3
The camouflage made Eddie blend in perfectly with his surroundings. The weapon in his hand felt good. It rested snugly in his arms, a finger hovering over the safety, ready to shoot anyone that crossed his path. Max will be the first to go, he always gets caught straight away.
He adjusted his goggles and looked furtively around. He spotted one of the other guys sneaking through the bushes towards him. He grinned. The loping figure making it's way through the brush had to be Max. That guy was an asshole. He was always kissing Tom's ass, so the description fitted perfectly.
He turned slowly, training his gun on the hapless Max, and fired. A splat of yellow appeared on Max's shoulder. Max looked at it and said, "Son of a bitch!" He stood up. Several splotches now began to appear on Max's once pristine uniform. He threw his gun down in frustration and walked off in the opposite direction, a final patch of paint appearing on his back.
"You're not supposed to shoot someone in the back!" he shouted over his shoulder. Laughter sprang up around him and several heads popped up out of the nearby bushes. The rest of Max's office jeered and shouted at him as he went back to base camp. He gave his colleagues a two-fingered salute and moved on. He cursed and stopped, then went back to pick up his gun. As he picked it up, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned towards the source of the disturbance, but couldn't see anything. All he could see was the haze coming up from the vegetation as the searing heat reached the zenith of midday. He turned once more and walked off, leaving them to their massacre. It was as he turned he heard a scream from the nearby bushes.
"Come on, guys, I think that's enough now!" he said, his frustration really showing now. His face was red, and it wasn't just from the heat. Then he noticed that the laughter had stopped.
"Guys?" he cried, holding his gun in a reflexively defensive position. He was waiting for them to leap out and spray him again. He whirled round at another strangled scream, hoping against hope that it was another fake. But was the first one fake? He wasn't sure he would like to find out.
He looked in the direction of the scream as saw on of his friends climbing a tree. At least that's how it looked at first glance. It was definitely something wearing camouflage going up it. Then he noticed that the arms were where the legs should be. He also noticed that the face on that body was a lifeless rictus of fear and pain. He began to panic, sweat breaking out on his face.
Then he heard the purring.
It was faint, about the same distance as the body. Then he could see the heat haze again, just above the dragging corpse.
The heat haze was moving.
He almost cried out. Thinking better of it, he forced his legs to turn him and ran through the undergrowth, heading for base camp and help. So when he heard another strange noise, a high pitched buzzing noise, he did not stop to investigate it. As the noise got louder, as though it was chasing him, he could not help himself. He turned just in time to see a large metal discus spinning towards his face, sparks flying from it's surface.
It was his last sight on earth before the discus sliced his head clean in half.
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At what the paintball range amusingly called base camp, the supervisors were watching the clock, wondering what had happened to the team of executives they had sent out.
"I'm going out to the site. Wanna come?" said Ernest, the clock watcher. He was of a slightly overweight build, with muscles that were trying to get out.
"I'll wait here. Tell them they owe us another three hundred bucks!" said Will, the skinnier of the partnership. He went back to reading his firearms magazine.
Ernest grabbed a paint rifle and walked out of the office, pushing the bead curtain aside.
Will looked up from his magazine at a cry from Ernest. Will laughed. "I keep tellin' ya to watch the goddamn step!"
"Wanna come?" said Ernest from behind the curtain.
"I told ya, I'm waitin'…" Will froze as he saw the bead curtain was pushed aside. He was staring at Ernest's slack jawed, decapitated head seemingly hovering in mid air.
"Wanna come?" The voice almost seemed to be coming from Ernest's mouth.
Gerr'ka revealed himself, his shield dissolving away as he calmly put Ernest's head down on the counter. He clenched his right fist. Blades emerged from his wristband.
"Wanna come?" he asked again.
Will screamed as the blades were driven into his stomach. He was lifted from the floor by the immense form of Gerr'ka, his head hitting the ceiling so savagely that his neck broke. Gerr'ka snatched the blades out and dropped Will's body on the floor.
Gerr'ka squatted down and set to work
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The discovery of the massacre at Rumble in the Jungle paintball park was not discovered for several hours. No other bookings were arranged for that day, and it was only a call from a worried relative that prompted the police to send a token squad car to the site. Half an hour later, the place was swarming with cops.
They found all the bodies hanging in the trees, skinned beyond the point of visual recognition. A couple had no heads. Their entrails lay in a bloody heap below the swinging corpses. Wyoming state police had never seen anything like this, but they had heard of it. California saw several gruesome murders just like this five years before.
Detective Murray looked at the scene with disgust and dismay. He stood with his arms crossed in shirt sleeves. "Fuck me…" he muttered. He turned away from the bodies as the coroner arrived with a fleet of 'meat wagons' as the Detective affectionately called them. Forensics had done their job and were glad to be going home. Officers were slowly filing away, shaking their heads. One was still in the bushes throwing up.
Above it all, in the treetops, sat the concealed figure of Glax'll, listening in on the various conversations. He looked at the weapons that were bagged up on the grass. He zoomed in with his visual display. They seemed to be metal, but he could not see any heat coming from them. Then, he heard a loud noise overhead. He looked up and saw a silver helicopter flying above the treetops and into the clearing below. Police officers scattered to make way for the chopper and it landed close to the blood spattered office. Several men climbed out, wearing FBI issued clothing, followed by two men in suits. All of them wore sunglasses.
Special Agent Garber watched his unit from the OWLF section of the FBI go about their work. Some went over to the bodies as they were being stretchered away by the coroners. Others searched among the bushes. Detective Murray did not appreciate the intrusion, however, and he made his presence felt. The FBI men simply pushed him away and flashed their badges. Murray spotted Garber standing next to the helicopter which was winding down. He marched angrily over to him.
"What the fuck is this?" he shouted over the noise of the rotor blades as they slowed down.
"Sorry to step on your toes, Detective," said Garber, pulling out his badge from his breast pocket. "Special Agent Garber, FBI."
"I know you're FBI, but what the fuck are you doing here?"
"We've been investigating a group of serial killers making their way across the state. It seems we have our next victims here. Same MO."
"I've not been told about anything like this! Last I heard of this sort of thing happening was in LA in '97."
"That's right," said Garber looking up at the treetops behind him, "But we never actually caught them." He took his sunglasses off and looked at Murray, his eyes startlingly clear, almost cold.
"But we will this time."
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