“Don’t you dare touch him, dork,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
“We need to do it tonight,” I said.
Augie stoked the fire. “Maya’s gonna freeze up. There’s no way she’s gonna do it. He’s her loverboy.”
Maya sneered. “I will pull your tongue through your nose, August, if you don’t shut your trap.”
I rubbed the stubble on my chin. “Lure him out. Tell him you want to go for a romantic walk. Use your sex appeal.”
Augie scowled. “Do you want her to make out with him or take him out?” He sliced his finger across his throat.
I cut my eyes to her. “It’s your first kill, Maya. Augie should back you up—”
She jumped to her feet. “I said I’ll handle it.” She grabbed the bag of ice and refilled the small cooler, preparing it for her boyfriend’s severed head. She tossed the manila folder on my lap, the one I tossed in the fire before I left. The corner was singed. “You might want to look at this before you try burning it next time.”
With a blade on her belt and cooler in hand, Maya stomped into the night.
“Are you good?” I asked, picking up the manila folder.
Maya power-walked toward the Forever Family’s site. “I’m right as fucking rain.”
I probably should’ve kept my eyes on her. Made sure she didn’t fuck it up. But killing monsters was sink or swim. Nobody held my fucking hand when I learned. And I wasn’t much older than she was at the time. She’d have to learn to swim by jumping in the deep end. Or drown.
I opened the folder.
Son of a bitch. The first photo got under my skin. It was an image of guards surrounding a person of interest. Not just any guards either. They belonged to Applied Science and Logistics. On their black outfits were the white letters ASL.
It was a company that involved itself with evil shit of the monster-making variety. My last run-in with them left a pissy taste in my mouth.
Standing in the center of the crowd of guards, his hands bound together, was a valuable teammate who was taken by an enemy recently. Whatever this cult was that Wilcox mentioned, it was tied in with Blackwell and Poe.
And they had my friend.
Augie peered over my shoulder. “What is it?”
I flashed him the photo. “See anyone you know?”
“Oh, damn. They have Zac.”
Why would they bring a tech-head like Zac into a cult? I skimmed through the photos searching for more shots of him. I stopped when I saw her face. She was someone I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Karen Bell.
She was one of Wilcox’s two agents who never returned.
Over twenty years ago, she was my student. I trained her to be the best but I didn’t recognize the other agent in the file. It said his name was Diego Del Toro. Never heard of him.
I set the folder beside me in the seat. “We’re going tomorrow to check out the cult.”
Augie was taken aback. “We’re taking the job?”
“To be clear,” I said. “We’re there to retrieve Zac. We don’t work for Wilcox. I don’t give a shit about his agenda. We won’t be taking orders from him.”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
“But first, we have some loose ends to wrap up,” I said, nodding in the direction of the fake family. Maya walked away with Marcus toward the lake. Passing a lamplight, she peered back at me and disappeared into the darkness.
She had the boy, but where was the girl? I got to my feet and scanned the area. Someone was leaving their campsite.
“The daughter left down the path on the right,” I said. “Follow her. Make sure she doesn’t come back.”
“How do I get close without her freaking out?”
“Break the ice. Tell her you’re friends with Marcus,” I said. “Her guard will drop. And then flatter her with a negative compliment.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tell her you like her shirt and it must be popular because you just passed a homeless guy wearing the same thing.”
“Ouch, that’s cold.”
“Or ask her if she’s a model.”
“That’s more my style—”
“A hand model.”
He glared. “You’re a smooth mover, dude.”
“The point is you want to emotionally affect her at an unconscious level. Be cocky, but with humor. Smile. But keep her guessing.”
“That I can do.”
“If she asks about the knife on your belt, tell her it’s for scaling and gutting fish. And take a garbage bag from the truck. Toss in some ice before you go.”
“I’ll take two. Always have a back-up.” He scrunched his brow. “Uh, what if she asks about it?”
“It’s to keep the fish from spoiling,” I said. “Ice keeps it fresh. She won’t ask to look inside.”
“Roger that.” Augie ran to the truck to get the bags.
My stomach churned. We take one little camping trip as a release and there are monsters on the lot. Monsters that look human are the worst kind. Forevers are the worst of those. It makes it even harder because your mind can easily psych you out and make you hesitate. And in that moment of doubt, you’re dead. They’ll drain your life force within seconds.
When it comes to monsters, never doubt. Never trust. Just go in for the kill.
No regrets.
You have to put your mind into a different place. You can’t be a civilian when you kill. You can be a civilian when you’re at home eating chips and watching a movie with your significant other. But when you’re hunting, it’s war. And you’re a soldier on the battlefield in enemy territory.
You can’t think about cozy comforts while on the battlefield. You have to be cold. Calculating. You aim and fire. You can think of one only thing…
Survival.
Kill or be killed. Monsters don’t give a shit if you die or not. That’s hard for people to accept. To know that someone out there doesn’t care if you live or die. It’s a very sobering thought.
They can smile at you one second and eat out your heart in the next. Monsters are like that. Some people are too.
You have to get used to it. But in some ways, you never do.
This world won’t protect you from the bad guys. Nothing in this life will save you except for you. This world is a war zone.
You better be armed.
I was concerned about Maya, but I knew she could handle herself. She wasn’t the kind who should be eased into killing monsters. She was the kind who needed to be pushed in headfirst. Trial by fire. Kill the beast—
Or die trying.
I stuffed a garbage bag in my back pocket. Grabbing the bag of marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey’s chocolate bars, I raised them up and waved at the Forever parents. They waved back as I moseyed over to their campsite.
They looked like a wholesome couple. Overly wholesome. Their smiles were too big, their wave too wide, and their posture too perfect.
They were June Cleaver and Ned Flanders rip-offs. They had their act down pat. I made a bet with myself they either had a bible at their site or wore a cross necklace. That would be the icing on the cake, a subtle clue that you could trust them. That they were good Christian folk.
Right before the bastards drained your soul.
The woman’s blonde hair was in a ponytail. Probably to keep it off her face when she killed people. So victims couldn’t grab her hair. Either that, or she didn’t want to get blood in it when she did her murdering.
As I got closer to them, I admired how well they played their parts. But Forever People can’t have children. Like ravenous wolves, they stay together for protection. For the hunt. They weren’t a family—
They were a pack.
“Hidey-ho, neighbors. My name’s Steve,” I said, coming upon their campfire. “Care for some s’mores?”
“Hey, neighbor, right back at you,” the man said. He was so square, I was ready for him to try and sell me insurance. “If you’re offering, we will gladly eat your s’mo
res.”
“Come on over and join us,” the woman said, all smiles.
You often have to remind yourself how monstrous these things really are. How many people they kill to stay alive. How many souls they devour.
They are the master con artists of our time. Sometimes they even fool themselves. And these two were the best cons I’d seen in a long time.
They were such an adorable couple. Too bad I was going to sever their heads in the next few minutes.
Chapter 3
Meet the Johnsons
I sat at the campfire roasting s’mores with a pair of monsters who have probably murdered more people than most serial killers and terrorists combined. The worst, most vile creatures on the planet. I sat at the campfire with—
Jim and Judy Johnson.
Those weren’t their real names, of course. That would’ve been way too obnoxious. The creatures were trying way too hard to appear innocent and non-threatening. And I bet with most people, it worked.
The woman roasted her marshmallow over the fire. “It seems like Marcus is taking a liking to your daughter,” she said. “They went off to have a little getaway. It looks like Marcus stole a bottle of one of our wines.”
“My daughter is impulsive,” I said. “I hope she’s not coming on too strong to your son.”
The man stuffed his mouth with a s’more. “Not at all,” he said. “It’s good to see Marcus take to someone for a change.” He glanced at this wife and smirked. “Usually, the girls are so shy, they just shrivel right up.”
His wife grinned. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Girls these days are a bunch of shrinking violets. No personality. It’s like they don’t even have a soul, ya know?”
I grumbled. “It’s hard for kids to connect at that age…”
The woman said, “Marcus is a good connector, he is. He really connects on that deep soul level, ya know?”
The husband chuckled. “Girls come and go so often, we try not to get attached,” he said. “But hey, maybe your daughter is a keeper, eh?”
These dickheads were making inside jokes at Maya’s expense. Draining souls was no laughing matter. And they were acting like it was an everyday hobby. Like baking pies or knitting scarves.
I ground my teeth. These assholes were gonna die hard.
The woman handed me a jar of peanut butter from her cooler and followed it up with a small steak knife. “S’mores are better if they got peanut butter,” she said.
Her husband laughed again. Mr. Giggles was getting on my nerves. I opened the jar and stared into it, glancing at them both. They were all smiles.
The peanut butter was drugged.
Probably a sedative. After I passed out, they would take me inside and drain my life force. But these asshats were two beats short of a hit single. Without knowing it, they just gave me the means to end both their miserable little lives.
Not because of the knife. But it sparked an idea.
I spread the peanut butter on the chocolate. “What brings you to the campground?” I asked. “Family getaway?”
The woman held her marshmallow over the flames with the campfire stick. “We travel a lot,” she said, grinning ear to ear. She traveled because she killed people on the run. That’s why she was smiling. The demented bitch.
“What makes you travel so much?” I asked, pushing to see the depth of her lies.
Her fake husband spoke out. “We love seeing Mother Nature,” he said. “New places, new people. Like yourself.”
“We always like the new people,” she said.
The man stuffed his face with Hershey’s chocolate. “Just last week, we came across a nice family. Just like yours.”
The woman peeled gooey marshmallow off her stick and licked her fingers. “They were a little skinny though.”
“And not much for conversation,” he said. “But they had a good diet.”
“Light on calories,” she said.
“Less filling,” he said. They were chuckling back and forth to each other.
These sons of bitches thought I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. They were evil alright. I couldn’t take it anymore.
As I spread the peanut butter on the chocolate bar in my hand, the knife slipped. It looked like an accident. It wasn’t.
“Damn,” I said. “I cut myself.”
The woman leaned in to see. “Wow, ouch. That looks bad,” she said. “I think I have some Band-Aids in the RV.”
The husband stood up and stretched. “Honey, why don’t you help out Steve and I’ll be back in a few.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I have to hit the shitter. You can deal with Steve on your own.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go in the RV. I’ll get that fixed right up for ya.”
It was easy to see how people could be fooled by them. You naturally want to believe that people are this innocent. The human spirit needs to believe in the goodness of people. When you know too much, you stop believing and become a cynical son of a bitch like me. Good for hunting. But not much else.
The husband scurried down the trail while his wife led me into the RV. It was a stroke of bad luck that he left. It would have been easier to take them both out together.
I walked in behind her as she went through some drawers in the kitchen area.
“I have some Band-Aids around here somewhere,” she said.
I moved past her and opened the closet door. “Maybe they’re in here,” I said.
“What’re you doing? Don’t—” A corpse toppled out of the closet.
The previous owner, I presumed.
It crashed to the floor and wheezed a puff of dust from its throat. It was drained. It had been dead a while. Why didn’t they ditch it? Did they keep it here for shits and giggles?
“I can explain that,” she said. “It’s just a Halloween prop. We prepare early. We love to have fun on the holidays. We’re an extremely fun family.”
“I bet you are,” I said. I reached behind my back and pulled my hunting blade. “Let me show you how much fun I can be.”
Her eyes shimmered gold. She was trying to drain my life force. But she couldn’t.
I was protected.
She sneered. “You’re a hunter—”
I slid the blade into her abdomen while stuffing a piece of Ore in her pocket to prevent her from teleporting away.
She shoved backward and grabbed an iron skillet. It clobbered the side of my skull at a hundred miles per hour. I underestimated her. She was resourceful.
She tried to teleport. Tendrils of colorful light surrounded her. For a moment, I thought she might pull it off, even with the Ore. When the teleportation energy dissipated, her foot was melded with the floorboards.
She screamed.
Well, that worked out for me. She wasn’t going anywhere now. With the blade in my hand, I finished my business.
My eyes glanced down to the drained body at my feet. Poor sucker. He never knew what hit him. He probably went out with his family for a nice camping trip. And in exchange, got his life force drained by supernatural psychopaths.
It boiled me inside.
I threw the woman’s head inside the RV freezer. The cold would prevent her from regenerating a new body. I’d come back for it later. I took the bag from my back pocket and threw in a couple of handfuls of ice cubes. It was time to visit the husband in the restroom.
He was going to get something a little more uncomfortable than a shifty bowel movement.
Chapter 4
The Destruction of Maya Hayes
After I placed the Forever Woman’s head in the RV freezer, I headed to the campsite’s public restroom. I surprised Mr. Johnson in the bathroom stall after busting it open. I’ll spare you the gory details. Let’s just say I scared the shit out of him.
That made me giggle.
Tossing his head in the garbage bag, I threw his body in the shower stall, turned on the shower, and closed the door. It would be a
while before anyone found him. The blood would simply wash down the drain.
When I got back to the campsite, I threw the bags in a large cooler in the back of the truck. I would throw them in acid when we got home. I know, gory shit, but this ain’t the Muppets. This is the real deal. Not everyone can live a Jim Henson life.
Augie was in the front seat of the truck, bopping his head to some iPod music. It sounded like crappy hip hop. I knocked on the window until he rolled it down.
I scowled. “You lost the girl, didn’t you?”
“Ye of little faith, my friend,” he said, handing me the filled garbage bag. “Take this nasty shit.”
“This is getting too easy for you,” I said, taking the bag.
“At least I stopped puking.”
“Where’s Maya?”
“I saw her on the beach earlier. She looked like she was having a little too much fun with her loser boyfriend, if you know what I mean.”
“Find her.”
He jumped from the truck and ran to the beach.
Walking to the back of the truck, I scanned Jim and Judy Johnson’s area one last time. The campfire was dying down. From outside the RV, there was no sign of struggle. No blood on the window. No sign of foul play. I wasn’t sure how long they were renting that lot for, but I guessed they had it for the next few days.
After adding the bag to the cooler, I pulled out a screwdriver and license plate and replaced the truck plate. The lot attendant registered the plate when I signed into the campsite. When the police found the dead bodies, they’d search the register of everyone who was stationed here this week. They’d have my dummy plate number, which wouldn’t track back to me.
My paranoia serves a purpose. And it rarely fails me.
I wasn’t expecting to be killing monsters tonight, but these are tips and tricks you pick up in your life as a hunter.
As a monster killer, your only education is the school of Hard Knocks. Once you have a high-speed chase with a police squad in a podunk town because they found the headless body you left behind in the dumpster, you tend to learn from your fuck-ups. This is the type of business where making the same mistake twice gets you killed.
Faith of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 3 Page 2