Hunted
It was dark. The noise outside the small cabin with its cloth walls was audible. Kim didn’t want to wake up, but the night had other plans.
She could hear what sounded like muffled crying and could see the entrance to their chalet was unzipped. Someone had left.
If it was any other camper, it wouldn’t matter. They go to the washroom, they come back. Life goes on. But tonight wasn’t going to be that kind of night because it was Sarah. Sarah was on “constant”, which meant a camp counselor had to always be with her. Sometimes that was because the child in question was developmentally delayed or disabled. Sarah was… something else.
“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath as she got up. She had to be careful not to wake the other campers. Sarah had a constant counsellor, Tammy, who Sarah hated, and Kim didn’t like much either. There was no way her fat ass was going to wake up at this time of night. She didn’t want to wake the other girls trying to get Tammy to do her job.
Sarah had been with Kim for three summers. This year, Kim wanted to be a “normal” counsellor. It was her last summer before college. She asked to have Sarah in her cabin, but she wanted to be able to do a bit more than wrangle her psychotic little friend.
Whatever, she thought to herself. Even if she could get Tammy to do her job, it wouldn’t matter. Tammy wouldn’t be able to manage Sarah if she was crashing out anyway.
So she tiptoed past the five sleeping girls and Tammy and out of the cramped cabin. In a nightshirt and someone’s flip-flops; that she hoped were hers, but at this moment didn’t care. She made her way in the direction of the crying.
This happened at night with Sarah. Especially around the end of the month. Among her many eccentricities, sleepwalking was perhaps her least endearing. Kim and Sarah were like sisters in many ways. Kim loved her. Most people loved Sarah. The girl had ADHD on steroids, but her incredible athleticism and easy smile had a way of winning people over. Sometimes she was like a 10-year-old going on 40, and other times a wild animal. But any sports team she was on never lost. And she could be fiercely protective of people she deemed friends. Great for many things. But it sure made tracking her down on one of her sleep “walking” excursions a lot harder.
“So of course they put fat Tammy on her the one summer I just want to be able to have something like a normal time,” she muttered to herself as she continued looking for the girl.
The moon was the fullest she had ever seen it tonight. Which was saying something. The night skies were always breathtaking when she came to camp. But tonight’s moon was something she had never seen even in all her years at camp. The wonder was lost on her when the sound of crying began to be mixed with growls.
Kim froze. There had been animal attacks at camp before, but it was very rare. Big predators tended to stay away from the large camp. But in the camp’s hundred-year history, there had been times a mountain lion or a black bear had mauled a camper or two. And once there was a Grizzly sighting.
She wanted to go back. But concern for Sarah wouldn’t let her. “Sarah!” she called out in a loud whisper.
The growling suddenly stopped.
“Kim...” a voice like Sarah’s muttered back. It was guttural. And sounded injured. “Kim, get away!” She pleaded in that guttural voice. “It’s too much... And Tammy hasn’t been giving my meds.”
Kim had to calm herself. Of course Tammy hasn’t been giving Sarah her meds! Sarah was only on two different medications. One for emergencies and one regularly.
She could just hear the weeping as it got strangled out by the louder guttural voice.
I knew it. That fat lazy bitch! She cursed to herself as she stalked towards Sarah. Kim wasn’t afraid anymore. She had seen Sarah’s episodes and talked her down from more than she could remember.
“Sweetheart, I can’t leave you out in the woods like this! Let’s go get one of your emergency meds. And I’ll deal with Tammy in the morning.”
She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck rise. But she dismissed it. This was Sarah. And talking her down when she was having an episode was what Kim did. She brushed off the fear and continued in the direction of the noise. More angry with Tammy than Sarah at this point.
“It’s not like before!” The guttural voice that sounded only vaguely like Sarah now continued. “You have to run! I’ll get food and I’ll be ok. But you can’t be this close! You have to let me go.”
Kim ignored the protest. Sarah’s episodes were always helped by food. And always accented by some kind of overacting. “Let’s both go to the kitchen then, ok? Just you and me,” she said soothingly. Her heart going out to the girl.
“I can’t control it, Kim.” Her teary voice was gone now. Leaving only the guttural sound of something like someone trying to force growls into words. “The moon is too big!!” She practically roared. “And the hunger!!”
A loud growl echoed through the woods. Like what Kim imagined a grizzly defending its young would sound like. Kim could not wave away the fear now. It seeped into her bones. She steadied herself.
The growling was something Kim had heard her do before. But this was the worst she’d ever heard. It was savage, primal, worse than she’d ever heard before.
“Fucking fat! Fucking lazy! Fucking stupid Tammy!” she cursed quietly. Trying to use anger to dispel the fear. “Sweetheart, I can’t leave you out here...” She pleaded.
That’s when she heard something in the bushes coming towards her fast.
Kim had been attacked by Sarah before too. It came with being her one-to-one. Never badly. But enough that she had come to expect it. And it was something she knew how to deal with. This felt different.
She could hear the fast approach. Something was coming towards her. She couldn’t make out where in the dark. The approach wasn’t direct. It circled a bit. She could feel eyes on her.
“Come on, Sarah, this isn’t helping!” she called loudly.
She was afraid now. She hadn’t noticed, but in her pursuit of the crying girl, she had wandered deeper into the woods than she would have expected.
In the corner of her eye, she saw what looked like a coyote or a wolf. She turned, but it was gone. Instinct finally screamed loud enough into Kim’s mind that she gave into it and started running back in the way she believed she came from.
The rustling in the woods. The growling. All sounds she couldn’t place; it was as if she was being circled. Toyed with.
She prayed as she ran. Begging, pleading, bargaining. She moved as fast as her legs could take her. She had run track. She was an athlete at school. Sprinting, long-distance running, anything that got her moving. It meant nothing to whatever was chasing her. She could feel its breath on her neck sometimes. But it still evaded being seen.
Frantic, she leaped towards a tree in the hopes that whatever it was couldn’t climb. She never reached the tree.
At the top of her jump, something like a clawed hand struck her in the back hard. She felt her body slam hard into the tree trunk. Before she hit the ground, she could feel bites being taken out of her.
When the blackness finally came, it was a mercy.
For the audio for this story, the link is here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQfimeTWGs_U
