Vance Holloway's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Three nights passed and Vance did not sleep. The thing with pointed feet came each dark hour and walked its slow circle around his camp. He heard it press the mud. He heard it stop, then move again. He could not hunt his escaped camper while this predator ringed him in. He could not even cross the creek unseen. So he decided to stop hiding and set a trap of his own. He planned it like his uncle taught him. Bait the ground. Draw the hunter into the open. Vance dragged a fresh deer carcass to the clearing beside the old canvas tent. He hung his knives on the weathered rack near the fire, blades wet and red, so the smell of blood would carry. He smeared more on the tent flaps. Then he climbed into the dark timber above and waited with his rifle. The creature came near midnight. It smelled the carcass and stopped its circle. For the first time it broke pattern and stepped toward the bait. Vance sighted down the barrel. His hands stayed steady. He fired twice into the tall shape below. The thing screamed. Not like an animal. It thrashed the tent to rags and tore the blade rack from its post. Then it ran, crashing north through the trees, dragging one leg. Vance climbed down and found black blood on the dirt and pointed prints leading away. It bled. It could be hurt. And it was gone from his camp. He followed the blood trail before dawn. It ran toward a low stretch where no light touched the ground. At the edge of that hollow he found two people instead of a monster. A girl in a wide hat crouched over the tracks, reading them the way Vance read them. A young man in an orange jacket stood behind her, watching the trees, ready to bolt. "You made these," the girl said. She pointed at the blood, then at Vance. "You shot it." She did not ask. She stated it and waited. The young man stared at Vance's face. His mouth went tight. "I know you," he said. "You were at Camp Harrow. Last summer." He took one step back. "You're the reason I ran." Vance did not move. He knew this face too. Three years older now, but the same. This was the camper who got away. The empty slot on his shelf had a name at last, and the name was standing ten feet from him. "I got lucky that night," the young man said. "That's all it was." Vance had driven the predator off his ground. He had won back his dark and his quiet. But he had also led two witnesses straight to his blood trail, and one of them was the very prize he hunted. His trap had worked. Now the escaped camper knew Vance was still hunting, and he would run again unless Vance moved first.