Then Eighty-two turned and looked down the opposite corridor, back to the House of Screams. That’s where the labs were, and that’s where the bunkhouses for the New Men were.

The Americans were here because of what was in those computers. Even though Cowboy had told Eighty-two that the audio on the hunt video was bad, they must know that something terribly evil was being done here on the island. They’d come to find out what and to stop it. The computer records could save millions.

On the other hand, Otto and Alpha could never risk having the New Men fall into the hands of any government. The worldwide outcry would be like the shouts of outraged angels.

And there was the female.

In Eighty-two’s pocket the stone felt as heavy as an anvil.

He stood and looked down the corridor toward the computer rooms, chewing his lip in dreadful indecision. Then he made his choice.

He turned toward the House of Screams and ran.

Chapter Eighty

The Hive

Sunday, August 29, 3:42 P.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 68 hours, 18 minutes E.S.T.

We flattened out against the walls and flipped down our night vision. I dropped to one knee and pivoted as I heard a second growl. The lobby went from absolute blackness to eerie green.

“What do you see, boss?” hissed Bunny, who was facing the other way.

“Nothing,” I said, but I could feel something moving in the shadows. We’d left a lot of wreckage behind us, but everything looked still. But there was something and my senses were jangling. The after-echo of the growl played over and over in my head. It wasn’t a dog growl. More like a cat, but not a cat, either. Whatever it was, the growl had been heavy, deep chested. Something big was back there, and it was ballsy enough to stalk three grown men.

“Move,” I said, and began backing away from the lobby. We moved backward five feet, ten, following the curve of the hallway until the lobby was lost to view.

Just as we moved out of sight I thought I caught movement at the extreme range of the night vision, but it was too brief a glimpse. Just a sense of something huge moving on four feet, head low between massive shoulders.

Way too big for a dog.

“What the hell’s on our asses?” Bunny asked in a jittery voice.

“I don’t know, but if it comes sniffing down here I’m gonna kill it.”

“Works for me.”

“Let me know if you get a signal, Top.”

“Roger, but we’re still dead.”

“Lousy fucking choice of words,” muttered Bunny.

The thing behind us screamed.

It was a huge sound, high-pitched and filled with animal hate. Like a leopard, but with too much chest behind it. Then I heard the sharp click of thick nails on the tile.

“Run!” I yelled, and the two of them pounded down the hallway, but I held my ground, raised my Beretta in a solid two-hand grip, and clamped down on the terror that was blossoming in my chest. In the microsecond before the creature rounded the bend the image of the unicorn flashed through my head. If these maniacs could make something like that, then what other horrors had they cooked up in their labs? Horrific images out of legend and myth flashed before my mind’s eye, and then something moved into my line of sight that was far more terrifying than any monster from storybooks or campfire tales.

It ran like a cheetah, with massive hindquarters thrusting it forward as long forelegs that ended in splayed claws reached out to tear at the tiled floor. The monster’s face was wrinkled in fury and its muzzle was as long as a Great Dane’s but contoured like a panther. The eyes were glowing green orbs in the night-vision lenses, but I could see feline slits. It snarled with a mouthful of teeth that were easily as long as the blade of my Rapid Release knife.

I had never seen, never imagined, a creature like this. It was easily as big as a full-grown tiger. From the points of those fangs to the tail that whipped the air behind it, the monster had to be twelve feet, and when it was five yards away it launched more than seven hundred pounds of feral mass into the air right at me.

I heard myself screaming as I fired. I pulled the trigger and fired, fired, fired as I threw myself down and to one side. The creature’s mass was already in the air and it couldn’t turn to track me, but I could feel the wind of its passage over me and I saw the dark blossoms as bullet after bullet punched into it, the big.45 slugs exploding through muscle and meat. I hit it six times and then it was past me, landing hard on the floor, skidding, sliding down the hall in the direction my men had taken, snarling, its claws tearing up floor tiles, smearing the walls with blood.

The monster scrambled to a violent turn and got to its feet, turning fast to face me.

How the hell was it still standing with six bullets in it?

The monster hissed at me and I could see its monstrous shoulders bunching to make another run.

I put the laser sight on its left eye and the creature flinched.

But not soon enough. I put my seventh shot through its eye and my eighth and ninth through the heavy bone of its skull. My slide locked back, the gun empty.

A terrible scream tore the air as the creature fell.

The sound did not come from the dying monster.

This scream came from right behind me.

These animals hunted in pairs.

I THREW MYSELF backward, dropping the magazine and clawing another out of my pocket as the second animal came at me out of the swirling darkness. I slapped the magazine into place, but this beast was bigger, faster, and it hit me like a freight train before I could get a round in the chamber or bring the gun to bear.

The impact drove me backward so fast and hard that I had no time to do anything but roll with it and try to hang on to my gun. Claws ripped across my chest, tearing open my heavy shirt and gouging chunks out of the Kevlar. The creature’s own weight kept me alive because it continued to tumble over and past me. I didn’t try to get to my feet; I just jacked the round as the monster twisted around with a screech of claws on tiles and pounced. It landed on me with all of its weight, knocking my night vision off so that the world was black and full of teeth and claws. The sheer weight of it drove the air from my lungs, but I jammed the barrel up until it hit something solid and I pulled the trigger, over and over again.

I heard other shots, the reports overlapping mine, and the monster shrieked in terrible rage and pain.

Then all of its weight slammed down on me.

Chapter Eighty-One

The House of Screams, Isla Dos Diablos

Sunday, August 29, 3:43 P.M.

Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 68 hours, 17 minutes E.S.T.

Eighty-two ran as fast as he could. Gunfire echoed through the halls and he thought he heard the screams of the tiger-hounds inside the building. There were eight of them on the island, including two mated pairs that were bigger than Siberian tigers. If they got past the guardhouse and into the House of Screams they would slaughter every last one of the New Men. It had been genetically bred into them to react to New Men as their primary source of prey-something Eighty-two had heard Otto discuss with one of the animal handlers. It allowed them to sell the animals to anyone who had bought sufficient numbers of New Men.

The building was in panic now. White-coated scientists ran past him; cooks and house staff scrambled for any way out of the compound. The sound of gunfire was continuous and there were explosions, too. Eighty-two knew the sounds of arms and ordnance. He recognized the hollow pops of small-arms and rifle fire and the heavy bark of grenades. This was a full-out assault, but there was no way to know who was winning.