Arize (Book 1): Resurrection Page 4

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” Wilson said, regaining his composure. The man had obviously suffered a fit or seizure of some kind. Wilson wasn’t eager to brace the man and wrestle him to the ground, so he tried to enforce compliance with his tone.

  But Lang seemed only dimly aware of the trooper. His head twitched and then jerked first left and then right. His cracked lips peeled back in a grimace as if he was going to howl, but all that came out was a gurgling hiss. A chunk of flesh dangled from between his two front teeth.

  Wilson had identified the source of Nordegaard’s wounds.

  Lang’s nostrils flared and relaxed, as if sniffing the air. It was only then that Wilson noticed the man’s breath wasn’t pluming out in the cold. He started to reach for his walkie-talkie and call for backup—which he should’ve done in the first place if not for his fear of embarrassment—but instead pulled out a pair of cuffs.

  “You’re under arrest for suspicion of murder,” Wilson said, his voice faltering a little as Lang lurched forward.

  Wilson aimed his Glock at the man’s chest. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Lang ignored the command and stumbled forward another couple of steps, closing the distance between them to ten feet. Although Lang had no weapon—if you didn’t count those cannibalistic teeth—Wilson sensed danger as the situation spiraled out of control. Lang issued a growl from deep in his chest, an ancient, primal sound that caused Wilson’s close-shaven scalp to tingle beneath his Stetson.

  Lang shot forward with a speed that caught Wilson by surprise. He reacted by unleashing two quick shots to the suspect’s chest. The rounds punched through Lang’s rib cage and the percussion echoed across the tundra.

  But Lang didn’t fall, even as gelid blood oozed from the holes in his parka. Wilson knew that people fueled by psychosis or drugs could defy the normal laws of science, but he waited a split-second too long before firing a third time.

  By then, Lang was on him.

  Wet, slick fingers grappled at his throat as the force of Lang’s assault knocked Wilson onto his back. Wilson somehow maintained his grip on the Glock, but Lang’s weight made it impossible to wield the weapon. The German writhed and growled atop him, and as the gruesome mouth drew nearer, Lang could smell a sweetly foul rot rising from its depths.

  Wilson thrust with his legs, trying to buck off his attacker, but Lang had latched onto him. The walkie-talkie squawked, and Hollifield’s voice came out. White noise broke up the words, but Wilson clearly heard “shots” and “okay.”

  No, Wilson was definitely not okay. Lang’s teeth grazed his chin and Wilson twisted wildly, images of Nordegaard’s ruined body driving him to desperation. His aviator glasses were flung to one side and he got an even clearer look at Lang’s diseased features.

  He tried to roll, but Lang seemed to possess the strength of five men, or even a grizzly bear. Then the teeth found purchase and Lang felt a red-hot flare of agony along his cheek. He swallowed a scream. Lang was so intent on his newfound taste that his coiled muscles relaxed for a moment, and Wilson was able to drive the barrel of the Glock into the man’s stomach and squeeze off three more muffled rounds.

  Still the man held on, yanking back his head and ripping a quarter-pound of raw meat from Wilson’s face. Blood and tears filled his eyes, blinding him, and Lang shifted before Wilson could empty the rest of his magazine into the murderer. He expected Lang to fall away and bleed to death, but the crazed man merely squirmed atop Wilson as if they were lovers cuddling for warmth against the cold.

  But Lang radiated no warmth. He was as cool as a corpse. And when the mouth swooped down again, Wilson registered no breath, either. He reached up with his free hand—the one that had previously held the cuffs—and grabbed for the back of Lang’s head. But all he got was the slick fabric of the parka, and the teeth dug into his neck, gnawing at his jugular.

  This time Wilson let his scream escape, as brisk and brittle as the fiercest arctic wind.

  His dying breath escaped with it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Freddie Stiller felt like refried shit.

  He could smell bacon in the air, which meant Denita was home and hadn’t waited for him, as usual. She hadn’t waited for him last night, either, snoring away when he’d gotten home after his late shift. That was fine with him, since he’d been too tired to do anything, but at least she could’ve offered him some lunch. He felt around him in the dark bed and found that the sheets were soaked.

  “Denita?” he called, his voice raspy.

  The door opened, and the sudden light jabbed Freddie like an ice pick. He put his forearm over his eyes and groaned. The TV was playing in the background.

  “Yeah, baby?” Denita said, not coming into the room.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “You was passed out hard, baby. It’s almost one o’clock.”

  “I don’t feel so good.”

  “You sweated like a hog all night. I barely got a wink of sleep.”

  Freddie didn’t believe that for a second. Denita always took care of Denita, one way or another. “Bring me a drink.”

  “I got coffee on.”

  “I don’t want something hot.”

  “It’s too early for a beer.”

  “Don’t we got some Pepsi?”

  “Doris was over and she drank them all.”

  Doris was one of those friends who kept putting big ideas into Denita’s tiny head, such as Anchorage being no place for a woman to settle down for the long haul. What Doris never explained was why she hadn’t yet left herself. It’s not like her waitress shifts at the Waffle Express, where Denita also worked, were building toward a career.

  “How about some ice water, then?” Freddie asked, wondering why Denita was standing way over there.

  “You want some aspirin?”

  “Do we have any Oxy, or did Doris take all of that, too?”

  “I got two left, but I was saving them for Friday when we’re both off all day.”

  “Well, I can’t go into work feeling like this.” He hated wasting the painkillers when he was actually in pain. He would rather enjoy the buzz. But the ache was not just in his head. It spread through his limbs like frozen fire.

  “Make sure to let them to know ahead of time,” Denita said. “I gotta check on my bacon.”

  Freddie didn’t know why Denita ate bacon at home when she had a buffet of it five days a week at the waffle joint. Bacon was good stuff, but there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. Her rump was getting past the juicy stage and going a little wobbly, not that he had much room to talk. His beer belly kept growing even when he switched to whiskey for a while.

  He sensed her silhouette moving from the doorway. He rolled into the pillow and squeezed it. He’d have to call Morton soon and ask for the day off. Morton would probably grill him about those busted packages. Freddie would plead ignorance, but if that didn’t work, he’d put all the blame on Jeremiah. He didn’t like to rat out his co-workers, but he wasn’t going to lose his job just because Jeremiah was a drunken idiot.

  Denita was back in a minute, and he heard the clink of glass on the nightstand. She hustled back to the doorway and asked, “Need anything else, baby?”

  “Why are you way over there?”

  “Whatever you got, I don’t want to catch it.”

  He wondered if he looked as bad as he felt. “It came on all of a sudden. I can’t afford to go to no doctor.”

  “You’re a little green around the gills. Drink your water. I gotta eat my lunch while it’s still warm.” She left again.

  The greasy air made Freddie’s stomach clench and roil. He didn’t want to take the Oxy if he might throw it up. At fifty bucks a pill, he couldn’t afford to flush it down the toilet. And no telling when Slick Ricky would be able to score some more, since he stole them from his cancer-ridden grandmother.

  Despite his weakness, he had to take a leak, and he didn’t want to wait until the last minute. Denita
already gave him hell about the skid marks in his underwear. A few yellow drops up front would set her off even more. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered with her.

  Freddie rolled out of bed, groaning as the blood rushed from his head. He staggered to the bathroom on watery legs, the noise from the TV pounding against his temples. Why couldn’t she turn that damn thing down? Quiz shows and news, making her mad over all the stuff she didn’t know and all the things she couldn’t do anything about.

  After relieving himself, he splashed water on his face and walked into the kitchen to find Denita at the little bar, chopping at her eggs and nibbling on bacon and toast. She didn’t even notice he’d entered. Her attention was fixated on the little screen in front of her. Some cop was talking to a reporter, the typical sensationalist bullshit that danced all around the truth.

  He wheezed and she jumped, dropping her fork onto her plate with a clatter. “Damn, baby. You spooked me.”

  “Who else would be coming out of the bedroom?”

  She glanced at his face and couldn’t hold his gaze. She returned her attention to her food and then the television. “Something weird happened.”

  “Something weird’s always happening.” Freddie felt lightheaded but Denita made no move to let him sit beside her.

  “Right here. In Alaska.”

  Freddie glanced at the screen again. His vision swam but he saw the “Fairbanks” tagline in the lower portion of the screen. “That’s way north of here.”

  “They got some crazy murderer on the loose. Three people dead already, and one of them’s a cop.”

  “Let’s hope they stay up there.”

  Denita waved the fork at him. “Shh. I want to hear.”

  The screen cut to a newscaster with a short, blond haircut who looked barely out of high school. He spoke with the kind of earnest, know-it-all tone that made Freddie want to put his foot through the screen.

  “Authorities are searching for Werner Lang, a thirty-six-year-old German scientist who was conducting research at the Toolik Field Station near Prudhoe Bay. He’s currently described as a ‘person of interest’ in connection with the deaths—”

  Lang’s mug shot appeared on the screen, a middle-aged man with gaunt cheeks, trimmed beard, and piercing blue eyes.

  “At least it’s not a Russian or a terrorist,” Freddie said, and Denita shushed him again.

  Freddie tuned out the newscaster’s monologue. Now that he was up, he felt a little better. He decided to go into work after all. That was better than dealing with Morton.

  He showered and shaved, pulling down his eyelids to look at his jaundiced, bloodshot eyeballs. His skin harbored a sickly green shade, but he didn’t feel like throwing up anymore. He was weak and slightly feverish, but he figured he’d be able to coast through the shift if he didn’t push too hard.

  Denita was surprised when he came back into the kitchen completely dressed. She drew back when he leaned in to kiss her.

  She squinted at him. “You brush your teeth?”

  “Yeah.” He picked up her coffee cup and took a sip before she could stop him.

  “Well, your breath smells like a straight-up maggot mess, baby.”

  “Yours ain’t so great, either.”

  “I can’t kiss you until I know you’re not sick.”

  “I’m better enough to go in to work.”

  Denita kept her distance, wary. “You sure about that?”

  “I don’t have any sick days left, and I can’t ask Morton for any extra. He’s already been riding my ass about the last time.”

  Denita wasn’t listening. She’d turned her attention back to the TV, sopping up the last of her egg yolks with a piece of toast. He put on his jacket and checked to make sure the car keys were in the pocket. “Bye, honey.”

  “Love you,” she said without turning around.

  He drove his Ford pickup through the early-afternoon traffic. The Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was only five miles from the apartment, and Freddie was able to avoid most of the city traffic by keeping south on the secondary roads. Despite feeling a little woozy, this was no worse than driving drunk, and he managed to keep the truck between the lines and just above the speed limit. By the time he parked in the employee satellite lot and caught a shuttle into the baggage area, he was fairly confident he could fake it through the shift.

  At least until Morton met him as he put on his safety vest and hard hat in the locker room. The floor manager looked as flushed and ill as Freddie, with red-rimmed eyes and beads of sweat dotting the closely-shaven skin above his lip.

  “Stiller, you’re late,” Morton said, posing neither a question nor a command, just a fact. Morton was lucky enough to determine facts. The truth was whatever he said it was.

  “Yeah?” Freddie sat on a bench so that Morton wouldn’t see him swaying and assume he was drunk or drugged.

  “We had some broken packages reported last night. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “No, sir. We’re supposed to file a report if we observe damaged packages.”

  “Exactly. You and Jeremiah were the only ones working in that area last night.”

  A couple of baggage handlers who’d just finished their shift left in a hurry, talking loudly so they wouldn’t overhear the lecture. The door to the locker room swung shut with a squeak.

  “I didn’t see anything damaged,” Freddie said, rubbing at a stabbing pain in his temple.

  “You and Jeremiah were dicking around with the fork lift. And I haven’t forgotten that stain on the floor, either.”

  “Check the security cameras,” Freddie said. No doubt Morton had already done so and failed to come up with any solid evidence, or he wouldn’t be grilling Freddie like this.

  “I can’t have you screwing up my numbers,” Morton said, sniffing loose mucus back up one nostril. “Our shift has the lowest damage rate in the whole terminal, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  “If anything got damaged, it was probably Jeremiah,” Freddie said, omitting the fact that Jeremiah had drunk most of a pint of whiskey. “He was sick last night and he might’ve been a little sloppy.”

  “You’re not looking so good yourself,” Morton said, easing up a little as he sighed in misery. “I can’t send you home, though. Half the shift’s off sick.”

  “What about Jeremiah?”

  As if in answer, a low groan came from the restroom. A stall door banged, and Jeremiah lurched into the locker room. Freddie wondered for a moment if Jeremiah had stayed here after their shift, drinking himself into a stupor instead of heading home. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Morton called his name but Jeremiah’s only response was to shuffle toward them, fighting for balance and staring past them with watery eyes. He sure looked hung over, his skin blotchy and one eyelid twitching. Freddie stood, his head swimming, as he waited for Morton to chew out his friend. But it turned out Jeremiah was the one who did the chewing.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Morton asked, his voice rising in whiny petulance.

  Freddie thought Jeremiah was just going to shuffle right on past them, or maybe flop forward onto his face. But when he reached the floor manager, he suddenly jerked up his head as if noticing them for the first time. A phlegmy growl emerged from deep in Jeremiah’s chest and his lips peeled back in a sneer.

  Jeremiah reached out for Morton, clawing at his shoulders. Morton stepped back but stumbled, slamming into a row of lockers and trying to slide away from the crazed man. Freddie was frozen in place, unable to process what he was seeing. They all hated Morton, but he never thought Jeremiah would actually beat the shit out of him. Going postal was for mail carriers, not baggage mules.

  Jeremiah, who was a couple of inches taller and thirty pounds heavier, pinned Morton against the lockers. But he still didn’t quite have his balance, and he seemed to latch onto Morton to keep from falling. Morton flailed and slapped at the larger man, squealing in panic. Freddie grabbed the back of Je
remiah’s shirt and tried to yank him away, but he was too weak to budge him.

  He caught a glimpse of Jeremiah’s uneven yellow teeth opening wide and had just enough time to think He’s not going to actually BITE him, is he? before Jeremiah did just that.

  The teeth clamped on Morton’s nose and ripped. Morton’s squeal rose into a gurgling shriek. Jeremiah turned toward Freddie and almost seemed to grin, the nub of flesh hanging there like a sausage. Blood dribbled down both Morton’s face and Jeremiah’s chin, glistening under the greenish fluorescent lights of the room.

  Morton gained strength from his pain and fear, breaking free of Jeremiah’s grip. “You’re fired!” he bellowed, using the only weapon in his arsenal. But with one hand cupping his torn nose, it came out as “Murr furred.”

  Freddie yelled for help. The other baggage handlers who were out on the floor wouldn’t be able to hear them over the jets, forklifts, and tankers operating all around them. He held up his hands, trying to reason with Jeremiah, but the dark-skinned man just chewed the morsel with great slobbery smacks.

  Morton clamped both hands over his wound, blood dribbling from between his fingers. Jeremiah spun away from Freddie, listing heavily to his left, and made for Morton again. The manager took two steps, breaking into a sprint, but he tripped over the bench that ran between the rows of lockers. As his knees and elbows banged against the tiled floor, Jeremiah lunged and flopped onto his victim like a wrestler coming off the top rope.

  “Get off him, man,” Freddie shouted. “You want to go to jail?”

  Morton crawled forward and Jeremiah clung to him, biting at the back of his neck. Freddie was afraid to get close to Jeremiah. He didn’t want to get bitten. Freddie looked around for a weapon. A mop stood in the corner, its strings nappy and gray. He hurried for the mop, sizing up the wooden handle.

  Morton grunted and whimpered as he tried to wriggle free, squirming enough that Jeremiah’s teeth couldn’t gain purchase. Freddie held the mop near the head and swung it in the air like a baseball ball, testing its heft. Even in his weakened state, he should be able to knock some sense into Jeremiah. He stood over the struggling men and brought the mop handle over his head, whipping it into a descending arc.