Manhunter Revelations (17 page)

I finally found and picked out a very large
tree that had a series of large overlapping branches that would
make a good platform base for my camp. By now night was rapidly
falling. As I prepared to start climbing, I suddenly froze. I
didn't hear or see anything, but felt a very strong and decidedly
vile presence around me. Breathing very shallowly, I turned around
slowly and then froze in place for a few minutes, feeling with all
my senses as to where the possible threat could be. Nothing
happened, but the feeling of a presence was still there. Moving
slowly I rotated and looked all around me for some sign of
anything. I saw nothing, but the feeling of the vile presence was
getting stronger. I was at a loss because I could not determine
from where the threat was going to appear, and I was sure this was
a threat. My weapons was ready for use, but I didn't draw them yet.
I continued to wait as the presence got oppressively stronger. I
then slowly turned and looked over my right shoulder into the woods
on the edge of the clearing about twenty yards away. In the
darkness, most people would not see anything. With my enhanced
vision, I would be able to see anything that moved, but amazingly I
saw nothing out of the usual trees and surrounding grass and rocks.
Nothing moved, yet I felt whatever was out there was in the
direction I was looking. Turning fully around to face the direction
of the perceived threat, I drew my 44C. Staring intently at the
trees I didn't see the creature make his move. When he did, it was
abrupt and very fast. One minute there was nothing in among the
trees, the next the creature was bursting out of the trees moving
very fast towards me releasing that horrific scream of his as it
did so. Even with my enhanced reflexes, so fast was it moving, it
was halfway to me before I opened fire. My previous experience with
the creature had taught me regular rounds had very little to no
effect on the creature. The rounds I had with me this time were
different. High Density Explosive (HDE) rounds, designed to
penetrate all but military grade armor. My first two rounds went
into its left leg blowing away large pieces of the knee and lower
leg. The creature stumbled and fell to its one good knee screaming
that horrible sound of his louder. There was definitely a sub-sonic
quality to it, as my ears started to hurt. As the creature braced
itself on both arms and looked at me, I put my next three rounds
into his head, with the first hitting right above the upper lip
tearing away it's mouth and that horrific scream. The other two
rounds completely disintegrated his head. There was only a chunk of
flesh left on its shoulders. The creature shuttered and then fell
flat to the ground less than a dozen feet from me. Holstering my
weapon and breathing a sign of relief, I slowly approached the
creature. As I got close, the creature even without it's head was
still massive. The smell from the creature was appalling. I could
not figure out why I had not smelled it way before it attacked.
Then again with my vision, I should have seen it also before its
attack. Somehow it was able to mask itself and it's smell before it
attacked. If it hadn't have been for the vile presence I felt, it
would have caught me completely unaware, and that was a very
chilling thought. Taking out my data-comp I took a series of
pictures for later analysis, and some DNA and other scans. As I
circled the creature, and took pictures, for a few seconds I
thought I heard something. Stopping and looking around I neither
saw nor heard anything. Pulling out my comm. I was preparing to
call Hennings to notify him of the kill when I heard very faintly a
sizzling sound almost like bacon frying that was slowing getting
louder. Looking around I found the sound was coming from the
creature. As I got closer, the sound got definitely louder. As I
looked I saw the sound was coming primarily from the neck of the
creature. Unbelievably as I watched the flesh of the blown away
head was bubbling as if it was being cooked, but the flesh around
it was slowly growing back. Looking at the knee I saw the same
unbelievable occurrence happening there also. Then the creature
shuddered and as I looked on with my mouth hanging open, the
creature appeared to start breathing again. How can this be? I
completely blew its head off. How is it coming back to life?

Within moments about seventy percent of the
creature's head had grown back. Then the head turned in my
direction and one eye had been regrown. The creature looked at me
with that one eye with what can only be described as the look of
hell. I doubt the devil if he existed could look more evil at me in
that moment. Then the creature's arms moved and the creature was
attempting to push itself up. Drawing my 44C again I blew away the
elbows of both arms and again blew away the creature's head
emptying my gun, but to my amazement all of the damaged body parts
immediately started to grow back and at an accelerated rate. Within
seconds the creature was back up on one arm and pushing itself
up.

Okay, time to GO!

Somehow this creature had the ability to
regenerate damaged body tissue, including its blown away head
making it virtually unkillable by conventional means. I would have
to find another way to kill it. First though, I had to get the hell
out of here. Not knowing the creature's stamina or abilities,
trying to make it back to the MATV would not be a good idea. It was
a good dozen plus miles away and judging from the creature's speed
before I thought I had killed it, it could move very fast. How long
it could sustain that speed was an unknown, and made a race back to
the MATV a very unwise choice. Plus if I did reach it, it speed
getting out of these dense woods would have been slower than the
creature's and at this point I had no idea of the damage it could
do to a slow moving vehicle no matter how tough it is supposed to
be. Moving quickly I took off to the south running fast but not
flat out as I did not know if the creature would follow me or not.
A few seconds later I got my answer as I could clearly hear the
noise it was making as it took off after me. By now night had fully
settled and it was pitch black in the forest. It was a cloudy night
and very little moonlight was getting through the clouds and trees.
Even with my night vision, running through the woods at night was
not a good idea, but it was not like I had a choice. Glancing back
once to see where the creature was, I spotted it around thirty
yards or so behind me, and it's head had fully grown back. It's
eyes made spotting it easy as they now glowed a dull red in color.
It did not scream after me, but instead just ran after me sometimes
crashing into small trees and scrubs and tearing through them as if
they were paper. That put me at a disadvantage as I had to go
around, over or under everything in my path. My original plan was
to try and reach one of the patrols positioned on the roads around
Woodspirit, I had passed on my trip up here. I estimated the
circular route I had taken in my search in the MATV had brought me
a few miles closer to them than the MATV. They had high speed Road
Rangers that would get us all the hell out of here in a hurry.
Seeing that the creature had no need to go around obstacles, I
probably would be winded well before I got to them. Soldiers also
had a tendency to fight first, so convincing them we had to leave
would be speculative at best. Knowing what I now knew about the
creature, and a soldier's stubbornness to combat, going to them was
not a good idea. Shifting my direction I raced as fast I could go
to put some distance between the creature and I. Then I slowed a
little as I had to run around three miles to reach the cliffs.
After a few minutes the creature may have figured out where I was
going or was getting impatient. In any event, I could hear it
getting closer to me and it was really making a racket as it was
running through virtually everything in it's path, and it was
gaining on me. The next few minutes was the most terrible moments
of my life. Running through pitch-black woods with a horrific
creature that can tear you limb from limb chasing you is not a
pleasurable experience. Bursting into a small clearing, I ran to
the other side, stopped, turned, and drew my 44C, and reloaded just
as the creature burst out of the woods on the other side. Firing
rapidly I put four rounds into each leg blowing them both off
completely. Making his horrific scream the creature went down. Not
waiting around to see what happened, I turned and continued my race
to the cliffs. Almost a minute later I heard the creature back on
my trail. A few moments later I burst out into another clearing,
this one around sixty yards across. There were a few small trees
growing in the clearing, but mostly it was clear grassland. I
started sprinting across it, continuing in the direction of the
cliffs. I was almost three quarters of the way across when I heard
a terrific tearing sound. Thinking the noise was the creature
bursting through the woods into the clearing I glance back to see
and had a split second to throw myself wildly to the side landing
roughly on my left side looking up. Just as I hit the ground a
large log some six to seven feet long and maybe a foot thick sailed
over me where I had just been running. If I hadn’t glanced behind
me when I did that log would have slammed into my back snapping it
like a twig. Looking back at the creature who was standing just
inside the clearing, I could see where it had torn up the dead log
out of the ground. If I hadn’t been impressed with the stories of
it’s apparent strength before, I was now. That log had to had to
have been a couple of hundred pounds at least and the creature had
just thrown it like a spear. Lying there like a lamb waiting to be
slaughtered was not a good idea, so telling myself it was time to
get the hell out of there,

I burst up and cleared the rest of the
clearing in seconds. About a minute or so later I heard the
creature burst back into the wood behind me. Right about now I was
getting really pissed off. I had to stop this creature at all costs
but, how? I had shot it with the best personal ammo in existence
from a firearm. Just one of those rounds placed right would have
brought down an elephant or a rhino. Yet all it did was piss this
creature off into some type of accelerated healing and an intense
desire to tear my head off. So, how do I kill it. Better question
yet, can it even be killed? Moving swiftly now I came out of the
woods again to see a clear space of about twenty feet between me
and the edge of the cliff. Fate must have taken pity on me because
a few minutes before I entered the clearing the clouds had moved
and moonlight was shining down on everything giving me a much
better view of my surroundings. Racing to the edge I stopped and
looked over to see what was below. To my relief, the river that was
on the map was below. It was around a sixty foot drop. The Nav-Comp
had the depth of the river between thirty to forty feet. Hearing
the creature rapidly approaching, I didn't wait for it to appear.
Steeling myself I jumped from the cliff down into the river.
Keeping my legs straight and toes pointed down, I tucked my arms to
my chest as I fell. The jolt as I hit the water was sharp and
painful, but manageable. I could have snapped my spine or some
other serious bodily damage in that jump. As I dropped down into
the water about a dozen feet, I swam powerfully back to the surface
as I did not know if the creature would or had also took the
plunge. As I surfaced I immediately looked around me for evidence
of the creature, and seeing none looked back up to the cliff top.
The creature was still at the top, leaning way over the edge as if
he could just reach down and pluck me up out of the water. The
water current was powerful and was rapidly taking me away down the
river from the creature. The creature now determined not to let me
get away followed up top at a rapid pace keeping up with me. Then
it turned and moved away from the edge of the cliff out of my
sight. Less that a minute later it reappeared moving swiftly to
catch up to me. As I stared up at it I saw it had a large boulder
in its arms. It wasn’t! It was! As I watched the creature got close
to the edge of the cliff, stopped and it looked as if it was
gauging the distance to me and then it threw the boulder. As the
boulder approached I tried to gauge its trajectory and to my
astonishment it was coming directly at me. Swimming powerfully
cross current I had to change my direction of travel. The creature
had been able to accurately guess my trajectory in the water and
had thrown the boulder where I would be when it landed. A few
seconds later the boulder splashed down less than half a dozen feet
in front and to my right. If I hadn’t desperately swam and changed
my direction of flow the boulder would have landed directly on my
head. The boulder caused a large turbulence in the water tossing me
around. As I fought to orient myself I saw the creature throw
another boulder. This time there was nothing I could do. Expelling
my breath I dived down under the water. Less than a second later
the water exploded as the boulder hit. The boulder brushed by me
hitting hard as it sunk causing more turbulence that pulled me
down. Relaxing I dropped a few more feet before I felt the grip of
the current lessen. Swimming hard I broke the surface coughing up
water. Looking around desperately I spotted the creature still on
the top of the cliff but no longer following me as the cliff had
came up to a rock face that rose many feet above it's head. The
creature was standing there next to the rock face watching me as I
flowed away. We both stared intently at each other until I passed
out of sight around a curve. We both knew that we would see each
other again, and that one of us would die when we did. The how on
his part would be easy. On mine I just did not know.

Chapter Seven: We Need A New Plan

After a few hundred feet, the river became
somewhat milder, but there was still a considerable current
continuing downstream. I allowed the river to carry me downstream
for quite some time, which wasn’t easy while scanning the riverbank
for signs of the creature. The water was chilly, but bearable for a
while. Remembering the data on the river from the Nav-Comp I knew
further down was a series of rapids, which would not be kind to me
if I tried to flow over them. After seeing no signs of the creature
anywhere, I swam to the riverbank on the opposite side and left the
water. Even though I can see at night, trying to make it back to
the village could be a very foolhardy thing to attempt, as I could
conceivably either run into the creature or walk into a trap set by
it. No, the prudent thing would be to find a good place to hold up
for the night, which gave me good visibility of my surroundings.
Then again staying in the woods would give the creature time to
track and find me and I was convinced it could track me. No, liking
it or not I had to continue back to Woodspirit. Checking the
Nav-Comp I estimated I was still a few hours or so from Woodspirit,
and took off along the riverbank. Then it hit me. The creature knew
I had come from Woodspirit, and knew I would head back there. It
could right now also be heading for Woodspirit and Hennings and his
men did not know about its rapid healing ability. They would engage
the creature ending in somebody dying. I definitely had to get back
to Woodspirit and do so as quickly as possible. I reached for the
comm unit to call Hennings and give him a quick update as to the
creature's other capabilities. The comm however would not work.
Checking it out quickly, it appeared to be burned out somehow.
Stowing it away, I continued my journey back to Woodspirit. Moving
as fast as I could, I could not help but speculate as to the
creature's ability to regenerate any damage done to it. This was
definitely something new to me or anyone else. It was time for some
answers. Answers I think the Ladies had. It was obvious from the
beginning they are hiding something, and it may be something
critical, something I needed to know.