The Hunt

by T. J. Lebbon

  At least if the police thought the shooter at the farmhouse was Chris, it would keep them there. She only hoped that he wouldn’t be shooting to kill.

  ‘What?’ Chris called from up ahead. He was panting, but he cut an imposing figure of determination and fitness. She’d barely noticed it before.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Keep on running.’

  They followed the farm track for another half an hour, and as each moment went by, Chris impressed her more. He’d always been a means to an end. A way to get to the Trail, draw them into the open, damage their plans and then hurt them. She’d done that, and would do so some more, for as long as she possibly could. But as she watched him running ahead of her, she saw him as a human being as well. A man desperate to help his family, and so close to ending up like her. All it would take was three gunshots, three slices of a knife, and he would be like her. Bereft, grief-stricken, lost. She couldn’t imagine anything worse.

  Rose decided then that she would not let them ruin another life. This was now as much about helping Chris as satisfying her own need for revenge.

  He’d been running for a day and a night, and looked as if he’d only just begun.

  Chris was beyond exhausted. He’d moved into that zone where it was almost entirely mental attitude keeping him going. He’d been there before – during his first marathon, then his first ultra-marathon through the Lake District mountains, and then his Ironman race – and in some ways that made it a little easier. He knew he could run through the exhaustion and pain. He knew that a strong mental approach could defeat physical exhaustion, for a time at least. He was lost in the running, existing in a world where one step in front of the other was all that mattered. Each step took him closer to his wife’s smile, his daughters’ giggles. Against them, the pain in his knee was nothing, the dog scratches and hot-spots of blisters forming on his feet meaningless.

  He felt time closing in, and the faster he ran, the better chance he had of beating it to the line. If that meant leaving the woman behind, so be it. If she fell off the bike and broke a leg, fainted because of her gunshot wound, or aimed a gun at him and ordered him to halt, he’d just keep moving forward. He was an unstoppable force, and the only immovable object that would stop him would be death.

  Rose didn’t care about his fate or wellbeing. Everything was on his shoulders, and Chris discovered that he was strong. He’d developed a solid can-do attitude with his fitness and challenges, and he fed on that now more than ever before. Not finishing this race had never been an option.

  His family drew him on. They were closer than they had been since he gave his dozing wife a kiss before leaving for his morning run. Closer than that last glance he’d given his sleeping daughters. He’d felt happy leaving them all, knowing that they still slept and dreamed, looking forward to his long jaunt through the hills and countryside that set him up for the day, made him feel alive.

  He would never be happy leaving them again.

  At last they came to the end of the farm track. It had been rough going, probably more so for Rose than him. But running out onto the potholed tarmac road, leaving the mud and puddles behind, felt good on his feet.

  It also meant that they were getting nearer to civilisation.

  He couldn’t be seen. The risk of being recognised was too great. He pulled his running cap from his pocket and slipped it on, then chuckled to himself as they started off again. He and Rose were carrying fucking rifles over their shoulders. Hiding his hairdo would do little to protect him from discovery.

  The road followed the widening stream at the valley bottom, twisting left and right and crossing over low stone bridges when the terrain necessitated it. They passed several junctions, always heading south. He guessed the other directions led towards other remote farmsteads. It felt like they were really moving now. His left foot grew more painful, his knee stiffer, but he fed on the pain. It made him angry.

  The bike wheels whirred behind him as Rose free-wheeled down a long slope. Then the road veered upwards again, and he heard her heavy breathing and grunting as she pedalled hard. She had to change gears partly by crossing her left hand over to the right. He didn’t slow down. Maybe she’d have been happier running, but he doubted it. Once she gave him the bike, he’d be gone.

  He thought of shoving her off and just taking it. But he knew that he’d need her. The violence yet to come was her game.

  As the road started to climb out of the valley, heading for a ridge that looked a long, long way up, they saw a car heading down towards them.

  ‘Off the road!’ Rose shouted. Chris was already jumping the narrow ditch and leaping from rock to rock, and he heard her gasp as the bike went over.

  He turned around. She was down in the flooded ditch, bike on top of her with the back wheel still spinning. She struggled to keep her head above the water, groaning as it washed through her wounds, left hand slapping at the ground as she tried to haul herself out. They locked eyes.

  Chris went to help, hauling the bike from her and slinging it over his shoulder. He held out his left hand and she grabbed on, squeezing, nodding her thanks as he pulled her upright.

  ‘Food,’ she said. ‘And water. Just until they go by, we can have a minute’s rest.’

  Chris wanted to object but knew that she was right.

  The car was an old VW van. It sped past without slowing, and there were no signs that Chris and Rose had been seen. They drank some water and ate the farmer’s bread and jam, crouched down behind a tumble of boulders. As soon as the van was out of sight, Chris stood to move on.

  ‘Can’t we just … ’ Rose said, not even finishing the sentence. She could barely speak. Blood soaked her shirt and jacket arm again from the reopened wound.

  ‘No time,’ Chris said.

  She glanced at her watch, nodded, and stood up.

  Shooting shattered the silence. Whoever it was, they were close, and there was more than one gun. But they were also bad shots.

  Chris dropped. Rose was already down, twisting to bring the rifle from her shoulder.

  ‘Trail?’ he asked.

  ‘No. This is scatter shot, and we were sitting pretty. If it was them they’d have made sure they hit us the first time.’

  ‘The hunters? They can’t have found us, how could … ’

  ‘Fuck,’ Rose whispered.

  ‘Tracker.’ Chris looked down at his shoes. He should have ripped them apart, changed them, but with everything that had happened he’d forgotten. And honestly, he had never believed that these men could have caught up with them, not now, not this far away. He’d been trapped in the basement for over two hours, true. But had they really run through the night like him?

  It didn’t matter.

  ‘Wait here,’ Rose said.

  ‘Don’t kill them!’ he said.

  ‘What?’ She sounded dumbfounded.

  ‘Just … shoot to injure, or something.’

  ‘That’s harder than shooting to kill!’

  ‘Please!’ So much killing. He felt sick at the thought of more.

  Rose shook her head. More shots sounded, wide and wild. She peered around the rocks and looked for some time.

  ‘They’re coming down off the slopes,’ she said. ‘All three of them. Give me your shoes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m going to lead them off. I know what I’m doing. Remember, they don’t know that we know about the chip. If we did, we’d have got rid of it by now.’ She shook her head. ‘Fuck sake.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not like you, I just didn’t think of it.’

  ‘I was swearing at myself. Come on. Shoes.’

  He slipped off his trainers. It felt divine, but he knew it would be torture putting them back on again. Rose kicked off her own boots – they’d be too small for him – and pulled his trainers on.

  ‘Euch. Warm and wet.’

  ‘You should be honoured.’ He tried to smile, but his weak attempt at humour didn’t go that far.

  ‘I won’t be
long.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take the bike.’

  ‘No. Wait.’

  ‘Tell me where the Trail’s barn is.’

  ‘So you can go on without me?’ She shook her head. ‘No way. I’ve got as much business there as you. If you get there before me you’ll mess things up.’

  ‘But what if they kill you?’

  ‘They won’t.’ She nodded at the bike. ‘Take it, but wait for me. Couple of miles along the road, find a safe place and give me … an hour.’

  ‘Half an hour,’ Chris said. ‘Then I’m gone and I’ll find the place on my own. I mean it.’

  ‘Chris, we’ve got to shake these bastards from our tail, you know that.’

  ‘So hurry.’

  Rose pursed her lips, and he thought she was going to argue some more. But she could see his determination.

  ‘Wait here for ten minutes, then go.’ And she was gone, creeping away from the road and across the countryside. Chris watched her until she disappeared, hidden by folds in the land.

  He crouched down and waited behind the rocks, rifle resting on the ground before him. After a couple of minutes he risked a glance, looking across the road and up the gentle slope opposite. He saw two men lumbering down the hill, heading for a point several hundred yards along the road. One was the fat one, and he couldn’t help admire his resilience. The other had gone almost completely Rambo, stripping off his shirt to reveal a fleshy, pale torso, mud smeared across him, running in the rain. He could not see the third man.

  He watched them struggling to run, obviously close to exhaustion. They remained close together, and every now and then the fat one consulted something in his hand. He pointed ahead and they continued, reaching the road and crossing quickly, guns held at the ready.

  Chris readied himself to move, then heard a soft, low voice.

  ‘Here we go. This is it. This is it!’

  He closed his eyes, breathed softly, and started to turn around.

  ‘Wait … wait, keep still … ’ the voice whispered, panicked, excited. ‘Gun down. Now!’

  Chris continued turning around, gun held pointed down, and made eye contact as quickly as he could. ‘My name’s Chris Sheen,’ he said. ‘My daughters are called Megs and Gemma. I’m their dad. My wife is Terri, and she’s beautiful. I have a family like yours.’

  The hunter’s eyes were wide, glinting with shreds of madness. His camouflage gear was heavy with rainwater and mud. He was breathing hard. He gave no sign of hearing, or processing what he heard, and Chris knew then that appealing to the man’s humanity would be useless. This had gone way beyond that.

  ‘Here we go … ’ the man said, and his whole body tensed as his rifle ceased wavering.

  ‘Safety catch,’ Chris said.

  The man frowned, glanced down at his weapon, and tilted it slightly to the right.

  Chris fired from the hip. The blast was deafening, the recoil jarring, and as the man flipped back onto the ground Chris brought the gun up to his shoulder and aimed at his torso. His finger remained tight on the trigger, ready to fire again.

  The man had dropped his gun and clasped both hands to the left side of his stomach. Blood bloomed. He groaned, then started to whine as he rocked gently from side to side. He might have been crying, but his tears were lost in the rain. Chris felt a surge of fury. How dare this bastard cry?

  Gunfire came from along the road. Chris glanced that way but could see nothing, and he had to assume Rose could deal with them herself. Two quick shots echoed across the landscape, then after a few seconds, two more.

  ‘You fucking shot me!’ the man on the ground said through gritted teeth.

  ‘You’ll live,’ Chris said. The disgust he felt, the rage, the smothering sense of unfairness, all pressed down to suffocate and crush him. But he could not allow that. He was better than them. ‘Can you walk?’ he asked.

  The man sat up slowly, both hands pressed to his side. The bullet must have barely touched him, passing straight through the overly fleshy part of his hip. He took his hands away, examined the wound, and said, ‘Yeah, think so.’

  Chris took one step closer and shot him in the right shin.

  This time he screamed. His leg smacked against the ground and settled out of shape, the unnatural angle making Chris gag. He kicked the hunter onto his back and picked up his rifle, slinging the weapon he’d just used over his shoulder.

  ‘Chris!’ Rose was calling from a long way off. There was a side to her voice that he didn’t like, so he crouched down and listened again.

  The man he’d shot was still shouting. Chris prodded him in the chest with the rifle and held a finger to his lips. The man, eyes wide and face now pale as snow, bit down on his lip until it bled.

  ‘Chris!’ she called again.

  He heard footsteps running along the road, growing rapidly closer. Heavy footsteps. He was shielded from the road, but once the man drew level he’d be able to see them both. He decided not to wait that long.

  Taking a deep breath, Chris braced the gun against his shoulder and stood.

  The man was barely ten metres away, running with his rifle held across his bare chest. He wore a camouflage headscarf and had mud smeared across his body. Sweat and rain had washed it into streaked patterns. It was the Rambo character, lost in his own fantasy. The image should have been comical but wasn’t. He was a fat, stinking pig of a man, and Chris came so close to shooting.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted instead. The man skidded to a halt and looked around, still not seeing him. ‘Gun down … slowly.’

  ‘He means it!’ the shot man shouted.

  For a split second, Chris thought the fat man was going to try to bring his own rifle up to shoot. I won’t hesitate, he thought, finger tightening on the trigger. ‘You want to die?’ he asked.

  Rose appeared along the road, running a few steps before shouldering her own rifle.

  ‘You’ve got one second,’ Chris said.

  The man threw the gun aside and fell onto his front, arms and legs held out in a star shape.

  Rose lowered her rifle and ran. Chris expected to see a fresh wound, pale face, glimmering blood, but she reached him quickly and nodded once.

  ‘The other one?’ he asked.

  ‘Dead.’ Whether she’d done it on purpose or not didn’t matter to Chris right then. All that mattered was that they were wasting time.

  ‘You, fat fuck. Down there.’ He nodded across the ditch and behind the rocky pile to where the other man still writhed in pain. The fat man crawled from the road, leaning across the ditch and scrambling up the other side.

  ‘Can’t just leave him,’ Rose said. ‘He’ll run, get help.’

  The fat man was not helping his hunting companion. He sat apart from him, staring at Chris and fearing his own fate. He was barely human. Chris wondered if he had kids and a wife, but he didn’t want to know. All this was making him feel sick to the core, despairing of the humanity that he’d had such faith in. These men were the minority, he knew that. But knowing that even a small minority like this existed tainted everything.

  ‘Have fun explaining this,’ he said.

  The fat man’s eyes went wide. Chris aimed. The man shuffled backwards, back pressed against a rock, grew still. Chris fired and missed.

  ‘No, no!’ the man shouted, and he turned to scramble away.

  ‘Chris—’ Rose began, but he shouted over her.

  ‘Keep still or I’ll just shoot into your gut!’

  The man settled again, resting on his side, shivering.

  Chris aimed and fired again.

  The man’s right knee exploded. He was so shocked, the pain clearly so intense, that it took him almost a minute to start screaming. In that time Chris and Rose stripped both men’s trousers and underwear down their wounded legs, smashed their satphones, took their remaining food and ammunition. Neither had any water left.

  Chris took a pair of walking boots. Rose kicked his running shoes into the ferns and
slipped her own boots back on, and he felt a curious pang as they went. He’d run hundreds of happy miles in them before all this, and discarding them was like casting aside part of his history.

  They left without a backward glance. Chris saw Rose giving him an admiring appraisal, and he almost shot her as well. She had made herself into a killer, and he did not crave her admiration for what he had done. He was not like her. He still had a life, if only he could save it.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  safety

  They dodged two more police cars before they reached the point where the road passed over the high ridge. The cars were travelling quickly, and Rose hoped that they would pass by the dead man and two survivors without spotting them. With luck, the wounded and humiliated hunters would have hidden away, waiting for the Trail to come and extract them.

  They didn’t know that most of this Trail cell was already dead.

  Chris had watched as she’d dragged the man she’d shot further from the road, not offering to help. Fair enough. He’d already seen more violent death than any normal person ever should.

  Looking down into the next valley they saw civilisation at last. Walls and hedges criss-crossed the landscape, road surfaces glimmered silver with rain, and a couple of miles away the small village of Llwybr huddled low, dwarfed by the expansive landscape. Weak daylight reflected from windows and car windscreens.

  ‘Close,’ Chris said. She heard the hope in his voice and it cut deep, surprising her, reminding her that her own life was now without hope. They might yet save his family, but whatever rage-filled revenge she continued to exact on the Trail, her own was still dust. Nothing could bring them back. Tears mixed with the rain to cloud her vision. Death and murder had tainted her, and yet in the purity of Chris and his family, perhaps she could find some peace.

  ‘There’ll be at least two of them,’ she said. ‘One or two keeping watch, another close to your family.’

  ‘With a gun at their heads.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She pulled a smartphone from her pocket and accessed the screen, relieved to see reception. She opened an app, entered the name she’d been given, and Goytre Barn appeared on a map. Touching the screen brought up a small compass in the corner, and she turned until the map shown lined up with the wide vista before them.