The Hunted

by A. J. Scudiere

  Apparently, he'd gone out driving several times without her. At first, it was a quick hop to the grocery at the end of the street. But then they'd found that they could split up now and go different ways when they needed or wanted. The old survival rules were starting to fall away.

  They weren’t completely done eradicating the species, but she was watching. Joule had seen two hunters in her backyard over the course of the summer. But since they’d continued to put bait out, both times, she’d been able to use Cage’s crossbow to fire preliminary shots from the upstairs window. Once the animals were down, she had used the handgun to finish them off.

  Both hunters had been solitary. Surely there were a few others straggling here and there that she hadn't woken up to see. But she was sleeping at night again, and for that, she was grateful.

  “Are you packed?” he asked.

  Joule nodded. It was both a silly question—because he’d been packing with her—and a huge, philosophical one. She wasn't sure she ever would really be packed. They’d both spent the last week carefully combing through the house, one room at a time, picking out what they wanted to take with them.

  Cage had chosen some of Nate’s shirts, and Joule kept her father’s watch and ID. She had a scarf of her mother's and a blouse that she remembered Kaya wearing when the twins had been little. Joule didn't think she'd ever wear it, but she wasn’t emotionally ready to let it go. So she’d packed it.

  They’d asked their grandparents to store a handful of boxes for them—things they couldn’t take to school. The phone call explaining that Nate was gone had been a hard one. But the twins had fought to stay in the house, insisting that the neighborhood had been cleared of the creatures. They’d not told their grandparents that they had been the ones to eliminate the threat.

  At last, they’d packed up everything they couldn't afford to lose if the house was repossessed. They stuck Nate's tools into a wheeled, red work cabinet from the garage and loaded it onto the trailer last. They set aside Kaya’s most prized books, boxing them with her sewing machine they were taking for their grandmother.

  It was more difficult than Joule could have anticipated, picking what stayed and what went. She could only assume that there might not be a house to come back to. The property might belong to the bank by the time they hit fall break—or at least by Christmas.

  But the twins had buckled down and they had done it. They had picked the things out and left the rest. The boxes that would go to their grandparents had been packed into the car with Joule.

  They would drop those things off on their way to Stanford. They intended to loop out of their way to visit their grandparents, but neither twin was expecting a pleasant trip. They knew it was going to be hard. But they had a plan and kept the side stop to only three nights and two days for exactly that reason.

  Still not quite eighteen, they couldn't sell the house themselves. Their father still hadn’t been declared as deceased. Or even missing. Who would report it, if not them? His work hadn’t even called.

  Steve had commiserated once, saying that his office hadn’t been checking on the missing, either. It was too depressing, and there was nothing they could do about it. Filing a report never found anyone. Everyone knew about the hunters. So there was nothing official to give Joule and her brother any legal claim to the property. They’d have to wait and see.

  Kayla and Ivy had agreed to pick up the mail several times a week and keep an eye out for anything that looked like an important bill. Joule had given them carte blanche to open the mail. They would all stay in touch. Maybe in a few months, the twins would be able sell the place, but it couldn’t happen now.

  It was a seven-hour drive to their grandparents. They would leave just before noon, with Cage driving their mother’s larger car with the trailer in tow. Joule would follow up behind them in what had been her dad’s car. Since they were leaving their own, older car behind, she guessed her dad’s car was hers now.

  As the time to leave approached, her heart began to clench. She had known this day would come, but she had expected her parents to drive her and Cage to school. She’d expected to get dropped off and thoroughly expected not to have a car and certainly not to have her father's.

  Even six months ago, she wouldn’t have been able to foresee today going like it would go. She’d not considered that her parents wouldn’t be here to see them off. To keep the house while they were away. To simply still be here.

  The night hunters had changed everything.

  But she breathed in the satisfaction that she had changed everything for the hunters, too. The neighborhood was starting to flourish again. Even in just a few months, one of the houses had sold. Susan had gotten her lawn mowed and kindly sent her lawn guy down the street to take care of the Mazur yard. Who knew Susan could step up? They had all stepped up.

  But Joule was out of time to reminisce. They had to hit the road. She went through the house now, locking things up. She'd showed Kayla and Ivy everything she could think of, given them keys, told them what needed to be done, who to call, that kind of thing. Now she was closing curtains against the daylight, locking the place up, and leaving everything as clean as she and Cage were able to get it.

  She realized that, in just a few weeks, there would be dust everywhere, and no one to clean it off. She pulled the curtains on the wide front bay window last and watched as Kayla and Ivy walked up the driveway toward the house. Her heart caught in her throat. She’d made new friends, but she was already leaving.

  Kayla and Ivy were watching the neighborhood now. Everything was under control as best it could be. Nights were safe again. Kayla had a new dog.

  And her new friends had come to see Cage and Joule off.

  88

  Stanford, Spring the next year…

  * * *

  Joule sat on her dorm room bed, reading. Or at least she was trying.

  Ginnifer popped the door open with no warning. Despite the bookshelf Joule had moved so the doorway didn’t reveal everything in the room, the noise filtered in. Joule felt her muscles clench and reminded herself that she had only a few more months with the girl. Then the semester would be over, and next year she’d choose a roommate.

  “I know! I know. Right?” Ginnifer shrieked into her phone.

  Joule had no idea what the girl was going on about, or to whom, but she was pretty certain it wasn’t about interplanetary travel, or green energy, or even pond algae. If Ginnifer ever spoke of anything important, Joule would be shocked. How had she even been accepted to Stanford? And this was a dorm. Had her parents bribed someone?

  “Hey Joule.” Ginnifer’s greeting was flat as she threw her bag onto the bed. She’d long since given up asking what Joule was reading.

  Joule only nodded back. Ginnifer was mad at her, and Joule kind of liked it. She was at least quieter when angry.

  Cage had gotten a decent roommate, and that seemed so unfair. They got along. And Joule got Ginnifer.

  It had been three days now that Ginnifer hadn’t really been talking to her. She’d found Joule in their shared bathroom, checking behind the shower curtain before using the facilities. Ginnifer had laughed at her as though she were an idiot. “I mean, if you did find a serial killer in there, what would you even do?”

  Motioning to the back of the toilet, Joule calmly replied, “I’d use the top of the tank against the side of his head.”

  Ginnifer had blinked.

  Joule should have shut up, but Ginnifer was what her mother would have jokingly called a “lesson in growing as a person.” Joule was not growing. “Just because you don’t have a plan, doesn’t mean you should assume that I don’t have one.”

  She’d walked away, the thinly veiled insult hanging in the air. Ginnifer hadn’t spoken to her in the three days since.

  Still, the mild peace was bound to be broken sooner or later. By Ginnifer. Sure enough, she turned to Joule—who was still in the same place, reading—and spoke as though they were suddenly best buds. “Did you se
e the pictures someone’s trying to pass around?”

  Joule only raised an eyebrow. Ginnifer could be referring to any of a number of things.

  “Down by the bay. The water keeps coming up and some of the houses have lakes right into their backyards!”

  The bay was hardly a “lake,” but Joule had found that correcting Ginnifer was a waste of time. She only nodded, but Ginnifer wasn’t finished with her.

  Tapping quickly, her roommate pulled something up and handed the tablet to Joule. “I mean, look. No one is going to believe that!”

  Not mean enough to tell Ginnifer she didn’t care, Joule took the tablet, intending to give the picture a cursory glance. But the photo showed a shape in the water off the porch. A fin cut the surface and the shadow was clear. Just four feet away from the house. If whoever took the photo walked down the steps, they’d be in the water with a killer.

  “It’s so obviously photoshopped,” Ginnifer said, rolling her eyes, her hand out to get her tablet back.

  But Joule was hanging onto it.

  Stanford—the whole area in fact—had flooded recently. Deep enough to inspire a few students to kayak in the waters around campus. Though that water had eventually washed away, there had been warnings this week about storms coming through, about waves pushing seawater into the areas that abutted the bay. Low lying areas were already sandbagging.

  Flood watches had been issued, and the next day’s classes already canceled. There was a possibility of epic flooding this weekend.

  The picture in Joule’s hands meant the problems were worse than high waters and strong currents. Far, far worse.

  “It’s not photoshopped,” she told Ginnifer, still reluctant to hand the disturbing picture back.

  A tap came at the window then, and Joule looked up as the first of the predicted rain hit the glass.

  Joule and Cage still aren’t safe… the water is rising. Get ready for THE SURFACE. Coming soon!

  Until thenStart The NightShade Forensic Files: Under Dark Skies FOR FREE!

  FBI agents Eleri and Donovan must solve a very strange case. Can they do it without revealing their own odd secrets?

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  About the Author

  A.J.’s world is strange place where patterns jump out and catch the eye, little is missed, and most of it can be recalled with a deep breath. In this world, the smell of Florida takes three weeks to fully leave the senses and the air in Dallas is so thick that the planes “sink” to the runways rather than actually landing.

  For A.J., reality is always a little bit off from the norm and something usually lurks right under the surface. As a storyteller, A.J. loves irony, the unexpected, and a puzzle where all the pieces fit and make sense. Originally a scientist and a teacher, the writer says research is always a key player in the stories. AJ’s motto is “It could happen. It wouldn’t. But it could.”

  A.J. has lived in Florida and Los Angeles among a handful of other places. Recent whims have brought the dark writer to Tennessee, where home is a deceptively normal-looking neighborhood just outside Nashville.

  For more information:

  www.ReadAJS.com

  AJ@ReadAJS.com