What Goes On In The Walls At Night: Thirteen tales of disgust and delight

by Andrew Schrader

  Bob was six miles into Saint Joe now, and the trees were blocking out the sun so that it appeared later than early afternoon. He could see no real animal life from his truck, but he knew better; the woods were always teeming with a million billion unseen life forms. Even a small rock housed under it ants, spiders, and micro-organisms that came into focus if you put them under a microscope at 10×, 50×, 200× normal magnification.

  Presently he reached down by his right leg, which was glued to the gas pedal, sifted through the old papers, shop goggles, and empty packs of cigarettes, and found an old plastic water bottle which he propped between his thighs and periodically used to spit his dip juice into. “Poor bastard,” he thought, thinking of Harry, and his mind went back to that day months ago when Harry’s wife, Maria, had showed up at his door and told him through tears that Harry had gone out duck hunting and simply never came back. Bob knew that a story like that usually meant a man had just taken up with another woman, but with Harry he knew differently.

  His suspicions had been correct. The police found Harry’s car nine days later at a turnout several miles into the woods on Highway 6, in the very spot where Bob now stepped out of his cab.

  He let the motor idle, shut the truck door, and walked across the gravel, facing east, feeling the crunch beneath his boots. The lines from the wheels of Harry’s truck had been smoothed over by the wind and other vehicles come and gone, and presently a breeze picked up, and Bob looked down, tipping his hat to his lost friend, who was somewhere—somewhere out there.

  Deep in the woods, the cry of a meadowlark rang out once—close to the ground. The wind cleared suddenly and all was still, which to an experienced hunter like Bob signified not calm but danger. His ears pricked up, and so did the hairs on his arm. Steadily he scanned the jagged patterns of trees, looking for bulky, squatting shapes or something horizontal hiding among the vertical lines. For a full minute he watched, his eyes picking up every detail—ears on high alert—and as he completed his 360-degree view of the area, a bird chirped, the wind picked up, and the feeling of being hunted left him.

  A few hours later and four miles from his car, Bob set up his tent. With no real plans for the rest of the evening but get drunk, make a fire, and watch the flames, Bob took his time preparing the tinder and kindling. Since he was a boy, Bob had started his fires with only wood and paracord. On the wolf-hunting trips, the feeling of crafting each of the four fire-making wood pieces made the experience more real, alive and powerful—somehow bringing him closer to the family friend and aging tracker who showed him the secrets of fire all those years ago.

  First there was the handhold, the thunderhead, which he made by chopping a thick branch and partially hollowing out half of the already rounded end. For the spindle, which he would press between the handhold and the fire board, he shaved the bark off an inch-wide pine branch, sharpened one end, and rounded the other. The hardest part to create was the bow. It took him fifteen minutes to find a suitable branch that was curved in just the right way. After expertly carving a fork into the bottom with a few switches of his buck knife, he tied the paracord in tight and made rapid movements around the top and bottom of the bow, over-tightening it at first and then loosening it enough to wrap around the spindle.

  The fire board—the only part he allowed himself to carry, besides the paracord—came out last, aged with time and colored in mostly black or grey due to the many holes created by the friction of fire.

  Next he readied the tinder and created a teepee of twigs and leaves and old bark. He placed the ball of moss and leaves beside his fireboard, wrapped the bow on his paracord around the spindle, and knelt to set his hand upon the thunderhead. With the weight of his body he applied pressure down upon the thunderhead, the spindle, and fire board. After only ten seconds of ripping the bow back and forth and spinning the spindle against the fire board below, a coal dropped onto the board.

  Bob placed some moss onto the coal and gently guided it onto his tinder bundle. After some blowing, the coal sprouted, bloomed, and flowered into a warm fire. Bob fed it well into the night and slept pleasurably.

  The next morning’s wolf kill came fast and unexpectedly. Bob had risen before dawn and set off deeper into the woods. Two miles from camp he found a small clearing. From behind a fallen Douglas fir two hundred or so feet ahead, he set up, downwind, with an unobstructed view of the clearing. He made himself comfortable and waited. Patience was something he knew well, and he could out-sit, outlast any situation long after other hunters got restless and moved on.

  Bob had a feel for the forest: he knew when to stay put, when to move, when there was game, when there was none. An intuitiveness denied others—gifted to him. He tried to explain it once to a group of good old boys in trucker hats, down at a derby. At this particular event, the men were allowed to hunt anything and everything—not only wolves, but squirrels, rabbits, snakes . . . If it moved and wasn’t human, it was fair game. Bob returned with three wolves, several snakes, foxes, and other creatures, in an otherwise dry season for the others. After being awarded top prize, and upon being questioned by the trucker-hatted men, Bob tried to explain, unsuccessfully, his intuitive feelings surrounding the hunt. He just . . . could feel where things were, where they lived, where and when the jackrabbit would pop its head out from behind the fern . . .

  The men had simply stared at him. It was hard not to sound like an idiot, so Bob shrugged, sipped his beer, and said: “I guess I was lucky.”

  The feeling he knew but could not articulate always flared up before a kill. A sense of calm would flow through him, guiding his left arm to grip the barrel of his rifle, his right hand to steady his aim.

  Today, the animal appeared—a gaunt, grey wolf. Its ribs poked through tight skin, its breath exaggerating the tension. To the outside observer it might have appeared weak, but Bob knew it to be a lie. Inside the skeleton was a fierce animal, with more fight in it than in a badger or a possum. He settled into his rifle, took aim, breathed in once, and fired.

  He skinned the front legs first, making one incision on the underside of the legs, at the feet, and worked his way upwards. The knife skirted the flesh and bone expertly in short, rapid movements, cutting away any underlying skin and severing the joints and knuckles near the toes so he could unwrap the hide in one piece.

  There was only a little blood from the legs, but the shot that penetrated the heart and both lungs had sprayed fresh red across the yuccas, and now that the body was hung upside down a pool gathered beneath it. Soon Bob had begun the k-skin, making two cuts near the hind legs and unfolding the patches of fur, which now hung off the body like wilted flowers on a hot day.

  After the back legs came cutting the tail away from the meat, and when he was done working his way down the long, bony piece, he reached in and pulled the tail bone from the hide.

  Half the wolf’s fur hung from its body like an upside-down ballerina. Bob plugged his nose with some cotton; at first the rotten smell of the animal hadn’t bothered him much, but now it was overpowering. Bad, like rotten meat, despite the fresh kill. He continued unrolling the wolf’s fur downward, cutting away the skin to preserve the hide. He whistled as he worked.

  The head was hardest, always. After cutting around the eyes and digging out under the ears, the knife peeled away the hide around the skull, and skin fell off the bone. He finished pulling the hide clear and scraped away the residues of flesh as best he could.

  The wolf’s naked body looked like a long, ugly chicken.

  Bob sat for a moment to catch his breath. Though the body stank, the sight of meat made his stomach rumble. His dehydrated beef stroganoff sounded pretty good, he decided, plus he was far enough from the camp to leave the kill without attracting animals to him. Given that he had more than half a day left before sundown, he could return to camp, make a fire, and hang the hide to air dry until night came and he’d have to put it in his scent-proof bag.

  Bob thought about this as he readied the hide for travel b
ack to the camp. He cut the body loose from the hanging tree, and the pink, naked thing crumpled to the forest floor. He stretched; the hours of waiting, the rush of killing, the labor of skinning had conspired against him, and now his body ached.

  By the sun, he judged it was past noon. He’d been sitting for at least four hours. If he left now and packed his site quickly, he could make it back to the truck and go home tonight, but a sigh escaped his lips as he remembered his lost friend, and he decided one more night in remembrance was in order.

  The hide was drying. Slowly. Bob watched it in the heat and the shadows of the flame.

  The jittery nervousness of the hunt had faded, and exhaustion was now setting in as night fell. In the air hung a mist, which had come in with the disappearing sun. Unusual for this forest, this time of the year. His tent called to him, but instead Bob hunkered into his jacket, refusing to leave the flame; it was still too early for bed.

  Above the fire the hide hung, still wet and shiny. He’d soon need to wrap it up in his bag, and probably hang it in the trees. The thing stank like shit.

  The mist grew heavier, wetter. Bob smelled rain. He’d checked the forecast before he left; it was nothing but sunshine and moonlight.

  Still . . .

  Somewhere in the woods there was a howl—a long, piercing sound that made Bob jump a little. It sounded like pain, like grief, like—

  There was another. It was close, too, maybe a couple miles away.

  Howling at the moon, he thought.

  Bob quietly pulled out his rifle from its case, loaded it, and set it across his lap. Everything went quiet again, except for the pop and crackle of the sap in the kindling. He sat awhile, another twenty or thirty minutes, once again growing drowsy and relaxed by the heat of the fire.

  The sense of being watched came suddenly. The feeling he got just before a kill returned, only now it was more focused. Inverted somehow. The crickets stopped chirping. So did the frogs. The owls, too. All animal noises ceased.

  I’m being hunted.

  Whether it was an animal or something else, he didn’t know, not for sure, but it was there, beyond the fire. The shape of it was there, darker than the rest of the forest only dimly lit by the moon. It was too dark, and he was too frightened to know if the thing beyond the fire even had a real shape or if it had only taken shape in his mind.

  But the thing was standing upright.

  Sweat sprouted on Bob’s brow. Terror seized his lower half and immobilized him. His hands shook and white-knuckled the rifle. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice tried to scream him out of paralysis, but had no effect. He blinked and looked to the right—out of the corner of his eye the shape appeared more definite, less so when he looked at it straight on.

  Something was standing. It was bipedal. It had broad shoulders.

  A twig snapped in the fire, ejecting a whirl of red embers, illuminating the space past the fire, and something like a face appeared for a hot second.

  The upright thing’s face was pink and brown, caked in mud and hair.

  A second large pop from the fire blinded Bob for a moment. He looked down at his gun, willing his hands to move, but they refused.

  The thing across the fire was breathing. It was soft, nasally, and on the exhale a guttural sound like air moving past a clogged windpipe.

  It began to move. Bob watched it track left, then . . . it started to disappear. The shape grew smaller as it backed away into the forest.

  Over the next fifteen minutes, the sense of being watched slowly vanished, and Bob realized he was alone.

  Bob had packed up camp and was set to hike the four miles back to his truck when he realized the stupidity of his plan. At first all he could think to do was flee, but now he was thinking clearer.

  To wander through the woods with a head lamp, attracting that thing . . . as a hunter, he knew better. Whatever it was, it could see in the dark, and Bob didn’t feel like going up against it on its own terms, in its own backyard. He was at a disadvantage, and he knew it was stupid to try.

  He’d have to wait through the night.

  So, he placed his packs close to him and built up the fire until the flames reached three feet high. If he couldn’t see in the dark, he’d try like hell to even the playing field if the thing came back. He found dozens of branches and even used his hatchet to hack up an old dead tree, not twenty feet from his tent, that had been eaten out by beetles. Soon he had enough wood to see his fire through the night.

  He checked his watch.

  Damn. Only 11:43.

  He made sure his rifle was loaded and that he had plenty of ammo in his pocket. Then he crouched close to the fire and waited.

  When he was a young boy, Bob had once been out walking on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park. He and his father were staying on a friend’s property, and Bob had liked to take morning hikes before his father woke up. This time, about twenty minutes down the path leading into the park, Bob looked up the embankment on his left and saw a group of five coyotes steadily creeping along, no more than fifty feet away. The slope leveled out at the path up ahead, and a few dozen yards to his right was an 8,000-foot drop, straight down. In the distance were nothing but snow-topped peaks and blue skies.

  Little Bob thought quickly. There were pine trees all around him. If he was lucky, perhaps he could shimmy up one of them and stay there until his father came looking for him. Only his father wouldn’t know where Bob had gone; several paths led out of camp. Plus, he could see no footholds in the trees. Instead of running, Bob had removed the knife from its sheath attached to his Levi’s and grabbed a large branch that had fallen onto the path. Slowly he’d backed down the path, wielding the branch and the knife, one foot extending behind the other, keeping guard, hissing and snarling, until he’d reached his father’s tent, piss and sweat soaking through his jeans.

  A freezing chill blew through camp. It felt like a foreign wind from some distant mountaintop, full of stinging ice. The pelt above the fire swayed back and forth. It was wet again, having gathered moisture from the mist. Now it shimmered. A drop of blood fell into the fire and sizzled.

  Drops of rain pitter-pattered on the ground. Just a few at first, mimicking the blood from the wolf’s hide. Big drops. Soon Bob’s hat and face and clothing were soaked.

  He shielded the rifle from the wetness as best he could, and started digging through his backpack, only to remember he’d brought no rain gear.

  Nothing to do but shiver.

  The rain’s intensity built. Sheets of it drenched Bob and his camp, but the fire was so large and strong the rain couldn’t extinguish the flames, so they sizzled on the embers in defiance.

  Only minutes later, the water was so thick and suffocating Bob could only squint through closed eyelids and scan between the Douglas firs and lodgepole pines for any sign of the return of the thing across the fire.

  Lines and shapes of all kinds—perhaps created by the fire or by his own imagination, or produced by real life—dominated his vision. He could take the hallucinations no longer, and he pulled out his gun, cocked it, and—

  His shotgun let loose across the fire, behind it, to the right and left—then he reloaded and fired again.

  He spat war cries into the woods, and didn’t stop until he was tackled from above.

  The smell of burning flesh hit him first, followed by the realization that he’d been slammed by something and had fallen into the fire.

  He put his hands down to push himself up onto his feet. Only when he had stood and was looking down at his red, bleeding palms did he realize he had pushed himself up off the coals.

  A mixture of yellow and orange flames obscured his vision. Blinking did little to combat the bright lights behind his eyelids; closing his eyes didn’t produce the darkness he’d hoped for.

  All Bob could do was run, arms outstretched like wild probes feeling their way between the trees and through the thickets. He vaguely sensed that whatever had tackled him was now chasing him.
Judging by the vanishing sensations of heat and brightness, he was moving away from the fire.

  Where he was going he had no clue, and he didn’t care.

  Breathing came mixed with little bursts of yelling. He howled in pain as branches and barbed bushes gouged his arms, legs, and face.

  The rain came in vertical rivers now—all at once, down the trees, carrying bark and whole sections of branches with it.

  He slipped in the mud, staggered, drew himself up again. So liquid was the forest floor that his right boot sank half a foot into the earth. He wrenched it out, screamed in pain as his right ankle snapped, set his left foot down, and then the water and world turned upside-down on him, and his foot seemingly fell through the ground.

  All the air left him as his body hit the bottom of the mud pit twelve feet below.

  He lay there a moment, unable to breathe. On his way down he had felt his head crack against a rock in the side of the wall. Now he tasted a metallic substance in his mouth, something mixing with the mud and rain.

  He was only dimly aware that he’d fallen through a false floor in the earth; a trap, like the ones he used to make as a child to catch wild boars. He rolled over and vomited into the small well of water that had begun collecting at the bottom of the mud pit.

  He looked up, his mouth wide open and caked in blood and vomit. His vision slowly returned. He reflexively tried to blink the mud out of his eyes, but couldn’t. Leaves fell, heavy with rain, spinning down the hole, covering his face.

  He tried to shift his body, realizing one leg had folded beneath him and the other was stretched against the mud wall. The pit was only five feet across, and couldn’t hold a whole laid-out body.

  The pit filled quickly with water. The walls were slick, and he couldn’t get a real grip on anything. He untangled his leg—get up, you fuck—and tried to stand by bracing his hand on one side of the wall, but slipped and fell sideways, slamming both hands on the wall in front of him—and to his surprise, the wall gave as he pushed against it. He felt something move, bend inward in the center, as if—