This Is Who We Are

by Matt Christiansen

for it to settle. As it finally dissipated, a small figure could be made out as the dust swirled in the rays of light pouring through the ruins. Both boys immediately ducked in recognition, Killer daftly following suit.

  “Dude! It’s a sasquatch!” Mo whispered frantically.

  “Of course there’s a sasquatch…” Lee whispered back, exasperated. He slowly and silently rose and peered over the fallen tree the boys had taken shelter behind. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me…” he went on, a tone of realization suddenly creeping into his voice. “Of course… it all makes sense!”

  “What makes sense?” Mo inquired, his voice barely audible as he, too, peered out at the remains.

  “See that matted down pile of weeds over against that wall? And that one up over there on that second story where the near wall is collapsed? They’re nests…” Lee whispered. “The sasquatches nest here! Gorillas do the same thing in Africa.”

  “That actually makes perfect sense,” whispered Mo, suddenly noticing a dozen or so matted down areas in the vegetation in and around the monastery. “It’s so secluded around here because everybody thinks it’s haunted. Nobody ever comes back in here so logically this would be where they nest. The ruins must provide some shelter from the weather, too.

  “So whadaya think?” Mo continued, “do we go check it out or do we back off?”

  “Well, I think as long as we keep our eyes peeled we can go check it out. How about, if anything happens we meet back at that giant redwood tree up there?” Lee suggested, pointing up to a towering tree on the crest of the ridge.

  “Deal,” replied Mo, rising silently from where they had crouched. The sasquatch had disappeared and the boys slowly made their way into the clearing. They made it not five feet from where they had huddled when a single enormous sasquatch appeared through the gate of the monastery. This was the biggest sasquatch either of the boys had ever seen, standing at about six feet and having enormous girth. The boys immediately froze and as they watched they were gradually surrounded by the beasts, the shear number of which they had never seen before. The monastery was crawling with them.

  Lee slowly began to reach for his knife, but Mo slowly shook his head.

  “There’s waaaaaaay too many to take on, we’d both get mauled to death” Mo said through clenched teeth, barely audibly. “We can’t win this one. Maybe if we had the cover of the trees…”

  Lee smiled. “On “go”…” was all he said as he reached slowly into Mo’s bag, his hand emerged with two cans of Mountain Dew.

  The air seemed to hold it’s breath as Lee hurled a can of Mountain Dew end over end straight up into the air. The eyes of every sasquatch (and Killer) followed the can upward as it caught the glint of the sun. Slowly it stopped its ascent and began to plummet down toward the monastery. As it crashed into the stone floor amidst the beasts it erupted, spraying the animals with Mountain Dew and causing an uproar the likes of which the boys had never heard.

  As the can struck the ground, Lee hurled the second can at the largest sasquatch, striking him squarely between the eyes and causing it to burst like the first can. As the can connected he bellowed “GO!”

  The boys took off into the woods, not stopping to see if they were being followed. It was not until they got halfway up the hill that they stopped and peered back through the woods. They presently heard footsteps and, knowing the drill, the boys immediately began to search the forest floor for sticks or manageable logs. Having been chased by sasquatches before, they now knew that an ambush attack was by far the most effective tactic.

  The boys each took a tree to hide behind and waited. Killer, the bait for their ambush, continued to charge up the hill. As the footsteps grew closer, the boys poised and as Lee’s sasquatch crossed first, he swung with all his might and connected with the brute squarely in the face. Almost instantaneously, Mo’s crossed and he delivered a swift blow to the chest. The boys then fell back, charging further up the hill, dropping behind trees after about fifteen feet.

  They continued to make their way up the hill in increments varying between fifteen and twenty feet, wearing their opposition down. Killer, who had now reached the crest of the hill, seemed to realize what was going on and sat, perched atop the hill, yelping and howling as if enticing the pursuers to come and get him.

  The sun was streaming through the woods as Moses and Lee made their stand against the sasquatches. Dust was floating lazily in the bright sunny air and were it not for the raging battle taking place, the wooded hillside would have been the very definition of serenity. The boys fought valiantly, working their way backwards up the hill. The sasquatches were relentless and overtook the boys on a couple occasions.

  When their tactical plans disintegrated they would unsheathe their knives, fighting valiantly and fending off ruthless attacks. They would try first to injure the beasts, never going initially for the kill. They fought tooth and nail and would only take the kill if the beast would not back down. They would fight until the wave had been beaten back and would then resume their guerilla tactics.

  Finally, as the boys reached the top of the hill the sasquatches had begun to tire of repeatedly being bashed and gave up their relentless assault. The boys sat atop the crest of the hill, panting and gazing down at their new discovery.

  “Man,” said Lee, cracking open a remaining can of Mountain Dew, “that got kinda dicey…”

  “Yeah,” wheezed Mo, following suit, “that was like Bunker Hill! How many waves do you think we fought off?”

  “Dude, I lost track…” Lee paused to sip his can. “I say if anybody asks, we didn’t find anything. It’s not fair to the monastery or the sasquatches if there are swarms of people around.”

  “Good call,” Mo said, a smile crossing his face, “not that anyone would believe us anyways. Any other day I’d say we should go check out the damage we did and maybe bring back a body, but I think we’ve both earned a break.”

  - The Kings of the Pacific -

  The stars began to emerge from the abyss of the dark Pacific sky as Lee hunched over the pile of wood on the beach. To the west, the gradient of the sky faded into a pastel orange where the sun had finished its descent. The hulking structure of the Pier loomed in the gathering darkness as the small congregation of silhouettes sat talking amongst themselves. There were three surf boards propped up against the Pier’s gargantuan support beam and half a dozen bikes strewn about in the sand. Suddenly the deepening shadow of the structure was scattered by an orange light as Lee leapt away from the fire pit.

  “Got it!” he said triumphantly as he gazed at the fire from a safe distance.

  Fire was one of Lee’s gifts, a skill that he had perfected out of necessity in the jungles of the Congo. He turned and searched for an open spot on one of the three logs rolled up to the fire pit. As he located and started toward a gap on the log, he heard the sound of an acoustic guitar begin to pick gently in the night.

  “Nice fire,” Mo’s voice came from across the blaze.

  “Yeah, nice work. It’s sick,” came a few other voices from around the circle.

  Lee smiled, the light from the fire catching his dreadlocks, reflecting the varying shades of brown, black and a couple deep reds.

  As the fire grew brighter and the night grew darker the conversations would rise and fall, broken here and there by the serenades of the acoustic guitar, wielded by a boy named Jordan. While Moses could easily have played circles around Jordan, he was content to listen and gaze into the fire while stealing shared glances with EmJay from across the circle.

  “Hey Mo, I heard that NoCal is gonna compete in the Kings of the Pacific,” came a voice after a temporary lull in the conversation.

  Not seeing who had spoken, Mo replied without moving his gaze from the bonfire. “I hadn’t planned on it. It’s in San Fran isn’t it? Did you want to, Lee?”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Lee replied from across the circle.

  “No they changed it, it’s a totally d
ifferent setup this year,” the voice answered. “It’s in the back room of The Pub now and there’s only going to be four bands.”

  “It’s at The Pub?” Lee asked skeptically. The Pub was the local combination bar and music venue in town and was hardly big enough to house a mid-sized concert, let alone a battle of the bands.

  The voice replied smoothly, “Yup, there’s three bands already and rumor has it NoCal is the fourth.”

  As Moses and Lee pondered in silence, Mo strained to see the face of whoever was speaking. As he squinted in the direction of the voice, he saw a hooded figure sitting at the edge of the circle of logs. As he studied the figure he could make out no facial features, only what seemed to be a mask.

  With a sudden twinge Mo realized that the masked and hooded figure hadn’t been there earlier and seemed to have appeared out of the darkness. With the unsettling realization of the mysterious figure, he abruptly demanded, “who’s asking?”

  “Your better,” came the voice, now chillingly hostile. The figure sat motionless as all of the side conversations instantaneously died.

  “Uh, what?” Lee asked sharply from the other side of the fire.

  The figure rose silently and continued, “Did I stutter? Unless you’re scared to get torn apart at the Kings of the Pacific we’ll see you Wednesday night at The Pub.” The figure then slunk back into the