Blur
Together, they heaved the deer into the back of the cart. The ancient boards creaked with the added weight, shuddering as they accepted the burden. William had done most of the heavy lifting, but his son looked happily at the animal, proud of his contribution.
“It won’t always be this easy, Rob,” he said to him, ruffling his hair as he passed by and climbed into the seat at the front of the cart. His words did little to deflate Rob’s excitement, and he bounced after him. He hoisted himself into the seat beside his father, struggling due to the height of the step, but he managed to settle himself.
“I know, but that was incredible. It walked right up to us! I’ve never seen a live deer from so close before,” Rob said.
William grunted noncommittally. Despite his decades of experience hunting, some part of him still felt bad for the poor animal. There was no honor in the kill—no sport in hunting game that approached the hunter. “It was like it never learned to fear humans,” he thought aloud.
He set his rifle into the holster on his back and shook the reins, and their horse whinnied as it trudged forward. Its heavy hooves cracked the frozen mud beneath it. The wheels of the cart were jostled by the uneven terrain, but the pair managed progress, one sinking step at a time. The sound of their quarry bouncing in the cart followed behind them.
“Also, I know you’ve been trying to teach me the bird songs, but I couldn’t recognize any today,” Rob said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I don’t blame you,” he said, shaking his head. “They sounded so strange, twisted and broken—like they didn’t know their own songs.”
Rob looked up at him expectantly, questioning.
He shrugged. “Truthfully, your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Familiar signs of civilization began to appear as they continued down the road, starting with a few scattered farm houses in the distance. Acres of farmland creeped alongside the road blanketed by a heavy mist. The sky loomed dark and gray above, threatening to unload its burden of rain upon them.
The clusters of buildings grew denser as they approached the center of town. The buildings were squat, none more than three stories tall, and made of sturdy planks of wood. A few houses painted their walls in dull yellows and reds, but most bore their natural color. Dozens of people were milling about, arms laden with goods—probably stocking up before the storm hit, William guessed. A few women seemed to be struggling to simultaneously hold their items and pull their skirts up to navigate the frosty ground. He couldn’t see many of their faces, hats and bonnets pulled down to shield them from the wind, but he had never seen the streets so crowded.
Eventually, they reached the butcher’s stand, who was clearing space on the counter for them as they approached. William parked the horse alongside the stall and lifted the deer. Rob hopped down to offer ineffectual aid, grappling beneath the weight of the deer while supplying little support. William smiled at his son’s efforts. He threw the animal down on the counter, along with the few pheasants they managed to find.
“Mornin’, William,” the butcher greeted him.
“Morning, Joshua,” he replied.
Joshua’s eyes roved over the game on the counter with a slight frown on his face. His face was mostly obscured by his wiry graying hair and beard, but William could sense disappointment. “Not a good day today, huh?” he asked. He handed William the money for the game and began to skin the animal. His knife fluidly slid under the fur, cleaving meat from flesh with practiced ease.
“Unfortunately not,” William replied, sighing. “The forest was nearly empty today. Still got to teach Rob here a thing or two, though. He’s taking to it quickly.”
He patted his son on the back, and though he had been shivering against the chilly wind, he stood a little straighter at the praise, puffing out his chest slightly.
“Good lad,” Joshua said as he separated the pelt from the carcass, hanging it on a rack beside him. He set to carving the rest of the animal.
William added, “It was a strange hunt all around, though.”
“It’s been a strange day in general,” Joshua affirmed. “Didja’ hear about the chatter ‘bout Lucretia?”
He shook his head.
“She made a big fuss about kicking Benjamin out onto the street. She kept yammering ‘bout how she didn’t know who he was—insisted he was a stranger in her house.” He chuckled. “I know she weren’t too happy with their marriage, but that’s definitely a new ‘proach.”
He laughed. “She’s never exactly played with a full deck. I’m not too surprised.”
“It’s this storm, I tell you,” Joshua said. “Has everyone in a daze.”
William glanced over at Rob to see him still shivering, hunched over with hands clutching opposite elbow.
He rested his hand on his shoulder. “We should probably get this boy by a fire.”
Joshua nodded, raising a bloody hand in a vague wave. “Take care o’ yerself, William.”
He returned his wave and walked back to the horse, leading it out into the road in the direction of home. Rob scrambled up into the cart again. When they first started going on hunting trips together, William had once tried to help him up, but he adamantly refused the assistance. He chuckled at his fierce insistence on independence, even in something so small.
“Today was fun,” Rob said as he found his seat.
“I’m glad. One day you’ll have to take over, after all.” He cast a sidelong glance at his son beside him, beaming with pride at the young man he was growing up to be. It warmed his heart to see the way he so readily accepted his new responsibilities.
The cart was tugged along as their horse set off, wheels shaking as they repeatedly plunged into potholes on the dirt road. Soon, droplets began to fall intermittently from the clouds above, spattering the soil a dark brown. Passersby on the road felt the rain and began scurrying faster, hands going up to shield their heads. He had hoped they would make it home before the storm started. He urged the horse faster.
Beside him, Rob looked thoroughly unhappy with the weather, casting dark looks at the sky as though affronted by the fact that it dared to rain on him. His teeth were chattering. William pulled him closer on the bench, wrapping his arm around him and giving his shoulder a rub for warmth.
“It’s alright. We’ll be home soon,” he said. Rob rested his head against him, sighing.
“I was going to head down to the pond with Jack before supper,” Rob said, sighing. “Dumb rain.”
“Having to spend all day with me? You poor thing,” William said playfully. He gave him a poke in the ribs, and he squirmed. He was trying to look annoyed but giggled beside himself. “We’ll have a good time. We haven’t played cards in a while.”
He gave him a look.
“I’ll make some hot cocoa,” he added.
Rob smiled. “Today was fun,” he said.
“So you’ve said,” he replied with a chuckle.
“Did I?” he asked, brow furrowed. He shook his head.
There were many pedestrians in the road hampering their trip. William was carefully trying to navigate around them when suddenly the world spun—something had collided with them in the back. It felt as though a bull had charged into them. The cart was rocked to the side, launching them into the road. They landed in the dirt with a grunt. The ground, though damp, did little to cushion th—
—oots crunched the frozen soil as they walked down the road. “I wish we were home already,” Rob said beside him.
“We’ll be home soon enough,” he said. “We should have taken the horse.”
“Though, didn’t we come in to town to drop our game off? It’s not like we dragged it all the way from the forest,” Rob said, trailing off. “I’m confused.”
He scratched his head. “I’m not sure.”
“And how did we get so dirty?” Rob asked as he looked down at himself. He was right, William observed: they were both covered in mud.
He had a sinking feeling in his stomach, though he couldn’t quite place why. Little incongruous details like their having walked into town and current state of filth tugged at the back of his mind. Looking at the fresh dirt caked beneath his fingernails, he also noticed little scratches on his palms, still bleeding.
He didn’t answer, instead pulling Rob closer.
They continued plodding down the road as the frigid wind blew at their faces. He tried to shroud his face in his collar, but his cheeks were still stinging from the cold. The rain had suddenly picked up, which only exacerbated the chill.
His eyes scanned the streets, but they were deserted. He had never seen the streets so empty.
“Papa,” Rob said suddenly. “I’m scared.”
“Why?” he asked. He looked over at Rob, who was also hunched over against the cold and shivering.
“I don’t know,” Rob stammered. “Just a feeling.”
“Come on,” he said, not voicing his agreement. He patted his shoulder. “We’ll get home soon.” Despite his assurances, his heart was pou—
—m by the wrist, dragging his son behind him as they continued sprinting down the street. “Hurry!” he yelled.
They rounded the corner and stopped to catch their breath, leaning against the wooden face of a general goods store. As they faced into the street, William saw a few scattered people sprinting down the road away from them—the same direction they had been running.
“Hey!” he called, but they either didn’t hear or didn’t spare him the attention.
His mind was reeling. Why had he and Rob been running? What had been so urgent?
“Papa, what was that thing?” Rob asked between breaths.
Thing?
“What was what?”
Rob paused before shaking his head. “I don’t know. I think we should go.”
The pair set out, treading carefully on the icy ground. William figured they must have wandered into some far side of town because he didn’t recognize any of the buildings or streets. They hugged the storefronts as they walked to find cover from the rain under their awnings.
Somewhere off in the distance, there was a loud crash. It sounded like wood being pulverized, planks shattering and splintering. Rob looked in the direction of the noise before turning to him, eyes wide.
“Um,” he sounded.
“Come on,” William said, picking up the pace.
As they walked, there was a ringing in his ears. He didn’t hear any sound, but he could feel his eardrums vibrating. He glanced warily over his shoulder but saw only the empty street. The rifle was still slung over his shoulder, he noted as he instinctively checked for it.
The rain had picked up, striking against the awnings and buildings above with a hasty staccato. He pulled Rob close, as much for warmth as peace of mind. He had been a hunter his whole life; his father had trained him when he was young just as he was doing the same for Rob now. As a result, he had honed certain instincts, and he had learned to trust his gut. Right now, every instinct he had was screaming that there was something wrong. It was a feeling reminiscent of when he had once been stalked by a bear—a pervasive feeling of looming danger.
William cast another look behind them. The street lay open and barren, though it was difficult to see far through the curtain of rain and fog. Dark puddles of water were pooling in the holes on the street; in the gloom, he thought they almost looked like blood.
More concerning were the gaps in his memory, like how they had come into town or why they had just been running. The feeling was similar to having just woken up, an immediate scrambling to get a sense of one’s bearings after a long period of unconsciousness. He couldn’t remember seeing anything distinctly threatening, but the telltale signs lingered in his body: his heart was pounding in his chest, he was sweating despite the cold, and his senses were heightened by adrenaline. It was the imprint of an encounter with something terrifying.
The stiffness of his pants made him realize that they were caked in dried mud, as though they had been rol—
—eaming pierced through the stillness of the afternoon. He put his finger to his lips, hushing Rob. He could hardly justify the action, but considering their panting, they had clearly been running from something, and judging by the state of Rob’s leg, it was worth hiding from.
His leg was torn to ribbons, blood pooling on the tough mud. His face was stretched in a painful grimace, teeth clenched to stop from screaming. The flesh on his shin was mangled and so thoroughly coated in blood that it was hard to differentiate uninjured skin from the muscle exposed beneath. The glint of bone was visible beneath the carnage.
His head spun at seeing his son in such a state. He choked back tears, wearing a brave face to give Rob the comfort of confidence, though he had no earthly idea what was going on. He helped him to a seated position against the tree they were cowering under. They seemed to be near the edge of town. At the top of the hill they were situated on, the great expanse of plains surrounding their settlement was visible, gently sloping beyond the horizon as the steadily increasing opacity of the mist shrouded them. William immediately tore off his scarf and set to tying a makeshift tourniquet to slow the bleeding.
“You’ll be alright,” he said. His hands were shaking from the stress.
“It clawed at me,” Rob gasped. His voice cracked in the strain. “Or bit me or something.”
“You saw it?” he asked in a whisper.
Rob nodded, eyes pinched shut.
“Do you remember what it looked like?”
He furrowed his brow, rummaging through memories. “Big.”
“What?”
“It was big. That’s all I remember.”
The sound of heavy footfalls echoed behind them. William spun around, hand flying to his rifle, before spying the intruder: a woman was stumbling through the streets. Her hair was frayed and makeup smudged. It was hard to tell whether the gleam over her pale skin was due to sweat or the precipitation. Her lacey white skirt was sullied with dirt, though splotches of red suggested she was bleeding beneath the folds of fabric.
“What happened to that poor child’s leg?” she said, hands flying to her mouth.
His hands were working to secure the scarf around Rob’s leg. Blood was already beginning to soak through the wool, dyeing it a deep crimson. “I’m not quite sure,” William said, his voice faltering. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean—” She looked down and, as if noticing the state of her dress for the first time, yelped. “Good heavens!”
“Something sinister is upon us,” he said. “You should head home.”
Home. They should head home, too. But where was home? He craned his neck, looking for any familiar landmarks but found none. He figured they must have gotten turned around. And what awaited them once they got there? His wife?
No. She had died of pneumonia four years back.
He took an unsteady, shaking breath to center himself, but his mind was in a whirl. How had he momentarily forgotten the passing of his wife?
“No,” the woman said, shaking William out of his stupor. “I was coming into town for groceries.” She trailed off, lost in thought as she stared into the mist.
“You should head home,” he repeated.
“A storm is coming,” she babbled as she lurched back in the direction of town.
“Wait!” he called, but he couldn’t leave Rob. The pain was driving him to dig his fingers into the soil, desperately grasping for some release from the agony. William dabbed a tear on his cheek with his shoulder as he helped Rob to his feet. “We have to go,” he said, as his ears began to ring. Rob gasped as he put weight on his ravag—
—ain was torrential, and now he lacked the cover of the buildings. Combined with the wind, the chill penetrated to his core. He had retreated to the outskirts of town beyond even the most peripheral houses. His boots swished through the tall grasses laden with frost and water droplets as the thick clouds hung still in the air, stagnant and suffocating.
His pace faltered as he tried to remember why he had been running in the first place. Slowing, he peered over his shoulder and noticed a child stumbling through the mist. He had a scarf soaked through with blood tied around his leg.
“Boy! What are you doing out here alone?” William called.
He belatedly noticed that he had a rifle in his hand. Had he been shooting at something?
As the child approached, he gave him a pained look. The boy opened his mouth to speak. “Pa—” he started, but he was suddenly thrown to the side, body limp like a rag doll. He yelped in pain as he hit the ground. New wounds seemed to appear from nowhere, flesh parting and disappearing seemingly without cause.
He wanted to help, but he didn’t know how.
The ringing in his ears was distracting. He didn’t hear any sound, but his head thrummed with some subliminal vibrations. As he approached the child, he noticed something crouched over him. It was like a smudge on the horizon. He thought perhaps it was a trick of the eye with the mists, but as he tried to focus on it, his mind refused—a massive blind spot consuming his vision. It was as though something was obstructing his view and his brain was patching the ga—
—mself lying on his back with the wind knocked out of him as though he had just fallen from a great height. The cold rain spattered on his exposed face. Just as he tried to sit up, he felt a terrific pain in his leg—as though flesh were being rent with a dozen paring knives simultaneously. He screamed and kicked blindly with his other leg. His foot collided with something solid, temporarily freeing his injured leg. He scrambled to a crouch and desperately tried to crawl away but received only another stabbing pain in his abdomen for his efforts.
He tried to look at his assailant and saw nothing—only a blur. As the ringing in his ears reached a crescendo, something clicked in his brain: this thing was erasing his memories of perceiving it as he observed it. His eyes were seeing it, but the memories were snatched away before they could properly register in his brain, leaving his mind to try to fill in the blanks. The sound of its roars, too: it was as though they were being eaten out of the air before they could reach his ears, leaving only the echo of blank sound.
This realization, however, was quickly expunged alongside the others.
It was destroying other memories, too. Trains of thought were repeatedly cut short, and his mind had to start over, again and again. His head felt like a broken record, constantly interrupted and skipping around.
It was impossible to think clearly, and his mind was rendered blank as his leg was lacerated. Instead, all that was left was his body—his body that he had honed from an early age, that he had trained with the instincts to hunt since as early as he could hold a rifle.
His mind was reeling, looping and stuttering as the unperceivable being filled his vision, but there was a deeply ingrained part of him that the monster couldn’t access: his muscle memory. As he felt another stabbing pain in his abdomen, that carnal, enduring instinct, feeling the weight of the rifle in his hand, commanded his hand: squeeze.
He pulled the trigger, and the crack of the gunshot echoed throughout the clearing. With it, the ringing stopped in his ears; his mind was freed from its perdition, cleared from the beast’s influence.
He lay face up in the grass, staring at the gray dome of clouds. He blinked falling raindrops out of his eyes. His breaths were shallow and painful. He looked down and saw profuse bleeding from his stomach, and his right leg was destroyed. Shards of his shattered bone poked through what flesh loosely remained, muscle sloughing off. Fragmented memories swam to the surface, but he couldn’t recall how he got there.
Clutching his wounds to stem the bleeding, he pushed himself to his feet using the rifle as a makeshift cane, pain shooting through his leg as he put weight on it. The chill was mercifully numbing the wounds, slightly. His heart sank when he noticed the mangled body of a child nearby—couldn’t have been more than twelve. He wondered if his injuries were related to his unfortunate fate.
Dark shapes loomed through the mist, which he recognized to be buildings. With the wind at his back, he hobbled off toward civilization, unsure what he would find.