Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

gently releasing Maya’s hand. He carefully stepped over her, walked to the edge of their camp, then turned back and whispered, “It’s probably nothing.”

A figure pounced out of the darkness and hit Jon in the chest like a riot-control bean bag shot, sending him tumbling backward.

Maya screamed, Carbine stirred, and Jon ended up flat on his back with a deranged humanoid on top of him, its eyes glowing crimson in the dark. Jon felt something, sweat or drool, he wasn’t sure, drip down from the savage and land on his forehead. The form belched forth a throaty growl and menaced Jon with a display of sharp canines.

It was dark, but mottled moonlight had broken through the heavy clouds above. The smell coming off the man was unreal—somewhere between rancid sweat and two-week-old dead animals in the summer.

Jon fought back the urge to retch as he attempted to wrestle his arms into a better position and throw the man off of him. Its strength surprised him, and he found they were almost evenly matched. Unable to fling the attacker from his chest, he tucked his arms in and around the assailant’s legs that squeezed Jon’s bucking waist. The savage’s growl died, and it opened its barbaric mouth wider, lunging for Jon’s throat. Jon tucked his chin and slashed the face of his assailant with his forearm and elbow, unhinging the man’s jaw and effectively deflecting the incoming bite.

The stunning blow was just what Jon needed. He popped his waist up into a back bridge, pushing off the ground with his feet while he hooked his hands under the savage’s foul armpits and threw it off of him, sending it into a forward somersault.

Without wasting any time, Jon rolled to his side, followed through to his knees, and leapt to his feet, pausing only to pick up his hammer.

The savage, too, had returned to its feet and turned back around to face Jon. It opened its ugly mouth and wiggled its jaw around. Jon heard a horrible popping noise and watched in disgust as the dislocated jaw moved back into place. Jon hefted his hammer into the ready position. It began to glow blue with its star pattern, casting a haunting light over the edge of the camp, illuminating the immediate environs as well as the wild-man.

Jon could now see that his foe was indeed human, or at least appeared human. What must have been clothes at one time were now only a tangled smattering of threads, his ensemble now resembling netting more than shirt and pants. His feet were bare, and his skin, darker than Jon’s, was smeared with what looked like years’ worth of dirt.

His hair was long, tangled, and disheveled. The glowing red eyes and long, claw-like fingernails told Jon that this wasn’t just a homeless vagabond.

The savage spewed out another beastly roar and charged at Jon, its dirty claw-like hands half outstretched. Jon took one long stride forward and lowered his guard, putting himself in the wild-man’s range and baiting the attack. Like a hungry fish on its long journey upriver, the brute took the bait and aimed a sloppy haymaker of a swing at Jon’s face with its jagged nails.

Jon had been waiting for it, and the savage was doing exactly what he had hoped it would do—swinging high. Jon spun to the right and collapsed down on himself. He continued the spin as he crouched and let the hammer go, the swing timed perfectly.

As Jon completed his low turn, he ducked under the incoming swipe, crouching before the man-beast. The swinging hammer caught up full circle, connecting squarely against the inside of the savage’s left knee joint with a loud, wet smack.

Jon continued to spin, rising as he did so. By the time he came to a stop, the man-beast had fallen to one knee, balancing itself with the opposing hand. It snarled at Jon, unable to stand, but not appearing to be in pain. Jon gritted his teeth and grunted back at it, then let fly his hammer again.

A hollow crack echoed through the night as Jon’s hammer crashed into the savage’s skull. The hammer cleared and returned to a chambered position as Jon shifted his hips. The savage flew back, groaned, and folded over onto the ground.

Jon stood triumphantly over the fallen enemy, his chest rising and falling, eyes wide, still buzzing with adrenaline. He heard a commotion from the camp and raised his weapon above his head so that his body would not obscure its glow. He saw Carbine stepping out of the lean-to, pistol in hand.

“What’s going on?” Carbine asked. Jon could see Maya behind him, peering over his shoulder.

“Some kind of wild-man. Possessed, I think. I don’t…” Jon’s voice trailed off as he lowered the hammer and examined the body. He leaned in and held the hammer out like a lantern to get a closer look. His blow had completely caved in the side of the wild-man’s skull; the long, greasy, tangled mess of hair was dry, though. Jon squinted and focused his eyes, trying to will them to see better in the dim light, yet still found no evidence of blood.

What the…? Jon’s eyes narrowed even further as the caved-in skull began to un-cave like a balloon inflating.

“Carbine!” Jon shouted, raising his hammer for another strike. He didn’t wait for the savage’s regeneration to finish before raining blow after blow down upon the thing’s head.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Before Carbine could trot up to his friend, Jon had pounded the savage’s head flat and fully into the ground with his hammer. Still no blood. And again, it began to slowly re-inflate and repair itself.

“Jon, what in the actual—?” Carbine’s words were arrested in his throat by the sound of more growls in the night.

Jon tore his gaze from the regenerating man-creature at his feet and turned to look out into the desert. A swarm of glowing red eyes stared back at him.

From out of the edge of darkness and into the glow