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Dark Earth: Hunter's moon
Posted By: Mark25<mark_price@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: 21 May 2007, 1:24 pm
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They gather and cluster along the westerly mountainous range, conspiring with mutiny in mind. The dusty lunar king does not see them, instead he beams down from up on high to the farm and its fields below. Their skulduggery will be in vain, many of his servants will fall on the swords of lofty clouds but they will fail in dethroning him from night's skies. The moon is in full bloom tonight and will rise again tomorrow. Minus my quarry, minus one small child.
Steadily as the night draws breathe and the clouds move in, I make good and proper use of the latter's distraction. A hunter's moon is no moon for sure on this tranquil october night as the trees: mournful of their stark barren branches, stroke the air in the hope of producing a dance that will appease Demeter's weeping earth and summon forth warmer climes. The gentle babbling stream that shall be my accomplice continues to sound playful and buoyant, oblivious to the sacrificial gift I shall intend to bestow upon her.
I will not be here by the morrow to hear the sobs and wails of a mother distraught, nor the rage and sorrow of a beast inkeeping with a man's broken fatherly duties. Neither will I hear the sibling's meekish calls, too young to understand the horror of my actions, too naive to realise that it could have been her and not her brother. They will live with their sorrow and spawn another to remind them of it. Bastards, the more I stoke the fires of bitterness concerning their decimation of our planet, the more I wish I was brave enough to confront them.
Do not think me cowardly and unkind, for that would be an injustice on both of our behalf. Do not think that I haven't considered many options prior to my decision. There are always other options when food is plentiful and shelter is close at hand: neither are my comfort: neither have I. Their seed and grain are poison to us, aides to further bring about our extinction. These beasts have chosen not to rear cattle -of which I would gladly take a fawn, therefore their child is meat for my kind. I dare not attack an adult, they are too large, too strong and too brutal, and in the case of the females: much too fast. They came with weapons so advanced and with soldiers so many it was a miracle we lasted as long as we did. But last we have not, scattered to the four winds and driven from the cities be the vermin-considered peoples of earth, reducing all to scavengers and thieves. Steadily reducing all to none. Virtue a mere memory, rotting, whipped and beaten in the furthest reaches of our minds, occasioning the odd trembling step before quickly being roared back into solitude by the ravenous needs of hunger and thirst. It is so. Food, shelter, company, anything else is denied by the gods of higher beings. Higher beings: ha. They shall reap the bitterness they have sowed within us and there will be more of their dead tomorrow. Though I try not to dwell on the anger which creeps up my arteries and rankles the oxygen carried to my brain, consuming my every thought, I know that I swear it and breathe it like an oath of unconscious breathe.
In my possesion is a chainmail gauntlet, a rucksack, a lure I was given as a lucky charm, a knife and a torch, they will all serve me well. Indeed, they have all served me well for succesive kills in the past. My first attack was an adult male and the fruits of my labour stood for nought, he brushed me aside and did not even kill me, instead he bore forth a hearty laugh that shrivelled up my insides until they begged me to run away. I did. The humiliating encounter handed me a seed of vengeance that rooted itself in my heart and soul beyond anything any religious text could exorcise. My second attempt was as successful as the first, only less so, the child I chose had an overbearing mother that caught me prior to slaughtering her kin and took offence to my desperate act. She chased me down towards a violent river and were it not for my accidental trip into its gushing arms, I would not be here to relay my predicament to you now. So rapid her legs: so fast her feet.
My third attack and first kill has been the most traumatic minute of my entire existence, so destroying was it that when it came to eating the spoils of victory with my party, I could not. Instead I watched as these four people -now the only people I know- devoured the flesh and meat of a beast that could pass for a similar age as two of our group. You see, I kill the children of our enemy to feed my own. Not that they are my children, they are the children of the two women that make up the rest of our pride. Pride, a word for my group, not a feeling any of them could ever know again if they discovered the truth about a small sum of my hunting trips. I suspect the boy's mother knows, I see her watch me from time to time, notice my behaviour around the two youngsters. I know what she is thinking, but nothing I could say would allay her mistrust. It is simply my lay attempts at understanding what I do in the twillight hours. If you could see these alien creatures in their early years, they run like children, play like children, everything about them is so reminiscient of our own young that sometimes I tell myself we shall live on tree leaves and that I shall live guilt-free. Then I hear little bellies rumble and the children cry. The tree leaves taste bitter and no lulling will hush them to sleep. It is then that the veil on life's idylic dream is lifted to reveal the bony ghosts of nowhere. There is nothing without sacrifice. The dead don't eat food and after a particularly dry spell our resemblance becomes uncanny. I suppose you could say at times that I, like the dead, lack a conscience. A worrying thought in the sleeping hours of night, when the burden of responsibility concerning three others cries out to simply slink off and leave them to nature's scheming ways...
No, I'm heartless in the face of my enemy, these people don't deserve my selfish desires. Whatever part of me confers to the contrary be damned I tell you. I shall not abandon them, not like I did the others.
Of course if our life is to continue in this mould then the boy needs to grow up and grow up fast. At the moment, everytime he scrapes his knee or gets hurt, even a little, he looks towards his mother for comfort. There shall come a time when such thinking will be destructive. I need him to realise that a scraped knee can be the least of problems when the stomach caresses no more food and begins digesting itself. He cries for food, indeed, they all cry for food and food is brought where possible. Despite them being close to a day's walk away, I believe I can still hear them now. Food is coming, just as soon as the light goes down and the moon is besieged. Food, is coming...
The adults always sleep in the northern most room, and when the children reach a certain age, they too sleep near to the north. Through willful ignorance I do not know its significance in their life, I simply press such an advantage to secure my kill. I choose a night when the winds blow towards any other direction, carrying with them any sounds and smells that may alert them to my presence. These beings have turned their backs on city ways for whatever reason, I suspect many of harbouring the same notions to leave such places as we humans ever did. Perhaps it is their dream to set up a small home and live on the lands away from the madness of metropolis. Neither is it in my interest to question nor to care, without them here I may have been able to build my group a home of our own, or just maybe, we'd be scarce our next meal.
The lure is a tinfoil angel and I set it on the end of a large branch some thirty metres back from the creature's bedroom window. It was made for me by the youngest of our clan and her mother, it has small glittery crystals glued onto its wings that when caught by light, radiate a whole spectrum of colours. It was while ransacking a small derelict schoolhouse of its pantries that I happened upon such idle toys and put good thought to them. The little girl appeared so made up, for once not having to just talk and act with her imaginary friends, now she could make toys to show them too. She made me the lucky charm as a sentiment, one that tries to say: 'thank you Mr paul,' across the wings in glitter but in all honesty, her smile at seeing the toys has been her greatest gift to me.
The torch is wedged into the ground somewhere beneath the lure, while the frequent swooping of the wind sends the lure into the beam's light, casting off parades of infinite colours. A little noise created outside the window should bring out its host to investigate. Perched forward by the left side wall perpendicular to the window, I await with my knife clenched white hot in my right hand and my gauntlet sheathed and shaking over the other. The charm itself has took on more of a twisted role than I dare think about, and as it glistens and gleams back to me beside the house, a third, even darker and more pendulous predicament is revealed. A child's eye to attract a child's eye.
I hear through the wall the heavy, uncouth footfalls of a creature not yet fully comfortable with its own body movements. The window slides open and from it looms a large head, complete with four lips sticking out like large bony fingers from its cheeks. They rear their young to be fearless, why is not always clear to me. I have watched from afar as a father would beat his young senseless, and then do so again a few hours later for no more infringement that to strike once his younger sibling. They stand proud over their kin only when they have endured mass hardship and even then it is a fleeting embrace of bathed glory.
It clambers shoddily over the sill and makes its way across the open plain towards the one shiny object amidst a world of darkness. The clouds are doing well to keep at bay the vicious rays of moonlight that shatters and separates their bodies. The creature gets twenty metres from the house and my pursuit begins. I kick up a faster and larger trail of dust with every shooting heel, my blade poised at my forearm with the gauntlet coiled at my chest. A few more seconds race by and then the knife is stabbed into the beast's lower neck while my gauntlet is sprung around the front and into the lips and mouth. I lean hard with my elbow into its back and push further my middle fingers down its throat, the rest of my hand stops the top and bottom lips from clicking out any code. I have known them pass out entire sentences without reaching for a chord. I twist and rev the bladehandle to eviscerate its descended brain and as the bedlam comes to an end, I hear a small whimper, knowing that something inside has died...
I have been known to wonder wether the noise is from me or my victim, but one thing is for certain, it is a noise that never leaves me. A noise that resides in the darkest of my nightmares but refuses to stay there, for even that would be too grand a mercy. It is a sound that acts as a sobering moment to end my most dazzling of dreams. It gatecrashes my happiest of days in the sun. When the children see again the same bluish meat of my trip, I hear it once more and its power in my life never diminishes. Sometimes it is a noise that comes to me when I dream I am awake at night. It is then, when our bellies are full and the moon swings low, beaming a vengeful, angry red across the sky, that I fear the consequences of my actions most.
Taking back my things and covering our tracks to the stream gives me time to concentrate on something other than my deed and I make good and proper use of their welcome distraction. The creature is dead and nothing will ever bring it back, just as we will never again rule this planet. Perhaps all is for the best and I am only a small part of the great horror show that life has become. Even with such thinking, absolution remains elusive.
By the brook I give the clouds their dues while they continue to struggle on in their fight, they have aided my hunt no end. I have only to cut up my prize into carriable sizes before laying what I find inedible in the stream. Despite their size, the creatures are incredibly light in weight. I hoist up the body over a strong tree branch that whispers low to the stream's joyous babble, entwining the creature's calves and feet to maintain balance for my ritual. It has passed over from presence to product, the eyes no longer giving light of life, limp arms no longer reaching out, a mind and curled claws no longer able to grasp anything. Mindless.
I begin the process of stripping my quarry. Though it is already dead I still slit its throat, gushing forth blood that gravity and pressure seem only too willing to help spill. Each drop in the stream turns the sound of her innocent laughter into a steady, drawn out sob and her wispy white shimmer is adorned of a dark and shadowed, crimson cloak. One that extends further and further, deeper and deeper. She will wash away my crime. At least, the evidence.
The first incision goes from the groin right down to the neck and I do so to gut and remove the slippery and spongy innards, since the intestines of vegans usually carry granules of seed and grain that leave a nasty taste in my children's mouths -wasteful though it may be- I have of late discarded this white offal. I hold tight the severed sphincter pipe and bulging gullet, this alimentary canal which evolution has taken millions of years perfecting and adapting, I cut, remove and sling as a bundle in seconds. Again the little river cries at my rancid offerings as piece by piece, more organs fall. What is left is a steaming cavernous wreck of a vessel. The empty lungs are added to the melody of her tears but the heart, the heart I keep. It holds a special place in our feast. I recall a time from when man ruled the earth that some indigenous tribes ate their dead elders to absorb their knowledge, I think it had more to do with respect for the sacrificial dead. It also has a smooth texture and a succulent taste that leaves my young ones stamping their feet and clapping for more. It seems we have always had a thirst for the result of the most horrific things. Once, whilst purging one of blood, the prize slipped from my hands and I began stalking it downstream, chuntering in the face of whines and moans I knew I would return home to if I lost it, all before finally managing to seize it from the dashing waters. The macabre humour, of which remains my loyal -if schizophrenic- companion, has often played salt to preserve the rots of my dwindling sanity. In this harsh new world, comedy has become a little vice, another welcome distraction from the disease of madness. Maybe just another symptom, who knows...
The meat of the back, thighs, calves and upper arms are arguably the best to help my children grow big and strong, while the forearms have a spindly toughness that we three adults might endure for sustenance: the children will turn their noses up at such meat. An action I deplore given our circumstances and readily rectify when I can. When that is, when I am allowed.
A noise outside the normal sphere of things sends my heart racing and my body reaching for the safe refuge of the tree. Though startled, I wind easily around the low branch and up into the stubby crown of pleading nodes that might act as bed and breakfast for other nightcrawlers. A sometime necessary bombburst of acrobatic energy for when I feel threatened. I hope it is the other child, please, not an adult. Dead leaves crushed underfoot and my heart is forcing its way into my throat, choking me of the life it helps give. Please god, a wolf, a bear, a bird, anything but an adult...
The band of trunk beneath me is festooned with plate-sized calluses: branches that appear strangled at inception with lips and mouths sculpted in the agonising throes of hunger. My deathly stature grants me camouflage amongst the barren and spindly tree nodes, all bristling and swaying in the void of night. The tree is encrusted in layer upon layer of dead bark, a thick defensive armour ensuring its ultimate survival. I hold tight in my right hand my only defense. The tree crown is broad enough to make a few steps in each direction and so I step surreptitiously for a superior view of the house. No lights. But the noise of crunching leaves is still heading towards me. An adult would have already roused the house. It has to be the girl.
The dainty figure appears from beneath a collage of black branches and between dark trunks, almost stumbling over a jutting root.
'Gudyana'mee...'
She whispers.
'...You come out here this very instant; I'll tell father.'
Her lowered voice is in fear of waking something evidently more terrible than the wrath of her father.
She stops at the base directly beneath me and puts her hand out for orientation. From behind I can hear the occasional blood-dripping mumble of the stream. I don't need this. My left hand slips over and into a yawning abyss that screams between us; middle fingers slipping inside to choke it into silence. I have enough food. From beyond my control my posture changes from a stationary vestige into a curled, striking poise.
She doesn't need to die.
My lean reaches close to event horizon.
It is not yet cast.
She'll tell.
She'll be too afraid.
What if she rounds the tree?
She won't.
She peers up towards the moon for help with directions, a breakage in the clouds sheds light upon the buildings that make up her home. The knife remains steadfastly clenched despite the current reign of dissidence. The child remains oblivious to the death that lurches above her.
'If you're in that shed, again!'
A tawdry imitation of her father's voice and mannerisms seems to give her the strength to stand upright and walk tall, until that is she takes a fall over the same nuisance tree tentacle whilst moving in the opposite direction. The creature nervously gets up and again begins whispering her sibling's name, her walk staggered and well staged, arms outstretched towards the sanctity of the farm. As she nears the buildings, I return to my knelt squat and momentously gather up composure over my beating heart and heavy lungs. Tonight has not done wonders for my nerves.
I slip down and over the low, bowed branch. The dead remains fall in a crumpled heap from a mistimed leap: hands open in the direction of the farm. 'It's dead,' I tell myself, 'coincidence from the way it fell, nothing more.'
I finish the task of stripping value from the corpse. Dissecting the waste into sections that will wash with the stream rather than sink. Removing, shallow burying and concealing beneath water rocks some of the larger bones. The whole process is completed before the meat is cold.
My hands are thick with a warm, viscous coat of blood that seems to take forever to come clean. Only when my hands are numb from the freeze of being held in the water too long do I remove them. They glimmer a pale bluish white in the fullness of the moon's luminance. So numb I can't feel them but I know they're there. Providing defense for that which is most precious: my family.
I sling the rucksack across my shoulder and holster the second strap for comfort and balance. I have what I came for, yet tonight, despite my best efforts, I almost ventured into something more sinister.
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