Final Scream (23 page)

Nick paid Kauai’s dense rainforest a visit within shouting distance of the secret Chrysalis Genetic Bio-engineering Lab. Former lab. The stifling humidity seized his breath and sucked the sweat from his pores. He conjured a frosty bottle of water and quaffed it like there was no tomorrow. He invoked another vision, and the plastic bottle was on its way to the local island landfill. An assortment of hidden birds hollered, whistled, and sang, producing a cacophony that nearly smothered the distant shouts and equipment rumbling at the destroyed lab.

He wiped his damp face and hiked the short distance to the active site. The overhead canopy of tree leaves filtered out most of the sweltering sunlight as he walked out of the jungle and into the large cleared area. Two FBI agents holding automatic rifles ordered Nick to halt. He raised his hands and requested that one of them remove his FBI identification from his shirt pocket. They complied, and after scrutinizing the special FBI operative picture ID commissioned by the president of the United States, the guard returned it to Nick and asked him to lower his arms. Earlier, Nick and
Geronimo
fabricated a plausible story in back of the Chrysalis hangar before he teleported to Kauai. “The president assigned me the task of inspecting this site for signs of toxic chemicals that might ultimately poison the island’s water supply. The president’s immediate concern is the population in Poipu, Princeville, and Kapaa.”

The guards’ FBI field supervisor arrived, and Nick reiterated his fictional account. The supervisor led Nick to an open van filled with spelunking supplies and showed Nick how to slip into a disposable, yellow hazmat biohazard suit that would protect him from eighty kinds of toxic chemicals. The hooded mask was equipped with a reusable, self-contained breathing apparatus. Nick hid Crow’s laptop between two unopened supply cartons before waddling to the crater.

The lava tube was strung with high intensity lights, making it easy for Nick to climb down the ladders into the blackened crater. Upon reaching the bottom level, Nick checked out the crumpled, partially melted elevator and wondered what kind of fire would soften steel like that. He moved on without an answer, dodging piles of scorched rubble and blackened skeletons. A team of FBI CSI agents wore matching biohazard outfits while probing the wreckage for clues, too.

Several offices built into the sides of gigantic lava tube were reduced to ashen barriers, and the fire had consumed their furnishings and equipment beyond recognition or retrieval. There were no signs of offices in the center of the tube. Nick spent a solid half-hour searching for clues as to what happened in the bio-lab, but he rolled snake-eyes.

He was about to throw in the towel before he wandered into the lowest cavernous area. He directed his flashlight over an enormous armored cage and its open warped and steaming door.
Was the area beyond the door big enough to house E.V.A.N.?

Nick looked into the smoldering enclosure, but the vast space was vacant. No charred skeleton. No large pile of ash. He stepped back and attempted to calm his spiking heartbeat. If that space was E.V.A.N.’s prison before the explosion, the beast was one big extraterrestrial!

But the hypothesis presented major problems.
If the cage contained E.V.A.N., then who was crazy enough to let it out? And who controlled it once it left its prison?

That last vexing question steered his reasoning to the next enigmas.
Why did the saboteurs destroy the lab in the first place? To cover the theft of E.V.A.N.? Then who stole E.V.A.N. this time?
Certainly not the Pentagon traitors. The Chrysalis lab was busy creating genetically altered, superior biological freaks scarier than the Frankenstein monster. Strasser wouldn’t destroy the facility because it was profitable research.
Would the
Superior
raze it?
Nick doubted it. She would be financially set for life if she maintained the status quo. So that left Nick’s suspect list blank.

“Hey, you!” One of the CSI workers motioned for Nick to join him.

Once Nick arrived, the CSI agent handed him a large device.

“What’s this?” Nick asked. He had never seen anything like it before.

“We’ve been studying the danged thing for a half-hour, and all we came up with is that it’s some kind of sophisticated detonator. It’s not American, so it might have been developed by terrorists.”

“It’s pretty sophisticated for your average terrorist to be toting around,” Nick said.

One of the other agents nodded. “That’s what we were thinking, too. Hell, we’ve worked crime scenes with every detonator known to man. But this…”

After a closer inspection of the strange markings, Nick had a pretty good idea where the device came from. “Doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen, either. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say it was…”

The four men looked at each other. The first one finally spoke up.

“Alien?” he ventured.

“Yeah. I know it sounds Looney Toons, but I don’t have another explanation.”

“We checked and rechecked the blast radius and concluded this device isn’t from our world.”

“So we’re with you, man,” one of the agents said quietly.

“Yeah, it’s from outer space, all right,” another agent chimed in.

Nick started pacing. “We know it’s mostly an alien device, but will anyone else buy our theory? If I were you guys, I’d say the detonator is Chinese and put that in your report,” he suggested, not anxious for these men to start a South Pacific alien stampede. The CSI agents muttered their agreement, placed the device on the floor, and began rummaging through the remains for more evidence. Nick quietly moved away and considered the significance of their find.
Why would aliens want to kidnap E.V.A.N.?
He understood where he had to go next for the answer.

He fervently hoped Gabriella and the others were already there, setting a trap for the
Superior
, while he covertly rescued Noah.

After their prearranged act with Nick at the
Lamplighter
restaurant, Gabriella, Neo, and Crow picked up their to-go meals and ate them in Gabriella’s kitchen, where they mostly pushed their food around the plates. Each was so deep in thought that food was barely a consideration. They soon quit trying and dumped the majority of their dinners in the garbage.

After clearing the table, they were ready to discuss their phase of Nick’s plan, which ultimately was the most dangerous—trapping the mysterious witch called the
Superior
. Even Gabriella’s post-dinner ironic quip about Nick’s perpetual promise to take her for a romantic South Pacific trip failed to elicit a snicker.

So Gabriella got down to business and conjured an array of assault weapons. Neo was like a kid in a candy store—he didn’t know which one to choose. Fully automatic M-16s. Handheld M32 MGL Grenade launchers. Heckler and Koch HK45C military pistols.

“Good enough?” Gabriella asked him, tongue in cheek.

“Abso-friggin’-lutely!” he exclaimed.

Crow wasn’t as gung-ho about the weapons as Neo, because he basically wasn’t the soldier type. When required, he could hold his own in a light skirmish to ensure mission success, so he sighed and selected two automatic pistols with holsters, leaving the big-bang hardware for his partner.

Excusing herself, Gabriella went to her bedroom and changed into her black Kundzean armor that would shield her from anything Earth’s enemies could throw at her. It had been a gift from her first cousin, Garvin, who still called the Kundze dimension his home. Her vulnerability was reduced to her head, which she protected with a spell. She studied her warrior reflection in the mirror. The problem with wearing the form hugging armor was that it displayed every curve, bulge, and indentation. She shrugged. All in all, she could have looked worse.

She turned away, hoping the armor would protect her from alien weaponry.

Neo was armed to the teeth and resembled a black Rambo, while Crow looked like an Old West gunfighter with the pair of .45 pistols strapped to both hips. Neo wolf whistled when Gabriella bounded down the stairs.

She blushed. “You’d better not let your wife hear you carry on like that.”

Neo laughed. “Believe me, girl, I know better than that. Liz would skin me alive.”

Crow didn’t crack a smile.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

“I’m … I’ve lost contact with
Geronimo
, and it makes me uneasy,” he groused.

Gabriella waved her hand, and an Apple Watch appeared on his wrist. “You happy now?”

A huge smile split his somber face from ear to ear. “You bet! Thanks.”

She addressed them both. “We’re all aware of our jobs and what to watch out for when we hit the island, right?”

Both nodded grimly.

“Then let’s join hands and get this show on the road!” With that, they left the kitchen and reappeared on the side of Riai Island’s dormant volcano, below where the winged creatures vanished with Noah.

The island was choked with smoke and cloaked in darkness from Terror Island’s profuse volcanic ash. The threesome was half hidden in waist deep understory a few yards from the jungle’s boundary. The topography from that point up was barren rock and sporadic thistles sprouting through narrow fissures. Gabriella was glad it wasn’t raining; otherwise, they would be caustically painted ash gray.

A sooty gloom pervaded the thick jungle and concealed them from any human cameras or alien spies. Thick spreading trees, including the koa, guava, and octopus trees, sheltered them from a lot of the drifting ash and glowing windblown embers. The jungle floor carpeted with large ferns made Neo extremely nervous, because he couldn’t see the critters moving around his feet.

Crow checked in with
Geronimo
before they began their ascent and to confirm the supercomputer had pinpointed their positions from the Apple Watch’s GPS signal.
Geronimo
had established their positions but didn’t update them on Nick’s current location. Crow knew better than to ask because someone could hack into their conversation.

A series of Terror Island explosions rocked Riai Island so hard that Crow fell below the ferns as dust and small pebbles rained down from the volcano’s rim. Neo slipped an arm around Gabriella’s waist and helped her remain standing until the quake ended. Even more fiery embers bombarded the side of the volcano.

“Let’s start climbing before there’s another one knocks us for a loop,” Neo shouted above the rumbling din as he yanked Crow to his feet and then brushed his clothes off.

Gabriella and Crow eagerly agreed.

Gabriella conjured three filtered gas masks so they wouldn’t cough from the heavy airborne ash content. They slipped them over their heads and tightened the rear strap to seal out any small particulates. Neo gave her a thumbs up, turned, and hiked upward; they followed closely behind so they wouldn’t become separated.

It was not impossible for them to monitor the skies or what lurked above them as they ascended the steep slope, and they counted on the grimy atmosphere to shield them, too. The climb was grueling, but the deteriorating conditions near the top made their trek even more precarious, causing them to advance one cautious step after another.

An hour later, the group closed in on the rim when an enormous black silhouette appeared out of nowhere and glided right at them. Before they even caught sight of the flying menace, it snatched Crow without decelerating. Neo shoved Gabriella down and fired at a second shadowy figure darting at them from the murky haze. The bullets didn’t faze it as it maintained its whistling velocity and seized Neo.

How were their assailants able to see through the dense, sooty fog?
Before she could contemplate an answer, a third glider emerged from the ashen sky.

Gabriella thought about magically shooting the third creature out of the sky, but she reasoned she wouldn’t know where the creatures took Crow and Neo. She couldn’t free her friends if she couldn’t find them. So Gabriella made a split-second decision and allowed the third flyer to swoop down and pluck her off the volcano. She was literally flying blind in the concentrated ash, unable to see where the creature was taking her.

She peered out through her gas mask at the approaching opening below the volcano’s rim. It was blacker than the sky. The foremost flaw in her strategy was what she would do if Neo and Crow were already dead.
How could she set a trap for the
Superior
while imprisoned by hostile aliens?

Gabriella forced her fears aside and elected to cross that bridge if and when she came to it.

Nick’s venture inside the ruins of the destroyed Chrysalis lab answered a few of his questions, including
who controlled E.V.A.N. upon his release.
The aliens. After all, the cloned beast was not of this world either.

But were the winged aliens responsible for the lab’s destruction and mass carnage?
If so, Nick’s cousin was a dead man walking. The more he mulled it over, the more Nick reasoned that the flyers might not be the only aliens in the vicinity of Terror Island. There was a realistic chance another species rescued E.V.A.N. and blew the lab to Kingdom Come. Without the large rhino-like extraterrestrial, there would be no more military-financed genetic experiments. The Pentagon was screwed, and another lethal result like Nick’s
Mortal Eclipse
brother Thomas was avoided.

Nick returned to the scorched surface, turned in his Hazmat suit, and expressed his thanks to the FBI supervisor for his cooperation. Nick pronounced the site free of toxic chemical contaminants before returning to the jungle where he had first appeared on Kauai. He leaned against a koa tree trunk to line-up his priorities. Once he arrived on Riai Island, there wouldn’t be time for deliberation. Only action.

Did Gabriella, Neo, and Crow set the trap to catch the
Superior
?
He hoped so. A possible shootout with the aliens was dangerous enough, but dueling with another clever witch like Donna Lake could be deadly. Hopefully, they caught her.

Nick stretched. He imagined the aliens that destroyed the secret lab and abducted E.V.A.N. used the heavy ash for cover when they returned to Riai Island. He trusted his friends avoided those aliens, but there was one simple way to find out. He opened his laptop and contacted
Geronimo
.

“Yes, White Explorer,”
Geronimo
greeted him. “What can I do for you?”

He asked about his friends’ well-being.

“I am fearful for their lives.”

“What?” Nick exploded.

“Cool your jets, Nick Bellamy. The winged aliens have captured Crow, Gabriella, and Neo. I have a fix on Crow’s Apple Watch GPS signal inside the volcano, but it is very weak.”

Crow had an Apple Watch?
That was news to Nick. “So they’re somewhere inside the Riai Island volcano?”

“That is correct.”

“Shit!”

“Precisely.” The computer paused. “I have other news for you. I reviewed hours of video from the military satellite in fixed orbit above the Terror Island vicinity, and I observed an earlier winged alien carrying a familiar woman into the Riai Island volcano—at least I believe it was a woman. After I zoomed in on her, I noticed the strange looking wasn’t bound and gagged, so I concluded this … the woman is not their prisoner, so she must be an ally.”

“You said
familiar
woman. Who is she?”

“She was a Wicker person, so I conclude she is Natalie Wright, your cousin.”

“Bad news all the way around,” Nick grumbled.
Natalie? An alien ally?

“I am sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

“As a matter of fact, there is. Have you detected any military or civilian movement toward Riai Island?”

“I have. After the pyroclastic flow destroyed the three Blackhawks above Terror Island, the battleship backed off and anchored three miles to the southeast away from the ash laden wind. As soon as the battleship was settled, a flotilla of smaller boats appeared from behind a northwest island and moved toward Riai Island. I presume they wanted to hide from the ship’s radar,”
Geronimo
reported.

“And which side of the Riai Island volcano did Gabriella, Neo, and Crow materialize on?”

“The south side.”

“Strange. I would’ve thought the boats would’ve acted as an alien diversion to the group’s presence.”

“I would have, too. Hold on!”
Geronimo
bellowed suddenly. “I am afraid my creator is now dead. I have lost his GPS signal.”

Grief and rage engulfed Nick.
If Crow was dead, then what about Gabriella? Neo?
He sensed his alter ego’s enzymes stir within him. It was time to seek revenge and end the
Superior’s
venomous plot.

He closed the laptop and checked that his sidearm was loaded. It was.
There was going to be hell to pay inside the Riai Island volcano!

Nick was ready to teleport to there when his smartphone rang. He was tempted to ignore the call until he glanced at the Caller ID.

Dammit!

He needed to answer it.

The person’s input could be vital to his
Final Scream
investigation.

Nick swiped the smartphone screen and listened.

He was immediately treated to another unforeseen bombshell.

The normally calm caller was completely freaked out!