Caplan’s fingers still ached and his muscles were close to exhaustion. But at least he was no longer supporting Pearson’s weight. At the same time, the loss of ballast allowed the chopper to climb just a bit faster and on a more even keel.
Morgan wrenched herself to the cabin door and fell flat on the carpet. With Mills holding her legs, she reached out and grabbed Caplan’s wrists. With the extra support, Caplan was able to shift strength to his lower half.
The saber rose up on its hind legs. Snarling and spitting, it lunged at the chopper.
Swinging his body, Caplan kicked his legs into the air. The saber’s paw passed beneath him, so close he could feel the creature’s bristling fur.
Quickly, he hooked his legs around the landing skid. Waves of pleasure and pain flooded his arms as he relaxed his fingers.
The chopper soared higher and higher, rising well above the saber. Then Perkins leveled out the craft and they hovered above the inferno, shrouded in thick columns of gray smoke.
Morgan released his wrists and grabbed his shoulders. With her help, he grabbed onto the cabin door and then dragged himself into the craft. As he flopped on the ground, sputtering out smoke and ash, Morgan slammed the door shut.
“You okay?” Perkins called out.
“Just…” Caplan hacked a few more times. “… peachy.”
Perkins nodded. “Well, where to?”
Where to, indeed? The question sent Caplan’s mind spinning off in all sorts of directions. Back to New York? Somewhere else?
And what would they do when they landed? Return to their lives as if nothing had happened? Go underground in case someone came looking for them?
And so on and so forth. Truthfully, Caplan didn’t know what to do, now or at any point in the future. It was all just a complete blank. At the same time, he noticed the others looking at him expectantly, waiting for his answer. They would, he realized, follow him anywhere. That fact scared him more than anything. Well, almost anything.
“Just head south,” he said. “To the nearest airfield.”
“Will do.”
More questions filled Caplan’s head. What, if anything, should he do about the coming extinction? Should he tell the world, even though he knew no one would listen? Should he put his survival skills to the test and find a place to bunker down, to ride out the storm? Should he invite the others to join him?
His coughs faded away. His breathing normalized. He slid to the minibar and pressed his back against it, feeling its coolness through his shredded and mud-laden shirt.
He felt something in his pocket. Reaching inside, he pulled out the amber-colored pill container. It was chock full of tablets. Glancing at the cockpit, he cleared his throat. “What do you know about HA-78?”
“Not a lot,” Perkins admitted. “It was one of James’ side projects. I was vaccinated months ago along with a whole bunch of his inner circle.”
“He created it?”
“Not him. One of his research teams.”
“The tablets… if I take one, will that cure me?”
“I’m afraid not. The tablets don’t cure anything. They just suppress symptoms. So, you — all of you — are asymptomatic carriers.”
“So, we’re contagious.” Caplan frowned. “Forget the airfield. Take us to… I don’t know… someplace without people.”
As Perkins returned to the controls, Caplan stuffed the container back into his pocket. Great, just great. They were infected with a disease none of them understood. All he knew was that anyone who came within shouting distance of them required a tablet to stave off death.
Guess I can forget about New York, he thought.
Morgan looked at Elliott, then at Mills. “Is she okay?” she asked with a nod at Elliott.
Mills shrugged.
“Back in the forest, you said something about a barn-like building,” Morgan said. “And she mentioned wheels and tubes.”
Mills’ gaze shot to the minibar where it lingered for a few seconds. Then she exhaled. “We saw smoke and followed it to a building. An electric fence surrounded it. The power was out, the fence had been knocked down, and the building had been set ablaze. We’d seen these elephant-like animals earlier in the day. One of them probably did it.”
“These animals… were they woolly mammoths?”
Mills nodded.
Caplan exchanged knowing glances with Morgan. The Blare had most likely caused the power outage. Some 1-Gen woolly mammoths had overrun the fences, killed everyone, and set the building ablaze in the process. And that burning building, he thought, might just explain another mystery. “So, that wildfire… that came from the building?” he asked.
She nodded. “We thought we’d put it out. Unfortunately, it blazed up again.”
“And the wheels?” Morgan asked.
“They were in the basement. Tricia and I went down there while Brian kept watch. She opened one and we saw this dead guy.” Mills winced. “At first, we thought the wheel was an isolation chamber. But the guy was plugged into it with wires and tubes. Tricia guessed it was some kind of life-support system and that the power failure had killed him. But who builds over a dozen life support systems in the middle of nowhere?”
A barn-like building? Life support systems? A corpse? Apparently, Corbotch’s Vallerio-based projects weren’t restricted to Hatcher Station. And that thought made Caplan’s skin crawl.
He studied Mills for a moment. She was frazzled and in desperate need of a shower. The large logbook he’d seen earlier sat neatly in her lap. She held it with both hands as if her life depended on it. “What’s that?” he asked.
“This?” She glanced at the book. “Truthfully, I don’t know. I don’t even know why I still have it. All I know is that I found it near the wheels.”
Caplan’s eyes traced the leather cover and he saw the title, etched in fine bronze lettering. Apex Predator? he thought. What the hell is that?
“Sweet Jesus.” Perkins whistled in awe.
Elliott stared straight ahead, apparently still stuck in some kind of mental hell. But Toland, Morgan, and Mills all swiveled toward the nearest windows. They tensed up. Their jaws fell agape.
Caplan, well past the point of physical exhaustion, waited for someone to say something. But other than the whirling of rotors and the quiet buzz of electricity, the cabin remained silent.
With a sharp groan, he struggled to one knee. Twisting around, he looked out the side window.
They’d flown clear of the fire and so he saw pristine evergreen and deciduous forest in the darkness. It was thick and green and full of ancient mysticism. This was the Vallerio he wished to remember. The Vallerio of hidden secrets and youthful dreams. But there was no going back to that Vallerio. For him, the forest had undergone an irrevocable change and…
He frowned. Leaned closer to the window.
Wide paths zigzagged through the forest, veering in all directions. It looked like someone had taken an army of bulldozers to the place, chopping away at the trees with reckless and directionless abandon.
He focused on one of the paths. Pressed his forehead against the window and watched as a patch of textured blackness cut a gigantic path below him. Abruptly, the textured blackness shifted like ripples in an ocean. And then it started to rise.
Caplan recoiled in shock. The textured blackness… it was fur. Distinct wiry fur. He couldn’t believe it. It was the same short-faced bear that had chased Morgan and him in the lab facility with one key difference.
It was larger.
Much larger.
The creature’s shoulders rose some forty feet off the forest floor. It rumbled through the forest with ease, causing the ground to quake and once-mighty tree trunks to fall before its wrath.