“It’s okay,” he yelled. “You’re safe. You can stop now.”
Emily relaxed her grip on Mac’s hand, although she did not let go completely, and turned around to look back in the direction of the mountain. The dust still wafted through the spaces between the trunks and vines and branches, but it was already beginning to settle like a drift of snow over the ground. Through her watering eyes she could see a few splintered tree boles, but the rockslide had stopped, slowed to a final halt by the jungle.
Emily sank to the ground next to MacAlister, coughing up and then spitting out the dust that peppered her tongue, lips, and throat.
MacAlister, his face as pale and coated as she was sure her own looked, reached out and wiped dust from around her eyes, knocking bits of gravel from her hair.
Before she could convince herself not to, she leaned in and kissed the Scotsman full on the lips. He tasted of concrete, and after a moment of shock he kissed her back, his hand cradling the back of her neck.
They broke away as a rustling from a bush nearby drew their attention. MacAlister began reaching for his rifle but stopped when Thor emerged, his coat a lot grayer than usual thanks to the coating of dust covering it. “Come here, you little bastard,” Emily said, holding her hands out to embrace the malamute, who willingly accepted his mistress’s affection.
A sudden twinge of panic overcame Emily and she grabbed for the camera around her neck. If she had lost the only evidence of the alien craft then their journey would have been for nothing. But it was still there, dangling against her chest.
MacAlister struggled to his feet. Blood streaked the right side of his face and his elbow, and his knuckles were skinned raw, his gloves in tatters.
“Hello?” Reilly’s voice echoed through the trees.
“Over here,” Mac yelled in reply and a few moments later Reilly appeared from behind the trunk of the tree they stood next to.
“Shit, are you two okay?” he asked.
Emily’s eyes met MacAlister’s and she felt a smile rise unbidden to her lips. “Yes,” she replied, “we’re just fine.”
MacAlister returned her smile with one of his own, “Come on, let’s go home.”
CHAPTER 27
Despite their cuts and bruises, and having been almost buried alive by a couple million tons of rock, they made surprisingly good time on their journey back to the helo waiting for them at the Tacoma, buoyed in part by the knowledge that they had successfully completed their mission. It was a strange positivity, when Emily thought about it, but finally knowing beyond a certainty of a doubt what it was they were dealing with, that Jacob had been correct in most, if not all, of his wild theories, was a relief much like the relief she had heard some people experienced when they finally knew with utter certainty that they had cancer.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” MacAlister asked Emily for the fourth or fifth time since they had begun the long slog back to the hotel.
“I’m fine. Just a few bumps and grazes. How about you?”
He lifted the elbow that had been hit by the shard of rock up to try to examine it, but it was too awkward an angle for him to see. “How’s it look?”
Emily stepped over a twisted root and leaned in to inspect the bloodstained slash that ran along the elbow of Mac’s combat jacket. “The bleeding has stopped, so I doubt there’s any chance of you bleeding to death just yet,” she joked.
Thor gave a sudden deep growl, his hackles rising in response to some unseen threat ahead. He stopped mid-step and Emily froze too, causing Reilly to almost walk into her.
“Mac!” Emily called out, as low as she could. The Scotsman, midway through straddling a fallen streetlight, turned and raised his eyebrows questioningly at her.
She stabbed a finger at Thor. The dog was frozen in place at her side, the flews of his muzzle pulled back to reveal his teeth as his head swiveled from side to side as if he was trying to identify the location of what it was that was disturbing him.
MacAlister jumped down and stalked back to them, his head scanning from side to side, his finger pressed against his rifle’s trigger guard.
“What’s going on?” he whispered.
“Don’t know. Thor just started acting squirrelly all of a sudden.”
Reilly chimed in, “Come on, it’s just a dog. He probably smells something dead or needs to take a piss. Let’s get going.”
“Listen,” Emily said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice, “this dog has saved my life on more than one occasion. I’ve learned to trust him. If he thinks there’s something to be worried about out here, then you should be real fucking worried too.”
MacAlister’s eyes had not stopped moving the entire time Emily talked. They scanned the depths of the jungle, constantly alert for any movement, any sign of a threat. “Okay, let’s keep it as close and quiet as we can, we’re too exposed here anyway,” he said. “We need to find somewhere we can lay up for a while, until Thor here tells us otherwise.” He gave the dog a good-natured rub behind the ears.
The group began moving again, toward what had probably been some kind of store before the rain, but now looked like the entrance to a cave, covered in low-hanging vines and partly obscured by the trunk of a huge tree that had pushed its way up through the sidewalk in front of it.
Thor slunk along beside Emily, panting rapidly, his nose moving back and forth in the air as he again caught a scent only he could smell, his mood becoming increasingly jittery and nervous. Emily fastened the leash back onto his collar and held it loosely in her hand. They were almost at the entrance to the store when Thor gave a deep growl followed by three sharp barks and lunged at something in the foliage of the jungle. The suddenness of the movement pulled the leash from around Emily’s wrist with a whipcrack as the dog sprinted off into the jungle, his barks resonating through the tightly packed trees.
“Thor!” Emily yelled after the quickly disappearing dog, but he kept on running. She stood transfixed for a second, unsure of what she should do. “Shit!” she sighed, then took off after her dog.
She could hear the boots of MacAlister and Reilly pounding after her. They didn’t call out to her, and she became painfully aware that if there was anything threatening nearby, she had almost certainly alerted it to their presence. But she did not care, something had spooked Thor so badly that he was either running toward it or from it, she had no idea which it was, but there was no way she was going to leave her dog behind.
“Thor!” She yelled again, as she scrambled over a protruding explosion of roots, just in time to see the rear end of the malamute wind his way around the trunk of a particularly huge tree, leaping over the roots as though they did not exist. Emily had to slow and carefully maneuver over them. When she was on the other side she saw Thor disappearing around a bright purple bush with dark-red, gelatinous berries that hung like grapes in bunches.
“Thor,” she called out again as she sprinted the fifty feet or so after him. This time it seemed to do the trick. The dog stopped, staring straight ahead, his tail down between his hindquarters, motionless, as though he knew he had done something wrong.
Emily picked her way past the bushes and tree limbs, then rushed to the dog’s side. They were both panting heavily, the humidity robbing the air of oxygen. Sweat stung her eyes and she wiped it away with the back of her arm.
“Jesus, dog. What the hell is wrong with you? You about gave me a fucking heart attack.” She threw a protective arm around his neck, grasping his collar tightly. Thor didn’t seem to hear her, barely registering she was even there; instead, he continued to stare into the distance.