The knife buzzed in my hand.
“OOOF!” A sound like wind leaving bellows came from the monster, and my tree branch swayed as she hit our trap. She sprawled flat on her stomach, one ankle still caught on the bungee cord.
I jumped from the tree, knife at the ready, intending to land on her back. But she wasn’t down for the count; she rolled over fast and I hit the dirt on my knees. I sprang up, then ducked as she swung a giant paw at my head. She rounded and slashed me across the collarbone, tearing my skin.
Ignoring the pain, I swung the knife, aiming for a torso strike. She danced away. Pausing just long enough to steal a pointed look at my knife, she took off running in the same direction as Will.
I chased her, huffing and puffing, but lost sight of her in the dark. After five minutes, I slowed, then stopped. The She-Bear was gone, I’d lost my wingman, and my lungs felt shredded. Out of ideas, I squatted down to take a drink of water. How in the world would I find Will? Had the monster caught up with him? Did my stupid idea get him killed out here somewhere?
No, I had to keep believing he was smart enough to hide from her. So I’d wait. Watch.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, I’d gotten worried enough to consider risking a text message to see if Will was safe when I heard footsteps pounding my direction. Certain it was the She-Bear coming back to find me, I scaled the nearest tree to watch the trail. Shouldn’t have bothered, though—Will’s wheezes could be heard from fifty feet away. I slid down the trunk and waved him down.
“Dude…I saw the…monster run by and…then you went by, too….I was…hiding off the trail….I can’t believe…she ran away! She didn’t even stop…and I’m sure she smelled me.” Will sank down on the forest floor, laid flat on his back, and stretched his arms over his head.
“I can’t believe it either. It was weird, man. She stared at the knife, like she knew what it was, and just took off,” I said. “We need to find her. Let’s go back to where the prints met up with the other monster’s. If nothing else, we can look for it instead.”
Will grunted. “Only plan we got.”
We headed back to the original trail and picked up the larger monster’s prints. After winding around the woods for an hour, we came to the edge of the state park where I’d camped with Mike. This creature had ventured into more populated areas, but we didn’t find the Bear or its resting place.
“Think we need to call off the search, try again tomorrow?” Will asked. He wandered to the side of the trail, examining the brush for tracks.
I shrugged. “Maybe—”
There was a loud rustle to our right. With a roar, the She-Bear vaulted out of another camouflaged hole in the ground. She hit the ground running, coming for us. Swinging a giant forearm, she knocked Will off his feet. He flew backward and crashed into a pile of dead leaves.
She straightened up, glancing at the knife like before. A growl rattled in her throat. “Blade.”
So they knew what I carried. My knees trembled as I stood ready for an assault. But she didn’t move. Neither did I. It was an impasse.
Wits, decisiveness. That’s what it takes, Archer.
Yes, sir.
Without thinking, I ran right at her. She reached out to grab me, but at the last minute I slid down on my hip like a base runner stealing second. I hurtled under her arms and through her legs. Before she could spin around, I stabbed the backs of her knees and butted her with my shoulder. Rolling hard, I got away before she crashed down on top of me, then finished her with a quick stab in the back.
Gasping, I staggered over to Will.
He sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “Man, that hurt.”
“You lose consciousness?” I asked, checking his eyes for a dilated pupil with my penlight.
“No. Just had the wind knocked out of me and racked up a dozen more bruises.” He took my offered hand and stood. “Can we call it a night, finish this hunt tomorrow? We’re both pretty beat up.”
A woman’s screams pierced the air.
Will stiffened. “Guess not.”
“Sounds like we’ve found the big one,” I said, sheathing the knife. “Which way?”
He pointed northwest. “Campgrounds are that way. We should start there.”
We ran through the pines, fighting branches and pine needles, to a campsite two-hundred yards away. Through the trees, I saw two young women, bundled up in ski jackets and watch caps, huddled together in the remains of a destroyed tent. Another monster, a big, solid-brown male, stood over them.
A bright LED lantern swung wildly from a tree branch above their heads, giving the scene a strobe effect. We’d never seen two monsters in one night, and the sight of that Bear hunched over the girls reminded me way too much of my camping trip with Mike. One girl crouched in front of the other one, waving a cast-iron camp skillet.
A shudder ran through me as the beast sniffed at them. I was surprised he hadn’t killed them yet. They screamed louder, acting too scared to run. The first girl brandished her skillet. She got a good swing in, but the monster batted it away like a fly. The pan flew across the clearing and crashed into the bushes at the back of the campsite
Time to move.
As I started forward, Will grabbed my arm and spun me around. He pulled my ski mask down over my face. “They can’t know who we are.”
“Dude, I can’t see well enough with this thing on,” I rolled the mask back up. “I’ll distract them, lead him away. You get the girls and run, okay? We’ll meet here after I kill him.”
“Put. Your. Mask. On,” Will snapped.
“Get a grip! We don’t have time for this” I said. The monster circled the girls, laughing. Like he was playing with his food before he ate it. I shifted through the trees. “Who cares if they see us? We gotta go!”
“You sit behind her every single day and you don’t recognize the crazy lime-green ski jacket she’s wearing?” Will pulled his mask over his face. “That’s Ella, you moron!”
Chapter Twenty
Ella!
Forgetting all my tactics, I slammed through the trees, pulling my mask in place as I ran. I skidded into the clearing in a shower of pine needles and ran straight for the monster.
“Hey, ugly,” I called, making my voice as deep and tough as I could to disguise it. I yanked the knife from my thigh pocket. “You want to play? Let’s see you pick on someone who likes a fight.”
The Bear took a few steps away, frowning when I came between him and the girls.
“You coming after me, or what?” I asked. “I don’t have all night.”
Ella squeaked, but I didn’t spare her a glance, concentrating on the big beast. He watched me, too, staring at the knife. Without warning, he pounced. Swiping a huge paw, he whacked me in the arm, knocking me off-balance. I landed hard on my hip; the knife flew out of my hand. The monster leapt my direction, claws extended.
Thunk! The sound of metal hitting bone. The lid from a cast-iron Dutch oven rolled by.
The Bear turned back to the girls with a roar. I scrabbled in the dirt for the knife and pulled myself up, shoulders throbbing. Ella was on her knees, clutching a metal roasting fork. The other girl, who must’ve been Ella’s sister, crouched in front of Ella, holding the Dutch oven like she planned to toss that, too. The sister’s hands were shaking; the handle of the cook pot tapped an uneven rhythm against its side as it trembled.
Will’s masked face appeared at the edge of the clearing. He gave me a quick nod. I took a deep breath, feeling the adrenaline take over.
“What, you’re not gonna try to kill the blade-wielder? I know you know what this is.” I held up the knife. “I’m the one who’s been taking care of your friends. I’d want revenge if I were you. But maybe you’re chicken.”
The Bear’s roar was joined by shrill screams from the girls. Will dove out of the bushes and reached for them. I ran into the trees as fast as I could. From the sound of breaking branches and pine cone grenades flying at my head, it was safe to ass
ume the monster was giving chase. The trees grew denser, the path smaller, until needles were snagging my ski mask from both sides.
Just what I wanted.
I plowed ahead, ducking under as many branches as I could. The monster had a harder time getting through the tight space. He became tangled in the smaller, whip-like twigs while trying to shove his way through using brute strength. But the thinner wood wouldn’t tear or crack—the twigs bent instead. Too angry to quit, he thrashed on until he was stuck in a spider-web of pine branches, the needles tangled in his fur.
After he stopped moving forward, I crawled on my belly and forearms through the little space below the branches. I got several yards away from the Bear, then lay flat on the ground, staring at his feet, to give my heart time to slow down. The monster couldn’t move, sure, but I couldn’t get close. The knife vibrated in my hand.
“I know, I know,” I whispered back. “But short of playing darts and throwing you at him, we’re momentarily hosed.”
The knife shuddered violently.
I jumped. Was it responding to me or just excited for a kill? “Um, play darts?”
A long buzz.
“But I suck at darts. You’ll probably end up lost.”
I paused as the monster roared, sounding more like a lion than anything else. Whole trees swayed as he struggled to free himself.
An insistent buzz.
Maybe the knife knew more than I did. “Have it your way.”
I stood. When the monster saw my face, he howled and spit and flailed about. “Kill mun! Et mun!”
“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” I shouted back. “Got anything new?”
“Hut gul. Hut gul, bad!” He chuckled and licked his lips. “Kill gul! Et gul, slow!”
Fury flooded my bloodstream. We’d see about him hurting Ella. Not if I was still alive and kicking.
“That was the wrong thing to say.” I unsheathed the knife, shaking with anger. The handle glowed with ice-blue fire and I gave it a squeeze. “Hit your mark.”
I flung it, putting all my fear for Ella into the throw. Like a heat-seeking missile, the knife danced through the branches, not catching on a single pine needle and drove into the monster’s eye. There was a green flash, then the knife was still. And the monster was dead, its good eye dark and unseeing.
I dropped to the ground to catch my breath, wondering what was up with my knife. I got that it was magic, but what else? Knives didn’t have guidance systems, yet this one had flown into the Bear’s head like it was magnetically attracted to it. The knife’s handle flickered blue, as if to remind me that I needed to collect it. Wearily, I pushed myself up.
With the way the Bear was hanging in the branches, I had no clue how we’d hide it. Heck, Colonel Black’s team might have to cut down the trees to get it out. I crawled to the body and pulled the knife free, shuddering at the sight of brain, blood, and eyeball staining the blade. I cleaned it with some dried pine needles before heading for camp.
Making my way back to the clearing was harder than the trip out without panic to speed me up. The little camp was empty, but the girls had left firewood in the ring and I found a lighter in a pile of stuff that had been dumped on the ground. There was no telling when Will would return from taking Ella and her sister to safety. I was exhausted; a little rest sounded good, so I made a campfire. I spied a bag of marshmallows, still unopened and whole, and laughed. Kill a monster, have a s’more.
I found Ella’s discarded roasting fork, popped three puffs onto the end and hung them over the flames. While they roasted, I pulled my ski mask off, enjoying the fresh air on my sweaty head. The marshmallows turned black and crusty and, with a contented sigh, I pulled one loose, stretching the trails of goo still stuck to the metal. I crammed it into my mouth before it cooled too much. When the goo hit my tongue, I groaned out loud. Sugar was exactly what I needed.
Although, that also meant my teeth were stuck together when Will called to me. I could see his shadow through the trees. He must’ve spotted the fire—dead giveaway as to who won the fight. I pried my teeth apart to give him crap about taking so long, when two shadows broke away from his.
“Uh, Ma-, um, we’re coming back,” Will shouted. “Is it safe?”
He knew it was—he was warning me to put my stupid mask back on. I turned around and pulled the wool over my sticky face. “Yeah, come on up.”
Will led the two girls into the firelight. Ella had smudges of dirt on her thick, green ski jacket and her jeans. She’d lost her watch cap along the way. Auburn strings of hair hung in her face, having escaped her ponytail, and her cheeks were scraped. I wanted to touch the scrapes, tell her they’d get better. She was shaking so I led her to the campfire then eased her to the ground. A sleeping bag had survived the rampage. I draped it around her shoulders and tucked the ends under her legs.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “Are you hurt?”
She touched the hole in my coveralls where the She-Bear had slashed my collarbone. Something like electric shock buzzed my body.
Trying not to react, I lowered my voice again and said, “Just a scratch. Don’t even feel it.”
But if she wanted to kiss it and make it better…my mind wandered and in a flash she grabbed the edge of my ski mask. Not quite as hysterical as she acted. Fast, too.
“Nice try.” I jumped back. “No peeking.”
The older girl stepped closer to the fire. She was at least twenty, tall and slim, with dark blonde hair in a tight braid and Ella’s green eyes.
“We just got attacked by Bigfoot,” the sister said, “and two teenagers dressed up like commandos came flying out of the bushes to rescue us.” She crossed her arms. “I think we’re owed a few answers, don’t you?”
Ella snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag. “Alyssa, they saved our lives, maybe we should cut them a break.” She smiled at me and it felt like the ground shifted under my feet. “Don’t mind my sister. She gets mad when she’s scared. The madder she gets, the closer she is to losing it. She needs to take it easy.”
Alyssa, looking more than a little pale, crossed her arms tighter. “I’m fine.”
“It’s perfectly normal to be upset,” Will said. “You’ve had a big shock.”
Will kept using this deep, big-man voice, like we were superheroes “Aw shucks-ing” the damsels. I held in a laugh and took over before he got carried away. “We can’t let you know who we are. This is part of a military operation…our identities have to stay secret.” I crouched down next to Ella. “So do the monsters. If people find out, they’ll panic.”
But Alyssa wasn’t giving up so easily. “You don’t sound or look old enough to be real soldiers. How old are you? Seventeen? “ Kind of flattering that she thought we were seventeen, but when we didn’t answer her, she threw up her hands. “Ella, grab your stuff, we’re leaving.”
Will stepped in front of Alyssa. “We’ll let you go. Just don’t tell anyone what you saw.”
Alyssa snorted and gave Will a shove. She was only a few inches shorter than he was, even if he outweighed her by forty or so pounds. “How could you stop me?” she asked. “You don’t even know who we are.”
Thinking fast, I grabbed a backpack and pulled the name tag off of it. “Ella Mitchell, 1153 Broadmoor Lane?”
Ella actually snickered as Alyssa stormed toward me and yanked the tag out of my hands. “Cretin!”
Will glanced at me. I shrugged. There were some people you couldn’t please, life-saving heroics or not. I rubbed the back of my neck, really tired of the nonsense. “Look,” I said, “telling people would only put lives in danger. Thrill-seekers would come hunting for the Bears. Help us out, okay?”
Alyssa stared at me with her mouth open. Her face went from pale to gray in the firelight.
“Bears? Wait – you called that…that…thing a bear?” Alyssa started to sound hysterical. “And there are more of them?”
“That wasn’t the only one, no. And they look like mutated grizzlies, so we code-name
d them Bears,” I answered. They already knew the creatures existed, so I figured telling the rest wouldn’t hurt. “But you can call it a monster, or Bigfoot. Whatever you want.”
With that, Alyssa fainted.
* * *
Heaving a long sigh, Ella spread the sleeping bag around her sister. “Told you she was about to crack. She’s all action until the danger’s over then, poof, she collapses.”
Alyssa didn’t stay unconscious long, but she wasn’t in any shape to move yet. She sat crossed-legged, staring at the fire. Will, with more finesse than I would’ve guessed, sat down and put an arm around her, murmuring who knew what in her ear. Alyssa curled up against him and laid her head on his chest. He winked at me, a half-smirk visible through the mouth hole of his mask. I couldn’t get a date with a girl my own age, and there he was, cuddling with a twenty-year-old. Nice.
Once everyone was settled, I wandered off to call the colonel for some advice. “The She-Bear is hidden but the male’s tangled up and so are we. I’m not sure what we need to do, other than send the girls on their way.”
The colonel grunted. “That’s quite a situation, Archer. You’re just a magnet for trouble, aren’t you?”
“Um…okay. Any ideas?” I asked.
“Sorry, son, I didn’t mean to make light of your predicament. I’ll try to pull a crew together tonight. If we rush deployment, I can have them there in six hours to cut the Bear down before anyone finds it.”
“Thank you, sir. And about the girls? I mean, we never set protocol for meeting up with civilians.”
“For now, make sure they get back to their vehicle safely,” he said. “I’ll send someone from Military Intelligence out to talk to the young ladies either tomorrow or Sunday. M.I. will debrief them and help them understand keeping the monsters secret is an issue of national security.”
“Yes, sir. Thanks for the help.” I ended the call and went to tell everyone the plan.
Will and I let the girls rest while we packed up camp and doused the fire. We salvaged what we could, but the tent was a total loss. Once we loaded everything into their utility wagon, I dragged it while Will walked Alyssa down the trail with his arm around her waist.
Matt Archer: Monster Hunter Page 17
