Predator

My heart beat like a galloping horse, like the drums from "Run to the Hill", like a thousand refugees fleeing for their lives from a cavalry charge meaning to ride them down with lances and bows. I was crouched, waiting, watching my prey. I was certain she would hear it, the beating of my heart, the thunder of blood in my ears, so keen were her senses. Yet, she continued to walk unperterbed through velvet darkness, speared here and there with safts of silver moonlight. The thirst came upon me then, as it always does when prey is near. The need. The ache that begins in my guts and works in two directions: down, first, where it lingers in my loins, and then up where it takes root in my mouth. The same sensation each time. Each time it feels like the first and nothing like the last.

She paused beside a pool of pristine water, fed by a creek that hummed softly across a bed of small, smooth stones. Clear, clean water. She dipped her hand in to drink, brought it to her lips and tilted her head back. Soft white throat. The ache, stronger now. I checked my spear, my footing. The ground between she and I, prey and predator, was flat, clear of all but soft, slightly damp grass. She would turn soon, her eyes would face away from me.

Now.

As if in slow motion she turned her head away, glanced back over her shoulder. Perhaps she heard some sound she thought might signal danger, but there was no danger that way. Only endless forest, dark as the Ever Black. No, the danger sprung at her from the underbrush. I lurched forward, powerful legs rushing soundlessly at her from the bush. She turned back toward me, satisfied that there was nothing behind her, and her eyes grew wide, though not with understanding. That would come later. They grew wide with confusion. How could I have eluded her senses? Crept so near without her knowing? Questions to which the answers no longer mattered.

I speared her there, threw her flat on her back and took my fill of her flesh. She writhed and screamed, perhaps in agony, perhaps in ecstasy, with my weapon in her guts. Her hips rocked and bucked, her teeth gnashed at me, snatched at my shoulders and hands, but I drove it in deeper and finally, finally, she was still. I was sated, the hunger left me.

This, I thought, would be the last hunt. There had to be a final hunt. Always I thought, this will feel like the first and this will be the final time. Always I am wrong.

Once more, perhaps.

I hunger,
S.R.