by Andrew Gille
I arrived at the trail and stared down the path of the massive feet. I looked in the snow and saw tiny droplets of blood. The creature I’d seen had been wounded by something and was running from it, being cautious not to run so fast that he blundered into another trap or danger. I had something to learn from him. I looked around slowly then moved ahead swiftly, then stopped, looked around, and then again walked deliberately and carefully as I looked through my scope.
I quietly and quickly stepped out of the massive man’s tracks and sought cover when I heard more footsteps crashing through the forest. I immediately tried to conceal myself with the branches of the bushes in which I now lay. I pointed my gun at the ridge ahead of me. A decline dropped down steeply for about 30 feet beyond it, not too steep to climb up but steep enough that tripping would send you for a dangerous fall.
I put the crosshairs on the center of the trail and waited. A figure rose up from the ridge, and I immediately recognized it as my nephew. He moved quickly, but loudly and he carried the SCAR-L with him in both hands, with his finger on the trigger.
Now I just had to alert him to my presence without getting shot myself. I was afraid that any sound or attempt to get his attention would result in me getting shot. With his finger on the trigger like it was, any twitch or shake could cause the gun to be fired. Even if he immediately recognized me, I was afraid he would still be startled and pull the trigger, errantly shooting himself or me.
I waited until he was turned in the opposite direction and I then shouted his name while still hiding from sight. Shockingly, he did not fire his gun and instead looked around and called to me.
Confident that neither of us was going to be accidentally killed or wounded, I stood.
“Colin, its Mason, I’m right here! Don’t shoot!”
Colin said nothing and came running to me, I wasn’t about to be babbling about what I’d seen and have him accuse me of dementia again.
“What happened? How did we get separated?” I began.
“I don’t know,” Colin replied to me.
“You look frightened, did you see a bear?” I said.
“Yeah…well…no, I don’t…”
“Did you see something else?” I was excited at the prospect that Colin had perhaps encountered the beast men as well. Colin stood staring at the ground, “I heard shooting, did you see something Colin, were you shooting? The gun was on full automatic that I heard.”
“Yeah, that was me,” he replied sheepishly.
“Did you have a misfire? What were you firing at?”
I looked at Colin, I still had thoughts that he might be playing some kind of trick on me. I searched his expression and gestures for any sign that he was pretending to be scared or confused right now. Perhaps it was because I was so frightened and confused, but I saw nothing that betrayed any kind of falseness in his demeanor.
“Colin, what was it?” I probed.
Colin looked up at me with a pained expression in his face and then turned away again.
“It was a man,” came his reply.
“A man? Like a hermit?”
“Maybe,” came his pained reply.
Now I wasn’t sure what had happened. I still didn’t trust my own perceptions due to Colin's questions about my reliability and mental state. It is incredible how you can feel crazy when you’re always being told that you might be.
“Where is Anatoly?” I asked hoping that he and the Russian hadn’t gotten into some kind of disagreement that ended in a firefight.
“I don’t know I lost him in that freak snowstorm,” Colin was now using full sentences, an improvement.
“Well, what were you shooting at?”
Colin paused, I again thought he’d just be silent, but then came his reluctant reply, “It was a man, he was huge, like a, well a giant.”
“Yeah,” I said, in a manner I hoped would coax more from him. I tried to hide my excitement about the fact that he’d seen the same thing I had.
“He had like a fur coat on maybe?”
“Maybe?” I asked indicating disbelief and hoping he’d come to the conclusion that it was the beast’s own fur.
“No, actually, he was covered in fur. Pretty sure anyway.”
“Okay, so you saw the same thing I did,” trying to acknowledge that I agreed with his sentiments.
“What?”
“I don’t know what they are, you’ve got me wondering about my own sanity out here, but I ran into one of them. It had all of the traits of the yeti or the menk that Anatoly was talking about. It stunk, it’s fur was thick, it was huge, and when I ran into it, it was like running into a tree, it was far bigger and more powerful than me.”
“You ran into one? What did it do?”
“I don’t know, I heard either you or Anatoly screaming and then it went in the direction of the sound.”
“That was Anatoly, I didn’t say a word, I just ran after I saw it. I’m sorry, I should have stayed in one spot. I’m sorry I lost you.” Colin appeared on the verge of tears, I could tell he was dealing with some sort of shame. Right now I didn’t need that from him. Shame could kill you in a situation like this if you let it consume you and make you feel that you were unworthy of living.
“It’s okay, I ran too. What were you going to do? It's probably wise to run from an eight-foot bipedal creature in a snowstorm.”
Colin laughed, it was the first sign of levity I’d seen from him since we’d been reunited.
“Yeah, it was about eight feet tall, I don’t think I am exaggerating, I’ve never seen a human being that big and I sit courtside at the Timberwolves games. They’ve got fur that’s like gray and thick, like almost like dreadlocks all over their body. I think it acts like some kind of bulletproof weave. I emptied an entire magazine at one of them, and it just annoyed him. Allowed me to get away though. I think one of them is like a 12 pointer.”
“What?” I asked, this now made me feel that Colin was joking or making fun of me. I had a sense of dread that the annoying laugh would return as would more theories about my mental state.
However, that was not the case, dead serious he said, “Yeah one of them has antlers.”
I then realized what he was talking about, “Yeah, I think that was a hat,” I explained.
“A hat? Wild animals don’t wear hats. Who put a hat on him then?” Colin said, seemingly annoyed. I think he may have felt that I was now the one calling into question his sanity.
“No, I think they have some kind of intelligence. I got a real good look at the one who had the hat or helmet or whatever, the one that wore the antlers, he had a necklace and a spear as well.”
“Really?” Colin said, a genuine question without any sense of mockery.
“Yeah, they walked by me right before you got here. I actually think you might have scared it off.”
“What? No, those things are not scared of me.”
“Did they attack you?”
“Yes, they attacked me! That’s why I shot at them. After the storm, I spent a night in the woods, and they were walking around looking for me. I saw them in the night, giant shadows and I just hid in the snow. They talked to each other in some kind of language, like grunts and sounds that were not human, but it was a language. I know, I speak five of them, I know a thing or two about languages. Just now I came upon one of them, and he came at me, I had no choice but to shoot him, and I hit him, Mason, I hit him with every bullet in a 20 round magazine…it knocked him down, but he got up again and ran off. I know I hit him!”
“Okay, okay, that’s fine. Look, let’s try to find our way back to the snowmobiles, do you know where they are?” I said, trying to calm him down. I could tell he was second guessing all of his decisions, blaming himself for the situation he was in and expecting others to be critical of the decisions he’d made. Although in everyday life Colin could have used more self-reflection like this, right now it wasn’t helpful. I needed him to pull it together, and we needed to find the snowmobiles.
&nbs
p; “I think I do, I mean I haven’t seen them since yesterday, but I think we can go this way,” he pointed back down the ridge he’d just come up. I was happy because that was the way I felt the snowmobiles were probably parked based on my sense of direction now that I had reoriented myself.
“I agree, let’s go that way,” I said.
We began walking on the trail back toward the direction Colin had come.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Night Two
AS THE SUN began to sink back down into the western skies. I thought it would be a good idea if we stopped walking and made camp in the area we’d walked to while trying to find the snowmobiles.
Colin had matches, and for about two hours we tried to start a fire, the spring thaw had left everything wet and unable to be burned. The weather wasn’t unbearably cold, and I felt that the temperature was in the upper teens as the stars came out and the last glow of the sunlight sank below the horizon.
We climbed into our mummy bags which were waterproof, and I was quite warm to the point that I was concerned that I’d wake up drenched in sweat. I’d found the mummy bag’s waterproof shell to be quite unbreathable, and it necessitated opening it a little to let the moisture out.
Colin was reasonably quiet since I’d encountered him he’d been much less gregarious than usual. I think he generally considers himself invincible. He’s been so rich from such a young age, and he’s had so many people around him telling him that he was some kind of super-human, I really think he thinks that he is some kind of magically unique human being. I believe that up to this point he’d been able to handle every situation that had been thrown at him. Like when the SEC investigated him, and he came out looking like a victim, he did that. If he’d misplayed his cards, he’d be in jail right now, or even after this incident during the Russia investigation where he made that senator from Illinois look like an idiot because he had no clue about the Internet or how anything technical worked. He did it in a way that made that guy look stupid, made Colin look like everyone’s buddy and made that guy look like he was a foul spirited jerk who was picking on Colin. Everything before and since, he’s either known what to do or shot from the hip and hit the bullseye. I think he was bewildered and overwhelmed not knowing what to do and he just had nothing to say. Can you really blame him? No one prepares to have their bear hunt interrupted by yetis with bullet proof fur.
“You know where the snowmobiles are? Do you think we can make it in the morning?” I asked to break the silence.
“I think so, I thought about going back but I didn’t want to leave until I found you, or your body I guess,” Colin said.
“Okay, well, you found me, alive thankfully. If we make it to them tomorrow, we’ll be in good shape. I’m sure you know the way home. If not I think I can remember how we got here on the trails.”
“Yep, I remember.”
“Hey, Colin, we gotta bring it together. What’s going on? You can’t check out right now, I need you to be here with me.”
Colin, suddenly shook his head, my admittedly lame pep talk had seemed to have reached him.
“Yeah, okay,” he replied wiping the sullen look off his face.
“What’s going on man, tell me what’s happening with you,” I asked to try to get him to talk through things.
“I just feel responsible for being in this situation. I brought you out here, it was supposed to be a great time, now Anatoly is missing, and I thought you were dead,” Colin said looking up at the sky.
“Yeah, well I’m not. I really appreciate that you wanted to bring me out here Colin, it should have been an incredible time. I have always wanted to go bear hunting and to do it in Russia? Just incredible. It will be an amazing experience if we can get back to the snowmobiles and get out of here, so we have to focus on that right now. Feeling guilty or blaming yourself isn’t going to help right now. I don’t blame you, guilt and shame can kill you just like a bear or the cold,” I explained.
“What do you mean?” Colin asked me.
“A man is so ashamed of the situation he puts himself in that he doesn’t feel he deserves to survive. Especially if other people are involved, someone else is hurt or killed. Some people internalize that blame, they feel guilty for surviving, and they don’t do everything necessary to get themselves out of the situation.”
“Okay, I do understand,” Colin said somberly.
“Well, you can’t feel that way, I need you here, I need you to be a part of getting me out of here. You shouldn’t, but If you feel any remorse or shame for what is going on, redeem yourself by helping me out of here. Our odds of living go down exponentially if one of us is gone. Together we can team up and get out of here.”
“Yeah, alright,” Colin said, he seemed to not have a lot of enthusiasm for getting out of this, I could tell he was feeling a lot of remorse and guilt.
“You don’t seem like you want to get out of here Colin, tell me that you want to live and help me get out of here,” I said.
Colin sat saying nothing, he appeared as if he were going to cry, if it were a movie, I suppose a single tear would have rolled down his cheek, but that didn’t happen. He just sat coldly looking out into the empty sky.
“What are afraid of Colin? What is your fear?” I said.
Colin contemplated a long time and then said, “It’s the criticism, what they’re going to say?”
“Who? The media?”
“No, they’ll never find out about this,” he replied, “But my dad and you and Diane. I won’t be able to face you again.”
Colin had some kind of complex with his dad, Ted. Ted was an auto mechanic and ran his own body shop before he retired a few years ago. He and Colin have never been on the same wavelength. They had a few common interests, and they have a good relationship, but Colin always thought his dad looked down on him. I’d never heard Ted say anything like that about Colin, but something, somewhere along the line gave him the idea that his dad was not impressed with him. That was a problem for Colin. He was not a guy who cared if you liked him or not, he had many enemies, and sometimes he relished their hatred and fanned their flames. With his father, however, he sought approval, and I don’t think he thought he got it. Truthfully, his father just has no clue about the kinds of things Colin is interested in and vice versa.
Colin obviously likes cars, but not the 50’s classic automobiles his dad likes. He has that Lamborghini Aventador which is pretty much the opposite of the 1957 Chevy Bel Air his dad owns as a secondary ‘fun’ car. Colin's dad’s daily driver is pretty much the polar opposite of Colin's as well, he drives a 2003 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi. He loves the 3800 engine and can talk to you about it for hours. Colin has a Tesla Model S, and he can explain all of the “Auto Pilot” self-driving features and the algorithms that power them.
Colin never wanted to spend time at his dad’s shop, he was interested in computers, which I guess is where our relationship evolved. I had a Commodore Amiga computer, and my job obviously involves computers. Colin used to come over, and we’d work on programs, typing them in, he had some kind of friends who were game pirates, and he’d bring over games, and we’d play them. Back then you didn’t need to worry about viruses or malware from hacked games. I think he got his interest in flying from playing a flight simulator on my computer. So we started hanging out on the rare occasions that his mom Elaine would come back to South West Michigan from Eden Prairie. We’d watch 80’s action movies, play games on the Amiga or talk about programming and you could tell he was very enthusiastic to be visiting us.