Link to part two: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/y1j653/im_a_fire_watch_lookout_and_i_think_ive_made_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

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Another night.

Another goddamn night, stuck in this window-lined prison.

At least I have a good view, so I guess that’s something.

The storm raged all night again last night and only let up just before dawn. At one point, the winds were gusting hard enough to rock the tower, which was a bit disconcerting, the say the least. As I stand out on the wet catwalk around my shack, I see that the clouds haven’t let us go just yet, though, and look every bit as pissed-off as they did yesterday afternoon. It seems like the dry season has come to an end, which is good, since I’ve been slacking a bit on my fire-watching duties over the last couple days.

Gallows-humor, right? It’s either that, or sitting in the corner in a fetal position, crying, and I’ve been told by my ex-fiance that I’m not an attractive crier.

I haven’t heard a peep from Billy since his last terrifying broadcast to me yesterday. I’ve tried to reach him several times since then, but no dice. I’ve also tried reaching Nathan and the ranger station, but all I get is static, even from my base radio set. When I first started here, I remember Billy telling me during my brief orientation that the radio should be able to reach out fifty miles or more, so I’m not sure what’s going on with it.

Update – I just took a quick look at the base station and found that the cable leading up to the antenna on the roof of the shack is now just a dangly thing swaying in the breeze. The storm must have decided it needed the antenna more than I did, because it’s gone. I can see where the screws were torn out of the wooden mast.

And before you say anything about whatever this thing is that’s been stalking around deciding to sabotage my radio, I should probably tell you that the wooden antenna mast looks like it’s been around for a long time. The wood was probably dry rotted to begin with, and now that it’s soaked, it crumbled away in little wet brown bits as soon as I probed at it with my fingers.

Speaking of whatever this Kuwetami or angler thing is – I’m just going to call it a mimic, I think – I haven’t heard or sensed anything weird since yesterday. I’m assuming it’s still out there somewhere, but I don’t think it’s nearby. If it’s still anywhere around here, it’s probably somewhere over near Tower 12, or at least that’s what makes the most sense to me, anyway.

Which brings me to my shiny new lunatic idea.

My Jeep. It can’t be more than a mile down the northern track, still sitting there in front of that fallen pine. I could probably get to it in less than an hour, even with the wet and muddy ground. It had almost a full tank of gas, and I’m pretty sure I could outrun this mimic thing in it if I can get onto a straight shot of service road.

I definitely don’t relish the idea, mind you. Every instinct is screaming at me to sit my butt right where I am in this tower. I know that the ranger station will start getting a little antsy when Billy doesn’t check in after a few days, but I’m also thinking they may extend it out a day or two in light of the foul weather. Maybe five days at the outside, and then I’ll have a ranger truck parked outside my tower.

The question is what they’ll find when they get here.

See, I’ve been thinking about it – Billy definitely knew more about this thing than I do. Certainly, enough to not open the door for it when he heard it outside pretending to be a girl scout selling cookies. That makes me think that maybe the fence and the trapdoor might not be enough to stop it if it really wants in.

As pants-shittingly terrifying as the prospect of leaving the tower and making for the Jeep is, sitting here cornered in my window-lined shack, just waiting for it to show up in the middle of the night, is even worse.

At least I have chance out there.

I still have the magnum; it’s been holstered on my belt since yesterday. They don’t issue peashooters for bear protection out here; this thing is the most powerful handgun in mass production. It’ll put down anything in North America, as long as you can hit it right.

Any normal animal, anyway. Who knows what this thing is capable of?

Still, it does provide a level of comfort and gives me some confidence that my plan may work, if luck’s on my side.

For now, I’m going to try to eat a granola bar to put something in my churning stomach and try to build a little energy. I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since early yesterday. After that, I’m grabbing my pack and heading out.

Wish me luck.

*

I left my tower shortly after ten AM and let me tell you, those were some of the most difficult first steps I’ve ever taken in my life. Stepping out through the chain link gate into the open space beyond my small compound felt like I was stepping off the roof of a skyscraper.

When I closed the gate behind me, I just stood there motionless for what must have been five minutes, frozen in place with my hand clenching the grip of the revolver still holstered at my belt. Even with all the stress and anxiety swirling around in my head, I was amazed at exactly how keen my senses seemed in that moment. It felt like I could hear every rustle of leaves and smell every damp patch of moss in the thousands of acres of wilderness surrounding me. In that moment, I felt very small.

Very insignificant.

Trivial.

When my chest began to ache, I realized that I had been holding a breath in, subconsciously afraid to make even the slightest sound. I let it out slowly and forced myself to breathe normally again. Scanning the trees, I turned slowly in a circle, eyes searching for anything that seemed out of place, like it didn’t belong.

But there was nothing there. Everything seemed normal, at least to me.

Casting one last look over my shoulder at the refuge of my tower, I started off along the seldom-used service road to the north, careful of my footing on the muddy and uneven ground. I allowed myself to move at a slow jog, fast enough to make good progress, but not so fast that I was announcing my presence to the world.

Not so fast that I couldn’t hear the forest around me over my own breathing.

I stopped a couple times during my trek to catch my breath and take a drink of water and thankfully still seemed alone and unpursued for now. I wondered if it was out there somewhere among the dense trees, hiding in the muted gray shadows of the forest.

Maybe it was looking for me at that moment. Perhaps it had returned to my tower in my absence, found it empty, and was even now tracking my flight along this trail.

If I paused long enough, would I see it suddenly rounding the gentle curve behind me as it caught up?

Or did it prefer to move more stealthily, among the trees and underbrush, laying in wait alongside the path ahead, ready for my approach?

I had to forcibly shake myself of that line of thought. It wasn’t doing me any good now – I was committed to my plan. The thought of retracing my steps and returning to my lonely watch tower held just as much terror, because now it sat there unmanned, unwatched, abandoned. For all I know, the mimic could be there at this very moment, ransacking my shack.

I definitely didn’t want to walk back in on that little scene, I can promise you that much.

I ended up making surprisingly good time on that northern path; it was only about thirty minutes before I saw the dim shape of my Jeep, waiting dutifully in the middle of the path ahead. The matte tan paint job and black cloth roof stood out remarkably well against the muted greens and browns of the surrounding forest.

Urging my pace to quicken, I covered the last hundred yards before I even realized it and found myself standing at the door, hand on handle.

I paused. A chill ran down my spine, inciting an unbidden shiver. I realized then how quiet the forest around me was and wasn’t sure how long it had been this way. I felt that something was out of place and so did the native fauna.

On any given day, the trees were alive with the sounds of wildlife. Squirrels and chipmunks chittered, insects buzzed, and a thousand varieties of birds called and sang from the treetops.

Not now, though.

It was as if they had all left, and I felt very alone in that moment.

Only, not quite alone. Somewhere out there, in that sea of trees, something stalked. Something that didn’t belong in the light of day. Something that didn’t belong under the watchful eyes of mother nature. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have let something like the mimic evolve, had it not been hidden in its underground realm.

The door of the Jeep was thankfully quiet as I depressed the latch and swung it open. If this had been a horror movie, I’m sure an ear-splitting screech would have erupted from its hinges, but in real life we tend to take care of these vehicles pretty well. In the best of times, they are the only convenient transportation for twenty miles or more.

In times like this, though, it was likely the only thing that would save my sorry ass.

I jumped in and pulled the door shut behind me with a dull thunk, subconsciously locking it. I almost laughed aloud when I did that; the entire top of the Jeep was nothing more than canvas and plastic windows.

A feisty hamster could probably have penetrated my little haven. I doubt the mimic would even think twice about it.

The Jeep fired up immediately when I turned the key in the ignition, and I threw it in reverse for the most ungraceful fourteen-point turn you’ve ever seen on the narrow and muddy service road. Once I got turned around, I didn’t waste any time directing it back the way I’d come.

The service road was really little more than an uneven and ill-maintained dirt trail and was only ever used infrequently by the rangers and lookouts. As I’d previously mentioned, it was a rough ride, even for the heavy suspension of my trusty steed, so I had to keep it at a reasonable speed. The very last thing I needed was to snap an axle or bounce myself right off the road and into the trees.

Compound the condition of the trail with the fact that it constantly wound and curved as it progressed, and it meant that even my best speed wasn’t too much faster than I could run on foot.

That’s okay – once I got past my tower, the service road was generally better maintained and followed a more-or-less straight path. I’d be able to build some decent speed there, and I’d be out of the wilderness and standing at the ranger station in an hour or so.

The abrupt appearance of my tower caused me to feather off the gas as I rounded the last curve from the northern track. I slowed to a crawl and squinted through the now-dirty windshield. From here, everything looked exactly like I had left it. The gate still stood closed and, looking up, I could see the trapdoor also appeared shut.

Maybe this thing hadn’t returned.

Hell, maybe this thing wasn’t ever going to return. For all I knew, it was headed in the opposite direction. It’s not like it had a GPS or anything.

It was at that moment that I nearly pissed myself when the radio still clipped to my belt squawked and I heard probably the last thing I had expected to hear.

Billy.

“John, are you there?” The signal was pretty clear, but his voice sounded weak, strained.

I almost didn’t respond. I was frozen, indecision clouding my mind. I didn’t know what I could trust to be true, but I doubted that this mimic had read the radio manual and learned to operate the handset.

I snatched the handset from my shoulder and keyed the mic.

“Billy? Holy shit, is that you?”

He answered me right away and I thought I could hear relief in his tone, buried under his pained words. “John, thank God! I was afraid you were gone.”

My eyes drifted to the trail leading past my tower. Toward the ranger station. Toward safety. “Another five minutes and I would have been, Billy. I’ve got my Jeep and I was just about to haul ass for the ranger station,” I replied. “What’s your status?”

There was a moment of silence and I wondered briefly if he’d even heard me.

But then he answered. “I’m not doing too hot, John. I’m in my tower, but that thing hurt me. I’ve lost a bit of blood and have been drifting in and out. I’ve patched myself up as best I could, but I can’t stop the bleeding from my leg.”

I frowned and closed my eyes a moment, asking a question that I was pretty sure I knew the answer to. “Are you able to get to your Jeep?”

I thought I heard a coughing bark of laughter before he answered. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty banged up.”

“What happened, Billy?”

“The sonofabitch got into my tower. I managed to get off a shot at it, but not before it got the jump on me,” he explained. “It took off before it did me in, so I think I hit it. I don’t know where it is now, though. My tower is wide open, though, and it hasn’t come back, so maybe it’s dead.”

I doubted that. Things never work out that simple.

“Are you stable, Billy? Can you be moved?”

Another silence, and then, “I know what you’re thinking, John. Turn your Jeep east and haul ass to the ranger station. That’s an order.”

I dropped my forehead to the steering wheel, closing my eyes and cursing. It would have been easier if Billy hadn’t radioed me. I know it’s selfish. I know I’m an asshole for even thinking it, but I could have been blissfully out of range if he had only waited another ten minutes.

I could still put the throttle down and get out of here. I could still race for the ranger station and have them mobilize a chopper to come back for Billy.

But they were at least an hour away. Factor in the spin-up and travel time for the helicopter, and you’re talking more like an hour and a half before anyone gets to him.

He didn’t sound good. Something told me it was unlikely he would last that amount of time.

I could still turn left.

I’d likely live, but could I live with myself, knowing that I left Billy to die alone in his tower? What if our situations had been reversed? Sure, I might be saying the same words he was saying now, but in my heart, I’d be pleading for that voice on the radio to help me.

I couldn’t imagine being in his position – lying there, hurt and bleeding out. Knowing that his safe haven was wide open, and that thing was out there somewhere.

Look, I know what you’re going to say. I know what you’re probably already saying. “Don’t be a dumbass. This is exactly why everyone dies in a horror movie!”

I get it. Believe me, I get it.

But this isn’t a movie, and my friend was lying there dying in his shack. If I could get to him and get him into the Jeep, we could both be out of here, leaving all this twisted nightmare bullshit behind us.

“Billy, I’m headed your way. Get ready, because we’re going to wrestle you down the stairs and into my Jeep as quickly as we can,” I said, cranking the wheels to the right and taking the western trail with more speed than I should have.

“John, I gave you an order. Get out of here now.”

Despite the situation, I managed a sardonic grin as my rig bucked and bounced over the uneven trail. “Billy, I’d like to take this opportunity to officially tender my resignation from the fire watch. Now shut your mouth and conserve your strength; I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

*

Fifteen minutes turned out to be a pretty good guess and before long I skidded to a halt outside Tower 12, next to Billy’s ride.

I opened the door and stepped out into the quiet air, my handgun coming out of its holster and held before me like some sort of shield. I took a quick moment to let my eyes roam over the surrounding woodlands for any sign of movement before quickly jogging around my Jeep and towards the compound’s entrance. I passed through the open doorway, taking note of the heavy chain link gate that was laying twisted fifteen feet inside of the fence.

Another dozen paces and I was at the base of the stairs, craning my neck to make sure nothing was awaiting me above.

I keyed the mic at my shoulder and said in a low voice, “Billy, I’m outside of your tower right now, heading up. For Christ’s sake, don’t shoot me!”

I turned the volume on the speaker down just in time for his response. “Damn it, John, I told you to leave.” But despite his words, the gratitude and relief were clear in his tone.

I started up the stairs, revolver still held at the ready as my other hand ran lightly along the railing. My eyes were drawn to the red-black spots staining the gray paint of the steel steps. I found even more of the viscous fluid on the railing as I continued my ascent.

Blood, but not Billy’s. Good. I hope that fucker is laying in the woods, breathing its last breath.

He definitely hit it, but I had no way of telling how seriously it was hurt. In a human, bright red blood indicated an arterial bleed, which was typically a fairly significant injury.

With this thing, who knew what black-red meant?

I climbed the rest of the staircase as it wound around the tower and stopped just below the open trapdoor.

“Billy?” I called out cautiously.

A pause, then came his reply, shaky and with a wheezing sound that I didn’t like at all, “How do I know it’s you? Say something that this fucker couldn’t have heard you say before.”

“I’ve always admired and respected you,” I answered without hesitation.

“Asshole,” he said under his breath. “Come on up.”

I took another couple steps, cautiously poking my head through the trapdoor. Billy was sitting upright, more or less, resting his back against the doorframe of his shack and aiming his own handgun generally in my direction. As soon as he saw my face, he dropped his hand to his side, the stainless steel barrel clanging against the metal walkway.

As I stepped fully through the trapdoor, I noted two things immediately. Firstly, there was a significant amount of that black-red ooze splattered around. Secondly, I realized how badly injured Billy was.

His face had gone gray with a sickly paleness, and his breaths came in ragged hitches. Blood-soaked bandages wrapped both forearms and the side of his face was covered with a crimson rag, taped haphazardly down. His entire khaki parks shirt was painted in a hellish tie-dye of shades of red.

But it was his leg that worried me most. A tourniquet had been tied around his thigh near his groin, but the pants leg was a cherry red below that, and was glistening in the late morning light.

“Jesus, Billy,” I exclaimed, holstering my gun and rushing to his side.

He waved me off as I knelt beside him. “I know. It looks bad. Save it for later. Let’s get out of here before that thing decides to come back for another round.”

I nodded and stood again, taking a quick glance past him and into his shack. A twin to my own tower normally, Billy’s looked like a warzone now. His table and desk had both been overturned and smashed, along with his base set radio. On the floor nearby was a satellite phone, its antenna and display obviously smashed during the attack.

Lifting his arm over my head, I helped him to his feet. He grimaced in pain, but threw his remaining strength in with mine, and we began the precarious descent through his trapdoor.

“Did you at least get to make your phone call?” I asked him as we took the steps carefully and agonizingly slow.

He shook his head. “It got here just as I was getting ready to. It was using your voice, telling me that you were from the parks service and that you were here to help.” He looked at me with a shaken astonishment. “It sounded just like you, John, but when I looked over the catwalk railing down at it…” He winced again as we half-stumbled on a step.

Almost there.

“John,” he continued, “holy hell. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I shook my head as we reached the bottom step and moved onto the rain-soaked ground and grunted with exertion. “Save it, Billy. We have a long ride ahead of us – plenty of time for that later.”

He just nodded as I maneuvered him around the passenger side of my Jeep and helped him climb in. Once he was in, I hurried back around to the driver’s door and got in, starting the engine as I pulled the door closed behind me. Throwing it into reverse, I felt the wheels break loose as I stepped on the gas with a bit too much enthusiasm.

I swung the 4x4 around and put it into drive, pointing it back towards my tower, and beyond, safety.

I only had a heartbeat’s warning from Billy before I saw it, barreling from the underbrush at us. It threw itself, a great mass, crashing into the side of the Jeep and Billy scrambled to get away from it, damn near climbing over the center console in the process and knocking my hands off the wheel in his panic.

The Jeep swung wildly left and I stomped down on the brakes to avoid careening off into the trees. One of the front wheels dipped off the road and the steel bumper crashed through a small cluster of oak saplings, halting us abruptly and stalling the engine.

Everything went silent in that moment as we froze. My breath hitched in my lungs and my eyes widened in shock as I laid eyes upon this abomination for the first time.

My first impression was that it was much larger than I had thought, but the nightmare visage before me eclipsed such a pedestrian observation.

The thing stood in the middle of the trail still, shaking its head as if trying to recover its senses after the collision with the two-ton vehicle.

It looked vaguely humanoid in a sense, but it walked on four limbs clearly proportioned to such a task. It was hairless and with mottled pink-gray skin stretched tight over muscles, bones, and odd, unidentifiable bulges. The limbs seemed to have joints that bent in all the wrong directions and ended in what should have been claws. But instead of the distinctive keratin-composed sharp nails that seem so familiar in the natural world, these seemed to be extensions of the creature’s skeletal structure, protruding painfully through its veiny translucent hide.

But worst of all was the bulbous and disproportionately large head that topped an oddly gaunt-appearing neck. It was oblong and reminded me of the shape of a feline skull in general appearance. Its maw seemed a jagged tear across its face, with ill-fitting and chaotically positioned teeth that didn’t seem to allow the mouth to close properly. I couldn’t see any eyes, but where they should have been were instead two bulbous and cyst-like organs, seeming to bulge and flatten in a slow rhythm, as if bladders filling with air or liquid.

I reeled back in revulsion as it turned its sightless head in our direction searchingly. Flaps of skin on either side of its malformed snout opened slowly like some obscene blossom composed of milky gray bat wings, and I had the sense that it was using them to try to somehow locate us.

It was then I saw where Billy’s shot had struck the creature in the face. One of the snout flaps was nearly completely severed, hanging limply in contrast to its sibling, and a gouge furrowed by the bullet’s travel creased along the right side of the thing’s head, piercing and ravaging the bulbous organ on that side and leaving it a deflated sack. When it turned its head farther in our direction, I could see clearly where it had bled significantly from the shot, but was horrified to see that the wound had already sealed itself and a shiny silver scar was left to mark the incident.

“I knew I hit you, you bastard,” Billy whispered, half to himself.

The mimic stopped its motion, and we watched as the uninjured bladder on its head expanded like a half-filled party balloon. It dipped its head a bit and we saw two membranous slits in the top of its skull dilate. A moment later, the twisted sound of a human voice assaulted our ears.

"I know you’re out there!” The voice was unmistakably Billy’s but was distorted and wrong. I thought that the wound from his gunshot probably had something to do with that.

The thing raised its head again, turning a bit more in our direction, and took a few experimental steps forward. Again, it paused and lowered its head. This time we heard what sounded like the pained roar of a bear, almost perfectly replicated, except for that same distortion that we had heard previously.

Had this thing killed a bear?

I held my breath as we watched it again raise its head and take a few more contemplative steps in our direction, slowly swinging its grotesque snout back and forth. I could see how the flaps of skin that were flared open where its nose should have been twitched minutely back and forth, and I felt like it was using them to listen for us.

“It knows we’re here somewhere, but it can’t see us,” whispered Billy, leaning close. “But if it gets close enough, I’m thinking we’re done-for.”

I looked over at Billy and realized that there was no way he’d be able to make a run for it in his condition. From the look of the thing growing ever closer to where we cowered in the Jeep, I thought it was likely we didn’t have much time before it got close enough to hear our breathing or heartbeats, or whatever, even inside the 4x4. When that happened, I knew what would come next.

Billy closed his eyes a moment and turned to me. There was something in his eyes then, some sort of acceptance that I didn’t like one bit.

“Get ready with that cannon,” he whispered. “You’re only going to get one chance at this fucker.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. A moment later, I had my answer.

Billy took a deep breath and mustered every bit of his strength, flinging the door open and staggering out of the Jeep.

“I’m right here, asshole!” he shouted at the thing, limping weakly across the road away from the Jeep. The mimic whipped its head in his direction instantly, but tilted its head to the side, seemingly momentarily puzzled at this unexpected turn of events.

Billy held his own magnum in his hand, but he was too weak to raise it towards the beast. Still, he pulled the trigger and a resounding boom seemed to shake the air.

The mimic flinched at the deafening sound of the gunshot, the flaps of membrane at its snout snapping shut protectively, but its stunned hesitation didn’t last very long. In an instant, faster than I would have thought possible, it launched itself on powerful limbs at Billy, knocking him to the ground and tearing at him with teeth and claws. I heard my friend start screaming then, a horrible, soul-rending sound that I’ll never forget as long as I live.

But now was my chance, and I took it. I swung the door and stepped out of the Jeep, my gun coming free of its holster in the same movement. The creature was preoccupied with what was left of Billy, but as soon as I brought the gun up and thumbed back the hammer, its head whipped around at me. It crouched like a compressed spring as it prepared to launch, but I was quicker.

The report of the gunshot was incredible, and the recoil of the powerful round rocked my wrist back painfully. The beast staggered and I saw a burst of blood and tissue explode from the wound near where its shoulder met its neck.

It howled out an otherworldly cry, sounding like a bedlam mixture of man and beast, but though the wound seemed terrible, it tried once again to throw itself at me.

I was set in my course, though, and took step after step towards the creature, pulling the trigger again and again until the gun ran dry and all I was left with was the clicking of the hammer and the high-pitched ringing in my ears. The acrid smell of gunpowder stung my nose and by the time I finally stopped, I found myself within only a few feet of the horrid thing.

Six blackened holes stippled the neck and torso of the creature where the bullets had entered, and I knew that the destruction of their exits on the opposite side would be far worse. The mimic lay sprawled across the ruined body of Billy Johnson, its weight crushing what whatever had been left of my friend.

Black-red blood spread out from beneath the thing’s bulk like an oil spill across a smooth floor. I noted with some muted surprise that the creature still twitched and slowly flexed its powerful muscles, and a wheezing sound was quietly emanating from the slits on the top of its skull.

I holstered my empty handgun and scanned around the sodden ground for what I knew was there. A moment later I spotted it – Billy’s own magnum, laying half buried in the muck where it had been torn from his grip under the weight of the monster. I snatched it up and shook it clear of most of the mud and grass. Opening the cylinder, I saw that only one unfired round remained.

That was enough, though.

I approached the horror before me without apprehension or pause, my eyes focused on this thing that had caused such pain and terror.

I thumbed the hammer back and placed the muzzle against the mimic’s head, which still convulsed with some small remaining life. I didn’t know if it would be able to heal from the wounds I had already inflicted – logic told me it was unlikely, but the silvery scar I had seen from Billy’s previous encounter caused me to question everything I thought was possible.

I felt the tremors from the creature vibrate through the gun as the barrel rested against its skull, right between where its eyes should have been.

I tensed my finger on the cool steel of the trigger and the crack of the gunshot echoed through the forest.

It was done.

But even as I walked back numbly to the Jeep and restarted the engine, I wondered if that was true. I thought back to the journal I had read, written more than a hundred and thirty years before, and how it had alluded to tales of this creature going back long before then.

As I drove the Jeep along the rough and winding service road, I wondered at the possibility that what we encountered was the only one of its kind. That this same beast had somehow terrorized cultures separated from each other by great time and distance, spawning the legends that the author of the journal and his companions had pursued.

It didn’t seem likely.

And now the door was open.

x