B.C. Hawk's Bestiary E-Book

B.C. Hawk

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

"And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss wil gaze back into you." 

--F. Neitzsche  

Monsters still remain. No matter how advanced Western society thinks itself to be, terrifying creatures still lurk in those Godforsaken corners. This collection of stories, all written by B.C. Hawk, will introduce you to only the first of his terrifying bestiary.

Compiled together are the stories from Mysterious Water Creatures in British Columbia & The Scaled Ones, in one heartstropping compilation. No longer will you have to buy them seperately, for the terror can be experienced in one package. 

Welcome to the first of B.C. Hawk's Bestiary!  

Remember: this is only the beginning! 

Leseprobe

B.C. Hawk

B.C. Hawk's Bestiary

A Story Collection (Vol 1)

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Introduction: Monsters are Forever!

Introduction

Monsters are Forever! 

Even now in the year 2020, we still have a soft spot for monsters. The Coronavirus is still wreaking havoc around the world, among other disasters that have happened. Frightful creatures still lurk in our imaginations, whether we like to admit it or not.

The continuing success of movies like The Monster (2016), Underwater (2018), The Ritual (2017), The Frankenstein Theory (2013), the remake of Stephen King’s It (2017) and more are proof of their continued existence in our culture. And new stories are bound to give us new monsters and entities of terror that will continue to lurk in the darkest corners of consciousness. And sure, there are things like silver bullets, garlic, crosses, bullets to the head, et cetera, as safeguards. But, how safe are we from monsters?

I believe monsters will always be with us, in deep waters, the forests, mountains or in some forsaken corner of our cities—underneath or not!

Here are some stories I have published and compiled for you to get your monster fix-all in one! But, don’t think these stories wre the only thing you’ll get to read because I have a few surprises for you all!

Enjoy and scream all you want…

--B.C. Hawk

The Scaled Ones

Part One

The Scaled Ones

1.

They are still out there. Who knows how long it will be until they turn to human meat.

My name is Drew Pierson and I’m not sure if you’ll believe me. If you are a skpetic, I don’t blame you. I want what you are about to read to be another nightmare. That has not yet happened. I don’t think it ever will happen because it did happen to me. But, I won’t ruin all the details too early.

So, here is my story with my encounter with “The Scaled Ones.”

It was the beginning of early June, 2015, in the morning. I was a high school student close to completing my last year and I was looking forward to graduation. My alarm clock buzzed loudly in my ear. I remember I slammed the silence button (not too hard though).

I groaned and got out of my bed. I made a promise with my parents to have first dibs in checking the cattle and making sure all of them are behaving well. There’s nothing special here: I just made my bed and went downstairs to get the key to the pasture gates.

I made my way out of the creaky doorway and around to where the gates. The sun was in the sky, a glowing orb greeting the day and all those below it with light and warmth. The rays of the sun touched the skin of my neck and I smiled.

I reached into my pocket, got the key and unlocked gate.

Within moments, a pit formed in the gut of my stomach and my expression soured. I had no idea why, but I would soon see the reason.

I noticed a clear absence of any activity in the field. There were no moos, no hoof-steps or even a small herd grazing in the area. It was all deserted, silent—eerily so! Alarm bells began to ring louder the more I grew more cognizant of everything around me.

Something about the situation warned me to not go any further, but this was my responsibility as a member of the family. My parents gave me this morning job and I hate to disappoint them in any way. I had to see what happened to all the cows and where they were.

I stopped and scanned the area left and right, oodles of times, to see if anything was there on the fields. After 5 minutes of looking and searching, I found a massive disturbance in the field ahead of me. It looked a bunch of tan-brown mounds sticking out of the grass and into my sight. My heart plummeted as I thought to myself, “Oh no!”

I ran to the area and was greeted by a sight I’d never thought I’d see.

Seven cows and two adult bulls lay hollowly & lifelessly on the grassy Earth, all torn apart at the bellies. I don’t want to give all of the disturbing details, but imagine taking a scythe designed to rip open their bellies and cutting their necks. That is what I saw. Bits of their faces were either crushed or severely ripped off. On those places were the teeth marks of some predator I had never seen before. A number of them had clear gashes running nearly 9 inches into the necks caught my very disturbed eyeballs.

I glanced several times over the bodies; my breathing stopped and time didn’t even seem to matter. My periphery became absolutely blurry as I felt a deep-rooted sense of panic.

Even as I type this twisted tale onto the screen, I recall that my mind zeroed in on the injuries and deep claw-marks for some reason.

“What the…Hell?” I asked myself. I barely processed what I saw and I know the damage coyotes, bears and other known predators can do. The carnage from any of those known animals normally would not bother me…but what I saw had shaken to the core. What kind of canine has three claw marks which run nearly a foot into the hides of the animal?

My right hand quaked as I had Parkinsons; I couldn’t even pick my key without it being jiggled in my palm. I could barely keep my hand still, like I couldn’t stop. I looked at my left hand. It made the blades of grass on it quake.

A noise jerked me out of shock to everything around me. As I heard it more closely, it had the characteristics of a mooing. It was the low iconic vocalization of an animal which spent its day eating and walking.

I jumped and started following the sound. I never was so happy to hear a cow moo before and I fast-walked in that direction.

After a short while of walking, I heard mooing coming from inside our barn. There was an opening on the side where the cows often come in and out freely in order to maintain the animals will. I ran towards the doorway and opened it.

All of the cows, calves and bulls were over at the end of the barn, in a timid way I have never seen before. The bulls were stomping the ground and threw their horned heads around as if they expected an attack from an ungodly assailant.

I shook my head, not believing what I saw. The cows never acted that way…they chased out wolves once, so they weren’t, or shouldn’t, be that afraid of normal predators.

Soon, I came across several impressions in a patch of ground near the pasture.

I bent down and looked. Since it rained last night with heavy thunder, there wasn’t much left but what I discerned made my pulse freeze.

They were 17 inches in length and were impressed 2 inches into the soil. They had three toes like a bird, but much thicker than any species known to live in this area. My initial impression was of an emu on steroids, but there was—and is—no such farms anywhere in the vicinity of my home. I looked to where the tracks came from, which was a nearby cornfield. I turned my head and looked to where the track-way led to next…it was the pasture.

My blood-flow stopped. I looked around me and sure enough, there were two more sets of footprints. At this point, my mind blanked out, possibly in terror, shock or something worse.

That was when I knew I had to tell my parents of the situation at hand because I had a feeling—no, I knew something was off. My Dad told me everything he was taught about how to take care of animals, how to read them, how to act around them, etc, so this really knocked me for a loop.

I can’t tell you what happened later. I just wanted to forget that what I saw or will experience next never happened. But I assure you that when I told my parents, my Dad went out with me to see the carnage and the scene. His face went into a color of white I never saw before and he turned to me.

“This was no coyote or a dog,” he told me quietly. He didn’t say anything more, but I could tell he was disturbed by what he saw.

Shaken by the statement, I only nodded in return. I showed him the footprints soon after, their anatomy and where they lead.

“Damn,” he silently hissed under his breath and remained quiet.

We went back into the house, unsure of it all, but knew something had to be done. My mother was visibly concerned at the situation and agreed with both of us that something had to be done.

She volunteered to be on guard duty on evenings. If you know my mother, she was as good with a gun as she is with a knife in the kitchen and could hold her own.

Dad agreed and said he’ll do mornings. I only vaguely remember that Dad told me to do afternoons. I did not refuse.

We did this for the rest of the week and nothing happened. There were a couple of times when my mother said she saw unusual eye-shine around our property, but couldn’t say for sure. That only happened a few times, but it got her on edge each time she went out there. She said whatever it was she saw, was keeping tabs on our property and cattle.

Dad didn’t report any new activity; same for me.

This was all on weekends and I said nothing about the killings at school. The only other person I told was Osprey, who you’ll get to know in a minute. Long story short, I told him everything. Surprisingly, he said he got the same thing and will let me know if anything happens.

We patrolled the property for hours at a time, only taking breaks during lunch-time and then rotating throughout the day. I’ll spare you the boring details, but let me just say it was a pretty intense time for me. Those footprints were impressed onto my fear-laden imagination and I remember jumping at movement in the grass at times.

Before that, I never made a peep in fright at such things before. The sight of the killings and the tracks affected me more than I realized at the time.

The week had passed with nothing. No cows were killed, the bulls didn’t act hostile towards us and calves acted like how they should.

I breathed a sigh of relief on Friday. I remember my Mom patting me on the back, saying it’ll be alright. I sure thought that was the end of it.

We didn’t realize it at the time—because why would we—but were going to get more than we thought.

The weekend went by without incident. I thought we had averted some kind of crisis…at least, that was my thought!

It was 7: 30 am that next Monday when I heard my Dad yell out something in fright. It was so loud I jumped out of bed. I was dazed from tiredness. For a moment, grogginess reigned. An intense chill shot up my spine and a cold feeling going up coursed through all the veins as I realized the worst possible scenario.

“Oh shit!” I remember saying to myself.

I quickly grabbed a jacket from my dresser, put on my shoes and ran into the kitchen. I flew open the front door and found my Dad sitting on the steps. He just sat there on the top step, not doing anything. Hell, he didn’t even greet me. At this point, my fears had started to be confirmed. I ran to side and looked at him. His face looked dejected, sombre and defeated.

As if he read my mind, my father pointed towards the field without a sound.

I looked and my heart sank.

Eight more cattle were strewn about the field, mangled in more horrific ways that I do not wish to describe here. But, I did see something.

Off to the right of one of the carcasses, there was a trail of things covered in blood leading to the forest, oddly familiar. I squinted; they had the same three toes I saw before. Whatever made these tracks were not only the same creatures, but they had made our farmland a focal point for slaughter.

Those sons of bitches, I thought. I was so concentrated on that realization I didn’t even notice my left hand covering my mouth.

My Dad commented solemnly, “They will continue to do this. This won’t end for a while.”

All I remembered was a deep seriousness overcoming the mood of the moment and I could only sit down on the stairs with my father, to take it all in. Minutes turned seemingly into infinity and even the chirping of birds drowned out into silence.

I had never experienced such a deep sense of hopelessness before and as I looked on, my vision began to water. I now saw the one place, the only haven I ever had in my life, turn into a scene where what could be described as “monsters” are invading that space!

We lost 15 cattle…that hurt like Hell! I don’t remember anything after that, but I can tell you the weeks that followed were tough.

More of our cattle were being killed off, every two nights with increasingly ferocity. The weeks dragged, with fear becoming more apparent by the day. I want everything to be happy, so I did everything I could to make my parents happy, but nothing would happen.

They appreciated my efforts, but confessed they felt powerless given the circumstances. I couldn’t blame them---but I would have told you that I wanted to feel anything but sadness!