Devil Hunters

by R. Gualtieri

  “Trip wire sensors,” Derek said. “Good thing we didn’t set up the sentry guns, too.”

  Julia looked down at him, unblinking. “You’re kidding, right? Never mind, I don’t really want to know. Anyway, I marked this place on GPS, then kept searching. I was lucky enough to be close by when I heard the gunshots.” She held up his damaged Ruger again. “By the way, interesting camera you have.”

  “You shouldn’t be out here. Too dangerous.”

  Julia put the damaged weapon down, opened a nearby backpack, and pulled out a semi-automatic Smith & Wesson. “I may be reckless, but I’m not stupid. And before you ask, yes, I know how to use it. I try to get out to the range a couple of times a month.”

  Derek debated how much to say, but quickly came to the conclusion that their situation didn’t call for much discretion. He was too injured to fight and there was no telling whether those ... people were still lurking about. That they were having this conversation was promising, but they were still in a bad spot.

  But he had teammates who were quite possibly far worse off.

  He gritted his teeth, mentally envisioning how Norah – or Jacob, for that matter – would react upon learning that he’d brought a reporter into the fold. Though they didn’t get along very well these days, he imagined this would be one area where they’d both see eye to eye in declaring him an idiot.

  That’s a chewing out for another day. Besides, it wasn’t like she didn’t already have her suspicions. “Listen, Julia. There are some things you need to know about my team and what we’re really doing out here...”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “You need to put that thing away before you shoot someone, like me.” Derek was sitting up in a foldable camp chair. His arm was splinted and Julia had done her best to sterilize and bandage the rest of his wounds.

  He didn’t feel particularly great, but it was the best he was going to get out here. With his radio gone and them out of range of reliable cell service, the immediate goal was survival. However, in order to survive, they needed to get out of there, which meant using the remaining ATV since he was certain there was little chance of him walking out in his current condition.

  Julia had done an admirable job, but following his confession as to what had happened to him and his team, she’d been increasingly on edge, her gun never far from her hand.

  “I thought I heard something,” she said, scanning the surrounding trees.

  “You did. It’s a forest. Lots of things make noise.”

  “Not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be.” He took another sip of water, doing what he could to stay hydrated. “Listen. Those are all normal sounds. It’s when everything goes quiet that you have to worry. So long as squirrels are chattering and birds are chirping, that means they aren’t worried, and if they’re not worried it means...”

  “We shouldn’t be?”

  “Not necessarily, but it means we can probably stay one click shy of paranoid.”

  “Is it paranoid to want to shoot that thing in the balls and make it tell me where my sister and brother-in-law are? You said it could talk, right?”

  “Nearest I can tell it’s ... he’s human, or some sort of human mutation. I don’t know. He caught us by surprise and then his friends showed up while we were debating what to do.”

  “A group of mutant hillbillies?”

  “You said it, I didn’t.”

  She grew quiet as she continued to prep the ATV. “What do you think those freaks did to my family? Do you think there’s still a chance?”

  Derek was silent for a moment. He’d told her a lot, but had stopped short of telling her about her brother-in-law. She deserved to know, but he was afraid what it would do to her, especially now when he needed her help. But then he remembered what Zeist had said about John Guiterrez’s body. Grief could destroy a person, but anger could focus them. He hoped the latter was true for Julia. She seemed strong, but then, so had Kate Barrows.

  “Listen, there’s more...”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Derek needed to remind Julia several times that raising her voice was very much not in their best interest. To her credit, she didn’t break down after hearing what he had to say, instead channeling everything she had toward seething rage.

  “You knew this when I met you in Shilough and you didn’t say anything?”

  “It’s not as simple as that.”

  “Because of fucking government secrets?” She held up her hands in quote marks.

  “Yes. I know you’re angry, but my team is under oath. We have to be very careful what we say, when we say it, and who we say it to. This isn’t a 9 to 5 thing either. It’s all the time.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  He nodded. “I know, but right and lawful are sometimes at odds.”

  She stared hard at him for several long seconds, then got onto the ATV and started the engine. For a moment, he was afraid she would hit the gas and take off, leaving him to his fate, but she turned and nodded for him to climb on behind her.

  He got on and wrapped his good arm around her waist, even though he was certain he’d catch an elbow to the ribs for it. The rumbling of the engine even at idle was near torture for his wounds, but there was no other way about it. They needed to get out of the woods, get Mitch, and come back with a lot more firepower. He still had friends out there and, until he knew otherwise, he had to assume they were alive.

  “Please be careful,” he said as they started moving.

  “You’ll be lucky if I don’t purposely aim for any rocks.” Then, after a beat, she asked, “So what changed?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said you had oaths and shit like that. So why tell me now?”

  Derek didn’t consider himself the petty type, but he also wasn’t particularly fond of his team being the fall guys either. He told her about John being cremated without the knowledge or blessing of his family.

  She turned back and glared at him. “Are you shitting me?”

  “Please pay attention to where you’re going, and no, I’m not shitting you. Believe me, I was just as shocked to hear about it.”

  “I doubt that. I told you before that I was going to shoot that monster in the balls, but I think I’m going to save a bullet for the governor.”

  “You do know that’s not going to work out for you ... oof!”

  “Sorry.” She steered back onto the trail and slowed them to a snail’s pace. “Fine. Then let’s see how he likes it when the six o’clock news runs a story on...”

  Derek’s grip on her tightened. “You can’t run with this. I’m sorry, but you’re going to bring a world of hurt down on yourself if you do.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. What are you going to say? That the Jersey Devil killed your brother-in-law and the governor is covering it up? Even a tabloid rag would think twice before publishing that. And then there are my ... associates. It would be career suicide. You’d never work in journalism again.”

  “It would be worth it.”

  “For who? You’d be destroying your life. That’s noble, but where does it leave you? With nothing but some conspiracy nuts believing your story, that’s what. And that still doesn’t help your sister.”

  Julia was quiet for several seconds, the rumble of the engine the only sound to be heard. “Do you think she’s...”

  “We don’t know what to think. Those things, people, whatever ... I’m pretty sure they took my friends. It’s quite possible they have your sister, too. We have to ... hold on to that.”

  She nodded, then took one hand off the handlebars to wipe her eyes. Seeing they were on a relatively level stretch, Derek carefully removed Julia’s cell phone from the breast pocket of his jacket. She’d given it to him for the ride back. It took a couple of painful tries, but he finally got it out. It fluctuated between one and two bars of service. Hopefully good enough to call Mitch.

  Before
he could try, though, Julia spoke up again. “Okay. But even if we find her, are you saying Governor Yarlberg gets away with it? I thought you said you helped people. That you were the good guys.”

  “We are,” Derek replied, dialing Mitchell’s number. “But what we do isn’t exactly black and white. And, I hate to admit it, but we live in a world where the good guys don’t always win.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Danni jolted awake, the memory of rough hands violating her body far too fresh in her mind.

  For perhaps the first time in months, her dreams hadn’t bothered her, especially not once she realized she’d be waking up to a nightmare.

  Opening her eyes, she saw a roof above her. Wherever she was, it was dimly lit – torchlight or maybe a low-wattage bulb. It was better than waking up in total darkness, if only marginally.

  She gingerly sat up, taking it slow as a wave of vertigo passed. The memory of what had happened slowly filtered in to her waking mind, but it was cloudy, hazy, as if her brain was wrapped in cotton.

  Once she was up in a sitting position, she swung her legs off the crude wooden cot she’d been placed on. Her bare feet landed upon packed dirt and she took a moment to look down at herself.

  With a start, she realized she hadn’t imagined the grabbing hands or the torn clothing. Gone was the outfit she’d worn into the woods – not just pieces or swatches ripped away, but all of it. She was clad in nothing but a filthy, oversized t-shirt. It was ripped and threadbare in places, barely providing even minimal coverage.

  All at once it hit her, the grogginess finally fading away and leaving behind the stark terror of her situation. They’d been in control, the creature was surrounded, their guns covering him. Then, in a heartbeat, it had all changed.

  Now all pretense of that control was gone. She’d been knocked out and kidnapped, but deep down she knew that was likely the least of her worries. They’d groped her with wild abandon, responding with violence when she made even the slightest protest. What else had they done to her?

  Danni didn’t want to even consider it. She’d never been victimized in such a way before, could barely even imagine it. The closest she’d ever come had been her high school prom date – he’d gotten a little grabby in the backseat of the limo afterwards. But that had been nothing, easy to set straight. This...

  Tears, unwanted yet seemingly unstoppable, began to well up in her eyes as she considered what might have happened to her.

  Slowly, fearfully, she reached a hand beneath her meager clothing, trying at the same time to take in her surroundings – anything to distract her from the awfulness of what she was doing.

  She was in a crude cell – small, barely six by eight. The walls were wooden planks. The bars of the cage were rusted and aged, but they also had the appearance of something that had stood the test of time. A small circular pit in one corner was the only amenity in sight.

  Danni closed her eyes as she probed herself, sickened to her stomach to think that other hands, or worse, had touched her there.

  No pain, soreness, or blood. She breathed a sigh of relief, although she knew that didn’t necessarily mean much. There was little doubt she had enough adrenaline running through her system to stave off nearly anything. The fact that her jaw only dully ached as opposed to throbbing told her as much. Time would tell.

  But, even if nothing had been done to her, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be. Why bother to strip her otherwise, leave her with barely nothing on? If they were simply making sure she wasn’t armed, they could have easily done so while she was unconscious. No. She had to assume the worst.

  The others, the ones who’d surrounded them, they’d all been male – some of them more human-looking than others. What the hell were they? What was this place? When would they come for her again? And, perhaps most importantly, where were her friends?

  Danni forced herself to stand, her legs still shaky beneath her. She approached the bars and took a look outside her cell. There wasn’t much of a view to either side, but across from her were other cells of a similar crude nature. The dim light made it difficult to tell if they were occupied, but she thought she spied a figure curled up in the corner of the one opposite her.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but for a moment, no words came out. Reminding herself of the murderous monsters she’d faced in the past, she took a deep breath and tried again. “Derek? Frank? Are you there?”

  The words sounded louder than they were in the awful silence of the prison, the only other disturbance the drip of water somewhere close by. After a minute of waiting, she tried again.

  Though her friends didn’t respond, someone else did.

  “Shhh. They’ll hear you,” came a low female voice from somewhere off to Danni’s left. She couldn’t see anyone, leading her to believe that maybe they were in a cell on her side of the hallway.

  Detecting no threat in this newcomer’s tone and not wishing to scare her off, Danni likewise lowered her voice. “Who’s there?”

  “My name is Sar...” Her voice trailed off into heavy, hitched breathing, as if terrified of saying more.

  That alone told Danni far too much. The woman’s tone spoke of hopelessness and despair, both feelings that threatened to overwhelm her, too. A part of her wanted to give in, to curl up into a ball and let the horror of her situation take over, but she refused. She fought back against it, remembering her training and the creatures she’d overcome.

  Though she didn’t feel particularly brave herself in that moment, she forced her voice to be strong for the other woman. “I want you to listen to me. It’s going to be okay. I have friends. They’re looking for me. They’ll find us.”

  “Y-you don’t know that,” the woman replied after several seconds, her voice shaky but under control.

  “And you don’t know my friends. They’re not the type who give up or get frightened easily.”

  “I-I can’t...”

  “I can,” Danni replied, realizing the more she spoke, the more she believed her own words. Even if she was mostly talking to herself, she didn’t want to stop and let the fear take hold again. “We’re going to find a way out of this. I promise you that.”

  “W-who are you?”

  “My name’s Danni.”

  “I’m ... S...” Again the woman hesitated, as if fearful of speaking her name, but finally, after several seconds, she said, “I’m ... S-Sophie.”

  Sophie?! “Sophie Guiterrez?”

  “What? H-how did you...?”

  “We, my team that is, were looking for you.” That wasn’t entirely true. There hadn’t been much faith that she was still living, but there was no need to share that information. She was alive. That was what mattered.

  “John, too?”

  Danni opened her mouth to reply but couldn’t form the words.

  “It’s okay,” Sophie said after a moment. “I know. I knew it when I ran away.” Her voice began to waver. “I t-tried to fool myself that I was going for h-help, but the truth is I left him. I left my husband to die.” She broke down into heavy sobs, loud in the claustrophobic confines of their prison.

  Danni listened, tears forming in her eyes as she wanted nothing more than to join Sophie in her misery. But she realized that wouldn’t solve anything. As much as she wanted to offer comfort, she waited until the other woman had gotten herself under control again before continuing.

  “Sophie, I need you to listen carefully. We’re going to get you out of this. That’s what I want you to focus on. You and everyone else here.” Danni glanced across the hall again, noting that the figure in the opposite cell had shifted a bit but still hadn’t turned to face her. “First, I need you to tell me who else is in here with us. Can you do that?”

  Sophie took several deep breaths before replying. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger, as if the crying had helped wash away some of her sorrow. “T-there were two other women here. Both Sarah. I mean, I’m not sure what their real names we
re.”

  “Were? Where are they?”

  “One of them... Maybe a week ago. She didn’t...”

  “It’s okay,” Danni quickly replied, fighting against the horror of what she was hearing. “You don’t have to say it. What about the other?”

  “I don’t know. They took her away a few hours ago. She’s close.”

  “Close?”

  “The one across from you is ... Abby. She’s...”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Danni turned to look across the hall. It had been the first sound the other prisoner had made. “What did you say?”

  The occupant turned halfway and Danni saw she was a young woman close to her own age, off by no more than a few years. “I s-said, don’t call me that. It’s not my name.”

  “Abby...”

  “Don’t call me that! My name is Sarah. So is yours.” She turned and pointed at Danni. “You, too.”

  “No. My name is...”

  “IT IS!” the woman screamed. “Just shut up! I’m Sarah! I’m Sarah! I’m Sarah!” She beat her fists against the wall as she repeated herself, loud at first, but then growing softer until wracking sobs made the words nearly unintelligible. Yet still she repeated her mantra.

  Danni’s heart broke for the poor girl. She’d seen people, friends, whose minds had been pushed past their capacity to cope. Abby sounded that way now – broken – as she keened in her cage, rocking back and forth in an attempt to find some small measure of comfort where there was none to be had.

  Both of these women, so terrified, so utterly hopeless. As scared as Danni was, the sight and sound of their anguish began to kindle a different emotion within her: anger. She latched onto it and used it to steel her resolve, pushing her own dread away and locking it up in a corner of her mind. She wouldn’t be a victim and she wouldn’t let these women down, not if she could help it.

  Danni opened her mouth to say as much, but there came the screech of metal grating against metal, followed by a hollow boom. It sounded like a door being thrown open somewhere close by.

  A few moments later, heavy footsteps approached and, despite her best efforts to keep the fear at bay, it returned nevertheless.