Vance Holloway's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Vance ran north with a knife in each hand. The trail Evan and the girl left ended at a split in the ground. Two paths broke through the trees. One climbed a stony ridge. The other dropped into a wet gully. He crouched and read the dirt. Broken ferns went both ways. A smear of blood marked neither. He had lost them. Somewhere ahead, the antlered thing hunted the same two people, and if Vance chose wrong, it would reach his prey first. Then he heard a voice below, in the gully. Not a scream. A flat, clipped word. "Down. Stay low." Vance knew that voice. It belonged to the old man who taught him these woods, his uncle, Chester Grimwald. Nineteen years gone, and here he was, crouched behind a rock with a notebook pressed to his chest. Vance had not called him. The blood in this forest had. Chester did not look surprised to see him. He pointed a stubby finger up the ridge. "They went that way. Ten minutes ago. The boy and the girl." He tapped the notebook. "The tall one follows them. I counted its steps. It circles." Vance took the ridge. His boots slid on loose stone. He heard them before he saw them. Scout stood with a rock raised, the same weapon that split his head open days ago. Evan crouched behind her, holding a broken branch. Between them and Vance, the creature stepped from the trees. It was worse now. Black blood crusted its ribs where his knives still hung. Three of his own blades jutted from its hide, shoulder, side, and neck. The bloody rack of steel he kept in camp had ended up buried in this thing. Its antlers spread wide. Its yellow eyes moved from the campers to Vance and back. Scout saw him and did not lower the rock. "You," she said. Evan pulled her arm. "Both of you," Evan said, plain. "It's between us." Vance understood the shape of it then. The creature circled to cut one target from the others. It always did. It had done it to him. Now it stood deciding which of the three would die first. Vance was the one bleeding oldest. He was the reason it kept coming back. He made his choice. Not for the boy. For the trophy. If the thing killed Evan now, three years of hunting ended with someone else's blade. Vance would not allow that. "Hey," Vance said. He stepped into the open and spread his arms wide. "You want the one who shot you. That's me." The creature turned. It came at him fast, dragging its wounded side. Vance did not run. He waited until the last step, then went low under the swinging claw. He drove his knife up into the soft place beneath its jaw. The blade sank to the handle. The creature shrieked and threw him. His back struck a tree. Evan moved then. He grabbed the knife buried in the thing's side, Vance's own knife, and tore it free. He shoved it into the wound Vance had opened at the throat. Scout brought the rock down on the same spot, hard, twice. The creature staggered. Its knees folded wrong. It fell into the ferns and did not rise. Black blood ran out and stopped. Vance got to his feet. His prey stood three steps away, breathing hard, still holding the bloody knife. For three years Vance had wanted this moment. One clean strike. The last camper who got away. Now Evan looked at him over the dead creature, and he did not run. He held the knife the same way Vance held his. "Go on," Evan said. Flat. Tired. "Finish it. Or we're done here." Vance's hand tightened on his knife. Then Chester climbed the ridge behind him, notebook open, and spoke without looking up. "It's dead. Nineteen years. I was right." He crouched by the body and began to write. The old man did not care about the boy at all. Vance looked at the thing he had hunted and the thing he had killed. His trophy had helped him bring down a monster no one believed was real. Killing Evan now would prove nothing. The escaped camper was no longer the one that got away. He was the one who had stayed. Vance lowered the knife. He turned and walked back down the ridge, past his uncle scribbling in the dirt, past the campers he would never chase again. His collection would stay unfinished. He found, walking out of his woods for the last time, that he could live with that.