Rise of the Night Stalkers

by Kurtis Eckstein

  Without another thought, I reached out and grabbed Harper by the back of the neck, prompting her to squeal in surprise as I lifted her effortlessly and pinned her to my chest to leap into the sky. Then, once airborne, I glided for a few moments to allow her to climb over my shoulder and onto my back while my wings were motionless.

  “Ugh, I might have overdone it,” she said once she was in position, with her arms wrapped around my neck. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  I growled at her. ‘I swear if you do, I’ll toss you to the horde.’

  She tightened her embrace around my neck and buried her face against the back of my shoulder, not saying anything else, probably in an attempt to focus on not vomiting all over me. And I wasn’t about to taunt her by flying roughly, because I sincerely didn’t want her to puke on my back, so I was mindful about my movements in the air, attempting to not make her any more sick than she already was.

  Once the hospital came in sight, which was where I assumed the gunfire had come from since they were the only humans I knew around here, Harper finally relaxed a little.

  “I think I’m going to be okay,” she disclosed.

  I was glad to hear that, but didn’t respond, focusing intently on the emergency parking lot now. Honestly, I wasn’t fully certain why I had decided to come, knowing that it had just been a combination of annoyance and cautiousness – annoyed because they were making too much damn noise, and cautious because if the horde was going to stir again, then I’d rather see it from the air, as opposed to still being on the ground when I noticed.

  The second reason still didn’t really explain why I decided to fly back this way. I mean, it wasn’t like I had a busy schedule, so I supposed some curiosity played a role, along with the potent desire to bitch-slap whoever had fired their gun.

  However, now I was just confused as hell as to what was going on.

  The entire area was full of a thick fog, like someone had dropped a smoke bomb off, leaving me unable to see anyone or anything. Dammit, what in the hell were those people doing? Were they being attacked, or had someone just been stupid?

  At the edge of the cloud, I noticed an unfamiliar vehicle that stuck out because it was different from the others that had been in the parking lot, looking like a tan military Humvee. Did that mean there were soldiers here? And if so, where had they come from? Surely the military wouldn’t attack people, which meant it was either an accident or they might have thought a Night Stalker horde resided here instead of humans. After all, it wasn’t like there was a bunch of shooting going on, so maybe they made a mistake and only realized it after the fact.

  Landing on a roof across the street, I dropped down low to stay out of sight, not wanting to involve myself in unnecessary human drama. Harper slid off my back and peered over the edge next to my side, both of us listening to the violent coughing, hacking, and gagging that we could now hear below.

  It only took a few seconds for my nose and eyes to detect a foreign irritant, though it did nothing more than feel a little funny against my exposed areas, like a lesser version of the tingly sensation someone might get when their arm falls asleep. The pins-and-needles sensation was barely noticeable, really only affecting my eyes a little.

  My first thought was tear gas, but honestly I had no idea what it was.

  The light breeze wasn’t helping disperse the smoke much, but it was slowly dissipating on its own anyway. Still, I couldn’t see anything, and the noises I heard only made me more curious.

  Dammit, if only I had heat vision or something.

  Transitioning to Thermal Vision (Skill)…

  Complete.

  Shit! I had heat vision?!

  Unexpectedly, the color in my vision began graying out slightly as the world before my eyes filled in with heat signatures, but it was nothing like I would have expected. Instead of heat being shades of red, orange, and yellow, the temperatures in the world around us appeared to be displayed as various brightness levels of white light.

  Whatever was cold was dark gray, having only mild color from my normal vision, as if someone had turned the saturation down low on an image. Alternatively, whatever was hot was lit up bright white, likewise having a slight hue of color.

  However, in this particular situation, since the scene I was interested in was covered in dispersing smoke, there was no added color from my normal vision, with the Humvee’s engine being a brighter gray, while the people down below were a medium gray.

  How was this type of vision possible?

  It didn’t seem so much like my vision was changing, but instead like my brain was just focusing on a separate way to experience the world that had already been there, sort of like someone being able to pay attention to sounds better if they closed their eyes and concentrated.

  The fact that I could still see color a little was indicative of that, and it made me wonder if the floating stats screen, that was only visible to me, was sort of like a hallucination of something extremely hot floating in the air, like artificial heat signatures being sent to my brain to create words, not to mention the random specks of light I had seen earlier that seemed to lead me around.

  Thinking back to my stats, I recalled seeing something labeled Thermoacoustic. I had no idea what it did, but the fact that it had Thermal in the word made me suspect this heat vision was a skill I had obtained from there. Which brought up another question too – if this hallucination was originating from me, and using language I understood, then why in the hell was there a word I had never even heard of?

  Obviously, there had to be an outside source responsible for this screen – I didn’t see any other possibility, especially since the language being used was ambiguous sometimes. But what was the source? And how did it work? How did this system communicate with my brain?

  I suddenly had so many questions, a cumulation of discrepancies all adding up at once, but I didn’t dwell on it for long due to the activity down below.

  The humans I had met previously were definitely being attacked.

  It appeared as if one person was lying dead on the pavement, with a light gray fluid leaking out of their medium gray body, and then there were roughly ten other people on their knees, coughing, hacking, and wheezing as they tried to breathe. Doing a quick count, it appeared as if there were actually thirteen people clustered together, with three being unconscious, while the other ten breathed like they were having asthma attacks, combined with sounding like someone was gagging them simultaneously.

  So, fourteen people total, if the dead guy was included.

  However, not everyone was affected, with two armed men outside wearing full-face gas masks.

  At first, I was curious as to why they were just standing around, until I heard someone screaming inside the building, followed by seeing another guy dragging out one of the humans who had been within. Of course, the screaming cut short when the toxic fumes began to affect the person, making them cough and wheeze like everyone else. However, unlike the other people outside, one of the first guys helped grab this human and pull them towards the vehicle.

  “Got a good one?” the guy helping asked, his voice crackling like he was speaking through a radio.

  “Yeah, she’s good,” the other agreed with the same crackle, sounding a little out of breath.

  The first guy scoffed. “Shit, she better be. After losing half our crew to these bastards a couple of days ago, they’re lucky any of them get to see another day.”

  The other laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, well, I’m sure this beauty will wish she was dead after we’re done.”

  It wasn’t until they got closer to the edge of the thinning smoke that I could clearly see the struggling person they were dragging was a woman with blonde hair who looked to be in her mid-twenties, being about the same age as Chris and Tony. I also realized these guys were not military, giving me the impression they were just typical criminals with gas masks and big guns, which also indicated that they might have stolen the vehicle.

 
Not that I really cared if they were military or not. It was just an observation.

  Furthermore, the snippets I was hearing from their conversation made me realize this wasn’t a random attack. And I suspected that the reason why Harper and her older brother got separated from the group might have been due to whatever happened a few days ago that resulted in half of these assholes dying.

  Also, I assumed the fact that Randy, John, and the other humans weren’t acting on high alert earlier in the day might indicate they thought the problem had been dealt with – that killing the original group of men meant they were safe again, not realizing those bastards had accomplices.

  Either way, whatever the case, it wasn’t my problem. Just because I helped these humans once didn’t mean I had the time to get involved in all their stupid drama.

  A day ago, and I probably would have mindlessly killed them all on-sight, so they should just be thankful I let them live in the first place, even if they were all about to die anyway…

  While those two loaded the girl up into the back of their Humvee, a fourth guy came out of the Radiation Therapy entrance, dragging another person who appeared to be unconscious.

  “Hey, someone help me with this one!” he called out. “This bitch is definitely a keeper!”

  One of the two guys who had been loading up the first woman rushed over, with the smoke having cleared enough that it appeared he could see this second person once he was a couple of feet away. “Damn! She’s one of the hottest bitches I’ve ever seen! I wonder if she’s legal? Looks a little young.”

  The other guy laughed. “Does it even matter?”

  “Nah, I was just curious,” he responded, the two of them effortlessly dragging the unconscious girl across the pavement.

  When I finally saw that it was Savannah, who was wearing different clothes than when I had last seen her and had darker hair due to it being damp, I automatically glanced down to Harper in order to see if she was going to react to the sight.

  The little gremlin’s red eyes widened as she recognized the person, before she looked up at me with a hesitant expression. “C-Can we help them?” she wondered softly.

  ‘Why?’ I asked, being completely serious.

  This wasn’t our problem. I had already determined that these humans probably didn’t have anything else to offer me, and the possibility that they might have some other way to benefit me wasn’t worth the risk of getting shot, especially considering I wasn’t sure how a bullet to the face would affect my health.

  Plus, as I had already noted repeatedly, I had never signed up to babysit anyone. It was bad enough I had to put up with this little monster, but I wasn’t about to go around trying to protect every human who happened to be in trouble. I didn’t have time for it. I had enough of my own shit to deal with and figure out.

  And, as I already considered, had I not woken up to my senses the previous night, then I would have still been a mindless beast who would have eaten them without hesitation had I come across them at night.

  They could take care of their own shit, as far as I was concerned.

  Harper’s brow furrowed, her full gray lips puckered out slightly, as she thought about it. “I don’t remember her, but if she really was my sister…” Her voice trailed off.

  ‘So?’ I prompted, my gaze shifting to watch them load Savannah up in the vehicle.

  She looked up at me again. “So, wouldn’t you want to protect someone like that? Like, if we came across a human who claimed to be your brother, sister, mom, or dad – someone tied to your humanity – wouldn’t you want to keep them alive? To learn more about who you had been? Or at least just to feel like you had existed as a human once?”

  I took a deep breath as I held her gaze, sincerely considering it.

  Ah, shit. I wasn’t about to waste my energy on this, but if there were no humans around then it also meant I didn’t need to worry about talking. Plus, experimenting with Harper’s stats wasn’t an absolute necessity. Which meant her succeeding would further her purpose as a liaison, since she would be saving the humans, and her dying probably meant all the humans would die too, thus eliminating the need.

  ‘Do whatever you want,’ I replied apathetically, not really caring either way.

  She hesitated for a moment as she stared at the scene down below, possibly contemplating the danger and her possible death, before nodding to herself. Standing up, she dashed towards the side of the building and began quietly clawing her way down to the alleyway, only to dash across the mostly empty street on all fours and hide behind one of the many abandoned cars.

  The two guys who had originally been inside, when we first arrived, had disappeared back into the building, leaving only two men in the parking lot. The smoke was really beginning to thin now, to the point that I recognized John and his two sons, Chris and Tony, as being the three unconscious humans. However, I had no idea who the guy was that had been shot.

  Maybe whoever had been on lookout at the time?

  I also noticed that the old codger, Randy, wasn’t among the people who had been dragged outside, prompting me to wonder if he was still unconscious, or maybe had just been taking it easy after the head injury. Harper’s brother wasn’t there either, although there was a dark-skinned girl who looked like she might be a few years older than Ethan.

  Otherwise, there was one middle-aged balding man, and then a really old man and woman, along with another woman who appeared to be in her thirties, all of them having pale complexions. The remaining five people all looked like they were relatives of Chris and Tony, being dark-skinned women of varying ages ranging from something like thirty to fifty.

  My best guess was that one of the two middle-aged women must be John’s wife, while the other must then be her sister, making the three younger women Chris and Tony’s older cousins.

  Needless to say, Harper only had to deal with two enemies at the moment, which shouldn’t be much of a problem considering how quiet she could be on four legs – basically a hairless mountain lion wearing a wetsuit.

  Like, as she got into position to strike, I quickly realized that stalking must truly come naturally to our kind, because the little badass proceeded to expertly sneak up on the man like a ninja, leaping onto his back and sinking her teeth into his neck.

  I could hear the snap from here, as she broke his spine at the base of his skull, dropping him to the ground in an instant. However, the fact that I could hear it so loudly also meant that the other man did too. He whipped his head around, just in time to see a four-legged creature dash behind another car.

  “Shit!” he called out in shock, firing his gun a few shots after she had already vanished. He then proceeded to run over to his partner in crime, while pointing his weapon towards the car.

  However, Harper wasn’t about to stand still and wait around. She was watching him by peeking underneath the vehicle, observing his posture by looking at his feet, and the moment he shifted his weight to glance at his fallen comrade in shock, she silently bolted on all fours toward the group of humans who were all still coughing violently, all of them with their eyes slammed shut, their faces covered in tears and snot.

  Unsurprisingly, they were so focused on trying to breathe that they didn’t even realize a Night Stalker was silently creeping amongst them.

  It was a ballsy move, considering the guy might have just opened fire on the small crowd if he had noticed her, but that ended up being the last place he expected to see her, not even glancing in that direction. And besides, the smoke was still hazy enough that someone seeing her might think she was just wearing regular black clothing.

  Like, at this point, she barely looked like a normal Night Stalker, except for the iconic gray-and-black skin. And sure, her red eyes and white hair, along with her two small black horns, were all revealing too, but not when she was partially concealed in a tear gas fog.

  Harper didn’t make any motion to go after the guy though. Instead, when she saw an opportunity caused by him firing his gun agai
n, possibly to scare off the wild animal, she dashed for another car closer to the building, forcing me to use my thermal vision to track her movements.

  That’s when I realized she truly was smarter than a normal ten-year-old human, capable of strategizing. Capable of planning ahead.

  Capable of anticipating her prey’s next move.

  The second burst of gunfire had prompted one of the guys inside to rush out, speaking loudly with a crackling voice as a device in his gasmask amplified his words. “Everything good?” he asked.

  “Shit! No man! Luke is dead! Something killed him!”

  “Shit!” the guy replied, yelling back inside the building, telling their other comrade to get his ass outside. He then carefully moved further away from the building, speaking again, all while Harper crept closer to the entrance. “What in the hell killed him?” he asked. “Some kind of animal?”

  “I don’t know man!” the guy retorted. “It was small, so I don’t think it was a Stalker, but it went behind that car there.”

  “Yeah, can’t be a Stalker,” the guy agreed. “I’ve never heard of one being out during the day.” He stopped when he reached the dead man, cursing again under his breath.

  Harper was finally in position, and just in time, with the last guy coming out of the entrance, sounding confused and frustrated.

  “What the hell is–”

  The man’s voice turned into a scream as teeth sunk into his neck, followed immediately by a loud crack and silence.

  Harper instantly shoved off her victim’s back and dashed into the building, disappearing even before the man fully hit the ground, as she hid behind some of the cinder blocks the humans had used as a barricade.

  Which meant her last two enemies hadn’t seen her at all, because from that angle, I suspected it looked as if their comrade had just dropped dead, attacked by an invisible beast.

  “To hell with this shit!” one of the last two exclaimed in a panicked tone. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”