For Want of a Hunter, Pt. V

ISSUE #129

For October, I decided to try writing fiction—each week has unfolded a new part of a scary story I wrote for the Halloween season. This is the final Halloween playlist, a simple distillation of vibe. Whatever you do this weekend, I hope you stay safe, get pleasantly scared, and have a warm and happy home waiting for you. Thanks for sticking with this month's experiment—stay tuned next week as we fight to return to normal.

I sit in a daze for a very long time. There are no more signs of animals. I'm sitting on the rope bridge with a softball-sized bug. A dead bug, now. It's dead, and I've killed it—the only life I've taken in years. It's thick, seeping blood smells sweet like torch oil, far too much for my new sense of smell. I lean over the bridge and retch.

Wiping my mouth, I look out at the dead, rusted town—the dunes of old cars, the steeple on the hill, broken houses like a scattered Monopoly board. The land glows like a night would in snowfall, but the light here is tinged with pink. It makes the orange leaves turn a vibrant peach. There is nothing living out there I can see.

A whirring in my right eye—a woman said something about people here once. I can only remember as one would a dream. I try my best to bring back her name, but I can't. I end up with a sharp headache. Giving up, I push the dead husk off the bridge.

I open the treehouse, draped in salmon leaves. Maybe there will be some clues in here. There’s the bed, the bureau, a mirror on top. I check the drawers, but they're empty. I lift my head to the mirror.

For the first time since the accident, I see my reflection—my blistered face, dried blood at the nose, my hair now streaked with black. One eye is scratched and teary, the other a large and glowing sunburst. Oh, of course. I still have a bug to pull out of my eye.

Deep breaths. I can do this, I think. All I need is a good countdown. Five. Four. Three. Wait—there’s someone in the room with me.

I feel it the way people can sometimes tell it’s snowing before looking outside. The thing is barely breathing, if at all. I certainly can't hear it. Yet there, in my vision, a figure in the mirror—so tall it has to bend its neck to fit the ceiling.

I steady my feet to run. The whirring grows louder behind my eye. The thing makes no movement whatsoever. I begin to recognize its shape. There's the familiar smell; my husband's—though not anymore my husband. He could never wash out his skin's paper scent. It speaks.

“Can we talk?”

I turn—he’s not there. A lifeless room and the dark gingham bedspread. In the mirror though, he's back. My eye gives such a pleasant sensation. I turn back and my husband still is not there. I smile. Finally, I control his presence.

In the mirror, I shoot him daggers with my good eye, the other warm as I watch him disappear. In his place stands an imagined silhouette, something like an eclipsed thought—what was once there is blocked now by some shapeless shadow.

The room brightens and I start to get dizzy. I close my good eye to catch my breath and open to find I'm outside a strange house. I'm told to walk through the garage and open the door to the kitchen.

There is something huddled on the linoleum. A dog with a woman kneeling over him. The woman is me; the dog is—what was the dog's name? I almost cry in frustration. I look around. It's true, this was once my kitchen. I kick myself for not recognizing the paint. This was one of my last days with him. I reach down to pet him—Ash! That's his name—and his fur is filled with water.

I come to kneeling at the bank of a river. I'm firmly on the ground again. I must have wandered out into the woods. It's so dark I can barely see, but the moon lights the water in pastel purple. The current through my burning fingers feels so nice. I want very badly to take a dip. In the water's reflection, I am young again.

“The fish are an invasive species,” I can hear my father say. He’s at the shore with me again. This must be my first fishing trip. “They don’t have any predators. They starve the other fish.”

I’m trying not to cry. “Why can't you just put them somewhere else? Or maybe we can keep them somewhere safe.”

I hear a whir like an engine idling. I feel flooded with nameless emotion. I want to sing and cry at the same time.

“Anywhere they go, they take over,” he says. He's always trying to make lessons at the worst times. “It's not killing, honey. Everything dies someday. Sometimes things die so others can live. It’s an ecosystem.”

“Another word for balance,” I whisper. I buzz, euphoric as I've never been before. My body is weightless—I am floating on my back. The river carries me past curtains of tress. I can barely see the steeple, miles away.

Warmth from my eye and I'm in the Gulf's waves. I hear a splash and the laughter of my no-longer husband. I watch him dive down and leap up from the surface. I gasp as he comes back tangled in green, the tentacles of an enormous jellyfish.

I rush to him, but soon he laughs—of course, it's only algae.

“These things are an infestation,” he shouts. "A plague." His eyes widen past his temples and start to glow bright pink.

"Like memory." He smiles and sticks out his tongue. It stretches past his chin and tightens to a hairy, black straw. The next words come from his proboscis. "Don't you want to scrape out every pestilent memory?"

I laugh at him and nod—it'd be so nice to wipe clean, to live beholden to nothing but presence. I move in closer to embrace him. I want to feel those bulging, black wings.

My eyeball whirs—I'm walking down the road. I'm dripping wet, but I do not shiver. I stay warm with the help of my newest friend. When I remember, warm oil floods my veins.

I let him eat all he wants till he’s full, trying to recall whatever I can. I can tell that he’s hungry, and I don't mind feeding him. He makes me feel good. We need each other. Soon, I’ve never seen the ocean—who cares? Even warm thoughts eventually burn anyway.

I'm walking north. I'm walking north, again, but everything feels fine. I can't wait to step out and flag someone down, to tell them all about the new truth I've found. At dawn, I finally see oncoming headlights. I hear the soft coo of a mourning dove get drowned in the roar of the speeding engine.

Then all becomes darkness and silence.