The Hunter in the Shadows

by Joab Stieglitz

  “The quicker for them to reproduce and overwhelm you.” Anna’s voice adopted a worried tone. “Those creatures are monsters. Their only interest in you is as a means to their own ends. Once they have what they want, they will no longer need you. Or any of us.”

  Fox ignored her. Instead, he watched the two monsters mate. Neither exhibited any expression of pleasure or made any noises aside from heavy breathing and slapping their tails on the ground. The artist was completely fixated on the congress until he glanced about the room and disappeared behind Anna. He returned a moment later, feverishly drawing the scene on a sketch pad.

  Anna glanced over to Maggie, who now hung limply from her chains. Her face was pale. Her eyes were wide, but had a blank expression. Her mouth was slack and drooling slightly, and she shivered sporadically.

  “Maggie?” No response. “Maggie!” Still nothing. Anna focused on the catatonic woman. Maggie, can you hear me?” There was no response, but she could sense awareness in the other woman. A mental image appeared in her mind of Maggie’s skull parting to show Anna pieces of her brain slowly weaving back together, one neuron at a time. Her mind is trying to deal with the trauma.

  When Anna looked back, the Xuxaax were rising to their feet. They strode over to face Fox. Anna saw no indication of attraction or intimacy in the aliens’ features. Aside from differences in coloring and scale patterns, she could not really tell them apart.

  Fox moved to put a hand on each of their shoulders, but the newcomer backed away, crouched, and hissed. Zakraph towered over her so that she was in his shadow. The crouching monster dipped her muzzle in submission.

  “This is Shenzosh,” Zakraph said without expression As the other rose to stand defiantly next to him, Fox started to speak, but Zakraph stopped him by saying, “She will not understand you. She has not benefited from the millennia of experience I have collected. She does not even know what you are.”

  Shenzosh glanced at Anna and Maggie and hissed with excitement. The male monster snapped his muzzle and hissed louder. The female again dipped her muzzle.

  “She wishes to eat the females. I have told her that they are mine and that she must not harm them without my permission.”

  Fox shrugged. “As you wish. Now that we have two of you, do we even need them?”

  “We will need several more of the Xuxaax before the psychic conduits are unnecessary.”

  “Then let’s get started,” Fox said excitedly, snatching the leather gag from a table.

  The male Xuxaax grabbed his hand. “We must feed Shenzosh first.”

  “And we’ll need to wait for her to revive,” the artist said, glancing at Maggie, “before we can use them both. Come. We’ll find suitable sustenance for her in Boston Common.”

  Fox moved toward the door, and Zakraph followed. Shenzosh ambled over and sniffed at Maggie.

  Anna focused on the alien and shouted DO NOT! with her mind. The female crocodile looked around, startled, and then followed the other two out of the greenhouse.

  ◆

  In his excitement about the success of the ritual, Conrad Fox had failed to paralyze his prisoners. Alone in the greenhouse, as Maggie had not moved since her ordeal, Anna worked at the cuffs chained to the metal ring set in the column. They were tight and bit into her skin, but they felt like they were loosening. Her blood was lubricating them, and the return of circulation to her hands brought back some sensation to her fingers. She kept twisting her wrists, hoping that her hands would slip though the cuffs before her captors returned.

  Maggie started to moan. Anna looked over and saw that her eyes no longer held that wide-eyed stare, and some color had returned to her face. The traumatized prisoner wiped her chin against her shoulder and moaned again. Anna could see by her stance that her loins were sore, but she stood uneasily to take the weight off of her wrists.

  “Are you all right?” Anna asked.

  “I feel dirty,” Maggie said, her voice unexpectedly strong as she looked around the room. Her gaze paused on the portrait on the easel. “I had hoped that this was a nightmare and that I would wake up all safe in my bed,” she shut her eyes and angled her head up toward the warm sunlight coming through the thick glass ceiling of the greenhouse, “but it seems that this nightmare is real.”

  “You have the ability to change things. To save us!”

  “Don’t start with that again! I am not your lost sister from another dimension with supernatural powers! If we’re going to get out of this we have to figure out a real way to get free and escape from this hell house.”

  Anna was discouraged at Sobak’s denial of who she was, but also encouraged by her strength of will and her focus. “So who are you, then?”

  “I am Maggie White. I’m a photographer, currently working for Fortune magazine capturing images of America after the stock market crash. Who are you?

  “I am Dr. Anna Rykov from the Longborough Foundation for Ethnographic Research in Wellersburg, New York. I am an anthropologist involved in the investigation and resolution of supernatural and extraterrestrial threats.”

  “So you know what those monster croc-men are,” Maggie stated. “That explains why you are here, but what does any of this have to do with me?”

  “What I told you of my journey to another dimension was true. I had a little sister there, and I was able to alter reality and bring about the collapse of that world, which was a figment of the imagination of a disembodied brain.” Anna could see that she was losing credibility. “Those beings, known as Xuxaax, are an ancient race that existed on Earth before the time of the dinosaurs. They were an advanced civilization, extinguished by some cataclysm in the distant past. However, they possessed the technology to send some of their kind forward in time.”

  “And they kept themselves hidden until now?”

  “They possess the ability to take on the appearance of people…” Anna paused, searching for the right words, but finally said, “…that they have eaten.”

  “They eat people! Is that what happened to the missing men of Hooverville?”

  “Yes,” Conrad Fox said as he entered the greenhouse. “And then they can assume their likeness. That is how Zakraph is able to get close to his victims. But his shadow reveal his true form.”

  “And Ella must have seen his shadow and fought back.”

  “That was unfortunate,” Fox said. “His baser instincts took over after his confinement by the police. He was weakened by the lack of adequate food while he was in jail.”

  “So Cain Dickson was his first victim,” Anna mused. “And that creature used his appearance to lure outgoing young women to their deaths.”

  “And their would-be protectors into his belly.” He smiled with malignity. “But they were essential to refining the procedure.”

  “And you killed Gilbert Meldrum to remove suspicion from ‘Cain.’”

  “I need him to bring forth the rest of his people.”

  “You mean to say that there are more of those disgusting things?!” Maggie said in disgust.

  “There are a few scattered around the world. But through the ritual we just shared, they can open a portal to the past that other Xuxaax can pass through to the present.”

  “And then, with the assistance of the Thule Society cells in each of the Triple Entente powers, they will weaken the defenses of our enemies so a Third Reich can rise to rule the Earth!”

  The artist went to the easel and removed the portrait, which Anna saw him put on a table at the rear of the room strewn with assorted art supplies. He selected an empty canvass mounted on a frame and returned to the easel.

  “While our colleagues rest,” he said, “you can watch as I create a masterpiece.” He pulled a piece of charcoal from the pocket of his smock and started drawing. “It starts with a sketch like the one I drew after our new guest arrived.” He made a rough sketch of the two crocodile beings mating, and then continued to explain his actions as he refined the image.

  Chapter 21

  March 15, 19
30

  Fox rambled on about techniques and artistic trends, with his back turned to the prisoners, for what seemed like several hours. He was completely focused on his painting. While he was distracted, Anna and Maggie both tried to slip through their shackles behind his back. Maggie could not work her hands through the tight manacles, but Anna’s hands were smaller, and her restraints were looser.

  Eventually, when the artist stepped back to admire his work, Anna struck. As soon as the German agent was close enough, Anna grabbed hold of the metal ring with every ounce of strength she possessed and flung her legs up and around Fox’s thighs. She had hoped to grab him by the neck, but failed to raise her legs high enough.

  Fox was surprised and fell forward, but before he could call out or hit the ground, Maggie wrapped her legs around his neck tightly.

  “Do you have him?” Anna said.

  “Oh yes!” Maggie said with a vicious grin.

  “Hold him, but don’t kill him. We need to know where the other Thule cells are.” Anna released her hold, and the artist collapsed to his knees beneath the other prisoner. Then she gritted her teeth, squeezed her fingers together as tightly as she could, and let go of the ring. The pain was excruciating as Anna crouched down and pulled. Her blood-slicked hands sank slightly into the metal cuffs, but not enough.

  Fox struggled against Maggie’s muscular, adrenaline-infused legs, grasping them in his hands and pulling. With each tug, she squeezed his throat tighter, but her strength was waning. “I can’t hold him forever!” she shouted.

  In desperation, Anna simultaneously bent her legs to raise them off the floor. Gravity pulled on her straining hands. Anna screamed as her right hand slipped through the metal cuff and all of her weight transferred to the still-manacled hand, now wedged into the restraint. Quickly, Anna returned her feet to the ground and pulled the connecting chain through the embedded ring.

  “Where are the keys?” Anna demanded. Fox continued to struggle against his captor, who now sat on his shoulders to relieve the pressure on her own wrists. Anna kicked the man hard in the kidney, and he straightened involuntarily. “Where are the keys to these manacles?!” Fox glanced toward the table holding the art supplies. Anna ran over to it and rummaged through the mess of rolled-up canvases, brushes, tubes of paint, cans of solvent, and other things.

  Suddenly, Maggie screamed. Anna’s back had been to the others, and when she turned, she saw that Fox had fallen flat, pulling Maggie down with him. Blood flowed down her arms where the manacles had bitten deeply into her wrists. Anna rushed over toward Maggie, but was thrown to the floor by a heavy weight from behind. Anna felt a sharp pain in her side as the female Xuxaax effortlessly flipped Anna onto her back and sat on her hips, lashing her tail violently and snapping her jaws.

  “Kill her!” Fox shouted. “She is an American spy. She knows how to destroy you!”

  “No!” Zakraph commanded as he batted Shenzosh aside. He stomped on Anna’s abdomen, and in the moment she was stunned by the assault, lifted Anna to her feet by the arms, passed the chain of her manacles back through the metal ring, and snapped the cuff around her wrist again. Then the monster squeezed both cuffs, crushing them around Anna’s wrists until they bit into her skin. Fox appeared next to him, holding the gag, but Zakraph pushed him aside. “We do not need that now.”

  “What?” Fox was surprised. “Why not?”

  Zakraph pointed to the golden rod, which was leaning against a wall. Shenzosh retrieved it and thrust it into the slots in each of the columns. The rod fit tightly, and she had to flex it in order to insert it into the holes. Anna felt an impact. The rod was in contact with the metal ring.

  The two aliens then stood up against the bound women from behind. Anna felt Shenzosh’s scaly paws rubbing her exposed skin. Her claws sliced through Anna’s shirt and left faint lines of blood in her skin.

  “What are you doing?” Fox shouted as the Xuxaax started chanting.

  “Xo nuj edso edo ev kxom, kxo Xuxaax Fhaojk.

  Xo hicot xoho ad kxoah dumo, hicot eloh Jecjkxoam.

  Rik xo tat dek johlo kxo Xuxaax, xo toleihot kxom.

  Udt cabo kxom, xo joobj ke hokihd.

  Oyi tatd'k kxadb kxuk Oyei noho kxo edcOy edo?

  Xo nuj kxo vahjk.

  Thuwed Xuxaax!”

  The aliens ignored him. Fox grabbed at their scaly hides to pull them off, but the aliens were fully committed to the ritual. Unconsciously, he was hit by one of their flailing tails and flew into the table of art supplies.

  Anna was engrossed in the ritual. Her eyes were closed and she moaned softly. Unlike Fox’s sensual touch, the female monster’s touch was primal and erotic. Anna was being pulled into the spell physically as well as mentally. Where she had had a splitting headache previously, she was now overcome with lustful impulses.

  Shenzosh had started rubbing her body against Anna’s back, and once her sweat-soaked shirt had been pulled free of her trousers, the touch of the monster’s belly scales against Anna’s bare skin was stimulating.

  But Anna was distantly aware of a commotion. The aliens continued their droning chant, increasing in intensity as the erotic sensations grew. She was aware of a growing energy around her, and then a blinding light penetrating her eyelids. Anna was overwhelmed by the smell of more Xuxaax. They roared and sniffed around her. Then other alien voices joined the chant.

  ◆

  Anna heard a distant voice shout, “Down there!” followed by the sound of machine gun fire and faint pattering sounds from above. She immediately became aware of a wave of heat blowing in her face and activity happening around her. She opened her eyes to see a dozen new crocodile men in the greenhouse. The arch in the far wall had been replaced by a swirling blue vortex in which she could see a steady stream of the aliens approaching from the distance in ones and twos. A moist, tropical breeze, tainted by their reptilian scent preceded them.

  Zakraph and Shenzosh now stood in the center of the room among three other chanters. Others were posturing, circling each other as the first two had when the female arrived. A few sniffed the shackled women with interest. The tapping sound was coming from several of the gray-suited men shooting Thompson submachine guns into the thick glass of the ceiling. In spite of the heavy barrage, it was not showing any signs of weakness.

  Anna looked over to Maggie, whose screams were barely audible above the cacophony all around, and who was contorting her body to avoid the thrashing tails and probing muzzles of the new monsters. Anna focused and shouted DO NOT! with her mind at the newcomers. The Xuxaax again looked around, startled, and then each started posturing as if one of the others had challenged it. The shackled prisoners found themselves surrounded by monsters clawing and biting each other.

  Anna felt helpless in the midst of the brawling aliens. Once she was struck in the chest by a tail, and Anna suspected that it might have cracked some ribs as she was thrust into the air. The crushed metal around her wrists bit into her flesh, preventing her from flying across the room.

  As soon as she could breathe normally again, Anna realized a growing energy was rising from within her. What Anna had at first identified as tropical heat was in fact some kind of dimensional energy that she was absorbing. Anna concentrated hard on the chains binding her, willing them to release her. But nothing happened. She tried against Maggie’s manacles, again to no effect.

  Suddenly, the doors into the greenhouse burst open, followed by a hail of gunfire. A group of federal agents fanned out from the entrance. J. Edgar Hoover paused at the entrance to insert another drum magazine into his own Thompson. While the agents concentrated their fire on the monsters emerging from the portal, Hoover himself mowed down the chanters. The federal agents were gaining the upper hand for the moment, but more Xuxaax were emerging from the portal every few seconds.

  Maggie! Anna focused on the other woman, who she sensed a connection with almost immediately. Do you feel the energies flowing from the portal?”

  I think so, Maggie replied. I d
idn’t know what it was, but I can feel it flowing through me.

  We need to stop the tide of new ones. I think we can close the gate if we channel the energy in us back at it.

  How do we do that?

  Clear your mind of distractions, and concentrate solely on closing the gate. Can you do that?

  I’ll do anything to end this torment.

  Do as I do. Anna closed her eyes. She pushed away the pain in her wrists, arms, and back. She closed off awareness of the sounds of battle around her. She concentrated on the growing energy pulsing through her body. Then she fixed her gaze on the glowing arch in the opposite wall and shouted, Close the door! over and over again in her mind.

  The Xuxaax crossing through the temporal gateway began running toward the greenhouse portal as the glow of it started to pulse. Anna cast a sideways glance at Maggie to see that she was staring down the swirling blue tunnel defiantly. Anna regained her own focus and pressed harder with her mind. Then Anna’s view was blocked by the face of Shenzosh, and Anna felt a scaly hand grab her face, lightly piercing both cheeks. The great maw opened to reveal a pointed tubular protrusion in the roof of her mouth aimed for Anna’s forehead.

  Suddenly, the monster was hurled backward, scraping a thin line across Anna’s cheeks, as Cletus struck Shenzosh. The big dog landed on top of her and tore savagely at the alien. The Xuxaax clawed at Cletus, but was clearly losing the fight as Anna heard bones cracking and saw huge chunks of flesh flying from the monster’s throat.

  Anna glanced toward Maggie to see Ogden Shroud tear Fox away from the woman and punch him repeatedly in the face until the German fell to the ground.

  Maggie! We were succeeding. Concentrate! We need to close that portal! Anna saw a nod of understanding from the other prisoner and renewed her mental assault on the glowing arch. Destroy the portal! Eliminate everything in it!” Anna put all of her energy and will into the effort. Her head started throbbing with pain. She felt a trickle of blood from her nose, and her vision also became tainted with a red hue, turning the portal purple. The light from the portal began to strobe faster and faster.