by Weston Ochse
"Well, the least you can do is come and visit us more often, Frank," Lukas said. "You haven't been up here in three years. We both miss the hell out of you. We talk about you all the time. Goddamn, but we had some good times back in high school."
"I have one memory of you, Lukas, that always at least gives me a smile," Frank said.
"I have an inklin' that this may not be a fond memory for me," Lukas said, smirking as he cracked open another beer.
"Remember that night we were at Jessie Reynolds' house smoking weed and drinking? It was the year before she died in that car accident, the night we went skinny dipping."
Jimmy laughed. "Hell yeah, I remember that night. Lacy Miller and I got it on."
Lukas gasped. "You fucked Lacy? She was like three hundred pounds, man!"
"Fool, you don't have any clue what you're talkin' about," Jimmy said. "Sure she's fat now. Back then she was just chubby. Had a nice fat ass, not obese like now, just chubby, tasty, and sweet."
Frank and Lukas exploded into laughter. "I'm serious, man," Jimmy said. "She was somethin' special. I'll never forget ol' Lacy."
"And her chubby, tasty, sweet ass," Frank added.
"You never told me what your memory of me was," Lukas said.
"Don't be doin' that shit, startin' and not finishin'. Come on, give."
"Well, I remember it well. We were down in the basement, smoking and drinking. That song by Kansas came on. 'Dust in the Wind.' Do you remember that one? It lulled us a bit, I think. I remember that no one said nothing. Total and complete silence."
Frank's eyes were glistening in the twilight as he remembered. "I guess we were all sort of listening to the lyrics. I looked over at you, Lukas, and you were mouthing the words, rocking back and forth and there were tears coming out of your eyes. I know you don't want to admit it, but you were crying."
"Get the fuck outta here. I don't remember anything like that happenin' at all."
"Oh, you remember it, my friend. I can see it in your eyes. Anyway, you started crying, and I said what the hell is a matter with you. And you said, 'I'm gonna die someday, man. All of us are gonna fucking die. Me, you, Jimmy, my mama—all of us.'" Frank paused to watch Lukas' grinning face. "And then I realized at that moment...at that very moment, you at seventeen fucking years old had just realized your mortality. It took a song by fucking Kansas to give you the realization that you were mortal."
"I can't believe you're tellin' this story, Frank," Lukas said. "Jimmy's gonna be singin' this song to me forever now."
"Believe it or not, that's an important memory for me. You have to understand that I discovered I was going to die when I was seven. I remember the day very, very well. There was no reason for me to think that way. No reason at all, but one second I had the world by the tail and the very next I was standing in the middle of my yard, totally shocked. I realized I was not the center of the universe. I realized that things occurred around me and not because of me. I realized—"
"That you are full of shit," Jimmy said.
"—I realized that not only did I not matter in the great, grand scheme, but that I would die and it would all continue."
"Yeah," said Lukas, his voice husky.
"And you didn't figure that out until you were seventeen. Man. Didn't you notice that once you learned that, you were more careful? I've been careful all of my life. Maybe even too careful. That's why I like you guys so much. In high school you were crazy. Crazy because you never once thought you were going to die."
Lukas shook his head and sought another beer. "I'm still a little crazy like that," he said.
"Definitely. I remember we just looked each other in the face for a second—both of us thinking about how we were gonna someday die. The lyrics All we are is dust in the wind sweeping through us. Jimmy was laying on the floor, half passed out. He wasn't even listening to us. And he shouts, 'This song fucking sucks! Put on some Floyd!'. And Lukas, me and you just looked at each other and then we just fucking lost it, man. Totally lost it. Jimmy just didn't get it. You and me, we laughed and laughed and laughed. We must have laughed for twenty minutes straight. And Jimmy, Jimmy was getting pissed because we wouldn't tell him what we were laughing about. Hell, I don't even think we could have told him. It was one of those things. God, life was so much simpler then. Every time I hear that song I smile now. It reminds me of better times."
"I found me out something good tonight," Jimmy said. "Lukas cried to 'Dust in the Wind.' And Lukas didn't realize he was going to die someday until he was seventeen."
"You shut up, Jimmy," Lukas said. "I don't want to hear it. I especially don't want to hear it from no fool who done fucked some three hundred-pound woman."
"I'm tellin' you she wasn't that fat back then! She was only chubby," Jimmy exclaimed.
"Yeah, we know," Frank said dryly. "Just chubby, sweet, and tasty."
Instead of laughing, his words just died in the night.
Three sighs from three men.
Eventually, night shadows crept into their reminiscence like ghosts against the retreating rays of sunshine that had so recently been stabbing through the thick branches. It was then that Frank realized how far back in the woods they were. How far from civilization they were. Frank began to stare at the encroaching shadows, placation dissolving in the heaviness of a well-remembered fear.
He stood up and sat his beer down carefully. His hand trembled.
"We gotta start walking back. We can't be sleeping out here without any blankets or a way to start a fire."
Tossing his beer can into the pile with the other empties, Jimmy said, "Hell, my jeans are even still damp. Feels like I got sand all up in my ass."
"How many miles you think we have to go?" Lukas asked.
"At least three, maybe five, I think. That was a long ride. We're going to have to—"
Heavy rustling in the forest made his mouth snap shut on his tongue. The warm metallic taste went ignored as a thousand hoary images slugged through his mind. They had just spoken of mortality and his visions were now a duality of dark shadows and an old dead friend. He felt a cry grow within his breast, only the mottled thickness of his fear holding it in check.
Frank's legs begged to run free, blood attempting to feed high school memories into middle aged muscles, but all that could be generated was a trembling that began in his knees and spread outwards to his entire body. He was encompassed by the same sweeping doom deer felt in the last seconds of life.
Death was onrushing...
...invisible
...effortless.
As a dark figure pushed the bushes aside and stepped into the clearing, Lukas shrieked a thin, long peel, as nightmare turned real. Death walked on two legs, graceless in its approach. At least seven feet tall, it was covered entirely with thick, bristly brown hair. Yellow eyes narrowed, evaluating prey, contemplating choices. Dark lips peeled back in a near-human grin revealing dozens of dagger-long teeth.
Then, when Frank believed it was about to launch itself, the great beast snorted and sat down. It appeared to be studying them, comfortable in its odorous sphere of musky urine.
Death delayed was not the same as surviving. Frank willed his feet to slide back several inches, their answer to his perfectly enunciated internal imperative to run like the wind. The delay allowed him to see more clearly, Grim Reaper shadows dissolving, showing the true form of the creature that had intruded into their clearing.
At first it had seemed to be a bear, but it was the opposing thumbs and human-like features that detailed his earlier mistake.
And the face.
A face that was almost human. Like an ape, but not. Frank remembered Darwin and wondered what the stuffy old man would have thought of this thing.
Then he remembered too much—The Widow, boy scouts and a summer of fun turned tragic.
His head swung back and forth as his eyes sought out half-forgotten landmarks.
The circle of stones.
The eddying water after the rapids.
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The tree where...
Whatever fear had gripped him before, clenched, phantom knuckles tightly around his throat until his heart stopped. He sagged and begged to fall.
"What...the...fuck," Jimmy whispered, backing up slowly, his mouth opening and closing like a life-sized ventriloquist dummy.
The beast gazed steadily at Frank. The great yellow eyes opened in almost recognition. The lips closed and the creature seemed to smile.
Frank breathed—the sound of a tire deflating. There was something. Something that he saw there that...
Suddenly, Lukas launched himself at the beast screaming a Barbarian war cry, the Bitch-Be-Quick Stick held high in the air like an avenging sword. The thing tried to roll away, but the staff crunched sickeningly into its massive head, a misty spray of blood spit in all directions. The beast managed to stand up, but Lukas continued swinging like a Berserker, Budweiser and fear his own armor.
No. Don't. Frank screamed, but the words never left. His fear had disappeared, only to be replaced by a crazy sensation of familiarity. He knew, he didn't know how he knew, but he knew the beast meant them no harm. Whatever its apparent ferociousness, it didn't want them dead. And as sure as he had ever been about anything, Frank understood it was because it was lonely.
The beast stood and shrieked, holding its hairy hands out in an attempt to protect itself as Lukas swung again and again. Fueled by fear, Lukas' frenzied attack was too quick for the slow-moving creature. Lukas shifted his feet and swung the bloody stick in a wide arc striking the beast in its fanged mouth, smashing lips in a wet explosion of teeth and blood and animal screams.
Seconds later, like a great rare tree, the beast fell, striking the earth with an anti-climactic thud.
The only sounds in the clearing were the hyperventilations of Lukas as he stood above the fallen monster, Bitch-Be-Quick Stick raised high, arms shaking. His energy spent, he finally lowered and leaned upon the tall gory staff.
With a whisper, Jimmy approached the still beast.
"What the hell is that?"
"Dunno," Lukas said, gasping. "Dead now, though."
"Did you kill it?" asked Frank.
"Yep."
"What the hell did you do that for? It wasn't even attacking us."
Both Jimmy and Lukas turned to Frank. Lukas' eyes were still wild from the battle, his face covered with thick crimson droplets.
"And it won't attack us now, will it? I didn't give it the chance."
"What the fuck is yer problem, Frank. You gettin' soft? It was it, or us."
Frank shook his head. He knew they were right. Something had come over him, but it had disappeared with the beast's death. In some strange way, he had almost reached an odd insight from the beast.
"I...I don't know."
Jimmy shook his head and began to circle the beast cautiously. He rubbed his hands through his thick mane of brown hair, eyes wide and jumpy.
"So what the fuck is this thing?"
Lukas pointed the blood-splattered stick at the massively large bare foot. The sole was covered with thick calluses. Toenails the size of paring knives stuck wickedly forth.
Frank kneeled down and studied the beast's face. Its eyes still wide with the shock of the attack, were now glassy in death. It stared off into the darkening branches as if they alone held the secrets of its existence. And if Frank was ever to learn the truth, he understood he would need to decipher the whispering within the leaves.
He couldn't help but feel sorry for it. One of its arms was folded in front of its face, a vain effort to block the attack, long furry fingers curled up like a dead spider.
"We're gonna be fuckin' rich, man," Lukas said. "This here's the Bigfoot. We killed us a Bigfoot."
Jimmy nodded, staring at the thing's massive feet.
"It can't be Bigfoot. There's no such thing."
"You tell me what the hell it is then?" asked Lukas, kicking at its massive leathery foot.
"It's some kind of monkey, or maybe an ape."
Lukas snickered. "Last time I checked there weren't no monkeys or apes around these parts. Hell, there ain't no monkeys in all of the United States. And even if you was right and this is an ape...it's still gonna be worth money. Maybe even millions. This thing is at least seven feet tall. When is the last time you saw an ape that big?" He shook his head. "Think what you want, man. This here's a Bigfoot. Don't you remember that footage of one runnin' away from a camera? This thing looks just like it, don't it? There ain't no fuckin' doubt in my mind, this here's a Bigfoot."
Frank shook his head. "Listen to what you're saying, Lukas. That footage you're talking about is supposed to be a hoax. And other than that, I don't think there are any other pictures of a Bigfoot. It's a big man in a fucking monkey suit in that footage. All the cameras and videotape on this planet and no one has a good image of a Bigfoot? Why is that, do you think? I'll tell you. Because Bigfoot doesn't exist."
"Frank, look at what we got here on the fuckin' ground," Lukas said, kicking the beast in the leg. "You can go on about hoaxes. You can go on about monkeys and apes, but it just don't matter. I know as certain as I know that Jimmy fucked a fat chick that this thing here is a Bigfoot. There ain't nothin' else it can be. Not one fuckin' thing."
"It looks like a Bigfoot to me," Jimmy added.
"We just gotta do one thing as far as I'm concerned," Lukas said, his voice somber.
"What's that?" asked Jimmy.
"We need to get this body out of the woods and start callin' the newspapers. No, television. We're definitely talkin' television here. Maybe even a made for TV movie. If we're lucky we can get us Banjo Boy. I can see it now."
"All right. But you tell me, how are we going to move this thing?" asked Frank. "It's three miles down the river to the landing and that thing must weigh at least three hundred pounds, probably more. What are we going to do, ride it down?"
"Naw, we can't ride it down," Jimmy said. "We might lose it in the rapids."
"I don't care how much it weighs, man," Lukas said. "We're talkin' millions of dollars here. We'll carry it out. I'll carry anythin' for that much money."
Jimmy pointed to the setting sun.
"I think we would get to some sort of road faster if we went that way."
Frank stared into the darkness between the trees and wondered if there were any more of the things out there. Lukas' actions had saved them, he supposed. And if there was one, there could be another.
A deep rush went through him leaving him cleansed. It was several seconds before he recognized it. Closure. A sense of closure. If this was what had killed Robbie that summer so long ago, it would never kill again.
He allowed himself a smile.
He no longer felt so bad about its death.
Chapter 4:
Tuckered...Fred Astaire...Watch This...The Theory of Revolution...The Voice of Redneck Reason
Two hours later, they were completely and utterly exhausted from lugging the massive beast.
They were surprised they had carried it as far as they did. The river had sapped their strength, the continuous rushes of adrenaline needed to survive the river, kill a living demon and transport such a weight had finally taken their toll as their bodies realized there was nothing else to borrow from.
For a while, the riches of paradise had infused them, but each step had dropped them closer to hell. It's amazing how personal needs could take over one's thinking. A million dollars meant a lifetime of freedom. The opportunity to change the unchangeable.
Yet all Frank could contemplate was a soft warm bed. Some place to drop the loosening bag of battered bones he had once called his body. He had passed the point where he cared and was ready to forget the entire foolish journey to fame. Million dollars or not.
The beast weighed more than three hundred pounds. It had to. Even with the three of them, they had been forced to stop every few minutes to catch their breaths. To make matters worse, the constant stench of the animal stabbing into their nostrils had sen
t Jimmy and Frank repeatedly to their knees, retching half-digested beer and creek water. And Lukas, the man who would eat anything, had an iron stomach. Nothing short of seven day road kill served up as Smokey Mountain pâté would make that boy sick. Yet he was.
To make matters worse, the forest was almost completely dark. Frank had never liked the forest at night. Even the most mundane sounds were reminders that he wasn't alone. He didn't know if it was the ancient trees or if it was the hills that rose out of the mists like barrows in some Middle Earth landscape. Maybe it was the moss and fern- covered ground or the creatures scurrying away as they approached. Of course it could have been the kudzu, most alien with the way it draped its tiny might over and around everything that stood too still, the vine's apparent natural imperative, to kill what fed it.
"Fuck it, man," Frank said, dropping the leg of the beast. His action threw the Jimmy and Lukas off balance. "I ain't carrying this thing no more. This whole thing is fucking ridiculous."
"Don't be a dick, man!" Lukas said. "We can't carry this thing without you. Hell, we can barely carry it with you!"
"I don't give a flying fuck whether you can carry it or not, Lukas! You killed the damn thing, you carry it! My arms are dead here!"
What Frank didn't dare speak about was his increasing apprehension. He wasn't a coward. Sure, there were things that scared him, but those were the types of things that one couldn't grasp, concepts that eluded the sanity of reasonable thought. There was a time when he had been at home in the woods. But now...
He had seen far weirder things in his life. From the unearthly screams of Vivi's rage as she lay Cthulhu in the basement of her home to the Whitmire's otherworldy still, Frank had seen more craziness than most men. Yet, slick fingers of fear kept slipping and sliding along his spine, tap dancing like a daddy longlegs with Fred Astaire aspirations. It was more than the dark, more than the woods, more than the creature...he could not help but think that there was something intervening.
Fate, maybe.
"What's that?" asked Jimmy, pointing his finger off into the darkness.