“That’s right, big guy,” Banks whispered as he took aim. “Just stand there for a second longer.”
He didn’t get the time he needed—the beast turned and ran, a long, loping stride eating up the ground and taking it out of range even as McCally sent three shots of his own after it.
Thin fog rolled in to obscure the view. The mammoths trumpeted loudly amid the gray and somewhere out in the boggy land, the alma responded with a roar.
A second roar, distant and muffled but recognizably from a similar throat, came from deeper in the fog.
There’s at least two of the bastards.
“Watch at the window, Cally,” he said to the other man. “And if you get a clear shot, take it and don’t wait for orders.”
He turned back to the room. Hynd was bent over the fallen scientist, but everybody had heard his spine snap, and saw the twisted angle his head made at the neck. Hynd only confirmed what they knew already when he rose from beside the body.
“He’s gone, Cap. Was it a big orange bugger?”
“Aye,” Banks replied. “And there’s more than one of them. Get Wiggo from wherever he is; we stay together, and we stay sharp from now on. I want you and Wiggo in the corridor here; Cally and I will watch at the window. Hopefully, we don’t have long to wait until they send a rescue team.”
He went over to Waterston and Galloway. The two scientists stared down at the body of their friend, and Banks saw the shock start to hit them. Waterston still clutched the bottle of Scotch, and Banks made them each take a hefty slug from the neck of it, more to give them something to think about than anything else.
“These Alma of yours,” he said to Galloway. “How big did they grow?”
He had to ask twice to get the man’s attention.
“They were supposed to be regular sized,” the scientist said finally. “Unlike Yeti, the stories never said anything about them being giants.”
“And yet that one out there was eight feet if it was an inch. Volkov fucked with these as well as lion and wolves?”
“It looks that way.”
Hynd was over by the door. He had the rock in both hands.
“I can hardly lift this fucker. How did he manage to throw it all the way up here?”
“Pumped up with as many growth hormones as he could get into it I would imagine,” Galloway said. “And those long arms we saw will make great levers.”
Talking had at least diverted Galloway from the dead man on the floor, but Waterston still couldn’t tear his gaze from the body, and kept drinking from the neck of the bottle. Banks took it away from him, and got an angry look in reply, but no backchat.
“No more booze,” Banks said, addressing everybody in the room. “Not until we get home, then the first round is on me.”
He had Hynd and Wiggins move the dead man through to another of the rooms—Waterston had fixated on it, and wouldn’t be ready for any thinking while it was still in his view.
And I need these scientists thinking. They might know something that’ll give us an advantage.
He checked his watch, and saw it was time to check for a response. Waterston’s phone was getting dangerously low on battery by now, but there was just enough to pick up the Wi-Fi connection and check his email. There was a terse reply.
PICK UP AT YOUR LOCATION IN FOUR HOURS FROM THIS MARK.
It was time-stamped just five minutes ago. They had until three o’clock in the afternoon to survive.
He joined McCally at the window.
“We’ve got backup incoming,” he said. “Four hours. Anything going on out there?”
“All quiet, Cap. I think we put the frighteners on it.”
“Let’s hope so. Either that or yon big cat will keep it busy. As long as it stays outside throwing rocks, it’s not in here causing mayhem, so let’s keep it that way. Keep an eye open, and I’ll spell you in an hour.”
McCally gave a small salute, and went back to looking out over the tundra. Banks saw that much of the view was obscured by fog, and wondered what might be going on in the damp grayness beyond the runway, where animals were meeting each other for the first time since the last ice age. It was hard not to think of these beasts as revenants, hard to remember that they had been grown downstairs in the lab, for once they had been seen in their natural environment, it looked like the only place they had ever been.
Apart from the big orange fuckers; they don’t feel like they belong here at all.
Banks turned away and went back to join the scientists again. At least they had now eschewed the whisky, and were making serious headway in the coffee.
“Four hours, and we’ll be getting out of here,” he said, and Galloway managed a tight smile.
“Well, that’s the best news we’ve had in a while. What’s the plan?”
“Stay cooped-up as long as we can, and then when backup arrives, we get the fuck out of here and home.”
“And the beasts?”
“That’s your domain now. I’m guessing there’ll need to be a round-up and cull, but that’s not my call.”
“No,” the older man, Waterston said grimly. “That’ll be mine. Or rather, the people I report to. But for now, home seems like a great idea.”
- 13 -
For a time, it seemed that McCally had been right and they had put the frighteners on the alma, for everything fell quiet, almost deathly so, with the fog deadening all sound except for the occasional trumpet of a bull mammoth. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted in from the corridor outside and along with it a soft murmur as Hynd and Wiggins chatted, almost casually. The scientists Waterston and Galloway sat at a table, they too talking, heatedly but in lowered voices. Banks guessed they were preparing their story for the brass back home—he’d have one of his own for the colonel in Lossiemouth on their return.
The first hour passed quietly like that, but the silence was not to last. The calm was broken by the crash of splintering glass from outside.
“Cally?” Banks said. The corporal shook his head.
“Not out front, Cap,” he said. “Sounds like it came from ‘round the back somewhere.”
Banks quickly crossed the room, out into the corridor, and into the room opposite. He ignored the dead scientist on the bed and went directly across to the window, which gave the view over the high domes of the complex. He was just in time to see a rock sail in a high arc out of the fog and crash through the tall dome of the aviary. The sound of the crash carried to him even through the window—as did the high hoots of the Alma. It sounded like triumph, and even more like laughter.
Two more crashes sounded, one quickly after the other, as he walked back through to the other room.
“They’re flinging stones at glass houses,” he said, “like a pair of fucking kids.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what they are,” Galloway said softly. “Maybe they don’t know any better.”
“Aye,” Banks replied, “that’s all well and good. But it’s not my job to teach them some manners; they’re hardly likely to let me skelp their arses. As long as they keep amused with the domes and leave us alone, I’ll just leave them be to enjoy themselves.”
“Cap?” McCally said at the window. “There’s something else too.”
Banks went to the window again. The fog had lifted, all across the enclosures beyond the tarmac. Only a hundred yards away, the big cave lion was feeding on the carcass of a dead deer. Four wolves circled it warily, but every time one of them came too close, the lion let out a roar of defiance, and the wolves backed off.