Island 731

34.

Howie GoodTracks leaned over Hawkins’s prone body. “It’s broken.”

Hawkins had never broken a bone before and the sight of his bulging shin nearly made him pass out. But GoodTracks took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake.

“Hey!” the old man said. “Do not go into shock. It’s just a broken bone. These things happen. But you will die if you aren’t able to keep your mind sharp.”

That snapped Hawkins out of his pain-filled haze. “Die?”

GoodTracks nodded. “What would you do if I were not here with you?”

“You are here with me!” Hawkins shouted back.

“How many times have you done something foolish like this without me around?”

Hawkins looked up at the tall rock he’d leapt from. He had, in fact, jumped from it at least twenty times previously. Thinking he’d perfected his landing technique, he decided to show his mentor. But in his excitement, he jumped higher and farther than before. The landing was hard and all wrong. He knew the answer, but didn’t offer it.

GoodTracks continued. “If this happened to you, alone, in the forest, what would you do?”

“I—I don’t know,” Hawkins admitted as he fought the tears gathering in his eyes.

“Good news,” GoodTracks said with a slight grin. “You’ll learn today. Look around you. What do you see?”

Hawkins looked around the forest. The tall pine forest floor was mostly clear of brush, but it was littered with fallen branches. “You want me to make a splint?”

GoodTracks nodded. “And set the bone. Find some crutches. And then walk the mile back to the lodge. We’ll start with the bone.”

“You can’t be serious,” Hawkins said.

“You know I am.” GoodTracks stood back and crossed his arms. “Now, sit up.”

Hawkins obeyed. He wanted to be angry at GoodTracks, but couldn’t be. He knew his surrogate father was right. This was his fault, and it could have happened during any of his previous jumps. And it could happen again. He looked down at the leg. It hurt less now and he felt almost giddy. I’m in shock, he realized, but then decided there was no better time to try what he was about to do. If the pain got worse, or his thoughts fully cleared, or the leg swelled too much, he’d be done.

He leaned forward, reaching past the break, and took hold of his ankle with both hands. An electric zing of pain shot up his leg, but he held on tight. “What do I do?”

“Tug your leg down, angle it back in place, and let go. The muscles will pull the bone together, but then we’ll need something to hold it there.”

Hawkins’s face screwed up with determination. In three seconds, he tugged, shifted, and let go of his leg when it was straightened, screaming for the duration before passing out.

If not for the light of day tingeing the back of his eyelids red, Hawkins wouldn’t have realized more than a few minutes had passed. His beaten body gave into exhaustion and slipped quietly from unconsciousness to sleep. His thoughts drifted to the dream, which was actually a memory. He managed to set the leg, find a single crutch, and hobble most of his way back to the lodge where they were staying. GoodTracks had helped toward the end and told Hawkins he was proud of him. It was a painful memory, but a good one.

Hawkins shifted with a groan. Every muscle ached, and would for days. His chest hurt so bad that he wondered if the creature’s strike had broken a few ribs. He opened his eyes and squinted against a shaft of morning sunlight that somehow found a path through the canopy to his face. He turned away from the light, which kick-started a hangoverlike headache. His head felt like it might explode when he pushed himself into a sitting position, but forgot all about the pain pulsing through his body when his head collided with something.

The object was soft but firm and quickly registered in Hawkins’s mind as a body standing over him. Human, animal or chimera, friend or foe, living or dead, he didn’t know. His reaction fit every scenario.

A shout burst from Hawkins’s mouth as he scuttled away from his visitor like a startled crab. Through blurred vision he saw the shape of a man standing still.

“Bray?” he asked, rubbing his eyes, willing them to focus. “Bennett?”

He would have been happy if it were either man.

Pain pounded within his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “Who are you?” he asked, but got no reply. He took several long, slow breaths, listening for the man’s approach, but he never moved. When the pain subsided, Hawkins slowly opened his eyes. The foliage at his feet came into focus. He lifted his head and saw the man.

Confusion gripped his mind for a moment as he looked into the eyes of the last Magellan crewmember he expected to see.

Cahill.

But then he saw the body. With a shout, Hawkins backed away even faster than before. He stopped in a sea of ferns, his head poking out like a frightened child beneath a blanket. But his horror was short lived. Seeing no immediate danger, Hawkins pulled himself to his feet, fought a moment of nausea, and then turned his attention to Cahill.

While the man’s bearded face and shaggy hair were intact, the rest of his body had been mutilated. Severely.

A pair of tattered boxer shorts and shreds of blood-soaked shirt clinging to his shoulders were all that remained of his clothes. His legs, while still connected to the torso, appeared to have been gnawed on. Eaten. In some places, the meat had been stripped to the bone. Whatever had taken his body from the netting around the Magellan had made a meal of him before stringing him up. As what? A message? A trap? Decoration? Hawkins couldn’t decide.

Cahill’s body hung suspended above the path, his feet just inches from the ground. His arms were propped up on the lines that wrapped around his chest and tied tree branches. The pose made him look like a mutilated Christ figure. But the worst part was the line holding up the body. At first, Hawkins thought it was a flexible rope, like thick bungee cord, but then he saw its origin: Cahill’s gut had been sliced open with surgical precision. He’d been strung up with his own intestines, wrapping back and forth between body and tree limbs before looping back into his open gut.

Hawkins felt a growing revolt as he realized that he’d run headlong into a taut line of intestine the night before. It’s what had swept him off his feet and slammed him to the ground. His hand went to his neck and found flakes of dried blood clinging to his skin. He frantically brushed it away.

With one last glance at Cahill’s body, his thoughts returned to the living. Joliet had been taken. Bray had fallen in the river. Bennett never left the laboratory building, but that didn’t mean he spent the night there—the kid was a mess. And Drake still lay on a pallet, burning from fever. Maybe worse.

He turned and ran up the path, quickly finding the gate. He tore it open and ran into the yard. “Bray!” he shouted, but his call was replied to with bells and bleats. The small herd of goats trotted to him, greeting him happily as though a monster hadn’t been in their midst the previous night. They should be terrified and jumpy, Hawkins thought, not indifferent.

He stopped at the river, searching its steep banks for Bray’s body.

Nothing.

He crossed the small bridge in two long steps. The goats followed him over the river, their hooves sounding like thunder in the early morning quiet as they tromped over the bridge’s wooden planks.

“Quiet!” he whispered at the animals, but they remained sanguine and oblivious. He wasn’t worried that they would give away his position—the island’s residents would be used to the goats’ clamor. He just wanted to hear someone if they replied to his calls.

He ran for the laboratory entrance. “Bray!”

The blockade of pallets was still pushed to the side. Not a good sign. He entered slowly, fists clenched. The goats waited by the door.

The hallway stood empty. “Bray! Bennett!”

No reply.

He checked the first room and found it empty, as expected. But when he checked the second room, where they’d left not only their backpacks and Drake, he found it equally as empty. The packs and Drake were gone. His pulse quickened as he checked the final two rooms and found no trace of their passing. He spun around, looking at the hallway again.

Even the dead seagulls are gone!

After a nerve-wracking and rushed search of the top two floors, Hawkins turned up nothing. The only sign of their passage was the destruction wrought on the top floor by the panther-child chimera.

As he left the building, he found himself looking into a sea of eyes similar to the creature that took Joliet. He had trouble matching their gaze, but the goats’ friendly greeting put him at ease. These animals, at least, were not killers. Feeling a little like a shepherd, Hakwins set off across the yard, eyes on the ground. He found what he was looking for twenty feet away. The rifle.

He picked up the weapon and checked it over. It seemed to be in good repair. He toggled the lever, chambering a fresh round and expelling the empty shell casing left over from the single shot he’d taken the previous night. Remembering the round still in his pocket, he took it out and loaded it into the weapon. Ten rounds. When he thought about the creatures he’d encounter so far, the weapon seemed wholly inadequate.

Hawkins tried to fathom where everyone had gone. He couldn’t see Bennett leaving on his own and Drake should have been immobilized. And Bray… Hawkins thought about checking the waterfall, but decided against it after applying a little logic. If Bray had gone over the falls and survived the drop and the croc, he would have come back here, or retreated to the Magellan. If he didn’t, well, he was dead.

“Bray!” he shouted one more time, as loudly as he could. The sudden shout froze the goats in place, silencing their bells. In the quiet that followed, Hawkins heard nothing. He searched the grass for signs of where everyone had gone, but the goats had trampled any tracks left behind.

So he focused on the only thing he did know. Joliet. She’d been taken and he knew the general direction the creature had fled. Rifle in hand, he set off across the yard.

He only got ten feet when a glint of light caught his attention. He crouched and picked up the broken blade of his knife. The handle was missing, but the blade was intact, and still razor sharp. Lifting it carefully between two fingers, he slid the blade into its sheath and buttoned it closed.

A shadow swept past him, drawing his gaze up. A lone seagull circled high overhead. Hawkins would almost welcome the chance to take out his frustrations. Just try it, you son of a bitch. As he lowered his eyes again, Hawkins noticed a detail on the roof of the laboratory. At first, he couldn’t figure out what the two cylinders were. But then they moved, each rotating in opposite directions.

Cameras!

The implications hit him fast and hard. Not only did the islands occupants have access to the outside world, but they also had a decent budget. He could see the solar panel mounted behind the cameras, allowing them to operate without a direct line of power. Sending the images wirelessly to some other part of the island would be easy. Even worse, there was a strong chance that their progress across the island was being monitored. The appearance of the creature in conjunction with the foghorn also insinuated some kind of coordinated effort. Were they being toyed with?

As disturbing as it was, the discovery of the cameras changed nothing. Whether his return to the lab had been noted or not, his goals remained the same: find his friends and get the hell off the island.

The goats followed him to the gate. As he opened and closed it behind him, the goats tried to follow through the spring-powered hatch at the bottom. He pushed it closed. “Stay here,” he growled.

The first goat pushing on the gate looked up at him. It butted its horns against the chain link, clearly not accustomed to having its freedom restricted. Hawkins lost his patience and shook the gate. “Stay here!” he shouted, then delivered a rattling kick to the chain-link fence.

“They listen if you’re nice.”

The voice spun Hawkins around so fast that he fell on his ass and dropped the rifle. He twisted his head back and forth, looking for the voice’s source, but saw no one. He snatched up the rifle and continued his search, looking over the sight. “Who’s there?”

“I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me,” the voice said. It sounded feminine. And young.

Leaves rustled over his head. He aimed the weapon up, but saw nothing.

The goats shied away, bleating as though wounded.

Hawkins ignored them.

The voice took on a more serious tone. “I could have killed you already if I wanted to.”

Not serious, Hawkins thought, impatient.

He was a quick draw if he needed to be, so he lowered the weapon in favor of getting answers.

“Why are you here?” the voice asked.

“Let me see you,” he replied.

“You should probably leave.”

No shit. He put the rifle down on the ground and raised his hands, ready to grab the rifle at the first sign of danger. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

Hawkins was now convinced he was speaking with someone young. “Why not?”

“They die.”

Hawkins fought the urge to pick up the rifle and start pulling the trigger. “Always?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you talking to me, then?”

“I sometimes break the rules.”

Hawkins forced a grin and tried to make it look real. “Me, too.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“You use a gun. That’s not very fair.”

“It keeps me alive.”

“Not against—” The voice paused for five full seconds. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” Hawkins heard movement to his left, but didn’t pick up the rifle. The sound was moving away.

“Wait!” he said. “My name is Mark Hawkins. We don’t have to be strangers.”

“Hawkins,” the voice said, trying the word out slowly. “Like the bird?”

“Like the bird,” he confirmed.

“I don’t see any bird in you,” the voice said.

Bird in me? His eyes widened. She thinks I’m a chimera. “I’m not one of those things.”

“Things?”

“A chimera,” he said.

“Things!” The young voice sounded angry and had a little growl to it.

Son of a bitch. Hawkins realized his mistake just before the face emerged from the shadows in the canopy above him. The voice—the girl—she was the panther-child chimera.

Her squinted yellow eyes glared at him. Her lithe body, part human, part cat, tensed as though preparing to pounce. Her long black tail twitched behind her.

Hawkins looked into her eyes, still fighting the urge to pick up the rifle. He’d made a horrible first impression with this… girl when they’d first met. He was determined to do better this time. He just hoped she wouldn’t tear his throat out.

“You think you’re better than me,” she said. “Everyone who comes here is the same. You’re all afraid of us because we don’t look like you. But that’s fine. You should be. We’re stronger, faster, and smarter than any of you.”

The tone of the girl’s voice had taken on that of a teenage temper tantrum, and Hawkins decided that’s what it was. So he didn’t argue, he just listened to her vent. But then her tone became darker. She slinked back into the shadows so he could only see her yellow eyes. “I don’t want to know you.”

“Wait,” he said.

She moved farther away. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

Hawkins stood. “I’m sorry.”

The panther-girl closed her eyes and disappeared. Her last words lost the edge and sounded sad more than anything. “You’ll be dead soon, anyway.”

The trees above shook, and then she was gone.

Hawkins searched the jungle. She was gone.

While he took consolation in the fact that something other than the goats didn’t want to eat him, he now had even more unanswered questions. Nothing I can do about that now, he thought, and stood.

“Hello!” a voice called. Faint. In the distance. Behind him.

Hawkins spun around and climbed up the hill, back toward the old lab.

“Where is everyone?” the voice called.

Hawkins paused at the fence, wary of the cameras. Bennett was there, walking across the wooden bridge with a severe limp. The goats gave him an unusually wide birth, which was probably a good thing. Bennett didn’t look so hot, though his face perked up when he saw Hawkins by the fence.

“Hawkins!” Bennett said a lot louder than he should have. He gave a wave and hobbled across the clearing. “Hawkins, thank God!” He tripped when he reached the fence and Hawkins had to catch him.

“Where are the others?” Hawkins asked.

“I—I don’t know.”

“What happened?”

Bennett’s eyes turned down. “I’m… not sure.”

“You were in the lab last night,” Hawkins said, trying not to let his impatience show. Bennett was injured, and shook up, but he was also the only one who might know what happened to the others. “Bray is gone. Drake is gone. All of our equipment is gone. The lab has been cleaned out.”

Bennett didn’t look up as he spoke softly. “I ran.”

“You what?”

“Ran,” Bennett said. “Into the jungle. When that thing showed up I didn’t know what to do! I saw you go down. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. So I ran. Hid in a tree overnight. Didn’t come back out until just now.”

Hawkins sighed. He was frustrated with the kid, but understood. Bennett was right. If he’d stayed, he would have been killed or taken with Joliet. He gave Bennett a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid, you did the right thing.”

Bennett began to shake, maybe from fear, maybe from adrenaline.

Hawkins took hold of his arms, which felt stronger than he would have guessed. “Bennett, you’re okay. You’re safe.”

The shaking got worse, and Hawkins worried the kid was having a seizure. But his eyes looked clear. And afraid. Wet with tears. Hawkins wasn’t exactly a fatherly type. He didn’t have those instincts, and they were never modeled to him by his father. Instead, he channeled Howie GoodTracks. “Life is full of hardships. Horrible things sometimes happen. People we love die. But in the end, it’s all heat for the furnace.”

Bennett stopped shaking and locked his eyes on Hawkins. “What?”

“Bad things refine us,” Hawkins said, completing the metaphor. “Make us stronger, so that we can overcome the challenges in our own lives. That’s what’s happening here. For you. When we get off this island, you’ll be a stronger person. A better person.”

Hawkins cringed inwardly. When GoodTracks spoke similar words to him it was because they were putting down a lame horse, not running for their lives on an island populated by killer chimeras. He doubted even GoodTracks would have something wise to say about their current situation. His mentor understood nature like few people, but there was very little natural about the island. Still, the words seemed to have done the trick.

Bennett relaxed a bit and gave a nod. He offered a lame smile. “Easy for you to say. You’re already pretty tough.”

Hawkins smiled, though it was purely for show. “Wasn’t always.”

Bennett braced himself against a palm trunk. “So, what are you doing? What’s your plan? You have one, right?”

Hawkins noted that Bennett wasn’t including himself in the questions, but didn’t point it out. “Following the trail.”

“That’s it? That’s your plan?”

Hawkins’s impatience grew again. “I don’t know if the others are alive, or even where they are. All I know is that that thing took Joliet in this direction. It left a good trail to follow, but I think it was heading in the same direction as this path.” Hawkins motioned to the path behind him. “So we’ll follow the path, find what we find, and try not to get killed. That specific enough for you?”

Bennett moved away from Hawkins and leaned against a tree. “I’ll just wait here, then.”

Hawkins closed his eyes and took a slow breath. “Bennett, I’m not sure I’ll be coming back this way. You can’t wait here. It’s not safe.”

“Wasn’t safe with you, either.”

Kid has a point.

“And wherever you end up, you’re going to have to come this way to get back to the Magellan. My ankle is twisted. I’m just going to slow you down.”

Hawkins couldn’t decide if Bennett was playing it smart or was just a coward. Either way, he had no real solid argument against Bennett finding a place to hide and lying low. He probably would have to come back this way to reach the Magellan. “Fine. But pick a spot and don’t move. If you have to piss or shit, dig a hole and bury it.”

“To hide the smell?” Bennett asked.

“A lot of predators hunt by scent,” Hawkins said. “Stay low. Stay quiet. Do not move. And stay awake. When I come back through here, I’m going to call your name once. Just once. If you don’t come out within thirty seconds, I’m going to leave.”

“You promise you’ll come back for me?” Bennett asked.

“If I’m still alive.”

Bennett gave a nod. “I trust you.” He stepped off the trail and waded into a tall stand of ferns. He ducked down and lay on his back by the base of a tree. Once the ferns stopped shaking, he was invisible. “Good?”

“Perfect.”

“I’ll try to stay here, but if I have to move, I won’t go far.”

“Good enough,” Hawkins said. He thought about warning him about the panther-child chimera, and about Cahill’s body strung up farther down the path, but decided the less he knew, the less likely he’d be to panic and do something stupid. He turned toward the trail.

Bennett’s voice stopped him for a moment. “Hawkins, good luck.”

Hawkins didn’t reply. He just followed the trail, thinking it would be a miracle if he ever saw Bennett again. He was beginning to doubt any of them would make it off the island alive.

The path before him led down the hillside. He moved slowly at first, wading past the knee-high ferns and then Cahill’s body. He considered cutting the man’s body down, but if he did that, whoever put it here would know he’d come this way. He also walked to the side of the path rather than on it. He’d rather be the tracker than the tracked.

With Cahill and the laboratory behind him, Hawkins quickened his pace. When the grade became steep, his jog became a run. When the hill leveled out, he kept on running, burning with fear for his friends. What would he do if he was the last one alive? He forgot the question when he saw signs of recent passage.

There was a footprint indented on the path, heading in the same direction. He crouched to inspect it and the motion saved his life.

With a surprised shriek the draco-snake soared over Hawkins’s head. Its wings snapped open, slowing its flight. The creature clung to a tree trunk, whipped its head around, and hissed.

Hawkins ran like an Olympic sprinter after the gun is fired. He could hear the dracos behind him. Trees shook. Shrieks grew louder. Shadows danced on the jungle floor around him. But he didn’t stop and fight. He couldn’t.

One bite, he thought. Just one bite and I’m a dead man.

The jungle ahead looked thick with brush. He’d have to plow right through and hope the draco-snakes got tangled long enough for him to elude them. His arms took the brunt of the impact as he raised them to protect his face. He felt stinging pricks all over, some sharp enough to be bites.

He shouted as the brush gave way. He spilled past the foliage barrier and fell to the ground, bathed in hot sunlight.

The cacophony of the sudden draco-snake attack fell away abruptly as Hawkins was once again expelled from their territory. He checked his body quickly, finding a multitude of scrapes, but no wounds that looked like snakebites. He also knew that if he’d been bitten, he’d already feel the effects as his blood raced through his adrenaline-charged body.

Confident he wasn’t going to die yet, Hawkins looked up at his surroundings and once again found himself baffled. He stood on the edge of an expansive clearing—a pasture, really—complete with a herd of cows. Thirty head. And each one of them was looking at him.

The herd stood on the muddy bank of a small lake. He realized he’d seen both the lake and green pastureland from the top of the pillbox.

A wave of agitation worked its way through the herd. The cows mooed and stomped their feet. And then, one by one, they backed away from the water. When the source of their distress was revealed, Hawkins shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The bull stood as tall as Hawkins’s six feet and rippled with muscles upon muscles. He recognized the breed as a Belgian Blue, famous for its double muscling that made them look like bovine bodybuilders. The brown-coated monstrous bull easily weighed more than a ton. But none of that was as frightening as the look in its eyes. As the herd’s protector, the bull clearly saw him as a threat. Hawkins took a step away from the bull, but stopped when his back struck the jungle’s foliage and set the draco-snakes to shrieking.

To his left was open field in which he could never outrun the bull. To his right was the lake and whatever dangers lurked within its waters. But both choices were better than the certain death waiting in front and behind him. Field or lake?

The bull didn’t give him time to decide. With a snort and a stomp of its hoof, the bull lowered its sharp, curved horns and charged.