THE HUNTED

THE HUNTED

A wildlife enthusiast finds a new way to feed her secret hobby, while the trucking community wonders about more things going missing than teeth.

Mary

My daddy gave me three dead wolves for my eighth birthday. Not intentionally. It was just the way things worked out. I’d begged and begged him to take me along on that hunting trip. It felt exciting…romantic even, in some strange way. He, the mighty hunter, teaching me the lessons of the wild like some storybook hero. Instead, I learned of murder.

I’m thinking this as I cruise the lonely, moon-bleached, back-country roads of California’s Marble Mountains, scanning for the familiar trailhead. Once there, I maneuver my van into the tree line. 

As I unload the wheelbarrow from the back of my van, I can already feel the forest’s pull. There is an essence which fills me in these places. It is deep and dark, wicking up through the loam into the soles of my feet, building as it rises. At the base of my diaphragm it surges, becoming a low howl that pulses upward to breach the quiet of the night. It is my call. I set it free. The night answers, “Hooooowwwwwwwwoooooooo.”  

 “Hello, my beauties,” I whisper. Amber eyes blink open around me, then charge forward, slashing through moonbeams, snarling as they come. My offering is well-received. There will be feasting in the wilderness tonight. 

I stand back, listening to the furious attack, picturing myself, so long ago, holding the bloody kin of these creatures in my arms. Mother and cubs. “Why? Daddy, why?” I sob, as smoke curls from his rifle. My cries turn to howls as I beg him to save them. It’s the only catharsis I can find.

 “They’re dangerous predators, Mary,” he spat. “Worthless dogs!  I’ve just saved another hunter some bullets!” My child’s hands are turning from rouge to a hideous brown as they clutch the dying pups, when suddenly, as if in a dream, I am gripped by an almost supernatural call of the wild. A pitiful bellow of loss that arises from the forest deep, and carries sorrow on the wind. It envelopes me fully, leaving me with a clear understanding, that to defend and protect is to be my destiny. ...If only I can stop screaming.

Austin

Austin Davis strides out of the October sunshine, and seats himself at the counter of the Nite Owl Café &  and Truck Stop. He’s a tall man, with dappled hair the color of biscuits and gravy, who married his Hauler, “Jezebel,” decades ago. His Irish eyes crinkle when he smiles and endear him to a collection of friends that stretches across the vast, isolated wilderness he drives.

“Evenin’, sweet Lorraine!” he grins, settling in. 

“Hey, Austin,” she replies, pouring his coffee.

He motions out the window at a green semi parked in the lot. “Luke hit the sack already?”

“Most likely. Think he went to the dentist first. Probably didn’t feel much like food, after that.” 

“The dentist?” Austin echoes in surprise.

Lorraine points far out the window at a large white step van. Its dingy flank bearing the Rod of Asclepius, a snake curled around a cautery, the official symbol of dentistry- with the words:

Mobile Dentistry – Affordable rates

 Up top sit two large generators and a good-sized water tank.  A wheelbarrow hangs on the back.

“That’s something different,” Austin says. “That old van looks pretty well outfitted...I’ll have the steak.”

Next morning, Austin ambles back into the Night Owl. “Just coffee, Susie-Q. Gotta make tracks. Seen Luke this morning?” he asks, noting Luke’s truck.

“Not yet,” Susie answers. 

“Guess we’ll miss each other this haul.” He glances out the window, barely noticing the dental van is gone.

“Morning paper!” Susie slaps down a rumpled Marble Mountain News. 

“Anything goin’ on?” 

“Not much. Rancher over in Yreka disappeared outside a bar last week…’bout it. Probably passed out somewhere...or got lucky!” 

Joe

In the parking lot of a back-country market in Klamath, Oregon, a cocky thirty-something is leaning against a blue pickup bearing a gun rack and a pair of antlers with a Santa hat hood ornament, when he spots a healthy blond, heading for a worn step van.  There’s a snake on the side, hawking reasonable dental rates. “That you?” he asks, jerking a thumb toward the van while giving her the once-over. 

“That’s me,” she answers.

“How reasonable?” 

“That your truck?” she asks, nodding at the antlers.

“All mine,” he boasts. 

She scans the empty parking lot. “Very,” she says with a wink, motioning him to follow.

Mary

I usually put more miles between my “appointments,” but this peacock is just so ripe for the picking, big stupid grin on his face as he settles into my dental chair, eyes on my breasts. 

“Name’s Joe,” he tells me. 

“Dr. Mary,” I offer.  

“You’re a real dentist, right, Mary?”

“Dr. Mary,” I correct. “Official papers and everything,” I say, motioning to the glass-encased certificate behind me. “What’s your problem, Joe? Open up!” I clamp his mouth open.

“Gaw–a-'ad-ooth,” Joe tries to enunciate around my fingers.  

“You a hunter, Joe? Saw those antlers on your truck.” 

He nods. I tap a filling with my metal pick.

“YaaaAaah! Awww…tha’one!”

“What do you hunt?”

“Wha-eva…” 

“Do you feel bad, Joe? Killing animals, I mean?”

“‘Ey’re jus’ ahhiwals.” 

“Let’s numb you now.” Joe eyes my needle. I can read his eyes. He’s re-thinking this.  “You know,” I tell him, “Killing animals messes up a natural chain. Did you know there are hardly any wolves left around here, Joe? They’re starving.”

I wait until his arms go limp before grabbing my restraints. I jerk them so tight scarlet rivulets begin a steady plick-plick-plick onto the metal floorboards. He can’t feel it. I’m no torturer after all, but he understands. The fear in Joe’s eyes creates a tiny thrill in me. I’ve succeeded in making him feel like prey.

I travel another mile down the road before stopping again to snatch the magnetic signs off the sides off the van. I’m racing the encroaching darkness to my location of choice. I’ve been there many times before. Losing that race, especially in this wind, will create some problems for me that I’d rather avoid.

The ride plus the wind increases Joe’s panic to manic proportion, but it’s all in his head. It’s quite savory, actually, a pleasing appetizer. I step into my vinyl protective clothing, securing the hood, before unveiling my reciprocating saw. Joe pisses himself when he sees it. I pat his shoulder for comfort. I allow him a moment of relief, by setting the saw back down, but his anxiety returns when I extract the pliers from my pocket.

I always remove the teeth first. This is more of a personal preference than a necessity. There’s something about the crunch of teeth later that sets my own teeth on edge. It’s different than bone. I go to work.  If Joe had the ability, he’d be screaming now. Most men can’t abide blood. Their own, anyway. Blood doesn’t bother me anymore.

The first stinging raaaaaaaazzzzzz of my saw stills the chirping of the birds outside. The forest has come to attention. Funny, I’m still surprised by how easily it slices through flesh, and even grinds through skeleton with so little resistance. Joe’s face twitches slightly, as his left arm slaps the floor, splaying gore across his khaki pants. 

I’ve got plenty of juice with two generators up top, so this won’t take long. I work deliberately, separating limbs from torso just below the joints. Soon the floor is littered with parts. A rolling chop shop, you might say. I size those down again for easy storage. After the ribcage is breached, my hunter cracks wide open like a Christmas turkey. This makes me chuckle. It’s the holidays, after all.

Torrents of blood and tissue splay the walls of my little clinic, but that’s fine. My high-powered system attached to the water tank above will flush this watertight chamber clean as a whistle, along with my suit, and this area’s so remote no one’s likely to see the run-off. Even if they do, they’ll assume someone gutted an animal here. Those hunters. Blood doesn’t bother them either. Blood of prey, that is. 

I wrap and stack the meat into a freezer hidden behind my utility closet. This feature invokes a sense of pride that the money from my thriving dental practice serves me so very well, allowing me to follow my calling into the twilight of my life.

Lorraine

Austin is racing the clock on a return haul, but he needs caffeine, so his pit stop at the Night Owl will be brief. Luke’s green truck sits in the lot, and he’ll be happy to shoot the shit over a cup of Joe, but inside, Luke’s nowhere to be seen. “Luke on the shitter?” Austin jokes to Lorraine. 

“Luke’s gone, Austin. He’s gone. He never came back,” Lorraine says, tears springing from her eyes. “We were going to get married.”

 “What?” 

“He’d just asked me to marry him, we hadn’t even told anyone yet. He was gonna see that dentist, remember? That night you were here? Nobody’s seen him since. Something happened, Austin. We thought maybe his hunting buddies swung by and picked him up, but they didn’t.  Police have an APB out. He wouldn’t have left his truck behind. They’re hauling it in tomorrow.” Lorraine’s tears erupt into a breathy sob.

“Awww shit, Lorraine, what about that dentist?” 

“Haven’t found the dentist,” she sniffles.

“Hell,” Austin mutters, shaking his head while trying to dredge up a hazy image of that dental van. “You’ve got my number, Lorraine, keep me posted if anything turns over.” He drains his coffee and heads out the door. 

***

Time on the road ticks away like miles on a highway. Months and years ooze away like honey from a jar. Austin has tucked his old friend Luke into a back pocket with an uneasy mind, as he travels the back highways of the land, knowing that something out there is not as it seems.

His glove box holds a four year stack of old newspapers from all across the country. Men gone missing ~ Wilderness area. When he thinks hard on it, the hairs on his body jerk to attention like battalions of frozen soldiers. There’s a connection there somewhere. He knows it, but he can’t figure the common thread. 

Mary

A man sits next to me at the truck stop, reading the paper while he sips his coffee.

“Damn!” he mutters under his breath. “Another one.” The woman on his other side glances over. 

“What did you say?” I ask.

“Oh nothing,” he says, “Just a trend I’ve been following.”

“A trend?” 

“Yeah. Trend of men…disappearing, I mean…all across the country.” He turns the newspaper so I can read:

AUTHORITIES FAN OUT IN SEARCH OF MISSING RANCHER

I’ve been tracking these stories. Might all be connected. ’Course, nobody else thinks so…”

“Really?” I say, “How so?”

“Well…Oh, never mind, just crazy speculation on my part. Doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”

“I’d like to hear your theory.”

“Well, I just think these missing men have something in common, but I can’t figure out what it is. Drives me crazy sometimes. Lost a friend this way a few years back. Just disappeared.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, easing the paper from his hands. “Well, did you find any clues here? Local rancher led fight to convince the Bureau of Land Management to allow ranchers to hunt wolves past hunting season.” I can recite this one’s story without even looking. “...Think one of his buddies shot him by accident and covered it up?” I offer. “...I’m Mary, by the way, and you’re…?”

“Austin. ...Maybe so,” Austin says, with a sigh of finality.  

But I can’t let it drop. “Isn’t this the guy who convinced the BLM to let them shoot wolves in cold blood, from helicopters?” I push on, wondering how deep his investigations go. “You hunt, Austin?”

“Couldn’t harm a flea. Hunting’s not my idea of a party.” 

“Glad to hear that. Not fond of hunters…uh, hunting, either.” 

“Well, you’re a lady after my own heart.” 

I get up right behind him to pay. The man was curious, but seems to know nothing. I still need to be careful. 

“Goodbye, Mary, maybe we’ll meet again someday,” he calls from the doorway.

“Maybe so, Austin,” 

It’s almost dark, and I have a delivery to make.

Austin

Austin is warming up Jezebel when he notices Mary across the lot, rounding the back of a white step van with two generators and a large tank on top. Something from the past niggles at him. The van starts up and is almost out the driveway, when he spots the wheelbarrow.

“I’ll be damned,” he mutters, making the connection which curdles the food in his stomach. He shoves his rig into gear and floors it out of the parking lot after her. There are no connections or crossroads for miles. He’s confident he can follow without her knowing, as long as he keeps his distance.

 

He is imagining Mary’s bladder the size of a football, while cursing his third cup of coffee, when suddenly, he rounds a bend just in time to catch sight of her pulling off the highway. Hitting the brakes hard, he switches off his lights, considering how close he can get without giving himself away. He decides to cover the distance on foot. 

The dark is on his side as he creeps along the tree line. He is well into the woods when he finds the van, back doors open wide, but no Mary in sight.  Spotting a trail, he tiptoes guardedly down it until he can make out her dark silhouette ahead. She seems to be wrestling with something.

Mary is attempting to drag a large wheelbarrow from the mud when Austin surprises her from behind. “Whatcha’ doin’, Mary?” he asks, his gruff voice gutting the still of the night.

He expected her to jump, but instead she freezes, a low growl beginning deep in her throat. “She’s a lunatic,” he thinks, almost comically, hesitating, just a beat too long.

Yanking something from the barrow, Mary hurls it backwards with such force that when it strikes Austin’s head, the last thought he has is a memory of the sound of a watermelon he’d dropped off the garage roof when he was twelve.  

Mary

“I wouldn’t have chosen you, Austin,” Mary says, staring down at him, “I liked you better than most.” In the dark clearing, a supernatural stillness settles, as something flickers across her eyes. Mary throws her head back and hurls a mixture of bitterness, fury, sorrow and resignation directly at the crescent moon, in a bellow so wanton, so primitive, it is followed by an almost deathly calm. 

Then, as if in reply, a circle of amber eyes snap open around her. “Fresh meat tonight, my pets,” she coos lovingly, as her wolves begin to growl, snapping and snarling as they pounce.

~by taree Belardes

NYC SSC2016
genre; Horror
subject; A doctor's visit
character; A truck driver
word limit; 2500