The victorious Yautja turned to its fellow warriors and let out an unearthly shriek as it held its bloody trophy high.
Pope’s elation almost died with Motes, but he knew that they had a chance. It was just that Motes had made a deadly mistake.
Husker John strode forward, grabbed Mote’s body and brought it back. Blood dripped down the back of his undershirt, but he didn’t take any notice of it. He gently lay the remains of the dead corporal on the ground, then got up and turned.
“Let me do it,” Conroy said. “Let me fight next.”
Pope put a hand on Husker John’s chest and said, “Go ahead, Conroy. Kill the son of a bitch.”
Instead of heading to the center, Conroy went to his motorcycle, kicked it to life, then drove slowly toward the center. He had a spear in his right hand.
Another human-sized Yautja moved to the center; this one wore metal claws as well.
Conroy gunned his motorcycle toward his opponent, who easily stepped aside. Then Conroy stopped, gunned the engine without moving, which caused the back tire to spin madly, eating through the grass and dirt until it was showering the Yautja in the face. Conroy took off, traveled for twenty feet, spun the motorcycle one hundred and eighty degrees, and gunned it again.
Pope had seen nothing like it. It was as if Conroy were using the motorcycle like a horse.
The Yautja was wiping at its face with the backs of its hands, trying to get the dirt out of its eyes and mouth when Conroy’s spear entered its chest and pushed through. Instead of continuing on the motorcycle, Conroy held onto the spear and let the machine continue without him. It wobbled a bit, ran about a dozen yards, then hit a giant rock, fell over and died. Conroy drove the Yautja to the ground, pinning it there with the spear. Then he pulled a skinning knife from his belt and began to furiously stab the warrior, his hand rising and falling over and over.
Husker John pumped a fist in the air.
But Pope held his breath.
Then it happened.
The Yautja, probably with the last of its strength, brought its right arm around and embedded the claws in the side of Conroy’s face.
Conroy screamed with equal parts surprise and anger, then the Yautja pulled him down into an embrace.
Then nothing, as both of them died.
“Damn it all,” Husker John said. After a few moments, he retrieved Conroy’s body and weapons and laid him beside Motes.
“My turn,” growled Husker John.
He picked up Conroy’s spear, the tip still slick with the Yautja’s luminescent green blood.
“No, let me,” Pope said, preparing to step forward.
“No, suh. I don’t want to see any more of us die, so I’m a goin’.” And with that, he stepped forward into the bloodied dirt in the center of the box canyon.
The hulking Yautja raised its arms in the air. Its mandibles clacked together feverishly. It held the same long spear that Pope had seen wielded before, the blade wide, long and curiously curved. The warrior stepped forward.
Husker John began to jog, then to run at his opponent. He was within five yards when he reared back and threw the spear at the Yautja. The warrior brought its own spear around and swept the missile out of the way. But that left it open. It tried to bring the spear back around, but Husker John was already upon it. The Buffalo Soldier grabbed the Yautja’s neck, spun around behind it, pulled out his skinning knife, then cut the neck down to bone. Husker John held his opponent by the face, grabbing hold of one of the mandibles. They flared briefly, then sagged as luminescent green life spurted free from the enemy warrior.
Husker John let it fall to the ground, then strode back to where Pope waited, mouth agape, then grinning from ear to ear. “You did it! You won!”
“Yeah, but the others didn’t and now I gots to see you die, too.”
Pope grew somber. “I’m not going to die. My name is Providence Pope and God has something else in store for me.” He grabbed his hatchet and strode to the center. He glanced around and saw that everyone was staring at him intently like he was an insect of interesting origin. He shook his head. “That fucking Sunderson following his damned maps. Had he just listened to me, we’d be back at the border, my men sneaking tequila, and me getting a decent night’s sleep.” He glanced at his opponent who had the same clawed hand attachments as the first two, which meant that they’d be fighting close. He’d planned for this and he hoped his plan would work.
He hefted the hatchet, finding the balance, then stepped forward in a tactical crouch.
Then was stunned when one of the blades from an upraised Yautja fist flew toward him. Pope tried to duck, but the blade stuck just below his left shoulder and mere inches above his heart. Had he not tried to get out of the way, he’d have been as dead as Motes and Conroy. The pain was excruciating, causing him to fall to a knee.
“Get up, suh!”
Husker John’s voice focused him and Pope pushed back to his feet.
His opponent strode forward sure and confident.
Pope swung his hatchet from right to left, then looped the return, bringing the hatchet down, then up, all in one smooth move.
The Yautja dodged out of the way, then lunged, swiping with its right hand, which now only held one metal claw.
Pope met that claw with his hatchet and instantaneously realized he’d made a grave error.
The Yautja hooked the hatchet and jerked it out of Pope’s hand, leaving it outstretched and empty.
Then a memory flashed hard through his mind of the Hudson Valley girl, smelling of lilacs and orange. He saw her hand outstretched as he left on a train three years ago, heading west to fight Indians. Her name was Charlotte and she’d been the love of his life.
Then he was back to the real world in an instant.
“Charlotte,” he whispered.
His opponent raked a hand toward him.
Pope ducked under it, grabbed the netgun from where it was attached to his belt behind his back, then brought it up to the Yautja’s face and pulled the trigger. The net launched, carrying the warrior backwards, wrapping and then digging into its face. It fell onto its back and tried to pull it off with one hand. It aimed its left hand toward Pope and fired both claws. Pope ducked, letting them sail overhead. Then he was on a knee next to the warrior. Pope pulled the blade from where it was lodged in his shoulder, almost fainting from pain, reversed it, then plunged it into one of the Yautja’s eyes.
Then he fell over.
A moment later, he was picked up and held at arm’s length by Husker John whose face was alight with victory. “You did it, suh! You won!”
Pope’s elation was dampened by the incredible pain. “I told you I wasn’t going to die today,” he managed to say.
Husker John carried him back to their area and began patching him up. He packed magnesium in the wound and had it wrapped before the tall Yautja came over. Husker John got up and spoke with him at length, just out of Pope’s earshot.
It was only later as he was leading two horses, carrying the bodies of Motes and Conroy, that Pope thought about what Husker John had eventually told him.
“As much as I hate these warriors, I respect them. They’ve asked me to join them. They say they want to learn from me. I’m an old man, suh. I’ve done all I can for the Buffalo Soldiers, so I think I’m going to take them up on their offer. Fact is that life is too short not to seek out something you want. I’ve been wanting a change, and this seems right for me.”
And with that, Husker John stayed behind. Pope would tell everyone that he was dead and his body was unrecoverable. They’d understand. They’d weep. Then they’d lick their wounds and return to New Mexico. And then Pope would leave them there. His commission was up and he had leave saved. He figured he’d take the time to go visit the girl he’d left in the past and see if she wasn’t someone who was going to be part of his future. Whatever his decision, he was never going to forget his brave soldiers, the magnificence of Husker John, and the strange warriors who’d
allowed his men their lives, just so they could test themselves on a few of America’s finest cavalrymen—the Buffalo Soldiers.
STORM BLOOD
BY PETER J. WACKS AND DAVID BOOP
NEW ORLEANS; NATIONAL GUARD FIRETEAM
05:21 AUGUST 29, 2005
Rain sleeted through the predawn sky, slicing sideways through the air. Icy stings peppered Sergeant Lejeune’s exposed skin—what little wasn’t protected by her National Guard uniform. The boiling black eyewall of Hurricane Katrina was a malevolent force, watching her, even though it was eighty miles away over the Gulf.
“Get the boy!” she shouted over the gale, carefully advancing through ankle-deep water. She re-clipped the anemometer to her vest. A woman on the hood of the wrecked jeep was mangled, impaled by a shattered tree branch. Normally, Lejeune would never have left someone behind, but hell was coming and those were her orders. Though it tore into her soul, she had to choose getting her fireteam, and this child, to safety. Lejeune whispered a prayer for the dying as she fought her way back to the Humvee.
She climbed into the shotgun seat as the team got the survivor out of the hurricane. “We gotta move. We should’ve been to the Superdome half an hour ago… and the radio’s out. Great.”
Private “Inigo” Jones—nicknamed after drunkenly stumbling around barracks insisting on finding the six-fingered man—hit the gas. “We’re lucky we could even dig out of that collapse, Sergeant. Not our fault we’re behind.” The Humvee lurched forward.
“I get that. But,” Lejeune patted the anemometer, “winds have gone up fifteen miles per hour over the last hour. Water’s up by a couple of inches…”
“Check it out—kid’s got a video-camera,” Tito Mendoza interrupted from the back seat as he pried a camera from the unconscious child’s hand, working around the backpack the kid clutched with his other arm. He passed it to Lejeune.
Something pulled at Lejeune. She should help Inigo spot, but there was something… off. Her gut said to figure out what was up with this kid.
She made up her mind.
“I need you guys to be my eyes and ears while I check this out. Get us to the French Quarter, Inigo. Nevaeh, help him spot. Tito, help the kid. Get him warm. We have to find somewhere to shelter.”
The reply was a chorused, “Yes, Sarge.”
Lejeune looked over the Hi8 camera. She opened the flip screen and pressed rewind for a second before hitting play. The tiny speakers burst with static.
* * *
RECORDING TIMESTAMP: 19:42:03 AUG 28/2005
The vibrant green flora of the bayou filled the frame. A Kalashnikov fired in the background. The camera bounced. Someone’s leg shifted in and out of view with each squelching footfall. The view swung up, revealing a bald man, wearing camo, floating four feet in the air. Blood flowed from his back, coating a shimmering distortion in the air. The camera, catching the sight of more dead, panned away as his body was flung to the side.
“Yee haw!” sounded in the background as another Kalashnikov fired.
A loud snarl overpowered the second assault rifle—a basso growl so menacing it reached past the logic centers of the brain straight to the primal animal inside that screamed “run!”
“What? What the fu… No, it ca—”
Pistol shots sounded. The camera swung around and caught a gray wolf-shaped shadow as it vanished into the bayou.
“Ro, don’t stop filming. Don’t let the kid put it down! I’ll get you a head start. Don’t let us have died for nothing. This is it—what we all wanted—proof! They’ll be legends!”
The camera swung up, revealing a young man with a hipster 5 o’clock shadow. Blood poured down his face from a gouge in his scalp. He looked at her one last time, resignation all over his face. “I’ll be… well, I’ve already got what I wanted… that look in your eyes right now.”
“Jason…” The camera bounced around as whoever held it started to run again, briefly showing the dreadlocked black woman Lejeune had seen dead on the Jeep. The woman had the drawl of Haitian Creole, audible in the single spoken word.
Again, the camera found the hipster as he stood, rain coating his blood-streaked hair. He raised the gun.
“Boy, are you going to look good on film,” Jason said as he fired. Sparks jumped in midair, hitting something the camera couldn’t see.
Whatever was said after was drowned out by the unmistakable thrumming of an airboat’s fan firing to life. As the camera retreated two blades ripped out of Jason’s back, then everything was too far away to be seen. The video panned across the swampy bayou, until the Creole woman was once more in frame.
She glanced back from the driver’s seat, dreadlocks whipping in the wind. “Turn that thing off, Frankie.”
* * *
NEW ORLEANS; NATIONAL GUARD FIRETEAM 05:34 AUGUST 29, 2005
Sergeant Lejeune snapped the camera closed.
“It’s a hoax. Some film project or something,” Tito said.
“Invisible men? Giant wolves?” Nevaeh Khanna made the sign of the cross. She and her husband had escaped religious persecution in Afghanistan in their early twenties, coming to America and taking new names. Her husband became a pacifist, but Nevaeh, wanting to help protect their new home, joined the Guard. “I thought such things were just myths.”
“I saw some freaky shit down in Nogales, like demon worshipping and whatnot, but not no actual demons. Gotta be a hoax.” Tito waved a hand, brushing off the idea.
Nevaeh, hands shaking, pulled a small cross from under her uniform, kissing it.
Inigo shook his head. “There hasn’t been enough time since that timestamp for someone to go all Hollywood on it…”
“Focus on driving, PFC,” Lejeune snapped as she hit rewind. Who would bother to put together such an elaborate hoax in the middle of a watery hell-on-earth? The tape clicked and she hit play again, starting from the beginning.
* * *
RECORDING TIMESTAMP: 14:11:52 AUG 28/2005
The camera focused on a G4 laptop being held by the bald man in camo. “Got the camera ready for our reaction shots?”
A voice off screen said, “Yeah, just hit play.”
The bald man pressed the spacebar. A slate appeared on the laptop’s screen. It read:
Cryptozoid Crackdown
s2e5“Running with the Rou”
What followed was typical faux-reality show opening credits, action sequences that implied danger, and scantily clad women.
I’m Darren.
And I’m the Maestro. Y’all know us from rocking out to HairForce!
When the band broke up, Darren and I stayed tight because of our mutual love of the supernatural.
Now we hunt creatures of legend; the kind only two dedicated rockers—like us—have the guts to find.
We still “Rock Till the World is Awake,” but now we travel the world seeking out impossible creatures and dangerous ladies.
Taking the music world by storm is nothing compared to rocking the very fabric of reality. We will prove these monsters exist, even if we have to climb the highest mountains…
Or cross the thickest swamps, because this is a…
Cryptozoid Crackdown!
The camera frame jerked up to catch the reactions of two men—one bald, the other mulleted, both looking like they hadn’t let go of the 1980s—perched on the front of an airboat that sped across the waterways of southern Louisiana.
“Fuckin’ A, man!” Darren said. “You really captured my essence, Jace.”
“Finally earning your keep,” Maestro echoed. “Only took a year.”
“Dude, we were number one in twelve markets last year. Cut me some slack,” the off-camera voice responded.
Maestro pointed a finger at him. “Yeah, well, we won’t stay on top if we have these last-minute shoots in backwater swamps.”
“Would you rather me pull the second unit and start over next week when this storm blows over?”
“I’d rather it was Ro behind the camera and not y
ou,” Darren interjected. “She’s the tits when it comes to B-roll.”
Jason panned over to see the driver’s reaction. She just rolled her eyes.
They continued to banter, so Lejeune fast-forwarded until she saw the camp; it was a bloody mess of carnage and intestines, staining the watery greens of the bayou. HairForce’s front men were in frame again.
Maestro called out in an angry whisper, “Keep the boy quiet and pick up the damn camera. It could be here any moment.” He was armed and looking half-crazed and scared witless.
The camera shuffled as someone put it on the ground, still focused on Darren and Maestro.
“Hey there,” Ro said quietly, off frame. “How are you feeling?”
“What happened?” a child asked, raspy-voiced.
“Drink.”
There was the sound of sputtering.
“What’s your name?”
“Franklin. Frankie, after my da.”
Jason joined them, leaning in conspiratorially and blocking part of the shot. “Do you remember anything, Frankie?”
The boy spoke haltingly with a thick Cajun accent, words broken by sniffles. “I came with Da. Someone hired him to run around… My da is the best rougarou actor in the parish…” he choked up.
“It’s okay, Frankie. We’re here to keep you safe.”
“Somethin’ kuh…” Frankie fought to get the word out. “…killed him.”
“What?” Darren called over his shoulder in a hushed but excited voice. “What killed him? Tell me it was a real rougarou!”
The camera focused on Frankie. He was covered in the ochre mud of the camp site, and tears cut clean trails down his cheeks. He shook his head. “Something else.”
* * *
NEW ORLEANS; NATIONAL GUARD FIRETEAM 05:52 AUGUST 29, 2005
Sergeant Lejeune stopped the recording, silently daring anyone to speak.
Inigo didn’t have the brains to stay silent. “I’m telling you that wasn’t faked. If it was, it woul—” Something impacted the passenger door and the Humvee skidded. It caught a curb and the rising winds outside helped it jump. The sturdy vehicle smashed into a lamppost already bowing under the hurricane’s relentless assault. The thirty-foot pole crashed into the façade of a French Quarter barbeque shop.
PREDATOR IF IT BLEEDS Page 10