by Patti Larsen
And, finally, Drew. Again he wishes his friend were there. For some reason Reid always thinks Drew would know what to do. Maybe because he usually did.
Reid can’t shake off the dead though he knows even if he gets to Ashley there’s no way she can run with two broken legs. She’s dead whether the hunters kill her or not. The only thing Reid can offer her is a quick end.
In his mind, Drew begs him to not let the hunters eat her.
It makes up his mind.
“Stay here,” he says, his knife sliding free, and leaves them behind before anyone can stop him, his dead friend cheering him on.
He is almost to Ashley when she lifts her head from the path and sees him.
“No!” She screams. “Reid, no!”
He feels motion behind him, a rush of air, and turns just as a hunter leaps on him, claws flashing. Reid has the knife in his fist as they tumble together to the ground, feeling the kiss of the talon’s bite as he twists away. Reid forces the blade between himself and the hunter just as they impact the trail. The creature dies over him in a soft hiss of a glittering powdered cloud.
It enters Reid’s lungs, fills him up, roars through him like a freight train. He is on his feet, senses so sharp he knows exactly where the other two hunters are without having to look for them. Rage bubbles in his blood, spikes through his muscles and drives a bellow of defiance from his throat.
Leila and Marcus stumble toward him, heading for Ashley before Reid can warn them off. The other three boys crouch by the side of the trail, totally vulnerable. The two other hunters leap onto the path, one going straight for Alex. Reid is running before he knows his legs are moving, tackling the hunter and bearing its body to the ground, the knife ready. Someone is screaming while Reid snarls into the hunter’s grinning face, its shark teeth snapping at him, claws descending, when his blade finds the hunter’s heart and kills it.
Reid collapses onto the path in a puff of powder, more of it coating his eyes and going up his nose. He turns to see Leila and Marcus fighting off the last hunter, swinging rocks while Alex, Cole and Milo jab at it with their sharpened sticks. Reid’s intense focus, fed by the mysterious powder, tells him the creature is playing with them.
He sees it when the thing decides to strike, absolute clarity in the minute adjustment of the hunter’s muscles telling him it is ready to pounce.
Before he can attack in return, Milo breaks through the hunter’s lazy defense and drives his stick through its side. It howls in rage, striking out, snapping the weapon in half, jerking the boy to his knees from the impact.
To Reid’s shock, the hunter takes one look at the wound in its side and runs.
***
Chapter Four
At first Reid is elated they have one of the enemy on the run, but the feeling doesn’t last long when his fired-up mind realizes it’s getting away. He races after it, knowing he can catch it, his new speed plenty to close the distance between him and the injured hunter.
It passes Ashley as it flees. She looks up, terrified eyes locked on the looming creature, while it bends almost casually and swipes her with its claws on the way by.
The girl collapses to the ground, a gushing pool of blood growing rapidly around her. Leila is screaming while Reid’s rage takes him over completely, his body on fire as he flies after the escaping hunter.
Marcus jumps in his way and grabs at him before he can get too far. Reid almost shoves him aside and keeps going, the raging thing inside him driving him onward. But the look on Marcus’s face makes him pause and come back to himself again.
“How the hell did you do that?” Marcus looks afraid. Of Reid. He’s used to contempt and bitterness from the guy. Even mistrust and arrogance. But this fear is new, so real it’s like Marcus is looking at a hunter instead of a fellow human being.
“We have to go after it.” Reid tries to find his anger again, the fuel for the chase, even as Leila crouches over Ashley, Alex by her side, while Milo and Cole look around with wild eyes.
“No we don’t,” Marcus says. “We have to go.” He backs away a step, releasing his hold on Reid. “The other kids, remember?”
The thing growing inside Reid snarls in frustration but he nods instead. Marcus is right, for once.
He doesn’t want to look at Ashley’s dead body but he forces himself forward. He is shocked when her eyes roll in their sockets as he draws closer and blink slowly.
Reid finds himself on his knees in answer to her silent stare, holding her hand, feeling grief shove his anger aside.
“Sorry,” Ashley whispers around a mouthful of blood, her white teeth outlined in red. “I wanted to keep hunting. And running. I feel safe when I’m running.” She coughs weakly, the gashes in her chest erupting when she does. Reid glances down and wishes he hadn’t. He sees bone exposed to the light, and a twist of purple-black intestine, fat and horrible, showing through her skin. It pulses with her breathing, like a hideous snake eating her alive.
“It’s okay,” Leila says, stroking the girl’s long hair out of her face, voice level and calm though her eyes brim with tears. “You did great.”
Ashley smiles, chokes. “Thanks, Mom.” Reid and Leila exchange a look but it’s easy to tell the girl isn’t with them any more. “I just wanted you to be proud of me. That’s all.”
Leila’s throat is working, her tears falling without shame onto Ashley’s pale face. In the end, she gives the dying girl the only gift she can.
“I’m very proud of you,” she whispers. “I always have been.”
Ashley’s smile widens and for a moment everything she is shines in her face. It’s the most amazing thing Reid has ever seen.
It makes it more difficult to watch when her eyes glaze over, a deep sigh escaping her chest as what remains of her collapses just a little when her soul leaves.
Leila is still weeping but she turns on Reid immediately. “You have to go after that thing.”
He’s surprised by her insistence. “The kids.”
“I’ll take care of them.” She lurches to her feet. “With Alex. You and the others go. Find it. Kill it. Before it tells the other hunters what we’ve done.”
Reid looks down at Ashley one last time. The blood pool steams softly in the last of the sunlight, making a sticky mess of her long red hair.
“We’ll take care of her. Somehow. You have to go.” Leila pushes Reid, reaching over the body of the fallen girl. “Reid, go!”
She’s right. And her demand is enough to light the fire inside him again. His sadness at Ashley’s death is crushed by the rage he feels at losing yet another one of his friends.
Reid doesn’t need more encouragement. He spins and runs down the path, following the smears of blood.
He knows the others are following him but Reid doesn’t have time for them. Every sense is alive, his nose picking up the deep and metallic aroma of the hunter’s blood, his ears the distant complaint of a bird rising from its resting place. His whole body tingles with the need to chase that thing down and kill it.
It’s not long before the creature’s trail leaves the track and goes off into the tree line. Reid pauses, hearing Marcus, Cole and Milo pant to a halt behind him.
“This way.” He opens his sense of smell wider, asking for more, equally worrying and rejoicing in the ease at which he follows not just the smell of blood but the hunter’s distinctive scent. An animal smell, layered with musk and something very much like cinnamon.
It’s slower going for all of them, making it less difficult for the others to keep up, but Reid still maintains a hard pace. He has no idea where the creature is heading and how long he has before his window of opportunity will be slammed shut in his face. Reid needs to get to it before the hunter can escape. That need is so powerful it overtakes everything else until it is just him and the hunt.
The scent is sharper, his hands brushing over bloodstained leaves where the creature has left a trace. Reid catches himself smelling his fingers, intensifying the smell, jaw aching f
rom the tight grin gripping his face. This is so much fun it almost hurts. He doesn’t have time to wonder when killing became a game to him, the same as it is for the hunters. Because as he realizes what he is feeling, that he is enjoying the chase, he catches a flash of black ahead through the trees and forgets his conscience and the fact there has to be something wrong with him.
Prey in sight, Reid lunges forward.
Again Marcus gets his hands on Reid first, as though he has been expecting this reaction. He holds Reid back, fighting for breath and fear on his face. “Don’t be stupid. We shouldn’t have caught it so fast. Might be another setup.”
Reid knows differently. There are no hunters in the area. Only the lone straggler with the length of wood in its side, staggering from blood loss and a wound which would have killed a normal person by now.
He fights for his control back, pulling away from these new hypersensitive senses he’s developed and the savage reaction they trigger inside him. When he does, Reid instantly feels the fence before he sees it and decides Marcus is right about holding back. But not out of fear of being ambushed. He keeps his distance and watches as the hunter clears the trees, staggering into the cleared space between the forest and the barrier. The creature follows the fence line. Reid stays close enough he’s sure the thing knows they are there. But it ignores them, simply stumbling on.
Reid is enjoying its suffering and wishes he could make sure it continues to die a slow and seeping death but right now the most important thing is where the hunter is leading them.
Reid looks up, sees the warm colors of sunset to his left while the creature continues north. Reid almost pauses when he feels the first twinge of thrumming vibration in the air, unlike the buzz of the fence. It gets stronger the further they go and drives his skin into goose bumps.
Reid is paying such close attention to it he almost strikes out when someone grabs his arm.
He pulls himself around and snarls at Cole who backs off a step, fear in his eyes. Reid shakes himself loose of his focus, only then noticing how dark it’s become.
“What?” He tries to soften it, to erase the instinct he triggered in his young friend. It disgusts him to think he’s turning into something the others will be afraid of. His attempt to calm Cole is gentle enough it nearly works.
One more layer of regret and frustration for Reid to add to the ruin of his life.
At least Cole still has the courage to speak up. “I think there’s something ahead. Something big. We should be careful.” His voice is so soft it should be hard for Reid to hear but it comes through loud and clear.
“I know.” Reid looks at Milo and Marcus. “Don’t worry. I think we’re about to get some answers. Come on, but stay quiet and don’t make a sound.”
The three look worried but follow Reid anyway.
The thrumming is louder now, a steady rhythm, audible even to his friends at this point, he’s sure. Reid hears Drew’s long-dead voice whisper, “Gennies.” His friend expected something like this, said there would have to be generators somewhere. Power for the fence. Of course. And up ahead, light. Well-shielded, none of it climbing into the sky, not like the trap that was the town. Whatever they are approaching, Reid is sure it’s the center of everything that’s going on.
At last.
He watches the hunter disappear behind the shadows of two large trees, reappearing on the other side. It’s slower going than Reid’s impatient heart wants, their advance practically at a crawling pace. But he knows one false move, one stumble at the wrong time revealing their presence, and none of what they are about to see will matter because no one else will hear about it.
A rumbling growl joins the thrum of the power supply, grinding of gravel on gravel. Soft sounds like voices, the clank of metal. Reid eases up a low hill, pressed to his belly in the undergrowth, and gently parts the leaves before him, looking down the crest and to the fence line.
There is a large gate, wrapped in barbed wire. Reid’s heart leaps. He was right, there is a gate. Hooded lights line a short stretch of the fence, shining straight down to the ground. In that cold blue-toned light he can see a clearing. Just past the rim of poles, dark shapes of tents and makeshift buildings crouch in the dirt. Big trucks with large boxes on back lumber back and forth. And there are people. People! Dressed in camouflage and carrying rifles.
The army. Camped just outside the fence. Reid’s heart soars as he watches a line of soldiers march toward the gate, dressed in full fatigues and helmets.
Drew was right after all. This is some sort of invasion. And the army is here in force to rescue them.
***
Chapter Five
Full dark settles over Reid as he lies there, struggling with his need to let in hope against his now well-honed instincts telling him yet again something just isn’t right.
He sees Cole trembling on his left, Marcus rigid on his right and knows Milo is close by from the boy’s scent. That makes Reid pause and think. Since when was Reid’s nose so sensitive that he could recognize anyone by scent? What seemed so natural and amazing not too long ago is now terrifying to him. It’s enough to distract him from what’s happening below as he takes a slow, deep breath.
There. Cole smells faintly soft, like fresh butter and a hint of something nutty. And Marcus, who stinks of tuna. He must have hoarded a can to himself. While Milo’s scent is richer, deeper, with traces of apples and burned caramel.
The aromas fade, his awareness of them also fading, but that doesn’t make Reid feel any better. It just confirms to him how much he is changing. And he’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
Unless it keeps them alive. In that case, he’ll take it.
“What are we waiting for?” Marcus’s impatience is obvious, not just from his words but in the way his body vibrates with the need to move. “Let’s go get help!”
Reid doesn’t respond and, to his surprise, Marcus holds his ground. “Something’s not right,” Reid says. He continues to watch the soldiers, observe their actions. They don’t look like they are ready to go anywhere. In fact, this looks like a more-or-less permanent encampment to him.
“What do you see?” His whisper is soft but he knows the others hear him.
“Safety.” Cole’s voice trembles with him. “Rescue.”
“The U.S. Army,” Marcus says.
“Look again.” Reid points at the small group of soldiers who emerge from a tent, laughing as they stroll past the fence and out of view. “Do they look like they are here to help us?”
Even Marcus stays quiet, though Reid can hear the squeak of his teeth grinding together.
Milo slides himself in between Reid and Marcus, lips right by Reid’s ear. “The hunter.”
Reid nods. Sees it approaching the fence. They’ve beaten it here, somehow. As it enters the light, he understands. It staggers, one clawed hand pressed to its wound. Just before it reaches the gate, it falls to its knees and calls out, the sound very different from the cry they are used to but still powerful in its message. All the little hairs on Reid’s arms lift in answer at the mournful note, climbing toward the endless sky, as the creature calls for help.
Reid chokes on emotion. He has no sympathy for the hunters, would kill this one in a heartbeat given the chance, but somehow its call reaches inside him and triggers an instinctual response of empathy. Again he wonders just how much his body is changing until he glances at Milo and sees the tears standing in the boy’s eyes.
“No way,” he whispers. “I hate those things. No way.”
It seems the hunters have more weapons available to them than the kids thought.
The gate swings slowly open, four soldiers running through in full gear, weapons ready. Reid waits for them to kill it while knowing such a wish is futile. He is disappointed but not surprised when the four soldiers unfurl a stretcher, helping the injured hunter onto it, before lifting it gently and turning to go back through the gate.
Reid’s last hope that he is wrong about the so
ldier’s intent snaps as the gate glides shut behind them.
“It can’t be.” Marcus is muttering to himself. “This is impossible.”
And yet, it is true. Reid watches as a short, slim figure in a white lab coat rushes out of one of the buildings, long black hair flowing out behind her as she hurries to the injured hunter. The soldiers stop. The woman and creature talk. Reid tries to hear but his ears won’t obey him like his sense of smell did. The fact the hunters can talk is new but not overly shocking. He has suspected all along the creatures could speak, but has never heard one do so. And he is too far away to catch the sound of the thing’s voice with his normal hearing.
“Must be mercenaries.” Marcus has made some sort of arbitrary decision in his mind. Reid glances at him, sees his tortured expression smooth out to a grim and sullen scowl. “They must be using army uniforms to disguise themselves. But they have to be soldiers for hire.”
“Why is that?” Cole is still staring.
“Because,” Marcus says with so much conviction Reid almost believes him. Almost. “There is no way the U.S. Army would let anything like this happen.”
Reid wonders at Marcus’s loyalty and whether he means the army itself or is referring to his own father and the institution Marcus obviously has respect for.
“So now what do we do?” Milo sounds discouraged but not beaten and Reid is grateful. It’s almost as if seeing real live human beings behind all this makes it less horrifying and more infuriating. And while Reid suspected there was some sort of organization or company behind the experiment, finding out he was right makes him even more determined to escape.
