Many folks have sent me this story:
Coyotes kill buffalo in Haverhill
[Jay puts down the paper, shaking his head] Coyotes? I don't buy it for a second. A 40 pound coyote - even a group - taking out even a small buffalo literally 10X its size?HAVERHILL -- Coyotes lurking in the woods in Massachusetts have been known to attack dogs, chickens, cats, and even, in rare instances, people. But a buffalo?
You better believe it, pardner. Tyler Kimball says it actually happened here on his farm in the dark of night on Saturday. A pack of coyotes entered a pen where his 14 buffalos grazed. When they were done, one was missing.
Who concocted this lame-ass cover story? This sounds like the stupid shit those idiots over at MCB would come up with. Only they could come up with a pack of coyotes in a semi-urban area taking down an ungulate ten times their size. 'Yotes in this area are small, tend to stick to cats and yippie dogs. They don't go after animals the size of a Volkswagen.
I didn't think we'd see a return of the creature this soon. Everyone knows the legend of the werewolf. Intelligence of a human, power and speed of a wolf. Very few people know about the bigger, meaner brother of the werewolf: The werebear. Combining the worst traits of the deepest downeast hillbilly and the meanest rabid ursine, the werebear doesn't show up in populated areas very often.
Even the boys at MCB are scared - the chatter on the radio is fast and furious, with teams being called in from all over the eastern seaboard to deal with it. Last time they were pinned down, since Franks was dealing with the unpleasantness down south and unavailable to personally punch it in the mouth, they had to send in the second string. And it showed. They extracted five out of six eight man teams. Five.
Looks like it's time for a call to Wally. Again.
I don't know how he works his magic with large caliber ordnance and explosives, but I swear that man could make a functioning nuclear device that showers radioactive silver down across a mile-wide area out of a swiss army knife, an old mercury thermometer, and a HAM radio. Last time we had him whip up some 57mm shells with a sintered silver core. The hard part was not crapping my pants as the werebear came into range, and hoping against all odds that "minute-of-berm" didn't screw up the shot.
Given that upstate Maine experienced its very first bear shower, that little incident worked out fine. Hell, the ATF didn't even ass-rape us over not having the stamp on the explosives. That was kind of surprising, although I suspect they're going to use it to their advantage this time to get Northeast Vermin Extractors to do a disposal job for free.
While the Monster Hunter boys own the southeast, NVE covers the Northeast corner of the US and Canada. It's an informal agreement, and we have friendly poaching raids from time to time. We have a common enemy in the idiot feds at MCB, so our rivalry is a lot more ".45 ACP vs 9mm" than "1911 vs. Glock". We both have our strengths and weaknesses, and aren't too proud to give a shout (and some PUFF) to our geographic counterparts.
It's too bad we didn't have things pulled together in time to help out with that sh*tstorm in Alabama, though. I heard there were enough PUFFs gathered from that little adventure to buy several small island nations (and some were; I hear the boys at MHI now have a small but functional navy to better deal with pirate vampires and weremanatees). We get by on the various lake monsters, demons, trolls, orcs, and even the occasional ogre that wander down out of the upstate region into the populated areas.
When they're up in the uncharted regions eating caribou and the occasional trapper no one says anything; when it's been a rough winter and a lean summer, though, they get hungry and migrate south. Soon as a small town gets overrun, we come in with the big guns blazing.
The first couple of incidents were hairy; we hadn't caught on to the secret that apparently everyone else knew that silver was the key to monster killing. We made do mainly with fire - there's an adage in the business, "When all else fails, kill it with fire", and we obliged happily. Nothing easier to rig up than a flamethrower, and even before we started getting NFA exemptions there's no laws on flamethrowers. Hell, my first was a garden sprayer filled with Coleman fuel and a Zippo duct-taped to the nozzle.
We've gotten better over the years, with fewer incidents like the township outside of Chesuncook that lost fourteen houses and three municipal buildings because we got a little too trigger happy on the M2A1-7. Ahem. We won't make that mistake again - never listen to a guy who calls himself "Weerdbeard" when mixing flammable liquids, especially if he can't stop giggling...
Okay, enough of a trip down memory lane. Gotta call the team and hit Wally up for some ordnance; dealing with this "coyote" is going to prove interesting since it's so close to home. The farm is outside of a small city on the upper north shore of MA; there's some 75,000 people who have no idea that an 800 pound insane omnivore is loose in their city.
And me and my team are gonna make sure that they never find out.
Please forgive the dalliance in fanfic. I've been kicking around a story to go with Larry's newest patch contest, and I hope you enjoyed (or at least didn't hate) my first attempt at creating an MHI-like entity around which to build a patch. Speaking thereof, if anyone with mad Photoshop skillz wants to try their hand at a Northeast Vermin Eradicators (NVE) patch, I'm thinking something with a flamethrower and a werebear head (think werewolf only with a black bear instead of a wolf as a donor animal)...
In any case, be careful out there - you never know where those pesky coyotes will turn up!
That is all.
13 comments:
Being Haverhill, I wouldn't be surprised if it was Manbearpig.
Seriously though, I know a tree farmer in Plaistow right on the Haverhill line, and a couple of years ago he made the press after he was attacked by a coyote while tending his trees. I've seen them in the daylight down the road in Kingston. The coyotes in that area aren't shy by any means.
Heh. From news story to fanfic. Nice.
And, I'm surprised at you, Jay. Doesn't the flamethrower melt the bayonet?
Just a quick comment as I am busy working on a 106, but that was pretty sweet. Consider this encouragement.
...the werebear doesn't show up in populated areas very often.
True. I haven't been to Boston in about 8 years. (More of a Midwestern hillbilly here, but everything you say is still accurate.)
Oh, one nit to pick: when talking about radio, "ham" is lowercase. It's not an acronym or abbreviation.
Good luck with your patch entry. I submitted the Team Morituri emblem but in hindsight that's really more nose art than a team patch.
Good work on this one, Jay. I wrote up a similar "intro" story for the Alaskan team patch, and finally published it today.
Like I said, good job!
Might want to re-evaluate your coyote assessment there. Especially in your neck of the woods, coyotes have been intermingling with wolves and large breed dogs to produce a larger, and meaner, coyote. These "Coywolf" products seem to have lost their fear of humans and have been known to bring down elk. There is also one documented case I remember (Nova Scotia, I think) where three coywolves stalked and killed a hiker.
The further they go northeast, the bigger and meaner they seem to be getting.
We were scouting for 'yotes one day and had a farmer stop me and invite us to get on his property to "kill every one of those SOBs". A group had drug off and killed a new-born calf in the middle of the night. Not nearly as big or mobil as a grown buffalo but they weren't afraid of momma. Friend in our little town borders a field, they come out of it and sleep on his porch and crap on his sidewalk. He's afraid to start shooting, lives across from the cop shop.
If noise is a problem then it is time to brush up on the archery skills.
Ha! I got to shore the other day and picked up "Alpha." Still not 100% after 2 off-watch periods spent reading and not sleeping enough.
The Oct. 2010 National Geographic reported on the DNA cross between wolves and the western coyote producing the larger Eastern Coyote.
No doubt the MCB planted that story to ally fears of werebears.
Me? I gotta get more silver bullets.
Yes coyote packs kill beef cows all the time. Ask any rancher.
It's a pretty gore affair as they just rip and slash till the prey looses enough blood and goes into shock.
Still a 60 grain silver alloy .243
would be a nice just in case load.
Gerry
I've been around coyotes more than 50 years, and I agree with Steve in Tn. It sounds more like hybrids to me, also. The pure coyote doesn't run in packs; a family will hunt together before the cubs are old enough to strike out on their own, but the usual case is to see a mated pair hunting without any other coyotes around. The hybrids, however, have the instinct to run in packs from wolves or dogs, and are more dangerous than pure coyotes.
I like it!
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