SNAFU: Hunters

Terry Warner crashed his way through the door of yet another dilapidated room and skidded to a halt. Damn it, the house was huge! He’d got completely turned around and had a Taint, a real Taint, looking for him that apparently regarded him as the dessert course. Outside, a full moon had risen to its apex, shining a ghostly white light through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He slumped down, breathing hard and with his back against a crumbling plaster fire surround that, a couple of centuries ago, would have been downright regal. Having it pressed against his spine meant nothing could creep up behind him. So that was a start. He ran a shaking hand through his short hair and tried to get his breathing under control. This was worse than his first ever combat mission. At least that time he’d had some real fucking bullets! This time, all he had was a useless M4 that kept doing a Bob Marley on him and jamming. He checked his leg holster – he still had the Blackhawk, but using that would mean getting up close with a Taint. Much closer than Terry wanted to be. Ever.

He pulled his head up off his chest, sniffed hard, took a deep breath and looked around. Okay. Freaking out wasn’t going to help. He could do that later at home, in Claire’s arms. Right now, he needed to survive long enough to make it out of the house in one piece.

But to do that, he needed to turn from hunted into hunter.

A soft click made every muscle in his body tense.

He brought the M4 up to his shoulder then remembered that it was nothing more than a fancy stick, thanks to a jammed trigger. He dropped the useless weapon and slid the Blackhawk out of its sheath. “Right, you bastard!” he muttered. “Ding fucking ding. Round two…”

Terry let the image of his friend being torn to pieces crash into the front of his mind. He let all the blind, white-hot anger, and all the choking rage pile up, and concentrated it into a single pinpoint of fury. ‘Use it. Control it. Focus it. Then unleash hell on the son of a bitch!’ Colby Flynn’s words came back to him. Day one. Combat tactics. Damn, that guy might be a hard-arse T.O., but he sure as hell knew his stuff.

Terry braced, ready to explode up and launch a deadly attack with the Blackhawk on the first Taint that showed its ugly face through the door…

“Whoa!” Flynn slid effortlessly into the room and, thanks to lightning reflexes, years of training and battlefield experience, and a healthy sense of self-preservation, just managed to spring back in time to avoid getting sliced and diced by Warner’s Blackhawk.

“Sir!” Warner immediately retracted the knife and spluttered an apology. “Shit! I’m sorry! I thought you were Binky! I… shit, did I miss you? Tell me I missed you! Did I miss you?”

“It’s okay, you missed. But nice backswipe.” Colby flashed a humourless grin at the man. “Bank that one, Warner. We may need it again before the night’s out.” He put a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yes, sir.” Warner’s voice trembled slightly, but his jaw muscle twitched and his stance was solid. He might have failed the VR simulation, but he’d come through his first encounter with a real Taint with added fire in his belly. “How did you find me?”

“Fella, you’re leaving a trail a blind man could follow.” Colby pointed down at the man’s boots.

“Shit. Sorry.” Warner examined the bottom of his boots. They were still wet with his friend’s blood. “Sir, Robbie–”

Colby’s voice softened. “I know, mate. I found him.” Flynn reached into his pocket and pulled out Robbie Moore’s dog tags. He looked down at them for a moment, and then held them out to Warner. “He was your oppo, Terry. You should hold onto these for him until we get out of here.”

Warner closed his hand around the tags and cleared his throat, choking back his emotions. “Thank you, sir.”

Colby sniffed sharply. “Right then.” He pressed his radio squawk button. “Yol, I’ve got Warner. He’s alive. Sound’s like we’ve got…” He paused and looked at Warner, who held up a single finger. Colby nodded. “Yeah, we’ve got a single Taint that we know of. We’re on level one, the old drawing room in the north wing. The Taint is…” Again he looked at Warner, who pointed up, held up two fingers, and then rotated his flattened hand from side to side. Colby responded with another nod and carried on talking into his radio. “We think he’s two levels up. Get the team to come in through the side entrance and meet us in the back stairwell.”

“Copy that.”

“And bring guns. Lots and lots of big, shiny guns.” Colby released the button and looked at Warner. “You and I are going to meet up with the rest of Alpha Unit. They’re going to give you a live payload for that M4–”

“This bloody thing’s defective, sir. Misfired on me. I had to use the other end to hit the Taint in the face.” Warner shrugged. “It seemed like a good thing to do. Ya know. Therapeutic.”