Consulting Sniper (Moran's Story)

Chapter 8: Skinned and Beheaded Tiger

*ReadWriteBrook I know you've been waiting for this, so here it is!!! I hope you and all my readers enjoy this (especially since it's like my favorite scene in the entire book)!*

It's about time that I clear up a very important piece of information.

I know that you are likely under the impression that I once, and I'm quoting Watson on this one, "crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger."

Let me just tell you that is only partially true. And it wasn't as heroic a move as it may seem on the surface.

I'll set the record straight:

I was working as an employee on an archaeological dig expedition somewhere below the equator at the time. I won't say where. It was something an old army friend, one of my only ones, had got me into.

Regardless, I was far away from home, from Holmes, and anything else that you probably read about in her book. This trip inspired me to write two other books of my own; it was a completely foreign and alien experience for me that I do not regret taking part in.

Anyway, I was standing by as a guard one afternoon on one of the dig sites. It must have been over one hundred degrees in the jungle that day. The only things anyone who was not an archaeologist could think of was when we could get our next drink of water, a change of clothes, and a reprieve from the mud. It was almost the end of the day; I had been walking around in delirious circles for seven hours.

All of a sudden, we heard an odd noise coming from the jungle. We were all startled, but we were also hot and sweaty and, well you get the idea. No one wanted to get up and go over to investigate. All the archaeologists knew was that I was paid to guard them.

So guess who they wanted to send?

Me.

But before I could leave, it came crashing through the brush just to stand still in the center of our site. The archaeologists scattered, and the paws of the beast likely crushed the ancient bones and artifacts that they were perusing. I ripped my shortened-barrel rifle out of my belt and held it up to shoot the tiger, but it had stopped and stared at me and I didn't know what to do anymore.

"Boss," I whispered at the man next to me, my then-boss who was orchestrating the dig mission and who showed no fear in this moment. All the others around us were frozen in fear, staring at the beast.

"Permission?"

"Blast it to high hell."

Well, I certainly tried to. The tiger turned to face a few other people crouched on the ground, and I fired off something like twenty rounds at the tiger with my rifle, hitting the back of its neck and its chest as it began to turn toward me again. I began reloading and preparing to shoot again before it stumbled off into the jungle again. The animal lumbered past me and knocked me onto my back. It was badly wounded. I don't even think it knew it hit me; it probably couldn't even see straight.

I got up, covered in dirt and dust and a little bit of blood from where the tiger's claw hit me, and put my rifle back in my loose-fitting gun belt. I thought I'd done a pretty damn good job. My boss watched me do this with a horrified expression.

"And what do you think you're doing, Moran?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked my boss, genuinely confused.

"You're not going to give chase?"

I blinked twice, then snickered at my boss's remark. "Why in hell would I ever do that?!"

"Because I want its head on a plate. I want to hang that head over my mantelpiece and use its skin as a rug on my floor. You've never taken a souvenir home from a vacation before?"

"Boss, this is a dig. Not a vacation. And it's dying, anyway. If it didn't die right when it left, it will in under two hours," I figured. "And even if it doesn't die now, which is more unlikely than a nuclear explosion, it won't be back here. You won't see it again. It won't be a danger to any of us anymore."

"I. Want. Its. Head. What about any of what I just said don't you understand. GET IT FOR ME."

"I'm a guard, sir, NOT a hunter. If you wanted a trophy, you should've hired someone else," I said, walking away.

"Ms. Moran, get back here!" my boss yelled. I stopped.

"You should embrace your urge to hunt. You are doing it now, by disobeying my order. Did you watch yourself stand over me like you did? Go get that thing and kill it once and for all."

I realized everyone was staring at us, so I had to obey. I pulled my rifle back out of my belt and left after yelling a few profanities at my boss.

When I got into the jungle, that was when it hit me. Not only did I not know how to hunt, I did not know how to kill game. I also did not know how to lure a tiger, and in what universe would I be able to drag that thing back to camp in?!

Crap... I'll figure it out as I go along, I thought.

I must have walked around in the jungle for an hour, just looking around aimlessly. The tiger was absolutely gone. I mean, I had absolutely no idea where it could possibly be.

I kept walking around, my combat boots making a ridiculous amount of noise and occasionally holding my arms out in protest and cursing under my breath.

Until I finally saw it.

There was the tiger, crawling down into what looked like a ditch.

In my anger, I automatically held up the rifle and fired off three shots. But I missed all three times. The tiger had crawled down into the ditch. But that didn't make sense to me.

I made my way over and saw that it was actually the end of a long drainage tube that was about as tall and wide as my height. It went uphill. As I crawled through the drain, I kept my rifle in my hands, but they were so damn sweaty that the gun nearly slipped out of my hands a few times. The trigger was covered in my sweat. I wasn't even sure I could still shoot at that point.

But I was absolutely sure that no matter how the soles were falling off my boots, I would be running away at top speed from that tiger if need be.

At the other end of the upward-sloping drainage pipe, there was a flat, level plain of jungle. There the tiger lay, dying. I was absolutely right about the time frame for its death, and I reminded my boss of that in my mind.

I leaned back on the edge of the pipe, covered in dirty pipe-water, jungle leaves, and other filth, and completely out of breath.

"At least it's over now," I said to myself. But I'd forgotten that I wasn't the only one there. The tiger was staring at me. I went completely pale again; I would have to become a hunter.

*THIS IS ONLY PART ONE!!! I hope you all enjoyed this, part two will be up shortly :) thanks for reading!*