Hunter/Prey

Chapter 12

He should have been pissed, but he wasn’t. How could he be? The continued throbbing across the entire length and width of his face notwithstanding, things were still going better than he could have imagined given how the night had started out.

He should have been dead, but he wasn’t.

Or arrested, but he wasn’t.

A lot of things should have happened tonight, most of it not in his favor.

All things considered, it was still a pretty darn good night.

No, Beckard wasn’t angry. He was a bit annoyed, though, but that quickly turned to curiosity as he stalked across the room and slid against the wall next to the window and peered out at the two figures approaching the front yard. A dog, mostly white with patches of brown fur, walked in front of them, barking up a storm. The animal looked like a shorter, skinnier version of a cow, one with long floppy ears. Its nose was pointed straight at the same window that Beckard was peering out of at the moment.

Both men wore camouflage hunting clothes, which made him wonder what they were doing out here at this time of the night. They both carried bolt-action rifles, and one was holding the dog by a leash and keeping the animal from bolting forward. Beckard guessed the little bastard could either smell him or had seen him peeking.

He glanced over at Allie. She was staring back at him, as if wondering what he was going to do next — and probably hoping it would lead to his death, no doubt. Rachel was still lying on the floor on her side, looking equally expectant. Wade had somehow managed to roll over to Rachel.

He turned back to the window.

The dog was still barking, though all three figures had stopped in the middle of the yard next to the minivan. The hunter with the cap was trying to look through the vehicle’s tinted windows, the same way Beckard had earlier.

“Hello in there!” the man with the dog called out. He was a few inches shorter than his buddy but looked a few grizzled years older. They were both wearing dirt-caked boots to complete their hunting ensemble. “We found your vehicles near the highway!” the man continued. “Wanted to see if anyone was hurt and needed assistance!”

A good Samaritan. Just my luck.

Beckard leaned away from the window and didn’t answer.

He looked over at Donnie’s corpse in the kitchen, half-visible behind the counter. Over to his right were Allie and the lovebirds, bound and gagged. Yup. There was no way he could let the hunters into the cabin. Maybe if he flashed his badge…and then what? They had come from the highway. They had seen the vehicles. And chances were they had tracked him by his blood, the same way Allie had.

So what did they know? Probably not much.

What did they suspect? Probably a lot.

The big question was: Why hadn’t they called the police yet?

“Hello?” the man called out again. “We can see the lights. We know someone’s inside.”

Beckard moved alongside the wall toward the front door. There was a peephole, and he used it now.

The older hunter was still in the front yard with his dog. The animal had ceased its barking and now sat obediently on its haunches, waiting for orders. Beckard couldn’t locate the second man, and that immediately set off alarms in his head.

Where’d you go, buddy?

Beckard changed his angle and spotted the minivan’s hood to the right of the hunter and his dog. He still couldn’t locate the second man. Where did the guy go? Was he trying to circle around the cabin? Maybe looking for a back way in? Was there a back way in? It wasn’t as if Beckard had checked. It had never seemed especially important because he had already achieved total control of the building.

Shit. There better not be a back door.

“Hello!” the hunter shouted again. It sounded as if he was starting to lose his patience.

Tough nuts, buddy.

“Look, I know someone’s in there,” the man continued. “I saw you moving next to the window.”

Beckard peered through the peephole again, looking left, then right, as far as the small opening would allow him. There was still just the wide-open yard and the man standing in the middle of it with his dog.

Where did the second guy go?

“I’m just looking to help!” the man shouted. “We have a phone. If you need it, we can call the cops for you.” He paused, then, “We’re not leaving until someone comes outside and talks to us.”

The problem was the door. It wasn’t locked. There was a chain lock, but it had broken when Allie busted inside like John Wayne earlier. If the guy really wanted to come in, he was going to come in.

Where the hell is the second guy?

Beckard ducked and went on his hands and knees and crawled back across the room, staying under the windowsill. He glanced over and saw Allie looking after him, and he couldn’t be sure, but she looked almost…amused?

He finished crawling to the other side of the window. He stood up — too fast — and winced at the pain from his side. He had to put one hand against the wall to support himself until the sensation passed. It took its time, too. With the broken nose and the pain spread liberally across his face, he had forgotten all about his side. For a while there, anyway.

“I’m calling the cops!” the man shouted from outside. “If no one’s coming out to talk to me, I’m going to let them sort this mess out.”

The man hadn’t finished saying the word “out” when Beckard heard the very clear sounds of boots moving on the floorboards behind him. He turned around and lifted the shotgun just as the tall, lanky hunter with the cap appeared out of the back hallway, his eyes shifting automatically to the three bound people on the floor in front of him. The sight was clearly something he hadn’t expected, and the man stared for exactly two seconds.

It was one second more than Beckard needed.

Beckard fired, and buckshot ripped apart chunks of the hallway along with the man’s head.

He turned around — again, too fast, and cursed under his breath at the stabbing pain — and sidestepped until he was standing in front of the window. He looked out, saw the other hunter trying to unsling his rifle, reacting to the sound of gunshot, while his dog began barking again.

The man saw Beckard at about the same time and he dived sideways as Beckard fired, shattering the window into a thousand pieces and sending glass shards everywhere. Buckshot pinged! against the hood of the minivan as the figure slipped behind it.

Beckard was racking the shotgun when he saw the dog — all white with patches of brown fur and sharp, salivating white teeth — racing across the yard. Then the animal did something Beckard didn’t anticipate and launched itself—

What the hell?

He was still trying to process the sight of the animal leaping through the air like some kind of furry missile when it entered through the shattered window and barreled into his chest headfirst.

Beckard went flying backward, cursing in his head even if he couldn’t get the sounds out. He was still awed by the fact that the dog had managed to run across the open ground and jumped into the cabin before he could fire a third shot. All that took a backseat when bursting pain rippled across his body from his broken nose to his chest, where the animal had slammed into him, and all the way down to his side, which may or may not have started bleeding again behind the gauze wrapping.

What the fuck is happening?

And the shotgun was gone. It had flown out of his hands at the same time the dog smashed into him like a baseball bat and sent him flopping to the floor on his back. Then his entire world shrank, with nothing but the slobbering beast on top of him trying to bite his face off occupying his frayed senses.

Beckard somehow managed to get his left arm under the dog’s chin. He pushed with everything he had — and digging deep down for more — just to keep the animal at bay. Its teeth (Jesus Christ, they’re sharp!) were snapping, trying to get at him even as he struggled against its surging, furry body.

Beckard managed to draw his knife with his free hand. He jerked his arm back and was about to drive it through the mutt’s head when a loud whistle cut through the air. The animal pulled back, cocking its head slightly to one side, just before it leaped off Beckard. The dog spun around and, showing amazing fluidity, jumped through the window and disappeared outside.

He stared at the window, sucking in one labored breath after another, the knife in his fist still poised to strike in case the creature came back in through the same opening for a second go at his face.

But it didn’t, and Beckard gathered himself and scrambled up from the floor. Or stumbled and fell and hobbled, anyway. However he did it, he wasn’t helplessly lying on his back anymore, and though his entire body was on fire from head to toe (he couldn’t blink without something hurting), at least he still had a face.

He had managed to make it onto his hands and knees when he glanced around the cabin and saw the shotgun a few yards away. Wade and Rachel were staring longingly at it, and Wade might have even managed to roll toward it just a little bit because he wasn’t where Beckard last remembered him. Or maybe he was just imagining things. It was hard to concentrate through the misery that was swarming all of his senses at the moment.

He crawled toward the shotgun and picked it up, then hurried back to the wall and leaned next to the window. If the dog charged again, Beckard would have a clear shot at the animal before it located him. Then he’d see how the little bastard liked a face full of buckshot.

Suck on some lead, Fido!

He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. It hurt too much just to think about laughing, much less actually going through with it.

Beckard wiped at sweat and what he thought might have been dog saliva on his face and forehead. Ugh. The lingering smell made him want to gag, but he had enough control left of his body to fight against that urge.

“Marcus!” The other hunter shouted from outside. “You in there? Marcus!”

He looked over at the hallway, where there was apparently another way into the cabin somewhere back there because the tall hunter (Marcus, I presume) had found it. The only part of Marcus that he could see were his legs and mud-caked boots sticking out of the narrow passageway. No signs of his rifle, but it was probably in there somewhere. Beckard’s buckshot had torn big chunks out of the wall but had also gotten enough of the man to finish him off.

From outside: “Goddammit, Marcus, answer me!”

He’s dead, asshole. Buy a clue.

He glanced across the room at Allie. She was watching him back, still trying to stab him to death with her eyes. He smiled despite himself. He admired her grit and determination. If it wasn’t for Rachel, he would have devoted all the time he had left to her. He had a feeling she would be worth it.

And sisters, too. That was a new one. But maybe, if it worked out, he might try it again, except this time on purpose—

His head snapped back to the window when he heard the sound. He knew immediately what it was even before the beast flashed by next to his head. Fur and spittle and the smell of an animal who spent too much time in the muck and stink of the outdoors overwhelmed him in a split instant.

The dog landed in front of him and whirled around as if it were chasing its own tail. The animal looked confused as it tried to reacquire him.

Ha! Stupid dog!

He was about to shoot the mutt when the door opened with a crash! and the hunter stumbled inside. The man must have been moving too fast, likely charged up with adrenaline, because he seemed to lose his balance. The sight of him staggering through the open doorway was almost comical.

Of course, Beckard didn’t get the chance to LOL (or even LMFBO) at that moment, either.

He fired, and so did the hunter.

At the same time, the dog was growling right next to him, clearly indicating that the beast had, finally, found him again.

Oh, hell.