Hunter and the Hunted: Part II

Hunter and the Hunted: Part II

I rip my mask off as I walk down the steps to the Den, my base of operations located in the basement of my home.  “What this about, babe?  It’s after five, I just now get home after being out there kicking butt and building up an appetite like you wouldn’t believe, and you haven’t even started dinner yet?”  I say, in what I hope she will identify as my joking voice.

She pivots in her chair, her lips were in a straight line and she gives me a dry look.

“It…it was a joke.”  I say quickly.

“Mmm, hmm.”  She groans before spinning her chair back towards her screen.  “To answer your earlier question, I’ve spent the entire afternoon combing Jim East’s record.”

“And.”

“And I’m still not done.  This so called ‘conservationist’ has more strikes than a bowling alley.  I just can’t figure out why Non-Human-Network would still keep someone like this on the air.  He’s done everything from poaching animals out of season to guiding hunting trips inside nature preserves.”

“Well he’s obviously got the right people in his pocket.  The law has had plenty of opportunity to get him out of the woods and behind bars, now it’s up to me.”

My wife sighs.

Deeply.

Angrily.  The way she used to when we were newlyweds and she was tired and I wanted the thing that newlywed husbands want. 

“What is it?”  I ask her, already knowing the answer.

“I understand your wanting to help, I do.  My passion for animals is what first drew me to joining the D.N.R. and it’s what drew you to me.  You know my commitment—it’s what’s allowed me to sit home while you play dress up and risk your life out in the woods every night.  But you have to understand where I’m coming from.  You’ve gone from kicking hunters off our own land to shutting down Madison College’s animal testing facility to taking a leisurely submarine ride to Canada to stop the seal hunt.”

“Well I’d hardly say that was a “leisurely’ ride, Dear.”  I interject, trying to lighten the mood.  “that whale I nearly ran into tossed the sub around pretty good.”

“Not the time!”  She responds to my remark before moving on.  “Every mission you send yourself on gets more and more dangerous. Every crisis you stick your nose into increases my chance of becoming a widow.  I’ve been understanding—but I will never understand why you think it has to be you out there.”

Despite her claim to have always been understanding, we’d had this discussion before.

Frequently.

And recently, I might add.

I do what I always do and wrap my arm around her, an arm littered with scars and bruises—evidence supporting the very type of danger my wife is talking about.  I press her close against me and tell her the same thing I always do.  “…because, I’m the only one who can—I’m the only one willing to do something.  Maybe someday I won’t have to—Lawson Hunter is rising through the ranks fast at our office.  His beliefs mirror my own and leadership suits him—maybe someday it’ll be him and his values running things, but for now…”  I pause for a moment while she cries.  Then I say the next thing that comes to mind, “…and you know this guy will just keep killing and getting away with it if I don’t put myself in danger to stop him.”

“I know.”  She whispers softly, I’m just tired of always wondering if I’m going to get that call—the one that tells me I now longer have a husband and ‘oh by the way, you’re under arrest for aiding and abetting a vigilante.’  Or worse—see it on the evening news…the whole world watching while you lay dead on some mercy mission in some other part of the world.”

I hold her for another moment, pressing her hard against me until the pressure pushes on the memory card in my utility belt and something she said hits me.

“That’s it!”  I wail, moving her back and sitting down in her chair.  I started typing in the website address from memory.

“What’s it?”  She asks, startled.

“I know how to get his attention and I don’t even have to leave the state.  The scum I took out in the woods were recording their kills—it’s for a contest sponsored by Mr. East.”

“So what are you doing?”

The website loads and I reach into my utility belt and take out the confiscated memory card and show her.  “I’m submitting my contest entry.”  I say as I plug the memory card into the computer.

“Oh Fritz…”  My wife sighs disapprovingly as she figures out what I’m about to do.  She folds her arms, turns, and soundlessly makes her way up the stairs as a silent replay of my fight with the poachers flashes across the screen as it uploads to the website. 

I type a single-line message in the comments section of the entry form:

COME AND GET ME.

And then I enter for my chance to win.    

The Hunter and the Hunted

Hunter and the Hunted: Part 1

Sunlight glares off the lens of a video camera that’s propped on a tripod recording the scene unfolding before it.

They actually want to relive this.

Angry, bloody claws swipe at the air—at the poachers.  The trap the bobcat is in wasn’t made for something his size—his strength.  It was designed for something more like a fox, but that doesn’t make the bobcat any less of a prize for the hunters and as such, they don’t want him to further damage his hide.  One of them cocks their rifle—the bobcat is too enraged and the hunter sees no other option than to shoot the big cat.

But that’s not true.  They could’ve just left well-enough alone and not set the trap at all.

But you can’t change the past.

Only the future.

The poacher takes aim.

And so do I.

But I’m faster. 

And before the poacher even has the cat in his sights, my throwing star hits the spring trap’s release trigger and the cat is free.  He wastes no time and pounces on the nearest hunter—the one with the rifle.  He brings him down, the criminal hits his head on a rock and fails to get up as I land beside the cat. 

“You’re injured, get out of here.”  I tell him through the Jargon, the device I invented to open the lines of communication between humans and animals.  All animals have a voice, all animals can talk—in their own way—but we humans have forgotten the language.  The Jargon records and filters human language/animal sounds then plays the translation back into English or that specie’s unique sounds, based on which species you have selected so the two can understand one another.

The bobcat ignores me, lowers his head then pounces on another hunter.

“Or not.”  I say under my breath as I follow the big cat’s lead. 

I rush another poacher, the cat on my heels.  The thug takes a swing at me and I go into a slide like he’s home base, taking him out at the legs.  He falls forward, the cat lunges from behind me and before the dirt-bag can hit the ground, the cat pummels him to the forest floor.

I hear another thug coming at me from behind, I grab the camera-mounted tripod as I side-step out of the way.  As the brute stumbles forward I crack him in the back with it.  He hits the ground, skidding to a stop.  He flips over and points his hand gun at me.

Guns—a coward’s weapon of choice.

He’s shaking and fires off a round with wild aim.  I hear it sink into a tree behind me.  Before he can squeeze the trigger a second time I use the tripod to smack the gun from his quivering hand.  He watches it fly into the bushes and while he’s distracted I give him a concussion with the tripod and he slumps to the moss-covered floor of the forest. 

I bring the tripod up to my face to inspect it.  The lens of the camera is hanging by one screw and a couple of wires dangle from where the moveable screen used to be.  “Hope you got the five-year extended warranty on this.” 

By the time my head comes back up the hunters have all been neutralized and the bobcat is gone. “Well, that’s gratitude.”  I say out loud.  “He didn’t even thank me.”

I shrug it off and search for the power button on the camera.  The main viewing screen is cracked pretty-good but the camera still turns on.  The moment the trap snapped shut on the cat’s back foot replays and I cringe as the feline starts gnawing at his own foot in an attempt to free himself.  The camera fuzzes out and the next time there is a picture, I see myself kicking the poacher’s asses.  The next thing I see is the world spinning as I brought the camera down on the last poacher and then the screen goes blank.  I’m not sure why but I take out the memory chip and slip it into a padded compartment in my utility belt then I let the camera and tripod plop on the unconscious thug’s gut.

I alert the D.N.R. to our position and start the process of dragging the incapacitated idiots over to a large jack pine where I giftwrap them for the guys-in-green.  I’m about to leave when a brochure sticking out of the pocket of one of the hunters catches my attention.  I pull it from the coat, the drooling dreg stirs but does not come-to.  I open it up and can hardly believe my eyes.

They were doing this for some kind of contest—the recording was their entry submission.  The winner gets his video on some hunting show on Non-Human Network called Wild East Alaska and a free Alaskan hunting trip guided by the show’s host.

I wonder how many animals are dying throughout the country just so some beer-drinking, gun-wielding bully can get on a stupid, murder-idolizing show where they’ll be rewarded with taking the life of some other innocent creature.

The brochure crumples in my fist and my finger presses the comm. link in my ear piece.

“Yes, Honey?”  My wife’s sweet voice responds to my call.”

“You busy?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.  I need you to run the name of a hunting show host for me.”

“Okay?”  She said, with annoyance as she grabs a pencil and piece of paper.  “I’m ready.” 

I scan down to the bottom of the brochure until I find what I’m looking for, “the name is East.  Jim East.”

Prelude to a Predator: Part III

He’s down there, I know he is, I just don’t know where.  But I also know that he won’t come out unless I’m gone.  So I play it normal, I make my passes and when I get to my last one I flip on the camouflage cameras and the Sky Fox disappears into the sky.

And then I wait.

I wait until the driver of the old red beater thinks it’s safe to come out and play.

It doesn’t take long.  And suddenly I’m tailing him again and he’s leading me to his hideout.

I just have to wait, and pray I’m not too late to save his prisoner from death…or the madness bred by human cruelty, seething from the madman behind the wheel of the truck which is turning into JimBob’s Wildwood.

 

I tell the Sky Fox to land behind a nearby row of tall, shielding jack pines then I exit the craft, leaping to the tallest of the pines to survey the old roadside zoo, founded by naturalist partners James “Jim” Wilde and Robert “Bob” Wood.  JimBob’s Wildwood was a popular tourist trap just a year ago and as far as roadside animal attractions went, it was a well maintained, clean and respectable one.  But as the push for animal rights came to shove, more and more tourists who normally would’ve stopped to feed the bears, just kept driving and eventually, JimBob’s closed.  The animals were relocated, some were even reintroduced into the wild, or so I’d heard, and the humans who’d cared for them were out of a job.  Shortly after the business failed, Bob Wood croaked from the pressure and left everything to Jim—including the debt.  That was the last I’d heard about any of it. 

I’d nearly overlooked Jim as a suspect, I just couldn’t grasp the possibility that he had become this man I was stalking.  I’d been going to JimBob’s since I was a child…I’d planned to bring my son here when he was a little older and could remember.  I’d even met Jim and Bob a time or two—they both seemed like good people, but as I was learning, apparently madness could envelope even the best of us.  And though it’s possible that this whole thing is just a coincidence, it’s also possible that the man I knew as James Wilde snapped long ago with the dissolution of his business and the death of his business partner.

Pine pitch clumps the synthetic fur of my mane as I tap the temple of my mask, switching the lenses of my cowl to eagle vision and I peer down at the landscape below but I don’t see isn’t what I expect.  As I gaze down at the abandoned complex surrounded by fencing, I finally see the truth of what this place is, or was, for the first time.  It’s long kept secrets spill out to me—this place was a prison.  From the overgrown courtyard that was once home to overweight birds and mammals who’d flock to greet new arrivals who’d feed them corn and seed because that was all they had in their lives, to the main building that held a gift shop that peddled cheap plastic toy animals with smiles painted on their faces that held little resemblance to the animals imprisoned there, and then there was the “education center” that taught nothing but lies about conservation and environmentalism, encouraging kids to come back again and support other prisons just like it; to the empty, rusted cages that once held larger attractions—jungle cats and wolves who had no business being behind bars while their human captors, the animals who really deserve to be behind bars, profited off their misery.  And suddenly I realize how wrong I was to ever pay money to visit this place—to have supported the isolation and misrepresentation of environmentalism these types of places promote.  And I’m thankful my son will never have to see an animal so neglected and tortured, separated from others of their kind for the glorification of some greedy human’s pocket book.

Money really is the root of all evil.  And as the dominant species on the planet, we humans don’t understand that just because we buy something doesn’t necessarily make it ours.

Because those lives we buy shouldn’t even be for sale in the first place.

A loud, metallic clanging fills my ears and draws my eyes to the rear of the main building, to the loading bay.  And that’s where I see it parked, backed into one of the loading docks.

Jim’s old red beater of a truck. 

Though I can’t see what he’s taking out of it I figure it’s the cub.

I have to work fast, so I switch my lenses back to normal, push off the tree and float down towards the large dome skylight that will serve as my access point.

 

I peer down inside the main building through the skylight, it’s dark and what little light there is inside is obscured by floating dust particles.  I switch my lenses to snake vision to try and pick up Jim’s heat signature but to no avail.  I try to tell myself that it’s safe to enter because I don’t see Jim but a much bigger part of me seems to whisper that just because I can’t see him, doesn’t mean he’s not there.  But time is short so I decide to go in anyway. 

I flick my wrist just right to make my claw extensions detract from my fingertips and place the blades against the glass and apply a little pressure, then I soundlessly etch out a square large enough to send me through.  A barely audible, dull THUD echoes down the dismal corridors as my feet hits the tile.  Now that I’m in complete darkness I switch to owl vision, hoping that will reveal something I’ve otherwise missed.

And it does.

But for the second time today, what I see is not what I expect.

I’m face to face with the head of a bison, easily bigger than the area from the top of my head to my hips.  I brace for impact and when it doesn’t come I carefully open my eyes and realize the Great Plains walker isn’t trampling me because it is not alive.

Not anymore.  Its eyelids have been removed and gashes litter the stuffed face.  Right next to it is a smaller bison, most likely the other one’s child, it’s equally mutilated.  It’s face forever frozen in time with fear.  Slowly I look away at the other walls that surround me like a crypt and all I can see are faces.  All hollow and vacant, emotionless and still.

Dead.

Bears and deer and raccoons and rabbits and wolves and geese and moose and cats and dogs and…the list just goes on.  Maybe it’s the darkness, the vacant halls or all the death that surrounds me but I swear I can hear the ghosts of these animals echoing the calls they made in life down the dismal passage.  I keep walking but Jim’s collection just goes on and on and on, it follows me like death follows all of us. 

And the question plagues me—how long has he been at this?  How have I not noticed?  And then I reach a new area of the tomb, one that answers all my questions.  The other area held native animals, this new area was exotic creatures.  Polar bears and penguins…something only JimBob’s Wildwood would have.  And suddenly I realize what actually happened to the animal residents who used to call this prison home.

The animals Jim owned.

The animals Jim was supposed to care for and relocate after the place closed.

He killed them.

He killed them all, then he strung them up on display like a serial killer would the necklace of his victim so he could enjoy it whenever the feeling moved him.

I feel my legs shaking, my knees buckling and I ease myself to the floor right before the final exhibit down this hallway.  It’s obviously the jewel of Jim’s sadism.

His name was Twinkles.

He was my favorite resident to visit when I used to come here.

He was a Tortoise, Galapagos specifically.  His huge, 120 year old shell had held so much history—how much had this old boy seen?  I used to ask myself.

Now the shell only held dust and knife scars.  But that wasn’t the worst part. 

Twinkles’ shell was empty and the tortoise that used to bring me so much joy now lay next to it, curled up in a twisted and permanent sculpture of pain.

A piece inside of me snapped and I slumped to the floor, too paralyzed by shame to move.

 

Jim Wilde led the Bear cub into the building through the back entrance with his animal control pole, needlessly tightening the noose around the cub’s neck, just for the fun of it.  This was the part, right before the kill, where the killers in Jim’s horror movies would usually reminisce about his other kills and his life—all the moments that had ultimately led him here to this moment when he’d take another life.

But he didn’t.

But none of that really mattered anyway.

Because in any case, this bear was going to die and no amount of revisiting the past on a mental psychiatrist’s couch was going to save either one of them.  In fact, when Jim caught one of his horror idols doing such a thing he’d always seen it as a weakness and felt that was what distinguished him from the rest.   It’s what had convinced him to first go hunting—he wanted to see what it made him feel.  He wanted to know if he’d have that moment of hesitation, of contemplation before the end.

That was how he knew what he was doing was right.

He felt no remorse for it.

In fact, he felt nothing, after what they had done to his business, his life.  He felt nothing.  For him it was as simple as popping the cap off a pen.

And now it was time to write, so with a slight change of angle and a sharp tug, he increased the tightness of the cord around the cub’s neck.  Soon he’d gasp for air and turn on him and try to fight, but with every movement the cord would tighten and bring the cub closer to eternal hibernation and Jim would be there through all of it.  And when it was over and the little bear went cold, Jim would add him to his collection in the hall. 

He tugged again at the pole and waited for it to happen.

But the bear was young and not quite yet ready to die.

 

Feeling the noose tighten, the cub bides his time, he has a few more tugs before his lungs run out of air and he needs the collar to be tighter for his plan to work.  The control pole the human was using to guide him was made for an animal much smaller or much weaker than him, a wolf perhaps?  It didn’t matter, the only thing that did was that the cub could feel it stretching to its breaking point, and if he struggled just a little bit the human would tighten it once more, just enough to…the cub halfheartedly tries to spin around on his captor and when he does, the human tightens the noose as far as it goes.  Inside the bear smiles then he flexes his neck muscles and the noose cutting off his air supply snaps.

Now he wholeheartedly spins around on his captor whose face is paler than the cub’s tongue on a day without water.  The human stares at the broken harness in his hands, bewildered.  The cub grumbles a low growl—the human has no other weapon, nothing more to threaten or torture him with.

The cub knows this is his chance.

The cub knows he must take it.

And as the cub pounces on the human who’d forced him to watch his mother’s murder, a terrified cry breaks the stunned silence of the complex.

 

I jump up from the cold, dusty tile floor of the main building, a bloodcurdling scream forces me back to the here and now. 

I’m too late…but for whom?  The scream came from a human.  I dash down the hall I’d first heard the echoing horror come from and pass a sign that says: “Loading Bay”.  I kick the door open and burst through the threshold, ready for anything expect for what I find.

The cub is at the end of the hall, trying to figure out how to escape through the door and Jim is lying on the floor in a pool of blood.  I rush to his side and he moans weakly. 

“Don’t worry.”  The Jargon interprets the cub’s growls from down the corridor.  “He’ll live.”  He says as he roams closer.

“His hands.”  I say, mortified.  “You bit off his hands!” 

 “And he’s lucky that’s all I took after what he did to me.” The cub says with a nod. 

I return the gesture, “I know, I found your mother and I’m surprised you stopped at the hands.”

“Death is too good for this one.”  The cub tells me.  “I just wanted to know that he’ll never be able to do this to another living creature.”

I admire the cub’s restraint—I’ve wanted to do worse to people who’ve cut me off in traffic. 

Revenge is truly a human invention and we wield it like a light switch because it’s easier than feeling our way around through the darkness to get to the light.

“So what happens now?”  The cub asks.  “Shouldn’t I be euthanized now that I’ve tasted human blood?”

I shake my head.  “Now that you’ve tasted it, I can’t imagine you’d ever want it again.  Humans are the only creatures hypocritical enough to deem cannibalism a crime then revel in its own bloodlust.”

The bear cub’s ears perk up as the sound of encroaching sirens fills our heads.  “I should be going.”  The cub says and turns to leave. 

I rise from the floor and Jim reaches for me with his gruesome nubs.  I ignore his feeble plea and approach the cub.  “Before you go I have something for you.”  I say, slowly reaching into my utility belt.  I withdraw a head band big enough to accommodate the cub’s, even now, at so young, massive head.

“Do you really think it’s wise to give me something that’s make me stick out?”  The cub asks.  “I’ll soon be a fugitive, remember?”

“I do.”  I tell him.  “But this is a biodegradable bandage, it’ll fall off in a day or so.  It’s been soaked in a special, all natural solution I’ve invented for rapid healing and regeneration.  You should have eyelids again by tomorrow evening, considering the nerve endings are not too badly damaged and you keep this on until then.”  I explain.  When the cub nods I move in to wrap his forehead in it.

“Thank you.”  The cub wuffles. 

“I wish I could’ve done more.”  I say, remembering the cub’s mother and the countless other victim’s I met in the hall.  I finish the knot and stand back up.

“You did all you could.”  The bear explains as I open the door for him.  He looks back at me and smiles the odd smile of a bear as the evening light spreads across his back like a warm embrace.  “…if more humans did that, the world wouldn’t need you.”

“Then I’ll pray for that day to come, my friend.”  And with that, the cub nods then strolls out of the building that would’ve been his tomb.  The door shuts and I’m alone with Jim who’s glaring at me from the floor with a look that could’ve soured milk, “ah c’mon there Jimbo.  I taunt, taking a page from his book and rubbing salt to the wound, “all my work and a happy ending to boot and I don’t even get a round of applause from you?  Not even one clap of your hands?  Oh wait,” I say, getting right down into his face, motioning at his bloody stubs with a polite tilt of my head.  “That’s right, I forgot.”

 

This is a work of fiction but animal cruelty is very real.  99% percent of serial killers first experimented on animals before acting out the same fantasies on human beings.  If you know of anyone who has or is torturing or killing an animal please let someone know immediately.

It is not a phase.

It is not “boys being boys.”

It could be the start of something much worse.

Thank you for reading this post.

 

Prelude to a Predator Part II

The Sky Fox soars above the trees as I struggle to keep the old beater pickup truck in sight as it speeds over the weathered road below.  The authorities were less than concerned with my claim of a serial killer in training prowling the woods—and they were even less interested in working with some overzealous vigilante who, according to them, had presented little more than some evidence of poaching.

As though that’s not serious enough…poaching’s the reason the Sumatran rhino and Amur leopard went extinct two years ago—not to mention the thousands of other species humanity has wiped out with its greed.  It’s funny how man can butcher an entire species of animal and no one blinks an eye.

Nobody cares.

But if an animal kills one man the world is sent into a panic—everything becomes, “oh his poor family”, or “the animal must be destroyed now that it has a taste for blood…”  Mankind’s taste for blood drives us to do a lot more than just take the life one thing that in all likelihood probably provoked us in the first place.

In fact, we’re seldom satisfied with only one victim.

Our taste for blood is insatiable, yet we are not the animals in our own minds and I can’t help but wonder what the natural world must think of us: we, the spreaders of disease, famine, greed poverty, rage, rape, hate, death and extinction—perhaps, maybe one day our own.  These thoughts leave me as I realize I’ve lost track of the truck. 

After the cops gave me the cold shoulder, I disregarded their direct order not to get involved and followed the drag marks the bear’s killer had left back to his initial kill site.  From there I located a path of crushed undergrowth.  It was too narrow to have been the way the bears had come and since there was no other evidence of any other witnesses I decided the path had been made by the killer himself and I followed it to an old hunting cabin buried deep in the forest.  The cabin was old and held no obvious clues to the owners or the killer’s identity but a quick search of land records told me whose family it belonged to.  I checked those names against legal and occupational records and came up with a handful of suspects—the most promising of which I’m currently tracking—or at least was tracking until I lost him.  The Sky Fox comes to a halt in mid-air and I scan the roads for my suspect’s 1990 Chevy P.O.S.  But the only movement below is the wind rustling through the tops of the trees.

I check my scanners… 

Nothing.

Radar…

Nothing.

And just like that—the trail went cold.

 

From beneath the cover of a rock ledge just off the wayside below, the man in the old red beater smiled as he watched the clueless vigilante who’d been tailing him fire up the engines of his craft and blaze off and continue his search.  The driver knew he had a few minutes before the vigilante made the second and third passes he knew he’d make before giving up on finding him in this area completely.  Absently he pushed in the vehicle’s cigarette lighter and waited for it to pop back up, his patients cooled the air as he tapped his fingertips along the windowsill in anticipation for the lighter’s coils to heat up.  A thumping coming from the covered bed of his truck broke the silence and the driver slide open a tiny, steel bar-enforced partition that separated him and the cub he’d taken from the woods after forcing him to watch his own mother’s murder.  “Hey, pipe down back there!”

The tinted windows of the truck topper had blocked out most of the sunlight and it stung his eyes now.  The cub tried to squint—tried to close his eyes but the driver’s mutilation of him prevented that.

And the wounds were already becoming infected. 

The cub’s face-sized paw shot out of pitch black bed and he managed to claw the driver’s cheek as he swiped aimlessly.

“Now, now…”  The human said, reaching down to grab the cigarette lighter then he ground the glowing coils of the lighter into the bear’s swinging forearm.  The scent of burning hair, flesh and tobacco filled both of their nostrils as the human then lit his self-rolled cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke back into the bed as the bear whimpered and licked his arm.  “That flying freak up there is looking for you…you’d rather he find you alive, don’t you?  Keep this up my fat, furry friend, and you won’t be found at all…”

 

The bear cub licked his wound as his human captor started up the engine, which backfired with a loud BANG as it sped off, the force of the sudden acceleration caused him to slide slid across the rusted metal floor of the truck bed to the far back corner.  His mouth was dry and he wet his paw with his tongue to lubricate his eyes.  He would’ve flinched from the pain but he’d gotten used to the stinging.  What he couldn’t get used to was the pain he felt inside him—but this wasn’t hunger.  He’d watched his mother be butchered right before his eyes and he hadn’t been able to do anything…not even close his eyes the way he had when a hunter took his father the previous fall.

He hadn’t even seen all of his death and it still stuck with him—the sounds of the unseen gun, the THUMP as his father hit the ground, his mother frantic to get them away from there, and his imagination filled in the rest...  He couldn’t imagine carrying with him the full, unbridled images of what this human had done to the little bit that had remained of his family until that light too had been extinguished. 

He’d never again feel her warmth as she slept beside him.  He’d never learn how she fished or how she stalked her prey or even which berries were safe to eat without making a few mistakes of his own.  And he began to wonder what it was about mankind that drove them to do what they do.  Creatures like him—the so-called “animals” of the world only killed when hungry, as he understood it, humans had something called “grocery stores” where endless supplies of food could loomed over you—creating pathways for you to follow as you hunt for what you want to eat.  He’d also seem first-hand something humans called “farms” where their food is raised to be eaten and he couldn’t figure out why if there was an option that didn’t cause pain why humans always chose the option that did.  He’d overheard hunters talking once about why they liked to hunt.  One of them said they just liked to be outside—that it was “so quiet and beautiful” in the woods.

Why then, he wondered, did humans want to disrupt that silence with the sound of a gunshot?

Why do humans see beauty and want to destroy it—why can’t mankind just look at something pretty and appreciate it for being just that?  An image fought its way up from his memory—proof that nothing was or could ever be beautiful when it was covered in its own gore.

Nothing. 

Not even mothers.

 

To Be Continued…

Hey everyone, please check out this contest: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/15th-free-dear-lucky-agent-contest-young-adult-fiction?et_mid=668455&rid=239620552

thanks,

Jason

Prelude to a Predator Part I

Moonlight flowed over shiny black fur like rain pouring down as the mother bear and her cub stalked the forest for the first time in seven months.  They’d emerged from their river-side cave after a long winter’s nap only a day earlier.  The younger of the two was not yet even a year old and had never felt this level of hunger.  It was a hollow, penetrating feeling that dictated everything—how much you should move, how far you could travel, how long you would sleep before the hunger woke you up again. 

The older one looked down to her cub beside her with motherly pride—and worry.  She recognized his sluggishness, he was weak, and it killed her to see him this desperate for food.  Berry season was still months off—so was trout season, and it was still too cold for any humans to be out with their cloth shelters and frozen foods stored in those flimsy plastic boxes that were so easy for bears to break open.  If they were going to eat tonight, they were going to have to hunt.  But she was weak herself, she wouldn’t be able to chase her prey very far or fast and she’d have to choose it wisely.  She’d also have to choose something slow, which diminished her options greatly.  They couldn’t risk eating anything sick—not this early in the waking season.  The meat of something older would be tougher for her cub to chew and admittedly she didn’t look forward to the taste of eight year old rabbit gristle—but it would have to do until her strength returned to her.

She heard a rustling in the undergrowth, it could’ve been a gust of cool spring wind but she couldn’t take that chance and she lifted a paw in front of her cub’s path to stop him—on some reluctant level hoping it was that rabbit she’d been thinking about.  But then something else tickled one of her senses—a smell.  It was wet and bloody like fresh kill.  The noise she’d heard could have been the animal who’d made the kill but the old bear couldn’t smell any other creature nearby.

The woods were silent—unusual for this time of year when animals were waking up and combing the woods for new mates.  Something was wrong but the rumbling in her stomach convinced her to take the chance.  Cautiously the mother poked her snout through the wall of snow-crusted bushes, then the rest of her head.  And laying there in the snow, the blood still warm, was a deer carcass.  Normally bears preferred not to scavenge—unless you count pillaging campsites as scavenging—but who doesn’t like Little Debbies? 

But desperate times call for desperate measures.  So, knowing she should have checked the area more thoroughly, she coaxed her young out from the bushes with a soft wuffle and they approached the deer together. 

No sooner did they press their tongues to the cold, exposed flesh than a medieval-like stock made from metal exploded up from the bloated guts of the deer and snapped into place around the mother-bear’s neck.  She roared at her cub to run which he did, but only too late—a net of steel sprang up from beneath the snow, encasing and suspending him in mid-air.  The net spun around as the mother bear raged and thrashed about in the stock, desperate to get out, desperate to get her cub to safety.  But it was no use—whoever laid the trap had been expecting something larger to spring it—the stock was made of some kind of reinforced metal.

And then came a human voice—ragged and terrifying, like hollow trees rubbing against each other in the winds of fall.  The voice was followed by the silhouette of a scrawny male human who smelled of blood and gun powder.  “Two of you!”  He hissed, playfully nudging the cub’s net just enough to get it swinging again.  “Well that’s just perfect.”  He concluded as he squatted down beside the mother bear and stroked the fur in between her massive shoulders.  He glared provokingly back into her cub’s terrified eyes.  “Now I have an audience.”

 

“I count twenty-plus superficial cuts.”  I say to my wife over my radio as I inspect the bear corpse.  It’s such a shame, she was a magnificent animal—a good 600 pounds.  And cut down only hours after coming out of hibernation.

“And according to the scanners they’re all at slightly different levels of decomposition and bacterial infection.” 

“Which means he took his time.”  I relay, using my fingers to probe a patch of worn fur in back of her head.  “She’s got ligature marks around her neck where a device would have held her—just like the others…”

“So you think it’s the same guy?”

“There’s no doubt in my mind.”  I say sternly, my fist involuntarily clenching.

“How can you be sure?”  She asks.

“This is his fifteenth victim, Fauna—that means I’ve combed over fifteen different crime scenes in a month.  Believe me—I know this is the same guy.”  There was silence for a moment and then the fact I’d been trying to ignore—the fear I’d been trying to suppress came careening back to the forefront of my mind and I had to say something.  “He’s taunting me, Fauna.  He’s moved her from the actual kill site to this area—one he knows is in sight of a hive cam—again, just like the others.”

At first she didn’t say anything, then her voice came back a bit snarkier than before—like the time I’d left her debit card at the pharmacy.  “And how long have you suspected this?”

“I thought it was weird right from the start but I thought—or was hoping it was mere coincidence.  But this hive cam is the only one in the area—it would’ve taken a lot of effort for him to move her to the top of this hill.  It’s no coincidence.”  I say, shaking my head.  “And I fear he’s escalating.  When he first showed up on our radar his victims were primarily smaller wildlife, since then he’s gone from rabbits to foxes to deer and now bears…”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, I know all life is important.  But is it wrong that I’m glad he’s only killed animals—I don’t know if I could take helping you on this case if his victims were human.”

I take a moment to consider the implications of what I’m about to say.  There’s no easy way to say it so I just talk, “that’s just it Hon, I don’t know how long it’s going to stay that way.”

“What do you mean?”  She gasps.”

“Animal cruelty is usually a good indicator of serial crime and he’s obviously moving his way up the food chain as his confidence grows with each unsolved case.  The restraints say he’s organized and the torture points to sadism.  It’s not long before he makes the jump over the species barrier.”  I say as I expand my search to the rest of the area, searching for any other clues at all that might be hidden amongst the underbrush.

Fauna remains silent, praying that what I’m suggesting isn’t true.  “Are you sure?”  She questions, hoping I’ll reverse my position, “I mean I know it looks like torture but a bear is a very different animal compared to his other victims—thicker, more muscle…maybe the killer isn’t a sadist, maybe he just didn’t know where to stab?”

I say nothing in reply.

I can’t.

I’m completely and utterly speechless.  Her theory is sound and I would’ve considered it had I not just uncovered evidence that confirms my own.

Completely and undeniably.

“Badger what’s wrong?”  She asks for what has to be the third time. 

“We’ve got a problem, he’s devolving—straying from his usual script.”

“Why, did you find something?”

I nod my head, “a net.”  I quiver as I lift the steel mesh stained with bear blood from the foliage.  A twinge of disgust courses through me as I accept the words I’m about to say next.  “…and eye lids.”  I finally spit out just as my scanners finish their approximation and feed me age of the bear who’d left them.

“The victim had a cub, Fauna.  And her killer made her child watch while he tortured his mother.”

“Dear God.”  Is all she can get out before she mutes her microphone to gag.

“Contact the police, Hon.  I think it’s safe to say that a future serial killer is on the prowl.”     

      

To Be Continued…