“I’m going to spend the night out in your woods. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t leave the house.”
“Are you serious?”
“Your husband worked against terrorists. They killed him, and I’m going to see if I can track them.”
“It’s almost dark.”
“They might still be out there. You need to know that.”
“Then I’m going back to the city.” She clutched her shoulders. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Leave in the morning.”
“I want to leave now.”
“Ma’am, I don’t want you out on those roads in the dark. This is a lonely place. Safer in the house with the doors locked. And turn on your alarm system.”
The wall clock hummed in the kitchen. A breeze toyed with the pines outside. He raised his eyebrows, asking for a response.
“I think you’re the saddest man I’ve ever seen. Why is that?”
“Just stay in the house. You can leave in the morning.”
Should he tell her what was really going on, that she was a pawn in a deadly chess game?
The words hung on his lips, ready to be spoken.
She said, “Yes?”
If she thought the “terrorists” were going to come after her tonight, she’d certainly leave, which would change things in unpredictable ways.
He believed that he could protect her. He believed that he could kill aliens here tonight, and save future lives as well.
“Again, please accept my condolences.”
She smiled, sadly and tightly. “Do you want a cup of coffee? I didn’t even offer you coffee.”
He gave her a salute.
She returned a wary smile.
As he went down the pathway from the house, she leaned against the doorjamb watching him. Then he rounded the big old oak, and she was blocked from his view.
When one of the official vehicles down below started up, he stepped off the road, moving swiftly back into the trees. The FBI would have told the locals to leave him alone, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
Now it would start, the first phase of a hard night of hunting.
His tongue went to his cyanide capsule, his hand to his gun. He turned his back on the parade of vehicles lumbering away down the road, and slipped into the forest.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS just approaching sunset, so the aliens would still be in the ravine, if he had guessed correctly about their location. He wouldn’t be able to kill them there, but he might succeed in running a deception that would make them misread his competence. When they sprang their trap on him at the house, they would hopefully be overconfident.
As he moved through the woods, he heard the rustling of beetles, the hollow echo of birdsong, and somewhere close by, the uneasy mew of a raccoon. Animals would not venture near the aliens, meaning that silence in the woods was a useful warning sign. Birds would take flight, and even insects would stop their shrilling.
When you were within a few hundred feet of them, there would be absolute silence, nothing but the rustle of the breeze.
As he walked, he took deep breaths, pulling in the air, smelling it and tasting it, feeling it in his lungs. He was seeking their scent, the strangest odor that he knew. You could describe it as sulfurous, but it also contained the nasty sweetness of death and the roses of memory. Like everything about them—about Aeon, for that matter, and the whole issue of aliens on Earth—it was full of secrets.
Now, as he climbed the increasingly steep path, he saw signs, not of the aliens but of Miller’s mountain bike. Here he had slipped a little, and farther on, he had sped up. Then, here, along this rocky stretch, he had stopped for a time.
Had he been looking for squatters or seeking out the aliens?
Here, in a flatter part of the trail, the mountain bike had stopped again. It had stood on its tires long enough to make deep indentations in the soft earth of the trail. Beside the wheel marks, there were toe tips. Miller had balanced on his toes, still astride the bicycle. He had been looking up. He would have seen above the trees a glittering emptiness not unlike that of the lens of the wire back in the office, and before he knew it, he would have risen into the air. He would have been dragged into what would have seemed something like a big wasp nest, stinking and claustrophobic. In it, he would have been strapped to a table. Then they would have gone to work on him.
Flynn was pretty sure of all this. He had seen most of the other bodies that were recovered, the wounds, the bruises left by the struggle against the straps.
He moved a little deeper into the woods, a little closer to his target ravine. Along this route, the land got more and more rocky and steeper. He moved silently, relying on his memory of the elevations from the map, and his own terrain sense.
Then, very suddenly, the birds were gone. He stopped. Nothing rustled along the ground; no wildlife scuttled or growled. Far off, a dog was barking frantically, and from the sound of it, had been for a while. He stepped back a few feet, until he once again heard birdsong.
“Flynn—”
At last, she’d made her move. He pretended surprise. “What in hell’s name are you doing here?”
“Saving your life.” She nodded toward the ravine. “They’re down there.”
When he moved toward it, she came with him.
“I won’t let you do this, Flynn.”
“Diana, you need to back off. You don’t belong in the field, and we both know it and we both know why.”
“Don’t hit me, Flynn, not with that.”
She’d lost her original team because she’d panicked and made command errors. She and Flynn were the only two who had survived a night of merciless carnage.
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Sorry, it was uncalled for.”
“I remember every guy, all the time.”
“I was there, too. I could have done things differently.”
“On your first operation? Green as you were? No.”
He turned back toward the ravine. She threw her arms around him.
Gently, he peeled her off and began moving downward, descending quickly into steeper terrain.
The rocks were painted with orange and tan lichens and gray moss, but they were jagged and sharp. Soon, he was working his way down a cliff. A bad spot to have to draw a gun.
He reached a granite outcropping. Peering over the small ledge that it formed, he saw the pool he’d spotted on the state map.
Somewhere below this ledge and above the pool, there was going to be a cave or a crevasse where the things were hiding, all pressed up against its walls like giant bats.
His ability to use his weapons would be compromised, while their dexterity would be at its most useful.
His left hand went to his neck, lingering on the scar that was there, long and red and still tender after three months. It had been done by one of their claws. Three inches, right down to the vertebrae—so fast, he hadn’t been able to react. Just in time, he got in a shot that had separated the head from the body.
He took a breath and continued down, pausing every few seconds to inhale their odor, testing its strength.
Then he felt the earth beneath his body give way. He steadied himself, then kept sliding carefully down toward the source of the odor.
The next instant, his footing was gone and he was more than sliding, he was out of control. He let it happen, scrabbling now, seeming to struggle.
Rocks and dirt cascaded down into the pool. Just as the slide was becoming a fall, he managed to grab a root outcropping. This caused him to swing out. The root shifted; then he felt it giving way under his weight. Swinging back, he grabbed another outcropping with his free hand. He found footing. Tested it.
The odor of the aliens was now chokingly strong, its sourness greasy, its sweetness so thick, it had become a sickening taste.
Carefully slipping out of one foothold, he found another lower down. Again, he descended.
He was close now, just a few feet.
Without warning, something fell on him from above, wriggling wildly. Before he could rip it off, it had wrapped itself around his neck and was striking at his face, fangs gaping out of its bright red mouth.
An illusion, he knew, but he wanted them to think it had convinced him.
Letting fly what he hoped sounded like a bloodcurdling scream of pure terror, he leaned outward and let himself fall.
As he passed the cave, he let off a couple of shots, intentionally wild.
He spread his legs and arms, exposing as much body surface as possible to the water. Maximum resistance meant maximum deceleration.
He hit the bottom hard, real hard, but didn’t feel anything break. He swam painfully to the surface.
He came up gasping, coughing, flailing in the water. He needed to make his struggles look convincing. As he reached the bank, he wallowed, slipped and fell, and finally took off running down the gravelly path that paralleled Hecker Kill. He shambled along until he was well away from the ravine. Then he dropped the frantic dash of a surprised and defeated man and trotted efficiently away.
Once he thought he was out of their range, he stopped. He listened. Normal sounds only. He used his nose. Pine and the sweet rot of the forest floor. Diana couldn’t have seen him fall, but she would have heard the scream. So she was probably heading down to the kill herself, trying to save him. If night settled before he reconnected with her, she’d probably panic and bring up a search party. All to the good. The worse at this he and his people seemed, the better the hunting later tonight.
He sped up, moving among the pines like a ghost, silent, nothing scraping, nothing crunching. He gave the Miller place enough of a miss to ensure that he wouldn’t be seen, but he also drew close enough to the house to see it.
It was near dark now, and light flowed from every window. Inside, he could see Eve sitting in one of the recliners. She was reading a book. There was music playing, a piano, its soaring notes drifting like birdsong across the quiet.
He was immediately reminded of another piano, on a blizzard-ridden night in Montana last year, and the woman who had been playing it, beautiful, talented, and innocent. Taken by Morris amid the slaughter of Diana’s team.
Eve Miller would not suffer a similar fate, or any fate, at their hands.
Seeing that all the official vehicles were gone, he crossed to the wet area where Dan Miller had been found. He looked out across a clearing marked by bunched tufts of weeds jutting up from black water. It wasn’t deep, though, not even shoe deep. Miller had been drowned in the ocean like the rest of them, and brought back here.
He looked up at the sky, empty now of larks, the first stars appearing. What had they traveled in, bringing Miller here? That was one of the great questions. The one flying disk that had fallen into military hands proved to be a simple assemblage of balsa wood and foil, like a kite, or so he had heard. But the wood could survive the highest temperature that could be generated, and the foil was stronger than a foot thickness of armor.
It was full dark now, and that meant it was time to intercept Diana again. He turned away from the mire and went back to his car. He waited, but she didn’t show. So he cleaned his guns, making sure that their carefully oiled mechanics contained not a drop of water from his swim. Then he got out and opened the trunk. He gathered up his work clothes.
“Hi, there,” he said to the darkness. “Looks like I lived.”
She came out of the forest. He hadn’t needed to see her before he spoke. He knew where she was.
“I’ve decided that a capture attempt is too dangerous, Flynn.”
“I wasn’t planning one.”
“So you agree with me. Good. We’ll go back to D.C. and build you a team. The team can attempt a capture.”
“No.”
“Flynn, I’m your superior officer.”
“And I’m the only person we know of who can kill these suckers.”
“Because you won’t train anybody!”
“Who are you gonna get for me, then, Bob Munden?” Munden was arguably the fastest gun in the world, capable of getting off an accurate shot in under two-hundredths of a second. However, this was a young man’s game. Fast as old Munden was, he wouldn’t make it.
“Flynn, we have to keep looking until we find who we need. You can’t be the only person with your reflexes.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“No more killing.”
“Go home.”
After a moment, she stepped close to him. Her face, wreathed in darkness, was as soft as a leaf. “I know you feel something for me, too.”
It hurt to hear her say that, and it was not the kind of hurt he liked to feel. He knew that he had to leave Abby behind one of these days, but how?
“It’s dangerous for you here,” he said. He took his second pistol from its holster, punched in the release code on the small keypad embedded in the grip, and gave it to her. “Keep it in your lap as you drive out. Don’t stop until you’re in a decent-sized town. Altoona. Go to Altoona. Drive fast.”
She looked at the pistol, handed it back to him. “I’m armed. But, Flynn, I’m not sure I understand what you were doing back there. Did you really fall?”
“I was building up their confidence. Now, go.”
She hugged him. It was unexpected, and he reflexively stiffened. Instantly, she released him. “I’m sorry.” She squared her shoulders.
“I—” The next word hung in his throat, unable to be set free. Until he knew Abby’s fate, his heart would remain frozen. Silently, he laid a hand on her cheek. She put her own on it and closed her eyes.
“God go with you, Flynn.”
He bowed his head to her, then watched as she walked off down the road. His hand was on his gun, his eyes on the sky above her, but no shape came. He would have seen it blotting out the stars as it slid into position above her. Maybe they were playing careful, or maybe they didn’t have their ship operating yet. He’d seen it before. It was old and battered. It clattered rather than hummed.
When he heard her car start, he was relieved. He listened until the mutter of her engine died away. As she left, he felt part of him leaving with her. There were days now when he couldn’t remember Abby’s voice or even her face, but almost every night, her murmur of invitation woke him to his loneliness.
He went back to his own car and got to work. First, he blacked his face with charcoal; then he wrapped himself in a long coat that was blacker than black. When he pulled up the hood, he was hardly more visible than the shadows around him. The dense cloth was treated with light-absorbing micro-optics that rendered the garment completely nonreflective. To an observer, it would create the illusion of an emptiness or a shadow, rather than something solid.
He got into the car and waited, letting his attention sink down into his body, concentrating on the feel of his skin, the pumping of his heart, the steady rhythm of his lungs, letting all thought slip away. He didn’t do this only because he feared that the aliens might detect thought somehow, but more because it fed his spirit and made him strong.
Tonight he might experience great terror and great pain, and he might die. He remembered why he was doing it, for all the innocent lives that were his to protect, and also for the great chance that contact represented. If only this would come out right, mankind would receive a blessing from the stars. He needed to clean up this mess first, though, and that was the work of his heart and his soul, and what he was willing to die for.
As the silence of the night surrounded him, he felt himself disappear into his task. You wanted to be fast, you could not be thinking all the time. Your body had to do it; your mind could not.
Animal sounds returned, the scuttling of shrews in the late-season leaves, the snorting of an opossum, the rustling journey of a family of raccoons.
He thought nothing. Felt nothing. Only his breath whispering, only his blood running. He was the perfect hunter now, a big cat at one with the night.
Ten o’clock came, time to mov
e.
What slid from the vehicle was more animal than man, a panther. Stealthy and swift, he slipped off toward the house with a smooth and powerful gait, running as silently as the air.
CHAPTER FOUR
AS FLYNN drew nearer to the house, he heard something unexpected: voices. There was a man speaking, low and warm, a night voice. He could hear the desire in it.
Eve Miller’s reply was softly intimate.
He knew instantly that this was what Eve had been concealing when he questioned her, and why she showed so little grief.
He went closer yet, slipping onto the front porch of the cabin, dropping low, then raising his head just enough to see in the picture window.
A man of maybe fifty in worn jeans and an open shirt was sitting beside Eve on the couch, watching her with eager eyes. A leather jacket was thrown over a side chair. Hanging on its back was a shoulder holster. Flynn remembered how she’d said the word “sheriff,” tasting it, and knew that this was the man.
His arm was around her, but he wasn’t consoling her. She was flushed with pleasure.
Flynn went back to cover, then swung up into the oak that overhung the cabin, climbing with swift ease into its upper branches. From here, he had a view of both the sky and the roof.
He concentrated on what he was smelling and hearing, as an animal would. He noted the scent of rotting oak leaves, the sharper odor of pine, the tang of chimney smoke. No trace of the eerie stink of aliens, though. Methodically, he looked from place to place, watching for even the slightest change, the thickening of a shadow, the suggestion of movement in the dark.
Below, the lights of the house went out. Soon, laughter rippled faintly, and then the shuffling rhythm of lovemaking.
Eventually, silence fell. An owl passed low over the roof and was gone. A real owl, he hoped, but there was no way to be sure.
Then he felt a change, just the slightest tremble in the tree’s core. In response to the shudder, a leaf fell, slipping downward, making whispered sounds as it touched other leaves.
Alien Hunter: Underworld Page 3
