by Jeremy Bates
I didn’t think I could strike her again, not with her looking at me like that, and she would probably be dead soon enough anyway. She had a hole in her head.
I tossed the rock aside, grabbed her ankles like I had my dad’s, and began dragging her.
I dragged her all the way to the canyon floor. Moving her was a lot easier than moving my dad had been. One, it was downhill. Two, she was smaller than he was, my size, and just as skinny. Even so, it still took me most of the morning to get her to the river. She was awake for the first bit. She kept trying to talk to me, but she wasn’t making any sense. Now she was quiet, her eyes closed. I figured she had finally died.
I rolled her body into the raging river and watched it wash her away.
I made it to the original campsite shortly before night descended. Everything was as we’d left it. I’d forgotten to search my mom’s pockets for the car keys, so I broke one of the Chevy’s windows with a rock to unlock the trunk and get to the food. I was so hungry I wolfed down four Oscar Mayer wieners raw and an entire box of salted crackers. I also drank the three remaining Pepsis, then about a liter of tap water. Later that evening, I nibbled on Oreo cookies and read an Archie until I fell asleep in my tent.
When Ranger Ernie found me two days later I was filthy but in otherwise fine shape. Nevertheless, I pretended I was worse off than I was and made myself cry while I explained how a bear had killed my parents. I’d tried to help them, I insisted—that’s why I’d gotten blood all over me—but my mom told me to run away, so I ran away.
I spoke to a lot of police officers after that. I even had to speak to the same detective who’d questioned me about Geena’s death. I really didn’t like him, especially now that I knew he thought I’d killed her. I stuck to my story, however, and he soon gave up badgering me. After all, my dad had clearly been eaten by a bear—I couldn’t fake that—and my mom’s body, discovered far downriver, had been too bashed up and decayed to determine the cause of death.
The police never searched my home as I’d feared they would, never found the chipmunk heads, which I packed with all my other stuff when I moved into foster care, where I lived with other kids who didn’t have parents.
I missed my mom at first, but gradually I forgot what she sounded like, then what she looked like. After about a year I didn’t miss her at all.
I never gave my fake dad a second thought—except when I replayed in my head the bear eating him, and when I did that, I always made it daytime, so I could watch it all happen again.
THE PRESENT
When I had first approached the young Swedish couple thirty minutes earlier, they had been friendly and chatty. I told them I was camping in the lot one over from theirs, and they told me to join them for a beer. Their accented English was close to fluent but sometimes difficult to understand. From what I gathered they had both been hired as ski instructors at Aspen for the winter season, and they had decided to camp in Black Canyon to save money on their accommodation until they had to report to the ski resort. The man had introduced himself as Raoul. He was handsome and blond, the hair on one side of his head cropped short, the hair on the other side wavy and chin length. The woman, Anna, was an impish brunette with a thin yet voluptuous body. In fact, she reminded me of my old flame Stephanie. I’d never had a chance to see Steph again before I was shipped off to foster care, but I’d tracked her down through Facebook a couple years back. She was married, a stay-at-home mom with two young boys. She didn’t remember me when I knocked on her door late on a Tuesday morning. But she remembered when I mentioned our elementary school. It had been nice to hear her say my name again, which she did over and over as she begged unsuccessfully for her life.
The once-chatty Swedes, who had been so eager to hear my Black Canyon story, had become fidgety during the last quarter of it, and now, after its conclusion, seemed downright uncomfortable.
“So you see,” I told them, opening my hands expansively. “I really had no choice. I had to kill my parents. It was either me or them.”
Silence ensued, pleasantly uncomfortable.
“You know, that is a good story,” Raoul said finally, clearing his throat. He was sitting across the campfire from me, next to Anna. He ran a hand over the side of his head that had hair. “But, well, it is late. I think we will go to bed soon.”
“Yeah, sure. Bed, sure.” Never one to overstay my welcome, I stood and smiled, to show there were no hard feelings for the not-so-discreet send off. “Well, thanks for listening, guys. It really is a good story, isn’t it? I like to tell it. You can psychoanalyze me tomorrow. Nature or nurture, right?” I tipped him a wink, Anna a smile. She returned the smile nervously, looked at her feet.
“Right,” Raoul said, though I don’t think he understood what I was talking about.
I strolled east, cutting through the forest. When I had gone fifty feet, I stopped and faced the way I had come. Although Raoul and Anna would not be able to see me in the thick shadows, I could see them in the firelight. They were leaning close to one another in conversation. Raoul was gesturing quickly. The next moment they got up and ducked inside their tent.
Still watching them, I undid my shoelaces, slipped off my shoes, then my socks.
Raoul and Anna emerged from the tent carrying their backpacks. Raoul opened the backdoor of the old station wagon they were driving and tossed both bags onto the backseat.
I shrugged out of my jacket, then pulled off my T-shirt.
Raoul and Anna returned to the tent and began dismantling it
I retrieved the twelve-inch hunting knife from where it had been secured snug against the small of my back and clenched it between my teeth. I unbuttoned my jeans, unzipped the zipper, then stepped out of the legs. I shoved my boxers down my hips, stepped out of them too.
Naked, I started forward, transferring the knife to my right hand.
Raoul and Anna were making too much noise with the tent to hear me approach. When I was fifteen feet away, however, Anna looked up from the stake she had pried from the ground and saw me. She froze, like a hare that had just spotted a predator.
She said something in Swedish to Raoul, who jerked around.
I went for him first, closing the distance between us in a burst of speed. He sprang to his feet and bumbled backward into the tent as I plunged the blade into his heart and tugged down.
People don’t die easily. My mom taught me this. But if you don’t mind the mess, slitting open the heart will always get the job done.
Blood fountained from Raoul’s chest and struck my shoulder with wonderful force.
Anna wasn’t screaming, not exactly. I don’t know how to explain the sound she was making, because it wasn’t really human. Warbling? Yowling?
She ran.
I gave chase. For thirty-six I was in great shape. I went to the gym five days a week and was lean as a barracuda.
I caught Anna before she had even decided which way she wanted to flee.
I sank the knife into her back, into her heart, and twisted the blade sharply, blending the vital muscle into puree.
She expelled a jet of blood from her mouth and belly-flopped to the ground.
I gripped a fistful of her hair, tilted her impish head back, and slit her throat from ear to ear. Then I returned my attention to the boyfriend. He was still on his feet, his hands trying to stem the fountain spurting from his chest as he tottered back and forth on legs that would never ski again.
I finished him off.
I know all about famous serial killers. I’ve read about them in books and on the internet. I’ve watched documentaries on A Current Affair and 60 Minutes. I’ve rented biopics on Netflix. I don’t look up to the Gacys and the Bundys of the world. I don’t idolize them, or want to imitate them. I simply relate to them. They’re my kin. Yet as similar as they and I may be, we are all equally unique in regard to what tickles our fancies. Dean Corll, for instance, only tortured and murdered young boys. Bruno Ludke was into young women, and necrophilia. Gerald Stan
o strangled and shot hitchhikers of both sexes, provided they were Anglo Saxon. Personally, I didn’t care much for the demographics of my victims; I just liked feeding them to bears.
After Raoul bled out, I rinsed the blood from my skin using the campground tap, then collected my clothes from where I’d shed them in the woods. Back at my car I dressed, then drove to the Swede’s campsite. I parked fifty feet from their bodies, cut the engine, but kept the high beams on.
The bear arrived thirty minutes later. It never took bears long to show. They were always hanging around campsites, even in the off-season before they went into hibernation, in the hopes of scrounging a last-minute meal. They had amazing noses too. They were like bloodhounds and could zero in on a fresh kill from miles away.
This one came from the west. It stood at the perimeter of the campsite, on all fours, sniffing the air as if for a trap. It looked directly at me, but I knew it couldn’t see or smell me in the darkened cab.
Eventually it waddled toward the dead ski instructors, into the throw of the headlights. It sniffed the hunks of meat, then made a loud mewling sound, calling its two cubs from their hiding spot among the nearby vegetation.
I leaned forward with anticipation as the mama bear and her kids got ready to chow down.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for taking the time to read Black Canyon. If you enjoyed the story, it would be wonderful if you could leave a review on Amazon. Reviews might not matter much to the big-name authors, but they can really help the small guys to grow their readership.
Also, check out www.jeremybatesbooks.com for info on my next novel, The Catacombs, which will be released in March, 2015.
Here’s the blurb:
Paris, France, is known as the City of Lights, a metropolis renowned for romance and beauty. But beneath the bustling streets and cafés lies a dark secret, a labyrinth of ancient tunnels and mass graves known as the catacombs. Dangerous and to a large extent unmapped, they have been sealed off to the public for decades.
When a video camera containing mysterious footage is discovered deep within their depths, a group of friends venture into the tunnels to investigate. What starts out as a lighthearted adventure, however, takes a turn for the worse when they reach their destination—and stumble upon the evil lurking there.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Bates is the author of the number #1 Amazon bestseller White Lies, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Foreword Book of the Year Award. He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario with a degree in English literature and philosophy.
For a limited time, visit www.jeremybatesbooks.com to receive a free copy of The Taste of Fear.