Chapter Sixteen

THE CAMP WAS quiet, save for the low snoring here and there. I’d been awake for hours. Finally, I rose and decided to patrol the perimeter.

The two moons shone brightly overhead, though lately, the cloud cover obscured them. Now and then, pinkish-silver glow highlighted the mountainside. But for the most part, the night remained dark and shadowy.

I’d wandered a bit from the main camp. Kayleigh had the cave, and Law and Kimutai slept outside, though the night was warm, as the one before had been. In the comfortable temperature, my patrolling had taken on a more leisurely air until I gave it up altogether and sat stargazing on a rock. Or lately, cloud-gazing.

We’d been lucky these last two nights. Though it was overcast now, we’d still had no more rain, and the temperatures had been some of the most hospitable since we’d awakened. So even though some of us had chosen to sleep under the stars, we did so in decent weather.

I remembered Law’s earlier words, and I shook my head wryly. It really is like a camping trip.

I turned my eyes to my mask at that. I was holding it when I should have been wearing it. But I didn’t feel like putting it on, even if it did mean my breathing would be more difficult without it.

I’d gotten over the macabre aspect of our respirators. It was grim and gruesome, but I could breathe. So I sucked it up and moved on.

No, the smell of the thing made me hesitate now. And not because it stank. After inadvertently bathing in the Thing’s blood, I didn’t think any reek could ever faze me again. I hesitated because of how familiar that smell was.

For all of its grim alien qualities, the mask, gray and ghastly in the moonlight, reminded me of Earth too. I knelt there, staring at it and trying to ignore the slimy texture as I rubbed my thumb across the surface. And for a little while, I found myself back home again.

Not in any particularly great moment, or at any truly memorable point in my life. Just a small campsite in a deserted campground, with crisp autumn breezes blowing in. The late season meant I had the place all to myself. And for a short space of time, that little plot of earth had been all mine: the trees, the blanket of pine needles underfoot, the feel of cool, autumn air.

And the smell, the unfortunate, rotten-egg odor of the water from the old hand pump—the same smell my mask emitted now.

It had been no place special, with no special meaning; it was simply a way to pass my leave, and once I left, I hardly thought of it again. Until now.

But it was home. It was Earth.

And now, with Earth so far away and forever gone for me, the memory felt particularly poignant. Poignant to the point of pain. I stared at the mask, in turns glaring and blinking away an inexplicable moisture in my eyes.

Intent as I was on this little thing, I fell from my seat when a shot ripped through the silence of the night. I had Death out in a flash and was on my feet an instant later.

I heard voices from the encampment. I didn’t catch what they said, but the tone conveyed everything I needed to know: fear.

“Ellis? Kimutai? Law?” I called as I raced for them, seized by a deep-set dread as the shouting continued. I could not shake the idea of Law—Frat Boy—running amok in the camp, armed and thinking of himself as a soldier-in-training. “I’m coming.”

“Johnson?” I recognized Kayleigh’s voice.

Another shot sounded, and Law was shouting. My heart sank at the sound. I had no idea what was happening, but I suspected both Caspersen and I had blood on our hands—her for arming Law in the first place, and me for fostering the delusions she’d sparked. Whatever panic, whatever trigger-happy stupidity he was engaged in at the moment, the blame lay with those of us who had let it come to this.

“Ellis. Kimutai.” I was so intent on reaching them I hardly noticed my path until something gave out underfoot, and I went down. A sharp pain shot up my ankle, and I clawed at the gravel underfoot. I cursed myself for leaving the main body of the group and for ever leaving the scientists alone with an armed Law.

I’d pulled myself halfway onto my feet when something—something large and furry—blundered into me. Death flew from my hand, and I went down a second time. I landed heavily, my skin tearing against stone, and gravel pieces cut into my knees and elbow.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I drew my knife and pushed up to face my attacker. But he—it—hadn’t paused since our encounter and slid down the mountain face, a mere shadow against the rock. I could do no more than send a hail of curses after it.

And then something else careened into me, and I plunged downward again.

“Motherfucker.” I caught myself before I hit the ground, and sprang back toward the second assailant, blade at the ready.

“Johnson!”

“Cap!”

I stopped in the nick of time, my knife hovering a few inches above Law’s throat. He’d been the second assailant—the second to body slam into me. Kayleigh stood two feet behind him. Even in the meager moonlight, I could see the mortification in their eyes. “What the fuck?” I managed to spit out. “I almost killed you.”

“The monster,” Law gasped. “I was chasing it.”

“Monster? You mean, that animal, the furry one?”

Law nodded. “It went after Kim.”

“Kim?” Suddenly, I realized that there were only two of them. Kim was missing. “Where is he?”

“Back at camp,” Kayleigh answered, a tremble to her voice. “It tried to carry him off, but Matt intervened in time. We thought…we thought it had got you.”

“Where is it?” Law demanded. “Which way did it go? We need to follow it.”

I grabbed his arm. The creature was out of sight now, and with the pain throbbing through my ankle, I was in no shape to follow. Whatever it was, or wherever it was headed, I sure as hell wasn’t about to let a civilian head off into the night after it. “No,” I said. “It’s gone. We need to get to Kim. Is he okay?”

Law hesitated. “You want to let it get away?”

“It did get away. We have to protect the camp. Now, take me to Dr. Kimutai.”

It was a short hobble back—hobble for me anyway, as my ankle throbbed. Try as I did, I could only put so much pressure on it. Law and Kayleigh reached camp first, pausing every few steps to check on me as they went.

Cloud cover mostly hid the moons, so a series of lighter and darker shadows hovered over the camp until we reached the center. One gray form lay separate from the others, though, and I knew at a glance what—who—it was: Dr. Kimutai. He’d curled up, unmoving near his bedroll, as still as the rocks around us.

I took a quick look at him. He seemed to be sleeping, so I made way for Kayleigh. Medicine was her purview. Security was mine. And right now, in this lighting, there could be any number of unwelcome guests lurking on the outskirts of our camp. “I need to scout the perimeter,” I told Law, “and make sure it’s clear.”

“What about Kim?” he asked. “I don’t know what it did, but he’s not waking up. Not even when it was dragging him away.”

Kayleigh had knelt beside the doctor and in a minute declared, “He’s got a pulse, and he’s breathing. But he’s unconscious.”

“You need me?” I asked, anxious to ensure there’d be no repeat of whatever had happened to Dr. Kimutai.

She shook her head, rifling through her bag. “I don’t think so.”

“Good. Matt, you stay with Kayleigh. I’m going to take a look around.”

“Sounds good,” he said, and I’d hardly limped two steps away when he added, “But maybe I should go, Cap?”

“What?”

“Your leg…maybe you should stay while I check it out?”

“Shut up, Law,” I snapped. I might have been too busy feeling sorry for myself to notice that some sort of animal had snuck into camp to pick off our top scientists, but I wasn’t going to be taken by surprise a second time. “You concentrate on making sure nothing gets to them.” I gestured to Kayleigh and Isaac.

He nodded tersely, asking, “You think there’s more of them out there, then?”

“I don’t know. Let me worry about that. You stay here. And don’t shoot anyone.” So far, he’d proved himself fairly competent. Still, I couldn’t quite shake the fear of winding up with a .45 in my back from a panicked overreaction. And I’d be damned if that was the way I went out. Furry kidnappers were enough to deal with; I didn’t need him to throw friendly fire into the mix.

I left them and headed to my bedroll. I’d left my flashlight there. The low power solar light, sustainable though not terribly bright, was better than the nothing I had otherwise. With this in tow, I made my way around the camp.

My ankle was sorer than hell, but it was the least of my worries; I’d found nothing. It was as if the furry apparition had materialized and vanished without a trace. I’d found nothing to indicate how it had got here, where it had gone, or even what it was. And that seemed a whole hell of a lot worse than any explanation I could dream up.

When, at length, I felt certain we were alone, I returned to Law and Kayleigh. I could do no more to locate our attacker until morning.

Dr. Kim still lay unmoving and unconscious, but his breathing sounded deeper.

“He okay?” I asked.

Kayleigh offered a tentative, “Yeah, I think so.”

I stared at the prone form. “How do you know?” It seemed that a sudden onset of unconsciousness should be cause for a lot more alarm than either Law or she was expressing.

“Because it left this,” Law answered, shining a light on what looked like a long, thin needle.

“The monster?”

“Yeah.”

I knelt to examine it. “What is it?”

Kayleigh caught my arm before I could touch anything. “Careful. Don’t touch the tip.”

I glanced at the needle again. “What the hell are we dealing with?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” she answered. Her brow was creased with worry, the lines etched deep in the torchlight. “Because whatever it is, it’s capable of developing, or at least utilizing, powerful sedatives; sedatives that can affect a human being. And it’s capable of figuring out a delivery mechanism.” She gestured to the dart.

“It was in Kim’s neck,” Law added. “The tip is coated in something that must have knocked him out.”

“It’s a fine point too. It would have felt like a bug bite. He probably didn’t even notice it since he was asleep.”

That anxious feeling was returning, in spades. “You’re telling me, whatever that thing was, it stuck a poisoned dart in Kim’s neck?”

“And tried to drag him off,” Law added.

“It didn’t kill him though. His breathing is slow, his heart rate lowered. But it didn’t kill him. I mean, I won’t know what it is until I can analyze it. But I’d bet you anything it’s a sedative, not a lethal injection.”

“What kind of animal uses tools and poisons? And for what?”

“Are we sure it is an animal?” Kayleigh said. “I mean, we know there are people out here, somewhere, from the Genesis. You found human skulls in the Thing’s cave. Maybe it was a person?”

That, at any rate, I had an answer for. “No, this wasn’t human. It was covered in fur. It stank too.”

“And it was running on all fours,” Law put in. “At least, it sure as hell seemed like it.”

“Damn.”

“But that probably explains how it knows about poisoning us,” Law noted. “I mean, if it’s dealt with people before…”

“Damn,” Kayleigh repeated. Law didn’t need to finish, and she didn’t need to elucidate; the implications were clear. Whatever that skulking monster had been, it seemed to know a lot more about us than we knew about it—including how to take us down.