Chapter 7
While Trip checked the trailer, I investigated the shop. Between the German’s explosive device and Milo’s mad minute, every light in the place had been busted, so I used my flashlight to maneuver. We had really trashed the garage, and everything that could break, had. I poked around behind the tool chests and shined my light down into the oil pit, but the only other spiders I could find were the normal, itty-bitty kind, and even then, chucking a small bomb into an enclosed space did wonders for cleaning out the cobwebs.
The bathroom hadn’t been cleaned for years, but it didn’t matter anyway, since the toilet had been pulverized into porcelain shards by a few 7.62 rounds. The water tube had been severed and was spraying the grimy remains. Through the now broken door, the small convenience store was in even worse shape. It had been a dark little place to begin with, and the only thing left on the shredded walls was a girly calendar from the nineteen-eighties. A rack of engine oil and antifreeze had been completely obliterated, and the nasty puddle filled most of the tiny space. Broken glass crunched under my boots as I circled the counter, where I found the rest of the proprietor.
I had to look away, and considering what I do for a living, that’s saying something.
Something moved in the entrance. Startled, I spun around and lifted Abomination.
It was only a man. I quickly turned Abomination’s muzzle aside. “Don’t sneak up on people like that.” Even with my flashlight pointed to the side, plenty of light bounced back for me to see that he was young, probably in his late teens or early twenties, Asian, fit, with a short, neatly parted haircut, no armor, but dressed in unfamiliar olive drab fatigues. The style of his clothing tipped me off. Some of our rival Hunters had arrived. “Who are you?”
The young man stared at me and didn’t answer. Considering all of the foreign companies Stricken had unleashed on this place, he probably didn’t speak English. I had met a lot of people today, but I didn’t recognize this one. “You speak English? Who are you with?”
“With? I’m with…” He blinked a few times, confused, then rubbed his face, like he was just waking up. “I don’t know. Nobody, I guess. I’ve got to find her.”
His English was fine. “Who are you looking for?”
He moved slowly, unsteady, as if really seeing the destroyed store for the first time. He looked past me and saw the pile of limbs and organs that had recently been a person. “It’s happening again.”
“What are you—” Then I realized that he was unarmed, or at least with nothing that I could see. Because of the military cut of his clothing, I’d assumed he was a Hunter, but why come here without a weapon? Was he a local who’d just blundered in? But he didn’t seem shocked or disgusted to see the body, just disappointed. “Who are you?”
“Z?” I turned to see Trip coming through the doorway from the garage. “Who’re you talking to?”
I turned back around and the young man was gone.
Running for the entrance, I stepped in the puddle of oil, slipped, and nearly went down, but I skidded along and made it to the door. I stepped outside, looked both ways. He was gone. Ten feet into the parking lot and I could see around the police car, and…
Nothing.
“You okay?” Trip asked as he followed me outside.
“I was just talking to a guy. He was right here. Asian kid, about this tall.” I held one hand out at shoulder height. I turned back around, but the cold desert was empty. “I thought he was one of the other Hunters.” Nervous, Trip took his night vision monocular out and used that to scan the parking lot. I looked behind the tow truck but the stranger was gone. “Weird.”
“If we had a normal job, I’d laugh it off and say you imagined it, but…”
“Flexible minds,” I repeated MHI’s unofficial motto as I rubbed my face with one glove. I could’ve sworn I’d been having a conversation with a real person. Maybe Lacoco had hit me harder yesterday than I’d thought. “Hell if I know.” Trip looked like he was eager to show me something. “What’ve you got?”
Trip held up a DVD case. “You love B-movies. Seen this one?”
“Terrorantula? Nope.” The cover shot was a girl in a bikini being menaced by a bad CGI spider. I flipped it over and read the back. “Shocking tale, special effects masterpiece…a mutant spider terrorizes a camp for wayward girls. Rated R for horror, violence, language, and nudity. Terror. Tarantula. Terrorantula. I’ll have to add it to my Netflix queue.”
“The DVD was still in the machine. I think this was our victim’s entertainment last night. You seeing what I’m seeing?”
I looked at the picture again. “No way…” It did have an uncanny resemblance to the dead thing next to the trailer, though the real one was scarier.
“That’s what I said. Coincidence?”
“If he watched Jaws the night before and got eaten by a shark while surfing in the shark-infested ocean, that would be a plausible coincidence. But Terror-friggin’-antula in middle of Nowhere, Nevada, which isn’t exactly known for giant spiders? What are the odds of that?”
“We’ll have to ask Lee. Dude dreads giant spiders. I bet he knows right off the top of his head, but odds? Astronomical?”
“Trip, I know it offends your tender Baptist sensibilities when I use profanity, but what the fuck is going on here?”
Trip pointed to the north. “Choppers inbound. We can always ask the MCB.”