He pushed through the double doors and was exhaling, glad to be back in the hallway and away from Crash and the thready scent of decay.
“I’ll be seeing you around, Nick,” Crash called after him and as the doors swung closed, Nick heard Crash’s teeth click together on the K like he’d just eaten another piece.
8
Hunter Fisher McAllister’s father named him such a thing because he hoped it would bolster the boy’s love of outdoor activities. Hunter’s mother was appalled, but being a young bride and not wanting to rock the boat over something as silly as a name, she had acquiesced—with the provision she got to name their next child. It had been a girl she named Willow Elizabeth.
While Hunter’s sister didn’t grow up to be a tree doctor or a queen, he had fulfilled his father’s hopes and become an avid outdoorsman. He did it all; deer, squirrel, rabbit, turkey and hog hunting. He fished, from pole fishing to trot lines; he sat on the bank or hopped in a boat. It didn’t matter to Hunter as long as he was outside with a rifle or a bow or a rod and reel in his hands. He hadn’t set foot in a grocery store in seven years because what he didn’t shoot or hook, he grew; he foraged for wild edibles including morels and chanterelles. Hunter was self-sufficient in the extreme; he even knew how to make flour from acorns should the need to do so ever arise.
One of his favorite things in the world to do was hunt at night. Since his family owned a large tract of land, most of which was wooded, Hunter could do so as long as he didn’t cross the property line. The fact was that sometimes he did exactly that, but mostly he was good about following the law. Mostly, Hunter was a good guy who believed in partaking of what nature had to offer, but he didn’t believe in being greedy and taking too much. One of the things he despised most in the world was trophy hunters, which to him were no better than murderers.
However, things of that nature were not on his mind as he tromped through the woods the Friday before the Christmas Carnival began. He was trying to decide whether or not he should ask Dawn Marie Schuler to the carnival. He figured she’d turn him down and even if she didn’t, she might want to take her creepy friend, Tobias along with them. Just the thought made Hunter shiver. He didn’t understand why Dawn Marie hung around with that freak, though Hunter also didn’t understand why he found Tobias Dunwalton to be so off-putting either. He was perfectly nice, friendly even. Maybe it was his skin that did it; that pale, pale skin. It was unnatural.
Of course, he could always ask Nancy Lange to go with him instead. They’d been neighbors their entire lives and had always been friendly with one another. Hunter had heard through the grapevine that Nick was home, too. Maybe they could all go together; he’d run around with Nick when they were teenagers. Hunter McAllister, Hylas Dunwalton, Aaron Talley and Nick Lange had been the Four Musketeers of juvenile delinquency back in the day. The woods had called Hunter back, had probably saved him a lot of grief in the years to come if he had stuck with those three. He still hung around with Hylas, he and Hunter got together once in a while for a game of cards or some fishing. As for Aaron, Hunter avoided him; everyone knew what he got up to and Hunter wanted nothing to do with that.
Nick had just come home from Texas after doing a dime in the penitentiary, though that didn’t put Hunter off quite so bad. Rumors abounded about why Nick had got sent up, everything from murder to tax evasion, but Hunter didn’t form an opinion on the matter. He figured he’d ask Nick when he saw him again; he meant to drop by the Lange place to see how they were doing and if Nancy wanted some of the fall mustard greens he’d put up.
Hunter was so lost in thought that his usual surefooted gait faltered and he tripped over a fallen limb jutting partially up from the leaf litter. He stumbled, cursed and nearly pulled the trigger on his rifle.
“Dang,” he said. He pushed up the bill of his baseball cap to wipe the fine sheen of sweat off his brow.
He’d been out walking for a couple of miles, stalking his way through the woods by the light of a half moon. He hadn’t seen a sign of a deer or even heard one move. Once he stopped, he realized he didn’t hear anything at all. It was still and silent out, not even a slight breeze blew; everything hung limp and still in the frosty night air.
The hairs on the back of Hunter’s neck and along his arms began to crawl. Such silence had always made him uneasy, but it had become worse after a hunting trip to Wyoming a few years back. Such a silence had draped over the late afternoon that day as Hunter made his way back to camp down a narrow, weedy trail overhung with trees. Something had made him to look up and when he had, there’d been the biggest damn cougar he’d ever seen watching him from a limb.
Remembering, Hunter looked up but there was nothing silhouetted against the sky, no shape on the familiar limbs of the trees that suggested he was being stalked from above. Hunter could’ve drawn a map of the property from memory alone. He’d walked the woods since he was a toddler, had taken his first steps down near the creek and fallen on his diapered bottom right at the water’s edge.
He knew the forest even at night, all of its quirks and nooks and crannies. He knew that if he turned southwest and walked about a quarter of a mile that he would come out on a well-worn four-wheeler path. If he went right, he’d wind up at the swimming hole his grandfather had dug out of the creek probably ninety years ago. If he went left, he’d come out into his back field and would be able to see the white clapboard siding of the house he’d grown up in and now owned.
Hunter went left when he came to the path and even though he told himself to take his time, to keep his cool, he walked faster than usual. He took his rifle from his shoulder and walked with it cradled in his arms. It made him feel like Elmer Fudd, but he also felt safer, he could get the gun up on his shoulder and the safety off a hell of a lot quicker that way.
The feeling of being watched stole over him so slowly that he didn’t notice it at first, he barely registered the prickling sensation along his skin he was so preoccupied with the way it was already crawling. Hunter knew the woods he walked through and he knew something wasn’t right with them. He walked even faster, picking up his pace until he was nearly jogging, until his steps were no longer the quiet, considered steps of a hunter. The heels of his boots thudded on the hard-packed earth beneath the pine needle covering, his breath smoked out of him in clouds that glowed in the moonlight.
Hunter started to smile when the light through the trees ahead of him became brighter. Just up ahead the path ended and became his field; the light was clear and silver, filling up the open space.
Then something black stepped in front of all that lovely silver light and Hunter stumbled. With the field full of moonlight behind it, the silhouette was sharply defined and blacker than pitch. Hunter put his rifle to his shoulder without a second thought and sighted on it—to hesitate was to miss the shot; it was Hunting 101. He couldn’t tell who it was, but they were goddamn tall and broad, unlike anyone Hunter could think of immediately. But he knew what had been going on around there since August; he had heard about the Turners’ dog and Mr. Fussell’s chickens, the goats over at Josephine Miller’s place. He knew what had happened to Nancy’s front door. Some asshole had been having people on with cruel, gruesome pranks since summer and it looked like tonight it might be Hunter’s turn.
He would be damned.
“Turn yourself around,” Hunter called. “I ain’t in no mood to be pranked on and I reckon maybe nobody around here is, they just ain’t seen you yet. Well, I have, Mister and I suggest you take your ass on back where you came from. You’re not wanted here.”
At first there was only more silence, but then the man began to make a snuffling noise. It started out softly but gradually rose in pitch until he was chuffing loudly. It took Hunter a second to realize that the bastard was laughing at him.
He fired off a round, making sure the shot went wide—but not too wide. That got the fella’s attention; he jerked away from the shot and made a sound that was a damn lot like a yelp.
“That’s all t
he warning you’re gonna receive,” Hunter said. “Now get on outta here.”
The guy took a step toward him instead. Hunter held his ground and thought, What a fucking loony.
“Didn’t you hear me, man?” Hunter said. “I told you to get and I weren’t funnin’. I will shoot you.”
He chambered another round in the rifle, working the action harder than necessary to drive home his point. The click-clack slide of the bolt was loud and sudden, it echoed like Hunter wanted it to. Like cocking the hammer on a gun, chambering a round in a rifle was an excellent attention getter.
The silhouette pricked its ears up at the racket.
Hunter stared, not sure what he was seeing for a second: the man in front of him seemed to have grown pointed ears, new silhouettes melting up from the shadowy sides of his head. It didn’t make any goddamn sense.
The jumbled thoughts ordered themselves quickly enough though—but Hunter still didn’t really believe such a thing to be true. Whatever it was blocking his way home was not a man, though Hunter didn’t know what in hell it was. All he knew was that it had tall, pointed ears. Ears that he understood then had been lying back alongside its head like a frightened dog. Or an aggressive one.
Hunter’s next thought was that the thing on the path wasn’t going to get out of his way. It was smart; it had planned to cut him off when home was just in sight. It wasn’t just hunting, it was having fun. It had laughed at him, for Christ’s sake.
One thing Hunter could count on though was that he knew the woods better than the thing on the path. He could lose it in the trees.
Hunter whirled and bolted back into the forest, crashing through the brush alongside the path. Then he was inside the forest, running on the soft, thick carpet of pine needles and oak leaves. Behind him, something tore through the brush after him. It snarled once, low and vicious; a rolling, grating rasp of sound that made Hunter’s bladder feel weak. He thought, I should’ve taken another shot. I coulda got its head.
As he ran, Hunter prayed to anything that might be listening. He’d been raised in the woods, he had seen wonders and terrors within the balsam-scented corridors, but never in all his life had he seen something like what pursued him now. His breath tore at his lungs, his heart pounded and he strained his ears to hear anything that suggested the beast was still in pursuit. There was another trail coming up in about one hundred yards. It would bring Hunter out across from the east side of the house near the back.
He heard no tell-tale signs of something chasing him, no heavy footfalls or panting breaths, so he headed for home. He was in good shape from all the time he spent outside hiking and walking, years of dragging heavy carcasses out of the woods had left him with great muscle tone. He was starting to flag though, his mad dash had taken him deeper into the woods initially, heading down toward the creek and then he’d looped around in a wide arc to head back and try to make it to his house. Hunter didn’t know how much farther he could go before his legs gave out on him; his calves were already burning and threatening to cramp.
He didn’t slow when he found the path though, he kept running because tired or not, he wanted out of the damn woods for the first time in his whole life. The sooner that happened the happier he would be. Hunter smiled to himself when the opening of the path became visible, teeth bared in a grimace that passed for a grin. He was almost—
It was there, stepping out of the shadows, blacker than the night and seeming three times as big to Hunter. He screamed, short and breathless, and raised his rifle again. The shot went wild and that time the thing at the end of the path didn’t even flinch. He quickly changed course and the slippery mess of pine straw beneath his boots nearly took him down to the ground.
Back into the woods he went, feverishly trying to think of someplace he could go. Pine trees were impossible to climb or almost so and the closest oak with limbs big enough to really hold his weight was too far away. Another possible way out did come to him through the panic and rising horror. He would have to cross a narrow part of the creek and go up a hill then around in a loop to come out on the west side of the house, closer to the front than the back.
He was running out of stamina; he could walk for days and wasn’t a bad runner, but he’d always been more of a sprinter. The path to the western side of the house was narrower, the trees overhanging it lower; it was seldom used and the grass was not beaten flat. Briars and tough grass caught at his ankles and tried to pull him down. Hunter was going to make it this time; he could feel air on his face that was colder than that inside the trees as he approached the end of the path. He wanted to whoop with joy but he didn’t dare make a sound.
The thing stepped in front of the path so smoothly and quickly that Hunter almost slammed right into it. He was close, he could see the gleam of its eyes, the ivory white of its teeth as its lips pulled back in what might have been a snarl, but that Hunter knew was a smile. He could smell it, musky and wild; pine and cedar, loam and rich earth. Hunter threw himself backwards and raised his gun again.
“Go away,” he wheezed. “Just go away.”
His blood stopped in his veins when the thing shook its head: No.
“Please,” Hunter said as he backed up. “Leave me be.”
Again the head shake: No.
“You’re not real,” he said.
The thing snorted, blowing out a billowing plume of cloudy breath: Of course I am, idiot. I’m right here.
Hunter pulled the trigger and when he did, the thing on the path screamed as its left arm jerked back. Hunter was not usually a terrible shot, but he was shaking and exhausted, he had sweat burning his eyes despite the low temperature. He’d hit the goddamn thing though; probably he only grazed it, but it was better than nothing. He tried to fire again, but before he could, the thing lunged at him. The growl rolling up from deep in its chest sounded like thunder. Hunter’s finger was on the trigger when the gun was yanked away from him. The shot went wild and he screamed as he tried to hold onto the rifle. There was a knife on his belt, but he knew he’d never get to it in time for it to do him any good.
He couldn’t hold onto the gun though, the thing was too strong, and as it ripped the rifle away Hunter turned and began to run again even as he reached for the knife anyway. He’d made it barely ten feet, fingers closing around the hilt and pulling the knife free, when something slammed into him from behind. The force of the impact was incredible, it sent him flying through the air half a dozen feet and when he came down, he heard the radius in his right arm snap with a little wet twig crackle. The pain exploded up his arm as more pain sang through his right thigh. He’d landed on a stick in such a way that a good two inches of it had buried itself in his flesh.
It was hard to breathe and through the tree limbs, the stars twirled and spun in Hunter’s vision as he rolled over and began to push himself upright. In the shadows something growled then chuffed. It was amused to be having both dinner and a show. The thought made him choke on a dry sob as he wobbled up to his feet. He knew he was a dead man; he could run all night, but in the end the thing from the path would have him. It would run Hunter until he could run no more and only after making a game out of Hunter would it actually kill him.
Hunter refused to run, refused to be some thing’s idea of a good time on a Saturday night.
He held out his arms to the side despite the pain in the broken one. “Come on then,” Hunter said. “Come and get me. I ain’t runnin’ no more. I ain’t gonna be your sport.”
The thing chuffed again and tipped its head to the side. Sweat trickled down Hunter’s spine and chills crawled up it. He wasn’t done, goddamnit, his life should not be ending right now. He should have been able to find safety or get off a better shot or something. His muscles trembled with the remaining urge to bolt, to run and not face his fears, but he didn’t do it. To do so would have meant he died the death of a turn-tail coward because there was nowhere left to run, nowhere else to hide.
He felt betrayed by the forest; his home awa
y from home, the thing that had always been like a song in his blood and left him feeling at ease. It had failed to keep him safe and sheltered; it had thrown him to the wind like he had never mattered. The one thing in the world that he loved the most had stopped loving him on this night.
A growl tore through the night, waves of sound rippling outward and Hunter thought, Dear Jesus God. Tears ran down his face.
The thing lunged at him, quicksilver darkness limned by moonlight. The last thing Hunter saw was its jaws cracking wide in a lunatic’s grin. The last thing he did as he felt its jaws close around his throat, fangs like ten penny nails puncturing his flesh, was damn the forest that had forsaken him.
A little while later the forest began to sing again. Crickets hummed a dirge in the leaf litter, peepers sang for rain and peace. A screech owl shrieked. Not too far away, a mother bobcat purred to her late-season kittens as they nursed. The stars were reflected in the bloody remains of Hunter McAllister’s ruined body.
In the distance, something howled.
9
The Christmas Carnival was postponed for three days after Hunter McAllister’s body was discovered and the parade that rang it in—the Krewe of Jingle—didn’t roll at all out of respect for the McAllister family’s loss. They almost didn’t put it on, but the McAllister family insisted they go ahead with the festivities. Hunter had enjoyed the carnival, mostly the shooting gallery games on the midway, but he also held a secret fondness for the Christmas tree displays and a not-so-secret fondness for the blueberry funnel cakes offered at several stalls. They said Hunter would want it to go on as planned.
Such things always sounded like sentimental bullshit to Nick, though he understood the reasoning. It just didn’t matter to him; if something were to ever happen to Nancy and the offer to cancel some town festivity was floated to him, he would say, Yes, do that right now because how dare you celebrate.
Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1) Page 7