Bury it.
Yes…
Bury it!
As Chaney opened another box before the patient and endlessly indulgent Dr. Hamilton — arms crossed in calm cooperation — Hunter placed a hard hand on the concrete floor.
Cold, smooth, and… something else…
He frowned as he studied it, wondering.
Cold, smooth, and… what?
Time passed.
Hunter scowled, unmoving, and concentrated. He closed his eyes, letting it speak to him, searching.
Cold… smooth and…
What did he feel?
He shook his head, frustrated.
Before he understood.
Vibration.
Hunter didn't open his eyes, revealed nothing in his repose. Then, slowly, he raised his hand until only the tips of his fingers — a place where the nerves were clustered closer than any other place in the body — were touching lightly. He relaxed and closed his eyes, feeling, reading, waiting, and he noticed that the infinitesimal vibrations were rhythmic.
So slight as to be unnoticeable to anything but the lightest touch, they continued without respite. And Hunter looked around, searching and wondering. Upstairs, he knew, the second story of this facility was fed electricity by massive generators housed in the tin shed at the back of the complex. Too far, he knew, to make the cement floor beneath him vibrate with the labor.
No, this was something different. It was from the machinery housed upstairs or from something… beneath.
He opened his eyes to see Hamilton aiding Chaney once again in the examination of yet another ubiquitous military crate. In the space of a breath Hunter rose and walked toward them. When he was close, he spoke loudly to Chaney with a trace of carefully constructed frustration, of defeat.
"I'm outta here, Chaney," he said, waving as he turned away. "We're not gonna find anything. I'm gonna check on Bobbi Jo."
Chaney scowled. "We haven't had a chance to check this place out yet, Hunter! Why don't you look on the other side? See if you can find anything that doesn't have shipping orders attached to it!"
"No time!" Hunter threw up a hand. "I'm going up top to make sure we've got our ducks lined up and check on Bobbi Jo! You can finish this!"
He had walked ten feet when Hamilton called after him. "You needn't worry about the elevator!" he instructed. "It will automatically stop on the first floor! I'm sure you will know your bearings!"
Hunter said nothing — don't overplay stupidity — in reply as he reached the elevator and entered, hitting the button and waiting as the doors began to shut. He had a moment of panic as Hamilton continued to stare at him and then the doors began to slide. At the same instant, Chaney said something to the doctor and Hamilton glanced down.
Years of split-second decision-making gave Hunter the edge to slide with animal grace out the doors as they closed. He moved with the stealth of a panther, flattening himself against the end of a shelf along the wall. He was almost completely submerged in darkness.
Carefully glancing over the crates, he saw Hamilton turn to the elevator. The doors were closed completely and for a second the doctor frowned, as if he had been denied the pleasure of observing Hunter's departure. Then Chaney was moving again and Hamilton — ever too eager to assist — was beside him.
They walked farther into the warehouse as Hunter bent and crept in the opposite direction, stooping occasionally to feel the floor. But the vibrations became weaker as he worked his way to the west end of the building, more powerful as he stalked toward the east. Concentrated on the task, he could almost hear the dim subterranean drone when he sensed shadows approaching.
It wasn't so much sight or sound as that nebulous and unexplainable "something," warning of another's presence that caused his face and narrow eyes to rise.
Hunter had learned how to obey the sensation instantly and was moving slowly and silently between two huge crates that might have housed refrigerators when they rounded the corner where he had been. He heard rather than saw Chaney and Hamilton at the elevator cargo doors, and followed Chaney's every word.
"We're not done here, Doctor," he said with obvious displeasure. "We'll put off the rest of the search until morning. But we'll continue. So plan for it."
"Of course. Anything you wish, Marshal."
Then they were gone and Hunter emerged, gazing at the empty warehouse. Every fourth overhead fluorescent light remained lit, and Hunter assumed they were on all the time.
Step by step, he worked his way closer to the heart of the vibration, eventually locating a section near the east wall. He knew only one thing: if it was a cooling system, it would require ventilation because it couldn't circulate either cool or warm air without evacuating it as well.
Searching the floor, Hunter found two small vents. But he discovered a much larger vent not far away. He knew the two smaller vents were for heating and cooling. This big one was something else: it was an exhaust vent for the floor below.
It took him another ten minutes to move a heavy crate away from the wall, and he frowned grimly at the discovery.
Holding his open hand before the ventilation grill, Hunter clearly felt warm air expelled from the lowest and unmentioned level of the research station — a level that the cooperative Dr. Hamilton had somehow forgotten to name. He waited, letting his senses speak to him, and found that what was below was scented with heat, electrical circuitry, paper, people, science…
He shook his head, saddened at what he knew lay beneath.
"No more secrets, Doctor," he said aloud.
A gigantic ray of light, so intense that he could feel the heat of it, passed over his head, but he did not move. Motionless behind an outcropping of rock, he waited patiently until it reached beyond him to starkly illuminate a barren slope.
Closing on the deserted area behind the shed had proven more difficult than he'd anticipated. Four times already dogs on patrol had stopped and stared directly over him, but he knew their limitations, knew they could not see him behind the rocks, nor could they scent him because he was downwind. After a moment their handlers had prodded them to continue moving, though the patrols were so close together he could only gain a few precious feet before he was forced to lie still once more.
Somewhere within him there arose a fear: a fear of the man. Then he shook his head to clear it and continued, crawling closer.
He knew that what this body had once been was almost completely consumed. And he was pleased. Because for so long now, in the most unexpected moments, a flare of past awareness would spark white through the lower depth of his darkest being, remembrance of a consciousness not completely destroyed.
It was of no matter. For in time he would completely overcome the vestiges of whatever this being had once been.
He was already as pure physically as he had been in his lost age, though he yet continued to mutate, each change enhancing and enlarging his strength, endurance, or cunning — all the faculties that made him the greatest, and the purest, of all predators.
Without effort he could catch the scent of a wolf when it was yet miles distant. And as he loped with unending endurance through the mossy dark forest, the leaf-strewn floor buried beneath countless seasons of decayed vegetation, he could effortlessly identify plants that he could barely see in the gloom.
Yes, he knew which plants yet survived and thrived beneath the loam, and whether they would heal or hurt. He knew what animals had been this way, and when, and what lay dying or dead on the farthest surrounding hill. He could hear the faintest broken twig that filled the silence, and knew whether it was from wind or decay or another's presence. There seemed no end to his strength, his rage, his glory, and he reveled in it.