Rise of the Night Stalkers

by Kurtis Eckstein

I was cautious of my surroundings while walking down the street, my tail swaying low to the ground behind me, approaching the hole in the building where all the Stalkers had come from. However, so far, I didn’t hear or otherwise sense anything.

  It was quiet.

  No birds, no insects. Nothing.

  It was almost as if the commotion earlier had scared all sources of life into hiding, even though it had been a bit since the fight. Granted, that didn’t mean it had been long since the twenty-something Night Stalkers returned to their makeshift cave.

  As I examined the four bodies in the street, I was a little surprised there weren’t more. Thinking back to the battle, I felt like I had at least injured a good eight or nine of them, yet half that number were actually deceased. The one I had bitten on the neck was of course gone too, since my venom had just a temporary effect of knocking them out. Not that I would have recognized them if they were here, other than by the bite, considering everything happened so fast that I didn’t get a good look at any of them. But, upon seeing the ones I had killed, I could remember inflicting their wounds.

  One of the dead Stalkers was the decapitated humanoid – my first victim. Another had been one of the four-legged monsters that I had impaled through the skull. It was also probably the least human looking out of the ones I had to choose from, largely because it looked like a hard-shelled werewolf, with a very odd shaped head.

  Granted, I had shoved my bladed tail straight through its skull, so of course it was warped, but even without the gaping hole in its face, it was obvious the monster was different. The armored face was kind of flat and triangular shaped, as if someone had stuffed a werewolf in a suit of black armor and then stuck a triangular hammer-head shark’s skull on top.

  It was just…bizarre, to say the least.

  But in my opinion, it was the perfect pick, because if I was going to try eating one of these things, then I’d rather sample the one that looked the least human. The problem was that it was also almost directly in front of the hole, whereas I had another viable humanoid a lot closer.

  Was it worth the risk?

  Deciding just to get this over with, rather than debate about it forever, I carefully crept towards the opening, pausing for a moment to listen. Once I was sure I didn’t hear anything, I slowly began reaching around the creature’s torso and lifting it onto my shoulder.

  I then carefully made my escape, only to freeze in place when I heard the sound of an engine in the distance.

  Stupid humans!

  The noise wasn’t that loud, but I wasn’t about to chance getting bombarded by the horde again, so I picked up the pace, silently commanding Harper to watch my back since she could see my entire surroundings, making sure she would warn me if I was about to be attacked. At the same time, I glanced up toward the building where I had left her, only to see that she was already peeking over the edge, her gray face reserved, her red eyes tight with concern, and her white hair fluttering in the gentle breeze. Enough of her body and head were hidden that none of her black casing was visible, except for what was on her hands.

  For a moment, her expression was confusing – why the concern? Did she actually care about what happened to me, unlike how I felt? After all, I was just a stranger to her, even if everyone else was also a stranger now too.

  But then I realized the obvious, considering she had said it herself. An arm can’t survive without the body, and likewise her survival partially depended on me. Which meant, if I ended up dead, then it likely wouldn’t be long before she followed suit. All it would take is just one or two nights in the hellish nightmare that existed in the Hell Zones, and she’d be done for.

  Keeping my head turned to the side to ensure I didn’t have a Stalker creeping up on me, I made my way back to the building where Harper waited, feeling a little more relaxed once I entered the alleyway and began hoisting the body up the fire escape. I was far too large to use the stairs, especially with my wings, but I had no problem climbing the railings along the sides, even with the extra weight.

  At the top, the little gremlin greeted me, but her expression remained reserved as she eyed our potential meal.

  Knowing it had to be done, I just got right to it, plopping the creature down on the tar-pitched roof and grabbing its arm to dig in.

  Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad.

  It wasn’t exactly tasty either, but I had no complaints, unexpectedly finding myself a lot more comfortable about this arrangement. After swallowing my bite, I took another larger one, trying to compare the texture to what I recalled about human food.

  The best I could come up with was a combination of two different foods, as if someone had layered almonds over a peach or kiwi – a combination of hard and crunchy, along with soft and juicy. Part of me wanted to throw chicken into the equation somewhere, but I felt like the peach analogy was more accurate.

  In the end, the taste wasn’t overly appealing by itself, but what really made it appetizing was the texture. Enough so that my earlier reservations completely vanished after my second bite.

  This really wasn’t so bad after all.

  In response to all my thoughts, Harper slowly worked up the courage to try it herself, beginning to nibble on the other arm.

  ‘Bite deeper,’ I told her silently, knowing she wasn’t going to understand the appeal if she just chipped off some of the monster’s armor.

  She obeyed, only for her red slitted eyes to widen when she finally got it. Then, she revealed just how hungry she was by picking up the pace, biting out huge chunks of the armored arm and barely chewing before she swallowed.

  Curious about her stats now, I pulled it up to see if she had gained any new points to distribute.

  Determining available resources…

  Distributable Resources: 0

  Detecting digestion process initiation…

  Estimating subsequent resource availability…

  Estimated Resources Processing: 1

  Estimated availability in 000:00:00:00:27:58:429

  What the hell? It was only estimating one?! One point?! Was it just because she had started eating? Surely it must be! And on top of that, it looked like it wouldn’t even be available for half an hour, assuming the timer was measuring milliseconds, seconds, minutes…

  And then I supposed hours, days, months, years?

  I hoped I always saw zeroes for those spots, because I wasn’t looking forward to having to wait months or years for something to happen. Honestly, I’d prefer that it just didn’t show all those zeros if they weren’t relevant…

  Instantly, some of the zeros vanished.

  Estimated availability in 00:27:58:429

  Being a little disturbed by this foreign system reacting to my thoughts like that, I focused back on the primary issue – the insignificant single point it was showing.

  Like, based on the fact that Harper had 49 distributable points to start off with, not to mention the points dedicated towards a couple of other tasks, I had assumed that eating a meal would provide more than a single point! Like, holy shit, it would take forever to increase our stats at this rate!

  “I’ll eat as much as I can,” Harper whispered between mouthfuls.

  I just shook my head in disbelief at the situation, hoping that I was jumping the gun due to my eagerness to be able to talk for myself. Deciding to check my own stats screen, I ended up seeing the same message, and even the same estimated resource availability of one.

  Damn.

  After a few more bites, I gave up on the endeavor, because I wasn’t hungry anyway and my distributable resources hadn’t increased at all. It was still only estimating one.

  Like, how in the hell did I gain so many points in the first place? Had I really eaten that much in the last five months?

  Because it had to be the full five months that I had been a monster. I didn’t see any other way for me to have come out on top as being one of the stronger ones if I hadn’t been one of the first, especially if I was only gaining a point or
two per meal.

  Harper was continuing to eat, but it was obvious she was filling up quickly, given her small frame and associated small belly. No doubt she wouldn’t be able to stomach too many more bites.

  Sighing, I walked to the edge of the building to peer down below at the other bodies. If it was possible to eat an entire Night Stalker in one sitting, then we might be in business, but it didn’t seem like either of us could eat any more than a human would be capable of doing.

  Which was a big problem.

  As my gaze focused on Harper’s stat screen again, I saw that she had just reached an estimated two resources. Just two!

  Dammit!

  I swiped at the air, as if I could physically affect the hallucination, while mentally dismissing it at the same time. It was petty, stupid even, but bitch-slapping it out of existence made me feel a little bit better.

  A little.

  Staring off into the distance, my gaze roamed over the massive skyscraper-like spikes towering out of the ground, seemingly stabbing into the sky as far as I could see. What a sight. It would almost be possible to forget that the world had gone to shit if it weren’t for these structures, with many of them having made the roads untraversable in spots, turning the entire city into a maze of sorts.

  It wasn’t necessarily a difficult maze to navigate, but a person couldn’t just hop on a road and follow it forever. Eventually, they’d probably come across a humongous black roadblock they’d have to get around.

  It was while examining the horizon, with my gaze slowly moving downward by following the road, that I noticed something in the distance. Something I had forgotten about.

  Something significant.

  ‘Stop eating,’ I ordered in my thoughts.

  Harper complied and jumped to her feet to dash over to me. “What is it?” she asked, her eyes finding what I had seen. An indistinct black object resting on a car’s roof.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted silently, knowing she was asking specifically what the object was. ‘Honestly, it looked like some kind of massive pill-bug,’ I explained. ‘But your sister compared it to an isopod from when the dinosaurs existed.’

  “Is she really my sister?” Harper unexpectedly asked.

  I glanced down at her, considering her question for a moment. ‘When I showed up with your brother, she bolted outside even though I could have easily killed her. She was terrified, but she risked her life when she saw him in my arms. And then, when I was leaving, she became focused on finding you. The man that is supposedly your grandpa tried to stop her, but she refused, determined to find you even if it cost her life in the process. If that’s not the behavior of a sister, or mother if she were older, then I don’t know what is.’

  I paused to evaluate her reserved expression, before continuing. ‘Considering that there are plenty of siblings who would hand over their brother or sister to save their own skin, what do you think? I have no idea if I had siblings as a human, but I doubt they would have risked their lives for me like that.’

  “I just don’t remember her at all,” she whispered.

  I shrugged. It wasn’t my problem either way. Alternatively, checking out this other possible food source was my problem.

  Harper already knew what I wanted, so she climbed onto the base of my tail, and then proceeded to use it as a foothold like last time to stand between my wings in order to wrap herself around me. The moment she was in place, I leapt into the sky and glided down the road, aiming for my new target.

  Landing as softly as possible to avoid making too much noise, Harper jumped down and we both walked over to the mysterious pill-bug, isopod thing.

  “Think maybe it was a little kid that just kind of turned into a blob?” Harper wondered, her brow furrowed as she looked it over.

  I scoffed humorlessly. ‘Like you?’ I asked in my thoughts.

  Surprisingly, she looked up and glared at me. “I’m not that little.”

  ‘Little enough,’ I commented.

  She scoffed this time. “If I was really ten, then I think they classify that as preteen.”

  ‘Yeah, meaning annoying little kid.’

  Harper growled this time, but didn’t continue the argument, probably because making me irritated wasn’t in her best interest.

  Focusing on the shell before us, I poked it with my tail to make sure it was really dead, before taking a closer look. However, even on closer inspection, there wasn’t a lot of detail to see.

  Just like all the other Night Stalkers, it had a hard black shell that covered its entire body – except for the abdomen – but it didn’t have segmentation like an insect. Granted, I also didn’t really have segmentation either, except in places like my tail where it could extend to three times its normal size.

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure how this creature could be so flexible with such a hard shell, but I suppose it probably wasn’t much different than Harper’s softer version of skin. It would be like the difference between leather and rubber, except harder – even something as hard as metal could be malleable under the right pressure and conditions.

  And I knew I certainly had no problems with movement, even though my hard midnight covering was practically seamless. Oddly enough, I recalled seeing a bunch of tentacles coming out of this thing right after I had stabbed it in midair, but on closer inspection, I didn’t see any such appendages at all.

  Had I imagined it?

  Normally, I didn’t think I would so easily doubt my memory, but I was seeing game-like hallucinations after all.

  But surely it had to move somehow, right?

  I also didn’t notice anything that looked like a face – no indication that there were eyes or a mouth, which made it seem less likely that it had once been a kid. Shoot, for all I knew, it could have been a dog or something. I mean, did anyone even know if things other than humans were turning into monsters? What if the creature we had tried eating on the roof was originally a bear or something?

  That would certainly explain why I was less hesitant to eat it, other than the obvious fact that it didn’t look nearly as humanoid.

  Unexpectedly, Harper spoke up again, revealing her mind had never left our previous conversation. “But even you said I was smarter than you’d expect a ten-year-old to be.”

  ‘Your point?’ I asked absentmindedly as I continued to inspect the mysterious carcass.

  “I’m more mature than I was.”

  ‘So? You’re still ten.’

  “I mean, that has to count for something!” she exclaimed a little too loudly.

  I glared at her. ‘Not so loud, unless you want me to feed you to the horde just down the street.’

  She gulped, her red eyes wide, because she knew I was somewhat serious.

  ‘Why does it even matter?’ I added silently, a little annoyed now.

  Her response was quick. “Because I don’t like being looked down on just because of my age. I’m smarter than a human ten-year-old, and I can get stronger. I can be useful.”

  I looked down at her with a firm expression. ‘You want to be useful?’ I asked her mentally, pointing at the dead creature. ‘Then start eating.’

  Chapter 8: Attack

  While Harper began biting into the isopod carcass, I looked at my own stats, wondering if I should attempt to investigate the details of each section, since it was obvious that clicking on a particular stat revealed a lot more information. However, there were two reasons why I was hesitant.

  First, we had a sleeping horde just down the street, and I didn’t want to chance getting blindsided by an attack. And the second reason was simply because I was frustrated as hell that I only had one resource point, figuring that looking at any skills that were far out of reach would just irritate me more.

  Such as the Language Acquisition Skill Stage 4 that cost 100 Connection points. Thankfully, I didn’t care to have that ability at all, so it wasn’t a big deal, but if I had wanted that skill then it would be annoying to consider that it would be a whopping 285 po
ints for me to reach that level!

  Like, that was over two-hundred meals at this rate!

  Maybe I could manage it in only a hundred meals, averaging 3 points per exciting dining experience, but that could still be over a month just to achieve that one skill. And sure, I’d have obtained other skills along the way, but I wanted to get stronger in days, maybe weeks, but not months or longer.

  So my personal preference was to wait until I discovered a viable way to earn resource points first, if such a method even existed, and then worry about what my possible expenditures might be.

  At the very least, by having Harper eat some of this monster, I was hoping to get some insight into whether or not eating different types of Night Stalkers affected how many resource points could be obtained. It was sort of a shot in the dark, but at this point it was all I had to go on.

  Shoot, for all I knew, the number of resources that were obtainable might be dependent on how many resources the enemy Stalker had available to allocate. So, like when Harper had 49 points, if one of the monsters had killed and eaten her, then they could have obtained a maximum of 49 points. Whereas now that she had zero points, they would gain zero.

  Granted, that was just one of two theories I had going, but I wouldn’t know unless I experimented. If seemingly two of the same kind of monster allowed for two different points values to be obtained from eating part of an arm, then it would make this second hypothesis more likely.

  But I wouldn’t have a clue until I saw some variance.

  If we kept running into Night Stalkers who provided the same amount of resource points, then it would make it seem like there were no other options, whether or not that was true.

  Switching over to Harper’s screen to have it calculate the estimated resources she would have available in thirty minutes, I froze when I unexpectedly heard gunfire in the distance.

  Dammit, stupid humans!

  Why in the hell did they have to make so much noise! They were seriously pissing me off!