Matt Archer: Monster Summer (2 page)

Just like always. Except Julie would be part of the “we”
who’d stay in touch. It would never be just me and Mike again.

Not like that wasn’t a whiny thought or anything. I might as
well hire a violinist to follow me around and play sad tunes. It was time to
get out of this tent and hunt a monster or two before my man-card got taken
away.

I stood quickly. “Captain Hunter said dinner was at six, so
I better run if I’m going to find your lost Dingo.”

“Okay, just don’t be late, or your MREs will get cold,”
Uncle Mike said. “And Matt? Be careful, understand? If something happens to
you, your mom will kill both of us.”

“Don’t worry.” I stood. “Besides, it’s just one monster.
What could go wrong?”

As I left the tent, Mike muttered, “That’s what worries me.”

I headed out to the Humvee we’d been assigned. Schmitz was
putting gas in the tank and barely looked up when I slung my backpack into the
front seat.

“Seen Cruessan?” I asked.

Schmitz spared me a quick grin. “Probably puking up his
breakfast. I made him run sprints after the pushups.”

“Master Sergeant, you can be a real bastard,” I said,
laughing. “You know he flushed out that Dingo for me yesterday and had to haul
butt to get away.”

On the other hand, this kind of training could save Will’s
life someday. And since Will had assigned himself as my primary bodyguard, I
had a real interest in keeping him alive. Besides, he’d had my back since we
were six, and I had his—which is why I didn’t protest when Schmitz pushed Will
harder than his football coach ever had.

Will came around the tents, looking pale but otherwise okay.
He walked straight to Schmitz and loomed over him. He was so much taller that
he cast a shadow over Schmitz. With his blue-black hair and narrowed dark eyes,
Will looked kind of like an ogre terrorizing a villager. But instead of running
away screaming—or going for a pitchfork—Schmitz just smirked.

“How are you, daisy?” he asked Will. “Feeling better?”

“Done puking, Master Sergeant. Ready to roll.” Will shot me
a hard look. He was no quitter, that was for sure. “You good?”

I patted my thigh pocket. My knife was strapped into its
custom-made sheath. Its white bone handle vibrated softly, a gentle buzz that
told me it was time to get to work. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

We drove out to the GPS coordinates Uncle Mike had set for
us, following a flat plain until we reached a set of foothills. Schmitz forced
the Humvee up a rocky incline. “Good visibility up here,” he shouted over the
motor. “You two can set up at the edge of that cliff.”

I looked the direction he was pointing. The part of the hill
we’d climbed had a ledge jutting out over the plain below.

Schmitz parked under a skeletal eucalyptus tree seventy
yards from the cliff’s edge. Small, prickly bushes grew here and there in the
red sand and, other than the wind, nothing stirred. I glanced behind us. It was
lonely country out here; no one to come running if trouble showed up. A little
shudder ran down my back and the knife buzzed in response. That didn’t make me
feel any better.

Uneasy, I unloaded my gear and headed to our watch point to
settle in and wait.

*****

We’d been lying prone in the dirt under some bushes, staring
over the cliff’s edge, for three hours, and we hadn’t seen a thing. My back and
elbows ached from keeping me propped up on the ground so I could see, and I
passed the time by thinking up choice names to call my uncle when I saw him
later.

“Matt, I got something,” Will whispered. He refocused the
binoculars. “Yeah, definitely something down there.”

I almost cheered. Maybe it was wrong to get excited about a
monster, but I’d hate for this stakeout to be a waste of time. Squinting, I
could just barely make out a reddish-brown figure crouched on the sandy plain
below “Dingo?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

He didn’t say anything else, so I nudged him. “And?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, still staring downrange. “This
one looks pretty big, even from here. It might be the biggest one I’ve seen.”

My best friend had said those exact words three times in the
last seventy-two hours. Every time we discovered a new monster, he had to tell
me this one was bigger than the last. Still, Will exaggerated a lot, so I stole
the binoculars to take a look myself.

I refocused the view until the beast became clear. “Huh,
this one
is
bigger,”

It was standard Dingo, all right, but huge. Rings of dark
fur ran around its tail, which wagged slowly as it sniffed the ground. “Want to
bet that it’s more than nine feet tall?”

“Nope.” Will yawned. Sweat beaded along forehead, and the
sunlight glinted on his damp hair. “I’d rather figure out how to get rid of it
without either of us ending up as dog food.”

I chuckled. “Are you regretting me blackmailing the Army
into letting you tag along on this trip?”

“Nah. You need me here to watch your back. Besides, what
were they gonna say, after we did so well hunting on our own at home? It’s not
like they agreed to let you bring a green-bean,” Will said. “Do me a favor,
though. Don’t set me up as bait this time. My hamstrings still hurt from
yesterday and Schmitz’s sprints of death this morning didn’t help.”

“No bait this time.” I wiped sweat and grit the back of my
neck. It stung; I’d gotten sunburned despite the little bit of shade from the
bushes. It was supposedly winter in the southern hemisphere in July, but the
arid landscapes of the south-central outback allowed for warmer temperatures
than I expected. In the afternoons, the temperature often rose to seventy
degrees. Not that hot, when you thought about it, but all of us wore full
battle dress uniform and camo got warm on a sunny day. No wonder Julie could
smell me this morning.

I watched the monster a bit longer before turning to Will.
“What’s it doing?”

Will took his binoculars back. “No idea. It’s down on all
fours like a regular dog, sniffing at a clump of grass. Maybe it needs to take
a leak.”

We were both so engrossed by the Dingo that a tap on my
shoulder made me jump a foot off ground. Clutching my chest in case my heart
decided to seize up, I glared at our visitor. “Dang it, Master Sergeant! You
gotta stop doing that!”

Schmitz squatted down next to me. “And you need to watch
your back, sunshine.”

“Weren’t
you
doing that?” I asked. “You said you’d
scout the area and keep watch while we spied on Scooby Doo down there.”

“That’s no excuse not to be more aware of your
surroundings.” He gave Will a hard nudge in the shoulder. “You, too, Cruessan.
You’ve had enough training for that to sink in.”

“Understood, Master Sergeant,” Will said, sounding weary.

“So what you got there, Archer?” Schmitz asked, peering over
the cliff’s edge. “That’s one big Dingo.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Want to go after it?”

Schmitz watched the monster for another minute before
answering. “Let me check in with Major Tannen, first. He’d kick my ass if I
took you two on an unauthorized hunt. Stay put.”

He headed back to the Humvee. While we waited, a wisp of
alien thought snaked into my mind.

They’re coming,
it whispered.
Keep watch.

I jerked and pressed a hand to my temple. Being chosen as
pet-wielder by a sentient knife was freaky enough, but it’d recently started
talking to me. In the back of my head.

I wasn’t sure I liked sharing brain-space with the blade; it
was hard to explain that I heard “voices” without sounding crazier than an outhouse
rat. Still, the relationship had its uses. Things like monster-radar, for
example, which let me know if trouble was on the way.

Kind of like…oh, crap, right now.

The knife set off my early-warning system with a punch of
adrenaline. Goose bumps rose on my arms, a feeling like ten-thousand nails on a
chalkboard, and my pulse raced as if I’d just sprinted a mile. Already breaking
out in a cold sweat, I stood fast and yanked the binoculars out of Will’s
hands.

“Hey, grab-master, I wasn’t using those or anything,” Will
said.

I ignored him, refocusing the binoculars to scan the area
around us. Schmitz stood by the Humvee, talking on the satellite-phone. Nothing
else moved, not even the wind, but I didn’t like the silence. I checked
downrange—the Dingo we’d been watching had disappeared.

“Will, go tell Schmitz we have incoming.”

Will didn’t ask any questions; he just ran for Schmitz,
leaving our gear in a pile on the edge of the cliff. While I waited, I
unsheathed my knife. The handle flashed a pale blue in the sunshine—a warning
that monsters were near. Yeah, trouble was definitely on its way.

A soft breeze raised the hairs on my neck and I drew in big
gulps of air, trying to slow my pulse. I could be calm. I could wait.

A low, grating growl echoed against the rocks, right behind
me.

Then again, maybe not.

Be ready,
the knife commanded.
Turn. Now!

I whirled around as the Dingo leapt over the ledge, closing
the distance between us. Its momentum tumbled us both to the ground in a
rolling snarl of limbs. Teeth I had to believe would rival a shark’s snapped at
my nose and the thing’s breath smelled like week-old hamburger left out in the
sun. Holding in a gag, I jerked my head out of its reach and twisted my hips,
rolling us one last time so that I ended up on top of the dog pile.

I lifted the knife, preparing to send this monster back to
whatever Hell it came from, but the Dingo grabbed the front of my jacket,
pulling me so close that we were literally eye-to-eye. “Not so fast there,
mate. Take a look behind you. Go on…I’ll wait.”

I sucked in a quick breath. I hadn’t exactly sat down to
chat with any of the Dingoes, and this one’s conversational tone freaked me
out. The Bears I’d fought back home had sounded like cavemen, mangling what
barely passed for English. Hearing the Dingo rasp out perfect English in an
Aussie accent made my insides quiver. Gripping the knife tight in my fist, I
chanced a quick glance over my shoulder.

Three new Dingoes had surrounded the Humvee and the
ring-tailed one we’d been watching downrange lifted Will off the ground with a
meaty paw wrapped around his throat. Will stood six-four in his socks and
weighed two-twenty—all solidly packed muscle—yet the thing held him up with
only one hand.

Schmitz was nowhere to be found. During my boot camp, he’d
taught me how to creep through the forest unnoticed; leave it to him to find a
way to hide in the middle of a desert. Okay, hopefully that meant he was
planning a diversion. I forced myself to let out a slow breath.

“So I looked,” I said, hoping I sounded snide instead of
scared. “What do you want?”

The Dingo I had penned chuckled, calling my attention back
to it. “You humans are easy to break, yeah? Let me up, or your friend loses his
head. Get it?”

If we got out of this mess alive, I’d have plenty to add to
my report. We knew the monsters’ intelligence had increased at a rapid pace,
but tactics like these were beyond anything we’d seen. I glared into the
Dingo’s beady eyes. “Yeah, I get it.”

I stood slowly, keeping my hands up. The Dingo rose on its
hind legs, as well, never breaking eye-contact. I knew it would tell me to drop
the knife any second, so I had to think of something fast, or we were all Alpo.

There weren’t many options, though. If I killed the leader,
I might have time to retrieve the knife and throw it at the one holding Will
before it broke his neck. The knife never missed—it’d hit the target. But what
about the other three?

To buy some time I asked, “So, why’d you decide
today
was the day you wanted to die?”

The Lead-Dingo was less than impressed with my trash talk.
“I don’t think you’re in a position to ask those kinds of questions, mate.” It
jerked its head toward the Humvee. “Squeeze him.”

Will cried out. I hazarded another look. Ring-tail banged
him hard against the Humvee. Even from this distance, I could tell Will’s face
was turning purple. He scrabbled at the thing’s paws with his fingers and
kicked at its midsection, but it didn’t loosen its grip.

Think, think! How would I pull this off? I could get in
position to take out the leader, but without a diversion, would I be fast
enough to save Will, too? I honestly didn’t know.

Edging toward the Humvee, I said, “There’s no reason to kill
him. I’m the one you want.”

“Well, not entirely,” the Lead-Dingo said. “But you’ll do
for a start.”

We knew the Dingoes were out here searching for someone. All
the monsters seemed to be hunting for a particular person, showing up in very
specific places and killing their way across the countryside while they
searched. We figured the Dingoes were looking for a shaman from the Aboriginal
tribes living in the area, someone who might have a crucial piece of magic to
stop them. Maybe dogface here would confirm that for me.

I shuffled a few more steps. “What do you mean ‘not entirely?’”

The Lead-Dingo snorted, sounding so much like a Labradoodle
that I had to swallow a hysterical laugh. It noticed and bared its teeth at me.
“You think I’m just an animal, senseless enough to answer your questions.
How…human.”

Okay, if I couldn’t get it talking, maybe I could piss it
off. “We’ve already established the fact that I’m human and you’re not.” I
stepped closer to the Humvee, moving slow. “But I’ll debate the animal
thing—you’re nothing but an overgrown dog in my opinion. You don’t even have
opposable thumbs.”

The beast snarled and showed me the whites of its eyes. “You
sound awfully confident for a dead boy. I’ve killed plenty like you, and I’ll
kill plenty more.”

Rage thrummed through my chest. Some of it wasn’t mine; the
knife was spoiling for a fight, too. “I’d like to see you try, because I’ve
killed plenty like you, too.” I gave the Lead-Dingo a cold, hard smile. “And
I’ll live to kill plenty more after you’re dead.”