He stepped out of the tent, the pistol held loose and low in his hand. The monitors all watched him with their yellow eyes as he took a step farther into their midst. The truck was about seven yards away — directly behind the pack of lizards. He could run for it, but the way the reptiles all crouched, their legs bent taut, made him think that was a bad idea.
The nearest one — and the biggest, bigger than Chapel — closed its jaw and lifted its snout in the air, turning it one way, then the other. Its huge eye stayed locked on him. As he watched, it flicked a nictitating membrane across its pupil. Chapel knew more than he wanted to about nictitating membranes. He knew, for instance, that the monitor could see him just fine through the cloudy third eyelid.
Bogdan and Nadia were close behind him. He lifted his free hand a few inches, to tell them to stay back. Then he took another step forward.
The big monitor opened its mouth and made a noise that wasn’t so much a hiss as the sound of a steam boiler about to burst apart at the seams. Other monitors started moving, spreading out, flanking them. For solitary animals they understood just fine how to work as a pack.
“Stay calm,” Nadia said. “Do not make sudden moves.”
“Jesus,” Chapel said. “What’s that smell?” The odor wafting off the monitors was like rotten eggs, or maybe dead flesh. A deep, earthy, animal smell that made the hairs inside Chapel’s nose prickle.
“Musk,” Nadia told him. “That explains why there are so many here in one place. This must be the mating season. Animals can be so direct about these things.”
“Ha ha,” Chapel said. “Not the time for that. Okay, I’m going to start moving toward the truck. Just stay behind me, all right? If we split up, they’ll probably try to isolate the weakest of us or something. So, Bogdan, you stay very close.”
“I can tell when I am insulted,” the hacker said with a sniff.
Chapel stopped talking, then. He edged sideways a little, which the big monitor seemed to find acceptable, then took another step forward, barely inching his way ahead. The monitor started opening his mouth again.
“I heard you,” Chapel told it. “I heard you the first time. I’m just going to head this way, all right?” He took a step to the side, and the monitor closed its mouth. Jesus, he thought. This was the world’s worst game of Simon Says.
“Jim,” Nadia said.
“Hold on.” He took another step to the side. That brought him closer to another big monitor, this one maybe five feet long. It was crouching low, its jaw nearly scraping the sand. Chapel wished he knew what that meant — whether it was about to attack, or if it was showing submission. He kind of doubted it was that second thing. “Just—”
“Jim,” she said once more.
He glanced behind him. The look on her face was very serious. She was pointing upward. He followed her finger and saw the top of the boulder. There were about six more monitors up there, perched ten feet up over his head, and they were all peering down at him, flexing their back legs like they were about to jump.
“Damn,” he said. “These guys are good. We’re going to have to run for it. Bogdan, you first—”
“Jim, no,” Nadia suggested.
“—then Nadia, be ready to fight, I’ll bring up the rear — Now!”
Bogdan at least knew the score. He burst past Chapel, running as fast as his long legs would carry him. One small monitor tried to snap at him, but he vaulted over it, moving far more gracefully than Chapel would have expected.
With a sigh Nadia dropped the bundled tent and sprinted after the hacker, a pistol in either of her hands. She tracked them around to aim at the monitors as she ran, but she didn’t fire. Chapel was already moving by then, coming up close behind her, keeping an eye on the biggest of the reptiles, the one that was clearly the alpha male.
The alpha was moving, too. Coming right for him. Chapel threw an arm across his face, but the monitor slapped his legs out from under him with one big claw, its talons shredding his pant leg. It twisted its head around, and he saw its eye staring into his face as its jaws came down to disembowel him with one bite. He barely managed to get his arm down across his abdomen before the darting attack connected.
“Jim!” Nadia screamed. “Jim, the venom!”
Down on the ground Chapel stared up into the face of the thing that had his arm in a vise lock. Like an alligator — he’d seen plenty of those back in Florida — it started twisting its head back and forth, trying to tear off a piece of him. The venom, brown and thick, spread through the flesh of his arm.
Or rather, the silicone simulated flesh of his artificial arm.
He tried desperately to get up, to get at least one foot under him. It was tough to do with a hundred and fifty pounds of lizard thrashing around on top of him. His prosthetic had saved him for the moment, but he knew his time was limited — any second now the other monitors would move in for the attack, swarming him from every side. Some of them were bound to get their poisonous jaws into his living flesh.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” Chapel shouted, yanking his arm back, trying to free it from the monitor’s grip. Those teeth wouldn’t let go, but at least he managed to get up on his feet again. He looked around and saw half a dozen of the bigger lizards coming toward him, taking their time, their tails lashing the sand into deep furrows.
He’d lost his pistol when he was knocked down. The rifle was still slung across his back, but there was no way to reach it with one hand. His only hope was to get back, closer to the truck. He shouted for Bogdan and Nadia to get in, then dug his feet into the shifting sand and danced backward, pulling the monitor along with him. The monster didn’t even try to dig its claws into the sand — it let itself be pulled along, saving all its energy to use to hold on to the arm. The other reptiles scampered after Chapel, but at least for the moment they didn’t attack.
If Nadia had been a better shot, maybe she could have driven some of them back. As it was, especially in the fading light, he was glad she didn’t try. Inch by inch, step by agonizing step he moved toward the truck, the alpha just digging his teeth deeper and deeper into the artificial arm. Chapel considered releasing the arm, just loosing the clamps that held it to his body and leaving it behind, but he couldn’t bear the thought. He staggered backward, through the stink and the hissing, and suddenly his back rammed into the side of the truck.
The monitors came after him, moving faster now. The pack knew it was in danger of letting its prey escape and they would do anything they could to stop that. Chapel reached up with his free arm, trying to find the handle of the truck door without looking.
Then Nadia reached down and grabbed him with both hands and pulled. “Drive!” she shouted to Bogdan. “The pedal on the right!”
With his free hand Chapel found the ladder on the side of the cab. He wrapped his good arm through and around one of the rungs and just held on as the truck roared to life and started moving away from the rock and the pack of lizards. The monitors tried to chase after it, but in seconds it was moving too fast for them and they fell behind.
All of them except the alpha, who hadn’t so much as loosened its death grip on Chapel’s arm. It was dragged along, its feet paddling wildly on the sand but unable to gain purchase.
On the outside of the cab Chapel clung on for dear life as Bogdan took them straight up the side of a dune and then over the top. Chapel’s legs swung free — as did the alpha, whose big eyes showed no terror at all as its body flopped through the air.
Nadia leaned out of the window of the truck, a pistol in her hand. She pointed it at the monitor’s eye, but the lizard flopped around so much she couldn’t seem to line up a shot. “I can’t risk shooting you!” she shouted over the noise of the engine.