by R. Gualtieri
♦ ♦ ♦
Marcus Sullivan felt the warm, wet splatter against the back of his head before he heard the gunshot. He practically jumped out of his skin, spinning so fast he almost tripped over his own two feet. The sight that met his flashlight upon turning was nearly enough to make him piss himself.
He wasn’t sure what was worse – that someone had appeared behind him as if out of thin air or that half that person’s head was missing. Marcus stepped robotically toward the still-twitching body and realized he was wrong. The worst part was the man’s appearance, if he even was a man. Even discounting the fatal head wound, he looked wrong. His body jutted out at all sorts of crazy angles, and his skin looked more like a tumorous mass gone wild than actual flesh.
An old rifle was slung across the intruder’s back, but it was what lay in the man’s grasp that caused Marcus’s bladder to finally let go – a rusty machete.
Was that meant for me? There couldn’t be any other explanation. Why sneak up on him otherwise?
Realization began to dawn as he continued to study the body. Over six feet tall and heavily disfigured, a true monstrosity of a man.
Holy shit. Jenner was right.
Too late he heard the sound of branches snapping. He spun, bringing up his weapon just as a bright light was shined in his face. “Stop, or I’ll...”
“Jesus Christ, it’s me, you idiot!”
“Eric?”
“Who else?”
Eric lowered his light, and Marcus blinked the spots from his eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever been so glad to see his boss. “Thanks, man! You saved my ass from ... whatever the fuck this thing is.”
Eric frowned from over his flashlight. “That wasn’t me. I thought one of you guys was shooting at shadows or something. I ... what the fuck is that?”
Both men stared down at the corpse for several long seconds. Finally Eric asked, “Is that what I think it is?”
“The Jersey Devil? No idea, but whatever it is, I’m pretty sure hell puked it up.”
For several seconds Eric was silent, something that was entirely out of character for him. “I’m not a praying man, Sullivan, but I might have to agree with you there.”
“You know what this means, right?”
His boss nodded. “I guess Jenner wasn’t full of shit.” After a moment, he straightened up. “Still doesn’t change our job. We need to find him and his yahoos and get their asses out of Dodge. The governor can decide if he wants to rethink his stance once he sees ... this.”
“You think one of the others got him? Maybe Hopper?”
Eric shook his head. “If they did, then why haven’t they come and checked? Hell, I heard that shot and my first thought was to hit the deck and open fire myself. You’re just lucky I saw your light first.”
“Then who took the shot? Do you think it was...?”
“Probably. They’re the only other idiots stupid enough to be out here with us. I’m betting our invisible benefactor is feeling pretty smug about himself right now.”
“He saved my ass.”
“You think I don’t know that? We still have a job to do.”
Marcus watched his boss cup his hands around his mouth, probably readying to shout for Jenner to come out and surrender. But then he remembered what else they’d dismissed as nothing more than a bullshit story.
He grabbed his boss’s hands and pulled them down before the man could speak.
“What the hell, Sullivan?”
“Don’t forget the rest of what Jenner told us.”
“Listen, Mark. I know you’re shook up. I think we all are. Trust me, I’m probably going to be checking under my bed for the next month, but don’t go all...”
“It’s not that,” Marcus hissed, his eyes opening wide. “Remember what else he said ... that whatever attacked him, it wasn’t alone.”
Eric glared at him hard, but before he could say anything further, the forest came alive with the sound of leaves crunching, twigs snapping, and – perhaps most terrifying – footsteps headed their way.
♦ ♦ ♦
“So much for subtle.”
Derek shot Mitchell a look before motioning for the rest to follow him as he cut a perpendicular path through the trees, hoping to throw off anyone trying to triangulate where his shot had come from.
He was moving slowly but purposefully, partially to keep an eye out for more traps, but mostly because he wasn’t able to move much faster. The kick from the high-powered rifle hadn’t been kind to his existing injuries.
Julia caught up with him after a few minutes.
“Not now.”
“Yes, now,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“I saw one of the things that ambushed us.”
“So you decided to pick it off, just like that?”
“He was going after one of Eric’s men.”
“And you didn’t let it?” Derek threw her a glare to which she quickly replied, “I’m kidding, okay? Well, mostly, anyway. Those guys are bastards.”
“Bastards who’ve bitten off far more than they can chew. That still doesn’t mean we should be feeding them to the lions.”
“They’ll arrest us if they get half a chance.”
“Maybe, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend ... and right now, I’d trust the devil I know versus the one who took my friends.”
Julia appeared as if she wanted to say more, but she simply nodded and fell back to Mitchell’s position. Derek heard her ask, “This just got more complicated, didn’t it?”
“Pretty much par for the course in this job,” Mitchell replied. “Thinking on your feet is kinda the number one job requirement ... that and shooting straight. Speaking of which, Arthur, make sure you don’t have that gun aimed at my...”
Mitchell’s voice trailed off and Derek instinctively slowed down. He knew that tone. Had heard it before.
“Arthur?” Derek stopped and turned. Mitchell had already fallen back a few steps. “Hey, kid?”
Son of a bitch!
Derek backtracked to where his teammate now stood. “Where’d he go?” Then he held up a hand. “Yeah, I know, if you knew that, you wouldn’t be calling for him.”
“He was just here.”
“Do you think someone grabbed him?”
“Doubt it. I didn’t hear a thing. I was sure he was right behind me. Hold on a sec.” Mitchell tapped his Bluetooth earpiece. “Arthur, are you there? Come in.” He tried a few more times, but no answer came. “The hell?”
Derek considered things. Heading back was stupid. He had little doubt someone – be they Lesterfield or government security – would soon be converging on their previous location. He’d used up the advantage of surprise. The only thing they had going for them was that their quarry didn’t know how many of them there were or how well-armed.
Problem was, even with all of their firepower, Derek knew they’d be outgunned if the Lesterfields were out in force.
The smarter course was to continue on their way, hopefully flank the Lesterfields and trace their trail back to wherever they’d likely taken his friends.
Assuming they’ve taken them anywhere.
Derek pushed that thought from his mind. It wasn’t helping. Besides, there was still the burning question left from what he’d seen a few minutes earlier. Were those bastards out here hunting Zeist and his crew, or was there another reason?
He chose to believe the latter. If there was anyone who could have escaped from their clutches and given them a run for their money, it was one of his team.
Of course, finding them was still the issue ... a veritable needle in this haystack of a forest.
Make that two needles.
Yeah, the smarter option was to continue on their current path, hope the kid got lucky and stayed off everyone’s radar, and try to find him afterwards. Smart, but not right.
“What do we do?” Julia asked.
Derek looked at the others
. “We find him, of course. Lights low and keep your voices down. We’re likely going to be targets enough without drawing more attention to ourselves.”
Mitchell and Julia both nodded grimly in the darkness.
As a team, they turned and headed back in the direction they’d come.
♦ ♦ ♦
Arthur could have kicked himself. He’d just wanted to take a look, see one of those things with his own eyes. The data that had come back on those secretions had been utterly insane. From the amount of toxins that the samples had shown, there should have been no way for these people – a term best applied loosely – to have survived infancy. Yet somehow, they had. It wasn’t pretty – if what Dr. Jenner said was true – but this family had not only survived but thrived, even if they’d become walking monstrosities in the process.
The thing was, they were medical marvels, too, a testament to the adaptability of the human species in a hostile environment. Once this was over, he’d be buried under a mountain of paperwork, forced to keep his mouth shut. Even if not, who was going to believe a crazy story about toxic inbred mutations? That was B-movie material at best. He kind of wished he’d made copies of the genetic screen when he’d had the chance. Not that it would’ve helped his cause much. People would just think he’d falsified the results and, with little more than his personal testimony to back him up, he’d be a laughing stock, finished in his field before he even got a chance to truly start in it.
But still, he’d wanted to see for himself if only to know the truth. So when Derek had led the others away, he’d taken a moment to fall back so as to try to take a quick peek. Arthur slung the shotgun off of his shoulder, momentarily getting the strap caught up on the items clipped to his belt. He gave it a yank to free it, then raised the night scope to his eye.
There was definitely movement somewhere up ahead, but he was neither experienced enough with the equipment nor patient enough to focus and wait. Instead, he used the scope to quickly scan the surrounding area, only realizing he’d turned himself around – losing his bearings in the process – once he’d finished.
He had no idea where the others were or how far they’d gotten. Unfortunately, for him at least, Dr. Jenner knew what he was doing. So there was no sound of their movement through the forest for him to home in on. There was barely any sound at all, except maybe what he was making.
Arthur briefly considered shouting for help, but even a newb such as him knew that would be the height of stupidity. They weren’t alone out there. The last thing he wanted to do was make himself a sitting duck for unfriendly company.
Truth be told, Arthur wasn’t a fan of the outdoors. He barely liked going outside to use the swimming pool at his parents’ home. But that didn’t mean he was an idiot. He’d watched enough TV to know that the smartest thing to do in a situation like this was to stay where he was and wait for rescue. Problem was, that assumed nothing bad was looking for whoever was lost.
He realized he didn’t have that luxury.
Though he desperately wanted to see the creatures these Lesterfields had evolved into, he was far more interested in making sure Danni was safe. When he’d met her, she’d been little more than a personal crush of his – perky, charismatic, and so freaking hot. However, he’d been amazed to find out she was an awesomely cool person in real life. They’d gotten along – kind of hit it off, even. Arthur wasn’t delusional that anything would come of it, but he was hopeful that he’d made a new friend. She kind of struck him as a person who could have used one.
Of course, nothing was going to come out of it if he got caught standing out here with his thumb up his ass.
Arthur considered things. He had little clue how to survive in the woods, much less track anyone. But he wasn’t in any danger from the elements and had a full canteen of water with him. And, perhaps best of all, he was armed and had been given just enough training to know how to use the weapons he had. He could defend himself if need be.
That settled it. He took a guess on the direction that Dr. Jenner and the others had gone and set off that way, hoping that he didn’t come across anything of a less friendly nature first.
Soon, all became silent once more, save for the small voice calling Arthur’s name from the radio he’d accidentally dislodged from his belt.
CHAPTER 40
Ezekiel Lesterfield wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, and that bothered him. They’d been following what he was certain was Sarah’s trail, expecting to find and capture her in short order.
Then they’d heard the scream and spotted lights through the trees up ahead. They weren’t alone. More intruders were invading their territory – most likely a group of unwary campers. He doubted it was a search party. They’d have called it quits before it got dark. Besides, from the look of things, it was too few people and too haphazard.
No matter the case, they wouldn’t be allowed to leave. Not if there was a chance that Sarah could get to them, too.
He’d sent a few of the boys ahead to scout out these trespassers and deal with them if the opportunity presented itself. Any females would be kept, added to their flock. The rest, well, their bodies would never be found.
It was a distraction from hunting Sarah, but a necessary one.
Then he heard the gunshot. They all did. The thing was, it hadn’t come from the intruders up ahead but from somewhere south of their location. For a moment, he feared they’d somehow walked into a trap in their own backyard, but how was that even possible?
The only explanation that made sense was Sarah. She’d seen these newcomers, too, but rather than run to them, she’d set an ambush.
That thought chilled Ezekiel to his bones. It bespoke of a cold-bloodedness he would never have expected from her. But perhaps he should have. She had, after all, already murdered two of his kin this night. One was luck, easy enough to dismiss. Two was desperation. But three? Those weren’t the actions of some two-bit bikini hussy from the TV. Sarah was acting like a killer, one who knew what she was doing.
Ezekiel began to wonder whether it was all worth it. No matter how badly Noah wanted her, she might be too much trouble. At the very least, they’d need to hobble her arms and legs, make sure the rest of her days were spent as a cripple. He couldn’t recall ever having to do that before with another of the clan’s wives. Noah almost certainly wouldn’t be pleased, but that was his cross to bear.
Though he was unsure how to handle this latest development, he also knew inaction wasn’t an option, not with the others following his lead. Whatever happened, he couldn’t let the intruders ahead of them escape. There was no doubt they’d heard the gunshot, too. If they had a lick of sense between them, they’d be turning tail and running as fast as they could back the way they’d come.
Ezekiel quickly and quietly rallied the clan members still near him. He sent half of them up ahead – no waiting, no caution – to hit these trespassers hard and with finality.
The rest he sent after Sarah. Let them flush her out and deal with her as they would. If they killed her, then that would be on them, not him.
Within moments, he found himself standing alone. Though he knew these woods well, he wasn’t used to the feeling of being watched. Knowing that Sarah was out there somewhere, armed and with no qualms about fighting back, frightened him.
Ezekiel was neither the bravest nor strongest of the Lesterfield clan. Fear wasn’t unknown to him. But from a woman?
He pulled his revolver from his side, backed up against the trunk of a nearby white cedar, and crouched down low so as to not present an easy target. The only thing to do now was wait.
Let the others take care of this. He was their new leader and as such wasn’t about to put himself at undue risk.
♦ ♦ ♦
Danni twisted the knife in Jonathan Lesterfield’s back. She knew it was unnecessary. The movements he made were all involuntary, the last twitches of his nerves as they shut down. But she did it again anyway, unwilling to
give this monster any quarter or leave any doubt that he was dead.
He’d spun toward her as she’d come up from behind, but the same mud which had given away her position proved to be his undoing. He had lost his footing on the slick muck. It was for the barest of instants, but more than enough for her to strike.
Danni had been on him before he’d even hit the ground. Oddly, he made no sound, gave no protest, as she’d plunged the knife into his body, again and again, his struggles quickly turning into nothing more than a death rattle.
All she could picture was Francis’s face and how this bastard had tried to defile his body – as if what they’d done to him hadn’t been bad enough.
She pulled the knife out and prepared to bring it down once more, just to be safe, when she heard the gunshot.
Spooked as Danni already was, she immediately threw herself into the space between the two bodies. Several seconds later, she slowly lifted her head, certain it would be blown off, but no more gunfire came.
Were the Lesterfields shooting at shadows? Or had they found whoever had been screaming earlier?
She didn’t dare to hope that someone was out there looking for her, but that hope bloomed nevertheless. It was a dangerous thought at a time like this, bringing with it the potential to make her do something stupid.
It was also possible that it was all little more than a trap by the Lesterfields, something to draw her out while they waited to ambush her. If so, it wasn’t going to work. The only way she was going to get out of this was if she kept her wits about her, and that meant playing this game by her rules.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t still scared out of her mind. Though knowing it was pointless and overkill, she turned over Jonathan Lesterfield’s corpse, preparing to drive the Ka-Bar through his throat if he so much as twitched.
There came no movement, though. His oversized, misshapen eye stared sightlessly up at the stars, that odd glow gone from it – no more threatening than a doll’s eye.