Fair Game 1/1
A warm drop hit his cheek with a barely audible smack. His eyes traveled upwards where the sky was dark and gloomy, the stars shut out by a wall of grumbling black clouds. But what was just running down the side of his face was far from rain. It was warmer and more viscose and it smelled like old iron and copper. There was more where it came from and the air scented like cheep perfume in the back alley of a whorehouse.
His view passed rain-wet leaves and barmy looking branches skipping to the little details, the things that were off. Those things normal people would hardly notice but a man who had hunted one thing or the other all his live could barely miss, even in the fake circle of the torchlight. Things like the darker spots trailing down the stem of the old oak tree, like the places where the bark had been scratched open or hung loosely, like the way some of the smaller branches were bent at a wrong angle considering the normal pattern of growth around them. Or the way the three top swayed slightly in an east-western pendulum… though the wind blew from the north. And of course the hand that was hanging limply in between the leaves a little further up, blood running down the fingers and drip-drip-dropping to the ground where he had just passed.
Number two. There were three campers unaccounted for. They had already found parts of one - including both arms. He heard the man behind him swallow hard at the stink of blood he just walked though. They were far beyond the point of gagging at the smell or taste of blood. His partner checked the little kindling fire on the tip of his flamethrower eyes staring up into the corpse-clad tree. It was unusual for the creature to kill their pray out in the open. Even more unusual to leave enough meat behind to identify the body. But it knew they were on its trail. It was clever and fast and it knew it was being hunted. It was a hunter itself. The one that took pride in only going after the hardest pray: man. And it was damn good at it. Right now it was playing with them toying with the hunters like a cat would with a mouse. It lay them breadcrumbs. Bloody painfully dissected breadcrumbs. It played them like a fiddle setting their pace, their route, their every step. But they followed knowing full well that this could be nothing but a trap, that the only reason a food-storing creature like this would give up its pray was to lure in an even bigger fish. It was the witch and they were Hänsel and Gretel following deeper and deeper into the woods. They were aware of the danger and madness of hunting the perfect hunter on its home turf. But there was a reason for following through with it: Because at the end of the road there would be the gingerbread cottage and the witch waiting for them… and they would be ready. They were close. They could only be minutes behind the beast.
The flame’s sizzle was the only sound aside from the dripping blood that made the small, dark red puddle on the ground grow continuously. He would bet his sidearm that the person this arm once belonged to was still breathing. The blood that had hit him had body temperature and against common believe amputations didn’t really bleed much on the body left behind he also heard that they didn’t hurt much either - the shock to the system was too immediate. But whoever had just lost a limb was probably unconscious anyway - at least if they were lucky enough - and wouldn’t survive the night due to being dismembered piece by piece to make sure Hänsel and Gretel didn’t stroll off their path.
He moved forward timidly. His boot-clad feet barely making a sound on the wet, soft forest ground. He circled the tree staring into the night, listening. Then he turned toward the message that had been left for them and started climbing the tree trunk. It was disgusting business. There was blood smeared over the bark accompanied by other substances that he did not think about identifying all adding to the stench that pressed itself up his nostrils and into his brain sticking to the back of his throat and the top of his tongue. His hands were stuck with half-coagulated blood as he reached the top and took a better look at what had been carefully left for him. The arm had been exarticulated on the shoulder joint, that being the weakest point for this kind of business. Only ligaments and muscles to sever and the first were considerably week. A fact that everyone who ever dislocated his shoulder can vouch for. But this amputation had not been done surgically. It wasn’t clean or antiseptic. The wound’s edges not smooth and straight from the scalpels cut, the skin not surgically cut off on the edges to cover the later on forming stump on the body left behind.
This arm had been ripped out. The skin had been stretcheduntil it broke edges uneven and curly. The tendons hung in a disarray between pieces of bloodied meat that once must have been muscle tissue. There were one or two bigger blood vessels hanging out like drowned earthworms.
There was one of those expensive multifunctional tracking watches still fastened to the wrist, the big plastic case looking ridiculously worthless. It had been a man’s arm. The guy recently got himself a manicure and his nails were impeccable. Well, at least he’d die not having to worry about flawing those nails. The thought was cynical and he knew it. But after all the shit a man in his profession faced there was only a certain amount of time one could go without becoming a sarcastic prick. He thought that he crossed that line years ago. The things people thought important were so small considering the way life could ruin living within a blink.
He grabbed the bruised flesh of the formerly toned biceps and pulled the arm free. It was still warm under the skin of his fingers and he found himself amazed - not for the first time since the start of this hunt - at the weight a single arm had. The pounds didn’t bother us in life, but maybe death weighed heavy even on the dead themselves. He threw the arm to the ground and swung himself downwards as well. His feet hit the ground with a wet thud and his two-hundred pounds of muscled six foot something left two indention in the soil where his boots stood.
He watched as his bother in arms spilled lighter fluid over the dead flesh and ignited it with the flamethrower until there was nothing left but blackened soil and kindling ashes, the molten, cracked open residue of the ridiculously expensive watch still glowing with a bluish flame.
.
A shot rattled the silence of the pre-dawn air. His head whipped around in the direction of the unanticipated nuisance. His shoulders flexed and he reached for his weapon. They did not seem to be the only hunters that night. But whoever had set off that last shot was probably already dead. Bullets didn’t do anything. Their effect was probably even on the red scale, only making the creature angry.
He took off at a run towards the source of the shot followed closely by the kindling ignition fire of the flamethrower. They bushwhacked in a haste jogging and jumping over roots, ducking from low hanging branches.
As he drew closer to the area he had pointed out as the origin of the sound he could hear branches break and loud scuffling sounds. He dropped into a crouch behind the next tree and his partner fell in line. They were a good team. He heard panting and a man’s painful groan mixing in with two pairs of feet banging heavily against the ground. Someone shouted “Go on, don’t look back. GO!”
A woman’s scream sounded as a figure clad in a ripped hiking-jacket fell out of the brush only thirty feet away. She was followed by a considerably taller man carrying what seemed to be a third person. He tried to help her up, which was a futile task hugging another man’s body to his chest. She scrambled to her feet and ran on being pushed forward by blank fear and the young man’s constant flow of words begging her to move and not stop no matter what.
He watched the three pass them without ever noticing their presence. As they hurried by he saw for a moment the unconscious man’s shoulder. It was darkly soaked and missing something considerably important.
He looked after them for the blink of an eye before he motioned his partner to move again. It had lost it’s pray. It would long ago have come this way if it didn’t have something more important to take up it’s attention. He would have bet that whoever had shot at the beast would long be ripped to shreds by now. But now he was curious. Maybe he’d be surprised after all. That didn’t happen often. He knew his job well.
He charged down the path the little group had trampled through the brush and stopped dead as he saw a fire glinting only a few yards down. A tree was on fire and he made his way around the yellow flames to see a small open patch of grass in between young trees.
He slowed down and crept closer silently. There was a man standing in the middle of the green. He looked to be in his late twenties. Two trees behind him were burning blocking the creature’s way to that side. It was the direction the pray had run. But it also held his back clear which meant that the guy knew what the fuck he was doing. This was no amateur.
He settled down out of side, eyes squinting to block out the harsh firelight’s glow behind the man’s back. He stood a good five yards away from the fire. The creature would not hesitate because of the flames at that distance and the man looked like he knew that as well. A gun lay discarded at the ground. It was of no use other than pissing the beast off anyway.
He grinned. That probably was the plan all along. This man was the reckless kind. It shined in his eyes like the fire in his back. He knew how to hold himself, how to take a risk without the risk taking the better of him. In his hands he had a thick branch held like a baseball bat. It was like going with a toothpick against a bulldog. The dog would chew your am off and swallow down the toothpick with it. He grinned thinking of the story of David and Goliath. But then Goliath was a sweetheart against this creature.
He held his rifle to his eye looking at the young man. Whenever he was being thrown down by the beast, the shot would be clear. It was nearly too easy. He waited watching. The fires went a little lower and the man in front of them was breathing slowly and deeply while his eyes darted around the trees restlessly. He was mumbling something that was too low to hear though the third hunter around would not have any problems understanding every word.
Finally something happened. There was a growl on the right of the target, then a crunching sound of his left and finally there was movement to be seen. The creature was fast, very fast. There was a dark shadow in the light of the fires flying from the treetops toward the man standing out in the open who must have seen it to because he swung his whole body in a violent circle turning towards the attacker and whipping his bat around. There was a thud and the man was thrown to the ground. But he must have hit the beast even if he were not strong enough to avoid collision as he was not ripped to pieces. Yet. The long limbs of the attacker did not manage to grab the man and it rolled only a few feet to his side. It was up withing a second and it’s long razor-sharp nails flew through the air in a deadly circle. They drew blood from the man’s thigh as he turned away kicking at the monster that was out for his head. He scrambled off to one side closer to the fire. He was almost there as a long-fingered hand clamped down on his ankle.
That was it. He had been watching the spectacle wanting to see if the other hunter could manage on his own. He could not. He leveled his gun to the beast and wanted to pull the trigger as the other man reached over his head and grabbed a burning branch that was sticking out from the now ignited brush beneath the lighted trees. He swung it around and ground it against his attacker’s head.
The Wendigo caught fire within seconds and stated howling wildly as it let go of the man it had thought of as pray. Now it had fallen pray itself. It was over quickly and within seconds there was only burned ashed left where the creature had been.
He was impressed. He hadn’t seen something like this before. The outrageous boldness of facing a Wendigo with a goddamn stick made him want to applaud the man for still being alive although it had been absolutely stupid. It made him grin wildly and he put away the gun that was packed with the extra heavy tranquilizer ammo and got up. He signaled his partner to wait behind.
The man was still lying on the floor panting heavily and chuckling inb etween breaths. He enjoyed his victory that much was visible.
He was perfect. They had hoped to get the Wendigo and they had lost their prey. It would have been a nice extra to their current repertoire but nothing outrageously interesting. It was ass-ugly after all. The man lying on the ground on the other hand was young, strong AND good looking. Their customers would love it. And he was damn good! He might actually survive the first day. He silently pulled his sidearm, the one with the human-dosage tranquillizers, and took aim, weary to aprpoach the man even in this obviously relaxed state. The man had proven to be a formidable opponent after all.
This would be a good catch, Cochrane was sure of it. He smiled, finger flexing on the trigger. The shot went wild as he jumped back at the sudden noise of someone barging through the woods just a few yards from them. He couldn’t see where the tranquilizer dart landed in the brush and he bit back a curse. He couldn’t remember when he last pulled a shot.
“Dean!”
A figure broke through the thick woods into the clearing with the loud snapping of branches and boots heavily hitting the damp ground. It was the tall young man who had passed them earlier. This time he was alone and wielding a flare gun and a sawed off shotgun with both hands. He ran toward the place where his companion was still sprawled out on the mossy soil.
“’M fine, Sammy.” The man - Dean - sat up to prove his point and let the taller man haul him to his feet. “I got it. This one will never dismember anybody again.”
Cochrane hesitated for a moment, considering to just tranq them them both but somehow he decided that the performance he just witnessed had earned the men a fighting chance. Shooting them like this would be unfair and Cochrane might not be a man of many principles, but he could appreciate a fair hunt.
Maybe they would cross paths again and then they would be fair game… He nodded to his companion that they were leaving. For a moment Cochrane watched the two men, wishing for his chance of a good hunt. “Next time… Dean.”
~~THE END~~
I am keeping the option of adding other oneshots here for the other bingo prompts ;)
A/N.: I first wrote this about 2 years ago as the prologue to a longer fic and never posted it... the banner is just as old. I reworked the ending (so Dean would actually get away ;) I liked it too much to keep it rotting away in the fic cemetery that is my "Supernatural" fic-folder ever since I discovered the love that is J2 :P
since you guys voted for me to wait with any longer fic until either a) BB is done or b) the fic is done, I thought this little something might raise your mood :D
Tell me what you think! *hugs* B