Chapter 4: Bulletproof Demon

Amazingly, her captor was one of them. Aiming an antique machine gun at the stranger, he yelled, "I'll send you back to hell, demon!" He pulled the trigger.

Natalie hunkered lower, covering her head with her hands as bullets flew about the clearing, some lodging in the trees just behind her.

When the man's clip was empty, the alien advanced on him.

Natalie got up and ran farther into the trees, only to stop abruptly when her spine tingled. Slowly, she looked behind her to find those glowing red eyes piercing her again. With difficulty, she broke the connection and willed her body to move. Behind her, her captor screamed then fell silent.

Only five left. She prayed they would keep the devil busy long enough for her to get away.

The way he always seemed to keep her in his sights terrified her. Was he just toying with her? Letting her think she could get away when in fact he was just saving her for last?

She wasn't about to stick around and find out.

She was glad she'd been smart enough to don appropriate footwear when she left her cave that morning. With her leather boots protecting her feet and ankles, she ran easily over the mountain's uneven terrain, dodging the struggling pine trees she'd managed to replant over the last five years. She loved each one, but right now they were a hindrance as she tried to avoid trampling them in her flight down the mountain.

The cold mountain air hurt her lungs and she couldn't breathe. But she refused to stop until the sound of slaughter no longer reached her ears.

Desperate for air, she stumbled, her legs collapsing beneath her. She forced herself to rest, leaning her back against a tree trunk. The bark scraped her bare shoulder blades as her chest heaved, her gasping breaths the only sound on the eerily still mountain.

In her race down the mountain, the inhaler had gotten twisted inside the pocket of her dress, and she struggled for a few precious moments to get it out. She took two puffs, sucking in the medicine hard. Her breathing eased, but her fear and exhaustion remained.

The sharp scent of pine teased her nostrils. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she swiped them away, angry at her weakness.

Crying won't solve anything, she reminded herself.

Ignoring the sting of pain from her raw palms, she clutched the rough bark of the pine tree and dragged herself upright. She looked around, knowing instantly where she was. Though she'd run down the mountainside, she'd still covered almost a third of the distance to her cave, which was hidden higher up the mountain behind a jutting outcrop of rock.

No wonder I'm so tired.

She leaned against the tree, taking slow, steady breaths to calm her racing heart. She gazed up at its stubby branches, remembering how worried she'd been when this crop of young trees had almost died the first winter after she'd planted them.

As a teenager, she'd griped when her survivalist father had forced her to learn every inch of the mountain. Now she was grateful she could find her way around blindfolded.

Shaking off her longing for her father, she gathered her strength and deliberately headed away from the cave. Only when she was too tired to continue did she start the climb back up the mountain. When the Forestry Department approached her five years ago to replant the pine trees decimated by beetles and blister rust, she'd started to use the cave as her workspace, nursing the trees from seedlings. Her father had, with typical survivalist paranoia, already begun to prepare the cave as a backup residence. After the raiders had burned her house to the ground, she'd moved into the cave, grateful it had been stocked with emergency provisions. After losing nearly everything, those provisions had kept her alive.

But why had the raiders even bothered coming to this isolated spot in the Rockies anyway? She could see them getting lost and stumbling upon her house, plundering it then burning it in a crime of opportunity. But twice? No, it didn't make sense. With the house gone, there was nothing left for them to loot.

She stopped and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep the cold from invading her body. Despite the harsh sun shining overhead, the high altitude made the days perpetually cool, and she berated herself once again for her poor choice in clothing.

Though she didn't know the reason, she had no doubt the raiders' presence on her mountain was intentional. Which meant that if Murdoch, their leader, hadn't ordered his men there, he at least knew where they were.

What will he do when he learns his men have been murdered on my mountain?

She gasped in horror and at the same time, a hysterical giggle scored her sore throat. After she'd lost her house, she'd stayed up here to escape the violence happening in town. Now in one miserable day, she'd had two invasions on her mountain. While that devil had dispatched one threat, he remained, and another, Murdoch, was sure to follow.

Her body ached. Every bruise and scrape came to painful life as she forced herself to continue the short climb to the cave.

She desperately wanted to believe the events of that morning were all a hallucination, an invention of her overactive imagination. But, no. There was no way she could have imagined such brutality, so much blood. Not to mention that devil. She'd never seen anything like him. It was as if he was from a completely different planet.

She stopped, her eyes staring in shock at the ground as the odd thought struck her. Could he be?

Last week, when she'd talked on the TC to her friend, Julia, for her weekly update on the happenings in town, they'd giggled over the rumors of a spaceship that had supposedly crashed in the woods. Normally, most people ignored such outlandish rumors, except that this time, the rumor was started by the librarian, James Stocks. The pompous man was the last person Natalie would expect to believe in the existence of aliens; yet he swore he'd seen an alien ship crash in the mountains.

What if Stocks is right and the ship belongs to that devil?

The idea that the stranger was an alien didn't surprise her in the least, considering the inhuman things she'd witnessed. Wait, does that mean there are more of them? It seemed unlikely that he would travel so far across space by himself.

She glanced around anxiously. Having one of those things after her was bad enough. What would she do if she ran into others like him?

Part of her wanted to believe he was her saviour, that he'd shown up at the exact moment he did with the sole purpose of saving her from the raiders. But no one that skilled, that efficient at killing, could know mercy.

She started running again, remembering the way the raiders' bullets had bounced off his body. That was something her father had never taught her - how to protect herself against an invincible predator.

She stopped twice, just long enough for a quick puff of her inhaler each time, then sprinted the last quarter of a mile to the cave. Out-of-control giggles bubbled up in her throat as she ran. Who would've thought all this could happen in one day? She'd been captured by raiders, almost raped, only to be saved by an alien who may or may not be after her right now.

"Run faster, Natalie," she muttered, but her legs refused to cooperate. The stitch in her side hurt and she couldn't stop the soft wail coming from her mouth. She sobbed in relief when the huge monolith that hid the entrance to the cave came into view.

Skirting around it, she staggered inside and finally allowed her legs to give way, collapsing against the entrance wall. She closed her eyes and leaned her hot forehead against the cool stone, her breathing raspy.

Even behind her closed lids she could still see the alien lopping off heads, blood spurting everywhere.

Her sore fingers dug into the rough stone.

No. Everything's okay.

She was safe. But for how long? Sweat ran down her back and she shivered, the thin tattered material of her summer dress offering little protection from the cool damp of the cave.

***

As much as she hated the idea, she'd have to move into town. Her captors had confiscated her shotgun, but she still had the various other weapons her father had stockpiled in the cave. Unfortunately, they would prove useless against the alien's bulletproof skin.

But I'll come back here, she promised herself. Once it's been declared safe. Her mission to restore the forest was far from complete and she had every intention of finishing it.

The air behind her stirred, and all the hair at the nape of her neck crawled upright. Afraid her worst fear was about to be realized; she reluctantly lifted her heavy eyelids. A giant shadow loomed on the cave wall in front of her, growing smaller as the source of the shadow approached.

Without moving her head from the wall, she looked down at the club she kept at the cave's entrance for emergencies. Adrenaline pumping through her system, she grabbed the club and swung around, aiming high and hitting the intruder as hard as she could. The club struck his head with a sickening crack.

His gaze locked on hers, and she took a nervous step back. Is that satisfaction in those crimson eyes?

The alien stood there for a moment before toppling to the ground, falling with such force she almost expected the cave to shake.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The old saying popped into her head, repeating over and over.

Was he friend or foe? There was a small chance he really had come to save her from the raiders before. Though, after she'd just clobbered him, she was pretty sure he'd exact revenge the moment he woke up.

"I'm so dead," she murmured in horror.