Bray tried to pry the spear from the wall, but it held fast. “This isn’t moving, either. Just leave it.”
Hawkins pulled the doors shut and Bray slid the pipe back in place, locking them once again. Bray leaned against the outside wall beneath a window and slid to the floor. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. Hawkins knew how the man felt, but didn’t let his guard down. He leaned against the cool concrete wall, but kept his eyes, and the rifle, facing the building’s lone entrance. He didn’t think the creature would return, if it survived the falls and croc waiting below, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“What was that thing?” Joliet asked.
“Another chimera,” Hawkins said. That it was another chimera, Hawkins had no doubt, but he couldn’t peg exactly what species had been used. Lacking hair, the reptilian chimeras’ individual parts were easy to see. But this had been a mammal, and its dark black hair concealed most details.
“It was just two species,” Bray said. “They were harder to see because the parts were more integrated. It wasn’t like a crocodile with squid parts, or a sea snake with draco limbs and wings.”
Hawkins took his eyes off the entryway and turned to Bray. “But you saw what it was?”
Bray turned to the floor. “Wish I hadn’t. Because it means we’re really in the shitter here.”
“Bray,” Hawkins said, the tone of his voice adding urgency.
“The jaw. The teeth. The eyes. The fur. The tail. Maybe the underlying musculature. All one creature.” Bray shifted uncomfortably. “They’re all panther.”
“You’re sure?” Joliet asked.
He nodded. “Even saw the faint spots when it jumped past me.”
“And the other half?” Hawkins asked, though he’d already begun to suspect the answer.
“The rest of it,” Bray said. “The body. The mind. The hands—it had thumbs. Those…” He shook his head. “Those were human.”
30.
Twenty minutes after the encounter, the lab building’s outside door was wedged back in place and held there with a stack of wooden pallets. It wasn’t an impenetrable blockade, but anyone breaking through the door would be slowed down and make a hell of a lot of noise. Their only way out would be the hatch in the floor, so they were essentially trapped, but the long hallway was a far more defensible position than outside, where an attack could come from any direction.
It had been hours since they’d blocked the doors and the sun had fallen below the tree line. Hawkins sat in the hall, leaning against the wall next to the hatch in the floor. He finished reloading the rifle—eleven shots left; ten in the rifle, one in his pocket—and chambered a round. From his position, he could shoot anything coming down the hall and, if need be, quickly kick away the pipe holding the doors up. In terms of strategy it was basic, but simple strategies were usually harder to screw up. And none of them was in any shape to try anything fancy.
Hawkins ached all over from his encounter with the crocodile. Bray was exhausted from exerting himself far more than he was accustomed. Drake’s fever hadn’t gotten any worse, but his wound wasn’t clotting and the captain had yet to awaken. Joliet’s arms were sore from falling through the hatch, but she had weathered the journey better than the rest thus far. But the physical pain couldn’t compare to the emotional toll their journey had taken on them.
Hawkins fought to ignore the recent memories of near-death encounters trying to replay in his mind. But forgetting an eighteen-foot crocodile with writhing tentacles, or a hominid panther-child, wasn’t easy to do. In fact, he felt sure every horrible detail of this island would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. He turned his head to Bray, who sat against the opposite wall, twirling the ax handle in his hands.
“Hey, Eight,” he said.
Bray rolled his head toward Hawkins.
“You’re braver than I thought you’d be.”
A slight smile formed on Bray’s face. “Thanks. Sort of. But I think I’m done being brave. Comes a point when bravery and stupidity cross paths.”
Hawkins nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing.
Joliet appeared in the doorway of Drake’s makeshift medical bay. She leaned against the frame and crossed her arms. “Drake is still hot, but I think he’ll be okay.”
“He’s strong, but that doesn’t mean he can beat the infection without help,” Bray said. “Unchecked bacterial infections can kill healthy people, especially if the saliva of that crocodile is something like a Komodo dragon’s. Not many people can survive a Komodo bite without modern medicine. It’s what makes them so deadly.”
Joliet looked defeated. She slid down and sat on the floor, her back still on the doorframe. “What can we do?”