THE RED LADY (PART II)

 

As the night went longer and darker, we thought we lost not only our precious game but even the sanity of Jonathan.

After that encounter with the unidentified creature, I and Gilbert decide to camp right in the grove where we saw Jonathan losing all his wits and senses. We didn’t manage to go to the rendezvous point where we will camp together with other groups who unlike us, went to this forest for scholarly purpose of studying the endemic beast that dwells here.

 

Jonathan is utterly helpless and refuses to move neither an inch from the spot where we found him. He keeps on mumbling gibberish while cowering like a child getting cornered by the monster underneath his bed. The terror that struck has somehow stolen the last of his sensibilities as he began also soiling his pants

 

 It was appalling to look but we can’t leave him like that in such harrowing condition. It took us an hour of consoling and calming him down before we can finally breathe in relief when he stopped chattering mindlessly and gave us the look of someone who finally retrieves his sanity from the murky territory of his consciousness.

 

Thanks to the camomile tea that Gilbert brings, Jonathan finally returns to his self after drinking the hot tea on his mug in just one straight gulp without minding the scald on his tongue afterward.

 

“I thought the son of a bitch was already mine at that time. And yet when we reached this grove, it started to make a strange noise as if it was calling to something or someone. I pull the trigger immediately straight to his head but all of a sudden, that thing just appears between us and takes the bullet for that goddamned deer..” Jonathan narrated with his hand still trembling and his face is getting pale as he recalls once more the vivid nightmare that temporarily left him plagued with madness.

 

“I shot it over and over. I never see it as human. What kind of human looks at you with those set of colorless eyes and its skin. Why is it looks like it was painted by blood? A fucking blood Welkin and yet it won’t die!

We didn’t push any more questions to our friend as it might endanger his mind once again and push him further towards the edge of his lunacy. We let Jonathan rest as both I and Gilbert left with questions that for sure will never allow us the luxury of sleep.

 

“You saw it, Welkin. It looks like a human but it's not. I..don’t know if that is some kind of a barbaric native here or just some random lunatic. So far it didn’t hurt Jonathan physically but our friend here seems to mentally scourged by its mere presence.” Even the calm headed Gilbert sounds troubled which becomes infectious as I also ponder what danger that abomination might pose to us since we are here still on its domain.

 

The more we sink our thoughts into it, the more the paranoia increase among us. What if it attacks once again tonight? What if they are actually a group of red-skinned here and just bidding their time to turn us into their game?

 

For it was clear to us now that that creature serves as the guardian of this seemingly sleeping forest where on its uncharted corners lies the possibility of facing its own night terror?

 

“Wait…maybe we can take a better look at it through Jonathan’s GOCAM.”

 

Despite the poor quality of the said camera, just to pacify the demons that starting to gnaw our minds we decided to look at the recorded video of Jonathan’s encounter. As expected, our electric lights make it all difficult for us to have a good view of what is happening especially when Jonathan starts chasing the stag deer.

 

After skipping a good 2 minutes' worth of blurry vision, Gilbert stopped the recording as we finally spotted in the small screen the whole feature of the red-skinned being.

 

Truly it looks like a human, more or less a female with an average height and a coarse hair-like vine that drapes from its head down to its waist partially covering its face. Its posture however betray anything that is human on it; its back was a hunch and its arms are swaying loosely on its shoulder. But what makes it become more like an inhuman being is its skin that glistens with crimson as if fresh blood was splattered all over it.

 

And its eyes, they don’t belong neither to a man or animal. Just by looking at those blank, white eyes is already a strong reason why the usual headstrong Jonathan whimper like a child to the point that his lost reason nearly devoured by the void.

 

“Perhaps we should post-pone our hunt for now. Jonathan has already seen enough. It will be awful if one of us will see that being again.” Gilbert firmly stated but it seems the forest has other plans for us and we are not but mere pawns inside its verdant dungeon now that our conversation was suddenly cut by a bizarre ululation that pierces the idle choir of crickets and rustling of dead leaves around us.

 

It was a symphony that fills us now with awe but unearthly dread; making our skin to crawl and our grip with our guns tight yet trembling. If only we have a rosary here right now, we might also grab it and start praying though we already forget for the longest time the next word before the line “deliver us from”…..

 

“Deliver us from evil..” It was Jonathan who unknowingly utters the last line of the prayer they need the most as he covers himself inside his blanket and buries himself in darkness so his mind will get blinded from seeing it in a dire loop the one red-skinned being that seems to be on a wild hunt tonight.

We can’t confirm it yet but all our instinct agree that it was the red-skinned who unleashing that hellish cry. Or if not, it might be something much worse.

Then the blood-curdling cry was followed by a second voice that completes the choir of violent orgy: a mortal scream echoing an inhuman agony that made this forest play the soundtrack of a slaughterhouse