The Hunter in the Dark

Copyright: The Molotov Cocktail

The night was colder than he had expected. The freezing air burned in his lungs as he walked out of the bar and he was even thinking about turning around, going back inside and having another beer or ten.
She was already crossing the street and moving away quickly, so he decided to stick to his plan, pulled the collar of his grey leather jacket higher and started following her. He felt a rush as the adrenaline started to flow through his body. Instinctively he reached for the hunting knife with the ten-inch blade underneath his jacket. He always used knives. ​It was his idea of good sportsmanship and he stuck to his ideals although the game got harder these days. It seemed that every woman in this godforsaken town had a taser nowadays, or pepper spray or a gun. The last time he had had to cave in the girl’s head with a brick and smash it into her face a final time for good measure before he could use his knife on her. It was a mess.

Tonight, he had not even planned to be hunting in the first place. He just wanted a few beers at the bar and then go back to his apartment to watch TV. But the moment he had seen her, he knew, that he would not be able to resist. There was something about her eyes, something about the way she seemed to stare at him and at the same time totally ignore his presence. She was exactly his type. Elegant. Thin but not skinny. Dark eyes, brown curly hair.
He sped up a little bit to reduce the distance between them. He could see that she was aware of him following her, as if she could almost sense him in the dark. But she did not dare to turn around. They never do.
Suddenly she hurried across the street and turned right into a poorly lit alley, where she suddenly vanished. It was like an invitation. He followed her across the street and as he turned into the alley, he reached for his hunting knife. He stood in the middle of the street and kept looking for her. After eighty or ninety yards, where a fence separated the street from a down, out of business paper factory there was a dead end. Dumpsters where lined up to both sides standing against dirty, old brick walls. She was probably hiding behind or even inside one of them. He licked his lips and took a few steps forward.
Suddenly something hit him hard in the side of his head. He felt sharp claws ripping the skin underneath his right eye and blood started streaming down his face. Someone picked him up and smashed him with incredible force against a wall. He felt his knees buckle but he managed to stay on his feet. He tried to locate the attacker but his vision got blurry. He thought he saw the woman but in the next second, she seemed to transform into something different. This…thing was easily eight feet tall with long arms and legs. It had long claws, razor sharp fangs and deer-like horns on its head. Its whole body was covered in white fur but he could swear the girl’s dark eyes were staring at him from this enormous white furred skull.
He tightened the grip around the handle of his knife. The beast let out an otherworldly scream and launched forward running towards him. First like a human on two legs, then it changed its position and was running on all fours moving more like a giant cat. But this was no cat and this was no deer either, this was something entirely different, something demonic.
The thing jumped him and threw him to the ground. He tried to stab it with his knife but to no avail. For a moment, he thought he could feel her soft lips against his neck but then he felt the teeth of the beast pull his flesh from his bones above his right shoulder blade. He could hear his shoulder pop out of the socket as the beast yanked at his arm. The second yank tore all of his ligaments and the third ripped off his entire arm with his hand still holding on to his hunting knife. The pain was so mind numbing that he could not even scream. He just closed his eyes and faded into the darkness while he heard the beast gnawing on his severed body part.