Chapter 10

Thank God for favors both large and small! It turned out that Irene and Sue got along very well. It did not take long for Sue to bond with Irene and to form a close working relationship with the rest of the team. Not only that, but Sue was able to get her AD unit to operate for her nearly as well as the other unit did for Irene. Sue and Irene both insisted that this was because Sue’s AD liked Irene and her AD. Well, whatever the reason, Ed was very happy because it seemed to indicate that he could soon expect to have another search and destroy team in operation.

Monday was spent getting Sue installed in her hotel room and familiar with the actions and foibles of the other team members. It was convenient that Sue had been in the Army and was familiar with small team tactics. Actually, Hank was the only team member with more military experience than Sue. Quite possibly, Sue would wind up as being team leader when the next team was formed.

The whole group went on an excursion that afternoon so that Sue could see what she was getting into. Irene’s AD did pick up a signal for a moment, but it did not stick around long enough for them to get a fix on it or for it even to register on Sue’s AD. They did keep going until suppertime, hoping for a signal that would register on Sue’s unit. No such luck! Well, there was always tomorrow.

Angie and Irene took Sue on a short outing that evening: sort of a “girls night out.” None of them consumed much alcohol, but they did return to the hotel with a firm friendly feeling for each other. That was really the point of the outing, and they all considered it a great success.

It only took an hour or so on Tuesday morning for Sue to familiarize herself with the shotgun. She had never used an AA-12 before, but she had done some skeet shooting so she was amazed at the lack of recoil. Sue fell in love with the automatic fire from her shotgun, and she was secretly afraid that she would be reprimanded for wasting ammunition. Oh, well, she could charge a little bit of that off to lack of experience with the weapon.

Sue had seen all of the videos and stills taken of the demons, so she had a good idea of what they were looking for. However, there was nothing like the first time one met an honest to God demon. All five of them were anxious for that to happen, and it did on Tuesday afternoon.

Sue’s AD must have been a fast learner because it picked up the aura trace from a demon only moments after Irene had spotted it. That was a great indication of what they might expect from Sue and her AD once the two of them had a little field experience. Anyway, Irene directed Hank toward the detected demon, and she had Sue give a running description of what she could see about the demon as reported by her AD.

The demon turned out to be a small version of the adult Sho-Sho Mamus. Everybody who had seen one of the creatures was sure that this was a youngster hardly out of the birthing den and possibly making its first excursion into the real world. Well, small or not, the creature made a distinct impression on Sue! Were it not for her previous military experience, she might well have begun shooting at it before they were close enough. Of course, she would have also deafened everybody inside the Humvee, so it was good that she was able to control her enthusiasm.

The sighting of this demon was certain proof that they still had not eliminated all of the breeding dens of the Sho-Sho Mamu. Therefore, they were a long way from having worked themselves out of a job! Hank swiveled the Humvee into position to give Sue a chance to shoot at the demon. She had already been told where to aim and how many rounds of HE to fire. Ed poked through the hole in the ceiling with his shotgun to cover Sue in case she did something wrong.

When they were ready, Hank tooted the horn to get the demon to face them and to give Sue the preferred shooting angle. This time, everything went according to plan, and Sue was able to chalk up her first demon kill. Ed had held his shotgun ready, but he had not needed to do anything but watch. Thus, everyone was happy with the experience and Ed called the cleanup crew.

They next drove out to the barn where they had found all those bats. The ADs said that there were no demons present in the barn, but Ed took Sue to show her where the bats had been. The cleanup crew had done such a good job that there was not even any guano lying on the floor. While there was still plenty of daylight left, they went to check on one of the Sho-Sho Mamu burrows that they knew of.

Ed wanted Sue to know what she would be facing when she had to enter one of these burrows. The whole crew went this time, and it was dark enough to require the night vision goggles practically from the moment they stepped into the tunnel. Sue was not as upset by the twists and turns in the tunnel as Ed had feared. Sue had some urban warfare training so that she was not confused by the bends in the tunnel. She was impressed by the length of the tunnel and by the size of the flat apron in front of the door to the living chamber.

Ed was reasonably sure that no demon was using this borrow as living quarters, but he was not interested in taking any foolish chances. He had Sue stand behind Irene before he entered the living chamber. Oops! He had guessed wrong! There was no demon in the burrow, but there was a reasonably fresh kill lying on the floor. In fact, it was so fresh that it hardly had any odor.

From the looks of things, this was probably a kill made by a young Sho-Sho Mamu. In any case, they were in imminent danger of encountering the demon that normally lived there. Prudence required that they get their asses back to the surface as soon as possible. They lined up in the order of Ed, Hank, Irene, Angie, and Sue before starting up the tunnel. Ed hoped that they could get all the way to the surface before they met the demon, but he was prepared to fight from the moment he stepped out of the living chamber.

That was a wise precaution, but they managed to get about halfway to the surface before they met the current resident. Irene had her AD working, so they had some warning that the creature was near. When the AD unit indicated that the beast was only a few feet away, Ed had them halt and prepare a defense.

All five of them waited just around the bend below them. The demon would not be able to see them, but it might be able to smell them. Everybody had showered that morning before leaving the hotel, but the stress of facing the Sho-Sho Mamu in its own tunnel had every body sweating profusely. Nobody had any idea how sensitive the demon’s sense of smell might be, but they had to assume that they had been detected.

There was a straight section in the tunnel about 40 feet long, and Ed wanted the demon to be well into the straight section before they started shooting. They had a major advantage over the demon in that they had missile weapons which it did not. The main thing the humans had to worry about was disabling the demon before it could reach any of the humans.

As soon as Irene’s AD said that the demon was in the straight section of the tunnel, Ed and Hank jumped out to begin firing. The Sho-Sho Mamu was standing on its hind legs, but it was ready for combat. Each of the men got off no more than two shots before the demon began its charge. This demon might be young and inexperienced, but it sure as hell knew how to fight!

It almost reached the two men before it was finally knocked down by too many explosions in its gut. Its arms were extended toward the men, and its claws looked ready to rend their skin from their bones. Hank put a parting shot into the creatures head before anybody was allowed to move toward it.

Irene checked carefully, but her AD insisted that there were no more demons in the area. It can’t be said that they relaxed, but they did walk a little more easily as they continued their journey to the surface. Everybody recharged the spent ammunition drums while Ed radioed for the cleanup crew. As expected, Sue was visibly shaken by the experience of facing the demon Sho-Sho Mamu in the confined space of the tunnel. Angie made a point of telling Sue that everybody felt that way when facing a demon under that kind of circumstance.