Rise Of The Hunters - Chapter 29

As Xun lay there listening to the noises around him, he realized, there was too much noise. He could hear every breath, every snore, every shift of movement. He finally couldn’t handle it any longer, and got up. Grabbing his things, he left the barracks and headed for the library.

Closing the door to the map room, he set his bag down and took out the handwritten book. He sat down in the corner, and made himself comfortable. If he got any sleep, he would do it here in the quiet. Then he opened the book to read.

“The war is raging. We’ve taken shelter at the school. The bombs seem to have missed us here. I just hope the rumors of vampires and monsters is just make believe.”

“The principal of the school told us he was going to start setting the school up as a refuge for anyone who could make it. We have come up with sun guns to use to test the newcomers. No vampires will get in our school.”

“The sun guns work too well! We had a group of vampires try to sneak in, pretending to be human. The sun guns turned them to ash so fast, it was really creepy. I hope we can all sleep tonight.”

“One of the local farmers moved in with all of his gear and animals. We’re learning how to farm and ranch now, I guess. Kinda hard to imagine how far we’ve come. The next thing to do, is learn how to make fuel so we can power the generators when the current fuel we have is gone. Susan said she knew there were books that talked about it in the library. Found out that the school runs on tidal generators, too. That’s kinda neat.”

“So, we just finished raiding all of the little towns within 30 miles of us. The monsters have pretty much taken out all of the people. We brought back whoever we found, but there weren’t many. We emptied all of the businesses of all of the stuff we could carry, and that included the libraries. I hope to never see another romance book again. The thought is that we would burn some of them for fuel this winter.”

“A werewolf attacked us last night. Scared the crap out of me. Thankfully bullets work on this thing. I’m not sure what we’ll do when we run out of bullets. Some of the science kids are going to dissect it and see what they can figure out about the thing. Now that it’s dead, it looks kinda diseased and old.”

“Apparently, if you get bit or scratched by a werewolf, you start becoming a werewolf. Just like in the stories, go figure. One of the science kids began to go all hairy, managed to get himself locked into a classroom before he went full on beast. He went down quick. I don’t know how those science guys do it, but they’re dissecting him now, to see what changes happened. They think they might be able to come up with a cure or maybe figure out a weakness.”

“I was on lookout, on top of the tower, when the attack happened today. I rang the bell to let everyone know. I wasn’t about to climb down though. The wolves never looked up, so I hunkered down, and watched through the railing. Several people died, but only because there were five of them. We’ve decided to burn the bodies. They’re susceptible to fire. When the science guys went to burn a bit of fur, it went up like it was doused in gas. There was hardly any ash left. They even went so far as to test the gases released from the fire, and decided they were completely harmless. Good to know I guess.”

“The leaders have decided we are going to build a wall. It won’t be full proof against attacks, but we might be able to respond quicker if we have the extra minute or two before they jump or climb over it. Everyone is trying to decide how tall to make it. Some, particularly the science guys, are saying twenty or more feet, while the workers are trying to keep it saner. The engineers are trying to make sure it will stay standing. I’m just glad I’m not involved. I’ll just stay up here in my tower thank you very much.”

“They’ve been hauling in supplies for weeks now, from all the major cities and surrounding farms. I’ve lost track of what all they’re bringing in. It’s just truck after truck of people and supplies. I’ve heard some stories of what it looks like out there, so I’m pretty happy to stay here, where it’s safe.”

“Word is making the rounds, that we have to start training. They want to make a killer squad to start hunting the werewolves and vampires. I’m really not interested, so I think I’ll fake something to get out of it.”

“Welp, turns out I’m really good with a gun. It’s also not as scary as I thought it would be. They even said, I could stay in my tower and shoot the werewolves from a distance. That sounded just fine to me. I’m going to hide my gun and as much ammo as I can up in my tower so that I’ll be ready.”

“Other monsters have been making the rounds, but I’m really good at shooting them, so they never get very close when I’m on duty. The only problem is that we are running low on ammo. I’m dreading the day we have to start relying on bows and arrows. I tried to use them, but I really suċkėd at it.”

“Susan died today. She was mauled by some creature, but shot herself in the head to keep from turning into some monster. I made sure she got buried on the little hill overlooking that little beach she liked. I might take some flowers and plant them on her grave. I think she would like that.”

The next entry in the book had a different handwriting, Xun wondered if it was the same author or not. He was starting to doze, so, laying his head down, he tried to sleep.