Beware the River

by Kitty Margo

  This cracked Billy up. He hooped and hollered until he rolled off the bunk and hit the floor. “Would you just listen to yourself, James? You really need to get a life, bud.” Tears were rolling down his cheeks he was laughing so hard. “Tell us. From exactly how far did the buffalo skip?”

  “From the other side obviously.” James then turned to me deciding to ignore the imbecile on the floor. “I’m just trying to prepare you, BJ. He will be back.”

  “Regardless of whether he does or doesn’t return, I’m warning both of you that I’ve had about all I can take for one night! What makes you so sure the buffalo is determined to show me something anyway? Maybe he came here for all of us! Perhaps he intends to kill the three of us tonight while we sleep! Did you ever think of that? Better still, what if he intends to wipe out the entire human race for what our ancestors did to his kind, starting with us?” Man, I was beginning to sound like a nut case even to myself. “Why does it have to be just me?”

  “Just calm down and think about it.” James swiped at the beads of sweat dotting his forehead with the back of his hand. “Why else would he keep coming back to you, and only you? I just want you to be ready, so when he does return you won’t run away again. It’s pointless, really. You can’t outrun the buffalo.”

  “Don’t bet any money on it, because you just might lose.”

  “You were dreaming, BJ” Billy insisted, as he dragged himself off the floor and stretched out across the bunk. “And you’re not helping either, James, with your ‘the ghost will return’ bull crap - and you know it. I think both of you just need some sleep.”

  However, sleep proved to be elusive. The woods were full of small furry creatures scurrying around in the dark and each sound they made I was sure was the buffalo snorting. And it was so hot! I admit it would have probably been a good 20 degrees cooler if I had uncovered my head, but that wasn’t about to happen. Every time I closed my eyes I heard a replay of James’s warning in my head, “He’ll be back.”

  Well, let him come back! I still wasn’t going to follow him anywhere. Let Billy or James go trailing along after him. I didn’t sign up for this …ghost mission… and I wasn’t about to join in. I was finished with the buffalo. Let him go find some other kid to terrorize half out of his mind.

  After forty-five minutes, my lungs were pleading for mercy and I feared I might die from either heat stroke or suffocation. This was ridiculous! I had to have some air! I pushed the covers off my head gasping for a fresh breath.

  My shorts were soaking wet from sweat and clinging to my body. My hair was glued to my scalp. Man, what I wouldn’t give to be at home right now in my air conditioned room sipping on an ice cold bottle of water with a bag of ChexMix and a large Reece Cup to snack on as I relaxed on my soft cushion topped mattress watching Through the Worm Hole with Morgan Freeman.

  I inhaled deeply of the crisp night air wondering for the one-thousandth time how I had ever gotten myself into such a mess. But, come to think of it, I didn’t really do anything. It just came to me. Why it chose me, I didn’t have a clue.

  I lifted my face to the window to feel the cool breeze and opened my eyes to one of the greatest horrors of my entire life.

  Chapter 9

  What I saw caused my heart to flutter, and then start a mad pounding in my chest. I gave it my best effort, but I couldn’t even scream. My vocal chords were frozen with fear as the furry face that had haunted me every second for the last two days…glared back at me.

  I could smell his foul breath. Death, with a surprising mixture of fresh green grass. In the midst of all the terror I took a second to wonder where he had found green grass in this drought? Then I smelled his fur, wet dog, like he had been wading in the river.

  At present, his eyes were charcoal, instead of glowing red. Unfortunately, I knew how swiftly that could change. But seriously! Who cares about any of that when a ghost is glowering at you through a window screen a few inches from your face!

  This could not be happening! Yet, it was! Again I tried to scream and alert the others, but not even a squeak could find a way out. I beat on the mattress with my clenched fists trying to wake James. Impossible, since he was busy dreaming and mumbling the name Amber over and over in a romantic tone. I kicked the bunk as hard as I could yet he continued snoring. I grabbed the flashlight I kept beside the bed for emergencies and threw it at Billy. But both my so-called friends continued counting sheep, even as I struggled to draw air into my starving lungs.

  Just as I was about to launch myself across the room and onto Billy’s bed to shake him awake to see this thing, the buffalo snorted at me. Snorted at, and on, me, blowing a cloud of foggy mist through the screen to settle on my face. This brought me back to my senses quick, fast, and in a hurry. I sucked in a lungful of night air, and finally finding my voice, used it full force.

  Pulling the covers over my head I screamed, yelled, hollered, and (as Gram would say) just plain out caterwauled until I finally heard the sound of feet hitting the cabin floor. Billy lit a lantern and put his hand over my mouth to stifle my frantic screams.

  “BJ, what is wrong with you? I’m calling your mom right now to come and get you. Man, you are really starting to freak me out. Get a grip!” He was shaking me roughly by the shoulders. “The… buffalo …is…not…real.”

  “The…buffalo… is… in… the… window!” I knew he could barely hear my trembling voice through the pillow and blanket I had covered my head with.

  “Which window?” Billy asked. “There’s nothing in the window.”

  I stuck the very tip of one finger out of the cover just long enough to point to the window beside my head. “That one.” It was hard to tell which one was shaking more, my finger or my voice.

  Billy breathed a long-suffering sigh, pulled a chair beside my bunk and sat down. “BJ, it’s not that I don’t believe you.” We both knew he didn’t. “But you do realize that window is at least 15 feet off the ground, right? So how did our friendly neighborhood buffalo peer through the window at you? Did he levitate? Sprout wings? Hang from the roof by a rope?” He propped his feet up on my bed, patiently waiting for my answer.

  Actually, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me and when he brought it to my attention I began to tremble violently. The beast could fly! Could things possibly get any worse? I had to clench my teeth to stop the other two from hearing the noisy chattering.

  “BJ,” James started in on his theory again after having been startled out of his romantic dreams of Amber by my panicked screams, “he is determined (hiccup) to show you something. (hiccup) (hiccup) There is no escaping him. He is not going away. Can’t (hiccup) you see that? So follow him for crying out loud (hiccup) before he gets really mad and decides to…oh…I don’t know…kill us all!”

  At this point I almost didn’t even care any more. I wasn’t sure if kids my age suffered heart attacks or nervous breakdowns, but I was convinced that I was on the verge of one, or both. This was all too much for me. All I wanted at that moment was to go to my house and crawl into my bed. “I guess I’ll call Mom to come get me. Maybe I do need professional help.”

  I looked at my phone then glanced up at Billy and back at my phone. No signal. Seriously? Grandpa had just called to check on us earlier. Mom had called about twenty times today and Grandma at least five. And now suddenly there was no signal! How weird was that? I had Verizon Wireless and it always had a signal at the river, that’s why Mom used their plan. “Billy, I don’t have a signal try your phone.”

  “I don’t have a signal either.” Even Billy was beginning to look slightly unnerved by all the weirdness. He had talked on his phone several times earlier. “It’s probably just a storm in the area blocking signals.”

  “Yeah right! The only thing blocking (hiccup) (hiccup) signals around here is that buffalo and we all (hiccup) know it.”

  Holding my phone above my head hoping for a signal I heard the beep that meant I had received a text message. “It’s working!” I quickly retri
eved the message and almost suffered a heart attack as I read: Beware the river!

  Let’s just say I had a screaming episode that put all previous ones to shame. I couldn’t help it! How did the man in the painting…? Never mind! I didn’t really want to know. I threw the phone across the room like it was a hairy tarantula.

  Billy picked up the phone and read the message. “Beware the river? What does that mean, BJ? Who sent you this message?” All the blood seemed to drain from his face as he said, “It’s from an Unknown Caller.”

  A cold chill crept down my spine as I recalled the grim warning from the man in the painting. How could I have totally forgotten his bone chilling words? Or the man for that matter! How stupid could I be? My only excuse was that the buffalo had me so completely terrified that everything else was blocked out. “I forgot to tell y’all one other thing about my…for lack of a better word…haunting.”

  “What, BJ?” James whispered nervously. “There’s more? Sheesh! What did you forget to tell us?”

  “I forgot to tell you that the man in the painting…well… he spoke to me.”

  “HE DID WHAT!” James screeched, forgetting he had a can of Cheerwine in his hand and slapping his forehead hard enough to give himself a concussion. We heard a loud painful “Ouch!” before he shoved Billy aside, almost knocking him out of the chair in his haste to stand before me. “How could you have (hiccup) forgotten to tell me that? What did he say?”

  “He said for me to…um…”

  “Say it, BJ.”

  “He said, ‘Beware the river’.”

  They glared at me with accusing eyes. Then James jerked his finger in my face and shrieked, “Beware the river! Beware the freaking (hiccup) river! Man, if you had told us this earlier we would all be at home safe in our beds right now, instead of (hiccup) being stuck at the river with no way to contact anyone for help. He has us in his clutches now, right where he wanted us! Our lives are at stake (hiccup) and you forgot?”

  Moving to the table, he snatched the lid off the pickle jar and began eating one dill pickle after the other. When the jar was empty he started pacing the floor. He went back to the table, opened a Moon Pie and gobbled it down in two bites. “Now… well…to be honest… there’s no telling what he might do to us before this night is over. I could (hiccup) speculate… but …anyway…whatever happens, you can’t say the man didn’t warn you.”

  We all accepted the warning now, too late, and the fact that we were in serious danger. We also knew that there was no way to get home short of riding our four-wheelers up that dark winding river road. And I knew beyond a doubt that the buffalo would be waiting for me in the middle of the road at every turn. That is if I was brave enough to try it, which I wasn’t. We were stranded here until morning. “Switch bunks with me James. I won’t ever sleep beside a window again as long as I live.”

  * * * * *

  An hour later, James was still sitting at the table trembling, eating a cold chicken leg and nibbling on an ear of corn. All the while he was clutching a can of Cheerwine like he imagined it to be made from stronger stuff than carbonated water, and looking unusually pale in the lantern light.

  Billy was no longer cracking jokes. He peeled a cucumber and sprinkled it with salt before taking a bite, looking concerned that I might be about to go off the deep end or something. He still sat in the chair beside my bed watching me like I had suddenly developed an incurable case of some mental illness. “Just try to stay calm, BJ. We’re safe in here. I’m going to stay awake, so you go ahead and sleep. It’s only a few more hours until morning and we’ll go home, start school on Monday, and forget this night ever even happened.”

  Since it had been over an hour and nothing had happened I slowly began to relax. James had pulled the windows down and closed the blinds. It was stifling hot, but at least we couldn’t see out now and, better still, nothing could see in.

  I began to wonder if I would ever feel completely safe again. I remembered lying in a tent in my back yard, all alone, looking up at the stars and not having a care in the world. I was almost certain those carefree days were forever in the past now.

  My breathing had almost returned to normal, but I was still too afraid to move. Even if I lived to the ripe old age of 100, I would never forget turning my face to the window for a breath of fresh air and seeing the buffalo staring back at me, or feeling the hot blast of air he forced through his nostrils to settle on my face.

  I was reasonably certain that if it had registered in my brain at the time that he was floating fifteen feet in the air, I would have lost control of all my bodily functions at once. I couldn’t go on living like this. Never knowing what would happen next. Something had to give. It was then that I made the toughest decision of my life.

  Chapter 10

  James was no longer stuffing his face. (Possibly because there wasn’t any food left to stuff it with) “BJ, I really don’t want to frighten you any more than you already are. But do you believe me now when I tell you that the ghost will not rest until you see whatever he has come back to show you?”

  “Shut up, James!” Billy threw a shoe and a grin curved his lips when it bounced off James’s head. “Can’t you see he’s scared enough already without you bringing up ghosts? If you even think about mentioning that stupid buffalo again I’m going to shove my other shoe where the sun don’t shine! Now, let’s all just calm down and try to get some sleep. We’ll go home as soon as the sun comes up.”

  I was fully expecting James to tackle Billy to the floor so I was prepared to break up their fight. Amazingly, James let the incident with the shoe rest. That was unusual and very out of character for him. He must really have a lot on his mind. During the lull in their arguing, I decided to inform them of my decision.

  “It’s okay, Billy. While I’ve been lying here I have accepted the fact that the buffalo will be back. I’m certain of this. He won’t give up. So the next time he comes I intend to follow him.” I’m not sure how I went from being scared enough to wet my pants to accepting the fact that I was going out in the middle of the night to follow a ghost. But it happened. Maybe I realized that there wasn’t much more the buffalo could do to frighten me any worse that I had already been frightened tonight.

  Somehow this acceptance gave me some peace of mind and I was able to relax enough to become drowsy. I was at that in between place where you are no longer awake, yet not fully asleep, when I was jerked upright by James’s worst fit of hiccups to date, along with some pretty horrific screams.

  His screams were even louder than mine had been earlier. I knew all to well the reason he was screaming. I just never in a million years would have expected the reason to be… in the same room… with us! But it was!

  The buffalo stood unmoving in the center of the cabin with his shaggy head lowered and his dark eyes boring into mine. The wet dog smell filled the cabin and water dripped from his fur to puddle on the floor. He was looking me dead in the eyes and somehow I knew the beast meant business this time. I was in the top bunk, yet I could have reached out my hand and touched his back. His enormous body seemed to fill the cabin and… he waited.

  I glanced over at Billy. His eyes were wide and his jaw was hanging open so far I could count the fillings in his teeth. He was in shock. I knew the feeling well. His lips were moving, but he wasn’t saying a word. He just sat there clutching the thin sheet to his chest like a shield. He looked so frightened I didn’t even have the heart to say I told you so.

  The buffalo’s back half was facing Billy and without warning the beast swished his tail smacking Billy full in the face. This brought him around. He screamed and jumped off the bunk like a village of fire ants had built a nest in his mattress.

  His eyes darted from side to side like a trapped animal and he began edging toward the window, pressed hard against the wall trying desperately to disappear into it. I could see beads of sweat on his forehead glistening in the lantern light.

  The buffalo’s massive frame was blocking the o
nly exit. Surely Billy wasn’t planning to jump out of a fifteen-foot high window. He would break his fool neck. Judging from the look of stark terror in his eyes that thought would probably never even occur to him.

  “Don’t even think about it Billy. Just try to calm down. If he meant to hurt us I would probably be dead by now, don’t you think?” Even as I said these words the buffalo turned his head toward Billy and snorted. Billy didn’t move another muscle.

  Poor James had finally stopped screaming, but he was deathly pale. He had crawled behind the bunk and his body was wedged between the bed and the wall with only his nose sticking out for air. The only sound in the cabin was his non-stop, rapid-fire hiccups echoing around the otherwise quiet room. His hiccups were unusually loud and sharp this time. The reason being that this was undoubtedly the most excited or stressed he had ever been. Each hiccup sounded like it was being cannon blasted from the pit of his stomach. That had to hurt.

  The buffalo lifted one huge hoof and brought it down on the wooden floor with such force that the cabin walls vibrated around us and rattled our teeth. It was the same sound I had heard from the attic. He was getting impatient, that was easy to see. Accepting the fact that there was no escaping him, I said what he obviously wanted to hear. “Okay, you win. Show me.”

  The buffalo stood perfectly still, his eyes never leaving me as I put on my clothes and shoes. I glanced around and was stunned to see Billy also getting dressed. James peeped over the mattress and was even more shocked than I had been to find Billy tying his shoes.

  “Where (HICCUP) (HICCUP) HICCUP) are (HICCUP) you going?” James tried to whisper the words out of the corner of his mouth, hoping not to draw undue attention to himself, although even the buffalo had glanced his way a couple of times to see where the ear shattering noise was coming from before returning his attention to me.