Hunters: A Trilogy (30 page)

‘Breaking left!’ Mike’s tense voice boomed in his ears.

Ken replied, saying: ‘Okay, I’ll see you on the other side – don’t get out 'til I tell you!’ He wanted to see what the situation was before he let Mike do his thing.

‘Yeah, Okay...I’m moving now!’ Mike’s confirmation came back as they veered past the beached truck in the crater below. Heaving like two fishing trawlers in a force nine gale, the Spears carried the friends across the shattered ground either side of the vicious hole, and then upwards towards the road again.

Then, at last they saw their quarry. Red was there.

He stood before them – at last they had him.

Red stopped and turned toward the howling noise of Ken’s Spear, his shining figure looming large upon the display screen. For one second, Ken made the decision to run him over – the giant of a man would make a lovely smear on the Spear’s huge bonnet, a lovely
red
smear. With his senses screaming in denial, Ken hit the brakes, standing the massive vehicle beneath him on its nose.

Mike slewed to a halt on his left. ‘What now?’ he asked, cautiously.

‘Good question,’ Ken said. ‘Let’s see what he does, I’m pretty sure that he can’t see us as well as we can see him.’

Red turned around and they saw him squinting into the darkness, trying to see across the fifty yards that lay between him and their menacing Spears. The words of some unknown film trotted through Ken’s head as he sat and stared into the screen. ‘Don’t bother running, pal, you’ll only die tired!’

Red wasn’t in the mood for running any more that night. Instead, he raised his weapon and fired a full clip of ammunition at Ken’s vehicle. As the muzzle flash flared in the blackness, Ken heard the pebbles entering the village pond once more. ‘
Choom-choom, bloop-bloop…’
The weird sound filled the cab as Red’s bullets smashed into his windscreen. He almost heard Red’s surprise as the warheads fell harmlessly to the ground outside. He knew Red wouldn’t have seen them, but the lack of sparks, or any sort of damage, even in the dark, must have been totally disconcerting to the giant of a man.

Ken flinched slightly, being behind something totally see-through and yet utterly impenetrable was a brand new experience for him. He sat still for a few seconds, saying to Mike: ‘Let’s wait a bit, shall we? He’ll get the message in a minute; let’s see what he does, yeah?’

Mike’s whispered, ‘Uhuh…’ oozed over the intercom.

Red obliged their curiosity with a well-placed 40mm grenade fired from the hip, the projectile hit squarely in the middle of Ken’s windshield. This time there were plenty of sparks as the anti-personnel shell exploded with a loud bang and a flash of bright orange light. The liquid screen of Ken’s Spear effortlessly absorbed the immense shock of the blast. For a fraction of a second he saw the glass bulge inwards as though it were made of jelly. As he ducked in reflex, Ken saw the screen flex, it quivered briefly and then unbelievably returned to its former, serene shape. Not even the slightest shock wave entered his compartment; all he heard was a weird sucking sound and watched in disbelief as tiny pieces of red-hot shrapnel pirouetted across the roof and bonnet. The flash in front of his face caused him to blink and left little orange candles burning in his vision. He was thankful for the sharp reek of burnt explosives that filled the cab as their pungent odour put some much-needed reality back into the situation.

Mike’s scream split the air: ‘Kenny! Are you okay?

‘Absolutely fine,’ he replied, calmly. ‘This baby is looking after me!’

‘Fucking hell, mate!’

Ken heard the relief in Mike’s voice. He told him not to worry and revved the engine in defiance of the shooter. As the raucous bark of the exhaust echoed across the desert, Red took a deliberate glance over his shoulder, almost as though he was contemplating some form of impossible escape route.

Instead, unbelievably, he threw his rifle away and, with a swift flick of the hand, made his pistol emulate the whirling trajectory of the departed rifle. The weapons disappeared into the darkness. Ken watched them on the monitor and saw that they both now lay well out of Red’s reach. He checked his adversary on the screen – Red appeared to be unarmed and was standing in front of them, arms down by his sides with those huge palms innocently spread open towards the Spears. The yellow laces on his boots made a weird pattern on the monitor, glowing with an almost incandescent green upon its blue screen.

Raising his right hand, Red reached into the breast pocket and took out the pebble. The Stone, as it had done in the dream, started to glow with a dull green light. He held the pebble towards them, as if in offering, then lifted his left hand to his mouth and made a talking motion with his fingers. Bending forward, he placed the Stone upon the dusty ground in front of him, then manipulated something...twisted a hidden switch...with a bright flash the Stone was no more. Instead, it had now taken on a spherical appearance, the shape of which reminded Ken of his old, aluminium, pressure-cooker back at home. The thing glowed and then darkened, Ken couldn’t really see it properly and even when he made the screen zoom in, the device still appeared to be almost transparent.

Raising his huge body upright, Red stood with hands on hips, facing them with his teeth gleaming in the monitors. Looking directly at the Spears, he made a beckoning motion with his head and then reached into his jeans and pulled out another object. Ken tensed, waiting for the next trick that the ponytailed wizard had up his sleeve. He needn’t have worried, all Red did was twist the top off his tin and then insert a wad of chewing tobacco into his mouth. Turning away, he flicked the small tin over his shoulder and resumed his previous posture. Hands on hips he waited for them as the faint artery of a premature daybreak spurted blood red light into the dark sky behind his huge figure.

‘Right, come on, let’s just do this, you get him to move away from the device, and I’ll take it from there!’ Mike’s voice had taken on an urgent sound.

Ken acknowledged, saying: ‘Okay, but keep ten yards between us. Right, let’s go – follow me!’ He touched the door and stepped out into the darkness.

Mike did as he was asked and together the two men walked through the half-light of the breaking dawn, eyes wide and nerves straining, rifles in the alert position, muzzles firmly trained upon Red.

Approaching, they heard him laugh. ‘What took you so long, boys?’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting on yo’all for weeks now! I thought that maybe’s you pussies weren’t coming, thought maybe’s ya never had the gumption, the balls, ya know?’

His accent grated on Ken, he couldn’t place it but the sound made him think of banjos – he heard one jangling in the back of his cold thoughts.

He and Mike closed the gap between themselves and the Dragon.

As they drew nearer, Ken said, ‘Just step away from the device, big guy – move back and we’ll talk…’

He motioned with the muzzle of his rifle, indicating that Red should step away from the device. By now they were some twenty feet away from Red and quite clearly saw his features in the moonlit dawn. Its sick light cast shadows across his rounded face, causing black teardrops to drip beneath his eyes.

Ken growled instructions at him. ‘Get back, Red,’ he said. ‘Back up and we’ll sort this out. Get back, now!’ He pointed the rifle directly at Red’s face, finger on the trigger with the slack taken up.

Red’s voice cut the dawn like a blunt knife. ‘Fuck you, ya Limey prick, you ain’t the wun who makes the fukin rules aroun’ here, boy!’ He spat a long, slimy trail of tobacco juice at Mike, it splashed onto the Australian’s boots. Red laughed. ‘Yore good-lookin’ bitch there,’ he said, to Ken, whilst nodding in Mike’s direction. ‘He’s the wun I shot outside the Funny House, ain’t he, huh? Muthafuka should be dead! What you doing here, purtty boy?’ he snarled, staring at Mike.

Without waiting for a reply, and very quickly, he then did two things at once.

In one, rapid motion, and using something clipped to his belt, the large man zapped the Light Maker, the machine instantly burst into life and with an ominous whine, began to glow. As their distracted eyes looked away from him, Red leapt across the gap separating him from Mike.

He moved so quickly that his body was merely a darkened blur, flickering in the half-light of Ken’s disbelieving eyes. He immediately fired a reactionary shot at Red, it missed by at least a yard and Ken heard the round whining off a rock behind Mike and his attacker. The muzzle flash illuminated the fleeting giant as he cannoned into Mike. Ken watched as the two men went down in a heap, Mike’s weapon clattering as the butt hit the floor.

With the expertise gained from years of training, Red manipulated Mike like a toy. In the blink of an eye, the Australian was forced between Red and Ken’s oscillating rifle barrel. The Glock was expertly removed from Mike’s holster and then rammed mercilessly into the back of his straining neck. A thickly muscled arm crushed his windpipe – Red had him bang to rights.

The giant glared at Ken, gleefully saying: ‘Like I said, boy – you don’t make the rules around here, so...drop-yore-fukin-tools, right now, muthafuka!’ He spat another rivulet of tobacco across Mike’s shoulders. The juice sprayed onto the Light Maker, hitting the weird device with a loud hiss and remaining there, popping and spitting its own foul steam into the still morning air.

Ken’s vision blurred with a rage. He very nearly opened fire again but the uncertainty about the condition of Mike’s pistol stopped him. ‘Was it cocked or not? One thing’s for sure, Red has the reactions of a rattlesnake!’ Ken knew that he couldn’t take the chance – he would have to wait until he was able to get his hands on the grinning ogre to his front.

Red reiterated his last command. ‘Put you’re fukin’ guns down! Do it now!’

Ken heard Mike moan as the pistol was rammed even harder into his neck.

So, with most of his options leaving in a hurry through the exit marked ‘Emergency’, Ken had little choice but to comply with the pistol-wielding man’s snarling command. The AK thunked metallically as it hit the dirt and was soon followed by the more solid thud of his pistol. He felt naked without his weapons. Ken knew right then that he was in deep trouble – the thoughts marched right up to the front of his mind and started talking without an invitation. ‘This one is dangerous, very dangerous!’

He looked at Red, and said, ‘What now, Red? What do you want, huh?’ Ken kept his tone placating – playing for some time to try and figure this out.

It was hard to think clearly. ‘This wasn’t in the script, what the hell has just happened? One minute we had him cornered, and then with a flick of his fucking magic wand, Red’s tied us up like kippers!’ He opened his hands in a gesture of surrender and shrugged.

Red caught the movement and his darkened figure seemed to relax slightly.

If it was wishful thinking then Ken was happy to let it be so. His head was roaring and if he listened carefully he was sure that he heard the hoof beats of the four horsemen. They galloped alongside the Apocalypse and Ken knew that the devilish beast bore his name upon its wretched lips.
‘You’re coming with me, Kenneth!’
He heard it snigger. Dispensing with the thought, and with a broad smile upon his face, Ken sat down on the dusty road and casually reached into his pocket, freezing when he heard Red snarl.

‘Easy son, real easy there, or your friend will be suckin’ air through the back o’ his fukin head!’ He forced Mike into a kneeling position before him, and then, taking the pistol from its spiteful position, Red raised himself up and pointed the gun at Ken.

Using a somewhat jovial voice, Ken said, ‘Just getting my smokes out, buddy, just a smoke is all – keep your wig on!’ He kept his voice steady and calm, the false smile plastered across his face was so large that he was sure his head would split in two and the top half would fall to the ground in front of him, to land with a hollow clunk. Teeth gleaming in the early dawn and eyes fixed firmly upon his captor, Ken took out his smokes and casually lit one with the Zippo. He snapped the lighter shut and then slid it back into his shirt pocket.

Looking at Red, he said, ‘Well, come on then, big boy, what’s your problem?’

Red grinned maliciously at him. The three men waited upon the dusty Afghan road with the silence only being broken by the sound of Red as he expelled more spittle across the top of Mike’s head. It splashed into the dust between them with an ugly splatter.

Finally, he spoke. ‘I’ll tell y’all what I want shall I, boys?’ he said, with an evil grin. ‘I want the fuk off o’ this planet. Those muthafukas on the other side, George an’ his goddamn, interfering, storm-bringing assholes! They fuked us, and fuked us real good, didn’t they now!’

His voice sounded like a talking hyena in Ken’s head. He couldn’t make the image leave his thoughts. Red was the epitome of what he’d seen in the dream, of what George had talked about. Evil rose like a heat haze from him into the cool dawn air. Red smouldered with rancid hatred.

The snarling monologue continued. ‘Those muthas just have no idea, sat there in their perfect places and ridin roun’ the fukin universe talking some shit bout the planet being in danger, “
you all gotta stop with that oil thang,”
they say! Hell, they don’t know shit, my man, this whole goddamn planet was run by us, we had the gold and we made the fukin rules!’

He sniggered and Ken heard the sound of galloping horses again.

Red sneered at them, saying: ‘Old George, huh, “
yo’all can use water for power – look, everyone can be free!”
There is no such thang as free! Fukin free...hah, my ass!’ The shaken head caused his hair to arch behind his head and for one second it looked like some devilish red halo. He reiterated his last sentence. ‘There ain’t any such thing as free! The few make the rules and the rest follow ‘em, that’s how it always has been! Except now, well, now...they’ve fuked it up and fuked it up properly!’ Red spat once more, only this time it was words that flew from his mouth. ‘Those stoopid fukers, well, just lemme tell you, this is one ‘good ol boy’ who is gonna get him some of that high life!’ He stopped talking and looked menacingly down at the back of Mike’s head.