“I can’t wait any longer,” Zeldon whispered.
“Me neither,” Steve agreed, laying on his side so that the two men spooned with Zeldon’s massive cock pressed against his quivering anus.
He pressed gently forward and Steve’s head snapped back at the delicious impact. He was half way inside him, and began slowly sliding in and out, making them both moan at the exquisite pleasure.
They made love for hours, exchanging positions, and heartfelt kisses, telling each other in a dozen ways how deeply in love they were.
When they had finished, they merely lay in each other’s arms, watching the full moon as it pierced the blackness with a dull silvery light, against the backdrop of a million points of light.
“I love watching the stars,” Steve whispered, his arms firmly wrapped around Zeldon’s body as he lay slumped against his muscular chest.
“Promise me you’ll always be mine,” Zeldon managed with a happy sigh, his eyes sparkling with a love that transcended every bad thing they had ever encountered throughout their short lives. “With all that I’ve ever been through, I never thought to see the day when I would actually hold you in my arms.”
“I know how you feel,” Steve agreed. “That creep Crandon was determined to keep us apart.”
“He got what was coming to him,” Zeldon insisted, drawing Steve closer. “We’ll be safe now, with you in charge.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Steve said, his fingers twirling strands of Zeldon’s long silky hair.
“Do you think we can stay here a while?” Zeldon asked.
“I think, let’s see, what do I think? Calvin, stop hogging that whiskey.”
“I’m on my second bottle,” he boasted, nursing it as though it were a crucial pint of medicine.
“Give it right back,” Calvin insisted as he handed it to Steve.
Steve took a generous swig, then offered it to Zeldon. He nodded no.
Steve then took a second swig before handing it back to Calven, who clutched it close to his chest as though it were a pint of life saving blood.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about?”
Steve loved hearing Zeldon’s voice, and treasured its deep richness. The question, however, was piercing, taking Steve’s mind in a direction it was hesitant to go.
“You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?”
“You’re the only one I ever think about,” Steve corrected.
“You know that’s not what I mean. The hunters we killed. You’re wondering if killing will become a habit for us.”
“Sometimes it’s either us or them.”
“It’s not so simple,” Zeldon insisted, “and you know it.”
“And just what would you have had me do, my love, let them put a bullet in your brain?”
“There will be more hunters. And if the three we killed had family and friends then they will come looking for them when they don’t return. They may bring police, and dogs and searchers by the hundreds.”
“They may, and then again they may not. I just want to live for the moment right now.”
“But sooner or later you will have to face reality,” Zeldon pressed.
“Fine, I’ll have to face reality. I guess that’s why Crandon stayed away from the hunters. Maybe, as cruel and sadistic as he was, he understood about the future, how to survive.”
“We’ll survive.”
“I thought you just finished saying that we had to face reality?”
There was a pause, and Zeldon turned to kiss Steve flush on the lips. “Maybe I just talk too much. For months Crandon plagued us, and I dreamed about that impossible day when I might hold you in my arms. And now that it’s here, I should be cherishing it, and not worrying about things not in my control.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Steve agreed, plastering his handsome, warm, moist mouth with a prolonged and passionate kiss. “No matter what happens to us, our love will remain alive forever.”
The sound of crickets suddenly filled the air.
“Funny,” Steve said. “I never heard the little buggers before now. Isn’t that strange how you don’t hear some things unless you are actually listening for them?”
“Is the rabbit ready now?”
Steve turned it over the flame then took it off the rack. “It looks so.”
“Good, I’m famished.”
Steve handed it to him and Zeldon broke off a leg.
An owl sounded in the background, scouting for miles with eyes that were more precise than binoculars. A tardy squirrel, not yet bedded down for the winter, peeped foolishly out of its tree hole, arousing the owl’s interest. It soared out over the forest birch trees then dove to the snow covered grounds beneath, plucking the stunned squirrel from its supposed place of safety with long, determined talons. By the time it catapulted back to it’s nest, the owl had shredded the squirrel and set some aside for it’s young, devouring the bulk of its remains with a razor sharp beak.
“Did you see that?” Zeldon asked.
“The owl? Yep, I saw it. It doesn’t take long for a life to be snuffed out in this forest, does it?”
“Especially if one is not paying attention.”
The fire cackled softly, indicating it was on its last legs. Calvin, who loved the warmth, tossed in another split log and capped what was left of the whiskey. “Time to shut these eyes for the night,” he said with a weary sigh.
“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” whispered Zeldon.
“You mean don’t let those damn coyotes stick their teeth into my ass while I’m snoring. Damn things are all around us, howling at the moon like it was their last night on earth.”
“Perhaps they smell the rabbit on the fire.”
“Or perhaps they smell the five of us, strewn out here like sitting ducks? Thank God we got rifles, and I got me this knife.”
“Just don’t miss next time,” Joey said. “Randall’s not here because your aim was off.”
Calven sat up, suddenly indignant. He knew it was his fault that Randall was dead, but he didn’t want anyone else to think it. “So now it’s my fault that someone else shot him, is that it?”
“Will you two cool it,” Steve insisted. “The last thing we need right now is to be at each other’s throats. Let’s not fight amongst ourselves. The past is over and done away with. Let’s stick together. It’s the only way we’re ever going to survive.”
A tiny speck of white fluttered past the tent opening, weaving and winding its way through the fickle air until it landed on Anton’s nose.
“Snow? But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky?”
Steve peaked outside and when he retrieved his head, his brown hair was lightly sprinkled with specks of white.
“You got some dandruff there, so I guess it really is snowing,” Zeldon said with a laugh.
“Better string together this tent door,” Steve said, as the snow began descending in clusters of white flakes.
“Can we leave it open?” Joey asked. “It looks so romantic and gorgeous just floating silently through the night air.”
Steve shrugged. “Yeah, we can leave it open I guess. We need an outlet for the smoke anyways.”
***
When they awoke, it was still snowing, but not half as cold as it had been during the night. The sun shone brightly, and the melodic whistle of lingering birds still echoed throughout the forest.
Anton was the first to rise, nudging Joey playfully. He too awoke, wiping his eyes as though he had just slept for a thousand years.
The fire was out, but still smoldering. Anton tossed a few split logs in the midst of the dying embers and added a piece of dry cloth to get the blaze going.
“I’ll heat up that leftover rabbit from last night.”
“Boil some water for some coffee.”
Calvin was the next to stir, still clinging to his bottle. He gently tapped the side of his pants, and felt the knife safely tucked away. He wanted to be sure it was still there in case of an emergency.
Steve went to kiss him. Zeldon hung his hand over his mouth like a shield, blocking the kiss. “Not with my morning breath! I smell like the backside of a cow. At least let me brush my teeth first.”
“I think nasty breath is sooooo sexy,” Steve spoke up, smiling.
“Well, get your nasty breath somewhere else. I’m not giving you any of mine!”
“Good morning y’all.”
The voice was strange and startling, coming from outside the tent.
“Who the fuck was that,” Anton whispered in a panic.
The strange voice continued, only now it was accompanied by a bearded man’s face that poked itself through the open canvas door. “I was just out scouring the forest for some friends of mine. I don’t suppose you met ‘em? One was short and real chubby, one was tall and lanky, with red hair. The third was built heavy, about two hundred and fifty pounds, about six feet four tall. They would have passed this way.”
“We ain’t seen nobody,” Steve insisted.
“Are you sure? I’m positive they would have passed this way. Say, wait a minute, this looks like their tent. It’s got the initials JB scribbled along the bottom here, right by the door where John left them the last time we was out hunting. This definitely is their tent. What are you guys doing in it?”
Calvin’s hand movement was almost imperceptible as his fingers crawled towards the knife handle.
“We found it empty last night, when we came,” Steve lied. “It was snowing and so we just used it.”
“Hmmm, I see,” the man said, still obviously quite suspicious. “But why didn’t you just use your tent?”
“A couple of bears attacked us about five miles into the forest there, and they had destroyed everything we owned,” Steve again lied. “They were savagely taking our tent apart, so we had to high tail it out of there.”
“Well, that make’s sense, but what I don’t understand is why their rifles are still here in the tent. I recognize all four as belonging to them. Don’t tell me they went off hunting without their rifles, that wouldn’t make sense.”
The man thought about it some more and then raised his rifle and ordered the five stag members to get up. “I was supposed to meet my friends here but I find you all here instead with their tent and their guns. Let’s just trot off back down into town and to the sheriff’s office and you can tell him your crazy story.”
Calvin’s hand was now wrapped firmly around the knife handle. He raised it suddenly and flung it for the gunman’s neck.
The gunman saw him fling it and managed to instinctively fire off one shot in Calvin’s direction before the sharp blade went right through his Adam’s apple, severing his spine and killing him instantly. He clutched his throat as the rifle fell from his hands and his body dropped to the ground.
The bullet struck Calvin’s chest, entering his heart and ending his life without so much as a whimper.
The four remaining men stared horrified at the chain of events. Calvin was dead.
“Son of a bitch! What do we do now?” Joey asked, leaping to his feet in disgust.
“Damn! We can’t stay here, that’s for sure. These hunters might have had a lot of other friends that knew they were here. We’ll have to pack up the tent, guns and whatever else we can carry and move to another spot.”
“Now there’s only four of us left,” Zeldon whispered, his whole body shivering in fear. “It…it all happened so fast.”
They hastily took down the tent, slung the rifles over their shoulders, and carried whatever food remained, in coolers or satchels.
“You’re not just going to leave him here like this are you?” Anton asked incredulously.
“You mean poor Calvin?” Steve answered. “Dead on the ground? Randall’s still out there too, you know. But what would you have us do? Try to dig into the frozen ground to bury the two of them in? Or better still, carry each of their two hundred pound bodies over rocks and through twisting trees? We’re on the run. God knows how many other hunters are up here. If the ones we shot had cell phones, and aren’t answering, then this place might be soon swarming with more of them or concerned searchers. We gotta move and fast. No time to be dragging carcasses through the dense brush.”
“They’re not just a carcass, Joey and Randall are our friends!” Joey insisted.
“Look, you idiot, there are coyotes, wolves and bears all around us. Calvin’s corpse has puddles of blood under it, as does Randalls. How long do you think it will be before those wild animals picked up the scent of their blood trails?”
“All the more reason to bury him under some earth so they can’t devour him” Zeldon offered meekly. “To just leave him lying on the ground like that. It seems so, well, it just seems so…so-”
“I’m leader,” Steve bellowed. “And in case you haven’t noticed. We’re in a fight for our lives. There used to be seven of us, now we’re down to just four. Dragging them around, or stopping for a day to try and dig through frozen earth just makes no damn sense whatsoever! If you want to stay alive, you’ll leave them. That’s all there is to it.”
The men took a last glance at their fallen comrades and then trudged reluctantly in the direction Steve was leading them.
***
Sheriff Glen Dawson stared wearily at the ridge. He hadn’t slept for two days, and was just about to finally lay down for some well deserved rest, when the missing persons report came in over the radio.
He went over the facts in his tired mind one more time. Six hunters had gone up into the forest to hunt deer. They had broken up into two groups of three. One of the groups went missing and stopped answering calls on their cell phones. When the other group sent a hunter to go check on them, he too went missing. When the remaining two hunters went to check, they found the corpse of their friend with a knife in his neck, and a second corpse of some stranger with a bullet in his heart. A further search found their other three friends dead as well. A dead stranger lay amongst them.
“Cratchet?”
“Yes sheriff?”
“You arrange for that chopper yet?”
“They said it’d be here in about an hour. I still don’t see what good it’ll do you. The trees are so damn high and the brush so dense. There’s no way to land.”
“I know that Cratchet. I just want to see if I can spot their location from the air, that’s all. We’ll send out the dogs, but if they can’t follow their scent, then at least we should be able to spot them from above.”
“Right sheriff.”
***
The sound of dogs barking filled the early morning air. The blanket of night was trading in it’s darkness for a slowly forming bright blue sky. The snow had now stopped and the ridge they hoped to climb was suddenly in view, it’s jagged precipice jutting out over the forest like an impenetrable wall of rock.
“What if we can’t climb it?” Zeldon asked.
“We have to, I make those dogs out to be only about ten minutes behind us.”
“We got no rope,” Zeldon whined.
“Not to worry,” Steve asserted. “Just keep your hands in the crevices and crags. Then let your feet dig into the same step when you ascend. It’s not that high. Their dogs can’t follow.”
“Yeah, but they can always take ‘em around the pass.”
Steve screwed up his face deep in thought. “I make it out to be, let’s see, about an extra twenty miles. If they do take that detour, we’ll lose ‘em for sure.”
“What if they have a helicopter?”
“I’m sure that they’ve thought of that. It wouldn’t surprise me, in fact, if one were on it’s way right now. But we can stay hidden under branches, maybe even find a cave for now to hide in. Later we can back track and come back down this same ridge. Maybe find a way to steal one of their vehicles while they’re all out around the bend trying to find us.�
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“Well, it’s a plan,” Zeldon whispered with a sigh. “At least we have a plan.”
The climb up the sheer cliff was proving arduous. The four strained every muscle in their tired bodies with each and every step upward. After twenty minutes, they found a walkway along the ridge that winded deep into a pathway through the sandstone formation.
Steve led the way along the narrow path, dodging overhanging trees and squeezing through tall parallel slabs of mountainside that sought to obstruct their progress.
The police didn’t bother following them up the steep climb, preferring instead to merely allow the dogs to leap and bark maniacally, as a sign they’d pointed to the route the killers had taken. “If they try to back track, we’ll be here waiting for them,” Sheriff Dawson said enthusiastically. “In the mean time, we’ll wait for the chopper. It should get here any minute now. It’s four or five hours through those tunnels to get off the ridge. Basically they’re trapped. It’s just a matter of time before we catch ‘em all.”
“And if they don’t wanna be caught?” Deputy Cratchet asked.
“Then we’ll bring ‘em back in body bags. But one way or another, they’re coming with us.”
***
“I don’t hear the dogs anymore,” Joey remarked.
“Hmm,” Steve managed. “It probably means they’ve either come after us and left the dogs behind, or they’re circling round the other side of the ridge to head us off.”
“But that would take them days,” Zeldon asserted.
“Maybe,” Anton agreed. “But I can hear a chopper approaching. Listen. That means they’ll try to find us right away. And they still got a lot of daylight to do it in. They’re bound to spot us from overhead. Then we’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Not if they can’t see us. They’re probably thinking that we’ll keep moving. That’s what I would assume if I were sheriff. Look! There’s a small cave up ahead. We’ll just duck in there and hide till it’s dark. Hopefully by then, they’ll be looking for us completely over on the other side of the ridge. Then we’ll double back the way we came, only climb down the back side of the cliffs this time, on the opposite side that the dogs are waiting on. Then we’ll just follow the highway while hiding in the brush next to it. Maybe from there we can hitch a ride, or steal a car or something.”
A Presidential Closet: Going Boldly Where No Gay Has Gone Before Page 6