SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

RESTLESS Lee Murray

Taine replaced the demi-tasse on its saucer. Barely a mouthful, and the cup so dinky he could hardly grasp the handle. He should have asked for two.

“Everything okay?” asked Jules, who was sitting opposite him.

Taine smiled. It was more than okay. He was here, with her, on the terrace of a French café enjoying a European summer while back home the army tidied up loose ends from that business in the Ureweras.

R&R was what the major had ordered. “Take some leave, lad. I need you and your boys out of sight and out of mind while I sort this,” Arnold had said.

It was easier said than done. Since that last assignment, Taine had been restless. Even the 26km run along the Sarthe, when Jules had been presenting at her conference in Le Mans, hadn’t helped shake the feeling. It’s what you get from years of soldiering. Always on alert, always checking over your shoulder. Like this tingle at the back of his neck…

He stood, the wrought iron chair clattering on the stones behind him.

“Taine?”

Why the tingle...?

There! Crawling across the milky flagstones was a woman, her nails tearing on the cobbles, knees grazed, each breath dragged from her lungs.

“La velue!” she whispered and collapsed, her face dropping to the stones just metres from Taine’s feet.

Like a hot wind before a storm, the whispers ricocheted off the stone walls of the lane.

“Qu’est-ce qu’elle a dit?”

“La velue?”

“C’est pas possible!”

“Ambulance!” Taine shouted.

The café patrons edged away.

What the hell was the French for ambulance?

Taine crouched, reaching for the woman’s pulse, but the café owner, more pastries in his belly than on platters at the counter, yanked him back. “Touchez pas, monsieur. Do not touch!”

Taine shook him off. “This woman needs an ambulance!”

“No one will touch her, monsieur. She is cursed.”

English. That was unusual. In Le Mans, on the tourist beat, most retailers spoke at least some English, but La Ferté-Bernard was small, just a few thousand inhabitants, and this café was mainly for locals.

“Did you not hear her say la velue?” The man spoke in gestures, too. “Can you not see le piquant in her back?”

Piquant? What’s a piquant?

Taine scanned the woman’s back. There, where red locks met the top of her sundress, a slender quill was embedded in her shoulder blade, the skin at the point bloated and red. Taine stooped to pull it out, then paused, his mind racing. Poison? That didn’t make any sense. This was France, the centre of civilisation and culture, not the African jungle. There were easier ways of administering poison than using a dart. Although darts mean the shooter had to be close…

Taine’s head whipped up. He checked the lane for the shooter. The rooftops. Trees. No one.

He turned back to the woman. Jules was bent over her, speaking softly.

“Touchez pas, je vous dis!” the café owner bellowed.

Ignoring his jabbering, Jules tilted her head toward the woman, the cheerful bob of her pony-tail incongruous with the gravity of her expression.

The woman’s skin rippled in waves as if someone was reading Braille from the inside. Foam bubbled at her mouth and dribbled onto the sun-bleached stones.

“What is it?” Taine asked.

“I don’t know. It’s… if I didn’t know better, I’d—”

With a rasp, the woman’s skin burst, splitting like an overripe tomato, grey-green pulp spilling onto the ground.

The remaining customers shrieked, all politeness evaporating in the late summer heat as they toppled tables and upturned chairs in their haste to get away. Serviettes fluttered. A can of Coke bumped across the path, dark liquid fizzing out.

What the hell?

Thousands of tiny organisms erupted from the corpse, the green mass swarming across the flagstones. Taine slammed Jules against the stone wall and out of way. The creatures scuttled towards the canal and over the edge. A few disappeared down a drain, dropping between the iron gratings. Within seconds they were gone.

Taine stepped back, releasing Jules.

Not poison then. “What were they? Some kind of crab?”

“It looked like… a crustacean of sorts,” Jules said, her voice shaky. “Oh my god, that poor woman. I think… I think she’d been incubating them. Taine, they ate her from the inside out, like wasp larvae gorging on a caterpillar.” Shivering, she wrapped her arms about herself.

Closing the distance between them, Taine held her, looking over Jules’ head at the woman’s body – now a carcass. Only skin and bone remained.

A movement caught his eye. A single spawn flopped in the puddle of spilled Coke, then stilled. Gently putting Jules away from him, Taine crouched to examine it. Smaller than a fingernail, it was shaped like a single fish scale and covered in hairs.

Footsteps.

Coming at a run.

The shooter? Taine spun, placing his body in front of Jules as a man dashed around the corner, a child in his arms. Spying the dead woman – more clothes than corpse – the man cried out, slowing and crumpling to his knees. “Non, non, non…” he babbled.

The café owner picked this moment to shut up shop, his belly wobbling as he hastened to wind in the awning. It closed with a snap.

“Hey,” Taine said. “You can’t just leave. These people need help!”

“C’est fermé,” the man said, slamming the bi-fold doors. It didn’t need translating.

Leaping forward, Taine grabbed the handle and shook it.

“Taine!” Jules called. She glanced at the child. At what he’d missed.

In the skin between the boy’s toes was a tiny quill. Who fires a dart that small? That low? And at a child?

Streaks of white were spreading over the child’s foot. Wormlike swellings snaking beneath his skin.

The man’s eyes boggled. He drew in a breath and lurched backwards, letting the child roll onto the path. “Non,” he breathed. “Non!” He scuttled backwards a few steps, then turned and bolted.

“Hey! Come back,” Taine shouted after him.

Jules grabbed Taine by the forearm. She’d gathered up the boy. “Taine. Let him go. Whatever these are, we need to stop them from spreading or we’ll lose him too.” She yanked the silk scarf from around her neck, handing it to him. “Use this as a tourniquet. Make it tight.”

Taine seized the gauzy fabric and tied it around the boy’s mid-foot, using a spoon to twist the fabric until the skin around it was white with pressure. The boy screamed. Jules held him tight.

“Sorry, kid,” Taine whispered.

He lifted the child out of Jules’ arms, their eyes meeting, fingers touching as they passed him. Then, hugging the boy to his chest, Taine ran. At the corner, he looked left then right, searching the shopfronts for the ubiquitous green cross that signalled a pharmacy. There were none.

Any other time they’d be everywhere.

Taine thumped the nearest door with his elbow. No answer.

He tried the next. Nothing. Had the curtains twitched?

Jules caught up.

“Jules, we need an ambulance, the fire brigade, an auto-shop, anywhere with a first aid kit.”

She was fumbling with her cell phone. “I’m looking… my French isn’t that good.”

It didn’t matter. Whoever Jules contacted would not make it in time. The boy was in danger of being consumed from the inside. In the few minutes it had taken reach the square, the boy’s toes had swollen to plump purple grapes, the skin stretched so thin it was almost translucent. Taine had to do something now.

There!

M. et Mme Lompech. Charcuterie-Boucherie.

It would have to do. Taine sprinted across the square and into the store, the door rattling behind him as it closed.

“Bonjour, mons—” said the wide-faced woman behind the counter. Taine didn’t wait for her to finish, barrelling past her into the rear of the store, where a man –presumably Lompech – was at work. Taine shouldered him aside, thrust the child on the bloodied butcher’s block, and snatched up a cleaver. The child squealed, and kicked out his feet, desperate to escape. Then, he caught sight of his foot. It was as ugly as an engorged leech, the grey skin mobile. The boy screamed again.

“Mais, qu’est-ce que vous foutez là?” the butcher shouted.

The wife appeared at the door, her eyes sweeping over Taine, the boy, and the cleaver. She started to yell.

Taine didn’t have time to explain, and even if he did, he didn’t know the words.

He raised the cleaver.

But the butcher wasn’t about to go down without a fight. Solid as a ship’s mast, and his face the colour of polished cherry, he lowered his shoulder, and charged. All it took was a neat side-step to send him sprawling. Lompech skittered into a sack of flour.

Taine turned his attention back to the boy. Raised the cleaver again.

“Non!” the wife shrieked.

Lompech was back on his feet, readying himself for another charge.

“Look, there’s no choice,” Taine yelled.

Lompech’s face hardened.

Taine remembered the café woman’s warning. “La velue,” he said.

The butcher froze, his face suddenly pale.

His wife covered her mouth. “Mon Dieu,” she gasped through her fingers. “La velue.”

The butcher stepped forward and Taine prepared himself for the onslaught. Instead, Lompech took the child by the shoulders, burying the boy’s face in his chest and holding him fast. He glanced at the boy’s foot then nodded at Taine.

Taine didn’t wait. He dropped the cleaver, hard, severing the foot below the ankle.

The cleaved appendage flew off the block. It smacked the worn stone slabs. Hairy white maggots slithered out, crawling down the drain the butcher used to sluice the area after a kill. In seconds, all that remained of the foot was the shrivelled flap of skin.

Mercifully, the boy had fainted. Cradling the child’s head, Lompech’s wife ran her fingers over the boy’s hair, crooning quietly, while her husband staunched the bleeding stump with his butcher’s apron.

Taine had to give the man his due. The butcher hadn’t cared for the risk to himself. Hadn’t hesitated to place his mitt over the oozing stump. Taine supposed butchers were less squeamish than most. Or perhaps Lompech thought if anything still infected the boy, his meshed glove would protect him.

Taine switched on the gas and heated the cleaver over the flame.

When it was white-hot, Lompech raised his hands to reveal the boy’s grizzled stump. The wife held her breath. Taine laid the flattened blade against the wound, cauterising it, the scent of seared meat filling the air. Unconscious, the boy flinched. Taine stifled nausea as the stench filled his nostrils. They’d done what they could. Breathing heavily through his mouth, Taine slumped against a bench while the butcher wrapped the wound in muslin.

Out the front, the door rattled. “Taine!”

Jules.

“I’m in here.”

Five grim-faced gendarmes crowded the tiny back room, FAMAS F1 series assault rifles aimed at Taine.

“À terre! Mettez-vous à terre! On the ground!” the leader screeched.

Taine raised his arms.

The office was dark with polished wood-panel décor and two French flags arranged in a patriotic V. There were three men in the room: the butcher, the mayor Godefroi, and a third man dressed in black and blue combat gear, who was leaning casually against a wall, yet to introduce himself.

The mayor was nervous. Almost effeminate, Godefroi’s slight frame reminded Taine of his corporal Coolie – former corporal – although the resemblance stopped there. The man had none of Coolie’s calm, none of his finesse. Taine and Jules had been in his office less than five minutes, and already he’d knocked a stack of papers off the corner of the antique desk. Now he was pacing the room, and pulling at his tie. He still hadn’t said anything.

“Am I under arrest?” Taine asked.

Godefroi stepped over the fallen files and stopped in front of them. “Well, that depends…” the mayor said in heavily-accented English. The room was air conditioned, but sweat beaded on his brow.

“Look, I was just trying to save the kid’s life,” Taine replied, his hand tightening on the scrolled armrest of the tiny divan he shared with Jules.

“By amputating his foot? Benoit will be a cripple for all of his life.”

“He’s alive, isn’t he? Surely, that has to count for something!” Jules protested.

“You weren’t there, sir,” said Taine, keeping his voice even. “We’d just seen a woman die in the street, and then there was something growing in the boy’s foot. Maggots, but not maggots. Ask Lompech. He saw them.”

The mayor’s eyes darted to the other men in the room.

Jules leaned forward. “The woman, before she died, she mentioned something, she said: la velue?”

Lompech spoke sharply to Godefroi in French. The mayor replied and a heated conversation began.

Straightening, the third man raised his hand and the pair ceased their bickering.

“You are Sergeant McKenna of the New Zealand Defence Force, yes?”

“You know me?”

He waved his raised hand. “I looked you up. Made a few calls. I am Lieutenant Alan Alcouffe.”

“Lieutenant? So those were your guys pointing bullpup assault rifles at me earlier?”

Alcouffe shrugged. “Yes, we are armed. The gendarmerie départmentale is a division of the French military.”

“Why am I being held?” Taine asked. Arnold wasn’t going to like this. Out of sight and out of mind, the major had said.

“Because we need your help.”

Taine shook his head. “Sorry, I’m off duty.”

Alcouffe folded his arms across his chest. “Sergeant McKenna,” he began, while Godefroi translated for Lompech, “what we require won’t take long. A few days at most. You do not have to help us, but you should know that we have the right to detain any person suspected of terrorism for up to 96 hours...” His let his voice trail off.

“Terrorism!” Jules said. “But that’s crazy. We’re not terrorists.”

Taine took her hand. “I’m listening,” he said. The last thing they needed was be labelled as terrorists.

Alcouffe smiled. “The woman you saw die in the street today,” he continued, “the thing that killed her was not… human.”

Jules’ nostrils flared. “We’re well aware of that!”

“And what do you think it was, Dr Asher?” Alcouffe said. “In your professional opinion?”

Taine frowned. So Alcouffe had checked out Jules’ biology credentials, too.

“It was some sort of parasite,” Jules was saying. “Like a wasp larvae or a flatworm, although I’ve never seen this particular organism before. Its use of a… um… human substrate might have been accidental, though. Tetanus is like that – normally a soil bacteria, but if gets into the human body by accident, say via a rusty nail, it can be fatal.”

“Jules,” Taine said softly. “This wasn’t an accident. The parasite got in by injection. It was deliberate.”

“Then, what are they trying to imply? That you and I injected that poor woman with the parasite? The boy, too? But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would we have helped them if we wanted them dead? And more to the point, what possible reason could we have for wanting them dead?”

“We know it wasn’t you who killed her,” Godefroi said.

“Good! Then we should be free to go,” Jules said.

Alcouffe sighed. “Sergeant McKenna is correct when he says the killing was deliberate. But you are correct, too, Dr Asher, which is why we also need your help.”

Godefroi nudged Lompech. The butcher stepped forward, holding a stainless steel meat dish containing the remains of Benoit’s foot, including the tiny needle.

Alcouffe went on. “The woman was attacked by a peluda, a rare animal capable of shooting lethal quills. Village records show it’s not the first time the animal has appeared in the village. It came from the Huisine River—”

Jules dragged her gaze from the shrivelled flap of skin. “Hang on, hang on, back up a bit. Peluda. Is that what la velue means? You can’t be serious. Isn’t that like a Greek manticore?”

Alcouffe nodded. “Something like that,” he said slowly.

Tugging at the hem of his jacket, Godefroi took a deep breath. “The peluda is a dragon, Mademoiselle Asher. It has appeared before, the last time killing seventeen villagers, including two children. We can’t let it happen again.”

“But it’s a cryptid.”

Taine arched a brow. She was speaking English and still he didn’t understand.

“A cryptid is a myth,” Jules explained. “A creature whose existence is based on anecdotal evidence. Bigfoot. Chupacabra. The Loch Ness monster. There’s no hard evidence these creatures actually exist.” She turned to the others. “Surely, you can’t believe—”

“What about a taniwha?” Taine said quietly. “Would that be a cryptid, too?”

Jules eyes widened. She clamped her mouth shut.

Taine looked at Alcouffe. “So, why us? You have the body, and the boy’s testimony – why not call in your military?”

The lieutenant adjusted the cuff of his uniform. “I would like nothing better than to see a couple of Leclerc tanks roll in, a compagnie of soldiers, a batterie—”

“You haven’t called it in, have you?” Taine interrupted. “Because you know they won’t believe you. A dragon who preys on women and children? You’d be a laughing stock. It’s a fairy tale.”

Alcouffe ignored him. “Until we know more about the creature, we feel it’s imperative this be kept quiet.”

“The villagers already know,” Taine said. “Today, at the café, they wouldn’t help.”

“Legends and hearsay,” Alcouffe replied, stepping to the window. “There have been stories. But add a dead woman, and a lame boy, and people will want to know if there’s any truth to those stories. We’ll be overrun by tourists and sight-seers looking for fame and getting into danger.”

Taine nodded.

“How did you keep people out last time?” Jules asked.

“The last time was five hundred years ago, Mademoiselle Asher,” Godefroi said. “There was no Internet in the middle ages. No mass media. We posted people at the outskirts of the village and had them tell visitors we had the plague. It was close enough to the truth. Nobody came.”

Taine’s mind raced. Armies dealt in hard intelligence. Facts. The French army would fling any report about a dragon back in Alcouffe’s face. The lieutenant had no choice but to protect his community with the resources he had available. It was a choice soldiers knew well enough. But as far as Alcouffe was concerned, Taine was expendable. Deniable. Taine knew Alcouffe could pull it off, too. It would be simple enough for Alcouffe to suggest Taine had taken it upon himself – to avenge the French bombing of the Rainbow Warrior for example. A foreign national, a soldier and suspected terrorist, if Taine died – if anyone in the operation died – he was the perfect scapegoat.

Taine’s grip tightened on the armrest. The safest option would be for him to sit quietly in custody for four days. Wait it out. Taine almost smiled. He couldn’t do it. Already, he was chaffing to do something. Sit on his arse in a French jail while someone else did the dirty work? Yeah, right. Defending lives was what soldiers did, what he did.

Still, Jules didn’t deserve to be dragged into this…

He turned to her.

“I’ll be careful, if you will,” she said.

Taine smiled. He should have known.

Stepping away from the window, Alcouffe clapped his hands together. “Excellent!”

But Taine wasn’t done with him. Getting to his feet, he stepped forward until his face was almost touching the lieutenant’s. “Yes, we’ll help, but I want your assurance that, whatever happens to me, when this is over, Dr Asher is allowed to go home.”

Alcouffe’s gaze slid to the window.

“Lieutenant?”

“Yes, yes,” Godefroi said quickly. “Les assurances. You have them. Tell him, Alan.”

Alcouffe turned back, his eyes narrow. “I give you my word.”

Pushing to her feet, Jules smoothed the fabric of her shorts then took the meat dish from Lompech. “Right, if you boys are done proving who has the most testosterone, I’m going to need a lab.”

Godefroi led her to the door. “My nièce is the chemistry teacher at the Lycée Robert Garnier,” he said. “She will show you.”

Taine slung the rifle over his shoulder. Fixing the radio earpiece into place, he looked around the room. Dressed in full riot gear, men were stuffing electrolyte drinks and cereal bars into their pockets. Taine did the same, also adding a bush knife to his equipment. Two M67 fragmentation grenades remained on the table.

“You are familiar with them?” Alcouffe asked.

Taine picked one up, testing its weight in his hand. “The New Zealand Defence Force uses them, yes.”

“Then they are for you. My men are not trained to use them.”

Taine clipped the grenades to his belt. “When do the rest of your team turn up?”

“This is all of us,” Alcouffe replied.

“Five men to slay a dragon? No wonder you wanted my help.”

The Frenchman glared. “Right now, three of my men are following the crab creatures through the pipes and waterways under the town. They volunteered for this task even though they risk being stung by barbs and eaten alive. They have no idea where the crabs will lead them, and no idea what they will find.” He took a step forward, until Taine could feel the man’s breath on his face. “They are some of the bravest men I know.”

Adjusting the strap on his shoulder, Taine nodded. “Better one brave man than fifty cowards.”

Alcouffe stepped back, studying him. After a moment, he gestured to one of the gendarmes. “This is Guy. He speaks English.”

Guy stuck out a hand to shake Taine’s. “Guy Lompech, Sergeant McKenna. Enchanté.”

Broad for a man in his twenties, something about the soldier struck Taine as familiar.

Taine raised an eyebrow. “Lompech?”

“Yes, yes, he’s the butcher’s son,” Alcouffe interrupted. “We don’t have time for aperitifs and chatting. This is Bruno, over there that’s Thierry, and the short one is Pascal Le Cannu.”

Carrying a grenade launcher, Le Cannu acknowledged Taine with a handshake. “My tailor is rich,” he said, grinning.

“I’m sorry?”

“My tailor is rich. Le Cannu is learning English,” Lompech explained.

“Oh, right.” Taine smiled at Le Cannu. “That’s great.”

“Please, how do you call this?” Le Cannu said, patting the weapon at his hip.

“A grenade launcher?”

“Grenade launcher, yes. I have the grenade launcher,” the gendarme said in halting English, the word grenade more like gargling than speech.

Taine gave him the thumbs up. “Very good.”

It was: a grenade launcher was what was needed for killing a dragon, although how useful it would be in a tight space was debatable. But there were no others available, so Taine would have to make do with the hand grenades. About the same firepower, less to carry.

Alcouffe went on. “Only Lompech speaks English. The rest, no. Or only a few words. You’ll have to use hand signals.” The lieutenant broke into French. Taine heard his name, and the words soldat néo zélandais…

“Are you familiar with le clarion, Sergeant?” the butcher’s son asked. Taine’s confusion must have shown because Lompech tilted his head towards the rifle. “Le clarion, the bugle. It is what we call the FAMAS.”

Taine checked the gun over. Safety, single fire, automatic, and a tiny trigger guard which meant gloves were out of the question. New Zealand’s Steyrs had a larger guard, but maybe its penetration was superior to the Steyr. Taine hoped so; seeing as they were off on a dragon hunt. He pointed to the trigger. “Squeeze this here?”

Lompech chuckled. “That is all you need to know.”

One hand on his earpiece, Alcouffe help up a hand for silence. “It’s Tatou. They have found something.”

Twelve minutes later, the soldiers had gathered on the outskirts of town, nine of them now, including Tatou, Rossi and Laloup. They were standing knee-deep in the canal at the entrance to a tunnel disappearing into the wall. Blackened and slick with slime, the opening was gated with a solid iron grating, now hanging on an angle, the lock broken off.

Leaving Laloup at the entrance, Alcouffe signalled to Tatou, who took point as they entered the darkness.

The tunnel descended quickly, the sloping ceiling passing beneath the canal. Water fell from the stonework above them, creating a stream that flowed into the depths of the earth. Ankle deep in the water, the cold penetrated Taine’s boots.

“I thought heat was supposed to rise,” Lompech grumbled under his breath. “The cold is seeping up from my feet. If we spend too much longer in this water, I think my balls will freeze off.”

Taine pulled the collar of his jacket closer as an icy drip trickled down his neck. He’d been in tunnels before, but something about this one was sending shivers up his spine. “What is this place?”

“A quarry. It’s where they got the stone to build the canal and the town. There are hundreds of tunnels down here; the town’s built on top of it.”

“Are there other entrances?”

“A few. The town barred them all up before I was born. After a group of teenagers got lost and died down here.”

“I guess that explains why the place feels like a crypt,” Taine said.

“Let’s hope it’s not ours,” Lompech Junior replied.

Jules turned the maggot specimen over using a stylus while Godefroi’s niece, Sandrine, steadied the dish. It looked like a hairy caterpillar. Jules prodded it again. The creature’s bristles shot up, sending out a spray of tiny filaments.

Startled, Jules jumped back, knocking over an open can of Coke and sending it spilling across the benchtop.

“Merde!” Sandrine yanked her hand back, and shook her finger.

“Did it get you?” Jules righted the Coke can. Black liquid dripped off the bench.

“No, it’s nothing. A shock, only. I did not expect it to move.”

Jules grabbed at Sandrine’s wrist, turning her hand over and examining her gloved finger. Barely visible, the tiny fibres clung like thistle fluff to the latex. A charge effect? Or were the quills barbed, like a porcupine’s, so they slid into a victim easily but needed three or four times the force to pull them out?

Carefully, Jules curled Sandrine’s glove off, dropping it into a stainless steel waste container. Taking a magnifying glass, she looked closely at Sandrine’s finger. A few fibres had penetrated the glove. Surely, the maggot quills were just for protection. They had to be too small to inject eggs? But the tip of Sandrine’s finger was already streaking red.

Sandrine paled. “I’ll rinse them off…”

“I think it’s too late.”

Sandrine used her free hand to point to the line of lab benches under the window. “Jules, the… tiroir… the drawer, three from the left. Scalpels.”

Jules ran, leaping over the puddle of Coke, to the drawer, ripping the packaging off a sterile scalpel as she returned. At the bench, she hesitated.

“We don’t have any anaesthetic.”

Sandrine shook her head. “My uncle said Benoit lost his foot,” she said calmly. “It’s okay, the scalpel—”

Jules didn’t wait for Sandrine to finish her sentence. She sliced the pad off Sandrine’s finger. Blood welled. Drawing in a breath, Sandrine grimaced. She let the wound drip into the specimen container for a few seconds, then closed her hand to stop the flow.

“I wouldn’t recommend taking to crime,” Jules said. “I think your fingerprint is going to be a dead giveaway.”

Sandrine smiled weakly.

“Let’s keep an eye on it for a bit. Where’s your First Aid kit?”

“There. On the wall.”

The kit included a box of Doliprane. Jules checked the side of the box for the active agent. Paracetamol. She handed a couple to Sandrine, then took out a gauze bandage and covered the wound.

“So how did you end up here teaching school, Sandrine? Most people can’t get away from their hometown fast enough.”

“Oh, I tried to get away. I got as far as Lyon. After my doctorate, I worked for a private research organisation: companies who couldn’t afford to set up their own laboratories outsourced work to us. It was a great – a lot of variety. I was there five years, but then, I didn’t get a good peer review. One of my male colleagues found my presence in the lab distracting.”

It was a story Jules had heard before.

Sandrine shrugged. “So I left and became a teacher. Now I am head of the science.”

“Top of the glass ceiling, then.”

Sandrine grinned. “Exactement. I have my own lab, and my students are wonderful.” She lifted the bandage and smiled. “And it looks like I still have all my fingers.”

“Let me see.” Jules lifted the gauze, and blew out a slow stream of air. The skin around the wound was pink and healthy. There were no signs of any burrowing maggots. Jules replaced the bandage, and taped it down. “We can’t keep cutting off bits of people who get infected. We need to find a way to stop them.”

“Maybe we can kill them with some kind of pesticide, but I suspect the sheath protects them.”

“Plus, spraying people with pesticide isn’t ideal.”

“That too.”

Jules took another look at the maggot.

Damn!

The Coke had splashed in the meat container, contaminating the sample.

“Careful,” Sandrine warned as Jules checked the maggot with the stylus, this time prepared for it to move. But the creature didn’t budge.

“Maybe the maggots don’t survive a long period outside a host?” Jules suggested.

“It’s easy enough to test that theory – we’ll use the maggots growing in the flap of skin you just cut off my finger.” Jules had to admit, the woman had sang-froid. “Unless it was the Coke?”

Sandrine frowned. “Cell rupture caused by phosphoric acid?”

“Or citric or carbonic acids. Or a combination of all three?”

“I don’t believe it. Surely, those acids are too weak to cause any real damage.”

Jules agreed it was unlikely. It was an urban myth that Coke could dissolve a nail or strip the enamel from a human tooth. But soda drinks were a recent invention, at least as far as the peluda was concerned. An urban myth to kill a myth? The idea was so far-fetched…

Jules stripped off her lab-coat, throwing it over a stool. There was only one way to check.

Sandrine looked up. “Dr Asher? Jules? Where are you going?”

“Back to the alley where the woman was killed.”

After descending for about twenty minutes, Tatou led them left into a tunnel while the water continued straight across into some culverts. At least now they were in the dry. They continued along the stone corridor until a large opening appeared, heading off to the right. A cavern. In Taine’s night vision goggles, the entrance resembled a colossal green and black maw.

They crept forward. At the cavern entrance, their backs against the rock, Alcouffe motioned to Taine that he should look first, pointing two fingers to his eyes, and back to the entrance.

Of course. Taine was expendable. Still, he may as well find out what they were up against. He took a breath, raised his weapon, and eased into the grotto.

Cripes. The cavern wasn’t man-made. Wreathed with rocky outcrops, it was hung with the same hairy crabs that had burst from Benoit’s mother’s stomach. Like fairy lights at the mall at Christmas, they were hanging from the walls, the roof, squeezed into cracks in the rocks, everywhere. The ground though, was littered in rubble, a mound rising in the centre, stark against a green background… Bones. Heaps of them, like waste from an abattoir. Taine identified a few skulls: rodents, dogs, sheep, horses, and human....

“Well?” Alcouffe whispered when Taine had eased back into the tunnel.

“It’s a nursery of those crab things.”

“How many? Are they moving?”

“Millions of them. They’re moving – but not scuttling about – just waving their spines in the air like seaweed. And there’s—”

Alcouffe cut him off. “The dragon, McKenna. Did you see it?”

Taine shook his head, but even as he did a low hiss came from inside the cavern. Taine’s blood ran cold. It was in there? How had he not seen it? Putting a finger to his lips, he slipped into the cavern again. Careful not to disturb the crabs, he took cover behind a boulder and peered out.

He didn’t know what he’d expected the dragon to look like. More story-bookish. Or like a dinosaur. Something bigger anyway. Instead, the peluda resembled a large shaggy goat, but with a long muscular neck, and a smooth snake-like head and tail. It looked like some kind of bizarre genetic experiment gone wrong. Bent over a bone, it was gnawing at a piece of gristle still clinging to the shaft. It must have been hidden in the crags at the back of the cave. The dragon hissed, and even from a distance the stench was nauseating.

Behind Taine, a safety clicked off. There was a crunch of gravel.

The dragon dropped the bone, snapping its snake-head around to follow the sound. Taine checked the crabs, expecting them to be surging from the walls. They remained where they were, apparently disinterested.

“Merde!” someone cursed.

Taine risked a glance back. Alcouffe hadn’t waited. Tatou was now on the other side of the entrance, but, just inside the cavern, Rossi was sprawled on the ground – tripped over a bone. Why hadn’t Alcouffe waited for Taine’s intel? Did he already know what they were up against?

The peluda hissed again, and Taine swung to face it. His throat tightened. The dragon’s shaggy hair had stiffened into needle-like spines, almost doubling the creature’s size, like a cat with its hackles raised. The black barbs glinted, Taine’s night vision goggles capturing every speck of light.

Taine raised his rifle. He sighted a spot low on the creature’s chest. But Alcouffe was dashing across the gap to cover the downed man. Taine cursed. As Rossi scrambled to his feet, Alcouffe raised his Sig pistol and fired.

The bullet glanced off the creature, ricocheting into the walls and sending a shower of crabs to the ground. The crabs scurried back to the walls. The peluda remained unharmed.

Taine could have cried. What was that saying? Déjà vu all over again. The dragon’s spines had deflected the bullet. They would’ve been better off bringing the gendarmes’ riot shields.

The highly pissed peluda thundered towards Alcouffe, its clawed lizard feet crushing bones as it hurtled across the cavern. It opened its snake jaw wide and hissed. Taine gagged at the smell.

“Tirez, tirez,” Alcouffe commanded as a volley of spines rained around him. “Shoot!” The gendarmes opened fire. Rossi sprinted for cover.

Taine fired, and fired again. Tatou did the same from his side. For all the good it did. The FAMAS wasn’t any more effective than the Sig. Bullets pinged everywhere, but nothing was penetrating those spines. They were like a palisade surrounding a Māori pā site.

Unperturbed by their barrage of fire, the peluda swung its hairless tail over its head, thrusting a tail spike as thick as a table leg, and driving it deep into Rossi’s jugular. Upright, the gendarme jerked to a stop. The peluda wrenched its spike out. Rossi fell face down and didn’t get up, black blood pumping from his neck.

Advancing into the cavern using the rocks for cover, Alcouffe and his men were firing again: Alcouffe and Tatou on the far side, Thierry and Bruno at Taine’s back, Le Cannu, with the grenade launcher, out wide. Lompech was running deep, taking advantage of the distraction to skirt the edge of the cavern, dodging the rain of crabs and rock.

“Lompech, you have a plan?” Taine yelled over the firing.

“The legends say the tail is vulnerable.” Lompech ducked behind some rocks as a bullet skimmed by his head. “I thought I’d see if there was any truth to it.”

Taine jumped up. Sometimes there was truth in legends. “Coming with you. And watch out – vulnerable or not, that tail is deadly.”

Taine was scrambling across the bones when Le Cannu dropped to one knee and grabbed Rossi by the jacket, intending to pull his body out of the cavern. But Rossi was built like a rugby prop, and Le Cannu like a halfback, so he only managed to drag the body a few metres when the dragon spat a jet of black saliva, hitting him square in the chest and throwing him backwards. The gendarme yelped. His uniform was sizzling, smoke rising as the fabric disintegrated.

What the hell? Was the monster was spitting Napalm now?

Leaving Rossi, Le Cannu was scrambling backwards, trying to get out of range of that spitting, steaming maw.

Seeing the danger, Lompech hooted and threw stones that plinked into the rubble. It worked: the peluda swung to face the threat at the rear of the cavern.

Taine leaped then, sliding towards Le Cannu like a batter in one-day cricket match, ducking his head to avoid the swing of that tail. He drew his knife and lowered his arm. Le Cannu’s eyes went wide as Taine sliced upwards, laying open Le Cannu’s clothing from waist to neck. A blackened wound covered his chest and stomach.

“Take it off!” Taine shouted. He mimed taking off the jacket. There was no need for charades: Le Cannu had dropped the grenade launcher and was already shrugging off his coat. Taine grabbed his free arm and dragged him to the cavern entrance.

Alcouffe and his men had also retreated to the tunnels. Realising their firepower was a waste of time, they were hurriedly fitting bayonets to their FAMAS assault rifles.

“Lompech!”

“I am okay!”

Like bread in a toaster, the butcher’s son had wedged himself between two large rocks at the back of the cave, sheltering from the hail of spines. The dragon twisted and thrashed, whipping its tail to get at him.

“Alcouffe!” Taine shouted across the cavern entrance. “Lompech is going to get himself jabbed.”

“Yes, but he can wait: the beast’s tail is free.”

Alcouffe signalled to the Frenchmen, who charged at the creature, their bayonets raised. Taine noted that Alcouffe hadn’t bothered to include him in his orders. Or to tell him about the tail’s supposed weakness. With no time to fix his bayonet, Taine drew his knife and followed.

Alcouffe’s men moved forward, spread out in a semi-circle behind the creature. Suddenly, Bruno darted in and took a jab at the hairless tail. As soon as he drew back, Tatou stabbed at it. The dragon spat acid. Thierry leapt out of the way.

So, that was the plan. They were a wolf pack, worrying their prey. Le Cannu had stepped in to take his turn, when the dragon snapped its muscular hairless tail sideways, picking up Bruno in the sweeping movement. Like a cow flicking away flies, the creature slapped the gendarme against its flank, the erect spines shooting through his body. Impaling him.

Eyes wide, Bruno grunted. He looked down at his torso, the spines tethering him to the peluda’s side, like a fly to sticky paper. Before anyone could react, the tail whipped back, this time picking up Tatou and flinging him across the cavern. Stunned, Tatou hit the wall, grated down its crabbed surface, the skin on his neck dripping like redcurrant jam.

There was no time to mourn. The tail was whipping around again, and this time Alcouffe was its target. But Alcouffe’s eyes were still fixed on Tatou. In a second, the lieutenant would be sleeping on a bed of nails.

Shit.

Le Cannu’s grenade launcher! It was on the floor. Taine threw himself on the ground surfing though the bones to snatch up the launcher with one hand. He swung it low, taking Alcouffe out by the legs. Alcouffe tumbled to the ground, the peluda’s tail skimming over his head and relieving him of his helmet.

“Merde!”

Taine was already on his feet, slashing at the tail as it passed. He thrust deep. The dragon screamed. Blood spurted. It turned its snake-head to Taine, staring at him through slitted eyes. It opened its maw.

Taine raised the grenade launcher, and shoved the barrel deep into the dragon’s gullet. Suddenly, he was pushed from behind. Someone shouldering him, adding their weight to the scrum.

“No! Get clear!” Taine shouted. He didn’t dare fire. Not without risking the life of the man behind him. He’d have to choke the beast. He rammed the launcher in deeper. The creature gagged, the reek overwhelming, but instead of succumbing, the jaws opened wider.

Taine remembered the horse skulls. Please no. Don’t let it be able to detach its lower jaw like a snake. The peluda’s jaws belched, opening further. The beast twisted, the deadly spines on its flanks just half a pace away.

Choking it wouldn’t work. Taine had to shoot. He might die, the man behind him too, but he had to take the risk. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Lompech loomed into view.

Damn it.

He was in the line of fire. If Taine fired now, Lompech was mincemeat.

“Move! Out of the way!” Taine yelled. His body was shaking with fatigue, his boots slipping underfoot. He wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. Lompech or no, he had to fire. There was no other way.

He squeezed…

There was a wet crunch of steel on bone. The dragon shuddered and went limp. Lompech had driven his bayonet into the animal’s brain. “C’est fini,” he said.

Panting, Taine released his grip on the trigger. He withdrew the launcher, blood and drool dribbling from the barrel, and let the creature’s head drop to the ground.

Le Cannu helped Thierry to his feet. Alcouffe put his helmet back on.

On the side of the dead beast, Bruno’s grin was macabre.

The radio crackled.

“Godefroi?”

“Taine, thank God you’re okay. It’s me, Jules.”

“Not everyone is okay, Jules.” Against the wall, Tatou’s body was close to bursting.

Taine heard her gasp over the static. “I’m at the town hall. The butcher and his wife are here.” She spoke in a whisper.

“Lompech is fine, but we lost some of the others. The spines infected them. We still have a nursery of hairy crabs to deal with, but things are quiet at the moment.”

“Taine…” She broke off. “Taine, about the spines. Sandrine and I might have discovered something. I went back to the café. Remember the can of Coke that spilled on the stones? The puddle had dried, but the crab was still squeezed in a crack. It wasn’t dead, just stunned, because I took it back to the lab and after a while it recovered. Weak acids, like Coke, appear to anaesthetise them. Which is good because it gives us time to irrigate and cauterise a wound before the maggots can take hold.”

Too late for Tatou though.

Taine kicked at the smouldering remains of Le Cannu’s jacket. “The big one – the dragon – spat acid.”

“Spat it?”

“Spat it, sprayed it.”

“That’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“In the animal kingdom, if you’re going to go to all the trouble of making chemicals then it makes sense to use them.”

“It was a defence mechanism?”

“Maybe. But in the last five hundred years? How many predators do you think a cave-dwelling dragon has?”

Taine stooped to pick up his knife. “Good point.” There was a pause. “Jules?”

“Did you say the crabs had been quiet?”

“Yep. They’ve been hanging about on the walls, minding their own business. Unless you touch them. Then, they’re not so friendly.”

“Hang on…” There was chatter on the line. When she came back, Jules said, “Taine you have to get out of there. Get everyone out now.”

“But the dragon’s dead, Jules. We killed it.”

“Taine! Please get out. The dragon’s acid might be what’s kept the crab in hibernation. The way a queen ant emits a chemical to let worker ants know whether to raise princesses or drones. Without the acid’s calming effect, Sandrine and I… we think it will trigger the next phase of the peludas’ life cycle. The adult phase.”

Taine’s stomach curdled. He glanced around the cavern. While he’d been talking to Jules, the crabs had been sluicing off the walls, dropping to the ground. Thousands, possibly millions of them were on the move: each one with a full set of deadly spines, each one, if properly nourished, capable of growing into a full-sized dragon. The peluda were hatching. And the only food source available was…

“Taine, we used a Bunsen burner—”

“Gotta go.”

“—fire kills them.”

Taine was already shouting to the remaining men. “Fall back. Out of the caves!” He hoped the urgency told everyone what they needed to know.

Thierry stooped to pick up Rossi’s body, dragging him into the tunnels, the dead man’s boots scraping the grit.

Lompech hesitated, looking first at Bruno and Tatou.

“Leave them!” Alcouffe yanked Lompech towards the tunnels by his sleeve.

Taine was only steps behind, Le Cannu alongside him, when the peluda’s severed tail whiplashed involuntarily, upsetting the mound of bones. Both Taine and Le Cannu jumped, Taine landing on the other side of the cairn, but Le Cannu wasn’t so lucky; a human skull rolled into his path. Prepared for a first jump, the gendarme hadn’t expected a second. He stepped on the skull, his ankle turning with a crack. Off balance, he careered into the wall, slipping sideways. His soldier reflexes kicked in and he rolled away from the wall, but not before the tiny creatures had grazed the length of his body, barbs sticking in his side like a pins in a pincushion.

Taine was closing the distance to him when Le Cannu raised his gun. Aiming at Taine. Taine stopped short. A spine had pierced Le Cannu’s eye. Larvae were swarming into the socket, the tissue bulging so the man’s eye was merely a slit. Raising his chin, Le Cannu pointed to the grenade launcher. “Give.” He was calm. He knew he was dead. “Grenade launcher,” he said softly. He lifted a finger to the ceiling of the cave.

Taine handed him the launcher. He tapped two fingers to his watch. “One minute.”

Le Cannu waved him off. A white grub crawled out of his eye and down his cheek. “Allez, vite!”

“Where’s Pascal?” Alcouffe demanded when Taine caught up.

“The spikes got him,” Taine said, noting the clench of the lieutenant’s jaw. “He’s going to blow the cave.”

Alcouffe nodded. “We’d better move out then.”

Lompech led since Tatou was dead. Taine counted his steps. Four minutes. No explosion. Le Cannu must have been eaten before he could bring the ceiling down, the poor bastard. Alcouffe must have come to the same conclusion, because seconds later he called a halt. Taine felt the sweat cool on his neck. He would have to go back.

“I’ll come with you,” Lompech said, but Taine shook his head. “Go on,” he said. “Help Thierry with Rossi. I’ve got this.”

“Yes, let the New Zealander do it,” Alcouffe barked. He moved off.

Lompech glared at Alcouffe’s back, then turned to Taine. “Whatever happens, I will make sure the lieutenant keeps his word.”

They shook hands and the butcher’s son turned and ran, leaving Taine alone.

Taine sprinted back along the tunnel. He didn’t make it as far as the cavern, the night vision goggles revealing a mass of crabs pouring through into the tunnel in a sea of movement. In places, the wave of creepy-crawlies was as high as his knees. The grenade launcher was out. There was no way of getting back to the retrieve it. He’d have to use the M67s. Is that why Alcouffe had given him the grenades? To make it easy to pin all this on the crazed Kiwi and keep the paperwork clean.

You have done some crazy shit lately, McKenna.

Taine ran his eyes over the ceiling, checking for the spot most likely to bring the roof down. La Ferté-Bernard was built above this labyrinth. What if he destroyed the entire town? He’d have to risk it. There was no other option. That seething mass could not be allowed to leave the caves. Taine spied a deep crack in the stones. That should do the trick.

He pulled the pin on the grenade, hurled it, then threw himself into an adjacent layby.

The explosion roared through the tunnels, rattling his bones. Debris and rocks collapsed, filling the tunnel with dust and noise. Taine held his breath waiting for the crush that would break his back and bury him alive. It didn’t come.

When the rumble subsided, Taine raised his head. He’d sealed the tunnel and the town hadn’t caved in on top of him!

He got up and checked the cave-in for cracks. Nothing. The wall of boulders was solid, and apart from a half dozen crabs which he crushed underfoot, the legend of the peluda was buried behind it. Blowing out hard, Taine turned to make the climb back to the surface. Hopefully, the way out wasn’t blocked.

Out of nowhere, a crab dropped from the ceiling, landing on his gloveless hand.

Damn it. Missed one.

Quickly, Taine brushed the creature off, stomping on it with his boot.

No, no, no.

He checked his skin, feeling the blood drain from his face. A tiny spine was stuck in his wrist.

Taine’s heart scudded. Fuck.

He concentrated, slowing his heartbeat as he slid his knife from its sheath and scraped the barb away. It lifted off as if it was nothing more than a bee-sting.

Don’t die, don’t die. You promised Jules.

He dug into his wrist with the knife, slicing away a layer of flesh. There was nothing else he could do. If the spine had done its work, he’d be dead in minutes.

Taine slumped to the ground, his back against the rock wall, and watched his wrist begin to swell, resisting the urge to itch it. How could such a small thing be so lethal?

He thought of Benoit’s mother, of Le Cannu, Tatou, and Bruno. The peluda had caused some cruel deaths, and Taine’s would be next. He couldn’t let his body be eaten by the maggots already setting up camp inside him. If he did that, the peluda would be unleashed and the whole unnatural life cycle would start over…

Taine unclipped a grenade and juggled it gently from hand to hand. Fire killed them. It was the last thing Jules had said to him. Taine’s heart contracted when he thought of her. He’d promised her he’d be careful. He’d promised himself so much more. Their life together had barely started. After this holiday, he’d hoped… it didn’t matter now.

Hang on.

Jules had said acid calmed them. That the acid put the crawlies into some sort of hibernation. Taine had pocketed a drink when he’d kitted up earlier. Maybe there was enough acid in it to dull the maggots? Enough to get him to the surface before they consumed him? If he could reach the canal, maybe Jules or someone could get eggs and the grubs out, possibly without having to amputate his hand…

And wouldn’t that piss off Alcouffe?

Taine gripped the knife, slicing a wider chunk out of his wrist where the barb had entered. He poured the drink into the wound. Slowly. Drenching it. In his night goggles, the liquid ran black, seeping into the grit.

Was the itching slowing? Or was that wishful thinking? Maybe it was, but Taine had always liked long odds. Gave you something to play for.

Splashing his field bandage with the remainder of the liquid, Taine wrapped it around his wrist. Then he got to his feet, and ran.