Bladed Cross: An End Before The End Times: book 1

MURDERERS

Owen Collins awoke from nightmares of blood and death, and the monster responsible for all of it.

His eyes opened, and he found himself still in the woods. Birds were doing their morning singing, a sign of normality, and the golden light filtered through the trees. But every part of his body hurt. He looked at the wound on his leg, where the three deep claw marks in his thigh had been inflicted the night before. Dried blood crusted his pants, and when he tried to move, it dribbled fresh from the wounds.

Owen cursed, discomforted to realize that it wasn't a dream after all. Those poor kids, he thought, slowly and sorely getting up. They didn't deserve that. The nightmarish creature had spoke and said that it was punishing them. For what? And why had it left him alive?

He remembered what it had said, "Plan I have, all will die first. Thy will shall be in compliance to me."

It planned to use him somehow. Why? Why did want them all dead? And how would it use him? Owen walked back to the camp, distraught that the creature put him to sleep somehow against his will. He reached the camp, limping on his clawed leg. He should not have been shocked to find it in ruins, but he was.

All but one of the tents were completely demolished and in shredded pieces. All around the ground was scattered, broken equipment, shredded pieces of clothing, and claw marks. He was expecting to see that. What surprised him was that there were no tracks of the creature. No trace that it had been here, except for the destroyed equipment, and claw marks. By a tree was Will's body, exactly the way it was when he'd been killed. When he looked into the still standing tent—which had a big sliced hole in it—his eyes widened. The beautiful blond girl, Samantha. Owen couldn't even begin to describe the state her body was in, or at least, what was left of it. He couldn't even find her face. To say that she was everywhere would be an understatement.

Owen turned away from the sheer hideousness of the scene. So kind, so innocent, so obliterated. He shuddered, what kind of hateful thing is this?

He now confirmed his dream to have meaning, the internal warning Ted gave him. He had to kill it, before it did any more harm.

He began to look around, going through the victim's bags, looking for anything useful. He found some food, canned peaches, peanut butter, some candy, even a paper bag with marijuana. Even though he had no appetite, he made himself eat. Then he found a first aid kit and began tending to his wounds. They were kind enough to help him, they would want him to.

He used bottled water and poured it into the wound, washing it. He winced in pain, took a deep breath and started rubbing antibiotic ointment in the inch deep cuts. Those claws were unbelievably sharp. He wished he could have saved them. He felt so foolish, they should have listened to me and left last night. But my delivery of context and lack thereof got them all killed.

He blamed himself for them all dying, but realized that he shouldn't do that. It wasn't his fault, Chloe would say so. She'd say the if he blamed himself for the deaths of others, it would not only wreck his job, but his own life. He needed to stay strong, and learn from this, if he was going to kill this monster, if there even was a way to kill it.

Owen looked for any ammo for the guns, but there was none, not even a knife. It was time to get moving. The lake wasn't far, three miles maybe. He began walking the trail.

He didn't know how the creature would use him. He was almost tempted to stay out here and avoid making a mistake if it did so. But that couldn't be an option, he had a job todo and he intended to kill the thing, warning in his dreams or not. He could only hope and pray that he could avoid being used like some puppet. After all, it had been able to force him into sleep somehow. He wondered with dread what other capabilities it had. Leaving the destroyed camp, he made his way to the lake.