The Mastiff with the Brass Warning

He met my eyes and gave a thin, trembling whine. There was no monster in that sound. The animal was awake inside himself, locked in a body that was slipping beyond his control.

Then his attention swung to the corroded grate. He didn’t retreat. He planted both enormous forepaws against the iron and drove them down.

The clang shuddered through the barn, sharp as a struck bell. He clawed at the bars with frantic strength, metal scraping beneath his hardened nails.

“What’s he trying to do?” I said, edging closer before I could stop myself.

Evans stared at the grate, realization spreading across his face. “The cavern. Elias, the shaft leads to the toxic air you told me about, doesn’t it? The gases and whatever ancient material is down there?”

“Mark said the seals wouldn’t protect anybody going in. The stuff down there would eat through them.”

Evans’s voice dropped to a whisper. Fear still showed in him, but wonder had pushed into it. “He understands. He’s resisting the parasite. If he stays here, it could escape him and spread. He’s trying to reach the cavern and end it there.”

He meant to hurl himself down into that poison, hoping it would kill what lived inside him.

My throat tightened. Clara had clung to his damp coat and told us he wasn’t the one to blame. She had understood him better than anyone.

People had struck him and driven him away. Mark had used him. Apex-Bio had made him into a vessel for something deadly. Still, he was choosing to protect the same people who’d chased him with tools and fury.

I was still trying to take that in when the barn lurched beneath a tremendous blast.

The steel door on the side of the building tore free and crashed inward. White light flashed across the room; smoke and grit rolled behind it.

“Down!” I shouted. I seized Evans by his shirt and hauled him behind the thick frame of my old John Deere.

Three armed figures appeared in the broken entrance, advancing with unnerving coordination. Black tactical suits covered them, along with gas masks and goggles that glinted in the dust.

They carried compact automatic weapons. None of their barrels pointed toward Evans or me.

Every one of them had the mastiff in its sights.

A radio on the foremost figure crackled with a filtered voice. “We have the asset. The parasite is live. Containment is cleared. Bring him down before he reaches the shaft.”

Red targeting dots crawled across the dust and gathered on the dog’s heavy body.

They meant to stop him from reaching the cavern. They wanted him dead here, with the organism still inside him, so they could reclaim it from his remains.

“No!” I yelled, pushing away from the tractor.

I worked the action of my twelve-gauge and fired toward the ruined doorway without getting a clean look.

The report hammered around the enclosed barn. Overhead, what remained of the skylights burst apart. Pellets tore into the metal siding near the lead figure, spitting sparks and fragments.

The armed men broke apart at once, diving behind equipment and the crates piled by the entrance.

“Take the local!” somebody barked. Their guns answered with a chattering burst.

Rounds struck the tractor’s flank. Green paint chipped away in stinging flecks, and sparks snapped against the floor. Evans and I flattened ourselves on the concrete.

“We can’t keep them back!” Evans cried, hands over his ears.

I didn’t answer. I peered around the tractor’s great rubber wheel, trying to see through the smoke and moving figures.

The mastiff had not turned from the grate. Gunfire shook the building, but his attention stayed fixed on the iron.

He clamped his jaws onto a thick crossbar. The muscles along his face and neck rose in hard ridges beneath the scars.

He hauled backward. A horrible metallic shriek scraped through the barn, and the grate bucked in its frame.

One of the bolts sunk into the masonry broke with a sharp, brittle snap.

“He’s pulling it loose,” I said. His engineered strength and the rush of his body’s panic were enough to wrench at iron fixed in place for decades.

“Stop him! He’s opening the shaft!” the lead operative shouted. He stepped out from his cover and trained his weapon on the dog’s head.

I didn’t pause to think. I sprang from behind the tractor and slid across the grit, bringing the shotgun up as I moved.

My second blast struck the lead man’s weapon. Its lower section shattered, and the operative staggered backward into the dirt.

The next one was already coming around a stack of pallets. He kicked the shotgun from my hands with a hard, precise blow.

It skidded across the floor beyond my reach. Before I could rise, his rifle butt slammed into my side.

Pain folded me down. My breath rushed out, and the floor came up beneath my cheek.

The operative pointed his muzzle at my forehead. Then another voice cut across the barn.

“Hold,” the third man ordered. He stepped closer and looked down at me through the dark glass of his mask.

“Where’s Mark Vance? Tell us where the site manager is.”