The Tracker

by John Hunt

  Owen moved, gun held in front of him, sights on Taylor’s head. Rosie screamed and was saying something but the panic in her voice garbled the words. Too focused on Taylor, he pushed forward and sensing Earl fanning out to his right, he yelled, “Get away from her Taylor!”

  Taylor turned his head to Owen with a crazed grin on his face. Owen recoiled, took a step back, thought, what the fuck, move forward, not back, and stopped his backwards momentum.

  “Let me see your hands! Back away from her! I need to see your hands!”

  Taylor stood and backed away from Rosie, raising his hands. He heard the clink of a bucket as it hit the ground. Rosie screamed, “GET IT OUT OF ME! IT HURTS! GET IT OUT!”

  Owen, gun still pointing at Taylor, walked ahead so he stood beside Rosie. Owen gasped at what he saw. He struggled to understand it. A brown back and swishing tail was protruding from Rosie’s stomach. It didn’t make sense. He locked eyes with Earl on the other side, confusion making a crooked line of his eyebrows.

  “GET IT OUT YOU, FUCKS! GODDAMN IT! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING-AH, IT’S BITING!”

  Owen holstered up and dropped in front of Rosie. He reached for the back of the squirming animal and when his hands encircled the back end, he let go and said, “It’s a fucking rat!”

  Earl said, “Shit! Where’d Taylor go?”

  “I CAN FEEL IT MOVING INSIDE! GET IT OUT! PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE!”

  “Cover me, Earl!”

  Owen grasped the back end of the rat and squeezed. He pulled on it and Rosie wailed louder and he let go.

  “DON’T LET GO OF IT, YOU JACKASS!”

  Owen grabbed onto it again and pulled. It fought him and he didn’t understand why it wanted to be in there. It couldn’t breathe, could it?

  “Owen! I can’t see him! I lost Taylor.”

  Owen fell onto his back with the rat squirming red in his hand. Rosie, exhausted, had trouble keeping her eyes open. He threw the rat away into a dark corner. He scooted and crawled to her and studied the ropes binding her. With blood flowing from the hole in her stomach and sliding out of her mouth she said, “Taylor…he’s got…a…gun.”

  “Earl…”

  A shot echoed in the barn. Earl dropped. And then another bullet plunked dust from the ground by Earl’s body. Earl wasn’t moving. Owen drew his gun and moved to stand in front of Rosie. Another shot fired. It clipped Owen’s thigh but he only noted it, like something to worry about later, because he focused on the flash and seeing Taylor’s grinning face floating above the white suit, he concentrated on a spot in the centre of the chest, just like he did in training every year, except this wasn’t training and Taylor wasn’t a paper target. Owen pulled the trigger and kept pulling. He didn’t know how many bullets he fired. He only stopped when Taylor fell to the ground in the darkness.

  Keeping his gun pointed towards Taylor, Owen said, “Earl? You okay, man?”

  Rosie moaned behind him and he almost smiled because he thought it had been Earl.

  “No. I’m not okay.”

  Owen exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Time to go, time to move. Check on Taylor, help Rosie before she bled out and check on Earl.

  Walking forward, he kicked through spent shell casings, the tinkling noise almost pleasant, reminding him of door chimes on summer days. The scent of gunpowder crinkled his nose. He didn’t like the smell. He associated it with violence and he was getting pretty damn tired of it.

  Owen walked into the corner where he had shot Taylor. He thought for a crazy second Taylor wouldn’t be there. He’d get to the corner and instead of a body, he find blood. Then he’d feel breathing on his neck and know death stood behind him.

  Instead, Taylor was where he should be.

  On his knees, leaning back against the wooden wall, Taylor’s eyes followed Owen. His breath bubbled blood on his lips. Holes dribbled blood from his chest. Good shots. Tight group. Except they were into a person and not a paper target. A person.

  “Tell Rosie, I couldn’t stop him. I tried.”

  “Stop who? The Tracker? Taylor, you are the Tracker.”

  Taylor smiled and grimaced when a cough racked him. Blood sprayed from his mouth and with eyes, normal eyes staring at Owen, he died.

  -35-

  Aftermath…

  Earl had been shot in the forearm and the bullet ricocheted off a bone and plowed into his stomach. The doctors told him it would take a few surgeries to get him right inside and in Owen’s opinion, he was a grumpy bastard about it. Rosie was messed up considerably. Dislocated shoulder, stab wound, internal wounds from the rat tearing around inside her and those were just the physical wounds. She’d also seen her boyfriend murdered, had been kidnapped, saw another man murdered and had been subjected to some crazy medieval torture. The bullet that hit Owen only scratched his thigh. Didn’t even need stitches. Just a band-aid and Earl was disgusted with how lucky Owen had been.

  Owen visited them both in the hospital every chance he got. The bosses at work were running around trying to distance themselves from what had happened. The whole not catching Taylor and then having Taylor and letting him escape to kill five more people agitated the news people. They wanted a person to point a finger at and everyone in the office was doing their best to not be that person. Owen knew some of it, if not all, would land in his lap. He may be looking for a new job by the end of all this. Owen, thinking about it, didn’t seem to care. It would almost be a relief. He was full up of dead bodies and workplace poli-dicks. A clever phrase thought up by Earl, Owen adopted it and used it liberally.

  Through his repeated visits and their shared experience, Rosie and Owen discussed Taylor. Rosie had known Taylor almost all her life and speaking to her about Taylor helped Owen understand him better. It took some time before Rosie trusted Owen enough, or had the time to process what she went through, to tell him what she had seen in Taylor’s eyes.

  Still in the hospital bed, Rosie’s colour was pink and healthy. Only the dark smudges under her eyes hinted at the internal struggle and lack of sleep. She had a coffee beside her, on a tray that swung out on an arm beside an untouched piece of burnt toast. Owen had brought her the coffee, as he always did on his visits and she thanked him, as she always did. Rosie was convinced the person who kidnapped and tortured her hadn’t been Taylor, not really. Everything that made Taylor awesome had disappeared. She compared him to a movie she had seen as a kid, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The person looked like someone you knew, someone you loved but they weren’t. Something else ruled them from inside. And the something else wasn’t nice. It gave Rosie nightmares, thinking about it, wondering if the not-Taylor would pay her a visit one night in the hospital. Because the thing that had taken her wasn’t a person. It had been a monster. And monsters never die easily.

  Owen said, “I know what you mean. The Taylor I interviewed seemed a different person altogether than the Taylor in the barn, except at the end. The end was Taylor.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I mean. Taylor would want me to know it wasn’t him. And he told you to tell me right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So maybe, maybe he was possessed or something.”

  “Rosie…”

  “I haven’t told you this, or anyone, I’ve kept it inside because it didn’t seem real. It didn’t make sense. But thinking about it all, what Taylor did didn’t make sense. Not the Taylor I know and not the Taylor you interviewed.”

  “Still though. Possessed? That’s a stretch.”

  “You didn’t see his eyes.”

  Owen straightened, remembering the black eyes and bloody grin in the interview room, “What? What about his eyes?”

  “They turn
ed black. Black as space with like, I don’t know, swirling dots of light.”

  “When? When did you see this?”

  “In the barn. It was as if Taylor was struggling with…with himself or something. Why? Did you see something? You look pale.”

  Owen swallowed and forced a smile, “No. I didn’t see anything like that.”

  Rosie frowned, knowing Owen was lying and disappointed in him. She said, “Maybe not. But you saw something.”

  “No. This is just stress talking. Trying to reconcile the friend you thought you knew and the things he did.”

  “Save your bullshit for someone else.” Owen could see her disgust with him by the expression on her face. She turned on the TV and watched it with arms crossed. She ignored Owen until he left. Owen didn’t press the issue. He hadn’t seen what he had thought he’d seen. It was like he said with Rosie. Extreme stress can make you see crazy things. And sometimes, when you can’t explain something, your mind might make it up to help you. So, no, there was no Tracker. Only Taylor. And with time, Owen believed Rosie would come to the same realization.

  -36-

  Slept in…

  Owen startled awake. Morning light filtered in his bedroom under the bottom of his thick curtains. Being a police officer and working shifts, you learned to invest in thick, heavy curtains. Sweat dampened his pillow. He turned to his bedside clock. The digital numbers read 10:17am. Shit. He was late for work

  He threw the covers back and rolled out of bed. He stood, stretched and yawned. Beside his bedside clock, sat his cordless phone. The message light blinked at him. He scowled. Why hadn’t he heard the phone ring? He slept light and always heard it.

  He pressed play on the message light. His work had called. They wanted to know why he hadn’t shown up for work and if he could call in please. The message was dated two days ago. More messages blinked, awaiting playback.

  What?

  Owen examined his watch face. It was June 25, 2017. He remembered going to bed three days ago. What was going on? On the floor, the bed, the dresser and on every available space sat plates with crumbs and leftover food he didn’t remember making or eating. Wearing athletic shorts and a tank top, Owen noticed crusted sweat stains on his shirt. He pawed at them with his hands. Behind him a shadow emerged from the closet. Owen heard a chuckle, like grating gravel behind him and he screamed. When he turned around, no one was there.

  View select Black Rose Writing eBooks at http://www.blackrosewriting.com/ebooks.

  www.blackrosewriting.com