by Milo Abrams
“All right, ammo!” Owen yelled with excitement. Jack looked at him like a parent would a small child who didn't understand the power or responsibility of using a gun.
“This isn't a toy,” he said, “and we shouldn’t fire it unless we need to. These things kill people.”
“I got it, Dad,” Owen said, “let me get the bullets!”
James looked at Jack and raised an eyebrow. “Fine. There's a box in the back corner in my dad’s closet. Don't mess anything up,” he told Owen.
Owen disappeared from the kitchen. James brought the backpack to the table and set it next to the gun. “So, you know how to load that thing?” James asked Jack.
Jack nodded, “I think I can figure it out.” He closed the laptop and stood in front of the rifle next to James. “But I'm not going to be responsible for it. Your dad, your responsibility.”
“Fair enough,” James replied.
Owen came back with six bullets and a smile a mile wide. “This is so cool. I've never seen bullets in real life.”
Jack took them and then quickly loaded them into the gun like a professional. “There,” he said, “all six fit. I told you your dad left it unloaded.” He handed it over to James. “What did you pack?”
“I didn't really know what to bring. I know that it'll be a long walk but I figured we wouldn't need too much. Just a water bottle for each of us, the last bag of jerky, and an orange I found in the back.”
“If the rain lets up and it gets super hot, we’re going to need more than one bottle of water, I think,” Jack suggested.
“Right,” James nodded then went to the fridge and put in another bottle for each of them. Duffy yelped at the door, begging to go outside. James looked at him and frowned. “Can't forget Duff,” he said. He then put two more bottles of water and Duffy’s water bowl in the backpack and zipped it up. As he slung it over his shoulder he nearly fell over. “Jesus!” he yelled as he regained his balance. Jack and Owen just laughed. James frowned as he realized that carrying such a heavy pack would make the walk even harder. Jack saw this and caught on quickly.
“Do you have any other bags so we can split that up?” he asked.
James thought for a moment then ran to his dad’s room. He returned with a second backpack. “This one’s my dad’s. I’ll worry about sneaking it back later.” He took the bag off and they divided the weight of all the water bottles between the two packs. After putting it back on he smiled at the difference in weight. “Okay, let's grab the leash from the porch and get going,” he said grabbing the gun from the table.
Owen and Jack held Duffy by the collar as James opened the door and cautiously stepped onto the porch. The rain had stopped and his knuckles started to lighten as he gripped the gun tightly, looking around for anything out of the ordinary.
“You see anything?” Owen yelled from behind him, “I don't think we can hold Duffy much longer.”
“I don't see anything,” James said. He set the rifle down on the porch then unwrapped the leash from around the banister. He knelt down, tied the broken end around Duffy’s collar in a loose knot and then stood back up holding it with two hands. “Okay let go,” he said.
As soon as Jack and Owen released their grip Duffy took off. James’s feet had no traction on the wet porch and he slipped off, hitting the squishy ground. Duffy pulled him easily as he circled around toward the barn looking for a place to pee. Owen grabbed the gun and they ran after James as he slid helplessly across the wet grass.
“Damn it Duff, stop!” James yelled as he slid around. Duffy paid no attention to him as he dragged him up by the barn. Finally, he stopped smelling and peed. James sat up, his back soaked and his hair with bits of grass sticking out of it wildly. Owen laughed but James didn't think it was funny.
“Be careful with that thing!” Jack yelled at Owen as the gun swung wildly around as he laughed. He stopped and then frowned as he handed it back to James.
Duffy finished and then started sniffing around some more. “C’mon Duff, we don't have time for this!” James tried to hold his leash with one hand but Duffy was too strong. He pulled James around again but this time James managed to stay on his feet. “What're you doing?” he yelled as Duffy relentless sniffed the grass. Then suddenly he stopped and stared out into the field behind the house. James squinted, the water glistening off the grass, and sitting once again at the back of the field along the woods was the gray figure.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
James struggled to get the words out. Finally, he forced a hushed whisper. “It's there at the back of the field.”
“What?” Owen yelled.
Duffy suddenly shot off like a rocket causing the leash to slip from James’s hand.
“No!” James yelled, “Duff!”
Duffy ran into the field barking, blazing like a cheetah until he reached the halfway point. The monster sat perfectly still as Duffy stood there, nervously grinding his paws into the dirt and barking. James ran after him without another thought.
“What're you doing?!?” Jack yelled. Owen ran after James with Jack trailing slowly behind.
As James reached Duffy in the middle of the field, the gray figure quickly slipped back into the trees. The sudden movement was too much for Duffy to resist. His fur stood up along his back and his teeth gleamed beneath quivering lips.
“Duffy, no!” James yelled, but it was too late. Before he could reach the leash, Duffy took off again toward the woods, tearing through the field and blasting into the trees without hesitation. “DUFFY!” James yelled as he froze in shock.
Jack and Owen reached his side, his eyes wide and empty.
“James?” Jack asked softly.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Owen stamped the ground, squishing it beneath his worn sneakers. “What're we going to do?”
James had already made up his mind. He stood there staring into the trees, gripping the rifle tightly. Without a word, he started to walk toward the tree line.
“James, what're you doing?” Jack yelled as he followed him. “We have to go get help! We’ll go to a neighbor or something!”
James stopped and looked at Jack more seriously than he had ever looked at anyone before. “No,” he said sternly. “I'm going to go get my dog.”
23
“That's insane,” Jack pleaded, “you have no idea what that thing is or what it can do. We need to go get help.”
James looked at the rifle in his hands. “There’s no time for that, by the time we get help Duffy could be dead.” The thought caused his eyes to burn. He looked at Owen who simply nodded then stood next to him.
“I'm with you, bro.”
Jack shook his head. “This is stupid, this is so stupid.”
“Then go,” James commanded. “Go get help. We’re going to get Duffy.” James turned and started walking again. Owen shrugged at Jack and followed him.
Jack looked back at the house and then toward James and Owen as they walked toward the woods. He knew the power was out still and he had no idea how far the nearest neighbor was. He thought back to the survival stories he saw on TV where someone left to get help and by the time he did the people he left to help were already dead. His jaw was clenched in frustration and panic as he mentally weighed all the options. Part of him was more afraid to go get help alone than to follow James into the woods and he couldn't explain it. “Ahh,” he groaned as he turned and ran after James and Owen.
“I thought you were going to get help?” Owen asked him as he caught up.
Jack tried his best to play cool. “It's no secret that I'm the smartest here and if you're going to have any chance of making it out of this then you're going to need smarts. Brains beats brawn every time.”
“Yeah,” Owen said, “unless brawn beats the crap out of brains.” He smiled but Jack just rolled his eyes.
As they walked through the field a shelf cloud stretched across the sky far off in the distance that looked like a giant ocean wave. James gripped the rifle tightly as they
passed the deer feeder and approached the edge of the yard. The woods had looked as they always had and to anyone else they may have been beautiful, but to James they were dark and mysterious. Running around somewhere inside was a real live monster and his dog.
"We're coming, Duffy," he said as he crossed the tree line with a new-found bravery and walked straight into the woods.
Stepping inside was like being transported to a different world. The sunlight filtered through the treetops with a distorted grayish-green color, causing the ground to look much darker than it actually was, giving the woods a very haunting feeling. Even the trees stood apart from each other, keeping enough space between them that suggested that if they got too close they may lose their minds and kill one another. The number of trees seemed infinite as they stretched before them. The further they walked the thicker everything got. Plants seemed to appear along the ground, reaching up for their ankles and shins and the branches hung lower and lower as if they wanted to wrap around the boys’ necks and pull them up to their deaths. Jack huddled closer behind James as they walked deeper into the woods. Owen pulled ahead to the front, basking in the glow of the adventure.
"Keep your eyes open," he said playfully, "and your ears too." He clearly was enjoying himself. He had wanted to adventure into the woods from the first day that he had seen them—monster or not.
As the trees multiplied and thickened, the low laying bushes made it impossible to see ahead. A twig snapping in the distance caused them to stop suddenly.
“What was that?” Jack whispered.
James stood there listening to the woods like a wild animal. Nothing followed and Owen was impatient.
"C'mon, let's keep going!" Owen yelled.
"Wait," James said, "we should look around a bit."
"When the terrain gets thick, you have to just barrel through it!" Owen yelled as he rushed through the thick foliage in front of them. He wasn't able to see the steep decline through the bushes and he screamed as he tumbled down the hill and rolled to the bottom.
"Owen!" James yelled.
Jack carefully peeled back a couple of branches letting them see the edge of the ground where Owen had fallen. “Shit,” Jack said to James.
James took a deep breath then slowly stepped through the thick brush until he reached the edge. Down below he saw Owen lying motionless on the ground with his arms and legs spread out like he was making a snow angel in the dirt.
"Owen!" Jack screamed as he crept up behind James. "James, we have to go get help, that fall could have killed him. Owen! Owen, can you hear me? Say something!"
Despite the screams, Owen didn't move or make a sound.
"No, we need to go down and help him," James said. "If he's alive he's too vulnerable like that. The monster could be anywhere. We leave and he may not be here when we get back!"
Jack was amazed at James’s cold and calculated demeanor. He frowned and James felt bad for him. Even though they were the same age, Jack was very timid and afraid all the time. James tried to compensate for this by being braver than he normally would've been.
"Listen, we will go get help as soon as we get Owen, okay?"
Fearing his friend was dead, Jack wiped the tears forming in his eyes and nodded. They crouched down on to their butts and slowly started to slide down the slope. It was much too steep for them to just simply walk slowly down, which is why Owen tumbled down so quickly. The rain had soaked the surface dirt and the trees at the top only offered minimal help from slipping near the top. Their roots soon disappeared and the boys found themselves sliding down uncontrollably. They tried to dig their feet into the hill as they slid but the mud simply gave way and they cascaded toward Owen in a muddy avalanche. When they finally hit the bottom near Owen, they were forty feet below where they started. Jack quickly recovered and crawled toward his friend.
“Owen! Owen, speak to me!” Jack yelled, pouncing on him.
Owen groaned, “Get off...me.”
Jack backed off and James rushed over to try and help him up. “No,” Jack yelled at James, “don't touch him! He may have broken his neck or injured his spine. You're not supposed to move him! We need to get help!”
Owen groaned again and then sat up slowly. “I'm okay,” he whispered, “I just had the wind knocked out of me.” Jack wrapped his arms around his friend in celebration, but Owen quickly shoved him off. “Get off me with that, jeez.”
Jack’s attitude did a one-eighty. “You jerk! You have to watch where you're walking! You never know what you're going to step into!”
James offered his hand to help Owen up and he took it. “That was a hell of a drop,” he said.
Behind them, further away from the hill was a small creek. As they scanned their surroundings they realized that on that lower level of the woods there was just more woods. The trees burst out of the ground and reached desperately for all the light they could capture. The older trees were obviously much taller and absorbed more light, allowing for thicker trunks. The younger trees were conniving as they sprouted right next to the older ones to steal the nutrients from the roots, and some even wrapped themselves around the trunks of the older trees, literally growing into them like deciduous parasites.
Jack’s demeanor softened once again as he looked at James. “All right, we need to go back and get help now. You promised.”
James looked coldly at Jack. The only thing on his mind was Duffy. “No,” he said, “we need to get Duffy. Owen is fine, see? The more time we waste running back and forth between the house and here is time that Duffy is losing. He’s depending on us now.”
Jack was shocked that James turned around on his word to him, but he was too afraid to say anything. Owen, feeling that his left leg was all wet, looked down in a panic.
“What's wrong?” James asked.
He reached into his pocket and then patted the other before sighing in relief. He reached into the dry pocket and pulled a bright pink plastic lighter. “Was afraid I drowned this thing!”
“Have you had that with you the whole time?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” he replied, “it’s the only one I have left. Besides, it matches my hat!”
James ignored them while he looked around and listened like a bloodhound. “Nothing,” he said. “I don't hear Duffy anywhere. These woods are huge and we need to find the direction Duffy went. He’s way too smart to go plowing through a bunch of bushes and fall down this hill.” Owen shot him a heated glance but James ignored it and continued. “We should get back up that hill and look for tracks or any paths worn into the trees and ground. I assume the monster was taking the same path to my dad’s house every day so there must be a path somewhere. Hopefully it will lead us to Duffy.”
They tried to climb back up the steep incline but despite their best efforts they couldn't get a hold in the mud and slid back down every time. Owen became particularly frustrated, and long after Jack and James had given up, he kept trying. He stumbled up the wet dirt reaching and grabbing nothing but slippery earth. After only climbing up a few feet he slid back down in a slimy brown streak.
“This isn't working,” James said, “we need a different plan.”
Jack looked up at the slope and agreed. “It's too steep and the dirt is too wet. Looks like we’re stuck down here.”
Their conversation was interrupted by rustling branches above them at the top of the hill. They froze instantly. James held the gun against his chest, too afraid to acknowledge the realization that it was the time to put up or shut up. They stood silently and watched branches move above them from the left to the right. Owen looked over at James, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. James shrugged in a nervous twitch. When the movement stopped, Owen whispered to James without taking his eyes off where the trees had stopped moving.
“Y…you going to shoot, or what?”
“I…I don't know,” James fell apart, “what if it's a person, or Duffy? What if it's my dad looking for us?” He stopped talking as a few branches twitched above the
m. All of James’s bravery as leader melted away in an instant.
“Then shoot above it and run!” Owen hissed.
The leaves twitched again. There was no more time for thinking. James pulled the gun up to his shoulder and aimed it like he had seen so many people do on TV and the Internet, pushed the lever forward then back to cock the gun, and then pulled the trigger. The recoil from the rifle shoved into his shoulder with enough force to fling the nose of the gun upwards. Even if he had been aiming at the moving leaves he would've missed. The bullet ripped through the air and pierced a branch ten feet above the intended target. As soon as the shot was fired the brush above them shook violently as the unknown creature quickly moved further to the right and then crashed down the hillside through the trees. The boys screamed and ran in the opposite direction as fast as they could.
Jack struggled to keep up with James and Owen as they jumped over roots and dodged around trees. After several minutes of running they lost steam and looked back. The woods had transformed from a terrifying obstacle course which they were being hunted in back to an eerie labyrinth of trees and shadows. Whatever they thought had been chasing them was gone.
In their panic, they managed to run themselves quite far from the hill where Owen fell and were standing at the edge of a shallow creek that trickled across the dirt—the obvious byproduct of the large rainfall the night before. In the distance, a wall of dirt and trees stood as a backdrop to the twisted tangle of northeastern Ohio overgrowth in front of them. As far as they could tell, the hill they came down ran along the landscape like the side of a mountain.
James was the first one to say anything after catching his breath. “Why don't we just walk until we find a place we can climb up?” James asked.