Following the pack of hybrids all afternoon, Jackson thought back again to the last time he and Chloe had been together. Alive. In love.
The taste of her lips. Her hand on his back, coming up to stroke his neck, his ear... The feel of her breath when she giggled at his scrambled response to Dariela.
He should have been the first to say he loved her. He had been working up the nerve for a few weeks and then she'd gone and said it first. At a formal party, for the NOAH Objective, that they had crashed, in order to steal an earthquake-causing sloth. It was a series of events he would have never predicted. Even after their equally strange meet and successive race to find a cure to the worldwide animal problem. Laughing alone, in the wilds of Africa while tracing the path of the world's first genetically-engineered hybrid, he suddenly understood while his old way of life just wasn't working out the way he'd hoped.
You could never go back.
It was a lesson he was slow to learn.
Up ahead he could hear the hybrids squealing and huffing among themselves. He slowed his pace, keeping his attention on the predators. Circling away from the track and into the deeper plain grass, he moved downwind - a slight wind finally picking up across the Serengeti marking the coming sunset - circling the group. He was glad to see another tree nearby. Scampering up it as quietly and quickly as possible, he took a seat on a high enough branch and observed what he could.
He was amazed. Dead lionesses, five of them, lay in the blood-soaked sand. Hybrids were gathered around three of the big cats, gorging themselves on the fresh kills. He winced at the sound of cracking bones. Despite living in Africa for most of his life, having witnessed nearly every dark continent predator feeding, that sound still always made him sick to his stomach.
Circle of life. Yeah, right.
Nearly falling from his perch at the sight, Jackson noticed that two of the five lions he'd thought were dead, weren't. The closest one to him took a shuddering breath, only to fall silent again. Her tongue was blue, extending grotesquely from her jaws, but her eyes were still moving. Pain radiated in the depths, the whites of her eyes red. Her ear flicked infinitesimally. He glanced at the other one the hybrids were ignoring, she too was alive, but barely.
Strange. That definitely wasn't hyena behavior.
Jackson itched to climb down, crawl closer, and get a better look. It was a death sentence. This morning, he would have acted without hesitation, but now he was invested. Though he had tried to leave science behind, it apparently wasn't done with him. He couldn't die without some answers. So he satisfied himself with noting what he could from where he was. Anything he could pass along to the Zoological Society of Southern Africa. Anything that might help control the spread of these monsters. To save his friends.
His final parting gift.
It must be a poison or venom, he thought, studying the lioness with the blue tongue. Each breath was labored. He imagined her wheezing. Asphyxiation would have caused death by now. A neurotoxin would have caused tremors, at least, and drooling. An embolism in the lungs could cause a bluish tongue, as well, but that seemed rather fortuitous. Sure, the hybrids could have caused the embolism, but he had no idea how, without more outward damage. Considering damage, he looked over the lionesses. Both had flesh wounds, deep scratches down their shoulders and hips. So that answered one question, it had to be a venom. Somehow, the hybrids injected a toxic substance into their prey.
But which one?
Considering what he knew of genetic engineering - which was admittedly sparse - and what he was observing of the hybrids, he decided the venom was probably from a mammalian species instead of insect, reptile, or sea creature… though, even that was a guess. A few of the behaviors he was noticing reminded him a lot of African bees. A scary thought.
Running through his memory of known venoms in the animal kingdom, he eliminated each one by one, having seen a significant number of affected animals and humans either in pictures or real-life, living as he was, in an area inhabited by some of the deadliest animals on the planet. The only continent more dangerous was Australia.
He tried desperately to recall those long past university lectures. Coming up with nothing except a rough idea of either the stonefish or the puffer fish - either one delivering their venom of choice via spikes or spines on the body - he shook his head in annoyance. Of course, he could only remember the sea creatures. He would have to look up more later, when he got back to the camp.
Yes, he was going back. For now.
The hybrids had finished feasting, their bellies swollen with meat, organs, and bones, and were milling about. A few rolled almost joyously in the spoils of the massacre, coating their fur with the smell of death and decay. That behavior, Jackson recognized. It spanned across the world. Predators and prey alike. In order to hide their natural scents from the rest of the animal kingdom.
A larger female, he noticed no male appendages and took an educated guess based on his hyena supposition, moved toward one of the motionless lionesses that had so far been left alone. He expected her to kill it then. To feed herself to the point of bursting. Or - he recalled the bodies of the Shepherds in the complex - to remove a threat to the clan. Instead, she gathered the loose skin on the lion's back in her strong jaws and began yanking it. Other hybrids approached, grabbing mouthfuls of the lion, but not breaking her skin, and helped. Soon, both hybrids and paralyzed lions were back on the move, in the direction the hybrids had first come.
Jackson watched, amazed and horrified. His own jaw hung limp in shock. His mind whirled over the implications of what he'd seen. Of what this might mean...
Could he have survived? Despite returning to the island for his body, despite searching the entire complex and surrounding hills and caves for two weeks, exploring every potential hiding place, none of them had found a single trace of Mitch except a pair of bloodied glasses.