The Man-eater of The Borderland

I’ve been to Chernobyl. Contrary to the popular belief, it’s not this awe-inspiring place, just another abandoned town, albeit one with high amounts of radiation compared to other places. There is an atmosphere to this place, sure, I’ll give you that. It’s mostly one of sadness and emptiness. The story’s an awful one; aside from people dying and developing all sorts of health problems as a result of the radiation, the way it was dealt with was something terrible. Truly, a crime against humanity. I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of pretending everything is “fine” when it came to the powerplant disaster. I hope history never repeats itself with this one.

It certainly won’t happen here again.

Whatever lurks in the local forests will make sure people won’t be coming back anytime soon. Even if they do, they won’t stick around for long.

That’s my story; I’ll try to make it short because one of my arms is still kind of numb.

To cut to the chase, there’s something in here; something predatory and efficient living in here. Some sort of beast, I can’t say it’s something I’ve ever seen or even heard of before. I would like to note that this creature isn’t the result of radioactive mutations. Radiation is more likely to give cancer than it is to make you into a chimeric apex predator.

So, it’s more likely to be some sort of creature we’ve yet to come across officially or, I don’t even know.

Anyway, as I’ve noted before, I wasn’t very impressed with the ghost town. Being the type that wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to hike in the wild, I’ve opted to take a walk through the forests. I had the feeling that the local wild wouldn’t disappoint me.

I ended up leaving for my hike rather abruptly. Around dusk, I left my camp, which by the way was a few miles out of the exclusion zone – the whole ghost town tour wasn’t meant to last a few hours either way.

Obviously, I’ve let my friends, and girlfriend know I was going for a hike. It’s not a tale of me trying to do something stupid for an adrenaline kick. I’ve had enough of these in the past. I’ve loaded my backpack with a flashlight and a bottle of water and set off.

It wasn’t meant to be a very eventful hike, just a walk around the woods. That’s all it was for a while. For about thirty minutes I’ve walked under the canopy of the woods all around me.

Nature has reclaimed its turf beautifully in these parts of the world. Vegetation all around, healthy sky-high trees, bushes, you name it. Fauna was also quite abundant. Contrary to popular belief, the Chernobyl area doesn’t have any shortages of healthy animals. I’ve seen a bunch of birds flying above my head. I’ve even seen a Moose grazing peacefully in the distance.

The animal noticed me, and its stare let me know it wouldn’t be too happy if I came closer. That was my sign I should turn back and get back to my camp. It was already getting kind of dark too. So, I decided to turn back and return to the camp. I made a few steps, and then I heard something in the distance.

A hoarse voice.

A really hoarse voice.

Some gears in my head turned, and I stopped, unsure why, I looked around and the voice echoed again.

I ignored it.

The sound kept echoing all around me, while I kept ignoring it.

After a while, the sound started resembling a distorted greeting; it made me slightly uncomfortable. I didn’t wanna stumble into some drunkard or worse. I was beginning to feel uneasy and picked up my pace.

The calls wouldn’t die, though.

In fact, the closer I got to my encampment, the sounds became clearer and louder.

By the time I was at the forking pathway that was about ten minutes away from my camp, I heard something that sent my heart rocketing; the voice of a little girl.

“Help...”

The hair on the back of my head stood, while I froze, trying to process the situation. There shouldn’t have been anyone there. Just the others and me. The nearest village was some time away from there.

“Is there anyone here?” the voice echoed again.

“I need help…”

“Hello!”

With each call, I could feel my heart pumping blood in my arteries.

“Somebody help…” the voice called again.

I finally broke.

I had to help whoever that was; my instincts overturned my rationality. Thus, I turned to the left and made my way through the now dark pathway. As I walked in the direction of the voice, I pulled the flashlight out of my backpack and attempted illuminating my way. The device didn’t help much. Without the city lights, nighttime is far darker than what we’re used to.

The feeling of anxiety only grew stronger the closer I’ve gotten to the source of the voice. Probably because something felt wrong, the voice kept repeating itself, almost like a broken record. Like a robot mimicking speech.

I should’ve known better.

I should’ve turned away, but I didn’t.

After a few minutes of walking in the direction of the voice, I stumbled across a massive bushy growth from behind which the voice seemed to come.

“Hello! Is there anyone here?” it called, incredibly lively.

I stood there for a moment, thinking about what I should do while the calls for help persisted.

I heard something twitch from behind the bushes, and that noise made me try to pry the vegetation apart. I guess I was convinced it was a child in there.

What I saw when I created an opening in the vegetation will be etched into my imagination forever.

It wasn’t a child.

No, no, no…

Inside the bushes set a massive bear-like thing…

It hadn't noticed me just yet.

It opened its mouth, and inside there were three rows of shark-like teeth.

As I stood there, frozen with fear, about to shit myself.

A little girl’s voice came out of that maw, “I need help!” it cried in an eerily human voice.

Its nostrils twitched, and I bolted out of there.

I ran as fast as I could, but the beast gave chase.

It was onto me and hearing the way it moves; I looked back, gaining up on me was an incredibly muscular feline beast with a wrinkled baboon’s head and a massive mane around its head.

My heart was about to blow up with fear, but the adrenaline kicked in and I felt myself running faster than I ever could.

The beast was relentless; it didn’t seem like it was planning on giving up an easy meal.

It made those disgusting cries for help again.

I didn’t look back again.

Running between two trees, I felt a stabbing sensation in my arm; I didn’t look at it, I couldn’t afford to. The beast was inching ever closer to me. I just kept running, as far as my legs would be able to carry me. I didn’t have any plan or anything, I just wanted to get away from that thing.

In my haste to escape, I neglected to look where I placed my feet and ended up tripping over something. I landed headfirst into the dirt. I tried to get back up, but then I felt something breath at the back of my neck and froze again, on my hands and knees. All sorts of terrible thoughts started flooding my mind. I was sure I’m going to be minced meat in a matter of moments.

The creature roared at me if you could call the sound of clogged trumpets a roar.

I just closed my eyes and hoped it wouldn’t be too painful.

Nothing came.

I tried staying still, but my injured arm just collapsed underneath me.

Nothing happened still.

It’s like the beast faded away, but I couldn’t risk looking.

I just lied there.

The howling of wolves echoed all around me.

Then I heard the movement of the beast again, but it was moving away from me; still, I did not dare to look. The howling drowned all other sounds around me. It was distant, but there was something soothing about it.

The howling wouldn’t stop for a while, like a beautiful lullaby of the wild.

Once the steps of the creature seemed far enough away, I dared to turn myself on my back, albeit with great difficultly seeing how I couldn’t feel my right arm anymore. The creature was some distance away from me. Now I could see it in its entirety; it looked like a dark brown lion on too many steroids, with a mutated head and a spiked tail.

About that tail, before getting up to my feet, I tried nursing some feeling back into my arm; that’s when I noticed a long spine stuck in my deltoid. It was rather thin, so I opted to pull it out, didn’t feel a thing when I did, my arm was and still kind of is useless.

That was two days ago. Now I’m at a hotel in Kyiv, and I haven’t told anyone about the creature, just said I fell down and didn’t remember what happened to my arm. Apparently, there was some sort of neurotoxin in that spine. I’m glad it just hit my arm and not anything more vital.

I ended up looking up the features of the creature, turns out there is this legendary monster called the Manticore that fits the bill. They were thought to devour whole towns in one hunt and were used as the explanation for ghost towns in the past.

Unironically the name comes from the ancient Persian phrase for man-eater.

Manticore or not, either way, knowing that this creature is out there; I’m probably not coming back to field trips in Ukraine any time soon.