Chapter 3: Schwartzenbadger

  Alex sat alone on an upturned log in front of a now low-burning fire. The night air washed through his hair and over his neck, sending a chill down his spine and forced him to stand up and move around a bit to get his blood flowing.

  It was currently his watch for the night in their camp They had agreed on a rotating schedule, four spots per night with each of them getting to sleep through completely every other night. Simple enough.

  Alex poked at the fire a bit before throwing another small pile of broken branches on top to feed the dying heat. The canopy overhead was still a patchwork of gnarled branches and thick leaves, which blocked out any light from the moon or stars. So, the only he could see by came from the fire, casting a tight circle of gold and orange illumination that didn’t so much light-up the forest, as it pushed the darkness back in a ten-foot retreat.

  Watch for danger and keep the fire going. That was the only real job for the person on night watch. All fine and dandy when you weren’t the one sitting alone at ass o’clock in the morning.

  No animals seemed to be up, or at the very least no animals that were ignorant to the skills of stealth. All that broke the still quiet were the whispers of the wind through the trees and foliage, and the sound of his own breathing. That was fine though, Alex was more focused on something else.

  What was it? Alex was still beating himself up over what his brain was trying to remind him of earlier. He couldn't shake the slow-rising feeling of dread that was building deep inside him. An idea that if he didn't remember soon, whatever it was, he will forget permanently.

  A rustle of sound caught him out of his reverie, prompting him to glance towards the trees just outside their camp space. A rustle of a branch, the same branch that had rustle the last four times. He was having trouble figuring out if it was the wind, or the bush was hiding more legs than it needed.

  He turned his attention to the small tents around him instead. Four of them, stitched together from spare uniforms and supply tarps. The best they could manage with thread and sheer desperation. Henry had done most of the work. The guy turned out to be some kind of silent seamstress savant, making tents like he was hemming dress pants before a gala. They left Henry to it as he channeled the spirit of Betsy Ross.

  They hadn’t managed to get food that day. All the squad had for potential hunting tools were the pairs of tiny cloth scissors from their sewing kits, and one hunting knife, which Henry had brought along with him for their mission.

  The same knife Alex had strapped to his thigh right now.

  He felt confident with the knife at least. His father had brought Adam and him on hunting trips before when they were younger. They used guns for the actual kills though. Alex didn't know anything about snares or traps. Why would he? Why would anyone these days, with all the technology and advancements they have at their disposal?

  Nonetheless, it was all they had now.

  Alex sat back down beside the fire, the fire now just large enough to fight off the worst of the cold. He let the heat warm his face, prickling his cheeks and casting his thoughts back to the same damn loop that had been chewing through his brain for hours now.

  The siren, the blast, the light, and then nothing.

  Alex had asked everyone else about it earlier as they were sitting around the campfire. No one said they remembered anything about the blast. Nothing outside of what Alex also remembered.

  But Alex knew there was more. He just couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t catch the thought before it skittered from his grasp and back into the dark. It was like trying to remember a dream while you were still dreaming. Like catching smoke with a tennis racket.

  Earlier during the day the rest of the team had shifted the conversation to other matters, pondering their location, the time it would take to be discovered, and the next day's priorities and so forth.

  Meanwhile, Alex nodded and smiled at all the right moments. Laughed when prompted. Made some dry joke that landed well enough to avoid suspicion. But inside, he wasn’t really there. He’d spent a lifetime learning to fake it. Social camouflage skills, honed by a childhood of being Adam Pierce’s less brilliant twin. While Adam schmoozed politicians and made award acceptance speeches, Alex had learned how to smile through charity dinners without letting anyone see the resentment bubbling under the tuxedo. So of course he could fool his squad. Hell, he’d probably fooled himself.

  Now here he was. Alone, poking at a fire and unsure what was going on with his sanity, let alone his life. And still pretending. Pretending he didn’t feel like he was unraveling thread by thread under the watchful eye of a campfire, and a very fidgety bush.

  He wanted the cold to stop eating at him. He wanted his mind to stop nagging him about whatever the hell it was obsessed about, because at this point, he was never going recall some vague vision or dream. He wanted—

  Another rustle suddenly caught Alex's attention.

  His gaze darted to the tree line, as a bush once again shivered against the wind. The tenth time since the start of his watch. He shook his head and was just about to ignore it when the same bush lurched, only much harder this time. Alex froze, his hand poised over the knife sheathed at his thigh.

  That time, there was no wind.

  Very slowly, Alex began to rise up from the log. He moved as smoothly and slowly as he could. His fingers twitched beside him, but he didn't let his fear overtake him. After a second of silence, Alex took a step forward towards the bush.

  A pair of eyes glittered from between the leaves. This was no trick of the wind, this was something else. A wolf, a bear… or a monster?

  His brain started to spiral quickly, the knife held tight in the grip of his whitened knuckles. His eyes stayed laser-focused on the bush and the pair of glowing orbs that peered at him from inside the darkness.

  Fight-or-flight had always been his friend before. High school martial arts tournaments, back-alley confrontations, his military missions. He’d always kept cool under pressure. But those eyes didn’t look like they were impressed by cool.

  He wanted to call out, to warn the others. But his throat locked up tight, and every muscle in his body suddenly decided that silence was very patriotic.

  Then the creature leaped at him.

  Alex was on his back in an instant. He felt his shoulder blades hit the dirt and the air washed from his lungs at the same moment. His vision danced with stars, flickering.

  He couldn't pay attention to the light show though. The thing had landed on top of him, pinning him down. A mass of fur, claws and teeth. It moved so fast that Alex couldn't get a good look at the thing, as if knowing the particular variety of monster horror flick he was trapped in would make any sort of difference.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  As he held the knife in his left hand like a lifeline, Alex found himself suddenly very enthusiastic about cutlery. Meanwhile the thing pressed down on him. It wasn’t overly heavy, but what it lacked in weight, it made up for in rabid enthusiasm.

  Yellow-white teeth snapped closed just inches in front of his face. He felt the pain of something piercing into his right thigh muscle, most likely the thing's claws. It lurched at him again, as if giving a courtesy test of whether Alex’s head would wholly fit inside its mouth. Alex didn’t particularly like being on this mailing list.

  The air rushed back into his lungs as Alex forced a breath between the thing's bite attempts. With the new oxygen and a loud yell, he heaved forward and away, bucking his hips like a man riding a taser wire. It was a move he used in his Jujitsu sparring all the time, and Alex was happy to learn it was as effective on furry forest monsters as it was humans. The creature didn't have the balance and readiness to resist, it was flung aside under the strength of Alex's movement.

  Alex rolled.

  Momentum, adrenaline, and the primal desire not to die slammed him upright and onto one knee. The knife flashed into his hand. He raised it between himself and— What the fuck?

  It was a badger. Correction; it was a Unit of a badger.

  He had visited the zoo and seen badgers before, hell he'd seen hundreds on the internet. The things were the size of a cat or a small dog. This one was not that. This thing was yoked. It looked like it was no stranger to the enjoyment of a free gym membership and the thrill of bench pressing tree logs for some gains.

  Black and white fur, snarling teeth, and claws were all he could see. The animal was already back on its feet and eyeing Alex with the sort of ire one could expect from an ex-spouse. He barely managed to get a foot underneath him before it was on him again. Instead of falling backward, placing himself in the same position as before, Alex rolled to his left. He narrowly dodged the attack, just barely.

  Hot pain lanced up from the claw marks on his thigh, sharp and angry. He grit his teeth and kept himself moving. He just had no time to acknowledge the pain. It was just part of the scenery now. Pain, and juiced up badgers.

  As it leaped again, he leaned to his left on his good leg, bringing the knife down and across as the animal passed by him. He felt the blade hit, dig into the fur and then stop once it met the dense muscle of the animal. Alex almost dropped the knife as it jarred his wrist.

  It was now between himself and the campfire. The red-orange glow was like a back-light against the creature, making it seem even bigger than before. He could also see the line of blood across its back though, so Alex knew it was at least mortal, it could bleed.

  With another yell, he stepped towards Arnold Schwartzen-badger. The beast answered with a claw swipe that could’ve opened him up like a zipper if he hadn’t stutter-stepped. The shift in weight landed squarely on his wounded leg. His knee gave out and he fell. But this time, he leaned in.

  He crashed into the animal, something the beast didn't seem to expect as they both went to the ground in a roll.

  Alex and the badger become a swirl of claws, teeth and dust. Then Alex saw it, the campfire swung into view like a glaring carnival entrance sign. He kicked at the animal with every bit of strength he could muster. His boot caught in its stomach and the thing was sent flying. The beast flew like a cannonball and Alex's eyes widened in glee as he saw it land squarely inside of their campfire.

  The next ten seconds were a whirl of motion and shouts in Alex's memory. The rest of his team had gotten up at this point, awoken by Alex's yells and the snarling attempts at English that was Arnold-badger. His teammates emerged from their tents just in time to see Alex on the ground and a mass of fur thrashing in the flames. It sent embers and glowing coal everywhere as it protested its demise.

  Screams that no human vocal cords could make rocked the camp as the badger writhed. He was still on the grass, climbing to his feet as he saw his teammates staring at the scene in horror. They were most likely struck with the same paralysis Alex had when the animal had first attacked him.

  Alex was beyond that though, and his adrenaline still surged inside him. So he stumbled forward towards the beast. It had managed to crawl out of the fire, but by now the damage was done. One side completely fur-less, burns marred its flesh and muscle from shoulder to hind leg. It was halfway through its transformation in a comic-book villain origin-story.

  He knew how to end animals quickly. His time out hunting with his dad sprung to the forefront of his mind as he approached the beast.

  "Make it quick, son. A hunter shouldn't let any animal suffer more than it needs to. Most of all, don't hesitate." His dad had said as they both knelt in front of a deer. Alex was eleven at that time, maybe too young to be killing Bambi. Looking back now though, Alex was glad his dad forced him to experience those lessons.

  Once he was upon the beast, he brought the knife down, driving the tip into its eye socket. This time the blade didn't stop when it met resistance. The fragile bones around its orbital socket were not as forest-gym yoked as the rest of the thing had been. It twitched a final time as Alex withdrew the knife, blood spurting on his face.

  He collapsed to his knees as he felt the exhaustion flood his body. It was over. He had survived. Whatever the hell this thing was, he hadn't succumbed to it.

  Two things happened simultaneously after that.

  The first was that his teammates all rushed him, shouting questions over each other as they tried to understand what kind of damn Hollywood shit-show they had just witnessed. He was sure he would have to explain, as he would also want answers if in their position. That would have to wait though.

  The second thing that happened was a rectangular screen flashed in Alex's vision. The ornate border was the same gilded gold and midnight blue as before, and he suddenly remembered what his brain had kept nagging at him to recall.

  What the hell! What the actual fuck! Alex felt his head spinning, the ground shifting under his feet. His thoughts all slammed together suddenly, his memory of the panel he saw during the blast, why that nagging feeling made sense to him all of a sudden, and the screen he just saw about the badger. It all made sense. Crazy, impossible, sense.

  He sucked in a breath, feeling like he was a man discovering he was living underwater his whole life. It was all just too much at one time. His vision still swam, and he could hear an electrical buzz in his ears like someone rewired his brain with shoddy speaker cables. He slumped to his knees, unable to keep his legs under him. It could have been the blood loss, the exhaustion from the fight, or his sudden revelation, maybe they all deserved a little credit.

  "I don't— what the fuck?" He muttered to himself, causing his teammates only to close in tighter around him, asking their questions in more earnest. He didn't answer, he just stared blankly in front of himself, dazed.

  The tree in front of him shifted left, his head was somehow pulled without his input. Allie's face came into view, almost nose to nose with him.

  Her mouth moved like a caught trout. Alex couldn't hear if she was making sound. The buzz still overcame anything his ears tried to pick up around him.

  A goddamn system message? That had to be what he was seeing right? That's what the first one said anyway. System message, like, a program? We are in a program? Like that old movie huh? He chuckled to himself as he had the thought, a private ironic joke just for Alex.

  "He's not responding, he's going into shock." Allie's voice finally broke through the hum, and he felt himself being pulled to the ground on his back now. "Keep his head steady. Henry, I need to see the leg wound."

  He didn't fight his teammates as they tried to 'rescue' him. He didn't think the wound would kill him, and he didn't think he was going into shock. He was just... literally shocked, at what was going on. What he thought was going on at least. Because it was the only idea that made any sense. The crazy idea he had in his mind, somehow made some sick, horrible kind of sense.

  "Clown world," Alex whispered before he felt a white-hot pain in his thigh, and his vision went black.