My job requires me to clean up roadkill and hunt cryptids (Part 5)

I'll admit, last night was a rough one for me. Losing something like that reminds me of why I started all of this in the first place. After writing down what I had gone through during the Salem Child hunt I received news that I would be sent as back up tonight. In my line of business, 'back-up' is a corporate way of telling us the last hunter failed and we were expected to clean up. More often than not, failure was death.
Sleep wouldn't have come easy if I wasn't so exhausted but my dreams didn't pull their punches, I saw her face in every scene. I woke and went through the throws of my day job and I'll be honest, nothing really to report. Do you really want me to say 'I picked up some road kill' day after day? that's not why you're here. I have a lot to write down and a lot I need to do after I finish writing tonight's entry so we're going to cut right to the hunt.
As I said, it was a back-up call. They didn't tell me who, only that a hunter had failed to report back after being sent out. When they told me what I'd be hunting, I wasn't surprised and only hoped the hunter wasn't someone I respected. Because that was only going to make the job harder on me. I've told you before that not all cryptids are bad and that I generally don't take any joy in killing them but some cryptids. They only exist to make people miserable, the FastJacket is one such evil creature.
Even worse. You have to come to them, as long as they have their source of food they remain in one area until needing to feed again. If I were to guess, I'd say the previous hunter was sent out to kill the FastJacket during its hunt for food and ended up becoming said food. I couldn't set a trap or even outsmart the thing. This did work in my favor in the department of me needed to take out some very pent up anger.
Back before all this, I would take long drives before I went to work, I need to find peace with my emotions so I could channel them. I was young and far too poetic but it's become a ritual that I follow to this day. So that's what I did, I and Elvis passed through winding forest and across amber pastures, I couldn't help but think of all the hunts that I had been to in these places. How I had become as much of the ecosystems as any other wildlife.
When I ran out of patients with my ritual I turned around and headed to the FastJacket's feeding spot. It was an out of service parking garage located in a construction zone not too far from where I eradicated the Calvier Contaminant just two nights prior. It's possibly the FastJacket saw the chaos the virus left behind and took advantage of it.
Pulling in front of the crumbling grey parking garage I pulled out a stack of CD's from the visor above my head and fingered through them. When I found the CD I wanted I let it slide into the player and turned the volume to max. Stepping out I could hear the speakers on top of the truck buzzing to life with static. I pulled a mesh of copper wire from the truck bed and double checked my pockets before heading into the building. Starting on the ground floor I observed the vacant and broken structure before me. Not a single car in sight, it wouldn't be hard to find the FastJacket. I just needed to ascend and take a quick peek until I hit bingo.
With each step, I heard either broken glass or chunks of concrete fall apart under my heavy boots. The further I went up the darker the structure became as the wind whistled through each level and the staircase I used to climb up. The wind seemed to carry the sound of static coming from my truck below.
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Floor two was empty
Floor three was empty
Floor four was empty
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Floor five is where the FastJacket had decided to begin eating its prey. I almost missed it despite it being the only blemish of shadow on the empty floor. It was hunched over several feet away from the stairwell. I walked and when I was close enough I threw the copper wire onto the concrete, it didn't make much noise but the FastJacket noticed regardless. It rose to its feet and turned to me, a moniker of intelligence being shown in its movements, almost human but still infantile. I could see it's wriggling skin in the buildings shade.
Perhaps that's not the right way to describe it. Imagine you bought a skintight suit that covered every inch of you. Imagine that suit mimicked the color of your skin. Imagine it had consciousness and was eating your body under it at a snail's pace, that it left you alive but unable to move of your own volition. That's a FastJacket until it finds a host it might as well be a piece of pink gum sitting under a school desk. When it finds something to eat it wraps around their body completely, looking like some beefed up and featureless ken doll.
The FastJacket is made entirely of muscle and gets its consciousness from its host which it will pilot like a puppet. You can see the muscle moving around, contracting and vibrating as it would eat away at its food, thousands of microscopic teeth grating away at what's under it like sandpaper, the more muscle the host has, the better. So people like hunters would be a delicacy to this thing. Where the host face would be is blank save for a few surgical like cuts that open and close like heart valves allowing the host to get oxygen.
These guys are non-stop killers. They feed, move on and feed again. They have no selection process and will often use their host to kill the next piece of food. It's a disgusting cycle and I could tell looking at the thing, another hunter was underneath. I heard the static from below kick out for a moment, perfect timing. I pulled my jacket off and let it fall to the floor, the FastJacket likely thinking it found it's next meal. Reaching into my jeans I pulled a set of bronze knuckle dusters out and slipped my fingers into them.
As FastJacket is comprised completely of muscle and most of its mobility comes from the host it takes on, there aren't many ways to deal with it. Bullets seem largely ineffective as the skin constricts when shot and the bullets simply don't pierce. Bronze, however, burns the damn thing. A mixture of pressure and bronze will singe its flesh and deprive it's ability to puppet the body if enough of it is applied the is. The FastJacket making it's way, walking in a half-circle to avoid the wire I had dropped.
Then it started. A familiar song started to play from my radio's speakers, I closed my eyes and for just a moment I could hear the roaring crowd. I was back five years, if only for a brief moment. Are there other ways to deal with the FastJacket? Sure, I knew of a few. Is this how I chose to do it anyway? Yes. Almost by muscle memory I closed my fist and put my arms up guarding my chest, knees buckled and my stance widened.
With my entrance song cascading into the building, the FastJacket lunged forward and took a swing at me, aggressive things they are. My head and chest lowered in response until I was under the things attack. Two swift jabs once from each arm fired out like pistons, it'd had been so long I was surprised my body remembered how to do this. The bronze left a burn mark on it and a small trail of smoke lifted from each impact point.
It reacted and stumbled back from me, which is a superb way to lose your footing, especially if you're just piloting a human. My footwork, just as I had many times before, quickly closed the distance it created. Still bent over I sprung my body up and arched my right arm above my head, landing a hard uppercut to the jaw. Some of it's wriggling mass tore off and dropped to the ground, a bizarre attempt at manipulating the hunter's vocal cords created this babbling and stuttered speech. Similar to the ramblings of a child.
All the cuts that adorned it's face flared open revealing the hunter's face under. It stumbled and threw another swing. My torso drifted back letting the fist pass right by my face, altering my momentum I shot forward and plunged a right hook straight into its face throwing it to the floor. As it squirmed around I walked over to pick up the copper wire. I could feel it's presence as I bent over, looming over me. It had gotten up far faster than I expected.
Before I could react and lifted it's toes into my stomach, nearly smacking my ribcage whose bones would have surely busted. I got too cocky, perhaps that was ingrained in my muscles from back then too. Locked away under all the concussions and broken bones. I moved swiftly to get back in stance but my favor was returned and I felt a hard blow to my face, I could hear my nose giving way under the pressure. An all too familiar crack.
My back hit the ropes- it hit concrete. It started throwing hands at me like a desperate drunk, but a drunk that was much stronger than me. Blows landed hard all over my body, I could taste a pool of dark red iron building around my tongue. I kept my arms up as best as I could but the thing was too unpredictable. I remembered what my team would say to me in these situations, something stupid like “if you're not down on the mat, you're not out!â€
I pulled forward and wrapped my arms around its arms squeezing as hard as I could and pushed away from the pillar. I could feel it moving around under me, it's skin constantly shifting like a gel-filled balloon. Letting go I quickly threw a right hook, it connected, follow up, left fist slamming into its side, keep going. Don't get cocky, I needed to overclock its functions. Its inertia was in my hands after the second hit, it wouldn't know how to back off or switch things up. If I kept hitting I was in control. **** this thing.
My body became a machine, bobbing and weaving, arms like pistons throwing out shot after shot, each one as powerful as the last. I wouldn't notice how much the knuckles were ripping up my skin until afterward. Once again the thing fell to the concrete, this time I pounced on it and proceeded to pummel its face, the burns from the smoke sending plumes of smoke into my eyes. My song was long over, the fight was long over. With all my aggression out I stood up and returned to the wire, with it I wrapped the FastJacket up. The wire would be enough to keep it dormant until I got it home and used a more permanent solution.
The trek down the stairs was eye-opening, making me come to terms with just how much damage the FastJacket did in its flurry. I'll be purple all overcome sunrise. Placing the FastJacket where I normally throw these things, the radio when off and the truck turned on, I began my drive home. I was in a bit of a rush, wanting to get home and soak in a nice hot bath and take care of the skin in my truck bed.
I wasn't being careful, I was spending too much and watching the road too little. I could have seen it. One moment I was watching my headlights covering the road, then next I could see the pavement moving to the hood as the truck flipped over. The hood slammed onto the pavement after my hangtime was over. The seatbelt tightened and rubbed far too many of my injuries, frantically I unbuckled my seatbelt sending me falling.
Between the fight and this wreck, my body was totaled. Looking out the shattered windshield I could see the one working headlight, it's illumination sparking against a spiderweb-like network of thick cables. I reached for my shotgun and dragged myself out of the busted driver's side window, glass cutting against my skin giving me further lacerations. Once on the pavement, I looked over myself, cuts and patches of blood stained my shirt and pants. My breathing became hard to control as I tried to collect my surroundings.
Looking back to the cables I was met with figured basking in the glow of the truck's flickering headlight. “Couldn't have been clearer.†A wispy dark voice claimed. The light bounced off his dark purple skin, most of which was hidden under a formal, buttoned-up black duster. His bright yellow eyes glowing just under the rim of his dark cowboy like hat. “You just had to stop my boy.â€
My fingers scrambled back to the shotgun, I heard a disapproving click of the tongue from the man and my arm seized up. I couldn't move it an inc and before I knew it the man's fingers wrapped around my shoulder. “Not that those bullets would do much damage, consider it conservation of your supplies.â€
Looking up, now on my knees and powerless to move, he was towering over my somehow paralyzed frame. I had just gone a few rounds with a writhing mass of muscle and whatever this was shut me down with just a touch. I was searching through everything I knew about cryptids for an answer but nothing rung a bell. Instead, I asked a question. What he wanted from me and why he wanted it.
“I want you to stop hunting.†He said as he let go of my shoulder and began to pace around my crash site. My body became lax the moment he let me free of whatever control he had. “You and your people are messing with the natural order.†He boomed. A layer of rage was bubbling just under his calm demeanor. He looked briefly at my neck, I think he was observing the chair and the ring that hang from it.
He sighed like he was genuinely upset with the situation, I couldn't get a read on him. “Whatever your motivation, you must forget it. Because next time you and I meet-†He looked over at Elvis, wrecked and twisted. “Only one of us will be leaving the scene and I'm not placing any bets on you, Jack.†He then turned and began to walk away from me, I wanted more than anything to put spread of bullets in his back.
Before the thought even crossed my mind, he was long gone. I had been watching him the entire time and even now I can't recall the moment he vanished. I can't help but feel he wasn't some cryptid but I can't for the life of me come up with another explanation.
I stayed in that road until my knees started to burn, I would just swivel my head back and forth looking at the scattered remains of my truck. Looking at the FastJacket that had been ejected from the truck bed during the crash. I had to do something with it, the copper wire wouldn't last forever and I wouldn't be winning any fights. I dragged myself to my feet and hopped over to the creature, grabbing its feet I started pulling. The wire scrapped against the pavement for the last half-mile that it took to get home.
My body reacted like I had been hiking an entire week straight, every effort to drag the FastJacket another foot was met with painful resistance. I did make it home, and the FastJacket made it into cold storage where it's feeding would be frozen until I could properly take care of it. I'm writing to you now and I don't know what to do. I want to tell myself that on a good day I could take the Purple man down. That's what I'm calling him.
The trap he set, was a show of intelligence, capability, and power. He wanted me to know how many leagues above me he was. I want to get back out there and hunt the things the prey on the innocence but if my next hunt is my last, is there a point? Will he even let me leave the house tomorrow?
I want to be able to keep talking to you folks but as I stare out my back window, I see two graves. Two different parts of my life are buried back there and right now I can't return to either one of them. Not without losing more. I called a tow truck, they went down and picked up Elvis as best as they can. I'm tending to my wounds the best I can right now as well, I've gone through nearly an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a few bottles of harder alcohol.
I was under the impression I was the type that lives to work, so what am I if I am unable to get back out there. The roadkill job is fine but at the end of the day, it's empty. Knowing I was helping people in some capacity, even if they never knew. Knowing I was at least giving these creatures a quite was out, most of them. Was a surreal feeling. It was a good run. But I'm beaten
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Sorry guys, I'm done.
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Goodnight
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Goodbye.
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- Jack


Source.