Nothing To Fear ....

The Hunter Becomes The Hunted

      In the darkness, it hissed to itself in frustration. It would not be able to taunt its prey this night. There were others, lurking inside one of the strange human conveyances, and it had seen the symbols decorating their clothing when they had stepped outside, as well as the strange headdresses that they wore.

     The one who had originally inhabited the form it currently occupied had hated and feared these humans, so it chose to err on the side of caution. Considering the ceremonial dress that they affected, and the fear and respect afforded them by many of the other humans, it seemed likely that they were the wizards or clerics of the culture, or perhaps an order of particularly fearsome warriors. And it would not do to be banished, or forced to seek a new form. The change took time, more time than it cared to waste. But, as it continued to ponder the idea, it acknowledged that this might indeed become necessary in the not-too-distant future. This host was aging, weakening, which was undesirable. Therefore, it might be forced to enact a binding ritual on one of the humans, which was faster, but more risk to the host, so it was not ideal.

      It faded back into the darkness, moving through the trees, towards the structure that had, until recently, been its prison. As it did, something caught its attention: a movement up ahead. Another deer, perhaps?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   It moved forward for a closer look, and had to restrain itself from shrieking with glee. It was a lone human, moving carefully through the undergrowth, carrying one of the long sticks that they called "guns".

      It had no intention of passing up this opportunity, so it began to stealthily follow the target, concentrating to obtain the knowledge that it required. As it did, a thought passed through its head.

      It had listened outside of the dwelling, and heard its prey talking about the tokens it had left for them, about the relative absence of blood. Well, so be it. If it was blood that they desired, it would happily oblige.

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      Frank looked around cautiously as he made his was through the trees, clutching his rifle. It was always a bit risky, hunting out of season, but he wasn't overly concerned. The foreign asshole who owned the land was nowhere around, and he would bet his truck that none of those longhaired weirdos he loaned the place out to would step foot out here, even in the daytime. That type barely knew how to function outside of a city, where they could get everything handed to them.                                                                                                                                                    "Sissy fuckers would probably get lost going past the goddamn mailbox,"  he mumbled to himself, pulling a bottle of Captain Morgan from his jacket pocket and taking a long pull, before recapping it and putting it away.

      He though about the first time he'd seen the current bunch of kooks, about a week ago. He'd been in the store with his buddy Wally, and they'd come in to shop, so they'd listened to the gaggle of freaks talking to Trish at the register. Most of the guys had longer hair than the one broad they'd had with 'em, and even the ones with decent haircuts had shit pierced that had no business being pierced, and more tattoos than a fucking Navy shipyard.

      But the girlie, now that was a different story! Not too hard on the eyes, even if she was trying to come off more important than she was. Assistant manager, like hell! No woman could pull something like that off, unless being a "manager" involved setting up the schedule for which freak she'd be banging on which night. If she'd said she was the secretary, or even a personal chef, he might've believed that. Most of those show-biz types had one, and it was a fact that women were better in the kitchen than men, it was in their nature. That was one of the few good things he could say about his ex-wife: Lisa was a smart-mouthed, uppity bitch, but she knew her way around the kitchen.

      Unfortunately, he hadn't had the chance to be properly introduced to this one yet. She hadn't come back into town since that first day, and everybody in town knew that foreign party-pooper had his place rigged six ways to Sunday with cameras, so he couldn't even check the talent through the windows, unless he wanted to get hauled in by that other uppity bitch again.                                                                                                                                                                                                               Yeah, that Potter broad was another one that thought a little too much of herself. Hell, the only reason she'd gotten the job was because old Chief Lewis was such an obvious incompetent that even a woman looked good by comparison.

     A sudden noise pulled him from his thoughts, and he looked around, hoping to see another deer to join the two that were already in the bed of his truck. He didn't see anything, but the sound came again, from his left, so he moved that direction to get a closer look.

      He'd taken only a few steps when the bushes parted, and a long, brownish-green object came into view. He looked at it in confusion for several seconds, unsure of what he was seeing, until it suddenly split apart, revealing what looked like hundreds of massive teeth. As it moved further out of the undergrowth, Frank realized that he was looking at the biggest crocodile he'd ever seen.

      Every since a hunting trip to Louisiana, when one of his buddies lost a leg to one of the reptiles, he had been terrified of the ugly bastards, so he froze in place, hoping it wouldn't notice him.

      It slowly emerged from the brush, moving its huge head from side to side, and Frank tried desperately to control both his breathing and his bladder. It moved forward, and just when he thought he could actually relax, that it hadn't spotted him, the enormous head turned toward him, and the creature loosed a deafening bellow. Knowing that he'd been seen, Frank turned and began to run as fast as he could, the rifle dropping from his nerveless fingers as he did.

      As he crashed through the tangle of bushes and dodged branches, it finally occurred to him to wonder just what the hell a croc was doing in Virginia, but he instantaneously decided that he wasn't willing to stay and find out.

      When his truck finally came into view, he went over his plan in his head. Get into the truck, lock the fucking doors, and get the hell out of Dodge. Maybe stop at the gas station down the road and pick up another bottle of Captain to settle his nerves, so he could get his deer dressed out and butchered.

    His panic eased marginally, until he was about twenty feet from his beat-up blue Chevy, and the croc lumbered out from behind the vehicle, maneuvering around the front of the truck with unnerving speed, positioning itself between Frank and the relative safety that it offered.

      As his eyes darted rapidly, seeking a likely escape route, he wondered how the hell the thing had managed to get ahead of him.He knew they were fast in the water, but they shouldn't be able to pull off that kind of speed on land , at least not for that distance.

      As he prepared to move once again, the thing lunged at him, knocking him to the ground. As it did, something seemed to shift, and Frank realized that whatever this was, it definitely wasn't a crocodile, but this revelation didn't make the situation any less frightening, and he opened his mouth and screamed.

     As he did so, he felt a tremendous pain in his abdomen, and he screamed again, even louder than before. He then felt something moving around in his gut, as if something were crawling around inside him.

      Soon after that, he ceased to feel anything at all.