[Project Nemesis] Jungle Fever

by Celeste Anwar

  They pounced at the men approaching, who fired in self-defense. Bullets ripped through unstoppable feline flesh. Blood scented the air, making the cats go mad with bloodlust.

  Sickness churned her stomach. “Stand down. Tranquilizers only. We need these cats alive!” she screamed into her comm. unit. She was under strict instructions not to harm the animals—they had an enormous price tag on their heads. She had to get them back to the experimental facility they´d been released from or all their efforts would be in vain.

  The men ignored her, panic setting in when John’s luck finally ran out as a tiger took him down. His screams echoed around them, curdling her blood in horror. The five hundred pound beast covered his body and locked onto his throat, cutting off his cries and ripping out his throat before anyone could react.

  Mind-numbing terror washed over her. A split second felt like an eternity as her adrenaline fused brain tried to cope with the scene unfolding before her. Her ears rang and her eyes dimmed, making her mind feel that wobbling sound that meant she could easily black out if she’d just let herself go.

  And then probably be eaten alive with the rest of the men.

  Yvonne shook her head, aiming her gun. She’d never get the men under control if they all went into a panic. She didn’t want to die any more than they did. A scream lodged in her throat, refusing to come out. She fired at the man-eater, taking it down. It fell on the fallen man, asleep.

  She wanted to blow its brains out. The revulsion of the thought and what she’d seen the animal do made her want to vomit.

  She choked back the bile rising in her throat. “Goddamn it! They’re just animals! Use your brains,” she yelled, raising her gun and firing at the cats attacking her team.

  If they killed all the damned cats, they wouldn’t get paid. Some of the men ignored her and continued to fire their guns.

  “Use the fucking tranq. guns! We need them alive, not dead, you fucking idiots. Get a hold of yourselves!” she screamed, trying to get through their thick skulls.

  She took a cat down, and then another, and swore when she had to reload. She ran behind one of the trees to try to cover her back and fitted the cartridge as quickly as she could. Spinning to launch a tirade and make sure no one else got killed, she pulled up short as something snagged her vest. Her blood ran cold when she felt the pressure of a paw and the edge of claws digging through the thick material.

  The airspace was so awash with the sounds of battle, she hadn’t heard the fucking thing come up behind her.

  She twisted, trying to get a shot off before he could rip a hole through her. A great black paw knocked the weapon from her hands—lightning fast, faster than she could ever hope to react. She lunged for the weapon, feeling the beast move in sync with her. He was right behind her, his hot fetid breath on the back of her neck. Her legs dragged, her mind slowed. She couldn’t believe what was really happening, and in the back of her mind, she knew she couldn’t stop moving or she’d be dead. His great weight landed on top of her, and dimly, she recognized the sounds of shredding fabric as it clawed her vest.

  She ducked her head into her chest, felt the beast squeezing her, crushing her into the ground. Through a fog, she registered that the pheromone was leaking onto her chest—something on the canister had broken and its contents saturated her clothing. Her lungs couldn’t expand, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t reach her knife, her hands were trapped as the animal pushed her down. Dirt filled her nostrils, her mouth, preventing her from screaming for backup. Any second she’d feel teeth sink into her neck. She prayed she wouldn’t feel it when the animal ripped her spinal cord out.

  This was the end, and she was powerless to stop it from happening.

  Chapter Two

  A growl sounded above Yvonne. Suddenly, the great weight lifted, letting her lungs take a desperate gasp of air. She spat the dirt from her mouth and staggered to her feet, watching as two cats fought each other for dominance or a happy meal. Yvonne scanned the dirt for her gun. She couldn’t find it without a lengthy search. She checked her bearings and took off through the jungle, headed for her men, wondering how many had been mangled or killed, if they’d taken out all the cats or captured them. They didn’t have any more fucking pheromone for a second attempt at this, she’d wasted the rest of it on her chest. And she needed a weapon. She hoped the scent wouldn’t drive the beasts straight to her!

  With that thought, she peeled her clothes off down to her shirt. Kneeling and scanning the woods, she gathered a fistful of dirt and rubbed it over her shirt, hoping that would mask any remaining pheromone that could be clinging to her skin. She sure as hell hoped it would keep them from catching up to her.

  Her thoughts were erratic. She could feel hysteria creeping in on her as she lost the sound of her men. Was she going the wrong direction? Everything looked the same, but the compass on her watch was reading right.

  She forced herself not to panic, but it wasn´t easy when she kept imagining stalkers following her through the jungle, toying with her. She needed to get to the high side of the valley where they’d stowed extra ammunition and supplies. It should be far enough away from the warring cats that she stood a better chance of not becoming catfood before she could procure another weapon.

  The knife in her waist wasn’t much comfort when confronted with an animal three times her size. It wouldn’t be shit to these animals, but it was better than nothing. Maybe it’d be enough if she got jumped again to at least be a deterrent.

  Everything sliced or cut or jabbed in the brush, and as she moved, she couldn’t help wincing in pain. Her skin felt on fire as sweat seeped into perforated skin, stinging everywhere she’d been cut, scraped, and scratched. Bruises she hadn’t felt until she started mentally examining her aches and pains threatened to stall her progress. She wasn’t sure how long she could go on with nothing to drink, and still have the energy to fight the dense jungle.

  Finally, voices muffled by the jungle thickness sounded to her. Someone was left. They hadn’t managed to all get killed or kill each other. Elation quickened her step, and she pushed herself harder.

  Shots fired, whizzing by her head. She crouched low, yelling to her men, “Don’t shoot!” just in case one of them got trigger happy and tried to take her out.

  The foliage trembled with the passing of something huge behind her--the unmistakable crash of something that didn’t belong….

  She didn’t have time to think, only to react. Yvonne ducked and rolled, hoping the sudden change in direction would throw the cat off long enough for her to get to her men. The cat recovered quicker than she’d supposed, easily catching her.

  It bit at her neck, she flinched in sudden fear, but instead it started to drag her by the scruff of her shirt she still wore. Her arms flailed for a second as she was dragged over the rough undergrowth. The unerring sound of fabric ripping met her ears.

  “Fuck,” she screeched, nearly losing her knife. She hacked backwards at the creature, trying to slash at the beast´s face and neck to break its hold on her. She stabbed at him, and all the while dug her feet into the ground to try and slow or stop it. Her struggles were weak against the great cat. Blood made the blade slippery, but she kept stabbing. The cat growled in the back of its throat and shook her until her ears rang and her head rattled, it shook her until she screamed and lost the hold on her knife. The jaguar continued moving once the threat had been disposed of, it´s hold on the back of her neck strong and sure. Her head hung like a rag doll, she couldn´t focus or aim her knife anywhere with ease. She tried to hit it in the face but she just felt the collar of her shirt tighten around her body, almost suffocating her. Instead of releasing her, it took more of the fabric into its mouth to secure her position.

  This cat wasn´t normal, she´d never known of anything like it. For the first time, she let panic set in, the bloody thing wouldn´t release her, her team were all busy fighting their own personal tabby cat, so who the fuck was going to stop her from being dragged deep into the
jungle? No one. Shit. They probably hadn’t heard her screaming for her life over their own screams.

  “Agh!” Thrashing about on the ground, she tried to break free from the cat´s grasp on her. It wouldn´t let go. It´s head swayed with her movements. She could feel her panic threatening to overwhelm her.

  Her struggles were getting her nowhere, she hated being trapped, couldn´t handle it. Hadn´t been able to, ever since one of her foster parents had locked her in a closet for being a bad girl. The closet had been so small and so filled with things, that she hadn´t been able to move. She´d had to sit with her knees tucked into her chest, and her head angled to the side for three hours. Ever since then, she couldn´t handle her movements being restricted for a prolonged amount of time. This was more than prolonged, it was an age. What the hell was going on here? She´d never known a big cat to be so strong, smart and unbeatable. Every animal had a weak point, but this one didn´t seem to have any! Just her luck. Why wasn’t she dead yet?

  The pressure of the collar, tightening with every step against her throat, made her feel like she was choking. She couldn´t get enough air into her system. She felt light-headed, dizzy from sustained panic. Short, rapid breaths were all she could manage to take in. When a fucking jaguar picked something up with its mouth, it was food. The grip he trapped her with wasn’t gentle, but she didn’t feel endangered like she had before. She was more threatened by the vest tightening around her throat than the cat himself. She was large and could be considered prey, so why wasn´t it eating her?

  Her thoughts came to a screeching standstill when the cat suddenly stopped. It´s hold on her tightened until she saw spots, and started to wheeze, within seconds she knew that if she didn´t hold it together, she´d pass out. She opened up her senses, trying to focus on anything that would get her through. She noticed the brightness of an unusual flower that was wrapped around a tree, felt the dampness of her skin from the humidity, and finally she heard cacophony of insects and birds. No sound of her men. The cat had dragged her further into the depths of the jungle so she wouldn´t be able to escape.

  At the prospect of imminent death, her senses shuddered and closed down. Her focus returned to her need for oxygen, the pants and wheezes increased until the cat dropped her onto the ground. Sobbing in relief, she gasped air into her lungs. She couldn´t move, she was exhausted from battling the cats then the awful journey she´d just suffered through.

  Panting for breath, she took in as much air as she could. She needed more oxygen, the sooner her breathing regulated, the sooner she could be on the defense. She stretched the collar from her throat and felt something slick coat her palms. She looked at her hands and saw blood--it must be from the cat. Good, it deserved some kind of injury for the hell it had just put her through! Out of the corner of her eye, she watched it alternatively look at her, and then monitor the bushes that surrounded them. It´s head cocked to one side, it looked almost as though it were considering its options.

  She didn´t expect it to pounce on her again. This time, it didn´t grab her by the scruff of the neck, it ripped her shirt. She fisted her hands and punched it in the sides and on the top of the head, but that didn´t stop the cat from pulling her shirt from her chest and latching on to the vial held in her waistband.

  With a loud rip, some material gave way, and she punched it on the head, knowing she had no other choice. She wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  She could feel the primal anger vibrate through the beast´s belly, and hit at it again. When she smacked it on the jaw that held the small vial, it shattered instantly. Glass ruptured, flying everywhere, and with it, the remainders of the pheromone.

  The remaining contents gushed out everywhere, mostly over her. If she wasn’t before, she certainly was saturated by the contents now. Just what she fucking needed.

  Yvonne stared at the jaguar for a couple of seconds. She was so close she saw its eyes dilate as it smelled the pheromones that covered her chest, arms, and stomach. His nostrils flared repetitively, the muscles of his shoulders bunched and clenched. The cat seemed to tilt his body so that it leaned over her more fully.

  Knowing she was in the utmost of danger, she had no idea how the beast would react to the pheromone on her body. Slowly, she used her stomach and back muscles, thanking God all the while that she trained a hell of a lot in the gym, and used the strength of her torso to inch her way backwards and away from the cat. She didn´t want the damned thing to react as though she were prey and was trying to escape from it, if she moved quickly then it would give chase and more than likely would tear her to shreds. If she was lucky, it might start to toy with her, and maybe she would be able to find a way to escape it. If it wasn´t a necessity that she be strong, she would have burst into tears, she´d never been so scared in all her life. She’d never encountered anything like this in all her years—she just hadn’t been prepared.

  She didn´t know what the hell it would do when she moved, how it would react to the pheromone, these past painful and frantic moments could be some of the last minutes of her life. Focusing on the need to inch away from the cat, she only heard the crinkle of leaves underneath her back, and her and the animal´s harsh breathing. Until she saw a blur of spotted fur in the corner of her eye, she hadn´t known that anything else was in the clearing with them.

  Within a second, the other cat, a leopard jumped onto the jaguar.

  Practically sobbing her relief that the leopard was focused on attacking the jaguar and wasn´t going to join in killing her, she quickly rolled away from the fight, flinching all the while at the hisses and screeches of fury and pain.

  How many times would this happen? Why had they fucked with so many species of dangerous cat on this island? Someone needed a bullet through their fucking skull.

  She was running on adrenaline now, because she had no energy left. She was physically shattered, frightened at the intelligence of the cats, bruised and battered and damned sore from her fights, but she knew that she had to escape whilst she had the chance. Deja vu rolled over her mind, making her doubt her sanity. Were the pheromones so strong they were driving the cats straight to her? It couldn’t be a coincidence that she’d now had four cats fighting over her. And none had really tried to kill her. She knew damn good and well she shouldn’t be alive right now if they had been. No one was this lucky, especially not her.

  It was clear to her that the wild beasts were fighting each other over her. And she didn’t know why. There was nothing else to explain it but the pheromone all over her skin and clothes. She had to do something to hide the scent better, if she could. Dirt hadn’t done shit to disguise it and she had nothing to change into.

  She rolled on to her knees, and started to crawl away from tangled, fighting bodies. Blood flew through the air. Furious growls and hisses blotted out all other sound.

  Her knees winced at the pressure of the dirt and bramble on already sore legs, the heavy duty camouflage pants she wore didn’t help one iota. Moving as fast as she could, she tried to consider her options. She was weaponless, she´d dropped her gun and knife earlier on, she only had her brain and her fists to rely on. How the fuck could she beat these creatures without a gun?

  They were way too … everything. She didn´t know what the facility they´d been in had done to them, but whatever it was, it was too fucking much. Never in all her experience had she seen anything like the cat attack. And it had been the ´cat´ attack, because her team had done nothing. She´d shot a couple down, but the rest had either shot them dead, or allowed themselves to be attacked. She doubted that they´d recaptured any. But how could they have caught them, when they were actually fighting in a formation? The scientists had totally fucked with nature, it was wrong, so much worse than testing perfume on rabbits, this went against anything and everything that was moral and right. They were the animal equivalent of Frankenstein´s monster, a total ´fuck you´ to the natural world.

  She had so much experience hunting that these cats should never have been abl
e to get past her. She wasn´t being complacent, she knew her strengths and her weaknesses, hunting was one of her biggest strengths. David, her foster father, had taught her the basics, and working together, she´d learned more and more, until she was as proficient as he, only at a younger age. She was a skilled hunts woman, but she couldn´t fight these genetically altered creatures--they were too smart. Too clever and cognizant of what was happening, they were almost like beasts but with a human´s analytic brain. It was frightening, and it was fucking freaking her out.

  Shaking her head at her thoughts, as it wasn´t the animal´s damned fault that they’d been experimented on by mad scientists--she just didn´t want to be anywhere near them to find out what they wanted with her. If it wasn’t to eat her, she couldn’t imagine what else they might want. Her hands were covered in scratches now from the dead foliage that lay on the jungle floor, there were sharp stones and dried, dead pieces of wood that cut and tore at the sensitive flesh of her palms. She sucked it up, knowing that she had to free herself, while they were both distracted.

  Yvonne knew she was going the wrong way to rejoin her men, but that didn´t matter at the moment, she just wanted to get away from the two fighting beasts. She could still hear them in the background, hissing and growling and screams of fury, they were odd noises and more fearsome because of that. If she´d had a gun, she would have watched the fight out of interest, just to see the genetically enhanced beasts in action--but weaponless, and injured to boot, she didn´t give a shit about what was going on. She just wanted to get back to camp.

  She ducked her head closer to the ground, her crawl slowing as she tried to make as little noise as physically possible, when all of a sudden, a pair of bare feet stood right in front of her. She jolted her head up in shock, her eyes following the lines of the man´s bare feet and calves, when suddenly she was dragged to her feet and held against a naked man´s side.