Previously on Hulk vs. Death Claw
Banner found his pack where he’d left it, wedged under the root shelf of a cypress tree two miles east of the facility. The spare shirt was still folded on top. He shook the dew off the pack, pulled the shirt on, and sat on the root for a moment with his hands on his knees.
The spectral analyzer was still in the front pocket. He pulled it out, checked the casing. Intact. He put it back.
He walked north out of the marsh on a gravel maintenance road, following the tire ruts until they met the parish road. A gas station sat at the intersection, its lights on, a single car at the pump. He went inside, bought a bottle of water and a granola bar, and used the bathroom to wash the mud off his face and hands. The mirror showed what it always showed after. He looked at it long enough to confirm nothing was broken, then looked away.
He ate the granola bar in the parking lot.
Derek was leaning against the hood of the van when Banner walked up the parish road. The utility van was pulled onto the gravel shoulder fifty yards from the intersection. Olivia sat in the passenger seat with the door open, one foot on the running board, radio in her hand.
Banner stopped ten feet out. He looked at the van, then at Derek.
“You’re not a cop,” Banner said.
“No.”
“But she is.”
“Yes.”
Banner looked at Olivia. She looked back at him without moving.
“She’s not going to do anything with what she saw,” Derek said.
Banner considered that. He walked to the van and set his pack on the hood. He pulled the spectral analyzer out and set it beside the pack. “I’m going to pull the LC-7 data off this before I leave. If they reconstitute anywhere, it’ll show up in the procurement channels. I’ll flag it.”
“To who?”
“To whoever needs to know.”
Derek crossed his arms. The sun was coming up behind the tree line, gray light moving across the marsh. Somewhere south a heron broke from the cypress and crossed the sky.
“The infected population here,” Banner said. “How many?”
“Enough.”
Banner picked up the analyzer and turned it in his hands. He’d built it from salvaged components over twelve years. It had told him things no existing instrument was calibrated to find. It had brought him to Bayou Mounds. “The world finds out about this place, it doesn’t go well for the people living here.”
“The world’s got enough problems,” Derek said.
“It does.” Banner put the analyzer back in the pack. “But problems like this don’t stay local. They grow.”
“Sometimes what grows in the marsh stays in the marsh.”
Banner looked at him. Derek didn’t move.
“The biology out here,” Banner said. “The strain. Whatever your mother is. It’s not what they were trying to build in that facility.” He zipped the pack closed. “What they were trying to build would’ve been worse.”
“I know.”
“You’re keeping it contained.”
“We’re keeping it contained.”
Banner shouldered the pack. He looked at the tree line to the south for a moment, the way a person looks at something they’ve cataloged and filed. Then he looked back at Derek. “The livestock kills are going to continue. The pulse agitated the lower-tier infected. That takes weeks to settle.”
“I know.”
“Your mother knows too.”
“Yes.”
Banner nodded once. He walked to the driver’s side of a brown Civic parked at the far end of the gravel shoulder. Derek hadn’t noticed it when he pulled up. Old habit — Banner parked away from where he was going to stand. Derek understood the instinct.
Banner opened the door and put his pack in the back seat.
“One more thing,” Derek said.
Banner looked at him over the roof of the car.
“The people who funded that facility. Helios was a shell. Somebody built the shell.”
“Yes.”
“You know who.”
Banner was quiet for a moment. A truck rolled past on the parish road, the driver not looking at either of them. “I have a partial name. Same contractor I left eight years ago. Different division.”
“You going to do something about it?”
“I’m going to drive east,” Banner said. “And then I’m going to think about it.”
He got in. The Civic started on the second try. He pulled onto the parish road heading east and was gone before the dust settled.
Olivia climbed out of the van and stood beside Derek. The marsh stretched south in the gray morning light, still and flat and dark.
“He’s not wrong,” she said. “About whoever funded it.”
“No.”
“We’re going to have to find them.”
“Yes.”
Neither of them said anything else. The sun cleared the tree line and the marsh went from gray to gold.
To the south, deep in the cypress stands where the water ran black and the ground didn’t hold weight, something moved through the shadows without disturbing them. Yellow eyes in the dark. Watching the road. Watching the smoke still rising from where the facility had been.
Then the shadows were just shadows again.
Disclaimer Statement: The Incredible Hulk and all related characters are the property of Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. This story is an independently produced fan fiction created by Dee Watts. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Marvel Entertainment or any of its subsidiaries in any capacity. All Bayou Blood characters, locations, and story elements are original intellectual property owned exclusively by Dee Watts. This work was created for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.
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