March 2021 Contest Winner: A Fox Hunter's Name

That morning, another fox corpse appeared hanging from the gate.

Judah Fa shuddered as he pushed his electric motorbike through. He didn’t like the air around here. It felt too... thick. Sickly and sweet at the same time.

“I saw your doppelganger again today,” the old man who sat by the gate called.

“Oh, yeah?” Judah stopped his steps. “Where is he? I want to go teach him a lesson.”

“Oh, he was eating noodles down the street. You sound angry.” The old man spat on the

ground near his feet.

“Well, of course I am! That jerk stole my bike and tried to pass himself as me at my job! I

only just managed to get this back! I’m lucky I wasn’t fired at the rate he does things.”

“Heh.” The old man grinned. “The things doppelgangers will do. What was your name

again?”

“Fa Judah.”

“Fa You-da?” The old man shook his head. “It’s so hard to say...why must you go by this

Western name? Surely it isn’t the one your parents gave you.”

“For protection, of course.” Judah kept pushing his bike forwards. “Seeing a doppelganger is already bad enough luck. I don’t need anymore.”

“Oh, speaking of protection...” The old man pulled out something from his pocket and

handed it to him. “Here. An amulet. Keep it on you; there’s been more fox sightings lately.”

“Fox sightings?” Judah took the amulet in his hand and looked it over; it was made of

porcelain or china or some sort of cold stone material, and it was shaped like a dog. Foxes hated dogs, he knew.

The old man gestured at the gruesome sight hanging from the gate. “Keep it with you,” he

said. “I have a feeling you’ll need it.”

“Thank you.” Judah put the amulet into his pocket and continued pushing his motorbike

down the street.

This area of the city was quite strange. It mostly consisted of old architecture transformed into modern buildings. Seeing the old slanted roofs next to the neon signs seemed fitting, however. Small businesses thrived. Tourists loved to take photos for their social media during day trips. To enter into this section of town, you came in through the gate at one end. Outside there was a section of wilderness: tall reeds and forest and the like.

Judah Fa had come here a few years ago for university. He’d found a part-time job as an

express delivery worker. Sure, sometimes he turned in his homework late, but they paid him enough for him to eat.

Judah thought again of what would have happened if he had actually gotten fired because of his doppelganger, and was once again filled with rage that burst out when he saw him sitting outside at a table eating noodles.

“You!” he cried. “There you are, you jerk! What do you think you were doing, stealing my

bike?”

His doppelganger jumped up, almost spilling the noodles on himself. He truly looked like

Judah Fa; the same black hair, except long, and the same eyes, nose, face... He looked in every

aspect like Judah, except that he was wearing light blue traditional robes.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Judah ditched his bike against a pole and ran after him. “Come back and look what you’ve done to my bike! You’re going to be paying for the expenses, you know that, right? Hey, get back here!”

His doppelganger, somehow, had darted onto one of the low slanting roofs. He squatted

down to look at Judah.

“Sorry about that, man. I swear, I had good intentions.”

“Good intentions? I nearly got fired! You make a terrible delivery boy!”

“Aw, I thought I did good as you! Give me another chance, will you? I’ll do better tonight- ”

“No.” Judah shot him a glare. “Stay away from me, okay? And don’t touch my bike ever

again! By the way, your tail is showing.”

The doppelganger’s expression changed from disappointment to surprise, and he glanced down at his robes to see the fur peeking out from beneath them. “What the...?”

With another glance at Judah, he scurried off, much like a fox. Judah sighed and went back to retrieve his bike, and began pushing it towards the repair shop. Foxes...he remembered foxes. Foxes and forest and reeds...

It had been a long time ago, hadn’t it? When he was just a child. And there, beyond the

forest...

A sharp pain shot through Judah’s head, and he shook himself. He couldn’t really remember what happened next. There was only a gap there, and a feeling that he had inhaled too much mist.

He dropped his bike off at the repair shop. “You again?” the shop owner asked. “Just what

have you been doing? Chasing foxes? Look at what you’ve done to your tires! And the front

light...oh, my word.”

“I’ve been trying,” Judah sighed. “Sorry about all the work. I’ll take better care of it.”

“You’d better! It pains me to see such a fine bike in this condition.” While waiting for his bike to be repaired, Judah sat down with the old man near the front of the gate.

“You still have that amulet I gave you?” the old man asked.

Judah held it up for him to see. “Of course.”

“Aye, good, good.” The old man nodded. “It’s best to be prepared. You never know when

harm might befall you. You seem like the type of kid to be prepared.”

Judah mentally checked his pockets. “I’m always prepared when I can.”

Across the street was a seller with all sorts of wares, such as jade jewelry, charms, and fox masks. The fox masks were made of porcelain, some plain, some with colored stripes. The seller saw Judah staring and waved.

“You want to buy another one?”

“Another one?”

“Weren’t you the one who purchased a white mask the other day?”

“You must have mistaken me for someone else.” To the old man Judah added, under his

breath: “Must be my doppelganger again.”

“Oh, all right. Even so, would you like to buy a mask? They’ll do wonders for you!”

“I’m good, thanks!” Judah waved the amulet at him. “I’ve got this.”

They settled back into silence again. Judah could smell fresh food coming from down the street, and his stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten anything all day.

“You have a girlfriend, young man?” the old man asked.

“Eh?” Judah thought about it for a moment. “Not that I know of.”

“Kids these days...” the old man sighed. “You look like an eligible youth.”

Judah thought of that girl who sat two rows in front of him in class. Yang Lihua, was it? She

liked to wear a red ribbon in her hair. He’d seen her at the convenience store often when he was making his rounds. She was pretty, and nice, and he had planned to ask her out.

But now her seat was empty. And the convenience store windows were boarded up.

A man stopped by them to hang up a missing poster on the wall. “Have you seen him?” he

asked, though he clearly expected them to say “no”. “He’s the eighth one already in the past three months.”

“Eight people aren’t going to disappear off the face of the earth like that,” the old man said.

“Yes, but there have been sightings afterwards...” The man gave a sigh, and continued on

his way, the posters underneath his arm. “Do alert the authorities if you see any of them.”

The old man spat on the ground again. “I hope you find those people soon, kid,” he said. “This town just doesn’t feel the same anymore.”

“Yeah.” Judah gave a hard stare at the poster, trying to memorize the face of the boy that

was printed on it. “I hope so too.”

He had to work again that night. The moon was red above him as he made his rounds. He

could hear the bare branches of the trees creaking in the distance, their leaves long fallen. Some lonely instrument was playing across town, the neon lights barely illuminating his path as he walked.

The last package was for a tea house that was situated right across the street from the

convenience store where Yang Lihua had worked, still boarded up. He looked through, from force of habit, but as expected, there was no one there.

A bell above the door rang as he entered. The tea house was built in a traditional structure, with two or three floors. It was mostly empty at this time of night, save for a guest in a straw hat

reading a newspaper in the far corner.

“Package,” Judah said, going over to the counter. A girl stood behind it, pouring tea. She was dressed in red and white traditional robes, a red ribbon in her hair.

“Just a moment,” she said before turning. “Yes? A package?”

Judah’s breath caught in his throat. “Lihua...?”

For that was her, her face, her hair, her eyes, her smile. Though...

“Where do I sign?” she asked. “Let me go get a pen...”

“Oh, here is fine.” Judah cleared his throat and looked down. He noticed how long her nails

were as she handled the pen. As she handed the receipt back to him, they scraped his hand. “Thank you. Have a good night.”

“Won’t you stay for a bit?” She caught his sleeve as he turned. “How about a cup of tea? On

the house. You must be tired, running around at this hour.”

“Ah, sure.” Judah took the cup of tea that she offered him. As he brought it up to his lips, he watched her. He wanted to ask her, “Where have you been? What are you doing here? Don’t you work across the street?” And then maybe, “I missed you. I really wanted to talk to you.”

No, something was...off. The way that she glanced at him, the way her lips were a little too

red, how she brushed her hair behind her ear...Yang Lihua would never look at him in that way.

The girl who wore her face grinned at him. “Drink up,” she said. “Or do you want

something else?”

“Oh, I did,” Judah said, setting the cup down, even though he hadn’t let it touch his lips. “It’s good.”

“Really?” She tapped his cheek with those long nails. “I’m glad you think so.” Her eyes were dark, and when he looked into them, it was like staring into a campfire late at

night; mesmerizing, changing, flickering. Her breath was warm, and he could almost taste something sweet on her lips...

She really did look like Yang Lihua. She grinned, and moved away from him, undoing a red striped fox mask from her waist, and put it on him. “How do you like it?”

“This mask?” It was cool against his face. Through the holes he could still vaguely see her. And then, like a rush of mist, it all came back again, that night...

He had gotten lost. And as he wandered there through the reeds, a young woman in blue

robes had found him.

“Are you lost?”

Before Judah could reply, the girl in front of him took the mask back off, and it was all gone again like a breath of wind brushing through the trees.

He was still entranced by her eyes, how they moved with his, catching every single speck of light that reflected in his pupils. “Well?” she breathed.

“Well what?”

“Your name, dear.”

“Heh.” He gave a twitch of a smile. “It’s...”

She waited with bated breath, for the next words that would come out of his mouth.

“As if I would ever tell you, you fox!” And he stabbed her with a knife.

She let out an inhuman shriek, morphing back into the small fox that she was, blood staining her fur. Judah stood there, knife still in his shaking hand, breath gone.