Emulating Connell: A Twist to the Ending of “The Most Dangerous Game”

By Jodi Mata

Rainsford peered his head around the brick corner of the library checking for Jezzi Bell, the local news reporter, who was supposed to meet to collect his statement in order to put together the last piece of evidence required to put General Z away.  Once she had a reliable source, she could give the truth to the police.  It did not matter how many times he called the detective originally assigned to the case, his secretary would send him straight to voicemail.  His friend’s sister was a clerk in the county building and said that her colleagues told jokes about him in the break room.  They laughed at his fuzzy beard, said he had wild eyes, and thought maybe his lack of transportation was what put him over the edge.  It was true that he felt confined after smashing his Jeep, but that was no premise for them to call him a kook.  If a random person came up and confessed they were being hunted by a madman who had already taken down multiple people during deer season he would think they were crazy too.  There were a lot of hunting accidents in the Harrison are state lands, and Rainsford alone had no proof that there was a serial murder behind of any of them.  

Rainsford squinted in the waning light of dusk, attempting to make out General Z’s sniper rifle scope high atop the section of downtown strip mall that was Chemical Bank. In his mind’s eye Rainsford saw General Z with his stealth gear on, menacing grin on his face, and barrel of his gun leveled and focused at his head, but his actual eyes did not see the murderer and this made him even more uneasy.  A scrape and a click sounded in Rainsford’s ears as he felt something press into his back through his army brand camouflage. At first, Rainsford was sure he would die in moments, but on a second thought, he knew General Z would not shoot him point blank.  He would send Rainsford out in order to hunt him again. Stiff-backed but calm, Rainsford did a slow about-face to confront his menace.  But General Z’s explosive grey hair and out of control mustache was absent, and instead, Jezzi Bell’s chocolate eyes, hard with determination stared back at him.  Her sleek mocha hair was tied in a tight bun and her firm arm was held outstretched with a tape recorder the size and shape of a Wii controller in her hand.  

Rainsford scowled vigorously shaking his head.

Women! He thought.

In a voice that echoed out over the two lane paved road, Jezzi Bell greeted him happily.

         “Hello Rainsford.  I see you are up to your usually sneekery, but there is…”

“Shhhhht!” Rainsford hissed angrily.  “He will HEAR YOU!”

Jezzi Bell rolled her eyes dramatically, placed her hands on her slim hips clad in seductive black pants, and knowingly ordered him.

“Come with me” she demanded.  

The two crossed the street awkwardly, him crouching low as if to balance himself for an earthquake shudder or overhead bombing, her strutting across with ease, flip-flops smacking the asphalt.  She stopped just around the back corner of the strip mall, a parking-lot away from a Family Video, placing her hands on her hips again.  Rainsford sneaked up behind her, looking over her shoulder, sure it was a trap of some sort.  A dead carcass of a deer maybe with a knifed letter into the side, or an MRE wrapper placed strategically under a rock, would take their attention away from the murderer in his hiding place.  Rainsford, made a low swoop like an Indian dancing around a fire at a pow-wow, surveying the perimeter.

“Look! You kooky old turd!” Jezzi-Bell exclaimed, pointing her recorder at something on the ground.  Even more irritated, Rainsford straightened and looked.  

“See…” She crooned.  “It is over now.”

General Z’s lifeless carcass twisted awkwardly on the side of the building in a crimson pool of blood.  His skull was smashed in behind his right temple and bright droplets of blood were spattered across the ATM.  General Z had his sniper rifle still around his chest and a necklace of teeth around his neck.

Evidence, Jezzi Bell thought.

Victims, Rainsford’s mind raced.  

For the first time in months, Rainsford relaxed.  He let his arms fall down to his sides, recognized the wind skirting through his hair, long on his neck, smelled the oncoming night as a world of life.

Rainsford looked Jezzi Bell straight in the eye. “I knew he was up there all along.”

“Oh yeah?” She asked.  “How?”

“Cause I was the better hunter all along.” He grinned, pulling a string of human teeth from his flak vest pocket.