Demented

The Feel

[Minnesota: 16 years back]

Darkness was conquering the fringes of daylight. The sun was faltering behind the clouds, which gave the impression of a lit cigarette butt. Soon, the sun would be completely engulfed by the rocky snowy hills that were formidably entrenched from the bank of the lake to far off eastwards. They looked gloomy in the dusk. The valley was silent as dead. It was, as Adler's extravagantly caring mother would have said, the time of devilry– The time when angels would hide in cozy beds while the devils would roam the temporal darkness in search of souls to feast upon. It seemed that these devils were going to be gifted a new initiate today.

There was no mistake. It was a cougar's footprint. They were common around the place. Adler's parents had tried their best to engrave fear for the wilderness in their kids' souls. One of these souls, the soul of Rune, two years older than Adler, was fragile. He had accepted the fact that he was weak. He had accepted that it was better to be safe than sorry. However, the other soul, of a good amount darker shade than his brother, had refused to collapse under fear.

On that day, while both the kids clutched their bed sheet tightly, one out of fear and the other out of cold. Their mother, a beautiful slender lady in her late thirties, went on with the story of how the cougar ripped John Fallus apart when he went out for hunting at night. She took special care to add all kinds of gory details which she fabricated with ease. Rune had started crying and Adler had drifted to sleep thinking how dumb John Fallus was for deciding to lie down for rest.

Yesterday, Raymond Hudson, a half lunatic farmer had told the Garb family that he had spotted the silhouette of a cougar upon the little hill that they called The Ridge. And so here Adler was, two pillows lay at the cozy place where he should have been right now, but the wilderness was where he belonged today. While the Garb family sat down for dinner, the father consoling the mother that their son was suffering from mild fever and nothing more, Adler neared the ridge through the tangle of greenery that housed creatures both meek and crude. His own footing resembled that of a cougar, swift but silent, in flow with the wilderness. There was no question to the presence of cougar, the footprints he had found near the root of a willow confirmed it. The three curves of the pad had made him smile.

After an hour of hunting, the hour that witnessed the downfall of daylight and the night taking its toll, Adler was not in the least tired nor has the enthusiasm died. Finally, the lissome kid brushed past the last bit of shrubbery and spotted the cougar. The elegant cougar with its back turned towards Adler was chewing on something. At the same instance, the moon found its way from behind a chunk of cloud and illuminated the land. The cougar's body shined brightly in the cold moonlight, and so did the blood splattered on the ground. A deer lay on the ground, abandoned by its comrades, a prey of nature. The only one it now held value to was the cougar and the cougar seemed to enjoy it to the fullest.

The ridge was still some distance away. The cougar must have been roaming the plains looking for prey. To the eyes of the night, both predators had found their prey. While one prey lay on the verge of dying, the other had no clue that it was being watched. Its hunter pulled the butcher knife out of his boots as silently as he could. The cold of the wooden handgrip invigorated Adler's soul. He had always longed to use a butcher knife. A tool as effective as this, Adler was barely able to hold back his joyous laughter.

For a moment, the cougar seemed to have felt the darkened soul. It suddenly raised its head upright, the ears twitching in anticipation. Adler stopped dead in his tracks. A bead of sweat trickled down his nose and onto the thirsty ground where it was glutted down almost instantly. For seconds that felt long as years for Adler, the cougar stayed on his guard, sensing presence but nothing more. And like all preys do, it lowered its guards and continued to tear through the flesh of the deer.