The Mountain Town

by Josh Olsen

  Clark thought for a moment in silence, Jason clenched his teeth in preparation for the fight he was sure would follow, but it never came. Instead Clark said calmly, “Alright Sheriff, I’ll do it.” he paused, thinking. “But, I could use some help out there, one man ain’t much against a whole town out hunting, think you’d be up for a little hunting trip?” Clark said smiling.

  Jason stood quietly, could it really be? His old friend changing his ways at long last? His mind raced with the old faded memories of the old hunting trips. The memories that time had distorted and nearly forgotten.

  “Alright Clark,” Jason spoke up, “Hell, I could use an excuse to get out of here anyway, how ‘bout we head over to the shop and get a few things and we could try heading out tomorrow.”

  Clark stared vacantly out the window, his lips shut tightly.

  Jason stared, confused, “Clark?” he asked, turning out the window to look, a wave of shock washing over him as his eyes saw it.

  There, just 50 feet from the window, stumbling out of the tree line, was a man, limping and covered in blood.

  Chapter 29

  He had collapsed almost as soon as they had reached him. Ice and frost clung to his eyebrows and facial hair, some fingers hung limply, black with frostbite. The words echoed in Jason's mind once again. "Something in the woods."

  As fast as the deep snow would allow them, Clark and Jason carried Elroy to the hospital, each struggling step packing their boots thick with snow.

  The man lay delirious on the bed beneath them, Jason demanding answers from James nearly every breath he took. "What the hell happened to him James?" "What could have done this?"

  James looked up at him for a moment, confused. "Done this? What do you mean by that Sheriff?"

  Jason paused for a moment. Carelessly, he had sounded more worried than he had wanted to. "I mean, hurt him like this?"

  The doctor looked back down at Elroy, almost bored. "Well as far as the blood, I do believe that it is not his...."

  Jason looked down at the man, confused.

  James continued, "From what I gather, there seems to be nothing wrong with our friend Elroy here at all, save for the frostbite. I'm going to have to sedate him and take these 3 off." he said, gesturing to the black, throbbing fingers on Elroy's hand.

  The man on the bed groaned, his eyes rolling back in his head, almost unaware of their own motion.

  "Well who's blood is it?" Jason asked puzzled, "I mean, what, or who’s could it be?"

  "An animal?" the doctor almost asked himself, boringly. "It's a shame, I figure he must have gotten a little too sauced up and got lost out there, happens a few times a year, you know that more than anyone Sheriff."

  Jason looked at James, a confused look on his face.

  "James, this is Elroy Becker here, he's got that drunk Everett for a roommate. I don't think...." Jason stopped, he looked down at the blood that covered Elroy, his mind raced, not wanting to believe. "Oh God,"

  Clark connected the dots first, “Oh God. Sheriff you don't think he offed Everett? Elroy's one of the most spineless men I've ever met-"

  Jason stopped him, "It's not that much of a long shot Clark, think about it, he get's tired of Everett beating on him all the time,” Jason said, adding the thoughts up in his head quickly, “The man takes his opportunity, then he takes off into the woods after he sees what he's done,"

  Jason scowled now at Elroy's unconscious body, taking his handcuffs out, he locked Elroy's uninjured hand to the bed.

  Looking back up at James, Jason continued. "Do the surgery Doc, and I want him awake in 1 hour," Jason said turning to leave.

  Just then, Elroy snapped up in his bed, his hand grabbing the first thing he could find; Jason's arm. His eyes were foggy with a thin glaze over them and his black, pulsing fingers, hot with infection, gripped Jason's arm tight. His pupils swelled with delirium as they searched blindly.

  Clark jumped back startled as Jason yelled out, tearing his arm from Elroy’s grip. James, set in his robotic ways, continued almost too calmly.

  Elroy's eyes staring off in the distance, he struggled with each word.

  "Oh god...." "God no...." his voice grew frantic, he drew pity as he whimpered out each word. "Something out there, God no, there's something out there. Something horrible. Something."

  Panic washed over Jason as this delirious man reaffirmed these fears he held in the back of his mind, not believing or not wanting to believe.

  ”What Elroy?!" "What did you see?!" Jason shouted.

  Clark and James were taken aback for a moment, confused at Jason's unprecedented change in tone.

  “My arm! Oh God my Arm!” he clawed at his torn coat, screaming as if his blood were cauterizing his veins as it pumped throughout his body with each heartbeat.”

  Jason yelled, frantically trying to snap Elroy back into coherence. “Elroy! There’s nothing on your arm! Your hallucinating! Tell me! You need to tell me what you saw out there!

  Elroy mumbled as his eyes fell back, James appeared behind him, catching him before he fell back onto the bed, an empty syringe in his unoccupied hand.

  "I'm sorry Sheriff, he isn't stable, you can talk to him after I save his hand from that infection.” James said. Grabbing some bandages from a nearby drawer, he went to work.

  Jason held in his temper, it would do no good anyway. Trying to reason with James was like talking to a wall. He was a man very set in his ways. He didn't know how his wife didn't kill him over it.

  As Jason left the room, one of the many wooden cabinets hung open, unfortunate enough to be in Jason's path. Grabbing it, he slammed it hard, the old rusted screws snapped, popping the hinges from the wood. The solid pine door fell to the ground with a loud clatter. Jason stormed out of the room, his attention unbroken.

  Clark yelled at Jason “Where are you going?” he shrugged it off and looked back to the doctor. Glancing down at the bed, he froze.

  "Oh god no.” he thought, his blood chilling to a cold ice. It was her. Laying on the bed below him was his wife, her face a sickly pale, her eyes sunken back in her tight skin, stretched against her wispy frame, ghostly almost.

  It pained Clark the most to have her be seen like this, only because this was the only person the doctors knew, not the woman he had married, not the woman he still knew existed inside, if only just.

  The woman who's heart ached for those she could not touch with her kindness. His wife, the warmth of her smile that could stoke the fire in the coldest of hearts. This wasn't her, not this person the doctors knew, not the person they had seen wither away before their eyes. They had only just held the wilting flower that had bloomed so beautifully for so long. They didn't know, and Clark felt sorry for them, unaware of the incredible woman they would never know.

  “Fuck!", Clark's head stung sharply, his eyes closed tight as his knees weakened. Grabbing the nearby wall to support himself, he tried desperately to stay in reality. Cold sweat slid slowly down his forehead and sides, chilling him. He looked down at the bed again. Elroy lay below him, unconscious. He didn't see the Doc, but it didn't matter.

  "Clark?" he heard someone ask behind him, his anxiety began to melt away as he heard it.

  "Oh thank God, Doc..." he said, turning around, his heart nearly stopping from what he saw.

  There on the vacant bed, lay a body bag. Slowly, he heard the metal teeth separate. One by one they popped open as the metal ring of the zipper descended. A figure rose up from within the dark rubber fabric of the bag.

  Clark's brow sunk, curving upward, a sorrowful plea of despair.

  "Oh god, no....please" his voice was weak and pitiful. His wife, hardly recognizable, sat up on the bed, turning her head slowly towards him.

  Her muscles, stiffened with rigor mortis, popped and snapped with each passing second as she turned to face him. Her matted hair hung flatly. Strands of hair pressed and stuck against her pale, rotting flesh.

  The hair on Clark's neck prickled up sharply, rising from his ba
ck to the top of his head. Panic sent cold shivers to his fingertips, his heart pounded.

  Slowly her eyes opened, the blank, dilated pupils fixated on Clark. With a deliberate sluggishness, her mouth twisted upward, opening into a sinister grin, revealing her black, decaying teeth.

  Rising in volume, her slow whispering voice began to speak to Clark. Her tepid breath escaping lightly, like that of a snake, hissing almost at Clark.

  "FFF.....Failure." Grinning with a twisted smile, her eyebrows spiraled downward into an evil scowl.

  Over and over, she hissed it, "Failure." "Failure." each word uttered with a malicious satisfaction.

  Clark's heart pounded, begging her to stop.

  "No, Please....Please God....No." his voice was just a whimper now.

  Her voice grew louder and louder echoing off the edges of his brain. He pleaded, he begged, pleaded with the voice. He begged for his sanity, pleading for peace, for serenity, for calm.

  "Clark!" James stood over him.

  Clark coughed. The smell of ammonia hung pungent in his nostrils.

  "Oh thank god." James said, capping the smelling salts in his hand.

  "Doc..." Clark said, "What in the hell..."

  "Clark, you collapsed. What happened? Are you alright?”

  The demanding nature of his words irritated Clark further.

  Clark stood up, James protesting incessantly as he walked away.

  "I quit drinking, haven't quite been myself lately." Clark said, the words robotic, unthinking. Walking towards the door, he could feel the stinging in the back of his head becoming more prominent.

  "Clark!" The doctor shouted. "You really shouldn't be walking!" the slam of the heavy wooden door shutting cut him off into his own silence.

  Trudging through the snow that hadn't seemed to have stopped in days, Clark made his way to his house. The plows swept by as they had during the days prior, attempting to keep the snow at bay. The smell of gas hung heavy in the air of the falling snow. The black, dirty snow was piled high in the drifts that surrounded the road. Keeping the town’s road clear was a daunting enough task for the plow drivers in the heavy snow, let alone the long and winding mountain road.

  Because of this, the slow stream of tourists had stopped completely, a testament to the rest of the townspeople the strange nature of the goings-on in their quiet little town.

  Clark continued down the slush and snow filled road, the cold flakes finding a way into the inner workings of his boots.

  The low bellying of a diesel engines horn drew Clark out of his thoughts.

  “Fuck,” he said to himself, turning up to wave an apology to the driver.

  “Here I am, the asshole stuck in my daydream walking down the street like a jackass,” he thought.

  “Sorr-“ his voice ceased in shock.

  “You running again?” His wife yelled at him from the passenger seat of the truck.

  “Get out of my head Goddammit!” Clark screamed, pleading with the voice within his own mind.

  It was hers, her soft, gentle voice.

  “No it isn’t! It’s not her! She’s fucking gone!”

  The inner turmoil of Clark’s mind churned what little contents his stomach held, into an acidic froth. He vomited onto the pristine whiteness of the snow. The bitter bile of his seething insides set on his tongue, causing him to wretch. He shook violently, sweating in the cold of the snowy air.

  “Are you okay honey?” her soft voice asked.

  He wouldn’t turn, he wouldn’t look. Wouldn’t see her soft, forgiving eyes, the persuasive warmth of her smile. Her smile; that which would make him feel that all was right in the world, time and time again.

  “I am okay, because you are not fucking real!” the voices fought in his head, angry and bitter.

  “You are just what you are expected to be. Worthless. Nothing. You are trash.” She hissed.

  It wasn’t her voice, he knew that, he knew that. But it echoed off each corner of his throbbing mind telling him that it was.

  “Don’t do this, don’t turn her against me” Clark thought.

  “That’s right. You need me, Without me, you cannot be.” The voice hissed, the anger biting like venom with each word.

  Clark, his cabin within sight, made a break for the door. “I can’t….” he panted under his breath, “I can’t do it….”

  Creaking open the door, he entered through the smallest crack he could fit and slammed the door hard behind him. She wouldn’t be shut out, but he couldn’t be sure.

  He had cleaned all of his liquor out a few days before, but in habit, he frantically searched everywhere, every inch of his cabin. Tearing open cupboard doors, ripping open mattresses, violently pulling clothes from every drawer. Nothing.

  “Fuck!” he yelled in his suffocating loneliness, dragging his arms across his table, he swept his belongings onto the floor clattering.

  Then, it came to him.

  No, he couldn’t, not that.

  He needed to.

  Slowly, he walked to her old dresser, the dust sat thick on it, untouched for so many years. He gripped the old brass knobs and pulled the drawer open, the old wood creaked, begging to not be disturbed.

  There it lay. He gripped the old bottle in his rough, calloused hands. The glass bottle, dyed a Christmas green, shook in his hands. Tears fell upon the bottle, melting the brown dust away with each drop.

  “I can’t believe she saved this.” he thought to himself.

  “Wine, a bottle from our wedding night…..nearly 20 years, My god…” he sighed to himself. His shaking hands produced a knife from his pocket, fumbling with it until he heard the audible click. He held the knife to the bottle as he tore the foil away. Popping the cork, his shaking hands caused some of the liquid to fall upon the filthy carpet, soaking it.

  Trembling, he held the bottle to his lips, the intoxicating liquid just inches from his tongue.

  This time, she whispered right into his ear. He heard her again. “Do it.”

  Like a great fire lit inside him, anger boiled inside Clark.

  Determination.

  Clark brought the bottle high above his head, gripping it tightly.

  “You aren’t real!” he shouted with a fury he didn’t know he still had. He brought the bottle down hard against the old wooden dresser, shattering it. The shards of glass, sticky with the liquid, embedded themselves deep into his hand. He didn’t notice.

  Again and again he brought his hand down upon the shards, breaking them into finer pieces with each blow. The glass digging further and further into his already bandaged hand.

  “Fuck!”

  He hit for the years he had wasted in sorrow.

  “Fuck!”

  He hit for the time he had given up. The time he had lost.

  “Fuck!”

  He hit for the life he would never know.

  Panting heavily, Clark sucked in heavy breaths of the hot air, his chest rising and falling violently. His hand pouring blood hit the carpet audibly. Clark fell back into his chair and sat back. In one motion he lashed out, kicking a hole into the old dresser.