Happy holiday season 2023 to all. Here’s my gift to you, a short story about a couple who goes hunting in the Ozarks.
Hunting Accident
by MK Eidson
Twenty-four-year-old Mildred glanced up from reading a recipe on her smart phone. “I’d like to go hunting sometime.”
“Really?” Her husband, Jake, tore his gaze away from the latest market reports. “I never pictured you as the killing type.”
“Guess you don’t really know me.”
Three months later, rifles in hand, the couple traipsed through the Ozarks woods on an undeveloped spread of 160 acres inherited by an old school chum. “Ought to be plenty of wildlife,” Fred had texted Jake. “Never gone out to the property myself. Let me know if the hunting is good, and maybe I’ll join you.”
After Mildred and Jake each shot three times at squirrels and missed, Jake suggested giving up. Mildred’s brow furrowed. “I’m doing this, Jake. Go back to the car if you want.”
He took out his smart phone, checked the latest market reports, and followed three steps behind Mildred, his rifle pointed at the ground.
“What’s this?” Mildred halted, and Jake bumped into her. Fortunately, his rifle didn’t accidentally fire and put a bullet in his wife’s leg.
Partially hidden by ivy, a gray stone statue as tall as Mildred stood before them, feminine in shape, with a forearm extended at the waist and open hand turned palm up, as though the statue were of a beggar. Mildred pushed ivy aside to reveal a stone face, a neck bent slightly forward, and carved eyelids half closed, as though the beggar looked forlornly down upon her empty hand.
Jake laughed as he lay his smart phone on the statue’s palm, orienting it to make it appear the statue was reading the device’s screen. He nudged Mildred. “Go on. Take a picture.”
Handing her rifle to Jake, Mildred pulled out her own smart phone and complied with his wish. The picture she took tickled a laugh from her throat. She’d have fun showing it to her friends. Fred would find it amusing.
Its stony gray exterior suddenly as limber as flesh, the “statue” lurched forward, its eyelids rising to reveal alert brown eyes. Its mouth opened, revealing white fangs like those of a vampire.
Jake and Mildred ran, leaving his phone behind.
Mildred’s phone vibrated, having received a text… from Jake, according to the name on the screen. “Awake at last,” the message read, “and starving.”
Hundreds of squirrels dropped from the trees around them. The critters opened mouths sporting vampire fangs, and rushed the unhappy couple from all directions. Jake, in possession of both rifles, fumbled the handing of one to Mildred. Not a single shot was fired before the squirrels piled up in a furious, furry mass covering their prey, claws scratching and fangs gnashing, tearing human flesh.
Aside from the predators and prey, no one heard the screams echoing through the forest.
An hour later, the undead squirrels and their awakened mistress finished their feast, but were still hungry. The mistress couldn’t even guess how long she’d slept.
Fred received a text… from Jake, according to the name on the screen. “The hunting is great. Come join us.”