- 5 -

Still Day 13, Saturday, Now Midday

"If Jenkins is running from a murder rap," John said, "it wouldn't seem likely that he'd be too concerned about the value of a rock."

"You wouldn't think so," Bob agreed. "Unless it's a chunk of solid gold."

"Even then, what good would it do him? Being on the road means traveling light, being able to move quickly, unobtrusively. You can't carry around a three to four hundred pound rock and go unnoticed. I think we have to assume that he stashed it somewhere, and right now, it's the last thing on his mind."

"The sheriff said that he stole a pickup," Bob offered, slowing to turn onto the gravel road to the cabin. "Maybe his truck broke down and he wanted to move the rock somewhere else."

"Okay. Let's assume that was his original intention. Up until that point all he'd done wrong, that we know of, was to break into a friend's cabin and take some food and blankets. That's no reason to go on the run." John stopped and thought a second. "Unless he thought he was already on the run for something else he'd done…. You said that he had been placed at the scene of the hardware store murders. If he'd actually killed those people and thought maybe he'd been seen, that would explain the cabin and his hiding out. There was no mess in the cabin to indicate that he had actually stayed there, so he probably laid low for a few days somewhere in the woods, then decided to hightail it.

"That would explain why he had no compunction against killing again when he stole the truck. At that point what did it matter?"

Bob nodded agreement.

John continued. "He steals a truck from an isolated farm and kills the people so they can't report it. That's the way a ruthless killer operates. Now he's got a head start. But if he'd been smart, he wouldn't have left his fingerprints. He may as well left a note saying, Fools. I was here all the time and I'm just now starting to run in this old pickup. Bet you can't catch me' and then signed it."

"Maybe he's just not very smart," Bob offered.

"Possibly not. I've always felt that even the smartest criminal is dumber than the dumbest person that makes it honestly. Criminals always have an inherent mental flaw, although some hide it quite well, it's still their Achilles Heel. That's why most of them eventually get caught. Anyway, back to the meteorite," John said, not stopping for the usual moment of thought after expressing one of his profound theories. "I'll tell you where it's at."

Bob looked at him skeptically.

"Follow along. We know Jenkins took it out by boat. He wouldn't have done that just to put it back in his truck, so that leaves two choices, the bottom of the river, which is probably the best place on Earth to hide a rock, or somewhere close to the bank of the river. It's too heavy to carry far. And too heavy for him to get it in the boat. That's why he'd brought help with him. He couldn't do anything with it by himself." He stopped a second expecting a comment. Getting none he continued:

"Now we know that he launched the boat from the cabin. Why do that? The meteorite was as close to town as the cabin. Remember, he wasn't on the run then. He could have launched the boat at the pier in town just as easily. There was no reason to be secretive. Now, the only benefit in launching from the cabin would be if he was going to take it upstream quite a ways. I don't mean just a couple of miles. That wouldn't be worth the effort. I mean somewhere near the cabin or beyond. Think about how crooks hide things. Especially beginners. Sometimes they have no more imagination than a person that hides money under their mattress, or puts their door key under the mat. And you've seen how some people hide drugs. Sometimes it's so ridiculously easy to find that it borders on moronic."

Bob nodded, having seen many such examples when he was a detective in DC. It hadn't changed much since he'd joined the Bureau. The jurisdiction was broader but the criminal's minds about the same.

"In the river," John continued, "is where I'd hide it. But that's my choice because I have no personal interest in it. It has no value to me. I don't have the urge to horde it, take it out and admire it, touch it and dream of the wealth I'll have. I'm only thinking of the most logical place to hide it. You see what I mean?"

Bob nodded his head, thoughtfully agreeing as he spoke. "So you think it's on land somewhere around the cabin. I think—" Bob hit the brakes as they rounded a curve and, still a hundred yards away, the clearing in front of the cabin came into view. He saw several motorcycles scattered about.

"Back up," John snapped, "and get this thing off the road."

Bob threw it in reverse, backed around the curve and into the woods.

"What do you think is going on?" Bob asked.

"I don't know, but if Tom and Sherri are in on it, they have plenty of help. Let's try to get close to the cabin and find out."

They got out of the car, and then did exactly what the harsh, gravely voice ordered.

"Freeze, assholes. Get your hands behind your heads and turn around real slow."

A sawed-off shotgun was trained on their midsections.

______________________

Ace is escorting his prisoners to the cabin when he hears the chattering snarl of an approaching dirt bike from upriver. The bike breaks from the woods and slides to a stop in front of the cabin. Hanks jumps off, lets the bike fall over and runs toward the door screaming as Clyde and his brothers rush out to meet him, "Something just killed Cutter! Something big and—"

"What do you mean, something?" Clyde demanded.

"I don't know," Hank wailed, raising his arms over his head, gesturing. "It was this fuckin' big," stretching his hands up and raising on tiptoes, "and ugly like some kinda monster or something. It jerked Cutter off his bike and ripped him apart."

Clyde looked at him skeptically. "You been smoking dope?"

"No, man. I ain't been smokin' nothing. Something weird, like I said, killed Cutter and I just barely got away from it."

"It? Bullshit!" Clyde had no doubts that Hank had seen Cutter being killed. Even loaded, he couldn't mistake that. "It had to be the guy that killed Deuce."

Hank vehemently shook his head. "No way. It was some kinda monster or gorilla or —"

"All right. All right! Let's go see what you're talking about. Where'd it happen?"

"A mile or so up the river."

Guido tapped Clyde on the shoulder and pointed down the road toward Ace escorting two men with their hands behind their heads.

Ace yelled, "Found these two gettin' out of their car and startin' for the cabin."

Clyde met them halfway, Guido and Ox on his heels. "Who are you?" he growled, looking back and forth at the men, instinctively feeling that they were some kind of cops. Maybe narcs. The big one smacked of Fed, the other he couldn't read.

The thinner one answered casually, politely, "I'm John Hoskins from the Federal Geological Agency, and this is Bob Quint, my assistant."

Clyde looked them over and frowned. He didn't believe it for a second. "What do you want here?"

"We're here to see Sherri Blake."

"Who's Sherri Blake?"

"You don't know her?"

"Goddamnit, you deaf or just plain dumb. Wha'd I say?"

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry to have bothered you," John said timidly. "I have this wretched sense of direction and I'm afraid I've gotten us lost." He looked at Bob apologetically. So far, all the bikers had done was apprehend two trespassers, which was no crime. No reason for them to do anything rash, he hoped.

Clyde reached inside John's jacket and jerked out his revolver. "You're lost all right."

Seeing the gun, Guido immediately frisked Bob, finding his revolver, wallet and ID holder, which he quickly flipped open. He let out a whistle and handed it to Clyde.

"FBI? What the hell…"

Guido quickly patted John down and found only a wallet.

Clyde grabbed it from him and anxiously opened it and saw John's FGA ID. "Geological? Ain't that got something to do with rocks?"

"No, I study the land for possible oil well sites," John lied.

Clyde looked through the wallet suspiciously. He slipped out another card hidden under the bill flap. His shocked look got everybody's attention.

"Central Intelligence Agency! You're a spy?" he asked incredulously.

"No. Not hardly. That's just what you see in the movies," John said. "I'm a scientific investigator."

"And I'm the Grim Reaper." Clyde paused to let it soak in. "What're you investigating?"

"We just wanted to ask a Miss Sherri Blake some questions, but we must have gotten our directions wrong. We're sorry to have bothered you," John said, dropping his hands, an apologetic look on his face.

Clyde nodded at Guido, triggering a vicious punch into John's stomach. Bob lunged toward Guido. Ox slammed the butt of his shotgun into Bob's forehead. Bob crumpled to the ground. From his bent over position John swung a haymaker at Guido's jaw, swishing by within inches of his cheek. Ox swung the shotgun like a baseball bat and hit John in the kidneys at the same time Guido lashed out with the butt of John's revolver, cracking him above the right ear. John dropped in a heap at Guido's feet.

Clyde stood with his hands on his hips. "Now how the hell can I question them? Good work you lunatics. Kill the motherfuckers first, then I guess I can question them later, huh?" He turned and scowled at Hank who had tapped him on the shoulder. "What do you want?"

"What about Cutter? Shouldn't we—"

"Yeah, yeah, all right." Clyde waved his hand at him in frustration, then stepped to the back of the trike and popped open the hatch.

"I don't know what Hank's talking about, but let's take some of these grenades and Uzi's. It looks like it's time we got ready for some real action," he said, passing out the machine pistols and extra clips of ammo and two grenades apiece to each of his men. He only had one silenced Uzi. He grabbed Ace's and handed him the silent one.

"Ace, you take Hank's radio and go back close to the highway and guard the road. Don't let anybody in. And I mean nobody. Understand?"

Ace nodded eagerly and started to get on a dirt bike.

"Run, goddamnit! We need the bikes. Chuck, you and Sue get those two in the cabin and tie 'em up. Kill 'em if they try anything. And Chuck, you take Skip's radio. I'll have the other one. And goddamnit, don't let anybody get past the cabin." Clyde snapped a clip into the pistol, and snapped the bolt, chambering a shell, then flipped on the safety. "Ox, park the trike behind the cabin and bring the rocket launcher."

Ox jumped on the trike, practically quivering with excitement and anticipation. He hadn't had a chance to shoot the launcher at any live targets since 'Nam. Sometimes he really hated to wake up.

Clyde and Guido got on their bikes. Skip rode with Hank, and Ox rode the other bike. They awaited Clyde's signal, each armed with an Uzi, two grenades, and their own personal favorite weapon. Knives, derringers, snub-nosed revolvers in ankle or belt-clip holsters, and Skip's favorite, a garrote made out of piano wire that he wore wrapped around his wrist. The hand carved handles made from a deer antler made it look like an Indian bracelet.

Ox felt at home with the launcher snuggled at his side, secured by the leather shoulder strap. Around his waist was an ammo belt holding six extra rockets. For a normal man, riding a motorcycle with the extra weight and bulk would be a problem. To Ox it was a joy; like having a parakeet on his shoulder and a few candy bars in his pocket.

______________________

Cliff was becoming confused. It had been years since he'd been this far upriver. Would he even recognize the cabin? It wasn't one of the usual ones, built up on stilts near the riverbank, used primarily as a fishermen's retreat. It sat on a knoll back from the river; designed more as a home than a clubhouse.

He was wondering if it was still there or they'd passed it, when he spotted a cabin that might be the one. There were no vehicles or people in sight, but something about it didn't jive with his memory. He decided to go a couple miles further upriver and if he found nothing they'd check this one on the way back.

"Don't you think that we've come far enough?" Joe complained. "We're not going to find anything up here."

More to spite Joe and to assert that he was in charge, Cliff barked back, "I'll tell you when it's far enough."

Joe sat down and lit a cigarette, then caught a glimpse of something red through the trees.

"What's that over there?" He stood and pointed toward the right bank. An opening in the trees appeared. "It's a car!" It looked like it was just setting in the woods. "What in the hell's a car doing here?"

Cliff perked up. "I don't know, but I'm sure gonna find out." He grabbed the mike and radioed Wally in one of the squadcars and told him how to get back to the river, and to check it out.

______________________

Ollie Matson didn't try to hide the foul mood he was in. He shoved open the door of the Sheriff's Station and headed straight toward Beth. She knew how he felt. Losing a fellow officer was always a hard blow to all police officers, but to lose a good friend, also, was almost unbearable.

Ollie knew that if there had been any news from the roadblocks, she'd have notified him immediately but he had to ask. He had to do something.

"Anything from the roadblocks, or the APB, Beth."

"Not a thing, Sheriff," she answered solemnly, handing him a sheet of paper, "but this report just came over the Fax about Jenkins having some toxic material."

"Yeah, I know."

"You know?" she asked incredulously. "But how could you? It just came in and it hasn't been on the radio, yet."

"I talked to an FBI man. He thinks that Jenkins is still around here somewhere and he may be affected in some way." She looked at him questioningly.

He continued, "Get me the reports on all the unsolved, violent crimes that have been reported here and in the surrounding counties within the last three weeks. And try to find Chief Marlow. Two of his cruisers went by the accident scene and didn't even stop. I'd like to know what in the hell that was all about. He should have had all of his men manning roadblocks to the south of the scene. I called that bitch at his office and she wasn't any help at all. I had to get some state troopers down there." He flashed his disgusted look and walked to his office.

______________________

After tying Bob and John securely to two high-backed, wooden chairs they'd found in the bedroom, Sue had insisted that they set the men in the middle of the room and turn the couch around so that its back was against the fireplace so she could be comfortable while she watched her prisoners. Chuck didn't care. He went back outside, glad to get away from the bitch.

Sue lay sprawled in the corner of the couch, idly pointing her revolver back and forth at her new toys. Their lack of concern was frustrating. She wanted to see fear and some begging and sniveling. She sighted down the barrel at the big one, stopping to focus on his left eye. He stared back totally emotionless, then turned to the other one and said something about the weather. Angrily, Sue pulled back the hammer, getting his attention once again. She let the barrel drift down to his crotch and grinned wickedly. There was fear in his eyes now. She was sure of it.

The cabin door burst open. Sue spun.

"Whoa, girl," Chuck said lifting a briefcase defensively between them. "I'm on your side."

"What's in that?" she asked, pointing the gun menacingly at the case.

"I don't know, it's locked. Unless one of these creeps tells me the combination, I'm gonna bust it open over one of their fucking heads and find out."

A loud beep came from the case. Chuck dropped it as if it had bitten him.

"Hey! Be careful with that," John hollered. "That's my telephone."

"Telephone?" Chuck looked at it skeptically.

"A telephone with a built in direction finder receptor. The computer has already logged in our location. If I don't answer that, the whole damned Army will be here within ten minutes," John lied, trying not to laugh at the look on Chuck's face.

Chuck wouldn't know a dog turd from a sweet potato if the word electronics was written on it. He surely wasn't going to untie a cop.

Playing on the man' indecision, John told him, "I'll show you. Put the combination on 306, then open the case."

Chuck was going to stand firm and say no when the case beeped again. He grudgingly bent down, set the combination and opened it.

John wanted to give him the code to activate the video feature on the phone, but that would turn on and expose the monitors, which he was sure would freak out Chuck, so he opted to only initiate the phone. "Now punch the numbers six-three-eight-two into the keypad."

Chuck jumped back as if he were shocked. "Who you kiddin'? What's that, some kinda code or something?"

The case beeped again.

"That's just my personal number, like a PIN number, so nobody else can use the phone but me."

Chuck looked at Sue, figuring that she might know more about it than he.

She shrugged. "What the hell, it can't bite you, and if he tries anything I'll blow his fool head off."

"I still don't trust him," Chuck said shaking his head, on the verge of totally refusing. Still needing a prod. "How do I know that you don't have some code or something?"

"You can listen to everything that is said just by pushing that button marked, speaker," John said softly.

That seemed to satisfy Chuck. He pointed his Uzi at John's head. "Any funny business and you both get it. Understand?"

"Yeah, no funny business," Sue chimed in, moving beside John and poking her gun barrel in his ear.

John nodded.

"What's those numbers, again?" Chuck asked, his hand tentatively reaching for the keypad.

John repeated them one at a time as Chuck pushed the button and looked up for the next number.

"Now push the speaker button." Chuck hesitated, looked at Sue.

"Push the goddamned thing," she said vehemently. "I wanna hear what they say."

Chuck pushed the button and quickly stepped back.

John said, "Hoskins."

The case said, "John, Colonel Rainer. Status?"

Chuck's eyes grew as he furtively looked at John and then to Sue. He mouthed the word, Colonel, to Sue and gave her a shocked, questioning look. She stepped in front of John and put her gun between his eyes and sneered.

John tried to think of something to say that would alert the colonel without tipping off Chuck. This hadn't been expected to be a covert operation. He had thought it was ridiculous to send out agents instead of scientists, but he now realized that when the military, powers that be, got wind of something new, and radiation was mentioned, they immediately thought weapons and new ways to kill and weren't about to take any chances.

Unfortunately, there had been no provisions made for code words, check and counter-check phrases, no how's the wife, or some other question with a series of answers relaying situation and location and prognosis and required action. He had to wing it and hope for a chance to slip something by Chuck that the colonel wouldn't question or be startled by.

Chuck was watching him, nervously awaiting for his answer, his finger hooked too damned tightly around the trigger of his Uzi.

John knew that he could always blurt out their location and allow the machine-gun fire to alert the colonel of their plight, but committing suicide for some rock wasn't how he'd envisioned becoming a national hero. Instead, he cleared his throat and simply said, "I am secure, Matt." He said, I, in case the colonel asked him to get on the handset. An awkward explanation might make the biker suspicious, and he wanted the colonel to converse as long as possible in order to find a chance to slip an inconspicuous message to him..

"Have you found the meteorite?"

"No, but it's imminent." He hoped that Chuck didn't know what imminent meant. He wanted the colonel to know that he was close, but he didn't want chuck to know.

Chuck pushed Sue aside, put the machine pistol in John's face, and whispered menacingly, "No more funny fuckin' words, shithead."

"I hope so," Matt answered, "because I've got some bad news. The latest test results indicate that the radiation seems to cause some sort of temporary paralytic effect on brain cells, in particular, the cerebrum. Now don't worry. We're sure that you weren't exposed enough to have harmed you in any way, but we are upgrading our press release to say, 'Material gives off toxic fumes, and may be harmful to anyone within fifty feet', but as I said, we're sure that you and Quint are all right."

John met Bob's glance. A sense of dread passed between them. They both knew that if the colonel said it was going to sprinkle, forget the umbrella and start building an ark.

"How can you be sure? You haven't had the stuff long enough to know that much about it."

"We've had it long enough to know that there is no reaction for at least thirty-six hours. You could pick it up and fly back here and not be harmed."

"I already did fly back with some of it, remember?"

"Of course I remember!" the colonel shouted back. "But that was just little specks, barely enough to harm a fly."

John felt normal. His head was clear and his memory seemed all right. A brief flash made him wonder if a person with an impaired memory would really know it without something with which to relate. He dismissed the thought with an idea that might answer the question. "What would happen if someone got a massive, continuous dose of the radiation?"

"It's hard to tell just with our preliminary results, but there would surely be some obvious mental dysfunction. Whether it would be motor skills or memory or intelligence or a complete deterioration of all normal brain functions, we just don't know. We're also hampered by the fact that animal cells don't seem to have as much reaction to it. Of course, we have no idea what might happen with a stronger concentration. And on top of that, we haven't been able to find any material that can shield the radiation. Even lead has very little affect on it. We've got to find the damned thing and find it quick."

Chuck made a slicing motion across his throat and waved his gun threateningly in John's face. Sue held up her hand for him to wait. He sneered at her, backed up a step and pointed his gun at the case.

"We know that Sherri Blake has it hidden somewhere," John said as if idly repeating common knowledge. Neither Chuck nor Sue seemed to recognize the name. Actually, except for Sue's show of curiosity, neither of them had shown any specific interest when the meteorite was mentioned. It was as if they didn't even know about it. He took a chance. "Probably about twenty-five thousand meters boreal of the site."

Chuck looked at him suspiciously, but John was sure that he didn't know that boreal referred to north.

"Boreal? You mean north of—" The colonel caught himself too late. No one used that word in normal conversation.

A long burst from the Uzi ripped the case apart. "No more fuckin' talkin'." Chuck said smugly, proud of his handiwork. He ejected the partially spent clip, slipped it into his pocket, and rammed in a full one. "Ain't no directional finder gonna find that. Sue, I'll be outside. If one of these pricks even look at you, shoot their eyes out."

She smiled and sensuously licked her lips.

______________________

Ace had found a good spot to guard the entrance road to the cabin. It was at the end of a straight portion of the road, about half a mile from the highway, making anyone coming in the road visible to him for at least a hundred yards.

He was leaning against a large spruce tree on the river side of the road, idly picking at the bark and daydreaming about having somebody to shoot. He didn't get many chances to use a machine pistol on anybody. He enjoyed watching them jerk when the bullets hit their body. He especially liked it when chunks of meat were torn from them, or if an arm or leg was severed. Head shots were the ultimate. It was like shooting a cantaloupe, but rarely did he get a chance for a head shot. He usually had to take the high percentage shot at the body. He hoped that fate would smile on him this day.

He hears tires squall on the highway, then a car roaring toward him on the gravel road. His heart starts pumping faster. Like a cat stalking a bird. He's ready to pounce.

"A cop car!" he blurted out loud as the car comes into view, surprised that he was so surprised. A car with two cops in it sped toward him. When the car was within thirty yards, he jumped from behind the tree and opened fire. Silenced slugs cut a diagonal path from the grill to the driver's head. When he saw the bullets hit the head, he forgot all about the other cop and excitedly emptied his clip at the driver. The last few shots went over the driver's shoulders. There wasn't anything left of his head. It was splattered all over the inside of the car and out through the shattered rear window. Ace was jubilant.

The car flew past him, veered off the road and careened down the hill toward the river. It smashed dead center into a big tree and crunched to a stop.

Remembering the other cop, Ace took off after the car, slamming a full clip into the gun. Being on the driver's side, the passenger side blocked from his view, he didn't see that the other cop had grabbed the riot gun and jumped free of the car right before impact and had rolled into the brush. He only knew that he wanted one more cantaloupe shot.

The cop slipped down to the river unobserved.

______________________

Hank pointed to the ground with his left hand indicating to Clyde that he was going to stop. Clyde relayed the signal to the men behind him. Hank slowed, intently searching the ground, then suddenly stopped and got off the bike.

"Here's where it happened," Hank said. "Just look at the fuckin' blood all over the place."

Clyde didn't have to have it pointed out. He could see the blood splattered on the ground and the surrounding foliage. But what really erased his initial skepticism of Hank's story was the wet blobs of guts chaotically strewn about the ground and hanging from the bushes.

He instinctively touched the butt of his shoulder holstered .45 and walked over to Hank. The other men gathered around, bewildered.

Hank emphatically swung his arm around. "I took off through the woods right over there, and whatever it was, threw Cutter down and tried to get me. I barely got away."

Clyde drew his pistol and snapped off the safety. "You men spread out and look around, and be careful."

He started to ask Hank about Cutter's bike when Guido hollered that he'd found it in the brush.

"Is it okay?" Clyde asked.

"Looks fine to me."

"All right, keep looking."

Hank started to walk away. Clyde grabbed his arm. "You think it mighta been a bear?"

"Hell no. I know what a bear looks like." Does he think I'm a fool? "This thing was big and—"

"How big?"

"Big, like I said," stretching his hands above his head. "It musta been seven feet tall with some kinda greenish-black, rough looking skin."

"Maybe a gorilla that escaped from a circus or something," Clyde muttered, holstering the pistol and grabbing the butt of the Uzi dangling at his side from its quick-action, always-ready-to-use shoulder strap, checked the chamber, then pointed it where his eyes roamed, his finger on the trigger, his adrenaline beginning to pump. Hank walked away, not wanting Clyde to see the disgust in his eyes.

A yell and thrashing came from the brush ahead. Skip staggered into the road, stumbling backward, frantically pointing.

"Cutter! It's Cutter's…"

Clyde pushed past him into the bushes expecting to see Cutter's body on the ground. He broke into an open patch of blood-speckled, mashed grass. A broken, trampled swath marked the passage of something that had gone upriver. Cutter wasn't there. What had Skip seen? He turned to go back to the road and find out. His foot stumped against something in the knee high grass. He did a double-take and jumped back. At first, his mind didn't register what his eyes were seeing. He'd been prepared to see a crumpled body, probably face-down, maybe a few flies hovering around. Nothing unusual. His mind hadn't been prepared to find a blood covered, agony-distorted head laying in the grass looking up at him, its eyes open, frozen in terror.

He slowly turned a complete circle, his gun and eyes searching for something. Anything. He heard birds twittering overhead, leaves rustling, then the sounds appeared to get louder. He heard bees and flies and bugs crawling through last year's leaf cover, a boat miles away, approaching, slowing, then speeding up again. But nothing indicated danger. He relaxed, the sounds dwindled. He looked around overhead. Only a slight rustling of the breeze ruffled leaves and an occasional bird's chirp now broke the silence. What had happened?

He rubbed his ears, then shook his head violently. It must have been one of those acid flashbacks from his younger years, he thought. He'd heard about them but never really believed it was possible. At least he hadn't seen any huge spiders eating his face. He chuckled then looked back at the head. Must have been the shock. The face didn't really look so terribly terrified. Cutter was just terribly ugly, anyway. He looked at his boots, just to make sure he hadn't gotten any blood on them, then reached down and grabbed the head by the hair and carried it back to the road.

The men were standing around Skip at the edge of the road peering into the brush, their guns pointed at him when he emerged.

"God!" Guido yelped when he saw cutter's head dangling from Clyde's hand. "What in the fuck is out here!"

Clyde set the head on the ground and slapped a grenade hanging on his vest. "I don't know, but we're gonna get the son of a bitch."

Hank's face didn't have the same confident look as Clyde's.

"Listen," Skip said. "What's that noise?"

Guido was standing off to the side of the group and had a better view of the river. "Get down," he hissed. "It's a police boat."

______________________

"Something's going on over there," Cliff said, handing the binoculars to Joe and pointing upriver toward the right bank. Joe adjusted the glasses, then said sarcastically, "Just some bikers. What's the big deal?"

"Those aren't just bikers, damnit, they're wearing colors. Those kind of bikers don't ride the trails. Who in the hell are they going to beat up and rob around here?"

Joe had his own ideas. "Just a bunch of punks. Probably got a marijuana patch up here somewhere."

"We're sure as hell gonna find out." Cliff jerked the mike out of its holder.

"They musta spotted us, Chief," Joe said, fumbling with the adjustment knob. "They just ducked outta sight."

Glaring an, I told you look, over the mike, Cliff tried twice to call Wally in the car that was supposed to be checking out the sports car and got no answer. "Where in the hell is Wally?" He waited a bit then angrily pushed the button again. "Kawalski, come in."

"Kawalski here," the mike quickly answered.

"Where are you?"

"I'm heading south about two miles north of that road you had Wally check on."

"Good. Get back to that road and find out what happened to Wally. You heard me tell him what to do. About a half mile past the red car there are five or six bikers. We're gonna beach in front of them. You cover the road and back us up."

______________________

"That was the Big Bend police boat," Guido said. "What's it doing way up here?"

Clyde shook his head and thought a minute. "It's the weekend. Maybe they're just goofing off. If I had a boat like that to use whenever I wanted, that's what I'd be doing."

"I don't like it," Hank chimed in.

"Who cares what you like! Anyway, they went on by, didn't they?" Clyde said, sarcastically. "They're just goddamned lucky they did, too." He got to his feet and brushed off his pants. "Now, let's go find the prick that killed Cutter."

Hank didn't say anything, but he knew that if the cops were just goofing off, they wouldn't be in uniform. But what he didn't realize was that normally he would have said something.

______________________

"I think you're right," Tom said, watching the boat. All he could remember about the town's police boat was that it was blue and white like ninety percent of the larger boats on the river. But even at over two hundred yards, he could see that they were wearing some type of uniform.

Sherri drew her pistol. "If they are cops, they'll know that three shots in succession means trouble."

Tom didn't know that. "Wait, Sher. If they really are cops, they'll pull into the bank right in front of the bikers. What if the bikers decide to shoot it out with them. It would be a turkey shoot."

Sherri's eyes darted around frantically, first to the boat, then to the bikers, and then along the cliff and into the woods back to the cabin and back to the cops. "We've got to do something." Relief flooded her face as she realized that the boat was continuing on up the river. She holstered the pistol and looked at Tom, who had an unsettling look of consternation on his face. "I just hated to think what might have happened…"

Tom put his arm around her comfortingly, wondering what had caused the moment of panic she'd experienced. Not that she didn't deserve to be scared to death, or that Tom wouldn't accept it as normal, it was just that she'd been so unusually calm dealing with danger that would have turned most men to jelly. Especially the motorcycle ride, which had proven to Tom that he was only half as brave as he'd thought.

"Tom," she said, her eyes suddenly alight, "if that's the Big Bend police boat it will eventually turn around and head back to town."

"Yeah, but—" Tom started to say, "Let's go back through the woods and get out of here." He never got the chance. The boat turned toward the bank.

"Look!" Sherri said running up a few steps, precariously close to the cliff's edge, as if those few feet would give her a better view. "They're beaching it!"

Needing to be higher for a better view and not wanting to be totally isolated from the police, Tom asked, "Is there a way for us to get down from here once we get to the top?"

She leaned farther over the edge causing a sickening, sinking, feeling to sweep through Tom. He reached for her too late to be of any help. She was already skittering back.

"There's a ravine up ahead—I can't see it from here, but I know it's there—I went down it as a kid, but…" She paused, grinning at him, noticing his look of anxiety and obvious disdain of heights. "…but I don't know if you could…"

Tom grabbed her arm and hustled her along, mumbling, "Carrying you might be hard, but I'll do it if I have to."

______________________

As Kawalski turned onto the road to the cabin he told his partner, "Jim, get the riot gun out and be ready for trouble." He drove slowly down the road, scanning all around, trying to be prepared for anything.

About a half mile in, Jim tapped him on the shoulder. "Down by the river. That's Wally's car."

"Hey, there's somebody coming around from the other side of it," Kawalski said. Then he noticed the machine pistol being pointed in their direction and the flashes of fire erupting from it. He mashed the pedal to the floor and the big police interceptor V-8 roared. The rear tires threw up a cloud of dust and gravel that practically obscured it from the gunman as it accelerated down the gravel road.

Suddenly a cop jumped out into the road in front of them holding a riot gun, waving for them to stop.

"That's Sam!" Jim shouted above the roaring engine.

Kawalski slammed on the brakes and the car slid to a stop.

Sam jumped in the right rear door. "Some crazy son of a bitch killed Wally!"

"With the machine gun?" Kawalski asked.

"Yeah. He jumped out from behind a tree and started blasting away."

"That same crazy bastard shot at us as we came by the car," Jim said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, shocked and confused.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Kawalski picked up the mike. But before pushing the transmit button, he reached down and held the switches, rolling down all the windows. "Jim, you watch the right side, and Sam, you cover the left." Then he hit the button.

______________________

Cliff had beached the police boat upriver from the bikers and had sent Joe and two men back to check them out when the call came in from Kawalski.

"Chief, Wally's been killed by a man with an automatic weapon. He's about a half mile from the highway on the gravel road. Sam got away and he's with us now," Kawalski reported. "Should we apprehend him?"

"Did he look like a biker?"

Kawalski looked at Jim and Sam. They both nodded.

"Affirmative."

"Forget him and get up here fast. We've got a whole gang of them about a mile upriver from the cabin and I need backup immed—"

An ear-shattering roar burst from the water beside Cliff, seeming to, by the noise alone, blow the boat up and over. Cliff dove for the bank, fell short and landed in the shallow, muddy water, having to claw and kick himself onto the bank.

Ed, standing at the rear of the boat was thrown into the water and came up sputtering and gagging, totally disoriented, six feet from the overturned boat. Something grabbed his leg then clawed at his shoulder. He frantically pushed it away. A head popped from the water beside him. Ed recognized the boat driver. He seemed to be hurt, dazed, struggling. Ed reached for him then shrank back in horror as the head jerked underwater, the man's breath exploding from him as he went under.

Hearing the commotion, Joe raced back, followed by the two cops. They arrived just as something climbed onto the bank clutching the boat driver. Joe stopped, shocked and bewildered, then petrified. The thing had one hand pushed into the drivers chest cavity and the other hand was twisting the driver's head back, and with a sickening squish, ripped it off. Another thing, even bigger than the one that had the driver, erupted from the water and started toward Cliff, who was struggling to his feet, his back turned toward it.

Afraid of hitting the chief with the wide pattern of the riot gun, Joe drew his pistol and opened fire, emptying the pistol while Ron, who had the only other shotgun, tried to get off a safe shot. The thing turned and ran upriver through the woods, drawing three quick shots from Ron.

Joe holstered the pistol and with the shot gun, tried to get a shot at the smaller one, but it, still clutching the driver, jumped into the river and disappeared.

Joe ran to the overturned boat and saw only blood and guts strewn about, no sign of the thing or the driver.

"That wasn't a biker!" Joe screamed. "What kinda shit did you get us into?" He turned and glared at the chief.

"I don't know." Cliff got up and slapped disgustedly at his muddy, wet clothes. "But if we wanna get outta here, we've gotta get to Kawalski. He's got the only goddamned vehicle left."

______________________

The commotion upriver had frozen the bikers in their tracks. The thrashing and splashing in the water, the choked off scream, and the shots had Clyde confused. The police boat had to be involved, but he couldn't imagine what could have happened.

His radio squawked, "Clyde, this is Ace." He turned down the volume and ignored it. "Clyde, this is Ace," A faint voice insisted.

"Spread out and take cover," Clyde ordered his men. "And be quiet."

"Clyde, goddamnit, answer me," the faint voice said in a screaming tone. Clyde stepped back to the bikes and answered in a whisper.

The faint, excited voice said, "A cop car came in the road and I wasted the driver but the other one got away. While I was looking for him, another cop car came in and got by me."

"Chuck, did you hear that?" Clyde said into the radio.

"Yeah, what do you want me to do?"

"Blow that fuckin' car off the road is what I want you to do."

"What about—"

"Keep your goddamned finger off the button and listen to me," Clyde said in the most vicious whisper he could muster.

All Chuck heard was "listen to me" because his finger was on the button to transmit. "I'm listening."

"Stop the fuckin' car, then you and Ace bring the trike up here as fast as you can. And bring Sue with you."

"But what about the Feds?"

"Waste 'em. They're no good to us, anyway. But take care of the cops first. They'll be there in seconds."

Clyde started to clip the radio back onto his belt. Then he realized that it was Chuck that he'd been talking to, not somebody with any sense. He pushed the transmit button again. "Ace, did you get that?"

"Yeah, I'm on my way to the cabin." Relieved, Clyde clipped the radio onto his belt. As an afterthought, he reached down and slightly rotated the volume knob to increase it a little. He didn't realize that he'd turned it the wrong way.

______________________

Chuck had just come back inside the cabin when he heard Ace's call to Clyde. John and Bob had to listen to the conversation, helpless to warn, and helpless to act. And they both caught the words, waste 'em.

When Chuck ran out of the cabin to intercept the cop car, they looked at each other hoping that a spark of hope could be found in the other's eyes. There was none.

Sue stared at the wound on Bob's forehead. It made her think of a juicy red steak. She was starving and a search of the kitchen had turned up nothing.

Lately, most of her thoughts were about food, sex, and sleeping. When she had sex, she wanted food. After eating, she wanted sleep. Occasionally she thought about the rock that Dan had given her. She wanted more of them and she didn't even know why. In her present state, she didn't have to have a reason to do something. She was strictly guided by emotions and urges.

She walked over to Bob and without warning, reached out and cat-swiped his wound with her fingernails, tearing away the scab and gouging two more shallow, oozing scrapes across his broad forehead.

"Hey, you stupid bitch!" he bellowed without thinking. Then realizing the hopelessness of the situation and not wanting to aggravate her sudden mood switch, he added in a softer, whining, subservient, and hopefully calming tone, "Please, I never did anything to you." It worked sometimes and then other times it got you really screwed up.

The wound started bleeding again. A warm trail of blood ran down the left side of his face and dribbled onto his white shirt.

Sue stood in front of him and stared at the wound for a moment, then knelt in front of him, her gun pushing lightly against his stomach, her eyes locked on his. Shocking Bob, she softly, seriously said, "Let's kiss and make up."

He started to spit in her face, but luckily, his better judgment took over. Whatever kind of silliness she had on her mind was better than her sitting on the couch with a gun trained on him waiting for the bikers to come back to waste him. Besides, he thought, kissing the bitch has got to be better than being gut-shot. He'd worry about gargling with bleach and getting rabies shots later, if there was a later.

He smiled. "I'd love to."

Sue slowly brought her lips closer until they were almost touching. At the last second, she quickly turned her head to the right and flicked her tongue through the stream of blood running down his cheek.

Not realizing what she'd actually done, Bob thought she was only teasing him. Maybe like the perverse way a cat plays with a mouse before killing it. Then he noticed the blood on her lips. Aware that he was looking at her mouth, she slowly ran her tongue around her lips and smiled. Bob's first thought was that he'd just received the kiss of death, her way.

She leaned toward him and said, "Now a real kiss." Bob cringed, expecting something more vicious this time.

She leaned closer.

Bob softened his features, trying for a look of desire and willing expectation, and gradually tipped his head back as she came closer.

She was only a foot away, following his head back when she hesitated, a brief, confused look came over her face as she realized that Bob's head was continuing to slowly move away from her. She opened her mouth as her anger built. Bob violently snapped his head forward, smashing his forehead into hers. He heard the cracking of the blow, felt it jar his senses for a second or two, or maybe longer. He wasn't sure of how long. Maybe it was a dream. Somebody began fumbling with his hands.

An angry voice yelled at him from somewhere behind. "Quit pulling on the ropes!" He realized that his head was hanging forward. He opened his eyes and saw his belt buckle.

"Give me some slack!" the voice hollered again. It was John's!

Bob straightened up and saw Sue sprawled on her back, then realized that John had wiggled his chair back to back and was struggling with the rope on his hands. He squeezed his wrists together to relieve the tension on the rope and said, "What happened?"

"What happened, he asks," John said tugging frantically at the knot. "I'm back here trying to untie a dead man before she gets up and kills me and he says, 'What happened'. I'll tell you what happened. After running her head into a locomotive, she flew backwards and tried to break a floorboard with the back of her head, but if I don't get you untied, and she's still alive, you just got your last kiss."

Bob looked at Sue to see if she was breathing. Her head was turned to the side, an arm draped over her face. He couldn't tell if her chest was moving.

"Where in the hell did you learn to do that?" John asked. "Karate class?"

"Hell no, "Bob answered, shaking his head woozily. "I saw it in the movies, but I always thought it was stupid. It had to hurt like hell and who knew beforehand who'd get the worse of it."

John mumbled a curse, jerked his chair around a bit for a better angle of attack on the knot. Just babbling, while struggling with the knot, "How'd you know that you could actually knock her out that way?"

"I didn't."

"Then what brought you to do it?"

Bob craned his head around. "The look in her eyes when she licked my blood off her lips. When she came toward me the second time, I started wondering what would happen to me if I wasn't bleeding fast enough for her."

An explosion rumbled upriver from the direction of the highway.

Sue moaned and slid her arm from her face.

Bob wanted to scream, hurry up and get me untied. He knew that he wouldn't get another chance. She'd probably come up shooting, or worse.

Sue blinked her eyes and rolled her head back and forth.

John struggled frantically at the knot. He had carefully inspected it before working his chair around blocking him from Sue's view. He knew that all he had to do was to work the elusive end up and around and through. He scrunched his head down hoping that she wouldn't immediately notice what he was doing. He needed time.

Sue raised her head and glared at Bob. Satisfied that he was still there and giving no thought to John, she lay her head back down, pressed her right hand to her forehead and lay still for a few seconds, clearing her head and gathering her thoughts.

John twisted, poked, and fought the rope, trying to get it through the loosened loop, praying for the end to slip free.

Sue dropped her hand to the floor and glared at Bob again, killing fires smoldering in her eyes.

Bob could almost feel her fingernails ripping into his eyes. He had to fight himself to keep from moving, hoping that she'd allow John a few more seconds.

Without warning, she leaped to her feet and started swinging rights and lefts at Bob's head, growling and snorting with each blow.

Bob tried to jerk his head around to avoid her flying fists, only succeeding in angering her further. He ducked his head down, chin against his chest. She smashed a fist against his skull, yelped and stepped back a step, giving Bob hope that she was tiring or quitting to assess the damage. He rolled up his eyes to peek as a foot caught him squarely in the mouth. His head snapped back and lolled lazily to the side.

Sue grabbed a handful of hair, jerked his head up and began pummeling his face in earnest. He tried fighting back the blackness, only to find that he didn't have the strength. He felt tired, weak. A creeping numbness absorbed the pain. He needed rest. Something slapped his hand. Or did it?

He fought against the darkness. John's voice broke through, "Bob! Go, goddamnit!"

Bob realized that his arms had swung down to his sides giving him a surge of strength, hope. Reaching up with his left hand, he hooked his fingers onto Sue's belt so she couldn't get away. She straightened up and pulled back. With all the strength he could muster he drove his right fist into her solar plexus. She doubled over and looked like she was going to barf in his face. Her mouth was open when he hit her in the chin. The blow slammed her teeth together with such force that Bob was sure that some of her teeth were chipped or broken off. She went over backwards, her momentum pulling him from the chair, his hand still desperately clinging to her belt, knowing that with his feet still tied to the chair, if she slipped from his grasp and wasn't unconscious, she could get to her gun before he could stop her.

He landed across her stomach. She scratched and bit at his face and kicked and squirmed frantically trying to get out from under him. Afraid to release her belt, he had only one hand in which to ward off her attack and subdue her. He pushed himself up and lunged for her head. Forcing his forearm underneath her chin, he bore down on her neck. Her struggles peaked to a frantic fury, then quickly diminished, suddenly ceasing entirely. He had an almost irresistible urge to push down harder and harder, longing to hear the sound of her neck bones separating and crunching beneath his arm, but the moment her body quit struggling, a clammy sensation of death overcame him. He rolled off her and lay panting on his back. "Good God! He gasped between breaths, "That's one… strong… crazy broad."

John, trying to wiggle his chair closer, stopped and laughed. "I thought I was going to have to help you handle that little girl."

Bob raised his head and looked at John seriously. "I don't know what she's on, but whatever it is, she's three times stronger than she looks." He tried to grin and winced instead. "I don't know how I ever knocked her out with a head-butt."

Bob sat up and untied his legs, checked Sue for signs of life, and then with mixed emotions over finding that she was still alive, he freed John. "How about you tying her up. I want the pleasure of gagging her."

He went into the kitchen and found a dish rag on the sink. In the cabinet under the sink he found a box of Brillo pads. He took one out of the box and looked at it. Pleased that it was the kind that was full of extra-strength soap powder, he took out another one and walked back to the trussed up girl.

John watched him stuff both pads into her mouth and tie the rag around her head. He walked over to the wall and retrieved her gun without saying a word.

______________________

Chuck knows that the hand grenades have five second fuses. He plans to toss one in front of the cop car, hoping that the shrapnel will disable it or, if he's lucky, some of the shrapnel will go through the windshield and hit the driver. If they keep coming, he plans to throw the second grenade through either the windshield or one of the side windows. His contingency plan, if the grenades don't do a thorough job, is to chop them to pieces with his Uzi.

He smirked when he heard the car approaching. He knew that his plan couldn't fail.

He stood ready, the Uzi slung over his left shoulder, a grenade in each hand. He pulled the pin from the grenade in his right hand with his teeth and jumped out into the road. Shocked at seeing how fast the car was bearing down on him, he hastily lobbed the grenade. The speed of the car completely fooled him. The grenade hit the front of the car and bounced back toward him. The car swerved into the brush toward the river and he dove for cover behind a tree. The explosion sent shrapnel singing in all directions. Chuck was lucky. The car wasn't.

About forty feet into the brush a two foot high projection of a much larger, buried boulder lie concealed in the undergrowth. The front bumper bounced over it, exposing a tie rod and the oil pan to take the brunt of the blow. The tie rod bent and the oil pan crushed into the crankshaft, grinding the motor to a halt.

Chuck jumped up, ran to the edge of the brush and tossed the other grenade. This time his accuracy was perfect. The grenade bounced under the rear of the car. He dove to the ground and missed a classic movie-type car explosion. The grenade, a three-quarter tank of gas, and the trunk containing a case of flares and several boxes of ammunition, created an enormous fireball spitting out hot metal parts, smoking plastic, and lit pieces of flares in every direction.

Chuck didn't get to witness the pyrotechnics. His face was buried in the ground, and he kept it there until the debris stopped falling around him. When he did venture a look, all he saw was a burning car, surrounded by sparkling bright red flames from the flares that had broken into pieces and ignited, intermingled with pieces of smoking debris.

______________________

Tom and Sherri had made it to the top of the bluff and were almost even with the cop's position when they saw the police boat being turned over. They stopped and watched, holding on to each other in shocked silence, spellbound, horrified.

After the cops drove off the attackers, Tom broke the silence. "Those things must be some kind of gorillas, aren't they?"

Sherri slowly shook her head. "I couldn't tell, but they didn't look right. They didn't move like gorillas. You know, that sort of hunched over, knuckle-dragging kind of look."

"Well then what in the hell are they?"

She shook her head hopelessly. "I don't know, but I wish I had a camera with a telescopic lens. I think we just saw proof that there are giant man-like creatures roaming the Earth; you remember the one they showed on TV, the one everybody thought was fake."

"Yeah. It looked like a big guy in a monkey suit in a cheap movie." He pondered the idea a moment.

Sherri grabbed his arm. "Hey, if all the bikers are down there, this would be a good time to go back to the truck and go for help."

Excited by the idea and upset at not having thought of it himself, Tom grabbed her hand and said, "Let's get the—"

A muffled explosion came from the direction of the cabin. "What was that?" He looked emphatically at Sherri not expecting an answer.

"That was no gun," she answered quickly, almost clinically. "That was a bomb of some sort." As if on cue, a fireball flashed from the trees beyond the cabin, quickly snuffed out by a growing, billowy cloud of black smoke. Several seconds later the sound of the second explosion rumbled down the valley.

"Jesus Christ!" Tom yelled, relenting to the tug on his arm as Sherri pulled him back from the cliff's edge. "This doesn't make any sense. Who are these people?"

______________________

"Goddamnit, Joe, you should've thought to bring a walkie-talkie. If something's happened to Kawalski we're in deep shit. Ron," Cliff reached out and snatched the shotgun from him, "gimme that thing. We're gonna get back there and see what's going on."

"But what about the bikers, Chief?" Ron asked nervously, his hand slipping unconsciously to his pistol butt, his eyes darting around.

"We'll blow the creeps away is what we'll do about the bikers. Who's got some more shells for this thing?"

______________________

"What was that?" John asked as he was about to open the front door of the cabin.

Bob separated the curtain slightly and peered out the window, then shook his head.

A second, much larger explosion shook the windows in the cabin.

"Son of a bitch!" John cursed helplessly. "That must be the cop car." He held up the purse-sized snub-nose .38 revolver. "We can't take these guys on with this thing. Let's get in the woods and try to figure out what to do."

They slipped out the front door and ran around the right side of the cabin. As they passed the rear corner, John spotted the three-wheeler and ran to it with Bob right on his heels.

"Let's get the hell out of here." Bob said excitedly, jumping on to start it.

"Wait," John said. "Where can we go? We know that most of the gang is upriver and at least two of them are between here and the highway with Uzi's and grenades. And we can't take this thing through that rough terrain. He pointed around at the woods and gullies surrounding the cabin.

Bob looked around and dejectedly nodded his head.

John reached for the hatch. "Maybe there's something in here that we can use." He opened it and gasped. "Look at this! There's Uzi's… and grenades… and…" His voice quit working. He picked up one of the guns and checked it out.

"Look at all the extra clips of shells!" Bob said, grabbing several and sticking them in his jacket pockets. "What in the hell are we in, a war?"

"God, it looks like it. Grab everything you can carry and let's get into the woods. It'll give us a chance to decide what to do."

"Can't we make a run for it with these?" Bob said snapping a clip into an Uzi. "Just shoot our way out of here and go for help?"

John shook his head. "You see these things? They're rockets for an MA-18 rocket launcher and it's not here. If they've got it with them, we still don't have enough firepower. That might be what they used to take out the cop car."

For the second time in as many minutes, Bob nodded his head dejectedly, then began filling his pockets.

______________________

Ace had heard the first explosion and then silence. He figured that Chuck had thrown a grenade into the cop car and the job was done. He saw a big ball of flame through the trees a second before he heard the sound of the second explosion. It didn't make sense. He stepped up his pace, cussing himself for not having driven the Fed's car. Then cussing Clyde for not having thought of it.

When he rounded the curve in the road, he saw Chuck getting up off the ground. Chuck, seeing Ace, raised his rifle over his head and pumped it up and down in a victory gesture, a wide grin on his face.

"I got those cocksuckers," he hollered with the glee of a small child seeing his new bicycle by the Christmas tree.

Ace ran up to Chuck and gave him a high five. They patted each other on the back and watched the cop car burn.

"Are you sure the cops were in the car?" Ace asked.

"Hell yeah, I'm sure. I got 'em before they even knew what hit 'em."

"Good. Let me tell Clyde." A happy leer spread on his face. "Then we'll go pop a coupla Fed cantaloupes."

______________________

The three cops watched the bikers congratulating each other. One of the bikers talked into his walkie-talkie for a minute, then they both ran up the road toward the cabin.

"It looks like they think we were still in the car," Kawalski said, still holding Sam's shotgun on the ground with his forearm.

Sam jerked the gun away. "Why didn't you let me blast them, goddamnit. I could've taken them both out."

Kawalski answered patiently, "At this distance, how could you be sure? They hit the ground at the first shot. The live one lobs a grenade down the hill. What then? We stick our fingers in our ears and pray? We run, he chops us to pieces with a machine gun."

Sam's scow gradually transformed to a moody sulk.

Jim asked, "What do we do now?"

"We wait a few minutes to see what they do. If they stay at the cabin, we're going to have to try to take them. Then we have to get to the Chief. It looks like they're going to need all the help they can get."

Sam had a puzzled look on his face. "But why don't one of us go back to the highway and get some help?"

"Jim answered quickly, "You saw the one on the radio. He's probably got a dozen men on the highway just waiting for us to make a run for it."

Kawalski wondered, but couldn't agree or disagree with either one of them.

______________________

Ace opened the door of the cabin expecting to see Sue either harassing the Feds, or asleep. He didn't expect her to be wriggling around on the floor, face down, with her hands and feet tied, moaning and making gagging sounds through her nose. The only things out of place, besides Sue, was one overturned chair and a ripped up briefcase among scattered debris and electronic parts. He didn't understand the mess, but that wasn't what bothered him.

"Where in the hell are the Feds?" Ace hollered menacingly at Sue as she frantically shook her head around, making hysterical noises through her nose. Ace grabbed Chuck by the shoulder and pushed him toward her. "Untie the stupid bitch while I check outside." He ran out the door and to the back of the cabin to see if the trike was still there. He was relieved when he saw it, but unsettled at seeing the open hatch. Looking in, quickly checking stock, he realized that the Feds were heavily armed. He ducked beside the trike and checked the perimeter of the clearing around the cabin, expecting an ambush. He couldn't see anybody, but there were a dozen good hiding places from which someone could be watching.

"Chuck. You and Sue get out here." He kept his gun sweeping the edge of the woods while he called Clyde on the radio. Still no answer. He tried the trike radio knowing that it had a much greater range. Nothing but static. He hollered at Chuck again, his adrenaline pumping, the tension mounting at the thought that the Feds could have him in their sights. He slammed the hatch down and hopped on, thankful that the keys were in it.

"Come on, Sue, we gotta go!" Chuck urged, listening to her gagging and puking in the bathroom. The way she had looked at him when he'd untied her warned him to be cautious with her. She gargled, spit, and cussed and gargled, spit, and cussed some more, then he heard the bathroom mirror shatter. Ace hollered again, then the trike motor roared to life.

"Sue, they're getting away, let's get after them," he tried again, practically begging. That worked. Sue kicked open the door, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and stormed out of the bathroom.

"I'll kill that son of a bitch," she screamed, pushing Chuck out of the way and stomping out the front door.

______________________

Not knowing what to do, Tom and Sherri had crept on their stomachs back to the cliff's edge, hoping to see the bikers hightailing it now that the cops were here. They talked in whispers, unnecessarily paranoid and feeling conspicuous, even though they were over three hundred yards from the bikers

From their ringside seat, to their disappointment, they could see the bikers spread out and start upriver, and to their right, the cops starting down the road, single file as if taking a walk in the park.

"Look at the cops," Sherri said, astonished. "They're walking straight toward the bikers."

Tom looked at her, expecting some sort of resistance as he suggested, "From where we're at, we could hold the bikers down with these rifles."

"Good idea," she said eagerly, slipping her rifle into shooting position. "At least we can keep the cops from walking into an ambush. And maybe if we're lucky…" She looked down the sights and wiggled slightly, getting set.

Tom started to say something about her unexpected attitude, how glad he was that she was taking it so well, how he felt closer to her than ever, how he wished they were out of this crazy place, home and safe. But with adequate words failing him, he slid his rifle up and got ready. "I wish I had my scope on this thing. I could knock their teeth out."

Then sighting his rifle he said. "The bikers have to go through that clearing in a minute. When they're all out in the open, we'll start shooting. When they shoot back, the cops will know what's in front of them. Between the cops and us, we should be able to drive them back down the river."

Sherri aimed at the clearing and flicked off the safety. Tom followed suit.

Two men came out of the trees into the clearing.

Tom whispered again, needlessly, "When I start shooting, you shoot at the men closest to us. I'll take those closer to the river and work back."

Sherri nodded and looked down the sights on her gun. Tom noticed that both of her eyes were open, the method used by all experienced shooters. Why hadn't he noticed that before? He was sure that she had closed her left eye when they'd gone target practicing. And she had shied away from even shooting a rifle, preferring a pistol, and even then, she'd been rather reluctant. He didn't know her at all, but what he did know, his admiration and concern had leaped to a level beyond his wildest dreams. He was in love with someone he didn't know. He shook his head, confused with the logic of his emotions.

Three more bikers, spaced wider apart than the first two, came into the clearing. The two nearest the river were almost into the trees. Tom couldn't wait any longer. He popped off five shots and snapped in another clip. Sherri was shooting rhythmically, one shot a second.

The bikers and the cops dove for cover, The bikers knowing that they were being shot at. The cops couldn't figure it out. They didn't see any shots hitting around them. Both started shooting at the enemy on the bluff.

The cops think that they are shooting at more of the bikers, while the bikers are totally confused, but both groups are now aware of the other's position.

With automatic fire spraying into the bluff and zinging overhead into the woods, Tom stopped shooting and slapped Sherri's shoulder. "Get back!"

"Damn machine guns," Sherri said, wiggling back beside Tom. "At least they lose most of their punch at this distance."

"How do you know that?"

She ignored the question and by her expression Tom knew better than to ask again. He popped out the spent five-shot clip and snapped in another, then started reloading the empties.

Sherri wiggled up and peeked over the edge. "The cops must think that we're bikers, but at least they know the real ones position." She wiggled back. "The bikers have gone back into the trees, so we're not going to be as much help to the cops as I thought." An idea seemed to strike her. "Let's get off this bluff and get the bikers on their rear flank."

"Are you serious? Stop and think a minute. Can't we go through the woods and get out of here? Then we'll find someplace to call for help." He was sure that she'd agree with his logic.

Sherri didn't, vehemently opposing the idea. "It will be too late for the cops by the time we can get help here. And all we can do from up here is make a lot of noise. We can't hit anything, and they're sure to realize that pretty soon. And what about those things that wrecked the boat. The cops still have to worry about them. If we attack the bikers from the rear it'll allow the cops to work both ways. We'll drive those goddamned bikers into the river or kill them all!" She crabbed backwards several feet and stood up, one hand holding the rifle and the other on her hip, daring him to be insane enough to think any other way.

Tom crawled to her, sat his gun on the ground, put his hands on her hips and looked her in the eyes, planning to take charge and tell her what they were going to do. Her blazing eyes and the firm set of her lips said that he wasn't about to change her mind. He made another mental note to find out why she seemed so different than the girl he thought he knew, shrugged, then reached down and picked up his gun.

She smiled and led the way.

______________________

Even with Dan's highly attuned hearing, most of the noises outside had gone unnoticed. What he did hear didn't seem any more threatening than bug noises. His mind was focused on protecting his possessions.

Jed had carried the boat driver's body back and was waiting for Sol at the bottom of the path leading to the cave.

Sol had been hit by five bullets. He had bled briefly, but where they'd entered his skin, a growth had already grown over the holes, completely stopping the bleeding, and he'd already gotten back any strength he may have temporarily lost. He'd ran, not because he was hurt, but because of some residual instinct that had made him afraid of being shot at. Anger welled up within him. He knew that he should have stayed and killed them. They couldn't hurt him. He looked back toward the river, a low growl rumbling in his chest.

Jed made some noises to him about eating, instantly diffusing Sol's anger, then led the way up the hill, carrying the body over his shoulder.

Dan and Joyce were just coming back from one of their trips to the rear cavern as the Rakers came in.

Jed dropped the body onto the ground and made some noises to Dan, mostly guttural sounds that seemed to come from deep within. Dan apparently understood him because he turned to Joyce and made some noises to her, then they all squatted down around the body and began ripping chunks of meat from it and stuffing it into their gaping, slack-jawed, snake-like mouths.

When they were through eating, Dan said something to them, they all went out, and started down the hill.

______________________

The bluffs, the thick woods, the river and flat farm land beyond all seemed to muffle, distort, and redirect sound. The distant thump of grenades had been unmistakable to Clyde, but someone not aware of the cause would surely think it was only a hunter's shotgun downing a quail or mangling a rabbit or whatever it was that the hicks hunted for in these woods.

He didn't know what they hunted, nor did he care. People were his game. People like the ones on the bluff. An enemy smarter than a dumb animal. The excitement of the chase of a worthy foe. That's what he loved. He thought about it a moment. But what he really liked was that his prey knew he was going to kill them. Usually knew why. And ultimately knew who was the better man right before he killed them. That's what it was. The satisfaction of proving that he was the best man was what he really liked.

The ones on the bluff had found out the hard way. He was sure that they were dead. They were no longer returning fire. He could imagine them lying on the edge, their blood dribbling down the cliff face. But he didn't understand why the cops had been shooting up there. If the people on the bluff weren't cops, then who were they? Were they Miller and the girl? Puzzled, confused and angry, he gathered his men together.

"There were only five or six cops in that boat, and I know that they don't have machine pistols and grenades. And for sure, they don't have one of these babies," he said, cockily leering toward Ox, pausing briefly as Ox patted the launcher affectionately. "So let's go take 'em out."

Confident, matching leers and snarls individually greeted his fanatical, bloodshot glare as he scanned his men.

"What's the plan?" Guido quickly asked, steadily assuming second-in-command status in light of Hank's obviously shaken courage.

"We're going to circle around them and pin them to the river, but I want you to run back to the bikes and meet Ace. He'll be there in a few minutes on the trike. I want you, Ace, and Chuck on the dirt bikes, and Sue on the trike, and I want all of you back here quick."

Guido nodded and started running down the road.

Clyde watched him disappear around a curve and then said, "Shit!"

The men waited eagerly for him to be a little more specific.

"Ace and Chuck have the other two walkie-talkies." He reluctantly handed his to Skip. "Here, take mine and circle around beside and about fifty yards to the rear of the cops and call me as soon as you're in position."

"But you don't have a radio," Skip said, confused.

"I'll have the radio on the trike when they get back. Hank you stay about fifty yards behind him. And Ox, you stay fifty behind Hank. When the boys get back, I'll send two of them out to back you up. I'll stay here with Guido and Sue, to guard the road."

Clyde paused, thinking. Had he forgotten anything? At times, he almost forgot what he'd just said. His men seemed to be listening for more. He embellished, "Remember, we want to surround them and drive them toward the river. They won't have anywhere to go but in the water. If any of them try to swim for it, make sure they sink. I don't want any pigs to get out of here alive." He looked around at his men to get an acknowledgment. "Got it?"

They all nodded affirmative, Hank much less eagerly than Chuck and Ox.

"Then get going."

Skip slunk into the woods, leaving Hank nervously waiting his turn, and Ox smiling ear to ear, lovingly cradling the rocket launcher.

"Ox, give me the launcher," Clyde said. Ox looked at him as if he'd just called their mother a whore, or worse.

Clyde rephrased the statement. "Look, they might try to make a break for it down this road, and I'm here all alone. You want me to get killed?"

Ox hesitantly, reluctantly handed him the launcher and turned to watch Hank take off.

Clyde was aware that Ox hadn't answered his question.

After they were all gone, Clyde walked around thinking about food. He was starving.

______________________

Having heard automatic fire and the distinct crack of high-powered rifles upriver, Kawalski knew the chief's forces were in serious trouble. Leading the way, he began slithering through the brush, commando-style, trying to work their way past the cabin.

He stopped, holding up his hand. "Listen… Something's coming."

Sam scurried through the brush to the edge of the road, then waved forward frantically. Before Kawalski and Jim could get to him, a vehicle roared away heading upriver.

"Two bikers and a girl just left the cabin on a three-wheeler," Sam said, "and I'm pretty sure that the guy driving was the one that shot at us."

"Shit," Kawalski spat. "It sounded like a war going on up there and one thing the Chief doesn't need is reinforcements against him. We've got to get up there and help."

"But how, Sarge?" Sam asked, glancing at the smoldering car.

"You guys are younger than me, and I can still run a five minute mile," he answered, unconsciously expanding his chest. "Let's get a move on."

______________________

"What in the hell is a truck doing out here in the middle of the woods?"

John shook his head. "I don't know but let's see if we can get it running." He ran up and tried the door. It opened. He looked inside, expecting to have to break the steering wheel lock to get it started.

"The keys are in it!" he shouted in a whisper. He reached for the key and heard a vehicle approaching. He motioned. Bob ran toward the road and ducked behind a tree just in time to see the trike go by. He ran back to the truck.

"That was the trike with the guy that caught us, and Chuck and Sue."

"I'll bet she'd like to see you again."

"We should have disabled that damned thing."

"You mean the trike, or her?"

"I mean…" Bob smiled briefly, "Both." Then turning serious, "Why didn't we blow up that trike when we had the chance?"

"Why didn't you think of it when we had the chance?"

Bob shrugged and shook his head.

"Cross your fingers," John said reaching for the key and turning it. The engine turned over a few times and roared to life. "Do you believe in miracles?" he asked Bob.

"Hell yes. I see them happen to other people all the time." Bob ran around to the passenger side and hopped in.

______________________

"What in the hell are we gonna do?" Joe angrily asked the chief. "There's snipers up on the bluff with high-powered rifles, bikers in front of us with automatic weapons, and something from a horror movie behind us."

Cliff shrugged. "I don't know about those guys that wrecked the boat, but at least they don't have guns, and we know one's shot up pretty bad. I say we go upstream."

"Upstream? We don't know how many of them are up there," Joe said, flipping his head disgustedly upstream, "and what they are."

"Who would you rather face, the bikers and the snipers, or a couple of deformed hill people who don't even have guns?" Cliff asked.

"You really think that's all they are? A couple of deformed people?"

"What else could they be?"

Joe shrugged his shoulders and looked around, still undecided, but having no better idea, relented, "Okay… let's go.

Cliff pointed as he gave orders. "Joe, you take Ron with you and keep in the brush on the river side of the road. I'll take Joe and our rockhound and go through the woods on the other side. If someone comes along the road we'll have them in a crossfire."

"How about giving me a gun," Ed whined. "I know how to shoot."

All four cops had their handguns, with Cliff and Joe exercising their authority by toting the riot guns. All four ignored his plea.

"Hey, I might save one of your lives," he added, becoming vehement. "What good can I do without a gun?"

Not carrying a backup gun himself, but knowing that most of his men did, Cliff relented. "All right, one of you guys give him a gun."

Nobody moved.

"Goddamnit, I know at least one of you guys have a backup."

He was rewarded with blank stares.

"All right, you wanna play it that way!" He sucked up his chest and put his fists on his hips, elbows pointing out. "Pull your fuckin' pants legs up and let's have a look."

"Aw shit." Joe said, reaching down to his right ankle, he pulled out a snub-nosed revolver. Having the shotgun and his .44, he really didn't want the weight on his ankle in case he had to run, but he wasn't about to give it up without getting some satisfaction. "Take the damned thing, but I'll be watching you real close. You even look funny…" He spit on the ground at Ed's feet and let his shotgun swing around carelessly, stopping at Ed's knees.

Ed grabbed the gun and stepped back gingerly. It was a six-shot .38 Colt Detective Special. He spun the cylinder to make sure it was loaded, then slipped it into his pocket.

"Now let's get moving," Cliff said, sweeping an arm, herding his demoralized flock.

______________________

Skip had already passed the cops and was carefully, quietly circling around in front of them, keeping low, shielded by tree and bush. He could see Hank about fifty yards to his left, prohibiting an escape through the woods. The cops were trapped. He knew that Ox and Clyde were in position, containing them from downstream.

Growing anxious, confident that he could charge in alone and blast all the oinkers with one long, exhilarating burst from his Uzi, he procrastinated, fidgeting with the radio, undecided whether to call or be greedy and have all of the fun himself.

Seeing the cops spread out and starting toward him squashed any feeling of bravery. He keyed the radio and whispered into it while backing into a stand of brush and squatting down.

Clyde didn't answer.

He tried again.

Still no answer.

He worked around to his left and spotted Hank. Shielded from the cops by the brush, he waved frantically and pointed.

Hank waved back, but not understanding what Skip meant, he crouched and started toward him, keeping a sharp eye on the woods where Skip had pointed.

Skip keyed the transmitter again and realized that the normal crackle of static was missing. He turned up the volume and keyed and released the button. An unnerving crackle burst from the speaker, too loud to be reassuring, too loud not to have been heard by the cops. He turned down the volume and listened. Had the cops stopped? He couldn't tell. A light breeze rustled the leaves. He waited for the wind to die down.

A creepy sensation tingled the back of his neck, that unmistakable feeling of being stared at. He turned to look. A dark streak struck at his neck. He tried to jerk back, but barely flinched before his neck was locked in a crushing, strangling, violently shaking grip. His eyes blurred before he could tell what had him. A blurred, dark, ominous figure came close to his face. Then eyes—

In his mind he jerked his gun up and pulled the trigger, but his arm never got the message. The necessary impulses were clipped short as his neck vertebra were crushed, severing the spinal column. His eyes still functioned. The shaking briefly stopped as he was lifted from the ground. He saw the teeth, then the eyes as his vision began blurring, growing dark. His ears heard a burst from a machine gun. He was relieved that help had arrived.

The spasms in his trigger finger stopped and no more bullets dug into his now numb legs as his mind finally went blank.

Hank saw it all. He saw what the thing had done to Cutter. Crazed with fear, he turned to run, then the burst of machine-gun fire helped steel his nerve. He stopped and looked back.

The thing was holding Skip in the air by the throat, shaking him like a rag doll.

He was sure that Skip was already dead, but he couldn't bring himself to shoot at the thing while it was holding him, so he shot a short burst over their heads.

The thing slung Skip away as if the useless, limp thing annoyed it, shrieked gutturally and started running toward Hank.

Hank panicked and started back-pedaling, squeezing tightly on the trigger of his Uzi, spraying bullets wildly. In seconds the gun was empty. He turned and almost ran into Ox, who was throwing a grenade at the thing. Ox grabbed Hank and threw him to the ground. The grenade hit a tree limb and fell twenty feet in front of the charging creature and exploded. Shrapnel whizzed through the trees. Hank raised his head and looked.

The thing was gone.

______________________

When the cops heard the first shots they all hit the ground and crawled to cover. After the explosion, they looked around and realized that nobody was shooting at any of them. Joe and Ron crawled through the brush until they reached the edge of the road. They could see Cliff and Jay crouched behind a fallen tree. Cliff saw them and motioned for them to join him.

"I'll go first." Joe said. "Cover me." He sprinted across the road and dove behind the log. He heard a scream somewhere behind him and spun around to see what it was.

Ron was gone!

______________________

Ron knew that the gunfire they'd heard wasn't directed at them and the explosion wasn't even close, but police procedure required one officer to cover another when moving in a hostile area. He knew that if he was really covering for Joe, he should have the riot gun instead of a revolver. He felt sick thinking of the absurdity of a revolver against people with machine guns and grenades.

Joe was almost to the log when Ron heard a rustling behind him. He snapped his head around to look and poked himself in the eye on the tip of a branch. Batting the branch away, he started to get up and run across the road. Something grabbed his foot and jerked him back through the brush. Bones in his foot crunched, pain assaulted his senses, his mind went wild. He jerked and thrashed and finally screamed.

Something heavy pushed down on the back of his head, mashing his face into the ground. He reached up and grabbed something scaly, hard, cold. He tried to twist his head around to see. The pressure suddenly increased, driving his face into the ground. Grit dug into his eyeballs, his lids struggled to close, unable against the building pressure. Something popped in his face, shooting blinding, colored stars through his universe, then he fell into a black hole, painlessly.

______________________

The machine-gun fire left some doubt in Clyde's mind, but when he heard the grenade, he was sure that it was his men. He started to run toward the sound of the explosion when he heard the bikes coming up the road. He ran out to meet them.

Guido, having heard the shooting and the explosion and upon seeing the frantic expression on Clyde's face, expected the worse. He slid to a stop beside Clyde, followed by the other two bikes, with Sue bringing up the rear on the trike.

"We've got trouble up ahead in the woods to the right of the road. Take Ace and Chuck and help them out. We'll stay on the road and make sure that they don't get out this way."

The men roared off through the woods.

Clyde went to the trike and called Skip.

He cussed and fumed and tried again. Cussing hadn't helped. There was still no answer.

______________________

Sherri was leading the way down the ravine. They were about halfway down when the biker was attacked. They caught glimpses of what was happening, but at their lower height, there were too many trees in the way. Tom tried to get a shot at the thing, but he never saw it long enough to get a bead on it.

The shots and the explosion caused them to stop and wait to see what was happening. Then they heard the bikes riding upriver.

Sherri tapped his foot. "Wait a minute. More bikers and that thing down there. Maybe this isn't such a good idea. We're not going to be enough help to make the difference. We'll still be hopelessly outnumbered. Maybe we should go for help." She saw him giving it some consideration and continued, "If everybody is up here, we could go back along the bluff and get to Dan's truck and maybe get help out here in time."

Tom looked indecisively toward the top of the bluff, thrilled that she was finally coming to her senses.

Convinced that Tom was going to agree with her, she wiggled around to start climbing up, when the small ledge she was sitting on gave way. She grabbed for Tom's foot and missed. Hearing the commotion, Tom spun around, almost dropping the rifle. It was too late. She was already sliding down the side of the gully, her clawing hands creating a small avalanche relentlessly pelting her with small rocks and dirt. The more she clawed and fought back, the larger the blinding avalanche became. Tom could only watch helplessly.

At the bottom of the ravine a small rock ledge jutted out over a ten foot vertical drop to the ground below. Sherri hit the ledge and almost stopped, but finding nothing to grab onto, she slid over the edge and fell face down.

For a few long seconds, rocks and dirt hailed down, practically covering her still, limp body.

Tom felt like he was moving in slow motion as he groped his way to the ledge, slid down into a hanging position from it, and dropped down beside her.

Sherri still hadn't moved.

Kneeling beside her head, he wiggled his hand under her forehead and gently pulled up on her head while scraping the dirt and rocks from around her face. She was breathing!

He checked her right arm to see if it was noticeably broken. Finding that it looked fit, he moved it under her forehead to keep her face off the ground, then began digging the debris from the rest of her body.

She moaned and stirred a little. Tom wondered if she was going through the same mental gyrations he'd experienced after the bike crash.

"Sherri, can you hear me?"

She moaned again and rolled her head to one side. Her eyelids fluttered.

Tom breathed a sigh of relief. "Baby, are you all right?"

She spit some dirt from her mouth and tried to roll over. Tom gently helped her, watching her face for any signs of excruciating pain. She groped for his neck and tried to sit up. He slid an arm under her back and helped her to a sitting position.

She sat for a moment, eyes closed, taking several slow, deep breaths, then tipped her head up and shocked him by saying, "Goddamnit, I wanted to go up, not down." She made a major attempt at creating a barely noticeable smile.

Tom grinned from ear to ear, delicately hugging her and kissing her forehead. He loved her spunk, and a little tease seemed appropriate.

"Well, get up and let's climb back to the top," he said, trying to keep from smiling.

"Bullshit!" she said seriously, gradually getting her strength back. "The only climbing I'm going to do for a while is climbing in and out of bed."

"I like it when you talk sexy like that."

"You would find something sexy about bullshit," she said with a real smile this time. "Help me get up. And where's my fuckin' gun?"

______________________

John drove Dan's truck out of the woods and turned left on the old river road, heading for the highway.

"Aren't we going after them?" Bob asked.

"Hell, no. It sounds like a gang war going on up there. We'd better get some help in here." He nodded toward the machine pistols and grenades on the front seat between them. "We don't stand a chance against them. Not only are we outnumbered, we're also on the short end when it comes to weapons."

Bob agreed emphatically.

John went around a curve to the right and quickly slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel hard left, sliding to within four feet of Sherri's car.

"God, that was close," he said with a sigh.

Bob eased his grip on the padded dash, "That looks like Sherri's car."

"It has to be. Who else around here would have one of those things. Let's check it out."

Bob went to the driver's door and pulled on the handle. It opened. He got in and pulled down the sun visor, looking for the registration. It wasn't there. In the glove compartment he found an envelope full of papers, and thumbed through them. "It's Sherri Blake's car, all right."

John had taken a box from behind the seat, set it on the front seat and was raking through it. "Look at this." He picked up a box and held it up. "Here's thirty-aught-sixes," then another, "and two-twenty-threes," and still another, "and nine mill hollow-points."

They looked inquisitively at each other for a bit.

Bob asked the question on both of their minds, "You think they're in on it with the bikers?"

John looked skeptical now that the question had been asked. "If they are, what's the car doing parked out here?" He noticed the keys weren't in the ignition, then got out and walked around the car, looking at the tires, scratching his chin, trying to find a reason. At the back, he found the answer. Looking under the car confirmed it.

"I don't know what it's doing here, but I know why it's still here," he said, standing up. "It's got a bullet hole in the gas tank."

"That means that they were probably chased here by that bunch at the cabin," Bob said. Gunfire erupted upstream.

"Shit!" John yelled, struck by a realization. "Come on!" He ran toward the truck.

John backed into the woods to turn around. An explosion rumbled down the valley. Dropping the truck into low, he stomped on the gas, spun the truck around and headed upriver.

______________________

"Tom, don't move," Sherri whispered. "I'm serious. Don't move a muscle. Okay?"

He had an almost irresistible urge to look in every direction as quickly as he could, but he remained rigid and whispered, "Why?"

"One of those things is going through the woods. But," she quickly added, "he hasn't seen us yet." She was looking to Tom's right and a little behind him to indicate its position.

He very slowly turned his head, catching a glimpse of it.

"What is that thing?" he whispered. "It must be over seven feet tall."

"I've never seen anything like it. I just hope it doesn't see us," Sherri said.

Jed stopped and looked around. He looked at Tom and Sherri, hesitated a moment, then broke into a trot toward them, a deep, blood-curdling, inhuman growl rumbling from deep within.

______________________

Kawalski looked back without breaking stride and hollered, "Come on, kids. What are you gonna do? Let this old man outdo you?"

Jim and Sam were puffing too hard to answer. Too much beer, long hours of TV, and the laid back, quiet life in Big Bend had taken its toll.

"What in the hell does that old fart do to keep in such good shape?" Sam muttered between gasps for air.

Jim didn't answer him. He'd heard the machine-gun fire and the explosion. The more he ran, the more he felt like he was racing to commit suicide.

Suddenly Kawalski stopped and looked back, then waved and jumped into the brush. Sam dove into Jim and bowled both of them out of the road. Jim struggled to get up, but Sam held him down. "What the—"

"Stay down! Don't you hear that motor?" Sam hissed.

Then he heard it. A faint, approaching, tightly-wound, well-muffled engine and the sound of whining gears. He tried to peek as the sound grew louder, a crescendo of gnawing sounds, climaxing in a loud roar racing by, throwing up a cloud of debris, the noise diminishing slower than it had started.

"It's a goddamned truck!" Sam shouted. Then helping Jim up, chided, "You better get your ears checked, boy. Even ole Ski heard that thing before you, and he's twenty yards ahead of us."

______________________

"But Chief, what about Ron?" Joe asked.

"If you wanna go back in that brush and look for him, go ahead, but I'm gonna keep moving," Cliff said, motioning to Jay and Ed to follow him.

Joe looked at the brush, and vividly remembering what had happened to the boat driver, shrugged his shoulders, turned and followed them.

______________________

"Quick!" Tom said, interlocking his hands and holding them low for Sherri to step into, "I'll boost you up to that ledge. You start shooting at it while I climb up."

Sherri started to object, but knowing that every second counted, and confident that she could shoot down the thing before it could get to Tom, she slung the gun strap over her head, stepped into his hands and pushed up while he lifted. Grasping the ledge, she scrambled up, quickly planted her feet, took the gun from her shoulder, and leaned back against the sloping hill beneath the ravine.

Jed was less than two hundred yards away when she opened fire.

Tom had lied to her. Knowing that he couldn't climb up to the ledge in time, he brought his rifle to his shoulder, flipped off the safety and aimed. Shots cracked overhead. The thing was still about a hundred and fifty yards away and the way it lumbered from side to side when it ran made its head too difficult a target to hit, so he aimed at its broad chest. He shot and couldn't tell whether he missed or whether the bullet just didn't have any effect on it. He shuddered to think the latter.

Hearing Tom's shot from below infuriated Sherri. She knew what the fool had done. He lied, to save her. "I oughta shoot you in the back of the head," she muttered, "you bastard." With a thirty-shot clip compared to Tom's five, she knew the burden was on her. She began firing faster and couldn't understand why the thing didn't fall. She knew that she was rushing her shots, and that most of them were missing, but was positive that she'd hit it four or five times with no effect. How many shots were left? She hadn't counted. The four or five seconds required to pop out the empty and jam another in would take too long. The thing seemed to speed up. She tried to make every shot count.

Tom's heart was racing. His second shot seemed to jolt the thing, but it kept coming. He now knew that hitting it in the shoulder or arm wasn't good enough. He only had three shots left in his gun, and reloading it was out of the question. He decided to try two shots at its lower body and hope to hit it in the hip or that a bullet would go through its stomach and break its backbone. The last shot he'd save until it was right on top of him and go for the head from point blank range. He had to hurt it enough so that it couldn't climb onto the ledge and get to Sherri.

______________________

Clyde knew that he was the General in charge of the action and that Generals don't go to the front lines. They stay back with the women, plan strategies, drink wine, and play God.

He heard the rapid rifle fire coming from the bluff.

"What the shit, Sue. I thought we already killed them."

"Killed who?" She hadn't been with them and didn't know what was going on, and she really didn't care. She was hungry.

"The snipers up on the bluff." He realized that she wouldn't know what he was talking about, but before he could decide whether it was worth trying to explain it to her, he heard a vehicle roaring toward them.

He hoisted the launcher to his shoulder and waited for it to come around the curve.

"The shots are coming from over there," Bob said, pointing toward the bluff. John twisted the wheel to the right, sending the truck into the woods.

Clyde caught a glimpse of a black pickup going through the woods to his left. He swung the launcher toward it. "Goddamned trees," he muttered to himself. He followed the truck until it broke into a clearing, then pulled the trigger. The rocket shot out of the gun and streaked toward its helpless victim.

______________________

Hank heard the motorcycles coming through the woods and ran toward the sound, shouting and waving his arms. Guido saw him first. He veered toward Hank, with Ace and Chuck right behind him.

"That same goddamned thing just killed Skip," Hank shouted over the noise of the motorcycle engines. Ox came running up to join them.

"Where is it?" Guido demanded.

"Ox threw a grenade at it and I think it ran back that way," Hank said, pointing upriver.

"Is it hurt?"

Hank popped the clip out of his gun and slammed in a full one and exaggerated, "I must have hit it a dozen times and it didn't even slow down. If it hadn't been for the grenade, it would have had me."

They were startled by the nearly rapid-fire rifle shots from the direction of the bluff.

"Who in the hell is that?" Guido asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it's that crazy son of a bitch that shot Deuce." Then they heard the distinctive report of a large caliber rifle.

"Yeah, there's two of them all right," Guido replied. "What in the fuck is going on? We've got cops and monsters and lunatics and who knows what else up here shooting at everybody."

Hank shook his head. "What are we gonna do about the cops?"

"Forget them for now. You two go back and tell Clyde what's happening. He might need your help. We'll go check out whoever's doing the shooting."

Hank and Ox started back through the woods toward Clyde, and the men on the dirt bikes started toward the shooting.

______________________

Aiming at the thing's stomach, Tom squeezed off the third shot, triggering a raging bellow, but causing no noticeable damage. Sherri stopped shooting as Tom sucked in a deep breath, let it out and shot again. It stumbled, nearly falling down, but continued coming. Tom was ready for the fifth shot, the suicide shot at the thing's head as it grabbed for him, when he noticed that the ejection lever was in the retracted position. The gun had jammed! He jerked back on the lever only to find that it was all the way back. The spent shell casing hadn't ejected and the last shell was wedged in against it.

He knew at that moment how much he really loved Sherri. His only thought was to lead the thing away from her. He knew that if the 30/06 couldn't stop it, a 9mm auto wasn't likely to do any damage, but he drew it anyway and ran down along the bluff, hoping to find a way to climb up out of the thing's reach or find a hole to crawl into.

Sherri saw what had happened to Tom and knew what he was trying to do. She screamed and waved at the thing as it broke to chase him. "You creepy, scuzzy, chickenshit bastard." It stopped and looked at her. "Come and get ME, you prick." She didn't even wonder whether it understood her. She was cussing an animal, but it felt right.

With an empty rifle, and completely forgetting about her automatic, out of desperation, she reached down, picked up a rock about the size of an orange and threw it. The rock whacked it on the bridge of its nose. It howled, then growled and ran toward her.

Tom, realizing what Sherri was trying to do, whirled and started shooting at it with his pistol. The thing jumped up, grabbed the top of the ledge and pulled itself up until it had its left elbow on the ledge. Sherri started bashing it on the head with the rifle butt. It swept out its right hand, knocked the rifle from her hand and clawed at her. She squirmed backwards up the hill a few feet, hoping that she wouldn't lose her footing and slide right into its grasp.

Tom knew that he couldn't cripple the thing with his automatic, so he aimed at its head, hoping to get lucky. He was trying to take careful aim and pull off a shot every second. A thousand one, pull. A thousand two, pull.

A thunderous explosion from somewhere toward the river caused a moment of indecision. Quickly glancing toward the sound and seeing nothing, he resumed fire. He could feel the bikers closing in, but Sherri's plight was his first priority.

He knelt down, steadied the gun with both hands, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tried to pull the trigger as his sights crossed the creatures erratically moving head as it struggled for purchase on the ledge.

Tom didn't realize that the shots had taken its toll on the thing, otherwise it could have practically jumped up onto the ledge.

The fifth shot from the kneeling position rocked its head. It slipped from the ledge, landed on its feet, instantly turned and bolted straight for Tom.

______________________

"Good God, this is as bad as Vietnam," Bob yelled as the rocket exploded on a tree next to them, shearing it off, and spraying the truck with flying debris.

"That's why we don't stand a chance against them," John hollered, wrestling the truck in a zig-zag route between the trees.

Bob poked his Uzi out the window, ready to fire at anybody following them.

They broke out of the woods at the foot of the bluff. John turned left, hoping he hadn't misjudged the distance after the winding trek through the woods.

"Get ready, Bob. We should be close once we round that bend."

John, keeping his eyes on the ground in front of the truck, fighting the wheel, dodging and weaving through the rock-strewn ground along the bluff, didn't notice the figure running toward them until Bob yelled. Being acutely attuned to dangerous situations, the first thing they both noticed was the weapon in the man's hand.

Bob leveled the Uzi at him

John screamed, "Hold it! That looks like Miller, but look at that thing chasing him." John stomped the accelerator and Bob switched targets.

When Tom saw the truck come around the curve and head straight toward him with an arm poking out the window holding a gun, his first thought was that the bikers had found Dan's truck. He quickly glanced over his shoulder. The thing was gaining on him. Several thoughts raced through his mind. If he kept running, the bikers would easily mow him down. If he dove to present a smaller target, the thing would be on him in seconds. If the bikers somehow stopped the thing, he'd be trapped and at their mercy. And if they were smart and avoided the thing altogether, he'd still be caught by it.

A machine gun chattered. Tom squeezed off two quick shots at the truck and dove.

A bullet ripped into the truck. A loud clatter came from the engine and steam spewed from underneath. Bob was too busy shooting at the thing to notice, but he thought he heard John yell "Tom" as they roared past the man on the ground.

John cut the truck in behind Tom and headed straight for the thing. It stopped and raised its arms out in front of it as if planning to stop the truck, then at the last second broke for the woods. The truck swerved after it, the bumper hitting it knee-high and catapulting it up into the air. It landed on top of the cab and slid into the truck bed, quickly hopped to its feet in a crouch, and spun toward the cab. On seeing its ugly, man-like, reptilian face in the rearview mirror, John turned away from the bluff into a clearing.

"Toss a grenade in back and jump," John shouted, grabbing one and jerking out the pin with his teeth. On his nod, they each reached out their window and tossed them into the bed.

Bob jumped out. John started to open his door. The thing's arm swung in through the window, hitting him on the shoulder and knocking him across the seat. Jerking his legs under him, he dove out the passenger door, hit the ground and rolled into the trunk of a large tree, which probably saved his life.

The truck exploded only thirty feet from him; shrapnel and parts of the truck bed flew in every direction. Blown clear of the truck, the thing landed face down on the ground. It lay still for a moment, then started to stir. It put its hands on the ground and tried to push itself up.

Running past John, Bob pull the pin on a grenade and hollered, "Stay down!" Running all out, he let the arming lever spring free as he approached the struggling monstrosity. It tried to make a swipe at him and fell back on its face. Bob dropped the grenade against its neck and then panicked. Three seconds left to find shelter. Two gone already. He dove spreading his arms to keep from rolling and to stay as flat as possible.

The grenade exploded, shaking the ground, lifting the things body up and flipping it over. Shrapnel whistled through the air. A cloud of dirt and leaves and grass followed. Bob flinched as objects hit him, even though he knew that the deadly chunks of iron from the fragmentation grenade had already passed by with the sound waves of the explosion. He couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. Or so lucky.

John pulled a grenade out of his pocket and ran to put the coup-de-grâce on the thing. It wasn't necessary. The creature's head and right arm were gone.

He stopped beside Bob. "You okay, Rambo?"

Rolling over, his hands massaging still ringing ears, he cracked a feeble smile. "Sure. The stupid ones have all the luck, didn't you know that?" He slowly sat up. "How about you?"

"Oh yeah, I'm in great shape. Falling out of a truck at thirty miles an hour and slamming into a tree is better than sex." He rubbed his hip and grimaced.

Bob smiled sagely and said, "I know how you feel, old man."

"Old man?"

After recognizing that it was Bob who was shooting from the truck, Tom had stood spellbound, watching what would have surely been his killer, being swept away and destroyed. Sherri's yells brought him out of the stupor. He ran over to the ledge below her. She was trying to give a cheerleader yell without falling off the ledge.

"Yowwee! Can you believe it! That thing would have gotten both of us," she cried. "God, I'm glad you're okay." She signed and looked at Tom affectionately, almost motherly, for several long seconds. Then she sat down on the ledge and reached down. "Help me down, sweetie."

Without waiting for him to get firmly set, she slid off the ledge into his grasping arms, knocking him to the ground. They rolled around, hugging and kissing, then she jerked away and punched him in the chest hard enough to make him grunt. "You silly bastard. You never intended on climbing up on the ledge with me. Did you think that you were sparing me by letting me watch you get killed by that thing," she scolded.

"I shouldn't tell you this, but I knew that to save me, you'd attract its attention and while he was eating you, I'd have time to get away," Tom said emphatically, punctuated by a sharp swat on her butt.

She let out a little yelp and jumped up rubbing her behind.

"You think so? Well the next time, I'll keep quiet and let him have you, because after eating you, he'll be too sick to go after me."

They suddenly hugged each other seriously, thankfully, enjoying a few seconds of elation at being alive and together.

"Baby," Tom said, "anybody eats you, it's gonna be me."

She chuckled demurely, patted his cheek and said the magic word. "Ditto."

Tom laughed with her, but while doing so, he suddenly became aware of their unnaturally light mood. Sherri's emotions, her reaction to death and danger, her casual attitude and the ease with which she coped with what should be a stressful, tense situation for most women, just didn't seem right. She was caring and sensitive and loving as usual, maybe more so, but there was an air of confidence about her that was almost scary.

She grabbed his hand as though they were young lovers on a picnic and tugged him into a run toward John and Bob.

As soon as Bob shook the ringing dizziness from his head, and totally ignoring the mutilated creature lying in the knee-high grass, they hustled in a near panic to retrieve Bob's Uzi, which he'd tossed away when jumping from the truck. Except for Sue's revolver which was safely tucked into John's shoulder holster, they were defenseless, naked. After a few nervous minutes, Bob stumbled upon it in the tall grass much closer to the truck than he'd imagined possible. Its momentum had tumbled it a good sixty feet. Dreading major damage to it, he snatched it up and hastily checked the mechanism. Aside of a few scratches it appeared undamaged.

Bob heard running footsteps approaching. He whirled around, the Uzi ready.

"Hey! We're the good guys," Tom yelled.

"I'm sorry, "Bob said sheepishly, "but in all the commotion, I forgot about you two."

"Well, I'm sure that we'll never forget about you two," Sherri said.

"What are—" Tom and John started simultaneously. Tom deferred.

John continued, "What are you doing way back here?"

Tom started to explain what had happened to them, when they heard motorcycle engines.

"Quick, let's get out of sight," John said, leading them into the woods in the only direction they could go, upriver.

As the bikes came closer, John stopped and pointed. "Spread out and take cover. If they come after us, wait until they get close enough to make sure your first shot counts."

They took cover and waited.

______________________

Guido skidded to a stop about fifty feet from the remains of the smoldering truck. He looked around, got off the bike and unslung his Uzi. Ace and Chuck did likewise.

"Hey, the guy we're looking for has a black Bronco," Ace said to Guido.

"That proves it," Guido replied. "Miller and the girl are in on it with him. Chuck, go see if there's any bodies in that thing. We'll cover you."

Guido motioned for Ace to go to the right while he went a few steps to the left and looked around, ready to shoot at anything that moved.

Chuck cautiously approached the truck and looked in. He turned around and shook his head. Something on the ground about fifty, sixty feet behind the truck caught his eye. He pointed frantically at it. Ace was the closest, but he couldn't see anything unusual; his view blocked by some waist high weeds. He crouched down and started working toward where Chuck was pointing. He expected to see a live enemy, not the thing he saw on the ground. It had the shape of a man with its head and right arm ripped off. He knew that it couldn't be a man. Its skin looked like alligator hide.

Chuck ran up with Guido right behind him.

"What is that thing?" Chuck asked first.

"It's probably the thing that got Cutter," Guido offered.

"The Feds must have killed it," Ace said with conviction.

"What?" Guido snarled. "You didn't kill them?"

"Oh, shit. I tried to call Clyde and tell him about it, but I couldn't get him on the radio," Ace said, avoiding a direct answer to the question.

"Did you kill them, or not?" Guido yelled, raising a hand to backhand Ace.

Chuck quickly stepped between them. "They escaped from Sue while I was taking care of the cop car," he explained, defusing Guido's rising anger.

"But how'd they do that?" Guido muttered to himself, looking at the extent of the injuries to the thing on the ground. Then he looked accusingly at Ace, "Did you check the trike to see if anything was missing after they escaped?"

"Ah…" He was trying to think. Guido was fuming. He hated to tell him that the Feds had gotten in the trike and were heavily armed. His hesitation did it for him.

"You asshole," Guido barked, assuming that Ace hadn't checked. "That's how they did it. They ripped us off. They've probably got more weapons now than we've got."

Guido angrily jerked the radio off his belt and called Clyde.

______________________

After hearing the bikes start up and drive away, John motioned to the others to regroup.

"I know that we've all got a lot of questions on our minds, but we don't have time to talk now. They're probably going back to get more men." Then to Tom, "I heard rifles, weren't they yours?"

Tom looked sheepishly at Sherri. "I dropped mine when it jammed, and hers is over by the ledge."

"You have much ammo for them?"

Sherri said, "I've got two, thirty-shot clips for the .223, and," patting her gun belt, "these three clips for my pistol."

"Great. Tom, I heard a big-bore, yours?"

"Yeah, an aught-six. I've got two boxes of shells for it and three extra clips for my nine mill."

"Good. You two go find the rifles and we'll meet you by the truck."

On the way to the truck to see if anything survived the explosion and fire, they took stock of their weapons. Bob had an almost empty Uzi and two grenades. John only had Sue's revolver and three grenades. All the rest, his Uzi, the extra clips of ammo and several grenades had been on the truck seat when they'd abandoned it.

______________________

After shooting at the truck and missing, Clyde couldn't think of anything to do but cuss himself and wait. He went to the trike, got another rocket and reloaded, then sat on the machine with Sue, watching for cops, and waiting for Guido or Skip to call.

He heard someone shoot twenty, thirty shots from rifles, then about ten or twelve shots from what sounded like a pistol.

"How come my men aren't shooting back?" He screamed at the sound.

Then he heard the machine gun shots.

"All right! Goddamnit, it's about time they do something."

The grenades going off, and the silence that followed put his mind at ease. He knew that his men had won that battle.

"You see," he said to Sue, "that's what happens when you have the most firepower. You make the last noise because the other side is dead." He smiled at his brilliance.

Sue smiled at the woods and pointed. Hank and Ox were running toward the trike.

"Hey, man," Hank hollered excitedly as he ran out of the woods and stopped at the trike, trying to catch his breath. "The same thing… that got Cutter… just killed Skip."

Ox stopped beside him and added, "Yeah, I lobbed a grenade at it and it ran away."

"Killed Skip? What do you mean, it ran away?"

"I tossed the grenade and hit the dirt," Ox explained. "After it went off, we got up and it was gone."

Clyde shook his head and scratched the rash on his leg. "Then where in the hell are the rest of the men?" he spat.

"They went to see who was doing all the shooting," Hank said.

"Do you mean that nobody was shooting at you?"

"No. The shooting came from over by the bluff."

"Well, it sounded like our men musta got them," Clyde said with a look of satisfaction, Skip already forgotten.

"I know they didn't," Hank said confidently.

"Goddamnit, I heard the machine-gun fire and the grenades. There hasn't been a shot fired since then. Who do you think got who?" Clyde said with a smirk that a General gives a private when the private has attempted to think.

"They didn't even have time to get over to the bluff when all of that happened," Hank said. "If we're smart, we'll get the fuck out of here."

Clyde saw red. "Are you saying that I'm stupid if I don't turn tail and run?" he roared at Hank, spit spraying from his mouth when he said stupid.

Hank backed up, shaking his head from side to side and holding his hands out in front of him as if to ward off an attack.

"No, Clyde. I didn't mean that. Hey, it's just that three of us have already been killed and—"

"I know that, goddamnit," Clyde said noticeably directing his anger away from Hank, more to himself. "We've been running around with no plan and…" He turned away and appeared to lapse into thought.

From the speaker on the trike, "Clyde, this is Guido."

He grabbed the mike and answered.

"We found the thing that killed Cutter, and Jenkins' truck blown to shit and burned, and Ace said that the Feds escaped," Guido said all at once, overwhelming Clyde.

Sue cringed. She hadn't told him yet.

Taking precedence in Clyde's mind was, Feds escaped. Cutter's killer being dead, was good, and the guy's truck being smashed was good, but the Feds being on the loose, sucked. He mulled it over for a few seconds and then pushed the transmit button.

"All of you get back here as quick as you can." He tossed the mike to Sue and tried to figure out what to do next.

He was too hungry to think.

______________________

Knowing the direction the creature had slung her rifle, Sherri quickly found it. After a quick inspection, she snapped in a new clip and pulled back the bolt. Resisting the natural urge to hold onto the bolt as it slid forward, something inexperienced shooters invariably do, she released it and watched the bolt drive a round home with smooth precision. Satisfied, she engaged the safety and walked back to the bluff. Tom was sitting on the ground diligently inspecting his rifle. He manually cycled a clip of shells through the gun, then carefully examined and wiped each shell on his jacket before inserting it back into the clip.

"Find anything wrong with it?"

He shook his head. "I was hoping to find that I'd mixed in one of my reloaded shells—one that hadn't been resized correctly or had a dent or bump on it—but the jammed casing was one of the new ones I just bought yesterday and it looked perfect." He inserted the loaded clip and scrutinized the action as he chambered a shell. He looked up and said with a mixture of jest, a touch of irony, and the slightest hint of despair, all masked by a confident smile:

"It'll give 'em hell, at least for the first shot."

______________________

The cab of the truck and what was left of the chassis had crashed into a rock about a hundred feet after exploding. The gas tank had ruptured and the ensuing fire had quickly gutted it.

John looked at the smoldering remains and shook his head. Of the six grenades and four clips of ammo they each had taken, he'd heard none of it explode. He looked in the cab hoping to at least find a charred but operable Uzi. Something the bikers, not desperate for a weapon, might dismiss as useless. John knew that a fire wouldn't totally destroy it. Maybe weaken a few springs, forcing him to use it manually, but even firing one bullet at a time was better than having to throw rocks.

Bob slowly circled the truck, his attention divided between a growing, nagging, almost demanding curiosity about the thing they'd killed, and the desperate need to find another Uzi or some grenades or ammo. Strange sounds and noises assaulted his senses, confusing him.

What sounds belonged in this nightmarish hellhole, he wondered. That crackling, was it a foot stepping on a twig? He listened intently, straining to visualize what had made that particular sound. Then another, different sound in the brush to his right. He swung the gun around. Did a bird rustle those leaves or was it a shoulder? Brief interludes of silence conjured up fleeting glimpses of movement at the corner of his eyes, but when he looked, there was nothing there. No expected monster with dripping fangs and outstretched claws leaping at him, nor any gun barrels poking through the brush spitting fire and death. Only the taunts of the wild, he assured himself, incessantly trying to frighten the green city-dweller.

It was almost working. He was uncharacteristically nervous, but would never admit to being afraid, not even to himself. Being a hardened veteran of Vietnam, and surviving two grueling years of foot patrol on the streets of New York had made him impervious to fear.

And the years with the Bureau, rapidly working up through the ranks by willingly taking the most dangerous assignments, the countless times his life had been on the line, the close calls, a nearly fatal bullet in the back and subsequent miraculous recovery—not only beating the odds and the doctor's dire prognosis that he'd never walk again, but fully recovering in less than a year and being restored to active duty with a medal and a promotion—had taught him how to use fear as a tool to charge his body with adrenaline excited muscles, heighten his awareness, and stimulate his street-wise, whipsaw mind.

Why wasn't it working now? He didn't feel sharp or strong. Was it because he was out of his element? He understood the sounds in a dark alley, a sleazy bar, the docks at night, but the rustling, chirping, croaking, crackling sounds of the forest were alien, ghostly.

Startled by a flapping sound from behind, he spun, ready to shoot. John was brushing debris off his knees, apparently having been kneeling on the ground, maybe looking under the truck. Bob quickly turned away, hoping that John hadn't seen, plastered on his face, what he felt inside. He took a deep breath and tried to shake the feeling, but fear's tentacles had reached deep and had a firm grip.

"We're not going to find anything here," John said, giving no outward indication of having noticed that Bob might be human after all. "Let's go back and check out that thing we killed."

______________________

Tom and Sherri were walking briskly back toward the truck, their earlier levity quickly dissipating. Halfway there, Sherri stopped, spotting something on the ground. She reached down and picked it up.

"Look at this!" She held up a long straight clip for a gun, the top shell, new and faintly sparkling in the speckled sunlight piercing the leaf roof overhead. "What kind of gun is this for?"

Tom checked the shell size, inspected the clip from all angles then nodded his head, a verdict reached. "This is a machine pistol clip. Looks like it's for an Uzi."

They began eagerly searching through the knee high grass. Tom put his arm on Sherri's shoulder and pointed at the ground beyond her.

"What's that?"

She took a couple steps and screeched, "My God!" Quickly picking it up, she handed it to Tom. "I hope this is an Uzi."

He laughed. "That's an Uzi, babe." He popped out the clip and grinned even wider. "We now have a machine gun and an extra clip of ammo."

"All right! I sure wish I'd had that when that thing was trying to climb up on the ledge."

"I'm not so sure," he said seriously. "After he got through eating you he might have used it for a toothpick." Then with a smile, "But by then I would have made my escape."

"I know what I'll do the next time," she said solemnly, a promise in her voice. Tom listened expectantly. "I'll shoot you first, then lie to him."

"Lie?" he asked, befuddled. "Lie about what?"

"I'll tell him that you're much better eating than me."

______________________

Walking toward the mutant, John noticed Tom and Sherri looking in the grass. After hearing her shout and realizing that she'd found something, he sprinted over to them. Bob followed, still not realizing what was happening.

Tom saw them coming and held up the Uzi. "Look what we found."

"Where'd you find it?" John asked excitedly.

"Right here," Sherri pointed, "and we found a full clip of shells for it, too."

"This is about where I jumped from the truck," John said, looking around. "Of course!" he added jubilantly. "My gun and all of our ammo was on the seat. I must have dragged it out with me when I slid out." He fervently began searching through the grass. His eagerness was infectious. Within minutes they'd found five clips of ammo and two more grenades. There were two more grenades and three clips that they couldn't account for, but they couldn't spare any more time.

"Now that I think about it," John told Bob, "I remember sliding across some pretty rough stuff on the seat, but at the time, I didn't give it much thought. Do you realize that we abandoned the truck without even thinking about our weapons?"

"Hey, I was in a hurry," Bob said. Then with a sly wink at Sherri, added, "Since you're the boss, I figured you'd take care of the important stuff."

"I did. I took care of the boss, didn't I?"

Bob raised an eyebrow, his mind struggling for a rejoinder.

Pleased at seeing the tension melting from Bob's face, John handed Tom and Sherri each a grenade and said apologetically, "I wish that we'd taken more, but we were traveling on foot and Bob could only carry so much."

"Yeah," Bob said, feinting humility, "I didn't want to tax the boss. You know how they get when they have to work and think at the same time."

Tom gripped the grenade affectionately. "I would have given my left nut for one of these things about thirty minutes ago."

"For this," Sherri joined in, trying to keep a straight face, "I would have gladly given both of them."

John wondered how Sherri could have a sense of humor considering their situation. He dismissed it as nervous banter in an attempt to overcome her fear. Surely she didn't know that it was a proven psychological method used in hazardous trades to improve efficiency during a stressful situation.

She smiled at him as if reading his mind, then positioning the grenade in her hand, thumb on the arming bar, the pin turned toward her face, she feinted jerking the pin out with her teeth and throwing it. And surprisingly, she did it correctly. Not like throwing a baseball as is the tendency of the inexperienced, but with a stiff-armed overhead arc.

"You seem to know how to use one of those things," John said. "They teach that in home economics now?"

She looked demurely at Tom. "No, but every women should own and know how to use one of these things."

John smiled briefly, then turned serious. It's a walk in the park for her, he thought. How could she be so calm and composed? If he didn't know better he'd almost think that something was wrong with her. Like someone on drugs might think that they were invincible. That they could even jump out a high window and fly like a bird. Or maybe like someone whose brain was affected and had lost their grasp of reality.

He looked into her sparkling green eyes, not knowing what to look for. Maybe dilated pupils, or brief lapses into a faraway, dazed, glassy stare. They shifted, meeting his scrutiny, openly curious, then her brow furrowed slightly, then deeper as she cocked her head an inch closer to him, openly, silently demanding an explanation. He blinked and said, "Excuse me, but I was wondering if you feel okay."

"Considering the present circumstances and what we've already been through today, I think I'm holding up remarkably well. Why? Don't I look all right?"

Taken aback by her quick, precise answer, he stumbled for a response. "No, ah, I mean, you look fine. Look, I'll explain later, but first, let's go have a look at that thing."

Gathering around the creature, they instantly became awe-struck, too fascinated to speak, their questions held in check while they circled it, absorbing every detail. The thing lay sprawled on its back, its chest and remaining arm shredded by shrapnel and singed by the heat of the explosion, while its lower torso and legs were remarkably free of injury. It's skin was rough, bumpy, splotched in various shades of green and brown, almost reptilian, more closely resembling the irregular skin of a toad than the precision patterned, finely detailed, scaly hide of a snake or lizard. Thin lines of dark greenish pigment laced through it in an irregular horizontal pattern.

Sherri squatted beside it and touched its hand, then gently raised it. The body jerked, its arm shot from her hand and grasped repeatedly, furtively at the air above. Sherri jumped back only half as far as the men, but reaching to keep Tom from falling down, she tripped and landed on her butt.

"Damn!" Bob brayed. "That thing's gotta be dead."

"Watch out, Sher." Tom grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up and back.

The arm sank slowly to the ground, palm up, made a few feeble twitches and lay still.

"Don't worry, it's dead all right," she said, gently slipping away and walking to its feet. She kicked the sole of one. The leg jerked. "That's just a reflex."

"Yeah, dead like a snake," Tom said, convinced that she was too close. "They can kill you long after you chop their heads off." She looked at him skeptically. "And with their bodies gone, they get a death grip on you and pump poison until you rip your own meat away to get them off."

She nodded her head indulgently, turned toward John and placed her hands on her hips. The classic position of a woman demanding an answer, an explanation from the outsider who had brought this thing into her world. "What is that thing?" she said slowly, distinctly enunciating each word, as an angry mother might ask a child who had just brought some strange, slimy, crawling creature into the kitchen.

"Don't look at me," John said, startled by her accusatory glare. "I don't know what in hell this thing is. I was hoping that you knew."

"Us?" Tom said simultaneously with her, equally as shocked.

"It was just a hunch, but I thought that maybe… Well, without its head, I guess you couldn't recognize it."

"Recognize it?" Sherri blurted. Tom's mouth gaped open, then he broke into a grin, thinking John was joking. Sherri continued, taking him very seriously. "What do you mean, recognize it? What in the hell is it, anyway. Some kind of 'bigfoot' or… or the missing link or what? And why would—"

John raised his hands in self defense, halting the barrage of questions. "We probably don't have much time so I'll be brief:

"We have reason to believe that the meteorite may be toxic." He paused. The lie had slipped out so naturally. The truth was always a lie, easy to tell, convincing, believable. Years of training in subterfuge, countless covert operations, living under the need to know principle, made it an effort to tell the real truth. Usually it was just as well; most people didn't need to know, and probably couldn't handle it if they did know. But now, what was the point: They weren't searching for a meteorite; they were trying to get out alive to get help, and above all, report to the colonel what they'd discovered.

If they got out alive, no cover would be left unexposed. There were already too many deaths to explain. There was the creature, or creatures that would be nearly impossible to explain. Cops had been killed and all points bulletins had been issued. Civilians had been robbed and murdered. Television, radio, and the wire services were surely having a field day with this whole area. Telling the truth now could actually help—if either Tom or Sherri got out alive—or at least, it might offer a small degree of comfort to two more innocent victims of a nightmare that would probably end in a pine box, no matter what they did.

"Would you excuse us for a moment?" Without waiting for a response, John took Bob back toward the truck. Tom and Sherri's bewildered eyes met. They watched John doing most of the talking in a totally unintelligible whisper. They turned and walked back as quickly as they'd left.

"I am about to tell you some highly classified information; Top Secret to be precise. I'm doing this, to be blunt, because I doubt if any of us will get out of here alive," he didn't pause to mollify his suddenly serious audience, "but on the outside chance that one of us does, we have to have all of the true information we can acquire in what might be a very short period of time. This information is to be given only to Colonel Mathew Rainier or General Jake Fulmer. Just remember the names; Rainier and Fulmer." Seeing Tom reach for his shirt pocket, John said, "I'd rather you not write those names down, but if you forget them, just tell any cop that you know where the meteorite is and absolutely refuse to tell them anything else. The Colonel will come to you within the hour. Do you understand?" They nodded, impatience in their eyes.

"Good." He noticed that Bob had nodded with them as if he was a member of the uninformed. Bob caught the glance, adjusted the Uzi strap on his shoulder, and scanned the circumference of the clearing.

John continued, "The official story is that the meteorite may be toxic. Obviously, it's much worse. When we got the first fragment samples back to the lab, they found that it gave off some sort of radiation. This morning I was told that it paralyzes certain brain cells. I suspect that it does much more. They told me that it caused some side effects. That could mean anything. Maybe this mutation might have been a… a friend…" He paused and looked at it.

"Mutation?" Sherri blurted much too loudly. She glanced around and continued softly, incredulously, "That's a mutation of someone you thought we knew?"

"A friend?" Tom didn't understand this line of innuendoes.

Sherri's eyes shifted quickly to its crotch. Originally thinking of it as an animal, she hadn't even considered its sex. At first glance, it looked female. Instead of a penis, there was a vertical slit in the skin running down between its legs. She immediately felt embarrassed, not because she was trying to recognize it by its penis, but because she knew that the men watching her were probably thinking that very thing. She shot them a disgusted look just in case, then bending over to get a closer look she said, "I was wondering what sex it is." Between its legs, almost completely covered over by the folds of skin resembling a vulva was the unmistakable pink tip of its manlike penis. "It's a male," she said soberly.

Skeptically stunned, shocked, and a bit angry, Tom spun toward John, "Are you trying to say that you think that thing is Dan?" Sherri jumped to his side, clutched his arm for mutual security, and searched John's eyes for any clue indicating, of course not, or impossible, or I doubt it. Anything on that granite, poker-face. But nothing.

Unable to contain herself, she shook her head in utter disbelief. "That's not possible. Look how big that thing is!" She emphatically framed herself with her hands. "Dan wasn't much bigger than me."

"It was just a hunch," John said, getting the reaction he'd expected. "But in this case, when they said side effects and brain cells being paralyzed by radiation, I know they are watering down the truth. They always do. So, I immediately think of what I've seen in the movies. You know, radiation deformed monsters and giant bugs and plants that eat people. Then the tapes I've seen of actual radiation victims during the war popped into my head. It's horrible. Who knows what some new type radiation might do to a person? Maybe my imagination has run away with me, but how would you explain this thing?" He paused, waiting for a response. Getting none, he continued:

"The way I see it, there's only one of two ways to explain this monstrosity. It's either associated with the meteorite or it's not. If it is, then obviously that's the side effects." He waited while everyone traded wide-eyed glances. "If it's not, then I suppose that by some strange quirk of fate we've stumbled onto just what you said, a bigfoot or something worse. Which is it?"

More furtive glances bounced from face to face, finally settling on the gruesome thing on the ground.

Sherri knelt again to get a closer look at its upturned hand. "Whatever this thing is, it doesn't have any normal fingerprints. And with no teeth or head…"

The others verified, from a safer distance, that there were indeed no fingerprints. It's finger tips looked almost like fat chicken toes. Even the nails were black and too long and narrow for a man. More like claws.

"Let me ask you a question," Tom said, briefly qualifying it. "You said that you were from some scientific bureau, but you two sure don't fit my mental image of scientists." Then suspiciously, "Is commando training a requirement to get your job?"

John glanced at Bob, received some mysterious, silent communication. "At this point in time, I see no reason not to tell you. "Bob is an FBI agent assigned to the Bureau of Geophysics." Another half lie. "Actually, we're both agents. Bob's FBI and I'm from the CIA. And—"

"What?" Tom and Sherri barked simultaneously.

"Let me explain," John quickly said, holding up his hand to stifle their questions. "We're only working undercover as scientists. We're both assigned to the National Security Agency."

"The National Security Agency?" Sherri blurted with rising emotional skepticism. "What are they doing involved with a meteorite discovery?"

John continued patiently. "All we know is that about three weeks ago a satellite picked up some unusual radiation in a meteor shower. An alert was issued from the BG, the Bureau of Geophysics, that all meteorites were to be contained and tested. Your report would have been handled through normal channels, but when you reported it missing, there was some doubt that we were even dealing with a meteorite. Generally, people don't dig these things up immediately. There is usually the fear that what is unknown might be dangerous. For someone to dig one up while it's still warm, maybe still hot, is very unusual, so we were sent to investigate."

"Isn't that called overkill?" Tom asked.

"Like I said before, they don't tell us everything. Obviously they had reason to be concerned, and apparently, looking at this thing on the ground, their concern was justified."

After several seconds of silence, as if allowing the logic of his statement to sink in, Sherri insisted. "What makes you think that this thing is Dan?"

Glad to get back to the problem at hand, John continued, "After we got here this morning, we got a call from the lab. Keep in mind, at this time they know very little and I understand even less, but this is how they explained it to me. The radiation apparently changes something in the cells causing them to be mutated when they reproduce. Then a couple hours ago, we got another call and they told us that some brain cells are affected quicker and more dramatically than other cells."

"Are you suggesting that Dan went on a killing spree because his brain was affected by the radiation?" Tom asked.

"Did he always go around killing people?" John's eyes got that faraway look, silently saying, This subject is closed.

Tom started to comment when Sherri hit him on the shoulder and asked John, "Do you know about the cops?"

He nodded knowingly. "The cop car the bikers apparently blew up?"

"No. I don't know anything about a cop car. I mean the cops in the boat."

"What boat?"

"When we were up on the bluff, we saw a police boat coming upstream. They must have seen the bikers because they went around the bend in the river and beached their boat. Two of these mutants turned their boat over. I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like one of the cops got killed. The other cops opened fire on the things and drove them off." Tom stopped and looked at each of the Feds incredulous faces.

"There's another one of these things out here?" Bob nervously swung, then scrutinized the surrounding bushes, shadows, tree trunks and stumps, his imagination jolted into overdrive.

John, glancing around himself, a hand slipping into a pocket, grasping a grenade, calmly asked, "Where are the cops now?"

Tom explained how he and Sherri had shot at the bikers to keep the cops from walking into an ambush. "We lost sight of them when we started down the ravine, but I'm sure they went upriver."

"Well, before dark, we either have to find them or find a safe place to spend the night," John said. "Unless you like sleeping in trees. And that probably wouldn't help. These things can probably smell us out and climb trees like squirrels."

"We shouldn't have any problem finding them if we go upstream along the bluff," Sherri said, "because the bluff curves to the river's edge in a little over a mile. This ravine is the last place a person can climb to the top, unless they have climbing gear."

"Let's get going," John said. "I don't like the idea of us spending the night out here alone."

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