by Dan Dillard
Then, he saw his youngest son. “But, Daddy, it’s Christmas,” was the last thing he remembered hearing the boy say.
It should’ve been heartbreaking, but it wasn’t. Grant was so tired, so utterly worn out, he just let the rage take him. It was the only well of energy from which he could draw.
Thirty minutes later, he was finished. Five bodies lay in different bloody piles around his home and his very expensive clothes were ruined. The carpet in the living room was ruined. The kitchen would need a paint job and he would have to use a shovel and a power washer to get the mess off of the garage floor.
His dazed walk took him to the overstuffed love seat in the family room. There, he plopped down, wiping red onto the tan leather. Across from him, was the undecorated Christmas tree. It was a fourteen foot Nordmann Fir, imported from the northeast. It stood in the front window like a trophy. It was a symbol of family and tradition and love and all Grant wanted to do was decorate it.
As he thought back on the day’s events, he felt like he was going to finally get the rest he deserved. He felt like it was finally over as he pushed the rickety chair to that point of no return and just beyond.
The roped snapped taught under his weight and he dangled, gagging, wishing his neck had snapped, wishing he’d tried the exhaust fumes, wishing he had a gun. Wishing. Fading. Wishing. Fading.
Blink.
Grant was back inside his car in the garage. Cindy’s SUV was parked right next to him and the briefcase she’d given him rode shotgun. Two thumps on the trunk lid let him know Roger was coming to offer him and his family the opportunity to join them for dinner over the New Year’s holiday. It had happened thousands of times. It had all happened thousands of times. He wanted to cry, but emotion had left him long ago. There was no room in hell for emotions. There was only room for Grant and for that terrible play that he would relive for eternity.
WORSE THAN ME
“There’s things out here that is worse than me,” he said.
The words sounded gray and fuzzy to Anthony as he came in and out of consciousness. The pain changed to numbness and the sun was going down. It was getting cold.
Twelve hours prior, he had been on a mountain bike and had ridden into the woods like a hundred times before. The difference that day was his lack of company. His friend Rob was out of town for some last minute emergency. A death in the family.
“I can’t,” Rob said.
“Come on,” Anthony said.
“I just can’t, not tomorrow. Next weekend, though. It’s a sure thing.”
Anthony heard the short quality of his friend’s voice, his urgent need to get off the phone, the sadness, and the wife urging him in the background. Something was truly wrong.
No matter. He would go on the usual weekly trek by himself. He was familiar with the land like it was his own back yard and had grown addicted to the exercise, the smell of the woods. The weekend bike rides had become his escape from the grind of work, adventuring further each trip into the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. His wife, Kara, didn’t like riding. She preferred hiking, and since she was eight months pregnant, that was out of the question. Still, he and Rob rode every Saturday morning and every Saturday evening they joined two other couples and picked a different restaurant or caught a band at the Orange Peel over in Asheville. It was tradition.
That morning, Saturday, October 21st, he dressed warmly, kissed Kara on smiling lips, put his mountain bike on the rack of their FJ Cruiser and made the forty minute drive up to his favorite spot in Pisgah. The entrance point was common enough and he parked his truck in the public lot with dozens of others. He mounted his bike with a couple water bottles and some energy bars in his backpack. In the pocket of his jacket, he had his cell phone for pictures—there was no signal out there for anything else.
“Morning!” he said to a jogger as they passed on the path. The stranger smiled and nodded but didn’t speak.
The leaves were ablaze and stunning, littering the paths with all the different colors of Thanksgiving and Halloween, hot apple cider and pumpkin pie. Anthony breathed deeply as he pushed the pedals, driving further into the woods onto a trail worn by those who had gone before. Coasting slowly down a winding scar in the hillside, he found another level of path on which to ride. It might have been a fire lane for animals.
Anthony stopped to take a picture from the bottom of the small valley, looking up toward the sky, through the branches. He’d taken dozens of such photos, but was always mesmerized by the contrast of orange and red leaves, the sun sparkling between them, and the blue sky beyond.
“Beautiful isn’t it?” a young woman said as she passed by on the upper, parallel trail. He smiled, but she kept walking, leaving no room for any male interpretation. Anthony chuckled and put his feet back into the pedal straps and pumped his legs, climbing the next hill. An hour later, he was well off the path, and that was where he strived to be. He stopped for some water and to look around. “It’s a great day, Rob. You’re missing out buddy,” he said. Then he cranked away, driving the Trek Remedy into the woods, up over one hill and down the next, slowly climbing and descending where he could see the earth beneath the bed of leaves and moss. Walking the vehicle where he could not.
Two and a half hours into his adventure, he stopped for more photos. This time it was of strange mushroom growths and some flowers that poured from the busted gut of a giant, fallen tree. He pulled an energy bar from his pack and ate it while considering his next direction. He looked around finding a rock outcropping, then a fallen tree. They would make fine landmarks that would help him find the main path. From there, wooden signs would return him to his car.
“A bit further, I think,” he said.
“Do ya now?” he also said.
“I do,” he finished.
Anthony chuckled at his conversation and pressed on, but the top of the next hill changed his luck. The approach looked good, and he was geared right, but the back tire slid in a patch of moss, stealing the bike out from underneath him. He might’ve caught himself with his foot had the shoe not been momentarily tangled on a pedal clip. Anthony went down hard. All the way down the steep embankment.
As he tumbled, he recalled Rob warning him about those clips. It had been a long discussion between them, weighing the pros and cons. Transfer of energy from the push and the pull of each leg was good exercise and more efficient use of the machine. That was Anthony’s argument. Not being able to pull free from the pedal was Rob’s. It was all he thought about as he crashed down that slope. The gears and chain of the bike scraped and bruised his bare legs and the pedals ripped into his skin.
Finally, bike and rider separated and he was free to fall on his own. It ended in a bounce that he thought might have broken his back. If his back had survived, then the snapping sound he heard on that final thud surely meant his left leg hadn’t. All he could think about was pain. It boiled in his gut and blinded him. After a few seconds, unconsciousness bathed him in sweet relief and the world went dark.
***
“Son?”
He heard the voice, but it sounded like it was being spoken through four folds of a down comforter.
“Son, can you hear me?”
Anthony’s eyes opened halfway and he saw the green, orange and brown blur of the forest. He smelled the dirt, tasted it in his mouth, along with blood. As his tongue touched a broken tooth, the pain came back. He winced, trying to ease its terrible bite, but it only made things worse. He screamed out.
“Okay, okay. That’s a horrible racket, but it means you’re alive,” the stranger’s voice said.
“Help me,” Anthony choked out. The black oozed back into his head, and he passed out a second time, but it only lasted a minute or two. He blinked wildly. An old man stood above him wearing a red long-sleeve shirt and jeans. He was in need of a shave. Impossibly deep wrinkles surrounded tobacco-stained teeth. A ball cap sporting the Atlanta Braves logo sat cocked back on his head. Even still, he
squinted cataract-stained eyes beneath the shade of its bill.
“Thought you were gone for good that time. You can hear me can’t you, son?” he said.
Anthony nodded, shaking from shock.
“You is a-bleedin’ pretty bad. I patched that leg up a bit. Should hold it to a slow trickle anyway. Keep you from leakin’ too much before I can get you some help.” The old man pulled down each of Anthony’s eyelids, checking for signs of life. “I wanted to make sure you were stable first before I left.”
He had landed in a seated position, his legs sticking straight out. He ached everywhere, but the left leg was the worst. He chanced a glance to see it and was immediately sorry. Anthony’s eyes danced about wildly trying to avoid seeing it again. The bone that stuck through the meat of his thigh was pointing at him, like a finger summoning him to come into the light. It was wrapped tightly on either side of the break with a pair of old, faded bandanas. He felt woozy, and his stomach rolled.
“Probably ought not look at that, son. Nasty business seein’ yourself all broke up. Didn’t hit an artery at least. What’s your name anyway? Can ya speak?” the old man asked.
“A-Anthony,” he said, shuddering.
“Anthony,” the stranger repeated, considering it with a grunt. “My name’s Tom. Hate to meet you this way, Anthony, but I’ll say it’s a pleasure. Don’t expect you to shake my hand. We’ll worry about them formalities at another time.”
Anthony’s body shuddered as if he was freezing even though it was a rather warm day.
“Shock is a bitch,” Tom said. “I can go get you some help. Are you okay if I walk away? It might take me an hour or so to get to a phone and back,” said Tom.
Anthony’s eyes widened. Something between anger and desperation boosted his energy. His tongue kept finding the broken tooth, and he spit out a mixture of mud and blood. He looked at the old man and the woozy feeling came again. He nodded. “Go…please…get help.”
Anthony’s face turned pale, then his vision blurred.
“Will do. I’m afraid to move you, and I can’t tote you like that. Not in these woods. I’ll try and hurry. When night falls, well, let’s just say there’s worse things out here than me.” Tom walked away with a chuckle and Anthony took another unscheduled nap.
***
“Hey buddy. You still with us?” Tom said.
Anthony opened his eyes to see the now familiar face. He felt a bit better, less seasick, although the throbbing in his leg continued as his circulatory system tried to pump blood through the broken meat. Tom sat on a stump a few feet away. The crumpled bicycle leaned up against a tree next to him.
“Found your machine. It looks like a lost cause, you ask me,” Tom said.
“You…did you find help?” Anthony asked.
“On its way, fella. How you makin’ it? I know it’s a bad question the shape you’re in, but you ain’t seein’ angels or anything, are you?”
Anthony’s face twisted, attempting a smile. “No,” he said.
“Good, good. I seen a lot worse than you, I’ll tell you that. I’ve lived out here all my life and this ain’t the first time I found a tourist after they broke themselves. You know what, Tony, I think you’re gonna be just fine. Can I call you Tony?”
Anthony nodded.
“Want some water? Food? Not sure what I should give you. Sip of water couldn’t hurt, I guess.”
“Please.”
The old man pulled a flask from his shirt pocket. “Got some booze as well,” he said and smiled a rotten-toothed grin.
“Water is f-fine,” Anthony said. “There’s some in my pack.”
Tom glanced back toward the bike. Anthony’s backpack leaned against the fork where the front wheel used to be. The wheel lay bent and flat on the ground next to the bike’s frame. “Ah, yup. Right over there with your chariot.” He stood and worked a kink out of his hip before shuffling through the leaves to the backpack where he found a water bottle and twisted its cap free. Tom held it out to Anthony, who gripped it with a scraped and bruised hand.
Raising his hand felt numb and alien and he looked at it as if he was surprised to see it there on the end of his wrist. He took a quick drink to rinse his mouth, then leaned a bit and spat out the foul liquid. The second drink he swallowed.
“What time is it?” Anthony asked.
“Bout four, maybe four thirty. Won’t be long ‘fore the sun goes down.” Tom looked up through the canopy of leaves at the setting sun. “Maybe I should get you a blanket or something? Parked my truck right at the top of that next hill this time. There’s a few supplies inside.”
Anthony twisted as much as he could to follow Tom’s pointing finger, but the pain in his leg gave him a sharp reminder to be still. “Thank you,” he said, wincing. “How much longer before the help arrives? An ambulance or something?”
Tom walked toward the next hill, not hearing or ignoring Anthony’s question. Anthony repeated himself, a little louder the second time. “How much longer before the Ambulance gets here?”
Tom stopped in his path and turned his head only part of the way back to his new, injured friend. “Soon.”
He moved out of Anthony’s field of view. After a moment, the crunching footsteps disappeared into the sounds of the woods, singing birds and blowing breezes. Anthony tried to shift his position but the pain screamed at him and before he could call out in agony, he was drowning in the black again.
***
When he came to, Kara was there.
“Hi baby,” she said. She wasn’t pregnant. She wasn’t even whole, just an image that faded, a little further with each blink.
“Kara?” he said, but she was gone.
Time had passed. He wasn’t sure how much, but the sun filtered through the trees just above the ridge in front of him, it was bright and flickered in his eyes as the wind danced with the branches. He strained to pull his neck around to the direction in which Tom had walked off, but saw no one.
“Tom?” he yelled. The woods responded with silence. “Tom?”
This time, something shuffled in the distance—a quick sound—not the slow lumber of an old man walking, but smaller, agile feet. A rabbit perhaps?
He snapped his head in the direction of the noise, aware of nothing but his own breathing. He realized he was scared. Not scared of the situation he was in, but suddenly reminded of all the ways it could get worse. Rabbits weren’t a problem, but there were other animals in those woods.
“Tom!” he shouted. Then the creature showed itself. A coyote, small and only fifty feet away. “Shit. Shoo! Get outta here!” Anthony shouted. He picked up a twig that lay next to him and tossed it at the animal. The motion sent fresh spikes of pain into his leg.
“All that hollerin’s gonna bring the bears. You don’t want that,” Tom said and laughed his dry, wheezing laugh.
“Where have you been?” Anthony said. “Can you get rid of that thing?”
“That thing? That’s my dog. Name’s Cherokee. Cherokee, meet Tony.” It looked up at its master then back at Anthony and sat on the ground.
“Dog? That’s your pet?”
“Well, he’s a coyote, but he’s been with me since he was a pup. Good one, too.” He pronounced the word ky-ote.
Anthony’s wide eyes stayed glued to the animal. “Where have you been? I thought you were getting help?”
Tom stepped into view so Anthony could see him. He approached the coyote and stood next to it, reaching down to pat it on the head. “I did. Got my boy, Cherokee, here. He’s gonna help me.”
Anthony felt the blood drain from his face. “Help you what?”
Tom smiled, taking the flask from the front pocket of his trousers and unscrewing the cap. “Get him, boy,” he said, then chuckled and took a drink. “Go on.” He took a second drink before wiping his sandpaper chin.
Anthony screamed, “No!” in horror as the animal snarled and lunged at him. He kicked his good leg, and tried to move
his broken leg, but it wouldn’t move. The pain was amazing, but he didn’t pass out. Luck or fear, he didn’t pass out.
The old man laughed again. "He just loves the weak ones!" Tom shouted.
Anthony scooted back in the leaves and mud, swinging his good leg as best he could, making contact with the coyote on several occasions. The blows only served to anger the animal which clapped its jaws together over and over, eventually catching hold of Anthony’s bare calf. He screamed as its mouth clamped down.
“Hoo-hoo!” Tom shrieked. “You just can’t get good entertainment like this anymore. Get ‘em Cherokee!” He took another belt from the flask, pocketed it and then sat back on his stump. After a moment Tom said, “Enough.” The coyote paused, its jaws still locked onto Anthony’s calf. “Here, boy.” The animal growled and tugged at the leg, twisting and jerking its head. Anthony screamed in agony, cursing them both and kicked at the animal with failing strength. “I said enough!” Tom thundered. The woods went still. Cherokee yelped, tucking its ears and joining its master.
Anthony gasped for air, cutting his eyes back at the old man. “Go to hell,” he said. He spat the words out. The new pain in his calf was dull and aching, but the break in the opposite leg was still worse, and blood oozed slowly from both places.
“Careful what you wish for there, Tony. You never know what kind of show this might turn out to be.”
Anthony looked at the silhouette of the man he thought was going to save him. The sun flickered behind him. “I’ll kill you,” he said.
“That’s where you’re wrong, son. This is my show. You’re the star. Just like them pretty folks on television,” Tom said. “You want some o’ this whiskey now?”
Anthony made a disgusted sound, not a word, but a frustrated ugh. He started to crawl, wincing with each movement. Pushing with his good leg and pulling with his hands. He could hear the coyote panting as it watched him.