Manhunter Revelations (10 page)

"To be blunt yes I am"

I stood there staring at this woman trying to
decide if she was demented, crazy or something worse. Yet the
effect she just had on me couldn't be dismissed. I had never felt
such a reaction before, ever for any women. My complete
helplessness to the emotion was not only surprising, but also very
frightening.

"Yolanda, what can you tell me about this
woman and her people”

"Unfortunately boss I am still bound by law
from discussing the particulars of Ms. Sessa and her people. Only
she or other members of her race can reveal details of who or what
they are”

Looking at Yolanda I suddenly realized that
there were parts of her past history with the government that she
had kept hidden, and though she appeared to be calm in this
mysterious woman's presence I could sense a great deal of stress
underneath that calm.

"Mr. Hutchins, I know right now you have a
great many questions you want answers to, but I implore you to hold
off on them and let me explain the reason we are here. If after
that, you decide to take the case, all of your questions will be
answered for you later back in our village”

I looked at her and the sheriff for a few
minutes while they waited for my answer.

"Okay, I assume you are here to hire me to
fulfill a manhunter contract. What are the particulars?

"Well this contract is a little unusual"
stated the sheriff.

"You see about seven weeks ago young women in
our village started being raped and killed. Now when I say raped I
am speaking in a general term. You see the rapist actually kills
the women during the rape. Kills them in a violent fashion no one
has seen before"

"What do you mean?"

"It appears the rapist sexual member is of
such size that when he inserts himself inside the woman he
literally tears them apart"

Yolanda and I both stared at the sheriff
after his statement. Looking at the woman, she replied,

"The force of the rape has been determined to
be beyond the power of a normal human male. The women lower
extremities were savagely torn apart. Then after the rape was over
the body was literally torn apart into pieces"

"My deputies and I have tracked this killer
into the woods, numerous times but there we would lose him. After
the second death I called in the USPF to help. Since then six more
women have been raped and killed as well as fourteen USPF officers
and three of my deputies who died while trying to catch this
creature in the woods. This creature, and we call it a creature
because the forensics tell us these murders were done by hand and
the rapist would have to possess the power of a dozen men to do the
damage it does by hand. Also the size of the hands print we have
been able to find show it to be four times the size of a normal
hand. To be honest we are all out of our depth here. It was due to
this that the commander of the USPF troops, a Major Hennings
suggested we contract you to track this creature down. He states
that your skills in tracking are the best and would be excellent
for this job.

"I taught a course a couple of years ago to
the USPF on special tracking techniques, and a then Lt. Hennings
was the troops commander. They were forming a special deep cover
unit for extended stay in the forest to track down dangerous
criminals the government badly wanted brought to justice. They are
very good”

"Which only goes to show you how bad this
situation is if Major Hennings feels he and his men cannot get the
job done without your help" stated the sheriff.

“This last attack was so vicious in that we
thought we had the creature surrounded in the woods about a quarter
mile north of the village. It was a trap. The creature killed four
of Major Hennings men and three others including myself was injured
when it attacked and released a avalanche of logs and boulders on
us. The most horrid fact is we still don’t know what it looks like.
No one alive has ever seen the creature. My injury by the way is
why my control of my Eurola is so weak. We can pay you double your
standard rate, which I understand is $50,000 MU's. Major Hennings
says the USPF will also match your double rates on this matter.
They want this killer captured as badly as we do”

The whole time we were talking, I closely
watched our guests to see if they were hiding something. The whole
nature of their story was to put it mildly, incredible, and I felt
something was being kept from Yolanda and I. Then I spotted it.
They were both terrified, even though they did an exceptional job
of hiding it. That kind of fear cannot be easily faked.

"This creature may be some new type of
mutant, which would explain the government's need to find it. I
will take the contract, but at my regular rates, both from you and
the USPF”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see
Yolanda’s look of incredibility on my turning down the double
rates.

“I can be in your village by the day after
tomorrow if that is agreeable to you, but please be warned I expect
full disclosure from everyone on what happening out there, as well
as what happened to me here today. Agreed?”

"Yes Mr. Hutchins, we agree to all of your
terms", this from Sessa.

"Fine, I will see both of you then and please
both of you, just call me Conrad”

"Only if you will call me Sessa”

With that Yolanda finished inputting the data
for the contract into the Data-Comp and handed it over them to
review before signing. Without reading it, Sessa signed the
Data-Comp. Sheriff Connelly handed over a small Data-Comm to
me.

"This is a complete report of the attacks,
and all investigations and testing that was conducted for you to
review prior to your arrival”

"I do have a question right now if you
please. Sessa what is your official capacity in your village? I
noticed you signed the contract and not the sheriff, and that you
were in on the hunt for the creature in the woods”.

They both looked at each other before she
answered.

"That will also be explained to you upon your
arrival tomorrow. Please understand we are not trying to hide
anything from you, but it is best if you hear everything from our
Matriarch in person”

I mulled that over for a few seconds.

“Okay, until then”

With that they both stood and I shook each of
their hands. As they turned to leave, Sessa turned back to me and
said "thank you", turned and left.

After they had left, I turned and looked at
Yolanda.

"I followed your lead on this. Personally
their story is a little bit incredible. Is there anything you can
tell me about Sessa and her people?

"Only this boss. They are the good guys”

Chapter Three: Arrival At Woodspirit

I took a small Stream-Jet to Greater Cascade,
the Mega City in the Northwest Sector, rented a Heavy Terrain
Vehicle, an HTV, for the drive to Woodspirit, which took eight
hours to reach. I had donned my gear and weapons for the drive
through the countryside but the drive through the forest was
surprisingly event free. I passed two USPF checkpoints along the
way. I also passed three patrols on the highway. This area was very
well guarded. The last two hours or so of travel felt kind of weird
to me as the whole aspect of the forest took on a particularly
beautiful look to it. It was almost as if I was driving in a dream
world forest. The impression was so strong, that I expected at any
minute to see a unicorn sprint from between the trees. So it was no
wonder that as I came around the last bend in the road and
Woodspirit was revealed to me that I slammed on the brakes and sat
there with my mouth hanging open. I had timed my trip so that I
would arrive in the early morning. Woodspirit to be blunt was
beautiful. Really. It was beautiful, almost beyond belief. The
houses were of a design I had not seen before, except maybe in
fantasy story vids. There were small cottages and large ones. The
amazing thing though was the colors. There was a full rainbow of
colors to the assorted cottages, and they were the most beautiful
colors I have ever seen. Some of them I could not even identify. I
do not know how long I sat there staring, but I eventually noticed
people who were going about their early morning business, starting
to stop and stare at me. Snapping out of it I continued to drive
into the village following the instructions I was given to where I
was to meet Sessa and the sheriff at Matriarch Hall. As I slowly
continued to drive into the village towards my destination I was
continually amazed at what I saw. There were cobblestone tree lined
streets that was amazingly smooth. There was lamp posts of a very
alien but beautiful design that appeared to be lit by some type of
glowing object inside, but which gave off a dreamy mystical light.
There were flowers I had never seen before in beautiful gardens
around all of the cottages. The overall effect was like looking at
a fantasy world. Now the overall fantasy effect of the woods as I
drove here started to make sense. After a few minutes of driving I
turned a corner to see one of the most beautiful building I have
ever seen. It looked like a fairy tale castle, but it only had two
stories to it. The building encompassed a quarter of a city block
in area. Across a large plaza from this building was an even larger
one taking up half a city block also two stories tall. Standing on
the huge front porch of the first castle like building was both
Sessa, the sheriff and another man in military garb, which I
recognized as Major Hennings. As I drove up looking for where to
park I noticed there were no designated parking spaces of any type,
so I stopped in front of the waiting party and got out. All three
came down to greet me and as I shook hands Major Hennings addressed
me.

"It's good to see you again Tracker, although
I would have preferred a better set of circumstances”

"It's good to see you too and I hear it's
Major now”

"Yeah, some general got the funny idea I
could do a better job with oak leaves on my shoulder”

I had somewhat expected to feel the same
strong sexual attraction to Sessa again, and I wasn't disappointed,
although the effects was lessened to manageable levels. Yolanda had
explained to me that the elixir I drunk would work for about a week
after which I would need another dose. I asked her if Sessa had
also affected her as I had detected a great deal of stress in her
voice when she first called me. She explained to me that the
enhanced sexual attraction also affected her, but since she was a
female to a much lesser degree. If the Muraiin representative had
been a male the effect on her would have been much the same as I
had first felt towards Sessa. Although I had tried to get a lot
more info from Yolanda on the Muraii, she implored me to wait and
talk to the Matriarch. She would reveal what I wanted to know
without Yolanda breaking her oath, and possibly putting her
government contacts out of reach, not to mention putting her in
jail. Yolanda didn't come out and say it, but I got the impression
that if she had revealed any confidential info on the Muraii,
somehow the government would know. How, I could only guess, but
this was Yolanda who I sincerely trusted so I relented and decided
to wait until I talked to the Matriarch.

"Sessa, Sheriff Connelly. You both have one
hell of a beautiful village here. I have never seen anything like
it”

"It is built to merge and be a part of
nature, not to take over it" stated Sessa

"Yes but the architecture, the plants and
lights, give it all a magical quality I wouldn't have believed
possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes”

"It took me and my troops pretty much in the
same way when we first got here. To be honest we still haven't
gotten used to it and we have been here for almost four weeks. It
is truly spectacular”

It was at that point that three other women
came out of the building. This was getting to be an embarrassing
habit of mine, but again I stood there with my mouth hanging open.
The three women all exhibited that same alien beauty as Sessa with
that truly golden complexion, although they all looked different
and had different color hair. The front one was as tall as Sessa,
but was a pure platinum blonde, the second woman, also tall was a
blazing redhead and I do mean redhead. Her hair was an intense
blood red color. The last woman although she was a full head
shorter than the other Ladies, was more beautiful if it can be
believed than all of the others. She also had hair that to my
amazement was a dark blue. Again rescuing me from my mentally
challenged state, Sessa introduced the women.

"Mr. Hutchins let me introduce my companion
Ladies, Yessal, Doeeal, and Fee. Ladies this is Mr. Hutchins”

All three Ladies slowly descended the steps
of the porch and as they approached me I could feel the effects of
their attraction as they came towards me. Inside I was starting to
panic, because it would not make a good first impression if I
started showing signs of man's primal animal nature to breed with a
female, but my body was seriously ignoring what I wanted, and was
giving in to it's animal desires. It was thru sheer force of will
that I didn't embarrass myself further. At least I hope I didn't.
Looking towards Major Hennings I saw he was looking at me and
smiling as if he know what I was feeling.

"He is a fine specimen of a human male
sister. Can I have him” This was from the blonde haired sister
Yessal who was showing no restraint towards giving in to her primal
urges towards me.

"No sister, you can't. He isn't here to be
your love toy”

Being confused I turned to Major Hennings
with raised eyebrows.

"Don't worry, you will get used to the
Ladies. They have a very unique sense of humor”

"Yes we do, but I do want you", Yessal said
smiling as she walked up to me.