Twins of Prey

by W. C. Hoffman

  Uncle taught the boys about how people had become lazy on the outside and could not produce or supply their own food. They had been trained by society to grab the first thing on the shelf in a store. Tomek and Drake were taught these things about people. They were taught tendencies and baiting techniques about everything, especially humans. The After 5, Stay Alive rule meant the boys ate the stored food starting from the back of their supplies.

  Uncle’s favorite elixir of toxin was readily available in the Michigan woods. A combination of a semi-tall, white, capped mushroom he referred to as “the Death Angel,” along with a sweet-smelling dark berry called Nightshade. The mushrooms were not abundant in their area, but when they encountered it, they collected as much as they could carry. Luckily, a little bit went a long way in terms of their intended uses for it. Eating just a sliver of the mushrooms would promptly shut down the liver, kidneys and stomach organs. In less than two hours, death. Uncle knew the process could be accelerated if it directly entered one's bloodstream.

  Nightshade is a tall and bushy plant that grows abundantly throughout their home riverside area. The flowers grow in long clusters and the berries are purple, black and are flat. The entire plant is poisonous, particularly the roots. The boys knew all too well the damage the poison could do.

  Uncle had taught the boys to mix the Nightshade into a stew with river water and boil overnight. The sugars in the berries would caramelize and the chemicals would draw out of the fungi, leaving them with a sappy substance of pure, natural, chemical death. The boys remembered clearly seeing it put to use the first time. It was important to Uncle that they learn this lesson firsthand.

  Uncle had gone to using this type of poison on each of his arrow tips after shooting an elk one day, many years before, and watching the arrow shaft penetrate deep into the bull's shoulder plate. The bull had taken off and made it closer to civilization than Uncle had liked. As good of a tracker as Uncle was, even he knew he could not find the elk after the shot. He was sure he mortally wounded the prize bull but could not risk tracking it into the small nearby town.

  “Taking a life for no reason is wrong,” Uncle preached after each kill. He vowed to never again lose an animal he had wounded. “If you take a life, you must make reason of it in order to release the dead's soul.”

  To make the poison's effectiveness clear to the twins, Uncle trapped a deer in a trail noose designed to hold its prey but not kill it. The boys walked upon her slowly as she thrashed and jumped, trying unsuccessfully to flee the confines of her prison. Uncle struck the deer with a sap-dipped dart from his blowgun in her rear hind quarter.

  The doe spun around and dropped to her knees. Looking directly at them, she lay on her side where they could see her chest rise and fall with each breath. Then it happened. Less than three minutes had passed. The Nightshade had instantly frozen her nervous system, as it was designed by nature to do. The toxins brought her to the ground where the Death Angel shut down her organs and she died laying there, staring at the boys.

  Those three were the last thing she saw. Uncle often dreamed about that doe. Only in his vivid dreams, the deer could talk. The dream always had the same ending just before he awoke. The doe stops fighting, draws her last breath, looks to him at that moment of death with two spotted fawns behind her and says,

  “Take...”

  3 Others

  ––––––––

  It echoed throughout the valley at daybreak and jolted the boys awake. The clear, crisp rifle blast was unmistakable and not far away. Tomek was first to his feet, bow in hand and quiver on his back. Drake was not far behind with a belt full of throwing knives and his spear. Both boys were ready for battle, clutching their favorite tools of war. As the second shot rang out, they knew the exact location of the trespasser.

  “It came from the orchard near the overgrown section near mid-hill,” Drake said.

  “Probably a wandering hunter,” Tomek guessed.

  This was not the first time they had been close to strangers in their area. At least a few times each year, a group of outdoorsman or two would float by on the river. They would often just hide and wait them out. If they were seen, a simple wave was all that was needed. The boys had dressed in army fatigue camouflage every day of their lives. Added to this was a mixture of torn burlap and natural plant life. The boys could drop to the ground and vanish at any point, on any day of the year. To any passerby they were just a part of the landscape. This is how Uncle taught them to be. However this time was different. Uncle was not there.

  As the hollowed-out tree door opened, both of them knew the situation was worse than they had thought. Both boys looked out to the river and saw it at the same time. The aluminum canoe shimmered in what was left of the past night’s moon. Whomever was shooting had landed and beached 40 yards from their front door.

  How did this happen without them waking? Had they been found? Who was shooting? Drake looked at Tomek and for the first time saw a change in his brother’s eyes. Tomek’s rage was nothing new. Uncle had seen it in him as well and never corrected it. Tomek was taught to use it as a weapon.

  Trying to calm his brother, Drake made sure Tomek would not be in direct contact with the shooter.

  “You take the blossom ridge and come down from the hilltop,” Drake planned. “I will walk up the river edge and flank to the west.” Tomek agreed.

  Both boys had their strengths. When it came to brute strength, agility and marksmanship, Tomek was Uncle’s killing machine. Drake was just as deadly with his knives, but was much more calculated, tactical and could easily outsmart and trap his way into and out of situations. Uncle knew this from the day Drake escaped the hospital and met him at the big pine.

  As they separated, Drake walked along the river's edge, utilizing the sound of the babbling river to hide his footsteps. He quickly knew what awaited him downriver as he spotted the dead deer alone on the bank from 50 yards away.

  Recognizing the drop from the hillside down to the bank and the path it must've taken before it expired, he knew the hunter was either still on his way down the hill or walking upstream to find a place to safely climb down and retrieve the game. Either way, Drake had time to set up a quick blind utilizing some driftwood and the outcropping rock formation. From his spot he would be invisible to anyone coming up to the deer from any location. Drake sat, patiently waiting for his prey to take the bait.

  Tomek quickly stalked his way through the orchard on top of the ridge. Using the height of the ridge to look down upon the valley gave him a great advantage. The gleam caught his eye. An empty .308 shell casing that was still wet with the morning dew was in front of him. Next to it was the hunter's pack and a small area of matted-down grass.

  “This is the spot where he killed my deer,” Tomek uttered to himself. With an arrow knocked, he walked in the hunter’s steps. With each step he fought the racing of his heart and could feel the tightness in his fingers upon the bowstring. Tomek could not remember the last time he had the excitement, the nerves and the adrenaline of a true hunt.

  Tomek worked downhill and was now not only on the hunter's trail but had picked up the injured deer’s blood trail and spoor. Tomek would be the first of the boys to see the invader. A tall man who seemed to be about 10 years older than the boys, wearing camouflage pants and a black over blue flannel shirt. The intruder also adorned a bright orange vest that allowed Tomek to keep his distance but easily see him through the brush. Tomek laughed to himself about the hunter’s attire and immediately considered him a lesser outdoorsman and barely even human.

  “This trash does not belong in my woods,” Tomek bitterly said to himself as he smoothed out the turkey feather fletching on the knocked arrow.

  The Hunter, oblivious to the fact that he was not alone, stood at the drop off near the bank and admired his kill from above. A perfect eight-point buck, majestic and powerful, a true trophy lay below him. And as Drake had figured, the Hunter then made his way down river for about 300 yards until
a feasible spot to climb down was found.

  Tomek slowly moved to the spot that the hunter vacated once he headed down river to get on the bank. It provided the perfect ambush from above.

  “Prey feels the safest in places it knows,” Tomek remembered Uncle telling him. “Kill him in his home and he will die without knowing.”

  Because the hunter had just left that ridge, he most likely would not look up above when he returned to the area. Tomek was right where Uncle would have wanted him to be.

  Drake sat motionless until he heard the unmistakable clash of boots in the water fighting against the current. The hunter may as well have been banging pots and pans together as he approached. The blue shirt and orange vest were easy to pick out against the river bank for Drake, as well. Drake positioned perfectly with the deer between himself and the brightly dressed man. Suddenly, he began to second-guess his trap as at 15 yards the hunter stopped abruptly, shouldered his gun and aimed it directly at Drake. Frozen in place, Drake’s only hope was that the man was surveying the dead buck to see if it needed a follow-up shot. Drake closed his eyes and tuned in his senses to stay as still as possible.

  Click.

  The sound of the safety being released could mean only one thing. The hunter was ready to shoot, but what was the hunter going to shoot at? Every inch of his body told him to run, run fast, run away. Yet Uncle's voice in his head told him otherwise.

  “Stay, hold tight, trust your surroundings. Be the snake, not the mouse.”

  Drake sat with his eyes still closed, slowed his heart rate with deep breaths and the next sound he heard was a familiar one.

  Shheeewww........Thhwwwwaaap!

  Drake opened his eyes, surprised to see the hunter on his knees and falling down, face-first into the river bank. The arrow had entered behind his right eye in the temple and exited his lower jaw, where it lodged into the clavicle. There was no sound from the hunter as the river turned red with blood from the gaping wound the sharpened, razor-like flint stone head had created. The world fell silent again and Drake had never been so happy to have a brother who could shoot like that.

  4 Death

  ––––––––

  The boys stood over the hunter, silently surveying the body.

  “Who was he?” Drake pondered. “Why did he come to us? Did he have a family, and was he going to shoot me or the deer?”

  “We need to burn him, gut the buck and send his boat downstream,” Tomek said nonchalantly, breaking the silence.

  Drake agreed, but it was not what Tomek said that caught his attention. That is, in fact, what Uncle would have told them to do. It was how cold, simple and calculated it was delivered by Tomek. This man was just an animal to Tomek. Drake did not spend too much time worrying about the change in his brother and laughed to himself, “At least Tomek does not want to eat him.”

  While dragging the carcasses back to their fire pit, Tomek recollected how the stalk through the orchard happened and admitted that even he could not see Drake inside the tangles of wood, seaweed and rocks. Drake realized that Tomek had no idea he was saving his brother’s life and Drake was not sure if that was a good thing or not. Drake knew that Tomek killing a man to save his own brother is much different than Tomek killing the man just to do it.

  “I found his blind and his pack,” Tomek said. “It was loaded pretty full. We need to go back and see if there are any supplies we can use. And now we have a gun.”

  “You know what Uncle said about guns,” Drake quickly retorted. His concern was met with a reply that was truer at this moment than any before.

  “Well, Uncle is not here, now is he?”

  No, he was not there. Yet Drake remembered back to the many talks they had about firearms with Uncle.

  “It is better to silently hunt with the disadvantage of a handheld weapon than to easily kill with the blast of a gun,” Uncle had said around the fire pit many a night. “There is no honor in killing with a gun.”

  Until this day, Drake never really realized how true that lesson was. For the simple fact that if the hunter had killed the buck with a bow, the twins would be still be sleeping.

  The dead hunter's wet clothes weighed him down as the twins turned the river bend just before their camp. Exhausted from the double drag job of both the man and the deer, the boys were not concentrating as they normally would on their stealth. This allowed neither to notice the canoe missing upon their return.

  Drake dropped the man at the banks of the river and removed his clothes while Tomek went back to the orchard to retrieve the hunter’s pack. They had been taught to utilize as much as they could from a kill and this would be no different.

  “Clothing is not natural and burns different than wood,” Uncle would warn them. “Never burn anything that is unnatural. The smell and the color of the smoke could alert someone to your whereabouts. Campfires are often ignored but trash burn piles never are.”

  Drake was now hearing Uncle’s voice more and more each day as the logic behind the lessons they were taught became abundantly clearer.

  The body was covered in driftwood as Drake ignited the tender kindling he had set as a base layer. It did not take long for the warmth of the blaze to radiate on his dark, blood-stained skin. Drake figured Tomek would see the smoke and return soon to enjoy the fire. Kneeling at the river edge to scoop up some water and begin to rinse his body, he saw Tomek’s reflection in the river. Drake anxiously turned around to see what kind of gear his brother had returned with.

  Boom!

  The bullet had grazed Drake’s cheek and removed the lower part of his left ear. Drake found himself now lying in the river, flat on his back. He lifted his head and deciphered the blurred figure. The hunter was alive and stood with his blue flannel shirt, orange vest and pants back on, grasping a shiny silver handgun, which was shaking in his right hand. The hunter yelled at Drake, but Drake could not make out the words. The sound of the running water mixed with an intense ringing in his ears only allowed him to see the hunter’s mouth moving. Drake attempted to get up, struggling onto one knee. Not knowing for sure if he was dizzy from the shot or if he was already dead.

  The feeling of the gun barrel pressed against his temple was one he knew he would never forget, especially if his life was about to end. The cold metal pierced through his hair as it pressed against his skin. He looked down into the river watching the blood run down from his ear and cheek and disappear into the current of the river. Drake's hearing partially returned in time to hear the click of the revolver's rolling drum magazine, which seemed surprisingly loud next to his damaged ear.

  With the barrel held tight to his head, he could feel the hunter’s hand quivering almost uncontrollably. Drake knew now was his moment as he heard Uncle’s voice.

  “Never close your eyes just before you kill a man, that is the moment when your weakness will be seen. The snake has open eyes when he strikes the mouse!”

  Without looking, Drake knew the hunter’s eyes were closed. If the hunter was a capable killer, Drake would already be dead. Drake reached to his left ankle under the water and removed the tactical knife from its holster. With his grip firm on the leather-wrapped handle, he rolled forward, swinging his leg down behind the knees of the hunter. In one fluid and fast motion, Drake reached across, grasped the hunter's waist and pulled him backwards over the leg trap. As the hunter fell backwards into the water, the shot rang off,

  Boom!

  The round fired harmlessly into the sky as Drake looked into the hunter's eyes now from above. Drake kept his eyes open and drove the knife deep into the hunter’s heart. He drew the blade from the man’s chest in a split second, and as quickly as he felt the knife clear the man’s ribs, Drake slashed the man's throat.

  Drake pushed the enemy's dangling head underwater to finish him off while standing to his feet. He looked to his left and could make out the vague figure of a second body with his blurred vision. Alongside the fire, wearing the original blue flannel shirt was Tomek. In th
e fire was a body, but whose body? Drake knew he had just killed the same man Tomek had shot with the bow. Drake had seen his face close up and looked into his eyes as he died both times.

  Tomek walked out into the knee-deep water where Drake stood and took his brother's head to his shoulder. Tomek then spoke softly and directly into his undamaged right ear.

  “We killed twins.”

  5 FLows

  ––––––––

  Sitting by the raging fire with the two bodies for fuel, the twins began to inventory the hunter's pack that was left in the orchard. Plenty of canned food rations, fruit, trail mix and powdered eggs, all of which was quickly burned.

  Tomek and Drake survived on their After 5. Stay Alive mantra to the extreme. This included not scavenging others' meal supplies. Drake was happy to find knives, both big and small as well as their matching sheaths. He was particularly fond of the wood-handled six-inch Rapala fillet knife in the pack, knowing that cleaning fish would now be much easier. The rest of the pack contained an assortment of money, deer tags and ammunition.

  Also in the pack was a yellow satellite cellular phone. The twins were aware of phones and the general capabilities they possessed. Uncle had been in the woods so long before the day he found the twins even he was uneducated about the overall technological power of the small cellular devices.

  “This is cool,” Tomek said while pushing random buttons on the unit and finding amusement in the different tones it produced. “We should keep it”