Douglas Preston - Still Life With Crows

“He’s gone,” Weeks said in a tight voice. “At least, I can’t see him.”

“He’s still there,” said Pendergast. “Climb, Corrie. Climb. ”

Corrie, gasping with the effort and pain, pulled herself up. Peripherally, she was aware that Pendergast, with a lithe maneuver, had turned himself around on the ledge to face outward. His flashlight was in one hand and his gun in the other, its laser sight scanning the cavern below.

“There!” cried Weeks.

Corrie heard the deafening blast of his shotgun, followed by another. “He’s fast!” Weeks screamed. “Too fast!”

“I’m covering you from above,” Pendergast said. “Just hold your position and fire with care. ”

There was another blast from the shotgun, then another. “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,” Weeks was saying, over and over, sobbing and gasping.

Corrie ventured a glance overhead. In the dim glow of Pendergast’s flashlight she could see that she was now just five feet below the lip of the archway. But there did not seem to be any more handholds. She felt around, first with one hand, and then with the other, but the stone was smooth.

Another scream, another wild shotgun blast.

“Weeks!” Pendergast rapped out. “You’re firing wild! Aim your weapon. ”

“No, no, no! ” The shotgun went off yet again. And then Corrie heard the clatter as Weeks threw his empty gun down in a panic and began climbing furiously.

“Officer Weeks!” Pendergast shouted.

Once again, Corrie reached out with her hands, fingertips splayed, looking for a purchase. She could find none. With a sob of terror, she looked down toward Pendergast, appealing for help. And then she froze.

A shape had flashed out of the darkness below, leaping upon the rock wall like a spider. Pendergast’s gun cracked but the shape kept coming, scrambling up after them. For a moment, Pendergast’s light fell directly on it, but it gave a grunt of rage and ducked away from the beam. And yet it was enough for Corrie to see, once again, that great moonlike face, inhumanly white; the wispy trailing beard; the little blue eyes flecked with blood, staring out from below long, effeminate lashes; that same strange, intent, fixed smile: a face that seemed as ingenuous as a baby’s, and yet so very alien, rent by thoughts and emotions so bizarre as to scarcely seem human.

Even as she watched, the figure ascended the rock with terrible speed.

Pendergast’s gun cracked again but Corrie saw that Weeks, climbing desperately, had come directly between him and the monster and the FBI agent no longer had a shot. She lay against the rock face, her heart like a hammer in her chest, unable to move, unable to look away, unable to do anything.

The killer reached the frantically climbing Weeks, brought his pistonlike arm back, and smashed the man in the back, cracking him like a bug. With a scream of pain Weeks peeled off the rock and began to slide. The massive arm cocked back again and this time struck a sideways blow that rammed Weeks’s head against the rock. Corrie watched in frozen horror as Weeks simply dropped, down the wall and into the great fissure below, his body making no sound as it plunged out of sight through the veil of mist into the unguessable depths beneath.

Then immediately there came another shot from Pendergast’s gun, but the man, with a great apelike leap, dodged sideways and once again began scuttling up the rock face with almost unbelievable agility. Before she could even draw breath he was on top of Pendergast. There was a blow and the agent’s gun fell away, clattering onto the cavern floor below. Then the thing’s hammerlike fist drew back to deliver another, fatal blow and Corrie, finding her breath, screamed, “No!”

But when the fist came down, Pendergast was no longer there, having jumped sideways himself. Now the agent raised his hand, fingertips curled tightly in against themselves, and thrust the meat of his palm violently up into the man’s nose. There was a cracking sound and a jet of crimson blood. The man grunted in pain and lashed out again, knocking Pendergast roughly from the wall. The agent teetered, slid, then managed to halt his fall, reestablishing a grip on the stone several feet below.

But it was too late. The thing, bloodied and frothing, had gotten past Pendergast and was now scrambling up the rock face toward Corrie. She was helpless; she could not even release a hand to defend herself; it was all she could do to cling to the cliff.

He was on top of her in a heartbeat and the great callused hands closed once again around her throat, with no hesitation now, no humanity in his dead eyes, nothing but a sense of anger and the desire to kill. And the sound of her gagging was drowned out by his own brutal roar.

Muuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Seventy-Six

T he wind was blowing even harder now, and Shurte and Williams had retreated into the shelter of the cut leading down into the cave. It wasn’t exactly where the sheriff had ordered them to be, Shurte knew, but the hell with it: it was past one in the morning, and they’d been standing in the cold and rain for over three hours already.

He heard Williams groan, then swear. He glanced over. Williams was huddled farther down the cut, holding the propane lantern. Shurte had dressed his partner’s bite, using the first-aid kit from the cruiser. It was an ugly wound, but not nearly as bad as Williams was making it out to be. The real problem was their situation. The police-band radios were silent, the power was out everywhere; even the few commercial radio stations that reached this far into the boondocks were off the air. As a result, they had no information, no orders, no news, nothing. Three hours Hazen and the others had been in the cave, and the only one to come out had been one of the dogs with half his jaw ripped off.

Shurte had a very bad feeling.

The cave exhaled a smell of dampness and stone. Shurte shivered. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way the dog had come tearing out of the darkness, trailing blood. What could have ripped a dog apart like that? He glanced at his watch again.

“Jesus, what the hell are they doing down there?” Williams asked for the tenth time.

Shurte shook his head.

“I should be in the hospital,” Williams said. “I might be getting rabies.”

“Police dogs don’t have rabies.”

“How do you know? I’m getting an infection, for sure.”

“I put plenty of antibiotic ointment on it.”

“Then why does it burn so much? If this gets infected I’ll remember who dressed it, Doctor Shurte.”

Shurte tried to ignore him. Even the banshee-like moaning of the wind across the mouth of the cave was preferable to his whining.

“I tell you, I’ve got to get medical help. That dog took a chunk out of me.”

Shurte snorted. “Williams, it’s a dog bite. Now you can put in for a Purple Heart Ribbon for being wounded in the line of duty.”

“Not until next week I can’t. And it hurts now, damn it.”

Shurte looked away. What a jerk. Maybe he should request a rotation. When the going got rough Williams had crapped out. A dog bite. What a joke.

A bolt of lightning tore the sky in half, briefly painting the mansion a ghostly white. The huge drops of rain were propelled like bullets in the howling wind. A river of water was running down the ramp into the cave.

“Fuck this.” Williams got to his feet. “I’m going up to the house to relieve Rheinbeck. I’ll take a turn watching the old lady and send him on down here.”

“That wasn’t our assignment.”

“Screw the assignment. They were supposed to be in and out of the cave in half an hour. I’m injured, I’m tired, and I’m soaked to the skin. You can stay out here if you want, but I’m going up to the house.”