Chapter CIV: The Sacrifice of Gleb Hawk

 The black chimera. A true apex predator, so much so that if placed in the world outside the Zone, it could decimate dozens of evolutionary predators in mere seconds. Humans, the arguable rulers of the current animal world, tremble at the mention of such beasts. One such example had made its lair inside the vaunted Red Forest, taking its place as the unquestionable king of the lands the auburn leaves covered. And on the chilly December evening, it was on the hunt.

It prowled its usual hunting grounds, but to little reward. Near the Devilfish encampment, some bones from a new type of horse monster remained, the chimera had made short work of it. New or old, no mutant held a candle to this beast. Next, the creature headed westwards. Usually the humans would squabble among themselves in the rusted bridge there. Now, it did have defenders, men dressed in white uniforms, but something intuitively told the chimera to not attack them. They were collecting things off some corpses on the ground, these ones in white and blue suits. The chimera was not hungry enough to go scavenge said corpses, it preferred the hunt and fresh blood more.

While travelling around the forest, feasting on couple of fleshes, the monster heard heavy gunfire coming from the bridge. It sprinted across the ground to check there, and once close climbed over one of the small hills, lurking just beneath shadows and bushes. The mysterious non-target men from earlier had perished, having been wiped out in the gunfight. The beast did not care for them once more, humans were much more enjoyable to eat when not riddled with bullets. A barely visible bloodtrail on the ground caught the fine-tuned eyesight of the predatorial mutant, and it followed its scent down the road.

The attackers were there. Four humans in the whites and blues, three in reds and blacks and one in green. The mutant had seen the greens and reds before, and eaten plenty as well. The reds especially had often tried to lure it out of its nest, only to be chomped down later when they in turn got ambushed. These ones did seem different, the colour pattern on their suits was not the same. Still, human is a human, it will always make for a better hunt than some pitiful flesh. The mutated abomination silently approached the group from behind. Some were visibly wounded. A shame, a wounded human doesn't make for nearly as satisfying kill, the things' two brains thought.

It leaped on the last stalker, a white-blue one, and with a quick swipe the Zone dweller fell down. His friends finally realized what was happening, but it was too late. Another slash, another dead white-blue. Two last ones of them opened fire, but it merely annoyed the murder machine of a mutant. It tore them to pieces, but before it could sunk its teeths into them, two shotgun blasts ripped its hide apart.

• Come here you overgrown housecat, I'll rip you a new one, the green one shouted, clearly agitated.

The monster realized that this one was female. No matter. She needed to die now too. The mutant jumped, but missed as the stalker ducked quickly to the left.

• Hip, get to cover, let's focus fire the fucker, came another shout, from a clearly wounded stalker barely holding a rifle, his Twilight suit in shreds.

The monster focused on him instead, and the man only managed to dodge so well that he only fell down, instead of being shredded by the massive claws, horns and teeth. The chimera growled out of frustration and jumped on top of the man, struggling under its weight. Two stalkers rushed the mutant from behind, but it had determined to kill this man. It kicked and threw the two attackers to the ground, scattering their weapons. Now, its second head was lowering for the kill.

• Not today, you motherless mongrel!, the man screamed, and the beast realized what he had done.

A grenade lever spun through the air, barely registered by the monstrous thing's eyes. An explosion engulfed the two beings, decimating their bodies and ending the reign of the Red Forest's prime hunter. The three companions of the heroic stalkers rushed to their friend, but nothing could be done. The Zone took another life. Gleb Hawk had found redemption.