Unnaturals Read Free

lot that that you're doing this, being here now. See you soon.' He stared at the touch screen for a moment, and then looked up. Alert. The trees had fallen silent.
    `You're shitting me!' he cursed, dropping the phone onto a garden seat. `You really aren't all that smart, are you? Coming here.' Wilson grabbed the small crowbar he'd left outside after training.
    He could sense the intruder.
    An Unnatural.
    `Not smart at all,' he said, stopping at the edge of the lawn, well aware of the complex security system buried in the garden beds surrounding the house. `We're not afraid anymore.'
    The silence thickened around him and Wilson smacked the crowbar in his hand, making sure the sound of iron on flesh echoed in the silence. `Yeah, that's right. I'm not easy prey any more.' He spoke louder, letting his lip curl up. The iron crowbar felt light in his hand, balanced. He'd had it made for a particular use. Throwing.
    There. He saw it. The irregularity in the foliage beside a gum tree. Iron whistled through the air. The bar sliced through the trunk of the tree, burying itself in the ground on the other side. Wilson smiled at the smothered wail of pain. `Yeah, bet that hurt. Iron doesn't like you,' he said, following the sounds of flight fading into the trees. `And don't come back. Next time I won't give a warning. Whatever you are.'
    Wilson waited until he couldn't sense the Unnatural anymore, picking up his phone on his way back to the house. He listened and, unable to hear his parents, went in to pack a bag.
    `Damn it,' he muttered, looking at the packed throwing knives. `Better take this as well.' He slipped in his 9mm pistol and two ammo clips. From upstairs, sounds filtered down.
    `Bloody hell.' He shook his head and grabbed his surfboard on his way out to the workshop. He picked up the remote as he entered and music drowned out other sounds. `Oversexed parents. Unnaturals in the bushes. So much for being a normal family.' He laid his surfboard on its stand and ran a hand over it. `Lucky I got Sal and you, eh, baby?'
    Wilson began to wax, trying to work off the anger shifting inside him. They had come to his home. If they came near Sally… Wilson worked the wax bar hard on his surfboard.
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    Her breath came in rapid silent bursts, though she ran faster than any animal could. Trees flashed by and her trail would be invisible. Not that it mattered anymore. The boy had sensed her. He had cut her with iron. No one had ever done that, ever.

CHAPTER 3
    Mason sat on the top deck of the ferry, holding Ruth's hand.
    `Whales on the portside,' a deckhand said. The ferry slowed and the crowd moved to one side of the deck.
    Mason didn't move, enjoying the sun and Ruth beside him. He glanced at her, fiddling with a strand of long dark hair, her eyes elsewhere.
    `Stop perving,' he whispered in her ear and was rewarded with a blush.
    `Mason,' she started to say, but he slipped his hand onto her thigh.
    `It's okay,' he whispered, sliding his hand a fraction higher under her short sarong, brushing her sex with a fingertip. `We're still the same people as before everything happened. You're still Ruth.'
    `Mason,' Ruth whispered back, putting her hat over his hand. `I didn't…have anyone while you were gone. It was hard but…it would have been wrong.'
    `If you had I wouldn't have blamed you for it.' He slid his hand down to her knee as the crowd moved back to their seats. `I've never seen it as you hurting me. But you have to give me time. And besides, she's far too young even for you.'
    `Mason.' Ruth's blushed deepened as a tall, dark-haired girl walked past. Mason glanced at the girl's tiny black bikini, and saw why she might catch Ruth's eye. She was the type.
    `You're so funny when you blush like that.' He kissed her on the cheek. `If I leave you up here while I go to the canteen, you promise to behave?'
    `Stop it.' Ruth looked slightly mollified. `She might hear you. Wait. You're going to have a drink with Mullet?'
    He smiled as