The following is the account of Captain Collins – a now missing member of the Passgate Rangers, and the leader of the (now defunct) ranger squadron three, commonly known as the ‘Night Crawlers’. The following document is being made public under the auspices of Project Blackfeather, in an attempt to bring to light the dangerous and irresponsible activities of one Godwin Sinclair and his ring of associates operating out of Ravenhead, Alberta.
- The Archivist.
Two townspeople went missing last week. We found one of the bodies just off the Southslope road a few days ago – mauled all to hell, so much so we couldn’t even tell which of the two missing people it was. The other one still hasn’t been found yet, but with the reports of half howls, half human screams from the edge of town, I’m guessing we’re not gonna’ find him.
Sinclair and his acolytes think some kind of lycanthrope, or monstrous animal that’s left the forest behind. Command told us to get ready either way. We’re heading out for the ranging tomorrow – and plan to be back within a week. I’ll be leading the Night Crawlers up the western side of the valley, the Headless Men will have the east, and the Ironsides will be going up the centre before both of us, trying to flush whatever this thing is outwards towards one of us.
Orders are to capture, but we have freedom to kill if capture is untenable. I’m no stranger to hunting down monsters at this point, but the night before a ranging is always the worst – you never know who’s coming back, or what state they’ll be in. Sinclair sent us a nice rich dinner and some wine from his personal stores though. I suppose it’s nice, but it almost feels like a last meal before an execution.
The team is excited, and I suppose I will be too once I’m in the field and adrenaline is flowing. It’ll be the last night I get to sleep in a real bed for the next week… or forever, maybe. Can’t wait to sleep on the forest floor and wake up stiff and cold with pine needles in my ass. Bedtime.
We were up before the sun, armed and kitted within an hour, and all three teams were assembled in the yard, where the master ranger met us and briefed us again on the situation.
“Remember, Ironsides are to stay ahead of the entire line – keep noisy and keep loud, we want this thing flushed towards the edges of the valley where the flanks can pick it up. Captains, keep frequent contact with one another, don’t break formation. If you can drive this thing across the Ley, Collins, you and the Night Crawlers will go on alone while the others hold the riverbank in case it loops back. Understood?” The old ranger said.
“Got it.” I called, adding my voice to the chorus of acceptance that arose from the assembled group.
“Good, now get out of here – I want a report from each Captain every night.”
The three teams marched out of the yard and reached Ravenhead after almost an hour. We passed through the town on the way to the Southslope road, and a few of the townspeople who were just beginning to stir waved at us or called a “good luck” out of their windows. The Headless men broke off first to hold the east, and it was only us and the Ironsides until they broke off a few hours later. Being the furthest from the staging ground, we were the last to reach position and spread out into a lone staggered line.
This close to Ravenhead, the Passgate forest has been cut back, leaving only rolling hills of grass and a few scattered assortments of trees and scrub. Ahead of us, as we spread out across the valley, loomed the tall and ancient trees of Passgate. Pine trees grew taller here than they did anywhere else in the world – but that’s probably the least strange thing you’ll find in this valley.
“Night Crawlers in position, over.” I spoke into my radio.
“Ironsides in position, over.” Crackled a voice from the radio.
“Headless men ready to range, over.” Came a second voice.
“Ironsides moving out, give us an hour and get walking.”
I switched to the radio channel for my squadron, and told them we had an hour to kill, so hold position and keep an eye on the treeline. I set my backpack down on the ground and propped my rifle against it. I pulled a cigarette out from one of my jacket pockets and lit it – the iron smoke filling my lungs and fully waking me up. I looked down the line and saw the smoke rising off a few other cigarettes.
I shook my legs out and sat down on the grass, leaning against my bag. Even though I’ve been in them for years, there’s still something off-putting about the Passgate forest. Well… It’s literally home to monsters, so I suppose that’s a stupid thing to say. The trees themselves though, the ground, the bushes, everything is just… off somehow. I’ve never been great with words but I guess the forest just gives off a ‘bad vibe’, heh.
Well, whatever, this is a ranging log, not a journal, who cares what I think. We sat for an hour smoking and checking our guns over when the call came from the Ironsides to start moving. The Captain of the Headless Men and I both confirmed we were moving, and I signalled my rangers forward.
I was on the far right of the line, and we were spread out so that I could just make out the ranger to my left, enough to cover extra ground, but not too far away if one of us found something. It’s slow going when you’re trying to flush something out, especially when it could be some sort of man-eating beast, so we weren’t covering much ground.
The whole first day passed uneventfully – one of my rangers found a footprint that turned out to just be a regular wolf, one of the Headless Men shot a deer accidentally (living up to their callsign), and I could hear the clamour of the Ironsides even from an hour ahead of us, their shouting and banging echoing through the dark forest as they tried to flush an angry monster right onto us.
We each paired up with the man to our left, and lit a fire, sleeping in shifts through the night so we could keep watch along with a line of fires running through the woods – which would hopefully keep our prey to the north of us. Sleep is easy to find when you’ve been walking with a full pack all day, but hard to rouse yourself out of. I had the first watch, so I at least had the chance to sleep until sunrise, when my partner nudged me awake with his boot and handed me a mess tin of eggs, bread, and bacon. I ate quickly and washed it down with some of the coffee that had been boiling over the fire.
Warm and awake, we kicked our fire out and covered up our tracks, spacing back out to our positions in the line. The voice of the Ironsides Captain echoed from my radio, instructing all squads to begin moving – I passed the message down the line and we began walking again. Even at the height of midday, not much light penetrates through the canopy of Passgate, leaving us in a largely dusky state of lighting. We called a halt around one o’clock which allowed us to eat a quick lunch before we kept moving. It had been a few hours when I noticed that all of a sudden the forest had gone quiet – the Ironsides weren’t making a racket anymore.
Before I had a chance to think about it, a voice spoke from my radio.
“All units halt, Ironsides has potential contact. Ready weapons. Over.”
“Night Crawlers read you, over.”
“Headless Men holding, over.”
The forest was dead silent aside from the clack of rifles being readied that drifted towards me from down the line. Even the birds and the critters of the forest were silent. “We’re dealing with something bad.” I whispered to myself.
The silence didn’t last long, as a moment later the forest erupted with the sounds of gunfire far ahead. I immediately dropped behind the trunk of a nearby tree and peeked out towards the sound of the firefight going on. Unlike us, the Ironsides carried automatic weapons and way more ammunition – they were the heavy hitters of the ranger units, and you could hear why. The blaze of guns lasted for maybe a minute before the forest fell back to eerie silence.
“Target is moving north towards the Ley. Over.” Captain Ironsides said through the radio.
“Did you get visual? Over.” Captain Headless replied.
“Barely – whatever it is it’s big. Bipedal, humanoid, dark fur. Nothing more than that. Moves damn fast. Ironsides in pursuit, both of you move your units up closer in case it doubles back. Over.”
“Copy. Over.” I said and radioed to my team to make double pace through the woods. We set off on a light jog forward, guns at the ready and packs growing heavier with every step. It took two hours before we were in position to the left of the Ironsides line, and the Headless men fell into position only a few minutes after us.
A halt was called, and I radioed the Ironsides Captain: “How’s the tracking? Over.”
“It’s still moving north as far as we can tell. Too late to pursue – let’s get a line of fires going across the valley and make sure it stays north of us. Extra caution tonight everyone. Over.”
I relayed the message to my team, and we built our fires extra bright that night. I presumed that everyone would be as on edge as I was, but if they were, the ranger I was camping with didn’t show a hint of fear. He fried up a quick dinner and we ate in silence, ears alert to every small sound that came from the woods.
I slept first that night, with my rifle loaded right next to me and my knife held close to my chest. Not that a knife ever did much good against the things we usually faced, but it made me feel better all the same.
I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by something that sounded like a human imitating the howling of a dog – it was piercingly loud but seemed to be coming from a good distance off. The ranger on watch was already crouched, rifle at his shoulder, aimed off into the forest. He motioned for me to keep quiet and still, so I slowly, carefully, picked my rifle off the ground and quickly scanned our perimeter.
A moment later the forest burst to life with the sound of a roar, a scream, and a clip of bullets being fired. My heart began to pound, the adrenaline was coursing through my blood – and I realized what I loved about being a ranger, the thrill. Me and my partner stood still as stone, guns trained towards the source of the sound, ears trained on everything else. After the initial commotion, all we could make out in the night was the sound of something crashing through the underbrush far away in the distance, followed by a deep howl half an hour later.
“One of our fires got hit – no casualties, one injured. Target still heading north. Over.” Ironsides Captain barked through the radio, sounding out of breath.
“Get a good look at it? Over.” I asked.
“Injured ranger says seven to eight feet tall. Humanish, big teeth. Over.”
“Nothing else? Over.”
“He swears he emptied a clip right into it, we should be able to follow the blood come the morning. Over.”
“I read. Over.”
I set the radio down next to my blanket, and the other ranger nodded at me slightly. “You got two more hours.” He said, as he laid his rifle across his lap and leaned back against a tree to resume his watch. I nodded in response and faded back into sleep.
I had the last shift of the watch and sat for four hours waiting for the sun to come up – gazing off into the darkness of the night and occasionally feeding the fire. I could see the lights of the other fires in the line shining through the darkness like distant fireflies. For some reason, something about being in the wilderness just makes me feel so… empty. Not in a bad way, but more like emotions just flow in and out of me like a gentle creek, without leaving a trace. Was I scared? I don’t know. There’s fear in me, that’s for sure, but it almost feels like it isn’t mine – it’s like it’s the fear of some ancient forgotten human who lived and hunted in the depths of the woods centuries ago… like an instinctual fear that exists because I’m human, so there’s fear there, but it’s not mine.
The line got under way right at sunrise, all three units pushing forward at a reduced pace. Captain Ironsides was right, the beast was bleeding – not a lot, but enough to track it. It was moving quickly towards the Ley, and we reached the banks of the river just before the sun went down. The Ley divides Blackfeather valley in half, somewhere around the middle. It’s a freezing cold river… well, more like a stream, that tumbles out of the mountains and bisects the valley, cutting the Passgate forest in the south from the Lakewash forest in the north.
The rangers have tried building small bridges across the Ley in the past, but every time we do, something smashes it to bits. Rangers sent to guard the bridges never come back, so we gave up years ago and settled for fording the river when we need to cross.
Captains Ironsides, Headless, and I met at the centre of the ranger line for a meeting before we proceeded. We were all sat around a blazing fire, drinking the crisp glacial water of the Ley from camp mugs.
“I say dogman or werewolf.” Ironsides said.
“Sounds enough like one.” Headless shrugged.
“Your man never got a good look?” I asked.
“No, but the description is close enough – besides, the howling after the attack is enough for me.” Ironsides replied.
“The Crawlers are ready to go over I assume?” Headless asked.
“Always.” I nodded.
“The thing is wounded; I doubt it’ll be that much of a problem.” Ironsides said.
“I saw the blood trail; the wound looks superficial. Regardless, we’ll rest up and go over in the morning. Can you two split all the watches between yourselves?” I asked, getting to my feet and sticking my hands over the fire. The two other captains nodded.
“We move at dawn. I’ll radio reports by the hour.” I said as I returned to my rangers and filled them in, telling them all to get a good sleep and eat well.
As I curled up on my blanket next to a fire, I watched through half shut eyes as the Ironside and Headless sentries began to patrol up and down the south bank of the Ley. I fell into a fitful sleep that night, dreaming of my limbs being torn off by the jaws of some huge and horrific beast. I woke just before dawn, sweating like a pig. I splashed my face in the Ley and readied my gear, before I made my rounds and woke all the other Night Crawlers.
All twelve of us were gathered at the point where the blood trail entered the Ley, checking rifles and tightening our pack straps and clothes. Captains Ironside and Headless wished us all good luck, and we splashed across the river ford, plunging into the treeline of the Lakewash.
Three others and myself formed the main group, while two rangers served as a vanguard, running ahead of us, two as a rearguard in the event we were followed, and a pair of two far off in the bush on our left and right.
We spent the entire day on a small game trail, the blood trail had begun to fade, but the prints of the beast were still noticeable – huge, loping strides and massive paws with claws on the end, something that walked sometimes on two feet and sometimes on four.
As the sun was beginning to make its downward descent, the two rangers in the vanguard radioed in that there was a ranger station not too far ahead that we should be able to make just after sunset. We figured it would be nice to sleep on bunks and under a roof, so we decided to press on. Fully stocked and no signs of the beasts was the report from the van.
The two flanking pairs returned to our main body, and the rearguard made double time to catch up with us, so ten rangers made the station at the same time, about an hour after sunset.
“Damn.” Said the man to my right.
“Yeah.” I murmured.
In front of us, the two rangers who had been scouting ahead were laying slumped on the ground in front of the station in pools of their own blood. Guts and viscera had been strewn around the grounds, and one of the rangers was now a head and a leg less of a man than he had been that morning.
“Not even a shot fired or a radio call.” Another ranger said.
“Secure the building, nobody outside until sunrise. Two guards for the night at all times, decide the shifts yourself.” I said, turning to the unit behind me. “We’ll bury them in the morning.”
We filed inside and found the inside of the station untouched. It was a long log cabin filled with bunks and supplies, which had a ladder leading to an observation tower. We had built a number of these, scattered throughout the Lakewash and the Passgate, but none were ever permanently occupied – typically just being places for us to restock and rest for a night when out ranging.
Nobody spoke that night. The station was dead silent aside from men tossing in their beds or the occasional snoring. We rose at dawn, buried the two dead rangers, and radioed the report back across the river. We searched the camp by the light of the sun, but could only find one set of beast tracks leading still further north – the prints caked with drying blood.
“How did one of these things, wounded, get a drop on two rangers?” Someone asked.
“I don’t know.” I replied. “But nobody separates from the main group now, we all stick together. Be ready to fire at any time.”
We took our hats off and saluted the two freshly dug graves, before we began making our way north again, hot on the tracks of the beast. A sense of apprehension was growing inside me as the day wore on, and the forest remained still and silent, with still no sign of the beast aside from the trail we were following. We reached the Blackwater lake at nightfall – the lake which the Lakewash gets it’s name from, and camped uneventfully on it’s quiet shore. I could sense the men were growing uneasy the further we ranged from the Ley, but nobody dared voice a complaint.
When we woke that morning, there were nine of us left. One of the sentries had vanished in the night. There were a few footprints at the edge of the camp, but they led straight into the Blackwater and never emerged again.
“The old lady of the lake got ‘im.” One of the men said over breakfast, but none of us replied or even acknowledge that anything had been spoken.
We packed and moved on, casting a few lingering, furtive glances at the glassy, still surface of the Blackwater, and continued north. Halfway through the day, we had broken out of the northern treeline of the Lakewash and were on the north slopes of the valley. The trail carried on, and it only took us an hour to find what we were looking for.
“Well, he made it pretty damn easy for us to find him.” Came the voice of a ranger from behind me.
All of us had our attention fixed forward at the gaping cave mouth in front of us. Hot air was drifting out of it, and blood and bones were scattered everywhere by the entrance, which seemed to have a layer of powdered bones coating the ground like a giant, horrible welcome mat.
“Alright who’s going in first?” I asked, and the men behind me laughed.
“Fuck capturing the thing – there were explosives back at the station, I say we level the whole cave.” One of the rangers said, and the others muttered and mumbled their agreement.
“For once I agree with you all, I don’t think we’re capturing this thing.” I shrugged. “Max, you and me will go back for the explosives, the rest of you stay here and make sure it doesn’t leave the cave.”
The men shifted uneasily and looked around at one another hearing that most were meant to stay behind.
“There’s seven of you and one of it, and you know exactly where it is, don’t worry about it. We’re shooting fish in a barrel at this point.” I said, as I reshouldered my pack and motioned for Max to follow me. “Double time, we should be back in a day.”
Max and I set off, following our trail back to the station. We had entered the Lakewash again and were a few hours away from the cave, when my blood turned to ice as I heard the distant sounds of shouting, shooting, and howling. Max looked at me, and I locked eyes with him. I stopped and raised my radio up.
“This is Captain Crawler, does anyone read me. Status Report. Over.”
The radio burst to life with the sound of screaming, hissing static, and gunshots. The man on the radio was yelling something incoherent at me, of which I could only make out one word – the one word I hadn’t wanted to hear.
“Pack!”
The line went dead and I attempted twice more to radio to unit, to no response. Max was staring at me, stone faced, silently gripping and relaxing his rifle over and over.
“What do we do?” He asked.
I stopped and thought for a moment. I looked back to where we had come from, and then back down the trail we were following. “Same orders, we get the explosives and bury them.”
I ordered Max to dump any extra weight from his pack, and I did the same, throwing random equipment that I didn’t think would come in handy onto the ground. We set off at a jog back down the trail again, thankful for the slightly lighter packs. We ran until well past sunset when our legs were burning and hunger clawed at my stomach.
“Can you keep going without sleeping?” I asked, as I wolfed down water and some canned beef.
“For a few hours at least.” Max replied. I nodded at him, and we picked our guns up and resumed running.
It was near three in the morning when we stopped, and only because the trail had become to dangerous to run on in the dark. We had passed Blackwater and, in my estimation, would reach the station by noon tomorrow as long as we didn’t sleep to long.
“Two hours, sleep. I’ll take first watch.” I said, catching my breath and pointing at the ground behind Max. He didn’t need to be told twice, and threw himself down, falling asleep immediately.
I struggled to keep myself awake, pacing the perimeter of the clearing we were in, and chain smoking the cigarettes I had left. I nudged Max awake after two hours, and I laid down, falling immediately asleep.
I woke to the feel of sun on my face. ‘that’s not good’ I thought to myself as I bolted upright from the ground – Max had fallen asleep against a tree; we had slept way longer than we should have. I got up and threw a splash of water into Max’s face, waking him up with a start.
“Get up!” I yelled, at which Max jumped to his feet and lifted his gun. Without telling him, he grasped what had happened, as I could see the fear spreading subtly across his face.
We began to run again, but after not fifteen minutes heard a distant howl echo out of the forest far behind us. “The fear is not mine; the fear is not mine.” I repeated to myself mentally over and over as we ran. The howls were beginning to grow more frequent and even worse, closer, the longer we ran.
By noon, I figured we were almost back to the station. That’s when the howling broke out from far too close. I stopped where I was, turned, and cocked my rifle.
“What are you doing!?” Max yelled, as he spun to look at me.
“They’re too close and too fast, we won’t beat them running.” I said through ragged breaths as I raised my gun to point into the woods. Max stopped, looked at me for a moment, and coming around to what I was saying, readied his rifle as well. A light mist was clinging to the floor of the Lakewash, and the forest was dead silent as we stood side by side, guns trained on the trail we had just come from. The only thing that could be heard was our heavy, rhythmic breathing.
As quickly as the silence had settled, it was ruptured again by a howling, snarling creature that came sprinting out of the underbrush. It was massive – probably eight feet tall if it wasn’t hunched over, rippling with muscles. It had the head of some sort of mangy, evil dog, and red eyes that betrayed a terrible, primal hunger. It had far too many teeth for a normal dog, and the tongue that lolled from it’s mouth was yellow, red, and black from the fat, blood, and marrow it had been feeding on.
Max managed to loose a shot at it, and it connected with the beast’s shoulder, causing it to stagger slightly in it’s forward sprint. It was moving faster than anything I had ever seen and leapt the last twenty feet to land directly on Max and send him sprawling to the ground. It snarled at me looking like it was ready to pounce, but it snapped its attention away when Max sank a knife into its side.
The extra second was all I needed, I raised my rifle and put a bullet directly through the head of the beast, which cause it to freeze, totter for a moment, and collapse to the ground next to Max. I helped him back to his feet, but he was in a bad condition – the beast’s claws had raked him all along the side of his body, and the impact of the tackle had clearly broken a number of his ribs.
I slung his rifle back over his shoulder and draped his arm over my shoulder, beginning to stagger the two of us back towards the station.
“Nice shot.” Max smiled weakly, as he attempted to wipe the beastblood off his face.
“Thanks.”
We listened, and while we could still hear some howling, it sounded far off again. I hoped that tis one had been a lone hunter from the pack, and we would have enough time to reach the station.
We did.
It took almost another two hours as we staggered along, but eventually we reached the station. I had radioed back to the other ranger units on the Ley a few hours back that our situation was lost – and the Ironsides and Headless Men were now moving north in full force to support us. They said they would rendezvous with us at the ranger station, but I knew that would take almost a full day.
Max died. His breathing had grown rapid and shallow, and I’m guessing he drowned on his own blood based on how much he eventually puked up. There wasn’t time for a burial.
I found the explosives.
The pack, it’s very close now – I’m thinking they’ll reach the station in the next half hour… If I’m lucky.
But I have the explosives.
They won’t know what hit ‘em.
For the first time in my life though… I don’t think the fear is primal or instinctual or whatever anymore… I think the fear is mine.
- Captain Collins, the Last Night Crawler