The Menagerie 2 (Eden) (16 page)

O’Connell began to stumble, his legs going boneless and weak. “I gotta rest,” he said.

Savage and Alyssa made movements to settle the wounded man to the floor. Whitaker, however, denied the motion.

“Get his ass up and going,” he said, pointing his weapon at them. “I will not have that man slow us down.”

“It wouldn’t be like this if you hadn’t shot him to begin with,” Alyssa returned defiantly.

“Look here, Missy,” he countered; directing his aim at Alyssa, “I don’t need you to pop off at the mouth. Seriously, I don’t. We need to get to the platform and we can only do that once we group together with the remainder of my team and push forward with force. O’Connell, as far as I’m concerned, can stay behind to feed whatever things that are running around this ship. I don’t care. That’s your decision. But you’re coming along, Ms. Moore—with or without him. If you want O’Connell along, carry him. If not, then leave him behind.”

Savage took the initiative. Then to O’Connell: “Straddle my back,” he told him. “I’ll carry you.”

O’Connell nodded feebly, then situated himself piggyback style against Savage’s backside.

“We’re good,” Savage told Whitaker.

“Good. Now remain at point.”

Alyssa took up beside Savage’s side.

Savage whispered to her. “Get back, Hon. Just in case.”

“I’m not leaving you to do this by yourself,” she told him.

“There may be things out there—in the shadows. I may not be able to get away in time.”

“Don’t care.” She reached out and rubbed his shoulder with a loving caress, her touch like glancing silk. “I will always be by your side,” she added.
No matter what.

Savage did all he could to dislodge the sour lump in his throat. She had moved him in ways with the power that could move mountains. Everything she said or did, at least in his eyes, was paramount. And in a tone just above a whisper, he said, “I love you.”

She smiled.
Ditto.

#

As they moved
forward, Goliath quietly took up next to Whitaker.

Sensing his presence, Whitaker snapped at the large man. “What?”

“You think this is safe? Keeping O’Connell?” he asked.

Whitaker remained silent.

“Cap,” Goliath said louder, “the guy’s covered in blood. These things out there may be drawn to his scent. We might be leading them right to us.”

“I know that,” he finally answered, this time more calmly. “But these things are ahead of us. Leaving O’Connell here makes no sense. Once we group up, then we can leave O’Connell behind as the lure that will keep them away from us as we press forward.”

“What about Savage and Ms. Moore?”

“They’re no different than O’Connell,” he told him. “When things prove difficult, then we’ll throw them to the lions. They’re simply sacrificial pieces and nothing more. Now fall back.”

Goliath nodded. “Yeah, boss.”

When Goliath fell back to the rear, Whitaker remained quiet and vigilant, all the while musing about their position.

Savage was a soldier who knew that if he didn’t act soon, then he was going to die regardless. What it all boiled down to was timing, thought Whitaker. But the team leader had it all planned out. He would leave whatever was left of O’Connell and his feeble body behind. And then he would put a bullet in Savage, wounding and taking away his combat skill set. When the time was right, when things became too heavy, then he would run the blade of his knife across Savage and allow him to bleed out, his blood serving as the honey that would draw the incredibly vicious flies, while they made haste. Ms. Moore, however, would remain in reserve in case O’Connell and Savage weren’t effective long enough.

Savage turned to Whitaker with a sidelong look, as if trying to examine the commando’s thoughts and insights.

Whitaker pointed his gun to the area in front of Savage. “Eyes forward,” he told him.

Savage complied, realizing that time was running critically short. If he was going to take action of any kind, then he would have to act soon.

And there would be no second chance.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

K-Clown and Quasimodo banded with Whitaker and his unit somewhere in the ship’s aft. Savage set O’Connell against the floor and took a seated position next to Alyssa, who sat with her back against the wall.

K-Clown raised the lens of his monocular until it stood straight up on his helmet.

Whitaker motioned to Quasimodo to keep an eye on Alyssa and Savage. O’Connell didn’t appear to be a risk, the man growing weaker.

“Anything between your point and ours?” Whitaker asked K-Clown.

The man shook his head. “Nothing but lots of corpses—engineers, scientists, those things in the containment cells, they’re all dead.”

“And there’s nothing behind us,” said Whitaker. “So there’s no chance of a rear ambush. But we know that there’s something in front of us—something big. But if we’re to get out of here, then we need to go up.” He pointed skyward. “We group up and press forward. And we go right through whatever it is that’s in front of us.”

“Copy that.”

“Eyes open, K. I can’t afford to lose anymore. We’re missing three already.”

“I hear you.”

From that point Whitaker began to outline his plan about getting them topside with the exception of Quasimodo, who stood sentinel next to Alyssa and Savage, keeping them in sight.

#

Alyssa thought the
man called Quasimodo was perhaps the ugliest creature she had ever seen. His face was a patchwork of different shades, the results of poor grafting, with the flesh of his right cheek so tight that it seemed to pull at the corner of his eye enough to expose the glistening pink tissue within.

When he proffered a wink and rolled his tongue lasciviously over his lips at her, she clucked her tongue in disgust, rolled her eyes, and turned away.

“I think he likes you,” John said. He meant it to be a moment of levity at a time when the air was thick with tension and uncertainty.

She answered by reaching for his hand with both of hers, cupped it, and accepted his response, his hand gently squeezing hers. “It’s all right,” she told him. “I’ve made peace with my god a long time ago.”

John blinked back the sting of tears; the ex-SEAL could feel himself on the edge of breaking. He loved her with a boundless love that was indescribable, the kind of love where he would gladly sacrifice his in order to save hers. But at the moment he was completely overwhelmed by the impotence to do anything at all. Especially when his only attempt met with a colossal foot to the face, his failure completed the moment he saw internal stars. 

He wasn’t going to fill her with false hope, either. Not anymore. He smiled falsely. “That’s my girl,” he said, bringing her hands up and giving one of them a quick kiss. “The only scientist I know who believes in scientific fact and the existence of God, despite the evidence she finds to the contrary.”

“Not everything can be explained away with science alone,” she said.

“True.” He stared at her for a long moment, appraising her, seeing how incredibly beautiful she was in the glow of the phosphorous green light.

“What?”

“Green is your color,” he said simply. And then: “I’m glad you kept your faith.”

“It’s a powerful tool,” she told him.

“Is that why you didn’t want to discover the truth about what Obsidian Hall brought out of Eden? Is that why you buried it? Was it because you were afraid that the truth of our origin might steal your faith away?”

She leaned into his shoulder. “My faith is bullet proof.”

“But you’re a scientist. It’s your duty to find the truth?”

“The truth, John, has many sides to it. What we found in Eden was the truth of man’s beginnings. The references in the Bible and the Torah and other religious texts also cite the truth. It’s just a variance of interpretations.”

“You haven’t answered my question as to why you buried the evidence when you could have sent it off to discover the truth of the tombs with simple DNA sampling.”

She hugged him. “I did what I did, John, because my faith is my shield,” she told him evenly. “And right now I need that shield.”

And he understood. She was always strong, an inquisitor of some things and a skeptic on others. But faith had always been her constant. Whenever she needed it most, it was always there. Though it would not save her life this time, it did seem to cushion the inevitable that there was still life after life.

“I’m going to get you out of this,” he told her.

“John, it’s over. I know that.”

He leaned into her. “I thought you had faith.”

“I do.”

“Then believe me when I say that there’s a solution for everything.”

She wanted to believe that. But if that was the case, then it could also be said that in Whitaker’s viewpoint, the solution would be to see them dead. Not everyone can have a resolution to fall their way, especially when the outcome is obviously very diverse from one another—John’s solution is to survive, whereas Whitaker’s is to see them die. So whose solution will trump here?

 But then she realized that Savage’s faith was to see them through. And it was strong.

And then she realized how funny it was that faith had many sides to it.

“Yes,” she finally said. “There’s a solution to everything.”

He gave her a playful head bump, more of a love tap. “That’s right,” he said. He then faced off with Quasimodo, eyes locking, and then he looked at the weapon he was carrying, an MP5, which was strapped around him, not a good choice to battle over. But then he noted the battle knives strapped to his thigh, no doubt a warrior’s combat blade that was sharp and wicked. They all carried them. And in Savage’s mind it was at least a marginal opportunity. He was absolutely skilled as a double-edged weapons technician.

But then he sighed and came to the realization that faith had its limits.

And John Savage discovered that he had no faith at all. 

They were going to die.

Quasimodo smiled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The raptors maintained a steady eye on their quarries, watching them gather as a pack of their own—a challenge for the hunt.  

Although they communicated with calls and snorts through the chambers of their sinus canals, the relay was a highly evolved language where communicating was made through levels of various pitches and tones, each informing the other of its intentions.

The calls were barks and grunts in precise and metered divisions, the pauses having specific meaning. The male opted to position itself behind the adversaries, deep in the shadows. Whereas the female would drive them back into the kill zone of the male’s swinging tail, providing him with the opportunity for a fresh kill.

With measured nasal barking, the raptors separated to take their positions as apex hunters.

The male moved silently, taking a wide berth from Whitaker’s team by using the shadows as camouflage, and worked its way behind its prey. The female moved prudently, almost like a feline, slowly raising and lowering her foot, touching down with softness, the creature maintaining a steady eye on its victims.

When she was in position she stood rooted to her spot with her head and neck forward, stiffly erect, her eyes drawing a true bead.

And then the male called out in a series of two barks, informing the female that he was in position, his tail swinging over its head like a fly-fisherman’s line, the appendage whipping back and forth waiting to lash out against his prey.

The female, taking one step after another, picking up momentum with every footfall, charged Whitaker’s team.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Did you hear that?” said K-Clown. “We’re not alone.”

“No. We’re not.” Whitaker immediately lowered his NVG monocular and leveled his weapon. “Eyes down!” he shouted. “Everyone, ready up!”

Whitaker’s team assembled into a V-shaped formation with Whitaker at the fore point, K-Clown and Maestro behind him, Goliath and Quasimodo behind them, their weapons forward.

The raptor came within their field of vision, glowing green through their NVG lenses.

The creature was closing the gap with its whiptail snapping the air like a bullwhip, the reports as loud as gunshots.

Whitaker’s team could not draw a bead on the raptor as their weapons went off in a volley of gunfire and muzzle flashes, the area flickering with quick bursts of light in strobe-like fashion.

The raptor cut to her left, then leapt through the air with the curve of her serrated talon flexed for a raking kill. Bullets flew, and missed, the creature looming larger in the lenses of their monoculars, a 3-D effect, as she traversed the distance between them with her outstretched leg and distended claw that sliced cleanly through K-Clown’s armor, neatly dividing the soldier at midriff, the man’s upper body sliding and separating off from its lower half, the man not yet dead as he lay there looking with wonderment at his separated half.

The raptor landed, hard, her tail whipping and lashing out, the sharp and bony ridges along the length of her tail striking Goliath across his abdominal armor, the Tally-Whacker insignia marred with a jagged slash, but the hit was not deep enough to rip into Goliath, as he backed off firing his weapon, the shots stitching across the raptor’s hide as the creature reared her head and cried out in white-hot agony, confused, the apex predator feeling multiple punches as the Tally-Whackers unloaded, their bullets striking with hammer blows that brought the creature to her knees, the raptor trying to stand, failing, then falling to her side.

When the firing stopped they stood silently by with absorption, watching the raptor’s chest heave and pitch until she expelled her final breath with a deep sigh.

From the back end of the chamber something screamed out in anguish, an animalistic cry that grated their ears.