by Geoff North
“He doesn’t realize. He’ll die here on his own.”
They pleaded and pulled some more. Tangle wouldn’t budge. “He knows what happened, Becky. He may be primitive, but he isn’t stupid... This is his home.”
The four started towards the north and turned back occasionally to see if Tangle had changed his mind. He hadn’t. When his huddled form was a black dot on the eastern horizon Abe and Becky stopped again. They waited for a while. When Abe said it was time to go, Becky made them wait another hour just to be sure. Tangle remained where he was.
Abe strapped the spears and axes to his back. Becky slung a hide filled with food over her shoulder. Ann picked up her bones and Boo carried the blankets.
They headed northeast.
Chapter 10
There was no fighting it anymore. Sheila’s mom and dad had disappeared somewhere into Europe after four months hopping around Mexico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. Allan’s mother had left years ago, and his father was buried six feet under the ground in Birdtail cemetery. Abe and Becky were gone for good. Allan and Sheila lived alone in the old farmhouse and there was nothing anyone could do or say about it that would make any difference. And even if they tried to raise concerns that two eighteen-year-old kids were shacked up on a farm they didn’t legally own, those protests would fall on deaf ears.
Allan and Sheila had lived a full year on their own, and they had talked—they had instructed—a lot of people.
The instructions generally went like this: Don’t poke your nose into things that aren’t any of your business… Leave us alone and don’t ask questions…We go where we want, when we want, and nobody will raise a finger to stop us… Do not come onto our property unless we tell you.
Occasionally someone wouldn’t get the message. Traveling salesmen, representatives from the telephone, electricity, cable television, and high speed internet companies, old friends of Sheila’s parents visiting from out of town… people like that. They would show up on the farm unannounced and uninvited. Allan would have words with them on the front porch and they would leave without uttering another word. None of the utilities were cut off because Allan and Sheila wouldn’t pay the bills. In fact, with the correctly chosen words, the young couple insured free services for the rest of their lives.
But things couldn’t remain hassle-free forever. And on the night of September 3rd, 2010, Allan and Sheila found themselves in a situation they couldn’t talk their way out of.
Brad Weibe hadn’t unpacked his hunting rifle yet. Since buying the quarter section bordering the Feerce farm in early spring, his family still had a lot of settling in to do. The big gun wasn’t meant to be touched until November—the beginning of deer season—but something had been into the garbage on the front porch three times in the last week. Brad had said it was a raccoon, his wife thought maybe a fox. But foxes weren’t that daring. Raccoons had enough crazy to dig in garbage cans, and just a touch more to nose their way into houses if the doors weren’t shut properly.
Twelve-year-old Stewart Weibe had settled it for them. He’d seen the ass-end of a three-hundred pound black bear lumbering across the backyard and into the forest a few minutes earlier. Amy had told her husband to be careful as he ran from the house to the garage for the rifle. Brad grinned as he loaded the weapon. Stewart wanted to go with his old man. The kid was halfway across the yard, dressed in his pajamas and barefoot, before his mother’s shouting finally pulled him back to the house.
Mother and son were still waiting on the porch when Brad came back out, the rifle slung over one shoulder. “Which way was it headed, Stew?”
“Through them big spruce trees out back, towards the northwest. You sure I can’t come, Dad? I’ll get my boots and coat. I’ll stay outta your way.”
“Your father shouldn’t be following that thing in the first place. It’s against the law to shoot bears out of season.” This last part was said louder so Brad would hear and hopefully pay attention to as he disappeared around the house.
She was right, of course. There was a pretty hefty fine involved shooting animals off season—especially bears. But the nearest Game Warden office was a hundred miles away, and the closest neighbors that might take offence were three miles east. Brad was heading in the opposite direction. That only left the young couple living on the Feerce farm. He didn’t know much about the two. Nobody in town had said much about them, and Brad and his wife weren’t that interested in finding out. Maybe that young couple were like the Weibe’s. Maybe they’d settled into the rural farmlands because they valued privacy as much as anything else.
Branches snapped to the left. The rifle was in Brad’s hands before he turned and lowered onto one knee. Something black waddled between tree trunks. He took aim and fired. There was a yelp and explosion of movement. Whatever he’d hit started to run. Brad was momentarily blinded by the setting sun. He rubbed his eyes and took aim again but the animal was gone.
“For Christ’s sake,” he muttered. Brad hurried through the brush and litter of dead leaves to the spot he was sure the bear had been hit. He cursed a few more times before spotting a smear of blood against a dead fir trunk. There were a few more drops on the ground ahead. Brad crashed through the last few trees and out into a clearing of hard stubble. In the distance he saw it, kicking up a cloud of dust as it rolled across the open field directly north. At that speed the bear would be onto Feerce property before he could catch up for a second shot.
Brad considered going back for the truck and phoning the young couple for permission to finish the thing off. No, he thought. Bad idea. He considered letting the animal go and head back home. Chances are it wouldn’t return to the Weibe farm after being shot. But he didn’t like the idea of animals suffering either. He had to finish this off, and that meant trespassing on foot. There wasn’t enough time to go back for the truck. He had to keep after the bear while he still had a good idea where it was headed.
Brad loaded another shell and started across the field—towards the line of grey poplar trees bordering the Feerce property.
They’ll never know I was there. What could possibly go wrong?
***
Stewart shouldn’t have lied to his Mom. When he said he was going upstairs to clean his room and have a bath, he should’ve done just that. But instead the boy had slipped into his rubber boots and fall jacket and snuck out the back door. He shouldn’t have lied. But his Dad was chasing a bear! How could he not follow? What if something bad happened? What if the gun misfired and that big black thing went after his Dad? It was times like this when a kid could really prove himself.
And then there was the whole bloodlust thing. That was pretty cool too. Stewy—as a few of the boys in his grade four class called him—would have a great story to tell as well. This was a huge opportunity to make even more friends, and a new kid in a small town could always use more of those.
The sun had set completely by the time Stewart stumbled out of the woods and set off across the stubble field. Like his father before him, he’d spied the dark patches of blood soaking into the cold earth. A shiver went through him as he started to wonder if the blood belonged to his father instead of the bear. Perhaps it had charged while still in the trees and dragged his dad out into the open. Stewart almost turned back. He would tell his mom. She would call the police, the closest neighbors… and then he saw his father in the distance, jogging towards the grey strip of trees on the far side of the field. His gut started to ache and his mouth went dry.
He did not want to go there.
Stewart took a few steps back, he turned and started home. He stopped again and considered. I can’t leave him. I can’t… I’m not a chicken.
He buried his cold hands into the pockets of his jacket and marched to the northwest. Those trees scared him more the closer he got. They’re just trees… just like all the other stupid trees for miles around.
Stewart’s teeth began to hurt. He adjusted his path to the right—to the northeast—away from the grey an
d black tangle of poplar trees. I’ll keep an eye on him from a safe distance. If he sees me, I’ll be in deep shit…
He thought of more excuses to keep well away from the trees his dad was heading for. Stewart was too scared to get much closer and too stubborn to turn back. If his dad got into trouble he wouldn’t be that far away—a few hundred yards at most. He jogged further to the northeast, ahead of his father and close to the corner where the poplars began. There was a dip in the stubble where Stewart finally settled to his hands and knees to watch.
The bear was nowhere to be seen and Stewart’s father had come to a stop at the field’s edge. It was getting dark fast. He couldn’t see that well.
What was his dad doing? Was he talking to someone?
***
“What…What are you kids doing out here?” Brad felt stupid even asking the question. It was obvious what the two teenagers were about to do. The boy was standing at the forest’s edge in his underwear; his pants and sweater were spread out on the ground before him. The girl was still in blue jeans, her arms spread across her chest and unfastened bra. Had Brad snuck up a few minutes later… The sex he could understand. But why out here? Why in the cold?
The girl bent down hastily and grabbed her sweatshirt. The boy turned and Brad looked him in the eyes for the first time. They were black and glistening. “What are you doing out here? This is private property.”
Brad caught his breath and stepped back. He saw something further off in the trees. Something grey and purple. Something shimmering out of focus. Not all there. He went for the gun but his knees gave out first. He vomited onto a clump of dried soil.
Allan grinned when the man wiped his chin and reached for the gun. The barrel end had jammed in the dirt. “Don’t move.”
Brad froze.
Sheila was fully dressed again. “I think it’s the guy that bought the land just south of us in the spring. Damn it, Allan… How could we not hear or see him coming across the field?”
Allan squatted down in front of him. He grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair and jerked his head up. “Is that true? You our neighbor, buddy?”
Brad wanted to cry. He didn’t want to look into the kid’s eyes, and he didn’t want to see the thing half-hanging out of that box stuck in the ground. He clamped his eyes shut and nodded weakly. “Please let me go… please let me get back to my wife and son. I won’t say a word… Oh shit, I won’t say a word.”
Allan pulled on his hair harder. “But you will say something. Chances are you’ll blab to your wife and eventually one of you will let something slip to someone in town. And then someone in town will phone the cops or worse yet, some government assholes will come poking around. We can’t have that, can we…What’s your name?”
“Brad. My name’s Brad Weibe.”
Sheila was standing over them, tucking the sweatshirt into her jeans. “Don’t do anything stupid, Allan. Just tell him what to do. Make him go away.”
“It’s your lucky day, Brad,” he whispered into the farmer’s ear. “You might not be able to keep your mouth shut on your own, but I think we can help you out with that.”
“Please… Anything you say… please just let me go.”
“Walk back home and forget you were ever here. Never come back.”
Brad rose to his feet. He kept his eyes trained on the ground as he turned and started to walk back the way he’d come.
Wait.
Sheila faced the grey being. “Let him go. He won’t tell anybody what he saw.”
The weapon. Leave it on the ground.
Brad let the rifle drop and tried to walk again.
Come here.
Brad went to the alien. He had begun to blubber uncontrollably.
“Let him go home,” Sheila insisted. “He’s no threat to us.”
He was upon us before the two of you did a thing. He could have fired that weapon at us and inflicted more damage to our body.
Allan snickered. “Well maybe if you weren’t so busy getting your little grey rocks off on us you would’ve noticed him too.”
Everyone went silent. The alien regarded the intruder with a tilt of its vibrating head. Brad could feel his stomach heaving again and looked over to Sheila. The girl’s eyes were almost as black as the boy’s. There was just a hint of white surrounding pupils the size of dimes.
“Let me—” Brad gagged. “—let me go.’
Strike your head against the tree.
Brad took hold of the nearest poplar and bashed his forehead into the rough bark. He staggered back and moaned. Blood poured from a gash above his eyebrows.
Do it again… harder.
Brad ran into the tree face first. Sheila heard his nose break.
“Don’t do this! Let him go!”
Again.
Two front teeth popped out on the third hit and the alien made him do it again.
After the fifth strike, Brad sank to his knees. All the mental commands the world had to offer couldn’t bring him back to his feet for a sixth charge. The front of his flannel coat was a sticky, red mess.
Are you still conscious? Can you hear us? Brad made a weak bubbling sound. Tell your family you fell and struck your head into a pile of rocks. You lost your weapon in the process. We’re letting you away with your life because our children wish it.
Our children. The idea made Sheila sick, but she tried her best not to let the revulsion show. Allan was smiling.
Take his body back halfway across the field and leave him there.
“He might not make it,” Sheila protested. “He could die out there without medical attention.”
He will live. Do as we say.
Allan kicked the man onto his back and they each grabbed a leg. They dragged him out into the stubble.
***
Stewart wouldn’t have any tall tales or make any new friends. Unless he wanted to tell them how he cowered in the dirt while two teenagers beat his father unconscious or worse, Stewart wouldn’t whisper a single word of what he’d seen. He thought about going into the woods for his Dad’s rifle and blasting the older kids to bits, but even that was beyond him. It was almost full dark now and the twisted black branches hanging out from an even blacker forest made it almost impossible to look at, never mind walk into.
He waited where he was, lying flat on his stomach, breathing in dirt and dry wheat chaff through his nostrils until the teenagers returned to the forest without his father. He waited fifteen more minutes until the fear of freezing to death finally made him crawl backwards. He moved back away from the trees on his hands and knees for another hundred feet until he felt it was safe enough to stand. It was so dark now he had trouble finding where the teens had deposited his father’s body.
At first Stewart thought the black form lying in the field might be the bear. He approached slowly, stumbled on a clump of dirt. Whatever it was, Stewart was certain it wasn’t breathing. He crept closer and saw the checkered pattern of his father’s plaid jacket. The squares didn’t look right. They were too dark and splotchy looking. He touched the coat with the tips of his fingers and moaned. It was wet and cold. Blood.
They had killed his dad. Those two teenagers had beaten him until he was dead.
Stewart heard a groan and jumped back. The black form moved. It rolled awkwardly onto its side and spat fresh blood to the ground.
“Dad?”
“Stewb… St-Stewbard?” More spitting.
Stewart helped him sit up. “I thought you were dead. I thought those goddamn kids beat you dead!”
“Don… Donp sair… Don’t swear.” Brad lowered his battered face into the sleeve of his coat to soak up the mess. “What you… what th’ hell you doin’ out here? What kiss… kids?”
Stewart found a clump of used tissues in his pocket. He pulled the snot-dried Kleenex apart and pressed it gently against his father’s forehead. “Those kids did this to you… those kids that live on that farm. They beat you really bad, Dad.”
Brad took the tissue and applie
d it to his swollen lips. They were soaked through in seconds. “I feh… fell. Hit my fae on some rocks when I was chasin’ tha’ bear.”
“No, Dad—them kids did this to you.”
Brad rolled some more, onto his hands and knees. Stewart hooked an arm under his dad’s armpit and helped him stand. He staggered, caught his balance. “No kids, son. I fell… Aw, shit… where’s the gun?”
“Back in the woods. Back where those kids are.”
“Gotta get it…” He managed three steps and almost fell back to his knees. Pain shot behind his eyes. He gagged and pushed his son away. “Fall musta done somethin’ inside… Jesus tha’ hurs.’”
“Don’t go back there.” Stewart pulled at the back of his coat. “We have to go home—call the police and tell ‘em what they did.”
His son was right. He needed to get to the house and have Amy look after him. He could come back for the gun in a day or two. No. Leave the gun. Buy a new one. Brad took Stewart’s hand and they started slowly for home.
Stewart tried one more time to talk about the teenagers but his father cut him short. “I don’t know what you think you saw out there, son, but there was no one else… I fell… smacked my face good on some rocks. Quit talking about teenagers. And don’t say a goddamn thing to your mother. You’re in big enough trouble already and she’s gonna have a fit when she sees me like this. You understand?”
Stewart nodded. His dad had the shit kicked out of him by two kids and didn’t want anyone to find out. He couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t something to be proud of. Some of the pride and respect Stewart had for his father vanished that night. He looked over his shoulder, back towards the Feerce property line. Stewart wouldn’t tell a soul. But someday, somewhere and somehow, those two would pay for that.
Chapter 11
They had stopped for another rest along the great river’s bank. Ann was scrubbing her hair free of dust and dirt. Boo was just splashing around in the muddy water for the fun of it. A crocodile had sensed the movement from beneath and waited less than twenty feet away.