Desperate Times
Chapter 3
Whitney decided she really didn't need this new distraction. She was already in deep shit now there was something in the woods, something that was most definitely not a cougar. It was hungry as well and possibly hurt. She looked at the glowing green streaks left on her window sill and counter, not wanting to touch them but knowing she had to clean it up. Sighing she grabbed a tea towel and wiped the mess up wondering if it might be radioactive. Pulling a carton of eggs out of the fridge along with another frying pan she went back to trying to feed herself.
Although the not as satisfying as bacon could have been she was full not long after. Sitting at the Island on a bar stool her mind wandered back to the green fluid she had cleaned up. It had been glowing and had continued to glow on the tea towel that was now in the trash.
Whatever was out there wasn't human whether or not it had been at one point or not.
Weyland Industries had something to do with it. They were involved because no way would it be coincidence that they would manage to find out from the three people who knew she was in town (and if they found her that easily who else might?) And come to warn her about dangerous animals in less than twenty four hours of her arrival unless they were really pounding ground. Searching for it, which also didn't make sense, Weyland was a company involved with property and technology not environmental things. Unless they just tried their hands at biological warfare. Or on the other hand it could be an alien, she herself wasn't a believer, but the idea wasn't completely unreasonable. There was that town in Colorado a few years back that exploded and a lot of people were still sceptical on the vague reports that the press released.
She didn't have time for this. She needed to keep herself safe and prepare for her own issues. Not feed some angry, dangerous thing in the bushes that was probably looking to eat her instead. But she was going to, pulling a side of beef ribs and three sausage rings out of the cold room, her logic being if it was too full maybe it wouldn't eat her. For a person that had accepted that they were going to die she was doing a lot to not die, Whitney thought bitterly.
Now the important question, should she season the ribs?
He woke to the sensation of falling; starting awake he grabbed the branch he was still sitting on so hard he heard it groan from the pressure. Relearning how to breathe he slowly relaxed his grip on the tree.
He hated those dreams. Dreams of falling. They had been happening regularly for the past two months of his captivity but in there he couldn't tell if he was dreaming or he had just been given another injection. Or breathing in the gases they liked to pump into his cell but by the time you realized it you would be collapsing, falling, limp to the ground. He calmed himself with the knowledge that he was no longer in that place by the feel of the course bark in his hands. The suns light warming him much unlike the harsh unnatural lights he had become accustom to.
He had to go back though, he wished he didn't, he was no longer the warrior that he had been. He would have preferred to have managed to activate his wrist console and have gone to Cetanu with his yin'tekai. Now he was left here with his shame.
He had given up in that place, turned his back on his gods and his people. Watched his mei'hswei die. That's who he had failed.
Thei-de N'ritja had been a better hunting partner than any of his true clan brothers. He remembered this first time they met onThei-de N'ritja clan's ship when he had been traveling with a small group of his own clan mates. They had been refuelling their ship and he had taken the time to explore a little. He had tried to fight Thei-de N'ritja, mostly because he had a female's name, when he had been introduced to him by another. Thei-de N'ritja had laughed in his face good naturedly and told him he could fight him if he pleased as long as they would drink together after. Turned out Thei-de N'ritja had been named most appropriately, his form was flawless and fast, and he moved with an art that was most dance-like. He hadn't even managed to get a hit in before he had found himself on his back beaten. But he couldn't hate Thei-de N'ritja, especially not after drinking a bottle of c'nlip with him. His clan was just so serious about everything, stiff and ridged with both the hunt and socializing. Thei-de N'ritja was entirely opposite full of jokes and stories. It was refreshing and he had found himself enthralled. So when Thei-de N'ritja had invited him to go hunt with him he had agreed without a second thought.
He missed his brother and was ashamed of failing him. Letting those monsters take him apart bit by bit with their shining tools and jars they put everything that he was inside. That was the only reason he hadn't killed himself yet. He needed to redeem his mei'hswei's honour and take his body back from the humans. Then he would blow that place to Paya and back to bring Thei-de N'ritja and him to their u'sl-kwe. That he had promised.
It was eerily quiet near the cottage today she decided. No chirping birds, no chattering of squirrels and the silence was oddly refreshing in the woods. Just the sound of the wind and the trees that moved with it. She moved with what stealth she had as she set the bear traps around her vicinity.
Stepping on the leavers on either side of the trap she used her fingers, protected by a set of thick gloves, to pry the blunt but damaging toothed contraption open like the mouth of monster. Pushing hard against the tightly coiled springs she then lifted the dog, a small bit of metal that acts like a trigger for the mechanism, and set it under the now raised pan that lay in the center. She pulled her hands back out of the traps reach to see if the dog would hold the traps pressured springs from snapping forward. Traps are generally of little danger of their setters but accidents do happen and these trap springs she had tightened not with intention to hold a struggling animal anymore but to main and snap bone.
The trap held and she then gently sprinkled some of the leaves nearby on top to camouflage.
Setting traps could either be a really good idea or a really bad idea, she had originally thought, it all depended on what got caught in them. Either an angry hit man who was human or an angry green bleeding "whatever it might be" that was possibly still out there. She had opted for, simply because she was curious to see what would happen whether she caught option A or option B. Picking up the chain lengths of her remaining traps and the bag of spike accompanied by a small mallet she used to secure them to the ground she continued on her way.
Fifteen down only nine to go.
He had snuck down his tree, spear in hand, with little incident to figure out what the human was doing. He had been watching for a bit, with little success, trying to spot it inside the cottage. That led to the possibility that it was unmoving inside its dwellings or the more unnerving aspect that it had come outside when he had been sleeping. He was hoping the former.
There was also another tantalizing aroma on the breeze. Lingering, almost as though trying to bait him out of his hiding. Quietly he slunk to the side of the house looking around and testing the air, attempting to scent out the aroma of the female that he had acquired while stealing her food. There she was. Downwind of him by the path that Eric had come down in his machine. That settled him slightly knowing it was unlikely she was lying in wait of him, her scent was too weak to be close by.
Now for that other smell.
It rose from the heated silver dome on legs that had obviously been pulled out of the small noisy building besides wood house. It had a handle on the top of it. Compressing his spear and slinging it on his back, he then gently grasped the lid and lifted, under the lid lay a half cooked delicious smelling rack of ribs. Good thing he was still hungry.
Lying on the ground besides the silver oven stand was a bottle. Curious, he took a second to figure that it was a twist off cap instead of a pop off he was used too, sniffing cautiously at the rim of the glass bottle. He then stuck a finger into the reddish-brown liquid inside. Tasting it with his tongue slowly he smiled. Thank Paya for this child maker.
Sauce in one hand meat in the other he made his way back to his tree excited for another scavenged meal. Quickly smelling the air through his mouth he realized that the female, and current provider, was coming this way. Moving with intent now he bounded to the base of his tree. Slinging the meat onto his shoulder and gripping the bottle with his mandibles he began to quickly and quietly scale the tree. Digging his foot claws into the bark for support he reached from one branch to another hefting his weight up with little difficulty.
Snap. The rotten branch in his right hand suddenly broke off clean from its base. Holding onto it with his one hand, his left gripped the tree desperately, he flexed his feet trying to dig his claws in the bark. He could feel the slick meat on his shoulder beginning to slip. He was about half way up; almost twenty-five feet from the ground, dropping the branch would not go unnoticed. It would be loud and the human was drawing near. However it was his cover or his meal. Making his choice he let go of the branch and climbed as fast as could.
Looking back as the branch finally smacked the ground with a loud thunk he almost fell in shock as a toothed trap snapped up from the impact. Completely hidden in the foliage the branch had fallen right into the trap, its toothed jaws crushed the branch in two, spraying a small shrapnel of splinters into the air. The metallic twang of the springs followed by the sound of the wood being snapped hit his ears seconds after watching it occur. His eyes widened, that had been set there while he slept, right under his tree. The human knew he was here. Had too, he had entered her home, but she knew he was in this tree. She had set a trap for him and he had been walking through it like a blind fool. That trap could have broken his leg!
Crunching and the smell of sweat alerted him of the human's presence. Scrambling up the rest of the tree he hid in what leaves were left on the branches and not lying on the ground. He needed more cover than this, a large spruce tree ten feet away would do, its green needle laden branches would be impossible to see him through.
Standing precariously he tried to judge the jump and at what angle would be best. He was running out of time, he could smell the sweat and meat from the human on the wind, a little ways down the spruce there was a break in the branches. Aiming for it, meat in one hand, sauce in his mandibles and spear across his back, he leapt. This was going to sting.
She had heard her trap snap closed on her way back to the cottage. It had surprised her at first then realising what had made that sound it took all her will power not to run with her knife in hand to see what she had caught. Walking calmly with her bag over her shoulder she breathed deeply. The anticipation had her heart racing against her ribs. As she drew near she pulled her knife from its sheath and set the bag of spikes lightly on the ground. Suddenly wishing she also had her pistol with her as well she realized how under prepared she was. Rounding the few trees that stood in the way she looked in the small space she had set this particular trap in. Well, at least something had set it off and not the wind, looking at the branch that lay in pieces around the closed metal jaws.
Peering up into the trees against the bright afternoon sun she look for were the branch had fallen from. About half way up a bare and rather rough looking scratched up ash was the fresh wound in its bark. It sure didn't look like it had fallen on its own. It appeared as though someone had pulled downwards, hard, and broke it off.
There was something in the tree near the top, glinting in the sun. It was her frying pan. She snorted quietly. Knowing whatever had broken the branch as well as hung her frying pan up in the tree was long gone with all the noise she had made. The trunk looked like someone had taken a blade to it, with numerous punctures and deep furrows down the bark. She ran her hand lightly over the claw marks before heading back towards the cabin. She paused only for a moment to give the deep claw marks a second nervous glance.
When she cleared the trees she immediately saw her pillaged empty barbeque still smoking besides the cottage. Hell, it even took the goddamn BBQ sauce with it. Now she was becoming paranoid, she thought, as she gazed up at the tree. This thing was using her, watching her every move, moving around her home without her even catching a glimpse of it. She could use that kind of skill helping her.
The sun was beginning to set. The days becoming shorter and shorter as winter continued. Tonight was going to be cold, the coldest night so far dropping down to minus thirteen degrees. She was going to have a bonfire tonight as she had planned and see if her little thief wanted to come out show itself.
He couldn't believe he had made a clean get away. How that human didn't hear him smack face first into the thick trunk was beyond him. Maybe it just sounded so loud because it was his head that hit the tree. He had dug all four sets of claws deep into the brittle bark until he hit the soft insides with his vision blurring and pain sprouting from under his dirty bandages.
Clinging for his life he listened to the female shuffle about beneath him. He could feel his over worked claws beginning to peel back from his skin. Eventually the human moved on and a breath he hadn't realized he was holding rushed out in a cloud of hot condensation. The warm beads of water tickling his mandibles.
He had eaten quickly, savouring, but not wasting any time. The meat bleeding down his chin and into his hands, slopping the dense brown sauce on generously. After he had stripped the thin almost uniform bones of the meat he cracked them open in his hands to get at what little marrow was inside. For the first time in two earth months he felt full. The queasy feeling of having his stomach stretching to hold all the red meat was worth the sensation of his body using those nutrients to begin the slow process of healing his broken body. Tomorrow he would be in much better shape and that much closer to avenging his brother. This is if he didn't freeze overnight.
It was already growing colder and night was going to be coming soon. He needed to find a way to keep himself warm. With his shift suit he would be able to stay heated in conditions beyond freezing, but without it... By nature his kind were better suited for hot climates like Home planet. At the peak of the heat at Home planet even he found it uncomfortably hot, your skin getting tight and itchy from the moisture being sucked out. However without his shift suit he wasn't as durable to the cold as he would like to be. First his skin would become brittle and split open into wounds, not long after he would begin surrendering to the cold.
Sighing he began to fall toward the idea that maybe the human would have to be his saviour. The female would see a fire like a huge beacon in the night, a shelter was better but in his already atrocious condition there was no guarantee it would be enough to keep him warm enough. Plus to build a shelter he would no doubt draw attention to himself whether it be with noise building it but it also had to be large enough to fit him.
Wheetnay Ooomass, she didn't contact Eric, is she had there would have been thirty men and a chopper before he could think of running. She knew he was here but didn't sick the hounds on him, it was interesting. What could the little huntress want? A fight maybe but what would be the point? She might want his head for a trophy and in that case at least he could relate. Trophy's represented wealth to his kind and he would rather be treated with value then being analyze and autopsied. This human was the lesser evil then dying in the cold or going back to the town to get captured. Anything before getting caught again, even his pride. If she wanted a fight he would give her one.
She started the bonfire in the rock encircled pit in the yard. The flaming newspaper started the dry wood up easily. The fire soothed her, the smell of smoke and crackling sounds filling the air, only pleasant memories came to the front of her mind as she stared into the orange heat. Helping her father gather kindling on a camping trip, marshmallows, her mother laughing as her father presented her the badly burnt hotdogs he had attempting to cook. She watched the light dance feeling hypnotised as she felt its warmth wrap around her front gently. Embracing her from the cold as her mother and father would if they had been alive. It hadn't been the fire that had killed them.
Placing the steel grate she had grabbed out of the shed onto of the rocks edges over the fire she turned and walked briskly back to the cabins porch not letting the tears that had been waiting for nearly three years spill over her eyelashes. They could wait another three as far as she was concerned.
Back inside the cabin she started to unpack what belongings she had managed fit in a duffle bag. Basic clothing, a picture frame she placed face down on a coffee table, a small box of personal items that had been rescued from the fire, a brand new cell phone, her 45 cal's holster, and a few boxes of ammo. Placing the cell phone on the island counter along with the gun and ammo, she then began to rifle through the clothing she had hastily thrown inside. A chequered pattern caught her eyes, her diner dress, she must have accidently thrown it in out of a drawer.
She didn't need money when she had taken that job. Only a distraction from what life had become without the light of her family. Distant disinterest was what she had become to see as life, living in shade of greys, hoping from job to job, working only as long as it could prove entertaining. The waitressing had proven amusing with the late hours and unpredictable customers in the poorer part of Vegas.
Now life was taking color again. Being up at the old cabin, life full of dangers and mystery, it was reawakening her. A small smile skittered quickly across her lips as she threw her chequered past into the garbage can alongside a still glowing soiled dish cloth.
Speaking of the little thief it was steadily growing dimmer outside and her bonfire would be hot embers, perfect to cook sausages on. Bringing nothing but her knife and the three sausage rings she had taken out earlier, she made her way out to the fire pit. The fire was smoldering red hot embers with licks of orange flames dancing in the charcoals and fresh wood. She set the sausages on top of the grate protecting the fire beneath it to cook. She had rolled two large chopping stumps from behind the shed where the wood pile along with its blue tarp to use as chairs. Both as thick as her middle and coming up to her knees they were both aged shades of grey and sat well on the uneven ground. Her stool was placed so her back was to her cabin so she could look into the woods with her quests directly across the pit.
Sitting down on the rough stump she had claimed she looked out into the woods in the direction the trap had been set off earlier. The only weapon she had brought out with her was her hunting knife so she wouldn't appear as a threat however she had set her compound bow at the door of the cabin arrow already nocked and ready.
She took out her knife now and spun it in her palms, it had been her eighteenth birthday present, a symbol of her new independence and strength. It was a simple silver blade being five inches long and its grip black and ridged with a slightly worn look from use. The only embellishment on the blade was her initials engraved onto one side of the blade in a sweeping elegant font. She watched the warm orange glow glint of the blade in the night highlighting the curvature and it's still sharp edge. Three weeks after she had been given the blade she had used it to stab a man who attacked her in an alleyway. Her assailant survived the minor wound but she had suspicions that he wasn't so lucky when he had encountered her father once he had gotten out of the hospital. Nobody touches a merchs babygirl and gets away with it and if it hadn't been her father it would have been the half a dozen well-muscled and dangerous men she had called uncles all her life. She would have called her uncles now if any of them had still been alive, but as she now knew quite well, life isn't that kind. They all had chosen a dangerous lifestyle and each of them had paid for it with their humanity and eventually their lives. Even her father.
She heard before she saw, the soft rustling of snow and leaves as something moved with amazing stealth around the clearing just out of sight. Drawing in a deep breath of chilled air she held it in her lungs and strained her ears. She could hear the rope hanging her now stiff buck creak with the soft wind, the sound of the generator from within the shed, the wood burning in the pit, and underneath all of that was the sound was something moving. Goosebumps formed underneath her layers and parka not from the cold but from the eyes she could feel upon her. The forest around her was dark, the firelight only illuminating the first row of trees and it almost looked like there was a wall of black nothingness beyond those trees. As thought her little clearing was the only thing in existence of the universe. Her gaze was drawn to the tress across from her as though she could see the intense eyes that were watching her every movement. Standing slowly she put both arm in the air turning in a circle slowly, then she tossed her knife smoothly into the ground to her right burying it to the hilt in the dirt. It was only five feet away so if she needed to defend herself it would be accessible.
The noise that came from the darkness was like something from a sci-fi monster flick. It was a wet rasping of a harsh breath accompanied by a fast clicking growl that echoed through the trees. It was unlike anything she had ever heard before. Then after a moment's pause there was the sound of something being thrown and she instinctively ducked as the solid thunk of the object striking the hard ground. No pain followed the noise though and she straightened to see what had been tossed. It was a spear large and detailed, at its widest around 6 inches in diameter then slowly tapering down thinner and thinner into a point. A leather strap decorated with feathers and a small animal skull hung down from the two second largest segments. It wobbled back and forth from the force that it had been thrown with and it had landed right next to her hunting knife with scary precision.
The rasping clicks were louder this time almost as to trill a warning to her, she turned back to the spot where the spear had been thrown only in time to see the monster come lumbering out of the darkness.
It spread its muscular arms wide and screamed at her for all its worth sounding like a bald eagle crossed with a lion. She flinched back completely unprepared for its raw human but at the same time inhuman appearance. It looked like a large bodybuilder frame wise but it was anything but, it face was most striking and it would almost seem like it head was disproportional to its body, with its large sloped forehead and think black tubes framing it like hair. It had a thick brow with shining yellow eyes beneath it that caught the firelight and appeared to glow in rage. It had no mouth but instead large mandibles that were spread wide and ominously around a wet hole that was is esophagus where the loud shrieking emerged. Even more disturbing than its appearance was the beings condition. Its natural coloring was impossible to determine as almost all its body was covered in either glowing green or dark red blood, some dried and some fresh, dribbling from various areas. Its sex was covered by makeshift clothing made from deer hide, probably the one she had thrown into the bush earlier in the day and it had a dirty and blood soaked bandage wrapped around its forehead but beside that it was nude. It most disturbing wound was uncovered on its toned torso in a thick Y shaped wound held together by surgical staples like an autopsied cadaver in a morgue. Beginning at both shoulders to meet in the middle of its chest and travel down past its loincloth. Other smaller cuts and bruises covered its body along with two of its tube like hairs missing from the right of his head, the stumps looking painful and swollen.
It roared again this time arching its back and face to the sky and lifting its arms high, legs spread wide in a fighting stance, challenging her. She stumbled back into her log tipping it over and falling on her ass to her ground in fear her heart pounding in her ears. She couldn't tear her eyes away from its face with its haunting yellow gaze full of challenge and hate. Accusing her of something, like its wounds were her fault, this thing hated her. Her looking in his eyes seemed to agitate it further and it growled and clicked it annoyance.
She tore her gaze to the fire and the sausages cooking on the grate. She realized now how bad her idea was, that this thing would not be her saviour against the mob men but was actually a greater evil. If it showed her mercy after what her fellow humans had done to it she would be surprised. The growling and clicking quieted from across the fire and she tipped her log back over slowly and sat down quietly, her eyes at the creatures feet, doing her best to look as unthreatening as possible. Being meek wasn't her nature but there comes a time for every card in ones hand to be played and little did this thing know she had a whole deck.
Translations
Yin'tekai - Honor
Thei-de N'ritja - Death Dance
C'lnip - Alcoholic Beverage
U'sl-kwe - Final Rest
