The Huntsman

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An amalgam of sea and cherries filled the woods. The August heat baked the scent into foulness, and I inhaled each glob of tart cherry and bitter salt with dread. It was the scent of my sister’s blood.

I sat in a thicket, next to Sharon’s body. I used to call her Shar. Used to. Her head was gashed, her chest pierced, and her hands and arms covered in a sleeve of slash marks. Her body had been stripped. Blood cascaded down her cocoa skin.

I tilted inward, as if my insides were being crushed like a soda can. At eighteen, I was six feet tall with a bulk of muscle, but my voice was washed in jerky hormones, pitching my voice high and low like a battered ship. I had no wailing voice, only a shrinking cry.

Shar was sixteen, smart and pretty.

She was going to be a beautiful creature.

Was.

Something fluttered along the tops of the scaly trees, disturbing their flock of leaves, through which the sun dripped and scattered the shadows on the ground. I growled, or at least I thought I did. I couldn’t hear much above my pounding pulse and the figment screams of Shar.

But I could smell, so I sniffed the air and caught the trail of the killer. His scent was of a bar: caffeine, cigarettes, and beer. I followed the stench through the trees and over the boggy ground to a murky stream.

A man hunched over the clouded water. He was trying to splash Shar’s blood away, but his neck and face remained speckled. The scratches on his arms still bled, the blood beaded up like tiny balls of wax.

Shar knew this man.

I knew him, too.

Otis Hein.

He went to high school with Shar. Otis was a second-year senior. He was a nineteen-year-old who looked like a truck driver, drank like a sailor, and smoked like a recovering addict in need of a new addiction.

I wanted to rip him apart, but as Otis turned and eyeballed me, I felt a cold thing run through my blood. Otis’ eyes were different. They weren’t the normal dull or vacant windows. They were dressed in dark draperies that hid his wickedness with smiles and winks.

“He said you were coming,” Otis said.

“You killed her.” They were the only words I could say without crying.

Otis shrugged. “She was a dirt dog in need of putting down.” His eyes drifted up along the tops of the trees, and then he smiled. “You need to be put down, too. He said I should skin ya and then roast ya, just for fun.” Otis winked. “I’m thinking I’ll eat ya, too. I heard werewolf meat is sweet. Is it true?”

His words didn’t mean anything. They were cotton clogging words that got wedged in my ears. My fists were ready, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I had never killed anyone before.

Otis pulled a knife and poked the air with it as if he were Zorro. “These woods aren’t yours. You can’t just hunt whatever whenever. You’re a thing, not human or kind. I’d cage you, if I thought it would do any good, but you’re unnatural, and things like you need to be destroyed.”

“I’ll kill you.” They were the only three words I cared about.

Otis chuckled. “He said you wolves are nothing but a sack of hunger and rage, easy to stomp out. I think he’s right. He’s always right.”

His words finally made it through my ears. Questions climbed up my throat, but only one word made it out of my mouth. “Who?”

“He told me what would happen if we don’t stop things like you. You look like us, but underneath you carry a dark disease, an impurity. He said you think us regulars are fodder, but hell if I’m gonna get served to the likes of one of you. I won’t let that happen, and neither will he.”

Confused, I glanced around. I didn’t see anyone, but I heard a flutter from above. A shadow darted along the ground and then rolled back into the spiky shades of the trees.

It was nothing, I thought.

It had to be nothing.

But, what if it was something?

“You don’t look like much.” Otis ran his hand over the scratches on his arm. “Your sister put up a fight. Doubt you will.”

My blood heated. My skin tightened, accentuating every bone and ropy muscle. My jaw flared in pain, as my teeth lengthen into jagged summits. Unfurling my fist, I flashed my inch-long nails.

“I’ll kill you.”

Otis grinned and twirled his knife.

He wasn’t afraid, but I was.

There was something in the trees. Each time it shifted from branch to limb, I felt the wind dip and roll over my back. I could smell the danger; it was smoky like a campfire, and it burned my eyes and clogged my throat.

“Come here, dog. I’m gonna stick ya and then roast ya.”

I didn’t pounce.

I didn’t rush.

I walked to Otis, staring him down. “Go ahead.”

Otis jabbed the knife into my side. The blade slipped in between my ribs. “I told ya you’d be easy.”

It burned like rubbing alcohol, but I didn’t scream. I grabbed Otis’ hand and twisted. The tip of the blade broke off inside of me, but I also broke Otis’ wrist.

He howled.

Shiny tears gushed down his face.

I smiled.

“Silver plated isn’t the same as sterling silver. You should have done your homework.” I fished out the tip of the knife with my nails. “Now, I’m going to kill you.” I lifted Otis by the neck. His body jerked, his arms flailed and legs kicked. It was a sloppy kind of doggie-paddle that got him nowhere.

Something fluttered above, and the shadow, long and lean, darted along the ground.

Was it a man?

Could it be only a man?

No, it was something much more sinister.

I threw Otis into a tree and then took a quick peek. Nothing and no one was around, but I smelled smoke.

“Who’s here? Who are you working with? Who told you to kill Shar?”

Suddenly all I cared about was who and why.

Did it really matter?

Yes.

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