For Jesse
She’s been waiting so long to do this. For three months now, she has prepared for this moment. Since the day her best friend was snatched and killed, Cyrene had never been the same. At first, each day grew into a struggle to climb out of bed, find something to wear, drag herself to work or to school, to eat, to breathe, and to stop the salty tears leaking from her exhausted eyes. Sleeping was a pain. Every dream began with Jesse and her charismatic personality, only to replay that wretched day. She was a prisoner of her own mind, torturing with no mercy, imagining the pain, the torture, the fear Jesse had to have faced in her last moments alive.
I should’ve done something, Cyrene would mutter into a chant as if it would form powers and rewind time. And when nothing happened, her heart, now an empty freezer, grew its own dark voice and whispered in her ear one sleepless night.
Avenge her.
Today, on this chilly fall day, in the middle of a calm shower of burning red, gold, and orange leaves, she had merged herself with nature to hunt the monster. She had bought the outfit from the downtown hunting shop along with sturdy hiking boots, binoculars, and a new box of bullets. Her mother, too sick to persuade her to seek grief counseling, pretended not to see the drastic preparation for this hunt.
It was not difficult to acknowledge how the monster had done the same thing to take Jesse. It watched her from a distance, sitting amongst the trees, waiting with determined patience and cruel joy to feed its hunger. Cyrene declared to her mother on many occasions that the monster, the murderer, lacked a soul, a purpose, and was a waste of oxygen.
That’s how dark Cyrene’s heart became.
The Maryland police were no help, as usual.
“You live along the Chesapeake Bay. These things just happen, missy,” one officer exclaimed, hand resting on his holstered gun, eyes blinking with a poor attempt at caring.
Cyrene, sobbing too much to speak, looked to her mother for help. Her mother, already withering into the air by her own culprit of bone cancer, shivered under summer’s breeze and shook her head. There was nothing she could do about the law that protected the monster. But this did not sit well with Cyrene. Something had to be done. For Jesse, of course, in hopes that her spirit could rest in peace.
She sniffled back tears and knelt behind a bush and tree. Still and poised, her mind wandered back to the day after Jesse was snatched. How some unknown energy claimed her soul and pressed her to leave home under a waking sun and cross their field to enter the woods where the murderer had taken her. Hands clenched at her sides, she had only one resolve. To find and reclaim Jesse’s body. For such a sweet, loyal friend as she, Jesse deserved a decent burial.
Then after a day’s walk and search of the woods, an odor she would never forget slapped her in the face. She froze in place, heart slamming into her ribcage, lungs burning from lack of oxygen as her eyes skimmed for the inevitable. She first found Jesse’s collar made of thick pink leather with fake diamonds along the seams, the gold tags engraved with her name, stained in her blood. Cyrene picked it up with trembling hands and forced herself to follow the stench until finally, there she was.
The sound of the wind through the trees brought Cyrene back to the task at hand. She peered through her binoculars at the sky of half-bare treetops. Unlike other days when doubt and second thought tried to slither into her mind and trigger hour-long anxiety attacks, today, she felt good. She was a huntress soon to claim victory over a predator. Unstoppable, unforgivable, merciless, yet true. Forget the laws that protected this monster and honored it as the nation’s symbol of liberty and justice. The bullets in her rifle had now become her liberty and justice. Jesse’s liberty and justice.
So, she searched and waited. The bugs and bees buzzing by her ears did not bother her. They meant nothing to her, just brainless insects that would feed on anything. Just like Jesse’s mutilated body lying in pieces under a giant old tree. A feast of leftovers by a vicious creature. That’s how she found where the monster lived.
Above, in the giant old tree, its home looked like a chunk of dung lodged into its branches. And then her stalking began. She crammed her head with research and information to learn everything about this monster and its little ones chirping senselessly. Jail or a hefty fine would be her consequence if she would succeed in this hunt, but it didn’t bother her. Then when her mom succumbed to her culprit last month, she added the fresh grief and stress into the mixture of indignation for Jesse’s culprit, sending her further down the dark path of no return. At this point, she had nothing to lose.
She was all alone in this world.
She quit her secretarial job and spent the extra time brushing up on her shooting skills. Before her mom had gotten ill, they used to hunt together. They’d hike the nearby woods and along the shoreline, searching for deer and sea ducks. What used to be fun and exhilarating was now a dire mission that needed to be carefully executed. Cyrene felt a tinge of pride to show her skills to her mom and Jesse, watching her proudly from above.
The familiar cry of the monster echoed through the trees, blending with the whip of the cool breeze. Cyrene searched and waited and saw as its wide angel-like wings flickered through the treetops. It circled around its home then disappeared as if it knew she was waiting nearby. Yet still, Cyrene did not flinch nor move because, despite the monster’s keen and sharp senses, she felt confident in her camouflage outfit. Instead of the normal army colors, this one blended with the flaming leaves she knelt on, her welcome bed to hell.
This time, she switched her binoculars for her rifle. She peered through its scope, searched, and waited. As if in response, the air grew crispier with the sudden promise to rain. Her belly growled, but feeding it came last to her heart, starving for revenge. She fueled her motivation by thinking of good times spent with Jesse. Long walks through the trails with Jesse, pulling and yanking her to hurry so she could feed her curiosity. Playing ball on their fields of grass. Cuddling while watching movies or reading books aloud. They would love to get dressed up and take trips into town. Jesse was a magnet when it came to people. They thought she was cute and loved her just as much as she did.
She was the definition of a friend and a comforter for her mom when chemo would glue her to her bed for weeks. Cyrene felt warmth gush through her arms as she remembered the day Jesse was adopted into the family. She was so small in her arms, cute and cuddly with huge gray eyes that sparked silver. She possessed a serene aura. An aura Cyrene and her mother needed at the time, two weeks after her mom’s diagnosis.
Then that monster came. At first, Cyrene had noticed it hanging around and perched on odd places. She admitted how beautiful it was and felt honored to be in its presence. But now she could see what Jesse had seen then when she would bark and growl and run back into the house. A predator, stalking and hunting a potential victim. Waiting for its moment to strike.
An ache seeped into her stiff neck and shimmered down into her shoulders and arms. She didn’t want to take a break. This was her last chance to right the wrong. But the monster was nowhere in sight, or at least she couldn’t see it. Cyrene knew she was in its territory, but she had learned these creatures lived in their home yearly unless something spooked them or something happened to the home itself. Then there was the great fact that the monster had no mate. Never had she seen two caring for their little demons.
A part of her soul, still clinging to the light, tried to bring reason and compassion toward the little demons that would be left alone to die. But Cyrene shook it off and reminded herself this was for Jesse.
Keeping her eyes scanning above and around the woods, she lowered her weapon and rolled the kinks out of her body. She took a sip of water to quench her dry mouth and felt a wave of nausea. Then she heard its high-pitched cry, loud and pretty, sending a chill down her spine. She searched again and found it. That thing returned to its home to feed its little ones. She had a clear shot. Its bald white head bopped as it vomited into little anxious yellow beaks. The branch foundation of its home wobbled under their rough movement.
Cyrene had a good aim on the monster’s brown and white belly. Its sharp yellow beak twitched as its eyes scanned for danger. She placed her index finger on the trigger and took in long calm breaths, feeling her frozen heart chip to pieces. Her ears muffled the whispers of nature to the fearful squeals of Jesse as the monster flew away with her clutched in its talons. She ran after them as far as she could until they disappeared into the woods. Her precious little friend snatched and carried away to a painful death.
And Cyrene could do nothing but scream.
“For you, Jesse,” she whispered, and squeezed the trigger.
