The truth of the triangle

Short story

As I wake up to the musky smell of wet wood, it fills me with the vision of morning dew. The sound of rain surrounds me as I lay under the cover of animal furs – which seriously needed a thorough wash – and thin sheets. I think to myself, "Well no hunting today, I will never be able to catch anything in this." As I sit up in my bed, I see a shadow of something from the corner of my eye. I look towards the shadow and come to the realization that it's just my lamp. This is not the first time that lamp has tricked me in to thinking that it was a ghost. I think to myself, "I've never liked that lamp. I thought I threw it out and I certainly don't remember putting it over in that corner. I didn't like it before and now I definitely hate it. It's like it's watching me."

It is early morning, the sun is just barely coming in to view. I get out of bed and see that I never undressed from my hunting gear and into some pajamas. I am glad the lamp startled me, it reminded me to fill the generator with gas. As I walk toward the door, I hear some rustling outside. Thinking it was a bear trying to get into my food, I grabbed my gun that was resting next to the door. As I opened the door I saw a group of animals run into the safety of the thick undergrowth. At least three large shapes tore through the ferns, snapping twigs along their path with their heavy trampling.

I go to my car and grab the twenty pound gas can out of the trunk. I walk over to the generator and fill it up then proceeded to start it. The loud hum of the generator disturbed the peace in the woods. I walk back to my car and put the gas can back in the trunk. Walking back to the cabin to get away from the rain, I look at my door and it has three deep and unnerving claw marks on it. That's strange. He tries to justify it with a perfectly reasonable answer. It could have easily been those bears he thought he saw this morning. It was weird though that there was only three claw marks. If they had attempted to break down the door, there would have been more damage. Stranger still that the claw marks formed the shape of a triangle.

During my examination, the rain let up, all I could think was how glad I was that the rain stopped. "Now I can go out and finally hunt something." He thought to himself. I go inside and grab a light breakfast then load up on plenty of ammo for my rifle and put on the orange jacket that always kept me warm. I was thinking of a place that is almost always teeming with life, I could find my elk there. That seamed to be the best place to get anything but it is more than two miles out I could take the four-wheeler but it would be too noisy and I don't want to scare anything I catch and take down to my family. If I got a elk this year me and my family could eat for months.

I started to walk north-east, toward the ridge with a river by it. The fastest way to get there would mean leaving the few trails he had and hike straight there but walking would be difficult, through ferns and he would be making lots of noise. So I decided to walk the paths made by the local animal life. It is a pretty clear path to walk, almost nothing in the way. "Wait, what is that in the path? It looks like a bunch of large branches." He said to himself. As I came closer to it, I felt more and more like I shouldn't be looking at this. I was about five feet away from it now and I could see that there were some twigs leaning on the logs. The twigs made the sign of a triangle and that kinda creeped me out because triangles are not common to see in nature, only humans make them. "Maybe it is just a another hunter marking his path or he is trying to scare me." As I thought that, I feel a pair of eyes peering from the shadow below a large tree on my left. Maybe it was that hunter I suspected or just an animal.

"Is anyone there? Are you a fellow hunter?" I asked the shadow.

The shadow spoke, responding with an answer that chilled me to the bone. "I'm a hunter looking for a beast that is very smart, very hard to find, and even harder to catch."

This other hunter weirded me out so I decided to end the talk as fast as I could. "Well I hope you find and catch it." I told the shadow.

"Don't worry my friend, I have found its den. It was hidden well. It took many weeks of searching but I finally found it. It won't be long until I have that beast's meat. It is by far the best in the land." The shadow replied excitedly.

I asked very questioningly, "How did you find it?"

"I put up cameras all around its den and also was able to put one inside the home of the beast." Said the shadow pridefully.

I replied, "Happy hunting."

The shadow told me, "This is not goodbye. We will see each other again. . . soon."

As I climbed over the logs, I could sense the shadow's watching eyes dissipate. I felt so relived. I slipped, knocking over the twigs that formed the triangle and all the sudden got this sharp pain as if there was a knife piercing my foot. I screamed then searched out the stabbing feeling in my foot. But there was nothing in my foot but my foot was obviously bleeding as if there had been something that stabbed my foot. After looking over my foot and finding I was still able to walk, I looked at my watch. It was 3:05. I meet the shadow guy around 3:00. I was glad I checked. "I will have to get going soon or I won't get to the ridge before dark." He thought to himself.

I kept walking even though my foot ached and I reached a field that was complete empty other than the triangle in the ground.

"Wait, there's another triangle! That is three triangles now. This is not a coincidence. I know someone is following me or maybe even leading me to this location." I said to myself.

As I crossed the field, I hit the center and felt eyes coming from each points of the triangle, the eyes had a hunger to them that froze my blood. I feared that they where wolves so I ran but I didn't get very far when I was hit over the head with something hard. Everything went dark.

When I regained consciousness, I was next to a fire surrounded by three people, the three of them where eating something that looked like meat.

"This meat is the best, Todd. I don't think I have had better in my whole life" Said the first man.

"I told you Robert. I knew you'd be happy I put up those cameras to find him. Adam didn't think it would work." Said the man named Todd. His voice was familiar. Could it be the same shadow man I was talking to earlier?

"Look he's awake. About time. I think you hit him too hard." Said Adam.

I replied, "Wait, you knocked me out."

"Well yeah. If we didn't you would have screamed." Said Adam.

"Who are you?" I asked nervously.

"We are the hunters of hunters." said Robert.

"I don't understand." I told them.

Adam got close to me and whispered, "Well, we hunt hunters like yourself because it is more sporting and also we need to."

"You see this." Todd exclaimed, pointing at the meat in his hand This is your mid-thigh.

As he tells this to you, you look down and see you no longer have legs, you want to scream in panic but you can't say anything, overtaken by pure shock.

Adam tells you, "That is how most people respond to that statement."

As you stammer to say anything you finally respond in a whisper, "How could you do this to people? This is so horrible."

"What was that?" asked Robert

I respond again with strength, "How could you do this to people!"

Todd replies, "We have to or we will die."

"Why do you have to?" I ask Todd.

"Because if we don't we will be destroyed by our father." Responds Adam.

"Who is your father." I say questioningly.

Robert replies, "Lucifer."

As I look up, I see a man looking down on me from the tree branches above. He has a terrifying smile on his face as he floats down from his perch. He pulls a knife out of a sheath and says, "Tell your God hello when you see him."

As I feel the knife go into me, I feel a burning pain then a strange bliss fall over me as my life is draining. The only thing i can think about is that I will never be able to see my family again, my wife would never know what happened to me and the last thought of my short life was of my children and how they may stave because of my death.