Overview
Hunters is the opening short story in Quarterlives. It follows the narrator, his housemate Blake, and Alice, a student he meets during jury duty, as a shared interest in running and occult ritual turns into a private worship practice.
The story is set mainly in contemporary Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley in the early 2020s.
Plot
The narrator meets Alice in 2022 while serving on a jury in Westwood. He is working at a medical office, living with his longtime friend Blake in a Reseda bungalow, and feeling that ordinary life does not offer enough. Alice is an art history undergraduate with an interest in horror, and the narrator is immediately drawn to her.
After Alice visits the house, a conversation about monsters, running, and the thrill of being chased leads to a proposed shared sexual pursuit scenario. The narrator worries about the legal risk and records Alice explaining what she wants. Blake brings out a cast effigy of Glycon, an ancient snake deity, and the narrator marks Alice before the first chase.
The three repeat the practice. Alice usually leaves soon afterward, while the narrator and Blake become increasingly preoccupied with the hunts. The narrator later offers himself as quarry for Blake, and their relationship becomes sexual while remaining outwardly domestic.
Alice returns during the day and says she believes Glycon has helped her career after she receives a lucrative client opportunity. The narrator explains that he and Blake first became interested in Glycon during a college history unit. After the narrator and Alice become closer outside the chase ritual, Blake decides that the group should seek favor through a more formal sacrifice.
Blake wakes the narrator at night and drives him and Alice, both hooded, to a remote desert cave. There he has prepared candles, a ritual meal, and a caged animal that appears to be a coyote. The three mark one another, pray to Glycon, and Alice kills the animal as a sacrifice. The narrator experiences the ritual as a binding act of devotion among the three of them.
Afterward, the narrator describes apparent good fortune. Alice’s work with a wealthy sculptor’s daughter becomes financially successful, the narrator leaves the medical office for machine-learning startup work, and Blake begins a serious relationship with an actress. The three continue private sacrifices every six months under a cover story about a college retreat. Alice becomes the group’s high priestess and plans a greater ritual involving people in Los Angeles.