Marcus Pelegrimas - Blood Blade

Gerald appeared then, next to the creature, and jabbed it with his wooden spear. He screamed something to Cole, but it was lost amid the slamming of Cole’s heart in his chest.

Letting out another thunderous cry, the creature wheeled around and dragged Cole along for the ride. Brad was cut down by a single swipe from the creature’s claws, and Cole was close enough to hear the last sound the other man would make. As he felt the creature turning toward Gerald, Cole tried to steer him away by twisting the knife again.

Despite the knife in its torso, the creature still knocked Gerald through the air with a powerful backhand. The old man’s back slammed against a nearby table and the wet crunch of breaking bones filled the lodge.

There were more voices and more gunshots, but Cole couldn’t make out any details. He was dragged a few more feet as more shots were fired. A bullet shredded through the creature’s fur and thumped against what might as well have been a slab of solid rock.

More gunshots followed, and Cole recognized Sam’s voice through the chaos. Something hit his shoulder then and sent him skidding across the floor. His back and head knocked against a wall, and afterward he couldn’t move a muscle. But he could still feel his fist wrapped around the knife that he’d pulled from the creature’s body.

Sam shouted something and the cook shouted back. Their voices were soon engulfed by a deafening howl as the creature leapt toward the kitchen.

Then consciousness slipped from Cole’s grasp.

He didn’t expect to wake up.

Cole woke up, but wished he hadn’t.

Just lifting his eyelids hurt more than the worst hangover of his life. He was slumped over and jammed against a wall. His lungs burned with every breath and his ribs felt like they were about to rip through his torso. If he hadn’t been wrapped up in so much bulky winter gear, he knew he’d have several broken bones to add to his list of complaints.

Gritting his teeth, Cole pushed himself up and got to his feet. Whenever he thought he couldn’t make it any further, memories of the creature got him moving again. For a moment he suspected he might have taken a knock to the head and dreamt the rest. That theory was squashed as soon as he realized he was still holding the weapon that Brad had thrown into the monster’s chest.

It was heavier than he’d expected. Although it didn’t seem right to call the thing a knife, the weapon wasn’t quite long enough to be a machete. He guessed that some of the guys who’d worked on the line of Digital Dreamers fantasy games would know more about swords and blades like this one. As far as he was concerned, a knife was a knife. This knife, however, had intricate carvings etched into the blade. Upon closer inspection, the steel didn’t just seem dirty. It was smeared with something, but the streaks were on the inside. It looked like it should be slippery, but it wasn’t.

Cole held the blade up for a closer look at the markings. They weren’t any sort of writing he recognized, but that didn’t mean much. If it wasn’t English or programming code, he wouldn’t know it. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to stand there and ponder the mysteries of that blade. The scent of blood was so thick in the air that it coated the back of his throat.

The cabin had been completely destroyed, every table reduced to wood chips that stuck to the gore drying on nearly every surface. On top of that, he had no idea how long he’d been out, and his only real hint was the daylight streaming through a nearby window. Pushing his questions aside for now, he braced himself to get out of the cabin no matter how much it hurt to move.

Nothing vital seemed to be broken, but that didn’t help ease the pain that wrapped him up tighter than his winter gear. Looking to the spot where he’d landed, he noticed he’d missed hitting a wooden beam by about a foot and a half, and had slammed against a relatively smooth section of wall. Compared to the others laying nearby, his landing had been more than lucky.

He recognized the jacket Sam had been wearing on a bloody torso that lay upside down in a corner. Brad was still nearby, but had been torn into unrecognizable pulp. He knew the mess against the wall next to the bedroom door had once been the gun nut. Cole picked up the rifle laying within a few feet of the body and started to clean it off. Then, remembering how much good the rifle had done for its owner, he let it slide out of his hands. The cook was laying against the stove. His eyes were wide open and clouded over, but Cole knew dead when he saw it. Nothing with any life in it would have been as still as the cook or any of the others inside that cabin.

As he worked his way to the front of the cabin, he felt like a passenger inside his own body. His thoughts weren’t exactly incomprehensible, but they came quickly enough to overwhelm him. He took a few breaths, accidentally filled his lungs with the stench of death and ran outside.

The contents of his stomach hit the snow, where they were almost immediately buried. Cole pulled in some of the crisp morning air and felt a little better. As his pulse slowed to a pace just shy of frantic, he spotted movement a few yards away. His hands balled into fists and he suddenly wished he hadn’t left the rifle behind. Squinting through the brilliant daylight, he spotted something shifting beneath a layer of freshly fallen, freshly bloodied, snow. Taking a few tentative steps forward, he asked, “Who’s there?”

No response came.

“Hey. You all right over there?”

“Is…it…is it gone?” the shape asked.

Recognizing the strained voice, Cole rushed over and knelt down beside the shape. “Gerald?” After dusting off some of the snow, he spotted the older man’s face beneath a mask of frozen, crusted blood. “Jesus, it is you! I thought you were dead.”

Gerald was regaining consciousness quickly, and he sat up as if to take a swing at him. When his fist bounced off of Cole’s shoulder, the older man let out a pained grunt. “I…was dead,” he said through clenched teeth as he opened his fist to let several pieces of broken glass fall out.

“Almost,” Cole said. “So was I.”

Although some smaller shards of glass were wedged into Gerald’s fingers, only one large rounded piece had managed to puncture his palm. Now that Cole could look at the older man’s hands up close, he noticed the thick tangle of scar tissue coating most of Gerald’s palms. Although they looked like burns, there were several rounded patches smaller than the size of a dime that stuck out from the rest. Compared to the condition of Gerald’s face, neck, and chest, however, the glass wedged into his palm looked like a paper cut.

Cole’s hands hovered above the older man uselessly. As much as he wanted to stop the bleeding, close up the wounds, or do anything at all to help, he simply didn’t know how to do any of those things. “Try to relax,” he said in the most comforting voice he could manage. “I’ll…uhh…I’ll get some help.”

Lurching toward Cole, Gerald grabbed hold of him with enough strength to knock him off balance. “No,” he snarled. “Listen to me!” Somehow, the older man managed to sit up and collect himself; more wounds revealed themselves as freshly fallen snow fell away from his body. Gashes in his torso and legs seemed to go all the way down to the bone.

“Holy shit,” Cole said. “You need to lay back down!”

“Shut the hell up and listen to me! Brad had two knives. That thing got one of ’em. Do you think you can find the other?”

“Yeah,” he said as he held up the machete for Gerald to see. “I grabbed one of them before I was knocked out.”

“Good. There’s a card in the lining of my coat…near the collar. Call the number on the card and tell them what happened. Tell them you need to talk to Paige in Chicago. They’ll arrange for you to see her.”