Chapter 3 - Confrontation
I had never seen anything like it in my entire life, in my nightmares, maybe, but never in my waking. It had a vaguely humanoid figure, but was definitely anything but. Its "skin" looked like thick old leather and you could see the blue veins crisscrossing beneath the flesh. What I assumed was its arms were crossed over it's torso and appeared fused to the flesh underneath. Its featureless head twisted and convulsed wildly as it took wobbly steps in my direction.
I was terrified. Perhaps even more terrified then the night of the fire. Fire was something real, while it could be destructive, it was something that belonged in this world. This thing in front of me did not. It was an abomination and if it had not been in front of me this very moment I would never believe someone who tried to convince me it as real. I stumbled backwards trying to find something I could use as a weapon while tying to keep an eye on the monster that was quickly making its way over to me. I wasn't sure exactly what it would do to hurt me, it had no claws, no teeth, but I wasn't going to take any chances.
I grabbed a thick branch in my hands. Having this made me feel a bit more confident and I confronted the creature.
"W-what are you? What do you want? Did . . did you do that?" I was referring to the inside of the tent. I don't know why I assumed it could understand me. A monster with no visible mouth clearly could not respond to my questions.
"Stop where you are! I-I'm warning you," I stammered, unsure of myself. "If you take one more step towards me . . ." I hesitated. I had never fought anyone, hurt an animal, nothing like that, so why did I think I could defend myself against this?
I didn't have time to continue wondering if I was prepared or not because at that moment the creature lunged for me, head down, in an attempt to ram me in the chest. I very narrowly dodged the monster's attack. I brought my branch up to my chest and before I had time to make a plan of attack the creature made its second attack. This time I was better prepared to respond and I brought my weapon down across the creature's neck and upper back causing it to stumble. Before the monster had time to react I smacked it in the chest sending it falling backwards. It started writhing on the ground making a terrible screaming noise (from where the noise came I have no idea). I decided I needed to end it before the thing had time to right itself, so I hit it over the head with my branch silencing it for good.
It was quiet. My heavy breathing and pounding heart were the only sounds I could hear. I dropped my beach and backed away quickly from bloodied dead creature in front of me. It was the first thing I had ever seriously harmed let alone killed. The monster had come at me , clearly meaning to harm me, so it was only self defense . . . but despite that knowledge I still felt like I had committed a murder. I wiped my hands repeatedly over my clothes trying to rid myself of "blood stained hands". I backed up over to the entrance of the tent and sat down facing away from the monster and picked up the small black radio. Wasn't this thing going crazy just a minute ago? I know I had heard it while the monster attacked me, but why did it fail so suddenly when the monster died? Was it able to detect the monster even before I could? If there were any more of those things and if my theory was correct . . . this would be a very useful tool to have.
I pocketed the radio and stood up. I hoped I wouldn't encounter anymore of those things, but if I did I would be prepared. I didn't trust my branch to land very many more blows before snapping, so I traded it out for a different one. There didn't seem to be reason for me to longer at the campsite any longer, so I started down the path hoping this time it would lead me quickly to an exit and not into another confrontation.