Secret Of The Crest (15 page)

  ‘Gregori, be cautious! It’s not just you now.’

  ‘I will.’ Gregor gathered his things. Among them a small tranquilizer gun and a bow with arrows that had numbing liquid in their tips.

   He put together all the parts of his weaponry quickly and with a great ease. He had all sorts of supplies in the large antique chest that until now had been locked but also sat decorating the corner of the hostel’s lounge. Now Gregor was prepared. He sat in the armchair waiting patiently for the hunters to come down. A few minutes later the sound of feet coming down the stairs grabbed Gregor’s attention and at once he stood up with readiness.

   ‘We are ready, Gregor!’ said Mr. Gannaris. He was the one who took initiative within the group.

   ‘Let’s go then and may I remind you. I want no one going off on there own. If you see anything you will tell me and I will tend to it. No heroic acts. If you are under direct attack then shoot your rifles as fast as you can to save yourselves. Is that clear?’

   They all agreed and were led down the trail by Gregor. Only a couple of minutes had passed as the first drops came down on them. Lightening lit up the sky and the dark crannies in the woods. Louder and louder the thunder rolled as the men walked deeper into the woods. Finally, they came to the point where the boar had been attacked. Gregor set down his gear and circled his flash light to find something only he knew. He touched the bark of the trees around them and then he knelt and picked up some of the dirt off the ground where the animal carcasses laid. He lifted the dirt to his face and smelled it. Gregor looked up into the trees. His thoughts were interrupted by the astonished look on the face of Mr. Gannaris.

   ‘What are you looking for, Gregor?’

   ‘I’m trying to find a clue as to which way the guilty party went from here. Follow me!’

   Gregor lifted his gear again and went north. The rain fell hard now and the men couldn’t see clearly.

   ‘We must move quicker,’ said Gregor. ‘The rain will unfortunately wash out the clues. We also need to get to shelter. There is a small cave further away that we will reach soon.’

  For the hunters, the thunder was nerve breaking as they searched for their missing friends. One of them even mentioned that he felt as if they were in a Hitchcock movie hearing the thunder and the crows in the late hours of the night. The hunters had already started loosing hope of finding their friends before they came out. In truth they expected the worst.  Gregor heard the cries of the hunter behind him wailing for his friend.

   ‘Mikhail! Mikhail! Oh no, no, no! Oh, my God, have mercy!’ He cried in despair at the sight of his friend who was unrecognizable hanging by his feet and stripped of his flesh down to his very bones. Only his head and the pieces of his shredded clothes gave clue that it was him.

   One of the hunters started vomiting until he passed out after seeing the gruesome sight. The others were in no better condition as they fell to the ground crying like babies over the loss of their companion. Gregor was at the body searching for clues that would lead him to the killer.  He looked at what was left of it and realized that it was a vindictive ghoul who had taken the man’s life so horridly. Looking at the head he saw no cross scar as his kind would have left. His kind drank only to survive, never to kill.  Now he was sure that it was Giorgio’s doing.

   ‘Mr. Gannaris,’ he said, ‘help your friend. We must get to the cave before someone else is attacked.’

   The other two hunters picked up their half conscious friend and they all walked on until they reached the cave. When they finally were in the cave they laid him down and let him sleep it off. The man hadn’t recovered from the shock of seeing his friend hanging without flesh. He had passed out again. 

   ‘It’s no use trying to wake him. We’ll be here for a couple of hours. You should take off his wet clothes though and all of you should get rid of them because we will be here a while. I will start a fire. Soon we’ll be warm,’ Gregor said.

   He gathered the wood and in no time and the fire started to warm their drenched bodies. Every one of them gathered around the fire.

   ‘What now?’ said Mr. Gannaris?

   ‘I think it would be appropriate if we said a word for your lost friend, Mikhail.’ All of them agreed and standing up they looked at each other thinking who would go first.

   ‘Mr. Gannaris.’

   ‘Call me Dimitri, please.’

   ‘Yes, of course. Would you like to begin saying a word or a prayer for your friend?’ The man was in devastation as he new that his friend deserved much more than he could possibly think of saying after a death like that.

   ‘May God have mercy on Mikhail’s soul and grant him everlasting peace in his green pastures.’ With this, the man lowered his head and wiped his tears. In a moment, angered this time, he added, ‘And may he give us the power to avenge his death by finding the monster that killed him and taking it down. Amen!’

   ‘Amen!’ the rest of them called out in a single voice.  Now that that was taken care of they all sat down and Pano the hunter who saw Mikhail first finally came to.

   ‘Tell me that I dreamt all of it! Tell me that Mikhail is alive!’

   ‘I am sorry but Mikhail is truly gone. Come close to the fire and get warm. We will figure out a way to punish the killer!’ Dimitri was saying. Gregor was deep in his thoughts. “
If it was Georgio who did this brutal act he deserves to die but what if it were new ghouls who haven’t leant to feed without killing yet. They deserve a chance to learn to control themselves as I had,
” he thought to himself. ‘As soon as the rain dies down we will leave,’ he said out loud. ‘Until then get some rest, it’s going to be a long night. I’ll go out and collect some more wood in the meantime to keep the fire going.’

   The men began making assumptions about where the monster might be found. Gregor went off to find the fire wood. In reality he wanted to go out to a point that he new Giorgio might be. He gathered the wood that lay in a tree hollow and ran into the woods to find him.  He was at the hidden cabin that Giorgio stayed in.

   ‘Giorgio! Giorgio, come out we have a problem!’

   Giorgio’s voice came from behind him.

   ‘You must have meant to say that you are here because you have a problem and need my help.’ 

   ‘No, actually I do mean
we
have a problem. There was a ghoul attack on a hunter and it was very sloppy. Was it you? I have hunters out there who lost there friend in the worst way and expect my help so was it you?’

   ‘Gregor, Gregor, you never cease to amaze me. First of all I am flattered that you would blame me with “sloppy”. Second, your four hunters are less than two minutes to feast on between the two of us. I know you are a party animal as much as I am. Give in to your urges, don’t be a hater of your own kind. Problem solved,’ he said smugly.

   ‘Get serious, one of the hunters is still out there and I don’t know if he is dead or alive but he must be found! If another hunter is found dead all the media will come into our lands. Do you not know what that will mean? We need to get them all out of here alive.’

   ‘I can’t help you Gregor you are an abomination to your kind, a traitor and I will not help you. On the contrary if I find the hunter first dead or alive I will leave my marks on him. Now go!’

   Gregor was now in Giorgio’s face. He looked deep into his eyes as he said, ‘Make sure our paths never cross again because if they do, you will never see the light of day again.’

  His shoulders had lifted and his face had darkened. His nature couldn’t be helped as he wished his blood was not ghoul. Even in this condition his logic didn’t abandon him. He had trained since he was young. Gregor turned and headed back to the cave. By then his features had returned to normal.

   ‘Where have you been? We started to worry something had happened to you!’ said Dimitri.

   ‘I had to get out further to find these thicker logs that will hold up the fire much longer. I need you all to concentrate and tell me about your other friend. What kind of a personality is he? Does he frighten easy, is he reckless, any little detail about him can help me track him quicker.’

   ‘Well Mano is not a sissy or anything like that. He is actually pretty fearless and he has an awfully bad temper,’ replied Spiro, who was the shortest of the hunters.

   ‘He is an athlete and takes part in the Olympic Games,’ Vaggo added.

   Vaggo was the best of the hunters. He could shoot a fly from a mile’s distance.

   ‘Okay then, your friend has a very good chance of being alive.’

   Now that Gregor knew it wasn’t Giorgio who made the attack he needed to find the ghoul who did it. Was it a new ghoul or was it a devious one from another territory ripping through these parts? He wondered. He needed to get to the hunter before Giorgio did. He was sure that he would take advantage of the situation. Giorgio wouldn’t take the hunter’s life now that he knew there was a search out for him. Not even he was that stupid but he would keep his word and dine on the victim who was in his back yard. These thoughts put Gregor into fast forward.

   ‘We can’t wait any longer, rain or not we are going out there to find your friend. All of you should take out your flashlights and here is a dagger for each of you. Don’t touch the blade though because they have been dipped in poison. If you come face to face with the creature stab it and do not remove the dagger.’ Gregor was lying through his teeth. The daggers were dipped in a tranquilizer. He couldn’t have the hunters know that he intended to save the ghoul who had killed their friend or at least until he found out who he actually was. It would be difficult for him to confront the ghoul with all of them there so the best way was to put him into a deep sleep. The hunters would think he was dead.

   ‘Everyone ready? Let’s go!’ Gregor led them once more. This time they went towards the river bank.

   There, there were trees that were so big their trunks had become hollow and held up to three people in them if used to hide in. Gregor felt that he might have used one of them had he gone that way. All of them reached the river bank and started to search within the hollows calling out his name.

   Gregor found a set of foot steps that led to some huts at the bottom of the trail. The huts were built to accommodate tourist in the summer months when they wanted to fish at the river and sleep on sight. They needn’t put up a tent for a night but stayed in the simple huts.

   ‘Be as careful as possible; I need to check something, I’ll be right back!’

   He hurried down the trail and the tracks led him straight into the first hut. He looked inside but no one was there. He went on to the second and third hut but no luck there either. Mano wasn’t there but the strange thing was that there were no more footsteps. Gregor heard the rest of the group coming toward him.

   ‘So much for staying put!’ he mumbled.

   ‘We searched thoroughly through all the trees and found nothing,’ Dimitri said. ‘I followed these prints that led me here but it is a dead end he isn’t here.’

   Vaggo bent over to look at the set of prints. ‘These are not Mano’s prints. He is wearing boxer treks, they have a different print,’ he said. 

   ‘Great! We have to keep on this trail!’ Gregor explained, ‘I think your friend might be near by.’

   ‘What makes you say that? Why couldn’t he have gone off on one of the other trails?’ asked Pano.

   ‘He’s a hunter, he hunts boar, look here. See the boar tracks they go all the way to that trail over there.’ He pointed to the west. ‘Don’t you think that there is a possibility that they might have been on this trail when they disappeared? It connects to where we found Mikhail’s body just a few meters through those trees there.’

   ‘You mean we’ve been going in circles?’ asked Dimitri.

   ‘I’m saying your other friend is alive and well somewhere and we need to move quickly before danger finds him.’

   They scanned the area thoroughly for clues but found nothing. Then Vaggo followed a set of prints that began further away from where the rest of the men were standing. He saw that they were tracks from Mano’s shoes. They were not to far off from where they had found Mikhail and led in the direction toward the hostel.

   ‘These are his tracks they lead back toward the way we just came from!’ Vaggo yelled out in relief.  

   ‘These weren’t here before; your friend must be looking for you,’ said Gregor. Kneeling down to take a better look he saw some blood. ‘He is also injured.’

   The men followed the tracks which took many different turns than the ones they had used but they still led them back to the inn where to their surprise, Mano was laying almost passed out at the front door he had just made it there himself. Barely conscious and bleeding he smiled at the sight of his friends.

   ‘Mano!’ cried out Dimitri.

   His friend finally passed out. The men carried him into the inn and put him on a bed in the back room that was a storage room. It was packed with towels and sheets as well as toiletries. Gregor called his grandmother to come in and tend to the man’s wounds with her medicinal herbs that she made herself with the forest’s herbs. 

   ‘Bring me some alcohol and fresh towels’ she said to him. After cleaning his wounds thoroughly, she anointed him with a thick coat of ointment.