Instinct (2010) (33 page)

The other option would be to search for Andrew and Laura on his twisted ankle. Would he really be able to help them that much? He could barely walk, so even if he did find them, defending them from the insects and helping them get back to Level One would not be easy. He might even make things harder by needing their help more than they needed him.

But then, he was armed, and that had to be a big plus. He decided he would at least look for them.

‘Lauuuuraaaaaa! Aaaaannnddrreewwww! Laauuurraaa!’

He could feel the foliage deadening his call. With no response, the only thing he could do to improve his odds of finding them was to get moving.

As he took his first careful steps, he could hear Garrett calling for him, but there was no way he was going to drag her down here. Their best chance of survival was to stay on Level One, so he resolved to wait until he had moved further away before calling out again.

Laura was screaming in long, hoarse bellows of pain.

The metal shoulder-strap that hung off the back of her jacket was angering the Jerusalem cricket, which could not bring its jaws together to complete its bite.

The mandibles had drawn plenty of blood but had not yet reached the scapula or the ribs. To Laura it felt as if two blunt carving knives were pulling through her flesh, digging at the skin and causing mounting agony.

She was pinned across a hard, curving root as thick as her thigh, but just beyond that was a wide pool of water that made up part of the hydroponics system.

If she were forced any further forward there was a good chance she could drown, so she was doing her best to resist the pressure of the beast on her back.

She grabbed hold of the roots again but she was weakened by the blood loss, and now the creature was pressing her forwards with its strong back legs.

She looked up as far as she could to see the water just ahead. It appeared to be rising to meet her, getting closer to her nostrils and mouth.

Further the mandibles dug, sliding her onward with irresistible force.

The tip of her nose was touching the water now.
She could feel the tepid moisture as her hard breaths rippled the surface.

This is how I die
, she thought.

Then she saw something else flop into her line of sight. Thin and brown, it bent in front of her, and she knew she had to grab hold of it.

Reaching forward, she just managed to get her right hand around it.
What now?
she thought.

Gripping harder, she was surprised to feel the pain in her back ease a little. In fact, the harder she gripped, the looser the cricket’s hold became.

With one more massive effort, she yanked on what was in her hand.

The shriek in her ear felt like a long flow of sharp gravel. She had one of its incredibly sensitive antennae, and was inflicting hard waves of pain on the creature.

It snapped forward, aiming for the hand, but Laura moved out of range at the last moment and it bit hard into its own antenna.

Another God-awful screech came and elongated into a howl. Laura seized her opportunity and bent the other antenna back on to itself.

The cricket thrashed its head from side to side, squealing and screaming. This movement sent it off balance and it tipped on to its back, bent antennae in the air.

Laura slid painfully out from under it and coughed, feeling the barking agony of her back as her ribs shook.

She looked across at the cricket, seeing for the first time how hideous and powerful it appeared. But there was no time for fear. She had to finish it off,
and fast, before its helpless noises attracted anything else.

Slumping over towards its head, she found its eyes and dug her thumbs deep inside them. She had to hold on tight, as the whipping and bucking continued with even greater vigour. She knew this wouldn’t kill it, but she was harming it enough to make sure she could get away without it following her.

She slid her thumbs out of the black mush, staggered to her feet and stumbled away. Within a few paces she was out of sight, hidden by leaves and stalks. Taking a moment to lean against a deep green trunk, she tried to calm down.

The pause left no distractions from the pain. Along with the blood loss, it overwhelmed her and she felt something deep within ebbing away. Despite everything, it felt quite pleasant.

Torn, broken and bloody, she dropped to her knees, leaned forward against the tree and passed out.

‘Fuck me, eh? Fuck
me
?’ muttered Tobias Paine as he dialled the four-digit Pentagon extension.

‘Good morning, Mr Paine, you are speaking to Sheila Berenson, General Facilities Secretary, Special Ops. How can I help you today?’

‘Good morning, Ms Berenson, you can help me today by giving me the authorization codes for a twenty-two fourteen on MEROS.’

‘A twenty-two fourteen?’ She had been trained to respond in a calmly efficient manner to all requests but she had yet to receive one of this gravity.

‘Yes, Sheila, a twenty-two fourteen. Would you like me to explain what that is?’

‘Uh, no, sir. That won’t be necessary.’ In the face of Paine’s patronizing tone, she immediately reverted to correct protocol. ‘Could I have your password, please?’

‘Certainly, it’s cherry pie.’

She typed it in.

‘That has been confirmed, sir. Now all I have to do is input my corresponding code and we should be …’ Those words hung in the air long enough for Paine to think he had been cut off.

‘Hello? Hello? Ms Beren–’

‘I’m here, sir.’

‘Well?’

‘I don’t understand. The codes have been sent, but I have no confirmation that MEROS has received them.’

‘Are you saying that you don’t know if the operation has been successful?’

‘Negative, sir. The operation has not been successful. We have a reading here which tells us if there has been a deployment of nuclear weaponry. There has been no such deployment.’

‘And what’s the problem? This is a Code Red emergency, Ms Berenson.’

‘Of course, sir. The problem is one of communication. We have lost contact with MEROS.’

‘But I was just on the phone with them ten minutes ago. Does everything go through the same system?’

‘Yes, sir; a satellite link.’

‘So’ – Paine rubbed his forehead and sighed – ‘if this link had been disabled in some way, then a twenty-two fourteen would be impossible?’

‘I guess so. But wouldn’t a malfunction be more likely?’

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’

‘I’m going down there,’ said Garrett, removing the heavier weapons from her shoulders.

‘Are you sure that’s such a good idea?’ asked Bishop as carefully as he could. He knew that Garrett’s default reaction was to do the opposite of whatever he suggested or wanted, but he also knew that her going down to Level Two would condemn her to the same fate as Andrew, Laura and Webster.

As far as Bishop was concerned – and he was not the only one – the three of them were not going to return. If a man as robust and experienced as Webster could not find his way back, then the others could forget it, and that included Garrett.

‘Yes, shitcake, I am
very
sure it’s such a good idea. I’ve lost one too many friends today and I’m running out. I know your motto is
Fuck ’em, especially if they’re grunts
, but I happen to have a feeling or two rattling around in here.’

‘Garrett, he’s right.’ The last person she was expecting to say that was Carter, but there he was, stepping in on Bishop’s side.

‘You must have a good reason for taking the side of this asshole, Carter,’ she said. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘We can’t just keep sending people down there
without knowing what we’re up against. As far as folks I care about go, after my mom, it’s Webster, so I want him back up here bad, but there’s a reason he’s still down there.’ He pointed to what they could see of the foliage through the hole Garrett had blasted in the floor. ‘That’s the greenhouse from hell. We already know that whatever ate Lisa is down there, and now three more of us have gone and no one’s come back. Don’t you see? If we’re going to get out of here, we’ve got to play the odds, and they’re saying stay the hell out of there.’

Garrett considered this. ‘I don’t know, Carter. I can’t let someone else die if I can do something about it.’

‘Excuse me.’ It was Takeshi. ‘Perhaps there is a way you can help them without venturing to Level Two.’

Laura was finally coming round. Lying face down across a mesh of gnarled roots, her back was a throbbing wave of constant biting pain. When she tried to lift her head off the ground her shoulder joined in, sending that pain harder and deeper through her back like an axe blade.

Uppermost in her mind were thoughts of Andrew. They helped to repress the physical pain but presented an emotional agony that was far harder to manage. There was no way a boy as small and unprepared as her son could possibly have survived more than five minutes down here.

She wept. The tears came in dense sobs that shook through her and covered her face and hands in a slick of moisture. Her thoughts were swift black clouds, colliding in confusion as they shot around her head.

But the possibility of being found by another creature was also ever-present. She knew that she could give up and wait here to die, or she could cling to the tiny possibility that she might still find her son and that they could somehow get out of here and return to a home that now seemed impossibly distant.

Rolling over on to her good shoulder, she winced. She no longer felt as if she had a back; it was now just a fiery
blast of excruciating misery. Her mouth was dry and claggy from the overpowering heat and loss of blood and her head pounded with the ache of dehydration.

Despite all that, she had to call her son’s name.

The first effort was a pitiful croak that dissolved to nothing between her lungs and her lips. Much greater effort was required.

‘Andrew,’ she called in nothing more than a whisper. She shook her head, cleared her throat and gave it all she had.

‘Andrew!’ Much better. It was a decent shout now, so she repeated it over and over.

Was that a voice?
wondered Webster.

The sound came again, straining to get through the density of the thicket.

He couldn’t be sure, but in the absence of anything else to aim for, he headed to where he thought it was coming from. His wariness slowed him, encouraging caution and reminding him that another, hungrier beast could be on the other side of the next leaf.

There it was again. Two syllables. Could it be ‘Major’? Was someone calling for him? His pace quickened as he forgot his ankle.

‘Hello?’ he shouted. ‘Is someone there?’

I’m sure that was ‘hello’ thought Laura. And it was a man’s voice. She tuned her hearing to Webster’s tone and stood stock still listening again.

‘Hello!’ It was Webster.

‘Major?’ she shouted.

‘Laura?’ came the reply.

‘Over here!’

‘Say again!’

‘Over here, Major.’

The rustling was now as loud as the voices.

‘Here, here, here,’ Laura said, until a giant leaf folded back to reveal the beautiful sight of a limping Webster. She was a picture of relief, but Webster couldn’t help the shock showing on his face. Laura was caked head to toe in blackened blood-crust, some hers, some from the cricket.

‘Jesus, are you OK?’

Laura looked down at her front. ‘Oh, uh … it’s not as bad as it … uh … looks …’

She turned and pointed to her back, which was an angry mess of torn jacket and dark, solidifying blood. ‘You should have seen the other …’ she said, but the last word barely made it out before she was sobbing uncontrollably. Webster shuffled closer and put his big arms around her. She leaned in, shaking as she tried to muffle her sobbing into his T-shirt.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, separating herself from him and wiping a wet, bloody smear across her face.

‘If anyone has a right to cry …’ Webster began, then remembered Andrew and thought better of it.

A ripple of leaves flickered behind them. They both heard it and knew they had to move on.

‘Can you walk?’ asked Webster.

‘I think so. I feel pretty weak, but my legs are OK.’
She looked at Webster’s stick and the way he was keeping his left ankle off the ground.

‘I twisted it when I landed,’ he explained. It’s getting better but it’s still too much to walk on.’

‘We can try leaning on each other,’ suggested Laura. She stood next to him and put her arm around his waist, while he did the same to her shoulder. They felt solid enough to try moving in short shuffles.

‘We have to find Andrew,’ said Laura firmly.

‘OK,’ said Webster. He knew he had to get her moving. If by some miracle they found him alive, then great; if not then at least they might find the others.

‘I have no idea where we are, though.’

Laura pointed in the opposite direction to where the cricket lay. ‘I think that way might be … Did you feel that?’ she asked quickly.

‘What?’ Webster heard the
shhhshhh
whisper of the ferns closest to him. Looking down, he could see nothing. Then from behind he felt the colossal strength of something closing around his thigh.

He looked down to see two jet-black claws pressing into him, as hard and thick as elephant tusks. He tried to force them apart with his free hand but they just gripped harder.

Webster gave out a strangled grunt, a gurgled mixture of agony and surprise, which made Laura look down.

Her first reaction was to shriek. She could only see the antlers but knew for certain they belonged to a stag beetle of colossal proportions.

Webster let go of Laura. All his efforts were trying
to resist the crushing force that dug into his leg. Another deep grunt strained his throat. Without Webster’s grip to steady her, Laura stumbled backwards into the leaves. She landed on something hard just above the floor. It moved beneath her. She screamed again and scrambled to her feet.

‘Oh God!’

She struggled to be heard against Webster’s groans.

Grasping for him, she slipped and fell forward. Her hands landed on the antler. Its solidity and power were terrifying. She let go of it immediately and grabbed the bottom of Webster’s jacket to steady herself.