Although he did not fully understand this new body, he knew that its hardened flesh was amazingly resistant to modern weapons. Now, all he needed was the rest of the serum to make himself complete, old man and new man; the perfect being.
The fact that he had won this hybrid rage from something lost to the earth for eons did not disturb him. Yes, it was enough to be alive, and if he could only retrieve the serum, he knew he would never know death as mortals knew death.
He stood in the deepest darkness, staring from a ridge over their camp where their fire burned.
Yes, he muttered, laughing, use your fire. As they did before. But we slaughtered you then.
We will slaughter you again.
Darkness shimmered on the edge of the campfire.
In the eerie silence, Taylor inserted and ejected.12-gauge double-ought rounds from a shotgun, working the gun with mechanical precision, almost an extension of the machine. Varied shotguns were positioned around him, and he wore a sawed-off double-barrel with a cut-down stock on his hip. On his other side was a large-caliber handgun. He was the most heavily armed man on the team, and the largest. The great weight of ammo and guns didn't seem to disturb him at all.
One of the weapons slung across his back was an M-16-type cut-down shotgun that exchanged clips filled with.12-gauge rounds, just as soldiers exchanged clips loaded with .223 cartridges. Across one shoulder was a bandoleer of shells. Across the other shoulder was a belt containing magazines for the automatic shotgun.
Hunter hadn't spoken to Taylor until he was preparing to bed down for the night. But he glanced up as Taylor approached and asked, "Why mess with all them sticks and leaves? Think that's gonna keep you from freezing to death?"
"Usually works well enough," Hunter said, simply.
A pause.
"You know, Hunter. You're good." He seemed to think about it. "Fact is, you're real good. Maybe the best I ever seen. But I don't like guys like you."
Hunter shrugged. "Doesn't make much difference, does it?"
"Does to me."
"Well," Hunter replied as he carefully placed a piece of bark, "look at it like this, Taylor. If you're as good as they say you are, you won't have to put up with me much longer, anyway."
Silence. Then Taylor grunted. "I knew a guy like you back in 'Nam. Real mystical. A tracker. Indian dude. Used to talk to spirits, all that shit. Everybody liked him. Until all them great spirits led us into an ambush and they ended up dog meat."
"Sorry about that, Taylor." Hunter finished his task with a curved piece of bark. "But, truth is, I don't do much talking to spirits, divine or otherwise. So you shouldn't have anything to worry about."
After a moment Taylor mumbled something low to himself and walked toward his tent.
Hunter had become accustomed to the sergeant's fire-scarred face. One half was permanently reddened and smooth, the dead eye gazing from a broad, determined brow, the other dark and fierce, changing in a breath from concentrated and distant to personal and close and threatening. Working through the aftermath of the conversation, Hunter sensed yet another presence approaching but didn't turn because he identified it by the familiar soft stride.
Each hour, he had noticed, his senses were becoming more acute, his eyes adjusting to a keenness he hadn't experienced in a long time. There was a renewed acuity for distant searching, and he could read the faintest ghost of a track without a magnifying glass. He could see distant ridges clearly while the rest relied upon cumbersome binoculars. And he knew his senses would sharpen even more as the track progressed.
It was a phenomenon that sometimes happened, sometimes not. For in thick jungle, where only limited vision was necessary, his eyesight never seemed to improve. But in this vast wilderness where a clear superiority of vision was required, he usually adjusted quickly. He heard Bobbi Jo behind him.
"What's that?" she asked.
"A leaf hut," he said without turning. "I learned how to make it when I was a kid."
"It's not very big."
"That's what makes it work."
"How's that?"
Hunter shrugged. "You create a small cocoon with leaves and sticks, place some bark on the outside to keep out the rain, insulate it good so there's nothing but dead air and you're set. Body heat warms the space, the dry leaves keep the heat inside. The bark keeps out the moisture. It works well in any environment."
She knelt, rifle in hand, and studied the structure. "But it's only closed on three sides. It's gonna get pretty cold tonight."
Glancing at her, Hunter gestured vaguely at the fire. "I'll heat a few stones and put them just outside the entrance. That'll do for the night."
"So this is why you don't carry any equipment?" She seemed more interested in him now than the hut. " 'Cause you can just live off the land?" She smiled, something Hunter hadn't yet seen; it won his attention. She added with a laugh, "A Tarzan kinda thing?"
He laughed with her. "I guess it's something like that."
Uninvited, she squatted beside him, watching him work. "Where did you learn to do all this, Hunter? I've had expert jungle training under covert programs where they allow women in combat and—"
"And where would that be?" Hunter asked.
She paused. "In the government," she said, a meaningful bluntness to it. "The only place where they'll take a woman in combat."
"Impressive," he replied. "I respect that."
"Do you really?"
"Sure," he continued. "Why wouldn't I?"
She wrapped her arms around her knees. "You know, seems to me somebody like you wouldn't respect much at all."
He smiled but didn't look. "Why's that?"
"Oh, I don't know," she remarked vaguely. "What they told us in the briefing was that you can survive out here or anywhere. You're rich. Famous. You come up with all those cures for diseases and stuff. You have mansions and penthouses and yet you prefer to live in that old broken-down log cabin. Like you don't really need any of that fancy stuff." She paused; the smile still hovered on his bronzed face. "They told us all that but they couldn't answer my questions. So…what's the score?" she continued, watching closer. "That is, if you don't mind my asking."
He shrugged. "No special reason. You're right. I don't need the rest of that stuff. Neither does anyone else, either. But I have it: I use it for a good purpose."
"You think this is a good purpose?"
"Yeah," he said, a slight lifting of his brow. "Yeah, I do."
Silence.
Bobbi Jo leaned forward. "What'd you do before this?"
"Spent most of my life just surviving," he replied. "An old trapper taught me how to live off the land when I was just a kid. So I traveled out in the Northwest, just tracking, living in the wild. It's all the same as a city, anyway. 'Cause everything you need to survive is beside you. Food, shelter, clothing. A man could come out here with nothing but a knife and an ax and make a home for himself." He laughed. "Not real smart, but it's possible. This place is a lot harder than any other that I've seen. Hard country, for sure."
"I truly think you'd need more than just a knife."
Hunter turned his head. "Really?"
"Yeah, really." She gestured toward her pack. "That's my pack, and it's got the bare minimum for surviving in this terrain. And I'm someone who actually knows what she's doing. I can survive almost anywhere, but I need everything in that pack."
"Like a tent?" Hunter smiled.
Bobbi Jo looked at the structure he had completed in less than a half hour. It looked absolutely solid and, despite herself, she believed that it would be as warm as anything they had brought.