Hunted Read online

  This is a work of Fiction, characters, names, places and incidents are either a product of the authors imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously

  Copyright © 2011 DJ DeSmyter

  The scanning, uploading or distributing of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of Author rights is appreciated.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for the author or third party websites and their content.

  First Edition August 2011

  Library of Congress in Publication Data is Available

  ISBN: 978-0-98727297-7-9

  paperback 978-09827297-6-2

  Book Design By Kamilla Quast

  Cover design by Kamilla Quast

  Cover image provided by dreamstime.com

  Pendrell Publishing

  Culver city California

  www.pendrellpublishing.com

  [email protected]

  The Pendrell Publishing Logo is trademarked

  To my family and friends for your

  undying support and love.

  I wouldn’t have made it this far

  without you.

  Prologue: The Hunter

  The wolves were like hungry shadows with eyes expressing nothing but the desire to devour the trembling bodies before them. At first I thought they were rabid, but the telltale foam was absent. I held Julia’s hand in a foolish attempt to calm her down. I tried to be strong for her, but the wolves were too menacing for even me to face bravely.

  Without thinking, I let go of Julia’s hand and grabbed a barstool by the legs and swung it at our intruders. Growls and snarls escaped their mouths and my action only made them angrier and, quite possibly, hungrier. They flashed their razor sharp teeth, taunting us, and in a fluid leap, lunged towards us.

  Scrambling to her feet, Julia screamed, running away and clambering up the stairs. I stayed close behind her, swinging the barstool and hoping it made contact with one of the wolves. I heard Julia screaming my name, yelling at me to hurry up. The sound of her sobbing filled my ears and drowned out the angry growls. With one last forceful swing, I managed to clip both of them in the mouth. I hurled the barstool in their direction and ran up to the bedroom, where Julia was waiting anxiously, and I slammed the door shut. Immediately, I shoved everything I could in front of the door. A dresser, a nightstand, an old trunk. Anything to buy us some time.

  I heard the dialing of the phone and turned around to find Julia frantically talking to a 911 operator.

  “Please, please, hurry,” she sobbed. “There are t— t— two wolves in the house. Please help!”

  I dashed to her side, took the phone from her, and gave the operator the necessary information in a surprisingly even tone.

  Julia screamed at the sound of the wolves charging at the door. All the pieces of furniture stacked against the door rattled and threatened to come loose. Rushing to the pile, I pushed a few pieces back into place even though I knew it was pointless. The wolves were going to get inside the room.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the window. A way to escape. I threw it open and peered outside. We were on the second floor and if we jumped, we would have to take quite a fall, but it was doable. Still sobbing, Julia peered over the edge, too.

  “We should wait for the police,” she said through a thousand tears. “Th— they’ll be here any second.”

  Pulling her away from the window, I threw my arms around her and kissed her hair. “We’ll be okay. I promise.” But we both knew it was a promise that had the potential to be impossible to keep.

  “Now is one of those times I wish I had let you buy a gun,” Julia said with a half-smile as I wiped the tears from her face.

  “Me, too.” I agreed.

  She looked towards the window. “Where are the damn police?”

  “They’ll be here soon.” There was no trace of confidence in my voice.

  While we held each other and waited for the hopeful sound of sirens, the wolves continued their attempts at breaking down the door. They growled and scratched and pawed at it with a cruel urgency.

  And then, to our horror, the pile of furniture fell apart and the door burst opened. The two wolves leapt over the scattered and broken furniture and glared at us. I could have sworn they were grinning.

  “I love you,” Julia frantically whispered. I knew what she was thinking even before she bolted to the window. Only a few feet separated her from it, but the wolves were faster than her, and in a deadly blink of an eye, they were feasting.

  I just stood there, paralyzed and horrified. It was only when the wolves turned their heads towards me, blood dripping from their snouts, that I snapped out of my daze. Before I knew it, I was running back downstairs. I couldn’t bear to be in our bedroom anymore.

  The sound of police cars heading toward the house with their sirens blaring disrupted the silence of the warm summer night. I ran out of the house and fell to the ground shaking. My fear mixed with the sticky air and made it hard to breathe. I could hear the wolves’ claws scratching on the wood flooring and I struggled to get to my feet. But before I could, they were on me, their hot breath assaulting my face and their teeth grazing my skin. Drops of crimson blood clung to the fur around their mouths, a painful reminder of my lost love.

  The sirens grew louder and caught the wolves’ attention. For an instant, I saw a flicker of panic in their eyes. One of them tore off into the woods, but the other remained on top of me. It snarled and clawed at my face and clothes before leaping toward the woods. Wincing, I turned my head and watched the wolf escape. But it was no longer a wolf.

  It was a man.

  He raised his brows and flashed me a wicked, arrogant smile before turning to disappear into the woods.

  The police got there too late. Too late to see the impossible truth I had learned. Unable to get words off my tongue to answer their questions, I led them into the house and upstairs to the bedroom.

  Blood was everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, on my hands. None of it was mine, though. Just Julia’s, the woman I loved more than anything and the woman I failed to protect. But never did I imagine I would have to protect her from such monsters as those that had burst through our front door that night.

  While the police took photographs and murmured amongst themselves, I escaped back downstairs and sat on the front steps. A crack of thunder echoed through the night as a summer storm began. Droplets of rain fell from the sky and I couldn’t distinguish the rain from my tears. But when a chorus of howls rang over the noise of the rain, my sadness turned to anger and determination.

  The next day, I bought a gun.

  1. Alex

  The icy air stung as I swiftly and quietly wove my way through the woods. The smallest of sounds would be all it took for my pursuer to hear me, find me and kill me. As I tore through the snow, I couldn’t help but wonder if the others had escaped. They must have, I told myself for the thousandth time. I had yet to believe it.

  To my right, I spotted a small opening in the woods and ran towards it without hesitating. I stumbled out into an enclosed clearing where a large shed was situated and hidden by the trees.

  Perfect, I thought, relieved to have found a place to hide.

  Circling around to the door, I found it unlocked and fumbled with the handle before managing to open it. But when I stepped inside and my eyes adjusted to the dark space, panic and horror washed over me. My heart pounded and it felt like my ears were about to burst. I knew I had to get out of there, but paralyzed with fear, I failed to move.

  The sound of crunching snow caught my attention. I turned slowly and found him standing in the doorway with his gun pointed right at me. The expression on his fac
e was one of pure hate and in his eyes I saw a sort of frenzy and torment. His finger toyed with the trigger, ready to pull it at any second. Accepting my defeat, I waited for a bullet to tear through my skin. Pain seared through my body before I knew it and I sunk into blackness.

  2. Lily

  The explosion of a gun shattered my dreams and shocked me back to the real world where it was a few minutes past midnight and a school night. Waking up at six o’clock in the morning to go to school was bad enough, but waking up without getting enough sleep made it much worse. Why hunters felt the need to go hunting at midnight was beyond me. Weren’t there certain hours they could hunt? Was it even hunting season?

  “Go to bed already,” I groaned as I rolled over to stare out my window. I wondered what unfortunate woodland creature had just lost their life. I never understood why people found joy in killing animals for sport and no matter how many times Dad tried to explain it, I never would.

  Taking one last long look at the bright full moon with sleepy eyes, I pulled my blankets closer to my body and snuggled back in. I waited to hear another shot, but the outside world had fallen blissfully silent and I was happily on my way back to dreaming.

  The next day while I sat in my math class, I found it hard to concentrate. It wasn’t the midnight wake-up call that prevented my eyes from staying open— it was the boredom.

  “Okay, class, today we’re going to spend most of our time learning how to graph the equations we learned yesterday—”

  What’s this ‘we’ stuff? She already knows it. It’s us who have to waste our time graphing, I thought as Mrs. Evans, my overly enthusiastic trigonometry teacher, droned on. Math plus me equaled hate and no matter how chipper Mrs. Evans was, my feelings would never change. With a sigh, I slumped in my seat and tried my best not to glance at the clock. I lasted about two minutes before satisfying my need to look and my heart sank when I saw there were still forty minutes left of class. Nonetheless, I was a good student, so I paid attention— or at least tried to.

  I found that by actually doing what Mrs. Evans told us to, time passed a little quicker. I still didn’t feel like I learned anything important when class finally ended, but I at least knew what I was doing— sort of.

  “Have a great day, everyone,” Mrs. Evans called out as people left her room.

  “You too,” I said with a smile before I joined the throng of students in the hall.

  “Suck up,” someone murmured.

  Ignoring them, I continued walking down the hall. Was it really a crime to be nice to the teachers? Sure, I didn’t love math, but Mrs. Evans was a nice teacher, and since she had the courtesy to wish us a good day, she deserved to be wished one, too.

  The teachers who were not made of sincerity, however, did not. Even so, I still treated them with respect and kindness. After all, they probably liked dealing with my fellow classmates as much as I did, which wasn’t a whole lot. It’s not that I hated them like I did math, I just couldn’t relate to them. While most of them spent their time partying and drinking, I spent mine reading and playing the piano.

  I was almost to my locker when a guy pushed past me, causing my binder to slip out of my hands, and its contents to spill across the floor. Before they got trampled and torn, I hurried to collect the papers.

  “Excuse me,” I said as I reached around people’s feet. “Sorry.” When I finally had the papers back in the binder, I let out a sigh of relief and scrambled to my feet. This is going to be a very long day, I thought as I rolled my eyes and continued on my way.

  Q

  When the final bell rang at the end of the day, I felt like bursting into song and performing an intricate dance number. I restrained myself, but I still bounced my way out of the building. Seeing as it was December, I should have been used to never-ending school days.

  With no license or basic knowledge of how to drive, I walked home every day. Before heading off to work, Dad drove me to school and I enjoyed the few minutes we shared. He was always working, so spending time together was rare. For as long as I could remember, Dad was addicted to his work like teenagers were to the Internet. Since Mom died before I was old enough to create memories of her, I was usually the only person in the house. For the most part, I didn’t mind being so alone, but I couldn’t deny that I longed for some company. At school, I was friendless. At home, I was parent-less.

  Our house wasn’t too far from the school, so walking home only took about ten minutes. Dad and I lived in a plain two-story house that sat near the edge of the woods and was isolated from the other houses. Dad said Mom loved nature, so the proximity to the woods was what drew her in. He, on the other hand, liked the privacy.

  Fishing the key out of my backpack and shaking the snow off my boots, I let myself inside and enjoyed the warm air. I completed all my homework and once that was done, I rummaged around in the kitchen in an effort to find something for dinner. A frozen pizza was what I found. It was only four o’clock, but my stomach was screaming at me to feed it. So I popped it in the oven and waited rather impatiently for it to bake. Sighing, I walked over and bent down to the oven window.

  “Bake!” I said while waving my hands like a sorceress. “I command thee to bake!” Lowering my hands, I eyed the still-not-ready-to-be-eaten pizza. “Yeah, didn’t think so.” Smirking at how dorky I was being, I went over to the back door and passed the time by staring out at the woods. Comprised mostly of evergreen trees, the woods looked dark and intimidating, yet intriguing. At times like these, I understood why Mom had loved nature so much; you never knew what you would find.

  Tearing my eyes away from the wintery world, I glanced at the clock and grinned upon seeing the time.

  “Yes! It’s done!” I cheered, dancing over to the oven. Throwing on an oven mitt, I carefully removed my grease-pool dinner and set it on the stove to cool. The cheese on the pizza had melted over, causing the pizza to stick to the baking sheet. I freed it with a spatula and then began cutting it into sloppy triangles.

  After plopping a slice on a plate and pouring a glass of water, I sat down at the table and resumed my nature watching. But there wasn’t anything to watch. No animals to ogle at, no change in the weather, no activity whatsoever. I couldn’t even find company in nature while I ate.

  “Well, this is depressing.”

  After I finished eating, I wrapped up the remaining slices and put them in the refrigerator. Hopefully Dad will see them in there, I thought as I closed the refrigerator door. Wonder what time it’ll be tonight. Eleven? Twelve? Probably twelve. Rolling my eyes, I wandered into the family room, which was next to the kitchen, and sat down at the old mahogany upright piano.

  When I was younger I took lessons, but as time went by, I grew to hate them. Dad let me quit and my love of playing was able to remain intact. Dad didn’t talk about Mom a whole lot, but he said there was one other thing she was passionate about besides nature, music. According to him, what she had lacked in singing ability, she made up for in piano playing. So, sitting on the piano was the only photograph of Mom we had out for display and every time I played, I did so staring at it.

  The funny, yet potentially sad thing was her absence didn’t tear me up inside. Growing up without a mother hadn’t left me psychologically damaged. It wasn’t that I didn’t miss her; it’s just that I was too young to remember her, too young to have an emotional connection. And that was what saddened me.

  Besides sharing a love for the piano, we also shared dark, brown hair that softly curled at the ends and eyes the color of coffee. Mom and Dad both had fair skin, so lo and behold, I had it too. Mom was pretty, but I didn’t think I was. I was ordinary and that was fine with me.

  Pushing all thoughts of Mom to the back of my mind, I closed my eyes and began to play.

  3. Alex

  With the little strength I had, I opened my eyes and was met by darkness. I shivered and winced from the burning pain pulsating from my torso. It felt like I had been asleep for days and I wondered just how many days h
ad escaped me.

  Drained and no longer able to support myself, I collapsed back to the rough floor of my new home with my mind hanging onto a thread of consciousness and the rest of my body ready to succumb to sleep. But a distant, yet beautiful sound strengthened my hold on that tiny thread. I didn’t attempt to sit up or even move. I just laid there, ignoring the pain and listening to the delicate and bittersweet song that came from the world I was shut off from.

  And despite the circumstances, I smiled.

  My mind was finally clear of all thoughts surrounding my family, my injury, and my impending death— even the darkness seemed to lighten. My ears longed to reach out and capture the song, to bring it closer so I could hear it better. If my senses hadn’t been weakened, I would have been able to hear the song as if I were sitting right next to the player.

  When the music swelled and the volume increased, the song stole my breath. It was one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard. All too soon, the player pulled back and the volume receded like the tide. I waited for the player to have another burst of emotion, but the song continued on faintly.

  I could call for the others, I thought as the haunting melody sparked a flicker of hope within me. But then the song came to a tragic end and the tiny flicker failed to become a flame and my heavy fears returned. It’s too risky; he might hear me. I suppose it didn’t matter all that much since the hunter would kill me sooner or later.

  Fed up with lying face down, I rolled over onto my back, wincing in pain as I moved. My wound was healing, but at a much slower rate than normal. Well, normal for me, anyway. Breathing deeply, I rested a hand on my bare stomach as I tried to replay the song in my head. I couldn’t get the melody right and I wished I had my guitar to pluck it out. I gave up and the darkness settled back in, suffocating me, and leaving me cold.