The Outside

Section II

 Marion nudges me as if I were sleeping. I might've been sleeping too, given a few more minutes or even seconds.

She whispers, "Are you up?" in my ear.

I don't look at her as I speak unenthusiastically, "I suppose I am."

She pauses, looking back at the door, and then stands up, leaning over my bed, saying, "Do you want to drink?" in the softest voice she could muster. I look at her with a raised eyebrow. She doesn't seem to be joking.

"Drink? This early?"

"In celebration---you know---of making it here in one piece."

"I'll tell you what...we can cook a special meal."

"A special meal?"

"That is what I said, yes."

"A meal of what?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"Whatever the forest turns up."

"Huh?"

I pinch my nose between my eyes in irritation.

"What do you mean, 'whatever the forest turns up'?"

"I mean that I'm going to hunt for our dinner."

"What if you can't catch anything?"

"I always catch something."

"But what if you don't?"

"I always catch something."

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and push off of it to my feet. I straighten out my back with a satisfying crack.

"So you have a gun here?"

"If you kill your prey with a gun, then you're not a real hunter. You're a coward."

"What are you hunting with then?"

"A knife." I slip the thick bowie knife from its sheath at the back of my belt and hold it in front of her.

"Oh. That's cool---I guess."

"I don't care if it's cool." I walk out of the room. Marion trails behind me, obediently. I push open the flapping wooden 'door' and make my way to the forest edge. I feel Marion's greedy eyes hungrily devouring the sight of my back as I march away.

I push into the dark, thick woods, out of Marion's eyeline. The bowie knife is heavy in my hand. It glints brightly against the sun, setting me and it apart from the dullness of the dark, oaken tree trunks. I scan around me looking for a prime position to nest and wait for my prey. I make my way deeper into the forest. The wood smell fills my lungs fully now. Well, almost fully. The smell of fresh animal shit invades the wall of autumn scent. Perfect. And that's not a sarcastic 'perfect', that's an actual, honest to god 'perfect'. It seems as if there's already a worthy prey in the area. It's actually very easy to tell that the shit belongs to a hunter of some sort. The shit has no berries or leaves or any other kind of plant life such as that which prey might eat. Rather, it's got that nice thick, meaty aroma of a predator's meal. I won't hunt prey. They're born to die. They have no ability to defend themselves, all they can do is try to make their predators sick to their stomach after the meal is finished. No, I only hunt the upper echelon of the food chain.

I crouch down next to the pile of shit. I slide my knife along my palm and squeeze out some blood. I sit down on the leaves with a crunch and wait. I keep my hand held up in the air. I let the wind carry the scent of my meat across the forest. Prey will stay away, they know I'm chumming the waters and they don't want to be anywhere near the gathering of the hunters. I close my eyes and listen. And smell. And taste. And feel.

I'm not sure of the exact amount of time that passes, but I do know that the sun has dropped down to just above the trees rather than its morning, just above the cabin, position. Leaves crunch to my right. I don't move. The predator thinks I didn't notice. He keeps moving. I breathe slowly. The predator blows out deep, heavy, hot, wet breaths in rhythm. I bleed openly. He licks his snarled lips and porcelain-white teeth. I snap of a branch being stepped on as he leaps into the air. I don't flinch. He realizes that I'm waiting as he flies towards me. He's powerless to stop his flight. I am not so powerless. Eyes still closed, I launch upwards into his underbelly. My knife rams deep into his jugular as his furry body crashes against mine. We spin and slam to the ground, me on top. I tear my knife free and bring it down again and again. He thrashes around. His long, long-haired tail flicks over my back as I tear open his throat. He stops thrashing. I wipe the blood from my face and open my eyes. I am seated on the chest of a massive salt-and-pepper-haired wolf. There seems not to be any throat left. In its place, a bloody mess slides out of the gouge into the dirt, quickly becoming reddened mud.

I stand up, off the wolf. I lift its body up but its head tears off of the thin strip of skin holding the head to its shoulders. I slip my knife into its sheath and pick up the head. I start walking back to the cabin, dragging a big hairy wolf body behind me in one hand and holding a permanently snarling wolf head in the other. I don't make it very far before I hear another snapping twig. I launch myself behind the bush where the sound came from.

I find myself holding a little boy by the collar of his shirt waving my bloodied bowie knife an inch from his face. He seems unphased. I embarrassedly stow the knife and help the kid to his feet.

I look him over, he seems familiar. I ask him, "Are you alright, kid?"

He doesn't respond. Just looks at me.

"Sorry. I thought you were an animal."

His voice is deep for a kid; "Aren't I?"

"Aren't you what?"

"An animal."

"What do you mean?"

"What makes a living creature an animal or more than animal."

"That's a very deep question to be asking. Deeper than someone your age should be asking."

"I've been around for longer than I look like."

"I see."

"You don't see anything."

"What?"

"You may think you see, but you're blind to the reality of life."

"I'm blind?"

"Even with that eye, you're blind."

My hand instinctively shoots up and covers my right eye.

"You're a blind man, Edgar."

"What are you doing here, you little punk? This is private property, don't you know. My private property."

"Private property but a very public place."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm watching."

"Watching what?"

"You."

I smack him across the face with the back of my hand. It doesn't faze him. He doesn't bleed. He doesn't respond with pain. He just looks at me, almost mildly amused. I pull out my knife and motion away from the cabin; "How about you get the fuck out of here, boy?"

He smiles like a fox and walks away. As I scoop back up the wolf's head and body, I can't shake the feeling that I know the boy from somewhere.