Larry Correia - Monster Hunter Alpha

Better safe than sorry. Earl fired a magazine of. 45 ammo into the cab of the truck, puckering bullet holes through the door as he approached. Earl replaced the stick magazine in the Thompson as he ran up the side of a collapsed shelf, kicking bags of chips out of the way. He stuck the barrel through the driver’s side window. Empty. Something had been jammed down on the accelerator. “Shit.”

He glanced toward the ruined front of the store but could see nothing out there in the swirling storm. The engine was so obnoxious indoors that he could barely hear himself think, and the exhaust was pumping out a noxious cloud. Annoyed, he jerked the door open and reached down for the knife that had been used to wedge down the gas pedal.

Surprisingly, the blade had been stabbed through one of his own MHI patches. What’s that doing here? He pulled the familiar happy face with horns off, noting that the patch was an old one, stained with dried blood. There was a backpack sitting on the seat, unzipped. Something wrapped in black electrical tape was visible inside the pack. Then Earl knew what a colossal mistake he’d made. “Shit!” he exclaimed, diving away from the bomb.

He didn’t quite make it.

I spent that last full moon free on the island. It was a frustrating place for the animal to be let free. There was nothing interesting to hunt. No animals larger than a seagull to kill. My other half was frustrated, angry, and, if I had my way, it was going to remain that way forever.

That next morning, I had sat on the rocks of my nameless island, waiting for Santiago’s boat to arrive to take me back to Cayos de Tiburon with all of my earthly possessions, which consisted of a satchel of worn-out clothes, the books Santiago had given me, a few supplies, and my Smith amp; Wesson. 45.

Something was wrong. Different. There was a sensation in the air. I could feel it, but I couldn’t describe it. At the time I chalked it up to the excitement of returning to the world.

It was the same boat as usual. They were downwind, so I saw before I smelled it, and immediately I knew something wasn’t right. Instead of one passenger, there were three. By the time I recognized the other werewolves’ scents over the diesel stink of the engine, it was too late.

The male was far taller than me, African, wearing a loose cotton vest over a torso made of solid muscle. He actually grinned when he saw me coming down the sand. The female was strikingly beautiful, Latina, with long black hair and a nice shape under her formless white shirt, but then again I hadn’t seen a woman in three years.

Then I saw Santiago crumpled on the bow. Dried blood coated half his face, and fresh blood was still leaking from his nose and mouth. He’d been beaten to a pulp. Hemp ropes had been tied around his arms. He looked up at me through swollen eyes and mouthed the words I’m sorry.

The African, huge and intimidating, effortlessly hoisted Santiago by the back of the neck to better show him off. “Greetings, my son.” The werewolf’s voice boomed, and somehow I knew that this was the leader.“I’ve come a long way to find you. I’ve sensed you for some time.”

“Let go of my friend,” I ordered as I pulled the Smith from behind me. I cocked the hammer and aimed at the stranger’s face. I only had one silver bullet. “Let him go right now.”

“Now, you know that isn’t how it’s done,” the stranger said, his accent thick. “What foolish lies did this old priest put in your head?”

“Kill him!” the female shrieked. “Kill him like he killed my sister!”

I turned the gun on her. Her sister? “Lady, I don’t know who’re you’re even talking about.”

“The one that made you. I made her. So that makes you mine. You are of my pack, upstart,” the stranger said as he passed Santiago over to the girl. She immediately put a long knife to my friend’s throat. The male hopped out of the boat and onto the sand. “I am Seamus. This”-he gestured at the island and the ocean-“is all mine. I lead. Many follow.”

“Kill him,” the girl said again. Santiago grimaced as the blade cut into his neck. “For Maria!”

“Hush, girl,” he ordered, not even bothering to look back. He was getting closer. “You can feel it, can’t you? You know that I am the father.”

I could see now that his eyes were wrong. Too bright, an almost luminescent shade of gold, and I realized that I didn’t know what mine looked like when I was about to change. It wasn’t like I had spent much time looking in the mirror lately.

“My children must do as I say. Live as I would have them live. Let me teach you. Not the lies of this priest. Let me show you real freedom, what it is to run free, to join the hunt, to live as gods.”

I hadn’t shot a gun in a very long time, but I’d gotten plenty of practice in my life and some things you don’t forget. The front-sight blade barely quivered as I spoke. “Let him go or you’ll regret it.”

Seamus laughed at my folly. “You will not best me, upstart. That’s not the way. Join the pack or die. Which one will it be?”

Nobody had ever accused a Shackleford of being the hesitating type. I pulled the trigger.

The huge explosion rocked the grocery store, blowing out every remaining window inside, and most of those in the surrounding buildings as well. Car alarms went off on nearby streets. The town may not have heard the evening’s gun-shots over the noise of the storm, but that certainly would wake them up.

“Not what I expected,” the Alpha stated matter-of-factly. He, the witch, and her two servants were sitting unnoticed on the roof of a house across the street from the grocery store. They had the best seats in the house. The witch’s magic assured that they would not be seen as Nikolai Petrov sprinted across the parking lot, following the tracks of the snow-plow. “I’d assumed that this would be a more traditional contest. This is cheating.”

“I told you they were unpredictable,” the witch insisted. “You assumed these men would still be caught up in the old ways. They’ve evolved, just as you have. Petrov is far too ruthless to play games, even more so when it is personal. It appears he’ll be the one whose soul we harvest.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” The Alpha clutched the amulet of Koschei to his chest. Like him, it was hungry. It would have to be fed soon, regardless of the outcome of this battle. He watched as Nikolai took cover at the hole in the wall. The Russian risked a quick peek inside at the flaming chaos, raised his rifle, and entered. “But I wouldn’t count the Hunter out so easily.”

The witch smirked. “Ten quid says Petrov annihilates him.”

The Alpha wasn’t sure what a quid was in dollars, but he knew from secondhand experience that Harbinger was an extremely difficult man to kill. “You’re on.”

Heather had been going from house to house, waking people up, and had been trying to convince Mrs. Valikangas that she needed to grab her deer rifle and get to safety when the explosion rocked the town.

The retired elementary-school teacher had been incredulous and had told Heather that she didn’t look well, that she needed to come inside to warm up by the fire, and that she was worried about her. Heather had grown more frustrated by the second. Her stomach was growling as badly as her disposition when she’d heard the concussion. They were quite a way down the street, but the shockwave had shaken the Valikangases’ front porch hard enough to dislodge chunks of snow from the roof. It took a second for the rumble to subside.

She had run down the steps, head turned in the direction of the blast. Heather reasoned that the storm must be letting up, though it certainly didn’t feel like it, because she could hear much better now. See farther, too.