Page 41 - Hunter - The Vigil

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C CHAPTER ONE: SHADOWS CAST BY FIRELIGHT
zombie apocalypse on your hands if you can’t put it down fast. all into wolves. So lycanthropes were born. At least, that’s the

Good luck figuring out which type is which, hunters say. Most story a lot of hunters tell.
just try to kill the walking dead no matter how pathetic they Lycanthropy is a term hunters often use to describe any
seem, not caring to risk a potential “hot zone.” But when the creature that shifts between forms of animal and man, even
zombie has the face of a loved one or of a trusted cellmate, though it really just indicates a werewolf. Some know the
what happens then? term to more accurately be therianthropy.
Where do zombies come from? Nobody knows. Some While the Lycaon origin holds for some, others claim
seem to spring whole cloth out of nothing. Maybe it’s chemi- that shapeshifters are bound to the moon somehow. Others
cals or pollution, or maybe it’s some demonic curse. Others say they got that way because they coupled with wolves or

rise like ghosts, driven by some unfinished purpose or need. other beasts, or were somehow cursed by witches or even the
Rumors exist that more than a few zombies are just the unwit- Devil for some wretched act that has fallen outside memory.
ting servants of weird alchemy-slinging magicians or vampiric For as many origins as are suspected, there exist just as many
overlords, and some hunters claim that if you can kill the cre- faces of lycanthropy. Most hunters accept that werewolves
ator, you kill the zombie. look human for the most part, though always have an air of
And how does one kill a zombie, anyhow? To be clear, wildness (not wilderness, mind) about them. They seem to
it’s both tough and easy. Tough because for the most part, travel in packs in much the same way that hunters travel in
they’re dead. They feel no pain. Their fl esh may fall off in cells. They zealously cling to territories, guarding a shitty city
hunks but they keep shuffl ing or, worse, sprinting. It’s easy park or a rat-trap tenement like it’s sacred ground or some-
because once you know the trick, you can apply it across the thing. They’re basically gangs composed of thugs who become
board. Most zombies go down with brain destruction — a wolves, at least that’s how most hunters see it.
shovel, a shotgun, or just a carpet of fi re that cooks the skull Of course, too many prove the exception: some act alone,
and boils the brain-meats within. Others need to have their and seem to gain their shape-changing abilities by wearing
hearts removed or have their bodies wholly diminished by animal skins or even stitching those skins to their own. Dif-
damage or fi re. ferent werewolves seem keen to help uncover ancient myster-
ies and destroy monsters just like hunters do, while others are
Those Who glad to imprison humans and farm them out as brood mares,
Change Shape pack mules, or fatted livestock.
Not to mention that a lot of them don’t even become
Some monsters wear masks that shift and warp: men wolves. Hunters hear tales telling of shapeshifters who become
who become wolves, housecats with human eyes, walking housecats, jaguars, lions, bug-eyed fish-men, boars, bulls, even

bags of skin that look human but are really just a flesh-suit trees. Those stories are either bullshit, or the world is a much

fi lled with spiders and rats. Those whose bodies are malleable weirder and more feral place than hunters had previously con-
are sometimes ferine, wild like rabid dogs. Others are seduc- sidered. If the stories are true that such creatures spread their
tive, manipulative, keen and coy and pulsing with infectious condition via bite, well…it makes a zombie apocalypse not
lust. Some shape-changers don’t seem all that harmful, and seem so bad by comparison.
some even seem like they hunt evils greater than themselves. Can hunters make alliances with packs of lycanthropes?
Many hunters contend that this is either just a ruse, or blessed It’s not common, but it does happen. If both have a common
proof that the creatures are just as happy to tear each other to enemy or protect neighboring territories, it can happen. It’s
bloody gobbets as they are to prey on humanity. Can one truly rarely permanent. It’s hardly friendly. But it happens.
trust monsters whose very form is a lie? The rest? Well, they either need to be cured of their
curse or killed before they hurt somebody. They’re carni-
Lycanthropes vores, after all. They eat meat. Human meat, sometimes.
Two things battle in the street. Both have human bodies but The question is how to kill them? Silver always seems the
lupine heads. They tear at each other with hooked claws. The answer, but it harms them and fails to harm them with
hunters hiding behind the torn up VW Bug don’t know which one equal frequency. Wolfsbane and foxglove are thought to
to shoot. So they shoot them both. be potent poisons against them (and foxglove is a very real
Three housecats purr to a hunter in a tongue mostly human: human-affecting poison known as digitalis). Variant hunter
“Kill us if you want, woman, but if you help us, we’ll help you. tales tell stories that making them drink holy water does
Now let me tell you about the Spider King of Quakertown.” the trick, as does skinning them or destroying their holy
The pack of werewolves, operating as one, slide inside the places (which could be a standing stone or a defunct phone
safehouse as silent as the stars, and they throw the dead witch down booth — you never know).
on the floor as an offering of peace. They go to leave, but don’t Problem is, getting to that stage is no easy trick. They

smell the trap. Whoosh. The place, and the pack, burns. move fast. They often have immeasurable strength. They take
The story goes like this: The Arcadian King Lycaon and on the worst and deadliest features of whatever animal they
his 50 sons offered a meal to the god Zeus, a meal secretly of mimic: claws, teeth, abrasive skin, madness-causing howls

child flesh. Zeus was outraged at the sacrifice and, after strik- and a rate of healing that is swift and diabolical. Worst, some
ing the King and his sons with terrible lightning, turned them shapeshifters seem so unnatural that hunters blank out after
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