The Monster Hunters

  “Who are you?” Carlos demanded, still straining to free himself, wanting nothing more than to rip the man before him limb from limb with his bare hands.

  “Come on, Carlos.” The shadow man shook his head. “Do I really look that different now? The old body was so soft . . . It was a liability. When you forced my hand, I had to go with one of my contingency plans. The spell had already been prepared, but it was something that I had lacked the courage to implement on my own. There are many things that can go wrong when you swap bodies. Really, I should thank you. I found a way to trade up to something better, switch places if you will. I took this body from a poor addled nitwit, an easily manipulated man-child. I moved in and the poor sod got my old body. Lucky for him, he only had to put up with it for a few minutes before Earl ate him!”

  “M-M-Marty?”

  Hood pointed at his chest with both hands and smiled. “In the flesh! And the ladies love this body a lot more than the old one, I’ll tell you that.”

  Painful realization hit. “But . . . but you’re dead!”

  “See?” Hood laughed. “I’ve conquered death, just like I told you I would, all those years ago. You shouldn’t have mocked me . . . Nobody should have mocked me.”

  Carlos screamed. It was pure, primal hate. It went on for a long time as he struggled, futilely trying to break his bonds. Finally, rationality returned. “Marty, you worthless sack of shit, those were your friends.” He jerked his head painfully toward the other table. “We were your family!”

  Hood spread his arms wide. For the first time Carlos noticed the rotting things standing in neat rows behind his captor. The creatures had been spliced together, bones screwed to steel plates, bolts and wires crisscrossed, ivory, muscle, and iron conglomerated into a grotesque parody of life. “This is my family now.”

  Rage turned to fear. “You’re insane!”

  “That’s a matter of perspective. I’m rather sure that I’m the only sane one here. See, things have changed. I was naïve. I thought I could beat the Old Ones at their own game. But I realized the truth. They can’t lose. So I cut a deal to benefit us all. And now you’re going to help me help them.”

  Carlos’ eyes flicked back and forth across the line of slavering monstrosities. “What do you want from me?”

  Hood chuckled. “After I ‘died,’” he made quote marks with his fingers, “you kept something of mine. I need my book back. It holds information that will allow me to open a portal to the other side.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Actually, you’re correct. Very few people have the potential to unlock that kind of mystery. Sadly, I’m not one of them. I’m going to arrange for it to fall into the hands of someone who can. He’s not even aware that he’s helping me yet. He needs to be broken first, but I’ve already arranged for that.”

  Devious bastard . . . It all made sense. Hood was behind what had happened at the Christmas party. He was responsible for Susan’s turning. He’d tricked Ray into opening that rift.

  Hood leaned in close, stopping his face inches from his old leader. Carlos remembered it so clearly that he could smell Hood’s aftershave. “So, where did you hide my book?” he whispered.

  Carlos spit in his face. “I’ll never tell you anything!”

  The shadow man nodded slightly, not noticing the saliva in his eyes. “And I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you. So once again, we’ll do this the hard way.”

  “You going to torture me, pendejo?” Carlos demanded in typical MHI-style defiance. “Bring it!”

  “You wish. Torture would be easy. See, working for the Old Ones does grant you a few perks, a few abilities, if you will. They’ve sent some friends to . . . how should I say . . . live with me. Sure, I could torture you, knives, hot pokers, electric shocks, all that nonsense, but that would take time, and I don’t have the stomach for such things.” He gestured at the operating table full of mismatched body parts. “I’m a creator, not a destroyer. Rather, I’m going to send something to root around inside your brain and take what I need. So to answer your question, no torture. This is going to be much, much worse.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Good-bye, Carlos. I learned so much from you, and really enjoyed our times together. You were one of my best friends. It really was a pleasure.” His neck swelled as something crawled up from inside his torso. Hood opened his mouth. It was like staring down a deep well. Two tiny red eyes opened and blinked in the inky blackness. Miniscule pincers extended past Hood’s lips. Carlos began to scream.

  The tiny creature latched onto the Hunter’s face, soft, black ooze crawling into his eyes, up his nose, down his throat. The screaming turned into choking and convulsing. I had to look away.

  The scene went black. We were back in the void.

  “It was a little thing at first. Like a headache. But it grew, and grew, and grew. The more it ate, the fatter it got. Everything I thought of, destroyed, torn apart. Just bits and pieces of me. It found what it was looking for, but it didn’t stop there. No . . . it’s just been taking ever since.”

  I had narrowly avoided the same fate in Mexico. I shuddered. The bagpipe howl arose as the mind demon approached.

  “You better go now. Please, keep your promise. I’m begging you. Finish this.”

  Feeder surrounded us, a bloated, disgusting thing. Slobbering, chewing, tearing and flinging, as the last few visions of a mortal life were rendered into nothing.

  “And this is the way the world ends. . . .” my host said.

  Back in the real world, I gasped and jerked my hand away from the wheelchair. Carlos’ head was still rolling around weakly from side to side as a puddle of drool collected on his robe. He was humming softly.

  “What happened?” Lucius Nelson demanded, concerned for his patient.

  Glancing around, the doctors and Trip were still in the same spots in the gazebo as when I had left. Franks was approaching up the path at a brisk walk.

  “How long was I gone?” I asked.

  “You didn’t go anywhere,” Joan replied.

  “Five seconds, tops,” Trip answered quickly. “Did it work?”

  “Yeah, kind of.” I stood. “Doctors, we have to let Carlos die.”

  “What?” both of them responded simultaneously.

  “Please, believe me. There’s something terrible living inside his head. It’s devouring him, piece by piece. He made me promise to kill him.”

  “Owen, that’s ridiculous.”

  The wheelchair began to vibrate. I looked down. Carlos was going into some sort of seizure. It stopped. He was no longer humming. That too had been taken from him. His final memory was erased. The shaking ceased.

  Joan knelt beside the chair and placed her fingers on Carlos’ neck. “I think he’s dead.”

  Suddenly the patient’s head snapped up. His eyes opened, revealing blood-red orbs. One thin hand locked around Joan’s wrist with bone-crushing force. He jerked her to her knees.

  My STI came out of the holster so fast that it practically materialized in my hand. I clicked the safety off as the front sight landed between those red eyes. “Let her go!”

  “Noooo,” the thing inhabiting Carlos’ body hissed. Joan cried out as it squeezed her arm. “Feast is over. . . . Need new shell to live in.”

  “What’s going on?” Lucius cried out. “Carlos, let her go. We’ve been trying to help you.”

  “That ain’t him, Doc. This thing is from the other side. Isn’t that right, Feeder?”

  The body wheezed. “Not true name. Name given by weak fleshling.” The voice was raspy, not used to creating speech. “So hungry. Must feed.” His other hand reached toward Joan’s face, as if to caress it. Nostrils flared as it drank in her smell. “So many memories in this one . . . to feeeaaassst.”

  His wife in danger, Lucius Nelson’s reaction was a split second faster than mine. Carlos’ head jerked one way and then back as our bullets crossed an X through his skull. Joan fell. I steppe
d forward and booted the frail body in the chest, sending the wheelchair rolling back down the ramp and into the sunlight. The chair toppled over.

  Even with the back of his skull missing, the animated body tried to rise, atrophied muscles driving forward, in search of another host. The movements were jerky, awkward, painful to watch. “Feeeaaassst . . .”

  Trip had drawn his Springfield XD .45. Doctor Lucius stood at my side, stubby Colt officer’s model at the ready. The three of us looked at each other, knowing what had to be done, then we opened fire. Dozens of bullets tore through Carlos. A few seconds later, our slides were locked back empty, my ears were ringing, and the riddled body was absolutely still, blood pouring into the grass.

  “What the hell!” Holly shouted as she ran toward the gazebo. She paused long enough to pull her STI Ranger and train it on the blood-soaked mess on the lawn like the rest of us. “Everybody okay?”

  “We’re fine,” Joan answered calmly. “I think my wrist is broken though.” The birdlike woman had pulled herself onto a bench. From somewhere she had produced a .380 PPK and was holding it shakily in her left hand, her right resting awkwardly in her lap. She saw me looking at her. “Old-school MHI, kids. Shock is nature’s anesthetic. Give me five minutes and I’ll be crying like a baby.”

  I dropped my spent mag, slammed a new one in the gun, and dropped the slide. “See to your wife,” I ordered Lucius. “Trip, Holly, on me.” I approached Carlos’ body slowly. The three of us covered him, pistols ready, but there was no movement.

  The Hunter was dead, freed from his torment at last.

  Agent Franks nonchalantly joined us a moment later. The big man studied the three of us, guns hovering over the ventilated corpse and his wheelchair. He shrugged, removed a candy from his pocket, unwrapped it, tossed it in his mouth, and threw the wrapper on the lawn. “Brutal . . . even by my standards,” he said, chewing loudly as he walked away.

  “What’s that?” Trip asked, gesturing with his gun. “On the sidewalk?”

  A tiny, black, glistening earwig-slug thing was oozing away from the shattered skull. I moved so that my shadow wasn’t protecting it. The tiny beast rolled over, revealing a pair of red eyes and a mouth with hooked teeth. It screeched in pain when the sunlight hit it.

  I raised my size 15 boot. “Good-bye, Feeder.” It smashed with a sickening, wet pop. I ground it in. Black smoke hissed from the pavement.

  First promise kept.

  “You know, you’re no longer allowed to visit here, Owen,” Lucius advised me. We were in the Appleton parking lot, getting ready to leave. “Every time you do, we lose patients. At this rate you’ll put us out of business in no time.”

  “I’m really sorry. . . .”

  “I’m seriously thinking of having a restraining order drawn up,” the doctor said with grave sternness. I suddenly felt like I was going to puke. He thumped me on the arm. “Ha. I’m just kidding, boy. Relax. It comes with the business.”

  Joan shook her head. “Forgive my husband. His idea of humor’s a little skewed.” Her sprained wrist had already been wrapped. She held it up. “But then again, I just took some Lortabs, so everything seems a little funny.”

  “Seriously, I wish we would have known about poor Carlos sooner. We kept him alive for all these years, when all we were doing was prolonging his suffering.”

  “You did the best you could,” I responded. “There’s no way you could have known.”

  “No medical textbook I know of has an entry for what crawled out of his head, I’m afraid,” Lucius answered, “unless we write it ourselves. Maybe now you understand why when it comes to interviewing survivors, Joan and I can be a little . . .”

  “Pushy?” I interjected.

  “One way to look at it, I suppose,” he chuckled. “Listen, I do want to help you. When Marty Hood first joined MHI, I did one of those pushy interviews. Here’s the file. Maybe something in there will come in handy.”

  I took it from him. “Isn’t this like privileged information?”

  He smiled. “My Hippocratic Oath goes out the window when you sign up to help the Old Ones. I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.”

  Holly joined us. “We’re ready to go. We took the body down to the basement like you asked. None of the other patients saw us.”

  “Good, good . . .” Joan said. “Thank you, dear.”

  Lucius smiled sadly. “This place was built eighty years ago to house tuberculosis patients. We have an excellent crematorium. Morbid, yet so very effective. Necessary, given the things that poor man was exposed to. Don’t worry, we’ll say a few words over him.”

  “Thank you for your help,” I told them sincerely.

  “We’re always here to help, and we only ask one thing . . .” Joan said. Agent Franks, apparently tired of our good-byes, began to honk the horn. She groaned. “Don’t ever bring that man onto our property, ever again.”

  “Deal. I don’t like him, don’t trust him, and the sooner we’re done with this, the sooner I can get rid of him.”

  “Hmm . . . Franks is obnoxious. How many people can you fit in that crematorium at one time?” Holly batted her eyes innocently. We all looked at her. “What?”

  “Anything helpful?” Holly asked.

  I handed the file across to the back seat so she could see it. “Well, Doctor Nelson figured Hood was driven, obsessed with success, and couldn’t tolerate failure. As a boy, he was deeply traumatized by watching his parents’ deaths, and was fixated on preventing that kind of thing from happening to others.”

  “Sounds like a pretty typical Hunter,” Trip said.

  “Yeah, I suppose.” Fanatical and traumatized by something and doing their best to protect the world. “Hell, I bet he fit right in.”

  “Except for this part where Doc says that Hood had a genius-level intellect. No offense, but I’d say most of us don’t set the bar that high,” Holly pointed out.

  Trip responded. “I went to college.”

  “I took an IQ test once. It said I’m all sorts of smartified,” I joked.

  “Okay, so Trip got through school by catching footballs and you beat up some nerds for a certificate. But according to this file, this Hood guy’s brain is wired like Stephen Hawking . . . Like an evil Albert Einstein or something. This is one smart dude we’re talking about, with real obsession problems, and now he’s locked onto you.”

  “He’s smart, but I’m no slouch,” I said. Franks snorted. Man, I hate him.

  “Just because nobody will play against you in Trivial Pursuit anymore doesn’t mean you’re a match for this guy, Z,” Holly pointed out.

  “That’s just because Julie’s always on his team, and she knows all the artsy questions,” Trip muttered.

  Holly continued. “What I’m getting at is that we’ve underestimated this guy. When we first learned about him, we thought we were just facing another bad guy, another monster. But this one’s different. He’s a former Hunter, so he already knows how we roll. He’s patient enough to fake his death and plot craziness for decades. This man outwitted Earl Harbinger and all the Shacklefords, all while right under their noses the whole time. We already knew about the cult, but we’ve underestimated their leader. The idea of a spy inside MHI seemed stupid to me at first, but this Hood’s some sort of chess master, and he’s thinking ahead. This man will not stop and he’ll pull out all the stops. We’ve got a lot bigger problem on our hands than we thought.”

  She was right. The car was quiet while I mulled that over.

  “What do you think, Franks?” Holly asked. I was surprised that she would actually try to involve him.

  Franks had to have realized by now that I had somehow read Carlos’ mind, but he didn’t indicate that he cared one way or the other. He was quiet for a long time, shaded eyes staring out the window. “I’m not paid to think.”

  “Helpful, ain’t he?”

  Franks turned forward. “But . . . I doubt you’re ruthless enough to survive.” He went back to the window.

/>   We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter 14

  It was well after noon when we pulled into the compound. There were several extra vehicles in the lot, some rental cars from the airport and a few other MHI vehicles from the team leads who were stationed close enough to drive.

  “I wonder if Earl’s back?” Trip asked.

  “We need to talk to him. And keep this on the down low. If the Condition’s infiltrated headquarters, then they might have gotten people onto the other teams too.” Hell, Hood had actually approached Carlos about working together. Who knew if he had tried that with anybody else?

  “That really pisses me off,” Holly said. “I hate traitors.”

  Franks actually murmured agreement as we got out of the car. “Me too.” He held back as the rest of us got our gear bags out of the trunk, then walked up the stairs. Could Franks sense just how unwelcome he was going to be inside a building packed with the most experienced Hunters in the country? Doubtful. He probably had some other nefarious, inexplicable reason. It wasn’t like Franks cared if he was welcome or not.

  The office building was busier than it had been since last summer. There were Hunters everywhere. Dorcas was at her desk, angrily answering questions and shuffling papers. She was surrounded by Newbies filling out requisition forms so they could take equipment with them or harassing her for their last training paycheck. They were out of here, ready to start life as real Hunters, and the atmosphere was kind of like the last day of high school before summer vacation. It was downright festive.

  “Z!” somebody shouted. Suddenly I was engulfed in a rib-crushing bear hug, which smashed my arms to my sides, jerked my feet off the floor, and popped my vertebrae. The man was a little shorter than me but strong as an ox. He bounced me around for a moment, knocking his black cowboy hat off; his giant mustache tickled, and I could smell the Copenhagen chewing tobacco. Sam Haven was home.

  “Hey, Sam.” He dropped me back to the ground. Our old teammate then turned his attention to Trip and Holly. They got the same enthusiastic treatment. “How’s Colorado?”