Scott Sigler - Ancestor

Less than thirty seconds after the first bite, only bloodstains and an overturned snowmobile marked Andy Crosthwaite’s passing.

COLDING BRAKED TO a stop on a rise that gave him a view of both Sven’s house and the trail behind him. Ten minutes had passed since that crazy flight for life. His heart still pounded so hard he wondered if his end might not come from a bullet, or a monster, but from cardiac arrest.

He turned to look back, the barrel of his Beretta leading his vision. Nothing right behind him, but how could he be sure? He peered deeper into the dark, shadow-soaked woods on either side, watching for movement or a strange-looking patch of black and white.

Muscles stayed clenched. The barrel wiggled in time with his shaking hand. His stomach was bound up so tight he couldn’t draw a deep breath. He saw hundreds of the creatures in the darkness, behind every log, lurking under the snow-laden branches of every tree. Waiting to spring, waiting for him to turn away so they could rush him and tear him apart.

Colding held his breath, then forced a long, slow exhale. He had to get control of himself. There was nothing out there. Emotions raged through him—fear of the creatures, frustration from not knowing Sara’s fate, humiliation at having begged for his life. He had to calm down. Calm down and think . Sara might still be alive, might be with Rhumkorrf, hiding out in Sven’s house. Colding had to start there.

He switched the pistol to his right hand, then reached back with his left and checked the right-shoulder wound for the first time. Felt like a burning poker had been permanently fixed to his screaming skin. His fingers came away wet with blood, but not a lot. He slowly rotated his arm. Pain, sure, but full range of motion. Andy’s bullet had missed the bone.

Colding had never been shot before, but he didn’t think the wound was all that bad. He wiped the blood on the leg of his snowsuit.

He switched the Beretta back to his left hand and drove with his right, down the ridge toward the lights of Sven’s barn. He had to get out of sight, and not just because of the monsters—he had no way of knowing if Andy was still out there, hunting, maybe even looking at Colding this very second, lining up a shot.

The gun snapped up when he saw the small man in the black parka standing in the open barn door. Andy? No, this man was even smaller than Andy.

Rhumkorrf.

Colding kept the gun trained on him anyway, then pointed it off. What the hell was he doing? Think, man, have to think . He slid the snowmobile to a halt in front of Rhumkorrf but didn’t shut off the engine. It idled as he looked the man over.

Claus Rhumkorrf looked like a torture victim. Oozing burn blisters covered most of his face. He wore no hat. The left side of his scalp flaked black where it wasn’t raw and red. Tufts of blackened down hung precariously in spots where his parka was nothing more than torn and melted nylon, providing no warmth, no protection. His lips were swollen, cracked and white. His eyes looked vacant and ghostly—soulless.

“My God, Doc, are you okay? Where’s Sara and the crew?”

Rhumkorrf didn’t answer. He held out his left hand. No gloves. Fingers swollen to twice their normal size, blue from burst blood vessels brought on by frostbite. Second-degree frostbite, probably only a few hours away from the third degree that would demand amputation of those fingers. Colding had to get the man inside. How gone was Rhumkorrf that he wasn’t waiting inside Sven’s house?

And for that matter, where was Sven?

In the palm of his ravaged hand, Rhumkorrf held something brown with white flecks that gleamed in the barn’s light.

“My fault,” Rhumkorrf said in a tiny voice. “All my fault.”

“Doc, did Sara hide out with you here?”

Rhumkorrf shook his head.

“Did she make it? Where’s the plane?”

Rhumkorrf spoke with a far-off, distant voice. “I made it out just before the explosion. The blast knocked me through the air. I… I burned a little. I didn’t see anyone else—they’re all dead.”

Pain. Not the physical kind, far worse… the same crippling pain he’d felt watching Clarissa die. No. No way . Not Sara. “Did you see Sara die? See her body? What about the crew, Alonzo and the Twins?”

“I woke up in the snow,” Rhumkorrf said. “I told you I didn’t see anyone else. I walked here and hid in the shed. Then the fetuses… they, they came out. I saw them chase down cows, tear them to pieces. Such noises . The ancestors are out there, P. J., you have to believe me.”

“Preachin’ to the choir. Check out the back of the fucking sled.”

Rhumkorrf looked at the ripped seat. Chunks of white foam stuck out from the shredded vinyl. Colding saw Rhumkorrf’s eyes moving from cut to parallel cut, could almost hear the calculations clicking away in the man’s brain.

“How big?”

“Big,” Colding said. “Way over four hundred pounds, maybe four fifty.”

“Impossible. They would need… tens of thousands of pounds of food to reach that size.”

Colding looked back to the barn. “Would fifty cows at about fifteen hundred pounds each do the trick?”

Rhumkorrf stared at the barn, seemingly dumbfounded by the question. “Yes. Yes, that would do it. And if they get the other cows, at the Harveys’, they could get even bigger.”

The Harveys. Shit .

“Get on,” Colding said. Rhumkorrf let out a yelp of pain as he sat on the claw-shredded seat. Who knew which of his many injuries had zinged him? Maybe it was all of them.

Colding drove the sled the fifty yards to the house, then stopped on the far side so it wouldn’t be visible from the road. He ran inside, feeling the house’s warmth on his face even as he scanned for and found the phone.

Rhumkorrf followed him in. “Who are you calling? I already called the mansion and talked to Andy.”

“I’m kind of aware of that,” Colding said. “I’m calling the Harveys.”

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.

“Call the mansion,” Rhumkorrf said. “Have them bring that zebra tank-thing, please, get us out of here.”

Colding hung up. “Can’t do that. I came out here with Andy, under Magnus’s orders. Andy tried to kill me.”

“Is Andy dead?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the ancestors got him, or maybe he’s coming after us right now.”

Rhumkorrf sagged. He still held the brown rock in his hand. “So Magnus really does want me dead.”

“They don’t call you a fucking genius for nothing. Come on, we gotta go.”

“Go where? Magnus will kill us.”

“We have to get to the Harveys’. They didn’t answer.”

“Then they’re dead,” Rhumkorrf said, shaking his head. “We can’t go out there.”

“Doc, we have to. And I’m not leaving you here, so let’s go.”

Rhumkorrf shook his head harder, eyes wide, a little drool dripping out of the right corner of his open mouth. “Nein! Nein! I watched through the shed window. They caught the cows and killed them, ate them. They eat everything, Colding, bones and all.”

He held out his frostbitten hand, again offering up the white-speckled rock. But… it wasn’t a rock. It was a chunk of dark brown speckled with tiny white ice crystals.

“Doc, what is that?”

“Stool.”

“What?”

“Feces. Scheisse . From the ancestors.”

Colding finally recognized one of the white things—a human tooth, a molar. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

“They ate Sven,” Rhumkorrf said. “They ate Sven and all the cows, Colding. Bones and all. Do you understand? Bones and all.”