I was so bored to tears that I had been barely listening to Kierra when I spotted the knife laying on the pavement. The glistening steel in the streetlight caught my attention as I diverted away from the middle of the conversation towards this new kindle of potential excitement. I stifled a soft gasp as I saw the crimson taint of blood on it and judging by the bright color of it, it was fresh blood. I knelt down and saw something else on the handle; Etched into it was the poorly spelled word “eviscerate”. I admit, it took me a brief moment to apprehend it.
I felt something touch my shoulder and I almost jumped as I turned to see Kierra standing before me with shocked eyes. I had been so captured with what I saw I had forgotten about her completely.
“What the hell,” She murmured, softy.
I look away from her back to the horrid knife and that’s when I noticed the faint trail of blood leading into the forest. I was no tracker and i’ve never hunted before in my life so I wasn’t tempted to follow it.
Not that I needed to anyways to see the figure lying in the brush, his bare feet sticking out and I did a double take at them. There was definitely color striated claws attached to it’s toes. My thoughts rushed into a frenzied, almost schizophrenic mania. How the hell did we not see any of this?! What was happening?!
As I turned to Keirra to tell her to call 911, she was already running down the beaten path back to the parked car.
I felt an immediate shot of volcanic anger pour into my being. So motherfucking much for ‘till death do us part’.
But the anger was forgotten as soon as it appeared as I heard something completely alien to my ears. It sounded like attempted speech but I wasn’t sure as I looked back at the brush, at where the new sound was coming from. I didn’t dare make any sound as I stood frozen in a terrible anticipation of dread and horror. As I stared into the now shivering brush where the figure was, I suddenly remembered the knife. I looked down and quickly bent to grab it, my fingers just managing to curl around the handle, before feeling something slam hard into me.
I fell to the ground with an audible smack before feeling a searing pain burn into my neck as sharp needle points pricked into it. I gasped in reflex and felt a heavy body on top of mine, I saw fists go up into the air and slam down onto me as I managed a choked scream. My hands shot out at random and tried to grab at anything to attack the attacker before finally winning the grand lottery as I grabbed what felt like the knife. It’s blade cut into my hand as I held it fiercely and realized what was the matter before grabbing it’s handle and slamming the knife into the attacker repeatedly.
I felt the needles pull out of my neck with a painful tug as the attacker roared into the night in pain. And that’s when I saw the attacker in all it’s terrifying reality. The only human thing about it was it’s form, everything else was a glimpse from Hell itself. But I didn’t lose myself in the glimpse to absorb every detail about it as I crawled backwards, out from under it as it slammed onto it’s back against the ground. I watched in terror as it threw itself into a frenzy against the ground, it’s limbs flailing before it went still suddenly. It’s four limbs shot into the air and with loud gunshot cracks, it’s limbs bent at an unnatural angle until it was touching the ground. It raised itself up in this posture and rotated it’s head with a snap before it’s pure red glowing eyes gazed into mine for a brief moment.
I raised my hands to my ears and closed my eyes for a brief moment before it shrieked into the night with what sounded like a thousand voices. I felt something trickle down from my ears from such an inhuman sound before snapping my eyes open and seeing the fucking thing galloping towards me. I screamed and rushed backwards as fast as I could but not fast enough as the creature closed the short gap between us. It’s carnivorous mouth opened wide, revealing the needle teeth it used on me before it’s jaw unhinged and revealed the triangular row predator teeth behind the needles.
“FUCK! FUCK! FUUUUUUCK!” I screamed, as it’s jaws descended onto my head for the killing blow.
Before a series of gunshots rang out and I felt a warm liquid spatter against me. I closed my eyes and grimaced as I turned around and crawled onto my stomach away from the abominable sight before my hands touched a pair of feet. I opened my eyes to see a pair of hunter’s boots and looked up at the figure before quickly glancing back to see the creature retreating into the brush.
I stared, hyperventilating as my ears roared with blood and my heart jack hammered a mile a minute, almost painfully before feeling strong hands grip under neath my arms and pull me to my feet. I looked at my rescuer to see a grizzled old man with scars running down his neck and disappearing under his camouflaged coat. He looked into my eyes, assessing me, before looking at my right hand. I looked down to see I was still holding the knife, amazingly, after all this time. He didn’t say anything as he took it from my hand and placed it into a sheath on his belt.
“It’s not fatal, that wound on your neck. Otherwise you’d be bleeding like a bastard,” The man spoke softly but his voice still coming out strong,” You’ve got questions. But you’re not going to get answers from me.”
He held my eyes, and I saw an old, familiar anger in them as he shouldered what look like an HK rifle.
“You’re going to wait here for the cops and rangers to get here. Don’t worry about that thing you saw. It won’t come back for you or anyone else,”
I was so dumbfounded and in shock of what happened, I didn’t think of anything to say or ask other than thank you. Which I started to say, in which I tried to say but all I could do was mumble and the stranger shook his head.
“You don’t have to thank me,”
And with that he turned and followed into where the creature had disappeared into, leaving me to the flurry of thoughts and silence of the forest around me.