by Amy Star
He ducked down again, just in time to miss being scalped by an errant shot by the poacher. He hasn’t moved on his hide, she realized. He was used to hunting prey that didn’t think like a human. He should have switched his position the moment he missed her but he’d chosen the same spot.
While she was still cursing Dylan for lingering too long above his shield, she turned and planted the rifle firmly against her shoulder, staring down the sight at the last place she had seen the glint. One second; that’s all she’d get. She saw the small hole, the platform between the two fallen logs, and squeezed off the shot. It rang like church bells in her ears and the force of the gun going off against her shoulder was almost enough to spiral her back out of the line of sight of the poacher. She groaned and massaged the divot in her shoulder, pulling down the strap of her tank-top. An ugly purplish-red bruise was already hemorrhaging under the skin.
“Can he move?” she shouted back at Dylan, even though there was no need for it. Aside from the burst of gunfire, the forest remained calm in the wake of each shot. She found herself contemplating it like a kind of passive rebuke; the forest announcing the perpetuity of its silence, its sovereignty over us, no matter how this turns out.
Her mate shook his head fiercely, the gash on his head having opened in the turmoil, and a small trickle of blood plastered to the side of his brow where it disappeared, sopped up by the black hair that covered his ears.
Even as he reached over the bear, he could feel a slow and tangible regression. Chris had held his shape as long as he could. The heavy brown fur began to recede, almost like watching a time-lapse of the seasons, the growth and death of grass and plants. In moments, there was a halo of brown hair covering Dylan’s pant leg and Chris’ naked body was propped on his knees.
“Got ’im,” Chris mumbled through his lips and coughed blood.
Dylan reached down and supported his friend’s head. “You got him, alright. It’s okay, now.”
Chris shook his head. “I was supposed to… to protect you.”
“You did,” Dylan said smiling, forcing back his own tears. “Oh, you did, old bear.”
“I think… I think I’m ready… to see Suzy again,” he breathed. “It’s been a pleasure, Dylan. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. I’m… I’m really going to miss this island, y’know.”
Now, as a human, Dylan could see where the poacher’s bullets had bit into him. Below the old wound in his shoulder there was another, right above his left chest cavity, and the way Chris was laboring to breathe, it was more than likely he’d punctured a lung. Not much blood, but a wet sucking sound, and Dylan squirmed, placing his hand on the wound, trying to buy Chris whatever time was left to him. The other wound was in his leg, and it must have clipped an artery the way it was bleeding. His Atlas thigh was coated red, as if he’d painted it.
“Sarah! Sarah, I can’t… there’s too much blood,” he said, but Sarah couldn’t help him. She leaned out and another bullet ricocheted off the trunk of the tree and she cursed, wiping sawdust out of her eyes. “Chris, stay with me… we’ll get you back to the cabin, okay?”
His big bovine eyes looked up through blood loss and a pleasant vision that was beginning to unfold. “I took the satellite radio… it’s… it’s where you didn’t think I would look. Thought… it would be safe there, when they started… hunting me…”
“Don’t speak.”
“Suzy’s waiting for me,” he said. “You know what they say, when you start seeing the dead.”
Dylan nodded. “You’re too close to them.”
“Thing is, I’m not scared. I feel happy… how’s that for weird?” the old bear laughed, his voice a hacking sort of sound that reminded Dylan of branches scraping together.
“She’s waiting,” Dylan choked on the words, bracing Chris’ head under his lap, “go to her.”
Chris smiled, the biggest smile he was capable of, something that transformed his whole face, and his eyes closed gently with a knowing sort of expression, like wherever he was going he’d be sure to wait there, for whenever it was Dylan’s time. That’s what a patron’s for, ain’t it?
Carefully, Dylan set Chris’ head on the ground and brushed the hair off his pant leg.
CHAPTER NINE
Sarah could barely register the fact that Chris was dead. She saw Dylan put the patron’s head onto the ground and felt like throwing up. A huge grin was on the giant’s face, like he’d gone out the way he’d always wanted to. She looked up at Dylan, but he wouldn’t look at her. His face was changed, a mask of anger and hate that made her feel as if she’d lost him, too.
She pulled back on the bolt of the rifle and loaded another: seven more shots. The poacher still hadn’t learned to shift his position after each shot, which meant it was easy to calculate from where the next bullet would come from. She hissed at him and he turned, his face a mess of emotions and confusion, as if he’d only just realized she was there.
“I can’t get in a good shot,” she whispered. “He’s got me pinned too well.”
“If we stay here, he’ll just pick us off,” he said, looking above the stone wall quickly and ducking down again. “What do you think? Should we run for it?”
She looked down the path. It didn’t offer much cover. If they could make it to the grove of tightly growing cedars off the bank, then maybe they’d have a chance. She winced and held the gun in front of her. “One of us might get away.”
Dylan snarled. “Both of us or none of us. I’m through losing people today,” he grated.
“Do you have a better plan?”
Without looking, Dylan reached down and touched Chris’ shoulder with his fingers. “This bastard wants a trophy and he was expecting bears. I say we give him bears”
She thought about it. It would mean abandoning the rifle, the only real form of protection they had against the poacher, if they both turned into bears. But it might just give them the speed and opportunity to outrun the poacher in his nest. They could make better distance as bears. But it was still chancy.
“I have a better idea,” she said.
***
From his perch, Arthur had a perfect 180 degree angle on both of his quarry. He hunched down, feeling the stone under his legs start to wear into the muscle, but kept his eye firmly locked on the sight. He would get one chance, one chance if he was lucky, and he refused to miss it. Through the magnification of the scope he could make out Kyle’s body. The shifters had killed him too, he suspected. There was a dark patch of blood but he couldn’t see the rest of Kyle’s body.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered, his finger resting lightly on the plastic trigger.
The girl was a good enough shot. She’d managed to fire off two rounds at him, and if he hadn’t been slipping in another clip, that first one would have got him through the forehead. She knew how to shoot, which troubled him. These weren’t ordinary prey. Besides the fact they could change at will between bear and human, and he’d seen that well enough to know it wasn’t fiction any longer, at least one of them had training with a rifle.
He looked down his scope again. All he had to do was wait. If the girl was using Kyle’s rifle, there were only a couple more rounds left. Meanwhile, he had at least a hundred bullets and two extra clips. Let them get weary, and it’ll be their end, he thought.
Two minutes passed. Nothing. No movement at all. He craned his eye through the scope, trying to get a glimpse of anything that would signal their presence. He hadn’t seen them leave. To the left and right, it was open trail, he would have noticed. Were they playing coy or had they managed to sneak past him somehow? He felt worry gnaw at his stomach and started to chew on a twig. The muscles in his arm were starting to cramp.
Then, there was a flurry of movement – not from the tree trunk or the rock shield, but to the right. A brown movement. He tried to readjust and saw a bear-like form trying to lumber off. So, abandoning your sweetheart, huh, he wanted to mock. He looked down the graphite muzzle and prepa
red to shoot. Just then, another shot boomed to his right, and several chips of the boulder beside him sparked against his face. He flinched and turned back. A ruse!
Another shot, and he ducked, heard the ozone of a bullet swim above his head and snarled. He was leading away his aim while she took a shot. It didn’t matter, Kyle’s rifle was a bolt action, and his was a semi-automatic, which gave him at least a four or five bullet lead on her if it came to speed. He aimed down his sight again. The girl was running. A shame, but he wasn’t about to give up a good shot. Maybe he could just clip her, she was beautiful and the combination of the hunt and his mad lust for revenge had stirred other feelings in him, dark primitive feelings that bubbled in his loins.
“You’re on your own now, pretty,” he said, aiming for her ankles.
But the narrowness of his scope had suddenly been used against him. He saw a black shape move in the opposite direction, putting his aim off balance, and was forced to look over his scope with his own two eyes. He saw the black grizzly returning from the other angle, and saw the woman wrap one arm around his neck and swing her leg over his hump as if he were a horse. It was all one fluid movement, one second earlier or later, a slip of the foot, and they both would have tumbled hopelessly into the breach of trees. But somehow, she’d mounted him, coming from the opposite direction!
He swore and tried to regain his shot, but the woman fired off another shot. It went wild, no way to aim from the galumphing back of a grizzly bear but it startled him all the same. By the time he was in place, they were gone. Only the swaying of branches and leaves remained.
“Fuck!” he screamed, and punched at the stone beside him. He didn’t even feel the flesh push back over his knuckles, or the pop of bone and cartilage. Just a numb hatred, and then something wet trailing between his fingers. He sucked at the avulsion on his hand, and spit red onto the ground.
He kept the rifle raised even as he made his way down to the path, but he knew they were long gone. Kyle’s body – what was left of it – was still twitching, and Arthur kicked at his boot. Poor fool, he thought, lamenting the headless corpse. The head had landed several meters away, and was still frozen in an expression of pain and surprise, the eyes starting to go pale even as the first flies found them. Walking across the horrible image caused even the seasoned Arthur to turn away.
The smell of blood was everywhere. Soon, decay would start in, the process of nature doing its hard work to return the dead to its bosom. There was another body, big and muscular, some dumb grin plastered on his face. A layer of brown fur surrounded the pale naked man, and he took the meaning well enough and laid his boot into the side of the man. The grin remained, almost imperious, defiant. You’ve already killed me, what can you do now, poacher, it seemed to taunt.
“I can make your friends scream for their lives,” he said out loud. His voice sounded alien in the woods, something that didn’t belong, something that couldn’t belong. Part of him considered making a line for the outboard, still covered with ferns down by the beach. Make his way to the mainland, if the motor would get him that far. “No, I can’t. Not anymore. I’m in this too far… I’m in it with Kyle. For you, for Kieran… I swear to God, whatever it takes, I’ll murder these sons of bitches. I’ll avenge you. Even if it kills me.”
It felt good to say the words out loud, something about the physical sensation of the syllables leaving his throat made the vow real, attached it somehow to a sense of honor that he felt for his fallen friend and for his son. There was nothing wavering about it. It was like a hard line penciled in, irresolute, indelible. Kill or be killed.
He rummaged through Kyle’s coat, pulled out the man’s wallet, and stuffed it in his own jacket, and turned toward the path where the bear and the woman had left. It was sunny now, their trail was fresh and he had nothing more or less to live for than their deaths.
CHAPTER TEN
Instead of going to the cabin, Dylan ran toward the far end of the island. On his back, holding on for dear life, Sarah could only clutch at his fur and dig her thighs into his back to keep from getting thrown off. The gun on her back lifted and slapped her shoulders each time Dylan leapt or avoided a tree branch, and she felt like her whole body was bruised all over, just an inundation of aches and pains and the slow attrition of weariness.
She glanced behind her a few times but the way Dylan was moving, there was no way the other poacher would be able to keep up. Not at this rate, but they were leaving a very distinct trail through the undergrowth. As a bear, he was unaccustomed to using the trails, preferring the straightest line from point A to point B. As a result, a wake of broken branches and tracks lay out behind them like breadcrumbs or Theseus’ golden thread.
“Dylan, wait… wait, please,” she tried to whisper in the grizzly’s ear, but he was inconsolable. She could only hold on, burying her face against his fur. He smelled of dry pine needles, of broken granite, that cold-water sharpness.
It wasn’t until they’d reached very edge of the island, which fingered to a point, that he began to slow and lumbered to a final stop, breathing heavily into the grass. She stepped off him and felt her legs wobble under her. There was a slight electricity in the air as Dylan began to revert to human form, the hair sloughing off him, and he stood up shakily, his naked body wrapped in sweat.
“Dylan,” she said, reaching toward him, and stopped.
“Down this way,” he said without stopping, and walked past her. The point of the island had a small animal trail, well covered, that led down to the shore, and she was surprised she hadn’t found it before; another of the island’s secrets, no doubt.
The surf was roughing the shore, despite the fact the sun was up and wandering from cloud to cloud. Then she saw that there was a small cave, indented into the side of the pale cliffs. It’d be invisible from the shore because of its obtuse angle but when you approached from the side it was quite obvious, a wind and ocean sculpted tunnel that led a good ten meters into the cliff-face. She followed Dylan’s naked body into the throat of stone, and shielded her eyes when he struck a match. The cavern lit up.
It was full of books, a small decrepit drawer at one end, backed up against the wall and a mattress in the middle. Dylan stooped and lit several more candles, until the cavern was aglow with the orange light of paraffin, and they were both tapestries of shadows.
“One of my hide-outs,” he mused, “even Chris didn’t know about it. At least, I didn’t think he did. He always kept things to himself.”
He pointed to one of the drawers where the satellite radio was perched, and Sarah let out an exclamation and went to it. The power was still on – broadcasting an intermittent SOS message. If anyone can pick it up.
“He must’ve brought it here when they started to…” Sarah broke off.
“I think so. It’s funny… I always thought this was my own secret place but of course he knew about it.” A tinge of sadness crept into his voice. “I found this place the first day we came here, and brought things over time… books, sea-shells. I guess you could call it my home away from home.”
“A sanctuary,” she said, and he nodded.
He lumbered forward and fell onto his back on the mattress, one hand over his forehead, and his gaze fluctuating with the ballet of shadows that danced against the contours of the cave’s roof. He’s lost his best friend, his patron, she reminded herself. And yet he was as solemn as a statue. She felt the same way, as if they’d encountered so much suffering in such a small span, it had overloaded their capacity for feeling anything.
Absently, she pulled at her tank-top and cast it to one side of the room. It still smelled noxious with the chemical burn of potassium nitrate. Her small breasts swayed and jiggled as she took a step toward the bed, fingering the button on her jeans as she did. Dylan turned his gaze slightly at the sound of her pulling the zipper slowly down, and saw her ripped pants and thong drop as one to her ankles where she stepped out of them, never breaking stride. She folded down beside him like origami,
her pale leg curving over his waist, brushing the blunt end of his member, and he quivered. Her other hand stroked his chest, and she pulled herself closer so she could kiss his shoulder.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, his voice as hopeless as a kite without a string.
She kissed his shoulder again. “What Chris would have wanted us to do,” and she saw a plaintive look move over the dim sheen of Dylan’s skin, “we survive. No matter what.”
She bent down, her black hair swimming against his neck, and kissed him deeply, pushing her mouth hard into his. She started to cry, and kissed him harder, forcing his lips apart with her tongue as her leg rubbed up and down against him, and felt the scratchy tangle of her pubic hair thrusting against him eagerly.
“I should have told you,” he said. “I should have told you… so much sooner…” He reached up and cupped her cheek, and felt more of her hot tears land on his chest. “I love you, Sarah.”
She kissed him again and sobbed, throwing her leg all the way over him until she was straddling him, and his hands clutched at her thighs, forcing them apart even as she bent low. Her breasts tickled his chest and she let out a loud moan of pain and pleasure as he suckled them, running his tongue around her nipple until it hardened like a dark bead in his mouth, and his teeth scratched over it.
He felt himself harden under her, and she rubbed herself against him, frantically, her breath becoming a rasp. “I want you in me,” she breathed, “love me.”
He saw her reach down between their legs and hardened further when her small fist wrapped around his penis in a death-grip, strangling it, and he almost came there and then. Gently she lifted herself up, and with one hand on his member, guided it toward her vagina. She let out a protracted sigh and groaned as she lowered herself fully onto him, her wide lips parting red and blood-filled, and wet with the anticipation of his sex.
She began to gyrate, moving her hips against him almost awkwardly. Vicious jutting movements that pushed him further into her, and her voice seemed to lose itself in some primitive act. She was breathing hard, hurling herself onto his manhood, and he felt her muscles clench against him each time, holding him there.