by Matt Rogers
In the darkness, Jake saw the outline of a silhouette.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was enormous. It stood motionless, watching them, chest heaving with each deep breath. It could smell the meat. Slowly, it came out into the light.
Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. Quentin said it had once been a man. He had never seen a man so huge. The slayer made Thorn look like a twig. It was closer to eight feet than seven, with dense slabs of muscle packed into an oversized frame. Enormous tracksuit pants were barely enough to contain its massive legs. Its torso was bare. The usual characteristics of a slayer were present – deathly white skin, an absence of hair – everything but the agility. It was a hulking brute.
“Koji,” Quentin whispered in awe.
It took every inkling of Jake’s willpower not to turn and run. From a night-time slayer encounter to being kidnapped by mercenaries, he had been pushed to the point of exhaustion. He wanted to do nothing more than get as far away as humanly possible. But there was nowhere to go.
Sam and Link were frozen solid. The monster was standing in between them yet they refused to move. Like Jake, they were overwhelmed by its presence. It seized both of them by the throat with hands the size of saucepans. Despite its bulk, it was surprisingly athletic, both angry and powerful.
And fast.
The two men struggled in its grip. Its arms were tensed up. Muscles bulged from underneath the tight skin. It was not letting go. It was strangling them to death.
Jake ran into the middle of the warehouse and scooped up one of the AK-47s littered across the floor. He found himself surprised. It was the first time he had reacted instantaneously to danger. He was adapting.
He took aim and fired a volley of shots. If they strayed from their trajectory, both Link and Sam would be dead. But he was accurate. He silently thanked Felix for forcing him through countless hours at the weapons range back home.
Koji recoiled slightly as its chest was dotted full of holes. Jake fired until the magazine clicked dry.
Thirty shots. Each one had hit its mark. Koji was bleeding from dozens of bullet wounds scattered across its gigantic torso. It couldn’t have looked more unaffected. In fact, it looked even angrier.
It roared. The sound filled the warehouse, echoing off the walls. The beast slammed Link and Sam together in a rage. Jake recoiled at the sound of bone against bone. He struggled to maintain his composure. Koji tossed them both away. They wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
It focused on Jake. He was defenceless, standing in the middle of the room. Koji began to advance. He had no strategy, no plan.
A powerful arm wrapped around Jake’s neck from behind. At first, he thought it was Felix, dragging him out of harm’s way. The grip tightened and cut off his air supply.
He swung back with a well-placed fist and drove it deep into his attacker’s kidney. The man gasped. His hold slackened. Jake reached up and grabbed the arm around his neck with both hands and ducked his head and wrenched forwards. His attacker flew off-balance. The man landed heavily and rolled to his feet.
It was Mabaya. Somehow, the mercenary had shaken himself out of semi-consciousness.
The scuffle gave Koji time to charge. It ran across the warehouse towards Jake, shrouded in shadow. The dusty gloom only emphasised the terror that Koji invoked in him. The ground shook as it ran. Jake was crippled by debilitating fear.
There was a blur of movement off to the side.
Felix.
He came sprinting past Jake and met Koji mid-charge. He planted his feet firmly into the ground. Tensed every muscle in his body. Then he exploded, shouldering the super slayer in the chest. It was like two aircraft carriers colliding. Felix had tapped into some inner reserve of power, some kind of unimaginable desperation. The burst of force sent Koji stumbling backwards. The beast had been stopped in its tracks.
Jake against Mabaya. Felix against Koji.
They stood there in a brief stalemate, sizing up their foe. Somehow, Koji had recognised Mabaya as an ally. It hadn’t attacked him. It snorted viciously, blowing snot across the warehouse floor. Felix responded by spitting a glob of saliva onto the floor. Jake and Mabaya adopted fighting stances. There was a moment of calm before the storm.
All hell broke loose. Everyone charged at once.
Jake and Mabaya tackled each other, both grappling for the upper hand, and out of the corner of his eye Jake saw Felix and Koji collide once again. His vision of the fight was lost when Mabaya hit him with a hard right hook. He spun away. The whole side of his face was numb. It had been a sizeable blow. Mabaya was coming fast. Jake could tell what he was thinking.
Just a kid.
Jake stumbled back across the room and took a deep inhalation. He cowered, clutching his face. Mabaya dropped his rigid stance slightly and began to advance slower. He thought he had won. The mercenary reached out and grabbed a handful of Jake’s shirt.
Jake burst up and knocked Mabaya’s hand off his shirt and punched him hard in the nose. It took him completely by surprise. Jake bundled in close so that he was within centimetres of the mercenary’s face. No room to throw punches now.
With the element of surprise still on his side, he planted a leg behind Mabaya and shoved him to the floor. It was a move similar to tripping his friends over in the schoolyard, but he had never put this much aggression into such an action. Mabaya went sprawling to the ground. The back of his head whiplashed against the concrete. He had already been struggling to stay conscious. Now he scrabbled about on the floor with the incoordination associated with a concussion. Jake had seen the same behavior hundreds of time at rugby training.
Felix and Koji were now over by the trestle tables, trading blows that would have knocked Jake unconscious in a split-second. It was clear that Felix was losing. He was bleeding from the mouth and nose and swaying on his feet. His shirt was ripped in two. Koji lunged and hit him in the chest with an iron fist. The connection incapacitated him. Jake watched as it grabbed him by the waist and hurled him into the wall. The corrugated iron burst apart. An entire sheet of the material tore off from the rest of the wall. Bright sunlight flooded in, illuminating half the warehouse and blinding Jake momentarily. Felix landed outside in the undergrowth and disappeared from sight.
You’re the last man standing.
Jake’s brain told him this, but he could barely believe it was reality. Koji’s gaze flicked across the room. It bellowed, baring a maw of serrated teeth. He jumped off the ground in fright.
Now, you run.
That was precisely what he did. He saw Koji coming towards him but by then he was sprinting full-pelt for the doors.
He burst out under the open sky. The valley the warehouse was situated in was surrounded on all sides by steeply ascending slopes of dense rainforest. It was unbearably hot. A flock of tropical birds cawed and took flight from the treetops above as he disturbed them.
A roar sounded from within the warehouse. Jake turned and saw Koji pounding across the floor inside, heading straight for him. He didn’t stand a chance. Flight was the last remaining option.
He turned and fled into the trees.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jake ran, spurred on by the ever-present reminder that there was a monster on his heels.
He had been going flat out for the better part of ten minutes, yet he wasn’t the least bit tired. His heart was pumping adrenalin through his system faster than he could expend it. If he slowed down, he was dead. He raced up the side of the valley, legs burning as he climbed. He never turned to check but he could hear Koji charging through the undergrowth behind him – pounding over the dirt, smashing through the branches, in hot pursuit.
The plant life made it hard to make good time. There was vegetation everywhere, growing from the trees and hanging from the branches and springing up from the ground in the form of ferns and vines and bushes. The rainforest was choking in its density. Jake had to hurdle fallen logs every few paces, obstacles that always seemed to appea
r out of nowhere. And while he was forced to navigate his way through the maze that was the jungle, Koji was crashing straight through it.
He was dashing over flat terrain now, clear of the valley. Koji had caught up. The sounds of its pursuit were clearer; he could almost feel its hot breath on the back of his neck. It made a lunge for him. In desperation he whisked sideways and dove through a small gap between two trees. A lone claw scraped across his back. He was a hair’s width away from being caught and beaten to a bloody pulp. Suddenly, he was through and there was a huge crash from behind as the beast slammed against the tree trunks. It was too wide to fit through the gap. Branches above shook from the collision. A toucan shrieked and soared off its perch. Koji would have to go around, and it would be nothing more than a few seconds delay, but it would be needed.
Spurred on by the adrenalin from the close call, Jake came to a long stretch of flat ground and sprinted his way up to top speed. The trees flashed by in a blur. Wildlife shrieked as he passed. He didn’t care. He was blocking out every potential threat from the jungle, because there was a much bigger one right behind. Sweat masked his vision. The salt stung, and he lifted a hand and momentarily wiped his eyes.
When he opened them again, there was an animal standing in front of him, hackles raised.
Still sprinting, he panicked. It was a majestic creature, with yellow and brown spotted fur and tight, compact muscles designed for hunting. A jaguar. But its majesty was lost as it adopted a low, aggressive stance, teeth bared, hissing. Warning him to stay out of its territory. Jake was coming at it full pelt and after a quick glance to his left and right discerned that straight into its territory was the only way to go.
On the inside, he was terrified, but he couldn’t think about it or he’d collapse. One mistake right now meant certain death. He assessed the situation like a rugby game. He had the ball. He had to get past his opponent. His mind was turning over at breakneck speed. Memories of the Discovery Channel came back, of jaguars attacking their prey. They were vicious and unrelenting and almost as fast as cheetahs. It would be nothing more than a blur of movement when it pounced.
The jaguar snarled, realising he was coming straight for it. He exhaled fast and zoned in on the target. It was tensed up, ready to attack. For a split second, his vision faltered, and he saw truly what lay in front of him.
Koji.
Not Koji. A jaguar.
Jake desperately tried to rationalise the situation, to try and return to the familiar. The jaguar reappeared.
It exploded off its haunches. He nearly froze in his tracks. It was the fastest he had ever seen an animal move. One second it was prone, the next it was bounding towards him at a hundred kilometres an hour.
Jake slowed his pace. He had to time this right.
The jaguar came at him like a dart. It landed in the dirt in front of him and pounced, claws outstretched. With lightning precision, Jake planted his foot down and pivoted. The spin turned the world hazy. Trees and branches whirred by.
Its mass slammed into his side. It hadn’t been a head-on collision, though. He had avoided its claws. As it hit him, he smashed an elbow into its furry hide, giving it everything he had. He yelled in exertion. The jaguar yowled and snapped and twisted away. It was behind him now. He managed to regain his footing.
Koji landed on all fours and skidded to a stop. It even looked like a jaguar in flight. It spun around almost instantly to face him again, scrabbling for purchase on the leaves. It would be after him again in a second. He couldn’t dodge it twice.
The jaguar was gone. Now only Koji remained. The vision had faded into the jungle.
Jake ran.
The rainforest was constricting on him. The trees were growing closer together and the vegetation was thickening. His surroundings had become a green maze. Koji was closing the gap. The monster had the advantage within the dense scrub. What Jake had to manoeuvre around, it could simply smash through.
All of a sudden the trees ended and he burst out to a spectacular view. He was at the edge of a sheer cliff-face. Only a metre from his feet was a ravenous drop down into an enormous, bowl-shaped valley. It was at least a fifty metre fall. He could see for kilometres in all directions. Next to him was a roaring waterfall, obviously sourced from a river running downstream. He must have been running parallel to it the entire time. Torrents of white water foamed over the edge of the rock and cascaded down to an expanse of sharp rocks far below. Jumping was a death wish.
There was no time to hesitate but he had nowhere to go. Koji was closing the distance. A roar from behind shook the trees. He could move sideways, along the cliff-face, but it was a narrow path in between the cliff edge and the tree line. A path that would have to be undertaken with great caution.
He didn’t have time for great caution.
He glanced above. The foremost trees had thick, flexible branches that twirled out over the cliff. Several vines were hanging down over the edge of the drop. They looked sturdy, but they were suspended in nothingness. There was only open air between the ends of the vines and the rocks below.
It was a risk he was going to have to take. If he had a good grip, he could cling to the vine and outlast Koji. Eventually, the monster’s attention span would have to wane. It had ten unconscious bodies back at the warehouse. Easy targets. It would have to lose interest. Jake would wait it out.
First, he had to jump.
Koji smashed through the last few trees. It gave him the kick he needed to act.
He took a deep breath, resisted the urge to vomit, and jumped.
No time to think. He pushed off the rocky cliff with one foot and propelled himself out into open air. There was a moment of dizzying vertigo. There was nothing underneath him. Nothing would break his fall save for his own reflexes. His stomach fell into his shoes and his blood went cold. He reached out for the vine with his fingers. For an overwhelming second, he thought he wasn’t going to make it. Then both hands wrapped around the spongy material and he locked his fingers tight and ground to a halt fifty metres above the ground.
Koji stopped at the very precipice of the cliff. It bellowed and smashed the ground with a closed fist. The rock splintered under its ferocity.
Jake gritted his teeth and held tight to the vine. His biceps were straining under his shirt. With one hand, he let go and groped at his utility belt. If he could find something to use at a distance, maybe he could irritate Koji enough for it to retreat. He was out of reach. Soon, it would lose interest in him. He hoped.
He realised there was something small and metal in a holster at his waist. He didn’t dare look down. He tugged the object out of his belt and brought it up in front of him. A pistol. Custom made, the standard suppressed make, built by Sam for the sole purpose of killing slayers. Perhaps it would do more damage than the mercenaries’ AK-47s.
He raised the weapon one-handed, the other still wrapped around the vine. A burning ache was creeping into his forearm, a forearm that was supporting his entire bodyweight. He ignored it. Koji roared once more. The sound was drowned out by the torrential noise of the waterfall. Thousands of tons of water fell from the cliff face beside him. Spray from the rocks flicked against his face. He ignored that, too. Zoned in on Koji’s hulking mass.
The first bullet struck it in the shoulder. He had been aiming for its face, but he was too distracted to get a good shot off. No matter how hard he concentrated, it was impossible to shake the knowledge that five fingers were separating him from death. If he let go, or slipped, that was the end of his life. The thought was terrifying. The muscles in his left arm were screaming for relief. It was now pushing past his level of pain tolerance.
The next three bullets hammered into Koji’s brutish neck. It was unfazed.
He had three left. He fired twice more.
One hit Koji dead in the centre of its forehead, and the other entered its left cheek. Black blood spurted from each wound, but the super slayer did not fall. Bullets were not going to do the trick. He had one l
eft.
It was then that Koji took a step backwards. A huge bounding stride, away from the edge of the cliff.
Jake held his breath. It was still staring at him, breathing heavily, dotted with seven bullet holes. And it was retreating.
It took another step back. Time had slowed, but Jake kept his right arm fixed out in front, pistol raised, there more for reassurance than protection.
Then Koji did something unbelievable and Jake realised he was going to die after all.
It charged.
He couldn’t believe his eyes.
It hadn’t been retreating. Its backwards steps were in preparation for a run-up. Three powerful strides was all it took to reach the edge of the cliff. It launched off into the air, headed directly for Jake. There was nothing to break its fall. It was going to slam into him and both of them were going to tumble to their deaths. A suicide attack. The two scientists must have turned its brain to mush.
Don’t think. Move.
The cliff face was jagged and vertical. There were no handholds anywhere within reach. Cracks ran down the wet black rock, and vegetation had begun to sprout from the gaps in between. Under Jake’s feet, a thick branch snaked its way out of one of the cracks. Its roots were spread out in a circular pattern around its base, fixed to the cliff.
The idea was so preposterous that he dismissed it immediately.
It was his only option. He looked up and saw Koji, in mid-air, coming straight for him. If he didn’t try something, he was dead anyway.
Quick as a whip, he reached up with his right arm, pressed the pistol into the vine just above his hand, and pulled the trigger. The final bullet shot out and severed the cord. Jake dropped, with a metre of the vine still clasped in his left hand.
His stomach hit his feet. This next half-second would decide whether he lived or died.