CHAPTER 3: BOUND BY PURPOSE
This chapter is told through the creature’s very own eyes. In other words, you’re in Hellhound’s mind looking through his eyes as a first-person passenger. This chapter requires for you to play “Finding Life”. Press play when I notify you, which will be later on in this chapter. We’re ready in…
It’s a gorgeous day. The sun is directly above our heads, but the leaves from the trees shield us from its heat. We are in a high elevation inside a wildlife reserve of some kind. We are looking through the eyes of the creature. One eye is staring downward at a couple of late-teens leaving their campsite while the other eye is staring at tree bark. This is because we are peaking around a tree with half of our face concealed. The last thing we need right now is to be seen by our prey. We wait until they are completely gone before we uncover our face.
We then wait a few more seconds for the bush tops to stop dancing. Five seconds later, their faint voices are barely stroking our ears. Then eventually quietness cascades over Mother Nature. Still, we want to make sure they’re completely gone from eye’s sight. We don’t want to ruin the surprise when they get back. Remember, this is our purpose. We were born to relieve people from this world. Killing is in our blood.
We look up, alongside the moss-eaten bark. The treetops seem to have no end. Our left-hand lets go of a branch that's giving us stability. Before gravity calls our name, we reach up and dig our long two-inch nails in the tree side, and then we begin to climb higher.
We must climb higher to make sure they’re at least fifty-yards away, or more. We stop climbing and gaze in their direction. They’re far gone now. That's perfect. Now that it’s getting close to fall, we know the numbers of hikers for the year will decrease. This is our heroin and we’ve been aching for a fix. Six backpackers will be more than enough to quench our craving.
We shift our eyes downward and search for the flattest spot to land. We release our grasp from the tree side, hearing the wind in our ears as we descend forty-feet. We land on the ground and create a gentle thud. We are strong, fast, and most importantly, silent as a cat. Silence is key when it comes to being a predator. In front of us are three tents; gray, navy blue, and camouflage.
Around them are minor supplies, mostly old food wrappers and spare clothes. We should start with the closest one, but that’s the small one. The biggest one is in the middle; the camouflage one. The owner of that tent is probably from the military. We leap forward, moving with quickness, yet remaining deadly silent.
We unzip the tent and crouch inside the dim, small, dome. We gaze down on the floor. Below is a black floor with two sleeping bags; one blue and one gray. A couple of anonymous bags of food and shirts are gathered neatly to our right, and to our left we see a pair of sunglasses. We then give our keen sense of smell a turn.
We sniff the air like a dog, trying to see if we can smell something deadly, like gunpowder. We have the smell of tuna and laundry detergent at our nose. We then use our sense of touch and quickly scavenge around, looking through anything we can find. We’re looking for anything they can use against us or something we can use against them. We find nothing, well, nothing life-threatening.
We make sure everything looks neat before we back out of the tent and stand to our feet. We look over at the navy-blue tent and hurry over to unzip it. We lower to the ground and shimmy inside the small area. This one is pretty much a replica of the first one except the area is even smaller. We back out and rise to our feet and close the tent.
We then race over, quietly, to the last and final tent. We find a cellphone on the floor with some clothes and suntan lotion.
“Eureka!” we think to ourselves as we pick up the cellphone that one of the young hikers left behind.
We exit the tent with the cellphone in our right hand. We then glide through the wilderness with wind brushing pass our face, almost in an eerie whisper. The only sound you can hear are our feet crunching into dry leaves and the wind blowing gently in our ear. We take a moment to think about where we placed our trap we made hours earlier.
There it is. It’s a simple snare trap hidden behind an old tree, covered in leaves. A long braided rope is dangling down the side of the tree and knotted in a circle on the forest floor. The long rope goes all the way up to a high branch. This phone would work perfectly with this trap. We place the phone carefully on the ground in the middle of the circle and carefully back away without disturbing the snare.
There’s absolutely nothing to do now but wait for them to return. We remember the leader of their crew mentioning something about a two-mile hike. It takes the average person to walk a mile in twenty minutes or so. Two miles will cover the distance there, and two miles will cover the distance back. That’s four miles overall. That’s about an hour in twenty minutes. Now we just have to have us an old fashion stakeout. We look up and see branches calling for us to latch on.
We leap up and climb the tree until we reach forty-feet or so above ground. We find a firm array of branches to support our body weight. We remain still and quiet, watching the tops of their camping tents from twenty-yards away.
Soon, the branches we disturbed while climbing stops moving and now everything is quiet and still; for the exception of birds chirping.
Time progresses…
The sun’s brilliance is now a faint glow, and now the sky has almost surrendered completely to dusk. We don’t know how long we’ve been waiting; however, we remain still and patient for their return. This isn’t the first time we did this. Patience is the name of the game. We can’t wait to see the terror on their faces in the final brutal moments of their lives.
Periodically, we look at the phone forty-feet below and imagine how everything will turn out. We can’t wait to see the snare in action. It’s been so long since we used one. We also think about all of the different blades we brought with us; some have never tasted the likes of flesh before.
We sharpened them thoroughly before we left the hideout and now they’re speaking to us in our heads, telling us that they’re willing and ready to do our bidding. The sharp metal are calling us to satisfy our thirst for innocent blood.
Then we hear something that sparks our excitement…
We hear the sound of feet scrambling through dry dirt at a distance. We look forward, over the tents, hoping to see the young group returning from their hike. Here they come, tired and sluggish, heading back to their permanent resting place. Yes, it’s almost time to go to work, and now we must debate on which one to kill first.
Now that they’re tired, this only makes our job even easier. They all start giggling and laughing about something we’re unaware of. We watch them drop their backpacks and sit down on the logs in a circle. Sighs of relief swell throughout the area as they rest their exhausted bodies.
“Let’s get something cooking,” one of the young men announces.
“Right, I’m starving,” a female replies.
We wait an additional twenty minutes; still, the level of anticipation increases by every passing minute like a dope-head waiting on a street corner for his dealer. Our entire body is starting to get wet from anticipation, and this causes our grip on the tree to loosen. We must now reposition our hands on the tree again, because our palms are so moist that it’s causing our grip to become slippery.
We reposition our left hand and grip a branch that’s completely dry. The leaves on the branch dances a little, which gathers the attention of one of the female campers. She glances up and stares directly at us. We duck our face behind the tree and stand still and silent; however, being a predator in the evening time gives us the advantage of stealth. It’s harder for us to be spotted.
“What is it?” we hear her boyfriend questioning her from a distance.
Silence lingers for an uncomfortable amount of time as we wait for her to retort.
“It was nothing,” she replies halfheartedly.
We sigh in relief. Just a little longer and everything is about to start. We wait long enough for them to move their conversation along before we uncover our face again.
We watch as a young man stands and check his pockets for something. Whatever he’s searching for, he apparently can’t seem to find it anywhere. We can see the frustration forming on his face as he looks around the camping area. He checks his pockets and then double checks his pockets.
Yes! This is it! The bewildered young man has finally decided to look for his stolen phone. We continue to watch as the young man goes into his tent for a couple of seconds before coming back out, frustrated. A couple of low chuckles slip from our mouths automatically as he rummages around the camping area like a chicken with its head cut off. The moment we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. It’s game time.
The camper scrambles to his feet with a look of confusion.
“Where the hell is my phone?” he asks everyone.
Some of them shrug their shoulders while the other half replies, “I don’t know”. A swarm of chaotic butterflies hits us in the pit of our stomach.
“Just call it Ron,” a girl says while presenting her phone to him.
With our hearts pounding, we watch him dial a number and hold the phone at his ear.
“Yes,” we whisper to ourselves in excitement.
We look down at the phone resting inside the loop of knotted rope. The screen of the phone glows brightly before the ringtone comes on, which is loud metal music. We look back at the camper and examine his confused expression. He then looks over at our direction with the phone in his ear.
“How the hell did it get over there?” he blurts out with bewilderment.
“Must’ve been a raccoon or something,” one of the young men responds.
“But the tent was closed,” he replies with an uneasy look in his eyes. “Raccoons can’t open and close a tent.”
“What’s wrong Ron? Are you scared?” one of the boys asks.
The group giggles.
“Fuck you,” Ronald replies before he turns and looks into the direction of the ringing phone.
The young man hesitates for a moment before walking cautiously in our direction; his eyes and ears are doing their best to locate his phone. Why does it feel like he’s walking so damn slow? He’s only ten-yards away from the phone, and now we can barely hold our grip.
Our eagerness to kill has turned our palms even more slippery. Our breathing is increasing the more he takes one steady step after another. He finally makes his way over to us and spots his phone on the ground.
“What the hell…?” he says as he finds his phone resting safely behind a tree.
PLAY SONG NOW AND PUT ON REPEAT IF POSSIBLE
He immediately becomes hesitant to pick it up. A hundred butterflies are fluttering in our stomach right now. We can feel a drop of sweat trickle down our face and slide down our chin. Our nose is itching, and the irritation is building momentum, but we can’t move now. We don’t want our cover to be blown. He stops calling the phone and then gets closer; one cautious step at a time.
COME ON, HURRY UP ALREADY! We are so anxious right now that we can almost die from a heart attack. He hits the end button on his friend's phone and stares at his phone with an unreadable expression. He knows something isn't right. Our body temperature is climbing as our heart races a mile a minute. We bite down on our bottom lip to help comfort our lust for blood. He glances around at his surroundings cautiously.
We can see curiosity forming in his timid eyes. We wiggle our nose and try to relieve ourselves from the burning itch. It barely helps. Our grip on the tree slides a couple of inches. DAMN IT! We look down and hope that he didn’t hear the sound of a snapping twig.
He looks around again, unaware that we are watching his every move like a hawk. This time he completely turns in our direction. Luckily for us, he’s looking straight ahead and not at an upward angle. Our grip is becoming as slippery as a wet bar of soap. Our cover is about to be blown soon, very soon.
He slowly turns again and looks at his phone that’s resting on the forest floor. Our grip slips another inch. At long last, he eases closer to the snare and reaches for his phone. Come on! Do it! We slide another three inches, snapping another twig off a branch.
Slowly, he steps forward one more time and his foot springs the trap. Before he’s able to grab the phone, we watch the rope tighten quickly around his ankle.
A log is on the other end of the rope, high in a tree, completely unnoticed. The log falls and its weight causes the snare to snatch his left ankle off the ground. His head hits the ground hard as the weight of the log forces his body to flip upside down.
It’s time to act! Finally, we let go of the slippery branches and land on the ground with a gentle thud. The first thing we do when we land is rubbed away the itch from our nose. The young man's body is hanging upside down and facing away from us.
“What the fuck…” he says in a disoriented voice.
He seems to be disorientated from his head bouncing hard off the ground so hard. He is now hanging upside down and rotating towards us slowly. We open our cloak and survey our weaponry. We see the rope and four long-bladed knives on the inside. We grab the machete and seal our cloak again. Remaining unnoticed, we secretively prowl toward the victim. Now he’s almost facing us.
“The boy who cried wolf was always my favorite story. This is called irony,” we tell him.
“Who’s there?” he says as he finishes rotating.
Before he’s able to scream, we swipe the blade across the air from left to right with quickness and force.
SHINK!
A mere yelp exits his mouth before we finish him off. We hear the sound of the steel cutting through flesh. In a blink of an eye, his head is sliced off and rolls across the ground like a basketball and stops in a patch of wild grass. Blood from his severed head is gushing on the ground as his nerves causes his body to convulse. Slowly the tremoring stops.
“Ronald is everything okay?!” a male shouts from a distance. “Stop playing around.”
We swiftly hide behind a tree so the others can’t find us.
“This is not funny anymore,” a female voice shouts.
We look up the tree and then begin to scale it until we are thirty-feet above ground. We look over to our left and see another tree with mature branches. We leap off this tree and latch onto the one on our left. We do this repeatedly, from tree to tree, until we can see the nervous gang of five campers below us. They are all looking in the direction their friend wandered off to.
“I swear to God if this is a joke I’m kicking your ass,” one of the male's shouts.
We snicker to ourselves but quickly regret it when the black male lifts his face and looks around.
“What is it?” one of the females ask him.
We can’t see which one asked because our face remains hidden behind the tree.
“Something is here. I heard it,” he replies.
“Me too,” another male adds.
“Ron, stop playing,” a female shouts into the wilderness.
“Your friend is gone. Soon all of you will be too,” we announce.
“Who said that!?” one of the male shouts.
Slowly, we peak around the tree and see worried and frightened faces glancing at every angle. We look to our left and see another tree. Silently, we leap over to the tree, barely disturbing a leaf. We leap three more times before stopping to observe the group again.
Some of them have begun to arm themselves with sticks and rocks. One of them unsheathes a cooking knife. That’s fine because our knives are far bigger and sharper. His hand is shaking and we can smell the aroma of fear surrounding the area. He may be armed but he probably doesn’t have the guts to use a weapon against us; none of them do. It’s nothing better than seeing a man holding a weapon and still terrified. Watching the fear grow on their faces only motivates us to keep patronizing them.
All of them look terrified except the darker male.
“I’m calling the police,” a female with black hair cries out in tears.
We look down and watch her stand against a tree and dial three numbers. Quietly, we drop down onto the ground behind her in a kneeling position, without anyone noticing, and swiftly maneuver behind the tree while remaining low. We then open our jacket again and survey our arsenal of knives. We then pull out a dagger, noiselessly.
One slow foot at a time, we come from around the tree, gazing at the back of her head. She presses the call button and puts the phone to her ear. We take two more steps closer before whispering in her ear…
“Behind you.”
A gasp is the last thing that slips from her mouth before we stab her in the temple with the long blade. The stab was so forceful that it goes into her hand, through her phone, into her skull, through the other end of her skull, and into a tree. Now she is stuck against the tree, dead, with her phone still at her ear. Her eyes are rolled back into her skull with her mouth gaping. Her body, although lifeless, is still fighting to stay alive. Her legs are kicking as if they are trying to run, but it only last momentarily.
“What the fuck!” the male with the knife yells.
There are only four left; two boys and two girls. All of them look petrified. That’s just how we like our victims, scared to death. The dark male seems to be less frightened than all of them. We then look back at the one in the front, holding a small kitchen knife at us. We chuckle and pull out another dagger. They gasp at the sight of our blade; all of them except for the darker one.
“I’ll give you all five seconds to run,” we tell them.
They can only stare at us. That’s normal. They’re far too scared to move or think at this point.
“Five! Four!” we start to count down.
“Fuck this,” one of the horrified female campers blurts out before running.
She goes taking off through the woods like a bat out of hell. The others follow behind her a second later, running their fastest.
“Three,” we continue to count as they disappear from our sight.
Still, we can hear their fluttering footsteps breaking through branches and leaves.
“Two.”
The next round is about to unfold before our very own eyes. Before we get to the last number in the countdown, we open our jacket once more and review our weaponry. This is the last round, so that means we should go out with a bang; all or nothing. We have two blades left and a lasso. Well, we already used two knives so let’s give the lasso a try.
We retrieve the lasso from our cloak, trying our best not to hold it tightly because of the nails that are protruding between the braided fibers.
“One.”
Game over. Ready or not, here we come…
We sprint through the wilderness with quickness. We may have the speed of a cheetah, but you can barely hear a peep from our footsteps. In no time, we find the last four fleeing the area; well, attempting to flee. The one furthest in the back is a female.
The lasso has her name on it. With precision, we throw the rope fifteen-yards ahead of us.
The end has a loop that is covered in pre-sharpened nine-inch nails. We stop abruptly and pull as hard as we can. We can hear her last and final breath slip from her mouth as she is yanked backward. She falls flat on her back as the knot clinches her throat. We then begin to pull on the rope; the rope is tightening as we pull. She is conscious, but she can’t scream for help because the rope is bound too tightly around her feeble little neck.
As we pull on her, she is kicking her feet and trying to free herself from the deadly grip. That’s why we’ve equipped the rope with nails. The nails are now conjoined with her throat, and there’s absolutely nothing she can do to loosen the deadly seize. As we pull her closer, leaves, and twigs are getting caught in her hair. She is now ten-yards away from us, yet her kicking hasn’t let down one bit.
She’s a fighter; we love fighters. They make us want to hunt them down even more. The challenging kills always seem to be the best for some strange reason; like a sadistic game of cat and mouse. When she gets within the five-yard range, the kicking slowly begins to stop.
“Going somewhere?” we ask her.
We stop pulling when her head is nearly touching our long, ugly, toes. She’s on her back, staring directly in our eyes; her hands still trying to loosen the rope that’s around her neck. The veins in her eyes have burst from the pressure, and now she’s crying blood. We lift our right foot high, above knee level, and thrust it down onto her face. We feel her nose sink into her face, and we can hear the cartilage crunching beneath our heel. Her grip on the rope immediately stops, and so does her kicking.
We twist our heel like someone who just killed a cockroach and wants to make sure it’s dead. A couple of twists later, we remove our large foot from her face, revealing an unrecognizable young woman. Her nose is flat, and her jaw is broken and pushed back against her throat.
OMG yikes!
That’s three down; three to go.
We look forward at the cascade of tall trees that reaches as far as our eyes can see. The other three is getting away. Nonetheless, we’re not worried about them. They’re barely able to catch their breath while we haven’t even warmed up yet. We open up our jacket and pull out a long dagger.
Like a cat, we silently glide through the forest, quickly closing the distance between us and our prey. The next victim is a Caucasian male. He looks over his shoulders as he runs. We make eye contact with him and watch the blood drain from his sweaty face. His face twist with terror as we lift the dagger and stab him in the back of the neck.
The long knife pierces the back of his neck and goes straight through his Adam’s apple. His body tumbles harshly across the forest floor. His lifeless body is now twisted and resting awkwardly on the ground, looking up into oblivion.
Swiftly, we continue to our next victim; a blonde girl with short hair. Her and her lover-----the African American male------is holding hands as they desperately try to escape their pending fate.
“Come on!” her boyfriend shouts to her as he pulls on her arm.
She doesn’t reply. She’s way too busy breathing and crying. We increase speed and use our strength to push her from behind. Her body flies forward, and impacts face first against a tree. A loud thud echoes throughout the forest as she goes face first into the bark, breaking all of her front teeth. We stop running and quickly track where her body landed. We head back and find her on the ground completely unconscious with missing teeth and a broken nose. Her body is convulsing, probably from brain damage.
“No!” a voice cries out at close proximity.
We look to our right and see the darker gentlemen coming at us with massive anger. He swings a fist at us, but he’s not cunning enough to match our agility. We catch his fist like a baseball. He looks at our hand, mesmerized by our power, as confusion forms on his brown face. We apply pressure on his fist, and he begins to grunt in pain.
“You don’t fear me…,” we state as we grab the young man by the throat.
Now both of our hands are currently being occupied. One hand has taken away his only line of defense while the other is strangling him.
“…but you will. People always fear me in the end.”
We lift him into the air and apply more pressure. We then slam his head against a large rock on the ground, and now, he too is rendered unconscious…