Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake - Страница 8

Andy stopped at Red 14 and grasped the door handle but he didn't turn it right away. The moment stretched.

“You don't have to go in,” Sun said. “I just needed you to help in Orange 12.”

She was giving him a graceful way out, but he knew her opinion of him would drop even further if he took it.

Andy turned the knob and entered.

The smell hit him again, heady and musky, almost making Andy gag. This time the room wasn't empty. Standing among the medical equipment was a man in a lab coat. He was tall and intense looking, with a thin line for a mouth and wide expressive eyes. His hair was light gray, short and curly. Andy put him at about forty, but he could have gone eight years either way.

“Oh good, feeding time,” the man said.

“Dr. Frank Belgium, this is Andy Dennison,” Sun said. “He's the translator.”

“Good good good, we're in need of one. Attack the mystery from all angles, the more the better. Yes yes yes.”

“Frank's a molecular biologist.” Sun said it as if that was explanation for Dr. Belgium's weird speech patterns and birdlike movements. “How's the sequencing going, Frank?”

“Slow slow slow. Our boy—yes, he is a boy, even though there isn't any evidence of external genitalia—his bladder empties through the anus, like a bird. He has 88 pairs of chromosomes. We're looking at over 100,000 different genes, about quadruple what humans have. Billions of codons. Even the Cray is having a hard time isolating sequences. Nothing yet, but a link will show up, I'm sure it will.”

“All life on earth, from flatworms to elephants, share some DNA sequences,” Sun explained. “Dr. Belgium believes Bub also shares several of these chains.”

Dr. Belgium nodded several times. “Bub's got the same four bases as all life, the same 20 amino acids. Even taking into account his... different anatomical layout, I believe he's terrestrial, that is, he has earthly relatives somewhere. We're trying matches with goats, rams, bats, gorillas, humans, crocodiles, pigs, everything that he looks like he may be a part of, to fit him into the animal kingdom... but now it's feeding time, so let's see if we can witness another miracle, shall we?”

Sun led the sheep past Andy and over to Bub's habitat. Andy, who'd been avoiding looking in that direction, forced himself to watch.

At first, Bub wasn't visible. The dwelling was filled with a running stream and trees and bushes and grass, as deep as a basketball court and about thirty feet high. The foliage was so dense in parts that even a creature Bub's size could apparently hide in it.

“All fake,” Dr. Belgium said. “Fake brush, fake rocks, fake stream. It's supposed to resemble the area where he was found, in Panama. I don't think he's fooled.”

“Where is he?” Andy asked, cautiously approaching the Plexiglas shield. He squinted at the trees, trying to make out anything red.

Bub dropped from directly above, the ground shaking as he landed just three feet in front of Andy.

Andy yelled and jumped backwards, falling onto his ass.

Sun laughed. “Did you forget he could fly?”

Andy didn't notice Sun's amusement. Bub was crouching before him, his black wings billowing out behind him like a rubber parachute.

Andy’s mouth went dry. The demon was the most amazing and horrifying thing he’d ever seen.

Hoofs big as washtubs.

Massively muscled black legs, with knees that bent backwards like the hindquarters of a goat.

Claws the size of manhole covers, ending in talons that looked capable of disemboweling an elephant.

Bub approached the Plexiglas and cocked his head to the side, as if  contemplating the new arrival. It was a bear's head, with black ram horns, and rows of jagged triangular teeth.

Shark’s teeth.

His snout was flat and piggish, and he snorted, fogging up the glass. His elliptical eyes—black bifurcated pupils set into corneas the color of bloody urine—locked on Andy with an intensity that only intelligent beings could manage.

He was so close, Andy could count the coarse red hairs on the demon’s broad chest. The animal smell swirled up the linguist’s nostrils, mixed with odors of offal and fecal matter.

Bub raised a claw and placed it on the Plexiglas.

“Hach wi' hew,” Bub said.

Andy yelled again, crab-walking backwards and bumping into the sheep. The sheep bleated in alarm.

Bub, as if commanded, backed away from the window. His giant, rubbery wings folded over once, twice, and then tucked neatly away behind his massive back. He walked over to a large tree and squatted there, waiting.

Sun led the sheep past the Plexiglas and to a doorway on the other side of the room. They entered, and a minute later a small hatch opened inside the habitat, off to Bub's left.

Andy mentally screamed at Sun, “Don’t open that door!” even though the opening was far too narrow for Bub to fit through.

Bub watched as the sheep walked into his domain. The door closed behind it.

The sheep shook off its blindfold and looked around its new environment. Upon seeing Bub it let forth a very human-sounding scream.

In an instant, less than an instant, Bub had sprung from his spot by the tree and sailed through the air almost twenty feet, his wings fully outstretched. He snatched up the sheep in his claws, an obscene imitation of a bat grabbing a moth.

Andy turned away, expecting to hear chomping and bleating. When none came, he ventured another look.

Bub was back by the tree, sitting on his haunches. The sheep was cradled in his enormous hands, as a child might hold a gerbil. But it was unharmed. In fact, Bub was stroking it along its back, and making soft sounds.

Sheep sounds.

“He's talking to the sheep,” Dr. Belgium said. “He's going to do it. Here comes the miracle.”

Andy watched as the sheep ceased in its struggle. Bub continued to pet the animal, his hideous face taking on a solemn cast. There was silence in the room. Andy realized he'd been holding his breath.

The movement was sudden. One moment Bub was rubbing the sheep's head, the next moment he twisted it backwards like a jar top.

There was a sickening crunch, the sound of wet kindling snapping. The sheep's head lolled off to the side at a crazy angle, rubbery and twitching. Andy felt an adrenaline surge and had to fight not to run away.

“Now here it comes,” Dr. Belgium said, his voice a whisper.

Bub held the sheep close to his chest and closed his elliptical eyes. A minute of absolute stillness passed.

Then one of the sheep's legs jerked.

“What is that?” Andy asked. “A reflex?”

“No,” Sun answered. “It’s not a reflex.”

The leg jerked again. And again. Bub set down the sheep, which shook itself and then got to its feet.

“Jesus,” Andy gasped.

The sheep took two steps and blinked. What made the whole resurrection even more unsettling was the fact that the sheep's head hung limply between its front legs, turned completely around so it looked at them upside down.

Andy's fear changed to awe. “But it's dead. Isn't it dead?”

“We're not sure,” Sun said. “The lungs weren't moving a minute ago, but now they are.”

“But he broke its neck. Even if it was alive, could it move with a broken neck?”

The sheep attempted to nibble at some grass with his head backwards.

“I guess it can,” Sun said.

“Amazing,” Dr. Belgium said. “Amazing amazing amazing.”

“Shouldn't you get the sheep?” Andy asked. “Run some tests?”

“Go right ahead,” Sun said. “The door's over there.”

“Probably not a good idea to go in there before Bub's eaten.” Dr. Belgium said.

Andy said. “Can't you tranquilize him or something? Race said he went into the habitat before.”

“Twice, against my insistence, but only to get some stool samples and to fix a clog in the artificial stream. Both times Bub ignored him. Even Race isn't insane enough to go in there and take his food away. And I'm not going to tranquilize Bub until we know more about his physiology. We don't know what tranquilizers would do to him.”