Night 46: Stalking Nightmares

--- Jon ---

Despite having made one or two midnight forays into the city, this was his first time actively searching it at night given how he’d known roughly where the Dealers gathered to sell and could easily look up their two safehouses on a mapping app. All of which he could safely do from street level with minimal work.

Whereas now in order to follow the compass and try to keep a decent view of his surroundings, he’d had to travel a mix of rooftops and back alley’s as the compass would occasionally jump when he assumed his (prey) was doing much the same.

All in all he was finding it to be a notably different experience than traversing the Blackwell Woods at night. (Though it has been notably safer, without the Corrupted trying to kill me every five minutes.)

Coming to a stop, he couldn’t help but frown as the compass spun in a couple circles before focusing roughly in the direction he’d been moving.

Working off of a hunch he continued on for a couple more minutes, moving faster than he had prior, before eventually checking the compass again and finding it spinning in circles rather than giving him an actual heading.

(Guess this is as close as it can get me.) He figured, before switching the compass to its mapping function, hoping that what he was close enough for the creature to appear via whatever ‘threat detection’ system Ms. Delacroix had had built into it. And while the compass did give him a decent map of the area, it did not in fact show the creature anywhere on it. (Meaning either it doesn’t know I’m here or at the very least doesn’t mean me any harm.)

Deciding that he’d gotten as much out of the compass as he could at the moment, he put it back in his pack before making his way to the top of a nearby building, hoping that the higher vantage point would let him spot his (prey) before it spotted him.

Another thing he found different from the forests he was more familiar with was the fact that the city had so much light pollution that he had no trouble making out just about everything around him. (Which would be an improvement if) (not for the fact that I’m more visible as well.)

He felt a faint… something in the back of his head. Nothing as strong as what he’d experience from the Man in the Mask’s Madness or the Beast of Blackwell’s insanity, nor even as strong as the Terror of Val’s Scarecrow, but still he could feel (something) in the air. Then again it could just be in his head, (the first sign that Madness is in the air.)

Knowing that something was nearby, his efforts to find something redoubled until eventually he spotted a shadow crawling on a nearby building as it quickly leapt between several windows on the building.

(That fits the Sanctuary reports of the Creeps looking for something, but it doesn’t tell me why it thinks the seal is hidden behind those particular windows…)

Which was one of his problems with the dossiers Sanctuary had given everyone, the files covered the most common Creeps in the sense of how they fight, their physical weak points, and similar but they covered next to nothing on the actual behaviors of the creatures outside of combat.

(Sloppy.) The more… predatory parts of his mind growled, knowing that the most important part of hunting something dangerous was knowing its behaviors to the point of predicting where it’ll go and what it’ll do.

Which is why he decided to do something that he fully admitted was less than smart and followed the Creep rather than picking it off while it was all alone. All in the hopes of learning something about the creature that could help him with the upcoming Halloween Haunt.

Not that he wouldn’t rip its throat out with his teeth if it tried to hurt someone, but (priorities.)

Despite now having his (prey) in sight, he found following it to be no easier than tracking it had been, given how he was forced to follow from street level while the Creep was capable of leaping entire blocks with ease. The only thing easing his tracking, the fact that the Creep whenever the creature would find another building to inspect it would spend several minutes doing so, allowing him just enough time to catch up before watching it leap away over a nearby rooftop.

The fifth time this happened he couldn’t help a growl of frustration from bubbling out of his throat, as he found himself wishing for the more constrained environment of the woods he was familiar with. Where even in the dark his (prey) would leave notable tracks for him to follow through the foliage or where he could use the numerous trees, hills, and rock formations to slow down, lose, or catch up to the shambling Corrupted that littered the forest.

But still he hunted in the concrete jungle despite being at notable disadvantage of both his usual mobility and familiarity with the environment and its various obstacles.

And though he did lose sight of (prey) far more times than he was comfortable with, after years of running with his Ma every morning and a few boosts from Pix, he was just barely able to keep up with the Creep for the many hours it searched. Somehow all while avoiding the eyes of the few roaming officers who might take issue with a hooded teenager running around so late after the city’s curfew.

Eventually though these efforts paid off as the Creep came to a stop in a city and after (poorly) making sure that no one was following it began pried open a storm drain cover before climbing inside as it lowered the cover behind it.

Making his way over, he crouched down to inspect the metal lid and found it covered in numerous claw marks, proving that this wasn’t a one time thing but rather a likely nest that the Creeps had settled into.

(Now the question is whether it’d be safer to go in now or closer to the day?)

If he went in now the Creeps would more than likely be active inside, but he’d also place good money that a fair number of them weren’t inside of the nest since there were still a fair few hours before sunrise. That said, if he spent too long down there it was also a fair bet that he’d run into one of the creatures on his way out, (which could work for or against me if I want to wait for more of them to get back…)

Alternatively he could way until just before daybreak, when most of the creatures would’ve returned to their nest and likely begun to settle in for what he hoped was a nocturnal sleep cycle giving him an advantage if he tried to cover the place in traps or kill them in their sleep. Though if he alerted the Creeps while half way through the nest, he was liable to find himself surrounded and swarmed by them unless he fought his way back to the surface.

(Either way, can’t be any worse than walking into a Corrupted nest.)

Of course those were just his options if he kept himself limited to this night, which was his initial plan since his Ma was pulling an overnighter at the station and likely wouldn’t be in until he was getting ready for school.

If he instead came back on a different night, he could get a few more things together and maybe try a different approach to dealing with the Creep nest, maybe even calling in some backup if he really felt like he needed help. The problem there was the fact that he had less than a week before Halloween, and with it getting so close Sanctuary and the Guild would be too busy getting ready for the actual ‘Haunt’ as it were to deal with this. (Which is the whole reason they brought Hunters in in the first place.)

Which to be fair was an option for him too. (It’s a little too short notice to take care of tonight, but I could probably get Travis or Daisy to get their teams to help. Then again The Scarecrow could probably do a fair amount of damage in such a closed space too…)

But that was only if he didn’t feel comfortable taking the nest on himself, after all aside from Val and her Scarecrow he hadn’t actually seen any of them fight, and bringing someone he wasn’t familiar with into a fight could just make things significantly more difficult than killing the Creeps in their sleep or turning their nest into a kill box.

A part of him briefly considered bringing Ying along, but she’d just barely been able to scrape together the time to help him with his axe that afternoon, and (I sincerely doubt she’ll be able to sneak out again before Halloween if her mom really is trying to keep her away from this mess.)

Looking down at the storm drain cover he let out a sigh before making his decision.