by Josh Olsen
“Dad would never have gone for it,” he thought. “Too good for people like us,” he’d say.
Mind swirling, Nate breathed out into the steam of the shower, remembering. Images filled his conscious conjuring up memories long forgotten.
Summer, back on the farm.
If you could call it that. Nate’s parents’ land hadn’t yielded a profitable bounty of crops in years. The soil had gone sour, right around the time his father had picked up the bottle again.
Back then, Nate’s grandmother would have had him believe it was the work of God. Some unseen deity punishing his father for living in sin.
Nate had never really bought into that, but if some God up in the sky was making his mom go hungry just cause his dad drank too much, he didn’t want any part of him.
“New boots.” he had said proudly to his father, holding the box out for him to see.
The thin paper crinkled loudly in the box as the fine leather soles shifted in the cardboard container.
“Just like yours! The same brand!” Nate had said, pulling them excitedly from the box.
Carefully, he scanned his father’s expression as he set them upon the ground.
“I was saving on the side for something. I couldn’t quite figure out what, but I saw these today and they had my size!” Nate said.
His father’s expression still mostly blank, sat slumped back in his chair, a bottle swayed lazily in his fingers, brushing the carpet as it hung low, swinging back and forth.
All at once, his dad shot up in his chair. A scowl worn on his face. The glass bottle fell, bouncing and rolling on the stained carpet.
“That what you think?” His dad warbled out,
“Think you’re better than me? Your old man? Just cause you got some shiny new clothes?” His dad wobbled on the ground, stumbling forward.
“Well boy, nice things don’t mean shit. Ain’t for people like us. Know why? Cause we’re the poor folks, the scum of the earth. You better wrap your head around that real quick.”
Snatching the boots from the floor, his father rumbled out towards the front door.
Nate followed, watching helplessly, fearing to fight back. Whatever his father might do if he pissed him off would be much worse than whatever was about to happen to his new boots.
The rusted screen door rattled and shook as his father kicked it open. With a drunken grunt, his father heaved the boots through the air into the muck of the pig pen.
Nate fought back tears that burned his eyes with salt.
“Shit. Just like us.” his father laughed weakly before turning back inside.
That was Dad’s way, looking down on others that had more. The way the wealthy looked down on the poor. “What in the hell do they need all that shit for anyway?”
“Too good for simple life? What more does a man need?”
All these years later and his Dad’s words still echoed in his head. All he’d accomplished, all he had, and his fathers words burned inside his head and made him feel that he had nothing.
“Maybe, he was right after all these years” Nate thought to himself. His voyage through the deep thoughts hidden in his mind was interrupted by a knock at the bathroom door.
“Dad?”, through the hiss of the shower he could barely make out Wyatt’s voice,
“Dad, we’re going to that hiking trail the front desk clerk told us about.” he heard Wyatt’s voice again.
“Alone? The hell you are!” Nate shouted through the noise of the shower.
“Dad! its not that far from the lodge and Owen is coming with me too, you were the one just yelling at us telling us not to fight, there’ll be other people out there too.” Wyatt shouted back.
The yelling had taken Nate out of this rare moment of thought and self reflection. A moment he seldom had. And had thrusted him back into his life of constant irritation and anger.
“Alright, but stay on the trail and watch your brother, and both of you bring your coats!” Nate yelled back.
He could faintly hear his son acknowledge as he heard him walk away. His head sticking out of the shower, Nate noticed a few bottles on the bathroom counter, liquor, from the mini bar. Nate swiped them off the countertop, returned to the shower, and turned up the heat.
Chapter 6
The boys snow boots crunched across the frozen snow into the woods, laces flopped back and forth with each step, the heavy snow clumping together on them as they walked. The tall pines encased in blankets of snow surrounded them more and more with each step.
“Are you sure Wyatt?” Owen asked his eyes panning the tops of the trees, scanning.
“Yes, for the last time bears don’t hide up in trees, quit being such a pussy.” his brother shot back.
Wyatt’s words stung Owen, and he fought back tears that would surely freeze, still scared, Owen choked out. “Yeah you’re probably right.”
“Wyatt too now?” he thought to himself, he had felt his parents grow more distant this past year, they always seemed busy, irritated, always in a hurry. Now his brother had adopted the same irritated and rushed demeanor as his parents. He would hardly even talk to his brother anymore outside of rides to school and in between. But as cruel as his brother could be to him, he couldn’t lose him too. “I just want my brother back” he’d think to himself, “I just need to be his friend”
They continued down the trail, Wyatt constantly swatting hanging tree limbs with a stick that he’d found, ambushing Owen with a downpour of frozen snow detaching itself from the tall trees.
“Wyatt!, stop!” Owen pleaded.
“What? I’m just testing for bears.” His brother shot back with a snide grin.
“Wya….” Owen started, but choked. Tears welling up in his eyes.
They were a few miles deep in the woods now, the tall timbers obscuring the light that the early winter sun tried desperately to punch through the gray clouds. This, combined with the melting snow that had found its way inside Owens coat was too much.
“I told you,” Wyatt started, “Quit being a pussy or I’m leaving you out-,”
Wyatt stopped and turned seeing his brother on his hands and knees sobbing. His little brother’s meager crying sucked the edge right out of his attitude,
“Owen,…Owen knock it off, what the hell are you crying for?” “Here, you want the walking stick?”
His brother didn’t respond, and continued crying. Wyatt approached his brother,
“Hey listen, I’m sorry about the snow and I didn’t mean to scare you either.”
“It’s not that.” Owen gurgled out between chilled tears. “I…I thought this trip would fix everything” he continued.
“Fix what? what are you talking about?” Wyatt asked.
“The family. Our family. We, we always have fun on this trip, but Mom’s gone all the time and Dad doesn’t ever talk anymore, they’re going to get divorced, and you, then you’ll leave too. Owen sobbed out.
“Hey,” Wyatt spoke back, more serious this time. “They aren’t getting divorced, parents fight, like all the time, there are people out there who never even knew their parents, and they aren’t on the ground crying and me? I’m not going anywhere what the hell are you talking about?”
He had gotten Owens attention, his younger brother had turned up to look at him and had wiped some of the tears off his face. “Are you sure?” Owen asked softly.
“I’m sure,” Wyatt stooped, leaning closer to his brother. “You’re 14 now Wyatt. Enough of this kid shit, things are gonna be fine, come on, lets keep going, I see a cool looking clearing over there.” Pointing off the trail aways, he stooped and grabbed his brothers hand helping him up. “Lets go.”
They continued on. Owen saw it almost immediately. Wiping away the chilled tears from his eyes, Wyatt was right, there was an interesting clearing, just another few yards down the trail and 50 or more feet off the trail. Strange looking, supernatural even, the trees, yet thick around the clearing left an entirely untouched circle shaped piece of land in t
he middle of it, despite the lack of trees and other shrubbery, the clearing was faintly, if even, lit. It was almost visibly darker than the rest of the forest.
Owen immediately grew a disdain for it, but he couldn’t get anything out before Wyatt hopped over the snow bank defining the trail boundary and yelled back to him.
“Come on!”
Owen quickly followed, his stomach a pit of anxiety, but it was either follow Wyatt or be left on the trail all alone in the woods.
The boys crunched their way through knee-deep snow to the clearing, filling the gaps between their snow pants and boots with sharp, scratching, frozen snow. Trenching around buried rocks and other hidden dangers of the forest, concealed under the blanket of ice, they trudged further forward to it.
Wyatt reached the clearing first with Owen close behind,
“Wow,” exhaled Wyatt, his breath still short from the walk. He gazed all around the small clearing into the darkness that the pines hid.
“This is actually kind of creepy,” Wyatt laughed, staring in awe into the dark abyss of the frozen timber. Owen had almost reached his brother when something caught his eye, he quickly whipped around to see, but found nothing, just the empty quietness of the deep woods. The trees rustled above. Snow swirled downward toward the forest floor, bouncing off outstretched limbs of the pines, obscuring the light that trickled through from high above.
“Owen” he heard his brother call, “Come on you’ve got to se-“ Wyatt’s voice was cut short and followed by a bloodcurdling scream. Owen snapped his head back to the clearing quickly horrified by what he saw.
Some thing, some creature, had appeared in the clearing right next to Wyatt. Its figure obscured by the shadows, Owen could make out its hideous unearthly like body, it walked on all fours, its muscular legs covered in patches of faded fur, pounded the frozen tundra with its feet, enormous paws with large claws protruding from each foot, pounding with each step, circling Wyatt.
Its long snouted head, opened to show rows of rotting shark like teeth letting out an ungodly snarl. Its spindly tail leaving a snake like trail in the thin layer of powder on the ice.
Both boys paralyzed with fear, watched the gruesome creature move with terrifying precision. Its rotten jaws snarling, poisoning the winter air with its hot, foul breath.
“Owen!” Wyatt started but couldn’t finish. As soon as he’d made the first sound the beast’s mouth opened wide, emitting an ear piercing shriek. Without warning it reared up on its hind legs and plunged its icy claws into Wyatt’s chest. The sound of claws penetrating flesh brought vomit to Owens mouth. He tried to cry out to Wyatt, to scream but his crushing fear crumpled his voice box until all that left his lips was a choked whisper.
Wyatt screamed and gurgled, his mouth filling with blood. The beast lifted him higher until it was standing fully on its hind legs, holding Wyatt high in the air, it pinned him against one of the tall trees. Its claws sinking deeper into his torso, Wyatt screamed grabbing the beasts claws, his legs kicking violently in the air. Blood spewing from his mouth, he turned to Owen outstretching one of his arms.
“Owen,” he gurgled. “Run!”
It was then the beast turned and noticed Owen, its stared into him and let out a loud shriek. Drowning out Wyatt’s dying screams.
The thing turned back to Wyatt turning its head and opening its jaws on Wyatt’s neck, Owen turned away screaming, “Wyatt!” “Oh God!”
Wyatt’s shrieks of pain were quickly cut off by a ghastly snapping sound. Owen didn’t see what happened next, he was off, sprinting frantically into the army of trees. He ran through the thick wood, slipping on snow and narrowly dodging tree limbs, his vision obscured by tears pain and utter terror. He wouldn’t turn back, but he could hear it now. The pounding, the heavy pounding the beasts enormous paws made, just as it had when it had circled his brother.
He ran as hard as he could, the thing was right at his heels, that he was certain of. The tears and cold blinding him, he wasn’t sure if he was running towards the trail or not. The pounding grew louder and closer, he could now hear its heavy breath. Gasping for air in this thin, suffocating altitude, he sprinted frantically, when he felt a sharp pain in his leg.
“Not a cramp, not now, dammit!” He thought, running as fast as he could possibly move, knowing his life was being held in the balance.
Just as he realized that he couldn’t possibly run anymore his forward extended foot caught nothing but air, followed by his back foot. As he fell off this sudden drop, he felt a tugging at his coat, followed by a tearing sound of the fabric as he fell. One of the beast’s claws had nearly found him. He hit the ground below the drop, luckily only 7 or so feet down.
But he didn’t stop. Sliding faster and faster he found himself sliding down a steep hill, wiping the tears and frozen snow out of his eyes as he slid, trying to see. Terrifyingly, realized he was sliding down backwards. He squinted to see he was leaving a dark trail of blood in the snow as he slid, had he hit his head? He frantically felt around the top of his head horrified, but he was relieved to find that when he looked up to the overlook that he did not see the beast.
Still sliding, and growing faster , Owen moved his arm and dug his hand sharply into the hard snow. He spun himself around, now facing the steep hill he was careening down. As he spun, his arm caught one of the pine trees rooted deeply in the steep side of the mountain. Sickeningly, he heard an audible snap, as his other arm was jerked sharply backward and broken at the elbow. This was too much, the darkness surrounding his eyes encased him and Owen passed out. His limp body slid further down the icy hill.
Chapter 7
“Where are they?!”
Nate, eyes spun,dazed, his head splitting from the shrill voice. Squinting in the light, he tried to discern who was screaming at him. Nate pushed his face of the flat, rough bedroom carpeting, his vision coming into focus. Drained bottles lay to his side, a nearby pool of vomit greeted him with its presence, assuring him it was his. Head stinging, Nate stood up and squinted,
“Ashley,” he moaned, “What the fuck do you want?” clutching his head, desperate to stop the stinging.
“Nate.” the blur, with the shrill, piercing voice talking to him. “Where the hell are the kids?”
Nate’s head spun, as he tried to formulate a response.
“They, err…they went on a hike” he mumbled out,
“Nathan!” she screamed, it is 5 AM! Where are the kids?!” Confusion and panic engulfed Nate, snapping him out of his haze temporarily. Glancing at the clock, he yelled back
“You mean they aren’t back yet?!” “Oh God.” “Ashley!” He yelled, stumbling as he stood up, falling downward, nearly vomiting. “We, we need to go to town.” Nate said frantically smacking his pockets, “My keys, God Dammit, where are my keys?”
Ashely retorted, “You can’t drive you drunk-“ she started but was pushed out of the way by Nate, clutching his keys and racing out of the room nearly crashing into the closed door. “Nate!” “Come Back Here!”
He ran, the dimly lit hallways seemed to span endlessly, the faded carpet pattern mocking him as he ran, its repetitiveness nearly tricking Nate into believing he had gone the wrong way.
Panicked and gasping for breath, he stormed the elevator door and slammed the button,
“Come on, Come on” “Fuck!” Nate yelled, pounding the elevator door, The door opening almost precisely as he bashed it. The metal doors slid open to reveal a packed elevator, full of drunk college kids, laughing, giggling.
“Shit!” Nate yelled, the college kids jumped, startled and confused by him. He frantically ran towards the stair well, descending them with the grace of a bull.
