His hand flexed on the Desert Eagle as the smell became even worse. He couldn’t have said how he knew, but the source of the odor seemed to be in the same direction as the goat. He envisioned a large creature, unaware of Rook’s presence, moving in for the kill. If Rook could just find the right place to aim…
Instead Rook let out a roar and started sprinting toward the goat. Then he switched on his light. Lying in wait to try to shoot something he couldn’t even see would never work, and in any case, Rook preferred the direct approach.
A second later, he heard a roar in response that was loud enough to drown out everything else, even the sound of his own breathing. The light shone on a huge creature standing on two legs. At least eight feet tall and as thick as a hundred year old maple tree, the massive beast had brown fur that almost seemed orange in the light. Definitely bigger than Red, Rook thought, comparing the creature to the Neanderthal queen that had tried to take him as her own. The roar got even louder, and Rook could see huge teeth in the open mouth, mostly flat but with pointed canines. Then it started sprinting toward him.
Rook fired three shots with the Desert Eagle. The range was only about forty feet, but between the disorientation caused by the roar and the mix of light and darkness, he suspected only one shot hit home. With quickness foreign to such a huge mass, the beast turned and started running the other direction. Rook got off a couple more rounds, but neither of them hit, and he didn’t want to waste the two remaining shots in the magazine on low percentage shots.
He continued the chase, but he could sense the distance between them increasing. As the flashlight swung forward with each pump of his arm, it shone on the fleeing giant, but when his arm swung back, he could no longer see it. He tried to get more onto his toes to squeeze every ounce of speed out of his legs, but he knew he could only maintain the burst for a few seconds.
Suddenly, the creature seemed to dart to the right. Rook tried to estimate the path it had taken and follow, but a tingling in his head told him he was missing something. He grabbed onto the only small tree in the area as he tried to change directions, and his legs flew forward even as his hands and arms held him in place. His legs floated for a second before dropping.
And hit nothing but air.
The slick grease on his hands served as good camouflage but now it betrayed him. His hands slid down the tree and he tried to reach further up to lock his hands around his forearms. He managed it, but only just in time for his chin to smash into the dirt. His legs…well he’d now figured out where he was. His legs and torso dangled off the side of a cliff.
He’d seen this place earlier, the far edge of Peder’s land, where the earth surrendered to a two hundred foot drop down to the ocean’s rocky edge. Now, a single narrow tree was all that kept his considerable bulk from a free fall. His arms started to burn, and he tried to pull himself up.
He knew the first foot or so was the hardest, and he let out two or three curses that sounded neither Norwegian nor Russian. He didn’t care about that just now, he cared about getting his ass back onto solid ground. Soon enough, his strength prevailed, and he pulled himself over the top.
He got to his feet almost immediately, breathing in great lungfuls of air as he did so. The creature could still be around. He could see the flashlight a few feet away and he pounced on it. With the light, he found the Desert Eagle as well. He had dropped both mere feet from the cliff’s edge, and he knew that only luck could explain why neither had gone over.
Rook sniffed the air, and the rotting smell seemed a lot less strong. He suspected the smell emanated from the creature, and its diminution meant that his quarry was still on the run. The odds of engagement again tonight were low, and he knew that even for future nights, he’d lost the element of surprise. Hell, one of his bullets was in the bastard’s leg, something no animal would forget.
For tonight, he had only one option left: Return to the barn.
Five minutes later, he opened the barn door, calling out before he stepped in.
“Peder, it’s me, don’t shoot.”
Rook shined the flashlight into the loft and saw the old man stand and head for the ladder. He went to meet him.
“What a goddamn night.”
Peder looked at him, “Did you get him?”
“That depends on what you mean. I hit him with one of my shots.”
“Then what happened?”
“Didn’t slow him down, not even a little bit. The son of a bitch was roaring like a son of a bitch. As soon as I hit him, he turned and ran, and I couldn’t keep up. I tried, but I had no chance.”
“So what is it?”
He looked at Peder, and could see excitement in the man’s eyes. Rook shook his head. “I have no idea. It looked just like you described, eight feet tall, fur, huge arms and legs. But its teeth looked sort of human, and the eyes showed some definite intelligence.”