Hunter

by James Byron Huggins

  He looked down. "Ghost, stay here."

  The great wolf stopped in midstride, but the burning black eyes never left the forest wall before it, nor did its tension fade. Slowly, Hunter turned to Bobbi Jo. "Stay with Ghost. Tell the others to hold position."

  She tightened almost to a combat readiness; the barrel of the Barrett rose. "What are you going to do?"

  Hunter was already moving away, angling deeply to the right. As he twisted a move between two mammoth ferns and into the bush he whispered back to her, "Something died here. I'm gonna find out what it was."

  She brushed a lock from her face and looked to him again.

  But he was gone.

  ***

  Despite Bobbi Jo's hand signal to hold position, Takakura moved up silently to crouch beside her. Frowning, the big Japanese stared into the foliage, searching. His narrow black eyes revealed only fierce alertness when Bobbi Jo cast a slight glance. Obviously, the commander was at home in combat. His voice came to her calmly and coldly.

  "What is it, Bobbi Jo?"

  She shook her head. "I don't know."

  Takakura gave a glance toward the wolf, but it had vanished without a sound in the space of three seconds. It had been here when he crouched and now it was gone; no sound, no sight. The Japanese's disciplined face revealed no surprise. "The wolf ... he is ... like ..."

  "A ghost?" Bobbi Jo said, and despite an appropriateness in the reply, she didn't smile.

  All that she had, emotion and intellect and will, were too tightly focused on what vague darkness—what shapeless threat—hovered on the far side of that green, mossy dark wall of impenetrable fern. Then Takakura bowed his head, slightly frowning, toward the gathering dark. He took one second to monitor the support team's stillness and nodded. Obviously, their readiness was acceptable.

  "What did Hunter say as he moved?" he whispered.

  "He doesn't generally say anything when he moves."

  A moment, and Takakura seemed to read more into it. Without effort he seemed to understand what manner of man was leading them.

  "He is a hard man," he muttered. "There is something in him that moves him. But it, in itself, does not move." He paused. "How long do you think he will be gone? We are losing what little light this canopy allows."

  She waited, shook her head. "With him, you can never tell. Sometimes he won't move at all for an hour. He'll just stare at the terrain. Then sometimes he moves so fast you have to be half wolf to keep up."

  Takakura grunted. "This I know."

  "He'll come back when he's certain," she added, turning her head with mechanical precision to stay alert. "I've learned that much about him. He doesn't ever make a mistake. He says it takes too long to double back and pick up a track if he's wrong."

  "The wolf, it helps him."

  "Yeah." Bobbi Jo's hands tightened on the rifle at a slight rustling sound. She waited; possibly a falling branch. "Ghost helps him. Or he helps Ghost. One or the other. Either way, they work together."

  "So I have seen. How long, do you think, before we are able to target this creature?"

  Her voice was softer.

  "Probably sooner than we'd like, Commander."

  ***

  Slashed and disemboweled, the mammoth brown-black carcass with protruding white ribs lay before Hunter in the somber gloom.

  He stood motionless, measuring the great grizzly's size, judged it to be close to half a ton. Glistening black claws at the end of incredible huge forelegs lay still. Its fangs were fixed in a frozen roar. Its open eyes were glazed by the vicious impact of a sudden and unexpected death.

  Circling the area, Hunter had easily discovered the creature's taloned tracks, the ones left after it had killed the grizzly. Almost immediately he had known what had happened, but had done a careful reconnaissance to make sure that the thing, whatever it was, was not lying close to the dead grizzly as a tiger would often do. All around the area he found the grizzly's tracks, half-eaten bushes, and trampled berries. Then, after he was certain that he and the team were alone, Hunter angled carefully back to examine the corpse.

  Clearly, reading the overlaying tracks, Hunter could see that it had been a ferocious fight. Not long, certainly, but ferocious—clearly a confrontation of two creatures each of whom struck with horrific force. And for a moment Hunter remembered the two Siberian tigers who had fought to the death as he rolled between them. It confirmed to him that the more powerful the enemies were, the shorter the fight.

  The grizzly, normally reluctant to challenge a creature of equal size, had put up a formidable defense. Its claws were caked in dried blood, confirming Hunter's suspicion gleaned from surrounding leaves that the creature he was tracking could indeed be wounded, and had been. And somehow it gave him comfort.

  No, he thought to himself, it wasn't un-killable.

  In a surreal silence Hunter bent and froze. Then removed his knife to examine the bear's wounds when he heard what could have been the soft nestling of a bird's wings, so close.

  He followed the almost-silent approaching steps and knew what it was before he shook his head, smiling and turning. He angled his head toward the gloom and waited, but there was no more movement. Then, softly, in a voice no human being could have heard if they had been standing six inches away, he spoke into the darkness.

  "Ghost. Come here, boy."

  One second later a pair of glistening black eyes and a huge anvil-like head, wide muscular shoulders beneath, silently parted the leafy black ferns. Ghost didn't move as his dark animal gaze darted around the torn and trampled glade, rich with the scent of blood. From Hunter's aspect alone, he seemed to recognize that there was no battle to be fought.

  Hunter smiled and shook his head. Then he turned to examine the gutted carcass of the grizzly. Its intestines, liver, and heart were gone. And the massive injury wasn't slashed into the massive chest, it was torn, as if inflicted in some demoniacal killing rage. Then Hunter examined the great bear's huge neck and head and found a large indentation in the inch-thick skull. Gingerly, he ran his hand over the depression, attempting to feel through the armorlike fur, before he was certain.

  Part of the grizzly's skull had been crushed into powder. Slightly larger than a man's fist, the area ground jagged slices of bone beneath Hunter's probing grasp before he leaned back, shaking his head in amazement that approached disbelief.

  Hunter was accustomed to death; it was the way of the wild, the way of his life. And he himself could kill efficiently and without emotion when necessary. And if he hadn't possessed that hard discipline, and will, and skill, the forest would have long ago claimed him. For in the end, always, the strongest survived.

  He knew that a grizzly would eat anything, plant or animal or fish or bark or even rotten meat, to sustain its great bulk. Nor did it suffer any adverse effects from the combination. Grizzlies were, quite simply, gigantic garbage disposals. Which is why they rarely challenged large animals; they simply didn't need such quantities of meat when the entire forest was alive with plenteous sustenance.

  Reaching out with the Bowie, Hunter made a larger incision in the stomach and, turning his face from the gastric vapors released, methodically pulled out five handfuls of half-digested berries and the shredded, bony remains of at least six fish, all eaten within the last twenty-four hours.

  The bear had obviously been gorging itself, as bears habitually did in late summer and fall to produce the huge layers of fat that would sustain them through hibernation and the harsh winter.

  Hunter knew that it would have eaten omnivorously for another two months before it bedded down in what most called hibernation but which was really little more than a long and often interrupted sleep. Even with the protective foldings of fat, it would awaken daily to meander in its den for warmth. It would often clean itself or even spend hours staring into the snow to alleviate boredom, waiting and watching for the first signs of spring. Just as it would stoically endure hunger as its body began utilizing the fat for sheer survival.
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br />   Hunter knew what blow had probably killed the beast, though he found it difficult to believe. And, despite his resolute courage, Hunter felt his chest tighten. His skin felt chilled and the hairs along his arms and neck seemed to rise.

  He had been gauging this creature's strength all along, but not yet had he seen any act that could approach this. This was monstrous. This was something he had never seen and never imagined. What had done this had no predator. What had done this stood at the top of evolution. Stood where even man himself was simply food; a puny, dying thing.

  Unmoving, raising his face only, Hunter stared into the distant forest and searched, knowing he would find nothing. Deep within, he knew a semblance of a fear he had felt many times, but this time it was joined by something else. Something he refused to accept or recognize, because he knew it would make him weak.

  Hunter stood slowly, his brow hardening beneath his ragged black mane as his blue eyes narrowed and hardened degree by degree until they were as opaque as a leopard crouching before an attack. Some instinct he had long ago come to trust told him battle was here, and there was no escape. It was instinct, or more, that he had come to know true.

  Then he felt Ghost beside him, the great wide shoulders rising almost to his hips.

  "Let's go, boy." Hunter ruffled the wolf's neck hair. "We've got some bad news for our friends."

  ***

  Takakura seemed unfazed.

  Holding his MP-5 in a strong hand, the Japanese stared at the slaughtered bear. His face revealed nothing but defiance and determination. He stood a long time in silence as Hunter described what had obviously happened.

  "The bear came from the brush, as they generally do," Hunter continued uneasily. "It was probably surprised. Was probably just defending itself. But it was flat ground, and this creature moved faster." He motioned from a point in the brush to the body of the dead grizzly. "They started there and they never quit. And it was probably a hard fight. Neither of them backed up, and they threw a lot of blows. The bear wounded it, I think, 'cause I found its blood on the trees. But right here the thing took it to the ground, got on top, and struck it hard in the head. Crushed its skull like a grape. Then it tore out its heart."

  Takakura looked up. "Tore out its heart?"

  Heavy pause.

  "That was for pleasure, Commander." Hunter was expressionless. "It had already killed it."

  Silent, Takakura looked to the rest of the squad.

  Then Tipler, moving up from the edge, muttered almost to himself, "Damned peculiar, I must say ... Yes, very peculiar ..."

  "What is it, Professor?" Hunter asked, attempting to conceal a faint depression he felt at this latest discovery.

  "These, my boy," Tipler said with keen interest as he bent over the corpse. He lifted a short stick, pointing to wounds on the front section of the grizzly's behemoth shoulders. "These," he murmured, "are holding marks, my boy. Not slashing marks. Which means ..."

  Hunter stared a moment, eyes narrowing. Beneath the grizzly's armorlike fur he had not noticed the dissimilarity of the multitude of ravaging wounds torn into the shoulders. "Yeah," he muttered, his own interest fired by the acute observation. "Yeah, I know what it means."

  "Well, don't feel like you have to tell the rest of us," Taylor said, stepping up. "The only thing we have to lose is our lives."

  Tipler continued, becoming more excited as he confirmed his observation. "Yes, yes, not for ten thousand years has there been a beast that killed as this. Not since Smilodon." He pointed and turned to the group. "You see! It was on the bear's back"—carried away with the drama, he raised his hands as claws—"holding tightly with its great massive claws deeply embedded in the shoulders, ravaging its neck from behind! And it was then that it raised its hand in the air and brought it down to crush its skull! Remarkable! Such strength! I have never seen its equal! A Smilodon would have embedded its incisors meant for slashing and holding, to kill as it held. But this creature was forced to use a somewhat hammer-like blow"—he began to pace in his excitement—"which tells us that its fangs, or whatever semblance of canine attributes it may possess, are not formidable or sufficient for this manner of physical confrontation. However, it does possess strength not in proportion to its already established physical weight. Strange, yes." He paused, staring down. "The mystery deepens, but this creature's rage reveals it. No, it is not a tiger, not a creature with customary predatory attributes. Yet even so, it is still to be feared. Its most formidable weapons may be somewhat conventional, but they are nevertheless deadly in effect."

  Taylor mumbled, "Well, then, why don't we just give it a bleeping medal?"

  Takakura turned his head. "Taylor," he said reprovingly. Then, to the professor: "Which means what, exactly?"

  Tipler stepped slightly back. "Which means, Commander, that this creature kills in a strangely similar fashion to Smilodon—the saber-toothed tiger—which has been absent from the planet for millennia. Yet it walks as a man, and appears to think sometimes as a man. Which leaves yet another possibility to us."

  "Yes?"

  "A mutation," Tipler replied flatly. "A genetic mutation of either man or beast. How or why it came about I cannot say. But it is a theory which we must now consider. Without doubt."

  Hunter followed the gazes and measured the men behind him more thoroughly than he had several days ago. Because now he had seen them in action, could estimate their wilderness skills. And some, he had already calculated, were out of their element.

  First, there was Taylor, who seemed to care for nothing and fear nothing. He seemed relatively comfortable in the bush, and Hunter had determined that his overt propensity to antagonize was born from the simple fact that he was innately hostile. But in the field he was a consummate soldier, dependable and performing his duties professionally and without complaint.

  Then there was Buck, a Stone Age cowboy who never complained and seemed to move with an easy economy of movement that belied an ingrained wilderness wisdom. And, somehow, Hunter felt Buck could be trusted, perhaps because he was one of the few team members who retained some sense of humor about the affair. As efficient as he seemed to be, Buck was easygoing and relaxed, and seemed to hide nothing. The only team member that Hunter had not yet spoken with was a British soldier named Arthur Wilkenson.

  Wilkenson, Hunter had learned from Bobbi Jo, was a former member of the British Special Air Service. And Hunter knew that the SAS were considered the toughest of the tough. Stoic and aloof, Wilkenson had made no efforts to speak with Hunter, but Hunter had studied him quietly. Tall and lean, but clearly quite muscular, Wilkenson never seemed to tire. But Hunter didn't think it was from his native constitution; it seemed more a product of stern conditioning.

  The Englishman's sharply angled face held piercing green eyes that glinted with quick intelligence, and Hunter remembered Bobbi Jo mentioning that he spoke five languages and was an expert in tactical analysis.

  "What's that?" Hunter had asked.

  "It's an SOP," she responded. "It's where someone is adept at analyzing defense strength and designing the appropriate tactic to countermine it." She had stared back as she thought more carefully about it. "In the army, you'd probably have to go to the National War College for something like that. At least to some kind of policy-making position training camp. I don't know how they do it in the SAS. But I know he's a high-level thinker. Maybe as high as it gets."

  Slowly raising his eyes, Hunter studied the austere silhouette of Wilkenson. "Why do you think he was assigned to this?"

  She hesitated, catching his vague disturbance. "The Pentagon doesn't know what to expect," she said finally, "so they might be covering every contingency." She stared over the forest. "I have to be honest with you, this weird-ass stunt isn't like anything I've ever done, Hunter. Throwing together a team for a high-risk mission like this instead of pulling in a group from Delta or the SEALs goes against good sense. We haven't seen any combat together so we don't know how the next person is going to react. I do
n't know why they did it like this. It almost guarantees failure."

  As she spoke, Hunter heard something approach.

  "Set all weapons on fully automatic fire," Takakura said sternly. "But there will be no firing unless we have a clear sight of the creature."

  Another team member that Hunter had not come to know well— Riley—stepped forward. Also lean but with heavy arms and shoulders, Riley was brown-haired with brown eyes. He had a sharp angular face and high cheekbones. He spoke with a slight Irish accent. And, in addition to his M-16 rifle, he carried a climbing rope looped shoulder to waist with crampons, chocks, carabineers and pitons on a belt at his waist.

  "I would like to ask Hunter a question," he said.

  Hunter looked quietly at him. Waited patiently.

  "Mr. Hunter." Riley stepped forward. "I have watched you track this creature. I respect you. I admire your skills. But I wish to know what you know. They say that you can tell much about this from how it moves. That you can think as it does." He paused. "I doubt, when we come face to face with this creature, that we will have time to learn from our mistakes. To me, now seems an appropriate time for you to prepare us."

  Takakura turned toward Hunter at Riley's words, indicating that he agreed. Hunter wondered how much he should reveal, and quickly ruled out the claw and what he had discovered in the laboratory at the research center. But, clearly, they deserved to know everything else he could give them. He didn't know as much as he wished, but whatever he could tell them would be more than they knew now.

  "All right," he said, glad for the opportunity. "I'll tell you what I think. This thing we're after doesn't move like an animal. And I know, 'cause I've tracked 'em all. It's not following a circuit and it's not roaming. It's killing whatever it finds." He paused, thinking, and tried to be concise. "Listen, this is what I think will happen," he continued. "It will ambush us. Probably from above. A ledge, a tree, something like that. It'll try and hit and get away quick. But it probably won't chase any of us. It'll wait 'til we're close, then it'll make its move. You've got to watch your surroundings at all times. And I mean at all times. And ... I think we're dealing with something that is faster and stronger than anything you've ever seen or imagined. If you see it coming, get off a shot fast. The rest of us will follow. If you hesitate, I guarantee you won't be around to regret it."