Spooks[]
==(ALERT! DANGEROUS!)==
Common Names:[]
Shredders, Ghostfish, Deep Vermin
The Spook
Location:[]
Exact range can not be determined. They seem to exist in some form or another everywhere in the global abyss.
===Physical Description===[]
Size/Weight: ~4-6 feet in length, ~50-75 lbs.
Unlike most creature in the wasteland, Spooks lack the terrifying size that other monstrosities would have. Spooks rarely exceed the size of a man and are fairly lightweight. This is countered by immense speed, a pseudo-hivemind mentality and ferocity in the cruising black and strange anatomy that allows them to be astoundingly deadly in schools.
High-speed ambush predators, Spooks have to ensure that when they grab ahold of prey, it won’t escape easily. Six jointed lures protrude from the skull (FIGURE 1), hanging in a haunting halo around the interlocking dagger teeth (FIGURE 2). Several prehensile tongues allow another means of gripping and administering a potent paralytic venom from stingers that have been found to line the tongues. In the darkness, they have been proven to track prey with their clusters of eyes (FIGURE 3) granting almost 330 degrees of vision.
The Spook body tapers from the round head to a broad rudder tail (FIGURE 4) which allows for fast movement in exchange for small amounts of energy. Patches of orange bioluminescent bacteria line the dorsal angle of the body, the gill rakes and trail the edges of the fins, forming haunting glowing trails that wisp behind the black body (FIGURE 5). We have since realized that the orange wisps serve a defensive purpose, being lined with hundreds of jellyfish stingers to ward off unseen hunters. The most likely source of the stingers is some form of deep sea jellyfish we have yet to redocument following 0-Day.
Dissection has yielded that Spooks are capable of shifting sex at need.
Pre-war archives show lineage from angler fish and eels.
Behavior:[]
Spooks are dangerous not due to size, but instead due to their mentality. They are often seen in schools ranging from dozens to hundreds. All the members of a school show the same fearless hunger, an erratic fury that drives them to charge and kill prey many times larger than a single spooks. Even as the target tries to flee, the Spooks pursue, shredding with their teeth while the prey is still alive. It is in this that Spooks seem to be a one-dimensional threat.
As for breeding, the females will simply enter ovulation and eject hundreds of eggs while the males release clouds of sperm. The school will then shift into a circling sphere, orbiting the egg/sperm miasma to stave off would-be threats. Once the eggs are fertilized and sink, the schools turn their fury inward, seemingly killing each other without mercy. Once the last one is left standing, it will gorge on its dead family.
One the eggs hatch, the lone survivor takes on a role similar to queen bee, leading the school off into the darkness for its first kill.
Diet:[]
Anything alive. That, that is all we’ve documented. Even juvenile Leviathans. The school just eats everything.
Predators:[]
Stragglers and Lone Survivors are often picked off by other abyssal killers. Sometimes, the school will cannibalize some of their own when prey is scarce for the good of the school.
-Recorded by Agent Valentine