Sweat beaded, and his hands grew slick.

He had no choice.

Duncan steadied his pistol with both hands, arms straight out. Bunching his legs, he sprinted straight at the monster. He squeezed the trigger again and again.

Some rounds missed, but a few struck home.

A front leg shattered under a bullet, lurching the beast to the side. Another round blasted through its left ear. Yet another struck it square in the chest. The beast toppled over on its side. He didn’t stop firing. He emptied his clip into it.

Duncan continued at full sprint, ready to hurdle the body.

From there, it was only steps to the seaplane.

Then something heavy struck him from behind and sent him crashing headlong into the stones. He took the brunt of the fall on his shoulder by turning at the last moment. A large shadow bounded past him.

Another of the foxes.

He immediately understood their hunting strategy. The first fox had been a decoy, allowing the other to take him down from behind. He stared at his attacker as it loped and turned toward him.

Duncan discarded the one clip and slapped in another.

But he had learned his lesson.

He remembered there had been three foxes on the other island.

He whipped around and found the last fox standing directly behind him, eyes shining. It lunged before he could fire. It bit into his wrist. Bones crunched. The pistol dropped from his fingers.

Duncan punched with his free arm.

But the beast had latched on hard.

The second fox joined the attack, running up and snapping like a bear trap onto his leg. The two monsters then backed in opposite directions, stretching him like a wishbone. His shoulder and hip joints screamed as the ligaments in the sockets tore. They were trying to tear him apart.

Again he was wrong.

A shadow loomed next to him. It was the third fox, still alive. It limped on its three good legs. Blood flowed from the gunshot wounds.

He realized the tug-of-war was not meant to tear his limbs off, but to hold him steady.

The third fox snarled, baring sharp teeth as long as fingers.

No…

It dove into his exposed belly. Teeth ripped through clothes, skin, and muscle. Then burrowed deeper. He felt teeth inside him.

They were going to eat him alive.

But yet again he was wrong.

The fox backed away, withdrawing its muzzle, soaked in blood. But the beast hadn’t come out without a prize. It retreated step-by-step, dragging out a loop of intestine, relentlessly gutting him. Agony and terror welled up.

Duncan finally understood the truth.

There was a horror beyond his worst nightmare.

The foxes hadn’t come to eat him.

They’d come to play.

Chapter 60

Lorna burst out of the villa and sprinted across the patio toward the expanse of beach. She had found what she needed in the lab. Behind her, the strange army of beasts followed, as if drawn by her urgency.

She spotted the others at the water’s edge.

Two Zodiac rafts floated in the shallows. Children were being loaded into the boats while Jack’s two teammates hauled his limp form.

Was he still alive?

She ran faster, knowing time was running out.

As she reached the edge of the beach something snagged her wrist and hauled her around to stop. All that kept her on her feet was the viselike grip on her arm.

The scarred male hominid had hold of her. She tried to yank her arm away, but his grip was iron. He twisted her around. She was ready to scream for help-when a shape stepped from behind a flowering bush. It was another of the hominids. The female. Her breasts were huge, her belly still big. Only she carried an infant in her arms now, a newborn from the look of it. She had swaddled it in a banana leaf.

It was Eve’s child.

The woman had given birth.

The female came to her and held out her baby. Lorna shook her head, not understanding. Eve came closer, pushing the baby into her arms.

“No…”

The male shoved Lorna roughly from behind.

Eve’s eyes pleaded with her.

Lorna finally raised her arms and took the child. Eve turned and hid her face in her mate’s chest. He waved Lorna toward the beach, toward the boats.

They wanted her to take the child.

She backed a step, shifted the tiny baby under one arm. She motioned to them. “Come with us.”

Her plea fell on deaf ears. The pair retreated together, back toward the forest. The other beasts followed.

Lorna stumbled after them. “It’s not safe! Come with me!”

The male turned and snarled at her, making it plain the discussion was over. Eve glanced back before vanishing into the shadows. Tears flowed down her face, but Lorna also read the peace in her expression.

There would be no changing their minds.

“Lorna!” Kyle had spotted her and waved. “Hurry up!”

With no choice, Lorna cradled the child to her bosom and ran for the rafts.

Kyle waited and helped her through the shallows. He frowned at her burden. “Is that a baby?”

Lorna ignored him. She waded over to Jack’s boat. Half the children were there, along with Bennett. She passed the child up to the older man as she climbed into the boat with them.

Bennett lifted a questioning eyebrow.

“Eve’s child,” she explained.

Bennett’s eyes widened as he glanced down at the baby. The other children gathered closer.

The Zodiac’s pilot gunned the outboard engine and tore away from the beach. The other raft followed. The water in the cove was as smooth as glass. The boats took advantage and gathered speed, shooting across the surface.

The fishing charter had already begun steaming away and had almost cleared the cove.

Lorna turned to Jack’s sprawled body. The larger of his two companions sat with his slack form in the bottom of the boat.

“He’s still breathing,” the man growled. “For now.”

She placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Even through his clothes, she felt the feverish heat of his body. He continued to quake under her touch, locked in a continual seizure. It was burning him up.

Before she could get a better assessment of his condition, a rumbling shook across the still waters of the cove.

“Hang on!” the pilot yelled.

Lorna turned as the villa blew apart, shattering outward in a massive explosion, most of it vaporizing into a thick black column of smoke. The column pushed high into the sky, glowing at the core with hellish fires. A hot wind washed over them as they raced away.

But it wasn’t over.

A secondary blast erupted, even stronger than the first. The entire top of the hill blew off this time, shoving the smoky column higher, curling it into a fiery mushroom cloud. Debris pounded into the water, some boulders as large as minivans. But the two rafts had fled far enough away. All that reached them was a large swell.

It picked up their boat and sped them even faster out to sea.

Lorna continued to stare as the island burned.

She finally turned to the pilot, fearing for Jack. She had never taken her hand off him. “I need to get him over to that ship.”

What she intended was too dangerous to attempt here.

She prayed it wasn’t already too late.

Bennett stared over at her. “What are you going to do with him? Like I said, no one’s ever survived.”

“Duncan did.”

Bennett was taken aback by her statement.

Lorna needed to talk it through. “You said he was attacked back in Iraq, by one of the earlier incarnations of these altered forms. But he survived. So what made him different?”

Bennett shook his head.

“You told me Duncan’s injuries were so severe that he spent a week in a coma. That’s the difference. This deadly protein hyperexcites the brain. So the only way a brain could protect itself during such an assault was to turn itself off until the infection ran its course. I think that’s why Duncan never got sick.”