John Hawks - The Traveler

A power company truck appeared and three men wearing hard hats pretended to fix the electric line on the corner. A new postman also made an appearance: an older white man with a military haircut who rang the doorbell for several minutes before he went away. Hollis went up to the roof right after sunset with his rifle and a few bottles of water. The streetlights and pollution made it difficult to see any stars, but he lay on his back and watched the jet planes circle the approach pattern to Los Angeles airport. He tried not to think about Vicki Fraser, but her face floated through his mind. Most of those Jonesie girls stayed virgins until they were married. Hollis wondered if she was that way or if she had secret boyfriends.

He woke up around two o’clock in the morning when the driveway gate made a faint rattling sound. Several people vaulted over the locked gate and landed on the concrete. A few seconds passed and then the Tabula mercs kicked in the back door and entered the house. “Not here!” voices shouted. “Not here!” A plate shattered and a cooking pot hit the floor.

Ten or fifteen minutes passed. He heard the back door squeak shut, then two cars started their engines and drove away. It was quiet again. Hollis slung the assault rifle over his shoulder and lowered himself down from the roof. When his feet touched the ground, he clicked off the rifle’s safety.

Standing in a flower bed, he listened to the muffled bass thump from a passing car stereo. Hollis was just about to jump over the wall to Deshawn’s house when he remembered the cat. Maybe the Tabula mercs had scared Garvey out of the attic when they were searching the place.

He opened the back door and slipped into the kitchen. Only a small amount of light came in through the windows, but he could see that the Tabula had trashed the place. The closet door was open and everything in the kitchen cabinets had been dumped onto the floor. Hollis stepped on shards of a smashed plate and the crunching sound startled him. Be cool, he told himself. The bad guys are gone.

The kitchen was in the back of the house. A short hallway led to the bathroom, a bedroom, and the workout room where he kept his exercise equipment. At the end of the hallway, another door led to the L-shaped living room. The long part of the L was where Hollis listened to music and watched television. He had turned the small side area into a place he called “the memory room,” where he kept framed photographs of his family, old karate trophies, and a scrapbook about his professional fights in Brazil.

Hollis pushed open the door to the hallway and smelled a foul odor. It reminded him of an unclean cage at an animal shelter. “Garvey?” he whispered, suddenly remembering the cat. “Where the hell are you?” Cautiously, he moved down the hallway and discovered something smeared on the floor. Blood. Shreds of fur. Those Tabula bastards had found Garvey and ripped the animal apart.

The smell got stronger as he reached the door at the end of the hallway. He stood there for a minute, still thinking about Garvey. And then he heard a high-pitched laughing sound coming from the living room. Was it some kind of animal? He wondered. Had the Tabula left a watchdog in his house?

He raised the rifle, jerked open the door, and entered the living room. Light from the street was diffused by the bedsheets he used for curtains, but Hollis could see that a large animal sat on its haunches in the far corner near the couch. As he stepped closer, he was surprised to see that it wasn’t a dog but a hyena. It had broad shoulders, stubby ears, and a large powerful jaw. When it saw Hollis, it bared its teeth and grinned.

A second hyena, one with spotted fur, stepped from the shadows of the memory room. The two animals glanced at each other and the leader-the one by the couch-made a throaty growl. Trying to keep his distance, Hollis moved toward the locked front door. He heard a barking sound behind him-like a nervous laugh-and spun around to see another hyena come out of the hallway. This third animal had stayed hidden until Hollis had entered the living room.

The three hyenas began to move into a triangle with him at the center. He smelled their foul odor, heard claws click on the wooden floor. Hollis found it difficult to breathe. A feeling of intense fear surged through his body. The leader made a quick laughing sound and bared his teeth again.

“Go to hell,” Hollis said, and fired the rifle.

He shot the leader first, turned slightly and fired a burst at the spotted hyena near the memory room. The third animal leaped through the air as Hollis threw himself sideways. He felt a sharp pain on his upper left arm as he hit the floor. Hollis rolled to his side and watched the third hyena spinning around to attack. He squeezed the trigger and hit the animal at a low angle. Bullets cut into the hyena’s chest and it was knocked back against the wall.

When Hollis stood up, he touched his arm and felt blood. The hyena must have slashed him with its claws as it jumped forward. Now the animal lay on its side, making a deep wheezing sound while blood bubbled from a chest wound. Hollis looked at his attacker, but didn’t get close. The hyena stared back at him with hatred in its eyes.

The coffee table was lying on its side. He went around it and examined the leader. Bullet holes were in the animal’s chest and front legs. Its lips were pulled back and it seemed to be grinning.

Hollis stepped into a pool of blood, smearing it across the floor. Bullets had cut through the spotted hyena’s neck and almost severed its head. Hollis leaned down and saw that the animal’s yellow-and-black hair covered a thick skin that was almost like cowhide. Sharp claws. Strong muzzle and teeth. It was a perfect killing machine-quite unlike the smaller, cautious hyenas he had seen on nature shows. This creature was a distortion, something bred to hunt without fear, compelled to attack and kill. Maya had warned him that the Tabula scientists had learned how to subvert the laws of genetics. What was the word she used? Splicers.

Something changed in the room. He turned away from the dead splicer and realized that he could no longer hear the wheezing sound coming from the third hyena. Hollis raised the assault rifle, then saw a shadow moving on his left side. He spun around just as the leader scrambled to its feet and leaped toward him.

Hollis fired wildly. A bullet hit the leader and knocked it backward. He kept squeezing the trigger until the thirty-round clip was empty. Reversing the rifle, Hollis ran and began beating the animal with a hysterical fury, crushing the splicer’s skull and jaws. The wooden stock cracked, then broke away from the rifle frame. He stood in the shadows, clutching the useless weapon.

A scratching sound. Claws on the floor. Six feet away, the third hyena was getting to its feet. Although its chest was still wet with blood, it was preparing to attack. Hollis threw the rifle at the splicer and ran for the hallway. He shut the door behind him, but the hyena ran at full speed and smashed it open.

Hollis reached the bathroom, shut the door, and braced his body against the thin plywood, holding the knob with his hand. He thought about climbing out the window, then realized that the door wouldn’t hold for more than a few seconds.

The splicer hit the door hard. It popped open a few inches, but Hollis pushed backward with his feet and managed to slam it shut. Find a weapon, he thought. Anything. The Tabula had scattered the towels and toiletries across the bathroom floor. Still braced against the door, he knelt down and searched desperately through the clutter. The splicer hit the door a second time, forcing it open. Hollis saw the creature’s teeth and heard its frantic laughter as he pushed the door shut with all his strength.