No one slept. Not after what they survived. They waited and waited until the sun broke through the horizon. Curly sprang out from his spot and bolted to the Humvees. Ben followed after him while Behnam stayed behind with the child, who was too stubborn to leave their spot. The creature attacked his village twice, and he only survived if he stayed there. If he believed in a god of any kind, they would have blessed that corner of the house.

  Curly frantically tried to start one of the Humvees, but when the engine failed to turn on, he went to the second one. Again, nothing happened. He continued to swear under his breath as sweet trickled down from his brow. As he popped the hood of the second Humvee, his worried face lowered to a dreadful whimper.

  ‘Fuck… Fuck!’ Curly screamed as he picked up a nearby stick and whacked it against the Humvee engine.

  ‘Enough!’ Ben commanded with a stern voice. ‘What is wrong with them?’

  ‘Wrong? How about I give you a list of what is fucking working!’ Curly shattered the stick on the engine with one final swing. A great cry of anguish that drowned his heart. ‘Everything is fucked. We are stuck here with that thing! We can’t walk back because that will leave us open. And we don’t even know what that thing even fucking is so that means we can’t go after it!’

  Ben raised his hands to calm the worried soldier down. ‘Alright, we have a problem on our hands. Can we fix the Humvees by any chance?’

  ‘Take a look. Tell me if we can.’

  Ben walked over to check under the hood alongside Curly. The batteries were dead. Every wire was fried, and the electrical components were rendered useless. It wasn’t a matter of fixing, but a matter of replacing everything that was damaged. ‘Shit,’ he humbled under his breath. With their main transportation now non-operational. He realised that they needed to return to base and relay the news of who their target was. But if the Humvees are gone, it wouldn’t be far off to suspect the radios were also destroyed.

  Walking back to base wouldn’t be an option, he agreed with Curly that heading back to base on foot would mean certain death. However, nor was there a chance they would survive by staying there.

  ‘What is the plan?’ Behnam said behind Ben, looking down at the two American soldiers with the child standing behind him.

  ‘The only thing we can do.’ Ben replied, ‘we have to finish the job.’

  Curly flinched like he heard something unfathomable. Only to find out that his hearing was correct. ‘Are you insane!? How can we even fight that creature? Do I need to remind you that most of our squad is dead!’

  ‘And what choice do we have? We can’t head back to base, we can’t stay here, and we certainly can’t let them live. We have to take the fight to them.’

  Curly stared down at Ben, trying to find every way to protest against his order. In the end, his fury shifted to laughter. He didn’t want to admit it, but Ben was right. Deep down, there was a logical reason as to why they had to continue with the mission. They couldn’t do anything else. Defeated, he crashed his back against the Humvee and slid down.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘What will that leave him?’ Behnam gestured to the kid behind him. ‘He can’t fight, and it isn’t safe for him to stay here alone.’

  ‘You will stay with him. Keep him safe while Curly and I go after our target.’

  ‘Oh no! Oh no, no, no!’ Curly shot himself off the ground, frantically waving his hands. ‘I am not going after that thing.’

  ‘Then I’ll go alone. Either way, they need to die.’

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I was near Johnson when that thing tore him apart! How can you even kill it if you have no clue what the fuck it is?’

  Ben thought for a moment, recounting any recent military news and developments. ‘China is recently eager to make super soldiers, and they have been bragging about their EMP technology. It is tough, but it is still human.’

  Everyone stared at Ben in silence, unsure how he could even come up with that conclusion with zero evidence. To Curly, he wouldn’t understand why China would have a presence in Afghanistan, while Behnam believed the whole story was just made up by Ben to give himself some false confidence.

  ‘If that is the case, how come it is here?’ Curly asked.

  ‘Most likely an escapee, all things considered.’ Ben pointed to the carnage around them. The blood splatter and the damaged buildings. ‘This doesn’t look like an attack by someone of sound mind. They are attacking everyone in sight. Whatever they are, they are not right in the head.’

  ‘What about the bodies?’ Behnam pointed out. ‘Why take them?’

  ‘I don’t know, and the less I know, the better. But right now, I need to tail it before the trail gets cold or before it gets dark. Because if there is one thing that makes sense, there is a pattern. They only attack at night and most likely they are sleeping right about now.’

  ‘So, you want to get a jump on a super soldier who might not even need sleep?’ Curly said, baffled by the whole plan and chain of reasoning.

  ‘Yes.’ Ben sharply replied as he rummaged through the Humvee to get additional ammo, an extra grenade, flares, and resources for his trek through the region to find the target. But before he headed out, he leaned towards Curly. ‘Are you coming, or are you staying? You may not like this plan, but I am not going to let my team die in vain.’

  Curly bit his lip. He wanted to stay behind and not fight the horror they had witnessed. But with an uneasy sigh, he nodded. He didn’t need to speak a word to Ben to say that he would join him on his hunt.

  As the two men made their way out of the village, Ben turned around to wave off Benham and the child. While neither of them waved back, they could at least appreciate the bravery on display. They were walking into certain death. To fight something they could never understand. To hunt a monster they thought was a man.