I inwardly corrected her facts out of sheer boredom. First, the government hadn't even named these places the Leftovers. Officially they were meld sites, but a couple of journalists had floated “Leftovers” in the first twenty-four hours and the term had stuck. Second, that ‘innocent child’ had been a teenaged boy had been shooting fireworks into the trees. Third, his friends hadn't tried to rescue him; according to an eyewitness who’d been working down the road on a nearby downed power line, they’d run like hell. Fourth, there had been no investigation because the body had quickly been found and retrieved, and nobody’s accounts of the incident had differed.
Of course I was sad for the boy and his family, and I was determined not to let anything happen to these idiots, but... I’d raised my siblings to be smarter than that. Wild like me, maybe—it's in our blood—but never stupid.
"Got anything, Holt?" I commed to a man several yards away with a bulky black scanner in his hand. I could make out his shaved head from here as he bent to focus on fine-tuning the controls of his scanner. Holt had spent years in supernatural work, although he’d largely dealt with smuggling. Apparently, black-market sellers loved supernatural stuff. Holt’s previous job had involved snatching up illegal movers of redbill talons and beaks. Guess there's a buyer for everything. I’d spent so much time fighting redbills, before I made friends with them, that I never considered someone actually wanting a piece of them as some sick trophy.
At fifty, he was the oldest of our group and had the most military experience. I’d been instantly impressed with his resume when Hindley forked it over onto my desk, along with the rest of my team assignments. He’d far outranked me in the Bureau, but everyone who’d joined the Hellraisers had to basically start over. Each of my team members had done supernatural work with the Bureau, but no one besides Colin and me had experience in the Immortal Plane. I hoped this first experience would be enough to show Holt and the others what it was like to fight an Immortal monster.
"I've got a big one," Holt muttered. "It's darting through the woods parallel to Miss Vlogger, keeping low to the ground." He paused. "It seems to be following her, at least. Maybe it can smell her perfume. I know I can."
"Got it," I said with a chuckle. "You hear that, Colin?"
"Yes, the perfume is overdone and entirely too floral," Colin replied. "I've got eyes on something moving in the underbrush."
Jessica tossed her head as she went in for a dramatic take. "It's incredible, the feeling that this place has. You can feel how disturbed it is, like the land is telling you that it shouldn't even exist. Fans of my blog will be familiar with the interview I did with Father Jacobs, a prominent spiritualist, who believes that these supernatural creatures are humanity's darker energies emerging from the shadows due to society's moral deterioration. Spooky, huh?" She paused to wrap her cardigan around her, as if the thought of being in this area was truly bone-chilling. "We're out here doing the real work, while the government hopes that you continue eating lies."
This was it, the big dramatic take. Dan walked forward for the close-up as she did her best serious face for the camera. "My name is Jessica Laurence, and we're here to find out what's really happening in the Leftovers."
The leaves rustled for a moment. Dan tilted the camera so Jessica could get a gander at her performance on his camera. They reviewed the footage, unaware of the danger.
"It’s getting closer," Holt warned. "Twenty yards from the tree line."
An acrid smell hit my nostrils. I wrinkled my nose as the breeze brought the scent of perfume and the Leftovers my way. Somehow, this area smelled worse than the Immortal Plane ever had. It was like the combination of Planes caused it to be ranker than either—though, who knew, maybe it was just my luck to get the nastiest location. I braced myself, peering past the couple.
"Fifteen yards and coming in hot," Holt warned. He sucked in a breath as a long snout emerged from the trees behind the vloggers. Jessica, clueless, smacked Dan’s shoulder for not telling her that she had a bit of pink lip gloss on her teeth.
For a moment, the beast paused. It had no eyes. It looked like a cross between a Komodo dragon and a turtle, with a hard outer shell covering its back. Its huge nostrils sniffed at the air. I dialed back the scope on my binoculars to take in the size of it. It was as a big as a tour bus. The creature parted its lips to let its tongue slither out. It was several feet long and coated with a strange green sludge.
"Don’t let that tongue touch you," I warned my team. "Move into position, now!"
Someone grumbled on the line. It was either Evans or Jones, both of whom seemed to like me as much as sandpaper on skin. I shouted the command again, feeling my adrenaline and frustration spike. I was their Captain, but they hadn’t all accepted that yet. Still, I heard the sound of boots coming up behind me.
"Five yards," Holt cried. I leapt up and over the ridge. In my ears and the distance, I
