Matt Archer: Monster Hunter (Matt Archer #1) (7 page)

“As you can see, there’s a hole in the paneling at the back
of the hut. The ‘Gator—’” Colonel Black nodded to me, “that’s the code name—was
intelligent enough to pull away the wood and grab the victim from her bed.” The
colonel paused to flip a slide on his laptop, projecting the image of a small
wooden house with a gap in the back wall. “They’re efficient hunters. In every
attack we’ve seen, they surveyed an area, then stalked their victims. We still
haven’t found any dens, either. They hide themselves well. All we really know
is that they’re smart enough to be extremely dangerous.”

I threw my hand up, forgetting this wasn’t school. A few of
the men chuckled. “Sir, what exactly are these things? The monster we
killed…well, it looked like a bear, but it didn’t, if you get what I mean. It
had a bear’s fur and the same kind of big paws like a grizzly. But the face was
all wrong; it was squashed and it had a bigger snout, with these tusk things,
like a boar would have. Its legs and arms were longer too, built kinda like
Chewbacca, except not as nice.” That got another few laughs. “Oh, and its blood
was the color of spicy mustard.”

Colonel Black nodded. “That’s it in a nutshell, Matt. They
seem to be hyper-intelligent, mutated animals. And they’re getting smarter at an
accelerated rate.” He pulled up a new slide. “This one, taken in Peru, is of a
Gator.”

The creature resembled a cross between a crocodile and a
giant iguana. It had a flatter face with pointy horns along its head and back
like an iguana, but its hide was thicker, with larger scales, and its taloned
feet were webbed, like a crocodile’s. The Gator’s arms and legs were
human-length and muscular. In the picture, the monster lay crumpled on a jungle
floor, bright green blood oozing from its slit throat.

Holy
Jurassic
Park
reject. I scooted my chair away from the screen. “Maybe you
should call it a Croc. It doesn’t look like an alligator.”

Mike laughed from the back of the room. “The scientists told
us that too, but we’d already named it.”

I rolled my eyes. Middle school science had taught me the
difference. Shouldn’t these guys know, too?

Mike sat down behind me and put his hands on my shoulders.
“No matter what we call them, the monsters hunt humans. That first picture, of
the hut? The Gator took a pregnant woman. It ate her and the unborn baby.”

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, feeling
truly sick. “Oh, my God.”

“Gentlemen, we’re finished for now,” Colonel Black said.
“Next briefing at fifteen-hundred. Dismissed.”

Metal chairs scraped the floor as the soldiers stood. No one
said a word, but once they made it into the hall, I could hear them whispering.
Mike gave my shoulder a squeeze and got up to shut the door again. When he came
back, his face was blank, but his muscles were bunched with tension under his
BDUs.

“Matt, Colonel Black has some things to tell you. You’ve
been given clearance; it’s time you knew what was going on. This isn’t going to
be easy to hear.” He glanced at the colonel. “We have an idea of where the
monsters are coming from.”

“You mean this isn’t some weird pollution problem?” I asked.
“I figured some animals got into some toxic waste like the Joker in
Batman
and turned
into monsters.”

Colonel Black pulled a chair around so we huddled together
in a little group. “No. They were created.”

“By terrorists? They can do that?”

The colonel shook his head. “Not by humans.”

My toes curled up inside my running shoes. Just when I
thought this couldn’t get worse, it did. “Aliens?”

“No,” the colonel said. “Something equally fantastic, though.”

My face must’ve turned green, because he hurried to explain.
“Really bizarre cases of malicious mischief have been occurring worldwide for
the last few years. For example, one of the stone Gargoyles at Notre Dame came
to life a few months ago. It flew off the cathedral’s roof and pelted the crowd
with rocks. The media played it off as some kind of stunt, but we knew better.
For the most part, no one has died in any of these incidents. Scared, sure;
hurt sometimes, too. Never killed. The monsters represent a more organized
assault.”

Too much information. My brain wanted to explode, and they
hadn’t even told me the punch line. “So, where are they coming from, then?”

The colonel rubbed his hands together like they were cold.
“Several months ago, we received intelligence reports that leaders of mystical
religions had started conducting rites and rituals not seen for
centuries—rituals to ward off evil. We wondered if the activity was related to
attacks, so we sent delegates to speak with some of these medicine men,
shamans, witch-doctors and priests.”

“What kind of evil?” I whispered, like if I said it louder,
a poltergeist would show up.

“Every religion believes in a dark force of some kind—evil
spirits, demons, and the like.” Colonel Black’s eyes never left mine. “All the
leaders we spoke with said a war was coming. Seems the forces of darkness, no
matter what religion you may or may not believe in, have come together to wage
war on humankind.”

I looked at Mike. He stared back without a hint of a smile.
Holy crap, they were serious. I wrapped my arms around my chest. “Where do the
knives fit in?”

“Conventional warfare doesn’t exactly work against things
that go bump in the night, Matt,” Mike said. “We tried flame throwers on the
Gators, and they walked right through the blaze. We tossed grenades; all that
did was stun them. Bullets are useless. Parker says the same thing about the
Pandas. My hunting knife didn’t make a dent in the monster we encountered last
week. Short of a bomb blast, you name it, we tried it. Nothing we have kills
them.” He nodded at the blade in my lap. “It takes special tools to stop these
things.”

“So why do they work when nothing else does?” I asked.

Colonel Black exchanged a glance with Mike again, then said,
“When we went to Peru to check out the Gators, we met Jorge. He’s…a very
unusual man.”

Another truck rumbled by and Mike got up to pace. I waited.

“He’s a medicine man to several local tribes in the
Amazon—and he went to Yale.” Colonel Black raised an eyebrow. “Jorge holds a
Masters in chemistry, of all things. When he was a child, some missionaries
came to his tribe. One of them was a high school science teacher. Jorge said he
followed the man around, learning everything he could—including English.”

Mike smiled. “The teacher was from New England, so Jorge
speaks English with this very formal, clipped accent. Bit of a shock if you
aren’t expecting it.”

“Anyway,” the colonel said, “the missionaries convinced his
family to allow Jorge to study in the United States. He lived here for about fifteen
years before returning to Peru.”

“Wait. Jorge’s got a chemistry degree, and he lives in the
rainforest?” I asked. Not what I’d do, but, okay.

“It’s his home, Matt. He chooses to live among his people
and tend to their needs, as his father did,” Colonel Black said.

“So how did he get tangled up in all this stuff?”

“Well,” the colonel said, “Jorge says the monster attacks
were foretold by his elders. He believes the creatures were created by dark
spirits who want to cleanse the earth of the human race, and the knives are the
only weapons that can stop them.”

“So Jorge says we’re facing terrors from heaven knows
where?” I asked. “Until we’re wiped out?”

“It would seem so.” Colonel Black’s expression was every bit
as serious as Mike’s. “The monsters are probably just the beginning. A
first-strike, maybe to see how well-defended we are.”

My stomach sank. “Then why doesn’t Jorge make more knives?
That’d be what I’d do if the devil was planning to open the gate to Hell.”

“Jorge had enough material to make six, but didn’t, on
purpose. We asked if he could make more and he told us five was a powerful
magical number,” the colonel said. “Magical numbers seem to matter. The number
thirteen is considered significant in many cultures. The moon has thirteen
cycles per year, for example. And the Gators showed up in a pack of thirteen
last fall. Then thirteen Pandas arrived in the spring.”

“But if there were only thirteen,” I asked, “then why
haven’t Ramirez and Parker finished theirs off yet? I’d think they could kill off
that many in just a few months.”

“You know what a lunar eclipse is?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. The earth orbits between the sun and moon,
which casts a shadow on the moon.”

“Right,” Colonel Black said. “Sometimes they’re partial
eclipses, and don’t cover the whole moon. Other times they’re full, causing the
night to be darker, under a blood-red moon. Full eclipses only come every three
to four years. But when we have them, there are three in a year’s time. There
was one last October—visible on every continent but Africa. Then another in
April, again not visible in Africa. Finally, we had one more, last month, and
this one was visible in Africa, but not in Australia.”

I raised my eyebrows. The timing couldn’t be coincidence.

“The first Gators came the night of the October eclipse last
year. Another thirteen Gators came in April, in addition to some new creatures,
the Pandas and Dingoes. Thirteen more Pandas and Gators came last month, after
the September eclipse, and now we have new monsters in Billings and Africa, but
no new Dingoes, from what we’ve heard.”

“So we ended up with thirty-nine Gators, and twenty-six
Pandas?” No wonder Parker and Ramirez had their hands full.

“Yes. Our assumption is that there are only thirteen
monsters in Montana, Australia, and Botswana,” the colonel said. “There won’t
be another full eclipse for two years, so Jorge believes once we exterminate
these beasts, they won’t return for a while.”

“Good thing.” I thought for a minute. “But why did the
monsters show up in those places? Why not London, or New York City? They’d do a
lot of damage in a big city.”

Colonel Black spread his hands. “Our theory is that the
other monsters chose those locations because some powerful shaman lives there.
Ancient, mystical religions are practiced in each of those areas. So maybe the
monsters are targeting holy men that pose a significant threat, like Jorge. We
think the Gators hit Peru because he made weapons that could kill dark
creatures.”

“Why Montana, though?” I asked. “There aren’t any big-time
shamans in Billings, are there?”

Mike winced. “Matt, there weren’t any monsters in the U.S.
until I brought the knife back home.”

There was a sharp note of guilt in his voice that made me
nervous. “But—”

He cut me off. “I’m the only wielder who went home. The
general wanted a knife stateside while we assessed the threat, so I was
released from duty while the others were sent abroad to investigate other
paranormal events. Billings isn’t exactly a prime target, which leads me to
believe none of this is a coincidence. I brought the magic of the knife home
last spring. And then we had a lunar eclipse in September. So monsters came to
Billings.”

“Then…why are they still sending you to Afghanistan? If
there are monsters here, you should stay and help me.” I looked at the colonel.
“Right? He can stay now.”

Colonel Black shook his head. “Major Tannen has a mission
there, son.”

Mike caught hold of my arm and squeezed. “The monsters
aren’t the only threat. I’m leading a small team into Afghanistan to check out
some newly reported supernatural incidents. The peacekeeping effort is my
cover.”

“So you can’t stay here,” I said.

“I wish I could, but I’m needed elsewhere.” Mike let my arm
go, his eyes sad. “The human race is in this together, Chief. Most people just
don’t know it yet, and we hope they never find out.”

I walked to the window, staring out at the traffic moving
along the road. I was smart enough to understand what this meant, even if I was
frightened out of my mind. Was I going to act like a scared brat, knowing more
pregnant women, maybe even kids, could be killed if I begged Mike to stay?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m in.”

* * *

Mike and I jogged along the same road we’d taken to the
woods in the morning, but now it was busy, with trucks and Humvees rattling by.
Squatty, gray buildings lined the street, all square and boring, especially
compared to the forest and mountains abutting the base. Camo was everywhere and
barked orders filled the air.

The afternoon had warmed up into the seventies so I traded
the sweats for shorts and a t-shirt—all standard issue. I felt better, too.
Having a plan, even in the face of total insanity, was better than curling up
in a corner.

“So when do I get my Class B uniform?”

Mike snorted. “When you’re eighteen, and then only if you
enlist. I’d prefer that you go to college first and come in as an officer. For
now, though, let’s just focus on keeping you alive that long, okay?”

I hoped he was kind of joking about the keeping me alive
part, but I didn’t think so. “Sure, okay.”

We headed for the woods at a gentle trot. Now that I wasn’t
totally freaked and alone in the dark, I could appreciate the juniper and
pinyon trees, along with a scattered aspen here or there. My Plant Science
merit badge came in handy sometimes. As the branches swayed, the warm afternoon
breeze filled with the sharp scent of pine. Sagebrush grew up along the trees,
covering the ground, its grayish-green fronds poking out in all directions. It
was a relaxing scene when you weren’t expecting an ambush.

At the trailhead, we met up with a soldier I recognized from
the meeting this morning.

“Oy, Major. So, this is the wunderkind.” Master Sergeant
Schmitz was the smallest member of the team, only about five-eight, but totally
spit and polish. His hair was a faint, dark smudge on his skull, and his brown
eyes darted constantly, like he expected enemies to leap from the bushes at any
second. “Hello, Mr. Archer. Just so you know, I’m here to teach you something.”