“Jesus Christ.”
Wilkins smiled. “Well, sure, he helped. I prayed to him every night while I lay in that hospital wishing for a second chance. He gave me one, too, and I never forgot that. I went to live with my aunt and uncle out in Minnesota. Talk about a change in scenery. Whatever. It worked. I got my nose straight, got into the books, and headed to college on a full scholarship.”
“That where you met your wife?”
“Brenda? Yeah. Helluva woman. She’d have to be to put up with me going thousands of miles away from her.” He grinned. “Maybe I don’t deserve it, but I like to think it’s God’s way of patting me on the back for getting straight.”
Julia smiled. “Not bad, Wilkins.”
“Not bad at all. And here I am at the bottom of the world. On what could be a damned important mission.”
“Pretty good for an inner city kid.”
“Yeah, not bad. The problem is, that now I’ve almost come full circle.”
“How do you figure that?”
Wilkins gestured around them. “Look at us. We’re holed up in some cave while a blizzard buries our transportation outside. In here, we’re possibly easy pickings for some kind of creature. And once again — worst of all — I’m holding a gun.”
Julia shook her head. “There’s a difference now.”
“Is there?”
She nodded. “You’ve got a gun in your hand for protection. You’ll use it to save the life of yourself and your teammates.”
“Same as before.”
“No,” said Julia. “It’s not. Before you would have used a gun offensively. You would have taken out someone before they became a threat.”
Wilkins jaw tightened. “Yeah. But you know what? If I had the chance to do these things before they came at us again, I sure would. That doesn’t make me any different than before.”
“You really think you’re being fair with yourself right now?”
He grinned. “Probably not. This cave is depressing the hell out of me.”
“Get some sleep,” said Julia. “We’ll sort this all out when we wake up and figure out our next move.”
Wilkins smiled. “G’nite.”
“Good night.” She watched him scramble over to the other side of the path. He rested his rifle against the rock close by and worked his hand through the strap so it would be within easy reach.
Julia leaned back, feeling the countless bumps press into her back. It felt like a prehistoric shiatsu treatment. Who would have thought she’d be leading such a group like this?
Life sure has a funny way of dealing out the cards, she decided.
She looked up at the top of the cave and let her eyes close. The lantern still cast enough light for them all to see, but Julia preferred listening to the surrounding noises. She felt her body slacken. Her muscles seemed desperate to throw off the last vestiges of the stress of the earlier firefight.
And she let it.
She felt her breathing deepen.
“Julia.”
She moaned and opened her eyes. Mick was leaning over her.
“Yes?”
“You okay?”
“I was about to enjoy some sleep for a little while. I’m losing it over here. Then I was rudely interrupted.”
“Sorry. Just wanted to tell you that the shifts have been worked out.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” said Mick. He smiled. “You can get some sleep now.”
“Oh, gee, thanks.”
He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Sleep well.”
She nodded and closed her eyes again. She heard him move off toward another position in the rocks. Despite her still unease with whatever Mick said he was, she sure felt better about having him around. She wasn’t particularly certain they would have made it this far if he hadn’t been around.
After all, Julia had been trained to lead a scientific exploration. And the current situation seemed anything but.
Her eyes grew heavier.
Her breathing deepened again.
She heard the water still trickling and falling in places. It dropped and plunked off the cave floor. There was something so utterly calming about it. Julia felt herself surrendering to sleep.
And it felt good to do so.
Her arms slid down beside her. The M16 lay across her lap, heavy in the slumbering haze that was overtaking her.
Images swirled behind her eyes. Sounds filled her ears. Julia welcomed them with open arms.
And finally, completely, totally, slept.
15
Mick nudged her awake a few hours later. Julia groaned softly, annoyed at having to relinquish her sleep, but she knew she had no choice. It was her turn on guard duty.
Mick looked at her. “You slept well.”
“How can you tell?”
He grinned. “Because I know the look of someone in the field who’s enjoyed their sleep. You look rested.”
“I’m still exhausted.”
“We all are. That’s to be expected.”
“Weird dreams, too.”
“What kind of dreams?”
She looked at him. There it was again. A slight shift in his personality. Almost like he was two different people. On one hand, he was the cute rough and tumble guy who’d saved their hide a lot today. But on the other…
Well, Julia wasn’t so sure yet what the other was all about.
“Just weird dreams. Nothing much to them. But I think I dreamed about this place.”
“The cave?”
She nodded. “Yeah, the cave. The tunnel. Us. Those…things.”
“So not necessarily a pleasant dream.”
“Well, the part with us in it was pretty good.”
He smirked. “Wilkins and Nung had a dream about this place, too.”
“Just now?”
“Earlier. When I woke them up for stag duty.” He looked at her. “And now you just tell me you’ve had the same thing happen to you.”
“And you think they’re related.”
He shrugged. “Remember the first night at the station? What you were all talking about? The dreams? How you’d all dreamt about this place for years.”
“You said you had the dreams, too.”
Mick nodded fast. “I did. I did.” He shrugged. “But now that we’re actually here, I haven’t.”
“They could just be a by product of the stress of the firefight earlier. Some sort of post traumatic stress disorder perhaps?”
“Yeah, I suppose they could be.” He sighed. “Wish I’d had the dreams, too.”
Julia smiled. “You feeling left out?”
“I’m feeling like I wish I knew what the hell was going on around here.”
“I think we all feel that way.”
He looked down the tunnel. “The answer’s down there, Julia. Can you feel it? I know it’s down there.”
She nodded. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.” She touched his arm. “What do you think happened to Vikorsky and Havel?”
“And the others?”
Julia nodded.
Mick sighed. “I don’t know. Part of me hopes they’re alive somewhere. I don’t know. Being held captive maybe? How weird does that sound?”
“It sounds like optimism.”
“A bigger part of me thinks that they’re probably dead by now. Used for some reason. Food? I don’t know. It’s gruesome as hell trying to debate the possibilities. The best thing we can do is press on and try to find them.”
“Or whatever is left of them,” said Julia.
“That didn’t sound like optimism.”
“It’s not.”
Mick nodded and handed her the M16. “Time we got to our positions.”
She took one side of the cave and he the other. She kept glancing over at him. Part of it was for reassurance. Knowing that he was in the nearby vicinity made her feel somewhat safe.
Part of it was because she still didn’t completely trust him. Something about him didn’t make sense. She wished she could peel back the layers of his head and reach into his brain to extract everything she needed to know.
But she couldn’t.
Not yet.
Mick leaned against the cave wall with his gun in hand. He kept the butt in his shoulder but the muzzle pointed just below the horizon. Julia recalled seeing a special on the Discovery Channel about special operations commandos and how they used that position. What had they called it? Low-ready? They could bring up their weapon faster than if it was at their side. They could align the sights faster and bring their targets down.