Prey
A High School Musical Fanfiction
A/N: If you're like me, when you're in a hurry, you just scan for dialog and skip all the descriptive stuff. Well, please don't do that here. This is one of the hardest chapters I've ever written. There's lots of action (I hope) and not much talking, so please take the time and read it thoroughly. Thanks, j
Disclaimer:See chapter 1
Previously in Prey...
"Tsk, tsk, tsk", The Hunter says as he stops directly in front of the shoestring trap. Then, he takes his knife out of his belt and reaches down and cuts the string. "Now, little darlin', you didn't really think that would fool me, did you?"
Chapter 7: The Fight for Survival
Any acting Sharpay had been doing before, flies off the side of the mountain now. Her eyes grow wide with fear and she starts crab-walking backwards up the trail. She glances over to where Troy was hiding and he's not there.
Where the hell was he?
The Hunter smiles wickedly as he lifts the rifle up to his shoulder and takes aim.
Moving so fast that he's no more than a blur, Troy launches into the air heading directly towards The Hunter. A split second before he hits the other man, Troy hears a sharp noise pierce the silence of the forest. It sounds just like a hammer heavily hitting a hardwood plank. By the time Troy's brain registers what he heard, he is slamming full speed into The Hunter. The two men go careening off the trail and into the thick undergrowth of the forest. The rifle goes clattering down to the trail, smoke rising ominously from its barrel.
Sharpay doesn't even see Troy coming until he tackles The Hunter and they both go flying off into the woods.
Hey, he did tackle him after all.
Then, before her eyes can track where they landed, she feels an agonizingly sharp pain in her right shoulder. It feels like someone hit her with a sledgehammer, but there's no one there. She lands flat against the ground from the force of the blow. Next, she hears a sharp pop come from where The Hunter had been a second earlier.
Weird. To hear a sound, but there's no one there to make it.
She instinctively reaches up to touch her shoulder, but recoils her hand back when it feels wet. She stares down at her hand in shock --- it's covered in blood.
How'd that get there?
Then, it hits her almost as hard as that sledgehammer.
I've been shot. Oh God, I've been shot. And hell! What is that God-awful noise? Please, Simon, give that girl a thumbs down. Her singing sounds like screeching or screaming... Screaming? Oh no... that's me!
Sharpay is immediately jerked back to reality when she realizes she's screaming uncontrollably. She shuts her mouth instantly.
I will not be one of those wimpy girls who in the horror movies starts screaming and then goes running into the woods and directly into the arms of the killer.
Deep breath... Good.
She cautiously takes a look at her shoulder and nearly succumbs to the horror movie victim again when she sees blood gushing out of a huge hole in her shirt... in her shoulder, to be more correct.
Damn it! This is not going to end like this! I just find my guy and now this... Shit!
Cautiously, she clamps a hand over the wound. Even if she'd never had first aid training like that know-it-all Gabriella, she has sense enough to know to try to stop the bleeding.
Shit! Shit! And shit! Touching it makes it hurt worse.
But she doesn't let go. Blinking back the tears that have sprung up, she slowly shakes her head from side to side to clear her thoughts.
Where did everyone go? Troy?
She slowly stands up and immediately regrets it as dizziness and nausea rush through her.
Oh... bad idea.
She sinks back down and instead decides to crawl slowly over to a tree and then, leans her back against it --- closing her eyes. A sound even louder than her own pounding heart causes her to open them again. There was a scream --- followed by silence. Someone is coming out of the underbrush. She only hopes to God it's Troy.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
When Troy slams into the big man they both go flying off the trail and into the nearly impassable thicket. The brushwood is littered with brambles and thorn bushes and both become instantly tangled by the thick scrubs and sharp barbs. The thorns are clinging to their clothes and ripping up their hands and faces, but it doesn't seem to slow down either one of them.
Troy vaguely registers hearing a scream, but with the rushing sound of blood pounding in his ears, it sounds like it's coming from very far away.
As they struggle against each other, The Hunter manages to pull a large knife out of its leather sheath and tries to drive it up under Troy's ribs.
Troy feels a sharp sting in his side and quickly grabs onto the handle of the knife and tries to wrestle it always from The Hunter.
They stand facing each other, both with their hands on the knife and both struggling to maintain that hold. Suddenly, Troy is able to angle the knife away from him and down and with a sharp push drives it into the hunter's thigh.
The Hunter screams in agony and pushes Troy away from him with all his might.
Troy is taken off guard by the man's cry and The Hunter is able to push him backwards towards the ground. Troy hits hard with a thud and doesn't move.
The Hunter reaches down and pulls the embedded knife out of his leg and flings the traitorous weapon off to the side. Now with fire in his eyes, he slowly approaches his prey. The boy is laying on his stomach, unmoving. The Hunter angrily takes a booted foot and kicks at the young man and manages to turn him over. There is a large cut in the boy's forehead and blood is pouring out of it. The Hunter can now see that he landed on a sharp rock which must have sliced into his head.
The pain from his leg is making it hard to concentrate, but he feels confident, if a little disappointed, when he determines that his male prey is dead.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
A small gasp of anguish escapes her throat when she sees The Hunter, face and clothes stained with blood, come crawling up onto the trail.
He stares up at her with a vile look in his dark eyes.
"Well there, little darlin'. Wouldn't be sportin' of me to leave a wounded animal to die a slow painful death? Now would it?" His heavy panting is taking away from the menacing tone he is trying to project. "Especially, after I've already killed her mate."
Sharpay can't help but whimper when she hears his declaration. And she can't help the undeniably fearful look in her own eyes, despite how brave she wants to be. However, she's not going to go down without a fight and she doesn't take her eyes off of him. Then, she notices his searching gaze about the forest ground.
That's when she notices he's unarmed. And he must be looking for...
The rifle ... The Hunter's eyes zoom in on the object. It must have landed on the trail with a sliding motion and ended up partially buried under some leaves. Now it's lying about mid-distance between Sharpay and The Hunter and they are separated by no more than 15 feet.
He starts to slowly belly-crawl towards the rifle. Despite the bravado of his threat, Sharpay can see that's it's a struggle to even do this. He's pulling himself forward on both of his arms, but one of his legs appears useless.
Sharpay surges forward herself to try to reach the weapon or at least stop him from getting it. After her last stab at standing, she knows better than to try that again, so she adopts The Hunter's method and belly-crawls toward it. She has the use of both legs, but only one arm. Therefore, they should be almost evenly matched.
Inch by painful inch each of them slowly makes their way to their prize. Then, they are both within a foot of the rifle and whoever makes the next move first will reach it. Sharpay lunges herself forward with her uninjured left arm outstretched in front of her.
Amazingly, they both grab the rifle at the same time, but he's a big brute of a man at over 200 pounds and she's a petite little slip of a girl at barely 100 pounds. He starts to pull the rifle towards him, but Sharpay is not letting go. Amazingly, he tugs her along with the rifle and before she knows it she's nose to nose with this maniac.
"Well, I ... have to say, girl. You've got some spunk --- more than that light-weight boy of yours."
Sharpay is surprised at how angry that statement makes her. It's one thing to say that he killed Troy, but another to insult him.
"Let ... Go!", she growls at him.
"Don't think so. Remember I've got two workin' arms."
He lifts one fist off the rifle to pummel her injured shoulder. However, before he can bring down that powerful arm, The Hunter is suddenly being dragged back across the trail by an unseen force. The Hunter twists around to defend himself and comes face to face with Troy Bolton. He starts viciously kicking out at Troy with those ostrich skin boots.
Troy has a large cut across his forehead that is bleeding down into his eyes, a smaller slash on his cheek and his lip is split open plus a multitude of other, small scrapes all over his arms and face. Yet, despite all this, he is still maneuvering well against the slower moving Hunter.
Troy scrambles to his feet to get away from those lethal boots and The Hunter slowly stands up. He is leaning heavily on his right leg and his left pant leg is torn and blood at his thigh.
"Hell, boy!", The Hunter growls, "Why won't you just die?"
"Thought you wanted a ch...challenge."
Troy reaches up a hand to wipe the blood out of his eyes and that's when The Hunter notices the teenager is holding his own hunting knife in his shaky hand.
Damn! Should have known better than to throw away a perfectly good weapon.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
When The Hunter lets go of the rifle, it lurches towards Sharpay and she takes it in her good hand and scoots away from him as fast as she can. She ends up back at her tree again and props herself back against it while she goes to work on the rifle until she hears a familiar voice talking to The Hunter. So intent on her chore that she doesn't even realize that it was Troy who had pulled The Hunter away from her until that moment. It's all the impetus she needs to complete her mission.
Her mother may be a rabid Vegan with a penchant for yoga, but her father's knowledge was the one she's depending on now. Her dad won the Silver Medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics for sharpshooting and he insisted that his whole family learn to shoot, including his Go Green wife and Drama Queen daughter. Sharpay is familiar with the Weatherby Mark V although she, herself, owns a Remington 700 PSS rifle.
Unfortunately, she's basically one handed right now and the rifle's just been fired from when that bastard hit her. Therefore, she knows she needs to expel that spent cartridge and get a new one into the chamber. To add to all these obstacles, its a right-handed firearm and she's left handed.
She puts the rifle down on its left side and braces it between her legs, holding the barrel with the rubber bottoms of her trail shoes. Next, she rotates the lever of the bolt-action rifle up 90 degrees and then pulls it back. The spent cartridge automatically ejects out onto the ground. Then, checking that she can see the next bullet, she shoves the bolt back into place and knows the next round has slid into the chamber, ready for use.
Then, and only then, does she allow herself the luxury of watching the battle waging before her.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
"What you think you're gonna do with that knife, boy? You're not man enough to use it on me", The Hunter taunts as he hobbles up closer to the unsteady youth.
"I was man enough to do that to your leg", Troy says as he indicates to The Hunter's leg wound using the knife as a pointer.
"Ah, that was in the heat of the battle. You'd never be able to attack me in cold blood."
"But I would...", comes a voice from behind them.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Sharpay is standing unsteadily against the tree with the rifle in her left hand, aimed at The Hunter and positioned at her waist.
Both men jerk their heads towards Sharpay and unfortunately, The Hunter takes advantage of the situation. Troy, still groggy from the blow to his head, is slow to react and quickly finds himself in an even more dangerous situation. The Hunter grabs Troy from behind and wrenches the knife from his hand. He quickly pulls the teen back against him, using Troy as a shield, and puts the knife to Troy's neck.
"Damn, little darlin', but you are full of surprises", The Hunter says as he slowly backs up, trying to put some distance between him and that rifle Sharpay is holding.
"Stop, right there. Don't move and ... and let Troy go. This is over now", Sharpay tells him with far more confidence than she feels.
"You don't know what you're sayin', darlin'. You wouldn't dare shoot me while I'm holding your little boyfriend, now would ..."
Before he can finish, a shot rings out and the hunter drops like a rock, straight to the ground.
Sharpay drops the rifle and collapses and Troy quickly closes on the 20 feet between them and rushes over to her.
"Sharpay... Shar! You did it. It's over. We're safe now. Stay awake, Sharpay, don't go to sleep yet", Troy pleads as he cradles her in his arms.
She slowly opens her eyes and looks up at him.
"That's it, baby. Don't go to sleep. Not yet. Hang in there. I'll get you to a hospital. God, Sharpay. You did it! You killed that bastard."
Troy chances a glance over at the prone figure of The Hunter to insure himself that he was, indeed, dead. And yes, he has one small round hole right in the side of his head.
"No...", she rasps out. "Wasn't me... didn't fire...", is all she manages to say before passing out.
"Step away from the girl, son", orders a calm, cool voice.
Troy looks in the direction of this unknown voice to see himself staring up the barrel of a rifle pointed right at him.
TBC
Thanks for all the great reviews you guys give. It's what keeps me going because we all know how much money I'm making off this.
About Sharpay's POV on being shot. I looked up some stuff on the web and some of it was SWAGing on my part (that's Scientific Wild Ass Guessing). Anyway, my cute, nerdy guy told me that bullets travel faster than the speed of sound and you know how when you hear a jet in the sky and you look up to see it, it's never where you think it would be. It's always a little behind that point. Someone told me once that that's because light travels faster than sound. I'm not explaining that right, but anyway, that's how I reasoned that she would feel the bullet hit her before she heard the shot go off.
And of course, I know absolutely nothing about guns, but I am a whiz on google.
Oh and because I, myself, am left handed, I will always take great care to only injure Sharpay on her right side. I'm just thoughtful like that.
Please R&R.