Ancestor

DECEMBER 1: 7:15 A.M.

THE STORM’S FURY had passed, but winds continued to whip powdery snow across the island and drive five-foot waves onto the ice-covered rocks. Colding stood on the sprawling rear porch, staring out across the water. Clayton was hard at work shoveling snow off the porch and salting the half inch of ice that had accumulated during the night.

Colding hadn’t slept much. He’d stayed in his room, still dirty from burying Jian in a shallow grave. He had sat on the floor’s thick carpet, staring at a window that showed the night’s blackness, that rattled with the storm’s wind. Sat and thought of his failures. Of Clarissa. Erika. Jian. And if the C-5 hadn’t made it, Sara. Next thing he knew, he woke up on the floor, still dressed. He hadn’t bothered showering or changing, just put on his coat, boots and hat and walked to the porch.

Each thrust of Clayton’s shovel sounded like a gong dragged across broken glass. The old man worked away, his eyes bright and clear, cones of vapor billowing out of his stubbled mouth. He stopped and leaned on the shovel, his chest heaving a little. “Rough night, eh?”

“Yeah,” Colding said. “Life really took a dump on us.”

“Hell, should have been here in ’68, eh? So damn cold da mouth of da harbor froze over. We had to plant dynamite to break up da ice to get boats in. That was da year Paul Newman fell in while we were ice fishing. Me and Charlie Heston had to drag him back to shore.”

Clayton paused for a moment. “You’re really worried about Sara, eh?”

“Yeah,” Colding said. “I am.”

“Pretty fuckin’ stupid to send them out in that storm.” Typical words from the old man, but not a typical tone. He didn’t sound insulting, he sounded… regretful.

Clayton picked up the shovel again and got back to work, the gong-on-glass sound ripping the air. “When do you expect to hear back from them?”

Colding shrugged. “They should be back in Manitoba already.” Should be back, but no word yet, at least not that Magnus had shared.

Clayton scraped snow two more times, then he rested the shovel against the mansion wall. He picked up the salt jug and tossed granules down on the freshly cleared ice. He opened the French doors to the lounge, then stopped, turned, and gave Colding a hard, cautious look.

“I wanna know something,” Clayton said. “Tell me da truth. You just fuckin’ that girl, or you love her?”

The question magnified Colding’s misery, his powerlessness. That familiar feeling of tears again, but this time, tears of frustration, maybe even tears of rage.

“I love her.”

Clayton nodded, took off a glove and rubbed his mouth. “Thought so. You need anything, you let me know. I’ve seen a lot of shit come and go on this island. Something’s off here, I can feel it.” He kicked snow off his boots. “Something’s real off, eh? And one way or another, we’re gonna have to deal with it before too long.”

Clayton walked inside and shut the door behind him, leaving Colding alone in the frigid morning to wonder what the words really meant.

DECEMBER 1: 7:15 A.M.

HAD SHE SLEPT on a bed of dull nails? Every atom hurt, pulsed, screamed or ached. She smelled of sweat and dirty hay, the odors combining with the unmistakable scent of cows and cow shit so that even her nose found something to bitch about.

Sara pushed herself up on one elbow. She wanted to sleep. Sleep for days, for weeks, even, but she had to move. She looked at Tim Feely—and suddenly all the pain was worth it.

He sat on his butt, hugging his knees to his chest, head down and eyes closed. He swayed slightly.

“Tim?” Her voice cracked from a dry throat. “Are you okay?”

He looked up. A huge red and purple bruise covered the right side of his face from hairline to chin. Dried blood clotted the black line of stitches on his forehead. Dark circles ringed both eyes.

“I’m pretty fucking far from okay,” Tim said. “How long have I been out?”

Sara took a deep breath, then gave Tim the condensed version of everything she knew—Jian’s death, Colding sending the plane out in the storm, Magnus’s bomb, the crash landing, and the struggle to reach Sven’s barn.

Tim sat quietly for a moment, taking it all in. He gently rubbed his swollen knee. Even the smallest touch there made him wince. “So everyone but you and I are dead. I’d be dead if you hadn’t dragged my ass a mile through a blizzard?”

Sara nodded.

“Thanks,” Tim said. The word couldn’t have been simpler, and the look of gratitude and sheer amazement in his eyes couldn’t have been deeper. “Sounds like Rhumkorrf really fucked up the works. I hope he’s dead.”

Sara hoped for the same. Rhumkorrf’s actions had caused her friends’ deaths. “I got out just before it blew,” she said. “I didn’t see anyone else.”

She looked around the barn, taking in its details for the first time. Fairly standard: fifteen-foot-wide aisle, big enough for a large farm tractor to drive through. Twenty-five stalls on each side. Full haylofts above each row, all under a high arcing roof supported by thick wooden rafters. A few small birds fluttered up there, tiny chirps adding an oddly optimistic feel to their dark situation. Big cow heads peeked out from most of the stalls, vacant black eyes staring curiously at the strangers lying on the ground. Instead of a cow, the first stall to the left of the big sliding door housed a brand-new Arctic Cat snowmobile. Its presence was only a partial comfort—they could use it to get away from Sven’s barn, but where would they go?

“We can’t stay here, Tim. How’s the knee?”

“Fucked up nine ways to Sunday. I think the patella might be broken. Sure as hell can’t put weight on it.”

She shook her head. “I almost died carrying your ass here. You’re coming with me, and you’re walking. I’ll help you, but you are coming with me.”

“But what about the storm? It’s warm in here.”

“I don’t hear much wind, so I think the storm is over. That means Sven will be here soon to check on these cows.”

“But isn’t that what we want? We need help. I’m hurt, I need a doctor.”

Sara rubbed her eyes. Just one other survivor, and it couldn’t be Alonzo or one of the Twins, someone with mettle—it had to be this pussy. “Tim, listen to me. If Magnus finds out we’re alive, he’ll come for us. We’re still too close to the plane. We’ve got to get out of here, try and find Colding. Maybe we can use that snowmobile over there.”

Tim looked at the Arctic Cat, but his thoughts were obviously on the bigger picture. “Didn’t Colding send us up? How can you trust him now?”

Sara took in a slow breath. She couldn’t trust Colding. But those nights they’d spent together, the things he’d told her… at the very least, he was a far better risk than Gunther or Andy or even Clayton. “I don’t know that we can trust him.”

A dog bark from outside made them freeze.

The barn door slid open, just a crack. Sara grabbed Tim’s hand and yanked him into a stall just as the door opened a little bit more, letting a golden rectangle of brilliant winter morning sunlight spill onto the barn floor.

SVEN BALLANTINE LEANED against the door for a third time. The snow had drifted high against it, half blocking it, half freezing it shut. It opened just enough for him to slide inside. Mookie pushed through his legs and ran into the barn, tail wagging furiously. She darted from cow to cow as if to say hello! to the friends she’d missed during the storm, staring at each one briefly to let them know she was there and that she was in charge.

“Take it easy, girl,” Sven said. “I’m sure they miss you, too, eh?”

And then Sven Ballantine heard a moo.

At least, he thought he’d heard it. But it hadn’t come from the barn.

He looked back through the open door, out across the blazing expanse of his snowed-over hayfield. Sunlight roared off the undulating surface, an electric field of frozen white waves running up to the thick pine trees at the field’s edge.

Moooooo.

There it was again. And it hadn’t been his imagination.

Mookie started barking, a long ro-ro-ro-ro, the kind of urgency usually reserved for trespassing squirrels or insolent rabbits. But Sven didn’t look, didn’t turn around to see Mookie’s hackles raised at two battered people hiding in a stall, crouched down by the black-and-white legs of the stall’s normal occupant.

Ro-ro-ro-rororo.

“Shut up, girl,” Sven said.

Mooooo.

No mistake that time. And it wasn’t just one cow, it was several.

Roro-ro-roro-ro.

“Goddamit, Mookie, shut da hell up!”

The scream seemed to hit Mookie like a rolled-up newspaper. Her head dropped to the ground, her tail curled slightly between her legs.

Sven walked out of the barn. He peered across the blinding field, looking for movement. He had to squint to block the worst of the reflected light. There… cows. At the edge of his field.

Sven pushed the barn door open a little wider, then walked inside and hopped on the Arctic Cat. It started on the first try. The sound of the engine drew Mookie away from the two people her master didn’t seem to notice. The dog barked at the snowmobile and turned three fast circles.

Sven eased the sled out of the barn, then gunned the engine. Mookie followed, barking all the way.

DECEMBER 1: 7:31 A.M.

CLAYTON SAT IN the Nuge’s toasty warmth. Frank Sinatra blared from the stereo. Sinatra—now, there was a man who could knock back shots of bourbon. Clayton fondly remembered his earliest days on the island, when he and Frank and Dean had drunk Sammy under the table. After Sammy passed out, Clayton had replaced the singer’s glass eye with a ball bearing. Sammy had been pissed as hell the next day, but Frank thought it was fucking hysterical.

Always so beautiful after a big storm. The most beautiful place on Earth, really. Not a day went by when Clayton didn’t thank the Lord above he’d not only lived here for over fifty years, but been paid to do so.

The storms had covered everything in a thick marshmallow coating. Pine trees looked like lumpy white giants out of some paint-by-numbers canvas. The snow changed leafless hardwood branches into soft skeletons. A trillion snowflakes reflected the morning sun, making the landscape shimmer and sparkle.

The Bv dragged its weighted sled along the snowmobile trail. Fourteen inches of snow had dropped in little more than twenty-four hours. A fresh snow meant Magnus would want to take the sleds out, so Clayton had to make sure the trails were properly groomed and ready to go.

Something just off with that Magnus boy. His brother Danté wasn’t much better. At first, Clayton had thought Colding was yet another Genada doofus, like that ass-wipe Andy Crosthwaite. But maybe Colding was all right. Poor kid was a mess worrying about Sara. And he wasn’t the only one. Clayton liked that girl.

Something was wrong on Black Manitou. Way wrong. Fifty years on the island. Long enough to know the spirit of a place, to know when something stank worse than a shit sandwich with a side of skunk spunk.

Well, no point worrying until something happened. Que sera sera, as Doris Day had said. Now, she had been a looker. Too bad she wouldn’t put out. The little tease.

Clayton hummed “My Way” as he moved up the trail, wondering if Sara and the others had landed in Manitoba.

DECEMBER 1: 7:34 A.M.

SARA RISKED A peek past the stall wall. Through the open barn door, she saw Sven, his dog, and some cows far across the snowy field.

“Get up, Tim. We’re moving.”

“Moving to where?”

The million-dollar question. They could go into Sven’s house, wait for him to come back, and then… what? Use her Beretta to shoot the old man? Take him hostage? There wasn’t any other shelter. Except…

“That abandoned town,” she said. “Right in the middle of the island. We can lie low there for a little bit, figure out what to do next.”

“How far away is that?”

“Maybe five miles.”

Tim stared at her like she had a dick growing out of her forehead. “Five miles? On foot?”

Sara nodded. “It’s our only option.”

“We have another option.” He pointed to the pistol on Sara’s hip.

“No,” Sara said. “We don’t know that Sven has anything to do with this. I’m not going to hurt him.”

“You don’t have to shoot the guy, just point it at him and—”

“No, Tim. I know guns. You draw this thing on a human being, you better be prepared to use it, and I’m not going to blow away some old man. Besides, as far as we know, he has to check in with Magnus every couple of hours or something.”

“Or Colding,” Tim said.

Sara said nothing.

“I say we take the house,” Tim said.

“Doesn’t matter what you say.”

Sara crept to the barn door and looked out. Sven was still out there with the cows from the C-5. Mookie bounded through the snow, running a long circle around the herd. Sven would come back the same way he’d gone out, which meant Sara and Tim couldn’t go out the front—too much fresh snow; Sven would be bound to see the tracks.

She walked deeper into the barn, looking for an exit. Directly opposite the big sliding door she saw a normal, hinged door with a four-paned window on the top half. She used her sleeve to scrape frost away from a small spot, then looked out. Nothing much out there other than snowdrifts, a tiny snow-covered shed and a few snowcapped fence posts.

She pulled the door open, slowly, so that the drift built up on the other side wouldn’t fall into the barn. The snow there looked like a waist-high white wall. She stepped over it into the deep snow, then reached back to help the limping Tim Feely. She carefully shut the door. Some snow fell in, but she hoped the still-running heaters might melt it before Sven returned.

She and Tim stood side by side, backs flat against the barn. Before them was a long stretch of undisturbed white marked with high drifts. A single line of footprints led into the shed. Those tracks were covered with less than an inch of snow, making each print look fuzzy and blurred.

“Look,” Tim said. “There’s no frost on the shed windows. It’s heated.”

He was right. Probably an electric heater like the ones in the barn. Inviting, but too risky.

“We can’t hide there,” Sara said. “Looks like Sven went to the shed sometime last night. Means he might be in there again today. It’s only six by six, nowhere to hide if he comes out.”

“Shit. What now, gunslinger?”

“We just go and hope he doesn’t come back to the shed and see our footprints leading out of the barn. Come on.”

She put her shoulder under Tim’s arm to carry some of his weight. Together, they trudged through the deep snow.

SVEN LOOKED ALL around, searching for any sign of a person. There had to be someone around. Had to. It wasn’t like forty-three cows could just appear out of thin air. They weren’t James Harvey’s herd. As far as Sven knew, James’s cows weren’t knocked up, and these girls were pregnant with a capital P.

Mookie was doing her thing, circling the herd, stopping and staring with her head low to the ground. If her eyes had been lasers, she could have burned a hole clear through the moon. She packed the cows together, waiting for Sven’s commands.

He walked up to one of the cows. It had an all-white head with a black eyepatch. The plastic tag clipped through its ear read A-34. In permanent marker, someone had scrawled Molly McButter underneath the numbers. The tag meant the cows were from the main facility on the south end of the island. How in the hell had the cows traveled some ten miles, during the night, in the midst of a mangler of a blizzard?

“Well, hello there, Molly. I’ll bet you’ve had an interesting night, eh?”

The cow said nothing.

Sven didn’t see any tracks. Just a few snow-covered low lines in the snow. That meant the cows had stood here for several hours, tucked into the edge of the woods, waiting out the storm that had covered their path.

Sven kept patting Molly and talking in a low, calm voice. “Well, ladies, I’d better get you all under cover, eh? We’ve got another storm due soon.”

He held up a hand. Mookie’s head swiveled, her body motionless, her eyes now only on Sven. The dog radiated intensity. This was her favorite thing in all the world. Except, perhaps, for nap time.

“Mookie, find.” The lithe dog shot through the snow and into the woods. She’d search for any strays and bring them back.

Sven started the snowmobile and began guiding the cows back to the barn.

DECEMBER 1: 8:14 A.M.

CLAYTON STOPPED THE Nuge in front of Sven’s barn. He let the vehicle idle and hopped out. A beat later, forty-five pounds of happy-ass black border collie shot out of the barn. Mookie jumped at Clayton, her front paws on his chest, her hind paws hopping up and down as she tried to stretch up enough to lick his face. She whined with excitement.

“Easy there, eh?” Clayton laughed and he twisted his face away from Mookie’s insistent tongue. “Take it easy, girl.”

“Mookie, sit,” Sven said firmly. Mookie’s rump hit the snow. Her tongue dangled out of her smiling mouth. Her tail kept sliding back and forth across the ground, kicking up wisps of powder.

“Morning, Sven. Thought I’d stop by and see if an old fart like yourself managed to survive da storm.”

“I’m fine,” Sven said. “You’re out here to fix da phone lines?”

Clayton shook his head. “Not yet. Grooming da trails first. Phone lines down, I take it?”

“Yah,” Sven said. “I tried calling da mansion to tell them I have their cows.”

The words didn’t register for a moment. Clayton stared at Sven, then walked up to the barn’s open door. Sven walked with him. Mookie heeled to Sven, locked in just a few inches from his feet.

Inside the barn, Clayton saw forty-some cows standing in the open area between the stalls lining either side. He walked up to one and checked the ear tag. A-13, it said, with the words Clara Belle written in permanent marker.

“An A-tag,” Clayton said. “She’s from da main herd.”

“Yah,” Sven said.

“Well, I’ll be dipped in meteor shit. I saw these same damn cows loaded onto that big fuckin’ plane last night.”

“Plane must have come back.”

Clayton shook his head. “Can’t see how, it didn’t land at da mansion.”

“Well, unless they make cow-sized parachutes these days, da plane had to land somewhere.”

Clayton nodded. Aside from the mansion and the hangar, the C-5 was the biggest damn thing on the island. Couldn’t land it on a dime like some helicopter. “You see any people, Sven? Someone had to be with da cows.”

Sven shook his head. “Nope.”

“Well, this is nuttier than a no-dick stag in mating season. Don’t make any sense. You hear anything last night?”

“Slept like a baby, eh? Don’t mean there wasn’t any noise, though, da wind was screaming.”

The presence of the cows meant a landing, or at least a controlled crash. If cows survived, people survived. Which meant the people had either let the cows go, then gone off in another direction… or the people were hiding. But hiding from what? From who?

“Sven, I really don’t know what to make of this.”

“Me neither.”

“You mind keeping this to yourself for a little bit? Maybe until I figure out what’s going on?”

Sven shrugged. “Don’t really matter to me. They’re safe here. Besides, I can’t call anyone until your lazy ass fixes da phones, now can I?”

Clayton nodded slowly, his eyes still scanning the extra cows that had magically appeared in Sven Ballantine’s barn. “I’ll fix da lines today. I better finish my swing up to North Pointe and see if I can find anything.”

“Just let me know.”

Clayton gave Clara Belle one last look. She seemed sick, her eyes glazed over with a thin layer of mucus.

“They don’t look good, do they?”

“Nope,” Sven said. “They don’t look good at all.”

Clayton turned and walked back to the Nuge.

DECEMBER 1: 8:46 A.M.

SARA AND TIM stood shivering in the woods, a thick, snow-covered pine between them and the road. The storm had passed, but the cold had not. It hung in the air like an ethereal hammer, pounding at them with a constant, numbing pressure.

When the throaty gurgle of a diesel engine had broken the all-powerful winter silence, they’d moved into the woods to hide. On the plowed road the going had been easy, thanks to Ted Nugent and Clayton’s early-morning work ethic. Waist-high drifts in the woods, on the other hand, made each step a struggle.

The diesel engine sound grew louder, closer, then the sound changed to an idle.

It had stopped.

Sara peeked around the tree. Clayton and the zebra-striped Ted Nugent. No surprise there… but why had he stopped?

The vehicle’s door opened. A thickly bundled Clayton climbed out. Sara ducked back behind the tree, then slid her hand out of the parka sleeve that doubled as a mostly ineffective glove. Heart pounding in her chest, she unbuttoned her holster strap and pulled out the Beretta. The pistol felt like a block of ice against her bare skin.

“F-f-fuck yes,” Tim whispered, his teeth chattering audibly. “Let’s whack that old man and t-t-take that tank-thing.”

“We’re not whacking anyone.” She hoped. She didn’t want to hurt Clayton any more than she wanted to hurt Sven, but Clayton hadn’t stopped in this spot by coincidence. If he found them and told Magnus…

She peeked around the tree trunk again. Clayton stopped at the road’s edge. He reached into his snow pants, fished out his penis and started urinating on the snowbank. His hips twisted, directing the stream of urine.

“What’s he doing?” Tim whispered.

Sara shook her head in amazement. “I think he’s writing his name in the snow.”

The urine stream slowed to a trickle. Clayton shook once, zipped up his fly, then lifted a leg and cut loose with a fart that echoed off the trees.

“You can come out now,” he yelled. “If you don’t mind, I really don’t feel like marching into da woods after you, eh?”

Sara’s hands were cold and brittle. She wasn’t even sure if she could actually feel the trigger.

“My truck is nice and warm inside, eh?”

“Sara,” Tim said. “Come on… I’m… so cold.”

Other than the black stitches and the purple bruise, Tim’s face had little more color than the snow around them. The man shivered uncontrollably. Maybe they should have taken Sven’s house, but that chance was gone.

And now? She knew they didn’t have any choice at all.

Sara stepped out from behind the tree and leveled the Beretta at Clayton.

The man’s hands shot up. “Christ on a pogo stick, Sara. Don’t point that thing at me, eh?”

“Just don’t you move, Clayton, you got me?”

Clayton nodded. Sara reached back and pulled Tim to his feet. They stepped around the tree and trudged toward the road.

“Move to your right,” Sara said to Clayton. “Step into that snowbank.”

“Where I peed? That’s gross.”

“Fine, then not there, but get your ass in the snowbank. Any sudden moves and I’ll put a round in your kneecap.”

“But I already have arthritis in my knees.”

“Clayton, shut the fuck up! Tim, get in the vehicle and shut the door behind you.”

Clayton stepped into the bank, sinking into snow up to his crotch. He wouldn’t be able to make any fast moves in that.

Shivering madly, Tim limped through the snow and onto the road. Sara kept the Beretta leveled at Clayton. Tim climbed into the vehicle and shut the door behind him. Once inside, he wrapped his arms around his shoulders and trembled like a puppy in a thunderstorm.

“Sara,” Clayton said, “put that damn thing down. You’re shivering so bad you might shoot me by accident.”

Sara looked at her own hand—the pistol seemed to shake like a living thing, as if it, too, were a victim of the island’s oppressive cold. She lowered the gun. “How did you know we were out there?”

“Saw footprints in da bank. And seeing as I just saw all da cows that were supposed to be on that plane, I figured some of da crew was around.”

“You’re a regular fucking Columbo, Clayton.”

“Oh, yah, Peter Falk could knock back da soda pops, but now’s really not da time for stories, girlie. Where’s your crew?”

Sara felt a new stab of loss as the memories of her friends welled up fresh and hot. She shook her head.

“Aw, no,” Clayton said. “Only you and Tim made it?”

Was that real sympathy, or just acting? “Clayton, how many people know we crashed?”

“Don’t know, eh? We didn’t hear anything about it back at da mansion. Can’t believe you could bring down something that big without da whole island knowing.”

“Yeah. Real hard to believe.” She raised the gun and aimed it at him again. “When did Magnus send you out to look for us? Did you radio him and tell him you found the cows?”

Clayton shook his head. “You are really starting to piss me off with that damn thing. Magnus didn’t send me out here, Sara. I plow da road and groom da trails after every storm.”

Her whole body shook. Clayton was right, she might just shoot him by accident. He was an old man, for God’s sake. He’d been on the island long before Magnus and Danté and Genada… or so he said. She had no way of knowing who the hell he was.

“I’m da only one knows you’re here,” Clayton said. “Now get in da damn tractor before frostbite sets in, eh?”

It was only when Clayton said the word frostbite that Sara realized her fingers had stopped stinging.

They were numb.

She took three steps toward the Bv206 before her vision blurred and she fell, unconscious, face-first into the snow.

DECEMBER 1: 10:05 A.M.

SVEN STOOD ON his porch, Mookie in her constant position at his side. The salt he’d put down to melt the ice crunched underfoot every time he moved. Winter sucked up all other sounds, hoarded them and refused to share. There was never a time like the dead of winter after a storm, when you couldn’t hear anything at all.

Anything, except for the cows.

The new cows were making noises. Horrible noises, like they were sick or in pain… or probably both. Sven wondered if it had been a mistake to mix the strays with his cows, considering that his herd was a backup in case of main herd contamination. Still, the pregnant cows were worth a fortune—it seemed logical Danté would want them sheltered and cared for.

Sven trudged out to the barn, Mookie automatically at his heels. The dog seemed far more subdued than normal. Sven slid the barn door open and walked in.

Mookie started to growl.

That was a disturbing sound, because while the agile black dog barked at anything that moved, and also most things that didn’t, she rarely growled.

“What’s got into you, eh?”

Mookie shot into the barn, barking a nonstop rororororo at the pregnant cows. She ran behind them, between them, snapped at their feet.

“Mookie! Bad girl!”

What the hell was she doing? The cow with the white head and the black eyepatch stumbled out of the barn, driven by the teeth-baring dog. Mookie was trying to cull the new cows out of the barn.

“Mookie, goddamit, stop it!”

Mookie did not stop. She ran back into the barn and nipped at another pregnant, sick cow. This time Sven caught her coming out, his big hand locking down on a neckful of black fur. He lifted her high. She yelped like he’d hit her with a tire iron. The ear-piercing sound was her automatic defense mechanism, her way of getting out of trouble—the yelp always broke his heart.

But that didn’t change the fact that she’d lost it with these new cows. He tucked her under one strong arm and held her tight. Dog wasn’t going anywhere, and she knew it. Sven scooted in front of Molly McButter. The cow saw Mookie, turned and walked quickly back into the barn.

Once Molly stopped, Sven stayed back and took a good look at her. The cow drooped her head low until her nose was only a few inches off the ground. Thick white mucus covered her eyes and dripped down her cheeks in long, wet, smelly trails. Strands of snot and drool hung from the animal’s nose and chin, swaying with motion when the poor creature let out a long and mournful mooooo.

Sven looked over his own cows, content in their stalls. They seemed fine and healthy, heads up, eyes normal. But the strays… they were all in similar shape to Molly. They hadn’t looked this bad just a few hours earlier. Whatever the disease was, it came on fast.

Not much he could do but wait. Clayton would fix the phones soon, then Tim Feely could come out and examine the cows.

Sven used his one free arm to shut the barn door tight. Mookie’s tail started thumping against his hip.

“Oh no you don’t, you’re in trouble,” he said, but he knew that was a lie and the damn dog probably knew it, too. He set her down. She spun three circles and barked. His dog at his side, Sven walked back to the house, wondering what to do next.

DECEMBER 1, 12:25 P.M.

A HAND GENTLY shook her shoulder.

Sara didn’t want to wake up. A bed, so thick with blankets she was on the verge of sweating. Such heat would have normally felt uncomfortable, but at the moment she’d never experienced anything so luxurious and wonderful.

“Sara, wake up, eh?”

Her eyes fluttered open to see Clayton’s salt-and-pepper stubbly face hovering over her own. He was sitting on the bed. Tim looked down at her as well, a crutch under his left arm, his right hand holding a half-eaten chicken leg. Color had returned to his face. While his stitches still looked like shit, some of the swelling underneath had receded.

Sara sat up, reveling in the simple blessing of Not Being Cold. “What happened? Am I naked?”

“You passed out,” Tim said. “Clayton put you into the truck, then he drove us to his house. We both undressed you, your clothes were damp. Clayton was a complete gentleman, but I tweaked your nips.”

“Like hell you did,” Clayton said.

Sara rubbed her eyes. She looked over at Clayton. Her Beretta was stuffed into the waist of his thick snow pants.

“You staring at da gun? I hope so, because if you’re staring at my thing, Colding might get mad at me, eh?” He pulled out the Beretta and offered it to her butt-first. “You promise not to point it at me anymore?”

Sara nodded and took the gun. At least there was one person she knew she could trust.

Clayton seemed more than happy to be rid of the pistol. “Tim told me about da bomb. I knew that Magnus was a greasy pig fucker rolled in crap-corn, but I didn’t think he’d go that far. Where da hell did you land?”

“Rapleje Bay,” Sara said. “On the ice.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“And it’s just sitting there?”

“I think most of it melted through when the bomb went off.”

“I doubt that,” Clayton said. “Too fuckin’ big. I’ll swing up there and check it out as soon as I can. Magnus could be snowmobiling around anytime now. None of da trails go by Rapleje Bay. If he sticks to da trails, we should be okay, even if da plane is showing a little.”

Sara nodded. “Then what? What the hell do we do, Clayton?”

“We have to get you off da island. The cows are at Sven’s. If Magnus finds out, he’ll come looking for survivors. Phones are down, but you can’t keep a thing like that a secret for long.”

Sara remembered the monster that had slid out of the cow’s ruptured belly. “We have to tell Sven to stay away from the cows.”

“Stay away from cows?” Clayton said. “How can a cow be dangerous?”

“Not the cows,” Tim said. “What’s growing inside them.”

“And what’s inside of them?”

“Monsters,” Sara said.

“Oh,” Clayton said. “Well, that just fucking clears up everything, then.”

“It should be okay,” Tim said. “The cows have no IV feeding, so the fetuses are starving. From what we’ve seen, the cows are just going to die and the fetuses will die along with them.”

Sara shook her head. “No, that thing came out and attacked Cappy.”

“The cow’s belly was already torn open,” Tim said. “The baby wouldn’t have lived long, anyway.”

Clayton looked from Tim to Sara. “A monster came out of a cow, bit Cappy, and then what happened?”

“It almost bit Cappy’s arm off, so I shot it.”

“Well, fuck me,” Clayton said. “I think I’ll tell Sven to stay away from da cows.”

Tim tore off another bite of chicken, then talked with a full mouth. “At this point, best to err on the side of caution. Without the nutrition supplement the fetuses can’t live long. As long as no one goes near the cows, the cows die, fetuses die, done deal. It’ll be fine.”

Clayton scratched his stubble. It made a sandpapery sound. “I’ll tell Sven, but it doesn’t change da fact we have to get you off da island. I think I can keep da cows and da crash a secret for a day or two, maybe long enough to get my son out here with da boat and get you two back to da mainland. I’ll tell Colding; hopefully he can keep Magnus busy.”

At the sound of Colding’s name, Sara felt a pang of loneliness, but also one of suspicion. “No. We can’t tell Colding.”

Clayton’s eyes squinted a little and he put a hand on Sara’s shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell him? He’s awfully worried about you.”

Sara wanted to tell Colding, wanted him here this very second, but that just wasn’t the smart thing to do. “P. J. sent us up in a plane loaded with a bomb, yet he stayed on the ground.”

Tim opened his mouth to say something, paused, then took another bite of chicken leg. Deep down inside, Sara knew Colding would do anything for her, but the facts and her emotions didn’t mix… and three dead friends made for one hell of a fact.

A fresh gust of wind made the bedroom window rattle slightly. Outside, a few fluffy snowflakes moved from left to right.

Clayton stood up. “If that’s da way you want it, fine with me. Another storm is coming in tonight, supposed to hit us pretty hard. Don’t know if Gary can get out here in that weather. You two better stay here tonight, get some real rest. Tomorrow I’ll hide you in da old town, eh? Right now, I’ve got to fix da phone lines so Sven can call out if he needs me. Grab some dry clothes out of my closet, eat whatever you want out of da fridge. But keep quiet. Anyone knocks, just don’t answer.”

He patted Sara on the shoulder and walked out of the bedroom. She pushed back the covers and sat up. Tim pretended not to look as he rummaged through Clayton’s dresser. He tossed her a flannel shirt and jeans, which she quickly put on.

“Sara,” Tim said. “Is this who I think it is?” He was staring at a framed picture on top of Clayton’s dresser.

She stood up and looked. “I’ll be damned.”

In the picture, Marilyn Monroe and a much younger Clayton Detweiler were sharing a passionate kiss.

DECEMBER 1, 12:45 P.M.

CLAYTON WALKED INTO the security room to find Colding sitting at the desk, steadily flipping through the monitor channels the way someone would work a TV remote if there was nothing to watch.

“Hey there, Clayton,” Colding said. “Come to share a fart or two with me?”

“No gas today. And I ain’t here to see you. Da phone lines are down. Computer will tell me where da breaks are.”

Colding stood and moved away from the desk. “Be my guest.” He walked to the weapons rack and grabbed one of the Berettas, then sat at the edge of the desk and started breaking down the pistol.

Clayton sat and used the mouse to initiate the phone line integrity program. A progress bar started to fill. He was alone with Colding. There were no cameras in the security room, at least none that Clayton knew of. And if there were, where would they be watched? All the Big Brother monitoring was done from this room. Ironically, the security room was probably the only safe place to talk in the entire mansion.

Maybe he could feel it out, see if Colding was to be trusted. “No word from Sara yet?”

Colding’s lip curled up in a brief snarl, but the expression disappeared immediately. “Nothing yet.” His hands kept removing parts from the pistol, cleaning them with a rag, oiling, polishing, turning. “Magnus has put in new codes and locked me out of the transmitter. I can’t call Danté to find out what’s going on.”

Bad going to worse. “Why would Magnus change da codes?”

Colding shrugged. “He says security is compromised. He wants to be the only one receiving or sending messages.” Colding’s fingers worked the weapon. This was Clayton’s chance to tell him… but Sara’s and Tim’s lives hung in the balance.

“Colding, I…” His voice trailed off.

Colding’s hands stopped. He looked up. “You what?”

Before Clayton could speak, the computer beeped loudly—the integrity check had finished. In that instant, Clayton’s resolve broke. He’d stick to the plan.

“Nothing,” he said, and turned back to the computer.

The screen showed four breaks in the landlines—one near his house, one close to the Harveys’ place, and two on the line leading from Sven’s. Clayton printed the repair map, then left the security room.

SARA GNAWED ON a block of cheese in between gulps from a glass of milk. How could she be hungry at a time like this? She didn’t care. Eating gave her hands something to do, even if she couldn’t turn off her brain, couldn’t turn off the thoughts of her dead friends.

She and Tim walked around Clayton’s house, looking at framed black-and-white pictures and faded Polaroids that would have made any paparazzi green with envy.

“Amazing,” Tim said. “Here he is drinking with Frank Sinatra.”

Sure enough, a black-and-white of Old Blue Eyes holding a half-filled tumbler up to the camera, an incredibly young Clayton Detweiler doing the same with a bottle of Budweiser. To the right of that picture, another black-and-white with an even more famous face.

“Holy shit,” Tim said. “Here he is fishing with friggin’ President Reagan. And fuck me running, this is Brigitte Bardot back in the day. Hot as hell and playing piggyback with Clayton? What is he in this picture, twenty-five?”

Tim kept babbling, but Sara wasn’t paying attention anymore. Her thoughts had already drifted away to a darker place, a place where she would know what it felt like to put a bullet in Magnus Paglione’s brain.

CLAYTON PATIENTLY RODE the Nuge’s zebra-striped lift bucket up to the top of the wooden telephone pole. He was about a quarter mile northeast of the watchtower and the jammer tower. As he rose, he watched the new storm already taking shape. Dull gray-black clouds the color of sour chocolate milk filled the sky, steadily increasing in size and number, choking out the light. The wind had grown steadily all morning, and now was pushing around ten miles an hour.

A fallen tree had snapped the line. He had to repair it to connect Sven to the mansion. But as soon as he repaired that break, Sven might call the mansion, try to get Tim Feely out to check on the cows. And that was just because the cows were sick—if Sven found out there were baby monsters brewing in those big bellies, he’d go straight to Magnus. Keeping that info from Sven was a shitty thing to do, but the fact of the matter was that two lives hung on Clayton’s every decision.

The lift bucket reached the top. He had no choice—he had to keep Sven in the dark until Tim and Sara were off the island. Clayton connected his orange handset and punched in Sven’s number.

THE PHONE RANG. Mookie barked at it. Mookie barked at everything.

“Shut up, girl,” Sven said as he walked to the phone. “Yah, Sven here.”

“Sven, it’s Clayton.” Clayton’s voice sounded scratchy and far-off.

“Clayton, those cows are awfully sick, eh? And they’re getting worse fast. Who’s coming out to help me?”

“Listen, Sven, there’s a problem. Genada is up to no good. Can you just stay out of da barn for a day or so, until this storm passes us over?”

What the hell was that old coot rambling on about? Was this another one of Clayton’s tall tales?

“No, Clayton, I can’t stay out of da barn. I have to take care of my herd, eh?”

There was a pause, no noise but the scratchy connection and maybe some wind on Clayton’s end.

“Sven, listen to me, eh? Just trust me on this one.”

Clayton clearly didn’t understand the state of the strays, or what it meant to be responsible for the safety and welfare of those animals. “Know what, Clayton? How about you just fix da phones.”

“Genada is up to no good, I tell ya.”

“Well, Genada signs my paycheck every other week. You don’t. Now fix da phones or I’m driving up to da mansion myself.”

Sven heard muttered cursing, and what sounded like someone kicking the inside of a big plastic bucket.

“Sven, you remember when your wife died?”

The question stunned him. What the hell did that have to do with anything? “Of course I remember, Clayton. What’s your goddamn point?”

“Remember how I took care of things for you? When you were… grieving?”

Sven’s big, calloused hand tightened on the plastic handset. Grieving. That was one way to describe it. Lying in bed and crying, not eating for a week, unable to lift a finger to help himself… that was more accurate. Clayton had taken care of everything.

“Clayton Detweiler, are you trying to tell me that I owe you?”

“Yah, and I’m cashing in. Just sit tight. Stay away from da barn, Sven.”

What a tit-for-tat son of a bitch. Whatever this was, it was a very big deal to Clayton. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I want to, Sven, but I can’t.”

Wasn’t that just perfect? Clayton didn’t pull shit like this, ever. Had to be something major. “I’ll wait until da storm blows over, but that’s it. Tomorrow morning, one way or another, someone is coming out here.”

A pause. “Well, that’ll have to do. I’ll talk to you before then.”

Sven hung up and looked out the window, troubled thoughts whirling through his mind like the nasty winds taking shape outside. He’d known Clayton for, oh, thirty years now. Sven nodded—he could wait, wait until the storm had passed. After that, however, he had to fulfill his obligations.

Sven rolled his neck. He heard and felt his old bones crack. The job was tiring enough even without any of this added stress. He felt exhausted. He looked down at Mookie, who looked back, fluffy tail suddenly swishing across the floor.

“You ready for a nap with da old man, girl?”

Mookie barked, then ran for the bedroom. Sven followed. Mookie spun in circles at the foot of the bed. Sven didn’t bother undressing, just climbed on top of the blankets and lay down on his side. Mookie jumped onto the bed and curled into her favorite spot, nestled in the crook of Sven’s legs.

Both of them fell asleep in seconds.

CLAYTON REALIZED HE hadn’t actually done a head count on the cows from the plane. Maybe all of them didn’t make it to Sven’s. The Harveys’ place was fairly close to the crash site; perhaps some cows had wandered there. If James found a stray and simply snowmobiled to the mansion to find out what was going on…

Clayton punched in the Harveys’ number. Stephanie answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Stephanie, Clayton here.”

“Oh, Clayton! Are you going to stop by today? I could whip up those brownies you like so much I’ll put on some coffee and we can all sit down and—”

“Just let me talk to James. It’s important.”

“Okay, hold on.”

Clayton waited, wondering about the choices he was making. His actions would put Sven, Stephanie and James in potential danger in order to save Tim and Sara from certain danger. A shit call, either way.

“Hello, Clayton,” James said. “Glad to see you got da phone lines fixed this early.”

“Not fixed yet,” Clayton said. “I’m on a handset at one of da breaks. Say, James, you seen anything weird?”

“Weird like what?”

“Like anything… unusual? With your cows?”

“Just came from da barn,” James said. “Everything is fine, why do you ask?”

Clayton breathed a sigh of relief. “No reason. Sven said his cows were feeling a little sick.”

“Mine are in da pink of health. But don’t take forever to fix those phones. If there’s some bug going around, I want to make sure I can reach Mister Feely, eh?”

“More storms coming tonight, so no point in fixing da same shit twice. All will be shipshape by tomorrow afternoon. Good day, James.”

“Good day.”

Clayton broke the connection, happy there was one less thing to worry about.

DECEMBER 2, 2:02 A.M.

OUTSIDE SVEN’S BEDROOM window, the storm picked up intensity, swelling, swirling, growing. Loud enough to rattle the windows in their wooden frames, but that wasn’t what woke him. No, it was a pair of sounds—Mookie’s low, gurgling growl of warning, and the cows.

The screaming cows.

Stay away from da barn, Sven.

He sat straight up in bed. He’d heard sounds like that once when he was a boy in Ontonagon. He’d left the barn door open just enough for a pack of starving coyotes to slink inside in the middle of the night and attack a helpless milk cow. Even as Sven hopped out of bed and quickly pulled on his snow pants and boots, he wondered at the high-pitched sounds of bovine terror, sounds so loud he could hear them over a twenty-mile-per-hour wind from inside a barn some fifty yards away.

Why had Clayton told him to stay out of the barn?

Sickness didn’t make cows sound like that. Predators did.

He strode to his gun rack and grabbed his Mossberg 500 shotgun. He threw on his coat as he walked to the front door, switching the gun from hand to hand as he shrugged on one sleeve and then the next. The Mossberg was loaded, of course. He always kept it loaded.

Mookie couldn’t take it anymore. Her little body shook with violent barks. Rorororooooro-ro-ro

Sven opened the door just a bit and leaned through.

Ro-roro-RORoro-ro

Mookie’s slim body tried to squeeze between the door frame and his right leg. Sven turned his knee to block her. Each bark was an ear-piercing blast of animal rage.

“Mookie, calm down!”

Mookie did not calm down.

The cows screamed louder. Sven heard noises like thunder, but it took him a second to realize what those noises actually were… fifteen-hundred-pound bodies slamming against stall walls, against the inside of the barn.

He felt Mookie’s head suddenly slide between his calves. Sven slammed his legs together, but Mookie’s head and shoulders were already through. He squeezed his legs tighter and reached down with his right hand, fingertips sliding inside the dog’s collar.

“Mookie, goddamit, stay!”

Mookie lurched, yanking Sven forward. The shotgun stock caught on the door frame and the gun fell forward. Sven instinctively reached his right hand to catch it, and just like that, Mookie shot off the porch and tore ass for the barn.

“Mookie! Stay!”

Mookie did not stay.

Sven ran after her. As soon as he came off the porch, away from the house’s shelter, the wind cut at him, pulled him. Snow flew so hard it stung his face and hands.

As he ran, Sven pumped a shell into the chamber.

Mookie stood in front of the barn’s big sliding door, barking with such violence that spit flew from her shaking head in gloopy strings that arced across her face and nose.

Sven held the shotgun with his right hand as he planted both feet at an angle and slid across the snow. Mookie was preoccupied with the door and saw her master a second too late. She turned to run, but Sven’s left hand caught a handful of neck fur and lifted the dog high.

“Bad dog! Bad!”

Mookie’s long, fluffy tail tucked between her legs and she started yelping.

“Oh, stop it, you damn baby. When I say you stay, you stay!”

Something smashed into the barn door. Sven’s hands flew to the shotgun. Mookie fell to the ground. Sven leveled the Mossberg at the door. Mookie scooted behind him.

Even over the wind, Sven smelled… burning fur?

Cow screams, heavy slams, breaking wood, and… another noise… a kind of growl? Something was in there with his cows. This wasn’t sickness at all, and there was no way in hell Sven could walk away from some predator feeding on his animals.

Already breathing hard from an adrenaline surge and a strange feeling of desperation, Sven kept his right hand on the shotgun, finger on the trigger, as his left hand grabbed the sliding door’s black handle. He pulled open the heavy door an inch, just enough to peek inside with one eye.

Smells billowed out: shit, animal fear, burnt fur… and the heavy scent of blood. Ninety panicked cows in a space built for fifty calm ones. They ran back and forth, as if they might find some way out, slamming into stalls, walls and one another. Blood streaked the walls, bales of hay, the cows themselves. Redness coated the floor in long slimy streaks and spotted hoofprints. Just in front of Sven’s boot, a long intestine snaked from one side of the barn to the other. Dirt and hay clung to its wet surface.

Sven moved his head side to side so he could look into the barn at different angles, try to locate the danger. He wasn’t going to fully open the door until he knew what he was dealing with. He craned his neck, trying to see past the shuffling mass of cattle. He caught glimpses of mangled cow corpses, so torn up their coats looked bright red with dark-red markings rather than black and white.

BAM

A cow slammed into the door and Sven jumped back. Fear tingling through his chest, he leaned and looked in. The cow crashed forward again: the wood shook as if it had been hit by a lightning bolt.

No ear tag… it was one of his.

Two other cows picked up on the first’s efforts, perhaps sensing a possible way out.

BAM-BAM-BAM

All three hit the door, almost five thousand combined pounds of desperate animal pummeling forward. Sven stood amazed as the first cow struck again, this time with such force that the skin between her eyes split from the middle of her nose up past her ears. Blood poured down her face, but instead of stopping kept hurling herself forward.

BAM

None of these three had ear tags. They were his cows. He had to get his herd out. They’d already seen a way to freedom—even if he shut the door, they’d kill themselves trying to get away from whatever the hell was in the barn. If he let them out, he could shoot the predator, then he and Mookie could round up the herd.

Sven set the shotgun against the door and put both hands on the cold, red-painted wood. The cows kept slamming against it, briefly jamming the roller wheels with each impact. He leaned back hard, digging in his heels, walking the door open with a herky-jerky motion. Each cow impact generated a thundering reverberation of rattling dry wood. The first cow, head bloody, scraps of skin dangling from her nose and face, pushed halfway through the door, shoulders wedging in the narrow opening. She pushed the bottom of the door outward, jamming tight the roller wheels on top. Sven pulled hard, but couldn’t budge it. The cows brayed in pure fight-or-flight panic.

Another cow head appeared above the first, thrusting forward, trying to crawl over, push through the narrow opening, sharp hooves driving down on the head below. Sven desperately leaned back with all his weight, but the door wouldn’t budge.

BAM-BAM, BAM

A rifle-shot sound of splintering wood. Sven looked up; the left roller wheel had almost ripped away from the door.

BAM-BAM, BAM

All the wheels tore free, spinning out into the snow like shrapnel. Ten feet high, eight feet wide and three inches thick, the door dropped like a drawbridge.

Sven almost made it clear.

The thick wood kicked up a huge cloud of swirling snow when it drove on the ground—and onto his left foot, just above the ankle. His fibula and tibia snapped like fresh carrots.

Eyes wide and white, froth covering their muzzles, the cows roared out like some powerful orgasm of terror. Each pounding step drove the door down onto Sven’s broken leg, pinning it, keeping him from pulling free. His screams joined the panicked cries of the stampeding herd.

Some of the cows stumbled and fell. Those behind them plowed forward, sometimes going around, sometimes stepping on the fallen. They spread out like a black and white and red gas, dissipating away from the barn, moving out across the snowdrifted field and into the swelling storm.

Sven lay in the snow, eyes twisted shut, teeth bared and mouth wide open in a silent scream of agony. He tried to pull his foot free, but each tiny motion ripped him with barbed-wire blasts. Swirling black spots clouded his vision. A fierce shake of his head cleared some of them away. Blood poured out of his boots, staining the snow in an expanding red slush.

Pain or no pain, he had to get free, even if he had to tear off his own leg to do so. The thing that butchered the cows was still inside. Fighting through the agony, he sat up and worked his fingers under the door. He only had to lift it a little…

His old, well-worked muscles bunched as he desperately tried to lift the three-hundred-pound door. The wood rose, just a fraction of an inch, but it was enough for him to redouble his efforts. It rose another half inch, then suddenly slammed down as if God himself had willed it.

Sven’s head snapped back in an involuntary scream. Tears streamed down his face, quickly freezing into glistening trails on his cheeks. He looked up.

A cow stood on the door.

It wasn’t braying or panicking, it had just walked a few feet onto the fallen door and stopped. Sven recognized the white head with the black eyepatch—Molly McButter.

“Move, goddamit! You fucking cow, move!”

She didn’t. Mookie rushed in, snapped at her feet, but she didn’t budge. Molly stood there, snow accumulating on her back, her head bent almost to the ground, glazed eyes staring at nothing, her heavy belly round and distended and hanging low.

Hanging low, and moving.

“Get off da door, you motherfucker! Get da fu—”

Sven’s epithet died in midsyllable: a long, thick stream of blood poured out of Molly McButter’s mouth to splash against the fallen barn door. The flow stopped briefly, just a few drops dribbling down, then it poured free again like crimson vomit. She turned her head to the side, weakly, as if it took some great effort, and looked right at Sven.

Mooooo

That mournful noise was the last Molly McButter ever made. As it faded out, another sound replaced it. The muffled snap of a single cracking rib.

Sven’s pain wasn’t forgotten, but now it seemed far away, an echo of its former intensity.

Another crack.

Molly’s ribs… moved.

A bloody paw ripped out of Molly, six-inch gore-covered claws tearing a huge hole in her belly. Blood and fluid poured forth in gallons, splashing against the barn door, spraying into Sven’s horror-stricken face.

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

Molly’s knees wobbled. Her eyes rolled back, leaving only half-lidded whites exposed. She fell hard to her side, driving the door even farther onto Sven’s nearly severed leg. Pain rolled through his head. A swarm of black bees filled his vision, threatening to take him into darkness.

A bark at his side brought back his focus. Mookie stood next to him, chest out, hackles raised impossibly high, teeth bared, the sound coming out of her mouth more a roar than a bark.

Molly’s belly, once swollen and distended, now sagged against her rib cage. The claw came forth again, tearing her from sternum to vagina. A bloody, slime-covered thing slid out.

Sven’s vision blurred from tears and from pain. Unconsciousness threatened to pull him under. He snarled and dug his fingers under the door—he had to lift, lift or die. Sven threw all his strength into it, until the wood dug into his flesh, until his finger bones started to crack from the strain. The door didn’t budge. His muscles weakened, only slightly, and in that moment he knew there was no escape.

Through a haze of semiconsciousness, in the snow-streaked glare of his barn’s light, Sven saw the creature lift its blood-smeared head. A big, triangular head, too big for the body. Beneath the red-blood slime, it had fur like a cow… a white head, with a black patch surrounding the left eye.

Eyelids opened, blinked, and the thing looked right at Sven. He fell back into the snow, the black bees in his vision now big as sparrows, flying about his head, blocking out everything. With his last ounce of energy, he lifted himself up on one shoulder. He looked for the shotgun—but it was somewhere under the door. The sparrow spots grew to the size of fat crows.

Movement from the barn. Through a waving haze, he saw three creatures step out, one after another. These were also covered with blood, mostly dry except for their mouths and claws, which were lacquered in wet red. Black and white and red. They moved clumsily, each step a new discovery.

One of them opened its big mouth and bit down on Molly’s rear leg. The thing shook its head like Mookie shaking a chew toy. Bones cracked, blood splattered, and with a snap the lower half of the leg came free. A lift of the head, a few more crunches, and the leg was gone. The other two started tearing into Molly, ripping free huge chunks.

Molly’s mucus-covered eyes were still blinking.

The one that had come out of her belly, though, didn’t tear into the still-living cow. It stood on wobbly legs and staggered toward Sven.

Then Mookie attacked it, snarling with lip-curled fury as her white teeth locked down on the creature’s big head. The dog jerked and twisted, ripped her mouth away, taking the creature’s right ear along with it.

A flash of claws. Mookie’s guttural growl instantly changed to a yelp, a real yelp, not the fake show she put on when Sven had tried to discipline her. Mookie was knocked away somewhere to the right. Sven didn’t see where she landed, because through his spotty vision he saw the creature coming toward him.

Black eyes, locked on his.

Mouth, opening… teeth, blazing.

Hot breath in his face, breath like a puppy’s. Sven’s brain filled with a wonderful memory, of a tiny ball of warm black fur that fit in one hand, a tiny pink tongue kissing his cheek.

Then something stung his neck, a dozen poking knives.

The crows turned into giant buzzards that blocked out all light.

Then nothing.

DECEMBER 2, 6:02 A.M.

TED NUGENT ROLLED to a stop in front of the big stone church. The dying storm drove snow off the black stone walls in every direction—down, sideways, even up. Sara, Tim and Clayton hopped out and walked to the door. Sara watched Clayton pull off his mittens and search his oversized key ring.

The church’s black walls looked fortress-solid. If there was any place on the island she could hold out and wait for help, this was it.

Clayton found the key. The twelve-foot-high door opened with a gothic screech. Sara and Tim followed Clayton inside, then shut the door, blocking out the wind. Snow that had blown into the church gently dropped to the floor.

Sara stared up at the wooden beams of the thirty-foot cathedral ceiling. The wood was a warm brown in some places where bits of varnish remained, but blackish gray most everywhere else. Early-morning light filtered through stained-glass windows depicting scenes of the Twelve Apostles. Most of the pews remained, although all were rotting to some degree. Two or three had broken bases, resting with one end on the ground.

A choir balcony hovered above the tall front door. The loft ran along both the church walls and underneath the stained-glass Apostles. At the back of the church, a granite, three-step altar stuck out from the wall like a stage. At the back of that stage stood a twenty-foot-high cross. At the front, a rotted, ornate wooden podium. The whole building smelled of a cold, musty, wet-stone dampness.

Sara pointed to the choir loft. “How do we get up there?”

“Stairs are behind da altar, off to da right,” Clayton said. “Narrow, but solid. And before you ask, you get to da bell tower from da loft.”

“Magnus come here?” Tim said. “This his spot to tear the wings off baby birds? Maybe skin squirrels alive?”

“I’m da only one with a key to this place. As long as Sven keeps his mouth shut, no one will come looking. Only action here was about forty years ago, when me and Elvis came in after hours and knocked back a pitcher of screwdrivers with Ann-Margret, but now’s not da time for stories.”

Sara looked up at the stained-glass St. Andrew. The left side of his face had fallen out at some point. Bits of snow blew in through his open cheek. “So what now?”

Clayton scratched his gray stubble. “Well, I’ve got to use da secure terminal to call my son, see when he can get da boat out here.”

“Clayton,” Sara said, “won’t Magnus be watching that secure terminal?”

He thought for a moment, staring at a dusty, stained-glass image of St. Paul, then nodded. “Yeah, maybe he will. But we don’t have a choice.”

Clayton was risking his life for them. If Magnus had murdered irreplaceable scientific talent, it certainly wouldn’t bother him to kill a janitor with digestive issues.

Clayton slipped out the front door and quickly returned, arms loaded with blankets, a flashlight, a plastic case and a kerosene heater.

“There’s a preparatory room to da altar’s left. It’s small, so that’s where I’d put da heater. Knock a hole in da ceiling so da fumes can vent. No windows there, so no one will see da light. There’s some food in this case. Keep warm—it’s going to get cold tonight.”

Sara took the heater and the blankets. “When are you making the call?”

Clayton thought and scratched at his ear. “I have to make sure no one sees me. I also can’t just stop doing my work, or Magnus might get suspicious, eh? I’ll fix da phone line breaks on da south side of the island, keep checking in and see when I can be alone in da security room.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “But how long, man?”

“Put a sock in it, boy,” Clayton said. “I will get you off da island. Once I make da call, it’s three hours for Gary to get here. You two just stay out of sight.”

Clayton handed Tim the rest of the gear, then walked out and shut the creaking doors behind him. Sara and Tim gathered up the blankets, the case and the heater and walked toward the altar.

Tim stopped at the altar and knelt, head dipped in a silent prayer.

“Never figured you for the praying type,” Sara said.

“I’ll take whatever I can get right now,” Tim said. “That includes voodoo. Got a chicken I can sacrifice?”

Sara shook her head.

“Well, then this will have to do.”

Sara didn’t mind waiting for him to finish.

DECEMBER 2, 8:23 A.M.

JAMES HARVEY SLID on his thick Otto Lodge parka. Happily whistling “Cowboy” by Kid Rock, he laced up his snowshoes and started toward the barn. Storm or no storm, there was work to be done.

The morning sun blazed through the blowing snow and reflected brilliantly off long white fields. He guessed another ten inches had fallen during the night. Knowing Clayton, the trails and roads would already be groomed. As soon as he finished the morning’s chores, he and Stephanie could take their sleds for a spin or two around the island.

He started the twenty-five-yard trudge to the barn, but stopped when he heard the whine of a dog. He followed the sound around the corner of his house to find Mookie, Sven’s dog, cowering and shivering.

“Good God, Mookie… what happened to you?”

The poor girl’s left shoulder was torn open, bloody and exposed. She held her left paw in the air, as if it hurt to put any weight on it. A long gash on her forehead oozed blood. Snow clumped in her fur, icy bits hung from her whiskers. Mookie limp-hopped to James and leaned her weight against the man. Her whines increased.

James gently brushed the snow off Mookie’s face. “Take it easy, girl. It’s okay now.”

In answer, a low, evil growl burbled forth from Mookie’s closed mouth. James pulled his hand back: the dog might be rabid.

Then he realized that Mookie wasn’t growling at him. She was growling at something out in the pasture. He stared out across the blazing snow, saw something black and white and red. No, the something was black and white; the snow was red.

Red with blood.

A dead cow. Was it one of his? Could a wolf have swum over from the mainland? Attacked and wounded a cow, then left? James raised his hand to block the snow’s morning-sun glare. Maybe it wasn’t dead—the prone cow moved a little with an unnatural, herky-jerky motion.

A head popped up from behind the big body. James couldn’t make out much other than some black-and-white fur, marred by the bright red of the cow’s fresh blood. Hard to tell from this distance, but the head looked… strange.

“What da hell is that thing?” he mumbled, squinting his eyes tighter. Didn’t look like a wolf. Had that thing also torn up Mookie?

The cow’s carcass blocked any view of the second creature’s body. All James could see was the wolf’s big, oddly shaped head.

Then the wolf raised its fin.

James blinked a few times, his brain trying to register what his eyes saw. A fin, rising out of the head. The wolf turned slightly, giving James a flash of bright-yellow skin streaked with reddish orange.

That’s no wolf. And that sure as FUCK ain’t no cow.

James turned and walked slowly toward the house, keeping an eye on the creature the whole way. The thing stayed behind the downed cow. Just as James watched it, it watched James. The fin lowered, raised, then lowered again.

What the hell is that thing?

He looked for Mookie, but the dog was nowhere to be seen. James reached the house and walked inside, shutting the door before kneeling to take off his snowshoes. Through his living room window, he could still see the thing in the field. It remained behind the cow, staring back.

Stephanie stood there looking at James, her hair in curlers, a white terry-cloth robe around her and a steaming mug of coffee held in each hand. Her expression was half confusion, half amusement.

“Hey hon weather looks great outside I bet da wind is dying down I made you some coffee maybe after you finish with da cows we can go for a walk in da woods and—”

“Get my Remington.”

Her half-smile faded. For once, she didn’t say anything. She set the coffee cups down, turned and ran into the den.

James tossed the snowshoes away, scrambled to his feet and followed his wife. She met him at the den door, handed him his Remington Model 870 shotgun and a box of shells.

“James, what’s happening?”

A sentence with just three words. For Steph, that had to be a record. “Something out there brought down a cow.” He quickly pumped shells into the weapon.

“What is it then a wolf ’cause there ain’t no wolves on da island anymore we haven’t seen one ever.”

“This ain’t no wolf. Call da lodge.”

Stephanie moved to the end table and picked up the handset. She looked at James, fear in her eyes. “It’s still out.”

“Fucking Clayton.”

Stephanie’s scream nearly made him shit his pants. She stared out the living room window. James turned to look and caught a glimpse of the creature he’d seen in the field—huge, all-white triangular head, bloody mouth full of long, pointed teeth, narrow black eyes and that strange fin sticking straight up in the air. Only a glimpse, because he instantly shouldered the shotgun and fired.

The window shattered outward. The creature’s head snapped back. It fell like a sack of potatoes, a misty cloud of red settling down on the snow around it. Wind blew the curtains inward, accompanied by bits of snow and a blast of frigid air.

James pumped a shell into the chamber, then strode forward.

“James, don’t!”

Just two words. Apparently Stephanie found brevity only in danger. He kept the gun shouldered and ducked past the flapping curtains to look out the window, squinting his eyes against the wind. Blood poured from the thing’s head, staining the snow, bright crimson on bright white. Despite a hamburger-red hole in its head, the creature struggled to rise. James leaned out the window, aimed carefully, and fired again from only three feet away.

The creature fell, limp and lifeless.

He cocked another shell into the chamber and peered out at the dead animal. He’d never seen anything like it. Long front arms ended in large paws tipped with wicked claws. Black-and-white fur, just like the Holsteins out in his barn. The thick creature had to weigh at least 350 pounds. Looked kind of like a cowhide-covered cross between an orangutan and an alligator. To have looked in the living room window like that, it would have had to stand on its hind legs and lean those big, clawed paws on the sill.

“James honey I’m scared like crazy and it’s freezing in here we gotta close that up right now.” Stephanie shivered, her terry-cloth-covered arms wrapped tight around her shoulders.

A subzero gust rolled through the window and caught the table lamp’s shade like a sea wind filling a sail. The lamp tumbled to the ground, the bulb breaking on impact. The curtains billowed up around his face. James brushed them aside and rested the Remington against the window-sill.

“Come to da basement with me and help me get a piece of plywood.”

Stephanie followed him downstairs. “Honey,” she said, “I ain’t never seen anything like that just what da hell was that thing?”

He heard the fear in her voice and realized just how protected their life on the island had been until five minutes ago. No crime, no threats from animals, no danger at all as long as you respected the power of nature and winter.

“I don’t know what it was, Steph.”

James pulled the piece of plywood from the stack, carefully handing Stephanie one end so as not to give her a splinter.

They heard another crash from upstairs—the wind had knocked something else over. They needed to get that window boarded up fast before a half inch of snow covered the living room carpet.

They brought the plywood upstairs. James walked backwards, guiding them toward the window, but stopped when he heard the muffled crunch of glass beneath his feet. He looked down to see a few pieces of glass lying on the living room carpet.

But the glass would have been blown outward…

A sudden blast of cancerous realization hit him hard. He dropped the plywood and turned.

In the broken window, the huge head of a second creature, this one with a white head and a black patch on the left eye. A mass of pink scar tissue sat where its left ear should have been. It was just a few feet away, so close James felt the heat of its breath.

Smelled like puppy breath.

James kicked out hard. The thing started to snap, but moved a split second too late. James’s boot smashed against its mouth, knocking the head back, out of the window.

James reached for his shotgun.

But his shotgun wasn’t there.

He stopped short, knowing damn well he’d left the gun there, wondering where else it could be, then Stephanie started screaming again. Not a scream of terror this time, but a scream of pain, the pain of long, narrow teeth puncturing through terry cloth and into soft skin.

James had one brief moment to realize that there were more of the creatures, inside the house. The spotted one scrambled through the window with a speedy urgency, big mouth opening wide, long claws reaching out. James reached for the fallen lamp.

He grabbed it and managed one swing before he went down under the weight of two creatures.

DECEMBER 2, 3:45 P.M.

ANDY MOVED HIS king back to king-2. He was on the ropes, unable to keep up with Magnus’s methodical attack. The game was already over, but they played it out anyway. Not like there was anything else to do on this fucking island other than choke the chicken, which Andy had already done twice that day. Juggs magazine this time. His Gallery collection was getting a little old.

They sat in the lounge, Magnus on his leather chair, Andy on a couch, the chess set laid out on a coffee table. Whisky glasses sat on either side of the board, one for Magnus (with ice) and one for Andy (without ice, the way that shit was meant to be). The bottle of Yukon Jack was just under half empty. Andy’s buzz made him wonder if he could fall over while still sitting down.

Magnus reached out, his thick right hand hovering indecisively over the pieces.

Andy let out a disgusted sigh. “Come on, Mags, it’s boring enough without you pretending you don’t know exactly what piece to move.”

“The play’s the thing, Andy.”

“What is that? Another one of those quote-thingees that’s supposed to teach me something about life?”

Magnus smiled. “You already know the important stuff, like how to shoot straight. The rest of it? All philosophical bullshit, really.”

Magnus moved his queen to king-3, right on top of Andy’s king. Andy couldn’t take the queen without putting himself in check thanks to Magnus’s rook, which sat on queen’s-bishop-3.

“I’ve never liked you,” Andy said. It pissed him off to no end that he couldn’t beat Magnus. Ever. “Chess is for faggots, anyway. So what now, Mags?”

“Looks like you lose again.”

“I meant with the whole plane and everything.”

“Oh, that what now.”

Andy nodded. Sometimes Magnus told him what was going on, sometimes not. All full up with Puke-Jack, maybe he’d let out some secrets.

“Now it’s a waiting game,” Magnus said. “We declare the C-5 missing. There will be a search, but nothing will be found.”

“Without a flight plan? Crash report, anything like that?”

“They know we have a C-5,” Magnus said. “Colding ordered it to take off over the big water, and we haven’t heard from it since.”

Maybe it was the buzz, but Andy couldn’t put all the pieces together. “Colding ordered it?”

Magnus nodded.

“But what about Fischer? He’s got a real hard-on for you and Danté.”

“The research is gone,” Magnus said. “That’s what the governments really wanted. They don’t care about Fischer’s hard-on for us. Once we fire up the lawyers, make a stink, the governments tell Fischer to back off, and that’s that.”

“Huh. Is it really that easy?”

Magnus picked up his glass and took a big swallow. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

We’ll find out. Magnus knew how to plan ahead, how to put pieces in play when others thought he was just standing still. That brand of thinking had kept Andy alive at least a half-dozen times, and in situations far more severe than this. A lot of people had died under Magnus’s command, but a lot more had survived when the situation dictated they had no right to do so.

“What about Jian’s body?”

“It will be found.”

“By who?”

“By us.”

“Wait a minute. Then why did you have Colding bury her?”

“So we could dig her up. Part of her, anyway. We leave enough buried so that Fischer’s cronies find Colding’s DNA all over her. Hair, skin, fingerprints, shit like that.”

Andy shook his head. Magnus was just amazing. “So Colding gets fingered for Jian’s murder?”

Magnus nodded.

“And we found the body?”

“That’s right.”

“And we knew Colding killed her… how?”

Magnus sighed. “Because of his deathbed confession. Which came right after we shot him in self-defense.”

Andy moved his king to queen-1. “And Colding attacked us… why?”

“You and I were in Manitoba. We’d lost contact with everyone on the island. Clayton, Sven, the Harveys, the scientists. Bobby flew us out here to see what was going on. We discovered Colding had sabotaged the C-5, then killed everyone else after it flew off. He had to make sure there were no witnesses, you see. When we confronted him, he tried to murder us as well.”

“Wow,” Andy said. “That Colding is a regular psycho.”

“Sad, but true.”

“Just so I’m tracking here… Colding did all of this… how come?”

“Because you were fucking Sara.”

“I was?”

“You were.”

“Sweet. Would love to pound on that vaj.”

“Jian found out you were doing Colding’s girlfriend,” Magnus said. “So, like a good friend, she told Colding. Bubbah snapped, killed Jian on the spot. Turns out the boy has a history of losing his temper. He wanted Sara dead, so he sent the C-5 up, put a bomb in it. Then he tried to cover his tracks. Killed everyone. Bobby brings us out here, routine shit, Colding tries to kill us.”

“’Cause he’s psycho.”

“Exactly. But we defend ourselves. As he’s dying, he tells us the whole story, including where he buried Jian.”

“What a shame,” Andy said. “The whole project, wiped out. The only people left are you, me and Gunther.”

“Lucky for Gunther he was pulling extended duty up on the fire watchtower. Phone lines were down as well. Crazy how it happens like that. Gunther manned his post like a good soldier, had no idea any of this was going on.”

“Will Gun play along with that?”

“Considering his options if he doesn’t, yeah, I think he’ll play along.”

Andy nodded. Gunther was no dummy. “All of this human tragedy, this loss of life makes me sad. Exactly when did Colding snap and kill everyone left on the island?”

“Tomorrow,” Magnus said. “You don’t mind doing some wet work for me tomorrow, do you?”

“Does a dog mind licking his own balls? I’ll get things done. But what does Danté think of all this?”

“Sometimes my brother needs people like us to help him, even if he never knew he needed that help in the first place.”

Magnus moved his rook to queen’s-bishop-1. Checkmate.

Andy shook his head. “Did I mention I never liked you?”

“You did. Just be grateful that I like you. At least, more than I like Colding.”

Magnus refilled his tumbler with Yukon Jack, and Andy set the pieces up for another game.

DECEMBER 2, 7:10 P.M.

CLAYTON COULDN’T PUT it off any longer. He had to take his chances. He’d dragged out fixing the phone line breaks, hoping Magnus and Andy would hit the trails for a snowmobile run. No such luck. They weren’t leaving the mansion, so he had to figure out how to work around them.

He rolled his mop bucket into the lounge. Magnus sat in his leather chair that faced the big picture window. Andy the Asshole was relaxing in a neighboring chair. A chessboard sat on the table between them.

“Hey, Clayton,” Andy said. “Get in here and clean up this pigsty, will ya?”

Clayton looked around the lounge. Dirty plates were everywhere, as were empty beer cans and two empty bottles of Yukon Jack. The jerks hadn’t bothered to pick up one damn thing all day. They’d just tossed their trash around as if this were some flophouse.

“You boys even bother to get up to hit da crapper? Or did you just fling your poo around like da fucking gorillas you are?”

Andy raised his whisky glass. “Maybe that can be arranged.”

“Maybe you can kiss my ass, you little freak.”

“The place is a bit dirty,” Magnus said. “You sick or something, old man?”

Clayton snorted, his fear forgotten in a brief burst of anger. “I’ve been freezing my nuts off all goddam day, and I come back to this. I think I’ll clean up da rest of da place first so you two rump rangers can sit in your own stink for a bit more.”

Magnus slowly turned in his chair to look back at Clayton. “I think you’re getting old,” he said. “Might have to get someone out here to replace you.”

“You wanna fire me, fire me. Until then, I got work to do. I’ll start in da security room.” Clayton rolled the mop bucket out of the lounge and headed straight for the stairs. Maybe they’d keep playing that chess game, keep drinking. He had to take a shot now, when he knew exactly where those two were.

He carried the heavy mop bucket down to the bottom of the back stairs. Once there, he rolled it to the security room and opened the door. Gunther was sitting in the swivel chair, feet up on the counter, eyes closed in a catnap. The eyes fluttered open when Clayton walked in.

Gunther sat up quickly, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. When he saw Clayton, he smiled, a smile that quickly turned into a yawn.

“Shit, Clayton, you scared me. I thought you were Magnus.”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s up in da lounge getting hammered with Andy. Hey, I finished Hot Midnight. Best of all da three books.” Gunther smiled. “You finished it already?”

“Yah. I liked it. Your main character chick reminded me of Liz Taylor. Liz was a hot one, let me tell you. Liked da backdoor action.”

Gunther laughed and shook his head. “Whatever, Clayton. But thanks for reading my book.”

“No problem. You’ll have da common decency, of course, to not mention to anyone I’m reading a vampire romance novel?”

“Of course.”

“You got talent,” Clayton said. “More than those fuck-stains you call your friends.” He lifted his head to the ceiling, indicating the lounge.

Gunther rubbed his eyes. “Those aren’t my friends, Clayton. I served with them, but this is just a job. Man, I’m beat. Been doing sixteen hours a day.”

“What, down here?”

“Magnus has me and Colding taking ten-hour shifts up on the fire watchtower, eyeballing for anyone flying in. Andy only has to do four hours at a time, the damn brownnoser.”

“Is that right. So, Colding’s up in da tower right now?”

Gunther nodded. “Yeah, probably freezing his ass off. Nothing quite like being thirty feet off the ground in a tin shack in the dead of winter.”

“Why is Magnus making you guys do that?”

Gunther shrugged. “He thinks Danté might arrive at any second, wants to make sure we talk him in.” Another huge yawn opened Gunther’s mouth.

“Jeez, author-man. Go grab some coffee from da kitchen. Magnus will never know you’re gone. I’ll keep an eye on da screens for you, eh?”

“Yeah, coffee would be great. You sure you know how to work this stuff?”

“Who da hell do you think used it before you all got here?”

Gunther smiled, stretched, then stood and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Clayton sat at the desk and moved the mouse. On the screen, the spinning Genada logo disappeared, replaced by the desktop’s blue background and a log-in window. Clayton typed in his user name and password.

The computer let out a sudden beep. The words INVALID PASSWORD flashed on the screen. He closed the window and accessed the administration program. Clayton loved Black Manitou, but never for a moment forgot that if something went wrong his son was his only reliable connection to the outside world. Because of that, Clayton made sure he fully understood the secure terminal and the jammer controls—everything that had anything to do with communications on the island.

“I’m not as old and dumb as I look, you big bald fuck.”

Clayton had long ago used the admin program to make himself a superuser, able to override any password protection. He logged in with the password 0-0-0-1, his fancy password, and the system came to life. He kept an eye on the security screens: Gunther was walking to the kitchen, Andy and Magnus were still hard at whisky-fueled chess.

Now or never. He clicked the icon marked Houghton and waited.

“Come on,” Clayton whispered. “Be home, son, please be home.”

After an agonizing ten seconds that seemed a silent eternity, the screen flashed once, then showed Gary’s face.

“Dad? What’s up?”

“I need you here right away.”

“The weather’s bad, Pops. I don’t dare take the boat out now.”

“Magnus blew up da plane. He’s killing people.”

Gary blinked a few times. “This better not be another one of your tall tales, Dad.”

Clayton shook his head. “Most of da crew is dead. Sara and Tim made it out. He finds them, they’re dead, too.”

Gary’s eyes narrowed and his jaw muscles twitched.

“Tell me what to do, Dad.”

Clayton felt a sudden swell of pride. Gary didn’t look like a little boy anymore, or like a stoner—Clayton’s son suddenly looked like a man.

“I hid them in da church,” Clayton said. “Come in quiet with no lights, get them, take them back to da mainland.”

“Will you be with them? I gotta get you out of there.”

“Never mind about me, eh? I’ve got to watch out for some other people. Get Sara and Tim off da island, and I’m not going to listen to another word about it, you understand?”

Gary nodded. “Should I call the cops?”

Clayton scratched his beard. “Not yet. Do it when you get them two back. If da local cops show up, even if da fuckin’ army shows up, Magnus could do anything.”

Gary took a deep breath, then let it out slow. “Okay, here’s the deal. I can’t come tonight; that’s just plain suicide. Storms are tearing the lake up. We’re talking ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ weather out there. It’s supposed to die down a little tomorrow, not much, but I’ll risk it. I’ll time it to arrive just after dark. Can you wait that long?”

Gary knew boating, knew the weather. There was a limit to how much risk Clayton expected out of his son. “Yeah, that’ll have to do. Be careful. Magnus has da jammer on full-time, so you won’t be able to radio in, and I won’t be able to warn you if someone is waiting for you. It could be dangerous.”

“Dangerous? You really think so?”

“I think you’re a smart-ass.”

“Your face is a smart-ass.”

The kid was making jokes, jokes for Clayton’s sake. Gary was the one acting like a parent, trying to ease a child’s fear.

“It’s okay, Gary. I’ve been through worse. When you get to da church, give two flashes with a flashlight. I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Clayton broke the connection and logged out. Seconds later he was mopping away. He had the floor half done by the time Gunther walked back into the room, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.

DECEMBER 3, 6:05 A.M.

A SHADOWY FIGURE slipped out of the shed behind Sven Ballantine’s barn. The shed’s heat had saved his life, but he couldn’t stay there forever. He walked toward the house, limping, every step painful from the burns, the bruises and the frostbite.

He hadn’t eaten in days. His wounds needed proper care. They’d be infected soon, if they weren’t already.

And those… things. He’d seen them bring down a cow, tear it to pieces.

Besides, surely Magnus didn’t want him dead. That made no sense, so it simply could not be true. He had to get back to the mansion, where they had all those guns.

He passed the front of the barn. It gaped open. He saw no movement. Carefully, quietly, he looked inside. Filled with snowdrifts, but other than that, nothing.

Well, almost nothing. No cows, no people, nothing but scattered hay, broken stalls… and piles of feces everywhere he looked. He picked up one of the frozen piles and examined the stool.

What he saw almost made him cry.

He left the barn and limped toward the house, looking everywhere for any sign of movement.

DECEMBER 3, 6:34 A.M.

“REMEMBER, GARY WILL give two flashes,” Clayton told Sara. “You answer with two. Anything else, and you lay low. It will be cold, but you need to stay in da bell tower and watch for him.”

She nodded. So much sadness in that girl’s eyes. Clayton wondered what it felt like to lose all your friends in one shot. He’d lost most of his, and two wives, and a daughter, but gradually over many years. Sven was his only friend left alive.

Sara put her hand on his shoulder. “We can’t thank you enough.”

Clayton started to say don’t worry about it, but she grabbed his face and gave him a fast kiss, then threw her arms around him and squeezed. Clayton stood dumb for a moment, then returned her hug. She let go and wiped away a tear.

He locked the church door behind himself. No one would miss the heater, kerosene or supplies he’d stolen for Sara. Still, this was all crazy risky. He’d left footprints in the snow, but that couldn’t be avoided. He could only hope that anyone shooting by on a snowmobile wouldn’t stop to look around.

Clayton breathed a sigh of relief when he finally climbed into Ted Nugent’s heated cab. He put the motor in gear and moved down the trail. He’d finish grooming the road and trails, just to keep up appearances. He passed James and Stephanie’s place. Had they been up and on their porch, Clayton could have waved. But he saw no motion at the Harveys’ house. Apparently, early morning on this freezing island was a time only for old fools.

The Bv’s heavy sled dragged across the six inches of fresh snow, compacting it into a perfectly groomed surface. Clayton turned on the CD player. Some old Bob Seger would be just the thing.

He turned northeast, which would take him within sight of Rapleje Bay. Just southwest of Rapleje Bay, the Harveys’ phone line connected to the main line. Clayton checked the latest repair map and drove to the break.

A fallen tree leaned against one of the phone poles. Both ends of the line were still connected, which meant a crack in the line—an easy, quick fix.

Clayton got out of the Bv and pulled a chain saw out of the back section. Poulan, the only kind he’d buy and use. He expertly cut the tree so it fell off the phone line. He climbed into the aerial lift bucket and raised himself to the break. The vantage gave him a clear view of Rapleje Bay. At first he didn’t notice anything. Then his eyes caught a few strange, snow-covered bumps out on the ice, some marked with high, curling drifts. Wreckage. Had he just been sightseeing, however, he might have missed the bumps entirely, or at least dismissed them as chunks of ice. Even if Magnus did drive by he probably wouldn’t notice. Just a few more hours, hopefully, and Gary would get Sara and Tim off the island.

Clayton turned his attention to fixing the landline, unaware of the hungry eyes that followed his every move.

THREE ANCESTORS REACHED the edge of the trail. Their bellies were full. They felt sleepy. But the food was almost gone—they had to find more.

A noisy thing had drawn them, pulling them through the woods with the promise of new prey. They stared at it, a new shape that made a steady sound much like a low, angry growl. It smelled like the stick that killed. But it also smelled like food.

Two of them started to move forward, but Baby McButter flicked her sail fin up and down fast, telling them to stop. This thing smelled too much like the stick. Her two brothers backed up and lowered themselves into the snow so that only their eyes peeked out above the white surface.

Movement, up high, on top of a skinny tree. That was prey, that was food. The skinny tree bent in on itself, lowering the prey back down to the noisy thing. Then the prey climbed inside the noisy thing. The noisy thing started running away.

Baby McButter flipped her dorsal fin high and held it there, signaling them all to move in.

Thick arms plowed through deep snow as they closed the distance. The noisy thing started out slow, but then picked up speed. Baby McButter roared in anger and ran faster, but the noisy thing had heard them and was escaping.

She slowed to a trot, then stopped. Her belly was too full. She couldn’t run fast enough. As she watched the noisy thing fade away, she understood why it could move so quickly. No trees here, just a long, wide-open space that led deeper into the woods. The noisy thing liked the wide-open space.

To Baby McButter’s right, one of her brothers let out a low, mournful moan. No food. Soon they would be hungry, and hunger was the worst sensation any of them had ever experienced.

They sat down and waited. Prey had come this way. Prey would come again.

DECEMBER 3, 8:15 A.M.

SARA CARRIED A blanket. She stayed behind Tim, letting him take his time going up the narrow stairs. The crutch helped him walk, but his knee was still pretty messed up.

“This is stupid,” he said. “I should just stay in the preparatory room.”

Did this guy ever stop bitching? “Just climb. You have to take shifts up on the bell tower, Tim. Sooner or later I have to sleep.”

Tim sighed and continued up the stairs that led from the back of the altar up to the choir loft. The walls were barely wider than his narrow shoulders. Sara wondered how small people were back when the church had been built… what… two centuries ago?

Tim made it to the choir loft. “Now what?”

Sara pointed down the loft to a ladder near the church’s front wall. “Right there. Figure out how to climb it, I’m not going to carry you.”

“Just because you kept me alive doesn’t mean you’re not a surly bitch. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

“Just get up there.”

Tim crutch-walked to the ladder. The choir loft was made from the same black stone as the church’s walls, but with an ornate wooden railing. She looked over that rail down on the dilapidated church proper below. The place must have been beautiful once.

Tim managed the climb up the twenty-foot wrought-iron ladder. He made way more noise than necessary, taking great pains to show Sara just how difficult it was for him.

She slung the blanket over her shoulder and followed him up, going out the trapdoor. The turret was about ten feet in diameter, ringed by four stone pillars rising up from a waist-high stone wall to support the witch’s-hat roof. Sara shivered as wind cut through the open turret—this was probably the coldest place on the island.

Tactically, though, they couldn’t possibly do any better. She could see the entire town and even down the trail that led to the harbor. Thick stone walls would stop small-arms fire. Fate had put her in the most defensible spot on Black Manitou.

Except, of course, if Magnus decided to use the Stinger.

“Okay,” Tim said. “Mission accomplished. Now can I go back down? I’m freezing.”

She tossed him the blanket. “Nope. As of right now, you’re on the clock. Gary won’t come until tonight, but we have to keep an eye out for anyone approaching our position. Get comfy and keep watch. I’ll relieve you in four hours.”

“Come on, Sara. I’ll freeze up here, and I need a drink.”

A vision of Tim trying to get the syringe needle into the vial flashed in her head. Had he given the cow the right dosage? Had a drunken mistake cost the lives of Cappy, Alonzo and Miller?

“You’ve had enough to drink,” Sara said. “You pull your own weight, Feely, or else.”

He started to complain, but she ignored him and went back down.

DECEMBER 3, 9:30 P.M.

“MOTHER DUCK-FUCKIN’ MOTHERFUCKER,” Andy said, then gently set the phone back in the cradle. This was turning into a crusty-turded shitstorm, and fast. How the hell was it even possible?

He sprinted out of the security room, up the stairs and into the lounge. Magnus sat there, fresh bottle of Yukon Jack in hand, staring blankly out the picture window at the blustery winter night.

“Magnus, we’ve got a big problem. Rhumkorrf just called in.”

Magnus turned sharply in his chair. Andy took an unconscious step back.

“If you’re bullshitting me, Crosthwaite, I’ll give you a million dollars right now.”

Andy shook his head. “No bullshit. He called from Sven’s place.”

Magnus stared for a second, then turned to once again face the window. He took a long swig of whisky, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Andy shuffled from foot to foot, waiting for orders.

Magnus finally stood. He capped the bottle and set it on a table. “Have you seen Clayton?”

Andy shook his head. “Not lately.”

“Who’s in the watchtower?”

“Gunther,” Andy said. “Colding is probably sleeping in his room.”

“Go get Colding. Tell him Rhumkorrf called in. You don’t know what’s going on, because Rhumkorrf is supposed to be on the plane. Both of you go to Sven’s house. Before you get there, kill Colding.”

Fuck yes. Fuck yes. “No problem,” Andy said. “And then what?”

“You take Colding’s Beretta. You kill Rhumkorrf. You kill Sven. When you come back down the trail, you kill James and Stephanie Harvey.”

The woman. Hell yeah. He could save her for last, take his time.

Andy felt an iron hand on his neck before he even saw Magnus move. Fuck, but that guy was fast. Andy stayed calm and stood very, very still as his boss leaned in so close Andy could smell Yukon Jack breath.

“We’re in a bit of a pickle here, Andy. All the evidence has to point toward Colding. So if you go dipping your wick in Stephanie Harvey, that will leave evidence that is not from Colding. I’ll make this so clear even a twisted pervert like you gets it. You shoot her, you don’t touch her. Do you understand? Blink once for no, twice for yes.”

Andy blinked twice.

“If Rhumkorrf lived, we assume the others did, too. They have to be hiding somewhere. So do the only thing you’re good at—kill everyone you see. This is a good strategy, Andy. If you agree, blink twice. If you disagree, blink once, but if you blink once, I’m going to crush your windpipe, then sit here and sip whisky while you lie on the floor and slowly suffocate.”

Andy blinked twice.

Magnus let him go. Andy felt oxygen flood into his lungs. He blinked twice more, just to be sure he’d got the message across.

“Now move,” Magnus said.

Andy ran for the door, headed for Colding’s room.

DECEMBER 3, 9:41 P.M.

TEN MINUTES AFTER Rhumkorrf’s call, P. J. Colding held his snowmobile throttle wide open. Andy was on a sled right behind him, the two of them shooting down Clayton’s groomed trails. Headlights played off trees that whipped by as blurs of green and brown and white.

Colding’s mind raced even faster than the snowmobile. How could Rhumkorrf be back? Colding had watched the plane take off. Nothing had landed since then. Had the C-5 crashed?

If Rhumkorrf survived, chances were Sara had as well. But if she had, why hadn’t she contacted him?

Because she didn’t trust him.

That was the only thing that made sense. Andy or Magnus had sabotaged the C-5 somehow, and Sara had crashed it on Black Manitou. Not landed, but crashed, as the landing strip was the only place to safely bring down a plane that big. Colding had sent her up. If Sara had survived, she’d think he had betrayed her right alongside Magnus and Andy.

He had to find her. Explain things. But more important, he had to save her from Magnus, which dictated only one sickening course of action—killing Andy Crosthwaite. First Andy, then Magnus.

Colding wondered if he’d be able to pull the trigger. No, that was the type of comment someone might mumble in a badly written movie. He could do it. He would do it.

He wanted to get as far away as possible from the mansion and Magnus before making his move. Maybe Rhumkorrf could provide enough of a distraction to let Colding slip behind Andy unseen. Andy was a trained killer—Colding knew he’d only get one shot.

He had to make it count.

DECEMBER 3, 9:45 P.M.

MAGNUS GUNNED HIS Arctic Cat down the main road. The snowpacked road’s perfect condition was a bit ironic, considering Clayton had groomed it, yet Magnus was heading to Clayton’s house because the man had seemingly slacked in his duties.

Clayton Detweiler had always been the poster boy of the blue-collar work ethic. Maybe he looked like he’d slept in mustard and didn’t know that razors even existed, but the mansion was always clean and all the phone lines worked—everything seemed to just be taken care of as if by some invisible hand.

But for the last two days, Magnus had barely seen Clayton. Not around the mansion, not around the hangar. The roads and trails were groomed, but how much time could that require? Phone line repairs had also taken far longer than normal. Most significantly, the mansion looked dirty. Nothing big, a few papers here and there, but that wasn’t normal.

All of it meant that the old man’s attention was focused elsewhere. After Rhumkorrf’s call, Magnus had a good idea why.

Magnus drove into Clayton’s driveway. He walked up to the front door and tried the handle. Locked. He drew his Beretta, then raised a foot and push-kicked. The door flew open, banging against an inside wall.

No one home. He looked in the kitchen, then moved through the living room. Nothing. He moved to Clayton’s bedroom. Bed unmade. Clothes covering the floor. Magnus was about to leave when something white in a pile of clothes caught his eye. He bent down and picked it up.

A bra.

“Andy, you were right about one thing,” Magnus said to the room. “Sara Purinam is a fucking cunt.”

Somehow, Purinam had brought that goddamn plane back. That meant as many as four military-trained people on the island. All armed with Berettas.

He walked to Clayton’s wall-mounted phone. Next to the phone hung a picture of a young Clayton and a young Clint Eastwood, each holding up a huge steelhead trout, both grinning like mad.

Magnus dialed the mansion’s general number. No answer. Goddamned Clayton was out on the trails again, or—more likely—hanging out wherever he’d stashed Sara and the others.

Was Sara and her crew with Rhumkorrf? Was Andy heading into a trap? Magnus dialed another number.

“Watchtower, Gunther here.”

“Gun, Magnus. Any sign of Danté?”

“Nope. And no other aircraft, either.”

A slice of good news. Magnus needed to clear up all these loose ends before his brother arrived. Danté might turn a blind eye to murder that had already happened, but he wouldn’t stand by while Magnus executed people.

“Turn the radar on and leave it on,” Magnus said. “I’m out on the sled. You see anything, you hit the air-raid siren.”

“Yes sir.”

“Have you seen Colding and Andy?”

“Two sleds just went by,” Gunther said. “Could be them.”

“What about Clayton’s Bv206?”

“Saw the zebra-striped thing about five minutes ago, heading southwest, toward the mansion. It’s frickin’ freezing up here, Mags. How about I come down and work the security room for a while?”

Magnus hung up without answering. Clayton was heading back to the mansion. Was he going for the armory? Did he have Sara and her crew with him?

The Arctic Cat was much faster than the Bv206. Magnus ran out of Clayton’s house—whatever it took, he had to get to the mansion first.

DECEMBER 3, 9:50 P.M.

COLDING HELD THE throttle open wide, pushing the Arctic Cat to its limits. The Cat’s headlights illuminated a narrow cone of the wooded trail’s thick darkness. The trail popped out of the trees at Big Todd Harbor, then continued along the coastline. A cloud-covered moon cast down feeble light.

The name “harbor” was a misnomer for this northwest-side beach strewn with huge, jagged chunks of weathered limestone, but it was an inlet, so long ago someone had named it thus all the same. He cast a quick glance out at the water… and did a double take. The small inlet looked completely frozen over. At least a half mile of ice stretched out from the coast, as if Black Manitou was growing. The bitter cold wasn’t satisfied with claiming just the land—it wanted everything, including the churning waters of Lake Superior.

He looked back up the trail and his hands reactively locked on the brakes: a fallen tree blocked the path. Colding fought to keep the snowmobile under control. The rear end fishtailed to the left, but he brought it to a stop just parallel to the tree. The sled now pointed straight toward the trail’s three-foot-high right snowbank.

Dead and free of bark, the tree blocking the road really wasn’t much of a tree at all. Maybe a foot in diameter. If he’d hit it full speed, however, it would have demolished his snowmobile and probably killed him. The tree had fallen from the left side of the trail, and only extended about four feet onto the right bank. They could easily go around it.

But there was something odd about the tree.

Behind him, Andy slowed his Polaris to a stop, his headlights illuminating the dead wood. Colding dismounted his Arctic Cat and knelt next to the log. He flipped up his face shield for a better look. Long, deep, parallel white marks covered the old wood.

Claw marks. From… a bear, maybe?

Not a bear. You know what it is.

No. No way.

He sensed Andy walking up behind him. Andy had been on Black Manitou many times over the years. Maybe he’d say it was normal, not what Colding already knew it had to be. Colding patted the claw marks with his left hand.

“Andy, look at this. You ever seen anything like this on the island?”

Andy leaned down for a closer look. “Can’t say that I have. What is it?”

“Looks like claw marks. Please tell me there are bears on this island.”

Andy stood up, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen any. And I’ve been in these woods dozens of times.”

Colding ran his gloved fingers over the deep marks. The four parallel grooves were almost two inches apart. The claw would be huge. He wondered if the thing that had made these marks was moving southwest, toward the mansion, or north, toward Rhumkorrf.

Then his eyes registered the footprints. Everywhere. Hundreds of them, pressed into the packed trail. Big prints, eight inches wide and a foot long, clean indentations of claw tips in front of each of the four toes. The snowmobile’s lights cast black shadows within the prints, making them look deeper, larger, even more ominous.

If Rhumkorrf made it back… then the cows could have made it back too.

The memory of the camera-biting fetus stabbed at him. A few pounds then. Now? Probably over two hundred.

Colding stood and walked back to his snowmobile. “Andy, we’ve gotta move, fast. I think I know what made those marks.” He swung his leg over the Arctic Cat and sat. He paused before hitting the start button and looked back. Andy was just standing there.

Andy took off his gloves. “Well, I guess this is as good a place as any.”

“For what?”

With a smooth motion, Andy unzipped his snowsuit, reached inside, and came out with his Beretta pointed right at Colding.

“To pay you back for drawing down on me.”

Colding stared at the gun. How could he have been so stupid? He should have tried to take Andy out the second he realized the C-5 was on the island. There was no way he could unzip his snowsuit and draw his own Beretta before Andy gunned him down.

“Andy, the… the cows, did Magnus tell you what’s inside the cows? Just listen to me for a second… look at the weird footprints all over the ground. It’s those things.”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, that’s a problem for sure. But you know what? It’s really not a problem for you. Not anymore.”

This was it. He was going to die, shot to death on this frozen island.

“Andy, please.” He heard his own voice crack a little. Was that what begging sounded like? Coming out of his own mouth? “Come on, man, this is bad, you don’t have to do this.”

“Wrong. Magnus told me to do it. It’s either me or you. Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun, so I choose you.”

Colding’s mind raced for something to say, but words escaped him. What would it feel like to be shot? Holy shit holyshit maybe he could dive for Andy’s feet, maybe—

Andy cocked the hammer. “You ready, Bubbah?”

Colding didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.

A crack echoed across the darkness. Colding’s body twitched violently, anticipating the lethal pain, but after a fraction of a second he realized the sound had come from the woods. A broken stick.

Andy turned his head to look. His gun remained leveled at Colding.

Colding moved to launch himself at Andy, but he wasn’t even halfway out of his seat before Andy turned back, eyes locked on Colding. “Don’t bother, duck-fucker.”

Colding froze. He was screwed, so utterly screwed.

Another cracking sound, smaller this time but still definitive. Colding thought he saw movement deep in the wood’s blackness.

From the trees behind Andy came a low, slow, deep growl.

Colding’s skin tingled all over. He felt a new fear, a primitive fear, even beyond that brought on by a gun pointed at his face.

Andy took a few steps back, increasing his distance from Colding, then looked into the dark woods. Colding couldn’t breathe. Overwhelming. He had to get away from there, hadtohadto, but Andy wouldn’t let him move.

“There’s a lot of them,” Colding said, his words coming fast. “Dozens, maybe forty, you need me or they’ll take you down. Two guns, man, two.”

“You talk too much,” Andy said. He once again focused on Colding. “It’s been real, dick-weed.”

Something erupted out of the woods.

Andy flinched just as the gun fired, throwing off his aim. The bullet hit the seat behind Colding, ripping up the vinyl and tearing out a huge chunk of foam rubber.

Massive.

That was the only word for the thing. White with the black spots of a cow, a lion-sized cross between a gorilla and a hyena, thick shoulders, black beady eyes, a mouth big enough to bite a man clean in half and teeth that looked like they could pierce steel plate. Way over four hundred pounds, easy.

“Fuck a duck,” Andy said.

It bounded forward, roaring, huge muscles rippling under the black-and-white fur, heaving chest pushing up snow like the wake from a speedboat. A long fin rose up from the thing’s head, revealing a bright-yellow membrane running from the fin to the creature’s back.

A single thought dominated Colding’s mind: I’d rather take a bullet.

He thumbed the start button. The engine fired and Colding hit the throttle.

Andy twisted to fire at Colding, then quickly changed his mind and turned to shoot at the oncoming creature, now only twenty yards away and closing fast.

pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop

Colding’s sled shot up and over the three-foot bank, plunging into the snow beyond. He turned hard left, parallel to the trail.

pop-pop-pop-pop

Each shot made Colding wince, made him wonder if the bullets were tearing into him and he just couldn’t feel it. His sled lurched through the deep snow. He couldn’t pick up speed. He glanced over at the bloody creature struggling to crawl toward Andy. It had taken at least ten shots at point-blank range, yet still it came on, big jaws snapping on empty air.

Andy turned, his eyes locking on Colding’s. The empty magazine dropped free. Andy already had another in hand, and it slid into the Beretta with sickening, professional speed.

Colding looked forward and leaned low as the sled finally accelerated. All he heard was the engine’s powerful scream. The fallen tree passed by on his left.

Then he saw them.

To the front and the right, two more of the creatures were coming out of the nighttime woods, barely illuminated by his headlights, ten yards away and closing fast.

A bullet punched a hole in his plexiglass windshield.

Colding angled left toward the trail. He had to jump the bank like Sara had shown him. He already had the throttle opened up, but he squeezed harder anyway.

A sudden, blazing pain exploded in his right shoulder, but he didn’t let go.

Closing in from the front right, the first creature leaped for him. Colding hit the bank and pushed down hard on the runners. The sled shot out over the trail, a jet plume of snow streaking behind it. The thing’s impossibly long claws reached out and out and out, swinging down in an arc that hit the seat just behind Colding’s ass. In midair, the snowmobile’s back end lurched to the left. Colding threw his body to the right to counteract the sudden shift just as the Arctic Cat slammed hard on the trail, jarring Colding’s body and snapping his head forward. The sled skidded sideways and started to tip, started to roll, but to stop was to die and he savagely brought the machine under control.

On the groomed trail, the snowmobile hit fifty miles per hour within seconds—it shot down the dark trail like a screaming rocket. The creatures gave chase, but only for a few moments before they realized their prey could not be caught.

They turned their attention back to the other prey, the one standing behind the fallen tree.

DECEMBER 3, 9:53 P.M.

ANDY FIRED FIVE rounds at Colding before he felt the claw on his leg. He reflexively jumped straight into the air, jerking and kicking, regaining his balance just before tripping over the fallen tree. He stared down at the monster, brain awash in disbelief.

I shot that fucking thing TWELVE times.

And yet still it dragged itself along the ground toward him, leaving a trail of spreading bright-red lit up by his snowmobile’s headlight. Andy pointed the gun at the thing’s head. It opened its mouth, nice and wide, still reaching for Andy’s life.

He pulled the trigger, pop-pop-pop-pop-pop

The bullets ripped into the open mouth, breaking a pointed tooth, punching holes in the black tongue before blasting out the back of the skull in a spray of blood.

The head—mouth still open—finally fell still. A last cloud of breath hissed out, crystallizing in the cold before drifting away.

The roar of Colding’s snowmobile faded.

Andy heard sounds from the woods. A coppery, acidic feeling blossomed in his stomach as he realized that the dead thing on the ground wasn’t alone. He put his third and final clip into the Beretta.

Two long strides brought him to the Polaris. He hopped on and jammed the gun into his open snowsuit. Only a split second to decide between following Colding or turning the machine around and heading back up the trail.

Back up the trail, toward the mansion, toward the big guns.

He gunned the throttle and pulled hard to the right, body leaning far out to aid the sudden, sharp turn. On his back left, past the fallen log, he saw two of the creatures, their white fur a nightmarish red in his taillight’s glow. They pounded toward him—heads down, legs pumping hard, black eyes angry with pure hunger.

Andy finished the turn and shot down the trail, toward the mansion. Speed felt like life, like pure safety.

Two more creatures came out of the woods on his right, but they wouldn’t be fast enough to stop him. God, but they were so big, like shark-finned bears.

“Fuck you and your duck,” Andy muttered as he leaned forward. Iraqis couldn’t kill him, nor could the Afghans, Haitians, Colombians, Nepalese or the wherever-the-fuck-they-came-from Taliban, and these test-tube rejects sure as hell weren’t going to take him out.

Then he saw the tree, leaning, falling, picking up speed as it descended, plumes of snow pouring off branches marking its downward arc. It slammed into the ground with a billowing cloud of powder, completely blocking the trail fifty meters ahead.

Andy’s left hand pumped the brake as his right fished in his jacket for the gun. His sled’s headlight lit up the trail, the blocking tree and yet another openmouthed creature.

Just like the pair only a few seconds behind him.

The sled still slowing, momentum pulling his body forward, Andy turned in his seat to fire on his pursuers.

They were faster than he thought.

As he came around, he saw an onrushing mass of black and white surrounding a giant, gaping mouth. The teeth closed on his gun hand, punching through skin and bone as if they were tissue-paper-covered twigs. The clawed feet dug in, skidding as the big head ripped to the right, yanking Andy off the seat. He hit the ground, rolled with the momentum, and came up on his feet.

Only then did he realize his arm was gone from the elbow down.

He had just a moment to look, to be amazed at the surreal sight of his not-there arm, the splintered bones and shredded flesh, then the second trailing creature smashed into him at full speed. Teeth sank into his chest and shoulder. Andy screamed just once before the two creatures from his right joined the fray.

Less than thirty seconds after the first bite, only bloodstains and an overturned snowmobile marked Andy Crosthwaite’s passing.

DECEMBER 3, 10:00 P.M.

COLDING BRAKED TO a stop on a rise that gave him a view of both Sven’s house and the trail behind him. Ten minutes had passed since that crazy flight for life. His heart still pounded so hard he wondered if his end might not come from a bullet, or a monster, but from cardiac arrest.

He turned to look back, the barrel of his Beretta leading his vision. Nothing right behind him, but how could he be sure? He peered deeper into the dark, shadow-soaked woods on either side, watching for movement or a strange-looking patch of black and white.

Muscles stayed clenched. The barrel wiggled in time with his shaking hand. His stomach was bound up so tight he couldn’t draw a deep breath. He saw hundreds of the creatures in the darkness, behind every log, lurking under the snow-laden branches of every tree. Waiting to spring, waiting for him to turn away so they could rush him and tear him apart.

Colding held his breath, then forced a long, slow exhale. He had to get control of himself. There was nothing out there. Emotions raged through him—fear of the creatures, frustration from not knowing Sara’s fate, humiliation at having begged for his life. He had to calm down. Calm down and think. Sara might still be alive, might be with Rhumkorrf, hiding out in Sven’s house. Colding had to start there.

He switched the pistol to his right hand, then reached back with his left and checked the right-shoulder wound for the first time. Felt like a burning poker had been permanently fixed to his screaming skin. His fingers came away wet with blood, but not a lot. He slowly rotated his arm. Pain, sure, but full range of motion. Andy’s bullet had missed the bone.

Colding had never been shot before, but he didn’t think the wound was all that bad. He wiped the blood on the leg of his snowsuit.

He switched the Beretta back to his left hand and drove with his right, down the ridge toward the lights of Sven’s barn. He had to get out of sight, and not just because of the monsters—he had no way of knowing if Andy was still out there, hunting, maybe even looking at Colding this very second, lining up a shot.

The gun snapped up when he saw the small man in the black parka standing in the open barn door. Andy? No, this man was even smaller than Andy.

Rhumkorrf.

Colding kept the gun trained on him anyway, then pointed it off. What the hell was he doing? Think, man, have to think. He slid the snowmobile to a halt in front of Rhumkorrf but didn’t shut off the engine. It idled as he looked the man over.

Claus Rhumkorrf looked like a torture victim. Oozing burn blisters covered most of his face. He wore no hat. The left side of his scalp flaked black where it wasn’t raw and red. Tufts of blackened down hung precariously in spots where his parka was nothing more than torn and melted nylon, providing no warmth, no protection. His lips were swollen, cracked and white. His eyes looked vacant and ghostly—soulless.

“My God, Doc, are you okay? Where’s Sara and the crew?”

Rhumkorrf didn’t answer. He held out his left hand. No gloves. Fingers swollen to twice their normal size, blue from burst blood vessels brought on by frostbite. Second-degree frostbite, probably only a few hours away from the third degree that would demand amputation of those fingers. Colding had to get the man inside. How gone was Rhumkorrf that he wasn’t waiting inside Sven’s house?

And for that matter, where was Sven?

In the palm of his ravaged hand, Rhumkorrf held something brown with white flecks that gleamed in the barn’s light.

“My fault,” Rhumkorrf said in a tiny voice. “All my fault.”

“Doc, did Sara hide out with you here?”

Rhumkorrf shook his head.

“Did she make it? Where’s the plane?”

Rhumkorrf spoke with a far-off, distant voice. “I made it out just before the explosion. The blast knocked me through the air. I… I burned a little. I didn’t see anyone else—they’re all dead.”

Pain. Not the physical kind, far worse… the same crippling pain he’d felt watching Clarissa die. No. No way. Not Sara. “Did you see Sara die? See her body? What about the crew, Alonzo and the Twins?”

“I woke up in the snow,” Rhumkorrf said. “I told you I didn’t see anyone else. I walked here and hid in the shed. Then the fetuses… they, they came out. I saw them chase down cows, tear them to pieces. Such noises. The ancestors are out there, P. J., you have to believe me.”

“Preachin’ to the choir. Check out the back of the fucking sled.”

Rhumkorrf looked at the ripped seat. Chunks of white foam stuck out from the shredded vinyl. Colding saw Rhumkorrf’s eyes moving from cut to parallel cut, could almost hear the calculations clicking away in the man’s brain.

“How big?”

“Big,” Colding said. “Way over four hundred pounds, maybe four fifty.”

“Impossible. They would need… tens of thousands of pounds of food to reach that size.”

Colding looked back to the barn. “Would fifty cows at about fifteen hundred pounds each do the trick?”

Rhumkorrf stared at the barn, seemingly dumbfounded by the question. “Yes. Yes, that would do it. And if they get the other cows, at the Harveys’, they could get even bigger.”

The Harveys. Shit.

“Get on,” Colding said. Rhumkorrf let out a yelp of pain as he sat on the claw-shredded seat. Who knew which of his many injuries had zinged him? Maybe it was all of them.

Colding drove the sled the fifty yards to the house, then stopped on the far side so it wouldn’t be visible from the road. He ran inside, feeling the house’s warmth on his face even as he scanned for and found the phone.

Rhumkorrf followed him in. “Who are you calling? I already called the mansion and talked to Andy.”

“I’m kind of aware of that,” Colding said. “I’m calling the Harveys.”

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.

“Call the mansion,” Rhumkorrf said. “Have them bring that zebra tank-thing, please, get us out of here.”

Colding hung up. “Can’t do that. I came out here with Andy, under Magnus’s orders. Andy tried to kill me.”

“Is Andy dead?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the ancestors got him, or maybe he’s coming after us right now.”

Rhumkorrf sagged. He still held the brown rock in his hand. “So Magnus really does want me dead.”

“They don’t call you a fucking genius for nothing. Come on, we gotta go.”

“Go where? Magnus will kill us.”

“We have to get to the Harveys’. They didn’t answer.”

“Then they’re dead,” Rhumkorrf said, shaking his head. “We can’t go out there.”

“Doc, we have to. And I’m not leaving you here, so let’s go.”

Rhumkorrf shook his head harder, eyes wide, a little drool dripping out of the right corner of his open mouth. “Nein! Nein! I watched through the shed window. They caught the cows and killed them, ate them. They eat everything, Colding, bones and all.”

He held out his frostbitten hand, again offering up the white-speckled rock. But… it wasn’t a rock. It was a chunk of dark brown speckled with tiny white ice crystals.

“Doc, what is that?”

“Stool.”

“What?”

“Feces. Scheisse. From the ancestors.”

Colding finally recognized one of the white things—a human tooth, a molar. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

“They ate Sven,” Rhumkorrf said. “They ate Sven and all the cows, Colding. Bones and all. Do you understand? Bones and all.”

The ancestors were out there, hunting. Could be anywhere on the island. Anywhere. Colding forced his hands to stop shaking. He didn’t know where Sara was, if she was even alive at all. But the Harveys? He knew exactly where they were. And Magnus knew where Rhumkorrf was, whether Andy had lived or not. They had to get away from Sven’s house, and fast.

“Doc, we’re going to the Harveys’ house. You can either get on the snowmobile with me, or I will make you get on it. I really don’t want to put my hands on you again, okay?”

The little man looked at him, shook his head one more time, then he dropped the frozen ancestor shit on the kitchen floor. “You’ll get us killed,” he said. “Let’s go.”

DECEMBER 3, 10:45 P.M.

MAGNUS FINISHED WRAPPING the duct tape around Clayton’s ankles, firmly securing him to the folding chair. He’d already taped Clayton’s hands behind him. The security room’s harsh fluorescent lighting played off the old man’s swelling left eye. Clayton’s head hung down, wobbling each time he was bumped.

The head lifted a bit. Clayton blinked rapidly, seemed to snap out of it. “Someone help me! Get this crazy fucker off me!” No confusion. He knew where he was, he knew what had happened.

Magnus slapped him, rocking the old man’s head back and drawing blood from his lower lip.

“No one is here, Clayton. Gunther is in the fire tower. Colding is dead by now. The only person coming back here is Andy, and we know how much he loves you.”

Clayton spit blood onto the security room’s floor.

Magnus had arrived first, then just sat in the dark security room and waited. Clayton had come alone, turned on the lights, then Magnus hit him and it was lights-out. Couldn’t have been easier.

Magnus walked to the weapons rack and grabbed one of the compact MP5 submachine guns. He clipped on a gun strap, loaded the weapon, then set it on the ground.

The time for civility had ended. Now it was time to add a new knife to his collection.

Magnus grabbed one of the white Ka-Bar boxes. He opened it and looked at the round handle made of stacked leather washers, looked at the leather sheath. New knives had that smell. He dropped the box, then ran his belt through the sheath’s loop. It hung nicely on his left side. Only when it was securely in place did he grip the handle and pull.

The seven-inch, flat-black blade seemed to smile at him. The knife reflected no light save for the thin, razor-sharp edge.

“I know you,” Magnus said to the knife.

He held the knife with his right hand. With his left, he picked up the MP5. The weapons felt solid in his hands. Balanced. Real. A lot of variables were flying around, for certain, maybe too many things to process all at once. But he always knew what to do with the knife. The knife made decisions easy. He walked in front of Clayton and set the knife on the floor.

The old man stared at it. He was very afraid, clearly, but that angry, defiant attitude still exuded from his every fiber.

“Clayton, I don’t have a lot of time. I’ve done this before. Many times. I know exactly how to get what I want. It’s better for you if you just cooperate. Do you understand?”

Clayton said nothing.

“Where did you hide Sara Purinam?”

“Did you look up your asshole? Oh wait, your head is already there, so you’d have seen her by now.”

Insolent old bastard. Magnus had something special for him. He slung the MP5 over his shoulder and walked back to the weapons rack. There he screwed a torch tip onto a can of propane. He opened the valve, took a lighter off the shelf and walked in front of Clayton again.

Clayton saw the propane can, heard the hiss of gas, and shook his head. He understood. “Don’t you fucking do it, you sick fuck.”

Magnus flicked the lighter. The torch’s pointy blue flame snapped into existence. He put the lighter in his pocket. Magnus had a philosophy when it came to torture: Seeing is believing, but feeling is faith.

He picked up the knife and held the blade in front of the flame. Usually, he did this part in the dark, letting the blowtorch flame be the only illumination up until the blade glowed red. It was a great psychological motivator before the cutting began, but he simply didn’t have time for the extras.

“Last chance,” Magnus said as he gently moved the flame up and down the seven-inch Ka-Bar blade. “You’re going to tell me what I want to know. The only question is how badly you’ll be burned when you finally talk.”

“Just do it,” Clayton hissed, his eyes squeezed wrinkle-tight in anticipation of agony. “Cowards die many times before their deaths, da valiant never taste of death but once, eh?”

The quote came out of nowhere, so random it made Magnus lower the torch. “I’m shocked. You know Julius Caesar?”

“Never met him,” Clayton said, his eyes still scrunched tight. “Kerouac said that shit to me once when we were nailing some whores down in Copper Harbor.”

Typical American. So crude. But crude or not, this old man was tougher than Magnus had suspected. Talking would just waste time unless parameters were established.

Magnus closed the torch valve and set the propane canister on the ground. He walked behind Clayton. He grabbed the old man’s right pinkie and slid the hot blade into the skin. Blood poured out, hissing against the blade. Clayton screamed as the blade dug down to the bone. Blood spurted. The smell of burned flesh filled the air. Clayton thrashed in his chair and kept screaming, but Magnus didn’t stop—he bent and twisted the pinkie as he cut, pulling it against the base knuckle. Just like bending a hot wing in half. Blood splattered to the floor as something snapped and a piece of gristle popped out.

Two more knife strokes through the last bits of flesh… the pinkie came right off.

Magnus walked in front of Clayton, tossing the bloody finger up and down in his palm. Tears covered Clayton’s cheeks. Blood streamed from a deep cut in his lower lip where he’d bitten through it. He didn’t look hateful or insolent or tough anymore.

He just looked old.

“You’ve got nine left,” Magnus said. “Ready to talk?”

Clayton nodded.

“Good. Who is with Sara?”

“Just… Tim Feely. Da rest are dead.”

“What about Rhumkorrf? Is he with them?”

Clayton shook his head.

“Are you sure, Clayton?”

The old man nodded. “He’s dead. Sara said he… blew up… like da others.”

Was the old man lying? It was possible that Rhumkorrf and Purinam were separated in the crash. “Tell me how the C-5 got back here.”

“They crashed on Rapleje Bay. Thick ice. A… bomb. They got out and the whole thing blew up, melted through da ice.”

That fit. If Sara had brought it down right before the bomb went off, there would be panic as everyone tried to escape. Rhumkorrf could have gotten separated. Sara had put the C-5 on the ice, then let it sink away. That filthy whore had ruined all of his careful plans, all of his meticulous work.

“Tell me where they are,” Magnus said.

Clayton did.

Magnus reached inside Clayton’s snowsuit, down to his belt, and pulled out the man’s thick ring of keys.

“You don’t mind if I borrow your ride, do you, Pops?” The Bv206 was enclosed and fairly well armored. A snowmobile was faster, but unprotected, and Sara had a Beretta.

Magnus grabbed a duffel bag and quickly stuffed it with MP5 magazines, a backup Beretta and a first-aid kit. Plastique and timers went in the bag as well, just in case Sara had created a defensible position. And what if he needed info from her? He threw in the propane torch and slung the duffel over his shoulder.

Then his eyes fell to the black canvas bag on the bottom shelf of the weapons rack. Fischer might come early, never knew… it helped to be prepared for any contingency. He took that bag as well.

Magnus walked to the door, then turned, taking one more look at the beaten old man. It was always best to leave subjects alive until you were sure you had correct intel, leave them in the darkness and silence so they could focus on nothing but the pain. Someone might be tough enough to resist questioning the first few minutes after losing a finger, but after two or three hours of feeling that agony and fearing what would come next? They always told the truth.

“I’m going to leave you here,” Magnus said. “I’ll come back if you forgot anything.” He reached up and flicked off the lights.

Magnus shut the door on the dark security room. He didn’t know what was keeping Andy, or if the man was even alive, but Sara Purinam and Tim Feely were just a short snowmobile ride away.

DECEMBER 3, 11:07 P.M.

GARY DETWEILER HAD never seen conditions like this. A hard wind kicked up ten-foot swells. Chunks of ice floated everywhere. Although there probably wasn’t a chunk large enough to hurt the Otto II, he sure as hell didn’t want to find out while doing twenty knots.

Once he had the island in sight he turned off his running lights, navigating with GPS and a pair of night-vision goggles. Thick clouds hid the stars and kept the moon to a faint glow, but it was enough illumination for the goggles to show his way in varying shades of neon green.

The closer he got to the harbor, the thicker the ice became. Baseball-sized chunks collected like tightly packed flotsam, making the water look like an undulating solid, rising with each wave, dipping with each trough. The Otto II cut through the surface, leaving behind it a path of clear water that lasted only seconds before the churning ice chunks closed in again.

Chunky waves splashed against the pylons at the harbor’s entrance. Actually, they splashed against twenty feet of lumpy, solid ice that spread out from the pylons. Gary shook his head in amazement. If this cold continued, the harbor entrance might very well freeze shut in a day or so. After that, the whole harbor would ice over in a matter of hours. That very thing had happened back in the winter of ’68, or so his father told him.

Gary pulled back on the throttle, reducing speed and—more important—reducing noise. The wind was loud enough to hide the engine gurgle, unless someone was waiting for him on the dock. The Otto II slid through the icy harbor entrance. Beyond the walls, the waves dropped to three feet. He could barely believe his eyes—like the pylons, the shore and dock had extended with a good thirty feet of rough ice. Waves constantly tossed water and fresh chunks onto this frozen, growing shoreline.

And beyond it? A psycho with a gun. Correction, guns, and a lot of them. But that didn’t matter. Gary’s father needed him. Those people needed him. All he had to do was get on the island, make it to the church, then bring them back. Once in the boat and away from the island, they’d be safe.

He couldn’t actually dock. The ice was probably too thick there, but it would be thinner out where it met open water. Somewhere in the middle, it would be solid enough to support his weight. He moved the throttle forward, just a bit, increasing speed. The boat crushed the leading edge of ice with a noticeable crackling sound. That sound quickly turned to a definitive crunch, then to a grind as the boat slowed, pushing up sheets of half-inch-thick ice as it went. Finally, fifteen feet from the dock, the Otto II stopped.

Gary killed the motor, leaving him alone with the howl of the wind and the steady, Styrofoam-squeaking sound of wave-driven ice grinding against wave-driven ice. He pulled on an orange life jacket. Without it, if he fell through into the frigid water he’d stand little chance of surviving long enough to get back inside the boat’s heated cabin.

He grabbed a gaff pole and walked to the bow, testing the tip against the ice. It seemed thick enough to hold his weight.

Keeping his weight on the bow, Gary swung one leg over the edge, pressed his foot against the ice, and pushed. It held. He put his other foot down, but kept his chest and both arms in the boat. He pushed harder, making the surface carry more of his weight. Still the ice held. Waves splashed water and ice chunks at his feet. He swallowed hard and slowly transferred his weight, keeping his hands on the bow railing in case his feet suddenly plunged through.

The ice held.

He slid one foot at a time over the ice, taking care to spread his weight across both feet. The danger zone was likely only the next few yards—at the dock the ice had to be at least six inches thick, strong enough to support a dozen men.

Ten feet from the boat, the ice cracked under his left foot. Water gurgled up through the thin fissures.

Gary stood motionless, waiting in that infinite forever just before the ice would give way. Still it held. He slid his left foot forward, past the watery cracks. After a few more sliding steps, he knew he was safe and strode cautiously toward the dock.

During the day, the snow-covered island might have been a thing of beauty, but in the dark, through the night-vision glasses, it looked like a green-tinted nuclear wasteland. Wind drove wisps of powder across the beach. Snow-covered pine trees looked like heavy monsters trapped in thick green-white goo.

Gary felt for the lump on his left side, under the snowsuit—the gun’s firmness gave him comfort. He walked to the shed at the base of the dock. His Ski-Doo snowmobile would quickly cover the one-mile trip to the ghost town. Walking would be quieter, more discreet, but Magnus Paglione was out there and Gary didn’t feel like getting into a footrace for his life. Somehow he suspected a former special forces killer was in better shape than a stoner beach bum.

He kicked through a snowdrift blocking the shed and slid inside. The Ski-Doo motor gurgled and died on the first two tries. On the third, it roared to life.

He tossed the life jacket aside. If he had to run or hide, fluorescent orange wasn’t the best color. Gary drove out onto the trail, moving slow, trying to keep the engine as quiet as possible. He kept the lights off, using the night-vision goggles to guide his way. The Ski-Doo glided through the inch or two of snow that had accumulated since the road had last been plowed. Dark woods rose up on both sides like canyon walls.

In just over three minutes, Gary saw the church tower through the trees. He took off the goggles. He unzipped his snowsuit, pulled out a flashlight, pointed it at the tower and flashed twice.

SARA AND TIM sat huddled together under three blankets that did little to ward off the cold wind blowing through the bell-tower turret. When Sara saw the double flash come from the dark path leading to the harbor, it seemed unbelievable at first, somehow fake. The second double flash, however, made it real.

“No fucking way,” Tim said.

“Way,” Sara said. She lifted her own flashlight, a clumsy maneuver thanks to Clayton’s thick mittens, and gave two answering flashes. She set the flashlight down and picked up the binoculars, sweeping the dimly lit town square.

GARY SAW THE two flashes. He had to be careful. Could be Magnus up there, tricking Gary into coming in. He patted the gun again, just to be sure it was there. This was crazy, really fucking crazy—he was a barfly boat driver who dealt a little pot on the side, not some action star like Uncle Clint.

Gary put the flashlight away and put the night-vision goggles back on. No way to really know who was in that turret. Setting up for a fast getaway would be smart. He turned his Ski-Doo around, leaving it just past the edge of town with the nose pointed back down the road. He slid off the sled. Now or never. His dad needed him. One quick walk to the church and back, and it would be all but over.

He reached the edge of town before he saw movement.

SARA LOWERED THE binoculars. “What the hell is that?”

“What the hell is what?” Tim reached for the binoculars, but Sara slapped his hand away. She looked through them again. Down there in the darkness, something was moving. Something big. Lurking around in the trees at the outskirts of the small town.

“Oh no,” she said quietly. “Oh my God, no.”

GARY FROZE. HE half hoped there was something wrong with the night-vision goggles, but he knew they were working just fine. At the edge of town, near the lodge, less than a hundred feet away… a… bear? No, the head was too big. Way too big. Through the goggles, the thing’s black-patched white fur glowed an unearthly pale green. Something on its back kept popping up and down.

It opened its eyes wide. Gary knew this because the night vision suddenly showed two glowing white-green spots in the middle of that big head.

It was looking at him, mouth half open, long, pointed teeth glowing like wet emeralds.

“RUN, YOU IDIOT,” Sara whispered. “Goddamit, don’t you see them?” The man stayed perfectly still, staring at the shadowy something near the corner of the lodge. He obviously didn’t see the others—Sara offhandedly estimated at least twenty—closing in on him from all sides of town.

“Sara,” Tim hissed. “What the hell, come on.”

She handed him the binoculars and pointed. “Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me those aren’t what I think they are.”

Tim stared for only a second. “Oh fuck me running. No way.”

That wasn’t what Sara wanted to hear. She started scanning the town, the horizon, looking for something she could use to help the man.

WIND WHISTLED THROUGH the snow-covered pines. Gary slowly took off a mitten, keeping his eyes focused on the bear-thing by the lodge. If he didn’t get Sara and Tim out now, they’d be trapped for days. He didn’t know exactly what the animal was, but it was just an animal. He was a human with a gun.

He slowly reached into his snowsuit, trying to control his fear, trying to stay calm. He heard a branch break somewhere off to his left. It registered that it would have to be a big branch to be heard over the wind. A really big branch. Gary turned, his chest roiling, already knowing what he’d see. Seventy-five feet away, at the edge of the woods, another of the big-mouthed bear creatures glowed green in the night-vision light. It, too, was looking right at him.

What little bravery Gary possessed instantly evaporated. Were there more? How many more? Staying very, very still, he swept the landscape.

A third by the hunter’s shop.

A fourth and a fifth near the church.

A sixth at the edge of the woods on his right.

Gary Detweiler turned and ran as fast as the bulky snowsuit would allow, his legs swish-swishing against each other in a dark parody of a child’s wintertime play.

SARA TOOK CAREFUL aim at the lead creature chasing Gary Detweiler. A sudden blow knocked her into a pillar. Strong, bony fingers covered her mouth. Tim had tackled her. Sara angrily brought up her hands to shove the man, but Tim leaned in so close his lips pressed against her ear.

“Don’t move!” he hissed. “Keep still, there are more right below us!”

She pushed him off, but stayed quiet. She slowly looked over the parapet and down the side of the church tower. Sara’s eyes widened in surprise and fear. Against the suffused gray-white moonlight glow of the snow-covered ground, she counted seven of the creatures. They were all looking up into the church tower.

They’re looking right at us.

It seemed that way at first, but Sara realized the creatures were turning their heads, searching. They weren’t looking at her, but they sure as hell were looking for her.

A roar—deep and jagged and hateful and savage—erupted from the path that led to the dock.

WHEN HE HEARD the first roar, his heart seemed to stop but his feet weren’t as dumb—they kept pumping. Gary sprinted for his life. Another roar, closer this time. He poured all his energy into the sprint, heavy boots slamming against the snow-covered ground, arms pumping, legs churning.

Like an Old West gunslinger mounting his horse, Gary leaped and spread his legs, landing butt-first on the soft Ski-Doo seat. The now-warm machine fired up on the first try and he gunned the throttle, shooting down the path.

More of them oh fuck how many are there poured out of the tree-canyon walls, coming at him from all sides. Speed carried him past their muscular, heaving bodies. The journey that had taken five minutes while put-putting along took just over a minute with the throttle locked wide open. The dune crest rose before him, and beyond it would be his boat.

Another one. It came from the harbor side of the dune, stopped on the crest, crouched like a tennis player waiting to return a serve. Gary slowed, banked hard right and drove at an angle toward the crest. The monster took its own angle down the dune face, trying to cut him off. When it almost reached the sled, Gary opened up the throttle full out. The monster curved its pursuit path to correct, but Gary was already past.

He banked hard left just in time to sail over the dune ridge, catching big air, the boat now before him like a beacon of hope. So close. He hit the ground and pumped the brakes. The Ski-Doo skidded and slid—Gary was off it and running before the machine even stopped moving.

Another roar Jesus oh shit oh God not more than a few feet behind him. So close that going for his gun would slow him down too much and the thing with the huge mouth would be on him.

Gary sprinted down the dock, his steps vibrating the ice-crusted wood. He counted six steps before he felt the heavy vibrations of the creature’s pounding feet.

He reached the dock’s end and leaped like a long jumper. Behind him, the dock rattled as something massive pushed off.

In midair, huge jaws closed around his chest. He felt a dozen piercing pokes and a crushing pressure, then he smashed into ice as hard as a concrete floor. The ice seemed to hold for just a second, a fraction of a second, then cracked like a trapdoor, dropping them into the frigid water. Cold stunned him. His breath locked in his chest, frozen just like the ice covering the bay.

The biting pressure dropped away.

Swim or die.

He kicked hard. The water soaked into his snowsuit, turning it into a lead coat that pulled him down. He kicked harder. His head popped above the surface. He forced one, short, desperate breath.

Like Jaws coming up from the depths, the creature surfaced next to him, giant mouth gasping for air, huge clawed paws splashing at the water and fighting for purchase on thin ice that shattered from each blow.

Gary tried to swim. His arms and legs seemed slow to react. It was like swimming in quicksand. His head slipped under again. He fought to rise, but the snowsuit seemed to drag him down as surely as an anchor.

Swim or die.

He snarled and kicked harder, forcing his body to the surface. He was so close, only a few feet from the boat.

Behind him, the creature slid beneath the waves for the last time. Gary looked over his shoulder, knowing he only had seconds to live, knowing he had to concentrate, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Cow-skinned creatures covered the dock. Diffuse moonlight played off their white fur, soaked into black patches as dark as the night itself. Dozens of monsters, packed at the edge, looking down at Gary with black eyes. They weren’t coming in after him. He was almost there…

He tried to swim, but his muscles simply stopped obeying his commands. His throat locked up as if plugged by a cork. He couldn’t take in air. The waterlogged snowsuit pulled him down again.

He reached out one more time, stretching for the ladder on the back of the Otto II. Wet, slick mittens hit the bottom rung and slid off. His hand fell away, and water filled his mouth.

Swim… or…

SARA AND TIM watched the seven cow-skinned creatures moving around the outside of the church—sniffing, looking, listening. They weren’t leaving.

“You’re the expert,” Sara whispered in an almost inaudible voice. “What do we do?”

Tim slowly shook his head and shrugged.

The ancestors stopped their sniffing. They lifted their heads and looked north. The creatures all seemed to hear something. Sara listened, and a few seconds later she heard it, too… a faint, faraway sound.

The sound of an engine.

As a unit, the creatures headed for the noise. Sara watched them go, watched their odd, squat, waddling gait as they disappeared into the woods.

DECEMBER 3, 11:20 P.M.

MAGNUS SLOWED THE Bv206. Any closer and Sara might hear the diesel engine, even over the wind. He would approach on foot, slip in and kill her. Magnus preferred to be on foot anyway.

He hopped out and slung the compact MP5 over his shoulder. Extra magazines went into his pocket. Beretta in his right hand, an unlit flashlight in his left, he approached the old mine shaft. He moved carefully, calmly. If Clayton was telling the truth, Magnus was up against a female air force pilot and a small, alcoholic scientist with a bum knee. That seemed like easy pickings, but Magnus was alive because he’d learned long ago that there was no such thing as easy pickings—a gun was the world’s great equalizer. Sara Purinam had a gun.

Drifting snow almost completely covered the mine’s old wooden door. Wind howled through the trees, and the mine itself seemed to moan as well. Clayton had always said that was the ghosts of the men who died there, but in truth it was just wind circulating through some unseen ventilation shaft.

Magnus approached the door, sinking crotch-deep in undisturbed snow. Something was wrong. There were no tracks here. Not even indents in the snowdrift. He tried to think of how much snow they’d received in the past three days. Plenty, but not enough to make the drift completely smooth. Unless Clayton had piled snow in front of the door after letting Sara and Tim in, then the recent storm had smoothed the surface, or unless there was another way into the mine.

Or, more likely, unless Clayton was lying.

“You tough old motherfucker,” Magnus said quietly. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

A noise in the woods, from the south side of the trail. Magnus dropped flat, his body sinking lower than the waist-high snow. He holstered the Beretta and unslung the MP5. Caught in the open, Magnus lifted his head just enough to look out over the snow’s surface. He scanned the woods, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

Another sound. A strange, throaty noise, coming from the direction of the Bv206. He was cut off. Magnus lowered himself back down, then crawled to his left, closer to the shaft door. There was no one in the mine. That much was obvious. If this was a trap, he didn’t want to make himself an easy target by turning on the flashlight.

But he had to know what he was up against.

He gripped the MP5 in his right hand and came up to one knee, still crouched low. His left hand stretched out, held the flashlight against the top of the snowbank. He pointed it at the woods twenty-five meters away, then turned it on.

Along the trees lining the snowmobile trail, down close to the ground, the flashlight’s beam reflected off glowing animal eyes. Magnus swept the light in a steady arc from left to right, from the trees all the way back to the Bv206—everywhere the beam fell, it lit up eyes. At least two dozen pairs, spread out over fifty meters.

Magnus turned off the flashlight. The cows? No… the things that had been inside the cows. The things for which they’d built the heavy cages. But the plane had crashed only three days ago, how could the babies be that big?

A single roar erupted from the woods, quickly followed by dozens more, a cacophonous animal call-and-answer. In the faint moonlight filtering through the clouds, the creatures burst out of the trees like a line of rushing infantry.

Twenty meters. Closing fast.

Magnus stood and ran to the rickety old mine door. He lowered his shoulder and drove through it, splintering and scattering the old wood. He pointed the flashlight beam down the mine shaft as he sprinted, trying not to slip on the frozen dirt.

He’d covered only ten meters when he heard the monsters ripping through the door’s remains. Magnus stopped and spun, pointed both the flashlight and the MP5 back up the tunnel. One-handed shooting would make for shit aim, but in this narrow space it wouldn’t matter. He capped off a trio of three-shot bursts, filling the confined stone space with a deafening roar. The first creature to come through the door had a black head with a white nose-tip. Three .40-caliber bullets slammed into its skull, punching through fur and bone. The thing fell, twitching and kicking, its big body partially blocking the door.

The jostling flashlight beam made the nightmare scene shake with jittering intensity. More white-and-black monsters, big heads and black eyes and hissing mouths filled with dagger teeth, pushing through the door, pouring over their still-kicking pack mate.

Magnus turned and ran again, trying to keep his balance on the descending, frozen ground. He followed the shaft as it turned a sharp corner to the right.

And saw the dead end.

His frantic flashlight beam played off the ceiling-high pile of boulders and broken timbers. He scrambled up the side, looking for a way through. On his right, he saw his only chance—a dark crawl space, a coffin-sized dirt pocket.

Without stopping to think, Magnus crammed himself into the tiny space. He kept the MP5 close to his body and dug with the flashlight butt, a rabid badger clawing for cover amid a shaking strobe light. He had to make enough room to turn around.

Roars filled the cave, their echoes bouncing off the fallen rocks with ear-piercing intensity. Magnus grunted as he curled into a near-fetal position, working himself around. His shoulder and face wedged against the wall, like he was being squeezed by a giant earthen fist. Frozen dirt scraped his cheek raw. He ignored the pain, forcing himself around until he sat on his ass, legs straight out in front of him, the shoulder-high dirt-coffin space forcing his head down and to the left.

An over-wide head shoved into the crawl space, filling it. The mouth gaped but couldn’t open all the way. The upper jaw knocked dirt from the ceiling, the underside of the bottom jaw pressed down against Magnus’s shins and feet, pinning them flat. Hot breath turned to vapor as it billowed out. The shaking flashlight’s beam shot all the way to the back of its throat.

Was that a tonsil?

The thing felt Magnus’s legs beneath its jaw. Teeth snapped as it tried to twist its head to the left so it could bite down on his knees, his thighs.

Magnus fired three bursts. Nine bullets snapped off teeth, ripped into the tongue, drove into the brain. Blood splattered everywhere, on Magnus’s hands, his coat, his legs, even on his face to mix into his own oozing cuts.

The creature made a choking, gurgling noise. Its mouth half closed, revealing wide, black, unfocused eyes. It slid limply from the hole and fell away.

Out in the shaft, Magnus saw another patch of black and white. He fired two more bursts but couldn’t tell if he’d hit anything.

He waited.

No more heads appeared to fill his tiny hole.

Magnus contorted his body and dug a fresh magazine out of his pocket. Slapping it home, he waited for the next attack. But none came.

He’d never really been afraid in combat, but this… this was something else. Fear was no reason to back down, though. If they came again, he’d fight.

There were far less glorious ways to die.

He heard a sound like a body being dragged across frozen dirt, then noises that reminded him of wolves tearing into a deer on some Discovery Channel special.

His back against the end of the crawl space, he pointed the flashlight out, playing it against the far wall. He saw nothing. Whatever was going on out there, it was a few meters away from his spot.

He could hear them back down the shaft, hear their breathing, occasionally hear small whines and growls that could have easily come from big, playful dogs.

The ancestors were waiting. Waiting him out.

Soaked in the blood of his new enemy, Magnus tried to readjust himself, tried to get comfortable. That was the essence of combat—he’d had his abrupt moment of sheer terror, and now, apparently, it was time for the long period of boredom.

If he made it out of this mess, he knew exactly how he’d celebrate—with a little help from his old friend Clayton Detweiler.