Why did the hunting parties stop returning from the woods behind the lodge? What's mounted on those shadowy walls that guests refuse to look at directly? Who keeps the lodge's fires burning when no caretaker has been seen for months?
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Hi! handsome hunting man Fire your little gun. Bang! Now the animal is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again, Eat or sleep or drink again. Oh, what fun!
― Walter de la Mare, Rhymes and Verses: Collected Poems for Young People
The taxidermied elk head above the fireplace had been watching Edmund for three days now, its glass eyes tracking his movements with an intelligence that made his skin crawl. The other guests at Thornwick Lodge seemed oblivious to it, more concerned with their morning hunts and evening whiskey than the subtle wrongness that permeated every corner of the establishment.
Proprietor Silas Crenshaw had been running the lodge for forty years, he claimed, though the guest registry showed bookings dating back nearly two centuries. The handwriting changed, but the signature remained remarkably consistent. When Edmund questioned this curiosity, Crenshaw’s weathered face had split into a knowing grin that revealed teeth far too sharp for human ancestry.
The other hunters spoke in hushed tones about the “old ways” and the “true quarry” that roamed these woods. They wore symbols Edmund didn’t recognize---twisted antlers intertwined with geometric patterns that seemed to shift when viewed peripherally. Their hunting rifles bore similar engravings, the metal blackened with age and something else that looked disturbingly like dried blood.
On the fourth night, Edmund followed the sound of chanting deeper into the forest. The clearing he discovered was ancient, ringed by stones that predated human settlement. The hunters stood in a circle around something that defied comprehension---a writhing mass of flesh and antler that pulsed with its own malevolent life. As they raised their rifles in unison, Edmund realized with mounting horror that they weren’t pointing them outward into the woods.
The transformation was swift and agonizing. As Edmund’s bones lengthened and his skin sprouted coarse fur, he understood at last why the mounted heads watched so intently. They weren’t trophies of the hunt---they were witnesses to it. In the morning, Crenshaw would add another “elk” to his collection, and the cycle would begin anew with fresh guests who would never suspect that at Thornwick Lodge, the hunters and the hunted were one and the same.
