Rise of the Night Stalkers

by Kurtis Eckstein

  However, as I was about to order Harper to get on my back so we could leave, I saw a reservation in her red eyes again, even though she had been the one to bring up our immediate departure.

  ‘Worried about your sister?’ I assumed.

  “Can I just make sure she’s alive?” she asked quietly.

  ‘Make it fast,’ I retorted, annoyed at myself for being so soft and giving in to her innocent expression.

  Her gratefulness only escalated, with her taking off so as to not waste any time. It made me wonder if she had a system-generated calculation for thankfulness too, since it looked like it would be maxed out right now, based on her expression. However, one didn’t display as I considered it, so I supposed that gratitude wasn’t something this mysterious system cared to measure.

  Oh well.

  It was time to get back to the isopod, and let the humans fend for themselves now that the immediate danger was gone. I could worry about anything extra at a later date.

  Chapter 10: Teamwork

  It turned out that Savannah had already woken up when Harper went to verify that she was alive. She hadn’t tried escaping though, because she was too busy coughing and trying to breathe, having been affected by the tear gas even though she hadn’t been exposed for long – not that she could have escaped easily anyway, being tied up and all.

  At least she could see, since her eyes had been closed due to her unconsciousness.

  I heard the human nineteen-year-old scream in surprise when Harper opened the back door, prompting the other temporarily blinded girl to scream too, before Savannah registered who it was and reassured the older one.

  As far as I was aware, the first blonde they had stuck in the vehicle had been the only other person they decided to kidnap, currently leaving the two of them in the Humvee with an impaled dead body in the front seat.

  Harper made quick work of helping them untie their bonds, making use of her large clawed hands, before leaping back out of the vehicle, without explaining where she was going to the humans. She then made her way back to me and climbed on my back, with Savannah attempting to call after her, coughing as she did so.

  But both of us ignored her.

  We flew without incident back to the horde’s location, and I sighed in relief when I saw that the isopod carcass was still there untouched.

  There was no way in hell we would be able to eat it all in anything less than a week, assuming it didn’t rot before then, which meant my first priority was getting it to a safe location. One option was to make myself at home in the same hospital where the humans were staying, but I really didn’t want to be around them if I could help it. Granted, inner-city hospitals were usually very large, just as this one was, so it was possible we could hide out without them even knowing we were there.

  However, then my mind drifted back to the boiler room where I had originally woken up. It was true that I had met one Night Stalker inside that building, but otherwise the place had seemed fairly empty. If I could just figure out where the one had entered, then I could barricade it enough so that the stupid Night Stalkers just assumed entrance wasn’t possible – an assumption I was making based on the flimsy cinderblock barricade made by the humans.

  Honestly, I was sure regular animals were smarter than most of my kind.

  Or maybe it was a vision thing. I had both normal color vision and heat vision, but if my counterparts only had heat vision, then it was possible the cinderblock barricade would really look like just a wall.

  Landing in the street as quietly as possible, I had Harper stay on my back while I tried to wrap my arms around the massive pill-bug looking thing, which was definitely heavier than it appeared.

  Despite being the size of a very large dog, or maybe even a timber wolf, it weighed more than Savannah and Randy had combined, which meant flying was going to be more difficult than it had been previously.

  Harper instinctively tightened her embrace around my neck, as well as her legs around my waist, as if assuming I was going to leave her behind in order to transport the damn thing. However, lucky for her, I hadn’t gotten to that point yet, being fairly certain I could handle it.

  Once I had it wrapped in my arms, bear-hugging it tightly, I leapt into the air, beating my wings furiously with little altitude gain.

  Dammit.

  Swinging my tail downward, I tried to give myself little boosts, similar to what kids did with their legs on playground swings, except I was doing it vertically. That did help a lot, and with a few whips of my bladed tail, I had climbed high enough to fly over the nearby buildings.

  Thankfully, even though moving up further was difficult, flying horizontally wasn’t as much of a problem. I only had to give myself another boost with my tail every few hundred feet.

  Given that I had spent all night on the roof of the building where I woke up, I was able to identify it easily in the distance, especially since it was one that rose a lot higher than its surrounding peers, only being eclipsed in size by the nearest midnight spire, with its red faintly glowing cracks. Certainly there were skyscrapers, but not in this part of the city.

  As I examined the structures stabbing into the sky as far as I could see, an unexpected thought occurred to me.

  What if these structures were like some kind of radio towers transmitting information to my mind? And if that was the case, what would happen if I left the Hell Zone? Would I lose reception essentially? That overall theory would explain the stats screen, as well as the mysterious system behind it, but then what did that say about the massive towers?

  Honestly, I was beginning to feel like something extraterrestrial was going on here, but how in the hell had the towers grown from the ground? Humans usually perceived alien life as this foreign superintelligence that existed somewhere out there in space, but what if that superintelligence had been here all along, advancing below our feet?

  Was this like some kind of attack on the surface, in an attempt to claim back the planet?

  Or was it something else entirely?

  It could be the planet itself trying to kill off humanity, having its own consciousness the humans never imagined possible. I mean, who was to say the planet didn’t have some form of agency? And maybe the seismic produced towers had unearthed a hibernating disease?

  It could be so many things, none of which sounded very believable in my opinion. And yet, I couldn’t deny that something outside of my own head had to be behind the game-like hallucination.

  Well, for now, instead of worrying about who or what was behind it, I just needed to take advantage of it, as well as this invaluable resource pool I had accidentally stumbled upon.

  Landing on the roof of my building – yes, it was mine as far as I was concerned – Harper jumped off my back and opened the door for me that led to a set of concrete stairs. We both then made our way down to the basement floor, which was furnished just like the first floor, being full of offices, and I dropped her off with the carcass so I could make sure the coast was clear.

  I went ahead and took a bite of the isopod while I was at it, figuring it couldn’t hurt to add a few more points before I tried to secure our location.

  Luckily, finding where the Night Stalker had entered the building wasn’t difficult at all – it had just walked through the glass front doors on the ground floor, which appeared to have been shattered long ago. Hoping that a simple barricade would really work, I walked outside and began doing my best to drag a car, to use as the foundation to my makeshift wall.

  However, in the end, I wasn’t quite strong enough to make it happen, so instead I busted out the window, and reached in to try to put it in neutral.

  No luck.

  It was automatic and the shift just broke when I tried to force it.

  Looking down the street, I decided to try to find a car with a manual transmission. I had to walk quite a distance to find one, but I wasn’t too worried about anything happening to Harper during the daytime. Still, maybe I should have checked all the floors
first before I left her alone…

  Oh well, I was sure she would be fine.

  Reaching my tail in to push the pedals down while I grabbed the stick-shift, I easily forced it into neutral, prompting the vehicle to unexpectedly roll a little since the parking brake wasn’t being used. Turning the steering wheel in the direction I wanted, I began pushing, stopping to readjust the wheel a little as I got closer.

  I was almost back to the entrance when a white message flashed in front of my eyes.

  Alert!

  Sub-handler 001 update.

  Physical Condition: Escalated, Adrenal Surge (Effect)

  Psychological Condition: Unstable, Terrified

  Shit!

  Dropping what I was doing, the car began rolling backward the way I had come, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I bolted straight for the entrance, running across the lobby and slamming into the door with such force that one of the pins holding it to the frame snapped.

  Leaping down the one flight of stairs, I stomped through the hallway to the boiler room, not even trying to be quiet – I wanted to divert any attention I could to myself, even if it risked me getting hurt. Essentially attempting to gain Aggro, since I was more tanky than she was, although it didn’t appear I was having much luck, considering no enemies showed themselves.

  Dammit!

  Dashing into the open doorway of the boiler room, I immediately found my prey, gorging on my isopod like it was starving. Its black body had cracks in it similar to the towers, with a red glow emanating from within. There was a low hum in the room too, that I couldn’t identify, but that was only a secondary thought.

  More importantly, Harper was nowhere in sight.

  Shit!

  My tail shot out like lightning, only to strike the air as the beast radiated some kind of red energy from its side, the hum briefly growing louder, dodging my blow by a hair’s breadth. Shocked by the sideways movement, I attempted to retract my tail just as the beast grabbed a hold of it to jerk me forwards and sideways.

  I wasn’t a novice though, allowing my extendable limb to just go slack, instead of letting myself be tugged, while simultaneously rushing ahead on my own accord.

  The monster – which looked just as humanoid as I did, his red eyes glowing brightly, his black hair long – raised his hand outward toward me as I closed the gap, like he was telling me to stop. My eyes widened in shock as I registered too late the red cracks merging into the center of his palm, the glowing hue beginning to turn white as a reverberating pulse of sound filled the room.

  Just as I tried to step to the side to avoid whatever was about to happen, a blast of light exploded before me, a searing pain hitting my shoulder, forcing out a loud growl of agony.

  I slammed into one of the boiler tanks, swinging my tail around with my movement to give me the momentum to keep going, only for the spot where I had just been to erupt with a blast of steam as the tank exploded.

  The unexpected wave of heat prompted my eyes to focus more heavily on my normal vision, causing something to click in my thoughts – if the majority Night Stalkers had heat vision like I had theorized, then this blast of hot steam would be almost blinding to most!

  Taking the opportunity to bank on my assumption, I dived onto the floor and forced my big ass to roll like some kind of armadillo or something, my wings pulled tight against my body as I flipped like a large ninja, attempting to blindside my enemy from a different angle than he expected.

  Instead, he blindsided me, slamming into me with his whole body just as I attempted to roll to my feet. I flew off balance, his weight more than enough to knock me over.

  Out of options, I swung my tail upwards in an arc as I fell, curling it up and towards me, hoping to catch him in the torso. However, just as fast, he stuck his hand out towards it, ejecting another explosion of white-hot light along with a loud burst of sound, as if his hand was blasting out a laser beam.

  Shit!

  Was this what was possible with the Thermoacoustic ability? Would I have been capable of such a feat had I enough points to do the modification?

  This prick didn’t have any wings or a tail, likely having sacrificed such benefits in exchange for a different kind of ability, but obviously it was worth it. The power erupting from his hands was overwhelming.

  The pain from the blast, that radiated down my tail and up my spine, was nauseating, causing me to lose focus as the beast redirected his palm towards my face.

  Shit!

  Time seemed to slow as I watched the crimson cracks glow, until the center of the bastard’s palm turned bright white.

  This was it.

  There wasn’t enough time to avoid the hit.

  I was done for.

  Unexpectedly, a pair of large black hands peaked over the monster’s shoulders at lightning speeds – the result of a powerful jump – sharp claws curling around, burying into the soft tissue of the creature’s red eyes.

  The glowing palm directed at me immediately pulled back, as the room filled with an ear-shattering roar of pain and fury. My tail had been knocked away, but that one brief distraction was enough for me to yank it back upwards, sending it slicing directly through the monster’s unprotected gut, with that familiar patch of gray skin being unprotected just like what Harper had.

  One of his hands, that had been moving up toward his punctured eyes, instead shot down to his stomach as he began thrashing his head back and forth.

  Harper let go then, and dropped back down to the floor, while I thrust my wings backwards to push myself forward, my claws burying into the open wound I had created with my tail.

  The monster reacted immediately, thrusting both hands towards my chest as I aimed for his throat with my teeth.

  Feeling the heat beginning to build up against where my heart resided, I sank my fangs into his neck, my jaw clamping shut while I simultaneously began digging further into his gut.

  It was all or nothing now.

  There was no escape.

  It was kill or be killed, the victor simply being whoever killed the fastest.

  Like being in a frenzy, I began grabbing chunks of whatever I could and yanking flesh and guts out, digging like my life depended on it…

  Because it did.

  Just as I was sure I was going to die, the heat against my chest peaking as if his palms were about to erupt, the temperature abruptly dropped, the monster’s body going limp – likely from my bite.

  I was too escalated though, the need to survive too overwhelming.

  As the beast began to fall backwards, I went with him, still furiously digging deeper and deeper, reaching in even further to yank out entire organs, clawing into his chest to tear at muscles, lungs, and even his heart.

  I didn’t stop.

  I couldn’t stop.

  Until there was nothing left to claw out. Nothing left to grab. An empty carcass. An empty shell – the torso’s contents deposited all around me, as I literally sat in a heap of death.

  There was no blood, oddly enough, but instead just black gunk everywhere.

  I finally stopped when I realized my enemy couldn’t be any more dead.

  In hindsight, I would have liked to claim that I was just preventing him from regenerating, since that appeared to be a Night Stalker ability, but in the heat of the moment I hadn’t even considered it.

  No. All logic had gone out the window.

  I was just in survival mode, desperate to keep existing.

  After staring down at the dead creature for a long few minutes, I finally climbed off him and crawled away towards the side of the room, only to sink back to the floor against the wall, feeling completely spent.

  Like, it felt as if my strength was literally just draining out of my body with each passing second. Was I bleeding somewhere, or something?

  My stats screen sprung before my eyes without prompt, as I stared into space, lying on my side.

  HANDLER

  Physical Condition: Unstable, Injured, Regenerating, Adrena
l Exhaustion (Ailment), Fatigued (Ailment)

  Psychological Condition: Unstable, Traumatized

  Fatigue: 97%

  Mass: 113

  Strength: 104

  Endurance: 142

  Speed: 39

  Dexterity: 59

  Balance: 59

  Connection: 5

  Thermoacoustic: 20

  Attack: 891

  Defense: 7,991

  Damn, I was pretty sure that Harper had higher stats than me right now, assuming she wasn’t suffering the same exhaustion that I was. At least my defense was still normal.

  Speaking of the little devil, she unexpectedly appeared and crouched down next to my head, sitting down on her heels. I flinched when her clawed hand lowered to the top of my white hair, the gesture gentle, but making me uncomfortable with how helpless I felt at the moment.

  Like, she could totally take me out right now, and I wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. I mean, shit, the little badass might have really held her own against that beast just between her sneakiness, speed, and strategic attacks. And yet, here I was almost defenseless, lacking the will to even move.

  I would be a dead man if she wanted it…

  Well, if I could even call myself a man. More like beast.

  Shit.

  Harper didn’t respond verbally to my thoughts, but she shifted her weight slightly, her body curling over me a little.

  Figuring that flattery was the best way to ensure I wasn’t about to take my last breath, I directed my thoughts toward her, speaking honestly. ‘You did amazing, you know. I was about to lose that fight, and you saved the day. You proved yourself useful.’

  Apparently, she wasn’t having any of that, switching the conversation slightly.