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her. “Go call for—”
    Andrew sprang from his crouched posture,
plowing his knuckles into the older man’s gut. Whoofing for
breath, the man turned him loose and staggered backwards. Andrew
scrambled to his feet, fists still clenched, squaring off.
    “Stop it,” Suzette cried, darting between
them, hands outstretched. “Both of you.”
    “What the hell’s going on?” Andrew exclaimed
to her. “He hit me!”
    “This is Edward Moore,” she told him,
wide-eyed, pleading, and why should that name have been familiar to
him, he wondered? “Doctor Moore,” she amended, and he
relaxed his fists, opening his hands.
    Shit.
    “This is his facility,” Suzette told him.
“His lab. His apartment.”
    Moore glared at him, still choked and
flushed, his palm pressed to his gut. Alice had come to stand in
the doorway now, curious by the commotion, her dark eyes round and
darting between her father and Andrew.
    Shit, Andrew thought again.
    ****
    “Let’s start at the beginning, Mister
Braddock,” Major Prendick said.
    Although they hadn’t cuffed him, his soldiers
hadn’t exactly been gentle as they’d escorted Andrew from Moore’s
apartment. One of them, Corporal O’Malley, had caught him by the
wrist and wrenched his arm behind his back, pinning it at an
unnatural and painful angle. They were about equal in height, but
O’Malley outweighed Andrew by a good ten pounds at least of nothing
but muscle. Although not feeble by any stretch of the imagination,
Andrew had nonetheless gone along without protest, harboring no
illusions. O’Malley could have, if so inclined, kicked his ass. In
a big, hard, stomping, painful sort of way.
    O’Malley had maintained his light yet painful
grip on Andrew’s arm until they’d reached a small office on the
building’s first floor. Here, Andrew had been made to sit in an
uncomfortable metal chair in the middle of the otherwise empty
room, left alone for at least twenty minutes behind what had turned
out to be a locked door.
    O’Malley had returned to stand guard at the
threshold. To Andrew’s surprise, this time he was accompanied by
Specialist Santoro, the young woman who’d rescued Andrew the night
before. Slim and petite, she struck a peculiar, somewhat comical
contrast to the larger, brawnier O’Malley as they flanked the
doorway together at rigid, unwavering attention while Prendick,
upon his entrance, proceeded to trace a wide, slow circumference
around Andrew. Keeping his hands clasped against the small of his
back, his expression neutral, his voice friendly enough, Prendick
would glance up and meet Andrew’s gaze each time he’d pass.
    “What are you doing out here?” the Major
said. “These lands are all federal property.”
    Andrew sighed, irritated. “I told you last
night. She brought me here.” He nodded once to indicate Santoro. “I
work for Wells Environmental Management Consultants out of
Johnstown, Pennsylvania. We were hired to survey roughly
ten-thousand acres southeast of here. I was driving on Highway 460
during the storm, on my way back to meet up with my crew at our
hotel in Pikeville when something ran out in front of my
truck.”
    Prendick raised a curious brow.
“Something?”
    “I don’t know what it was. An animal, maybe,
or a man. It stood upright on two legs.” Andrew mimed, using his
forefingers in a scissor motion against his opposing palm. “Its
arms looked deformed. Its back, too, like it was hunched over.” He
sighed, shook his head. “It all happened really fast. I couldn’t
get a good look at it, but it didn’t have fur, I’m sure of it.”
    “Specialist Santoro, did you see this thing
he described?” Prendick asked, turning to the young woman in the
corner.
    Keeping her eyes pinned ahead, her shouldered
thrust back at rigid attention, Santoro barked in reply, “No,
sir.”
    Prendick turned his stern gaze back to
Andrew. “Do you have any documentation to prove who you are?” he
asked. “Your work assignment? Any