiness. “Stop fucking around and fly right!”

“It’s not me!” the veteran pilot squawked. He pitched one hand up like a bull rider. “I’m not doing it. That thing’s got us! We gotta release the line!”

“No! No!” Strawn got his bearings back as the aircraft leveled out. Henderson was regaining control, but for how long? “Just hold on,” he peered down. What he saw shocked even his stony heart. Legs. The only recognizable parts of Armstrong left were his legs. The rest of his body was buried below the surface as if the blackness had depth. For the first time, Strawn felt fear. Not for the normal reasons. He wasn’t afraid for his life, thinking the creature would somehow be able to get to
him
. He wasn’t even worried about Armstrong’s life in any altruistic sort of way. He worried if the biological anomaly managed to consume Armstrong completely, he’d run out of bait. And he couldn’t use Henderson.

“Oh, shit! Pull up! Pull, dammit! We’re losing him!”

“I’m trying!” Henderson strained, clenching at the control stick with both hands.

“Try harder!” Strawn watched the darkness bubble where Armstrong’s upper body should have been. It looked like a frenzy of piranha under the surface of a murky lake. That’s when he noticed the creature had spread to cover the entire clearing, even climbing up trees where snow had clung to the trunks.

Henderson let out a loud cry of victory as the chopper lifted skyward. Strawn didn’t feel so triumphant. Armstrong had been chomped to shreds at the waistline. There was some of him left. The spinal cord twisted and turned with involuntary spasms. What looked like part of his liver, his kidneys, and much of his intestines were still intact, though when the chopper jerked him out of the organism’s clutches, most of him came loose, dangling by threads of gristle.

Strawn knew he couldn’t let such a small setback deter him from his plan. He still had a good portion of Armstrong left. And now that the corpse had been sufficiently ripped apart, it might make a better chum trail, anyway.

Clumps of black snow fell off the half-eaten bait as they ascended.

“Wait! Not too high! We need to go back down and get that thing to follow us!”

Henderson made eye contact. “Sir, dragging that line makes us vulnerable. That creature’s strong. It stopped us like we were nothin’. It’s too risky!”

“Henderson, stop being a pussy and get us down there!”

The pilot breathed heavy into the headset. Then he did as directed, leaning into a spiraling descent.

“All right, all right,” he directed his pilot. “Slowly now. Right over our wonderful new friend, down there,” he watched what remained of Armstrong’s mutilated corpse dangle and sway. The legs were askew, bent and stiff as if rigor mortis had already set in. It looked like he’d been frozen in a pose of terror and violent struggle, a struggle he’d lost. “Further!”

The pilot nodded without looking. A quick tilt of the control stick put them in place. The shredded, contorted, charred carcass dipped toward the blackness. Strawn’s stomach tightened.

 “Henderson, my good man! I knew you had it in you! You’re practically a surgeon with this thing! A surgeon!” he straightened his jacket and smoothed his hair. “Okay. Wait a second. Let the fish find the worm. Just a little…” he paused, watching the black snow move toward Armstrong’s swinging left leg. “Okay, Henderson—get ready.”

The thing looked like it was taking the bait. Like any good fisherman, though, he didn’t want to touch the line until he was sure to have the fish on the hook.