The Last Hunter - Collected Edition (54 page)

17

Eight heads crane around in my direction. Fifteen black eyes stare at me, waiting for me to move. The one with a missing eye steps to the front of the pack, his head poking forward with each step. Brave for a turkuin, I think. The name ‘turkuin’ is my own. I’ve eaten three of them over the past years, and they’re pretty tasty, but they’re also rare in the underground. They’re skittish and scatter at the slightest hint of odor or shift in the breeze. That the one-eyed male, the largest of the bunch, is staring me down is strange.

Turkuins are, as my oh-so-creative name insinuates, something like a cross between a turkey and a penguin—on steroids. Their bodies are covered in tightly bunched, small feathers—white in the front and black in the back. They also have long, bright orange feathers over their eyes that wrap around the sides of their heads like some kind of sci-fi movie mascara. They’re usually about three feet tall, but they have powerful legs that make them fast, and sharp claws that make them dangerous. Their hooked beaks are also quite sharp. But turkuins are not at all aggressive.

Until now.

The male bobs his head and takes another step toward me. He’s acting like a male ostrich protecting his harem. The orange feathers over his eyes and on the side of his head flare out. He’s trying to intimidate me.

Me
. A hunter.

Turkuins are normally fearful, but if they get a whiff of—or see—a hunter, they squawk in panic, bolting in whatever direction they’re facing. It’s the easiest way to catch them. Just jump out and watch as one inevitably careens into a wall and knocks itself silly.

So why is this turkuin not panicking? More than that, why does old one-eye here look like he’s about to attack me?

“I’d like to leave you alone,” I say to one-eye, “but I need to have a look inside.” The birds have built a nesting area inside Clark Station 1, gaining entrance through a large rusted out hole where the front door used to be.

I take hold of Whipsnap and pull. It springs open in my hand. The sudden appearance of a weapon should have been enough to sap the bird’s bravery, but it just stops for a moment, rotates its head back and forth and blinks its lone eye at me. Then it steps forward again and lets out a squawk that is nearly a growl. The feathers on its head shake and rattle. The seven other birds fan out and join the hunt.

I nearly laugh. The outside world equivalent might be a pack of snarling Chihuahuas. Then again, a pack of Chihuahuas could probably get in a few good bites. And these birds’ beaks are sharp enough to take off a finger or take a scoop out of an arm, never mind their claws, or the fact that I’ve never actually seen them fight. I’m not sure what to expect.

The predatory pack lowers their heads like stalking cats.

I shout, “Heeya! Heeya!” and shake Whipsnap at them.

Eight sets of orange feathers flare out and shake. It’s a rather spectacular display, the purpose of which still eludes me, that is, until they attack. The vibrant feathers held my gaze for just a moment, but it was long enough for me not to see the muscles in their legs coil. All eight birds rush me as one unit. One-eye leads the charge, followed by four on the ground. The other three leap into the air, flapping their feeble wings hard enough to carry them the distance to me.

The sudden and coordinated attack surprises me. I flinch and stumble back, nearly tripping over the ground. Clumsy!

In the moment before the birds reach me, I decide that for some reason I can’t fathom, these creatures either aren’t recognizing me as a hunter, or they have somehow forgotten why they feared hunters in the first place. Perhaps they’re inspired by the jungle setting. Or the very different magnetic field at the equator. The reason why they’re no longer afraid of a hunter isn’t important. What
is
important is that I give them a reason to fear one now.

As one-eye reaches me, he stabs out with his beak, but thanks to the one eye, his depth perception is all screwed up and he pecks the air a foot in front of me. I sidestep and bring Whipsnap’s blade down like a guillotine. One-eye’s head falls to the ground, stopping the other turkuins in their tracks. The three in the air spasm and fall ungracefully to the ground.

One-eye’s headless body keeps right on running until it smacks into a tree and flops over. The legs continue moving, spinning the body in rapid circles and spraying blood like a spin art toy. As the body slows to a twitchy stop, I calmly turn my head back to the flock. Their flared feathers fold slowly down. The birds lean their heads away from me, and take a few careful backward steps.

“Heeya!” I shout and the birds explode into a panicked retreat, squawking as they smash through the underbrush and disappear into the jungle.

“Well, one-eye,” I say, looking down at the severed head. “You kind of brought that on yourself. But don’t worry; I won’t let you go to waste.” I pick up the now motionless turkuin body and carry it to the entryway of Clark Station 1. The bird isn’t that heavy, maybe forty pounds, but when I place it on the ground next to the rusted out hole, I feel exhausted.

I lean against the metal wall and catch my breath. I’m soaked with sweat, too. A cold drip strikes my shoulder. It’s followed by another. And another. That’s when I notice a loud hiss from above. The hiss grows louder by the moment. I turn toward the source of the sound and see the canopy shaking. The hiss grows louder still, but is then drowned out by a massive boom.

The storm has arrived.

And suddenly, it’s on top of me.

The rainwater strikes the canopy first, filtering down to the forest floor as waterfalls pour from large leaves. The already dim forest floor grows darker. It’s as though night has fallen in the middle of the day.

I put my head under a nearby trickle of water falling from above and catch some of it in my mouth. After drinking several mouthfuls, I retrieve one-eye’s corpse and enter the dry interior of Clark Station 1. I’ll need to skin and gut one-eye before I can cook and dry his flesh, all of which I can do fairly rapidly, but that can wait. Right now, I need to search for clues.

Clark Station 1 is in shambles. The first few rooms are missing walls. The contents of the rooms are wet and rotting, or rusted. Brightly colored splotches of mold cover nearly everything. Tobias’s room is non-existent, any trace of him is destroyed. There are bits of cloth here and there—the remnants of what the turkuins didn’t use to create their nests. Em’s room is the same. The room I lived in during my stay with my adopted family has a large hole in the ceiling through which gouts of rain now pour, and have done so several times in the past. A layer of foul smelling sludge coats the floor.

I’m about to give up when I notice a closed door. Luca’s room. If the door has remained closed all this time, the rot might be far less. I rush to the door, take hold of the handle and yank. Not only does the door open, but it also breaks free. My momentum pulls me back and I fall, taking the door with me. As I lay on the floor, bracing the door above my head, I realize I’ve made a few clumsy errors recently.

With my connection to the continent gone, am I becoming my old clumsy self again?

Pushing the door away takes some effort and I realize what’s happening. I’m tired. Really tired. Strangely tired.

I’ll sleep, I decide, when I’m done with my search.

My legs shake as I stand, and I frown.
What’s happening to me?

Pushing past my growing exhaustion, I stumble into the room, bracing myself against the wall. There’s no hole in the ceiling, no water on the floor and no mold anywhere. Luca’s room has been spared. Not for much longer now that I’ve pulled the door off, but long enough for me to find a clue about where the others are, if there is even a clue to be found.

Despite the lack of rot, the room is in shambles, like there was a fight. The small desk is broken and tipped over. Luca’s rock collection is strewn on the floor. And the blankets from his bed dangle from where they snagged a screw in the wall.

This is where they found him
, I think. While Ninnis and Kainda were busy killing Tobias and maiming Em and me, two other hunters, Preeg and Pyke, kidnapped Luca. They must have found him here. And he put up a fight. He might be my duplicate physically, but he’s far tougher than I was at his age. I would have likely wilted in the face of danger and passed out like one of those fainting goats.

A chill starts in my legs and works its way up, spreading goose bumps over my skin. When it hits my stomach, it swirls with nausea. Then the chill moves up, spreads out to my arms and is gone.

What the…

My physical condition distracts me for just a moment. That’s when I look at Luca’s small bed. It was built from the homemade metal crib I slept in as a newborn baby. The mattress is old and flattened, but I know it hides something important. I lift the mattress up and find Luca’s drawings and a single crayon hidden inside an old, large Ziploc bag. Tobias never saw these pictures. Each one is a sketch of some event that Luca witnessed through my eyes. The image on top is easily recognizable. Despite it being a child’s drawing, the Nephilim with an arrow in his forehead is obviously Ull. One of my better moments.

A second chill rips up through my body. This time it is followed by a sharp pain in my chest. I pitch forward with a moan and grit my teeth against the ache.

What is happening to me?

It’s a question I can no longer ignore, and I’m pretty sure there is nothing to find here. I stuff the sealed drawings into a pouch, and then look down to where the pain still burns on my chest.

What I see sucks the air from my lungs. The skin around the single razor thin wound across my chest is bright pink. But it’s the yellow puss oozing from the wound that makes me cringe.

Had I still been underground I would kill a centipede, pry open the wound, stuff the goopy flesh inside the wound and wait for it to do its thing. But out here, in a jungle filled with unrecognizable plants, I’d be as likely to do more harm than good.

I could be back underground and possibly hunt down a centipede in the next two hours, but the chills are almost constant now, and I now know the sweat is from a fever. I won’t be going anywhere. My body is going to have to handle this infection on its own. After removing Whipsnap from my waist, I climb up into the small bed, yank the blanket down from the wall and curl up into a fetal position. I look up at the ceiling and remember the last time I saw this view. It was the day we left Antarctica. My parents woke me up with soft cooing voices.

“Solomon,” my mother said, though it was more like she was singing my name, “It’s time to go home.”

“I am home,” I reply to the memory, somehow giving voice to the emotions I felt at the time. “Antarktos is my home. Don’t make me leave.”

When my father picks me up, I start crying. I don’t want to leave.

“Are you ever going to let me hold you without crying?” my father asks with a chuckle.

“Give him to Aimee,” my mother says. “He adores her.”

I cried louder, somehow knowing it would be the last time I saw this room. And while my baby-self was mistaken, I remember my sorrow keenly. The memory becomes a dream as I slip into a deep, defenseless sleep.

18

I used to have dreams about falling. From the sides of buildings. From airplanes. From cliffs. I would fall, screaming, but I would never actually land. Instead, I would wake at the last possible moment. But the strangeness always continued because I would jolt in the bed like I’d actually just fallen—not from a cliff mind you, but at least a couple inches off the mattress. I often wondered if I’d actually somehow levitated. Had I known about my abilities then, I might have believed it was possible.

But this dream is nothing like that. I’m not sure where my fall began. I’m high. Really high. So I must have fallen out of an airplane or a space shuttle, because I can see Antarctica. The whole continent—green, but recognizable by its shape. As it occurs to me that I must actually be in space, I’m suddenly falling through the atmosphere. Clouds obscure my view. They’re heavy with rain and they shimmer with light.

I pass through the storm as streaks of hot lightning flash past. Thunder booms instantaneously, shaking my body and drowning out my screams. Cold water pelts my body. Hail follows, so thick that it feels like I’m being punched all over. Something about the storm feels familiar.

You found me
, I think, but I’m not sure who I’m talking to.

Then I’m through the clouds and the land below is revealed. It looks like an aerial view of the Brazilian rainforest, stretching as far as I can see. I streak down to meet the ground. This is where I’d normally wake up. But my fall becomes suspended, as though the wind is buffeting me.

Am I flying?
I wonder, as the land passes by below.

A gray streak catches my eye and soon I’m passing over it.

It’s a wall. The ruins of a very tall, stone wall. A Nephilim sized wall.

Before I can ruminate on the appearance of the wall, I’m beyond it. A river twists through the jungle beneath me, flowing in the opposite direction, toward the coast. The river ends at a massive lake, beyond which I see mountains, but I don’t get a good look because I’m falling again.

A voice cuts through the wind rushing by my ears. The single word is distant, but shouted. “Soooolomoooon.”

My descent is angled toward the far shore. I’m going to miss the water entirely.

“Soooooolomoooon!”

Who is that?

“Over here!”

The voice is closer now. Familiar.

There’s a small beach on the shoreline. I see a small body standing on it, arms waving madly. “Sol! I’m here! I’m right he—”

I gasp, flail and fall out of the small bed.

Pain stabs my eyes. It’s bright! I turn myself over, covering my head and fish for my sunglasses. Once I get them on, I sit up and take in my surroundings. I’m still in Luca’s bedroom, which was mine when I was an infant. But a lot has changed. For starters, the roof is missing. I can tell the storm is gone because the leaves overhead glow bright green under the sun’s gaze. I turn away from the view above, because it stings my eyes, even through the dark lenses.

The room is a disaster. It looked rummaged through before. Now it looks like a hurricane tore through. Everything is wet. I’m lying in a few inches of water. And there are little white golf balls everywhere.

Hail.

The storm.

“You found me,” I say, remembering the dream.

I look up through the torn open roof. Was the storm really here because of me? The answer is strangely obvious.

Yes.

The storm came when I was born.

It came again upon my return to the continent.

And now, it greets me again as I rise from Tartarus.

But what does it mean?

I push myself up and wince. The pain in my chest is sharp. I glance down and see that the yellow puss is now gone, perhaps washed away by the rain I apparently slept through. But my skin is still red, and sore, and though I’m rested, I still feel quite weak.

Despite my far-from-perfect condition, the subject doesn’t hold my attention for long. I feel my mind pulled between the strangeness of the storm and the meaning of my dream. But I don’t get to ponder either line of thought, because I’m not alone. A man screams, his voice a mixture of vitriol and fear. And happily, the sound is not directed at me.

When a squawk answers the shout, I know who the man is screaming at. I find Whipsnap on the floor next to me, pick it up and lean out the door. Looking down the ruined hallway toward the main living area where the rusted out door was previously—the whole side of the building is now missing—I see the Arab man. He wields a broken branch like a club, swinging it in wide circles to keep the seven turkuins away. They no doubt returned to find their nesting grounds in ruins and another person—not a hunter this time—taking shelter from the storm next to the corpse of their former pack leader.

Both sides of this fight have tried to kill me. I’m almost resigned to let it play out. I’d already determined that the man would have to survive on his own. But letting the man be eaten right in front of me... It’s not right.

With a sigh, I step out of the room and head for the ruined living area. Neither the man, nor the predatory birds hear me coming, so when I clear my throat and all eight of them shriek in surprise, I can’t help but smile. The turkuins react as they should, by squawking in fright, turning a quick one-eighty and bolting in a straight line. Five of them escape unharmed. One slams head first into a metal wall and snaps its neck. Another impales itself on the sharp end of a broken chair leg. It squawks in pain, trying to free itself.

Seeing the creature is dying and suffering, I walk toward it. Despite its perilous situation, the bird attempts to peck me with its sharp beak when I get close. As it strikes out at me, I catch its neck and give it a hard yank. Its life ends in a quick, painless crack. When I let go, the head flops to the side.

I turn to the man. His eyes are wide. He looks at the crude club in his hands, and then to Whipsnap. He backs away, no doubt remembering how I defeated him when he was armed with modern weapons.

I feel pity for the terrified man as he shuffles out of the ruined structure. I decide to give him a knife. Maybe he’ll have a fighting chance. It’s the least I can do for a man who tried to put a bullet in my head. “Wait,” I say. “Hold on.”

The man screams in response and takes off into the jungle. I’m about to pursue when a much more familiar call rips through the jungle. It’s a cresty. A big one by the sound of it. More sounds follow. Snapping branches. Heavy foot falls.

When the Arab screams again, it’s a pitch I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a man reach before.

The cresty roars again. The hunt is on.

And I know it will end quickly.

I also know that there’s nothing I can do to help the man. Without my abilities, I wouldn’t fare much better against a full-grown cresty than Kainda did. And cresties hunt in packs. The only thing I can do is wait for the feeding to begin and then head in the opposite direction.

But the hunt ends long before the cresties catch the man. An explosion tears through the jungle. The man must have triggered his own tripwire. I’m sorry the man died, but being blown to bits is a merciful death compared to being eaten alive. Unfortunately, it creates a problem for me. The man’s shredded body might dissuade the cresties from eating it. They prefer to kill their prey—not have it blown to bits. The explosion most likely turned them away as well.

The hunt will continue.

I duck out of Clark Station 1, turn right and sprint. There are turkuins, tripwires, armed men, cresties and who knows what else lurking in the jungle, but if I don’t put some distance between me and the cresties that I know for sure are behind me, they’ll catch my scent and hunt me down. My best bet is to get as far away as I can and hope the dinosaurs pick up on the strong turkuin scent trail. Because if they come for me, I’m in for a world of pain.

A shriek cries out behind me.

The hunt is resumed.

World of pain it is.