Chapter 1

The movie lets

out a little before midnight. The small shops, odd boutiques, and

quaint restaurants that line Richmond’s Carytown district have

closed, leaving behind an empty street through which the wind

whistles as it rustles through trash that lines the gutters. A

small crowd exits Carytown’s vintage movie palace, the Byrd

Theatre, which had played a late show and now locks its doors

against the wintry wind. Hartley Smith takes his sister’s elbow and

leads her away from the theatre down Cary Street, away from the

crowd. It’s late. Not even the bums are out, begging for change on

the street corner.

Giselle wraps a

small hand over her brother’s warm fingers and turns slightly to

smile at him. She angles her head to avoid hitting him with the

large rack of antlers spread out above her long, auburn

locks—strong growths that stretch like branches a good three feet

to either side of her diminutive frame, the antlers put Hartley’s

own knobbly stumps to shame. But she’s ten years his senior and

assures him his own will grow in soon enough. With a practiced nod,

she rubs one of her antlers along the short, bony appendage that

protrudes from his thick, brown hair, as if she knows where his

thoughts dwell. “What did you think of the film?”

Hartley shrugs.

Another sci-fi flick, something Giselle had picked, nothing he

would have seen on his own. “It was all right. A bit unbelievable

though, don’t you think? All those people were so…I don’t know. Too

human, I guess. Nothing animal about them at all. No horns, no

tails, no antlers. No teeth—”

“They had

teeth,” Giselle says with a laugh. “I could see them when they

smiled.”

“All straight

and white and even. They didn’t look like this.” Hartley bares his

own teeth. The long incisors in the front of his mouth are framed

on either side by an open space. The people in the movie had had

teeth filling in that gap. Hartley thinks that would make eating

difficult, all those extra teeth in his mouth. His molars are in

the back, where they need to be. What would he need more

teeth for? The canidae have them, and the felidae, and the ursidae.

The cervidae don’t.

“They

hadteeth,” Giselle says again, driving her point home.

“Too many of

them,” Hartley argues.

They’ve reached

the end of the street now, the intersection of Cary and Sheppard.

Even the Chinese eatery on the corner, usually the only place open

when they get out of a late movie, is closed. Giselle turns right,

down Sheppard and away from Carytown. The two share a condo on

Patterson, only seven blocks away, and though the night is cold,

the sky is clear. Most of the crowd that has followed them from the

Byrd turns off at the parking lot behind the eatery, leaving the

duo on their own in the night. With no streetlights, no traffic out

this late, and no moon above, the darkness is complete. Giselle

clutches Hartley’s hand tighter as she leads the way, picking up

the pace.

Behind them, a

lone wolf’s howl splits the night.

Hartley

half-turns to peer over his shoulder. He sees nothing but the

stoplight at the corner flicker from red to green. Beside him, his

sister gasps. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know,”

he whispers. The movie let out before midnight—they should have

enough time to make it home. The Hunt doesn’t start until twelve;

those are the rules.

Releasing his

sister’s arm, he reaches for his back pocket, where his cell phone

was deposited after he turned it off before the movie started. Now

he extracts it, flips it open, and turns the ringer back on. The

display reads 11:50 PM. Ten minutes. They have plenty of

time.

Still, he

nudges her with his elbow as he pockets the phone. “Walk faster.

We’ll make it.”

“Why do you

always want to chance it?” Giselle asks, unnerved. “You knew what

time the movie got out.”

They’re

crossing Ellwood—one block down, six left to go—when they hear

another howl. Closer this time, it dissolves into a series of quick

yaps that sends shivers down Harley’s spine. Something much faster

than the wind hurries down the sidewalk behind them, running after

them. He whirls around, but only sees shadows and darkness. He

hears heavy breathing, quick pants, claws scraping over tarmac and

the heavy padding of paws on concrete. A low growl seems to erupt

from the night, surrounding them. Ten minutes or not, time is

up.

He shoves his

sister in the direction of Patterson, pushing her hard. “Run,” he

says, hoping his own panic doesn’t creep into his voice. “Don’t

look back. Run all the way home.”

She takes a few

stumbling steps and falters. “But Hartley—”

“I’m right

behind you,” he promises.