The Hunter’s Heart

They told tales of her heart. They said she was a wild woman, a hunter, living off of the flesh of her traps. In life, she was little more than a dark spectre moving in fleeting glimpses at the edge of village life. In death, her sightings were all the more thrilling, her tales all the more chilling.

No one quite agreed how she died. Some said it was her own traps that caught her, leaving her prey to the appetites of the wild. Some said it was a human beast that preyed upon her, a lover turned wild by her feral influence. Still others said it was her own dark dealings, dues collected on devilish debts. Yet every story told of her heart: of it beating, even now, out in the shadows of the trees.

He had heard the tales. He had scoffed, yet also wondered. And now, out among the trees and darkness, the stories came back to him. The stories, and the sound. The pulsing thump-thump that seemed to come from all around. From the shadows. From the very trees. Steady, but growing louder. He felt the fear of prey, felt the dreadful certainty of a hunter drawing near. He stood frozen, as though stillness would save him.

But when the pace quickened, he knew too well that the hunt was on.

∼ Miriam H. Harrison

© Copyright Miriam H. Harrison. All Rights Reserved.