“Before what?” I asked.
Mike shook his head. He drove a few miles, not saying anything, then pulled over at a rest stop. By then, black spots were dancing in front of my eyes again and my skull felt too heavy for my neck. When he parked, Mike reached over and slapped me pretty hard. My head hit the headrest and I brought my hand up to my cheek in a daze.
“Matt! Stay with me. We’ve got a lot to cover and I need you to focus,” he said. He blew out a harsh breath. “I can’t believe the knife let you wield it.”
I blinked fast to clear my vision, not understanding a word he said. “What?”
“You remember when I went on that short mission last year?”
Mike’s voice had a steeliness to it. Freaked out or not, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like where this was headed. I gulped and cleared my throat; my mouth tasted all skanky. It was all I could do to keep from throwing up again, so I just nodded in answer.
“I got sent to South America—to Peru—on a highly classified mission,” he said. “People started disappearing and the local government asked the U.S. to send some specialists down there to check it out. What we found was pretty surprising.”
How this had anything to do with giant beasts in the woods of Montana was beyond me. “What did you find?”
Uncle Mike clamped his hands to the steering wheel. “Turns out monsters are real.”
Chapter Two
“If a monster falls in the forest and someone hears it, does that make it real?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Bad joke, Chief.”
I drew a long, ragged breath and ran my hands over my head until my fingers slid into sticky spots in my hair. I shuddered and wiped my palms on my pants. “So, if monsters are real, why’d you get weird about the knife? Seems like we have bigger problems than the fact I used whatever was handy to kill it.”
Uncle Mike stared intently out the windshield. “Let’s go back to my apartment. I feel exposed out here, like we’re being watched. I’ll tell you more when we get there.”
I glanced around the woods surrounding the rest stop. The darkness seemed absolute. Not even the streetlights could penetrate it. “Yeah. Good idea.”
Mike pulled onto the highway. Instead of going to the suburbs, he took me to downtown Billings, where his loft was. His two-story apartment was all open except for the bathroom, with bare ceiling joists and a stained-concrete floor—a real guy’s place. What I loved most about it was that his bedroom was on a wooden-floored platform upstairs with rails around it, like he had a giant, floating bunk bed. Tonight, though, the dark corners gave me a chill and I wished I was more surrounded by walls.
“Why don’t you get cleaned up. I’ll make some hot chocolate or something. Don’t think either of us is planning to sleep any time soon,” Mike said, shoving me gently toward the bathroom.
I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, taking some time to breathe before I got in the shower. I’d killed something. With a knife. I stabbed it in the gut, gotten splattered with its blood, then stabbed it some more like I’d been sky-high on meth. What had gotten into me? I never even shot at birds with my BB gun, for God’s sake.
I felt myself starting to lose it, so I turned on the shower, willing myself to forget. But when I pulled my shirt over my head, the smell of monster filled the air and I hurled again. Hard to believe there was anything left in my stomach.
Mental note: no more tacos for lunch. Ever.
While I waited for the water to get hot, I brushed the dust out of my hair, which had turned the brown a dirty gray. Then there were the glistening patches of slippery goo. My jeans were streaked and stained with similar stuff and weird patches the color of dark mustard coated my hands.
It was monster-blood. And it wasn’t red.
Startled, I caught my eyes in the mirror. They were full of horror and something else, a hardness, like Uncle Mike’s eyes. They were still blue, though. After everything that had happened, I kinda thought they might’ve turned green. I stepped back from the mirror and almost fell into the bathtub.
That shocked me back into my senses. Freaking wouldn’t help. Time to get a grip before I hurt myself.
I stripped off the rest my clothes, thinking about throwing them out the window to get rid of the stink, but I wasn’t sure how I’d explain the missing outfit to Mom. Instead, I took a trash bag out of the cabinet and stuffed everything in. It didn’t help. Even after double-bagging everything, the odor still seeped through, so I gave it up.
Once in the shower, I scrubbed my hands raw, feeling like the blood would never come off. Tears ran down my face, but I pretended it was just the shower water. Monster-killers don’t cry.
“Chief, you okay in there?” Mike said, sounding worried. “I have hot chocolate. Why don’t you come on out?”
I dried off and dressed in clean sweats from my backpack. Finding no other way to delay what I was about to hear, I opened the door, heading for the two-person dining table at the far side of the loft. Mike had changed clothes, too, and he must’ve cleaned up at the kitchen sink because his hair was wet. It had grown out since his last deployment, curling up a little in the back. Too long for the Army…he’d have to buzz it down soon. That thought didn’t improve my mood.
I took my seat across from Mike and snorted a laugh. “Nice G.I. Joe Band-Aids, man.”
Mike touched his forehead. “I don’t have any grown-up Band-Aids. I bought these for you when you were nine, remember?”
“You haven’t bought Band-Aids in five years?” I rolled my eyes. “Uncle Mike, you need a girlfriend or a wife. Then you’d have real Band-Aids and more in the fridge than skim milk and beer and limes.”
“Given the type of life I lead, girlfriends lose patience with me real quick. Kinda hard to get married if you can’t keep a girlfriend.” He pushed a ceramic mug filled with hot chocolate over to me. “Drink half of that. Then, we’ll talk.”
He must have heard the same nonsense Mom had about warm milk being soothing. I took a few sips to satisfy Mike, wishing I had marshmallows because it tasted bland, then set the mug down. I was still completely wired, though; the cup hit the wooden tabletop with a smash and I sloshed hot chocolate all over my hand.
I mopped up the spill, hoping he didn’t see how my hands were shaking. “Maybe you should talk now.”
He rubbed his eyes, looking really tired. He needed a shave and, for the first time, I could see flecks of gray in his beard. It had never occurred to me that Mike might be getting older.
“So, last fall I went on that mission,” he said. “We were sent to investigate disappearances from villages lining the edge of the rainforest. After asking around, we got a similar story from all of them. Something was creeping out of the jungle at night and snatching people from their beds. They never found any remains—the victims vanished.”
“No bones? No nothing?”
“Nothing. Not a trace,” Mike said. “We set observation posts at three villages. We had night-vision goggles, heat-sensing cameras, the works. We were also armed to the teeth. No way was this thing getting past us.”
“So what’d you find?” I asked.
“A nightmare,” Mike said. “This giant lizard came stalking out of the jungle, walking upright on its back legs. The creature was nine feet tall from snout to feet, and its tail was another four feet long—it looked like an alligator from Mars. The guys I was with? We’d all seen things that would make a normal person pass out. When that thing showed up, two of them ran screaming.”
The thing was terrifying enough to send two soldiers in the Special Forces running? “What happened to them?”
Mike shook his head fast, like he was trying to shake the memory from his brain. “The monster grabbed one. We blasted that lizard with everything we had, but it didn’t do any good. Bullets bounced right of its hide, and Seranto disappeared, just like the rest. We didn’t find anything but his helmet and his boots.”
“Oh.” My voice had changed when I was
twelve, but you wouldn’t have known it by how high I squeaked.
“We got pictures of the creature, though. The scientists at the Pentagon interviewed us, but no one had any clue what it was. So on the third day, we decided to scorch part of the jungle; that’s how terrified we were. No one likes to see rainforest go up in smoke, but we were coming unglued. While we planned where to have the bombs dropped, a medicine man from one of the local tribes came to us.” Mike smiled. “Shocker—he spoke English.”
“Was he mad you were going to burn down the forest?”
“He was kind of peeved, yes, but that’s not why he came,” Mike said. “He knew about the lizard. He called it a monster and said he could help us.”
A strange thrill ran down my back. “The knife…”
“Yes, Matt, the knife. That knife is special. The medicine man made five of them, and told us they had powerful magic,” he said. “Most of us thought it was a crock until we picked one up. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
I looked down at the fist clenched in my lap. “It vibrated in my hand. And the handle turned green when I stabbed the monster.”
“Well, there’s more,” Mike said. “It doesn’t always do that. The knife selects who can wield it. Some of the guys on my team couldn’t feel anything. When I picked it up, my entire arm buzzed and the handle turned bright blue. After that I could hack a tree branch in half with just one swing of the blade. The knives only reacted to three other guys on my team, so the medicine man gave them to us. He said we’d need them because ‘dark creatures’ would invade all corners of the earth. He kept the last one, to protect his people.”
I had a bad feeling about what I’d hear, but I had to ask anyway. “What’s up with the knives, then? I get that they’re magic, but why?”
“I can’t tell you anything else. The knives’ origin and workmanship is classified,” Mike said. “I probably shouldn’t have told you this much, but given the circumstances....Look, let me talk to my superior officer. I have to call him to apprise him of the situation here, schedule disposal of the monster’s body. I’ll ask if I can get you clearance. Since you killed one, there are things you ought to know, but I’m not the one to tell you. Not yet.”
Great. I blew out an annoyed breath before asking, “Did you kill the Gator-thing?”
“Yeah. The three of us with knives hid in the brush, waiting at various points near the tree line. It happened to come out on my end. I jumped the creature from behind and put the knife in its neck. I had to slit its throat before it dropped.” Mike’s forehead was creased. “I take the knife everywhere. Better to have it and not need it, right?”
“But why didn’t you have it tonight? It was right there in the tent!” I said.
“The thing was creeping around outside, so I felt around for the knife, trying to be quiet, and caught hold of the sheath. When I got outside, I realized I’d grabbed my hunting knife instead,” Mike said. His face turned red. “By then, the monster had spotted me, so I had to fight with what I had. I was trying to distract it, to keep it from finding you.”
“But it would have killed you!”
“Better me than you, Matt.”
Mike’s voice sounded hoarse and thick. I looked away and slurped down the rest of my cocoa, gross or not, because I sure didn’t want to watch a grown man cry. After a minute he wiped his eyes, then got the knife out of his backpack. He put it on the table and pulled it from its leather sheath.
Nothing happened.
Mike laid the knife flat against his palm, like he was weighing it in his hand. Without looking at me, he put it back on the table.
“Pick it up, Matt.”
Picking up that knife was the last damn thing I wanted to do, but one look at Uncle Mike’s face told me to get on with it. I reached out and wrapped my fingers around the bone handle. It glowed blue, then buzzed in my hand.
“What does this mean?” I whispered. I knew already, but hearing it from someone else would make it real.
Mike gave me a steady look. “It means the knife belongs to you now.”
Chapter Three
“Let me get this straight. We have magic knives and monsters, and I’ve been chosen by your knife.” But to do what, exactly? A little worm of fear twisted in my gut, and I put my head down on my arms, trying to understand what I’d gotten myself into.
“Your knife. Not mine, not anymore.” Mike’s voice held a weird trace of awe. “The blade left me, Matt. I don’t understand how it happened, but you’re its wielder.”
Mike’s reaction bothered me…was he saying I would be stuck with the knife? For how long? The worm of fear grew into a salamander, chasing its tail around my insides. The reverence in Mike’s tone disturbed me, too, like I’d done something spectacular rather than accidental. None of it made sense.
“I don’t get it,” I said into my arms, refusing to face him. “Why would it pick me? I’m only fourteen!”
“I don’t know, but it did, and there’s no turning back. Unless the knife passes to someone else, it’s your burden,” he said. “Matt, you’re a monster-hunter now.”
A monster-hunter? Was he serious? My head popped up from the table.
“What’s Mom gonna say?” I asked. “We’re talking about a woman who carries a full-sized first aid kit in her purse. I doubt she’ll allow me to become some knife-wielding vigilante.”
Mike jumped up and paced around the tiny kitchen. “We can’t tell your mom. Dani would never let you hunt if she found out. The dangers are too great. She’d have a hard time understanding we have no choice in the matter, and she wouldn’t let you risk yourself.”
“So I have to kill monsters, and I can’t tell Mom about it. Could this get any more complicated?”
Why did the stupid knife pick me? I was a totally average ninth grader—I didn’t want be a hunter, fighting monsters on my own. All I wanted was to learn about Gettysburg and hope that Ella smiled at me once in a while.
“It’ll be okay, Matt,” Mike said. “We’ll just have to figure out what to do. I only have six weeks to get you trained up and running before I deploy.”
“No, you can’t leave. You have to stay and help me with the knife.” I glared at him. To heck with Uncle Sam. My uncle was staying put.
“Sorry, man, that’s not possible,” he said. “I thought of something that might help you, though.”
“It better be good.”
“You have fall break in a week, right?” Mike asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take you to Fort Carson. We’re going to put you through basic.”
“Wait,” I said, “isn’t that the part where you have to get up at five every morning to run ten miles then do a hundred pushups?”
“Two hundred. Before breakfast.” His mouth curved up on one side. “Matt, you’re in the Army now.”
* * *
I woke up Saturday morning with a nasty taste in my mouth—hot chocolate and puke. I rolled over, sliding and squeaking on Mike’s black leather couch, and had to peel my left arm away from the cushions. The grain of the leather was imprinted on my skin. On top of that, Mike only had two extra blankets, one of them looking like it’d never been used, and since we’d deserted our sleeping bags at the camp grounds, I’d ended up freezing my butt off most of the night. These are the dangers of sleeping over at a bachelor’s house.
“He needs a girlfriend,” I grumbled.
Mike responded by snoring like a T-Rex upstairs. It was only nine and we’d talked until four. Old guys needed more sleep, so I let him be, heading off to brush my fuzzy teeth. That was a grosser process than normal, so I threw my toothbrush away afterward, hoping it wouldn’t crawl out of the trashcan on its own.
Puke-fest overnight or not, it was breakfast time, and my stomach growled right on cue. I went to the kitchen, searched every cabinet and only came up with a bottle opener, two cans of chili, and cocktail onions.
“You need a girlfriend, Mike,” I said, a little louder this time.
He came down the stairs, the wooden steps creaking under his weight, still wearing flannel pj bottoms and an old t-shirt with some cartoon called Ren and Stimpy on it.
“I’ll keep that in mind. What’cha looking for?”
“Cereal or something else normal for breakfast,” I said.
Mike dug the skim milk out of the fridge and sniffed it. He didn’t make a face, so it must’ve still been good. After pouring two glasses of milk, he dumped in some grey powder and stirred it up.
“Bottoms up,” he said, thrusting the glass at me.
“Chocolate milk? How old is that stuff? It looks like dust.” Sludge floated around in my glass. “You know, Mom’ll kill you with a fork if you poison me.”
Mike’s face got serious. “It’s a protein shake. We’ve got to put a little muscle on you. No more cereal, Matt. You need to eat like a man.”
A cold bead of sweat ran down my back. “You meant it…last night. I’m really going to basic, and I’m really gonna have to kill monsters.”
Mike nodded. “Drink up. Then we’ll talk about a fitness regimen.”
“Uncle Mike, this is just stupid. Brent’s the jock,” I said. “I can run fast; that’s about it.”
Mike put his shake down on the counter and looked me square in the eyes. “Everything happens for a reason. The knife chose you on purpose, which means you can do this. You have to.”
His expression was pride mixed with worry, but mostly pride.
I chugged the whole nasty shake in one go.
* * *
We pulled into my driveway just after two on Saturday, the Jeep’s tires splashing in puddles from a sudden rainstorm. Mom had already turned on the porch light. It glowed against the red brick walls and the oak front door cheerfully, like my house was welcoming me. Dodging the rain drops, I ran with my backpack over my head to the porch. The air smelled damp, like moldy leaves. Like fall and home. After everything I’d been through, I was happy to be here.
“You’re home early,” Mom said as I straggled through the front door.