The Hunt
Tendrils of mist floated among the fir trees, embracing their branches. The dusk light filtered through the chilly fog turning the forest into a dreamy landscape.
Until Luc came at a run, leaping over the undergrowth. Without pausing, he took his surroundings in and changed direction, turning to his right, and kept sprinting between the trees.
The hunt was on, and he knew they were following him, hot on his trail. Not that he was going to make it easy for Roger, thank you very much: Luc made no sound when moving, and his feet barely left any mark on the soil. He stopped for a second, and carefully broke a tiny branch of one tree to his right, then turned left and ran away.
Luc used his retinal interface to send commands to his augmented reality goggles. A bit rougher than the voice link, but he couldn’t stop to talk right now. He called in the imagery from the infrared surveillance satellite constellation he had hacked into months ago, silently wishing that some of the birds was flying overheard right now. He thought so, but he wasn’t completely sure since he hadn’t checked in some time. Escaping Roger and his people and recovering his gear had kept him more than a bit busy.
Bingo, there it was. Luc tweaked the interface a bit, as much as he could by pointing with his eyes while at the same time trying not run into a tree. Or a hole. He integrated the GPS feed in order to pinpoint his own location.
Nothing. That was what he was expecting: his clothes had been designed to mimic the surrounding temperature, so that they could fool an infrared sensor. Luc then zoomed out. He almost smiled (and slammed into a low branch) when he discovered he had to call one extra zoom step in order to see Roger and his pack. They were farther out than he expected them to be. Good.
With this advantage, he decided it was time to take a risk and try to shake them for all.
Luc changed direction once again, and descended for ten seconds into a small creek. He stepped into the water, and started walking slowly upstream. He counted seconds in his head, while checking the images projected virtually in front of him. They had changed direction as well: they must have discovered the broken branch. Luc laughed thinking of Roger judging him too old for the hunt.
Luc still had some tricks up his sleeve. The infrared silhouettes were spreading out. Perfect. He could now make out exactly how many were hunting for him. There were five, six of them… And Luc lost the feed. The satellite must have gone too low to keep pointing at that part of the forest. He’d have to make do without it.
Luc stepped out of the water at a point where the stream made an ample bend, carefully stepping on a bed of wet pebbles by the shore. Still counting, he kept his careful march like that for a few strides, then sprinted out again, using larger and larger stones to leap from one to the next. Forest parkour, who would have imagined?
He checked the time just as an alarm went off.
Sunset.
The last sunbeams still peeked above the far mountaintops, but the Sun was definitely below the horizon.
The howls came almost immediately, ululating up and down, resonating deep with the trees, the stones, the mist. The pack howl was designed to instill fear into their enemies, to make them feel surrounded.
Luc just paid attention: no matter the echoes, he detected where the bays came from. He distinguished seven… eight different voices now. Eight! Roger must have pissed someone high above in order to involve so many pack members in this hunt.
Luc smiled. Two can play this game as well. Or nine, as is the case.
He removed his backpack, rearranged it into two smaller ones to his sides, and touched the implant on his left wrist to allow his clothing nanites to shrink down to a small square. He felt the chill on his naked flesh for a second, right before he commanded his body to change.
Bones broke and rearranged themselves. Muscles expanded and grew. Sinew stretched. Fur covered his body. His already acute senses extended, taking in the entire forest. Luc was now an oversize wolf with two saddlebags to his sides.
He had to give it to the pack: they were fast. As soon as they had changed, they had discovered his little trick with the branch and had moved towards his general position. And now he doubted the trick at the stream would work, but maybe he would get a bit lucky.
Still, he didn’t count on it, so he started running in the opposite direction. At least he’d make it difficult for them, and if worse came to worst, he’d make them pay. Dearly. Roger knew that.
Of course he did. Even now Luc could feel him; he could almost hear Roger’s steps. He was now reaching the creek… And he wasn’t fooled. He came straight for Luc, and the other wolves were closing in as well.
Then Luc heard a noise.
Just one tiny fraction of a second too late.
“Tag!”
Jillian had touched his back. The woman was hanging, head down, from a branch right above him, a smile plastered on her face. She hadn’t even bothered to change into wolf form.
“You lost, Luc,” she just said. And with a flourish, she jumped down right as Roger appeared leaping over a fallen trunk. “Again.”
“Damn you, Jillian!” Roger said. “I had him!”
“Almost, Roger,” she laughed. “Almost.”
~~~~
This is my entry for this week’s Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: Random Photo Exercise. This time we had to click this link (https://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/) that showcases interesting photos from flickr, choose one, and write a 1000-word story inspired by it.
I chose this photograph, Enchanted (Explored) by Sapna Reddy Photography. As is her right, she has disabled the flickr download option, so you’ll have to click the link to see the image (https://www.flickr.com/photos/sapna_reddy/33114792315/).
