There. To his right.
The movement was small, subtle, and if he’d been focused on looking, he would have missed it. Instead he damn near sensed the change and when he looked— really looked—he saw the distortion field that marked where the thing stood.
It was maybe thirty feet away from Tomlin, and it was waiting for Hill to get there. The bastard was heading right for it.
Rather than call out, Hyde took aim and squeezed off two rounds. At least one of them hit. The thing stepped back and spun hard to the right. There was another noise of metal on metal, barely even a tinkle in the torrential rain, and then the alien roared and charged for him. Any and every chance of stealth was gone, but at least the damned thing hadn’t thrown one of those nasty-ass blades at him. Not yet.
He still had trouble seeing where it was. The waters splashed where feet hit the ground, but it moved so damned fast. All Hyde could do was watch as it thundered his way, and then duck when the time came.
As a huge arm swept toward him, he dodged left and lowered his body into a crouch. It was moving fast and would have to get rid of the momentum before it could turn and try for him a second time.
Looked good on paper, but the thing swept an arm back as it moved, and smacked him across the side of his head. It wasn’t a fatal blow but it hurt like hell and Hyde spilled into the muck, then rolled back to his feet, wobbling more than he wanted to think about. While he was trying to catch his balance, the fucker kicked him in his side.
The blow wasn’t perfect. Again, if it had been, he would have been out of commission. Instead of knocking his ribs into a new shape it only sent him reeling a second time and trying to compensate for the kinetic force of the hit.
The thing didn’t intend to let him recover. It came straight at him, and that was fine with Hyde. He didn’t intend to let it off easy, either.
When it came around this time, swinging one thick arm that he could barely distinguish from the air, Hyde braced, blocked, and then pivoted on the hip while holding that limb. Jiu-jitsu was all about throws and blocks and using an enemy’s force against them. He threw the bastard a couple of feet through the air, feeling every ounce of his enemy as he finished the move.
The alien hit the ground hard, making an epic splash. Rather than let go, Hyde moved his hands up the wrist and captured the thumb on that hand. Funny thing about fingers and thumbs—as tough as the bones were, the joints could be surprisingly weak. He dislocated the thumb with a hard twist and then backed away as the creature let out a roar of fury, or maybe just pain.
It came up in an explosion of dirty water and charged for him again. He could try to throw it, but it wasn’t going to do much good if the thing wasn’t swinging. This time around it wasn’t off balance, and it clocked him full on, knocking him into the flooding waters without so much as trying.
This time the blow was too solid for him to brush off.
Mostly transparent or not, he saw the big-ass blades pop on that wrist gauntlet. Hyde moved, pushing himself through the muck and avoiding the first blow. The second was better timed and the blades carved through his vest. They narrowly missed taking a part of his chest along for the ride. The third swipe caught on his helmet and tore it free from his head, neatly scraping his left ear off in the process. The pain was intense enough that he guessed the cartilage had been torn.
He’d have been dead right then if Hill hadn’t stepped in and taken a shot.
* * *
Fury was overwhelming him. The creature was half his size, and it kept eluding him, kept hurting him. He didn’t want to let anger get the best of him, but felt himself drowning in a tide of emotions just the same.
The war mask wasn’t helping. He’d hoped that the enhanced vision—even with just one lens—would be enough, but instead he was moving around half blind, and he couldn’t do it any longer. He needed to see properly if he was going to kill his prey.
Finally the thing was caught. He hit it hard enough that it fell, and he saw blood spilling down the side of its head where one of the small, soft curls of the ear had been torn away.
It looked around, clearly disoriented.
Abruptly there was an impact as solid as a strike to the face. One of the other life forms had shot him. His war mask rang out again, and this time when it slid sideways he ripped it down and cast it aside. Putting it back on had been a mistake. Best to trust his senses.
Turning, he saw the thing where it stood. It saw him, as well, despite the cloak, and it fired again. The missile cut across his throat and hit hard enough to make him cough, but did not penetrate. He staggered and reached for his gauntlet.
A moment later the cannon shifted in his shoulder. Four hard bursts of plasma erupted from it and lit the darkness. Explosion after explosion tore the ground apart, leaving smoking craters in their wake. He didn’t care if he hit his enemy. He cared that it stopped shooting at him, and in that he was successful. The thing screeched and ran and was hurled through the air.
When the debris settled, the three creatures remained. All of them were injured, but not one of them had yet died.
He needed to revise that as quickly as he could.
28
“Sheriff?” Laney’s voice on the radio always sounded like she was trying to imitate Marilyn Monroe. Sultry, sexy, and silky. It would have had more of an impact on Sheriff Tom Lauder if he wasn’t happily married, and if Laney didn’t bear an unsettling resemblance to his brother-in-law Mike.
Mike was nice and all, but not exactly a sexy thing in his estimation. And both Mike and Laney could have lost a spare tire without it causing them any harm.
“Yeah, Laney?” he responded. “What blew up this time?” The storm was a bear, and it was knocking the bejesus out of everything in the county without even trying. In a perfect world he would have been at home, eating a plate of his wife’s spaghetti with meatballs and watching Survivor. Instead he was driving down State Road 11 and making sure the flooding hadn’t washed out any of the small bridges along this stretch of his territory.
“Nothing blew up, Sheriff, but there have been complaints of shots fired down at the fairground.”
Tom frowned. “Isn’t the Hartshorn Carnival closed down due to the storm? Smart move. I think Bill Hartshorn said he wanted to skip that sort of liability.”
“It is, and he did, but somebody’s out there firing weapons.”
In the seat next to him Deputy Annie Traynor was frowning. Her expression said exactly what he was thinking—if some redneck dumbass was out there drunk and shooting the hell out of the carnival, there was going to be a major problem. The paperwork for vandalism on that level was a pain in the ass.
“We’re on it.” He paused for a moment. “Know what, Laney?”
“What’s that, Sheriff?”
“I’d like you to call Phil and Andy over here, too. Just in case we’ve got another incident with a bike club.”
Whoever had destroyed the Four Horsemen Bike Club, and killed at least half the charter members, had done a helluva job. He’d never seen that much blood. It wasn’t close to solved, and the bikers, as friendly as they could be and as nice as they were when it came to doing their civic duties, also dealt with drugs and other illegal substances. It seemed to him like some sort of sick vendetta.
On top of the killings, the cancellation of their annual Biker Week had gone badly. So far four different groups who’d come into town to have a good time had started drunken brawls, or tried their hand at arson, or fired off a few hundred rounds at the empty garage that sat next to the Four Horsemen clubhouse.
It’s all fun and games until someone gets drunk and decides to let loose.
“I’ll have them meet you there, Sheriff.”
“You’re a doll, Laney,” he said. “Thank you.”
She giggled and killed the radio chatter.
Annie looked at him, rolled her eyes, and then made a gagging noise.
“What?”
“‘You’re a doll, Laney,’�
� she said. “‘Thank you, Laney.’” Her imitation of him was an octave too high but otherwise pretty good.
“What was I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know, maybe just leave it at thank you, without the flirting?”
“Honey and vinegar,” he said. “I flirt with Laney and the world is a better place. I don’t flirt with Laney and she forgets to give me my messages when I get to the office.”
“So you’re a john?”
“When it comes to getting my phone messages, yes I am.”
She chuckled and shook her head. “I’m telling your wife.”
“Oh, she knows.”
“I bet she does.”
“I take out the trash on Friday, we have sex on Saturday,” he replied without a hint of irony. “I do my chores, and I am handsomely rewarded.”
“That’s so much more than I ever needed to know about you, Tom.”
“You know you like it.”
She made another retching sound as they passed the helicopter parked on the clearing at the edge of the carnival. The cruiser slewed sideways as Tom hit the brakes, and then Annie opened her window to the rain and aimed a flashlight at the black aircraft.
“Seriously?” She looked at the bird and shook her head. “What, bikers with guns aren’t enough? Now we’re having them imported?”
Tom didn’t even bother with the flashers. A few seconds later they were out and soaking wet. There was a man sitting in the pilot seat of the copter, staring at them as they came closer. He opened the door.
“Want to explain this one, friend?” Tom looked at the man. He was dressed in black pants and a black t-shirt. He held out his credentials and Tom read them, not really caring. He just wanted answers.
“Just waiting for my clients to come back.” That was about as carefully neutral a face as he’d ever seen, and Annie shook her head, sending a spray off the wide-brimmed hat that was keeping her face mostly dry. As calm as the guy was acting, he seemed mighty nervous.
“Clients?” he echoed.
“Yes, Sheriff. They said they came down here to assess some property?”
“In the middle of this?”
“It wasn’t this bad when I landed.”
“When was that, last week?”
The man gave a mild, polite chuckle that didn’t sound real. “I have to make a living. The winds weren’t so bad, and I could charge them extra, so I figured why not?”
“Just be careful when you leave,” Lauder said. “This gets any worse and I’ll ground you myself.” He wasn’t sure he could do that, but the pilot probably didn’t know that.
“I’m very seriously considering calling an Uber and telling them to go to hell when they get done.”
“Yeah? That might be a good idea. You might not get rich, but you’d be alive.”
The pilot nodded his head. “Amen, brother.”
“That’s Sheriff Brother to you.” He said the words without venom. It was Florida. Stranger things happened every day. He took a picture of the call letters on the side of the bird and made a mental note to run them when the night was done. If the man was legit he was fine. If he thought there was drug business going on, it was going to be a bad day for someone. He didn’t expect drugs, though. The guy looked too clean for that sort of crap.
Back in the car he shook his head again and looked over to Annie. “Can you believe this? Every damned time I think I’ve seen everything—”
That was when the explosions rocked the night from the direction of the carnival. He hit the flashers and Annie started calling it in even as Tom gunned the cruiser forward.
It was going to be a longer night than they’d thought.
* * *
Devon Hill crawled back to his feet and shook the mud from the side of his face. He was alive and he was pissed off. Fucking crab-faced bastard had all the advantages. It was gone again, of course. At least he got it off Hyde before it could kill the man.
That was something.
When the blue flashing lights came around the side of the Ferris wheel, no one was more surprised. The cop car came to a halt and two shapes got out of it. Both of them carried flashlights and looked as if they meant business— at least as much as Hill could tell. One of them was staring right at him and walking in his direction.
“You want to leave.” He shook his head and squinted in the glare from the vehicle. “It’s not safe here.”
“Well, I think we might be better judges of that. What the hell is going on here, anyway?” The woman’s voice threw him. He was so used to being around men in uniform. That, or maybe that last blast from the enemy had rattled his brains more than he wanted to think about.
“There’s a situation here,” he said, glancing around the entire time. “You need to leave. I can’t explain. It’s dangerous.”
She pulled a pistol. It looked like a toy in her hand.
“You need to put your hands up in the air. You need to stay exactly where you are.” That was when he remembered that he was holding a weapon in his own hand.
“No. Wait. This doesn’t have to get ugly. I’m warning you—”
“Drop the weapon and put your hands above your head, friend.” That voice came from the other uniform. He had a hand on the radio attached to his shoulder.
“I’ll drop the weapon! I’ll drop the weapon!” Hill wanted them gone and he wanted them alive. This wasn’t part of their day, part of their world, and he needed to keep it that way. “Just, please, lower your weapons and leave. This is a serious situation, and you are in danger.”
“Son, you have no idea how serious it is.”
You did not just call me son. “Listen, this is… it’s a covert operation. This is a very dangerous spot, and there are already several injured parties.”
“Get down on the ground!” the woman shouted at him. “Hands above your head. This is over now.”
Hill started to lower to the ground when the woman’s head exploded.
The sheriff turned fast, his eyes wide.
“Annie!” He turned back toward Hill, waving his gun like an amateur, and then looked around, but there was nothing to see.
The man reached for his radio.
Hill rose and tried for him. There was no choice—he was about to call for backup, and if that happened the clusterfuck would only get worse. There was still a very small chance they could contain this situation, but it was getting smaller by the second.
The sheriff was faster than he expected. “Officer down! Repeat, I have an officer down at the carnival!”
It was all gone to hell, just that fast.
There would be no pulling the locals back.
The sheriff had his service pistol pointed directly at Hill. And then he went sailing backward, his eyes wide and a thick arm around his throat.
Hyde dropped him fast, but not quite fast enough. In the distance they could hear another cop siren. Hyde hit the sheriff in the side of his head three times. It didn’t kill the man, but he wasn’t going to get back up any time soon.
Leaning over, he took the service piece.
“We have to end this.”
Hill nodded.
“End this.” The words came from behind Hill and he spun quickly, looking for the source. He saw nothing, but he felt the creature’s hands grab his throat and his crotch, lift him like he was nothing, and hurl him through the air. He slammed into Hyde hard enough to send them both into the water and mud again.
They rolled and slipped and grunted, and Hill felt that damn dizziness come back to shake his senses. Hyde stood up and backed away, looking for their target. He opened fire with the pistol in his hand and hit something.
At the same time, one of the round blades slammed into Hill’s head. The curved tines drove through flesh and into bone, breaking open his sinuses and quivering in the side of his face. The impact was great enough that he went down, and hard, fading from consciousness even as he became aware of the pain.
* * *
Hyde shook
his head. Everything hurt and it wasn’t getting any better.
The damned thing was tougher than it had any right to be, and he wanted it dead before it could prove that fact again. Then it killed Hill. One throw and the man dropped like a freshly cut tree.
He fired again and scored a major hit. Something went wrong with the cloaking device and the creature came back into focus in all its hideous glory.
It was looking worse for wear. Several wounds were obvious now, bullet holes that had carved pieces of the hideous thing away. It bled from the chest, from the abdomen, from the left leg and from both arms. There were abrasions running along the side of the thing’s monstrous face.
It looked directly at Hyde and those deadly blades popped from the right gauntlet. The eyes of the creature rolled, and it opened its mouth wide as it roared another challenge. Hyde backed up and crouched even as the lights came around the corner.
The Sheriff’s Department was on the roll. There was a new squad car present and, much as he agreed with Hill and wished that civilians could have stayed away, he was grateful for the distraction.
The monster looked toward the vehicle and stormed in that direction.
Hyde let it go.
Hill let out a snort of pain and his face twisted into an ugly mask. He was still alive. Him and Tomlin both, but they weren’t going to be around much longer.
The radio piece on his collar was muddied and soaked, but Hyde checked to see if it still worked. They’d used it person-to-person, and he opened up an outside frequency.
“We’ve got a bird out here. Who’s flying it?”
He’d seen the helicopter. They’d followed it, and if he was lucky the pilot might still be in the area.
As he tried, the alien moved to the cop car and roared another challenge. The driver hadn’t come to a complete halt yet, but he did exactly what Hyde wouldn’t have done. He slammed the vehicle into reverse and tried to get away from the inhuman thing charging toward him.
THE PREDATOR HUNTERS AND HUNTED Page 20