WEREWOLF ISLAND
by
Toby Wolfham
© 2023 by Toby Wolfham
All rights reserved.
Contact: tobywolfham@gmail.com
(All comments, inquiries, and communication welcome, just drop an e-mail!)
Chapter 2
THE LOST ONES
From the moment that that ambrosian order was handed down, the jungle was alight with vehement activity, and the ranked hunters were sent on the trail while it still bore their palatable stink; to find the humans who had landed on their island. They would capture or kill them--all of them--or none, depending on their insolence. It was a stirring opportunity, as too rarely did humans end up on their territory. They moved on with agility and aptitude, far outmanoeuvring the subordinate powers of mere humans, and had mapped out every inch of the island available to them in parts of their brain unused by men with.
There was three of them--hunters--experienced in chasing down potentially capable humans, humans who had been sought and destroyed as well as captured. In this experience. The hunters had received scars few and given return in abundance, and were all-too aware of the threat they posed with their guns and their weapons. They needed no such tools themselves save for theirs on fists and feet and teeth, but that did not stop them from wielding such crutches if the occasion arose. The leader of the party--Womack, did in fact brandish a spear, a sign of dominance amongst the pack. He was not the chief, but the chief's son and his keenest, most bloodthirsty warrior: a male specimen who moved like water on the wind, a feat which would have been seen as surprising given the male's sheer muscular girth and fully-weighted form. Yet, he proved to be the fastest of the three, using both his hands and the spear to launch himself over the obstacles laden before them. Fallen trees and low-hanging branches proved no difficulty for him. He enjoyed the thrill of it, despite the easy boast that he could simply march on in his exuberant tank-like way through any trial laid at him.
They were nothing. No steel beast was strong enough.
"Oak; Elm," he stopped, signalled to the brothers.
The two were twins, each as wiry as the other but bearing an unnatural muteness: their tongues had been cut out at birth (punishment for an indiscretion by their father: he had dared to speak ill of the chief. From thenceforth, each living son would have their tongues removed) so any hesitation of theirs went unrecorded as they adhered to every bidding, using their indispensable mastery to split three ways and form a deadly triangle, with which they would begin to close in on a redolence, effectively trapping it within. The pair were always in-sync and often successful in capturing prey.
Womack, the chief's son and the pack's pseudo-second-in-command slowed his pace now that the scent was closer. Spooking the prey was one of the biggest shames to be subjected to. None of them, not the biggest, strongest, nor smallest, puniest, walked with sound greater than an animal's footfalls, as such they all trod the earth barefoot, and were brazenly unclothed for the most part, a custom that exemplified their perfect art: there was not a damn thing to hinder them, no piece of cloth to catch itself on a passing branch, no extra weight with which to slow them. They had been doing this for many years and has learned the ways that best worked.
Smoke billowed up from the area they were circling in on and the strong smell of it nauseated. Onwards they went, to where the plane had crashed, and it was there at this place they could smell, mingled subtly with the miasma of smoke and charred metal: blood. It could not be disguised from them. Blood, above all else, pierced through any shroud placed before it like a sabre. It aroused them.
No longer were the three in each other's constant sights as trees prohibited them from seeing each other, but they would always know, inherently. With them, their blood beating boiling through their veins was like a heat signature: they didn't need to see the white of their skin to be able to know they were there.
Womack lowered, pressed his firm stomach to the ground, and on elbows and knees he crawled through bushes and undergrowth to peer through at the clearing of the site.
There were two humans.
One of them was a strong-looking man with short-cropped yellow hair, donned in the usual black and jade military garb, unspectacular, a little tattered but otherwise he was unharmed.
The other was a man of Asian heritage, swathed in a typical mystique, wearing mostly black and sporting a black band over his forehead. This man, however strong as he looked, was injured. He needed the blond man's shoulders to be able to walk, and he was having trouble breathing.
"C'mon Katana," growled the blond. "Can't be draggin' your ass all day. Need your help. Never mind, I'd better put you down..."
"Sorry," he half-coughed half-laughed. "Didn't think it was that serious."
The blond carefully lowered the other man where they stood. Behind them, the downed plane was surprisingly well-preserved considering the crash. Few flames existed, and while Katana sat nursing his wounds, the blond used a small red cylinder--a fire extinguisher--to put out the remains. The metal gleamed under the sunlight, but the rising smoke obscured it to them, artificially creating a visage of a cloudy day. With the crisis averted, the man on his feet set to work salvaging what he could, kicking aside burnt metal sheets and yanking out sparking wired from behind an exposed panel.
"You know," he said quietly. "I think we can save this."
"What about the others."
"We'll find them." He turned around and wiped sweat from his gleaming brow. "We'll find them and see if they're... if they're..."
"Dead?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it like that but... yeah."
"They could be. We came down just after Red and Dusk did. They should be back in that direction."
"It looked bad. I'd be surprised if they made it."
"Maybe we should wait. If they made it, then they might be on their way to us already."
"Typical the parachutes fucked up."
"Tell me about it." He turned to rummage, finding a small supply of medical supplies, in a portable metal container. He brought it over. "How bad is it?"
"Nothing more than a scratch," insisted Katana, reaching over and taking the supplies for himself. "I can take care of myself, Hugh. Why don't you see if you can find those flares?"
"Good idea. And don't call me that. You can call me Striker."
Striker heard Katana scoff mockingly over his shoulder but gave little heed as he went about the rummaging. Much of the plane was salvageable.
There was no reason why it could not take off again, if they happened to replace a part here and there. They would need to find the other crash site, first, and hope to high heaven that something can be saved. More so, the lives of their compatriots, which were insurmountably paramount; they could work on getting off the island after finding each other again. Striker was the pilot, with a high-end degree in engineering from MIT. He could have gone all the way and had a nice, safe role in a hangar somewhere doing repair jobs, but he decided he wanted to be where the action was--more the fool, he thought--stuck in this mess. Through the lens of his dim green eyes he theoretically could fix most problems in his head.
This venture, however, required teamwork, something he also thought he excelled at.
Katana wrapped his bleeding arm in bandages quickly; a trained medic, as well as a former frontline solider, he was an expert at hand-to-hand combat but could not say no to having a big old M15 in his hands. He rather fancied himself the best shot in the country. Too short to be sniper, he decided to join the Airforce. Fairly new at the game, he had some trouble getting used to the highs. But now that he had tasted the sky, these lows were something he would never get used to again. Ground level was hell, as far as he was concerned.
Stroking his oiled mustard-yellow moustache, Striker poured over the cockpit. Damaged but not too badly, the affixed box containing flares was open and they'd lost a few. Only two were left. He picked one up and verified it.
"Still works," he sang and jumped out of the upturned jet.
"I've been thinkin'--" Katana began.
Both men's heads were turned sharply in the distracting direction of a sound; unsubtle, a rustle of something in the brush not far away, confirmed by the shake of branches. In this unknown land, it could have been anything, any new species of predator, or something worse. They were tense, on tenterhooks, eyes fiercely locked on the spot where movement had been. Seconds passed. And then, just as they were about to relax, the moment came again.
A strange creature, a cross between a small warthog and a rabbit came staggering though the barrier of foliage; it was short, squat, and disgusting, bearing a mucus problem that preceded it, a trail of saliva and snot bubbled and billowed from its disfigured snout. Its four eyes were black, beady, and soulless as it seemingly narrowed in on the two giant figures mere feet away. Its fur was tattered and matted, and its ears were long and drooped, while its body was barrelled and stocky. A truly unpleasant thing to look upon.
"Fucking mutants," proclaimed Katana.
In his utter disgust, Striker's grimace remained on his face long after his partner clapped his hands loudly together and the unpleasant creature fled back through the hole it came out of. He turned away and handed one of the two flares to Katana. "Think I'd better stick by you after all."
"Not scared are you?" He smirked.
"Of that monster? No. But it does make me wonder what else might be out there waiting for us to separate or keel over... and that does scare me. You know, I'd much rather be here with you anyway."
"I bet you would."
Striker squat down next to the man. "Please, we will wait before dark to light the flares; nobody will see them before then--not in this jungle--might even be a task then."
Womack launched first from behind the trees, attacking with savage efficiency. The man on his feet stood little chance of safeguard in time to defuse the situation, and that was exactly how he had planned it, to attack. The distraction of the Harhog had been enough, it had been the opportunity they sought, and it was what they needed to execute a plan of action. He, to be followed by his brothers, stormed the camp, intending to make this quick, to take them both down before they even saw what hit them.
But what little Striker saw in those moments: a man, huge and untamed, flying through the air, not a digit touching the floor, must have been quite terrifying. Startling. He had not a second to defend himself before the Tarzan-like male's bodyweight crushed against him, taking him down to the ground in a flash. Something struck him across the back of the head.
Striker received blow--from who exactly, he did not know, but--all began to fade before his eyes as mist came to cloud his vision, a mist that came to be overrun by blood, red mist. Laid on his front, head inclined to the side, he got to see another bizarre and disturbing scene before the darkness came: his co-pilot, Katana, being assaulted by what appeared to be a naked tornado; limbs of men and gloss of masculine features, organs; he could not tell if there was one, two, or ten men attacking him, but he was powerless to stop it.
The oriental fought well, thought Womack, impressed by the spectacle, no matter how brief. In the end he hadn't a chance, no matter the skill he exhibited.
Standing to admire the small victory--two apparently well-trained humans, his for the taking--he avowed himself utterly.
Felt up by plants, groped by unknown figures, Red was on-edge. Should anything else emerge from the knotted wall of ambiguity, he would have no doubt about the state of his luck. It was all going downhill, and he cursed missing any signs or bad omens that laden his path that day before flying into the hot zone.
When he finally found the source of the smoke, there was no-one there. The site of Striker's plane resembled a ghost town. He recognised the plane immediately (the one with the huge yellow moustache painted on the side with flight goggles above them) and was pleasantly surprised by the state of it. Like a big kid at Christmas Eve, he rounded the craft several times, smoothed his strong hands over the solid steel and sighed. It was alive. Dented and shot to hell, but this girl would fly again.
It took Red the better part of an hour (or so he guessed with his smashed watch) to perform rudimentary repairs; stopping oil leaks, cutting off the damaged circuit boards in the cockpit, etc. and found that the emergency flares and medkit had been taken--a good sign--and stood back to survey it.
"Well, damn," he said in soft susurration to no-one in particular.
He quickly came to realise that some of the parts that this second plane needed, his own downed bird had on her. He had even espied some, strewn up amongst those monstrous trees like jagged bits of hope which derided his memories to the point where he had to question them, re-
envision them. Even so, stripping the wreckage was a good idea.
He needed to get back to Dusk.
Inevitably, the jungle depths began to overheat as he began to backtrack (or attempt to), the sun was unbearably high, and even though its full form was never fully visible to him through the roof of massive overarching trees, he caught slant glimpses of it. The bright white orb was despised by his complexion, but under the safety of the leaves, at least he could remain mostly in shelter. It must rain, he thought, the trees all looks so healthy, so green, that he found it hard to imagine it was this hot on a constant loop; the sun had to go down sometime, hadn't it?
At this rate, he thought: might not.
As much as it it drained him and bogged him down in sweat and grime, the heat had another effect on Red's head. He thought about the shape in the jungle and what it was doing with him. He thought at first glance it might've been a female, but now he was not so sure. Recollecting through this delirium was hard, harder still was the thickness in his underwear, but now was not the time to indulge in such flights of fancy. Maybe it had just turned his brain to mush. He shook his head and set about staggering through the endless battery of colour: greens and browns were the most common sights, but the colours of flowers also shot through, reminding him of his encounter with the demonic Yonic. Cold sweat would have almost been a relief if it hadn't been for the dreaded knowledge that he may have to traverse its fronds and eager tentacles again. He steered clear of it this time, unfortunately, he also wound up further away from he wreckage he was returning for.
From one of the pushes on his chest, Red found his old aviator sunglasses and put them on to shield his eyes from the oncoming glare of brightness that came with the steady incline; he was climbing rocks, barehanded, fingers lodged in tiny cracks and by some feat of miracles he navigated the vertical footholds. Of course, every upwards spring was a challenge, but he had some practice doing it raw in such a manner. Training had given his legs and arms muscle that aided with this problem, and as much as he ached from each precarious gambol, and the lack of rest, he managed to scale the dark brown surface a short ways to a wider ledge that bore a shorter cropping of grass.
Standing there, he stretched and groaned. The climb was only half done and staring up at the daunting task he knew the worst was yet to come as the climb became precipitous. Unsure exactly of where he was going, he would at least be able to get a better look of his dangerous surroundings, so again, he repeated the process. The first step was the hardest and he did indeed slip back on to the ledge before giving a grunt and a leap and finally getting back on track.
There came to him a significant delay once he reached the summit; the mountain, as he discovered was unclimbable, coming to a point so share and high that there was no point trying. He saw a great deal from his vantage point anyway. The tops of stress, he saw, vast, extended to the horizon. It resembled a prehistoric land, trapped in time, and he was looking in through the hourglass. The way the sun was starting to lower in the sky worried Red should he lose his way in the dark, he would doubtlessly find himself ambushed by some creature of hideous description, plants alone were life-threatening. Even so, he admired the view, despite the horror, and came to him were thoughts and regrets of things unchangeable. The war he was currently out of action from. How many of his friends--brothers-in-arms--were dead now because they could not be with them in the heart of the action. All of their names, he grieved before even knowing their fate; it was the life he lived, he (and them) had learned not to spend too much time in mourning, because if it was the case, death was snapping at his heels, too. It would be a disservice, a disrespect, to fall now after whatever god out or up there decided to throw him a lifeline. Did he consider himself lucky? In this case, not especially. Red considered himself a survivor, that was all. If he was still alive, that was a good thing. Luck had very little to do with it. Still, those names would always haunt him, their faces as scarring as a tattoo on the skin. They, much like family, were a part of him he would always remember, never forget, but at the same time, he would not let them drag him down with them.
After taking his fill of the view, Red's eyes narrowed on the faint smoke from where the wreck of his own plane had been. The fire had since died down and he mentally marked its location for reference, once he safely climbed back down to ground level. The shore that surround the island was far from sight but he could almost hear the crush of waves crawling up the sands, and the call of seabirds. It surprised him, but in that short climb, he was nearly fifty feet up. He could almost walk across the treetops if he trusted his weight to be less than the leafed dome that shielded the jungle from eyes above.
To hide the sin from the eyes of heaven.
Red climbed down carefully.
It really took it out of him but he trod on, refusing to rest for a moment longer should Dusk need his help, He couldn't imagine the man sitting still for as long as he had, but in his state of injury he had no choice. He harboured some guilt on that but there was no choice; he would have hindered him. If he had journeyed with him and they faced the plant-creature together, one of them would have been its next meal, without a doubt. No. He moved much faster alone.
A problem ensued, however, he realised when his feet touched down on solid ground; without medicines or supplies, how was he going to get Dusk out of the camp, let alone the island? Maybe if...
Red shook his head, dismissed those negative thoughts, and slight poisonous tang of selfishness and made haste to the old crash site now that he had a better angle on things.
However, when he turned at a familiar fork in the untrodden path, he was faced with a strange character.
A boy, of around fifteen, totally hairless, and clothed in a furred loincloth, stood there facing him directly, a grim expression on his blank, long face. They had a wooden staff in one hand shaped to a point--a spear--and a wreath of bones in the other. He said nothing only stood there, motionless except for the slight rise and fall of a shallow chest in breathing.
"Hey there," said Red with an uncomfortable frown.
At the smallest movement from Red, the boy took off; darting away back into the wildness of the jungle.
"Wait!" He called, running after him.
Blindly dashing through the fronds, Red kept the boy's back in sight. Could this be the character who had assaulted him earlier? No. This was someone else, with colour, with life. At the same time, he had appeared lacking in emotion, cold, a bizarre contradiction. He almost looked like a ghost, but that could have been the paint on his skin--warpaint?--that Red struggled to picture clearly again. Black paint on white paint on white skin; he looked like his whole body was painted to resemble a skeleton. That was where the lifelessness came from. Zombie war paint.
The idea made Red slow his pace.
Perhaps this was a trap, he considered.
And as that thought came and went, so did the boy, vanished from sight, leaving Red once again lost and stranded in the middle of green hell.
More so.
On all sides the emerald barricades blocked him in. The deluge of antipathy washed over Red like a freezing flood, so cold that the heat evaporated and he shivered. He was on the verge of panic, when, he summoned his will; imagined all the heart-stopping thrills of the sky, the near-death rides he'd taken, and gathered courage: this was nothing, no reason to get bent out of shape. He backed slowly away from the area, keeping his feet in line with the tracks he'd already made in the dirt so as to not lose his way further, and carefully dusting them over with the edge of his boot to keep trackers at bay.
Red's trek backwards was as intense as intense could be. Every sound, movement in the brush, amplified in his ears, and sounded like a ringing bell, ominous, like the call of the dead to rest. Squeaking insects sounded as though they were right inside his ear, buzzing and singing; each snap of a twig was akin to a bone breaking.
As soon as Red saw the net, he stopped; his heel had felt something different, neither natural nor un underfoot. He froze, looked back over his shoulder at what was there and saw it buried under leaves. A net woven from vines and other such local efficiencies. Not daring to move another step, Red felt eyes all over him, from everywhere; they were waiting for him to take the leap and slip right into their trap. Up in the trees, he noted the ropes were taut, waiting to seize him by pulling the manmade net to the treetops. They were unmanned, fixed by intelligent mechanisms of wood, carved and whittles levers and pulleys--well-disguised--to activate with pressure.
Less eyes, he felt on him. There was no-one waiting for him to step backward, only an inanimate object.
Allowing himself the reprimand, Red breathed easy for just a moment.
A moment. Then it fell away.
Then came the faces.
There must have been six or seven, skull-painted ghosts coming out of the trees, all with the same, stark, numb expression. The eerie way their bodies moved but their faces remained stoic was what frightened the most; they had the ability to fascinate as well as fear, for Red could not look away from their dour bearing, the same way one would find a corpse ghastly but could not tear their eyes away. They hauled all kinds of equipment and weapons: bows and arrows, spears, slingshots, and all of the faces' hands were holding them right at him. A clearer threat, Red had yet to find.
They were getting closer.
When he noticed the boy was amongst the ranks, Red broke the spell all on his own, and miraculously side-stepped the net to move around. Due to the thickness of the jungle, he could not run, the height of some of the roots alone required him either climb or crawl. But he fought onwards, even as he felt the sharp sting of a blowdart to the back of the neck, accurate, potent.
"Fuck... fuck me," he gasped.
Everything around him began to literally melt away before his eyes, as if water had been thrown into his face; colours mixed and flooded and sparkled; he had been drugged, without a doubt, but he was still I control of his body, pushing his stiffening legs forward, forward. Keep going, keep going.
The sun was rapidly descending, casting the jungle into a reddish glow, uncommon, spectral, it descended.
Breath haggard, pupils blown, the redhead trudged through the jungle, at his back were a half dozen tribal warriors--natives--keeping their distance but keeping him in sight.
He could hear their footsteps now, no longer were they silently sneaking; they were coming for their prey.
"Shit. Can't..." Red was choking. "Keep away..."
Unsheathing the blade, he took a few blind swings, the whoosh of the weapon catching air seemed to delay their approach as finally, Red's legs seized up. He couldn't move. But no further were they coming. Red decided to make a stand.
Back against a huge boulder, he had nowhere to go.
Sputtering obscenities, through bleary vision he saw their shapes dissolve and shift and return again. There were no more darts, he made out, but their weapons were not merely flaunted, sharp shoulders were hunched as if ready to strike. Swing, swing, he swung the carver with decreasing effort, seeking the meat of a thigh, a stomach, anything he could slice open, he would accept the gash. The deeper the poison venom leeched, the slower he got. It burned inside his veins, like thousands of tiny needles had been injected; screaming in his brain and body and bones; his muscles were on fire and his bladder emptied down the leg of his trousers in an unpreventable watery flush. Ineffective would be his slashes, but with fierce determination he carried on, fury burned in his eyes. He hated these people, these vicious opportunistic cowards, and wanted to hurt them, but more so, he wanted to rid himself of the debilitating helplessness that had been forced on to him.
To Red's amazement, just when he was about to fall (one knee already touched the ground), into his anger and shit, there came something else.
The tribal warriors all stood, stock-still, then began to cower, shudder and cower.
At him? Surely not.
Something else.
It came from above and beyond. Behind. From atop the boulder there was something lurking in the growing darkness. Whatever it was, Red was unsure if he wanted to look; the noises it made were submerged in a drugged bedlam; was he hearing what he thought he was hearing? Was he seeing what he thought he was seeing? Little made sense, the jungle around him seemed to quake, and he slid down the boulder to a dissipated heap. Simply, his legs could no longer take his weight as the dart-toxin entered its final successes upon his deeply afflicted body.
No longer could he really make out a finger from another on his own hand in front of his face. The blade, he dropped, no longer capable of holding it up.
Something else.
Sounds of bones breaking, teeth chattering and skin splitting; the tribesmen recoiled at some unseen horror as it evolved before their very eyes, a living nightmare set against the backdrop of their world, their realm. Was it the invader, or were they?
Red's head rolled around on his shoulders in the grip of feverish hysteria. He could smell the monster's palpable breath, close, so close, like a mist floating over his exposed neck, but thanked once again whatever gods he no longer believed in for sparing him the sight of it. All he could see was the fleeing of those once-so sanguine tribals, boastful no longer as they dropped their weapons, screamed in hoarse tongues and made a break from the devil.
Before him it dropped down.
Full dark.
It gave chase. To Red, it might have killed one, two, all of them, but to his besmirched vision the watercolour laid out was indistinct. Shapes of black darted back and forth under his eyelids and distorted cries of agony and triumph blessed his ears. Would he perish, too? Vainly, his body resisted the powerful intoxication.
More screams--a volley of them--followed by the audible equivalent of a massacre. Guts were being ripped out; throats were being torn, severing screams; heads were caved in underfoot; limbs were amputated in a squishing mess of sinew.
Red shivered in what he felt were his coming final moments as the beast turned his attention towards him.
Closer, it trod, heavy-footed. The earth trembled.
The breathing was guttural and inhuman as it hotly covered his face. No more could Red take. His eyes closed full, and his body shut down.
Soon, he would be dead. All the faces of his brothers and comrades strayed away. He tried to whisper sorry to all of them, especially Dusk, who would no doubt too fall to this loathsome animal.
In the engaging disquiet he could not offer any such apology; all he could think of was how his killer, this thing, was something else.
Something more.