by R. Gualtieri
Sullivan nodded and started to get up, but Eric pulled him back down. “Crawl, you idiot!”
Eric loaded a fresh magazine into his gun and began to fire while the other man took the lead, fanning his aim through the foliage and hoping to provide enough cover to buy them a few minutes. He then rolled onto his belly and followed Sullivan, praying their luck held.
Sullivan disappeared through a small stand of bushes and Eric followed, moving as fast as his prone position would allow. He just had to hope Marcus didn’t panic and open fire directly into his face the moment he was through.
Up ahead, Eric spotted Sullivan’s feet and legs working their way through the bushes. If they could reach something – a hollow, the trunk of a large tree, anything that could provide some cover – they’d have a fighting chance. They could more properly return fire and potentially cover each other’s retreat.
Sullivan continued to crawl forward, putting a little more speed into his movements.
There came a lull in the gunfire, their unseen foes probably reloading for another volley, and then Eric heard a strange noise from up ahead. There came the snap of a stick, then a strangled gasp, followed by the sound of leaves being disturbed. He watched as Sullivan’s feet were suddenly dragged forward and out of the bushes.
What the fuck?!
Ignoring the danger all around him, Eric pushed himself up enough to get a clear view and found that Sullivan had triggered another trap, this one a snare. Except, rather than his leg, it had closed around his neck.
Sullivan’s feet hung about two feet off the ground while his hands desperately clawed at the rope strangling him.
“Shit,” Eric hissed.
He began to clamber to his feet when a light was shined in their direction, illuminating his struggling teammate. Their pursuers immediately opened fire again. Sullivan’s body jerked as multiple rounds hit home. His arms fell slack to his side even as he continued to be peppered with bullets.
Marcus was dead and, Eric realized with even greater horror, their attackers now knew where he was.
He was trapped like a rat against enemies he couldn’t possibly hope to overcome.
Eric glanced back in the direction he’d come from. He could see lanterns shining through the brush, coming his way. Whoops of unearthly laughter could be heard between the shots that continued to hit the body of his teammate.
All at once, Eric understood why the others hadn’t come to his aid. They were, in all likelihood, already dead.
He was truly alone.
But not for long.
Someone, or something, pushed through the bushes to Eric’s right and held up its lantern to Sullivan’s body. In the dim illumination Eric could see the leering grin, the leathery skin, and the three-fingered hand which held its light source.
Though he’d seen one of those things’ corpses, it had seemed almost surreal at the time, lifeless as it was. But here now, seeing this creature in the flesh prodding his teammate’s body with the butt of its rifle, the true horror of the situation finally dawned on Eric.
He aimed and opened fire, emptying the magazine into the creature before it turned and noticed him.
It went down as the last of the bullets left his gun, but he wasn’t fooled. More were coming. He could hear their cries of outrage and anger even as they opened fire again.
They knew this forest better than he. Even if he managed to run, they’d find him. What then? He glanced once more at Sullivan, his mind awash with whatever horrors these things might have in store for him.
Suddenly, everything else – his job, the governor, all of it – seemed so insignificant compared to escaping this nightmare in any way he could.
Eric ejected the magazine and loaded a fresh one, his last.
That was okay, though. He just needed to be careful with his count. Depending on how the next few minutes went, he would have to make certain he kept one bullet in reserve.
♦ ♦ ♦
“We need to get back, report this.”
“No,” Derek replied. “You need to shut up and do what you’re told. I’m not playing your boss’s game anymore. I’m here to find my people and I don’t give one flying shit about the governor, politics, or the goddamned law. Either suck it up, or you’re free to find your own way back.”
“I’d think hard on that one,” Julia said, pushing past Kyle. “The woods are not a friendly place tonight, and they’re going to be even less friendly for anyone standing between me and my sister.”
Kyle Muellenberg wasn’t sure what he’d gotten himself into. This crap definitely wasn’t in his job description. A part of him wished he’d ignored his cell phone earlier when Bob had called him in, but he needed the overtime. The divorce had drained him financially, leaving him in no position to be choosy.
Broke was better than dead, though. More and more, that latter choice seemed the most likely outcome of this ill-fated outing. He’d been half-certain he was going to be shot when he first came across Jenner’s crew, at least based on the bile Eric had been spewing. He’d instead been conscripted. On the upside, they appeared to be far more adept at being out here than Eric and the others were. The downside was they didn’t seem inclined to leave.
The only question now was how to spin this once it was all over so that he didn’t get fired, but that was definitely a worry for later. For now, staying alive was at the top of his list. Finding his teammates was secondary, but that seemed to be more in the hands of fate than in...
“Jesus!”
Kyle had fallen a bit behind in his wool gathering, but the cry from up ahead jolted him out of his reverie.
He raced to catch up and stepped into a small clearing, finding his new, and quite temporary, teammates standing there stunned at what was before them.
It took Kyle’s mind a moment to wrap around what he was seeing. Two men, one straddling the other, his hands around his throat. The one on the bottom lay limp and unmoving. The one on the top ... there was something off about his face.
The impasse was broken a mere second later as the man with the strange face leapt to his feet and bolted into the woods, just as Julia raised her gun.
“Son of a bitch!” She fired, the noise deafeningly loud this close, although he doubted she hit anything.
That seemed to spur the others to action.
The one in the lead, the medic, ran to the downed man. The leader, Jenner, turned to him and the reporter. “You, help Mitch. Do whatever he tells you to. Julia, you’re with...”
He was too late. She was already speeding off in pursuit.
Kyle, still trying to process what was happening, said, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to split...”
But Jenner had already disappeared into the forest after her, leaving him behind.
♦ ♦ ♦
Ezekiel winced as he pulled his hand away from his side, feeling the wetness seeping through his shirt. It was too dark to see, but he knew it was blood. Thankfully, it only seemed to be a scratch – painful, but not enough to slow him down as he ran for his life.
He still wasn’t sure what had happened. One moment he was certain he’d heard Noah close by. The boy had clearly heard it, too. He’d used the distraction to rush him, thinking his kin would step in to end their scuffle quick and clean. But that hadn’t happened.
Instead, Ezekiel had wrestled with the boy, each clambering for purchase with neither finding it. The young man had been no fighter, that much was obvious, but then neither was he. His strength had always lay in his mind as opposed to his arms, but he’d been in more than one scrape in his life and at least knew how to take a punch.
His opponent was sloppy, unsure of himself, and ultimately stupid.
The boy had broken free at one point and made a mad dash for his gun. That was his undoing. Ezekiel wasn’t particularly strong, but he was a survivor – smart enough to know you didn’t turn your back on an enemy who still had his wits about him.
/> He’d tackled the boy to the ground, managed to pin his arms, and then wrapped his hands around the young man’s throat. He’d squeezed with everything he had, pressing his thumbs into the intruder’s windpipe until his hands went numb. By then it was all but over. The young man’s eyes had rolled up into his head and his struggles had become little more than errant twitches.
He’d won, proven his will to survive was superior, but there’d been no time to celebrate his victory. Just as he was about to let go and claim the boy’s weapon as his own, more trespassers had stepped into the clearing.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. Far from it. The worst was that one of them had been a ghost. Though their lights had been in his eyes, he’d seen well enough. One didn’t easily forget the face of a man sentenced to death. It was impossible – he’d seen the TV host and his companion both die.
Alas, it had seemed a poor time to stick around and ask questions. He’d bolted but one of them had opened fire first, managing to nick him in the side.
Now he raced through the woods as quick as he could, relying on his memory more than his sight – thinking of nothing except putting distance between himself and them. He needed to find the rest of the family and direct them back the way he’d come. The intruders would think twice once they were faced with the full might of his kin.
Even better, he’d caught a glimpse of long hair just before he’d fled. That meant the possibility of welcoming a new Sarah into the fold. That would make up for things. One for Noah and one for the rest to share.
Speaking of his nephew, though, he planned to have words with him. Where the hell had he gotten himself off to?
The gunfire up ahead had fallen silent. That meant his kin had made the kill, were probably even now divvying up the spoils of war. That was good. Less trespassers to divide their atten... “UGH!”
A dark shape leapt from the trees ahead and slammed into him. In the gloom of the night, it was little more than a shadow, a shade, and for a moment Ezekiel was certain that God’s reaper himself had come for him.
But then a fist, cold and wet, struck his jaw, momentarily stunning him.
He staggered back, dazed, and the shadow fell upon him, tackling him to the ground. He looked up and found the stars above blacked out by a mass of darkness. The only thing visible were two eyes, devoid of mercy, that stared down at him.
“Remember me, asshole?” Sarah’s voice asked him, seemingly dredged in hatred itself. “Here’s your wedding gift.”
Before Ezekiel could so much as open his mouth to question why God had sent this angel of death to him, seven inches of cold steel was plunged into his chest, making it all a moot point.
CHAPTER 43
Danni wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about killing Ezekiel. She was sick to her stomach from her actions, but knowing he’d never victimize anyone ever again gave her grim satisfaction nevertheless.
What that said about her, she didn’t care to know. Had she crossed a line tonight? Her team hunted monsters, not for sport, but because they endangered people. Did that change once the monsters turned out to be human? Or were human monsters even worse because they knew what they were doing?
The thought haunted her even as she pulled the knife out of Ezekiel’s body, wiped the blood off, and sheathed it. If she could go back in time a year, what would her old self say? She’d lost some of the carefree spirit that had once defined her life, but in its place had apparently arisen a willingness to do whatever it took to survive. That knowledge frightened her, or it should have, but that was a luxury for another time and place.
Out here, now, it was hard to question. There was little doubt in her mind that it was kill or be killed with these sons of bitches. They acted more like a sick cult than anything, unable to be reasoned with in their single-minded pursuit of preserving their twisted line.
But what about the future? What would happen if she found herself in a similar situation, but one where help was within reach – walking down a city street, or in the suburbs? Before, it had seemed such an easy decision. But now, given her experiences with the Adam and Ezekiel Lesterfields of the world, she was forced to wonder.
Danni gave her head a shake, sending small globs of mud flying. She’d need to think good and hard on that once this was over. But first she needed to make sure this ended, one way or the other.
Pushing those and all other thoughts, save survival, from her head, she crept back into the surrounding brush, retrieved her weapons, and disappeared once more into the darkness of the forest.
♦ ♦ ♦
Noah crouched over the body of his uncle Ezra. At first, coming across his crumpled form on the ground, Noah assumed he’d simply been a casualty of the firefight that had ensued just minutes earlier. But it soon became clear that wasn’t the case. Ezra had been shot in the back at close range.
He dropped to all fours, a position almost as natural to him as walking upright, and studied the ground around the kill – taking his time on the gloom-enshrouded floor of the forest. There! A track, much smaller than Ezra’s. Not a shoe – more like a sock or slipper.
It was his Sarah. He was certain of it. They’d thought they were hunting her, driving her forward, but in the confusion she somehow doubled back on them. Then, while his family was dealing with these new trespassers, whoever they were, she’d turned the tables.
Such a thing should have worried him. All the Sarahs he’d ever known were cowed, timid creatures, just as the Good Book said they should be. They were breeding stock, cattle, nothing more. That one could potentially do something like this was nearly unthinkable.
Yet it only excited him. All Noah could think about were the fierce children she’d bear for him. The family, under his lead, would need strong offspring to survive. More importantly, they’d need wives durable enough for child rearing for many years to come because they would also need to be more careful about choosing them. Noah was far more clever than the others realized. He was well aware of the concept of search parties, knew that those who went missing in the woods would be looked for. He also knew that the more they took, the more danger they’d be in, something even his father seemed to not care much about.
His Sarah would be the first and together they’d live a long life with many offspring, God willing. Their children would grow strong and...
A gunshot sounded from somewhere behind him. It was followed by voices which carried on the wind. He couldn’t make out the words, but was certain they weren’t from anyone in his family.
Noah turned. He would find his Sarah, hunt her down, conquer her, and make her his. But first, he had more trespassers to deal with.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Let’s get him,” Elijah Lesterfield growled from the side of his mouth. The lips on the other side of his face were fused shut thanks to the tumorous growths covering his upper body.
He let out a whoop of laughter as he glimpsed the intruder’s body dangling from a snare, hanging like a pig left out to dry. The stranger was almost certainly dead, especially following the peppering they’d given him, but they needed to make certain.
“It only takes a second to gut a man, so best be sure,” his daddy used to tell him. Wise words indeed.
He’d offered those same words up the day before, after they’d ambushed that trio of trespassers and captured their newest bride, but had been ignored. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like an issue. But now, with Ezekiel calling the shots, he wondered if such wisdom would be thrown to the wind.
Adam Jr., one of the youngest of the clan, stepped past him.
“Be careful, boy.” Elijah grabbed hold of his arm, but the arrogant teen just scoffed.
“What’s the matter? Afraid of the dead?” Adam Jr. pulled free and continued on through the bushes ahead.
Almost as soon as he reached the hanging man, gunshots erupted from the woods.
Damnit! They’d miscounted. Elijah was certain the hanged man was the last of
them, as the forest had gone quiet up ahead. But now he realized there was at least one more lying in wait.
Elijah raised his gun and yelled for the younger Adam to pull back, but the teen dropped to his knees, his good hand clawing at his throat.
More gunshots answered the first volley, his kin returning fire from their places in the surrounding bushes.
“Get down, you fool!” he cried, raising up his own rifle and shooting in the direction he thought the attack had come from.
Adam Jr. fell prone and gunfire rang out for several more seconds. One of the trespasser’s bullets came dangerously close, nicking the tree next to Elijah.
He fired once more, then was forced to pull back to reload. Elijah was dismayed to find his pockets almost empty. Only two shells left. More than likely the same was true of the others. They’d come out here in search of one runaway girl, not aiming to hunt down armed intruders.
Elijah was forced to consider how best to proceed. With only two bullets left, he wanted to make sure he didn’t waste them firing at trees.
“Fuck you, you fucking freaks!”
The cry had come from up ahead. Stupid. The fool of a trespasser had just given away his...
A single gunshot sounded from the intruder’s location. Elijah ducked back behind cover and waited, but only silence followed.
After several seconds had passed, his kin returned the salvo, but their shots were staggered, more deliberate. He was right. They were all running low.
When silence once again had descended on the woods, Elijah let out a bird call, a sign to let his family know to keep their eyes peeled but hold fire. He got down on all fours and slowly crawled to where Adam still lay prone.
“Come on,” he whispered, copious drool dripping from the side of his mouth. “I think he’s out. Get moving.”
He shook the lad, then did it again. Finally, he grabbed hold of him from the side and turned him over. Even in the darkness, Elijah could tell the eyes that stared back at him were glossed over and unseeing. The boy had been shot in the throat and bled out.