The Last Hunt

The Hunt Begins

I drove straight to Leah’s house, but it was dark and empty. A fresh FOR SALE sign board was hanging in the yard. It definitely wasn’t there yesterday. For a few minutes, I wondered where why the rash decision to sell her property.

I called her, by call went to voicemail. I called David, too, but the call also went to voicemail

I dialed Rachel’s line, but it was disconnected.

Tried to reach out to Sam, but nothing came off it.

Panic tightened around my ribs. I sped to the house where we all had met on Oak Street. To my shock, it was locked. The windows looked dark, and the air around the place felt abandoned.

They were all gone. But where to? I suspected they had all surrendered themselves to Claire’s rituals.

Giving up the search, I was turning back to my car when a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

I spun around.

Tommy stood right there behind me. He was the youngest in our group, but he looked worse than ever this time. His eyes were wild, and pale and he was trembling on top of that.

“Jake,” he gasped. “Thank God. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

For me? I first wondered why he hadn’t joined Claire’s rituals. Perhaps he missed. Maybe he received the same message I had received from the mystery man.

“Where is everyone?” I asked him

“Claire took them,” he said, with his voice shaking. “Last night. She said the ritual had to happen sooner. She said something about hunters nearby.” He grabbed my arm. “We have to stop her. Something’s wrong.”

I pulled out the bottle of suppressants Daniel had given me. “I know. I met someone. He’s a survivor. He says the ritual’s a trap. These pills can help us. We get the others….”

Tommy’s expression suddenly changed, like a mask slipping into place.

“You’re not taking those pills,” he said.

I was taken aback. Was that a threat, or did Tommy hear something?

“What are you talking about?” I asked

He drew a gun from his jacket. It was a revolver. It looked polished and deadly.

I staggered back in shock and my eyes widened. Tommy was probably not the little scrawny boy I thought he was after all. It dawned on me he had come with a bag of threats.

“You’re not taking them. And you’re not warning the others. You’re coming with me.”

My blood went cold. “Tommy… what are you doing?”

“My name isn’t Tommy,” he said. His voice was deeper now that before. He spoke in sharp tones and certainty. “My name’s Thomas Hale. My father is Pastor Hale, from the church. He sent me to infiltrate your group.”

The words barely made sense to me. “Infiltrate…?”

I stood helpless looking at him, with fear of him not to pull the trigger. It was the last thing I ever wanted right now: to die.

“We’ve been hunting your kind for six generations.” He kept the gun pointed at me, steady and sure. “We’ve tracked the creature that infected you for two years. Letting Claire gather all of you made things easier.”

My mouth went dry. Everything felt like I’d fallen into a web now. For a moment, I regretted honoring Claire’s text. “We’re not monsters. We were attacked…”

“You’re abominations,” he snapped. “And my father will cleanse this town.” He pulled back the hammer. The bullets glinted silver in the moonlight. “Walk now. Or I kill you right here.”

I walked. I had no choice than to do just that. The revolver had given him an upper hand.

He marched me to a truck parked a few blocks away, shoved me into the passenger seat, and climbed in with the gun leveled at my heart.

“Where’s the cabin?” he demanded.

“I don’t know. She never told me.”

He slammed the gun across my jaw. Pain exploded through my skull. I tasted blood and something loose in my mouth.

“WHERE?”

“I don’t know!” I choked. “I swear…!”

He launched another punch at my face. This time, my vision blurred.

“Monsters lie,” he spat in the air, pulling over on a deserted stretch of road. “Tell me or I end your life now.”

But why would someone want to end my life for something I did not know about? Why would anyone call me a monster?

I met his stare with all the strength I had left in me.

“I. Don’t. Know.” Insisted.

He pressed the barrel to my head. He was getting for the trigger this time, and I knew it.

And that was it.

Something inside me broke open, life a hungry wolf freed from a cage. I could feel it strongly. My body was set to be taken over.

The hunger I’d been denying rose like wildfire. Heat flooded my veins. My bones twisted and became longer. It was pain and power fused together in a single unstoppable force.

For the first time since the bite, I didn’t resist. I embraced the new me, and the hunger didn’t need my special authorization to understand my feelings.

Seeing what I was turning into, Tommy screamed in a mix of fear and irritation and fired the gun at me. The silver bullet tore into my shoulder, as agony seared through me, but the wolf didn’t slow.

I grabbed his wrist and crushed the bone. His grip lost control of the gun. I jumped forwards, having my fangs and claws out and ready. I lunged at Tommy on pure instinct and the world turned red in an instant.

When I came back to myself, the truck was silent. It was as if world regained its peace again. But no doubt, a storm had just rolled by, and the vestige was as clear as water.

Thomas lay slumped and defeated against the passenger door. His throat was gone.

I’d just killed the scrawny little Thomas who threw heavy punches but had a big mouth.

And, honestly, I wasn’t sorry. This feeling taking over me was new, but surely did not feel new. It felt as though I had had in hidden in me until a b***h like Tommy pull the trigger.

I would be terrified, horrified, or sick with guilt before now. But there was no such thing. All I felt was satisfaction. I felt relief.

Now, the raving hunger was quiet. I was Pleased.

I stared at my hands. The vestiges of claws and furs glistened with blood. The wolf wasn’t a separate presence from me anymore. It was me. We were mixing.

Surprisingly, I didn’t want to stop it. I picked up the bottle of pills, rolled them in my palm and then, I threw them out the window. I watched them scatter across the asphalt like useless candy.

Without further ado, I started the truck and drove it down the mountains.

I honestly didn’t know where Claire’s cabin was. But I could smell them now. I could smell the pack, my pack.

And when I found them, there would be decisions to make.

Would I save them from Claire? Or I would I let the transformation finish what it started?

The decision was up to me, and my instinct would need to come to play, or at least, I hope.

The full moon would come in five days’ time. My anxiety could not be hidden from the monster within me. It whispered to me that we didn’t need saving. We just needed freedom.

A long, deep howl echoed in the dark behind me, then followed by another, and then another, and another until they all blended into a wild, beastly chorus.

Without a shadow of doubt, the others had begun to transform. The hunt had begun. This hunt would go a long way to decide destinies. But this time, we weren’t the prey.