Above the Spray Lakes

Laura followed El through the dense brush around the bases of the majestic pine trees. El had taken several steps and then shifted back into a timber wolf. His shoulders were hunched, his body low, and his steps chosen with care as he stalked through the trees. Laura held herself low and ready, the tension in her muscles almost agonizing. After following El for nearly two kilometres Laura saw flashes of a brightly coloured fabric through the gaps between trees ahead. As they drew closer she could make the shape of a garish yellow two-person tent.

Could he smell blood two kilometres away? Holy crap. The two teens emerged from the trees and found themselves in a small clearing on the mountain's edge. The campsite had been chosen well, for the view was truly breathtaking: high peaks, some still with snow, a glacier hanging in a small valley under one peak. Further up the mountainsides, the trees disappeared, exposing the gray seams of granite.

Her appreciation of the view lasted a few seconds as the smell and sight of the carnage hit Laura. The smell was first, it was so strong she could taste the blood in the air; a metallic taste, like having a mouthful of coins. Once a year she helped her father butcher one of the extra bulls in order to stock the two deep freezes with meat, this was similar.

The campsite was a shambles. A smouldering fire was casting bits of smoke into the air. The tent sides had been torn apart, as had a pair of hiking backpacks. A shredded sleeping bag leaked fluffy padding that fluttered slightly in the breeze. Over all of it, sprayed in garish streaks, was blood. Puddles had formed in the soil, turning the ground into mud. El advanced into the camp; head held low as he investigated, sniffing at the ground and abandoned camping gear.

“This is recent. See how the blood on the tent is just starting to thicken.” Laura picked up a stout fallen branch as she walked behind El. Next to the tent, El looked over his shoulder to her then shifted back into human form.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“About half an hour by the smell. There were two people here, it smells like they had been camped here for a day or so.”

“What did this, El? Wolves, bear?”

El shook his head, pushing his short black hair back, “No animal did this. The only animal smells here are herbivores and small rodents. There is something else here though, something like a human...but wrong.” The two looked at each other, thinking the same thing.

“Mutts?” Laura shuddered, the fine hairs on her arms standing. Not all metahumans powers activated smoothly. The powers typically emerged during stressful situations or the result of a severe injury such as Laura being gored through the abdomen by a rank-tempered bull. Scientists still debated what led to mutations, those whose powers were either uncontrolled or resulted in an extreme psychological change, similar to a psychotic break. These unfortunates were called mutations, or more crassly, mutts.

Laura hastily retrieved her cell phone from her pack, checking her reception. “Dammit! No reception. We are probably ten kilometres out of range. Well, we could...” Laura left the sentence hanging, unfinished.

“We need to call the authorities. This is not something we should handle on our own. You know what MacDonald said about vigilantism: it’s automatic removal from the Academy.” El shook his head, trying to think of alternatives.

“We can’t just do nothing. Come on Lassie, there are other people up here,” she replied as she tested the weight of her improvised club.

“I know, we came here to become heroes.” El began to say something else but then turned to the side and tackled Laura, knocking both of them to the ground as something swung down from the pine tree, passing overhead.

El rolled off her and she got a good look at the mutt as it clutched the tree twenty feet above them. It was a brown and tan spider of monstrous proportions. Its body was five feet long and each of its eight legs was six feet in length and covered with bristly hairs. Most disturbingly at the front of its thorax, instead of multiple eyes and long fangs was a human face. The face was male, perhaps late teens, and projected malevolent madness.

“Oh hell no! This is going to take years of therapy.” Laura looked around the camp for something more than a stick. El let out a low growl and shifted, morphing into a grizzly bear, huffing and pawing at the rocky ground. “Yeah you are a big scary spider, well guess what. I brought a bear!”

The spider launched itself at them. El roared and charged to meet it.