full image - Repost: I work for the DNR in a special unit that deals with cryptids, this is the story of how I came to know the deadliest cryptid hunter I would ever meet. (from Reddit.com, I work for the DNR in a special unit that deals with cryptids, this is the story of how I came to know the deadliest cryptid hunter I would ever meet.)
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Since responses to my last post were so overwhelmingly positive, I decided this might be a good place to tell my stories. We don't get much recognition for our work, it being so classified, so any praise or acknowledgement from people, even if it is under the guise of fiction writing, is more than welcome. I have since retired from the business and any record of me with the DNR would have been removed or sealed so there would be no way to verify anything I tell you, which is why I feel I can be completely honest with you about the things we in the Nightstalker Unit have accomplished over the years. We don't require your praise to do what we do, but we sure do appreciate it.That being said, one of the questions I've received from you all about the contact ritual I wrote about before is whether I knew of or had a contact ritual go wrong or turn out badly. It has been known to happen. The best case scenario in the event of a failure is that they simply don't show up for the meeting. There have been times when we were blocked on the path to the meeting place and were menaced until we left the area.Others had been injured during the contact, whether that was because of something they did wrong or because that particular pack decided they wanted us out of there was hard to say. Either way, all contact would be suspended afterward until further notice. The most interesting case of an unsuccessful contact that I witnessed was during a rather infamous situation in the Ottowa National forest over by Lake Superior. This all happened in the early 90's and was the closest we'd come to a full on war with a pack of Dogmen. It was also infamous because it was when we first met the man we call the Dog Catcher. Jericho "The Dog Catcher" Jackson is quite possibly the greatest cryptid hunter who ever was or ever will be. He has saved our bacon more times than I can count. If a situation gets bad and lives are at stake, we call Jericho. He is the most unkillable man I've ever met.The reason we had attempted the contact ritual with a nearby pack was there had been a string of sightings around the National Park, enough that it indicated whatever pack was in the area was not shy around people which was problem enough for us. But it was the disappearances of hunters, hikers, and even forest rangers in the area that concerned us most. We had contained the area and closed the park to the public but that would only work for so long. Dogmen are nomadic creatures for the most part. The witness reports were also very disturbing.They described a Dogman that was estimated to be over 10 feet tall and had only one eye and a bald patch on the right side of the head that looked to be burn scars. If this was the Dogman causing the problems, we might be dealing with a rogue alpha. After we had managed to collect evidence of the Dogman in question, we attempted the ritual of contact at a nearby forest where there was a meeting place. I personally conducted the ritual and it was the only one I had been unsuccessful at.It went well, right up until I presented the evidence to the Alpha. It sniffed at the samples and recoiled. I could have sworn for a moment I saw fear in its eyes before it turned on me and began growling. The others followed suit and I backed slowly away, more scared than I'd ever been in my life. They paced me all the way back to my camp and watched until I had packed up and left. This was unprecedented. Whoever this rogue alpha was, it had gained a fearful reputation among its own kind, something which was not an easy thing to do among Dogmen.Our options from there were limited. We could keep people out of the area but we couldn't be everywhere. There would inevitably be some foolish campers or unscrupulous hunters who would ignore the signs and slip by our patrols. We couldn't just fence off the whole area, this was hundreds of miles of hard terrain. We needed to send in a strike team. We had teams trained and ready for situations like this and these boys were the best of the best. Fully informed on tracking, hunting and killing various cryptids. We sent them in and they stayed in contact with us for the first few days before going silent. We could hear gunshots in the distance but they soon stopped and we never saw those boys again.The strike team had never failed to bring down a dogman before now and we were running out of our very limited options.I think we were getting to the point where we were considering calling in the national guard and doing a full sweep and kill of the entire area when one of the units spotted something. There was a pillar of smoke deep in the forest, too big to be a campfire. The last thing we needed right then was a forest fire, though that would solve our problem in a costly way. They also reported hearing several explosions from the same direction and the decision was made to send out a team by helicopter to assess the situation. They came back with Jericho Jackson, looking like he'd been chewed up and spit out.The report they gave was incredible.The source of the fire turned out to be an ancient crumbling shack, long forgotten in the deep woods. All around the shack were smoking craters, improvised booby traps, and trip wires. They said it looked like a scene out of an old Vietnam war zone. They recovered the bodies of two juvenile dogmen, both male, and burned almost to ashes. They followed a trail of blood and drag marks to the body of the largest dogman we have on record. It could only be the rogue alpha we were looking for.It was barely recognizable, most of its fur had burned off and its skin was cracked and oozing blood. Both of its hind legs were hanging by the skin and the bone jutted out at the top of the break like broken teeth, almost like it had been walking on them. The left hand was gone along with most of the front teeth. The lower jaw was just ragged pieces and the mouth and throat was a bleeding black mess.They followed a blood trail further into the woods and almost opened fire when they spotted a dogman standing over what they thought was a body.They thought maybe it was protecting a recent kill until they backed off enough for it to relax. They said it sat on its haunches and licked the man's face until he stirred and they could see he was alive. They debated on if they should kill it or drive it off but they agreed the creature was only protecting the man and not attempting to harm him.One of them drew the short straw and approached slowly with a med kit. The dogman gave a short warning growl and backed away, watching them closely. They radioed it to us and we had a medical chopper there in 5 minutes. I myself got to actually examine the scene and let me tell you, it was terrifying how brutal and effective this man had been with improvised traps and weaponry. For a single person to kill not just one, but three dogmen, one of them being the biggest and meanest on record, was nothing short of miraculous. I desperately needed to talk with this man.The interview itself is in our records and I'll try to find a copy to transcribe here for you. I think I'll have to pull some strings to get to it but rest assured, his story is one that needs to be told. I'll update when I have it ready.My name is Jericho Jackson, I did three tours in Vietnam with the Army Rangers. Could have gone officer but after the things I'd seen over there, the things I was ordered to do for all the wrong reasons, well, you can imagine their surprise when I spit in the face of the Master Sergeant who presented me with the Medal of Honor. They had me honorably discharged for that. As much as I hated that war, being back home was worse. I had no direction, no purpose. Most guys went off to start families but I couldn't even imagine creating something so beautiful and precious. All I was ever good at was killing. The ugliest thing a man has to do in life. The years between coming home and the day First Lieutenant Dirk Lancaster called me out of the blue were one long fever dream that blurred together and disappeared the minute I tried focusing on it. When I talked to Lancaster again, it was like standing on solid ground after years adrift on the ocean. He invited me to a get together for Nam vets in Detroit, said most of the old team would be there. It was just a gathering in a rec center basement, like a support group meeting. Cold coffee and warm beer. Tom Wilson was there, the man with the golden eye. He was the wrath of god with a rifle. He used to practice by shooting flies out of the air with a pellet gun. You could even tell him which fly and where to hit it and he'd pull it off 4 times out of five. He was also the funniest man I'd ever known. He could crack a joke at the most awkward and inappropriate times and still get a laugh out of you. Now he looked like he'd lost 80 pounds and gained 80 years. I knew the hallmarks of a junkie anywhere. The only other guy I knew there was Malcolm Gibbons, he was our communications specialist, although he always said he was the muscle of the team and would wrestle anyone who challenged it. He was so covered in tattoos his skin looked blue and his face was a permanent shade of red. Now he looked smaller somehow and walked with a pronounced limp. Lancaster looked the best of all of us. I swear he hadn't aged a day. The only thing that betrayed his age were the lines around his eyes and the white in his beard and sideburns. After we talked about the war and what we'd done since then, the subject of Tom's junk problem came up and Lancaster proposed a hiking trip in the Ottawa National Park, just the four of us with minimal supplies and a thousand miles from any drugs or junkies. It would give us a chance to help Tom get clean and spend time out in the field together like old times. We all agreed and we met up that weekend on the north side of the park. What I didn't tell them was that before I left I told my apartment manager I was moving out and gave everything I owned to a Salvation Army. All the money I had I sent to the only family I had left. I had no intention of ever leaving that forest. I had no place in this world and I left nothing of myself behind. I can't begin to describe the feeling of total freedom I experienced out there. It felt like I was back in the jungle, only I had no orders and no enemies. Just my blood brothers and the quiet cacophony of nature. It was the first time I'd felt alive since I came back and I could see the same energy in the others. We talked, we joked, we foraged, we hunted. Time didn't matter anymore, no more days of the week, no more clocks or appointments or meetings or deadlines. I didn't notice at first, but things started getting strange out there. There were these screaming howls at night sometimes, off in the distance, and none of us could figure out what it was. Tom was convinced it was Bigfoot and we all just laughed and accepted that it could be. Then there were these moments of silence. One minute the forest was chattering and humming with life, and the next it would all stop. Then after a while the noise would come back like nothing happened. Those moments always made me uneasy. It was the same way before an attack or an ambush. Like nature could detect the coming of violence and held its breath waiting for it. I noticed these things, but they held no interest for me. I was lost in the feeling of freedom and peace with my brothers. I thought nothing could bring us down, until Lancaster found the syringe in Tom's boot. Seeing that was like being shaken awake out of a dream. We all just stared at Tom, expecting an excuse or a confession. Instead he gave us a sad smile that hit me harder than seeing the syringe. He told us it wasn't a fix, it was an emergency exit. The stuff in that tube made heroin look like Ginger Beer. He wanted a way out. He wanted to go out on his own terms. That brought us all out into the open and I realized I wasn't the only one who had no intention of ever going back. Malcolm said he'd lost his leg to diabetes and his wife ran off with his brother, along with most of his savings. Lancaster told us he'd gotten diagnosed with bowel cancer and the doctors had given him less than a month. That surprised me the most. Lancaster was like an icon to me, someone who never aged and never faltered. I guess its how most people see their father. I never got to see my father that way, he never gave the impression he was anything but a cruel, sadistic, drunk. I told them about intending to live out the rest of my life out there, how the world seemed to have turned on me after I came back and nothing seemed real or even tangible to me. I was a dead man in a living world, an echo. They all knew how that felt and we all understood what this trip really was. After that, the high feeling had faded but it also felt more real. I wasn't expecting to wake up at any moment. We had all entered the moment itself. It was a few days later the howls at night sounded closer and Tom spotted a deer 30 feet up a pine tree, its guts hanging from the branches like a Christmas tree garland. I remembered having to watch for Leopards in the jungle, we had to watch the trees for corpses or eye-shine. But there was nothing out here that would do that. Bears climb but they don't eat in the trees, neither do cougars. We all felt uneasy after that. Something was wrong, but we wouldn't know why until that night. We set up on the edge of a swamp and were sitting around our small propane stove. We tried not to use campfires because someone could spot the smoke or the light of the fire at night, which was unlikely but a possibility we weren't willing to allow. It was when another wave of silence hit us that I started to feel a tension in the air. It made my skin tighten and my hairs stand up. The others must have felt it too because they were all alert and looking around, same as me. Something was watching us. I'd felt this before, when we were about to get hit hard by the Vietcong or when an ambush was about to start. Lancaster reached down and turned the stove off slowly. I closed my eyes and focused on intensifying my night vision, a trick I learned from a guy in training. When I opened them again I could see shapes in the starlight, not enough to read but enough to see. Lancaster motions and we all got into position back to back. He held up a long rod which I recognized as a flare and I saw him hold up a hand, putting down one finger at a time. I focused on the woods, looking for anything moving. I spotted a shape looking around a tree at us and tried to signal to the others but just then a bright flash lit the area and I saw it. I think my mind sort of flipped like an overtaxed breaker at what I saw because what I saw was impossible. I entered a state of liminal time where everything slowed to a crawl. This had happened before, usually when something terrible was happening. Those moments that remain in my mind like scars. It was an animal, it was hunched over slightly and looking around a tree but it had to be at least six feet tall. The head was canine, long muzzle, pointed ears that stood straight up on its head like horns. But its body was more like a chimpanzee. Broad shoulders, long arms and paws that looked like hands with huge claws like a bear. It was a dark grey color and the fur was short for the most part except around the neck and back. The eyes were a bright yellow and they winced at the bright flash. At first I thought it was a costume, a prop from a movie or a mask. But as it winced and recoiled at the light I could see all the organic articulations of the muscles and skin and I knew it was real. I shouted the direction I'd spotted it to the others, but I may have just mouthed it, I couldn't hear anything but the rush of blood in my head. The thing had jumped back and let out a screaming howl, the same terrible noise we'd been hearing for days, and the others spun around to face it. Tom had a glock raised and ready, even though his eyes looked like they were trying to jump out of his head. He fired a shot and I saw the bullet hit the thing dead center mass and a puff of fur come loose. If I hadn't seen it hit, I wouldn't have even known it'd been shot because it didn't so much as flinch. It spun around and dashed into the dark, crashing through the underbrush like a speeding truck. We all just stood staring at the dark, the flickering pink light of the flare showing only the first few layers of trees. There was a scrabbling sound and a rain of needles and bark above us. Lancaster shouted the word trees and we all looked out, pointing our weapons in the direction the sounds were coming from. There was a loud thud of something hitting the ground to our left and we waited until its eyes caught the light of the flare and glowed like a cat's before we all opened fire. Once the ringing in my ears faded I saw Malcolm looking somewhere else, looking like he'd gone blind and wasn't sure where he was. I tried to get his attention and snap him out of it when his eyes snapped onto something ahead of him and he let out a war cry that was so harsh I could hear his vocal chords tearing from the strain. Tom and Lancaster spun around to look after him as Malcolm charged into the dark, still screaming like a mad man. He jumped at something and there was a loud snarl and the crashing of under growth. Lancaster shouted for Malcolm to get back so they could get a clear shot but he was like a man possessed. He wrestled and stabbed and the creature growled and slashed. It was like watching dogs fight. The thing managed to get its mouth around Malcolm's neck and his scream was at first harsh and low but rose in pitch and faded into gurgling hisses as the thing tore his throat away. We hesitated only a moment before opening fire on the thing, landing a half dozen shots in vital areas before the thing lunged into the trees. How the hell was this thing still moving? It had taken shots to vital areas and I knew they hit. Was it bullet proof? Some kind of monster? Tom ran over to Malcolm and swore and cursed, trying to stop the blood gushing out of the hole in his neck. I could see Malcolm's eyes were empty. There was a slight rustle as the creature appeared, rocketing toward Tom. It was like the thing was faster than the sound it made. The thing tackled Tom and they both tumbled into the underbrush. Lancaster was shouting something and bringing his rifle up.The thing was on top of Tom and Tom was holding an arm up to defend himself while shooting with the other as the thing slashed at him, jaws locked on Tom's forearm. I could see bits of fabric and chunks flying away from him and blood that looked black as motor oil in the light of the flare. Tom fired his last shot and dropped the gun to reach for something else. When he pulled out the syringe I felt a wave of cold relief. He was going to go out on his own terms after all. Then he looked at me for what seemed like a few minutes in liminal time and he grinned. He then held the syringe like a knife and jabbed the creature in the same hole he'd made earlier, lodging it there, plunger depressed. The thing's eyes widened and it pulled back at Tom's arm while grabbing his neck in a choke-hold. There was a crack somewhere inside him and a terrible ripping sound as the arm tore free. The creature ran toward the woods but stumbled and crashed into a tree, sending down a shower of needles and letting out a pained yelp. It looked like a drunk trying to find his footing, stumbling and flailing desperately into the dark. Lancaster ran over to Tom who was gurgling something with a wide and bloody grin. The thing had slashed two gaping holes across Tom's neck and the blood had already slowed to a trickle. We could still here the creature crashing in the woods ahead and it let out a mournful howl. Lancaster and I locked eyes and his were almost glowing with rage. He signaled for me to flank the creature while he approached it dead on and I circled through the trees toward the cries and thrashing. What I saw made my blood freeze in my veins. There was another one standing over it. The one from before was trying to stand, its eyes rolling wildly. The other was sniffing at it, emitting a low confused whine. A third bounded into view and I felt my heart fall into my gut. I looked over at Lancaster who had spotted them as well and he looked pale. A low rumbling growl came out of the darkness that made me shudder uncontrollably. A terror gripped me that I had never known before, a primal forgotten instinctual reaction that had laid dormant in my DNA until that moment. I was no longer a person, I was an animal in the presence of an apex predator. What stepped out of the dark made the other creatures we'd seen look like puppies. It had to be over 7 feet on all fours and as wide as a car. Its head was massive and the fur on one side was gone, showing a network of scars as hard and dry as wood. The eye on that side was milky white and the other seemed to glow a golden sunset color. It approached the downed creature, I noticed the others recoil as it got close. It sniffed at it and it whimpered pathetically. The large one wrinkled its nose in a look of utter disgust. It growled low and harsh and the other two cowered and backed away. The one on the ground whined and rolled over in a submissive position, its eyes rolling around crazily. What happened next was the last thing I expected. The big one slashed at the one on the ground, ripping huge gashes and sending organs and chunks of flesh flying. The creature let out a yelp and didn't even have time to react before it was killed. The big one looked down at it with unmistakable disgust before looking up and right at me. Everything in me let go and I couldn't stay on my feet. It growled again and then let out a terrible noise that seemed to be equal parts roar and howl. I felt outside of myself. I saw myself get up and run, dodging trees and bushes with a speed I didn't recognize. I heard Lancaster fire off a few shots toward what must have been an avalanche behind me before turning to run as well. I couldn't feel anything, I could only hear my heart beat and see myself running blindly into the trees. I fell back into myself when the ground disappeared beneath me with a splash and my feet sank into thick mud. All my senses snapped back into place with a deafening cacophony of sights, sounds, and smells. I turned to look behind me in time to see a wall of fur and claws barreling toward me. I wanted to look it in the eye as it killed me. I wanted it to know I wouldn't die in fear. But something got in my way. I was able to recognize it was Lancaster just before the creature hit him like a speeding semi, knocking both of us down into the muck.Thick, cold sludge filled my ears and mouth and every part of me moved with a terrible slowness that burned my muscles. I could feel Lancaster against my back thrashing wildly. I wondered how he was able to move like that in the mud before I realized it wasn't him. I was feeling that thing tear into him from above. A rage I had never known filled me, chasing away the shock of the cold and the fog of the impact. He gave me this chance. Lancaster gave his life for this. Don't fuck it up. I started to reach through the thick blackness around me. I felt a root and grabbed hold, pulling myself forward. I clawed at the thicker ground below and slowly made my way through the sucking darkness. When my chest was burning and my mind was ready to breathe in the filth around me out of sheer desperation I made my way to the surface. For a terrifying moment I thought there would be no surface, but when I exhaled my nostrils cleared and pure empty air entered my lungs. As the mud dripped out of my ears, sounds returned and I heard splashing and tearing noises behind me. I pushed away until I felt the trunk of a tree and sat at the bottom of it, leaving only the top half of my head exposed. I could see them ahead of me, the large one had pulled the body of Lancaster out and tossed it aside and now was slashing at the mud around it, searching for me. The two smaller creatures watched from the sides, looking around for any sign of me. The large one let out a frustrated bellow and sniffed at the air desperately. I waited and watched, numb from the cold. The creatures sniffed around the area for a long time. They must not have been able to smell me in the mud. Even when they disappeared from sight, I didn't move. When the sky went from black to blue with the rising sun, I didn't move. I couldn't see Lancaster's body from where I was but I could see a single, ghost white hand protruding out of the mud where we'd been attacked. I didn't move except to blink until I heard the sounds of the forest return. When they did I stood slowly and waded through the brackish water and moss to where the hand stuck out. The mud and water was a dirty wine color and everywhere there were pieces of torn cloth, bits of bone, and flaps of skin. I wasn't sure what to do so I started to collect as many pieces as I could. I could hardly see through the tears and my chest tightened with each hard bone or soft chunk I'd find in the muck. I went to where the ground was dry enough to dig without the hole filling with water and started clawing at the dirt, ignoring the pain in my fingers, ignoring the blood mixing with the soil. I was digging in a frenzy, all the memories I'd kept playing back in my mind. When I came out of my trance, my hands were a ruined, bloody mess and it was hard to breathe. I put everything I could find of First Lieutenant Dirk Lancaster into the hole I'd dug and pushed the dirt back in on top of him. I stacked the largest stones I could carry and built a small cairn on the spot. A set the few possessions I could find in the swamp around the cairn. His knife, a key chain with a picture of his wife, and a zippo lighter with his name and rank engraved on it. I searched for what felt like hours but I couldn't find his tags. The adrenaline was running out of me and I felt like I might just fall over and sleep for the next month. What the hell were those things? They have to be long gone by now. I thought about the others and about the camp we'd made. All our supplies were there and I had to honor Tom and Malcolm. I looked up at the sun and guessed it to be late afternoon and tried to orient myself in the direction of our camp. Recon was always my strong suit, fortunately. I moved slowly. The sounds of the forest told me those things weren't around but I wasn't going to take that as a given. When I came to the place we'd camped I saw everything had been torn apart and strewn around the area. I was about to make my approach when movement caught my eye. Something shifted in the brush on the other side of the camp. It was one of the smaller creatures, it sat hunched in the brush, panting absently and pausing now and then to look around. Another movement drew my attention to a tree near the camp and I saw the bulky shape of the other smaller creature sitting on a branch and hugging the trunk about 30 feet up, peering around and sniffing at the air. They were waiting for me. They were waiting for me to come back to the camp. I felt my guts sink and I almost gave up right then. These things were intelligent, and worse than that, they were patient. I wasn't dealing with normal animals here. I moved slowly back toward the swamp in a hopeless daze. Fatigue and hunger were biting at my heels as I walked without direction. They knew I'd survived. They knew I'd come back for supplies eventually. They were going to find me and that would be it. Lancaster gave his life to delay the inevitable. These thoughts buzzed around my head like flies as I entered a clearing and noticed something man-made. It looked like an ancient shack, the wood turned green with moss and the roof had collapsed into a skeletal framework. The door was gone and the window was only a wooden grid with a few shards of opaque glass left. Inside was covered in pine needles but I could see some sort of rusted barrel with a spigot and an old wood stove that looked like it might crumble into dust if I touched it. There were stacks of old jugs and milk cans against the wall and an old musket sat near the window, rusted into one solid piece. My guess is it was an old moonshiner's shack, probably used during prohibition and long abandoned. I slumped against one of the rotting walls and let myself drift into a half-sleep. I needed to think. I had to get to that camp, and more importantly I had to get to Tom and Malcolm. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving them out there. They deserved better than that. The idea came to me and it pulled me out of my sleep to see the sun was almost gone. For this plan to work I had to act fast. I had a lighter, a piece of cloth, and a plastic zip tie. The difficult part would be catching an animal big enough. I laid out what little food I had and waited, my mind focused like a laser on one thing. When a rabbit cautiously approached the food I dropped down on it and grabbed it by the ears and legs. I zip tied the legs and carried it a good enough distance from the shack to start the fire. Once the fire was going, I pulled the rag soaked with sweat out from under my arm. I shook a few drops around the area before zip tying it to the rabbit's back leg and cutting it loose. It darted into the night and I tossed the lighter into the fire before running in the opposite direction and diving into the swamp. I watched as the lighter exploded and the swamp lit up momentarily. It was only moments later I heard the crashing of the creatures heading for the fire. There was snarling and thrashing coming from the area and I watched through a small pair of binoculars as the creatures sniffed around the camp and eventually stalked off in the direction the rabbit had run. I didn't bother with stealth this time, I ran full sprint to the camp we'd made and gathered any supplies that weren't ruined. Once I'd filled the pack, I started toward where the creature had killed Malcolm. The smell was overpowering but I found his tags and swore to him I would be back to bury him with Lancaster and Tom. Tom was harder to find. It looked like they had come back and scattered pieces of him all over. This seemed to turn the low frequency of fear in my mind into a steady drone of rage. I found his tags and almost turned back until I remembered the one that died earlier. I needed to examine it. I needed to know what I was up against. I found it where it had been left, torn open and writhing with bugs. I looked at the claws. They were at least 4 inches long and came to a sharp point like a cat's claw. They were made of a dark material that felt harder and more dense than most animal claws. It was clear from the sharpened point and the slight serration on the inner curve these claws were used for slashing and gripping. The fur of the creature was incredibly dense and thick. I couldn't even brush it back enough to see the skin underneath. It was composed of two layers. A longer layer which was thinner and seemed to be more like whiskers. Beneath that was a short layer of thick hairs that seemed to overlap each other in a weave pattern. I looked almost like a Kevlar fabric. I checked some of the bullet wounds on the creature and pulled out a knife to extract the bullet. The bullet was only just beneath the skin which had to be at least 2 inches thick. The muscle underneath was bruised but undamaged. I cut through it as well and it was so tough I had to saw at it with the serrated edge of the knife to get through it. I remembered how easily the big one had slashed through all that before and I examined the wounds made by it across the chest. It had torn open its chest and pried apart the rib cage in just a few slashes. The rib cage was almost solid, the gaps between the ribs very narrow. One thing was certain, these things are incredibly hard to kill. Before I left I gathered bags full of the blood soaked earth around the creature and some of the offal. I set to work sawing off one of it's massive hands and after much difficulty, stowed it away in my bag. Before leaving the site an idea came to me that made me grin for the first time since we were attacked. I stood over the dead creature and pissed all over its corpse with a cold smile. They would know I was here. They would know I was still out there. And most importantly, they would know I was coming for them.After dipping myself in a fresh coat of muck I started back toward the shack. I was about 30 clicks from where I had started the fire before when I heard a howling roar in the distance. There was an undeniable frustration in its tone that made the world a beautiful place for a moment. I hadn't even made it 40 clicks past the fire site when I heard crashing and snarling getting closer. I estimated the howl came from at least half a mile away and for them to close the distance that fast meant they were not only incredibly quick, even in dense woods, but that they were pissed. I waited until I heard the crashing head off in the direction of the camp before continuing toward the shack. I had cracked open an MRE in the musty cellar of the shack when a chorus of shrieks and howls rang out in the distance that told me they'd gotten my message loud and clear. I may or may not have slept, but I did take a thorough inventory of the supplies and mapped out the area around the shack in my mind. Once day broke, it would begin.I need to find the rest of the transcript. My sincere apologies.
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