The Hunt (Tony Downs)

by Paul E. Cooley

  Contents

  The Hunt

  Copyright

  About The Author

  Also By The Author

  Jesus Jones was playing on the jukebox. The winter rain pelting the roof was barely audible over the thumping bass. More people were in the bar than I had expected. From my place in the corner, I had a good view of the whole dance floor. Women and men wearing tight denim, some even in leather britches, walked around, checking on possible companions for the evening. Or maybe just looking for their friends. Maybe even for their drugs.

  After making a cursory sweep of the bar, I kept my head buried toward my Jack and Coke. Best way to look inconspicuous is to not let anyone find you staring at them. Besides, there were other ways to find out what was going on.

  The dance floor behind the main bar area pulsated with the music; lights flashed in time with the beat, making all the people stand and stop in mid-writhe. Strobes and gels bathed the area in bloody hues. I couldn't help but tap my feet on the floor. Even with the mission planted in my mind I couldn't stop that. Hell, if it had been a different night, I guess I would have been out there dancing around and having a good time.

  With my eyes closed, I let my mind wander. The sounds of voices and even the music faded like it always does when I just turn off the outside world and focus on the world inside. Through someone else's eyes, I watched a drunk blond make her way from the dance floor and toward the toilet. I felt her nausea as I entered her mind, saw her feet barely keeping contact with the floor as she moved in great loops of drunken confusion.

  Flash.

  The bartender ogled some brunette who walked in and headed toward him, his eyes planted firmly between her breasts and the large amount of skin visible through the leather mesh. Him thinking that maybe he'd slip her something, get her drunk, and convince her to stick around until closing time. Or maybe he'd offer her some of the coke in his private locker. Maybe that would keep her around. Then a large man wearing a motorcycle jacket walked up behind her, scooped her up, and began kissing her. Her arms wrapped around him and she didn't seem to mind the embrace at all.

  Fuck, he thought, figures.

  I felt his embarrassment and had to smile.

  Searching, letting my mind go out and feel everyone. I found some I would like to have been friends with, maybe even a possible lover or two. But the rest… The rest weren't that much different from him. And he was the reason I was there instead of at school studying for my last two finals.

  I sensed him walk through the door while I was in the mind of a guy on the dance floor, his thoughts swirling in an acid induced haze. Through the corner of the stoned dancer's eyes I caught a glimpse of Mikey. Oh, Mikey. He looked so cool in his black motorcycle jacket, slogans in red and blue paint marking it like a bulletin board. The portrait of Dante's Inferno screamed merrily off his back in white and red lines.

  He didn't paint it. I knew that the moment he walked in the bar. Rachel painted it.

  Poor Rachel, I thought with a chuckle.

  Fighting the urge to peer inside him, I wondered just what he thought of Rachel's little "accident." God, I hoped it had had the desired effect. I knew the cops had liked it.

  A cold blast of wind from the door brought me out of the kid's mind. I returned to myself and took another sip. My body sometimes decides to do its own thing when I'm exploring others. That's why I so rarely go exploring in public. It can be dangerous. The week before, it almost got me killed.

  The Tuesday before was rainy too. And the weather announcer on the radio kept repeating merrily that the National Weather Service had stated there was "Zero Chance of Rain." The night's running joke, apparently. I wanted to call the guy and tell him the gag already had shin splints and was getting gimpier.

  With the car parked in the dorm lot, I sat there watching the rain run down the windshield. I don't know what it was, but something suddenly seemed right in the air around me. A premonition perhaps.

  I turned off the radio in the midst of New Model Army's "The Hunt," put on my sister's UH ball cap and opened the door. The rain was quick to inundate me. Cold's embrace tried to get through the leather trench, but I had dressed for it.

  I headed across the parking lot. The trench coat was larger than it needed to be. All the better to confuse physical descriptions. With my long hair bundled inside the cap, I thought for sure I'd be a dead ringer for someone else. That was my hope anyway.

  Wet pavement and gravel made it difficult to travel silently across the lot and to the grassy area in front of the dorm. But there was really nothing to worry about— no one in sight. Besides, the rain was falling so hard I doubt if anyone but me could hear the sound of my boots grinding broken glass into the concrete.

  Fighting the urge to run to the distant awning, I slowly walked between cars. The dorm was dead ahead. Four floors high and spread out like a large office building. Among the taller, newer buildings, the dorm seemed buried in their shadows.

  A quick look told me that most of the dorm's occupants were either asleep or out at the bars. Most of the windows were dark and that was just fine. It would make things a little easier for me.

  On a Tuesday night, with finals week dead ahead, I didn't expect many people to be out carousing, but the nearly empty parking lot seemed to defy that fact. Whether the occupants were out somewhere dancing the night away or curled between the sheets didn't matter to me— they wouldn't be around to cause me trouble.

  Up five wide steps and I stood beneath the awning facing the main entrance. All I really knew about this dorm was that the other entrances were nearly impossible for someone to gain access without a key. Sis told me that on one occasion. Hell, the only things I knew about the dorm came from her— she used to live there.

  Heated air surged through vents in the side of the building. I briefly wondered how they managed to keep the homeless from setting up camp during the winter break. After all, the University of Houston isn't far away from where most of the Houston homeless seek refuge under the many interstate overpasses and derelict buildings. And this had to be a much better location than where many water moccasins housed themselves in the dark and moist passageways the city forgot about.

  Only a glass door separated me from the building's warm insides where countless students tried to pass classes so they could keep their financial aid and party their lives away. Shaking my head, I stood there and looked in through the glass. Several pieces of furniture, brightly colored to fit with the red and white walls, sat in the center. They seemed to invite someone to sit in them, to just kick back and let life's stress fly by.

  It was time to decide. I heard my father's voice in my mind, saying something about not being able to go back, to change the things he regretted. I smiled.

  We all must make mistakes, I thought.

  His voice shot right back, Yes, but why must you make the same ones I have?

  I pushed him out of my mind and opened the door. A warm blast of air thawed my face and made the rainy cold seem distant. Without hesitation, I walked right through the door and into “Cougar-Country!” as one of the posters proudly proclaimed. Except for the tinny top "40" music piping softly through unseen speakers and the sound of my boots squeaking on the dry tile, nothing in the place made a sound.

  University of Houston paraphernalia covered the walls with happy reminders about their lackluster basketball team and dorm events. "Make Sure To Take Your Key," one sign said in large bold lettering. With the exception of the one which read "ALL VISITORS MUST SIGN IN AFTER MIDNIGHT," it was the only somber sign. To unify team spirit, a large red banner with Shasta the cougar growling ferociously hung from the wall.

  "May I help you?" a sleepy voice asked.

  I turned fro
m the gaudy banner and toward the front desk. A rather over-weight co-ed with raven braids sat peering at me with dazed eyes. I guess she had fallen asleep and was awakened by the sound of my squeaking boots. Her smile, thin and strained to begin with, gradually disappeared as the silence grew.

  I'm sure it was the trench-coat which put her on guard. And if that didn't do it, then it was probably the startled look in my eyes when I turned to face her. I cursed myself for not seeing her sooner.

  "Yes," I said. "I think you can." I stepped forward toward her desk until I was only about ten feet away. "I'm sorry to trouble you," I said, "but I need some information."

  "On what?" she asked.

  I smiled. "You have a resident named Rachel Delaney?"

  She shook her head.

  "Is there a problem?"

  "I'm not allowed to give you anything but her phone number."

  Damn, I thought.

  "Look, I'm a friend of hers. I just needed to--"

  She smiled, suddenly looking like the school's mascot about to have lunch. "If you're such a good friend of hers, why don't you have her number?"

  "Well, I'm from out of town. And her last letter--"

  "Where you from?" she asked. Her hand strayed toward a button on the desk. Panic button, I thought. She's about to hit that sucker and bring security, right?

  My mind opened toward her own. I felt my eyes grow larger in my head, the black pupils overshadowing the green. Her face began to slack, the confident, weary smile and the flush in her cheeks drained from her face. "Doesn't matter," I mumbled aloud. "Does it?"

  "No," she said dreamily.

  Give me her room number, dear, I thought.

  She looked at me with fuzzy eyes. "What did you say?"

  "I need her room number.”

  Her hand fumbled with the resident's directory on the desk. I stepped forward until my hands rested on the counter.

  "Rachel Dehlaney?" she asked in a distant voice.

  "Yes, love," I said. Room number, I whispered in her mind.

  With my eyes closed, I concentrated on the memory of the co-ed's face. I felt as though I was stretching my arms toward something in the night, fingers splayed, ready to pull back for fear of the unknown. I reached until I found her mind. She moaned softly. She wasn’t trying to fight me. Quite the opposite. She embraced the mental hands, her mind calm, cool, almost refreshingly vital.

  "Rachel Dehlaney," I said. I need her room number, I whispered again inside her head.

  "Rachel,” she mumbled.

  I opened my eyes and looked at her. "Rachel Dehlaney," I said aloud and pushed harder. Not enough to hurt her mind or make her do something against her will.

  "Rachel Dehlaney," she said aloud and her hands fumbled with the pages. Her index finger ran down the rows. "Her room number," the girl said, "is 312."

  "Thank you," I whispered into her mind. "One more thing, love."

  "Yes?"

  "Does she have a roommate?"

  "Yes," the girl said peering down, squinting at the pages. "Beatrice Riley."

  Ah, I thought. Birds of a feather.

  I looked over her shoulder and found the door that led to the stairs. The sign posted on the door commanded "KEEP DOOR LOCKED AT ALL TIMES FOR YOUR PROTECTION!"

  Would you mind opening the door to the stairs? I asked her mind.

  She smiled. "Sure." The co-ed stood from her chair, fished out a large set of keys from one tight pocket, and headed toward the door. Her eyes, bloodshot and glazed with fatigue, had not so much as regarded me since I had begun speaking in her mind. After she unlocked the door, she held it open for me. "You have to hold it," she said, "or it will shut and lock behind you."

  "But anyone on the other side can open it, correct?"

  "Yes."

  Good. "I understand," I said aloud. "Thank you."

  I walked though the door partway and then turned to her. "Now, I want you to go back to your desk and forget we had this conversation. Can you do that for me?" She said she would. "Good. You'll feel like you just woke up and you will be refreshed. Understood?" She nodded. "Good girl," I said and let the door close. I waited until she had returned to her desk. I saw this through her eyes as if watching a very dirty television screen. Once she sat and lay her head down, I let go of her mind.

  Silently and as quickly as I dared, I climbed the steps toward the third floor. The tight stairwell turned twice and then I pressed myself against the wall. Someone below opened the door to the stairwell. It was her, of course, probably trying to assess if she had dreamed me, or I had really been there. I could have done a better job removing my presence from her memory, but there just wasn't enough time. After the door closed again and I was sure she wouldn’t tromp up the stairs looking for me, I made my way to the third floor landing encased by dirty concrete walls.

  Mikey was sitting at the bar talking to the bartender. As I guessed, they were old friends or business partners. The coke made that seem plausible. I could have peered into the bartender's mind and grabbed that information from him easily. But I didn't want to. There was something strange about Mikey. I didn't know what it was at the time, but the encounter with Rachel Dehlaney had made me cautious. Something she said to me the Tuesday night I snuck into her dorm had unsettled me. I guess if I had done things correctly that night, I wouldn't have had to track down Mikey to begin with.

  As promised, the door to the third floor was locked.

  "Rachel Dehlaney," I said with closed eyes, mental hands searching in the darkness for a responsive target. I traveled through the twenty minds on the floor, whispering the name.

  Go away!

  What?

  Leave me alone!”

  STOP IT!

  The responses of ones who were not her— they didn't understand why I was in their minds.

  Like the creeping angel of death searching for lamb's blood, each thought which answered from the sleeping occupants of floor three assured them a safe night's sleep. Those who slept heard the name in their dreams and tried to ignore it. Those who were studying thought they heard a distant voice. And then there was the dreamer who sat up suddenly in bed, cold with the eerie cry of her own name.

  Rachel Dehlaney! I yelled into her mind.

  She responded by rolling her legs off the bed and setting them firmly on the floor. My mental hands grabbed at this equivalent of Pharaoh's first born son.

  She stood and bumped her head on the top bunk. She was beginning to panic.

  Go to the mirror, I said in her mind.

  She resisted by reflex, but it was an extremely short battle. With my eyes closed, straining to hold her tightly within mental fists, I got one full, clear glimpse of her. Rachel Dehlaney looked so much more ugly after having been awakened so suddenly. Her long hair was clumped and matted, the bangs knit in an untidy crown above her forehead. Her pale skin had blemishes which her make-up had covered quite well the night Jennifer had pulsed out her cry for help. I saw enough in the mirror to be sure the person I was in was THE Rachel Dehlaney— the one I had traveled there for.

  Jennifer Downs, I whispered in her mind.

  "No," she said.

  With a mental snarl, I pictured the man who killed Jennifer, him standing above her laughing. Rachel seized the image with a frightened interior scream. Tell me who he is, where he is!

  No, he'll kill me! she screamed back in terror.

  I pushed then, as hard as I could without shutting her off and destroying her mind. NOW!

  The word slammed into her thoughts like a mental hammer. There would be internal damage from the force of the push. Sure enough, I felt the pain as her nose began to bleed. She was silent to the dorm, our battle taking place in her mind. I kept her from screaming aloud, focusing pressure on the brocha's area, the bright point in the brain which enables speech. But inside her mind, she was howling and shrieking with pain. Her fear of him was suddenly gone. Her fear of me, on the other hand…

  Pictures of his face, of Beatrice’s, Je
nnifer’s, passed like clouds in a gentle breeze. A young man standing over Jennifer, fists raised over her naked back. A still shot, catching the snarl of the handsome young man whose expression had turned him monstrous. At his side, a twisted smile on her face, stood the girl Beatrice, red droplets peppering her leather jacket. The distant glow of sodium lamp light washing over their bodies. A silent scream from the girl Rachel.

  In the eyes of her memory, even this came through. I watched as much of the scene as I could before finally slapping her with a thought.

  STOP!

  Her nose bled furiously, head reeling with the painful echo inside her mind. The pictures stopped, darkness and gloom replacing the last mental photographs of blood covered hands and a young man unzipping himself, ready to rape a dying young girl. My whole body shook with rage.

  "Why?" I asked the empty stairwell. She didn't respond. Why?

  What? her hurt mind asked, the thought was tinged with the color of pain.

  I fought the sudden urge to just destroy her. Why didn't you stop it?

  No response. I pushed and felt her mind bend against my will. Her sanity was on the edge of collapse. I finally let myself relax. She wasn't fighting after all, but trying to formulate an answer. For a moment, I merely kept the leash on her physical abilities.

  I couldn’t, she mentally sobbed.

  Beatrice helped him, didn't she?

  Yes.

  She lured the girl, lured Jennifer with the promise of a good time, right?

  No verbal response, but a picture floated across my vision. Jennifer meeting Rachel and Beatrice in their room, drinks being consumed along with cocaine. It was enough. Why couldn't you stop it? No answer. Why?

  I don't know.

  She's not lying to me, I thought. I'd know if she was. Who is he?

  Mikey Whitmire.

  "Whitmire," I said aloud. What is he?

  Rachel didn’t answer in words. Another picture flashed in my mind, a newspaper picture of Mikey Whitmire on Beatrice's wall, the caption read "City Council Woman's Son: Amateur Playboy." Everything in my body tightened. Lots of things suddenly made sense.