Hunters (23 page)

More than the weather made him shiver then,
and he thought that those people must be really crazy. You had to
be crazy to want to kill somebody you'd never even met, and didn't
have anything against other than the fact that he was a hunter.
Earl shuddered as he wondered what the mutilations were that the
radio announcer had mentioned, and decided he was better off not
knowing.

It was a lousy day to still hunt. Stand still
for a few minutes and the snow would start to pile up on you.
Besides, it was too damn cold to stand still, even with the
insulated inner and outer clothing Earl was wearing. So he started
walking through the woods. He thought he should have stayed in the
cabin. Hell, they all should have, just holed up and built a big
fire and eaten and listened to the radio and played cards all day.
Deer weren't out in this kind of weather. They sought heavy cover
and holed up themselves until it was over. But Tony insisted.
Always a chance, he said. Sure, and there's always a chance that a
buck would sidle up to their cabin door and beg to be shot,
too.

The whole thing was ridiculous. Here it was,
only ten o'clock in the morning, freezing already, he hadn't seen
any deer and sure as hell wasn't going to, and there weren't even
any tracks to follow, because if a deer was stupid enough to be out
in this kind of weather to make them, the snow would cover them up
within seconds.

Hell with it. Just the freaking
hell
with it.

Forgoing any attempt at stealth, Earl slung
his rifle and started trudging back in the direction of camp. If
any deer leapt out in front of him, that was just too bad. Let Tony
and Frank freeze their butts off if they liked. He'd throw more
wood in the stove, make a nice can of soup, and relax as best he
could in the middle of a blizzard.

But after walking fifteen minutes through the
deep snow, he began to think that the terrain didn't look as
familiar as it should have. In another five minutes the certainty
that he was lost came upon him, and in only another two minutes of
lifting his knees chest high to plow through the heavy sea of snow,
he was sure that he was going to die out there, and that his body
would be found in the spring, what remained of it after the animals
and the weather got through with it.

"Calm down," he said out loud. "Relax...just
relax." He took his compass from his inside pocket, opened it, and
saw that he had been walking south. That should have been right,
since he had walked north when he left the camp. But then why
didn't anything look familiar? Or was it just that it was all
covered with snow? He tried to imagine it brown and barren, but
could not. Everything was white, white as far as he could see. The
trees that might have been well-known and friendly guides were now
giant strangers in white robes. Earl could almost imagine them with
hoods and scythes, ready to cut short his life.

He called out, "Hello!" thinking maybe that
Frank or Tony might be somewhere nearby and would hear him. But the
snowfall muffled his cry. The white, wet blanket soaked it up on
the ground, and the heavy flakes dispersed it in the air.

The deadness of his voice panicked Earl, and
he began to run as fast as his stocky legs could carry him. In less
than three minutes, his efforts had exhausted him, and he stood
panting, thigh deep in snow, his heart hammering in his chest.
Mustn't panic
, he told himself.
I can only get out of
this if I don't panic
.

Then he remembered. It was so simple, and the
first thing he should have thought of. What did you do when you
needed help in the woods? You fired three shots in the air, of
course, and he had a rifle, and he had bullets.

Earl laughed then, laughed aloud at his own
foolishness, took a deep breath to keep his heart from pounding so
hard, and then unslung his rifle. He aimed it in the air, fired
twice, reloaded two shells, and fired once more. The reports
weren't as loud as they would have been without the snow all
around, but they were still loud, certainly loud enough for Frank
or Tony to hear. Now all he had to do was wait, and one of his
friends would come and lead him back to warmth and food and
safety.

He wanted to keep moving to stay warm, but he
knew that he should not, that he should stay right where he was. If
nobody came in, say, the next fifteen minutes, he would fire three
more shots, and keep doing that until someone heard. So he brushed
the snow off a fallen tree, sat down on it, and tried to make
himself comfortable.

He took off his gloves just long enough to
dig out his pack of cigarettes and light one. For all his worrying
about smoking's dangers, he couldn't give it up. Whenever he
worried, he found a cigarette a reassuring haven. Frank and Tony
wouldn't let him smoke inside the cabin, so now he inhaled with as
much gusto as the low tar, low nicotine cigarette allowed. At least
he had given up his Chesterfields.

Earl looked around frequently, not wanting to
miss spotting his rescuers. Though he stood out in his blaze
orange, as would those who sought him, it would still be easy to
pass each other, with this beaded curtain of snowflakes between
them.

He had just unslung his rifle to fire another
three shots into the frigid air, when he thought he saw some
movement to the south. Though the snow was now falling so heavily
that it was nearly blinding, a flash of color told him that he was
not mistaken, and he bellowed out, "
Hey!
"

Earl thought he saw the figure stop and move
slowly, as though it were turning in his direction. Then it seemed
to grow slightly larger, and he knew that the person was coming
toward him. "Tony?" he called. "Frank?"

But there was no answer from the figure,
which kept moving toward him so that he was able to make out the
camouflage sleeves and legs that extended from the orange vest. He
struggled to see the face, but it almost seemed as though it was in
the shadow of a hat. Then, when the man was some thirty yards away,
Earl saw the face, and realized, with a shock that chilled him even
more, that the man
had
no face.

A moment later, he saw it was not that at
all, but a ski mask of dark-colored wool through which angry eyes
glared out at him, and furious breath puffed clouds of white steam
into the air.

A ski mask. Like terrorists wear.

The man was carrying a rifle too, not slung
over his back, but at port arms, as though he were ready to use
it.

He wasn't advancing quickly upon Earl, for
the snow was too thick, and every step was an effort. Earl thought
it felt like some childhood nightmare, where the monster is coming
after you, and you can't run at all, but the monster runs in slow
motion, and you know he'll get there eventually, but the slowness
gives your terror more time to mount, and hopefully you'll realize
in time that it's a dream and wake up.

But Earl wasn't waking up from this one.

The man kept coming, and Earl didn't know who
he was, only that he looked like a terrorist, and wasn't it
possible that he had come because he thought the shots meant
someone had shot a deer, and didn't these crazy people kill people
who shot deer?

"Stop..." Earl said, but his voice felt weak
and scared, and he could even
see
the snowflakes rip apart
the cloud of vapor on which his word rode.

"Stop," he tried again, and it was louder,
loud enough that the man, now only twenty yards away, should have
heard it. But he didn't obey. He just kept plowing through the
snow, his rifle swinging back and forth in his mittened hands, the
barrel's dark opening all too visible to Earl.

"I said
stop
..." Earl brought up his
loaded weapon and aimed it at the man. Surely he would stop now,
seeing the rifle barrel leveled at his chest.

But he kept coming. And without even knowing
what it was that he did, Earl fired his rifle at the man.

At first Earl thought he had missed, and
immediately wished he had. He hadn't planned to fire, but he had.
He had been that scared.

The man stopped and dropped his rifle, and
Earl thought that it was all right, that the man was a friend after
all, that the shot had startled him into realizing how threatening
he must appear to Earl, and that he had dropped his gun to show
that he meant no harm.

But then Earl saw the man bend slowly over at
the waist and remain that way, legs planted firmly in the deep
snow, his face an inch above the snowy surface. And Earl knew that
his shot had not missed, and that the man had not fallen down
instantly because the deep snow had not let him.

Earl stood there for what seemed like an
eternity. Then, still gripping his rifle, he trudged slowly toward
the masked man. The sweat trapped inside his clothing was rank and
clammy, and his face felt as though the sweat was escaping there,
drop by drop. Not thinking, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve,
smearing snow on his face. The wet coldness slapped him into
action, and he moved faster, dropping his own rifle as he scurried
through the snow.

When he pushed the man back, Earl could see
the hole in his chest. The snow in front of him was drinking up the
bright blood so thirstily that Earl thought for an absurd instant
of a cherry sno-cone. Then he pushed back the man's hood, pulled
the ski mask from off his head, and saw Frank's face, pale except
for around his mouth and nose, from which blood leisurely
trickled.

Earl's mind whirled. He hadn't known it was
Frank, hadn't known Frank had a ski mask along, hadn't recognized
Frank's jacket, or vest, or the way he walked through deep snow.
Then he knew that Frank hadn't answered him because he hadn't heard
him, hadn't stopped because, head down and intent on his trek
towards his friend, he hadn't seen Earl raise the rifle. And he
knew something else. He had just shot down and killed his
friend.

It was only the first of five similar shootings that
day in Pennsylvania, in which other hunters were mistaken for the
terrorists about whom everyone had heard on the radio early that
morning. Three of those shot, including Frank Petrone, were killed.
The other two were badly wounded.

B
y mid-morning, Ned
and Megan felt sure that they had lost the jeep that had been
trailing them. Megan, looking through the back window that the rear
defroster kept clear of snow, had seen the jeep slow as they went
up Goetz's Summit, and had not seen it since.

She felt more than relieved. She felt
unburdened, as though all the baggage of fear had been left behind.
She and Ned would be alone for several days, and might, she thought
roguishly, even be lucky enough to get snowed in, if what the radio
said was accurate.

"Should we stop and call Larry?" Megan asked,
once it seemed certain that the jeep was no longer on their trail.
"Tell him about the jeep? Maybe the police can keep an eye out for
it."

"I don't know," said Ned. "We didn't get the
license plate or anything. And maybe our imagination ran away with
us. Maybe they were just going in the same direction we were."

"You know better, Ned. They came for us, and
they stayed on us."

"Well, I admit it looked that way, but—"

"But nothing. You're making obtuseness a fine
art, sweetheart. They weren't headed over the river and through the
woods to Grandma's house. They were
chasing
us."

"You're right." He stopped at the next phone
booth, kicking the snow away from the door so he could get in. He
spent several minutes inside, while Megan watched the road
nervously, almost expecting to see the jeep come up over the rise,
bullets spraying from its open windows.

Nothing of the sort happened, and Ned climbed
back into the Blazer. "I told Larry," he said. "He's going to call
Statler, for all the good it'll do."

"Did you tell him where we lost them? Goetz's
Summit?"

"I told him. Maybe they can check for a
stranded jeep there. Probably find a family with two rosy-cheeked
kiddies."

"Sons of Carlos the Jackal, no doubt. Drive
on, buddy, drive on..."

The Blazer did a good job on the dangerous
road. The chains bit into the packed snow, pulling them up hills
and keeping them from skidding as they descended. They saw few
other vehicles as they wound their way through the mountains of
northern Pennsylvania. There were still a fair share of trucks on
the road, though many were pulled over at truck stops, their
drivers warm and snug inside, enjoying shared catastrophe, waiting
out the storm, though Megan thought they would have a long time to
wait.

Road crews were out in force, but the snow
seemed to fall as fast as the big graders could push it from the
roads. The tires threw the rock salt and stones under the Blazer,
so that they heard a constant patter beneath them, adding to the
racket the chains made.

They crossed the Potter County line just
after noon, and both breathed a sigh of relief. The trip, which in
good weather would have taken only an hour and a half, had taken
them nearly five. They pulled into a diner whose brightly lit
interior and parking lot full of trucks declared it open, and ate a
lunch of soup, sandwiches, and several cups of hot, black
coffee.

The truckers with whom they chatted seemed
fatalistic about the storm, and didn't expect it to end until the
following day. A grizzled trucker with a few days growth of beard
had just heard the latest weather report, and shook his head. "This
is supposed to die down this evening," he said. "Maybe even stop
completely. But early morning tomorrow?" He looked around as if to
make sure everyone was waiting for the punch line. "That's when the
big
one's gonna hit."

"The big one?" said another trucker. "Oh
Christ, you're kidding..."

"Nope. A real killer comin' down from Canada.
Supposed to add two and a half feet to what we already got."