The Jackal
The Jackal’s call fills my ears, its strange keening sharp and probing. The night fills my senses - the cool kiss of the night wind, its breath fanning across my face, the blinking lights strung in the sky, the moon winking down at me knowingly. For a few precious moments, everything is silent. The chilled darkness winds its way around me in the darkness, slowly stroking me into suffocation. The Jackal’s cruel howl once again splits the air in two, and the hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.
The call of the Jackal is a frightening thing. According to the old myth, it’s the last sound you hear before you die: “The Jackal’s howl, His prey to keep. Calling you deeper into eternal sleep.” A third time, the chilling call reaches my ears, propelling my bone-weary self onwards. Fear of the Jackal has been seared into my bones, coursing through them as if it were some intangible second marrow. Here, in my small village, the terrifying reputation of the Jackal is passed down from generation to generation, from parent to child.
I can’t stop running. They say it’s the only way to escape Him. Our terrifying deity. Our Lord and Savior. Our reaper. It is said that once the Jackal catches you, your soul is His to keep, and you must drift forever between Purgatory and Hell, chained to His will. The thought sends an icy spear through my veins, infusing them with liquid adrenaline. The only sounds I hear now are the pounding of my feet on wet pavement and the mournful wail of the Jackal’s throat.
I don’t know how long I’ve been running, only that I must keep plodding on until dawn. The soft rays of the morning light are my only hope. The chariot of Apollo is the only thing that can drive away the monstrous being that is the Jackal.
As I run, I hear a strange, skittering noise. It takes me a moment to place it, but once I do, my heart leaps into my throat. It can be nothing else, other than the scraping of claws on concrete. Long, wicked Jackal claws. The rain lashing at my vision whips my terror into a crimson frenzy, and only one thought can break through: run, run, run!
My eyelids start to droop, and my feet start to tire. I’m alright for now, but there is no way I’ll make it until dawn. No way. The call of the Jackal sounds again, the terrible claw-scraping sounding nearer than ever before. I am almost certain I can feel its moist, hot breath on my neck. But I cannot be sure, for to look back is surely suicide.
It is a slippery rock that does me in at the end. The terrible fear and the dismal weather hide it from my sight, and my shoe catches on it. For a few moments, I am hung midair, flying over the slick pavement. But gravity soon comes into effect, and I tumble to the ground, skidding for a few feet before stopping. Crimson rivulets swim down my arms and legs, and a large mound of pain is forming on my forehead. I cannot open my left eye, and my right ankle is swollen and heavy with a throbbing ache. I can’t get up, even if I tried.
For some time, I sit there, the adrenaline working as a pain-dulling morphine. A low growl echoes through the night, and my arms are covered in gooseflesh. My heart thunders against my ribcage, so loud I am certain the Jackal can hear it. But it matters not. The Jackal can smell His prey from a mile away, and He will soon be upon me, His terrible teeth tearing into my flesh, His gleaming claws reaching into my heart and drawing out my soul.
I shake my head at my young and foolish ideas of invincibility; now it is time to face my mortality. A strange calm envelops me. There is some measure of comfort in knowing that my fate is set in stone, that my grave is already dug, fresh and six-feet deep, and there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing at all.
Alas, my hourglass has tipped, the final reluctant grains of sand must soon fall, for the Jackal is upon me. Bathed in the soft moonlight, He is even more dreadful than the hushed whispers amongst the haggard-faced men of my village have led me to believe. He stands at least seven feet tall, and gleaming cords of muscle and sinew ripple under His green-gold fur with every movement. His fur is slick with rain and matted with blood, and His claws must measure at least two-feet long. A long, whip-like tail swishes behind Him, and His face is set in a fearsome snarl. Folds of skin overlap a terrifying, wolfish grin, His teeth filled with too many teeth, every one of them sharp and reaching well past the bottom of His wrinkled snout. A forked tongue darts out to lick gobs of meat from His crimson smile. All of these feature on their own would have been terrifying enough, but His eyes! His eyes are a strange amber in color, wide and darkened as they drink in the moonlight. They are filled with vicious hate, and a large, raised scar crosses His left eye. His eyes are bright with the fevered heat of madness, and paralyzing fear crashes over me once more. His terrible appearance has stolen the breath from my lungs, leaving my jaw slack and my eyes blank.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the Jackal walks forward. It is only now that I realize He has cornered me in an alleyway, and I tremble in fright. He will have my soul, and I will be sent to Purgatory for my inability to defend myself. It is a fair punishment, but one I hate, nonetheless. I grope for the small blade at my hip that all men of my village carry with them, knowing it is my only hope. My fingers close around the searing cold of the steel hilt, and I slide it carefully from its sheath, waiting for the right moment.
Four more steps and the Jackal will be on me. Three more steps...two more...one more. With a deep growl that could freeze the hottest pits of Hell, the Jackal lunged forward. I let its warm body fall onto my own, bracing myself for the burning heat of His claws. With a roar, the Jackal rears His head and raises His right arm. In a sweeping downward arc, five deadly points come rushing at my face. I planned to stop His claws with my blade, but His movements were much too fast to anticipate. His claws raked down my face, and I let out an angry, pain-filled howl. I have never felt anything like the lines of crimson fire this beast left down my face. With hardly a second thought I brought my knife up and thrust it at the Jackal’s heart, but my blade merely bounced off of His fur as though it were fine steel. With a cry of fury, I stabbed at Him again and again, but my knife was merely sent back at me in a deadly game of ping-pong. As its claws raked down my stomach and back up again, hovering dangerously close to my throbbing jugular, an old chant from my school days came back to me.
“The Jackal is a terrible beast,
Could cause Hell to freeze and ice-capped mountains to thaw,
His fur is like an iron shield,
The only blindspot is his gaping maw.”
With a strangled sound halfway between a sob and a guffaw bubbling in my throat, I rip my knife free from his steel-plated fur and plunge it into his snarling, salivating mouth. A black fountain springs from the Jackal’s throat, drenching me in its metallic scent, and I laugh, twisting the knife further into the Jackal’s pulsating mouth. He makes a strange gurgling sound, and His whole body convulses. A strange white foam coats his jaws, and with a final swipe the Jackal clips my ear.
As I stare at the non-moving Jackal, all of my fright turns to a white-hot fury. It was the Jackal who put me through all of this, and it will be Him who pays the price. The adrenaline having not yet worn off, I stand on my sprained ankle, and with an ear-splitting howl, propel myself onto the beast, plunging my hand into His slack-jawed mouth. I reach in and tear out gobs of flesh, black blood coating me. I laugh and I sob, screaming at the Jackal as I finally reach His heart. With a terrifying grin I remove it with my knife, revelling in the slick slick it made as it sliced through cartilage. With a final wet popping noise, I tear the Jackal’s heart out, and in a pool of rainwater I catch a glimpse of myself. Drenched in rain and dripping with both my blood and the blood of the Jackal, with a maddened heat filling my gaze and several large gashes running down my face, with a knife in one hand and an oozing, dripping heart in the other, I can barely recognize the shy, timid, and sweet-tempered man I used to be. He is gone, and a Jackal lives in my eyes. With a grin, I wink at my reflection and lift the heart to my lips, savoring its sweet smell before tearing into it with my teeth.
The heart tastes like nothing I have ever tasted before, and as black blood dribbles down my chin, I tear at the tough flesh with eager teeth. A grunt escapes my throat, and I slurp noisily at the succulent meal. I don’t know what drove me to eat the Jackal’s heart, but it was both my greatest achievement and my biggest downfall.
For I did not realize that my dearest friends and neighbors had come out into the night to see what all the ruckus was about. And there, in the rapidly disappearing darkness, they did not see their dear friend. All they saw was the silhouette of a creature hunched over something still and unmoving, its head bowed over a meaty object, tearing and ripping at it with its teeth, soaked in blood and grunting, laughing, sobbing, and muttering to itself. I don’t blame them, really. The lighting was terrible and I wasn’t in the best frame of mind. Of course, they assumed I was the Jackal. The man in the front, a burly, muscled man, draws his pistol and fires it at my throat. I crumple to the ground, sightless eyes staring blankly at the dusky streaks of the sky. They leave my body there to rot, in Jackal Alley.
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