SWARM

David Meets the Wendigos

Chapter 13

Few yards away above a bridge, David sees people waving at him; happy he is not alone, and he also waves back. "Hey! Guys!" he shouts, and they wave again as he gets closer. There are three individuals that are up at the bridge, then David runs towards them where there are stairs underneath. He glances up before stepping on the steps and finds it's unusual for the three strangers still moving their arms in the same direction where David spotted them. Then David climbs thinking of a possible help on its way, and when he arrived up, he sees the three guys still waving beyond where David derived. He walks towards the three strangers, squinting his eyes for a much better site. "Guys?" But they are mannequins. And one of them is a thin black man with a short afro, wearing wide baggy blue suspenders. The other two are women; one wearing a blue turtleneck, khaki safari pants with boots, and a shiny white hair tied in a bun. The other woman has no clothes or hairs. David walks closer to the mannequins and sees a machine that is moving them. "What the heck?" And with frustrations, David then slammed the gunstock to the safari woman mannequin, and her head breaks off rolling on to the ground.

Something from the dark is observing David, and they are hidden in dome housings that were once military camps, and now they are abandoned ruins. Like a scene of the old west; a bell rings in front of an old store, tumbleweed rolls by with a yellow raccoon trap inside, a white crow screeches on a sign pole, then the wind blows the dirt on the ground making few dry leaves fly away. David took out his baseball cap to cool himself from the oppressive heat and wipes the sweat off his forehead fanning himself with his baseball cap as he squints once more to where he is. David then walks away from the mannequins. "Anybody here! Can anybody hear me!" he shouts. But the shout for help only attracts several growls and snarls from the shadows. The observers continue to watch David as he walks towards a beach where seagulls are feeding upon seaweed by the shoreline. And far beyond the ocean, he sees an aircraft carrier looking more like an island with several vegetation, including coconuts giving the effect to fit the judgment. "They probably can't see me, but I'll try."

David pumps his shotgun and aims at the sky then fires. He waits for a few minutes hoping for a signal in return but nothing — just the same seagulls flying back to the seaweed from the shotgun blast. Then a firework flies into the sky and explodes coming from the battleship island. "Yes... I guess I just have to wait," he smiles. As he waits, comes out a creature, from the military ruins running towards David carrying a spear; he throws his javelin with super speed, nearly gracing David by the cheek. The disappointed animal continues to run towards David; making him clumsy to pump his shotgun, then with no hesitation David pulls the trigger as he aims towards the beast.

The creature is hit and stop, looks down where he got marked, but the small pellets fall on his chest. Then he stares at David, snarling and growling; he runs again mumbling like a mad hungry cat eating his favorite can of tuna. The creature stands four feet and eight inches tall, has little horns like antlers, he is a mix of cheetah, a jaguar, and a macaque monkey with a long tail. David pumps his shotgun once again, and he aims then fires until the rifle is empty of shells. Finally, the creature went down but slowly backed up again. A lot angrier, and he punches on the sand. David couldn't believe what he sees, dropping his shotgun on the ground, turns away, and runs as fast as he could.

The creature then picks up his spear back from the ground and aims at David. David looks back. "Oh shit... oooh shit!" And he zigzag his running, but the furry hunter follows his aim at David's back. Perhaps his head where he can open it like a coconut, the temptations where the beast can't quite make up his mind; until David spotted an old tug boat that is flipped upside down; he ran towards it and crawled inside, locks the door, then to the deck. "Whew," he said. "What in the heck was that!" Then a spearhead goes through the tug boat's wall, leaving a bit of a cut to David's ear; he backs away from the spearhead and to the center where it's further reached. He wipes his ear and looks at the hand blood, he thought scarily. Then more spears go through the cover he's in randomly, while they scream like wild monkeys, pulling their spears out only to come back again and again. David couldn't see them, but he hears them as they kept stabbing with their stone sharpen blades.

David can only tuck himself. "Okay! Stop!" he shouts repeatedly, but the angry natives just got more enticed to the point of digging like maniacs. Without warning, a gun fires burst out, and the noises from the creatures changes unto jolts of pain. "It sounds like machine gun..." David said. The brute force of back and forth spearheads lessen while some are stuck and not moving. In a few moments, the unwelcome guest peeks through one of the stabbed holes and sees creatures running away, and some are carrying their wounded dragging them far from the boat. As the unfriendly hybrid animals spread out like curtain, the landscape shows of a tall person, and four armored men that looks like astronauts.

"Come out of there," said Timothy, and it sounds like it's from a loudspeaker. "We mean you no harm, David." And he deactivated his weapon back to off.

***

Thank you for reading. The rest of the story will be continued in a different kind of published book.