Jurassic Dead (12 page)

24.

Adranos Island

The Jeep followed roughly in the path of the other tracks, and Alex had no trouble keeping the trail despite the lack of a true road in more than a few places, as the Jeep tore in and out of foliage, around great roots, jutting stones, rockslides and muddy creek overflows. It was sometime around the twentieth minute, just as he narrowly avoided tumbling over a ridge at the scenic vista overlooking the valley and the distant volcano that Alex had an unsettling thought.

He slowed and considered the vista, at once feeling like Frodo gazing off toward Mt. Doom, and feeling just as lost and inconsequential in this impossible quest. He stopped the Jeep and over the low idling, he listened.

Where was the T. rex?

Did it move that fast, carrying its human-zombie cargo? Were they already down there somewhere, hauling across the open land, or…

He shivered and looked back into the overgrowth and the woods, the hills covered with hiding places. Maybe it had found other prey, local denizens and wildlife to consume. Was it just a ravenous killing machine, did it need blood or meat to keep its energy up, or was biting and chewing just a byproduct of the virus? What were the microbe’s methods of transference and reproduction?

Alex didn’t know, but there was one thing he was sure of, one thing that kept nagging at the back of his mind.

This
T. rex
—it didn’t need oxygen. No heart, no lung functionality. Underwater? No problem. It did have a voracious appetite and an insatiable drive for mayhem. It had broken free when the tranqs wore off, and it came looking for food.
So then what about…

A rustling brought Alex’s senses into focus, and his head twisted back toward a section of the forest. A tree bending. A branch snapping. A scrambling sound.

What about the other dinosaurs?

#

Without even being aware of it, Alex shifted back into drive and eased off the clutch. He saw something weird and out of place. A color shift of something that looked like a giant leaf: green one moment, shifting to reddish ocher the next.

What was it his father had said about the other species they had found? The
Cryolophosaurus
? That it had some ornamental feature, like a crown, something that could mimic the color surroundings, or served a more basic function besides being ornamental—like used for attracting mates, or possibly even for combat?

He floored it and the Jeep took off, an instant before something burst out of hiding. Something with a flurry of swiping talons and snapping teeth. Alex got a glimpse of jet black eyes, ancient and unfeeling, driven purely by hunger. Another glimpse of ragged flesh, huge chunks taken out of the thing’s hide, protruding ribs and glistening organs.

A stench came with it, old and retching, foul beyond anything he had ever smelled, like frozen, virulent death had just warmed over.

It swiped at the Jeep with its massive jaws, much smaller than the
T. rex
, but wickedly fast. The rear bumper shattered and sparked. The vehicle lurched, skidded, but held, the front wheels digging into the earth as Alex shifted and turned the wheel into the rise. The Jeep cleared the ridge and then launched into the air. It landed hard, spinning just out of the way of a boulder, finding purchase on a short stretch of open path, and tore ahead.

Alex glanced up to the rear-view mirror and saw what he feared: the creature hauling ass after him.

Suddenly, the Jeep felt like it was dragging, the speedometer struggling to break thirty, and then the path narrowed and banked and he had to slow to avoid another wall of rocks and a gnarled old tree. The passenger door scraped along a rock wall, kicking up sparks and breaking off the side mirror.

A fetid breath, chillingly cold, exploded over Alex as another of  the creatures—a little smaller, with more rugged features and a broken set of teeth just above a slashed bite wound in its neck—burst from a higher vantage point. Its skull lowered and it rammed the driver’s side. The Jeep flipped up on two wheels, then crashed back down as Alex swerved, dug the wheels back in and spun hard, banking and accelerating. A glance back and the Cryo had lost maneuverability, rocketing forward with its momentum, crashing headfirst into a tree and backing up. It shook its head, bellowed a challenge, then looked toward its departing prey and started after him.

Moments later, its friend appeared, careening out of the woods and slamming into it. They both screeched at each other, then turned back to watch the Jeep. They took off after it like a pair of Olympic track stars.

Oh come on, give up!

Alex swore and shifted gear again, finally locking it in and stomping on the accelerator as the trail flattened out and then gradually declined. Finally, getting the
mph
up past sixty, the creatures now were just dwindling blurs, screaming and roaring in frustration.

Okay
, he thought. That’s everyone present and accounted for
, and we’re all gunning for the same destination.

He had to get there first.

25.

Inside the DeKirk Enterprises Adranos Facility

Marcus Ramirez stood inside a room within a room. Crouched was more like it, really, as he had his knees flexed while he whipped his head to and fro, occasionally licking his cracked lips. Xander had deposited Veronica in a glorified holding room, telling her he’d be back for her after dealing with Marcus. Then he had taken Marcus here, to this interior lab room designed to contain specimens. It was a sterile environment, all white tile flooring and bright fluorescent overhead lights. A wheeled stainless steel table occupied the middle of the space while an industrial sink was set into one wall. The room had but one window, a wire mesh affair set into the upper half of the only door.

Xander now peered intently at Marcus through this portal. Two hulking men stood beside him, both well-paid soldiers in DeKirk’s private army who looked to be in their late twenties, sporting buzz cuts with elaborate razor designs shaved into the sides, physically fit and well-armed. He wasn’t sure of their background, whether they were ex-Navy SEALs or just street thugs, but either way, he wouldn’t want to mess with them.

As far as Xander could tell, this place was well stocked, more like a small city than a mere lab. He had counted literally a hundred and fifty personnel so far—about half of those soldiers or internal security, armed just as heavily as the guards outside. Then there were battalions of support people—medics, janitors, cooks and administrators, all working alongside several dozen researchers and scientists.

Xander observed Ramirez for a few more seconds. The paleontologist was squinting up at the lights, facing away from the door. He shuffled his feet as he stood, leaving a wet, sticky residue on the floor. Xander wasn’t sure, but thought maybe that it was his skin sloughing off.

“What’s wrong with this guy?” one of the soldiers asked. All of Marcus’ visible skin was yellow and gray, with alarming clusters of pulsing, orange veins or arteries clumped around his neck and face.

“Looks insane,” his associate added, and covered his mouth. “Like the plague or smallpox.”

As they watched, Ramirez jumped high into the air, and his arm that still had a hand swiped at the ceiling lights. As he landed, he crouched all the way back down, then sprung himself upwards again from a squat. On his next jump, his fist smashed through one of the glass panels for a light fixture set flush into the ceiling.

“C’mon.” Xander pushed the door open as a cascade of clear shards rained down on Marcus’s upturned face. He didn’t even blink.

“Marcus?” Xander forced his tone to be upbeat, as if talking to a dangerous animal that could sense and would react to fear. How’s it going?”

Marcus Ramirez whirled his body around so fast it was almost a blur, but his head moved very slowly as he gave Xander and his paid warriors the once-over, as though he was a sloth poked with a stick. He began to blink a lot, but said nothing.

“How do you feel?”

In response, Marcus took an interest in a long piece broken of glass protruding from his cheek.

“Marcus?”

Blood oozed from the paleontologist’s mouth and dripped from his chin onto the floor as he stared at Xander. They could hear the little splatters while they waited to see if he would speak.

“Can you talk? Say something.”

The noise that escaped his lips caused the two hardened soldiers to take involuntary steps backward. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaleshhhhh!”

It was barely recognizable as a word, so off was the enunciation, the vocalization sounding more like someone gurgling water than a human voice.

“What’d he say?” one of the henchmen asked.

“His son’s name.” Xander took a step closer to Marcus and spoke slowly.

“He’s not here yet. He—” He started to say he was missing, probably drowned, and then thought better of it. Before he could come up with something else, Marcus shook his head in frustration, spitting out the piece of glass which landed on Xander’s boot along with a thick piece of oddly gray, decomposing cheek flesh.

One of the soldiers looked down in horror. “I think this guy’s
rotting
, man. Fuckin’ rotting alive!”

The other soldier turned to Xander. “Is this like leprosy or Ebola where your body parts drop off?”

“Not sure yet. You two just keep an eye on him, please, while I do some work.”

Xander moved to one of the lab cabinets and removed a digital camera. He began taking video of Marcus, slowly circling him to capture his transforming body from every angle. Suddenly, Marcus spun around and looked directly into the lens.

“His eyes aren’t right.” One of the soldiers said.

“Looks like snake eyes,” his colleague agreed.

“Will you two please shut up? I’m documenting the specim—I mean the patient—and I don’t need your jibber-jabber in the background. Do your damn jobs.”

The soldiers shrugged it off and contented themselves with slowly backing away from Marcus, hands unsnapping the safety catches on their pistol holsters.

“Marcus, can you describe for me how you feel?”

Alex’s father had no reply.

Xander let the camera drop to his side as he took in the horrifying details of Marcus’ condition.
That goon is right. This man is rotting alive, in some sort of accelerated state of decomposition.
There must be a unique biochemical reaction behind it that I’ll have to elucidate later, but fuck me if he’s not rotting alive in response to a prehistoric virus transferred during the dinosaur bite. Maybe it triggered some kind of exaggerated autoimmune response...

Still, he seemed to be fighting it, changing slower than the others—the crewmen aboard the
Hammond
. The fake doc had given him antibiotic, maybe that was slowing things down.

Marcus looked at the bandaged stump and clawed at it with the fingers of his right hand, a compulsive, reflexive movement like scratching a sudden, bothersome itch. The motion caused something to fall from his stump onto the floor. Something white that blended in with the tiles, making it hard to discern at first. Xander thought it was pieces of the soaked-through gauze, but as he watched, he saw the pieces moving on the floor.

Maggots. Writhing maggots falling out of the bandage, squirming around on the floor as they sought the warm pocket of decaying flesh they had just been shaken from.

Xander felt the bile rise into his throat and tried to force it back down, but it made it all the way to his mouth. He looked over at the soldiers to see if they were looking at him. Their eyes were on Marcus. Xander tried to swallow his puke back down without them knowing, but he retched uncontrollably. The soldiers watched as he wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve, looking embarrassed despite the situation.

Xander composed himself and strode to the door. “I need to get a chem-test kit. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

The soldiers appeared concerned but said nothing, only eyeing Marcus.

As Xander pulled the door open, something—perhaps the incoming rush of fresher air from the main lab—disturbed Marcus, who began raising and lowering his head in a hyperactive motion. He reminded Xander of the lizards he’d seen exhibiting the same behavior, and for some reason, he found that extremely disturbing, because he knew that lizards made those kinds of head movements in order to pass air more forcefully over their sensory organs.
Could Marcus be doing that?

No sooner had this thought completed itself than Marcus leapt toward the two soldiers with a feral hiss. Xander watched, stupefied, as Marcus proceeded to bite the shorter soldier on the collarbone, the one to Xander’s left. The second soldier attempted to pull Marcus off of the man, but it was no use. His teeth were latched on tight to the collarbone of the soldier, whose mindless shriek conveyed searing pain.

While the three of them were locked in struggle, Xander slipped out of the room and eased the door shut, locking it. He stood there looking through the window as the scene unfolded in the inner room.

The larger soldier yanked Marcus off of his colleague, but his jaws never opened. Marcus was flung across the room, a hunk of flesh and—
is that bone?
—clenched between his bloody teeth. Xander was stunned to find that he could hear the soldier screaming through the thick, nearly soundproof door as he clutched his ruined collarbone.

The second soldier drew his pistol. He aimed at Marcus’s chest and gave him a double-tap, sending two rounds into his heart. Marcus’ body spun from the impact, but somehow he remained on his feet, stumbling as if in a dance to music that only he could hear. The soldier fired again, the single shot connecting this time with the target’s midsection. Xander winced. A gut shot.

Remarkably, Marcus kept coming, even as blood fountained from his abdomen. He fell upon his bloodied victim with what seemed to Xander like real zest, and proceeded to whip his head to and fro over the soldier’s wound like a shark in a feeding frenzy. Blood sprayed the floor and the cabinets nearby, some even flecking across the ceiling.

Xander gazed into the horror chamber, the camera in his hand completely forgotten, not even on.

The other soldier tried his luck again with the pistol, this time firing into Marcus’ back. Xander saw the flesh pucker as the bullet penetrated his skin, but the attack went on unabated. If anything, the ferocity of the assault increased, with Marcus applying his fingers to the soldier’s open wound as the trained operator flailed his legs uselessly into the blood-streaked floor. It looked like Marcus was trying to pry the collarbone out of the way in order to stick his face deeper into the exposed meat.

The soldier with the gun turned and looked back at Xander, mouthing something that meant,
get help right fucking now.
That was a mistake, because all Xander did was check to make sure the door was still locked. Meanwhile, the wounded soldier was able to kick the monster that Marcus had become off of him, sending his assailant across the room toward the other soldier, who turned around just in time to be beat in the face with Marcus’ messy stump. Gouts of yellowish pulp exploded into the air.

Xander was stunned at the speed with which Marcus moved, especially given his condition. Suddenly, the face of the soldier who’d been shooting Marcus was pressed up against the glass, Marcus’ hands keeping him there, but he didn’t really think of this inhuman thing as Marcus anymore, did he? He saw Marcus’ mouth open and those jagged teeth descend into the soldier’s neck.

The soldier’s uncontrollable movements in response to the bite caused him to knock into the thick safety glass so hard that his teeth fell out of his mouth, sliding down the glass. Xander had never seen such a violent attack, not anywhere, not even in the movies. His mind was somewhere else, floating above this hell as if in a trance. It was a productive trance because he knew one thing, and one thing for sure, as he witnessed the now dead soldier’s face press into the window.

This was the bio-weapon of the century.

Imagine these...these creatures, not stopped by bullets...turned loose in the cities or battlefields of an enemy state...How much would America’s enemies pay for such a tool of destruction? First, Xander needed to convert it from the raw force of nature it was now into controllable technology.

As his mind flipped around the possibilities, he peered over at the first soldier who now lay apparently unconscious on the floor on his back, what was left of his collarbone protruding from his open neck.

Then the soldier at the window was shoved down to the floor and Marcus was gaping at Xander through the window. He pressed one of his eyes right up to it, peering at him through a smear of blood with one of the soldier’s incisors somehow wedged into a crack in the glass. Marcus’ eyes were yellow and black. Distinctly reptilian, but at the same time, without even the suggestion of life that a normal reptile had. Dead, cold eyes, with the barest flicker of recognition.

Xander wondered if Marcus’ mind was still there, if he could remember anything, like being fired and tossed aside. Wondering if revenge was even a factor in his changed brain. He didn’t think so.

He sure hoped not.