20-08-2018 / Francis The Hunter
Francis The Hunter
"You're going to need a bigger boat" said the old man chuckling.
I hated the fact he was trying to be cute at a time like this. Unfortunately, I needed his help. He had the only boat that was big and fast enough for what needed to be done.
"I agree and if there was, I wouldn't be wasting my time here, but here I am" I replied, making sure my annoyance was perceptible in my voice.
"Are you sure you want to do this? The last guys who tried this came back in bits and pieces" he said while taking a sip out of his beer bottle with one hand and holding on to his boat with the other.
He wasn't exaggerating. He was right. The last time someone tried to solve the problem, the problem solved them. 5 men were reduced to a finger washing ashore, a head floating 5 kilometers away, a leg being found by some Boy Scouts, an arm here, a foot there...
The local coroner couldn't match which pieces belonged to which man. She had the theory that maybe they all belonged to the same person. It's not like she had much to go on.
But something had to be done. The number of visitors to the fishing resort had plummeted, body parts showing up ashore and later in the newspapers didn't help neither the folk tales nor myths that spread like wildfire.
For a few weeks, he was nowhere to be found. No reports of missing people, no boats destroyed, no parts showing up somewhere.
That lull coincided with the busiest weeks of the summer break. While we didn't have as much visitors as we normally do, we did expect enough to at least earn enough to make it through the rest of the year.
Things went along fine for the first 3 weeks; people slowly returned for the boat rides, to eat the fish and for the forest excursions. The word spread and things seemed to be turning for the better.
It was the 29th of July when he came back.
That was the busiest day of the year so far. People from all over the country were here. We even had some people from abroad.
Had.
I remember the people coming on board my boat, anxious to take the ride that would go furthest into the water. There were some nice vistas available at that point along with birds that flew above waiting for the school of fishes to approach the boat while visitors fed them.
It was supposed to be a good day.
That's when everyone there heard the scream.
"Hilfe! Hilfe" screamed a young woman swimming for her life. Her voice cracked in between the word.
She was coming ashore but at a very slow pace. I took my binoculars and saw her face bathed in blood. Then I saw why she was swimming so slowly: she was carrying a man who was bleeding profusely.
She kept screaming with her face frozen by horror.
I jumped out of my boat and ran down the pier to help her. I didn't understand what "Hilfe" meant but I knew something was not right. I wished with all my heart that they had capsized the boat that they rented earlier and that they'd be fine but deep down inside me I knew that I was hoping for too much.
Other boat owners ran after me. They all had the same expression on their faces: fear.
I ran into the water until it reached my waist and held my arms out to help the woman with her partner. She gave him to me and we all saw in horror how the man's body was just... a half.
Everything from the waist down was missing. He had been mauled with no remorse.
"Bitte helfen! Bitte helfen!" she cried as she delivered the body to us. I gave it to my colleagues so I could help her get out of the water.
I stretched my arms to her and she grabbed my hands, sobbing and hyperventilating.
"It's ok, it's ok" I said while pulling her. "You're safe now".
Famous last words...
I don't know where he came from.
I didn't see him coming.
The only thing I saw was the woman being pulled away from me in an instant and the columns of immense teeth bathing my face with her blood as she was being ripped to shreds.
The woman yelled in absolute pain as she was being devoured. Pieces of her body flew everywhere along with her blood.
It happened so fast. So suddenly.
But he was not done. Not yet.
He jumped to the shore where her partner was being held by a boy who couldn't be older than 17 years; he was watching the same horrid spectacle as I was. As everyone was.
He didn't see him coming either.
The boy and what was left of the man disappeared in a single swoop. There was no blood this time. They were eaten whole in one bite.
And just like that, he disappeared. Went underwater and it was like nothing happened.
I couldn't move. I was stuck on the exact moment where I grabbed the woman's hand and was trying to pull her towards me and out of the water.
I just heard screams behind me. Of all kinds. Men, women and children. I could hear splashes in the water of people getting out.
I heard car doors being shut in panic and engines revving in fear. Desperate to get out of there.
"Someone call the cops!" a man yelled. I still don't know what good that would have done.
People ran over other people while trying to escape. Several cars crashed at the entrance and 20 people died in car crashes while fleeing. That included a family of 10 who were T-boned by a semi-truck while escaping in a mini-van.
I could still feel her hand clutching mine like if she knew I would be able to stop the fate that awaited her.
The police did actually come. So did the government. They closed down the resort to the public until further notice.
They held a meeting with all of the boat owners, the restaurant owners and the resort management. They asked us what happened that day. People tried to explain as best as they could but obviously that was useless.
When I was asked directly, I couldn't reply. Her face and her screams were still playing in my head. I was looking for her in the distance, hoping she would come out of the water.
The government and the police first laughed at us when my colleagues explained the situation. Later they thought we were playing with them and got offended. When they saw we wouldn't back down from our position, they left in a rush but not before threatening to blame all the deaths on us and to keep the resort closed until the issue was resolved somehow.
My colleagues insisted on the veracity of their account to no avail. They asked for help to deal with him but that was rejected too.
"We're not going to play along with your delusions" the government men said. "Either you tell us the truth or all of you are looking to spending the rest of your lives in jail for all the unexplained murders and disappearances in this area".
They got on their trucks and left in haste. We were practically sentenced to death.
A meeting with everyone who lived and worked there was held the following day. A few of them wanted to deal with him, most of them just wanted to leave and never come back.
For some of us that wasn't really an option. We had nowhere to go. Our whole lives were there.
An agreement couldn't be reached and it was every man for himself. All the restaurants closed down, so did the resort. Permanently.
In a matter of days, our community was reduced to a handful of people. Only those of us who lived here before the resort was built remained.
The resort was built next to a dam which is federal property. There would always be water in the place and since he didn't attack those facilities, the government didn't have any reason to do anything at all and that explained why they never heard about him.
"The Problem" some called him, "The Invisible Death" others did. Some of us called him "Francis The Hunter".
I couldn't sleep for 3 weeks. All I saw when I closed my eyes were two columns of razor sharp teeth, blood and a woman being eaten alive. All I heard was her screaming and the words "Hilfe, hilfe".
One night I couldn't take it anymore, so I walked 30 kilometers to the truck stop next to the toll booth where the public road and the highway meet. Where rich and poor people are split even though they are headed to the same destination.
There was a bar there where I used to go before all of this happened. I made friends with the bartender, which luckily was working that night.
"You look like hell" she said upon seeing me. She was right, but that's what will happen when you live an actual nightmare and you can't escape from it awake or asleep.
"I need to use your phone" I said while staring into the distance. "It's next to the bathrooms" she replied while pointing to it.
"No, I need to look something up, I need a phone." was my reply.
"Are you ok?" she asked while looking at me in a weird way.
"No" was the only thing I could answer back.
She reached into her back pocket and handed me her smartphone while asking "Are you in trouble?"
"I just need to know" I said while still looking at the distance, waiting for the woman to come out of the water.
I took her phone and searched for a translator. It prompted me to write down what I wanted translated but I couldn't do that. I had no idea what language the woman was speaking.
However, I did remember the sound of her words.
I pressed a microphone icon and spoke into the phone but it couldn't make out anything I said. It was obvious, the yelling and singing and loud music from the bar garbled my voice.
I walked out to the back and tried again but the sound of trailers leaving and arriving didn't help. I was growing intensely frustrated.
The phone kept refusing to translate because of the noise but quite frankly it felt like it was mocking me.
Yelling was my response. I angrily yelled into the phone the last words that women would say in her life.
"Help. Help. Please help" was the translator's response. It was in German.
I played the translation for an hour. Every time I did, I didn't hear the translator's robotic voice but the woman begging for help.
She asked for my help and I failed her. Everyone in the resort did.
I didn't notice when the bartender came out and looked for me. I just kept repeating the translation over and over and over and over.
The phone was taken from me and I was asked "What's going on?" in a worried manner.
"Does it have to do with what happened at the resort?"
"Yeah, but now I know what to do" I replied while snapping out of all the vortex of thoughts in my head.
I thanked her for the favor, handed the phone back and ran into the night again. I knew what I had to do.
The next few days I spent them selling my boat. When I finally found someone willing to buy it, I had to track down some special items I needed for my plan.
When I tracked them down, I put them all inside a backpack and I headed for the pier, towards one of the 5 boats remaining on the resort.
With my foot I knocked on the boat's hull to wake up the owner.
"I need your help. I'm going after Francis The Hunter" was my opening line.
He looked at me with an incredulous look, smirked and said: "You're going to need a bigger boat" as he chuckled.
After dealing with his mocking and doubts about it, he heard my plan. I explained it as clearly as possible so his drunken brain could comprehend it and agree to go through with it.
He kept looking at me, drank more of his beer without taking his eyes off my mine and eventually said:
"Oh, what the hell, it's not like we have anything left to lose or something better to do".
He threw his empty beer bottle into the hull and composed himself, or at least as much as he could.
The engine on his boat started as his son showed up on his truck. He parked right in front of us.
With a sense of hurry he descended from the vehicle and asked what was his father going to do.
"We're going to solve this problem once and for all" said the man with a dry tone. He and his son didn't exactly get along too well and the latter had been insisting for the old man to leave the resort and go live with him.
But some people are just too stubborn or too attached.
We pulled away from the shore as the old man's son looked at us with a look full of anguish. It's like he was saying goodbye to his father without saying anything.
"Where are we going? he asked me once he managed to shake off his son's face off his mind.
"Behind the mountains, into the coves" I said while gazing into the horizon. That's where those 5 men said they'd go when they tried. That's where 3 fishermen and 1 group of people making a nighttime ride disappeared.
We made the trip in silence. The sun was on its way down and I went through my plan over and over and over again. The atmosphere was tense but I suppose that's how it feels when you're about to face the certainty death.
After almost an hour we arrived beyond the mountains. It was a sinuous way so the old man decided to shut off the engine and push the boat using an oar.
We made our way in silence, checking inside the coves but not finding anything in particular.
"Are you sure this is it?" asked the old man with doubt and bother in his voice.
Before I could reply something hit the hull on the starboard side. I approached the edge and picked up the answer to his question:
A piece of wood that read "Brave" which used to be a part of the boat that disappeared with those tourists on that night time ride.
Used to be.
The old man kept rowing without saying a word. It wasn't necessary; the brief instant when he opened his eyes in horror and his breathing stopped was enough to know that his doubts had been cleared.
We kept going for a while and the pieces of other boats floating on the water were more abundant.
After we passed by a floating head, we ran into several body parts in various stages of decay.
We heard in the distance the sound of something being devoured alive.
The old man stopped rowing and I opened by backpack in order to take out my binoculars. I aimed them to where the sound was coming from.
There he was. Devouring a couple of horse that got too close while drinking water. Both squealed and yelled while being shredded savagely between his teeth.
"Now what?" asked the old man while trying to hide the fear that was taking hold of him.
I quietly took out the grenade launcher I bought when I sold my boat. I carefully loaded it.
"We need to get closer" I said.
The old man swallowed and rowed very gently in order to make the less noise possible.
He got us as far as his nerve allowed him to. I can't judge him, my heart was about to make a hole in my chest as well. I just had a better reason to do this than he did.
"If only we brought one of those government idiots with us, maybe they'd believe us now" he said while watching the horror being performed in front of us.
I snapped out of the fear that was gripping my mind and recalled that I brought something precisely for that.
Since we needed some form of evidence for people in the government to believe us, I figured a photograph would work. So I bought a second hand camera. It was nothing fancy but it took pictures which is what I needed.
I aimed it at the monster and pressed the button but I forgot to turn the autofocusing function off and the lens made a whirring sound as it tried to focus.
He heard that.
He swallowed what was left of the horses and sunk slowly into the water.
We lost sight of it, I frantically dropped the camera into the bag and grabbed my binoculars again, looking for it.
He had completely disappeared. He was nowhere to be found. How quickly could he move to vanish that fast?
"There!" yelled the old man while pointing into the water.
I aimed at the place where he pointed but couldn't see anything.
That was until the water began to make waves towards us and the top of the shade on his deck began to slowly emerge.
The old man frantically started his engine and turned his boat around.
"Wait!" I yelled while aiming the grenade launcher.
"Do it now then!" he yelled back.
I aimed the launcher at him but in the last second changed my mind and aimed it to where he would be when the grenade made impact, not to where he had been.
As he rose from the water, showing us his sharp teeth, the grenade fell on top of his shade.
He opened his jaws enough to swallow us whole.
The grenade exploded.
The blast wave threw us on the deck of the old man's boat and the monster was nowhere to be seen.
We looked for him all over the place, engine ready to go in case he was playing with us.
What was left of his shade was floating on the water, burning.
"Did we get it?" asked the old man, with a dash of hope in his voice.
It seemed so but I wasn't sure. It couldn't be that easy.
I approached the water to see if I could spot it below and suddenly it emerged like a whale, rose through the water and fell back on it again, making a huge splash.
But he didn't chase after us, he just floated.
He didn't breathe. He didn't move.
"Is it dead?" asked the old man. I could only shrug.
He took the empty bottle of beer rolling around on the boat's deck and threw it at him.
It smashed right on his face. He still didn't move.
He laughed with so much relief and I exhaled the deepest sigh in my life with the same emotion.
I was looking at it more closely when the old man opened a secret compartment on the deck and pulled out a harpoon gun. Without a second thought, he aimed and fired it at the lower jaw. He then tied the end of the rope to the deck.
"Who's the crazy bastard now?" he said in a defiant way. He clearly intended to drop the corpse on the desk of the man of the government who called him that.
We made the trip back home, obviously it took longer because of the weight we carried but we still had some sunlight left.
The old man was singing in joy. He kept interjecting his hopes and dreams of fame and glory for having killed Francis The Hunter.
I just thought of that woman and her partner. Wherever they were, I hoped they could rest in peace now.
Without noticing, something happened to me that hadn't occurred for a long while:
I fell asleep.
We had accomplished the mission, we had killed the monster. We had avenged all the victims and we were bringing the evidence to prove we weren't lying.
We did our job. I finally earned some rest.
I slept all the way back. It was glorious to get some sleep again.
The old man woke me up as we approached the shore again.
"Welcome back, partner. We're almost there" he said, still joyful.
When I was going to stand up, I felt like we hit something underwater.
"That's weird, we're still nowhere near rocks yet" said the old man confused.
The boat started speeding up. The waves began to travel in the direction opposite of how they should.
"Slow down, we're not that far out" I told him.
"I'm not speeding up!" he replied worried.
We couldn't be going this fast while hauling weight, this made no sense.
I turned around and what was supposed to be a corpse turned out to be very.much.alive.
He was swimming towards the shore and pushing the boat along with the water.
I could feel his breathing roaring down on me. He was furious.
We were a few meters out of the shore line, I didn't know what to do and the old man was praying while stuttering all over.
I recalled my grenade launcher and reached for my backpack, but he pushed the boat with his bow and made us crash against the rocks in the shoreline.
I flew out of boat but the old man crashed against the shade.
The old man's son was waiting for us standing by his truck. He saw everything that was happening.
I landed past his truck.
The monster ate the old man's boat.
He ate the old man.
He ate the old man's son's truck.
He ate the old man's son.
He tried to eat me but I was just a few centimeters away farther than he could reach. I'm guessing that the man sitting on his boat on the right didn't move to avoid catching his attention.
I crawled away and pushed my hand into my backpack looking for my grenade launcher.
The monster tried to grab me with his jaws but he just couldn't reach.
He roared at me with furious anger. A tire flew out of his mouth along with the old man's head.
My hands felt something solid and I pulled it out, pressed the trigger and...
I took this damn picture.
While rocking left to right, he began digging a canal with his body until it was flooded and then he slid back into the water.
He submerged and disappeared.
That was almost 3 months ago.
Now that I have presented this evidence to you, my question is:
Will you help us now or are you going to keep saying we're crazy?
With a sense of hurry he descended from the vehicle and asked what was his father going to do.
"We're going to solve this problem once and for all" said the man with a dry tone. He and his son didn't exactly get along too well and the latter had been insisting for the old man to leave the resort and go live with him.
But some people are just too stubborn or too attached.
We pulled away from the shore as the old man's son looked at us with a look full of anguish. It's like he was saying goodbye to his father without saying anything.
"Where are we going? he asked me once he managed to shake off his son's face off his mind.
"Behind the mountains, into the coves" I said while gazing into the horizon. That's where those 5 men said they'd go when they tried. That's where 3 fishermen and 1 group of people making a nighttime ride disappeared.
We made the trip in silence. The sun was on its way down and I went through my plan over and over and over again. The atmosphere was tense but I suppose that's how it feels when you're about to face the certainty death.
After almost an hour we arrived beyond the mountains. It was a sinuous way so the old man decided to shut off the engine and push the boat using an oar.
We made our way in silence, checking inside the coves but not finding anything in particular.
"Are you sure this is it?" asked the old man with doubt and bother in his voice.
Before I could reply something hit the hull on the starboard side. I approached the edge and picked up the answer to his question:
A piece of wood that read "Brave" which used to be a part of the boat that disappeared with those tourists on that night time ride.
Used to be.
The old man kept rowing without saying a word. It wasn't necessary; the brief instant when he opened his eyes in horror and his breathing stopped was enough to know that his doubts had been cleared.
We kept going for a while and the pieces of other boats floating on the water were more abundant.
After we passed by a floating head, we ran into several body parts in various stages of decay.
We heard in the distance the sound of something being devoured alive.
The old man stopped rowing and I opened by backpack in order to take out my binoculars. I aimed them to where the sound was coming from.
There he was. Devouring a couple of horse that got too close while drinking water. Both squealed and yelled while being shredded savagely between his teeth.
"Now what?" asked the old man while trying to hide the fear that was taking hold of him.
I quietly took out the grenade launcher I bought when I sold my boat. I carefully loaded it.
"We need to get closer" I said.
The old man swallowed and rowed very gently in order to make the less noise possible.
He got us as far as his nerve allowed him to. I can't judge him, my heart was about to make a hole in my chest as well. I just had a better reason to do this than he did.
"If only we brought one of those government idiots with us, maybe they'd believe us now" he said while watching the horror being performed in front of us.
I snapped out of the fear that was gripping my mind and recalled that I brought something precisely for that.
Since we needed some form of evidence for people in the government to believe us, I figured a photograph would work. So I bought a second hand camera. It was nothing fancy but it took pictures which is what I needed.
I aimed it at the monster and pressed the button but I forgot to turn the autofocusing function off and the lens made a whirring sound as it tried to focus.
He heard that.
He swallowed what was left of the horses and sunk slowly into the water.
We lost sight of it, I frantically dropped the camera into the bag and grabbed my binoculars again, looking for it.
He had completely disappeared. He was nowhere to be found. How quickly could he move to vanish that fast?
"There!" yelled the old man while pointing into the water.
I aimed at the place where he pointed but couldn't see anything.
That was until the water began to make waves towards us and the top of the shade on his deck began to slowly emerge.
The old man frantically started his engine and turned his boat around.
"Wait!" I yelled while aiming the grenade launcher.
"Do it now then!" he yelled back.
I aimed the launcher at him but in the last second changed my mind and aimed it to where he would be when the grenade made impact, not to where he had been.
As he rose from the water, showing us his sharp teeth, the grenade fell on top of his shade.
He opened his jaws enough to swallow us whole.
The grenade exploded.
The blast wave threw us on the deck of the old man's boat and the monster was nowhere to be seen.
We looked for him all over the place, engine ready to go in case he was playing with us.
What was left of his shade was floating on the water, burning.
"Did we get it?" asked the old man, with a dash of hope in his voice.
It seemed so but I wasn't sure. It couldn't be that easy.
I approached the water to see if I could spot it below and suddenly it emerged like a whale, rose through the water and fell back on it again, making a huge splash.
But he didn't chase after us, he just floated.
He didn't breathe. He didn't move.
"Is it dead?" asked the old man. I could only shrug.
He took the empty bottle of beer rolling around on the boat's deck and threw it at him.
It smashed right on his face. He still didn't move.
He laughed with so much relief and I exhaled the deepest sigh in my life with the same emotion.
I was looking at it more closely when the old man opened a secret compartment on the deck and pulled out a harpoon gun. Without a second thought, he aimed and fired it at the lower jaw. He then tied the end of the rope to the deck.
"Who's the crazy bastard now?" he said in a defiant way. He clearly intended to drop the corpse on the desk of the man of the government who called him that.
We made the trip back home, obviously it took longer because of the weight we carried but we still had some sunlight left.
The old man was singing in joy. He kept interjecting his hopes and dreams of fame and glory for having killed Francis The Hunter.
I just thought of that woman and her partner. Wherever they were, I hoped they could rest in peace now.
Without noticing, something happened to me that hadn't occurred for a long while:
I fell asleep.
We had accomplished the mission, we had killed the monster. We had avenged all the victims and we were bringing the evidence to prove we weren't lying.
We did our job. I finally earned some rest.
I slept all the way back. It was glorious to get some sleep again.
The old man woke me up as we approached the shore again.
"Welcome back, partner. We're almost there" he said, still joyful.
When I was going to stand up, I felt like we hit something underwater.
"That's weird, we're still nowhere near rocks yet" said the old man confused.
The boat started speeding up. The waves began to travel in the direction opposite of how they should.
"Slow down, we're not that far out" I told him.
"I'm not speeding up!" he replied worried.
We couldn't be going this fast while hauling weight, this made no sense.
I turned around and what was supposed to be a corpse turned out to be very.much.alive.
He was swimming towards the shore and pushing the boat along with the water.
I could feel his breathing roaring down on me. He was furious.
We were a few meters out of the shore line, I didn't know what to do and the old man was praying while stuttering all over.
I recalled my grenade launcher and reached for my backpack, but he pushed the boat with his bow and made us crash against the rocks in the shoreline.
I flew out of boat but the old man crashed against the shade.
The old man's son was waiting for us standing by his truck. He saw everything that was happening.
I landed past his truck.
The monster ate the old man's boat.
He ate the old man.
He ate the old man's son's truck.
He ate the old man's son.
He tried to eat me but I was just a few centimeters away farther than he could reach. I'm guessing that the man sitting on his boat on the right didn't move to avoid catching his attention.
I crawled away and pushed my hand into my backpack looking for my grenade launcher.
The monster tried to grab me with his jaws but he just couldn't reach.
He roared at me with furious anger. A tire flew out of his mouth along with the old man's head.
My hands felt something solid and I pulled it out, pressed the trigger and...
I took this damn picture.
While rocking left to right, he began digging a canal with his body until it was flooded and then he slid back into the water.
He submerged and disappeared.
That was almost 3 months ago.
Now that I have presented this evidence to you, my question is:
Will you help us now or are you going to keep saying we're crazy?
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