Hunter's Moon

By Geoffrey Hart

Twilight had fallen and the hour approached when the wardens of the first shift would watch their game preserve a little less closely, hoping not to observe anything that might delay their return home. Yawning, tempted to down a last cup of stale coffee, they lingered in the shelter of the park's chalet, ghost-lit under fading fluorescents, and watched the monitors, bored, while the second shift lingered in the warm safety of the coffee shops on the far side of the highway that ran past the park's crumbling walls. Driving along that highway on my way home from work, mingling with the unsuspecting mundanes, I heard a familiar faint voice that raised the fine hairs on the nape of my neck: this place, it whispered in my head, heard only by me. I pulled off the road, got out of my car, and as the evening commuter traffic crawled past, I climbed onto the seat and gazed across the roof, thighs pressed against the roof of the car for balance, and scented the air. Something faint, elusive, but definitely there just above the sting of the smog. Yes. It would be here.

As the moon waxed ever fuller that week and the monthly itching began, the sense of the moment grew unbearably keen. Each follicle stirred as night fell and the silvery moon rose, until it was all I could do to stay indoors. By day, on my way to work, I made time to survey the park several days running until I knew the lie of the land. By night, I donned jogging shoes and sweats and ran through the park to time the patrols and refine my own timing, the moon caressing and urging me on—even later, after I'd showered and lay restless atop the sheets, its cold light bathing me through the filmed glass of my bedroom window.

When the night came, full moon not yet risen fully above the horizon, I left my car by the side of the highway, hood lifted as if I'd had a breakdown and gone in search of a phone. (This was back when it was still possible to resist the siren call of Instagram and its kin by not owning a cellphone.) I pressed the key fob to lock the doors, then slipped through the rose bushes that grew wild against the wall. I grabbed a projecting brick about a foot above my head, left-handed, lifted my left foot into a gap where a brick had fallen, and lunged upwards to catch the top with my right hand, easy as if I'd been climbing a ladder. Elation and the moon's ancient power lightened my feet and surged through my arms as I pulled myself up. My stained brown leather jacket cushioned me against what little broken glass remained embedded in flaking mortar, and I dropped silently to the ground on the far side, thick stone instantly muting the hum of passing traffic. My feet pressed hard against the worn leather sides and soft insoles of my hiking boots, the moist earth pressing back against the second set of Vibram soles I'd nearly worn from these boots. Tonight, I'd need no footwear, so I removed them and my socks, tucking the scratchy woolens into the tops of the boots, and placed them against the wall where they'd be easy to find later. I topped them off with my jacket and shirt, for I'd have no need of either until I returned.

I squirmed my toes in the rotting leaf mould, and its rich scent rose damply on the air, more stimulating than any perfume. The night's cricket chorus vibrated upon the damp air of a morning so newly born it would remain clad in dark swaddling cloths for nearly seven hours yet. I squatted a moment, soaking in these sensations. But the silvery light of the new-risen moon called me onward, and I rose. A little light from the streetlamps filtered past the top of the wall and the grove of century-old oaks crowding up against it; the full moon passed behind clouds and a cold breeze caressed my skin.

The autumn leaves that had begun to fall were not yet sufficiently dry nor sufficiently abundant to make much sound beneath my bare feet, so I moved fast and sure through the scant undergrowth. Though the night's hunt would take place entirely within this well-groomed urban park, I was hunting an even more dangerous predator than the Kodiak bears I'd shadowed in Alaska and the tigers I'd danced with in a private Bengal reserve under the Indian moon. I paused and listened carefully a moment, tilting my head to orient on a distant sound. When it came again, I smiled, and moved deeper into the park. In my head, I savored the heady beat of Peter Gabriel's Intruder, and subconsciously adjusted my pace to that beat.

The well-trodden paths amidst the trees—game trails of a sort—were clear beneath the moon, but I kept to them as much as possible, not wanting to distract any wardens by appearing on their screens. No sense making things easy for them. A frisson roughened my skin as the moon emerged once more, casting off its veil of clouds, and as that light touched my skin, the hairs of my chest and arms rose to greet it. I bared my teeth at the sky, grateful for its gift. A delicious, waiting tension charged the air, and I let it guide my path towards what I hunted. I had roughly an hour before the changing of the guard in which to make my kill and escape over the wall again.

In a seldom-visited corner of the park, I came across the first good spoor—clawed footprints in the soft earth that confirmed I was hunting another predator. I moved faster, paralleling his trail. The full moon had grown almost painfully bright, enough to cast shadows. The faint noises ahead had strengthened, and I lifted my eyes from the trail, close enough now to follow my prey by sound alone. Moving slowly as the moon-cast shadows, I eased through the brush to where I could see my prey. An occasional movement of the air, barely enough to call a breeze, carried complex scents that mingled, warning of what I'd see.

From behind cover, I watched. There were two of them, a fine, well-hung young buck and the female he'd chosen for his mate. I sat and watched them, enjoying his vigorous rutting with the female, and when the male cried out in his final triumph, I gathered my feet beneath me. Good game management dictates that you leave enough breeding stock to replenish what you've harvested, and I'm a poacher, not a fool.

As I watched, he rose from the ground and slunk away into the bushes, leaving his mate behind, breathing heavily, steam rising from her breath and the moon-silvered skin that shone beneath the moon. Ignoring her—for this moment was to be his—I followed the male, who made his solitary way through deep cover. This one was a predator worthy of my time. This hunt was for pleasure and to honor She who strengthened me with her silvery light.

But this one was cocky, too secure in his mastery of this environment, and needed a warning he was no longer the only predator in the woods. I raised my face to the stars and howled. Startled, he stopped so suddenly he almost fell, and cast his gaze about him, a snarl on his lips, stained old ivory glistening in the moonlight. He was confident in his maleness and power, yet also suddenly scared—I smelled the suddenly acrid accent to his sweat—for he was accustomed to being the hunter, not the hunted. Abruptly, he chose the better part of valor and fled, whirling with animal grace and bounding away, seeking escape, his fine, muscular figure sliding nimbly through the pools of moonlight and shadow. I held my breath in admiration, released it slowly, then set out after him.

There's a kind of mental bond between hunters and their prey that only the two of them share, and in that state of focused mutual awareness, there's little room for aught else. We shared that state for perhaps five minutes, that oneness of predator and prey the very first humans must have felt before they sublimated those feelings in religion, as I drove him before me, flanking him to change his direction whenever he turned from my chosen course and snarling to remind him I was still there. Nearing the end of the chase, I paused a moment and leapt into the tree I'd chosen earlier in the week, crooked fingers clinging to the coarse bark.

It was still there.

I dropped to the ground, and drew the knife from the oilskins that had concealed it, then wiped the handle on my pants, ensuring there'd be no condensation to weaken my grip. I flourished the blade, saluting the moon, then howled again and resumed the chase. I drove him onwards until, running flat out, he crashed against one of the park's high walls and caromed off, scarcely retaining his feet. There, he turned at bay, back to the wall and fangs glistening in the moonlight. He was magnificent and primal, and I almost regretted having to kill him.
I raised the knife before me, a foot of gleaming metal sharp enough for surgery, and stepped from my cover. His eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in rage; evidently, he'd been expecting something far fiercer than me, though perhaps nothing stranger. There was a timeless instant when we knew each other, the man and the wolf, then he lifted his fanged snout to the moon, tail projecting stiffly as a bottle brush behind him, and howled his challenge. His charge was breathtaking, acceleration like an arrow leaving a bow, and I threw myself forward to meet him. As we closed, I ducked under the sweep of his arms, his talons missing my head by a comfortable margin, and thrust upward with the knife, burying it to the hilt in his chest and then spinning away from the momentum of his charge, the knife freeing itself with a rasp of metal on bone, and he fell past me, limbs suddenly powerless beneath the unexpected weight of his mortality.

With what strength he still possessed, he rolled onto his side, curled around his wound, a froth of blood growing on his lips as I knelt by his side; he'd been fast enough I missed his heart and hit a lung. He was shocky but still alive, and his increasingly human eyes snapped open at the sound of my footfall, glazed with horror as I lifted his head. "What the fu..." he began, then my knife caressed the skin of his throat and blood fountained briefly in the moonlight. He shuddered and relaxed, and when he'd stopped moving, I cleaned my knife on the last of his fur, vanishing like steaming breath on a cold winter night. That done, I touched his naked skin with my fingertips and said the prayer of apology to the prey, as we hunters have done since our kind first found a voice to raise to the unfeeling stars in defiance of the wolves. Breathing deeply, I regained my feet, listening to the woods behind me. Though most of my attention had been focused on the hunt, part of me had known I wasn't alone.

The bushes parted, and a soft footfall sounded on the resonant earth. Moonlight glinted off a knife the twin of my own, the silver in its alloy singing in my head beneath the nourishing, holy light of the moon, and she was there—golden hair spilling moon-silvered around her shoulders, her coat hanging wide, pale flesh peering out from beneath her ripped shirt.

"He was mine."

I blinked, nonplussed. "Sorry?"

"He was mine. You interfered in something you had no right to share."

I blinked. "Actually, you're the intruder here. It was my hunt."

She cocked her head, scrutinizing me, then all at once, spun her knife in an arc and tucked it into a belt sheath, like a gunfighter showing off.

"Wait... you're the woman he was dallying with earlier?"

Her smile grew predatory.

I swallowed. "That's... kinky, actually."

Her smile widened, and she offered me her hand. I took it, and felt the moon singing in her blood as loudly as it sang in mine.

"Don't kink-shame." She hesitated a moment, then her smile softened. "I suppose we both got what we wanted." Belatedly, I released her hand, and she reached up to caress my cheek with her free hand, then pulled my face down towards hers. She brushed her lips lightly across mine, then pushed me away.

The far-off whistle of a patrolling warden sounded, plaintive as a distant train in the dark, and I sheathed my own knife. She crouched a moment, then sprang high, alighting atop the wall with enviable grace, and paused a moment to look back.

"I'm sure we'll meet again."

"Count on it."

Then she sprang down on the other side, and I turned my back on her and on our prey, and broke into an easy lope, heading back to retrieve my clothing and my car. Above me, the moon smiled down, tugging at my skin and whispering a promise of other nights, other hunts.

Author's notes

This one was inspired by a Roger Zelazny tale (Dayblood) in which the grandmaster asked the question: "If monsters were governed by the rules of ecology, wouldn't there be predator–prey relationships for monsters too?" I'm no Zelazny, but the idea resonated, and I decided to adapt it to a different kind of monster.

If you enjoyed this story...

Consider buying my first story collection, A Higher Power and Other Stories.

Comments from readers

Comment on this story and read comments from other readers at my blog.

Want to build on this story?

If you liked the characters or setting and want to use them in your own fiction, please do; the dialog between authors enhances the value of fiction. However, please add a suitably amended version of the following statement at the start of your story:

"The characters and setting in this story originated in [story name and URL/link], by Geoff Hart. Although Geoff encouraged adaptation of his original work, he has not reviewed my story, and the original story remains copyrighted in his name."

Then send me a link to your story, and I'll post the link here.