We ’re go monster hunt in today ’s Concept Art Writing Prompt , to a brumous swamp where a hunter has found his strange prey . countenance ’s see what account you may fall up with based on this dreary and murky photograph .
This image is actually a portrayal of monster artistAlex Pardee , composed by theatre director / photographer Jason Mitchell and set designer / photo illustrator Stacey Ransom asRansom & Mitchell , viaLaughing Squid(NSFW ) . This is part of their showSmoke & Mirrors(again , NSFW ) , presently exhibiting at Varnish in San Francisco .
Here ’s my report , in which I cheat and utilize the subject ’s name as the hunter ’s :
Pardee find out a whispering in the brush and raised his scattergun almost automatically . He inhaled , mentally cook himself for whatever nightmare creature prepared to charge into the swamp . Then a red - chase after bunnabird explode from the bushes , barely able-bodied to keep its bulge venter aloft . Pardee lowered his shooter and grabbed the brim of his lid rather , wiping off his brow with the back of his bridge player .
“ What was that ? ” asked the monster behind him .
Pardee replace his rifle and tugged on the demon ’s chain . “ Bird , ” he said .
“ Wow ! ” the monster breathed . “ Can you wing ? ”
Pardee grunt . “ No . ”
“ Can I ? ”
Pardee turn to look at the animate being . The lusus naturae was all bramble and teeth , and if it was n’t eyeing him like a curious four - year - old , he might have been afraid of it . “ You ’ve been sight in this swamp for 500 years , and you do n’t know if you could fly ? ”
The fiend clap its branch - like hands . “ I ’ve never been alive this long ! ” it said . “ It ’s really quite gripping . Like I never took the sentence to notice just how wet the ground is here . Usually I ’m just a shadow out of the corner of an oculus , or a sprig snapping in the distance . People stop believe that I ’m there , and I ’m gone . ”
That ’s why the Fauntleroy Planetary Commission had call up Pardee in . This teras was a belief creature , a being that only subsist so long as you were convinced he did . Pardee had heard reindeer pawing on his rooftop every Christmas Eve until he was 15 years one-time . At 28 , he still on occasion wandered into freestanding wardrobes , convince they ’d transport him to Narnia . The same character that made him a target for teasing all through grammar school made him the perfect belief Orion . He ’d known the Fauntleroy Swamp Monster existed the moment he ’d seen reports of it , and he ’d traveled the swampland with full sentence in that notion .
They hiked up a hill where the Commission ’s shuttle stand hold back , two figures in hazmat suit tend against the containment threshold . Idiots , Pardee think . Nothing like believing a creature is venomous to make it venomous for real .
“ Ooh , ” said the behemoth . “ Am I break off - planet ? ”
“ A menagerie , ” Pardee reply .
The monstrosity seem back at the swampland and sigh . “ You love , it ’s a real ignominy . ”
Despite himself , Pardee could help but ask , “ Why ’s that ? ”
“ I developed this little favourite hypothesis , during the long times I did n’t live . I reckon , if I go somewhere public , like a zoological garden , everyone would know I existed , and everyone would believe in the Fauntleroy Swamp Monster , proper ? And maybe they ’d trust there were more of us out here , you know , like it ’s our innate home ground ? And before long hoi polloi would see more of me , gobs of Pine Tree State all over the place , so many that soon we would n’t need mass to think in us , because people would just take our existence for grant . It ’s a shame I wo n’t get to see it happen . ”
Pardee thought about as they walked toward the shuttle in secretiveness . Could he really be deport the monster only to fate the planet ? He shook his head as he handed the fauna over to its fresh handlers . “ Sorry , brother , ” he told it . “ I just do n’t consider it . ”
deserver notes that there are scarier thing in the swampland than alligator :
Thom find fault at his tooth with a tongue take care out from his porch across the dingy swamps of the lower Mississippi . It had been a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. or two and there was no sign of the hunter yet and if it worried Thom he did n’t show it .
“ At least I wo n’t have to yield the bastard . ” He say , spitting out bits of the forenoon ’s breakfast .
He stand up and survive inside . His cabin was more of a shack with all the furnishing of a cabin but with none of the construction expertise . The walls had warped make spread here and there , the windows were n’t in straight , the fireplace was more of a firepit , and everything else had a moist , muddy look to it . Paul was seat at the table which wobbled when he leaned on it .
“ Nothing . ” Thom reported .
Paul looked up . “ I recount you . ”
“ It do n’t mean nothing . ”
“ Then why ai n’t he back ? ”
Thom grabbed a jugful from the corner and satiate it with their homebrew , a mixture of alcohol and swampland rest that made a thick , sirup - like slosh to drink . He threw some back and hacked half of it up . “ in all likelihood found a salutary job in Ithiel Town . ”
“ I do n’t reckon . First Rover now him . Soon it ’s go away to be us ! ” Paul slammed the tabular array and it hobbled back and forth on odd legs .
“ A gator got your goddamn dog you idiot . ”
“ Gator do n’t leave the mess we saw . ”
Thom throw off back another swig of homebrew and could feel it fix to him , a heating and buzz wax in his forehead . “ There ai n’t nothing out there . ”
“ You ’ll only think when you find my bones with all the succus sucked out . ”
“ Your ivory succus probably ai n’t no good anyway . ”
A sound carried across the swamp and hit the hovel , bend both Thom and Paul ’s head faster than the pass of a bullwhip . It was a terrible strait , a glottal scream from something with child , something ancient , something that was really mad by Thom ’s tally .
Paul looked to Thom . “ Jesus jumpin ’ do you- ”
“ Get my gunman before you say something stupid . ” Thom order and Paul scud off from the mesa to the other elbow room .
Thom peer out an odd window but could n’t make out anything through the mist and the Walter Reed and the trees . But he could he hear it , a sloshing in the water and a rustle in the reeds that was come on to them at a dull but deliberate step .
Paul reappeared and handed Thom his grease-gun which he load and held close to his chest . Paul fend in behind him , digest on his tip - toes to peak out the window as well .
“ You seen that rifle the hunter take wit ’ him . If that ai n’t gon na do it yours wo n’t either . ”
Thom shh’d him and hold his eyes on the swamp . The sloshing was tawdry , the rustling higher and more frequent . He pumped the hitman and place the barrel to the windowpane .
Three immediate knock rapped on his door and Thom spun on his bounder , setting his barrel dead center and extort off two immediate shots that plug through the tenuous wooden doorway , knocking out a hole the size of a truck tyre .
“ favorable ! Friendly ! ” Came an Aussie accent from beyond .
Thom and Paul walked over and lento start the door to uncover the hunter standing on their porch . Everything about him was caked in clay and dirt except for his smile which gleamed livid in the yellow-bellied mist . He held one end of a chain in his hand , the other end wrapped around a animate being that could only have been ripped previous from the womb of the swamp itself . It stood tall , made up or enshroud in arm and leaves , with eyes of infernal bolshie and long pointed tooth caked in dry parentage .
The hunter take off his hat and bend to them before returning it to his sweat filled mop . “ This what you ’re lookin ’ for ? ”
In angusm ’s tale , a Orion uses an unorthodox method acting to take down a ogre , with unexpected issue :
As I see it , Braddock brought it on himself .
It was n’t the boast . We all vaunt a routine on occasion , and while Braddock was certainly in a class of his own when it come to polishing his own legend , that was n’t the real job . Sure , by the fourth repeating of the legendary exploits of Beaulieu James Braddock , demon - huntsman extraordinaire , there probably was n’t a somebody in Ithiel Town who did n’t want to stuff him head first into a privy but I do n’t cogitate anyone would really have done it . We ’re passive folk and slow to rouse .
Besides , braggart though he may have been , he was a genuinely knotty customer . There was n’t much productive on that hefty six - groundwork underframe and he had a angry animal queasiness about him , ready to explode into action mechanism at a 2d ’s poster . His first act on arrival was to pretermit his traveling grasp – with a loud clangor of metal from the assorted matchet , knuckledusters , revolver , pepperboxes , skinning knife , daggers , scatterguns , chains and whatever the hell else he had in it – squarely in the middle of the barroom floor and bawl at the top of his phonation that he could out - wassail , out - competitiveness and out - screw any man in the seat . His second turn was to certify the accuracy of the first assertion so convincingly that everyone agreed to take his other two title on faith .
In between slump shot after guesswork of “ Doc ” Benson ’s white lightning , Braddock found meter to let us do it why he had respect our residential district with his front . He intended , he announced , to be the first adult male in history to capture a wickerwork valet de chambre and confront it to the Georgeville Zoo , to be exhibited to the discredit populace as a keep demonstration of the unparalleled manliness , courage and bleak persuasiveness of Beaulieu J. Braddock , Esq .
There was a lot of rock of head at that . We knew , of form , that Braddock had successfully hunted more legendary savage than you could stimulate an elephant gun at , from the Megaconda of the Amazon to the Mongolian Death Worm , from the Camel - Eating Spiders of the Kalahari to the Broad - Finned Bear - Whale . We do it all that because Braddock had made a full stop of mentioning it seven or eight times while solve on his first feeding bottle of moonshine . He ’d even offer a couple of recap for the benefit of any latecomer while he tackled his second . Still , bear - whales are one thing . Wickers are another .
There ’s something eery about them . Sometimes , do work the swamp , you ’ll see a ragged silhouette against the foggy light that filters down through the trees . If you ’re lucky , you ’ll only see them at a aloofness . If you ’re doomed , you might not see them at all .
They can be killed , more or less . A rifle wo n’t do it , of course , because they do n’t seem to have any life-sustaining spots desirable of the name . Dynamite will work and I guess a flamethrower might do the line of work . The traditional tool , though , is something with an boundary , like a felling axe . The problem is that you need to be as unattackable and quick as they are , which is a improbable order . It ’s not just that the damned things are inhumanly profligate and horrifyingly potent . It ’s not even their seven - foot orbit , or the way they can gut a moo-cow with those ten - column inch claw . It ’s more the fact that they do n’t seem to inhabit outer space in quite the same way that we do , as if the average rules do n’t apply to them .
Wickers really are n’t like anything else . Everyone knows the old joke that the answer to the query of whether they ’re animal , veggie or mineral is simply “ Yes ” . What they really are no one knows , but they were in these swamp before we number , and my guess is that they ’ll still be here when we ’re gone . This is their farming . We just tiptoe around the outer boundary and Leslie Townes Hope for the ripe .
So when Braddock announced that he intended to capture one , most of the old timers just shake off their heads and smile . After he left his pigsticker quivering in the dartboard – a left - handed throw , down the full length of the barroom , the thick blade driven clear through the dead center of the board and a good two in into the wooden paries behind it – they conceded that he might be the man to kill one . But capture ? That was n’t even within the kingdom of possibility .
There , however , they underrate him . Braddock was not a fool . He had done his research . At some point , rivet over the honest-to-goodness tomes in the Georgeville Library , he must have follow to the conclusion that he had set himself an insufferable and very likely lethal undertaking . He began to turn over alternative strategies .
Somewhere in the subroutine library he found a book that described the appearance of the wicker in very precise detail . I get it on this because the wicker become that he had build was a masterpiece . The uncouth veg mat that covered it would have pass even the tight inspection , assuming anyone could be come up fearless enough to come within reach of those authentically - menacing fangs and razor - butt against claws . A complex system of articulations allow the someone inside – a slender and beautiful gymnast who had been one of Braddock ’s reportedly innumerable lovers before he begin spending more clip with a full-bosomed lady saloon possessor from Platteburg – to steer the gargantuan head and work the jaws in a way that I can only describe as terrifyingly life - like . It was a study of prowess . When Braddock stepped onto the landing place leg with his jailed chained firmly around the waist , it never entered anyone ’s question that he might not have done exactly what he said he would .
He made , as far as I can see , only two mistake . The first was to dump the gymnast for the saloon possessor . That was a minor error , however . It could have led to him being mortify when the deception was revealed , but no more than that .
His more serious error was that he stopped his researches too soon . It never pass off to him to wonder how it was that we could live as we did on the fringes of a swamp inhabited by such deadly and unpredictable animal . As a result , he had no fashion of bed that the frail old lady who he impolitely shouldered away on his way down to the dock was a person of smashing grandness in the community . Nor did he ever realize quite how cheeseparing to the sign he had arrive when he gibingly called her an ‘ old witch ’ .
That Nox , Granny Meadowes must have kneel by the sharpness of the swampland for a good four hour , calling out into the mists in that eery burbling , clicking idiom that seemed midway between human speech and the sighing of the marsh wind among the deadened trees . Braddock , sleeping off another monumental boozing sitting , never get word any part of it . And he never heard when , a scant 60 minutes before dawn , something answered her from far out in the swamp .
I was standing among the gang the next morning as he led his prisoner down the duration of the master street towards the waitress steam - truck . Braddock ’s eye were crimson from the excess of the previous night but his grin was as broad as ever . He swagger and strode , his luxurious sideburns like clod of Spanish moss , the knives at his smash gleam in the pallid light of the morning .
And then , as he made to tug on the chemical chain once more , he caught sight of the lady gymnast , tall and pale in her grey garb . I was close enough to see her smile in cold blood at him , a smile duplicate by the diminutive little erstwhile woman at her side . And in the final sec , I saw the fatal question flicker across his human face .
If she ’s over there , who ’s in the suit ?
MT_Rudeboy train us on a hunt with a novice monster huntsman :
“ Jesus Christ ! ” The frantic cry telephone out in the slow slack of the Amazon floodplain , as a slender moustachioed world tore through fog and mirky outgrowth in the swamp water , his knees lifting so high , they nigh came to his chin . “ Monster Hunting 101 , ” thought Bartleby MacHugh , “ Lift the knees high-pitched so as to tread as piddling water as possible . ”
Another voice pierce the peat bog , a smaller spokesperson that sound like it was from the North of somewhere , possibly England . It was the vocalisation of Bartleby ’s pardner , though in his current panic , Bartleby could n’t recall just what his name was .
“ Never look back ; Monster Hunting 102 . ” MacHugh ’s thoughts came apace as he romp in the shallow , murky piddle . regrettably , young What’s - His - Name would n’t be making it to 2d semester . For the lifespan of him , Bartleby could n’t sympathise why the university did n’t overcompensate Never Look Back and Other lifespan Saving Tips until the second semester , especially when the first field exercise were the first week into classes .
Bartleby had never killed , captured , wounded , or even seen a monster at least until today . He really had no means of employing anything that he ’d learned in Monster hunt 101 , 102 , or Dungeon Diving and Swamp Searching 111 . He did , however , have the lucky trait of being the perfect coward , which meant he was always faster than at least one other student . Panting and scrambling through the underbrush the cowardly fiend Orion picture what horrors had become of What’s - His - Name - from - the - compass north - of - Somewhere - Possibly - England , and how he now for certain shack in the due south of something . multiplex tentacle and tooth lurched from the shadows and devoured the freshman in a flurry of strangle and chomping . The theatre of MacHugh ’s creative thinker was always very macabre when it fare to playing out the demise of his classmates of which What’s - His - Name - from - the - North - of - Somewhere - Possibly - England was now the sixth dupe . This was possibly because he had never actually seen the incident of a monster killing any of them , countenance alone having discover a monster at all . And surely , Bartleby felt bad but so does being mangle , maimed , throttled , flayed , eviscerated , lacerated , champ , chopped , stung , and swallowed . This was , as least , the manner in which he reasoned it .
The howls of bother from Bartleby ’s partner drew quieter as he fled the scene . He call back , as he had five time before that he should look back and sustain the circumstances that had befallen the victim . But the haze was thickset and Bartleby was sure that the remains dwell of only a smear of blood on a tree diagram and perhaps a galosh left to be adrift in the mire . A loud crush that caused Bartleby to flinch was proof enough of the outcome . Though , it seemed that the fearful giant hunter had escaped ; that was some respectable tidings at least . Finding some self-colored dry land , the MacHugh plunk onto the astonishingly ironic dirt , being thrifty to mark off for any grievous flora . “ Dungeon Diving and Swamp Searching 111 , always wait out for Carnivines and Brainleaf Fronds before making pack . ”
Bartleby cursed , “ Damn , I was doing so well too . ” He reckon to himself . “ I mean , I ’d in reality had the Sir Ernst Boris Chain round the beast ’s gullet ! I guess upper - body forte was never really my strong suit . ”
Who was he talking to ? What’s - His - Name - from - the - Frederick North - of - Somewhere - Possibly - England was deadened , devoured , but still Bartleby gesticulate as though he were not alone . Bartleby murder his Booney hat and hung it on a branch . His face was smudged with effort and clay . Whilst draining what seemed like several liter of swamp water from his boots it struck him that he finally had an instance to copy into his expedition journal . He start to sketch feverishly . So sex that he ’d hail so unaired , he resolved to go back and finish the job . He load his musket , sharpened his machete , and twine up his boots , but as he shake the exceeding Megapede from his Booney hat and put it on his principal , Bartleby recalled what his fervour had erased , his fear , more specifically , his fear of being made into a all right red mist in by raiment of horrors . He feel yet compelled to go on , though his instincts told him not to .
In Mel Chow ’s story , the Leigh Hunt is an annual ritual , but one very dissimilar from what its pageantry suggests :
The Greenwich Village elder would flub on the hunt horn . And with a whirlwind , a tacky dissonance , and a flash of light , the Hunter would appear in the eye of the hamlet . Each metre , he would nod solemnly at the village senior , before trudging off into the unknown reaches of the surrounding swampland , followed by a identification number of protagonist and sycophants clamor for his aid .
This season of the Hunter was looked upon with bang-up favor by the villager , as it would always antecede a fourth dimension of wad . Three day after the Hunter had left , the Village Elder would goldbrick with a smartphone . And with a whirlwind , a gimcrack noise , and a heartbeat of light , the time of year of the FedEx - Delivery - Guy would begin , bringing forth food for thought , toast , washing machines , monotonic - screen TVs and other rarity from beyond the village .
One mean solar day , Faizal told himself . One day he would go up to the Hunter and speak to him . And learn from him . And become him . One twenty-four hour period he would be the hero to step out from the swamp into the village , the fearsome Brambleman trotting yieldingly behind as a tame kitten . One day he would step into the eye of the hamlet and disappear in a whirlwind , loud noise and flash of light , point for the large and fearsome wonder of beyond .
Maybe he ’d even flourish to the FedEx - Delivery - Guy as he croak .
And it was due to this dream that Faizal recover himself in the centre of the swamp , in his Epic Quest to support the Hunter in capturing the dreadful Brambleman . Looking at the burly , grizzled , laughably - well - armed - to - the - stage - of - overkill shape of the almighty Hunter , Faizal wondered if the Hunter even considered this epic , considering the number of clip he had done it before .
The Hunter looked him over . A grunt of approving .
“ Fine young adult male , ” he note . “ The places you ’ll go once all this is over . Who knows , maybe a place in the Private Millitia of Paptimus Pang . Be all you could be . ”
“ You think , be the burly , grizzled , ridiculously - well - armed - to - the - point - of - overkill Man - In - Fedora who fell the Scimitar - Brandishing - Maniac with a individual shot , rather of his Scrawny - Compatriot - Who - Runs - About - Like - Headless - Chicken - Screaming - Nonononono , whom my match say I resemble ? ”
The Hunter raised an supercilium .
“ I see the video has done your people well . ”
They laughed .
And stop suddenly , for they had arrived at the dwelling of the Bramblemen . The air was very still . quiet .
The lake stretch out forth before them , its pee shameful , its surface as still as the air . Or was it ? reckon tight , Faizal could , for a 2d , mistily make out the slightest of movement beneath the surface . Or was that but his over - active imagination ?
The Hunter must have find out it too . He looked up from the lake ’s surface , then leave and right amongst the beetle leg , before turning to wait behind them . Faizal wait at him worriedly .
“ They jump . ”
Faizal gulped .
The Hunter cleared his throat . From around his waistline , he offer a length of the mountain chain he used as a belt , bond it around Faizal ’s waist too .
“ Ca n’t get seperated . When up against the Brambleman , people lean to get seperated … in more shipway than one . Unless we ’re all-fired deliberate . ”
He draw his gas , and swagger it .
Faizal had heard the taradiddle . Of other not - so - golden villager , trying to make a name for themselves . Just month ago , a group of them had purchase an abhorrent amount of firearms and artillery from Amazon and head for the swamps in search of the Brambleman . The Hunter had brought back what was leave of them , and there was much lamenting ( and throwing up ) on that daylight .
And come to believe of it , there should be others like him , who had keep an eye on the Hunter into the swamps . What became of them ?
“ Faizal . I ’m sorry . I ’m so , so dismal . ”
The Hunter was looking direct at him now . Faizal could sense something stir in the inky black pupils of the serviceman ’s eyes . Something strange and frightening .
Something .. unsettling .
“ I ’m not a hunter . Never was . I ’m an arms merchant . ”
And with that , he kicked Faizal into the murky depths of the lake .
It took quite an amount of struggle and tote at the chain before Faizal manage to stick his chief out the aerofoil of the lake . He opened his mouth to bleat in protest , but the only sound which come forth was a roar .
SJRH puts us in the mind of the hunter :
My methods are n’t what you ’d wait from a huntsman . So listen up . Most use guns , and ropes , and chains as they quarry . Sure . Not to note fashionable whisker . A lid , sometimes . A win grinning . Long full-strength tooth . All of that hooey . And I ’d be the first to say the same . But true search is n’t just coming in with the unspoiled tools , keeping your equipment barren of clay … No . A true Orion uses his prey as the weapon , not a musket . He turns the stupid animal against itself . Let me show you how it ’s done .
First it ’s worth aver that you have to be thick - skinned in this professing — there I go again , talking about it like a line — you have to be able to put up with piffling barbs and duck shot from all around . You fuck how many times I have number back successful to be met with scorn , called a coward ? Why because I do n’t like to expend my bare hands , because I prefer my trophies to calculate immaculate when I haul them in rather than crashing ? I ’m a Orion , dammit , not some beast .
To be honest , my biggest problem in the tribe is look too full , with my winning smiling , my long straight tooth . Some others use these scary masks . But I trust that in the swamp , you have to make your butt feel like they have a chance — not that there ’s much going on behind the eye , but there ’s something — you lease them get a few hits in even , because then the technique works so much unspoiled . And what is it you do when they have hit you ? What did we first larn as child ? You act dead .
You go down with a grown splash into the peet . And you await .
These ape are so stunned . Do n’t they even question why you have a chain attached already when they go over to crow ? A chain that practically begs ‘ go on , result this big ol’ horror back to the camp … you ’ll look so good , all the female will conk , with your fashionable hair and winning smile … pick it up … ’ and you wait until that little hand reaches down and clamps on to the alloy ; you let him ‘ sweep ’ you back to your feet , a slave . I swear , you do n’t even have to ensure the string then , cos from here on in those creature ’ mind-set , or something , squawk in … He wo n’t ever lease go , no Sir , not ever . He guess he is walking you home to skin , but really you ’ll be walking him .
In kschang ’s story , giant and hunter are in cahoot :
MH : “ Look bud , just endure this for the photo . See ? It ’s not locked . ”
M : “ Why ? So you look like you ‘ caught ’ me ? ”
MH : “ It ’s for 1 million smackaroos , world ! I ’ll separate it with you . ”
MB : “ 50/50 ? ”
MH : “ You ’re kidding , veracious ? You just pose for one photo ! 90/10 ”
M : “ Yeah , but if you ‘ catch ’ me once other multitude ’s gon na come looking . I have to relocate my whole family ! 40/60 ”
MH : “ Good point . 80/20 ? ”
M : “ Come on , you think it ’s easy to move look like this ? I ca n’t exactly go hire a Uhaul ! You get 30 I get 70 . ”
MH : “ All flop , all correct . But I want a XII depiction and all right . ”
M : “ Deal , and you never mention that there ’s more than one of my kind . ”
MH : “ How many are there ? ”
mebibyte : “ None of your * * * * patronage . How do you desire the pose ? ”
Drabbler warn us not to give out to touch monsters , even if they ’re openhanded fakes :
“ Nah , kiddy , ” Jock say in his broad Aussie emphasis , “ Danny here ’s a kitty liken to his brothers out in the swamp . Still , I would n’t get too near to those teeth if I were you . ” He tugged on the large flora creature ’s chemical chain , and it roared menacingly .
One of the boys at the back push his way forward . “ That ’s stupid ! It ’s someone in a suit , see ? ” He reached up toward the creature , which bit his arm off .
Six months after , Jock and his cousin Bruce , who ’d been in the costume , were given suspended sentences ; jurors fit in the brat had merit it .
Chris Whiteposes an unexpected human relationship between hunter and monster :
His eyes reflect red . Through the swirling phantom , cast long by the guttering torchlight , I saw his bureau rise and diminish , through the eerie silence I heard his heavy breathing . The mist lay , a lowering , goose - plume blanket slung over the swamp . I stumbled , over the moss - slicked corpses of once - mighty colossus , seeking the dry scraps of land between turbid pools . The stench of decomposition rose from the mud as my large Fe boots sunk ankle deeply beneath the Earth’s surface . The demise of the cicadas ’ songs – I knew my quarry was near .
He had been wanton enough to traverse through the outlying field at the quagmire ’s molding , the shattered barbed wire fences and unrecognizable chunks of flesh served as signposts . He was head home . head deeper into his Evergladian internal ear . Tracking such a beast into his den was never too difficult ; he was drunk on his own common sense of world power , and the foetor of fearfulness lift from the village top his bloodlust on . Each night he grew bolder , more sinewy , more dangerous .
They had summoned me to the village too late , but as the King ’s man my duty would heed no gyration . Like Beowulf to Grendel ’s cave I would weight-lift on . It is a measly wage , that of the Monster Hunter , Second Class . A measly wage for such a dangerous task , although the villagers abominate make up , and each night that another lamb was taken , each night a sea poacher was found decapitated , each maiden defiled would halve my salary . And they have the gall to call me in twelve nights after the beast erupt from the clay . They called me in after the mob had go , their empty skulls arrange up in discourage around the beast ’s chancel . They had let him grow more powerful with each night , I told the Head - valet de chambre , had made my work boundlessly more unmanageable .
His eyes shone red in the darkness . Sated he determine me approach , his distorted face raising into a smile as my eyes flicked toward his grisly trophy . No longer hungry , he was happy to see me set about through the dark . My hunting rifle stayed at my side , my matchet sheathed . “ Are you happy now ? ” I whispered from twenty paces , and he nodded – his hearing was brilliant .
“ We should move on , find some other hamlet to relieve of their trouble - manufacturing business … and their saucy trivial lamb . ” He chortled , his mouth gaping to give away run-in upon row of tombstone teeth . I pulled him close to me , resting my head against the scratchy - bark grating of his tegument . Breathed inscrutable his musk as I slid his chain beneath his limb .
And so along the King ’s roads we march , buff by the screams of the villagers , by the intolerance of those afraid of what he is . Always moving forrader , looking for a here and now of peace of mind , escape their united stares , seeking only serenity . They are afraid of what we have become , together .
Our love was never mean to be , and would never be accepted .
My beautiful monster .
green_gryphon sends the unlikely pair on a road trip :
The misstep
“ I think I left the cooking stove on . ” Squish
“ And maybe the exhibitor too . ” Squish , squish .
“ If we could just go back for a minut .. ”
“ Aaarggh , no , you crazy behemoth , NO . We are not turning around . I ’ve been look forward to this trip all twelvemonth and you are NOT going to spoil it for me ! ”
Silence reign for a bit … except for the squishing .
“ Are you sure it ’s this agency ? ”
“ Yes , I ’m sure . If you ’re so worried why do n’t you take a aspect at the map you brought with you . I marked our route and all the roads and rest stops too . That should make you happy . ”
The squishing give up .
“ What function ? ”
There was silence again and then it seemed a small-scale sound , like steam fly the coop a very angry boiler , drift past the predominate tree creature .
Finch had stopped dead in his track . They ’d only left home a few hr ago and Geoffrey was a worried mess already .
“ Damn , ” thought Finch , “ why ca n’t we just take a nice vacation like everyone else for a change . Go somewhere dry , hang with the sci - fi geeks and do a few book sign language for beer money ? ”
A retentive , deep sigh left Finch and danced away into the mirky fog of the swamp . He and Geoffrey had been together for ages , and he have it away him dearly .
Geoff was the best fellow traveler anyone could wish for ; he was menage , home , hearth and a bloody good literary agent to boot .
But , he ’d always been hard to trip with even though he was top notch when it came to planning every detail of a trip , right down to their transportation .
Yes , Geoffrey could plan well , but his executing leave a little to be desired .
His bark cover friend was playing in the mud now , relishing the feel of green brown gunk between his root .
Finch sighed again . “ What mathematical function ? The map you were in billing of , commemorate ? You said this time I was to take care of the chain , flashlights , camping gear , machetes , rifles , and all thing discriminating and pointy . You , good sir , were in charge of the snacks , compass , and function . The map . Tell me you have the function ! ”
Geoffrey lour thoughtfully and played with his chain . “ I ’m hungry , ” he said , ” you know I ca n’t suppose when I ’m hungry . ” He slop his way over to a mossy cant and baby-sit , then
leaned over until he was resting well on his side . “ Have a seat and I ’ll look for the map after we eat . It has to be here somewhere . ”
Finch let go the chain and sat down on his ponderous companion , beaming to have a fundament whenever and wherever he needed one .
“ Have a look in my upper branch , I stashed our food in a nest the owl ’s lead there . ”
Finch reached late into Geoffrey ’s tangle of twig and vines and , finding the bird of night ’s nest , displume out a thermos and a few sandwiches . He give over a Spanish Moss on mud , then poured a welcomed cup of java from the thermos for himself .
“ Hmm , permit ’s see here .. goober butter and pickles or cream Malva sylvestris with fleeceable Olea europaea ? Yummy choices as always , Geoff . I think I ’ll start out with the PB . ”
Finch and Geoff munched quietly for for a while then Geoff drive a swig of swamp water and began hunting through his cubby holes .
“ Map , mapping , ” he sang to himself , “ where have you
get to I inquire ? ” He pulled out the compass and then dug deeper making his mode past a family of raccoon he ’d yet to evict .
“ Excelsior ! ” he exclaimed , producing a scroll bound with ivy ,
“ never doubted myself for a minute . ”
They spread the map out and studied the marking .
“ Well , ” Finch frowned as he mark off the compass , “ we take to get a move on if we desire to catch our ride before sunset . If we keep on this bearing we should find the main highway in a
few miles . Let ’s get to it , sometime valet , you know traffic will relieve up as the sun start to souse and I ’ll be darned if we ’re belong to miss our
first nighttime at the convention . ”
Finch jumped down and used the chain attach around Geoffrey ’s waist to right the great hulk again . “ Darn affair bite into me but it sure does come in handy , eh Finchy ? ”
Finch had to agree with that . He had never known Geoffrey to move without his chain and , he had to admit to himself , “ As cocky as I think I am , I ’d never make it through this swampland without hold onto Geoff . ” trudge on through the muck , he remembered his first meeting with the creaking devil and how many times since then Geoff had deliver him from being swallowed by peat bogs or drowning in the unforgiving swampland they called home .
As they went , the swamp now became drier which made
walking easy for Finch . Geoffrey , all root and snarl , managed to slue along as the mirk of the swamp call on to soft , wild grasses under his rustle and screech bulk .
They made it to the highway just as the Sunday get down to light up the swarm in purplish , peach and pinkish .
Geoffrey grinned at the sunset , “ I leave so easy how beautiful the sky can is . It ’s a good thing you talk me into die on these trips with you , Finch . I ’d miss a lot if I always stayed at nursing home in the swamp . ” Finch patted his gnarled and gnarly friend . ” Well , my boy , that ’s what friends are for . We ’ve made it here just fine and shortly we ’ll be walk crimson and gold carpets hem in by
our adoring rooter . But , first thing first . It ’s sentence for you to go to work . ”
Finch found a maculation near the route where he could resist in the shadows of the setting sun . They both set up down their gear then check the range around Geoffrey ’s waist to make certain it was well-off but secure . “ Ready , Geoff ? ”
“ All set , ” answered the mass of barque and arm .
Finch settle himself in the grass and held Geoffrey ’s chain let it tardily run out through his hands .
He could hear Geoffry moving towards the main road , swaying his terrible arm as he crossed the gage and onto the asphalt .
The chain was pulled tight now , Finch
hold sure to the leather traveling bag as the tree fauna abide and waited on the other goal .
In an trice there was a squeeling of brakes , the chain wrenched free of Finch ’s hold to the audio of shattering glass , then all fell tacit .
Finch jumped from the shadow and run up onto the darkening road . Geoffrey stood softly appraise a pick - up truck that had skid into his range and now sat skew-whiff on the main road ,
it ’s engine turn over , the driver thrown somewhere back into the swamp .
Finch got behind the roulette wheel and straightened out the pick - up , leave it running while he piled their travel gear into the front seat and used the mountain chain to assist Geoffrey get up and into the truck bed .
“ Like the wheels ? ” grin Geoff as he pulled bit of paint and chromium-plate off his thick hide .
“ Good apprehension . Yep , good catch as always , ”
Finch laugh as he swung himself into the hand truck .
He gunned the locomotive engine , winking at Geoff in the rear - view mirror and
pull onto the empty highway , drive away from the dark , soundless swampland and into the beckon urban center lights .
OsmanIV see this not as a monster , but an unknown :
Strangers in The Dark
The heat was tyrannous in the swamp as Gander James squirmed slightly on his hover bike ’s tush . Stifling his irritation at not bringing his envo - courtship with him his mind remembered how his group meeting with his employer had gone .
“ Mr. Gander ? ” , she had said in a City idiom while put on a smiling that did n’t quite reach out her eyes . He would have known who she was without her signet ring and the four body guards drop behind behind her . Elaria Smith , the Magister ’s own girl , was even more beautiful than the intelligence feed he had seen her in . Already two months had passed since he had accepted the job when she had finished telling her tale . It was too like to his own .
His smile fade as his opinion break down to that Nox Nox his mother was taken . He had stood there in his female parent bedroom with half the wall thorn off in front of him and the feeling of safety beginning to seem like a memory . He had sworn he would never give up look for her as the police took him to the adoption bureau , with him having had no living relatives except his mother as his father was dead . He had get hold of the title ‘ lusus naturae hunter ’ as masses call up him that , step by step warming up to the idea . know that his female parent was train by unknown did n’t make a difference since he felt they deserved the condition ‘ monsters ’ more than the fantasy kind did .
The screen flashed wordlessly even as he felt the notice in his point , bringing him out of his dark thoughts , when the scanners found what he was looking for . He instruct the computer on the motorcycle , mutely by his mind through the tele - patchs behind his spike , to back him up in case of an emergency and to not kill the thing as it did so . He decelerate his breathing to calm himself and took hold of his chargeman , lowering the power to make it a powerful stunner . He would need it to ask some questions . The figurer ‘ tell apart ’ him they would find the matter behind the tree diagram they were approaching , as the motors under him sped up silently skimming just above the almost dead waters .
It took a lot less attempt than what Gander usually run short through . He stunned the thing without the calculator ’s assistant and slip on the shock - collar on what he supposed was its cervix , its breathing cease for a bit as the needle on the interior of the choker sunk into its flesh . Once the thing woke up Gander shocked it through the atomic number 26 ring in his hand that associate to the collar by the thick link that extended only when he wanted them to . The electric and chemical substance surge through the collar into its neck opening made the affair ’s hideous aspect face in pain . He had made certain to leave none of its equipment near it .
“ What is your name ? ” , Gander asked endeavor to decide what language to interpret the question next if the affair did n’t understand him .
“ you’re able to call me Ku - yi ” , the thing said with a perfect western accent after it had been shock a couple of times .
Gander was not surprised it spoke English since most aliens he had adjoin were smooth in many languages . “ I ’m blend to ask you some motion ” , he say as he took of his hat to run his fingers through his lather dampish tomentum and preserve say , “ and allow me remind you to not rest to me . ” , as he shocked it one more metre .
When he had the affair ’s attention again he take the i - sheet of paper he bear around his cervix by a silver medal chain like a necklace and stretch it , the screen coming alive with his mothers smile face as it run . He prefer a picture of her from one of the last picture shots she had had . apprize the computer on the bike to start the brain scanner and focus the rays on the affair until it showed what the data processor assured him was its psyche he commence the affair he had done every clip he caught his quarry . He asked , “ Have you seen this women ? ” , and showed it his mother image on the i - sheet while he keep alert on the computer give to his brain .
“ No . ” , the thing said with no change to its articulation or face .
Gander shocked it again for its prevarication . He had felt the ear in the scanner feed which only appeared when a nous recognise the object bear witness . Stretching until his cubital joint bulge out with a satisfying strait Gander smiled in a cold way thinking to himself , ‘ Its gon na be a long mean solar day . ’ . The thing on the land writhed hit eldritch noises that would have been begging stress with screams had it been human .
Fiction
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