by S.J. Finch
***
He came to later, though how much later he had no idea, and he found himself in a world of unfamiliar smells. Most of them he didn’t recognize, they didn’t mean anything to him, so he paid them no attention. There was one scent in the air however that he did recognize. It seemed to overpower the rest, cut through them, straight to his flaring nostrils. It was a smell he would recognize anywhere: blood. He pushed himself up and off the ground and followed the invisible trail of molecules in the air. He padded around on the soft ground without making a single sound. Underneath a pile of other smells, he found it: a ruffled, nearly weightless object spattered in blood. He stuck his nose in deeper and grazed the object with his snout. He inhaled deeply, taking note of all the nuances of this particular blood. He felt, almost tasted, as it flowed through his nostrils and down into his lungs. He savored it. Another deep lungful and the aroma of this blood was imprinted on his brain. He would know it again anywhere for as long as he, or the owner of the blood, lived.
He surveyed the area around him, hoping that the source of the blood was still nearby. It wasn’t. In fact there was nothing else nearby; nothing that lived, nothing with blood in its veins. He felt a light breeze and it brought with it a hundred new smells. He felt it dance across his dark gray fur and his nose pointed him in the direction from which the breeze had come. He saw it then, a kind of opening raised off the ground. That was good, an opening. Wherever he was right now it was too small, too confining, and there was too much light here. He was trapped and he was exposed. He didn’t like that.
His brain needed only an instant and he had assessed the size of the opening and his distance from it. In the next instant he was through the opening and out into the night where he belonged.
As he trotted noiselessly through the darkness, he swung his large, shaggy head back and forth trying to pick up the trail of his prey. There was no danger here, he would have heard or smelled it coming long before it arrived anyway, but just the same he remained in the shadows as often as he could.
There was other blood on the air of course, but most of it was stale, uninviting. The blood he was after was fresh, its owner was newly wounded, perfect for hunting.
The trees were thin here, much thinner than he liked, but there was other cover, other shadows. He came to a space completely clear of trees and other objects. There was more light here and he didn’t like that, but out in the open the breeze was also stronger. He stopped and lifted his head as he tried to sift through the countless scents around him. Then he found it. It was faint, only a few molecules whirling through the air, but it was all he needed. Prey was this way. He took off at a lope in the direction of the scent, following each path in a straight line until he found the next set of molecules.
The groupings became closer and closer together and the trail began to heat up. He had a clear fix on the scent now and it filled his nostrils with every breath. He couldn’t lose it now even if he’d wanted to. As the strength of the grim perfume increased, his pace quickened. He shot soundlessly through the night at blinding speed. The wind whipped at his face and brought with it more of the intoxicating aroma. It filled him, every part of him, and he loved it.
The trail led him to spot on the ground and he found drops of the blood that had dried not too long ago. The blood was here, but the prey was not.
He lowered his head to the ground and ran his rough tongue across the droplet. The taste seemed to surge from the tip of his tongue and course through the rest of him like a bolt of lightning. He felt his muscles tingle and tense as he was invigorated with the electric thrill of a hunt so near its end.
Suddenly, a noise came from behind him. There was something there that he hadn’t detected, not in all the excitement. He turned around and spied his prey, the aroma of that same blood wafting off of it like titillating ripples in a pond. It stood there, only a few of his massive body lengths away, and stared with dumb, omnivorous eyes into the darkness. He could close the gap in two leaps; probably one, but it wasn’t worth the chance of falling short and alerting the prey to an attack. The desire to taste that blood again, this time fresh, right from the source as he tore into the steaming hot meat, it overcame him. The prospect, the taste, filled his nostrils and clouded his mind. It was time.
His hind legs coiled and then released with unimaginable speed. He bounded once and closed well over half the distance. He had hardly landed when he was off into the air again and hurtling towards his prey faster than it would even be able to register him. Even if its weak, glassy eyes could have penetrated the darkness, it wouldn’t have seen anything but a blurred gray streak, hardly any lighter than the deep gray night from which it had sprung. As it was, the prey was looking the other way and in the blink of an eye they were both on the ground. Its eyes were wide and filled with a boundless terror. Its mouth was agape, preparing to release one final scream that would never come. He bent down and snapped his jaws around the throat as he sliced through the meat as if it were barely there. He wrenched his head back and brought with it the jugular, which made an odd slurping, tearing sound as it detached.
The light in the prey’s eyes was instantly extinguished and they were frozen in an eternal gaze of bewildered horror. He lowered his head to strike and tear away at the neck and body again and again and he felt the warm, delicious blood covering his muzzle and running down his throat. He took large, savage bites of the fresh meat and he ate his fill. He reared his head back and opened his jaws to release a long, chilling howl. The meat was his. He had hunted it and he had killed it. The meat was his.