the trails he carves through the banks of snow, turn to glittering slush. a snailtrail of slime that catches any and every errant flicker of light, setting it of in wild rainbows. a dazzling display despite the putrid stench he leaves behind and wafts off him. always and forever, he stinks of a thousand dead things left to rot in the sun. it cannot be helped, he cannot be hidden. the thick leather he drapes over his form, at one time, had helped to obfuscate the smell but slowly the slickness his body overproduces even in his more humanoid form, chewed away at the fabric and made a meal of that, too.
he has a meeting, mother had sent a messenger to inform him, that at dusk he was to be at the cathedral, waiting for her before she got there. his bulk took hours to get there. along the reservoir and up the jagged paths, his greater former could be utilized. talons that grip earth and thrashing tail to propel him along but the tight corridors of the village, the crooked, creaking homes barely standing as is, would fall to his bristling fins.
so he left early, allowing himself time to take breaks, to sit and rest and eat what he finds. salvatore is a scavenger. a brutal omnivore, he eats anything that he can fold into his mouth, live or dead. organic of otherwise. in plentiful times, the villagers bring wicker baskets of offerings. bottles of wine and wax-coated cheeses. bundled aromatics, fresh breads with intricate designs, small jars of honey the color of deep amber. he ate well in the deep summer but when the villagers starved, he ate their malnourished bodies. anything to avoid the hollow hunger in his gut.
he has sat down to a meal in the early morning hours. it is later than it seems, he can tell, despite the slate sky. his hands, up to his elbows, dipped into the gutted horse that lay on the path, the innards pulling between his teeth as the jagged things break through the natural casing.
a long howl is heard, not uncommon through the day and night. the lycans pillage always, starving in their own right, but the response echoing through the village drags his head away from his meal. he runs the back of one, thin forearm across his face. gore smeared along his malformed features as his mournful gaze is cast around. salvatore may not be able to understand the creatures but he understands the primal call and response. predators all chiding each other on for a singular prey.
he looks to the half-frozen horse, rime covering the cavernous inside. the promise of something fresh is one he does not wish to pass up. he may see what is happening and still make it to his meeting in plenty of time.
naked feet shuffle through the snow, ragged breath puffing in swirls as he moves on all fours, much like an animal would. closer and closer towards the prize, his maniacal laughter like a water-logged pipe belching air.
Dying is, and always will be, remarkably inconvenient. Back crunching into the rotting floor, Jean can feel several ribs shatter, puncturing a lung with the force of the monster on top of her. Its hot, fetid breath washing over her face in waves as its excited feral panting reaches a fever pitch — anticipation of the kill overwhelming the creatures bloodlust addled mind. Gun lost somewhere in the struggle; the woman hears herself yell back in raged defiance before it's cut short, teeth tearing greedily into the pliant flesh of her throat.
Blood floods Jean’s mouth, and her vision goes black as if someone had flipped a switch, the sickening lurch of death rushing up to meet her like a skydiver with no parachute finds the ground. But it doesn’t last long, never does and never will, a parting gift from Umbrella before Raccoon had gone all to hell. Part of the woman is thankful for this shred of immortality as a gore slicked hand reaches to her side and pulls the knife clipped there. Breath rushing back into reinflated lungs, Jean jams the knife in deep between the soft flesh of the Lycan’s rib cage, angling up into the cardiac wall. Feeling the wicked pulse of the things heart just as her knife rips through it, hot blood pouring from the wound and drenching Jean’s hands and chest.
A pained gurgling noise leaves the creature as gnarled clawed hands scrabbling uselessly at the woman’s forearms buried in its chest cavity. Wincing as the shredded skin on her throat stitches back together, Jean grunts as she throws the corpse off of her with a dull thump. Unmoving heaps of bodies litter the inside of the ruined house like broken dolls. Most had been shot before her gun disappeared from her grasp as one of them broke her right hand. Laying there on the slick, sticky floor experimentally flexing the fingers, she can feel the grinding resistance of bone on bone; connective tissues always took their damn time. Reaching up with her uninjured hand Jean gingerly probes the new skin around her neck; still pink and raw, it would take time before the tone evened out.
Sitting up stiffly, the woman feels several bones crack back into place with a visceral crunch that left her winded. Bitterly the memory of one of her colleagues faces looms through the haze of her mind's eye along with the words “perfect specimen.” Pain is the ultimate teacher they'd told her once, not that it even mattered now. It deterred her from nothing; if anything, it stoked the inferno of a temper just beneath her skin. Breathing evenly as Jean gets to her feet, she spies the dull glint of gunmetal next to an overturned couch and retrieves the revolver.
Limping out of the butcher house, massaging a hand into her neck Jean cracks the last bone back into place with a pained grunt. These things were intense, and the fascination with their single-mindedness made the scientist wonder just which brain chemistry had been altered. Strength and resilience of them indicated some tampering with norepinephrine receptors. Lost in these thoughts as her feet hit the dirt yard, the woman halts, gun snapping up to train on the man, at least it might have once resembled a man, standing in the road. There’s a stench of rot coming from him that’s entirely separate from the gore she’s coated in, it reminds her of low tide at the beach.
❛ Don’t suppose you’re here to give me a tour. ❛ Inwardly cringing at how hoarse her voice still sounded, the vocal cords having not entirely repaired yet.
pixelskylines
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
snowghoul
