Thrilled to Death

by James Byron Huggins

  Hunter absorbed it awhile in silence.

  “Your people aren’t sufficient?” he asked.

  “No,” Maddox replied flatly. They’ve already tried and they failed. In fact, they died. The results were ...discouraging, to say the least.”

  Hunter stared at nothing, said nothing for a long time.

  “We have a killing team assembled,” the colonel continued. “You need not be involved in that aspect. If you can only track this creature through those mountains, somehow give our people an opportunity to confront it, then your job will be done. You will be present as an observer. And the team that we have assembled is extremely proficient. You will be quite safe. In fact, it may be the safest action you’ve undertaken in some time. One other thing we learned was that you are a man prone to taking risks.”

  Hunter rose slowly, turned away.

  He stared out the window and searched the surrounding tree-line, already dark. And he half-scanned for Ghost but knew the wolf would remain invisible unless he wanted to be seen. Yet he would be there, un-moving, waiting, listening to every word. And if Hunter were attacked, the great black image of pure animal fury would roar into the cabin like a storm with flashing fangs and claws, and God help anything mortal that got in his way. Somehow Hunter knew he had already made the decision but he waited, sensing something that troubled him.

  “All right,” he said finally. “But for this I’ll need Ghost.”

  A pause.

  “Whatever you want,” Maddox said, nervousness entering his voice at the mere mention of the wolf.

  “And I won’t submit to military command or authority.” Hunter turned back with the words. “If I lead the track, then I’m the one that leads. Nobody countermands my decisions or my methods. This is gonna be hard enough as it is. I don’t want someone who doesn’t understand what I do trying to give me orders.”

  “Of course not. I will ensure your authority in certain areas. This ...this support team will be present only for the confrontation.”

  Hunter turned away again, staring into a slowly gathering dark. He could tell from the air that a cold front was coming, rain not far behind. But there was something else, something that continued to hover over him—a premonition.

  He felt it, but couldn’t identify it. Yet he had made his decision, realizing that, if innocent lives were truly compromised by a creature as obviously powerful as this, there was really no choice.

  “Set it up,” he said, low. “Let me know.”

  Maddox swayed. “Good. Just be aware this is going to happen soon. Perhaps as early as tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine,” Hunter said, glancing at Dixon one last time.

  Utterly concealed, Dixon’s eyes were reflectionless pools of black, revealing nothing. And Hunter sensed rather than read the faintest apparition of a smile on the haggard face. And he knew that whatever disturbed him was hidden in that darkness.

  Chapter 3

  It’s where the map ends; an unforgiving, heavily forested frontier of permafrost, tundra, glacier and air that froze skin at the touch. Hunter had been here once before, and knew it was an easy place to die.

  Countless hikers, adventurers, and even native Alaskans had lost their lives in the merciless terrain of the Brooks Range. And Hunter didn’t underestimate its brutality. He knew that it was through respect and caution that a man stayed alive in these mountains. And a lack of either would have only one outcome; the land was littered with legends of those who failed to heed advice and went unprepared into the high country, never to be seen again.

  Hunter knew what equipment was essential for the average trapper or camper: a large-caliber scoped rifle, a shotgun, plenty of ammunition for both, an oversupply of preserved food, an ax, hatchet, sheath knife and a smaller folding blade for skinning, a tent, topographical map of the areas with federal emergency stations marked, a compass, rope, rain slick, matches and flint for making fires, a ball of leather twine, emergency medical equipment, grain for two pack mules and a horse, and a radio.

  But Hunter traveled light, trusting his life to his skills. He never challenged the forces of nature, he respected them. But he knew he could effortlessly live off the land for weeks at a time and could improvise shelter in even the most hostile weather. So he carried all he needed in a compact belt rig that rested at the small of his back. He also had a pouch on a leather strap that went over a shoulder in the style of ancient Apaches. Inside it he carried air-dried beef jerky, herbal pastes for either cooking or wounds, a compass and map, and lesser-known tricks of the trade for tracking—chalk, a marking stick, pebbles.

  He had a single canteen on his right side, though he rarely used it because he would drink at almost every stream, knowing dehydration was a lightning-fast killer this high. A large, finely-honed Bowie knife and hatchet were on his belt and he carried extra cartridges on the strap of the un-scoped Marlin 45.70 lever-action rifle that he carried over his shoulder.

  He wore wool pants, a leather shirt and jacket, and knee-high moccasins lined with goose down, and carried no other clothes. The extra insulation in the moccasins would protect his feet against the cold, dry quickly, and allow him to move soundlessly. And he always wore leather while tracking because, unlike polyester or cotton, it made almost no sound when it scraped branches or leaves.

  Long ago, inspired by an idea he’d obtained from studying ancient Aztec priests, he had sewn a double hood for the shoulders of his jacket. The lower layer protected his shoulders from rain. The upper layer, descending over his broad shoulders like a short cape, could be drawn up in a hood to prevent excessive heat loss from his head, which accounted for sixty percent of heat loss in the open air. It was a unique and functional design, and Hunter had learned from experience that a hood was indispensable in frigid temperatures.

  Traveling so light, he resembled an early American frontier scout—an appearance made all the more apparent when contrasted to the high-tech profile and weaponry of the Special Response Squads he often worked beside.

  For shelter and food he would simply live off nature. He would forage as he went, kill quickly and efficiently when necessary, but always moving. At night he would take fifteen minutes to rig a simple but effective fish trap in a stream which would capture a half dozen mountain trout for breakfast before morning. The fish that he didn’t immediately eat he would eat as hunger came on him through the day. From years of practice he had discovered that it was a simple, effective means of traveling quickly across cold, high country.

  He assumed that this mysterious military team would bear the standard forty pounds of survival gear necessary for Arctic survival. In general, that included a load-bearing vest, or LBV, probably armored with Kevlar. Then they would have a small backpack that held individual water purifiers, cold-weather tents, Arctic sleeping bags, extra clothes and socks, de-hydrated food, propane ovens, field radios and microphones, night-vision equipment, teargas, and flares, as well as bionic listening devices—either those worn as earphones or the laser-guided sort for pinpointing distant disturbance.

  In addition to that, they would be heavily armed with a variety of weapons from M-16’s to Benelli shotguns and MH-40 cylindrical grenade launchers. And, doubtless, they would rely upon the Magellan Global Positioning System for orientation—a fist-sized device that triangulated off satellites to provide exact location, accurate to within six feet. It was standard equipment for maneuvers.

  Hunter was familiar with the technology and had used it himself. But it was still a machine, and machines could break down in primitive conditions. So he preferred to rely upon a map and compass and had cultivated his skills at dead reckoning so that he could accurately navigate using only the sun and stars, or nothing at all.

  But Hunter knew that the most essential ingredient for survival in this land wasn’t something so simple as equipment: it was mindset. For it was all too easy to panic when disaster struck and ther
e was no one to rely upon for assistance.

  He had learned long ago, mostly by necessity, to be supremely self-reliant under any circumstance. And up here there would be no substitute for a lack of strength or willpower.

  He remembered a conversation he had with a grizzled old trapper during his first trip to Alaska. As he was preparing to venture into the mountains, he asked the old man if it was possible to survive a winter in the mountains with only a knife and rifle. Experienced with the lethal brutality of the wilderness, the trapper had taken a surprisingly long time to reply.

  “Well,” he said finally, turning a weathered face, “I reckon it could be done.” His tone indicated that he had no intention of trying. “But you’d have to have Injun in you. You’d have to be an animal. ‘Cause there ain’t no God nor mercy up there, boy. Damn sure ain’t.” He paused. “When I go up high, I got my horse and two pack mules, ‘cause a mule is worth any three horses in them woods. I break camp late and set up early, and I don’t break at all if it looks like a hard cold might be settin in.” He chewed a toothpick. “You ain’t planning to try nuthin’ like that, are ya?”

  “No,” Hunter assured him. “Just asking.”

  The old man nodded slowly and pointed toward the mountains. “The big ol’ Out There ain’t no place for a human bein’, son. I seen some go in and winter it out, and them that made it home ... well, they wudn’t the same. It changes a man, more ways ‘an one.”

  Hunter knew the words were true.

  There were few areas in the world as brutal with rain and cold, and as unforgiving of fools. He knew that if he was injured and forced to survive in those mountains for months, sheer determination would be his greatest ally. Pain could be ignored but any wound must be very carefully tended. Just as food would have to be attentively protected and harbored; it would be endless work to stay alive.

  Patience and discipline would be vital, as would whatever tenuous grip he managed to maintain on his sanity. Although under the current conditions of this trip there would be little chance of a disaster, he had learned to always be prepared: conditions, no matter how certain they seem, could change completely and without warning.

  As Hunter surfaced from his thoughts he was suddenly aware of the dull thundering engines of the military C-141, its four huge jet engines roaring outside the fuselage.

  He smiled at the sudden awareness, for absolute concentration to the point of ignoring everything else was a faculty he had unconsciously perfected. And it was a vital skill when he was tracking.

  Amazingly, although Hunter could effortlessly ignore a loud conversation directly behind him, he could simultaneously pick up the whispered clicks of a woodlark a quarter mile away. To the uninitiated, the sound would mean nothing, but it could tell Hunter what the bird was experiencing, what it was looking at, whether it was searching for its mate or just frightened, and of what.

  For instance, the woodlark, more than any bird, hated water snakes like cottonmouths. So when a viper was moving in the water the woodlark would virtually set the forest on fire with that distinctive, hysterical high-pitched cry—a sound far different from its other songs and calls.

  And, just as Hunter could identify the call to know that a snake was moving close, he knew that particular snakes would not be moving at all during certain times of the day unless something was forcing them. So, in a thousand ways similar to this, the forest could tell you about hidden movement and unseen activity. One had only to know the language of the forest, the native calls of the wild.

  Ghost, sleeping soundly, lay beside him on a tarp and Hunter reached out to caress the wolf’s thick mane.

  Military officials had refused to allow Ghost among the other passengers, fearing the massive wolf’s potential for violence if, for some reason, he decided to demonstrate his prowess. And, rather than engage them in a doomed debate, Hunter elected to travel in the cargo hold with what he knew was his closest and most loyal friend.

  He remembered when he had found Ghost. The wolf was only three weeks old, and his sire, an enormous gray wolf, had been killed by poachers, along with the mother and siblings.

  Though wounded by a bullet graze, Ghost had survived by hiding beneath a deadfall, buried deep beneath tons of logs. Starving, sick and wounded, the cub would have died within days but Hunter coaxed him out with a piece of raw meat and carried him back to the cabin.

  It was a month before the malnourished cub could clamber around the three-room structure, but after that he grew rapidly, eventually surpassing the strength and size of his gigantic father. Yet it was his spirit that caught Hunter’s early attention and made him laugh; something he rarely did.

  Hunter had never attempted to train him, but the wolf’s keen intelligence was evident from the first moments. Without being taught, Ghost knew where to find food, how to communicate his needs, when he wanted to go outside. And his curiosity was endless, as was his unconcealed joy every time Hunter returned from a trip.

  When he was six months old Hunter let him sleep on the porch, sheltered by a fairly luxurious doghouse that Hunter built from spare lumber. Hunter filled the bottom with a thick layer of straw and an old blanket and installed a heat lamp for cold nights, but he never leashed the wolf. If Ghost wished to leave, he was free to go.

  For endless nights Hunter went to bed knowing Ghost was staring and listening to the calls of the wild, summoned by the wolf packs that surrounded the cabin. And then when Ghost was two years old, near full size, he began disappearing for days at a time, often returning with bloody wounds—slash marks of other wolves.

  Hunter suspected that during the nocturnal forays, Ghost had declared his own dominion over a part of the forest—of which the cabin was the heart. And after those nights, Hunter distinctly noticed, the surrounding howls of wolf packs came from a far greater distance. Ghost had, alone, won his territory.

  His relationship with Ghost had not so much developed as it seemed to flourish full-born. And Hunter suspected it was because he himself had never been close to anyone or anything, except perhaps the old trapper who half-raised him. Just as Ghost had never really had a family. So it came naturally and easily that each had simply accepted the other, each of them needing someone.

  In fact, Hunter had mostly raised himself, spending long endless days trapping and tracking, living more like an animal than a child. Before he was ten years old he could see a single track and identify the species, the size, how old it was, and where it was going. He could lift his head and find the scent of what had passed this way hours ago, or make shelters that would keep him warm in frigid winter nights. At twelve he could snatch fish from a stream with his hand, or silently sneak up on a deer so that he could touch its flank before it could sense his presence. Yet it was not until he was sixteen that he did what every true tracker considers the ultimate challenge. It had been a misty summer night, and he had come upon a slumbering Grizzly, laid his hand softly on its massive side, and then stolen away, having never awakened it.

  Sometimes, lying in the somber light of the cabin with Ghost beside him, Hunter remembered the days when he would spend more time in the wild, alone and living—truly living—than among people. He remembered how, as a child, the white look of bone would catch his eye in the bright light of day, and even now the fascination felt fresh. He could still feel the coarseness of red dirt as he sifted it from the white pitted relic of bear or elk or wolverine.

  He remembered how he would craft barbaric ornaments and necklaces of bear claws or wolverine fangs, looking not unlike a long-haired ten-year-old wild child of prehistoric Homo sapiens as he walked half-naked out of the forest. The thoughts made him laugh; he ruffled Ghost’s mane.

  Hunter made no demands—Ghost knew he was free—but they were each other’s ally. And, in time, Ghost had taken to sleeping inside the cabin again, sometimes clambering slowly and massively into Hunter’s bed in the middle of the night to lay a paw a
s wide as a plate on Hunter’s chest. Or sometimes Hunter would simply awaken to feel Ghost’s nose at his throat; the wolf checking to ensure he was all right.

  House patrol, Hunter called it with a laugh. But he realized it was only once in a lifetime that a man found an animal he truly loved, just as he knew he could never replace the great wolf. But, then, Ghost was only three years old, and would live a long time.

  In a sense, Hunter regretted bringing him on this trip. But he knew that in the harsh terrain of that hostile interior he would need every advantage. Because, while he himself could be deceived, it would be much more difficult for this thing—whatever it was—to deceive Ghost. Together, Hunter thought, they stood a good chance of tracking this thing to ground before it reached more innocent victims.

  Before it killed again.

  As he knew it would.

  ***

  In darkness ... no, not darkness, he awoke.

  He wasn’t naked, as he had anticipated. But he was shirtless, and his boots were gone. The prickly green of forest was beneath him and the deserted shade thick, almost gloom, as he slowly rose. He touched his head, feeling, and noticed nothing amiss; no alteration, no transformation. But he knew what it ...what he ...had done.

  What he had become.

  He laughed.

  Memories of last night were like an unfocused, scarlet-lit dream. But he recalled the visions much better than before; the sight of men running wildly across his perfect red-tinted vision, screams that roared with flame. He remembered how he could visually register the body heat caused by their stark terror, could palpably scent and taste their horror as he struck, and struck, and killed, moving through them to slay without effort. And in the long quenching slaughter he had found bestial pleasure in the power much, much more than before. He realized that he was gaining with each transformation, becoming stronger, purer.