For Want of a Hunter, Pt. II

ISSUE #126

For October, I decided to try something that terrifies me—writing fiction. Each week will unfold a new part of a scary story I've written for the Halloween season. For this week's playlist, I compiled songs for investigating the mystery. Certain horror movies focus on the killer's motives, which leads the story through the drive and the chase—it's David Fincher type stuff. Drum machines which sound like they were forged on the moon.

I have no idea how long I’ve been walking, but a pain in my leg says I’d misjudged the distance. I see nothing for a long time but this moonlit corridor. The stars above me are out in full force, though no constellations I recognize. Even Cassiopeia, the reliable, who never leaves her northern throne—I look but have no luck. These are stars I do not know. I guess that’s what happens when you get so far from home.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen roads this empty. I imagine them bored without anyone to carry, unable to fulfill a purpose. I'm reminded of the time my father lost his job. That was back when I was a little girl. One day, in a fit of boredom, he'd decided to chase down a storm. He'd always ask me to join him on his flights of manic fancy. I hopped in the truck, and we followed the twister through the stormy light, green as pond scum. That’s maybe the only time I’ve seen the road as barren as tonight.

I feel headlights on my back. Here's someone I can flag down. I turn but instead see nothing. I guess they wouldn’t be coming from that direction anyway. Just the fireflies, maybe—they light the woods with their grayish glow.

The intersection is the first thing I come to. This is one without a gas station—nothing more than an exit descending to the road below. A sign that points left to something, I don’t know what. The white is scratched off of the federal green. It’s the direction of the steeple, still rising over trees.

I take the road, which soon turns to dirt. I pass large protrusions coming from the earth, like boulders or clay dunes. There are more every dozen feet before I see they're old abandoned cars. The ditches are strewn with their rusted husks.

Houses start showing, most in disarray. A large one to my right with the roof caved in. To the left, a farmhouse overgrown with ivy. This must be a ghost town, I think. I’m excited. It’s the first I’ve ever seen. Might be a coal mine around here, dried up. I scan the horizon for hills. If only I had a little more light. The darkness of the forest wall is swallowing my vision.

My breath is thin. I might be dizzy. My senses, however, feel sharper than ever. I can see every worm in every rut in the road. Everything sounds sharp, in high fidelity, the cleanest mix for every crunching leaf. I smell what I think is iron ahead; sure enough, at the intersection is a tiny shed with bars across the windows. Just beyond, I see a light. The fireflies are back, and they're flashing red and blue. Actually, wait—that’s an open sign.

I approach a house with a wheeled marquee sign perched upon its lawn. Some letters are missing, so it reads something like “ ate’s Re tau ant.” It doesn’t look like a restaurant though. It's just a colonial house with a sign. Well, I think, it’s not that late. Dinner time—and where else can I go?

Knocking on the door, a voice yells, “Come in!” I shuffle and close the door quietly behind me. The house is in disarray, as if it’d been abandoned—books strewn on the floor, boxes packed with trophies. This place screams health code violation. A landing leads up to the right, with a chair lift hugging the wall. A door to a dining room sits to my left and a hall leads back to a kitchen. I hear the clang of a stirring pot and the ring of a woman’s voice.

“Take your shoes off,” she says, “and come on back.” I place them gently on a mound of sneakers next to a stack of brittle magazines. I walk back into the well-lit kitchen where a woman works over the stove.

“Welcome, hun.” It was not the woman who spoke. I turn to see a tiny table, with a kindly smile sitting there.

“How’d you get here?” It was the same voice, from behind me this time. The stove woman turns, holding a pot. The two women have the same face. “I’m Kate,” she says, “and this is my sister, Cate.”

“My car is wrecked,” I say, not knowing really where to start. “It was up the road a few miles. I hit a bear—like a bear-thing."

“Knew it was something,” Cate said from the table. “Don’t get many passing through beyond the regulars.”

“Do you have a phone I can use?”

“Certainly, hun,” says Kate from the stove. She puts down the pot and picks up a carrot, grabbing a knife from the rack. “It’s in the hallway, right by your shoes.”

I thank them and return to my shoes to find an old yellow landline right above them. I take the receiver, which in my heightened state smells like an old rubber ball. I start to figure out the rotary dial when headlights catch my eyes from the dining room.

Blinded briefly, I look to the window which opens on the front lawn. Not headlights, no, I quickly realize—the fireflies are back. Only this time they’re right up next to the window. Then I see what's beyond them, glowing like static, like how black TV screens sometimes glow in the dark. These insects are attached to hulking bodies. Off and on they blink, dozens, maybe even hundreds. Then I hear tapping on the glass.

“Oh dear,” I hear Kate say beside me, wiping her hands on her apron. “I suppose you led them right to us.”