The Most Dangerous Game
Chapter 18 Susan Regains Hope
Susan heard the screams and broke into a run.
It was barely Tuesday, and the dumbass had already stepped into her bear trap. She grinned as ferns whipped against her arms and her boots chewed up the forest floor. Shotgun cocked, tucked tight into her shoulder, she ran with the kind of joy only a payday could bring. All she had to do was finish the job and she’d be a millionaire.
But then came a different sound.
A deep, guttural ROAR.
Susan froze.
That wasn’t human.
Her instincts kicked in, and she slid behind a tree. No amount of redneck bravado was going to win a shootout with a grizzly. She had two boxes of birdshot and one full bladder. Maybe—maybe—she could piss the bear off enough to earn a mercy kill.
The screams twisted higher, frantic and broken—but the roaring drowned them out.
Too curious to resist, Susan peeked around the tree.
She blinked. Then blinked again.
There, tangled in dirt and blood and snapped branches, was a bear mounted on the kid like it was fucking him. His screams had turned to gurgles. The bear’s jaws worked over his back, each crunch spraying red in every direction. He looked like a cherry pie someone tried to fist. And yet, somehow, the kid was still alive. His legs spasmed like a bug with its guts out.
Susan's stomach turned. Thank God she’d only had Funyuns, two Slim Jims, and coffee this morning. Any more and she’d be redecorating the woods.
But horror gave way to something worse.
Annoyance.
What the fuck, Smokey?
This was her kill. Her million. And now this Kodiak motherfucker was chewing through her ticket out of the trailer park like it was jerky.
Susan raised the shotgun. She could at least put the kid out of his misery before Smokey finished dessert.
But something caught her eye.
Movement—thirty yards out. Two silhouettes.
She crouched and dug into her pack, pulled out binoculars, and focused.
Two guys. One blond, filming. The other dark-haired, looking like he just shit his soul out.
Susan narrowed her eyes. Couldn’t remember what Greg looked like exactly—they all had that smug influencer face—but something in her gut told her the one not holding the camera was her guy.
She moved the binoculars back to the kid being mauled.
His eyes were wide, glazed. His mouth hung slack, drooling blood. The bear chomped down on the nape of his neck and ripped off a mouthful. A clean, wet pop. Spinal cord in its teeth.
Dead.
Dead as it gets.
Susan let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Not out of grief—fuck that—but relief. If Greg was still standing over there, watching, then her prize was still alive.
The bear, panting from the effort, dragged the mangled corpse into the woods. A red trail smeared behind it like a slug trail of death.
Susan tracked the two boys again.
Thing 1, the blonde, fussed with the camera. Thing 2—Greg, maybe—just stood there, face white, staring at the trees like they’d whispered a curse to him. Then they started talking. Arguing. Thing 1 said something that made Thing 2 flinch.
And then they started walking.
South.
Toward her.
Susan froze, her shotgun still gripped tight, heart thudding in her chest.
They passed twenty yards from her position—oblivious. Didn’t even glance her way.
As their backs disappeared through the brush, Susan grinned.
The game was still on.
