Island 731

The blockade of pallets was still pushed to the side. Not a good sign. He entered slowly, fists clenched. The goats waited by the door.

The hallway stood empty. “Bray! Bennett!”

No reply.

He checked the first room and found it empty, as expected. But when he checked the second room, where they’d left not only their backpacks and Drake, he found it equally as empty. The packs and Drake were gone. His pulse quickened as he checked the final two rooms and found no trace of their passing. He spun around, looking at the hallway again.

Even the dead seagulls are gone!

After a nerve-wracking and rushed search of the top two floors, Hawkins turned up nothing. The only sign of their passage was the destruction wrought on the top floor by the panther-child chimera.

As he left the building, he found himself looking into a sea of eyes similar to the creature that took Joliet. He had trouble matching their gaze, but the goats’ friendly greeting put him at ease. These animals, at least, were not killers. Feeling a little like a shepherd, Hakwins set off across the yard, eyes on the ground. He found what he was looking for twenty feet away. The rifle.

He picked up the weapon and checked it over. It seemed to be in good repair. He toggled the lever, chambering a fresh round and expelling the empty shell casing left over from the single shot he’d taken the previous night. Remembering the round still in his pocket, he took it out and loaded it into the weapon. Ten rounds. When he thought about the creatures he’d encounter so far, the weapon seemed wholly inadequate.

Hawkins tried to fathom where everyone had gone. He couldn’t see Bennett leaving on his own and Drake should have been immobilized. And Bray… Hawkins thought about checking the waterfall, but decided against it after applying a little logic. If Bray had gone over the falls and survived the drop and the croc, he would have come back here, or retreated to the Magellan. If he didn’t, well, he was dead.

“Bray!” he shouted one more time, as loudly as he could. The sudden shout froze the goats in place, silencing their bells. In the quiet that followed, Hawkins heard nothing. He searched the grass for signs of where everyone had gone, but the goats had trampled any tracks left behind.

So he focused on the only thing he did know. Joliet. She’d been taken and he knew the general direction the creature had fled. Rifle in hand, he set off across the yard.

He only got ten feet when a glint of light caught his attention. He crouched and picked up the broken blade of his knife. The handle was missing, but the blade was intact, and still razor sharp. Lifting it carefully between two fingers, he slid the blade into its sheath and buttoned it closed.

A shadow swept past him, drawing his gaze up. A lone seagull circled high overhead. Hawkins would almost welcome the chance to take out his frustrations. Just try it, you son of a bitch. As he lowered his eyes again, Hawkins noticed a detail on the roof of the laboratory. At first, he couldn’t figure out what the two cylinders were. But then they moved, each rotating in opposite directions.

Cameras!

The implications hit him fast and hard. Not only did the islands occupants have access to the outside world, but they also had a decent budget. He could see the solar panel mounted behind the cameras, allowing them to operate without a direct line of power. Sending the images wirelessly to some other part of the island would be easy. Even worse, there was a strong chance that their progress across the island was being monitored. The appearance of the creature in conjunction with the foghorn also insinuated some kind of coordinated effort. Were they being toyed with?

As disturbing as it was, the discovery of the cameras changed nothing. Whether his return to the lab had been noted or not, his goals remained the same: find his friends and get the hell off the island.

The goats followed him to the gate. As he opened and closed it behind him, the goats tried to follow through the spring-powered hatch at the bottom. He pushed it closed. “Stay here,” he growled.

The first goat pushing on the gate looked up at him. It butted its horns against the chain link, clearly not accustomed to having its freedom restricted. Hawkins lost his patience and shook the gate. “Stay here!” he shouted, then delivered a rattling kick to the chain-link fence.

“They listen if you’re nice.”

The voice spun Hawkins around so fast that he fell on his ass and dropped the rifle. He twisted his head back and forth, looking for the voice’s source, but saw no one. He snatched up the rifle and continued his search, looking over the sight. “Who’s there?”

“I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me,” the voice said. It sounded feminine. And young.

Leaves rustled over his head. He aimed the weapon up, but saw nothing.

The goats shied away, bleating as though wounded.

Hawkins ignored them.

The voice took on a more serious tone. “I could have killed you already if I wanted to.”

Not serious, Hawkins thought, impatient.

He was a quick draw if he needed to be, so he lowered the weapon in favor of getting answers.

“Why are you here?” the voice asked.

“Let me see you,” he replied.

“You should probably leave.”

No shit. He put the rifle down on the ground and raised his hands, ready to grab the rifle at the first sign of danger. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

Hawkins was now convinced he was speaking with someone young. “Why not?”

“They die.”

Hawkins fought the urge to pick up the rifle and start pulling the trigger. “Always?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you talking to me, then?”

“I sometimes break the rules.”

Hawkins forced a grin and tried to make it look real. “Me, too.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“You use a gun. That’s not very fair.”

“It keeps me alive.”

“Not against—” The voice paused for five full seconds. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” Hawkins heard movement to his left, but didn’t pick up the rifle. The sound was moving away.

“Wait!” he said. “My name is Mark Hawkins. We don’t have to be strangers.”

“Hawkins,” the voice said, trying the word out slowly. “Like the bird?”

“Like the bird,” he confirmed.

“I don’t see any bird in you,” the voice said.

Bird in me? His eyes widened. She thinks I’m a chimera. “I’m not one of those things.”

“Things?”

“A chimera,” he said.

“Things!” The young voice sounded angry and had a little growl to it.

Son of a bitch. Hawkins realized his mistake just before the face emerged from the shadows in the canopy above him. The voice—the girl—she was the panther-child chimera.

Her squinted yellow eyes glared at him. Her lithe body, part human, part cat, tensed as though preparing to pounce. Her long black tail twitched behind her.

Hawkins looked into her eyes, still fighting the urge to pick up the rifle. He’d made a horrible first impression with this… girl when they’d first met. He was determined to do better this time. He just hoped she wouldn’t tear his throat out.

“You think you’re better than me,” she said. “Everyone who comes here is the same. You’re all afraid of us because we don’t look like you. But that’s fine. You should be. We’re stronger, faster, and smarter than any of you.”

The tone of the girl’s voice had taken on that of a teenage temper tantrum, and Hawkins decided that’s what