The Hunted

by Val Tobin

  “It’s okay. Actions speak louder than words. You needed a knight in shining armour. I get it. Who you gonna call? Hound Dog, baby.”

  “Oh, my God. I should’ve gone alone. What the hell was I thinking?” A grin flashed across her lips, and her brow lost its frown, smoothing out the lines. Her breathing also returned to normal, but her hands remained gripped tightly on the steering wheel.

  He hoped she was joking, but just in case, he said, “You never go alone.” When she didn’t reply, he said, “He’s family. I understand. You never said, but I’d bet you didn’t file paperwork on this little jaunt.”

  Her neutral expression changed to guilty. “I should’ve told you that. It was an oversight. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. I’ll drop you at a bus stop or let you out and you can call a cab.” The car slowed.

  “Oh, no you don’t. What did I just say? You don’t do this alone.” Annoyed she assumed he’d abandon her and she believed his issue was over regulations, he scowled and said, “You think we’re coworkers, don’t you?”

  Puzzlement crossed her features, but the car picked up speed. “What?” She shrugged. “We are coworkers.”

  “We’re a team. Close as family—closer. Family isn’t always blood, Frostbite, but those who have your back.”

  “Sure.” Her tone was placating.

  “I’m serious. We face grendels almost every day. I know I don’t have to worry about what’s behind me when you or Coder or Foot-Long are back there because you got it. We might not agree on everything, we might dick each other around, but out in the wild? Boots on the ground? We’re family and we got each other’s backs.”

  “We’re not out in the wild right now.”

  “But we’re heading there. No way would I let you go alone.” He sat rigid in his seat and glared at her.

  She met his gaze for a second before returning her attention to the road. “Fine.”

  “Isn’t that why you asked for my help?”

  “Yes,” she hissed.

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem. Look, I was joking. I came and asked for your help. I’m not going alone.”

  He didn’t point out she’d slowed the car and threatened to dump him on the side of the road. “Don’t ever lone wolf it.”

  “I wouldn’t. Protector training too ingrained.” She paused and then said in a voice filled with surprise, “I found myself at your door without even thinking about it.”

  “All right.” He relaxed in his seat. “Where exactly are we heading?”

  “Buckhorn Road. Toward Lakefield. It’s a forested area and Jeff’s phone is giving off a signal in there. Why the hell would he go there?” She answered the question without giving Hound Dog time to reply. “He wouldn’t. Something happened to him; I know it.”

  “Calm down. Maybe he’s not alone. Something came up he had to attend to, and he had no chance to call you.”

  “In the woods? I hardly think so.” After a moment, she glanced at him, an expression of mild amusement on her face. “Thanks, Dog.”

  “What?”

  “You’re trying to make me feel better, and I appreciate it.” She grinned as she returned her attention to the road. “Even if it’s not working.”

  “You’re welcome. I think.” In an exaggerated gesture, he gripped the door handle. “Just keep your eyes on the road, Andretti. I want to arrive in one piece.”

  If Jeff really had entered the woods alone, unarmed, as Rachel had said, they likely wouldn’t find him in one piece. In that case, she’d need all the strength and support Hound Dog could give her. As the scenery sped by—she hurtled well over the speed limit—Hound Dog’s anxiety ratcheted up several notches.

  ***

  Rachel parked the SUV along the side of the road, and before they jumped out, they armed themselves. Each carried a rifle at the ready, and each had a knife in a sheath hanging from a belt at the waist. In a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, Rachel carried more weapons and extra ammo. On her back, she’d strapped a collapsible litter in case they needed to transport a wounded Jeff. Hound Dog wore a backpack containing food, water, first aid supplies, and a body bag in case the worst happened. Strapped to his calf was another holster with a pistol. Rachel had the same.

  To get to the woods, they’d had to cross a checkpoint, and Rachel had lied to the protectors manning it. She’d told them they were on a search and rescue mission—which was true, as far as it went—but the mission was personal, not sanctioned. As Hound Dog had guessed correctly earlier, they had no paperwork to back it up had they been asked for it.

  Luckily for them, their IDs got them through the gate. Most cities and towns had put up barbed wire fencing around their borders, which kept the grendels out of populated areas. Not a foolproof solution—occasionally, a creature would get through the barriers and mangle some innocent soul before protectors put the creature down—but it helped. Deaths caused by grendels had gone down since the fences went up.

  The city of Peterborough had been all Hound Dog had known until he’d gone to university. He’d hightailed it out west and earned a degree in engineering from the University of Alberta. After that, he’d returned to Ontario, but the desire to actually go into engineering had left him, replaced by the burning desire to hunt down and kill grendels. For revenge—they’d killed two of his brothers while he was away.

  The senselessness of the deaths and how preventable they were stoked Hound Dog’s fury the most. It’d happened well after the creatures had first appeared on the scene. His brothers, unarmed, had taken a shortcut through a wooded lot within city limits. A grendel had breached the fencing and dropped on them from a tree in which it hid. It never should’ve happened.

  In the early days, this happened frequently. Many people had lost their lives because they had no idea such predators had appeared in previously safe locales. Sure, parts of Ontario had potentially dangerous wild animals—wolves, bears, cougars—but none of them went out of their way to hunt down and eat humans. Most of them were more afraid of people than people were of them. Then, out of nowhere, the grendels had appeared, slaughtering not just humans but pretty much anything that breathed.

  After the first five years, some animals, already becoming scarce, teetered on the brink of extinction. Hound Dog hadn’t followed the scientific reports, but he was sure a number of species had disappeared altogether. At first, the police and select military personnel had mobilized against the monsters, and then the protectors had formed.

  Trained specifically to hunt grendels, protectors were recruited from police forces and from military personnel—and, as in Hound Dog’s case, from civilians who had a burning desire to kick grendel ass. Hound Dog signed up, trained, and never looked back. Every time he killed a grendel, he noted it in a journal. So far, he’d tallied two hundred thirty-four.

  Rachel held up her fist, ordering him to halt.

  Hound Dog froze, listening. Birds chirped. Since fall approached, a tang of rotting leaves and mouldering wood permeated the air. A subtle breeze blew from the west. Something small and fast scuttled in the underbrush—not a grendel. Animal activity boded well. With a grendel nest nearby, most of the wildlife would be gone.

  Rachel pointed south-east and resumed walking. Rifle up and ready, Hound Dog crept after her. Neither made a sound as they walked across the ground, avoiding branches, twigs, loose rocks, and dry leaves.

  When Rachel halted again, she inclined her head toward a grove of widely spaced trees ahead of their current location. Hound Dog nodded, understanding her brother’s phone, if not her brother, was up ahead.

  With his eyes and hand gestures, he suggested taking the lead. She shook her head and motioned he should enter the clearing from behind. He nodded agreement, because this was her party and he’d follow her lead, but he didn’t agree. If her brother’s body lay in that clearing, it might freak her out enough to get them on a grendel’s radar.

  Even so, he crept forward, s
low and steady. In his periphery, Rachel approached the semi-clearing. The sun remained high enough overhead that, if Jeff was there, the grendels wouldn’t leave the cover of the forest to attack the two protectors as long as they kept to the areas of full sun. Sunlight burned the creatures’ skin. At least the evidence of the phone’s location gave them hope of finding Jeff alive.

  But if he was alive, why didn’t he answer his phone?

  Hound Dog’s belly twitched. They wouldn’t find anything good in the clearing beyond the copse. His gaze met Rachel’s, and at her signal, they approached the clearing and peered into it together.

  Chapter Six

  At the sight of the body—her brother’s, she could see that immediately even though blood from a wound in his throat covered his face and chest—Rachel went numb. She forced herself to keep still and not rush to his side.

  A glance across the clearing at Hound Dog told her he recognized what they’d found, but he maintained caution and remained in place. He’d wait for her command.

  She was grateful now she’d brought him—not because the others wouldn’t follow protocol but because Hound Dog wouldn’t let her wimp out. His presence alone reined her in, prevented her from losing her shit.

  After scanning the area, Rachel waved Hound Dog to join her by the body. She took her first steps over to her brother in cautious haste. Once beside him, she dropped to her knees.

  “Guard us,” she ordered.

  He nodded and kept his rifle up. His glance never strayed to the body but focused on the woods.

  “I have to treat this as any other find.” If she talked it through, she’d cope.

  “Yup. We’re here to do a job, boss. Best for him if we do it well.”

  “Agreed.” Grateful her voice hadn’t betrayed her emotions, Rachel used her cell phone to take photos of the body. The body. Her brother. Grief stabbed her heart, and tears welled up in her eyes. With a surreptitious glance at Hound Dog, busy scanning the area and standing guard, she dabbed at her eyes. After completing the photos, she slipped on gloves and, for the first time, registered what she witnessed.

  “Dog.”

  The urgency in her voice snapped his head around. “What’s wrong?”

  “Grendels got him, but they went no further than ripping out his throat and biting one thigh.”

  Hound Dog maintained his position, but his expression changed from worried to confused to interested. “Why?”

  “Why would grendels toss a body from their nest without tearing it to pieces and eating most of it?”

  “The girl,” he said, contemplating.

  “Something’s weird here. Like it was weird there. They bit him. They never bit her.”

  “Could be the sun drove them off?”

  “They would’ve dragged him with them. Into the trees. We should’ve found him in pieces deep in the forest, not here with his throat gashed in this sun-dappled clearing.”

  “We should’ve tagged Coder and Foot-Long. The nest could be around here.”

  “We’ve handled retrievals alone before.”

  “I know, but I have a bad feeling about this.”

  She smirked, attempting to tamp down the rising fear with brevity. “Scared, princess?”

  “Only of you, Gothzilla,” he quipped but then sobered up. “Bag him, Rachel. Let’s get out of here.”

  Afraid delays would cost them and trusting Hound Dog’s instincts, she bagged any evidence she found, including Jeff’s cell phone, wallet, and keys, in case this was a body dump made to appear like a grendel kill. She’d seen more than one of those since her career as a protector began.

  When she finished, Hound Dog retrieved the body bag for her, and she quickly wrapped her brother in it. As she worked, she forced her brain to view him as a stranger. If she didn’t, she’d fall apart, and that could get them killed. Perhaps, alone, she would’ve indulged in tears and inattention, but Hound Dog and Jeff counted on her to be professional. She wouldn’t let them down.

  She unfolded the stretcher, locking the parts in place, and strapped Jeff’s body on it.

  “Stay on guard. I’ll drag the litter,” she said.

  “You ready?”

  “All set. Take it slow. No surprises.”

  He acknowledged her with a thumbs up and led the way. The hike would be a short one so long as nothing interfered with their progress. As they walked, Rachel kept her ears attuned to the forest sounds and watched the surrounding trees. Part of their trek would take them through dense brush.

  Alert though she was, Hound Dog spotted the grendels first and raised his fist, halting her.

  “Two at ten o’clock.” His voice remained calm, even.

  Rachel dropped the litter and readied her rifle. “I see them. Sitting against the tree.”

  Movement in the bushes to her right had her veering her rifle at whatever approached. She spotted two more grendels. “Nest of four. I got these two. You take the first two.”

  “Gotcha, boss.”

  They counted down. Fired. Twice. Rachel fired a third time when her second target shifted out of the way and she missed it. At the edge of awareness, she sensed rather than saw Hound Dog rounding toward the rapidly approaching grendel. Howls came from the creature, drool streaming from its open mouth.

  She fired before Hound Dog could and dropped it.

  “I had it. I didn’t need your help.”

  “Easy, Frosty. I wasn’t trying to one-up you. Your two behaved normally. Mine didn’t move,” he said.

  She huffed out a breath, and her shoulders dropped along with the tension she’d held. “You’re right. Sorry.” After a pause, she said, “We’ll have to call this in. We can’t take them all back along with Jeff’s body. Not enough bags. I need to let HQ know what happened.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I want to examine the two you hit before we bag them. Why the hell did they just sit there and let you shoot? You ever see anything like that?”

  “Nope. They saw us—I know they saw us—but they didn’t move. You think they’re sick?”

  “Stay alert. I think we got the nest. These four probably all live together …”

  “… but you never know,” he finished for her.

  “Yeah.”

  Vigilant, the two set their packs beside the stretcher and walked to the pair of grendels slumped against the tree. Hound Dog had neatly dispatched each one with a shot to the head. Rachel squatted next to the bodies and studied them without touching them.

  “No drool,” she commented.

  “Weird.”

  Grendels drooled when they caught a scent of humans, an autonomic reflex that occurred when they spotted food. Rachel had always found the trait disgusting, and whenever she saw a slavering grendel, she took particular delight in firing at the mouth.

  “Skin looks dry.” She glanced up at Hound Dog. “Why would their skin be dry?” Typically, a grendel’s skin was tough, like leather, but moist and slimy.

  She pulled out her cell phone and took pictures.

  “Maybe they’re allergic to humans.” He chuckled, but the effort was half-hearted, as if he believed it might be possible.

  “The ones we caught the other day where we found the girl, they all seemed normal. The two I shot seemed fine—from a distance, anyway.”

  He shrugged. “Let’s verify. But then we’d better book.”

  She paused to look and listen but heard and saw nothing sinister.

  “All right.” Rachel stood. “Let’s check out the other two. Once the on-duty team comes in, they’ll take over and we won’t hear anything more.”

  “You mean you won’t ask Cappy to keep you in the loop?”

  “You know I don’t mean that. She’d tell me—us—whatever we want to know. This isn’t a top-secret investigation. As soon as the bodies leave our facility the information no longer streams to us. Assuming there’s information to stream. Likely, they’ll burn the bodies the way they always do.”

  “You think they sho
uld keep these bodies? Do tests?”

  “I’ll recommend it. Even if they do as I suggest, we won’t hear what happened. We’re just the grunts who pick up the trash. If it wasn’t my brother in that body bag, I’d be okay with it. You know? Maybe not even then. Something’s wrong with these grendels. If they’re carrying a virus, it could affect us all.”

  He stared at her, horrified understanding dawning on his face. “Should we get the government involved?”

  “That’s the captain’s call, but yes. We have to find out if they’ve got a disease and if it’s transmissible from grendels to humans.”

  “Christ, Frostbite, what’d we stumble onto?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know, but it’s nothing good.”

  Chapter Seven

  Once they returned to Rachel’s SUV, they loaded up the body, stowed their equipment, and contacted HQ. Dispatch got a fix on their location and mobilized a team to come out and retrieve the grendel bodies Rachel and Hound Dog had left in the woods. The two protectors met the team, guided them to the remains, and then left them to their work. Back at the office, a dressing down from the captain awaited them, and they wanted to get it done.

  Captain Kim Pattenden had them sent to her office the moment they arrived. Her assistant ushered them in immediately. Rachel opened the door for Hound Dog and he walked in ahead of her. They took seats in front of the captain’s desk.

  Pattenden got right to the point. “I hear you two did some off-the-clock hunting.”

  Rachel took the lead since it was her brother they’d set out to retrieve. “It’s my fault, Captain. Hound Dog had nothing to do with it.”

  “I’d say he had a lot to do with it—he accompanied you.”

  “Yes, because I asked him to.”

  “Don’t defend the indefensible, Needham. He should have either insisted you contact HQ or done it himself.”

  Hound Dog had remained silent through the back and forth between his captain and his team leader, but the moment Pattenden finished speaking, he cut in.