The Duck Hunter

Author's Note: This is my entry for Paradigm of Writing's Comfort Zones Do Not Exist in Writing Contest. It's AU. Please enjoy.

There's an old saying in my town that goes a little something like this: "If you're stuck in a ruck, you'll end up like a duck." Parents always used to say that to their kids as a warning, kind of like a way of saying that bad news only gets worse, or "if you think life sucks now, just wait until you get older you little brat." Honestly, truer words have never been spoken, and in a society where half the population was made of billed brainless birds, it was no wonder why we had to come up with a way of coping with the overabundance of feathers. You couldn't walk two blocks down the street without having to move around a crowd of web-footed gawkers, or listen to your favorite band on the radio without trying to drown out the annoying quacking every few seconds. Frankly, it didn't come as any surprise when the neighbourhood kids started modifying that little nursery rhyme to: "If you're stuck in a ruck, you'll be fucked like a duck."

Kind of disturbing when put in the wrong context.

You see, unlike most established communities, the problem in my town didn't come from its members, but from the very guests that we decided to entertain each summer. From far and wide the ducks would come, some old familiars now with a flock of ducklings following their trail, while more exotic beasts travelled from neighbouring states like parasites migrating to their next big roadkill meal. Some ducks preferred to just hang around in the streets, occupying streetlights and convenient stores, while others remained hidden under vehicles unless someone came too close where they would then honk as if it was duck season.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of these things.

I can't even recall how this whole duck fiasco started; they kind of just showed up out of the blue. I was much younger at the time and didn't really have many friends in this godforsaken neighbourhood besides my buddy Lucas. He may have been five years younger than me, but most kids my age were never interested in the things I liked anyway. Everyone was always playing sports or trying to sneak a peek at the Game & Mart's dirty magazine shelf without getting caught by old "Mr. Game and Fart." Me, I relished the simple things in life like sitting outside and reading a good book (except for horrors, no thank you) or playing on my Virtual Boy. Back then it was much easier to just sit outside and do nothing because there weren't so many asshole ducks around.

Lucas stumbled upon me by accident one day when he saw that one of the local kids had nailed me in the head with a stray soccer ball. He told me that his family had just moved in to town and that he was looking for the closest thing to a grocery store. One thing led to another and I ended up taking him on the grand tour, from the giant rusty fountain in town square to the abandoned library now spray-painted beyond recognition. No flash photography please.

As luck would have it, Lucas also despised birds about as much as I did. Granted, this hatred for the useless animals only grew exponentially due to the sheer infestation our town had to endure over the years. It all started with a couple of goslings hobbling outside the local bakery. They pecked, they flapped, they honked their obnoxious beaks if only to get more bread crumbs. The ducks would fly south for the winter, which was always appreciated since it actually meant some peace and quiet around here for six months. Come the spring, those goslings would already have grown up into full blown geese, and those things were worse than rabbits when it came to mating season. What begins as a handful birds ends up becoming quadrupled by the time I reach senior year. Then after graduation the ducks have already amassed a population rivaling that of our own. Three more years after that, and ladies and gentlemen, we have an epidemic on our hands.

"But Luigi!" you may ask. "What have you got against the ducks?"

Don't get me wrong; I used to love animals. I used to have a dog before it was so brutally murdered by those wretched beasts when a flock of them literally picked up little Bow Wow and dropped him in the lake. It's not so much what I have against the birds as what they have against us. Our hardworking people went out of their way just to feed these little bastards and give them nice homes to stay. And how do they repay us? By shitting on our heads and getting rid of any animal that doesn't offer a direct benefit to their livelihood. Really, it's just an act of selfishness, which is honestly something I wouldn't come to expect from a species that has a brain the size of my thumb.

So what happens next then? Well, we as a society eventually banded together and made a stand for our rights as human beings. We took up arms, hammered down signs, and did everything in our power to drive these menacing ducks back to the north once and for all. It became an all-out war—a fight for survival—between bullets and beaks. The birds practically wielded weapons made of bone, and when those beaks came in contact with human flesh, well, let's just say that the sights were never pretty. Lucas saved my life twice during that battle, once because those pyrotechnics he had been practicing actually paid off, and the other time because I'm a complete coward.

In the face of danger, I can't help but freeze up on the inside. It was a growing psychological problem I had to deal with growing up, and trust me when I say it never made confronting bullies easy in school. Lucas was really the guiding light I needed in those dark times, and he gave me the confidence to stand up for what I believed in and tell those birdbrains to go suck a duck.

The battle lasted for weeks on end. The streets were painted with blood and littered with feathers and duck carcasses, while bypassing birds practically swooped down just to eat the dead birds. It was gruesome, but we found solace in singing memorable war tunes such as "Kill Me Duck" and "There'll Be Dead Birds Over the Red Cliffs of Dover." It gave me the hope that one day, these bastards would finally be put in their place: The bottom of my shoe. Sadly, the uplifting songs were short-lived since every duck in town made sure to honk twice as loud if it meant it would cripple our spirits. With each passing day the beasts continued to multiply, and even though our numbers held strong, we knew that there was no way we could go on like this forever.

But all of this was about to change…

One fateful day amidst the blood-soaked battlefield, an old man appeared in town. There was nothing overly noticeable about him, save for the rugged brown coat and the way he would twitch his eye every few seconds. His hair was also shaggy and decrepit, almost making him look like some sort of a zombie. Besides these blemishes, he looked just a typical beggar, or at least someone who wasn't prepared for a war.

That is, until he drew his gun.

It was a model I had never seen before, and it had the most interesting color scheme for a handgun. Silently, the old man raised his flashy instrument of destruction up high, taking out a swarm of ducks one bullet at a time. The crimson reticle marked their doom as each flying victim fell to the awesome might of the unknown warrior. The birds were quick to retaliate, but the old man had the agility of a leopard, strafing and dodging beaks as more corpses fell from the sky. Those who wanted to flee only had about half a second to do so before they were gracefully obliterated from the air, raining to the ground like a mass virus had suddenly struck the opposing side.

I couldn't stop watching him, especially not after that twitchy eye caught me again. He kept glancing over at me, his smile curling into pure ecstasy, but whether he wanted justice or revenge wasn't any of my concern. I just knew that this man was a hero, and when he felled the last bird and holstered his weapon, he put two fingers to his mouth and gave an ear-shattering whistle.

Out of the bushes came an orange hunting dog, a moderately sized fellow with enough mouth to drag an adult fox, or even a small child. With no tail wagging, it was plain to see that this dog was just doing business, and had no intention of playing around. Silently, the old man's pet began pulling carcasses to its master's feet, rounding up every stray duck in the neighbourhood until he had a nice pile of fresh kills.

"Who…Who are you?" one of the local villagers asked. In all honesty I was about as curious as the next guy. After all, it's not every day a stranger waltzes into our town just to liberate it. Most drifters just say hi and leave when they see the birds.

"Give me more," the man would say. "I've got to have more."

His words were slurred and his jaw would occasionally unhinge itself whenever he made a "V" sound. He still had a severe case of eye-twitch, and coupled with the hunched back, he almost looked like a crazy person. That was kind of the vibe I got from him anyway whenever he looked at me.

"Thank you for saving our town," our mayor Marth said. Even on the brink of destruction, old Marth always put his own life before those of the townspeople. "How can we ever repay you?"

The strange man in the coat would grunt, and then spit, and then shake his head like a dog coming in from the rain. It took him a few seconds to realize who was talking to him.

"More," he repeated. "Give me more."

More what? Was he asking for food? Money? Everyone was looking at each other trying to determine what it was this guy wanted. It eventually dawned on us when he licked his chops that the man wasn't after anything we owned. He wanted the birds, as proven when he ordered us to throw his winnings in a truck and dump them all near his home in the woods. As reluctant as we were, we figured it was the least we could do for him. Besides, if he wanted to keep the ducks then it was no skin off my nose. I was just happy to finally be rid of those things once and for all.

Only, that wasn't the end of it.

The next day, a new flock of ducks came soaring in from the east. Apparently, news travels fast in the bird kingdom, so when those guys found out about what happened to their siblings, they all flew in as fast as they could with a burning vengeance and a thirst for human blood. We were caught completely off guard from the attack, and unfortunately suffered some casualties (rest in peace old man Game and Farts). Thankfully, Lucas and I were indoors when they struck, but that didn't change the fact that I was practically pissing myself. We got down under a table as nearby buildings began to rumble and people in the streets were being lifted up high only to end up smashing their skulls on the pavement below.

Like a guardian angel, the duck hunter from the day before came strolling into town with his dog in tow. And just as he did before, the old man shot up the neighbourhood with his trusty pistol, every bullet flashing as it escaped the chamber. His dog nimbly dashed through the street, rounding up more dead ducks like before. Even when the birds turned all of their attention towards the old man, they couldn't keep up with his lightning-fast reflexes. He twitched, he flipped, he mowed down their numbers one by one until not a single feather was in the air.

And just like the previous day, he made his demands.

"Give me more."

So we loaded up the carcasses and shipped them off to his little cabin on the outskirts of town. It was peculiar to me since I had always known his home to be in the forest, but rumors from before had it that it was just an abandoned old shack that teenagers would use as a secret getaway. Honestly, I think I'd rather believe the rumors, but at the end of the day, dead ducks was good ducks. I could finally return to fixing up the town and then getting back to my simple life as a vacuum cleaner salesman.

As luck would have it, twenty-four hours later, we have another run-in with those feathery pests. The pack this time isn't as big as it was the day before, but that doesn't stop "Captain Duck Hunt" (a nickname that the local children gave him) from completely obliterating the entire squad. Dog comes over, grabs some dead birds, load 'em up in the truck, and the guy asks for more again. Fast forward to the next day, we get more company, but our trump card just doesn't know when to quit. Everyone's eating duck for breakfast, lunch, and dinner by Wednesday, and then Thursday rolls around and yet another wild pack comes charging over the hills.

Notice any pattern here?

At this point, I don't even know what the hell this guy is doing with all these birds. Every time another army of ducks dive-bombs us, the guy goes on a twitchy trigger-happy rampage. I don't think he's wasted one bullet yet, but I can't help but wonder what the duck hunter does when he's not shooting up the birds. The townsfolk who deliver his prizes merely leave them outside of the forest where he supposedly picks them up later. As for what he does with the bodies I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, he probably eats them or perhaps sells them to some underground black market chain. This cycle more or less continues for the next couple of weeks, and it gets to the point where people are back to going about their daily lives while Captain Duck Hunt picks off any birds his cat-like eyes can see. It almost becomes normal to be walking down the street one day only to find a duck land in right front of you, where a dog then jumps out of the alleyway and pulls it into the darkness.

If I wasn't so desensitized to this crap, it actually might have been kind of creepy.

As the days go on, the townspeople want to try and do something for the duck hunter after all the hard work he put in to getting rid of our pest problem. Ironically enough, the man repeatedly states that he does not want money or food (or even a nicer home) but just to have "more." Okay, so he wants more ducks to kill, that's cool. The mayor doesn't even have to hire him as a bodyguard at this point since the guy just does what he wants whenever he wants, and he does a damn good job at it. I continue to do my own thing, now and then taking the time to sit under a tree and read a book. Of course, I still have to deal with the occasional dead duck falling onto my lap, buy hey, beggars can't be choosers.

Lucas constantly confronts me and tells me that the duck hunter is too good to be true. He has theories about this whole thing with the ducks being some kind of mad science experiment funded by the government in an attempt to test human mannerisms in the midst of a flash catastrophe. Of course, I blow off his theory like it's nothing. If the government really did care that much about us, they would have given us a better school so that I didn't have to sell vacuum cleaners for a living.

Despite Lucas' crazy outbursts, I had to admit that he did raise one point that was rather interesting.

"Why do you think he wants more of those ducks?" he asked me.

If I had to be completely honest with him, I'd say that it was because that's all the duck hunter liked to eat. I mean, it made sense. Guy who hunts ducks all his life eats nothing but ducks. He has a humble home in the woods and he lives a happy life just doing what he wants.

I wish I could say the same for me.

"No person can eat that many ducks," Lucas would say.

Well, to be fair, the man isn't completely alone. He still has that weird dog, but a dog couldn't eat that many ducks either. It was possible that the duck hunter had a wife, or a son, or some relative who had enough sanity to live in a house with a twitchy guy who was crazy for ducks. The dog was at least quiet and never barked out of line. As a matter of fact, I don't recall ever hearing that dog bark once, but it sure as hell knew how to follow orders.

We eventually determine that, given the facts that we know, it would be virtually impossible for this duck hunter and his dog to be doing this for the mere game. Food is food, but unless he had a freezer the size of a hospital in that house, most of those ducks were probably going to rot in the woods. Captain Duck Hunt also stated that he didn't want any money or food (several times actually) and persisted in demanding more birds to kill. It may have been kind of cool the first time around, but now it was just getting ridiculous, and the fact that all this guy wanted to do was hunt birds kind of made the townsfolk worry.

I could see it in their eyes whenever they saw him passing by. Mothers would quickly take a hold of their children (some of them covering their eyes) while even the bravest of men stiffened if they fell into the duck hunter's gaze. The deranged man always stared straight with that twisted grin of his, but unless there was a duck nearby, he was about as stagnant as a lion waiting to pounce. If you just so happened to make eye contact with him when he twitched, your feet were nailed to the ground until he finally turned away.

Okay, well perhaps that was just me. But there wasn't a doubt in anyone's mind that this stranger was bad news, and when I discussed this issue with Lucas at the time, we knew right then and there that we should have gotten rid of the duck hunter when we had the chance.

Four weeks after the first duck crisis, we had a bright and sunny day. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, but more importantly, there wasn't a single bird. This was the first day in almost a month when the ducks didn't attack, which led a lot to believe that the duck hunter had officially wiped the last of their kind off the face of this region. People rejoiced, now free to live their lives without having to worry about birds attacking them. I myself was in shock when I heard the news and I almost couldn't believe it until I saw Captain Duck Hunt himself sitting in the middle of town square squeezing his gun in both hands. He kept shaking his head and muttering words to himself, but he didn't say anything to anyone who approached him. He put up so much of a struggle that even the local law enforcers couldn't make him budge from his spot, but in the end, they figured he wasn't harming anybody. Not only that, but he was the one responsible for saving the town. We should have been grateful for having him!

Remember that saying, "If you're stuck in a ruck, you'll end up like a duck?"

The next day slowly rolls around, and just like the previous day not a single duck decides to pay us a visit. The day after, same thing. And the day after that? You guessed it; same thing. If we ever doubted it before, we sure as hell believed it now: The duck hunter had killed every last one of the ducks. The hunter himself was probably the least excited out of all of us since he remained stationary in the middle of town. His dog was surprisingly nowhere to be found, but he still refused to speak with anyone who tried talking to him. I certainly didn't want to have anything to do with him and I was honestly hoping that he would eventually pack his bags and leave. If the ducks were gone, it's not like there was anything left for him here anyway. He was best off just moving on to the next town, maybe to hunt a different kind of animal like pheasants or deer. The important thing was that those damned birds were finally gone, and I don't think I could ever recall a happier time in my life when I could finally be rid of those worries.

Little did I know that the real catastrophe was about to begin.

The next week, we received a notice that one of the local children had gone missing. Kirby was his name, but let me be the first to say that this town has never had a problem with kidnappings in the past. The community is so small that everyone practically knows each other, so the thought of anyone going missing was completely unheard of. Oddly enough, the duck hunter had mysteriously disappeared from his position in town square, which raised quite a lot of suspicion among the townsfolk.

The mayor initiated a search party, sending a group of men out to the forest in order to track down Captain Duck Hunt. They ended up finding nothing except a house littered to the ceiling with rotting duck corpses, some of which had been nailed to the walls as makeshift trophies. Most of the townspeople had ventured out into the forest in an attempt to locate the duck hunter, leaving a small group of us in town to do our own searching. We doubted the hunter would still be on the premises since he abandoned the post he had been keeping these past couple of weeks without any kind of a notice. Couple that with the missing kid, well, let's just say we all kind of knew who the guilty party was here.

Lucas and I took to the streets, checking in various alleyways and other areas between houses. There weren't exactly a lot of places to hide here what with most of the buildings being so spread apart, but a good fugitive knows how to be resourceful. We checked garbage cans, storage containers, abandoned yards, anything that looked like it could hide a person. I had one of my vacuum cleaners strapped to my back, but if things got dangerous, I was ready to bash whoever I came across with the vacuum head. I had no choice but to lug the stupid thing around with me, but it was the only real weapon I had. Lucas was at least skilled with elementals, but I wasn't sure if he had enough power to literally set a person on fire.

Hopefully it didn't have to come to that.

We continued searching, scouring the neighbourhood block by block but to no avail. For an old man, that duck hunter sure was fast, but without any hint as to where he went, finding him was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

I'd like to remind you that at this point that Lucas and I still didn't know about what the others found at the hunter's home. I was beginning to think that the police had already caught him.

We stopped looking, but only to take a breather. Lucas noticed a trail of feathers on the ground leading into another alleyway. Since both he and I were part of the cleanup crew after the duck incident, we knew that this trail must have been fresh, and there was only one person who could have left such a decisive piece of evidence.

Without thinking, the two of us followed the trail, winding around each and every corner, looking far ahead to see where the feathers were leading. We started seeing drops of blood mixed in with the feathers, which was kind of unsettling, but still we trekked onward. The trail eventually broke out into the outskirts of the town, stopping as soon as we hit one of the open farmland fields. With the tall grass dancing in the wind, the only hint we had to go by was the stomped path made by whoever was trying to escape into the plains.

We found more blood and what appeared to be a severed human leg lying in the grass.

A part of me wanted to retreat, to go back home, or to tell someone about this, but Lucas pressed on. He was scared, but he knew that if we didn't pursue the duck hunter, there was no doubt that he would get away. Now it was up to us, and lord knows I followed him through that field, if only to make sure he didn't go out there by himself.

It took us several minutes until we had ventured far beyond the outskirts of town. Now the buildings were much more distant, but we still remained in the grassy field with nothing but mountains on the horizon. Along the way, we discovered more body parts of the missing child, including an arm, the torso, and the other leg. Paw prints were also scattered about the area, hinting that if the duck hunter was out here, he certainly wasn't alone.

"Keeping going," Lucas said. "We have to stop him!"

I was beginning to doubt we could do anything of the sort, what with seeing the severed limbs and everything. I may have been older, but I was definitely the more cowardly of the two, and in the spur of the moment, I just couldn't deal with it.

I threw my vacuum on the ground, turning around to make a run for it. I told Lucas that this whole chase was stupid, and that the duck hunter was probably long gone by now. It was a terrible thing to say, but the sad truth was that I was scared. I didn't want to die let alone end up like poor Kirby. Besides, what was one death? Sure, he was a kid, but I barely even knew him anyway. Was this really worth getting myself killed over?

"I can't believe you," were the last words I ever heard from him. Sure I felt bad, but there wasn't anything I could do. My legs were shaking, my heart was racing, and I felt like I was going to throw up. And here we were, just two guys out in a field with a maniac on the loose. What was there to hope for?

The sound of a gunshot triggered my senses and I felt my heart stop. I thought I was dead, but when I opened my eyes, Lucas was nowhere in sight, lying on the ground beneath the tall grass. I immediately cried out his name, pushing through the field in an attempt to rescue him.

Unfortunately, I arrived too late, for I only got a small glimpse of him before the hunting dog grabbed him by the leg and dragged his body away. I was then met face to face with the duck hunter, standing there ever so professionally with his pistol pointed at my nose. I gulped, I probably pissed myself, but worst of all, I froze dead in my tracks. It was the ultimate trap that I and only I could ever let myself fall into.

There's an old saying in my town that goes something like this: "If you're stuck in a ruck, you'll end up like a duck." If things look bad in the present, then they are bound to get worse as you get older. Try as you might, there are some obstacles that are just impossible to overcome. In those cases, it may be better to just let it all go and leave it up to fate.

Of course, I didn't really end up like a duck. In fact, I managed to escape without any wounds at all. For just when the hunter fired, the only thing that came from his weapon was a small click. He had run out of bullets, used every last one of them on the ducks from before.

So yeah, I was stuck in a ruck. But some guys are just luckier than others. Once you get around that fact, well, the obstacles in life become much easier to cope with.