Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  Another time Hunter might have congratulated him, but there was no time for praise. Then a voice roared from the flames on the other side of the shed.

  “Hunter! I know your name! I will kill you for this!”

  It was the beast.

  Still alive …

  Hunter debated a reply, and shouted back, “Then come and kill me! Do it now!”

  “No! Not now! But soon! Soon! You think you have won but you have won nothing! Because I am more than man!”

  Hunter snarled, “You’re an animal, Luther! An animal! You’ll always be an animal now!”

  “Tell me that when I eat your heart!”

  Chaney shouted, “Eat this!” and fired the Weatherby blindly toward the voice before Hunter grabbed his arm.

  “No!” he said. “We’ve got to get back to the building. It’s our only chance. We can’t stop him with these weapons. Come on! Let’s move! We gotta get everyone into the building and wait for it to come to us!”

  Frowning with anger, Chaney raised his head to search briefly over the flames before he grimaced, turning. Hunter saw that, as fired up as Chaney was with the close combat, his fever had not overridden his tactical judgment.

  “All right!” He loped forward, holding the Weatherby. “Let’s get back!”

  Holding his heart, Professor Tipler sat on the edge of the bed, bathed in red light flooding out from the corners. The emergency lights had kicked on and he had heard the roar and clash of battle in the motor pool, the howls of wounded men, the screams of the dying.

  Even from this great distance, secured within cement walls, he had discerned frantic orders, endless gunfire. And now that the gunfire had ceased, except for scattered resistance, he presumed the battle had been lost.

  Standing monolithic in the gloom, Ghost filled the narrow entrance of Tipler’s cubicle. True to his loyalty and love, the great black wolf had not left Tipler’s side since the ordeal began. Like a great unsleeping spirit of flesh and fang cloaked in black, he fearlessly stood his ground.

  Tipler smiled. He knew Ghost would never leave his side. Not until Hunter gave the word. And he wondered what would happen if he told the noble wolf to find his master. Tipler closed his eyes as the possibility entered his mind that Hunter had been killed by the beast. Again, he shook his head; so little an old man can do ...

  Raising his eyes, Tipler regarded the ever loyal Ghost. Perhaps, if all was lost outside, the wolf could yet escape. He knew that Ghost would easily survive in these mountains, which were his true home. Or he might find Hunter, still alive, and fight beside him. Surely, though, he was not needed here. Not any longer.

  Tipler could feel a chill in his spine, an emptiness in his chest, that assured him – No, not much longer. He nodded, firm in the conviction. Then he pointed to the open door leading from the ICU.

  “Go!” he shouted. “Find Hunter!”

  Ghost’s alertness at the words was complete. The ears were straight black angles against red light. And although Tipler could not quite see the eyes, he knew from the quick blinks that made the shining obsidian orbs fade in and out that the wolf had focused on him completely. There was a new tension in his stance.

  Tipler repeated the command, shouting to fill his voice with anger.

  Still, Ghost did not retreat, held his guard. But the wide wedge-shaped head tilted, confused.

  “Go!”Tipler roared, and stood away from the bed. He pointed thunderously. “Go and find Hunter!”

  Ghost retreated before the great enraged voice and looked at the door. Then he looked back at Tipler, clearly unsure. Tipler picked up a plate from his tray and flung it high, scattered utensils and roaring with his command. “Go, Ghost! Find Hunter! Find Hunter! Go! Go! Go!”

  Ghost was halfway across the intensive care unit, standing his ground and glancing with confusion at the door, at Tipler, the door, and back again. And then Tipler’s strength faded with a washing, light-headed announcement. Still standing close to the bed, he leaned and reached out, falling lightly onto his right side ...

  “Go, Ghost,” he whispered. “Ghost ...”

  Ghost stood his place and watched, head tilted, until the man was utterly still. And after a moment, when the man had not moved at all, he wandered close, sniffed, and caught the scent of death. With a whine, he stepped back, still holding his place. Then, finally, with a solemn turn he moved across the antiseptic room into the red-shadowed darkness of the door, turned and was gone.

  ***

  Chaney had no trouble, uninjured as he was, keeping pace with Hunter. But as they cleared the motor pool they saw Takakura struggling, only halfway across the compound. The Japanese was moving more slowly with each step and Hunter instantly angled to the side, making for him. Chaney, understanding instantly and too conditioned to the wild unpredictability of combat to waste breath on questions, followed with strong strides.

  Hunter glanced to the left to see Bobbi Jo on one knee, the bipod of the Barrett resting on a crate. Her head turned as she searched everything around them, and Hunter knew the creature couldn’t come upon them without her hitting it with the sniper rifle. And even if the massive round couldn’t stop it, the impact would slow it down, possibly giving them time to reach the sanctuary of the complex. In any case, a little hope was better than no hope at all.

  Takakura fell forward as Hunter reached him. Hunter heard heavy approaching footsteps in front and raised the Weatherby, turning the Japanese aside.

  Brick.

  Breath heaving, he came up with the AK-47 slung on his back. His hands, beefy fists as large as rocks, worked rhythmically over his chest as he covered the last few yards. He bent and slipped his head under Takakura’s left arm. With Hunter on the right, they hoisted him and Chaney took rear guard, running backwards with the Weatherby held close across his chest.

  Bobbi Jo heard a shuffle and whirled.

  Her intellect instantly assured her that it couldn’t have been the beast but her reflexes made her react as if it were. She stared for a long silence and then saw a creature, utterly black and moving with effortless grace, around a far corner. Pausing, it saw her and without hesitation or sound loped quickly forward.

  She smiled. “Ghost ...”

  The wolf came up slowly and pressed his nose against her face. Bobbi Jo touched the rough black fur, smiling. Her next thought was of Hunter as Ghost swung its huge head to gaze out over the compound, and her hand closed tightly on its midnight mane.

  “Ghost!” she yelled suddenly. “Stay!”

  Ghost surged forward as he saw Hunter but she held him back, both hands locking around the neck as she spoke sternly, trying to push him against the building. It was desperate enough with the three of them out there; the wolf would only complicate the situation, and would probably refuse to retreat at all if it sighted the creature.

  But without really even moving, Ghost brushed off her attempt, merely shifting his stance to make her slide awkwardly down his side. To him it was merely play, nothing that required conscious effort. But Bobbi Jo was struggling with all her strength and skill to control the wolf’s twisting, powerful form.

  Bobbi Jo’s hands scraped and grasped at the body and mane, trying to find a grip that he could not easily escape when Ghost, rising suddenly on hind legs, roared with a rage and fury that sent her sprawling wildly back. She glimpsed the savagely separated white fangs, black eyes blazing in a fury beyond anything mortal, and twisted her head to the side.

  She screamed as she saw the creature almost upon Hunter and Chaney, hurtling across the compound with the speed of a lion. She dove for the Barrett but knew she’d never target it at such velocity.

  She screamed a warning.

  And Ghost was already forty feet from the building, silently hurling its magnificent black shape forward with a speed that rivaled the beast’s. Another volcanic stride and it vanished into darkness.<
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  “Ghost!”

  ***

  At Bobbi Jo’s warning scream, Hunter raised his head and saw Ghost’s black form racing across the compound. But the wolf wasn’t directly running for him so Hunter dropped and spun, understanding instantly. The Weatherby rose as he hurled Takakura roughly back.

  Chaney was slower, but not by much. Before Hunter had fired he had already turned, saw it all, understood, and the stock was at his shoulder when Hunter pulled the trigger.

  The four barrels blazed as one and the creature staggered aside, hurt and slowed. It raised its face as it launched itself forward again. An explosion erupted at the door of the faraway complex and it was hurled onto its back, rolling with the wrecking-ball impact of Bobbi Jo’s .50-caliber round.

  It rose snarling wildly, glaring at Hunter.

  Fangs displayed, it charged again.

  Chaney’s breech snapped shut and Hunter remembered that he hadn’t reloaded. He cracked the breech, burning fingers on the spent cartridges. He speed-loaded two more cartridges as Brick targeted with the AK-47—not a damaging round but certainly more painful than the meaningless .223’s—and fired, the lead bouncing off the creature’s ballistic-resistant skin.

  Chaney had fired both rounds and reloaded again as Hunter raised aim. And the creature still staggered forward, relentless.

  Its nightmarish face twisted in pain and rage, striding through the onslaught as if the sole reason for its being was to kill and to kill more, to endlessly kill and kill and kill.

  And in that surreal moment, Hunter saw it as it truly was.

  The professor’s words descended through his mind like a tilted water tower, the deluge disgorging everything inside with a single titanic blast. It took no time, and it was there in all its complexity.

  Here, before Hunter, was the deepest, darkest mind of man; without conscience, without mercy, without pity. Untouched by compassion or regard or restraint, it was the center of what man once was before he rose above blood and mindlessness, to become man. For in those scarlet eyes and gaping fangs lay the black heart of death and murder and destruction for the sake of destruction alone, impulses felt and fulfilled for nothing other than the satisfaction; nothing to question or challenge; no reason to stay its hand when it might shed the blood it craved. It was a creation that lived—that existed—only for the physical expression of the darkness so deeply buried within man that even man feared to pry away the stone and see the horror within. As Chaney speed-loaded the Weatherby and Brick frantically dropped to a knee, exchanging a clip, Hunter stared at the epitome of human evil.

  It stalked forward, a growl building within, and it sprang upon them, its terrible strength carrying it in a long twenty-foot arch. Then Hunter glimpsed the blinding streak of black racing from the side. He turned and screamed.

  “Ghost! NO!”

  The gigantic black wolf struck the beast in the air, and they instantly locked in a thunderstorm of blows thrown and blows returned, fang to fang, spinning through red darkness until they crashed to earth together, savagely fighting to the death.

  Scattering blood with each blow they revolved through the dark. Ghost hurled himself with unimaginable force against the monstrosity to blast it away from Hunter.

  Again and again the great wolf struck, tearing savage gaps in the creature’s arms, chest, and neck that brought forth rivers of blood. The beast returned the same, hurling vicious swipes of its clawed hands in a devil’s battle that wounded Ghost with equal violence.

  It was the heart of fury, the place where savagery and rage were conquered by something greater, something even more furious. The beast hurled a clawed hand that struck Ghost’s shoulder, ribs glistening white at the impact, and Ghost came off the ground like a rocket, hurling himself from the bloodied earth to hit it full force. Together, they smashed into a truck and then they hit the ground again, revolving and wrestling with fang striking fang.

  Hunter didn’t know he had leaped forward until Brick’s massive form tackled him from behind.

  Falling forward, he felt a wet collision with the earth. Then, with a roar—a roar that surged from a sacred and unknown place—Hunter volcanically pushed himself up from the ground and flung the larger man off like paper. He spun to the rest of them and said nothing, communicating only with the fire of his eyes.

  Ghost and the creature raged against each other almost fifty yards away. And Hunter saw, even in the half light, white streaks in Ghost’s side; ribs exposed to the night. But the wolf held his ground, his hideous growls and roars vibrating in the atmosphere.

  Yet the creature was severely injured, clutching ravaged red gaps torn in its chest and neck, its forearm savaged with bone shining reddish-white in the semi-darkness. Retreating slightly, it circled, cautious now, with taloned hands threatening.

  Frowning, Hunter raised the rifle and fired.

  Both rounds hit true, and the creature howled in rage and pain. Then Hunter hurled the rifle aside, drawing the Bowie as he ran forward.

  He never saw what happened behind him, but knew. He hadn’t taken five steps when he heard a stampede of angry voices following. Even Takakura was there, all of them charging the last remaining feet to close on the creature.

  Chased no longer; hounded like sheep no longer; fighting now, taking the battle to the beast, refusing to retreat and choosing the moment of their death, if need be.

  Ghost leaped to attack as Hunter closed the last stride. The creature caught the wolf in the air, then hatefully hurled him aside, and Hunter hit it full force.

  Lashing out quicker than the eye could follow, his knife was nothing but light in the gloom as Hunter hit it clean, deep and out again to leave a furrow through the ribs. But, quick as he had moved, he could not escape the beast’s retaliation.

  It whirled in a backhand—a blow that would have killed a normal man—but Hunter saw it, turning into it with both forearms to defy the attack that struck like a mountain. The forearm met his and Hunter was flung through the night air.

  Brick, four feet distant, squared off and fired both barrels of Hunter’s discarded Weatherby. The double impact of the mammoth rounds made the beast bend double at the waist. A second of raging pause, and then Takakura leaped to the side, the katana flashing down—a heaving vertical strike—to catch the creature solidly across the back of the neck.

  And at the impact of the blow the creature came from its bowed posture like a rocket, instantly grasping the sword and twisting to hurl both it and the Japanese far and away. They crashed painfully against a Humvee and fell to the ground.

  As it turned back to Chaney and Brick, almost with contempt, Brick’s feet had left the ground. His body, twisting volcanically, had spun, holding the barrels of the Weatherby in huge fists. The wide wooden stock of the rifle swung like a baseball bat to strike the bowed head with incredible force. And at the impact the sound of pulverized flesh echoed like a gunshot across the glade. But the stock shattered, leaving Brick staggering back holding a broken rifle, gazing upward into the face of the beast.

  Shaking its head in contempt, it started for him.

  Hunter was on his feet, roaring as he moved, and Ghost moved with him, each attacking the creature from opposite sides. Hunter saw Chaney take aim and hit the beast solidly in the head with two .454 rounds of the Weatherby. A blinding burst of white came from the side—Bobbi Jo joining us—that made Hunter reflexively bend away before he hurled himself forward and slashed at the neck.

  Sensing his approach, it flung out its left arm to hurl him back hatefully. The blow caught Hunter’s shoulder as it roared with rage. Then—

  A Japanese cry ... sword flashing, slashing across, back again ... explosion before them, gray shape falling upon Hunter ... Bowie slashing up to hit gray flesh, down quick, stabbing ... black wolf across, white fangs lashing out ... spiraling blood ... explosion in his face, blinding ... Bobbi Jo, Chaney ... D
UCK! ...Clawed hand lashing viciously over his head ... returning ... blade moving on weight ... come back to me to hit ... weight and body behind the blade, slashing hard ... stabbing deep ... that’s it ... bring the blade down and put your body into the ... blade stabbing deep, rising, falling with weight, rising volcanically ... steel vanishing into gray, ripping away ... animal roaring ... Brick struck and flung ... hurled through air bellowing, striking wildly at air ... Chest! ... Leaping forward blade poised to strike upward now! Opening!

  Roaring, Hunter uncoiled like a rattlesnake, the blade flashing before him to AHH!

  Darkness.

  Roars, orange flashes in the blackness, spotlights in the sky.

  Lowering ... so cold ... to him.

  Rising slowly, Bowie knife hard in a clenched fist, Hunter stood, raising his face to the strange silence as it registered that all of them, even Ghost, were motionless and prostrate on the wet ground. Brow hardening, knowing that a half-dozen helicopters were settling in the glade, Hunter gazed about curiously, fist tightening even more on the huge Bowie.

  He saw nothing.

  The beast was gone, though in the stillness he knew where he would find it. He raised his head wearily; he was covered in blood and it didn’t matter. Enough was enough, they had come too far. He even knew who the undisclosed men in the helicopters were, and didn’t care. Nothing would stop him now.

  This belonged to him, not them; it had changed hands a long time ago, when they had sent him out to die. He had already destroyed the relic, and now he would destroy the living embodiment of this primordial evil.

  Hunter could not accept the possibility that his colleagues were dead, and regretted hurling himself into the battle. But he had done it out of love. And that he did not regret.

  As the helicopters landed and scores of black-clad soldiers leaped out, guns poised, running across the glade, Hunter knelt beside Ghost. The wolf, sensing his presence, blinked, and Hunter smiled, sitting gently on the ground beside it, stroking the thick, bloodied black fur.