Title: Secret Hobbies
Author: Kassfinol
All rights reserved
Genre: Suspense – Horror
The day had come when Julio would show his best friend Vanesa everything he was hiding; what the young woman didn’t know was that so many secrets would drag her to an unthinkable place she’d have to escape from.
Single chapter
“Move forward, please, you have to keep walking; we’re almost there.” —Vanesa’s voice was full of terror and anguish; besides, it was clear she was lying.
“No, no, please, leave me, go, get out of here, I can’t.” —he couldn’t continue; Julio’s leg hurt too much; he had a sprain at his heel; it was very swollen, and the stabs of pain when he moved it were getting worse.
“I’m not leaving you here… Move!” —she demanded and pulled his arm to help him walk. His weight kept her from advancing faster, but she didn’t want to leave him alone; she knew if she did that, it would be handing him over to certain death.
They walked as fast as they could, but the branches, bushes, and roots of the place kept them from moving as they wished. The blackness of the night and the sound of owls, toads, and nocturnal animals didn’t make the atmosphere any more comfortable.
Vanesa looked at her compass again with the little light the moon offered her and felt no relief.
“We still have about twenty minutes to go” —she told him while lifting her friend’s arm onto her shoulder.
“Your idea of ‘a little,’ from what I see, isn’t the same as mine” —Julio complained, looking her in the face.
She was his best friend, the only one he’d had for ten years. By now it was very clear to him that it had been a very bad idea to invite her to this place; the purpose was to show her the only secret he still kept from her, but everything had gone wrong.
“We’re alive, that’s the only thing that matters, don’t you think? Honestly, I can’t wait to get out of this damned place.”
“I’m sorry, Vanesa, I shouldn’t have brought you here” —Vanesa found it strange to hear such sincere apologies. She didn’t understand; she was clear that none of this was his fault.
“Why are you apologizing? We only came to camp; how were we to know some bastards would start shooting at us out of control, or as if we were animals?”
Julio just nodded and focused on the terrain; he wanted to avoid falling and slowing them down.
In the distance, gunshots were heard, along with a woman’s screams.
“Oh my God, this can’t be true; are they attacking other people? Who are those aberrant people? Why are they doing this?” —Vanesa looked around desperately, very scared in case they saw them.
“Leave me, I don’t deserve you risking your life for me.” —Julio felt miserable about this situation.
Vanesa stopped and looked him in the face with a furrowed brow and a certain annoyance running through her body.
“Shut your fucking mouth! I couldn’t live knowing I left you here hurt, at God’s good will; especially when there are crazy guys with guns around here.”
“I know why I’m telling you this, Vanesa, leave me here, please.” —He tried to free himself from his friend’s grip, and once free from that half-embrace, the young woman approached the nearest tree and took a breath; she was very out of breath from the effort— “Go, please! They’re going to catch us, I know; it’s better that only one of us dies.”
“Neither you nor I are going to die… Move your ass! We’re only a few minutes from the car; once we find it, we’ll get far away from this place.”
Julio knew that with him hurt they wouldn’t make it, so he gathered his courage and decided to tell his friend the truth.
“Vanesa, this isn’t an ordinary forest; it’s not a recreational place… well, not at least a healthy recreation… or an accepted one, so to speak.”
“What do you mean? Are you about to tell me something important?” —she interrupted him, walking toward him, this time with a curious face— “Talk!”
“Va-va-Vanesa” —he stammered, not knowing how to continue what he was going to tell her— “what I’m going to tell you is delicate, and I need you to keep an open mind.”
“Talk, you wretch, something tells me you’re not going to give me news I’ll like!”
He shook his head, unsure and scared of how his friend would react.
“Vane-nesa, this is a forest where humans are hunted, not animals.”
“Whaaat is this place!?” —the young woman shouted, and immediately a shot was heard; out of pure instinct they threw themselves to the ground, and the bullet hit the nearest tree. —”Shit!” —she shouted and grabbed Julio, full of adrenaline, making an effort with her body, and started running toward the car again. When they’d been running, full of fear, for at least two minutes, Vanesa felt a bit safer and decided to stop, dropping Julio like a sack of cement and looking at him in bewilderment, she asked him with acidic tones in her voice— “Where the fuck are we? How is it that humans are hunted here? Are we being hunted? How the fuck is it that you know this and I don’t?”
“Vane, I brought you here to tell you a big secret you don’t know about me.”
“Let me get this straight, you brought me here, to this fucking place where we can both die, just to tell me a secret… Didn’t it occur to you, the wonderful idea of telling me by text message, a call, or telling me at my house?” —She was very angry; she wanted to jump on him and hit him; she had to restrain herself not to answer him screaming hysterically.
“On-only” —he didn’t know how to continue—, “I just wanted to tell you what I do once a year.”
“What, is your hobby exposing yourself to some damned idiots? I know you like the adrenaline rush, I know you like paragliding, and driving a hundred and eighty kilometers an hour on your motorcycle! And I’ve gone with you for both activities, but this, this damned wretch, this is already going to extremes… this is too much.”
“No, Vanesa, you’re not understanding me” —he corrected her, while sitting on the root of a tree. He felt exhausted; he didn’t understand what was happening, but he no longer had time or a clear head to think about the situation.
“What do you want me to understand? That you put me in imminent danger, that you’re a damned idiot! When we get out of here, I swear I’ll break one of your legs and stop talking to you for at least a year… I assure you it’ll cost you a lot to make it up to me after all this… This is the worst thing you’ve made me do.”
“I understand your anger, and after all this, I accept it was a big mistake to bring you here.”
“Ohh, look!” —she pointed to her right— “There goes your brain running, as if it fell out from thinking so correctly for a few seconds… I think it’s fleeing from a momentary overload of intelligence” —Vanesa’s black eyes shone, consumed by sarcasm and annoyance.
Julio smiled. He would miss his friend’s constant dark humor; she always brought it out even in the hardest moments they’d lived through together, like this one; this was the moment to face the complete truth of the whole situation.
The young man took a moment, held a breath of air to gain a bit of confidence, and told her the whole truth without beating around the bush.
“I’m a human hunter; I didn’t bring you here so you’d be in danger; I only involved you in this so you’d see what I did that week when I disappeared every year and didn’t tell you where I was going… that’s why I asked you to cover your eyes for the last two hours of the trip; that’s why you don’t know where we are… forgive me… this wasn’t supposed to be like this… I don’t understand what’s happening this time… but what I am sure of is that I think my time to figure it out has run out.” —he finished, looking at his swollen ankle, which by then had huge redness around it that promised to turn into a huge bruise at any moment, not to mention it was already twice its normal size.
Vanesa looked at him with her jaw almost dropping to the floor; she was hyperventilating and looked around, more terrified than ever. Now she felt alone; the situation had changed abysmally.
“You’re a goddamn… a monster… How could you? How?! How is it that you brought me here? You abused my trust, my friendship; you didn’t think you could put me in danger… You know what? If I had a gun right now, I’d shoot you… You don’t deserve to live! You kill! You hunt humans! You’re a beast” —she ended up shouting at him, full of resentment, but she forgot she shouldn’t raise her voice, because that would give away her exact location.
“You were going to be safe; I just wanted to show you that part of me you didn’t know; we’ve been friends for years; I thought you’d understand… I swear I don’t know what’s happening right now… None of this should be happening to us… not to us.”
“You definitely have no brain; how could you even think I’d tolerate this kind of activity? You’re a murderer!”
“No, I’m not… They sell themselves to die, and in return their families are compensated with large sums of money; I just pay for a service… It sounds irrational, but what is done isn’t so inhumane when they themselves decide.”
“Is that how you wash your tiny brain? Is that what you tell yourself every night before bed? You’re trash!” —Vanesa turned around to continue on her way, looking for a bit of light filtered through the trees to see her compass clearly.
Vanesa heard a branch snap and looked around wide-eyed. She felt a bad premonition, but before she could start running, she was shot in the leg.
“Nooo” —Julio shouted, hyperventilating; he got up as best he could and ran to meet his friend. Vanesa held back her screams; she felt tremendous pain. She lay on the ground, trembling from all the fear she was experiencing, and with her trembling hands pressed on her leg wound to keep from bleeding out. When Julio touched her, she, full of rage, pulled away from him.
“Don’t touch me! Get out of here; I don’t want you near me!” —in all their years of friendship, she had never scorned him like that, and the situation caused him a pain in his chest.
“Let me help you, please” —he begged her, but she slapped his hand away from her leg; he was about to insist, but he kept silent because he heard footsteps approaching them—. “Someone’s coming; please, play dead” —he whispered to her while throwing leaves over her to cover her body.
From his own experience, he knew that at long distances, an average hunter shot a human from afar and then approached to kill him; that was a way to prolong the adrenaline; the place was very dark, and that also prevented good visibility.
With the little courage he had left in his body, he stayed standing, looking toward the sound of the footsteps. He walked a few steps forward to draw the hunter’s attention so he wouldn’t notice Vanesa.
He felt terror seeing the big rifle peeking through the darkness toward them. He took two wandering steps forward with his hands raised to make himself seen. A few seconds later, he felt relief seeing that the mysterious hunter was a great acquaintance of his.
“He-hello, Eduardo, it’s me, Julio” —he murmured; he didn’t want to be so spontaneous; he knew if he startled the young man, a shot could escape him.
Eduardo smiled and stopped aiming the gun at him.
“Hi, Julio, it’s good to see you around here.”
“Yes, friend, I don’t know what’s going on… they’ve been hunting me; I think there’s a mistake, and the darkness of the night hasn’t helped… they haven’t recognized me.”
Eduardo started shaking his head, but despite that, he looked amused.
“I don’t think there’s a mistake” —the words sent a chill down Julio’s spine; even so, he wanted to remove all doubt.
“What do you mean, you think there’s no mistake? I’m a member of this damned club” —he was starting to get worked up—, “it can’t be possible that they’re hunting me… how is this possible?”
“I’ll tell you the truth, because you’re going to die anyway” —he answered, enjoying every word he said. Vanesa heard everything, and her tears flowed uncontrollably; she tried with all her strength not to sob audibly, and when she heard what the stranger said next, her eyes went wide—. “I paid four times the average amount to have you killed.”
“Ah! How is that possible?” —Julio inquired, taking two steps back, visibly upset and confused; never in his life had he felt so much adrenaline and fear at the same time.
“Money can buy you even the most extravagant whim… I wanted to kill you; you are, or rather, as of today, you were, the hunter with the most kills in the club, and to be honest, you were in my way… without you in the middle, it won’t be hard for me to claim that title in a few years.”
“You’re a goddamn envious bastard!” —Julio stammered, turning around and trying to run. He’d leave Vanesa there, hidden; he had to draw Eduardo’s attention away from his friend by all means.
“Why are you running from me? A close shot with this rifle will give you a painless death; wouldn’t it be better to bet on a less painful death? You deserve to perish in a more fulminant way… if you get away, you run the risk of me making you suffer much more” —Eduardo mocked him; the truth was he could see him without problems in front of him in the dark; suddenly he remembered his prey’s companion and asked him— “Hey, and the woman you brought!” —He stopped to look around several times; the woman couldn’t be that far away— “It’s a shame I have to kill her too! But you know, we can’t leave witnesses.”
Oh, no! —Vanesa thought, terrified, trembling among the leaves.
“I don’t know who she is; she left; I found her by chance in the forest, and she ran far away from me when you shot her; she’s hurt, but she must be a bit far away by now” —Julio shouted— “You’ll find her later; if she’s here, it’s because she must be hunted.” —The young man kept running instinctively, putting himself behind trees while hearing the shots very close to him.
“I haven’t killed you because I like watching you run” —Eduardo felt delighted with the situation; he was euphoric at being able to kill his rival. He looked at his compass and realized he was already close to the road; he had to kill him now, or he might escape.
He stopped, took a breath, once, twice, aimed at Julio’s head, and without any effort pulled the trigger without missing.
A sigh of satisfaction filled Julio with happiness. While his brains scattered across the forest floor.
Damn it, you cost me dearly, but all this will be worth it —Eduardo thought, looking at his watch. It was almost six in the morning.
“Shit, it’s about to dawn, and I still have to find that idiot’s companion… I hope I find her soon.” —No one is supposed to be left alive by dawn.
In the distance, he heard a woman’s scream after a gunshot. Eduardo smiled again, pleased.
“Ha! That was easy; from what I see, they already got her and killed her… I suppose that’s all for today.”
He lit a cigarette and began his walk toward the forest station of the international hunting company he was part of.
The End
Always watch your back; remember, there’s no one worse than a false friend or an envious colleague.