The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Hunter
by Naching T. Kassa 

The village lies sleeping beneath a silver disc of moon, and the beast walks its streets.

The woman staggers out of the pub with two gold pieces and a song on her lips. She makes for the dark street and I follow, walking as silently as a ghost in a graveyard.

Her voice fills the empty thoroughfare, ringing off the cobbled stone. She sings of a boy called Billy, one who’s stolen her heart away.

A strange coincidence. Billy is my name.

It’s a cold night. The kind that chills a man to the bone and causes steam to rise from a severed artery. I can almost smell the blood now, its metallic, cloying scent makes my mouth water. Her footsteps lead me farther into the darkness.

She pauses, her song dying away. I halt too. I strain to hear the sound which has stopped her in her tracks. It could not be me. Never me.

She resumes her song and moves on to a nearby building where she leans and pours her heart out into the sky. Her voice cracks, as she curses the boy she once loved.

A breeze rises, carrying her scent—meat pie and beer—toward me. There’s another smell too. Tobacco. My heart quickens.

There’s a soft rustle up ahead. I hear it long before she does, and I can barely contain myself. Soon, I will bite into soft flesh and gorge myself on a fountain of blood. The anticipation weakens my knees.

As the woman passes the mouth of the alley, a place enshrouded in shadow, he leaps out. His knife gleams in the moonlight.

He would’ve taken her in his arms and silenced her screams with a single slash at the throat, had I not leaped into the way. I barrel into her, knocking her aside. She falls. I think she might scream, but she doesn’t. Instead, she scrambles up and flees.

My prey, the one I have waited for so long, stares at me with wide eyes. His hand quakes as he grips the knife and I swat it away when he tries to strike. It tumbles, end over end, and clatters against the wall. He stands helpless before me.

My voice, rendered a guttural growl by the fullness of the moon, has long lost its humanity. I cannot speak and so I howl. He shrieks.

The village continues to sleep beneath the silver disc of moon.

While I slay the beast.

.

Fiction © Copyright Naching T. Kassa
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Naching T. Kassa:

Arterial Bloom

Lush. Brutal.

Beautiful. Visceral.

Crystal Lake Publishing proudly presents Arterial Bloom, an artful juxtaposition of the magnificence and macabre that exist within mankind. Each tale in this collection is resplendent with beauty, teeth, and heart.

Edited by the Bram Stoker Award-winning writer Mercedes M. Yardley, Arterial Bloom is a literary experience featuring sixteen stories from some of the most compelling dark authors writing today.

With a foreword by HWA Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient Linda D. Addison, you are invited to step inside and let the grim flowers wind themselves comfortably around your bones.

Available on Amazon!