Hidden Evil: Eden Lost Book One (The Hunter Wars 7)

by SD Tanner

  Hugging him briefly, he said, “You look good.”

  “It’s hard not to look your best in Eden,” Ted replied with a laugh.

  Sitting down at the kitchen table, he asked, “So, what’s been goin’ on? Hatch says he’s seen some fightin’ between the towns.”

  “Nothing new about that,” Jack replied. “I go on the scouting missions with Hatch and there’s always been a bit of squabbling.”

  “What are you scoutin’ for?” Pax asked curiously.

  “Super hunters,” Ted replied. “We never did get them all during the battle. We’ve killed thirty-two since, but there’s a lot more somewhere.”

  On the day of the battle, there were tens of thousands of super hunters, and he doubted they’d killed them all. The super hunters were a different type of hunter. Unlike the hunters, they were normal people who’d been infected with a version of the hunter virus when they were possessed by demons. According to their doctor, Lydia, it meant the virus affected them differently. Not carrying the same infection, he wasn’t sure the super hunters could create hunters, but if there were no hunters in Eden, he guessed not.

  “What are the super hunters’ doin’?” He asked.

  Shrugging, Ted replied, “Nothing that we can tell. We just don’t like having demons in Eden.”

  “What about the rest of the world?” TL asked. “What happened in other countries?”

  Shaking his head, Ted replied, “We don’t know. Phillip led an expedition last year. They took several transport ships to Europe, and they should have returned six months ago.”

  “We’ve also heard rumors of someone having a base in Alaska,” Jack added. “People are worried there’s something weird going on up there.”

  “Why don’t you take a look by air?” TL asked.

  “Fuel, TL,” he replied absentmindedly. “They dunno if there’ll be fuel at the other end.” Turning to Ip, and sounding frustrated, he asked, “Honey, we’ve looked everywhere and we can’t see anythin’ goin’ wrong. Are you sure you’re right about this?”

  “Right about what?” Pop asked, sounding puzzled.

  Sighing, he replied, “Ip reckons Max told her the babies were at risk. Max died on the battlefield and she shouldn’t be talkin’ to Ip. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Well, Mackenzie’s here and he’s been a bit odd lately,” Angel said.

  In an attempt to protect the survivors from the hunters, they’d encouraged people to volunteer to be infected with the counter virus Ip carried, but the results were unpredictable. Mackenzie was once one of their three young leaders, and after he was infected, he developed precognition. It was thanks to Mackenzie they knew their weapons would fail during the final battle and they were prepared. The people of Eden might not know it, but they owed their lives to Mackenzie.

  Harrumphing rudely, Pax replied, “He’s been really fuckin’ odd ever since he was infected with the counter virus.”

  “Language, Pax,” Mom said, with a faint sigh.

  Angel said worriedly, “He’s been in a twilight state ever since the battle. He can only take care of himself under direction, and he never talks. Lately he’s been…reaching out to me, but he doesn’t seem to live in our world, so I don’t know how he knows who I am or that I’m with him.”

  “Where is he?” He asked.

  Angel led them to a sunny room next to the large lounge, and Mackenzie was sitting in a rattan chair under a shade in the garden. His skin looked pale under his naturally tan color, and considering he was once a big and strong man, he now appeared to be quite frail.

  Walking over to Mackenzie, he hunkered down and asked, “Mac?”

  Mackenzie didn’t seem to hear him, and touching his arm, he asked, “Mac, can you hear me?”

  At his touch, Mackenzie’s eyes seemed to focus on him, and he watched his mouth drop open. Like everyone infected with the hunter virus, Mackenzie was technically dead. They hadn’t known it at the time, but the hunter virus trapped the soul of a person inside what was essentially a corpse. It was only the virus that gave a body the appearance of being alive. Being the Horseman of Death, and living in a body infected with the super hunter virus, Ip could telepathically communicate with anyone who was dead.

  Turning to look at Ip, he asked, “Can you talk to him?”

  Nodding, Ip crouched next to him and said, “He wants to go home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Hills with a house.”

  A single tear ran down Mackenzie’s cheek, and for the first time since he’d been woken, he felt a sharp spike of worry. After he was infected, Mackenzie had a vision where he learned Ip had to die and he killed her. As it turned out, Mackenzie did the right thing for the wrong reasons, and Ip was born again into another body. After he killed Ip, he struggled to cope with his precognition, and he and Max left their bases to live in the hills. They fell in love, and Max had a child that was now known to be the replacement Horseman for TL. Mackenzie was telling Ip he wanted to go back to the hills, and to a time when he was happy. Knowing Mackenzie’s mind was capable of remarkable insights, he wondered what he might find in the hills.

  Standing, he turned to the group and said, “I know what we need to do.” When no one spoke, he added, “We need to go to the home Mac had with Max in Southern Mississippi.”

  There was something very wrong with Eden. He wasn’t sure what it was, but Mackenzie was always right. If he called them back to earth through Max, then they had to be here. I might not know my mission, he thought, but now I know there is one.

  Chapter Six: Gears

  He refused to take Ted with them. Angel was almost ready to give birth, and the young Horseman needed him. It was Ted and Angel’s job to raise the Horsemen, and his job to enforce their right to rule. They each had their purpose, and he thought he’d served his, but now he wondered if he’d left too soon. Leaving Axe at the Ranch locked up in one of the sheds, he had complete confidence Ted and Pop could keep him secure, while he and his brothers did some further recon. Ted gave them their M4A1s, and to Ip’s delight, she found her sword again.

  Having seen Mackenzie’s reaction to Ip, he was convinced something was wrong, and all he had to do was find out what. Mackenzie once told them about the home he and Max made in the mountains, but he’d never been there, and he wasn’t sure what he’d find. Since being awakened, he hadn’t learned much. BD was back with Pax, so at least that kept his fidgety brother occupied. He was enjoying being with Ip again. Mom and Pop were well. Ted and Angel were taking good care of the children. Despite once being unreliable, Hatch hadn’t quit his job, and he was more than happy to find his fleet intact.

  Ted told them the Marine supply base and Naval base were still occupied by some of their original troops, including Ted’s old second-in-command, Cutter. Before the battle, and in an attempt to keep people safe, they’d moved twenty thousand survivors to the UK. According to Ted, it was their naval crews under the command of Phillip that chose to sail to the Isle of Wight in the UK. Philip had originally led a British flotilla to U.S. waters, and his people had settled in their bases. Ted told him Phillip wanted to return to the UK and bring their people back to the United States.

  Is it the United States anymore, he wondered? It certainly didn’t look anything like the country he’d spent his life defending.

  TL had asked after Izzie, but no one seemed to know where she went. Izzie was a tough-minded engineer who worked for the defense sector before the outbreak. After she joined them, she ran the Submarine base where they found a store of nuclear missiles and maintained their ships. Although TL and Izzie had never really dated, he knew his brother still had a soft spot for her.

  Benny and Lucie were also missing. Lucie was technically a hunter, but Ip had telepathically connected to her so she could act as a spy in Ruler’s camp. Being joined with Ip’s mind had changed her, and he wondered if she went home with all the other hunters. Benny was the third member of their young leaders team, but after he a
nd Lucie ran away together before the battle, he’d been more than a little disappointed in the kid.

  Hatch was flying low over the top of a hill covered in a green blanket of trees, and he asked, “Where are we gonna land?”

  “You’re gonna have to walk a ways,” Hatch replied through his headset.

  Once they were dropped on the only clear area, he estimated they were a mile from the location where Mackenzie and Max once lived. The forest was so dense it was like walking through an endless shrub. Ip seemed unconcerned by the heavy green foliage, and skipped over it gracefully, somehow finding rocks and clear patches to step on. Every so often she paused and used her sword to hack into the dense bushes.

  “Slow down, honey,” he shouted, as he slipped on yet another juicy green fern. Damn, he thought, I should have brought a machete.

  Ip ignored his request and continued to flit and cut her way through the forest, gradually putting more distance between them. Insect life was flourishing in the greenery, and he swatted at an enormous, bug-eyed, long-legged creature that landed on him.

  “Don’t do that, Gears,” BD admonished. “Nothing on earth can hurt us anymore.”

  He thought it was weird that man had no predators, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to live in a world where there was nothing to fight. He and Pax agreed they were finding Eden boring.

  Breaking through a thick cluster of plants, he saw Ip was standing next to a creek. In front of the flowing water was an old and rusted RV with flat tires, and he assumed it hadn’t been moved in a while. Between the creek and the caravan were remnants of a fire. Ip wasn’t moving, and other than the fact there was no one else present, he could have sworn she was talking to someone.

  “Honey, who ya talkin’ to?”

  Her mind suddenly filled his and he could see what she could see. Max was standing in front of her, still dressed in her bloodied ACUs, looking pale under her olive skin. Her dark hair was pulled back in an untidy ponytail, and her face was muddy from the dirt of a battlefield now long gone. Having witnessed her death, he knew she wasn’t really there, and he was only seeing her through Ip’s mind. With a sharp sense of sorrow, he acknowledged one of his own was dead, but still hadn’t found the peace she rightly deserved.

  Walking over to Max, he asked, “Why didn’t you go home with all the others?”

  “The Devil tricked Mac,” Max replied sadly. “He thinks he’s with me, but he’s not. He’s in hell.”

  “So, why are you still here?”

  “I can’t leave until Mac is free. I’m his only way back. I can hear him, but he can’t hear me. He said he wouldn’t leave me, and he would go wherever I went, but Ruler used it against him. He tricked him with a fake version of me and baby Mac. I saw it happen, and I’ve stayed to watch over him. He still has visions. They’re a gift sent to him from the other side, only now he doesn’t see them, only I do.”

  Looking uncomfortable, Pax asked, “But you’re dead, right?”

  Glancing down at her bloodied chest, she snapped, “Have you seen the fuckin’ great big hole in my chest, Pax? Does that look like a sign of good health to you?”

  “Geez, the dead are a really pissed off bunch,” Pax muttered.

  “What was the vision, Max?” TL asked gently.

  “A man killing the babies, only they’re not babies anymore, they’re like five or six years old.” Shuddering, she added, “It was some sort of ritualized execution.”

  “Who’s the guy?” He asked grimly.

  “I don’t know.” With tears running down her cheeks, she wailed, “I don’t know where baby Mac is.”

  Reaching out as if he could touch her, he said soothingly, “We jus’ saw the children and they’re fine. Angel and Ted are raisin’ them at the Ranch with Mom and Pop.”

  Calming down, she asked hesitantly, “What’s baby Mac like?”

  With a broad grin, he said fondly, “Don’t forget baby Mac is TL reborn, and he looks real well. He’s gonna be tall, jus’ like TL.”

  Nodding, TL said with a wide smile, “And remember, I’m the one with the brains, manners and good looks. Baby Mac is gonna be the best of the bunch.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a follower and not a leader, TL,” Pax retorted.

  Max shot Pax a dirty look and said, “I don’t care what baby Mac is as long as he’s healthy and happy.” Staring intently at Gears, she added, “Take care of Mac as well. You need to get him away from Ruler.”

  “I dunno how to do that, Max.”

  “For as long the Devil has Mac, I can never leave here. He wouldn’t leave me, and I won’t leave until he’s free.”

  He remembered Ruler offered Mackenzie a deal. If he swapped allegiances, he promised Mackenzie could have his life with Max and baby Mac. Mackenzie said he spurned the offer, but it seemed Ruler had tricked him anyway. Did Mackenzie really switch sides, he wondered? He found that hard to believe. Mackenzie was loyal to them throughout the entire time he’d known them. Shaking his head, he thought, there must be another reason why Ruler is holding Mac.

  If he could have, he would have hugged Max, but she wasn’t really standing in the greenery of the forest. She didn’t have any physical presence anymore, and was haunting the place where she and Mackenzie were once happy. He was talking to a ghost, a spirit trapped on earth, unwilling to leave. He assumed that’s how she was able to communicate with Ip. Ip preferred to speak with the dead, and Max was most definitely dead.

  Their conversation complete, Ip left his mind and he was again left looking at an empty space in the forest. He knew Max was still there, and the leaves whispered softly as if they too were aware there was a soul present. Turning to walk away, he was surprised when the door to the battered RV opened, and a man who looked vaguely like Benny stepped out.

  “I see you met Max,” Benny said amiably. Strolling over to where they stood, he looked them up and down and said flatly, “You look well.”

  The same could not be said for Benny. When they worked with Benny, he was a tall, well-built and boyish-looking young man. With Benny being naturally shy, but always exuberant, he didn’t know who this leanly muscled, stern and tanned older man was. This man had an old look in his eye, as if he’d seen more than he wanted to.

  “Benny?” He asked doubtfully. When Benny nodded, he asked, “What are you doin’ here?” Looking over Benny’s shoulder at the door of the rusted RV, he asked, “Where’s Lucie?”

  Turning away from them, Benny began to place wood onto the campfire from a pile next to the caravan. While he lit the kindling, he said, “I don’t light this fire for me. Max likes it. She says it reminds her of being with Mac.”

  Surprised, he sat down next to the campfire and asked, “You can talk to Max?”

  “Yeah, the dead can always talk to the dead.”

  “You don’t look dead, Benny,” Pax commented, as eased himself down onto his haunches next to him.

  “Well, I am. Being with Lucie got me infected with her weird version of the virus.”

  Lydia became infected with the virus after working with the people she injected with the counter virus, so he supposed it was possible Lucie could have infected Benny, but she had the original hunter virus. Hunters were single-minded killers, clever enough to keep a person alive while they slowly ate them. If Benny was infected with the original hunter virus, he should be trying to attack them, not stoking a campfire for a ghost.

  Seeming to read his mind, Benny said, “Ip changed Lucie somehow. She wasn’t mindless like a normal hunter. I’ve got whatever she had.”

  Puzzled, he turned and looked at Ip enquiringly. Ip shrugged and walked back to where they’d spoken to Max, and he assumed she was still talking to her. Ip was living inside a body with the counter virus, and technically, she could still kill Benny by touching him. BD was also reincarnated into someone with the counter virus. If Benny didn’t want to die, he’d need to stay out of reach of both of them.

  Wanting to know more, he asked, “What happened to Lucie?”


  “I don’t know. I went hunting one day, and when I came back she was gone.”

  “Can’t you talk to her telepathically?” Pax asked.

  Being dead, all the hunters were telepathically connected, and Ip and BD could communicate with them. Calling to Ip, he asked, “Honey, can you talk to Lucie?”

  Turning and nodding, Ip replied with her mind. Lucie is with God’s henchman.

  “Is she okay?”

  With a shrug, Ip turned away. She is dead and not content to be read.

  “I think that means she won’t talk to Ip,” TL interpreted unhelpfully.

  “She won’t talk to me either, and I don’t know where she is,” Benny added.

  Curious why Benny was staying alone on the mountain, he asked, “Why are you still here?”

  “Because I’m a sort of hunter now, and people will try and kill me.”

  Ted and Jack were actively hunting the super hunters, and Benny didn’t look entirely human anymore. More than likely, he would be spotted for what he was and hunted as well. What a mess, he thought dismally. Mackenzie was trapped in hell with Ruler, Max was stuck on a mountain trying to protect him, and Benny was living on the same mountain unable to rejoin the world. This is no good, he thought, they were our young leaders, destined to take over the bases, and not one of them has survived us. Why the hell did I think our job was done?

  Looking at Benny sympathetically, he said, “Come with us. You can stay at the Ranch. No one will try and kill you, it’s your home too.”

  Normally Benny would have been exuberant, but this new and quieter Benny simply nodded and said dully, “Whatever.”

  Chapter Seven: Gears

  It was a long day on the mountain, and feeling frustrated, he decided to talk to Mom, Pop, Angel and Ted. Jack was still at the Ranch and he joined them sitting at the kitchen table. Nothing had turned out the way he expected after the battle. When he left, he assumed man would go onto live the life he felt they deserved, but the world wasn’t the same place. The land was different, nothing worked the same way, and the people didn’t seem right to him.