HUNTED

xxxxx

He followed her for a long time, running through the brush and saw grass easily, his bare legs being scratched and marked by the scrub. He stopped now and then and crouched, looking for her tracks and any sign she had left behind as he hunted her, smiling the whole time and moving on steadily. Despite what Mary-Rose thought, he had let her have the full twenty minutes and he had followed along sedately at first, but then his eagerness had grown and he had started running after her, grinning and then drooling as he thought of her soft flesh and warm skin, of her lean limbs and firm young breasts. She was such a lovely young woman, and he had had to fight strongly against the urge to just take her when she had been in his truck, insensate with the drugs that had been in the food and water he had given her. He had found himself staring at her as he cut her clothing away, running his hands over her flanks and thighs, massaging her breasts and kneading the warm place between her thighs.

But he had abstained, and now he was glad for it. For as much as he would have enjoyed taking her right then, of waking her with his cock and his hands and his teeth, now he had the thrill of the hunt to look forward to, and that thrill was the most powerful thing he had ever felt. His cock stood out like a lance as he crested the hill and saw her ahead, saw her looking back and seeing him and he smiled. His heart thundered and his hunger grew.

He could practically smell her now, as close as she was. The sharp tang of her sweat laced with the heady aroma of her fear, the musky smell of her cunt and the sweet scent of her blood. His heart beat faster and his cock was throbbing, wanting the warmth of her. He felt drool on his lips and chin and he stood still for a long moment, panting and sucking in the cool night air before he started off down the hill, loping along her trail, his lips pulled back in a rictus that bared all of his teeth. He longed for the music she would make, the sounds that he would pull from her when he finally caught her. But like the taste and the feel of her, the sounds would be all the sweeter for the anticipation that came with the hunt.

So he chased her, and he didn’t work too hard now at closing the distance. He wanted her to know that he was close, wanted her to panic and run faster, but he wasn’t too eager to catch her just yet. He would let her run a little more, another hour or so, let her tire herself out a bit and he hoped that she would make a stand at some point. Fear turning to determination made the victory, made the culmination of the hunt that much sweeter.

xxxxx

Mary-Rose pelted down the latest hill and at the bottom was a stream bed with a trickle of water at the bottom of it. Gasping, her breath loud from her raw throat, she knelt down and scooped up handfuls of water to slake her burning thirst. It was lukewarm and a bit dusty but it was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted. She was panting and shaking, her hands trembling so hard that she could barely get a mouthful with each dip into the water. But she drank for a few long minutes, acutely aware that he would be gaining on her with every moment of delay, but she couldn’t go on without something to drink. She knelt there and scooped at the water, her tears lost in sweat and the splash of the stream and suddenly she was sick, her stomach turning and she vomited into the stream, her entire body convulsing as she expelled all she had drunk and a mouthful of bile besides. Sobbing once, she moved upstream and rinsed her mouth then drank again until her throat was somewhat soothed.

She went back for her stick, hefting it as she looked around and then she started along the stream bed, moving a bit more quickly and casting about for anything that might help her. She knew these old hills were full of mines among other things but she didn’t think any of them would offer her shelter and she had no desire to have him find her there. She didn’t want to die, but if she was going to, she wasn’t about to die in the dark, squatting naked and afraid in some hole in the ground. No, she would die on her own two feet, standing and fighting.

She paused when she found a broad, flat rock and she squatted down to scrape the narrow end of her stick against the rough stone, watching as dust rolled away from the spot and she moved frantically, turning the stick and making as much of a point as she could. The wood was old and dry, baked and hardened by the sun so it held something of a point by the time she had finished and she stood, holding the stick in one hand and looking around. She needed to find a place to turn and fight, a place where he couldn’t sneak up on her, a place where she could see him coming. Her jaw set and the last of her tears drying on her face she set off upstream again, her mind trying to form some sort of plan.

She knew that she should have gone downstream, should have followed it toward more water, toward possibly some sort of town or farm. But she couldn’t dwell on that now, couldn’t berate herself for that failure, she could only keep going forward. So forward she went, and she did it with the determination to live. Or at the very least to make this bastard remember her for the rest of his miserable, filthy life.

She came to a narrow part of the stream bed and she climbed out. She had turned left when she came down into the bed so now she turned right as she climbed out and she started moving again in the direction she sincerely hoped the highway was in. Even if he had lied to her about leaving her alone if she reached it, there was still the chance that she could flag down a car or a truck and get the hell away from him.

She scrambled up another hill, swearing as a long branch from a piece of brush slapped across her bare breast and made her flinch and nearly fall, but she moved on, not even glancing back until she reached the top of the hill. She couldn’t see him anywhere, and she wasn’t about to stay up here and give him the chance to see her silhouetted against the sky. She scrambled across the top of the hill and down the far side, enough to be shielded from view before she looked around again to see what was around her.

She still didn’t see what she was looking for, so she started down again, careful not to fall as the entire slope of the hill was covered with thorny briars and cockleburrs. She knew that if she fell here, the stones and gravel would be the least of her worries, the plants would tear her apart.
She got to the bottom and set off along the lowlands, jogging between the hills and casting about for anything that might help her fight him as she sought to keep distance between them.

xxxxx

He crept along the winding stream bed and followed her trail, the bent grasses and crushed lichens and mosses leading toward her as surely as an arrow. That was the real reason he had left her shoes on. Yes it would let her run farther and faster, and thus increase the pleasure of the hunt, but it also left a steady trail that he could easily follow even in the dark.

He had found where she had been sick and it had pointed toward her like a neon sign hanging in the air. He turned up the stream and went along to here, where he crouched down at the broad stone. He rubbed his fingers over the surface and came away with the wood dust. He sniffed it and smiled as he understood what she had done. Dusting his hands he rose up and followed her trail along, up out of the stream bed and along the ground, up the hill to the top and then down.

She had turned aside from the straight trail, which he liked. She was smart and resourceful and that meant that the hunt was going to be a good one. The last girl had stumbled and twisted her ankle and laid sobbing on the ground when he found her, not ten minutes from where they had started. It had made for a very poor hunt and he had been unsatisfied. He had still killed her, of course, still done everything he had planned to do to her, but there hadn’t been the wonderful feeling of euphoria that usually came after a hunt. He had spent the last few weeks annoyed and angry. He couldn’t hunt again too soon, he knew that; it drew too much attention. And by the time he had found Mary-Rose he had been so eager to start the hunt again that he hadn’t cared who he got.

But she was perfect; pretty and smart and resourceful, she had a fire of the spirit and a will to live that made killing her all the more worthwhile. He shivered as he stood at the bottom of the hill, his hands fisted and his hips thrust out in the direction her trail led, as if his cock were hunting her too. He needed the warmth of her, the vibrant energy of her youth and the taste of her under his teeth. He felt his hand wrap around his cock and stroke once or twice in anticipation, but he forced himself to stop. Instead he put that energy into hunting her, into chasing her down. Now was the time to close the gap and get his first taste of Mary-Rose. It was still far from the end of the hunt, but she wouldn’t know that and when he let her go again, it would make the rest all the better.

xxxxx

She was thirsty again, her throat burning from gasping for breath in the dry, dusty air and the acid of her vomit. She needed water and rest, but this bastard wasn’t about to stop, she knew. She came around a cluster of low scrub pines and before her was a broad, open patch of ground. She smiled a bit as she looked around it.

There was nothing within a dozen yards of the center in any direction and none of the plants within it were higher than her knees. It was as good a place as any to make a stand, and she moved to the center, the stick in one hand and the other hand at her aching side where a stitch made her lean that way in an attempt to soothe the pain. She turned around a few times and figured that he was most likely to come from the direction of the cluster of pines, so she faced that way, her stick down and hidden behind her leg, her face set in grim lines as she waited.

\And she wasn’t disappointed. Not ten minutes passed before he stepped around the low pines and stopped, looking across the distance at her. She could see now that he was naked as well, and she knew why. He wasn’t just going to kill her, he was going to rape her and that shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it did. She had hoped that she could get away, had hoped that he was just some weirdo who liked scaring young women. But seeing him naked, seeing his hard cock pointed her way as he walked toward her clarified in her mind just what he was about to do to her.
But damn him if he thought she would go without a fight.

“Are you really giving up, Mary-Rose?” he asked in a taunting voice as he began to circle her, sidestepping around the clearing and smiling, his teeth glittering in the night.

They seemed too white and too many for a human mouth to her, and she realized that her fear was coloring everything she saw and heard. She turned to remain facing him, her mouth set in a grim line, her pale skin almost glowing in the night.

“Go fuck yourself,” was her only answer to him as he circled around further, stepping slowly, clearly enjoying the way he was tormenting her.

“Awww, Mary-Rose, is that any way for a young lady to speak?” he said with a bit of a laugh and she bit back a retort, not letting him bait her.

She noticed that he was getting closer as he moved, stepping more toward her with each passing moment and when he suddenly charged toward her, she was ready. He reached for her with his hands and she brought her stick up between them, aiming it for his exposed abdomen. Her arms were jarred at the impact and she felt it bite into his flesh point first.

But her sense of victory was short lived as his hands grasped her throat and bore her back to the ground. She hit hard, stones digging into her back with bruising intensity and branches and sticks scraping her flesh. She tried to scream, but his hands gripping her neck stopped the sound and she fought and panicked, thrashing with her arms and legs, tossing side to side until his grip faltered and then she screamed, but in anger, not fear. Her hands clubbed at him as he tried to get control of her and she scratched at his face and chest.

And then the bastard laughed at her. He actually laughed and she screamed in fury and when his arm came up, she latched on to it and bit down as hard as she could. She tasted blood and sweat in her mouth, felt the skin break and tear and she was rewarded with hearing him swear in pain even as his other hand came to her breast and caught her left nipple in a cruel pinch. She held on desperately as the pain blossomed through her body, but when he twisted with all the strength of his wrist, she released his arm with a howl of torment. Her back arced and her hands scrabbled at his wrist, trying to get him to let go, but he twisted even further and she felt like he was going to twist it right off of her chest.

Just when she thought she would be sick, he relented, letting her abused flesh free and she sobbed as she tried to keep fighting him. But he had her pinned by then, his greater weight holding her down, his hands grasping her wrists and bearing them back to the ground even as one of his legs came up between her thighs and drove his knee into her exposed sex.

Stars exploded across her vision and if there had been anything in her to throw up, she would have. The pain was deep and harsh and when he slammed his knee into her again and again and again, she couldn’t even draw breath to scream. The pain was blinding, worse than anything else that had ever been done to her and she wished she could curl up in a ball, protect her tender little slit and just cry for the rest of her life. But he held her pinned and all she could do was thrash and kick until he stopped and her breath finally came back, only to escape her again in a scream of anguish. She was shaking all over, her eyes were rolling wildly and she felt her bladder release as he placed his knee on her mons and pressed with his full weight.

“Ahhh Mary-Rose, now that’s the sort of fight I was hoping for,” he said with clear amusement.

He looked down at where the stick had hit and she could see that he had twisted at the last second, but the stick had still scraped across his hip and then stabbed into the flesh on his left side. He gathered both of her hands with one of his and used his free hand to pull out the stake, grunting with the effort and pain as he did.

“Wooo, you got me good there,” he said with amusement, “A bit more to the right and it would have gone right into my stomach. Good job,” he said with a nod as he tossed the stick away and then looked at his arm and saw the blood streaming freely, the flesh torn and bruised and the imprints of her teeth clear on his flesh and he smiled and nodded, “Well, you’ve got spunk, I’ll give you that. But I think one good turn deserves another,” he said with a smile and he came down and as she watched in horror his mouth sought her breast and he bit down on the soft flesh hard.

She screamed as the pain of it exploded through her body. She felt the skin break, felt her blood flow as he sank his teeth into her flesh and there was nothing she could do to fight him off. It was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life and the screams that came from her echoed among the hills, with nothing to hear them but a family of coyotes that fled at the sound, scattering away among the hills in fear of the greater predator that had come into their territory.

When his teeth finally released her, she lay back on the ground sobbing, tears streaming down her face and her body shaking in terror as he held her still. She didn’t feel the cold, didn’t feel the sticks and rocks digging into her back, didn’t feel the stings from the scrapes and cuts on her skin. All she felt was the point of agony where he had bit her, the trickle of blood where it flowed down her chest and she felt the hard, hot rod of his cock where it rested against her belly.

She nearly begged him then to let her go, nearly pleaded for her life. But she realized that he would enjoy that, that he wanted her to beg and plead because he got off on that. So she bit her words back and didn’t give him the satisfaction. She looked up at him, his grinning mouth stained with her blood, his eyes almost lambent in the night and she spat in his face.

“You can go fuck yourself in hell,” she rasped at him, her voice cracked and broken from the screams that he had wrenched out of her.

“Oh, Mary-Rose,” he said softly, his free hand caressing her face in a hideously tender caress, the tears and blood and sweat on her skin smearing together and she felt him shift his weight, “I’d rather fuck you.”

She only had a moment to try to fight before he surged forward and his cock punched at her pussy like a fist. He drew a grunt from her that turned to a scream as he thrust again, pushing her back along the ground. She felt the skin on her back tear from the sticks and rocks, dirt and twigs lodging under her skin. But the pain between her legs as he thrust again, battering her already bruised and tender labia, ungentle but insistent, was the focus of her universe.

Again he thrust, missing his mark, sending a spear of pain through her before he finally parted her labia, spearing into her an inch or so. She felt him tearing her hymen and her abused pussy, forcing himself into her passage and it was far worse than anything she had ever felt. Even his bite had felt like a tender kiss compared to this and she didn’t scream, she howled in pain.

Her feet drummed against the ground and her back arched, she writhed and twisted and fought him all over again. She managed to wrench one hand free and she pushed at his face, scratched for his eyes and did whatever she could think of to get him off of her. She left bloody trails down his face until he moved his head suddenly and bit down on two of her fingers hard enough to draw blood.

The world exploded into a red haze of pain as he bit down and at the same time shoved his cock a bit deeper into her, and then a bit deeper still. She sobbed and fought on, not wanting to give up, not wanting to surrender even as his next thrust seated his cock all the way inside of her. Blood flowed from her abraded pussy, soaking into the ground, and from her fingers where his teeth had torn the flesh, running down her arm and pattering on her face and chest.

The world turned red as the blood fell in her eyes and he looked absolutely monstrous to her through that haze, like some hideous creature that had clawed its way out of a nightmare. She sobbed and screamed and he just groaned and thrust, sliding her across the ground once again, drawing back only to slam forward deep and hard. The force of his cock against her cervix pushed the air from her lungs with a grunt and each time she tried to get her breath back, he would thrust again and that ripping, tearing sensation in her belly was followed by his thick cock slamming into her deepest recesses and forcing the air from her body.

She wanted to close her eyes, wanted to look away, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from him, she stayed focused on his face and he was looking right back at her. His hazel eyes looking almost yellow in the night, his lips curled in a smile around her fingers as he bit down harder. She screamed again at the renewed pain, shaking her head, bashing her scalp open against stones as he bore down.

Then the bastard actually winked at her a moment before his teeth came together and she watched him bite her fingers off. The sheer horror of it was worse than the pain, and the pain was bad. She stared at her hand, held still over her face, and the blood that squirted from the stumps where her little finger and ring finger had been on her left hand.

As she did his head came down and he bit the back of her forearm, his teeth sinking deep into the muscle, tearing her skin, making fresh blood flow. At the same time, his free hand came to her breast and his fingers gripped her tightly, fisting cruelly as he used that grip to pull her in to meet his thrusts, slamming his cock into her over and over.

She thrashed and fought, clubbing at him again with her bloody arm when he released her from his bite, but despite the blood that painted him he just laughed and bent down to bite her other arm on the bicep, his back arching as he thrust into her. She fought him as hard as she could, but it did her no good as he thrust into her again and again, pounding at her inner core as the world grew dimmer and dimmer, the pain and shock of the situation overwhelming her mind.

Her peripheral vision began to fade, tattering around the edges, sparks of light and blots of darkness swimming across her vision as she weakened until she was looking at him through a long tunnel of darkness. Her arms and legs went limp and she closed her eyes to it all, hoping that somewhere in the dark that was swallowing her she would find the release of death. The last thing she felt as she descended into that pit was the raw feel of his cock tearing through her and the feel of his teeth coming to her shoulder and biting down once again, and then she was beyond pain.

xxxxx

It was still dark when she came back to herself again. She was laying limp on the ground, her gummy eyes opening to see the stars overhead, the almost full moon well into its descent. It was all tinged pink from the blood on her face and oddly distorted. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry and swollen. When she licked her lips to try and make some moisture, her tongue was rough and shriveled with dehydration.

She turned her head to look around as the dull, undefined aches began to wake into the pain that came with the memories of what he had done to her. Her back was aflame with the bruises and abrasions that had been layered there as he had raped her, moving her back and forth on the sticks and rocks and dirt. She felt the throbbing where he had bit her breast and arms and other places. She didn’t have the stomach to search them all out, not when she felt the pain in her hand, where the worst bite was. She was too dry, too thirsty to produce tears, but her eyes were dry and hot as she tried not to sob.

The pain between her thighs was the worst, however. Her pussy was a mass of agony, a collection of torment and she felt the pain all through her core, deep into her body. She sobbed aloud at that and wished like hell that she had let Bobby Sandoval have sex with her a few months ago when he was trying so hard. He was a sweet guy, he treated her well, and she missed him badly. She even missed Darryl, as much as it pained her to admit that. He had been a drunk and a pervert, but she felt that he would have treated her better than this. She turned her head to the side and her sobs redoubled when she saw him sitting on the ground, watching her.

That infuriating smile was still there and he was practically painted in blood. Most of it was hers, she realized and she wondered just how much she had lost, how likely she was to die from it before he could hurt her anymore.

“Welcome back, Mary-Rose,” he said in a soft voice, watching her, “I have to say, you are a lot more energetic than I thought you would be.”

She sobbed again and he started to crawl toward her, his eyes holding her as she tried to force her body to move, to get up and run, to do anything, but she barely managed to shift her arms before he got there and reached for her again.

“Noooooo …” she wailed, her voice cracked and raw with the dryness and dust and all of her screaming.

He laughed at her as he moved over her body, grabbing her left leg and lifting it as he knelt across her right thigh. She watched as he pulled her shoe and sock off and tossed them away, then he kissed the back of her calf as he held her gaze. He rested her leg on his shoulder and shifted to lift the other, removing the shoe and sock there as well.

“Please …” She begged him, shaking her head, the world swimming and spinning with vertigo as she did. But she was unable to stop as her hands weakly reached up to push at him, trying futilely to stop him, “Please don’t… don’t hurt me anymore,” she said, her words slurring and raspy.

“I told you didn’t I?” he asked her as he pushed her legs back, bending her in half as he shifted over top of her, “I said that if I caught you I was going to take my time killing you. I warned you that I would make you scream the whole time you were dying.”

He watched her face, saw the anguish and comprehension dawn on her as he held the backs of her knees, his hard cock resting in the abused cleft of her pussy.

“Now, scream for me Mary-Rose. I want to hear you scream,” he said and she shook her head, forcing her eyes closed and turning away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream, of seeing her face as he defiled her.

Then she felt the touch of his lips to the back of her calf, the kiss tender for a moment before she felt his teeth and, against her will he drew a scream from her as he bit hard, sinking his teeth deep into her flesh, biting hard and when she screamed he thrust into her. Her canal was slick with blood and his spend, and he slid deep into her easily, her body clenching and her core tightening as she thrashed in pain, opening old wounds and her blood flowing again. He released her leg and bit the other, tasting her coppery blood and the fear and pain that made her heart race.

And then he focused on fucking her. He watched her face as she stared up at him in dread, as her hands clawed at his arms, scratching deep and drawing blood even as he grunted and thrust hard into her, his hips slapping against her upturned ass, her blood mixing with his saliva as he drooled, staring down at her in hunger. And she could see the madness in his eyes, see the insanity that drove him to do what he was doing. He thrust into her again and again and she could do nothing in the position she was in, weakened as she was. She couldn’t fight him at all, and once again she couldn’t make herself look away as he ravaged her body.

When he released her legs, she was sure he was done, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and wait for the loss of blood and her thirst to kill her, but he wasn’t finished with her yet. His cock slid from her and he shoved her over onto her side. She lay there limp as he moved, and she couldn’t see what he was doing. When he pushed her onto her belly, she moaned at the pain that came from her abused body, but when he grasped her hips, she had some idea of what was next. She moaned and tried to scramble away, her arms and legs moving, but he pulled her ass into the air and knelt behind her.

“You aren’t looking very lively, Mary-Rose,” he said, his hands running over her bruised and abraded flesh, sending waves of pain through her.

When his hands gripped the cheeks of her ass, she moaned in fright and denial, the pain lancing through her. But when he bit her, she wailed again, which only made him laugh. He bit her again and again, on her ass and legs until she was sobbing and broken and when he knelt behind her once more she could only lay there in dreadful anticipation as she felt his cock sliding up and down her slit, teasing her.

The only thing she could think to be thankful for was that her pussy was so soaked with blood and his cum that it wouldn’t hurt as much when he fucked her. But then she felt the tip of his cock center on her rear and she half moaned, half sobbed in denial. She tried to beg and plead with him, but she couldn’t form words. Then he gripped hard at her hips, his thumbs pressing into two of the deepest bites and he pulled her back as he pushed hard at her asshole.

She groaned and what little adrenaline she had left dumped into her sluggish blood, giving her a burst of energy. She rose up slightly, pushing against the ground with both hands as she tried to get away. He just reached down and grabbed her arms and pulled them back hard, dropping her to the dust again, her aching breasts hitting hard and drawing a cry from her as he pulled on her arms now to drag her back onto his penetrating, defiling cock.

It was agony, him fucking into her as he was, pushing his thick cock into her tiny ass until he was deep in her body, thrusting and grunting. He pulled her up and bit her shoulders and back and neck as he fucked her and when he finally dumped his seed he just released her. Too weak and defeated to do anything about it, Mary-Rose fell on her face in the dirt. She felt her nose break, blood flooding out as she lay there. His hand in her hair turned her head and she watched as he went and sat to one side, right where he could see her and she could see him and he just stared at her, smiling and waiting and she knew that he wasn’t done with her yet.

xxxxx

The day that followed was a study in pain and humiliation for Mary Rose. He would let her rest, only to wake her and rape her again. She had thought that the pain and loss of blood, the thirst and the abuse would kill her, but she was wrong. Her body refused to just die, no matter how much her mind wished she could.

He gave her water twice, warm and stale, and she tried to refuse, but he pinched her nose until she screamed and he poured it down her throat. She wished after a while that she had choked on it and drowned, but he didn’t let her. She lost count of the times that he raped her, the number of times his cock speared into her pussy or her ass, and she just lay there after each one. She couldn’t even scream anymore, her voice gave out somewhere around noon and he had left her laying on her back, staring up at the sky, the sun burning her skin while he rested.

Then he would come for her again, and she was too weak and broken to fight him in the least. Finally, the sun was setting and as he finished in her, grunting in orgasm he lay across her limp body, pressing her into the ground and she lay there, half conscious as he whispered to her.

“It’s almost night, Mary-Rose,” he said softly, nuzzling into her neck, “And soon I’m going to kill you. I think I’ll cut your belly open and pull your insides out and then I’ll eat your ovaries and liver before I tear your heart out. The last girl … I was able to take a bite out of her heart while it was still beating, while she could still see it and understand. I think you’ll last even longer, Mary-Rose … At least, I sure hope you do,” he sighed at that, smiling and kissing her bare flesh, “It will take all night for you to die, and I’m going to enjoy every moment of it. So sleep well, Mary-Rose, sleep well and know that when I get back, I’ll have my knife, and then I’ll finish with you.”

She felt anguish and terror claw at her all over again as she spiralled down into darkness one last time.

xxxxx

The first thing she realized when she woke up again was that she was cold. She shivered a bit, pain lancing in from every part of her and she opened her eyes blearily. Her lips and throat were dry and aching and then came the rest of the pain. Everything throbbed with pain, especially where he had bitten her, all over her body little points of pain reminded her of the bites. Her back was a blanket of fire from the rough ground and she could feel the throb of agony between her thighs where his cock had torn her open so often. But worse than the pain was the numbness in her left hand and she focused on it against her will.

She could see her palm, and the little ring she wore on her index finger, but it was what she didn’t see that chased away all of the other sensations. The two missing fingers. She sobbed as the memory of it came back. She remembered his face, the smile around her fingers and then the wink before he had bitten her fingers off of her hand. She felt sick, and bile flooded her throat, making her cough and choke, and she turned from her side to her belly and instantly regretted it.

Her breasts were in agony, just masses of bruises and bite marks, dark and swollen with the abuse and pain. She spat out the bile and sobbed as the aches and pain wracked her body. She lay still for a long while, remembering it all against her will, the degradation and humiliation, the obvious joy he took at causing her pain, the way he had bit her and raped her. And then what he had said the last time she had been conscious.

She looked around, her head spinning as she tried to see where he was, to see if he was watching and waiting for her to wake up so he could hurt her again, so he could fulfill his promise to take all night killing her, but he was nowhere to be seen. She forced herself to rise a little higher, crying out and sobbing again when she placed weight on her left hand and agony shot up her arm. It was the greatest pain in the tapestry of agony that was her body.

She curled her wounded limb against her and used her right arm to get her up, and she felt where he had bit her on her right shoulder. It took all of her effort to get up enough to look around, and there was no sign of him. She sobbed again and sat on the ground, her entire body a mass of pain and suffering. The longer she sat there the more the pain seemed to grow.

From the dull ache of her whole body to the sharp pain of her hand and all that was in between. She saw that her thighs were painted with dried blood and his cum and her pussy felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper while her rear was more pain than she wanted to think on, and she was glad she couldn’t see it, even thinking about it was making her feel sick.

She was dizzy with hunger and thirst and the pain made it impossible to think about anything else. But she knew that the longer she sat there the harder it would be for her to get up and get moving again, so she gritted her teeth, felt some of them shift and pain blossomed in her face from her broken nose, but she forced herself to her feet and stood swaying there as she cast about for him.

There was no sign of her tormentor and she stood there swaying. He had said he would kill her when he came back, and that he would use his knife. So he must have gone to get his truck and everything else. She had no doubt that he would kill her when he came back, not in light of everything else he had already done to her.

There was no way he was going to just walk away from her now, not after all he had already done. Aside from his promise to kill her, if she made it back to civilization she had everything that was needed to put him away forever. His bite marks were all over her body and he had left his DNA all over her body … and inside of her.

She felt sick thinking about how much he had raped her, how many times he had come to grab her flesh and hurt her again. She closed her eyes and regretted it, not for the dizziness but for the way she could see that smile, see him wink before he bit her fingers off. She sobbed at the memory and cast around again. Her fingers … she had to find her fingers.

As she moved her body erupted in pain and she groaned and staggered and it was all she could do to not fall on her face. If she fell now she would never get up again, and it was getting harder to stand, so she had to get moving right now. She hitched a sob and turned, using the stand of scrub pine for a landmark she moved off toward where she hoped the road was. Her only hope now was to be found, and as she took her first step, the pain of stones lacerating her bare feet was lost in the cacophony of pain that was her body. She was completely nude, clothed only in blood and alone in the middle of nowhere.

God, how she fucking hated Montana.

xxxxx

He watched her rise up from his hiding place among the pines and he smiled. He would let her have a good head start and go after her when it was full dark. The hunt would go on and Mary-Rose was just taking the first steps into the last night of her young life.

He relaxed down and closed his eyes to sleep, letting her get ahead, knowing that she couldn’t get away, knowing that in the state she was in she would be lucky to get a mile before he caught her once again. She was bruised and abraded, starved and dehydrated, exhausted and weakened from loss of blood. But still, he would hunt her.

This was the sweetest hunt he had had in years and he was going to be sad to see the end of her. He considered briefly letting her go, herding her to where she would find help and then letting her live. But everything she had surmised was true, everything she needed to seek him out and start others hunting for him was all over and inside of her body. With all of that he could never hide and it would only be a matter of time before all of his other hunts came to light and then nowhere would be safe for him, they would hunt him down like a dog.

No, as much as he enjoyed this, as much pleasure as Mary-Rose had brought him on this hunt, she had to die tonight and he could only make her death as memorable as the chase had been. With that he opened his eyes and looked up at the first stars of the night and at the rising full moon, just now clearing the horizon. He screamed out a howl then, shouting her name at the sky.

“MARY-ROSE!” He cried out, letting his voice carry, letting the words descend into an inarticulate cry, knowing she would hear and understand.

He could almost smell the instant her fear gripped her again, painting her scent and making her heart race, spurring her to overcome her pain and move faster. Then he settled back down to rest. The time to hunt would come soon enough, and he could be patient. Patience was always rewarded.

xxxxx

She heard him scream her name and her blood chilled. Her heart hammered and as a result all of her wounds ached. She turned to look back the way she had come and a sob hitched in her throat once again. She knew knew he was taunting her, knew that he was getting off on all of this, feeding on her fear, but there was nothing she could do about it anymore. As she turned and started on her way, shuffling faster, her feet being cut by stones and sticks, blood flowing freely down her thighs from her torn and abraded flesh, she glanced back. Something about that scream hadn’t been entirely human, and she wondered just how insane he really was. The way he had bitten her fingers off — her fingers.

She lurched to a halt and nearly fell again. She hadn’t found them. She had started looking but then forgotten and she had left without them. They couldn’t be sewn back on if she didn’t have them. She nearly went back then, but instead she sobbed again and went on. She would rather be alive without them than dead trying to find them.

As she staggered along, sobbing in pain, clutching her wounded arm to her belly and feeling the dull fire in every part of her body, she realized that she had never seen him spit them out. She felt abruptly sick again as the thought hit her. Her memory of that moment was crystal clear, despite the haze that covered the rest of the time she had spent with him. He had swallowed her fingers after he bit them off, and she knew it with a certainty.

The fear she had of him abruptly swelled and she felt the other bites, all over her body, even more acutely. They throbbed and ached, calling to mind the memory of each one, clarifying and crystallizing them in her mind until she was nearly frozen in fear and remembered pain. What broke her free was the memory of what he had said to her before she started running, when he had promised her that he would take his time killing her and that she would scream the whole time.

He had not lied about that, and she knew he wasn’t lying about the last thing he said to her before she passed out again, about how he would kill her, about how much he would enjoy taking his time with her. She sobbed as she walked on, doing her best to ignore her pain, to ignore the damage that was being done to her feet as what he was going to do to her took over her imagination.

It got darker with each passing moment and she stumbled, stubbing her toes painfully on a hidden rock and swearing as she fell to the ground, making her entire body explode with pain. She sobbed and lay there for a long few minutes before she forced herself to her feet again, careful not to use her left hand, and she staggered onward. But distracted as she was she didn’t realize that she had turned and was now walking almost at a right angle to her last direction.

She went on this way for another two hours, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in her wake. As the night fell and she got colder and colder, her body shaking uncontrollably. She was numb all over and her throat was on fire. The combination of damage from her screams, the dust she had been sucking in, her thirst and the acid bite of her bile was awful, nearly as awful as the pain in her core that shot through her belly with every step. She staggered along, looking for water as she circled a hill and when she saw the lights in the distance she froze and stared for a long minute. It was moving, a bright point of light in the distance — headlights.

xxxxx

He was not far behind her when she fell again and he tensed to take her if she didn’t get up soon. He didn’t want her to die of her wounds or exposure, he wanted to kill her himself. But she got up and he waited, watching, hidden in the dark as she staggered on. When she saw the lights he froze as well, revealed for a moment, but she didn’t turn to see him.

He went over his mental map, his brow furrowing. How far west had they come? He had chased her for a long while last night, miles had passed as she fled and more miles had passed tonight as he followed her. Had they come all the way to MT-59? That was more than ten miles from his truck. He felt thrilled all over again, Mary-Rose had wanted to live very badly and he crept a bit closer, his eyes watching her for any sign that she would turn to see him, a move that would cost her her life, which he didn’t want.

He wanted her to go on, wanted her to keep trying, keep striving to live so he could kill her when her hope was highest, when she was sure that she would get free and live. He wanted to destroy that hope at the last second and when it had turned to despair and failure he would drink that in as he killed her. He shivered with lust at the very thought. As good as it had felt to fuck her, as good as her tight little body had felt, wrapped around his cock, kicking and screaming and trying to get away, he knew it would feel even better when he caught up to her again and took her apart, one piece at a time. He didn’t just want to kill her, he wanted to destroy her.

xxxxx

She had made it to the road, he hadn’t lied to her about the way to the road. She had no idea just why that thought made her both hopeful and afraid, and she didn’t dwell on it. She sobbed as she started moving again, her steps quickly becoming a run, ignoring the pain in her body as she went toward the lights, hoping against all hope that she could get ahead of them, that she could get the attention of whoever was driving, that whoever it was would stop. Hope filled her once again and she was able to ignore her pain and discomfort and just run.

She came to a slope, an embankment that she scrambled up on all fours, clawing at the earth and the small plants that grew there, not caring as they tore her skin, as they ripped her hands to shreds and lashed her already damaged body. She felt a surge of pleasure as she gained the road, scrambling along on all fours on the still warm asphalt. His words came to her again, his promise that if she put even a single finger or toe on the shoulder of the road he would let her go. She sobbed in triumph as she saw the truck coming. She rose to her feet, deciding in an instant that if the truck didn’t stop, it would run her over and she would die on her own terms instead of his.

xxxxx

He moved along silently in her wake, creeping from shadow to shadow, padding along silently and slowly getting closer and closer. He was almost ready to take her when she stopped and he looked past her to see the lights. When she broke into something like a run, he went after her, but hung back. As her hope grew, so too did his hunger. He would let her get as close as possible, let her almost make it, he could taste her emotions on the air, the sickly sweet taste of hope that would turn to the heady aroma of fear and denial so very soon. She was so focused on her goal that she didn’t look around, didn’t try to see him, and he was so focused on her that he abandoned stealth and just stayed right behind her, moving through patches of moonlight, completely revealed.

Even a glance over her shoulder would have let her see him but Mary-Rose was so set upon her destination, so focused on the possibility of survival and freedom that she put every bit of her energy into running and she never even glanced over her shoulder as she ran on bloody feet toward the distant lights and hope. She scrambled up the rise on all fours, ignoring the pain in her body as she gained the shoulder. She was focused on freedom, not on pursuit and she had no idea just how close he was behind her.

xxxxx

Big Dave Murray yawned as he rode along the long-familiar route. He always took the 59 from Miles City down through Broadus, where he could fuel up and grab a coffee before he headed on along the 212 to Rapid City and home at the end of his regular run. It was about a three and a half hour drive, and though he had done it in three, he tended to keep the throttle low and round it out to four. He was in no hurry to get back to his wife and their three daughters. Not that he didn’t love them, mind, but it was the lovely time of the month when all of their ‘Womanly Problems’ came on, and he had little desire to be in the house when they were in that mood.

He sighed and glanced down at the dashboard for a moment, just checking his speed, and he missed the flash of white along the road ahead as Mary-Rose came up on the shoulder, as she started to raise her hand, and as she was then grabbed and pulled back into the darkness and shadows. Over the noise of his Peterbuilt he missed the lingering wail of denial and fear that chased after his truck as he rode on down the road.

xxxxx

She could see the driver behind the wheel, and she was just raising her arm to flag him down when something grabbed her hair. Her head was jerked back and blinding pain lanced up her neck with the force of it. She wailed in denial as she was yanked back off of the road again. Pain blossomed in her scalp and lanced through her neck and she went flying through the air and down into the dark as the truck rumbled past without slowing.

She hit the ground hard, shoulder first and tumbled through the brush. She felt her arm as she went, a sickening crunch and then something grinding as it folded under her body and she rolled to a stop on her right side against a tree. She felt numb horror when she saw the tree branch that had stabbed into her back and come out just above her navel. She felt sick, but had nothing to throw up and she looked toward the road again and at her fading hope, that was when she saw it.

At first she thought it was a dog, a huge feral stray that had roamed out this far, perhaps run off from a farm or ranch, but then it moved toward her on silent pads and the light shone in its eyes, lantern yellow in the dark. She choked on blood in her throat as it padded down the incline toward her and she sobbed, her bowels emptying, the dregs of hot urine, rank with dehydration gushed out between her thighs as the huge animal, easily as large as a pony, licked its nose and stood looking at her. It turned its head and something in the gesture spoke of amusement, of enjoyment and there was something altogether too familiar, too human in it’s eyes.

That was when she knew; it wasn’t a dog, it was a wolf. But there were no wolves this far east, they were all out west, closer to the mountains. She sobbed, her eyes dry and hot, her body had no more tears to shed as the wolf rolled his lips back from his teeth, canines longer than her fingers, gums black and dark, the long pink tongue lolling slightly as the saffron eyes focused on her. It padded closer slowly, watching her, growling, scenting her as her terror rose sharply, as her pain and blood scented the air.

She felt something thick in her throat and coughed, tasted the blood and knew that she was already dying, the fall had made sure of that. But she couldn’t take her eyes off of the wolf as it padded closer still, close enough that she could feel its breath on her skin, smell the stink of it. A quavering wail rose in her throat and the beast took that as its cue to lung forward. It and sank its teeth into her left breast, head shaking, worrying her and tearing flesh away from her body.

She shrieked in terror and agony and tried to push the beast away, flailing at it with her left arm, the pain of her missing fingers nothing compared to the pain of the beast tearing at her flesh. As she scratched at its eye, the wolf released her torn and bleeding flesh, only to turn its head quickly and bite down on her left hand, teeth sinking into her wrist and she heard bone crunch as it pulled her arm taught. She sobbed and the wolf looked her right in the eye — And it winked.

It was clear and deliberate, the closing and opening of one eye and suddenly she knew, she understood that this was no ordinary wolf … this was him. This was Julian. He had kidnapped her, stripped her, chased her and raped her and then let her go once again so he could hunt her like this.

As the realization came to her the wolf bit down harder and with a twist of its head her hand was gone. She stared at the stump, at the squirting blood for a moment before she found her voice again and she howled in terror and pain.

The wolf latched back onto her breast and shook, teeth scissoring, her whole body being shaken hard, and she was pulled off of the impaling brance by the strength of the beast. She had never known pain like this could exist as the wolf tore her breast free and paused, looking at her again before it swallowed her torn flesh in a single gulp.

She vomited messily then, mostly blood and a bit of bile flooding out of her mouth as the wolf latched onto her thigh and gnawed off a chunk of her leg as she fought and screamed and tried to make the monster stop. It bit into her arm again and pressed at her chest with a paw as it wrenched and tore. She felt the bones break, felt the joints part, the tendons tear and then it had her arm and she could only watch in numb shock as it held the disembodied limb down and gnawed the meat off of it, eating her flesh before it looked up at her again.

She was sure then that it would kill her, that it would rip out her throat and show her a modicum of mercy, but the monster went to her belly, snapping and slavering, the teeth tearing at her abdomen and ripping her open. She felt her intestines moving as he tore them out of her and the last of the pain left her, the ability to feel it burned away as she lay there on the cusp of death.

She stared numbly as the man … the wolf … the werewolf rooted into her abdomen and found her uterus. She watched as he stood, the organ in his mouth, her ovaries hanging down to either side, and then it was gone, swallowed. A single, final tear slid down her cheek as Julian went back to his feast.

He didn’t bother to tear out her throat, instead he ate the choice meat from her arms and legs, he devoured her other breast and her liver and somewhere in there Mary-Rose slipped away. Her last sights were of the monster devouring her flesh, gulping greedily at the lean meat of her legs, baring pink-stained white bone as it tore her other breast from her chest.

By the time he cracked open her rib-cage and tore out her heart, it had ceased to beat but it was no less sweet. For it had been soaked in fear and in the nectar of denied hope and the wolf sat back and looked at her for a long moment before it turned and padded away, leaving the poor dead thing that had once been a girl there on the side of the road.

xxxxx

Lou rolled his van to a stop on the 59 just behind one of the two cruisers that sat on the shoulder, lights flashing in the late night dark. He threw it into park and stepped out, hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the raw, brisk wind that was blowing out of the west. He saw Carson Baxter and Henry Gordon from the state trooper barracks in Miles City.

There was a civilian car parked a bit further back, where the ambulance had stopped, and behind that was the beat up old Bronco that Caleb Pope patrolled the area in. The two troopers turned his way and nodded in greetings and he could tell from the look of them that it was a bad one. Henry was pale as a sheet and Carson’s eyes were hard and cold.

“Doc,” Carson said, his voice brisk, “Sorry to have to get you out here on a night like this.”

“It’s alright, Carson,” Lou said, glancing past the troopers to the ambulance where the paramedics were treating the driver of the vehicle, “I take it this isn’t for a traffic accident?” he asked.

“No sir.” Carson said, gesturing away from the road and down the embankment to where pickets had been set with white tape to keep people away, “Driver of the car found her three hours ago or so. When Caleb arrived and got the poor guy calmed down he got the story. Fellow and his wife were driving past on the way south and spotted the crows gathering alongside the road. Said he was going to just drive on, not wanting to stop for roadkill, but his wife’s an artist and she wanted any antlers to work with, so she made him stop, hoping it was a deer. When he chased the crows away he saw her.”

“Her who, son?” Lou asked, looking past the trooper again to the white sheet over whatever poor soul had been found, some poor woman.

“No ID on her,” Carson said, looking that way as well, “No anything on her, really.”

He reached into his cruiser and turned on the spotlight, flooding the land at the bottom of the embankment with light.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lou saw Henry pale and his lips thin. He was clearly ill just thinking about what was under that sheet. And Carson, with eight years as a Marine, had the look of a man just back from combat. Lou sighed heavily and steeled himself. He had seen a lot in thirty years as a doctor and coroner, but he never made the mistake of thinking he’d seen it all, that was just tempting the universe to prove you wrong.

“Henry, hey, Henry,” Carson said, snapping his fingers to get the other man’s attention.

When Henry looked away from the sheet and focused on Carson, the senior trooper gestured toward the ambulance.

“Go check on the Berringers,” said and Henry was about to protest, Lou could see it.

“Hey,” Carson interrupted his thoughts and Lou could see Henry reset, “Now.” Carson ordered and Henry turned away without a protest, walking off toward the ambulance.

“That might be for the best,” Lou said as they started down the hill.

“Henry’s a good kid, and he didn’t toss his cookies as soon as we saw her,” Carson said with a shrug, “But he doesn’t need to see this again. No one does.”

“You can wait up there too, if you want,” Lou said, already knowing the answer before Carson shook his head.

“No, I need to know what you see,” he said and Lou nodded and walked over to the square of pickets.

He crouched and set his bag down, careful of the blood that had been spread around. The amount of blood alone would have told him she was dead. But when he lifted the sheet and saw her, saw what had been done to that poor girl — He sighed and settled the shroud back over her.

“Yeah, she’s dead,” He said in a soft voice, “Gimme a sec and we’ll get her up to the van.”

“Take your time doc,” Carson said, a hand on the older man’s shoulder for support, which Lou was thankful for, “Take all the time you need, she isn’t going anywhere.”

“Well, I want that poor child inside,” Lou said, a tear on his face.

He put her at eighteen at the very oldest, though it was hard to tell now. The crows had gotten at her, and there wasn’t much left of her.

“Any ideas on what did this, doc?” Carson asked, looking at him seriously and Lou could tell the man had his own ideas on the matter.

“Could be coyotes, they’ll take down a person, if they’re hungry enough,” he said and Carson nodded and looked out into the hills.

“Yeah, I thought so at first too, but then I realized something,”

He looked back at Lou, his eyes cold and hard and Lou realized that it wasn’t cold distance from this violent scene he was seeing, it was rage.

“Where are her clothes?” he asked and Lou ducked down to peek again, then looked around the site, then took Carson’s flashlight and looked further afield. Not so much as a stitch or rag was to be found.

“Nothing,” he whispered, his brow furrowed.

“Not even the soles of her shoes,” Carson said from beside him and Lou, lost in his own thoughts, nearly crawled out of his skin, “I looked around for them, didn’t find any sign of them.”

He gestured for Lou to follow and what he showed the old doctor next chilled him to the core. It was a footprint on a stone. Small, like the foot of a young woman, and it was solid with blood. The went back to her body and Lou looked closely at her feet. They were mostly intact and Lou looked closely. They had been cut and abraded, torn to ribbons and he could tell there were sticks and bits of stone and dirt embedded in her flesh.

“Why would she be out here in just her skin?” he mused to himself and Carson just shook her head.

Lou looked at her again and steeled himself.

“Help me turn her over. I want to see her back,” he said and Carson put on gloves and moved to the head of the corpse and helped Lou turn her over.

The doctor then looked closely at her remaining skin and Carson heard him swear.

“Get me the camera, son,” Lou said in a flat voice and Carson didn’t even bat an eyelash.

They took a lot of pictures after that, and within a half hour there were eight more state trooper cars on the site, casting about for tracks and signs. Carson followed her trail back and back until he found the clearing and more evidence, and then he took out his cell phone and called the FBI office in Billings. He was in for a long day, and all because some psycho had chased a naked girl through his jurisdiction. He turned and looked in the direction that they had come from, the direction that their Jane Doe had fled ahead of her attacker and he thought of the imprint of teeth he had seen on what was left her her shoulder — the imprint of human teeth.

If this monster could still be called human after what he had done to that girl. When he had finished his call to the FBI he called another number, one that no one else he knew had and he talked to the other end for a solid ten minutes before he put the phone away. Then he just stood and waited, turning over everything he had found in his head. That poor girl had died horribly, and there was nothing he could do about that now. Nothing but find the bastard who had done it.

xxxxx

Claire hung up the phone and just sat at her desk and stared at the blank wall. At last… at last some sign had come to her, some clue that might set her on the right path.

She pushed away from the desk and stood, turning to the far wall and all of the things she had tacked up there. Drawings she had done over the last eight years, research papers, police reports and pictures. All of it a trail that so far led nowhere. But soon, soon she would hunt that bastard down, hunt him the way he had hunted her — the way he had hunted Emily…

She picked up an old picture, in it two young women were smiling and hugging one of them with long blonde hair, the other with black hair in a short bob. She felt the old pain, the old loss and she let the tears flow; Emily deserved that, at least. She set the picture aside and took a moment to push her blonde hair back into a tail, fastening it with a simple rubber band before she picked up a drawing.

It was a face that Mary-Rose would have known well, if she were able to know anything ever again. He had the same jaw, the same nose and the same amused smile. His hair was darker, without the scattering of silver and he was clean shaven, but it was Julian. The drawing was done in pencil and he only color in the image was the yellow in his eyes.

Claire stared at him for a long moment and she clearly saw him wink in her mind. Her face grim, she set the drawing aside next to the photo of an old International Harvester pickup. She turned away then and went to book a plane ticket to Montana. As she talked on the phone, her hand slipped under her shirt and rubbed an old scar on her shoulder, a scar in the perfect impression of a human bite.

xxxxx

One Month Later

Chelsea held up her thumb and smiled as the old International Harvester pickup rolled to a stop in the gravel on the side of the road. She ran toward the ride with her backpack up on her shoulder and leaned in the door.

“Geez, thanks man,” she said smiling as she climbed in at his wave, “I thought I was never going to get another ride.”

“Hey, no problem. I know how much of a pain it can be out here,” the driver said, smiling as he pulled back out into traffic.

The radio blared on and Chelsea listened to it with half an ear.

‘…tana department of fish, wildlife and parks have announced a coyote culling in the wake of the death of eighteen year old hitchiker Mary-Rose McMillan, whose remains were found on the side of Montana state route fifty-nine, just north of the town of Broadus four weeks ago. McMillan, who has been described by family as a bright, promising young woman, ran away from home four days before her remains were found by a passerby on their way to…’

The news went silent as the driver clicked the radio off and turned to the girl with a smile.

“I’m Julian, Julian Wainwright,” he said with a pleasant smile, “But just call me Julian.”

“Chelsea … just … just Chelsea,” she said with a little smile.

“Well, you look hungry Chelsea,” he said, reaching to the cooler in the back seat and bringing out a big sub-sandwich and a bottle of water, “Here, dig in.”

She gratefully opened the bottle of water as the truck rolled on through Ohio, heading west toward Indiana.

THE END