The forest was just starting to come alight with the first rays of the autumn sun.  Convoy had decided to prioritize speed over safety, and was rolling through the spooky-looking woods.  They had encountered an unknown, sizable number of SCP-363, “Not Centipedes,” at approximately 0330 hours.  Everyone scattered, grabbing a gun and a flare to help light their way and recognize each other.  Inevitably, however, they had gotten separated.
	“Hello?” the young woman called.  Tall, willowy, the 5'9 former Army helicopter mechanic pushed her way through the foliage and underbrush.  The trees were just starting to turn, radiant reds and oranges standing in counterpoint to the ACU camouflage pants she wore, and the blank tan tee-shirt.  She reaches for the radio on her belt, and keys it.  <<Dodridge, this is Cunningham, respond.>>
	Silence echoes back to her, the silence of the woods.  She swears, shifting the rifle in her hands as she feels the weight of the cold steel.  She looks from left to right, eyes scanning the woods for any trace of Convoy.  Privately, she wondered if she would ever see her group again.
	From behind, the short, sharp sound of a twig snapping.  With a quick breath, she turns around, rifle coming up as she barks a short command.  “Identify!”  Her voice, clear and precise, cuts through the eerily-silent woods.  Her breath rasps in her chest as she turns around, activating the mike again in a futile gesture.  <<Any, respond please. This is Cunningham requesting support.>>
	An answer comes, but not from the radio and certainly not from the source she expected.  “'Ello, poppet.”  The voice is sharp and grating, biting off the last syllable.  The source of that voice is a ropy body, spindly and almost impossible-looking, surmounted by a demonically-grinning carved pumpkin, lit from within by a demonic, hellish red glow.
	Save for those two words of greeting, the woods are silent.  A hand flies to the woman's chest.  “Fuck! You startled me...do you know where everyone is, Mr. Shank?”
	Shank's only response is silence.  His silence echoes that of the woods, blank and oppressive.  “Is...is everything okay...?” The woman tilts her head slightly.  Shank stares back into her eyes...so much malice lives there.  So much hatred.  The woman bites her lip.  “M-Mr. Shank...?”
	The brightest thing in the woods right now is the demonic grin of the one named Shank.  The rest of the world, in the peri-dawn light, seems to dim in comparison to the hatred, the raw, feral malevolence, issuing forth from Shank.
	“...About time I got ya alone, innit?”  The voice is horrible, gravelly, with a hint of Breton inflection.  Even more horrible is the fact that the pumpkin's terrifying grin does not move.  Her eyes go wide as Shank pulls a sickle from somewhere, reaching around to his back.  “Come along...”
	The lady trembles, swallowing, but stands her ground.  “Mr. Shank...please...let's talk,” she says, voice quavering.  “I don' think so,” he responds harshly, in that horrible British mockery.  “I've had ta put up wit ya chunterin on about tea an' Vance an' the kid an' that fuckin' cat.”  The sickle moves, steel flashing down.  “Talk is over.”
	The scything blade strikes home, scoring a long, shallow cut from Cunningham's cheek to her navel.  It wells and begins to bleed.  “I want you bleeding,” he seethes.  Cunningham cries out, in a shocked tone, “Please!  I've been nice to you, I trust you!” Her rifle comes up, stock pressing into her shoulder.  “Best thing, innit?” Shank says amusedly, as her finger squeezes home on the trigger.
	Shank cackles like a starved raven as the bullet passes through center mass, leaving behind little evidence of its passing.  In panic, she drops her rifle, jamming her hand on the radio switch.  <<Someone!  Anyone!>> Only silence responds to her desperate cry.  A high, shrill, inhuman cackle chases her as her path takes her on a winding journey, a leap over a brook and ducking to avoid smashing into a low-hanging tree.  Her lungs burn with exertion, blood flowing from the cut on her chest as she weeps, tears falling and soaking the ground.  Still, she runs.
	The laughter chasing her stops.  The whispering sound of leaves rises quickly in its absence as something leaps from trunk to trunk.  She ducks behind the dubious cover of a tree and frantically keys the radio.  <<Anyone, this is Jill!>> the panicked whisper emerges.  <<Shank...is hunting me, please...please respond!>>  The terror is evident in her voice, the fear of one who sees their death approaching.  Her radio answers back with a burst of static.  The figure cavorts through the air and whips itself around a tree branch, before landing right on top of Cunningham.
	She screams as the creature grabs her neck, chopping at her again and again with that sickle, blood staining the blade as she is cut deeply.  She looks at him with terror in his eyes, then fumbles for her lighter.  Her radio blats again, and a male voice can be heard under the static, but his words are unintelligible save for a <<-come back!>> in the middle.
	The sickle embeds itself in the tree after the sixth bloody strike.  As Shank pulls out a wicked-looking cleaver to continue his work, her shaking hands manage to get the lighter into position, and a flame takes root in the center of the demon's abdomen.  A voice, a real voice, far off in the woods, echoes the radio's call.  <<Cunningham, Harding, come the fuck back!>>  The demon screams as the fire lights.
	He screeches, the sound of a mis-tuned violin combining with the scratch of nails on a chalkboard as his arms split into two, then two again, each of the limbs holding a different blade  He strikes, and misses.  Cunningham scrabbles for her radio.  <<HELP!>> she screams, her terrified cry echoing across the forest.
	Immediately, the clear voice comes back.  It's male.  <<Harding responding!>> it cries, and the crash of underbrush is heard both across it and across the way.  She fumbles with her lighter again, but the wind from the demon's retreat puts out both the fire on the lighter and the flame in its body.  “JUS' DIE YA FUCKIN BINT,” he cries in frustration as he slashes forward.
	The wild flailing finds a pair of rusty scissors embedded in her neck.  Cunningham slumps against the tree, eyes wide with shock, but still clear.  She makes an odd choking sound as Shank says, “...Finally.”  The blades drop to the ground and he wrenches his sickle out of the tree, arms creaking back into place.
	Suddenly, a man wielding an assault rifle and wearing an Interceptor vest stalks in, hazel eyes burning with ferocity.  The rifle in his hands barks and spits, sending a barrage of fire towards the demon.  It blows a hole through his head and much of his body.
	“Whuzzat?” Shank turns, facing the new intruder.  “You asshole!” The man's voice is hoarse and strained, but full of rage.  “Burn in all the hellfire of all the Gods!”  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” Shank responds, casually flicking a cleaver at Harding, the deadly steel flying through the air.
	Harding manages to dip out of its way as it sails harmlessly over his left shoulder.  He returns fire, a three-round burst of ammunition blowing Shank's arm clear of his body.  “Heh.”
	“Something funny?” Harding challenges.  Suddenly, Shank is on him, swinging upward with the sickle.  “Narmy, in more than one way,” he hisses.  The sickle cuts into Harding's gut, but no major damage is inflicted. He makes a pained noise, then pulls himself off the blade and re-addresses his target.  “Why won't you die?” he queries as another blast issues.
	This one blows chunks out of his torso.  “Not alive,” he says gravelly, before surging forward and getting a hand in Harding's gut wound.  “Le's jus' see what makes ya tick, jackass.”  His hand barely has time to find purchase before Harding is already wriggling aside, spinning and engaging once more, scoring a line of hits across his gut.
	The scythe flies again, and Harding barely avoids disemboweling as he spins away from the blade just in time.  However, his motions spoil his aim, and his next attack flies far clear of its mark.  He circles his target, towards the tree where Cunningham lay slumped, powerless to act.
	Fate, however, has a way of catching up to people.  The next strike hits home, and a deep slash pops into existence across Harding's gut.  He is driven back, backing up against the tree where she lay.  “Yer pretty good, I'll give ya that,” the demon growls.  “Pretty good...” Harding pants, facing him down, “isn't good enough...  “Nope.  Ya suck.”
	Once more, the trigger is pulled, and once more, rounds fly harmlessly through the demon.  He retaliates with a swift kick to Harding's face, a bent 2x2 fencepost whipping up and around, catching him on the point of his chin.
	The SCAR flies from Harding's nerveless hands, tumbling before coming to rest, barrel pointing accusingly at Shank, a dark, smoking finger of admonition.  The momentum imparted by Shank's kick knocks Harding to the left, body twisting as he comes to rest practically in Cunningham's lap, eyes wide and unblinking.
	Shank reaches over, pulling the scissors from Cunningham's neck with a cruel swiftness.  “Bout fuckin' time I got around ta this...now watch this.”  Shank twists Harding's neck upwards, and before his horrified, still-too-comprehending eyes, even as Cunningham's life jets out of her neck, the foul abomination cuts, with an inhuman expertise, her still-clear, forest-hazel eyes from her head.  Her eyebrows arch, and the set of her orbits would convey surprise, but that there are no longer eyes to express it.  She clutches for Harding in her final moments, breath passing her lungs for the final time as her hand closes around his.
	Harding's eyes widen in sympathy, and though air passes his lungs, no words emerge as his mind lashes, furious at its body's inability to act.  Unbeknownst to him, Shank attacks Harding with a knife, but misses.  He takes another ragged breath, not knowing it is to be his last.  He clutches for words, for anything-- and the knife finds its mark.
	Boring through skull and brain, Harding's eyes roll back in his head, as if trying to lay eyes on that which has just reft the life from him.  The last breath leaves his lungs as his body sinks down, settling into its final repose as the demon laughs, before lumbering off into the forest.