//------------------------------// // Welcome to the Jungle // Story: Equestrian Joe // by HellRyden //------------------------------// Chapter 2: Welcome to the Jungle Son of a bitch, what the hell had that been just now!? Half of my lunch had suddenly been devoured by God-knows-what out of nowhere, and now I had to continue my march on a half-empty stomach! I didn’t know the specifics behind just how many calories I’d lost to the food locusts just now, but I knew that my odds of survival had taken a very sudden, unexpected dip. Speaking of those food locusts... I looked in the direction which they had swiftly departed in, staring in disbelief. The speed at which those things had devoured my lunch was unlike anything I’d seen from any real-life insect, and come to think of it... I vaguely recalled seeing before, in a show I’d once watched, brightly colored insects that simply just devoured any kind of food that they came across. In fact, those things just now had kinda reminded me of... ... Nah. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. There weren’t such things as parasprites. Don’t start thinking on it, Joe. Before you know it, you’ll have admitted it to yourself, and that’s where you start going off the deep end. Keep your focus on what’s important - your own survival. You can afford to start thinking about this once you don’t have miles of forest surrounding you on all sides and you aren’t miles away from civilisation. Just. Keep. Moving. I took half an hour longer to rest my legs, stretching them out and loading up on water, taking sips from my canteen to make up for the food I’d lost. Once thirty minutes had elapsed on the heavy silver hiking watch I wore, I picked myself up from the spot I’d almost fallen asleep on, and ignored the grumbles of my stomach as I got my bearings again and continued on my path towards the cliff. An hour later, I was starting to get the feeling that moving off without getting a full meal into my stomach hadn’t been such a hot idea after all. Weariness wore me down like leaden weights, and my legs just refused to go as fast as I would have liked them to. My pace ended up getting slowed down by what I estimated to be at least half of what it had been before, and before I knew it I found myself looking around for a walking aid as I continued putting one foot in front of the other. Hell, I would have taken anything to take the edge off of the savage, burning fatigue my legs were suffering from this trek. When I was about a couple of miles off from the cliff, I finally found it along my hiking path - a long, broken branch, just straight enough to use as a stave, or as an improvised walking stick. Right then my spirits lifted as I fervently thanked Lady Luck for my good fortune, and I didn’t hesitate in picking it up. With the improvised walking aid now by my side, the rest of the hike was made marginally less tiring, but hey, at that moment, I’d have taken whatever I could get. By the time I finally made it to the cliff hours later, after two more miles of gruelling jungle road, it was already evening, and I was tired to the bone. I plopped my pack down at the first viable campsite that I spotted, and spread out my tarp to set up a sleeping area before I started gathering twigs and other dry branches for the fire. My body was so worn out I felt limper than a spent dish rag, and at that point I’d have liked nothing more than to just collapse next to my pack and pass out into a well-deserved nap. But I knew that to do so without at least putting together a fire would be to invite death. I still had enough rations and water for dinner and tomorrow, but the cold of the night would kill me slowly if I didn’t get a fire up and running by the time the sun went down. So, I just kept my tired limbs moving, refusing to stop moving for fear that if I even took a moment to rest, I’d never be able to get back the momentum I’d built up. The sun was well on its way to setting when I lit up my next block of solid fuel and tossed it into the bonfire, getting the fire crackling and staving off the cold with its blessed heat. With the fire issue settled, my mind immediately moved on to the next most important item on the survival agenda if I was going to make it out of here alive - food. And no, I’m pretty sure the reason for thinking of food next had nothing to do with how loudly my stomach was growling. Traps were starting to seem like a better idea by the second. They wouldn’t require much attention after I set them up, and I could check on them after I’d spent a while shoring up my other survival tools; namely, my stick. Killing two birds with one stone, bravo! Now, all I had to do was figure out what kind of hunting traps to make... The answer was so bloody obvious in hindsight that I’d spent nearly a minute thinking on it before smacking myself on the forehead for my stupidity. Snares. I had to set up some snares. Wait... how was I supposed to set up a snare again? ... Damn it, I knew I should’ve paid more attention during those jungle survival lessons. I guess there was a pretty good reason why I’d only barely passed out of OCS instead of dropping out of the course entirely. I facepalmed and scratched at my head furiously, trying to dredge up from the depths of my memory how to construct an improvised snare to trap small game while in the jungle. It’d been two years ever since I’d had to touch that skillset since I finished my former home country’s obligatory two years of National Service, and I’d never thought I’d actually have to touch those memories again. Damn me to hell, I’d almost entirely forgotten how to set up a snare trap! A minute of head scratching later, I thought I’d recalled enough on how an improvised snare was supposed to be built, and I prayed to God that I hadn’t forgotten anything important as I set about gathering the materials for my next few traps. In the hours between my arrival there and nightfall, I put the traps together and set them up at places I prayed were the correct ones to lure animals to. I had some bait in my pack I’d saved for emergencies in case of events like this, and with any luck, I’d have something extra to munch on for dinner at the very least. Once the traps were done, I returned to the campfire I’d set up on aching legs, and finally plopped down on my ass for the first time in hours. I’d have liked nothing more than to pass out into blissful sleep right there and then, but there was one more thing I had to see to. I started digging into my pack, and retrieved my swiss army knife. Flicking out the blade, I stared at its tiny size pathetically for a few seconds, then looked down at the comparatively massive girth of the stick I carried, and sighed. This... was probably going to take a while. --- It took me the better part of an hour, given that I’d never actually done this before, but I eventually managed to fashion one end of my stave into a sharpened spear tip by filing off the wood with the blade of my swiss army knife. I swear, this wood was hard as hell to carve; even more so than regular wood, and I’d ended up taking twice as long as I’d thought I would to finish it up. By the time I was done, my arms had joined my legs in the bitching-about-aching club, and I was starting to get right pissed with my stomach’s persistent growling. Okay, one more improvised armament, check. At least, with this new tool on my side, my survival odds would improve quite optimistically. Well, with my new big pointy stick in hand, I decided to go check on the snares I’d put up - maybe I’d caught something interesting for dinner. By this point, my stomach’s stubborn grumbling had grown into full-blown protesting roars, and my face scrunched up from the hunger pangs in an expression that pretty much said ‘bleagh’. I needed to get dinner, and fast. The MRE packs still in my field pack called out to me, a sweet siren song of delicious, scrumptious food, but I stubbornly resisted it. The more I could save those packs, the more meals I would have for emergencies in case I couldn’t catch anything out here. Turned out the snares I’d set up had caught quite some fair game - a couple of rabbits, and even a bird that I think was a quail. I’d dispatched them as bloodlessly and humanely as it was possible with a large stick before carrying their carcasses back to my campfire. But at the end of the day, the thought that I was going to eat them anyway squicked me out enough that I had to quickly shut out all of my emotions and just focus on getting some food out of the damn things. My stomach wasn’t going to feed itself, and out here, it was either kill, or be killed. So, I flicked out my swiss army knife, and went to bloody work. --- An hour later, my stomach had finally stopped roaring, and I was mighty grateful to finally have some peace and quiet. Leaning back in front of my campfire, I picked the last bit of rabbit meat off the tiny wooden stick I’d speared it on, and washed it down with a swig of water from my canteen. I eyed the half-empty container pensively, swirling about what little liquid still remained inside, and bit my lip. Damnit, I needed to get more water. Washing the meat once I had been done skinning the rabbits and quail had been an absolute bitch, not to mention I must’ve used a good half of what water had been in my canteen doing it. I had to find a river by tomorrow if I wanted to not die of thirst. I looked up at the moon that was still rising in the sky before me, and figured that I’d waited long enough for darkness to fall. The campsite I’d picked on the cliff’s summit had a pretty good view of the landscape around me in all directions, and if there were any towns nearby, I stood a pretty good chance of being able to spot their lights. And if there weren’t... well then, I was pretty much boned. It wasn’t too hard to see in the moonlight - in fact, it kind of actually seemed brighter compared to how I remembered it being back home. I retrieved my binoculars from my pack and began scanning the horizon, looking for any signs of civilisation. Lights, smoke, anything that might indicate signs of settlement. I’d had to turn almost a full 180 before I finally spotted it out of the corner of my eye, and a fierce burst of hope surged through me as I quickly raised my binoculars up to my eyes, zooming the lenses in. What looked like the lights of a small town dotted the edge of the horizon before me, and a quick glance at my compass under my flashlight revealed its direction - vaguely North-West. There was no telling just how far off it was from the cliff, but at least I had somewhere to go now. Hot damn, I might actually make it out of this alive! A triumphant grin spread across my face, and I had to resist the urge to do a fist pump - hell to the yeah, there was still hope! I shivered suddenly as I realized it was starting to get mighty cold, and I took a glance at my watch - 2217. Time to crash. With my bearing for the next day finally set, I quickly wrapped myself up in the folds of my sleeping bag, and curled up next to the fire, confident in my new direction... and I definitely did not flinch and grip the handle of the flare pistol on my belt tightly when the same damn warbling howl I’d heard during my first night here sounded again, some distance away from behind me. Damnit, I needed to stop spooking myself like that. --- I slept hard and didn’t wake up until well after sunrise. I was so exhausted that even the damned ground felt comfortable enough to substitute for a king-sized bed. It must have been nearly nine in the morning before I finally thrashed my way out of my sleeping back, shivering in the cold half-awake and wondering where the hell I was. A massive krick in my neck ended up leaving me with a bitching pain on my shoulder every time I turned to the right, and before long I was already cursing and swearing at my fortune... or rather lack thereof. God, I hated this place. I needed to kick up the pace and get to that town as soon as I could. Even another day stuck inside this forest was going to drive me nuts. I fumbled my way out of my sleeping bag, and blearily set about making breakfast. It wasn’t until I’d made myself a cup of joe (har har) from a sachet of instant coffee powder and hot water from my thermos before I finally regained something that resembled wakefulness, and I shook my head as the caffeine started to take hold and the cobwebs began to clear from my mind. I’d gotten enough meat from the catches last night to last me another two meals, and I retrieved some of the kebab I’d kept safe in plastic wrap for breakfast to quell my raging stomach. I didn’t waste any time wolfing the cold meat down - the fire had died out quite some time ago, but I wasn’t about to expend another rectangle of solid fuel just to start it up. I only had four of the damn things left. With breakfast finished and my body as rested as it was going to get, I hoisted my pack over my shoulder and scattered the dying embers of the campfire with a few kicks of my boot. No point wasting a moment longer here - time to get a move on. The rest of the day was spent hiking over trails that were hostile unlike anything I’d seen before. Like the day before, terrain was unbelievably treacherous, and my trend of close calls against the hazards of the environment continued well until even past lunch. By the time it had reached late afternoon, I had covered a couple more miles. I don’t know how much further I had to go before I reached the town, but I ran into the first river I’d encountered in this damn forest almost an hour later. The sound of running water was music to my ears, and I swear I almost tripped over myself just running over to it. My canteen was the first thing out of my pack, and I immediately dipped it in the crystal clear waters to fill it up as I splashed the refreshingly cool water on my face, washing away some of the sweat and grime that had accumulated on my skin over the past few days. Once my canteen had been filled I didn’t waste any time dropping in a couple of purification pills, and I gave it a good shake before depositing it back inside my pack. Then, as I finally took the time to look down at my reflection in the river’s waters, I realized something. Jesus Christ, I looked like hell. There were a multitude of small scratches across my face, and many tiny streaks of dirt and dried blood still remained where the river’s water had failed to wash it away. I was by no means ugly, but normally I wasn’t exactly what you would call drop-dead handsome either. The best adjective that I had ever come across describing me was ‘cute’, and to someone who was twenty-three and had been repeatedly told by his peers that he looked like he was nineteen, it didn’t exactly give me much of a bonus in the way of masculinity points. My small, wiry, Asian frame didn’t exactly do my stature any favors either. At a mere five feet and five inches, I was bloody tiny compared to even other Asian guys from my generation, never mind the Caucasians that I knew. But either way, whatever it was that I looked like normally, I was a sight worse right now given my current state. It was a bloody frightful sight as I looked down at the poor soul staring right back at me from the river’s waters - his face was caked with dirt, and his hair, long enough to cover his ears and partially conceal his eyes, was matted down messily with sweat and all manner of grime. I spent the next minute giving my face and neck a good scrubbing, trying to wash the dirt and grime off and out of my hair as well. I felt filthy as a pig in its sty, except that I had no desire to wallow around in the mud. As I dried myself off with my towel (a good galactic hitchhiker never forgets his towel), the water suddenly rippled around my knees, and I immediately looked up, freezing by instinct. The river was a big one - it had to be at least tens of metres across, and given how fast the currents were flowing, I wasn’t about to try crossing it. It looked dangerous as all hell, and I sure didn’t want to find out if there was anything living inside there. And damn if the very moment I thought that, the water instantly rippled around my legs again, and I suddenly caught sight of something huge, something vaguely moving about underneath the water. There was a very blurry flash of deep, shiny purple moving underneath the currents for an instant, and then it was gone. Instinct instantly propelled me out of the water as I backpedalled furiously, and I let out what I assure you was definitely not a frightened, panicked yelp. My flare gun was instantly in my hand before I even realized I’d drawn it, and I stared at the spot where the underwater leviathan had passed by, not even taking my eyes off of it in case it appeared again. I must’ve stood there for what... ten, twenty seconds, just staring at the spot with my flare gun pointed at it? After a few moments it became obvious that it wasn’t going to be coming back, and I lowered my flare gun, my breathing beginning to slow down. Clipping the pistol back onto my belt, I ran a hand through my hair, letting out a shaky sigh. Geez, this forest was really starting to wear away at my nerves. First food locusts, and then now I was starting to hallucinate purple Loch Ness monsters. I had to get out of here, and fast. I quickly wrung the towel out and shoved it back inside my pack, picking up my stave and orienting myself to follow the river’s flow. With any luck, this river wouldn’t do much meandering, and I’d reach the town before long. I’d been about to set off again, however, when my nose picked up on something I had somehow missed before. Now that the pervasive stink that my body had been undoubtedly bearing for the past two days had finally been mitigated somewhat, other scents were able to make their way to my nostrils, and for just an instant, I thought I’d caught a whiff of something nasty. It was a thick, cloying scent strong enough for me to nearly choke on it. I coughed and gagged on it for a second before I held my hand over my nose in an attempt to block out the smell. Gah, the stench just reeked of decay, and whatever it was that was giving off that smell had obviously been out here for a while. I pondered briefly whether or not I should venture out in search of the source of the stench - morbid curiosity tempted me to at least try to investigate, but common sense won out in the end. I decided to leave well enough alone; who knows, maybe it was an animal carcass that some predator was feeding on, and it’d be really stupid of me to interrupt its meal. My energy was better saved following the river downstream and out of this forest. So, imagine the irony then, when I came across the source of the smell around the river’s next bend, not more than twenty metres from where I had stood just now. It was... bad. There was no other way to describe it. Blood was everywhere, dark crimson painting a morbid picture as it ran into the water of the river in little rivulets. The body lay in the middle of a pool of the red liquid, and as I stepped forward cautiously and dipped a hesitant finger into it, I realized that the blood had coagulated. The body must have been lying here for quite some time already. Then I looked up, took a closer, proper look at the corpse, and realized something that made my breath hitch in my chest. Holy Christ, the son of a bitch was human! I wasn’t the only one to end up in here! Before I could even think about what I was doing, I immediately got to my feet and ran over to it, kneeling down to examine the body closer. The body had been facing down, and the moment I turned it over and got a proper look at its face, I cringed and immediately turned my gaze to the side, swallowing bile that had threatened to rise in my throat. By the Golden Throne, it was a mess down there. Taking a couple of seconds to compose myself, I took a few deep breaths before looking back, steeling myself for the grisly sight that awaited me and isolating my emotions, willing myself to take in only the details. Poor bastard had been torn up pretty bad. Scratches and claw marks criss-crossed his face until it looked like some sort of demented jigsaw puzzle, and I couldn’t recognize any facial features underneath the mass of blood and claw marks. His right eyelid had swollen shut, and a stream of blood flowed from below his eyelid and trickled to the ground beneath him - must have gotten his eyeball put out at some point. The clothes he was wearing, a shredded outdoorsman jacket over a cotton tee, a furred hunter’s cap, and brown hiking khakis, were about as torn up as his body. Defensive wounds marred his forearms where he had probably attempted to fend off some kind of clawed attacker, and blood ran practically everywhere. The smell soon became too much for me, and I fought the urge to throw up as I gagged and started breathing through my mouth. Emperor’s blood, it was a right mess over here... The body’s slightly bloated state told me enough, that he’d have to have been lying here for almost a day or two, at least. Then my eyes traced down his arm, saw what he gripped in his cold, dead hand, and I literally stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. Holy crap... This guy had come in loaded for bear. In his rigid, rictus grip, lay a double-barrelled shotgun: a Remington Model 1889, if I recognized this one correctly. The metallic finishing of the barrel was scuffed with dirt but otherwise still looked clean enough to fire, and as I gingerly lifted it up and broke the breech open to check inside, my hopes soared. The gun was still loaded. I’ll be honest with you, I felt lucky as all hell to have not encountered any of the native predators around here so far. But even with my flare gun and my climbing axe as impromptu weapons, I didn’t feel so hot about my chances of coming out alive in the unlikely event that I did run into one. And if the appetite of those food locusts were anything to go by, I’d be right boned if fate decided to slap a predator right on my shoulders while I was unprepared to fight it off. I felt like a vulture for what I was about to do next, but there was no denying the baleful necessity of the act. If I wanted to up my preparedness and chances of survival, I was going to have to search the body. I grimaced, and reached down to retrieve the shotgun from his fingers, cringing all the way. “Ugh... Sorry about this, mate.” I muttered as I gingerly pried the weapon from his cold, dead hands, and I set it on the ground beside me before I started patting down the rest of his pockets gently in search of anything I could use. A couple of minutes of searching turned up far more than I’d expected. I’d searched his backpack as well, and it seemed to me that he had apparently been planning for just a single day of hunting out in the woods, given what he had been packing in his bag. Just some beef jerky, a canteen of water, and a half-empty box of spare 12-gauge shotgun shells for his boomstick; twelve leftover cartridges in all. There’d been an opened box of thirty-six leftover .44 magnum rounds in the bag as well, and I’d wondered just what they were for until my face lit up in hesitant optimism as I checked his belt and spotted a flash of chrome and walnut. Scarcely even daring to hope, I slowly pulled the beauty out of its holster, and as it emerged, my eyes widened in awe as I admired the full length of the eight inch barrel (no homo) of the Smith & Wesson M29 this guy had been packing. Now that was some serious stopping power right there; probably enough to halt even a bear in its tracks if I recalled correctly. I popped the cylinder open to check inside, and lo and behold, the lethal little bugger was fully loaded with all six shots. I’d had to resist the urge to make a Dirty Harry quip as I appropriated his holster and slid the .44 into it, but there was no fighting the one-liner that came as I picked up the Remington. I looked the shotgun up and down, let out an appreciative whistle, and slung it over my back, all the while with only one word on the tip of my tongue. “Groovy.” I also then recalled the fact that there was a corpse at my feet, and that I was looting it, and immediately felt horribly inappropriate. My hands sped up, and I let out an embarrassed cough as I tried to finish up without any more slips of the tongue. There wasn’t much else he was carrying on him that I could use, having already appropriated his food, water, and weapons. His pockets had contained nothing but a dead cell phone and a nearly empty wallet, with a driver’s license that stated ‘Kansas’ and had the name “Steven Decker” on it. The only other thing I’d picked out of his belt was a thick, heavy-bladed survival knife from its sheath, which I clipped to my belt opposite the .44 and my flare gun. It was much bulkier and heavier than my swiss army knife, sure, but as far as my experience in here so far went, I figured bigger was better - and deadlier. As I finished checking the body, I came across something curious. I spotted a flash of rainbow on the shredded mess of crimson that was the T-shirt beneath his vest, and I frowned, pushing the obstructing vest to the side for a clearer look. What I saw was... perplexing, to say the least. What I saw was a streak of rainbow in the vague shape of a head of hair... or a mane. Wait a sec... What were those words next to it? 20... %... cooler... Hang on a minute, I recognized this thing. This was a Rainbow Dash T-shirt. This guy was a brony too? There was little else I could chalk this little curiosity up to other than sheer coincidence. I briefly thought about the chain that hung from my neck, then immediately dismissed the thought as laughably unlikely. There couldn’t possibly be some sort of connection. Once I was done, I adjusted Steven’s body into the best approximation of a dignified resting position I could get it into, and faced it with as much respect as I felt was possible, given the fact that I’d just looted it. Giving it a little sheepish bow of thanks, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving the poor guy a eulogy, and then lamely realized that I had no idea how to start one. I must’ve stood there for a couple of seconds looking like a total dumbass, and after a few moments I decided that it’d be better to just leave well enough alone. I turned to continue following the trail downriver, when the bushes behind me suddenly rustled quietly, and I froze in my tracks. Oh... son of a bitch, I should have thought of it. If this guy had been taken down by one of the native predators, then that meant that he’d probably stumbled into its territory, and it had hunted him down just like any one of its other regular prey. And if he had died inside its territory... Then that meant whatever it was that had killed him was probably still around here somewhere. I don’t know what made me do it, but I instinctively slapped my Oakleys over my eyes, and my hand dipped to my belt as I snatched my flare gun from its clip and spun around, snapping it upwards. It was all that saved me. Something shot out of the bushes behind me, and it was already darting towards me as I brought my flare gun up, zig-zagging this way and that like a snake. Crimson eyes that glowed hellishly had locked onto me with utter focus and malevolence, and I let off a snapshot by complete reflex, yelping out in surprise. In the light of my flare, I caught sight of the silhouette of a fluttering pair of bat-like wings as it sailed past whatever-the-hell-it-was with mere inches to spare, and the sheer heat and light sent it squawking backwards as it squirmed and writhed away from the flare. ... Wait a minute, squawking? Since when the hell did snakes squawk? That thing, whatever it was, slowed down long enough for me to get a clearer look at it, and what I saw had me wondering for a few moments if the water purification pills I’d popped in my canteen were defective. Hey, if you saw a snake that had the body of a chicken with bat wings for its head, you’d be wondering if someone had slipped you some drugs to mess with your head too. The snake-chicken thing’s crimson eyes flared scarlet again, and it let out a shrill screech before darting towards me again. I felt the oddest pressure pressing down on my eyes, but that was the least of my concerns right now because fuck snakes. In all the rush of adrenaline and terror, I totally forgot about the shotgun that I had slung across my back. Instead, my hand immediately dropped the spent flare gun, and dipped towards my belt, frantically grabbing for the first weapon it could reach. My fingers wrapped around the handle of my newly obtained survival knife, and I tore it free of its sheath just as the fowl-serpent pounced on me, its beak hissing and snapping at my face and getting uncomfortably close to my eyes. An image of Steven’s missing right eye flashed through my head, and I screamed and struggled wildly against it. Losing my balance, I pitched backwards, slamming onto the ground painfully on my back. The bizarre claw-feet things that extended from its neck raked at my eyes, and I threw up my free arm. The creature’s body slammed into it with a sudden, harsh impact that painfully rattled my arm all the way down to the shoulder joint. Claws and crimson burning eyes flashed as red-hot pain slashed its way down my forearm in multiple places, and I screamed again, grabbing wildly with my free hand in an attempt to pin the damn thing down. Desperation and sheer panic powered my movements - I was on my back with practically no leverage, and if I tried to hold it off indefinitely, it was eventually going to wrench my arm aside and tear my eyes and throat out. I had to open up some distance before I could reverse the grapple, and then I could kill this thing! I threw the arm holding on to the survival knife to the side, rolling myself around until I had the damned snake under me. My free hand finally managed to get a decent, solid hold on the thing’s neck, and once I felt myself regain some leverage, I immediately pulled myself back upright while slamming the hand that held onto it onto the ground with all my strength. The snake-chicken thing let out a pained squawk as its head slammed against the hard ground, and I didn’t even hesitate. My armed hand raised itself, and I brought the survival knife down. Its neck split apart like a ripe cantaloupe, and crimson splattered everywhere as its chicken-head went rolling, still squawking spastically as it twitched here and there. The rest of its body thrashed wildly as its claws raked blindly at the air, and I quickly let go of it and swiftly backed away from its death throes. The snake-thing thrashed about for several more seconds, its body twitching spasmodically, and I didn’t even dare take my eyes off of it, panting harshly. My breath burned in my throat and down my lungs even as I watched, and I swallowed nervously as the thing’s body finally stopped moving several seconds later. I’d killed animals before to survive - that was nothing new. But this was the first time I’d actually had to fight against one for my life. The adrenaline rush of the fight was still coursing through me, and I was still as strung up as a high-tension wire. Numbly, I wiped off the blood on the knife’s blade on my pants without even thinking, and recoiled in sudden disgust when I realized what I’d just did. I grimaced, and washed away the rest of the offending liquid in the water at the riverbanks before returning the blade to its sheath, my heart still pounding in my chest from the close call. As I did, my mind went over the details of the brief, panicked scuffle, and as it reached something that jogged loose a memory somewhere, a couple of things connected, and I froze. The first thing was that thing’s appearance, and the second one, that weird pressure I’d felt on my eyes... ... Wait a minute. I’ve seen this son of a bitch somewhere before. I turned back to the creature’s carcass, took a good, long, hard look at it, and tried to come to terms with the fact that no, my eyes were not playing tricks on me. Holy jumping shitballs, I was looking at a cockatrice straight out of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I don’t know when my hands got all numb and tingly, but I was abruptly aware of the fact that I was clutching onto the handle of the survival knife until my knuckles were white, and my breathing had gone hard and fast again. Okay, since when did I get off the highway and take a right turn straight into Loonyville? Damnit Joe there are no such things as parasprites and cockatrices. Get your head back in the game before you lose it. Yes, I admit it. I liked the show. I was a brony, and I was damned proud of that fact no matter how much flak I got from my friends and associates for it. But I was also a healthy, sane, rational, reasoning, thinking human being before all of that, and everything that I had seen so far just flew in the face of everything that I knew to be real or fake. There was a very fine line between fantasy and reality, and I liked to think that I stayed firmly on reality’s side of the line. There was absolutely no way in hell that I was in... in... Oh hell no, I am not saying it. I am not saying it. Thinking about it was the first step down a slippery slope, and it would only go downhill from there. Think about your survival, man. You still have to get out of this forest, freaking out about being in that... that place is only going to distract you. You cannot afford any distractions right now when the forest is all around you - you can freak out after this is over. Okay, so, radioactive mutant snake-thing seems like a nice alternative. Maybe not a cockatrice. No, a cockatrice would definitely have me questioning my sanity. Yeah. That was the story I stuck with as I retrieved my fallen flare gun, reloaded it, and continued on hiking numbly with my newly obtained weapons, and it was the story I stuck by as night fell and I made camp once again, trying desperately not to think about the question that I knew I wouldn’t like the answer to, or its ramifications. Christ, just where the hell had I landed myself? --- When I woke up the next morning, breakfast was a quick and subdued affair. I wolfed down the beef jerky I had scavenged, washed it down with some water, and got myself moving. The numbness that had settled over me in the aftermath of the encounter had subsided somewhat, and I could finally feel my hands and legs normally again. Of course, that didn’t make the issue of where I was hang over my head any less, but I absolutely refused to let my mind come close enough to touch the topic even with a sixty-foot-pole. The mere notion of it all was just... ridiculous. I’d like to think that the rest of the trip went by in blissful peace because of the spanking new shotgun I was sporting. Either that, or I was just lucky, but whichever it was, I didn’t hit a snag until some time after lunch. I’d followed the river for a couple of klicks before it finally ended off at a sizeable waterfall, and I knew there was no way I’d be able to descend something like that safely, even with my climbing axe. There was no other choice but to take a detour around it and see if there was a slope that led downwards, but if it was any consolation, I knew I was much closer to the town now. Fifteen minutes of trekking down later, I was in the middle of walking through a clearing when I ran into my next snag. In hindsight, I really should’ve seen it coming and had the shotgun already in my grip, but come on, I hadn’t touched my jungle survival trekking skillset in years, much less the memories of my military mindset back in the obligatory two years I spent serving in the SAF. At the time, I was so focused on getting out that I’d totally forgotten that I might run into something else aside from mutant snake-chicken thing. So, when something crashed into my back like a proverbial ton of bricks and I felt hot, putrid breath on my neck, I didn’t have my shotgun in hand, ready to respond in kind. Instead, I let out a surprised scream as I dropped my stave and reached backwards reflexively, and I started grabbing wildly in an attempt to get the damn thing off me. Several sharp somethings raked painfully against my bare skin and my neck as my fingers found purchase, and I felt hot blood flow. Yelling desperately, I twisted violently in panic. Contact was abruptly broken as I felt my attacker come loose, and I hurled it overhead with everything I had, gasping from the effort. It landed just a few feet in front of me in a heap, letting out a canine yelp, and as I laid eyes on it I found myself wondering for the third time since my arrival here if someone had slipped me some LSD in my water purification pills. It looked like some sort of wolf, vaguely resembling the canine creature in shape, mostly... and that was where the resemblance ended. Because the entire damn thing was made out of freakin’ wood. Holy crap, I was here, face-to-face, with a goddamned timber wolf. The wooden wolf-thing’s eyes burned a hissing emerald, and it snarled at me with a wet, rasping growl before lunging at me again. There wasn’t time for me to react - I didn’t have enough time to draw the shotgun, and if I tried, I was a dead man. The timber wolf’s pounce would just flatten me on the ground, and it’d tear my throat out. So my hand immediately went for the next biggest weapon I could think of. The .44 cleared its holster even faster than I thought I was capable of moving, and I dove to the side in a panic, firing off a desperate snapshot, the sheer recoil of the gun sending my hand flying upwards. I got absurdly lucky. Even without any semblance of aiming whatsoever, the heavy magnum round still managed to find its way into the timber wolf’s side, and a sizeable chunk of bark and wooden fragments went flying in a wild spray. There was a hideous shriek of pain, and then the wolf went sailing right over me and out of sight as I crashed onto the ground on my side. Scrambling back onto my feet, I turned to face where the wolf had landed, and that was when I saw the damage the heavy round had inflicted. It must have ripped the timber wolf’s entire midsection apart on its way out. The entirety of its belly was nothing but a mess of shredded bark, and bright glowing yellow sap oozed from the massive wound like some form of disgusting pus. It didn't stop the wolf from thrashing around any less, though. It whined piteously as it tried uselessly to get up and hobble away, and several moments later its body went still, crumbling into so much kindling as the light in its eyes and its pus-like blood literally went out. And I still stood there with my gun still held at the ready, breathing harshly as my heart thudded in my chest. Swallowing, I thumbed back the hammer on the .44, and braced myself. Because if there was one thing I knew about wolves, much less timber wolves in particular, it was that they hunted in packs. There was a bubbling snarl from behind me, and I immediately spun around, bringing the revolver up in a Weaver stance as my eyes frantically sought out my target. I saw it almost immediately. The next timber wolf was bounding straight at me, not even bothering to dodge as it pounced, its jaws extended and slavering. Against any of its normal, regular prey, it might have been able to end the fight right there, bringing the unfortunate animal down underneath its sheer weight and ripping its throat out. Unfortunately for this wolf, it was facing a trained, prepared human being, who was also armed with a very, very heavy revolver. I didn't even hesitate. Time seemed to slow down and flow like liquid as I raised the handgun. I took aim down the iron sights, bringing them in line with the fool wolf's head, and I could smell its putrid breath on me before I pulled the trigger. I gotta tell you, the effect of a direct impact from a .44 magnum round on a mass of animated twigs and leaves is pretty damn spectacular. The heavy round hit the timber wolf dead centre on its knobby forehead, and the entire damn thing exploded into fragments in front of me. Kindling and droplets of sticky sap went tumbling past me as several bits of sharp wood cut across my exposed skin painfully, but it paled in comparison to the rush of elation I felt at watching the timber wolf just come apart beneath the fury of the .44. "Hell yeah! Score one for human firepower, you dirty animal!" I whooped, pumping a fist triumphantly in the air. And then I heard another snarl from behind me, and a pair of fanged jaws suddenly closed down painfully on my left calf. I screamed as the timber wolf that had blindsided me shook its jaws ferociously, and the world went white with pain. I staggered to one side as my left leg buckled, and I struggled to stay on my feet as the attacking wolf bounded away. Damnit, I'm going to have to learn to stop celebrating victory too early one of these days. Swaying on my feet unsteadily, I turned to track the retreating wolf with the .44, when the hairs on the back of my neck abruptly rose, and I ducked and wove to the side on pure instinct. Another wolf immediately sailed through the spot I had vacated but a moment ago, its jaws snapping, and as I righted myself, I realized that those two new arrivals were hardly the only ones to come knocking. I was surrounded by at least four of the damn things. The wolves circled around me warily, their baleful gazes utterly focused and fixated upon their chosen prey; that is, Yours Truly. As for me, I only gripped the magnum tighter as I transferred it to my left hand, and thanked the heavens that the wolves were unfamiliar enough with technology that they just allowed me to slowly draw the shotgun, readying it at my hip in case one of them rushed me again. Fear and a panicked rush of adrenaline threatened to grab hold of me, but I immediately shoved those emotions down into the deepest, darkest corner in my mind I could find, and focused on my environment, taking in only the details critical to my survival. If I was going to make it out of this alive, I had to stay focused. Four wolves, and I had four rounds left in the .44, with another two shells in the Remington. I had to make my shots count; if I ran out of bullets halfway through, I’d be screwed ten ways till Sunday. There was a brief, sudden tensing of movement, and without warning the first wolf leapt at me from the side. My hand just shot out reflexively, and the revolver thundered in my grip, kicking upwards violently. Once again I found myself marvelling at how stupidly lucky I got when the shot I’d fired from my off-hand grazed against one of the wolf’s hind legs, and it went tumbling to the side with a dangling stump for a limb. Another snarl bubbled out from behind me, and this time I was ready for it. I whirled around, swinging the shotgun to bear, and the moment the barrel was pointing in the general direction of the wood-colored blur hurtling at me, I let the bastard have it with both barrels. Okay, so in hindsight, maybe firing a boomstick one-handed without even bracing myself wasn’t such a good idea. I think I nearly sprained my wrist on that one. The shotgun roared, and my arm literally flung itself backwards from the force of the recoil, sending me reeling. The lunging timber wolf, however, fared much, much worse. The wolf’s entire body abruptly blew apart into so much kindling, flying backwards and away from me, and I let out a loud, triumphant whoop as I recovered from the shock of the shotgun’s recoil. I didn’t need expert marksmanship to thank for that - a shotgun’s blast basically delivered as large a shock as possible at once to a single target, and up against its massive stopping power, there was no way these wolves could stay coherent. Two down, two to go. The fiery pain in my leg blazed again, and I nearly buckled on my feet. My vision started to blur as my head pounded, and I swallowed, gasping for air and trying to stay steady on my feet. The two remaining wolves were still watching me warily, circling around me slowly. Their growls were just audible enough for me to know that they were pissed, and I tried not to gulp nervously as I caught sight of their fangs glistening in the light. Four of their pack dead at my hands - it must have rankled them something fierce. If I slipped up, even just the two of them would be enough to tear me apart. So, despite my pounding heart, my shaking knees, and my trembling hands, I took in a deep breath, readied the smoking shotgun again, and thumbed back the revolver's hammer, facing the two remaining wolves with my back straight and my stance uncowed, trying my best not to breathe too hard. Rule number one when going up against predators: Never let them see you sweat. The two wolves seemed to pause for a second, as though considering their actions. The stalemate continued for a couple of moments as we stared each other down, when suddenly one of the wolves seemed to catch the scent of something, and it uttered a short, sharp bark to its packmate. As one, the two wolves slinked away back into the underbrush, and I finally let myself relax, collapsing onto one knee as the pain and weariness came crashing back down on me in full force. I didn’t even bother shouting in triumph after the retreating wolves - hell, right at that moment, I’d have liked nothing more than to just collapse right on that spot and take a nice, long nap. Maybe if I just... Fire lanced up my left leg as I put my weight on it, and I damn near bit my tongue off stifling the scream that came next. Okay, so maybe the nap would have to wait. I had to examine and patch up this injury first. Holstering the magnum and reslinging the shotgun, I brought my left leg in front of me as I folded the leg of my pants up, and I grimaced at just how badly mangled it was. Blood had soaked my sock and was now dribbling down my hiking boot. The flesh of my calf was torn and rent in multiple places, but it was nothing too deep. It wasn’t bad enough that I’d be crippled or anything, but all the same, the pain was going to put a serious limp on my step. Treating it would need antiseptic, bandages, and painkillers, in that order. I had all of those in the first aid kit I’d packed, so if I could just get it out, I could get around to... I was halfway through reaching for my pack when a thought occurred to me. Those wolves had had me dead to rights, and I hadn’t even been all that sure that I could fend off another duo again. It had seemed like it was due to sheer luck that had them retreating when they did, because it sure as hell wasn’t due to the fact that I’d probably scared them off. But when it came to how predators hunted down their prey, luck was never this large a factor in the prey’s survival. They’d had a reason for retreating, and the only reason that could’ve been was if there had been... I became abruptly aware of something very large standing behind me, breathing slowly and heavily, and I slowly turned my head around to see a mountain lion with freaking bat wings and a scorpion stinger in place of its tail staring right at me from the edge of the clearing. ... something larger coming their way, like another predator higher up the food chain. My brain finished the thought for me, and then it politely directed my focus to the next part where I immediately snatched up my stave and shot to my feet, screaming and running for my life from the fucking manticore, the pain in my left leg forgotten as it let out a deafening roar and leapt after me. Frankly, at this point, I think nobody would blame me if I indulged in a little supposed fantasy, because no fantasy pain or fear could possibly feel this real! First parasprites, then timberwolves, and then now manticores. It’s okay Joe, you can say it to yourself now. Nobody’s going to think you’re crazy. Jesus Christ, I was in the fucking Everfree forest!!!