1
December 21st
Ashley Forest, South Carolina
The rifle felt heavy in his hands, but he dared not let it hang from its sling. Not when he was this close.
Sidney Osborn held his breath as he stepped over a desiccated shrub and eased his foot onto the ground. The carpet of dried leaves let out an audible crunch, and he winced at the sound. The sweat on his forehead gathered into a bead and rolled into his left eye. His heart raced, and he raised the rifle to peer through the infrared night-vision scope. He had set the scope to display as white-hot, which meant that anything warm in the forest would glow bright white, and as he scanned to the left and right, he saw nothing but dull shades of gray.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he took another step—this time digging his toes between the leaves before placing any weight onto his forefoot.
It wouldn’t be long now. According to the sophisticated GPS they had given him, the fence was just beyond the next hill. When he reached it, the real fun would begin.
Sidney ducked beneath a low-hanging pine branch and picked his way across a wide swath of moss. The vegetation was thicker here; he was close to the edge of the forest where abundant sunlight encouraged plants to grow dense and green.
But the shrubs and vines clinging to the forest floor weren’t green now. They had shed their leaves and gone dormant for winter. Sidney remembered his father using that word during one of their hunts together, more than three decades ago. “Dormant.” It meant they would look dead for a little while, but they would bloom again in the spring.
Supposedly, the beast he was hunting could go dormant, too—waiting in one place for days at a time, guarding its treasure. And if Sidney could locate the beast without waking it, his bullet would pass straight through its armor, ending its cursed life once and for all.
The rifle seemed to pulse with unseen energy, and Sidney was sure he could feel the stubby magazine of special ammunition quivering in the darkness.
Soon, he thought to himself. Soon, you will face the ultimate quarry. The one you were born to hunt.
The edge of the forest was only a few yards away, and he could see a pale stripe of road bathed in moonlight. He knelt behind a conical spruce tree, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. In the next few minutes, he would accomplish what thousands had failed to do. He would kill the monster known as The Nightmare.
Sidney didn’t know what he had done to deserve this privilege—perhaps it was his skill as a hunter or his familiarity with the forests of South Carolina. Or perhaps it was because he had proved, so many years ago, that he was willing to take a life.
And not just one life, dozens of them. Sidney’s father had been an excellent teacher, training him to hunt white-tail deer with lethal proficiency. But as the years passed, Sidney no longer felt the rush of adrenaline when he brought down one of those glassy-eyed rodents on stilts. He needed more challenging prey—something more dangerous. More intelligent.
He bought a rusty pickup truck three days after his sixteenth birthday and drove west to the Smoky Mountains to hunt elk. When he made his kill the following evening, he immediately knew he needed more. Within a week, he brought down his first black bear, which gave him a rush unlike any he’d ever felt before. To kill something that—in a fair fight—would easily tear out his throat was the ultimate thrill.
He could have returned home and begged his parents to take him on a safari, but he knew they wouldn’t approve of it. “Kill only what you plan to eat,” his father had preached, “nothing more.”
But for Sidney, the hunt wasn’t about finding food. It was a competition. It was a chance to prove that he was the top predator. Which meant he would never be satisfied until he hunted the most dangerous animal on the planet. A human being.
Before his eighteenth birthday, Sidney embarked on a killing spree that spanned six states and more than thirty parks and recreation areas. He took his victims with rifles, revolvers, blades, and even his bare hands. He felt unstoppable until, somehow, the police figured out where he lived. They contacted his parents in secret, and his own kin betrayed him. The cops arrived in the middle of the night—when he was asleep and powerless to fight back—and they arrested him. Since then, he had been moved from one prison to another, biding his time while he waited for a chance to escape. His cellmates told him he was crazy—none of them would be free ever again. But then something changed. Sidney and the other inmates began thinking thoughts that were not their own. A voice inside them promised deliverance and instructed them to get ready. And then, miraculously, they were set free. All of them. The prison guards simply let every last inmate go.
Overnight, Sidney became part of something spectacular. He joined the ranks of a dark army that was destined to rule the world. And two weeks later, he was selected for a glorious mission: he would hunt and kill The Nightmare.
Now, in the dark, pre-dawn forest, a steel fence topped with concertina wire loomed before him. It wasn’t nearly as high as the one surrounding the penitentiary, but it was impressive considering the fact that it encompassed a private residence.
Sidney raised his weapon and stared into the infrared optic. His heart pounded a droning rhythm in his chest, stimulated by equal parts fear and excitement. He had approached the northwestern corner of the fence, where a small hill allowed him to view half of the property at once. He frowned with disappointment. The infrared screen was completely grey. There wasn’t a living thing anywhere in sight.
No one said it was going to be easy, he reminded himself. You’ll find the beast; you just need to—
“I will give you the same chance I gave the others,” a disembodied voice in the darkness said. Sidney whirled, aiming his rifle at the source, but nothing appeared in his infrared optic.
“Leave now,” the voice continued, “and I will not pursue you. Remain, and you will die.”
Sidney clenched his jaw and spun around again. “Where are you?” he shouted. “Show yourself.”
“I am not hiding. Make your choice.”
Sidney’s eyes widened, and he turned ninety degrees to the left, facing the trail he had blazed through the woods. A black shadow hung in the air thirty feet beyond the barrel of his rifle—a shadow that glowed brilliant white in his optic.
“Gotcha.” Sidney’s finger pressed the trigger.
A flash of light illuminated the trees around the beast as the specialized bullet left the rifle. The beast took a step back to steady itself, but it didn’t fall. Sidney adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger again. The beast remained on its feet, glaring back at him.
Sidney inhaled, held his breath, and centered his reticle on the beast’s head. “Just die already!”
The round impacted the beast’s skull. But instead of penetrating, it ricocheted to the right, releasing golden sparks before whistling through the trees.
The beast cocked its head from side to side for a moment, then spoke in a rumbling voice. “Leave here and never come back. This is your final warning.”
Sidney hesitated, unwilling to believe his eyes. The beast was still alive, even though his aim had been perfect. Which meant the dark creature was stronger than anyone knew or—
He swallowed. Or it meant he had been lied to, and the black bullets in his magazine were nothing but a ruse. But why would the Great Intellect lie to him?