It was a giant spider. Or what was left of one. It had been riddled with bullet holes. It was hunched up on itself, its exact shape hard to see. Trip’s reaction was understandable. Sure, a tarantula the size of a loveseat was terrifying, but not ten million dollars terrifying. By our standards, something like this wasn’t that abnormal, and depending on the size and severity of the infestation, was worth a few thousand bucks, tops.

“I do not understand,” Lindemann said. He barked a command at one of his men, who leaned into his rifle and cranked off several shots. The bullets struck, splattering the snow with bits and pieces of fuzzy meat. It didn’t even twitch. Certain that it was dead, Lindemann walked right up to it and shoved it with his boot. It rolled over on its back. The eight legs splayed open, revealing the damaged underbelly. Yellow guts rolled out into the snow. “Curious.”

He was thinking the same thing I was. “This is too simple. One of the guys from my Newbie class got a dozen of these things with a homemade bomb.”

Too bad Albert Lee wasn’t here. He was an expert on giant spiders, but then again, our librarian had rapidly become an expert on everything. Lee had even instituted a companywide program of our Hunters turning in mandatory after-action reports for every case, all so he could catalog monster behaviors, reactions, and vulnerabilities, then analyze the results, and file them for future reference. It was a really good idea, but I’d hated writing reports at first. It felt too much like school, but after Lee had given me crap for being needlessly stuffy and doing things like never using any contractions in my early reports, I’d loosened up, and now writing about my cases came more naturally.

One of the other Germans spoke English. “Could there be more of these around?”

“For that sort of bounty, there would have to be a colony of them…” Lindemann said. “Which one of you dropped the spider?”

“It was me,” said another of the men, surely speaking English for me and Trip’s convenience. These Europeans were so helpful like that.

“Good work, Hugo. We shall stuff it and make a toy for your children to play on. It will look rather nice in your flat. That is all such a meager beast is useful for.” Lindemann kicked the monster again for good measure. “What game is this Stricken playing at? Why waste all of our time for this?”

“I survived the Stuttgart Massacre,” said Hugo. “I saw horrors you cannot imagine. The chancellor herself personally presented me with the bounty payment and certificate of appreciation. I hate to think we will make far more money for shooting a large bug than for surviving hell on earth. It makes no sense.”