The Huntsman

I ran clumsily through the forest in a direction that took me away from both the compound and the scene of genocide further off to the right in the forest. Dully it registered to me that I was headed north. I didn't much care where it was as long as it was away.

Gasping for breath I looked back. There was no visible sign of pursuit and best of all the snow was quickly making my earlier passage through the forest disappear. As the miracle of the obscuring snow became realized for the true blessing that it was I looked heavenward and gasped out in praise, "Thank you God!"

I was quite warm for the moment, but I needed to keep going. I moved forward still out of breath, but I didn't run this time. I walked as quickly as I was able to, but as the adrenaline wore off over the course of an hour I feared that my time of freedom would soon be over.

CHAPTER TWO

Divine Providence

I was done.

Stumbling with fatigue I caught myself up against a tree. I had escaped, but I wasn't going to make it any further. Closing my eyes, I whispered out brokenly, "Please God. Please I... I..."

I shook my head and opened my eyes as I tried to ex-press how I wanted to live, but had nothing more to give. A bright color out of place in the snowy forest caught my eyes.

It was a truck! Not an army truck, but a regular, ex-tended cab truck. It was a bright blue, but it was covered with leaf debris and a fallen branch lay over the back bed of the truck denting in both side panels. It looked like someone had just left it there and it had sat out in the elements for a long time.

Cautiously I approached the truck. Peering into the bed of the truck I saw that it was filled about halfway with split wood that had weathered on the inner faces. This truck had been here since the EMP attack that had fried all the computer modules on modern vehicles.

I went to the driver door and opened the latch. It moved and with a tug the door came open. The interior of the truck looked like it had never seen a hard day's use ever. I opened the back door and saw several items laying on the seat. One of them was a wool blanket.

I looked around, but saw nothing as the falling snow covered everything with an ever-increasing layer of white powder. Looking heavenward, I felt tears come to my eyes. Words failed me and truly it didn't seem that they were needed.

I crawled up into the backseat and shut the door. Even though there was no heat, I felt warmer. The interior of the truck still smelled new. It was a good smell. It had been a long time since I had smelled something good.

I wrapped the wool blanket around me and began looking into what else the truck had in it. My hand came out of a box on the floor holding an energy bar. I stared at it in my hand for a long moment and then with as much reserve as I could muster, I opened the wrapper and had my first bite of real food in two and a half years.

Tears flowed down my face as the flavor of the bar exploded in my mouth and reminded me of how life had once been when a bar like this would have been nothing but a snack to me, but now served as the finest of all dinners. Truly the experience of life was a matter of perspectives.

I ate the bar and though I wanted to eat more I made myself wait. I continued looking and found a pair of hiking shoes, a pair of blue jeans, several T-shirts and a heavy over-shirt. I found more food bars and two bottles of water. I swigged down one bottle of water on the spot and felt the betterment of it almost immediately.

I had everything I needed within this truck. The only thing that felt out of place was me or better put the smell of me. The clothes would be baggy on me but they would work and I made the decision with sudden energy that not only was I escaping from my captors this day, but also from my smell.

I opened the door of the truck and got down. The snow had let up and sudden afternoon sunshine lit up the glenn I was in. The sight of the sun sparkling through the snow was beautiful to behold and for the first time in a long time I took in the wonder of creation.

The strength of the sun's rays against my cheek emboldened me and I started stripping off everything I had on. I let the soiled and tattered garments fall to the snow and taking a step I got on top of them and leaned down and undid the binding cloth that was all that held my shoes together. I felt worn out all over again from just the act of undressing.

Finally, my feet were free and I threw the repulsive worn out shoes far from me. Straightening I stood up and breathed in. It was an odd moment as I hadn't seen myself unclothed in almost 2 years.

I looked nothing like I used to. I actually looked good!

Gazing down past my surprisingly still full breasts I beheld in wonder the lack of extra weight hanging on my hips. Wonderingly my hands coasted down my lean sides to flare out over my wide hips.

I let my hands coast around behind me and with surprise, I felt at how well formed my rear felt. It no longer jutted out beyond me as it once had, and while it wasn't small it was less than half the size it had once been.

Leaning forward at the waist I gazed back at myself and with shock beheld the fact that I actually had a gap between my thighs now. My thighs no longer touched and yet they were still quite full looking!

In no way other than my sunken in cheeks and visibly outlined rib cage did I look like I'd been cooped up in a concentration camp for over two years. Gradually my brain realized upon what my eyes were seeing and my hands were feeling. I was beautiful!

Tears came down my cheek and I shook my head. Why did being beautiful even matter?

Somehow though it did. I looked now like I'd always wanted to. I looked like my older sister that my father had always taken such pride in.

I raised my hands and cupped my full breasts. In fact, I looked better than she had. For what purpose had I been preserved into such a state? Truly, looking down upon myself, it was as if I stared at the body of someone else and not my own.

Looking up I asked, "Why God? Why?"

"Why not? You were made to be beautiful and truly you have always been. The beauty you now see is not what I've seen from the beginning. You are a faithful soul and you have remained constant in relationship with Me through great adversity. It is out of that relationship with Me that your beauty flows and truly it is nothing for me to make the outer form of you to reflect only in partial form the beauty that I see within you. Today may be the first time you think of yourself as beautiful, but from the day I formed you in your mother's womb, I have never thought any different of you. Now wash the outside, even as you are a possessor of a clean spirit within made so by the blood of My Son sacrificed for you and by which you have truly been set free and now there is nothing impossible for you to achieve."

Shaking I reached down and grabbed a handful of soft wet snow and began to scrub away the grime. It was the most invigorating bath that I'd ever had. By the time I was done I was completely chilled to the bone and my teeth were chattering, but it was worth it. I was clean!

Shakily I pulled myself up into the backseat of the truck and feeling too tired to even dress I wrapped myself in the blanket and lay down across the seat. Warmth and contentedness spread through me and for the first time in a long time I felt myself smile. It felt good.

My eyes opened and I pondered on something. Sleepily I spoke, "Nothing is impossible for me?" I felt an assurance from all I knew about the Bible to know that was the truth.

"God, I fully submit myself to Your plan. It is clear to me now that You have a plan. I may be able to do any-thing with Jesus's help, but I'd rather You do what You want with me. Even when I don't understand it."

My eyes closed and I was soon lost to the world as vivid dreamery descended upon me. Somehow I knew I was dreaming, but I just let the thoughts and impulses flow, trusting in God to protect me. There were nightmarish moments and then peaceful moments and then some-thing else. The feeling of being touched.

In startlement I woke up. Everything was quietly, still in the truck and it was completely dark outside. Nothing had touched me, but I had felt it in my dream as if it were real.

My heart beating heavily I lay back down. Closing my eyes, I felt myself pulled back down as if drugged and the dream came back in full force. The touch I had felt was a man's. I couldn't see him.

He was always out of my sight like an invisible phantom and it would have been nightmarish if it weren't for the fact that his touch felt good. Very good!

In shock I looked down to see my breasts held by this phantom man. I tried to turn and look at who held me so intimately, but he was always gone and yet his hands remained on me and moved across my flesh in a way as had never been done before.

The presence of the unseen lover was strong, even as he mastered me in some deep way that caused me to feel like endlessly surrendering to as if it was something I had always longed for and I finally found. Whatever he wanted I would do. Anything!

In shock I felt him in me moving and I exploded with orgasm. Crying out I reared up on the truck seat and my eyes looked for the man who'd just been aggressively owning me in a deeply sensual fashion that I had never actually experienced in the flesh as I was still very much a virgin at 22 years of age.

I flung the blanket from off me and I stared down at the apex of my thighs in shock. It had been so real. My whole body still shook with the vibrations of the orgasm that I'd had while still in my sleep.

Looking around in a daze, I blinked as I took in the bright sunlight shining through the dirty windows of the truck. It was morning, but it was lost on me as all I could do was reflect on how real the dream had been.

Reaching for a clean rag on the floor I wiped the co-pious amount of fluid that had come out of me and was bathed across my inner thighs. It was almost as if I'd peed myself only it wasn't pee.

Shakily I brushed some of my hair out of my face. For a moment my eyes closed and when they did the imagery of the dream assailed me with what it had been like before I had come awake. My eyes shot open again as I looked for the man, but I was alone. Whatever did this mean?

"God... I... What's this about? You know every-thing... Do I need to worry about this?"

"No."

I lay back down upon the seat, wishfully hoping for a much more detailed answer than that.

"Embrace My plans for your life and it will go well for you Tamara."

I stared wide-eyed at the ceiling for a long moment. All I had seen of the man had been his hands. They had been strong and capable and yet I remembered receiving no pain from them. They had been burnt brown by the sun, swallowing as, I searched through the dream for re-membered imagery I realized that they had been the hands of a white man. There was no doubt in my mind that God was telling me something. A great deal really.

I bit my lip from questioning Him on why as I re-membered my own words of surrendering my future from the night before for God to do with me as He wished to over any disposition of my own will. He'd said as much to me just now.

How could I doubt what He meant when it had been made so clear? What would my mother say?

What did it even matter, if what God wanted for me was something different, besides it was highly unlikely that my mother was even still alive, let alone any of my family. The good Christian lady that she had been she had still looked down on anybody whose skin wasn't as black as her own. It had been one thing to tolerate the presence of a white person at church or around town, but the concept of her daughter being with a man of such color would've awakened every last nerve in her.

I had always found her prejudice distasteful, especially when it had come to who my friends could be and could not be. I'd had my share of white friends in school despite her objections and now as the future seemingly was already planned out before me it would appear that God's Word was true in that He was not a respecter of persons for surely He was discarding many a prayer said by my mother in regards to me and any future candidate for husband.

My father had been more ambivalent about matters of race, but he wouldn't have liked what God seemed to have planned either. I wasn't sure how I felt about it either, when it came to that, but in the end it didn't matter.

I was going to honor God's wishes to the fullest and that was that. I sat up on the seat and awakened need for food assailed me almost instantly. Fortunately, I had food and I made a point of thanking God for it before I gobbled down three of the bars and drank the last bottle of water.

CHAPTER THREE

Savior or Executioner?

Nippy wasn't the word for it. A cold, blustery wind cut through and around the tree trunks in an endless bar-rage of coldness. It was only late afternoon, but already the sky had darkened up and I feared that a storm was coming.

The stiff, cold, I could handle as long as I kept moving, but if it started to snow and I got wet I would be doomed. In vain I looked about for a place of refuge, but none was offered.

I would have to make camp out in the open if I didn't find something quick. There were no evergreens here, though. I had found them to be the best places to stop for the night because of the coverage the branches offered.

In the distance through the sparse forest naked of leaves I saw a green belt of color up ahead and huffing out exhaust I headed for it. It had been three days since I'd left the truck and the best I could say was that I was managing.

I had eaten the last food bar this morning though, and the bleakness of a cold night without food was already settling heavily upon me. At least I would have a fire. That was something.

And I was free. That was the main thing. I could be grateful for both, even if other needs, namely my stomach weren't being satisfied.

I reached the pines and searched about for a likely spot. I untied the handsaw I had brought from the truck and quickly cut a hole in the understory of a pine no more than 15 feet tall. I made a teepee out of it, sort of.

I then interlaced some of the cut branches overhead of the opening to act as a bit of an awning and the rest of them, I piled up against the base of the tree to serve as my bed. That done, I went about gathering wood, even as snowflakes began falling all around.

It had gotten much darker and I feared for the night I was in for. I gathered twice as much wood as I had the other nights.

With the driest pieces of wood I set about trying to get it lit with some trash from the truck and a cigarette lighter I had found in the glove box. Even though I was sheltered in against the tree as I was, it was still difficult to get the flames to catch hold with the wind currents milling around making strange turbulences. The flames did catch though, just about the time my fingers holding the lighter felt ready to fall off.

Worriedly I fed the flames and the fire got bigger. An inch of snow had fallen outside already. Did I have enough wood?

Worse yet, how many more fires would I be able to make with the lighter? It had started to flicker on me at the end. Did it have enough in it for even one more fire?

The fire well ablaze I huddled back from it and sat up against the uncomfortable surface of the tree trunk. I covered my legs as best as I could with the blanket and sat shivering, waiting for the fire to do the miraculous and make me warm. With time it began to happen, but it was a painfully slow process.

Shaking I clasped my numb fingers together and buried my face against my knees and cried as the snow piled up outside now in earnest. I'd fought a silent war against God in the past few days.

I'd been making out for myself so well the thought of staying on my own had presented itself as a wish in the back of my mind. I hadn't asked God to make it become a reality, but I had been entertaining the thought. Now however that wish was dead and done and over with.

I didn't want to be on my own anymore. I wanted to be with the man with warm hands. At the very least, of all he might offer me, I knew that he would at least keep me warm. Sobbing against my knees I begged, "Please God, send him to me quickly! I... I don't want to be alone!"

"You weren't created to be alone Tamara and yet, in your own way, you have been for far too long. I've heard your plea and already answered it. Tomorrow, stay where you are and do not leave until it is time to follow."

Blinking, I gazed bleary-eyed into the fire. As bad as things got my God never left me. He was always there with me, helping me, a constant encouragement. He hadn't always saved me from my predicaments, but when He hadn't He had at least enabled me to get through them.

I threw some more wood on the fire and waited for tomorrow already feeling much warmer in anticipation of it.

**********

I stared anxiously at the forest edge off across an abandoned field. Nothing moved, but I felt something menacing just the same. Looking away, I paced my path through the snow back and forth as I had been for the last two or three hours.

It was getting on to midday and the sun was shining. About a foot of snow had fallen overnight and it looked so fresh it seemed good enough to eat, but it was just water. Stopping I held my hand to my stomach as hunger roiled through me.

Movement caught my peripheral vision and I glanced up at the distant forest edge of the clearing I had unknowingly camped beside last night. With startlement I took in the sight of five individuals running across the field to-ward me. Something was not right!

Apprehension knotted up in me and then coalesced into sheer terror. For starters, there was supposed to be only one man and these men running across the snow covered field had the appearance of animals in the way they moved rather than that of a human.

A wolf pack on the hunt would be a better perspective of describing them. I turned to run as fear over-whelmed me with the certainty that I might soon be eaten alive.

I made it to the end of my paced line in the snow and stopped as if some invisible force had caught me. A sudden reflection of the evening before reminded me that God had told me to stay put.

I glanced back and saw the men dangerously closer. Surely this couldn't be God's plan?

Everything within me screamed to run, but faith said to stay. Faith in God was the only thing I had of value. If I ran I would lose my faith. If I lost my faith, I would lose God. Life without Him simply wasn't worth living.

Shaking badly I turned back and went to my woodpile of the night before. I picked up a heavy broken off branch and stepped back over to my patch of beaten down snow. This was it. This was everything put on the line in hope and faith that God would deliver me from a situation I could never hope to do so on my own.

My gaze took in the enemy and I quivered in spirit at the sight of what happens when people stop being human. The bug eyed and glassy vacant gazes of cannibals washed over me with both the desire to mate me and eat me at the same time. Judging from the stories I'd heard they would likely do both.

Panting heavy with mouths open wide like dogs they surrounded me. They were dressed in little more than rags and in their hands they held an assortment of weaponry ranging from dirty machetes to simple pieces of heavy metal for the purpose of clubbing.

They grunted and snorted and mumbled unintelligibly and in shock, I realized that they had even lost the ability to form words. One of them darted in toward me and I twirled about and swung the branch.