A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 2 Hunted

Chapter 2

Hunted

The wind had a malevolent presence, its voice a demons howl as it swept through the Alaskan wilderness, its bite the life-robbing cold. It flung the snow like bits of razors and battered everything unfortunate to be in its uncaring path.

Callin pulled the deerskin cloak he wore tighter to his shoulders and continued forward, one exhausted step after another. The snow was waist deep, forcing him to move far slower than his instincts wanted. He didn't question his instincts anymore, trusting in their ability to keep him alive. He glimpsed a cave in the rocky hillside next to him, and in an instant made his decision. Whatever was pursuing him for the last three weeks was close now, and now he understood that he wouldn't be able to outrun it.

He didn't know how he could sense it, but it was definitely there, a feeling of dread deep inside, a feeling of being hunted. The cave was shallow, barely enough to shield him from the cutting fangs of the wind, but he felt better having only a single direction to guard.

He collapsed onto the frigid stones and leaned back against the wall, eyes fixed on the opening of the cave. Part of his mind realized he hadn't even considered starting a fire, hadn't even lit one for days. It worried him a bit, this fall into an animal side he hadn't realized was so real, so much a part of him.

As he rested, his thoughts wandered. Once again he thought of the digital tablet in the lab coat. He knew he talked in his sleep, he even knew that some of his dreams were real memories, surfacing in dreams created by the lab telepaths. For the first week after he had escaped from the underground lab by the supply tunnel, he had used the tablet to record what said while sleeping.

Much of it was so random he couldn't make any sense of it. But there were moments of very clear, coherent speech, moments that made memories come pouring into his fractured mind like sweet water in the throat of a man dying of thirst.

But then, as the killing cold and lack of food pressed him further into the darkness of the mind of an animal, the tablet had lost any importance to him. He had left it, and the shredded lab coat, many miles behind him, once he had killed and skinned his first deer. The deerskin was much warmer than the lab coat, and held no evil scents, no haunted memories. Now, as the approaching danger made him think clearer than he had in many days, he wished he still had the tablet. Maybe it could give him a clue as to what was hunting him.

It was close now, probably just outside his view. The impending, pressing sense of fear and doom it carried was much stronger now, making him unconsciously bare his fangs and unsheathe his claws. They no longer ached in the cold, open air, and the slight pain they made as they cut their way through the healed skin at the tips of his fingers every time he bared them was hardly noticeable.

A shadow passed by the opening of the cave, the swirling snow shifting any edges or definition to its shape, but not hiding its size. The fear the thing seemed to somehow be radiating at him had been there all along, but Callin had finally sensed it as a type of telepathic attack and had used the walls in his mind as a shield. Now, though, a tremor of real fear began to whisper it's paralyzing song into his ear.

The thing that was hunting him, right outside his cave, was easily seven feet tall and walked on two legs. It was massive, even the darkness and obscuring snow unable to hide the raw power in the quick glimpse he had of it. Callin's entire body reacted to the threat, his claws and fangs lengthening painfully far, exposing the tender, pinkish bone at their roots. The darkness of the cave was intermittently lit by flashes of harsh, electric blue as bio-electricity began to visibly snake up and down his arms. The seething power of it washed through him like a flood of ice, making every pore on his body tingle.

Suddenly the little bit of light outside was blocked as the creature stepped into the cave, its mass filling the opening. It was a thing born of nightmares, seeming to wear hatred like a cloak. Covered head to toe in wire, silver-white fur, it resembled a monstrous ape, with arms long enough to touch the ground even as it stood at its full height. It was so heavily muscled that it was grotesque, its sheer strength evident in its every move.

Its neck, its protruding lower jaw with huge, exposed, yellow fangs, all screamed its killing power. Its forehead sloped back, bony ridges leading up from its wide, wet, reptilian nose and over its head and down its spine. A natural armor, the bone obviously extremely thick.

Its eyes were by far the most horrific. They were bright blue, filled with blazing rage, and undeniably human intelligence. They were human eyes, in all physical aspects, a demented counterpoint amidst the features of the giant, twisted, killing beast. But the seething, primal ferocity that glowed within those eyes was unnatural in every sense.

Callin curled back his lips, his fangs fully bared, and snarled like a demon. The sound was so laced throughout with lethal threat that it made the creature pause, its gaze flickering over him, assessing the danger he may present. It snorted, a rough coughing sound of total derision, then lifted its head high. Exposing its throat. Mocking him, completely unafraid.

Callin gathered every bit of strength and power he had down into his legs, then launched off the back wall of the cave, arms outstretched in front, flying horizontally at the creatures face at impossible speed. Just as he lashed out to rip out its throat, it flung itself back, the desperate move not saving it from his razor-tipped claws entirely. Callin saw his claws bite in but he knew instantly it wouldn't be a killing wound. At almost the same moment his claws touched the creature, blinding pain blasted up his arms and exploded like a silent thunderclap behind his eyes, hurling him into spiraling darkness.