Longhunter

Baker let out another harrowing screech, a blend of black tar and foaming saliva dripping from his mouth, his matted hair whipping through the air as he turned his glassy stare on one of the hunters. With surprising speed, he launched himself into a sprint, covering the distance quickly enough that his target could do little other than use his rifle to block him. Baker threw all of his weight into a shoulder charge, knocking the hunter to the ground, setting upon him like a rabid dog. He gnashed his teeth, the man struggling to hold him at arm's length as the two grappled.

"Help me!" the hunter sputtered, panic raising the pitch of his voice as Baker clawed at him with dirt-caked fingernails.

A shot rang out, the sheer concussive force knocking Baker off the man, sending him sprawling onto his side. The hunter struggled out from under him, stumbling as he backed up a few feet, bringing his own weapon to bear. As the smoke cleared, George saw that it was Dawes who had fired, and he was already biting open a second paper charge. More of the men had leveled their weapons, seeing now that they might have no other choice.

Baker stirred, then rose to his feet, George's eyes widening as he saw the fist-sized hole in the man's chest. Dark fluid seeped from the wound, along with his nose and mouth, its consistency far thicker than blood should have been. Even with a mortal injury, he was not deterred. Baker turned his attention to the nearest man, extending his arms as he loosed another unnerving cry, his fingers contorted into talons.

Smoke filled the air as a chorus of shots rang out, half a dozen men pouring fire into the stumbling figure. George had seen gunshot wounds before, but Baker was practically dismembered, the lead balls taking out chunks of flesh as they tumbled and expanded inside his jerking body. He slumped to the forest floor, lying there motionless, his inky fluids staining the ferns.

Daugherty pushed through the crowd of onlookers, his satchel in hand, kneeling on the ground beside the prone body. As he started to unpack his medical tools, Sam stepped closer to aim his rifle at Baker's head, worried that he might yet be dangerous.

"For God's sake, man," Daugherty grumbled as he pushed the barrel of the gun away. "Can't you see that he's Swiss cheese?"

The doctor produced a handkerchief from his pocket, tying it about his face like a bandana in a bid to ward off the foul odor. Baker was lying face-down, the doctor gripping the motionless figure by the shoulder, heaving him onto his back. He was covered in bullet wounds, and one of them had blasted off part of his jaw, his discolored tongue hanging limp.

"Doctor?" Dawes asked as Daugherty examined him, cutting open his tattered vest with a pair of surgical scissors.

"If you had brought me this man before he was shot, I would have told you that he died hours ago," Daugherty replied. "There are telltale signs of decomposition. The skin is marbled with broken blood vessels, there's some swelling beginning in the face, the process of putrefaction has begun. Yet, rigor mortis has not set in, and the dead tend not to stumble around screaming..."

"What kind of disease infects men, animals, and plants?" George asked.

"There is no disease I know of that mimics the process of decomposition," the doctor replied, shaking his head as he gazed down at the body. "We must bury him, far from the camp."

The man who had grappled with Baker stepped forward, still visibly shaken, his hands trembling as he clutched his rifle.

"We should turn back," he insisted, his voice wavering with fear. "There's nothing out here but death."

"Go back with nothin' to show for it?" Doyle demanded angrily. "If we turn up at the Company's doorstep without havin' found so much as an acre of good timber or a single piece of coal, what do you think they'll say? Oh, you didn't do the job we paid you for, but here's your wages anyway? Bullshit," he added, taking off his fur hat and tossing it on the ground. "I'll be destitute without that pay. I might as well be dead."

There was a low murmur of agreement from the group. It seemed that most of the men were siding with Doyle, and George could sympathize. Life on the frontier wasn't easy. Hunters lived off the land, and if they didn't bring back enough meat and furs, they didn't eat. Many of them had invested their very lives in this expedition, foregoing their usual work and leasing equipment with the promise of a company paycheck, and there was simply nothing to go back to if they failed in their task. George himself had leased his rifle, intending to pay it off with the money he expected to receive upon returning home.

The man could read the crowd, and he knew that he wasn't going to sway them.

"Then, let's pack up and head somewhere else," he suggested, practically pleading with them now. "We go North or South, find a way around this cursed forest."

"We would have to go around the entire mountain range," George explained. "This forest probably extends throughout the foothills, could be hundreds of miles wide and just as deep. There's nowhere else to go, not with the rations we have."

"Then, what are we supposed to do?" the man demanded as he gestured to the darkness beyond the trees. "Just hang around until we all end up like Baker?"

"We have a defensible position here," Dawes replied. "Baker only got hurt because he ran off on his own. You're all hunters, you've all dealt with harsh conditions, you've all encountered dangerous animals before. We're not going to roll over and give up just because some of them are sick. We stick to the mission."

"Baker was perfectly healthy less than twelve hours ago," Daugherty added, wiping his hands on his handkerchief as he rose to his feet again. "Whatever this disease is, the onset is fast. I think we would know by now if anyone else was infected."

"And whatever happened to him, it happened out there," George added as he nodded to the treeline. "He must have come into contact with one of the diseased animals. Maybe a bite or a scratch."

"The oddly rapid onset of decomposition coupled with the damage from the gunshot wounds makes it hard to say with any certainty," the doctor replied. "I don't see any obvious signs of an animal attack, but I can't be sure."

"We resume our work as normal tomorrow," Dawes said. George usually respected the man's decisiveness, but something told him that their leader was putting on blinders, as though the situation would return to normalcy if he just ignored the unnatural events that were unfolding around him. "Stay vigilant. Now that we know what we're dealin' with, we won't be surprised again. I want twelve men guardin' the camp at all times. We're down a man, but two teams of six and one of five can continue to scout out the area and map its resources. Furs, good timber, coal, gold. We ain't leavin' until we have a thorough report for the Company."

That seemed to satisfy most of the group, the men nodding and muttering to one another.

"For now, return to your posts," Dawes added as he started off towards the tents. "We'll resume the guard duty shifts. I need a few volunteers to help me bury Baker."

"Ain't he gettin' a service?" Sam asked, taking off his hat and holding it against his chest as he glanced down at the body.

"Maybe in the morning," Dawes replied. "I don't want anyone out in the fog for too long."

***

The whole party attended the service the next morning. Baker had been buried some distance from the camp in a shallow pit, his grave marked only by a pile of rocks that had been stacked on top of it in lieu of a headstone. The more spiritual among them said a few words and blessings, but it didn't feel like much of a send-off.

George hadn't known the man very well, but he had shared a few friendly conversations with him. It was odd to think that he had died, and in such an undignified way. Death was a reality of life on the frontier. Being killed by exposure, a wild animal, or unfriendly natives were all possibilities that hunters contended with on a daily basis. While George had been anticipating that there might be deaths during the expedition, the manner of Baker's passing was disquieting, to say the least.

They were not afforded much time to grieve, as there was business to be taken care of. Dawes seemed to be rushing the men through their tasks, but the faster they accomplished their mission, the sooner they could leave this tainted forest. Their original plan had been to continue heading West through the foothills, maybe even reaching the far shore of the continent, but nobody much liked the prospect of heading even deeper into the woods. They were only a day or two's walk from the plains, so the option to turn around was still there if it really became necessary. Instead, they would try to find resources enough to satisfy the Company, and if that failed, they might have to trek deeper...

George was assigned to the same group as before, with Sam, Doyle, Smith, and Meyer accompanying him. They were a man down without Baker, but Dawes shuffled the hunters around and assigned a sixth member to their group, a man named Marshall. That left eleven men to defend the camp while three teams of six ranged out to scout the area, but that should be enough to ward off wayas.

They loaded up with gear and supplies, intending to spend as many as a few days out on their own, wanting to cover as much ground as possible. The party had been hoping to supplement their supplies of dried meat, flour, and beans with wild game, but they hadn't encountered anything so far that wasn't diseased. They were still optimistic, but rationing what they had for the time being was a sensible precaution. There would be no more bread. They would ration out the flour and use it only to thicken the soups that would be the bulk of their diet until they came across some fresh meat. All of the men in the group had spent time in the wilderness, and all but a few were experienced longhunters, so this kind of lifestyle wasn't unusual for them. Needless to say, the presence of the strange, infected animals raised the stakes quite a lot from a normal outing.

Laden down with his rucksack, George set off from the campsite in the company of his scout party, rifle in hand as he wound his way through the stout trees. During the day, the sun burned away much of the mist, and the darkness of the forest receded somewhat. One still couldn't see further than two or three hundred feet in any direction, but it was far less oppressive, his mood seeming to lighten along with his environment.

"The first order of business is finding out whether the disease that infects the trees is isolated or widespread throughout the forest," he explained as the group navigated around a fallen log that was being reclaimed by the moss and ferns. "There's a wealth of timber here, but nobody wants dead, rotting lumber."

"I've been noticin' more dead trees now that you've pointed 'em out," Sam muttered as he walked along beside them. "It seems to be happenin' in patches, almost like...the forest itself has mange."

"Trees are one thing, but we need to secure a food source," Doyle added. "That's a more immediate concern. We found a dead hottah, which means there must be live ones, right?"

"I don't know if we should be eating anything that we catch out here," George replied, giving him a worried glance.

"You saw how quickly Baker turned," Doyle continued. "Less than twelve hours, and I doubt it was sudden. Poor soul was probably losin' his faculties for hours before he ended up in the state we found him in. My thinkin' is that if we see an animal that looks healthy, it probably is. If we cut inside it and find black tar or a foul smell, we leave it alone."

"We can't just subsist on soup for the next few weeks," Marshall added. The newcomer was dressed much like the rest of the men, all leather and fur, with an unkempt beard that he hadn't shaved since leaving the Eastern shore. He was a rugged mountain man, his skin tanned by a lifetime of outdoorsmanship. "I say it's worth the risk."

George was clearly being overruled, but they had a point. Baker had started to decompose in the time between fleeing from the waya and wandering into the camp, so the window was a narrow one.

"Dawes said to head West," George added, pulling his compass from his pocket to check that they were still walking in the right direction. "That's going to take us much deeper into the forest, probably into the foothills at the base of the mountains."

"Do you think things are gonna get better or worse the deeper we go?" Sam asked warily, George shrugging his shoulders in reply.

***

"This one is infected too," George said, watching dark fluid seep from the trunk where he had scored it with his knife. He brought up his journal, making a note of it. He had drawn a crude map of the area and was marking off the patches of diseased trees where he found them, but no obvious pattern had jumped out at him yet.

"Is there any logic to it?" Sam asked, pausing to wipe his brow on his sleeve. They had been walking for the better part of the morning, and it would soon be time to take a break and get some lunch.

"There doesn't seem to be anything linking the patches of diseased trees together," George explained as he examined his map. "One would expect proximity to play some part, but that isn't the case. That said, maybe the groundwater is carrying the disease, or perhaps an infection is spreading through the roots beneath the soil."

"I found a clearin' up ahead," Doyle said as he came crunching through the undergrowth, gesturing behind him with a thumb. "We should take a break, get some food in our bellies."

There were no objections, George closing his journal as he followed the rest of the group through a dry creek, eventually emerging into a small area that was mostly clear of trees. They began to build a campfire, arranging a circle of rocks, half of the men heading out to cut some kindling and firewood while the rest unpacked some of the gear.

Marshall packed the circle of stones with dead twigs and bundles of dry brush, then began to strike his flint and steel firelighter, blowing on the burgeoning flame to get it going. Meanwhile, George and Sam assembled a tripod from three suitably-sized branches and some cordage, strong enough that it could hold the weight of their cooking pot over the fire. They had to be freshly-cut greenwood, as the moisture in the still-living branches would prevent them from simply catching fire when exposed to the heat for any length of time.

As Marshall stoked the flames, George began to unwrap some of the dried and salted meat, which was tied up in little cloth parcels with a piece of string. He wasn't sure exactly what kind of meat it was, most likely tatanka. He sat down on a fallen log that they had dragged a little closer to the fire, setting a wooden cutting board on his knees, starting to chop up the long strips of meat into more edible chunks. They were brittle, sometimes crumbling when he tried to separate them with his knife, but he did a good enough job. Sam had already filled their small cooking pot with water and suspended it above the licking flames, setting it to boil, so George scraped the meat into the iron vessel. It didn't look like much right now, but it would expand somewhat as it soaked.

Next came the flour, which would be used to thicken the soup, preventing it from being too watery and insubstantial. He grabbed a few handfuls from their sack, tossing them into the pot, eyeballing the measurements. A little seasoning went the extra mile, so he rummaged through his pack, pulling out a small glass vial. It was mushroom powder, George upending the container into his hand, sprinkling a generous helping into the pot. He leaned over and began to stir it with a wooden spoon, watching the liquid change color as it bubbled. The scent soon attracted the other men, who took seats around the fire, watching hungrily as they made small talk.

"I didn't figure you for a cook, George," Sam said as he cleaned the barrel of his rifle. He was pushing a piece of cloth into it with the ramrod, scraping away any of the powder residue left from the last time it had been fired.

"I dabble," George replied, raising the spoon to his lips to take a taste. "Back in Albion, we do most of our cooking in kitchens, but I picked up the craft pretty quickly when I arrived in the colonies."

"What brought you out here?" Marshall asked from the other side of the fire. "You seem like an educated man to me, well-spoken. What made you leave everything behind?"

"As much as my professors struggled to beat down any kind of enthusiasm or wanderlust in me, it seems they failed," he replied with a smirk. "I grew weary of reading about adventures and exotic lands as second-hand accounts from journals and papers. I wanted to go somewhere that I could make the discoveries myself. That's the main reason I signed up for this expedition, I suppose. It's a chance to go where nobody has gone before, to catalog new plants and animals, maybe get my own name in a journal one day."

"Looks like you got more than you bargained for," Marshall replied, the men chuckling around the campfire.

"You may be right," George conceded, taking the comment in good humor. "I was betting on having an animal or a tree named after me, but I'm not so fond of the idea of being the man who discovered a brand new plague."

The soup was soon ready, and the men offered their bowls to him, George spooning a generous helping into each of them before filling his own. The meal had come out perfectly. The meat had taken on some water to make it a little more substantial, the flour had given the soup some body, and the addition of the mushroom powder added some extra flavor. They had been walking all morning, and hunger made the soup all the more palatable.

"Well, I have to admit," Marshall began as he lifted the rim of his bowl to his mouth to take a drink from it. "You make a fine soup, Mister Ardwin."

"What about you, gentlemen?" George asked. "What brought you all out here?"

"I expect we all have similar reasons for comin' out here," Marshall replied. "Most of us are hunters by profession. We go out into the wilderness, we track down whatever game we can, and we sell the meat and furs. It's a hard life, but it gives us a lot of autonomy. We're free to wander the land as we please. Problem is," he continued, taking another drink from his bowl. "One bad season and you're destitute. You miss that big hottah, you don't bring in enough furs, that means no food on the table for you and your family. A big company contract like this means a steady wage and a big payout at the end of it."

"If you make it back in one piece," Sam added, fishing a morsel of meat out of his soup with his fork.

"A contract like this means I can pay off my debts," Smith said. "I can maybe live off the paycheck for a few years, spend some time with my wife rather than being away for six months out of the year."

"I don't really have anything waiting for me back East," Meyer said, leaning over to stoke the fire with a long branch. The hot embers shifted, sending bright sparks floating up into the air. "I just wanted to see what was out here, maybe stake a claim on some good land of my own, set up a homestead."

"Why so far from civilization?" George asked.

"Some folks feel safer havin' Army forts all over the place, havin' tax collectors comin' knockin', but I sure as hell don't."

"At some point in time, the whole continent will be tamed," George continued. "What will you do then?"

"Guess I'll just stay ahead of it for as long as I can."

***

"There are definitely more dead trees out here," George said, pausing to examine another of the diseased plants. These were practically rotting where they stood, more of that black fluid seeping out of them wherever the bark was broken, staining the ground beneath them. Even the ferns and moss were tainted, blackened and wilted, the mushrooms that grew between their roots some foul-smelling breed that George had never seen before. They were just as black, and they let out clouds of noxious spores whenever someone trod on one.