Savage (24 page)

They'd done everything they could to preserve the remains from the two previous event scenes, but still the specimens degenerated. There was just enough left to give him a taste of the mystery, and it was leaving him voracious.

The plane shook with turbulence, and the closer they got to Massachusetts, to the storm, the worse it got. This one was a monster, the enormity of its spiral touching most of the state, but it was what was going on in the center of the storm that concerned him most.

“ETA about twenty minutes, Doc,” Brenda Langridge announced as she peeked around the corner of the privacy partition.

“Thanks,” he said, carefully taking a specimen bottle from the padded holder on the table to the left of him. He stared at the contents that were practically jelly now.

“It amazes me that that little piece of snot could be causing us so much trouble,” she said, coming to stand beside him as he opened the container, tipping the bottle so that the contents slid out onto the pad in front of him.

“This little piece of snot, as well as multiple other pieces of snot in various sizes and states of decay,” Dr. Sayid said.

He leaned closer to the gelatinous object, scrutinizing it yet again.

“Why do you exist?” he asked the growth that he had taken from the brain of a monitor lizard.

“That's easy,” Langridge said, picking up one of his dissecting tools and proceeding to pare away the nail on one of her fingers. “To make us crazy and to give our specialized research division something to do.”

He rested his chin on top of a closed fist.

“What's its purpose, though?” Sayid said. “We've found zero evidence of a viral component, but something has caused—this. What's doing it, and why?”

“Ouch!” Langridge yelped, and tossed the scalpel back onto his workstation as she stuck her bleeding finger into her mouth. “I guess that it's just nature throwing us another curveball,” she said, taking her finger from her mouth and looking at it. “Wouldn't be the first time we've encountered some naturally occurring bizarreness in this ever-changing world of ours.”

Sayid continued to watch the extracted growth as it sat there on the tray, decaying even though it had been kept in a series of special chemicals to prevent that very thing. All they had done was slow the process down a bit.

“The funny thing is, and it really isn't at all humorous, but I'm hoping that you're right.”

He could feel her looking at him.

“Why? What else could it possibly be?”

He didn't answer her because he wasn't at all sure and didn't feel comfortable airing his suspicions.

A message came over the PA that it was time for them to take their seats and to buckle up for landing.

Sayid started to put away his supplies and specimens. He hoped to have more answers very soon, either putting to bed his crazy suspicions or dragging them from the shadows into the light of day.

There was light in the police station, an emergency generator having kicked on as soon as the power went out.

“Hey, Kennedy!” Officer Kole bellowed as he climbed the concrete stairs to the main level, Isabel and the Levesques right behind him. “We've found a couple more!”

Sidney, Rich, and Cody began to follow.

“I wonder if the power outage erased their computer records,” Rich mused aloud. He caught Cody's and Sidney's confused looks and explained further. “I've got a few parking tickets that I haven't gotten around to paying and, y'know, if the system got wiped . . .”

Sidney rolled her eyes, amazed that Rich could even think about parking tickets after what they had been through. She realized then that Snowy wasn't with them and turned to see her sniffing wildly around the base of the door.

“C'mon, girl,” she said aloud even though the dog could not hear.

She descended the steps and stood beside the dog, not wanting to startle her, then leaned into her line of vision.

“Let's go; we can't lag behind,” she said, making hand gestures that the dog understood. “Don't want Officer Kole to be any more suspicious of you than he already is.”

The dog obeyed, following her to the stairs and staying by her side as they climbed up to join Cody and Rich, who waited on the first-floor landing.

“Did you get lost?” Rich asked.

“Snowy took a detour,” she explained, thumping the dog's side with the flat of her hand.

They saw the police officers with Mrs. Levesque and Amy turn a corner up ahead and moved to catch up. But Snowy stopped short, head tilting to one side.

“What is it, Snow?” Sidney asked her.

The dog sniffed the air, whined, and then began to bark.

“She smells something,” Cody said, looking down the corridor where the others had gone.

Sidney recalled what she had seen stenciled on the SUV near the garage in the lot—
K-9 UNIT
—and that niggling sense of unease returned.

“Maybe she smells the other dogs,” Sidney said.

“What other dogs?” Cody asked.

“The dogs used by the K-9 unit,” Sidney said just before the sounds of multiple gunshots echoed down the corridor.

They all looked at each other, that horrible fear back again. Sidney considered turning and running back the way they had come when screams joined the gunshots, and before she even realized what she was doing, she began to run toward the sounds of danger.

Toward the sounds of chaos, with Snowy close by her side.

“Sid, where the hell are you . . . ?” Rich began, but let his question fade away as he too ran down the hallway, followed closely by Cody.

Sidney rounded the corner at the end of the corridor and stopped, facing a shorter length of hallway with what looked to be the main office at its end. Officers Kole and Isabel were nowhere to be found. The smell of gunfire hung heavily in the air.

“Where is everybody?” Rich asked as he and Cody came up alongside her.

“I don't know,” she said. “Probably in there.”

“I don't think we should—” Cody began.

“What choice do we have?” Sidney cut him off, knowing that he was probably right, but the alternative left them standing around with their thumbs up their butts waiting for something to happen.

“We go in, check it, and . . .” She stopped, starting to head down the hall.

“And what?” Cody asked.

“I don't know,” she answered. “But I can't just stand here.”

“I have no problem standing here,” Rich said. “But if it means I'll be here by myself, then I guess I'm going with you.” He looked at Cody. “What about you?”

Without a word, Cody began walking toward the office.

Sidney was first through the doorway. There was a large desk in front of her, its chair empty but stained with something dark. She held back a gasp as she slowly approached the desk and peered around it.

The police officer lying on the floor was very dead, his eyes wide open, mouth twisted in a grotesque grimace. His throat looked as though it had been torn out.

“What is it?” Cody asked.

She turned to meet his gaze, and something in her face must have registered her shock. He rushed to her side and peered around the desk himself.

“Oh my God,” he said. “We have to do something.”

She agreed but had no idea what. They could run from the building, but they certainly wouldn't be any safer out there in that storm. Instead, she moved past the desk. Snowy started to go ahead of her, and she reached down, placing the tips of her fingers on the dog's back, stopping her instantly.

“Good girl,” Sidney whispered, eyes scanning the spaces before them. Papers had been knocked from desks, chairs and trash cans tipped over, but she didn't see any other signs of death.

No other bodies . . . yet.

She moved farther in, but a rustle made her freeze. Snowy stopped as well, taking cues from her master, who now raised a hand, signaling Cody and Rich to stop. Sidney listened for the sound again, eyes scanning the darkened room, trying to discern any new sounds from the sounds of the raging storm outside the building.

There it was again.

She cautiously moved toward it, weaving among the desks, trying not to step on any of the objects that littered the floor. She stopped again and heard the sound. A soft, yet very brief hissing—no, it was something rubbing against metal. Sidney moved a little bit farther into the office, standing in a short aisle between four metal desks.

The sound was close now.

She tilted to the left and looked down into the wide, terror-filled eyes of Mrs. Levesque and Amy, who were crammed beneath a desk. The mother's ragged and bloody hand was clamped over her daughter's mouth.

Sidney squatted down and was about to offer them her hand when the attack came.

The animal sprang from the shadows, clipping her and knocking her backward as it disappeared back into the gloom.

“There's something in here!” Sidney screamed, scrambling to her feet. Her gaze found Mrs. Levesque, who was crying harder now and was mouthing something that could have been
Help us
.

The animal leaped up on top of a desk in the far corner of the room. In any other situation, Sidney would have thought the German shepherd was beautiful, its golden brown-and-black fur almost shiny in the emergency lighting.

But now it was simply terrifying.

It flew from the desk, silently charging toward her, hurdling over obstacles in its path. She knew it would be on her in an instant and instinctively raised her arm to protect herself from its snapping jaws.

Snowy got there first, intercepting the dog, using her own force to crash into its side and send it sliding across a desk onto the floor behind it. Sidney heard the sounds of snapping jaws, snarls, and scrabbling claws, and instincts at once kicked in—something akin to a mother protecting her child.

Against the wall across from her she saw a coatrack—a metal pole with caps, some coats, and a sweater hanging from it. Sidney practically flew to it, grabbing the cold metal and shaking off the clothes that hung there.

She had her weapon.

Cody watched in horror as the shepherd charged his girlfriend, his
ex-
girlfriend.

Images of his father exploded in his brain. Terrifying, bloody images reminding him of what kind of night the day had become.

The memories froze him in place. Froze him with absolute fear.

Then Cody caught sight of Rich racing toward Sidney. He was willing himself to run, to rise above his terror, and was actually beginning to move, when Snowy came to the rescue. Good ol' Snowy.

He'd never seen the white German shepherd look so ferocious. She was like some sort of missile, flying through the air to intercept enemy fire. She slammed into the attacking dog, knocking it away from her master. If things weren't so freakin' terrifying, it would have been spectacular.

He saw that Rich had stopped to help Mrs. Levesque and her daughter climb out from under the desk. Sidney had grabbed an old coatrack and was heading toward the fighting dogs. Cody was about to help her separate the dogs when he sensed it. Like a cold breeze down the back of his neck.

He spun around to see another dog in mid-leap, silently bearing down on him, white teeth glistening in the faint glow of the emergency lights.

There was a part of Sidney deep inside—the civilized part, she guessed—that screamed for her to stop as she smashed the coatrack down upon the attacking dog's head. The animal didn't make a sound as the metal connected, opening up a bloody gash just above its right eye.

Its right eye.

The dog stopped fighting for a brief instant, and as it turned its gaze on her, she saw what she had seen in the other affected animals.

Or was it infected animals?

A silvery covering over the right eye.

Snowy took full advantage of the other dog's pause, snapping her powerful jaws around the animal's throat and thrashing savagely as she growled.

Sidney continued to bash the dog—probably one of the drug-sniffing dogs that loyally worked with the island's police force. But she couldn't consider that now. Instead, she forced herself to tap into the rage and fury caused by the horrors of the past several hours and beat the dog that was attempting to harm her friend—her Snowy.

The police dog didn't make a sound as Sidney and Snowy savagely turned the tables on the attacking animal. Its jaw was broken and askew, its eyes—especially the right one—damaged and swollen, and finally the police dog appeared unable to continue its fight.

Sidney grabbed for Snowy, pulling her back and away from the injured police dog, watching as it swayed from side to side, moving its head as if attempting to see with its damaged right eye. She couldn't stand the sight of its struggle. It was time to be human again, she decided, taking the pointed end of the metal shaft and driving it down into the pathetic creature's neck.

The dog attempted to surge forward, its legs scrabbling against the hardwood floor, but its movements soon grew slower, more feeble, until finally it went still.

Sidney actually screamed as the sound of gunfire boomed through the office space. She spun around, heart pounding in her chest, adrenaline surging through her veins, and she wondered what more horrible things she would be forced to do tonight.

Across the office she saw Cody thrashing on the floor, the large body of another German shepherd sprawled atop him. She was just about ready to retrieve her makeshift spear and go to his aid when he pushed the limp body of the dog off of himself. Movement from the corridor at the far end of the office caught her attention next, and she realized it was Officer Isabel slowly lowering her weapon. Officer Kole, who looked as though he might have been injured, and some other very scared-looking people were crowding up behind her.

“You guys all right?” Isabel asked.