He'd been taking the antibiotics. His leg didn't hurt at all, really. There were no signs of infection—and he knew what to look for, thanks to the vet—and he was keeping it bandaged.
“It's time to go back out, isn't it?” he asked.
69
Joule’s backpack was heavy. Though she didn’t complain, it was hard to keep her footsteps light, to keep from snapping twigs and crunching everything she stepped on when she was lugging a backpack worthy of an army recruit.
She figured she'd qualify for some kind of creepy Army Rangers or zombie Navy SEAL status by the time this was through. But now she thought of their situation as something they would get through.
The alternative was that they didn’t completely destroy the hunters. Joule could foresee a day when man-eating canines were all over North America if the job wasn’t finished now. Humans had always played God with the environment. It’s why the hunters were here now. Man had fucked up. She and her brother were going to remedy that, or probably die trying.
In the heavy backpack, she carried meat. Once again it was sliced and stuffed with pellets of rat poison. She’d shoved in as much as she could. This time, though, they tied the steaks shut with cotton twine, not caring if the hunters ate it or not, as long as it kept the poison inside. The fewer creatures that got poisoned, besides the night hunters, the better.
This time, she and Cage each also carried a folding shovel. They did not carry the tools to fix the trough. When they had returned to check on it last time, the trough had been intact. Though a few of the corners were chewed here and there, it had done its job and stayed in mostly one shape.
Tonight, their job was to refill it and watch.
With the hunters’ poor sense of smell, she and her brother were counting on double-bagged meats. It wouldn’t do to be detected as the carriers of a moveable feast.
At the trough, Joule visually swept the area with her bow pulled tight. Though she’d carried it loosely until here, this was where the fuckers kept popping up. She would not be taken unaware again.
But no hunters appeared, and after several minutes of standing guard, they opened the packs. Dumping the meat into the trough as quickly as they could, they sealed the plastic quickly into a clean bag to mask the smell and shoved it into Cage’s backpack. They had been too-well trained to not litter, and she wasn’t sure if the poison would linger on the plastic and hurt another creature. With the packs zipped and weapons in hand again, they made themselves as scarce as possible.
In tight whispers, Joule motioned to her brother. One of their trees with the built in ladder was nearby. They hadn’t used the ladders, not even once. But that was because they hadn’t let themselves get caught without a weapon or a fast path home again.
“Let’s go up!” She pointed and watched as her brother caught on.
She sent Cage up first and followed behind him. He didn’t waver and his leg seemed to be healing, but she wasn’t ready to take a chance—not more than they already had by coming out tonight. But if the hunters required more poison, re-dosing them as soon as possible would kill them faster and dramatically lower the chances of some of them becoming immune to it.
As he sat in the crook of a branch above her head, Cage slowly raised the ladder rungs behind her. It hadn't been planned this way. They hadn’t discussed the location of the ladder when they’d decided where to put the trough, only that the trough should be near where the trackers had pinpointed the hunters.
This tree had been chosen because it was roughly the center of the woods, in case someone needed an escape. The location wasn't perfect. In fact, it left their view of the trough hidden behind a great trunk in between them and where the night hunter burrow was. But sitting in the tree was better than crouching on the ground, and better than waiting for a hunter to come up behind them.
For several hours, they sat quietly as nothing happened. They couldn’t eat, or talk, or even move in case it drew attention to them, and her mind wandered. Had they missed the hunters? Maybe the burrow had cleared out earlier and they were out hunting. The canines would return before morning. But Joule was glad she and Cage were up high—if the hunters were out, the whole pack would come up from the opposite direction of the one they were watching.
What if they were already dead? If the poison worked as well as Dr. Brett said it did, that might be the case. That would mean all the hunters in the pack had eaten an adequate amount to die from internal bleeding. But it was a possibility. She was still glad to sit in the tree and not see anything.
If one of the animals looked up, they’d likely only see the twins as little blobs. In their black clothes and freshly applied carbon black powder, they were dark as pitch. Still she was trying not to fall asleep, but also not to move. Joule waited.
When she saw the first hunter, her eyes almost flew wide. It came straight out of the ground, pushing up leaves, snout and front paws emerging first, almost as though the earth had birthed a hell beast.
Turning to her brother, she pointed, and then wondered if Cage could even see her. But he nodded. Perhaps the carbon black was good, but wearing it all over themselves was not quite as good as fully erasing themselves from the night.
They knew now where the hunters’ burrow was, which was exactly what she’d hoped to learn. Mentally marking the location, she watched as the hunter sluggishly headed toward the trough. The pile of meat had sat untouched all this time and she wondered, were they all on their last legs? This one wasn’t moving well.
Maybe he was just tired. Or maybe he was dying. She could only hope.
Another hunter emerged from another location. It surprised her. She’d expected the pack to share one sleeping place, though the points were close. Again, she was leaning to her brother when, this time, Cage slowly pointed for her to follow. A third one had appeared from behind a tree. But she couldn’t be sure from exactly where. She had to calculate at least two burrows.
The second had moved behind a clump of trees and she lost sight of him. Was there a third? Did they sleep individually? She didn't know, but that was why they’d brought shovels.
They sat in the tree the remainder of the night. The difficulty lay in staying awake while nothing happened. Only the three hunters had appeared early. They’d eaten some of the meat and then woozily headed back underground.
It was wild watching them. Possibly she could have seen more in the light and it would have made more sense. But in the dark, it appeared as though the first one just pushed his nose into the leaves and sticks covering the ground and bored his way down into the earth—a hellbeast for sure.
When the sun had risen and was at last solidly shining into the woods, she and Cage turned to each other and decided it was time to head down. Slowly, she lowered the ladder, Cage once again going first. She still saw no issues with his leg, no limp or anything, and she felt better.
Without speaking, they headed together to the location where they had seen the first dog go underground. They were going to dig him up. And if it was possible, they would kill it. If there was an entire pack there, they would kill them all.
Those were the better options. There was also the possibility it was a tunnel to another place, a warren system further back that was hard to reach. She had no idea if they worked like gophers, tunneling whole systems underground, or like rabbits, which dug a shallow hole and hid almost in plain sight. They might be like ants, with an entire underground colony. She didn’t know.
Moving the leaves aside, they found the opening the dog had gone into and used their shovels to pry the whole wider and wider. One of them would dig for a few minutes and then they’d trade places. Whichever of them wasn’t the digger was watching the surrounding landscape for pop-ups. Though she hoped that the all the hunters were disabled, it wasn't anything they could count on.
At last, she heard Cage behind her. “Joule, look.”
Turning, she saw that her brother, who had done extra work on this last dig, had uncovered an entire hunter. “Looks like th
e one we saw last night.”
Though she waited for the creature to spring, he didn’t move. His open eyes were glassy, his mouth ajar, and he made no move to attack them or even get up. She watched his ribs, noting that he didn't breathe.
Good.
Her eyes were drawn to the dirt Cage was turning over, and she did a quick check of her surroundings before looking down again. This time her brother revealed another hunter curled up next to the first. This one didn't budge, as the burrow was slowly peeled the way around her.
Joule had no idea why she thought this one was female. In her brain the first was a him and this was a her. Cage continued the heavy work of peeling dirt away.
“Do you want me to do it?” she asked, snapping out her shovel.
He stepped back, turning and scanning the area while Joule now dug in. The tool was lightweight and lacked a good force for digging and lifting, but she slowly uncovered four night hunters. The only one alive was the one she’d dubbed a female. It panted in slow, shallow breaths and looked up toward them, but its eyes never focused.
“Cage.” Joule tapped his arm, drawing his attention. Though the brindle fur was pretty, and though she very much resembled a family pet at first glance, Joule could see the differences. The head was too wide, the jaw thick and scary. The fur was slick for burrowing and thick for dampening light reflection at night. She saw the added reflective gleam in the eyes—an evil look, if ever there was one.
This was no pet. It was a killer.
“Do you want to do it?”
Turning, he looked at her. “If we do this, it's the last thing we do. We’ll have to leave right away. We can't check the other burrow, since this will make too much noise.”
But Joule nodded. Three down, one to go.
This one didn't have the energy to move. “We can leave her, let her die on her own.”
“What if she recovers?”
The words brought a flash of memory and Joule could see the hunter walking by in the woods, not seeing them. It had been slightly smaller, brindle like this one, and a swath of chain mail had hung from its mouth.
Looking at her brother then, Joule said, “Do it.”
With a nod, he pulled the gun from its holster and put the creature out of her misery.
The retort rang through her ears, even though she’d covered them with her hands. Shaking her head to loosen the reverberation from her skull, Joule looked around, checking for anything the loud noise might have alerted. But she saw nothing.
Quickly, they headed back toward the house, shovels still in hand. She’d slung the bow over her shoulder again, and was holding one stiletto. The shovel had a sharp enough edge that she counted it as a second weapon at the ready.
They were maybe halfway back when she heard the tiny yip behind them.
Startled, Joule spun around. They'd been looking! Nothing had been behind them on the trail. Whatever this was, it had come up fast.
Whipping around, she spotted it.
Sitting in the path where they had just walked sat a puppy.
70
Cage stared at the pup, blinking as the tiny thing stared back at him, its little head tilted side to side.
It had wide puppy eyes and huge paws. The fur bordered on fuzzy and Cage bordered on wanting to take it home and feed it milkbones. It was almost adorable.
“Are you shitting me?” Joule said into the general open air of the woods, her voice no longer quiet, her tone angry.
He understood. It wasn’t about him; it was about the baby on the path. No one wanted to deal with a puppy. But Dr. Brett had warned them this was the breeding season.
The little guy looked about eight weeks old. But what did Cage know about night hunter development? In fact, what did anybody know about night hunter development? This one could be anywhere from several weeks to several months along.
Cage still hadn't said anything. He felt Joule tap at his wrist with the back of her hand. She still hadn’t taken her eyes off the creature, and it alternated looking between the two of them. The carbon powder was only partly effective in the daylight.
“Do you think it's a regular puppy?” Joule whispered, as though the thing might be offended by the term.
His eyes flicked sideways to her, then to the tiny, fuzzy creature sitting in the middle of the path facing them. “You mean like a dog puppy,” he clarified. “As in not a night hunter.”
“Right.”
Here he heard the wishful tone that ran under the hard steel in her voice. Though she was trying to keep her words harsh, the want peeked out. She wanted to pick up the puppy. She wanted to pet it.
Both of them loved pets. Over the years, their parents had indulged them with aquarium frogs, then newts, and in the middle of elementary school, they'd gotten kittens—a pair of little fuzzy things.
The twins had played with the kittens for hours, even though Joule was slightly allergic. Cage also tried several times to smuggle the kitten to school, tucked inside his puffy coat. His mother had always caught him.
And once, when he and Joule had learned about static and sticking balloons to the walls, their mother had come in and found them rubbing the kittens against the couch cushions. It seemed the kittens could hold a charge this way, too, becoming staticky and fluffy. The problem came when the twins then tried to use the charge to stick the kittens to the walls. Needless to say, it hadn’t worked, and had led to a second discussion about static electricity and the usually greater force of gravity.
Those kittens had become fluffy, snuggly cats who had died of old age about two years ago. Cage was glad that he didn’t have to wonder if the hunters had gotten Samson and Delilah, too.
Both the twins loved animals. So a puppy was not a stretch.
“When was the last time you saw an actual pet dog?” he asked her.
“You’re right,” she replied, because the answer was well over a year ago.
“It’s also the woods,” he told her. His point being—and Joule had gotten it—that no pet dog, and certainly no puppy, could have survived this area. This was night hunter territory. They would protect their own, but other species didn’t stand a chance.
“You’re right,” Joule replied again.
A silence settled between them then, and they stared at the tiny creature for a minute, trying to decide what to do, until it offered a whine.
“Fuck,” she bit out the word. “He’s hungry.”
Cage understood her irritation. He felt it himself. Baby animals had a way of reaching into your hard-wiring and making you want to take care of them. Joule had no special love for human babies, but animal babies did her in. Clearly, this one was no exception.
“He’ll be a killer,” he added. “They grow up. It’s inevitable. They killed our mother and… our father, you know.” It was so hard saying it out loud, but the chain mail had been hard to refute.
There was no way Nate was still alive without his mail. And there was no way Nate was still alive without coming home and checking on his kids. If there was one thing Cage knew, it was that Nate and Kaya Mazur hadn’t loved anything in this world more than their kids—except maybe each other.
“Can you shoot it?” Joule’s voice broke into his thoughts, and then she immediately clarified her point. “Quick and painless. It’s the most humane option.”
“God, no!” He couldn’t stop the words or the revulsion that came out of his mouth. Shooting the night hunter in its den had been hard enough. That one was full grown and mostly dead. That one looked like the one he’d seen carrying the chain mail. And it had still hurt to pull the trigger.
He’d only been able to do it when he pictured his mother’s slain form lying on the game room floor. He could not shoot a puppy—no matter what it would someday become.
“It’s daylight,” she offered. But as he watched, she slipped her backpack off her shoulders and pulled out her cell phone. They waited, watching the tiny creature while she powered it up and dialed. “Hello, this is Joule Maz
ur. I’d like to speak to Dr. Brett—Dr. Christian.” She corrected herself. Cage guessed he only went by his first name with the high school students.
It was a few minutes and a good handful of “uh-huh”s later that she hung up. “If we bag it, it will smother.” She referred to the trashbags that they carried rolled up in the bottom of their backpacks. “We can conk it on the head and knock it out. But if we carry it with us, we will have taken one of their babies. Dr. Brett made it clear that taking their baby is a good way to make them very angry at us. They’ll almost definitely follow it and fight for it. So that’s probably the worst thing we could do. If we feed it, we are training it to interact with humans.”
Well, shit, he thought, this was going nowhere good.
It seemed the only reasonable thing left was to shoot it—and yet he couldn’t do it. “Can we feed it poison?” he asked.
That way he would know it wouldn’t grow up to be a killer, because it wouldn’t grow up to be anything. But he wouldn’t have to pull the trigger.
Joule played out his offered scenario. “That requires picking it up, carrying it back into the woods—which we just, finally, are getting out of—” she gestured toward home, “and feeding it the meat. Which we strategically placed at the entry to the hunters’ burrow. So if any are still alive, they’ll be there.”
Yup. That was a crappy plan, too.
He nodded at the little hunter, but spoke to his sister. “Let’s not do that.”
“We have to leave it.” She sighed. “I can’t just bash it with the shovel. I don’t have that in me.” She didn’t ask him to do it either, and for that he was grateful.
They turned and walked away. The small thing followed them for some time. But as they crossed the creek into the back yard and the bright light of day, Cage was glad to see it was no longer behind them.
As they opened the side door into the game room, Joule turned to her brother, sadness in her voice and a wish for a proper pet lacing through underneath. “It's going to starve to death, you know.”
The Hunted Page 30