Vance Holloway's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Blood ran down Vance's jaw. The rock had split his temple, and the trees swam when he turned his head. He pressed his bandana to the wound and forced himself north, toward his camp. He needed to stop the bleeding and grab a rifle. But something moved with him. A wet sound circled the brush, always at the edge of sight. The wounded creature had found his blood trail, and now it hunted him. He stumbled into the clearing where his tent sagged between dark poles. Lanterns hung dead on the timber. His weapons waited on their rack beside the cold fire, blades still crusted from old work. He grabbed the longest knife and pressed his back to the tent. His own tricks would not help him now. The skulls, the poisoned blooms, the smears of blood meant nothing to this thing. The circling stopped. Vance held his breath. Then it stepped into the lantern light, and he understood why his fear had a shape. It stood taller than a man, on bent hind legs, its skin stretched tight over ribs like old rope. Antlers branched from its skull, wide as a doorway. Black blood leaked from two holes in its chest, his gunshots, healing wrong. Its yellow eyes found him. Its long fingers ended in points. This was the thing that left the pointed tracks. This was what he had shot and failed to kill. Up close, it was worse than any story he told to scare campers off. Vance did not run. Running is how prey dies. He watched its wounded side, the one that dragged. When it lunged, he went the other way. Its claws tore through canvas where his throat had been. He drove the knife into its ribs, deep, twisting. It shrieked and swung an arm that knocked him across the fire pit. Coals scattered. His shoulder struck the weapon rack and knives rained into the dirt. He came up with two more blades. The creature turned, slower now, black blood pouring from its side. Vance threw the first knife. It sank into its shoulder. He threw the second into its neck. The thing staggered back into the trees, crashing through brush, gone. He stood alone in the wrecked camp, chest heaving. He had driven it off. He was alive. But three of his blades were gone, buried in a creature that healed from bullets. It would come back. It always came back. Vance wiped the blood from his eye and looked north, where Evan and the girl had fled. They would return with a gun, or with others. And this thing would be hunting all three of them now, drawn to the same blood trail through his woods. His trophy was still out there, wounded and running. If Vance wanted the camper who got away, he would have to reach him before the antlered thing did.