I returned to Elbridge Island.
I found a rowboat tied to the dock, and I made my canoe fast beside it. With my Colts drawn and my Spencer slung over my shoulder, I followed the same path as the day before to Elbridge’s house.
On the other side of it, I found four hunters, a hound, and the brace of game birds they had shot just a short time before.
Only the dog seemed happy to see me.
Before his masters could stop him, the hound bounded to me. “Do you smell it?”
“I saw it yesterday,” I told the dog. “It’s why I’ve come back.”
I looked to the men who gazed at me with obvious disdain.
“This is the wrong island to be on,” I told them. “Wrong lake, as a matter of fact.”
The man holding the birds stood. “This is a good hunting ground. We’d like to stay a bit.”
Before I could reply, the monstrosity lumbered out of the woods. As the men tried to comprehend what they saw, I holstered the Colts, freed the Spencer and fired. The rifle’s slug tore a chunk away from the creature’s mouth, leaving it oozing a foul ichor the color and consistency of molasses. The sight of it sent the men into motion.
They loaded their bird guns and charged at the beast.
I don’t know if it was bravery or panic, but it spelled their doom.
I fired until I ran out of ammunition and the Spencer’s barrel had a dull glow to it.
The men raced to the monstrosity and fired into its maw with their birdshot. The beast took hold of them, howled in fury and tore them apart. When it finished, I watched the thing add their limbs to its body.
I looked down at the dog, and the dog looked up at me.
“Fire?” he asked.
“Fire,” I agreed and shrugged off my coat. I wrapped it around a length of stick, set fire to one of the finest coat’s I’ve owned, and crossed the field toward the beast. When I was a short distance from it, I drew a Colt and put a single round into the creature’s mouth.
It threw a head and lumbered toward me, and when it was close enough, I fed it the coat.
The monster coughed, howled, tried to choke up the coat and exhaled fire instead.
The dog and I watched it burn and made sure to stand upwind.
The damned thing stank like hell.
#dogs #horrorstories