Scott Sigler - Ancestor

Hatred. Hatred for the skinny prey, and it felt much, much stronger than even his worst hunger pangs.

A noise behind him. He wheeled, bared his gap-toothed maw, ready for a three-legged charge.

But it wasn’t a skinny thing. It was one of his kind. Scorched black skin covered the right side of its head. The right eye was a hollow socket rimmed with wetness. There were more burns on its right shoulder, down the side.

He was upwind and hadn’t smelled his own until now. This close, however, the rich stench of scorched fur and burnt flesh filled his wounded nose. He also recognized a signature scent: no other of his kind would smell quite like that. If there were any others of his kind left.

And he smelled one more thing, a smell that affected him in an exciting new way.

It was the smell of… a female.

THE RED SQUIRREL stopped and stared at the treasure trove.

A pile of pinecones.

She smelled the seeds inside. So yummy. And she was so hungry.

There were other smells, too. The smell of a dead animal. The smell of another squirrel—faint and strange, but still there.

She looked up, eyes scanning for the silhouettes programmed into her instincts: small head close to wings, long wide tail, the silhouettes of hawks and owls. Nothing. She scurried a few feet closer, then stopped again.

Now she smelled a new smell, a strange smell. Some kind of animal, but one she’d never known before. Anything new made her want to run. But such a pile of pinecones! So much food!

She moved closer. The pile of cones sat near a hole in the ground next to a small white tree. A hole like the rabbits made. And next to the hole was a shiny thing just a little bigger than the squirrel herself. Like a piece of tree branch, but thicker, smoother. The round sides were a dark red, with spots of white like the snow. The sun glinted off its top. That sight made her more hungry, because usually when she saw that shiny shape, nearby there were crinkly things with salty food inside.

Movement.

She scrambled away, then stopped and looked back. Movement behind the pinecones. The fluff of a squirrel tail. One of her own, already eating the pinecones! But those were her pinecones!

She sprinted in, came around the pile to drive the competitor away.

A glimpse of horror—nothing but a tail! Danger! She turned to flee, but felt a stabbing pain in her back. She squealed and tried to run, but something lifted her into the air. Her feet kicked on emptiness. She twisted her head to attack the pain in her back, bit down on something hard.

Even in her panic, she recognized the taste.

Bone .

A bone, long and thin like a stick. At the other end was the unknown animal that produced the new smell. The squirrel couldn’t turn all the way around, but she saw glimpses of white skin and a head covered in long, heavy black fur.

The creature holding the bone was dragging her into the hole. Darkness covered her, just the spot of light shining in from above. Her little feet dug into dirt and scrabbled, pushed, clawed, but it made no difference. The thing in her back pulled her down and down, the stench of death grew thicker.

She saw big, curved white bones scored everywhere with gnaw marks. She was inside something dead. The pain!

The spot of light seemed so far away. She felt something grab her, hold her. She squealed and squealed. Her head thrashed, she snapped her jaws, anything to escape, to survive .

Crushing pressure on the back of her neck. Her body stiffened, then relaxed. She felt a chunk of herself torn away. Small mouth opening and closing, tiny breaths slowing, she finally stopped moving enough to see her surroundings.

She saw the torn, meatless corpses of her kind, stacked into a neat pile of fur and bones.

From the Author

A VERY EARLY version of this novel was first released as a free, serialized audiobook podcast running from September 2005 to February 2006. Ancestor reared its head again as a small-press novel, published on April 1, 2007. With no marketing budget, no advertising and no media coverage, the print version of Ancestor hit #7 overall on Amazon.com, and it was the #2 fiction novel behind Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Ancestor wasn’t there for long, but it was there , and that made all the difference.

That success came via word of mouth from my fans, the people who dubbed themselves “Junkies.” Those were heady times in the land of Siglerism. That accomplishment directly led to my publishing deal with Crown, a deal that included the major rewrite and re-release of Ancestor that you now hold in your hands.

Ancestor represents all phases of my path as an author: from free, online audiobooks to surprise small-press success to bestselling hardcover novelist. This novel is the living metaphor for my dream to become an author, my hard work to reach that goal, my final success in getting an honest shot at the big time—and most important, at entertaining you and proving my worth as a storyteller.

My very career as a writer exists because of the fans who downloaded that free online audiobook, then continued to enjoy my works and support my efforts. I owe all of this to my fans, to my “Junkies.” That’s why I dedicate this book to you, Junkies—you are all the stuff of dreams, and your FDO™ thanks you.

And to you, the person holding this book? I busted my fanny to make the best story I could. I hope you enjoy Ancestor , and I hope I keep you coming back for more.

THE LIST OF awesomeness below pertains specifically to this version of Ancestor . Other key contributors were thanked in previous versions.

Team Sigler

•A Kovacs, the Director of Døøm

•Julian “Tha Shiv” Pavia, Editor and Destroyer of Worlds

•Byrd Leavell, Super Agent and Family Man

•Crown Publishing, many thanks to all y’all

Fallen in Battle

•Mookie, in these pages you get to live forever.

The Three Amigos of Biology Research

•Joseph A. Albietz III, M.D., Pediatrics and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine

•Jeremy “Xenophanes” Ellis, Ph.D., Developmental and Cell Biology

•Tom Merrit, Ph.D., Virology, Gene Therapy and Human Molecular Genetics

Siglerism Military Attachés

•Major Kris Alexander, U.S. Army: WMD counter-proliferation

•Robert W. Gilliland, Major, USAF: C-5 Galaxy

•Chris Grall, Veteran, U.S. Army: Weapons expertise

♠•JP Harvey: Helicopters

•Renee Jordan: Weapons and CBRN expertise

Foreign Language Phrases

•Sacha Kerckhoffs, Yang Liu, Katharina Maimer, Daniel Morgan, David Perry, Christian Walther, Christian Weihs, Selganor Yoster (and if I missed any here, my apologies)

Design Stars

•Kyle “The Crusher” Kolker, for another kick-ass cover

•Andre Gilbert, sculptor of Baby McButter

•Donna Mugavero, for design reference

E-mail: scott@scottsigler.net

Facebook.com/scottsigler

Myspace.com/scottsigler

Twitter.com/scottsigler

Infected

Contagious

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.