They had been friends since when they first met, and tried to get together for hunting and fishing excursions, along with family gatherings with their wives and children, on the holidays or whenever possible. Carl tried to avoid calling him Buzz too much, though, as Brian seemed a little sensitive to the controversial nickname. Brian viewed himself as a professional, strictly-by-the-book pharmacist, and not someone who would dispense painkillers for fun or recreation.
The two of them finished their breakfast at 5:30 AM, with Brian picking up the tab and leaving a $6.00 tip on the table for Wendy.
“Thanks for buying the breakfast, Buzz.”
“No problem, Grizz. We better top your truck and cans off with fuel before we hit the road for Circa. I heard that the price of fuel there is outrageous, and there’s only one fuel pump in town!”
“Agreed,” replied Carl. “I’ll pull up to the gas pumps, fill them up, which should easily give us plenty of gas for our trip.”
The two of them started to feel some excitement engulf them, in anticipation of their traveling hunting trip up the Reese Highway toward Circa and the approaching caribou hunt that they were about to embark on. Carl finally finished fueling and they were on the road at 5:45 AM, and hoped to be in Circa by 9:00 AM.
“I may have to make a few pit stops in the bushes along the way,” quipped Brian as they left Fairville. “I drank a lot of coffee this morning, and I am sure it will pass through me fairly quickly.”
“Not a problem at all,” replied Carl. “There are plenty of places to pull to the side of the road on the Reese. I’ve hauled a load or two with my Peter built to Circa on a few occasions, and there are no houses and often no traffic for many miles, just nothing but trees, meadows, mountains, and wilderness. It’s paved for the first fifty miles before narrowing and turning into a dirt road for the last 150 miles. We also just need to keep an eye out for moose hanging out near the roadside when were driving. They can sometimes run or leap out in front of oncoming vehicles, and it’s hard to see them when it’s dark, especially with all the corners and sharp turns that the road has as it winds through the mountains. Moose are often unseen in the dark, just right around one of those sharp turns!”
Brian hit the load button on the CD player in Carl’s truck and dropped in a Hank Williams Jr. CD.
“Then I guess we better play some good music to help carry us safely through, and help us feel and see the road, dude,” quipped Brian.
“Fantastic!” exclaimed Carl. “It’s very difficult to receive radio stations on this road, and usually lose them all after going over Hawk Summit.”
“No one is happier than me, hearing that the weatherman was predicting good conditions on the summit,” said Brian. “I’ve never driven over it at any time during the winter, but only once in the summertime many years ago, and even then, I got a little spooked and nervous when getting too close to the edge of the road. I remember that it seemed like a long way down to the bottom, if someone were to accidentally and tragically slide off the edge!”
“That actually happened to a truck driver who drove for our fuel company, about ten years ago,” replied Carl. “Around a year before I started working there, so I never knew him, but I do remember hearing the story from coworkers of his tragic accident. His name was John, and he was returning from Circa after hauling and delivering a load of heating oil there. It was in January, the darkest, coldest, and riskiest month of the year to drive this road. He tried to drive his truck back over the top of the summit during whiteout conditions, but instead slid off the side of the road, crashing to the bottom of the mountain. Coworkers were expecting him to spend the night in Circa and return the following day, but he instead came back early, so no one realized that he was missing until it was too late. They found his badly injured and bloody body frozen to death inside his cab, nearly two days later! Authorities estimated that he cruelly suffered for at least twelve hours before mercifully dying from hypothermia!”
“Horrible way to die,” replied Brian. “Horrible!”
Hawk Summit had a peak elevation of 3,800 feet, and was in the center of the Black mountain range, 150 miles from Fairville on the Reese, which could be very unpredictable and dangerous in the wintertime when crossing over. The conditions could be calm and clear, with good visibility one hour and instantaneously change two hours later to high winds, blowing snow, and drifting, with poor visibility and whiteout conditions. The highway was narrow, akin to a small road, and icy on top of the summit, with steep sides that dropped hundreds of feet to the bottom of the valley, and it had no guardrails. Highway maintenance road crews attempted to keep the highway plowed and accessible as often as possible, but sometimes found their efforts a futile attempt, when high winds caused bad drifting, often just minutes after the highway was plowed. On rare occasions, the Reese Highway had been closed for safety purposes or from occasional avalanches.
CHAPTER 2
It was now 8:30 AM, and the darkness from the previous night began to slowly fade away, turning into morning light from a new dawn. Carl and Brian estimated that they were presently within twenty-five miles of Circa, after having crossed over the challenging Hawk Summit twenty minutes earlier; which happened to be clear with no precipitation, and had dry highway conditions, as previously forecasted by the weather report. They were now just one mile away from the beginning of unit 25C, where they could legally begin their hunting trip for bull caribou, providing they each had a permit. The Department of Fish and Game issued just a limited handful of “bull only” permits for the caribou hunt near Circa during February, and Brian and Carl were the first two out of the ten fortunate recipients who received them. It would have been considered a long shot for even one of them to have drawn a permit, but when both of them drew a permit together, it seemed to defy all odds and be a borderline small miracle.
Carl eased his Dodge Ram truck slowly to the side of the small highway and stopped between two small clearings or meadowlands with scattered willow shrubs. “Time to dig our rifles out from behind the seat and put them beside us,” he said. “There’s a lot of caribou activity between here and Circa, and we might get our bulls a lot sooner than we expected. It’s still early, and we’ll take our time, road hunting for the rest of the way.”
“Look at all the caribou tracks in the snow! They’re everywhere and on both sides of the road!” responded Brian excitedly. “I’m going to get out and inspect them for a minute, and stretch my legs.” He stepped down and out of the truck, shutting the passenger door behind him, and immediately took in a deep breath of cool, fresh air, while, at the same time, walking to the front of the truck. He began to study the tracks in the snow, which encompassed him everywhere, searching for the biggest tracks he could see, which would indicate the presence of large bulls.
Carl was quickly behind him after exiting the door on the driver’s side. “Crap!” he barked.
“What’s wrong, Grizz?” asked Brian with some concern in his voice.
“Remember at the restaurant, when I said that I went over our list a hundred times in my mind, being worried that we’d forget something?”
“What did we forget?” asked Brian nervously.
“Well, since we have at least a foot of snow on the ground, it would have been nice to have brought the snowmobile and snowshoes, that I forgot,” murmured Carl.
“Ouch! That could turn out to be an unfortunate mistake for us,” replied Brian. “If it makes you feel a little better, though, I didn’t remember them, either, and I’m supposed to be the guy with the brains. No worries for me, though. I’m sure I’ll shoot my bull near the road, and if not, I can have you pack it out for me.”
“Thanks, Buzz! I’m feeling a little better already, now that you said it like that.”
The two of them began to laugh as they turned to walk back toward the truck, then Brian quickly stopped to gaze at unusual-looking tracks in the snow ten yards away and to his left, which he spotted from the corner of his left eye. They stood apa
rt, appearing different from the other caribou tracks that they were studying just moments earlier, which was what caught his eye and seized his attention. He waded through the knee-deep snow to the tracks and discovered a single set of tracks, spread approximately five yards apart, heading toward the direction of Circa. “Come take a look at these weird and unusual-looking tracks, Carl. Whatever made these seemed to possibly be moving at a high rate of speed. I’ve never seen any animal tracks like these before, ever! And they look really fresh, too. Possibly made sometime during the night.”
“Oh step aside and let the track expert come take a look at them,” said Carl proudly but jokingly. “They’re probably from a wolverine, or were made by a lone wolf.” The befuddled Carl stood over the set of tracks, looking down at them in silence, and quickly began scratching his forehead with his right fingers in disbelief after he saw them. “I’m clueless also. Looks like whatever made them has two legs, stands upright, has a long stride, and runs really fast. Looks like a heavy critter made them, too! Maybe a Big Foot, if that’s possible. If they even exist. If not, I honestly have no idea, because I’ve never seen tracks like those, either.”
“Could be Sasquatch tracks, perhaps?” replied Brian. “They are shaped like the bare feet of a very large man, but also have claw marks over the toes embedded in the snow, similar to those of animal claws. Weird! Let’s take some pictures of them with the camera, and when we return to Fairville in the next few days, we can show them to the Department of Fish and Game, and see if anyone there knows.”
Brian snapped off ten photos of the unknown tracks with his Cannon camera from various angles after retrieving it from the truck, while Carl took five more pictures with his cell phone camera for extra measure, before again wading back through the snow and returning to the truck to continue on with a forty-five-mph road-hunt drive toward Circa. Brian also took many photos of the beautiful distant mountains and surrounding scenery along the way as Carl casually drove, and both of them enjoyed the luscious morning sunrise and the sun’s brightening light shining in their face and eyes, while also intently watching for caribou.
“At this present speed and pace, we should be in Circa by 9:30 AM,” said Carl. “When we get there, I want to go into the store and see if they have any snowshoes to sell, or maybe we’ll even get very lucky and they’ll have a snowmobile to rent also.”
“Well, if they do, I’ll gladly chip in my share of cash for one of them, but if it costs too much, then I vote that we just forget them and hike or wade through the snow to a reasonable camping spot, set up the tent, and begin hunting,” replied Brian.
“That will be a tough hike through knee-deep snow,” said the skeptical Carl. “I was planning on being a mile off the road, but if you’re up for it, Buzz, then what the heck? I’ll give it a try, too. The exercise might do me some good.”
“Let’s go shoot the bull somewhere then,” replied Brian with a chuckle at his witty response.
“Take a look at that, Brian,” said Carl curiously, pointing his index finger in the direction of the passenger-side windshield and toward some nearby spruce trees as he drove around a small right corner in the highway.
“Wow! Let’s stop for a minute and see if they’re all feeding on something,” replied Brian, referring to a flock of fifteen or more ravens just thirty yards off the highway and to their right, with half of them sitting on the branches of two large spruce trees while the other half of the flock were circling and diving down toward the snow-covered forest floor.
Carl slowed his truck down, pulled over to the right edge of the highway, and stopped and shut the engine off after turning the four-way flashers on for safety. Brian quickly and excitedly leaped out the passenger door, threw his jacket on, grabbed his rifle, and waded through the snow toward the ravens, undaunted by the large flock’s loud cackles of protest at his presence, and unwillingness to fly off until Brian was within ten yards of a dead animal carcass that the ravens had been feeding on. Carl seemed less interested in the ravens and more content to stay near his truck and stretch, allowing Brian to do all the work with his investigation. Brian slowly walked up and stood over the moose carcass, which seemed to be approximately one year old, hoping that his inspection would quickly lead him to a cause of death, although he had assumed beforehand that the moose was most likely hit on the highway by an automobile, and walked off and died there soon after.
As Brian looked down upon the carcass, he began to feel nauseous, nearly gagging at the repulsive sight of the horrific, large, gaping wounds all over the bloodstained moose, with the most menacing lethal wound of having part of its throat ripped out, along with the foul-smelling stench from its pierced internal organs, such as part of the stomach and intestines protruding out from apparent claw wounds ripped into its midsection, which the ravens had been pecking away at and feasting on. What could inflict massive, deadly wounds like this? wondered Brian to himself. Only a bear, but they’re presently in hibernation, and this poor moose looks as if it were ripped half apart and killed by something sometime last night, and at this very spot. He walked around the carcass, inspecting the snow, in search for the evidence of predator tracks, thinking that he would discover the tracks of a large grizzly bear that had awaken early from hibernation, or perhaps hadn’t hibernated at all. It’s rare, he thought, but not impossible. But his face turned pale white as he, instead, discovered another set of familiar tracks in the snow, which caught him by surprise and sent a chill down his spine. Imprinted in the snow were the identical and unknown tracks that he had spotted and taken photos of just ten miles earlier, and which Carl had suspected were tracks made from a Sasquatch. Whatever made these tracks seemed to have caught the moose from behind, cruelly killed the poor critter just for sport, and continued on toward the direction of Circa. The moose never had a chancel!
“What did you find out, inspector?” asked Carl, who was still outside and leaning against the front end of his white Dodge truck, after he spotted Brian leaving the scene of the carcass and walking back toward his truck.
“You don’t want to know,” replied Brian hesitantly. “The carcass was a young moose, and it was apparently torn half to shreds by whatever made those tracks ten miles back.”
“The possible Bigfoot tracks that we took photos of?” asked Carl with dismay.
“Or possibly tracks from the Tasmanian devil, because I’ve never seen any animal killed in such a gross way, ever!”
“Well, let’s forget about it and continue on, and hope this occurrence is just some freakish, weird, and once-in-a-blue-moon ordeal.”
“Sounds like a great idea,” replied Brian as they both climbed back into the truck and continued on toward Circa.
CHAPTER 3
Carl drove over the small, one-lane wooden bridge that lay over a frozen creek, which led them into and through the center of the village, and had a “WELCOME TO CIRCA” sign affixed to its top rafter. Their first sight after crossing the bridge, which caught their attention and stood apart from the village, was the massive-sized Yukon River off in the distant background, mostly frozen and snow covered, along with multiple snowmobile trails embedded on top of its snow-covered ice.
They gazed around at the many old, rustic log cabins, buildings, and cottages, along with various small businesses spread throughout the village, like a bed and breakfast business, a meat cutter’s business, a small Laundromat with a “PUBLIC SHOWERS” sign above the front door, a small post office, a public school the size of a small church, an automotive garage business, and a large shed with an opened front, which was similar to that of an airplane hangar and enabled them to see everything parked inside, like a fish wheel used for catching salmon during the summertime, along with several snowmobiles and four-wheelers inside. But they thought it to be odd when the village appeared to have no sled dogs, or at least none that they could see anywhere, and only a few elderly men and women were presently walking the streets, but no children could be seen walking and playing outside.
It also felt strange to them that any automobiles that they expected to encounter in the village appeared to be missing, but only a few four-wheel drive trucks remained. They continued their drive a little farther down the main street of the village, nearing the end now.
Brian noticed the medical clinic building on the right side of the street, at the corner and intersection of another small side street. “I wonder if Doctor Jones is there today,” he said. “I haven’t seen or heard from him in over three years, since his retirement from the medical profession in Fairville. I’ll make sure that I stop in and say hello, or leave a message for him, before our trip back home. I used to fill a lot of his patients’ prescriptions before his retirement.”
“Here’s the store,” said Carl excitedly, as if he didn’t hear a word that Brian just spoke about Doctor Jones or the clinic. He turned the steering wheel to his left and drove into a parking lot that led to a medium-sized log building surrounded by forest trees on three sides, a gas pump affixed at one end of the lot to their left, and an old wood shed at the opposite end of the lot to their right. There was also an old pay phone on the outside of the building, near the front entrance door.
It was the Circa general store, and Brian first noticed the fuel price label on the pump read $7.00 per gallon, and that the fuel gauge on Carl’s truck was now at half a tank, bringing out an instantaneous negative reaction from him. He said, “We drove 200 miles and your truck is already down to half a tank! Wow! Glad we brought those extra gas cans with us. Buying gas here would be a little expensive.”
Carl drove up to the front of the building, put the truck’s transmission into park, and turned the ignition off. They were the only customers in the store’s parking lot at that time. Upon entering the store through an old, thick, wooden door entrance with jingling chimes overhead, Carl, who entered first, began to slowly gaze his eyes around the inside of the shop, trying to spot any snowshoes that might be hanging on a wall for display, while Brian quickly noticed an animal head to his right—a mounted wolf’s head hung high on the top of the left-side wall, near the ceiling, along with a black bear’s and caribou bull’s head, with a set of incredible-sized antlers, mounted beside and to its right. They both also noticed two refrigeration coolers with glass doors straight ahead against the back wall in the rear of the store, stocked with cases of beer and soda, wrapped sandwiches, and packages of hot dogs, near several wooden shelves mounted to the back wall, which were stocked with an assortment of canned foods, candy, and fishing supplies, along with some miscellaneous supplies like tools, ropes, and firearm’s ammunitions. Carl turned his head and eyes toward his left, which was the right side of the store, and noticed another room at the end of a small hallway, which led past the counter and appeared to be a small kitchen, along with a set of stairs that went up to a second level, just before entering the kitchen.
Village of the Full Moon Curse Page 3