The Most Dangerous Game
Prologue
Yosemite National Park
California
Today is the start of the hunt.
I know how it will go. I can picture it quite vividly in my head, the sequence of events that will lead to the first of many kills.
By nine o'clock, my partner and I will be at our posts, narrowing down the closest targets to the most populated camping areas. We will get our gear ready, go over our plan, and finally chose our targets.
The target will be a couple. Young, preferably. John and Jane will possibly be experienced hikers or someone just looking for a little adventure. They will be energetic, excited, athletic. A little reckless.
With a few tossed stones and distracting rustles of foliage we will separate the tough male from the weaker female. He will go check what the noise was and she will maintain the campground.
It will not take long for Jane to notice that her hubby John has been gone for a while.
She will call out his name, but her voice will echo, unanswered. Maybe he stopped to take a leak? Maybe he found some wild strawberries to surprise her with? A dozen perfectly ordinary possibilities will run through Jane's mind. But as the minutes tick away and her repeated calls go unanswered, other, more unwanted possibilities will surface.
But she will not go looking for him. No. She will stay where she is comfortable; even though she has sworn loyalty to the man she loves. She is a pathetic creature, only focused on self preservation.
John will stumble back to camp with an arrow through his chest. He will collapse at the feet of his girlfriend/fiancé/wife who is to shocked to understand (comprehend?) what is going on.
She will be unable to do anything.
My partner has done half of the job, now I will finish it. With a knocked arrow I take aim at Jane's back, right between the shoulder blades. With a quick release my arrow flies true and ends Jane's.
I expect it's the yappy camper to the left that will find them. I see her chatting away with some unimportant story about times long past to the poor soul who was stupid enough to get water at the same time she did. They walk into the abandoned campsite and Mrs. Yappy calls out, "John? Jane? Are you here? I just wanted to tell you that the cold water is out again." The two walk past the couples tent, past the parked Tacoma truck, all the while the old bat is rattling on about another one of her husbands who preferred open casket funerals to closed ones.
Then Yappy looks to the smoldering fire pit. She sees the couple, Jane and John, and she is now not only talking about casket funerals, but thinking of them. She wants to get out of that campground before she throws up and cries. And the young man beside Mrs. Yappy rushes forward and yells at the old woman to call 911.
We would like to be there when the police arrive, but we are not idiots. We know they will study every person that gathers, every face that twitches towards the two white sheets that have been placed over the deceased couple. They know our urge to return to the scene is great, but we can control it. Even now, as we trek through the dense forest, we are thinking about our next hunt, Jane and John now only pictures on the wall of our memories.
Today they will find their bodies.
Today they will know the hunt has begun.
A/N: This is only the beginning :)