The hunter

   The arrow passed just a few centimeters away from the rabbit’s head. It wasn’t the day to die for him. But a wild turkey and a pheasant had not been so lucky. They hanged on one side of Karl’s waist, dangling around as he marched through the woods looking for more game. But he didn’t find anything else to bring back to his shack so he stopped wandering around and went straight back to his place. It was a small cottage in the woods, just a few steps away from the lake. He had built it there so no floods could reach it but close enough to the water to get his everyday ration to cook and bathe.

 As he entered the house, he left the dead animals in a rough wood table. He took off his clothes fast and, with the sun setting in the distance; he came out naked of his house and walked to the lake. He didn’t even hesitate to jump into the cold water. He plunged deep and then resurfaced, scrubbing his skin with his hands. There was no soap and soap would contaminate the lake anyway so he just scrubbed hard, sometimes with a scourer but he only used that some times a week. He submerged many times, looking at the distance, to the sun, which was now glowing orange. As he cleaned his beard and every hair he had on his body, he thought about that decision he had taken a long time ago, the decision that had changed his life by putting him there instead of in the city, in a job with a family and so on.

 He didn’t regret he hadn’t decided to stay with his family or just make a family of his own. It haunted him but he was sure he didn’t wanted to be one of those family men. He didn’t have what it takes to be one and he didn’t wanted to be one. He had always wanted to be free, as free as any human could be and this was the way he had found to be true to his desires. His family had not thoroughly understood but now that didn’t really matter. It had been three years now since he had decided to live in the forest and he knew it had been one of the best decisions he had taken in his life. Here, among animals and plants and fresh water, there was nothing that bothered him or made him feel like there was something wrong. Everything here felt fair and well done, because it was.

 He had always hated the competition, the killing that people submitted themselves to in the “real” world. People used to use those words together to describe to him were their lives happened, as if hid daily life wasn’t real, just a figment of his imagination. Hunting was more real than any bank job he could think off. Swimming naked in a beautiful lake was more real than worrying every day if someone was going to hurt you or your loved ones in any given moment. His world was very real and he had chosen it because he couldn’t take what the world was anymore. It had been a done deal the day he was attacked on the street, mugged and stabbed. He had become disenchanted with the world so he decided to leave it for good and there was not a single day in which he regretted that.

 In any case, it wasn’t as if he never talked or chatted with another human anymore. Many people came to the forest, in spring or summer, and the park rangers had designated him as an official guide. He got paid a small salary but that wasn’t the important thing, it was the fact that he got to share his experiences and knowledge with visitors which was the best part of the job. He would take them hiking or trekking for hours, compensating them with beautiful vistas, information about every plant and animal living in the park and would usually end up with a small “party” by the shore of the lake. Those who wanted could swim but they would all celebrate with a local meal.

 He came out of the water and waited to dry off for a half hour by the shore. As the water dripped away, he threw small stones to the water, trying to make them skip. But he had never managed to do I correctly. Time passed so he walked up his cabin, showered by the orange light of sunset. Inside the house he cleaned up his feet and put on some warm clothes to feel some heat after his swim in the cold water. He decided to eat first and then skin his animals to be put away with salt to be preserved. He had no electric device, except a portable stove, so it was best to consume everything before it went bad. He would eat the pheasant in the morning and the turkey could last a little longer if he treated it well. He ate some vegetables he had cooked earlier and it was then when he heard the sound. He wasn’t sure he had heard it but there it was again.

 The hunter walked up to the window and stayed there. It was already dark outside and he had turned on a gas lamp he had but he decided to turn it off and wait for the sound to come back again. There it was… It was like a moan or a scream that was silenced. He was worried as there was no one else for the next ten kilometers. Maybe he was imagining things, maybe it was an animal or maybe some people had just decided to come into the park and get busy. It wouldn’t be the first time. He decided to stop worrying and walked away from the window but then there was a scream, a piercing sound that broke the silence of the woods in two.

 The scream came from deep in the woods, in the opposite direction of the lake. He didn’t know very well, but he though the scream was from a male. He decided to take his bow and arrow, a rope and his best boots. That person could be trapped between rocks, in the formations that existed in the park in that direction. Or maybe some animal had attacked him and he needed assistance before bleeding to death. There were a few wolfs and they could be very violent, as well as black bears who roamed around the forest for food. Once he was ready, the hunter came out of the cabin and started marching rather fast in the direction he had heard the scream.

 He walked and walked but he didn’t seem to get anywhere. He didn’t usually come out so late at night and his senses were not as accurate in the dark than in the light. But he was sure where he was going and pressed on, worried for the person that had yelled earlier. After some twenty minutes, he finally arrived to a rocky formation and he noticed, with his solar flashlight, that the rocks were tainted with what appeared to be blood. He turned off his light and decided to be still and hear. There were no screams, only crickets and other animals making sounds. But then, he heard panting and someone else, breathing heavily. He ran towards the sound and, without thinking, jumped right onto one of the persons there.

 Apparently he had done correctly, because the voice that had screamed earlier was begin for him to help him. Somehow, his voice felt strange, as if it had changed in less than an hour. But the hunter was a strong man and he was able to submit the man he was fighting with ease. Once he turned on the flashlight again, he gave it to the victim, who happened to be a young man, covered in blood. He was trembling but was able to hold steady long enough for the hunter to use the rope to tie the hands of the other guy, an older man who had his nose broken and seemed to be in a fit of rage. He wasn’t fighting anymore but his eyes were filled with hatred, filled with blood and pure rage. The hunter made him stand up and he told the young man to follow him, so they could call the rangers who would then call the police of whoever had to be in charge of this.

 It wasn’t long before they stepped into the hunter’s house. The tie man was sat in the hunter’s bed and the boy sat in one of the big chair by the only table. The hunter looked for the walkie-talkie he rarely used during this time of year and started talking into it, to no response. As he waited, he asked the young guy to tell him what had happened but the guy refused at the other one seemed to be preparing for another assault. When one of the rangers finally answered, he couldn’t hear a word because the kid had jumped from his chair, with a knife the hunter had not seen, and stabbed the man in the chest. The man screamed and the hunter realized it was him who had screamed earlier.

 He attempted to grab the young guy from behind but now he flung his knife towards him, cutting the surface of his chest. He took advantage of this to turn around and finish off the man in the bed, who bled out just there, looking at the kid with horror. The hunter avoided the kid’s next attack and just punched him hard in the head. The kid was groggy for a minute, time the hunter used to grab his bow and arrow. He told the kid the rangers would come soon, as they never received communications from here and they would be worried to know if there was something wrong. He suggested him to surrender and let him tie his hands.

 But the kid launched himself at him and he just let go of the arrow that pierced his chest deep. He fell to the ground, where the hunter grabbed him and tried to understand what he was saying. Because as he spitted blood, he tried to say something but it wasn’t clear. Then the hunter lowered his head and he understood a couple of words: “got revenge”. Then he died and the hunter never knew what those words meant.

Strange Antarctica

   Someone had killed Doctor Pong. And however it was, had not cared about cleaning afterwards. The blood coming from the good doctor’s body had already frozen, formed a pretty disturbing picture for anyone who went into the storage room. He was lying there, eyes open, against the wall opposite to the door. It was windowless room and the killer had known that. It was obvious he had known where to look for the doctor, who was probably hiding, as the storage room was fool of brooms and buckets, not really what he used in his experiments.

 The strangest part of it all was the method the killer had used: an arrow. He had pointed it right between the eyebrows and had nailed just that spot. Of course, the distance was quite short so the shot may have not been that difficult to do but it looked scary all the same. The arrow was long and had pierced the skull all the way to the back, touching the wall behind the head with the metal tip. The body still had the expression of fear the doctor had experienced in his last moments and the weather helped it to get preserved for a long time, which made the job of checking the scene, much more ominous than usual.

 The crime had occurred in what it’s known as Queen Maud Land. Although Antarctica is in the practice a free land, Norway claims this portion of the continent. The mountains look like razor blades and the snow appears to be whiter than in any other part of this land. And there, in Troll station, Mr. Georg Pong had died from an arrow to the head. The media, of course, had a feast with the whole “murder on Antartica” story. And to be frank, it did seem ridiculous than someone had been so skilled to kill someone and then escape without a lot of means to do it. And they hadn’t been able to catch him or her.

 Norway’s government took almost a week to send two detectives: Nora Fröm and Erik Stavanger. They were both specialized in strange crime scenes but this one was by far the strangest one. On the boat from South Africa, both agents discussed how they were going to approach the investigation. They had seen several pictures taken by the scientist that had found Dr. Pong and they all pointed out to a chase inside and outside the complex. They were only a few buildings in the small compound so it wasn’t going to take very long.

 At arrival, they had to join a group of scientists that greeted them on to some snowmobiles. The journey to the facility was long and cold, during which the scientists discussed the real utility of being there. The man was already dead and the attackers had to be really far by now, if not dead. The government had wanted to show action but what the two detectives could actually do about the case wasn’t much. They had agreed that their prime concern would be to know everything about how it happened more than trying to actually catch someone. That was very difficult and, anyway, if they tracked the killer’s first steps, maybe they could investigate where he or she came from.

 The station was a small group of red containers overlooking the continental ice sheet. It was very small and not many people lived there during the year. The normal number was around nine but Dr. Pong had been alone the day he died. Ellie Warren, a friend and fellow scientist, was waiting there for them. She gave them a tour of the facility and led them to the storage room where the doctor’s body was still laying. She told them that no one had spent a night since the day of the events, in order to avoid contaminating the scene. Only the group that found him had touched some things but they had been kind enough to point everything out in a report.

 When entering the storage room, both Nora and Erik trembled. The man’s was looking at them, there on the frame of the door. It was strange how an empty body could seem so alive. They then started taking pictures with a special camera and asked Ellie to tell everyone they were going to comb the scene so they needed the station to be closed to any visitors. She nodded and disappeared, talking to a walkie-talkie. The duo took pictures of every single centimeter of the body. They didn’t dare to move it, afraid that the action would break the stream of frozen blood coming out of his forehead.

 It was an eerie sight, to see such brutality but at the same time, realizing how careful the killer actually was. They found no hairs around the body, nor the killer’s weapon. Only the arrow was still inside the doctor’s skull and they decided it was best to remove it only when they had finished doing everything else. The corpse was wearing the jacket normally used for the outside, so that indicated the doctor was outside when he was attacked or that he went out during a persecution. That wasn’t clear but he must have been outside at some point that day.

 When they checked the records of the day, doctor Pong had noted several things on his log. He had apparently been working on some ice sheet tubes they had extracted earlier that month from a field not very far from the station. The detectives, of course, had no idea what it all meant, but they realized he had worked on that during the day. The last thing he noted though was far more interesting than everything else: he had written, “The heating system seems to be malfunctioning. It’s freezing inside. I have to go out and check the heater”.

 The detectives put on their jackets and asked Ellie about the heather and she joined them to it. It was located in a shed outside, about ten meters from the main entrance. There, they found that the door to the shed was open but nothing else pointed to the murder. Ellie checked the heater and told them everything was ok, which they already knew because the temperature inside the station was very pleasant. When back inside, Ellie told them she had to leave because she was needed in another station but that she would be back in a few hours. She reminded the detectives that it was summer in Antarctica, so eternal daylight was the norm. She showed them a couple of bed they could sleep if they needed to. She said goodbye and left in her snowmobile.

 The duo continued the investigations but, as expected, they weren’t going anywhere with all of it. They had found hairs in the lab and other rooms but that was probably Ellie’s or some other scientist that had been there before. She explained the doctor was alone when he was killed because all the other scientists had been called to another base as a great discovery had been made and the transmission from a Russian base could only be received in the other station. He decided to stay behind for a day and just wait for them to return and tell them the news.

 After checking every single part of the base, which was the size a of a single person’s apartment, they decided to eat something. The food looked like the ones they gave to astronauts and it taste just as they expected it to taste, so they continued their work rather fast. As Nora checked the doctor’s computer, Erik checked the storage room and the body once more.

 Some hours had pass when Nora called Erik, saying she had found something. Many of the other cases they had solved were all about love and envy and how to combine that with the thirst for revenge and so on. She builds up on that and decided to look for secret folders or hidden archives in the doctor’s computer and Norma had found just that. It was an invisible folder and had only five pictures. When the couple saw them, they couldn’t help feeling surprised at them.

 Each and every one of those pictures showed a younger Ellie Warren, with longer hair and a certain glow to her, fully naked on five different poses. It was obvious she was aware of the photographer but the pictures were certainly not new as the women in the pictures looked in her twenties, or even younger, and doctor Warren was at least fifty years old. Why would Pong have those pictures in his laptop? Had he known her before she became a scientist? Was he the photographer? Both Nora and Erik were baffled at the pictures but couldn’t make sense of them. Where them even meaningful to they investigation?

 Then, an explosion was heard outside the station. Nora and Erik ran out to see the heater shed had burst into flames and some of the pieces were burning on the snow, others already freezing. Why had that happened? And then Nora grabbed Erik’s arm. She knew exactly what had happened. It was Ellie. She had been the only one of them to actually enter the shed. It had been working fine with them but it had failed when Pong had been killed. And now it had exploded.

 Their conclusion was that Ellie had done the same thing that day. They decided to check with the nearest station, where the scientists had gone to check on the news. The radio wasn’t working very well but it was confirmed Ellie had not been there with them. According to the person in charge, she had stayed behind with Pong. So there.... It had to be her. She was the killer. But why? And where was she now. The man said she wasn’t there today either.

 Nora was looking at the screen and then noticed Erik wasn’t talking. And he actually wasn’t breathing anymore. He fell to the floor, with an arrow on his head. Nora had no time to be scared as she saw Ellie holding a crossbow.

- Couldn’t leave you here with the evidence. Sorry.