The beast in the jungle

Chapter 1. No trace

Gerald woke up in the dark. This time it wasn't birds or rain or any other usual distraction in the jungle. Sun wasn't even started to rise yet. He could have guessed it was a midnight but wanted to be sure so he grabbed a watch besides him. It was 1:08. They had camped close to trees where is no wide area, so first thing he did was to look around in the dark jungle. All that could be seen was only trees and bushes. Then he looked at all his teammates to be sure everyone was still there, five people sleeping in their bags so everything was fine. Although he still didn't know what was keeping him awake, or more importantly what woke him up. He came out of his sleeping bag, it was so silent everywhere. His heart started beating automatically faster. Gerald didn't want to stand up right after getting out of the bag so he crawled to the closest person next to him. He started shaking a woman's bag but she didn't wake up.

"Hey, wake up... Wake up", he tried to shout while whispering.

The woman just turned around and continued her sleeping. Then Gerald had to crawl to the next person's bag. He started shaking it and a man inside it woke up right away.

"What is it?" He asked in half a sleep with a grumpy voice.

"I heard something...", Gerald whispered.

"Heard what?"

"I don't know but I woke up."

The man came half out of the bag and looked around.

"I see nothing...", he said.

"Me neither but... there is something I know that."

Gerald looked so frightened that the man started to crumble out of his bag grabbing a gun next to him. He started slowly walking a big circle guarding the team and searching something unordinary from the woods looking in every possible directions. Only light was the small bright blue spots in the sky.

"I can't see anything. I need a light", the man with a gun said.

"No! The animals will see it" Gerald whispered.

"If there really is something I can't see it without a light", man said.

Gerald really battled with the decision, give a light or not. His paranoid thoughts conquered the mind so he grabbed a flashlight from his backpack. He switched it on and they both started walking in the circle. Gerald was even scared looking in the dark fearing that something would jump on his face. His heart beating was rising more and more, usually he wouldn't be so scared but this time he knew something was wrong. Couldn't just figure out what. suddenly a small rustle noise came from the back and they both turned around as quickly as they could. One of their teammates had woken up and now stood in the sight of the gun and the flashlight.

"Wow what the hell...", He said covering his eyes with his hand.

They both lowered their holdings.

"I heard something from the woods", Gerald said, finally brave enough to speak normally.

"What..? There's always some noises, we are in the jungle god damn it... And the biggest noise I heard was you too walking around like...", The man said but left his sentence halfway through.

His face turned weird, like he was also sensing that something was not right. He looked around and left his eyes staring at the trees surrounding them.

"What?!" Gerald lowered his voice again.

"You hear anything..?" The man finally said.

Gerald listened a while and in fact he couldn't hear anything at all, the jungle was absolutely silent.

"No...", he answered shortly.

"Yea... Not even one sound. No birds singing, no loudly shouting insects... Nothing."

The gunman started looking a bit worried too. For a week they had been in the jungle and not even one second of that time had been completely noiseless.

"What's going on?" Gerald couldn't bear the silence so he had to say something.

"I don't know..."

"The beast...", the gunman said with a cracking voice.

The both men locked their eyes on him.

"The beast is here..." He continued.

The men saw his lightly brown skin suddenly turning into a new white-gray color.

"What do you mean the beast? It's a myth...", the other man said trying so hard to even believe in himself.

"You mean THE beast?! How would you know it's here..? If it even existed..." Gerald asked.

"The old stories says that even the biggest and brutalest animals would hide from the beast when it's close. Even the birds would fly far away...", the gunman answered.

"That doesn't even explain the silence...", the other man still tried to sound brave.

Gerald was barely standing, his legs started shaking and breathing was slower. Three people of the team was still sleeping but Gerald couldn't think about them right now, he was too frightened.

"Well... We don't see anything... Or hear anything... So it can't be here", the other man said ignoring his believes.

Gerald would have wanted to agree but his mind told otherwise. No one spoke anymore, they were too concentrated to look for the beast what has always been a myth and what has never been seen before. Gerald hadn't never decided what to believe. Without any reasonable evidence it must have been just a fairytale, but then on the other hand so many people believe it's real. And all the brutal animal death he has seen so far in the jungle couldn't have been explained without some sort of a beast. But at this point he prayed to god that the beast was not real.

"Are we just gonna stand here all night or what..? Hey, how many bullets do you have there?" the man asked from the gunman.

The gunman slowly watched inside his gun.

"Twelve."

"Good... So whatever comes out, you shoot it right away."

The gunman nodded carefully.

After giving his order the man turned his eyes on Gerald who was almost as scared as the gunman was. He looked a while until Gerald saw it and looked back. They just kept staring at each other without saying a word. After a short while the man turned his head back in the opposite direction but Gerald didn't move his eyes from him. One second, just a one tiny moment he felt fine, like he wasn't in the dark jungle anymore. But after two seconds the feeling stopped when a small but wide warm breath came to his neck and spread to his entire body. No sound came from it and he couldn't tell what it was or how far away it was from. Almost as like as paralyzed he couldn't move anything else but his legs and head to turn around slowly. He opened his mouth and stayed absolutely still when he saw it. Gerald didn't know what he was seeing, he didn't even know if he saw anything at all as the darkness started to swallow him to deep in the jungle.