Rhinoceros Hunter

The rhinoceros stampeded through the countryside, and the hunter followed. The stories said it was unlike any beast ever seen before, and the famous hunter was inclined to agree. The evidence of its destruction was everywhere; entire villages leveled by its stampeding, houses and neighborhoods crushed into nothing. Those who had survived its rampage lived in little more than ghettos, structures that barely passed as standing, let alone passable homes. A thick pall of black smoke hung over every village the rhinoceros demolished, as if the world itself were in mourning.

The most curious thing, though, was that in its wake, the rhinoceros left a crude, black sludge, something thick and tar-like. Excrement? Some indicator of its madness? Or sign of illness? The hunter had never seen anything like it. He knelt before clumps of it. Examined it. Smelled it. Took samples. No one in his retinue could come close to identifying the substance, but that did not dissuade the hunter.

If you want to find the beast, said one of the survivors, simply lift your head.

The hunter did as advised, and he and his retinue followed the smoke trail, went through village after village, all of them brought to ruin by the stampeding rhinoceros, and in each one heard tales of its rage.

What is this beast? the hunter asked.

An old woman in a shawl told him that for generations they used to only hear stories of it, only ever saw its smoke in the distance. It had been a faraway horror, a bedtime story with which to frighten children. Something that had only been possible in the same way earthquakes or volcanoes or hurricanes were possible. But lately it had come closer. And closer. And now the rhinoceros was a concrete fact.

We’ll see about that, said the hunter, in disbelief that such a beast could exist. He had heard similar stories before, of creatures supposedly endowed with legendary powers. A bulletproof crocodile. A tiger who could vanish into wisps of smoke. An eagle large enough to carry away children. All exaggerations.

But when they finally caught up to the rhinoceros, he didn’t know what to believe anymore.

It was a horrid thing, far worse than the hunter feared. Not an animal, but some strange automaton, a creature built in the general approximation of a rhinoceros, only much larger, much more ferocious. Its flanks were metal, welded together with thick rivets, and the hunter could hear gears whirring and clanking beneath its metal hide. The thing moved on what were less like legs and more like pistons that shot in and out of its underside. Black smog had choked the sky wherever the rhinoceros had been, and while at first the hunter thought it might have been a portent, he saw now that it was coming from the rhinoceros itself. It was exhaust. The creature had two large smokestacks sprouting from its shoulders, and those stacks belched thick columns of smoke whenever it moved.

The men in the hunter’s retinue shrank back from the monstrosity. There were whispers that it would be okay to retreat from such a beast, that no one would hold it against them. That it was no beast, but an actual monster. After all, what firearm could pierce that hide?

Flee if you will, said the hunter, but he would stay and bag the beast.

The hunter took cover behind a tree, armed with his longest, most powerful rifle. A single shot that had taken down creatures bigger than this one. He was unsure if the rhinoceros possessed a sense of smell, but he still hid himself downwind from it. The smell of the monster was atrocious. Even at this distance, it was like sticking his face up to a tailpipe and taking a breath. The hunter wrapped a kerchief around his face, found it did little, but it would have to do. He took aim, knowing where he would have fired upon a rhinoceros made of flesh and blood, but unsure of the vulnerabilities of steel. Should he aim for one of the piston-like legs, try to topple it? Or one of the gears he could see churning in its back? The hunter settled for the head, thought that had to control the rest.

He took aim, held his breath to steady his shot, and fired.

The round pinged off the head of the rhinoceros, and instantly the beast wheeled upon the hunter. It zeroed in on him, as if it had known where he was the entire time and believed he simply didn’t dare possess the audacity to fire upon it.

The rhinoceros charged.

As the hunter struggled to reload his weapon, he was distantly aware of his fleeing retinue. Behind him, men screamed and hollered, and some of them even let loose volleys of their own, although all shots were fired in vain; they either went wide, or bounced impotently off the hide of the rhinoceros. The hunter managed to load one more round into his rifle, squeeze off one last shot (although he was unsure if it found a home), before the rhinoceros descended upon him.

The hunter had never been attacked by an animal before, never up close; he’d always made his kill shots long before the creatures charged. But while this rhinoceros may have looked like an animal, something about it told the hunter that there was rage in its attack. Not simply self-defense. It didn’t kill for food, or to protect its young. Not like animals did. It may have looked like an animal, may have behaved in some ways like an animal, but it was not one. The hunter knew, as the rhinoceros descended upon him, that truth was in its eyes. He saw them as the rhinoceros ran him through and raised him up, pierced him with its horn.

The hunter looked down into its eyes, the eyes of the prey that had finally bested him, and he saw nothing. No emotions. No fear. Just a simple shuttering, hunting, aperture. Terrifying in its familiarity.

He hung there for just a moment, forced to bathe in the uncanny horror, and then the rhinoceros shook the hunter from its horn. One single, powerful snap of its head that slammed him into the tree. He was aware of a pain, but thankfully it was distant. Perhaps happening to another man. In another body. The hunter was vaguely aware of the tree trunk cracking, snapping in half as his broken body flopped to the ground. Scattered leaves and branches fell down around him, as if nature itself attempted to bury him, to provide him some small comfort.

The hunter could only watch as the rhinoceros turned and left him there, as if he wasn’t even worth the trouble to finish off. He lay there, in a tangle of his own broken limbs, and saw the rhinoceros depart, saw that his round had struck somewhat true, torn a scrap of metal just above the ear. Gears wound and churned within the monster’s head, metal grinding and whirring, black smoke leaking out from the minor wound the hunter managed to inflict. He could only hope, as he lay there, fading, that one day someone else might see them too, and know the truth.