“Not exactly. I mean, it’s great for having info on people. But you see things you can’t unsee. Like my friend being molested by her dad. Reporting that when I didn’t even know what sex was—sad and freaky. Or my third grade teacher shooting up before class. My dad setting out presents as Santa Claus. My mom wondering if she should tell him about her affair—she didn’t. They stayed together, but neither were that happy.
“People have secrets for a reason. Now I can tune it out, but growing up was hell.”
“Huh. I guess so.”
They ordered drive-thru burgers and loaded up on cheap food, then continued to drive around the outskirts of the city, finding little of note.
Until they reached the suburb of Red Oak.
“Hold on,” Alex cautioned, not sure he was seeing right. There, in a park under dim lights, he swore he saw a mutant in the shadows.
“What?”
“A mutant.”
Eli whistled. “No shit?” They pulled up closer, and Eli parked.
They sat, watching, but Alex had lost sight of the creature. “I know what I saw. Let’s check it out.”
“Fine. But make sure you’re loaded.”
Alex doublechecked his Circ2000P, the same gun Lowell had been carrying in Burma. A pistol calibrated with Circ-piercing rounds. The things would even take down a mutant, those Circs who reacted extremely poorly to the serum. Bent and broken and furious, the creatures wanted nothing more than blood and sex. They rejoiced in violence. Alex knew that left unchecked in a civilian neighborhood, they’d do a lot of damage. A glance around at a swing set and slide reinforced the urgency to find and eliminate this threat.
“Come on.” He left the car, Eli cursing beside him.
They moved on swift feet, following the pull of like to like.
“It’s like a hum, but it’s not,” Eli whispered, and Alex understood. Though he didn’t sense the mutant as clearly as Eli seemed to, he felt its presence.
The wooded park gave it plenty of places to hide, but Alex and Eli approached anyway, ready and needing to shut it down.
They found it near the bodies of a man and woman. Sadly, the creature had stumbled upon a young couple. The male had his heart ripped out, his body shredded. But the female…
Alex had to look away and regain his composure. The nicest thing that could be said was that she’d died, no longer in pain. The state of her undress, bite marks, and mauling clearly showed the mutant had intended to mate.
“Hungry. Tired.” It croaked its words. The thing had a forked tongue and red eyes, it’s body curved into a hideous arch, twisted and deformed. It had a tail, and it’s monstrous genitalia dragged on the ground when it moved.
“Come with us. We’ll let you rest.” Alex motioned for it to come closer, pity in his heart.
None of them had asked to be made, and these poor bastards had gotten the worst of the serum, turning them from man into something far from human.
It clicked its teeth, chattering and giggling to itself.
Eli tensed.
The thing stopped a few feet from Alex, then turned to face Eli.
It cocked its head and seemed to brighten with pleasure. “Mate?”
Eli blanched. “No fuckin’ way. I’m sorry, guy, but you need to go.”
Before Alex could caution Eli, Eli unloaded six round into the creature’s head.
The first three bounced off its skull, something that had never happened before with a mutant or rogue. But the next ones found purchase in the mutant’s eye sockets and nose.
Blood spurted, a thick mess of blackish-red fluid running down its face. It shrieked in pain, and Alex let off several rounds, striking the monster where he could do the most damage and slow it down—in its joints. He needed it to feel pain, to distract it from going after Eli.
While he shot at it, Eli raced around it with a machete made of hybridized steel, his gun now tucked into his jeans.
