Rise of the Night Stalkers

by Kurtis Eckstein

  They both bolted for the Humvee, climbing in urgently and slamming the doors shut.

  The one behind the wheel was in such a rush to leave, that he backed right up over the first dead body, the corner of the vehicle lifting half a foot off the ground before the tire slammed back down on the pavement as he floored the engine.

  And with that they took off, having Savannah and one other girl tied up in the back, accelerating out of the parking lot and down the road as fast as possible.

  Chapter 9: Counterattack

  Harper instantly bolted from her hiding spot on two legs and stopped where the vehicle had just been with her sister, looking shocked and defeated for half a second, before looking up at me desperately.

  “Mason! Please!” she called out. “Please! Please save my sister!”

  Ugh!

  Seriously?!

  Dammit! I didn’t need this shit in my life! Why in the hell did I have to be everyone’s babysitter?!

  Dammit, dammit, dammit!

  Pissed at the situation, I let out a deep ear-shattering roar that surprised even myself with how terrifying it sounded, before leaping into the air and taking off to finish what the little gremlin had started.

  A small part of me knew why I was doing this, but I didn’t want to admit it.

  Harper had just proven that she could be useful.

  Sure, her enemies had been human, but she had just demonstrated that she was capable of making strategic decisions on her own, without anyone needing to tell her what to do. Which meant, if I could help her get stronger, then she would prove to be a true asset in a fight, rather than just a burden I had to protect.

  However, I really didn’t want to admit that to myself, even if I knew it was the truth.

  Thus, instead of coming to grips with this new revelation, I decided I would focus on a different reason for why this might prove beneficial to me – it would give me the opportunity to try out human for the first time, to see how many points I might gain, since my aversion to the idea had become a little less, thanks to their abhorrent behavior.

  Unfortunately, as I flew high above the buildings, I discovered that I had a little problem – they were driving way too fast!

  Sure, I could catch up with them, but then what? If I just landed on their vehicle at this speed, then I’d probably cause them to have an accident, which would be perfect for killing everyone inside, if it wasn’t for the extremely irritating nuisance of needing a particular human within to stay alive.

  Dammit, stupid girl.

  Why did you have to be so attractive to humans that they were jumping for joy to tie you up and stick you in their truck?

  Stupid exotic green eyes and pretty face!

  Like shit, maybe I would just claw her annoying little face off, so no one would ever look at her again!

  Ugh, I knew I wasn’t really going to do that, but everything was making me pissed. It made me wonder if I had always been a hot-head or if I was just pissy because everyone needed me to protect them.

  But damn, how had any of these pricks survived until now? Seriously!

  Deciding I didn’t have a lot of options, I continued racing to get ahead of them, and then dropped straight down to the street below, giving them barely enough time to slam on their brakes.

  Both men’s eyes turned wide as saucers as they saw me slam into the street, creating a crater along with a spiderweb of cracks, both of them staring in horror as their lives flashed before their eyes.

  The driver did slam on his brakes, but also tried to swerve around me, prompting my tail to strike out, slicing their rear tire, which exploded and sent them spinning wildly. They didn’t get far though, before the rear hit a stalled truck, bouncing briefly onto two wheels before slamming back down on all four, with the back corner sinking much lower.

  There was no place for them to go now.

  They were trapped, with no hope of survival.

  The driver just stared at me with panicked eyes, gripping the wheel so tight that his knuckles looked like they were popping out of his skin. However, the passenger hadn’t accepted death yet, yanking up his gun to fire.

  In a flash, my tail bolted around and stabbed straight into the windshield, the whole thing exploding into a million little pieces as my blade sank into the man’s chest. Blood exploded out of his mouth, a horrified expression frozen on his face, the life rapidly draining from his eyes.

  The driver looked like he had shit himself, finally moving to action as he fumbled with the door and jumped out with shaking legs, running as fast as he could while screaming like a little girl.

  I retracted my blade out of the first victim and walked over to the vehicle to peek in the front, seeing one of the guns just lying there on the floor. Reaching in to grab it, I became curious as to whether or not I was any good shooting a weapon like this. Certainly, I knew it wouldn’t be much use against most Night Stalkers like myself, but it could be fun just to try it out.

  Turning it around, I held it up to my shoulder, aiming for the man running wildly down the street, a little surprised he hadn’t tried hiding behind something. Granted, what would that do? It’s not like there were many places to hide, with there being no close alleyways, and with all the buildings in the vicinity being locked up. Not to mention, I doubted he realized I was attempting to use a gun.

  I sucked in a deep breath, and then let it out, holding the position while I took aim.

  CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!

  I missed.

  Dammit, I shouldn’t have been too surprised. I pulled the trigger again.

  CRACK, CRACK, CRACK! CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!

  One of the bullets nicked the man in the side and he stumbled to the ground. I relaxed my posture and held the gun out to examine it, wishing I had a long-range weapon like this that was effective against more durable monsters.

  Processing unknown weaponized enhancement request…

  Invalid.

  Assessing structural utility…

  Analyzing handler biometric values…

  Calculating viable evolution paths…

  Complete.

  Displaying applicable handler biometric values…

  Thermoacoustic: 20

  Valid.

  Detecting viable body augmentations…

  Invalid.

  Analyzing results…

  Complete.

  Result: Handler body augmentations insufficient for proposed weaponized enhancement. Select augmentation location and allocate required resources.

  I just stared at the white letters displayed in my vision, completely baffled. Was this what I thought it was? A way for me to have some kind of gun? I mean, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of it being a physical part of my body, since I wasn’t sure how that would work, but still…

  Weapons were designed to do more than just kill – they were designed to win. No one who was intelligent went to a knife fight with a knife.

  No.

  A smart person went to a knife fight with a gun, and they went to a gun fight with a tank or airplane. The purpose of a weapon was to win, not to fight fair – not to fight on equal footing. So, if I could have some kind of long-range weapon, then that would be ideal. It would give me an advantage over almost all other Night Stalkers, possibly even all of them.

  Being uncertain how much modifications I could actually make to my body, I imagined myself having like an extra set of wings coming out of my back, except instead of wings, they could form cannons. It seemed impossible, and I had no idea what such a weapon would shoot as a projectile, but considering the idea prompted another string of text to appear.

  Determining evolutionary path viability…

  Valid.

  Determining resource requirements…

  Complete.

  Estimated Resource Requirement (Augmentation): 64

  Estimated Resource Requirement (Evolution): 138

  Total Estimated Resource Requirement: 202

  Determining resource availability…


  Distributable Resources: 1

  Invalid.

  Insufficient resources.

  Well, shit. Basically two hundred to make it happen? There was no way in hell that was working out anytime soon. And this was why I hadn’t bothered investigating my stats more in the first place, because I ended up seeing this outrageous resource requirement for what I wanted.

  Damn.

  But now I was curious.

  Considering 64 resources were required for the body augmentation, I wondered what would happen if I wanted to just turn my hand into a cannon – not ideal, but I figured I wouldn’t have enough resources either way.

  Determining resource requirement…

  Complete.

  Estimated Resource Requirement (Augmentation): 6

  Estimated Resource Requirement (Evolution): 73

  Total Estimated Resource Requirement: 79

  Determining resource availability…

  Distributable Resources: 1

  Invalid.

  Insufficient resources.

  Wow. Not at all what I expected. How could turning my hand into some kind of gun require less than half the number of resources? Honestly, I just didn’t get it. Maybe I would understand better if I checked out what ‘Thermoacoustic’ was and figured out why it mattered for a gun-like weapon.

  But I had plenty of time to worry about all that later, especially since I didn’t have the resources to begin with, even with this proposed secondary modification.

  Thus, for now, I needed to deal with the current situation, and get back to killing my prey.

  I glanced down the street to see that my victim had disappeared while I had been focused on the invisible screen displayed before me. However, lucky me, the guy had left a very obvious trail of blood in his attempt to crawl away.

  Deciding I was done playing with the gun for now, I dropped it on the ground and casually walked my big muscular ass down the street, my tail swaying behind me while I followed the dark red trail as it led underneath a dusty white truck.

  Bending down to glance below the frame, I saw that my victim wasn’t there, probably having crawled under the vehicle to get off the street, only to make his way down a narrow alley between buildings.

  Turned out he hadn’t gotten far though, since the alley was a dead end. The trail led straight to a dumpster where it seemed he must have squeezed behind, in order to fit between it and the wall. I couldn’t see him from this angle, but I imagined he was cowering in pain, terrified to have a horrifying monster stalking him down, knowing it was unlikely he would survive.

  Wanting to frighten him even more, I backed out of the alley to give him that one last hope of survival, while I made my way around the other side of the building to climb up a fire escape. I was sure he would hear my activity, but the distance would likely give him some reassurance that he had been spared.

  Then, once I was on the roof, I silently made my way to the ledge to peer down into the alleyway.

  And sure enough, from this angle, I could see him crammed into the small space between the metal dumpster and wall, looking like he had shit himself ten times over.

  I wasn’t sure I had ever seen such terror on a person’s face before, and found it oddly enjoyable. Not enough that I could do this just for the fun of it, but enough that I was willing to give this guy what he deserved.

  Ready to wrap this up, I dropped from the roof and plummeted to the ground, smashing into the concrete with enough force to create a spiderweb of cracks underneath my feet.

  My victim screamed like a girl from the shock – an uncontrollable, primal shriek of terror.

  I reached out to grab the edge of the dumpster, yanking it away with a loud squeak, revealing my wounded prey.

  He screamed again.

  “No! Oh please no!”

  I raised my tail in preparation for the strike.

  “Shit! No! Oh, sh–”

  His voice cut off as my bladed tail stabbed straight into his chest, with me quickly retracting it in order to reveal the gushing hole I had created.

  The man slumped over with wide eyes frozen on his face, the life in them rapidly disappearing.

  I supposed it was a fairly quick death, only drawn out by the fear of dying prior to the finishing blow. Maybe I could have spent some time torturing him a little, but I really didn’t have time to waste on a little shit like him. His life was meaningless, as was his death. Even if I killed filth like this man all day long, I’d never really find amusement in it, nor would I gain any benefit.

  Pointless. Worthless.

  Turning back toward the entrance of the alleyway, I was shocked to see Harper standing there silently, with a complex expression on her gray face. I supposed I should have realized she would follow after me. And, by running on all fours, it made sense that she would have caught up by now. However, it was a little unnerving that she had snuck up on me.

  “I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you,” she whispered as I drew closer, her head angling up more and more, due to the two-foot difference in our heights. “I just didn’t want to interrupt you.”

  ‘So you were standing there for a while?’ I assumed silently.

  She shook her head, but didn’t respond.

  It took me a moment to begin to understand why she seemed so reserved and…

  Vulnerable.

  She was vulnerable. And I suspected I knew why.

  For one, she had asked me to do something as a personal favor, and if I was essentially her master or boss in her perception, then that was a big deal. Second, she had made me upset in doing so, though I did what she requested anyway. And finally, the implications of her being indebted to me beyond what she already felt was significant.

  Which made me wonder…

  Pulling up her stats, I checked the ones associated with her relation to me.

  Calculated Allegiance: 100%

  Condition Status: Acceptable

  Calculated Obedience: 100%

  Condition Status: Acceptable

  Damn. I had no idea if the numbers had been progressively rising prior to this incident, or if this single favor was the sole reason for the spike, but either way, it couldn’t get any higher.

  ‘Huh, so you’re pretty much at a point where you’d do anything I asked you to, no matter what,’ I realized in my thoughts.

  “Yes,” she squeaked, her crimson eyes darting down the alleyway.

  Ah. Of course. I was wondering why she seemed apprehensive. She was afraid I was going to make her eat a human. Granted, I probably would have done that anyway, to find out how many points she could gain, if any…

  Still, this was an interesting development.

  I hadn’t really considered her 86% level of obedience a problem before, but now I was curious as to what had changed between 86% and 100%. Like, what wouldn’t she have done before that she would do now?

  There were potentially an unlimited number of possibilities, most of them probably pointless, like telling her to eat dirt.

  But would she have really refused to eat a human previously? And if she would have, to what extent? Would she have complied if I threatened her? Or would that just reduce her allegiance in exchange for a higher level of obedience? Honestly, I didn’t know.

  However, we did really need to know what our options were for gaining points…

  Harper just stared up at me, her white hair tucked behind her gray ears, her red eyes looking even more vulnerable, as if that was even possible.

  Dammit.

  Was I heartless, or wasn’t I?

  I wasn’t sure if I could make her do it when she was looking at me like that.

  Sighing heavily, I glanced at her full stats again, having forgotten that I hadn’t checked to see if her eating a handful of bites of the isopod had done anything significant, due to all the unwanted excitement…

  Unexpectedly, I froze solid, staring in disbelief.

  Determining available resources…

  Distributable Resources:
14

  Estimating subsequent resource availability…

  Estimated Resources Processing: 3

  Estimated availability in 00:09:58:923

  Holy shit!

  Was this really accurate?

  She had 14 available resources, and would have another 3 in ten minutes?! That was huge! Like, 17 points wasn’t amazing on its own, but compared to only gaining 1 or 2 points per meal, this was a big deal! Especially since Harper had initially almost filled up eating a regular Night Stalker!

  What if her entire meal had been from the isopod? Would she have gained double that? Maybe triple?!

  And I knew it had to be the isopod creature, because my available resources were still sitting at 1, so it wasn’t like a delayed estimation. I mean, yes, it was true that Harper had eaten more than me, but at the rate we were originally going, she should only have 3 points at most, not 17.

  Also, she had only eaten like ten or so bites out of the mysterious creature, leaving plenty left, which made me wonder how many total points we could gain from it…

  Unexpectedly, Harper spoke up. “We should get back to it then, before something else eats it and steals all those points.”

  I looked at her in shock, realizing she was completely right. We had to get our asses back there immediately, because I wasn’t sure how common those types of Night Stalkers were. And I couldn’t even imagine how devastating it would be to lose such a valuable asset to some other stupid monster. For all I knew, those types could be really rare, whereas humans were decisively not, so I wasn’t even remotely worried about trying one of them now.