Hunters

by Chet Williamson

  Ned held his fingers to his lips. Maybe, just maybe if they thought no one was there...but then he realized that the Blazer was a dead giveaway. There was no point in pretending they weren't there. Maybe there was some way he could talk them out of whatever they had planned. Maybe there was a way to save Megan.

  He went to the door, signaling Megan to stay down, and opened the top part just far enough so to talk through it. "It might be tough to get me!" he called. "I've got a gun. I'll shoot anybody who tries to get in."

  "You can try, Craig, but we've got guns too. And there are four of us. All we have to do is come and shoot through the different windows, and you and your woman are dead."

  "And get yourself in a crossfire?" he yelled.

  "That's a chance we'll take. We've taken a lot already, as you well know. Give yourself up to us, Craig. You can't escape."

  "Give myself up to you?" Ned called. "Who the hell are you?"

  "We're the Wildlife Liberation Front. And you murdered one of our brothers."

  "I shot him in self-defense—while he was mutilating his victim! Why should I make it easy for you?"

  "To make it easy on your woman! It's just you we want. You come out, and we'll let your woman live."

  "No, Ned!" Megan said, too softly for them to hear outside.

  "Why should I believe you?" Ned said.

  "You don't have much choice! And I don't lie! What we do is for a purpose—we have a code of honor. You can take my word."

  Ned thought frantically. The woman was right. There was no escape, and no way to contact anyone for help. Then he thought about the cellar door.

  There was a trap door to the basement. He had found it earlier that day beneath a throw rug in the kitchen. He hadn't gone down, but had opened the trap and peered into the darkness, from which a dampness and a sharp, sour smell rose, as if mice had died down there not long before.

  Maybe there was another way out, an outside entrance from the cellar that was buried under the snow. If so, and if it were on the other side of the cabin, he might be able to push it up and come around behind the killers. He didn't know if he could shoot fast enough to down them before they could turn on him, but it was worth a chance.

  "Go in the bedroom," he said softly to Megan, "and get a flashlight." She crab walked across the room and opened the bedroom door. The smell of the dead deer hung heavily in the air. "Give me some time to think about it!" Ned called through the open door.

  "Three minutes!" the cry came back. "Starting now!"

  He pulled the door shut, locked it, and grabbed the flashlight Megan offered him. Then he glided into the kitchen, threw back the carpet, and raised the trapdoor. Steep wooden steps led down, and he descended them, Megan just behind him. Pinchot remained at the top, whining.

  "Close the trap door," he told Megan, and when he heard it fall into place he flicked on the light and shone it around desperately.

  "Yes!" he whispered. There at the eastern end of the cellar were six steps cut in the earth that led to a double-trap cellar door. He ran to it, went up the steps so that his head was nearly touching the rusted metal, and turned the handle, pushing up.

  The door moved upward for a fraction of an inch, then held. At first Ned thought that the weight of snow was pressing down on it, but another try brought a dull metallic click, and a dry lump sat in his throat as he realized that the door was padlocked from above, probably to keep out any prowlers who wanted to break into the deserted cabin.

  "Locked," he said, coming back down the earthen steps. "God damn it, locked."

  "Oh Ned," Megan shook her head. "We'll have to fight them off, that's all. Maybe we can do it. They'll have to come through the windows one at a time..."

  "They can attack four different windows at once. Shoot inside. With the guns they've got, we couldn't escape being hit. It's like being in a box."

  "Then we can stay down here. They'd have to come through the trap door one at a time."

  He shook his head. "They could shoot through the floorboards, set the place on fire from the inside, hell, blow the whole damn place up so that it falls in on us. No, Megan, they've got us." He looked at her, trying to show her how much he loved her. "I don't want you to die."

  "I won't do this, Ned. I won't let them kill you."

  He opened the cylinder of his revolver, pressed back on the release rod, and the five bullets fell to the dirt floor. Then he dropped the pistol as well, and kicked the bullets so that they scattered in different paths into the darkness.

  Her eyes widened as she realized what he intended. "My God, Ned, you can't trust them!"

  "We've got no choice. Maybe they'll let you live. There's no reason they should want you dead." He looked upward at the ceiling. "My time's up." Then he climbed the wooden steps, threw open the trap door, and went up into the kitchen. He crossed to the door and opened it. "All right," he called out. "I'll give myself up to you. But give me your word you won't harm Megan!"

  "You have it," came the voice. "Now turn on the lights inside and come out onto the porch. Both of you!"

  Chuck Marriner saw the lights go in the cabin before he heard Jean Catlett calling to him. Her voice was nearly muffled by the howling of the wind, and he ignored it. He'd make them come for him. He was having too much fun, and he wasn't finished yet.

  While Jeannie and her cronies were having a little Mexican standoff with Ned Craig, Chuck had been wiring the tower for its final bow. With his gloved hands, he had cleared the snow away from the two legs of the tower nearest the edge of the cliff, and placed small, waterproof cubes of plastic explosive around the steel beams. He was just in the process of attaching a #3 cap to the second leg he wanted to blow when Jean called his name a second time.

  And a second time he ignored her, trailing the detonator cord from both charges around the side of the tower and back toward the cabin. He was thirty yards from the tower when he saw Jean plowing through the snow toward him.

  "Dammit, Chuck! Didn't you hear me?"

  "No, Jeannie, sorry, but I didn't." He looked up and saw two people coming onto the porch of the cabin, their figures casting long shadows mottled by the falling snow. "Got 'em out, huh?" He stopped, tucked his Ingram under his arm, and cleared a space in the snow for the detonator, a small plastic box with a red button. "Hey, Jeannie, do me a favor—don't let anybody accidentally push that button till I'm ready, okay?"

  He grinned at the shocked expression on her face. "What did you do?"

  "I wired the tower for boom-boom. We waste Craig, and then we drop the tower. Gotterdammerung, babe. The tower and Craig, both to the bottom of the cliff."

  "Well, do something to it," Jean said nervously. "Fix it so it can't go off by accident."

  "What, you think somebody's gonna run over it with a beer truck? Coupla kids bump it rollerblading?"

  "Do something to it, Chuck. You're the only one who touches it anyway."

  "Jesus, all right..." He set his weapon down in the snow, picked up the box, and slipped off a glove. Then he dug a small screwdriver out of his pocket, snapped open the plastic box, and detached a wire from inside. "There, see?" He held out the box to her. "Look!" He pressed the button, and she winced, but nothing happened. "No boom, just click." He set the detonator box back down in the hollow he had cleared, picked up the Ingram, and brushed the snow from it. "Now let's visit our friends."

  As they walked back to the cabin, Jean said, "He gave himself up to us. I told him we'd let the woman go."

  "Shithead'll believe anything, won't he?"

  "He doesn't have much choice."

  Michael and Sam had marched Craig and his woman back into the cabin, and Chuck and Jean followed, closing the door behind them. "Cozy," Chuck said. "First time we've been warm in hours."

  Craig and his woman stood by the fireplace, their hands by their sides. A big black dog stood in the kitchen doorway, tail wagging, tongue panting, eyeing the proceedings. Chuck immediately got on his haunches, his gun across his lap, and clapped
his hands. The dog came over, his tail pumping even faster.

  "Good boy, all right!" Chuck said. "What's his name?"

  "Pinchot," Ned Craig said.

  "Okay, Pinchot, howza boy? Hey, you're a good fella, aren't you? You're no attack doggie, no..." Chuck rubbed the dog's head and ears, and Pinchot slobbered ecstatically. "Hey, Craig," Chuck said, "I don't think old Lassie here's gonna come to your rescue."

  "Just don't hurt him," Craig said softly.

  "Hey, we like animals," Chuck replied. "It's people who're shit."

  Craig slowly looked at the four of them in turn. "Yeah," he said softly.

  "Ooo," Chuck said, standing up and holding his Ingram again. "Ironic. I liked that. Clint Eastwood couldn't've done it better."

  "Enough bullshit," Jean said. "You know why we're here."

  "To kill me," Craig said.

  "To execute you."

  "No. Murder," Craig said. "The same way you murdered those others."

  Jean tossed her head and looked at Craig haughtily. She was a good looking woman, Chuck had to give her that. "Those were executions too," she said. "But we don't have to justify our actions to you. All we have to do is kill you."

  "You promised you'd let her live," Craig said. The woman whose hand he held was no spring chicken, but she was a looker too. Not in the way Jean was, but in a more countrified, woman-next-door way, kind of like the horny farm wife in that sappy bestseller that Sam had insisted he read. She told him it had made her cry, but Chuck had thought it was horseshit. He didn't go to the movie with her, even though big Clint was in it.

  "We'll let her live," Jean said, "as long as you cooperate. You face your execution like a man..." The word was heavy with sarcasm. "...and we'll go away and leave her here. But you give us any trouble, or try to escape, and we'll kill her first, I promise you that."

  The woman's chin was trembling, but she wasn't crying. Instead she was looking at them with even more hatred than Craig showed. Maybe that was because she wasn't planning to die, but Chuck knew that Jean would never let her live. In fact, he was surprised that Jeannie wasn't torturing the woman right now to make Craig's agony worse. It was okay with Chuck. Maybe he could get Jean to let Sam and him alone with the woman in the cabin after Craig was dead. That would be pretty entertaining, and a nice way to cool down after Craig and the tower.

  "Let's do it then," Craig said. "Shoot me and get it over with. That's what you do, isn't it?"

  "No," Jean said. "We have something special in mind for you. We hang murderers, Craig."

  Chuck thought that shook the guy. That sturdy jaw of his trembled a little, and his frown grew deeper. Chuck didn't blame him. Pretty damn ugly way to die.

  "Please," the woman said, "don't do this. Ned didn't do anything that anyone else wouldn't have done. Your friend tried to kill him."

  "Then he should have let himself be killed," said Jean. "Because he's going to die anyway, and it would have saved us all a lot of trouble."

  "Hey, lady," said Chuck. "I don't think we've been introduced." She just stared at him like he was a slug. "I mean, you got a name?"

  She swallowed hard before she said it. "Megan." Her voice was harsh and dry.

  "Well, howdy, Megan, glad to meetcha. I'm Chuck. And this is Sam, Michael, and Jean." He grinned at Jean. "So we gonna hang this prick boyfriend of hers now?"

  Ned Craig felt detached from what was happening to him, as though it weren't really happening at all, as though it were a dream or a movie he was watching. Things like this didn't happen. Or at least they weren't supposed to happen.

  But then people weren't supposed to get mowed down by crazies with automatics in subway cars. Little children in day care centers weren't supposed to get blown up because some nut hated his own government. And human beings weren't supposed to murder, gut, and skin other human beings because they disapproved of hunting. Still, these things happened. And if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, they happened to you.

  The big man named Chuck had held a gun on him while the younger of the two women had tied his hands behind him. She had removed his remaining glove and pulled the rope painfully tight, but Ned had tried to flex his wrists as much as he could against the pressure, and when she was finished he found that there was some slack. He didn't know what good his getting loose would do, but at least it might become an option, depending on how they played it.

  But then he told himself that his only option was death. If that was the only way he could ensure Megan's survival, then he would die. At least his death would have some purpose, if she lived.

  If he could trust them.

  He wondered why Chuck would have introduced them all by name if they intended to release Megan. Maybe they just didn't care, figuring that the police would eventually find out who they were. Or maybe those weren't their real names at all. Or maybe they planned to kill her after all.

  "All right," said the older woman. "Let's go."

  Chuck got behind him and prodded the barrel of his pistol into Ned's back. "Where?" Ned asked as he walked toward the door.

  "The tower," Jean said.

  The tower.

  That was it then. They would take him to the top of the tower, tie a rope around his neck, and push him or make him jump off.

  Oh my sweet bleeding Christ, Ned thought. Of all the ways to die, they would make him climb up the icy steps of the tower first, his hands tied behind him. He thought he would die a hundred times before he even got to the top.

  Or maybe he wouldn't last that long. Maybe he would slip and, unable to grab anything to save himself, fall all the way to the bottom.

  He would rather hang.

  The cold battered him as he stepped through the door. The wind and snow had not diminished, but increased. The flakes were so big that it seemed as though sheets of tissue were falling through the night air, the wind whipping them about and shredding them. He felt them sticking, cold and wet, to his hair and face.

  The wind was beyond howling now. It shrieked, driving the cold and snow into his ears so that he scarcely heard Chuck telling the girl named Sam to get the rope, or Jean saying something else. They kept walking, the gale pushing them toward the tower at the cliff's edge, Pinchot preceding them, barreling through the snow with gusto.

  "Dog's anxious too! You're gonna swing real nice in this wind, Ned!" Chuck said, then laughed.

  Ned glanced back and saw that Jean and Megan were walking behind them, Jean holding her pistol on Megan. It was a lighter weapon, a semi-automatic, Ned thought, probably a .38. No match for the machine pistol held on him, but more than able to kill with a single bullet.

  The other two, Michael and Sam, were at the snowmobiles. Sam was getting a coil of rope, and Michael had started the engine of one of the machines and turned it to face the tower. When Ned looked again, the man was loosely piling snow around the front of it, then tugging at the machine. Finally Ned realized why.

  He, or Jean, more likely, wanted the powerful light from the snowmobile to shine upwards and illuminate the tower, so that they could see Ned's fatal plunge. As they slowly neared the tower, the light crept up the structure until it touched the cab high above. Ned looked back and saw the vehicle propped at a near seventy degree angle. Then he saw Michael get to work positioning the second machine as well.

  When he looked back down he saw that they were approaching a hollow in the snow, and felt a hand on his shoulder. He stopped obediently. "I gotta share this with you, Ned," Chuck said.

  "Keep moving," Jean said.

  "No no, I want old Ned to appreciate this. I got this baby wired, Ned. Charges at the base. Plastic. And after we stretch your neck, I'm gonna set it off. And if it does what I think it's gonna, you and the old tower are gonna be in a lot of little pieces at the bottom of the cliff. Just thought you might like to know you'll be going out with a bang." Chuck laughed, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, man, that really sucked. Let's go."

  He dug Ned in the back with the barrel of the gun, a
nd Ned moved on. He nearly stopped when he heard what he thought was a little cry. It might have been Megan, but it might just as easily have been a trick of the wind.

  They stopped at the base of the tower and waited until Michael and Sam joined them. Sam handed the coil of rope to Chuck. "Don't trip," she said.

  "Nah, don't worry. If I do, it's likely my finger'll tighten, and then I'd shoot old Ned in the back, and we don't want that to happen."

  Ned put his neck back slowly and looked up. The lights from the two snowmobiles cut a dazzling shaft through the snow and the night. The flakes whirled through it like frantic birds. Hardly any of the tower's metal was visible. Where it was not white with clinging snow, it was coated with ice that made it sparkle like crystal.

  "I can't climb it with my hands tied," Ned said. "It's icy. And the wind's blowing too hard. I need to use my hands."

  "I don't think so," said Jean.

  "I'll fall. I'll slip and I'll fall."

  Jean got in front of Ned so that she could look into his face. "No, Craig. You won't fall. You won't cheat me out of seeing you hang. Because if you fall, you know what will happen? I'll put a bullet in your woman, Craig. I'll kill her. Just like that. Before you even hit the ground. So whatever you do, Craig, don't you fall."

  Ned didn't remember ever hating anyone so much before. The woman's eyes were cold and crazy and scary, and Ned knew she would do exactly what she said. After what he had seen at Camp Kessler, he knew that any one of them was capable of anything.

  He didn't look away from her searing glance. He only nodded, and looked at the stairs.

  "Hang on to old Pinchot there," Chuck told Sam, who knelt by the happy dog and slipped a hand through his collar. "Gonna be enough traffic on those stairs as it is. Well, after you, Neddie," Chuck said, shouldering the hanging rope and gesturing with his weapon.

  Ned tried hard not to think about what he was doing. If he let it, climbing the stairs would terrify him far more than the prospect of hanging.

  He took the first step, and felt the snow compress beneath his feet. Then the second. And the third. A blast of chill wind shook him for a moment, and in a sudden blaze of panic he wondered what it would be like at the top, nearly a hundred feet above, up there in the teeth of the storm. He pushed the thought away and kept walking.