Hunting The Hyena Pack
Short Story
The back of your head is shiny with sweat. We have been running for 20 minutes through the woods. I suspect we will be running for another 15.
We knew better than to be so deep in there so close to sunset but we got bold the way idiots do off whisky. There is no time for looking back but I don’t need to look back to know they are closing. The smell of decaying flesh is getting stronger and the chittering sounds they make seem to come from every angle.
I try not to think that there were five of us and now there are only two. Me and the beads of sweat on the back of your neck. I think of all the things I never got to tell you and decide it’s not worth trying now. There are fewer and fewer carcasses of woodland creatures littering the floor which means we are closer to the exit than the center.
I think back to us laughing about them as we passed the flask of whiskey between us too wired off adrenaline to think maybe 3 pm is too late to play chicken with fate.
Perry picks up a long bone and swings it over his head like a club. We are hyenas cackling. I suppress the thought that it could be human. It could be one of us. Kenya picks one up too and they play fight with their broken eggshell white swords. There is a sad symphony when bones with no marrow collide. They get tired of swinging around fossils and we are back in pack formation slapping tree bark, clucking, and cackling saying “fuck you woods”. No birds chirp. No tree leaves rustle. We are too drunk to think that the silence is a “fuck you” back.
“We should turn back y’all the sun too low,” I can see the darkness crawling through the tree branches and the floor of the woods.
“Don’t be a fucking pussy Jayla,” Perry says.
“I’d rather be a fucking pussy than dead. Don’t yall smell that?”
“It smell like yo momma pussy,” Perry grins his too-drunk grin so proud of that basic ass joke.
“I’ll beat the shit outta you you stupid fuck. I’m serious. Don’t you smell that?”
“It smells dead the same way it been smelling since we got here, clown!” Kenya says.
“Nah, this different,” the chittering starts as if punctuating my sentence.
“RUN”
I don’t know who says it. Maybe it was all of us. Leah falls first probably too much whisky and not enough fear. Her screams are the sounds of bones knocking. There is a crunch so loud; then the sound of chittering again. The silence where her screams were will haunt me if I make it out… when I make it out.
The four of us are barely a pack of hyenas anymore. Every dog for themselves. We all knew the stories and did the stupid shit anyway. “Just stories,” we muttered.
“Stay the fuck out dem woods.” My mother’s words echo in my mind as the four of us stumble over tree roots and step over bones too old to have a story. “Stay the fuck out dem woods.” I wish I had listened.
To my left Felly is crying, snot streaming, breathing so hard it makes me tired. Perry is laser-focused and you are ahead of me the back of your head still dry. Then Felly is snatched and screeches a screech so shocked and desperately defeated. The sound is a branding rod hot on my brain and all the motivation I need to move up past Perry.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Perry has a new mantra punctuated by the sound of chittering and surrounded by the aroma of death.
“FUCKKK!” He yells as he rolls his ankle and slows down considerably. He is whimpering now knowing death is a few chitters away.
Then it’s just me and you and the fear of being like the other three. We are two beings Adderall focused on not dying. I don’t want to know what they look like. I don’t want to know what their jaws feel like. I think of telling everyone I know to stay the fuck out dem woods for real. I just need to make it.
With every step the stitch in my side grows. It was a penny-sized nag but now it is the size of a grapefruit and I am praying PRAYING for the sight of the truck through the trees.
We’re close.
We have to be close. Right? I have been thinking “we are close” for a while now but now I finally see some of the markers at the beginning of the woods and I almost stop out of sheer joy knowing the end is near. Then you look back as if telling me we are close. Your eyes open the size of two moons tinged with blood. That is all the signage I need to lift my fucking knees because I don’t want to die today.
Whatever you were going to say is swallowed by the need to be alive. You need the energy to run. The smell is everywhere. I don’t think I could ever wash the scent out of my clothes. Then we’re through the last of the fucking trees and we don’t stop. Don’t stop until the air is free of that rotten smell and there are sounds that aren’t chittering. The sound is us sobbing. I squeeze your body tight and you are shaking and I am shaking so violently between sobs and thank fucks and I love yous that I’m terrified I will start an earthquake.
I cradle the back of your head and stare into your wet eyes. I have never seen anyone more beautiful even with cold running down your lips and fear still racing in your eyes. I want to stand but my legs are husks and I think the truth of the matter is sinking me to the grass. We grasp each other again weeping into each other’s shoulders. I wonder if two make a pack. I wonder who will ever believe us. Decide not to give a fuck because we are alive to tell the story
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It’s September which means it is basically October which means HALLOWEEN. I’m not a big Halloween person but I do love a good creepy/scary/adrenaline-filled story. Hope you all enjoyed this story I whipped up on the car ride home.
TELL ME:
Do you have a favorite creepy/scary story? Are you an outdoorsy person or nah? What was the last stupid shit that you did that you know you shouldn’t have done?
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I loved it, NJ!!! So suspenseful!!
i was holding my breath the whole time. this is incredible.