Hunters

by Chet Williamson

  Then the beating stopped, and he heard Chuck's voice through the rushing in his ears. "How you feelin', Neddie? Pretty shitty? Ache a little? Your old hound dog sure isn't comin' to the rescue—look!"

  Chuck placed the branch under Ned's head and levered it up out of the snow. Pinchot sat five yards away, his head cocked, looking curiously at Ned as he looked at everything. There would be no help from the dog.

  "Say goodbye to the puppy dog, Neddie. It's lights out time." Chuck held the branch like a baseball bat, swinging it in short circles over his head. "Batter up!"

  Ned kept watching him as he swung the bat, wanting to move, but not able to, wanting just to sleep, to...

  To die?

  No! The branch came down, straight at his head, and he pulled himself from its path so that it struck him only a glancing blow that tore open his scalp. Then he poured all his will into lurching forward and grabbing Chuck by the legs, pulling him down to the snow. The man fell heavily on Ned, driving the air from his lungs, and Ned felt Chuck's bare hands around his neck, squeezing like steel cables, or like the rope with which Ned had nearly been hanged.

  "Toppa everything else..." Chuck panted, "You went and stole...my damn gloves..."

  Ned clawed at the man's face, but Chuck's gloves that he wore made the attack ineffectual. Then he hammered at him with his fists, but Chuck only continued to squeeze, ignoring the snap of cartilage as Ned broke his nose, and the gush of blood that followed. Ned's vision began to dim, and he felt a terrible pounding in his ears, then his whole head, and everything was becoming dark and hot and falling.

  And then he heard the shot.

  The pressure on his neck suddenly stopped, a warm wetness bathed his face, and as his vision returned he saw Chuck's face above him, lit by the oblique beam of the flashlight. One eye glared at him balefully, but the other was gone, along with most of the nose and nearly the entire forehead. Then the dead face fell down against his own.

  Ned turned his head away, trying not to gasp, nor even to breathe. He pushed with all the strength he had left, but succeeded only in raising the limp corpse a few inches.

  Then, as if by magic, the heavy bulk detached itself from him, and flopped into the snow next to Ned. Blood pooled in the hollow of its face.

  Ned looked up and saw who had shot Chuck and kicked his body off of Ned's. He was a man Ned didn't think he had ever seen before. He was dressed warmly, and was cradling a deer rifle in his hand. His face looked grim.

  "I think he was gonna kill you," the man said. "Couldn't let him do that."

  "Thank you..." Ned said feebly, unable to move. Maybe this man would help him. Help him get up, search, find Megan. "Can you help me...please..."

  "Why sure, Officer...Craig, ain't it?"

  How did this man know him? My God, Ned thought, was he one of them? But then why would he have shot Chuck? "You know me?....who are you?"

  "Oh, we met a long time ago, Officer. You probably don't even remember me. My name's Sheldon Lake."

  Sheldon dug into his coat pocket, took out a flare, stuck it in the snow, and lit it. They both winced at the sudden burst of red-white fire. It would burn for fifteen minutes, more than enough time.

  He straightened up and looked down at Ned Craig. "Ring a bell? Almost seven years ago. You arrested me for shooting a doe in buck season, and I didn't like that...oh yeah, you remember, don't you? You got in a real lucky punch and I went to jail, remember? And you know what I got? Not there, not in jail, but when I got out? From beatin' on a faggot? I got AIDS, Officer. That's right. AIDS. And it was all because of you. So see, I couldn't let this asshole finish you." He pointed to Chuck's body. "That'd be too easy. No, you gotta go the rough way."

  "What...how'd you..."

  This was beautiful, Sheldon thought. This was just priceless. "How'd I find you? Man, I was on your ass every step of the way, from the time you left St. Mary's. You got to the road to the tower, I split, came back today, parked at the road and walked in. You never saw my truck following you?" Craig shook his head. "Nah, you were too busy watching for these assholes' jeep, weren't you? I was lucky—day later, and I woulda missed you. I went to Pittsburgh, see? One last fling. Hell of a night."

  It had been. Dope, booze, pussy, you name it, Sheldon had done it. A wide open town, you knew where to look. The next day, after he got done throwing up and his hangover had gone away, he had gone to see his grandmother in the nursing home, but it wasn't very good. She didn't know him. He didn't tell Ned Craig about that.

  "Then when I got back to St. Mary's, I visited your lady. Sorry about her, by the way."

  "She's...dead?"

  "Deader'n shit. They shot her. I was watchin'. They had some real firepower, so I couldn't do much till you blew up the tower. Whoo-ee, that was a sight. Almost made their comin' along worth it. See, I wanted to play a little with you first—the phone line, the blood, the dead deer, the fiddle? That was me." He tried to grin to show how proud he felt, but he found he couldn't smile. "Freaked you out, huh? I had more fun in mind. Hell, I was gonna knock you out, tie you both up, and go to work on both of you. Not kill you or nothin'. But you'd die all right. You still will. But not for a while."

  Sheldon got on his knees in the snow next to Ned, and tucked the barrel of his rifle under Ned's chin. His lips felt dry, and he licked them. "Ever hear of the kiss of death, Officer? Well, I got it. And you're gonna get it." He looked at Ned carefully. "It won't be hard. Hell, you're bleedin' all over, ain't ya? See, what I understand, all I gotta do is get some of my blood mixed in with yours, and that's it. Few months from now, you're HIV-positive. Few years, you got AIDS. And you'll be waitin' for it every day you live. See, I don't wanta kill you for what you done to me. I just want to make your life more interesting."

  He unsnapped the bottom three snaps of his coat and reached inside. When his hand came out, he was holding the deer skinning knife that his father had given him. He had honed the blade to razor sharpness.

  Sheldon positioned himself so that his solemn, unsmiling face was right over Ned Craig's chest. Then he brought the knife up to his own lips, and cut himself a smile, an upraised slice an inch long on either side of his mouth. When he opened his mouth, he could feel the wounds widen, and he began to bring his face closer to Ned Craig's, baring his teeth, wondering where to bite first.

  Then the rope slipped over his neck, and he fell back, choking.

  Megan pulled with all her might. The ache in her chest was tremendous, and she thought her muscles would rip apart, but she kept dragging the man's body backwards. She was only two feet from the kicking, gagging madman, and she held the rope tight, shuffling backwards through the deep snow as fast as she could, giving him no chance to free himself.

  She bumped into a tree and nearly fell, but yanked the slack out of the rope and went around the tree, too far away for the man to grab it. He still held the big knife in one hand, and was stabbing at the snow as though the blade would sink in and hold him.

  The flare illuminated everything around her with a bright pink light, the color of blood on snow, and when she glanced behind her she saw two pines that had grown so closely together they seemed to share a common trunk, making a V three feet wide at the level of her shoulders.

  When she tried to step between them, she tripped and fell, but still managed to hold on to the thick rope as she plunged through the wooden V. On her back, she kicked with her feet against the trees, continuing to move away from Sheldon Lake, until she heard the thud of his head and shoulders hitting the twin trees.

  He was wedged against them now, his shoulders unable to pass through the narrow V near the bottom of the trees. He was trapped, turtle-like, on his back, unable to get up or to relieve the dreadful throttling of his neck as long as she kept pressure on the rope.

  Then, with a shock, she saw the hand with the knife come up, slashing at the rope, cutting through the strands of hemp.

  Fear made her grip relax, and in that instant she heard something other than
gagging from the man's throat. Words, words that she could not understand, words spoken in the nearness of death and at the apex of hatred, words like the ones she had heard Butch speak as he fell through the air when her grasp could have saved him.

  "NO!" she shrieked, and dug in her heels and pulled harder, killing Butch again, pulling against the tender cords and tissues of the man's neck, pulling until his knife stopped cutting and waved futilely in the air and fell, pulling until his gloved fingers stiffened in a spasm, pulling until the hands dropped to the snow like heavy, rotting fruit.

  And even then she closed her eyes and pulled until someone put an arm around her shoulders, and she dropped the rope and fell against Ned, sobbing, taking in deep, shuddering breaths.

  "You're alive," he said as though he couldn't believe it. "Oh my God, Megan, you're alive..."

  She couldn't talk for her crying, and she felt Ned shaking too, his body racked by sobs or cold, she wasn't sure which. She didn't want to take her head away from his chest to see if there were tears in his eyes. Finally she said, "You're okay, you're okay," and looked at him.

  He was bruised and bleeding, but he smiled at her and nodded. "I'm okay. We both are." He shook his head in disbelief. "I thought you were dead. I thought they shot you."

  She laughed and cried at once. "They did. It hit the mute." She reached into her pocket and showed him the one-inch piece of heavy brass, bent beyond repair. "It knocked me out, it hurt so much. But then I opened my eyes and I was still alive, and I heard explosions and saw fire, and I dragged myself into the trees...I thought I'd hide, and then I just...blacked out again from the pain. A shot woke me up. When I...could stand up again, I came out of the trees and saw you. And him. And the rope was there..."

  She thought of the others, and looked around wildly. "What about them? Where are they?"

  "They're dead." He nodded at Sheldon's body. "He shot Chuck. The others fell with the tower."

  "How did you get down past them?"

  "I...rappelled. With that rope you found."

  She looked at him as though he had suddenly gone insane.

  "I didn't have a choice," he said. "I had to."

  She nodded and squeezed his hand.

  A sudden sharp noise made them both jump, but it was only Pinchot, tail wagging, tongue lolling. "So you're back. A fat lot of good you were," Ned said, but neither of them laughed. She felt it would be a long time before they laughed again. But the time would come.

  "What'll we do?" Ned asked her. "We could stay here until morning, then try and get out."

  "No," Megan said. "We've got to get out of here now."

  Ned got to his feet. "Think you can handle it?"

  She nodded and rubbed her chest. "Maybe some ribs are cracked, but I can make it. How about you?"

  He winced as he put his weight on his left leg. "I think I've got a few breaks myself, but we can get out. Let's see what shape those snowmobiles are in."

  The flare by Chuck's body was almost burned out. Ned picked up the flashlight, and slowly and painfully they made their way to the snowmobiles. The snow had slowed to a gentle fall, and even the wind had died down. One snowmobile was out of commission, since one of Ned's shots had gone straight into the engine. But the second machine was in working order, and they siphoned the gas from the first into it.

  "No headlight," Ned said. "We'll have to use the flashlight all the way."

  "There are extra batteries in the cabin," Megan said. "We'll fill our pockets. Is there enough gas?"

  Ned thought. "Three miles to the road, another five to Aurora. We take our time, we should get there."

  "You think Pinchot's up for an eight-mile run?"

  Ned smiled for the first time. "What else has he been doing? Not playing Lassie, that's for sure."

  They bundled up and got fresh batteries. Then, just before Ned started the snowmobile, Megan leaned against him and said. "Do you think this is it. Do you think it's over now?"

  He looked back at the base of the fallen tower. "It's over. For us anyway."

  Then he started the engine, Megan aimed the flashlight ahead, and they drove out through the deep snow, the dog running behind them, barking excitedly.

  Ned and Megan and Pinchot arrived in Aurora just after midnight, and stopped at the first house they saw. Frank and Laura Gustafson, the couple who lived there, bundled them in robes, made them hot soup, and called the Aurora police chief, who talked to Ned and then called the state police.

  The police decided that it would be difficult to get back to the tower site before morning, and after what Ned and Megan told them, they felt there was no hurry. The police chief drove Ned and Megan over to the office of Aurora's sole doctor, who examined them both. He bandaged Megan's ribs, two of which were cracked, sewed up wounds and contusions on Ned's scalp, chin, hip and hands, and set his right shoulder and left leg, which had small fractures. Then he gave them both heavy sedatives.

  For what was left of the night, and far into the morning, Ned and Megan slept in the Gustafson's guest room, and Pinchot dozed by the dying embers of the living room fireplace.

  Jean Catlett thought that day was coming. The snow above her eyes, when she opened them, was slowly growing brighter.

  She wondered how much snow was lying on top of her. Probably only a few inches, if that. But she could do nothing about it. She could neither move nor speak. She could open her eyes, and that was all.

  Her back hurt terribly, all the way from the base of her spine to her neck. She wondered if the paralysis was permanent. At least her clothes were keeping her alive, although she wondered if she had frostbite on her face. It didn't feel cold. But maybe that meant she did have it.

  She felt warm enough, though. She didn't feel like she was dying. She didn't want to die.

  Someone would come eventually. If he lived, Chuck would come and save her. And if Ned Craig got away, he would tell the police, and people would come and search for the bodies, and they would find her then.

  Maybe it wasn't permanent. Maybe she could move again. And if the others were dead, she could tell the police that they had done the killing. Good lawyers could get you out of anything, and there were hundreds of them in L.A. She would tell them that she had done it for the animals, and that she had never intended for anyone to get hurt. She wanted to save the animals, that was all.

  Then she heard it. Thank God, she thought, that she could still see and hear. It sounded like heavy footsteps, like a man in boots, someone official, someone coming to search for the bodies, someone who would find her.

  Yes, the footsteps were coming closer. He would have to see her form in the snow, see where she had fallen. Or maybe they had dogs that would find her scent.

  Oh God, thank you God thank you. Before her eyes the snow was growing lighter. Someone was scraping it away, yes, she could see a big hand, heavy, wearing a mitten, moving the snow from over her face, and more and more, and the light was coming down like a blessing, and—

  Something cut her face, raked across her cheek and mouth like long sharp nails. She would have screamed from the pain if she could, told the man that she was here and he had found her, and to be gentle as he scraped away the snow, but still she could neither move nor speak.

  And now something else came down through the snow, something big and black and covered with fur, and it pressed against her face, cold and wet and snuffling. A dog?

  The snout withdrew, but it had moved enough snow so that she could see now, see the face of black fur just inches above hers, see the mouth split to reveal the dark tongue and white fangs.

  The bear growled down at her, licked her face once, and began to feed.

 

 

 
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