Nick Lamden did what he was supposed to do and dropped the meth into the safe they’d installed under the rug in the living room, then hauled the coffee table over the rug. They might find the shit, but they’d be hard pressed to get the safe open, especially while he was alive. He intended to live through it, though, ’cause his momma didn’t raise any fools.
While Nick was busy hiding the meth, his brother Jamie slid the money into the deposit bag from the local bank and took off out the back door before the cops even thought about tapping their brakes outside the house. He was long and lean and ran track back in high school and during his two years of college. Never a gold medalist type, he made second place enough times that everyone trusted him to know how to move his ass. He was probably out of the neighborhood before the first cop set foot on the sidewalk.
There were three others in the place, Nick knew, and they were all armed. There were a few surprises in the area, too—seven other guys in the surrounding houses who were there solely to help keep things running smoothly.
He couldn’t figure out who might have tipped off the cops, but he’d figure it out later. Nick hadn’t built up his little empire to have it destroyed by some asshole trying to cut a deal with the local authorities, and he’d sure as hell get to the bottom of it, soon as he was finished with business.
While his brother booked down the back roads, Nick strapped on his bulletproof vest. The black-and-whites kept coming, and a massive armored van with “S.W.A.T” written on the side blocked off any easy route of escape. That was okay. He had plenty of backup, and getting anything at all out of him or his associates was going to be a hell of a challenge.
Despite his bravado, his hands were shaking with an adrenaline kick, and his heart was going twice as fast as it normally did.
Oh yeah, this was scary shit.
“Nick. We got more cops coming, man.” Jorge sounded like he was ready to piss himself. Nick knew how he felt. “They got guns.”
“No shit,” Nick replied. “We got vests and bigger guns, man. Let’s do this.”
The houses on the street were all the property of El Corazon Holding, a company he’d made up five years earlier. The people living there got to stay for free and they got paid besides. Their loyalty was easy. They had nowhere else to go and he was the man taking care of their bills.
“Jorge, get Red on the phone, tell him to start shooting as soon as they reach the door,” Nick said, talking fast. “Before they knock. I mean it.”
Jorge didn’t hesitate. He was on the cell in seconds, and talking in hushed tones.
While they were waiting the cops got closer, carrying their own assault rifles, sporting their own body armor and walking with a very large battering ram to knock down the door. It was a reinforced fire door with a thin plywood veneer. It’d take a few hits, and by the time the cops figured that out, the plan was for them to be shredded wheat courtesy of Red and the other neighborhood gunmen.
Jorge kept speaking as the police came closer.
And then all hell broke loose.
Red started firing, and the cops went scattering in all directions, taken off guard by the extra firepower from across the street. Red was a stand-up guy and an ex-marine. He took his time and aimed for each cop before he fired. His first round hit a SWAT dude in the area just to the left of the vest he was wearing and blew away a large portion of the poor bastard’s arm. He spun hard and fell to the ground.
By the time the cops realized one of theirs had been shot, Red had aimed and fired a second time. His aim wasn’t flawless. He caught the second target in the chest and knocked the man backward a good four feet, but it didn’t look like the bullet went through the armor.
Nick picked up his weapon of choice and Jorge picked up the street sweeper he’d been fantasizing about using since they were in middle school. The weapon fired ten rounds from a drum before being emptied. Jorge had fired the thing at a range once and nearly deafened everyone, despite the fact that they were wearing ear protection. He’d also blown the entire target into shreds.
No one opened the door. They didn’t need to, not yet at least. The cops were too busy running like rabbits. Nick didn’t laugh, didn’t find anything particularly funny in the situation. Instead he just watched as the events unfolded.
Despite the constant drizzle he could see Red clearly from across the street. The man was up on the top of his house, lying in a prone position and taking careful aim. He was hidden well enough that most people looking from street level wouldn’t see him. Nick had the advantage of knowing where Red’s special hiding spot was, and of being at a different angle than anyone on the street. He could see the man’s head and shoulders and the rifle he was aiming.
So he got to watch when something slightly larger than a cup saucer tore through the air and took off the top of Red’s head. Sliced through him like a hot wire through a stick of butter, and kept going with barely a waver in its trajectory. The shimmering thing sailed past and then returned along its own path, turning fast and hard and going right past Red even as he flopped across the roof in a growing pool of blood and gray matter.
“What the fuck was that?” Nick stared at Red’s corpse. It wasn’t the cops—they were all still trying to decide where they should take cover in an area where they were surrounded by houses.
Jorge looked his way and shrugged.
“What was what?”
“Something just killed Red.”
“Say what?” Jorge stared at the roof. “I can’t see him.”
“He’s dead,” Nick shouted. “Something cut his fucking head open.”
“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.”
“Just watch out the window,” Nick said angrily, “and see what’s coming our way.” He didn’t have time to play twenty questions.
One of the cops took a shot at the roof, thinking he had a target up there, and caught nothing but air. An instant later the man’s leg was vaporized by a blast of what looked like a high-velocity glow stick. The impact was enough to send the cop sailing up and away from where he’d been standing.
Jorge saw that, and let out a shocked squawk.
“What the hell did that?”
“Fuck if I know,” Nick responded.
Another of the cops fell, screaming bloody murder as bits and pieces of his flesh sprayed halfway across the squad car next to him. The screams only lasted for a second.
Then the police went crazy. They tried to aim everywhere at once. It sounded like someone was yelling out commands, but Nick couldn’t hear what the guy was saying. He could only watch while they did their best to find cover, pull the one-legged cop to safety, and spot whatever the hell was cutting them down.
Someone popped out of the front door under where Red had been. It was Curtis, who was one of the crazier people he had working for him. Curtis had decided to make a run for it, carrying a pistol in each hand, and he was hunkered over as he bolted for the next house in the cul-de-sac.
Clay pigeons would have had an easier time at a skeet-shooting convention. Several of the cops took time away from the chaos to draw weapons and take aim, a couple of them bellowing commands that came through closed windows as muffled, incoherent noises. It wasn’t hard to figure out what they were shouting, though.
That idiot Curtis chose to do exactly what he shouldn’t have done, and took aim at the closest officer. He never got to pull the trigger. Several very jumpy cops opened fire, all at the same time. More than being shot, Curtis was torn apart. The sight of his shredded body would stay with Nick for as long as he lived—however long that might be.
Then he saw what the rest of them couldn’t. While they were gunning Curtis down, something killed two more of the cops. Nick couldn’t actually say what happened. There was a flare of light, and one of the SWAT members got knocked back three feet by an impact from something that wasn’t there. At the same time, that silvery object he’d seen before cleaved through the chest of another cop, sliding through his armored torso in
a stream of blood and entrails.
That was when Nick decided to hit the deck. The police were losing their shit, and whatever was going on out there was only going to get worse. Over his head a bunch of shots came tearing through the window. It was inevitable, really—the cops must’ve figured he was responsible for the guys who got cut down, and they did what anyone would do. They went a little crazy.
The barrage seemed to last forever.
Jorge was down on the floor not far away, his hands over his head and his face pressed into the shag carpet. He looked terrified, and Nick thought he might have pissed his pants.
“What the fuck was that?” Jorge’s voice was high and hoarse.
“That was the goddamn cops trying to kill us.” His voice shook more than he’d expected, and adrenaline was kicking his heart into overdrive. It didn’t make him feel like fighting, though. Nick just wanted this done. He wanted out. He wanted to live. Hell, he had enough money stashed away that he could get out of the business if he wanted. Maybe even go straight.
He wanted that a lot right then.
“No, not the fucking cops—the other thing.” Jorge shook his head. “There’s something out there killing cops.”
As if to prove his point another round of bullets tore into the side of the house. Fragments of glass sprayed into the room, along with shards of wood from the window frame as it disintegrated under the barrage. Nick could feel the fragments that littered his clothes and wormed their way into his hair down to the scalp. He could hear the cops now as they screamed out commands to each other. Someone called out the name “Simpson.”
The gunfire continued, but it was aimed elsewhere, and he breathed a very small sigh of relief. They must’ve realized it was someone out there picking them off. They had to know that the shots weren’t coming from the house. They had to.
Please, God, they have to.
“There it is!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Nick demanded.
“I saw it,” Jorge insisted. “It’s like a chameleon. You can only see it when it moves, but it’s up there, on the roof.”
“Well it can stay up there—long as it doesn’t get anywhere near us,” Nick said. “Maybe it’ll kill all the cops for us.”
“It’s moved.” Jorge rose up to his knees and looked out the window, squinting. “I don’t know where it is now.” No one blew his head off his shoulders, which Nick thought was a miracle. Then he got brave, and lifted himself high enough to look out the window and see where the cops were. Flashing red and blue lights made the scene even more surreal.
There were ten or twelve of them now, maybe more in hiding. They were still all over the place, a few of them attempting to tend their wounded and others looking around with jerky motions, trying to see what might be hunting them even as they crouched behind cars or duckwalked around. Nick watched them and shook his head. They were almost funny, except that their fear was real, and likely to get him killed if he wasn’t careful.
That flash of light again.
A man in uniform lost an arm.
All around the falling man people ran, and bellowed, and looked for the source of the assault. One of them seemed to get a break. He pointed and fired, and something big moved from the roof. A distorted shape, it landed on the ground and charged toward the shooter. Nick couldn’t quite see it, only the flashes of warped scenery that it passed as it moved.
The shooter backpedaled like crazy, his face a mask of terror. He took aim to fire again and the thing—big, it was big and it was fast—dodged to the side, then came up as the cop fired. It was close and it hit him hard. The cop sailed backward, and whatever it had hit him with shredded the front of the man’s vest, the uniform beneath, and the flesh under that.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
That was all it took.
The cops quit firing wildly. They focused their gunfire on the spot where the cop had been hit. Then they stopped—probably to assess the damage—and everything went weirdly silent.
Nick’s phone rang, and he squealed like a little girl.
Caller ID said it was Tony DeMatteis. Tony was across the street, and probably wanted to know what the plan was. Fuck, there was no plan. That was the problem. He needed to think of something to fix this.
Outside, another cop let out a scream and soared into the air, spiraling as he ascended. The man’s face was gone, just a bloody pulp, and the blood spiraled with him. Someone fired where he had been and managed to shoot the flashing light off one of the squad cars instead of hitting anything they might have been aiming for.
Then someone got lucky. That was all there was to it. One of the police officers fired at something that Nick didn’t see, and suddenly there was a flickering run of colors in the air that sputtered and grew into a solid form.
The thing stood easily seven feet in height, and while it was human in shape, it sure as hell wasn’t human. The body was broad and heavily muscled, with a metal mask over its face and what looked like dreadlocks or maybe snakes instead of hair. Whatever might be going on under that mask, no one would ever be able to guess, but Nick was okay with that because the rest of that body, well, it was the sort of thing he never wanted to see exposed.
The skin he could see was mottled. A dull greenish hue in spots, but with heavy darker areas that made him think of a few lizards he’d seen at the zoo. He had no idea if that skin was natural or if the thing was wearing some sort of padding. He couldn’t tell from his range and had no intention of getting any closer.
It was like someone had mixed too many things together.
The thing wore what looked like a loincloth worthy of Tarzan, but along with the metal faceplate it also had armor on different parts of the body, covering the shins and knees and partially covering the thighs, and there was armor on one side of the creature’s ribs that ran up to one shoulder. On that shoulder there was something that looked, well, dangerous was the only way he could think of it. Not like a weapon he could understand, but the way that thing moved, it made him think of artillery on a ship.
Just to prove his point, the thing shifted and the same sort of burning light he’d seen before erupted from what looked like a small cannon. The light hit one of the cops and blew a hole through the poor bastard’s entire chest and back. He was dead way before he hit the ground.
There were gauntlets on the creature’s wrists, and one of them had heavy blades. The other hand held a metal rod that telescoped onto a very pointy and deadly looking spear. He saw all of that at the same time that the police did, and suddenly they were all focused on the nightmare thing that was moving through them, knocking people aside like they weighed nothing at all.
“Fuck it.” He stood up and headed toward the back door. “Jorge, let’s get the hell out of here.” He didn’t have to say it twice. The man barreled across the room and Nick followed. The cops were busy getting killed, and that was a mighty fine distraction to help them avoid getting shot or arrested.
Three paces outside the door Jorge came to a stop and held his hands over his head. Nick charged out behind him and started swinging his pistol around, ready to open fire.
Eight armed guys immediately made him change his mind. One of them took a fast step in Nick’s direction and brought the butt end of a rifle across his face.
Nick dropped to the ground, unconscious.
12
“Drag him inside. We don’t need anyone seeing this and wondering what happened.” Tomlin shook his head. He’d have preferred that they be subdued and taken in under their own power, but some things couldn’t be helped. In the same situation he’d have done exactly what Hyde did.
At least the other one was conscious and standing with his hands over his head. He pointed to the man.
“Get your ass in the house.”
The man damned near ran inside, and they followed. The place was torn up, with bullet holes running through several walls and the windows in the front of the house completely shattered.
/> “It’s worse than we thought,” Tomlin growled. He turned to the rest. “We go out the back again, and we spread out. Hill, take Strand, Hyde, and Pulver. The rest of you are on me.” He looked at the man still standing there, and shook his head. “You want to run, you run, but do not get in our way or I’ll kill you myself—is that clear?”
The man nodded as hard as a bobblehead in an earthquake. Tomlin took the guy’s weapons, and he bolted through the back door. Tomlin motioned, and they all followed him out.
Heading to the right, they moved around the building and observed the melee taking place in the center of the cul-de-sac. There were bodies strewn across the pavement, some intact and others torn apart. For a moment he saw the alien hunter, a massive shape that towered over the largest man he’d ever seen. And then, as if he were looking at a mirage, it flickered and faded away.
“Shit! It’s gone stealth!” His words weren’t meant for anyone but him, but the rest of his team heard them. They grew even more alert, and spread out. King crouched lower to the ground and got a better grip on his weapon.
One of the SWAT team members took a running start and hit something in the still air. The man’s body came to an abrupt stop, and whatever he’d hit let out a chittering roar, and then cut the guy in two. Blood and bone and meat exploded out of the man’s back and his head imploded from the force of the strike.
That was enough for Tomlin. Lifting his rifle he aimed roughly a foot above the dead man and fired. He was rewarded with a roar of what he hoped was pain, and then the creature was charging. It covered half the ground between them in seconds, and then stopped, the head moving slowly. At first Tomlin could only see an odd ripple in the air, a sign that something was there, even if it was not clearly seen.
The thing that had vanished into nothing reappeared, whatever sort of cloaking technology it used flickering as it looked around. The face was still hidden behind a metal mask, and from that mask three small red beams of light cut across the misty air and headed for Tomlin. He did the only sensible thing.
THE PREDATOR HUNTERS AND HUNTED Page 8
