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The Hunt

Taryn Bell

    Her skull smashed into the window of the old Cadillac as she was thrown into the backseat. The man who had leered at her each day while she waited at her bus stop loomed over her. His features were a hazy blur, but his crooked grin was prominent as he leaned closer, buckling her in.
    “Can’t have you getting hurt, now can we?” he said, snorting phlegm and tobacco juice up from his throat.
    “Please, let me go,” she said, shrinking away from him. “It’s the night of the Hunt. My parents will be worried sick.”
    He snorted again. “They’re looking for a big wolf, not a little girl. They aren’t coming after you. Won’t suspect a thing, for a while at least.” He backed away and shut the door behind him.
    Her heart and head throbbed in rhythm as she tried the door. It was locked. She searched for the lock and yanked on it, but it didn’t budge.
    The man opened the front door and climbed in. “Don’t bother trying to escape, girl,” he said, staring back at her in the rearview mirror. He started up the car and began to drive down the empty street.
    Her bones ached as if she was having growing pains and her stomach emitted a low, vicious growl. “Please, you don’t understand,” she said. They passed a ragtag group of men and women carrying various weapons.
    “You don’t understand that if you don’t shut up, you’re gonna have that pretty little head bashed again,” he said, turning around to glare at her for a moment.
    She sat in silence, weighing her options. Either kill this man or face the hunting parties. Her head and bones hurt. “I can’t,” she whispered.
    The man nearly swerved off the road. “What did I just tell you?” he asked, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.
    “I can’t be responsible for another death,” she said, staring out the window at the full moon shining through the trees that rushed by. They passed another larger group of hunters.
    He slammed on the brakes.
    Her head almost collided with the seat in front of her.
    He reached back and cracked her across the face. “Shut up!” His face resembled a fire hydrant.
    She glared back in silence.
    The man turned and shrieked. A massive wolf stood in front of the car, its golden eyes fixated on the driver. The man cursed and stepped on the gas, swerving around the wolf and continuing on his way. Sweat seeped through his thin shirt.
    Her bones cracked and shifted inside her. She groaned and doubled over, out of sight.
    “You stupid little–,” he began, but her face reappeared in the rearview mirror. She no longer looked human. He slammed on the brakes again, fumbling for his seatbelt and shoving the door open as the car screeched to a halt.
    Her hand, or rather, her claws reached forward and pinned his arm to the seat. She rose from her seat, her once human body distorted. Her bones writhed and cracked within her small frame. Her extended jaws opened wide and closed around his throat, tearing the vulnerable tissue to shreds as his limbs flailed beneath her weight. She left him there, his neck still gushing blood as she leapt out of the car onto the pavement. She shook some of the blood from her coat and padded across the street into the dense forest, out of sight of the hunting parties. A howl sounded in the distance. She paused to return the haunting call, then bounded deeper into the woods. The hunt had begun.

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