Mega 4: Behemoth Island (3 page)

Popeye blinked a few times then scrunched up his face and leaned as far forward as the restraints would allow. “Do you even know Ballantine?”

“I’ve met the man, yes,” Jowarski replied. “I understand those seem like strange questions for someone like Ballantine, but I have to be thorough.”

“Yeah, thorough,” Popeye chuckled. “You must be desperate to ask questions like that. I’d think Ballantine’s wifey would know those things. Why the hell ask me?”

“Dr. Ballantine has not had the privilege of her husband’s company in some time,” Jowarski replied. “But we’ll keep that between you and me.” He waited with his pen poised above his clipboard.

Popeye shook his head and leaned back. “Ballantine didn’t share.”

“Is that so?” Jowarski asked. “Nothing while you and the rest of the crew travelled with him over the open oceans? Nothing before, during, or after one of your many monster missions? He didn’t say anything off handedly? A quick joke or sarcastic remark?”

“The guy was always saying quick jokes and sarcastic remarks,” Popeye said. “That was all he said. You couldn’t get a straight answer out of him if you jammed ten feet of reinforced steel up his ass.”

“Colorful,” Jowarski said. “So, no off-hand comments about places he wanted to visit or had visited?”

“You sure don’t listen for a guy asking a bunch of questions,” Popeye said. “There were no off-hand comments with Ballantine. The guy was as controlled as they get. If he said something then he meant to say it whether he pretended to or not. Nothing to chance with that one.”

“Yes, we are aware of that,” Jowarski said.

“What did you do to him?” Popeye asked. “Why are you so afraid of Ballantine?”

Jowarski shook his head and gave Popeye a wan smile.

“Commander Thorne,” Jowarski said. “Where does he stand with Ballantine? Are the two co-leaders?”

“I don’t think they know,” Popeye said. “Ballantine always says Thorne is in charge of Team Grendel, but Ballantine is an A-plus control freak, so I don’t think he lets anyone be in charge of anything.”

“Do they fight? Quarrel? Bicker?” Jowarski asked.

“All those words mean the same thing,” Popeye said. “And yeah, they do. Or did. Don’t know what they do now. They could be dead for all I know.”

“I doubt they are,” Jowarski said.

“Really? Why you think that?” Popeye asked.

The wan smile returned to Jowarski’s face.

***

Dr. Chen’s face felt a thousand pounds too heavy. The skin and muscle swelled, puffing up from the collision with the many boulders that he’d encountered as he was shoved down under the water, pummeled by the waterfall and the river itself. At least the water was cold enough to numb the pain slightly. But only slightly.

He grasped at the edge of the riverbank, his fingers impossibly long and grey. He gripped sturdy roots that dripped down into the river, thirsty for relief from the tropical sun that beat relentlessly on the island. Dr. Chen tugged at the roots, wrapped his hands about them, pulled, but he made no headway. He just didn’t have the strength to get himself out of the water. He’d spent every last bit of energy staying alive. Any energy he did have deep down in reserve would have to be used to keep from drowning at the edge of the river.

And to change back. If he could figure out how. The others hadn’t said how they did it.

Far above, half a mile away, stood the monster, its jaws open, its throat rippling as it bellowed. It raged, stomping back and forth, crushing anything and everything in its path at the top of the waterfall. It kicked boulders, sending them rocketing out and down.

Dr. Chen flinched and cried out as one of the boulders came within twenty feet of him. It was as big as a Volkswagen Beetle and probably weighed twice as much. He knew he couldn’t stay where he was. The creature kept looking for a way down off the cliff, hunting for a path that would hold it and allow it to come down and finish the job it started. The man didn’t understand why. The thing should have given up a long time ago.

But then nothing on the island acted like it should. Every one of their grand plans fell apart in a swirling rush of exploding metal and roaring flames. Catalysts catalyzed what they shouldn’t have and the growth that resulted was exponential. What should have taken years, and on a much smaller scale, happened in less than a week.

And still happened.

Dr. Chen’s muscles felt like they were detached from his bones, floating inside his skin sack, ready to dissolve and melt if they were exposed to the air. But somehow he managed to move from his spot, reaching up and grabbing roots hand over hand, using them to propel himself down the river and well out of sight of the pacing, stomping, bellowing creature.

He was grateful for one thing and that was the giant creature seemed to have scared off any other animals that may have been lurking close to the water. Hard to miss the sound of a seventy-five foot beast ripping through the jungle. The other fauna of the island had plenty of warning that it was a good time to make themselves scarce.

Of course, they didn’t just disappear. They went somewhere. And after nearly a half hour of slow, careful, hand-over-hand movement, Dr. Chen found out where they went.

He came around a bend in the river and stopped. There, wading in a large pool that had formed on the opposite side, stood six creatures that shouldn’t exist. In fact, they never would have if he hadn’t personally entered the sequence into the matrix facilitator. That felt like a hundred years ago.

Modeled closely on the spinosaurus, the creatures snapped and hissed at each other, jostling for position to catch the many Mawsonia-like fish that flopped in the shallow pool. The fish must have also been scared downstream, retreating from their deep pool haven at the bottom of the waterfall.

Dr. Chen watched, terrified yet also fascinated as the spinosauruses seemed to compete with each other, but also work in harmony to keep as many of the Mawsonia from fleeing further downstream. It was not a hunting behavior he would have even guessed the spinosauruses were capable of.

But then part of the reason the island existed was to see what all the creatures were capable of. Just not on the scale that occurred. No, the scale they had wanted was maybe ten percent of what had occurred. A controlled, and controllable, group of miniatures, all studied and observed from the perfect safety of a contained facility.

Dr. Chen shook his head at their hubris. How they thought they could create living prehistoric dioramas without anything going wrong was ludicrous. He looked at his hands, his incredibly misshapen hands, and shook his head, feeling the weight of his enlarged cranium strain his neck.

He was about to cry when his hands started to return to normal, to shift and shrink before his eyes. Dr. Chen marveled at the transformation, not even kidding himself that he knew how the entire process was even possible. An island of impossibilities. He had to wonder if he was lucky or cursed to be a part of it all.

Those were the last thoughts that ran through his head as the creature above him, rising out of the dirt and mud of the riverbank, opened its jaws wide and lunged.

***

Captain Marty Lake and Chief Engineer Morgan “Cougher” Colfer stopped what they were doing and looked from the deck of the Beowulf III and out at the bay they had just sailed into.

“D? You hear that?” Lake called.

“Yeah,” Darren Chambers replied over the com.

Lake turned to the bridge and Darren stuck his head out, looking at the white sand beach that surrounded the crystal blue bay.

“That sounded like a person,” Darren said over the com.

“That was for sure human,” Max Reynolds added, joining the com conversation.

“Totally human,” his brother Shane agreed. There was the sound of something being sucked and then a cough and a slow exhale. “Man, I am so glad that Lucy totally snagged some of our stash and hid it from us.”

“Not the time, Shane,” Darren said.

“Are there people on that island?” Cougher asked.

“Ballantine said he didn’t see any signs of his science staff surviving what he said was a pretty fucking big explosion,” Lake replied. “But it stands to reason someone made it out in one piece.”

“Not anymore, man,” Max said, immediately making his own sucking, coughing, exhaling sound. “Dude. This shit is harsh. We need to teach the Luce how to take better care of her weed.”

“Take a look at that island,” Shane said. “We could grow our own. Gunnar has seeds. I know he does. Somewhere down in his lab. He’s a sneaky bastard.”

“Guys!” Darren shouted. “Shut up about the weed! Nobody cares about your weed!”

There were several loud grumbles of disagreement over the com.

“Jesus, how many people are in on this conversation?” Darren asked.

“Pretty much all essential personnel,” Lake said. “I called on an open channel.”

“Did I hear correctly that a person may have screamed from the island?” Ballantine asked as he stepped from a hatch and onto the main deck.

Mid-forties, dressed in his usual khakis and polo shirt, Ballantine looked like a golf pro with a psychotic twinkle in his eye. Fit, tan, muscular, he moved with a confidence and ease that made most that came in contact with him less than confident and very uneasy. He held a pair of high-powered binoculars and turned to face the island.

“Which way?” Ballantine asked as he came up next to Lake.

“I don’t know,” Lake replied. “It echoed out from the bay. That’s all I know.”

Ballantine glanced at Cougher, but the man only shrugged.

“Not much help,” Ballantine said, putting the binoculars to his eyes. He scanned the bay then tilted the binoculars up, focusing on the jungle and low mountains beyond. “Hmmm.”

“What do you see?” Lake asked. “Another monster?”

“Please, Captain Lake, let’s not call the creatures monsters,” Ballantine said. “I have explained to all of you the type of work that the facility here was conducting. They are live specimens. Perhaps a little too alive, but far from being monsters. These creatures are pure miracles of science.”

“And they will eat us in a fucking second, right?” Lake smirked.

“Well, yes, there is that,” Ballantine said. “Oh, look!”

He handed the binoculars over to Lake and took the man by the shoulders.

“What the hell?” Lake said, but didn’t fight it as Ballantine directed him to look in a specific area. Lake put the binoculars to his eyes. “What am I looking for?”

“Halfway up the second mountain,” Ballantine said. “Trust me. You’ll know it when you see it.”

Lake studied the island for a while then gasped and pulled the binoculars away.

“Are you shitting me?” he asked.

“What?” the Reynolds brothers asked over the com at the same time.

“There are flying ones!” Lake said. “Big, red, flying ones!”

“Flying ones are bad,” Max said.

“Very bad,” Shane agreed. “We do not approve of flying monsters.”

“I really wish you would stop calling them monsters,” Ballantine said. “It’s so disrespectful to the scientists that gave their lives creating these creatures.”

“What is going on up here?” Commander Vincent Thorne asked as he came out of the same hatch that Ballantine had exited only minutes before. “Did you see any of the monsters or not?”

Ballantine sighed and shook his head. “Why do I even try?”

Chapter Two- Can’t Stay On This Boat Forever

Team Grendel stood on the deck of the Beowulf III, all waiting for Ballantine to begin his briefing. Usually they met in the large, ornate briefing room above the main deck, but the huge nuclear EMP that killed the engines also killed most of the tech in that room, making it basically useless. Except on poker nights.

A triple hulled “research vessel” at over 90 meters, the B3 was styled along the lines of the Google research vessel R/V Falkor, but with a much different purpose. That purpose was obvious as Team Grendel waited, fully armed and geared for their mission on the island that framed the background behind them.

Former commander of the Navy SEALs BUD/S training program, Vincent Thorne was leader of Team Grendel, the band of ex-SEALs and other SpecOps misfits that Ballantine had brought together to handle less than ordinary situations. In his sixties, but still fit enough to take down men half his age, Thorne was not a man that minced words or wasted his time with pointless pleasantries.

“Let’s get on with this, Ballantine,” Thorne growled.

“We will, we will,” Ballantine said as he tapped his loafered toe. With his arms crossed, he pointed his sunglasses-covered eyes towards the island. “Just waiting on the elves, as usual.”

“Do they have any toys worth playing with?” Max Reynolds asked. “The EMP didn’t fry them all?”

“They could have at least tried to save a PlayStation or something,” Shane Reynolds said. “You can only do so much target practice each day before you go cuckoo nuts.”

“Did you just say that?” Max scoffed. “My own brother has betrayed the sniper code by saying he gets bored with target practice. It’s like I don’t even know you.”

“Hey, bro, I can’t help it if I’m a perfect shot and there’s just nowhere to improve,” Shane replied. “I wouldn’t recommend you stop practicing, though. You pull to the left on your second shot. Don’t feel bad. It happens.”

The Reynolds brothers were nine months apart and looked almost identical, both with yellow-blond hair, green eyes, freckles across the nose, deep tans, and that Southern California surfer boy attitude. But there was more than one way to tell the difference between them- Max was missing his left ear and had scar tissue running from his scalp, down his neck, and onto his shoulder while Shane was missing his right eye completely and had a black eye patch covering the socket, a Rasta-colored pot leaf stitched into the material.

Both had very thick joints tucked into the corners of their mouths.

“Boys, knock it the fuck off,” Thorne said, stepping from the group to face the brothers.

“Sorry, Uncle Vinny,” Max replied.

“Our bad, Uncle Vinny,” Shane added.

They didn’t budge.

“The joints!” Thorne barked. “I’m talking about the joints!”

“Oh, I thought you just wanted us to shut up like always,” Max said, taking the joint from his mouth and carefully putting it out with the wet tips of his thumb and forefinger. He tucked it into a pocket on his gear vest and patted it gently. “You stay safe, mighty spliff.”

“I want you to shut up too,” Thorne replied. “That’s a fucking given.”

Next to the Reynolds stood their cousin, Kinsey Thorne, a muscular woman of average height with short-cropped blonde hair and wrap-around sunglasses that reflected her father’s face back at him as he surveyed the rest of the Team.

“You know you can’t ever win the shut the fuck up battle, right Daddy?” Kinsey smirked. “I don’t think they even understand the concept.”

“Max no understand shutting up,” Max said. “Max stupid.”

“Beside the point,” Darren Chambers chuckled.

Dirty blond hair that blew in the ocean breeze, bright blue eyes, a tight black t-shirt hugging his muscled torso, Darren looked like a bulked up GQ model, not an ex-SEAL. He lifted his sunglasses and gave Kinsey a wink.

“Good thing their stupid doesn’t run in the family,” Darren said.

“Shut up, Ditcher,” Shane said. “Stop sucking up to Sis. She divorced your ass for a reason.”

“Ancient history and water under bridges and all that,” Darren said. “And what the fuck did I do? I was just playing.”

“You were winking at my cuz, bro,” Max said.

“I’m your bro, not him,” Shane responded.

“That was a derogatory bro, bro,” Max said. “I save the love bros for you, bro.”

“You’re the best, bro,” Shane said. “Come here, bro. Give me a bro hug.”

“Do you have any control over this?” Thorne asked, looking at Darby.

Barely five feet tall, Darby had shoulder-length black hair tied back in a pony tail, a tan tank top, and cut off cargo pants that had strings hanging down from the unhemmed edges. She was maybe a hundred pounds wet, but everything about her projected a sense that when you were in the company of Darby, you were in the company of a true apex predator.

She blinked her dark eyes and sighed. “Because I’m sleeping with your nephew, you think I have control over him?”

“Yes,” Thorne said. “Max is pliable that way.”

“Hey,” Max protested, but without any real vigor. “I’m far from pliable. In fact, I can get downright—”

“Nope,” Kinsey interrupted. “I do not want to hear the next words out of your mouth.”

“Can you keep him in line for just a few minutes?” Thorne asked Darby. Darby shrugged. “Thank you.”

“Stay in line,” Darby said to Max.

“Or what?” he replied, a lascivious smirk on his face.

“Or we play bullfighter again,” Darby replied, turning away as if that settled the conversation.

Apparently it did. Max grimaced then made a lock the lips and throw away the key pantomime.

“What the fuck is bullfighter?” Darren asked.

“We don’t want to know,” Kinsey said before Darby could respond, not that she looked like she would. “TMFI.”

The last member of Team Grendel, Lucy Durning, stood off to the side of everyone, her attention focused through the large binoculars she held to her eyes.

“There’s shit in the water,” she said. Everyone turned to look at her, but she didn’t remove the binoculars. “Yeah. There is definitely shit in the water. The island isn’t the only place with critters. Great. Prehistoric birds in the air and what-the-fuck-evers in the water.”

Nearly six feet tall, wide at the shoulder, with a head of shockingly red hair, Lucy could have been intimidating, but instead she was an easy-going woman that didn’t buy into macho bullshit and had nothing to prove like Kinsey or Darby seemed to. Unless it was proving she was the best at target practice against the Reynolds boys. Shooters gotta shoot, snipers gotta snipe.

“Yes, I was afraid the facility may have been working on aquatics,” Ballantine said. “They weren’t scheduled to for some time, but you know how science always progresses. It may have been necessary in order to recreate the biosphere of a specific species. These things domino quickly.”

Team Grendel stared at him. Ballantine smiled and stared back until Thorne growled and said, “Do I need to go down there and carry the assholes up myself?”

“That’s not very nice,” Ingrid said as she and Carlos came up from below decks. “I have been nothing but pleasant to you, Commander Thorne. No need to call me names.”

“Except for the traitor thing,” Darby said. “That wasn’t exactly pleasant.”

The Team frowned at the mention of Ingrid’s duplicity.

Having gotten herself into a tight situation, Ingrid, one of the three weapons smiths and techs that worked below in what was known as the Toyshop, had been forced to plant and activate a tracking device so that the B3’s enemies could find them quickly. Unbeknownst to her, Ballantine had anticipated the betrayal and used it to his advantage. As he tended to do with most situations.

“Now, now, Ingrid has been put through enough,” Ballantine said. “She made a mistake, something every single one of you here can consider yourselves experts in, but she turned it around and is back to being a valuable member of this crew.”

“Where’s Mike?” Kinsey asked. “Did you guys certify his legs?”

Carlos, having been sullen and silent since stepping onto the deck, rolled his eyes.

“Certify,” Carlos scoffed. “The legs aren’t a used Mac. You can’t just run diagnostics on them and a bell dings.”

“So that’s a no?” Darren asked.

“Michael will remain on the B3,” Ballantine said. “Until we know for certain his prosthetics were not damaged by the EMP.”

“Been a few weeks. Wouldn’t you know by now?” Max asked.

“Yeah, his legs seem fine when he’s walking around,” Shane said. “They guy can even dance. Got some moves.”

“No,” Thorne said, pointing a finger at Shane without looking at him. The dance Shane was about to do stopped instantly. “Mike will join us on the Team as soon as I am sure those legs won’t shit the bed. We do not want to be on an op and have him suddenly immobile. Could kill him, could kill us.”

“An op?” Max laughed, looking out at the island. “This isn’t an op. This is Jurassic Park 3, man. The second island. The one that time forgot.”

“You couldn’t be further from the truth, Maxwell,” Ballantine said. “Time did not forget this island. In fact, it sounds like time found it and grabbed it by the nuts, twisting and twisting until both balls popped and exploded everywhere.”

There were more than a few squirms.

“Lovely,” Darby sighed. She looked at Ingrid and Carlos who both seemed about to puke. “What do you have? I’d like to get this freak show on the road.”

Thorne looked like he was about to object to Darby hijacking his Team then he shook his head and aimed a thumb at her.

“What the lady said,” Thorne barked. “We have work to do.”

“He called your girl a lady,” Shane whispered loudly to Max. “Ha. Darby’s a lady.”

“I know,” Max said, whispering back just as inconspicuously. “I’ve seen her lady parts. Been all up in that.”

Thorne growled so low and deep that the deck nearly rumbled.

“Damn,” Shane said. “I think you just went elephant on us, Uncle Vinny.”

“Yeah, totally,” Max agreed. “And what my brother means by that is elephants can communicate long distances on low frequencies that we—”

“SHUT UP!” the rest of the Team shouted, even Darby.

“Oh my,” Shane gasped in a faux British accent.

“How rude,” Max gasped as well, mimicking the accent.

“Never a dull moment,” Ballantine said.

“Are there creatures out in the water?” Ingrid asked. “I better get your compression suits.”

She hurried off as half the Team began to complain.

“The compression suits in this heat? Are you fucking nuts?” Max asked.

“Don’t bring up nuts,” Shane said. “Ballantine will get distracted.”

“Yeah, what was up with that twisting and twisting thing, man?” Max asked Ballantine. “Not cool.”

“What do you have for us?” Thorne asked Carlos, ignoring his nephews as much as he could. “I’ve seen the thing we’re up against.” He patted the butt of his heavily modified M4 carbine. “This will only piss it off.”

“If the information Ballantine has given us is correct,” Carlos said. He rolled his eyes at the look Ballantine gave him. “If it is correct then the creature will have skin thicker than an elephant’s hide.”

“Uncle Vinny can talk it down,” Max said.

“Yeah, he speaks elephant,” Shane added.

“As I was saying, the creature’s hide will be extremely thick,” Carlos continued. “The normal rounds in your M4s will not penetrate.”

Max and Shane patted their sniper rifles.

“Speak for yourself, nerd,” Max said. “Some of us aren’t using M4s. My .300 Win Mag will stop almost anything.”

“My .338 Mac will do even better,” Shane said.

“Want to bet?” Max asked.

“Sure. How much?” Shane replied.

“We should make it interesting,” Max said. “Maybe— Oh, fuck! OW!”

He looked down at Darby’s hand that had him by the crotch. She flexed once and he squeaked.

“Build me something that can do that on command,” Thorne said as he looked at Carlos and pointed at Max. “For both the boys.”

“Hostile work environment much?” Shane muttered.

“Even your high-powered rifles won’t do much against that thing,” Carlos said.

Ballantine made a clucking noise at the word “thing.” Carlos ignored it as he set down a crate he had been holding.

“Line up,” Carlos said. “I have new ammo for you. Armor piercing with explosive rounds. Even if they don’t get all the way through the creature’s hide, they’ll do some extreme damage when they blow.”

“He said blow,” Shane chuckled and looked at his brother. Max only shook his head, his crotch still under Darby’s control. “Oh, right, you’re muzzled. No fun all on my own.”

“That’s the point,” Darby said.

“A good point too, sweet ass cheeks from heaven and beyond,” Max said. “You always make the best points.”

Team Grendel ejected the magazines they already had in place in their various weapons of choice, handed them to Carlos, and accepted the new magazines eagerly. Magazines in their kits were swapped out as well and they were all busy getting their gear stowed again when Ingrid returned.