[i]Alright. First post. Yikes. SO MUCH PRESSURE[/i] [hider=Monster Hunting] Monster Hunting Short Story, Horror "Quiet was the night. Dark was the sky above, void of stars and moon. Stagnant was the air, thick, hot, the air of sweat and toil and tiredness. Her ketchup high heels [i]click[/i]ed and [i]clack[/i]ed on the cool asphalt, one [i]snap[/i]ping off under her panicked sprint as she stumbled just beyond the double yellow line. Its breath was hot, hotter than the air. Its nose was strong, and found her easily, sprawled across the road, nursing a scraped knee and twisted ankle. She screamed, and leapt to her feet, a flash of pain making her wince as she pressed on the crooked ankle. It was broken, she discovered, by the searing jolt that forced another shriek, and fought down vomit, her stomach lurching at the [i]crunch[/i]ing sensation when she limped on her ruined foot, broken red heel now matching color with the rest of the foot and ankle. It needed not to exert itself, and so licked its lips while it watched. Its fingers ached to open her chest like a jacket, and feel around inside, tasty morsels ripe for the plucking. But it waited, for the true fun was the hunt. She fell in a yard, badly kept. The grass was long, and tickled her face. There was no light ahead save a weird blue one. Her mascara ran down with tears of terror and agony, making leopard-lines down her cheeks. Illuminated by the bug zapper on the porch of the trailer she stumbled against in the dark, she looked like a ghost. She pounded on the door. She could see it in the corner of her eye, prowling. Closer. Closer. Closer. She screamed as the door swung open, slapping her onto grass and gravel. "What in the hell- Oh my god! You okay, lady?" He knelt down to help her up, but she didn't even look at him. He looked too, and saw a shadow, a shape, of something- He screamed with her, pushing her aside, and lunging back toward the trailer. Closer. Closer. [i]Close.[/i] The shells [i]clink[/i]ed as he shoved them into the reciever. The box was mostly empty. Just three to go. Then two. He dropped the last shell when she screamed outside. Then something else. Snarling. Hyena-laughing. He swallowed terror and guilt, and racked the pump, pressed the stock to his shoulder. The oak was cool, but warmed quickly against his cheek. "Hey! You out there! You better clear out! This here's p-private property!" It cackled. Prey was best when it fought. The door hung open, the trailer on a slight incline, and the monster approached. [i]BOOM![/i] [i]Click-clack[/i] went the pump, and the shell bounced across the kitchen/living room floor, to be kicked back as the beast crawled up the porch steps. [i]BOOM! Click-clack! BOOM! Click-clack![/i] He was already nearly deaf and blind, but he knew it still crawled. [i]BOOM! Click-clack![/i] "GOD! PLEASE!" [i]Click-clack.[/i] [i]Click.[/i] [i]Click-clack. Click.[/i] "Please... Please..." His own tears woke him up. Morning sun streamed in through the towels hung over his trailer windows. He swung the door open, a man without a care in the world. He stepped out onto the porch, over almost-dry puddles of blood, bits of flesh, and bone, and gore. Her arm lay in the yard. That would have to be cleaned up. Her broken ankle held through, severed from the rest of the leg in a blossom of violence that could only be buckshot, and cowered under his truck, far away from the rest of her. But her torso, and her pretty, pretty face was still intact. He lifted them carefully from the porch steps, and held her like a baby. He sat in a rocking chair, and rocked, kissing her lips. He would take her inside and have his way with her. And then, he'd bury her in the yard with the others." The Agent's tie was red, a cherry red, the red of a conquering hero, of fresh blood, of a passionate soul. He was all of these things. This was his first briefing, it was true, but the tale he'd woven had set them all on the edges of the crappy metal contraptions that the Chinese have the gall to tell us are chairs. The Captain was sweating, breathing heavily. One of the deputies was stark white, all the way down to her fingers. They'd seen the pictures, but no one had known the story. This was his first assignment since his last first assignment, wherein he'd been shot 'in the line of duty' by his partner, in a drug-fueled frenzy. "Better luck next time", the Assistant Director had said. But [i]this[/i] time, he'd [i]had time[/i] to study his target. This evil sonofabitch wouldn't get away [i]this[/i] time. "We don't know how, we don't know why, but every time we manage to find this guy, he vanishes again. The only reason we know it's him every time is ex post facto." He hit the fat black button on the stubby black remote in his hand, and flipped to a slide of nine shallow graves, a partial and mismatched skeleton in each, and one appeared to contain a second set, much smaller, like a- The pale deputy leapt for a wastebasket and puked up the tuna salad sandwich she'd eaten just twenty minutes ago. He continued. "We know for certain he is male, most likely twenty-five to thirty-five years of age, most likely white, and most likely uneducated. These killings have been going on across the U.S. for six years, as far as we can tell. We have had no fingerprint matches. The only pattern has been his M.O. He takes his victims from nearby tourist motels- always tourist motels. Not the cheap-cheap ones, but the higher up ones a lower class fella might even put his family in. They've all been single women. No one has even noticed them missing for a long time. We've had only one witness, who swears she saw him in the dead of night, pardon-my-french, [i]fucking[/i] the headless and dismembered torso of a woman. She can't give us much, other than he's a big guy, and lived in a trailer on a back road of a highway. We already found that site, and dug it up. Back to the victims. Each of them seems to have been taken from their rooms peaceably, most likely through the use of a drug. See, this guy is weird. Folks would notice him, if he spoke to them. He'd have a... a 'bad vibe', so to speak. I'm sorry, but we've heard reports of two similar abductions here in Morris County, at the Motel 6." The Assistant Director would not be happy about this, as there were quite a few embellishments in the story. But, it informed the local PD on the danger, and that was what mattered. "We assume he doesn't interact with the public much if he can help it. But, he would need food. This is a very small town, right?" The vomiting deputy had recovered by now, and, still chugging coffee to clear her mouth of the taste, paused a moment to say, "Poppalation two hun'red forty-nahn!" "Thank you. So, the folks at the local market and grocery stores know the townsfolk pretty well. I suggest we question them first about strangers in town." The captain rose from his chair, his face the color of beets. One hand resting lightly on the grip of his gun, the other fishing a pencil from his pocket, then a little black leather-bound notepad, to record the grisly details. [/hider] ... [i]To be continued. Sorry, I lost the thought. It'll come back, though. And yes, this will end up being X-Files-ey[/i]