Put That Kid Down

Chapter Five

"You led us to a fucking murderer-" Neil was shrieking, even as Nikki shouted, "I FEEL SO ALIVE!" The two of them rushed past on their way back to the path, and a younger man with darkly tanned skin and a scar across his cheek attempted to run after them. He was clearly already flagging, and seemed to be in a lot of pain. His arm was red and swollen around a small puncture wound, and there was... an angry platypus waddling behind him.

David clotheslined the man and punted the platypus.

While the venom of the creature wasn't lethal, it would still put him in as much pain as this newest attacker seemed to be. Scarface would be enough to deal with, for now.

He'd figure out who was loosing Australian creatures into the forest later. He had a vague memory of Mr. Campbell having them incubate eggs, but those had all been sold, as far as David knew.

The newly nicknamed Scarface attempted to struggle to his feet, but David slammed him back down with a shushing sound.

"You don't want people to stop you before you fix the seal, right?" he crooned, and the man stopped struggling, a look of confusion passing over him.

"You're not trying to break the seal?" Scarface ventured hesitantly, and David nodded, because that much was true. "Is there someone out there who could stop us?"

"Oh, yes, the park ranger here is ridiculously violent towards people who threaten kids," David assured him, "but I can bring you somewhere to recover if you give me a little more information."

The hopeful expression shuttered off, "They warned me about you. They told me there was a Pretender trying to learn how to break the seal!" Pushing and thrashing, Scarface tried to break free, but David had had enough. His campers could be only yards away yet. He couldn't just stab the man because they expected him back soon, and the spray from the throat was typically intense. He could, however, pin him. The influence of the seal or whatever was pretty strong to keep Scarface fighting through what looked like an incredibly painful poisoning, but the pissed off platypus had returned from David's original kick. As it approached, it tried to threaten both of them, but David risked releasing one arm of the mostly incapacitated man to grab the platypus by its scruff. He sat back and shoved the platypus in the captured man's face in one smooth quick motion. The platypus was agitated enough to oblige and kick the man again with the other spur, after which David threw the thing as far as he could.

Now he just had to hold him down until Scarface either passed out or was unable to fight back, and drag him somewhere a bit further from the path to take care of him.

"Whoa! David, what the fuck?" Max's voice had David whipping his head toward it, wide eyes meeting Max's.

"Max, get out of here, this man has been seizing and I'm trying to control his convulsions," David explained hastily, "But he threatened Neil and Nikki earlier, so it's not safe for you here if he gets control of himself!"

"Marked One!" Scarface howled, getting a good look at Max, and it seemed to give him a second wind that took David by surprise. The man pushed his knees upward, throwing David forward and off balance, before rolling them over in David's moment of distraction. David slammed the heel of his palm into Scarface's throat, but he just didn't have the space to get any real force behind it. And he really didn't want to stab someone in front of a camper!

"Get out of here, Max!" he demanded again, but the boy seemed frozen.

"He'll be first, then the rest, and the evil will sleep," Scarface frothed, practically drooling into David's face as he made the mistake of releasing David's arms to focus on strangling him.