Hunting Boots

The storm outside was brutal. The small town’s roads were hardly cared for this time of year, even though it was inevitable that snow would roll in ‘bout now. Cassie couldn’t see the street outside the window, the single working lightbulb above the two gas pumps flickered from the cold snap that had swept over the day. A morning fog had turned to sleet which turned to powder. She was bored. All of her friends had headed into the city for a concert, they were probably in cute outfits, drinking draft beer, swaying to the slow strum of a guitar. And here she was, snowed in overnight in the station with her hardback novel and barely two bars of signal. At least the pay was decent.

The jack-o-lantern in the window was growing moldy this late into the season. The owner, Mr. McMillan, was unable to throw it out. His daughter would throw a hissy fit every time he touched it. There it remained, turning black and shriveled. It looked out of place next to the large Santa who waved to the patrons with a hitch in his elbow.

She yawned, rubbed her eye sleepily. The movement left a smudge on the lens of her glasses. She absentmindedly reached for her styrofoam cup of subpar coffee taken from the half empty carafe by the donut case. The only folks who would roll up to this old place in this kind of weather would be dumb SOBs who thought their ‘unstoppable’ American-made trucks could actually handle the conditions, only to find themselves stranded and in need of warmth and the only standing payphone in town.

The howling winds had picked up. Cassie had managed to tune the noise out. The song playing from the speakers of her cell phone fought aggressively with the mismatched howls of nature outside. She had given up trying to keep the floors clean, every time she mopped someone would inevitably show up to undo her work. She admitted defeat. If cleaning up the mud and salt caused people to walk in the door, she simply would let the mud have its way. It could wait until the morning.

The bells above the door jingled. She lifted her eyes. From her position behind the counter she could only see the top of the door. It swung open. The deafening wind rumbled, shifted the bags of chips on the nearby shelf. Five seconds went by and the door remained ajar.

“Close the door, please,” she called over the noise before she went back to her book.

The door squealed open even further.

“The door! Close it!” she snapped, tone angry.

The door slammed shut. Cassie sighed angrily, set her head back in her hand, and went back to her book. She listened, tried to figure out where this stranger was heading, what mess they might make for her to have to pick up. After a moment she realized she hadn’t heard anything else. She turned her eyes to the small, boxy monitor beside the register. Its flickering security camera footage was hard to look at for a long time. She scanned the store, noticed no movement, no body. The restroom door in the back was still open.

She lifted herself from the stool and left the counter. With her hands in her pockets, she walked the aisles. Each one was spotless. As she reached the front door, she came across an unusual sight.

Two bootprints had saturated the mat. The gray fabric held darkened spots in the dead center made of melted snow and gravel chunks. Slightly pigeon-toed. Large, male, hunting boots with a thick heel and squared off toe. Several of the boys in her class had the exact same ones, they’d all wear them around campus while they talked about their weekend trips to the nearby lake just down the road. There were no other marks. The visible mess on the floor was dry, she had made it herself when she had stepped back inside after a smoke an hour ago.

She lifted her hand to block out the reflection of the flickering overhead bulb outside. She studied the mounds of snow that had begun to pile up. Spotless. Impossibly spotless aside from a matching set that sat outside of the door. There was no way enough snow had compiled in the short time from the door opening to now to cover up a trail. How long had this man been standing there? How had she not seen him in the window? She leaned back, peered down the back hall to the restroom, just to double check. It was eerily silent.

“Hello?” Cassie called out, tone firm and confident.

Silence.

Cassie slowly walked back toward the register, her eyes locked onto the snowy evening outside the windows. She bypassed the rotting pumpkin, the waving Santa, a faded tourism poster of the nearby lake barely hanging on by tape that had long since lost its hold. Their reflections all distorted by the warped tint that barley clung to the panes. The slow country song coming from her phone speakers broke up the eerie atmosphere. Johnny Cash's dark voice sounded like the devil beckoning from the low lit register counter.

Something moved. Something quick.

She saw a figure shift behind her, rising up from behind the candy bar aisle. She stopped. Studied the hardly discernible features of the gas station interior against the harsh, snow filled winds that blurred the reflection in the windows. She swallowed hard. She refused to turn to look at him head on.

“Can I get you something?” Cassie called.

No response.

She hurried to the counter, something didn’t feel right. She stepped up the short platform, closed the half-door behind her. Her trembling hands barely met the latch when a resounding crash came from the restaurant side of the building. Her head shot up, she paled, turned as white as the powdered snow outside.

Ducking down, her eyes locked onto the security feeds. The pitch black restaurant was glitchy, the old cameras were unable to function in the darkness, the screen was muddled and blurred. Then she saw movement coming from the kitchen but could not make out a discernible shape. She fumbled for her phone, shakily dialed 9-1-1, and waited for it to connect.

Then the power went out. A resounding zzzt bounced through the gas station as the building was covered in a pitch black wave. Cassie slapped her hand over her mouth, held her breath.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the dreary sounding dispatcher asked.

“There’s been a break-in,” Cassie whispered.

“Your location?”

“It's-”

A window was shattered somewhere in the restaurant. Cassie unlatched the door lock and began to sneak back toward the entrance. Whoever this was did not want a cup of coffee and meaningless conversation to pass the time until a tow arrived. She heard heavy footsteps around her, unsure of where they were coming from. She heard the dispatcher ask for more details but she was too terrified to answer. Her eyes moved up to the windows again.

A figure, wielding an ax, stood just a few feet behind her. Cassie screamed and barreled out the door into the chilly evening air. Her phone hit the saturated doormat, the stranger’s hunting boot crushed it with a weighty step. He gave chase.

The hunter and his prey cut trails through the high mounds of snow, down the road that took folks to the recreational park. A place that so many families would spend their summers grilling. Where so many Halloween events would happen near the foggy waters of the lake. Where fireworks and happy sounds and first kisses happened on New Year's Eve. Where the hunting boots of the handsome boys in their big trucks would stomp by in the dewy morning hours. Her screams echoed through the night, through the tall trees and empty nothingness of the November air. She made for the lake, prayed that someone would be out. Dumb teenagers drinking, late night ice fishermen, someone had to be out there.

The ax blade glimmered in the moonlight. The sharpened steel would claim another victim this night. The lake, frozen over with the thinnest sheet of ice, stood like death’s gates beckoning his victim forward. Be it by blade or by fear or by shattering ground below, this night would be Cassie’s last.

Come the morning, Mr. McMillan would find the damaged phone in his store’s entryway, sitting beneath the local police station’s flyer warning the small populace to be wary of being alone at night. That a killer with an ax was loose, a killer with square toed hunting boots.