The Hunt

Book One–Chapter One



ROWE



I hate funerals. It gives me a feeling of dread and goosebumps. Don't get me wrong, I am mourning just like the crowd that surrounds us. My mother grips my hand tightly. She is hurting. Bad, and I have a deep feeling that she will not recover from this. The pictures of her and pill bottles flash across my eyesight. I hope to God she doesn’t. I can’t lose both. Just keep it together, Mom. For me. For us.

The coffin is open and displayed with flowers and photos in the center of the church. The closer I get, the colder the steam of the rose feels. He looks like he's sleeping. The undertaker took loving care of him considering what I had seen in my dream. The dark features of his oval face should have been smashed to an unrecognizable state.

I smiled at the beard and goatee he refused to shave because he liked to make it into what looked like a snow cone. It was his thing. He loved it.

The little scar above his eyebrow when we were playing chase and things got a little out of hand. He scared the scrap out of me and as a reflex, I hit him with a pan on the stove. I was only nine at the time, but now, three years later it seems like the most important memory. I lay the rose on his chest and wipe away the tears that stream down my face like a river.

I blame myself. If I haven’t insisted that we spend time together, he’d still be alive. He would be here with us, but instead, he fell asleep at the wheel. If I had warned him that morning before he left for work, he would be here with us.

I don’t understand how I can see into the future, and how things come to me easily before my eyesight. It’s a gift. Or perhaps, a curse. I told no one about it, I can’t bear to think that my parents think I’m an outcast freak.

I’ll never forget it.

“Rowe, are you okay?” Mom touches the shoulder of my black dress as she wipes tears away with a handkerchief.

I turned to her. She’s taking it so hard. I don’t blame her at all. They were inseparable. They had a good marriage full of laughter and love. I don’t know what will happen next. All I do know is that I need to take care of her. I can’t let my dream become her reality. She needs me now more than ever.

Mom hugs me. Not just a hug. One of those that feel like you can’t breathe, but it seems like air is less important, and then she releases me. “Let’s go, baby.”

The funeral director gives his final speech before the coffin is lowered. The man’s voice drowns out as I watch my dad slowly disappear into the darkness. It seems just like yesterday, we were on the couch watching movies and laughing at the characters in the horror movies, eating popcorn, and staying up way too late even though he had to work, and I had school the next day.

We were both having so much fun that time didn’t exist at that moment. And today, he’s being lowered into the ground. A life taken at the wheel of a car.

Back home, I walked slowly through the living room, touching the things that my dad had, photos of us together, running trophies that he had won, and marathon ribbons for the homeless. A photo of just me and him sitting on the mantle of the fireplace. I picked it up and remembered that day it was taken. As I brought it closer to my chest, I noticed that the picture clicked. Upon further inspection, I discovered a necklace in the back of the frame.

I placed it around my neck and ran upstairs to my room. Throwing myself on the bed and wrapping the comforter around my head was the moment that reality hit me like a ton of bricks. My dad was gone, and he was never coming back.

I woke up with a rush of adrenaline, tossing the comforter off of me, I rushed the door and down the stairs. Mom was standing in the kitchen in the island. At first, I thought I was dreaming until she turned around and smiled at me. She hasn’t smiled like that in a very long time even though it's half-cocked.

“How are you doing this morning?” She grabbed the syrup bottle and poured it over the pile of pancakes.

“You made breakfast?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

I didn’t say anything, but this was not my mother. She didn’t cook breakfast and she sure as hell wouldn’t be smiling after the death of her husband. Who is this woman?

I took a seat on the barstool and started eating the pancakes before me, watching her as she leaned against the counter with a bottle of wine in her hand. Maybe that’s it. Maybe she’s drunk.

“Mom, are you ok?”

“Yes, sweetheart. I’m fine and I know that we will get through this. Together. It’s just you and me now. We have to take care of each other.”

Okay. That sounded like her. But still, her physical appearance in torn and loose clothing and her hair unbrushed but pulled up in a bun was not like her at all. She never dressed like that. Ever.

Maybe she thinks this is all a dream. Maybe she’s in denial.

It went downhill after a couple of weeks. Mom got worse. She started seeing doctors and taking medication that would put her to sleep so she’ll forget. She neglected me. Ignored me. I kept telling myself that it was part of the mourning process and I started taking care of her.
Every day until the morning I woke up and walked into her room. Pill bottles were scattered on the floor, and different colors of pills were thrown about. The dresser was overturned and clothes were scattered everywhere. Pictures and things that he and my father collected were ripped and tossed in the trash.

Bottles of liquor, empty, lay beside her, and some were on the floor. Tears gathered in my eyes. It can’t be. She didn’t just take her own life. She couldn’t. I needed her.

“Mom!” I yelled.

I should have stayed with her. I should have spent the night in her room. I should have taken all the pills and emptied them in the toilet. Throw them away. Anything. Then she would still be alive.

She was unresponsive. To my touch. My yells. To my cries. She took her life because reality hit her hard.

A violent knock at the door startled me. I didn’t know what to do. What should I say? I was so scared that I ran up to my room and covered my head.

The knocking faded as flashes of light danced upon the back of my eyelids. A tall man. Evil man. Vampire? Demon? Black eyes. He wants something of value.

I had to do something. I couldn’t just let her lay there and decompose. So I went back downstairs and to the door of her room.
That’s when I saw the man. He had dark long hair and wore a black trench coat as he leaned over her. I could hear whispers. He turned his head to me. Black eyes. Sharp teeth. Black eyes. At that moment, I was so frightened that underneath the white dress that I wore, my bladder released itself without warning and urine streamed down both of my legs.

I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything but watch the tall man turn to me.

He moved in a blur as he stood and knelt to me. Immediately, I felt a connection even though I was terrified; I knew he wasn’t going to kill me.

He smiled. “You possess abilities.”

He touched the side of my face with his cold hands, a stale feeling.

“You have something I want, and I’ll be seeing you again very soon.”

Another violent knock at the door and then yells from outside.

I turned to the urgency, but when I turned back to the tall man, he was gone.