The Other White Meat [Open]

[Danielle Maiker]

Wendigo are probably Danielle’s least favorite supernatural creatures. They leave little scent. If they’re good, they leave no blood to follow. They keep humans captive and in fear for long periods of time. It’s never fun to be the victim. It’s just as awesome to find the remains afterwards. That’s why she was here, in her dog form, wandering around in a wendigo infested forest in the dark. Time was never something to waste with these suckers. Get there too late, and they’ve finished eating already. True, torching the snoozing sucker provides some closure, but there are always those people you didn’t save and no amount of fire can burn that out of your conscience.

Going into a wendigo’s lair during the daytime is a risky affair, but it’s downright suicide at night. So naturally, when Danny found the entrance to an old cave, she hopped right in. Actually, she hesitated for more than a few minutes, sniffing at the edge, making sure, but mostly dawdling. Wendigo didn’t eat dog, at least not as a favorite food anyway. She had no doubt that this one could and would easily make an exception to the rule if she pissed it off enough. Her doggy brain told her that intruding on territory would be sufficient enough cause for her to end up as lunch.

But, like the dumb dog she was, she sucked in a sigh and took the first step in. The scent was ridiculously strong in here and it wasn’t just the wendigo. There was blood everywhere, sweat, fear, adrenaline. Dogs smelt all these things through chemicals breathed out of the human mouth. She could even smell anger. God, she hated these places with a passion. The smells made her feel uneasy, always uneasy, but she’d chosen to take that step instead of waiting until morning. At least she couldn’t hear the thing in here. But she couldn’t hear anyone’s heartbeat either. If it had someone hanging on a meat hook, it was likely they were already dead.

Snorting a growl, she moved forward into the cave with her nose and ears on high alert. She had to be careful about this. There might be someone unconscious way deep in the cave or that thing might have noticed her and be hiding. She hoped not, but this whole place set her spine fur up like crazy. The fact that she knew there was a good chance she was going to experience the typical horror movie, he’s behind you type deal at any moment wasn’t exactly helping.

Hours of wandering half lost later, she hit an actual door, rickety looking, but strong when she pushed on it. Yeah, because that was so normal for a naturally formed cave. Ears perked to listen, she sniffed at the keyhole. Someone was in there. A heartbeat! Danny’s tail went a million miles a minute and she dropped to poke a paw underneath the door. Flopping onto her side, she stuck the other paw under and pushed up. She was wiggling all over, happy to have actually found someone alive. She had been starting to think this thing had just woke up. But she had to hurry, this thing would be back soon, if it wasn’t already.

After only a few seconds, there was a loud click and the door popped open. Springing onto all fours, she pranced into the cavern and sniffed around. Her demeanor drooped the moment she saw a half eaten human corpse hanging from the ceiling. It was fresh. She hadn’t gotten here in time to save them all. She should have been here!

Dropping into a sit, she threw her head back and bayed out a howl. How could she have taken so long? This human had needed her and she hadn’t been there.

“W-Who’s there?! You stay away from me!”

Danny stopped immediately and looked towards the sound. The guy looked terrified. She knew he couldn’t see her and she gave a bark, wiggling and waggling with a few high pitched yips thrown in for good measure. She had to get him out of here, but how? She didn’t exactly have a knife with her, not to mention she was currently a dog. He was over there, freaking out while she tried to think of a way to help him and it was just not helping her at all.

Huffing, she jumped up, paws on his chest. He just about shat his pants and let out a scream, but that turned into a noise of disgust when he felt her tongue on his face. Danny stayed there for a couple moments, washing his face and whining. Be quiet you idiot! She dropped down, trying to scrape the taste of blood and dirt off her tongue with her teeth, while she thought. How was she gonna do this? There was no knife, no object around to cut him down even if she did change to her human form.

“Ok. Ok. Um…G-Go get help, boy. Huh, be a good Lassie for me?”

Okay, it was a little insulting how humans always called her boy before they figured out she was a bitch, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt in this case since he was hanging from the ceiling and practically blind. But he was right. Another hunter could easily take care of this with her help. Pulling a Lassie move sounded like a good idea in this case, or her as her human self. Either way, she needed a knife and a pair of hands.

Giving him a bark she turned and dove out of the room, shutting the door behind her so the wendigo wouldn’t know she’d been there and move him. She could hear the other guy behind her, screaming for her to stay, but she didn’t stop. She needed to move fast so she could get back before the wendigo ate his next TV dinner.

So far, this was turning out to be a pretty easy hunt. Famous last words, of course.

[Shiloh Summerland]

Shiloh Summerland had been trekking her way through the dense woods for nearly about four hours. She had been making some great progress in distance, but she was coming up short in what she really wanted. Which was evidence of the supposed creature that was said to use the forest as its lair, at least according to some of the townfolk she had spoken too. Now not many people would believe any of the stories that were said about the forest and what hide inside it, but Shiloh wasn’t like other people. Instead of the people who were sure that there was nothing that went bump in the nigth, she knew the truth. She knew there was a perfectly good reason for people to be afraid of the thing in their closet, and it was her job to pop any many caps in that thing’s ass as she could manage.

As she stepped over broken tree limbs that littered the ground she kept her eye carefully trained onto the trunks of every tree she passed. She was hoping to find any little clue as to what was out here, she had a few hypothesis about what the creature could be. But without the hard evidence she couldn’t be sure, so she was looking to spot anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small it was. Maybe if she was lucky she might come across the belongings (or at worse the mangled corpses) of the young men that had reportedly disappeared in the words. Everyone chalked it up to an animal attack or maybe they just got lost and died, but Shiloh guessed that maybe they had fallen victim to the big bad thing she was hunting.

Normally she would have liked to save whoever it was that was in trouble, but it had been a few days since the disappearance, so she didn’t hope for the best. As cold as it made her sound, it was the way it was in the Hunting business. You couldn’t really hope for happy endings as you were usually disappointed in the end. So might as well hope for the worst, that way if you did manage to save someone you’d be pleasantly surprised. She kept her thoughts practical as she kept walking, taking notice how the area she was in was suddently void of sounds. She couldn’t hear any normal animals sounds, no birds, nothing crashing through the grass, even at a distance. She probably stumbed onto the hunting area of the creature if no animals dared to be in the vecinity.

[Danielle Maiker]

Danny bolted through the trees, crashing her legs leaves, leaping over rotting logs. Normally, she’d have felt like a sailor on cloud nine when she pulled off moves like these, but there was a job to do and it needed to be done fast. She was practically on autopilot with her legs, instinct. The only thought on her mind was getting back to her pack and getting back to the guy so she could get him out of there before Mr Fugly came back for dinner.

Slam! It was like a train colliding with her ribs, shoving her down and blowing shrapnel to boot. She yelped, half landing on her feet. She was right back up in the blink of an eye, facing the direction of that train, teeth bared. Anyone who heard the following commotion would have thought some dog was being mauled by a bear or the other way around. She’d jump, snarl barking and landing a couple hits on the thing, but it’d retaliate by slicing into her sides and throwing her back down. These suckers were fast too. She soon found herself spinning in circles, snapping in its direction of the wendigo.

It was trying to catch her off guard, forcing her into defense rather than the offensive she’d have preferred. Danny was looking for an opening, any opening. At least this meant the thing was distracted instead of eating that other guy. Bleeding herself, however, was far from her ideal situation.

At this rate, she was going to die before she even reached her pack, let alone got back to the guy.

[Shiloh Summerland]

Shiloh had climbed over a small hill made up of rocks; it had been a little tricky since a few of the rocks felt loose so she had to move so she wouldn’t risk falling. Finally making it to the top in one piece and only causing a few minor rock falls she sat down to take a five minuet breather, it also gave her a chance to scan the area. As she looked around the only thing she saw for miles around was green tree tops, it sort of surprised her as she hadn’t really noticed how big the forest was. She wondered to herself if she’d find anything before night fell, as night was the worst time to be the forest. As loads of supernatural things loved to come out at night, thankfully she was well prepared to deal with them.

After her five minuet rest was over she got up from her spot and continued on, not long after she left the rock hill behind her did she find her first real lead. She had been walking when she noticed something odd on the trunk of a tree she had passed by. She stopped and leaned in for a closer look, there were deep gouges in the bark. Normally she would have thought it was an animal, but what made it stand out was how long, and deep the scratches were. There was no way an ordinary animal could have done this sort of damage to a tree. Feeling the rush of her first real lead she kept moving forward hoping to find another mark just like that one, not too far away from the first tree she found another one with similar marks.

As she was inspecting the second marking she thought she heard something. Freezing in place she turned her head to where she thought it had come from and listened carefully. For a brief moment she thought she heard a howl of some sort, but it was so brief that she wasn’t sure if she even heard it. Maybe all the quiet of the forest was making her hear things. But then the sound pierced the quiet again. Ok so she had definitely heard something, whatever it was it sounded like it was in pain. She moved onward again heading in the direction where she guessed the noise had come from, and while running she hoped that it would happen again so she could pinpoint it.

[Danielle Maiker]

Danny had never seen a wendigo stand still before, but it did, stood and listened. She was so surprised that she just crouched there for a moment, staring at the thing with fear and hate and confusion. Blood was running from cuts in her sides and one in her face. All of these would be gone by tomorrow, so she ignored them. What she found more interesting were the sounds of feet crashing through the underbrush, and rather clumsily. A human. A human was running towards them!

Just as she regained herself, the creature charged away, off in the direction of the crunching. She snarled and ran after the thing, all four legs pounding as fast as she could get them to go. She was barking like mad, trying to disorient the wendigo and maybe even warn the human to run away. For some reason, the sounds of a large dog snarl barking while charging tends to make humans run the other way. She seriously hoped it would be the same this time.

Danielle yelped when she was pushed to the ground again, the wendigo roaring with anger over sharing its prey. She snarled, but it was already gone by the time she’d rolled to her feet.

Dammit! Growling in frustration, she sprang forward, hoping to get to the human first.

[Shiloh Summerland]

Shiloh slowed down a bit when she heard the noise get louder, and it now sounded like a dog barking. What puzzled her was why would a dog be so far out here in the woods? Unless the dog was with the two young men that vanished, but she didn't remember hearing anything about either young man owning a dog. As she was moving forward she felt her left eye give a twinge of discomfort, which made her slowdown and eventually stop. If her eye was acting up then that wasn't a good sign at all, it meant that something was close by, something bad. Out of instinct she hid herself against the closest tree to her and not a moment too soon as the noises got closer towards her.

Shit, whatever was out there was heading towards her, without waiting she reached into the waist band of her jeans and pulled out the Jericho 941 she had hidden there. Once it was safely in her hands she pulled back the hammer, which unfortunately clicked loudly and in the dead silent forest, it sound much louder than she wanted it to. But there was no time to worry about that it was either she risked the noise and be armed or be dashed to bits or whatever it was that the creature did to its victims.

She waited in baited silence for whatever it was to pop up and try to sneak up on her, she contemplated about using her little 'ace in the hole'. Since there was a lack of humans around then maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a little edge in this fight. So before she could talk herself out of it, she pushed up her eye patch. Try and get some of this asshole, she thought to herself.

[Danielle Maiker]

Through some miracle, Danny made it there before the wendigo. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily lucky. It meant either the wendigo was so scared of this human that it had run off (bad for her) or it was in predator sneaky mode (bad for the human). Slowing, she searched for the human, scenting her and hearing her, but not seeing her. Smart human.

And there was the cocking of a gun. Oh no. She was not getting shot tonight just because some bitch was trigger happy in the middle of a forest at night where she shouldn’t even be. Danny barked a couple of times, her bark on edge and a little annoyed. There was something wrong with this human, who was likely a hunter, but that wasn’t it. There was something supernaturally wrong with her.

Hackles raising, Danielle sniffed cautiously. She didn’t have time for this.

((Sorry for shortness))

[Shiloh Summerland]

Shiloh heard the movement of bushes which set her on edge a little, but then she heard the barking. She still didn’t relax but noticed that the barks were louder than before. So that meant that the dog was closer now, but the dog kept barking. She cursed to herself; she couldn’t blame the dog for barking. Animals were proven to be more in tuned with the supernatural. So it was probably that the dog was reacting to whatever it was that was roaming the forest, but the barking would also alert the creature over to this spot.

She was hoping to have some sort of advantage by staying still in her spot, but she guessed she might as well risk it. She carefully peeked around the tree she had been hiding behind, and looked for the dog. All she was able to see what bushes that dog was probably just out of sight. So she tried to get its attention instead, maybe it would come to her and she could calm it down so it would keep quiet. Then she could properly hunt whatever the hell it was out there. Plus she didn’t want the dog to be eaten.

She let out a sharp whistle and waited for a few moments to hear if the dog would come to here. Come here doggie, come here… she thought to herself. She knew it the dog couldn’t hear her thoughts, but she did it anyways, it was sort of a comfort thing.