You hear your bedroom door open and your manservant Hubert, enters the room to help you prepare for the first day of an estate hunting party. You've invited all your college friends and some relatives who insist on turning up anyway. They've left their wives at home. This is no party for the ladies.
August 6, 1899
Your friends aren't set to arrive until later in the morning so there's plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast. In the dining room you scold the maid who is dusting, far too slowly for your liking. When she picks up the pace she accidentally knocks a small figurine on the floor, smashing it to bits. It is of no consequence, but the girl is lazy and clumsy and the only reason you haven't sacked her already is that she's a nice bit of squeeze. You assure her that the cost of the item will be deducted from her wages and mentally double the value.
You reach out to stroke the golden pelt and something comes loose. The pelt shifts and suddenly, most likely from the weight of the head, the whole thing comes crashing down upon you.
Suddenly the door opens and someone enters. You turn to see who it is. It's your best friend Charles who looks stunned for one moment and then raising the gun he is carrying, grins, and says, "By Jove, George sure knows how to start a hunt!" and fires. The last thing you hear as consciousness fades is Charles, "Where the hell is George anyway?"
When you come to, you are lying on the floor, you try to lift your head but it feels so heavy from the blow. Eventually you are able to rise to your feet...but... something isn't right...no something is very wrong indeed. You open your mouth to call for Hubert but the sound that emerges isn't that of your voice. You've heard that sound before. And it wasn't in your study.
It is almost 11:00 by the time you leave the dining room. Almost time for the first guests to arrive. Time to hurry. But first, you decide to take a quick turn in your study to admire some of the fruits of past hunts. You enter the large room. There they are, arrayed on the walls... heads, horns, antlers, skins...and your favorite, the lion, his huge head and skin splayed across one wall in pride of place. You remember how the beast charged you while your fellows picked off the females. The feeling of power was like an aphrodisiac.
Hubert brings you your breakfast of coffee, fresh squeezed, (really, is there any other kind? Particularly in 1899?) orange juice, ham, sausages, bacon, eggs, toast, potatoes, and blood pudding. He takes his place just behind your chair to await your orders. You dismiss him, wanting to have some time to savor the thought of the day to come...beating the game out of the bushes, the flash and crash of the guns, the flying fur and feathers, the screams and cries of pain and fear. Ah, the anticipation!
