THE RED LADY (PART III - LAST PART)

 

We know our guns are enough only to take down any beast in this forest but something that is way beyond beast nor human is somewhat a suicide for all of us.

 

Yet we insist to track down the source of the unholy scream since it was actually coming from the direction where our meeting place with the other campers is located. We got a box full of ammo and a 5’7 brawny man in the form of Jonathan whom we need to drag along the way despite his whimpering since we can’t leave him all alone in our campsite.

 

That’s all we have against whatever we might encounter as we tread the darkness and thickness of this forest that every second we continue going deeper towards its heart, the more we get the feeling that we are plunging ourselves in the entrails of a beast. And at the pit of it lies the doomed that promises the torment that even death will try to evade.

 

“No! Let’s get out of here! Come on, guys! Please!” Jonathan has reverted into an amalgam of a deranged child as his tantrum is getting more violent along our way as he starts flailing his fist that nearly smashed my face as we try to calm him.  His eyes are getting wilder with his lips now dripping with saliva; showcasing his slow descent once more in becoming rabid.

 

We have no idea what is the level of fear that he is suffering right now but Gilbert whispers to me with pity in his eyes that our friend might be never returning to his normal self even when we manage to survive tonight.

 

“It’s no use, Welkin. We might as well leave him here.”

 

“Do you hear what you are saying now!?” At this very moment, perhaps the fear, tension, and anger tick me off so bad that I even have now the guts to grab Gilbert by the collar and landed him a good left-right combination on his chin.

 

“Don’t tell me that even you is getting insane?” I roared at him with the urge to even spat on him.

“Welkin, he will be a deadweight for us now! We will all die if we just keep him on our side. He is unstable!”

 

I am about to land another blow to Gilbert with the intention of breaking his jaw when the grisly cry once more filled the air with its ear-splitting echoes. This time it's much louder and its clarity now exhume more terror than I can imagine

 

“Stay here! Look after Jonathan!”

 

Gilbert is about to complain to me but I turn my back and rush onwards. We are just a couple of meters from that cry that is neither from a man or a beast. I sprint as fast as my legs allow me to without minding the sharp briar that lashes on my skin and filling it with small yet prickly wounds.

 

As I reached the grove where I expect to saw tents and a campfire, my knees buckle without even with my own volition. Gnawing cold nibbles bones every second, as I stare at the blasphemous scene where the beast is now at the top of the food chain and man, has become their primary banquet.

 

My eyes and even my gut reeled upon seeing different bodies scattered all around the forest ground as if they were the body parts of dolls being torn apart ruthlessly. Whoever did this savor the gore it exhumes as limbs and decapitated head spills blood, organs, and bones in a macabre that will disgust even an embalmer who had already dulled its senses towards carcass and corpses.

 

At the center of this in the inhuman feast is a group of human-like entities is burning bright with their red skin that now, I can fathom whether it was natural all perhaps every time they devour those livers and hearts; each time they gnash their teeth of those hands and thighs, blood gushes forth and paint them into these crimson diabolical. The slaughterer and defender of this forest.

 

Each of these red skin is not bothered by their stark nakedness nor their lack of human senses as they feast upon these bodies like untamed predators tearing their food using their bare hands and raw strength that they could pull every joint and every fiber of muscle as if they are just tearing apart a cloth. It’s the easiness of how they tear it that made took a step backward momentarily and even forgetting that I have my gun on my side.

 

Little did I know I was trapped now in this pit of carnage where the color red that mingles with the color of night and the decay of this forest. As I about to turn away, all sorts of beast are waiting behind me; from wild cats, deer to behemoths like elephants and even the predators of the sky in the form of eagles and hawks. They are encircling the place as the audience who silently watch their caretaker put on a macabre show for them starring humans who threatened them.

 

But what adds more to the horror that already sinking its fangs on my mind is that these animal are all smiling as they watch with unnatural gusto how every body parts was pulled and break into pieces, how every blood spurt and flow in volumes enough to make a pond out of them, and how every bones crack and emits a sound that makes the wild cats purr and the birds to waltz in the opaque night sky.

 

“Welkin! My God! Help us!”

 

I turn my head towards the familiar voice and I know for sure that it is all over now; my fate now lies in the teeth of this red skin. Two of these crimson abominations are carrying towards their feast both Gilbert and Jonathan. Gilbert struggles but what can he do against these beings that can dismantle the human body with so much ease that we are but papers to them that they can be crumpled if they wanted to do.

 

Jonathan was already dead on the other hand; his eyes are now all white while a trail of saliva and mucous is splattered against his pale face.

 

“Welkin! Shoot them all! Shoot these motherfuckers!” Gilbert screams up until his voice becomes so hoarse and that the carotid veins on his neck start to pop out. Just then before he bellows once more another cry for help, one of the Red Skins hold his head and with a small effort, pulled it from his neck as if it was just pulling a root from the soil.

 

Red pearly drops come splashing all over them as the red skin raised Gilbert’s head above which prompted their whole group to once more open their mouth in unison to deliver their ululation that sealed now my destiny with death.

 

Everyone from the beast to these Red Skins looks up above as if they consecrate now the head of Gilbert before the banquet of human continue once more. To whom they consecrate this head is out of my comprehension; whoever god will it be I am can only assure one thing. That god abides the law of the jungle in such extreme fashion wherein it favors the beast than man. It treats man as fodder and weaklings that should not be killed but eaten.

 

Yet I won’t let them see how my humanity breaks down like a house of cards like what happened to the poor Jonathan. I will save what’s left of it before they even take a bite of me.

 

Before they even took me into their plate, I put on the barrel of my gun into my mouth and cease their maddening ululation with one pull of my trigger and the discordant sound of a bullet hitting my head.