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{{title|name=Who Hunts the Hunter?|user=Eirik|author=Eirik}}
The screech of tires was deafening as the Ford Crown Victoria
police cruiser slid practically sideways onto Laurel Lane. Its
engine roared as the black and white car sped to catch up with
the dark red Ford Taurus racing ahead.

"Victor-7, he's now headed south on Laurel at Taylor! Where's
that damn chopper?" shouted officer Bilroth into her radio.

She dropped the radio receiver and gripped the steering wheel
again as the Ford ahead made a mad swerve around a parked
delivery truck, and she followed suit. Then came the voice on the
radio, "Base Station. The chopper is in the air. Keep on him
until then. Charlie-12 and Mary-9 are on their way to you."

She cursed lightly under her breath. They were heading down a
fairly busy street, with pedestrians and cross traffic, at speeds
close to 100 miles per hour. Even here in LA the chases rarely
got up to that speed. A helicopter typically kept the suspect in
site while other officers closed down the area, or he ran out of
gas.

But most suspects weren't wanted for 43 murders.

The stolen Taurus suddenly slammed on it's brakes and went into a
sideways skid. The driver, whoever he was, was good. He timed the
turn perfectly onto Fifth. Bilroth followed close behind. She
reached for the radio to call in the change in direction when the
rear window of the Taurus disintegrated in a shower of glass,
followed by star shaped patterns on her own windshield.

She ducked lower, keeping most of her head below the dashboard,
but never lost pursuit. She shouted into the radio, "Shots fired!
Shots fired! We're now heading east on Fifth, crossing Burin
now!"

The gunfire stopped and she ventured above the dash a little
more. There were at least five bullet holes in the windshield.
She felt the funnel of wind blowing into her face from a few of
them, and a few flecks of glass pelted her sunglasses.

The radio came on again. "Mary-9, I'm west on Fifth, about five
blocks north. I'll try and block him at Centennial."

"Base Station, roger Mary-9."

Bilroth sped up her cruiser and got within five car lengths of
the car ahead. The driver never looked back, though she swore
that she should see the reflection of his eyes in the rearview
mirror. She saw another form apparently slumped and unmoving in
the passenger seat. ::Probably the cars owner::, she thought.

She saw the lights of Mary-9 ahead, and began to back off a
little. There was no telling what this guy might try. There was a
line of cars on the eastbound side waiting for a red light to
change, and a lot of cross traffic. Mary-9 slid into position
blocking the westbound lanes. There were two large buildings on
either side of the street. The suspects only real option was to
stop or risk slamming into one of the buildings by taking the
sidewalk.

He chose option three.

The red Ford suddenly sped up, quickly going more than 100 miles
per hour, and aimed straight for the cruiser blocking his path.
Sergeant Bell seemed to realize it at the last moment himself,
and Bilroth saw the rear wheels spin madly as he floored the
cruiser in a vain attempt to get out of the way.

It was too late.

There wasn't much left of the police cruiser. It had effectively
been split into three major chunks, with the engine being thrown
fully 100 feet through the front window of a furniture store. The
shattered bits of red and blue plastic that had made up the
flashing light bar on top ended up scattered all over Bilroths
cruiser as she slammed on the brakes.

The stolen Taurus fared little better. It flipped into the air,
spraying bits of engine, undercarriage and glass all over the
intersection before coming to a halt against a light standard. It
fell to the ground upside down, its roof crushed under the force
of the blow. Neither car caught fire.

Bilroth yelled into her portable radio as she jumped out of the
car, "Send EMS! Send EMS! Intersection of Fifth and Centennial!
Officer down! Suspect down!"

She raced to the nearest hulk, what had been the passenger cabin
of police unit Mary-9. She didn't have to get too close to see
that Sergeant Bell was dead, beyond help. Almost as an automatic
motion, she drew her gun and started over to the crushed Taurus.
Several bystanders were beginning to approach the car.

"Get back! Stand back now!" She jogged over to the car, jumping
lightly over pieces of red fiberglass and twisted metal, as the
bystanders stopped to gape at her. She looked around the car
quickly. The roof was crushed low, and the doors jammed shut. It
was going to take the jaws of life to get the two people out of
this car, dead or alive.

The rear passenger window was still off the ground high enough to
look inside. Carefully leading with her gun, she crouched to the
ground and peered in.

She saw the body of a middle aged woman resting on the roof of
the car. Since she already knew that her suspect was a man, this
had to have been the cars owner. She was dead, her neck twisted
at an odd angle.

But there was no other occupant.

Biroth stood and looked around furiously as the sound of other
sirens started to come closer. The intersection was littered with
bits of both cars, but no other bodies. She raced into the center
of the intersection and looked around in a circle. No sign of
him. She looked at the nearest witness. "Did you see anyone get
thrown from this car?" He shook his head no. "Did anyone?" More
no's from the crowd.

She cursed and clicked on the radio again. "Seal off the area!
The suspect may have gotten away." She walked back to the Taurus
as her call was confirmed.

She slammed her fist into the side of the smashed sedan out of
frustration when she realized that she heard a familiar sound.
Looking up, three helicopters were circling the intersection.
Looking fast between them, she saw a light blue chopper with a
large white "5" on the side, another with a "7" in a large
circle, and another with a large "4" situated above a multicolor
peacock. The local media.

They had undoubtedly been following the chase for at least a
little while, and each of the crews was probably ecstatic about
capturing such a spectacular crash on tape, just in time for the
five o'clock news.

But if the suspect had managed to flee, then should be keeping
him on tape. Why were they still over the intersection?

{{Separator|x}}

The debriefing had taken a long time.

Lisa was sure that some of her superiors wanted to blame her for
what happened. They had a dead officer, five more dead civilians
and the suspect had apparently vanished into this air. They
needed a scapegoat.

But they simply couldn't find fault with anything that she did.
Not yet, anyway. All three local news stations had caught the
crash on tape, and even from three angles, no one could see what
happened to the man wanted for so much death. Lisa's own cruiser
had been equipped with a small camera mounted above the rearview
mirror. That tape showed the suspect still in the drivers seat
1/16th of a second before impact. Chillingly, the brake lights
were not on at that moment.

{{Separator|x}}

The media had just given him a name. The Hunter.

He was up to 49 now. Men, women, chidden, it seemed to mean
little to him. The majority of them were shop keepers or clerks,
but there were people from all walks of life, from all races.
This guy seemed to show little favoritism. He'd hit fifteen
targets in the last six weeks, from gas stations to jewelry
stores. His largest single haul was close to $250,000 in gold and
gemstones. His smallest, $15 from a walk-up hot dog stand.
Despite all that, there wasn't a single witness.

Or at least, a single living witness.

Whatever he did, he was fast. He seemed to know what places had
their surveillance equipment on battery back-up, and so far had
avoided those. He'd managed to cut the power to the stores that
he did hit, killing any cameras. Then he would enter and
apparently kill anyone inside. He typically seemed to use a gun,
but sometimes he killed more than one way. A knife, a blunt
object, and a couple others. He would leave with whatever loot
was handy. He didn't always grab it all, but enough to let
everyone know he'd been there.

The closest thing to a witness at this point was the grainy
pictures taken by a nearby ATM machine one evening. It had so far
been one of his only mistakes. The machine had been able to get a
basic description of him out, he was male, about 6 foot 1 inch
and weight about 200 pounds. That narrowed it down to about 3
million people in the LA area.

But the Hunter had gotten unlucky this time. Officer Bilroth had
happened to see him leaving a small convenience store right after
the loss of power had triggered a silent alarm. He ran as she
came into sight and jumped into a nearby car, apparently killing
the occupant and pushing her out of the way. She had guessed that
this was the monster they were looking for, and the investigation
that followed confirmed that.

But, it seemed that he vanished off the face of the earth.

{{Separator|x}}

Lisa had slipped out of the station house after the debriefing as
dawn approached. With the help of some other officers, who
distracted the press, she managed to get to her car and leave
without being followed. She didn't want to have to deal with them
at the moment. She had a feeling that someone may be waiting for
her at home, so she decided to stop for a little while at a
coffee shop and gather her thoughts away from her superiors and
the press.

She sat in a out of the way booth and ordered coffee and asked
for a menu. She didn't feel all that hungry, but she wanted
something in her stomach. She eventually decided on a blueberry
muffin. She stared out the widow while she ran over the chase in
her head again.

Perhaps an hour later, a voice brought her out of her funk.
"Officer Bilroth?"

She turned her head. She found herself looking at a middle aged
man in a poorly pressed, but apparently relatively new, brown
suit. He had a wide face and thinning hair. He was carrying a tan
raincoat with him, but it was draped over one arm. Something
about him screamed "cop".

He extended a hand, "I'm Detective Kyle Folkerson of the
Dartmouth County, Maryland Sheriff's Department. Mind if I sit
down?"

Lisa looked at him for a moment, then shook her head a little
absently. "No, go ahead. What brings you to this coast,
detective?"

He tossed his coat onto the far side of the booth and sat down.
"I understand that you chased a suspected armed robber slash mass
serial killer today."

She paused a moment, "Forgive me for asking, detective, but I'm
not sure I should talk about this. Do you at least have some ID?"
He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his shield and
identification. Lisa looked it over. It seemed legit. "Why are
you asking?"

"Last year, starting about mid September and running through the
end of October, we had a string of seemingly unrelated armed
robberies through the county. All types of stores were hit, there
seemed to be no correlation between them. Different amounts of
money, sometimes property, were taken. Even a few different
methods were used to kill the victims. The only linking factor
was that this guy apparently left no survivors. He killed 8
people before he stopped. Sound familiar?"

She nodded. "What stopped your guy?"

He shrugged, "The planets went back into alignment? He remembered
to wear his tin foil hat? Who knows? All I know is that he seems
to have resurfaced here, in LA, and that you are in grave
danger."

{{Separator|x}}

He laid out the scene for her. In Maryland, this killer had
apparently jumped from store to store, about one a week, for five
weeks. As it happened, he hit stores that had just one or two
clerks on duty at the time, and never a customer. No one could be
sure if that was by design or accident. He always disabled the
cameras somehow first, typically by killing the power.

It went like that until the last week of October.

"Then," said the detective, "we caught our first real break.
Someone heard the gunshots at a gas station and called the
police. An officer responded to the call, and managed to get to
the scene just as the getaway car, a stolen Toyota Previa, pulled
out of the station. There was a chase. Just like yesterday, it
ended with a rather spectacular car accident, that time, though,
the result of a blown tire on the Toyota that sent it out of
control and into a tree."

He reached into his coat and produced a wrinkled yellow file
folder. He opened it and dropped an 8x10 color picture of the
wreck. It was obviously the kind that no one walks away from. She
looked back at him, "You didn't find a body, did you?"

He shook his head. "No body, no blood, no evidence. It was like
he vanished."

"So, what does this have to do with me being in danger?"

He sighed and produced another photo. This one was of a man, at
least, it looked like one. The body was horribly mutilated. Lisa
had been on the force almost 10 years and had never seen anything
even close.

"That is the officer that chased this guy. Starting about two
days after the chase, he started talking to friends about some
strange things going on. Odd dreams that he was having, things
that were deeply disturbing to him, but that he couldn't
remember. He said that it was a feeling that he just couldn't
shake, like something was wrong with the universe. Over the
course of the week, he talked about more and more strange things.
A few of us thought that he was just feeling the stress from the
chase and accident." He shrugged, "It happens. The stuff he
talked about was simply strange. He talked about animals, wild
and domestic, that simply seemed to stare at him, unmoving. He
started talking about conversations, bizarre conversations, with
friends. The friends didn't recall the conversations, though."

He picked up the pictures and dropped them back into his folder.
"On October 30, he called the station to tell them that he
wouldn't be in the next morning, that he wasn't feeling well.
When they asked what was wrong, he hung up. They sent an officer
over to investigate and found this mess."

She shuddered a little at the thought. "What makes you so sure
that this is the same guy? That the person that killed your
officer was the same one out here?"

"At first, nothing. We certainly investigated the link, but
frankly there wasn't much to go on. We didn't have any idea who
this guy was, what he was doing. Anything. Then, while checking
information about another case in Wisconsin, I happened across
this article in a local paper."

He handed her an article from a newspaper, dated four months ago.
It was one of those retrospectives that papers often run, looking
back at a time of tragedy. Nearly twenty five years ago, this
small community had been rocked by a series of murders, all
taking place in businesses. No survivors, no witnesses. Lisa
skimmed the article quickly, then stopped about halfway down and
looked at the detective, who nodded grimly.

It seemed that the killer in Wisconsin had the misfortune of
leaving a scene just as a local cop arrived. A chase ensued, in
which the suspect car slammed into a bridge railing and fell into
a river. No body was ever found, and the suspect was presumed
dead.

The article noted, though, that the pursuing officer had been
found dead himself only seven days later. A grisly murder still
unsolved.

Lisa looked back at the detective, "What...?"

Her voice trailed off as he produced a stack of papers. They were
arranged in order, starting with a photocopy of the article she
had just read. The oldest article was from 1958. A few years were
missing, but the twenty or so present had locations from all over
the nation, almost all of them in small towns or counties. She
skimmed a few. The stories differed in details, in body counts,
in the total amount of stolen property. But they all ended the
same way: A high speed chase, a massive accident, and a dead
officer.

The Hunter had been around a long time.

And now, she was his prey.

Part Two

"Why?"

The question hung in the air as she turned her Mazda 626 into the
northbound lanes of Highway 118. The Maryland detective sat next
to her, motionless, for a long moment before he answered.

"I don't know. I wish I did."

She sighed. She still wasn't sure if she should believe this man.
After all, the evidence was circumstantial. But it seemed like
such convincing evidence. Something was nagging at her, though.

"Why hasn't anyone noticed the connection before? We've been
searching through the computers for weeks trying to tie this
Hunter in with anything, anywhere. Nothing has ever come up."

He shrugged as he sorted through the papers in his hand. "Partly,
I think, because he's had a history of hitting small, rural area
until now. This is the first time he's hit a major metropolitan
area, as far as I can tell. The records go back for decades, and
the vast majority are simply too old to have been entered into a
computer. Even the ones that are on the national system aren't
all that similar, or even all that unique. The places that he
hits are seemingly random, and his methods are different each
time. There isn't even a description of this guy. There isn't
anything to search for."

She sighed again, and felt herself getting increasingly nervous.
"So, what do we do?"

He looked at her and smiled a wide Irish smile, "We nail this
bastard."

{{Separator|x}}

He explained it as they drove to her small house in Simi Valley.

>From what he'd been able to dig up over the last few months, it
seemed clear that there was a pattern that the Hunter followed.
Following an accident in which he vanished, the officer that
chased him would start to change. They would start to lose sleep
and act irrationally.

Invariably, between four and seven days later, they were dead.

"The difference" explained Detective Folkerson, "is that none of
these men knew what was happening. We do."

She glanced over to him. "Do we?"

{{Separator|x}}

They pulled off the freeway and drove through the town. It was
characteristically quiet this early on a Thursday morning. When
she turned onto her street, though, she could tell that it wasn't
quiet here. There were three newsvans parked near her house.

She sighed again. ::At the moment::, she thought, ::I'd rather be
up against the Hunter.::

As she approached the house, she reached into the console next to
her and withdrew her garage door opener. Ignoring the reporters
shouts as she pulled into her driveway, she opened the garage
door and drove in, closing it behind her. She and the detective
were getting out of the car when she realized that someone was in
the garage.

Actually, two someone's.

"Officer Bilroth! Carlton Bowman from KCNC news. Can you give us
a statement about the Hunter getting away from you yesterday
evening?"

She stared at him and his cameraman for a moment in surprise. She
hadn't noticed him slipping under the lowering door. Thankfully,
Detective Folkerson saved her. "What do you think you're doing?"

The reporter turned his attention to the visiting detective. "I'm
trying to get a statement. The public has a right to know what
happened..."

Through gritted teeth, Folkerson said, "I'll say this one time
and one time only. We are going to open the garage door, and you
and your cameraman are going to walk out the way you came in. Any
questions?"

The reporter looked dumbly at the man in the rumpled brown suit.
For a moment, he looked like he was going to argue, or simply
ignore the barely disguised threat. But something seemed to pass
between the two men, and the reporter crumbled under the hard
look.

Not wasting any time, Lisa pushed on the garage door opener again
and it loudly rumbled back open. The other reporters seemed to
move closer for a moment before they saw the pair leaving the
garage, and the door closing right after them.

Lisa looked over at the detective as the door shut. "Thanks."

He smiled again as he rounded the car, "Compared to the media,
the Hunter ought to be a piece of cake."

{{Separator|x}}

They entered the house cautiously, but not with guns drawn. There
didn't seem to be anything amiss. They crept quietly through the
two bedroom house, but other than the typical mess, nothing was
wrong.

She motioned for the detective to take a seat at her kitchen.
"Would you like some coffee?"

He shook his head, "No thanks. You must be exhausted, though."

She shook her head, "Not really. Nothing like finding out that
your life is in danger to wake you up." She glanced up and
noticed that the light on her answering machine was flashing. She
stepped over and pushed the "play" button.

The first one was from her mother. "Hi, Lisa, its your mom. I saw
you on TV last night and wanted to make sure that you're all
right. Call me."

The second message was from the station. "Lisa, this is Captain
Welch. It's about...six-thirty right now. I just wanted to tell
you that Sergeant Bells funeral has already been set for day
after tomorrow. We'll have details in a few hours. Call the
station when you get the chance."

Then, another from the station. "Lisa, Welch again. There is some
Maryland detective looking for you." She stole a look at
Folkerson sitting at the table. "Said that he had to talk to you
about a case that he's working on. I've got his hotel number if
he hasn't found you by the time that you get this."

The machine made a loud click as it turned off.

She looked back at Folkerson. "You didn't tell them? Why?"

He shrugged. "I doubted that they would believe me, and I didn't
want to take the chance that someone would stonewall me, even for
a few hours. Before I left Maryland, I did a search for you on
the FBI computer. I found a case in which you were the arresting
officer and told them that it was related to that case."

She shook her head. "You mean, no one else knows about this?"

He shrugged again. "Lisa, I'm going to tell you this straight
out, right now. You could have the entire Los Angeles Police
Department stationed around your house and you'd still never be
safe."

"What are you talking about?"

He leaned back in his chair. "This is going to sound even more
loony than anything I've already told you, but I have my doubts
that this guy is even human. Who or whatever he is, he's been
doing this for almost thirty years that I can see. God only knows
how many years before that."

Lisa lightly gripped the back of a kitchen chair. She was
beginning to doubt the wisdom of believing this guy. Sure, he was
a detective, but she'd met more than one cop over the years who'd
lost it. "Maybe he just started young. Just because you don't
have evidence certainly doesn't mean that he's been doing this
for a hundred years."

He nodded, "Granted. That's true. I have no evidence. In fact,
1958 may have been the first time that he did...whatever it is
that he's doing. But, there are two other things to remember.
First, he's got a remarkable knack for vanishing without a trace
after the worst of accidents."

She nodded. He continued. "Second. He's a perfect chameleon."

"Chameleon?"

"Before he was killed, Officer Rod was convinced that his father
had disowned him, that his daughter had attempted suicide and
that one of his oldest friends was trying to blackmail him. The
problem is, none of that happened. He was convinced that animals
were following him, acting oddly. He even told his wife that he'd
been forced to shoot his dog to death when it attacked him. The
problem is, the dog is still alive."

"Wait an minute. Are you saying that the Hunter hypnotized this
guy or something?"

"No. There was a lot more to it than that. His wife heard the
gunshot when he claimed that he shot the dog. He came into the
house covered in blood, not his own. No, there was something to
it. I think that somehow, the Hunter pulled that all off."

"You mean, he was the dog, the father, the daughter, the friend,
all of them?"

Folkerson nodded.

"Wait, if he shot the dog, and the dog was the Hunter, then how
are we supposed to stop him?"

He looked at her for a long time in silence. "I'm hoping for
inspiration. I really don't know. Remember, we may not know what
he is, but we know he's there. We know who his next target is. We
know his favorite methods. Between us, I'm guessing we have about
thirty years experience. We'll keep our eyes open, and keep you
alive."

{{Separator|x}}

This is the part that she hated. The waiting.

There really wasn't anything that they could do to get ready.
They checked both their sidearms, his a police issue .38, hers a
semi-automatic 9mm. If what he was saying was true, there
wouldn't be much use for them, but you never know.

She should have been tired. She'd been up almost 24 hours. She
just couldn't bring herself to nod off. Instead, she walked into
her living room and turned on the TV. She flipped it to one of
the network morning shows out of New York. She had hoped that
they wouldn't be as fascinated with the chase as the local LA
stations were. She was wrong.

"..And the President will make a statement about it at noon
eastern. >From Los Angeles, the story of the man who has been
called the Hunter continues." They cut to the footage from one of
the news choppers, "Yesterday, he apparently escaped this tragic
car accident following a high speed chase through city streets.
One police officer and a hostage were killed in the crash as were
five others in a conveniece store shortly before. The Hunter
apparently escaped. More on this in a moment when June talks with
LAPD Captain Allen Welch. In other news, a late season hurricane,
Travis, continues to reek havoc on the eastern seaboard, forcing
evacuations from Virginia to New York..." She turned off the TV
and sighed.

"Don't worry about it, Lisa. This will all be over before long.",
said Folkerson.

She looked back at him with a grim smile. "That's what I'm afraid
of." Then there was a loud knock on the door. She jumped
slightly, but recovered and started over to open it. The
detective grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"Remember, this starts *now*. Trust no one, believe nothing. The
person at the door look like anyone from your mother to your
mailman, and they may be that person. But be prepared to believe
that it's him."

The knock came again, more insistent this time. "What do I do if
it's him?"

"For now, nothing. Whatever game he's playing, whatever reason he
has for killing cops, it's ritualistic. He plays with them first,
makes them insane. Even if that is him, he won't try and kill you
now." The knock came again. "You'd better answer it."

She nodded and stepped over to the door.

Part Three

Lisa reached for the doorknob cautiously and took one last look
back at the detective standing behind her. He nodded, but she
noted kept his hand hovering near his .38. She opened the door.

She came face to face with a grim faced Captain Welch. He looked
tired and more than a little haggard. His dark eyes were badly
bloodshot, and Lisa could sense the stress of a long night on his
face. "Captain. What can I do for you?"

Welch nodded his head back in the direction of the still present
media on her front lawn. "Mind if I step inside, Lisa?"

She hesitated a moment, not sure what to say. This certainly
looked like her Captain, but she suddenly wasn't sure. Something
about him was nagging at her. Then she decided. "Come in. Have a
seat."

The Captain stepped into the entry and say Detective Folkerson.
He put out his hand. "Folkerson, right? I see that you found
Officer Bilroth all right."

He nodded. "Another officer at the station told me where to find
her."

Welch nodded than said, "Do mind leaving us alone for a moment. I
have some private matters to discuss."

Folkerson nodded and walked into the kitchen, but not before
giving a reassuring look to Lisa. He would be nearby if something
did happen. Bilroth motioned for her Captain to enter the living
room and she followed, both taking a seat.

"Lisa, I'm going to be straight with you. The brass want a
scapegoat, and they want it to be either you."

"But, that's not fair! I didn't do anything wrong."

Wlech shook his head. "I'm sorry, but this thing is bigger than
you, and it's completely out of my hands. They are questioning
your actions immediately following the accident. Some of them are
saying that you should have gone straight to the Hunters car and
checked on him before you checked Bell."

Her jaw dropped. "What? That makes no sense. I barely paused when
I checked Bell. He was dead, that was clear. Besides, what good
would it have done?"

Welch looked at her oddly, "What do you mean?"

Lisa almost told him what she now knew about the Hunter, but
stopped herself. She remembered that Folkerson hadn't told
anyone. "I mean, he obviously got away before the car came to a
halt. Maybe he got tossed from the car or something and just
didn't get picked up by the cameras. I don't know. Besides,
Captain, we've already been through all this."

He sighed. "Lisa, I know. But I'm afraid that I have to give you
some bad news. You're being put on a temporary leave."

"What?? I've being suspended? Why?"

"No, not suspended. It's temporary. You'll still get pay and
benefits. This is just until we clear up this whole mess."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She knew that they
wanted a scapegoat, but why are they moving so fast on her?
"Captain, how long will this..."

Her sentence was cut off by the sound of a gunshot behind her,
and the hole that abruptly appeared in Captains Welch's shoulder.
He cried out in pain and started to stand out of the chair, but
sagged to the floor in pain. Lisa spun around to see Detective
Folkerson behind her, still training his smoking .38 on the
fallen officer.

"What are you doing?!", she screamed.

He reached over to the TV set and turned it on. Even as the
picture warmed up, the familiar voice of Captain Welch came over
the air. It brightened, and she saw him being interviewed on one
of those network morning shows. Her eyes widened and she turned
back to Welch. "He's the Hunter? That can't be!", she asked
incredulously.

Folkerson nodded. "Don't be fooled. It's him. We have to get out
of here."

She looked back at the form leaning against the chair. He seemed
conscious, but only barely. "Why? Why can't we do something about
him now?"

"There's no time to explain. I was going to tell you, but only
when you were ready. He made his move too fast. Suffice it to say
that bullets will only slow him down. We have to get out of this
house, now!"

He dragged her down the hall. She grabbed her purse off the hall
table. Folkerson ran out the door. "Get in the car!"

She got in the car and started it as he got on the passenger
side. She started looking for the garage door opener. Folkerson
reached over and pulled back the transmission to reverse. "No
time! Just go!"

Without thinking, she slammed her foot down on the accelerator
and the car suddenly lurched backward through the wooden garage
door. The reporters, who had ventured closer to the house at the
sound of a gunshot, suddenly scattered as the white blur raced
backward down the driveway. Lisa backed the car onto the quiet
street and shifted into drive, flooring it.

"Where are we supposed to go?" she asked, trembling a little from
the actions of the last few moment.

"We need to get out of the city in a hurry. How long does it take
to get out to the desert from here? Someplace isolated?"

"Not that long, maybe an hour or so. Why?"

"The Hunter has changed his tactics, for whatever reason. From
what I've been able to see about him, he shouldn't have made such
a bold, and really stupid, move so fast. He's always been more
subtle, more sinister."

"Maybe this isn't the same guy?"

He seemed to consider it for a few moments. "No, this is him.
There are too many similarities. Look, we need to get away from
as many people as we can. I'm worried that he may be willing to
take out other people. I think that he'll still fixate on you,
though."

"So you want to get him away from LA? Okay, but what about what
you were going to tell me?"

He seemed to consider it for a moment. "I really don't think that
I can tell you, not now."

She looked over at him as she guided her speeding car back onto
the 118 highway. "What? Why not? Why no answers? I think that I
have the right to know!"

He pulled out his .38 and opened the cylinder, pulling out the
spent shell casing. "There are things that we might have to do,
things that you may not want to do. You don't need to prepare at
all. In fact, you're really just the bait. I'll take care of
everything."

She looked at him a long time. She was still trying to sort all
this out in her head. It had only been a few hours since she
first found out how much danger she was in. Now she was on the
run. Folkerson had apparently grabbed his file at some point and
started looking through some of the papers. Lisa occasionally
tried to talk to him, or top figure out what he was reading, but
he didn't cooperate. At one point, he simply told her that he was
getting ready for a confrontation.

Three hours later, Folkerson looked out the window of the car. He
nodded slightly at the sight of the Joshua trees passing out the
window. "Are there any hotels around here? Someplace that we can
hole up for tonight?"

She pointed at a rapidly approaching highway sign. "Twenty Nine
Palms is just a couple miles up the road. I'm sure that we can
find a place there."

He nodded and pulled out his gun again, checking it once more.
"Great. Find a place and check us in. I'll take your car and hide
it nearby. It might give us a little breathing room."

"You think that he can track us? And isn't that what we want?"

"I know he can. He's done it before, and, yes, we do want him to
find us. But I need more time to get ready. I can't do it
otherwise."

She pulled into the parking lot of a Motel "6" and she jumped out
while he took the car down the road further. She stepped into the
office and rang the bell. An older woman came out. She gave Lisa
an odd look, something unreadable, but rented her a room anyway.
She walked up the stairs to the room, opened the door and took a
look around. Satisfied, she hung out on the railing until
Folkerson came back.

They spent hours in the motel room. He was still pouring over the
sheets of paper, and not willing to let her see what was in them.
He seemed to be planning something, but she couldn't be sure
what. He didn't want any distractions, so she didn't turn off the
TV. She laid on the bed and read a magazine, but she was running
the events of the last day through her head. There was something
nagging at her, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

She glanced at her watch. She knew that the national news was on
right now. She turned on the TV, but kept the sound off. They
used so many graphics these days that it wasn't a problem. She
could get the gist of most of the stories from the pictures and
the printed words.

As the news show started, they showed the skyline on New York,
and then faded to an anchor man sitting in a studio. Lisa watched
as he started talking about some major news story out of the
Middle East. Her eyes drifted around the screen a little. Her
eyes idly started looking at the line of clocks on the wall. For
a long moment, something bothered her about it.

Suddenly her eyes widened. She looked at her watch and back at
the clocks on the wall behind the anchor. She remembered back to
the morning, the image of Captain Welch on her TV being
interviewed live, even as he sat in her living room.

But those shows are delayed for the west coast. Delayed three
hours. Which is why the clock behind the anchor that was tagged
"Los Angeles" was three hours slow.

The pieces started falling into place. She remembered the new
report this morning. Hurricane Travis had shut down the east
coast since the day before. How did he get out of Baltimore do
fast? For that matter, how did he even see the news report? She
remembered the papers that Folkerson had shown her. They were all
from tiny communities, and many from the age before computers.
How did he gather them up in just four months? Without telling
anyone?

And how did he find her this morning? She'd stopped at that diner
on the spur of the moment. She'd never told anyone she was going?

Lisa pulled her gun from its holster and pointed it at the man
seated at the cheap desk. Before she could do or say anything,
his head slowly rose. He looked directly at the wall and she
could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke. "I'm impressed,
Officer."

He turned, a too wide smile across his face. "It usually takes
you guys a couple days. It's too bad, really. I didn't want to
have to kill you so early. I've never done a woman cop before."

Lisa didn't feel any fear at that moment. She simply started
pulling the trigger of her pistol. Over and over again.

Part Four

A good cop can empty the entire nine bullet clip of a Smith and
Wesson 9mm semi-automatic pistol faster than the average person
could find the safety catch.

Officer Lisa Bilroth was a very good cop.

Time seemed to slow for her as each bullet flew out of her gun
and struck the man that she had once thought of as Detective
Folkerson. She watched as each bullet passed through his rumbled
brown suit, through his skin and penetrated the soft organs
below. She saw his body jerk with each hit, she saw the blood
splatter against the wall behind the desk and pour out all over
the floor.

She reached the last bullet and pulled one more time, hearing a
click as she attempted to fire an empty chamber. Without pause,
she released the clip and let it fall to the bed. As she reached
for another clip in her pocket, she looked at the body of the man
still slumped against the desk.

With a sickening feeling, she realized that he was beginning to
stand up. She watched the grotesque visage of a man with seven
chest wounds and two head wounds pull himself to his feet,
pouring blood out of each wound. "You'll have to do better than
that, Lisa." He said through a shattered jaw.

She jumped to her feet, fumbling with the clip and started to
edge her way to the door. "What are you?" She asked in a
frightened voice.

He smiled through shattered teeth and started to walk stiffly
toward her. "Death." he said simply.

With new invigoration, she suddenly found her coordination and
slapped the clip into the handle of the pistol. This time aiming
at his knees, she fired twice. There was no grunt of pain as he
fell to the floor and started to pull himself across the ancient
brown carpet toward her.

She tore open the door and started running down the second floor
walkway. She saw a few people that had ventured out of their
rooms at the sound of the gunfire. "Get out of here!" she
shouted. "He'll kill us all!"

She looked around the parking lot quickly for her car, and then
realized that she had let Folkerson hide it and never asked
where. She ran trough the driveway to the street. Stepping into
the quiet street, she pulled the badge off her belt and waved it
and her gun in front of her as a man in an emerald Ford Explorer
drove up. He hung out the window. "What's the problem, officer?"

She raced to the side of his car, "Police emergency. I need your
car." she yelled as she opened his door. Bewildered, he stepped
out of the car and asked, "What's the problem?"

"No time." she yelled as she jumped into the drivers seat and
floored the gas pedal. The massive four wheel drive truck lurched
forward, and in moments she was up to a comfortable speed. She
let her heart slow down a little. She fumbled for a moment with
the gin again. She now had seven bullets, and no more ammunition.
The rest of the clips were in her purse back at the hotel.

She looked around the car a little, hoping for some luck. It
looked like the guy that had owned this car a moment ago was on
some sort of business trip. There was a laptop computer case and
a garment back laying across the back seat. She reached over and
popped open the glove compartment, but found only maps. She
looked back again, running her hand across the floor behind her
when something out of the corner of her eye caused her to turn
her head.

She looked to her left to see a huge black bird, a huge black
*ugly* bird, matching her 60 MPH pace.

And it was looking right at her.

She suddenly knew *exactly* who she was looking at.

She slammed her foot all the way to the floor board and the car
lurched forward again. As the speedometer passed 80, and she
swerved to avoid a slow moving motor home, the bird was abruptly
gone. She crouched lower and tried to look up into the sky out
the windshield, but saw nothing.

She sat back up straight and gripped the steering wheel harder.

Minutes passed.

She started to calm down a little.

Her breathing got more regular.

Then something slammed into the hood of the Explorer at high
speed.

She screamed out of surprise and the entire car shuddered with
the impact of the massive back bird directly into the center of
the hood, and then slid along the hood backward toward the
windshield. Never slowing, she looked at the mass of rough black
feathers on the hood, the windshield flecked with blood again.

Then one wing reached out from the mass of feathers, and the tip
began to change. She saw the black feathers begin to fold in on
themselves and turn pink. It grabbed the hood in front of the
windshield and held on as the rest of the wing began to turn into
an arm. The other wing reached out, already half formed into an
arm itself.

Then the mutilated head of the vulture-like bird poked out of the
bloody morass on the hood and started to waver in front of her.
It took on just enough features to sneer. Then it plunged the
other formed fist through the windshield.

Finally gaining her sanity back, Lisa slammed on the brakes. The
Hunter lost his grip on the hood and slid in a wet, sopping mass
in front of the 3 ton truck. Even as he disappeared over the
hood, she slammed on the gas pedal again and felt the truck bump
slightly as she drove over him.

She didn't stop to see if he was dead. She didn't think that he
was. To confirm it, she looked in he rear view mirror.

She saw the gory visage seem to rise from the pavement in a mass
of blood, feathers and torn human skin.

Lisa felt herself go ice cold.

She kept driving, not really having a destination. She needed
time to think, time to formulate a plan. She didn't know how to
stop this guy, and she began to doubt that she could.

Nothing human could possibly survive the abuse that she'd just
inflicted. For that matter, nothing human could turn into a
vulture, and then back again.

Fifteen minutes passed. The sun began to settle low over the
distant mountains as she made her way through the huge Joshua
Tree National Park. The freeway was lined with the hideous,
cactus-like trees.

Then she heard a familiar sound behind her. She didn't need to
check the rear view mirror to identify the familiar sound of a
California Highway Patrol cruiser.

She started to pull over the commandeered Ford, then a vision
flashed in her mind.

What if this CHiP was him?

As the truck slowed, she slammed on the brakes and put the car
into a controlled skid. It came to a stop sideways, with the
drivers door facing away from the slowing cruiser. She jumped
from car and set herself up over the hood, pointing her gun at
the officer.

He had already stopped his CHP Mustang and had been preparing to
get out of the car himself. Now he looked through the windshield
at the woman holding a pistol on him.

He meekly put his hands up over the steering wheel.

"Get out of the car!", she yelled. "Open the door from the
outside handle!"

The ChiP reached out the window with his right hand and pulled
open the door handle. He slowly swung out the white door, the
huge gold star glinting in the dimming light.

Then he rolled out onto the ground and scrambled to the rear of
his car.

Lisa silently cursed herself She should have guessed that he'd do
something like that. She had hoped to get his gun and keys.

"Look, officer!", she shouted. "I don't want to have to hurt
anyone. I'm being chased by someone, and I need to get out of
here."

She heard his deep voice from behind the cruiser. "Then throw
down your gun and come out, Bilroth. We'll protect you."

She suddenly realized that he'd used her name. That confirmed for
her what something in the back of her head had been telling her.
She was a wanted woman, probably for Welch's shooting this
morning. "Can't do that. I can't explain it, but I can't do that.
The guy after me would kill me, and anyone else that gets between
me and him."

The officer poked his head out slightly from behind the cruiser.
"You know as well as I do that I can't even consider it. You're
wanted, Bilroth."

"I didn't do anything."

The officer still crouched behind his cruiser never had a chance
to respond. In the rapidly fading light of day, a massive form
seemed to drop out of the sky. It landed on the trunk of the
Mustang, shattering out the rear and side windows as the car
shifted and bucked under the sudden impact of some sort of
malformed bear. It seemed to lack fur on it's muzzle, almost like
scales. Even from fifteen feet, Lisa could see that it had claws
of unbelievable size.

And it focused on the CHiP on the ground.

She heard the guy yell in surprise and start shooting at the
massive animal. This huge beast seemed not to notice the
impacting bullets. It reached out with an impossibly long arm and
took a massive swipe, sending the brown uniformed officer sailing
into the air, where he slammed into a Joshua tree with a
sickening thud.

By this time, Lisa had already started making her way over to the
partly smashed cruiser. As the Hunter began to turn his head
toward his real prey, she was already pulling the 12 gauge
shotgun from its clasp on the cruiser dash. She brought it up to
the bears muzzle, who seemed a little surprised. She pulled the
trigger, and watched the face fill with hot lead.

He seemed stunned, but was certainly not dead. She pulled the
trigger one more time, and the hot lead filled its neck this
time. Blood gushed from the torn flesh, and the huge bear fell to
the ground, grunting and swiping his muzzle with a paw.

Taking advantage of it's moment of indecision, she ran to the
officer laying on the ground nearby. He was still breathing, but
had four huge gashes in his chest, and was bleeding heavily from
a scalp wound. He was moaning a little, but wasn't lucid.

Lisa didn't hesitate long. She couldn't leave him for the Hunter
to kill. He was only doing his job, and happened to be in the
wrong place at the wrong time. She pulled him up and dragged him
to the Explorer, throwing him into the back seat. She looked back
the cruiser and saw the bear like creature starting to flow into
something more man like.

And beginning to slowly advance.

She jumped over the back seat and fell back into the drivers
seat. She'd never turned off the engine, so she simply slammed on
the gas pedal and felt the car fishtail slightly as it fought for
traction on the shoulder, then the pavement of the nearly
desolate road.

She looked in the rearview mirror and saw the Hunter again.

A thought began to formulate in her mind.

She turned back to the officer. Still alive, but not conscious.
She'd try and leave him at the first place that she could. She
took stock of what she had now. She still had her own pistol, and
now the CHiPs' .45 pistol, as well as his shot gun. She didn't
have any more shells for the shotgun, and she didn't know how
many shots were left in the .45, but it was a start.

A few minutes passed, and she saw a beacon in the dimming like.
She pulled into the nearly vacant parking area of the small
general store and leaned on the horn. She then jumped out and
pulled the officer from the back seat. Just then, an older man
stepped out the door. "What the hell..." His voice trailed off as
he saw the bloody cop.

He jumped down the step and raced over, "What happened?" he
asked.

She shook her head. "No time to explain. Let's get him inside and
call an ambulance."

He nodded and grabbed the officers feet. They carried him in and
laid him on the pale green tile floor. Lisa pressed down on his
wounds, but they weren't bleeding badly. From what she could
feel, though, he had some broken ribs at least.

The storekeeper put down the phone. "Okay, ambulance is on the
way. What happened?"

She looked around the store quickly. "No time to explain." She
reluctantly pulled out her pistol. "I'm not planning on shooting
you, but I don't have time. The longer I stay here, the more
danger you and him are in. I'm being tracked. I just need a few
supplies. I don't care about money. Just step out here and get on
the floor."

A few looks passed across the mans face, like he couldn't believe
that he was being robbed by a *woman* of all people, but he
complied. She quickly stepped behind the counter and grabbed a
couple bags. In one, she threw some boxes of shells.

She then jogged over the small camping supply shelf and threw
some items that she thought that she would need into it. Without
pausing, she raced back out the door, jumped into the truck and
jumped back onto the road.

She passed the ambulance going the other way.

Then, she saw a sign. Just the sign that she was looking for.
"Joshua Tree National Monument. Park Entrance"

She guided the truck onto the dirt road, and roared into the
park.

She would make her stand here.

Part Five

When presented with a lot of information, sometimes it is best to
examine the source.

Lisa had decided that everything that Folkerson, or rather the
Hunter, had told her was a lie.

She doubted that there were a string of murders in Maryland last
year, or anywhere else for that matter. It was precisely that
kind of information that the department had been searching for
the last four weeks. They had turned up nothing.

She doubted that there was anything ritualistic about what was
happening. For whatever reason, this maniac had focused on her,
and now it was her problem.

Perhaps most important, she decided that he wasn't invincible.

She was of two minds on that point. On one hand, she had watched
this creature take more than a dozen bullets and it seemed to
barely slow him down. He looked for all the world like a creature
that couldn't be stopped.

But she knew enough about the world to know that *nothing* is
indestructible, and everything alive can be killed.

Besides, if he couldn't be killed, then nothing she did would
matter.

She had never been the type to give up.

As she drove the her commandeered Explorer through the darkened
National Park, she thought to her three confrontations with the
Hunter. She put eleven bullets into him, and it seemed to slow
him down only a little. She hit him with a truck and it barely
slowed him down.

But the shotgun. For some reason, he couldn't shrug off the steel
pellets of the 12 gauge as fast. For a few moments, she couldn't
see the difference. The shotgun had done a great deal of damage
to the bear-like creature he had become, but not nearly to the
extent that her pistol had done to the visage of Folkerson in the
motel room.

But, now, as she raced through the desert, she had an idea. It
was tenuous. It was one shot. If she failed, she would probably
not be able to escape with her life. Even if she succeeded, she
had the sickening feeling that she would wind up in prison for
what the Hunter had done, or driven her to do, over the last few
hours.

As far as she was concerned, though, she was still an officer of
the LAPD. Until they took her badge away, she was still charged
with the protection of the public. The Hunter had to be stopped.

She only hoped that they wouldn't be prying her badge out of her
cold, dead hand tomorrow.

{{Separator|x}}

She found the vacant campsite after about thirty minutes of
driving. As far as she could tell, there were no other campers
nearby, although it was rather dark. She pulled the truck onto
the flat area and turned on the brights for a moment. The
campground was relatively bare, only a few low shrubs dotted the
landscape. A small crevice ran through the edge of the site
nearest the access road, probably cut by water run off. The
campsite was bordered on two sides by two large rocky hills, each
one about fifty feet tall at the peak.

She rolled the truck closer to the taller of the two hills and
turned it to face the road. She checked the gauges of the truck
once, and then shut off the engine. She sat in the drivers seat
for a long moment and gathered her thoughts.

Then she quickly opened the door and started setting her trap.

{{Separator|x}}

Dawn in the desert is a rare sight. The sky is often so clear
that it looks like you can see forever. The sky glows with a
crystal clarity that is almost impossible to describe.

Lisa huddled a little for warmth in her look out station above
the desert. She wasn't dressed for night at all, but her
activities through the night had kept her warm enough. She had
worked feverishly setting her little trap in the hope and prayer
that she would be able to do it in time.

But the Hunter had yet to put in an appearance. She hoped that in
some small way this confirmed what she though. She would know for
sure soon enough.

She looked back to the truck. It was covered partly by sand in a
vain effort to disguise it's shiny green paint from the air. She
had used what she found in the van, as well as the materials that
she had taken from that general store, to set her trap.

She sighed and looked up again. She could see for miles across
the desert, but she didn't know what to...

She saw the shadow before she saw him. Wound up despite her
second night of no sleep, she dove out of the way with all her
might as the massive shape hit the ground with a thud.

She turned to see the bear creature again. In the light of
morning, she could see that it only cursorily looked like a bear.
Its body was a patchwork of flesh, and most of it didn't seem to
match. It was almost like a committee got together to decide how
to put a bear together.

As she backed away and brought up her pistol, she realized that
the committee seemed to have decided on the claws, at least. The
bear-thing roared, and Lisa pulled the trigger twice.

The massive creature didn't seem fazed, only started to advance
closer even as it started to flow. The massive body seemed to
move around like thick honey, and it started to take the shape of
that fictional Maryland detective again. All the while, it slowly
advanced.

"Lisa.", it said, "I'm disappointed. I thought that you would
have come up with something more effective than that by now."

Even as she backed up, she started firing the .45 at the Hunter.
She didn't expect it to do any damage though.

It was all part of the plan.

The last bullet fired, the started to move to her a little
faster. "Ho, hum. You people are so predicable." As Lisa started
fumbled around her jacket pocket for more bullets, the man
suddenly extended an arm across the ten feet between them and
snapped the gun away.

Taking that as her next cue, she dove for the shotgun that she
had hidden under a bush nearby. As she brought it into the
general direction of him, he seemed to realize what it was. He
made a mad dash for her, diving and changing as he did. Lisa
suddenly found herself pinned by the massive bear.

For a moment, though, he seemed more interested in the shotgun,
and took great pains to rip it out of her grasp. Then, holding it
with one paw, he picked her up and threw her into a nearby Joshua
tree.

She felt the wind go out of her, and she was sure a couple ribs
were broken, but she tried to put it out of her mind. Gasping for
air, she started to stumble for the truck. She saw the bear shift
again, back into the man. She realized that she had been thrown a
good fifty feet.

She was lucky to be alive.

The hunter didn't bother to get closer. He merely shifted
leisurely back to his human form. "Sorry, officer, it looks like
I need to end this now. Can't say it hasn't been fun." he said
with a smile as he pointed the shotgun at Lisa. She brought her
hand up the drivers door handle on the truck as he pulled the
trigger.

And they both heard the *click* of the hammer of the shotgun
finding no ammunition.

She opened the door of the truck and climbed in. She glanced up
to see the Hunter looking quizzically at the gun, then suddenly
getting angry. He threw the gun with all his might and leapt into
the air, flowing outward into the hideous black bird again.

As she reached to turn the key, the massive bird slammed into the
already broken windshield. She screamed and started to climb over
the seat into the back. Grabbing her own 9mm off the seat in the
back, she climbed into the cargo area, accidentally stepping on
two of the cans of white gas that she had grabbed at the general
store.

By this time, the bird was inside the car, and quickly flowing
back into a man. Gagging on the fumes of fuel building up in the
car, she broke out the back window with her fist and jumped out.

She stopped and looked at the Hunter, still trying to climb
through the car. It looked like rage, rage over being tricked
with an empty shotgun, had made him angry. For some reason that
was slowing him down a little. Lisa didn't need any more
invitation that that. She triggered her trap.

{{Separator|x}}

The night before, Lisa had realized the connection. She thought
she knew why he shrugged off the bullets so fast when he couldn't
do the same with the shotgun blast. There was little difference
between the two.

Except for the heat.

A bullet leaving a gun is a very hot piece of metal, and so are
shotgun pellets. But there are a lot of shotgun pellets, which
cover a very wide area.

Lisa had hoped that this was the right connection last night.
When she had raided that little store, she had taken as many cans
of white gas and butane as she could carry in a single trip. Then
she spent almost an hour setting up the Ford Explorer into a
massive funeral pyre.

{{Separator|x}}

She fired the bullet at the can of butane, and it exploded in a
shower of sparks. The flames spread through the fuel soaked
upholstery of the truck in a flash. The car was fully engulfed in
seconds.

The Hunter seemed to realize at the last moment, as he connected
the smell I the truck with fuel, that he was in grave danger.
Even as the flames spread, and his partly feathered body tried to
open the rear passenger door to get out, he screamed out in pain.

Lisa cringed at the sound of that wail, sounding so much like a
cross between a bird and a man. As the green paint bubbled on the
door, it popped open. The flaming creature fell out to the desert
floor.

Despite his pain, the hunter seemed to be crawling toward Lisa.

She raised her gun again and fired. This time she heard something
that sounded like a grunt every time a new bullet hit. He
eventually stopped moving as the black smoke that rose off his
body drifted into the cool, clear desert air.

{{Separator|x}}

Fifteen minuets later, the Hunter was dead. The flames had used
up all their fuel and had gone out, leaving a charred hulk. The
Ford was still burning merrily, and she could see the column of
dust coming closer.

Probably a Park Ranger investigating the fire.

She didn't know what he was, save that he was dead. For her
money, that was good enough for her.

She didn't know what the future held. She still had some things
to answer for, some things to explain. But her wild tale of the
last two days had one significant piece of evidence.

She tapped the Hunters charred skeleton with her foot one last
time as the rangers brown pick-up came to a halt She found she
couldn't stop looking at the sight, the bizarre and twisted
skeleton, a skeleton with the head and arm of a man that flowed
easily and fluidly with the single wing of a huge bird, and the
legs of a massive bear.�