Island Of The Cryptids

39

"Do you understand what I want to do?" Carlin asked. "I just want to play a simple game with you. I'm a simple man who wants simple things from people. Simple, simple, simple."

"Get away from me you fucking creep..." Kaeli whimpered. Carlin grinned. The gun pointed at Kaeli again.

Suddenly, from above, the sounds of roaring and an object whistling through the air sounded. Kaeli looked up.

She screamed, dropping to the floor as the Explorer hurtled down on top of them. Carlin dropped, but he wasn't quick enough. A jagged spike of the car's window frame sliced through his calf as it hit the ground, and he yelped. Blood gushed from the wound in his pant leg.

The car had landed upside down, with enough space underneath it for the two to lay down in. Kaeli was facing the lake, her head slightly sticking out of the car. Her feet were right next to Carlin's head, who squirmed inwards under the wreckage.

There was a thud outside. This time sounding like a footstep. A cryptid stood outside in the nearest cave entrance. Kaeli saw its lumbering foot stamped into the ground, its claws dancing on the dirt.

Kaeli saw something in Carlin's eyes. Something she had never witnessed in the man who bared no emotion, who heartlessly locked her in a shed, who let Manuel die, who attacked her pervertedly with a gun, and on top of that, countless other things she didn't even know. Fear. She saw fear in his eyes.

He mouthed the word "please" to Kaeli. She stared at him. Her boot was unlaced and practically dangling off her foot. She slid her foot out, revealing her fuzzy black sock.

She pressed on his shoulder, to his dismay. He looked at her with wild eyes as the cryptid came closer. He groped onto her leg, pleading with a terrified glare. The cryptid came right up next to the car, nudging the overturned back end with its snout.

She could hear it growling, hunting. Its breath reeked of a foul stench, the stench of a carnivore. It sneered, then backed away slightly.

Carlin was raking the ground with his nails as his legs breached into the sunlight.

"Please..." he murmured. "Mercy..."

The cryptid bit onto Carlin's leg and he howled, and it yanked harder. The thing dragged him out into the daylight, with him screaming pitiful wails. He dropped his walkie-talkie in the mud, his last piece of connection.

She saw him scrambling back under on the ground, but the thing's jaws closed around his torso and lifted him into the air.

He screamed terrified yells, then deathly choking sounds as the thing chomped down on him. Blood drizzled down from above, pooling onto where Carlin had previously been laying.

Kaeli waited for the thing to disappear into the cave again before looking around the wreckage.

She searched everything. Every compartment, every nook and every cranny of the deformed car. She reluctantly sighed and gave up. There was no phone inside. No hope left. If the satellite phone ever was there, it was long gone, or dislocated into a place she could never find it. She gave another moment of silence before deciding to come out.

Carlin's walkie-talkie buzzed with static, so she didn't climb out just yet. She intently waited.

"Carlin? Carlin buddy?" It was Hadden. "I did it. I cut them out. They're all around me now, they're everywhere. Tiny little babies, that's what they are. My babies. They're so glorious, Carlin. I'm free."