Corporal Graves was the first to spot it: something moving atop the other man’s pack. “Jones…”
Still half crouched, the man glanced up. “What?”
The creature leaped, latching onto the soft flesh under Jones’s jaw. He jerked. “What the hell!” He tore the creature from his neck, blood spurting. “Ahhhhh…”
The small stream suddenly frothed and burst forth with another dozen of the creatures. They leaped at the man, attacking his legs. Jones fell backward, his face twisted in agony. He hit the stream with a loud splash.
“Jones!” Warczak stepped nearer.
Another of the creatures leaped from the water and plopped in the wet mud at the corporal’s feet, gill flaps vibrating. Warczak scrambled backward, as did Graves.
In the shallow stream, Jones writhed. It was as if he had been thrown in boiling water. His body jerked and spasmed.
“Get back!” Waxman yelled. “Everyone uphill!”
Warczak and Graves were already running. From the stream, more of the creatures leaped and bounded in pursuit.
The group tossed caution aside and scrambled up the slope, some half crawling on hands and knees. Kelly’s legs suddenly went out from under her. Her muddy hand slipped out of her brother’s grip. She began a deadly slide.
“Kelly!” Frank called out.
But Nate was a couple yards behind her. He caught her one-handed by the waist, falling on top of her, holding his shotgun in his other arm. Manny came to their aid, hauling both back to their feet. Tor-tor paced anxiously back and forth behind him.
The Brazilian waved the jaguar ahead. “Move your furry ass.”
By now, the three were the last of the group. Frank waited a few yards up.
Only Private Carrera was still with them. She stood and sprayed a jet of fire behind them, her flamethrower roaring dully. “Let’s pick up the pace,” she said tensely, backing up the slope, herding them upward.
“Thanks,” Kelly said, her eyes swiveling to encompass the entire group.
Frank met them and took his sister in hand. “Don’t do that again.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
Nate kept a watch behind them. He met Carrera’s gaze. He saw the fear in her eyes. This momentary distraction was all it took. One of the creatures sprang at the Ranger from the surrounding underbrush. It had slipped past her firewall.
Carrera fell backward, fire spitting into the sky.
The creature had latched onto her belt, but squirmed for a meatier purchase.
Before anyone else could react, a sharp crack split the night. The creature was flung away, the two halves of its body sailing high. Both Carrera and Nate turned to see Manny snapping his short bullwhip back into ready position.
“Are you just gonna sit there gawking?” Manny asked.
Carrera scrambled up with Nate’s help. The group sped up the hill. At last they reached the summit. Nate hoped putting the rise between them and the amphibious creatures would be enough.
He found the others gathered on top.
“We should keep moving,” Nate said. “Keep as much land between us and them as possible.”
“That’s a good theory,” Kouwe said. “But putting it into practice is another thing altogether.” The shaman pointed down the knoll’s far side.
Nathan stared. From this height, the stream below shone silver in the moonlight. Groaning, he realized it was the same stream they had been avoiding all along. Nate turned in a slow circle, recognizing their predicament. They had made a fatal error.
The small waterway they had crossed a few minutes ago was not a feeder draining into the larger stream, but actually a part of the same stream.
“We’re on an island,” Kelly said with dismay.
Nate stared upstream and saw that the flow of the waterway split and ran around both sides of the knoll. Once past the hill, it joined to become a single stream again. The party indeed stood on an island, in the middle of the deadly stream, water all around.
Nate felt sick. “We’re trapped.”
2:12 A.M.
WEST WING OF THE INSTAR INSTITUTE
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Lauren O’Brien sat at the small table in the communal galley, hunched over a cup of coffee. At this late hour, she had the place to herself. All the other quarantined MEDEA members were either asleep in their makeshift bedrooms or working in the main labs.
Even Marshall had retired to their room with Jessie hours ago. He had an early morning conference call with the CDC, two Cabinet heads, and the director of the CIA. He had eloquently described the meeting as “a preemptive strike before the political shitstorm hits the fan.” Such were the ways of government. Rather than attacking the problem aggressively, everyone was still pointing fingers and running for cover. Marshall’s goal tomorrow was to shake things up. A decisive plan of action was needed. So far, the fifteen outbreak zones were being managed fifteen different ways. It was chaos.
Sighing, Lauren stared at the reams of papers and printouts spread atop her table. Her team was still struggling with one simple question. What was causing the disease?
Testing and research were ongoing in labs across the country—from the CDC in Atlanta all the way to the Salk facility in San Diego. But the Instar Institute had become scientific ground zero for the disease.
Lauren pushed away a report from a Dr. Shelby on utilizing monkey kidney cells as a culture medium. He had failed. Negative response. Up to this point, the contagious agent continued to thwart all means of identification: aerobic and anaerobic cultures, fungal assays, electron microscopy, dot hybridization, polymerase chain reaction. As of today, no progress had been made. Each study ended with similar tags: negative response, zero growth, indeterminate analysis. All fancy ways of saying failure.
Her beeper, resting beside her now-cold cup of coffee, began to buzz and dance across the Formica countertop. She snatched it before it fell off the table.
“Who the heck is paging me at this hour?” she mumbled, glancing at the beeper’s screen. The Caller ID feature listed the number as Large Scale Biological Labs. She didn’t know the facility, but the area code placed it somewhere in northern California. The call was probably just some technician requesting their fax number or submission protocol. Still…
Lauren stood, pocketed her beeper, and headed over to the phone on the wall. As she picked up the receiver, she heard a door open behind her. Over her shoulder, she was surprised to see Jessie standing in her pajamas, rubbing at her eyes blearily.
“Grandma…”