Schmidt remained stock still, his weapon pointing further east toward Untermyer Fountain. The woods were abundant throughout this area near The Loch, a thickly wooded swimming and recreational area that had been cleared out by the authorities after the bodies were discovered.
“I can’t smell shit,” Schmidt whispered back. He took a few careful steps. “Night vision’s got nothing either.”
“Yeah. Weird, huh?”
“How do you mean?”
“Central Park. It should be lousy with critters. Past few moments, I haven’t seen a single thing on the ground.”
Schmidt considered this. “What about our big boy? Even if the critters are gone, he’d be there, wouldn’t he?”
“She.”
“Huh?” Schmidt asked.
“It’s a she. Remember? We killed her kid.”
Schmidt shook his head. “Fucking women.”
To their west, the trees jerked suddenly and violently, their leafy tops whipping like a teenage boy shaking his hair dry after a shower. Scores of airborne nocturnal creatures screeched and soared into the starry sky.
“Fuck me!” shouted Schmidt, spinning swiftly to his right, finger curling tight around the trigger. Tree followed the motion, tracking his own weapon on a similar arc.
Forest grew thick around them, forcing them to squeeze between trunks and navigate around roots. They both stood still and waited for a moment, listening for any motion. Once again a strong stench drifted past Tree’s nose, forcing its way up into his nostrils – an acrid smell that he could almost taste.
They both took two cautious steps forward then Tree stopped again, dropping to one knee. Schmidt sensed it and spun, his eyes flying wide.
“What is wrong with you—”
He didn’t finish. As he stared back at the former Delta Force operative, he could make out a shape stretching behind the man. A shifting of shadows, nothing more, but clearly visible. It didn’t show up on night vision, but through the distortion of the night air, he could see it. The rounded head, long snout, the telltale spaghetti snakes of tendril hair coiling around its haunches.
“Oh, God,” Schmidt whispered. Suddenly the man with the hot trigger finger couldn’t even lift his weapon.
“What?” asked Tree, his own eyes widening.
“Don’t... don’t move,” Schmidt whispered, raising his weapon inch by cautious inch.
The acrid smell wasn’t just a blowing breeze, it was a full-force gale, charging into Tree’s nose with a spoiled seaweed punch, salty and rotten. Tears formed at the corners of his squinting eyes. For once, Tree was speechless. For once, his face had no smile. Schmidt lifted his weapon, tucked it into his shoulder, careful and quiet, making no swift motions. The creature behind his teammate tensed as if in preparation for a strike. Standing just behind and to Tree’s left, its massive shoulder actually pushed aside one of the narrow trunks, shifting the leaves on top.
Dan Tree heard the rhythmic sounds of huffed breathing at his back, a dry patterned snort and blast of hot air leaving gooseflesh underneath his tactical gear. He felt the shape behind him tense slightly, recoiling.
Then it lunged.
Schmidt had managed to get his weapon level, his eyes down toward the scope, the barrel directed just above Tree’s left shoulder. This new shape stood above the kneeling operative, and the gunner actually thought he saw the slick, smooth skin coil around muscle just before the creature charged. But instead of taking down Tree who was right there, the monster detected Schmidt as the greater threat and leapt forward, knocking the kneeling man aside like a top heavy bag of apples.
“Shit!” Schmidt yelled as the creature became airborne and hurtled toward him, heavy, wet snorts blowing steam from the nostrils perched atop its snout. He had time to pull off a swift barrage of silenced gunfire, but couldn’t even tell if he’d hit the target before the four-legged thing was on top of him, its mouth pulling wide, stretching slick saliva between needle teeth. Breath flew from his lungs as he was hit full on and knocked backward, just keeping his feet, his rifle swinging toward the sky and unloading the rest of the magazine purely by muscle reflex. The large beast clamped its jaws fiercely shut, pounding fangs through cloth, skin, and muscle, puncturing the flesh at Schmidt’s left clavicle, squeezing like a vice. Jaw-clamping force was so strong, it broke bone and closed inside the rugged muscle of the pectoral, squeezing and shooting blood out from piercing wounds.
Tree stared as the creature whipped its head back, throwing chunks of gristle into the sky, Schmidt’s blank stare looking out from fallen night vision goggles as his head lolled uselessly to the right, most of the neck muscles chewed away. Tactical gear was reduced to tatters, his upper left torso a ruined, red soaked mess as he dropped to the ground, his arm flopping, and his weapon clattering.
“Dammit!” was all Tree could shout as he brought up his own weapon and blasted full auto at the gray shape as it came down on his unfortunate teammate again. The creature bucked as muffled thumps barked, and Tree was sure he saw a few puffs of dark gore spurt from wounds across the beast’s left side, but it didn’t seem to notice. Muscles shifted under the slimy, hair-patched skin, and suddenly the large tree-trunk tail lashed out like a whip and slammed Tree in the chest, knocking him back, his rifle flying. Then the large, four-legged animal turned, snarled, and charged.
Williamson jerked his head left, his long gray beard shifting under the night vision gear strapped to his face. He’d heard Schmidt’s tell-tale shout, and in the mostly quiet night, even the silenced punches of machine gun fire were audible to his well-trained ears.
“We got trouble, Bergs!” he shouted.
“I heard it too, Duck. Southeast!”
The two men pulled their weapons in tight and dashed toward the source of the sound.
“Shit!”
THUD THUD THUD THUD
“Dammit!”
THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD
Chuck McLeod heard it all, both in his earpiece and in the air itself, and it was the sound of men – his men – dying.
“Landry, on me! We’re heading south, now!”
In his earpiece, he could hear the muffled shouts of Dan Tree, who had stared death in the face a hundred times and always came out smiling. McLeod had run several dozen operations with Tree as his second hand, and he’d never heard any sense of hopelessness or desperation in his voice. But that ‘dammit’ and those muffled shouts he was hearing now... he’d be hearing them in his sleep.
If he survived, of course.
Digging deep, he tried to shut out the noises he had just heard as he and Landry charged forward into the trees.
‘Duck’ Williamson drew up slightly, slowing his pace from a run to a low jog. Up ahead, he saw a few thick trees bowed out slightly, and the huddled shape at the base of one of them looked unfortunately familiar. As the old man of the Shadows team, Williamson had seen plenty of dead bodies, and they had their own unique posture. He could identify a corpse from several yards away, and he knew damn well he was looking at one now. Then as he drew closer, he saw the second.
“Son of a bitch,” Berger said from his right as the man joined him. “I’m going to stuff a grenade up that things ass and pull the fucking pin.”
Kneeling, Williamson investigated the wreckage that was once Dan Tree. The man was slumped at an odd angle, his spine twisted unnaturally, and the tree behind him, a thick oak, was splintered where it looked like his body struck at incredible velocity. Blood had pooled on his lips from internal injuries and smeared down his smoothly-shaven face that had always held some kind of smile. His eyes were open and staring off into the empty darkness, a darkness no doubt blacker and emptier than their Central Park surroundings, which were cast in the pallor of the New York City skyline. It was indeed the city that never sleeps.