Matt Archer: Monster Hunter

by Kendra C. Highley

  Patterson whispered, “Okay, I’ll—”

  His words were cut off by the most terrifying sound I’d heard in all my hunts: a baby screaming.

  We thrust through the bushes and ran flat out. The baby boy, lying naked on the dirty, white blanket the Gator had used to carry it, couldn’t have been more than a few months old. His high-pitched wails pierced my chest like an arrow.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Gator stood next to a nest of dried vines, nudging something toward the squealing kid. A young Gator, only three feet long, whimpered and butted at Mama with its head. It dawned on me; a baby wasn’t more than a mouthful to a grown Gator. They were stealing kids to feed their own. It even explained why the recent kills had been messy, too. The Gators were teaching the baby monster to hunt.

  Little Gator waddled over the wall of the nest, watching the baby with wide eyes. A few quick, playful snaps of its jaw, then it tottered toward its meal. Appalled, I was ready to launch myself out of the shadows when yellow eyes flicked our direction. Mama-Gator rose onto her back feet, towering over both of us.

  Patterson swung the butt of his rifle into the Gator’s mid-section. She glanced down at her belly, then back up at us, merely annoyed by the blow. Quick as lightning, the beast grabbed Patterson by the throat and lifted him from the ground. His legs flailed about, and his face darkened in the dim moonlight. I ducked under Patterson’s legs, getting kicked in the back, to stab her in the foot. Snarling, she dropped Patterson. When she lunged for me, I stabbed at her chest, but she moved too fast, and I got her in the forearm. She rammed me hard enough to knock me flat on my back. Mama raised a taloned hand, looking ready to smash my skull, but Patterson sprang up between us.

  She swiped her talons at Patterson’s head. He danced out of the way and I rolled behind them. On my knees now, I sliced one of her back legs, then climbed to my feet to try for another blow. Hissing and spitting, the Gator swept her tail under our feet, tossing both of us to the ground again. I got the wind knocked right out of me. The little Gator whined for Mama while I gasped for breath.

  The monster dropped on all fours, but didn’t come after us. Instead, she dashed toward the baby Gator and the still screaming infant. As I struggled to sit up, the Gator wrapped the human kid in the blanket like he was a sandwich, getting ready to take her meal to-go. She croaked to the young Gator and gave it a hard shove to get it moving. Baby Gator whined again, but toddled along ahead of her.

  Not missing a beat, Patterson rolled to his knees. Surging forward, he grabbed the monster’s tail, leaned back and gave her a jerk. The Gator dropped the baby hard. The little boy was silent for one horrifying second, then screamed louder than ever. The young Gator started for him, its teeth bared.

  “Kill this thing! Hurry!” Patterson yelled.

  The baby kicked free of the blanket. The sight of his chubby legs wriggling on the jungle floor did something to me—this was way worse than seeing Ella cornered.

  My brain went nuclear. In a fit of rage that ran white-hot, I stabbed the Gator in the back of the neck, yanking the knife through her leathery hide. The powerful blade slid through the flesh, hide and bone like it was made of warm wax.

  Patterson snatched the baby away from the young Gator. It shook its head angrily, croaking at us in shrill tones. I knew I had to finish it off. It ate kids; I couldn’t let it live. But it was so little, reminding me of the rubber crocodile pool-raft my mom had given me when I was six. How could I kill Mr. Swimmy?

  That hesitation cost us. With a wild howl, the young monster began to swell. Its scales popped as its torso lengthened and broadened, followed by its head, legs and tail. I couldn’t believe my eyes—it was like time-capture photography, except in real-life. Chest heaving, the now adult-sized Gator stood on its hind-legs and growled at me.

  “Run, sir!” I jumped in front of the beast, waving the knife. “Get the baby out of here!”

  Patterson took off. I heard him screaming into his radio as he ran. Borden would be here soon. Of course, I’d probably be torn to bits by then. I’d killed this thing’s mama. It wasn’t going to roll over and play dead.

  It flexed its claws, clicking them together, as if to tell me it planned to kill me inch by mutilated inch. I knew if I ran, though, it’d chase me down. Better to face it here. The knife hummed in agreement.

  The Gator and I circled each other. We brushed against the close-growing plants as we moved. Its yellow eyes never left mine. I took a shaky breath and raised the knife.

  Before I could blink, it rushed me and threw me back six feet. Something popped when I hit the dirt, then my left leg went numb. Unable to sit up, I lay helpless as it dropped on all fours, snapping with its piano-key-sized teeth. I tried rolling away, but it hurried alongside, corralling me the other direction. I struggled to my knees, ribs killing me, my leg tingling, and started to crawl. The Gator stood in my way. Every move I made, it countered without attacking. Like it was tiring me out so it could chew me in half at its convenience. Bored with the game and needing a way to strike its belly, chest or neck, I flopped back to the ground with my eyes just barely slit open. It crawled over and straddled my body with its too-long legs.

  “Ahora,” it snarled.

  It spoke Spanish! Not mangled words, like the bears, but real, live, human-level Spanish. I even understood the word—”now.” I knew better than to react, since I was supposedly unconscious, but holy guacamole!

  Something thrashed through the bushes; it sounded like a man, running. The Gator paused half a second to see what was coming. That was enough. I’d hesitated once. This time I didn’t. I slashed its belly. The thing gurgled then flopped onto one side, showering me with green blood.

  Borden flew into the clearing, took in the scene and heaved the monster’s body away from me. “Archer, you okay?”

  “Yeah, think so.” I crawled to my feet. “Where’s the lieutenant?”

  “This way.”

  We hurried down the trail toward camp, finally catching up with Patterson as he jogged along holding the baby. Now that the little guy was wrapped up in Patterson’s huge arms, he had quieted down. He shoved two fingers in mouth and sucked on them while the lieutenant rocked him back and forth.

  “Will he be okay?” I asked. Given that he wasn’t crying, I figured he would, but what did I know about newborns?

  “Should be,” the lieutenant said. “He’ll be hungry soon, though. Not much we can do about that, so we need to hurry back to base and find his mom.” Patterson jumped, then snorted. “And we need to figure out a diaper. Then the team needs to get our happy butts back out here and kill as many of these things we can find over the next few days.”

  “Amen to that, sir.” I cleaned my blade on the bushes before following Patterson down the trail. I didn’t bother to sheathe the knife, planning to kill anything that got in our way.

  Borden took point, so Patterson and the baby were between us. “I heard that kid scream from my post, sir. Ran as fast as I could. Nice save.” He ran his hand over his sweat-coated brown hair. “You, too, Archer.”

  When we got back to camp, we were greeted by applause. Ramirez clapped me on the back. “Good work.” He grinned at Patterson’s wet BDUs. “Lieutenant, hand me the baby so you can change.”

  It took three hours on the radio with the Peruvian Civil Guard to find out where the baby belonged—a village ten miles away. His name was Miguel. Seeing as how we didn’t have anything a baby needed, we dressed him in an olive-drab t-shirt. Patterson also made a diaper out of underwear and a sock, then tucked him into a cardboard box lined with an old blanket. As McAndrew and Smith got ready to drive Miguel home, I checked on him one last time.

  “’Bye Miguel. You watch out for monsters, okay?” I tickled him under the chin. He grabbed my finger and tried to put it in his mouth. “Dude, don’t think you want to do that. I washed my hands, but no telling what those Gators left behind.” I pulled my finger loose then helped the guys load him up.

  I s
tood in the middle of camp, hands in my pockets, wearing a cheesy grin as they drove away.

  Best hunt of my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ramirez called for me to join him in HQ for breakfast. The French toast MREs weren’t quite as horrible as the burgers were, and I was starving. I crammed the whole meal down in about three minutes.

  “Goodness, Archer. You did eat yesterday, didn’t you?” I nodded and he laughed. “Tannen told me you’ve been sprouting up pretty fast. Guess it takes a lot of fuel to grow and hunt like you do.”

  “Yeah. I eat all the time, but I’m still always hungry.” I gulped down my last bite. “Sir, can I ask you a question?”

  “As long as it’s not where that baby Gator came from,” he said. “That’s the first one we’ve seen. I’m hoping it’s the last, or we’re in trouble.”

  “Yeah, my doors were kinda blown off by that, too. Maybe if we exterminate them before they have any more we’ll be safe.” I paused. “What I wanted to ask…all these visions got me thinking. What about the prophecy? The one about the knife?” My knife hummed in my thigh pocket, like it was happy to be part of the conversation.

  “‘Born of the ground, tied to the heavens, the blades of redemption will meet their brothers in unearthly combat to fight for men’s souls.’ That prophecy, right?” Ramirez asked. “Well, what Jorge told me is centuries ago some pre-Incan holy man had a vision of Armageddon. The world was on the brink of destruction by evil spirits. All hope rested with magic knives in the hands of powerful soldiers. Something like that.”

  My knife shuddered again. I put my hand over my pocket. “Is there more to it?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe, but if so, Jorge hasn’t told us yet. We’ve been a little busy killing nine-foot-tall lizards. Not much time to swap stories around a campfire.”

  I really wanted to meet Jorge. “You said he was on a scouting trip. Why did he leave while the attacks are still happening?”

  “More Gators,” he said. “The biggest infestation was here, but we received reports of another nest somewhere deeper in the rainforest. He asked us to keep up our end of the hunt while he checked it out. Since he’s not back, I bet he found some, which means my count of a dozen here may be a little high. Be good if he took down a few elsewhere.”

  “Let’s hope,” I muttered.

  The major stood. “All right. Enough chit-chat. We’ve got an attack to plan.”

  He punched me in the shoulder and left the tent, already shouting orders.

  Hooah.

  * * *

  Based on the morning’s scout reports, the major thought one last op would finish the Gators off. His briefing to the team in the command tent was short and sweet.

  “The tracks are concentrated in one area.” Ramirez pointed at a spot two miles from camp on the big map. “One of the tributaries for the Amazon flows through there. Moreno and Smith found another underwater cave that had some camouflage on its entrance. They didn’t run into any activity, but we think that’s where the Gators set up shop after we blew a hole in their last lair. If we push hard, force them out, maybe we can get them all tonight. They know we’re coming, so let’s go in hot.”

  “Regulators–saddle up!” Patterson yelled. Men dispersed in all directions.

  McAndrew, a pale guy with straw-blond hair and a Minnesota accent, rolled his eyes. “Ya’ know, the lieutenant watches too many Westerns.”

  Grinning, I tucked the knife into my thigh pocket. “Yippee-Ki-Yay.”

  “Archer,” Moreno called. “Time to suit up, man. I need to brief you on gear.”

  The grin slid off my face. “I have on my BDUs…”

  His eyes crinkled up as he laughed. “Your underwater combat gear. We’re going for a swim tonight. You don’t want to do that in your BDUs.”

  They had to be kidding.

  I followed Moreno into the tent next to HQ. Murphy was pulling rubber suits out of a trunk. He gave us a smirk and left, carrying his equipment. Moreno flipped a few other trunk lids open. He grabbed a rubber suit that would cover a person’s whole body, down to the wrists and ankles. It even had a hood. Flippers, gloves and the weirdest looking goggles I’d ever seen completed the outfit.

  “So, guess they didn’t tell you some of us were part of the combat-diving detachment?” Moreno asked.

  “Wait—the what?” I stared at the gear in bewilderment.

  “Every company has an underwater combat team. Nearly all of us have been through the training, but a few of us, like me, specialize in underwater incursions.” He turned from the bins to look at me. “Please tell me you swim.”

  “I...I swim,” I said. “I don’t SCUBA though.”

  “Don’t need to SCUBA. Snorkel’s enough. The streams rarely get more than ten feet deep,” Moreno said, looking concerned now. “You ever been snorkeling?”

  I nodded fast. “Yeah. Hawaii last summer. My mom took us there for vacation.” Thank God for family trips.

  “Okay, then. Let’s get you kitted out.”

  Putting on the dry-suit, the rubber thing, was like trying to snake myself into a sausage casing. It took me ten minutes to shimmy into it. The gloves and flippers were easy compared to that. The goggles, though…those were truly awesome. The diving mask had a black night-vision scope mounted where the lenses would have been.

  “They’re Israeli-made,” Moreno said. “Those guys know their combat gear. Basically, they’re monocular—single scope—night vision goggles that can operate underwater. The base is a standard diving mask, but the rest works like regular night vision scopes.”

  I pulled it over my head. “It’s heavy. Wow.”

  “Yeah, but underwater you won’t care, because they float.” Moreno went around checking zippers and straps. “Good to go. Now take it all off. We’ll change at the staging area.”

  I groaned. “You mean I have to put this back on again?”

  Amphibious monsters sucked.

  * * *

  After nightfall, the ten of us made the four-mile trek to the staging area, marching single file along a narrow path edged by vegetation. Ramirez was second in line and I was eighth, to cover both ends of the team. The other men kept rifles and automatics at the ready, for what, I didn’t know. Everyone scanned the dense jungle for Gators. We encountered nothing. That bothered me, but I didn’t say so. These guys had been out here for months. If there was cause to worry, they’d tell me.

  At the staging area, a clearing about twenty feet wide that glowed an eerie green under a quarter-moon, we suited up for underwater combat. I could hear the stream bubbling nearby. Moreno had told me it was low this time of year, and the current was gentle. Good thing, because I didn’t want to drown in Peru. Mom would never forgive me.

  Patterson guided me to the edge of the bank. We wore thick soled water shoes and carried our flippers and goggles. The stream, murky-green and about twelve feet across, flowed a foot below the bank.

  “Okay, kid,” the lieutenant said, “stick to me like Velcro on carpet, got it? The water’s muddy, so it’s hard to see sometimes.”

  “Major, McAndrew and I are going in for a check,” Moreno called.

  Ramirez nodded and Moreno splashed into the water about twenty feet upstream. McAndrew gave me a quick grin, then followed him. I watched the surface, thinking there’d be a little ripple as they swam by, but the water churned wildly, then bloomed with red.

  “Lieutenant, what’s—”

  Patterson hauled me back from the edge, swearing. Moments later, an arm floated up, followed by a pair of goggles and a flipper. I turned my back on the muddy-red water, wanting to scream.

  “Ambush!” Ramirez shouted. “Everyone pull back.”

  Torn to shreds. Right in front of me. My head swam. Three hours ago, Moreno had been teaching me how to use my equipment and McAndrew had been ribbing Patterson. Now they were gone. In all this time, I’d never seen a monster kill a human. It was worse than I imagined. I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling like I mi
ght cry and knowing I couldn’t. Not in front of the other men.

  The team gathered together at the staging area. “What do we do, sir?” I asked Patterson. My voice sounded shrill with panic. “What now?”

  He squared his huge shoulders and turned to Major Ramirez. “Well, the Gators are probably busy eating right now. Major? Send me into the stream to check it out. If the enemy’s occupied, I’ll wave you in.”

  My jaw dropped—the enemy was eating Moreno. Not a fish, or something. “Are you suicidal?”

  “Archer, better to risk us than babies like Miguel.” Ramirez gave me a cold stare. “But we—”

  Before he could say more, we heard splashes, loud ones, by the bank. Hissing in the trees behind us. Shadows too big to be animals crept all around.

  “Um, major,” I whispered, “I don’t think we’re alone.”

  “Fan out!” Ramirez barked. “Patterson, take Archer to the stream. If they’re coming after us on land, use the time to find the lair and set charges. Archer can take out any Gators still down there.”

  “Yes, sir,” we answered before running for the water.

  Patterson jumped into the stream as soon as we reached the bank. “If I don’t come up in two minutes, try to get back to the major.” He fastened his goggles and dove down. Thirty excruciating seconds later, he resurfaced. “Nothing.”

  A boom and a flash went off in the trees. Frantic shouts, then one long, blood-curdling scream. Patterson yanked me into the water. I put on my mask in case we needed to move fast.

  Borden crashed through the vegetation, hurrying backward. He sprayed the plants with rifle-fire in a panicked blast. A Gator leapt out after him. It landed on top of Borden and they slammed to the muddy ground. I couldn’t see what happened next, but I heard a series of pops. Like bones breaking.

  I sucked in a deep breath, about to cry out, but Patterson clamped a hand over my mouth. “Hush,” he hissed. “It’ll come for us. Too late to do anything now but hunt it down.”

  We ducked low behind the bank as the Gator hauled Borden toward the tributary. The sergeant hung limp, one leg caught in the monster’s powerful jaws, with his head lolling back and forth. The Gator slipped over the bank, pulling Borden with it.