A Deadly Exposition

Somewhere in Florida, eight years later...

    "So what the hell are you doing in Florida again?"

Sindra continued to walk through the damp forest, carefully avoiding marsh puddles and wet overhanging leaves. She spoke to the fellow hunter through the phone calmly and carefully, "Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm just visiting family. I'll be back... probably sometime next week." As if she would ever have any family from Florida, but the lie was perfect and it would explain why Sindra needed a week away from home.

    "Right... well I'll see you on Tuesday, I guess. Stay safe, and I hope your family's doing well."

"Thank you Koda. See you on Tuesday, I'll be sure to text or call you when I leave on that day."

    They hung up, and now Sindra was free to resume her mission.

Sindra was in Florida because she was searching for a high-risk werewolf, after an anonymous client had asked her to track it down and kill it in return for a very high sum. That was the real reason. She couldn't share this information even with her most trusted colleague, Andrew Koda, so she hoped he bought the whole 'visiting family' thing. And of course she had to bring back proof for her client... and after wandering here for quite some time, she knew was getting pretty close to it.

Luckily, after the werewolf went haywire from silver poisoning and just barely managed to skim through Fort Lauderdale, it had remained here. So far Sindra had been hunting it for four hours, and was deep within the Everglades by now, ready to find it and slay it before it could mutilate someone. She was surprised it hadn't killed at all so far, but that could quickly change, so she had to be careful that she matched her speed of searching to her stealth.

After another half hour of hunting, she found gigantic paw prints that would easily be mistaken for a bear for the untrained eye, but any seasoned hunter knew that it was werewolf tracks. Sindra knelt down to inspect the paw print, noticing tiny blood spatters within that glistened in the late afternoon sunlight. So that meant that these tracks were fresh... she had to be right on top of it now.

Sindra carefully unlatched her handgun from her belt, making sure that it was loaded to the brim with silver bullets. Surely enough it was, so she continued onward to follow the fresh tracks, which eventually led to a marsh and grew harder to follow. Sindra scanned the landscape around her and ahead of her, trying to locate at least a flicker of movement from the moss-covered trees. But there was absolutely nothing. The marsh forest seemed to be holding its breath, all of the birds having fallen silent and the frogs and toads no longer croaking. Her suspicions mounted as she heard an animalistic groaning that seemed to be coming from all around her, but that was impossible.

Suddenly, the groaning stopped, and the eerie silence returned. The hairs along Sindra's arms began to raise, a natural reaction even from a hunter. She narrowed her eyes, slowly raising her handgun, until a shadow loomed behind her and something heavy slammed into the side of her head. She fell right into the marshy waters, now soaked and covered in moss and lichen. Sindra scowled as she stared up at her assailant and quickly assessed it before attacking. It was the werewolf, and clearly it, or he, was the one to have found her. He was also only half transformed; he had appeared to have hit her with his gigantic left paw, those knife-like claws glinting in the sunlight through the trees. His face was half wolf and half human, most of his clothes still remained, and she also noticed his hind legs and one front limb with the paw still upraised. His left arm was still completely human, but had some patches of fur sprouting from it.

He began to speak, and his voice was so distorted and garbled, sounding more like a series of growling words rather than communicating a functional human language. But by some miracle, Sindra could still understand him. "You here... to kill me? How pathetic... it will be fun to kill you first, though."

And right as the werewolf leaped for her, Sindra raised her handgun and shot a silver bullet into his patchy arm. He roared and instantly reared back, giving Sindra time to get to her feet and step out of the marshy water, watching as the beast before her now writhed on the ground with dark red blood pouring out of the festering wound. She smirked, raising her gun again to point directly between his eyes. "Well, it looks like I'll be killing you first after all."

Bang.

The werewolf stopped writhing and slumped to the ground, eyes now sightlessly glaring up at the sky as the blood continued to pour from his shoulder. Sindra sighed and almost couldn't believe how quickly this had happened. She was excepting to be out here for at least another couple of hours hunting for the werewolf, and even after that, she had expected to at least have some fun torturing it. But unfortunately, it hadn't gone to plan, since she had been more focused on keeping her life intact or even worse... allowing the beast to scar her and turn her into one of them.

    Once Sindra knew for sure that the werewolf was absolutely dead, she ripped off the chain necklace it had been wearing and stuffed it into her pocket as proof for her client. She wondered if that was acceptable enough, so she then decided to cut half of a wolfish ear off and placed that into a small plastic bag. Her clients rarely ever demanded proof after a kill, but this particular client had been adamant about Sindra bringing something back from the body, and she was confident two items would be enough.

After dumping the body into the deepest depths of the marsh, Sindra began to travel back out of the Everglades. By now the sun was setting, casting blood-red orange light through the trees and warming her soaked body. After an hour, Sindra made it back to her truck parked at the head of the trail, concealed in the forest so hikers wouldn't see it. She started her truck and turned the air on the coldest setting in order to dispel the last of the muggy air surrounding her, then quickly drove off and left the Everglades far behind her.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

    It was twilight by the time Sindra arrived back at the motel, thankful that the parking lot was quiet as she parked her truck and walked up to her room. She closed and locked the door behind her, throwing her keys down on the bed as she shed her clothes. She groaned as the wet material stuck to her body, and small pieces of moss fell to the carpeted floor as she walked over to the bathroom.

She turned the water to lukewarm and got in, rinsing her hair first to get rid of any last bits of marsh that still lingered. She scrubbed her body clean at least twice after washing and rinsing her hair, and after that, she got out and toweled off. After fifteen minutes of that, she felt beyond refreshed and above all else, feeling like the last remnants of the kill had been cleansed from her. It was always an invigorating feeling to clean up right after a successful hunt, and Sindra couldn't even remember the last time she had failed to find and kill a werewolf. Maybe just once during her rookie days, but that was it. She had been dead set on hunting those beasts down for many years now, and she used it as motivation to never fail on a hunting mission.

Sindra turned on the TV and couldn't find any useful channel other than the news, featuring a perky anchorman wearing a bright blue suit and a red tie. He was currently broadcasting the weather for each city, pointing out that there would be plenty of cloudy skies and rainy weather for the next five days.

She eventually dried her hair with the motel's complimentary hairdryer, hoping the old thing wouldn't catch fire the second she turned it on, then climbed into bed. She preferred to stay up most nights, even after a hunt, but tonight all Sindra felt like doing was sleeping.

She turned off the nightstand lamp and closed her eyes as she sunk into, surprisingly, the memory foam mattress. Sindra was half asleep when a loud crash sounded from the next room over, along with a feminine scream that was unmistakable through the thin walls. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut tighter, not feeling up to storming out of her room and telling them to knock the kinky shit off so she could get some rest.

But a second later, she could hear her neighbors' door burst open, and a man's voice could easily be discerned as he shouted, "You get the fuck out of my room, out of this town, out of my LIFE! You've got some major nerve comin' back here and tellin' me all this shit, when you're standing in MY domain! How long have you been sleeping with him, anyway?"

Then a woman's voice cried out in response, "Not long, I swear! I just thought if I told you, it would make things slightly easier... and besides, it wasn't like I got this pissed off whenever I walked in on you with that slut hooker the other night! I was willing to FORGIVE you, you bastard! But now I see that that's an obvious mistake."

"So you just wanted to get back at me?"

Both of their voices grew louder as they continued to shout at each other, and Sindra finally had enough. As much as she wanted to continue listening in on the drama, she wanted her damn sleep, and these locals weren't making it easy for her. And besides, maybe the other motel guests would be grateful to her for intervening.

Here went nothing.

Sindra quietly opened her door and glared at the fighting couple that stood just feet away from her room. "Excuse me, could I ask what the hell is going on out here? Some people are trying to sleep."

The woman turned over to her and looked like the most sorry person in the entire world, while the man looked like he would explode from rage at any given moment. "Huh? Who the fuck are you? Mind your own damn business!"

Sindra folded her arms across her chest, not leaving her doorstep. "I'm afraid you don't deserve to know that, and also, I would if you two could've kept your voices down."

The woman stared down at her feet while the man took a few steps closer to Sindra. "What did you just say? I would go right back into that room and mind your own if I were you, girl, 'cuz I am not in the damn mood for this right now."

"Well, fortunately for you, I'm not in the right damn mood either. Now I'll ask you nicely: please shut the fuck up." She enunciated each word, speaking slowly as if she were talking to an angry three year old.

The man growled and stormed up to Sindra, while the woman screamed and told him to stop. Sindra suddenly pulled a dagger out from her pocket and held it right at the man's throat, completely unafraid of course. He stopped suddenly, eyes widening as he stared at the sharp object in Sindra's hand. "You wouldn't..."

"Oh, I wouldn't question that, if I were you," Sindra said with a smirk. "If you come any closer to me, I will slice your throat open, and this motel will become a giant crime scene before you even utter your last breath. Now get away from me, get back in your room, and shut up. Do I make myself absolutely clear?"

The man nodded quickly, suddenly very afraid of her and that knife. And he was very wise to be, if he believed every word she had just said, almost like he was put under a spell. "Yes yes... of course. Come on Beth... we'll work this out in the morning I guess."

Sindra watched them both enter their room, with the woman mouthing a thank you to Sindra, who barely saw it as she slammed the door shut. She was almost angry now, but at least she would be able to get some sleep at last.