Hunted - Jake The Ripper

by Artie Margrave

  ?INTO THE LIGHT?

  He squinted into the darkness behind him. Joey, Big Stan's boy, was looking up at him, directly, unmistakably at him, aiming an arrow.

  "Good!" The familiar grunt of Big Stan made him shiver. "We're taking 'it' down this time." He stressed the 'it' with a louder voice like he was silently saying 'don't make that mistake next time' to Joey.

  Jake caught a glance of Big Stan running through the trees, faster than his huge body was supposed to allow him. The man had the pace of an Olympic athlete. Three men followed him, one of them he recognized from back then. He was muscularly built, huger than Big Stan, huger than everyone else that had chased him and carried a couple of lances. He was black, completely bald his head reflected moonlight, and his nose boasted five black rings - three in the right, two in the left. His menacing eyes were so black the white didn't shine from it and he wore a large whistle around his neck. The other two looked like regular, volunteered town folks with brown woolen jackets over denim trousers and revolver holsters attached to their belts. Their faces poured sweat and the way their hearts were beating - fast - he knew they had so much fear.

  How they'd tracked him he didn't at first understand. The twinkling lights of torches lit were still in the distance. He realized they had made it to him right through the dark. The lights far away were meant to deceive him, to make him think everything was okay. They had once more outsmarted him. Again!

  Snikt! Trigger release. An arrow was released, right at him. It was fast. He was faster. He jumped off the tree branch and onto the next tree, a little higher up.

  "Don't let that vampire get away," Big Stan ordered.

  More arrows made for him. Then gunshots followed too. He jumped off the tree onto the next one, looked for another safe spot and jumped. Arrows rained. He dodged all the arrows but got a few slugs to his leg. The bullets were untrained and he was okay, just the regular pinpricks easy to endure. The arrows were big and he had minimum difficult seeing them clearly but the bullets, there wasn't much he could do against those. He was simply lucky they weren't lined with more dead man's blood. That would've weakened him considerably. The regular folks were still amateurs.

  "It's not stopping," Big Stan grunted. He rushed forward, his long, black overcoat sweeping the forest floor.

  Jake retracted, released, jumped again, landed with both hands firmly on a thick branch, swung two full angles around it, released and landed on the next one. He didn't stay there past a second. He was off again.

  "Malik!" He heard Big Stan call.

  A dark, hoarse voice responded, "Yes?"

  Jake assumed it was the huge, black guy.

  "Think you can?" the rest of the sentence was lost on Big Stan's lips but was automatically carried through the thick atmosphere to the black guy who understood instantly.

  "Of course!!" Malik replied in his thick, gravelly voice.

  Jake looked back at the new threat. Malik had kept behind the others before, probably keeping out of their way, but with two long strides, he appeared in front, dwarfing the others behind him. He kept taking those long, heavy, giant strides, bringing his foot down in loud thumps that shook the forest floor. He took one of the lances with his free hand. The lance had a large circumference, a scary length and an even sharper point. Jake knew he didn't want to get impaled by any of those spears. He leaped further, had to create distance.

  Malik aimed, stretched his hairy, gorilla hand back and threw. The lance zipped through the air with a chilling speed, faster than the arrows had been, and the arrows had been really fast. He leaped off the tree. One second late and an inch more accurate and the lance would've struck through his leg, or hand, maybe through both. It struck the branch, bore a hole through it and tore the branch off the tree.

  Malik didn't stop. He kept taking those giant lunges. It was as if he inherited an incredible jolt of energy that only increased when they'd meant to burn. In seconds, he'd armed his hand with another lance. He aimed. He launched. The lance this time floated with more speed and accuracy but failed to properly connect with its target. It grazed Jake's shoulder, spun upwards and took a slow descent back to the leaf caked ground. Jake got more panicky. Things were getting pretty rough. Malik cussed. Big Stan growled behind him. They were struggling to keep up with him, with both of them.

  Then Jake was forced to perch. The next tree, a very large one too was a questionable jump away. He had to calculate before making that jump. Malik slowed down and prepared to aim. He drew his arm back, poured momentum into it and released, as simultaneously as Jake jumped.

  Jake, in mid-air, looked back and realized his error. Malik had also calculated. Malik's lips snarled into a wicked grin. As Jake floated up to the branch, the lance followed his route.

  He'd barely placed his hands on the large branch before the lance rammed into his back, crushed its way through his tendons and muscles and stuck out of his chest in a crazy spurt of blood and torn flesh. The pain it inflicted on him swooned him right there. His hands collapsed. He fainted and it was the impact of him falling from that height, almost twenty five meters high, to the ground that shook him awake. And when awoken, the pain raged inside once more. He howled, so loudly a werewolf could've mistaken him for one of its own.

  "Gotcha!!" hailed his enemy, Big Stan. They were close. Their heartbeats rang in his head. He had to hide. He had to get himself away from an encounter. The lance had been trained with dead man's blood. He saw the disgusting blood burn his own blood off the blade of the spear. He rose weakly, stretched his hands to his back, grasped it and pushed it deeper within himself, allowing it to come out of the front. His blood ran down the full length of the lance, burning off at the tip. The dead man's blood was still active. He could feel it within him. He drew his overcoat back and saw the large hole the cursed thing made. The poison was making him sick. His senses were numbed. The wound wasn't going to heal quickly, he was certain of that but with the poison slowing him down and the hunters approaching, he ran out of choice. There was certainly no way he would reach Compshire now, not with his present condition.

  Footsteps! He dropped the spear and moved towards the tree he'd attempted to land on. His walking grew impaired, almost as if his feet were about to buckle and he still had to endure the pain within his chest. As he disappeared behind the tree, he witnessed the hunters emerging, Malik and Big Stan bringing up the fore.

  A few seconds silence. The tree he hid behind was large enough to hide one more person. Beyond that was a dark, dark forest and? a bright flash of light instantly sprang into view, filling the corner of his eye.

  "I know you're there," Big Stan croaked. "You don't have to make it hard for yourself, Jake Ripper."

  Jake! The Mad Prophet knew him.

  "What do you want from me?" Jake asked. Of course he knew the answer - death! His dead heart on a gold slab. "Why have you been hunting me?" He turned to see the white light, sending slivers of rays through the dark woods. It was ineffable, brilliant, beautiful and most of all, it felt bioluminescent. It was emanating from a source, a source that seemed to be alive. Somehow it seemed familiar. It was to his right, coming from beyond an opening out of the forest, an opening too near to be easily concealed.

  "Oh, funny question that? funny," and Big Stan drew a long laugh that felt like a sneer.

  Jake returned his focus to the hunters. "I haven't done anything to any of you," he protested, "to be hunted like an animal."

  "Pretty talk, hombre," Big Stan responded.

  "So why are you hunting me?" he continued. "Aren't my brothers' blood enough? Huh?"

  Big Stan tsk-tsked. "It's not about spilling blood, no."

  "So what is this about?" He looked back at the light. It was shrouded in mystery but it was inviting. It injected a feeling of hope into him. Light was meant to be his number one enemy, he knew that. However, this light didn't look like, or glow like other lights. It was ethereal, celestial. Too, it was endearing. It seemed to understand him, to call to him.
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br />   "Whatever's dead has to stay dead," Big Stan's voice pulled him from his worship.

  And he immediately figured out why they'd been slaughtered. They wanted them to remain in the grave. A very noble gesture, only he wasn't ready to die at their hands, no! Not when he was seeing the light. It called to him again, a soft definitive flicker. The hunters knew he hated light. Now this light, it was the last place they would attempt to look for him. the wound still throbbed madly but he'd long found the strength to walk however little. He was going to make it silently into the light.

  "There has to be another way out," Jake said silently, staggering away from the tree, into the dark.

  "There's no goddamn way out," Big Stan snapped angrily. "The stake, boy."

  Jake could see them all clearly now. He pulled himself through the trees, heading towards the light. As he edged closer to it, he felt its pulsating energy, felt it drawing him, pulling him, embracing him. Light that was warm, light that was friendly. As he dragged himself closer to it, its brilliance began to make it difficult for him to keep a sustained look at it. He looked back. Saw lit torches making an arc around the tree he'd left. They were planning to surround him and they definitely would've succeeded had he lingered. They probably had no knowledge of his disappearance as an alarm hadn't been made.

  He stumbled out of the clearing and headed towards the light.