The Hunt

Chet had been preparing to take his shot for several minutes, stalking the deer with his eyes. He held up his rifle, taking great care that the weapon was aimed directly at its intended target. When he moved, he did so slightly, making sure that the deer was always at the end of his bullet's trajectory. Chet was a skilled hunter, and he knew what he needed to do to make sure that his shot was going to hit its mark. When he finally felt confident that he was going to hit the animal, he out his finger on the trigger and started to squeeze.

At just that moment, on the floor of his blind below his chair, his cell phone began loudly vibrating, startling him and causing him to jerk at the last moment, firing his bullet wildly in the wrong direction. Annoyed, he set his rifle against the wall in front of him, leaning the end of the barrel towards the outside, and picked up his phone, cursing himself all the while for not simply turning it off.

The deer was long gone, so Chet saw no harm in checking what had been important enough to interrupt him. He had disabled his internet, so there was no chance it was an email he would not care about. Sure enough, when he unlocked his phone, the text message icon was visible in his notification bar, and when he pulled it down, he could see that it was from his brother, Mike.

Chet had always been protective of his little brother, and that was especially true at present. Mike was in the middle of a bad divorce, and Chet, naturally, had promised to always be there for him, meaning this was the one person he could not get upset with for interrupting his hunting trip. He read the text through, seeing that Mike was saying something about needing to get out of town for a couple days to clear his head. It was a holiday, so the court was going to be taking a long weekend, and Mike figured that it was in his best interest to use that time to do something good for himself, and Chet couldn't say he disagreed.

Mike had asked his brother if he could take him on a hunting trip into the woods, and though he was an amateur, Chet was still excited at the idea. Cold beer and guns would probably be a suitable distraction from the problems of his life for a few days, so he responded enthusiastically, asking what he wanted the course of action to be.

While he waited for Mike's reply, Chet grabbed his gun and headed down the ladder from his blind into the clearing below. He parked his truck at the edge of the woods, a few minutes' walk away, and he started off in that direction. As he reached it, he received his reply, confirming that he was already moving in the correct manner. Mike had asked if it was possible for him to be picked up and brought into the woods as soon as possible and leave it as little as possible over the long weekend. Chet replied that he was on his way, locked his phone, and hopped into his truck.

He turned the key to start the vehicle with a loud roar, then backed off of the treeline towards the road. Michigan roads in the country are fairly packed with trees even when they aren't in the forest, so there was no dramatic change of scenery as he drove several minutes into town. Once in town, he headed for Mike's house, where he found his brother waiting outside with a black duffel bag, still wearing the suit he wore to court.

Chet stopped, but did not turn off the truck. Instead, he allowed Mike to get in silently before putting it in reverse, getting back on the road, and making his way the direction he had come. After a few minutes, about halfway to the clearing he parked at, Chet spoke.

"She home?"

Mike only nodded. Chet nodded too. They continued their drive in silence until he reached the clearing, where he pulled off the road to the trees, stopped and turned off the truck, then exited the vehicle. He reached behind his seat to grab his own rifle, which he held by the barrel in his left hand, then again for a second, which he held the same way in his right until Mike had exited as well, at which point he handed him the weapon.

"Follow me," Chet instructed, and Mike did so without speaking. They walked through the woods at a slower pace than Chet normally would, arriving at the second clearing after a considerable amount of time. Once there, Chet started up the ladder, motioning for Mike to do the same. The younger brother had some difficulty making it up while holding the rifle, but eventually was able to ascend to the top.

When he reached the blind proper, Mike was greeted to the sight of Chet sitting in a folding chair, opposite a second, holding two cans of beer which he had already opened. He extended one out to Mike, who took it and sat down. Between them was a cooler with more inside it, and as they finished a beer, each of them would simply reach into it and fish out another. They spent the entire night drinking and conversing, never firing a single shot, until they fell asleep in their chairs.

In the dead of the night, something loud awoke the pair suddenly. A loud thumping sound continued to echo through the woods, increasing in intensity as though getting closer to them. After a few moments, a stench like a rotten corpse that had been found in a sewer began to overpower the area, with the sound continuing to grow louder and louder.

"Is that a bear?" Mike asked, nervous. Chet just shook his head, crooking his head in order to better listen to the sound, which was still increasing in volume.

Suddenly, as soon as the sound had reached a climax, it stopped. The smell was now completely overpowering, bringing tears to Chet's eyes and making Mike vomit. A deafeningly loud, animalistic shriek split the still of the night, so close to the brothers it was almost deafening, followed by the sound of something scraping against tree bark, loud enough to obviously be the tree that they were at the top of. Chet looked over the side of the blind, jerked back and started breathing deeply, clutching his weapon closely. He leaned over the side again, carefully taking aim, and fired until the gun was out of bullets.

Following the volley, the shriek sounded again, a wet roar that seemed to shake the very earth around it. Once it had subsided, the tree itself began to shake as though something very strong and very large was pulling on it. Soon, there was a snapping sound as the blind began to fall to the ground to bring the brothers face to face with this bulletproof monster.