Pulse

SIXTEEN

Not more than twenty minutes later, after dodging and plowing right over hundreds of small corpses, King came to a dock. He'd been so close. The single boat tied to the dock had been burned to a char, just like the SUV. They were covering their tracks. But burning a single boat could not produce the amount of smoke he'd seen. King stopped the boat's engine and coasted to the dock. He tied off, slipped on his backpack, and slid into the jungle, his M1 Garand leading the way.

Following a well-groomed path, King found the jungle floor clear of all but the tallest and thickest trees. King looked up at the thick canopy. Clearing the jungle to build, but keeping the natural camouflage, King thought. Smart.

The terrain dropped and a valley opened up. Inside the valley lay a smoldering ruin of what was once a very large, modern facility. King took little comfort from the lack of movement. Something awful had taken place here. It wasn't the smoke still sifting free from the ashes or the coppery taste of blood in the air. It was a gut feeling. The hair on his arms raised. His spine tingled.

A wailing shriek, the same as the previous night, ripped through the jungle. It was louder, closer than he'd heard before. He knelt, raised the Ml to his shoulder, and waited for some sign of movement. Something was out there. Something that had somehow survived the slaughter of the previous night. King's breath caught in his throat when he realized the only thing that could have survived the mass killing was the killer.

King moved slowly down the hill, taking aim at any hint of movement or ideal hiding spot. The sound did not repeat and he detected no signs of life. He had yet to be discovered. His need for clues outweighed his primal instinct to run as he stood inside the ruins, picking out details. A few squares of linoleum flooring survived the blaze. The partial remains of a three-pronged, type-B outlet — American.

After a half hour of slow, methodical searching he found little else. He'd heard a few more shrieks, but they sounded more distant. Still, he kept his guard up. He ended his search at the remains of a helipad. Had Pierce been taken out of here by air? Had he just missed him again? Or was his body among the ashes? King forced the thoughts from his mind and looked down at the charred complex. It was vast, taking up several acres, and given the amount of ash and rubble, had stood more than a couple stories tall. Probably reached right up to the canopy, he thought.

A loud slap on the helipad pavement spun him around, rifle at the ready. A body lay writhing at his feet. A thirteen-foot boa constrictor perfectly camouflaged for jungle living twisted on itself as blood oozed from several two-inch-long punctures. King looked up and was surprised to see trees over the helipad. Looking to the right he saw the trees clear at an angle, reaching out to the sky. His eyebrows rose. The helicopters would have come in at an angle through the trees, allowing the helipad to remain covered by the canopy. Gutsy and a bit extreme. Whoever ran this place did not want to be found. He realized they'd probably detected his approach on the river the day before and bugged out.

The snake twitched madly, then died.

King knelt by its body and inspected the wounds. Just like the jaguar. Where junks of flesh hadn't been bitten away, dozens of pairs of deep, straight wounds covered the body. A wet shriek from above, followed by a second fleshy whack made King jump. A large lump of short reddish-brown fur smacked the helipad next to the snake. King couldn't see what kind of animal it was, but the thing was clearly dead. Upon impact its body had burst, spilling guts and gore out over the cement.

He aimed the Garand up, looking for some kind of predator lurking in the trees. Whatever it was, it had returned and no doubt knew of his presence. Worse, he stood near two of its kills…its food. It would want them back. He felt sure.

As King stepped back, his boot squished through the spilled gore. He looked at it and realized the guts didn't look right. There were no intestines or other internal organs, just chunks of flesh. As he stepped closer King realized that only the creature's stomach had burst. The mass of flesh spilled from its barrel-shaped body, some scaled, some hairy, some unrecognizable, came from whatever it had eaten. A sickening feeling took hold of his stomach. Using the rifle as a prod, King nudged the dog-sized creature, rolling it over. He recognized it. A capybara. The largest rodent on earth, it sported two sets of massive incisors, above and below. The source of the odd wounds and the overnight slaughter. This was the predator!

Before he could think about how a vegetarian rodent could accomplish such a thing, the capybara twitched. After falling nearly seventy-five feet onto concrete and bursting open, the thing was still alive. Wondering if it was his imagination, King leaned in with the Garand and poked its head. The reaction was instantaneous. With a shriek, the capybara snapped its jaws and bit the barrel of the rifle, severely chipping one of its teeth. The scream, the same that had been unnerving him since the previous night, coupled with the sudden savagery caused him to stumble back. The rodent yanked its head to the side and tore the rifle from his hands.

As the capybara began lifting its body from the ground, King did the only thing he could think of. He ran. To his amazement and horror, the capybara shrieked and charged after him, guts and the partially eaten remains of its victims dragging from its still open belly.

Working his way through the burned-out complex, King hoped to lose the creature, but it seemed to never tire and was surprisingly fast, even with its stomach open. He never looked back at it though. He could hear it fine. Its claws clicked on the hard, burned hallway floors. Its teeth snapped loudly, like a manic chatter. And its shriek pierced the air like a siren.

Atahualpa's words returned to him. His description of McCabe.

What she'd done to those people. The teeth marks on the animals here might be different, but the results were the same. He pictured McCabe, feral and savage like the capybara and grimaced as he realized Atahualpa had been telling the truth. As his lungs began to burn from sucking in deep breaths of the acrid air, King realized he needed to end the chase or he'd end up another gnawed corpse.

He drew his .45, stopped, and spun around. He dropped to one knee, took aim, and froze at the sight. Froth sprayed from the rodent's mouth with every breath. Its eyes were peeled wide, unblinking, and zeroed in on him. Its teeth chattered endlessly. Rapid-fire Morse code. The hair on its back stood on end like an angry dog's. And its entrails, now covered in ash, whipped between its legs as it ran. The thing had become l50 pounds of savagery.

As the capybara closed the distance between them, King wondered what kind of person could create something like this. It was obviously the result of some genetics experiment gone awry. But to what end? And why let them loose? As King looked down the .45's sight, meeting eyes with the killing machine, it became clear.

To kill me, he thought.

Not today

King pulled the trigger sending a .45-caliber bullet into the capy-bara's side. Flesh exploded on contact. The giant rodent fell and rolled through the ash. King stood and stepped closer. He took aim again. The wound was healing. As the wound sealed the capybara shook and frothed in a psychotic rage, even more savage than before. Before the creature could rise again, King took aim and pulled the trigger twice more, effectively reducing the beast's head to pulp. The body fell still.

King covered his mouth with a bandanna as he breathed heavily. He leaned over the dead creature and shook his head. Three .45-caliber rounds. Three. One was enough to kill most creatures on four legs, let along a giant tailless rat. But it had taken three… two to the head. A distant shriek tore him from his thoughts.

Another one.

A reply came from behind, closer. Then a third.

Damn. King ran for the helipad where the Garand rifle still lay next to the dead constrictor. He'd need it if he was going to survive the hour. A shriek tore through the clearing. Hell, he'd be lucky to survive another ten minutes.