KvsW- Casefile [003][DOGMAN]

"Fine, I might be on board," Chris ceded. "But we can't just go running around in the woods hoping to find just a dogman, and not something worse. See if you can find out who's offering a reward, like the news report said. That'll likely be a serious case and not a hoax, hopefully."

Dave opened up his laptop and began digging around. Before long he found some promising results in the form of several classified ads looking for experienced hunters. They were all made by the same person, and they mentioned that they should call for details. He showed this to Chris.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Call the number and see!" she said, her hesitance at the whole idea now gone.

Dave dialed up the number. An old man answered on the third ring ""Hello?"

"Uh, hi, my name's Dave, and me and my partner are calling about your ads? You said you needed experienced hunters?"

"Yes, yes, I do," answered the old man, his voice frail. "But what I need hunted... you might not believe."

"You might be surprised. Try me."

"Alright. There's a... beast... that haunts the woods around my estate. But it's not something that the average hunter would know anything about. Most will dismiss it as the fantasies of an old man, and those who do believe are too scared to help me."

"Mind if I hazard a guess? Stands on two legs, basically looks like a werewolf but isn't actually one? Maybe hunts in a pack?"

"How did you know?"

"We've been doing a bit of research on it. And we have... let's say, 'prior experience' with creatures of that nature. We think we can help you, sir."

The old man breathed a sigh of relief. "I do hope you are sincere."

"I am being totally serious right now. Just tell us where, and my partner and I will be over here ASAP."

"Thank you..." The old man then gave him his address. It was a few hours drive away, but manageable.
Chris was already loading up magazines and stuffing her bag with supplies by the time Dave hung up.

"Oh, so now we're just raring to go, are we?" he teased. "What happened to all that worrying?"

"I will punch you in the balls, Dave," she retorted with a sweet smile and an innocent voice.

He just chuckled and got his gear together as well.

For him, since he could only effectively use one arm, he went packing his Nagant revolver with a few extra loads stuffed in his pocket. On both hips he had two more pistols holstered, a .40 Smith&Wesson semiautomatic and a 10mm revolver. He put on a heavy flecktarn jacket, with his good arm through the sleeve, and the other side draped over his arm still in the cast. Extra magazines went into the pockets.

Chris was just filling her bag with AK magazines, with the weapon itself slung over her shoulder. Though she did toss in a couple of clips for her SKS, which she carried in hand. She also packed in a couple of boxes of poptarts, some cans of spam, and bottles of water.

"I wonder how long this'll take," she thought aloud.

"Dunno. We could always just drive back here to resupply if we really needed it," Dave said. "We should be good for a couple of days at least."

With that, they piled into Chris's station wagon, and made their way to the old man's estate.
Dave slept in the passenger seat for most of the drive, drowsy after popping a handful of painkillers. He awoke finally to Chris nudging him and poking his ribs.

"Wake up, we're here."

He looked around. The day had progressed into the early evening, with the sun just barely above the horizon. In front of the car was a large wrought iron gate, and the property was in the middle of the woods, with a gravel road leading both ways.

Dave yawned and stretched and stepped out of tye car, going over to a little black box mounted on ye gate. It had a single button and a speaker. He pressed it and it buzzed faintly. The old man's voice came through.

"Hello? Who's there?"

"This is Dave from earlier. Here to help you with that special 'pest control' case."

"Oh, excellent, I'll unlock the gate, mind your speed as you drive up."

Dave returned to the car, to see Chris smirking at him. "What?"

"Normally you sound like a faggot, but when you talk like that you almost sound cool."

"Uh, thanks, I guess."

She kept the shit-eating smirk and chuckled as she turned away and drove through the opening gates.

A couple hundred meters down the gravel road, and they pulled into a circular driveway in front of a mansion.

"Wow, what a mansion!" said Dave in as stilted a voice he could manage, smiling at his own mildly obscure reference.

The stationwagon came to a stop, and the doors of the mansion opened, and the old man came out, pushed along in a wheelchair by a burly bodyguard. "Thank you for coming so quickly." He sounded even more frail in person. "Though I must admit... you don't look like hunters..."

"Well, as you said, regular hunters wouldn't be able to handle a job like this."

"That is true."
Chris caught the attention of the old man when she stepped out of the stationwagon and shouted, "Yes comrade, we are here to remove kebab from premises!"

"Oh, this is my partner, Chris," said Dave. He smirked and chuckled a bit, and took on the stilted voice again. "Chris is our old partner, you know?"

The old man seemed a bit bewildered for a moment. "A-alright... so... introductions out of the way, onto business..." He cleared his throat. "If you can subdue the beast or kill it, I would like you to bring it back here to show me as proof. I want to be sure that it is the same one that has been haunting me."

"No prob, Bob," said Chris cheerfully.

"You may roam about the grounds and the forest adjacent, but do steer clear of the mansion proper... my guards can be... jumpy..."

"Of course, sir."

"And, be careful. This beast has attacked several of my staff... and there may be multiple roaming about. Nobody is sure."

"Anything else?"

"No, that is all. You will be rewarded justly upon your success, I assure you." With that, the bodyguard rolled the old man back inside and shut the doors.

Dave turned back to Chris to see her already loaded down with her weapons and pack, practically chomping at the bit. He grabbed his own bag and his Nagant, and after locking up the car, set off in search of the beast.

Dave and Chris had a walkaround of the mansion grounds, determining while it was a large property, it was sparse in its landscaping, and the forest was contained on the other side of a high fence wrought iron fence. They came around all the way to the back, and found a horse stable.

"Why does a guy in a wheelchair need horses?" asked Chris.

"Maybe he has grandkids or nephews?" offered Dave.

"Maybe. Though- wait... what's that smell?" She shouldered her SKS and advanced slowly, and Dave readied his Nagant and followed behind her.

They crept up to the door of the stable, and were almost overpowered by an unnatural stench. She flung the door open and found the remains of a massacre. Dead horses in various states of decay adorned the ground, and most were partially eaten.

Chris stumbled a few feet away from the door and fell to her hands and knees, throwing up. Dave came over to her side.

"You alright?"

"Yeah... aside from... puking my damn guts out... just peachy..." She spat and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

Dave patted her shoulder. "Looks like sometjing was dragged out of the back of that stable. Let's go around it and have a better look." He letnher recover a bit then brought her around the back.

There were the telltale signs that at least one of the dead horses had been dragged out, blood marking the trails in the soil. Dave kneeled beside some of it and poked it. It was still fresh.

"I hope this isn't Chris's blood-"

Chris slapped him on the back of his head. "Really not the time for that."

He scowled and rubbed the back of his head. "This happened not too long ago, maybe even while we were talking to the old man out front."

"So if we hurry, we could still be hot on the trail." She pushed a clip of 7.62 into her SKS. "Let's get moving."

Together, they took off at a trot, following the tracks and blood trail. The sun dipped below the horizon, and soon they were in the middle of the forest, navigating with their flashlights.

"How far did this fucking dogman drag this fucking horse?" Chris asked in frustration.

"Fucker seems strong, I'll give him that."

Some more walking followed. The moon rose above the trees, illuminating everything just a bit. They came across a small depression in the earth, with several felled trees covering it. The smell from the horse stable was here as well.

Chris pinched her nose shut as they came closer, and Dave got on his knees to shine his light into the depression.

"Holy shit... I think we found it's den..." The skeletal remains of a horse were concealed by the fallen trees, with chunks of flesh still sticking to the bones in places. There was a strong stench of urine, and lots of loose fur all over.

"Alright! We got this fucker's home! Now we can just hurry up and wait." Chris pumped her fist in the air.

"Hold on... this doesn't feel right..."

"We're hunting a dogman, that should he par for the course."

Behind them, there was a howl. It was long and sullen like a wolf, but much deeper. Chris readied her weapon and priented herself in its direction. The howl sounded again, closer. But then there was another. And another. Dave pulled his revolver out and went back to back with Chris, scanning for movement.

Something dark sprinted through the beam of his flashlight. Then again. Large shapes, sprinting on all fours.

"I think we might have bitten off more than we can chew..." said Dave, his breathing picking up.

"H-how many are th-there?" asked Chris, her voice getting shaky.

More howls sounded out through the night. And now they could hear growling.

Chris saw movement in the corner of her eye, and pivoted to face it. Her light fell upon one of the beasts. It was snarling, with jagged teeth and jaundice yellow eyes. It reared up on its hind legs and howled, towering above her by a full two feet. She opened fire.

BANGBANGBANG

The forest seemed to go utterly silent as the dogman stumbled forward and collapsed in a heap. It gurgled and twitched, blood foaming at its mouth. Twitch... twitch... twitch... and it expired.

"I-I got one!"

The forest came alive again with the furious snarling and growling of the other beasts, enraged that one of their own was felled. They encircled the pair and charged straight at them.

Dave opened fire with his Nagant.

CRACK
CRACK

Another dogman went down, skidding in the dirt.

BANGBANG
BANGBANGBANG

Chris bagged two more, blowing the top of one's skull clean off.

BANGBANG
CRACK
BANGBANG
CRACK
CRACK
BANGBANGBANGBANG
CRACK

Dave's Nagant clicked, and he dropped it, snatching his .40 semiautomatic out of the holster.

Chris's SKS ran dry, and she lobbed it at the nearest dogman. The rifle struck the beast on the side of its head, stunning it and giving her enough time to bring her AK to bear before it mauled her.

One of the beasts blindsided them by flanking, and tackled them both. Dave dumped his pistol into its neck point blank, and it fell limp.

Chris scrambled back to her feet, and now deprived of her flashlight, blindly fired into the woods.

Dave was having a much harder time getting back up, and another beast fell upon. He fired two rounds, and then the slide of his pistol locked back.
"Fuck! Chris! A little help!"

She spun around and dumped five rounds into the beasts's chest, splattering Dave with its blood. She grabbed him under his good arm and pulled him to his feet, and he pulled out his 10mm revolver.

"How are you doing for ammo?" Dave asked her, in between aiming shots.

She didn't answer. She seemed wholly focused on emptying her magazines as fast as she could, and loading new ones with as much haste as possible. She didn't even seem to be aiming anymore. The barrel of her gun was glowing and the wood was starting to smoke. Yet she kept firing.

Dave shook her shoulder, and she nearly turned around and dumped into him, prevented only by his quick reaction of pushing her arms down, sending three more rounds into the dirt before the weapon clicked dry. He shook her shoulders hard. "Hey! Snap out of it!"

She blinked several times, and seemed to regain awareness of her surroundings. "Did we... did we get 'em all?"

Dave pulled out his earpro and listened carefully for several moments. The only sounds were a few isolated gurgling noises from dying creatures, shot in their lungs. He turned back to her and nodded. "I... I think we did!"

He recovered his flashlight from the ground and starting looking over all the furry corpses. He began counting.

"One... five... nine... twelve... jesus christ... fifteen, sixteen. Sixteen I can see."

Behind him, Chris cried out in pain and dropped her AK. He spun around, revolver at the ready.

He immediately saw what the problem was. Her AK's handguard had caught fire, and she was holding her badly burned left hand close to her body, wincing. The adrenaline was flowing out of her and she could actually feel the pain of it now. She leaned against one of the fallen trees over the dogman den, clutching her hand.

Dave sidled up next to her, stepping over the corpses, and taking care not to loose his footing over all the loose brass on the ground.

"Here, let me see it." He held out his hand, and she placed hers on top of it, palm facing up. He looked it over with his flashlight. Her entire palm was red and starting to blister. It looked to him like a nasty case of a second degree burn. "Do you have your trauma kit?" he asked, to which she nodded.

He fished around in her bag for a few moments, taking out a bottle of water and her medical kit. He poured some water over the burn, applied some antibiotic cream, and wrapped it up with some gauze dressing. She had her teeth clenched throughout the process.

"Thanks," she said rather sheepishly, after it was done.

Dave scanned the area with his flashlight one more time. "Sixteen furry kebab removed, and our only casualties are a couple of bruises and a burned hand. I'd say we're getting better at this."

He shined his beam over the beast that had pinned him to the ground earlier. "You know, that one was too close. I was almost a Dave sandwich." He turned his head to Chris with a shit-eating grin.

She punched him in the dick.

Dave doubled over, breathless. "Oookay... message... received..."

"I did tell you I was going to punch you in the dick, today."

"Yeah... I know..." He struggled back up to his feet.

Chris looked over the mess of dogman corpses strewn around. "The old guy said he wanted one of these things brought to him as proof?"

"Yeah... he did..."

"Well, how are we going to drag one all the way back to that mansion? We both are going one-handed here. And those things look heavy as fuck."

He pulled a camera out of his bag. "Not to worry, I have THIS!"

Chris raised her fist, and Dave jumped back, turning his hips away from her. "Hey, hey! Sorry!"


As Dave took pictures of the dogmen, Chris went and nudged one with her foot. "Maybe we should take a picture together in front of them with a timestamp? That way we can put it up on /k/ later."

"Ha, I don't think anyone would believe it."

"Maybe. But then again, we could also do it as a sort of memoir? Because maybe we could start doing things like this on the regular."

"What, hunting supernatural monstrosities?"

"Yeah, like you said, we seem to be getting better at it."

"And you're cool with us basically skirting around certain death, hell, not skirting, actively charging into the face of it?"

"Well... I guess I am. That adrenaline rush... Christ, it's intoxicating... I feel kinda empty now that we're out of the thick of it."

"Hmm... maybe..." Dave stipped and scratchednhis chin.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that we could start up our own cryptid hunting agency, the two of us. I mean, we'd have the funds, if we pooled together."

She nodded, thinking it over. "Yeah... and if we did that, we wouldn't have to look so hard for new things to kill... we could have a hotline for people to call us up."

"So you really wanna do it?"

"Yeah. Let's do it."

"Awesome. All we gotta do is think of a name." Dave put the camera down and took a pad of paper and a pen out of his bag. "How about... we just go with something simple? Cryptid Removers, but spell it with a /K/?"

She shook her head. "Nah. Sounds way too generic. Nobody would get the reference."

"Alright, do you have something better?"

"What about... /K/ommandos vs Wild? Accurate descriptor, don't you think?"

"Yeah, actually, I like it." He scribbled onto the notepad, tore off the page and stuck it to the forehead of one of the dogmen. It was a timestamp with the name of their new agency.

Chris smiled and squatted on the other side of the corpse, while Dave set the camera on a log and put it on a timer. He went back over and squatted too.

"Say Cosmoline!"

"Don't be a faggot."

FLASH

By daybreak, the two of them had made their way back to the mansion grounds. The stationwagon was still parked in the driveway, so they deposited their weapons and bags in the trunk. They then went up to the large wooden doors and pounded on it until someone answered.

The person who came to the door was a maid, and she gasped when she saw the pair on the other side, covered in blood and bits of fur.

"Hey there," said Chris, waving her bandaged hand. "Can you get your boss for us? We're here on business."

The woman scurried off into the house, and a few minutes later, the old man came around with his bodyguard pushing him along. "Well... you two certainly look worse for wear..."

"Yeah, tell us about it."

"Did you succeed, however?"

Dave handed the camera over. "Have a look for yourself."

The old man flipped through the images on the camera. "Were you not able to bring one of the bodies over here yourselves?"

"Dude, those fucking things are like four hundred pounds and seven feet tall. And we only have two working arms now between the two of us," said Chris indicating her bandaged hand. "If you wanna have a look for yourself, all bodies are still there a few miles east. Just follow the trails of horse blood."

"Speaking of which, all your horses were eaten. Don't worry though, they were like that when we got there," Dave assured.

"I... I..." he stammered before recovering his composure a bit. "Are you at least sure you eliminated all of the creatures?"

"Yeah, we found their little den and cleared it out. They shouldn't bother you again."

"Excellent... I thank you for your work... and it appears it was at considerable risk to yourselves... William, fetch their payment." A butler came out from behind a wall carrying a briefcase. He opened it for a few brief moments, revealing it contained bundles of hundred dollar bills. "Fifty thousand dollars should be sufficient compensation?"

Both of them nodded vigorously and accepted the briefcase.

The old man thanked them again for their services, and the door was closed, leaving them still a bit shocked at the amount they'd been paid.

"Fifty fucking thousand for one night's work," Dave mused.

"Yeah, we DEFINITELY need to get into this business full time," said Chris, hefting the case with her one good hand. She tossed it in the back of the stationwagon and got into the passenger's seat. She flung the keys at Dave. "You're driving back."

"Huh? Why me?"

"Because my fucking hand still hurts, you imbecile."

"I still have a cast on my arm!"

"You'll probably that thing off tomorrow or the day after. You'll be fine."

Dave shook his head and sighed, climbing into the driver's seat.

"You got to nap all the way over here anyway. It's my turn," she said, smirking in her shit-eating way.

"Yeah, yeah." He started up the car and began the trip back home. By the time they were back on the main road, Chris was snoring. Dave just chuckled and drove on.