Hunted: On the Run: New Age of Hunters, #1

By Steve C. Roberts

Riding his bike home from the library, Sean Sharpe finds out that the world isn't quite as average as he'd originally thought. After narrowly surviving an attack by a mysterious assailant, he is approached by another stranger--one who claims to be a Hunter. He tells Sean that his attacker was one of the Nephilim; half human spawn of fallen angels who have taken the form of creatures of the night.
Even worse, the Hunters believe that the Nephilim will want revenge for killing one of their own.
Sean is faced with a bitter reality; the world may not be average, but he is. There is nothing special about him. If he is going to survive, he will have to learn to be more than average.
But will it be enough?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve C. Roberts
• Release date: Jan 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513056005

Steve C. Roberts

STEVE C. ROBERTS lives in Central Missouri with his wife and four children. He is a professional teacher and counselor, and has spent the last twenty years as a Volunteer Chaplain for the Department of Corrections. He also serves in various other capacities in his home Church. His writings include several Non-fictional devotionals as well as several Christian Fiction novels, including the Men of the Heart series

Book preview

One

THE DAY I LEARNED THAT the supernatural world was real was the day that changed my life forever.

I had stayed late at the library, working on my term paper for Dr. Cooper’s history class. The sun had dipped below the horizon long before I finally stepped out the sliding doors and mounted my bike for the long ride home.

I wasn’t sure which was more embarrassing; doing homework on a Friday evening while all the cooler kids were cruising around town in their fancy cars, or riding my bike home while they passed by in their fancy cars. That was what cost me, in the end. That pride that told me that I couldn’t dare be spotted by the kids from school. That pride had me cutting down the back alleys and taking the darker streets as I pedaled toward home, because I was seventeen years old with no license, and no car.

It was my own fault that I had no car. It all comes down to the decisions we make in life. If I hadn’t snuck out with Walter Davis when we were fourteen... if we hadn’t taken his mom’s car on a joyride through town... if we hadn’t been chased by the police for twelve blocks before we rammed his mom’s car into a fire hydrant... if we hadn’t caused over ten thousand dollars in damage... then I wouldn’t have spent all of my money over the past few years paying off fines. I wouldn’t have been barred from acquiring my driver’s license until I was eighteen.

More importantly, I wouldn’t have been pedaling my bike down the back alley off Fourth Street.

My stomach growled, protesting my decision to wait until I got home to eat. Mom had texted me earlier about dinner. She had cheeseburger macaroni waiting in the microwave for me when I got home. I like cheeseburger macaroni, so I was pedaling as fast as I could. That was when he attacked.

At first I thought he was a homeless junkie. You know the type; they throw themselves in front of you and act like they got hurt, and then press you for some money to forget the whole thing. I saw a flash of movement coming toward me and tried to swerve my bike, but he hit me full force, knocking me off my bike and into a pile of discarded boxes.

Hey...! I stood shakily, and looked around. Whoever it was had disappeared. Stinking junkie reject. I muttered, checking my elbow. I had a vicious scrape that was welling blood through the hole in my shirt.

Great, it ruined my favorite shirt. I shook my head and started toward my bike, I was hoping that it hadn’t been damaged in the fall. The last thing I wanted to do was push it all the way home.

Where do you think you are going?

I spun, startled at the low voice. A figure was standing in the shadows a few dozen feet away. I couldn’t see his face because the streetlight from Fifth Street was shining in my eyes. Excuse me? I didn’t know if he was the weirdo who hit me, or just a witness that had seen the incident.

I didn’t say that you could leave. It was definitely the junkie who spoke. He ambled closer, projecting a threatening sense of power.

Great, a mugger.

L...look. I held my hand up in a ‘stop’ gesture, I don’t want any trouble. I’m broke.

I don’t want your money. He laughed softly; it was a tittering, creepy sound that somehow reminded me of an evil chipmunk... Except, he didn’t look like a chipmunk. He stepped closer and grinned, showing a set of sharp fangs that gleamed in the low light.

Last year my teacher had made us read this article about some of the strange things that people do to themselves; full body tattoos and body piercings were fairly boring by these people’s standards. It discussed people who had horn implants, or tails added to their bodies... there were even some who had fang implants for teeth. As I recall it cost something like seven thousand dollars a tooth, but to the die-hard weirdoes it was worth it. That was probably why freakville was after me, to pay for his next implant.

My phone sucks man. It’s not a Smartphone, just a flip-phone. If my Mom’s lack of interest in getting me that new iPhone got me killed, I vowed that I would come back and haunt her for it. I backed up slowly and reached back to pull my phone from its belt holster. I figured I would toss it to the guy anyway. However, I was startled when my hand brushed the handle of the crescent wrench I had jammed into my back pocket.

When I first started riding my bike to get around, which was preferable to mom taking me everywhere, I found out fairly quickly that one of the worst things that can happen is to have your bike break down. I got in the habit of carrying a tool-kit on my bike for emergencies. Unfortunately, some jerk at school had stolen my tool-kit earlier that week, so I had decided to at least take a wrench in case my chain came off or something.

I pulled the phone from the belt holster and slid it across the alley, then stepped back a few steps. I watched him closely and gripped the end of the wrench in my fist. So far the weirdo hadn’t pulled a weapon, so I wasn’t going to be the first. I didn’t want to up the ante unless he did.

I don’t want a stupid phone. He laughed again as he moved toward me, only pausing to stomp my poor Motorola. I watched the pieces explode across the alley as he continued to walk toward me.

Bummer.

W...what do you want? I asked, ashamed that my voice was shaking.

He stepped close, within a few feet. I could see his face clearly now; pasty white, with dark rings around his eyes. Your blood, he growled, and then launched himself at me.

I’d never been much of a fighter. As a matter of fact, I had been in a grand total of four fights in my entire life, and two of them were in kindergarten. I generally liked to avoid conflict. I figured it was better to get along with people than to pay numerous hospital bills for broken bones. Especially if those bones were mine. I had friends that were in martial arts, some that wrestled, and some that even boxed... but not me.

For me, all of my knowledge of fighting techniques and self-defense came from television and movies, which essentially meant that I knew nothing about fighting.

However, when the fanged weirdo launched his attack, I had already started to pull the wrench from my back pocket. My intention was to throw it at his face and make a run for it, but he was fast, way faster than I dreamed someone could be. Lucky for me, I already had that ten inch crescent wrench halfway around when he reached me, and I smashed the jaw end of it across his temple.

I’m not sure who was more surprised at that point, him or me. His eyes went wide as he smashed into me, the force of the impact knocked me backwards into some trash from Yen-Ming’s, the Chinese restaurant on Fourth Street.

We went down in a heap, and in a panic I hammered him with the wrench again. It didn’t seem to do any real damage, but I struck him several more times anyway as I crawled backwards through the trash.

He swiped a wicked blow at me that knocked the wrench from my hand. I knew I was in trouble at that point. I tried to get more distance between us, but he crawled forward, grabbed my ankle, and yanked me toward him. I could see the street light glinting from his fangs as he pulled me closer.

Somewhere along the line I grabbed a crate in an attempt to pull myself away from him. When I realized that it moved, I yanked hard and swung it in an arc. The crate struck him across the face and shattered into a hundred pieces, leaving me with just one slat in my fist. He laughed and grabbed my belt and pulled me closer.

I did the only thing I could think of. I had that slat of wood from the crate clenched in my fist, point facing up, so I jammed it upward into his stomach as hard as I could.

Well, I was going for his stomach, but went high and embedded the chunk of wood under his ribs and up in his chest. He reacted instantly, screeching loudly and throwing himself backward. I scrambled to my feet and watched him for a brief moment as he lay writhing in agony.

I leaped past the creepy guy and grabbed what was left of my phone. A quick glance told me that calling 911 was out of the question. I shoved the broken hunk of plastic in my pocket and ran for my bike.

I would just call the police from my house.

Luckily, my bike was still in working order, so I jumped on and pedaled as fast as I could toward my house.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘THERE was no sign of a struggle in the alley?’ Were you in the right alley? I could hear my voice rising in pitch as I spoke, but I didn’t try to control it. Pride had gone out the window hours ago.

Sir, we searched the entire area. Are you certain that it was in the alley behind Yen-Ming? The officer was trying to be patient, but I could tell it was wearing thin. My mother had nearly worn him out already with her barrage of complaints about their lack of protection and climbing crime rates.

Yes, I’m sure. It was the alley that runs between Fourth and Fifth Street. He attacked me in the center, but I stabbed him right behind Yen-Ming’s. This was crazy. I was sure the guy had been seriously hurt, but if they couldn’t find him, he must’ve run off. I picked absently at the large splinter that was still embedded in my palm from the piece of crate I had stabbed the guy with.

I had pedaled home in a frenzy of fear, terrified of every sound and shadow I came across. I stayed on the main streets, no longer caring who saw me, or how they made fun of me.

The ride home had allowed me to clear my head over a few things though. I had... not exactly lied, but had definitely omitted a few of the details of the story.

Like the fact that my attacker had fangs, and wanted to drink my blood.

If pop culture has done anything, it has given us a large amount of information on the supernatural. Everywhere you look its wizards, vampires, werewolves, angels, and a myriad of other creatures that are best described as mythical.

It’s not that I don’t believe in the supernatural, or at least didn’t before I was attacked. No, the reason I omitted some of the details was that I was unsure if Officer Weber believed in them. It was bad enough that I stopped my attacker with a wooden stake to the chest, but with all of pop culture talking about vampires, I didn’t want them to get hung up on that label. I wanted them to find the guy, but I didn’t want to end up in drug rehab, or the mental ward because they started jumping to conclusions.

And I really didn’t want to believe that he was a vampire.

Officer Weber nodded patiently, Well, they will continue to search the area. He looked over at my mom, We’ll keep a car in the neighborhood, but make sure you keep your doors locked tonight, just to be safe.

Oh, thank you Officer. My mom choked back a sob as Officer Weber left the house, and then immediately turned to me. I should have never let you stay at the library that late, I...

Mom, it’s ok. I cut her off, because a secret I knew that Officer Weber could’ve used an hour ago was to never, ever, ever let mom get wound up. She was like the energizer bunny; you let her wind up, and she would keep going, and going...

Are you sure you’re ok? She grabbed me in a bear hug and squeezed me until I started to squirm. Should I call your dad?

No! I said the word more forcefully than I meant to. I had no interest in a conversation with my father. It wasn’t like he was a regular part of our lives anyway.

He’d run out on us a few years ago. I was eight, and he had decided to go through a mid-life crisis right after winning the lottery. Twelve million dollars had paid off the mortgage on our $150,000 dollar house and bought mom a new car, but then, all of the sudden, he had disappeared. It was a tense two days that I still remember clearly. Two tortuous days that Mom and I waited, thinking he had been kidnapped or murdered. He called at the end of the second day to let Mom know