12 – Stalking with The Stalker

Erika walked alongside The Stalker, arm-in-arm, casually strolling the sidewalks late in the evening. Erika leaned up against The Stalker, squeezing together as another group passed by in the opposite direction. The streets weren’t crowded, but there were enough people to provide cover, mostly couples on dates heading in or out from the various bars and dives.

“What are you doing?” The Stalker hissed as Erika dragged a finger down her spine.

“We’re a couple on a date,” Erika whispered back, drawing a pattern between thick leather harness straps. “Look at them,” she added, nodding to point out a pair across the street. Some tall, dark, and handsome man had his arms firmly around the waist of a shorter woman, who had her long fingernails sweeping back and forth in regular patterns against his shoulder.

The Stalker’s eyes shimmered for a brief moment before she scowled. “The woman is a vampire. Probably going to go bleed that sucker dry.”

Erika rubbernecked, taking a closer look at the woman. With mousy brown hair, a dusting of freckles across her face, dorky glasses, and light albeit tanned skin, she did not fit Erika’s idea of a vampire. If anything, the tall, slick-suited guy at her side fit the bill a whole lot better. She slowed, wondering if they should do something about the vampire, when The Stalker latched her arm around Erika, dragging her forward a few steps before Erika started walking on her own.

“Don’t,” The Stalker said. “People got to eat.”

“I’m not sure people got to eat people…”

“Vampire.”

“Yeah, but…”

“The Eclipse will dust her if she fucks up. That guy will probably wake up tomorrow, lightheaded and anemic, unable to remember much but fully believing he had the wildest night of his pathetic life.”

“I suppose,” Erika said slowly, picking up the pace back to her previous gait. She didn’t know the first thing about vampires, but she knew The Eclipse; they would be pissed if people started showing up exsanguinated. Unless they blamed it on gas leaks again.

“Speaking of a wild night…”

Erika rolled her eyes. “We’ll see how much night is left after we’re done trailing these guys. You still have eyes on them?”

“Fuck you, don’t be doubting me…” The Stalker muttered as her eyes shimmered again.

She stared a fair bit longer than she had at the vampire, looking left and right.

Two people had walked into the alley—both caught on Rick’s cameras—looking like any other couple out for the night. Nothing about them screamed cult. Then they stopped, dead center between the dumpsters, and stared at the exact spot where Erika had dumped her ripples.

“They’re still meandering about a block ahead,” The Stalker said, shimmer fading as they continued their lackadaisical pursuit. “You know I can find them at any time, right? We don’t need to track them like some old-fashioned gumshoe.”

“Gumshoe?” Erika asked, not sure she had ever heard the word used in an actual conversation. “How old are you again? I might have to break this off early if it turns out you’re from the 1900s or New York.”

The Stalker jabbed Erika in the side with her knuckle, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make a point. “I’m six months old,” she said, freaking Erika out for entirely new reasons before she added, “I was twenty-one when I died.”

“You could have led with that.”

The Stalker just shrugged, gaze turning absent. “That’s not me anymore.”

“Yeah, well—”

“And what’s wrong with New York?”

Erika laughed the comment off, shaking her head before resting her head against The Stalker’s shoulder. Her pose lasted about three steps before she pulled away—Erika wasn’t one for physical affection most of the time, and it was still kind of a weird feeling with The Stalker of all people, but mostly it was the jostling that made her stop. The Stalker’s gait made her shoulders bounce up and down with nearly every step.

“Have you got a name?” Erika asked.

“The Stalker.”

“I mean like a name that isn’t—”

“The Stalker,” she insisted, shooting Erika a glare. “Any name I had isn’t mine anymore. I left it on some tombstone.”

“Alright, alright.” Erika dropped the line of questioning, not sure what kind of minefield she was walking into. If this relationship went anywhere, she would figure it out eventually, otherwise, The Stalker was welcome to her privacy.

It had barely been a half hour and Erika wasn’t sure that the relationship would go anywhere. She just wasn’t feeling it. It wasn’t that she didn’t like The Stalker, but she was fairly rapidly coming to the conclusion that she didn’t like The Stalker. Granted, going on a date to stalk some guys wasn’t really a fair shake for either of them, but still…

The vibes were off.

Erika squeezed up against The Stalker again, forced by a passerby on the sidewalk, and didn’t break away after the space cleared. She would figure things out later, for now… Erika had made plenty of bad decisions in her life and tonight would be no different.

“They’re moving into a building,” The Stalker announced after another ten minutes of walking.

Erika and The Stalker slowed to a stop, moving off to the alcove of a defunct business. “Can you pinpoint where?” she asked, holding up her phone with a map already zoomed in on their street. “Which building?”

The Stalker’s eyes gleamed, brightening in the dark alcove as she stared off at the boarded up doorway. Flicking her gaze down to the phone, she held her finger over its surface before looking away again, staring off into space. “I think,” she said slowly, finger touching down on the phone. “Here?”

Erika flipped the phone around to herself, pulling up the address and sending it off to Rick for further analysis. The only thing listed on her end was the name of a business. “A hospital?” She frowned, running a quick search. “Not even. Just a small doc-in-a-box clinic. Been closed for three years.”

“I might be off,” The Stalker admitted, sounding embarrassed. “It’s not like I see where they are on the map. I’m just guessing.”

“Let’s get a little closer and confirm,” Erika said, shoving her phone into her pocket while dragging The Stalker back out from the alcove.

Two blocks ahead, Erika found herself frowning at a boarded-up building plastered with big yellow-orange CONDEMNED notices. “There are so many boarded up buildings in Chi—”

The Stalker grasped Erika by the collar, pressed her up against the wall, and mashed her lips against Erika’s. She pressed and kissed and tongued, leaving Erika shocked before she slowly warmed up to it, then it started going on a bit longer than Erika was prepared for. Patting The Stalker’s arm got nothing, but a firm push shoved her away, leaving Erika taking in a deep breath.

“Oh.” The Stalker licked her lips, wiping at a small smudge with her thumb. “Forgot you need to breathe.”

“That was…”

“Bad?” The Stalker asked with a nervous wince.

Comparing with her experience kissing the few other dates she had among her peers, Erika wasn’t sure if The Stalker was good or just vigorous. “Unexpected,” Erika decided, neutrally.

“One of the guys was close to the window,” The Stalker said, pointing a finger upward as her eyes shimmered.

“So you did the movie thing,” Erika finished, wondering exactly how much of that was an excuse. After a beat of thought, she wasn’t sure she cared. “Are they still watching?”

“One of them is near the window, but not facing—”

“Better not take chances,” Erika hissed. Grasping the silver ring that served as the collar of The Stalker’s harness, she dragged The Stalker over for a quick round two.

Purely to test the vibes.

“Huh,” Erika breathed, being the one to push The Stalker away again. This time, The Stalker looked far more confident—far more pleased with herself. “Don’t get too big of a head. I was just keeping our cover intact.”

“Uh huh. Sure.” The Stalker stared at Erika with her intense, unwavering gaze, semi-bloodshot eyes boring into her. “Better keep it up a bit more, they’re still watching.”

Erika nudged The Stalker back a half step. “You didn’t even look.”

Rolling her eyes, The Stalker tilted her head back, staring up at the building. Her haughty smirk slowly slipped off as she turned her head back and forth, eyes still shimmering with her power. She took a full step back from Erika, spinning fully around as she looked everywhere, even down at the ground.

A sinking feeling hit Erika’s stomach before The Stalker spoke.

“They’re gone.”

“Fuck my bad decisions,” Erika grumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Am I your bad decisions?” The Stalker laughed as Erika swatted her. “It’s not like we were barging in right now anyway. They would have disappeared regardless.”

“Yes, but you would have been watching to see how they disappeared.” Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Erika paced back and forth. “What are all the reasons they might have disappeared from your sight?”

The Stalker held up a finger, counting off the possibilities. “Teleported out of range, walked through a portal like at the museum, offed themselves…” She paused, three fingers up, before slowly adding another. “Or something to do with that naked bitch.”

Erika tensed a little at the idea she might be around. Except nothing she had seen thus far indicated that Jack could share her odd attributes with others. With that in mind, she hummed. “Another portal?”

“What, like to the maggots?”

“Or somewhere.” Erika narrowed her eyes, wishing she could see through walls. Was there another statue in there? Or did they vanish in some ritual more akin to the one that had trapped Erika and Carter?

It had to be the former. They wouldn’t off five of their own every time Erika broke a twig or they would run out of people faster than they could replace them.

The real question was where that portal went. Did it go to the bridge and the birds? If so, it didn’t have much value given that Erika had been planning on getting back in there via the trainyard. But if it went somewhere new, somewhere the cult wasn’t wanting her to be, could she maybe bash in the skull of some aspect before it unleashed monsters into the world?

“Should we check it out?” The Stalker asked, eyeing Erika.

“Can you see anyone else in there?”

“I can only see who I’ve seen.” Eyes shimmering, The Stalker scanned the building again. “And nobody I’ve seen is inside.”

“But there could be fifty people you haven’t seen just standing in the back corner Blair Witch style.”

“I came armed for a reason.” The Stalker hiked up her dress halfway up her leg, revealing more than just the heavy revolver strapped to her thigh.

The buzz of Erika’s phone stalled further plotting. “The others are on their way,” she said, reading the message.

“Are they the types to rush in? Or are they going to convince you to leave it for another day?”

“Are you trying to be a bad influence?” Erika shot back.

“The worst,” The Stalker answered in a breathy voice she probably thought was sexy, but actually forced Erika to stifle a laugh. For a moment, she considered going along with it, just for the fun of breaking whatever toys the cult had inside.

“If we make a ruckus and they notice, they’ll know we’re following them, and they’ll start taking more precautions,” she said, shooting down the idea. “We haven’t got a clue what might be waiting for us on the other side of their portal.”

“Boo. Boring.”

“Not everything in life can be action and adventure…” Erika trailed off, locking eyes with The Stalker. She spent a full minute, just staring as she tried to parse her internal feelings, while The Stalker stared back with steadily mounting shimmers in her eyes.

“See something you like?”

Erika laughed, shaking her head as she wondered just how many of The Stalker’s lines came from romantic comedies. “Still trying to figure that out.”

“Let’s see how well I can convince you…”

Erika started to lean in again, but paused and turned away. Something scraped the edges of her hearing that she couldn’t quite identify. Like a sudden gasp of a dozen people preparing to scream in terror.

Tires shrieked against the asphalt, shrill sound slicing through the ambient din of Chicago. Erika was already stepping away from the building, trying to spot the disturbance, when the unmistakable crackle of gunfire—panicked staccato, not steady range-shooting—sent the passersby on the street into fight-or-flight.

Rick’s van tore around the corner, fishtailing hard enough to clip the curb with the rear tire. Even from a distance, Erika could see the windshield was gone. A biometallic bird clung to the hood in its place, talons gripping the crumpled metal with its wings spread for balance. Rick swerved back and forth, trying and failing to fling it from the van.

Erika stepped forward even as the van raced towards her, mind racing through possibilities. She could get a bat, but getting close would just see her flattened under Rick’s wild driving. A gun was no good—with her aim, she would kill The Hunters before she hurt the bird.

Anna’s fist swung out, knocking into the bird’s beak as it tried to peck at Rick. Leslie had his shotgun up and out, barrel tracking the bird through the shattered windshield, but he wasn’t firing. Erika could see why; the pedestrians stood about, gawking, a few fleeing, and too many filming with their phones out. If he fired, someone wasn’t going home.

The Stalker had no such hesitations.

Eyes blazing with her power on full, The Stalker hiked up the hem of her dress, drawing the heavy revolver from her thigh. One-handed, she aimed, leveling her gun at the oncoming van. She didn’t rush the shot. The van swerved left and right, half intentional attempts at dislodging the bird, half purely accidental as Rick tried to avoid both the sharp beak and Anna repeatedly slamming her fist into it over and over.

Still, The Stalker waited—she tracked the bird through every jolt, every bounce, her arm steady as a rock.

The van screamed past them. The Stalker pulled the trigger.

A single, shockingly normal bullet caught the bird dead in the spine. Every ounce of tension in its body drained away. Its wings folded and its legs gave out, though the talons were still caught in the twisted metal of the hood.

Rick hit the brakes. The bird’s grip held for one stuttering second before its weight ripped the damaged hood straight off the front of the car, momentum throwing it to the ground where it skidded along.

“Damn it!” Rick shouted, throwing open the van door. He hurried around the front, chasing after the bird. Poking it twice with his cardboard tube and getting no reaction, he turned and looked at his van, face falling in despair. “I just got—”

“What happened?” Erika shouted, rushing over with her bat drawn.

Rick glared, first at Erika, then at Anna. “Sent her to grab the cameras, she comes running back with that thing on her ass.”

“It was perched up on the fire escape,” Anna said, rubbing her bleeding knuckles as she stepped out of the van. “Just watching. Waiting.”

Leslie, face set in a firm, serious scowl, rounded the van with his shotgun aimed down at the ground. “I tell you all to look up. Every time, I say to check the ceiling. Nobody checks the ceiling.” His eyes narrowed, finding The Stalker over Erika’s shoulder. “You could have hit us.”

“Huh? You think I’m some kind of amateur?” The Stalker swept her gun over the group as she brought it to her mouth, flagging everyone just to dramatically blow at the barrel. “I think you mean thank you Stalker, I owe you my entire life, please accept my eternal servitude.”

Leslie glared, looking angrier after her little showmanship than Erika could recall in recent memory.

Erika stepped between them, breaking off any further argument. She was about to speak, when she heard it—another odd itch at the edge of her hearing. This time, rather than a car wildly flying around the corner, it was a shriek, inhuman and piercing.

“Rick,” Erika started, but stopped as she looked over the van. The tires were intact, but that was about it. Even if it hadn’t been the intention, the talons poking through the hood had done a number on the engine. Oil leaked down the side of the main block, one tube snapped in two pieces, and the main intake didn’t look like it would be intaking much.

“My poor van,” he said, sounding disturbingly similar to The Warrior as he bemoaned its fate.

“We got to get out of here,” Anna hissed, eyes searching the dark skies.

“Run through the alleys,” Leslie said, looking around. “Call Sofia for backup.”

“If there are half as many as were on the bridge, alleys are going to be a large coffin,” The Stalker said, matching Anna’s gaze but with shimmering eyes. “I spot at least ten. Twelve.”

“The portal,” Erika said, looking back to the hospital. “Call The Eclipse for backup. If that fails, there might be a portal in there. Don’t know where it goes—”

“Probably to a million more birds,” The Stalker said with a thin, humorless smile.

“You’re the one who wanted to investigate—”

A shriek high in the sky, echoed by a dozen more, made everyone look at one another for one brief moment.

Turning, Erika hurried back to the abandoned hospital. A swing of her bat broke the locks on the front door—there was no point being subtle anymore. The Stalker chased after her, hot on her heels. Rick’s face said plenty as he looked between the abandoned clinic and the sky.

Another shriek made the decision for them.

Leslie and Rick, weapons drawn and at the ready, moved out into the small reception area. Anna, trailing behind after stopping at the van, slipped through the door just as a bird crashed down against the sidewalk. It looked at them, beady eye remaining steady as its head cocked and tilted. With a chirp, it hopped toward the door, trying to fit its large body through the opening.

Erika slammed the door in its face, enjoying the crunching sound as she broke its metal frame. The door, boarded up and battered, clung on with a single hinge intact.

The Stalker and Rick dragged an old waiting-room couch in front of the door, blocking it off.

Erika didn’t know if it would help, but it couldn’t hurt.

A click of a flashlight illuminated the dusty, abandoned reception area. Anna passed more lights from her bag around, offering one to Rick, Erika, and The Stalker.

“Well,” Leslie said as he slung his shotgun over his back, drew a pistol, and flicked on the light under its barrel. His light was notably the only one that swept over the drop tile ceiling. “Well.”

“Well,” Erika echoed. “Might as well investigate while we’re here?”