Page 6 of Hunting Ground

We have been looking forward to this longer than you know.

The hunt will begin at sunset.

I have to read it three times before my brain finally makes sense of the words on the paper. My hands shake, causing the paper to tremble, and my eyes remain glued on the paper.

What had I done to piss off someone enough to hunt me down?

It isn’t like I have much of a social life. I haven’t wronged anyone, dumped a man, or even had a boyfriend in over two years, not that I’m counting. I work at a fucking motel called Rest Easy Inn, and the most confrontational thing I usually have to do is stop Joel from overloading the pay-per-view system with his porn purchases. The regulars like me, or at least the ones that don’t avoid me for my charming personality seem to. Joel, Margaret, and Tom have never given me bad vibes, or looked at me with murder in their eyes.

As far as I know, I haven’t ruined anyone’s plan to take over the world, or saved a priority target from some hitman. The only thing I’ve done in the past month is pour water down a man’s shirt. Lukewarm water, at that. Not even the coffee itself.

But surely that’s not enough to piss someone off this much. Surely it’s not enough for my name to end up on a kill list.

Right?

Suddenly, I’m not so sure. That night plays in my head a few times, though I refuse to regret my words or my actions. I hadn’t stabbed him, or hit him, or even kicked him out. He’d been the one who was rude to me and checking me out like a pervert.

I’m walking before I can think about what else to do. If this ‘hunt’ begins at sunset, I wager I have about an hour. Without my phone, I feel like I’m living in the dark age, and I absently check for it in my pockets, even though I know it isn’t there.

Sure enough, the only thing I have on me is what I’m wearing, a pen in my back pocket, a pad of sticky notes, and what’s left of my fraying mental stability. I run a hand through my hair, and when I feel just how messed up my ponytail is, I shove the letter in the pocket of my hoodie and busy myself by putting it up again. Without a brush, I’m forced to finger comb through the tangled black strands, and I focus on my breathing to give me something other than fear in my head.

“Okay,” I sigh to myself, looking around. I remember the layout of this place almost perfectly, thanks to my job and how many times I’d been sent running up and down the pier. It’s long–honestly, a bit too long in my opinion–and if I had my way, the designers would’ve widened it instead of sending the wood thrusting out into the ocean bravely.

After all, the maintenance and upkeep of how the place was designed had been one of the main reasons that the last owner had shut it down and sold it. With a better layout, I can’t help but muse on the fact that Wonderlight Pier could still be alive today.

Or maybe not. It’s not like this place is Disney World.

Turning in a circle to reorient myself, I tap my fingers against my thigh. The arcade sits closer to the shore than the end of the pier, maybe a third of the way out. Across from me I can see the carousel, though a few of the animals are missing, making me wonder who in the world would want to steal an old carousel horse.

My mind goes back to the letter as I move to walk along the center of the pier. There have to be other people here, if everything on it can be trusted. Though I suppose if they were kidnapped like me, they might not be awake yet.

Questions roll through my mind like the waves below, crashing against my skull on repeat before receding to make room for the next.

How many other people are here?

How many hunters?

Is this a joke?

The last one is the most important, and the one that I don’t know if I want the answer to. Who would be playing this kind of joke on me, if it is?

Wonderlight is just as long as I remember it to be. Before, I could just jog up and down the wood that makes up the creaking pier, but now I have to be careful where I put my feet. At least until I figure out what parts of the wood are stable and which aren’t. A few minutes of walking tells me that the middle seems to be my best bet, thanks to the double supports running along the underside of it.

Enough time on solid wood lets me pick up my pace to a faster walk, though it still takes me probably ten minutes to get to the end. The Ferris wheel looms in front of me when I do finally reach it, and the end of the pier branches off on either side, morphing into a little sitting area with benches and antique street lamps looking out over the ocean. Today, the water isn’t glimmering in sunlight, and the waves aren’t pretty and rolling like they are on the old Wonderlight pamphlet. The grey storm clouds cast a dull, monochrome look out over the water, making it look murky and dangerous.

Absently, I look to my left, noting that even here I can see the marks of abandonment. One of the benches has collapsed in the middle, the wood rotted through and the glass of the street lamp above it busted. Looking the other way proves to show me much the same, except for the person sitting–

I blink once, wondering if I’m imagining things. But when I blink again and the person sitting on the bench doesn’t suddenly disappear, my heart leaps in my chest with hope…then fear.

What if it’s a participant, like me?

But what if it’s a hunter?

I stand there, wavering, trying to decide if I should move or not. Trying to figure out from here if the person sitting and looking out over the ocean can be trusted. Surely if they’re a participant like me, then they’d be up and moving, not staring at the damn view.

Which isn’t even that great today, truth be told. As much as I love storms, especially living this close to the ocean, I will be the first to admit that the water looks prettier when the sun glistens on it. Still, I can’t think of anything better to do.

On stiff legs and with an entire nervous system telling me to stop and go back, I make my way out onto the branch of the T-shaped dock. One step. Then two. Slower than my normal pace as I make the excuse to myself of needing to check the wood under me before I set my weight down.