“Someone’s going to meet you here and drive you to the helipad,” the captain said. “You feeling better?”
“Yeah. The pill helped. Good to get some sleep, too.” I unbuckled the harness and stretched, wondering if I’d ever get the strap marks off my shoulders.
The captain popped the canopy open. “All right, end of the line. Everybody out.”
A U.S. serviceman in Army BDUs hooked a ladder against the plane’s side. I unfolded my knees and stood up slowly. All my joints creaked or popped. Seriously considering kissing the ground, I climbed down the ladder then planted my feet on the hangar floor in relief.
“You’re with me, kid,” someone barked in a stern baritone.
The voice belonged to a master sergeant standing by a small green jeep at the front of the hanger. He was wiry, with sandy blond hair in the typical “high-and-tight” haircut. I headed his way. He gave me a long stare, wrinkling his nose as I approached. Granted, I had puked a couple of times, but I couldn’t have smelled that bad.
“Hey, you forgot this,” the pilot called, holding up my backpack.
I ran over and took it from him, grateful he’d seen it before leaving. “Thanks for the ride, sir.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “I mean that—don’t, to anyone.”
With a brisk nod, he jogged off toward the corner of the hangar. I grinned at his back. No matter what the captain said, I was telling Will and Ella. I returned to my guide—his name patch said “Murphy.” He squinted down at me like I was an annoying rug-rat.
Deciding military attitude would be the best way to play him, I said, “Archer reporting for duty, Master Sergeant.”
He chuckled in a sarcastic way. “Some soldier the colonel sent us. A kid.” Without even looking back at me, he stomped to the jeep and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Well, Private, you have five minutes to do whatever you need to do before I start this vehicle and drive off. Helo’s waiting.”
I lit out for the bathroom, muttering, “What a jackwagon.”
* * *
We flew over dense jungle for about an hour before coming up on a makeshift landing zone consisting of flat, bare ground. We’d hardly jumped clear before the pilots took off again. They were going back to Iquitos to meet Johnson and pick up supplies the team needed right away, stuff that couldn’t wait to be trucked in. The air was thick and muggy, smelling of mulch and plants and, weirdly, parts of the zoo back home. A rich, earthy, animal stench…like the hippopotamus enclosure. The humidity was so bad that my flight suit stuck to my body in nine different places within a minute of landing.
“When will Lieutenant Johnson be here?” I shouted to Murphy over the sound of the beating rotors.
“Probably not until late tomorrow. The lieutenant hasn’t left yet and his flight is closer to twenty hours. You got the special treatment.”
The offended note in Murphy’s voice carried through loud and clear. I stopped hiking behind him, the helicopter now a distant hum, drowned out by the sound of the wind in the vines and shouts from camp somewhere nearby. Adults were supposed to act more...adult. Especially Green Berets. I didn’t get why he was so annoyed with me. Danger or not, I didn’t leave the lock-in—and Ella—to deal with this kind of attitude.
“Master Sergeant, do you have a problem with me?”
“Yes, I have a problem. People are dying out here, and they send us the kid instead of Parker or Brandt.” Murphy turned. “What are you going to do with a Gator? Even with a knife? These abominations have killed six of our men in the last year. They literally eat kids like you for breakfast. We needed another wielder, someone with more experience.” His face turned red; this dude was seriously put out. Murphy reached for my arm and gave it a firm tug. “How much do you weigh? A buck-thirty? Strong wind could pick you up.”
Before I could snap back, a hard voice growled, “That’s enough, Master Sergeant.”
Murphy hid his scowl as the man stepped forward. He was tall, muscular, with rich brown skin and very dark, close-shaved hair. An officer, too, that much I could tell. I snapped to attention, ignoring Murphy’s snort. The officer’s eyes cut to one side and Murphy shut it.
“Master Sergeant, this young man is exactly who we need, so quit questioning the colonel’s orders. And from now on, you call him Mr. Archer, not kid,” he said. “Get your sorry butt back to camp We’re taking off in ten hours. Go sleep.”
As the master sergeant stalked off, the man motioned for me to be at ease. I dropped my hand, saying, “Sorry about that, sir. I’m a little tired myself.”
“No doubt, Archer. You look like you had a rough ride. Let’s get you a bunk. I’m Major Ramirez, by the way. It’s good to meet you, finally.” He cast a weary look at Murphy hacking his way through the jungle ahead of us. “We’ve been down here too long. If we have some luck, maybe we’ll finish this campaign in the next few days, finally go home. The others don’t get it, what a burden the knife can be. I know for a fact that you do. Major Tannen said as much in his last email.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling a lump in my throat at the mention of Uncle Mike. Both of us were pretty far from home. “I’ll do whatever I can, Major. Just point me at some Gators.”
Ramirez stopped and gave me a long look. “Hooah, Archer.”
I followed Major Ramirez up a very narrow trail between dense trees, vines, flowers and every other kind of dark green plant imaginable. The zoo-like smell only intensified as the sun tracked higher into the sky, baking the dirt until it steamed. I could see why Ramirez’s team was tired. This would be a tough place to live if you weren’t accustomed to it.
We broke into a small camp consisting of six largish, green canvas tents, a fire pit with logs around it, and a few Humvees. Cozy. The cot in my tent was hard as a board, and only six inches off the floor, but it felt like a feather mattress to my aching body.
I yanked off my boots, then shrugged out of my flight suit. It was so humid I decided to sleep in my t-shirt and underwear. This team didn’t seem like the type to mind. How strange that less than twelve hours ago, I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, hiking boots and jeans, and still needed a jacket outside. I stretched out on the bunk with a scratchy Army blanket over my legs, conking out as soon as I was horizontal.
“Hurry.”
The ground is black, burned. I’m covered in soot. Black ash all around me.
“Faster. No time. Children are dying.”
The screams of little girls echo in my head.
I jumped awake. “No!”
The flap of the tent flew open and Ramirez peered in, looking worried. I pulled the blanket up a little higher.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just a nightmare,” I said, feeling really stupid for shouting.
“It happens…especially out here,” Ramirez said, his face full of understanding. “Archer…” He paused, looking like he really wanted to tell me something, but didn’t at the same time. “I have them, too.”
“Nightmares?” I asked, wondering why he was acting so cagey. Didn’t everyone have them?
He shook his head a fraction. “Someone’s talking to us. Telling us to hurry. Devastation…that kind of stuff.”
Shocked, I forgot to breathe for a second. “Kids dying. Blood.”
“Not nightmares. Visions.” Ramirez stared at the ceiling of the tent. “There are some BDUs in the trunk at the back of the tent that ought to fit you. Meet me in the command center in fifteen.”
Visions. Not that my life could get any more bizarre, but still.
I dressed quickly, making sure to tuck the ends of my jungle-print pants into my hiking boots and tying the laces around them to keep bugs and water out. The clean t-shirt felt good against my hot skin. After one last, long stretch, I grabbed a camo jacket and headed to the HQ tent, trying to forget the sound of those little girls screaming.
Ramirez sat at a metal table, poring over a large map. Two laptops screens glowed on either side of him. In their light, hi
s face had a white-blue tinge. The tent was open all along one wall, probably in an attempt to catch what little breeze there was. The jungle felt like the inside of a clothes dryer—damp and hot, just without the fan.
I stood at attention just outside the tent until the major called me at ease. He rolled the map up and beckoned for me to sit. “Tell me, what do you know about the broader mission for the knife-wielders?”
Feeling put on the spot, I said, “There’s some prophecy about it all.” I paused. “We’re sort of at war with the devil, or something.”
“Not sort of. We are at war,” Ramirez said, his eyes boring into mine. “With evil incarnate.”
As if I wasn’t freaked out enough.
Ramirez must have noticed, because he broke his stare. “Jorge says these strange dreams are visions of things that are coming. My nightmares have gotten pretty awful here recently. Yours?”
“They’re getting weirder, that’s for sure.” The skin on my arms prickled. “The monsters are just the beginning then, aren’t they?”
“That’s my gut feeling.”
A silence followed as I swallowed the basketball sized lump in my throat. “So, what happens after we finish off the monsters, Major? New, scarier monsters? Demons?” I laughed nervously. “Vampire bunny rabbits?”
Ramirez pressed his lips together, staring over my shoulder. “I don’t know.”
I thought about something Grandma Tannen always said: “Don’t worry about tomorrow when today is smacking you in the face.” It was such a wacky saying that it stuck in my head. Now, I understood what it meant. And realized Grandma had been a badass.
“Then I’ll just focus on the monsters we’ve got, rather than wondering about what’s coming next,” I said.
The major’s eyes flicked back to me. “Good point, Archer. With that in mind, you ready to hunt some lizards? Colonel said you got a briefing about the Gators at Fort Carson a few months back.”
“Yeah, I saw a picture. Nine or ten feet long from head to toes, and the tail adds another four feet. Kinda a cross between a crocodile and an iguana—long snout and tail, scales, talons on their feet, spikes on their head and back.” I shuddered. “And their blood is green.”
Ramirez nodded. “They’re also sneaky and fast. It’s been really hard to catch them lately. They seem to get more intelligent by the day, so you need to be on your guard at all times.”
Had hunting the Bears posed enough of a challenge to prepare me for the Gators? I wasn’t so sure.
“Let’s spend some time on hunting techniques. We’re down to the last twelve, if my count’s right. If we go after the Gators hard, I think we can finish them off while you’re here.” Ramirez laid his knife on the table. It wasn’t quite identical to mine. The blade looked the same—nine-inches and bronze-colored—but the white bone handle on his was longer, and etched with strange symbols that had been filled in with black enamel. My own knife hummed in my thigh pocket. I brought it out and laid it next to his. Both handles glowed blue, then sparks popped off the blade of my knife.
“Archer, how did you do that?” My head snapped up. Ramirez was staring at me instead of the knives.
“I didn’t do anything—the knives are doing it, I think.” In a blink, both blades went dark, sitting cold and still on the tabletop.
Ramirez shook his head. “I’ve never seen mine react when I wasn’t touching it.”
“You haven’t? Mine does that all the time,” I said. The major raised his eyebrows and my stomach flipped over. “Didn’t Uncle Mike—”
“He wrote us an email. The knives don’t act that way for me, Brandt or Parker. We don’t know about Jorge. To be honest, I thought Tannen was pranking us. I should’ve known better.” Ramirez frowned at his desktop for a moment before meeting my eyes. “Okay, so hunting Gators—there are some things you need to know…”
I listened, but a little part of my mind still wondered, what was up with me and my knife?
Chapter Twenty-Four
My mind reeled all afternoon. The knife, the war—all of it had my brain humming. The only reason I didn’t crawl back into my bunk and pull the blanket over my head was the hunt. Pending war with Hell aside, I still had Gators to exterminate. Murphy came for me at five o’clock for the final briefing.
“Good, Archer, let’s get going,” Ramirez said as soon as I came over. I relaxed a little, joining him and eight other men crowded around the large aerial map of the jungle he’d been studying earlier.
Ramirez pointed at the map. “The blue X is camp. The Gators’ lair is four clicks to the northeast—red X. There’s a stream down there. They’d built a den under an overhang in the bank, which floods sometimes, giving them an underwater advantage. The entrance had been camouflaged with vegetation and it took us months to find it. Kind of hard to miss now, though, because we hit the area with explosives yesterday. Scorched up that part of the rainforest. My concern is that they won’t be there anymore. They know we’re on the offensive and have probably taken off.”
“We need to get out on the main trails tonight, search for them while they’re hunting,” a lieutenant roughly the size of Frankenstein said. I couldn’t tell what color his hair was—he’d shaved it all off. His skin wasn’t gray, though, and he didn’t have bolts in his neck so I decided he was cool. He jerked his square chin at me. “Archer here gives us the opportunity to run two teams, close them in a net.”
“I concur. I don’t want the blood of any more kids on my hands,” Ramirez said. “Let’s do a land-strike tonight, while they’re active. If we don’t get them all, then we’ll work the streams tomorrow.”
A Green Beret I didn’t know, a thin guy with flint-colored eyes and black hair, said, “I’ll get the swim equipment prepped for tonight, sir. Just in case we need to change plans.”
Swim equipment? Just what did these guys plan on doing?
“Thanks, Moreno,” Ramirez said. “Red team, with me: Murphy, Toldan, Moreno, and Klimmett. Lieutenant Patterson takes blue team: Archer, Smith, McAndrew and Borden.”
Lieutenant Frankenstein grinned. “You heard the man, Archer. Your butt belongs to me.”
We planned out the attack for two hours then broke for dinner. Murphy tossed out “Meals-Ready-to-Eat” pouches—a complete meal for soldiers on the go, or so the label said. I stared at the flimsy excuse for a burger patty, considering going hungry. Patterson sat down next to me on the log I was using for a bench, tore open his pouch and ate half of his burger in one bite.
After a huge swallow, he said, “Gotta eat, Archer. The food’s not great, but we can’t have you running the jungle on an empty stomach. The main Gator trails we follow are eight miles long. Seriously, the MREs aren’t as bad as they look.”
He lied—it was worse. I choked down as much of the faux-food as I could. “It’s funny…you guys hunt the same way Will and I do back home. Well, except for the flash-bangs and the guns. But we flush and rush the Bears, too.”
Patterson threw back his head and laughed. “I knew I liked you. Most fifteen-year-olds would be peeing in their pants right about now, but you’re completely cool. You remind me of your uncle, Archer. He’s a great fighter. You’re just like him.”
I smiled, filled with pride. “Thank you, sir. Means a lot.”
“Eat up, we roll in forty-five.” Patterson slapped me on the back hard enough to knock me forward and went to check in with Ramirez.
The sun shimmered beyond the trees, nearing the horizon. It was almost time to go. The knife hummed in my thigh pocket. I patted it. “Yeah, me, too.”
* * *
I crouched in a clump of thick bushes with waxy leaves the size of my hand. Patterson squatted behind me. McAndrew and Smith held guard at another post a mile away. Staff Sergeant Borden, our lookout, watched the ground from a tree a hundred yards in front of us. He wasn’t a big guy, and he all but disappeared among the leaves and branches of his perch. Ramirez’s team took the opposite end of the trails, six miles from our position
. Patterson was right; the Gators’ territory was huge.
“Now, remember, weak points are the neck, chest and belly. Their backs are a little harder for the Major to cut through, even with the knife.” Patterson grunted. “Didn’t used to be that way. Their hides are getting tougher.”
Nice, just what I wanted to hear. “I remember, sir. Get me in range, and I’ll go for the heart, belly or throat.”
“Good, because here’s your chance.” He pointed at a shadow weaving in and out of thick trees, whispering, “Let’s go.”
We ran with our backs bent, staying low to the ground, getting smacked with leaves as we tore through the rainforest. A flash of a tail whipped behind a tree. We raced up to it.
Nothing.
“We lost it,” Patterson said, panting a little. Running in the humidity was hard work. He clamped a hand on my shoulder. “That’s how it’s been the last three weeks. We can’t catch’em. They know what all our traps look like and they’re too fast to grab on foot. Let’s move back to starting position, try again.”
“Sir,” Borden’s voice crackled over the radio. “Activity fifty feet from my post. Please advise.”
“Which way is it headed?” Patterson asked.
“Your direction…wait. No, I don’t see it anymore. I’ll keep scanning.”
Patterson rolled his eyes. “See what I mean?”
We waited for half an hour, nothing but the sound of insects and the rustle of plants to break the silence of night, before we got another hit.
“There—three o’clock.” The lieutenant pointed to our right.
A long, thick shadow slithered along the ground carrying a squirming bundle in its teeth. It crawled into some brush with the waddling gait of a crocodile and was still.
“Looks like it caught an animal. If it’s eating, we’ll have a chance to get a jump on it. Come on,” Patterson said.
We crept towards it. Leaves swayed in our wake, but we heard no other sound until we got fifteen yards from its hidey-hole, then the brush rustled and the tip of a tail flicked back under cover. We had it now.
Matt Archer: Monster Hunter Page 20
