Extinction, page 30
“Yes, Mr. Ballou.”
Doyle’s eyes strayed back to the wall of fir trees below the movie set. There was something funny down there. A low cloud was rising above the trees, a dark pall looming against the twilight sky.
“Hey, Brock. Take a look down the valley.”
Brock turned and looked, squinting. “Is that smoke?”
“I think so.”
Even as he stared, a black cloud billowed up above the trees. And now he could see a faint ruddy glow reflecting off the bottom of the clouds.
“Is the lodge on fire?” cried Ballou.
There was a muffled rumble, and a second dark cloud roiled up, followed by licks of orange. Something had exploded down there, and the fire was mounting fast.
“Oh my God,” said Doyle, staring, horrified. The motherfuckers had set the lodge on fire. “Brock, go get your car. We’re getting out of here. Now.”
The movie star whirled around to his PA. “You heard him! Bring the car around!”
Doyle had driven up in one of the vans, of which there were several still sitting in the parking lot. The keys were hanging in the set production trailer. As the PA went jogging off to get Ballou’s car, Doyle strode down to the production trailer. He went inside, grabbed the set of van keys, and exited, locking the trailer door behind him. As he did so, he heard a short scream.
He spun around. In the dimming light, he saw the PA sprinting away from Ballou’s honey wagon. What the hell was going on? Then he saw the man was being chased by two figures wearing masks, dressed in camouflage.
The PA screamed again as the figures ran him down, caught him, and—oh, Jesus—twisted his head around like a chicken’s, cutting—
In a surge of terror, Doyle sprinted for the parking lot, clutching the keys in his hand. And there was Ballou, also sprinting toward the lot, his hat tumbling off. They arrived at the van at the same time; Doyle dove into the driver’s seat and thrust the key into the starter as Ballou scrambled into the passenger seat. The van roared to life, and Doyle stomped on the accelerator even before Ballou had gotten the door closed.
“Did you see that? Did you—?” Ballou screamed.
“Shut up. I got to concentrate,” Doyle said as the van spun its tires in the dirt and fishtailed out of the parking area. He saw, out of the side window, those same two figures running toward the road ahead of them—to cut them off.
Doyle accelerated, the van churning up a stream of gravel. They roared down the road, just passing the two figures as they converged. He saw them in the rearview mirror, now running down the road after them, the crazy motherfuckers dressed in weird camouflage. Good luck. They’d never catch up.
Ballou was in his seat, hyperventilating. He’d lost his hat, and his formerly slicked back hair was all askew, filling the car interior with the smell of Clubman hair tonic.
Doyle kept his eyes dead on the road. What happened to the PA was the most horrible thing he’d ever seen, and he had no intention of remaining in this valley one more second. He focused all his attention on staying on the dirt road, which wound down through the forest in gentle curves. But he knew up ahead it would drop into a series of hairpin turns and then loop around the lodge on its way to the Mammoth Gates.
Ahead, over the treetops, he could now see flames leaping up into great billowing clouds of smoke. Ballou, in the passenger seat, was hunched over, gasping, weeping, hyperventilating, a complete wreck.
The road emerged from the forest and came to the hairpin descent. Now, free from the trees, he had a clear view of the lodge, about a mile away. The huge wooden structure was completely consumed in fire, burning like a son of a bitch, the flames leaping hundreds of feet into the air, with small explosions inside the inferno sending up extra gouts of fire and smoke. The forest had caught fire on the other side of the lodge and was spreading.
He slowed the van to take the first hairpin curve and slowed it even more to take the next. There were guardrails, but it was damn steep, and if he went off the side, that would be the end for sure. A third turn, and then the lower, more level part of the road suddenly came into view. He jammed on the brakes, the van screeching and slewing to a stop just before a big fir tree lying across the road, blocking it. He stared in horror: the tree had been freshly cut, and there was no way around it because of the guardrails on either side.
“God help us!” Ballou cried. “What now?”
Doyle jammed the van into reverse, laying rubber as he backed up, and swung the wheel to execute a three-point turn. He backed into the roadcut with a crunch, floored it, and lurched forward, expecting an ambush at any moment. It was going to be a five-pointer, no way to avoid it—the van was big. Another screeching lurch back and forward, and he gunned the engine, heading back up the hill.
“What are you doing?” shrieked Ballou. “You’re not going back?”
“Did you see the fucking tree?”
“Those … monsters are back up there. My God!” Ballou’s voice fell into a wail and he bent over, blubbering all over his leather cowboy vest.
Doyle tried to get a handle on what was happening. The crazies had blocked the road—the only way out of the valley. They had to get away from them … but where? How high up did the road go? He hadn’t ever driven past the movie town, and he had no idea how much farther the road went. But it must dead end somewhere.
As long as they were in the van, moving fast, they couldn’t be waylaid, but when they reached the end of the road, what would they do? Get out, climb into the mountains, try to hide? But that might be up high, even above the snow line, and they had no decent clothing. Should they ditch the van lower down, get out, and try to hide in the forest? Or hide the van somewhere and stay in it all night?
He tried to control his own breathing and pounding heart. The van was now approaching the old movie town. The road circled past it, taking a big curve around the town through a forest, and then—where did it go? They needed a map. And a strategy.
“Brock!”
Brock was moaning. What a helpless baby.
“Brock! Wake the fuck up and look in the glove compartment and see if there’s a map!”
Brock’s head came out of his hands, and he fumbled with the glove compartment, opening it and shuffling through the papers. No map.
“Keep looking!”
While Brock rummaged through the side compartments and center console, the van emerged from the forest, and the movie town now came back into view. He was shocked all over again—the motherfuckers had set the town on fire. Flames were leaping from the old wooden church at the north end, and more fire billowed from the windows of the livery barn in the middle. It was going up fast.
“No map!” said Ballou. “I can’t find any maps!” He looked up and cried out at seeing the burning town. “They’re there! Don’t stop!”
Doyle didn’t even bother to reply. The tires screeched as he took the curve that looped around the town. The road now climbed up over a low rise and plunged back into a dark forest, the trees whipping by, the headlights illuminating the trunks as they flashed past like endless rows of columns. The engine screamed.
The road now curved again, looping through a particularly dense part of the forest. Around the curve, he jammed on the brakes as his headlights illuminated another massive tree across the road. And he saw movement—the same two figures who had attacked the PA in the town raced out of the darkness into the headlights, crazy fucking maniacs with masks, their bodies covered with leaves and bark and grass.
“Help!” screamed Ballou.
Doyle threw the van into reverse and stomped on the accelerator. With a scream of rubber, the van accelerated backward, leaving a cloud of smoke as the figures chased them. He continued backing up, not daring to take the time to turn around, driving as fast as he dared. But those crazies were running down the road like bats out of hell, grotesquely illuminated by his headlights. He must be driving backward at close to twenty miles per hour, and yet they were keeping up—how was it possible? He gave it more gas, trying desperately to stay on the road, driving using the rearview mirrors. But the backing lights were weak and the forest was dark, and he could only go so fast. If he went off the road, crashed—he couldn’t think about that.
“They’re getting closer!” screamed Ballou.
There was another thing he could do. He jammed on the brakes, came to a screeching halt, threw the shift lever into drive, released the brake, and instantaneously stomped on the accelerator. The van leapt forward, and he steered straight for the two motherfuckers.
67
McFaul stumbled onto the lawn along with a mass of panicked media people, everyone scrambling madly to get away from the inferno. The huge wooden structure had gone up like a tinderbox, engulfed in flames so fast it almost felt like a bomb had gone off. There had been no sprinkler system going on, no firefighting effort, nothing. It had been crazy how fast the flames burst out of the elevator shafts, punching down the doors. It had been everyone for themselves, crews dropping their cameras and mics and whatever and running for the exits, the terrible screams as the flames boiled across the room, engulfing people.
He crossed the lawn, half running, half stumbling, feeling the heat of the conflagration on his back. He had to get far enough away from the fire to be safe. The lawn ended at a low stone wall, beyond which ran a lush meadow that sloped down toward the lake, framed on either side by groves of aspen trees. McFaul staggered to the wall and rested on it for a moment, coughing and spitting. He stank, and his lungs felt raw from breathing in the searing smoke. A few other media people had collapsed on the wall. And here came a stocky figure in a suit, lumbering and swaying. He recognized the white beard, the red face. Gunnerson.
The man sat heavily on the wall and put his face into his hands.
McFaul looked back at the lodge. It had become an inferno, a column of fire boiling a thousand feet into the evening sky. He could feel the heat on his face, and he was racked with another cough. The heat was intense—he had to move farther away. Others around him were doing the same. He rose unsteadily to his feet and climbed over the wall and walked through the long meadow grass toward a stand of aspen trees. Past it, he could see the lake, now vacant. The animals had all fled.
“Hey, McFaul! Hey!”
It was the billionaire, Gunnerson.
McFaul tried to quicken his stumbling walk, but Gunnerson fell in beside him.
“What the fuck happened?”
McFaul didn’t answer.
“Hey, you know who I am? Talk to me,” the man bellowed.
“The crazies got their hands on dynamite,” said McFaul, still walking. “Stole it from the movie set.”
“That was the explosion?”
McFaul nodded.
“And the fire? Did the crazies start the fire too?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Erebus security was supposed to be guarding the lodge. That wasn’t our responsibility. The security just … disappeared.”
Gunnerson shook his shaggy head. “Fucking incompetents. They killed my son.”
McFaul coughed again. He just wanted to get away, lie down, and curl up. They were almost in the grove of aspens. The rest of the media corps had dispersed over the meadow, away from the fire, shellshocked, some sitting or lying down, waiting to be rescued.
“Where’s the cavalry?” Gunnerson asked. “I mean, when are we gonna get some help here?”
“All the comms went down with the explosion,” said McFaul. “I can’t get in touch with anyone. But I’m sure they’re scrambling a response. I’m sure we’re going to see some action soon.”
They reached the grove. McFaul walked into it, intent on getting somewhere in the middle, somewhere dark and anonymous, far away from everything. Gunnerson followed, much to his dismay. McFaul found a spot and eased himself down on a fallen tree trunk and put his head in his hands. His mind seemed to have stopped working.
“What about the CBI?” asked Gunnerson. “What about Cash? What are you fuckers doing?”
“I don’t know,” McFaul said, speaking through his fingers. He thought of Cash and Romanski up at the mine. God knows what was going on up there. He lifted his head. Through the trees, he could see the fire still raging, bathing the surrounding area in a malevolent glow and casting bloody reflections over the water of the lake. As he stared, he saw something moving cautiously along the far shore of the lake—two small figures.
“You see the people down there?” Gunnerson asked.
McFaul shook his head and didn’t answer. He really didn’t give a damn now. He felt numb.
“Where’d they come from?”
“We had a report,” said McFaul wearily, “of some media people sneaking out of the lodge to film the animals.” He glanced up at the sky. The stars, just starting to come out, were almost washed out by the orange glow of the fire. There was a muffled sound then a sudden roar; he watched with incredulity as the roof of the lodge buckled and collapsed inward with an enormous rumble, sending up a trillion sparks that danced and whirled upward as if to replace the stars themselves.
Through the slender trees, he could see the two people down by the lake coming around the shore and heading up toward the meadow where most of the refugees from the lodge were waiting. There was something odd about those figures; they were moving cautiously and, it seemed, almost furtively. As the two figures got closer, they became more visible in the glow of the fire, and McFaul could now see they were wearing masks and what looked like bodysuits.
“Jesus, they’re two crazies!” Gunnerson said loudly. “They’re two—”
“Quiet,” McFaul said, crouching. He watched as the figures moved swiftly across the field toward several refugees from the fire, who were huddled together in the meadow about two hundred yards away, waiting to be rescued.
“You have a sidearm, right?” whispered Gunnerson.
McFaul ignored the question.
“Give me your gun,” Gunnerson said.
McFaul shook his head. He didn’t have the energy to engage further with this son of a bitch.
“Hey, you listening?”
“No.” McFaul shook his head. “No.”
McFaul’s eyes remained fixed on the two figures, now approaching a seated group of people. The people, unaware of the approach until the last moment, sprang up and backed away, but the two figures rushed them. There was a brief struggle and several piercing screams, abruptly cut off into silence. Others waiting in the field saw what had happened and broke into a panicked flight, running every which way, while the figures, silhouetted against the fire, hunched over their struggling victims, and then one of the figures abruptly stood up, holding aloft a round, dripping object by its hair, and letting loose a cry of triumph.
“Get down,” whispered McFaul. “Lie flat. Hide.”
He quickly lay flat on the leaf-strewn forest floor, face up. In a flash, Gunnerson was down beside him, his breathing heavy, breath laden with whiskey. Slowly, McFaul eased his sidearm from its holster and placed it on the ground next to him. He could hear, in the meadow beyond, more commotion and screaming and the thudding sound of feet. Don’t come in here, he prayed. Please, God, don’t let them come in here.
“Cover yourself,” he whispered to Gunnerson. And slowly, trying not to make any noise, he began raking leaves up and around him with his hands, covering his body. He heard the billionaire next to him doing the same. After a minute, he was sufficiently covered, and he rested his hand once again on the cold, reassuring steel of the 9 mm at his side. Staring straight up into the dim crowns of the trees above him, licked in red from the fire, he told himself they were well hidden in the shadowy grove, lying among fallen trees where they’d be almost impossible to spot. Surely they would not be found.
“I want your gun,” whispered the hoarse voice of Gunnerson in McFaul’s ear.
68
Cash and the others sprinted through the tunnels, the sounds of the pursuing mob echoing behind them. The mob was making an unholy din, screeching, whistling, and ululating. It was hard to tell, from the echoes and distortions, how far back or how many there were, but the clamor seemed to be getting closer.
The corridor made a gradual turn, and there, up ahead, their flashlights illuminated the steel door, still with a hole cut in it. They leapt through the gap and continued, Colcord taking the lead. They took each turn running as fast as they could, the clamor of their pursuers ever closer. Cash’s lungs felt like they were on fire.
They came out into the large open area and sprinted across it, but even before they’d reached the other side, the pursuers burst out of the tunnel they had just exited, with torches and flashlights, the big chamber magnifying their shrieks and yells.
“There they are!” one of them screamed.
The mob was only fifty yards behind. A spear came flying past them, going wide. Cash glanced back and was shocked to glimpse, among the mob, women and teenagers. They were dressed in regular clothing, no weird camouflage outfits, and they looked normal, except for their peculiar faces and the way they ran. Another spear came soaring past.
Colcord was slowing, gasping for air in the high altitude, and Cash felt she too was nearing collapse, the only thing driving her on was pure adrenaline. One turn, another, and another, and then—thank God—the bars of the entrance gate came in view. She was shocked to see a person was there, trapped in the mine, banging on the bars and shouting into the night.
It was the scientist—Karman. He spun around. “The gate’s padlocked!”
“Get out of the way!” Cash yelled, fumbling into her breast pocket and removing the key. The guards who had been outside were nowhere to be seen. She fell to her knees and reached through the bars. She grasped the padlock in one hand and slid the key into the hole with the other, giving it a twist. She struggled with the lock, thinking of the man she’d seen with the AR-15. He’d be in that mob somewhere, she felt sure.
