Predator: The Shade Chronicles, #2

By T.K. Bradley

Habits are hard to break. And right now, survival feels like one long bad habit.

Nothing is the way it's supposed to be. Not the world, and certainly not me. I'm still Lori Fisher — daughter, sister, military bunker survivor — but I'm also… different now. But I am alive, and that's more than most can claim, so I should be grateful, right?

It was my dad's plan to head north. Shorter days, cooler temperatures. And when we hear about a secret military research facility in northern Canada, it solidifies it as our best (aka only) option. Sure, what's a pesky little thing like a journey across thousands of miles of scorched wasteland? Piece of cake. Let's not talk about the undying thirst coursing through my veins. And we definitely won't discuss the unlikely travel companions that I have no choice but to trust. Ugh. This is not the apocalypse I signed up for.

In this tension-filled sequel to Prey, Lori discovers that there's more to life than simply surviving, and maybe it's worth fighting for. The Walking Dead meets Doomsday Preppers in Predator, a sci-fi post-apocalyptic tale set in a future where solar flares and rising temperatures have decimated the population, leaving survivors to shield themselves from the sun. The night, however, comes with its own perils. If you like Jonathan Maberry, Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Justin Cronin, and A.G. Riddle, you'll love this gritty series from author T.K. Bradley.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.K. Bradley
• Release date: Mar 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201869076

Book preview

1

Lori

Your mother has been waiting for you.

Trey’s words make no sense. No, my mother is dead. The only way she’s waiting for me is in the afterlife. Is that what he means? He’s going to kill me?

I would welcome death if he’s offering it. Because the only language I can understand now is… blood.

My whole world is nothing but blood. It pounds in my veins, my pulse roaring in my ears. It perfumes the air, coats my tongue.

And Trey reeks of it.

You… you were dead, I whisper, baffled by his presence, but my voice still seems too loud against the backdrop of night closing around us. The usual sounds of night are absent, as though even the crickets know they are in the presence of a predator.

Because that’s what Trey is. A predator. There’s nothing else he could be with his half-crouched posture and his fingers tipped in glistening claws.

No, not dead, he clarifies, prowling closer, his all-too-alive presence moving in front of me. Just different. Better. Like you.

What? No, that can’t be right. Nothing is right; it’s like trying to fit a puzzle piece in the wrong spot. The shapes don’t fit, and the picture is out of place. Looking at Trey makes my brain hurt. He’s still the man I remember, but then I blink and it’s like looking in a funhouse mirror. The images don’t match. His body is stretched to obscene proportions, his arms and legs too long. His clothes have been nearly shredded, leaving little to the imagination, like Lou Ferrigno in the old Hulk show my dad loved so much.

Dad. No.

My legs give way and I drop to the hard-packed ground in a puff of dust that glows in the silvery light of the rising moon. The memories flood my senses, forcing me to relive last night. Flashes of gore, screams rending the air. My dad is gone, dead, torn to shreds by these monsters surrounding me. Monsters like Trey.

Like me.

My own body feels like it’s been taken over by some kind of otherworldly monster, a demon from the deepest recesses of the earth. I look down to see that my body, a stranger’s body, is something out of my nightmares. My skin is peeling, the layers beneath becoming thickened and tough, my fingers are too long, and there are razor-sharp wedges of bone pushing out from beneath my fingernails. Claws.

I’m a Ripper.

No, I whisper, but of course Trey hears me.

Don’t be sad, Lori. Can’t you see? We’ll be together now, this is how it was always meant to be. And your mom—

What about my mom? I snap, and it sounds more animalistic growl than words. She died. I held her hand, watching her waste away to nothing. I grieved for her. How dare you tell me that she’s waiting for me? When she died, Kenzo said… but I trail off.

Kenzo said that she would be all right, that my mom was in a better place, that we’d be together again one day. I brushed off his words as the meaningless drivel people spout to their grieving loved ones when they don’t know how to take the pain away.

She’s in a better place… as if this desiccated wasteland could be considered better?

A bitter laugh escapes my lips. Kenzo knew, didn’t he. He knew she was still alive, I spit out. I don’t need Trey’s nod to confirm, but it’s one question answered. Well, there’s plenty more where that came from. I have questions lining up in a queue around the block. Like, why the hell wouldn’t Kenzo tell me about this, about my own mother still being alive?

The monsters are sweeping through the space behind me, bustling and jostling each other, but it isn’t until a slurping sound that I turn to see what they’re doing.

The creatures are hunched over, their long limbs awkwardly folded so that their faces can reach the ground. Their tongues, unnaturally long, are lapping at the cracks in the parched soil. What— I gasp out, but I don’t need anyone to tell me what they’re doing. Not really.

Their tongues are red as they lap at the blood from between the cracks. My stomach gives a twist, but not because I’m repulsed. Because I am tempted. The taste of blood is still fresh on my tastebuds, and it is as sweet and rich as chocolate.

There’s no way I killed those people, I scoff inwardly at how absolutely absurd it sounds. I’m practically a pacifist. But the evidence doesn’t lie. My eyes roam across the ground, glazed in carnage. The ground is soaked with blood, torn limbs and flesh, entrails…

Brent. He was there, sitting beside me all day. But I wouldn’t kill him, he’s my brother. He’s all I have left.

I sift through the images pounding inside my skull, like I would shuffle a deck of cards. It’s all flickers and flashes, a murderous killing spree in a blood-red haze. I see eyes wide with terror, hear their piercing screams, begging for me to stop. The blond woman, her flesh like paper. The burly man, his muscles useless against me. James. Their existence meant nothing, their lives, their bodies, disposable. But not Brent. I have no memory of killing Brent. Please, let him be alive.

I lean forward. The thoughts and desires swirling in my head make me dizzy and sick. Trey crouches in front of me in a gangly squat. Don’t you dare throw up, his voice rumbles. Blood is more valuable than gold these days. And I can assure you, if you puke it up, no one will let it go to waste.

He reaches out with a clawed finger and raises my chin to look into his eyes. They’re pure black the whole way around; I wonder dimly if it’s because the irises have expanded so much to allow them… us… to see in the dark.

Shit. My eyes are probably the same as his.

I pull my chin from his touch and cringe away from him. It’s a gut reaction—not because I’m actually disgusted by him, by what he has become, but because it’s the only reaction that makes sense to my addled mind. Like fear, three times removed. The distant memory of fear.

If I could cringe away from myself, I would.

Trey smirks at my weak attempt at pulling away from him. We need to get moving, he says. We have to get back before dawn. The sunlight will still burn you, it’s your only natural weakness.

His words prompt a memory to surface, of Kelly and her group of Rippers. It’s hard to switch gears in my mind. The sun saved me that day. The sun was our protection, but now it’s a weapon to be used against me.

The sun saved me from the Ripper that tried to pull me into the building too. I look down at where its claw gouged my arm, but there’s nothing but a thin scar where the wound used to be.

Was that how it happened? I ask, holding out my arm for Trey to inspect, but he doesn’t even give me a cursory glance. His eyes are scanning the horizon. Trey? Did I turn into this thing because of the scratch?

Hmm? He turns back once and then begins to walk away, forcing me to scamper after him to hear his response. Yes, it’s in our claws and our saliva, gets into the bloodstream and starts the transformation straight away.

I grab his wrist, his skin like the bark of a tree beneath my touch. But what is this? What have I become? What happened to me?

Trey’s lip raises in a snarl, exposing his jagged teeth. "Kenzo calls it portentum noctis. It’s a virus."

But that doesn’t make any sense. The flu is a virus. Herpes is a virus, or AIDS. This is… this is something else.

Trey’s eyes skitter away from mine. He looks guilty and sad, but it’s a bit like a mask, a parody of how he thinks guilt should look. It was the government, babe. When the solar flares started to heat things up, they figured they could somehow create a way to thicken our skin, to protect us from the sun. He shrugs. They were wrong.

And if I hadn’t been scratched? If the sun hadn’t stopped that Ripper from pulling me into the building?

Trey stops in his tracks and turns slowly. What am I asking him exactly? Dad, Brent, and I narrowly escaped death a dozen times since leaving the compound. But Trey is talking like our love is fated and I was always meant to join him here.

Maybe my invitation to the Ripper Club got lost in the mail.

Ripper? He chuckles. Cute name. You come up with that all by yourself?

As he walks away from me, I try not to notice that he never answered my question.

2

Kenzo

Here I thought we were just coming for lunch. But instead, it looks like you may just be the solution to all our problems.

Hello, Judith, I whisper.

My heartbeat is throbbing painfully in my throat. They can hear it, I’m sure of it, their eyes darting to where my carotid pulses too close to the surface of my skin. I’m surprisingly calm, considering my death will likely comes in the next few seconds. I might even go so far as to say… I welcome it.

This is all my fault. All of it, in one way or another. I’m guiltier than most.

Judith stands before me, a monster of my own creation. The cancer would’ve killed her, she would have been dead, if I hadn’t injected the virus into her veins, so I guess you could say she owes her life to me. Except it’s not a life most would consider living. Even though she asked for this, I can see the regret that lies in the depths of her eyes.

She’s a killer now, plain and simple. I did that. She’s physically disfigured, stretched and textured as all Shredders are, her hair jutting from her scabbed scalp in patches. I don’t even blink at her appearance. It almost seems natural to me now, and I despise myself for it, because there is nothing created by nature like these monsters.

These things are all humanity’s fault.

The problem, she purrs in a low voice, is that I promised my pack a nice juicy meal. Hundreds of people just ripe for the picking, all we had to do was get inside. But you seem to have made a liar out of me.

I look from her hands to my own, still startlingly human in a room full of Shredders. I—I didn’t know if it would work. I’m still not sure if it did. I gesture to myself as evidence.

Oh, it worked, a voice from behind Judith growls. You’re the only human left in the entire compound. He tries to clench his fists, but his hands can’t close around the claws.

When the Shredders started their assault on the compound, there was only one way out that I could see. Release the virus into the ventilation system and infect the whole compound, everyone at once. It was the only chance we had at survival. Except I’d only ever injected the virus, and this was aerosolized. When I woke up on the floor, I assumed it hadn’t worked. I was obviously unaffected by the virus.

Telly, his remains still strewn across the floor from when Ellis had torn his throat out, told me that everyone was infected, but how am I supposed to believe what he said? It doesn’t make any sense.

The world I live in is so surreal, it makes my head spin.

The doorway ahead of me, and the hallway beyond, is packed with Shredders. It’s impossible to tell how many of them are stacked behind Judith. Is she their leader? They seem to be looking to her for instruction.

She cocks her head in a reptilian way, analyzing me. She’d always been a smart woman—not just book smarts, but clever in a way that most people would never understand. She could see a situation from every angle, and I feel like she’s watching me in the same way she measured the levels of moisture and minerals in the soil of the garden.

Screw this, the creature to her right says, shoving past her. If no one else is gonna make a move, then I’ll be the first. I’m starving.

Before he can take three steps into the room, Ellis has moved into the space between us, lithe as a jungle cat. No, he says simply. Just one word, but it carries so much meaning.

What, you think you can stop me? And he has a point. If taking measure of the two figures in front of me, it would seem an unfair fight. One is a monster, straight-up, towering above us at seven feet tall. Wide enough to fill the entire doorway and with muscles rippling beneath his armored flesh. Ellis looks like a man and very little else.

The stranger’s confidence is misplaced, however. His nostrils flare, testing Ellis’s scent, but he must not smell edible, because the beast raises a lip in distaste then pulls back his arm to knock Ellis aside. He only has eyes for me.

Ellis darts to the side, quick as lightning. He reaches out and just brushes his hand down the monster’s face. It’s almost a tender gesture. The Shredder pulls back with a snarl, a line of black blood oozing from the slice now opened in his flesh.

The roar he emits is too loud between these close walls. Ellis lowers into a crouch as the Shredder bares his teeth and rears back.

Enough, Judith says calmly. Alex, stand down.

You can put a muzzle on a rabid dog, but it doesn’t make him any less dangerous. Ellis is coiled to spring, waiting for this other man, Alex, to make his move. The standoff lasts interminable seconds.

Judith gives a small growl, and Alex slowly unfolds himself from his crouch. His limbs are quivering with pent-up rage. His eyes dart between Ellis and myself, weighing his urges against the unknown risk.

What are you? Judith turns her attention to Ellis, her eyes narrowed.

I’m… different. He looks over his shoulder at me and our gazes meet. How much information do we give them? These are government secrets, but at the same time, there doesn’t seem to be much of a government left. I may be the last of it. A token colonel, a token doctor. I can’t start wondering what part of me is real or I’ll drive myself mad.

You’re different, all right. Judith gestures with one hand, and the Shredders behind her begin to disperse. If having them here made me uncomfortable, then seeing them leave and not knowing where they’re going is ten times worse. The people of this compound are my responsibility, but… they may not even want my help anymore, not with where I’ve left them stranded.

Inhuman.

When there’s only Judith and Alex remaining, they move forward into the lab. It’s not threatening; at least I don’t think she means it to be. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling trapped when Alex closes the door behind them.

Ellis is too still in the glow of the emergency lights. I can’t even tell if he’s breathing, as there’s no apparent rise or fall of his shoulders or chest.

Between us lie the bodies of Telly and Eleanor. She had the misfortune of trying to help Ellis when he first turned, and she paid for her mistake with her life. The air is thick with the coppery tang of blood, and Alex can’t stop himself from staring down at her.

With his eyes fully black, it’s hard to tell exactly where his gaze is focused, but it’s clear that he’s agitated. He clears his throat in an oddly human gesture of filling an awkward silence. May I? he finally asks, pointing a claw down at Eleanor’s body.

May you what? I ask, but before the words have even left my lips, I realize what he’s asking. May I have a snack, like she’s some kind of cheese platter. Wha—no! You may not!

Ellis, however, hisses at me, cutting off my reply. Perhaps you could take her to another room, he directs to Alex. He doesn’t need to watch.

Alex eagerly rushes forward, snatching up the delicate body of my assistant. Her once-blond curls are soaked and matted with congealed blood, flopping heavily as he sweeps her from the room.

How could you allow him to do that? She was our friend! I snap at Ellis, but I freeze when he turns to glare at me.

I can’t protect you forever, Kenzo. Eleanor is already dead, there’s no saving her. But if her blood can satisfy his thirst, then she could still save you. The shadow of guilt flits beneath his expression. Eleanor’s death weighs heavily on his conscience.

Now that it’s just the three of us left, I allow myself to relax a little. Well, maybe relax is too strong a word, because I am by far the most breakable, but I at least take a full breath. Judith, what happened to you? I ask sadly. When I gave you the injection, you said you would leave. Don’t you care about the people here? They’re innocent, dammit! Your friends!

She scoffs, and it comes out as an animalistic snort from between her pointed teeth. Friends? You must be joking. This place was a prison, and these people were my cellmates, nothing more. They’re hardly better than chattel. Howell treated us all like his personal playthings. Or worse, subjects for his experiments. As calm as she appears outwardly, her words are hot like a whiplash.

I came to kill Howell, she says bluntly. Where is he?

Ellis gives a half-hearted shrug, but I hate to say that I have absolutely no qualms about throwing our fearless leader under the bus. I point at the impenetrable door behind me. He might be a Shredder too, I tell her, but she just waves away my comment.

It makes no difference if I feast on his body or not. He won’t survive the night.

A crackle of static erupts from overhead. I’m still human, for whatever that’s worth, Howell’s voice says from a speaker. I have my own air supply, separate from the compound.

He’s been watching and listening, I realize with a sick fury. He witnessed Eleanor’s death and did nothing to stop it. Watched as the virus infected everyone, as Judith and her army of Shredders flooded the halls.

Judith’s lips curl into a slow grin. Why don’t you come out to play, Howell? I’ll give you a head start.

I think not, he answers, his voice tinny. You need me.

I need you to feed my pack, she snarls.

A low chuckle comes from the speaker, but there’s no humor in it. Oh, I think you need me more than you know. It appears that Kenzo here might have a natural immunity to the virus. Which means that he might be the key to a cure.

Judith looks at me, her eyes moving up my length, assessing. She doesn’t look surprised; this isn’t new information for her. What do I need with a cure? I would be right back where I started, dying of cancer.

You would condemn your entire pack to this life? Slowly dying of starvation?

Shredders need fresh blood to survive, and there’s quickly becoming a severe shortage of that. My move of infecting the entire compound had been impulsive. I knew it could protect them from being eaten, but I hadn’t thought ahead to what they, in turn, would eat.

A cure… If the blood coursing through my veins could put an end to the virus, how many lives could I save?

Judith has come to the same conclusion. And what about a lab? she asks the disembodied voice of Howell. How are we supposed to process this cure? Can we do it here?

Her eyes are directed at me. I look around at my trashed lab, run through the list of dwindling supplies and failing equipment in my mind. I don’t have what it would take, not for something on this scale. I shake my head slowly.

Judith’s lip curls, but before she can say anything, the speaker crackles. There’s a research facility, Howell says slowly, careful how much to divulge. I can get you there, but you need to let me live.

A memory flits to the surface of my mind. Howell had said something about a private research facility in northern Canada. He was going to abandon the civilians so that a select few could travel to the lab and create more batches of the Type-2 variant. He wanted more soldiers like Ellis, with all the strength of the Shredders but without the intolerance to the sun.

I could probably admit all this to Judith. She could rip off Howell’s bunker door, tear him limb from limb, and I could likely still get us to the lab. But what if I couldn’t? What if Howell really is the only one who can get us there?

Stomach acid burns the back of my throat. I’m not even sure who I am anymore. Maybe I’m more monster than these creatures surrounding me.

Judith nods slowly. Okay, then. I’m not above making a deal with the devil. After all, I’m hallway to hell already.

Lovely, Howell says in a voice that indicates there’s nothing lovely about any of this, and I have to agree. Especially since I’m on this side of his heavy-duty door. We will take the day to prepare and then head out at sunset.

And can I ask where we’re going? Or how we’re going to get there?

I think not. The speaker clicks off, discussion ended.

The deal struck, a kind of stilted calmness settles over us. I don’t let it fool me, though. Ellis may relax his stance, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Judith for a second. And when Alex comes back into the room, Ellis gives a sniff to the air and slides discreetly into the space between us.

Judith and Alex begin a whispered conversation, likely going over their plans for the hostile takeover of the compound and what to do with all the no-longer-human residents. Their voices are too low for me to hear, but I have every confidence that Ellis is listening.

I hate so much that Alex looks… satisfied. Ugh. My friend’s blood now runs through his veins, and he’s over there licking his lips like he’s just finished the finest steak, washing it down with dry red wine. A blind rage leaves me seething, but I have no choice but to bite back what I’m dying to say and bide my time. My teeth clack together, and I catch the tip of my tongue. The taste of blood fills my mouth, and Ellis’s eyes flit to me.

I swallow it down quickly, but it’s too late. The damage is done. I recognize the way he looked at me, I can’t unsee it. He can smell my blood, and a part of him hungers for it. Eleanor’s blood runs in Ellis’s veins too, I force myself to admit. He’s just as much a killer as Alex. Maybe more so.

I would be a fool to trust him.

So… what are they talking about? I ask in the most awkward attempt at changing the train of thought that I’m sure we’re both on.

He gives a shake of his head and gestures for me to follow him. Not here, he says.

I follow him through the hallways. They’re mostly deserted, but a few Shredders wander about. They’re all members of Judith’s crew. Pack, she’d called them, as if they’re animals. I shudder. That’s exactly what they are.

When we’ve reached a dead end, Ellis finally stops before a door and turns to me. Down these stairs, he directs, you’ll find a storage area. It’s all the personal effects from the compound civvies. Take what you need.

He begins to walk away, and I stop him with a hand on his arm. I pull back quickly, mentally slapping myself. Regardless of how much I tell myself not to trust him, there’s a part of me that can’t help it. He’s my friend, and that will never change. Not even if he rips into my throat and uses my neck as a straw.

What were they talking about? You could hear them.

He nods. Their pack is starving. They broke in here with the promise of a good meal, enough blood to keep them fed for weeks, but now, thanks to you, there’s nothing. They won’t be happy.

Shit, I mutter. And what happens when the Shredders aren’t happy? As one of two remaining humans in the compound, I have a personal stake in the answer.

Ellis doesn’t answer, though. He doesn’t have time before he whips his head around to look down the hallway. A figure moves around the corner and stops, staring at me.

Scraggly black hair, eyes like twin pools of jet, tattered hospital scrubs, and a Shredder’s hunched posture. She may not look anything like how I remember her, but I couldn’t mistake her for anyone else.

Lori.

She gives an earth-shattering roar and lunges for me.

3

Lori

The compound isn’t at all how I remember it. The fluorescent lights are dark, the halls are silent, and there’s a gaping hole torn clean through the wall. But it’s none of those things that make it feel so different. It’s the fact that I’m no longer being forced to stand within its walls. I’m here by choice.

Well, sort of.

I’m free to go wherever I please. No one would stop me if I decided to wander off into the sunset—or sunrise, rather—but there’s nothing out there for me now. I’m not entirely sure there’s anything in here for me either, but if what Trey says is true, then my mother is still alive.

Mommy.

I think back to the last time I saw her, lying weak beneath a thin sheet, her body ravaged by cancer. There’d been nothing left of her. When I look at Trey and try to imagine my mother as one of these Rippers, I can’t seem to merge the images together