That was just a slice of the whole pie. There was more, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Ten feet in front of Sarah, Burly was standing on the air, his feet kicking a few inches from the ground. He was a very large man, one of the biggest Andy had ever met, yet he was floating in the air and making grunting noises as his back split open in two places and he vomited blood.
Burly’s thick arms swung back and forth as he reached out and tried to convince the air to let go of him. There was a distortion there, a weird warping of the nothing that was holding him, and Andy thought immediately about the possibilities of camouflage. Not the usual stuff, but the kind you might see in top-secret military labs. It was a passing thought and gone an instant later.
Hanscomb let out a scream that he’d been holding inside. It was more like a sigh because, from the looks of things, his lungs were shredded in his barrel chest. Still, by the look on his face, it was a scream.
Then he slid to the ground and flopped bonelessly, a pile of meat.
The gun. Andy had a gun. He just had to use it was all.
Grabbing for it, he almost dropped it, but got a firm grip and pointed at the place just past Burly’s body. His hands shook a bit, and he took aim at that distortion in the air, cursing his nerves for betraying his fear.
Ghosts don’t die from bullets. That was what he told himself even as he steadied his grip and took careful aim.
He fired, and the air roared.
Not the sound of his pistol, which he knew very well from the range, but the sound of whatever he’d hit. Something wet and green spilled to the ground even as the air moved. The distortion shifted and danced, and an instant later it was lost in the darkness of the gloomy clubhouse.
Andy took the time to see how many of his friends were dead. Near as he could tell it was almost all of them. Danny was down—his back was broken, too, by the looks of it. Something had blown a hole in Landry. Even Suzie was dead. She’d pulled out her knife and there was something green on it.
Ghost blood! It’s ghost blood!
But whatever she’d cut, it had cut back and done a much better job. Tom-Tom was face down on the ground, and most of his back was wet and red from the blood that poured out of it.
A few frantic seconds of looking showed nothing of the ghost, and Andy tried to calm himself, to make his eyes stop bouncing around the room and focus. Holding the gun out with one hand, he wheeled himself from room to room. He was still searching when it found him instead.
The hand holding his pistol vanished in a spray of blood and then reappeared, bouncing across the ground. Adrenaline alone kept him from blacking out from the pain and Andy clutched at his wrist, trying to staunch the heavy blood flow that was painting his jeans black. He gagged and leaned over the side of his wheelchair as the vomit forced itself out of him. The pain was sickening.
The distorted air was there again, and this time it was much closer. The shape was vague at best, but it towered over him. Andy looked up and saw the ghost looking back. His world went dark gray, and then black.
* * *
He came to when he heard the sound of the clubhouse door being knocked aside. Looking around he saw that the bodies had been torn apart. Heads were missing and worse, far worse, had been done to some of the members of the Four Horsemen. He should have been horrified, but all he felt was numb.
Andy stayed where he was, trying to hold the blood inside his body with strength born of desperation. He was dizzy, and the world spun, then faded to gray for a while and only came back again when he heard the sirens outside.
“Ghosts. Goddamned ghosts.”
There was a rumble of distant thunder.
* * *
The rains came with hard, blasting winds, and hot, thick drops of moisture that obscured nearly everything seen through his helmet, and so he took it off for a moment, sampling the thin native air and the indigenous creatures as they came to take away the dead and tend to the wounded.
No one saw him as he stood on elevated ground. He was not that foolish. There were plenty of targets he could have addressed, but now was not the time. He was here for as long as he needed to be, and there was no reason to hunt quickly and risk losing better prey.
Lightning tore across the darkened sky and the rains grew heavier still, prompting several of the local dominant species to run for cover.
Foolish. Only those tending their wounded seemed unimpressed by the rains. He watched as they took away the broken creature that had actually wounded him with its primitive firearm. They were advanced enough to have projectile weapons, and they had traveled short distances into their solar system, but still they could not detect his kind when cloaked.
Nevertheless, they were enjoyable prey, and they had potential.
Flashing lights advertised the approach of still more vehicles and he watched, taking the measure of each creature that arrived, marking it for possible later hunting. Most were in poor shape and unarmed. They had no weapons and looked to others to offer protection. It was difficult to discern the levels of authority, but there was no need to do so. He was not here to compare sociological views with a different culture.
He was here to hunt, and to prove himself. Still, though they were primitive, he saw similarities to his own society. He could not help but note them—it was his role. For at home he had researched the constantly changing anomalies showing up in some of his species. Many believed that they were adaptive mutations caused when so many of his people traveled among the stars. Others theorized that the species genome was being altered to improve the species as a whole.
No. He could not continue down that path. This was his time away, his time to prove his value in a more traditional sense. This was the time to hunt.
The winds picked up enough to make him adjust his stance. Down below him two of the creatures staggered, caught off guard by the violent blast of air. Several humans looked around, and at least one made a high-pitched barking sound that might have indicated amusement, but seemed devoid of humor.
Enough. He was done hunting for the night and had other things to consider. The temperature was perfect, but so far the pursuit, the combat, had been too easy. He would seek a more challenging target. His chieftain had said once that at times patience was required. The locals would see their fellow creatures fall and call in hunters better equipped to fight a true threat.
He had left a great enough trail of destruction. If that was the case on this planet, they would come for him soon enough. When they did, he would be ready for a worthy hunt.
7
The rain misted across the runway when they landed in DC. Woodhurst climbed from the plane and crossed the tarmac without any ceremony, or even an umbrella. Traeger wasn’t quite as fast about it. There was an overcoat to put on. It was hardly a serious storm, but he hated getting wet when he was dressed for business.
The jeep that picked them up had a top. Good enough. Woodhurst said nothing, but stared out the window, his face set in a brooding look of concentration. Traeger pulled out his phone and started sending text messages. There were several favors he needed to call in if things were going to go the way he wanted, and now was as good a time as any to start the balls in motion.
Phil Amsburg was the personal aide of Senator Laurel, who was on the committee that overlooked Stargazer. Amsburg was available for drinks at 3:00 PM at the Madison Hotel. That worked for Traeger. He had nothing on the senator, but he knew Amsburg would be able to at least get the woman to consider listening to a few suggestions—because he had plenty on Amsburg. Enough to see the man jailed. Not that he would, of course. A man in prison was nowhere near as useful as a man on the sidelines of the senate.
Four more quick text messages guaranteed that he’d be busy for the next day or so, and that was good. As soon as Woodhurst had brought him up to speed, he had begun considering how to work on the problems facing Project Stargazer.
Senator Raferty would be the most problematic, but that was okay for the moment. He had enough
to keep him from growing bored while he worked out all the details. A plan of attack was beginning to take shape, and if everything went the way he knew it would, the general was going to consider him a very important man in the very near future.
* * *
Jerry Entwhistle stared at the computer on his desk and yawned. It was late and there was remarkably little to do. His job was to watch the news feeds for anything that might lead them to the Stargazer quarry.
The software was impressively well designed—the parameters were solid and he’d lost count of the number of flags they employed. Just an hour earlier he’d thought he had something when a report came in concerning a series of violent deaths in Montana, but they found the perfectly human sicko who’d been carving parts off of people.
Since then, nothing. Seemingly endless reports of violence, but nothing that would indicate extraterrestrials.
Then that changed.
The report was simple enough, and as he read it he quickly spotted the indicators. There were several survivors—three women and two men—who gave a lot of details. The rest of the folks who’d been attacked were dead, and trophies had been taken. That was a serious red flag. Skin, two skulls and a spine that was removed with unsettling brutality.
The clincher was a phosphorescent substance that could not be identified. One of the people said it came from a ghost he shot.
Bingo.
Jerry got on the phone and called Agent Elliott. The older man picked up immediately.
“Pappy. Go.”
“Hey, Pappy,” Entwhistle said, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder. “I think we may have a sighting for your primary target.”
There was a brief pause, the sound of shuffling, and he could imagine the older man grabbing a pen and paper.
“Where?”
“Deer Water Springs, Florida.”
“When?”
“Earlier today. There was a biker gang that got themselves, well, killed off. Dismembered, like you said.”
“Is this a rumor, or an official report?”
“Official,” Entwhistle confirmed. “Just came in.”
Elliott paused again. “Send it to me, Jerry.”
Still holding the phone, Entwhistle started typing furiously, excitement rippling through him.
This could be it! He waited until he’d finished emailing the file via the secure server, and then said, “Should be yours, sir.”
“If this is real, I owe you a beer, Jerry,” Elliott said. “Hell, I’ll buy a round for the whole crew. Thanks very much.” He cut the connection, and Entwhistle nodded to himself, letting out a nervous whistle. Agent Elliott was a nice enough guy, but he’d heard stories about how he was when he was angry. Jerry never wanted to find out personally.
The phone still by his ear, he tapped in the number for the second name on his list.
“Woodhurst.” He was on speakerphone.
He gave the general the same report he’d given to Elliott. The officer was cordial and polite and thanked him. Agent Traeger, who was second to Agent Elliott, was there as well. The guy thanked him profusely, and then asked for a follow-up as soon as he knew anything. Traeger was as friendly as anyone he knew and so he was glad to help.
One more call to make. Tomlin. By the time he’d finished, the Reapers were getting ready for departure. They’d need details. It only took a moment to find the town of Deer Water Springs on the map. It was a small place, surprisingly close to the Georgia-Florida line.
They’d be there in no time.
* * *
Pappy Elliott looked on and said nothing as the men he’d trained prepared themselves for a combat situation. There was nothing he needed to say, nothing he could say that hadn’t been said countless times before.
He’d described in great detail the events in Vietnam that had led him to be their primary instructor. It was simple really—he was the only man available who’d fought one of the nightmares and lived to tell the tale. Well, the only one who was willing to talk about it, at least. He’d met the others. Elliott had been there each time they’d debriefed the few people they could find who’d encountered one of the creatures from another planet.
None of them ever walked away from the encounter unchanged. Death did that. He’d seen plenty of death in his time, but little of it had come from somewhere else, and most of it had at least seemed to make sense. Not the killings by these… these predators. Their motives remained a mystery.
He knew more than most and more importantly, he was willing to share his knowledge. Still, there was only so much he could tell them, and so many ways he could spin it. So he watched his team in silence and thought back to the nightmare he’d faced in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Seven feet tall if it was an inch. They’d shot out the protective lens over one eye, and beneath it was a visage that had haunted him for decades. A dozen different renderings had been made based on his descriptions and from the other accounts, and he had copied all of them in his personal files. The one thing the renderings had in common, aside from a remarkable level of accuracy, was that they paled in comparison to the real monster.
The soldiers he’d trained—still barely men in his eyes, since he had a lot of years on them—were likely to face a creature he didn’t think anyone could be prepared to encounter. It was larger than any of them, stronger by far, and capable of hiding in plain sight. Still, he had trained the Reapers as best he could. They had the best equipment that money could buy—portable, lightweight, and lethal.
They were capable fighters, each among the most competent soldiers that had ever existed. He knew it because he had trained them and found others who could train them well, in a variety of disciplines. Along the way each of the men had lasted through battles that would have left most soldiers dead, and they’d done so without losing a single member of the unit.
Even so, he was worried. The otherworldly life form was deadly on levels they had never encountered. It likely carried tech they could only imagine. However, in the last forty or so years American military technology had expanded by leaps and bounds. The equipment he’d used against the creature would be considered antique in this day and age.
Yet the alien possessed the ability to travel between worlds. Its own science would have advanced over the years. They were nowhere near the weapons the thing would carry.
Pappy hoped he was wrong.
Most likely he wasn’t. He remembered.
* * *
Back in Vietnam, things had been relatively calm in the camp. The usual security, and it was likely the Viet Cong didn’t yet know they were there. Then Maple showed him the pictures they’d taken of the remains, and they went on high alert. The enemy was near, and vicious beyond what they’d expected.
The general wanted to know what the blue hell was going on in those woods. Given the sheer savagery of the murders, they pumped up security and slept in shifts— four hours on and four hours off. Half of them guarded the perimeter. The other half, the ones who drew the short straws, went out into the jungle and searched.
For two days and nights all was quiet. Elliott began thinking that they’d lucked out, and that whoever was doing the killings had made their point and moved on. It was, frankly, exactly the sort of thing they taught their allies to do, only taken to a much darker extreme. Hell, as unsettled as he was by the tactic, he could see the benefits of increasing the violence factor so radically.
Then on the third morning Costanza, Gorman, and Harris didn’t come back from their patrol of the area. There was no radio contact. There were no flares. Nothing. Everyone in the camp was unnerved.
That night they were found, and Elliott saw the savagery firsthand. All three heads were gone. Their weapons were there—the enemy hadn’t bothered to take them. One of them hadn’t even been fired. A huge tree had been blown apart and several thick shards of wood were buried in Harris’s arm. A land mine? Doubtful, since the explosive pattern didn’t match.
Then what had
it been?
The next report to the general resulted in a furious demand for action. So the next day, all of the remaining agents went hunting. They did it together, thinking there would be safety in numbers.
* * *
Remembering made Pappy desperate for a drink.
8
Adrenaline wanted to dance through his body, but Tomlin did his best to suppress that overpowering nervousness. Next to him Hill was already suited up and double-checking his supplies. The man looked in his direction and, despite his usual demeanor, he smiled.
“Gonna be a damned fine day, I can feel it.”
Tomlin smiled back. “I think you’re right, but let’s not get too cocky. These things are supposed to be as tough as they come.”
“We can only hope.” Hill’s smile didn’t fade in the least. “We’ve got this. Been practicing long enough. We’ve got the best equipment. We’ve got the best trained. Let’s do it.”
Tomlin smiled. The enthusiasm, especially from Hill, was contagious.
“Hoo… rah.”
“Damn right.”
They moved quickly, each member of the team heading to their assigned location on the transport helicopter. The bird was designed with stealth in mind, and while it had the necessary equipment, it didn’t have call signs—or any identifying marks. The bird, much like the occupants, was designed for anonymity.
Tomlin gave the pilot the go-ahead, and a moment later they were airborne, moving into the dark sky.
“What’s the situation, chief?” Pulver’s voice was tense. He didn’t like surprises. None of them did, really, but for Pulver the call to leave his bed was practically a declaration of war. There wasn’t much he liked better than a decent night’s sleep.
“Looks like we might finally get what we’ve been after,” Tomlin said over the comm. “Got a call on what seems to be an actual alien hunter.” He peered from one soldier to the next as he spoke. “If that’s the case, we’re going hunting for something that stalks and kills our species. God knows why. Near as anyone can tell, there’s one or more of these things in a town just south of the Georgia line.”
THE PREDATOR HUNTERS AND HUNTED Page 5