Xeno Sapiens (43 page)

The plasmid particles ionized and
rushed away in a whirlwind toward opposite magnetic poles. The
forest shook with the unknown force of a total annihilation chamber
as a few of the particles formed antimatter and reacted with
unbonded atmospheric molecules. A momentary, brutal wind swept down
from the north and the last of Hall’s being swirled away on the
tide of an electromagnetically induced air current.

If Josh Hall had a soul, it was
rendered into nothingness as his atoms dissociated into particles
more elemental than superstrings. No trace of Josh Hall remained
but the bayonet and the empty suit he had been wearing, whipping
impotently in the wind.

Even his dying scream had vanished into
the void and the only reminder left of the night’s encounter was a
horribly mangled man lying near death.

Ingrid watched the serpentine rivers of
rainwash freezing in spider web traceries that flowed like rivers
cutting deltas. They sparkled like Christmas tree ornaments in the
strobe-like lightning that flashed on and off.

She still awaited Hall. Everything that
could go wrong had. She didn’t think a little thing like a
gathering blizzard would detain him. She was the last loose end;
the only one who could or would put the finger on him. It was with
exceeding black humor that she thought of her own predicament: the
last stand at the Alamo.

Whatever was coming would soon arrive.
The first harbinger had been the preternaturally bright flash of
lightning and the accompanying boom of thunder. Shortly after that,
there had been a monstrous rumbling that made the ground tremble as
if the four horsemen of the Apocalypse were galloping through the
frenzied night. The bottles of booze Merrifield had secreted away
clinked ominously and the half empty unit of blood above Clifton’s
head swung back and forth, marking the time until the
end.

She looked out the window. The wind
shrilled from the north side of the building and she saw a swirl of
curiously luminescent sparks flash by. They flared brilliantly,
then winked out like coals fanned by the puff of a bellows. They
were so bright and transient that Ingrid blinked.

She had the creeps for certain now and
her shaking hands drew the curtains across the window. She was no
longer certain that whoever might be outside couldn’t see in. But
anyone trying to get in the window would have to make their
presence known to her.

An icy tremor of fear rooted aside the
spark of vengeance in her heart. She was just Ingrid, alone against
the monster. Her fear dropped the temperature in the room by ten
degrees.

There was a noise outside. Ingrid
snatched her hand away from the window as if it were ablaze. She
backed away hastily and stared at the darkened square against the
wall. She felt her way back to her seat, unable to concentrate
because of the numbness in her brain.

She located the pistol and pointed it
with trembling sureness at the window, waiting for another sound.
There was a definite squelching as of a foot settling into soft
mud; a sound tailor-made to be heard above the swishing whirl of
wind driven snow.

She drew her breath and held it as a
gentle tapping came at the window. Not a tapping for entry, but an
exploratory sound, as if Hall were trying to pull the window up.
Some emotion poured into the room that filled her with an icy dread
and loathing.

The air became as moldy and stuffy as a
tomb. She looked at Clifton lying helpless and immobile. Something
tried to pry its way into her head, but she shut it out.

No more tricks. Just give
me one good shot.

The squishing sounds outside the window
continued. She heard the sound of wood splitting. A low, snapping
sound of a jimmy being inserted to turn the lock, or someone trying
to pull the window up by brute force.

Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. Please
let me see him before he sees me.

Her blood pressure skyrocketed and her
knees buckled as the sound of cracking wood grew louder. She
leveled the gun at arm’s length. The barrel trembled.

An explosive crash filled the room as the window flew up in
its tracks with a screech. The lock popped free from its rivet with
a loud
ping!
and shot across the room. The curtains stirred and an arm
reached in.

In answer to her prayers, a flash of
lightning lit the room and a shapeless, black outline appeared
outside the window.

Ingrid squeezed the trigger. The shots
crashed into the night, merging with the thunder. The silhouette at
the window was shoved rudely backward as if by a battering ram. The
clutching hand took most of the curtain out of the window with
it.

The flashes seared Ingrid’s eyes. The
pressure waves from the thundering reports made her eardrums ache
and threatened to crack her skull. By the time she had spent the
clip her ears were ringing so badly she didn’t hear the firing pin
strike on an empty chamber. The smell of spent gunpowder was
sickening. Snow whirled into the disintegrated window and the
chilling wind tore the gauzy, blue haze apart.

Ingrid staggered to the window, sick
with relief and revulsion. The gun dropped from her numb fingers.
She leaned out over the sill and into the freezing rain, letting
the cold drive some sense back into her throbbing head.

If he’s still alive, that’s
too fucking bad.

That sickening, ghostlike presence was
weaker now, but still trying to get in.

The cold quelled the last of her dry
heaves and she finally looked up to face the last of the monster,
to see how he looked in death.

Seth lay spread-eagled on the ground,
his entire eight foot length splayed out, bleeding his very special
blood into the already drenched earth. Three of the bullets Ingrid
had fired had found their mark and Seth was quickly dying, his
strength already sapped well beyond the point where he should have
perished.

Two of the bullets had torn through his
chest, one below each shoulder. They had exited through his back,
taking two fist sized chunks of flesh with them. The third had
planted itself in his neck.

Blind and reckless, Ingrid blundered
out the window. Her knees snagged on the sill and she tumbled
gracelessly. She splatted full length in the muddy snow and
regained her footing only after slipping and
floundering.

She knelt by Seth, feeling his wounds
with studied fingers. The wetness soaked through to her skin and
she began to shiver almost immediately. The snow around Seth had
stained a dark pink. She felt dizzy as she realized the only time
she had ever touched him was to minister to his
injuries.

The urgent voice still tried to burrow
into her head and now, with her defenses down, it did.

Ingrid,
the voice said. She sucked in her breath and stared at
Seth. His one good eye was open. He struggled and pulled the other
eye open, looking at her. Black and irisless, but still warm. They
were Spaniel eyes that mirrored no hurt, only understanding. Ingrid
saw the huge, infected gash on his cheek and knew it was bound to
be painful. But Seth actually seemed to be trying to
smile.

“
Ingrid,” he said softly. It sounded
like a croak, but she had never heard a voice so human. He reached
out one huge hand weakly to touch her arm.

He squeezed her arm urgently, wanting
to tell her she was safe, but he had no words but the one. He tried
to smile again, not minding the pain for once, and said her name
again.

A huge tear rolled out of his eye as he
exhaled his last breath.

Ingrid held onto Seth awhile longer,
needing to convince herself that some good had to have come from it
all. The sky lightened toward dawn as the snow fell more steadily,
covering the ugliness of the night in its fine white
purity.

Ingrid was nearly covered in snow and
half frozen when Joel and Leon finally arrived.

Leon took Ingrid’s arms, Joel her legs,
and they carried her gently away.

They sat together in the fragrant grass
along the banks of the Coosa River. A dry summer breeze rustled the
ankle high blades and rippled it in waves. The smell of wildflowers
was a particularly good one, miles from the bloody scent of a muddy
killing field on a hillside in North Carolina. Alex, his arm still
in a sling, breathed deeply.

Ingrid’s eyes were closed. She wore a
tasteful, knee-length white dress. She slipped her shoes off and
let her toes dig into the warm, mellow grass. The gesture brought
back feelings of a long-abandoned childhood.

Her squeaky clean blond hair was tied
back with a wide, blue ribbon. She had gained weight and was no
longer so pale and gaunt, though she knew she could never look
young again. She had been outwardly unharmed; her wounds were on
the inside. Despite that, Clifton thought her beautiful.

A simple marker was set at the tree line. The land had been
leased to Ingrid
in perpetua
, which meant the span of her life plus ninety-nine years.
There was no body beneath the marker. It was one of the cold
realities Ingrid had accepted in her new life.

There had been a small hullabaloo some
four months ago, but it was like a mountain giving birth to a
mouse. Josh Hall’s body had never been found. It was generally
assumed that whatever schemes he had hatched had soured and he had
taken the fly-by-night express to Bolivia. Many unsavory things
-secret bank accounts, contract killings, drugs- were being learned
about Josh Hall and most people were trying to bury any association
they had ever had with him.

Ingrid laid a wreath at the marker. Her
face was dry and soft in the warm sunshine. She had no tears
left.

“
It’s time to go,” Clifton said. He
always felt strange here with Ingrid. Here lay the closest thing to
a child that Ingrid had. Alex still had Merrifield. He had survived
by the skin of his obstinate teeth to be sure, but he was now back
to his cantankerous self. His narrow brush with death had mellowed
him not a bit.

“
Do you mind if I stay a minute or two
longer?” Ingrid squeezed his hand and looked at him with her
Periwinkle eyes.

Alex relented.

The stone was very plain. It read,
simply:

Infant Seth

March 7, 2003 March 9,
2003

“
It’s hard to believe it was only four
months ago,” Ingrid said. “I would never have thought I could start
up again.”

“
A little thing like a slit throat
won’t stop Jon,” Alex said wryly.

“
And there are no more madmen hiding
in the woodwork to ruin it this time.” She looked at Alex. “Are
there?”

He could have told her there was always
someone left to tear her down; to douse the light of discovery in
fear. She knew all that, but now was not the time to say
it.

“
No,” he said, giving her a hug.
“They’re all gone.”

“
His body was never found.”

Clifton remembered what little had been
found of Jay Thomas.

“
It won’t be,” he said.

“
It all seems like a dream now,
doesn’t it,” Ingrid asked.

Clifton looked at his arm. “More like a
nightmare. No doubt this was a strange one. If Ron Walton knew it
all, he could write a hell of a story.”

THE END

Thank you for purchasing and reading
Xeno
Sapiens
. That you would invest your money, and, more
importantly, your time into reading something I wrote means a great
deal more to me than I can properly express. In looking over the
offerings of the many book selling sites, it seems readers these
days are spoiled for choice, but there are never really enough good
books, are there? And in that spirit, my most fervent desire is
that you consider reading
Xeno Sapiens
your time and money
well spent.

As an aside, though
Xeno Sapiens
is
not my favorite book, it seems to be the favorite of a great many
of my readers. Which proves but one thing: An author is his own
worst critic.

Please enjoy the excerpts that follow. If
something intrigues you, it's only a few clicks away.

Again, and as always, thank you so much for you
time and consideration.

Best wishes in everything, always,

Victor Allen

by

Victor Allen

Copyright © 2006 all rights reserved

From
Essex...

Essex Pass lies buried between Pisgah Park
and Bald Head mountain in the southern Appalachians of western
North Carolina. At 5500 feet it is a shorter and older sibling to
the high mountain passes of the Rockies, and a lifeline to the
seven hundred people who inhabit the mostly anonymous towns erected
on the cold broadsides: towns like Judas Point and Prairie's End.
Snow chokes the roads for six months of the year and the tracks
laid 150 years ago by the N and S railroad are the only commercial
artery that flows to the towns as winter's slow heartbeat pulses at
the edge of life.