Posted By Sam on October 22, 2011
The following story was written by my wife, Chauma Smith Guss and she was kind enough to let me post it here on Exploring Uncertainty. You can check out her blog, A Hearth Witch Kitchen, by cilcking the link or through the Blogroll on the right.
The Hunted
Chauma Smith Guss, 2010
Mary processed the periodicals request on her break. Dr. Tucker’s cat would be safe; Daniel had entered them electronically for him. Returning to the Circulation Desk, she pulled the box of books returned at the bin outside the Engineering building off the counter and started scanning the books in, sorting them onto the cart by category.
A slim envelope was packed in with the texts; she turned it over and saw her name, Mary E. Hunter, in neat letters on the front. She opened it, the garlicky smell of pizza sauce taunting her. The stiff photo paper was tacky in her fingers, the pictures sticking to each other. The photo of Daniel, studying in his dorm room alone, was puzzling. The next was even more so, a picture of Gina Lovell, the Circulation librarian, at the medical center with a baby, a man holding the car door open for her as a nurse stands by with a wheelchair. The third picture of Michael Cates and Dr Tucker drinking coffee at an off-campus café made her wary. She looked inside the envelope again, and found a slip of paper. “Which one?”
Stepping behind the filing cabinet, out of sight of the security camera, she sniffed the paper. Faint, smelling of soap and the man’s skin, she recognized the Other’s scent. She put the photos and note back into the envelope, and put the envelope into her purse. There would be time for it later.
“If I were a normal woman, I would tell a friend or the police,” she mused, shelving the books in the silent shelves. The last of the semester exams concluded that morning, so the library was largely deserted. “But I’m not. He is a hunter of women, of normal women. His victims are slender, and have brown hair, and are not meek. If he is hunting them as he has hunted me, his prey would have been uneasy, and then afraid. Perhaps he should learn more about hunting.”
“Ms. Hunter?” Nick Reynolds was waiting for her at the Circulation Desk.
* * *
As I watch from afar, She leaves the library at exactly thirty two minutes after five, exactly as She did before the mess happened. Pausing at the foot of the steps, She tosses something into the trash can there, something that She’s never done before. What are you doing, my pretty darling girl, The One I’ve been waiting for?
I let her go, she never knew I was watching this time, and she drives away, going to the grocery store because Thursday is grocery day, and trout and salmon and vegetables and maybe a game hen will go into her cart, with milk and sometimes cheese or beef liver. I walk past the bottom of the steps, and look into the trash can.
What? Is she really so stupid? My hands tremble as I pick up the envelope, her name written on the front. I look inside, and pull the photos out. There are four, now. The boy, the mother, the men and – the last was a grainy photo of the last girl and the
young idiot boy, standing with me at the circulation desk the day She was gone, the day She betrayed me and I had to take another. I turn it over; written on the back in black ink is my answer. “This one.”
My heart beat faster, delighted and enraged all at once. So very easy. Nine days and I would deliver, and the pizza man is always on time.
* * *
Mary felt the Other watching her as she left, and knew that when she drove off he would not be able to resist her counter-offer. She glanced up into the evening sky at the waning moon. Soon it would be completely dark, a few spare moments when her restless soul was completely still, completely at peace, before the need began to grow again, the need to run fast and far, and hunt, the wind in her face sweet, hot blood and the death struggle, the wild taste of new honey. She made a longing noise, a high pitched whine not right for a woman’s throat. Twenty two days and she would have to run again, and if all went well, Ellen would be with her for a very long time.
* * *
The young idiot boy got a job delivering pizza. I almost danced for joy when I saw him, seven days before The Night. Oh, and the manager was surprised but pleased when I offered to train the stupid lump. I have always been the best and fastest, never late once, on anything. The beast stirred, knowing what was in store for the boy, and I soothed it by planning the next few training days with the boy, every other night, starting tonight, so very simple. He recognizes me from the library, he is nervous and sweating.
Perhaps he will scream like his sweetheart screamed, that poor half-witted mistake of a girl.
As we pull out, pizza safely in the back, twenty six minutes ‘til it’s free, I see Her, jogging down the street in the opposite direction. This is not part of her run, what is she doing? This neighborhood is hardly safe for an attractive woman, even in sensible jogging shoes. A laugh bubbled up in my chest, until I saw her head turn, eyes following us.
* * *
Mary glanced up at a quarter after three; Michael appeared from the administrative offices, made a round of the lobby and shelves, poorly disguising his need to patrol.
“You should vary your routine, give or take five minutes or ten, sometimes as much as twenty,” she advised as he returned to the Circulation desk. They had not been able to fill the temp position so sadly vacated by the murdered girl. Four days til the new moon, Mary was peaceful and serene.
“Am I that obvious?” She looked at him directly, and he actually blushed.
“To him you would be.”
“Have you seen him since you came back?” He glanced up toward the security camera.
“He delivers pizza, this is a college campus, of course I’ve seen him. Look for the guys in the red shirts and red hats.” She started pulling more books out of the return bin. “There’s another man I see a lot. Four or five times a day, actually. Eight ten in the morning, again at eleven thirty, three fifteen, and then at five. Like clockwork.”
Michael laughed. “OK, point taken. I’ll vary my routine. I’m a little anxious, I wish the cops would find him out.”
“Routine is opportunity for a hunter.” She smiled a little, and he saw it for what it was, a baring of the teeth, a snarl of anticipation. “Of course, you could simply turn him in.”
“Campus police reviewed the security tape and decided it wasn’t relevant to the murder. That’s the only thing that reveals him that we can share.”
“He will reveal himself, Michael. The hunter will be the hunted, and night will follow day, and the moon will rise again.”
“How are you so sure?” He looked more closely at her, trying to decipher her expression.
“The moon always rises, of course.”
* * *
Three times today, I have watched Her do normal things, the early morning run, the commute to work, a stop at the post office. The idiot boy has tonight off, so I am free to drive past Her house, to check on Her evening run, to see the lights go out at ten thirty, all as usual. She sees me at each step of the way, turning Her face towards me, nodding to acknowledge me. There is something very different about this girl, but of course, there should be. She is The One, and She is perfect in Her vigilance. She will be perfect in Her fear, too. Four nights, and the idiot boy will be a lesson to her.
* * *
Mary pulled the envelope out of the return bin, opening it. Nick Reynolds smiled at her from the photo, red pizza delivery shirt and red hat clean and new. His smile was tight. The scent of The Other was heavy, anticipation a clear undertone, like the last dampness of a wave against the tide line. She pondered The Other’s choice. The girl was already dead. The Other did not see himself as the prey, but chose Nick. Nick was well aware of what the Other was, wanted to avenge Tracey Hankins’ murder, so it was
easy to bait the trap.
Three days and the moon would be new. She puzzled a little over the pace of The Other’s hunt. With sixteen days before the first day of the full moon, he should begin stalking Nick, but Nick seemed to be stalking him. Men were not his usual prey, and she found The Other’s need to report on his progress to be interesting.
She saw it then, the simple plan of the Other, and sneezed hard, a laugh that Dr. Tucker would recognize from a different sort of throat. Three days and the moon would be new, a dark time when The Other would not be able to see the blood or the face of his
prey.
The evening clerk came on duty, and she swiftly went up the stairs to her office in Research, faster than a good runner ought to be able to move. She typed a fast search into the database and saved the articles.
At five thirty two, she exited the library, walking at a normal pace to her car, stopping at the grocery store, where salmon and fennel and broccoli and rice were joined by a half dozen cupcakes in her cart. After all, Mary Elizabeth Hunter was a research librarian, and liked cupcakes.
* * *
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Category: Fiction |
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Tags: serial killer, short story, urban fantasy, werewolf
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