Chapter Nine
Matthew
We learned over time how to track the creatures and even anticipate their attacks which happened every few days with an interval between. The joint attack on The Major's family and the Captain's on the same day was so rare as to be almost an oddity. There were more than just the two creatures we had seen but most attacks seemed to happen closer to the Mexican border, the further north we got the more rare such attacks became. Mastering the bow wasn't too difficult but we practiced daily when we made camp.
Slowly we learned more about our quarry, not that anything we learned helped us to kill them more easily. All we had was stealth and The Major who took chances to ensure a kill, driven on by the memory of his family, Luke, and Peter, butchered by such creatures. As we traveled we asked about the Captain but he had vanished and eventually even The Major had to accept that whatever the reason for snatching him his friend, his friend was dead.
It was a hard life, in the saddle from dawn every day, often riding for days. Weeks even before we crossed paths with another of them, mainly acting alone, but we were used to such hardships during the war and soon slipped into our old ways. Sometimes we were eyed with suspicion by townsfolk if we rode in but The Major had a way with him, he could charm the very birds out of the trees and we rarely had any trouble. Months went by, after all time meant nothing to us, we had no one waiting back home, nothing at all to draw us anywhere and our companions became our family, our brothers.
We were joined by a couple of our old companions from the regiment when we crossed their paths, drifters like we had been, with no reason to stay anywhere and we lost Jed. He found the constant traveling too much of a strain, he'd been injured during the war and it had weakened his constitution so we watched him go with our blessing. The newcomers Jack and Lee slotted in the gaps left by the Captain and Luke and we rode on. I began to wonder just how many of these creatures there were, sometimes it seemed we had killed the very last only for news to reach us of another atrocity sometimes disguised as a fire or accident. The Major had a nose for them, he seemed to know which were genuine and which the creatures covering their tracks and he was invariably right.
I tried to take Peter's place, to be there at The Major's side to share the burden but he became a loner and I began to wonder if we finally killed every one of them what The Major would do. I couldn't see him settling down somewhere with a wife and family. When we were riding he was single minded, when we camped he was there on the edge of the conversation while we ate and drank, usually strong black coffee, he discouraged alcohol saying it put us at a disadvantage as it slowed our reflexes and dulled our minds, but once we curled up by the camp fire, if it was safe to have one, I watched him seated a way off watching the countryside as if testing the very air, for creatures or a sign of our missing comrade I had no idea, but he was sitting there when I fell asleep and when I woke, no matter how early, he was still there in the same position. He no longer laughed or joked although occasionally we saw the old familiar smile but he had changed, the only thing that mattered was wiping these creatures from the face of the Earth..
Jasper
I watched my men as they made camp for the night, we'd had no sightings of the devils for days now so I allowed a fire and hot food. Matthew and Solomon were on first watch but food would be waiting when they were relieved by Jack and Lee in a couple of hours. Recently we'd been joined by Adam, a guy recognized by Solomon and who had fought alongside Jack. He was a cook and at last the men were eating decent meals instead of the quick and easy hard tack and jerky we often lived on for days at a time. The only constant was strong coffee which we drank by the gallon. I knew they thought me distant but I couldn't stop thinking about Luke and Peter, both slaughtered by these creatures. We had seen Luke's body or what remained of it and given it a Christian burial but Peter...to this day I had no idea when and how he had died although I could imagine the latter. Had he been taken to be drained of blood later or had he been killed soon after being taken? I could only hope for the latter but the idea he might have been carried off and kept alive for days haunted me.
I tried to keep count of the creatures we had destroyed and the months as they passed but time meant nothing, just more riding, more tracking, and ultimately more killing. The creatures only weakness as far as we could tell was fire. Only if we could find a vantage point on high ground could we kill them safely. So far I hadn't lost any more men to them but I was under no illusion that one day our luck would run out and one or more of us would find ourselves at their mercy. I wanted to know where they came from, how they came into existence but all we could safely deduce was that they were more prolific the closer we got to the border with Mexico. Were they slipping over the border to kill in the now United States? Is that where they originated?
Deciding the best way to find and kill them was to patrol the border lands we set up a patrol moving from east to west along the dangerous and wild country. We found more of them that way, again mainly loners although there were more of the small groups, never more than three and then we came across our first female creatures. I guess we should have expected them but I having seen only males we'd allowed ourselves to believe there were no females. The first time we hesitated and the female escaped but when we caught up with her as she tore to pieces a family, including a small child we lost our scruples and from that day female creatures were killed without hesitation along with the males.
"Notice there ain't no kids. No creature kids I mean. Do ya think they hide 'em? Until they're full growed I mean."
It hadn't occurred to me but Solomon was right, we had never seen an immature creature. Were there such a thing or did creatures burst forth fully grown? I sure hoped so, killing a child, even a red eyed child, would be hard on all of us.
After two years we were pretty sure it was just male and female creatures which was a blessing and we'd killed a good fifty of them, including our first, the ones who had attacked us. No one wanted to quit, we felt we were still fighting a war, albeit with a different kind of enemy, and we were determined not to stop until every last one lay in ashes.
I guess we became complacent, after all we'd never met our match until that October dawn when two of them attacked our camp. The first was dispatched by Jack but not before it had sank its teeth into his throat. He just staggered backwards and the two of them fell into the camp fire where both met their deaths. The second seemed to hesitate on the edge of camp and then ran and though we chased him his speed allowed him to escape and when we returned to camp we discovered the first had slaughtered Lee who had been on watch, his body lay bloodless and dismembered on the ground. After giving him a decent burial along with Jack we broke camp and headed in the direction the escaping creature had taken each silent, wrapped in our own thoughts.