Adventures in freakdom.
The following work is incomplete. I stopped writing on it when I got bored with it, and I have no idea where it’s going next.
That’s where you come in.
If you’re interested in winning a VALUABLE PRIZE (cough), read on:
The Hunt
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“Sure Leslie’s hot, but the real question is does she put out?” Randy said, his mouth curving into an infectious grin. He always had a way of getting right to the heart of matters, particularly when women were being discussed.
We were on our way to our deer stand, hoping to bag one last buck—even a spike would’ve been nice, given the slim pickings that year—on the last weekend of hunting season. That January morning was cold and blustery, perfect for the deer to be out, and as we walked along, our breath chuffing out in plumes of white, conversation turned (as conversation among guys often does) to the fairer sex.
“I don’t know if she puts out,” I said, “We’ve only been out twice. Good Lord, give me a few more dates.”
Randy laughed.
“A few more dates? How long is it going to—shit!” Randy’s hunting hat, a bright orange thing resembling a baseball cap with earflaps, had been snatched off his head by the greedy wind and was rolling merrily down the path we’d just climbed. He turned, laughing, and ran after it. It was moving at a pretty good pace, and probably would’ve rolled the whole five miles back to our ATVs had it not fetched up in a bush.
Randy bent and grabbed his cap, spinning his bow and arrows around to his back so he didn’t get poked. He jogged back up the hill toward me, still laughing.
“I guess I need to glue this damn thing to my—”
The top third of Randy’s head exploded, its solidity vanishing into a bright spray of blood, bone, and brain. I felt the warm droplets splash my face as I tried to process what I was seeing. He was dead by the time I heard the crack of gunfire roll across the mountainside almost a second later, but he didn’t know it.
He blinked once and his mouth worked soundlessly. He lifted his left foot—it’s always the little things we remember, even years later—and tried to take a step toward me before pitching forward onto the ground. Blood poured from the cavernous opening in his skull, a splash of brilliant color amidst the brown leaves. I realized I could see the backs of his eyes through that hole, twitching and jerking. He still gripped the blaze orange hat in one hand.
I’d like to tell you I was heroic then, that I managed to resuscitate Randy and carry him back to the ATVs, then on into Nashville and a hospital, but the truth is far more mundane: I stood there for some time staring stupidly at his body, unable to comprehend what my eyes were showing me. Most likely I’d still be there, a thin ribbon of spittle hanging from my chin as I continued to gawp, willing his head to regenerate and him to rise up like the phoenix from the ashes, but I was shaken from my reverie by the sound of someone crashing through the underbrush toward me.
I turned toward the sound but saw nothing; the brush and trees were far too dense. I could hear him grunting out there, struggling to blaze his own trail where there was none. I watched in silence until I caught sight of the man, resplendent in a camouflage jumpsuit, looking down in an effort to keep from tripping over the roots and brambles. Under his right arm, pointed at the ground, was a very large chrome-plated shotgun.
He looked up and our eyes met. His widened with surprise.
“Oh, my…” he said, “You’re a person! Oh, Jesus, are you okay?”
“Randy,” I said. “You shot my friend. He’s dead.” My voice was flat, emotionless because the reality of the situation was still so big my mind hadn’t quite grasped it.
The man in the woods picked up his pace, hopping from spot to spot, his eyes jittering from me to the ground and back.
“Oh God,” he said, his voice shaking like he was about to cry, “I thought he was a deer.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I was in my stand back there. I saw the movement and took the shot. I thought it was a deer!”
He broke through the underbrush and was on the path, facing me.
And thus it ends. What happens next? I have no idea. Will the guy with the gun try to kill the protagonist to cover his accident? Will he kill himself out of despair over what he’s done? Will the protagonist raise Randy from the dead?
You tell me.
Here’s the deal. In the comments, tell me how the story should end, summarizing in two or three paragraphs. In a week or so, I’ll choose my favorite ending. The person whose that is wins their choice of three videos from a selection of 20 or 25, and a copy of my book (unless they’d rather have a book from the “already read” pile). At some point in the future I’ll actually finish the story, using the winning summary as a basis.
Interested? Post away in the comments, and be sure to leave a valid email where I can get in touch with you if you’re the winner.
Legal: by posting a suggested ending to the story in the comments below, you’re granting me full rights to use the idea, whether you win or not. If your entry is the winning entry, you agree to accept as payment in full the items listed above (videos and books). If you don’t agree to this, please don’t post.
If you want to get notified whenever Fred writes a journal entry, this link will do the trick.
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Will the protagonist kill the guy himself in revenge, and then have to deal with legal and moral repercussions for the rest of his life? BTW, are spikes legal to hunt in your state? I don’t know that they are in any state, but that’s the sort of situation where we’d be glad of a fork around here.
You know the old joke where the guy’s hunting partner keels over dead in a back country hunt, right? The guy gets down to the road and flags down a game warden and tells him that his buddy’s dead up in the hills. The game warden asks, “So why are you packing out your deer, and not your buddy?”
“Well, nobody’s going to steal Bob!”
email me if you don’t hunt and want hunting details. I do hunt, both bow and rifle.
I’m not a good writer but here’s my idea:
The man who shot Randy realizes he had better shoot Fred (sorry, for lack of a better name) too because Fred is a witness. You could put some kind of human hunt through the woods in there and then in the end it could be that the shooter is really a hit man, hired by the irate husband of a woman that Randy was having a affair with. Or you could have Leslie be married and the man hired by her husband because he thinks that they are having a affair and he accidently shot the wrong person.
Well, with the title being The Hunt and reading that Randy got shot in the head my first thought was that the guy who shot him did it on purpose. He’s twisted in the head. He doesn’t believe in deer hunting (the deer can’t defend themselves, many hunters do it for the thrill not the meat, hide, etc. etc.) so he hunts the deer hunters.
When he comes upon the protagonist he feigns innocence to gauge the man’s reaction. Then says something like, “You have 3 minutes to start running before I come after you.” He lets the guy take his gun so it’ll be a true hunt, the protaganist can turn it around and start hunting the hunter, that’s where the shooter gets his thrills.
End it with whomever makes the most sense coming out on top.
I was going to suggest the same idea as jeanette, turn it into a human hunt, with the shooter trying to kill his only witness, make it something like a psychological thriller, love that stuff.
Yep, the shooter needs to go nuts because he killed someone, then hunt down the other guy.
I just want to mention that the first bit of the story is DAZZLING. I really enjoyed everything about it. It was also totally not what I expected. Good show.
It is a dream that Leslie keeps having over and over because SHE accidently shot Randy. Leslie meant to shoot Fred. Randy does not know that Leslie is Fred’s wife. The hunter is Leslie’s newest boyfriend who was showing her how to shoot.
or
It is a dream that Fred keeps having over and over because HE shot Randy on purpose. Randy does not know that Leslie is Fred’s wife. However, the hunter turns out to be Leslie’s newest boyfriend.
I think Fred gets into a conversation with the shooter as they both try to recover from what just happened. Fred reveals that he is on probation and would be in serious trouble if he was found to have been out hunting with a firearm, and maybe he traveled further from his home than he was supposed to, per court order.
Anyway it turns out that both Fred and the shooter would likely go to prison if the incident became known, so they band together and attempt to cover the shooting up. Much mutual distrust ensues.
Leslie gets involved at some point, possibly creating a love triangle situation, and Fred (or the shooter) tells Leslie what really happened, or possibly she figures it out on her own, and it is decided that she too must be sacrificed.
But Leslie is smart, and she makes it to the police just in time and spills her guts before the murder plot is realized.
I think it is funny how the “I” character automatically became Fred.
I didn’t read the other comments before I posted this, because I didn’t want to be influenced in any way. I wasn’t sure what Randy’s friends name was, so I just refer to him as, “Fred”.
The guy tells him again how he thought it was a deer, but he was scared. Little did Fred know, the hunter knew Randy briefly. They met at a bar through some mutual friends and hadn’t really hit it off. All kinds of thoughts started going through his head just then. At home, he had a beautiful wife and they were expecting their first child in less than 3 weeks. People had seen him and Randy at the bar and knew they most likely weren’t going to become fast friends. What if people thought it was intentional? This was a small town and rumors went around fast. He had already had some trouble with the law before this and had served 6 months in jail. He wasn’t exactly a pillar of the community.
Fred interupted his thoughts, “I have my cell phone on me, we should probably call the cops. I know it was an accident and I will tell the cops. Don’t worry.” The hunter didn’t move. Fred reaches in his pocket for the phone and the hunter tells him to stop and don’t move. Fred is startled, but not really fearing for his life yet. “Listen,” Fred says, “I’m sure this has happened before. We will get it all straightened out with the cops. I’m sure they will know it was an accident.”
The hunters face became pale and he asked Fred, “What do you mean you’re sure this has happened before? Who have you been talking to?” Fred was surprised by his response, but assured the hunter he had only meant that others have been accidently killed before in hunting accidents. Just then the hunter pulls the shotgun on Fred and says, “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” Panicing, Fred pleads for his life. The hunter tells him to turn around. Fred does so and closes his eyes, waiting for the inevitable to happen. Just then he hears a shot. He feels his chest, nothing, reaches around to feel his back, still feels nothing. He bravely turns around and there he see’s the hunter, his brains are laying next to his head, which is nothing more than a mass of blood and bone. Confused, he realizes the hunter had shot himself, rather than face more prison time, and spared Fred from witnessing it.
Fred calls the cops and when they come, he explains everything that happened and they take him to the station for more questioning. Fred was later charged with two counts of murder and sentenced to two life terms.
The hunter slowly removed his hunting cap and soft, long brown curls cascaded down the back of his hunting vest.
Holy Christ, it was Leslie!!!
“And no, I don’t put out” she murmured as she pointed the gun at my heart.
The man in the woods goes on to blabber about how it wasn’t his fault, how this incident will ruin his relatively young life. In the process he mentions how all of his family money can’t fix this. Then the light bulb goes off. He offers Fred money to help him cover up the incident. Fred is quite destitute and was actually out there hunting to make sure his family could eat for the winter. He takes the bribe, they concoct a story about Randy running off to a remote location with his girlfriend to live off the land, dispose of the body, and make arrangements for the pay off. Time goes by, the irresponsible Fred burns through the money and sets upon a course of black-mailing the man from the woods for the rest of his life. Until it gets so bad that the shooter realizes the only way to get past it is to hunt down Fred…
It’s rough, but you can fill it in better than I.
(I’ll also call the “me” character Fred, for continuity with everyone else above.)
There is a third friend involved.
Harrison backs his eye away from the viewfinder, blinking his eyes in bewilderment. He leans back against the tree trunk paralyzed in shock. Suddenly, his wits return to him and he paws at his jacket pocket for his cell phone. Not there. The cabin! He scrambles down out of the tree stand and sprints through the woods for the hunting cabin where he’d spent the night. He didn’t realize until much later that he’d left the video camera running.
Harrison was not a hunter, but a freelance professional videographer, and thanks to his connections, the three had been hired to make a marketing/instructional video for a brand new hunting product that was expected to hit the sporting goods stores and grow legs immediately. Harrison knew this was his big break in video production and he also knew that Randy and Fred were the ones to help him pull it off. They were the most skilled hunters he knew. And he knew they’d jump at a shot to get paid doing what they love. The plan was for him to bring the camera and video equipment up to the hunting cabin, spend the night, then set up and be ready to roll video at first light. He’d meet Randy and Fred in the morning near the tree stand.
Harrison heard the shots and saw Randy drop, and unfortunately saw every gruesome detail through the viewfinder of his video camera’s lens. After retrieving his cell phone from the cabin, he contacted 911, grabbed a blanket from the cot and ran like he’d never run before.
….Fred could not comprehend what was happening. The hunter who shot Randy screamed in horror and dropped to his knees, muttering about Jake, how Jake had told him to shoot even though he hadn’t had a chance to fix his focus on the target. All he knew was that there was movement, and Jake insisted he shoot.
Before Fred can ask him who Jake is, another shot rips through the forest and the hunter falls at Fred’s feet, blood bubbling up through his orange vest. He’s still alive, but he’s in bad shape. Fred’s mind flashes danger and suddenly he remembers Harrison. Harrison! Fear grips him as he realizes that Harrison is up here somewhere and not armed, and this scene is starting to look less like an accident and more like a double homicide. …
After viewing the recording that Harrison inadvertently made and police questioning the unidentified hunter who shot Randy, it is discovered that Jake is the father of a young boy who, 8 years earlier, was accidently hit by a stray bullet while hiking in the woods. Jake was with him, and held his dying son in his arms. No charges were filed in the case as the hunter was never identified. The hunter was Randy, and Randy never knew he had accidently shot a little boy. Jake knew, and he had a mission of revenge. He staged the whole thing to look like his hunting buddy accidently shot Randy, when actually it was his plan all along. What he didn’t plan was the guy falling apart at the scene and mentioning his name. Subsequently, he didn’t mean for the guy to live after being shot. And when he had hired Harrison to shoot the video and have Randy be a part of it, he didn’t mean for himself to be seen in the recording, off in the distance that whole time, taking aim at the hunters in the foreground.
Jake took his own life at his son’s graveside.
Another idea…
When I (Fred) finally get a look at the shooter, I notice his wild hair and burly beard, his home-made clothes and bare feet, his missing teeth and the odor, oh god, the odor. Then I noticed what I’d taken for as the shakiness of person on the edge of tears, was really a person bubbling with excitement. “I thought it was a deer, but there’s a lot more meat on this guy,” he said. “The family is gonna eat good this winter.” He dropped to his knees a methodicly began the process of gutting and skinning my best friend. He was humming a John Denver song, “take me home, country roads to the place I belong, West Virginia…” What kind of bizzaro world had we stumbled upon. I didn’t know how to react. Should I fight to save my friends lifeless flesh. He had a gun and I only a bow. We were miles from anyone, no one could help. My cell phone was back in the car, there was no service anyway. I thought my best option was to slink away while he was busy, find an officer of the law and return to get the justice my friend deserved. As my feet shuffled back ward, the hillbilly looked up and said “aren’t ya gonna partake. It was my shot, but I’ll split ‘em with ya if ya help out.” I almost snickered as a vision of Randy flashed through my head. “Eat Me!” he’d yelled when I was teasing him about his goofy orange hat…then I paniced, turned and srinted away, the hillbilly paid me no mind. I took me until the next morning to find the location with a game warden in tow. The coyotes and raccoons had done their work and there was nothing left on the ground but a burgandy stain…though I was investigated, no one was ever charged with Randy’s disappearance…and I never went back in the woods again…
Spelling was never my strong sute
heyy i haven’t read this yet but i like the first sentance. nayce! hold on i’ll finish it…
that beginning hits you like a slap in the face, reminiscent of chuck palahniuk and the like, nayce work, who won/how does it end?