A second hyena, one with spotted fur, stepped from the shadows of the memory room. The two animals glanced at each other and the leader-the one by the couch-made a throaty growl. Trying to keep his distance, Hollis moved toward the locked front door. He heard a barking sound behind him-like a nervous laugh-and spun around to see another hyena come out of the hallway. This third animal had stayed hidden until Hollis had entered the living room.

The three hyenas began to move into a triangle with him at the center. He smelled their foul odor, heard claws click on the wooden floor. Hollis found it difficult to breathe. A feeling of intense fear surged through his body. The leader made a quick laughing sound and bared his teeth again.

“Go to hell,” Hollis said, and fired the rifle.

He shot the leader first, turned slightly and fired a burst at the spotted hyena near the memory room. The third animal leaped through the air as Hollis threw himself sideways. He felt a sharp pain on his upper left arm as he hit the floor. Hollis rolled to his side and watched the third hyena spinning around to attack. He squeezed the trigger and hit the animal at a low angle. Bullets cut into the hyena’s chest and it was knocked back against the wall.

When Hollis stood up, he touched his arm and felt blood. The hyena must have slashed him with its claws as it jumped forward. Now the animal lay on its side, making a deep wheezing sound while blood bubbled from a chest wound. Hollis looked at his attacker, but didn’t get close. The hyena stared back at him with hatred in its eyes.

The coffee table was lying on its side. He went around it and examined the leader. Bullet holes were in the animal’s chest and front legs. Its lips were pulled back and it seemed to be grinning.

Hollis stepped into a pool of blood, smearing it across the floor. Bullets had cut through the spotted hyena’s neck and almost severed its head. Hollis leaned down and saw that the animal’s yellow-and-black hair covered a thick skin that was almost like cowhide. Sharp claws. Strong muzzle and teeth. It was a perfect killing machine-quite unlike the smaller, cautious hyenas he had seen on nature shows. This creature was a distortion, something bred to hunt without fear, compelled to attack and kill. Maya had warned him that the Tabula scientists had learned how to subvert the laws of genetics. What was the word she used? Splicers.

Something changed in the room. He turned away from the dead splicer and realized that he could no longer hear the wheezing sound coming from the third hyena. Hollis raised the assault rifle, then saw a shadow moving on his left side. He spun around just as the leader scrambled to its feet and leaped toward him.

Hollis fired wildly. A bullet hit the leader and knocked it backward. He kept squeezing the trigger until the thirty-round clip was empty. Reversing the rifle, Hollis ran and began beating the animal with a hysterical fury, crushing the splicer’s skull and jaws. The wooden stock cracked, then broke away from the rifle frame. He stood in the shadows, clutching the useless weapon.

A scratching sound. Claws on the floor. Six feet away, the third hyena was getting to its feet. Although its chest was still wet with blood, it was preparing to attack. Hollis threw the rifle at the splicer and ran for the hallway. He shut the door behind him, but the hyena ran at full speed and smashed it open.

Hollis reached the bathroom, shut the door, and braced his body against the thin plywood, holding the knob with his hand. He thought about climbing out the window, then realized that the door wouldn’t hold for more than a few seconds.

The splicer hit the door hard. It popped open a few inches, but Hollis pushed backward with his feet and managed to slam it shut. Find a weapon, he thought. Anything. The Tabula had scattered the towels and toiletries across the bathroom floor. Still braced against the door, he knelt down and searched desperately through the clutter. The splicer hit the door a second time, forcing it open. Hollis saw the creature’s teeth and heard its frantic laughter as he pushed the door shut with all his strength.

A can of hair spray lay on the floor. A butane cigarette lighter was over by the sink. He grabbed them both, stumbled backward toward the window, and the door slammed open. For one heartbeat he stared at the animal’s eyes and saw the intensity of its desire to kill. It was like touching a live electric cable and feeling a snap of malevolent power surge through his body.

Hollis held the button down, spraying the hyena’s eyes, then clicked the lighter. The cloud of hair spray caught fire and a stream of orange flame hit the splicer. The hyena screamed with a gurgling yowl that sounded like a human in pain. Burning, it staggered down the hallway toward the kitchen. Hollis ran into the exercise room, picked up a steel barbell rod, and followed the splicer into the kitchen. The house was filled with the sharp odor of scorched flesh and fur.

Hollis stood near the doorway and raised his weapon. He was ready to attack, but the splicer kept screaming and burning and moving forward until it collapsed beneath the table and died.

Gabriel didn’t know how long he had been living underground. Four or five days, perhaps. Maybe more. He felt detached from the outside world and daily cycle of sunlight and darkness.

The wall he had created between being awake and dreaming was beginning to disappear. Back in Los Angeles, Gabriel’s dreams were confusing or meaningless. Now they seemed like a different kind of reality. If he went to sleep concentrating on the tetragrammaton, he could remain conscious in his dreams and walk around them like a visitor. The dream world was intense-almost overwhelming-so most of the time he looked down at his feet, glancing up occasionally to see the new environment that surrounded him.

Within a dream, Gabriel walked on an empty beach where each grain of sand was a tiny star. He stopped and gazed out at a blue-green ocean with silent waves falling on the shore. Once he found himself in an empty city with bearded Assyrian statues built into high brick walls. At the center of the city was a park with rows of birch trees, a fountain, and a bed of blue irises. Every flower, leaf, and stalk of grass was perfect and distinct: an ideal creation.

Waking from one of these experiences, he would find crackers, cans of tuna, and pieces of fruit left in a plastic box next to his cot. The food appeared almost magically and he never figured out how Sophia Briggs was able to enter the dormitory room without making any noise. Gabriel ate until he was full, then he left the dormitory room and entered the main tunnel. If Sophia wasn’t around, he would take the kerosene lantern and go exploring.

The king snakes usually stayed away from the lightbulbs in the main tunnel, but he could always find them in side rooms. Sometimes they were intertwined in an undulating mass of heads and tails and slithering bodies. Often they lay passively on the floor as if still digesting a large rat. The snakes never hissed at Gabriel or made a threatening move, but he found it unsettling to look at their eyes, as clean and precise as little black jewels.

The snakes didn’t hurt him, but the silo itself was dangerous. Gabriel inspected the abandoned control room, electric generator, and radio antenna. The generator was covered with mold that clung to the steel like a fuzzy green carpet. In the control room, the gauges and panels had been smashed and looted. Electric cables hung from the ceiling like roots in a cave.

Gabriel remembered seeing a small opening in one of the concrete lids that covered a launch silo. Perhaps it was possible to crawl out of this hole and reach the sunlight, but the missile area was the most dangerous part of the underground complex. Once Gabriel tried to explore a launch silo. He became lost in shadowy passageways and almost fell through a gap in the floor.