The Things We Bury - Part 1: In Anticipation of the End of the World [Completed]

Chapter 1: Project LARS (Part 5 of 6)

The cinderblock wall stored a winter's worth of cold, and it seeped through R.J. Blass's coat.  He hardly noticed the chill as he slouched against it, smoking his cigarette, and watching the ships come back with their loads of king salmon, black cod, halibut, and opilio.

Bill from Operations came out and let the heavy metal door slam shut behind him.  The exertion of rushing from his desk to the parking lot showed in the chilled vapor he puffed into the afternoon air. 

In the last seconds of his solitude, R.J. sucked up the remaining acrid dregs from the butt and stomped it out.  He closed his eyes and let the hit of nicotine massage his overexcited nerve endings.

"Szymanski's looking for you." Bill took up position next to him, unintentionally mimicking his stance.  In his long black coat, he made a shorter and wider shadow.

R.J.'s only reply was to take out a fresh cigarette and light it.

"Shit."  Bill crumpled his empty pack in an exaggerated display and stuffed it back into his pocket.  "Can I bum one?"

He held out the pack and let Bill rout a cigarette out.

At the mention of Jim Szymanski, R.J. felt his excitement shift to agitation, and the tide of his thoughts turned to stormier seas.  The taste in his mouth became focused on the sulfur, bitter iron, and burned vegetal flavors of his cigarette. 

Mila had hated his smoking.  Four dates in, he had given it up, cold turkey and without a second thought.  He didn't touch another cigarette until the night she walked out the door, fifteen years later. 

At twenty-two, his body had bucked the habit without a twinge, and he never thought about it all that time they were together.  But the moment she was gone from his life, the first thing he did was to go out and buy a pack.

It was as though there was a sharp line drawn around his life with Mila and everything inside was this warm, bright unimaginable dream.  A dream from which he awoke to find everything dull and lifeless.  To find himself standing in a fish yard in Alaska, smoking a cigarette, and dreading going back inside to face his boss.

He had no fear of Szymanski, just a deep loathing.  He was more invertebrate than man.  He had been promoted up to middle management simply due to his total incompetence at everything besides kissing ass.  And he made R.J.'s life hell.

He had been after R.J. all week for the revised figures for the NMFS quarterly quota report.  Filling out the National Marine Fishery Services report had never been a problem, but he hadn't been able to concentrate on anything since Wiley's visit.  The numbers always blurred, until he closed his eyes and saw the video again.

It was only a minute and a half long.  The second time Wiley played it, R.J. held his breath from start to finish.  It was filmed in a brightly lit, gray concrete room.  The camera moved behind cream-colored metal bars.  It panned around trying to capture the creature that bounced off the walls of the cell.  The animal never stopped moving.

For most of the video, all that could be seen of it was flashes of its muscular, fur-covered body.  But there was never any doubt that it was special.  The movements were off.  The dimensions weren't quite right.  Even at a glance, R.J knew it was something he had never seen before.

By the third time through, R.J. finally asked, "What exactly is it?"

"We call it LARS."  Not waiting to be asked, Maxwell elaborated: "It stands for Lycanthropic Anomalous Research Subject."

"A lycanthrope?  This creature's physiology is tied to the phases of the moon?"  He leaned in as though getting closer to the screen could give him a better viewing angle.