{"id":8903,"date":"2014-04-28T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bullmensfiction.com\/?p=8903"},"modified":"2022-08-03T13:15:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T17:15:26","slug":"hunting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/hunting\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s what I have to say:<\/span><\/p>\n

There were tons of campus e-mails sent to us students about a guy mutilating animals around town.\u00a0 He was to be avoided at all costs.\u00a0 That was the gist of the e-mails: stay clear.<\/p>\n

This went on most of January.\u00a0 Winter hit hard enough without this guy chopping up wildlife.\u00a0 Butchering bunnies. Schlacking small foxes.\u00a0 The whole shebang.<\/p>\n

The incidents occurred at night.\u00a0 Most of the time, no one knew it happened until somebody found the parts the next morning.\u00a0 Never the full body.\u00a0 Only limbs.\u00a0 Bones.\u00a0 Leg meat.<\/p>\n

Some kids put pictures of the bloody snow on Facebook.\u00a0 Just red on white like a signature inside a blank card.\u00a0 Thinking of you.<\/p>\n

We were a college on the hunt.<\/p>\n

I never saw him.\u00a0 No one did.<\/p>\n

I looked for him, though.\u00a0 For those two or three weeks when all the students got the emergency alerts.\u00a0 I especially eyeballed the homeless guys around the city.<\/p>\n

I offered Homeless Gary a cigarette outside of the VP and checked his fingernails for giveaways. Up close his hands were rough pinecones.\u00a0 His coat smelled like axle grease.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d meet people and ask myself, \u201cIs this the kind of person that could do such a violent thing?\u201d\u00a0 I looked at my roommates, wondering, \u201cIs he that angry?\u00a0 Is he capable of that?\u201d<\/p>\n

These were the hard-hitting questions that affected the student body and faculty at that time.\u00a0 Everyone wanted to know what kind of person\u2026<\/p>\n

In a dream I found him. We were surrounded by evergreens.\u00a0 I sat down in front of him, watched him work.\u00a0 He was slim and clean-shaven.\u00a0 I expected a wildman.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 This guy was like anyone else.\u00a0 Nothing crazy-looking about him.<\/p>\n

This changed everything.<\/p>\n

Even dreaming, I felt greedy for hogging that moment.\u00a0 He hacked a rabbit in half with a full-armed yank of a bow saw.\u00a0 Nonchalant.\u00a0 Business as usual.<\/p>\n

It was pretty weird.<\/p>\n

I woke up with the worst taste in my mouth.\u00a0 Dirt and hairspray.<\/p>\n

In real life, he upped the ante.\u00a0 He put some dismembered animal bodies on doorsteps.\u00a0 He picked the houses indiscriminately.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t ring the doorbell or knock.\u00a0 He set the corpse on the porch and moved along.<\/p>\n

The city was ready to riot.<\/p>\n

He left the front steps on my street alone, but two houses down a block were hit.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t pretty.\u00a0 Some of these bodies were two weeks dead.\u00a0 Their muscles were rotting black.\u00a0 The cruelty crawled through the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

It smelled worse than old coffee milk sewage.\u00a0 Even in my house, I could almost feel it on my tongue.\u00a0 Flies covered every square inch.<\/p>\n

A day after that, they got him.\u00a0 Caught him in the act.\u00a0 Put him on the ground at gun-point.\u00a0 Took him away.<\/p>\n

He was crazy.\u00a0 No haircut ever.\u00a0 Long-ass beard.\u00a0 Filthy.\u00a0 Covered in blood, and fur, and dried sewage.\u00a0 He was homeless.\u00a0 Just like they thought.<\/p>\n

I looked at the front page of the Star Press.\u00a0 A full spread picture.\u00a0 A look on his face like, \u201cI did what I had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

I saw the guy from my dream.\u00a0 I saw him peering into the camera.\u00a0 I saw him treading water.\u00a0 Nothing but his head above the surface.\u00a0 Animal parts floating around him.\u00a0 He was glowing.\u00a0 The dream-man was clean cut and his eyes were bright green.\u00a0 Like life.\u00a0 Like being alive.\u00a0 I saw that.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I saw the psycho homeless guy.\u00a0 But I couldn\u2019t not picture the man from my dream.\u00a0 The one like all of us.<\/p>\n

I saw that guy, and I couldn\u2019t tell if serenity was spitting him out or swallowing him whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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