CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As a ghost-ridden gloom descended across the haunted mountain range, Drake stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the craziest woman he had ever known.
“You think they’ll come tonight?” she whispered, clouds of breath escaping her lips.
“I hope so,” Drake said. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to dish out some comeuppance to a band of cold-blooded killers like these. But I do wish Dahl was here.”
Alicia made a show of staring at his groin. “Why? Did your balls fall off?”
“He’d love this. No complications. No guesswork. Just plain, old fashioned retribution and a chance to help good people out. Maybe save their loved ones.”
Hayden came up behind them. “We’re as ready as can be,” she said. “They’re armed with a mixture of farming tools, knives and even a saucepan or two.”
“Bows and arrows?”
“A few. In the right hands. And on the right roofs.”
“Then we’re ready.”
“One thing is for sure,” Hayden said. “El monstruo won’t be expecting us.”
“Don’t say that.” Alicia stared at the gathering dark, the bruised mountains, the fading shapes and the gray clouds. “They can’t be monsters.”
“You scared of men without faces, Alicia? Vampire bats? Alpacas?”
“Shit, aren’t you?”
Drake knew his face was shrouded. “A little.”
“What the hell is an alpaca anyway?”
“Imagine a llama but ten times more ferocious.”
Alicia shuddered. “It’s healthy to be scared.”
“Don’t let Smyth hear you say that.”
“He wouldn’t hear. Smyth’s a mess right now, and so is Lauren.”
“The team is split,” Hayden agreed. “In more than just a physical way. And I’m sorry I contributed to that.”
Drake shrugged. “Personal is personal, love,” he said. “We’re soldiers, cut and dried. When we go to work it’s nothing but professional.”
A chill wind rolled out of the mountains, passing through them. Drake found himself wondering what it had encountered along the way, what kind of wild creature it might have brushed past. The lofty heights of the Andes stood in perennial stillness, but the lower ranges harbored a multitude of claws, fangs and beings that wished harm on others. A deep silence hung over the village and he knew nobody would get a moment of sleep tonight.
“You hear that?” Alicia said suddenly.
“What?”
She listened. “Maybe nothing. Maybe a falling rock.”
Drake remembered Brynn’s words. They come down out of the mountains. His Glock was holstered but ready; his new H&K hanging loose at his side. They couldn’t just shoot anybody in cold blood, but he relished getting close to some of these “monsters”.
Every day some upstart met his match. Some ruthless killer got his just desserts. And some overbearing trailblazer was taken down. This was about to be one of those days and a lesson learned for all the cowards that preyed on those that could not defend themselves.
And monsters? They found equals too.
He listened hard but heard no sounds. The contrast of the vast mountain range and the arcane stillness it produced to the concrete jungles they usually fought in was immense, and off-putting. Drake had positioned himself upon the highest roof overlooking the point where the village was normally infiltrated, but lookouts were everywhere. All primed, all ready. They were crouched down, partially concealed.
Alicia squinted at the shadows that surrounded the village of Nuno.
“What the fuck is that?”
Drake cleared his throat, rather than answer. He was not a gullible man but the shape that crawled inside the shadows was not normal. Human beings didn’t move that way. It was a snap thought, but as authentic as rock, as earth, as dirt. It was a primeval truth, and triggered a primeval fear.
The closeness of Alicia and Hayden calmed him, the old training centered him, enabled him to look through more dubious eyes. But still…
It crawled like a spider, limbs rising sharply and then quickly creeping along. It had legs and, probably, arms. It was coated all in black, but had no real form in the dark. It moved swiftly, a hungry tarantula, causing the hairs along the nape of Drake’s neck to stand up. It scuttled along at such a rate, and unlit, that he could make no decision so quickly and now saw exactly what the villagers saw.
“Monsters.”
They came as a pack, crawling along one after another, side by side, and they made no sound, but when the villagers saw them they began to backpedal and to scream.
“Holy crap,” Hayden breathed.
“There’s nothing holy in that,” a voice said from behind them, making them start. “It is el monstruo.”
“We’re badly prepared,” Drake acknowledged. “We gotta hope that noise wins the night, pal.”
“Noise?”
Drake hefted the H&K. “You say meet el monstruo. I say meet el Kock.”
Hayden shone their meagre flashlights from the roof down into the street as those villagers that had not taken flight lit torches and put tinder to a small bonfire built in the main square. Light was their ally now.
Drake aimed at the skies.
Hayden’s flashlight lit the backs of the sneaking creatures. The extra light picked out material and glistening flesh. It picked out more form.
“I think… I think they may be human.”
Drake saw the creatures converge on a house, scramble around its base and then bang at the windows as if testing for an entry point. They didn’t stand on two legs, but reached up from the ground, balancing on one appendage. So far, they’d done nothing illegal.
He shrugged. Two villagers huddled in an empty doorway — a man and a woman, both dressed in thick, bright clothing — and now the man thrust the woman behind him as the creatures swarmed around and spotted them.
“You see that?” Hayden whispered in his ear.
“Got it.” He watched through the scope.
Alicia commented from another direction. “I got at least half a dozen of the mothers sneaking right below me. Looks like a trail of giant ants.”
Drake watched one of the creatures scuttle full-pelt at the man in the doorway and then leap straight for his throat. It reminded him of a documentary he’d once seen where a large spider leapt unexpectedly at a man’s face, understandably scaring the hell out of him. The creature struck the man who, despite his obvious fear and revulsion, struck out. The creature still hit however, sending him staggering back against the woman, who screamed. Drake decided enough was enough.
“Let there be noise.”
Gunfire rang out inside the village. The residents had been warned it would happen and how to take cover. Drake stitched a line in the brickwork across the top of the door and watched for the creatures’ reactions.
Bodies froze and heads rose, almost as if sniffing the air then, in slow motion, a hundred heads all turned upwards, finding Drake, Hayden and Alicia.
“Fuck, that’s creepy,” Alicia hissed.
“I can’t fire on them,” Drake said. “They haven’t done anything except look scary.”
“Well, it ain’t Halloween,” Alicia said. “And imitating giant spiders is felony enough for this girl.” She fired downwards between the creatures, her bullets chipping at the few paving flags down there or sinking straight into the earth. Instantly, the creatures broke for it, swarming around the building or up against its vertical side. Drake had a sudden, irrational fear that they might be climbing the brickwork, scurrying up to launch an attack at them.
He jerked away, then checked himself. Stop being a knob! But it was the lack of sound, the silent communications, the faceless and almost formless bodies, the horrendous way in which they moved. With tough discipline he forced himself to look down the side of the building, saw the creatures pressed up against it or banging at the wooden door.