As secluded as it gets is how I would describe where I found myself. I parked my Ranger next to the eastern fence line before making my way back to the main road. Stealthily walking the rest of the way, over farmlands and through the dense bush that guarded the hidden entrance that had been sent to my GPS. I’d been here before, a lifetime ago.
“Right this way sir. What we have here… I’m positive, is most definitely going to impress you”, exclaimed Aiden, my guide, who had introduced himself five minutes earlier. He grinned as his head shook left to right, and back again. “Our team is exceptionally thrilled to have you here.”
He was immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit and well versed in talking with the wavering hands of an Eastern European car salesman. But he needn’t try to sell to me. I knew the danger far before I’d signed the contract. And I welcomed it. Along with everything that was to come.
“How did you like the videos? What we have here… it can not be captured with words, wouldn’t you agree?” Aiden was very impressed with himself and his surroundings. I smiled back in recognition.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but could we get to the prize?” I replied, raising my eyebrows.
Answering with a favorable nod, Aden led me forward towards a red door at the end of the upper runway.
When we walked through, I could hardly believe what I was looking at.
“Feast your eyes, my friend!” An assortment of large pens formed a stockyard underneath us, each of them holding a different “animal”. Exotic was definitely not strong enough an adjective for what I saw below. I spotted the familiar stripes and colors of animals I knew, but these were indeed different.
A thick lion’s mane adorned the wide crown of a much taller creature. This thing boasted the height of a giraffe and the bulk of a hippo. It looked like it could simply break out of its cell at any moment if it wanted to. Its eyes glistened in the light that the opened door had afforded, staring at the cage next to it in sad inquisitiveness, then turning toward Aden and myself. Maybe looking for mercy. But this was definitely not the place. And most definitely not the time.
As the door slammed shut, I turned my eyes to the adjacent cell. A hybrid with the black spotted fur of a dalmatian but the head and face of a hyena sat still on the concrete beneath. Its pink-hued tongue relaxed from its mouth. It had a dumb innocence to it. It actually looked relaxed. I couldn’t see this little one being able to offer any challenge to anyone on the field. But the next prison held its juxtaposition.
A beast that displayed the reptilian skin of a crocodile. It slowly began to creep forward with the legs of a spider. Only three legs sat on this abomination. And they then stood still. Before spinning around the walls and ceiling of its steel cube. The light and sound had brought disturbance. Our voices too. Instantaneously, the abnormality violently lunged forward. Its vampire fangs gnawed over the bars of its steel prison. Its chin pressing into those cold bars. This one wanted out bad. I imagined that this his one could endure some serious firepower.
Five steel cells stretched across the abutting west wing walls of the warehouse. One after the other, holding animals that may as well have been molded from clay. Each trapping a monster containing diverse splices of DNA within its cells. All holding what was to become living and breathing flesh for the slaughter.
“Another woodsman!” A voice called from behind us. Turning around, my eyes met two challengers here for the same reason as mine - the thrill of the hunt. After a brief conversation, I had been introduced to Dan and Brent. Two avid hunters from Minnesota. We were bound to meet each other sooner or later before the games began. There were meant to be a total of five of us before we would be let out onto the fields.
At least I now knew two more. Dan was up my alley. He was literally hopping on the spot. He was as eager for the games to begin as I. “I’m fucking chomping at the bit man. There’s so much good killing out here,” he said, spraying spit with every p and b he tried to pronounce. “It’s my first time in the park”, I replied. “Well brother, you’re going to love it here. The animals might look a bit overwhelming, but not so much when they’re facing down the barrel of a 50-cal. Their heads pop like watermelons.” Dan laughed. Brent joined in. I couldn’t help but share a giggle back in agreement. We all knew we had the upper hand here. I couldn’t help but wonder if the beasts had any intelligence. Were they anything to worry about?
I salivated at the thought of finally being out there. I’d been planning this trip since I could remember. This wasn’t a regular big game park. I wasn’t about to have my photo plastered up on Facebook or Instagram with me posing with my prize for others to cry and complain about. This place was planned and built for exclusive members only. And believe me, the price tag reflected it.
Aden, Dan, Brent, and I had just reached the bottom of the ladder as more voices could be heard approaching from above us. I didn’t expect to see a woman enter the room, let alone two. I was surprised to meet Lisa, a dentist from Nashville, followed by her daughter Nadine, a 17yr old, on her first big game hunt. After a brief chat, Dan and Brent offered to take the lead. It was their third trip to the park. The rest of us were first-timers. Nevertheless, it was time to get down to business.
Aden gave us our last instructions before we left the holding room. I’d had enough of all the noise by then. I’d looked into the eyes of each one of these pathetic creatures. None of them were any different from each other. Just prey. I knew I’d found the killing field I’d been searching for. You might see me as barbaric but this was normal to me. I’m a hunter. You probably buy your meat from the supermarket and let someone else do the slaughtering for you. I do my own. Believe me, the taste is much, much richer. And not one of these pathetic creatures here would be able to do a thing about it. In this place, I was about to become a god. I was the inevitable end of a one-way street.
We stood behind the outdoor gated fence, as we heard the roller door next to us begin to retract.
The sound of one cage lifting at a time. The moonlight illuminated each creature gunning it out of the enclosure five minutes after each other. We then anxiously gave them thirty minutes “grace”, if you will.
“Our most esteemed guests, ENJOY!” Aden proudly exclaimed, wishing us well over the speaker that sat in the upper right corner of our safety cage. Then our door shifted. Freedom. “See you out there friends,’’ said Dan, as he and Brent stalked eastward in a crouched position. Lisa and Nadine ran in the opposite direction. Toward the last place the so-called “animals” were headed. I was last to leave and decided to move northward through the tall grass. I’d always loved this part of my sport. The part leading up. I’d paid for a full night in the park, so I was more than spoiled for time.
The woodlands at night are another dimension. The night sky was a blanket, cloaked from light pollution. A canopy of blue spruces overhead soaked my immediate gaze in ink. Each towering tree was a fishbone elevating from the earth. Stars were sprinkled salt that sat beyond the gaps of trees above me. These are the things I could see. But what I could hear? Dead silence. Other than the slow thumping of my heartbeat and the cool air tunneling through my nostrils. This was measured and planned for. I had been practicing meditating to keep my heart rate down. I needed to blend in as much as possible. I didn’t know what these apex predators were capable of. And I wasn’t the one who was going to be caught. I was going to be doing the catching.
When you begin to take part in these sorts of “activities”, if you will, a numbness grows inside you. But you never forget your first kill. To watch the light in another soul slowly blink away, it pins its nails into the soft blobs of fat of your neocortex and stays there forever. But what should you do? Close in on oneself, and hide within? Be buried deep away under a rock?
We are what we are. And we do what we do.
And so do I.
Just as I was camouflaging into my surroundings, a vicious wail stabbed its way into the night. My eardrums were pierced by a violent sound that was just beyond the next fence line. A voice. But not from a human. It sounded wrong. I ducked down with my spine pushing against the closest brown tree trunk, inhaling a deep black pool of oxygen. Exhaling short puffs of steam that betrayed any sound the night would grab onto. I couldn’t believe it, but I was actually intimidated for the first time in a long while. But, whatever had made that far cry, I had to venture toward it.
As I moved off the trunk, the ground below my feet tremored, causing me to fall to my knees. My ears perked up to the sound of something stretching behind me. A soft reverberation of bones contorting and crackling. Rotating my neck slowly, I caught sight of something that broke my rhythmic pulse.
A gangling beast stared down at me, covered in a shield of timber, except for its eyes. I hadn’t been leaning on a tree trunk. The creature’s eyes stared through me. Or was it staring into me? Judging me?
Maybe I was to become dust. But as soon as I had discovered this beast, it turned and began to relocate elsewhere. Was it the inhuman voice that had just echoed into the night, or my presence that was driving it away? Either way, this game was not mine. And so I was solitary once more.
I crept forward toward the area the sound came from. There didn’t appear to be anything around until I spotted shaved bark all over the ground. But what confused me more was the familiar scent of store-brought bubble gum. What the hell was I about to find here? The lower half of a nearby tree almost only showed pale brown wood, devoid of any bark that once hugged its frame. The job of turning it to paper had almost been half completed. Then I saw the claw marks. Underneath them, a peculiar viridescent liquid was secreting thin tear dops towards the earth. Something had left a deeply ingrained wound in the tree.
I didn’t know how the hell could it be as deep as it was. I let my palm surf the indent. Feeling three lacerations. Each of them at least ten inches in width. “Shh”. A voice called cut into the silence. Turning my weapon counterclockwise, I spotted Nadine. The daughter. Of course, it was her. Asking me to be quiet, mimicking the sound of a snake while there were all these “things” around us. Did she want to get caught? The bubble gum. Young things and their vape pens. Fucking amateur.
I ducked down and withdrew my scope. Holding my index finger up to my lips, signaling for her to stay calm and quiet. She pointed toward her right, trying to say up and over, with tears smearing her complexion. It must have been where the beast had gone. How she was still alive, I had no idea. Young and stupid, but lucky nonetheless. It wasn’t her fault that her mother had brought her here. I asked her what she had seen. “It was so fast, I couldn’t see what it was… It just spun down the tree and I thought it was going to get m..” She began to sob. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be a hunter”, she whispered. But I wasn’t here to babysit, so I left her hidden beneath a small branch hut.
A thick red and green trail met my low-hanging stare. I knelt down to reach it and lightly placed a finger on it. Drawing my finger upward, my nostrils burned. I immediately recoiled. This didn’t have the usual scent of copper. It was a unique bouquet. I knew this would lead me to the big game.
Blades of grass whispered retreat against my boot. But the crimson lime line called me forward until I reached its end. I had arrived. And as it seemed, so had everyone else.
But not everything else. I stalked toward Dan, Brent, and Lisa from behind. Each of them had their rifles aimed at the middle of a clearing up ahead. Experienced hunters as they were, they remained steady as I advanced. Dan heard me first. Stepping towards the right to allow me a place in line. Whatever was up ahead must have needed more bullet power to take down. No one looked away from their line of sight, each holding their weapon at a straight angle. Then a familiar scream called forth. It was utterly invasive. Brent began to shake and kneel at the same time. Maybe he was trying to get a better shot by bowing down. Or maybe his fear forced him there.
His reason emerged from behind a towering cottonwood. It spiraled upward, a tripod of claws turning bark into sawdust. The thing stopped and stared back at our line of defense. When it showed its teeth, my world stalled. The upwards shape of the creature’s mouth… I swear it was grinning.
“There’s more than one here.” Brent silently alerted everyone. I ambushed to the right, one step at a time. I couldn’t believe what I could see. Behind the cottonwood stood the towering behemoth I’d seen in the holding pens. It stood with its huge head laying low. Almost looking like it was sleeping. Its eyes were closed. I walked as close to the ground as I could to mask any noise. Beneath the behemoth lay the dalmatian patterned cross-breed. The moon shone a light on a hollow the size of a dime in its upper torso. The creature was breathing rapidly. It had been hit.
The towering creature above wasn’t sleeping. It was using its own head to shield the pup below. To shield it from us. Of course. Fuck. It wasn’t wasting time learning to socialize with the smaller, more vulnerable thing. It was its parent. They didn’t just want out of their cages for nothing. Shaking the earth forward it moved its body and feet toward the front of the cottonwood tree. I took my turn to backtrack to the line of fire the other players were holding their ground upon. My instincts told me what was coming.
Each hunter became one with their weapons and dropped every ounce of competitiveness they brought to the park. Becoming their own pack, ready for the kill. Two simultaneous roars belted toward us. The cottonwood monster zipped down the frame of the tree. One slow creeping circle after another, towards the tree’s stump. The behemoth took another step toward us, each one easily covering at least a couple of meters. Its once sympathy-seeking eyes had become an enraged focus of pure hatred. Both mates came together on the forest floor. Both brought brutal intentions toward the humans that stood in a line in front of them. These parents brought fury and death. And no timing could have been more perfect.
Taking a few steps backward to mask the noise, I dropped my gun. Doing what I always did when I needed my other weapons, I closed my eyes and remembered my childhood. Everything that had happened to me. My knuckles cracked and stretched outwards. And from between each bone, my claws emerged.
I moved forward, swiping outward with a rage I’d been holding inside my whole life. Each victim, like nothing, crumbled to the forest floor where they stood. Dead. Like I said before, not one of these pathetic creatures here would be able to do a thing about it. And Dan was right. Each head really did pop like a watermelon. Including his.
Lisa, Dan, and Brent each lay on the forest floor in front of me with their heads turned to baskets of red wool. Puddles of bone and missing tissue.
And then the parent’s eyes met mine once more, but this time, without malice. Did they peer back at me, glistening in the moonlight, in mutual understanding?
The reptilian-skinned being relinquished its stare and crawled directly to the behemoth and the dalmatian creature that was laying at its feet. Its cold-bloodedness was replaced with something else. It dropped its head forward, nuzzling the smaller injured creature on the ground. As it did this, the behemoth did the same. Meeting the once ferocious predator’s crown. The dalmatian spotted thing then stood up slowly. I lay my scope on it. Its wound suddenly began to change. The skin around its wound moved in toward itself. It was somehow healing. All three of them turned and peered at me. And like the gangling tree monster before, they left.
The eastern fence line was half a mile away.
And so was Aiden.
You probably buy your meat from the supermarket and let someone else do the slaughtering for you. I do my own. Believe me, the taste is much, much richer.