Inspired by a true story, elements have been changed for the sake of privacy.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Cooper, wake up. It’s already dawn.”
A teenager stirred in the uncomfortable invention-lovechild of a hammock and a cot, as his father tried to gently kick some urgency into him. Aroma from the coffee freshly brewed on the campfire was supposed to make this easier, but alas.
“Cooper, get dressed.”
The zombie teenager rolled out of the hammock, relieved from the need to keep a fitful balance above the cabin’s plywood floor. He felt his way through the crowded room in the blurred beams of twilight: bright enough to navigate the plain shack by, but too tired to carry any color with them. The very air seemed to glow a shadowless gray.
Cooper with newfound urgency stumbled to the table and poured oil-black coffee from Johnny Appleseed’s hat. He learned to appreciate coffee in a hundred high school classes supplied with generic grounds that were half Arabica coffee/half the dirt the beans were grown in, so his father’s “cowboy coffee” didn’t bother him.
His little brothers were asleep in the unfinished addition, windowless and with a gaping maw like an MDF cave for a doorway. He slipped on jeans over his thick pajama shorts, and a pullover fleece over his undershirt. Over these he donned a pair of cotton socks, a pair of wool socks, and a hoodie. His cocoon complete, he threw on a camo windbreaker, a fluorescent orange vest, and a fluorescent orange toboggan. He had misgivings about giving away his position to other humans when they were supposed to be alone on property deep in the Alleghenies, but his father was a stickler for by-the-book safety.
They were already late to the hunt, so Cooper refused the oatmeal his father made, stuffing his pockets with an apple, protein bar, and sweet tea. Before opening the door, his father carefully gave him the deer rifle, the same 30-06 Cooper shot his first deer with.
They stepped out quietly, but relaxed when they heard a racket made by the forest canopy forcefully shaking back and forth. An easterly wind cresting over the Rocky Ridge above them, the contrast in wind activity was stark as they felt light breezes on their bare faces. They could hike a little more leisurely. Each hoped to himself that the wind was just enough to nose-blind the whitetails without scaring them. Cooper swung the rifle’s sling around his shoulder, drowsily cognizant of the muzzle’s direction at all times, just like his father drilled into him.
As they crept down an old logging road — footsteps low over the ground — their clothes began to get damp with the mists they mopped up like chamois. Their destination was along this side of Rocky Ridge, at a place his father called Hickory Flats. Cooper wasn’t sure why he called it that, as it was dominated by various varieties of maple, and black cherry. There a treestand awaited them.
Connor’s deep sleep had caused them to be late. It was already shooting time as they approached the treestand, spooking two whitetails who bolted over Rocky Ridge before the rifle’s scope could be raised. The roar of the wind beating that far side of the mountain sounded as if the ocean had risen to Noahic levels, and the deer fled as if they expected to catch a ride on the Boat.
Cooper and his father stopped at the base of the treestand, where his father would spot game from above. Down below they set up a folding blind for Cooper to shoot from. Cooper jumped from the sudden sound of a close “hoot” at piercing volume. His father jerked his head up, then looked around. He murmured “hoot-owls”, as if struggling to remember the name. He kept his attention at the tops of the trees. When another called from a hundred yards away, Cooper swore he saw distress in his father’s eyes. A rare sight, it unsettled him.
A third: “Hoo, hoo, hoo-HOO, hoo, hoo, hoo-HOOooo!”
“Well. Go on out an’ help ‘em.”
Dad, eating from a bowl of fruit large enough to be a still life painting, turned back to the kitchen and passed Mom as she poked her head thru the doorway.
“And you know where the torches are, love.”
I grabbed one of the plastic bricks from the hutch drawer—two of the plastic bricks from the hutch drawer—and handed one to Cousin Roger, who was giving me a stupid smirk thru the screen door and his huge rounded glasses. We jumped down the deck stairs and walked down the gravel drive. It was already late dusk.
I slid the large black slider switch on the handle of my flashlight and saw the wispy, soft yellow light cast shadows on the pines next to us. The bulb shone thru the red plastic housing, backlighting the label that bragged of “ONE MILLION CANDLEPOWER”. Cousin Roger struggled with the switch on his blue one, but managed after bracing against his cotton duck pants. “I hope nothing happened to Uncle Jack.”
I was still getting used to calling Aunt Jenni’s new husband uncle. “When’s the last time anyone saw ‘im?”
“Dad and the others have been looking for a couple hours now. Dad’s even got the HAM radio out.”
Aunt Jenni’s gonna tear Uncle Jack a new one if he’s just been hun’ing deer the whole time. “Well, he’s always got the radio out. Where are we gonna look?”
Roger slowed. “Everyone’s splittin’ up. Gotta whole mountain to search, just about.”
We stopped, and I heard a loud sigh over the crackle-pop of the gravel underfoot before realizing it was my own.
Cousin Roger stared blankly. “I’m going back to Mom and Dad’s the Green Apple Mine way. I’m sure if Uncle Jack’s found, Dad’ll send me back up here. If not, I’ll see ya tomorrow morning.”
I’d be lying if I didn’t get a-scared when he turned away. “Wait. Where am I looking then? I don’t know where y’all’ve looked…”
Cousin Roger pointed to the woods over my shoulder. “Doesn’t that go to the back of Aunt Jenni’s?”
I shuddered. I’ve not gone out that part of the forest very often. “Pretty sure.”
“Just go down to their backyard and back. You might even catch Uncle Jack on his way back.” He chuckled. “Maybe he’ll make you drag the deer back, heh heh heh.”
I did not want to find Uncle Jack in the forest; but I appreciated Roger tryin’ to get me out of my duty to obey my Dad as soon as possible. I watched Roger’s light bob up and down as he turned down the drive and around the lane.
A warm zephyr came through the treeline behind me and blew past my ears. I turned and soon my footsteps were muffled by the swish of dewy grass. I passed the lower garden before finding a deertrail in the direction of Aunt Jenni’s. I crossed the path from the spring to the upper garden, then slid dropping down into the treeline.
I followed the terrace of the shrouded path for what felt like a mile, though I knew I’d still see the porchlight if I turned around. My heart skipped and my brain lagged when my light’s beam found an unnaturally shimmery black shape up from me. The khaki hound-snout of a blackbear boar turned towards me. Like a small gentleman, he was casually sitting on his rump. I knew he was no threat, but still I kept him in my shotgun vision till I was out of arrowshot. Dad told me that they have better noses than dogs; I tried to keep the prospect of him tracking me at the back of my mind, hoping it would block my scent.
A misty sound rolled over me from far ahead: “hoo, hoo, hoo-hoooo”. A hoot-owl. We often heard them when we stayed late building the house, as if they were gossiping about the new neighbors.
As the air cooled, trapped scents of the mountain began to pour over me and down into the gullies. The bitter fruit smell of the maples overpowered everything else. Dad called this part of the woods “Hickory Flats”, but I could see no flatwoods.
I was suddenly conscious of every step I took. I was aware of the warmth of the flashlight, and how it made the cold less sharp. Branches snapped behind me, and I whirled around to see the culprit. I stumbled, expecting to see the beast bearing down on me. In the split-second I faced the ground, part of me prayed for my .22 pistol, and part of me knew it wouldn’t help. My terror was shocked by the appearance of a small whitetail jumping away from the trail. As my flashlight followed it between trees, it seemed to appear and disappear in evasive action.
I studied the snaps of twigs killed in the retreating charge for a few minutes, wishing it didn’t draw so much attention. But what was I afraid of, really? Wolves disappeared a long time ago, save the occasional sighting by a lonely old man. Mountain lions were similarly mythical, though before tonight I believed the stories. I wondered if lack of sightings was merely proof of lethality. Maybe we had grown soft.
“hoo, hoo, hoo-HOO, hoo, hoo, hoo-HOOooo”
“hoo, hoo, hoo-HOO, hoo, hoo, hoo-HOOooo”
A family of hoot-owls. I tried to shine my light in the trees as if nonchalant. I searched desperately as I turned, but finding none.
“hoo, hoo, hoo-HOO”
“hoo, hoo, hoo-HOOooo”
“hoo, hoo, hoo-HOO”
warmth of the flashlight, cold of the night.
It seemed that every bough had an owl, and every owl a soul. I swatted something small from the back of my hair, but felt nothing. Walking faster, I scanned the trees and found one as it dove away.
“HOOooo. HOOooo.”
I heard no wisdom, only madness.
warmth of the flashlight, cold of the night
No more a respectable congress of owls, it felt a choir of chanting monks.
“HOOooo. HOOooo.”
“HOOooo. HOOooo.”
“HOOooo. HOOooo.”
warmth of the flashlight, cold of the night.
My muckboots are clop-clop-clopping with urgency. My eyes are jogging as fast as they can. The owls are echoing from every tree trunk I dodge.
End!
“HOO”
End!
“HOO”
End!
“HOOooo”
‘Tis the old wind in the old anger.
I trip over a root and somersault off the trail. I don’t have the heart to brace my fall. I feel the air explode from my lungs.
Gasping, I struggle to capture the thin air. Cold mud splatters before sliding down my chest. My eyes are mad as I try to see what’s above me, but I see nothing. I hear nothing. Still, I know it is watching me. On impulse, I jump up to face my fate, anything to end this unbearable delay. The flashlight spots the footpath behind me empty, away from the looming tree I thought I tripped over, but there is no root.
Thru its red plastic housing, the flashlight glows, softly illuminating a boot in the way of the path. My eyes darken as I see the soft red silhouette at the base of the tree, of a sitting man hunched over his own chest.
“HOOooo. HOOooo.”
“Dad, what’s wrong?”, Cooper whispered.
Absent, his father looked to him, then the ground.
“Nothing”, he said, before climbing the treestand.