When you live near woods, you grow accustomed to strange noises. I have heard many in my day, such as the chaotic growl of a predator as it shakes its gorey prey, a wet, gargling snarl that is without comparison. I had heard these snarls, and many others that were more inexplicable, strange noises that, in isolation, would have sent any sane man to the brink of instability. These noises could only be described as supernatural, for in them there were no hints that the creature who made the noises had any link to the natural world.
And, when one considers how capable of inhumanity the human species can prove, it is not a far stretch to say that the natural world outside of us can stray outside of its own nature as well.
I rested my head on the pillow, and I heard a rumbling. At first, my thoughts were on earthquakes, for indeed, the deep booming made everything shake. It felt underneath me somehow, and it sounded close. Although one becomes accustomed to the strange sounds of the (un)natural world, one is never comfortable with intimidating noises close to one's resting place.
I lurched out of bed, grabbing my shotgun and some shells. One can never be too careful, after all. I burst out of the house, leaping unto the deck, ready for any and all kinds of attack. But there was nothing.
As it was early in the morning, the darkness was beginning to be conquered by the rising sun. As I cautiously walked to the edge of the deck, to peer over into my lot, the sun illuminated for me a strange sight.
I peered over the edge of the deck, and watched as the ground underneath moved. It was not merely a stirring wind, or even a mighty hurricane, but was something underground. And it was something large.
When a man approaches the edges of safety, there is often a perverse desire to step over that edge, not for any particular reason. This perversity is the foundation for the anti-rationalists and similar post-modern theories, theories that speak of the possibility that homo sapiens is not, as was previously thought, a creature of reason and rationality. Rather, these thinkers propose, we are a creature of utter random chaos, one which cannot be predicted nor one that can predict itself.
Personally, I think that if we are consistently perverse, than we remain predictable: our nature is merely not one whose reason can easily be accessed.
At any rate, this pulsing thing underneath my feet was a perversity and a curiosity, and so I approached it with gun in hand. I took slow steps, watching its movement. It was like a snake of rocks and dirt and sod, moving across my lot with the semi-predictable movements of a sentient creature. I came close, to the point in which I could have jumped on the moving ground and rode it like a surfer rides a wave. For reasons partly to do with curiosity and partly to do with annoyance, I poked it with the edge of my gun, hoping that perhaps I could get its attention through the ground. However, as I approached the thing with my gun, there was an explosion, and I imagine I now know what it is like to step on a landmine to some degree. A flury of ground exploded around me, and I felt a piercing pain that was not pain exactly but my flesh revolting against the confused pummeling that it was undergoing.
That was when I saw the creature. Its tentacles creeped around me, piercing me with tiny hooks that linked to my already-raw skin. Its 'face', if it can be said to have a face at all, was a mass of disfigured jaws and pink inner-flesh. And it was only a moment before I felt the thick, slimy substance that was within its body; it was only a moment before I began to feel the burning of what could only be digestive fluids.
I knew I was moving. I could feel its muscles throbbing from within. I thrashed and slashed at the innards as much as I could, hoping to upset its digestion enough to be exit through vomit, before the acids completely overwhelmed me. I knew that I did not have much time before this fluid ate away at my flesh, turning my flesh into its substance. However, I still had the comfort of feeling, and I could feel the pain of the fluids only slightly. I was not yet deep enough to have strongly acidic fluids attack me, and I fully intended on escape before I found that new sensation.
I found that I still had my gun. I did not know if it could discharge in this soaked existence, if the fluids had gone inside the gun enough to prevent an ignition, but I fully intended to try. And I was rewarded for my actions with a loud bang, made louder for the proximity of the target.
I felt the pressure around me suddenly loosen, and I heard a deafening screech that could have only been the creature in pain. I took advantage of this new exit immediately, struggling through throbbing and desperately compressing muscles. As I slipped out, the creature looked at me, 'face' to face, and I could tell that it had been angered greatly by my attack. It screamed at me, spit flying and knocking me backward. It crawled, bleeding profusely, toward me as I frantically crawled backward.
It lifted its head in dominance. It knew that, though it was hurt, it was fearsome. And when the tentacles around its face began probing me, I could see that its jaw opened and closed, more saliva being produced with each movement. It was only growing more hungry for being wounded.
I looked at it in what must have been an eye (though, with the aforementioned disfigurement, I cannot be certain) and screamed my own scream, a scream of torture and desperation. My clothes dangled on me, half-eaten by the fluids and half-torn through my struggles. My skin screamed through its burns, and I had no intention of dying below the ground by a creature that had no right to exist.
The creature slammed down as the wounds I caused it bled out profusely. It still hissed at me, and its tentacles dangled along my body lazily, but it was not a threat to me any more. I looked at the creature and felt a pang of pity. I felt in my pocket for shells and found two more. I loaded the gun and, with a movement at once of sympathy and anger, took the creature out of its misery.
I fell down, tired. I washed myself off with dirt, to ensure that the enzymes did not continue to eat away at my flesh. And then I rested, broken and beaten.
When I awoke, it was to the sound of moving earth. As a rule of thumb, where there is one creature there is at least a few, at least until the tooth and claw of humanity searches it out for profit. I began to run in the direction I presumed to be the exit out of this great tunnel, and managed to sneak my way out.
When I snuck out unto my own lot, I caught my breath. My entire life had flashed before my eyes in a blaze, and I had been found wanting. I contemplated hunting the creature's family, but stopped at least for a moment. And then it happened, the thing which made me understand.
My family was on the deck, each looking at me with a look of fear on their faces. I looked around and understood their gaze. The hole in which I had been pulled was splashed with traces of my blood, not enough to mortally wound me, but enough to look as such. I looked up at them, and knew I had to find the other creatures.
A man picks and chooses his battles. There are battles not worth fighting, such as battles over corporate politics, battles over 'principle', and, in general, any battle founded on abstraction. However, battles for something, for the safety of your family, for the safety of others, or even battles like I had just faught, battles for your own safety...
I walked in, and the family nursed my wounds as I mentally prepared for the hunt. I imagined myself, in a pit of great dragon-worms, each snarling at me with their ugly 'faces'. And I pictured them standing between me and my family. It was enough to bring waves of hatred, waves of pure anger, to me.
I did not explain anything to them. I did not say a word. They did not need to know the battle I was about to undergo. It was not that I did not want to tell them, but that I knew telling them would be surrendering. My wife would never have let me out of the house, and the pleading looks of my children would have sealed my fate. This was not a battle against me and my family, though, but a battle against me and the elements, the unnatural, disfigured elements.
I followed the sounds. Though the sun had begun to rise, the trees sheltered the woods from most of the light. Little slivers escaped through the leaves, lighting the ground like a spotlight. I heard many noises, many small animals snapping twigs off in the distance, larger animals crashing through woods even father away, but there was underneath it all a deep, familiar rumbling.
I tracked that beast. I write that with pride now, but there was nothing of abstractions in the moment. I was moving because my heart pumped blood to my legs; I was running on automatic, and I knew what it was like to not have consciousness, to be a robot with a single, predetermined set of instructions. My actions may or may not have been considered rational by others. I was basically on a mission of genocide against those creatures, but whether or not my reasons can be sympathized or empathized with readers, my reasons existed nevertheless.
The anti-rationalists are, I think, a little simplistic; I do not think any living creature acts except with its own set of rationale and reasons.
I heard the rumbling. Underneath a crop of dead, dry trees, I saw a stump move up and then fall as if by magic. I ran toward the space, but I was not careful. I slipped on a twig and fell, face first into a spot of woods that must not have been seen for years, for there was no trail that animal or man could walk.
In my weakened state, the fall was drastic. Out of breath and broken, I began to sob. It was not the sob of failure or pathos, but the sobbing of a man who is angry beyond belief, destroyed and helpless. They say that women cry for anger, and men for loss, but if that is so, then I can only say that I must have cried for the loss of safety and security. If I did not find these creatures, they would forever have reign in my own space, in my backyard!
I moved to get up, and as I did, my hand fell on something a little too regular for this crop of forgotten woods. I looked down in curiosity, and found that my hand had landed on something buried under moss and twigs, but something most definitely out of place. The 'thing' was perfect and regular, something out of place amongst random crops of hills and twigs. I dug it out and it turned out to be a very strange item.
It was a book, its pages discoloured and swollen. However, the ink, though running, still remained legible. And what I read follows:
I have done it! I have released the dark gods of the woods into the air, but they still need something to be brought into creation. They need food to survive, these, my pets. And they feed, like any of the other gods of chaos, on human flesh!
The ink on the next pages were illegible, but I could catch snippets:
They found...
... I have escaped them, but I fear they will return...
... the villagers have found out what I have done, and have promised...
... my execution will be...
... ironies of ironies, my flesh will feed my own beasts...
I stared at the book in disbelief. It was one thing for these creatures to be irregular, strange-- a monster. It was another for them to be something outside of natural biology, neither man-made nor intended to ever be present on our earth. And the name signed on the book was similar to mine in last name.
I dropped the book; my flesh had fed these creatures, my blood had kept them alive. How had I not noticed them before today? What was so special of this day?
I had no answers; but, I would suppose, nor does the soldier in any war. They are only told what they need to be told, and are required to move on not out of any particular philosophy, but out of a desire to survive, to overcome. Though they require reasons, the reason of survival is always the most potent, and flashes of propaganda depicting the enemy devouring loved ones is enough to provoke attack, snarling and desperate.
Was this creature as evil as I had thought? Certainly, its origins were tainted and impure, but if the creature had spent so long avoiding human contact, than what reason did I have not to expect it to disappear again after the utterly disappointing experience it had with me?
My shoulders slumped. The propaganda had been threatened. I sighed, unsure of what to do next. I heard the deep rumble, and wondered if my theories were correct, and at what cost I would suffer if I was wrong.
I shook my head, shaking away this sympathy for the creature. So long as it was on my land, it was a threat to me and my family, and was that not enough of a reason?
And so I continue on my search, even though the creature has proved elusive. This is not only a battle of energy and power, like all battles, but it is also one of perserverance. I do my daily chores, the expectations I have to feed my family, and then I go into the woods, shotgun in hand, for hours at a time. It is a tiring existence, this constant struggle, and ultimately unrewarding. But, like all unrewarding battles one can fight, so long as I hold onto the reason, the rationale behind my actions, I have the fuel to continue on this journey until I finally find the nest, until I finally have my reward-- my chance at battle...