Hello, Y’all, the name is Phil. I’ve been sneaking around on here for the better part of a month, listening to you all and your stories. You young’ins have given me an insight into what it’s like for the average person to run up on a seven-foot-tall carnivorous ape, or something “magical”. You’ve also let this old Tennessee Hillbilly see more of these creatures than he could ever hope to in three lifetimes.
But, I have noticed a glaring problem. Most of you (even those in the same profession as me) only seem to know the big ones. The “Cryptids” that get all the media attention, all the Facebook posts and anachronistic movies made about them. And that has me concerned; What if one of you ran up on a Wildman, and treated it like a Bigfoot? Or ran into a pack of Hellhounds, and treated them like Black Dogs? Or god forbid you become the prey of some Screamers, and have no idea what’s hunting you? Or maybe you’re unlucky enough to be stalked by a Stag Prince?
My point is, there’s many things that “go bump in the night” that you’ve probably never heard of. And that’s why I finally gave in to my Wife and Brother badgering me to share my stories with you all. I put up my Hunting Frock up two years ago, after being in “the game” for nearly fifty years. I’ve run into just about every obscure beast there is to see here in Tennessee, and quite a few from other places.
But enough of that. You all didn’t come here to listen to an old man ramble on about how much more experience he has than all of you and how he’s better than the kids who got the shit scared out of them by a Skunk Ape. You’re here for the stories. So I’ll start with the first lone hunt I ever went on.
-—————-
It was a cold day, colder than it had a right to be in mid-october. The wind cut through my newly-patched coat, through my shirt and right through my skin, frosting my bones. I shifted from one foot to the other, one to the other. My grip tightened on the old revolver Grandma had given me, knuckles whitening. She’d forgotten to give me a holster for the thing, so I’d clutched the century-old gun to my chest. I fought back the urge to turn my head, to check if she was behind me, to ask how to proceed.
Mr. Morrisey gazed down at me-maybe wondering what this barefoot teenager was doing on his property, holding onto an oversized Colt like one of his sons’ textbooks.
He was a tall man, old, stooped and greying, supposedly born back in the last century. He was a well-dressed, clean-shaven man, Looking like the spitting image of a rich Rancher from one of those Westerns that were popular a few years back, from the well-cut jeans and the brilliant light blue shirt, to the gaudy white stetson and bright scarlet scarf. He leaned on a well-polished English Shotgun, probably worth more than my family’s home. He had this look on his face, somehow both Stoney and dismissive.
“You Angeline’s boy?” He said, still leaning on the gun.
“Yes… Sir. Yes,” Angeline was my Aunt. But, apparently, she was Morrisey’s go-to exterminator, and Grandma had told me to go along with it. You didn’t want to make an enemy of Anthony Morrisey, she said, he’s the only one in the county who pays us decent.
“Good, Good. C’mon, then. Corpses are out by the edge of the pasture. Want you gettin’ on this soon as y’can,” The old man shifted the double-barrel to his shoulder, turned, and walked off without bothering to make sure I was following.
We crossed the Asphalt driveway-which made me thoroughly regret choosing to leave my shoes back at home. He led me through the gate, across the pasture. We kept close to the barbed wire barrier, the cattle to the inside. The Ranchhands were off at work, but something seemed… Off. They were looking slower than they probably should, heads swiviling around to look behind them. Most of them had rifles slung over their backs, or pistols at the hip.
Grandma had said there’d been an attack, that was why they needed a Hunter down there. An attack. I thought maybe a pack had snatched a calf or two, or maybe brought down a Heifer, hell it could have been a bull if there was a decent sized group. But, god, could they have gotten people? Was I about to run up on a dead man, picked clean down to the bone? Sure, we were all taught that a Hound could bring down a grown man, even an armed one, but they were never supposed to go out of their way to attack one. Supposed to. Fuck.
“Right. Bodies are up in there,” Morrisey said, pointing ahead, at the crest of the hill we’d been trekking up. There was a gaping hole in the wire.
I moved forward, to inspect it. My blood cooled in my veins. One of the metal posts was nearly bent double-bent in on itself. The other had been pulled out of the ground, sideways. It had been ripped clear of the ground, dragged forward about a full foot from where it should have been. The wire was frayed. Most of it had been snapped, presumably by the same thing that had just jerked two metal fenceposts out of the ground like a person pulled a toothpick loose.
Then the smell hit me.
I’d seen and smelled dead animals before. It’s awful. If you’ve ever had meat go bad in the fridge, it’s a bit like that, I suppose. This… This was different. Rotting meat, but… Sweet. Too Sweet. At that point, I’d never smelled anything that unnaturally sweet. It’s not like cheap perfume. It’s stronger. It burns the inside of your nose. Bile tinged the back of my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut.
I forced myself to breath out. Then in. Out, then in. Out, then in. The arm holding the revolver dropped down to my side. I’d seen a dead man before. My grandfather-liver failure, not a “Cryptid”. I’d helped dig the hole. I’d seen it before. But that didn’t make it easier. I forced my eyes open, and looked down. It was worse than I thought.
Two men lay about ten feet down the slope. They lay flat on their back, or as flat as they could be, on the side of a hill. Their clothes were torn apart, their bodies were ripped apart. They were… pretty bad looking, to keep it respectful. The things had ripped into them pretty hard. I’d seen Uncles’ Coydog go at wild animals. I’d seen and helped mama break down a hog and a few deer. It was nothing to this. These were people. People. The hounds had eaten them. Which meant they might come back to finish them later.
A Rifle lay on the grass, beside one man. One Rifle. A single-shot hunting rifle. It looked like it hadn’t been fired. The other man had what looked like a sheath for a large knife on his belt. Empty.
They hadn’t gotten the chance to put up a fight. Two grown men, with a rifle. Butchered. I wasn’t trained for this.
But you were hired to do it. $400 Dollars flat. 30 for each pelt. You could be the last Patrick who has to do this shit. Six shots. Six shots. You got it. You got it.
“So, boy. Whatd’ya say got ‘em?”
I’d bet my soul it wasn’t his intent, but “Old Man Morrisey” snapped me out of my stupor. I could get back to hunting, as long as I didn’t look down again. I tried not to dwell on the fact I was supposed to hunt down a pack of Hellhounds but an old man managed to sneak up on me in broad daylight.”Pardon, sir?”
“What. Got. Them?” He spoke slowly, carefully, in that condescending tone all rich people seem to be born with. Like it was the words I had a problem with and not the fact I’d just seen two men mauled by a pack of supernatural hell beasts.
“Hounds, sir,” I replied, trying to keep the shake out of my voice and the bite out of my words, “Hounds.”
“Hounds, again? Always the damn hounds this month.”
“Hounds, sir. Has to be. Nothin’ else here can do somethin’ like… That,” I replied, pointing down the slope.
“With it bein’ Bill’n’teddy, a Muskrat coulda done that,” The old man smirked at his own joke. He sighed, “But, if one of Angeline’s says it’s Hounds, gotta be hounds. Y’understand how all this works, boy?”
“Yes… Sir,” He was talking about Payment, I assured myself.
He clapped me on the back, holding the Shotgun with the other hand, “Then get out there. And get me back them pelts,” He pointed down the slope, “Gotta pay for that somehow!”
The treeline stretched on about three hundred feet ahead of us. It’s where they’d be. They liked the trees, like most animals. The trees grew close together, branch to branch, like my Great Grandfathers’ stories of the Union Army, shoulder to shoulder, linked, so nothing could get past their sentries.
I stepped forward, feet like lead, revolver still down at my side. I had to get it done by Nightfall. The hounds hunted at night, and I had no aspirations of ending up like “Bill’n’teddy”.
I spent what I suspect was the better part of two hours walking through that forest, skirting around sharp-looking rocks, and keeping clear of anywhere that might have hid a snake. Here and there, I saw a few places that housed old Rabbit warrens, probably repurposed by a fox or a coyote. I wasn’t on the lookout for bears. Black Bears were still moving around in October, but if Grandma taught me right, they wouldn’t be here. Bears and Hellhounds didn’t get along.
I didn’t bother looking for a blood trail, even though at least one of them had to have ripped themselves up pretty bad on that fence. I wasn’t looking for footprints, either, even though the ground still had a good bit of give in it here. I know it sounds shortsighted. It was, shortsighted. But, it was my first hunt, and I wanted to get it done quickly. And I knew what I was looking for; A den.
I clutched the revolver to my chest again. I weaved between the trees, stepped over low branches, ducked under high brambles, and even crawled toward the end of my search, the branches pressing in too tight. My frock got snagged once or twice.
In front of me, the forest gave way. The trees opened away into a rough clearing, more like they’d all been pushed away by some higher power, than what you’d see naturally. The sunlight poured down like it did on the pasture fields, pure, and unbroken by the canopy, not the little peaks of light you get in the forest itself. Despite this, the grass didn’t grow here, the dirt too churned up for it.
It had what I was looking for.
The Hellhound den. If I’d ever seen a picture of one, I’d say it was picture-perfect. If Grandma was here, she’d be able to point to it as a perfect example of what to look for. it was built into the ground, with no trees or boulders to support it. The opening was wide enough for a bear den-wider, even. But it was too narrow. A black bear could never fit in there without collapsing it.
In the fifty years since that day, I’ve never seen a Hound den more perfectly formed, more perfectly maintained. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at the beauty of it.
Then my brain started working again. A den like this meant a lot of Hounds.
I remembered, offhandedly, that I was supposed to rub soil over our clothes and skin before going on a hunt. I’d forgotten to do that.
I’d forgotten to mask my scent.
From in front of me, a bit off to the left, I heard growling. A deep, rumbling gowling, that shook the leaves. Then it came from behind me. No, it was coming from behind me and from in front of me. From off to the side. It was from everywhere.
Now, I know many of you have felt like you fucked up, for lack of a better term, before. That you’d screwed up so badly that your parents will disown you, your friends will abandon you, and your life is unraveling. A lot of you probably fucked up so bad you felt your life was in danger. I felt like that a few times; when I slipped and fell down a steep hill, and broke my leg, when I missed a shot on a Deer hunt, and when I burned my hand on an open fire.
I’ve hunted down Wildmen, Bigfoot, armies of Screamers, a damn werewolf, and, of course, hundreds of Hellhounds since then. So, I’m not exaggerating when I say that this was the most I’d ever been afraid for my life. And it was the biggest fuckup of my life.
Every muscle in my body tensed up, impatiently waiting for a Hound to spring out of the woods and rip me apart. My breathing slowed. The blood froze up in my veins, shutting all the thoughts out of my head. Finally, some small part of me told my thumb to pull back the hammer of the revolver.
A leaf crunched, and I braced myself for impact.
The Hound stepped into the open, lips pulled back and teeth barred, snarling. Rust-colored fur, fading to black on the back. Dark orange eyes, and yellow teeth. Narrow muzzle, like a Coyote, muscles tensed and rippling, tail swishing in agitation, at something disturbing its home. More importantly, it was massive. The average Male Hellhound is around the size of a Black Bear. This was a Female. Four feet tall. Six feet long. And I’d say close to 700 pounds. She took another step, then paused, still snarling. Slowly, I got to my feet. I’d been making eye contact, I realized. And when I broke it, I better not be on the ground.
I took a step to the side, a step back. She took a step forward, and I heard leaves crunching behind me. A step back. The hound followed, keeping it’s distance. I reached out a hand. my fingers brushed the bark of a tree. I felt along it, where it forked down the middle. I let the arm fall. Maybe… I exhaled.
I burst into motion, spun on my heel and kicked off the ground. The hounds followed me, closing the circle. My foot caught the fork in the tree, and I swung my free leg up over the side.
Then I slipped. My ankle twisted in a way it shouldn’t. Pain shot through my right leg, and I tumbled over the side of the tree, crashing down to the ground. I landed on my shoulder, biting down on my tongue, blood filling my mouth. At least I landed on the other side of the tree, and there was a solid oak between me and the pack.
A male Hellhound charged me, yellowed teeth flashing. He must have been the one from behind me. Good god he was fast.
Subconsciously, my free arm fell into place. I was fortunate that it was the one that held the revolver, and I hadn’t dropped it. Shoulder straight, arm up. Hand just below the cheek. Like Grandma had taught me. I pulled the trigger. My arm was pushed back, thick smoke exploding from the barrel.
The shot went wide-to be expected, with an unaimed shot with a hundred-year-old gun. The ball buried itself in the ground past the Dogs’ head, kicking up leaves. I’d missed. I’d missed. This was how I died, I thought, head suddenly clear. 16, barefoot, with a bruised ankle in the middle of the forest right by some rich assholes’ ranch, ripped apart by Hellhounds because I’d missed one shot. Maybe there’d been worse deaths in history, but probably not many. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the Dogs’ teeth to do their work.
A heartbeat.
A second.
Nothing happened. Teeth hadn’t closed around my throat. The rest of them hadn’t come around the tree to rip me a literal new one for barging into their denning ground. A second later, and I opened my eyes. The Hound had its eyes squeezed shut, like me, shaking its head, backing away. The white powder smoke spread through the air, forcing it back. I pulled the hammer back, and fired again. I didn’t miss. The Hound fell.
See, I talk about my Grandmother’s training a lot. And a lot of what she told me was fluff and filler. But the most important thing she’d ever told me was so simple, so offhanded, you’d miss it in between her “lectures” on the differences between Human Vampires and True Vampires. Hellies don’t like Saltpeter. Smell bothers ‘em. Like breathing in smoke to ‘em.
There was one less Hellhound in the forest, but the rest of them would be on me in a minute. I forced myself to sit up, then stand, gritting my teeth and wincing when I tried putting weight on my right leg. My blood heated up, my breathing quickened, and my thoughts came back. Still got a job to finish.
The rest of the Hunt went pretty easily, the way it would have if I had a better grip on my nerves and was a bit more patient. The hounds couldn’t deal with the smoke. I dealt with the other two.
Then, I was just me and Big Girl.
You can call me a softie, but I didn’t want to shoot her. I’ve only ever hesitated two other times when out hunting, and she had nothing in common with the later ones. She wasn’t a mother, that was clear since she wasn’t guarding the den. And she’d clearly been hunting people. But, there was something about this one particular Hellhound that made it hard to pull the trigger. But, again unlike the other times, I pulled the trigger.
When It was said and done, I fell over by the side of the first Male Hellhound. I don’t know how you all will take this, but honest to god, I broke down laughing beside him. I’d been scared, nearly to the point of pissing myself, thought I was gonna die several times, and then, after all that, it was so easy.
After a minute or two, catching my breath and collecting myself, I stood up. I limped over to the trees, and eventually found a stick long enough and sturdy enough to hold my weight. I put the hammer of the revolver down, and turned back down the way I’d come. No way in hell I was getting four Hellhound pelts out of here. No way in hell. Heh.
I’d find Mr. Morrisey, or one of his Ranchhands, Bring ‘em back here and show them. Then, maybe, they’d bring a truck up and drag the Hounds out of the woods. Four pelts. $320 dollars. We’d eat good for a week, hell, maybe two. Then, chances are, I’d go out again, maybe with Pa, or my Uncle, Grandma, or even alone again. Either way, maybe I’d live past 20.
I smiled, as I imagined the old man’s face.
-——————-
Hellhounds are big. Hellhounds are fast. They’re strong enough to overpower a full grown, armed man. They can take a bullet to the body and keep moving. And they almost never travel alone. But they’re not spirits. They’re not three-headed hell guardians, and they can’t kill you with a look (Not the ones here in the South, anyway. Don’t know what you all have to deal with up in England). They’re big dogs, at the end of the day. Big dogs that eat human flesh, but they’re still just animals.
Well, Kiddos, That’s one story out of the way. I know it’s not as much daring-do as many of you all, but it was my first outing when I wasn’t just carrying Grandma’s guns. And I thought you all would like to see the Old “Cryptid” Hunter get his ass kicked by a tree.
Any aspiring Monster Hunters out there, we all get better with age. So don’t get yourself killed trying to fistfight a werewolf on your third hunt. And bring Blackpowder. Just a pinch.