- 8 -

Day 14, Sunday, October 23

Sherri was lying in her sleeping bag cuddled next to Tom, her gun in her hand, determined not to go to sleep. The monster feeding on her entrails jolted her awake. She heard a splash in the water.

She tried to wake Tom again. His lips quivered and he mumbled something. She sat up, put her hand on his face and gently patted his cheek. His eyelids fluttered and then opened briefly. He blinked them a couple times and then they slowly seemed to come into focus on her face.

"Sher," slipped from his lips in a tight, course whisper.

"Tom!" exploded from hers. He tried to say something but no sound accompanied his faintly moving lips. She grabbed the wet rag she kept by her side and wet his lips with it. She had to get some liquid into him. He was dehydrating. His tongue eagerly licked at the wetness. She dribbled some water into his mouth and watched him breath it in. She was too eager. He coughed and shut his mouth and drifted into what she hoped was a peaceful sleep.

Violent splashing came from the hole. A fish even bigger than the last, flew into the air and landed on the floor. Finding comfort in knowing that Dan wouldn't be hungry for a while, she fell asleep watching him eat.

______________________

Trying to avoid the malignant horde of nosy, almost rancorous people he expected to swarm over him when he arrived at the station, Ollie tried fooling them by getting up early and going in before dawn, only to find his space, boldly marked with a sign Reserved for Sheriff, occupied by a TV news van, as were all but the two deputy's spaces who had come in at midnight for the night shift.

He parked down the street and was immediately surrounded by floodlights and microphones jabbed at his face as if he was in a jousting contest. He had to restrain himself from pulling out his night stick and getting in his licks.

Two deputies came out of the station, plowed through the crowd, ushered him into the building and stood guard at the door.

"What should we do, Sheriff?" one of them asked.

"Lock the damned doors and call a couple patrol cars in to get those damned people away from here. I've got work to do. I want the latest reports from the coroner, the roadblocks, the hospital, and anything else you've got," he said pouring a cup of coffee and walking toward his office. "And call Beth and tell her to get her cute little butt in here right now." The deputies smiled at each other. In Beth's case, cute little meant big and still growing.

Ollie sat at his desk and looked through his second-grade phone messages, the ones that hadn't warranted a call on the radio. A hand appeared on his desk with a stack of notes. Ollie grabbed them without looking up, and started thumbing through the log-in reports on the bodies. Listed with the physical description and condition of the bodies was a description of their clothing and their personal effects.

The clothing was all he needed to look at to determine whether they'd been a cop, biker, or normal person—someone with enough sense to be something other than a cop or a biker. His eyes flicked to the campaign poster someone with poor taste had tacked to the wall by the door. His face smiled at him. The face of a crazy man, he thought. He returned to sorting the reports.

Six bodies were positively identified as cops, all from Big Bend. Another cop was thought to have been killed in an explosion, and another was believed to have been killed at the sunken police boat. And another Big Bend police cap had been found by the road. That totaled nine cops, the amount Big Bend had reported as unaccounted for.

There was another possible killing listed. Parts of a skull and brain tissue were found on a rock, but no police equipment was found at the scene. Probably just another brain-dead biker walking around out there somewhere, he thought, sarcastically.

His tally showed nine cops and the assayer. He sat back in his chair and lit a cigar, giving a moment's thought about the ones he'd known personally. His reminiscing was interrupted by a voice from the duty desk.

"Just called the hospital. They said that they had to amputate our survivor's leg last night. He's in recovery right now and is expected to come out of post-op shortly."

Another man that'll wish that he'd chosen another line of work. Ollie thought about his long overdue vacation and had an urge to take it while he still had legs to walk on.

He scanned over the biker list. All but two were listed as John Doe's. That was no surprise. He was pleased when he saw the name Henry Lee Carter. At least Lance's widow wouldn't have to be put through the torture of a trial and watching her husband's killer get out on a technicality, or even worse, knowing that even if the killer was convicted, he'd probably be out on the street in a few years, home free. And it especially pleased him to read the list of major injuries that the bikers had received. Lance would be happy that the creeps hadn't gotten off so easily.

He counted seven, and possibly eight bikers. If he counted the girl as a biker, that made it nine in all.

One cop for one biker. One cop for a hundred bikers wouldn't be enough.

The man wearing a business suit found shot to death fit the description of one of the government men, but there wasn't any ID found on him either. He assumed that they were the ones that had been held prisoner in the cabin and the bikers probably took their ID. An FBI ID had value in the drug-dealing, hoodlum world.

"Anything from the FBI, yet?" Ollie used his preferred interoffice communications system, an open door and a loud voice. It worked every time and got better results.

"Not a word. Mary said they acted like they didn't know what she was talking about. They took the message and said they'd check into it."

"That figures." Ollie wasn't going to let them deny it. Fortunately, he'd seen their ID's at the site of Lance's murder, assuming that they were the same two people. He wondered. Surely they were, but still, until it was verified, it was a loose end.

"Tell those reporters that I'm coming out front in a few minutes with a news release. I'm going to slip out the back door and walk over to the hospital." Maybe the coroner can answer some troubling questions.

______________________

John heard a woman's pleasant voice saying something about a pillow. He was relieved that someone had arrived to help. That meant Tom and Sherri had gotten out safely.

His eyelids were stuck together. He had to roll his eyes around to help break the seal. Expecting to see the bluff towering above, and trees, and… His eyes fluttered open. The initial shock of the all white room, a strap across his waist, the tubes running into his body, and that ever present smelly disinfectant, jolted him wide awake. He'd been in his share of hospitals. On the job injuries and accidents were the nature of his business.

Seeing the woman in white, he slid his cottony tongue around in his parched mouth until it felt usable. He tried, but nothing came out. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times trying to wake it up.

Finally, in a choked-off whisper, "Nurse," slipped out. She was rattling on about something with someone to his left and didn't hear him.

"Nurse," he managed again, sounding more like nuss, but audible at least.

She put her hand on his and said, "Just relax, everything will be all right."

All right? He'd heard that before. Maybe he'd live and maybe he wouldn't, but everything will be all right.

"I need a telephone," he managed.

"Telephone? What you need is some rest. The doctor will be in to see you shortly," she said maternally.

"It's an emergency." He tried to raise up on an elbow, only to be met by a firm hand on his shoulder, gently resisting all the strength he could muster. With her other hand, she rang one long and two short rings on the call button. Before another nurse could arrive, the doctor came in, the sheriff right behind him. Ollie immediately recognized the man.

"Oh, doctor, the patient has just awakened."

"Good. Good." The doctor looked at the patient in the other bed and looked at the nurse.

She understood his look. "He's been sedated, doctor."

"Good." The doctor shifted his eyes toward the door and back to her. "I'll take care of him now." Taking the hint, she silently glided out.

The doctor checked John's pulse and said, "Good."

"How are you feeling?"

"If I'm not dying, I feel great."

The doctor put a phony might live smile on his face. "The Sheriff would like to talk to you. Do you feel like talking?"

"Hell yes. In private if you don't mind."

"I—" the doctor stammered, "I'll be right outside." He spun pompously and quietly stomped out.

Ollie spoke first. "I forgot your name," with a touch of apology, "and I forgot which agency you're from, too. The last few days have been hell."

"I'm John Hoskins, the geologist," maintaining his cover until he talked to the colonel. "One of the cops shot Bob Quint, the FBI agent with me. Did you find him?"

"We found a man in a business suit that fit his description, but I haven't—I'm going to the morgue next. You were the only survivor."

"Only survivor? What about Tom Miller and Sherri Blake? Didn't they get out?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard from them, and their bodies weren't found at the scene. One girl was found shot, but she wasn't the Blake girl. And unless Miller had on biker's clothes..." John shook his head. "Then he wasn't found either."

"Then how in the hell did I get here? Who called for help?"

"Nobody. Something bothered me all afternoon. You said that you were going to Blake's cabin to talk to them. We got a make on the vehicle of the man our deputy had stopped. His name was Henry Lee Carter. I knew that he ran with Clyde Driegeo's gang out of Joplin. Clyde and some of his boys had just gone by the scene right before you arrived. Then you were going to come see me, and you didn't show. Too many coincidences, I guess."

"Thanks for playing your hunch, Sheriff. I doubt if I'd have gotten out of there in one piece if you hadn't. Did you report finding Bob's body to the FBI?"

"Yeah, first thing. They acted like they didn't know what we were talking about, but I'll bet cogs are turning somewhere."

John was absolutely positive that all hell had broken loose.

"What was that thing we found up there?" Ollie asked casually, searching the man's face for a clue.

"What thing?"

"I believe you know what I'm talking about," Ollie said, disgusted that he had to be parried with. "And there were several places where it appears that someone was killed but no body was found. What do you make of that?"

"I have no idea, Sheriff. I passed out around four. How about filling me in?"

Ollie rapidly told him the highlights, wanting to get it over with and ask questions himself. He'd seen the results but he didn't have a clue as to why any of it had happened.

John waited until the sheriff was through, then sticking to the greed angle and a bunch of drugged-up bikers, told the sheriff what he could.

Ollie paced the floor, sure that the man wasn't telling him the truth. Maybe partially, but definitely not everything. He wondered if the man knew about his leg. He'd heard that an amputee never knew that a limb was missing until they actually saw it. He wasn't about to be the one to tell him.

John was about to ask the sheriff another question when the door burst open and the room was invaded by men in uniforms, the doctor's feeble protests totally ignored.

Colonel Rainer and five other officers stormed into the room. John could see two armed MP's in the hall assume guard posts on each side of the door, keeping the doctor out. One of the officers shut the door and stood against it.

"You are?" the colonel asked the sheriff.

"Sheriff Ollie Matson, Crawford County, and who are you?"

"Colonel Rainier. Please step out into the hall, Sheriff. I'll talk to you in a few minutes." One of the officers grabbed Ollie's arm and subtly assisted him through the door. Then the colonel said to someone, only they knew who he was speaking to. "Get the doctor in here and have that other patient moved out of this room. And make it snappy. How are you, John?" the colonel asked, wasting several precious seconds on frivolous chatter.

John nodded his head once, not wanting to bore the colonel to tears.

The doctor came into the room followed by two orderlies, two officers, and one of the armed guards. He had a sullen look on his face, but he cooperated in having the patient removed. As he was leaving the room, his pride required him to say a snide remark, something about speaking to the colonel's superiors, but nobody paid any attention to him. He did an about-face, unknowingly pleasing the colonel, and quietly left the room. Probably to find a nurse or orderly on which to exact his revenge.

"We're going to transfer you to Bethesda, but I need to talk to you first," the colonel said, glancing around. Two lieutenants and the guard left the room without being told.

The colonel started. "Did you find the meteorite?"

"No, we didn't, Colonel, but everybody up there was acting crazy. One of the cops shot Bob after he'd identified himself. And did you see the thing that we killed?"

"Yes I did, John." The colonel clasped his hands behind his back and looked out the window. "John, that was a Mongoloid man. Apparently he'd been living up in the hills and inadvertently got mixed up in a shoot out between the Big Bend Police and a motorcycle gang. The pieces of the other one that was blown to pieces don't have to be explained."

"Can you really get away with that?" John asked skeptically.

"Of course we can, John. The body is on its way out of here right now for an autopsy by us, and of course, it will be cremated afterwards."

John knew that autopsy meant tests, and cremated meant that it would never again be seen by outsiders.

John realized that the colonel thought that there were only two mutants. "There were at least two more of them that I know of. Tom and Sherri both claim that one of them was Jenkins. And that he recognized them, but couldn't speak intelligibly."

"Two more?" The colonel was noticeably surprised. It didn't show on his face, but John could tell, somehow. "That changes things, considerably." He paced in a circle, hands clasped behind his back, then stopped, facing John, staring through the wall.

"How could that possibly happen, Colonel?"

"We still don't know. It may take months. We do know that if the concentration is great enough, the brain's cerebral hemispheres, what you'd call the gray matter, is practically destroyed. So far it doesn't seem to have much effect on the medulla oblongata, the ah, what you would call the primal part of the brain. The other cells of the body change in varying degrees, although they don't show nearly the effect that the brain cells show. One thing we learned this morning is that all the cells that we're testing at present show an unusual amount of growth. We have no idea how fast or how large they will become. It may just be an initial reaction and won't continue. Apparently, the Mongoloid we found was either a very big man to start with, or—"

"If he was that big to start with, then we've found bigfoot," John offered, not quite seriously.

The colonel walked over to the window and looked out. "We found a piece of the meteorite about the size of a walnut on one of the bodies."

"Whose?"

"The Chief of Police of Big Bend," he answered solemnly.

It made sense. "Does that mean that all of the cops were affected?"

"We don't know, yet. We're going to make sure that some of the replacement cops are our men until we find out how serious this thing is. If Chief Marlow had a piece of the meteorite, how many of the others had a piece? Same thing with the bikers. The girl showed visible skin cell changes. We'll take all the bodies for autopsies and tests, then we'll insist that they be cremated due to the danger of the toxins.

"Meanwhile, we're condemning the whole area. It will be a standard toxic-chemical quarantine. There's nothing unusual about doing that. There are two hundred and forty-eight major toxic areas in this country that are presently posted, TOXIC AREA - KEEP OUT. One more won't make a difference."

John changed the subject. "Can we be sure that the one we killed isn't Jenkins?"

"We don't know, yet. The DNA code seems to be the first thing that changes. Even the blood is affected, making blood typing useless.

"The new skin has completely obliterated any signs of fingerprints, and unless we can find the print pattern under the new skin, that's out."

The colonel kept a straight face. "Obviously, dental records are useless, since you so thoughtlessly destroyed its head."

"Thoughtlessly?"

"Just kidding, John," the colonel hastily added.

John knew that the colonel never kidded about anything. The man was a machine. He actually was leveling blame because he didn't have a head to study.

______________________

The sheriff paced the hall, waiting for someone to come out of John's room and tell him what was going on. He impatiently looked at his watch, then disgustedly turned and walked toward the elevators.

Heavy footsteps followed him.

"Sheriff," a voice said, "The Colonel would like to speak to you when he's through in there."

Ollie turned his head, It was one of the lieutenants.

"Tell him I'll be back in a few minutes."

"But—"

Ollie stopped and glared at the young officer, then turned and walked away. He wasn't followed.

Stepping into the open elevator, he angrily mashed the button for the basement. As soon as he got off the elevator, he knew something was wrong.

Two armed guards stood posted on either side of the doorway to the morgue, and soldiers were carrying body bags out, heading for the exit. As he approached, they both held up a hand. The one with the sergeant's stripes said, "This area is off limits, sir."

"I'm the Sheriff, goddamnit, can't you read?" Ollie snapped, pointing to his badge.

"I'm sorry sir, but only the Colonel or Major Enright have the authority to allow entrance."

Ollie flicked the man's hand aside and started to walk past him. Something hard poked him in the back. "You heard the sergeant, Sheriff. Please step over here and we'll get Major Enright for you."

Ollie knew by the tone of the man's voice that he wasn't dealing with a normal MP, the kind that stood gate guard or walked along fences toting a rifle. He looked into the sergeant's eyes and saw the look of a man that didn't belong in a uniform.

The sergeant put his left finger tips on Ollie's chest and gently pushed him across the hall. His voice said, "Wait here, please, and I'll call the Major." His eyes said, "Please resist and I'll gladly shoot you."

The eyes won.

No one had mentioned that Major Enright was a Marine Major. When Ollie saw his uniform, he didn't even bother to argue with the man. He listened, nodded his head a few times, and satisfied that the major had memorized and rehearsed his instructions properly, turned and walked down the hall to the coroner's office.

George Blacken, the county coroner, sat at his desk looking like he was contemplating rage but wasn't quite up to it yet. Seeing the sheriff was what it took to give the little man the courage to get mad.

"Did you see all the goddamned soldiers in the hall? They kicked me out of the morgue and told me to go to my office, just like a parent tells a kid to go to his room. What—"

"Hold on, George. They wouldn't let me in either. Believe me, there's nothing I can do about it. That isn't just the Army out there."

"Surely you can do something. What right do they have to take over the morgue? We've got a responsibility here to the people of the city and the county to find out how nine of their police officers were killed!" He wanted to go on, but he had to stop for a breath of air.

"Calm down, George. I need to know what you were able to find out about that thing before they took over," Ollie managed to say during the coroner's deep breath and his frail little hand slamming down on his desk.

"I didn't find out anything! I've never seen anything like it. I took samples of everything. Its blood, its skin, it's hair, its—"

"Could it have been a person that had been exposed to some toxic chemical?" Ollie asked.

"Hell no. Except for the places where it had been injured, its skin looked like it was unharmed. It wasn't human or ape skin, either."

"Well, what in the hell was it?" Ollie demanded, losing his patience.

"It looked more like snake or lizard skin, if you want my opinion."

"What did you do with the samples?"

"Shit, they burst into the room and confiscated everything and told me to go to my office," he spat vehemently.

"That's all?"

"Yeah,— No. They gathered up every—let me explain. When we get in a body, the first thing we do is remove the clothing. We take all of the personal effects from their pockets and remove all their jewelry and put it in a large manila envelope. Then we attach a form listing the contents.

"They gathered up all of the envelopes and inspected the contents. When they came to Chief Marlow's possessions, they were particularly interested in a small rock we'd found in his pocket. Hell, I almost threw it in the trash, but I noticed that it was rather unusual. Anyway, they took the rock and put it in a special container, like they thought it was radioactive or something, and took it outside. That's when they told me to go to my office," he said sheepishly, realizing that he'd led the sheriff to think that they'd thrown him out immediately.

"What did the rock look like?"

"It was just a small rock, about the size of a prune. It was black on the outside, except where it looked like it had been broken from another piece. It had some colored spots and lines in it. I don't know anything about rocks. It was just pretty inside."

"That's the only unusual thing you found on any of the bodies?"

"Well, we found things on the bikers, you know, drugs and weapons, but that's what we expect to find on that type."

The door burst open. Major Enright stormed into the room, looked around and pointing at a chair, said. "Please have a seat, Sheriff. The Colonel would like to talk to both of you."

Ollie would never sit down if someone had the gall to tell him to. He stepped behind the chair, put his hands on the back, and glared at the major.

"So let him talk. Believe it or not, I can hear even when I'm standing on my feet."

The major ignored the remark and stepped aside for the colonel to enter.

"Gentlemen, I'm going to make it brief. Everything you've seen or heard here comes under the National Security Act. One word from either of you to anybody about anything that has happened here, and you will be treated as traitors and be dealt with under the Treason Act of 1948." He looked at both of them as if they were already suspects. The already small coroner seemed to shrink even smaller.

Ollie shook his head. "How in the hell do we hush up the death of nine cops? In case you don't know it, that was practically the whole police force of the town of Big Bend."

"Simple. We don't even try. We tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." He looked at the two men to make sure that they were following him.

He continued, "The truth is: A local man, Dan Jenkins, found a rock made of some highly toxic material. It was not manmade. It was simply a freak of nature. He thought it might be valuable because it looked unusual. The bikers found out about it and tried to steal it. Meanwhile, Jenkins robbed a store and killed two men, then he killed an elderly couple on a farm and stole their truck.

"The police from Big Bend got an anonymous tip that the suspect was hiding at Blake's cabin. When the police got there, they discovered that the biker gang was already there searching for Jenkins. In the ensuing gun battle, all of the police and bikers were killed and the suspect escaped. We, meaning you also, Sheriff, are still looking for him."

He paused a minute. "Is that clear?"

"Do you mean that all of the cops and bikers were killed and one man escaped? That's preposterous," Ollie said cynically.

"Not at all, Sheriff. We think that the police were ambushed by the bikers and were all executed. The bikers lost some of their numbers during the ambush, and possibly, one or two of them, along with Jenkins, killed the rest of the bikers and made their escape," the colonel said as only a man who knew all the answers could.

"That's it? That's where it ends?" Ollie knew, but he had to object. If for no other reason than it was expected of him. He knew that it was all lies. He understood that the people couldn't be told the whole truth about anything serious, but he was used to being on the other side of the story, not among those being lied to.

"That's where this phase ends and the next phase begins. We have to find Jenkins and the rest of the toxic material before someone inadvertently gets hurt by it. It's poisonous. Even if it's only touched, some of it gets in through the skin and can cause nausea and even vomiting." The colonel maintained his poker face. Ollie maintained his. He wondered if the colonel really thought that he was stupid enough to believe that the rock was merely poisonous. He vowed to himself to find out.

"Good day, Mister Blacken. Sheriff, would you come with me, please?" The colonel turned and walked out the door, not waiting for an answer.

______________________

Sherri heard something but she was too busy eating a rare piece of prime rib and couldn't be bothered. She looked around to make sure no one was sneaking up to steal her meat. She took another bite and heard the noise again. It sounded like someone had said her name. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Sher," the voice said.

She put her hand on top of the hand touching her shoulder, and woke up.

"Sher," the voice said again.

"Tom!" she sat up wondering if she was still dreaming. Tom's hand slipped from her shoulder and fell slowly to the sleeping bag. His eyes were open and he looked confused.

"Tom, I'm right here. Can you hear me?" she pleaded, picking up his hand and kissing it and then putting it on her cheek.

His eyes appeared to come into focus and a bare flicker of recognition shown from them. Sherri leaned to him and touched her lips to his. Their lips met and his formed to meet hers. It wasn't much of a kiss but it was the best one she'd ever had. She lingered, sobbing, feeling a new hope welling within her body and mind. Tears ran down her cheeks and melted with their lips. She wanted to kiss him and hold him and never let him go, but suddenly she realized that he had to have some nourishment.

"Tom, can you drink some water?" She watched him move his tongue around in his mouth.

"Gallons," whispered from his throat, his lips barely moving. She wet her rag and dribbled some water through his parted lips onto his tongue. She thrilled at the sight of him swallowing a few drops at a time. It was like every drop that went into him brought him that much closer back to life.

She spent the next hour administering her instinctive nurturing skills, and chattering continuously, trying to bring him up to date. She washed his face with the cool rag, propped him up using a rolled sleeping bag and blankets, helped him drink some of her special fish broth, and when she couldn't think of anything else to do, she massaged his whole body, helped him bend the stiff joints in his legs and arms and especially his neck. He eventually got tired and fell asleep with his head in her lap, while she lovingly caressed his face.

He'd been asleep about fifteen minutes when Sherri thought she saw something move to her right. She looked at the small one and wished that she'd dragged Tom further away from it before putting him in the sleeping bag. The small one moved its right arm and laid it across its forehead and made a snorting noise.

______________________

When they'd gotten outside the hospital, the colonel told Ollie to drive him to the site of the killings. When the sheriff got into his squad car, he noticed a convoy forming behind. Major Enright led in a black station wagon with government plates, followed by two military jeeps and an olive green van with several antennas sprouting from the roof.

Driving out of town, they passed six canvas covered troop-carrier trucks, led by a jeep, parked on the shoulder of the road, pointing north. The jeep pulled out behind them, followed by the convoy. They all had their headlights turned on.

"Don't drive over fifty," the colonel said calmly. "I don't want to lose my men."

"Why so many of them?"

"Let me explain something, Sheriff," the colonel said, taking a cigar out of his jacket pocket, looking at it and then returning it to his pocket. "What I said in the coroner's office was only to get the point home to him. I wanted him to think that everybody, including you, were to forget this entire incident. If I had let him think that you were going to be brought into it and not him, he wouldn't be nearly as likely to keep his mouth shut."

Ollie glanced at the colonel, trying to keep his distrust from showing on his face. He did want to hear what the man had to say, even though he expected that it would all be more lies.

"I suppose you know that you have a friend in Washington that has a seat on the Security Council."

"I don't even know what the Security Council is."

"You do know General Fulmer, I believe."

"I know a Jake Fulmer, but he wasn't a General the last time I saw him."

"He is now. A Major General."

"Two stars? That really proves it. A fuckup can still get ahead in this world," Ollie said, a dead-pan expression locked on his face.

The colonel raised an eyebrow at Ollie but didn't comment on the remark.

"You probably wouldn't know him now. He's the hardest working, most serious man I know. And he has one hell of a problem."

"And you're going to tell me all about it." Ollie didn't hide his skepticism.

"You are the Sheriff of this county, and the General said that you were, I quote, 'the best damned sergeant in the Army'. He said to take a chance on you. I don't mind telling you that I was against it until…" He paused, realizing that he was ahead of himself.

"Until what?" Ollie's restrained impatience slipped out.

"Let me go back to the beginning and give you the highlights. Two weeks ago, a five mile diameter asteroid came within 1,000 miles of hitting the Moon. That's about a quarter million miles from Earth. Like a comet, it had a tail consisting of smaller pieces traveling along with it. Unlike a comet, which is usually made up of mostly gaseous material, this asteroid consisted of solid matter. A small portion of the tail was deflected enough to barely graze our thermosphere. We experienced nothing more than a meteor shower, which happens quite often. Most of the pieces were completely burned up when they hit the Earth's atmosphere. As in most meteor showers, some of the larger pieces didn't quite burn up, and fell to the ground. Normally that doesn't cause a problem."

The colonel stopped, lit his cigar and puffed until a cloud of smoke engulfed both men.

Ollie flipped the heater control to vent and waited, impatiently. After about five seconds, he'd waited long enough. "Let me guess. This time there was a problem."

With a condescending sigh the colonel continued, "When the asteroid came by, our satellites picked up some radiation unlike anything we have ever witnessed. It is still being argued whether the readings are correct, or if it was an equipment malfunction. It was decided that we should retrieve a piece and check it out, just to be on the safe side. One well known scientist, whose name I won't mention, managed to stir up some fear in high places. They decided to keep everything classified until a sample was found to either prove or disprove his speculations. As you can see, this time the boy that cried wolf, really saw a wolf."

Ollie didn't want to appear dumb, but being dumb was much worse.

"Do you mean that all of this happened because of a meteorite?"

"Precisely. The Mongoloid you saw was probably a normal man like you or me. He might have been Dan Jenkins, the man who discovered the meteorite."

Ollie thought that nothing could surprise him, anymore. He thought that he'd just about seen it all and heard it all. He was certain of one thing; the colonel had to be telling the truth. No one with any brains at all would try to pass off a lie this ridiculous sounding. "You said that the meteorite only fell two weeks ago. Are you saying that a person can be changed into that thing in such a short period of time?"

"We didn't know until I saw the thing this morning. We knew that the radiation had an effect on cells, but how were we to know what would happen to a whole person? Besides, the few grains that we retrieved from the site, hopefully aren't strong enough to cause that kind of reaction."

"Hopefully?"

We haven't discovered a method of totally shielding the radiation. We do know that its effect decreases dramatically as the distance from it increases. And we have kept to a minimum the amount of time we've allowed our people to be exposed to it," he said almost apologetically. "We will now use robotics exclusively."

The colonel seemed to be through. He quit talking. Apparently he thought that Ollie had been told enough.

Ollie had questions to ask, but his mind jumped back to something that he could do something about. "Do you know about Tom Miller and Sherri Blake?"

"Yes we do. They were with Jenkins when they discovered the thing. Finding them and the meteorite are both top priorities. Take your pick. Find the meteorite and you'll probably find them or vice versa."

Skeptically, Ollie said, "I talked to Miller in person two days ago. He seemed perfectly normal."

"Oh?"

"What in the hell does Oh mean? That I wouldn't know what was normal, or that maybe I'm lying?" Ollie snapped.

"Take it easy. I didn't mean anything by it. I was just thinking that maybe I'm wrong about him. Surely he'd be much more affected by now if he was exposed to it as much as the thing I saw this morning."

Ollie saw his point and wished that he could learn to think with his mouth closed.

He was so intent on sifting through the possibilities of what he'd been told that he almost passed the road to the cabin. He slammed on the brakes and turned into the road. The convoy behind him didn't have enough warning to react and had to pull onto the shoulder, the six leading vehicles having to make a U-turn.

"Don't forget your story about the toxic material," the colonel reminded.

"Don't worry. Being lied to, is good practice for lying to."

______________________

Day 15, Monday, October 24

Sherri awoke with a start. Had she been dreaming again? She thought she'd heard a sound coming from the first cavern.

There it is again!

She looked around and didn't see Dan. That meant that he had to be in the water or he was the one making the noise. It sounded like rocks falling from the ceiling of the cavern. She glanced at the small one and noticed that it had moved again. This time it had moved into a fetal position facing Tom, only three feet from him.

Sherri gently raised Tom's head from her lap and slid from beneath him, carefully tucking a rolled blanket under him, and got up. She picked up the battery operated lantern and turned it on. A thin, powerful beam cut through the darkness and danced around the walls of the cavern. She cautiously went into the tunnel.

As she got closer to the front cavern, the sounds seemed to take shape in her mind. It sounded like large rocks being thrown around. Was Dan angry? If he sees me will he smash me with one of the rocks? Should I go back to Tom and stay away from Dan?

She was afraid that Dan, at any moment, might loose whatever slight bond he felt with her and kill her with one savage blow of his powerful arm, then jump on her and start eating. She thought of the way he tore into a fish and shuddered, her back tightening as if someone was poking her in the sensitive spot on her spine which always caused her to arch her back forward and practically go crazy. So far, in her short life, it had only been done in fun. She imagined what it would be like if someone actually had her tied down and started pushing something sharp into her back. And pushed and pushed until it severed her spine and started through her stomach and… She shivered and adamantly rejected the thought.

Her light flashed through the end of the tunnel and came to rest on the cavern wall in front of her. She wondered why she was silently creeping along when her light had already warned Dan that she was coming. She stopped and thought about going back, but wondered if doing so might make him suspicious of her intentions.

Quickly deciding, she boldly walked to the end of the tunnel, turned right, and shined the light into the cavern. She heard a scraping sound and jerked the light toward it. A rock as big as a beach ball flew out of the entrance tunnel and crashed to the ground. The tunnel was cleared of rocks for the ten feet or so that she could see into it. Dan was digging their way out!

Sounds of clawing and loud guttural growls came from the tunnel, escalating to the point of frenzy. She wanted to run, but her feet were glued to the floor.

The sounds stopped.

She waited nervously.

Dan came out of the tunnel, put his hand up to ward off the light, and started toward her.

She had nowhere to run, so she pointed the light down by her feet and stepped against the wall of the cavern.

Dan glared at her as he walked by and went into the rear tunnel.

After she was sure that he'd gone all the way back into the second cavern, she ran to the entrance tunnel. He'd cleared it for at least twenty feet. It was obvious what he'd been growling and clawing at. A huge, flat slab of rock completely blocked the tunnel. She had no idea how big it was. The twenty feet of tunnel that he'd cleared looked completely intact. There wasn't a crack in it, but where the rock was, it looked like the bluff had cleanly sheared off and dropped over the opening. She turned off the light to see if there was any light seeping in around it. Nothing. She lit her lighter to see if there was any air flow. Nothing again. A thought struck her. No air flow! Even as big as the caverns were, how long would the oxygen last?

How long was the tunnel? When Dan had carried her into the cave, she hadn't been able to tell where the tunnel ended and the cavern began. Then she realized, what difference does it make? If Dan can't get out, how could she hope to?

She thought of Tom being alone with Dan. If he awoke, would Dan be friendly toward him, or would he attack and eat him? She ran back to protect Tom, as if she could.

When she got back to the cavern, Dan was holding the little one in his arms. He carried it to the hole and jumped into the water. Sherri stood watching in shock, disbelieving her eyes. Was he going to drown the small one? Had he completely lost his mind? Are we next? went through her mind.

She hated to get any closer to the meteorite than she absolutely had to, but her curiosity got the better of her again. She ran to the hole and looked down. Dan was holding the smaller one underwater, curled around the rock.

Was drowning it on the rock a sacrificial gesture? He could have easily killed it with his bare hands. Why drown it by the rock?

Sherri ran back to Tom and tried to awaken him. He responded slowly, groggy and disoriented at first. It took him a minute to come to his senses, but he did appear to be much better.

"Tom, we might have some troubles with Dan."

"What kind of troubles, Babe?" More like the real Tom.

"He's starting to act weird. He took the other one and is drowning it in the water over there." She pointed, knowing that Tom had probably heard very little of her previous updates, and remembered even less.

He tried to sit up. Sherri helped prop him into a leaning, sitting position with rolled up blankets and the extra sleeping bag.

She pointed to the hole again. "There's a deep hole of water over there and the meteorite is laying on the bottom. Dan's been holding the injured one down on top of it for at least ten minutes already." She realized that she may have exaggerated a few minutes but she didn't care. She was trying to fight the helpless, panicky feeling overcoming her.

There was some splashing at the hole. She pulled out her .45 and slid down to Tom's feet in a protective position. Dan's head appeared above the edge of the hole and then he lifted up the other one and laid it on the ground beside the hole and disappeared into the water again.

Sherri turned up the lantern. It didn't get any brighter. She gave it a dozen pumps on the plunger. It brightened with each pump, making her feel uncomfortably like they were on a stage, so she carried it to the wall by the tunnel and ran back to Tom.

As soon as she sat down at his feet, she saw the small one move.

She looked at Tom. His eyes were closed again. "Tom, look! It's moving."

Tom snapped open his eyes and shook his head. "I thought you said he was drowning it."

"He held it underwater for a long time. I thought he was," she said, doubt creeping into her words. "Maybe they can breath underwater. It looked like he was doing it yesterday when he was trying to get the meteorite to the top."

"To the top?" Tom asked.

Sherri, realizing that he knew next to nothing since he'd been knocked unconscious, began hastily filling in the details of what had happened.

When she was through, as if on cue, splashes of water erupted from the hole and a huge fish sailed over the smaller one and onto the floor. It was the biggest fish Dan had caught so far. Probably five feet long, Sherri estimated.

Dan climbed out of the hole and with one swing of his massive hand, stilled the thrashing fish. He began tearing into it and eating, making no attempt to offer any to Sherri as he had in the past. When he was through, he reached toward the other one and rubbed a chunk of fish on its face. It opened its mouth. Dan pushed the chunk of fish in and watched it work the meat down its throat with very little chewing. Like a snake. He kept repeating the process until the smaller one turned its head away and appeared to fall asleep. He picked it up and carried it over by Tom and laid it down.

"Dan," Tom said. "Do you know me?"

Dan stared at Tom, then dragged Joyce further away from him and crouched down beside her, his eyes never leaving Tom. Without making a sound, he got up and walked into the tunnel.

Tom sat in stunned silence looking at the tunnel.

"He didn't look like he recognized you," Sherri said.

"Not only that, he looked like he was deciding whether he should kill me or not. Damn, he's changed even worse. How long have I been out?"

Sherri had completely lost track of time. She grabbed Tom's wrist and looked at his watch, getting a sheepish "Oh" from him. "It's eleven-thirty Monday morning," he said.

Tom thought a minute. "God, I'm starved. I haven't eaten anything since Saturday morning."

"Yeah, but you haven't been getting much exercise since Saturday evening. How could you possibly be hungry?"

Tom enjoyed her sense of humor, but he really was hungry. "What have we got to eat in here. Seriously. I need something."

"How about some shushi?" I ate all of the lobster while you were sleeping."

"You better watch out. I'm so hungry that I could eat you."

"Promises and flattery will get you a fantastic fish dinner and some delicious desert." She winked, gave Tom a kiss, and skipped happily toward the fish.

______________________

Day 16, Tuesday, October 25

Ollie was glad to turn control of the investigation at the cabin over to Major Enright and his soldiers. He wondered how many of them were actually soldiers. Only a few were allowed to hear anything of consequence. The rest thought they were guarding a toxic site and were keeping out trespassers, as if someone would really want to trespass around toxic material.

The search for Dan Jenkins had been very thorough. His friends and all known relatives had been questioned. People were questioned at all of his known hangouts. Every lead had been followed with no results. Ollie was almost convinced that the thing that had been killed was really Dan. He couldn't put that in his report, so the case had to be left open.

Tom Miller and Sherri Blake still had not turned up. They were the only two on his list that might have the meteorite, or know who does. He had issued an APB on them for questioning only. His next step was to search their homes, check their bank accounts and recent credit card purchases. He was no Columbo, but he knew a few tricks when it came to finding someone.

Beth came into the office with some papers. "Here are the search warrants you wanted."

"It's about time. Thought I might have to go over and start a fire under the judge." She watched him while he flipped through them.

"Give this one, for the assayer, Bailes, to Al. I'll take care of these three in Big Bend."

Beth raised her eyebrows without saying anything, took the offered warrant and waited.

"I might as well earn my pay for a change," he said, explaining without really needing to, "unless you want me to stay here all day and make sure that you keep busy."

"No. You're right. It's time you do something. Who knows, I might even vote for you after all."

"In that case I'm going to stay here and kick your butt around the office all day."

Beth smiled and went back to her desk, not having any idea what he meant.

______________________

Rollo Burris loved it when someone skipped out and didn't pay the rent. He didn't care whether the owners of the apartment building got their money or not. He still got his manager's fee—an apartment, plus two hundred a month for doing practically nothing. When he added that to the eight-fifty a month disability for his exaggerated back injury, he was a contented man.

He considered it a bonus when someone skipped out. Going through their things, reading their letters, and swiping their girlie magazines was something he looked forward to. He didn't even have to bother with the furniture because all of their apartments were rented furnished. That meant that most of the renters were poor. They always got behind on the rent and he had the pleasant job of evicting them. Life couldn't be better for him.

He stood in front of number 2B and looked down the front stairs from the second floor, then looked down the hall to the back of the building. It always made him feel better if he imagined that he was sneaking into an apartment. This time he really was sneaking in. He didn't even have an eviction order, yet, but he watched the news and talked to the cops that had come by a week ago. Jenkins was into something big, or was dead. Definitely never coming back. He had a wild fantasy that maybe the man had been a drug dealer or something and he'd find a suitcase full of money or drugs or… His imagination ran wild. This might be a chance of a lifetime for him.

He slipped a pass key into the doorknob without bothering to knock, turned the key and opened the door.

A black blur hit him in the chest, knocking him across the hallway. He recognized it and slapped it away. "Feral, you goddamned stupid fucking cat, get outta here." As he knocked it away, the cat swiped at his face, leaving four shallow, parallel scratches down his left cheek. He kicked at the cat, but it bolted out of range and ran down the front stairs. Still cussing the cat, he stomped into the bathroom to check the wounds. They were only superficial. He dabbed some water on them, blotted with a towel and quickly forgot about it. There were more important things to worry about, like finding booty, riches, some stash.

He quickly went through Dan's things looking for the suitcase full of money, or the bags of drugs. Quickly disappointed at not finding anything extremely valuable, he started going through things looking for stashed bills, jewelry, gold coins, collectable baseball cards, anything of value. Disgustedly he looked around and down graded his goals again.

He pulled the cushions off the couch and probed his hand along the crack. His wealth increased seventeen cents. The chair yielded one penny. The cookie jar had half a cookie in it. He ate it and looked in the freezer. Nothing. He went through all the drawers in the bedroom, feeling beneath the underwear and socks. Still nothing.

Fifteen more minutes of searching turned up one beer in the refrigerator, another dime in a drawer in the kitchen, and an odd looking paper weight the size of a baseball.

As he walked down the stairs, he mumbled something derogatory about the class of people that he had to rent to, tenderly touched his cheek and cussed the cat again.

Rollo lumbered across the street to the main apartment building, where his apartment, the one with the sign, Manager - Apt 1A proudly displayed on the wall facing the street, welcomed him.

He walked into the apartment, crumbled the empty beer can and tossed it into the trash. While inspecting the paperweight, he noticed some black dust or something on his fingers. He went into the kitchen, tossed the rock in the leftover dishwater in the sink and washed his hands.

The doorbell buzzer signaled that it was time to go to work. Drying his hands on his pants, he went to the door.

"Good morning, I'm Sheriff Ollie Matson." Seeing the wounds on the man's cheek, Ollie idly asked. "What happened to your face?"

"This?" Rollo said, gently running his fingers down his cheek. "My damned cat scratched me."

"Oh? Well, you better put something on it."

"Yeah, I'm gonna, Sheriff. What can I do for you?"

Ollie handed him a piece of paper. "I've got a search warrant for Dan Jenkin's apartment. Would you please let me in."

______________________

It was just after midnight, the sky overcast, a slight breeze drifted down the alley as the three men got out of the blue pickup. One man immediately went around to the front of the building, one stayed in the truck, and the other walked up the rear stairs to apartment 2B, made a quick radio check with the two lookouts, and slipped a sophisticated electronic lock picking tool into the keyhole.

In fifteen minutes he came down the stairs and got in the truck, disappointment clearly showing on his face. All he'd found was a towel with some dried blood on it. Maybe it would be helpful, maybe not.

______________________

Day 17, Wednesday, October 26

Sherri was half asleep, uncomfortable on the hard ground padded only by the thickness of the sleeping bag. The damp, musty air was starting to annoy her. Opening her eyes just long enough to see Tom's outline beside her, she snuggled against him, her head finding a safe haven on his left shoulder. She closed her eyes again, unaware that the lantern had run out of fuel an hour ago.

Tom responded in his sleep by placing his right arm on her shoulder and gently holding her. She drifted into the outside world of laughing people, warm sunshine, sanity, on another day, in another place. She didn't feel Tom's hand slide away, nor did she hear it gently drop to the ground away from her.

Two black, snake-like eyes opened and stared at his hand. An involuntary twitch of his fingers appeared to lift the eyes up a few inches and draw them closer. Beneath the eyes, two dark, puffy, deformed lips separated. A rough, black tongue slipped between them, searching. It slid slowly behind a crooked set of semi-human teeth and over a row of sharp pointed, inward curving teeth. Saliva dripped from the lips. A clawed, scaly hand slithered slowly, ominously across the ground.

Sherri's head hit the ground as Tom's body jerked away from her. She heard a yell. As the sleeping bag pulled tight against her back, she was jerked toward Tom.

Horrified, she watched as he was dragged from the bag, his arms flailing at something.

She drove her feet against the silky, slippery bag, trying to find purchase, clawing with her hands at the ground. Tom tumbled over something and was thrown to the ground. The thing jumped up and pounced on him.

Sherri dove at it and hooked an arm around its scaly neck. An arm viciously lashed around, knocking Sherri against the wall. The thing turned on her and sprang.

Sherri reached for her gun, her hand slapping against an empty holster. She had taken her gun out and slipped it under the rolled blanket she'd used for a pillow. The thing landed on her and just as suddenly was lifted into the air, its feet and arms clawing wildly at Sherri.

"Sher! where are you!" Tom shouted.

"Over here by the wall," she shouted back, fumbling around under the strewn bedding, finding her gun.

"I can't see a thing," Tom said, crawling toward her voice.

"Over here by the wall," she repeated insistently, briefly wondering how she could make out shapes in the totally dark cavern.

Dan set Joyce on the ground, held her with one arm and made loud grunts and crisp chirping sounds at her. She calmed down and stood behind his outstretched arm. Dan glared at Sherri and made some more garbled growls and screeches, then looked at Tom and advanced toward him with his right arm raised as if to hit him.

"Dan!" Sherri yelled. "That's Tom. He didn't do anything."

Dan swung his arm toward Tom, but instead of hitting him, he pushed Tom against the wall and growled.

Sherri grabbed the battery-powered lantern and turned it on. Joyce screeched and hid behind Dan. His huge, scaly arm raised between the light and his eyes, and threatening growls came from deep within him. Sherri pointed the light at the ground between her and Tom. He scooted beside her, took the gun from her hand and pointed it at Dan.

"No, Tom," Sherri said, putting her hand on top of his arm and pushing it down. "I think that he thought you were trying to hurt his friend. Say something to him."

Tom relaxed slightly and lowered the gun toward the ground.

"Dan, it's me. Tom. I didn't try to hurt your friend. I was asleep."

Tom's voice brought some high-pitched screeches from the smaller one.

Dan made some noises to it and, with his arm on its back, guided it to the hole. They both went into the water.

"Sher, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, but—" She saw blood dripping from his right hand. She grabbed the gun, put it in her holster, and checked his arm. He had four puncture wounds on the back of his right hand. Fortunately, the skin hadn't been ripped. She got the first-aid kit, applied antiseptic cream, wrapped and taped gauze around his hand.

"That's enough piddling with my hand. We've got to get out of here, somehow."

"Can you walk?"

"Are you kidding? After seeing that creepy thing, I could run all the way home," he said, trying to smile with no success.

"I don't think that we should stay back here any longer. Do you think that you can make it up to the front cavern?"

"Didn't you hear me? What do I have to do, carry you? Let's get out of here."

Sherri rolled up their bedding, slung it up onto her left shoulder and put her right arm around Tom's waist to assist him.

"Babe, put that arm to use. Here, you carry the light. I'll get this Coleman lantern and these two cans of fuel."

As they entered the tunnel, splashing, followed by the sound of a flopping fish echoed behind them. When they got in the front cavern they stopped, refueled, and lit the lantern.

Sherri pointed out the entrance tunnel and the pile of supplies. She shined the light on the ceiling and the slabs of rock and boulders strewn on the floor, and explained that she thought the explosion had brought most of them down.

Tom just shook his head, thankful that he'd been blown clear of the havoc that had taken place in the right two-thirds of the cavern.

"How did I ever live through that?"

"I'm just lucky I guess," Sherri said with a smile.

"You said that there's some guns here. Let's look at them."

Tom couldn't find another .45, so he settled for a .357 revolver with a four inch barrel and found a box of 158 grain hollow-points. The revolver was more powerful than a .45, but held less shells and was slower to load without a speedloader. Then he found a Mossberg shotgun and some triple-aught buckshot. "I've heard about these triple-aughts, but I've never seen any."

"It's made for cops so they can break the steeply slanted safety glass front windshields on the newer cars," Sherri said, picking up a mini .223 rifle. "This is just like the one I had."

Tom started to ask her how she knew about the shotgun shells, but a shotgun caught his eye. "That's a good gun, but too little for those things. Here's a twelve-gauge semi-auto. With these buckshot it's got about three times the punch, if you can hang on to it."

"Don't worry about me hanging on. I'm just afraid that neither one will do much good against them. They look like they're getting bigger and stronger every time I see them." She stopped and thought a minute.

"What's on your mind, Babe?"

"I was just wondering who the smaller one is. Could it be a girl? It seems to have some different features than Dan. And the way they act together. He's much too overly protective for it to be a guy. And he's actually been good to me, but you, his best friend, is a different story. He doesn't seem to have much feelings for you. Many animals protect their mates, but are very hostile to other males."

Tom racked his brain. Then he remembered something. "Remember hearing on the news about the body of that nineteen-year old boy that was found in the river?"

"Yeah, his parents house is only three or four miles upriver from here."

"They never found the speedboat or the girl that was with him. You made a comment that you thought you knew her brother."

"You think that's her?"

"That was the only girl that was reported missing. There were, I think, four fishermen that disappeared, but only one girl. What was her name?"

"I thought it was Harvey Lind's sister. I think her name was Joyce or Janet."

"Joyce sounds familiar," Tom said.

"Do you think she'd recognize her name?"

"We should give it a try if we're ever unfortunate enough to get the chance," he said, crossing his fingers and then pointing to the ground with his thumb. "Dan seems to recognize his name, or us, or maybe both."

A faint splash came from the rear cavern.

"Hey, that sounded like they went back into the water," Sherri said. "We don't have a bit of food up here and I don't want to try to take any of that fish if they're around. Now might be our only chance."

"Forget the fish unless we get the stove, too," Tom added emphatically.

Sherri grabbed his hand and started toward the rear cavern. "Come on. Raw fish will make you more virile."

"I'm virile enough," he said confidently. Then with a more serious look and a raised eyebrow. "Aren't I?"

"I don't know. It's been so long, I've forgotten."

When they got there, Dan and the other one that they were now assuming to be Joyce, were nowhere in sight. They salvaged roast-sized chunks of fish meat, trying to leave enough so as not to arouse suspicion. Sherri picked up the camp stove and motioned to Tom, "Pick up that bucket of water and let's get out of here."

They didn't look in the hole. If they had, they'd have seen Dan and Joyce working the meteorite up the side.

______________________

"Sheriff, It's Colonel Rainer on line two," Beth said over the intercom, the one built into the phone.

He punched the button for line two and answered.

They exchanged amenities, the colonel anxious to become serious.

"I'm sending six men to fill in on the Big Bend police department."

"How did you swing that?"

"I had a little talk with Mayor Gault of Big Bend. I told him as much as necessary in order to get his cooperation. He thinks that he's the only local that I've confided in, so he shouldn't be talking to you about anything. If he does, I want to know about it.

"Now back to the men I'm sending. Only one of them, Stewart Rollins, will know that we're working together. The other five will think that you are working on the case simply as the top county law enforcement officer. Rollins will contact you when he arrives, probably in the morning. The rest of the men will arrive singly over the next couple days. They all have good cover stories, so they should fit in with no problems."

"What kind of covers?"

"They're all cops from other areas. Their dossiers are complete. They all have a reason to be looking for another job. They're all underpaid, two want to get out of the big city, one is getting a divorce, one's a widower, things like that. Don't worry, they'll look like the real thing."

"What happens if we get in each other's way? I take it, they're only after one thing, and they probably won't care what rules they break."

"If you have any problems, get with Rollins. It's his job to make sure that there are no problems with civilians—ah, you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I think I know."

"Listen, Sheriff, we have to find the meteorite, one way or another. If we don't turn it up by Monday, I'm going to upgrade the danger report to say that the meteorite puts off odorless fumes that can possibly cause death, and that the larger the piece, the more deadly it is, hoping to scare someone into calling in an anonymous tip. What do you think?"

"I agree, but I'd like to see the warning be even stronger. I would say that unless they come in for treatment they will die within three days of exposure, or something to that effect."

"We have considered it, but we can't say three days because anyone exposed over three days ago will know that we are lying because they will still be alive, but we might be able to say that unless they are treated soon, the damage will be irreversible, and that a slow, painful, incurable form of cancer will develop, killing them within a couple months, or something like that."

"Of course. I spit that out off the top of my head," Ollie said, slightly embarrassed. "That sounds like it will work."

"I'll get back to you with exactly what we decide to report, no later than tomorrow morning."

"Colonel, something has been bothering me. If you haven't found a way to shield the radiation, what about the men that were exposed to Chief Marlow, since he had a rock in his pocket. We had deputies, ambulance people, the coroner and his staff, and your men exposed to it. What will happen to them?"

"Honestly, we don't know for sure, but we're hesitant to quarantine everybody involved. Part of Rollins' assignment is to keep an eye on those people, looking for any unusual behavior. As far as the piece that was taken from Marlow's body, we transported it to a safe place, hanging a hundred feet beneath a helicopter. We're still afraid to get near a piece even as small as that until we find a way to shield it, so we're still working with the few small grains of our original sample. We know that in water—and this truly baffles the scientists—the radiation is cut by as much as ninety percent."

"Why can't you bring out hundreds of men with Geiger counters to find it?"

"Geiger counters are useless for this type of radiation unless they are within a few feet of a large piece of the material. The reason our satellite was able to pick it up is because of the near vacuum at its altitude, and one piece came very near it. Readings indicate that it might have been struck by a small piece, but they have become suspect. It might be malfunctioning. Anyway, we think that something in the ionosphere causes the radiation to increase. As soon as we isolate what it is, we may be able to control it."

The colonel was interrupted by someone in his office and apparently placed his hand over the phone. Ollie heard only the slightest hint of mumbling. Then the colonel came back:

"I've got to go. Keep Rollins informed of any progress and I'll talk to you later." He hung up

Ollie stared blankly at the phone, wondering about Rollins' position in the hierarchy.

______________________

"Look at this!" Tom said, uncovering a cardboard box.

"What is it?" Sherri said, setting down a box of fishing lures and tip-toeing through the sorted piles of gear scattered on the floor to see what he was so excited about.

"The box says Dynamite, but it looks like it's older than me."

"Dynamite's been around that long, huh."

He examined the label pasted to the top, looking for a date or instructions or any useful information. "I've heard that old dynamite can be dangerous to handle." There was nothing but three red X's and the words, Danger - High Explosives, written above some numbers and the manufacturers name and address. He carefully tore open the top flaps finding a wooden box inside. He looked around for something to pry open the box.

"I'll try to find you one of these," Sherri said, offering her hunting knife.

He pried off the top of the box and found a row of dark red things that looked like highway flares. Scaring himself shitless, he carefully picked up one and inspected it with an air of expertise, hoping to reassure Sherri.

Looking over his shoulder, Sherri asked, "How do you use it? I don't see any fuse."

"I think they quit using fuse years ago, but I do know that it takes a detonator to explode it." He remembered reading somewhere, "The old myth of exploding dynamite by shooting it, isn't true. It takes an explosion to set it off."

"Then why is old dynamite dangerous?" she asked, noticing his obvious contradiction.

"You've got a point. I think they mean really old dynamite. This stuff is probably okay."

A hint of doubt shadowed her face as she looked at the expert. "How are we going to find out?"

"Well, how about we treat it like it came from the civil war and hope we never find out if it's really that old."

Sherri nodded her head, then did a double-take when she realized what he meant.

A faint, extremely heated conversation wafted through the rear tunnel.

They spun around and listened.

"What do you think that's about?" Sherri asked.

"It sounds like they're arguing."

"Yeah, over who gets which one of us for dinner." She picked up the shotgun. "That little bitch wants you…"

"If she doesn't like raw fish any more than I do, we're going to have to find a way to use this stuff before dinner," he said, looking through the rest of the gear. "Let's find some detonators."

Sherri laid the shotgun beside her foot, and shifting her eyes back and forth between the pile and the tunnel, began searching.

It only took a few minutes to realize that they weren't going to find any detonators, although Sherri did find another hunting knife.

Tom carefully looked through the boxes of ammunition, already thinking ahead. If they couldn't find any detonators, he was going to have to make some. Sherri had gone through all the fishing gear and he wasn't surprised when she admitted defeat.

"Look at all this crap," she said dejectedly. "Dan must've already been too messed up to think straight when he brought all this stuff here."

"Maybe he was just greedy. Looking at these shells, I've noticed that he only brought ammo to fit the guns that he stole. And he only took useful guns. No 410's or 20 gauge shotguns, or any 22's, 25's or 32's. I'm sure that he knew that dynamite is practically worthless without detonators."

"What can we do?" Sherri asked, picking up a bag and looking inside. "Hey, this is some of the stuff he took from the cabin." She started taking things out of the bag. "This is my spatula, and my salt and pepper shakers, and coffee, and sugar, and tea-bags—"

"God, I sure could use a cup of coffee," he said expectantly.

"First chance I get," she promised dryly. "Wonder if my mother's silverware is here somewhere," she mumbled, as her real concern began focusing on Tom and the dynamite."

Tom picked up three sticks and put them together in a bundle and looked at the end of them. Then he looked through the shotgun shells and found a box of six-shot magnums, good for rabbits but of no use against Dan and Joyce. Finding a box of double-aught buck shot, he pried open the end of a shell with his knife and dumped out the nearly quarter inch diameter shot.

He laid two sticks side-by-side on the ground. An inch from one end he placed three balls together in the vee formed by the sticks. Then he laid another stick on top of them and squeezed them tightly together.

"I thought you said we had to be careful with this stuff," Sherri said leaning back and squinting her eyes.

"If I thought you could squeeze hard enough, and I could get you to do it, I would be careful," he said straight-faced.

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"I'd have you squeeze it together and I'd be over there somewhere behind a rock," he answered, holding back a smile.

She ignored his attempt at humor, moving closer. "Let me do something."

He handed the bundle of three sticks to her. "Get some tape out of the first-aid kit and tape these together. Wrap it as tight as you can, from one end to the other. Okay?"

"No problem," she said. "Are you sure that you don't want to go over behind those rocks while I do it? This looks pretty dangerous to me."

He squeezed together five more bundles, then started prying open shells and dumping the powder into an empty shell casing. Then he picked up one of the taped bundles and poured the powder from the casing into the hollow area between the sticks. As he filled each bundle he temporarily sealed the end with a piece of cotton and stood the bundles against the wall.

Picking up one bundle, he stood it on end and bunched another row of sticks around it. Surprisingly, nine sticks were required to encircle the three, making a twelve-stick bundle. He held it while Sherri taped it. They made two more of the big bundles. He removed the rest of the sticks from the box and found that there were twenty-seven remaining. He slid the box out of the way.

Sherri picked it up, looked at it, and without saying anything, turned the back side of the box toward Tom.

Taped on the back of the box with clear plastic shipping tape was a small box and a manila envelope. On the box was printed, One Dozen FX-2 Detonators. In large red print was written, DO NOT STORE NEAR EXPLOSIVES OR COMBUSTIBLES.

"I'll be damned!" Tom said ripping at the tape. "What a stupid place to put them." He pulled the box off and opened it. Inside, packed like eggs, were twelve copper colored detonators. Laying them down and cutting the tape carefully, he removed the envelope from the box. He ripped the end open and removed a coil of wire-wound, waterproof fuse.

"I'll be damned," he said again. He looked at Sherri and smiled, "When I looked at the detonators I knew that they weren't the electric type, but I didn't think that we'd be lucky enough to find fuse, too."

He cut off an inch of the fuse and lit it with his lighter. It burned on the outside and squirted out a jet of flame from the middle like fireworks fuse. "At least the fuse is good, but I don't know about the detonators. This stuff is probably forty, fifty years old."

"Can you try one?"

"Yeah, but even the detonators are pretty loud. I wonder what Dan would do if he heard it." He looked quizzically at Sherri. She shrugged her shoulders and touched the shotgun, reassured that it was close by.

"Maybe if we cover one with dirt and put some rocks on it…"

He started to cut off a six inch piece, then slid the knife over and cut off four inches instead. "This stuff is precious. I could make a fuse out of tape and gauze, like I was going to do, but it probably wouldn't work half the time, or worse yet, burn too fast."

He inserted the piece of fuse in the detonator, picked up the light, and led the way to the front tunnel. Choosing a crack at the base of the rock blocking the tunnel, he put the detonator in it, then scrapped dirt from the floor and packed around it. He lit the fuse and watched it disappear in a cloud of smoke. A dull thump scattered the dirt, leaving a cleaned out crack under the rock.

He ran his hands into the crack and felt around. Then he stepped back and shined the light around the boulder looking for a suitable place for one of the big bundles. An indentation at the ceiling on the right side looked promising. Putting his left foot on a bump on the boulder he pulled himself up and felt along it. He dropped to the ground and leaned against the tunnel wall.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"I feel a little dizzy, that's all."

"You've been up too long."

"I know, but I hate to lay around while we're trapped in here with them. Why isn't someone out there digging us out? Do you think that anybody knows that we're in here?"

She shook her head sadly, "If John didn't make it, nobody else would care. The only ones left were the biker and two cops."

"The chief shot the other cop before I ran in here," Tom said.

"Well, they couldn't or wouldn't dig us out, and they sure as hell wouldn't tell anybody about us," Sherri offered, trying not to be depressing, but finding no other way. "We either get out of here on our own, or… Come on. You're going to lie down and rest a while," her motherly instincts said. "You stay here and I'll go get our bedroll."

"No, wait a minute, Sher. I don't think this is a good place to be. These two tunnels are on the right side of the cavern," he said, pointing to the rock and boulder strewn remainder of the cavern. "If we go back in the far left corner, at least they won't have to step over us if they come up here, and they probably will."

"Okay, you wait here while I get the sleeping bags."

Tom started to get up to help her.

"Goddamnit, you stubborn lug, sit here a minute and rest. I'll be right back."

Tom sat back down, suddenly feeling very tired. He laid his head on his knees and was startled by a hand shaking his shoulder.

"Tom, are you all right?" Sherri's soft voice cut through the darkness. He raised his head groggily, realizing that he'd immediately fallen asleep. She helped him up. Once on his feet, a wave of dizziness almost buckled his knees. He leaned against the tunnel a moment until it passed.

"Let's go, Babe. I really do need to lay down."

The center of the cavern had slabs of rock as high as their head that would have been impossible for him to climb over. She led him along the wall to the left and found that close to the wall there were only a few scattered rocks, none over knee high. It was like a ravine with a sheer wall to the left and a broken wall of boulders to the right. At the back of the cavern the wall turned abruptly to the right. A huge three foot thick slab of rock about half as wide as the cavern and at least twenty feet long had fallen from the ceiling.

She shined the light at the top of it. On her tip-toes she could see over it to the far wall fifty feet away. She could see the step in the wall, the opening of the second tunnel that circled back behind the wall toward her, probably only ten or fifteen feet through the wall. The slab that had broken from the ceiling, because of the dome shaped roof, had a radius on the bottom edge and about a five foot wide part of the rock was off the ground. Shining the light underneath it she could see all the way through to the far wall. It was about four feet high on her side and sloped down to about two feet on the far side.

Sherri unrolled the sleeping bag and helped Tom into it. She turned off the light and sat beside him a few minutes listening to his steady deep breathing. She knew how serious a concussion could be, and just because Tom had been up a couple hours and appeared to be normal, he may have actually done more harm to himself. He needed to be in a hospital where a brain scan could determine how much damage he'd received. She was consoled at seeing that his coordination and mind seemed to be normal.

The creepy shadows on the ceiling caused by the lantern left by the camping supplies brought her back to the work at hand.

She started to turn on the battery powered lamp when she realized that she could see well enough without it. She stood up to make sure. Even though everything along the wall was in deep shadows, she had no trouble seeing every rock on the ground.

While making several trips to the other side, carrying everything around that she thought useable, she found a box of canned-heat, which she grabbed, sure that anything having to do with heat would have a use.

Hearing moaning sounds from the rear cavern, she tried to picture what was going on, then it came to her. They were having sex. The sounds were soft, almost affectionate. Not what she'd expect to hear from two animals, two monsters. It almost sounded like they were making love.

She picked up the lantern and walked back to their new home, slightly envious.

______________________

Having Joyce help bring the rock out of the water had been worse than attempting it alone. She was still weak, especially her legs. The more she had tried to help, the more they'd gotten in each other's way. When it had slipped away from them on their third attempt, Dan gave up for the time being. There was no hurry. He only wanted it out of the water so she could be by it for longer periods of time. He didn't know why, but she couldn't stay underwater as long as he could. Every time he went down he could stay longer and longer.

Once out of the water, she sank to the ground to rest while Dan half-heartedly nibbled at the fish. She argued with him when he offered her some of the meat. She wanted the juices that she'd tasted from the things. When she noticed that they were gone, she picked up one of the bones from the last good meal she'd really enjoyed, shook it at Dan, and screamed at him for stopping her when she had one of them. Dan told her no. She bitched some more. He relented and said, maybe later. He laid down with her to rest.

She fell asleep immediately. He lay beside her, listening to the sounds from the other cavern. He could hear them talking and moving things. He knew that they couldn't get out, but he could sense their fear of Joyce. He drifted to sleep.

In his sleep, Dan's senses were tuned to every sound, every vibration, every ripple on the water, even the dead stillness. The dull thump of the detonator was a foreign sound. He felt the minuscule quiver speed through the ground. His mind registered alert. He awoke with a start. He heard voices and could distinguish the girl's walk. He listened a moment and decided that there was no danger.

He rolled onto his side toward Joyce and enjoyed her beauty. He put his arm around her and his body tingled at the touch of her lovely skin. He had longed for her for as long as he could remember. She made a soft sound and snuggled closer.

For the next hour, time stood still, or raced ahead unnoticed. Nothing mattered. Dan and Joyce enjoyed each other with a savage passion that only animals can achieve. And with a love, found rarely in animals, that was completely selfish, and totally giving at the same time.

They fell asleep in each other's arms, Joyce's mind at rest, Dan's gradually drifting into what should have been a peaceful, watchful, vigilant, guarding level. Instead, it drifted into a tranquil stupor, satiated and secure.

______________________

Day 18, Thursday, October 27

Colonel Rainier called and informed Ollie that Stewart Rollins and two of his men had arrived in Big Bend yesterday evening. Rollins was immediately appointed Chief of Police and he and his men were on the job this morning, and business was as usual in Big Bend.

Their decision on the news release had been reached and they were going with their original idea of only causing sickness, but would upgrade the danger potential if it didn't turn up soon.

The colonel had also said they were through with their search around the cabin and that they were pulling out, leaving only three men per shift to guard the property. A contingency plan to quarantine the entire county was soundly rejected by General Fulmer, at least, temporarily. Ollie sensed that the colonel was trying to downplay the entire incident and was going to rely entirely on his men in Big Bend.

Immediately upon ending the conversation, his intercom squawked, "Stewart Rollins on line three."

His conversation with Rollins was mostly perfunctory. Ollie wanted to get the man alone and have a serious talk with him, but he figured that he'd give him a couple days to get situated before sharing any of his own observations. The man obviously didn't have much respect for anybody that wasn't in the military. Ollie could picture the man's by the book approach to everything. He'd seen hundreds of people encumbered with those delusions and he dreaded the inevitable confrontation.

Ollie sat at his desk wondering what to do next. Every lead had been a dead end. Searching Dan's apartment had turned up nothing. Sherri's house was devoid of any sign remotely indicating a sudden departure. Her clothes and suitcases looked undisturbed.

At Tom's, notes of calls to a Professor of Geology at UI, and from Sam Walker and Bob Quint were on the kitchen table. Easily picking the lock on the gun cabinet, the list of guns got his attention. A quick search revealing that several of them were missing caused a brief moment of speculation and suspicion. Logic said they were involved; his hunch disagreed. Tom, being a small time gun aficionado, taking a trip to the country for the weekend, naturally they'd take guns. But where were they?

Finding that Dan had cleaned out his bank account proved that he'd planned his actions. If Tom and Sherri were accomplices they surely would have withdrawn more than a normal amount of cash, but their accounts showed no unusual cash withdrawals. A piece that didn't fit.

Three boats had dragged the river for the last four days and turned up nothing. Sherri's car being found at the scene and the places where someone had obviously been killed and no body was found, haunted him.

His thoughts wandered back to the farmer's pickup. They knew that Dan hadn't driven it back to the cabin. Had he stolen the young couple's speedboat, retrieved the meteorite and taken it somewhere in their boat? Finding Dan's boat snagged by the riverbank twenty miles downstream, meant that if Dan had originally used his boat, the meteorite was still somewhere along the river. Unless he'd stolen another vehicle from somewhere along the way. No other vehicle had been reported missing in the area and, so far, their investigation couldn't place Dan at the scene of the other murders along the river. Those appeared to have been done by the bikers.

If he assumed that the creature they'd found was actually Dan, then Tom, Sherri, and the meteorite missing was too coincidental for a suspicious, cynical cop's mind to accept.

"Stewart Rollins is here to see you, Sheriff," Beth said, peeking through the slightly opened door, bringing his mind back to the present.

It dawned on Ollie why the phone conversation with Rollins had sounded a little different than normal. The man had been using a phone patch from his car radio. The cloak-and-dagger approach coincided with Ollie's preliminary impression of the man. He was sure that he didn't like him, and couldn't trust him.

"Send him in, Beth."

Rollins was already pushing the door open, elbowing his way past Beth. He shut the door in her face. A deft step backwards by Beth kept the door from actually hitting her. He walked to the front of Ollie's desk, folded his arms across his chest and, with obvious practice, carefully scrutinized the sheriff, looking for flaws, as a butcher might inspect a piece of meat, deciding what fat, gristle, and bone needed to be trimmed away to make it acceptable. Ollie wasn't about to stand and offer a handshake.

"Sheriff Matson," the man in the immaculate Big Bend Police uniform said, "I'm Stewart Rollins—"

"Why the game?" Ollie said, doing his own scrutinizing. Seeing a six foot, two hundred pound Marine trying to disguise himself as a cop. The blonde bristle sticking straight out from his scalp under the police cap made him look more like a drill sergeant than a small town police chief. And he had no gut protruding over his belt to indicate a genuine position of authority.

"Game? I don't play games, Sheriff."

"Why didn't you just say you were coming over when I talked to you on the phone?" Ollie said, inferring more a touch of boredom than a desire to know.

"Sheriff, maybe you don't quite appreciate the seriousness of my problem here."

"Our problem, I believe."

"Sheriff, I'll be perfectly candid with you. This problem we have here is of such a magnitude that it should only be handled by the military. Bringing civilians into it could only jeopardize my investigation. I was totally against—"

"Civilians? What in the hell do you think I'm wearing? A Boy Scout uniform?" Ollie spat, not wanting to lose control, but feeling the beginning of a twitch in his right leg, an indicator that his adrenaline was pumping.

"As I was saying," ignoring Ollie's comment, "I was totally against, what I consider a breech of security, allowing any involvement by parties that are not cleared for Top Secret. Obviously, my objections were overruled." He paused, trying to control his own building anger. "I was informed by the Colonel that you are cleared for total involvement in this matter, and that I am to cooperate with you. However, I expect total cooperation from you." He stared at Ollie, waiting to get a confirmation. Maybe a Yes Sir or a Please may I kiss your ass.

Ollie wasn't in the mood for childish antics. The sooner he could get this man out of his office, the less chance he'd have of making an enemy.

"Rollins, what can this humble old sheriff do to help you?"

"The only thing that I require from you, Sheriff, is for you to report to me if you come up with anything that might be helpful to me. I want the bodies of Miller and Blake. And the meteorite."

"Their bodies? So you think they're dead?"

"If they've been exposed to the meteorite for this long, they might as well be. They'll never see sunshine again."

"What's that mean?" Ollie asked, needlessly. He knew, but he wanted to hear Rollins admit it.

"It means," he answered insipidly, "they, or their bodies will be taken to a lab for tests. They are considered terminal specimens."

"I suppose that means that once they go in, they'll never leave, is that right?"

"That is correct, Sheriff. They would be of more use to us if they were captured alive, but rather than risk their escape, death is a viable alternative."

"I see… And what if they haven't been exposed?"

"The lab will determine that. My only objective is to bring them in."

"Well, if there's anything I can do to help, you just let me know."

"What did you find at their house?" he asked suddenly, expecting to catch Ollie off guard, trying to read his expression.

Ollie answered nonchalantly, "Nothing that would indicate that they were planning on going away."

"Did you take anything from either one of their houses?"

Ollie thought several seconds, then decided that there was no reason not to tell him. "The only thing I found of interest was a list of the guns that Miller owned. We already knew that two of his guns were found in the area around the cabin. It seems that his 9mm pistol and a 30/06 rifle are still missing, and Sherri Blake recently purchased an identical 9mm pistol which we didn't find. I assume that they still have those weapons with them." He didn't know that the guns were buried under thousands of tons of rock.

"We already determined that on Sunday."

"You must have searched their houses without a warrant."

"Sheriff," he said condescendingly, "I don't need a warrant. Need I remind you that this is a matter of national security?"

"Have you been here since Sunday?" Ollie wasn't surprised that the colonel had lied to him.

"I arrived with the Colonel and started my investigation immediately, hoping to have it cleared up before I had to stoop to wearing this ridiculous uniform," he said with a semblance of a laugh. It was a boastful exaggeration; he'd spent Monday and Tuesday finding an apartment and moving in.

"Yeah, it must be hell having to stoop so low as to have to impersonate a common cop."

"It's not unbearable. At least, I don't have to actually be a cop, permanently."

Ollie loved the creep. And the creep had overstayed his welcome. Ollie's silence was understood.

"Good day, Sheriff. I'll be in touch." He turned and walked out the door, expecting no reply.

It was just as well. The kind of reply that Ollie had in mind would have turned an already obnoxious man into an obnoxious enemy. Probably an overzealous, obnoxious enemy.

______________________

Sherri had set up their camp and cooked all the fish in salt water to retard spoiling. She ate some, trying to imagine that she was eating a hamburger, then spread the rest on the stove grill and sprinkled it with salt. Her mother had told her that if air was allowed to get to food, it would dry out without spoiling. Whether that would work in the damp cave was doubtful, but it was the best she could do.

The lantern was turned low, but it was still too light. It caused the area beyond the light to be cast in dark mysterious shadows, tickling her imagination into conjuring up monsters of all shapes and sizes. Not needing both lanterns at the campsite, she filled the one she wasn't using, pumped it up, and walked back along the wall halfway to the tunnel and climbed up on the rocks, finding a spot that the lantern would shine more on the side away from the corner. Back at the wall, she was pleased to see that the corner was enveloped in black shadows.

She wasn't sleepy, just restless and cold. The sleeping bag offered warmth, but she didn't feel like lying still. She needed something to do.

Her eyes rested on the .223. Its clip only held ten shells. Silently cussing the people that voted to outlaw thirty shot clips, she slammed it into the gun, slid the bolt back and released it and snapped on the safety. Then she took the clip out and added one more shell and replaced it. She shivered.

They'd left the space-heater in the other cavern. There weren't any sounds coming from there, but she hadn't heard them go into the water. She decided that trying to get the heater by herself was foolishly stretching her luck to the limit, so she nixed the idea. Finally relenting, she crawled into the sleeping bag beside Tom and immediately felt the warmth. She relaxed and let her mind drift.

______________________

Ollie had tried all week to recreate Tom and Sherri's route on Saturday. By the bullet hole in her car's gas tank, and no signs of a gunfight around the car, it was obvious that they'd run from the bikers and had temporarily gotten away.

The shotgun found by the gully in which the pickup and motorcycle had crashed had been traced to Tom. And the .223 found in the woods, well past the car, had also been traced to him. How did two of Tom's guns get almost four miles apart? The bikers hadn't needed them. They already enough weapons to start a war.

Why did the pickup and motorcycle crash into the gully? He'd originally assumed that Tom and Sherri had left the car and gone into the woods, and then somehow made it back almost to the highway, where they had a confrontation with the bikers, explaining the 9mm shell casings found near the gully. There was a record of Tom having purchased a 9mm auto two years ago, and a record of Sherri's recent purchase of an identical gun. The Uzi's were 9mm but the lab easily distinguished the casings fired from the machine guns by the ejector marks.

What bothered him was that the pistol casings had been found on the cabin side of the gully. How could they have gotten past the bikers at the gully? Did they get away and then go back toward the cabin? That would explain why there hadn't been at least one biker's body found near the pickup, or signs that anyone had been shot or injured.

He tried to picture the events happening another way. It made more sense when he pictured them somehow getting a bike and trying to escape and then being driven back into the woods. He knew the approximate time when the bikers had gone by the scene of Lance's murder. And he knew that if Tom and Sherri had made it to the road, there was very little chance that they could have gotten out of the area without being seen before the roadblocks had been set up. When he looked at it that way, it placed them in the woods much later than he'd originally thought.

All of the topographical reports had indicated that the area north of the cabin was totally enclosed by the bluff. Nowhere in the reports had he seen anything including the top of the bluff. He wondered if it had been routinely dismissed or if something was intentionally being suppressed.

He fell asleep with that question on his mind.

______________________

Day 19, Friday, October 28

Dan's instincts sounded a warning, his body still slept. Something was wrong. There was no breathing other than his own. The sound spread to the cavern walls and bounced back to his ears, alone. He moved his arm and felt beside his body. It slid farther away. Nothing. A sound from his left, his mind rang the alarm.

______________________

Sherri was sleeping under a tree, a huge, bushy limb shading her from the moonlight. It was a calm, cool, peaceful night. She opened her eyes and looked at the stars twinkling between the leaves. Two bright stars shined softly on her face and cast a soft light on the campsite. She looked at the two stars, then the leaves beyond the stars, and then at the distant twinkling. Stars, leaves, twinkling stars. Her eyes opened, looking directly at two black holes where the stars had been. She saw the black slit in the sky, filled with teeth, the black holes watching her.

Her fingers slowly moved at her side, finding the butt of the .45. They tightened around it and inched the gun out of the holster. Her wrist tilted, very slowly raising a mound in the sleeping bag. Her thumb slowly, quietly slid the safety off. She had to consciously will her finger not to squeeze the trigger. It moved! Her finger overcame her will and squeezed, once, twice, three times, each time puffing up the bag and releasing a muffled roar. She heard a scuffle-shuffle and painful, shocked shrieks from the top of the rock, moving away. Hearing loud guttural barks from Dan, completed the picture.

Dan had interceded again, but this time the girl's screeching seemed to be subduing him. Dan's tone turned to more of a pleading sound, while the screeching became more insistent.

Sherri felt Tom stirring beside her, but he was slow to wake and grasp the situation. She put her hand on his shoulder, relaying her thoughts. Quiet. Listen. She felt him draw his gun.

On the other side of the rocks, the argument continued for several minutes, neither of them wanting to accede to the other's wishes.

Sherri slipped from the bag and handed Tom his shotgun and picked up hers, holstering the .45. Tom did likewise. The argument dimmed in volume and drifted back into the tunnel. They waited in silence as the argumentative shrieking turned into a more normal series of noises..

"What happened, Sher?" Tom whispered.

"I woke up and the girl was on top of the rock looking at us. Just as I shot, Dan must have jerked her back. I don't know. Maybe I hit her once. Maybe not," she cracked her lips in a hopeless smile. "It's a hell of a note when you think that you may have shot someone in the face with a .45 and might have only made them mad."

"I don't like it. She wants us and it doesn't sound like he's going to be able to stop her for long."

"I think it's worse than that," Sherri said. "She's winning the argument, and the next time, he won't stop her, he'll be helping her. He didn't even act like he recognized you the time she attacked you. He's only functioning on instinct, and we're looking more and more like a meal. When he had nobody else, we may have meant something to him, but now that she's fit, we're rapidly becoming nothing more than lunch." She shuddered and looked around.

"Did you bring all the dynamite over here?" Tom said, looking around at the miraculously transformed area. It looked like a typical campsite. Sleeping bags, stove, pots and pans, fishing poles, a Coleman lantern, the fishy smell of food? he winced, a water bucket, a hatchet, spoiled by only one thing that looked overdone, too many guns.

"It's right there," she said pointing to a blanket concealing it.

"I wonder if we could blow the tunnel and trap them back there," he said, uncovering the dynamite and taking three sticks from the box. He stuck a detonator on each stick and cut off three two-inch lengths of fuse and stuck them in each one.

"These are just to make noise," he said, handing one of the sticks to Sherri. "Tuck it in your belt. You never know when it'll come in handy. But remember, that's a short fuse, maybe three, four, five seconds, so get rid of it quick."

He put the other two single sticks under his belt and gave one each of the three-stick and twelve-stick bundles to Sherri and kept one each for himself. Then he stashed the rest of the dynamite and ammo in the crawl space under the rock slab and shoved the sleeping bags in behind them.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"How many cans of fuel do we have left?"

"Six and almost a half. And I found a dozen cans of canned-heat, you know, the little cans that you light and they burn like a small gas burner."

Tom nodded, his mind elsewhere. "If we can't blow the tunnel, could you kill Dan?"

"If he attacks us, of course I could," she answered emphatically.

"You know that if we set off an explosion and don't succeed, he's going to attack. The problem is, can we stop him. I doubt if our guns will stop him before he tears us to pieces. You realize that, don't you?"

"But what about the dynamite?"

"It probably won't hurt him unless we can make it go off right next to him, and with a fuse there's no way to guarantee that," Tom said, hoping that she'd see their only alternative without him having to tell her.

"Why did you ask me about the fuel?"

"That type of fuel is actually low-octane white gas. We could toss a couple of opened cans at the other end of the tunnel and throw a lantern in it and probably keep them out of here for a few minutes. I don't know of any animal, I guess that's what he's become, that will intentionally go through fire to chase someone."

"You're right about that. He got upset and moved away the first time I lit the cooking stove."

"But when the fire goes out, we'll still have the same problem, if we can't collapse the tunnel."

Sherri thought briefly, then asked the question Tom didn't have an answer for. "How can we be sure that he will ever turn on us?"

He held out his hands, palms up and shrugged his shoulders, wishing that he had an answer, but nothing came.

Sherri whispered, "Listen,"

He listened intently… and not hearing anything, let her know with a questioning expression.

"Don't you hear that?" she mouthed silently.

He heard his own heartbeat in his ears, and the slight rustle of his collar as he slowly turned his head trying to locate a sound, but… He shook his head again.

She hurriedly whispered, "They're both sneaking through the tunnel."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded vigorously.

"Get under the rock," he told her.

She shook her head and pointed her shotgun at the top of the rock.

Tom put his gun butt on the ground, held it between his knees and pulled out his lighter and one of the sticks of dynamite. Sherri had a stick in her hand and was putting it in the fire at the same time. Tom jerked the fuse out of hers, then threw his at the far wall at the mouth of the tunnel entrance, and ducked down, not really knowing where to go. Neither of them knew whether he'd just tossed a firecracker that would only anger Dan and Joyce, or whether the explosion would bring more of the roof down on top of them.

"Your ears!" Tom screamed, jumping in front of her face and putting his hands over his. She dropped the gun and jerked her hands over her ears simultaneously with the explosion. The concussion in the closed cavern thundered through their hands, sending rocks and dust rocketing through the air.

They squeezed their eyes shut, and then as if they both had the same thought, they peeked at the ceiling to see if it was falling on them. The sound, searching for a way of escape, or something soft to absorb it, rang like the inside of a bell, rumbling into the second cavern and echoing back through the tunnel.

They looked at each other with disbelief on their faces. Sherri removed her hands from her ears and listened. This time Tom could hear them, too. They were running away. They both heard the splashes in the water.

"It's a damned good thing you warned me about my ears," Sherri said. "That was loud enough to pop our eardrums."

Tom raised his eyebrows.

"They're probably deaf," she said excitedly, "at least temporarily, and wondering what in the hell happened." She reached for her gun.

"Leave the gun. Grab a can of fuel and follow me." He picked up the lantern and ran around the cavern wall and into the tunnel. He stopped at the mouth of the second cavern and looked around, wondering if Dan was smart enough to throw something into the water to fool them.

The cavern was empty.

"Take the top off the can and set it right here in the tunnel. If we have to run for it, knock it over and smash the lantern in the gas," he said, hanging the lantern on a head-high rock jutting out into the tunnel. "You stay here," Tom said, taking the twelve-stick bundle out of his jacket pocket and running to the hole. Sherri was right behind him with her bundle in her hand.

"What am I going to have to do, marry you to get you to obey?" He hollered over his shoulder.

She didn't have time to answer him. She was concentrating on getting her fuse lit on the little flame dancing on his lighter. He moved the flame away from her. "Save it," he said, watching his fuse sputter and start spewing a small red jet of flame as if it was a miniature rocket. She put her bundle back in her pocket and watched him throw his in the water. She couldn't resist wasting just two seconds watching it sink. It sank slowly. Too damned slowly.

"Get down," Tom hollered, grabbing her and diving to the ground. "It didn't sink all of—"

A ten foot wide slab of the floor broke loose and jumped up two feet, and a mountain of water gushed against the ceiling. Clutching Sherri in his left arm, he clawed with his right for something to hold on to. The floor dropped, tipped and started sliding into the hole. Tons of water plummeted to the cavern floor. With his right hand Tom gripped the edge of the slab and pulled himself backward, a death-grip on Sherri's jacket with his left hand. As the slab tipped into the hole, he scrambled over the edge, his hand desperately groping for a grip. The pull of Sherri's jacket suddenly ended as it sailed over his head, without Sherri.

He rolled over onto his back and dug his feet into the sliding, rolling, wet mass under him, felt them dig into solid ground, falling rocks and water trying to knock them loose on the way into the hole.

Through the boiling caldron of foam and bubbles, he caught a flash of Sherri's bright orange shirt in the water as the powerful suction of the rock dragged her toward the bottom. Almost as quickly as it happened, the last few pieces of rock fell into the water.

Most of the water that had blown out of the hole had followed the domed roof of the cavern and slammed against the far wall, and as if in slow motion, started coming back toward the hole like a wave breaking on the beach, and gushed down past Tom and into the hole. The churning water made it impossible to see anything near the edge of the hole. Hundreds of blue, gray, and silver-striped black fish started floating to the surface.

Standing up shakily, he tensed to jump into the water after Sherri.

Away from the edge, the water quieted enough for him to see wavy flashes of orange rising from the bottom. He positioned himself at the edge of the water, waiting to grab her hand when he saw a dark shape come out of the largest tunnel at the bottom of the hole and start clawing through the water after her.

He stretched his hand into the water, senselessly screaming for her to hurry, knowing that she couldn't hear him.

She broke the surface, gulping for air, her hands reaching for the side. Tom pulled her onto the ledge, her legs still dangling in the water, where she collapsed.

As loud as he could scream while bent over pulling on her shoulders, "Dan's right behind you! Get out of the water!"

"Whaa—" She thought of the movie, Jaws, and felt the shark streaking toward her helpless legs. She thrashed hysterically at the water and clawed at Tom, threatening to pull him in with her. He teetered for a second, then overcame her pull and fell back against the rocks. This time he really did have a death-grip on her. She clawed over the top of him, then it was her pulling on him, urging him onto the flat part of the cavern floor.

Running toward the tunnel, Tom spotted Sherri's jacket laying in a lump ten feet to the right of the tunnel entrance. Detouring to grab it, he yelled to her, "Knock over the can and keep going."

When he stooped over to pick up the jacket, he saw Dan and Joyce climbing out of the hole only seconds behind them. He dashed toward the tunnel entrance, grabbing the lantern on the way, jumped over the gurgling can already filling the air with the smell of gasoline, and smashed the lantern to the ground behind him. A ball of flame consumed the fumes that had trailed him into the tunnel, appeared to give up, then race back to join the fireball totally engulfing the tunnel entrance and licking at the ceiling of the cavern.

Dan threw his arms over his face and dove away from the tunnel entrance.

Sherri stopped at the end of the tunnel, turned and pointed her automatic past Tom.

He pulled the bundle of dynamite out of her jacket. Fumbling through his pockets, he found that his lighter was gone!

"I guess I lost my fucking lighter when I fell down. And yours is soaked. His mind raced. "Quick, get me that other lantern!"

Sherri ran to the rocks where she'd placed the other lantern, leaped up, grabbed it, and sprinted back to Tom, already pushing down on the lever to raise the glass.

Tom didn't have time to search for the optimum spot to place the dynamite. He hastily scanned the floor along the right-hand wall of the tunnel and found a crack. He jammed the twelve-stick bundle into it, grabbed the lantern from Sherri, and lit the short four-inch fuse on the bundle. Six to eight seconds, he figured.

"Go!" he hollered at Sherri's back. He tried to catch her. As soon as he cleared the tunnel, he turned to the right, and ran as if from the devil himself, pushing his left hand against his ear and cocking his head against his upraised right arm, the lantern dangling in front of his face, partially blinding him. He ran from a much higher level of fear than being knocked down by an explosion. He'd been there, done that. He ran from the fear of being crushed by a mountain, but wondered if every step he took might not be the one that would bring him, not to safety, but closer to disaster. Running from fear, and maybe, running into death.

The shock wave from the blast shot out of the tunnel and expanded into the cavern, pushing Tom faster than his feet could run, like jumping off a moving vehicle, stretching each step in a futile attempt to keep his feet under his body. Just as he was about to fall, the pressure behind him relaxed, replaced by the rumbling of falling rock. He kept near the wall, his eyes flicking between the floor and ceiling, expecting it to give away at any second.

They didn't stop until they'd rounded the curve in the wall and came to the entrance tunnel. The ordeal left him gasping for breath, sucking in lungs full of dusty, gritty air. He realized that Sherri was in better shape than he was. She wasn't breathing hard, not gasping. She just looked like she was trying to figure out what to do next.

From where they were, the rear tunnel entrance was hidden from view. He knew the fire would burn itself out in a few minutes and if the tunnel wasn't completely closed, Dan would immediately be after them.

He drew his pistol and told Sherri, "I'll watch the tunnel. Go get your shotgun and some more dynamite." He sank to the floor, pointing the pistol in the general direction of the other end of the cavern.

"Are you okay, Tom?"

"Fine, Sher. Just beat, but I'll make it. Hurry, Hon. We don't know if the tunnel is blocked."

She took off and was back in what seemed like a second. He shook his head like a driver that had gone to sleep, realizing that he had lost control and blacked out. He shivered at the thought. Sherri had her shotgun and the .223 and the other four taped up, three-stick bundles of dynamite.

"Babe, you don't look so good," she said, shifting into her nursing mode. "You're going to have to get some more rest." A smug, determined look on her face indicated it wasn't a question. A ridiculous idea, though, if the tunnel wasn't blocked. "You wait here. I'm going to check out the tunnel."

"No, wait—"

"It's all right," she insisted. "If it wasn't blocked, we could still see the light from the fire." She turned to go.

"Maybe the explosion blew it out or blew enough rock on the gas to put it out or something."

She hesitated, "Tom you've got to rest." She picked up the lantern. "If it's not blocked, then I'm going to block it, or blow their asses to pieces. We simply don't have any choice." She turned and headed for the tunnel, leaving Tom wanting to say something to stop her, but not having a good argument. He waited until she was halfway to the tunnel, then got up and followed her, carrying her shotgun, wondering if it was even worth the effort it took to carry it.

She disappeared into the tunnel, leaving her shadow to grow grotesquely on the wall opposite the entrance. When he got to the tunnel, she turned and smiled, a beautiful face in front of a pretty site. The solid tunnel walls ended at a crumbled wall of rocks. They listened for a moment, enjoying the dead silence.

Sherri wasn't as happy as Tom. She was troubled by a nagging doubt that hadn't entered his relieved mind.

"How long will it take for them to dig through that?" she asked. "I don't see anything in that pile that we couldn't move, if you get some rest."

"I don't know," he answered, feeling the strength draining from his legs. He leaned against the wall, not able to think about anything beyond trying to remain conscious and on his feet. He didn't see Sherri move, but he felt her head move under his right arm and an arm encircle his waist.

When they got out of the tunnel, she guided him to the right, stopping at the slab of rock between them and their campsite. She helped him to the ground and with urging and pushing managed to get him underneath the middle of its twenty-five foot width. It wasn't complete protection, but at least they wouldn't be out in the open. If Dan or Joyce tried to crawl in after them, they'd have to crawl into the barrel of her shotgun.

She dragged the sleeping bag under the rock and helped Tom out of his wet clothes. After getting him in the bag, she crawled out into their campsite area, took her soggy clothes off and draped them on the edge of the rock. Using the lantern and a piece of cardboard from an ammo box, she lit the camp stove and set it close to them to speed up drying.

She put the pan of fish broth on one of the burners and huddled over the heat.

"Tom are you awake?" she asked, wanting to get him to drink some of the hot broth. He didn't answer. She picked up the pan at the first wisp of steam. She didn't want to sip and enjoy. She wanted quantity and body warmth, not a burned tongue and an empty stomach. She gulped down the warm juice, trying to imagine that it was a rich, thick, chicken consommé. Her imagination left something to be desired. Trying to ignore its deficiencies, she enjoyed about a quart of the juice.

She set the pan on the ground, then remembered the .223 they'd left at the front of the cavern, and weighed the thought of running up there naked to retrieve it, against the thought of the warm sleeping bag.

The bag's beckoning was irresistible.

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The explosion had blown the emptying fuel can across the cavern, spraying flaming fuel in all directions. Dan grabbed Joyce and huddled against the wall with her. There wasn't anywhere to run. He screamed defiantly at the flames, and the creatures that had caused the ground-shaking, ear-aching noise. The fire, quickly consuming the scattered fuel, diminished from a billowing inferno, to spots of blue dancing lights flecked with swirling bits of burning dust, then randomly blinked out.

Joyce tugged on Dan's shoulder, trying to say something. She was moving her mouth, pointing at the tunnel, and making clawing motions in the air, but no sound came from her. He told her that he couldn't hear her and realized that he could barely hear himself talking. He rubbed his ears and yelled, hearing almost nothing. Joyce stopped talking and looked at him, fear and confusion mixing with her anger.

Dan walked to the tunnel and looked at the rocks blocking it. He took a couple steps forward with the thought of clearing the tunnel, then changed his mind. He felt tired. Thoughts like, why he didn't feel pain, and how he could see in the dark, never entered his mind. Why was it so quiet? What had the things done to him? He suddenly felt very, very tired. He needed rest. Rest and revenge and food and sex and sleep. He chose sex and sleep.

Joyce's mind worked much simpler. She chose sleep, and that's what they did.

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