The werewolf savored the soft flesh of the human with an unimaginable ecstasy. He had finally reached his lair…his place…and now he felt joy. His lack of human intelligence did not keep him from comprehending that this was the most satisfying experience he had ever known. He would have given everything to have this human, indeed, he had been so fiercely drawn that he had willingly sacrificed all caution in ignoring the human’s companions, even though they had seen him. He desired this one man in such a way that there was nothing else and now that he was devouring the prey, his senses fired in electrical satisfaction.
This cavern…his lair, was the closest thing to a home that the werewolf had. He very often brought his victims here, slowly devouring them until his hunger was satiated. No other animal dare come near, as his scent was so potent around the cavern that even if a creature were starving, even dying, it would stay clear.
Confident that he had drained the body of most of its blood, the werewolf changed his focus from the torn, chewed throat down to the chest. He dug the claws of both hands down into the human’s chest, breaking through the breastplate, and with a vicious ripping motion, he tore open the rib cage, exposing the heart. Saliva and blood dripped from his jaws as he stared into the chest cavity. He hesitated, then reared his head back and let loose a howl of ecstasy. He could wait no longer and so he slammed his jaws over the heart, ripping it free with one quick jolt. He brought his hands up to his jaws to help hold the heart in his jaws as he chewed, the pleasure so overpowering that he dropped to his knees. He gulped down huge chunks of the eviscerated heart, stopping only after he had devoured every soft piece of its flesh.
Aside from demonic, monstrous, hellish, the world might call Jeremiah’s double life mystical, magical, or simply unexplainable…but it was indeed the mystical side that had taken over both the man and the beast, leading them to Daniel…though neither would understand the reasons. Nevertheless, the lust was now satiated, and in its wake lay an exhaustion of pleasure, a creature drained of energy who longed for sleep. The werewolf had always hated sleep and was puzzled as he now welcomed the feeling as it drifted over him. He felt his energy leave him, replaced by a pulsating sense of pleasure throughout his monstrous body. Slowly, he collapsed down beside the twisted and torn corpse…until his head rested on a soft, untouched human shoulder. The werewolf closed his eyes, and for the first time in his long existence, he welcomed the coming darkness, unable to do anything more than sleep.
Thomas was dreaming. He was in Panama, floating in Fort Sherman’s bay at the Jungle Operations Training Center. He was on his back, drifting in the warm water as the sun slowly sank into the ocean. He was warm and comfortable. But, how could Jack be here? The Husky dog paddled along side him, licking at his face. He laughed and pushed the dog away, but Jack came back and licked him again. He laughed once more and tried to pry the snout away from his face.
“Okay, boy…that’s enough,” Thomas laughed. He opened his eyes and the bay suddenly disappeared into the black of night. He was cold…no…he was freezing. He forced his eyes all the way open to see Jack’s form through the darkness. The dog was whining and pawing at Thomas, who lay in snow on his back. He thought for a moment…just a fleeting moment at how beautiful the night was. There must have been a million stars out tonight, the storm now just a memory. Then everything came flooding back and he turned over to push himself up. There was a horrible pain in his neck and shoulders, but he thought that he was okay. He felt warm blood trickle from his neck and then turn cold against the skin.
“Where…where it is?” He mumbled as he staggered to his feet. “Where is my rifle?”He looked around to see if the creature was in sight. It wasn’t, but that was little consolation. The animal was obviously gone now, but could come back at any moment. He had to find the rifle.
“Wait…wait, wait,” he said to no one as he shook his head. “Delmar…where is…DELMAR,” he shouted the name. “Delmar!” He shouted again, realizing that he might as well be calling the animal as well. It didn’t matter. The thing knew where they were. Hell, it could have killed him and still could. But, it had left him alive.
He heard a groan somewhere close in the darkness to his left and realized that Jack was already there, licking at Delmar’s face and yelping. Occasionally shuffling toward Thomas and then jumping back to stand by Delmar.
“Good boy,” Thomas said as he staggered to his friend.
“What hit me?” Delmar asked as he tried to sit up. “What the hell happened?”
“You okay? Are you hurt? We have to check on the others.”
“Ohhhhh,” Delmar groaned as he rolled over onto his stomach. “I think I might have a cracked rib and my head is pounding. Shit, it bit me.”
“Let me see,” Thomas said, though he was unsure where his flashlight was and he could see little in the darkness.
“He bit my shoulder. Was it a bear, after all?”
“Show me,” Thomas insisted, as he leaned over his friend. He saw the wound, a dozen large punctures on the front and back of Delmar’s left shoulder. There were bloodstains, but the blood was coagulated, the punctures sealed
“Ah Shit, don’t touch it, Hero!” Delmar exclaimed.
“Do you have your rifle?” Thomas asked.
“What?” he reached around him in the snow. “No. Yours?”
“Not yet,” Thomas said. He saw the entrance to the cavern and marveled. They were at least twenty feet away from the soft glow coming from the cavern’s entrance. The thing had thrown them that far. “We’ve got to check on the others.”
“Holy shit,” Delmar said as he looked down at his Indiglo watch. “We must have been out for an hour. It’s a wonder we aren’t dead from hypothermia.”
“Get up. Let’s get inside.”
Delmar struggled to his feet. “Definitely a cracked rib.” He said as he held his right arm tight against his side and walked beside Thomas. Thomas scanned the area as they walked and thought it a miracle from heaven when he saw the glint of his rifle. He ran to it and hurriedly inspected it as he quickened his pace to the cavern.
“The door is open,” he yelled to Delmar as he ran far to the front of his big friend. With each hurried step, his heart quickened by a dozen beats. Daniel and Jenny!
Thomas stopped, frozen in his tracks five feet from the mouth of the cavern. There was blood…so much blood in the snow. He checked the rifle once more and held up an open hand to Delmar, and then clinched a fist. Delmar did not know what else to do, so he followed his friend’s silent order and took a knee behind the tree where he had stood guard earlier. He waited.
Thomas approached the entrance slowly, the rifle at his shoulder. He stooped low enough to step through…and his worst nightmare was confirmed. Daniel and Jenny were gone. There was a trail of blood from the sleeping bags to the entrance…and they were just gone. It had taken them.
“Oh God,” Thomas said, lowering the rifle.
Jenny’s sleeping bag suddenly moved. Thomas Slammed the rifle to his shoulder again.
“Jenny?” He called.
“Okay,” The reply was weak. “Okay.”
“Jesus, Jenny,” Thomas said, running to her. “Are you hurt?” He tried to pull back the sleeping bag to get a look at her, but she held it tight and he could not pull it away. “Are you hurt, Jen?”
“Okay,” she replied once more, then again, “okay.”
“Where is Daniel?” He shouted and then forced himself to calm down. He changed the words. “Was he alive when it took him? Did you see it? Was Daniel still alive?”
“Okay, okay, okay,” she murmured in odd tones from under the sleeping bag. “Okay.”
“Shit,” Thomas muttered, knowing that she must be in shock. By now, Delmar was at the entrance, staring down at the massive trail of blood. Jack stood beside the big man, sniffing at the blood and whining.
Thomas kneeled down next Jenny’s covered form. She was shaking. He turned and saw Delmar.
“It has Daniel. Jenny
is in shock.”
“Okay, OKAY!” Jenny screamed at hearing her name again. “OKAY!” She screamed.
“Jesus,” Delmar muttered. As Thomas tried to hold his own emotions in check. They had lost companions before…it had happened more than once in combat. But that was long ago, and this was not combat. And Daniel was gone.
“OKAY!” Jenny screamed again.
Thomas gave up trying to pull the bag away from Jenny. He turned and sat cross-legged and staring into what few embers remained in the hearth. He rested an arm on the sleeping bag, hoping to comfort the shaking form inside it. Jenny screamed again, “NO!” A few seconds passed and she began alternating between ‘no’ and ‘okay,’ repeating them over and over in varying tones that made no sense. She held herself inside the sleeping bag so tightly that even Delmar gave up trying to free her for fear of hurting her or making things worse.
Thomas began to grieve, his body wracked with sobs. The last time he had lost a friend in combat, he put his feelings away until the mission was over. It was what men did in the military. If a soldier was good at his job, he separated the traumatic events as if they were pieces of a larger puzzle and kept on moving until the mission was complete. Only then was there time for the real grief. Thomas wanted things to be that way now…but the sadness overcame him.
Daniel had been a close friend for as far back as Thomas cared to remember…and now he was gone, taken by some demonic monster from a Saturday night horror movie. “We don’t even know his family,” Thomas said aloud as Delmar sat with the rifle aimed at the cavern entrance. “We never met his family. How can we explain this?”
Delmar didn’t answer. He merely sat in place, rifle pointed at the entrance and ready.
“There is no way he could still be alive,” Thomas said, letting his head fall into his hands as he sat with his back against Jenny, who still shook within the sleeping bag. “Not with that amount of…blood.” He tried to prevent a sob from forming in his throat, but he was unsuccessful, and it pushed forth loudly, surprising Delmar.
The big man stood up and looked down at his friend. “Thomas, he’s my friend too, but you need to get your head screwed on right.” He tapped Thomas on the head. “This is not over. That thing is still out there, and we are trapped in here. What if there is more than one? What if half a dozen of them come at us at once?” He tapped Thomas on his head again. “Murphy’s law, Hero. Murphy’s law. And we still have someone we have to protect.”
Thomas said nothing.
“I really don’t think I can sit here with you while you blubber away, Thomas. Steven was killed by this animal, Daniel is likely…dead…and Jenny is in shock.”
He walked halfway to the entrance and picked up the flashlight from the floor, moving it so that it was behind the group rather than ruining their night vision by being right in the path to the door. “We have six hours until daylight. Six hours, Thomas. We have one rifle and not much ammunition…”
Thomas suddenly lifted his head and looked at Delmar. “It had shackles on it.”
“What?”
“The animal…the… thing. It had shackles on its wrists.” He paused, waiting for a reply.
“Shackles as in prison shackles?
Thomas stood up. “Something like that. They were bigger, wider…thicker maybe.”
“What the fuck?”
“Someone had chained up that thing…which means someone has either caught it before or knows what it is and is responsible for it.”
“So, you got a good look at it? I never saw a thing.”
“It grabbed me by the throat and lifted me,” Thomas said, pulling away his torn Gore-Tex to expose the huge, bloody claw marks. “I saw a shackle with a piece of heavy chain still attached. Someone had that thing.”
Delmar looked into Thomas’s eyes. “You mean that you think that thing belongs to someone? For what? Like a pet?” He grimaced.
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s an experiment.”
“A fucking experiment gone wrong. What did it look like?”
“I swear to God, Delmar…you do not want me to answer that.”
Delmar thought for a minute, then rubbed his chin. “Yes, I do, Hero.”
Thomas looked up at his tall friend. My only friend, Thomas thought. “It looked like a cross between two animals. A bear and a wolf, maybe…or a gorilla and a wolf…or maybe a…”
“Don’t say man.”
“…man and a wolf,” Thomas finished.
“Jesus Christ,” Delmar muttered. “I told you not to say that.”
“And I told you that you didn’t want to know.”
Delmar grunted. “I was right about it walking upright?”
“And it has opposable thumbs.”
“No fucking way.”
“I saw them, Hero. Up close and personal.”
“No.”
“And claws like talons, an inch long.”
“But not like a man...”
“Men don’t have claws, Delmar. But other than that…yes…like a man.”
“You said maybe like a gorilla.”
Thomas sighed. “Maybe so…but last I checked they don’t have opposable thumbs. Some say that is what separates us from them, when all is said and done.”
Delmar turned away and stared at the entrance. “Just don’t use the word that I know you are thinking, alright, Hero?”
“Okay,” Thomas agreed. He stood up and put wood on the glowing embers. “We can’t chase it. Daniel can’t possibly have survived the blood loss…so we have to stay here, ready to defend this place.”
“If you will take your rifle, I will find mine. It’s out there, somewhere in that snow.”
“I’ll cover you, then, from the doorway. It came down from the cliff, so we need to watch it.”
“Be ready, then,” Delmar said as he walked out into the snow.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alan ran, naked, leaping over the damp, summer deadfall with ease as he attempted to best the monster behind him. His feet ached. They were torn and bloody and tears welled in his eyes and ran down his hot, dirty cheeks. He dared not look back, afraid to see the monstrous form, but then he didn’t have to, because the werewolf leapt over him to land directly in front of him. The monster’s arms were open wide, waiting. Alan screamed and tried to stop, but it was no use. Just as he reached the outstretched arms of the werewolf, the beast’s face changed into that of his father, bloody fangs remaining in the wide-open mouth that came down toward his face.
His body spasmed as he woke up and involuntarily cried out. He crammed a fist into his mouth, bit down, and then sobbed. Early before dawn, he had discovered a hole that might have once been the den of a small bear. He had fallen halfway into it after running for what seemed like hours. He had crawled inside and found that he fit, but with no room to spare. He had curled up into the fetal position and pulled deadfall and snow into the small opening until it was pitch black. He was covered in mud, drenched with melted snow and with sweat, and his body ached for relief.
He had slept through the day. He had not meant to…and could barely remember going to sleep at all. He had stayed silent, shaking with fear of the monsters, keeping the hole covered so that when the sun did come out, barely a ray made it into the wet, cold hole in the earth. He had awoke and saw that it was day, and knew he should get up and run back, but he was so tired and now that his adrenaline was gone, the pain from his wounds surfaced, leaving him in agony. So, he had gone back to sleep…just for a little while, he had told himself. Until I’m more rested and there is less pain.
Now he woke to the darkness of night. The snowstorm had sealed his small hole, and he had to punch through it to gasp for fresher air. He had been in the hole for so long. But it was night, and he understood that the monster was a creature of the night and would probably lay in wait for him. At least his pain was now completely gone. He was hungry. He had quenched his thirst by cramming handfuls of the dirty snow into his dry mouth…
but it did not satisfy the hunger. He felt a worm slither against an arm and he had a fleeting thought of consuming it, sucking it down his throat. The thought left, however, and he gagged. No, he would stay hungry, at least until tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he would rise from the hole and find his way back to the cabin where surely his rescue would be there waiting. He curled up tighter in the muddy hole, the earth pressing down on his shoulders and hips. He must go back to sleep until the morning. He must not lay awake in fear of the monster. He closed his eyes once more, hoping for a dreamless sleep.
When morning finally did come, Alan found that he was happy that he could not remember his dreams. Today is the day, he said silently as he stood outside his makeshift hole, wiping dirt and mud from his clothing and body. I have survived and I will make it out of here.
He had only the torn clothes on his back and a pocketknife…and it would have to do. He had emerged from his muddy, snow-covered hole this morning, his second morning in hiding, to find the sun shining down on him and his wounds healed. He realized that he had been suffering a fever and blamed it for his inability to think straight these past nights or to get up and leave yesterday morning.
He had sweated profusely through those two long nights as he shared the wet hole with worms, centipedes, and other small creatures that crawled on him as he lay shivering. While laying in the darkness, Alan had tried to recall everything that had happened. His chest and shoulder wounds had stopped bleeding after the first day in the hole, and sealed by thick scabs. He had been amazed, then, that he had not bled to death from the deep tears in his flesh. Horrible nightmares came as he slept, terrifying beasts chasing him through the dreams, but each time he awoke he found that his memories of what had happened to him, of what had attacked him, were more distant and hazy. This morning, as he stood in the open forest, feet buried in the snow, he found that he could not recall what animal had attacked him and sent him flailing through the forest like a lunatic. He remembered some things clearly, up to the point where he, Seffert, and Jaffey waited inside the cabin, monitoring the radio. But he could force nothing to the surface of his mind beyond that…well, that and his blind run through the forest and his time in the hole. He remembered running all the way until it was almost dawn on that first night, hurt and bleeding and torn by brambles and thorns…but he could not remember what he ran from.
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