The Hunted

by A. J. Scudiere

  They carried backpacks, carefully filled with extra hunks of meat to add to the trough if it needed it. They’d set up the table and hacked and then cut slices into the hunks in which to stuff more rat poison. She couldn’t give them enough, she thought.

  Joule remembered when the whole Mazur family had eaten dinner around this table. As she swung the cleaver, grief hit her. Would it always be this way? Would she always feel the sharp sting of the loss of her mother? Would her father always feel like a slow draining of her ability to hold out, tempered by spikes of aberrant hope?

  She swung hard at the meat, taking out her anger. Both her parents! Both lost to these night hunters. Fuck them. Fuck the fact that they looked a lot like dogs and she loved dogs. She would stab these hunters in their evil hearts.

  Her anger dissipated suddenly, and she wondered what she would do when the hunters were gone. When her hate no longer had such a clean focal point. Maybe she could just get back to the business of being Joule.

  “Yes?” Cage held up the hunk of meat he hacked at. Calling it a “steak” was far too generous. “I think it’s big enough to cut a pocket into and fill it.”

  She nodded, still unable to speak and wondering if her brother saw it. Eventually she found her voice.

  “Chicken?” she asked her brother and he shrugged in reply, as if to ask, “Why not?”

  Joule figured if the two of them ate a whole chicken every other week until they left town, there were still three left for the hunters. The variety might serve them well. She pulled one from the freezer and didn’t even thaw it, just stuffed it full of the rat poison and bad wishes.

  She was concerned about what they might find. It was possible they’d get there and find the meat untouched except by flies. It was equally possible they’d find the trough bitten through and trashed.

  They fully expected dusk to fall while they were out. They intended it. They had to test the carbon black powder. It was still scary as all hell, but Joule knew they had to try. Ultimately, if they were going to go out like this and face down the hunters, it would either work or it wouldn't.

  Because they had so frequently seen the night hunters out during the day—one at a time—this seemed the best way to test the plan. Hopefully, they would be able to see how it worked on one hunter before they had to try it on a whole pack surrounding them. It wasn’t lost on her that the last time she’d faced a pack, they’d been three people and not just two.

  As they headed across the backyard—backpacks on, powder everywhere—she could still see her brother. His black, long-sleeve shirt was lightweight, but they’d rubbed everything in the carbon powder because even the dark T shirt reflected some light. They’d bought black pants, too. Now she realized the temperature was getting far too high for a good head-to-toe covering.

  After they'd put the crap in their hair several times, they’d opted for thin knit caps. Her hair had been an issue, as there was so much of it. And the black dulled the gold that tended toward brass to a flat, ashy color. The hats were better, but like everything else, they had to be rubbed in the powder.

  The powder went on relatively easily, but getting it off was a different story.

  She was afraid someone would come to the door and she would have black in the grooves of her teeth and the lines around her eyes. She and her brother both looked older—and until close inspection, actually old and wrinkly—as carbon powder had settled into their skin wherever wrinkles formed when they made a facial expression.

  It had been funny, until she walked out the door and the danger became real. She couldn’t carry her bow. Blackening it had been too difficult, but they had put shoe polish on to the blades they carried. It was only so good. Eventually, if they had to be used, the color would be wiped clean as they fought. But leaving shoe polish in a cut on a night hunter was the least of her worries.

  Their backpacks, also black, were rubbed in the powder as well. Nothing could afford to be missed. They’d poured it into paint trays and watched as the powder filtered up into the air. They dipped in clothes and supplies. Joule had watched, fascinated, as her fingers disappeared into the darkness. Then a mis-timed move would send a puff up into the air again. She didn't want to think about the fact that she was going to get a new breed of black lung disease. But, with the night hunters, it was kill or be killed.

  She intended to be the killer. And if she and Cage didn't kill them now—if someone didn’t—the predators’ territory would expand until the entire US, and the entirety of North America and maybe even eventually South America, would be huddling inside their houses at dusk every day.

  However fast the hunters had originally emerged was how fast they could evolve again. Could they become day hunters? The twins were determined to never find out.

  As they slipped out the back door, they shed flakes of black powder into the plush carpet. Their parents had the carpet installed a number of years ago, and no one was allowed to walk on it with dirt of any kind. But now there were gouges in the hardwood. The window at the front of the house didn't match the others, because Cage and Joule had replaced it with the toughest, but cheapest, option, fully expecting it to get destroyed again. Half the kitchen chairs were missing, having been splintered beyond repair. So Joule didn't worry about black in the carpet. Maybe there would never be a “next family” living here to care.

  She was halfway across the backyard when she said to her brother, “Whoa, do you feel it?”

  His eyes wide with the sensation, he nodded and picked up his pace. The sunlight of the late afternoon and the heat of the emerging summer was absorbed by the carbon black powder. She was quickly overheating.

  Of course she was. She should have thought ahead. The powder didn't reflect any light, and therefore it had to absorb it all. Light and heat went together, and now both stayed right there on her skin. She felt her temperature climbing and wondered if she could burn her skin to blisters walking around covered in this stuff.

  Picking up their pace, they rushed to get out of the light. In a moment, she was in the woods and already starting to cool down. That was the reason for the test—they had to discover any unpredicted side effects that might interfere.

  Weaving her way down the path, she stayed out of the light patches. They reached the trough without further incident, only her breathing kicking up each time she heard a noise.

  “Look,” she said, but she didn't point and she didn't raise her voice to any level beyond that necessary to reach her brother’s ears. The trough was virtually empty. A few pellets of rat poison remained inside, pushed into the corners and possibly unreachable. But that was all.

  “Do you want to go first?” she asked, referring to the meat they had brought in the backpacks.

  “Sure.” Cage looked around before reaching backward into the pack.

  Standing to one side, Joule aimed her stilettos outward and watched the trees for movement. She felt safer just standing still where she could watch more carefully, but she felt less safe now that she knew she was at a feeding site. All part of the plan, though. She was as ready as she could be.

  Joule had expected Cage to pull out the double-bagged packages of poison-stuffed steaks. Instead, he pulled out the receiver and turned it on low. The static and zip of a high frequency had him catching her eyes and nodding. The tracking devices were still here, or they were here again.

  Most likely, they were still underground.

  Joule had hoped that feeding the dogs at their burrow would keep them in the woods. If they’d fed them enough, it had maybe kept the neighborhood safe for a night. Maybe she wouldn't wind up killing the hunters but feeding them in such a way that kept them at bay. Still, the rat poison didn't really create a zoo situation.

  With the receiver now turned off and put away, Cage quickly unloaded the meat he’d carried and stepped back. It was something they’d discussed—leave it quickly and get out. There was no reason for them to be confused with food.

  As soon as Cage had his backpack
back on and blades out, he motioned to her. Her blackened stilettos had not been used. No night hunters had been seen or heard while he worked and Joule turned to her brother, impressed at how well he blended into the shadows as the daylight dimmed. This was exactly what they had intended to happen.

  She had dropped three of her zippered bags of meat into the trough and was opening the fourth when she heard the sound behind her.

  65

  Joule spun around at the sound. She’d dropped the bag of meat open, but unemptied, directly into the trough, plastic and all.

  There had been no warning growl, only the snap of a twig. But it had been enough to turn her head and pull her blades, enough to make Cage step sideways.

  This night hunter was bigger and darker than the ones she'd seen before. And he was moving toward the trough.

  With deliberate movements, Joule stepped slowly out of the way. She pulled her stiletto and was ready to fight if necessary. But as she watched the scene unfold, she saw Cage pull the gun and grip it tightly.

  The hunter came closer to the trough. When he was at the edge of the hanging dinner bowl, he stepped up and stuck his face down in, grabbing one of the steaks and trotting off with it.

  As fast as he appeared, he was gone.

  Well, she thought, so far it was working.

  Only the hunter wasn't dead.

  So the question was: Had they killed the entire first pack, and this was a new one coming into the territory? That was something they had discussed. Or it could be the other possibility: that the poison simply hadn’t worked yet on the first ones who had eaten it. Perhaps he had returned for more. Perhaps the second dose would kill him. Perhaps it just needed time.

  The rat poison, in the doses they had delivered, should have worked within twenty-four hours. They had waited forty-eight to come out and check. The problem was, it worked on rats, dogs, owls, gophers, and all sorts of known mammals. But did it work on night hunters?

  No one knew. Joule could only watch and test. She didn't even know if this hunter had come out of one of the burrows or if he’d been walking through the woods in daylight.

  She continued stepping softly backward until her foot to hit a twig. Tensing, she waited it out, praying no hunters were around to hear it.

  One-alligator… two-alligator… three—alligators were much safer creatures than the hunters, she thought. Four-alligator… five. She turned her head and spotted another hunter between the trees.

  He stopped, looked over his shoulder, and looked at her.

  Shit, she thought. Maybe it didn't want her. There’s such nice meat here for you… she thought the phrase through until she remembered they seemed to prefer their food to move.

  Joule stopped breathing.

  The hunter headed up to the trough, still swinging slightly from the last hunter’s actions, picked out a steak and bit into it. His sharp teeth must have cut right through the meat, because she watched as pellets dripped from his jowls. That was poison he wouldn’t be eating. Fuck.

  He, too, turned and trotted off. Maybe because he didn't need to kill her. He already had a steak in his mouth.

  Behind her, she could feel her brother beginning a slow turn, checking the area she couldn't watch because she was keeping an eye on this one.

  “Joule.” He whispered it almost too softly to catch.

  Slowly, she took her eyes from the retreating hunter and turned to see another had appeared. They couldn’t stay still or they’d wind up surrounded. With a measured breath out, she stepped backward. Once. Twice. A third time, until she softly bumped into her brother.

  Back to back, shoulder blades touching, they stepped slowly off the path. She could only hope this new arrival would also go for the trough rather than for the people. It wasn't dark enough yet to know if the carbon powder truly worked. She could still see her brother, a dark form in the dimming gray of dusk.

  His black eyes were creepy and, despite the contact lenses, the moisture seemed to be reflecting just a little light.

  Slowly, they watched as the third canine also went toward the trough. They backed away as a unit until they were down the trail. It was always a gamble: to turn and face forward and move at a good pace, but not know what was behind you. Or walk out slowly, one or the other of you walking backwards, most likely stepping on something you couldn't see, making a noise and alerting a hunter.

  The night was already getting dark around her and Joule decided to trust the carbon. They needed to get out faster. Her heart was pounding and she knew, while the canines didn't smell well, they could hear. She wondered if, with those big ears and sensitive hearing, they could hear the blood gushing through her veins, the pressure rising with her fear.

  Were the hunters’ eyes good enough to see the twins, despite the carbon powder absorbing the light that hit them? All of the light in the woods was reflected light. There were no sources here.

  All she and Cage had to do was have enough powder on them to absorb enough light so that the hunters didn't spot them. Not even that they couldn’t, but enough for an advantage. Joule moved forward faster now, hustling for home. Occasionally, she turned and looked over her shoulder, and she noted that Cage did the same.

  They were well beyond the view of the trough now. Over the heaviness of her own breathing, she heard nothing and saw nothing. But all she wanted was to get inside.

  She couldn't tap her brother on the shoulder; she had blades in her hand. She was ready if the need arose, but she wanted the need to not arise. The best fight was the fight avoided.

  So she whispered, forward into the night, “Run. Let's get out of here.”

  For a moment she hoped that her brother heard her and that nothing else had.

  There was still a small section of woods to clear before they made it to their backyard, before they made it to the open sprint to their back door. But, as Cage picked up his pace, having obviously heard her, a cloud passed in front of the sinking sun.

  The night went dark, and her brother disappeared into the blackness in front of her.

  66

  Cage ran forward at a gentle speed, his long legs eating ground.

  He wasn’t supposed to be running out of fear, but he found his heart pounding anyway. They'd already seen three hunters individually. Not packs, so that was good. But he’d lost his faith that they could get out of the woods without having a standoff.

  It was another moment of running before he realized he didn't hear Joule behind him. He turned suddenly, almost tripping. But as he regained his balance, he looked and saw nothing. Empty path behind him shone in the dim light from the moon, but there was no Joule.

  A gut-wrenching jolt of fear made him want to scream. He stopped dead, trying to decide what to do next. Cage wanted to yell out her name—find her as fast as possible—but that was possibly the worst thing he could do.

  Stay calm, he told himself. Think. He headed backward on the trail, going deeper into the woods, instead of out of it. This was the last place he wanted to go, except that the actual last place he wanted to go was anywhere alone. Joule was the last of his family, so he was heading backward.

  He'd made it all of three feet before he thumped directly into something hard.

  His head hurt. His elbow smashed into something that triggered his funny bone. It was all he could do to not swear. And he was pretty sure he’d been jabbed and now had a cut in his thigh. But he’d never been so happy to recognize the grunted “Ooof!” of the person he had hit.

  His arms came out, aiming not to stab her with the blades he carried, too, and he tried to steady them both. “You good?”

  “Yes. Go, go!” She said it with an urgency that told him she wasn’t the problem here. And he turned and ran on, listening for her this time as she surely blended into the woods again.

  It took another few minutes before they emerged from the tree line, jumping over the creek. Luckily, no one twisted an ankle this time. But his right leg hurt where he'd been jabbed, and he could feel the
wetness down his leg where the blood was seeping into his pants. This wasn't good.

  “Why did you come back? Why were you running the wrong way?” Joule whispered harshly, her feet still moving.

  “I couldn't see you.”

  He heard a faint chuckle. “Yes. That's the way it was supposed to be.”

  She was right, but Cage understood that meant they had more work to do. They couldn't be running into each other in the dark. They had to be invisible to the night hunters, but clear to each other. They couldn’t afford to mistakenly stab each other… again.

  As he entered the yard, he looked both toward the back and the front of the house, trying to figure out which door to use. His leg was threatening to buckle under him and, for the first time, Joule seemed to see it. Though with her light-eating form, it was hard to tell what her expression was.

  It had made more sense when they were coming out to use the back door. Two pitch black creatures emerging in broad daylight would have brought stares and maybe questions from the neighbors. But now, it didn't matter so much. Except, suddenly it did. Joule’s hand reached across the front of him, holding him back.

  “In the front yard.”

  He saw them then. Three night hunters wandered the area underneath the big tree. One looked up, as though expecting meat to be waiting. Cage realized—as Joule had said—they had trained the hunters to come here to feed. The information had been invaluable, but the results, not so good.

  Joule didn't say anything, just pushed him a little and steered them toward the back door, but it was too late. They'd been spotted or maybe heard. At least the night hunters didn't seem to see them, but they had certainly heard something and were coming to investigate.

  “Slow? Or fast?” she whispered.

  If he wanted to spare his leg, the answer was slow, but he whispered, “Fast.”

  He heard a clink before he realized what it was his sister had done. Putting both stilettos into one hand, probably not her smartest move, she reached for him. He felt it before he saw it, their carbon powder working against them now. In that same moment as he realized what the sound was, he felt her hand clasp around his wrist. Then he felt the tug. She pulled him along, probably realizing he was hurt worse than they’d initially thought.