Alaina Lambert had just beached her Zodiac landing boat and was walking up the sand when Hunter stepped out from the shaded line of palms with what looked like bundles of paper wadded in his arms. The wads were as thin and translucent as rice paper, the edges flaking off in the island wind and fluttering like leaves into the tall clumps of tufted hair grass.
“That’s not my brother’s body,” Alaina told Hunter. She sat on a fallen palm stump and opened her water bottle. It was sticky out here and too hot. The moisture practically burned on her skin.
Hunter dropped the bundle at Alaina’s feet. The paper—not really paper at all—hit the sand and broke apart, scattering in a twisting white tornado into the trees, across the sand, out to the surf.
“It’s not my problem,” Hunter told her. “Mister Lambert paid me to secure the island until you got here. Now you’re here. I’m leaving.” He started towards the Zodiac, his tactical boots leaving deep grooves in the sand. Out beyond the breakers, Lambert Corporation’s yacht, Vega Horizon, road the three foot white caps on its anchored tether.
“Hey Hunter,” Alaina called after him. She guessed ‘Hunter’ wasn’t even his real name. He probably gave it to himself, trying to sound tough. Freelance merc bodyguards got off on things like that.
Hunter turned around and Alaina held up the keys to the Zodiac. “You planning on paddling your way out to the Horizon? Not gonna get past those breakers without these.” She gave the keys a shake, and they jingled dully under the crashing roll of the surf. Just try and take them from me.
Hunter held out his hand for the keys, but Alaina pulled them back. “Securing the island isn’t the only thing my brother hired you for. I need to know where you found the chrysalis.”
“The what?”
Alaina kicked the white bundle lying in the sand, sending more flakes of the shed cocoon scattering into the wind.
Hunter pointed behind her into the trees. “About a hundred yards that way. You can’t miss it. There’s a freshwater lagoon back there with a giant rocket booster sticking out of the middle of it.”
Alaina arched an eyebrow at this, but Hunter only shrugged. “I don’t know. This far away from Cape Canaveral, I guess NASA’s too broke anymore to go salvage it.”
It’s not NASA’s rocket to salvage, Alaina thought, but said nothing.
“And there’s a dead boar back there too,” Hunter added. “Just follow the smell. Now give me the keys.”
Alaina didn’t give him the keys. She capped her water bottle and stood, then marched off in the direction Hunter had pointed. “Show me.”
Behind her, Hunter sighed.
It might not have been the smartest thing to do, turning her back on him. Alaina wondered how close she was to getting a knife between the shoulder blades or a forearm around her throat. He could take the keys if he wanted to, she was sure about that, but then he wouldn’t get paid, and money was another thing hired guns got off on. I hold the keys to the kingdom, now that Bennie is a changed man, she thought as they stomped through the trees and into the shadowy undergrowth beyond the beach. Once this business with Hunter is finished, I’ll head back to Lambert Corp and take my seat as chairwoman. She wasn’t sure she wanted the job, but she was next in line, at least for another five years, when it would be her turn to come back here.
“You can’t smell that?” Hunter asked.
Alaina turned and found him walking with his shemagh pulled up over his face.
“I smell it,” she said. But the smell didn’t make her sick. In fact, the scent of what it represented gave her a sense of relief. Hunter had radioed in that her brother was dead. But the dead boar and the empty chrysalis said otherwise.
A dozen more steps brought them to the boar’s carcass. There wasn’t much left—bones and sinew, really—barely enough left over for the flies, which scattered in distress as Alaina and Hunter drew up. The droning sounded like a squadron of kamikazes.
Alaina squatted and studied the carcass. The kill was fresh, only days old. The eyes and brain were gone, as were the intestines and meaty hind flanks. “I thought you said my brother was dead?”
“He is dead.” Hunter held up his arms and spun around. “Take a look at this island. It’s not exactly huge. Benjamin’s been out here three months now, and it took me all of two days to turn the whole place over looking for him. Nothing. Where else could your brother have gone? He didn’t build a raft and leave; we would have spotted him.
“If he’s dead, Hunter, where’s the body?”
Alaina left the boar and headed deeper into the island’s interior, towards the lagoon. This wasn’t her first trip back to the island. She had come back once before, right after Bennie purchased it a decade earlier.
Hunter was practically shouting as he trailed behind her. “Lone man on a deserted island…he could have been killed and eaten by almost anything. That’s not the only boar here, you know. Whole place is riddled with animal tracks. And not just boar either. There’s at least one big cat out here, maybe more.” When Alaina didn’t respond, Hunter went on. “And what the hell was that cocoon back there, huh? Biggest damn thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe whatever made that swooped down and killed your brother. You need to face the facts, lady, your brother is dead.”
Alaina reeled around and marched at Hunter. He took a defensive stance and raised his arms, preparing to fend her off. She stopped at his toes and looked straight up. She was no taller than his chest and not even half as broad. He had at least a hundred pounds on her, maybe more, all of it a solid slab of battle-hardened muscle. The only hand she raised was a finger to his chest, which she jabbed like a knife as she spoke. “My brother is not dead, so quit being such a coward and help me look for him!”
Hunter didn’t back down, didn’t even flinch. The guy’s eyes never even blinked. He just stood there, breathing through his shemagh, taking it. When Alaina was finished, he said, “My fee just doubled, and I want it all in cash as soon as we get back.”
“My brother was always fair with you,” Alaina told him. “Which is more than he ever said about you. You think he didn’t tell me about your little extortion plot down in Venezuela? That’s right. Everything he was paying you, and it still wasn’t enough, was it? Trust me, you’ll get whatever’s coming to you.” She backed away from him, not daring to turn her back on him this time. The look on his face was beyond anger. He looked ready to kill her. Overhead, a shadow fell over their path and was gone just as quickly; a dark cloud blowing across the sun, or maybe an island bird sailing over the treetops. Alaina hoped it was something else though.
“That was business, honey, pure business.” Hunter pulled the shemagh away from his face, and Alaina saw that he was snarling. Snarling! “Everybody greases their wheels a little differently. Your brother never understood that, thought he could just make things happen down there with a simple handshake and that pretty-boy smile of his. I’ve been around, you know. I know how things work.”
The shadow that had sailed over their heads a moment before now descended as quietly as the wind and landed on the path right behind Hunter. It was as tall as one of the palm trees. It’s giant wings flapped, billowing Hunter’s fatigues as he raged on.
“You don’t know how everything works,” Alaina said, and nodded over Hunter’s shoulder. He turned, saw the wings and the antennae and the bulging eyes. It was the teeth that broke him though, still dripping with the boar’s blood. Hunter scrambled backwards so fast that he skidded across the path and nearly lost his feet. He was so stunned he couldn’t even draw his knife. It was the first time Alaina had ever seen genuine fear on his face, and it made her glad.
Hunter managed to free the knife, but it was too late by then. The thing beat its wings and the wind it generated was enough to send Hunter tumbling backwards into the dirt. His knife flew out of his hands, the blade glinting once in the sunlight before disappearing into the underbrush. By now the creature was on top of him, its sharp talons digging into his thighs. Hunter cried out and tried to pry its claws from the meat of his legs. It was no use.
“Get the hell out of here!” Hunter shouted. “It’s going to kill us.”
Alaina stepped beside the winged creature and stroked its furry wing. “Oh no,” she told Hunter. “Not me.”
Hunter looked at her in terror as he finally realized what was happening.
“I told you my brother was still alive. And I told you you’d get what was coming to you.”
Alaina gave the wing a gentle squeeze and headed back to the beach. As she walked, she reached into her pocket and jangled the keys to the Zodiac. Behind her, Hunter was screaming, and Alaina imagined it was the same scream the boar had made before her brother finished it off. Five years wasn’t much time to find and prepare the next member of their invasion party before she herself would have to return to the island. Earth was such a large planet, and they were so spread out, but she had a lot of resources at her disposal now.
THE END
