95% of Australia is uninhabited. You heard that right. It's a real statistic. 95%. A Nation with one of the highest GDP’s in the world, and only 5% of its land is ever reasonably occupied. Sure, there are sparse patches of indigenous people and some small mining towns scattered but for the most part, it's a barren desert. Have you ever asked yourself why? I used to. Until I started working out here. Now the only question I ask myself is, if i can ever get a transfer to a different team. The work wouldn't change, but I'm so tired of this heat. I’d give anything to be somewhere north of the equator.
I work for OCIF, which probably means nothing to you. It stands for: Outback Creature Interdiction Squad. It's one of the 5 Branches of GCIF, the global conglomerate that's in charge of monitoring and subduing … well i’m trying to think of a professional term for you to latch onto that would make me sound more credible but to be honest, monsters. That's how all the squads see them anyway. GCIF uses the term “HUMBS” stands for “ Hostile Unnatural or Monstrous Beings” but for all intents and purposes, they’re creatures that inhabit specific parts of the world. Specific parts that GCIF has made sure are deemed “uninhabitable” to the public.
Has that ever bothered you? The fact that places on earth, a planet we have supposedly conquered every inch of, are deemed “uninhabitable”? We went to the fucking moon. The bottom of the ocean. There are people out there that wanna colonize mars. You really think it’s IMPOSSIBLE to set up a home somewhere just due to a little weather and less than optimal terrain? Sure, weather and terrain plays a part but humans have the capacity to make anywhere home if they really want to. No, the real reason why places are deemed uninhabitable, is because GCIF says so. It's for your own protection? Helps Keep people away from danger. Helps to mitigate eyes from wandering and explorers from investigating parts of the world that the Humbs occupy. We can't stop every thrill seeker and hiker from wandering off into the uncharted, nor would we want to. That would raise too many questions and concerns and GCIF is all about keeping the public in the dark. It does however, help cut down the number of eyes and attention these regions receive by the public If said thrill seeker does happen to go missing due to a Humb. It just adds more fuel to the narrative that these places are naturally inhospitable and to be avoided. Plus, there's usually nothing left for us to clean up. Usually.
Still though, every now and then one of the Humbs does wander a bit too close to the public eye. That's where my squad steps in. Well, every squad technically. There's one in: Northern Canada, The Sahara, Siberia, Antarctica and of course the outback. All the most famous stretches of barren land on planet earth. I hear the guys from the Siberia squad have seen some truly heinous shit, but I'd give anything to feel the snow again at this point. I’ve been a part of OCIF for a little over 4 years now and i dont think theyll ever let me transfer since as of yesterday, I officially have the most experience and seniority on my squad.
Before I talk about that though, I wanna explain how I ended up here. As well as share a little bit of what I've encountered up to this point. First things first, no the government is not coming to kill me. I am not currently looking over my shoulder as I type this. No swat teams or shadowy organizations will be “silencing me” for leaking the truth or anything like that. GCIF definitely knows I'm writing this. They may not have sanctioned it but they know. Everything I own was tapped by them long ago. As well as everything you own for that matter. They know what I'm doing, they simply don't care. They know that nobody's gonna believe me. That nothing will come from me sharing my stories. Hell, they might even think it's good for me to be clearing my conscience like this.
For what it's worth, GCIF has been good to me. They don't recruit Navy seals or Spetznas or anything like that. Because when notable people go missing, people ask questions. People ask questions and they start looking and that's when more people die. No, instead GCIF specifically recruits … Losers. That's a mean term I know but I don't mean to put any of the guys down. It's just the truth. Junkies, the homeless, Debt dodgers. People with absolutely nothing going for them and nowhere to go. That's who GCIF recruits. I was a drifter living in a tent town in LA for over 2 years. No family, no connections, completely disposable. That's why I received my letter.
All it said was to meet at a specific building at a specific time on a specific day for “substantial compensation”. When I did show up, I was met with the recruitment team. They didn't tell me the exact nature of what the work they were offering would be. All they told me was that it was a secret organization, that I was selected for recruitment, that they could turn my life around, I'd be paid handsomely, all sorts of stuff like that. The only caveat was that I was not allowed to quit. The only way you are permitted to leave GCIF is if you are deemed medically unfit for service. Apart from that however, once you sign on you are there until your body is of no further use to the organization. It's a very small staffed operation and they need everybody they can get. Needless to say, I've seen many team members over the years intentionally step into tripwires or crash cars in an attempt to be deemed medically unfit so they can be released. I didn't have anywhere else to go when they came. My family had all died in a house fire and everything I owned with it. The insurance company screwed me over and what little inheritance I had received dried up after about a year. So It really wasn't a tough decision for me. I agreed to sign on and was flown to headquarters for 6 months of training before being assigned to OCIF.
That's how I ended up working out here. I was skeptical when they first told me the true nature of the job, but honestly most of it's been pretty uneventful. Well, as uneventful as a clandestine organization that hunts monsters can be i suppose. We all have guns, we all have training. Ninety percent of the time we have satellite visuals of the Humb were tasked with dispatching. When things seem too dangerous we ask for backup or air support or we get the hell out of there. We’re not amateurs, so most of my tenure here has been reasonably ok. Most of it.
I still remember my fourth assignment vividly. Too vividly. Unfortunately for me, that was one of the 10% of times we had no air visuals. On top of that, we had little to no recon on what exactly we were sent to deal with at all. Word came in that a jeep had been spotted abandoned in the Eucla Basin so we were sent to investigate. There are 50 operators per sector, and I was one of the lucky 12 sent out that night. We flew out in a chopper and began our investigation. The driver was nowhere to be seen. The windshield had been smashed and protruded outwards in all directions as if whoever was in the car had been pulled out the front. We investigated the car and found a map with locations circled and photos of a couple who seemed to be honeymooning that week. They were headed towards the great barrier reef the next day.
There was no sign of them. Not a strand of hair, not a drop of blood, no footprints and no indication that something had even approached the car. Like I said, we had no intel on what we were dealing with so we just began to prep the scene for coverup operations. We started preparing the car to be air lifted out of there when we heard screaming from off in the distance. We couldn't tell exactly where it came from so we all just drew our guns and aimed in different directions out into the desert. It was so pitch black I couldn't see anything past a few feet in front of me and what little my flashlight illuminated. The commander of OCIF ( Sergeant Cooper ) told us all to head back to the helicopter to regroup. That's when the man to my left was pulled into the air about 20 feet
They have an official name but we just call them buzzards. Of all the creatures inhabiting the Outback, they are by far, the ones I've had to deal with the most. They fly, they're nocturnal, reproduce like crazy. Simply put, they are an ongoing problem for the organization. We have stations around the coast that monitor specifically for them to make sure none get off the mainland, but it's harder to track them inland and we still need squads for clearing them.That night was the first time I had ever encountered them. I remember I fell to the ground instinctively. Right on my back and looked up at it. It looked like a person. Not exactly but it's a closer description than any other animal I can think of. Like if a person's ribcage was connected to their hands to make large wings that stretched out for a good 10 feet. It had 2 black dots for eyes situated behind a large serrated fleshy beak that must've stuck out a good 3 feet. It had small spindly little shriveled up legs and was pale grey. Supposedly sunlight hurts the damn things which is why they're nocturnal.
I laid on my back paralyzed and watched the man be hoisted up into the air as he screamed. The creature flapped thunderously and rose higher and higher before turning its gaze down. It looked directly at me and shrieked in an octave I didn't know was possible by anything other than whales. Everybody around me opened fire at it and after a few shots connected, it dropped the man and attempted to fly away. The squad kept shooting at it and I watched it glide off into the distance before crashing down to the ground a few dozen yards away. The man survived. He landed on one leg and we all heard the snap ring out through the desert. He was writhing around on the ground while somebody came over to look at it. That's when 3 of our men were pounced on.
All at once, seemingly coordinated, the buzzards pinned their stomachs to the dirt and began to peck away at their backs. We all opened fire. There was no coordination at that moment. No tactics, we were running on adrenaline that only a fight or flight response could conjure. It quickly became a free for all. Gunfire sprayed in all directions as the buzzards leapt from person to person, flew in the air, knocked into one another and attacked us. My ears were ringing so loud I couldn't hear the gunfire anymore. I had never been so scared in my life. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely let go of the trigger once I started to pull it. I had been on missions before but I had never been attacked like this. I had never truly been at immediate risk of dying before that night. Not even from the housefire. I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth and sprayed up at the closest beast until I had fully ran out of ammo. When I opened my eyes, the bullet ridden corpse of a squad mate was on the ground in front of me.
We had won. 2 of our men had been killed in the attack from the buzzards. A third due to friendly fire. After a few moments where we all caught our breath, Sergeant Cooper walked over and kneed me right in the jaw knocking me flat on my back again. I'll never forget what he said.
“God dammit! This is why we don't panic! You can be scared. It's ok to be scared. But you don't fucking panic! Cause when you do, people get killed!”
I remember looking around at the rest of the men, expecting them all to be staring down at me dismissively but none of them did. Everyone else seemed as equally dazed and out of it as I was. I'm not sure half the men even registered what I had done in that moment even with me being called out on it. After that he offered me a hand and helped me up. He was never the kind of guy to hold a grudge. He'd seen so much, I got the sense that nothing could really phase him forever. I wish I was the same. We cleaned up the bodies of our fallen, hooked up the car, picked up our brass, burned the buzzard corpses and got ready to go. That's when we heard the screaming again.
Same as before. Only this time it was more clear. A man and a woman's voice off in the distance. Screaming in complete agony. As though their skin was being taken off bit by bit. I remember when I first heard the screams I had thought they weren't human. Now I know that they really were all along. They were just too contorted and strained to be recognizable anymore. I wish I could say we marched forward into the night to go and save them but we didn't. We had done our “job”. Destroyed any evidence of what had happened and dealt with the creatures that we could. There wouldn't have been much we could do for them even if we did find them. So we left them.
I think about that night a lot. How I accidentally killed one of my squad members. How I came so close to a Humb for the first time. How we left those two out there. Nothing about that night was handled well.
I'm sorry. I know I said that I'd tell you guys how I became the most senior member of my squad after yesterday, but I need some time first. Reliving that night takes a lot out of me. I'm glad it's out in the open though, for what little it's worth. I'll update you all soon with more stories of what i've been through and ill tell you all what happened soon. Till next time.
- Wyatt