Going through the uneven forest, mindful of sudden drops, listening to the metal detector as Rebecca carefully moved it over the forest floor, nothing but birds chirping in the trees above as the ambiance.
Following in the direction of the smoke, the three scoured for the source, Rebecca hoping they aren't at a risk for a forest fire, as there's a village not too far from the forest.
Had a fire broken out, it would be engulfed within moments should the conditions be right.
Paul calmed her, stating that he didn't see or smell anything pointing to a potential forest fire, not even a controlled burn.
It did enough to calm Rebecca as she continued leading them through the forest, swaying the metal detector, the burning smell growing stronger.
Pushing through the lush overgrown bushes, the three found themselves in a makeshift camp, complete with a fire pit in the middle, smoke pillaring from the collected wood burnt black.
Going up to the fire pit, Paul held his large hand over it, feeling some warmth from the smoldering embers below, someone was just here, not now, but they only left momentary before he and the women arrived.
Looking through the tent adjacent to the fire pit, Taylor found a journal hidden underneath the heavy blankets, holding it in one palm of her hand while flipping through the pages with her other hand, thumbing through pages, it'd appear the camper was Polish.
Not a language that Taylor knew by heart, neither did Paul.
Rebecca offered to translate for her and she took the journal into her hands as she translated for them.
The owner of the journal's called Samuel, he'd been in the forest for roughly three days, now.
Like Rebecca he brought along a tuned metal detector to watch for the hidden landmines that haven't been located and disarmed, yet.
He'd been looking for something that supposedly lived in the forest, a…
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"What's that?" Paul inquired what it translated into, only for Rebecca to shake her head in confusion, when he finally got through to her, she translated as, "The face eater."
Continuing reading through the journal, Samuel was set to hunt and look for it, claiming it had killed his young daughter, "ate" her face, gone off into the forest, lying in wait for another victim.
"Ate her face?" Paul raised his fine brow as he leaned over to try and gleam at the passage in the journal.
Crossing her arms as she rubbed her shoulders, feeling the shiver down her spine, Taylor asked if it's the literal translation, and Rebecca couldn't say.
Only that Samuel wanted to hunt the face eater that killed his daughter and took her face.
There weren't any illustrations of the face eater, but it's enough for Paul to get an idea that this was the creature that he and Taylor been looking for, now attached with some legitimacy.
In normal times, it'd be insane to consider such a thing, but Paul was the Doctor, and it's his inherent interest in investigating such claims.
"It says he's been tracking the face eater for some time, now, that it only comes out at night, but he thinks he's got a chance finding its nest," Rebecca read off the remainder of the finished page in the journal before it turned to blanks, thereafter.
A vengeful father searching for a creature that "ate" his daughter's face, quite peculiar, strange, concerning to Paul's ears.
"You don't think it's another one of the arapulo, do you?" Taylor privately discussed her thoughts of the creature Samuel's hunting being another arapulo that took a specialized interest, but given the sparse details that Samuel wrote about the creature he hunted, Paul suspects it wasn't the case.
Arapulo wouldn't nest in a forest like this given the inherent risks presented by the abandoned landmines, the uneven grounds would've caused more problems than it was worth trying to nest underground.
Looking around, seeing sparse fruit trees, wild and cultivated, but abandoned by the people that formerly lived in the area, coupled with the lack of viable wildlife, it further fueled Paul's belief it wasn't another arapulo, given that it needed foods to dissolve with its saliva to consume.
"We must keep looking, my dear," Paul asserts that they've just begun their search for the mysterious face eater that seemingly roamed the forest, for quite sometime after the bombings, given what little Samuel wrote down in his journal.
Given the state of the camp, Paul believed they'll find Samuel sooner than later, it's a matter of finding him before nightfall or the creature gets to him.
Rebecca expressed skepticism about the whole thing, but Paul pointed out that the same could be said about a doctor capable of reshaping the entire DNA of a human, before he stated he couldn't risk Samuel getting hurt in his quest for revenge, wouldn't be very Doctor like if he did, unless he warranted it, then it would be very Doctor like of him.
"Where would we find him?" Taylor asked him as he began surveying where Samuel could've gone, having Rebecca scan the area in front of him for landmines.
As his mind raced with thoughts, Paul says, "If he has a metal detector as we do, then we follow the landmines."
Since Samuel had a tuned metal detector, all they needed to do's follow the path of landmines, and he would leave markers for his benefit, especially when night comes.
Though, it's a matter of finding Samuel, and hoping he's still intact, if he hadn't been killed by the face eater or an undetected land mine.
Hopefully, he's still alive, and they can learn more about this supposed face eater, maybe a better description.
"Doctor, why not use it to track his metal detector?" Taylor came up with an idea of Paul using his trusty Sonic Screwdriver, bequeathed by his father, to track Samuel's metal detector.
He'll be using it constantly and with the advanced technology of the Sonic Screwdriver, it'll use the landmines to ping the location back to them, sort of a sonar.
Like a lightbulb, the idea reached Paul's head, and he thanked Taylor for it, with a kiss, before fishing out his trusty Sonic Screwdriver from his deep pocket.
Using Rebecca's metal detector for reference, a quick swipe, Paul tuned his Sonic Screwdriver to began pinging for Samuel's metal detector.
Like ping pong, the signal pinged back and forth between the undiscovered landmines, reaching Paul's Sonic Screwdriver as he began leading the women throughout the uneven forest, mindful of their steps.
During this, Paul asked Rebecca had she heard anything about the face eater, something like it, which she claimed she didn't, she only knew the tall tales, but none ever talked about a creature that stole or ate faces.
That'd be a new story, all-together.
Hearing the Sonic Screwdriver pinging back Samuel's metal detector, led Paul towards a misshaped area, devolved of standing trees after streams of tanks came through during the war, old stumps remained, some trees toppled over, pulling up their roots and much of the ground underneath with them, now overgrown.
Glimpsing around, Paul sees swaths of darkened circular areas of grass, on a hunch, he goes up to one, using his foot he tested it, finding they were where activated landmines gone-off, the holes filled with long strands of grass, still capable of catching someone by mistake, it can be mistaken if someone walked over them.
Listening to his Sonic Screwdriver, Paul led the women further into the area, the skies above helping them see better than when they were in the forest proper, when there's a loud shrill produced by the Sonic Screwdriver, a feedback likened when there's two metal detectors interacting with each other.
Audible enough that it caused a reaction from Rebecca and Taylor, Paul quickly turned his Sonic Screwdriver off, before walking ahead, towards one of the covered holes.
There are indentions of something buried beneath the grass as Paul carefully stepped inside, looking for whatever's at the bottom while Rebecca and Taylor looked on.
His large hands disappeared into the tall grass, Paul felt something long, narrow, but heavy, and gripped it with his hands.
Pulling on it, he hoisted Samuel's metal detector from the depths of the grass-filled hole, the sounds of the long grass pulling apart and breaking echoing as they're caught by the metal detector and Paul's hands.
Staring at it, Paul presented it to the women, leading Taylor to ask him, "What… happened?"
Something of great dire situations must've happened for Samuel to foolishly drop his metal detector, causing Paul to look at it closely, seeing some damage done to it that wasn't from falling into the hole.
At the end of the metal detector, he sees claw-like markings, deep enough to rip away the protective coating, and denting where something attempted to grab it from Samuel, using it as a weapon in a last-ditch effort.
Wiring from the components to the detector portion severed, shredded from something cutting them, not from a knife, only reason Paul found it's because of the components still worked despite severed from the base.
"Doctor… what's going on?" Rebecca stirred him from his thoughts as he looked over to her with confusion and fears in her brown eyes.
Looking down at Samuel's metal detector, Paul answers, "I believe he found his face eater."
