Chapter 49

The killer stopped walking along the forest path and listened carefully with his ear put up in the wind. He thought he heard someone yelling something.
His senses were peeled open in the hum of the silent winter forest. If there was anywhere he felt at home in his own skin it was deep in the wilderness.
A few more steps along the frozen ground. A sound of crying came into focus through the wall of trees. It sounded like a baby crying.
The cold howling wind died down a little, for a moment, as though in sympathy to the cries of the suffering creature.
He pinpointed where it was coming from. He moved quickly along the narrow rabbit trail, keeping low to the ground and springing on the balls of his feet. He moved like a mountain cougar.
20 metres… The scruffy white rabbit came into view, squirming and wiggling violently in place, creating a circle of melted snow.
Her little mouth emitted a non-stop, shrill, heart-rending cry.
The loop of copper wire that was supposed to have zipped over her head as she ran along the path, strangling her almost immediately, had instead looped a front paw and clamped her little wrist. The wire was digging in, cutting off the circulation, but he killer knew the cry was less about physical pain, and more about being caught. Being afraid.
“Eeeeee-eeeee-eeeee!”
He lunged at her, crunching through the snow and snatched her up by the ears, picking her up kicking into the air. She was light as a feather.
He spun her by the ears in an overhand motion, causing her twig neck to snap from the weight of her own body. It made a poppling sound, like cracking knuckles.
The rabbit’s body jerked rigid and then hung limp, then her legs kicked violently downward a few more times, pointlessly.
Everything, no matter what, fought so hard to stay above the water.
Nothing wanted to die. Not really.
He kept a firm hold of the rabbit ears and held her little face up to his.
A handful of small brown droppings sprinkled down onto the snow at his feet.
“Whoops.”
The rabbit’s eyes turned gradually dull and colourless. Her mouth was hinged open in the dumb expression of death.
The killer opened his own mouth and imitated her, face-to-face.