by
Kenneth Meade
I suspected Rolland when we found the first monster dead. The things had killed his wife and daughter last winter. If not for the probable revenge, his appearance - thick, haggard beard, broad shoulders and crazed eye that often filled with a soulless anger – made a suspicion of him as a killer, easy.
Our colony had survived for fifteen years. We had progressed as much as the rest in the first ten years since our ship landed. This new planet had been kind to us. Our supplies were in surplus. Our children were testing just as high as those in the other colonies were and some of ours ranked the best. We could put most of our resources into development and next to none into protection or war. Then they came.
Indigenous animals that seemed like a hound mixed with a bull. A jagged bone made up their outer shell. Sharper points covered their joints with the solar plexus having the highest concentration of spikes. No one had ever seen one that was smaller than a horse. More disturbing than their size, was their demeanor. Hateful and starved are the only words to describe it.
We named them Helgrauss in part for one of our scientists who died trying to track them after an attack, and in part, for what his last moments must have been like. A search team found Doctor Grauss’s mangled remains six kilometers outside the colony line. No one had travelled that far out on foot since.
They came in the day just as much as the night. They are the sole reason for the walls we built around our settlement. Only once had twelve men managed to scare one of them away. They normally hunted in packs. At first, there was little to do besides hide until they had fed.
Our people are not weak. Our soldiers bear heavy arms and we know not to leave a soul out alone long enough to temp them. It is a simple matter of nature’s strength against man. In time, machinery would come from our home world to help us. Mechs, bigger and stronger than the Helgrauss, were on their way to us. Only patience, caution and faith will allow us to endure. That’s why, as our only remaining priest, I realized I was the only one to save us. I’ve never been a man of weaponry or heroics. My place is in service to our people and I live in the basement of our church. It was what I could do for Rolland that mattered most of all.
At first, I could not understand why he didn’t tell everyone what he was doing. It was when the attacks were reaching an epidemic status they slowed. Rolland had found a way to kill the monsters yet he told no one. I saw the satisfaction in his face the day after he killed his first.
I imagined Rolland would have felt pressured. He didn’t lay claim to having killed any of the monsters because he knew the colonists would see him as their savior. More so, they would push him back out to kill more of them. Surely, whatever his method, Rolland could not presume he could kill them with any regularity much less protect or rescue us. Regardless, Rolland’s face, a few months back, held the pleasure of having avenged his family.
Rolland was right to think that the colonists would not have handled his victory well. Shortly after we discovered the first Helgrauss’ dead, eight men were killed. An over confidence led them out hunting. Any moment of renewed faith the colonists found from a single monster being killed, was destroyed by four fathers, three husbands and one son being slaughtered out on expedition.
I was not sure what fueled Rolland at that point, what made him keep killing. Surely, his own hatred for the Helgrauss had subsided and a fear for the monsters would have returned to him after his first kill. Yet, his work against the creatures became more heinous. He had entered into some primitive war with them. Carcasses had been left outside the doors of our science building, the intent to lend material for study. Eventually, Rolland had placed heads of the beasts on posts at the colony gates. All along, I knew it was him. The more I was certain of Rolland’s motives, the more I was left with the bigger question of how. Again, I only wondered this until he came to.
Since his family’s death, I made a point to note Rolland’s behavior. It is my work to keep watch for the devil and keep our colonists safe from him. He certainly made the trek with us from home. I kept a keen eye expecting evidence of Rolland’s descent into temptation. I anticipated alcohol or drugs. Every Wednesday and Sunday however, Rolland was in service. Never having come before his family was killed; he became a fixture of my sermons. He was the first to come and last to leave. It seems now that the other obvious thing to watch for was Rolland seeking revenge. Then however, it seemed impossible. One man couldn’t have been so deranged to think he could kill one let alone survive an encounter. More so, Rolland had been in every service. I could see clearly he was not that far gone.
Rolland came to me on a Thursday. He had trimmed his beard and taken extra care to look presentable.
“Father, can I have a moment of your time?” he asked, as he looked me in the eye. The crazed gleam had left his expression for months now.
“Of course Rolland,” I answered and began to move to a pew.
“Perhaps your office would be better.” His voice was as cold as the winter his family died.
We walked back and his demeanor was resolved. I wanted only to know how he was doing it. I could only imagine the guilt from his revenge had overcome him and he felt this would cleanse his soul. I was nowhere close.
“Father I need you to sit down and listen to something. In the end you will need to take notes.”
Only at that first moment of his commanding me to sit did I fear him.
“A few months ago, the first Helgrauss was killed. Do you remember?” He stood as he spoke with one hand gripping the top of a chair in front of him. It was a large and calloused hand, covered with evidence of work far more grueling than his mill job.
I couldn’t help but smile. I acted as if I had to recall. “Yes Rolland, I remember.”
“I had gone out to hunt them. I needed to kill one ever since they took my wife and daughter.”
I only nodded.
“I was thirty klicks out. I hadn’t found a one.”
I had begun to question him. Thirty kilometers? Two months ago, we were still in the middle of snow and ice worse than the arctic back on Earth. Thirty klicks out and he would had been a dead man. Perhaps the monsters were in hibernation, but the weather would have been lethal enough. I assumed this was going to be a crazed, delusional story.
“No one has made it that far in five years without being killed.” He had started again. His voice held an anger I didn’t understand.
“It wasn’t fair. They had to come to me.” His grip was beginning to tear into the chair’s fabric. “So I asked God,” he said looking at me accusingly. “I asked him for understanding of why he took them. I demanded he explain how he could let my daughter and wife be killed!” Rolland stood motionless for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then, before I considered a response, a delirious smile spread across his face. “Then, he brought me one.” He slowly dragged a chair in front of my desk and sat in it. He seemed overcome with joy as he sat, preparing to go on.
“The lord works in mysterious ways, Rolland.” I had said, my words failing me.
“There was nothing mysterious about it, father.” He shook his head at me as he spoke. “The thing made cracks in the ice that I could have heard for miles. He was coming at me slow. I heard every step. It circled me as tears were coming to my face. At that moment, I understood god’s work. I found his purpose for me.”
I had figured Rolland had gone crazy at this point and for a few moments after.
“I smashed it on top of its head with my fist as it came at me. I knew it was scared. I could taste its fear.”
As he spoke now, he looked at his hands as if they held some amazing power.
“I flipped the bastard a few yards away and he stood, dazed. It whimpered as it began to circle me again.” Rolland looked at me as he described it and despite what he was telling me, I saw no trace of a deranged man as I looked back.
“It cowered away from me. The rest of his pack crept farther away too. There were scared now that I was one of them. I was one of them but bigger, meaner, come to settle up with them. They were only hoping they could bide time.”
I think the way I adjusted in my chair made it apparent to Rolland I was skeptical.
“I’m telling you they are gone now,” he said awkwardly.
“Rolland, are you saying you killed them all with your bare hands?” I had asked evenly.
“No.” he said softly. “I think some of them ran away, maybe to the next colony.” He paused. There was something deeper gnawing at him. “You’ll want to take out some paper now Father.”
I did so without questioning and sat ready to take notes. Yet I only expect more lunacy.
“I had seen them a year ago, when they killed Jessica and Lilly. I had done better, considering I hadn’t turned into one of them then.” He looked at me again, reluctant. “You take a man’s wife in such a painful way, his daughter screaming...” Tears released from his eyes in a stream down his cheeks. “I went after them. I fought one then, the last in the pack as I got up to them.” His voice and face held guilt now.
“I broke away the spikes on its back and clawed to get between its shell and at something vital. I had looked at the others waiting for them to help their brother, to kill me, as I was sure they would. But they didn’t. They only looked on as if in shock that one man could be so brave, so angry, or so stupid. When the one I was on finally got its mouth around my arm, it stopped too. Either pity or shock, maybe bewilderment, regardless they left me there. I bleed out over the ice and knew death would find me. It didn’t.”
I listened in amazement and felt stupid for not having taken notes. He was claiming he could turn into one, like a werewolf.
“You’ll need twenty men. Nets, rope, hooks, laser scoped rifles and a place to set up at a distance. Put twenty yards between me and them.” He looked at the paper now.
As I wrote, I was lost. He said they were gone. Was he was telling me how to catch him, how to kill him? Why?
“Lilly and I were the only ones from the Darcus sector back home. And no one here ever let us forget it. Jessica came home feeling less of a person every day. Lilly hated going to the market, much less, would she imagine going to service. The colony treated us like bastards.”
I shook my head. He was right. I had seen it myself.
“The way the others ran when the attacks came, the way that colonists turned away from one another in their greatest moments of need, the way none came to help Lilly...” He stared at his hands now and they opened and clinched shut slowly, over and over.
“I know that this is my brain justifying a hunger. I need to kill now. I have gotten so much from doing it. I didn’t feed on their meat. I feed on my hatred for them. My mind is looking for more enemies. I am still sane enough to see that.” He stood and turned to face the door. “Father, your sermons helped me. But the bite of that one put something in me. I am turning into one of them more and more. My hatred fuels it I think.” He balled his fists tight and kept them that way. “You’ll need to kill me before I take to running with the devil, for I have walked with him for too long now.” He turned back to face me. “Tonight I won’t be able to find the difference between hatred and revenge. I’m too far gone. I will turn into one of them again and if I don’t find another Helgrauss, I will come after the colony.”
I said nothing and only nodded solemnly. He left.
I first confirmed what Rolland had said about his bite with the biologist. I made no mention of his warning and confession. They had studied the carcass Rolland left at their door months back. Since that attack nearly a year ago, when Rolland was bitten, a venomous spit from the Helgrauss could work its way through a man’s system. Rolland’s DNA was being reconfigured and responding instantly to the hundreds of years of evolution, the Helgrauss had already gone through. It was actually an amazingly generous trait of the beasts. Not only had Rolland been killing them, he was becoming one of them.
I left several details out as I gathered the men. I originally found twenty strong and willing but three backed out. My only concern was how to find him and how to lure him. I knew we needed bait.
As we left the walls of the colony, I couldn’t help but think this could have been a trick. Perhaps now Rolland could pick us all off easier. I knew that was not my faith talking.
I was surprised by how well the men followed my direction. I wanted to believe they did so because they respected me from hearing my sermons, the same way Rolland had mentioned.
We didn’t kill Rolland that night. I found a clearing, just as he recommended. The men set up at a distance farther than twenty yards and still close enough to have clear, easy shots. I centered myself in the middle of them all, unarmed, hoping to draw his killer instinct. I cut my arm to let out the scent of blood. This disturbed some of the men.
We waited almost an hour until he finally found us. As he came close, he focused on me as I intended. He had transformed into something similar to a Helgrauss but far larger and more menacing. His face was covered in the bone spikes as if they replaced the thick hair of his beard. He moved naturally on all fours now. He circled me with the same hateful thirst I had seen in the other monsters. Yet, when he stared into me eye, something changed. I saw Rolland’s eyes. As he stood looking at me, I believe he saw mine too. I believe he was again moved by my faith. Rolland saw me defenseless, bleeding, hoping to draw him so we may stop him. He saw my act as selfless and in attempt of saving him from everlasting damnation, to keep him from further sin. It was actually, as he stated his own acts were earlier, stupid. I had no hope should he have come at me.
Several of the men couldn’t stand the sight of Rolland. They didn’t know it was him, and began firing. It was barely an annoyance to Rolland’s new hard skin. Yet something made it through his shell, as I am certain he began to cry.
He fled the gunfire and as I watched him go, two things came to me. For all the times he came to service he was already at peace. Having avenged his family, he didn’t need me or my sermons for that. He was only there so he would look unsuspecting to me or anyone else. It was only by chance, God’s work, that something I said took hold with him. Second, I knew where he was going. He headed for another of the colonies. He had said he thought the remaining Helgrauss headed there. And where else would they find prey? Where else would he?
