Page 78 of Wild Wolf
I had to admit the menacing figure looked realistic. He’d crafted a hell of a suit. The composite, spring-loaded stilts gave him speed and agility. He towered over Taryn at 8 feet tall.
I didn't want to risk hitting the delicate professor. I shouted across the meadow, "Coconut County! Step away from Taryn, Oren!”
He spun around to face us, snarled, and held his menacing claws wide.
I could probably take the shot clean, but I didn't want to risk it.
Oren darted away, racing toward the tree line. The prosthetic attachments helped him run faster than a human. I can understand why the eyewitness reports were a little out of whack. If someone asked me what I saw, I would have no other way to describe it but a werewolf or some type of creature. It didn't look fake, and the prosthetics created movement patterns that differed from the standard gait of a human.
JD and I raced across the high grass of the meadow that swayed with the breeze.
The storm clouds drifted in front of the moon, obscuring it completely and darkening the island.
We reached Taryn, her eyes round with fear. Her chest heaved for breath. Adrenaline and nerves had slicked her skin with sweat.
With the tactical knife from my waistband, I cut the rope that bound her wrists behind the tree, then removed the gag from her mouth.
Without hesitation, she flung her arms around me. "I take it you got my message.”
The thump of her heartbeat resonated through me as she held tight.
The rain grew heavier.
I told Jack to stay with her. "I’m going to go get that son-of-a-bitch.”
Taryn and I broke apart.
“Be careful,” she said. “He’s completely out of his mind. He believes he can become a werewolf.”
I shouldered my rifle and advanced to the tree line where thewerewolfhad disappeared. I lowered my IR optics from my tactical helmet and scanned the area.
The thick forest and underbrush could obscure his heat signature, but he’d have a hard time hiding. It didn't take long to pick up the white-hot edges of his frame as he hid behind a tree and a clump of bushes.
I marched straight towards him with caution. "I can see you,Oren. Let's make this easy on everyone. Surrender and come out peacefully.”
He took off running through the trees, his white-hot figure leaving a ghostly trail.
Then I lost him for a moment as he ducked into a depression in the terrain. If he was smart, he’d head for one of the channels and slip into the water, cooling himself off to dissipate his heat signature. There were plenty of ways to conceal oneself in a jungle environment. Mud insulates and blocks IR, and there was plenty of it after the recent rains.
I stepped through the underbrush with caution and advanced in the direction of his last known position. With my rifle shouldered, the barrel led the way. My boots crunched over twigs and leaves.
The rain filtered through the canopy of leaves and dripped down, tapping against my helmet. Lightning flashed in the distance, whiting out the IR optics for an instant. The auto gain compensation adjusted. The afterimage persisted for a moment.
It took a second for my eyes to readjust—the flash had disrupted my natural night vision.
A boom of thunder followed, rumbling the ground and shaking the trees.
I took a few more steps, and the optics glitched. Digital distortion filled my field of view.
An instant later, the optics returned to normal.
These things were military grade, but the seals could havebeen failing. For the price of these things, I would have expected them to hold up better.
I kept my head on a swivel. A few more steps into the forest, and another flash of lightning lit up the sky, whiting out my vision again.
To hell with it. I lifted the optics and did this the old-fashioned way. I didn't want to risk a whiteout at an inopportune moment.
Gusts of wind swayed the trees, and leaves fell. The island whistled as the wind spoke.
