Island 731

50.

Bennett screamed as he was lifted off the ground. Kaiju gripped the man’s thigh in her aye-aye hand and his torso with the polar bear claw. His guts hung from his sliced-open belly. Her massive muscles twitched as she pulled. Bennett’s wail reached an impossible pitch as he came apart.

And then both of them ceased to exist.

Hawkins had no idea what explosive Bennett had used, or how much, but it seemed like overkill. Their bodies were instantly vaporized, becoming a cloud of pink before being enveloped by flame and consumed by smoke.

The blast knocked nearby palms to the ground and sent Hawkins flying. He felt the landing, but only briefly.

When he opened his eyes, he found the barrel of an M4 carbine assault rifle with a laser sight aimed at his forehead. His vision spun and his ears rang. There were people standing above him, at least eight mercenaries.

Above the ringing in his ears, he could hear the chop of helicopters, but no gunfire. The battle, it seemed, was over. An Apache roared past overhead and began circling the clearing.

“Who are you?” Hawkins groaned. He pushed himself up onto his elbows. The barrel of the M4 settled on his forehead.

“Don’t move,” the soldier ordered. No threat was required. The M4 spoke loudly enough. Hawkins stopped, but didn’t lie back down. They were going to kill him, of that he had no doubt. But there was a reason they hadn’t already. He looked up at the soldier. The man wore black gear from head to toe. His vest and belt were thick with knives, ammo clips, and a variety of grenades. Enough to wage a one-man war. Hawkins would have liked to look the man in the eyes, but they were concealed behind a pair of reflective sunglasses. Even the man’s lower face was concealed by a black mask.

“Move aside,” said a gruff voice.

The soldiers parted for the newcomer. Like the rest of them, a black uniform concealed his identity, but his voice was older and held authority. This was the man in charge. He stood over Hawkins, turning his head from side to side as he looked him over.

“Huh,” the man said. He reached into a pocket on his vest and took out a stack of laminated cards bound by a metal ring. He flipped through them, occasionally pausing to glance at Hawkins’s face.

Hawkins realized the man was looking at a stack of faces, like the cards used to identify terrorists post-9/11. Only the faces on these cards were Island 731 staff and scientists. “You won’t find me.”

“I’m starting to see that.” The man lowered the cards. “Who the hell are you?”

Hawkins nearly didn’t answer, but decided it couldn’t hurt. With the Magellan still floating in the lagoon, withholding his identity wouldn’t protect the others if they managed to escape.

“Mark Hawkins. I’m a crewmember on board the Magellan.”

“That the ship anchored in the bay?”

Hawkins nodded. “We were brought here against our will. The crew was tortured, murdered, and experimented on.”

The man shook his head. He squatted down next to Hawkins, removed his glasses, and pulled down his mask.

Dammit, Hawkins thought, now they’re definitely going to kill me.

The man had a salt-and-pepper, close-cropped beard. His pale eyes were intense, but held a hint of remorse. “Are there any other survivors?”

“None,” Hawkins said without hesitation.

“He’s lying, sir,” one of the other soldiers said. “We saw three more flee into the jungle to the south. Reno and Dolan are on them.”

“Check on their status,” the older man commanded.

The soldier tapped his ear and spoke. “Action Team Beta, report.”

Hawkins heard nothing, but could tell the man was listening. “Castle, they’re closing on targets. Requesting permission to engage.”

Hawkins closed his eyes and rubbed his head. He couldn’t think of any way out of this mess, for himself or the others. Even if they made it to the disguised boat, the Apache helicopters no doubt had heat sensors that could easily pick up their bodies, or a warm engine, against the cool backdrop of the Pacific. Then the name registered. Castle. “Michael Castle.”

The man’s head snapped toward him. His eyebrows furrowed. “Where the fuck did you hear that name?”

Hawkins cringed. Had he just signed their death warrants? Instead of answering the question, he asked one of his own. It was a bit of a leap, based on what Green had told him, but the way he commanded these men left little doubt that he was actually the man in charge. “How long have you been running the program on this island?”

The man tensed, but answered. “Since you were still in diapers. Had a good thing going. Real progress. Looked away for a few years and things fell to shit. Too many balls in the air.”

Too many balls in the air? Hawkins wondered. Are there other secret research programs like this one?

“How do you justify it?” Hawkins asked, growing angry.

“Justify it?” Castle said and then chuckled. “Justify it. Are you that naïve? The modern world wouldn’t exist without research done by people like me. Medicine, surgical techniques, the weapons that keep you and your pals safe, and just about every damn thing you buy in a store, including the grocery store, has a history that would make you squirm. Human experimentation is part of human evolution. Those of us who can stomach it are servants, not criminals.” He shook his head again like he couldn’t believe he had to explain.

“And DARPA? Are they a part of this?” The knowledge wouldn’t do Hawkins any good, but he wanted to know and every second they spoke was an extra second the others had to make their escape.

The man laughed. “DARPA is all brains and no balls. They won’t push to the limits, and they won’t question a black program that’s hardwired into the Mansfield Amendment, which keeps the organization focused on defense and guarantees their generous funding.”

“Sir,” the man with the radio said. “Action Team Beta is waiting.”

Castle looked into Hawkins’s eyes and shook his head again. He stood, pulled his mask back up, and put his glasses back on. “They’re clear to engage. No survivors.”

Hawkins looked to the sky, thinking of Howie. What advice would he give now? Take it like a man? Beg for mercy? Pray for a mira—

Hawkins’s eyes went wide. He twisted his neck one way, and then the other, feigning a last stretch. As he looked to the right, he found his miracle.

The older man drew his sidearm and pointed it at Hawkins’s head. “I’m sorry about this. Really. You’re misguided, but brave. And I respect that. You just have really shitty luck.”

Hawkins looked up, staring into the man’s sunglasses. “Makes two of us.”

The man’s face was covered, but his body language showed confusion as the gun lowered a notch. “What are you—”

“Sir!” someone shouted. “We have incoming!”

The man spun to look.

Hawkins knew he should have run right then, but his eyes were drawn back to the spectacle. The wave of turtle-shelled spiders had not only crested the hill, but had closed in on their position. The hillside shifted with living black all the way to the top, where more of the chimeras emerged over the ridge. It took them a while to scale the steep hillside, but now on the down slope, they ran and leapt with speed and agility unlike anything Hawkins, or these soldiers, had ever seen before.

“Choose your targets. Wait for them to be in range!” the older man shouted before tapping his ear. “All Eagles converge on my position. Shoot everything that is not human.” He holstered his sidearm and took his own M4 carbine from his shoulder.

Hawkins backed away from the line of men. He knew they’d forgotten him for the moment, but didn’t want to remind them by making noise. A moment later he could have sung “The Star-Spangled Banner” and no one would have heard him.

The slow pop of gunfire grew in intensity as the chimeras closed in. Hawkins saw several well-placed shots strike spiders’ exposed heads, killing them quickly. But where one fell, five more filled the gap. Hawkins doubted they had enough rounds even if every shot was a kill.

When the spiders closed in, several of them leapt into the air. That’s when the soldiers unleashed the weapon that might save them. Twin columns of flame arced back and forth. Squeals filled the air as charred spiders emerged from the other side, their burned husks twitching.

The commander tracked one of the flaming spiders as it crossed over his head. He shot it once when it landed. Then he saw Hawkins slowly backing away, fifty feet between them. He raised his M4 and pulled the trigger. But the shot went high as the man was struck from behind. He fell to the ground, a BFS clinging to his back. One of the soldiers shouted, “Sir!” and gripped the shell, yanking the creature away, but not before the creature got in three quick jabs with its stinger.

As the line of heavily armed soldiers fell to the wave of chimeras, Hawkins ran. It wouldn’t be long before the monsters turned their attention to him. An Apache helicopter appeared above, so close that the rotor wash nearly pushed his weakened body to the ground.

He looked up and saw the minigun swivel in his direction. But it didn’t fire.

The weapon then turned up and opened fire. The roar stung Hawkins’s still-ringing ears, but he was thankful for it, and for the commander’s order—“shoot everything that is not human.” The man had unknowingly saved Hawkins’s life.

A barrage of missiles launched from the helicopter, tearing up the ground behind Hawkins. He stumbled into the jungle, pushed by a continuous string of explosive pressure waves. He heard two more helicopters arrive behind him and open fire. The airborne units had nothing to fear from the chimeras, but he doubted they could kill them all.

The thick jungle tore at him, clinging to his clothes and scraping his wounds as though the island didn’t want to let him go. But he pushed through it all, numb to the pain and desperate to reach the coast. The trees began to thin, revealing blue sky ahead. He felt a flash of hope, but then saw two figures silhouetted in the light. Reno and Dolan. Action Team Beta.

Hawkins slowed his approach, opting for stealth over speed. One of the men lowered a pair of binoculars and pointed out to sea. He took a large sniper rifle from his shoulder and lay down. The second man lay down slightly behind the sniper, looking through a spotter scope.

Action Team Beta was a sniper team. Hawkins rounded the pair from the right, quickening his pace as much as he dared. He emerged from the jungle onto the solid stone of the coast and sprinted toward the men, his steps muffled by the hard stone. The ocean, covered in a layer of filth to the horizon, lay to his right. The jungle to his left. And the two soldiers straight ahead. He could hear them discussing the wind, range, and angle.

“Clear to fire,” the spotter said.

The sniper’s finger moved to the trigger.

Hawkins reached them a moment later. He put all of his energy into the kick and struck the long sniper rifle barrel with the top of his foot. The rifle flew from the surprised soldier’s hands as he shouted in pain. The kick had also broken his trigger finger. Hawkins spun on the man and kicked hard again while his partner jumped to his feet. The second kick caught the man hard in the temple, knocking him unconscious.

Hawkins turned on the man’s partner, but the soldier was too fast. He’d already drawn his pistol and was leveling it at Hawkins’s chest when a long, black tail wrapped around the man’s neck and constricted.

The gun went off.

Hawkins fell to his knees, watching the man’s eyes go wide. The soldier stumbled back and aimed the gun over his shoulder.

Hawkins looked toward the trash-covered ocean. It was a fifteen-foot drop over a sheer cliff to the water. It was preferable to facing the chimera when it was done with the soldier. But even if he made it to the water, he was done. He lifted a hand from his side and found it covered with blood. But he’d rather drown than become an incubator for parasitic chimeras. He shuffled toward the cliff’s edge.

Then he saw something strange about the BFS’s tail. It was covered in black fur. He paused, watching as a pair of small hands reached up and twisted the gun from the soldier’s hands. This wasn’t a BFS. The man’s eyes bulged as his face turned purple. He fell to his knees, and then flat on his face. Lilly clung to his back. Her yellow eyes, once horrifying to Hawkins, looked at him with concern. “Hurt?”

“You could say that,” he replied with a grunt of pain.

She looked down and saw his wound. A flash of concern crossed her face, but was quickly replaced with determination. She stood next to Hawkins, put a steadying hand under his arm, and gripped his belt with the other. With a quick tug, she lifted him off the ground and put him on his feet.

How strong is this kid? Hawkins wondered.

“We have to hurry,” she said. “I can hear them coming.”

Lilly half guided, half carried Hawkins down the sloping rocks of the coast. They soon came to a small path that led down to the water. Waves crashed against the cliff wall, but the tide was going out and the waves were small. The layer of trash began thirty feet from shore as the receding tide dragged it away.

“Hurry!” Lilly urged, and pushed him into the water.

Hawkins felt his consciousness fading as he slipped beneath the surface. But then he was yanked up again as Lilly pulled him by his shirt collar. The girl kicked with her feet, but also beat the water with her tail. Hawkins lay limp on his back, his body incapable of movement. He just stared at the blue sky above him.

When a black shape appeared above, he mistook it for a helicopter. Then his eyes focused and he saw it for what it was—a chimera spider, legs splayed open, leaping for his face. “Lilly!” he shouted.

Hawkins’s eyes remained open as he was pulled beneath the water. He saw the spider strike the water where his face had been just moments before. The creature slipped beneath the surface. Its legs scrambled for purchase and found nothing. Its tail twitched madly, but failed to propel the creature through the water. It sank down, spasmed twice, and fell still. The BFSs couldn’t swim.

But Lilly could. As she pulled him forward, he saw her toes splayed wide, revealing black webbing between them. She held him beneath her body, gripping his arms. Gills on the sides of her neck opened and closed.

Just like Kam, he thought as his vision began to fade.

He looked into her eyes, her inhuman but kind eyes, and smiled.

She returned his smile, flashing a pair of sharp, white canines and a contrasting duo of deep dimples. Then she arched her body and turned up. Hawkins coughed violently as they emerged into the air once more. He felt two pairs of hands reach under his arms and pull him up. He fell back with a wet slap and found himself on the deck of a strange-looking, trash-covered boat. The hard deck felt impossibly comfortable. Joliet appeared above him. He could see her speaking, but couldn’t hear her. He managed to smile up at her for a moment, and then closed his eyes.