fredbassett

Stephen glanced at his watch.

Fifteen minutes had passed since Lyle dispatched two of his men out into the night.

Without any instructions needing to be given, the members of Ryan’s team had all stopped drinking. They were simply watching and waiting. Quiet, hard-eyed and very, very dangerous.

Lyle lounged in the doorway of the hotel, looking out past the floodlit area into the darkness of the trees. The only sign of movement was his hands, as he rubbed fingers against thumbs, trying to drive out the pricking feeling.

“Are his thumbs often wrong?” asked Stephen, quietly.

“No,” said Ryan.

Stephen sighed. “So when the shit hits the fan, can I borrow something bigger than the Browning?”

“You can have a fucking rocket launcher if you know how to use it.”

“I’d prefer one of your L96s,” said Ryan’s lover, with a hopeful grin.

Which would be a splendid way to annoy Lester if he ever found out. “What about your dart gun?”

“If I was going to need that, I doubt Lyle would be acting like he’s got a bad dose of eczema.”

He was right, and for that reason the Special Forces leader would give Hart the gun he wanted. Ryan had seen him shoot and he had no doubt that his blue-eyed lover could make good use of the bolt action sniper’s rifle.

It never hurt to have someone on the team who was could handle distance work. Personally, Ryan preferred something which hit harder and was faster for close range work, which was invariably where the action ended up, in his experience, but it was always good to keep your back-up options open.

Lester would no doubt whinge about the issue of weapons to civilians, but Lester was probably sitting on his elegant butt, somewhere comfortable and safe, probably with a gin and tonic in his hand. He certainly wasn’t stuck in an isolated hotel, surrounded by dense forest on all sides, at least three miles from the nearest village, with an unknown threat lurking in the shadows. With big teeth. The sodding things always had big teeth. Or claws. Or something equally nasty like a sting.  Ryan was really starting to go off wildlife. Especially wildlife from different eras. Without a doubt, the preferable way to view the damn things was through gun sights.

A crackle from Lyle’s radio-headset broke the silence. The lieutenant listened intently, then said three words only, “Get back here.”

There was nothing casual about Lyle now. He thumbed a button on the radio control and then spoke quickly and clearly, obviously talking to the two members of his team patrolling the perimeter, “Ditzy? Phil? Watch yourselves. Vermin on the loose. If it looks more threatening than a hamster, shoot to kill.”

Ryan said calmly, “Leave cancelled, lads. Get kitted up.”

Lyle walked back into the bar, his expression grim. “I doubt Mary’s kitchen help will be turning up. My lot found a Peugeot van on the track, 2 klicks down. Something had taken the roof off.”

“Something big with teeth?”

“Or something small with a tin opener, which seems unlikely, so I’m guessing teeth were involved. And probably claws.”

“Blood?”

“Oh yes, lots of it. And a pair of legs left behind in the driver’s seat. Probably got stuck underneath the steering wheel. The torso seems to have been bitten through at the waist.”

“Cleanly?” asked Stephen, trying hard to preserve the same air of detachment as the two soldiers.

“No, messily, by the sound of it, but they can give you a better description when they get back.”

Ryan looked at Stephen and raised an eyebrow.

The younger man shrugged. “It sounds more like one big bite than lots of smaller ones, but I don’t have Connor’s encyclopaedic memory for the bloody things. Do you want me to track it?”

“It’ll probably come to that, but I’d rather talk to the lads first. Lyle, get Mary and her family together. I need to know how many civilians we’ve got to deal with. And get one of my lot to sort some kit for Dr Hart. He wants an L96.” The grey eyes fixed on Stephen were hard and businesslike, the relaxed good humour gone. “Come on, time to get changed.”

They took the stairs at a run. Within minutes, Ryan was back in his black military gear, checking the various pockets of his tac vest methodically. Stephen pulled on a long-sleeved black tee shirt, replaced trainers with boots and grabbed the dart-rifle from under the bed.

“I thought you wanted one of ours?”

“I do, but another gun won’t go amiss. They live in the middle of nowhere so it’s a fair  bet Mary’s husband will shoot, and this has got a better range than a shotgun. It might come in handy for something.”

“Aren’t you going to argue with a shoot to kill policy?” asked Ryan, his voice holding only mild interest, without challenge.

Stephen stepped up close and kissed his lover hard on the mouth. “No, I’m fucking well not. Anything capable of taking the top off a van and ripping someone in half is not something we can afford to try and take alive.”

Ryan’s smile was as cold as a winter’s frost. “Welcome to our world, Hart.” His hand snaked round the back of Stephen’s neck and he pulled him into another kiss, tongue probing roughly, forcing teeth apart, mouths then working together so hard that both men forgot to breathe. Ryan broke off the kiss and stared for a moment into Stephen’s long lashed blue eyes. “Don’t get yourself killed before I’ve had a chance to fuck you properly.”

Stephen smiled, but his expression was bleak. “I’ll do my best.” He brushed his lips across Ryan’s, then tracked down towards his neck, enjoying the rasp of the stubble against his own. He buried one final kiss on the sensitive spot in the hollow where neck and shoulder meet and breathed, “Take care, Ryan.”

And then they were heading back downstairs, Stephen trying to force the adrenaline rush under control. It was going to be a long night, he couldn’t afford to start living off his nerves this soon.

Mary Mitchell and her husband Jim were in the hallway with Lyle, the man’s arm protectively round his wife’s shoulders.

“There are three children in the house, sir,” said the lieutenant. “Seventeen, fourteen and ten.”

“And a pack of dogs running wild in the woods?” Jim Mitchell tightened his grip on his wife. “Pull the other one, Captain Ryan, it’s got bells on.”

Before the Special Forces leader had the chance to reply, Mary said quietly, “We’ve lived here for four years. We know strange things go on in the Forest. We were warned when we bought this place, but we didn’t listen. So what’s out there now?”

Warned? What the hell was the woman talking about? Curiously warred with immediate danger and curiosity lost. There’d be time for questions later, if they survived.

“Does your kitchen help’s boyfriend drive a white van?” asked Ryan.

Mary Mitchell nodded. “Are they all right?”

“Unlikely,” said Ryan, quietly. “Something took the top off the van. One person is definitely dead.”

Right on cue, Lyle’s two men came in through the doors at a run, weapons held ready.

“Report,” demanded their lieutenant, recognising that Ryan was not going to try and cover this one up.  The Witch King could deal with the aftermath. That was what he was paid for.

“One dead, sir. Male. Passenger missing. Something came out of the woods, the van driver swerved to miss it. Right front wheel went into the ditch at the side of the track. He tried to reverse backwards. Something stomped on the bonnet, then ripped the roof off. Peeled it back like the top on a tin of sodding sardines.” The soldier swallowed, glancing hesitantly at Mary and Jim Mitchell. Ryan nodded to him to continue. “Whatever it was bit the driver in half. There’s no sign of the upper torso. The blood trail goes west across the track and back into the trees.”

“What about the passenger?”

The soldier shrugged. “No sign, sir, but we saw blood and fibres on that side of the van, something had been dragged out that way.”

“Alive?”

“We didn’t find any bits left behind on that side, sir.”

“Then we go looking.” Ryan turned to Jim Mitchell. “If you’ve got a shotgun, get it ready. If you need something longer range, use the dart gun, then blast whatever you hit when it’s down, if you can. But for preference, stay inside and stay out of trouble.”

The man nodded and held his hand out for the rifle. Stephen handed it to him, together with the dart pouch. One of Ryan’s men came in carrying the sniper’s rifle he’d asked for and a long ammunition belt. It was a fair trade. Stephen checked the action and gave a slight nod. He was also carrying the Browning pistol but he still felt vaguely underdressed in comparison to the fire-power the Special Forces soldiers were packing.

Ryan handed him a the radio. “Keep that on. Lyle, I want two of your lot here to keep an eye on the house. Mary, is there any chance anyone else from the village will come up here?”

Mary Mitchell shook her head. It crossed Stephen’s mind that neither her nor her husband had mentioned phoning the police, but then with the soldiers carrying enough weaponry to start a minor war, any representatives from the local constabulary would be pretty redundant.

They headed off into the night. Four of the group, wearing infra-red night goggles, kept to the edge of the track, staring hard into the trees, rifles held ready. Stephen chambered a round into the L96, and without needing to be told, kept in the middle of the group. He knew what Ryan felt about civilians on field ops. The captain preferred those in his care to be obedient. That way he was less likely to lose his own men looking after strays. It was a view Stephen had come to respect.

Moonlight filtered down onto the stones of the track, turning puddles to mirrored glass. The road was rutted and muddy. Stephen stopped occasionally, looking for tracks but found nothing. When they came to the car, it was exactly the way Lyle’s man had described, half in the ditch, the bonnet crumpled. Stamped almost flat. The roof had been ripped off backwards, torn and twisted.

Ryan and Lyle approached the mangled wreckage and looked inside, shining a flashlight around the interior. The grim look on both men’s faces told Stephen that what was left of the driver wasn’t a pretty sight, but he was meant to be the monster expert, so he guessed the next bit wasn’t optional. He walked steadily up to the passenger door. The window had been shattered and his boots crunched on the glass. There were blood streaks on the white paintwork and scraps of what looked like a yellow sweater caught on sharp metal fragments on what was left of the door.

The interior was awash with blood, so much so that it was difficult to recognise the mangled remains of a human being. Sickness rose in his throat and he swallowed hard. He was damned if he was going to throw up in front of Ryan two days running.

He stepped back from the van and looked around at the roadway. Even the most optically challenged boy scout couldn’t fail to notice the trampled section of undergrowth leading off to the north side of the track. Stephen found what he was looking for almost immediately, helped by the soft earth bank leading down to the forest floor. He cast the torch beam around a few metres either side of the disturbed ground. His heart sunk even further. This really wasn’t turning into a good night.

Ryan watched his lover kneeling by the side of the road and knew Hart had found something. He walked over and looked down. “Shit.”

Stephen looked up, the moonlight turning his skin to alabaster. “Well, this blows the something small with a tin opener theory.” His face was set in a hard mask, all emotions, including fear, buried deep and locked down. “We won’t find the girl alive, Ryan.”

“How can you be sure?  Its jaws were occupied with the top half of her boyfriend, remember.”

Stephen shook his head. The movement was enough to disturb the fragile hold he had on his stomach. He heaved and deposited its contents into the ditch. Ryan reached down and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. Hart wasn’t the only one who had been rattled by the sight of the bloody remains in the van. He’d just heard one of his own lads retching in the darkness on the other side of the track. And this was an occasion when no-one would take the piss. That had been a bad sight. Even by their standards.

Stephen straightened up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and met the captain’s eyes without embarrassment. “There were two of them, Ryan. Either that or the fucking thing had two left feet.” He shone the torch beam into the trees, picking out broken branches well above head height. It was wasn’t going to be difficult to track, not even through the blackness of the forest. But like yesterday, there wasn’t going to be a happy ending. He realised he didn’t even know the missing girl’s name.

“What now?” asked Lyle, appearing at Stephen’s side like a wraith.

“Dr Hart finds it and we kill it,” said Ryan. Silver moonlight glinted into flint-hard eyes the colour of cold steel and reminded Stephen just how dangerous the Special Forces leader was. And he was glad of it. They would need all Ryan’s skills, and those of his men, if they were to stand any chance of taking down the creatures they were going to hunt.

“Do you know what it is?” the brown haired lieutenant asked, staring hard at a footprint that seemed depressingly close to a metre in length. He didn’t know why he bothered to ask the question really. He already knew the salient facts: it was big, it ate meat and it could take vans apart. And it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone in their right mind would want to meet on a dark night.

“It’s big and it’s a killer, that much is obvious” said Stephen. “It will rely on its sense of smell to hunt, so it’s as dangerous in the dark as it is during the day. It can bite a man in half, we’ve seen the evidence of that. As for species,” he shrugged. “I’ve told you before, I’m not Connor. I can think of a few possibilities, but knowing its Latin name before we kill it won’t necessarily help. Just make sure your men know to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.”

“What’ll bring it down best?” queried Lyle. “Head or body shots?”

“If you can, go for a head shot. Its rib cage can probably take a lot of damage before you hit anything vital.”

Lyle nodded and went off to brief the men. Minutes later, they were heading into the blackness of the trees. The conifers were planted in straight rows here, a commodity to be harvested, rather than a natural woodland. And these trees were tall, almost ready for cropping, which made it relatively easy for them to move even under the lowest branches.

That wasn’t the case for their quarry. Branches above head height were snapped and broken, some hanging loose, some littering the ground. The tracks were easy to follow, pressed deep into the soft, thick carpet of pine needles. About thirty metres off the track, Stephen saw a darker patch on the forest floor. Blood, and a slimy pile of what  proved on closer inspection to be entrails. It looked horribly like the creature had stood there for a moment and shaken its head, with what was left of the body still in its jaws.

From the size and shape of the tracks he was now almost certain he knew what they were following. What he didn’t know was what the hell they were doing here, on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean. Cutter was not going to like this. It went against everything they had observed so far about the Anomalies. All the previous ones had appeared to open a gateway to the same place, in a different time. Or so they had thought.

At a signal from Lyle the team came to a halt and immediately took up defensive positions around Ryan and Stephen.

“There are at least two of them,” said Ryan, speaking into his radio headset, in response to a question. “They’re big and they’re nasty. Take ‘em down with head-shots if you can. One might be carrying the girl. If she looks in one piece, try and see if she’s alive before shooting.” He glanced over at Lyle. “Ditzy heard something breaking branches. Incoming towards the hotel, he thinks.”

Lyle nodded, his expression grim. “That’d be right from the direction they’re taking.” He shot a questioning glance at Stephen. “Why? Why not just grab their grub and scarper back somewhere warmer and nicer than a wet forest?”

“Small brains,” said Stephen. “Either that or they’re following a scent trail from earlier, left behind by your patrols.”

“Move it!” ordered Ryan.

(Part 2, follows separately.)