Hunters: A Trilogy (104 page)

Ken turned his gaze to stare at the farmyard. The same sight awaited him there. Fences drilled with hundreds of holes, the walls of the house were absolutely littered with perforations, the sandbag walls were blown to hell; the big crater, still oozing a slight mist, lay amongst smashed ammunition boxes. Empty shell-cases and body parts lay scattered across the forecourt, total chaos reigned, and yet here they all were, nursing nothing more serious than a couple of scratches and a large bucket filled with ice-cold beers.

A myriad of sensations flooded through his mind, none of which made any sense at all. ‘Crazy, that’s the word, C–R–A–Z–Y!’ he thought and laughed out loud. When the others looked at him in query, all Ken did was to point in the general area, using the neck of his latest bottled beer.

As their eyes followed his indication, focused upon the devastation, they too sat in silence for a short while as the realisation of what had occurred, and of how lucky they had been, dawned upon them.

Ken’s words snapped them away from the edge.

‘Well, here we all are then,’ he said, quietly. ‘All alive, all well, and all mostly in one piece – does anyone other than Mikey have any injuries?’

They looked down at themselves, as if to double-check they were actually unscathed. Seeing nothing more than a few splinter wounds, perhaps some slight cuts or maybe the odd abrasion, they looked at each other in amazement.

Junior summed it up for the whole group when, in a low voice, he said, ‘Unbelievable!’ All of them agreed with that sentiment.

Jane reached across, and with a handful of cold water from the ice bucket, splashed the blood away from Ken’s mouth and nose; he winked at her and dried his face with a sweat-covered sleeve.

Red raised his beer. ‘A toast, I’m raising my glass to Lady Luck, yeah, to Lady Luck, to George, and to all the others,’ he said, nodding at the last remaining members of the rescue team. Turning back to his fellow drinkers, Red murmured: ‘But, most of all I’m raising my glass to us!’ They agreed and the air was soon filled with the sound of chinking beer bottles.

The dark shadows of nightfall were now well on the way, so Junior lit a fire in the bullet-riddled brazier and they all huddled around its warmth. Soon after they were joined by a small group of their rescuers, and by the time night had fallen properly, an impromptu party was in full swing. The fire blazed and smoke from the barbeque filled the air with the delicious aroma of sizzling meats. More people came back from the town. Before long, Ken’s whole ‘crazy’ scene had somehow become even crazier, if it were possible.

Their merriment washed away the memories of the recent past and, as was usual, the events of the last few weeks and of that day in particular, seemed almost not to have happened at all. Like a film clip from a movie watched long ago, the sights they had seen and the actions they had carried out, all of those terrible things, seemed to have happened to someone else. The memories simply departed like smoke from the fire, wafted away into the night air, hung under the moonlight for a while, and then magically disappeared as if they had never been there in the first place.

It was a fine night and in typical fashion the Hunters partied as hard as they had fought. At some time way past midnight, the final guests had eventually gone to bed, most spent the night sleeping in various places around the farmhouse. From the barn to the couch and almost anywhere in between, they crept drunkenly away to snatch a few hours of valuable sleep. None went home, though, not on that night they didn’t.

***

The Demon, on the other hand, was anything but peaceful. Peaceful would not have been the word chosen to describe the abject rage currently howling from its dripping mouth. Almost its entire force of foot-soldiers had been destroyed, over two hundred men gone, most of whom were now converted into nothing more than smouldering ashes. Lying incinerated inside a large, metal box. Sitting and smoking in the corner of some pathetic farmer’s field…the bastard would use those ashes to fertilize his fields…the bastard!

It howled with anger, clenching the hands of its host so tightly that blood flowed in ragged rivulets between its bony fingers, dripping like molten red lead onto the snow beneath its feet. The fury it felt was almost uncontrollable, hatred and despicable loathing for all things had always been the source of its own undoing. The knowledge of that, its own weakness, only served to fuel the fire of its resentment. It knew the reason behind the demise of its carefully-gathered army. Months spent cajoling them, wheedling promises, false smiles – all wasted by its own, dreadful impatience.

As soon as it had become aware of the resistance, the terrible strength of those who had dared stand before its army, the Dragon had once more allowed its petulant rage to wash away any chance of sensible action, all thoughts dismissed by a tide of black anger. It had screamed: ‘More men! Send more men… kill them, kill them all!’ Herding the men together and repeatedly pushing the button. With no plan, no cogent thoughts, only a burning black rage, it had sent wave after wave of its men into the darkness of an undeveloped transfer device.

Masses of them had exploded into nothing more than heaps of distorted meat, their steaming corpses resembling the rotting remnants of a burst haggis. The rest had gone, screaming with fear and pain, hurtling into a piece of time that lay far, far away. Many arrived with the same results as those who had failed at the very first hurdle, bursting skulls and popping eyeballs their only reward. The remainder, heads resonating with their Dark Master’s command, ‘Kill them – kill them all!’ had blindly struck out toward their enemies. Noise, rage, and blackness were their only companions as they rushed toward the Hunters.

They had very little chance of success and were killed in swathes, mown down before his very eyes. Even so, their sheer number had very nearly succeeded, they had been so close and then the green light had appeared again. Those fucking pricks! Hunters from long ago! Where had they been, why had it not seen them, why?

The howl that crossed its fetid lips would have sent even the bravest of Hunters running for the safety of their mother’s skirts… So great had the presence become within the frail body of its willing partner that the rotting power had begun to work its way outwards. As the beast opened its mouth to emit the horrifying wail, it failed to notice the two teeth that wiggled free from the bleeding gums of its host – one fell to the floor, whilst the other hung like a pendulum, swinging on a thin strand of flesh above its chin.

The Dark One knew that his own rage-induced ineptitude had been the cause behind his men’s undoing. His fault entirely, but that knowledge made no difference whatsoever. Not one jot. When one gets to be as powerful as the Dragon, as well-travelled and so totally used to getting one’s own way, well…then there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of accepting any portion of blame, for anything, not ever.

It snarled: ‘No, it was their fault, pathetic bags of meat!’ With a vicious kick, the skinny leg sent a great clump of distorted human remains tumbling down the hillside. This had changed things and now he would have to act sooner than planned. With a set of more lucid thoughts, provided by the mind of its crumbling host, permeating through the black heat of its fury, the Demon turned back to the cave. There was work to do.

The final little game was still to be toyed with, everyone in the dimension was going to know about this particular game, the whole fucking universe would know! And then, well…then they would fight amongst themselves once more. And the Demon loved it when they fought, the puny battles opened up so many opportunities, so much fun to be had, yes! And then after that, after the fire, then it would be time to leave, its work here done, time to move on and find somewhere else worthy of its attention.

The Dark One giggled as the door slid open. It entered the cave, allowing itself one final, sneering sentiment. ‘But first we have some flowers to plant, and after they have bloomed, then we shall depart for pastures new. Yes, after the fun, then we shall go!’ With those words reverberating around the cave, the Demon turned back to its work.

Sometimes you’re better off not knowing the whole truth.
Sometimes it’s better to simply live in the dim reality of your own perception.
It’s much safer there.

It took two days to clean up after their battle. The last remaining pieces of death and destruction had been removed, the courtyard swept clean, all the wire, pieces of wood, and sheets of metal had been taken away by Jack and the others. Ken and the men had worked at full tilt to try and get the old place back into some semblance of its former serenity. Many of the bullet holes would have to remain, it was far too big a job to replace all of the panels they had peppered and would have to be done at some later date.

Right now, they had work to do, much more pressing things than spending hours on some carpentry. At the end of that second day, tired and hungry after having worked non-stop since before dawn, the six occupants of the farm gathered on the porch, where Jane and Tori had prepared a buffet fit for a King.

Just as she was finishing her meal, Tori stopped and lifted her head, cocking it to one side as if listening. As they saw her movements, the others froze where they were. Ken looked at Red, and seeing the obvious question in his eyes, nodded once and looked toward the barn in confirmation of the big man’s unspoken question. Red rose to his feet and started toward the armoury.

Tori stopped him. ‘No, wait, it’s not them,’ she said. ‘No…they’re all dead. It’s George, he wants to talk to us – Junior, get the Communicator, please. It’s in the sitting room.’

Her son ran into the house and returned seconds later with the device clasped in his hands. Passing it to Ken, the boy took a seat along with the others whilst they gathered around and waited for the Communicator to bring them its news. It was then that George told them of what he knew – all of it.

The old man appeared in the usual manner, and he was smiling. After congratulating them on a job well done, asking each and every one of them if they were well, enquiring about Michael’s neck wound, and pausing whilst the young man assured him that he was fine; George looked down at them, and said that he had news, good news…

‘The Dark One is almost without support,’ he said. ‘As far as we can see, and believe you me, we can see a lot more these days, a lot more, he has less than a dozen men remaining. His latest foray has cost the lives of almost his entire force, two hundred and eighty two men killed, to be precise.’

The figures stunned them. Ken sat and looked at the others – the thought of having so much blood on their hands may have been a heavy burden to bear, had it not been for Red. He flushed those thoughts straight down the toilet.

‘They came a-looking for us, they came here,’ the big man said, ‘we didn’t ask for this! And anyway, they’ve taken Maggie! To hell with them, the mutha…’ He banged the table with his cabbage-sized fist.

The blow caused all the plates and glasses to jump in to the air, whereupon they promptly bounced back down with a loud crash. The Hunters laughed, he was right, the numbers were terribly high, but like Red had pointed out, it was they who had been attacked.

George stepped in and eased their consciences a touch more. ‘Don’t forget,’ he said, wearily. ‘It was the Demon himself who is responsible for all of this – this whole episode is a result of his selfish desire to rule the stars, his need to run around playing havoc. All of our yesterdays and all our tomorrows have been, and will be, altered by this entity, all of them!’ George looked as though he was about to do some table banging of his own.

Taking a moment to calm himself, he then explained to them about the latest pieces of news he had discovered, the main one being of how the Demon had discovered their whereabouts. It seemed, even though Tori had killed the man, and the piece of Darkness within, that Jeremiah’s influence had caused a tiny piece of evil to flower inside his son, a fleck of inherited Darkness.

George looked at Red, and said, ‘Do not worry, my child, this is normal and is something that almost every living thing has within itself.’ Seeing the confused look, not only upon Red’s face, but also spread amongst the others as well, George then said, ‘As I have told you many times before, we are all from the same beginnings, the tiny atoms within all of us, the endless chains of them that make up our worlds and every single thing surrounding us, are all from the same place. Everything started at the same time, one utterly-silent Big Bang and we had become! The Darkness is nothing more than a part of that same, endless chain. It lies within everything that we are.’

He paused, looked at them seriously, and then continued, saying: ‘Jeremiah allowed the blackness to grow inside of his soul, and when a man allows that to happen then the atoms of evil no longer have any need to lie hidden. Like all things, if they are nourished they will grow!’ He explained as to how, due to his mistreatment by Jeremiah, Red still had a few of the half-grown weeds of evil in his own soul.

They were weakened and not of any real use. But, the one thing they were good for was looking into the Hunters’ dimension. Like some obscene telescope, the Dark One had gradually become aware that the tiny glimpses it had managed to sneak might be very useful later on. Over the years, it had become more adept at manipulating the glimpses, and slowly but surely it had built up enough information, knowledge, to be used against them, the Hunters, its arch enemies.

Red looked baffled. With a terrible expression on his large face, he said, ‘Am I to blame, is Maggie going missing my fault, it’s me, isn’t it?’ He looked about ready to cry. Tori and Junior went to stand behind him. Both of them placed their hands on his shoulders and stood together looking up in defiance at the silver screen.

George looked down at them and smiled sadly, saying: ‘No, no, not in the slightest! Yes, he has used you, but if I were to blame you for that, then it would be the same as if I were to blame you for…’ he paused, and then said, ‘…for having a shock of such wonderfully red hair!’