Hunting Party

They kept my wallet as a trophy, and I watched them divide up my credit cards like poker chips before the darkness took me.

I should have known something was going to happen when I saw the same pickup truck three times in thirty miles. Highway 89 through Nevada doesn't get much traffic after midnight, but I convinced myself it was coincidence. Just another trucker making the same run I was, hauling freight from Reno to Phoenix.

The truck pulled alongside me at the rest stop near Hawthorne. Three men got out. The driver was tall, lanky, with grease-stained coveralls. The passenger was stocky, built like a linebacker gone soft. The third stayed in the truck bed, just a shadow smoking a cigarette.

"Engine trouble?" the tall one called out.

I was checking my tire pressure, nothing more. "Just being careful."

"Smart man." He walked closer. Too close. "Long way between towns out here."

The stocky one had circled around behind my rig while we talked. I pretended not to notice, but every nerve in my body screamed danger. Fifteen years on the road teaches you to read people, and these three radiated violence like heat from an engine.

"Well, I better get moving." I started toward my cab.

The tall one's hand shot out, gripping my arm. "Actually, we got a proposition for you."

That's when I saw the knife. Not big, maybe four inches, but sharp enough to part fabric and flesh without effort. The stocky one pressed it against my ribs while tall boy smiled.

"Here's the deal, driver. You're going to take a little detour. Drive where we tell you, when we tell you. Do that, and maybe you see morning."

The third man jumped down from the truck bed. Younger than the others, maybe early twenties, with dead eyes and a twitchy energy that scared me more than the knife. He bounced on his toes like a boxer waiting for the bell.

"Can we just get this started already?" His voice cracked with excitement. "I've been waiting all week."

"Patience, Tommy." The tall one never took his eyes off me. "Our friend here needs to understand the rules first."

They forced me back into my cab, the stocky one climbing in beside me while the others followed in their truck. For the next hour, I drove deeper into the desert on roads that barely deserved the name. Dirt tracks carved by mining equipment decades ago, leading nowhere civilization cared about

My hands shook on the steering wheel. I tried to think of escape plans, but the knife never left my peripheral vision. The stocky one hummed tunelessly, occasionally giving directions in a voice devoid of emotion.

"Turn left at that Joshua tree."

"Follow the wash for two miles."

"Stop here."

Here was a clearing surrounded by boulder formations that looked like ancient monuments. The perfect place to disappear someone. No witnesses, no cell service, no chance anyone would find remains before the desert claimed them.

They dragged me from the cab. The tall one, who seemed to be in charge, produced a small backpack and began removing items with ceremonial precision. Zip ties. Duct tape. A digital camera. More knives.

"Every year we take a hunting trip," he explained, his tone conversational. "Used to hunt deer, elk, that sort of thing. But animals don't fight back the right way. Don't beg. Don't make promises they can't keep."

The young one, Tommy, giggled and spun in circles like a child. "Tell him about the game, Marcus. Tell him the rules."

Marcus, the tall one, smiled. "Simple really. We give you a thirty-minute head start. You run, hide, survive until sunrise, you win. We catch you before then..." He shrugged. "Well, let's just say our trophy collection needs a new addition."

"What about him?" I nodded toward the stocky one, who hadn't spoken since we arrived.

"Ray doesn't talk much, but he's got the best nose for tracking this side of the Rockies. Spent ten years hunting bounties before he joined our little group."

They zip-tied my hands behind my back, then cut the ties. A mockery of fairness.

"Thirty minutes," Marcus repeated, checking his watch. "Starting now."

I ran.

The desert at night is a maze of shadows and false promises. Every rock could hide behind, every wash could lead to safety or deeper into their trap. My lungs burned as I stumbled through sand and scrub, guided only by starlight and the desperate need to put distance between myself and the monsters.

Behind me, I heard them laughing. Actually laughing, like this was the most fun they'd had in months.

Twenty minutes in, I found a depression between two large rocks and pressed myself into it, trying to control my breathing. The silence stretched until I almost believed I'd lost them.

Then I heard Ray's voice for the first time, calm and professional: "Fresh prints heading northeast. Maybe ten minutes old."

"Beautiful night for this," Tommy added, his voice closer than I'd expected.

I held my breath as footsteps crunched past my hiding spot. When the sounds faded, I counted to one hundred before moving again. But instead of running further into the desert, I doubled back toward the trucks. Maybe I could reach the highway, flag down help.

That decision killed me.

Marcus was waiting by my rig, leaning against the cab like he had all the time in the world. "Predictable. They always go for the vehicles first."

The knife slid between my ribs before I could react. Not deep enough to kill, just enough to drop me to my knees and flood my system with liquid fire.

"That's one," he said.

Tommy appeared from behind the pickup, practically vibrating with excitement. He had a different knife, longer and serrated. "My turn! My turn!"

The second blade opened my shoulder, sending warm blood down my arm. I tried to crawl away, but Ray's boot came down on my back, pinning me to the desert floor.

"Make it last," Marcus instructed. "We don't get to do this often."

What followed was systematic. Clinical. They took turns, each cut carefully placed to maximize pain while avoiding anything immediately fatal. They wanted me conscious, aware, experiencing every moment of what they were doing.

Tommy carved his initials into my chest. Ray broke three of my ribs with methodical kicks. Marcus filmed it all on his camera, providing commentary like some twisted nature documentary.

"Notice how the subject continues to struggle even when resistance is futile. The human survival instinct is remarkable."

I begged. Promised them money, information, anything they wanted. They laughed and kept cutting.

The end came when Tommy got impatient. He'd been arguing with Marcus about technique when he suddenly drove his knife deep into my stomach and twisted. The wound was beyond what they'd planned, and we all knew it.

"You idiot," Marcus snarled. "He'll bleed out in minutes now."

"So? We can find another one tomorrow night."

"It's not about finding another one. It's about savoring this one."

But I was already fading. The desert spun around me as my blood soaked into sand that had probably absorbed plenty of blood before mine. I watched them argue over my body like scavengers fighting over carrion.

Ray ended the dispute by cutting my throat.

The last thing I saw was Marcus retrieving my wallet, removing my license and credit cards with the same care he'd shown unpacking his knives. Tommy grabbed my wedding ring. Ray took my truck keys.

They left my body for the coyotes and drove away in two vehicles instead of one, having gained a semi-truck and trailer full of electronics bound for Phoenix that would never arrive.

I don't know how long I lay there before the scavengers found me. Hours, maybe days. Time loses meaning when you're dead. But I watched it all happen. Watched them reduce me to scattered bones and scraps of clothing that would eventually be found by hikers and cataloged as another unsolved disappearance on Highway 89.

The police investigation lasted six weeks. They found the truck abandoned outside Las Vegas, wiped clean of prints. My cargo was never recovered. My wife collected the life insurance and moved back to her mother's house in Ohio.

Marcus, Ray, and Tommy are still out there. Still hunting. Still laughing.

And I'm still watching, powerless to warn the next trucker who sees the same pickup truck three times in thirty miles and thinks it's just coincidence.