The Barn Owl Slept

The barn owl slept. It was almost dusk, almost time for her nightly hunt in the nearby fields on the edge of the woods. She woke briefly when she heard the man come in, the familiar sound of heavy footsteps and something large being dragged across the dirt floor. She opened one eye, and promptly went back to sleep. The man never bothered her, nor did his prey, and she never bothered the man. She’d lived in the barn rafters for several months, and never saw anyone other than the man- not alive and not whole, anyway. He only visited the barn once a month or so, and when she returned in the mornings the bag and the barn were empty.

The barn owl slept as the smell of sweat and zinc oxide mixed with a strange, metallic scent; faint at first, but by the time she returned it would hang heavy in the morning heat. The man would not be there when she returned. The only evidence that he was ever there were the bones and blood that he left on the floor under her perch. They mixed with her pellets, creating a macabre display of human and animal remains. The man hunted in the woods during the day, and played with his prey at night. The barn owl hunted at night, but didn’t play with her kill. It was simply a matter of survival for her. It would be wrong, though, to say that only she hunted for sustenance. The man hunted because it fed and sustained him, and it was just as much a part of his survival as it was hers. He hunted much the way she did, moving silently through the trees, stalking an unsuspecting lone hiker, just as she moved silently over the grass, looking for a mouse.

The barn owl slept as the man set up his tools, his victim barely stirring in the bag. Once or twice, many months ago, the barn owl woke because a shriek filled the barn. A scream similar to her own, but filled with an unmistakable terror. Those were quickly silenced. The man preferred to work in the quiet of the night, while the rest of the world slept and the only sounds he heard were those of the night creatures and the muffled cries of his victim. He worked slowly, savoring each minute, each cut, each tear, each anguished expression. The old barn was the perfect spot for his work. He used the old barn because it sat on the edge of forest that was a remote area for thruhikers, and, fortunately for him, an area where people got lost and went missing fairly frequently. The nearest ranger station was miles away, and there were rumors of occasional grizzly sightings. He hunted animals as well, and would, from time to time, let slip to out-of-town hunters that he’d seen the bears, always directing the hunters away from the barn that held all of his secrets. He’d hunted all over the country, moving from state to state so as not to draw attention to any one place in particular. He could not remember how long he had been hunting, but he still remembered his first kill, and every kill since. He was confident he could spend a long time here without getting caught. This barn was perfect, and he found he enjoyed the presence of a barn owl that slept in the rafters when he was there during the day.

He had been hunting all day, but his adrenaline would keep him up all night. Tomorrow he would sleep all day, just like the barn owl. The man’s hunt was over. Soon her hunt would begin. But for now, the barn owl slept.