Blood Beast Read online

Part II

  After thousands of silent years in stasis in your cavern, broken only occasionally every few centuries by the odd foray out into the lake, your body and your brain are now completely awake. Only an hour ago you snapped to consciousness in the cavern, alert and able to function at the first vibrations of the drilling and blasting from far above on the mountainside. But it has taken the solid activity of hunting and the remains of the eight humans you have devoured working their way through your digestive system to bring all your faculties to full readiness.

  Four optic sensors ranged about your head scan the forest on either side as your long hind legs stretch out in the smooth, loping stride that eons ago chased down the great beasts. Tough, narrow filaments sprout from your head feeling vibrations in the air. As you run down the gravel road from time to time you see or sense prey in the forest, the small deer which you have in the past eaten and once even a bear, a larger carnivore that would normally attract your attention. But your focus is on the source of this road, for now you know the humans, the creatures that build the machines, have made it and it will lead to a place where there are more of them to be found.

  This new prey you have found, these small, weak bipeds, never impressed you on the occasional encounters you had with them before. The inadequate amount of meat on their carcass would normally dissuade you from the effort of killing them. Prior to today, you had only ever eaten them simply by chance, you had awakened and scouted the lake and its shores to see if enough time had lapsed to bring the return of the great beasts that you had once hunted in the long-ago time. Even finding the eight of them today, while pleasurable to feed upon, would not normally be enough.

  You had gone up the hillside after their machines, thinking these huge metal devices tearing at the trees were the great beasts that once lived in the time before your mother had hidden you in the ground from the moon which crashed into this world and changed it forever.

  She had told you of the cycles of worlds and your kind’s ability to outlive them by virtue of your long sleeps deep in the earth. She had told you that in time huge animals would once again roam the world to submit to your fangs and the spear of your tentacles. You would one day awaken to once again thrill to the blood-glut and gorge yourself on the meat of the huge prey that was the birthright of your kind.

  Normally with the disappointment of only finding these humans or even a few deer or bear to eat you would simply return to the cave and close your body down for a few millennia or hundred millennia until the world had evolved into a place more suitable. But the fact of these machines has changed everything. Your higher reasoning abilities are beginning to function.

  Your mother told you of the home world of your kind, how an alien race took her from the planet with the blue-hot sun and its three moons, a place where the gravity was stronger and the prey was enormous and plentiful. She was taken by weak and cunning creatures, builders of machines that could fly in empty space between the stars. When they stopped on this planet to acquire other creatures she killed them and escaped, but she could not operate their craft.

  If these humans could build machines to ride in along the roads, could they also build machines that could fly between worlds? Were they the same creatures that once captured your mother- could they be forced to return you to the home-world of your kind?

  The gravel road soon gives way to an even harder surface. You guess it must be packed down from the vehicles these creatures ride in. You see more and more of their vehicles. You soon learn that it is a poor use of energy to run one down since the first two you encounter each only has one of the humans inside. The kills are challenging, it requires much effort to capture a vehicle at full speed. One gets away from you, to your disgust, and in your anger you do not even eat the human you find in the ones you do catch, you tear them to shreds and scatter their flesh into the branches of the surrounding trees. Soon you come up with a better method. By pushing over a tree onto the road you are able to stop several vehicles at once, including a much larger one that contains many of them.

  It is a huge, rectangular machine, about the size of one of the long-necked creatures you once ate. Sad that it is only inert metal, not the massive beast with tons of flesh that you could have stood in and gorged upon. Not a carcass that you could have hidden inside to await the arrival of the large two legged carnivorous scavengers that were such an entertaining challenge to kill. But you can see the humans inside the machine and you can hear their shrill cries of distress as you punch through the hard, clear surface of its front.

  This is almost worth it. Not the prey you would chose, but at least enough of them in one place that it is easy to gorge upon them in a manner that approaches satisfaction. They pile upon one another, scrambling to the back of the vehicle. In their desperate attempts to escape you they make it easier to enjoy feeding upon them, and by unhinging your lower jaw you can fit two or even three in your maw at once.

  The bones of the three squirming creatures crush together and a satisfying gout of blood floods your thirsty gullet. Your claws and tentacles flail about you crippling and maiming others so they will be easily caught. You dive blindly into the mass of squirming struggling prey, reveling in their flesh, reveling in the joy of feeding, the joy of blood, the joy of life.

  There is a sharp crack and something stings your back. One of the creatures is standing behind you. It has climbed on to the vehicle and is pointing a small object at you which spits fire. Tiny things like pebbles seem to be embedding themselves in your thick hide.

  Interestingly, it seems that some of these creatures have a mechanism for fighting.

  Curious, you impale a final couple of the prey before they can escape and turn to face it.

  More little flames spit from the object the human holds. You feel the tiny stones strike your face and chest. They are not really hurting you, but you find them annoying. With a lighting-fast motion of your tentacles you impale the creature and drag it close enough to grasp. Once it is held squirming in your claws you examine it. You peer into its tiny face. You look into the two eyes, the two eyes that still after all these millennia seem to be a common feature of all creatures on this world.

  Inside the head will be a little brain that will contain the human’s thoughts. It must have considerable intelligence to be able to devise machines like these vehicles and the big machines that drill the ground and devour the trees. In past times when you had encountered them floating in carved-out logs or walking in the forest you never suspected that they could have significant intelligence.

  It looks back at you and points the tiny black metal object it holds. It spits fire once more, accompanied by the loud, sharp cracking noise and the tiny pebble it shoots strikes directly upon the transparent shield of one of your optic sensors, the least sensitive part of your head.

  As you bite off its legs it drops the object. That means it is not part of the creature, merely another thing they have devised. It makes sense that they would create a means to make them less defenseless. You wonder if they have other weapons, weapons that might make it possible for these weak little bipeds to put up enough of a fight to be entertaining. Possibly even dangerous.

  You leap back out of the torn-apart vehicle leaving the body parts that were too small to bother with. Your belly is full for the moment. This hunting has been good. You will seek more prey elsewhere.

  Dusk has fallen and you have covered considerable ground. In one large clearing you have found a number of large grass-eating beasts. The blood frenzy they provided was good, at last you get to eat chunks of flesh big enough to fill your gullet in a single bite. Something closer to the prey you originally sought.

  Nearby you have found structures, apparently built by the humans, and in some of these were another kind of grass-eating animal, these were taller and less bulky than the ones in the field and gave out shrill cries when you tore into them. They also submitted to your teeth and claws and you filled your belly again
. One of the humans emerged from another of the structures and with another fire-spitting object, larger than the one you encountered earlier, delivered several stings into your hide that verged on painful before you tore it to pieces.

  They mark their structures and roads with bright lights which make it difficult for you to see in the dark, but they also make it a simple matter to find more prey. More of the four legged beasts are in fields all around. The humans have built barriers of metal wire that make it impossible for the prey to scatter or run very far. Some you kill for a single gullet-full of blood and meat, others you kill just for the pleasure of smelling their blood.

  In some of the structures you find other prey- squat, fat, squealing creatures- and in others more of the humans. Some of the humans have the spitting devices and occasionally a small four-legged creature accompanies them that will attack with admirable courage, but they are not worth eating. You spear them with a claw and leave them to die.

  More vehicles approach down one of the roads in a confusion of flashing blue and red lights. The prey is so easy to find here, it comes to you. This is pleasurable- prey kept in confined places where it was easily caught, prey that travels together in vehicles where it can be trapped. But it is not the mighty prey you once hunted. It is only partially satisfying.

  The humans are getting out of the vehicles. Tiny sparks of fire are coming from them. All of these humans have the fire spitting devices and the stings are raining on your body. You realize that if you were hit enough times it might actually injure you. As you move in to destroy them you feelers detect the vibrations of something rapidly thumping through the air. A brilliant light appears in the night sky. You look up to see a craft suspended by rapidly whirling arms, the blaze of light coming from it washes out your night vision. You know at once this is not like the flying animals you used to occasionally hunt when you were a hatchling. Large but slow, delicate and clumsy, they were easy to catch and cripple. This must be a machine for the humans to fly in. From its size and speed you know it could be a threat to you. You delight in the frisson of actual fear that washes through you- the first you have felt in many, many thousands of years. To act from need, as opposed to the simple pleasure of killing or the desire for food is good. You feel truly alive. You leap into the group of humans shooting at you and begin impaling them and throwing them at the craft as it approaches.

  You miss with the first one. Its wail of terror is lost in the clatter of the flying machine and the gunfire. There is less gunfire now, the humans are fleeing instead of fighting. You know they can tell their little fire-spitting things are inadequate. One has stood its ground with a larger variety of gun, however, and the impacts of its projectiles are noticeable, almost painful. In another second you have impaled the creature and sent it flying into the spinning arms of the machine and the bright smell of blood immediately greets your nostrils. You can see at once the flying machine is wobbling. The human inside who controls it seems to be struggling.

  Another human is trying to hide under one of the parked vehicles, the blue and red lights flashing on its roof give it a sense of movement like a living thing. You almost want to stab the vehicle with one of your claws, but you know that is just your hunting impulse. You are learning fast. The things these beings create and the ways they use them don’t surprise you now and you see the patterns in the things they do. The flying machine is like the driving machines, are like the digging, and the tree devouring machines: they are all made of metal and a hard but transparent material that differs from the covering of your optic sensors in that it is easy to break. They must have something like a heart and lungs inside to make them work. The machines can be killed just as easily as regular prey.

  The vehicle is heavy but with your forelegs you are able to lift it enough to pin the struggling creature underneath it to the ground with one of your tentacle claws. You drag it into the open, drag it along the ground to you, grasp the writhing creature and throw it. The flying machine has come closer. With a scream the thrown human hits the body of the craft, but bounces along to contact a smaller whirling set of arms at its back end. Again a spray of blood floats on the night air and now the craft spins helplessly into the ground and explodes in a huge ball of fire.

  The heat from the fire is intense but it does not bother you, you have experienced worse in your long, long existence. Nothing lives here to oppose you, but you sense the minute vibrations on the air. There are more of these machines flying through the night, your brain triangulates and calculates speed and distance. They are bigger and move faster than this one that you have just brought down so easily with nothing but the soft bodies of a few two-legged animals.

  You remember untellable ages ago as a hatchling stirring up nests of stinging insects, plundering eggs from huge stalking carnivores. The feeding was good here, but there was bound to be a reaction from these humans. The will come for you. They must try to kill you. You will meet them on your terms. You have learned much already and there is much more you will need to learn.

  You flee across the open field for the trees. Unless they are pathetically weak, you are sure they will follow.