by Milo Abrams
And so, they waited. There had been many things they hadn't anticipated throughout the day, but the most important thing would sneak up on them without them even realizing it. They were used to only moderate amounts of exercise, and trudging through the muddy woods for hours was hardly moderate. As they waited for Duffy’s water dish to fill, the monotonous drumming of the rain and the lack of anything to talk about quietly lulled the boys to sleep. Exhaustion swallowed them up, leaving them to recover and refresh in the impenetrable nothingness between dreams. By the time they had woken up hours later, the rain had tapered off, but it had also started to get dark.
"Shit!" James jumped awake. "Guys, wake up!"
Jack and Owen groggily came back to life, and they too quickly realized it was darker than before. "We definitely slept longer than an hour,” Owen said.
They shared a look that transcended language, but there was an English word that was close. Terror. They were stuck now in their little dirt cave with the darkness quickly approaching.
"There's no way we're going anywhere in the dark," Jack said, "especially with a night vision monster walking around in these woods.”
"We need to block the opening somehow,” Owen said, “that way it might not see us.”
"We should build a fire," James suggested.
"Everything is going to be soaked,” Jack said, "even if we manage to find tinder before dark, all of the wood is wet."
“Do we have any other choice?” James asked. “Besides I have an idea for a fire starter.”
They cautiously climbed out of their cave into the raining twilight to gather wood. While Jack and Owen grabbed some sticks and a couple broken branches, James went hunting for stones. They returned to their cave with several armfuls of sopping wet wood and a bunch of stones. James stepped outside and then returned, again with an armful of wood. He set it down and then said, "Okay, pee now because once we get this baby going you're not going to want to go outside again."
"That's a lot of wood, even for one night?" Jack said.
James smiled and started setting the stones up in two rows that spanned the entire width of the cave entrance. "I saw this on TV once, but I can't remember where. Anyway, we take the stones and instead of one circular fire pit, we'll set our fire up as a fire wall at the entrance to the cave. It should keep us warm at night and keep any animals out. Preferably, large ones that walk on two legs."
"Genius," Jack remarked.
James arranged the stones into two rows and then dug a shallow trench between them that went out the side of the entrance to let air in. He then stacked the twigs and broken branches inside the trench and then positioned the rest of the wood close enough so the heat would dry it out but not so close that it would catch fire. He then picked up the pieces of orange peel that were strewn about the cave floor and then stuck out an empty hand.
“I need your lighter,” James said.
Owen didn't hesitate, producing it from his pocket in seconds. “Be careful with it!”
James hadn't learned any of those things from watching TV but from his father when he was younger, but like most things, he attributed them to the TV or Internet. He took the orange peel and flicked the lighter so a tiny orange flame appeared. The small space lit up from the flame, pushing the impending darkness back outside and into shadows behind their backs. He then took a long strip of the dry and cracked orange peel and held the end in the flame. After a few seconds, it caught fire. Unlike a stick or match, it burned longer and the flame stayed still. He carefully set it into a small section of the trench he left open and then took small straw-sized sticks and gently held them above the flame until they caught. After a few tense moments, a couple larger sticks caught fire and they breathed a sigh of relief.
"How'd you know about the orange?" Jack asked.
James shrugged, "I don't remember. But it worked."
"Well hopefully you can magically figure out how to get us out of here tomorrow,” Owen said yawning.
None of them had even been camping before and now they were in a dirt cave, behind a wall of fire, deep within mysterious woods where a monster roamed free. Remembering the monster, James nervously asked, "So should we sleep in shifts or something?"
Jack and Owen weren't sure either. "When would we wake the other up?" Owen asked.
"Hmm," James thought. "What about every two hours?"
Jack pulled his phone from his pocket. "How will we tell the time? If we use my phone the battery will surely be dead by morning. I have it off to save battery in case we get someplace we can call from."
"Oh, right," James said. "Well I guess we will just sleep lightly."
"Because that worked so well before?" Owen scoffed.
"It'll be fine," James snapped, "we will just load the fire up with lots of wood and it'll keep going strong all night. Besides, if anything tries to come in here we have this," he said patting the side of the rifle.
Jack and Owen shrugged and settled in to sleep, not because they were particularly tired, but because it was the only thing they could do to make the night go by faster. After a while of just lying on the ground and trying to sleep, all three of them fell asleep.
It rained for several hours after they fell asleep, and the temperature dropped dramatically. The fire was a little overwhelming in terms of heat production at first, but as the night cooled off and the fire started to die down, the cave stayed at a pleasant temperature for sleeping.
In the middle of the night, the fire had almost completely died out and the lack of heat had stirred Jack awake. Seeing the fire almost out, he reached for more logs and started tossing them on. As each log hit the fire, glowing orange embers fluttered into the air and drifted away. As he threw the last log on he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Outside their little cave, a dark shadow stood on the other side of the small stream that was running between them and the hill in front of them. He stared through the whimpering flames in front of him and tried to make out the black mass. As soon as it moved his brain registered what he was seeing, and he screamed as he fell backwards on top of James.
"What're you doing?" James yelled, “What’s wrong?”
"I saw it! I fucking saw it!" Jack screamed.
"Where?" James yelled, reaching for the gun.
"Straight across from us!" Jack yelled as he scurried to the back of the cave. The fire had caught on the now dry wood and flared up, covering the front of the cave and blocking any view of the outside world. James aimed the rifle straight through the fire, cocked the arm down and fired. He pushed the arm down and fired wildly through the flames, and into the darkness.
Day Eight
28
Jack stretched his arms above his head, hitting his knuckles against the dirt wall of the cave, and yawned. His eyes were stuck shut with a sleepy crusting which he slowly worked away, opening them to a dark cave. The fire had completely gone out and he could see the light of early morning outside. He had been sleeping at the back of the cave with James at the front. After shooting through the fire they waited a while, and when the monster didn't show, they had ultimately fallen back asleep. He looked and saw Owen still sleeping but then noticed that James was missing. His chest tightened as he quickly climbed over Owen toward the end of the cave. The fire pit was slushy and wet from the water that had risen dramatically over the night. The little stream below the small cave they called home for a night had become its own creek. What they hadn't been able to see was the severe flooding everywhere else that had created a series of new channels, and while this new creek was pushing a large amount of water, it had no permanent source and ultimately would dry back up. All Jack could think was that James had been swept away.
"James?" he called out. He immediately imagined the scenario. James had been sleeping and rolled over in the night right to the edge of the cave and into the water. He imagined the water had been rushing more during the night and James simply slipped in and was washed away. He stepped through the water that crept up i
nto their cave and climbed the side of the hill, still calling out for his friend. He had hoped that he might see him atop the hill despite his fears, but all he found were the same woods he had been seeing for the last day and the musty smell of wet wood. "James!" he called out again. Again, he heard nothing so he scurried back down the hill and into the cave. He pounced on top of Owen and began shaking him.
"Owen wake up, James is gone!"
"W—what?" Owen sprung up and confirmed with his own consciousness that James wasn't in the cave with them.
"I woke up and he was gone. What if he got swept away by the water? Look how much it's risen!" Jack was a nervous wreck and began biting what was left of his dirty nails.
Owen jumped up without a word and climbed out of the cave and looked around. He too was surprised at how high the water had risen. Water spiders danced on the surface as they floated by just feet from him. He secretly wondered if what Jack thought was true, but to keep him from completely falling apart, he kept it to himself. Owen climbed to the top of the hill, and with a voice much louder than Jack's, let out a forceful holler into the trees. Jack scurried up behind him, and after his voice echoed outward for a few seconds, they heard movement in the distance. The sound of twigs snapping and branches moving was easy to hear in the stillness of the woods. They looked at each other and then quickly ran behind a large tree to their left. Something was coming toward them.
As they peeked from behind the tree, Owen realized they didn't have anything to protect themselves with. "Shit," he said, "I didn't even look to see if the gun was still in the cave."
"It's coming!" Jack whispered.
The silhouette of a figure began to take shape as the sun shone toward them. The large weeds and small trees shook back and forth as they watched James run out of the foliage toward them.
As soon as Jack saw it was him, he ran out from behind the tree and straight for him. "James!" he yelled.
James ran up to them out of breath and tightly gripping the gun in his hand. He bent over and put his hands on his thighs as he sucked in huge gulps of oxygen.
"Where were you?" Owen asked.
James held up one finger as he stared at the ground, signaling Owen to hold on.
"I thought you had been swept away while you slept, why didn't you wake us before you left?" Jack asked.
Again, he held up a finger telling them to hold on, but a little more frustrated this time.
Owen spoke again, "Yeah, you can't just leave us without telling. Did you see something?"
James stood up with his head in the air, rolled his eyes back and put his hands on his hips, "Jesus Christ...I said hang on! Let me catch my breath."
They waited another minute and then James took a deeper breath and spoke. "Okay, first off, sorry I didn't wake you, I had to pee. I didn't think you would want me to for that. Secondly, when I crawled up top this morning to take that pee, no, I didn't see anything. But I did hear something. I heard a dog barking. So I followed it a little bit. It got louder the more I went that way, but then I heard you guys yelling for me like a bunch of lunatics, so I hauled ass back here to tell you what I had heard."
Jack and Owen looked at each other excitedly. "Do you think it was Duff?" Owen asked.
"I don't know, but how many dogs could there be out here?" James replied.
Their stomachs growled and their tongues ached for water. Jack looked at James with a somber face. "We've been out here overnight, and I know you want to help Duffy, but I'm not sure we're in any position to do that right now."
James looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?" After hearing the dog bark that morning, James had a renewed sense of hope for his dog. Their trek into the woods may not have been personal for Jack and Owen, but it was for him.
"I'm just saying, I don't think it's smart to go looking for Duffy anymore. I think we should get out of here and get help."
"What?" James couldn't believe what Jack was saying.
Owen nodded. "I think he's right, James, what happens if that wasn't even Duffy and we get stuck out here another night?" He held his grumbling stomach. "This isn't some video game. Would we even make it out here another night?"
James felt betrayed. Logically, he knew they were right, but more often than not, his logic was overridden by emotions. He too felt the gnawing ache in his stomach that longed for food, and his back was also sore from sleeping on the ground. But his heart was on overdrive at the possibility that his dog might just be a short walk from them.
"But Duffy could be right over there," he protested.
"But then what?" Owen countered. "What if Duffy is there? And what if the monster is there, too? Are we going to be able to fight it off? The only thing we have left is that gun and we don't even know how many shots you have left with that thing.”
James looked down at the gun. Owen was right. Jack began counting in his head.
“One,” he said.
“Huh?” Owen said turning toward Jack.
“One shot. You fired once at the hill, once at the creek and then three times last night. I only loaded six bullets into it so you’ve got one shot.”
"And what if there is more than one of those things?" Owen asked James.
James hadn't even considered that possibility. He looked at Jack who nodded.
"That's a good point," Jack confirmed, "unless this thing was some sort of supernatural creature and doesn't obey the natural laws of physics, there would have to be more than one of it to sustain its population. That is, of course, unless it's the last of its species."
"We need help, James," Owen said, "even if there's only one, we're on its home turf. Not to mention we’ve only got one shot."
James couldn't fight his friends there. They were right. "Okay, you're right. We need to get home and get help. I'm sure we are already in a shit load of trouble. Hopefully someone is looking for us."
"I have an idea," Jack said pulling out his phone and powering it on. "I just remembered this, we can take note of the direction of the barking, so when we get help we will have a better idea." Once his phone was powered on he brought up a compass on the screen.
"You had that the whole time?!?” James yelled.
"I'm sorry! I completely forgot because I never use it!" Jack cowered in fear. He looked back at the phone. "Well, looks like the barking is northeast of here."
James pondered for a moment. "Well the lake is north of Bugby, and my dad's house is south of that. The woods are directly behind his house." He began waving his flattened palms around trying to figure out what direction his dad's house faced. "Yeah, so that means the woods are south, so if we head north then we should come out somewhere. Do you have a signal?"
Jack shook his head.
"Well, keep checking as we go."
They started off due north from the hillside cave with Jack checking the compass periodically to make sure they were still going straight. The storm had done a number on the woods with trees bent over and giant pools of water everywhere. The temperature was much cooler than the first day, but it was also early morning. They could maintain their direction while walking around the new lakes and hopping over the newborn rivers despite all the downed trees. But walking quickly tired them and they took breaks often.
"I think this is the longest I've ever gone without eating," Owen said holding his stomach.
James watched the trees around them, ready to pull up the rifle in an instant. As they walked, they noticed that it was eerily quiet. There were no birds singing, insects buzzing, or even water running. Even the breeze only barely crept up on them periodically to remind them it still existed. They decided a downed tree would make the next best place to sit and rest.
Jack checked his phone for a signal then sighed. They had been walking for over an hour. "We must be really deep," he said.
"Well we were walking all damn day yesterday," Owen said rubbing his legs. "My legs hurt so fucking bad, I swear when we get out of here I'm never walking anywhere again."
> They all laughed. Then they heard a loud whistle through the trees. James sat up straight. They looked at one another, remembering what James had told them about the whistle the night before.
"People?" Jack asked in denial.
"Could be," James said, "but I don't know. It could be…”
They all knew what he was about to say.
“We need to get moving,” Owen said jumping to his sore feet. “And fast.”
29
Nolan grabbed a bottle of water from the darkened fridge. "You want one?" he asked Margaret.
"Sure," she replied, her eyes still puffy from crying, "but you really shouldn't be up on that."
Nolan looked down at his foot. "I know, but twisting my ankle is not going to stop me from finding our son."
"I know," she frowned, "so you're going with them?"
Nolan knew he couldn't go stumbling through the woods on an injured ankle with the search party that had been organized. "I'll just slow them down. There's already a whole load of cops driving around from here to the house looking, and I’ll just have to drive around, too."
"I'm coming with you," she said, smiling weakly at him.
The storm had been so bad that it knocked out power from Cleveland to Erie, Pennsylvania. Luckily, the storm had stayed south of the lake so people only experienced flooding issues from the creeks, rivers, and ponds. But a blackout was the least of the Callum's worries. A manhunt was on the way for three missing boys and their dog.
Nolan's cell phone rang as they got in the truck. "Hello?" he answered.
"Dr. Callum, good morning."
"Hello Sheriff."
"I just wanted to inform you that about five-hundred people have turned up for the search through the woods behind your house."
"That's great, thank you so much," Nolan said.
"We're about to get started and I'll call you personally if there's any news."
"Thank you," Nolan said hanging up.
Margaret scrolled through the news on her cell phone and shook her head. "People are taking advantage of the blackout and are vandalizing stores in town."