by Toby Tate
Lilith was giving birth.
CHAPTER 77
Hunter sat with his back up against an old park trash can that had been blown over by the hurricane. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Lilith had begun to give birth and Hunter, who was only a few yards away, could see the shadow of…something…protruding from between her legs as she strained to push it out. But it didn’t look as if it was moving and he could hear no sound coming from it. Maybe the thing was dead, stillborn.
He began to wonder for the hundredth time when Lisa, Gabe and the CIA team would find him. He knew they would eventually come, but he was afraid for their safety. Now Lilith had a child or children to protect and she would be twice as dangerous, making it more imperative than ever that she be stopped.
Hunter watched across the grass of the park as the miracle…and the horror…of this birth played out. There were groans and disgusting sucking sounds that made his stomach turn as he reached up to plug his ears. What kind of “children” would they be? Would they resemble anything human? He doubted it. Lilith had mutated to the point that she was no longer recognizable as humanoid and he figured her children would be the same. The spawn of Satan. Had the spirit of Lilith herself reincarnated, traveled through time and space and taken over the body of this particular Lilith? Or had the true genetic power of the beast been unlocked? He would probably never know.
Hunter had witnessed some bizarre events in his life, but this was the most terrifying yet. With their astounding rate of growth, there would soon be a whole army of Lilitu and there was nothing he or anyone could do to stop it.
* * *
Lisa watched as the waveforms fluctuated on Harrison’s radiation detector, increasing in amplitude with each step.
“Jason, the radiation reading is getting stronger,” Harrison whispered. “We’re definitely closing in. I’d say we’re within a hundred yards. It looks like they’ve been hanging back in the trees so I’d say they’re probably still inside the tree line.”
Jason held up a closed fist, signaling for the group to stop, then turned to face everyone.
“Alright, we’re going to go in quick and silent, grab Hunter and get the hell out of here. If we can, we’ll capture Lilith or take her out. I’m only going to take three people with me.”
MacIntyre quickly stepped up. “I’d like to go along. She’s my sister, so who knows, maybe I can still reason with her somehow.”
Jason seemed to consider it.
“I’d like to take you, Commander,” he finally said, “but I have to warn you, if she attacks, we’ll be shooting first and asking questions later.”
Mac nodded. “I understand. I’d still like to be there.”
Jason waved him over.
Lisa stepped up also. “Jason, I have a personal stake in this, as well. I’d like to go along. Like I said, I can handle myself in tough situations.”
“I believe you can, Ms. Singleton.” He waved her over. “Slater, you’re with us. The beast can probably smell us a mile away, so the rest of you wait here until we get back. Listen up on the radio and be ready if we call you. Harrison, you’re in charge until we return. Keep your eyes and ears open.”
Jason turned to Lisa and Mac. “You two ready?”
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Lisa said.
The quartet moved forward and disappeared behind a clump of fallen trees.
CHAPTER 78
It was dark and still. Lilith had finished with the painful ordeal of giving birth to monsters and had crept over to where Hunter sat mesmerized with horror and fascination. Lilith stood before him, her hulking form silhouetted by the rising moon, and said only one word.
“Watch.”
It came out more like a guttural growl than a spoken word. The voice didn’t sound human. It sounded demonic. But Hunter knew what Lilith meant—she wanted him to keep an eye on the…whatever the hell it was. Hunter should have been terrified, but his anger and frustration left no room for fear. Hunter nodded his understanding and she moved off across the park in search of what Hunter assumed was some type of sustenance for her and her offspring. He really didn’t want to know what that sustenance might be, and he definitely was not going to be moving any closer to the shadowy mass that lay on the ground, as silent and unmoving as death.
But he knew it wasn’t dead.
Hunter hadn’t moved for hours. His back and his butt were sore as he sat up against the metal trash can, sickened by the sight of Lilith in her birth pangs and thought about things—where he was, why he was there and how he was going to get away. He knew that killing Lilith was out of the question. Even one of those CIA grenade launchers might not stop her.
More than anything, he wanted to see Lisa again, to hold her and never let go. They had been together mere minutes when their world exploded and now here he was, hungry and thirsty and tired. But there was no use feeling sorry for himself. The best thing he could do was think about something positive, try to encourage himself, believe that he would find some way out of this and hopefully destroy Lilith and her spawn in the process.
So Hunter did the only thing he could do.
He prayed.
* * *
There were slim pickings around Manhattan, especially since the storm had hit. That damned hurricane tore up everything, didn’t leave nothin’ untouched, the old man thought as he shambled through Morningside Park, pushing his grocery cart as he went, stepping around a fallen tree here, a fallen tree there. The cart contained everything he owned in the world—some ragged clothes, a few magazines and newspapers, a flashlight, an extra pair of shoes—things that he had managed to find on his rounds through the city. Most he found in Central Park and along Broadway. Funny what some people discarded as junk. To someone like him, it was pure gold.
Victor Slocum’s clothes hung off of him like rags on a skeleton and a scruffy, gray beard covered his frail jaw. He had to squint to see since he couldn’t afford glasses. Born and bred in the Bronx, he was a veteran of the war in Viet Nam, served as a corporal in the Army in the late sixties, fighting the Commies on the front lines. The heat, the stink, the fear and the death had eventually taken its toll on his mind and when he returned he was told he had post-traumatic stress disorder. To him it was just a fancy word for crazy. Thing was, he knew he was crazy and he didn’t care. He didn’t want to be cooped up in some VA hospital for the rest of his life and was too mentally unstable to hold down a job. He had no family to speak of and no place to go, so he panhandled. New York was a huge city and people were sympathetic, though not as free with their money as they used to be. Damned economy.
But maybe tonight he would get lucky, find one of those mp3 players with headphones attached, forgotten by a worn-out jogger and left on a park bench. He would love to be able to listen to some old Sinatra or Tony Bennett, maybe.
The soup kitchens and flop houses were closed for now, blown away by the wind or flooded from the rain, so he would have to sleep in a doorway somewhere and try to scrounge up some grub wherever he could.
Victor shuffled up to a trash can that hadn’t been toppled by the hurricane and parked his grocery cart next to it, then looked down inside for some fresh leftovers. There weren’t any people around, he knew, so it was unlikely he would find anything, but you could never tell.
The moon tonight was bright and full and he could see everything pretty clearly inside the can. Didn’t look like there was much in the way of food, just soda bottles, empty fast-food wrappers and newspapers soaked from the rain.
Then the moonlight suddenly disappeared—something was blocking it. The old man lifted his head from the trashcan and stood squinting at a lone figure hidden in the shadows of a giant still-standing sycamore tree. Cataracts had long ago ruined Victor’s eyesight, but whoever it was, he was huge and built like a grizzly bear.
Victor had never been mugged—what could you steal from a homeless man? But occasionally street thugs liked to harass him just because they could. He was hoping this du
de was just lost.
“Can I help you?” the old man croaked. “You lookin’ for somethin’?”
The beast answered with only one word, but it was the way it spoke that made the old man’s spine freeze.
“Blood,” it growled.
When it lumbered out of the shadows, Victor saw it more clearly and let out a strangled plea for help that no one could have possibly heard. Had a polar bear escaped from the zoo? But this thing was even bigger than a polar bear. He couldn’t move—as if his shoes were nailed to the ground. The hulking thing advanced slowly on four oversized, clawed feet, muscles bunching and rows of long, pointed teeth dripping with saliva inside its opened, cavernous mouth. He could feel his heart pumping, adrenaline flowing through his body like ice water. The thing was actually graceful, catlike in its movements, which seemed to make it all the more terrifying. Its snow-white fur looked silky and beautiful in the moonlight, an irony that made the old man almost want to laugh as it closed in for the kill.
Victor thought the beast’s hot breath stank of rotten meat as he stared into the silvery eyes of death. He felt like his neck had suddenly been placed in a hydraulic press when Lilith clamped her huge jaws around his throat and decapitated him in one bite.
CHAPTER 79
Most animal tracking, as Vince Slater knew from growing up in the woodlands of Virginia, was done using what was called “sign tracking,” incorporating clues from trails, scat, and anything that indicates animal presence. Many animals tend to spend the most time in “transition” areas between forests and streams, forests and fields or fields and streams because they offered the best hiding places and abundant food sources. Like humans, animals will usually take the path of least resistance through a forest, mountain or swamp.
But what they were tracking had the intelligence of a human combined with the strength and sensory input of an animal. Add to that the evil intent of this particular being, and you would find nothing more lethal and dangerous in the entire world. As highly skilled in his profession as he was, and as much death as he had seen, Slater was still apprehensive.
He was glad he was carrying the MK13.
The tracks they were following were from a “pacer,” meaning that it moved its legs on the same side of its body to walk. But like a bear, it could also break into a gallop instantly. Also like a bear, it could walk on hind legs. Because the ground was so wet, the prints were fairly clear even in the moonlight. The tracks were as big as the biggest bear tracks Slater had ever seen. The thing obviously weighed a hell of a lot, more than a full-grown Sumatran Rhino judging by the depth of the prints, and just as mean. He almost felt silly following tracks that were so well-defined even a layman could see them.
Paralleling those tracks were the prints from a pair of running shoes, the same ones Hunter had been wearing, according to his wife.
They moved stealthily, weapons drawn, watching in all directions and spaced about ten feet apart. They passed the marble and granite monument of the Grant National Memorial in Riverside Park and crossed over a deserted road, following close behind Slater.
After another hundred yards, he held up a fist and the group stopped. He motioned for Jason, who quickly made his way to Slater’s position.
Slater pointed straight ahead. In the distance was the shape of someone leaning up against what looked like an old metal trash can.
It was Hunter.
* * *
Lisa knew she needed to stay put even though she could see her husband’s silhouette. She would know that shape anywhere, but she wasn’t about to jeopardize his safety. Her Beretta was in her hand and ready to fire. She watched as Jason moved up to where Slater was and the two talked. There was no way of knowing if Lilith was anywhere near, but Lisa was getting the feeling that they had been lucky and found Hunter alone. If she was close, she was probably stalking them right now, watching their every move. Lisa glanced around at the uprooted trees and trash strewn about the park—there were a million places to hide here, which is probably why Lilith chose it.
Behind her, Lisa saw that MacIntyre was holding his M4A1 and was decked out in black jeans, black T-shirt and black Keds, making him almost invisible in the darkness. Even the white skin of his face was shaded by a black ball cap like the one she wore. She smiled at him and he smiled back, but Lisa could tell it was forced. She was going through hell, but at least she knew she would probably get Hunter back. Mac had no such future to look forward to—his sister was lost forever. She suddenly felt a pang of empathy for the man.
Slater broke away and moved back to where Jason had been and Lisa heard Jason over the comm link whisper, “Hunter is about one hundred meters ahead and appears to be alone. He may be sleeping. We will slowly edge our way to his position until we know what the situation is. Watch me closely and follow my lead.”
Jason gave a nod to the group and then began to advance toward Hunter.
CHAPTER 80
Hunter sat back against the hard metal can, his eyes closed, hoping to catch some much-needed sleep. Instead, he kept seeing Lilith and hearing her unearthly screams. He could envision no way out of this situation—it was testing his faith, severely. He forced his mind into a different avenue of thought as he tried to picture what his unborn child would look like. He imagined holding…her? Him?...at the hospital and handing out cigars to everyone in the waiting room. Lisa’s parents would be there and Hunter imagined the looks on the faces of her Chinese father and African-American mother. How those two ever managed to get together was a source of amazement to him. Maybe his own mother and father would make the trip from Oklahoma to meet the newest addition to the Singleton household.
Hunter opened his eyes and gazed at the wet lump laying a few yards away and although he didn’t want to go near it, had figured out that it must be some kind of egg. Eventually, it would hatch and creatures more horrible than he could imagine would emerge. They would probably mature in a matter of months and then they, too, would reproduce. In a few short years they would overrun the entire country and eventually the planet.
Hunter decided he didn’t want to think about it anymore and closed his eyes once again.
His mind drifted back to happier thoughts of his own human child and nursery room furniture, baby books, diapers, strollers, video cameras, parties, first day of pre-school…when he suddenly felt something on his shoulder. At first, he thought it was a bug and tried to brush it off. When he touched it, he realized it was a human hand.
He jumped awake and turned quickly around, startled. Behind him, over the top of his trash can, he saw the camouflaged face of the leader of the SOG team, a finger to his lips.
“Is she around?” the lips whispered.
Hunter slowly shook his head, still reeling from the shock. “She’s hunting,” he whispered back.
The team leader nodded toward Lisa and the waiting team members. “Come on, follow me. Quietly.”
Hunter didn’t think running would do any good, but thought that perhaps with the firepower of the SOG team, he would stand a chance. He rose from the ground and crept silently behind the man, toward a cluster of fallen trees.
Beyond the trees was the most beautiful sight Hunter had ever seen—his wife.
He immediately threw caution to the wind and ran to Lisa’s awaiting arms.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” he said.
“Shut up and kiss me.”
They kissed passionately for several moments, oblivious to the world around them.
“I hate to break this up, folks,” Jason said, “but we need to get out of here before the bomb goes off. I’m going to make a command decision and say that finding Lilith will have to wait.”
Hunter stood for a moment, absorbing what the team leader had just said.
“Did you say a bomb?” he asked.
Jason nodded somberly, relaying the story told to them by Saunders at CIA headquarters and then stretched out a hand to Hunter.
“By the way, I’m Jason Fredrichs
and this is Vince Slater. He’s on my SOG team.”
Slater nodded a silent greeting at Hunter.
“So you’re saying those assholes have planted a nuclear bomb somewhere in Manhattan? How do you know?” Hunter asked.
Jason shook his head. “Look, we don’t have time to get into all that. We need to get back to the Ford and weigh anchor before we all become toast along with the rest of the island. There are a lot of people aboard the ship that have been evacuated and if we’re not aboard within the next hour, they’re going to leave us here.”
Hunter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So you’re going to leave the island? Just like that? Without even trying to find the nuke?”
“Hey, believe me, I’d love to try to locate this bomb. But we simply don’t have the means at our disposal. Our job is to get you and the other civilians to safety and that’s what we’re going to do. So let’s move out.”
Jason began to walk back the way they had come when Hunter stuck out a hand that hit the spook in the middle of his Dragon Skin vest, stopping him short.
Jason went to grab the hand and Hunter struck it away with a lightning-quick upward swipe of his arm. The man was twice Hunter’s size and probably did not feel like being challenged, especially in the middle of a possible combat zone. But Hunter had to make him listen.
“Wait, Jason, hear me out. I have an idea.”
Hunter knew that the man was feeling the pressure of responsibility to his SOG team members and the Ford crewmembers that were under his command. There was no way of knowing how much time they had left before Armageddon struck and wiped them off the face of the Earth. For all he knew, they had none. But Hunter gambled that Jason’s humanity would win out over his military training, at least temporarily.