The Hunter

By Eline Waerp

The girl stared across the path without breathing, and the hunter looked pleasantly back at her. It was getting darker, but she could see that he was tall and muscular. His skin was fair, his hair short and curly. He was handsome. He grinned at her and gestured that she should come over to him. She wanted to go over to him so badly, but her feet were frozen to the ground. Her instincts told her that she should walk away, but she didn’t want to. It started raining heavily. The coldness was unbearable. Big, green trees surrounded her. As Juliet took a small step back, the hunter’s blue lips curled up in a smile and he launched at her. Juliet screamed in panic, completely aware that no one would hear her. She got a quick glimpse of his seemingly empty eyes and razor sharp white teeth, before the darkness swallowed her.

***

The body was discovered by a terrified jogger around 6 am who immediately called 911. Jennifer Schecter was standing a couple of feet away from the dead body talking to her new partner. She had gotten a phone call from her boss right after dawn telling her to get to Tilden Park ASAP. She didn’t live far away so it took her about 10 minutes to walk from her house on Grizzly Peak to the crime scene in Tilden Park. She had spent the last few hours examining the body and discussing with her partner how the poor girl was killed. It was definitely the most mysterious murder she had worked on in her 10 year long career. The girl’s body, or what was left of it, was in an inhuman posture. Her arms were almost torn off her torso and all the bones in her legs were broken. She was covered in her own blood and her skin was extremely pale.

“Schecter!” she heard her partner’s deep voice call at her.

“What’s up Bilan?” she turned around and looked at her new partner who had just arrived. She had never seen him in the homicide department before. The only thing her boss had told her about him was that he was Russian and that his name was Dima Bilan. He talked like they did in old British movies, but she didn’t complain because he was extremely handsome. He was tall, muscular and had short, wavy reddish hair. His skin was fair and he had these soft, friendly, clear blue eyes.

“You can call me Dima. I have to go now. Something, uh, came up,” he said in a soft voice.

“Now? But you just got here! And it just stopped raining, I think the sun is gonna shine today,” Jennifer said.

Dima winced when she mentioned the weather and gave a quick glance up on the sky. ” Well, I’ll come back as soon as I can, I just have to take care of something.”

Jennifer was going to argue more but she felt so dazzled by his looks so she just stepped closer to him to shake his hand. Dima gave her a quick handshake before he turned around and walked away. He was walking really fast, like he was in a hurry or something. It almost looked like he was gliding down the path. Jennifer took a deep breath to gather her thoughts before she walked back to the body. His hand had been so cold that her own hand was burning after the handshake. She could still smell Dima’s scent, it smelled so fresh, so pure.

She examined the body once again. She discovered something on the girl’s neck. It looked like a bite-mark. Had the murderer bitten her too? She touched the girl’s neck and let her finger gently glide over the bite-mark. It seemed like the area around the bite-mark was one or two degrees colder than the rest of the body.

It had started to rain again. It was 7 pm and Jennifer was on her way back to the crime scene. She had gone home to eat something, get some more sleep and search the net for other, similar murders. It was crazy what people posted online nowadays. When she googled “mysterious bite-marks” she got hits on all kinds of crazy stuff. Of course, something paranormal was absurd. But there were mountain lions in Tilden Park. She hadn’t found any suspects yet. She had to talk to Dima.

Jennifer was 30 feet away from the crime scene when she saw the shape of a dark figure there. Who was that? Damn it. She thought they had closed off the crime scene.

“Are you sneaking up on me?” the man said without turning around.

“Sir, I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave. This is a closed crime scene and we’re still investigating here,” Jennifer said in a firm voice.

The man got to his feet and turned around with a grin on his face.

“What’s the matter with you Schecter, don’t you recognize me?” It was Dima, her partner. Jennifer gasped for air, realizing that she had been holding her breath all the time. His accent sounded more Eastern-European now.

“Dima! I’m glad you came back. I actually have some theories to discuss with you if you don’t mind,” Jennifer said.

He glanced over his shoulder at the spot where the dead body had been before meeting her stare. “Yes of course, that’s what we’re here for, right?” he smiled.

Jennifer realized that there was something different with his face now– he looked tired. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his eyes weren’t clear blue anymore, but blank, greyish. But she didn’t dwell on it. Maybe he was wearing contacts.

“So who do you think killed her?” Dima asked in a light tone, like he was asking how her weekend was.

Jennifer glanced at the spot where the body had been and thought of the peculiar bite marks on the girl’s neck. Maybe a mountain lion or some other wild animal attacked her, Jennifer thought to herself. After all, Tilden is a big park, and one never knows what can be hiding in the bushes.

“I think you’re asking the wrong question. I think the question is what killed her. No human being could possibly break all the bones in her legs and almost tear off her arms. I think it must’ve been an animal. Maybe a mountain lion or a big, strong animal. But the weird part is that the animal didn’t leave any footprints. You would think a big mountain lion would leave footprints, right?”

Dima was sitting on a rock a couple of feet away. It was getting darker and Jennifer had problems seeing his face, but it looked like he was smiling to himself.

“What do you think?“ she asked.

Dima got up and walked over to the spot where the body had been. There was still some blood on the ground and Jennifer noticed that Dima was covering his mouth and nose as he examined the crime scene.

“Does the smell of blood make you sick?” she asked.

He looked peculiarly at her and than chuckled. “Quite the opposite actually. You know you’re pretty slow to be such a famous homicide detective.”

“Well, I don’t see you making any progress on this mystery either, Sherlock,” Jennifer said sarcastically.

Dima frowned at her before he continued: “ You know there are other things out there that are more dangerous than mountain lions.”

“Well yeah, you have tigers, and, um, I don’t know, vampires for those who believe in them,” Jennifer said, embarrassed that she couldn’t come up with anything better than vampires. He must think she’s crazy.

“Vampires?” Dima chuckled. “Was that the best thing you could come up with?”

“Well, yeah I know some of my colleagues believe in them. They said that would explain a lot of kidnappings and mysterious deaths.”

“Do you believe in vampires, Schecter?”

“You can call me Jennifer, and no, I don’t believe in vampires.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Seriously, how old are you? Vampires are myths, just like werewolves and other paranormal creatures.”

“What if I told you they were not a myth?” Dima said seriously, taking a step closer to Jennifer.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jennifer said.

“Is it? Really? You’ve worked homicide for ten years now. Haven’t you ever seen a mysterious death like this one? Haven’t you ever wondered, what if they exist?”

“I’ve never seen anything like this. And as I said, I don’t believe in supernatural stuff,” Jennifer said, tired of playing this game.

“Who said it was supernatural? It’s just a part of evolution. And what about the girl who was found dead drenched in her blood in Ohlone Park February 18^th in 2004? Or the girl who disappeared from Codornices Park November 17^th 1999, only to be found days later with her arms ripped out and no blood left in her body, like someone had sucked it out of her?”

“Wait, how do you know about all this? Those are closed, confidential cases!” Jennifer said confused.

“What if I told you I killed all those people?” Dima said staring at her.

Jennifer backed up, but Dima grabbed her arm.

“What are you saying?” she said in a tiny voice.

“I’m saying that I killed all those girls, including the blonde beauty last night,” Dima said glancing at the spot where the dead body had been with a satisfied smile on his face.

“What are you?” Jennifer whispered.

“A hunter. But people have a lot of nicknames for us: killers, cannibals, the cold ones, bloodsuckers.”

“Are you a vampire?” Jennifer’s voice was so low that she was sure he didn’t hear her.

Dima grimaced. “People call us that too. But we’re not like the kind of vampires you’ve read about. We’re integrated in the society. We don’t sleep in coffins and we have no problem being out in daylight. I prefer to be called a hunter though. I hunt in order to survive. Just as you humans hunt animals. You’re no better than us you know.”

Jennifer felt her heart racing in her chest. She struggled out of his grip and started running away from him. She knew she was running in the wrong direction, she was running further into the dark woods, but he was blocking the other way. It was pitch dark now and it had just started to rain heavily. As she stumbled away from the path and into the woods she heard Dima’s smooth voice calling her: ”You know, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jenny. I have no intention of hurting you, but if you trip I can’t promise anything.”

Jennifer knew she was deep into the woods now as she saw the trees got bigger and closer together. It was all so dark and wet and Jennifer had trouble seeing the path in front of her. She wondered if Dima was chasing her; she couldn’t hear him. Just as Jennifer turned her head to look behind her she hit a rock and she landed flat on her stomach. She scratched her hand on the ground and felt something warm dripping from her wrist. Suddenly, he was there right next to her. His eyes were empty now and his blue lips were curled up in a smile.

“You know your blood smells so good to me. I wish I didn’t have to do this but you’re giving me no choice.”

Dima bent down and kissed her wrist gently. Jennifer got a quick glance of some razor sharp white teeth before she lost consciousness.