The crunch as her skull finally caved in under the creature’s strength was sickening. Amber made to scream, but was struck dumb as she witnessed Lyn’s head crumble in on itself like an eggshell. Brain matter oozed from her ears, her nose splintered, expelling jets of blood. Shards of Lyn’s skull cut through her scalp, as the thing that held her flattened her head.
Only seconds since its boredom seemed to have set in, the monster was done with her. It opened its massive hands. Lyn’s head, now no more than a sagging sack of skin lanced through with misshapen bone, clung to its palms. With a shake, it discarded the flaps of meat from its great hands, letting her limp corpse drop to the ground; a perfect body, housing a mockery of a head.
She was gone.
Perhaps thankfully, she was finally gone.
And now, it would be Amber’s turn.
Wiping her friend’s blood from her eyes, she stared up at the creature that had slaughtered her Lyn.
Finlay’s ‘Bigfoot’.
The myth made real.
Amber felt her sanity slip. She welcomed it.
The forest-dwelling beast leaned forward.
And flashed her a smile made of tombstones and filth.
Amber willed her encroaching madness to come quicker, to release her from this hell.
The lumbering giant stepped out into the full light of the fire, revealing itself in all its vile glory.
And madness came calling.
The naked, musclebound thing that stepped into the light was no ‘Bigfoot’. It was unlike anything she’d seen in any documentary, nor in any artist’s rendition, however fanciful.
The thing stood before her, drooling thick saliva from its warped, lopsided smile was an abomination.
Amber choked back a scream as it towered over her.
What stood before her, smiling a vast tombstone smile, was a man.
Or something approximating a man.
Her own petrified face reflected back at her from two huge, round eyes, far too large for the horribly misshapen head. The leering orbs looked more amphibian than human – great bulbous eyeballs with mismatched pupils, protruding from a grossly mutated skull. Above its hungry stare, its forehead was an unholy mess of worming veins and enormous, swollen lumps. The skin stretched tight over what had to be an agonisingly extended skull, at least twice the size of a normal man’s. Thin webs of dank, filthy hair hung over its face, tickling her own as its freakish visage came to within kissing distance. Its breath stung her nostrils; a sickening miasma of rotting meat, decaying gums and infection. The twin caverns of its nostrils flared as it expelled putrid air, running with thick, black mucus, peppered with dried blood.
The giant man-thing reached out for her with enormous, webbed hands, each boasting only two giant digits, tipped with black, pointed fingernails thicker than tree bark. With abject horror, Amber’s eyes moved towards the space between its legs as it reached for her.
When she saw what protruded there, swollen and stiff as a rock, dripping fluids from the tip of the enormous dome, she gagged, her head buzzing with manic song.
It opened its vast, blood-soaked mouth and growled the words: “Woman…very pretty…”
Amber found herself giggling hysterically.
She could still hear her own manic laughter, ringing out inside her broken mind, when the thunder of gunfire split the night.
8
“Blow the motherfucker straight to hell, boys, give it no fucking quarter!” Finlay yelled, with his shotgun held high. He took aim and fired again, this time hitting the creature in the arm. Thick blood spewed from the exit wound, as it let out a furious roar; all its attention now on the attackers. Behind Finlay, his two brothers sprang from the shadows, guns raised, and took aim.
The night sang with the sounds of war.
Amber watched the whole thing as though she was watching a crazed, outrageous movie, suitable only for someone completely twisted on drugs.
There was an almost comical yell, as Cole rushed the beast, burning the night air with gunfire. He shot the thing at least once, as he charged it but it remained on its feet.
From the rear of Finlay, Scott’s hunting rifle rang out its rage.
He missed his target.
Instead, his bullet found his kid brother, Cole. It passed through the base of his spine, leaving a small hole as it cut through meat and bone.
Finlay screamed as his brother went down, propelled by both the impact of the bullet and his own wild, lunatic rush toward the horror they faced. He went down at the creature’s feet; blood bubbling from his mouth and shit spreading from between his legs in a steady brown river.
It roared, baring its teeth at the crumpled heap laid by its feet. Cole twitched a little, still alive and staring up at the giant abomination as it raised its foot high and brought it down on his head. The poor bastard never even had time to scream before it flattened his skull underfoot, then ground the muck of his head into the dirt. A human bug and no more.
Finlay screamed, “Cole!”
Scott wailed, “Holy fuck!”
Amber laughed her ass off.
With a growl that sounded altogether feeble compared to the impossible hulk they sought to meet in battle, Scott dropped his rifle, withdraw what Amber figured was a bowie knife from a sheath by his side, and lunged for the beast. From such a distance, his action brought fresh giggles to Amber.
Scott’s enemy had more than enough time to turn and face him. It bore its teeth as he closed the distance; its eyes on the flashing silver of his weapon.
Why he had chosen to go the close-combat route instead of simply shooting the fucking thing was a mystery that Amber had no desire to solve.
Apparently, Finlay thought differently. “What the fuck are you doin’!?”
Scott yelled his fallen brother’s name as he raised the knife high and swung it in a wide arc towards the beast’s chest. “Cooooooooole!”
To Amber, it sounded like the hapless redneck was singing.
She rolled over on her side, keen to watch Scott’s suicidal rush against his foe. It had been hard to pull her eyes from Finlay’s now comical, slack-jawed bemusement at the stupidity of his kin, but the effort was worth it.
The towering creature effortlessly swiped aside Scott’s arm, casting the knife into the night even as his arm snapped backwards with an almighty crack. Still moving, Scott fell into the giant’s bosom. It grabbed his flailing, pulverised arm with one hand and pulled, quick and sharp. Scott’s arm came away like a bug’s wing. Amber could hear the tear as the skin split and the blood flowed. Scott wailed as the beast raised his own arm above its head. Blood poured from the ragged stump, raining down on its grinning head like hellish downpour. The creature brought the limb to its mouth and bit down hard with its massive teeth, tearing off a chunk of flesh and chewing.
It tossed the rest of the arm to its side.
With a feeble grunt, Scott met the woodland floor. Blood spurted from his wound, painting the leaves and the grasses of the forest black.
Amber watched as the creature bent over him, growling low in its throat as it reached for his groin and began to squeeze.
Blood welled up from between its fingers as his testicles erupted. The twitching wreck on the ground bucked and writhed.
Again, that low, cheerful laughter.
Almost childlike.
Amber joined right along in with it.
Both she and the beast were robbed of their mirth, when the cocking of a shotgun broke the spell.
Amber looked up to see Finlay, stood only an arm’s reach from the thing torturing his brother. It froze as it caught sight of the barrel of the gun. Its eyes closed to hateful slits as Finlay’s finger settled on the trigger.
The creature growled its rage, but never moved, understanding that its death was close. Soon, its brains would be every bit as pulverised as Lyn’s skull, or Scott’s balls.
Finlay smiled. “I’ve got you now, you fucking freak…”
9
> Amber thought of Lyn – mangled and ruined. Slaughtered.
She thought of Claire – her broken form splayed before a tree, headless.
Time slowed to a crawl as she watched the creature face the shotgun, head-on. Her eyes darted from the monster to the man.
Monster to the man.
Monster to the man.
This thing…this abomination…had killed her friends. It had torn them apart like paper. It had ensured their final moments in this world were filled with horror, and pain and fear. It had done all of this, and it would surely do the same to her.
Yet, she realised on an instinctual level, that the creature, whatever it was, was only obeying the commands of its bloodline. Doing what its nature compelled it to do. It was she who was in its territory. It was she who trespassed in its realm.
It was no more and no less evil than a lion that toys with its meal before killing.
It was the nature of the beast.
Finlay, on the other hand…
It was Finlay who had dragged her out here into this surreal hell. He and his dumb-as-dirt brothers. It was Finlay who’d tied her to a tree and left her to be fucked to death at the hands of this misshapen brute.
And it was Finlay’s fault that her friends had come looking for her.
Finlay’s fault that they’d died at the hands of a creature that more than likely knew no better. Knew no other life.
Monster to the man.
Monster to the man.
Monster to the man.
“Fuck it.” Amber willed her leg to move.
Just a little.
Just enough.
She found her strength.
And kicked Finlay in the shin.
He went down with a surprised yelp. The gun flailed as he toppled, firing a shot uselessly up towards the stars.
Then he was down, his face level with hers. Terror and confusion fought a war on his handsome, redneck face.
Amber grinned.
“Oops.”
“You fucking bitch…I’ll…”
Finlay never got to finish his hateful tirade. The giant’s sledgehammer fist that came crashing down onto his face, knocking him out cold, saw to that.
10
Amber sat in dead silence, unable to move, unwilling to, even if she could.
She daren’t even breathe.
The man - if that was what this sad, ruined being truly was under all its malformations - knelt before her, studying her face with an idiot innocence that chilled her to her core.
Yet, despite all it had done, all the violence it had wrought upon her, she understood that nature was the factor to be considered. Not evil.
This was no evil beast. It was a walking tragedy. A thing borne of some unspeakable intrusion on evolution’s paced, perfect path. An aberration that had surely seen and lived and endured more horror than she herself had suffered this terrible night, or any before, even during her time in the military.
Terror and compassion warred within her as it gazed into her face with something approaching kindness.
It was a killer. An aberration against nature.
It was also a child, in mind at least.
Looking into its vast, inhuman eyes, searching deep down into the lonesome soul of this poor, pathetic thing, she believed it knew no better. Her heart screamed for vengeance, but Amber understood that, like a bear, a lion, or a cornered hound, this massive, deformed half-man had simply been acting on instinct.
It ran on pure senses, trapped in a body served up from hell, cursed to endure a life of pain and isolation and fear.
Desperate.
Tragic.
Cursed.
She was under no illusions that she would survive the next few minutes. Her life would be cut short in the most savage fashion imaginable, just as her friends’ lives had been, only moments before.
She accepted it.
She felt no hatred.
Tears came. They kissed her cheeks, trickled into her mouth as Amber gritted her teeth, awaiting the inevitable.
The giant man-child reached out for her, slowly, as though unsure of itself for the first time since the madness and bloodshed had begun.
With one enormous, calloused finger, it touched her cheek – gently and with an innocent care.
It wiped away her tears with a single movement.
Amber met the being’s eyes, and saw a terrible shadow pass over the ghost of warmth that had flickered within.
“Woman…pretty…”
She thought about the thing between its legs. Dripping with excitement, swollen with lust, larger and thicker than a man’s arm, slick with cum and pus.
A scream rose in her throat.
She prayed to a god she had no good reason to believe in, that He make it quick.
The giant’s breath washed over her like a hell-borne breeze, carrying the souls of the dead to their damnation.
Then it smiled.
“But man….much…prettier…” it growled.
Amber met its eyes. The moment of carnal hunger had passed, like a cloud over twin winter moons.
The creature lowered its finger from her face, and slowly hoisted itself to its feet, grunting in pain as it stood to its full, impossible height.
It winced as it tentatively fingered the gunshot wound on its arm. Blood oozed slowly from the ragged hole as it eyed the forest, searching for further predators.
Even in all its ugliness, and in its brutality, there was something almost majestic in its untamed nature.
If a seven foot killing machine could ever be called majestic.
It raised its arm and pointed to the treeline, where dark shadows courted oblivion.
“Woman….go. Leave...Roland.”
It had a name…Roland.
Someone had named this thing. Maybe even loved it. Raised it with tenderness and care.
“Helped…Roland…go,” it said in a low, guttural voice that sang of exhaustion.
Did it mean she’d helped it? Or that it had helped her?
Did it fucking matter?
Without another word, Amber pulled herself to her feet.
And then she did as Roland asked.
11
She had no idea how long she’d been stumbling through the endless black of the redwoods, and nor did she care. The darkness still held fast, so for now, navigating her way free of the wilds was a fool’s errand, and Amber was under no illusion that when the sun rose in the sky and cast aside the horror of the night, she would be any closer to finding her way out of the maze of towering trees.
She didn’t care about that, either.
For now, life was all about putting one foot in front of the other, and getting as far away from that campsite, that clearing, that massacre and that strange, half-man, half-monster that spoke in broken English and called itself Roland.
For now, that would fucking well suffice.
Besides, she’d make her way out as soon as the sun came up. She was confident of that. Years of training would not fail her, and nor would the blue map writ large in the sky.
The sun would guide her home.
Whatever home was.
Amber’s thoughts drifted to two beloved friends, and to the awful fate that had befallen them, simply for trying to help her. To save her.
She mourned them both, with untamed love, but she didn’t cry.
She’d make it out of these damned woods before starvation or any other predator of the wilds claimed her as its own.
She’d make it out for them.
And then?
Well, then she’d go about living her life as best she could. She’d take up some new hobbies. Hobbies that didn’t require her to pitch a tent and risk life and limb. Maybe she’d meet a man, or a woman, with whom she could settle down and find peace, far from the dangers of her past or her present – a love untouched by foreign wars or domestic evil.
Something pure.
As pure and as solid in foundation as her friendship with Lyn and
Claire had been.
She would never return to these woods, not for any reason.
Certainly not for revenge.
Roland – the name still sounded insane in her head, for such a savage and bestial man. Who had named him? Where had he come from? What was he?
No.
She would not allow the strange, terrible beast that dwelt in the darkness of the forest dominate her thoughts. She wouldn’t allow herself to be haunted.
As for Finlay…well, that was another story.
He was the cause of all this hurt, all this loss.
His evil was an evil of the very worst kind. A slow-witted, banal, dumb evil, only ever committed by the worst animal of all: man.
That sort of evil demanded retribution.
Amber had a feeling that wouldn’t be a problem.
The first song of the forest caused her to look up into the canopy above, as an unseen Jay sung its heart out for the coming dawn.
She thought again of Roland…
The horror in the wilderness.
The savage giant that was both less and more than a man, spoke in a fractured tongue and had a liking for women.
And an ever greater liking for men.
Men like Finlay.
As the first orange rays of the morning sun burned fresh life into the clear sky, and the forest breathed a wakeful sigh and opened its eyes for a new day, Amber closed her own, let it all sink in, soothe her soul, ease her heart.
She let the wilds cleanse her spirit and renew her strength.
And she smiled.
Epilogue
The first thing that stung his senses on awakening was the smell. He gagged almost immediately, his mind racing with unbidden images of dead things, rot, maggots feeding hungrily on putrefying carcasses.
Finlay’s throat caught fire as he violently heaved, vomiting himself into full consciousness as he expelled a stew of moonshine and half-digested meat down the side of his face and onto the hard, stone floor.
The Wild: A Campfire Tale (Razorblade Candies Book 3) Page 4
