Ogres in the Mist
A Mythocide short [4,500 words], inspired by JD Solway and Freyascats from the BARDs group.
I’m sitting on the pub terrace in what passes for glorious sunshine in Scotland with a guitar case next to me. Summer is finally here (thanks in no small part to yours truly) and I’m considering taking a holiday. Then, a story in the local newspaper catches my eye. Apparently, the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui has been spotted again in the Cairngorms.
For those of you that don’t know, the Big Grey Man is often described as the Scottish Sasquatch (that’s Big Foot) or Yeti. Of course, I don’t believe a word of it.
Yetis and Sasquatches aren’t native to Europe; it’s too hot for a Yeti and too barren in most places for a Sasquatch. Why do the mainstream media always overlook their native mythical species in favour of the flashy foreign ones when they are making up their stories?
As usual, the reporters are blaming the sighting on hallucinations brought on by altitude sickness or the optical illusion known as a “Brocken spectre”, when your shadow is cast onto a cloud bank, creating the illusion of a large, shadowy humanoid figure. However, the witness is a respected doctor and an experienced mountaineer. I’m sure he would be aware of those phenomena, so why would he put his reputation at risk by making something like that up?
So much for the holiday.
A pilot friend of mine is in town, waiting to take his client back to London after a weekend’s golfing. He’s offered to fly me to Inverness this morning. Don’t worry, I’m not going to break the bank to charter a private flight. He tells me that he’ll add the extra fuel and landing fees to his client’s bill. He won’t even notice. It’s not going to cost me one satoshi.
I hope that Mythic Inc. haven’t heard about it yet. I can’t be bothered to deal with another bunch of their over-equipped, under-prepared goons as they try to capture it to use in their barbaric sport: Mythocide. If they get their hands on it, it will be broken, micro-chipped and made to fight for its life against other unfortunate mythics to entertain the watching elites. Tickets to Mythocide matches aren’t cheap.
Even with teams of researchers on the payroll, I usually manage to get the jump on Mythic Inc. While they systematically trawl the Internet for reports and sightings of mythics, I rely on instinct and local reports: the kind of stories that rarely make it to the national, never mind international conscious without some serious white-washing and twisting to fit their established narratives. The truth about mythics lies in the specificities of the tale, not in fitting them to templates of search terms.
We spend the short hop in his Cessna Citation M2 catching up. I’ve told him what I do for a living but he doesn’t believe me. He’s convinced that I work for MI6 or some other clandestine agency and he laughs off my tales of unicorns and dragons while I laugh at his stories about his aerial escapades when he was a younger, more reckless pilot.
I thank him and bid him farewell and then go to hire an SUV for the equipment I’m going to need for the hunt.
So, we’ve established that it’s not a Yeti or a Sasquatch. What might it be, then? My hunch is that it’s an ogre, a good old fashioned British monster, which has somehow came through a rift in The Veil and got stuck here
While mythics used to live in our world, as so called civilisation spread and people stopped believing in the old tales, they kind of retreated beyond The Veil. I couldn’t tell you how it works exactly but it’s like a parallel dimension that overlaps ours and sometimes rifts between the two appear and things can cross over. Mystical places, ley lines and the like, seem to be somehow related to the rifts but as far as I can see, there is no hard science involved.
If it is an ogre, it’s going to take some hunting.
I managed to acquire a tranquiliser gun and some darts from Edinburgh zoo the other day (don’t ask). I’m not sure what the darts are dosed for but they were next to the panda enclosure, so they should pack a punch. The rifle is currently sitting in a guitar case on the passenger seat of the SUV while I negotiate with an Inverness trawler man to buy a fishing net.
I end up paying well over the odds for the net but at least he helps me to load it into the back of the SUV.
Next stop is a camping shop to get the right gear. This is costing me a fortune and nobody is going to pay me for it. Such is the life of a freelance mythic hunter.
I’m driving alongside Loch Ness. You can say what you like about the Scots but they know how to milk a myth. I mean, a potential plesiosaur was spotted a couple of times nearly a century ago and they are still bringing in the tourists.
Am Fear Liath Mòr (that’s Scots Gaelic for "Big Grey Man") is a different story. No one is going to fly trans-Atlantic to wear a kilt and try to catch a glimpse of a ten foot monster who’s very presence inspires terror and dread in the bravest men.I park the car in Coylumbridge. It’s getting late so I book into a hotel, planning to get some sleep and make an early start in the morning.
Time for a beer before bed. Nice, they have 80/- on tap.
“You hiking?” The barmaid asks as she pours my pint.
“Indeed,” I say. “I’m planning to head off down Lairig Ghru and up Ben Macdui on the morrow.”
“Ooh. That’s a shame,” she says. “Haven’t you heard?”
“No, what’s happening?”
“The army have closed off the valley for a few days. Exercises, don’t you know. Best stay away. You wouldn’t want to get shot on ya holidays.”
Army exercises? Sounds more like Mythocide Inc. have gotten here before me. They are always pulling the old army exercises ruse while they hunt their quarry. Never mind, at least that means that there won’t be any civilians in the area.
“Guess I’ll do Cairngorm Mountain instead,” I say. “Shame not to bag a munro while I’m here. Thanks for the heads up.”
A few more pints and I’m ready for bed.
My backpack is filled with the requisite gear, including a tent and trail rations. I don’t know how long this will take; there’s a lot of ground to cover. I have the fishing net and the guitar case hidden under a tarpaulin on a hiking sled. I think they would draw too many questions.
The trail takes me through Rothiemurchus forest for a few miles before the trees disappear and the barren Lairaig Ghru appears ahead of me. Lairaig Ghru splits between the high points of Ben Macdui and Braeriach, leading to the vast Cairngorm plateau. It’s summer but you wouldn’t know it out here. The wind is wild and bitter cold and large patches of snow still cover the landscape.
As the landlady had warned me, the entrance to the valley is closed off with barbed wire and there are signs reading:
MILITARY EXERCISE ZONE
KEEP OUT
Oh well, I guess the hunting trip is cancelled.
Who am I kidding? It’s impossible to effectively block off a whole valley, so I just skirt the wire until I come to the end and walk around it.
I follow the narrow path which winds through the barren plateau, spotted with rocks and boulders and sparse vegetation as it leads me into the clouds. I have to rely on my compass for direction to make sure I’m not walking round in circles.
I can hear the sound of a motor vehicle coming up behind me. It doesn’t sound like a Land Rover, the motor vehicle of choice for getting around the Cairngorms. It’s something much bigger.
I hide behind a boulder, dragging the sled behind me and I watch as a turreted armoured personal carrier appears out of the mists. It looks like an Ajax. I’d heard the the army have ordered some but I’ve never seen one before. Its a beautiful parallelogram of imposing British steel on double-pinned tank tracks, covered in Arctic camouflage netting.
A squad of soldiers are running behind it, crunching through the scree. Their SA80’s and their insignia mark them out as British Army. Even Mythic inc. wouldn’t stoop to impersonating real soldiers, would they?
I wonder what they’re doing here. There’s only one way to find out. I leave the sled and my backpack behind the rock and step out into the soldiers’ path.
I’m grateful for the soldier’s trigger discipline as he levels his gun at me.
“What are you doing here? He asks. “This is a restricted area. Didn’t you see the signs.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I’ve been out here for a couple of days. I think I’m lost.”
“We have a civilian in the zone,” he radios over his cheek mic and I am quickly surrounded by half a dozen armed soldiers.
The APC returns and a man pops out of one of the hatches on the turret.
“Someone is going to have to escort him out. Cole, you do it. Rejoin us at point Oscar-Golf.”
“Roger,”
“Can you wait while I get my stuff?” I ask and I go and retrieve my sled and backpack from behind the boulder.
“So what brings you boys out here?” I ask, trying to break the uncomfortable silence as he escorts me back the way I came.
“That’s classified.”
“Field trials for the new toy?” I suggest. “That’s a nice piece of kit.” I shut up when I realise I’m making myself sound like a spy.
We fall back into silence but it is broken by the sound of gunfire echoing down the valley. My escort looks worried.
“Red team, come in,” he says over the mic but there is no reply judging by the worried expression on his face.
“Has this got anything to do with you?” he asks, his gun levelled at me.
“What?” I’m truly as confused as he is.
“You! Get out of here!” he orders and he heads back up the valley in the direction of the gunfire. I wait a while before following him.
I arrive on the scene of a massacre. Cole is treating one of his wounded colleagues. They are in various states of distress: a couple are unconscious, maybe even dead. I listen in as his colleagues explain to Cole what happened.
“It just came at us out of the mist,” he was saying. “Whatever it was, it was huge and strong. It swatted us like flies and our bullets didn’t seem to slow it down. It rolled the APC; god knows what state the crew are in after that.”
“It’s an ogre,” I tell them. No point trying to hide it. Everyone finds it easier to believe in mythics once they’ve had their arse kicked by one.
“You are seriously beginning to piss me off,” Cole says.
“Mal,” I say.
“What?”
“Mal Jaeger, that’s my name. I might be able to help.”
“Do you know any first aid?”
“A bit.” I’ve had to patch myself up more than a few times in my line of work.
“Then start helping,” Cole growls.
Out of the five infantry men on the ground, two have broken ribs, one has a broken arm and one is out cold. We drag the crew out of the APC. They seem in worse shape than the others, battered and bruised but conscious. The APC is crushed and dented and missing a few external fittings, the antennae are bent and busted and the sighting mechanism sticking up on the turret is well smashed up. However, it’s sitting upright after a full three-sixty roll and it’s engine is still turning over: sturdy stuff. That thing must weigh forty tons and the ogre flipped it like a toy.
“I radioed in for a medivac. You’d better be ready to answer some questions about why you’re here,” Cole says.
I pull the tarp off the sled and open up the guitar case to show him the tranquiliser gun and the net.
“I’m hunting the ogre that did this. Do you want to help?”
I can imagine his thought processes perfectly as he looks at me and then at his groaning colleagues. First, he’s going to think that I’m mad, then he’s going to think about what just happened, and finally he’s going to give up and accept the fact that things have just become a hell of a lot more complicated than he could have previously imagined. I’ve seen it a hundred times before.
Cole lights a couple of flares and places them around the area. “Let’s go then.” He takes an SA80 from one of his colleagues, removes the magazine and sticks in one of his ammo pouches then he hands me the rifle. “You can have the bullets if and when you need them. I still don’t trust you.”
I am going to need them, this is no longer a dead or alive situation. The beast has gone crazy if it’s attacking people like that. I’m going to have to put it down.
Cole starts marching up the valley following a trail of huge, deep footprints in the scree.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Aren't we going to take this?” I point at the APC.
“I don't know how to drive it, do you?” He asks with disdain.
“Actually, I do.”
“You are seriously making me suspicious. We were only given it last week. How would you know how to drive it?”
“There are some really good simulators out there if you know where to look and I’ve got a pretty nifty gaming set-up that I can use to run them on when it’s not mining crypto for me. Besides, it’s a lot like driving a car.”
“Well get in then if you’re so sure.”
I open the driver’s hatch and lock it in the open position, then I climb into the driver’s compartment in the hull. Bits of equipment are scattered around the bright white interior but the driving controls and the the rugged display terminals appear intact. The exterior sensors seem to have survived the tumble too and I have three-sixty degree vision on my screens.
Thankfully, the engine is still running. A simulation is one thing but starting a tank is an art in itself which I’ve never done irl.
Cole climbs into the commander’s position in the turret.
“Get a move on!”
I know I said it was a lot like driving a car but it’s also a lot not like driving a car. It’s forty tonnes and 750 horse power worth of not like driving a car and that takes the kind of feeling and experience that you don’t get in a simulation.
I get the revs up, put it into gear and off we go.
Cole is watching out of the commander’s cupola, shouting directions to me even through I have my chair in the elevated position and I’m looking out myself.
At one point I have to swerve to avoid a half-eaten reindeer carcass blocking the trail.
Suddenly, the footprints stop as the ground turns to solid slabs of granite and boulders in place of the snow and scree.
“It can’t just disappear!” Cole says as he climbs down to take a look around.
“Oh yes it can,” I say, following him out of the APC. “And it’s probably better that it does.
“It came from another dimension, probably by accident, and it could just as easily have gone back.”
“We can’t leave a thing like that to come back and forth when it feels like it,” Cole insists.
“I don’t think it has any say in the matter.”
Cole keeps looking around for marks of the ogre’s passage. We are in front of the steep side of the valley. I’m sure I see something moving up there. I check with my binoculars.
There’s a split in the rock which could be the entrance to a cave. We might have found the beast’s lair.
“Can you handle that?” I ask Cole, indicating the 40mm cannon in the APC’s turret.
“I’m ISTAR qualified. I think I can handle it.”
He changes to the gunner’s seat and I call out what I think are the range and the elevation. First the turret, then the barrel whir into action and take aim at the cave mouth. Even it we don’t hit the beast we should seal it into the cave.
“Breach locked. Ready to fire,” Cole shouts.
A shadow appears at the cave mouth, then another. Bloody hell. There’s two of them. The second one is smaller but even fatter and uglier than the first one.
Wait a minute, I’m no obstetrician but I don’t think it’s fat. I think it…she…is pregnant. I suppose monsters have to reproduce somehow but I just didn’t expect it to be so biological.
“Don’t shoot!” I shout to Cole. She’s pregnant. He’s protecting his family!”
I’m not at all sure that that will convince Cole. His colleagues were pretty badly beaten by the male and I don’t know if he shares my soft, paternal side. So far, he hasn’t fired but the cannon is still aimed at the cave.
“C’mon man,” I say to try and convince him. “It’s a breeding pair. Imagine they’re big, ugly flightless ospreys. You wouldn’t shoot a pair of ospreys would you? They’re a protected species.”
There’s an uncomfortably long pause before Cole pops his head out and asks, “What do you suggest we do instead, then?”
I have to think about it.
“OK, we find the rift then we lure them through it,” I say.
“How do we lure an ogre?” he asks.
“We’ll worry about that once we’ve found the rift.” I reply. If it’s still here. Finding a rift is never easy, even when it’s there. I get my compass out. They can sometimes go haywire near a rift but its not consistent. Nothing about them is.
A flock of ptarmigans scatter in front of me. I can hear their clucking complaints, in English! Now that is a sure sign of a rift. I spot a fly agaric mushroom and take a nibble. Cole slaps it out of my hand. “What are you doing man! Those are poisonous.”
“It might give me a bit of a bellyache,” I say. “But I’ll be fine. Reindeer eat them all the time. Besides I need to be able to see the rift.”
As if in response, I see a hazy circle in a six feet gap between two boulders. “Thar she blows!”
Cole stares at where I’m pointing but he can’t see anything. “Take a nibble,” I suggest, picking up the mushroom and offering it to him.
He turns away in disgust.
“I’ll take your word for it. So, you’ve found the rift. What do we do now?”
“Remember the reindeer road kill we saw back there? I think that might be worth a try. I think he was eating it when your patrol interrupted him. Maybe he would like to finish his lunch?”
We walk back down the road to pick up the half-eaten carcass. My abandoned sled isn’t to far away so I go and pick it up and we tie the meat on to it and drag it back to the APC.
“So what now?” Cole asks.
“We’ll turn the APC around, tie the sled to it then one of us will pull the sled up as close to the cave as is safe. If he takes the bait then I’ll drive the APC towards the rift and hopefully he will follow.”
“You said one of us goes up to the cave mouth. Who did you have in mind?”
“Well, I need to be ready to drive, so I guess it’s going to have to be you.” I shrug.
I can hear Cole still grumbling as he starts the steep climb, dragging the sled behind him, gun shouldered. I keep the cannon trained on the cave mouth just in case. The APC’s engine rumbles in neutral.
He reaches the maximum length of the rope, still a good twenty feet from the summit, where he leaves the sled and starts running back down. I slip back into the driver’s seat as Cole climbs through the cupola.
“Well done mate,” I say. “Now, it’s just a question of wai…”
The APC jerks backwards a foot, giving me serious whiplash. Cole tumbles into the compartment. I slam the engine into gear and I stomp on the accelerator and we’re off.
Thankfully, the sudden acceleration has snatched the sled out of the ogre’s grasp. Cole gets back to his feet and looks out.
“It’s working,” he says. “He’s following but he’s a quick bugger and he’s gaining on us.” I floor it. Blimey, this thing can move.
It’s a hell of a bumpy ride. I have to fight with the steering controls to keep the forty ton monster on track.
We’re quickly approaching the two boulders and I can see the shimmer of the rift in between. The last thing I want to do is drive through so I pull a hard right and go into a tailspin. We slide past the opening while the inertia of the sled keeps it going straight ahead. It passes between the boulders and disappears. The ogre charges through after it.
“Eat my goal!” I shout and punch the air.
“What about the other one?” Cole asks.
In all the excitement I’d quite forgotten about her. I feel bad about being an ogre home-wrecker.
“We could try talking to her but I don’t speak ogre. Maybe sign language?” I suggest.
I ask one of the ptarmigans who have stopped to watch the spectacle if they know anyone who spoke ogre. They suggest that I ask Golden Eagle. The eagle doesn’t know either but he says that he will ask around.
I managed to stall the engine so we abandon the APC and walk back to near the cave while we try to come up with a plan.
The golden eagle returns and perches on a rock next to us.
“I spoke to Snowy Owl,” the eagle says. “He doesn’t speak ogre either but he suggested that since you can somehow talk to us and we can talk to you, maybe you can talk to her too.”
“He makes a good point, wise old bird.” Now why didn’t I think of that? I thank the eagle and it flies off.
I suppose I might as well try. What’s the worst that could happen? Apart from being eaten by an angry ogress, of course.
I wished I’d saved some of the reindeer meat to use as a peace offering. Maybe she’s like a Black Widow and wouldn’t bite my head off while she’s got something tastier to chew on.
Cole is covering me with the cannon from back down the valley but I’ve made him promise not to shoot unless things go terribly wrong.
Here goes nothing.
I’m about ten feet from the cave mouth. I think I’m out of strike range but these things move really fast considering their size.
“Hello!” I shout. A bulky form like a giant, grey-skinned hunchback covered in patches of hair on its elongated, overly muscular arms and shoulders appears in the cave mouth cradling her extended belly in her arms. For a ten feet tall monster, she looks rather sad and pathetic.
“Hi, I’m Mal,” I say. “What’s your name?”
She growls something unintelligible.
”Arrgha? That’s a lovely name. Would you like to go home? I can help you.” Is she nodding? Is she crying?
“Down there,” I point in the direction of the rift between the two boulders. “It will take you home. Your husband. Your bull? is waiting for you.”
She rubs her belly and looks at me quizzically.
“They’ll be fine. Trust me.”
I lead her down the valley, keeping out of arm’s length just in case.
We arrive in front of the rift. “This is Arrgha,” I tell Cole. “I’m taking her home.” He waves awkwardly from the turret.
“Just through there,” I say pointing at the rift.
She hesitates.
“Trust me?”
She steps through. Her leg disappears, she follows through and she’s gone. Cole and I both breath a sigh of relief.
“Sigh-jinx!” I call.
“Wut?” Cole says.
“Nothing. Just happy at the end of a job well done.”
“I would hardly call it finished,” Cole says. “They could just as easily come back through.”
He’s right. Let’s finish this.
Cole attaches a cable to the back of the APC and ties the other end around another large boulder while I read through the APC driver’s manual and follow the instructions to get the motor started again. I drag the rock in between the other two and come back round to nudge it into place.
I don’t know if it will do anything to close the rift but it should make it harder for anything the size of an ogre to get through again. I don’t tell Cole that mythics come in all shapes and sizes and many of them can change size at will. I don’t want to worry him.
I can hear the rotors of a helicopter back down the valley. “You’d better get back to your squad,” I say to Cole. “You don’t want to be reported AWOL.”
“And what about you?” he asks. “Aren’t you coming? Aren’t you going to back me up? How am I going to explain this to my CO?”
“I find that honesty is the best policy. Tell them you found the Old Grey Man but it disappeared through an inter-dimensional portal of some sort. Remember the X-files? Or Raiders of the Lost Arc? The government knows what’s going on they just like to keep a lid on it.
“They’ll debrief you, tell you not to talk about it and file the report away in some dusty archive. No one will believe you and in time, you’ll forget about what actually happened and your mind will make up some exciting story about the time you were on exercises and the MOD fucked with your mind to test you under combat stress or something.
“If they get their hands on me it will be a different story. It’ll be truth drugs and interrogations to find out what I really know about it all, and to be honest, I don’t know a lot more about it than you do. And besides, I need a holiday.”
“Well then, you’d better be going before they come here to recover the Ajax.”
I collect my gear, shake hands with Cole and head off south down the valley towards the Linn of Dee.
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Good stuff. Didn't the full novel win a competition?
Loved it. Has Mal ever been behind the veil?