A roar, soft at first, erupted from the southeast. It quickly gained decibels, rising to howler monkey levels. Then lion levels. Blue whale levels.
And beyond.
Ground tremors sprung up under Caplan’s shoes, sending tiny vibrations through his body. Reaching out, he grabbed hold of a juniper for support. The ancient wooden column quaked and trembled against his fingertips. Needles and scaly green leaves shook loose and dropped to the earth.
A few seconds later, the disturbance ceased. Releasing the tree, Caplan cast a wary glance at Morgan. “Please tell me you didn’t make dinosaurs,” he said.
She gazed southeast with wide, confused eyes. “No, just Pleistocene megafauna. James was very strict on that point.”
“Then what was that?”
“It definitely wasn’t a woolly mammoth. And it was way too loud to come from one of the sabers.” Her face twisted in thought. “It must’ve been one of the newly expelled 1-Gens. Only…”
“Yeah?”
Tearing her gaze from the forest, she looked at Caplan. “I can’t imagine any of them having the vocal chops to pull it off.”
Great, just what we need, Caplan thought. Another mystery to solve.
Kicking his speed up another gear, Caplan trekked deeper into Sector 48A. The forest thickened. Evergreen branches stretched toward other branches, forming enormous arches and blocking out the inky, cloud-covered sky.
The Vallerio played tricks with Caplan’s mind, trying to throw him off course. But his internal compass rose to the occasion. And so he continued onward, hiking toward Corbotch, Perkins, and the Rexto 419R3 corporate helicopter.
With each step, he felt himself drawing closer to ancient and otherworldly evil. At the same time, he felt his true self — the one he’d lost five months ago — shed its shackles and take its rightful place at the forefront of his consciousness.
The archaic columns of gnarled wood began to transform into ordinary evergreen trees. Black corridors morphed into somewhat-welcoming pathways. He spotted footprints and animals trails. Heard quiet chirps and snapping twigs. Felt the breeze and the pulsing of distant creatures. The Vallerio was still ancient, still evil.
But he no longer viewed it solely through lens of fear.
A strange sensation ran through him. He veered off-course, acting solely on instinct. Morgan hurried to keep up with him. As he hiked in this new direction, he observed his surroundings. He smelled feces in the air. He saw scratching posts and drag marks. But that wasn’t what drove him onward. It was something else. Something he couldn’t quite explain.
He stopped at the foot of a giant pine tree, easily some 200 feet tall. His heart began to pound against his chest. Kneeling down, he studied the soil. Then he swung his rifle to his side and carefully cleared away the top layer of wet dirt. Underneath, he found a bed of brown pine needles and dead grass. And underneath that, he found exactly what he knew he’d find.
Morgan stared at the dirt-smeared objects. “What are those things?”
“Bones.” He dug a little deeper, revealing some shredded orange fabric. He touched it and memories flooded through him. “Tony’s bones.”
Chapter 50
Morgan stared at Caplan, her eyes filled with the deepest imaginable horror. “How can you be sure?”
“The bones belong to a man. Plus, they’re big.” Caplan gently maneuvered the dirt-smeared objects to give her a closer look. “Eyeballing them, I’d say they’re a good fit for his frame. But that piece of orange fabric is the kicker. Tony was wearing an orange jacket that day.”
“I remember that jacket…” Her voice, tinged with sadness, trailed off into the night.
“The bones are picked clean.” Extending his fingertips, Caplan carefully pried a ribcage out of the soil. He brushed off the ribs, revealing deep puncture marks. “But whatever got him had long, sharp teeth. You know, I saw wounds like these earlier today. On some of the bodies near the Blaze’s wreckage.”
Morgan inhaled. “Cats made those,” she said. “Saber-toothed cats.”
“Why do you keep calling them that?”
“Saber-toothed tiger is misleading because they’re not closely related to tigers. Though now that I think about it, they’re not closely related to modern cats either.”
“How can you be sure it’s a saber?”
“Because of their long upper canines. From our tests, we know that’s how they like to kill. They’re ambush predators who hold down prey with their forelimbs. Then they use their neck muscles to drive their upper canines into soft flesh, usually the throat or abdomen.” She exhaled. “Besides, it’s the only thing that makes sense. We know James took sabers, woolly mammoths, and the incubators here. The incubators didn’t start opening until the full expulsion sequence was initiated a few hours ago. And if a woolly mammoth had killed Tony, the bones wouldn’t be in such good shape. So, that leaves sabers.”
A howl, vicious and bloodthirsty, rose out of the forest. Caplan clenched his jaw. He knew that howl all too well. Well, well, well, he thought. Look who’s back for round two.
A large creature, cloaked in shadows, stepped out from behind a thick cedar trunk. It was over six feet long with shoulders rising more than four feet off the earth. Its right shoulder blade slumped a bit and Caplan saw a small hole, ringed by dried blood and matted fur.
It’s the same wolf, he thought, his eyes narrowing to slits. But it’s at least a foot longer and taller. What the hell is going on around here?
Chapter 51
Caplan felt a twinge of fear pass through him. But this time, it didn’t originate from the Vallerio. Instead, it came solely from the strange beast. Not from its existence, but from its unexplained growth. How could any animal grow so much in such a short span of time? It was unthinkable, impossible. And yet, undeniably real.
“That’s a dire wolf,” Morgan whispered. “It looks exactly like our sketches. All but the coat, that is. We thought its fur would be more like that of a gray wolf.”
Caplan studied the dire wolf from afar. Its golden brown coat, streaked with black, shimmered in the dim light. Its savage, orangish eyes flicked back and forth between him and Morgan. Its tongue licked its lips over and over again. All in all, it looked similar to how he remembered it. It was just a taller, longer, and bulkier version of itself.
“That’s the one I cut out of the incubator,” Caplan said. “See that bullet hole? James’ guy shot it when it attacked me. He saved my life.”
Morgan lifted her pistol, took aim at the wolf. “This is the same guy that infected you?”
“The very one.” Memories of Julius Pearson weighed heavily on Caplan’s mind. What had happened to him anyway? Did he venture into the Lab with the big shots? Did he get his comeuppance? Or was he still out there somewhere? “By the way, how big do these wolves get?”
“I don’t remember. Why?”
“Because that one’s hit a growth spurt since I last saw it. At least a foot in height and even more in length.”
Her gaze hardened. “That’s impossible.”
“Tell me about it.” With slow, fluid movements, Caplan placed his rifle and backpack on the ground. Then he grabbed hold of his twin axes and carefully removed their head covers.