The Hunted

by Val Tobin

  “Frosty!” Hound Dog said. “They’re unarmed. Those bastards.” He rattled the bars of his cage. “I’ll kill them for this.”

  Rachel turned to face the monitor in time to see Code Master and Foot-Long spot the nest in the tree. Each held a thick stick, which she assumed they’d picked up en route to this destination once the guards had left.

  “The girl we found”—Isabelle Marie—“was unmarked. But she was dead,” Rachel said.

  “What do you think that implies?” Hound Dog asked.

  “My father said the dose she got killed her. Grendels prefer fresh kills so they left her alone.” She paced her cage while watching the screen. “Maybe that was the problem. They wouldn’t know if the grendels rejected her because they didn’t take her down or because the vaccine worked.”

  “My God. They’re testing a vaccine?” Hound Dog rattled the doors of his cage. His muscles bulged. Curses streamed from his lips.

  “Dog!” Rachel shouted. “Not helping.”

  “I’ll kill them, Frosty. I’ll kill them.”

  “You and me both.” Tears leaking from her eyes, she watched the screen in horror as the two grendels slipped from the trees and approached the men.

  “Oh, God, what if they can’t kill all four?” Rachel whispered.

  “You think there are four?” Peter asked.

  “There’s at least three. Why would the experimenters separate the group? No, they’re testing this under real-world conditions—that’s why they didn’t just tie the guys up and throw them in there. They want to see them fight. See if they can win if the vaccine repels the grendels.” Then she realized what Janes had meant about the control.

  “One of them isn’t protected.” Her gaze frantically scanned the lab, searching for Janes, or anyone else, to rail at. “One of them got a shot of the vaccine. The other got a placebo. He’s the control.”

  “Then not all of us are vaccinated either,” Peter said.

  “Probably not.”

  The thought that their turn would come horrified her but not as much as the knowledge that, if their turn came, it meant either Coder or Foot-Long was dead. If the two men won against the grendels, would the experimenters consider the tests done? It wouldn’t matter. They couldn’t let any of them go, not after kidnapping them and using them as guinea pigs.

  The only way out of here was in a body bag unless they fought their way out. Peter was right: they needed to escape and report it.

  “Behind you!” Hound Dog shouted, and Rachel returned her attention to the video feed.

  On the monitor, the screaming began.

  ***

  Code Master’s sweaty palms gripped the stick he held with trembling hands. Crude and flimsy, the stick was all he had for a weapon against the fangs and claws of the grendels. He’d never had to fight them hand to hand. They’d never found themselves in a situation where they weren’t armed to the teeth and suited up with protective gear.

  Four grendels to contend with. He’d spotted the two in the tree immediately, but he couldn’t locate the other two. The possibility existed there weren’t another two, but Code Master doubted it. Pretending the odds were even could be fatal. He always assumed the worst, and so far, it had kept him alive.

  Foot-Long stood wide-eyed and panting beside Coder. They’d positioned themselves where the trees left a small clearing, but, with the clouds and rain, the exercise was pointless. Only the sun breaking through could help them now.

  “Get a grip, man. We’ll take them. Together.”

  “I don’t see the other two,” Foot-Long replied. “How big is this place?”

  “Can’t tell. From the gate they sent us through, I saw fencing twenty metres out on one side. Didn’t see how far the rest of it stretched. They’ll be close.”

  Brush rustled behind them, and Code Master whipped around as the two missing grendels slipped from the foliage five metres away.

  “Back to back!” Code Master shouted, and in seconds, the two men repositioned themselves. Foot-Long faced the new arrivals, Code Master the two from the tree.

  The pair from the tree moved slowly toward Code Master, their nostrils sniffing the air. At Coder’s back, Foot-Long panted with exertion even though he hadn’t yet exerted himself.

  “Calm down. Watch your breathing, Paul,” Code Master said, hoping the use of Foot-Long’s real name would help get him under control.

  “We’ve only got sticks. We’ll never kill them with sticks.”

  “We will. We have to. Don’t think about it. They’re just fugly humans. They bleed. Have hearts we can skewer. Remember that.”

  A scream tore from Foot-Long’s throat, and he wrenched away from Code Master. Since the two from the trees didn’t appear to want to lunge at him, Coder turned and shoved the tip of his stick through the eye of the nearest grendel, who had a grip on Foot-Long.

  It shrieked and released the man, but the creature’s partner had bitten into Foot-Long’s thigh. Blood spurted from the wound. Code Master screamed in rage and, afraid trying to skewer the beasts anywhere else would snap the stick, speared that grendel in the eye as well. The eyes were the squishiest part of them, the rest of their bodies covered in a thick, leathery hide.

  The two from the tree had joined the fight, and they also attacked Foot-Long, whose shrieks intensified as their claws raked his face and neck. Code Master hooked his arm around the nearest grendel’s throat and wrenched the beast away from Foot-Long. The creature shrieked and squealed, trying to free itself from Coder’s grip.

  It struggled but didn’t claw or bite at him. The noises it made grew more frantic as Code Master held on, squeezing and tightening on the creature’s windpipe. Why didn’t it claw him? Why didn’t it try to bite him? It appeared as if the thing wanted to escape him rather than fight him, and it no longer slavered now that it wasn’t attacking Foot-Long.

  Sudden silence from Foot-Long drew Code Master’s attention. The three grendels had ripped the young man to pieces and sat tearing meat from the bone and chewing on his remains. Code Master released the grendel, dropped to his knees, and threw up into the dirt.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The moment Code Master released the grendel and fell to his knees, the fight was over. Foot-Long had been the control. Code Master repelled the creatures. The vaccine worked. Rachel stole a glance at Peter and Hound Dog.

  Peter had collapsed on his cot, his face buried in the thin pillow. Hound Dog paced and snarled like a caged puma. Rachel turned back to the monitor. Would they get Code Master out now? Return him to his cage? She hoped they at least planned to do blood tests—any tests, so long as it kept him alive long enough for the rest of them to figure out an escape.

  “What’ll we do when we’re out there, boss?”

  On the screen, Code Master roared in rage and leaped to his feet. Grabbing his stick, he went after one of the wounded grendels. It sat clutching its broken eye and whimpering while its mates gorged on human flesh.

  Coder rammed the stick into its other eye, and leaping onto the creature’s chest, he yanked the stick out. He stabbed the monster with the stick, using all his strength to bore into the creature’s head with the point. In moments, the thrashing ceased and the monster lay still. Coder rose and headed for the next grendel.

  A shot rang out and Code Master dropped.

  Rachel screamed. “Oh, God, they shot him in the head. Dog, they’ve killed Coder.” She sobbed, not caring if it showed weakness. These guys were her partners, her friends.

  The screen on the monitor went dark.

  She ripped off her belt and tried to pick the lock with the buckle’s tongue.

  When the door to the lab swung open, Rachel stopped what she was doing and put her belt back on. Two guards entered carrying Code Master’s body. Janes followed the procession. They set Coder’s body on a slab near the sink on the other side of the room.

  “You bastards. You didn’t have to kill him,” Rachel screamed at them. Her voice had grown hoarse
and her throat hurt from the effort, but she disregarded it.

  No one replied. No one acknowledged with a glance that she’d even spoken.

  After Code Master’s body was in place, the two guards left the room. Janes began stripping the corpse.

  “At least have the decency not to work on him in front of us,” Hound Dog called to Janes.

  The doctor ignored him and continued disrobing their dead friend.

  Peter rattled the bars of his cage. Thank God he was back on his feet. In a life-and-death situation, she needed everyone at full capacity. To escape, everyone needed to work together.

  “Hey,” Peter shouted. “At least tell us why they shot him.”

  Janes threw him an irritated look. “They shouldn’t have.” He spit the words out.

  Rachel relaxed her shoulders and released the bars of her cage door. She hadn’t even realized she’d been clasping them. If the doctor hadn’t wanted Code Master killed after their test had verified the vaccine worked, then they might stand a chance. He’d have an argument about it with the guards’ supervisor, and the scientist won these contests every time. His time and effort spelled money. The guards were only grunts, there to do his bidding. No more prisoners would be executed that way.

  She moved across the cage to the side closest to Hound Dog. When he spotted her pressed up against the bars, he did the same.

  “I have a few ideas,” she said.

  He listened and then relayed them to Peter. After that, they could only wait.

  ***

  A long wait drew out the tension. Janes examined Code Master’s body. While Rachel and the two men avoided watching him do it, they couldn’t close their ears to the sounds of an autopsy performed nearby.

  They spent most of the time discussing innocuous things, things that wouldn’t matter to anyone listening, but kept them from losing their sanity. Peter told stories of his travels to other countries as a journalist. He talked about the spread of the grendel infestation and verified that, while it had started in Canada, it spread quickly to other parts of the world. The US became overrun within weeks. A month later, Europe had them bursting from the trees. From there, growth became exponential, until every part of the world had grendels.

  The exceptions were hot, sunny climates and cold, barren climates. Deserts provided inadequate shelters and hunting grounds for the beasts, but some groups eked out an existence. Areas with palm trees had fewer grendel colonies, but they appeared even there. However, places where the sun shone often recorded fewer deaths by grendel. The Arctic Tundra remained free of them. The creatures needed trees around them and longer stretches of warm weather.

  At last, the waiting came to an end. A group of four guards with guns swaggered into the lab. Rachel’s father had not made an appearance since he’d caged her, but that didn’t surprise her. He’d consider her a traitor and, as far as he was concerned, she was already dead to him.

  A guard unlocked the cages, and Rachel and the men stepped out into the lab. The three fell in line, Rachel leading, Peter in the middle, and Hound Dog taking up the rear. On her way out the door, Rachel snatched up the jacket they’d tossed aside when they’d brought her in and she put it on. As they walked, she scoped out each guard and verified what weapons he or she carried.

  In her belt, she still had hidden matches and other tools, among them a thin penknife. She planned to give the knife to whoever turned out to be the control subject. That person would obviously need it the most.

  The guards led them through a tunnel that ended at a set of double steel doors. Every so often, along the corridor, she spotted a surveillance camera. The last camera hung above the exit doors. One guard led the way, the second walked beside Rachel, and the last two brought up the rear. They passed the second-last camera. Rachel slowed her pace, the guard next to her automatically easing up to match her reduced strides.

  As they neared the double doors, she braced herself. When the lead guard pulled out a set of keys to unlock the doors, she smashed against the guard beside her and knocked the woman into the wall. The second Rachel moved out of his way, Peter lunged forward and hurled himself onto the lead guard’s back. Hound Dog, meanwhile, busily smashed the heads of the last two guards together.

  One went down, but the other slugged Dog in the jaw, snapping his head back. Rachel’s guard recovered just as quickly and manoeuvred her handgun up and ready. In such close quarters the advantage was Rachel’s. She gripped the barrel of the gun and twisted it from the guard’s hands. Raising it high above her head, she smashed the grip on the guard’s head. As soon as the guard went down, Rachel shot out the camera mounted above the doors.

  “Run!” Rachel bellowed it as she heard multiple footsteps headed their way.

  She clocked the guy Peter continued to struggle with, stole the handgun from his holster, extra ammo from his magazine carrier, and the keys from his ring. She pushed through the doors, and Peter stumbled out behind her. Hound Dog ran out only seconds behind them, a rifle in his hands.

  “I couldn’t get a gun,” Peter said, his voice apologetic.

  Rachel shoved the handgun at him. “Never mind. Take this.” She kept the rifle she’d swiped for herself.

  “After me.” She didn’t wait to see if they followed. The plan was to have Peter in the middle, and she trusted Hound Dog to ensure it happened. Anytime they spotted a camera, they shot it, removing surveillance. As they ran, she listened for pursuit and movement in the trees around them. The creatures could be anywhere, and she didn’t assume they’d stuck her group in with the already wounded monsters.

  Her enemies weren’t stupid. They’d have killed the first group and replaced them with a new one. That’s what probably took them so long to bring Rachel and her friends out here. In almost no time, they reached the small clearing she recognized from the video. The grendel habitat was still there, and in the tree surrounding it perched four creatures.

  She whistled at them, and they immediately swung down and charged at the newcomers. The three friends stood, a metre apart, weapons raised, and let them come. Breath held, Rachel waited to see who repelled them and who would be their target.

  All four ran at Rachel.

  Her first thought was relief, but she didn’t have time for a second thought. She turned and ran back toward the building and the doors they’d come through. An excellent runner, she spent much of her exercise time on the track and running through whatever neighbourhood she lived in. Of the three of them, she was the best suited to do this.

  Hound Dog and Peter kept pace with the grendels as they loped along behind her. While she was breaking a sweat, the creatures ran with ease and grace. Before she reached the double doors, one of them pulled her to the ground. She spun around in its slippery grasp and wrestled with it, trying to keep her throat out of its reach.

  Its head blew off, and she was free. Not sure if Hound Dog or Peter had made the kill, she ignored it and unlocked the doors. As she flung them open into Peter’s waiting grasp, two guards met her. She dove between them, hoping the three grendels on her tail were close enough to get through the doors.

  The shrieks of the guards told her they’d succeeded. She ran back down the hallway, rifle ready. Two pairs of boots pursued her, but she knew the footsteps belonged to Peter and Hound Dog. As they ran, Peter’s handgun fired at regular intervals, blinding the cameras.

  No more guards appeared. Perhaps, Rachel and her crew had defeated them all. Her father was probably scrambling to call in reinforcements. The trio stumbled from the corridor into the deserted lounge area.

  “Where to?” Hound Dog asked.

  “I want to say we take down my father, but we need to get the hell out of here. We’ll get back to HQ and go public with what we’ve found.” She looked at Peter. “You ready to write the story of your life?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Rachel led them outside. The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up, making it a chilly ten Celsius. At least it was above freezi
ng, but it was cold for September. They walked to the gate as if they belonged there. The guard at the guardhouse didn’t notice they weren’t his people until they barged in on him. By the time he’d realized his mistake, Hound Dog had a rifle pointed at his head.

  “Open the gate,” Hound Dog said and relieved the guard of his rifle.

  When the guard hesitated, Hound Dog prepared to fire. “Have it your way.”

  “No, wait. I’ll open it.” The guard flung his hands up, palms out. In an instant, he had the gate unlocked and rolled back.

  “Where’s my truck?” Hound Dog scanned the area.

  The guard shrugged. “I didn’t see a truck.”

  “They might have left it on the road,” Peter suggested.

  “Why?”

  “No time for this,” Rachel said. “Tie this guy up, Dog. Peter, step out and find us a vehicle—any vehicle.”

  “But we don’t have keys.”

  Rachel gave him a you-must-be-kidding look. “Just locate one. We’ll take care of the details.”

  “Okay, boss.” He grinned and slipped from the guardroom.

  While Hound Dog finished immobilizing the guard, Rachel rooted around the room and scooped up a backpack containing bottles of water and what looked like someone’s lunch. She assumed it belonged to the guard.

  “Sorry, man,” she said to the guard, “I don’t know where we’re going or how long it’ll take to get there, and they stole our packs.” While she was at it, she took the knife from his belt and another gun and extra ammunition she found in a drawer below the control console.

  “Have a nice day.” Hound Dog saluted the guard, who lay tied up on the floor, and stepped outside. “Coming, Frosty?”

  “Right behind you. Let’s find Peter.”

  Janes and her father still lived—unless they’d run across the grendels. She didn’t know if any guards remained, but anyone left in the building would have to watch for the creatures. That bought her small group time but not a lot.