Monster Hunter: The First Bullet, Part 2

This story was made using the solo RPG: Monster Hunter, by La esquina del rol.

Vic opened her eyes.

The icy chill of morning fought to keep her still, poking at her aching muscles and urging her to sleep longer, to wait until the day was warmer. Vic would hear none of it; she sat up, brushing the frost off her cheeks and hair and streching her cramping limbs.

The man was still there, sleeping as best he could while wrapped in what was left of his blanket. Vic took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Damn it all. Kicking dirt on the smoking remains of his fire, Vic walked past the man and snatched up her pack and rifle. “Come on,” she shouted. “Up you get. Time for us to get a move on.”

The man sputtered, jerking upright and casting about. When he realized where he was, he stifled a yawn and slowly crawled upright. “What are you…where are we going?”

Damn, damn, damn fool woman. “If I let you wander off, you won’t make it past sundown. I’m going to take you east a ways until I’m sure you can make it home on your own. This is taking time out of my Hunt, you ken? So I don’t want to hear any complaining about how hungry you are or how much your feet hurt. We’re heading east and we’re going as fast as we can. Got it?”

“I…I got it,” the man rubbed his face. “I suppose asking for breakfast is out?”

“No breakfast,” Vic sneered. “You ate all I had last night.”

“Oh, I… all of it?” the man grimaced. “I’m…I’m sorry, I hadn’t eaten in two days, and…”

“I can hunt,” Vic patted her rifle. “It won’t be much, but we won’t starve, if we’re lucky. Come on now, pack your things and let’s move!

By the time the man was ready to go, the air had already begun to warm a little. Vic set a swift pace and they had covered more distance than she expected by high noon. Were she being wiser, she might have considered making the way slower, more cautiously; but she was eager to be rid of this man and back to her hunt.

Her father’s map was less helpful than his compass; the map was old enough that the ink was fading, and while there were landmarks they were few and far between.

At long last, Vic found something of an oasis among the Borderlands; a small waterfall pouring down the side of a mesa and filling a large stream. Fruit bushes grew nearby, and even at a distance Vic could see the trampled earth of a often-visited watering hole.

“Oh, thank god,” the man started forward only to be pulled back by Vic’s rough hand. “What’s the big idea?” he asked, adjusting his pack. “I’d have thought we’d —”

Vic silenced the man’s complaining with a single glare. Setting down her pack, she unslung her rifle from her shoulder and lay down on the ground, gesturing for the man to follow. “Don’t make a sound, don’t move an inch,” she muttered.

In spite of the man’s frustrated twitching, it only took a few hours before an oddly shaped wolf stepped into view. Its hunched back swayed gently as its slow hobbling gait brought it to the water’s edge.

Vic took a deep slow breath.

The crack of gunpowder echoed across the plains. The wolf collapsed to the ground as sulpher filled the air. Vic was on her feet while her companion writhed on the ground, clutching his ears with his hands. “Good god, warn me when you’re going to do that!”

Vic snorted as she called back. “You thought I was going to paint it? My rifle look like a brush to you?”

As she got closer, Vic saw her guess was correct: it was a hellhound. A foul bubbling ichor was leaking from the dead beast’s mouth and its hump was quivering with strange pulsing beat. After dragging the dripping body away from the lake, she took out her knife and waited. Eventually the pulsing stopped, and she began to skin the beast.

“What are you doing,” her companion asked, a hint of disgust in his tone. “We’re not going to…eat that thing, are we?”

“You got other food?” Vic sneered as she pulled the hide off the foul flesh. large globs of gelatenous goo slid off the muscle and bone with a quick twist of the knife. Brackish blood drained into the soil, dark and rancid. The smell was repugnant, if worryingly familiar; charred flesh and burning hair mixed with the sour scent of decay.

Before long, Vic had piled the hairy pelt under a small spit. A bit of flame lit the fur, which in turn lit a pile of fat-smeared twigs and a fortunate dry log. Before long, the fire was hot enough to slowly roast the hellhound’s torn off legs.

“I’m not eating that,” the man gagged.

“Not for another two hours at least,” Vic nodded. “Got to boil all the poison out.”

“Poison?” the man pointed. “That thing is poisonous?”

“Not the worst,” Vic smirked in spite of herself. “Make you sick for a week, mostly. Could kill you, but the taste ain’t exactly prime beef. You’d have to be desperate to eat more than a mouthful, and you’d feel ill before you eat enough to drop you.”

“God,” the man sank to his knees next to the fire. “Madness. Is this what you Hunters eat? Is this what it takes to survive out here? I had no idea it was so…”

“We usually eat our rations,” Vic snorted. “Saltpork, hard tack, the water’s usually fine out here, but it’s hard livin’ off the land. We know how to do it, but we don’t…” She stopped, her throat suddenly tight. After a moment, she tried again. “I don’t do it if I don’t have to.”

The hissing spittle of burning fat and snapping twigs punctuated the air. For a moment the two of them stared at the fire.

“Water’s fine, you say?” the man asked at last.

Vic gestured towards the lake. “Clean yourself up. Watch out for leeches.”

The man stood and headed towards the waterfall, relief leaking from his body. Stupid idiot. Wouldn’t last a week out here. Two days tops.

Vic cast her gaze over the horizon. The damn fool was costing her time. She wasn’t any closer to finding the bullets, and if she expected to be ready for Splitfoot before Saint’s Day…Her hand drifted down her side to slowly grip the handle of her father’s gun. If only the old coot had bothered to write a proper map!

By the time the man returned, still dripping, the hellhound was barely cooked. They spent an awkward two hours of silence sitting and staring at the gnarled corpse, its rictus grin slowly and steadily growing wider as the fat and muscle dripped and burned away.

At last, the fat had boiled off and the leftover flesh was a deep dark red, almost black. Charred streaks of meat smelled like charcoal instead of sour eggs, and even her companion was looking at the meat with something approaching hunger. “You sure its safe?”

Vic tore a strip of meat off with her knife and popped it into her mouth. “Safer than starving.”

That was all he needed. Her companion reached out and took the offered haunch, tearing into it with his teeth. He pulled a face, but kept chewing. “Ugh,” he said around the meat, “it almost tastes like…something rotten. Like bad whiskey and moldy potatoes. I don’t know, maybe you get used to it, but I’d not order it at any butcher’s shop. Not as bad as I thought it’d be, though, I guess that’s something. You eat this often, or are there other kinds of…” he paused, turning his head to look in the direction Vic was staring. “What, you see something?”

With the careful movements of a surgeon, Vic reached over to her saddlebag and pulled out her small telescope. Fitting the end to her eye, she slowly panned her gaze across the horizon again. She had seen…she was sure she had seen…

“Finish up,” she said, slipping her telescope back into her bag. “I’ll fill our skins and then we move on.”

“Hold up,” the man spoke around a mouth full of meat. “I thought we could rest for just a moment. We’ve been walking all day, and I’d like to —”

“I’m moving on,” Vic snapped. “With you or without you.”