The Hunting Trip

Thriller Stories | Feb 6, 2012 | 12 min read
56 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
Thriller Stories

The Hunting Trip

Todd Martin
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It's a great night for hunting. Clint thought as he looked up at the full moon in the sky.

He took one last drag off of his cigarette and threw it to the ground below where it landed in some tall grass. For a moment he toyed with the idea of climbing down from the deer stand to stomp it out when he remembered that it had just rained the night before. The ground was still a little wet and there was no chance that he was going to start a forest fire so he didn't bother with it.

He opened his sixth Milwaukee's Best of the evening and turned to see what Cody was doing. As expected, he was just sitting there behind him with a bored look on his face as he played with his hand-held video game.

"Put that silly thing away boy," Clint said, rolling his eyes, "You've been messing around with it all night. We're here to hunt deer, not play video games."

Cody just ignored him and kept playing, making Clint want to reach over and slap him across the face. He hated it when people ignored him, especially when it was his own son. He took a huge gulp of beer and then reached over and snatched the video game out of Cody's hand, making him cry out in protest.

"Hey! Give that back!" Cody said angrily, "I was on the last level!"

"I don't understand why you play with this thing," Clint replied, holding the game out of his reach, "Seems awful stupid to me."

"I think sitting around all night in the freezing cold waiting to shoot a deer that may or may not show up is stupid if you ask me."

"That's funny, because I don't think anybody asked you, smartass."

Cody gave him a dirty look and almost responded with a snide remark but thought better of it. He was smart enough to know that his dad didn't react well to back talk, especially when he'd been drinking. Instead he just sat there with his arms crossed in silence and stared out at the woods, looking forward to when he could go back home.

"That's it, just sit there and pout now like you always do." Clint said as he lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in his direction.

It was no big secret that Clint and Cody didn't have the ideal father and son relationship. They could hardly be in the same room together without getting into an argument about something and even though Clint would never admit it to anyone he was pretty certain that deep down he despised Cody. He knew that he should feel awful by the fact that he hated his own son but since he knew that the feeling was mutual it never really bothered him that much.

Cody was very different from the other ten-year-old boys that went to his school. He didn't like to hunt or fish and he could care less about sports of any kind. He spent the majority of his time with his face in a book and while most other parents would've been thrilled to death that their child enjoyed reading Clint wasn't happy about it. It was his belief that boys Cody's age should be outside playing football or beating up on the smaller, weaker kids like he had done when he was growing up.

Clint wasn't the least bit impressed by the fact that Cody's teachers were constantly calling to brag about how intelligent he was. He'd been allowed to skip a grade and was reading on a high school level but none of it mattered at all to Clint. School had never been that important to him and he just couldn't quite understand why Cody was so concerned about getting good grades or winning the state spelling bee tournament. To Clint it was all just a bunch of pointless garbage and he couldn't help but feel ashamed of Cody. It drove him crazy when his friends and coworkers bragged about their sons catching the biggest bass or hitting the game-winning home run because he never felt like he had anything to contribute. Sure, he could tell them all about how Cody had been on the honor roll at his school for four consecutive years but it paled in comparison to his boss's stories about how his kid had scored several touchdowns in the current season.

Clint shared absolutely nothing remotely in common with Cody and there had been many times that he wondered if he really was his father. Given the fact that his wife was the biggest whore in the county he figured that one day she would inform him that he was actually the milk man's kid, the product of a romantic evening she'd shared with him while Clint had been busy busting his ass at the rock quarry where he worked in order to put food on the table. He'd often wondered what he would do if he really did find out that Cody wasn't his son and thought that he would most likely end up sending the guy a fruit basket or something as a way of thanking him. Just the possibility that Cody's real dad may emerge one day was the only thing that had kept Clint from going off the deep end and carving up his family with a chainsaw before putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger.

"That's a great idea," Cody remarked when Clint grabbed another beer, "Let's mix alcohol with firearms. Nothing bad can possibly come from that."

Clint turned to face him and had to fight the urge to punch him in the mouth. He'd smacked him around before when he needed it (and he'd needed it quite a bit), but the last time he'd hit him Cody had had threatened to call the cops on him. The last thing he needed was to be arrested for child abuse so even though he wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around his neck and snap it like a pretzel he was able to control himself. Instead he just gave him a threatening look that made it clear that he wasn't in the mood for his smart ass comments. Cody must've realized that it would be wise to keep his mouth shut because he just looked away nervously without saying anything else.

He was against bringing Cody along with him to go deer hunting from the very beginning but his wife had insisted on it.  She claimed that it would be good for him to spend some time with Clint since he was so upset over what had happened to his little fairy friend Justin.

Justin was pretty much the only friend that Cody had in the entire world. He was a skinny, nerdy kid who had bad acne and greasy black hair. He was very feminine and Clint was convinced that he was gay. He just knew that one day he would walk in on him and Cody making out on the living room couch and then he would be forced to kill both of them. He could put up with a lot of things that Cody did but being a faggot wasn't one of them. He didn't agree with the lifestyle because he thought that it was wrong and he'd be damned if he was going to let his son be a part of it.

Justin was an extremely smart kid who had a smart ass mouth on him just like Cody. There had been several times that he'd mouthed off to Clint and he'd had to resist the temptation to knock his teeth out of his mouth. It did no good to complain about it to his parents as they were just a couple of pot smoking hippie types who argued that Justin was just showing off his individuality by acting like a total and complete prick. Whenever he came home from work and saw that Justin was there he would usually just stay away from him because he could only be around him for a few minutes before he wanted to cave in his skull with a hammer.

Last month Cody and Justin had gone out into the woods to build a tree house and Clint had been ecstatic because it meant that they would be out of the house and he wouldn't have to be around either one of them for a couple of hours. He was pretty sure that they were only building it so they could have a place to kiss and stroke each other off so they wouldn't be interrupted by anyone but he didn't care. As long as he didn't have to hear them giggling loudly and flirting with each other in Cody's room for one evening they could've run off and gotten married as far as he was concerned (of course he would've had to have tracked them down and murdered both of them later if that happened).

Clint was trying to take a nap on the couch before dinner when he heard Cody come in the front door, crying like a little girl with a skinned knee. At first he thought that the lovely couple had just had a lover's spat and was about to tell him to just shut his damn mouth so he could get to sleep when he heard Cody sobbing that he thought Justin was dead. He sprang up off the couch and rushed into the kitchen, thinking that somehow Cody had accidentally killed him. It wasn't that he was that concerned with the fact that Justin might be dead but he was worried that his parents would hit them with a huge law suit if Cody was somehow involved with his demise.

When Cody calmed down enough he was able to relay what had happened. They had been busy working on the tree house when Justin had slipped and fallen out of the tree to the ground below. Cody said that he landed on top of his head and that he was pretty sure that he'd broken his neck. After several minutes of trying to revive him without any luck Cody had run back to the house to get some help.

Even though Clint was sure that he wasn't dead his wife made him go out to check on him. Cody was nearly hysterical as he led him through the woods to the spot and Clint told him several times that if he didn't stop crying he was going to give him something to cry about (words of wisdom used by his own father when he was a child). He was 100%  sure that Justin was fine and warned Cody that if they were just playing some sort of stupid game that they would both be sorry. He knew that Justin was a morbid little creep and pretending to be dead sounded exactly like something he would pull to get attention. Once they got there and he saw Justin's crumpled body laying on the ground he knew for a fact that Cody was telling the truth.

It only took him a second after looking at Justin to realize that Cody had been right and his neck was indeed broken. His head was turned in a weird, unnatural angle and even though Clint knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was dead he checked for a pulse anyway. When he didn't find one he felt an inexplicable happiness wash over him when the thought occurred to him that he would never see the little asshole alive ever again. Of course for Cody's sake he kept this feeling a secret and tried his best to act like he was upset even though he was pretty sure that he saw right through his façade.

In the weeks following the funeral Cody's personality changed dramatically. He became depressed and spent most of his time alone in his room doing God knew what. He started losing weight since he refused to eat (which Clint didn‘t think was that bad as he thought Cody was a fat ass who needed to shed a few pounds), and he had trouble sleeping. He started getting in trouble at school and had even been involved in a couple of fist fights with some of his class mates. His grades were slipping and he failed several tests for the first time in his entire life. His teachers were concerned with his behavior and called several times, but instead of talking about how great he was doing in their classes they urged his parents to take him to see a therapist so he could get help dealing with Justin's death.

Cody's mother thought that seeing a therapist was a good idea but Clint would have nothing of it. He thought that the notion that his son needed to see a shrink was ridiculous and flat out refused to take him. The main reason he didn't want him to go was because he didn't see the point of shelling out a great deal of money to some educated idiot so he could listen to Cody whine about his feelings, but he pretended that he just thought that it was better if he worked out his problems on his own.

His wife reluctantly agreed but made Clint promise that he would spend more time with Cody. She thought that it would help him if they did more things together and while he was not big on the idea he went along with it to get her off his back. She'd pretty much forgotten about it until he told her that he was going deer hunting and she'd made him take Cody with him, thinking that maybe it would be good for him and help get him back to his old self again. Since he'd never shown any interest whatsoever in hunting Clint didn't see how it would possibly do any good but he took him along anyway because he knew if he didn't the topic of sending him to a psychiatrist would be brought up again. Almost immediately after they had gotten there it had been the same old shit he was used to with Cody and he started to regret his decision.

"Did you get one the first time Grandpa took you hunting?" Cody asked, catching Clint by surprise.

"I sure did, and it was a big one," Clint responded, puzzled by his sudden new found interest in hunting, "It was a huge buck around 250 pounds at least."

"Cool, you think I'll be able to get one that big?"

"If we see one that size he's all yours, I promise."

For a moment was tempted to pinch himself because he thought maybe he'd fallen asleep and was dreaming. He couldn't believe that he was actually having a civilized conversation with him for quite possibly the first time ever. Cody had spoken to him without any of his usual smart ass remarks and for a change he didn't feel the desire to kick the hell out of him like he normally did when they attempted to talk. He started to feel that maybe bringing him along was a good idea after all and hoped that maybe it would be the beginning of a different relationship between them.

"Can I mount its head on the wall if I get one?" Cody asked with a smile.

"I don't know, you know how your mother feels about that. Remember when she made me take down that one I had on the living room wall?"

"That was wrong. I don't know why she had such a problem with it. She knew that it meant something to you, why couldn't she just let you leave it up?"

"I know, but you know how your mother is."

"Yeah, she can be a real selfish bitch when she wants to be," Cody said with a sneer, "I bet she wouldn't take something of hers down if you wanted her to."

Clint chuckled when he thought about it because he knew that Cody was exactly right. He didn't know that he felt the same way about her as he did and started to wonder if they didn't have more in common than he thought.

"There's one Dad! I huge one! I just saw it!" Cody exclaimed in an excited voice as he stood up and started pointing toward the woods.

"Where? I don't see anything!" Clint said as he turned away to look in the direction he was pointing.

"It's right there in front of me." he replied in a cold voice full of hatred.

Clint slowly turned around just as Cody pulled the trigger on the rifle. The impact of the blast struck him right in the face, blowing most of his head off. His body flew off of the deer stand and hit the ground with a sickening thud, startling a few birds in the area and making them fly away. Cody stood looking down at his body for a few moments, a sick smile on his face before he climbed down to the ground.

He leaned down beside the body and admired his work before he started to walk away. He walked through the woods until he spotted a few other deer hunters about a mile a way and approached them. He was able to work up some tears just as he had when he'd shoved Justin out of the tree house to his death weeks earlier and he tearfully told them that he had accidentally shot his father.

One of the deer hunters went to check things out and when he returned a little later looking sick and pale they ushered Cody into their truck and sped to town. The entire time Cody cried and pretended to be distraught even though he felt absolutely nothing at all. It was different when he killed Justin, as he actually had felt a twinge of remorse that time. He didn't want to kill him but Justin had seen what he'd done to the vagrant they'd discovered sleeping in the woods and was threatening to tell someone about it. He didn't quite understand why he had been so insistent on turning him in, he had laughed his ass off when Cody poured the lighter fluid all over the guy and even provided the matches that he had used to light him on fire.

He missed Justin a little but wasn't really that broken up about it so he took the time to do some research on the Internet to see how most people reacted when they lost a close friend. He assumed that everyone bought his act because no one had given him any indication that they thought he had murdered him. He knew that he had his work cut out for him because he knew that it was going to be a lot harder to pretend that he was upset by his father's death. He supposed if all else failed and he was having trouble crying he could think of some sad movies or something to make everyone believe that he was upset over losing his father.

As they pulled into town he thought about the hunting trip. He liked using the rifle and looked forward to using it again in a few weeks during the Christmas parade. He envisioned himself carefully taking aim at the people on the floats and in the crowd from his perch on the water tower and smiled.

"The poor kid must be in shock," the deer hunter on the passenger side commented when he looked back and noticed that he was smiling.

Yes, it's going to be the best Christmas parade ever. Too bad Dad won't be there to see it. Cody thought as he looked out of the window.

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Reviews

DjGerray Jan 30, 2019

definitely worth every star!!

Nikki Jul 24, 2012

The part where Cody asks if he can hang the kill on the wall reminded me of Daddy's little girl... Nice story

Gary Apr 28, 2012

I liked the concept of the story although it was hard to remember if Cody or Clint was the father or son. Also, there's a flaw in the story. Nobody hunts deer at night. Unless you count poachers but I don'tthink that the hunters that helped Cody were also

Maggie Apr 20, 2012

That was a very unexpected ending! I liked it a lot

Dewi Mar 7, 2012

very nice story

Xander Mar 2, 2012

That one caught me of guard! Well done!

Xander Mar 2, 2012

*off

Todd Martin Feb 9, 2012

Thanks Diana and Geeta (and everyone else who gave the story such a great review), you guys rule!

Geeta Feb 8, 2012

Ah its a good one.. keep up the good work..

Diana Feb 7, 2012

Creepy...and unexpected. I liked it a lot ;)

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