Three seconds.
Barely thinking, only aiming, McLeod stared deep into the creature’s black eyes, narrowed and squinting. He fired three times.
Two seconds.
All three shots pounded into the creature’s right eye, and it screamed into the night, drawing back and yanking open its large, tooth-filled jaws, dropping McLeod’s broken and bloodied leg to the ground.
One.
Turning over and desperately scrambling across the concrete sidewalk, Chuck McLeod closed his eyes as he dragged himself, visualizing only his two children, remembering that crinkled and folded photograph, desperately wanting that to be his final memory.
Two dull thumps echoed in the helicopter, one right after the other, then something inside the aircraft caught and detonated, the whole Bell erupting into a bloom of flame and spiraling vomits of smoke. Black metal broke apart and scattered high in the air and in wide arcs across the trees, the sidewalk, and West 110th Street, sending emergency personnel scrambling for cover.
The roar echoed in the busy New York City night, the snaking flames casting an eerie orange glow on the surrounding windows of the buildings, then McLeod lowered his head and all was the darkest of night.
Flashes of crimson stroked across Chuck McLeod’s face as he sat on the metal bumper of the fire truck, head bowed, leg wrapped in tight bandages. He could feel the warm moistness of a fresh wound on the side of his head, and a stream of liquid sneaking down his left jawbone. He blinked his eyes open and saw that he was holding the photograph of his children. He couldn’t even remember pulling it from his pocket, yet here it was.
A shadow cast over him, blocking out the whipping red. A paper cup appeared, and he absent mindedly reached out and grabbed it, wrapping his fingers around the warmth.
“Wilcox?” McLeod asked, bringing the cup toward his lips.
“Sorry. She tried to get free, but was too close when the helicopter exploded.” Agent Blaine was still wearing his black combat togs but now wore an NYPD blue windbreaker over it.
McLeod didn’t respond.
“Good news is, that thing won’t be swimming across the Atlantic again any time soon.”
“Dead?”
“Very.”
That was good. Chuck McLeod looked at the picture of his two children and thought about his team. The Shadows. That foul creature was dead... that evil spawn of whatever genetics lab made it, but he wasn’t sure it was worth the price.
Maybe none of it was.
McLeod pressed the photograph back into the slim pocket in his tactical vest and stood, favoring his left leg, which screamed in pain.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Blaine asked.
“I’m going to see my kids.” McLeod looked at his watch. “If I leave now, I can get there just in time.”
Blaine stood in the wet New York streets watching McLeod hobble away towards the subway station. His phone chirped, and he slipped it from his pants pocket.
“Blaine.” Glancing around, he took a few steps towards the burned wreckage of the helicopter, where the foot traffic was non-existent. “Yeah, they killed it. Couldn’t be helped.” Walking around the other side of the helicopter he looked at the ground where pieces and parts of the vehicle were smoldering. Other parts and pieces were mixed within, considerably more organic in nature. Scientists would be here soon... the retrieval team. “Oh, don’t worry, there’s plenty of genetic material left. Plenty of source material for the next round.”
He took a few more steps towards the trees.
“How do we feel about the results?” Blaine listened for a moment to the voice on the other end, then nodded slightly. “The team did better than expected, I won’t deny that.”
Another check to make sure he was alone, and Blaine took a few more steps deeper into the trees surrounding Central Park.
“I agree. I think we’re ready to move to the next phase. I think it’s time to make this thing operational. Only next time, let’s not send it by train.”
THE WEAVERS IN DARKNESS
James A. Moore & Charles R. Rutledge
Officer Mike Calvin settled into his seat and made sure his seatbelt was secure. There were six jump-seats in the back of the van, three on each side, and five were occupied. Calvin was closest to the back doors by choice. He liked to be the first man out the door and on the scene. He’d gotten into the habit during two tours in Iraq.
Captain Lovell, head of the Bergen PD SWAT team, turned around from the seat closest to the driver’s and said, “Some of you know more about what’s going on than others, so let me give all of you the current situation.”
Tessa Malloy, who had the seat across from Calvin, rolled her eyes. Lovell liked to hear himself talk. Calvin figured Lovell was taking advantage of some piddling occurrence to trot out his shiny new SWAT team. What the hell did a small town like Bergen need with a SWAT team anyway? Still, Calvin reflected, the extra pay was good and they got to train with the newest weapons and tech.
“Two hours ago,” Lovell went on as the van got moving, “dispatch got a 911 call from Maro-tek. It’s an electronics manufacturing plant out by the old quarry. Isolated place.”
“I know someone who works there,” Arturo Perez said from Calvin’s right. “It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
Lovell looked annoyed at being interrupted. He said, “Right. The call came in at 2:15 this afternoon. Caller was frantic. Said something was attacking the workers. Then she was cut off. Repeated calls to the plant didn’t get any answers, so dispatch sent a black and white to have a look. Our last contact with them was right when they arrived. According to Officer Pace, the place looked deserted. They went to check it out and we haven’t heard back from them.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Kevin Jenkins said. Jenkins was so big that he looked almost comical jammed into the jump-seat next to Tessa. He was a former college football player and he spent so much time in the police gym the other cops called it his office.
Perez said, “Captain, did you say the caller said some thing was attacking? Not someone?”
“That’s what they said. I’m assuming an animal of some sort. Maybe a bear or a mountain lion.”
Calvin knew big cats were extremely rare in Georgia, but he kept that to himself. Contradicting Lovell wasn’t usually worth the grief.
Jeff West, who was driving the van, called over his shoulder, “Maybe we should have sent animal control instead of us.”
West considered himself a wit. He was the only one.
Lovell said, “Stay focused, West.”
“Sorry, Captain.”
They made the rest of the drive in comparative silence. That suited Calvin. He had never been much for small talk. He craned his head to look out the front window as West announced they had arrived at their destination.
Long, deep shadows were falling as the van passed through the front gates of Maro-tek. It was early September and the days had grown shorter. The plant was a big, white, concrete bunker of a building surrounded by pines. The gray bulk of the Blue Ridge Mountains loomed behind it.
“There’s the patrol car,” West said.
Lovell said, “Stop the van here. We want to go in slow.”
When the van stopped, Calvin popped the latch on the back door and dropped to the ground. He brought up the M-4 and moved to the side of the van, making a visual scan of the area as he went. Nothing moved.
Perez and Tessa, both fellow vets, piled out of the van and took up similar defensive positions. The captain and the other two guys did what they’d been taught in SWAT school.