Airship Hunters by Jim Beard & Duane Spurlock

Author:Jim Beard & Duane Spurlock
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction: Action and Adventure
Publisher: Meteor House
Published: 2015-12-31T08:00:00+00:00

“We will form an L,” Valiantine directed. “From the top of the slope bordering the river along the front edge of the timber, then up alongside the road. When the woods spread to the other side of the road, the wing of the L will swing across the road, and we’ll have one straight line advancing through the trees. I’ll be at the hinge of the L.”

“I’ll be at the head of the L, by the river,” Cabot said.

The lieutenant surveyed the men arrayed before him. “Everyone armed? Take your places.”

The line of men advanced. The bloodhound put its nose to the ground and pulled its handler forward. Cabot and Valiantine each carried a shotgun brought by the Police Department.

The thick growth of trees and briars impeded their forward progress. The tangles of limbs clutched at the men’s clothes, scratched at their faces and eyes, and slowed their advance so that the searchers were sweaty and weary after only an hour.

BANG!

A gunshot halted the advance. The men dropped to their knees or dodged behind the bole of a tree, guns at the ready.

Valiantine bellowed out, “Who’s shooting?”

A reedy voice replied: “Me, you sunnavabitch! You got my dog but you ain’t gettin’ me!”

The lieutenant muttered a curse. “We’re the police. We don’t know anything about your dog. We’re armed, and we outnumber you. We’ll shoot you down if you fire again. We’re coming forward.”

He paused a moment for a reply. Hearing nothing, Valiantine nodded, and the line of men advanced.

They reached a shack assembled like a crazy quilt of driftwood, scraps of corrugated metal, broken boards from shipping crates. A scrawny terrier of a man with an unkempt beard stood with a Spencer carbine in his hands. He challenged them: “I ain’t done nothin’ to you. Leave me alone!”

Cabot had come up from his end of the line. “We’re looking for a murderer.”

“A monster,” Valiantine interjected.

“I saw somethin’,” the hermit said. “Size of a bear. Did that to my dog.” Tears came to his eyes when he gestured at a carcass lying twenty feet away: a large dog, its body ripped in two.

“I’m sorry,” Cabot said. “We’re not here to bother you. We’ll keep on our way. But if you see the thing again, shoot to kill. Or hide.”

The man glowered from within the nest of hair that hid most of his face. The police line moved forward again. Before departing back to his place in the line, Cabot spoke to his partner: “We’ve been at this more than an hour. It’ll start getting dark soon.”

“Every third man has a lantern.”

Cabot’s breathing felt too shallow to fill his chest. “We don’t want to meet this thing after dark. And the danger of the men shooting their fellows if we do—”

“We must stop this thing.”

Cabot looked at his partner. He nodded, and returned to his place at the head of the line.

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