Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  Whatever those feelings were, she kept to herself. Olivia gave them a curt nod and turned to leave without further comment. Adam watched her walk back toward the elevator as Antonio backed the van out of the spot. She had been a most formal and distant companion over the past week, but he already suspected he would soon miss her.

  He had no idea how his status would change once this “mission” was over, and he hopefully had Tucker back, but he doubted he would see her anymore afterward. Whatever this secret organization was, she operated near the very top of it while he would most likely find a spot where Antonio felt he could safely be tucked away into obscurity. And since he had apparently been held with the knowledge of only a select few, she had merely been doing her job as Antonio’s assistant and taking care of him.

  “Time to get back to the real world, Adam,” he muttered.

  “Yes, it is,” Antonio announced beside him, causing Adam to realize he had spoken out loud, “and I recommend you open the glove box and put the sunshades inside on. It’s a bright day out, and you’ve spent the past ten days in a dimly lit room.

  The van had reached the end of the row and now turned toward an exit ramp leading up into a tunnel that brightened as they ascended. Adam fumbled for the shades and got them on as they reached the ground level. He still winced at the light flooding in through the entrance.

  “Okay, Tucker,” he breathed to himself as they headed for the exit. “Uncle Adam is coming to get you.”

  ###

  Cody exhaled slowly, then stretched his hearing to his utmost before allowing himself to inhale again.

  Nothing.

  No birds, no insects, not even a breeze disturbed the silence of these woods. The only sound to reach his ears was the “slush slush” of his own feet through the thick carpet of leaves on the forest floor. Even this wasn’t much, since he had long ago learned to move quietly through the woods, despite his having only reached the ripe old age of fourteen. He knew the river lay to his east, but too far away for the sound of the water to carry to him.

  His bike lay several hundred yards back, hidden by some brush near the highway, and now he wished he were a lot closer to it.

  This quiet didn’t feel right.

  He had originally come out here to hunt rabbit and not think. Not think about the troubles at school, not think about the troubles at home, and not think about his Dad over…there. He knew his Dad wouldn’t be happy about him doing this, especially this being a school day and all, but he just didn’t have the answers they demanded of him. And he had grown tired of trying to explain things to people who couldn’t understand in the first place.

  Hunting was better.

  Out here it was only him, the woods, and the hunt. No teachers, no counselors, nor other well meaning preachers trying to save him from himself or help him build a brighter future. None of the voices trying to cajole, or reason, or even threaten him into caring. Out here, it was just everything his Dad had taught him and the instincts he had developed through putting those lessons to use.

  Only now those instincts screamed that something was very wrong in these woods.

  Cody slowed his movements, reducing his own noise to near nothing. Earlier, he had allowed the sound of his feet in the leaves in order to scare any nearby rabbits into moving. Now, in the absence of any discernible wildlife, he changed tactics. He closed his eyes and tried to pick up even the faintest traces of sound of anything other than air through the twigs above. His nostrils flared, testing the air for anything other than the scent of wet leaves.

  Nothing.

  Patience, Cody. Remember what Dad said…don’t be in a hurry to make the wrong move. Better to be still and let something else make it instead. You got nowhere to go right now anyway.

  And there was something else out there. He could feel it.

  He could feel it in the quiet, and he could sense it in the absence of any wildlife. Something strange. Something so strange and dangerous the crows didn’t even feel safe roosting nearby. He gripped his .22 rifle, eyes still shut, probing the silence for any hint of a presence. And just when he felt certain nothing would come of it…he heard it.

  Ever so faintly, somebody was moving up behind him.

  Don’t move, Cody. Don’t even twitch. You don’t want them to have any idea you know they are there. Just stand still and wait…and be ready.

  He kept his eyes closed, trusting only in his hearing to keep track of his stalker’s progress. At times he wouldn’t hear anything, and sensed the other back there waiting…perhaps hoping he would move and provide more noise to cover their approach. But Cody chose not to move. He didn’t want to give any indication he knew of the other’s presence, but also had no desire to make it easier for his tracker either.

  So he waited.

  After another long pause, the other moved again. Whoever it was, they moved like a ghost through the leaves. Even still, relaxed, and with his hearing pushed to the limit in the unnatural quiet, Cody could barely make out the faintest brush of leaves as the intruder moved up. He gently changed his grip on his little rifle, but at the same time chided himself not to be stupid.

  This wasn’t the Wild West, and while the other person was being a little rude and showing poor etiquette in stalking another armed person like this, the last thing Cody wanted was any trouble. Not this kind of trouble. The time had come to put an end to this and make introductions. He opened his eyes with the intent of turning to see his stalker to the right…and nearly fainted.

  She stood ten feet in front of him and she had the biggest pistol in the world.

  The woman must have stood six feet tall, with a long braid that came over her shoulder and hung down to her belt. She wore camouflage pants with a black tee shirt, and wore a murderous expression that would make any drill sergeant proud.

  “Not bad.” Her voice was flat and harsh. “Who are you?”

  “Cody, ma’am,” he gulped, sizing the strange woman up. “I’m Cody Peterson.”

  “What are you doing here?” The tall woman walked toward him.

  She moved like a panther, with no hint of the awkwardness many tall women exhibit, and Cody wondered if she played basketball or some other sport. She had an athletic build, and the muscles of her neck and arms looked like those on the women of the exercise videos he liked to watch after his mom had gone to bed. She stopped, looking down at him with a scowl.

  “I’m huntin’ rabbits,” he stammered. “If this is your land, then I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Something about this woman was starting to scare him—actually, a lot about her was already scaring him—and he had the strangest feeling she wasn’t here by herself, although a quick glance around revealed nobody else.

  “You hunt rabbits with a rifle?”

  “Y-yeah. My dad says any halfwit can hunt rabbits with a shotgun. But a hunter uses a rifle and his skills.” Cody added the last, praying the enormous pistol in her hand wasn’t some kind of sawed off shotgun.

  “He’s right.” She eyed him intently, and he got the definite sense he was being evaluated. “Your dad teach you to hunt?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He used to take me huntin’ ever since I could walk. He gave me this rifle before he went off to Afghanistan to fight the terrorists.”

  “Your father is a hunter and a warrior?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He found her choice of terms to be slightly strange, but wasn’t about to criticize. “I guess he is.” The intent way she looked at him made his guts twist, and he wanted nothing more than to look away. But those same instincts telling him he wasn’t alone, warned him it would be a deadly mistake.

  Son, if you act a coward, she will kill you. Everything his father taught him now spoke up. And if you act a fool, she will kill you. Cody, this woman is Death. She doesn’t play by the same rules as everybody else, and out here she don’t have to. You’re on your own, and it’s up to you if you get to walk away from this one or not.

  “That’s a powerful looking firearm, ma’am.” He
held her gaze, and forced himself not to swallow. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one like it.”

  For a moment, she didn’t answer. Then with a slight grin that had absolutely no humor in it, she turned the firearm over in her hand and offered it to him. He held her gaze and took it, almost dropping his own rifle when he had to compensate for the unexpected weight of the pistol.

  “Heavy.” He offered her his own rifle, which she took without comment. “You must be even stronger than you look.”

  “I am…a lot.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  Her expression softened for a brief second, and he knew he had asked the right question.

  “It was a gift from my father. He had it made especially for me. That’s my name on it, right there.” She pointed at a small engraving spelling “Maggie” on the handle. “He said a firearm is a like a Sunday suit of clothes, it has to be tailored to the person to be at its best.”

  “Your dad sounds like a smart man.” He handed the pistol over and took his rifle back.

  “He was,” her voice held the barest hint of a crack, “and he was very kind. But he’s dead. He died with honor but….” The woman stopped and seemed to struggle for words. She closed her eyes and her jaw clenched in what appeared to be an attempt to fight down rising emotion. She reached out with her free hand and grabbed a nearby branch, and Cody watched in shocked disbelief as the limb started to splinter under the pressure of her grip.

  How strong did somebody have to be to do that?

  And here he still stood within her reach.

  “Ma’am, are you okay?”

  She took a long shuddering breath but didn’t reply.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Cody Peterson,” she finally gritted out, her eyes still closed, “we are through talking. It is time for you to leave, and never come back here. Never. Do you understand me?”

  “No, ma’am,” he objected, finding the sense to start backing away. “I don’t understand, but I’ll go. I’m sorry about your dad.”

  Her eyes flew open and he gasped at the change that had come over them. Nothing human remained in the orbs peering back at him. They were now completely red, with large black pupils. These were the eyes of a predator. Not a wolf, or a bear, but of something even more basic and primeval. Something much older, but every bit as hungry.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered, “what are you?”

  “I’m a monster, Cody,” she snarled. “There are monsters here, and I’m one of them. One of the worst! Now GET OUT OF HERE!”

  Cody didn’t have to be told twice.

  He turned and fled through the trees. Twice he heard the thunder of her gun sound from behind him, and twice the slender trunks of nearby trees splintered as he stumbled past. It never occurred to him to return fire because he knew that would be starting a gunfight he had no hope of winning. Instead he covered the final hundred yards to the highway, gasping and clawing his way through the trees, then stumbled out into the ditch alongside the highway.

  Cody knew he wasn’t safe yet.

  Scrambling along the tree line, he pulled his bike out from behind a low pile of brush. Whipping it around, he pushed it up the incline to the shoulder of the highway before leaping onto the seat. Dragging in burning lungfuls of air, he risked one look back into the trees before launching himself down the road.

  The woman stared back at him, only twenty feet into the trees.

  How in the hell?

  Cody stopped, frozen, and locked stares with her again. She had changed. She still carried the enormous pistol but it hung limp at her side, and her eyes had returned to normal. Standing there in the gloom of the trees, she suddenly didn’t look like a monster at all. She just looked…alone.

  She let you live, Cody. She could have picked you off at any time. She didn’t have to miss but she chose to let you get away.

  “Yes, I did. Now go, Cody…before I change my mind.”

  Her voice startled him in the still unearthly quiet, and Cody hit the pedals without a second thought. He knew she meant it, and pedaled furiously to put as much distance as possible between himself and the frightening woman.

  It didn’t occur to him until later to wonder how she knew what he had been thinking.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE ROAD

  “So you’re telling me food that comes with French fries is its own food group?”

  “Absolutely!” Antonio held up the BBQ sandwich he had bought at a roadside stand and took another enormous bite while steering with the other hand. “Food is one of the most misunderstood subjects in the world, and completely miscategorized by science.”

  “And here I thought dividing them into dairy, vegetable, and meats was an elegant solution.” Adam looked out the front window at the empty rural highway flying by, and took another bite out of his own chili cheese dog. He had to admit, after the upscale and professionally prepared food Cristobal had been bringing him the past ten days, this was heaven.

  “Nonsense.” Antonio pronounced around a mouthful of BBQ, then choked it down. “That makes as much sense as dividing Picassos into greens, reds, and browns.”

  “Uh huh,” Adam agreed doubtfully. He was starting to realize Antonio saw life through different eyes than most of the rest of the world. He had expected the man to be devious, calculating, and ruthlessly intelligent…all the things an evil mastermind of a secret organization should be…and he still felt confident Antonio embodied all those qualities, only not in ways he had expected.

  For one thing, after a few exchanges in regards to their new identities and their current mission, Antonio seemed to grow bored with the whole topic. Instead he changed subjects and moved on to things like cars, women, sports, women, guns, women, hunting, and now food. Adam had done his best to hold up his end of the conversation, but found himself struggling just to keep up.

  Even his efforts to steer the conversation kept taking strange turns.

  “So you don’t think we will get Tucker back today?”

  “No,” the other man shook his head, “I doubt the topic will even come up. We’re merely going to say hello and not get shot. There’s our goal for today.”

  “I’m all for not getting shot at.”

  “I said not getting shot,” Antonio laughed. “I can’t promise we won’t get shot at. That tends to happen when we show up on their doorstep.”

  “Oh, goody.” Adam’s chili dog started to sit a little heavy in his stomach. “And here I thought it was going to be one of those boring socials with old ladies and tea.”

  Antonio almost choked on his sandwich.

  “That’s the spirit!” he gasped, while trying to keep the psychedelic van on the road. “That’s one of the reasons I like you, Adam. Once this whole thing is over, I think you’re going to be alright.”

  “Yeah, once this whole thing is over.”

  Antonio cocked a look across at Adam.

  “Have you thought about what you’re going to do once this is over?”

  “Not much,” Adam admitted. “I figured I would focus on learning whatever identity you guys give me, then try and find a place out of the way, keep my head down and raise Tucker.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, it really won’t be too hard. I wasn’t doing a whole lot before this craziness started anyway.”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve given up on living.”

  “I’m just being realistic.” Adam definitely didn’t like the new direction this conversation was going. “After all, my options are limited.”

  “Options are always limited, Adam.” Antonio took another bite of his sandwich. “Living is what we do within those limits. The problem is most people confuse obstacles for limitations.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” Adam offered carefully, “but you don’t strike me as the type who deals with lots of limitations.”

  “You mean us evil mastermind types who run secret organizations?” said the man in the tie-dyed shirt and rose-co
lored glasses.

  “You’re reading my mind again, aren’t you.”

  “Nope, don’t need to. Part of running one of those secret organizations bent on world domination is being a good judge of what’s going on with people. And your problem is you’re more scared of what’s going to happen if we succeed in getting Tucker back, than the act of getting Tucker itself.”

  “Oh, c’mon.”

  “It’s true!” Antonio waved his sandwich for emphasis. “Sure, you’re scared of meeting our adversaries, who wouldn’t be? But at least you’re willing to think about it. But you haven’t given one thought to what happens afterward. You just want to hunker down and endure it as it comes…whatever it turns out to be. That’s not living, Adam.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?” It came out before Adam could stop it.

  “Stop confusing giving up with being realistic. You are a thirty-two year old petroleum engineer. You think I can’t use somebody with your skills and knowledge? Trust me, Adam Sinclair can have as much of a life as Adam Sellars ever had.”

  “Well, it’s good to know I’ve got job security,” Adam sighed. “And don’t get me wrong, I want to thank you for that, Antonio. That’s not easy to come by nowadays.” He crossed his legs and knocked on one of his plastic braces for emphasis.

  “But a job isn’t living, is what you’re not saying.”

  “Are you sure you’re not reading my mind?”

  “Scout’s honor.” Antonio laughed. “It would be far too dangerous for me to use veneno today. Besides, I don’t need it to recognize a crisis of confidence when I see it.” He reached over and repeated Adam’s knocks on the braces. “Have you been on one date since you were released from the hospital after your accident?”

  “What?”

  “Date. Women. You remember them…they look like us, only with higher voices and more interesting figures.”

  “Yes, I remember women,” Adam groaned. “Why are we talking about me and women?”

  “Because you’ve lost your confidence. You’re no different now than the geek in high school who can’t work up the nerve to make a move. Only in your case, you’ve given up to the point you don’t even think about it. You just want to crawl off in a hole with your nephew and die of old age. And that makes you a dangerous partner.”