The Hunting Party

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather calls the owner of the lodge to report the dead body. He reminds her to call Iain, who would have left on New Year’s Eve, to keep him in the loop. Heather notices that Doug’s hand is bandaged up. She and Doug gather the friends to give them the bad news. The narrative reveals that the body was that of one of the female friends. In her former job as a medic, Heather often had to deliver bad news. Now, she analyzes the friends’ reactions to catch any sign of suspicion. Heather’s mother calls to check in with her; Heather had shocked everyone when she left the city to live and work in such an isolated place. Heather likes Loch Corrin because “[h]ere, loneliness is the natural state of things” (144). Heather is escaping her memories and grief over her late husband Jamie, a firefighter who died in a burning home. Heather chose the seclusion of Loch Corrin over suicide, but since losing one of the guests, she feels as if Loch Corrin has morphed into a prison.

The narrative flashes back to New Year’s Eve 2018. Emma and Mark have an active sex life, even though she knows that little romance is left in their relationship. She reveals that she knows about his crush on Miranda but it doesn’t bother her. Emma focuses on the longevity of their relationship. She understands Mark’s abusive past and his anger management issues. He’s never beat her, and she perceives his violence against others as a battle against his past.

Miranda wakes up with bad memories of the night before. She goes for a run and explores the estate. By the waterfall’s bridge, Miranda sees the remnants of what looks to be a fire pit. She stumbles across scorched bones but can’t identify the animal. She hears a keening sound and follows it, searching for a hurt animal. Instead, she finds a man and a woman having sex in the woods. The man notices Miranda and invites her to join. Miranda runs back to the lodge, where Mark apologizes for the previous night. He regrets hurting her but stands by his comments about Julien. Again, Mark attempts to tell Miranda the secret he knows about Julien, but again she refuses to talk about it. She tells Mark that if he touches her again, she’ll kill him.

Katie meets Emma at breakfast and is surprised when Emma exclaims that Katie is bleeding. Later, the rest of the group joins them. Their collective hangovers make them snippier with one another. Katie recalls hearing how Miranda can’t hold a job. While the other friends have lucrative careers, Miranda essentially has nothing. Miranda angers Samira by telling her that no one forced her to have children, but Samira keeps her infamous temper at bay. Mark implies that Nick and Bo don’t want to join the other men for stag-stalking because they’re gay. Angry, Nick cuts down Mark’s lack of logic.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather remembers a night when she first arrived in Loch Corrin. Drunk on wine, she heard a scream pierce the air. She hurried to the lodge, worrying that it was a guest. She ran into Doug on her way, and he assured her that it was a fox. In hindsight, Heather wonders what Doug was doing up that late at night if he wasn’t worried about the scream.

Now, Heather worries about Doug’s past and his injured hand. She knows so little about him. She pulls up his CV, which reports only six years in the marines. She googles his name and immediately regrets finding out about his past.

The narrative flashes back to New Year’s Eve 2018. Doug starts the stag-stalking with target practice, and Miranda is smugly pleased to watch Julien’s difficulty in shooting well. She notes:

“They all care. Even mild-mannered Giles seems to have undergone a personality transplant. Perhaps they’re imagining themselves in some action film or video game. I’m sure that’s it: men reverting to little boys. All the same, it’s a bit weird” (169-170).

Emma is the best shooter in the group, and Doug mentions that women are often the best shooters. As the group walks around the estate, they come across discarded cigarettes. Doug picks up one of the butts and pockets it.

The group reaches the former lodge. The charred remains of the building scar the otherwise beautiful landscape. Miranda complains about the long walk, but Katie knows that if Miranda were a better shooter, she’d be leading the walk. Nick calls Miranda out for complaining. Katie remembers Nick and Miranda’s old argument. When Nick first came out of the closet, Katie told Miranda, and Miranda told Nick’s parents. Even though Nick knew that his parents would be supportive, he was angry that Miranda took that power away from him. Katie spots a man in camouflage through the trees, but he mysteriously disappears. She decides not to tell anyone because she’s unsure that she can trust her perception.

Doug notices the tension in the group of guests even before the issue between Miranda and Nick. Doug figures that the power of holding a gun is making everyone a little more on edge. Doug is disturbed about the cigarette butts—he can’t imagine who would have smoked out in the wilderness—and left the butts behind. Doug spots a deer and creeps with the guests toward it. He has Emma take the shot, and she kills the deer cleanly. Doug doesn’t feel bad about the animal; without some hunting, the population would get out of control.

Emma checks in with Iain about the meat from her kill. He asks her if he can give the heart to Ingvar, who tells Emma that it’s the tastiest part.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather’s Google search on Doug reveals his past arrest and jail time for attempted strangulation. He had nearly killed someone.

The narrative flashes back to New Year’s Eve 2018. The friends get ready for New Year’s Eve night. Katie takes a pregnancy test that comes out positive. Miranda berates her for moping around instead of having fun with the group. Katie feels bad about the hunt. She senses a dark tone in the group now that “[w]e killed something together. We were all complicit, even if Emma was the one who took the shot. We did it for ‘fun’” (190). The friends dine on Emma’s deer. Katie always wondered why Emma didn’t like her, even though Emma tried so hard to get Miranda to like her. Samira suggests playing Truth or Dare. Miranda dares Bo to kiss Mark, which he does. Miranda gets Truth and admits to sleeping with another person at the table besides Julien but doesn’t reveal who. Miranda dares Mark to chug a bottle of champagne. Miranda helps Emma come up with a dare for Katie: to submerge herself in the freezing Loch. Katie does it, if only to hold it against Miranda.

Katie warns Emma to be careful of Miranda. The friends are now drunk and swaying to music. Giles, Julien, and Mark wrestle and break the lodge’s glass coffee table. Emma senses that everything she planned has gone horribly wrong. She’s relieved to see that it’s nearing midnight.

Miranda drunkenly counts down to the New Year. She has a bad feeling that something will go wrong. The clock strikes midnight. Miranda tries to give Julien a kiss but senses a darkness to him that pushes her away. Miranda asks Nick why they haven’t been better friends, and Nick coldly dismisses her question. Bo tries to get Miranda water and she tells him that she’s just drunk, not a junkie, which pushes Bo away. Miranda can see that everyone around her is distancing themselves from her, and she feels very drunk. Miranda takes a break in her room. While she reels from her drunkenness, a man enters the room.

Doug pours himself some whiskey and tries to keep track of time. An explosion outside his window scares him until he realizes that it’s only a firework. Doug recalls a horrible moment from the war. His job as a sniper was to protect the other men from incoming danger, but he hesitated to shoot a young boy strapped with explosives and running straight toward the troop. He froze, and his men died. He can still see the faces of the men who died that day. Doug contemplates going to Heather’s cottage, recalling a time when she had invited him in. Although he fantasizes about hooking up with her, he decides against it.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather asks Doug to explain the incident she found online. He tells her that after a tour in Afghanistan, he was in a bar when a man approached him with a picture of Doug and a fallen soldier named Glen. Glen had been this man’s friend, and he demanded to know how Doug survived the attack that killed Glen. Doug beat the man in the bar so badly that the police had to drag Doug off him. Heather finds the story terrible but somehow logical, especially considering Doug’s PTSD. She wonders if he would have been capable of killing the guest.

The narrative flashes back to January 1, 2019. In the early hours of New Year’s Day, the party starts to wind down and Emma goes to check on Miranda. She overhears Miranda and Giles in a conversation about hooking up years earlier; Giles doesn’t want Samira to know. Miranda starts throwing up but Giles doesn’t help her. As he turns to leave, he sees Emma.

Miranda wakes up at four o’ clock in the morning; her dress is a mess, and her memories of the party have soured. She makes her way back to the lodge. Mark is asleep on a sofa, and the lights of the sauna are on. Miranda hears a piercing scream coming from the sauna.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather overhears a conversation between a male and female guest. They talk about a note and the fear that the death will be pinned on him.

The narrative flashes back to January 1, 2019. In the sauna, Miranda sees Julien engaged in oral sex with Katie. When they see her, Julien scrambles to apologize. Miranda points out that Katie hasn’t been drinking alcohol and accuses her of being pregnant with Julien’s child. Miranda tells Julien not to come back to their room and says that she’ll catch the next train back to London and take care of Julien’s secret insider trading.