E.B.E. 21- the Hunt

by Peer Lehregger

  He didn't know how to make her understand that he thought they were walking into a trap. So, he had to mimic a pantomime again, as inconspicuous as possible, but quite simple. He let her go, took a few steps and then acted as if he had walked into a bear trap, bent her over, acted as if he was opening her and limped back to her.

  Ibby watched unimpressed, but pointed her thumb up, then grabbed his hand and hastily made the gesture of trust in me. Hannes let his shoulders hang, sighed and the two entered. They went down the stairs and Hannes immediately saw the cop. She was a little strangely dressed, inappropriate for winter, she sat there, holding her glass with both hands and staring at it. Five men were sitting at a large table, building a large tower out of empty glasses and cheering each other on with quite harsh sayings. He noticed that the men were tipsy, perhaps even drunk, but the man, a huge man who had just placed the last glass on top of the tower, did not tremble. Showed no trace of trembling, no trace of insecurity. Hannes stopped, then he wanted to turn around as fast as possible, up the stairs and leave. Ibby grabbed his arm tighter, very tight, pulled him to the corner table, putting his head to his shoulder. Sabine sat nailed and rigid in her seat. Hannes took off his jacket and sat next to Sabine, who looked breathless at Ibby. Ibby also took off her jacket and cap, put both on an empty chair and communicated to Hannes that she wanted to sit next to Sabine and Hannes should sit next to Ibby. Ibby in the middle, all right, Hannes thought. He got up again, Ibby sat down next to Sabine, Hannes sit down again. Less than two minutes later the two had a beer in front of them; Hannes couldn't resist and drank the glass out, Ibby pushed her glass towards him with an almost reproachful look.

  Ibby and Sabine looked at each other. Hannes interfered. "May I present Sabine von Hansenwerder. And, Sabine, this is my guest. Ibby." Irritated, Sabine looked at him. "I haven't found another name. Ursula or Walburga sounds just as stupid." He laughed. "She can also tell you her real name herself." He tapped Ibby on the shoulder. When she looked at him, he pointed at himself, said "Hannes", pointed at her and then at Sabine. Ibby turned to Sabine and made a series of clicks. Hannes grinned. "You can call her by her real name now if you want." Sabine didn't react. She stared at Ibby motionless, with big eyes, blushed cheeks, sweaty forehead. Ibby stared back for a moment, turned to Sabine as far as she could, then took off her sunglasses. Sabine's eyes got bigger.

  Hannes watched the action and heard a sound that was very quiet, but that he knew well from his military service: It was the sound of a weapon that, well cared for and well oiled, was slowly and carefully loaded through. The clicking and clacking and clicking were almost imperceptible, but he heard it and it sounded like thunder in his ears. He had, the thought shot through his head, while ice-cold fingers groped his spine along, expected that to happen. Hannes had the feeling that he was sitting frozen in his place, doomed to inactivity. He feared shots would be fired in a moment, and then it would all be over.

  Ibby had also heard this sound, under the table she felt for Hannes's leg and pressed it lightly without turning her face; she looked at Sabine and Sabine at her. Sabine raised one hand, moved it slowly onto Ibby's face and touched her cheek, stroking Ibby's skin with her fingertips. She pulled her hand back, paused for a moment and bent forward a little, smelled Ibby's chest. Again, she straightened up, looked at Hannes, who looked back unimpressed and supported his chin on his fist.

  "Oh, my God," breathed Sabine, "it's really true." She took a hand from Ibby and held it, looked at the fingers, the palm of her hand, bent Ibby's finger, turned her hand carefully. Ibby pulled her hand back, then stroked her hand over Sabine's cheek, over her head, and then began stroking Sabine's breasts. Sabine threw her head back and groaned. Hannes watched with big eyes for a moment before he again let his gaze wander over the cellar and the present guests. The five men at the other table watched, laughed, drank, but they watched. An old man came down the stairs and sat down at the table beside the stairs, he was well dressed, the few grey hairs were cut, grey chin beard, and as Hannes saw it, they were pretty expensive clothes.

  The waiter came, brought a beer and looked at Ibby and Sabine, then walked off again. Hannes’ alarm bells rang in storm.

  Sabine threw her head forward, grabbed Ibby by the back of her head and pulled her towards her. "Heal me," whispered Sabine and kissed Ibby. Hannes grabbed his glass and leaned comfortably back. So what, he thought and drank his beer. Ibby had raised Sabine's skirt, Sabine reacted with a loud moan. Meanwhile, it had become dead quiet in the cellar, the men at the other table watched with their mouths open as Sabine raised her skirt with one hand and rhythmically moved Ibby's arm with the other. Then suddenly Sabine's body tightened, Ibby put her arm around her shoulders, Hannes turned her head and could see that Sabine was where she wanted to be. She rolled her eyes up, held her breath, her body vibrated, it was deadly silent in the cellar.

  The crash of the bones sounded like thunder when Ibby broke Sabine's neck with a jerk.

  Ibby pulled her hand away from between Sabine's legs. When Sabine's body twitched again, she tore the gun out of Sabine's holster, her hand with the gun described a bow and she hit Hannes in the face with her hand so that his head banged against the wall. Hannes immediately lost consciousness. His body tilted forward, the chin hit the table and Hannes slipped like a wet sack to the floor and remained there.

  Ibby aimed and fired at the five men who hadn't reacted to their surprise and went down one by one in a rain of blood. The old man reached into his jacket pocket and slowly and deliberately pulled out a pistol, aimed calmly at Ibby, but she jumped over the table with a huge jump. The man's first shot was a miss, but she was already at his table, swept his hand to the side with one blow, bared her claws, tore the man's chest open and tore everything out with one jerk.

  She heard some men ran down the stairs and then threw a bloody lump to them, while they ran down with pulled weapons and one of them caught the blood lump and froze. She jumped between the other two and slashed the throats of the men with her claws. They collapsed and the man who had caught the lump stared in bewilderment at what he was holding in his hands and vomited. He dropped his pistol, dropped the lump, stared at Ibby, Ibby hissed and the man ran up the stairs.

  Class Five

  Mike waited outside the brewery for the cell phone man, always looking at the clock. The cell phone man had asked what was going on when Mike called him, but Mike's voice had put him on alert, he reassured Mike that he would be there in twenty minutes.

  In the meantime, more than an hour had passed since noise and gunfire and screams were heard down in the basement. Mike had hidden behind the counter and only ventured forward after what felt like an eternity, always afraid that he would see, no, that HE would see what his co-worker had seen and had caused him to run out of the building.

  An intense smell of excrement and urine pulled like a flag behind the man, Mike had seen and smelled it and hid, pulled the gun and loaded through. It had quickly become clear to him that the men down there in the basement were younger, faster, more aggressive than he was, also equipped with better weapons, and it didn’t help them. Mike crouched behind the counter, heard quick footsteps, shattering glass, wheezing, glasses and crockery falling to the ground, but saw nothing. She hadn't discovered him. Next to him lied a man who had had a throat cut by one of Mike's employees, he still had a surprised expression on his face, he lay there very relaxed, Mike didn't notice him.

  He dared to leave his hiding place and went to the stairs, walked down a few steps, discovered Yair's body in a lot of blood on the landing, he couldn't see it clearly, went back upstairs to the fresh air, smoked a few cigarettes and decided to call the cell phone man.

  In the meantime, the police also came; Mike had expected it and declared the area and the building as a restricted zone. He deliberately ignored the comments and protests of the officials, but only relaxed when the military police arrived. The police pulled out and he briefly explained what it was all about. The soldie
rs entered the house, secured the ground floor and basement. While Mike waited outside, three or four men came up pale, smoked a cigarette in silence, and then went back to their posts. The superiors didn't say anything, and Mike didn't say anything either.

  The cell phone man came and both men went into the building without a word. "So, you wanted to do your thing, didn't you?" the cell phone man asked.

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. "It wasn't foreseeable. I had five of my best people down there. And I called an old friend who was there, too."

  "And?" the cell phone man wanted to know.

  "All dead."

  "Were you downstairs?"

  Mike shook his head. "The MPs are downstairs, securing the room."

  "Oh," said the cell phone man. "I thought you had some really good ammo for these cases. You said you could stop dinosaurs with this."

  Mike looked at him. "Who knew that? Who...“?

  The cell phone man interrupted. "I told you. Let it go, I told you."

  His voice got louder. "I told you it wouldn't work!"

  He roared now. "And you wanted to do your own thing again! It's not working, you stupid pig. Let it go!"

  The cell phone man raised his hand and pressed the root of his nose with two fingers. "You weren't downstairs?"

  He looked at Mike shaking his head.

  "Then let's go."

  The two men walked slowly down the stairs, stopped at the stairs. The cellar offered a picture of horror. Mike saw that the bodies of his five men were shot in the head. The mess was incredible. Mike also saw two bodies lying over the table, thrown back by the bullet, one body lying on the bench next to the table, two bodies lying on their backs on the next table. Mike, horrified, didn't know where to put his hands. He'd never seen anything like it before.

  The cell phone man pushed something with his foot, he looked closer and kicked the lump to the body of Yair. "It's probably his," he said and went on to the corner table in the back of the vaulted cellar. Mike went to the lump, saw that this was probably Yair's heart. He looked at the corpse and looked at the obscenely torn chest, the ribs standing up as if an explosive had torn open Yair's chest. He didn't have to vomit, he had often seen corpses that no longer deserved the term corpse, he had often enough seen heads blown off, he knew what bodies that were shot dead looked like, guts hanging out, he had already seen all this, but here was his old friend, and then there were five men who looked as if they had been shot like targets. Not to mention those two with their throats slashed open.

  While Mike looked back and forth between Yair and the other seven bodies, the cell phone man had gone to the table where the three had been sitting. He pulled the table forward and Sabine's body fell to the ground. The cell phone man knelt next to the body, watched it carefully. Mike came up to him, looked at her face. The face seemed to be frozen in a kind of ecstasy, the mouth opened, from the eyes only the white could be seen through the gap, which the eyelids opened. Mike was kneeling next to the cell phone man. The cell phone man carefully moved the head of the corpse, the crunching of the bones rubbing against each other was clearly audible in the silence. "Thought so," mumbled the cell phone man. He scratched his chin. Mike watched. "Then it should be..." mumbled the cell phone man and lifted up Sabine's skirt. Mike looked and noticed that Sabine was not wearing any underwear and that she had a shaved vagina. The cell phone man mumbled "A pleasant death ..." and got up again. Mike also got up, looked at the body and then looked into the cell phone guy's face. He stared into space and scratched his chin.

  Mike's fuses jumped out and he put a swing to the mobile phone man's chin so that he stumbled over Sabine's body and went to the ground. The cell phone man wanted to get up, but Mike struck again, so the cell phone man went down again. Breathing heavily and wavering, Mike said, "You are an asshole. You knew about this. You knew what was going to happen." The cell phone man sat down and touched his chin, looked at Mike.

  "I told you it's no use to catch that thing."

  "What kind of thing?" Mike yelled with a bright red head. "Just tell me!"

  The cell phone man sighed. "Mike, again, I can't tell you."

  Mike pulled his gun out of the shoulder holster and held it to the cell phone man's head.

  The cell phone man looked up. "Shoot, asshole!"

  Mike shot, but at the last moment he pulled the gun up a little, so the bullet went over the mobile phone man's head, but the muzzle flash took away most of the hair on his head. The bang wasn't so loud, although it was roaring in everyone's ears, rather the bullet tore a large, white-hot crater into the ground, although it should have bounced off.

  The cell phone guy was staring at Mike. Mike pulled out and slapped the gun in his face.

  "I want to know everything, literally everything!"

  The phone man took a deep breath, shook his head and tried to sit on the bench. Mike roughly grabbed him under his arm and helped him.

  The cell phone man puffed, spat some blood on the floor. "Can we agree that I'll tell you what I can really say and the other things will stay secret," he asked Mike.

  "What do you mean?" Mike asked.

  "I mean, there are some things that really need to be kept as a secret, I can't tell you. You can beat me up or shoot me in the knees, I won't say anything about it."

  Mike thought about it and nodded. Then he asked the phone man, "What are we dealing with here?"

  "We don't know that. We don't know the species. A rumor is that the Russians caught a specimen years ago and interrogated it."

  "There must be something known."

  "Yes, but little," said the cell phone man. "We know this species is dangerous. We know that this species has only fear or better respect ...", the cell phone man laughed humorlessly, "... for the fast and the big ones."

  Mike frowned. "The fast ones and the big ones?"

  "Yeah. We got a deal with the big guys. Who or what the fast ones are, we don't know."

  "What deal?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  "Why not?" Mike asked angrily. "This is important."

  "Yes," agreed the cell phone man, "that's pretty damn important. Few people know what the deal is all about. I know only fragments."

  "Then tell me!"

  The cell phone man was thinking. "I can tell you a story. Watch your step. Our contacts have reported that the person who was captured in Russia had lived there for quite some time. It was, unlike our person, a man. He is said to have been of rare beauty."

  Mike punched the cell phone man's in the side with his fist. "Say it!"

  The cell phone man wasn’t responding to the strike. "We have heard that the person, as I said, had previously lived unrecognized for quite some time in a town near Vladivostok. Then it is said that he had discovered vodka for himself and he began to beat his girlfriend. That was probably a normal woman who found him somewhere and took him with her. As I said, he started hitting her and after a while, she kicked him out. A month or two later, the big guys reported him dead."

  "And?" asked Mike, who was beginning to see the connection.

  "Nothing more. The body was probably never found. Our contacts reported that if one of these ... persons ... dies, there is no way to autopsy the body. It simply dissolves completely within two or three hours."

  "Come on, don't tell me any fairy tales," said Mike, "I want details."

  "Then ask the Russians. Or talk to our contact next week. He's the representative of the big ones."

  "Does he know who the fast ones are?"

  "For sure. I don't know if he's gonna tell you."

  Mike snorted. "We'll see about that. But again, what are we dealing with here?"

  The cell phone man sighed and rubbed his smashed nose. "We're dealing with a Class Five alien. I can't tell you the individual classes and their gradations, that's a secret."

  "Good," Mike said. "Then tell me what class five means." Again, he lost control of his voice. "My God, that sounds like a fucking men-in-black movie," he yelle
d.

  The cell-phone man smiled, but then he pulled his face. "If you say so... Class Five includes the following criteria, among others. Unknown origin, largely unknown anatomy, not normally found on our planet, unknown disposition, so we do not know whether the species is generally hostile or sympathetic to us, unknown abilities, and last but not least, unknown technology."

  Mike nodded contentedly. "I can work with that."

  The cell phone man laughed again. "You can't do anything. The big deal involves keeping us and, by us I mean all of us, out of this kind of thing. That's their business alone. We can't do anything. That's all I can tell you, Mike."

  Mike picked out a paper napkin from his jacket and handed it to the cell phone man. He got up and went to a soldier who was putting Sabine's body in a black sack.

  "Anything else?" he asked the soldier. He nodded. "According to the tracks, the woman killed was sitting here on the bench." He pointed to a seat on the bench. "Traces of bodily fluids. Besides, take a look here. I find that very interesting." The soldier stood up and showed Mike a big bloodstain on the wall. Mike went closer to the Blur. Hair was visible in the palm-sized bloodstain. "Aha," Mike said, "so our guy got a little too." The soldier nodded. "We're assuming she knocked or hit his head against the wall."

  "This is a big stain, so our man has a big laceration. Where is he?"

  The soldier wiggled his head. "I guess she took him with her. After the assumed severity of the impact, we assume that target one has at least one concussion, if not more. But she took him with her."

  Mike turned around and looked at the cellar again in peace.

  "You're assuming Target Two took the unconscious or badly injured Target One on her shoulders and walked out of here with him in bloodstained clothes?"