Scott Sigler - Ancestor

They heard another crash from upstairs—the wind had knocked something else over. They needed to get that window boarded up fast before a half inch of snow covered the living room carpet.

They brought the plywood upstairs. James walked backwards, guiding them toward the window, but stopped when he heard the muffled crunch of glass beneath his feet. He looked down to see a few pieces of glass lying on the living room carpet.

But the glass would have been blown outward…

A sudden blast of cancerous realization hit him hard. He dropped the plywood and turned.

In the broken window, the huge head of a second creature, this one with a white head and a black patch on the left eye. A mass of pink scar tissue sat where its left ear should have been. It was just a few feet away, so close James felt the heat of its breath.

Smelled like puppy breath.

James kicked out hard. The thing started to snap, but moved a split second too late. James’s boot smashed against its mouth, knocking the head back, out of the window.

James reached for his shotgun.

But his shotgun wasn’t there.

He stopped short, knowing damn well he’d left the gun there, wondering where else it could be, then Stephanie started screaming again. Not a scream of terror this time, but a scream of pain, the pain of long, narrow teeth puncturing through terry cloth and into soft skin.

James had one brief moment to realize that there were more of the creatures, inside the house. The spotted one scrambled through the window with a speedy urgency, big mouth opening wide, long claws reaching out. James reached for the fallen lamp.

He grabbed it and managed one swing before he went down under the weight of two creatures.

ANDY MOVED HIS king back to king-2. He was on the ropes, unable to keep up with Magnus’s methodical attack. The game was already over, but they played it out anyway. Not like there was anything else to do on this fucking island other than choke the chicken, which Andy had already done twice that day. Juggs magazine this time. His Gallery collection was getting a little old.

They sat in the lounge, Magnus on his leather chair, Andy on a couch, the chess set laid out on a coffee table. Whisky glasses sat on either side of the board, one for Magnus (with ice) and one for Andy (without ice, the way that shit was meant to be). The bottle of Yukon Jack was just under half empty. Andy’s buzz made him wonder if he could fall over while still sitting down.

Magnus reached out, his thick right hand hovering indecisively over the pieces.

Andy let out a disgusted sigh. “Come on, Mags, it’s boring enough without you pretending you don’t know exactly what piece to move.”

“The play’s the thing, Andy.”

“What is that? Another one of those quote-thingees that’s supposed to teach me something about life?”

Magnus smiled. “You already know the important stuff, like how to shoot straight. The rest of it? All philosophical bullshit, really.”

Magnus moved his queen to king-3, right on top of Andy’s king. Andy couldn’t take the queen without putting himself in check thanks to Magnus’s rook, which sat on queen’s-bishop-3.

“I’ve never liked you,” Andy said. It pissed him off to no end that he couldn’t beat Magnus. Ever. “Chess is for faggots, anyway. So what now, Mags?”

“Looks like you lose again.”

“I meant with the whole plane and everything.”

“Oh, that what now.”

Andy nodded. Sometimes Magnus told him what was going on, sometimes not. All full up with Puke-Jack, maybe he’d let out some secrets.

“Now it’s a waiting game,” Magnus said. “We declare the C-5 missing. There will be a search, but nothing will be found.”

“Without a flight plan? Crash report, anything like that?”

“They know we have a C-5,” Magnus said. “Colding ordered it to take off over the big water, and we haven’t heard from it since.”

Maybe it was the buzz, but Andy couldn’t put all the pieces together. “Colding ordered it?”

Magnus nodded.

“But what about Fischer? He’s got a real hard-on for you and Danté.”

“The research is gone,” Magnus said. “That’s what the governments really wanted. They don’t care about Fischer’s hard-on for us. Once we fire up the lawyers, make a stink, the governments tell Fischer to back off, and that’s that.”

“Huh. Is it really that easy?”

Magnus picked up his glass and took a big swallow. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

We’ll find out . Magnus knew how to plan ahead, how to put pieces in play when others thought he was just standing still. That brand of thinking had kept Andy alive at least a half-dozen times, and in situations far more severe than this. A lot of people had died under Magnus’s command, but a lot more had survived when the situation dictated they had no right to do so.

“What about Jian’s body?”

“It will be found.”

“By who?”

“By us.”

“Wait a minute. Then why did you have Colding bury her?”

“So we could dig her up. Part of her, anyway. We leave enough buried so that Fischer’s cronies find Colding’s DNA all over her. Hair, skin, fingerprints, shit like that.”

Andy shook his head. Magnus was just amazing. “So Colding gets fingered for Jian’s murder?”

Magnus nodded.

“And we found the body?”

“That’s right.”

“And we knew Colding killed her… how?”

Magnus sighed. “Because of his deathbed confession. Which came right after we shot him in self-defense.”

Andy moved his king to queen-1. “And Colding attacked us… why?”

“You and I were in Manitoba. We’d lost contact with everyone on the island. Clayton, Sven, the Harveys, the scientists. Bobby flew us out here to see what was going on. We discovered Colding had sabotaged the C-5, then killed everyone else after it flew off. He had to make sure there were no witnesses, you see. When we confronted him, he tried to murder us as well.”

“Wow,” Andy said. “That Colding is a regular psycho.”

“Sad, but true.”

“Just so I’m tracking here… Colding did all of this… how come?”

“Because you were fucking Sara.”

“I was?”

“You were.”

“Sweet . Would love to pound on that vaj.”

“Jian found out you were doing Colding’s girlfriend,” Magnus said. “So, like a good friend, she told Colding. Bubbah snapped, killed Jian on the spot. Turns out the boy has a history of losing his temper. He wanted Sara dead, so he sent the C-5 up, put a bomb in it. Then he tried to cover his tracks. Killed everyone. Bobby brings us out here, routine shit, Colding tries to kill us.”

“’Cause he’s psycho.”

“Exactly. But we defend ourselves. As he’s dying, he tells us the whole story, including where he buried Jian.”

“What a shame,” Andy said. “The whole project, wiped out. The only people left are you, me and Gunther.”

“Lucky for Gunther he was pulling extended duty up on the fire watchtower. Phone lines were down as well. Crazy how it happens like that. Gunther manned his post like a good soldier, had no idea any of this was going on.”

“Will Gun play along with that?”

“Considering his options if he doesn’t, yeah, I think he’ll play along.”

Andy nodded. Gunther was no dummy. “All of this human tragedy, this loss of life makes me sad. Exactly when did Colding snap and kill everyone left on the island?”

“Tomorrow,” Magnus said. “You don’t mind doing some wet work for me tomorrow, do you?”

“Does a dog mind licking his own balls? I’ll get things done. But what does Danté think of all this?”