George Hunterson was not someone you could remember. He was the average height for a thirty year old, had brown hair and brown eyes, and wasn't overweight or strongly muscled. And yet, he had one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Does he work for the CIA? No. FBI? No. Secret Service? Heck no. Then what does he do?
George Hunterson was a professional poacher, and damn good at it too.
George Hunterson was one of the best poachers known on the black market. He was fast, accurate, and very quiet about his work. He had received contracts for gorilla, Panda, Bengal tiger, Siberian Tiger and once even for a Komodo Dragon. This contract was the strangest ever.
His employer was an Aussie named Wes. Just Wes. He got the call around five. Wes asked if this was George Hunterson. He then said that he had a very interesting job offer for him.
George drove over to the shack Wes owned. When George first got there, he had doubts that this guy could pay for whatever job he was signed up for. The he went inside. Inside was a set of stairs that led downward. Downstairs was a palace. The floor was real marble, and the walls were pure granite. There were the usual mansion things, expensive artwork on the wall, statues made by insane artists, etc. Wes showed him to the Den, where two twenty foot long couches sat, right across from one another. After a few minutes, Wes sat down on the other couch across from him. "So, you think you could take down the quarry I want you to take down?"
"Depends, do I have to use my own weapon, or do you plan to give me one?" said George. This was always a good question to ask. It could mean a few hundred dollars saved on buying whatever high powered rifle he might need. He could also save on ammo.
"I'll supply you with the gun you need. In fact," Wes was saying "I have it right here." He pulled out a large gun case. It was a very large gun case. Wes set it down and flipped up the latches with a loud "Snap". Nestled in the molded foam, was a Barrett .55 caliber, high powered rifle. It could break apart cinderblock with one shot and seriously dent a plate of 1/4 inch steel.
"What the hell do you want me to shoot?"
"Something you've never even heard of"
Wes walked over to a large dresser drawer, his feet barely making a noise on the hard marble floor. He opened a drawer, and walked over with a remote. He pointed it to a TV bigger than a garage door, entered some numbers, then pressed "On". The TV roared to life with some dramatic music. Then the picture appeared. It was a digital snapshot, but of a lizard that was larger than the truck it was next to. There was a little date at the bottom, "22/7/05". Then Wes pushed another button, and another picture came up, then another, and another, then there was an entire home movie of the lizard stalking a kangaroo and then eating it.
"What the Hell is that?" George asked.
"Megalania Prisca, dragon of the Outback, and recently of my fifty acre estate that I want cleared for housing. No one is going to buy property knowing that there's a twenty five foot lizard that can stalk and kill a human being. I want you to kill it. Shoot it somewhere inconspicuous, so that the bullet hole won't be obvious when I mount it." Wes said.
I could go over the long details that transpired over all this, but that would be very boring wouldn't it? Fast forward about two weeks.
George is now walking through the outback, Eucalyptus trees whistling in the slight wind. He was walking very quietly, barely making a sound. Then in a clump of bush's about five feet away a man stood up. George was unprepared for this and raised the rifle dead straight between the man's eyes. The man was stunned for a second, looking down the barrel of a gun capable of going through his head and out the other side, then imbedding itself two feet into a tree. Then the man relaxed.
George's heart skipped a beat.
The man had just pumped an extra shell into a 20 gauge semi auto shotgun. The man was now smiling. I still got the drop on him thought George. Then the man raised an eyebrow and there was the sound of a second semi auto shotgun pumping right behind him. Now I don't he thought. He dropped the gun on the ground, and raised his hands into the air. "What do you want of me?" asked George. "And who the Hell are you two anyway?"
"I am David, this is my partner, Kyle. We are here for the very same reason you are. Except we don't want to kill the beastie. We want to study it." David was saying. "And what we want of you is to turn around, get in your fancy camouflaged truck, and go away. Tell Wes that you canceled the contract because of 'personal matters'."
"How do you know all of this?" George asked. "We kept everything under wraps, no one knew anything about what we were doing. How did you find out?"
"You kept everything under-wraps except your employees. They were a great source. Plus the fact that I got an eye and an ear on anything on cryptids everywhere. I have my ways." David said.
"Plus you got your regular gossip and whatnot so that always helps." said Kyle behind him.
While the men were talking, a pair of jet black eyes were watching them. The enormous head they were set into flicked out a forked tongue, and sniffed the air with wide nostrils. This was Megalania Prisca, the true Dragon of the Outback. At twenty five feet long and with enough claws and teeth to rip open a man with one bite, this animal was force to be reckoned with. It was colored like a perenti. Then it struck.
With the momentum of a small train, Megalania rammed itself into the body of George. It's teeth ripped through his flesh and carved jagged lines into his very bones. It skidded in the dusty dirt, and turned to face the other two people. George had been thrown clear into a tree after Megalania had let go of him. David and Kyle exchanged quick glances, the they both ran like the Devil. Megalania instantly gave chase. David had never ran faster in his entire life, not even from Kasai Rex. The only reason this was true was because there was little in the way of his legs and torso. Megalania was some fifty feet behind, but it was just going to keep going the same speed after them. It was going to tire them out. David was not about to let that happen.
They both spotted the same tree and ran to climb it. They both bolted up the tree and were at the top faster than microwaved honey. Soon Megalania was trying to break the tree down, and was doing pretty well too. The tree was bending ever so slightly. But it kept bending just a little bit more and a little bit more. David fired a shot at Megalania Prisca. Blood speckled it's face as the steel shot pierced it's armored hide. The lizard winced and stopped trying to punch the tree down. It shook it head and began to lumber away.
George shook himself awake. He was bleeding, a good many of his ribs were broken as well as some other bones, and most importantly he didn't know where his gun was. Oh, it was on the ground. But he was in tree. How was he going to get his gun? He tried to move his legs. They moved fine, with only slight pain from bruising. He climbed down and picked his gun up. It was perfectly fine. There was a crack of twigs. George's head whipped toward the sound. There was Megalania, standing there, with blood dripping off it's long snout onto the dry, hard ground. George slowly lifted the gun. His trophy may not be as clean as he wanted George thought but at least he is going to get it. George fired. The sound of the shot echoed through the trees, some birds took flight from the sound. Megalania roared in pain and anger, having been shot in the chest. It ran toward George with bloody rage in it's cold reptilian eyes, mouth wide open exposing a row of railroad spike-like teeth. It rammed into his body with the same force as before, and hit almost the same spot. George knew what was going to happen, and let fly several shots from the rifle. Megalania let out a long low hiss, like a tire deflating, and sank to the ground. George was in pain, everything that wasn't in pain must not have been attached to his body. He reached for his satellite phone, which was protected in a steel case, and called Wes. "The lizard is dead." George said, then he hung up. He hobbled over to his truck, and got his medical kit. He patched himself up, then called a friend to have the carcass picked up. Then he left.
David was still in the tree when all this was happening. So was Kyle. They heard the shots, the roar, just about everything. "When do you think it will be safe to come down?" asked Kyle.
"Right about now," said David, lowering himself onto the ground. "Think we should go back? We hardly knew the guy and he was trying to kill an animal that may have been endangered. Or then again it could be thriving and he was doing the population a favor by decreasing the number of resource needing individuals. Or-"
"-you could be talking to much." Kyle finished.
Wes's property held more than one Megalania, in fact, it held about three of them. Megalania get along much better with each other than most lizards do. That is why the species continued to survive into modern times. They were fine with smaller space, they needed very little to get by. While David and Kyle were talking, a second Megalania was watching them. It didn't move, didn't flick out it's tongue, did nothing except breath. It saw what had happened to the other Megalania, and it knew that those long shiny tubes meant death. It would have to get them out of the human's grasps.
Megalania's small brain went over the possibilities in it's head. In dumbed down terms of course. It finally had a plan. It ran toward them and grabbed one gun in it's jaws and smacked the other one with it's tail, sending it flying into the bushes. Then Megalania ran off. Both David and Kyle were stunned. They had never thought that the lizard had the sense to link "pain" with "gun". Then Megalania charged again. It grabbed Kyle in it's mouth and started to shake him wildly. Then the Megalania slapped at David with it's tail, causing David to have the wind knocked out of him.
Kyle was in a world of pain, having his torso being sawed by giant teeth is nothing fun. He was about to black out from the trauma and loss of blood. He reached for his knife and stabbed randomly at Megalania. He cut open it's nostril, punctured part of it's eye, and cut deep grooves into it's skull. Megalania let go. It hadn't been expecting that. Megalania had hoped that it would have a kill, to recharge it's strength and so that it wouldn't be so tired. It had used most of it's energy on that attack. It sank to the ground. David recuperated and rushed over to Kyle. He was bleeding heavily. David reached into his pockets and came out with some gauze, and some antibacterial wipes. Make do with what you got David thought to himself. He wiped down the wounds and put gauze around them. He reached into a different pocket and came out with his cell phone. There was enough battery for about six calls. He scanned the horizon for a cell tower. He saw one that was no more than a mile away. No matter where you go you just can't get away from them David thought with amusement. He dialed up 911. He got a helicopter in and Kyle survived. The perfect happy ending.
Except one thing.
Wes had his Megalania mounted in his den, much to the surprise of guests. People asked how he got it and wove a story of how he had found it dead on that fifty acre estate and had it stuffed since it was so interesting. People would talk about it alot and sometimes a maid or butler would overhear. Then the butler or maid would pull them over and tell them the truth, and that person would tell the truth, about the poacher, who when he came and gave him the body had looked as though he had gone through a meat processing plant... as the meat. They would tell others about that same poacher who had came in originally for the contract as tough as nails, and who left the contract as fragile as a baby. Soon people would leave the party early and be muttering to themselves. Wes faced charges of hiring a poacher, that poacher was George Hunterson, who turned himself in because he wanted to see the man suffer who made him undergo three hours of surgery so that he could walk and bend over. Wes faced so many lawsuits he soon lost money. He had to fire or let go every single butler and maid, had to sell the underground palace, and was soon living in a cruddy apartment in downtown Sydney. Another thing that didn't help his situation was that David had captured the second Megalania and was showing the world it's amazing lifestyle and habits. He soon became as rich as the former Wes, he donated most of it so that fifty acre estates could become a refuge for Megalania. This made people think that Wes had been hunting an endangered species. Guess what that means? More charges and more money getting put forth. The city had a field day with all the money it was getting.
Meanwhile, a Megalania was stalking a kangaroo. It was creeping up slowly behind it, not making a sound. When it was no more than fifty feet form the kangaroo, it charged. It latched onto the kangaroo, then there was a bright blast of white, noiseless light. It continued ripping apart the kangaroo, and began to eat it. "That was awesome," a little boy whispered to his mom. Those two and the husband were at the fifty acre estate, now an Australian National Park. The family was getting pictures of a Megalania feeding, hence the bright flash of light. The family had nothing to worry, they had an armed guard with them, same as every family who entered the park. The family watched for a bit, then moved on. That, is a happy ending.
The End |
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