Monster Hunter Alpha-ARC

  He’d done what he’d had to do. He’d been trapped in a warehouse with a shipment of drugs and the ghoul had eaten almost everybody else. The girl had belonged to one of the mules. Maybe eight or so, she didn’t even speak English. He needed to draw the thing out, so he’d done the logical thing and used bait. His Spanish was lousy, but he’d lied and told her he was tying the rope to her so he could lower her to safety. She’d been terrified but happy for a chance to escape. Happy…at first. Then he’d waited for the monster to show up so he could nail it.

  That’s why they’d fired him. Who was MHI to judge?

  There was a blast of warm air as he reached the window. A hand latched onto his coat and pulled him tight. “Oh thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  “Hey, boss.”

  Horst opened his eyes. He blinked away the tears. “You’re dead.”

  Loco nodded slowly. There was a thick white bandage wrapped around his big head. It was stained bright red on the side where Horst’s bullet had struck. “Not quite.”

  His heart was beating so hard that it was hard to talk. “I…I shot…”

  “Man, this just isn’t your night. Bullet grazed my skull. The other one tore a nasty little hole through my love handle. It hurt a lot, but didn’t hit nothing important. These nice folks patched me up when they found me…where you left me to die.”

  The fabric on Horst’s coat made a crinkling noise as Loco dragged him in nose to nose. Horst stared deep into those dark eyes, one glass, one just angry, and for the first time, he realized that he’d drastically underestimated some of his employees. “You got anything to say?”

  Twenty feet below, the monsters snapped and howled as they fought over Lins. “I’m sorry?” Horst squeeked.

  A woman called from inside the gym. “Any other survivors, Mr. Lococo?”

  Loco shouted down to the floor below. “Afraid not, Mrs. Randall. They didn’t make it.”

  “Wait—” But then Horst was falling backward through the air.

  He hit the snow flat on his back. The drift cushioned the impact. Too scared to breathe, too scared to look, Horst lay still in a cloud of white. All that could be heard were the sounds of rending and chewing.

  I’m dead. He slowly opened his eyes. The monsters surrounded him. Their bodies were cold. No breath clouds formed around their jagged mouths. Milky eyes studied him, curious about what had just fallen into their midst. Lins was lying off to the side. The monsters had torn off his lower jaw and eaten one ear. Lins opened his eyes, and they too were blank, white, and dead.

  Horst did not want to end up like that. Lins’s carbine was there in the snow. He just needed to get it long enough to shoot himself in the head. His hand slowly moved until it landed on the gun. He dragged the muzzle toward his chin.

  A foot landed on the gun and pinned it down. Horst’s eyes tracked slowly upward, across the familiar body, wrapped in a tattered, bloodstained blanket, across the slimy, dripping face, and into the dead eyes of the zombie-werewolf thing that had once been Briarwood Eradication Services’ secretary, Jo Ann Schneider.

  Horst managed to say “Karma’s a bitch” before Jo leaned down to give him one final kiss.

  Chapter 25

  The MHI truck stopped just shy of the parking lot of the Copper Lake high school. Heather had begun to cry. It was an eerie sound, and one that Earl was certain he’d never heard a werewolf make before. Something was wrong. He’d left the interior lights on so Aino could read Aksel Kerkonen’s journal. Reaching up, Earl shut off the dome light so he could see outside better.

  “Hey, I need that. I just found where Aksel was talking about getting these magic words from a Baba Yaga to…” He looked up. Muzzle flashes indicated the shooters Nancy Randall had placed on the gym’s roof were firing like mad. Their spotlights were bobbing back and forth, illuminating hundreds of shapes moving along the perimeter fence. “What the hell?” Aino asked, squinting. “All those werewolves?”

  “Can’t be. There’s too many. There’s no way they could turn that many people so fast.” The snow had let up enough that Earl could actually see a fair distance, so he retrieved his binoculars from the center console and stepped out of the truck.

  What he saw took his breath away. Some were more werewolf-like than others, but none of them were fully changed. It was like they were stuck mid-transformation. Their movements were jerky, and there were many obvious injuries, including missing limbs. Experience told him that these were some type of undead. Dozens of them were piled up against the front doors of the gym. It was a seething pile of fury. If they got inside…Earl hurried and got back in the truck. “I think these are the vulkodlak everybody’s been talking about.” He passed the binoculars over to Aino. “I’ve got to stop them before they break in.”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  Walking in, guns blazing, would be a noble but futile gesture. The explosives he had in back would damage the gym, too, and probably create an opening for the surviving monsters to get through. “I don’t know. I’m only human,” Earl said bitterly.

  “Those are my people in there, buddy. You better think of something fast.”

  The vulkodlak’s abilities and vulnerabilities were an unknown. Some undead were dumber than broccoli, like zombies, while others, like a lich or a vampire, were just as smart dead as they were alive. Some types had special abilities, like the paralyzing touch of a wight, the death wail of a banshee, or the crippling glance of a night-shade. Some were easy kills and others were walking tanks….

  A tank! Now that would be just the ticket. They were all clustered together tight, with plenty of room to maneuver a big, squishing vehicle back and forth. The entrance to the gym was even inset a bit, with walls on each side that would create a fatal funnel. “You guys got a National Guard armory around here. Maybe an army tank?”

  “No. Why the hell would we have a tank? That’s the stupidest—” Aino slowly lowered the binoculars. “Wait a sec…I get you. Hang a right up there. Come on! Drive. What’re you waiting for! It’s only half a block that way. We’ll grab a county snow-cutter.”

  Earl didn’t know what a snow-cutter was. He was, after all, from Alabama, where there were very few things with “snow” in their names, but it had better be good.

  * * *

  The inside of the gymnasium was pandemonium. The place was literally packed with people. They were crammed together, standing room only. A good portion of the town’s population had survived to make it here. At the very back, a group of women was herding crying children downstairs into some sort of basement. The was a continuous echo of gunfire from the windows and through the roof, but audible even above that was the general noise of nervous chatter, rough swearing, and fervent prayer.

  Special Agent Doug Stark’s first thought was that this was going to be a very difficult event to contain, but then, after listening to the crashing noises coming from the barricades at the front of the gym, he realized they were probably all going to die anyway. Making containment sort of irrelevant.

  At least it was warm. In fact, after the death run through the snow, it was stiflingly hot. This many bodies packed together, it was downright muggy. Stark took another, slower look at the packed crowd. Considering how fast Mosher had been turned, a single one of those creatures inside these walls could turn this place into a slaughterhouse.

  He’d come down the ladder rather roughly, and it had taken him a few minutes to catch his breath. The run through the snow had taken a few years off of his life. Horst and Lins hadn’t come up after him, so that was the end of Briarwood. He sure wouldn’t be getting any under-the-table PUFF money off this trip! Stark kicked himself. If he’d followed procedure and brought a full unit, this never would have happened. This whole thing was…his fault. That caused Stark to pause. He wasn’t used to blaming himself for anything.

  Stark made his way through the people, trying to assess the situation. A little girl pointed at him and then at something high behind him, and s
he giggled. Stark turned to see what the deal was, and saw a banner of the school’s mascot, a cartoon bulldog. It too, was bulky, jowly, and scowling. Strangely, it was a rather good caricature. “Fair enough,” Stark told the kid.

  “What’re you supposed to be?” A tall lady in a parka stopped him. She gestured at his armor.

  He pulled out his real ID; the time for pretending was over. “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. Agent Stark, Monster Control Bureau, Department of Homeland Security. Who’s in charge here?”

  She seemed relieved. “I am. Unless you brought the Marines, then you’re more than welcome to it. Nancy Randall. Copper County Council.”

  “Negative. Just me. I had a Marine, but he got his face eaten.”

  There was a small spark of hope. “Is help coming?”

  He took her hope and stepped on it. “Probably not. Well…Eventually. I’m supposed to report in by oh-eight hundred. When I don’t, they’ll come looking.”

  Nancy checked her watch. “That’s hours from now!”

  It would actually be far more. All agents on assignment had a mandatory check-in to confirm their status, but just because they couldn’t reach him didn’t mean the cavalry would arrive immediately. MCB would eventually dispatch somebody, but the nearest other agents were hours away. “What’s your status?”

  Spark of hope extinguished, she sighed. The woman had been through a long night. Nancy pointed toward the front. “We’re screwed. Question is, how long can we hold them?”

  The interior bleachers had been hastily broken down, and the materials had been used to barricade the front doors. It was an impressive pile of jagged wood, but the monsters were relentlessly throwing themselves against it. Clawed limbs were flailing around every gap as the townsfolk hammered at them with axes, shovels, and hammers. Every window had someone perched on it shooting a gun. Luckily there were no windows at the ground-floor level. A bottle with a flaming rag stuck in it was shoved through the windows over the entrance. The resulting conflagration cast the shadows of the men manning the windows onto the ceiling. The flames only slowed the creatures’ onslaught for a moment.

  Stark had seen how many of the things were out there. He was guessing much of the local population had been turned, and whatever they were, these undead were extremely resilient. He’d already head-shot a few of them with only a momentary effect. “Yes. You’re screwed.”

  Nancy’s patience had run out. “You’re certainly a big old help. I’m glad I pay my taxes.” She kicked the floor. “We’re running out of bullets, and these new things don’t seem to ever die—it just slows them down. Setting them on fire only works for a minute, and the only gas we’ve got left is the little bit left in the generator’s tank. No word from the hospital, either.”

  “Eh…They’re already dead. That’s where I came from,” Stark said.

  “When the ammo runs out, then they’ll be coming in. The best we can do is put the children in the bomb shelter and hope these things can’t get through its big steel door.”

  “Bomb shelter?” Stark felt a twinge of excitement. If there was a bomb shelter, then he might be able to survive this until the cavalry arrived. Heck, the MCB would probably just have the air force carpet bomb the place when they found out. That shelter was definitely the place to be.

  “There’s not enough room for everyone,” Nancy explained. “The best we can do is protect the kids. And not even all of them. I’ve got some mad parents of older teens to deal with now.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Stark agreed, barely listening. That sounded like a personal problem. He’d make sure that he got a spot in that shelter. After all, he reasoned, somebody knowledgeable needed to survive to write the report. But the earlier the monsters got in, the more time they’d have to break into the vault before the MCB could get here. He needed to help keep those things out as long as possible. It was time to get this defense running properly. “Okay, listen up, Mrs. Random.”

  “Randall,” she corrected.

  “Whatever. I’m running this show from now on. See that? That’s my barricade. See those yokels with guns? Those are my yokels.” Stark folded his broad arms and surveyed his kingdom with a slow nod. “Stick with me, and we’ll get through this.” Someone screamed at the barricade as a claw caught them. “Damn it!” Stark shouted toward the screamer. “Let me show you how to do it!” He strode off to inspect his defenses.

  Nancy just watched him go. She was joined a moment later by Phillip, the school principal. “Somebody told me the government was here to take over,” he exclaimed excitedly. “We’re saved.”

  “Saved is a remarkably optimistic term,” she muttered.

  Stark reached the barricade. He hated to admit it, but these Yooper rednecks were doing a passable job considering their lousy logistical situation, but the monsters on the other side were going to get in, and very soon. Stark peered through one of the cracks. Through the waving limbs, at the very back of the silent pack, stood a creature that he recognized. This one was far more werewolf-shaped than the others, but the charred flesh was what gave him away.

  “So we meet again, Deputy Buckley,” Stark said. “You’ve been a pain in my ass all night. Well, come and get me, crispy.”

  Buckley and several of the other creatures at the back of the pack stopped and lifted their heads simultaneously, as if they’d heard something. Without making a sound, four of them broke off in a run heading away from the gym. They were going after something. Stark had no idea what, but that was a few less that he was going to have to worry about.

  * * *

  “After the mine collapsed, I got a job working for the county,” Aino explained as he unlocked the padlock and pulled it from the latch. Earl hurried over and lifted the giant garage’s door. He was careful not to make too much noise, but once it got out of his reach, it slid up the rest of the way automatically and made a considerable racket. Earl cringed and looked around the county vehicle yard. There were several school buses, snowplows, and tractors parked inside the fence, but there was nothing moving between them.

  Aino ignored the noise. “Only worked part-time, ya know, but I work on these here things. This one was all prepped and ready to go for the storm. It would be out clearing the roads now, except, lucky for us, the safety on the augers is broke. Meaning the blades won’t automatically stop when they hit something solid. Which considering what we’re gonna do with her, I see as a bonus.” He let his flashlight play over the big orange vehicle in the shop.

  “It’s a tractor,” Earl pointed out. Earl didn’t know much about farm equipment, but it just looked like a big orange tractor to him.

  Aino snorted. “Tractor? This ain’t no tractor, boy. This is a custom-built, top-of-the-line snow-cutter.…Snow cutter?” Earl shrugged. “No? Guess they don’t have these where you’re from.” The diminutive man walked around one huge, chain-clad tire. “We’re talking two thousand horsepower. She can tear through anything. When snow’s as wet and heavy as around these parts, you need power.”

  “And what’s to keep the monsters from climbing into that little glass cab with us?”

  “Well, it’s your job to keep them off with all your fancy machine guns.” Aino stopped at the front of the vast machine. He grabbed one edge of a blue tarp and yanked it off. “While I give the bastards this!”

  Earl whistled when he saw the wall of blades. There were three vast steel screws, each one reflecting light from the ground-sharp edges. The blades filled a giant scoop that covered the entire front of the tractor. A small car could fit in there.

  “She can throw tons of snow an hour, and with no safety I can feed trees into it.” Aino put his light beam on the blades. “Werewolves go in here”—he let the light climb up to a two-foot-wide spigot coming out the top—“and come out here. Only in itty-bitty pieces.”

  “Your secret weapon is a really big snow-blower.”

  “The biggest,” Aino corrected. “Biggest fucking snow-blower ever in the world.”

>   “I’d been hoping for an armored vehicle, but we’re out of time, and I don’t have any better ideas. Fire it up, my fine Finnish friend. I’ll go grab some more guns from my truck. Then let’s go rescue your town.” Aino gave him a lopsided, homicidal grin, then went to work.

  Earl ran back outside and opened the tailgate of his truck. There was a thump as Heather rammed herself against the lid of the box. The heavy latch barely even budged. There was no way the werewolf inside could get enough momentum to break out unless somebody lifted that bar. Otherwise, it meant waiting for the time lock to open. “Sorry, Heather, but you’ll thank me later.” He patted the box then began pulling out cases.

  There wouldn’t be room to use the sniper rifle, so Earl left the .300 Winchester Magnum behind. He made sure he had a revolver on each side and more moonclips than he could count. Chest pouches filled with Thompson mags. Check. Might as well bring some 50 round drums, too. He’d had Milo modify them to work in the old GI-issue Thompsons. And since he was going to be riding, rather than walking…He slung the Thompson around his back so he could use both hands to pull out the biggest nylon bag of all.

  The Carl Gustav was just in case those freakish creatures that stunk like the Old Ones or the other Alpha turned up. Maybe that amulet granted immortality, and then again, maybe nobody had ever bothered to shoot the son of bitch wearing it with an 84mm high-explosive round from a recoilless rifle before. Immortality was a relative term in this business.

  Heather made a sad whine through the wall of the container. “Yep, I know. I won’t blow him up until I get that amulet for you. I promise.”

  Earl grunted under the weight as he got the big nylon bag slung over his other shoulder. It was easy for a werewolf to forget how much good armament weighed, but not so easy for a man. He almost left Aksel Kerkonen’s old Mosin Nagant rifle behind, but decided against it. There was something special about that odd silver ammunition, and it was related to that journal. He might need it. Aksel had defeated the bearer of the amulet once before, and it would be foolish to discount that.