The Hunt

by Sourav Deka

Aaron’s eyes widened. “What the hell am I seeing?” he said.

  “It’s me, Tanner,” he growled.

  I tried to control my fear but my heart kept beating faster. “Tanner? It’s impossible,” I said.

  Tanner looked at his hands. “I woke up like this in the forest.”

  “But you died in the forest.”

  “What?” Tanner’s forehead creased. “I died?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “In the forest, you were infected.”

  “I wasn’t dead. I was unconscious and I woke up like this.”

  “Unconscious?” A line etched between my eyebrows. “You didn’t have any pulse. You were dead.”

  “Whatever, how do I fix this?”

  “How do I know?”

  He rubbed his shoulder. “I can’t stay like this. You have to do something.”

  “But what can I do?”

  “I don’t know, think. Ask your dad or your friends, they might know something.”

  “Okay, but how are you in London?”

  “I flew here.”

  My jaw dropped. “You flew? How did you fit in the airplane?”

  “I mean I flew through the sky on my own. I didn’t come here by airplane.”

  I exhaled deeply. “Oh man! This is freaking insane.”

  “Please you have to help me. I came here searching for you.”

  “Wait, wait help you?” Aaron scoffed. “We vividly remember what you did to us.”

  “I know but please,” he sighed, “I am…………… sorry. I can’t stay like this.”

  Aaron shook his head. “No we won’t help. You were a monster and you are still a monster. Only the size and power has changed.”

  “No, please. I………. am……….. changed. I beg you, please give me a chance. Help me,” Tanner begged.

  “How do we believe that you changed?” I said.

  “I proved it by helping you two. Sam was going to kill you.”

  “You tried to kill my dad,” I said in a heavy voice. “You even tried to kill us.”

  “I know, but I learned my lesson,” he bowed down his head. “I got my punishment. I want to change.”

  I took a step forward and gazed into his eyes. “That’s not enough for me.”

  “Then tell me what should I do? How can I show you that I have changed?”

  I paused for a minute to think, and then looked at Aaron. “He can help us.”

  Aaron clenched his jaw. “We can’t trust him, you know that, Ross.”

  “I know, but he wants to become normal. He doesn’t have any choice.” I turned to Tanner. “First help us, and then we will figure out something about your problem.”

  Tanner nodded. “Okay, what do I have to do?”

  “Help us free my friends,” I said.

  “Okay, where are they?”

  “Find Sam,” I stepped forward to look outside. “Where did you throw him away? We need his phone.”

  Tanner jumped high and flew away to find Sam. His jump was so powerful that the room shook a bit and a gust of wind touched our face.

  “How he is not happy with himself? He has superpower now,” Aaron said, looking outside through the broken wall.

  “He has superpower, but can’t live like humans as he used to. He is bigger now, can’t do human things.”

  Aaron chuckled. “If I would have gotten that power, I would stay like that.”

  “It’s easy to say, Aaron, but it’s not good.”

  He pressed his lips. “Yeah, I know.”

  I was scared of Tanner but he thinks we can help him. So I thought we can use him to our advantage. He was stronger and could easily kill us, but he didn’t as he needed us and wanted to be cured. I knew we couldn’t trust him, but this time we had an advantage. He will do as we say until we find something to cure him. He tried to use us before, but this time it’s our chance.

  “He can help us do a lot of things,” I said.

  “Don’t forget what he did to us, Ross. He can’t be trusted,” Aaron said.

  “I know, but now he has superpowers. The guy is like a hulk. We can use him to save dad and everyone. He took out Sam, Aaron.”

  “What if he betrays us again?”

  I shook my head and turned to him. “He won’t. He wants to be fixed. He won’t do anything stupid until he is fixed.”

  “But we have to be more careful now. He has superpowers. A bad guy with superpowers is a very bad thing.”

  I put my hands on my waist and nodded lightly. “I know, but he thinks that we can find something and help him fix his problem. He has nowhere to go, that’s why he came to us. We need to keep it that way, for now. Make him work for us.”

  Tanner came back with Sam’s body on his shoulder. “I am sorry, he is dead,” Tanner said tonelessly.

  “Keep him down,” I said. “I need to check his pockets for his cell phone.”

  Tanner lay him down on the floor. His forehead was still bleeding and was staring up, there was no pulse. I checked both of his pants pockets and found the cell phone, but it crashed as Sam hit the ground hard when Tanner threw him in the sky. I opened up the backside of the cell phone. The SIM card was fine. I felt a sense of relief. It was in good condition.

  “We need a phone, maybe the numbers are saved in the SIM.”

  “How? Sam took all of our phones when he brought us here, remember?” Aaron said.

  I bit my lower lip. “We will have to buy one.”

  Aaron checked his pockets. “I don’t have much money to buy a phone.”

  “I have some. A cheap phone will do it. We will buy a cheap one,” I patted his back. “Let’s go.”

  We came downstairs and went to a mobile shop nearby. Tanner stayed there as he can’t roam around the streets in the open, people would get scared. We asked for a cheap one. Everyone in the city comes to buy a new phone with new features but I was asking for a cheap one, the shopkeeper found it weird but still showed us all the cheap phones he got. We bought the cheapest one and went back to the hotel where Tanner was waiting for us. I inserted Sam’s SIM card and found a couple of numbers. I called every one of them, most of them kept ringing, while some were not reachable, but one of the numbers picked up.

  “Is everyone okay?” I tried to mimic Sam’s voice and accent.

  “Yeah, everyone’s fine boss,” a guy replied.

  “Bring them to the hotel,” I said.

  “Are you sure? What about your plan boss?”

  “Plan changed, bring them to the hotel.”

  “Okay boss.”

  I disconnected the phone.

  Aaron had a surprised look. “Wow! How you mimicked Sam?” he asked.

  I smiled. “I am good at mimicking. Don’t you remember?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know you can mimic him.”

  “Yeah, it was not perfect but it was enough to fool his people,” I put the phone back in my pocket.

  “Okay, now what’s next?” Aaron asked.

  “When they arrive at the hotel our black hulk will do his job,” I said.

  “I will crush all those knuckleheads,” Tanner clenched his huge fists.

  “No, no. You don’t need to kill them, just make them unconscious.”

  “Whatever,” Tanner growled.

  After an hour Sam’s men arrived with dad and everyone. Three black Mercedes stopped outside the hotel. We were hiding in the hotel looking through the windows. Tanner was hiding at the side of the hotel ready to attack.

  “They have arrived,” I said, peeking through the window. “Take out Sam’s men. And please be careful, don’t hurt my friends. Take out only Sam’s men.”

  Two guards stepped out of the car. Tanner came out of his hiding and ran towards them growling. The guards’ eyes widened in fear and they screamed. Before they could make a run for it, Tanner threw them into the sky.

  “Huh? What is that thing?” A guard sitting inside screamed and fired his gun.

  Tanner smashed and tore up the car doors one by one
and dragged everyone out of the cars. Sam’s men kept on shooting at Tanner, but bullets didn’t do any damage to him. It was like some mosquitoes were biting him all over his body. Tanner growled and threw all of them into the sky. They landed somewhere around, we could hear their bones cracking.

  “Hey, I told you not to kill them,” I went outside.

  “I didn’t kill them,” Tanner gave a smug smile. “They are just unconscious with broken bones and teeth.”

  Andrea screamed looking at Tanner. “Who is this big ugly guy?”

  “It’s Tanner,” I said.

  Dad gasped. “Tanner? How? Didn’t he die in the forest?”

  “Remember, he was infected? The infection made him like this,” Aaron said.

  “But why did he help us? He is the bad guy,” Contessa said.

  “I want to be fixed, we made a deal,” Tanner said.

  “Deal?” Dad’s forehead creased. “What deal?”

  Tanner lowered his head. “I am sorry for what I did, Richard.”

  “You are sorry?” Dad scoffed. “You bastard, you cut my throat, you tortured my sons.”

  “I know, but I can’t change the past now,” Tanner pressed his lips. “Let bygones be bygones.”

  “No, you are evil, just…………..”

  I interrupted dad. “Hey, hey, dad, wait!” I grabbed his arms. “He helped us to save you all. He saved me and Aaron. Sam was going to kill me and Aaron. He killed Sam and saved us, dad,” I gulped. “I know, he did terrible things to us, I understand. I didn’t forget that. But he helped us in getting rid of Sam and his men.”

  “No, he is a selfish prick. He can’t be trusted,” dad raised his voice.

  “He saved us and is making up for it, so forget about the past, dad,” I said softly. “We are free from Sam now.”

  Dad frowned. “No, you don’t understand, son. He can’t be trusted. People like him never change.”

  “He can dad, he can. He needs us now.”

  I knew they can’t just forgive Tanner. He tried to kill dad, tortured us. It was hard for them. It was hard for me too. But now he was different, he was stronger. A big hulk on our side will make our journey a lot easier. No one will be able to mess with us. We can make him do our work as long as he thinks we can figure out something about his hulk problem.

  “Where is Martin and Dave?” Dad asked.

  “They escaped,” I said. “Aaron and I helped them escape so that they can save you.”

  “Where are they now?”

  I pressed my lips together. “That’s the problem, I don’t know. We planned to hack Sam’s phone to find you guys, but that didn’t go as planned. We have to find them.”

  “Where did you send them?” Mark asked. “Did you mention any place to hack Sam’s phone?”

  “No, but we will find them. They may have visited any phone booth. Martin needed to call his hacker friend in order to hack Sam’s phone.”

  “Phone booth?” Dad slapped his forehead. “There are many phone booths in the city.”

  “Do you have any better idea dad?” I shrugged. “We have to start somewhere.”

  “Okay,” he turned to the rest of the people standing beside the cars. “You all rest in a hotel. Ross, Aaron and I will find them.”

  “I am also coming with you,” Mark said.

  “Okay,” I looked at others. “You all check in some hotel.”

  Tanner widened his hands. “What about me?” he asked.

  “You also hide somewhere,” I said.

  “Hide?” his forehead creased. “Look at me. I am a big monster now. Where can I hide?”

  I shrugged. “How should I know? Jump into the top of the building and eat some burgers. If you keep roaming around the city, the whole British army will come after you.”

  Tanner pumped his fists. “What about my problem?”

  “We will think about that when we are done with all this, it’s not time.”

  Dad, Mark, Aaron and I went to search some phone booths nearby. We talked to some people and described how they look but no one saw them. Fortunately, after talking to a bunch of people, a woman told us that she saw two guys who fit the description. They were there an hour ago.

  “They must be near somewhere,” Dad said.

  “Yeah, we should split up,” Mark said.

  “Okay, I will go north, you two go east and west and Aaron go to south,” I said.

  Dad and Mark agreed and we all went in our directions. I searched the north side for some time and walked two miles, but they were nowhere to be seen. After looking some more I returned to the phone booth, from where I left. Aaron, Martin and Dave were there waiting.

  “I found them,” Aaron said.

  Dave hugged me. “Ross? How did you escape?” he said.

  “Someone helped us. Why are you all waiting here?”

  “We were trying to hack Sam’s cell phone. Martin’s friend said that there was no SIM card in the hotel, which matches Sam’s name.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know. That’s because Sam was thrown away from the hotel by a black hulk along with his phone.”

  “Black hulk? Are you drunk or something?” Martin gave me a weird look.

  “It was Tanner,” I said. “He came and saved us.”

  Martin raised his eyebrows. “Wait, what? Tanner is a hulk, and a black one?”

  “Yeah, he didn’t die in the forest. The infection in the forest made him like that. He now wants to be fixed, and asked us for help.”

  “Oh god!”

  “Yeah, and in return he will help us.”

  “You trust him?” Martin put his hands on his waist. “Did you forget the past?”

  “I know, I remember everything,” I sighed. “But he helped us get rid of Sam and his men. We are free from him now. That’s more important.”

  “No man, you know he is a bad guy. He can betray us at any moment.”

  “But now we can use him to our advantage. I can handle him.”

  “Handle him?” his forehead creased. “You said he is a hulk now.”

  “He wants to be him again, Martin. He will do anything for that. As long as he thinks we can help him, we are fine.”

  Dave nodded. “Now what?”

  “You and Martin go to the east side. Mark is searching for you. Aaron and I will go west to find dad. We went in different directions to find you. We will meet back here.”

  We split up to find dad and Mark. After walking a few miles, Aaron and I found dad. He was talking to some people trying to find Martin and Dave.

  “We found them,” I said.

  “Where are they?” Dad asked.

  “They are waiting, come on follow me.”

  We headed back to our rendezvous place.

  CHAPTER 14

  After walking a mile, a group of people wearing black suits surrounded us. Sam was standing in front of them holding his lighted cigar. I was astonished to see him alive. Tanner threw him into the sky, I even checked his body. He was dead. I was sure of it. How could that be possible? He was standing in front of us alive and well.

  “Hello again,” Sam gave a devilish smile.

  “You were dead,” I said.

  He clicked his tongue. “I was just taking a little nap,” he said.

  “No, that’s not possible. I checked your pulse.”

  Sam adjusted his tie. “I have my body spelled with a powerful spell. I get healed slowly, no matter how dangerous my injuries are.”

  I squinted my eyes. “There is a spell like that?”

  “Yes, a spell that can bring you back from dead.”

  My throat clenched. “You lucky bastard.”

  He smiled. “People like us don’t die that easily, Ross.”

  “Who are these people in black suits?”

  He took out his cigar and lighted it. “They are members of Aivor.”

  A long black car came and stopped near us. One of the black suit men opened the car’s back door and a tall white lady in black suit stepped outs
ide. Her suit was a bit different, it was more tight, darker and had an A alphabet symbol with a unique style on the right side of her breast. She was a middle aged woman, with wrinkles on her face.

  “Hello everyone,” she smiled at us. “You have never met me. But I know all of you.”

  Sam gave a quirky smile. “This would be interesting,” he blew smoke in the air.

  “You are the Cromlin family,” the lady said. “We have been watching you for decades.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am Bristy Taylor, the current leader of Aivor.”

  So they finally showed up, but why now? Is it time? I looked at Aaron. He raised his chin and tried to look confident. I knew he was scared, it can be seen in his eyes but he was trying to be strong. I was scared too, I remembered all the things dad told me about rare child. This can go south and I had to be ready for what comes next. I took a deep breath and stood straight. I knew why they were here, but still I asked to be sure.

  “Why are you here?”

  “It’s time, we should talk,” she said.

  I chuckled. “Talk? There is nothing to talk. I know you want to destroy the seeds,” I clenched my jaw. “I won’t let you do that.”

  “The seeds should be destroyed, Ross. It’s important,” she said calmly.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” I rolled my eyes. “It can get in wrong hands and something worse can happen etcetera, etcetera. I know that crap. Your big bad boy told me.”

  She smirked. “You don’t know what the seeds can do, Ross? It can make a human invincible. They won’t die, they won’t have any diseases, and neither will they get old. When humans become that much powerful, they begin to think that they are god. When someone begins to think they are god, they do whatever they want,” she pressed her lips together. “That’s when everything goes bad. You don’t know it, because you haven’t seen it.”

  “And you know everything, isn’t it?” I said. “In this world billions of people suffer from various diseases. They fight every time with it, people die. I understand that if a single person uses the seeds for his own pleasure and arrogance, then it can be dangerous. But safety measures can be taken. The seeds can help people. It will be the greatest medicine in the world.”

  “You don’t know that. Sooner or later someone will steal it and will use it for them. People are greedy, Ross. They are selfish. It happens every time, everybody wants power over everything. Everyone wants to get to the top, no matter what they do in the process.”