Scott Sigler - Ancestor

Oh, no. No-no-no . Bobby Valentine was coming in, and Danté would be with him.

Magnus looked outside. Still dark, although the light of dawn filtered through the woods from over the horizon. Nothing outside the shaft save for trees, and fifty meters away, the Bv206.

He had to warn his brother. Magnus sprinted to the zebra-striped vehicle. His eyes scanned the woods on all sides, but he saw no movement. He jumped in and slammed the door.

An armored vehicle. A defensible position. That gave him a second to think.

He couldn’t call the heli. No radio in the Bv, thanks to his own goddamn security rules. The helicopter would come in, and it would be loud . That noise would probably draw the creatures.

He pulled out Clayton’s keys to start the Bv, then paused. Clayton had keys for every building on the island, including those in the old town.

Magnus turned on the flashlight and set it on the seat. He held the keys in front of the beam and examined them one at a time. Black Manitou Lodge key—tarnished all over. Sven’s hunting shop key, the same. The church key…

…the flashlight beam played off fresh scratches.

Soon, he would deal with them all, with Clayton, with Sara, with Tim, but first he had to get to the landing strip and protect his brother.

SARA POPPED OPEN the trapdoor and climbed out onto the turret, then helped the limping Tim up top. Stars flickered above, slow in relinquishing their place to the oncoming dawn. The noise that had been faint inside the thick church rang loud and clear in the open air.

“An air-raid siren?” Tim said. “What’s up with that?”

“Not sure. But obviously whoever is in that tower wants to let everyone know something’s coming.”

“Or he’s trying to call for help.”

Sara shivered from the cold. “Well, if those monsters aren’t there already, they’ll sure come running. They seem to go after noise. I hope whoever it is moves fast.”

“Unless it’s Magnus,” Tim said quietly.

Sara nodded. If only they could be that lucky.

GUNTHER HELD HIS gloved hands over his ears, but it didn’t do much to stop the ear-piercing siren blaring underneath the small shack. Amazingly, he’d found a way to make his shitty situation even worse.

He forced himself to lower his hands so he could scan the horizon through his binoculars. Far off, he saw a tiny black speck. Bobby’s Sikorski. Bobby didn’t need any help bringing that thing in. Gunther had done his job. Time to head back to the lodge. Time to get warm .

He hung the binoculars around his neck, turned off the heater, walked out of the tiny cabin onto the wooden catwalk and started down the tall ladder. He was three meters from the ground when his eye caught movement from his left. Instinctively, he stopped and looked.

A flashing yellow color, but it wasn’t a light… more like a flag or something, like triangular fabric, lifting up and down in an irregular pattern. It was about fifty meters away, just at the edge of the tower’s cone of light, centered in an odd-looking patch of snow spotted with black rocks.

Holding the ladder with one hand, he lifted his binoculars, leaned out and looked.

Even in the dim illumination cast off by the tower’s floodlights, he saw it. A spear of fear stabbed through his chest. Not a flag in a patch of snow, an animal… a huge, strange-looking, dangerous animal. But what was it? And why was it just sitting there?

He heard movement to his right. Gunther lowered the binoculars and turned.

Another creature running full-tilt in an odd crouch-waddle, like a half-upright Komodo dragon. It gathered and leaped, huge mouth opening wide to reveal rows of long white teeth.

Gunther grabbed a rung with both hands and lifted his legs high.

The creature slammed into the ladder where Gunther’s feet had just been. Wide jaws snapped down just before momentum carried the big body through the ladder, shattering the cold dry wood into a hundred splintery shards. The remaining upper part of the ladder shook from the impact, so hard that it almost flung Gunther free.

The creature fell clumsily into the snow, its monstrous mouth working the ladder’s remnants in short, vicious bites.

Gunther’s legs desperately kicked open air as he tried to pull himself up. The ladder wobbled wildly, accompanied by the sound of grinding, splintering wood. He looked above—the right ladder post had snapped. Only the left one remained fixed to the tower.

More motion from below. The creature seemed to realize it had missed its meal. It violently shook away a mouthful of bloody splinters, then turned and gathered for another jump.

Gunther pulled hard, lifting himself enough to plant his foot on the wobbling ladder’s bottom rung. He scrambled up just before the leaping creature’s jaws snapped on open air.

He climbed, the wood wobbling with each step. His hands grabbed the platform just as the left post snapped loose and the ladder fell away. Feet dangling free again, he kicked them under the cabin, then pulled himself up when his body rocked back. He had to get to the phone.

Down below, the creature roared in frustration, a lonely, deep, guttural sound that echoed off the trees, clearly audible despite the blaring Klaxon. Gunther realized that it wasn’t just one roar. He stopped on the catwalk and looked around.

More creatures, dozens of them, coming out of the woods from all sides like some childhood nightmare, rushing forward with their strange waddling gait. Big as goddamn tigers. They gathered at the tower’s bottom, long claws digging into the wood as they tried to climb up, teeth flashing from mouths as wide and long as a grown man’s chest.

His hands squeezed down on the wooden rail. He took in a deep breath, then let it out. Control. Just another kind of combat, that’s all it was. Had to stay calm, make logical decisions, just like Magnus had taught him.

Whatever the fuck these things were, they couldn’t get to him up here. They couldn’t jump ten meters. He ran inside the cabin, grabbed the phone and hit the page-all button.

The phone rang.

No one answered.

The tower started vibrating under his feet.

Small tremors at first, but after a few seconds he had to put his hand on the wall to keep his balance.

Someone answer, goddamit, answer!

No one answered.

The shaking grew worse.

He set the receiver down, ran back onto the catwalk and looked.

The creatures were attacking the four thick wooden posts that supported the cabin. Biting and clawing, they tore out big, splintery chunks and tossed them aside before coming back for another try. Rough wooden daggers dug into their noses, their lips, their tongues, coating their black-and-white mouths with fresh spurts of red. Still they bit, they tore, climbing over one another to get at the wood.

Logical decisions didn’t cover this. Nothing covered this. Fear settled into a waiting pattern in his stomach and balls. He was fucked and he knew it. Gunther drew his Beretta and held it, knowing it would do nothing to help him.

The tower lurched to the left, then stopped. Gunther grabbed at the rail in a desperate grip for survival. His bladder let go, the urine a final, brief sensation of warmth amid the bitter cold.

A second post gave way with a resounding snap. The ten-meter tower tilted to the south, slowly at first, but it quickly picked up speed, dropping like a falling tree. Gunther’s scream locked in his throat as the tower slammed into the snowy ground. The cabin shattered, as did Gunther, dozens of bones breaking on impact.

Unfortunately, the fall didn’t kill him.