The Hunted

by A. J. Scudiere

  There was too much sun. The meat was gone. But they lingered, licking at the corners of the trough and sniffing at the edges of her yard. Had she and Cage made a heinous miscalculation? Or did this pack hunt in daylight, too?

  Just then, three doors down on the dingy green house, the front door opened. A face she recognized—though she hadn’t gotten the name—stood in the open space, cocked a shotgun, and lifted it to her shoulder.

  74

  Cage watched in horror as the night hunters turned as a group. Their attention was not focused on him or his sister, nor on the food in the trough. They also hadn’t focused on leaving because it was daylight. No, they had heard the woman come out her front door.

  In his head, Cage referred to her as Bad Neighbor Lady. He was not a fan, but this was not going to be a fitting end.

  As the pack turned, trotting toward her, they kicked up their speed, just the way Cage’s heart rate did. Turning to Joule, who was already scrambling, he said only, “Down down down!” and pulled the cord on the ladder.

  They had modified it, making it faster. Thank God. It now zipped open, the final step lingering just eighteen inches off the ground. He rushed halfway down before letting go and jumping into the jumble of cut branches from their earlier work. One of them jammed into his calf, but he ignored it, hoping it was just a scrape and not a case of tetanus.

  As he hit, his feet began running down the street, chasing the pack, but it took him only half a second to realize that was one of the dumbest things he could do. He had to wait for his sister. If they didn't have each other's backs, then they were all in danger. Only as a unit did they stand a chance. Even the broadsword man, had not survived because he hunted alone.

  Joule almost ran into the back of him as he turned and looked for her. Together, they raced down the street. Cage felt the weight of the gun in his right hand; he was gripping it tighter than he intended, but he didn’t know how to relax his hold. With his left hand, he reached along his thigh for the dagger that he'd sheathed there.

  He felt like a wild and crazy Indiana Jones, strapped up with weapons and wishing he had a superior skill with a whip. He needed more weapons that worked at a distance. Close fighting with these creatures was too dangerous.

  Bad Neighbor Lady yelled something, but the sound was indistinguishable as an English word. It came out somewhere between a growl and a war cry. But it wasn't enough warning for Cage or the hunters.

  She fired off the shotgun.

  As Cage jerked back with the retort, he noticed the front hunters in the pack shimmied backward a bit with the blast, too. Only, he hoped their movement was from injury, not startle.

  Good for her, he thought.

  Despite the jerk in his momentum, he kept running. The second blast was what drew him up short, as she was now firing and yelling indiscriminately. If he and Joule got into the fray, Bad Neighbor Lady might be the one who took them out. He was not going to die—not by some idiot’s shotgun.

  Joule took only a moment to grab his hand and tug him to the side of the house. It made sense; circling around would get them out of the direct line of the blast. So he sidestepped and followed his sister. The move would mean the hunters could see them, but it would also mean that they could fight head on and not be also fighting Bad Neighbor Lady and her shot pellets.

  Despite getting into the field of vision of probably several hunters in the pack, none of them came after him or Joule. They aimed instead as a single unit, still focused only on Bad Neighbor Lady.

  When they leapt at her, Cage fired his gun three times in rapid succession. He aimed in front of the Bad Neighbor Lady and prayed he didn't hit her. But if he didn't fire the gun, the hunters would definitely get her. There were more of them than her shotgun could hold at bay, and they didn’t seem to care that she was trying to kill them.

  He watched in almost slow motion as his shots—or hers—made two of them flinch. One dropped, motionless, onto the overgrown yard in front of her, another twitching his shoulder uncontrollably and shimmy-stepping sideways, as though his body no longer worked. He was no longer part of the fray.

  The Neighbor Lady stared the hunters in the eyes, almost ignoring his and Joule’s approach. Her gray hair, previously up in a puffy headband, now hung straight down around her face. She was clearly in her pajamas and in a rage as she stood at the top of three small steps on her cement front porch.

  In the moment that she took to reload and cock the gun, Cage fired two more times, and Joule put several arrows into the hunters on this side of the pack. Still, the canines paid almost no attention to their injuries. The leader, though hit with shotgun blast several times, kept lunging toward the neighbor woman. Each time she fired, he pulled back briefly but then kept coming. Cage believed he had put a bullet into the leader as well, but it didn't seem to be stopping him entirely.

  He almost shook his head then. It was daylight, and he could clearly see what was going on. The sun was well and truly up. There was light coming down the street.

  The hunters growled, but at last they didn't leap.

  For a few moments, they circled the yard in front of the neighbor, all their attention still on her. Then the ones who were still walking gathered and changed direction. Cage almost let out a breath of relief, but he wasn’t ready to declare it over yet.

  The hunters seemed to make a decision to take the two wounded with them. One, they dragged. The other, they nudged to his feet. Slowly, the remaining five headed off and left three lying dead in the neighbor lady’s yard as they headed down the street toward the rising sun.

  Cage stayed ready in case they changed their mind at any moment. He watched carefully, the gun still aimed. Behind him, he felt Joule’s shoulder blades touch his own as she watched his back for anything coming from the other direction.

  Bad Neighbor Lady didn't impress him, but Joule was always on her A-game.

  When the hunters finally disappeared from sight, the three humans all stood and waited for another moment before lowering their guns. That was when Cage looked around and realized a few of the people who remained living on the street had opened their doors, too. They were looking at the leftovers from the fight.

  It was the neighbor lady who made the first move. Stomping down the steps, she glared at Joule and Cage and demanded, “What in the hell do you think you're doing?”

  75

  Cage felt his head jerk back, and he couldn't stop the snap response that came out of his mouth. “Me? You're the idiot who came out on your front doorstep and challenged them.”

  “You're the one who decided to feed them,” she replied, stepping closer, as though she were a threat. He was taller, but she outweighed him and he was beginning to wonder if she had any formal training he had to worry about. He didn’t want to make the mistake of thinking she was all bluster.

  “That's why I came and complained about your yard! You can’t feed them, you moron!”

  It was Joule who turned around now and faced the woman. Somehow, she managed to keep her tone even and replied quickly, an attempt to defuse the rising heat of the situation. “We did feed them. We fed them electronic trackers and rat poison.”

  Cage watched as the woman's whole body moved back slightly, as though the news had physically pushed her. He watched her face as she realized perhaps they were all on the same side.

  Something caught his attention to his left. Though he didn’t take his eyes off Bad Neighbor Lady, in his peripheral vision he saw a neighbor man. The large man was in his own pajama pants, a thick, fuzzy robe wound tightly around his belly. He held the robe shut, a curious look on his face as he approached the old woman and the two kids covered in black powder.

  The Bad Neighbor Lady had moved back, her gun aimed to the ground now, her anger having dissipated with Joule’s information. So Cage turned and looked over his shoulder. He saw a woman, who was probably the new man's wife, standing timidly in the doorway, her hand on the knob, as though she was going to duck inside and bolt
it if anything threatened.

  Cage was opening his mouth again when the neighbor man moved purposefully forward as yet another woman came from another house in between his and the Bad Neighbor Lady’s.

  It was the man who spoke. “My name is Steve. What is your name?”

  His tone and cadence was even and forceful, brooking no argument. He controlled the conversation now, something for which Cage was momentarily grateful. But he would have to wait and see how this went.

  “My name is Cage. This is my twin sister, Joule.” He didn't spell anything, and he didn't explain. He answered only what he had been asked.

  Steve then turned to the woman, who was now standing in the grass in front of her porch, shotgun hanging loosely from one hand. She looked much less threatening now. “What is your name?”

  “Susan,” she replied.

  Steve’s face was wide and kind. Brown eyes and dark brown skin warm in the aftermath of a fight. He at last turned to the new woman who’d just entered the group. Without being asked, she volunteered. “My name is Kayla Reeves-Lopez. My wife, Ivy, and I live in the blue house.”

  She didn’t point at the house, though Cage could clearly see it. She stood with her hands at her side, carefully watching the other members of the little group.

  Cage watched and took notes. Each person in the circle seemed to have an attitude about the night hunters. Kayla Reeves-Lopez had volunteered her whole name and her wife’s and stood with her hands on her side. No weapons. Was she aware how dangerous the hunters were?

  It was Steve who turned back to Cage and Joule. “I've seen the things you had in your yard. Can you explain?”

  At least, for that, Cage was grateful. The question was neutral, not accusatory like Susan's. He nodded. “My sister and I have been poisoning and baiting the night hunters.”

  “Night hunters?” Kayla asked, stepping closer to the circle now.

  “That's what we call them.”

  “They’re dogs?” Kayla asked again.

  “No, actually.” Joule stepped in and looked around the group. Cage could see her glancing at him, silently asking for permission to tell what they knew. He offered a short nod.

  “They are canines, but they're not dogs. They're different from wolves and coyotes, as far as we know. We sent some samples off for genetic testing—for proof—but we're confident it will come back as a new species.”

  He watched as all three neighbors’ eyes went wide. Another person joined them from the left. Smiling all the way to her eyes—which were almost violet in color—she said, “My name is Ivy Reeves-Lopez. And you're telling us this isn’t just angry dogs but actually a new species?”

  Joule nodded. The Mazur twins might be the youngest in the crowd, but they were the most heavily armed, and they were still covered in carbon black. In Cage’s mind, they were the only ones who really knew what they were doing.

  “That aside, you're baiting them and tracking them.”

  Both the twins nodded again.

  This was going to go down. Cage didn't know how it was going to end. But he was getting questioned. He was seventeen-and-a-half years old, living on his own with no parents, and trying to explain to the neighbors what he and his sister had done.

  It hadn't occurred to them that this was what would get them caught. He answered questions and tried not to hold his breath.

  He knew the way this conversation played out would change everything.

  76

  Joule gave the neighbors only the barest of information of what she and Cage had figured out about the night hunters. Though she mentioned the veterinarian for reference, she did not mention Dr. Brett Christian’s name.

  She told them about the trackers and the fact that the night hunters slept in burrows during the day. She told them about the fur and their jaws and the ability to appear quietly behind a person in the daytime, seemingly out of nowhere, because of their giant, padded feet.

  She told them that she and Cage had killed the old pack, but held back that it was their fault that this new, harsher pack had moved in. If they put those pieces together for themselves, then they could have it, but she wasn’t going to hang her guilty feelings on the front fence for everyone.

  Susan was the one who looked at them with pride. Steve looked at them as though they were mad. Kayla and Ivy had begun to get a little gleam in their eyes. And it was Ivy who asked, “How can we help?”

  Joule almost felt her heart stop. It had never occurred to her that the neighbors would help. Her mouth opened like a fish, but no words came out. Before she could even shut it, Susan said, “If we're killing them, I want in. Those assholes murdered my son.”

  It was Cage who found his voice first. “Was he the one out at night with the broadsword?”

  Susan nodded and Joule noticed that the woman had tears running down her face. The loss was fresh, and she wasn't handling it well. Probably why she’d come out with her shotgun in the first place.

  Susan made a lot more sense now. Her son was going out fighting the hunters at night, and she’d thought Cage and Joule were feeding them like pets. At least everyone was getting straightened out now.

  “What’s on you?” Kayla asked, and Joule was able to answer, explaining about the carbon black powder.

  “It absorbs light, making us almost disappear in the darkness at night. These animals don’t have a good sense of smell, but they see and hear well.” Luckily, the question had been about something she understood. The neighbors were throwing her for a loop and she was struggling to get her brain wrapped around it.

  Joule had no idea how it had really happened, but she suddenly found herself on a team of more than just herself and Cage. These were people she didn't know. People she didn't trust. But people that she now had to.

  “So,” Steve said, bringing the conversation back around. He must be in management, was all Joule could think. “You fed them rat poison and a tracker today?” He pointed down the street in the direction the pack had left.

  She nodded.

  “Then what do we do next?”

  “We sleep.” She said it knowing it wasn’t the answer any of them expected. “Well,” she picked at her shirt, “We shower first, then sleep… and this afternoon—when we have several hours of daylight—we try to find them.”

  Cage stepped in then. “We know they went that direction.” He pointed down the street, the same direction Steve had. “But after that, we don't know.”

  “How do you track them?” Kayla asked, her cadence a little clipped. Joule explained the device they had that read frequencies.

  “What frequencies?” Kayla asked.

  Joule shrugged. “I don't know.” She hadn’t thought about it. She’d ordered the tracking devices and the frequency meter. It had worked; she hadn’t had time to examine it further.

  “It’s probably radio frequency,” a neighbor said. He was looking into the distance, blue-grey eyes lost in thought.

  “The problem is, we have to get close enough to pick up the signal,” Joule explained.

  Though everyone else was paying attention, Kayla was not.

  “So we wander around for a little while,” Joule continued. “It may take us a few days to figure out where they're sleeping.”

  Kayla shook her head. “No. We can find them right away with a wider-range device.”

  Ivy looked to her partner. “Can you do it?”

  Kayla nodded, as though it were just that simple.

  Joule looked to Cage, wondering if she could be right, and found he was looking at her with an expression that probably mirrored her own.

  “When should we meet back here?” Ivy asked.

  “We were going to head out at about one,” Joule said, realizing their trip had been hijacked by well-meaning neighbors. But that didn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do.

  “I'll bring a meter to find the frequency,” Kayla said, still not really looking at them. “I'll be able to dial the frequencies, so if we can figure which one it�
��s broadcasting on, I can find it.”

  Interesting. This Kayla sounded confident. It was Ivy who looked at the twins as though she had figured out that Steve might be controlling the conversation, but the young twins should be controlling the hunt. “She can do it.”

  “We should drive.” Kayla pushed into the conversation again. “Cover more territory. If I make three signal receivers, can we split into three groups? Ivy and me. You two.” She pointed to Cage and Joule. “And you two.” This time she pointed to Steve and Susan—the most unlikely couple.

  But they turned to each other, shrugged, and agreed.

  “One o'clock. Right here. I'll hand out the receivers.”

  It was Susan, then, who changed the conversation. She looked to Cage and Joule. While it wasn't an apology, she said, “I thought you were feeding them like people used to feed the deer, or like pets.”

  “No, ma'am,” Joule replied, figuring etiquette was the better part of valor here.

  Susan offered no response to that, as though she’d said her piece and any apology or need to acknowledge her error was done.

  It was Steve who said then, “When we find them, what do we do?”

  Though Joule opened her mouth to reply, it was Susan who said, “We kill the fuckers.”

  77

  Cage drove around the neighborhood, taking the turns hand over hand, while Joule sat beside him. She’d put the windows down and held the new receiver made by the neighbor Kayla in her lap.

  So far, it hadn't made any noises.

  It was well after two in the afternoon and the group was late getting started, though Cage thought it was for a good reason.

  Kayla had handed out her souped-up receivers—apparently having spent her morning retrofitting some old hand-held radios she had.

  But she insisted on testing them first, which Cage and Joule thought was wise. There were no remaining loose trackers to toss into the yard and go find. The only one with a known location was at the burrow of the pack they had killed. So the entire group headed into the woods, Joule with her bow and arrow leading the way. Cage held the back with his dagger in hand. No one questioned that there were kids at either end of the line ready to fight, except maybe Cage.