“What’s going on?” Bradley asked, looking back at the dreadlocked man.
“I smell something.”
“Yes, that generally is your job around here.”
“No. That’s not what I—” He shook his head and took several deep breaths. Jaelle could feel him scenting the air much like she did when she was trying to get her bearings. “There’s blood. A lot of it. And enough ketones in the air to make you sick, but they’re all stale… lingering.”
“Shit. Not again.”
“Not again?” Jaelle cut in. “This has happened before?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve walked into a massacre. Sometimes it’s gang activity, sometimes it’s just your run of the mill mass murderer, and sometimes it the Aberrant we’ve been tailing. Considering our current circumstances, I’m willing to bet it’s the last.”
“But if Creed is here, that has to mean the rest of your men have to be around, too, they’re still going after him, right?”
“I don’t think so,” Dannon murmured. “The scents I’m picking up are at least three days old, and they don’t have a tracker in their number anymore. If anything, those men are headed to a Clan location with a Hunter reserve and replenishing their number.”
“Wait, if they’re heading back to a place with leaders, won’t they have to tell them of your guys’, uh… defecting?”
“Yes.”
“So, you guys will be or are already declared criminals who are aiding and abetting a monster?”
“Sounds about right.”
“Shit indeed,” she breathed, the wind completely taken out of her. She had never stopped to think about the repercussions of Bradley’s willingness to help her. Now, if she didn’t succeed, all these men would have their necks on the chopping block for her. The sheer fact that they were willing at all was mind boggling.
“I’ll get on the walkies and warn the others. We’ll take this carefully.”
“Good,” Dannon said, nodding. “There’s something else on the air, but I can’t quite place it. Just know that it makes the hair on the back of my neck do all sorts of uncomfortable things.”
“Fantastic.”
Bradley went about informing his men of the situation and then they were moving forward, albeit much more cautiously. Jaelle didn’t know if it was her own senses, or just Dannon’s apprehension that had creepy crawlies shimmying along her skin, but there was a general feeling of… uneasiness hanging in the air.
There was no conversation as they continued toward the fabled outpost that they had been their destination for several days, just the heavy feeling of anticipation weighing down the air around them. It wasn’t good to be on edge for so long, but there wasn’t like there was much of an option.
After a few miles, she began to be able to smell the metallic tang of old blood herself. And then the bitter after-scents of adrenaline and fear. Then the aftermath of fire. Something terrible had happened at this outpost we were searching for, and she was very much beginning to doubt that they would find the medic Bradley was hoping for.
Jaelle hated to think of what Dannon was smelling, his sense being far more powerful than hers. His stomach had to be roiling, which made sense, considering his normally golden-hued face had taken on a green shade. She chose not to say anything, however, figuring that drawing attention to something he couldn’t escape wouldn’t be doing him any favors.
Then, after about fifteen minutes, they finally pulled past a line of trees into what looked like a small, dirt parking lot and found themselves staring at a quaint little village.
Or what have might once been a village.
“My god…” Bradley breathed.
Jaelle couldn’t even get her mouth to make words. There was blood. So much blood. It was everywhere, even places where it didn’t even make sense for it to be. Perhaps the most disturbing thing was that she couldn’t even make out any bodies yet, or even parts of bodies. It was just… blood.
Cautiously, the team piled out of their cars, with the tension was palpable.
“Let’s take a wild formation, but make sure we all stay within view of each other. I don’t want anyone going off on their own, no matter what you think you might see or hear.”
There was a series of nods all around and then they were moving forward. Bradley stood at the head, of course, with Jaelle and another Hunter behind him. Dannon, surprisingly, didn’t stay in the vehicle but rather stayed smack dab in the center of the formation. It made sense, if Jaelle were him, she wouldn’t want to be alone in the car, either. Not when they didn’t know what had caused the rank scent of death to settle over the settlement so thickly.
Nothing happened between the parking lot and the first buildings that comprised the outpost. It wasn’t until they reached the houses that Jaelle had a bit of an epiphany. “Hey, um… where are all their cars?”
“What?” Bradley asked, his attention fully focused on the red stained ground they were treading across.
“I’m assuming the citizens here had to go on supply runs occasionally, or deliver medical care, or other tasks that required having a car. It’s not like they’re hermits from human society, right? So where are all their vehicles?”
The group stopped dead and seemed to consider that. “She’s right. There should be at least a couple of trucks here. Maybe a van. An ambulance to intercept a Shifter patient.”
They were quite a moment as Bradley seemed to think. “This outpost was set up. It had to be. Before whatever happened here, someone either took or sabotaged all their vehicles.”
“But if it was sabotage, wouldn’t we see the remains of their cars at least?”
“I don’t think it was either,” Javi said, a studious look on his face. “I think something attacked this town. Or somethings. Whichever it was, it was incredibly fast. I’d be willing to bet that those who could have gotten away in vehicle did, and that’s why none of them are here.”
“But if they got away, they would have sent out an alert. Town is only a couple of hours away from here. They would have known to pick up a phone.”
“Wait, Clan Leaders have phones?”
“Of course. This is the twenty-first century. What do you think we use, smoke signals?”
Jaelle opened her mouth to protest, but Bradley held up a hand. “Let’s not get side tracked. If they escaped then why haven’t we heard about it?”
The group continued to move forward, albeit even more slowly than before
“Because I don’t think they made it out of the woods. If we were to go exploring a little, I’d be willing to bet that we’d find plenty of cars that are empty other than more blood.”
“Well, we’ve no way to prove that right now, so let’s assume what you’re saying is true. If it is, that means whatever wiped out this town was doing it purposefully. They didn’t just want bloodshed, they had a plan.”
They reached the first building, what looked like some sort of barracks, and Bradley kicked the door in. Sure enough, the place was just as coated with crusty brown-red blood and there were still no bodies.
“Actually,” Jaelle murmured, “I don’t think they or it did.”
“Well, what is it then?” another Hunter asked. Michael maybe? She was terrible with both names and faces. “Either this was a plan and someone intentionally wiped out this town or it wasn’t.”
They spread out amongst the overturned bunks. A fight had definitely gone on here, but there was so much missing. It didn’t make sense. There should have been bodies on either side, and limbs or nails or teeth strewn about. The place had been picked over meticulously, but who went through all the trouble of removing flesh but not blood?
“I didn’t say that this wasn’t intentional,” Jaelle murmured. “I just don’t think the thing or things that did the attacking had the plan at all. I think it swarmed the down, did what it had to do, and then something else picked off those that managed to find a car.”
“So what, some sort of mastermind?�
�
Jaelle nodded, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
“What makes you think that there were two different entities?” Javi asked. “All I’m seeing is a lot of blood and missing cars. Nothing that indicates a tag-team effort.”
“Because something or someone had to be smart enough to make a plan about the cars. That leads me to think that it’s someone with experience. Someone… like Creed.
“But whatever attacked this town had no order. Look at the aftermath. There’s blood everywhere but no viscera, the buildings are mostly intact and there isn’t any looting. Whatever was here only had one thing it wanted, and it wasn’t mindless destruction.”
“What did it want then?”
“What’s the one thing we can’t find?” She looked to them, expecting the men to put the pieces together, but they were still staring at her curiously. “The bodies. For whatever reason, whatever or whoever attacked here, wanted the corpses.”
“But what would they nee—”
“Hey, I found something!”
Jaelle jolted, and looked in the direction of one of the Hunters that she wasn’t sure the name of. He was standing between what looked like a weapon and then a liquor cabinet, which was a very strange combination to see.
“Help me move this, will you?”
“I got you,” Javi offered, going to his side and helping him move one of the heavy pieces of furniture.
Sure enough, once they moved it a foot or so, something fell out with a sludgy sort of smack. Suddenly the smell of rot filled the room and Jaelle realized that it was a corpse.
“Poor soul,” she muttered, walking up alongside it. “Must have tried to wedge himself in there to hide.”
“He’s in military uniform,” Dannon said. “I can smell the starched duckcloth.”
“What could possibly be so scary that a soldier wou—” Bradley stopped mid-sentence, pushing Jaelle to the side so he could kneel down as well. “There. You see those bite marks around his shoulder?”
“Yeah?” Jaelle asked. Bite and claw marks were pretty standard as Shifter fights went.
“Look at the pattern and the bruising. Those weren’t made to wound and they weren’t made while this man was alive, either. And as far as I know, there’s only one creature who could do all this and has a penchant for eating the dead.”
Jaelle went cold, her stomach dropping out of her and to somewhere down in Antarctica. “A wendigo?” she whispered.
“Wendigos,” he corrected. “There’s no way just one was able to wipe out a whole town.”
“But how is that possible?” Javi hissed. “Wendigos aren’t pack monsters and will even rip each other apart over prey.”
“Unless there was enough prey to satiate them all, which is what I’m sure Creed promised them.” Jaelle stood, wiping her hands on her borrowed pants and trying not to show how scared she was. She had heard many a tale of Wendigos, but she had never seen one in person. “It’s a great plan, too. No one’s ever heard of Wendigos working together, so when they were attacked by one, they concentrated all their forces on fighting it. They never expected more to swoop in from behind, or the sides.”
Bradley nodded. “We need to get out of here right now. From what I’ve learned by tailing him, he could have roped any number of them into this.”
“I would say about fourteen of them,” another Hunter said from across the room.
“That’s a very specific number.”
“I know,” they continued. “I got it by counting how many of them are outside this window. I think that whole ‘getting out of here’ option has already passed.”
Chapter Four: Mythical Standoff
“Holy hell, you were not kidding,” Bradley breathed.
“That would be a pretty shit thing to kid about.”
Personally, Jaelle didn’t have any words at all, her mind unable to parse together any sort of logical phrase given what she was seeing.
Sure, she had heard of Wendigos plenty of times, even told a few spooky ghost stories by the campfire to humans who didn’t know the gravity of her words. But she had never seen one up close, and all the words she had didn’t seem to do it any justice at all.
The things were tall, nearly seven feet in height, not counting the horns that topped their heads. And speaking of those horns, they seemed to be a mix somewhere between deer and demon, some of the smaller one donned with antlers that would make an eight-point buck jealous and others with a moose-like rack, and other with curled horns that harkened directly back to Satan.
Their skin was a colorless, boney white, with lavender undertones that whispered of death and decay. It fit on their bodies strangely, hanging in some places with starvation-sag and pulled uncomfortably tight in others. All of their limbs were stretched out much farther than they should have been, giving them an eerie sort of spot right in the center of their uncanny valley.
They were all standing still, arranged in a semi-circle around the barracks. Jaelle didn’t know why they stood stationary, and she also didn’t know if it was a good thing. On one hand, it meant she wasn’t actively fighting them. On the other hand, it gave her time to take in each one of their terrifying features.
And God, there wasn’t a single thing about them that didn’t scream of wrongness. Like something had taken bodies that were once whole and twisted them beyond belief.
Even their faces were distinctly haunting. They looked startlingly similar to skulls despite Having flesh covering them. Their eyes were wide, twice as large as any Shifter’s she had ever seen, and pitch black with only the slightest hint of a blue dot in the center. For the most part, their mouths were closed, hiding what laid behind the pale skin there, but a few of the creatures had no lips, revealing dozens of jagged, thin teeth closer to a shark’s mouth than any sort of land creature. Their hands were unnaturally large as well, tipped in fingers several inches too long with thick, black claws at their tips. Or at least some of them were black. Most were so caked in the specific brown-red of dried blood that the onyx was almost impossible to see.
Perhaps one of the most bizarre things is that they were all wearing clothes. Or at least the remnants of what had once been clothes. Ranging from mildly battered to barely a rotting scrap, each of the fourteen were dressed in at least some semblance of clothing from this decade. Granted, their outfits were all tattered and soaked in blood, which she supposed often happened when one’s diet entirely subsisted off of the flesh of fellow Shifters.
Granted, these monsters in front of her could hardly be called Shifters. While they might have once been law abiding citizens, they were so far from that now there was hardly anything left.
However, she wouldn’t say that nothing was left. There was a cold, calculating intelligence in the gazes of the beasts as they breathed heavily in their spots. Not unlike a hunter, but not completely mindless either. Jaelle supposed that made sense in a way. The Wendigos’ prey wasn’t an animal, but rather fully sentient Shifters and -if they were very desperate- humans. If they were ever going to be able to eat, they needed to be at least be capable of forming a demi-coherent thought to outsmart their next meal.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dannon asked. “Last time we fought a Wendigo, Micah here nearly lost his eyes.”
“Nearly being the key word,” the Hunter, Micah, Jaelle guessed. “I made it out all right. We all did.”
“Yeah, but that was one. This is fourteen, assuming that more aren’t forming behind the building.”
“I’ll check,” Javi offered.
“I’d rather no one made any sort of movement right now,” Bradley continued. “Dannon, can you hear any heartbeats?”
“None other than ours.”
“Dammit, I—”
“Wait, I don’t think I communicated that correctly.” Jaelle looked over her shoulder to see the color had once more completely drained from the blind man’s face. “When I say I can’t hear any heartbeats, I mean any. So, those fourteen you see out there? I can k
inda smell something like rotting, but that’s it.”
“They… they don’t have a heartbeat?” Jaelle uttered, her skin growing even colder. “Then are they even alive?”
“Alive is a dubious term when it comes to Wendigos. Some of our scientists would argue that they’re suffering mutations caused by ingesting several specific proteins that are in Shifter flesh, but most citizens say it’s punishment handed down from the same Spirits who gifted us out blessings.”
“What do you think?”
“I think that we need to come up with a plan that will get all of us out of here alive.”
“I would agree with that. But how do we fight creatures that took down an entire town?”
“Thankfully, they don’t have the element of surprise that they had during the original attack. They also don’t have an Aberrant on their side.”
Jaelle swallowed fearfully. She didn’t like to think of herself as a coward, but these monsters looming before her made her want to turn tail and run. “I don’t know how much damage even a hippo can do against these guys.”
“We won’t be counting on that alone. Wendigos are spirits of famine and winter, so they’re not too keen on fire. What do we have here that can be burned or even better, exploded?”
“There’s the weapon’s cabinet. I’m sure there’s something there.”
“Something that wasn’t already removed in the initial fight?”
“Wait a minute,” Jaelle said, the faintest hint of an idea tickling at her mind. “The liquor cabinet. Alcohol burns off very quickly, but it’s a great way to buy a few seconds or even accelerate the immolation of things that may not catch fire as quickly.”
“Accelerate? Immolate? Look at Miss Dictionary over here.”
She could tell Javi was trying to break some of the tension but she wasn’t having it. “You can pick fun at my vocabulary if we survive this. For now, let’s try to spread out slowly and set up as much as we can before these cannibals decide to go from standby right into attack mode.”
“Good point.”
The minutes ticked by with Javi, Micah and another Hunter grabbing what they could from the liquor cabinet. Strangely, none of the Wendigos made a single move, still standing, staring, waiting. What for, she had no idea, but it filled Jaelle with more apprehension than she thought possible.
The Aberrants Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 26