The Terrible Ones Read online

  There were movements outside. Not loud, not yet close, but coming closer. Twigs crackled and leaves rustled.

  “So no one ever comes this way,” he whispered bitterly. “Your friends?”

  She shook her head emphatically behind his restraining hand.

  “Then keep your mouth shut and turn out the light.”

  He released her and watched her swift movement toward the glow on the rocky shelf.

  Moves well, he thought to himself, and then the light went out. He crept toward the entrance of the cave and fingered Wilhelmina.

  The sounds were soft but distinct. They became careful footfalls, and there were many of them. And they were right outside.

  Voodoo on the Rocks

  Nick stiffened. There was another sound that was somehow infinitely more menacing than the footfalls of men. It was a heavy, eager panting that swelled into a low growl. A soft voice whispered a command in barely audible Creole. The growling stopped, but the bushes at the outer mouth of the cave began to rustle and snap as though clawed by some giant animal.

  The girl sucked in her breath. Nick felt her lips lightly touch his ear. They felt much softer than they looked.

  “Haitian dog patrol,” she whispered almost soundlessly. “Usually six men and one dog. If they take us we are finished.”

  Nick nodded grimly in the darkness. He knew about the mad dictator’s secret police and the devilish tortures they had devised for their boss’s viewing pleasure. Yet even if he could shoot his way through six armed men, the idea did not appeal to him. It was not only the knowledge that the shots would bring others running that made him hesitate. It was also that he recoiled from gunning down six men who were not necessarily his enemies but soldiers on guard duty. Maybe he could outtalk them, bargain with them . . . . He dismissed the idea. It was too much of a long shot. His mind worked busily.

  The snuffling grew louder and more eager. Nick’s nerve ends tingled unpleasantly.

  “I also have a gun,” the girl whispered. “We can shoot them one by one as they come in after the dog. There is only space for one at a time—”

  “Hush,” Nick breathed at her. Christ! she was coldblooded, although she might be right. Except that the patrol was hardly likely to stay around to be picked off one by one. Return fire, one to race for help, and they would have had it. End of Mission Treasure. “Too noisy. Last resort.”

  “Do you have a first resort?” She sounded scornful and bitter.

  He drew her face toward him and turned her head so that her ear brushed against his mouth. There was a lingering touch of perfume on the tiny lobe, and her hair was silky-soft.

  “What is the local superstition?” he murmured. “Something we can use?”

  She made an impatient little clicking sound and then said softly, “Oh. It is djuba, fear of dead souls returning to snatch the lives of others. But—”

  “Ah!” It was one he knew something about, and he felt a glimmer of hope. Anything was worth trying.

  The makeshift blackout curtain of dark cloth and shrubbery billowed inward near their feet. The snuffling became a snarl. Nick drew the girl away in a swift and silent movement and felt a pounding in her chest that was oddly pleasing to him. He sensed rather than saw the curtain dropping back into place at a quiet command. Then there was a whispered consultation outside. He could not hear the words but he could guess what was being said.

  “I suppose you plan to let them come in here and then you’ll frighten them to death?” the girl whispered, a little too loudly.

  “Quiet!” he hissed urgently. “Get as far back into the cave as you can—climb onto a ledge if you can find one. Then keep your mouth shut and your gun still until I fire the first shot. Understand?”

  He felt her head nodding against his lips and on impulse he took a quick nibble of soft ear. He grinned to himself at her little intake of breath and pushed her firmly toward the back of the cave.

  The snarling started again and something heavy threshed about in the bushes outside. Nick glided swiftly to his makeshift pillow and reached blindly into the pack, cursing quietly at the thing that jabbed at his probing hand. He pulled it out, still sticky as it was, and slipped the knuckle rings over his fingers. Then he padded toward the narrow entrance and squinted through the darkness for the thing that snarled and snuffled near his feet.

  He wondered if the dog was on a leash or whether they would let it bound in to chew the living hell out of whatever they thought was inside. Or if they would start yelling at him to surrender and then start pitching in stink bombs or something worse to smoke him out. But he did not plan to wait for their next move.

  His lungs filled with the dank air of the cave and his throat worked strangely. AXE’s Department of Special Effects and Editing taught many things to those with the capacity to learn, and Carter was their most accomplished pupil. That was why he was Killmaster, and that was why he was here.

  A chilling sound came bubbling up from his larynx, the sound of a soul in the distant reaches of hell, the babble of a creature driven mad by the tortures of the damned. He let it rise slowly and inexorably, listening to the horrors of his own unrecognizable voice with a sort of awe and dimly seeing the thick snout and spatulate paw of a huge hound scrabbling through the covering of the crevice. He edged back against the side wall of the cave, away from the hole but still within reach of it, raised his killing hand in readiness. His voice rose into a babbling howl of tormented laughter.

  If I were a dog I would bristle, he thought to himself, and produced a keening note that was terrible to hear. The dog snarled and backed away. Nick raised his voice another notch. It came out in a high-pitched sobbing whine to make the hackles crawl, and the dog’s voice joined his in a duet that would have sounded fearsome in purgatory itself.

  Nick paused for breath. The dog changed key and went into a solo of shrill, yelping snarls like those of a terrified wolf at bay. Voices, men’s voices, whispered urgently, and now he could detect the fear in the sharp hissing. He could even distinguish some of the words, delivered in the excited island patois.

  “That I tell you, man, he djuba!”

  “What, no djuba! Send in dog again, for sound no kill!”

  “You mad, fella? That sound, he kill. I go.”

  “You stay! So, dog no go in, we use smoke bomb instead.”

  No, you don’t fella, Nick said silently, and he began to whistle. It was an unmelodic but imperative call, pitched so high that only the most acute of human ears could hear it at all, but he knew that the dog could hear. The snarling outside broke into a series of hesitant yaps and then became a little whimper. Shrubbery rustled again. Nick whistled on seductively.

  “See dog?” he heard. “He go in now, no fear!”

  The dog’s massive head and shoulders thrust their way in and the great nose snuffled near Nick’s feet. He backed away slowly, letting the dog come in after him. It was growling again, now, and the small gleam of torchlight that filtered through the opening showed a great spiked collar around its neck with a loosely held leash attached to it.

  Nick stopped whistling and leapt backwards to land in a crouch facing the animal. The dog snarled viciously and flung itself at him, its jaws open to show rows of huge bared teeth.

  Nick howled again and struck out savagely with the clawed hand that had already ripped out a man’s belly. Dogs were not his favorite victims, but if there was to be a sacrifice it had better be the dog. Hot breath fanned his face and two thick front legs slammed against his shoulders. Nick went down, cursing to himself, his steel claws raking the empty air above his head. The damned beast was enormous but it was fast, and in the treacherous darkness Nick had miscalculated his thrust. A wet muzzle thrust itself into his face and jaws snapped at his throat. He flung himself sideways and raked the claws across the slavering muzzle as hard as he could. The dog screamed and he slashed again at the side of the head, feeling the claws ripping deep through coat and skin and flesh.

  The animal ma
de an indescribable sound of agony and twisted itself around to double back the way it had come. Nick let it go. He heard the girl gasping behind him but he had no time for her now except to hiss—”Don’t move!” and then he made the bubbling wail come welling up through his throat. There were shouts outside and some thudding noises as though bodies had fallen from the impact of the dog’s wild onrush, but he had to go on with his act until he was sure he had routed them. He stalked slowly toward the opening in the rock where the bushes still quivered and rustled, and as he walked he made the sound come up gradually as though it were reaching out toward them. Then he halted at the entrance and forced a weird, whinnying dirge from his throat. If they knew their djuba well, they’d know what was supposed to happen next.

  Nick stopped briefly and gathered breath. There were wailing cries from outside that were almost as blood-curdling as his own. A voice screamed out: “Oh, de dog, de dog! Look at him head! Ain’t no human fella made them marks!” Running footsteps thudded away into the night.

  “So nobody said you hired to fight only human fella! You come back here . . . .” The footsteps faded out and so did the voice. Its owner was still outside, Nick judged, but not happy in his work.

  “I throw grenade!” someone else called bravely, from something of a distance.

  “No you not throw anything! Grenade not kill djuba, you makeprayer sign instead!”

  Nick laughed. It was an almost human sounding laugh, but not quite, and it started as a chuckle and rose into a cackle of fiendish, unholy glee, like the cry of a hyena in league with the devil. Yelps and snarls retreated into the distance, and then more running feet followed the first in sudden little bursts of frantic energy. High-pitched yowls of fright went with them. The pain-maddened dog still cried out its agony somewhere in the night.

  Nick paused again and braced himself for one more chorus.

  The djuba was said to mourn its own death, moan a mock lament for its victim, cackle with triumph, and then cry out again with the bubbling, questing sound that meant it was ready for more evil sport. Well, the dog wasn’t dead, it seemed, so the djuba was justified in having one more howl.

  He gave it his all. When the last tremulous wail died away he stopped and listened intently. Not a sound. Not even the distant howl of a lacerated dog. With infinite care he moved out into the darkness. There was nothing in his line of vision;, nothing stirred.

  The deep sigh behind him startled him until he remembered the girl. She stirred behind him and he heard the faint susurration of cloth against rock.

  “Not yet,” he murmured. “Got to be sure first. But as long as you’re up, bring me my shirt.” For some reason he had lapsed into English, but he was scarcely aware of it until she came up silently beside him and said, “Here’s your damned shirt.” He peered at her in surprise as he maneuvered the sleeve past the claw.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “The matter!” She made some sort of sound that might have been a stifled curse. “What are you, some kind of animal?”

  He buttoned up briskly and stared at her dim form. No doubt she would have found him more human if he had killed the lot of them.

  “Yeah, I’m a St. Bernard on rescue duty,” he growled softly. “Now shut up and keep still until I tell you you can move.”

  She may have had some whispered comment to make but he did not wait to hear it. He lay flat on his belly and slowly wormed his way out through the crevice, more like a sinuous reptile than a shaggy dog, hugging the ground-shadows until he was well out in the open. Then he stopped and tuned all his senses in to the smells and sights and sounds of the surrounding night. For moments he lay there, ready with gun and claw for anything that might happen. But nothing happened, and very instinct told him that there was no immediate danger. He waited for another couple of minutes, cocking his ears and peering about in all directions, then rose silently and stepped back into the cave with a reassuring chirrup of sound.

  Once inside he flicked on his pencil flashlight and swung it around the hollow space. If at all possible they must remove all traces of human occupancy. The girl watched him.

  “You don’t think you’ve chased them away for good, do you?” she said.

  “No, I don’t. We’re leaving here. Get that cloth thing away from the entrance, and anything else you happen to have lying around.” He picked up his pack and her hat as he talked and, flashed the small light over the floor. It was hard soil and rock, and he could see no sign of prints. On a natural shelf in the cave he found a rucksack, a small battery lamp, and an even smaller flashlight. He put the last two into the rucksack and joined the girl at the entrance. She had the cloth down and she was rolling it up in a swift, fluid motion.

  “You have any ideas about where we should go from here?” he murmured.

  She nodded, and he realized suddenly that he could see her face. Outside the first light of the false dawn was beginning to rim the sky. They would have to get away from here in a hurry. .

  “We’ll go where I was going to take you later anyway,” she said. “Later, when we’d discussed how to move your men and made our plans.” Her voice sounded harsh and bitter, but completely unafraid. “There’s a village called Bambara where I have friends. They will give us shelter, if we get there. Also they have information for us, and there is something that I meant to show you after we had talked about it. That is one reason why I asked you to meet me here in Haiti.”

  He was glad there was a reason. So far it was a mystery to him. “We’ll still talk about it,” he said evenly. “You’ve got plenty to explain. But let’s get away from this place first. I’ll take that.” He reached for the blackout cloth and took it from her to thrust it into his pack. The remaining piton-claws were stashed inside.

  Nick raised his own clawed hand to show the girl.

  “Do you want one?” he offered. “It may be more useful than your gun.”

  She recoiled from him and almost spat her answer.

  “No thank you!”

  “All right, all right,” he said mildly. “Don’t shout. Here’s your hat.” He crammed it unceremoniously over her head. “Tell me where we’re heading so I can go first.”

  “You can follow me,” she said crisply, and was out of the cave door in one swift, noiseless movement.

  Nick fumed beneath his breath and followed, slinging both packs over his shoulders and padding out after her like a shadow.

  She kept close to the cover of thick trees and bushes and glided on silently like some lithe and graceful cat. There was no hesitancy in her movements but Nick could see she was alert to all the pre-dawn sighs and sounds. Their route led downhill and through the outskirts of the grove of trees he’d traveled through before, then branched off to follow a singing stream that wandered erratically between thick clumps of flowering shrubs whose strong, sweet scent was almost sickening.

  The noise of the brook was bothering Nick. Its splashy chuckle deadened the sound of their progress, true, but it would do the same for anyone else. He looked uneasily about him. His neck was prickling again. The dim light, fading again into the darkness before dawn, showed nothing but brook and tall trees and thick, unmoving foliage. But he was sure there was something. He slowed and looked over his shoulder. And he heard the low growl that rippled into a snarl and then became a chilling howl. It was not behind him. It was in front, and so was she . . .

  He was already running when he heard her startled gasp and saw her slender body falling beneath the onslaught of the huge animal shape. His long legs carried him forward in swift leaps and bounds as she rolled over and hunched her shoulder against the snapping jaws. Still running, he swung his right foot forward in one mighty football kick that landed heavily against the beast’s rib cage and booted the snarling thing free of her body. There was a sound of tearing cloth but he could not stop to see the damage. He leapt over her sprawled figure and met the animal virtually in mid-flight. This time he would not miss— He brought the claws down brutally against the
creature’s face and raked them over the eyes, digging in as deeply and viciously as he could. The dog screamed terribly and dropped. Nick kicked again so that its underside, its muscles jerking spasmodically, was vulnerable to his final thrust. He slashed the body from spiked collar to lower abdomen with all his strength and then stepped back, fighting down nausea and ready to strike again if the enormous mastiff still showed signs of life. That it had lasted this long was incredible. And appalling.

  But it twitched convulsively and died before his eyes.

  He breathed deeply and turned away, noting the small pool formed by the stones in the brook, realizing that the dog had come here to lick its wounds and die. He should never have let it out of the cave and in agony. But he had.

  He turned toward the girl. She was on her feet and shaking visibly, and there was horror stamped across her face. Nick reached for her with his clawless left hand and gently took her arm.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked softly.

  She shivered. “No,” she whispered. “He only—he only—”

  She stopped, shuddering. Nick pulled her around so that he could see her shoulder. The jacket was ripped and there was a deep scratch on her upper back, but it was relatively minor.

  “How horrible,” she murmured. “Horrible.”

  Nick gave up his inspection of her back and swung her round to look her in the eyes. She was staring past him at the dog. It seemed to him that there was no fear in her, only pity and revulsion. “Why does it have to be like this?” she whispered.

  It was no time to remind her that she’d been all for shooting down the whole patrol. Nick touched her cheek softly.

  “Honey,” he murmured, “I hate it, too. But his name isn’t Paolo, and we have a job to do. Do we still keep following the stream?”

  She shook her head. “We cross it soon and make a westward turn.”

  “Good. Are we likely to run into any more patrols?”