Page 10 of Gray

“Jones is down!” Kinkaid relayed to the team before transmitting to our commanding unit, “This is Blade-22. We’ve got one man down and more wounded.”

His words faded as another enemy charged us. I shot him in the chest.Kill, kill, kill.In training, they had made us repeat the phrase over and over, drilling it into our heads.

Two others came at me but suddenly stopped. And then they ran in the other direction, screaming in their native tongue.

What the fuck?

Movement behind me made me whirl around, gun at the ready. My heart fucking stopped as I met a pair of milky eyes. It looked like a man, but he was all wrong. Twisted. His head cocked to the side, one shoulder raised higher than the other. His arms were unnaturally long, as were his legs.

“Hawk!” Kinkaid yelled—my last name and call sign. “What the hell is that?”

Voices of other men from my team blared through the radio, and screams echoed from the corridor behind me. The thing in front of me stooped lower, torso bending, and sniffed at Jones’ dead body. It opened its mouth, revealing long, jagged teeth. And then it bit into his neck, tearing off a huge chunk of flesh.

“Fuck!” I shouted, blasting the thing with bullets.

More of the things then appeared, chomping down on the dead bodies around me. I watched as two of them ripped a man in two before going after his intestines. Bile rose in my throat. A hit came at me from the side, a putrid stench coming with it.

Gunfire rang in the air as Kinkaid shot the thing on top of me. He helped me to my feet, and we stood back-to-back as more of the long-limbed fuckers appeared from the shadows. I’d seen a lot of shit in my time in special forces, but nothing like this.

I didn’t even know whatthiswas.

It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be.

“What the actual fuck!” Kinkaid’s body trembled against mine.

Another of the creatures sprang forward and bit Jones. Chewing, it straightened to its full height and twitched. And then it began to change. Blond hair sprouted from its bald head, sickly pale skin gained some color, and its milky eyes shifted to green.

“Jones?” Kinkaid asked.

“That’s not Jones!” Because our friend was still dead on the dirty floor, parts of his body bitten off.

The thing now wearing his face was very much alive. And staring right at us.

With a gasp, my eyes flew open, and I tumbled off the bed into the floor, a cry dying on my lips. It took my mind several seconds to process my surroundings. Breathing hard, I sat up and looked around, trying to calm myself down.

The grotesque creatures were gone. I wasn’t in Afghanistan, reliving the worst night of my life. I was in a dark motel room, the vacancy sign blinking red outside the window.

The clock on the bedside table displayed 5:40 a.m. No sense in going back to sleep. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually slept a full eight hours. I managed three to four at most before waking up screaming from the memory of that night.

It fucking haunted me, both awake and asleep.

After peeling myself off the floor, I went into the bathroom and pulled back the cheap shower curtain before flipping on the water, the pipes in the wall groaning as the spout sputtered out cold water. Once it heated, I stepped under the spray and hung my head, letting it wash over me.

For the past two years, I’d lived out of a suitcase. Cheap hotel rooms and never staying in the same place for long had become my norm. All because of that night. Before then, I’d thought vampires, werewolves, and all the things that went bump in the night were just stories. Fiction. Damn was I wrong.

Now, I dedicated my life to hunting them down. It had given me a purpose when everything around me came crumbling down. When my friends were killed, both by men and by monsters. When I watched their bodies be devoured.

Stop thinking about it.

I didn’t linger in the shower. The groaning in the pipes worsened, and the hot water turned lukewarm in a matter of minutes. I hopped out, dried off, and shaved, trying not to look at my reflection too deeply. Mainly because I hated what I saw staring back at me—a man who’d let fear hold him prisoner when others needed him most.

Never again.

I was stronger now.

After going to the 24-hour convenience store across the street for a large coffee and a breakfast croissant, I returned to my room and booted up my laptop. I searched for news articles about any unexplained or strange attacks, then checked the message boards where other hunters like myself chatted and exchanged information.

Turned out, there was a whole network of people who hunted monsters. I’d befriended a group, and we regularly talked. I read through the recent posts.