I’d tried something different from his instructions, and of course he noticed. “Front pocket. It’s easier to find it there and besides, when we locate a trail I’m going to keep the knife on me, not in the bag.”
Davis gave me a curt nod. “Good. I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to figure that out. Speed drill. Unpack it all and pack it back up.”
I hid a grin. No matter what it sounded like, Davis had just complimented me.
* * *
Right after lunch, Master Sergeant Schmitz asked Mike to attend our “dem-mon-stray-shun” in the woods. I wore a brand-new pair of BDUs the colonel had special-ordered to fit me. I even had a name patch with “Archer” on it. My sneakers ruined the look, but Mike promised to buy me some boots for an early Christmas present.
Colonel Black in tow, Mike strode out to meet Schmitz, looking agitated. “Schmitz, appreciate the effort, but we don’t have time. Something’s come up. Matt, come on out; we need to talk.”
“Find me first!” I was thirty feet ahead, hiding under some bushes that surrounded an aspen tree, but I started moving right after I called out.
Mike came toward the sound of my voice. “Fine, found you.”
By that point, I’d already crept the other direction through the dense sagebrush. I settled down on my belly in front of the colonel to watch the progress, keeping my breathing even and quiet, just like Schmitz taught me.
Mike thrashed around the brush. “Kid, come out of there.”
“Out of where?” I yelled.
Schmitz laughed his head off. “Told you the kid was a quick study. He’s so much lighter than we are that it’d take a bloodhound to find him under cover. I can’t even find him most of the time now. He’s too dang quiet. Kinda freaky, huh? Like he’s a sneaking-savant or something.”
Colonel Black’s eyebrows shot up. “Must be if you can’t find him, Schmitz.” He called out to his right. “Matt, there were two monster attacks last night in Billings. Get your butt out here, now.”
I jumped to my feet. “Two more?” My limbs were shaking from the exercise but also from something else. Not fear. Excitement. “Does this mean I need to go back, sir?”
Mike threw up his hands when he saw how close I was. “Yes. I know we had more training planned, but we can’t wait.” He smiled. “I’ve talked to Johnson, Schmitz and Davis. Everyone says you’re good to go.”
“Even Davis?” That was hard for me to believe.
The colonel laughed. “Even Davis. He’s not good with letting other kids play with his toys, but you convinced him.”
“So,” Mike said, “you ready to do this?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll go pack at once, Major.” I stood up taller and saluted—right hand at my eyebrow, crisp and straight and tense—the way they’d showed me. I turned and made it three steps before my “Special-Forces-swagger” left me. I pumped my fist in the air. “Let’s go hunt some monsters!
Chapter Ten
We didn’t drive home. We flew.
In a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.
So badass.
“All right, Matt. You have the satellite phone and my number.” Colonel Black hurried us to the helipad. “We’ll give you periodic updates on sightings and let you know if there have been attacks.”
I gave him a quick salute. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s good to have you on the team, son. You sure were full of surprises this week.” The colonel helped me into my seat and got my headphones untangled for me. “Godspeed.”
“Thank you, sir.” I tried to act nonchalant about riding home in a helicopter, but it wasn’t easy. A stupid grin kept erupting across my face.
Colonel Black said his goodbyes to Mike, and let him know a couple of enlisted personnel would drive his Jeep to Billings. Mike and I needed to hunt as soon as we got back, which is why I got to ride in the Black Hawk. We didn’t even bother to change out of our BDUs in our hurry.
The helicopter zoomed into the sky, leaving the ground and my stomach behind. It was the most amazing flight of my life. The countryside looked much closer than from an airplane, like we were flying in the clutches of a giant eagle. The vibration of the rotors rumbled in my back and chest, as if I was one with the machine. If only Ella could have seen me. Carter would’ve been an afterthought.
On the flight, I caught Mike watching me with the same awed look he’d had the night the knife had transferred to me.
“Something wrong?” My voice crackled over the headphones.
Mike flipped the switch that cut our conversation off from the pilots’ speakers. “I was thinking about when you asked why the knife picked a completely average ninth grader instead of a trained soldier.”
My insides squirmed. “Yeah, I still wonder that sometimes, actually.”
“Matt, you’re far from average,” he said. “I don’t know how the knife sensed it, but you’re fast, have a good sense of direction and can creep around the woods without being seen better than I can. And I noticed something else.”
“What?”
“You don’t panic. That day you got ‘lost’ in the woods, you got yourself under control and made a plan much quicker than Colonel Black and I expected.”
“So you were watching me gripe and moan, curled up in a ball on the forest floor? Thanks for that, man.” I fiddled with the cord of my headphones, embarrassed. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought about that before, because of course they’d been watching me. Now, though, it hurt my pride to hear about it after finishing my training.
“I’m trying to pay you a compliment,” Uncle Mike said. “When I gave you that twenty-five-pound pack for our first run, you had trouble carrying it. But when you thought you were lost and being chased, you didn’t even seem to notice the weight. It’s like intense situations give you strength. That’s a rare quality, Chief. And an important one.”
I thought about the fight with Carter, how I’d been able to pin a much bigger guy against his locker once my blood boiled.
“Guess we’ll get to test your theory tonight,” I said.
I hoped I wouldn’t disappoint him.
We made it to the Billings airport just before sunset and landed on the helipad on the far end of the general aviation buildings, where a rented SUV waited. The crew helped us load everything into its trunk, then we were off.
“Good thing I set up my backpack yesterday,” I said, still finding it amusing that Davis had made me practice packing my gear.
“Yep.” Mike’s shoulders were tense. He glanced at me, his eyes dark. “You have everything?”
I patted down the pockets on my BDUs to make sure I had my compass and flashlight. The knife was safely stowed in the front pocket of my equipment bag. “Yeah.”
Mike’s chest heaved as he took a deep breath. “Okay. This is your show. I’m just here to give you backup and pointers. Tell me what to do first.”
My show? Wasn’t this supposed to be a ride along? “Um. Well, we need to find a good entry point into the woods. One that’s close to home, so I can get there on my bike when I hunt alone.” I winced at how stupid that sounded. The mental image of me riding my bike to go on an unsupervised monster hunt—carrying a backpack containing a deadly knife, a top-of–the-line handheld GPS, and a pair of night-vision goggles—seemed a little ridiculous.
To my surprise, Mike looked impressed. “I hadn’t thought about that. You’re right, we need to find you a way in that’s close enough to home. Any thoughts on where?”
That was easy. “Yeah. My friend Will’s house butts up to the woods where we camped, at the opposite end from the campgrounds. I’ll have a four- or five-mile hike to get into the center of the forest, but that’s a piece of cake after running with you this past week.”
Mike turned out of the airport’s main driveway. “All right then, off to Will’s.”
* * *
We parked down the street from the Cruessan’s house. Mike took a long look and whistled. “Good Lord, kid. What, did Will’s f
amily win the lottery or something?”
Will’s house was a nine-thousand-square-foot mini-mansion. I’d gotten lost in it a few times. “No. His dad’s retired NFL and owns some car dealerships. His mom’s a neurosurgeon.” And they were never home, which made this the perfect spot to sneak in. “They have six acres out back, so we can skirt the house to the woods without being seen.”
That earned me an approving smile—a real one, not the faint, fleeting ones I’d gotten on base all week. “Good thinking, Chief. Really good.”
We crept around the back edge of Will’s property, passing the detached four-car garage. There was a gap in the hedges that I could squeeze through easily. It was a bit of a challenge for Mike, but he made it and we sneaked into the back yard.
“Didn’t they have a garage on the house?” Mike asked.
“Yeah. That one’s for the actual cars. The detached garage is where they store the boat, the ATVs, and a bunch of hiking and camping stuff. Will’s dad is a big outdoorsman. We play ping-pong out here sometimes, too.”
“Must be rough being this well-off,” he whispered.
I sighed. “Believe it or not, it is. Their housekeeper, Millicent, hangs with Will most of the time. His parents travel a lot. But we have him over for dinner about once a week, so he gets plenty of nagging and worry-warting from Mom.”
Mike grunted. “That sounds familiar.”
We got into the woods via a small gap in the trees near the southeast corner of Will’s property. I’d only made it ten feet before Mike held up a hand. “Stop.”
I skimmed behind a holly bush. “What?”
“Thought I saw someone moving on the back patio.”
“Probably just Millicent. She smokes, but doesn’t want Will’s folks to know, so she sneaks a cigarette out there.”
“Okay. Oh, as your uncle, let me just say that smoking’s stupid.” Mike gave me a self-righteous nod and crept into the trees.
“Sir, yes, sir.” I followed him, laughing that my cigar-loving uncle would give me an anti-smoking lecture while he dragged me into the woods to hunt a big, hairy monster.
We fought our way through scrub brush and pines until we found one of the main hiking trails. The night was cloudless, with a waxing moon lighting our way. The weather stayed mild, about forty degrees, and if I hadn’t been apprehensive about what we were looking for, it would’ve been a great hike. We trekked single file, marching toward the coordinates of the last attack. I stopped every so often to don my night-vision goggles and search the trees for heat signatures, but the beast eluded us for the first hour.
About three miles in, we found the first hint that we were getting close. I scanned the ground with my flashlight, looking for signs. “Mike.”
Two giant paw prints crossed the trail, leading off to the east. The prints were longer than my size-eight sneakers and they sank down into the dirt, like the creature who made them weighed more than a refrigerator. Mike took a picture of the paw print with his digital camera, then gestured for me to lead him through the trees. I followed the tracks until I pushed into a small, moonlit clearing. I stopped short, hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t yell in fright.
The remains of a deer had been scattered in a twenty-foot radius around the clearing. Bits of meat hung from the pines, stuck in the needles, and splattered the matted mulch of the forest floor. The stag’s horns had been discarded to one side. Everything else, including its hooves, was gone, taken.
“A bobcat or grizzly didn’t do this,” I whispered.
“Not even a person with a machete could do this, Matt,” Mike said, his nose wrinkled in disgust.
“God.” I blew out a little breath, trying to keep my stomach steady, determined not to throw up. “Major, what do I do if it hurts me? How do I get away?”
Mike froze. “There won’t be time.” He turned to me. “You have to be on constant alert and move fast. You cannot hesitate. Kill the monster before it kills you. Period.”
My knees threatened to turn to jelly, but I gave myself a mental slap in the face and squared my shoulders. “Then let’s get moving and take this one out.”
I searched the brush for tracks. Based on the broken twigs, crushed leaves and huge paw prints, the monster had continued on to the north. Its claws left four gouges at the front of each footprint. That should’ve scared the piss out of me, but my pulse quickened with anticipation—we had it now. I started ahead, but Mike didn’t come.
“Did you hear something?” he asked, looking behind us.
“No.” I strained my ears. A few leaves crunched together. “Wait, yeah. Doesn’t sound like a monster though. Too small. A raccoon, or a big rabbit?”
Mike stared at the trees without moving. Finally, he shook his head. “Just an animal. I’m keyed up; we’re getting close. Let’s go quiet, though, just in case.”
We moved silently through the evergreens, using branches and shadows to hide us as we followed its tracks. Only ten minutes later, we found it. A huge shadow shuffled through the trees fifty feet in front of us. It lumbered without caution, as if it didn’t care who or what it ran into.
Cold fingers prickled down my back. As we crept ahead, I wondered if it would be able to smell us. Almost at my thought, it turned our direction, and sniffed the air. Mike held up a fist—the sign for “halt”—and motioned for me to get down. I crouched in the brush, holding my breath. After a moment, Mike pushed forward again.
As we sneaked closer, we caught glimpses of the monster through the branches. Its shaggy fur was mottled, with both dark and light patches. Same short snout and curved, boar-like tusks as the first one I’d killed, but this monster was taller and lankier. The Bear stood on its hind legs and pulled eggs out of a bird’s nest, popping them in its mouth like they were mints. Mike and I held so still that I could hear the poor eggs crunch in its teeth.
With a shock, I realized the knife was still in my backpack—I’d forgotten to put it in my pocket when we found the trail. I tried to pull the knife out of my bag, but the zipper stuck, making a grinding noise as I tugged it.
The monster’s ears pricked up. Had it heard us?
“Steady, Matt,” Uncle Mike said, his whisper barely audible. “Get ready. I’ll divert it, and…”
Something crashed through the trees off to our right. “Ow!”
Will fell out of the bushes, ripping the sleeve of his ski jacket on a branch, and landed on his knees right in front the creature. The Bear jerked its head in his direction and Mike and I flattened ourselves against the ground. Will’s head tilted slowly upward as he checked out the beast in front of him, his mouth hanging open. The Bear flexed its claws and took a few steps toward Will with a pleased-sounding grunt.
I yanked the knife out of my backpack and tried to get up, but Mike held me down.
“Lemme go,” I whispered. “It’ll kill him!”
Mike shook his head. “We wait. Need to see what it does to get a better point of attack.”
In the meantime, Will had gone rigid, still kneeling on the forest floor, staring at the beast with terror painted all over his face. The monster lumbered toward him, its eyes wide.
“Nice bear…thing. Nice bear,” Will babbled to the monster like it was a stray dog. “I’ll be going now.”
He scrambled to his feet. The Bear leapt on top of him; they tumbled to the ground in a heap of fur, arms and legs.
Mike was up like a shot, waving a tree branch. “Hey, ugly! Over here. Pick on a man, why don’t you?” He glanced back at me, face tense, then darted his eyes to the right.
He wanted me to crawl right and get behind the beast. I nodded and started moving.
Will lay flat on his back with his eyes screwed shut, saying, “I don’t believe in Bigfoot. I’m asleep. I’m asleep. Okay, Will, wake up now.”
Mike walked backward, shouting insults, most consisting of some really cool swear words, and whacked the branch against a tree trunk. The Bear couldn’t have understood the insults, but it shrieked at Mike
anyway. The sound, like school bus brakes forced to stop short on the highway, filled the whole clearing. For the first time ever, my uncle looked scared.
“Come on, you hairy mess, bring it.” Mike’s voice shook as he swung the branch at the monster’s head. “Let’s dance.”
It loped toward him, howling. Mike backed himself into a group of trees that grew in a thick line. Caught, he took one last look my direction, steel in his eyes, and gripped the branch like a baseball bat.
“Buying time.”
That’s all he said—but I understood. He’d let the monster get him if that meant I could kill it and help Will escape.
“Not today,” I whispered.
Everything around me slowed down and came into sharp focus. My heart rate slowed; I felt steady, ready. I made my way behind the monster, then unsheathed the knife.
The thing lunged at Mike, growling in rage, and swiped at his head. Mike ducked, but not fast enough. Its claws cuffed his ear. Mike went down with blood streaming from the side of his head.
The sight pissed me off. Forgetting all my training, I flew out of the brush with a bloodcurdling yell.
The monster whirled around.
Johnson’s voice growled instructions in my head. Just wait. Make it come to you. Patience, Matt, patience. I bent my knees in the defensive position Johnson had taught me. I needed to stay on my feet and move at the last possible second.
The Bear ran my direction…maybe because it sensed easier prey. I was the weaker one. Or so it thought.
Not today.
It flung its arms wide, like it planned to wrap me up in a big hug and snap my spine.
Don’t hesitate. Use its momentum. Kill it before it kills you. I chanted Johnson’s orders, waiting for the monster’s rush. No matter what, I wasn’t going out cowering like a kid. Tonight, I was a Green Beret.
I pulled my arms up to chest level, elbows turned out, my right palm wrapped around the bone handle, and my left palm flat, pressed against my right fist for added resistance.
It took a final bound, leapt at me with a shriek.
I braced my feet.
The monster realized, too late, that it had brought about its own death. It couldn’t stop when I sidestepped underneath its arm. I twisted my shoulders, rotating the knife upward for the only blow I knew I’d have. Missing wasn’t an option.