Silhouette: The Mind of a Hunter
In the pale half light that preceded the suns rising I was crouching as still and ready as a statue of a gargoyle that adorned the Venetian churches around me. How I loved Venice in the daytime. I particularly enjoyed that the sun shined through the dark blanket of clouds but rarely. However my greatest joy came from the sense of sub conscious security it gave my prey. Ever since the change had been wrought upon me and I had been changed into a being that my victims called a "hunter" I had stalked through the many streets and canals of Venice to capture and devour the prey that was able to sate my hunger. As I sat in the pre light I glimpsed my first meal of the day. A small boy who had apparently wandered a little too far from his mother and had become lost in the many streets and side roads that made up my territory. He was of medium stature and thin build with short blonde hair and fair skin as pale as milk. His clothes were handmade and saggy. I put his age at around 7 to 9 years old. In one hand he clutched a small fuzzy comfort object that I remembered being called teddy bears. He stopped his careful walking and sat down. He began to cry… for his parents, for his family I didn't know… nor did I care. He was food and nothing more so. A Hunter does not consider how prey feels when it is shot. He does what he must to feed himself. I tasted the boys scent on the air and again marveled as I always did at the way humans smelled. A delicate ambrosial mixture of pheromones, oil, and blood. I crouched even lower on my perch and let out my most chilling cry. A high pitched and grating keen that sent a pheromone spike of fear through the young boy's scent only serving to enhance the flavor of his body. I propelled myself forward in a great leap toward the solitary child. He attempted to run but I landed in front of the fleeing form and with a backhand swipe of my clawed hands sent him sprawling amongst the rubble at my feet. I crouched over him as he laid whimpering and crying under me. His comfort object lay but a few feet away with its face down. I looked into his eyes. Cold lumps of charcoal into sapphires and in that instant the boy screamed as loud as he could. I placed a clawed finger on his lips and hissed "Shhhhh. None of that" in Italian. His eyes widened and I moved my claw under his chin and cut his throat. As the deluge of blood erupted from his neck I lowered myself to the weeping gash and drank the sugary liquid that was pouring from him. I drank until I had drained him and then I moved on to the rest of his body. After I had finished I set up the remains under a cold rock and stood. As I strode away from the bloody remains my foot hit something and I stumbled. The comfort object was still there where it had been dropped. I picked it up and examined it. It was brown and fuzzy with a red bow about its neck. I took an experimental bite and spit it out. Ugh! No meat at all! Only a white and unappetizing fluff. I tossed the thing into the first canal I saw and moved on my way.
"Cade!" cried Zoey as she called her sons name. "Cade!" yelled Francis "Get out here right now boy!" Bill was reclining on a rock and muttering an ever increasing stream of swears as he attempted to light a thick cigar with a sputtering butane lighter. Louis was scouting the canals ahead and had yet to return. "Cade!" yelled Zoey again "Where could he be?" she asked Francis "Well he always liked those old churches a lot." He replied "Maybe he's there." Over on his piece of rubble Bill continued to loose a stream of profanity. "I wait half my life to smoke an Italian cigar and… HALLE- FUCKIN'- LUJAH!!!" he yelled as the lighter ignited… and promptly blew out as a gust of wind swept down the narrow street. As Bill began to weep Louis returned to them with a wet burlap sack that smelled of the river. "Louis!" Zoey burst out. "Where's Cade?" she said as she realized that her son was not with him. Without a word Louis reached into the burlap sack and removed a wet and smelly clump of brown fur. Zoey took it and immediately recognized it for what it was. Cade's teddy bear without its right arm. She looked up at Louis with tear streaked eyes and broke down into wrenching sobs. "I'm so sorry." came Louis voice from above her. Bill had stopped mourning his cigar and now sat in stunned silence. About one hour ago Zoey and Francis's son Cade had wandered away from their safe house and when he did not return Zoey and the others had started searching for him. For 4 hours they had searched and he had not shown up. Louis had even gone diving in the canals looking for him. But now it was obvious that Cade, the light of Zoey's life, was irrevocably, irreversibly, and indisputably… gone.