“That is a good thing to do.”
Slate looked down at the old shaman and back at the desolate village behind him.
“It’s something, at least,” he said. He bent down and reached out and they clasped each other’s arms, Indian-style, and Slate knew he would go and they would never see each other until they met again in the Land of Good Hunting.
John Whalen is the author of dozens of short stories that have appeared in numerous anthologies, print and online magazines, as well as a spacewestern novel, Jack Brand, published by Pill Hill Press. Whalen has written six short stories featuring Monster Hunter Mordecai Slate and is busy at work on the first Mordecai Slate novel. He is also a frequent blogger for AmazingStoriesMag.com and has had articles on film and television published in the Washington Post and Filmfax. You can find out more about him on his blog at www.johnmwhalen.wordpress.com
House Hunters
William R.D. Wood
The thrum of the Sikorsky S-64 taking off behind him was lost in the white noise of the helmet’s earphones. Hill wouldn’t have known the rickety old helicopter was even leaving if not for the cloud of dust and grit pelting his back. Straddling the electric motorcycle beneath him, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Come on, Cyrus.” He could feel the tiny particles working their way through the seams of his jacket. “Let’s get a move on.”
The thought of the contaminated specks of sand and debris against his skin gave him the heebie-jeebies far more than anything they’d be facing in the abandoned city of Pripyat a few kilometers farther down the road. The supernatural did crazy things that did not belong in this world—the natural world—but for those, he had a plan. If the plan didn’t work, he had a partner. Particles of radioactive material, on the other hand, they had to trust other people to take care of, and that did not come easy. Not anymore.
Voices buzzed in his earphones over the common channel as Cyrus gave instructions in Ukrainian to the chopper pilot. They’d hired Lyudmyla, a local bad-ass helo-jockey, only days ago. She’d come highly recommended, but Hill had wanted her as much for her resemblance to Elaina as for her resume and balls-to-the-wall attitude.
Cyrus gave a final wave to the helicopter and turned to face him. “Okay, Hill, just remem—”
The rubber tires made a skirt sound as the otherwise-silent Bijali Roketa grabbed the road and launched forward.
Hill leaned forward, maneuvering the bike along the overgrown road, avoiding the worst sections as scraggly trees whizzed by on both sides. His speed was deceptive without the telltale vibration he’d grown used to from his Harley back in the States. If not for the soft inverter whine leaking from the bike’s rectifiers into his earphones and the muted road noise traveling up through his seat, he would have been in near-complete silence.
“Hill, take it back a notch.”
Hill was about to snap back at the man but caught sight of his speedometer. Ninety kph. Damn. He gave the bike a pat on the side and eased back on the throttle. He might have to buy one of these Indian-made crotch rockets for himself.
Cyrus came alongside but Hill refused to meet the man’s gaze. He wasn’t in the mood for the priest’s admonishing looks, nor did he need any pious reminders.
Forget all their past attempts. This time the plan would work.
Five years they’d been hunting the infernal thing. Taking other hunts, building their reputations, their capital. Now it was back to their only true failure for another round.
The cabin.
And how had they found it? Hill gritted his teeth. Not through millions of dollars of networked ether-sniffing equipment or even plain old detective work. No. They’d heard some late night radio show caller—a pimply-faced kid, no less—ranting about how he’d compared two Google Earth images of the same area and found new construction in one of the least likely locations on Earth.
Hill consciously unclenched his jaw. Desiccated trees and shrubs gave way to neglected houses and businesses. In the distance, bone-white apartment buildings jutted skyward like ribs from a decayed carcass left to bake in the sun. A few klicks farther was Chernobyl.
The day was unseasonably hot but even inside his riding gear, Hill felt chilled.
That always brought back memories.
Sunlight streamed through the trees. He and Elaina crawled through the underbrush, stirring up the rich earthy smell of the soil.
Cyrus’ voice burbled in his headset. “Two hundred meters.”
Raising up enough to see through the brush, Hill spotted the cabin and motioned for Elaina, newest member of their team, to remain put. She was getting fitted for her wedding dress in a few days and couldn’t very well do that if she wound up in the hospital. They’d come up against this damnable cabin before and it didn’t play nice.
She flashed him a smile and swatted him on the ass as he crawled on.
The decaying buildings of Pripyat grew closer to one another as he entered the city proper. The roads were in remarkably good shape. He couldn’t read the road signs but he recognized his course from the extrapolated 3Ds they’d made from the satellite images.
The next intersection was the one. Hill slowed to make his turn and Cyrus pulled ahead, giving him a thumbs-up as he continued straight.
Checking his progress on a small GPS, Hill made his final turn. Ahead a small one-story market nestled between two apartment towers. Faded sales posters hung in the windows, all behind a rusting security grill some shop owner had taken time to close as if believing he might someday resume business.
Alleys stretched to both sides but Hill couldn’t see where they led and that was good. If he couldn’t see the cabin, it shouldn’t be able to see him either.
He stopped the bike next to a manhole cover, dismounting carefully to avoid unnecessary noise from the satchel worn bandolier style across his back or the ten-inch SOG blade strapped between his shoulder blades. Kneeling on the ground, he checked his watch and built-in dosimeter. On schedule and still well in the green.
Pulling bungees free from a pack on the Roketa, Hill unrolled the contents. The crossbow assembled in seconds, limbs sliding into place with a barely audible click. Hill flinched, but if the cabin could hear that, it would have certainly heard their road noise.
He unsealed a huge Ziploc bag. Droplets of holy water hit the ground, soaked up instantly, as he freed the hundred-meter plastanium cable and attached it to a quarrel. Light weight and strong as half-inch steel line. He took two T-handle hooks and inserted them into the manhole cover’s pick holes and lifted it clear, dropping in the free end of the cable.
He glanced at his watch. One minute.
The cover eased into place with a muted clunk, pinching the cable. The last of the pack’s contents—two plastic bottles, five hundred milliliters each—he poured in roughly equal amounts around the lip, particularly where the cable passed through. An acrid smell filled his nostrils, followed by wisps of smoke rising from where the metal cover and its rim melted together, securing the line to the infrastructure of Pripyat itself.
Thirty seconds.
He hoped everything was going as smoothly on the Cyrus’ side. They were going to be more than a little embarrassed if they stepped into view, crossbows ready, and the cabin was already gone. Hell, he was going to be pissed.
He cocked the bow, loaded the bolt and jogged to the edge of the store. The alley was less than three meters wide.
Ten seconds. His watch started to flash.
The streets didn’t line up perfectly centered with the cabin and he’d be able to see Cyrus to one side even with his narrow view from the far end of this alley.
Five seconds.
Hill raised the crossbow, took a deep breath, held it, and stepped into the alley.
In the middle of a field of brown grass sat the cabin. A split second was all he needed to confirm it. Rough-hewn wood. A small covered porch with three steps. A single window. The door half ajar. Just as it had been when they’d left it in
the Oregon woods that day, thinking it would still be there when they returned. And later when they’d found it again in West Virginia.
Pine needles fell into honeysuckle and mountain laurel all around. He high-crawled through the weeds and grasses pausing at irregular intervals to avoid repetitive sounds. They weren’t messing around this time. The six 40mm rounds of high explosive fury in the drum of the MGL-140 grenade launcher in his hands attested to their determination.
The bloody Holy Hand Grenades of Antioch.
Hill smirked.
Blow it apart. Then deal with the smaller pieces with the 50-gallon drum of sanctified water on the ATV at the edge of the valley.
Easy peasy.
Beyond the cabin, where Cyrus should have been standing was a stretch of empty street.
Damnit, Cyrus.
The hairs on Hill’s neck stood up an instant before the cabin flickered. Through the filmy residue of the cabin as it began to escape, Hill saw Cyrus. He was not in the designated spot, but closer.
Hill aimed directly at the cabin door as a reference, then snapped the muzzle of the crossbow as wide to one side as the alley allowed. He’d done the preternatural trigonometry earlier and the quarrel should slam into the wall midway between the door and the window. The recoil nudged his shoulder and he was in motion, charging to one side of the alley as the cable whipped by.
Senses firing at maximum, he saw the world in slow motion. A thunk reached his ears an instant before his own quarrel turned a sharp angle in mid-air as it passed through the distortion membrane surrounding the cabin. He hoped the sound was Cyrus’ quarrel planting deep into the rear wall since, as he watched, his own passed through a gap in the unstable substance of the cabin.
Cyrus’ voice roared in Hill’s headset as he screamed commands.
Hill’s cable snapped taut to his left, the cabin end whipping around in midair, suspended without making the actual corporeal connection. Barreling ahead, he fought the instinct to draw his Glock 17. He carried three clips for it in the small pack at his waist, each with one hundred rounds of blessed ammunition. Cyrus had sanctified the rounds himself since, even the religious types they allied with, wouldn’t bless a bullet. Besides, with the distortion membrane around the cabin flashing in and out of existence as it tried to escape, a stray shot could pass straight through and hit Cyrus.
Ozone washed over him in a deluge of alternating heat and cold. He stumbled, losing a step as a wave of freezing air almost lifted him from the ground. Cyrus’ line had planted solid or the cabin would be gone by now.
Just a little longer.
The cabin was only twenty meters away. Wisps of light danced along the plastanium cable beside Hill, but all hell flashed from Cyrus’ side where the connection was better. Bolts of ethereal lightning scorched the ground and surrounding buildings. He’d been on the receiving end of that particular form of otherworldly energy before. The synesthetic properties were staggering, muddling the senses and distorting perceptions.
He dropped to one knee and pulled the modified paintball gun from its holster on his leg. The magazine slid into place with a click, the gas canister with a hiss. Smacking the full-auto paddle on the side, Hill fired line-of-sight toward the area where the cable was held in the air.
A spray of small green paint balls erupted from the muzzle of the gun, striking the membrane in a line before scattering in every direction. Fluorescent green oil spattered the ground and sidewalk, an ethereal contrast to the drab grays and browns of the dead city. A single green splash expanded on the cabin wall near the cable. Then another.
The cable writhed in the air, buffeted as the cabin strained to free itself, but in a much smaller cross-section than before. Sweat poured into his eyes, propellant from the continuous stream of paint balls fogging his visor. He couldn’t see the effect his attack was having in any detail but he could feel a static charge building in the ground, filling the air. Just like before.
Hill jumped to his feet, fired the first shot directly at the cabin to get his bearings. The next five he placed straight in the open door before the first one exploded high overhead, deflected by the defensive membrane.
As the wave of heat from the air burst ruffled his hair, the shrieks filled his ears. First from the cabin as it shimmered in and out of existence. Then from the forest behind him.
The green smudge expanded on the wall as more and more of his volley struck home. The wall twitched and shuddered, stabilizing around the cable. He stood, firing one-handed, his aim less important now the fluorescent smear was growing. Holy men wouldn’t bless bullets but balls of oil mixed with glow-in-the-dark dyes were a different matter. Hell, ounce for ounce, the oil seemed more potent than the water.
Cyrus’ voice cracked in his ears.
Hill didn’t care. Grabbing the chin strap, he pulled his helmet free, taking with it the microphone and earset. Gas stuttered from the barrel of the paintball gun, so he tossed it aside and drew the Glock. The 100-round magazine, a double-disk shaped beauty, hung from the grip of the Glock like a set of flat black cojones.
“Hill!” shouted Cyrus from across the lot, barely heard over the cracks and pops of the ethereal discharges dancing around the plastanium tethers. The priest pointed to the sky over Hill’s shoulder.
Hill nodded. The plan.
He didn’t bother to look as the thrum filled the air and dust swirled from the ground, enveloping him once again in the radioactive detritus of the city.
The Sikorsky’s shadow fell over him an instant before a wall composed of 2600 gallons of holy water slammed down onto the cabin’s roof. Wooden beams screeched, snapping under the weight. Water flashed to steam, expanding outward, lifting Hill.
He struck the ground, flat-assed, as the cabin pulsated in his gaze. Not the wispy flickering of an attempted escape. If anything, the cabin was a muscle of wood and pitch, flexing. Pain stabbing upward through his spine, threatening to send him down the long dark tunnel of unconsciousness, he managed to roll to one side as the frayed plastanium cable twanged, then whizzed by inches from his face. A fiber grazed his cheek sending a small rooster tail of blood dancing through the air.
Bolts of purple lightning fanned out from the cabin along the cable, now an appendage of the cabin, as it snaked skyward toward the retreating helicopter.
The Sikorsky banked away, its tank doors gaping wide, rivulets of water still draining. A rainbow formed in its wake. His whole body on fire, Hill leapt to his feet and charged for the cable. The frayed end was gaining on the helicopter. If it reached the rotor, Lyudmyla would not survive the fall. He couldn’t let that happen. Not again.
One step.
Two steps.
Three.
Hill jumped, arms wide.
An inferno burned his skin and seared his eyes. His hands struck first, then his chest, his momentum snatching the cable back from the helicopter. Ultraviolet lightning the color of bad dreams swarmed, flaring around him.
He opened his mouth to scream her name but the world was gone.
Elaina’s tormented shrieks echoed in the valley as if trapped as he abandoned the attack and tore back up the rise. Before him large sections of the cabin flashed in and out of existence. Each fleeting materialization bringing new screams from his beloved.
She fell silent an instant before he reached her. A shaft of hewn pine thrust skyward from her chest, vanishing as he reached to pull it free.
“Hill.”
Cyrus’ voice, far away.
“Wake up, Hill.”
Needles pricked at his face. Every joint creaked as he stirred. Not painful, just resistant.
“You’ve got to see this.”
Charred pine filled his nostrils. He opened his eyes, focusing on the weathered grain of the wood digging into his cheek.
He was on the porch.
Hill shoved himself into a roll, dropping over the edge and staggering backward away from the cabin. He scooped the Glock from the pebbly red sand and released the maga
zine. Another from the pack at his waist slapped in before the empty struck the ground. He took aim at the collapsed door, sweeping right and up, left and down.
A fog rose from the heap of busted, motionless timber.
“I think it’s dead,” said Cyrus.
How many times had they said that? “Bullshit.”
Cyrus might be right this time, though. The roof over the porch was askew, broken free on one side, pieces scattered in the sand. The front wall was buckled and the glass from the window, missing. Through gaping holes, he could see the interior and it was in shambles.
“Take a look,” said Cyrus.
The priest stood a few meters away. Beyond him lay a wasteland.
Rust red sand dappled with obsidian rock stretched away in dunes. A distant haze prevented a clearly defined horizon. The sand shifted beneath his boots as he moved forward.
“Where in hell?”
Cyrus shrugged. “Certainly no hell I’ve ever heard of.” He hooked his thumb at the sky.
Hill blinked hard, both to clear the stickiness from his eyes and to confirm the tapestry of line and curve hanging over their heads. He could make out landforms, mountain ranges, islands and lakes—the colors subdued into a sea of sepia and black. He felt like he stood on the inside of a stained glass globe, looking at distorted continents and oceans from beneath. Cracks connected features, web-like, twisting in places like runes the size of cities.
Lightning danced along the cracks of the inverted world above, obscured in places by dense clouds of sickly brown and purple, like scars adrift in the air.
Hill had to look away.
“Know what else?”
“There’s more?”
Cyrus pulled open a nasty tear across his jacket, through the Nanylon vest, his shirt, all the way to skin. Blood soaked the edges of the rip, still wet, but the skin beneath was merely bruised along a fine pink line of knitted flesh. “I was sure I was finished when the cable came loose and whipped across me back in Pripyat.”
Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3) Page 38
