Chapter 21

His next hunt was a little sad, or at least it made Jack feel a little sad. It all started when someone lost their dog, an apparently adorable three year old Dalmatian called Pixie, unfortunately that sort of thing was becoming a more frequent occurrence as the days went by. Typically the dog owners panicked at first before putting up flyers with the dog’s details all around the city.

Surprisingly enough the dog was found, however what was even more unexpected was the dog’s appearance. It appeared to have mutated, mutated animals weren’t uncommon, but they normally have to be born mutated, or at least that was the thought until Pixie. Something had happened to the already fully grown Dalmatian dog to cause it to mutate into something more than twice as large, bull like horns coming out of its head and boney armour plates covering its torso. Judging by the growling, snarling and immediate rush to bite Jack’s face when he had finally confronted it, it was also far more aggressive than Pixie’s owners had assured him.

The actual hunt request wasn’t posted by Pixie’s owners, instead it was posted by the hunter’s guild itself. They were interested in how an already fully grown animal could’ve mutated and wanted its corpse to study, when Jack saw this hunt listed in the F rank list he was a little leery. He didn’t have a pet currently but he still liked animals, dogs and cats especially. Not that he’d ever admit it but he knew that if he was ever forced to kill something that looked like a normal cat or dog then it would be a genuine effort not to break down into tears.

In the end however, the price tag on the hunt was too difficult to ignore, six hundred and fifty pounds was very good money for an F rank hunt. It was a slow day without any other good jobs available so Jack reluctantly tapped the hunt accept icon on the terminal in the hunts and requests room.

His pager buzzed and showed two new updates, one was the usual hunt accepted update, the other was the general location of the stray dog. It had been seen south east of York city centre, it was a location with lots of wide open space with grassy moorland and a golf course. Normally people would’ve thought it was just another random monster spawn attacking and killing the various walkers, runners and golfers there, but Pixie’s owners were also known to frequent the area in the past and so that's where they looked for her, and that's where they found her. They were actually able to get quite close and even managed to scan her microchip confirming it was her, before she went feral again and tried to rip them apart. They got away with just a few scratches.

They contacted animal rescue, who contacted the police, who contacted the hunters guild who passed it along to Jack, or any hunter willing really. So Jack set off. On the way to the hunt location Jack stopped off at the address listed for the dog’s owners; Mr and Mrs Grant. He thought it might be a good idea to see if they could tell him about their pet. A decision he somewhat regretted.

“Please don’t hurt Pixie, she’s a good girl!” A tearful Mrs Grant pleaded with Jack.

“Um.” Jack eloquently replied. A grim looking Mr Grant didn’t say anything but simply had his arm wrapped around his wife in comfort.

Mrs Grant took up her mobile phone and frantically swiped through it before showing it to Jack.

“Here look! This is Pixie! Isn’t she adorable? Look at her playing!” Jack humoured her and bent down to look, he saw a video of the dog playing on the beach, running back and forth with the incoming and outgoing waves. Oh god, she really did look adorable. He sighed regretfully.

“She’s harmless! Wouldn’t hurt a fly! This is all just a mistake!” Mrs Grant sniffled.

In the end he didn’t get any useful information on the target, what he did get was a colossal guilt trip and the memory of a tearful middle aged woman calling him something very unflattering.

Jack sighed regretfully for the umpteenth time that day and biked his way to the moorland. Once there he saw a police car with armed uniformed officers waiting by the entrance to a footpath into the moorland. He showed his hunters licence to them and they waved him through once he told them what he was up to.

It was dry that day thankfully, he didn’t fancy trudging through soaking grass and wet mud, although he did see strange faintly multicoloured rain clouds off in the distance. It took almost three hours before he finally spotted the mutated Dalmatian. He’d spotted a large turd in the middle of a path and thought he might try to track the dog by looking for tracks and broken twigs and the like but had no clue what he was doing, clearly television made it seem a hell of a lot easier than it really was. He decided to simply head for high ground and try looking around, he trudged up a slight hill and arrived at a picnic table. He looked around and surveyed the area, after a minute he found it, just trotting along one of the cycle routes. At least he assumed that was it, unless large horned armoured dogs were more common in this area than he was led to believe.

He quickly walked down the hill without taking his eyes off the dog lest he lose sight of it. He caught up to it to find it sniffing the ground, Jack paused for a moment to just look at the thing. It was big, when the hunt request said it was at least twice as large as a normal Dalmatian, he’d forgotten how big Dalmatians could get in the first place. Its shoulders came up to Jack's chest and its head rose just above Jacks. It had pale bony armour plates over its chest, shoulders and back, with two large bull-like horns coming from its head, rising far above Jack’s own head. The fur and skin on its face was stretched thin and torn in places, giving it a diseased emaciated look, all its very sharp teeth were fully visible

“Oh my.” Jack involuntarily complimented the beast's intimidation factor and wondered if F rank was actually a bit low for this hellhound.

It paused in its sniffing and looked up at Jack, after a second it let out a deep threatening growl.

“Ok, consider me intimidated.” Jack carefully unhooked his spear from his back, not taking his eyes off it for a second.

He cautiously took a step forward and it was on. Pixie let out a strangled sounding snarl and rushed towards Jack. He dodged to the side and jabbed his spear at its hide, the spear glanced off the bone armour. Pixie quickly turned around and Jack had to quickly scrabble back to avoid getting sliced by the horns. He fell backwards and Pixie was on him straightaway, her large jaws snapped at his face and he just barely managed to get the spear shaft in the way. The mutated dog's body weight rested on top of Jack's chest and her claws dug into his armoured vest but didn’t pierce through.

They were at an impasse, Jack couldn’t move because the dog was on top of him and Pixie couldn’t bite Jack’s face off because he had his spear in the way. The dog panted and growled and drooled. He tried to move his head out of the way but he grimaced in disgust when he still got a face full of dog drool. His arms began to shake with the strain, he didn’t know how long he could keep it up, the dog's jaw began to slowly get closer to his face.

Jack heard the sound of wood beginning to break, he looked in alarm at the portion of the spear shaft locked in Pixie’s jaws, the shaft was beginning to splinter! He didn’t have time to panic as the shaft suddenly gave way and Pixie’s jaws came rocketing downwards to his face, he just about managed to turn his head out of the way but her teeth sank into shoulder. At first he felt nothing because of the armoured flak jacket, but less than a moment later he felt her teeth pierce his skin. The dog let out a growl and began to shake her head back and forth as she savaged Jack.

Jack let out a strangled scream as he was jerked back and forth, the standard rush of adrenaline from the start of the fight reached new heights as he felt a new rush propelled by his pain, his fear and his anger. In desperation he stabbed the spear head he still held into the mutated dog's side several times, the blade glanced off the bone armour a couple of times but eventually struck true. In one of the hits he stuck it deeply into the dogs side and it yelped in pain before letting go of Jack, backing off quickly, whimpering with the spear head still stuck in its side.

Jack quickly dragged himself to his feet with a ragged gasp, his heart was hammering, he kept his focus on the dog as he reached behind himself to unhook his axe from its harness. It was a two handed single bladed battle axe, he carried it in his right hand as he also grabbed the newest addition to his arsenal; the chain from the abandoned construction site. The chain was old but strong, five metres long with strong steel links. He carried it in his left hand in several loops.

He walked towards the dog, it stopped whimpering and began growling, it lunged for Jack once more but he was ready. He dropped the axe, dodged to the side once more and threw the chain around the beast. He only managed to entangle it’s horned head at first but he sent a bit of lighting energy into the chain and the dog let out a strangled growl and it stumbled, Jack was able to wrap more of the chain around it’s body and before long he had it more or less incapacitated. He sent more lighting into the chain and the dog yelped in pain even more and its struggles got weaker and weaker.

After a few seconds when he was certain the dog wasn’t getting free, he dropped the end of the chain he was holding and staggered over to his axe. He tiredly bent down to pick it up and turned back to the mutated Dalmatian. It took a few blows, he aimed for a gap in the armour plating between the shoulder and chest. His axe bit it deeply, the dog let out a deep gurgling snarl before it went still.

Jack dropped his axe and planted his arse on the ground letting out a tired sigh as the adrenaline boost abandoned him, having done its job. He lay back on the ground and looked at the clouds as they sailed through the sky peacefully. While he was cloud watching he lazily reached into his pocket and took out his pager, he dialled up the hunters HQ operator as he’d done during the Kladican incident.

“Hello, this is North Yorkshire hunter headquarters, how may I help you?” A professional sounding female voice responded.

“Hi, this is Jack Errant.” He tiredly breathed into the phone.

“Hello Mr Errant, how may I be of assistance today?” She sounded professionally friendly.

He sighed tiredly. “Yeah, I just finished an F rank hunt for a mutated Dalmatian dog, I have its corpse here and I need a pickup for it.”

There were a few moments of quiet where he could hear the sound of a tapping keyboard. “Understood sir, we have your location. We’re sending a retrieval team and a surveyor now, confirmation of payment will be when the kill is confirmed by the surveyor. Do you also require medical assistance sir?” She asked calmly.

“Er…….I’m okay I think?” Jack shifted his shoulder around, it hurt but not too badly, it seemed the armour had taken the brunt of the damage.

However it seemed he took too long to respond. “We’ll also send a paramedic along to take a look at you.” She firmly stated.

“Right, thanks.” He was too tired and drained to protest.

“Thank you hunter, is there anything else you require?” She asked.

“No, I’m good, thanks. See ya.”

“Goodbye hunter, have a nice day.” She hung up.

He allowed his eyes to close as he felt his tiredness take over. He didn’t know how long he lay there but he wasn’t allowed to fall into unconsciousness however as he heard voices approaching.

“He should be over this way.”

“Ah, there he is! He’s on the ground!”

“Get the medic!”

“Whoa! Look at that thing! It’s a real beast!”

“Quickly! Check him for injuries! Medic!!”

Urgh, who were all these people disturbing his rest? He opened his eyes and sat up, looking around in irritation. He was surrounded by five heavily armoured people, hunters, all looking at him in concern.

“What's up?” He asked simply.

They all looked at each other in confusion.

“Did you kill this thing by yourself?” One of them asked before someone else spoke up.

“Hey Jack, are you ok?” Jack turned towards the voice and it was Danny the trainer. Jack nodded and tiredly staggered to his feet, Danny helped him rise.

“Yeah I’m fine, I feel like I got mauled by a giant dog or something but other than that I think I’m good.” He replied, rotating his injured shoulder. One of the hunters came forward and asked Jack to take his armour off so they could assess his wounds. Meanwhile the others gathered around the dog and examined it. Jack eavesdropped on their conversation.

“Is this thing actually F rank? Or did admin screw up again?” One of them asked.

“I think the latter.” Another replied.

“It’s definitely a big one, rank D I’d say.” Danny said to the group.

“Is that a chain wrapped around it?” One of them bent down and unwrapped the chain from around the dog.

Jack peeked around the medic hunter while getting his shoulder examined. “That's mine, thanks!” They all looked at him questioningly. “Had to get inventive to finish the fight.” He explained at their looks, he shrugged but winced in pain immediately after.

The medic spoke to Jack. “Well your shoulder looks fine, several puncture wounds but they’re not deep and they’re not bleeding heavily. They just need cleaning and no stitches.” While the medic used alcohol wipes to clean the small wounds much to Jack's discomfort they all heard another voice approaching.

“Heeey! We’re here!” They all turned around and saw Cheryl jogging over with another team of hunters. The first team of hunters and Danny looked over to Cheryl and her group with confusion.

“Uh hey Cheryl, what are you doing here? We’re the responding team.” A confused Danny greeted her.

“Uh yeah, change of plans we’ll take it from here.” Cheryl quickly replied. At Danny’s continuing confusion she explained further. “The director wanted a specific team of hunters for retrieval of the specimen.” She indicated the mutated Dalmatian behind them. “You just got assigned by mistake by the operator, sorry.” Cheryl shrugged.

“Oh? Well, do you need any help?” One of the hunters offered.

“No no, we got it from here.” Cheryl replied. “We’ll see you back at HQ.” She smiled, though it was clear Danny and his team had been dismissed, they all looked a little nonplussed but accepted it and walked off. Danny nodded to Jack before following the others. Meanwhile Cheryl’s team of hunters surrounded the Dalmatian and proceeded to bag it up for transport, it looked like they meant to carry it, better them than him, Jack thought.

After the medic had left him alone he grabbed his axe and vest from the floor, he lazily wandered over to the group of hunters before retrieving his chain as well.

“Hi Cheryl, what brings you here?” He greeted her with a tired smile.

“Hey Jack.” She smirked. “Still alive? Hmph, always getting into trouble.” She shook her head mockingly.

“Well, that is the job isn’t it, can’t slay monsters without getting into trouble.” He replied with a smile. She smiled back before taking out her pager and proceeded to swipe it and tap it for a few seconds.

“There you go, the kill is confirmed and you’ve just been paid.” She said.

“Thanks, erm, if you don’t need me I’m gonna go lie down.” Jack replied and she nodded.

“That's fine Jack, get some rest and I’ll see you later.” She said, he turned away with a wave goodbye and set off along the cycle path, heading home.

He turned back for a few moments to watch Cheryl and her team surround the dog corpse, he saw her pull out a phone and overheard snatches of conversation.

“Yeah, yeah…….we got to it in time…….don’t think they noticed anything……..be discrete…..yes sir…….Jack doesn’t……tell Danny and….” Jack couldn’t hear anything more after that. He frowned in confusion, he turned away and began walking, wondering if there was more to this situation that he’d first realised but for now he didn’t want to press, he went home.