Natasha dived into a low ditch with her hands leveled against her hips, ready to move at any time as a carbon fiber arrow flew past her head and bore into a small tree around a palm’s width. This was already the third time the two predatory men had nearly snatched her life with their compound bows. The first time had been when she first entered this forested area and met them outside a camping trailer where they immediately attacked her. The second time was when she had stopped to catch her breath and drink water from a stream.
She remembered her father’s advice whenever they went out hunting together as they practiced being both prey and predator. Never stop moving, a moving target is the hardest to hit accurately. Use any means to distract your hunter, whether it is conversation, rocks, or your body. Anything that is useful can be used, pride and dignity are only valuable to the living.
Natasha never quite understood why her father was so focused on teaching her how to avoid being hunted by animals or man. She had asked several times about his time in the military after he retired as she could feel that it changed him. It was only after his retirement that he insisted on the predator and prey hunting training. He had even gone so far as to dump her in a remote forest a few hundred kilometers from any human civilization to toughen her up. She only had a hunting knife then and survived for a week on wild game before finding her way home. Her current situation was only slightly worse than that time.
Natasha touched the serrated hunting knife at her thigh and thanked the gods for small favors. Her dark green tank top and long black pants with hiking boots made her feel a bit more secure in this battle of life and death. She still didn’t understand how she went from an office building with a strange doctor to a forest outside a city with two hillbilly hunters. She sighed at the rollercoaster day she was having and wished to go back home to her father in Kiev. She had only moved to the states at her father’s insistence on getting a degree from an American university. It was not as if there were no better options in her homeland, but there was a lot of unrest lately in the government and her father wanted her to get out while it was still peaceful. All was well in the first year of her stay, but the tuition spiked in her second year prompting her to enroll in this sketchy clinical trial for the cash promises.
Rolling to the side while scooping up a rock, she threw it at one of the men whose head came into view from her position in the ditch. A scream resounded out as the man fell backwards clutching his right eye and his partner fired off two blind arrows as he pulled the man back. The first one missed by a large margin, while the second one was a lucky hit, nicking Natasha’s earring, ripping it off. Her scream followed shortly behind the second arrow as she grabbed her bleeding ear and bolted away from the ditch and into the tree line.
She ran towards the cityscape in the distance, estimating it at around five kilometers away. Given her speed, she could reach the edge within twenty minutes at full sprint, though it would take longer if she had to dodge more arrows. She only hoped that the rock would buy her enough time to get out of their arrow range.
Natasha sensed danger behind her after about five minutes and dodged sideways as a whistling sound caught up before passing her. A new arrow penetrated the tree in front of where she last stood and trembled as if to match the rage of its owner.
“I was going to give you a clean death, girlie, but I changed my mind! You’re going to die a messy and slowly, on your knees!”
The man with a single good eye yelled after Natasha as he drew his compound bow once more from 100 meters away. His partner had run back to get their truck at the behest of the injured man after some basic first aid. His eye still had some debris in it, but it wasn’t enough to lose all vision in it. It did depress his depth perception and accuracy by a large degree though, the last arrow had been aimed at her leg and not her head.
Natasha didn’t bother to respond as she kept sprinting between the trees, zigzagging between every other tree to throw off the man’s aim even more. She could smell the rusty smell of her own blood and the stinging pain reminded her of how a few inches the other way would have been her end. She slid behind a thicker tree for a moment to catch her breath as another arrow thunked into the broad trunk. A heavy twanging echoed in the silent forest around her.
Natasha put her heel on the trunk of the tree and pushed off of it to propel herself forward after recovering for a few seconds. Her sprinting speed slowly raised back to her max possible while dodging around and behind trees, using the wider trunks for cover whenever possible.
The chase continued in this fashion for another few kilometers and Natasha could see privacy and chain-link fences in the distance. The suburban neighborhood was less than a kilometer away now and the man had to stop several times to recover his arrows, slowing him down considerably. It was then that she heard the rattle and backfire of an aged truck gaining distance behind her on the road. The other perverse hunter had finally caught up with their truck.
Natasha’s heart skipped a beat when she realized that she was running out of time. Her muscles burned like lava as she pushed herself to make a last dash to the fences and houses. Even if they were empty or held more crazies, there was still hope to find a better weapon such as a pistol or spare bricks to throw at the hunters.
She heard the truck stop and a car door opening and slamming shut as she reached the nearest fence. Bracing her fingers between the upturned wires of the chain link fence, she pulled herself over it and hit the ground in a roll after missing her footing. Shoving off the ground, she ran low and dived behind an outdoor recliner on the front patio. Checking the distance, she gauged she would have to cross three meters of open area to get to the front door, but only a half meter to the front window. She was calculating in her head as the truck slowed to a stop outside the house’s fence and car doors began to open.
Gritting her teeth, Natasha threw her sheathed hunting knife at the window before leaping through the broken glass in pursuit. Shards sliced her open flesh as she fell into the room beyond and a small cry of pain escaped her lips. Several splinters were buried in her skin, but she ignored them as she picked up her knife and disappeared further into the house.
