by Susan Kelley
“Mak, the world is richer for having you and your brothers in it.”
He turned back more because of the warm tone of her voice than her words. But the AI chirped an alarm. A blob of brightness had entered the outer reaches of the sensors. “Go back inside, Molly. Tell Pender and Box to get out here. The monster is on his way.”
Chapter Eight
It moved fast despite the dark. Superior eyesight and enhanced physical talents. At least there was only one of them. Without slowing, it changed its approach to make an arc around the village.
Mak set his two men in the middle of the town, one on each side of the street and taking shelter in a doorway. He warned them to take care not to catch each other in a crossfire. The AI showed the monster slowing down and tightening its arc. Was it trying to scent them or listening with its exceptional hearing? They had to assume it had all those things and maybe some they didn’t know about. He waited beside Pender until the monster paused twenty yards behind a house on the opposite side of the street.
He handed the AI to Pender and set his rifle against the wall where it would be within reach. “Don’t be heroic. If it gets by me shoot to kill. If it doesn’t go down, retreat. Don’t let it get close.”
Mak jogged across the street and gave the same orders to the surly corporal.
“Shouldn’t we wait for it here?” Box whispered.
“He’s acting wary and probably caught our scents when he circled the lab on his way in,” Mak answered. “He might not come in and then we’ll either have to hunt him down in that damned forest or wait for him to come again. Don’t shoot me by accident. Or on purpose.”
The night welcomed Mak beneath the trees. He trusted his camouflage to match the landscape and provide him with invisibility. Moving quietly had been drilled into him during years of harsh training. Not a breath of wind moved between the trees so even a simple rattle of a dried leaf could give him away. Or give away his prey to him. He moved from the cover of one tree to the next and then the next, pausing long enough to listen. He caught its odor before he heard it or saw it. Unwashed human overlaying a hint of carrion. It wasn’t time to speculate on how it lived or why it returned to the village again and again. That was for scientists, not for a soldier.
Mak ghosted a few yards deeper into the forest so he would approach it from behind. It crouched, a dark presence between the black trunks, facing the village and making an occasional sniffing noise. It edged forward, still in a crouch. He couldn’t tell how tall the monster stood but it had to twist slightly to get its broad shoulders between the trees. The silence of its stalking added to its menace. If the villagers had ever seen it, they would have left the planet on any transport that would take them.
The monster turned sideways, ruining any chance of a heart shot. Mak didn’t want to wound it and cause it to go berserk. Or it could run off, forcing them to track it through its home turf. Was anything more dangerous than a wounded wild thing? The way it hunkered in the shadows made a head shot unsure. He should have brought the rifle with its infrared scope. Mak took another silent step and then another so one less tree separated him from the monster. Its stench filled his nose.
With a loud huff, the monster sprang forward. It leaned and hunched its shoulders so its hands hung below its knees. Seeing its speed on the AI hadn’t prepared Mak to witness it close up. It dodged trees with a smooth agility that ruined Mak’s aim. His shot struck its side with a dull thud.
It growled and twisted, slapping at the wound. Mak ran after it, gaining on it despite its fleet feet. His next shot hit it mid-mass, but the thing didn’t drop as it should have. Again it absorbed the strike with little more than a grunt of discomfort. As it cleared the trees and entered the starlit street, Mak saw why. Monster or man, the thing wore some type of body armor. He shot at its legs.
It screamed and stumbled, finally stopping and turning to face Mak. The light fell on a craggy face sporting a tangled beard. It barred its teeth as him and growled. “Who?”
Mak hesitated, shocked at hearing it speak. Perhaps he should capture it so Molly could learn from it. If it could speak, perhaps it could be reasoned with. “Lieutenant. Stand down, soldier.”
Footsteps pounded toward them from the center of town. The man-thing tensed, muscles bulging across its wide form. Its mass would make three of him, yet it moved lightly on its feet.
“Kill it!” Box shouted. He walked around the man-thing’s right and Pender swung around on the left.
“Stay back,” Mak ordered. Too late.
It leaped sideways, swinging a massive fist at Box. The corporal flew into the front of the nearest house. His scream cut off with a crunch of bones.
Mak shot it again and nicked its ear. He ran toward the monster, shooting it again and again. It turned its back, hunching down and hiding its head. Blood dripped from its other wounds but none slowed it.
It reached for the unconscious or dead Box, its large hand spreading wide to grab his neck. Mak got there first, wrapping his hand around its thick thumb and throwing his weight back. The monster spun toward him and lifted Mak off his feet in an awful display of strength.
Mak released its thumb and dropped to the ground, ducking and rolling to avoid the barefooted kick zooming toward him. He pulled his knife as he came to his feet, darting under the next blow from a big fist and cutting at a dirt encrusted ankle. It bellowed and kicked at him. Its amazing swift kick caught his shoulder and sent him tumbling away. Mak lifted his pistol and shot it in the head.
It howled and blood spurted from its forehead. But instead of collapsing, it turned and ran down the middle of the street.
Pender sprinted across the road to Box’s side. Mak watched the man-thing disappear into the trees before joining them.
Box groaned and tried to sit up. He fell back with a gasp. “I think my ribs are broken.”
“Get the doctors, Pender,” Mak ordered. “Lie still, corporal.”
“I’m sorry I left my post, sir,” Box gasped.
Mak didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t excuse the man but there was no need to reprimand him now that his pain punished him with every breath.
Pender had dropped the AI beside Box. Mak picked it up, seeing the glowing outline of the creature nearing the outer boundary of the sensors.
“Why didn’t it go down when you shot it, sir?” Box asked.
“It had some kind of body armor on. I don’t know why my last shot to its head didn’t kill it. Stop talking and save your breath.”
Molly led the rush as Pender brought the doctors over. Her gaze swept over Mak before she knelt beside Box. “How are you doing, Andy?”
Mak pulled Pender aside a few steps and thrust the AI into his hands. “As soon as you can move him get everyone inside. You stay in the middle of the street and don’t take your eyes off of this. If it comes back on screen you call me. Then you get inside and wait for my all clear. You will not engage it unless it tries to break into one of the houses before I get back.”
“Back? Where are you going, sir?”
“I’m going after it.”
“In the dark?” Pender’s voice shook. “By yourself?”
“Do you understand your orders, Pender?” Mak took off as soon as the young man nodded. He snatched up his rifle from where he’d left it. Molly called out behind him, but he didn’t pause.
Blood splatters marked the trail into the trees. The monster’s path Mak had seen on the AI was etched in his brain. He barely slowed as he dodged trees, catching glimpses off glistening blood on a tree trunk now and then. In the still air of the forest the stench of his prey led as surely as his memory of its route did. He neared what he estimated was the reach of the sensors before slowing.
The length of the monster’s strides, judged by disturbances in the leaf litter and occasional marks on bare ground, indicated it wasn’t wounded enough to inhibit its strength and stamina. Mak slowed to give his ears and nose a better chance to help his eyes spot an ambush. If the mons
ter was clever enough to wear armor, speak and run from guns, it would know how to set a trap.
The monster had more than five minutes head start but if it lived close enough to the village to notice the arrival of ships its lair should be nearby. A distant tinkle of falling water slowed Mak even more. Anything of human origin needed water to live. The stench hung all around him now, useless to guide him in any one direction.
Mak took cover behind a tree and stilled his own breathing to silence. Beyond a stream cutting through the trees, he heard something else. He edged closer and distinguished mumbling and soft growling.
Mak hopped over the stream and land with a faint thump. The sounds stopped. A soft scoffing of a foot and then nothing. It knew.
Taking care where he set his feet, Mak drifted closer. He angled toward the source of the previous sounds. Among the deeper shadows beneath the trees a pile of twisted branches rose to head height. Another step closer and he realized it was a rough shelter of sorts. A ring of stones sat between him and the shelter though no scent of burning lingered. It used fire, built a shelter and spoke. He’d hesitated earlier when it spoke to him, his failure leading to Box’s injuries. No matter how human the monster seemed it had killed people.
He didn’t go closer to its home, its den. Too many shadows where his prey might lurk. Moving carefully so he didn’t scrape it against his clothing, Mak unslung his rifle and readied it. He hadn’t brought armor piercing ammunition, never having expected the monster to be wearing such equipment. That it had survived the pistol shot to its head mystified him. A rifle slug could penetrate the hull of a ship. Living bone would give before it.
Minutes passed, the forest air heavy with the dark presence of the monster. The night wore on while Mak held his position. He’d stood without moving for longer periods of time while spying on the enemy or waiting to flush out prey. Somewhere on the other side of the shelter something shifted. Something heavy. It sniffed at the air.
Mak’s rifle was the same camouflage as his clothing. As long as he didn’t move the monster wouldn’t spot him. It might be bigger, stronger and faster than him but it didn’t have his training, experience or patience. It rose slowly from behind its hovel, a blacker shadow against the dark. It held its head in its usual fashion, hunched between its broad shoulders and making a brain shot more difficult. Mak suspected the bone across its brow was extra thick and that had turned the pistol shot aside. He needed an eye, ear or at worst a temple shot to kill it.
It swung its head around, twisting at the torso as if its neck couldn’t rotate. As it turned toward Mak a shaft of starlight glinted in its eyes. Almost as if fate itself had offered its hand. Mak took the shot.
The powerful round knocked it backwards. The monster caromed off a tree and then fell against another. Air gusted from its dead lungs as it slid down the thick trunk to the ground.
Mak jerked the thin light tube from his belt and held it against the side of his rifle as he moved forward. Tremors ran through the thick slabs of muscles in the monster’s legs, sending its bare feet to twitching.
As Mak passed by the entrance to the hovel the odor made his stomach roll. He watched the monster from six feet away until its limbs stilled. Its chest didn’t move, and no sound of breathing broke the forest’s heavy quiet. He didn’t want to touch it, but he checked for a pulse on its short thick neck. None.
Mak stood up and slung his rifle across his back again. He would have to bring the doctors out here. They would want their samples, pictures and would make notes. The poor bastard would continue to be nothing but a failed experiment, dead without ever having a real life. No glory. No honor. But at least he would no longer suffer from whatever drove him to the village. Mak slapped his fist to his heart. “Sorry, brother.”
****
“You decide,” Mak snapped, the closest thing to a show of temper Molly had seen in the Recon Marine. He walked over to Box, asking him how he was doing.
Daylight fought through the thick forest of trunks surrounding the village and gave everything a gray look. But enough light for Molly to see the determination in her colleagues’ eyes.
Mak had ordered one doctor to remain behind and escort Andy to the ship. The corporal suffered from a minor concussion and two cracked ribs. Pender would remain behind in the village to fix the solar cells the village relied on for their power. The people had received their order of new storage batteries for the old-fashioned sun-catchers months before, but the old connections wouldn’t couple with the new batteries.
Molly sighed, dreading making the decision. Mak’s plan made sense. They didn’t have the supplies with them to heal Andy’s head injury and it needed to be done. “I’m sorry, Helen, but you have more experience treating actual injuries. I would feel better if you helped Andy.”
Helen pressed her lips together and gave a short nod. She unslung her pack and took out bottles and tubes to hand to Hector. “Get lots of pictures for me. Hair samples, blood, skin and stomach contents.”
“We’ll get everything,” Hector said, looking relieved and guilty at the same time.
Mak helped Andy to his feet and then walked over to join them. He nodded at Helen. “Thank you for taking care of my man, doctor.”
“Part of my job, lieutenant.” Helen strode off with Andy, her short quick strides indicative of her anger.
“You will stay behind me until we get to the camp. It’s about four miles.” Mak set off at a brisk walking pace.
Molly fell in behind him with Hector taking up the rear. The light seemed more like twilight beneath the trees, but it was bright enough for her to study Mak’s back. His camouflage uniform fit him a little too well, emphasizing his lean hips and small waist. She could have used him as a model to teach first year medical students muscle anatomy. Every muscle that bunched and stretched beneath his skin looked tensed and ready for battle. “Do you expect trouble, Mak?”
He didn’t slow or turn. “No.”
Hector snorted with a short bark of laughter.
Mak did stop and turn then. “There’s nothing funny out here, Dr. Loren.”
Molly touched his arm. “He knows that, Mak. Sometimes people laugh when they’re nervous.”
Mak narrowed his eyes, looking from her to Hector and back again. “That makes no logical sense.”
“Maybe we would be less nervous if you’d share some details of what to expect when we get there.” Molly smiled and squeezed his arm a little.
Mak’s dark blue eyes looked black in the dim lighting. He put his hand over top of hers for just a moment and then turned out of her reach. They walked for another ten minutes before he spoke. His deep voice sounded flat in the still air beneath the trees or perhaps the emotions he suppressed flattened his tone. “One dead subject. He built a shelter and made a fire pit. It smells like he ate mostly meat and perhaps even carrion.”
“Was he as large as Andy and Kory claimed?” Molly knew fear could inflate the size of an enemy.
“Close to nine feet tall if he stood erect,” Mak said in the same even tone. “He moved in a hunched matter like his head was too heavy. I hit him in the forehead with a pistol round and the metal projectile bounced off his skull. You’ll see the damage on his body.”
“Is its head overlarge or would you guess its brain was smaller than a human?” Molly found the forest less oppressive when Mak was talking.
“His head was larger than any person I’ve ever seen, but the skull had to be very thick so I don’t know about brain size.”
“How did it construct its den?” Hector asked.
Mak didn’t answer immediately. When he did there was something else in his voice. “It wasn’t a den like an animal makes. The construction compared to what I’ve seen settlers on out worlds make. I’d guess the shelter has been there for quite a while. Poles cut and tied together with smaller branches, bushes and moss used to make it weather proof.”
“All this time out here alone,” Hector mumbled.
Molly understo
od what Hector left unsaid. If the work of the scientists on it hadn’t driven it insane, being alone would have made sure of it.
“I’m not sure he was alone all that time,” Mak said. “Quiet now. We’re almost there.”
Molly didn’t understand why they had to be careful when Mak said there was no more danger. She sensed he just didn’t want to answer any more questions.
Nary a breeze found a path through the maze of trees but the odor drifted to them anyway. Molly had smelled her share of dead bodies before, but this rot seemed older and deeper as if the dead had been piled on top of older dead for years. A few more steps and the stench of an unwashed body joined the first noxious odor.
A small clearing, not more than thirty feet in diameter, opened in front of them. Flat stones, obviously chosen with intent, had been piled two high in a circle on the edge of the clearing nearest to them. Only a few steps from it rose the hovel Mak had described. It was shaped like an upside down bowl with a wide opening facing the fire. It looked sturdy and weathered.
Mak walked over to the body, staring down at it while his hand gripped the butt of his pistol. The monster had fallen away from its home so Molly saw mostly the bottom of its feet. She took off her pack and found her light. It could be hung or set on a flat base. She carried it over to Mak’s side with Hector trailing along behind.
A large dark eye stared up at the canopy. A gaping hole filled with congealed blood took the place of the other eye.
They’d heard the echoes of the single rifle shot back in the village, but the evidence of Mak’s superb marksmanship impressed her much as he had done before. She’d thought she’d known everything there was to know about soldiers, but this Recon Marine continued to prove her wrong. “You killed it by shooting through its eye?”
“Even in a protective helmet the eye is a vulnerable spot.” Mak gestured at the body. “Get what you need.”
