Was it the next day? The day after her resurrection? If it was, why was she not experiencing throbbing pain in her head at the site of her wound? She could feel the damage, the oozing blood and infection where the wound still raged unhealed and gnarled, but she felt no physical discomfort at all coming from the surface of her body. There was only warmth and serenity.
Her hunger, on the other hand, was almost unbearable now, and the thought of Petr’s smooth, thick calves strolling across the kitchen floor collapsed into Anika’s mind like a cinder block. But Petr was gone now too, he was in no danger from Anika, and she decided not to fight the thought this time. Instead she explored the hunger, noting how it didn’t seem to quite resonate from her belly, but rather it was a piercing pang that she experienced throughout the whole of her body.
And there was no sense denying anymore that her craving was for human flesh.
But Anika also felt the emotions that were still lingering from her dream, and, unlike her hunger, she welcomed these sensations. It was a sign that she was alive, at least on some level, and that she still had the capacity to love.
Anika sucked in a giant breath to clear the memories of the dream, and then, as she focused on the daylight shining through the basement door, panic set in.
She had slept through the remainder of the previous day and night, and now seemed to be well into the next day. Judging by the glow of light, it was several hours past dawn, and that meant she had missed her own funeral.
What did it matter though? It was a charade, and she had really only wanted to witness the ceremony so that she could see her children again.
And to keep track of Gretel.
Anika figured she still had time before Gretel would return to school, and during her stay in the Back Country, she had hoped her daughter would choose to come stay in her own house. It only made sense; why would she stay with the Klahrs if her home was perfectly suitable?
There were other factors, of course, not the least of which was that Hansel had just killed his own mother and may want the support and company of his sister. But Anika knew Gretel, and she suspected that, despite Hansel being justified in his actions, she would feel a certain level of animosity toward her brother. It wasn’t fair for her to feel that way, but that was Gretel—grudges had always been a part of her make up.
Anika rose from the bed and walked quickly to the basement door, sliding the glass wide and stepping out onto the patio where she absorbed the gratifying warmth of the late morning sun. It was an hour before noon, she judged, well past what was certain to have been a short memorial service, but she listened anyway for any voices that might be echoing across the lake.
Hearing none, Anika turned to re-enter the house, but just as she was about to step through the doorway, she caught a distant scent emanating from the woods to the east. The smell was barely perceptible, and yet it was distinct and familiar. And the source of it was substantial.
Something large and delicious.
As if the scent itself had flicked a switch inside of her, Anika’s demeanor of sleep instantly evaporated and developed into one of primal urgency. She lifted her head sharply, darting her jaw to the left, then to the right, and then left again, making incremental recalibrations, automatically positioning her nose to keep the scent alive.
She licked her lips and swallowed slowly as she narrowed her eyes, blurring the vision of her surroundings while focusing her mind on the smell. Like a snake sloughing off its aged scales, Anika shed her slippers and blouse, then her pants, letting each item fall limply at her feet onto the brick-paved patio.
Now barefoot and naked but for her bra and a thin pair of underpants, Anika moved quietly onto the gravel surrounding the overgrown garden, striding with purpose past the woodpile, silently breaching the tree line, moving with stealth until she reached the interior of the heavy woods.
Once behind the shroud of the deep forest’s leaves and branches, Anika’s movements became those of a panther, with her new lack of physical sensation rendering her impervious to weather and pain. This made what would have otherwise been unpleasant steps through the leaf litter as simple as walking over a field of ginned cotton.
Anika sidled low and sideways as she advanced between the trunks, almost touching her knees to the ground, maintaining cover by rising tall behind each tree she approached, poking her head out in a scan for danger before continuing.
She was no more than a hundred yards into the woodland when she saw a six-point buck; it was facing away from Anika, its rump high and alert, and it made no gesture indicating it had detected the human intruder behind it. Anika stood covertly beside the animal’s hind quarters, which was nearly Anika’s height, and then slapped it with her open hand, sending the deer fleeting through the woods without ever turning to see the thing that had assaulted him.
But it wasn’t the deer Anika had smelled back at the house; it was the men hunting it.
“I heard it, Mattheo! I heard it grunt and scramble.”
“Spooked?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s coming toward me.”
The voices were frantic with excitement, and Anika, using an involuntary triangulation formula of the deer’s position, the volume of the men’s voices, and the sweet smell of flesh, calculated they came from no more than fifty yards away.
“Toward us?”
“I think so.” There was a pause and then, “It’s there.”
The gunshot was enormous, and Anika dropped to the ground and covered her ears in pain. Her sense of smell had been amplified, but so too had her hearing.
I wonder if the taste of them will be amplified too, she thought, and before she could shame herself for the idea, Anika sprinted in the direction of the fallen deer and the men surrounding its carcass.
“You got him Mattheo,” the first hunter said proudly, out of breath. “It was a wonderful shot.”
Anika stood tall behind a thick, white birch trunk, ten yards from the two hunters, watching the scene unfold as she measured her options.
“I did,” the other hunter—Mattheo—replied, his expression glowing and self-satisfied.
“I’ve taught you well, my boy.”
Father and son. Not what Anika would have hoped for. Her hunger was primary now, and not to be denied, but the thought of tearing this family apart, in whatever way the scenario played out, piled a helping of weight upon her.
But the outcast lion didn’t consider the parents of the wounded zebra colt; it simply hunted that prey which was most immediate, focusing solely on its own survival in the world.
Anika stepped from behind the tree and stood in the open now, the mud and sap of the woodland streaking her bare body from her face and neck to the dorsals of her feet. She scanned herself, the wildness of her appearance for the first time registering. And she hadn’t yet seen her face. The concavity of the wound and the crusts of blood and healing must be abominable. She thought of that night in the Northlands, when she’d become lost in the woods off the Interways, almost freezing to death before finally being attacked and abducted by Marlene.
But the parallels she felt now didn’t run along her own experience from that night. She felt much more connected now to Marlene. Sympathetic even to the craving she must have been feeling.
The two hunters who stood before her—one of whom, Anika now saw, wasn’t a man at all, and was perhaps fifteen at the oldest—didn’t notice her for several moments, fixated as they were on their trophy. She took a step closer to them now, then another, her eyes narrowed once again, focusing neither on the father nor the son, instead maintaining a peripheral line of sight between them.
It was Mattheo who noticed her first. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “Dad.”
The smile lingered on Mattheo’s father’s face for a few seconds, as if anticipating some profound acknowledgement of bonding from his son. “Yes, boy?”
“Dad look.”
Mattheo’s dad lifted his chin and gun almost simultaneously, and the
barrel of the rifle, which had been low and impotent a second before, was now pointed directly at Anika.
“Dad, she’s naked.” It was a plea from Mattheo, a direction to his dad that this woman was no threat.
The father lowered the gun and blinked several times, as if clearing his mind for both he and his son, perhaps considering that the woman in front of him may be some type of mirage. “Who are you?” he asked. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Anika closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and then, without intent or preconception, she stuck her tongue out slightly, trying to taste the sweat and musk coming from the bodies in front of her.
“I asked who you are,” Mattheo’s father repeated, this time with less compassion or bewilderment.
Anika could smell the increased output of his glands as he lifted the rifle again, this time, she calculated, based on the sound of the barrel cutting the air, to about thigh level.
“Dad, what are you doing? Look at her. She’s hurt. Why are you pointing the gun at her?”
“I’m not pointing it at her. I’m positioning it so that I can point it at her quickly if necessary.”
“Why would that be necessary?”
Anika opened her eyes now and saw the man look towards his son, as if his own reasoning was solid, though perhaps not rational if he spoke of it aloud.
“Dad, why? Who is that?”
“You know the stories, Mattheo. You know of all that happened around here. Of that witch from the North and her kin.”
“I know of the witch. Marlene.”
Anika felt a bolt of pain shoot through her shoulders at the sound of the hag’s name, but she kept her eyes locked on the discussion, inputting each word of the conversation into the calculation that would decide their fate.
“What does she have to do with Marlene? Marlene is dead. Really dead. You know that. We all know that. And that part about those folks being her kin is just story. Stories for reprobate children.”
The older hunter looked back at Anika, the discussion with his son seemingly having no impact on his opinions of the woman standing naked in front of him.
“Is that true? You got nothing at all to do with that woman and her tale?”
Anika squared the man’s eyes to her and smiled, and then shook her head slowly.
“You see that,” Mattheo said, “She’s got nothing to do with it.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Anika said finally, the two hunters now riveted by her voice. “I was telling you that what you said isn’t true. I, in fact, have quite a bit to do with that story.”
“I told you,” the father said quietly, his eyes never leaving Anika. “It’s the Morgan woman.”
“Anika?” Mattheo whispered. “Anika Morgan?”
“That cursed family’s property isn’t but a few hundred yards from here.”
“They live there still?”
“I guess they do. The stories about that whole thing never really goes beyond Marlene. But it seems they do.”
Anika felt a stabbing pain in her heart as it began to beat faster, preparing her body with the oxygen it would need for the upcoming slaughter. But there was a deeper pain there as well, a driving sadness that reverberated to her soul.
She took one step forward and the world around her slowed a bit, as if she were able to operate normally while everything in her surroundings was awash in honey. Even the brightness was there, illuminating the scene to her benefit, highlighting details that would otherwise have been obfuscated in the drama, but which she could use to her advantage.
The hunter’s trigger finger fumbled for a quarter second, and Anika squatted and dodged to her right, taking another two steps toward the man. He pointed the rifle low now and shot, but Anika had already collapsed to her belly and done a full roll back to her right. She was now lying face down in front of the shooter, less than four feet away.
He took a step back as he reloaded, Anika could hear it all play out as if she’d seen this play a thousand times, and she pushed her arms straight, planking her body stiff and then rising instantly to her feet.
Mattheo’s father pivoted the rifle toward Anika, his intentions now nothing other than deadly. But with the ease of a bear in a stream of spawning salmon, Anika intercepted the middle of the barrel in mid-swing, snatching the gun from the hunter’s hands before flinging it behind her.
As if she’d been pushed from behind by a hurricane-force wind, Anika lunged towards the man, her heels high, the balls of her feet barely touching the ground. And before she could contemplate what she’d done, Anika sank her large teeth into the side of the man’s neck, chewing a large chunk off before moving to the center of his neck and throat. There was instant silence.
Anika thought of Gretel and Hansel as she kept her pose of death on the hunter, feeling the last of his blood being pumped toward the wound. And then she thought of Marlene, the person ultimately responsible for the death of poor Mattheo’s father.
Mattheo.
Anika allowed the limp body to fall to her feet, the man’s head smacking the butt of the rifle that now lay useless beside the hunter. She chewed the chunk of flesh she’d bitten off from him and swallowed it, and then looked to the teenage boy to her right, pieces of camel-brown skin still hanging from her chin, the stubble of day-old beard lightly brushing against her cheek.
Mattheo’s face was white with fear, his eyes glistening and unblinking. He still held his own rifle low at his hip, gripped tightly in his fist, but Anika could tell he was unaware at the moment its purpose.
“What to do with you, Mattheo,” Anika said, her uncontrollable hunger for the moment sated, her mind now clear enough to consider the boy’s life.
But the satiation wouldn’t last long; the smell of the dead man’s blood below her had already begun wafting up into her nostrils.
“I...I don’t...”
Anika prayed Mattheo would run. She didn’t need him. The food she had so craved was now at her feet in the form of his father’s corpse; if Mattheo simply turned and sprinted away from Anika, she would be feeding on it momentarily. If he stayed, she would murder the boy, and only for the purposes of concealing his father’s slaughter.
“Go.”
Mattheo stood in place, frozen in shock, his fear of moving having overcome the potential punishment that might result from disobeying the killer’s command.
“Mattheo!”
At the sound of his name, the boy’s eyes came alive and he looked at Anika, the fear on his face turning slightly to a mixture of sadness and confusion.
“Mattheo listen to me. You have to run. Now!” Anika barked the last word, her voice scratchy and low, guttural, bits of sinew and blood flying from her mouth.
“Is Gretel dead?”
The question caught Anika off guard, and she choked on a breath as she took a shaky step backwards. She then brought her hands to her mouth in a move that resembled shyness, embarrassment perhaps, and Anika began wiping her hands in long, slow strokes down her chin and cheeks, attempting to erase the mess of evidence around her mouth.
She looked away shamefully and said, “No. Now run away from me. Tell whoever you want, tell everyone, but please run. I don’t want to kill you.”
Mattheo finally took a single step back from the spot where he had, to this point, been standing as still as a lake of ice.
Anika pleaded in her mind for the boy to run, almost panicky in her thoughts now, so desperate was she not to take his life. Her hunger would be fulfilled in moments, and the thought of Mattheo’s murder was now almost unbearably distressing.
But she could only contain her instincts for so long. As thorough as her hunger was, her need to satisfy this new desire of human flesh, so too was the drive toward self-defense and preservation.
“Did you know her?” The words seemed to leave Anika’s mouth before they formed in her mind, and she closed her eyes again, this time in regret. On some level, she hoped the boy would recognize the stall tactic and just tak
e off sprinting through the woods in the opposite direction of where she stood. Whether she would have chased him down or not, Anika couldn’t have said. It was possible that Mattheo dashing away like a scared animal would have triggered that same thing inside her that made it impossible for most dogs to watch in stillness a stick that’s just been thrown to the far side of the yard.
“I didn’t. I heard a lot of stories about her though. And about you.”
Anika could hear the disappointment in the boy’s voice. She was certainly not embodying the legend he’d heard of in the schoolyard.
“And I knew someone whose friend was killed by the Witch of the North.”
That was interesting, Anika thought. She’d never really considered the victims outside of her own circle.
“My friend’s friend, he was named Claude. He and his sister—I think her name was Sofia—were killed at her cabin.”
The names sounded familiar to Anika, particularly the sister’s, and she thought perhaps Gretel—or maybe it was Petr—had been friendly with her at one time.
“Are you like her now?”
Anika sighed and covered her face with her hands, pressing them tightly against her forehead, as if a heavy migraine had suddenly emerged.
“You have to run now, Mattheo.” Anika’s words were hurried now, her breathing heavy and rasping, and the resistance she was providing against herself was becoming almost impossible to maintain.
Anika noted the change in the boy’s expression instantly. It was slight, likely imperceptible to virtually every other person on the planet. But not to Anika.
Mattheo’s eyes shifted once to his right, and two of the fingers of his right hand, the hand that was wrapped around the rifle stock, gave a slight twitch. Anika frowned and instinctively turned her body so that her left shoulder was now facing Mattheo, knowing this would provide a narrower target for the boy while also shortening the distance her arm would have to cover to reach his neck.
Anika Rising (Gretel Book 4) Page 4