The Most Dangerous Game | Howl
Before the Hunt of Rainsford
[Prologue]
The ship cut through the lapping waves like a knife cut through paper, the constant rumble of the engine giving the cool evening a relaxed rhythm to follow. The wake behind the small yacht turned the navy blue waters into cups of foam, showing for miles where the yacht had been travelling. The passengers of the yacht were all on deck, enjoying the final rays of sunset. Sitting at a poker table were several men, most of which wore sailors' uniforms, playing a fun game of Texas Hold 'Em. Conversing by the Captain's quarters were two ladies dressed in lace and silk gowns wearing sun hats. The rest of the ship's crew was busy doing work to keep the yacht going through the night. Seated on the bow of the yacht, precariously perched over the parting waters, was a little girl, only about ten years old, with a beaming white grin on her tan face and her gleaming eyes locked on the horizon.
One of the women by the Captain's quarters constantly glanced over at the girl on the bow. "I do worry about your little girl sometimes, Bethany," the woman said in a nasally chide. She brushed a white gloved hand through her long black locks, her chocolate brown eyes concerned. "She's far too adventurous and stubborn to be a proper lady like you."
The woman named Bethany shook her pale-skinned head, her shoulder-length blonde hair rippling softly, staring over at the girl who was now giggling as the spray of the water began to soak through her khaki shorts and gray tee-shirt. She said in reply, "It's no worry. She inherited it from her father, and his adventures have saved our family and yours many times."
The woman shook her head again, looking back at her friend. "You're right," she admitted, "but it's still a terrible idea to let her sit up there. If she falls she'll go under the boat…"
A man in a navy blue suit walked up to them. He kissed Bethany once on the cheek, and then he looked to the other. "Melinda, you worry too much. She was born with uncanny balance. She was running before she was a year old. I'm certain she'll be fine. She's an excellent swimmer, as well."
Bethany looked back at the girl, who'd turned her face back to them and was staring at them with bewildered eyes. Bethany took no notice, and she locked her arm with the man's, saying serenely, "It's almost night. Don't you think she ought to head to sleep now, Nathan?"
The man shook his head. "When she can't see any more she will come down on her own."
Melinda sighed, still unconvinced about the child's safety. "Well, I don't know about you two, but I'm exhausted from today. I had to wake up far too early, and I did far too much packing in."
Nathan looked at Bethany, who was about a foot shorter than he. "What do you think? Shall we head off to sleep?"
Another man walked up. He was very tall, with silver hair. He said kindly, "If it makes you feel any better, I'll watch your girl."
Bethany nodded gratefully. "Thank you. Goodnight, Robert."
Robert smiled a toothy grin. "I hope you rest well. The temperature's supposed to be nice and easy tonight." Still, there was unease in his voice that he tried to conceal.
Bethany, Melinda, and Nathan all turned together, and in a single line they walked down the stairs of the yacht into the lower decks towards their rooms, and Robert began to move towards the girl.
"Breeze," he commented, a little wind blowing his lengthy hair. He stood at the end of the ship, behind the bow, and looked at the girl, regarding her constantly darting eyes. "What's the matter?"
She looked back at him, and she pointed out to a mass of darkness in the distance. "What's that?"
Robert narrowed his eyes at the mass, but no matter how hard he strained he couldn't see what she saw. He laughed shortly, "My eyes aren't as good as they once were, and nobody's eyes match yours, darling. I don't see what you're looking at."
She shook her head disconcertingly. "Never mind," she sighed. She shivered slightly.
Robert noticed and asked, "Are you cold?"
She shook her head again. "No, not really. I just… I think that's an island out there."
Robert took another look, but he decided he'd see nothing, no matter how he tried. He answered, "I suppose we're drawing close to a group of islands out here in the Caribbean. We'll need to find the channels tonight to get through them."
The little girl said nothing in reply. She simply stared at the black mass. Finally, she said, "Can I stay out here all night?"
Robert shrugged and answered sweetly, "Of course, dear. But to save your mother and father some worry, I suggest that you get into bed before dawn."
She grinned. "Of course. Thank you, grandpa."
Robert felt a warm butterfly in his stomach as she spoke. She had called him grandpa since the day she'd first learned to speak. He really had no relation to her, but she didn't know her grandparents, so she thought of him as he grandfather. He then turned on his heel, leaving her to stare into the distant waters.
The night had turned foggy. The water was now black. The air had gotten more humid, but still the girl sat on the bow of the ship. She lay across it now, with her arms and legs wrapped around it and her eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell in the rhythmic pattern of sleep, but something in the pit of her stomach made her eyes suddenly shoot open. She sat up in a flash, staring around with her little heart beating.
She looked back at the Captain's quarters. The light was still on. Robert was still awake, managing the ship. She trusted Robert, but the racing of her heart and the roaring of her blood through her ears gave her the feeling that something was terribly wrong. She looked ahead; there were lights. Lights in the water. And she heard the crashing of waves; they were crashing hard. Her heart raced faster, and she scrambled backwards on the bow. Across the deck she sped towards Robert's quarters, and she knocked frantically on the door.
He opened it almost instantly, and seeing the wild fear on her face, he picked her up and held her close, stroking her back soothingly. "Shh," he cooed softly. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"
She shook her head, burying her face into the crook of his neck. "I don't know… The lights in the water…"
He sighed inwardly, and he carried her to the front of the ship, pointing at the lights far in the distance. "They mark a channel," he explained. "We follow them because they lead us in a path that has no rocks."
She sniffed once, looking out at the distant lights. She felt a fear race through her. "I don't like that channel."
"Don't worry, lovely," he said gently. "We'll be out by morning."
Somehow she couldn't take solace in those words.
For the next half hour she watched as they drew closer. They stood out in the blackness of the night. She couldn't wait 'til they passed the channel. Every wave that brought them closer to it was another beat her heart skipped. She had a bad feeling about the channel, and she didn't know why. She climbed out on the bough again, standing on the thick base of it and staring out with her sharp eyes.
The yacht rocked once, a low thump sounding near the bottom. The girl's face turned white as a sheet. She heard one of the Captain's men say, "We just hit a rock, but it did no damage. We need to steer more straight on or we're going to break the bottom."
Her heart continued beating. She was pumped full of adrenaline, and she had been for the past ten minutes. The boat was going faster, and the slapping of waves grew louder. She felt her breaths becoming more ragged. Something was wrong. Something was going to happen. But she couldn't figure out what. And then she knew.
The boat suddenly cracked, slamming into a rock only a few feet to the right of the girl. The wood splintered. She screamed, lost her balance, and plunged into the black water that was warm as a bath at home. The waves, and the propellers of the passing, crashing yacht continued to push her head under. She couldn't breathe. She kicked out with one foot, only to feel extreme pain lance through her as it struck rock.
Her head broke the surface finally, and she reached frantically for the rock. She didn't have time to reach for more than a second before a wave threw her into it, and she hooked her fingers on the muscle shells, clinging to the rock for dear life. She could hear screams on the yacht as it tossed and turned, colliding every which way with rocks. And then there was a massive explosion, and falling debris, and then darkness settled once more on the sea.
Feeling weak and sick the girl bit her lip, pulling her heavy body up fully onto the rock. She stared at a few of the pieces of flaming timber floating on the surface of the water. In the dim light she could see no movement. No survivors. She climbed further onto the rock and sat on its peak, shivering, scrutinizing every inch of the wreck. She couldn't see anything anymore; the waves had extinguished the fires.
The girl felt her breaths coming in quickly, and she knew she was hyperventilating. Tears began blurring her vision, and in a desperate cry she screamed to the skies. The yell was nearly extinguished by the fog, but it held an eerie desperation that carried for miles. Then she collapsed with exhaustion. The last thing she could remember was the sun peaking over the horizon, and then there was the cloudy gray sheet of sleep.
When the girl opened her eyes in the morning the waves had gone down far enough that she could see pieces of debris stuck on the peaks of the rocks that had torn into the yacht. Her eyes were dry, her throat was parched, and her hands and knees were raw from the climb to the top of the rock. She wiped the back of her hand underneath her nose, and then she stood on top of the boulder, looking out. She could see, less then twenty yards away, the jagged rocks of an island's shore, and, on a tall plateau above the rocks, a house.
She sniffled once, but her father had told her something that she must never forget: the world was made of two classes, the weak and the strong. He had said that she was strong, and the strong would survive. And she would survive. She'd make sure he knew she was alive.
Without another moment's delay, she took a leap for a rock only three feet out. Her little sandals were filled with salt, and the salt dug at her skin, but she kept moving. She moved along the rocks until there were no more rocks to move along, and then she leaped into the water, paddling madly for the shore. The waves, now with the incoming tide, carried her in, and she pulled herself onto the rocks beneath the plateau. She began to search the plateau for a way up to the house. There was no path, and so with a heavy sigh she knew she'd have to climb the rocks.
She had great balance, she knew. She had amazing strength and endurance. And, above those, she had the experience to climb these rocks; she'd climbed rocks before when she was only six years old. She had several yards to climb up. She didn't know if she had the strength to do it. But there was a house, and a house meant people. Maybe some of the survivors had gone to the house, too.
Clinging to that small hope, she thrust herself into the air, catching the edge of a weathered boulder, and she pulled herself up, kicking her feet and panting and straining. The effort, once she reached the top, left her exhausted, and she collapsed. Now crying fully, she let out the cry of misery inside her, even more eerie than the one the previous night. In all reality, the sound almost matched that of a wolf's howl.
The tide was still rising, slowly but surely coming up to her rock, so she began to move again, trembling with fear and weariness. She climbed up another large boulder, and then another, and then she took a break, looking up at the top of the plateau. What she saw startled and frightened her.
Above, staring down at her with small, cold eyes, was a very, very large man. He was dressed in a black uniform, like a military unit's dress would be, and he had waist-length beard. He stared at her and said nothing.
"H-hello?" she choked out, clinging to the rocks.
The man did not answer. He merely turned and walked away.
The girl's lip trembled, but she didn't stop moving. Now sweating, her clothes crinkling as the water dried into salt, she continued pulling herself up the rocks until she had less than ten feet to go. She heard a voice with a faint accent, and her cloudy gray eyes flashed up to its source.
Peering over the edge was another tall man, nowhere near as tall as the first. He had gray-white hair, and very dark eyebrows. He had a very angular face, and cherry red lips. He called to her, "Shall I send down a rope?"
She nodded, but she said nothing as she watched him disappear. Her mother and father told her not to talk to strangers… Did the rule apply if the stranger was saving her life? She waited for him to come back.
When the man reappeared, he was brought the tall man with him. They tossed down the rope, and the girl snatched it, clinging to it for dear life. The tall man pulled the rope with little effort, and within moments she was up to safety. Now realizing that she was the sole survivor of the crash she began to cry incessantly, and the man with the white hair crouched, wrapping his arms around her in a gentle embrace. She continued to tremble, and he rubbed her back, softly cooing to her.
In the effort of crying, all the strength left her, and she fell asleep in his arms. He lifted her with no effort at all, and he took her into his large manor.