Fatalis

Chapter Fifty-Three

His leathery features creased with frustration, Frank Lyon looked out at the canopy two hundred feet below. When he was still working as a movie stunt actor, absolutely nothing daunted him. He raced chariots, drove motorcycles off cliffs, and once parachuted from a plane onto a hot-air balloon. If he hadn't busted his leg while he was skiing, the fifty-one-year-old would still be stunting instead of training new talent-and working as a Special Ops officer to get his jollies.

In the old days, it would have been nothing for him to sling his M21 sniper rifle and night scope over his shoulder, rappel to the treetops, find a position in the high branches, and take the kitties out. But he hadn't done any rope climbing or Tarzan-type bits for a while so that would be dicey.

Still, he didn't want to let these fuckers get away; Gearhart was counting on him. When a guy like that counted on you, you wanted to deliver.

He turned to the pilot, twenty-something Deputy Russo who did time in the Air Force as a medical evacuation flier.

"How close to the treetops can you get us?" Lyon shouted.

"I can sit you down right on top of them," the young woman replied.

Lyon thought for a moment Then he attached the night-vision scope to the rifle. "I want you to kill the searchlight and go down slow," he said. "If it looks like our pals are getting scared again, I'll let you know and you shoot back up. If I get the first one down I'll let you know. I'll need the light back on fast so I can spot the second."

The pilot said she understood.

Lyon had seen the first cat moving slowly toward the sinkhole. The second cat had finally emerged from the drain. Lyon opened the door. It was about two hundred yards to the sinkhole. After he shot this one he would have an okay shot at the sinkhole-certainly good enough to put a wall of bullets ahead of the surviving cat and make it think twice about going in. As long as he could keep it in the open, he had a good chance of nailing it.

The pilot shut off the light. Lyon found the cat in his scope and the chopper began to descend. The cat looked up, then moved under some branches. The slow build of the rotor didn't appear to alarm it.

"Move south a little!" Lyon told the pilot.

The chopper slid to the side so Lyon could keep the cat in view. He didn't want to take a shot unless it was a clear one; wounding the animal, especially not mortally, might only make things worse.

Parts of it came and went though the leaves as the chopper descended. They were about one hundred feet up, then eighty, then sixty. The clearing was ahead. That was where he'd get the cat. Right there. Then he'd swing to his right and be ready to fire at the sinkhole. He wanted a kill shot, though, on the first cat. If he had to fire a second round, that would give the other cat more time to escape.

The trees were about thirty feet below. Lyon's palms were sweaty but he felt just like he used to before a big gag-pumped, ready, there.

They were down to twenty feet. The leaves were whipping madly, which actually gave Lyon a clearer view of the ground and his target He could see the cat's hindquarters through the branches.

"Go west a few feet," Lyon said. Hopefully, that would stir the leaves where he needed a clearer view. Lyon's left foot was on the step at the bottom of the door and his right in the corner of the door itself. It was a secure perch even though it didn't give him a wide target area; the helicopter's landing skid was too far below the cabin for him to lean on. That was why they had to keep the cat in a fairly narrow range.

The chopper shifted slightly and continued to descend. They were roughly ten feet above the trees and thirty-five feet above the target The leaves parted and blew off ahead of the cat and it moved toward them. Lyon took a moment to drink the creature in.

Grand hadn't been kidding. The thing was a giant, like nothing Lyon had ever seen except maybe in some of the monster movies he'd done. He'd have its head in his sight in just a few seconds-

Something flashed past his sight and the helicopter shuddered violently. The Special Ops officer looked up from his rifle just in time to see the impossible. Lit by the green glow of the control panel, he saw one of the cats land on the skid, stretch itself up, and fill the open doorway.

The damn thing had jumped from the treetops.

Lyon's last thoughts were of something Grand had said before he went to the blockhouse. Decoys and feints, he had warned. They use military-style tactics.

The cat lunged at Lyon. The gun fell overboard. Blood sprayed from an upswipe of the cat's claw, ripped from somewhere on the left side of Lyon's chest. It spotted the windshield, controls, and Deputy Russo. While the pilot tried desperately to focus on the controls, the special Ops Officer was screaming beside her, flailing at the monstrous weight on top of him.

The creature's powerful motion, weight, and the repeated lashings of claw and fang made it impossible to steady the helicopter. The skids crunched on the upper branches and then the cabin thumped with an ugly, loud bump on the tree-tops. The helicopter settled unsteadily on its perch.

Russo sought to abandon the craft. She released the controls and turned toward the door. Before she could reach it, the cat surged over the mangled Special Ops officer and put its two long teeth into Russo's left shoulder. The pilot shrieked as the cat bit down and away.

The helicopter tilted toward port, Lyon's side. The slanted rotor was still turning at top speed as it cut into the trees, filling the air with wood, leaves, and the clacking of the rotor as it struck the branches.

The narrow blades bent and folded, one of them slamming through the windshield and filling the cabin with glass. A moment later the rotor hub stopped turning when it hit one of the heavy lower branches. The helicopter settled noisily into the trees, on its side. The trail rotor continued slicing downward, kicking up dirt and sparks as it struck the ground. The rear rotor cap cracked, causing the unit to fly off. It cartwheeled across the ground, stopping only when it embedded itself in a tree trunk.

Except for falling particles of leaf and the occasional groan of a branch, the night was nearly still. Nearly, but not quite.

While one cat waited and watched, the other leaped from the cabin of the fallen helicopter. It landed heavily on the ground then shook itself off from head to tail. The fur of its face and shoulders was splashed with blood. Some of the blood was from the occupants of the cabin while some of it belonged to the cat itself. One of the rotor blades and several pieces of glass had cut it on the right shoulder when the blade struck the windshield.

But it would survive.

It was not time to feed and, leaving the bodies behind, the cats walked toward the sinkhole, slipped inside, and thought nothing more of this strange new creature that had tried to take the night from them.