The Tracker

by John Hunt

  Close to four in the morning, someone tapped on his door, scaring Taylor’s eyes wide open. A light tap-tap against the wooden door. He had fallen asleep and the initial confusion of where and why quickly faded under remembrance to be replaced by terror. The Tracker must have found him. Taylor had his rest and now the time had come for him to run again.

  “Hailey?” A deep voice whispered through the door.

  Heart hammering, Taylor exhaled a laugh of relief. On the flickering TV screen an infomercial advertised miracle zit cream. Funny how everything being sold on TV at four in the morning turned out to be a miracle product that for some reason wasn’t fit to sell during the day. Taylor shifted his weight on the bed. The springs protested.

  “I can hear you in there Hailey. Open up.”

  Taylor croaked, “You have the wrong room.”

  “You have a guy in there with you Hailey? Who is it? It’s that fucking Rick, isn’t it? C’mon, let me in, Hailey. I bought this hour, it’s mine.”

  Taylor ignored the guy, hoping he would go away.

  The man banged on the door instead and yelled, “Open up, for fuck’s sake. The cops are in the lot.”

  The police? Were they looking for him or patrolling? Definitely a hotspot of illegal activity, the police could be passing through, doing routine checks. Or they could know you’re here. They could know who you are and think you’re a dangerous psychopath. Maybe they were told to bring you in no matter what. You don’t take risks with maniacs. You put them down like you would a rabid dog. A bullet between the eyes.

  “Hailey, goddamnit! They’re looking at me!”

  Or were they looking at this room? Was this guy on the other side of the door actually a cop, trying to get him to open the door so they could storm inside? Were they surrounding the motel with their rifles and body armour? Would the police call his motel phone, wanting to talk to him and get him to turn himself in willingly?

  Taylor heard a woman’s voice say, “Hey. Can’t you take a hint? The person in there doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Yes, sir, officer sir.”

  “Do I look like a sir?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, I mean sorry.”

  “How about you get out of here? How about that?”

  “You got it sss-ma’am.”

  “Wait a minute. Do I know you? Aren’t you supposed to be on a curfew?

  “No. No curfew, ma’am.”

  “Get over here.”

  “Aw mannnn…”

  Their voices faded with their retreating footsteps. Taylor’s heart returned to a normal rhythm. The room smelled of pizza. He liked it. He wished it were his room at home instead of a room with questionably clean sheets. He would kill to get his hands on a pair of ruby slippers and make his wish a reality. If he wasn’t a wanted killer yet, he would be. Taylor turned off the TV and closed his eyes but his brain wouldn’t shut up. His thoughts badgered him until the sun glowed behind the curtains. Against his body’s wishes, he got up. Checkout time drew closer. He checked his watch. 6:15am. Eighteen hours left to go? Give or take. And not one peep from the Tracker. Maybe Taylor could pull this off after all.

  After he dined on cold pizza and soda, he brushed his teeth and stuffed his bag with everything else. Checking out of the room, he considered what to do. His body still ached but not in the same desperate way it had yesterday when he thought he would tip over from exhaustion. He would wander the city and if he felt even a twinge of the Tracker, he would move away from him as fast as he could and use the internal warning detector to his advantage. He sipped on a water bottle and thought as far as plans go, it wasn’t so bad. Not great, but not bad either.

  -17-

  The storm…

  Taylor’s morning turned out to be uneventful. He checked out of the motel, the clerk a different one than the previous two but with the same level of indifference, sipped on a Pepsi at seven in the morning and nodded at Taylor. He walked away from the motel, the sun a suggestion on the horizon and wandered. At around nine, he bought himself a McDonald’s breakfast and ate it in a park in the shade of a tree. He walked along a concrete sluiceway stopping every once in a while when his legs hurt too much or thighs chafed uncomfortably. Every time he stopped for a break, leaning on his elbows in the grass, feeling the warm sun on his face and faint breeze in his hair, he really wished he brought a book. No horror books, no way. Something light, similar to John Grisham’s, Playing for Pizza.

  In this way, he walked into the afternoon, snacking on his leftover pizza, with no sign or presence of the Tracker. He liked this area. Looking ahead, he imagined the sluiceway going on forever, passing through every town, province and ending at the Atlantic Ocean. Only a trickle of water remained in the bottom, flowing to somewhere, carrying leaves and whatever unlucky insect happened into it. No one walked along here and Taylor liked it that way. In heavy rain, this trickle could become a torrent in an instant. Many a parent warned their child away from this place, telling them they could get sucked into a sewer and shot out to the ocean if they wandered too close. Taylor’s mom told him the same such tale. He remembered it as a place to avoid, a red DANGER sign floating over this place in his brain, and thought for his purposes it was an ideal path to roam. He had no idea if the police were looking for him but he thought the odds likely they were and, just in case, he wanted to stay away from people. What if the police did know his name and instead of the image of him running, they broadcast his high school photo on all the news stations? Probably with a caption in bright, blood red reading: MANIAC ON THE LOOSE followed by CALL POLICE BUT DO NOT APPROACH and REWARD: DEAD OR ALIVE.

  If his mom could see him now.

  A sob hitched in his chest. He used his shirt sleeve to wipe at his eyes. He stopped walking and squinted at the sun that had been beating down on the back of his neck. It appeared almost white against the pale blue of the sky. He should have brought a hat. Or bought one. One of the big safari ones to protect the back of his neck. He froze. A twinge of presence, a distant echo of a sound only heard, no, felt, inside him. He moaned, “Not now.”

  Head whipping about, looking for a shadow to emerge from behind a tree or sprout up from the tall grass, Taylor held his breath. He ground his teeth and could hear the sound grating in his ear. From doing it so often, his jaw hurt but he couldn’t stop himself. He waited, wanting to know which way to run. It wouldn’t do to go towards the Tracker and his teeth. And like that, the feeling faded until it wasn’t a feeling at all, just an absence, a hole where terror crouched for a moment.

  Taylor’s body glistened with sweat. Circular sweat dots marred his new shirt. Funny how he could be so wet on the outside and his mouth could be so dry. It was though his mouth had been stuffed with cotton. He waddled to a tree on rubbery and almost useless legs and collapsed to the ground beneath it. He removed a water bottle and slugged it back. He grimaced at the warmth of it. The water gurgled in his stomach. He tugged at the elastic band on his track pants. They didn’t feel as tight. How much weight had he lost? In just over a day? As a weight-loss program, being chased by something because if it caught you, it would eat you, was not an ideal weight-loss strategy. Sure, it worked but you were too likely to end up dead and what would be the point of that? No. Better to live through exercise and healthy food choices although the torment and agony of such activity would last much, much longer. He smiled, thinking it couldn’t be all bad if he could still make stupid jokes. He finished the water. He thought of standing up and walking because when he was moving, he felt like he was doing something, participating in his own survival except the sun was warm, the ground soft and his body thrummed with exhaustion so he closed his eyes.

  ***

  Taylor jolted awake. The sun hung lower in the sky. Dry mo
uth again. He turned his head to find his backpack and saw a tall shadow racing across the grass reaching for him with black spindly fingers.

  The gravelly voice dripped with glee, “Got you now, fat boy! And papa is hungry!”

  BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

  The Tracker closed the distance and Taylor could see the jagged smile, the wind whipping the drool away from his mouth and in those dark, star-spinning eyes, Taylor saw death.

  He lurched to his feet, his whole body a twitching ache as he stumbled. He fell to his knees, cried from the pain and screamed because he could hear the pounding of the Tracker’s feet, hear his excited breath and knew the fingers were about to grab him, sink into his neck and pull him to the ground. Taylor found his feet and ran. Spurred by terror induced adrenaline, he yelled as he ran, creating distance, not knowing where to go, only knowing to get away from those teeth.

  He ran from the grassy area to a gravel path between houses. The wooden slat fence blurred as he passed it, his breath hot in his mouth and his legs begged him to slow down, to give this shit a rest already. He ran onto the roadway and when he glanced over his shoulder, the Tracker wasn’t there.

  Boom-boom-boom.

  Close by, hiding maybe, trying to creep up on Taylor and place a hand on his shoulder without being seen. Hell, maybe the Tracker got tired of running too. Yeah, right. That’s about as likely as you shooting a horse out of your ass to ride on. Taylor slowed to a trot, checking everywhere, examining every shadow. He thought to travel on the sidewalk but he didn’t like the lengthening shadows, the dark spaces in between houses or the large SUVs in driveways. The Tracker could be hiding behind one of them, giggling behind his hand with drool dripping down to collect at his feet, waiting for Taylor to walk by him so he could snag him from behind. Fuck that. Instead, Taylor thought it would be better to continue going right down the middle of the road. Why the hell not?

  In his right hand he held his backpack. It surprised him. He didn’t remember picking it up and seeing it in his hand seemed like magic. He slung it on his back, his eyes darting in every direction. Where was he?

  Boom-boom-boom.

  The reverberations vibrated Taylor’s teeth. The Tracker was nearby. Where could he be hiding? Taylor spotted a street sign. Raspberry Lane. Not a street he recognized. He had grown up in this town and thought he knew it pretty well. If he lived through this, he would know it even better.

  He walked down the middle of the road. One kid riding a trike along the sidewalk stopped and stared at him. Taylor dropped his gaze and lifted the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the stream of sweat running down his face. He had to get out of here.

  At the end of the street, a cab pulled into a driveway. Taylor quickened his pace and waved his hand above his head. A young man exited the back, paused as he caught sight of Taylor panting towards him and leaned into the door and said something to the driver. The young man walked up the driveway and into the house. As he approached, the driver, a white guy with dread locks tapped the steering wheel and, with a blank face behind mirrored sunglasses rolled down the window and he said, “Where to?”

  Taylor, reaching for the back door, stopped. Where did he want to go? Where could he go? Everywhere he went the Tracker found him. He needed a better place to hide. The isolated spots he had chosen weren’t working for him. Maybe it was time for a crowded place. An area where even if the Tracker were near, he could hide in a crowd. People could be his camouflage.

  Boom-boom-boom.

  Taylor twitched and glanced around.

  “Well?”

  Taylor ducked into the back of the cab and said, “Downtown. I want to go downtown.”

  ***

  The cab dropped him outside of a pharmacy downtown situated beside the entrance to the mall. Outdoor patios were crowded with people sipping on drinks, talking and eating on this early pleasant evening. Windshields of passing cars caught the late sun and they twinkled as they continued through the intersection. Sitting on the ground and benches were street people hiding drug deals in handshakes right underneath the affluent diners eating their steaks and drinking their wine.

  Taylor took in his surroundings while stretching his lower back. The cab ride had bothered it, causing the muscles to twitch in protest. He couldn’t feel the Tracker but that didn’t mean anything. He had snuck up on him earlier with ease and who knew if it were a switch he could turn off, whatever the sensor thing was? The Tracker made the rules for Taylor to follow. That didn’t mean they applied to the rule-maker. Now that he was downtown, he didn’t know what he should do or where he should go. Maybe it’d be best to walk around and stay in areas with more than one exit. He’d been lucky at the motel. He wouldn’t have been able to squeeze himself out a back window if the Tracker came at him from the front. No matter how hard he sucked in his gut. If the Tracker had come for him there, he would have been cooked.

  Two men sitting on a steel bench outside of the pharmacy caught his eye. One pulled a can of beer out of a backpack at his feet, took a long pull and set it back inside. The man beside him watched the beer go back in the bag with longing. The envious one took off his hat, ran a hand through his thick greasy hair, said something to the man and left. He noticed Taylor watching him and he dropped his eyes and slunk into the mall doors beside the pharmacy. He disappeared inside. The mall. Taylor should hide in the mall. Lots of people, multiple exits and he could buy something to eat from the food court. He hiked up his pants and walked inside, the din of conversations and the clink of glasses ceasing as soon as the mall doors closed behind him.

  ***

  Taylor bought a coffee and a ham and cheese croissant sandwich. He ate it at a table in the middle of the food court so he could see everything and everyone around him. A mom hauled on the hand of her wailing kid and a man in a business suit walked past him laughing into the phone at his ear. Taylor stuffed the croissant into his mouth with one hand and used the other to massage his legs. His right calf cramped up, a sharp violent protest to exercise, and Taylor reached down with a grimace to work the knot out of the muscle.

  Boom-boom-boom.

  A moan squeezed out of Taylor’s lips. He needed more time, he needed to think. The mall may have been a bad idea. There were too many people around. What had he been he thinking? Offering up more victims to the Tracker while playing this sick game? Don’t ask for help and don’t even hint the Tracker existed! Don’t let anyone else get murdered because of your own weakness. Taylor stood and stumbled, his calf not yet ready to support him. He slung his backpack and didn’t know where to go. What if he ran right into him? Out, just get out of here, find another cab and get the fuck gone. Taylor hissed out through his teeth as he forced himself to move despite his calf’s protest.

  Boom-boom-boom.

  Shit! Closer now. Much closer. Get moving! Taylor limped out of the food court, his eyes huge, heart lumbering and sweat lining his brow. Where could he be?

  Taylor pushed out of the mall doors and glanced left and right. He moved to the street in the hopes of waving down a passing cab, still favouring his calf and thinking he must look like a sweaty maniac from the concerned faces of the people he passed. No cabs in sight. Taylor moaned and pushed down a cry. A bus braked to a stop and he considered it, even walked towards it as the doors hissed open and then the Tracker stepped down from the bus, grinning his jagged teeth smile and ran at Taylor.

  BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Taylor blurted as he turned back the way he came.

  He ran into the mall, people parting before him with downturned lips and dinner plate eyes. Everything hurt. His legs, his stomach, the muscles on his ribs, his shoulders, the stupid rash between his thighs because they were so fat they rubbed together and it flashed through his mind to quit. Never
mind the constant fear pumping through his heart causing sharp darts of pain in his chest. What was he trying to live for anyway? True love? A movie contract? What exactly was the benefit? He had no one. He had nothing but a little house and an eternity of nights eating alone in front of the TV until he got so big he would have to move out to the garage like his mother so when he died, a bunch of strangers could talk behind their hands, amazed someone could let themselves get so big. Taylor’s future didn’t seem something worth fighting for. All he had to do was to stop running. Stand still and let the thing behind catch him. He slowed his pace a bit, thinking it through and then…BOOM-BOOM-BOOM. Taylor ran faster.

  He didn’t want to quit because he had some strength of character that refused to give in against overwhelming odds. No. Taylor knew the answer to be much simpler than that. The reason, put starkly, was Taylor was a coward. He didn’t want to be eaten alive. He didn’t want to get stuffed into the maw of the thing chasing him all over town. Didn’t want those hands digging into his soft stomach to rip out the entrails inside. Didn’t want to see the Tracker sucking the marrow out of his bones. Taylor had broken the rules. In his cowardice, he had caused the death of two people. And the Tracker had told him rule breaking meant consequences. Because of his cowardice, two strangers would never go home to their families again. The sad part was Taylor knew he would do it again. Something else took him over in those moments. His mind left him and only the need to survive remained. No other thoughts intruded, only he must get away and fuck everyone and everything that got in his way. Hell, he’d probably push a baby in front of him to avoid the Tracker and those shark teeth. He couldn’t quit. That would take courage of a sort. And his courage tank had always been empty.