Frontier Chef: My Cooking Skills Are Broken-Chapter 5: Bait and Switch
The spear was through its throat and its mouth was still moving.
"Help...me...sla—"
The last word tried to come out but Ezra shoved the spear tip deeper into the cranium.
Its fingers were still locked on his thighs.
He could feel his own pulse against the pressure of its grip. Pressure that stayed relentlessly.
Blood—no, what came out was purple liquid that stained the green on the dirt.
It didn’t even flinch.
Its head tilted back, slow, past the point where a neck should stop. Even with most of the blade plunged right up the middle.
Partially because Ezra had already let go of the handle.
It kept tilting until it was staring at the canopy with the spear still stuck up its throat.
Its eyes had changed, the hazel gone.
Both sockets were smooth white, like marble sanded over a hundred times. But they stayed on Ezra, never letting off.
It grabbed the hilt of the spear with both arms and pulled it free from its throat. More purple liquid gushed on the ground.
And it snapped it half.
’Run. Fucking run. Do something.
This thing should be dead but it’s staring at you while fucking smiling.’
Ezra stepped back but paused in the same beat.
A line appeared down the center of its face. Thin at first, barely visible, the kind of crack seen on worn-out sidewalks. It ran from the forehead to the bridge of its nose, split through the spear gaping hole in the throat, and kept going.
Down between the pale breasts, past the navel, all the way to the mound.
Then it opened.
The skin peeled apart in both directions and behind it were teeth. Rows of them, interlocking, connecting the two halves of its body like a zipper made of bone.
They went from the top of its skull to the base of its hips and every single one of them was the length of his finger.
The mouth, Ezra realized, ran the full length of its body.
Was the entire body.
It opened and shut, testing its motor functions no less.
The hair moved next.
Every strand pulled in the same direction at once, tightening, and it wasn’t hair anymore.
The strands braided themselves into a cord of muscle thicker than his arm that rose through the canopy and disappeared into the dark between the branches.
The body wasn’t standing.
It was fucking hanging, from above.
The woman-shape jerked upward two feet, then three, the cord reeling in its successful bait.
Its fingers ripped free of his thighs and took skin with them. Four lines of red opened up on each leg where its nails had been.
> HP: 124/240 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂
The body swayed above him, the two halves of it snapping shut and back open and grinding its hundred teeth. There was nothing inside.
No organs, no meat or bone either. Unless he counted the teeth but—
’That’s not the monster.’
He looked up to see a shadow shifting in the canopy.
Branches bent under weight he couldn’t see. Leaves fell in a pattern that outlined a shape too large to make sense, sprawled across the treetops with a neck of pink flesh and nothing more.
’That’s the fishing rod. The real thing is up there. And it just got a nice fucking catch.’
"Appraisal."
[ Bzzt ]
[ Not within reach ]
’Run, definitely run.’
It did not like Ezra’s choice.
The bait dropped faster than it had any right to, the cord snapping it toward him like a yo-yo on the return.
The vertical mouth hit the ground where he’d been standing and the teeth swallowed mounds of dirt instead.
Ezra was already making use of the distraction and turned back the way he came.
Downhill, towards the dead Cartigon, the beach.
Anywhere but here.
Something crashed through the canopy behind him. He didn’t look back.
Branches snapped, wood groaned, the sound of something heavy launching itself across treetops at a deliberate speed.
It was savoring the hunt rather than rushing it.
The bait wailed. No, not the bait. The creature in the trees.
It wailed.
"Help me, slayer. Help me-ee-eee."
It started giggling even.
A branch the size of his torso hit the ground three feet to his left.
His SP was draining with every stride but the bar was deep enough to run on.
The jungle closed in around him as he dropped below the clearing, ferns slapping his arms and chest, roots catching his feet.
The crashing above followed him, gaining ground with every meter.
’If I stay under the canopy it can’t reach me with the main body. The bait is the fishing line. As long as I’m out of the lure’s range—’
The cord whipped through the ferns ahead of him like a tentacle, cutting a line through the undergrowth. The lure swung past at chest height, the vertical mouth snapping shut an inch from his face.
He felt the teeth clip the air in front of his nose. "Fuck!"
’Then again it’s a working theory.’
Moving in one direction was an amateur move, so he cut left. Then right, then left again.
The lure retracted upward and swung again from a different angle, crashing through a fern cluster to his right.
He dropped flat and it sailed over him, the teeth scoring a line across the back of his shoulder.
> HP: 107/240
The bludgeoning passive read six minutes, and he was nearly out of stamina.
’Can’t fight it. Can’t outrun it. It lives in the canopy and the lure reaches further than I can sprint. What the fuck do I do?
Fuck. I have to fight it.’
The bait was already coming back around. He could hear the cord cutting through the branches above, the whistle of the swing building momentum.
Ezra stopped running and turned to face the sound, planting his heels into the dirt.
’It wants the fish to bite. So give it what it wants.’
The lure came through the ferns teeth-first, the limbs of the woman dangling in all angles.
He shoved his left forearm into the gap between the two halves and his whole arm went searing hot.
The bludgeoning passive ate some of the bite. Not enough.
> HP: 82/240
The pain was instant and everywhere, a white line from wrist to shoulder. His knees tried to buckle but he locked them and stayed standing because he actually had solid ground to brace from.
The teeth bit deeper, grinding against bone. They locked into place, and the cord went taut. The monster finally caught its meal and pulled.
Ezra’s right hand closed around the cord where it met the base of the bait’s neck.
"Gotchu now," Ezra said, teeth showing through red. "Appraisal!"
[ Gynoscylla — ★★★★ ]
> Profile: Apex ambush hunter. Lure is a nerve-connected appendage. Meat quality unknown.
’The strands directly connect to its nerves. If I sever it—’
Ezra gripped the hair-that-was-a-tail with his right hand and turned the heat to fuck all.
The cord caught fire from the inside. The strands blackened and curled and the smell of burning hair hit him before the smoke did.
It melted through in seconds.
The fibers snapped apart strand by strand until the cord split and the tension went slack.
A wail tore through the canopy. Bigger than the bait, bigger than anything that should fit in the trees. It shook leaves off every branch he could see and sent birds scattering from trees he couldn’t.
Branches broke above him. Heavy ones at that. The crashing moved fast, tree to tree, and Ezra braced for it to come down.
But the sound got fainter.
Then even fainter.
Then gone.
Four stars. If he’d put any less into that burn, the cord wouldn’t have severed and he’d be its fucking meal right now.
The lure hung limp from his arm, mouth still locked around his forearm, dead weight now. He pried the jaw apart with his right hand and pulled his arm free.
What came out didn’t look like an arm. Skin hanging in strips, muscle showing through in red and white, bone visible at the wrist where the teeth had ground deepest. His fingers still moved, barely at that.
> HP: 30/240
He almost laughed.
What came out was half a whimper.
’Would’ve been dead without the crab. Would’ve been dead ten times over.’
His legs went out from under him.
The ground hit his back and the canopy filled his vision, green and gold through the gaps in the leaves.
Evening light.
He’d been in this jungle for hours.
The bludgeoning passive blinked once in the corner of his vision and disappeared.
’Should’ve grabbed a titty if I knew I was gonna die.’
