"What the hell are you doing here?"
Jim had surprised the ranger and his team of volunteers when he had suddenly appeared in their office again. The sun had set an hour before that, and Jim was eager to get in a good hour of searching before calling it a night.
He knew that neither he or the boys would sleep well that night if they knew Caleb was still out there with that creature. Injured or unable to defend himself. It was an extremely dangerous situation, and one that Jim wasn't too crazy about involving innocent civilians in, but he also realized that his hands were tied as far as that was concerned. When it came to law enforcement who did not know about the supernatural, there was little he could say or do to make them see reason.
"I came here to offer my services," Jim replied coolly, as he jiggled the bag of weaponry he brought along with him.
With a creature that was still unknown, he hadn't taken any chances, and had packed an arsenal to defend himself and anyone that dared to come along with him in those harsh woods.
"Aren't you the pastor here?" the ranger asked.
"I am."
"So why are you carting around a bag of ammunition?"
Jim was prepared for that argument. Whenever he happened to encounter a local who recognized him as the pastor, it always took them by surprise to see him leading somewhat of a double life.
"I just want to find my friend," Jim said, as he slammed the bag down on the front counter. "And I came prepared for anything."
"Well, our guys are seasoned professionals," the ranger said. "They can handle themselves out there."
"Not when something is chewing apart victims by the minute," Jim said, "and we can't waste time arguing about this. I'm going, that's my friend out there."
The ranger looked slightly miffed that he was being challenged, but wisely chose not argue when he saw that the elder hunter wasn't about to back down.
It was his suicide mission, he figured, as he suited up, strapping a rifle to his waist as he assembled the team of men at his disposal.
"Alright, men," he announced, turning to face them. "This monster-animal," he corrected himself with a shake, "has taken another victim. A young man. We need to find him before the animal has a chance to...we just need to find him. Are we all clear on that?"
Jim noticed that he wouldn't directly say the word "killed" out of deference for him.
"We should split up," Jim suggested, "cover more ground-"
"And let the thing pick us off one by one?" one of the volunteers asked skeptically.
"We split up," Jim continued, as if there had been no interruption. "We cover more ground."
The ranger shook his head in mild annoyance that his rescue operation was being hijacked, but quickly recovered once he realized the strategy behind the suggestion.
"We split up in twos, have a partner with you always," the ranger said. "You spot the creature, you shoot to kill."
Making sure his team each had a weapon to defend themselves with, the ranger, along with Jim and the small group of volunteers, set out. The station was situated directly on the outskirts of the forest, giving them a major head start on finding Caleb.
As Jim stepped through the rough terrain and over the precariously low hanging branches that were hard to spot in the dark, he shone his flashlight on anything and everything that might look like it could hide a creature and his injured friend, but if this creature was believed to be supernatural like he thought, the monster would make it near impossible to be found. Not dwelling on those thoughts any longer than necessary, Jim kept his wits about him and his weapons handy.
"We stop at ten," the ranger informed his group. "In the meantime, be diligent and look for any clues."
Jim barely listened: He had his own pattern he was following, had his own set of rules that were far removed from the ones the ranger had laid out for them. Pausing in his stride, he leaned down to inspect a sliver of something that the moonlight illuminated. Feeling his heart sink when his finger brought back a small amount of blood, he stood up deliberately, and began to follow the tentative trail that had been laid down for him.
"Where are you going?" the ranger called, looking over and seeing Jim begin to wander away from the group, and deeper off the path they had been navigating on.
"Just stay there." Feeling a bit like he was giving out orders to children, he knew they would not listen.
If this was a monster, there was no way he wanted any of those people near it. Not that it would be that easy to convince them to turn back once they had already started, but he would do his best.
"No way. We're going," the ranger said, as he and his group caught up to him.
"It's too dangerous," Jim argued calmly, used to this tactic by now after having raised two boys for the past seven years. "I know my way around these things, and I know my way around these woods."
It wasn't the first time he had found himself trekking through wooded and forested areas at night. His tracking skills were especially sharp, then and he knew that he would probably be able to move faster without the constraints of having to protect innocent civilians from this thing.
"You need the backup!" one of the volunteers shouted. "This thing has killed five people already-"
"And if you don't get off your high horse and calm down, it might kill you," Jim said. "Each minute we spend arguing about this, this thing might kill my friend, so we all need to shut up and do what's best for him."
And he was certain that meant going this alone. Caleb was too smart to be railroaded by a regular bear or other forest creature. It had be something monstrous, something highly intelligent.
"We have an obligation to protect you," the ranger countered after a second, "and I have an obligation to find your friend-"
Whatever he had been about to say was cut off when the same pair of talons that Dean had so clearly described, reached out and grabbed the ranger.
His screams of utter horror and pain, were the only guiding light that Jim and the other had as they zigzagged through the harsh terrain, hoping to find their lost guide before it was too late.
"Ranger!" Jim yelled, his eyes scanning the area frantically, hoping to find the lost man before the creature did something to him.
"Ranger!" the other volunteers called. "He's gone. That thing grabbed him-"
"You see what I mean?" Jim demanded, turning back to face them. "I told you all to turn back before something like this happened. Now we have to find him, if he's not already dead, and my friend."
This would waste precious time to find Caleb and get him the help he needed before something even worse happened. Taking a second to rein in his emotions before they spilled over, he took a deep breath and tried to find his way to rational thinking.
The night couldn't have gone worse if it had tried, and each second they spent searching for the lost ranger, the longer it would take to find his injured friend.
The drops of blood on the ground had scared him deeply. It was fresh, and that meant that whatever had grabbed Caleb, had been strong enough to drag him through those woods, leaving him scarred, bloody, and hurt.
"Well, what do we do now?"
"We find him, if we can," Jim said, shaking his head in disbelief. "And then you all are going back to safety."
No one argued with that plan.
What had happened to the ranger, had scared them all to their wits. Jim just wished that it didn't have to take the monster grabbing another person for them to realize that it was too dangerous out there for them.
"How do you track so well?" One of the volunteers wondered.
"Years and years of practice," Jim replied.
It was almost a prerequisite to hunting. If you wanted to become a good hunter, you had to learn how to track in order to find the various supernatural creatures that wanted to hide from you.
"Wow-" the woman's awe at Jim's expertise quickly switched to a scream of horror and a thud, signaling she had fallen over something or someone.
"What is it?" Jim said, as he and the others quickly converged around her.
Scrambling away from the body in front of her, she covered her mouth in poorly disguised terror. It was their ranger. His shirt was slashed, exposing the mess of blood and bones that his body had become in the space of only a few minutes.
"Alright," Jim said, as he addressed the group. "The station is only a few miles from here. Can you make it?"
They all nodded in synchronization as they silently walked back from the way they had come earlier that night.
Jim felt bad at leaving them alone in this mess, but he knew the creature wouldn't head for them now. Not after it had just devoured a full-grown man.
Not wanting to give up quite yet, he kept his gun at the ready as he picked his way through more of the overgrown terrain, as he wandered deeper and deeper into the forest. If he was going to find anything, he knew the creature would want to keep it well-concealed from the regular, human eye. What it hadn't counted on, was the trained eye that Jim had developed over a period of time of hunting.
Spotting an outcropping of rocks that looked like it doubled as an overgrown cave, complete with a small entrance, he walked toward it, his heart hammering in his chest as he fingered the smooth trigger under his finger. Inside the cave, the smell that assaulted his senses, nearly had him turning back. Human decomposition, and lots of it. Determined to press on, he inhaled a deep breath and tried to endure it.
A small cough alerted him to a dark corner in the cave. One that would have gone unnoticed by him if he hadn't been looking directly at it.
"Caleb!"
Relief flooded through his veins as he finally locked eyes with his friend.
"Finally," Caleb said, with a groan. "That son of a bitch."
"Are you alright?" Jim pressed, as he got out his hunting knife to cut him down.
"Mostly. Be careful," Caleb added, when he saw what Jim was about to do. "My shoulder. It's hurt."
"Alright."
Careful to keep the pressure off his shoulder, Jim quickly cut the ropes that had bound Caleb's hands over his head, and gently lowered him to the ground.
"I know what it is."
"I do, too."
"Are the boys-"
"They're fine."
"Good," Caleb said, as he swallowed convulsively. "I need you to," he closed his eyes against the pain, "pop my shoulder back in place."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I won't be able to do anything without it."
"Okay. "
Firmly placing his hands in the appropriate positions on Caleb's shoulder, Jim waited a beat before roughly pushing it back in place.
The low hiss of pain from his friend, was the only indication he had that it had gone right. Wiping his hand across his brow, he helped Caleb stand.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"No, just some cuts and bruises."
"Do you have a flare gun?"
Caleb shook his head. "Do you?"
"Yeah," Jim said, as he passed one over to him. "That's the only thing that will kill these things."
"You bet."
Some creatures responded to salt and iron. Some responded to electric shock. Others, like the wendigo, only responded to fire.
A flare gun was the only immediate weapon they had at their disposal.
As they began their precarious walk out of the cave, both men kept their eyes and ears peeled for any sign of the cannibalistic creature.
"So what happened after it grabbed you?" Jim asked.
"It dragged me, and then strung me up like I was a turkey or something, and then fed on someone right next to me."
"I'm sorry."
"It wasn't the most pleasant thing to hear-"
Whatever he had been about to say, was cut off suddenly when the creature reappeared. Angry that its victim had gotten away, it gave chase as the two men ran headlong through the forest, guns in hand as they readied them for use.
Feeling it close in, Caleb spun around and pressed down on the trigger. It was a clean shot to the head, the only one besides the heart, that truly mattered.
As the thing collapsed at his feet, he breathed a sigh of tired relief as he and Jim made the short walk back to the station and their car.