Wanna guess who doesn't own the Predator franchise? This chick. This chick right here.

It happened on a Wednesday. This detail sticks only because I couldn't believe something interesting had happened on a Wednesday. Why not a Friday or a Saturday, when I was usually bored and feeling socially obligated to do things? Nothing truly memorable comes from the hump day, besides ridiculous Geico commercials, so of course this was a huge deal for my calendar. And, well, my life in general.

I was out for a run—the first of the season, now that the temps had finally climbed up from below zero—and I recall the amazement I felt at how well my sluggish body had returned to its old habit of rigorous motion. The brisk wind sawed through my lungs, heat pounded beneath my eyeballs and temples, my muscles screamed exultantly, burned rapturously, as they jarred from the impact on the salt-crusted sidewalk. Wisconsin winters tended to kill the connection I had with my body, as it forces even the most hyperactive humans to slow down and succumb to lethargy; the first run was as religious an experience as I ever managed.

Even more so when I find bodies in the trees.

I'm quite picky about my running spots. I hate being on display, so that kiboshes gyms and city streets entirely, but I also hate to get mud and miscellaneous nature skid marks on me. Sweat is bad enough without adding dirt and twigs to the mess. In my (almost) two years on the UW campus, I managed to find a spot that was doable—a nice, nearly quiet stretch of road, about two miles long, between the southeast edge of campus and a massive insurance headquarters. Woods and fields of cattails taller than my 5'6" frame surrounded it. There was still some traffic, of course, but I could deal with it as long as I was given ample opportunity to avert my eyes from drivers. Maybe that's weird, maybe it's biology or psychology or some other -ology, I don't know. Nora claims it's because of my parents, which is definitely a factor that doesn't require a psych degree to identify, but their aftereffects alone shouldn't hinder the basic formality of eye contact.

In any case, it was my stretch of road and sidewalk, and it was perfect for contemplating and organizing my very hectic college life, which was what I was doing before coming nose-to-gory-and-gristly-nose-stub with my lab manager.

Of course it would happen right as I was reminding myself to submit my hours at the lab. I had a terrible tendency to forget the minor act of getting myself paid; my brain had prioritized it after "move 200 dollars to savings" and "find crochet pattern for uterus plush for The Vagina Monologues." It's an odd brain, probably defective. Definitely defective, now that I recall that no scream or frightened moan escaped me upon seeing Jim, my chronically tipsy boss, manager of UWSP's aquatics labs, and Chair of the biology department, strung up by some tinted wire, swaying in the breeze and oozing half-frozen, coagulating blood from his skinless form. Said skin, as far as I could ascertain, was draped in thick chunks across the expanse of the bare branches. Some pieces, heavier with globs of adipose, had fallen to the ground, resembling an overturned tub of half-melted I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. I really couldn't believe it.

It was impressive, to say the least. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to hoist Jim's considerable bulk up to a tree branch; and I knew immediately that it was Jim because strung tight around the stringy cords and raw muscles of his neck was the blood-caked lanyard that held an engraved bottle opener, the thumb-sized portrait of his dead daughter, and the keys to the many labs that he oversaw. Its twin set was currently sitting on the cluttered desk in my dorm room; I knew what those keys looked like. They fluttered and clinked in the frosty breeze like a demonic wind chime. Some blood had dribbled down the set, freezing in some places, and had pooled on the crunchy ground a few feet below his head. His abdominal wall hadn't held up to gravity; ropy lengths of intestine spilled out of his belly and snaked to the ground. Organs may or may not have clung to the cage of his ribs—I didn't investigate that closely. It smelled like a refrigerator full of thawing hamburger. Maybe if I'd eaten breakfast my stomach wouldn't have growled.

I didn't scream. I stopped and stared a bit, yanking out my vibrating earbuds so as to more properly hear the legitimacy of his death, according to my brain's brand of logic. It needed more intellectual space to process whether this was real, and how to weigh the logistics and probability of my boss actually being murdered and subsequently skinned. Subsequently was just an optimistic guess. A rather displaced pang of sympathy clenched my gut at the thought that he may have been conscious during the ordeal. The real question struggling through the muck of my brain was why am I the one to find him? Not who did this or why couldn't they just settle with toilet paper, but why I, of all people, had to stumble across my boss's slushy, red form spewed about like Tarantino's idea of a cherry Slurpee. In the land of Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, it never occurred to me that this was anything more than the work of a human criminal, whose path had now crossed with mine. This was a highly flawed assumption made worse because I was a scientist, and scientists—the good ones, at least, which I strove to be—don't make assumptions.

I added "deal with homicide fallout" after "submit lab hours" and, sidestepping the partially frozen entrails of Jim, continued my run at a somewhat less enthusiastic pace. I told myself that I couldn't afford to slip and fall into the charming puddle of Jim—I'd just bought those new leggings and that Instant Human, Just Add Coffee sweater, which had effectively drained my limited spending account, so it's not like I could just throw them away if they encountered Jim's mess. And the washing machines at the dorms were offline for spring break, which started just two days ago, so it wasn't like I could scrub the bloodstains from them immediately.

About 100 yards from the turn to campus, I wiped something warm and wet off my face and momentarily fretted about getting blood on my new sweater, before realizing that Jim's blood definitely hadn't been steaming in the chilly air. The liquid came off clear. My lungs clenched, choking on something that had nothing to do with the biting wind. I sniffled and slowed to a brisk walk before stopping altogether to exhale shakily, gather my bearings and—

Mother of fuck Jim's dead Jim's dead and skinless and someone crazier than me is out there just chilling in the cattails or lurking in the trees and I'm still out here and what the fuck am I doing just standing here?

Maybe this is what makes people pray.

Something crackled behind me. My hairs were on end already from the cold and made no attempt to stiffen further in my new awareness. Rhythmic, static popping, popping, closer and closer until I realized I had already given up and there was no point in running.

This is what makes people prey.

I was just thinking of putting my phone to use—call the DNR to stop shipments to the lab, call Epic Studios to tell Marge to cancel my piercing appointment, call the police or the fucking SWAT team—when I blearily woke up to a throbbing cranium and black. Just black. Blind black. A black that probably meant death or premature burial.

Then I screamed.

Hey y'all, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Updates will come here and there as my workload allows-and hopefully this will turn out to be a story that people want me to update. That being said, happy (future) reading!