The Devil's Assassin (13 page)

Linus has a
weight and strength advantage over the Maero and he moves into offense. He
knees the creature in the groin. It howls with pain, but the force of Linus’s
knee actually launches the animal over Linus’s head. The security guard
realizes that he cannot allow the Maero to escape because then he would have
the advantage again. He holds the Maero’s arm tightly as the creature goes over
his head.

As it ends up on
its back and rolls to its side in a pained fetal position, Linus moves quickly
to take advantage of the suffering animal. He keeps one arm in control of the
creature’s lance arm and puts the other arm around the creature’s neck as he
climbs on top of the beast. Then he quickly brings both hands up to the chin
and turns the creature’s head until its neck snaps.

After some
moments of heavy breathing, Linus collects himself and checks the animal’s
pulse at its neck and then on the creature’s chest to reassure himself that the
creature is indeed as dead as he looks.

›

June, Arroyos,
and Miguel are still hunkered down in the grass. Arroyos looks up, and then
June and Miguel do so as well.

“It’s coming,”
June says quietly. “The helicopter’s here!”

“Lights,” says
Arroyos. “Turn on your light.”

Arroyos and June
turn on their flashlights. They shine them up to attract the attention of the
helicopter, which is now getting closer. June’s flashlight flickers weakly.

“Not now damn
it!” She bangs the light on the ground and it comes back on more strongly. The
chopper seems to not see them at first so the two start waving their dimming
lights back and forth. Occasionally Arroyos scans the grass around them for
signs of the creature which June has all but forgotten in her excitement at
seeing the helicopter. Finally the helicopter sees them and begins circling and
descending. It lands nearby and Arroyos, June, and Miguel pile in. With no
delay the helicopter takes off again.
Arroyos speaks
to the pilot.

“Where’s the
other chopper?”

“Off to the south
of the camp.”

“Any sign of the
American yet?” asks the detective.

“No, sir.”

Beneath the
helicopter is dark grass waving in the breeze. The chopper’s search light
sweeps over the ground in an effort to find Linus. Five minutes pass, and then
another five, then five more and still no sign of Linus.

“We cannot fly
for more than twenty minutes if we want to have enough fuel to get back,” says
the pilot.

“OK,” says
Arroyos.

June is worried
now that they will stop looking for Linus, leaving him vulnerable to the
creature’s attack if he hasn’t been attacked already. She keeps scanning the
ground below outside her window in a desperate effort to see any sign the
prison guard. After another two minutes she thinks she sees something in the
distance.

“I see
something,” she shouts over the noise of the aircraft.

Arroyos leans
over
and looks out her window.
“Where?
I don’t see
anything.”

“Over there,” she
says pointing.
“Right in front of the skid there.”

Arroyos concentrates
on the spot and sees a weak light waving. Over the noise of the chopper he
says to the pilot, “Look to your one o’clock. We see him there.”

“One o’clock!
Copy.”

As the helicopter
gets closer to a small light, it shines weakly up to their eyes and then goes
off and on twice. Then the light is aimed at one spot on the ground. The pilot
heads for that oval of light on the ground. As they get closer to the ground,
Arroyos waves out the open door as they near what is now obviously Linus. The
detective smiles as he sees the bundle Linus is dragging toward the aircraft.

›

Back at the campsite,
many of the men are gathered together standing around the dead creature, which
looks more like it is sleeping than dead. There is still a perimeter guard. Two
fires are still lit and the first hints of dawn are breaking on the horizon.
Linus, June, and Arroyos are among those looking at the Maero. June takes
Linus’s hand and squeezes it once tightly as she looks at him. He returns an
appreciative look.

“Thank God you’re
alive,” she says.

“I am pretty
lucky,” he replies.

“I suppose you’ll
be heading home now,” states Arroyos.

“Not until I get
some vital statistics about this creature – at the very least,” says June. “So
we can compare with the data with what we have for the creature that escaped
from us.”

Arroyos nods.

“Detective,” says
Linus. “This is only one animal. No one on earth knows how many of these
creatures live in one area. My guess is not many, but I think it wouldn’t be
out of the ballpark to assume that two might live in any particular region.
They have to mate once in a while, I would think. Maybe this will ramp up the
activity of his mate.”

Arroyos scowls
and
shakes his head. “The glass in never half full for you is it Señor Hather?” He
looks at June with a smile. “We will sit down
tomorrow,
or later today if you’d rather, and discuss what we have learned from this hunt
and Señor Hather’s fight with the creature. What to do. What not to do. Type
something up that we can fax to your police friends in China and Canada.”

“Not to mention
New Jersey!” says Linus. “I think something like that is helpful and necessary,
Arroyos.
Gracias.”

Another policeman
comes up with some coffee for each of them and they walk over to the warmth of
the fire to ponder what lies ahead.

Linus is in his
living room in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey once again. He and Sava
are sitting on the couch watching the news on television. He wants to relax
after his long trip and ordeal. Sam Donaldson is the anchor of the television
news journal
20/20
and he is speaking.

“As you may have heard this week, scientists are saying that they’ve
discovered a new species of animal that is closely related to humans.
More closely related to us than are the Great Apes like the gorilla
or chimpanzee.
Unfortunately, this is no harmless cousin like the
aforementioned chimp or even gorilla. In fact some have dubbed the animal Homo
Assassinatus because it apparently hunts and kills only Homo sapiens, or human
beings.

“According to scientists it has done so quietly for more than two hundred
thousand years.
Stunning if you ask me.
With us today
on
20/20
is one of the co-discoverers of Homo assassinatus, Dr. Jay
Miele of Rutgers University in New Jersey. Dr. Miele, we have heard this animal
called Maero, and Homo assassinatus. In Argentina I understand they are calling
it
un
poco
diablo, meaning
“little devil”. What are we to call it?”

“Thanks for having me here, Sam. First I’d like to say that there was
really only one discoverer of this animal and that was Linus Hather. I was,
however, the second person to see it and live.”

“That’s an interesting distinction you make there, Dr. Miele. You contend
then that most people unfortunate enough to see this animal don’t live to tell
about it?”

“Exactly, Mr. Donaldson.
That’s one of the reasons this animal
hasn’t been discovered up to now. As to what we should call it, there seems to
be a consensus building to call it a Maero, which is a term of the native
people of New Zealand describing a creature in their legends who was very
similar to this creature – probably the same animal actually.”

A still picture
of the Maero appears on the TV screen as seen in the first book that Linus saw
it in. Jay continues his response.

“Homo assassinatus is an irreverent term that cropped up in the media and
will in no way be the scientific designation of the creature.”

“So this Maero is intelligent and closely related to man. Do we know why it
is so hostile to humans?”

“Well,” explains Jay. “The animal’s very nature appears to be to kill human
beings and it has adapted quite well to its job. We have an animation we can
watch while I explain.”

A
computer-animated depiction of the Maero in its environment begins on the
television. What is shown closely follows what Jay says.

“A couple of million years ago when the first hominids – or erect walking
apes – were appearing on the scene there were apparently two lineages. The one
that evolved into us and the one that evolved into the Maero. We had more in
common back then than we do now in terms of food sources and activities. 
Over the next two million years we became very different. It is probably with
Homo erectus, a direct ancestor of Homo sapiens, that the competition between
the two species arose. Food was scarce and this led to fighting between the
Maero and the bigger, stronger Homo erectus. Early man may have even hunted to
eradicate the Maero, perhaps going so far as to eat it.”

Donaldson is surprised.
“To eat it!”

“I should say that is just speculation, but humans are omnivorous and if
there was a shortage of food. I could see it happening. But it got to the point
where Homo erectus or Homo sapiens had figured that the Maero was under
control. The competition for food was won, as far as they could tell. Yet what
the Maero did was go underground, so to speak. They lived in the shadows,
learned to hide from humans. Then they started to kill from within the shadows.
After a while their stealth was unmatched in the animal world and after some
time they evolved a weapon to better help them kill their prey.”

On the screen,
the needle is slowly extended from the Maero’s arm a few times.

“As you can see they evolved a long, bony needle which they use to pierce
their target’s lung. Through time, it probably evolved to what is a six to
eight inch spear.”

“It’s a chilling vision,” says the host. “What do we do about it?”

“Well, first of all we should not panic. The evidence suggests that there
are not many of these creatures in the U.S., and not many in the entire world.
You are more likely to be killed due to horse-related injuries than being
killed by a Maero.”

“Little solace to the people who are killed by the
creature, Doctor.
Do
we have a best guess as to how many Maero there are?”

“It’s too early to say. There could be twenty or twenty thousand.”

“That’s quite a range. But what do we do about the Maero? Is there a way to
coexist with it? Amputate its lance perhaps?”

“I doubt the solution will be so simple, Sam. This creature is programmed
in its genes to kill humans. It wouldn’t let lack of one weapon stand in its
way of evolutionary duty. It will, in my view be impossible to coexist with
this creature.”

Mr. Donaldson nods. “So you’re saying we should eradicate the Maero?”

“By all accounts,” says Jay, “this animal has a brain nearly the size of a
human brain. That and the fact that his sole mission is to hunt man make it
hard to conceive of anything else. No other animal is hunting humans
specifically and exclusively. Not tigers, or bears, or wolves, or sharks. And
these have smaller
brains,
they can be controlled where
they are captured, as in zoos. Maeros have big brains and that makes them
dangerous, because all that extra processing power is geared to only one thing
– the death of the human species.”

“We have word at this hour that the Maero’s discoverer, Linus Hather, is on
his way back from Argentina where he killed one of the very animals he
discovered.”

“Yes,” says Jay. “He joined a hunt for the creature after it had killed a
rancher there.”

“Mr. Hather is a prison guard isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is.”

“What’s going to happen to the animal that he killed? Will it be studied?”

“Yes. Our government is in talks with Argentina’s government to bring the
animal to the
Princeton Primate Research Lab
.”

“So what’s next?”

“We study the Maero, continuing researching the written past and oral
histories, and capture or kill the ones we know about. And while we should be
more cautious, we should also keep our perspective and not panic.”

“Thank you, Dr. Jay Miele of Rutgers University for speaking with us
tonight.”

“Glad to be of help, Sam.”

›

Lying on a bed in
a dark room, the bed’s occupant throws off the covers and turns restlessly to
face the moonlit window. He tosses and turns, uncomfortable due to the heat.
Awake, his gaze moves from the moon outside his window to the hand on the bed
in front of him. He is surprised and puzzled by the hair which covers the back
of his fingers and hand. It’s more than was there before. Maybe it is the angle
of the moonlight he thinks, or that he is dreaming.

Casually, still
half asleep, he looks at the rest of his body. He is covered with hair from his
stomach to his toes. Disturbed now, he jumps out of bed and stands in front of
a mirror that’s near his bed. He looks at himself up and down in the mirror. He
can see his face, Linus’s face before him, but it is adorned with a thin beard.
His chest, legs, and feet are covered with fur. He tests his voice. It is not
his.