Prologue

In the dead of night, two ten ton army trucks, one hauling excavation equipment, the other pulling a trailer that had a number of generators humming away on its roof, rolled through the overgrown streets of a small abandoned town. They drew to a stop in front of an open foundation filled with charred debris. A number of men in black suits disembarked and gathered in a circle in the light of the lead truck's headlamps.

"You're sure this is the place?" Dr. Nolan asked.

"Yes, sir. The signal from the electronic tracking device is surprisingly clear," one of the other men answered.

"You can call it a bug, Todd," Dr. Nolan replied with a laugh. "I promise that I won't tell the general."

He surveyed the scene sourly: he had so hoped that the bug's battery had died. While a

Part of him was excited at the prospect of actually studying the creatures, he had seen firsthand the horrors that they had inflicted on Pittsburgh. There were some things that man should not know, that they must not know. There were some things that should stay buried.

With a grunt, he instructed, "Well, now that we found the place, I suppose we had better get to work. Get that equipment offloaded and running, but don't dig too deep. The general will have our heads if we cause any additional damage."

Once the basement had been excavated down to within a few feet of the estimated depth of the floor, shovels were passed out. Without any regard for their meticulously neat suits, the men, Dr. Nolan included, climbed into the open foundation and began to dig.

They soon unearthed the remains of several bodies, but a quick examination proved that they were not the ones the men sought. At Dr. Nolan's insistence, the remains were carefully placed in body bags and carried to the trailer. The families deserved closure that could not be obtained if the bodies stayed in this anonymous grave.

"Why are the bodies still here, sir?" Todd asked.

Dr. Nolan answered slowly, "I never really thought about that. I would guess that, in part at least, the local authorities are afraid that one of the ones we seek is alive under this mess, and poking around would release him. They did, after all, believe him to be dead once before, and that assumption came back to bite them." With a wince, he hastily added, "That bad pun was unintended. Anyway, they're also a bit overwhelmed at the moment. It's only been a little over a month since the incident. Cleaning out the massive numbers of dead so that the city's residents can return from the refugee camps has occupied all of their time so far. Finally, I don't think this location is really common knowledge. We never would have found it without the transmitter."

One of the men suddenly called out, "I think I have something here."

Dr. Nolan threw his shovel aside and strode over to the most recent discovery. Unlike the other bodies that they had found so far, this one's flesh, while charred, had not decayed. Kneeling next to it, Dr. Nolan played the beam of a high intensity flash light across the upper jaw. The light reflected brightly from greatly elongated canine teeth.

"Yes. This is one of them. Supposedly, there's two others, so keep looking," he said, his voice tight and carefully emotionless.

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