Fall Prey: The Hunt

by Dallas Massey

  The few soldiers present gave him dirty looks.

  “I mean, I can understand wanting to sleep in for a bit, you know, since there aren’t any assignments this morning, but what gives?” Aaron glanced down at his watch, returned to his normal volume. “It’s kind of getting late.”

  “Well, anyway, it would be nice if we could find Ito. She was right beside him when he was grabbed, and I figure, if anyone knows anything, the sergeant would be the one most likely to tell us.”

  “Guess she went wherever the heck the rest of the officers went.”

  “Hear any word about all our final losses and kill counts?” Asher asked, trying to move away from the topic of Driscoll. He hoped to glean as much information from Aaron as possible.

  “Only secondhand stuff,” said Aaron. “I heard Kilgore and Roth talking about it when I passed by them at the plant. Said we lost something like twenty personnel and a few hounds. Killed more than a hundred or so vamps, though. Guess we ended up not doing too bad, especially when you consider how bad things were going there for a while. They’ll probably give us the final numbers later today.”

  Asher shook his head, knowing how much worse the operation might have gone if the test subject and the hounds hadn’t been there. It was a tactical loss. The Legion itself had failed to kill all but a handful of vampires.

  “Have you seen Milo this morning?” Asher asked, finding a way to talk about something not involving death.

  “No, I haven’t seen a sign of him since last night after we all went to bed.” Aaron rose from his seat to stand beside the arm press.

  “Must have slipped out real early, maybe even right after I finally fell asleep,” said Asher. “I suppose I’m not surprised. He seems to have taken the loss pretty hard. Makes sense. He’s had a lot of it.”

  “Not sure where he would have gone. He does like to run to deal with his stress.” Aaron looked around the track but found no one walking or jogging along it. “Guess he’s just been dodging us all morning.”

  “My company, briefing room, now!” Captain Kilgore commanded. He suddenly appeared in the gym, catching them off guard.

  Kilgore was already suited up in tactical gear, his firearm hanging from his shoulder. Though he yelled at them, he wasn’t angry, just merely in a hurry for their compliance. He turned from them and ran back toward the entrance.

  “Wonder what he’s so excited about.” Asher rose to his feet, unsure when he would have time to suit up.

  “Suppose we’ll find out,” said Aaron. He turned toward the open gym doors right behind him.

  * * *

  Asher crossed through the doorway into the briefing room, Aaron still on his heels. Moving to take a seat, he saw several officers standing against the back wall.

  Captain Kilgore was near the door, and was the only one decked out in body armor. The rest of the officers appeared grave-faced and tired. They spoke little or not at all.

  Asher’s eyes darted to Ito, who stood in the far corner.

  She smiled at him when he looked at her.

  Asher returned her expression with a frown. As Driscoll’s immediate superior, he wasn’t sure why she couldn’t tell the corporal’s assault group anything about his disappearance.

  Both Asher and Aaron took seats near the front. The room filled with the rest of their company as they waited. The noise level slowly rose to a normal volume thanks to the privates who were less affected by last night’s events than the officers.

  Asher noticed Milo sitting behind them in the corner, absentmindedly staring off into space. He couldn’t read the medic’s mood, but his best guess was that Milo was in shock over Driscoll’s disappearance.

  Asher faced the front of the room, increasingly irritated by the long wait after Kilgore’s call for quick action.

  “Quiet down,” said Commander Greaves. He strode through the doorway and turned off the lights.

  Greaves approached the stand beside the front desk and opened one of the top drawers to remove the remote. He pointed the device at the gigantic monitor screen in front of them. The light at the edge flickered green as the machine came to life, the screen itself glowing blue, lighting the dark room. Greaves kept his sunglasses on, even in the low light. The blue glow from the screen made his bald, shiny head all the more apparent.

  “Before we get started, I’m going to go over the numbers from last night.” The commander hit the remote, revealing a screen resembling a scoreboard. ”This company is the last to see them since I decided to wait to show them to you.”

  He paused as the numbers appeared.

  “Here it is,” Greaves continued. “We lost eighteen. All of them fine soldiers. They will be missed, but unfortunately, that’s just the Legion for you. Death’s always an occupational hazard. Ended up losing nine hellhounds, which are harder to replace than any soldier. Each of ‘em costs I don’t know how many millions of dollars to create. They did save our butts from being annihilated, so that’s somethin’. The result of all our loss was one hundred and twenty-four dead vamps and one demolished human flesh traffickin’ center. Was it all worth it?”

  The commander looked around the room, trying to find someone to answer the question.

  “I don’t know.” Greaves shook his head after answering his own question. “On the positive side, though the operation was not a tactical success, the test was. We pulled the vamps out of the plant, and the test subject and his friends successfully took care of most of ‘em, just as promised.”

  “Exactly what kind of creature is the test subject, sir?” Lieutenant Tarango stepped forward, hand raised. “I mean, it was shaped like a man, but it moved like a cat.”

  “CyberGen, that’s the folks with the contract to make us new weapons, calls him a kresnik,” said Greaves. “That is all the information I can give you on our new weapon and his pals. Most of it is highly classified, and even I don’t have the clearance to know it.”

  The commander gazed into the crowd. His sunglasses concealed the intensity in his eyes as he dared someone to question him.

  “Now onto the briefing,” Greaves continued before his personnel could raise any more questions.

  The death toll tally on the screen disappeared and gave way to a blue blankness.

  “This company has been selected for a special mission out in District X, in collaboration with the battalion out there. I won’t lie, this particular operation will be a real dangerous one. A big reason for that relates to the source of our lead. Most of the intel was taken from that coward bloodsucker we grabbed last night. Could end up being a real good recipe for disaster.”

  Greaves waited for some retort from his captains.

  “And yes, we do take intel from filthy neck-biters, so long as it’s good.” The commander spoke to the privates now. “If what he’s tellin’ us is anywhere close to true, we need to get out there and take care of it as soon as we possibly can. We need to bring ‘em down and do away with all this vamp experimentin’ goin’ on there. Maybe we can even save some captured folks.”

  A few of the soldiers let out audible yawns, still exhausted from the night before.

  “I will turn you over to High Commander Witchburn now,” said Greaves. The screen behind him flashed on, revealing a live video shot of what Asher assumed to be High Commander Witchburn’s office.

  He nearly jumped out of his seat when a woman with long, dark hair, translucent skin, and ghostly eyes, one eerie blue and the other sightless grey, appeared on the screen.

  Asher wasn’t the only one startled by the high commander’s appearance. A number of the newer recruits let out loud gasps. The realization struck Asher like a freight train. He had thought he was fighting the forces of darkness when he had only been a pawn in some kind of sick vampire scheme.

  “Try to stay calm, everyone.” Greaves waved a large hand downwards, motioning for everyone to remain seated. “There’s no reason to lose your drawers. I had forgotten most of you hadn’t met High Commander Witchburn yet.”<
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  “And just how the heck do you expect us to calm down, sir?” Asher shouted, jumping up onto his feet, joined by several of his peers. “Does she have you under some kind of spell? She’s one of them! This whole time…”

  “Dang it! Private, sit down!” Greaves threateningly stepped forward, roaring Asher into submission.

  “Sit down, Greaves!” the woman shouted. “It seems you didn’t properly prepare your people to meet me.”

  Greaves reluctantly moved around his desk and took a seat, his shaded eyes intent on Asher.

  “How do we know you’re not one of them?” Asher continued to shout. He balled his hands into fists, ready to face all opposition. The room was mainly full of privates, and he was sure that between their numbers and youth, they could overwhelm the officers.

  “Does this help?” The woman looked at Asher through the screen. She smiled at him, revealing normal human canines.

  Asher’s heart continued to hammer away as he stood there, his rage still smoldering. He was willing to let the vampire speak for only so long.

  “If that doesn’t work, I also have this.” Witchburn raised her right arm in front of the monitor.

  The limb was no longer flesh and bone but a robotic prosthesis, the arm of a skeleton, composed of chromed, metal bones.

  “And I don’t know if you noticed the scars.” The high commander put down her prosthesis, pointing to several very obvious, pink, jagged scars, most of them focused around the ghostly-grey, blind eye, several running down onto her neck.

  Asher had missed them due to his shock at seeing her. His comrades returned to their seats, leaving only Aaron and himself still standing.

  “What does that prove?” Asher remained unconvinced. “You could have had those scars before you were bitten! Your arm might have been amputated earlier! And… and…” his rage caused him to lose his train of thought. “You could have filed your teeth!” he pointed up toward the screen.

  “Boy, you best return to your seat right this second!” Greaves jumped back onto his feet, removing his sunglasses, hanging them from his shirt collar, his eyes ablaze. “If you don’t take a seat, I will be forced to seat you!”

  Asher glared at Greaves, gritting his teeth, wanting to strike his commander.

  “Greaves, sit down before I write you up for insubordination,” Witchburn said, calm but cold. “It will be an easy task since I’ll be the one who both writes and reviews the paperwork.”

  Greaves’ anger waned as she went on, the fire in his eyes vanishing. He reluctantly took a seat.

  “Private, would you sit down as well?” Witchburn asked politely.

  “Come on, man, sit down,” Aaron spoke to him in a calm, low tone. “Maybe if we just give her a moment to better explain…” Aaron slumped back in his seat, his arms folded, a frown across his face.

  “There is no call for this degree of aggression,” said Witchbun.

  Asher gave the camera at the edge of the screen a hostile look, his rage still simmering as he took a seat. He supposed he could try to hear her out.

  “Now, let’s see…” High Commander Witchburn placed her good hand thoughtfully beneath her chin. “Oh, here we are.” She reached across her desk, grasping for something just out of frame.

  Witchburn brought out a bright red apple, holding it up so they could see.

  “So, as I hope you have learned in our classes, vampires are obligate cannibals. This means they can’t metabolize anything that is not human flesh and blood. Therefore, whenever they eat normal human food, they become violently ill.”

  Witchburn bit a large chunk out of the apple.

  “Now, if I can eat this whole apple,” she spoke out of the corner of her mouth as she chewed. “And not get sick after, it should prove, without a doubt, I am not a vampire.”

  Asher felt his rage finally subside, his mind now at ease. He doubted a real vampire would even attempt to eat normal food.

  “Maybe you should tell them the story, ma’am,” said Greaves.

  The room was silent like a crypt.

  “Looks like I will have to.” High Commander Witchburn swallowed and then smiled again, rolling her good eye.

  Asher couldn’t help but stare at her teeth once more, just to remind himself that they weren’t sharp.

  Well, anyway,” Witchburn began, taking another bite out of her apple, quickly chewing it up and swallowing. “A long time ago, when the Legion was first formed, myself and Commander Greaves were part of the same assault group.”

  “Matilda was the group leader.” A broad grin appeared on Greaves’s face. “She ordered me around just like she does now.”

  “Who’s telling the story, Commander Greaves?” Witchburn’s tone was severe, though with a hint of mirth.

  “Sorry for the interruption, ma’am.” Greaves apologized as though he were speaking to his mother.

  “Oh, that’s OK, you can tell them your part when I get to it.” The high commander laughed, and the smile returned to her face. “Just try to keep it professional. We still used assault rifles then, and those just didn’t have the same stopping power.” Her voice grew muffled as she chewed. “You could run through round after round just to bring down one or two vampires. As you would expect, casualty rates tended to be high.”

  “Uh, I remember.” Greaves leaned his chair back, placing his giant hands behind his head.

  “This operation started out just like any other.” Witchburn gave up on keeping Greaves quiet. “We got the call, and we went out. We only traveled as assault groups in those days, so there were only four of us. We weren’t even a literal Legion then. We ran way, way less than one thousand personnel, all scattered across the country. Still had the ten bases, but each was only occupied by a single company. Still had our smaller outposts.”

  “It was hard to catch a vampire then,” Witchburn reflected. “Actually had people that specialized in tracking the things but didn’t have nationwide informants or drones. These vampires, they were involved in meat trafficking, like so many of them now, and our squad was out to bring down this particular group for good. We went into this house and cleared the living room. Caught the two vamps unaware and blew them away. We thought we killed every one of the perps, even though we had yet to clear the place.”

  Witchburn swept her robotic hand across the bottom of the screen.

  “We had thought wrong. A whole pack of the bloodsuckers ran out of the next room just as we were stacking up by the kitchen door. They ran right into us and cut through two of my men right there. It was just Greaves and me against six or so vamps, our chances of survival minimal

  “Dang right,” Greaves muttered where the high commander couldn’t hear.

  Witchburn belched, finished with her apple. “Oh, well, excuse me,” she said, reaching under her desk for the trashcan to throw away the core.

  “Now.” She turned in her seat to look at the clock on the wall. “If I can keep from vomiting in the next few minutes, it should prove to all of you that I am, indeed, human. OK, back to the story.”

  Witchburn turned back toward the camera. “We fired on the vampires, but the spray of bullets from our rifles had little effect on them. They were so close to us and moved so quickly that only a few of our shots hit their targets. It was just enough to keep them off us, and they continued out the front door, out of the house. One of them knocked me down as he went by, jumped on top of me, slashed up my face. He latched onto my arm, tearing into it with claws and fangs. I suppose he just wanted a snack for the road. He might have killed me if Commander Greaves wasn’t there.”

  Greaves’s broad grin returned to his face.

  “Somehow, this big lummox kept his wits and attacked the vampire with his hatchet.” Witchburn shook her head as she remembered.

  “I had run out of bullets,” Greaves explained, rising to his feet to stand beside his desk. “When I saw that filthy bloodsucker on top of my leader, I all but lost it. I pulled out my hatchet and gave that dirty vamp a few go
od whacks to the back of the neck until his head went bouncin’ onto the floor.” He turned and looked right up at the camera on the lower corner of the screen, his grin now so wide that it threatened to break his face. “Saved your life, didn’t I?”

  “Only after that bloodsucker filth nearly had his way with me. I’m not convinced that vampire was actually trying to kill me. As I said, he seemed to only want my arm as a quick snack. You know how beastly they can be.”

  “Saved your life,” Greaves mumbled under his breath as he took his seat.

  “Anyway, regardless of what this vampire’s intentions really were, he had bitten through my body armor, infecting me.” Witchburn ignored her commander. “There being no cure for vampirism, my options were limited. I would either be turned or, preferably, be disposed of via beheading.” She grimaced. “As you can imagine, I didn’t care for either of those. I took my hatchet from my belt and…”

  “Cut her own arm off!” Greaves interrupted again, unable to wait until the end. “I was there, and even I couldn’t believe it! Did it so quick, I couldn’t stop her.”

  “Well, thanks for that, Commander.” Witchburn’s face turned red in embarrassment.

  “Welcome, High Commander.” Greaves’ voice was grim.

  “Anyway, as if on reflex, I yanked off my arm guard, pulled out my hatchet, and with one heavy swift swing, I chopped off my own arm.”

  Witchburn’s face returned to stark, colorless white.

  “It’s a good thing it was sharp.” The high commander’s grin returned. “I started screaming and sobbing like a lunatic, as you can imagine, the blood spewing from the stump. Greaves, still somehow un-phased by all this, took off his belt, put a tourniquet around my arm, and rushed me back to the base for medical treatment.”

  “Just doin’ what I had to, ma’am.” Greaves leaned back in his seat once more. This time he put his feet up on the desk with not a semblance of humility.

  “And now here is the funny part.” Witchburn placed her mechanical hand against the side of her mouth as though she were telling a secret. “We get to the hospital wing, and they tell me it was completely pointless to amputate my arm! They said there was no way I could have cut it off quickly enough to keep the infection from spreading! Told Greaves he should have just killed me right there.”