by mike Evans
***
Jason put the phone down, walking slowly into the bedroom and crawling into bed. He put a hand around Joyce’s waist and started rubbing her stomach. She gripped his hand, seeing that it was still dark in the room, not thinking that there was any reason to get out of the bed. “No sex, just go back to sleep, honey. Maybe you can get a quickie later. I’m sleeping now, and I don’t want to get all sticky today. I’ll do it later; I know how quick you are,” she said sleepily.
“Uh, no, I wasn’t trying to get a quickie—or for that matter to get you all sticky. Tim wanted us to get moving so we can go on that trip today.”
“I don’t wanna go on a hiking trip. Walking in the woods is like, totally stupid. We can walk around the city just the same. Now, go away.”
“I’m pretty sure Tim’s going to come pull us out of bed if we don’t get ready soon. Besides, he told me before we left that he brought some of the good shit up for this trip. He wants to go out and do his nature thing, get stoned, and then enjoy the peace and quiet of the woods. You know how paranoid he gets when he tokes up.”
She laughed a little, knowing he’d ended up in the corner talking to himself on more than one occasion at their place. She rolled to her back stretching and sighed. “He’ll smoke it without us, won't he?”
“In a heartbeat,” Jason said.
“Does Shelli know that he has it with him?” she asked.
“Uh, no, and if you don’t want the toilet seeing it before you, it might be wise to leave it that way,” Jason replied.
“Such a fun hater, I swear.”
Jason smiled, thinking he’d avoided near death for sure by waking her up with the promise of abusing drugs. “So should I let him know we can be ready to skadoosh in like, a half an hour? I can go get a pot of coffee going if you are ready to start making the move towards leaving.”
“Remind me again why we agreed to this?”
“Because we work damn hard, just like you, and going hiking is good for you, and can be fun, and he has some killer stuff with him.”
“We work too, Jason; I'm sure that you guys forget that. I'm sorry that we don’t have physical labor jobs, but let me assure you that you better not go giving me the ‘poor me’ shit before you’ve at least poured my first cup of coffee.”
He smiled, getting out of bed, and went to the kitchenette area to get the coffee going, muttering, “Super bitch in the morning.”
She snapped, “What did you say?”
“I was asking if you wanted me to itch your back while you drank your coffee, dear?”
“Yeah, you’d better have been saying something a hell of a lot sweeter than what I thought you were. I don’t want you touching me this morning, I'm feeling all kinds of crampy.”
Jason cut open the packets of instant coffee, mimicking placing a barrel under his chin and happily pulling the trigger. He sent a text off to Tim to let them know they’d better get ready.
***
Tim walked in and gave Shelli a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, honey, I wanted to let you sleep in but I got a text from Jason and Joyce that they are already up and ready to go hiking. I went ahead and got you a cup of coffee, if you wanted to jump in the shower before we go? I know how you like a fresh cup before you have too much to worry about in the day.”
“I don’t want to go hiking. I want to stay at the hotel and drink too much Jägermeister, then go spend your money at the mall.”
“Well, sweetheart, as much fun as that sounds, this is the one thing—the one fucking thing—I wanted to do with my vacation. So, if you could hop up and get some yoga pants and hiking boots on, we can hit the road and be there by nine.”
“Since when did Joyce begin getting up early on vacation? Did Jason wake her up? That son of a bitch, I bet he did,” she grumbled.
“Let’s not give them too hard of time, Shelli. You know how Joyce can be in the morning.”
“Joyce should fear me, not the other way around, damn it.”
Tim kissed her on the forehead, setting the cup down, and grabbed his clothes, happy to leave the room and get dressed in his hiking gear. He threw water and sandwiches in a bag and couldn’t help but smile, thinking he’d pulled off the impossible: getting the two girls out of bed. He really hoped the shit he’d gotten from his contact at home had come through. The guy was used to selling him nothing better than ditch weed, and both of them were okay with it because he didn’t have the money to piss away on the one-hit shit.
Tim checked his pocket, making sure it was in there and waited impatiently for the women to be ready.
Twenty minutes later—which felt like a lifetime—the girls both came out of the rooms, looking like they were still drunk from the night before. Tim clapped his hands and almost jumped in excitement. “Who’s ready to go see some thousand-year-old cedars out in the middle of nowhere? This place is so remote, we might never find our way back.”
Joyce said, “Oh joy. And thank you so, so much, Tim, for getting everyone up at the ass crack of dawn. I'm sure that the trees are going to look so much different once the sun has been up for only an hour as opposed to a few hours; you know, like if we came out here this afternoon? Wouldn’t that just be a bitch?”
“I couldn’t stop the texts coming in from Jason today; son of a bitch was super excited about going out,” Tim lied.
“Yeah, go fuck yourself if you think you’re tossing me under the bus, asshole.”
Shelli whipped her head around at Tim, not looking like there was an abundance of love there. “You do realize we are on vacation right, honey? Like when people go out to relax and enjoy themselves, then take it easy? So far, we’ve been here one day, and we’ve gotten up early on that day. And we only had to get up because you think walking the hills in another state is going to be better than doing it in your home state. How in the hell did I end up with you?”
“I ask myself the same thing some days, honey. I think we might both be lucky,” Tim said.
“Yeah, or you’re just full of shit. You wake me up before noon on Sunday, and I’ll have your balls in a Ziploc bag, I can promise you, Tim.”
Jason was laughing and Joyce slapped him in the chest. “That makes two of us,” she said. “You want this little vacation to be hell on earth, you wake me up a second day in a row for no good reason.”
The girls marched off in front of the men, taking the first elevator that came and leaving them standing there. Both girls gave them the look of death as the elevator doors closed.
“Christ, are you trying to ruin a good thing? How often do we get to get out of the city?” Jason said.
“Well, Jason, technically we left one city to come to another one. I want to head out to the woods and enjoy the quiet. We work too damn long to have more work to look forward to. My dad told me all the time, once your twenties are gone, you get a wife, have a kid or two, and get a house, then you blink and you’re just waiting for death to come for you. I'm not going to skip everything I love just because they don’t want to go. If they wanted to stay home, I could’ve come here by myself for all I care.”
“Yeah, I'm sure the lovely Shelli Shear would have helped you pack if you wanted to check into this high-class, three-star hotel here without her,” Tim said.
“Let’s quit wasting time; you know we will be to blame if we make them wait too long in the lobby, even though they were the ones who left us behind.”
They jogged up, getting in the elevator, and ten minutes later they were on the ride of their life, drinking oversized to-go cups of coffee, taking in the fall colors that looked like they’d been painted on by Mother Nature herself. Tim smiled as they drove. He had loved the great outdoors for as long as he could remember. He and his dad would disappear for hours on end on the weekends, hiking, pointing things out about nature, and enjoying the quiet away from the mechanic shop. Whenever they’d come home and had missed supper, his mother would ask why they hadn’t come home in time to eat. His dad would calmly tell her he didn’t have
a watch on, because you can’t be late when it's your day off.
The women and Jason all had their heads in their phones. It wasn’t until they were a half hour from their location that they finally decided that they should put them down, or at least that’s what Tim thought. “You guys decide that you don’t need to have your stupid phones any longer?”
Shelli snapped, “Uh, no, that’s not really it at all. See, what happened was, my dipshit boyfriend can’t enjoy the simple things in life like room service and shopping, so he took us all the way out to butt-fucking nowhere in what might as well be Egypt to vacation. We don’t have any service on our damn phones, so your stupid SUV better get us to the place and back.”
Tim shook his head, baffled that no one but himself could appreciate the natural beauty that these lands had to offer. “Would you three quit complaining and take in the sights? I mean, if you can’t find the beauty way out here, then there is something seriously wrong with you. I mean it. How could you not appreciate this? It’s absolutely magnificent. I’d give my left nut if I could come out here every weekend.”
Jason laughed, unable to help himself. “You aren’t going to be able to make an offer like that if you wake up the princess tomorrow. Remember the Ziploc bag?”
“Jason, you make every day just a little more enjoyable. So happy that we get to work together on a daily basis.”
“It isn’t my fault you went into a career field that just happened to be something I was interested in doing.”
The girls looked at the woods and saw that they truly did go for as far as the eye could see. Shelli was already feeling squeamish about entering them. “You are parking here, why?”
“Because it looks like a great path in. We aren’t going to see anyone the entire time we are out here. I packed water, and sandwiches and snacks. We’ll be able to hike for at least five hours before we need to even worry about turning around.”
Joyce looked to Jason nervously. “So, Jason, honey, are you going to be carrying me out of here by the end of this? I don’t think I’ll be able to move tomorrow if I walk for that long.”
Tim said, “Guys, it’s vacation. We aren’t in a hurry—well, except for getting out here of course. We aren’t out here to power hike; there’s no medal for getting done first. Let’s walk and enjoy the day.”
When they got out of Tim’s vehicle, they saw a long-running fence that was waist high and had barbed wire on the top of it, the kind that—if you placed your hand right—you could climb over effortlessly. Shelli said, “I’m sorry, but when you parked, were you deterred at all by the fact that there are no trespassing signs everywhere?”
“Those signs don’t have anything to do with us.”
“Uh huh, and why’s that, Tim?”
Jason was wondering as well. “Yeah, Timmy, why is that?”
“Call me Timmy again, Jason, and you’ll be the one with your tenders in a Ziploc bag. Those signs are for hunters. I looked this area up. It’s been off limits from hunting for like, ten or fifteen years.”
“So what you are saying is, there are a lot of animals and shit in there?” Joyce asked.
Tim dangled the keys in front of them. “You guys want to drive back out here in ten hours and pick me up, then just leave me out here. You’re going to miss the opportunity of a lifetime though.”
Jason grabbed his pack. “I can’t let him go out in the woods by himself, he’s too pretty. What if there’s a bunch of rednecks out there?”
“We are in Washington, not Louisiana, Jason. I’ll be fine. It's okay if you want to tell them you like this kind of shit too and you want to come out and hike with me. It's going to be months before we can get any more time off. I’d prefer to use that little amount of time doing something that I enjoy.”
The girls kicked around at the gravel a moment longer, making the men question if they were going through with it or not. In the end, they slid their bags out of the back. Shelli said, “Well, it is kind of impressive. Those trees go forever; you don’t ever see that in the city. What is this forest called?”
“It's just called the North Woods,” Tim answered.
***
Matt walked through the woods. He took large, deep breaths, trying to calm the rage that flowed through him. He was convinced that he could. He knew that if he couldn’t, the rage would take control and there would be nothing but an animal left, always hungry for blood. His dad had done it, had been able to put the beast away, and he had been up here for a decade. Matt could only compare it to junkies trying to get off drugs. But for him, he felt it was worse, because what he wanted was literally in front of him each and every day when he walked the streets. They were everywhere, and it was all free if he just had the time that he needed. He needed the control as well, but had lost that at some point along the road.
He sat watching the animals move, looking at his bow, then tested the bow’s string once. The limbs creaked a little as he pulled it back. It was not like one of the new fancy bows that shot some carbon arrow at some three hundred feet per second that any person could pull back. This was one with true limbs, and the hundred pound pull-back weight was only drawn back if you had the muscle to do so.
Matt was naturally strong, as was his dad, and his father before him. He’d had no issues with ever having the size he needed. When he’d enlisted in the army, he’d almost not been accepted because of his size. Matt had been working with the bow for the last month, getting a little better each day. As a child, his dad had shown him how to use one, helping him to learn how to shoot without the assistance of sights on it. He had advised that if he ever needed to survive, the bow would be of little use to him if the sights broke and he didn’t know how to shoot it.
Matt aimed at a tree trunk that was rotting and would not ruin the arrows. He kept steady arms, realizing the longer he shot, the less he was thinking about his nerves. He realized that after he had shot all but one arrow, he’d been imagining shooting into a stomach for the last twenty minutes. He looked at the last arrow, imagining a skull, aiming high. It hit the top of the trunk, taking a small piece of bark off with it, and disappeared into the distance. “Fuck, that’ll take me the rest of the fucking day to find. Fantastic, Matt. Nice shooting, Robin Hood.”
Matt made his way to the top of the hill after collecting the rest of his arrows and was now hell-bent on finding the last one that had shot off into nowhere. He heard laughing coming from the distance. At first, he wondered if he’d finally lost his fucking mind, and the pure want and will of someone as a victim had finally made him lose it. Once the laughter continued, he began to have hope; one that he didn’t realize he could still feel, and it sent tingles up his neck. His dad had told him without question that the North Woods was theirs, and it was safe. Don’t leave, and don’t kill anyone. Matt couldn’t stop thinking that what he was hearing was real; that there were real people out here, and that he would have the pleasure of feeling their blood run down his bare hands.
He ducked behind a tree as the four came into view. Vivid flashbacks of his last, great, two-day hunt in the woods ran through his memories, filling him with adrenaline and joy. He could feel their organs already squishing around in his hands. He almost felt like he was cheating on his mask, not having it with him. He knew that if anyone saw that mask, they would not stick around.
Chapter 8
Shelli spread out a blanket, smiling and happy that it was time for them to rest. She shook the blanket out in front of her, spreading it like a parachute. For a moment, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her when she saw a man in the far distance, but when the blanket came down, he was gone. She dropped it, messing it up. “Who… who the hell is that?”
When the other three followed her outstretched, shaking finger, The Stranger had disappeared and only the massive cedars remained. Jason said, “I think that you might be seeing things. I swore I saw a bear at one point today, only to find out it was a giant, burnt tree trunk. Come on, let’s eat so we can have de
ssert.”
Shelli looked at Tim, already ready to snap. “Dessert? What dessert is he talking about, Tim?”
Tim smiled devilishly. “Well, let me start off by saying, it is vacation, and we don’t have any drug tests at either of our jobs, nor have we ever had one.”
Hands to her hips, she sat there, not even replying. Tim continued, “Okay then, well, I bought us a little treat. I thought that we could enjoy the peace of nature way out here. When it wears off, we head on back to the city. Does that sound all that bad? I mean there are people in countries that would love to get high and sit around eating munchie food. Is that the absolute worst way to live?”
“You could have told me in advance, Tim. You know it is probably illegal here, right?”
“Honey, we are in the middle of nowhere; it doesn’t fucking matter. Eat your sandwich, get high, and enjoy this very cool experience we are having. Otherwise, hell, feel free to catch a nap. No one is going to care.”