The Monster Hunters

  If I could have one wish, it would be to take this curse from me. I dream of being a man, and nothing more than a mortal man. How would it be? Freedom? I can’t even remember what that was like. But even if somehow this curse was lifted tomorrow, I’d still have to pay for my sins. Besides, being cured? That can’t ever be. It’s stupid and vain to wish for the impossible. So instead I will live every day trying to atone for the things I’ve done. It’s the best I can do.

  Santiago was wrong. He thought I was a good man. I’m not. I can never be worthy of that title. My father was a good man. Santiago was a good man. Travis was a good man, though he’d be insulted if I called him a man. The men of first squad and the hundreds of Hunters I’ve helped set in the ground have been good men. No. Not me. The best that I can ever aspire to is kicking evil’s ass at every opportunity, until eventually it wins and I die.

  Then I can look God in the eye and say that I did the best I could with the hand I got dealt. A werewolf can’t ask for much more than that.

  PART 3

  The

  Harbinger

  * * *

  STFU was operating out of a firebase in the highlands when I found my new name.

  Let me explain. As a werewolf, you age very slowly. Having the same Shackleford running MHI for too long could get suspicious, so I’d started picking a new name every generation. I planned on restarting again after getting back from Vietnam, and Mr. Wolf certainly wouldn’t do for a proper name.

  One morning Van came and woke me up. He said that an important man had come to the village and wanted to speak with me. You’ve got to understand, we were in the middle of nowhere, so I wasn’t sure what kind of important person would end up out here, but our young translator was adamant. So I followed him down to the Degar village.

  I liked the Degar. Montagnards or “Mountain People,” The French called them. So most of the Americans called them Yards for short. They were on our side, and they could fight like nobody’s business. The locals had been guiding Destroyer and his boys and had been feeding intel to STFU.

  Van took me to a hut on stilts with a really tall roof. It appeared that all of the local warriors had formed a perimeter around the hut. They were showing a lot of deference to whoever the mystery guest was. Inside the smoky, dark, hot dwelling was one of the oldest men that I’d ever laid eyes on. He was blind, wrinkled, could barely whisper, and was playing with a plate full of chicken entrails.

  “What’s the deal, Van?”

  “He’s a holy man, Mr. Wolf. He’s come a very long way to find you.”

  “No. I mean with that chicken.”

  “He’s telling the future.”

  Van was an earnest fellow, and I’d never known him to be the superstitious type. The old man whispered something. Van had to lean in real close to translate. “An animal gave its spirit to a man. The spirit was tricky and thought it could change the man. The spirit had always changed the man. But this man would not change. Instead, he made the animal spirit change its ways.”

  My condition was not to be spoken about. “I’m sure hoping you didn’t tell him anything classified, Van.”

  “No, Mr. Wolf. I didn’t tell him. He said the mountain spirits told him you were coming.” Flexible mind, I preferred to think that this old man’s mountain spirits were whispering to him rather than my translator was talking about things that could get him in trouble. The old man kept on whispering. “He says that the animal spirits have waited . . . I don’t know the word . . . A very long time for one that could change them. The animal spirits will listen to you . . . the mountain spirits will help you . . . in the war.”

  “Tell him thanks. In a war, you’ll take whatever help you can get.”

  Van told him. There were flies buzzing around the chicken, and the hut was so humid it made Alabama seem frosty. The old man kept on in a monotone whisper. Van looked confused. “Not this war. The big war.”

  “This one ain’t big enough?”

  “No. The coming war . . . Sorry, I don’t understand. The mountain spirits told him it is coming. The war to end all things. You are one of the four.”

  “What’s that mean? Four what?”

  The creases of the old holy man’s knuckles were filled with dried chicken blood. “The Mountain Spirits won’t say. Before you can lead the animal spirits, you have to teach someone. Make them ready for the war that will end all things. You have to prepare the way. . . . There will be many battles. Many changes. If you fail, the animal spirits will fight on the enemy’s side instead. When the time is right, you will announce the war, and all the spirits will follow you into the dark place.”

  “None of that makes a lick of sense.”

  “He says you are the one that prepares the way. . . . I don’t know the word. One that prepares the way. . . . A harbinger? Yes. The mountain spirits say you are the harbinger.”

  The holy man fell silent. He scooped up the plate of guts and tossed it out the door to the dogs. He was done. He’d delivered the message from his mountain spirits. We were dismissed.

  Harbinger. I liked the sound of that.

  * * *

  Chapter 24

  The Briarwood company Cadillac was stuck. “On three,” Stark ordered. “One, two, three!” He threw all his weight against the bumper. The tires spun uselessly in the snow. “No! Damn idiot! You’ve got to rock it! Rock it!”

  Ryan Horst stuck his head out the window. “I’m trying, okay? Quit yelling at me.”

  Stark stood up with a grunt. His back was killing him, having wrenched something during his jump from the hospital window. They’d managed to lose the zombie-werewolves right before Horst had spun them off the side of the road into a ditch. The other Briarwood Hunter, Lins, was trying to help push the front end of the truck out. It was hopeless. It would probably take a tractor to drag them out.

  The two of them stopped to take a breath. Stark looked back the way they’d come. The monsters were bound to catch up any second, but he couldn’t even see far enough through the snowfall to tell how much time they had left. “All this shit on here and you don’t have a winch? You’ve got rims that spin, and no winch? Are you kidding me?”

  Lins shrugged. “Weren’t expecting none of this, man. This was supposed to be a cakewalk.”

  “No heavy weapons. No clue. It’s amateur hour.” Stark glanced around. His parka was back at the hospital, and the wind was cutting right through the seams of his armor. He needed to warm up, but if they hunkered down the monsters would tear them apart. There had to be something they could use, somewhere they could go. “I can’t believe I trusted you idiots.”

  “Hey. Look at that.” Lins pointed at something in the distance.

  Squinting, Stark could barely make out the lights. “I think that’s the high school. I drove by there earlier.”

  “You got a better place to be?”

  Stark’s face burned from the cold. His ears were probably going to turn black and fall off. Odds were there was nobody worth a damn at the high school, either, but if they had lights, then they had a generator, so at least he could die warm. “Better than being out here.” He slammed his fist on the hood to get Horst’s attention, then regretted it immediately as the impact stung his frozen hand. “Come on, stupid. Let’s go.”

  Horst gave him a sullen glare as he got out, but he was smart enough not to say anything. Stark wasn’t in the mood.

  The three of them gathered around the back of the Cadillac so Stark could take stock of the situation. Horst and Lins both had rifles, but there were only a couple of mags left between them. Stark had his issue Glock and a combat knife; that was it. He had pouches full of SCAR mags filled with composite silver 7.62, but his rifle had been left leaning against the wall during his hasty escape from Deputy Buckley. To make matters even more embarrassing, there was a Suburban full of top-of-the-line MCB equipment sitting in the hospital parking lot surrounded by zombie-werewolves.

  “Before we make a run for those lights, you guys hav
e any more cold-weather gear you can spare?” Stark asked through chattering teeth.

  “If we did, I’d be wearing it,” Lins answered sharply as he sat on the Caddy’s bumper. Balancing his M-4 carbine between his legs, Lins pulled his sweater up over his mouth and nose, then shoved his hands into his armpits. “What’re we supposed to do about Jo?”

  A slimy hand landed against the interior of the back window. A horrible visage rose behind the hand. The face was slack and pale, dripping sweat past bloodshot eyes. Drool spilled out as the mouth opened wide. The monster’s face hit the glass with a wet thud.

  “Threat!” Stark shouted as he went for his sidearm.

  “No, wai—”

  BANG.

  A hole appeared in the glass. The horrible face disappeared.

  Lins fell off the bumper. “Son of a bitch! You shot Jo!”

  Stark slowly lowered his Glock as the hand slid down the glass until it also disappeared from view. “Jo?” He looked to Horst, but the lead Briarwood man was just standing there, mouth hanging open, apparently in shock. “Who’s Jo?”

  “That was Jo Schneider,” Lins said as he got to his feet. “She’s with us. She’s Horst’s girlfriend! Shit, man, you just capped our secretary!”

  It took his numbed hand a few tries to get the Glock back into the holster. “The one with the sexy voice?” Stark mumbled. “Well . . . Huh. I pictured her as better looking.”

  “She was, before a giant scarecrow robot puked her up,” Lins said.

  Horst stepped forward without a word and opened the back of the Cadillac. Stark looked past Horst’s shoulder. The woman had been wrapped in a blanket and appeared to have been in really rough shape even before the gunshot wound. He’d seen healthier looking zombies. “In my defense, she looked like a monster.” Jo Ann was still alive, but probably not for long. Stark’s bullet had punched through her shoulder, and from the amount of blood, he assumed that he’d severed the axillary artery. “Well . . . Shit. Sorry, I guess.”

  Jo Ann squinted at Horst. She was having a hard time focusing. “I . . . I was just gonna . . . tell you I was feeling . . . better.”

  Lins urgently tapped Stark on the shoulder. “We got company.”

  He turned around. There were dark shapes moving against the white backdrop down the block. The undead were back. They weren’t running this way yet, but they would be soon. “Time to go, Horst . . . Horst?” He turned back to find Horst still staring at the woman. Stark leaned in and whispered, “We don’t have time to be sentimental, kid. If you want to put her out of her misery, do it quick and don’t make too much noise.”

  Shaking his head, Horst stepped back. “Naw. I’m cool.”

  “Ryan?” Jo Ann croaked.

  “Nothing personal, baby, but my pop used to say that if you’re being chased by a bear, you don’t need to outrun the bear, just your slowest friend.” Horst’s expression was as cold as their surroundings.

  Jo Ann reached out for Horst as he turned away. She managed to snag his coat sleeve and held on for dear life. “Don’t leave me.”

  Horst jerked his arm out of her grasp without giving her so much as a glance. “If we’re lucky, they’ll slow down for a snack. Come on. Let’s go.”

  Stark whistled. That was harsh, even by MCB standards.

  Earl swung the locking bar shut on the stainless coffin before stumbling away, wincing at the pain. He could feel the burning of the fresh cut across the top of his chest. Heather had sliced him good. A little higher and he would have lost his throat, so he’d gotten lucky, but he still needed to tend to the injury quickly before it became an issue. He always kept an extensive first-aid kit on hand, though it was normally for his Hunters. It had been a real long time since he’d needed one for himself.

  Earl addressed the only other person remaining in the street in front of the Alpha’s house. “Everyone else had the sense to run. You’re a stubborn one.”

  “I ain’t seen nothing like that before.” Aino had made the decision to help, and had even had the guts to help lift the unconscious Heather into the box. “Her grandpa saved my life, pulled me out of a collapsed mine. I thought you aimed to kill her; figured I owed Aksel to see that to the end. Surprised me when you picked her up instead. . . . You’re bleeding. Let me see that cut.”

  Earl opened his coat. Heather had managed to tag him just above where it had been fastened, and one claw had made it through the Kevlar beneath. “Just a scratch,” he lied.

  It wasn’t fair to blame Heather. It wasn’t like she’d done it on purpose. Earl reasoned they were probably even, because he’d smashed the Thompson’s steel butt-plate over her head until the stock had cracked. Just shooting her would’ve been the safe move, but she was a good girl. Even though the odds of her beating the curse were near zero, she deserved a chance. Santiago would have done the same for him. Though Heather was going to be mighty surly when she woke up inside that dark little prison box.

  Once safely back in the truck, Earl turned on the interior dome light, found his first-aid kit, and unbuckled his armor. Heather had scored a solid laceration just over his collarbone. A flap of skin was dangling, loose, leaking blood in a wide circle. “Damn. That’s ugly.”

  “Just a scratch, huh?” Aino grunted.

  “It’s wide, but shallow. It’s the depth that gets you.” Earl shoved the skin back into place, wiped it with iodine, and applied a pressure bandage. As soon as he had a spare minute, he’d give himself some stitches. It was too big to glue. The hard part would be keeping an eye on it at that angle. Since the last time he’d given himself stitches had been in the 1920s, he was a bit out of practice. “Turn up the heater, would you?” Earl asked as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the head rest. “Why do people live someplace this damn cold?”

  “Keeps out the riff-raff. . . . This was a quiet town, ’til recently.”

  “Got me there.” Earl lit a cigarette and got back to work, having decided that thirty seconds was too much sitting around. He could bleed later. “I need you to figure out what that journal says, and I need it fast.”

  “I can do that. What about Heather?”

  “Through no fault of her own, she’s one of them now. Locked up, she can’t do no harm, but if she gets out . . . She’s not the girl you knew before.”

  “Is there a cure?”

  Surprisingly, there was. If that amulet could cure Earl, then it could cure anyone. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was the same device that had started the curse to begin with, so it reasoned that it could end it, too. Not just for Earl and Heather, but for all werewolves, everywhere. If he could get his hands on that amulet and figure out how the magic worked . . .

  The truck lurched. A terrible grinding sound came from the back, claws against steel, followed by an enraged roar. Heather was awake, and not surprisingly, she was a fierce one.

  “There’s a cure,” Earl said with renewed determination. He had accidentally created the monster that was terrorizing this town, but he could make that mistake right and in the process end the curse forever. “And I know who has it.”

  The storm was finally breaking up, having transitioned from blizzard to horrible snowfall in the last hour. That should have made Horst happy, but instead that just meant that the werewolves could see them better. Sadly, sacrificing Jo Ann hadn’t seemed to slow them very much. The awkward creatures weren’t much more agile in the deep snow than the Hunters they were chasing, but they didn’t seem to be getting tired, whereas Horst thought his heart was about to explode. The monsters were gaining on them.

  “We’re almost there!” Lins shouted. The only other remaining Briarwood Hunter turned out to be the fastest on foot, and was a good twenty feet ahead of the other two when he stopped to urge them on. He raised his M-4 and popped off a pair of shots at their pursuers. “Come on.”

  Horst was gasping for breath as the frigid air scorched his lungs. Agent Stark wasn’t doing too much better, since the MCB man looked a little too old to be spri
nting through uphill snowdrifts, but the mass of undead werewolves behind them was one hell of a good motivator. It was tempting to shoot Stark in the leg to give the werewolves another distraction, but they still had a couple hundred yards to cover. He’d save that option for later.

  There was a fence at the top of the hill. Passing Lins, Horst reached the chain link. It rattled as he struck, knocking snow from the metal. Horst had gotten a lot of practice clearing fences tonight, so it only took him a second to sling his FAL and clamber over. He landed softly on the other side and took off without waiting to see if the others needed help, but the clank from behind told him somebody was following. He made it down a narrow lane between concrete bleachers and onto a long white field. The vaguely goalpost-shaped blobs at each end told him they were running across the football field. The lights of the gym were on the other side. On the roof were the spotlights they’d seen earlier. One of them flashed over to blind him. Horst began waving his arms madly overhead, too out of breath to call for help.

  Keep running. Almost there. You can do it. He’d despised all that running that MHI had made them do during their stupid Newbie training, but right then he was really wishing that he’d kept up the regimen. I’m doing good. I can make it. Then Lins passed him by again. Shit! Lins just had longer legs.