Brooklyn

The singing has stopped. That's how I know.

I duck down on all fours, holding my breath as my heart pounds at the walls of my chest. Nausea creeps into my stomach as my body realizes what my brain already knows: I'm about to die.

Without moving a muscle, I scan the woods surrounding me, forcing myself to calm down. It could be a mistake. I could be wrong. After all, I can't see the cause of the tension I can feel hanging in the air.

I listen closer, straining my ears.

Silence. Perfect, unbroken silence.

Every bird's song is quiet, every creature still, as if the forest itself is holding its breath. For half a year, what's left of the world has held its breath. It's a perfect stillness that leaves no room for doubt.

As quietly as I can, I drop to the ground and pull my handgun out of my backpack. I flick off the safety and wait, half hidden in the ferns. The familiar feeling of the cold steel in my hands brings no comfort.

Because deep in the woods, a hunter knows I am here.

I can't hear him, but I can sense him. Like every cell in my human body is screaming, danger, danger! My legs twitch, urging me to run, but I keep my limbs locked. There is no escape. I will be found, just like all the others before me.

Maybe I'll get lucky, I think. Maybe he'll be quick.

The thought almost makes me laugh. If I was lucky, I would've died six months ago.

I wait in the stillness for a small eternity before I hear him: the soft, graceful footfalls of a predator. I feel a chill go down my spine as he approaches and I dare to lift my eyes, my finger hovering above the trigger.

Standing in front of me is the most beautiful man I have ever seen.

His skin is smooth, the rich color of coffee with cream. His perfectly mussed hair is a shade of brown so dark it's nearly black. Despite the cold, he wears only black sweatpants and a short sleeve shirt that shows strong, defined arms.

He has no weapons; he is one.

"Hello, human," he purrs. Cold, black eyes meet mine. I cock my gun and one corner of his mouth tilts up. I shiver, resisting the urge to run my hands up and down my arms to warm up. It's as if cold radiates from him. I stand–there's no point in hiding now.

So this is how I die, I muse. I'm going to freeze to death in the woods of rural Washington state.

I grit my teeth. If I'm dying, I'm not dying without a fight. In a quick, practiced movement, I point my gun toward him and pull the trigger.

Crunch!

I blink. The bullet lies embedded in a wall of ice that wasn't between us a millisecond before.

"Tsk, tsk." He gives a playful shake of his head, offset by the soul-deep coldness of his eyes. His lips curl into a smirk, and I feel my face get hot as something occurs to me: it's just a game for him. For all of them.

Adrenaline rushing, images flash through my mind. I see my mom slipping in her own bile and collapsing on the kitchen floor, dying from the disease they created. I see my dad's warm eyes light up as he tells one of his corny jokes and remember how hard he fought to keep me alive. I think of the children I've watched die, the loved ones I've seen murdered, and suddenly, I'm furious. Something hot and reckless stirs within me and I do something incredibly stupid.

I aim the gun and fire again. It buries itself into the ice–a waste of a precious bullet. The monster narrows his eyes as though he can't fathom how any human can be that stupid, but slowly, I smile–a cold, hatred-filled smile.

His mouth forms an "o" of surprise. That's right, I think smugly. I did it just to tick you off.

He snarls, and my smile turns into a grin. I know it was dumb. I know it means an even slower and excruciating death. I don't care, I think.

But as he takes a step toward me, my stomach sinks. I know what comes next. And maybe I do care just a little.

"Hm..." He moves closer toward me. "Where to start?" Closer.

I grasp my gun tighter and pray he won't notice. It's my only chance.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask. His answer doesn't really matter. I wait for his mouth to open and then, with the last of my adrenaline, I raise the gun to my own head and squeeze and–

The gun flies out of my hand, firing into the frosted grass. The blast of ice was almost too quick for my eyes to see. The monster is directly in front of me now, and I know I won't be able to pull my rifle off of my back in time to point it–at him or me.

I swallow. A slow death it is, then.

"I have a dilemma," he announces in a velvety voice, weighing me with his black eyes. "You've surprised me, dear human."

A dilemma? I wonder, bemused. A dilemma about where to hurt me first?

"I could give in to the short-term gratification and kill you now." I tense as I listen. He grabs my jaw with his hand, forcing me to meet his eyes, which are as cold and hard as steel. It takes everything in me not to flinch. "Or I could hunt you down." His smile turns into a sinister grin. I struggle to breathe as he jerks my head to the side and whispers in my ear, "Slowly. You'll know I'm coming for you. Every day you'll wake up wondering if it's the day I'm going to catch you until it drives you crazy. And finally, after long enough, you'll think you've escaped. You'll think you're safe."

He lets go of my jaw and meets my eyes once more. There is no hint of a smile now. A chill runs down my spine.

"And just when you think that I'll never find you–I will."

He takes a couple steps back and I can finally breathe again. I swallow vomit. My body breaks into shudders and I long to wrap my arms around myself to stop the chills, but I don't move.

"You see, I have options. If I kill you now, who knows when I'll stumble across another human? There's so few of you left these days." He tsks in disappointment. I want to break his perfect nose. "And I've always believed in saving the best for last."

He grins, and despite my nausea-inducing fear, I knee him in the groin and shove him away from me all in one quick movement. To my surprise, he lets me. I'm sprinting before another second has passed, adrenaline rushing through my veins. It's useless, but I try anyway.

I'm five feet away. Ten. Twenty.

Why hasn't he caught me? My mind races. Why? I can't find it in myself to look behind me.

I hear a low, sinister chuckle as I push my legs faster, deeper into the woods. I don't hear steps behind me.

But I run.

And run.

And run.

It's a decade before I collapse face first onto the forest floor. I didn't plan to stop–my legs decided for me. The ground is covered in soft moss, but twigs and small rocks press into my cheek.

Everything hurts.

But the breathless feeling in my lungs and the burning sensation in my legs can't compare to the fear and confusion deep in my chest. Why did he let me go? It goes against everything their kind is defined by. They torture. They kill. They destroy. Letting the victim escape is not what the monsters do. But he did.

Somehow, that fact is more ominous than anything else.

I stare at the trees above me. For the first time I notice that the branches in this part of the forest are charred, no doubt from one of them. And the tsunami that hit this area a few months ago left clusters of debris everywhere, even this far into the woods. Everywhere the monsters go, death and destruction follow. They're cruel, relentless. I watched one of them, one of the Malefic, set someone on fire just to watch him burn. I watched my own best friend turn into a monster. I stared into her eyes and saw the exact moment that she decided to kill me. If Liz hadn't been in such an early stage of her change, and if I hadn't made an impulse decision to shoot her in the foot instead of the head, I would be dead. The pain distracted her long enough for me to escape.

So why did he let me go? I wonder again. It doesn't make sense. They're killers—murderers. They don't have patience, or self-control.

But what if that's exactly why it does make sense? I wonder. The ones I've seen have been rash, hotheaded, and violent. And oh, wouldn't it be so much worse if they could be cunning and calculating as well?

Because he's right; no matter where I hide, no matter how far I run, it's not far enough. His ability to find me far outweighs my ability to escape.

But I'm not worried. Cold and calculating he may be, but in a few weeks I'll just blend in with all his other victims and he won't remember that he didn't kill me, I try to convince myself. I've gotten lucky. Very, very lucky.

Unless I'm wrong–unless he finds me.

Because underestimating him could be a very dangerous mistake.