Manhunter Revelations (11 page)

"But my sister is right. Your purpose here is
for another more important matter.

Later perhaps once your job is done. Matron
Serona has left instructions for you to come in as soon as you
arrived” Smiling she and her Ladies stood aside so I could pass.
Walking towards the porch with what I hoped was a dignified manner,
I followed Sessa up the steps to the large house. I couldn't help
but notice that while the other Ladies was smiling at me, the
smaller one, Fee was not. In fact she had a frown on her face as
she stared at me that for some primal reason alarmed me. Setting
that concern aside for now I concentrated on the house. The door
was a set of double doors with very ornate designs on them. On both
sides of the doors were huge bay style windows composed of a single
piece of glass molded to the shape and the design of the window.
Sessa opened the right side door and we entered. As we came into
the house I saw a tall elegantly built woman standing by a wide
window against the far left wall. The room was huge, fully a
hundred feet by eighty and clearly was a room of comfort. The
ceiling was a full eighteen feet high. To the far right there was a
beautifully built circular staircase, which might lead to sleeping
or other quarters above. The first floor was furnished as a part
den/sitting room, separated by a beautiful grain low wooden wall
behind which was the kitchen and dining area. The sitting area
furnishings was an assortment of armchairs, lounges and one massive
couch, all simple but beautifully made, and all looked to be very
comfortable. Clearly Matron Serona liked her comfort. As I entered
the tall woman turned and I was again struck by the unworldly
beauty I had seen in the other Ladies. Although the beauty was
similar it was easy to see this woman was much older. She also had
black hair although hers was streaked with silver. The effect was
truly spectacular. So entranced was I staring at her, that she
started laughing as she spoke.

"Hello Mr. Hutchins. It is a pleasure to
finally meet you. Although I had hoped that this day would occur
under different circumstance, I must confess that I knew otherwise.
Please have a seat”

As I took a seat in an armchair which looked
as if it was made for a man twice my size, Serona and Sessa
exchanged looks and Sessa excused herself and left.

"First I want to thank you for coming to our
aid. This creature has severely damaged this community and it's
families, and we need to put a stop to it right now”

"I was briefed on the situation by the
sheriff and Sessa and the difficulty everyone including the USPF
have had in locating and hunting down this creature. I was told
though that you would give me more detailed information on it"

Seating herself on a lounge type couch across
from me, she said,

"The creature that is committing these rapes
and murder is not a natural creature. Somehow it was created or
formed through some type of mutation we are not aware of. After one
attack it was partially spotted running into the woods. Major
Hennings and his men was strategically located to respond to a
sighting of the creature on a moment's notice. When the alarm was
given, his men responded within minutes, surrounding the area of
the attack, but to everyone's surprise, the creature got away
without anyone seeing it at all. This should have been impossible
as the major and his men had the latest in tracking gear around the
whole perimeter. This creature is able to enter our village, commit
its atrocities and get away without being detected. Major Hennings
has assured me that such should be impossible to do, yet it has
been done repeatedly.

"What other information do you have that
convinces you the creature is first a creature at all and not a
man, and second, that it is unnatural in nature?

"My younger Ladies and I possess certain
abilities that allow us to see and feel things other people do not.
I know that isn't a lot to go on in the life you live, but I must
ask that for now you trust me and take our abilities on faith. Take
that and the fact that Major Hennings have the latest in tracking
and surveillance gear in use and you will start to see our
reasoning.

"You stated that you planned to meet me under
different circumstances. Why?"

"I will explain myself on that, but I implore
you to please wait until I have fully explained everything too
you."

"That's fine. Do you or anyone else have any
knowledge as to why this creature has started attacking your
village and has there been any reports of attacks in any other
villages.

"No, we do not. The nearest other village,
Liswood, is almost 225 miles away. We checked with them four weeks
ago and was informed there had been no attacks there. They are on
alert and will inform us if any occur. Major Hennings has a detail
of men stationed there just in case. We do suspect that the attacks
is somehow connected to our village, but we cannot figure out how
or why.

"I was told that several woman have been
killed after being raped. The datapad given to me by Sheriff
Connelly only gave tests results and other scientific data on the
attacks. I would like to have some basic info like a list of who
these woman were, what kind of work they did, the location of their
homes within your village, and whether any of the woman were
related to each other in some manner or if there are any other
circumstances that link them together. Unfortunately I know the
bodies of the women have already been interred. The damage done to
them may have clues that were missed by the investigators."

"The investigators stated that had all the
info there was from the bodies and allowed us to put them to rest.
I can tell you however that none of the women were related to each
other outside of being friends and neighbors."

"Has something liked this or any other weird
happening occurred in your village before?"

"No, not to my knowledge"

"You have lived here all your life?"

"Well no. In fact I do not live here. I was
here on an entirely different matter when the first attack
occurred."

"Do you mind if I ask how long were you here
before the first attack occurred?

"About five weeks. Do you suspect my coming
here has something to do with these attacks?"

"Right now I do not suspect or know much of
anything. I am just trying to get a picture of what is going on
here. Can you tell me exactly what business you are here on?"

"My younger Ladies and I are here to try and
help the village improve on their export products which is the new
Elixir Ale we have developed and certain other natural medicinal
products they produce from the plants they grow here."

"I noticed when I arrived that with the
exception of you and your Ladies, everyone else here appears to be
human in nature and appearance. I was told by Sessa that she and
her people of which I assume the other Ladies I met and you are a
part of, are not human. Do you mind explaining what she meant”

There was a slight hesitation on her part
before she answered my question. It wasn't much, barely noticeable,
but I caught it, which means she may be hiding her true reason for
being here or some other secret relating to the claim of them not
being human. I was about to ask for her answer, but stopped because
something had caught my attention. It wasn't something I heard or
saw, but more something I perceived or felt. Turning around in the
chair I stared at the back wall about sixty or so feet behind me. I
could feel Serona gaze on me and her unspoken question as to what I
was staring at. Before she could ask me what was wrong I sprung up
from the armchair, fully facing the far back wall. I could feel
Serona now standing up behind me and now also looking to the back
wall wondering what it was I was seeing that she was not. It was at
that point that a large section of the back wall bugled inward and
then exploded inward with debris showering all over the kitchen.
What came through the opening was something truly out of a very bad
nightmare. It was about eight feet or more tall, and massive, fully
five feet wide at the shoulders. It stood on two legs, had two
arms, but there the similarity to a man ceased. Its skin was a dark
grayish to a sickly green tone, but looked rough and pebbled. It's
arms and legs was thick and massively muscled. It was covered with
an assortment of rags and branches in some semblance of clothing,
which was sorely lacking as its male member was clearly visible.
Its penis was hanging loosely between its legs and was at least
twenty inches or so long and at least six inches thick. My first
thought was that this creature couldn't exist, and my second
thought was here was the rapist and killer. After fully forcing
it’s way into the house it turned his head in our direction and we
got a good look at the horror before us. Its face resembled that of
a frog with misshapen ears. It slowly opened its mouth and revealed
a mouth full of large, misshaped and extremely bad looking teeth.
By this time my 40C was in my hand and I shot the creature five
times in rapid succession straight in the chest. The creature
staggered back a step, shook itself and started towards us.
Shooting it again four more times and not waiting to see what
effect my bullets had on it, I then spun around moved to Serona and
grabbed her up cradling her like a baby and started running for the
full bay style window she had been standing in front of when I
first came in. Not knowing whether the window was real glass or
glassite, I shifted my gun hand as I cradled Serona and pumped my
remaining rounds as fast as I could around the windows to break it
or at least weaken the glassite enough to break through it. As the
last round hit the now obvious glassite I jumped and spun one
hundred and eighty degrees, and tucking Serona's head into my chest
as I hit the glassite full force with my back. The blow was
tremendous and painful but the glassite shattered and as we plunged
through I saw that the creature was only a few steps behind us
tearing through everything to reach us. My momentum carried us over
the pouch railing and we slammed onto the grass in Serona's yard.
Letting the momentum carry me over I unceremoniously dumped Serona
on the grass, spun around in front of her, facing back towards the
window with my 40C. I had already ejected the spent mag and
reloaded another and was blasting my rounds into the chest of the
creature who already had one leg outside on the pouch and was
tearing out the broken window frame to get out to us. As my rounds
hit him in the chest, the creature looked at me and …screamed. Yes
screamed. I once heard an old antique teapot whistle out the top as
the steam from the boiling water started escaping. Well this scream
was just like that only thirty times louder and a hell of lot more
frightening. So loud was the creature's scream that Serona
instinctively grabbed and covered her ears. The scream must have
had some subsonic frequency to it because my ears started hurting.
As my bullets was failing to impress the creature, I ejected the
now spent mag, slammed home another and opened fire again. Right
then all hell broke loose behind us as a hail of bullets started
disintegrating the side of Serona house and the creature. Ducking
down and looking behind us I saw Major Hennings and a group of his
men firing on the creature with heavy auto shotguns as they ran
towards us. These shotguns fired high explosive sabot rounds, which
was destroying Serona's house. The creature had fallen back into
the house under the destructive hail of bullets. As the major
reached us he yelled,

"What the hell was that thing?"

"That thing is your rapist and killer."

Looking at each other we nodded, and
proceeded to advance on the house. As we did so, I yelled over my
shoulder,

"Get Serona to safety."

Hennings pointed to two of his men and
shouted,

"Stallings, Williams, GO!"

The two soldiers took Serona and proceeded to
move away from the house, but she stopped them.

"No! I must stay"

Looking back I saw Sessa and the other Ladies
running towards us. Looking at Serona I yelled,

"Stay back, that's an order"

Advancing on the house with Major Hennings
and his men we split up into two groups, with Hennings, I and one
other soldier advancing on the busted and blasted out window.
Hennings sent the other three to cover the back of the house where
the creature broke in. Coordinating our entry we all advanced into
the house from the front and back simultaneously. Spreading out we
checked the whole house, but it was evident the creature was gone.
Its size alone would have been noticeable once we entered. As we
searched, one fact became apparent. There was no blood anywhere in
the house. A fact I pointed out to Major Hennings as we both knew
we had shot the creature numerous times. It was a mystery and a
very unsettling one at that. As we returned to the yard I asked
Serona was she alright. She was looking at me in an intense way,
but said yes she was fine. She then said something I found rather
strange.

"Mr. Hutchins please forgive me, but I must
be sure”

While I was getting ready to ask her what she
meant, I noticed that Doeeal and Fee

were to either side of me while Sessa and
Yessal stood to either side of Serona. As I noticed this fact all
but Sessa and Serona rapidly raised their hands and I was blasted
by three intense blue beams of light. That was the last thing I
saw.

Chapter Four: What The Hell?

I awoke slowly, feeling like I had just had
my ass kicked by a group of angry gorillas. Remembering how I had
gotten my ass kicked I remained still and quiet trying to hear who
or what is around me. It did little good.

"Mr. Hutchins, I am sorry for our actions
against you. It was a necessary precaution dictated by the events
of what had recently happened"