Read Online Monster Hunter Alpha-ARC by Larry Correia - Free Book Online Page A

infinitesimally small, and who better to fight a monster than a monster? He would not say how he’d found me, how he had managed to avoid being detected while he’d watched me, or how he even knew what I was to begin with.
    The last night of the full moon had passed. I had time. I had nothing better planned except catching the express train to hell, so why not go along for the ride?
    We traveled across the big island. There was a small fishing boat waiting on the south coast. It took us to a little island named Cayos de Tiburon.
    “There is a village on the other side of the island. My church is there. My people have been terrorized by something from the sea. It has carried off many of us. We are a simple folk, who make our living from the ocean, but since the creature has come, the fishermen are afraid to go out. It is slowly killing our village.”
    “Why don’t you just get a few men with rifles and wait for it to show up?” I asked.
    “We’ve tried. It is too clever. It only comes onto dry land when it can attack the unarmed and helpless. Apparently it has felt the sting of bullets before and does not appear when we are ready. It looks like a dumb beast, but it is very clever. It is huge, with the head of a shark and the tentacles of a squid. It is savage and pulls its victims apart before devouring their flesh, unless it carries them off to its underwater caves. The Indians call it the luska. ”
    “So, you want me to wait on the beach for this luska thing to show up to eat me, and I kill it with my bare hands, or at least injure it enough while it’s eating me so that it don’t come back?”
    “That would be most helpful.”
    That silver bullet was sounding better and better.
    The beach was tranquil. For the first time in what felt like forever, I was totally at peace. I was about to die, but it was with a purpose. The moon was bright overhead, just a sliver off of full, but enough that the Hum was only background noise. I took off my boots and my shirt, and crouched on the edge of the surf, crunching sand between my toes and waiting. I’d left my revolver with the padre before he’d sailed away. We’d see how smart this critter was. My heightened survival instincts were balanced with that burning desire for the challenge of the hunt. I’d found balance.
    It didn’t take long for the luska to spot me, a single, helpless, meal. I could sense it in the waves, studying me. I was alone and seemed feeble. My nose picked it up first, just a hint of ocean rot, a bit stronger than its surroundings. It was old and terrible. It watched me for half an hour, recognizing that I wasn’t the same as its regular prey but not understanding just what a werewolf was capable of, even in man form.
    Finally the luska made the decision that I was food. It hurled itself out of the surf and onto the sand, a giant black glistening mass. The front end was that of a giant shark, mouth chock-full of gleaming teeth and a little red eye on each side of its great big head. Its rear half was a mass of squid tentacles. The two longest tentacles ended in jagged barbs that looked almost like long-fingered hands. The hands were used to pull its huge weight forward, while several of the smaller tentacles shot back and forth, propelling it up the beach right at me.
    Now that was a death worthy of a Hunter.
    * * *
    Heather had only been on her shift for a few minutes, still preoccupied with thoughts of the strange Mr. Peterson, when a big, black, jacked-up Ford truck had blown past her, doing at least forty-five in a twenty-five and ran right through a Stop sign without even a flicker of brake lights. Back to work. She’d automatically turned on the siren and pulled out behind the truck.
    It had started snowing. Gently so far, but the thick sky told her that it was going to be a real dumper. The roads were still okay, but it was always the assholes in the biggest trucks who assumed that four-wheel drive gave them the magical power to drive