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

coming from. Milo pointed his rifle that way, cranked up the magnification on his scope, and scanned. A moment later he whispered, “It’s just an owl.” That got relayed down the line and guns were lowered.

That owl had no idea how close it had come to getting blasted. This kind of shit is tense. Even when you spend a lot of time in the country at night, sometimes normal animals can sound really odd. I had almost shot a regular old coyote once on a hunt because it had sounded like it was speaking in a foreign language.

We reached a barbed wire fence, but it was so floppy and loose that it really wasn’t much of a fence at all. Even our shortest Hunters made it over without getting snagged. Boone started giving hand signals. This was where the teams parted ways. His guys went toward the house. I took point for my team as we headed for the barn.

It was me, Milo, Trip, and Holly now. Earl would join us when he felt like it. I’d worked with these Hunters so many times that we were damned near telepathic with each other. We walked through the pitch-black, stepping carefully, because there was a lot of old wood scattered everywhere. There were piles of ancient garbage, empty paint cans, and scattered tools rusted beyond recognizability. We followed a fence line and stayed low until we got close to our target. The barn was huge, easily big enough to park a couple of combines inside, but it had a slight lean to it. The beams looked soft and were coated in patches of moss like a cancerous growth.

There was a big sliding door, but the rollers were probably rusted solid. Luckily, it was stuck open enough that even I would be able to get through without making too much noise. That was a fortunate break. I’m a big dude anyway, but covered in armor and mag pouches, I’m downright thick.

I peered through the gap, but even with the night vision, all I could see was more old junk piles and dust particles floating between them. I signaled for my team to stop and wait for Boone’s signal. I clicked my radio twice to let the other team know we were in position. There wasn’t anything new from Earl. The Groffs were in an elevated position with precision rifles, but they’d stay quiet unless there was something they needed to warn us about.

Boone clicked three times. They were going in.

I signaled for Trip to follow me, and he passed that on. As soon as it popped off, everybody would go to hyper-speed face shooting, but until then we’d proceed quietly for as long as we could. I moved into the barn.

My team was smooth, practiced, and we went quick, even in the dark. As each of us swept in, we covered a sector. I went right with Abomination shouldered. Trip came in behind me and went straight ahead with his LWRC .45 subgun up. Then Holly with her shorty 300 Blackout, and then Milo with his JP mini-Cazador hooked left. In normal life I’m kind of a clumsy giant but put a gun in my hand and I turn into a tactical ballerina and these guys were my choreographed backup dancers. The idea of Milo in a tutu made me giggle.

It was a big open space, but it was filled with old cars, farm equipment, and piles of assorted junk. The floor was hard-packed dirt. It stank like moldy decaying hay. My eyes immediately started to itch. This was going to be hell on my allergies. I should’ve put my gas mask on.

We moved through the trash, heads on a swivel, checking up and down too, because the things we routinely had to deal with had no problem hanging from ceilings or popping up through floors.

“This is Earl,” he whispered in all our ears. “There’s something talking in the back of the barn.”

We were in the very front of the barn. I looked to my teammates, confirmed they were ready, and we headed for the rear of the building. It was getting really hard not to bump into anything though. The interior was a hoarder’s delight. There were a bunch of rickety shelves close together here, and they were so full that the aisles between them made for a snug fit. There were cardboard boxes melting into squishy mush on the floor, spilling their contents of rusting nuts and bolts. I got spiderwebs all over my face. I bet this place was full of brown recluses and black widows.

There was a loft above us and ladders leading up. Normally I would’ve cleared the high ground before proceeding, but there was no way we’d make it up there without alerting whatever it was that was waiting ahead of us. I pointed it out to Holly. She lifted her gun to cover the loft and watch our backs as the rest of us moved forward.

Then we heard what Earl had gotten through the cracks in the walls. The voice was raspy and barely audible. “Who sent you?”

“I already told you!” That was Sonya, and she sounded like she was in distress. “I got a call. I was told to come here because you wanted to buy the Ward.”

“Do you think I’m a fool? You brought that weapon here to destroy me.” Even though the voice was quiet, I recognized the accent. You don’t spend as much time around the Shacklefords as I have without being able to recognize an old-school Southern accent real fast. “Who sent you against me, child?”

“Nobody,” Sonya cried out. “Wait! Don’t kill me, please!”

I carefully moved around the edge of an old cattle trailer until I could see the conversation. I noticed Sonya first, and she was still wearing the face of the cherubic bubbly blonde girl from next door. Only now she was hanging upside down, five feet from the ground. Her ankles were bound with a thick rope,