Monster Hunter Bloodlines - eARC by Larry Correia (read a book .txt) 📕

The ghost falcon hit the ground. I shouldered Abomination and fired. I was so close the buckshot dug a hole in the ground right through the bird.

Then one of the dogs came out of nowhere and bit my arm.

I roared in pain as its fangs sunk into my flesh. Searing cold crawled up the limb. It hit right near where the reptoid had gotten me earlier, so it really fucking hurt. The jaws clenched and the dog pulled, dropping its haunches, trying to drag me off my feet.

My left hand was on Abomination’s foregrip. I hit the button to pop out the bayonet and stabbed it right through one burning eye. I shoved the silver blade through the dog’s head until the point popped out its opposite ear hole. The jaws unclenched as it dropped dead, black skin crumbling to nothingness.

Then the other dog jumped on my back.

I went down hard enough to catch a mouthful of trail dirt. It was on me. I managed to roll over as it snapped at my face. I managed to get one hand on its head, trying to hold it back, but it was like wrestling a block of ice. Its teeth were going for my throat.

And then its head popped and all I could see for a moment was a shower of blue sparks.

Sonya was standing there, with smoke rising from the end of her double barrel. “Quit dicking around and let’s get out of here.”

I was actually surprised that she’d not kept running. I grunted as I got to my feet. “Thanks for coming back.”

“I’m not going to make a habit of it.”

We stumbled through the woods. The teeth marks in my arm burned. I could still move all my fingers so it hadn’t severed any tendons, but I switched Abomination to my left hand because it hurt less that way. We kept on for a few more minutes, as the fog seemed to dissipate a bit, and there was no sign of the animal menagerie from hell.

“You’re not going to bleed to death, are you?” Sonya asked.

“Not anytime soon I hope.” I shined my light on my arm and winced when I saw it was a bloody mess.

“I don’t see any more glow. Do you think he’s gone?”

“Not a chance.”

Chapter 10

Running for your life through a dark and unfamiliar forest kind of sucks. But after a few breathless minutes I saw a glimmer of light just ahead. That had to be the road. We had to splash across a stream, and then scramble up a steep moss-covered embankment. There was a metal guard rail at the top. Sonya hopped right over. Because of the angle I had to kind of crawl up, and flop over the rail onto the asphalt.

It turned out the lights I’d seen through the trees had been for a little country gas station and convenience store. It was the only building in sight. There were a couple of cars parked there. Sonya started toward the store.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“His aura is jamming our phones. I’m going to see if they have a wired phone that works to call for help,” she said. “Like what do you call the old-fashioned kind?”

Was she trying to make me feel old? “You mean a landline?”

“Yeah, like a landline or whatever.”

“And involve some more innocent people so they can get murdered by that thing? Hell no.”

“I’m not going to endanger anybody.”

“Did you miss all the severed limbs back at the bar or the guy it put through the ceiling? Everyone around you is in danger. This creature is here because of you. You interrupted a deal between some really evil assholes, and this Drekavac thing is their insurance policy. The guy you stole it from, Stricken, he’s bad news and has seen shit you can’t even imagine, and even he called this monster relentless. It’s not going to stop until it kills you or we figure out how to kill it permanently.”

Sonya scowled at me, then looked back at the convenience store, which appeared well lit and relatively inviting when compared to our ominous patch of shadowy roadside. “What are we supposed to do then? Keep running until it catches us?”

“Or until my friends find us.” That was honestly my only real hope. I could keep killing this thing all night, but it only needed to get lucky once and I was toast. We could keep trying to stay ahead of it, but I didn’t even know if this was the kind of entity that would stop at dawn, or if it cared about daylight at all. I checked my phone, but still nothing. My radio was in the bag I’d lost, so I couldn’t even try that to see if my team was close. “I’ve got a GPS tracker on this vest and help was already on the way to the bar when this thing showed up.”

“What if the thing is messing with the GPS signal like it is our phones? Then what, huh?”

I sighed. That was likely. The air had been clear for a little while, hot and fog free, so it was possible we’d lost it, or maybe it needed time to recuperate or something. This could be our best chance. “Okay, but we make it quick, and then we get out.”

We hurried over to the gas station. The car that had been fueling up at one of the pumps drove off. There was only one other vehicle parked at the side, probably from whoever was working. There were clouds of bugs flying around the overhead lights. The night felt normal and alive, which was a good sign.

Through the window I could see that there was a kindly looking woman in her fifties working behind the counter. Since I was huge and scary, even when I wasn’t filthy, bleeding, and wearing a tac vest, I was probably going to frighten her, and then have to calm her down, which