Omar refused to look up from the ground as he wandered. He might have been going the right way, but couldn’t be sure. The sight of Whitney pulling the trigger and falling continued to play in his head, over and over again, no matter how tightly Omar closed his eyes. He’d thrown up until he was able to drag himself away, but his stomach was still churning at the memory.
The gun was burning a hole in his pocket. He had to take it, had inched close enough to the body to take it. The Snowstalker was still out there, and it would probably come for him next, so he had to defend himself. Omar’s mind was roiling with turmoil. Someone had just lost their life; his own life was in danger; it was freezing; Omar was lost. Getting out was going to be next to impossible.
Someone was going to have to tell Aubrey that her mother was dead. It was probably going to have to be him. No, don’t think about that. Think about something else. Anything else.
His own mother had died of cancer a few years back. Omar hadn’t cried, but he couldn’t imagine what he’d have felt to receive the news that she’d killed herself. Not that she would; Omar’s mother had been a fighter until the end. She always had to have it her way, regardless of whomever she had to step on in the process.
Omar hadn’t been immune to that, of course. His mother had certainly had more than enough to say about Omar not living up to her expectations. The time he’d come home with a torn shirt from playing too rough came to mind, specifically.
“Look at yourself,” she said, grabbing Omar by the chin and forcing him to look at her. Even on her day off, her hair was up in an impeccable bun. “You’re a complete wreck! Don’t you have any pride, boy?!”
“I didn’t mean too!” he cried, trying to pull away.
She lashed out and slapped Omar on the cheek, causing him to yell in shock.
“Don’t speak back to me, Omar,” she warned darkly.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
His mother shook her head and muttered, “You’re such a disappointment, Omar. I expect better of you. Don’t you want to make me proud?”
“I do!”
“Then act like it.”
When the vision ended and the cold returned, Omar felt his eyes stinging. Reaching up, he wiped away a few tears. Then he growled and quietly cursed.
That was a normal interaction for them to have. It felt like something similar happened twice a week, sometimes more. Hitting Omar was just typical punishment. Undermining his self-worth was an everyday occurrence. He was never good enough for her. Yet she still insisted on him coming to visit her once he’d moved out, seemingly just to belittle him more. They’d never gotten as close as Omar had always wanted, just because she kept insisting on putting distance between the two of them; herself on a pedestal, of course.
“I hate this!” Omar cried. His voice echoed in the dark, empty woods. “It was bad enough the first time! Why do I have to see it all again?”
The memories, free from the repression he’d been applying to them, were just as traumatic as the experiences themselves had been. But Omar wanted to move on. He wouldn’t allow the trauma to control his life. Omar was stronger than that. His parents pushed him to be stronger than that.
Omar picked up his pace a little, glancing around for movement. If he was having visions, then the Snowtsalker must be nearby. He couldn’t see it, though, nor hear what direction it might be in. His hand brushed up against the gun in his pocket. Where was it?
There was no way the Snowstalker would follow him inside Saffron, right? It was a monster of the woods. They never left the woods in any of the stories that Omar remembered. All he had to do was get to Saffron and Omar would be safe again.
He pulled the gun out of his pocket to inspect it. Thirteen shots left. More than enough to keep him safe, right? Hopefully. Whitney had only been able to fire one bullet at the Snowstalker before it got her. But it had run away.
Suddenly Omar was looking down the sights of a rifle. A group of targets was set up all the way down the range. Now that he was fifteen, his father had taken him to finally learn how to fire a gun.
“Keep your breathing steady, Omar,” his father said slowly, looking over his shoulder. “Aim, breathe, then squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull it. Squeeze slowly enough that you don’t realize when it clicks.”
Omar followed the instructions. Aim, breathe, squeeze. The gun boomed and a small hole appeared in the target, not far off from the center. He did it! Finally! His father was going to be proud of him. He was finally going to praise Omar.
“Do it again.”
Omar obeyed. And again. And again. Every time, he got a little better, then waited for the inevitable praise to come. It never did. When he followed his father out of the gun range, Omar was on the verge of tears. He knew better than to cry, but he really wanted to.
His father never pressed him to continue shooting after that. Omar did for a while, but eventually gave it up. What was the point? He’d only done it to appease his father, anyway.
In the cold and dark of the woods, Omar put the gun back in his pocket. It had been half a lifetime since he’d actually held one, and an entirely different kind at that. There was no telling if Omar would actually be able to use Whitney’s gun if it became necessary.
Omar continued walking while other memories surfaced. His father had never been satisfied with Omar’s grades. Learning to play the oboe at a college level hadn’t been impressive to him. When Omar showed his father the computer that he’d built from scratch with his combined Christmas and birthday money, Omar’s father had called it a waste because he believed computers should be simple and business-like, not the flashy monstrosity that Omar had built.
His vision started to blur. Omar wiped more tears away. Why had his father even had a child if he wasn’t going to show Omar any love?
“Enough!” Omar cried, curling his hands into fists. “I’ve had enough!”
What was Omar thinking? Of course his father loved him. Omar had just been too needy to realize it as a child. Every father is a little distant sometimes. And Omar should love his father back. At the very least, he should show his father proper respect.
Omar was just ungrateful. That’s probably why his father hadn’t given him the praise he was after. It was his responsibility to make Omar into a real man, someone tough and direct who didn’t break down and cry in the woods.
He perked up. Out there, in the darkness, was the faint sound of ragged breathing. It was here. The Snowstalker had found him again. Omar gripped the gun tightly in his hand. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
In the moonlight, Omar could see the occasional drop of dark blood on the snow. But only small drops. The creature’s wound was healing, and healing fast. That bullet wound had barely phased it. So all Omar could hope to do was slow it down, at best. Killing it was right out of the question.
The breathing seemed to fade, then get louder. Omar grimaced and glanced around him. He couldn’t stop walking. Where was the monster? There was no hint as to what direction it was actually coming from. And having to keep his head on a swivel meant that Omar was walking as slowly as he could.
“I’m fucked,” he muttered. “This is fucked. I’m so fucked. Fuck!”
Should he run? Omar had never been in this kind of situation before. He’d never learned how to handle being hunted by something. Running would probably just leave him open to an attack from behind. But as slow as he was going now, a confrontation was inevitable.
Omar was going to have to fight the shaytan eventually.
“If you’re bad, the shayatan will whisper sinful thoughts into your ear,” his mother had said more than once. “That’s why you need to obey me. If you’re disobedient, I can’t protect you from them. You’ll be a disappointment to Allah.”
A gust of wind hit Omar and he shivered. How long had that threat worked on him? Even as a teenager, he’d been terrified that Allah would stop loving him if he didn’t honor his mother. Memories of the punishments he received when he was young, and the hours he spent crying both from pain and fear that he was a bad Muslim, crept out of the back of his mind.
“I can’t believe I fell for that,” he mumbled to the forest around him.
He’d bought her excuses for so long. In Omar’s mind, her behavior had always been justified because she knew how to be a better Muslim than he did. And he believed that because she’d been telling him to believe it since he could speak.
“You owe it to Allah to do well in school,” she’d say before slapping his hand. “He gave you a brilliant mind. Don’t you dare waste it.”
“I thought I taught you to be polite to strangers,” she’d say, gripping his arm tightly and dragging him through the parking lot because he was too shy to say hello to people he didn’t know. “You dishonor me by being rude.”
“You need to get a good job,” she drilled into him at fifteen. “A doctor or a lawyer or a senator. How else are you supposed to take care of me in my old age? How will you face Allah without shame if you can’t care for your poor mother?”
It had all been bullshit, of course. Yes, as their son it was his duty to honor and respect his parents, but his mother was more intent on making him afraid to disobey her than instilling good virtues. It was no small miracle that, despite everything she’d done to him as he was growing up, Omar hadn’t been completely soured on religion. It wasn’t hard to imagine a world where he had simply given up believing in anything. She didn’t have the right to ruin his beliefs like that.
Fortunately, that hadn’t happen. If anything, Omar had become a little more devout over time. Now that it wasn’t a sword over his head, religion had become a source of peace and security for Omar.
And that was just what he needed right now.
He could do this. Allah was with him. This monster, shaytan or not, stood no chance of overpowering Omar when he had his faith to defend him.
There! Omar saw something flitting about ahead between the trees. There was just the barest glint of moonlight off the white of its skull. When it stopped, just for a moment, he could see the creature’s antlers silhouetted against the dark trees.
“Found you,” Omar said, raising the gun. His gloves were thin, too thin to be very useful, but they just barely gave him the freedom to place his finger on the trigger. “Come and get me.”
But the Snowstalker didn’t move closer. Again, it darted off to the side, into the darkness. Omar tried his best to follow its movements, but its breathing was loud in his ears and Omar was starting to feel dizzy.
There! The creature emerged from behind a tree, closer than before. Omar took aim, but his arms were shaking and it was too far to get a clear shot. The Snowstalker cocked its head, and Omar thought he could see the faintest glint of an eye beneath the skull mask.
“Omar, we need to talk to you about something.”
Omar blinked and turned to look at his parents, who were standing in the den with their arms folded. He walked into the room and sat his backpack down on the sofa chair. Though he was exhausted from sixth grade, he had to obey his parents or his mother would remind him that he was failing Allah.
“What is it, Father?” he asked.
His mother answered, “Missus Allen called me today. She saw you with that Williamson boy, giggling about something.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Don’t speak back to your mother, boy,” his father warned. “We warned you about that family. They let him paint his nails and play with girls. It’s disgusting and I will not have it influencing your behavior. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” Omar replied, bowing his head in shame.
His mother finished, “I don’t ever want to hear about you speaking to that boy again. He’s no good and he’ll meet a bad end. I won’t have that happening to you. Do you want to break your mother’s heart?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Go do your homework, Omar.”
Omar picked up his back and headed to the kitchen table. His face was burning. He’d just wanted to be friends. How was he supposed to know that the boy was a freak?
His parents had screwed him up so badly. It was a wonder that Omar liked anyone with the way they tried to set him against the whole world. They were so determined to keep Omar from associating with anything feminine. Was that why he’d never ended up in a happy relationship with a woman?
No, it was in the past. Omar had moved on. There was no point in getting caught up in it. It didn’t control Omar’s life anymore.
He took a deep breath of cold air as his vision focused on the creature in front of him. It hadn’t moved any closer. Omar steadied his breathing and steadied his arms.
The Snowstalker only looked vaguely human. It’s face was covered by the deer skull mask. The rest of its body was obscured by a thick black cloak, but Omar could tell that it was standing slightly hunched. Thick, deer-like hooves stuck out from beneath the cloak, leaving distinctive prints in the snow.
Omar took a long, slow breath and pulled back the hammer of the gun. The Snowstalker shifted its weight, then moved one leg back. In one swift motion, it turned and bounded into the woods. The adrenaline flowed out of Omar and he sank to his knees, almost dropping the gun in the snow.
