Hunter's Moon

Chapter 2

Matthew ran down the street. He just let his lanky athletic body go into auto-pilot, letting instincts control his body. A set of stairs appeared in front of him, leading up to a courtyard plaza of sorts for one of the skyscrapers. As he approached, he turned slightly and instead of taking the stairs, he planted both hands on the five foot rise to the side of the stairs, and without breaking stride, vaulted himself up the wall onto the landing above and continued to his run.

            The late night helped insomuch that the sidewalks and streets were nearly empty. He could do his run during the day, moving through the throng of people, but Matthew didn't like the thought that they would see him as getting in their way. He'd learned to be fairly unobtrusive, but there was always one or two people he heard complaints from as he passed. During this time of night he enjoyed the solitude of the experience. The crisp night air helped him think.

            Matthew bypassed the stairs down from the courtyard and somersaulted down to the sidewalk instead. After the week he'd had, he needed to consider his options on how to proceed. Yes, the girl of his dreams had just broken up with her long-term boyfriend. Yes, his best friend since grade school told him he should ask her out. Yes, he felt like an idiot for worrying about acting like an idiot in front of her, instead of just asking her out. And that didn't even come close to the problems he'd run into with work. There he'd--

            His train of thought stopped when he felt his phone vibrate. He pulled the Bluetooth earpiece out of his jacket pocket and activated it as he pushed it into his ear; he then pulled up his right sleeve and pressed the talk button on the phone strapped to his forearm.

            “Hello?” he greeted.

            “Matthew, what're you doing up? I figured I'd just get your voicemail.” a startled female replied.

            “Oh, hey, Taylor. Nah, just blowing off some steam with a run.”

            “It's nearly 1:30 AM. You do know it's not safe to be out on the streets alone this late,” Taylor chided him, worry clear in her voice.

            “Bah,” Matthew said, “I'm all good. I mean, I'm still staying close to campus. In all the times I've done this, I've yet to see anyone, really. But, seriously, what's up?”

            “Oh, well. I was going to leave you a message that you might want to hold off on asking your dream girl out for a bit.”

            “Yeah,” Matthew said as he balanced along the back of a bus stop bench, “Why's that?”

            “Word is that she's already been approached by one or two guys and they all crashed and burned. It's not just 'not pretty,' but a whole new level of 'ugly'.”

            “Hmm, good to know, good to know. Where is it that you hear such things, Taylor?”

            “I have my sou--”

            An ear-piercing scream carried by a breeze interrupted Taylor's voice and stopped Matthew in his tracks. Matthew whipped around to face the direction of the sound.

            “Uh, Matthew, what's that you said about no one being out there?”

            “Guess I was wrong,” Matthew replied, heading off in a dead sprint, “But chances are I'm the only one that heard them scream.”

            Matthew heard another scream, part sheer panic, part the mangled attempt to say 'help' through whatever was occurring. He quickened his pace toward the cries. “Taylor, call campus security and get them to send someone to Roche Park, north side. Tell them to hurry.”

            Taylor's voice took on an air of authority as she replied quickly. “Be careful.” and then hung up.

            Roche Park was originally created in a joint action by the city and university in 'beautification' attempt. It ran parallel to the university campus' southern border, and lay just to the west of the football stadium. It was a rough mix of trees and open field. The scream had come from a grouping of trees just on the north edge of the park.

            Matthew entered the park just as a young girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen at best came darting out of the bushes, bloody clothing torn and disheveled. She saw Matthew and ran up to him. “Please, help me. You've got to . . . that . . I don't . . . tha- th-” before collapsing into a fit of tears.

            He moved himself in front of the girl and faced the direction she had come from, ready to fend off . . . well, anything really. The girl, kneeling behind him, muttered incomprehensibly.

            The park became quiet. This time of night there wasn't much ambient sound, but even what little there was seemed to die down. Matthew couldn't explain how, but he knew something very wrong was about to come out of the bushes.

            Taylor Jones hung up her call with Matthew and scrolled through her contact list looking for campus security. Not finding it, she pushed back from her computer desk and rolled over to the wall phone. Her roommate had written down the important numbers for the university next to it.

            A yawning voice replied after only two rings. “U of M PM Security. How can I help?”

            Oh great! Taylor thought, this guy's practically asleep. “Yeah, you need to send someone down to North Roche Park, someone might be getting killed out there!”

            “A killing? Hmm? And what are you basing this information on?”

            Taylor related what she'd heard through the phone to the security guard, who, to his credit, seemed to be more awake by the time she finished relaying the information.

            “Right, we'll get a patrol over in that area. As soon as possible.”

            “Thank you,” Taylor replied, then hung up the phone. She then mentally played back that terrorized scream through her mind, partially wondering how much worse it would've sounded not filtered through the phone line. Her thoughts quickly turned to Matthew. She needed to go find him, make sure he was all right. Overly headstrong, he'd probably get himself hurt or do something else equally stupid. She grabbed a jacket out of her closet, scraped her keys off the computer desk, and headed out of her apartment.

            A quiet figure sat on a motorcycle, motionless as he waited for some type of sign of where his prey had moved off to. From within his helmet he listened to police scanner chatter, hoping and dreading that something would come in on a 9-1-1 call that could help him.

            “Car 5-4, this is Dispatch. Come in.”

            “Fiddyfore here, Dispatch. Over”

            “Before the end of shift, head over to the north end Roche on campus. Apparently security there got a call about a possible 3-12. All their guys are busy shutting down a frat party that got outta hand. Their guy said the call's probably a crank, but he couldn't risk sending no one. Over.”

            “Oh-kay,” Car 5-4 responded after a depressed sigh, “we'll go check it out. Car Fiddyfore, over and out.”

            The motorcyclist recognized the situation for what it was, and knew the police wouldn't respond soon enough. He double-checked the directions to the park on his cell phone GPS , throttled the engine of his Harley Davidson Fat Boy, and sped off in the appropriate direction.