Michael woke up crying. Outside his bedroom window birds chirped in the dark and he wondered why anyone – or anything – would be happy to be awake this early. He sat up, wiped his eyes, and walked to a pile of clothing laying atop a dresser. He stripped off his damp, sweat-soaked pajamas and layered his body with long underwear, sweatpants, a t-shirt with the phrase ‘Tech Teens Code Camp for Kids!’, a flannel shirt, and a pair of jeans. He felt every tooth of the zipper pulling shut on the jeans as he tugged it up over the other layers. A belt lay on the dresser coiled like a black snake, but after the zipper struggle, he decided to leave it.
“Morning,” Michael said.
His father stood near a stone fireplace buttoning a flannel shirt that pulled tight around his wide belly. He looked up to the ceiling, his head lifting his beard off his chest and allowing his hands to close the buttons up to his neck. In the center of the room was a plastic air purifier rigged to a car battery, humming and blowing chilled air around in waves.
“Deodorant’s in the bathroom,” his father said. “And put on your mask, I’m turning the purifier off soon.”
Michael turned and left the room, snagging a face mask from an end table and pulling it on. “Good morning to you too,” he muttered.
Inside the bathroom, a purple tube of deodorant stood on the pea-green sink. ‘Everyday Unscented Protection for Her’ the label read. ‘Clean Enough for Her, Strong Enough for Him!’ It was the same every year, dad snagging a stick from mom’s stash and mom went without until they could scavenge more. Michael supposed in some ways that reflected how their marriage went. Dad took what he wanted, and she kept quiet. His rules or tough shit. Michael grabbed the tube and silently thanked her, the small stick just one of a thousand little pieces of glue holding the family together. His eyes began to get hot and watery again as the deodorant hit his armpit, unsure if the tears were from the cold stick hitting his skin, or from his thoughts.
He followed the sound of clinking bottles to the kitchen where his dad was digging through a cooler. From it, he pulled out a package wrapped in newspaper and carefully began opening it, revealing a hunk of ashy gray meat.
“Grab me a knife,” his dad said, pointing at a cupboard drawer near him.
Michael grabbed the handle of the drawer and gently pulled – the drawer refused to open. He pulled harder, putting more of his arm and body into it. When that didn’t work, he gripped it with both hands and wrenched it back, the drawer letting out a loud screech but opening only a sliver.
The crunch of the newspaper as the meat hit it caused Michael to turn.
“Stop that!” his dad barked, using his body to push Michael out of the way. After a few pulls he lifted the handle and tugged. The drawer came free with a loud crack and slid open.
“It was jammed…” Michael said.
“If something isn’t working you can’t just sit there trying to force it. That’s how things get broke. Sometimes I think you don’t think about what you’re doing, Michael.”
Michael’s face turned red as his father turned his focus back to the meat on the table. His long underwear stuck to his sweaty underarms, and he rolled his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down until calm ran through his body and his flushed skin cooled.
Michael dug through the contents of the drawer and found a knife with a handle made of carved antler housed in a leather sheath. He unsnapped the strap holding the blade in and pulled it out. Specks of rust specked the blade, but the edge was razor-sharp. A twisted thought snuck into Michael’s mind for only a moment: his father reaching for the knife and catching the bladed edge, opening a wide gash across his hand. Michael smiled at the karmic scene in his head, but when his father reached out, he placed the knife gently onto the outstretched palm, and the images in his head faded away as his father began cutting strips of meat.
Taking the strip from his dad, Michael dipped his mask down and slipped it into his mouth. His mouth began to water in response to the salty breakfast. The dried, ashy outer coating began to soften, and he chewed the gray meat into a mash before swallowing. Its acrid flavor of heavy smoke filled his mouth and nostrils, reminding him of father’s clothes after working in the smokehouse. The flavor lingered, unpleasant yet warming, like the memories of his mother.
Inside his mesh backpack he found a thick rope, a glass vial of liquid, and a plastic poncho. He unwrapped the poncho, revealing a novel with a torn cover and pages warped by water damage. He listened to the soft flitting sound the pages made as they curled past his finger. If he was lucky, he would find another book this year, but it would depend on the route they took through Owl Creek. Michael made a silent promise he would swap this book for another if he could. Maybe someone else out there still read these things. He wrapped it up and returned it to the bag, laying the rope on top to hide it.
His dad walked into the room, “Put this in your pack,” he said from behind his own mask, handing Michael another strip of the dried meat. He looked at the belt atop the dresser, scowled, and tossed both it and the sheathed knife at Michael. “You’ll need it.” Then, he left the room.
Michael could feel his face getting warm as he looked at the belt loop on the back of the sheath. He slipped the knife into his backpack and walked out of the cabin, leaving the belt on the bed.
Outside, the world had just woken up. An alarm clock of birdsong echoed in the forest around the group of log cabins. A squirrel scrounged for food in a snowdrift before running up a tree. The cloudy winter sky blocked dawn as it broke, only allowing a dull haze to light the area.
Michael’s breath puffed out in cloudy whiffs. A crisp wind burned his cheeks and sunk through each layer of clothing. Flakes of snow drifted from the sky, the breeze nudging them sideways. Sometimes he wondered what the world had been like before the bombs, before the world had been perpetually frozen. This was everything he had ever known, and in some ways, it was beautiful.
He walked down the front porch steps and over to a Ford Bronco with a cream-colored stripe running down its side. Opening the rear door, he slid on a hoodie and a blaze-orange cap. He dug the knife out of his pack and slid it into the hoodie pocket.
He walked over to a birch tree on the far side of the Bronco and grabbed a curling piece of the bark. Peeling it back, he pictured the slender tree wrapped up like a mummy with bark-like bandages. As he dreamed, the curl in his hand tore away from the trunk, killing his hope for a single, long piece of bark and bringing him back to reality.
He dug the knife out of his pack and unclasped it from the sheath. Then, putting the blade to the exposed trunk, he carved out letters.
M. H.
&
N. P.
“Awful early in the mornin’ t’be cuttin’ trees,” a voice said.
Michael spun around; eyes wide. An old man in a jacket and coveralls stood in front of the Bronco. He smiled a yellow grin and his face reminded Michael of the shriveled jerky in his backpack. A dirty baseball cap pushed down stringy, wild hair that swam in the breeze.
“Y’can put’er down, Michael.”
He realized he was holding the blade out towards the man.
“Sorry Lou,” Michael said, and slipped the knife into his pocket. “Dad’s inside.”
Lou nodded, then pointed at Michael’s hat, “Huntin’?”
“Yeah.”
“Yer ma inside too?”
“No,” Michael said, shaking his head.
“She stay home? Ain’t a great time t’be alone y’know. Since ‘em bombs…”
The toothy grin returned, and Michael backed against the tree. The birdsong had silenced, the howling bluster of wind between them.
“No, she came along.”
“But she ain’t inside.” Lou laughed. “Then, where is she?”
Michael looked toward the tree line of the forest behind the cabin. He suddenly felt the weight of the clothes he had on like an itchy second skin. Scratching at his arm, his gaze moved to the ground in front of him and he pushed the snow around with his boot.
The grin on Lou’s face fell away, replaced by a leathery scowl. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his jacket and took a step forward, swallowing up the distance Michael had put between them – and more.
“Michael, where is she?”
As Michael’s hand gripped the handle of the knife, the cabin door thumped open, and his father walked out. Lou pivoted away from Michael, turning towards the cabin with his hand stuck in his pocket.
“Morning, Lou,” his father said.
“Mornin’ Charlie.”
“Cabins are looking good this year. Looked like a new coat of paint on Seven.”
A backpack was slung over Charlie’s shoulder, and he held another by its straps. In his other hand, he held a bolt action rifle, the butt of the gun tucked under his armpit. Michael knew they always kept their guns in cases, his father must have intentionally taken it out before he came outside. He wondered if it was loaded.
Lou nodded, “Bombs hit south’a here an Seven took it the worst. Couple trees bounced off ‘er and took a wall down, but damn if she still stood. Took us almost a whole summer to get it fixed and painted. A’course Nance and I hemmed and hawed about fixin’ it at first seein’ as there ain’t been many good folk comin’ up here lately. Got a few real unsavory types driftin’ through here an’ there but I said to Nance, ‘I been takin’ care of this resort for 37 years, I ain’t gonna stop ‘cause the world’s gone crazy’.”
He wheezed out a laugh that caught in his throat midway through and he coughed out the rest. The bulge of whatever Lou held – likely a gun, Michael guessed – stretched the fabric of the coat as he coughed. Even through the fit, he kept his hand stuffed in the pocket.
“How are you and Nancy feeling?” Charlie asked.
“Gonna make this short, Charlie. Goin’ in them woods would be one of the dumbest fuckin’ things I ever seen,” Lou said. “All sortsa things crawlin’ around out there, and this snow looks like it’s just gonna get worse. Yer an idiot to take that boy out there.”
Michael’s palm was warm with sweat as it squeezed the knife. The mask itched his nose and dug into the back of his ears. His stomach felt tight, and it growled in disgust. He wasn’t sure if it was in reaction to the old strip of meat he had eaten, or the tension between them.
“It’s none of your concern where we hunt,” Charlie replied.
“I don’t give a damn where you hunt, but I can’t have you stayin’ here. Draws attention I don’t wanna have to concern myself with.”
“We were on our way out. Won’t be back.”
“Good, good,” Lou said. His hand left his pocket, leaving the bulky item inside.
A moment passed before Charlie walked down the porch steps and over to the Bronco. He opened the back door and tossed in the bag he carried as well as the backpack. The gun stayed in his hands.
“C’mon Michael,” Charlie said.
Michael’s gaze broke from Lou and his grip released the knife. He slid into the passenger seat and closed the door behind him.
Charlie opened the driver-side door, never turning his back to Lou, who watched them with a grin. Reaching into the car, Charlie grabbed a cloth mask from the dash and held it out to Lou.
Lou shook his head, “Don’t be needin’ one of those up here. Air’s nice ‘n fresh.”
Charlie threw the mask into the Bronco and climbed in, the rifle sitting on his lap.
“Careful where ya’ drive this thing,” Lou said, rapping a hand on the Bronco’s hood. “Good running truck, some folks might kill for.”
Charlie fished out a key from his jacket pocket and used it to start the car. Flicking a lever near the wheel, the wipers swiped at the gathering layer of snow, clearing the windshield.
“Bag a keeper!” Lou yelled before hacking out another laugh-cough.
Charlie put the truck into gear. “And I’m the fuckin’ crazy one,” he said under his breath.
The Bronco pulled out of the resort and onto an unplowed county highway. Sputtering in the snow, the truck fishtailed before finding its grip and straightening out. Charlie once told Michael there used to be big plows that cleared away the snow from the roads, but that was before the bombs fell. Michael was just a baby then, too young to remember any of that. He always found a blanket of snow calming, and he was happy there weren’t any plows to take it away.
Flakes began to fall faster and the thick curtains of falling snow lit up by the Bronco’s headlights looked like thousands of shooting stars. Michael leaned his head against the window, the blowing heat from the vents washing over his face and chasing out the cold that had embedded itself in his clothes. He counted snowflakes as they stuck to the windshield before melting. Within minutes he was asleep.
It was another dream about HER. Michael stood with his back pushed against wood cabinets, feeling the lip of the laminate counter-top dig into his lower back. Across from him stood an old refrigerator – one of those bulky, 1960’s, faux-futuristic designs his father would call ‘heavier than a son of a bitch’ – next to a matching gas stove. He recognized the room: it was the kitchen in his grandpa’s house.
Looking down, he watched as a cloud of black smoke slid over his groin and legs. The cloud was shaped like a woman, and though the details were nothing more than blurred light and haze, he knew it was HER. Thin wisps of gray ash floated off HER, coating the room in a layer of powder. SHE shifted on the greasy, yellowed floor and pushed him away. The icy air of the room slipped across his exposed body. Then, the warm smoke returned, enveloping him with a wave of pleasure that wrapped around him like a cocoon. SHE was a barrier that shielded him from all the bad things. He didn’t care about the dirty room around him. Didn’t care about the piling ash or the memories of his grandpa – memories of a man that he once thought was invincible, right up until his heart popped and he dropped dead on the kitchen floor. Nothing mattered, only the pleasure, the safety. Only HER.
Michael’s hands landed on the countertops as he leaned back. SHE climbed up his body, heating his stomach and chest. The cold air lingered on his outstretched arms, causing small bumps to form. Gooseflesh, grandpa called it.
Smoke wrapped around his back, circled down his biceps, and pulsed over his shoulders. SHE forced his arms back, his hands forming clean skid marks in the layers of ash on the counter. Gray tendrils of ash floated up his nose and over his face, leaving gray specks stuck in his hair. The smell stung his nostrils, a smell like hot asphalt poured in the dead of summer.
As the smoke curled around his neck, the pleasure coursing through his body turned to pain. The buzzing lust that started in his groin and raced through his body now a dull ache. He tried to push away but SHE held him in place, his head and hands fighting the scorching heat. Choking for air, he looked down and saw that his skin was red and blistered. Muscles throughout his body began to spasm as the pain grew, pricking his skin from the inside-out like a nail scraping over a sunburn just beneath his skin. The barrier that had once protected him had now trapped him, letting HER spread open his mouth and force HERSELF down his throat.
Michael awoke to his dad shaking his shoulder. The Bronco was off, and the fogging windows revealed a partial view of a clearing surrounded by trees. Snow fell a dense blanket that gathered on the glass. Cold air nipped at his face in the truck. His father’s eyes were red and puffy as he stared through the windshield. How long had they been sitting there with the car off before his father had woken him?
“Let’s go,” Charlie said, brushing a hand over his eyes and exiting the vehicle.
At the Bronco’s open hatchback, Charlie and Michael each pulled on thick pairs of blaze-orange snowpants and jackets. As Michael fished his arms through the jacket sleeves, Charlie took a glass vial from his pack and carefully uncorked it, leaning against the Bronco and dabbing the liquid onto his boots. It was thick and bright red, filling the air with the smell of copper.
“Come here,” Charlie said, and brushed lines of blood on Michael’s boots. He gagged as the smell wafted up to his nose, a smell so strong it fought against the wind to reach him.
“I told you to put that on.”
Michael followed his father’s eyes to the knife lying in the back of the truck.
“Sorry.”
“Where’s your belt?”
Michael stayed silent.
“Damn it, Michael. Inner pocket, now. Don’t lose it.”
Michael grabbed the sheathed knife and slid it into a pocket lining the inside of his jacket. He could feel the heat from his father’s eyes on him with every move. Charlie unzipped a long leather case and removed a rifle, placing it against his knee and pulling the lever down to open the chamber. He checked the chamber and handed the gun to Michael.
“Remember how it works?” Charlie asked.
Michael nodded. He grabbed a bronze cartridge from his pocket and slid it into the chamber, pulling the lever up to snap the chamber shut. He placed a thumb on the hammer and carefully pulled the trigger, slowing it down to the pin before flicking on the safety. He loaded three more into the magazine and strapped the rifle across his back.
Charlie slung his gun over his shoulder and quietly pushed the car door shut. He put a hand on Michael’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Ready?”
Again, Michael nodded.
They walked away from the Bronco, leaving it on the logging road. Charlie walked a few steps ahead, each footfall crunching snow and leaves that echoed in the clearing. Birds silenced as they passed the tree line, curving their path around pine, birch, and ironwood trees swaying in the breeze. Snow clung to branches and trunks reaching far into the sky.
A thin pine branch swung off Charlie’s side and slapped Michael in the face. He reached a gloved hand to his red, stinging cheek – a stinging that the numbing cold air dissolved within seconds. Michael continued forward, begrudgingly following in his father’s footsteps.
The two hunters passed from the dense tree cover to an open plain where fallen buildings reached into the sky like jagged teeth. A charred wooden sign wrapped in snow and vines read Owl Creek, Everyone’s Hometown! Wind whipped the falling snow through broken window frames holding the last remains of broken glass.
Michael looked in the buildings they passed, but the snow and dim sky made seeing anything inside futile. At the far side of the city, Michael had nearly given up hope of them crossing the path of a new book when a tan building dirtied with ash came into view, its rugged metal sign visible from across the street. Library. For the first time in a long time, Michael felt like smiling. His mind raced, imagining all the possible stories just lying there, waiting for him patiently in the falling snow. He pictured stories of dragons and knights, tales of journeys into space, and haunts of ghosts. Each story printed on aged paper, awakening dreams in his head and shuttling him away to anywhere other than where he currently was.
Charlie stopped and turned around, looking at Michael and then the library.
Michael looked at his dad, his eyes pleading, and he held up a single finger. Just one?
Charlie sighed between labored breaths. “On our way back,” he whispered.
Michael put his finger down and shifted the rifle on his back. The sweat on his clothes, trudging through the snow, and the sharp sting of pine branches on his cheek. Just. One. Suddenly, it all seemed worth it.
They continued down the street, passing the library, where piles of rubble that were once buildings became more sporadic. Cars littering the streets soon became a rare occurrence. Roadside signs declared On Ramp and Gas Ahead, but the overgrowth of trees blocked all roads leading out of town. As they crested a hill, a big metal sign stood in the distance beside a ruined fence. Pip’s Petting Zoo and Wildlife Sanctuary was painted on the sign in aged, red paint.
“Alright,” Charlie whispered, “get your gun ready.” He swung the backpack off his shoulder and brought out the vial of blood. He bent down and hesitated a moment, then dabbed the blood onto his own boots, leaving Michael’s alone.
“We’re going in there?” Michael asked.
Charlie nodded, “They like the old smell of the animals that used to be there. They haven’t been there since the bombs, guess the smell lingers though. If you see anything in there, anything, you point it out and aim, alright?”
“Ok.”
“Do you remember where to shoot?”
Michael nodded and unslung the rifle from his back, keeping it in his hands. The cold sunk in and his heart began to beat faster, the faded elation of the library replaced by pooling adrenaline.
“Michael, I love… WE love you.”
“Yeah, I love you too, dad,” he said, unsure if he really meant it. After all, this was all Charlie’s fault, wasn’t it? Would this all be happening, this whole hunt, if they just hadn’t… No, no they wouldn’t be out here. They would all be at home, the three… four of them if they just kept it a better secret. Michael felt his face flushing and the familiar heat of anger rush over him.
Michael followed Charlie as he walked down the hill, forging a path across the snow-covered parking lot. They neared the entrance and Michael noticed footprints in the snow following the eastern fence into the zoo. The footprints were muddled by fresh snow, but he figured there were at least two – maybe three – sets of prints a couple days old. Slithering through the prints was a thick path spotted with blood, as if something had been drugged along.
They walked through the zoo’s entrance and past a snack shack with a half-torn flag and a statue of a cartoon mouse. Take a selfie with Pip Squeak! Michael read, wondering what a ‘selfie’ was.
Behind the shack, they followed the drag marks into a large building with a snake statue – its head missing pieces of plaster and exposing the wire frame – standing over the entrance.
Michael felt queasy, the breakfast jerky was going to make its way back up. He wanted to be anywhere else right now. He thought of the book in his backpack, of knights and princesses triumphing over evil and living happily ever after. Good versus evil, black and white, clear cut. He swallowed hard, forcing the meat to stay down. Maybe real life didn’t have a happily ever after. Maybe people weren’t good or evil, but a mix of both. Not black or white, but gray.
The interior of the reptile building had, at one time, been staged to look like a jungle cave replete with plaster tree trunks reaching from floor to ceiling, and fake palm fronds sticking out high above. Stagnant water lay frozen in plaster pools made to look like mud baths. Rubber vines hung down the walls around destroyed enclosures fronted with shattered glass – the once captive creatures either gone, or unmoving under the snow.
Michael choked on the smell of blood in the stale air around them as they turned a corner and entered a narrow hallway lined with tanks inlaid into the walls. Charlie checked his rifle and gripped it in both hands. Michael did the same. He felt sick again, his skin sticky and his face getting hot. He felt trapped – like an animal in a cage – oppressed by the copper blood stench and fake cavern walls.
He willed his muscles to move, shaking with every step, his grip on the gun loose and weak. This was all Charlie’s fault. This wasn’t a world of dragons and knights, this was a world of monsters and men, both stalking the barren landscape around them for blood and meat.
The hallway opened to a room with three enclosures. Most of the enclosure on the left was destroyed, with shards of glass dangling from the ceiling and a gaping hole in the wall where snow blew in. The enclosure on the right remained intact, a snow drift piled up in front of a sealed room containing desiccated plants and bones.
The trail of blood led into the center enclosure like a red carpet rolling up to the far wall where the remains of a body lay beneath blood caked walls. Her dark brown hair ran down in ragged strings over her lumpy belly, round like a volleyball. Pieces of clothing and skin were spread around her in ragged shreds.
Mother.
Michael leaned over his gun and got sick. Charlie, a few steps into the room, turned and looked at Michael, his face red and strained. His eyes wet.
All his fault, all his fault, Michael thought. He brushed his hand over his mouth as hot tears began to run down his face.
“Michael…?”
Michael held his rifle up and flicked off the safety, the barrel swaying in the air. The color in Charlie’s face drained.
“You did this,” Michael said.
“Michael-”
“You did this! You couldn’t just hide it from them?”
“We tried. She needed more food for the baby, and they knew that.”
“I don’t want to be here; she shouldn’t be here.”
Michael looked at his mother and her round belly. The image of the deodorant standing alone in the bathroom stung him like a pine branch swatting him in the face. The glue that held the family together was here. Dead. Gone.
“I didn’t choose this, Michael. I want her alive and happy just as much as you do. The tribe did this. I know you’re mad at me, but they’re the ones that killed her and dragged her out here as bait. They-”
A roar from outside the hole in the wall echoed throughout the room. It was a deep, guttural sound that ended in choked hacks like a bear snapping bones. Michael and Charlie went silent, both turning and looking at the hole. Neither of them moved.
“Dad-”
An enormous creature scuttled through the hole and charged Charlie. It screamed its staggered roar as it ran on six legs, carrying a chitinous torso of scales separated by strands of matted hair and spikes of bone. Sour froth flew out from between its teeth and dripped from a swollen tongue, thick with pustules. Hundreds of beady eyes crowded each side of its head. A calloused cleft lip was split by ragged teeth spreading in a jagged line up its head like a mohawk.
Charlie began to raise his rifle, but the creature was already on him, ramming its muzzle into him full force and tossing him across the room like a stuffed doll. His rifle fell to the floor, the barrel bending and wood stock splintering to pieces under the weight of the creature’s legs. As Charlie landed, the creature stuffed its snout into his gut and dug through his body to the sounds of ripping clothing and squishing flesh.
Michael stood in shock, the whole thing playing out in front of him like a nightmare. Like the dream of the knife cutting his father’s hand in the cabin, but infinitely worse. And instead of feeling some sweet retribution – or justice – for something his father may have done, Michael felt fear and regret.
Is this what I wanted?
His arms begged to drop the rifle, but he forced the butt up to his shoulder in one quick motion. He kept both eyes on the creature and brought the scope up, his view a blurred mix of near and far. Michael watched his father struggle to push it away, pounding his hands against its neck as blood sailed through the air. Michael’s heart thumped in his chest, adrenaline pulsing through his body, as he swayed the crosshairs between the creature and Charlie.
Michael squeezed the trigger.
The rifle in his arms let out a bang and kicked back, pounding against his shoulder. A hole appeared in the creature just below its jaw, its head recoiling as blood exploded out in a wide splatter. Michael swung the lever down, sending an empty shell flying, and pulled up hard. The lever stopped fast against his hand as the shell jammed between the bolt and the chamber. He pulled again and tried thumbing the shell off the bolt, but it refused to move.
The beast struggled to remain standing, each leg shaking as it slung its head back and forth, wiping blood across the floor. It finally crashed to the ground, and the synchronized movement of its legs was replaced by final spasms. The heaving body exhaled one last time and went still.
Knowing the rifle in his hands was useless didn’t stop Michael from pointing it forward as he approached the creature. Dozens of lidded eyes lay closed or half open. The fat tongue already stiff and cooling. Red stained teeth with slivers of flesh between them.
His father’s flesh.
Michael – his body still thudding with adrenaline, his mind still buzzing with fear – dropped to his knees near his father. Charlie held his arms over a deep tear in his body where his gut had once been. Michael laid the rifle on the ground, a pool of blood inching its way around them.
“N… no,” Charlie rasped, pointing towards the rifle.
“It’s jammed.”
His father’s once strong and unfaltering gaze had been replaced by shock and he blinked with heavy lids. Michael knew that look. That was the look he always imagined his grandfather had as he lay gulping for air on the kitchen floor. A look for when your animal brain knows something isn’t right. Pin pricks of immense and entire fear. Gooseflesh.
“Get your knife,” Charlie forced out. “Gut… it.”
Michael pulled the knife from his pocket. “I don’t know…” The words faded as he wiped away tears. At home, Charlie had told him how to gut the creature by scribbling rough figures on a scrap of paper. But now, with his dad and mom both lying in piles of blood nearby, his mind only remembered the hasty drawing and none of the details.
“It’s OK, Michael. It’ll be OK,” Charlie said, knowing he would not be. “I’ll help you. I’ll show you. Start-” he coughed. His lips were wet with blood, and he wheezed in and out, “Start at the ch-chest, work your way down.”
Michael crawled over to the creature. He lifted one of the heavy, stiff legs and pressed the knife into the soft chest in front of him. He slid the knife across the belly, the skin peeling away slowly like a thin layer of rubber. Organs wrapped in a sticky casing sat in a pile within.
“Careful, don’t p-pierce the stomach. Reach in, you need to cut the organs away.”
Michael continued to field dress the animal with his dad giving advice from across the room. Soon, the insides of the beast lay in a steaming puddle and the carcass had been emptied, the legs separated and tossed aside. He walked to the hole the animal had come through and cleaned his arms with handfuls of snow, taking care to rinse the blood off the knife. As he reached for the sheath, the blade slipped from his wet hand and clattered across the floor. He winced and waited for his dad to scold him.
It never came.
Silence.
He wished more than anything that he would hear that voice before he turned around. Maybe scold him about responsibility or taking care of things. Anything. But he knew when he turned around that his dad would be lifeless and still, the same way his mother was only half a room away. Everything he ever had here – but gone. No more glue to hold them together, no more family to hold together.
Michael picked up the knife, sheathed it, and slid it inside the inner pocket of his jacket. He looked at the scene in front of him and wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. Instead, a sour knot formed in his belly – a reminder of how wrong it had all gone – and all he could do was listen to the breeze blowing outside.
He took the rope from his backpack and tied it around the creature’s carcass, dragging the body from the room and toward the hallway. He looked back once more at his parents, his gut tightening. No queens or kings, princesses or knights, just people once filled with something more complex than any story he’d ever read.
As he followed their trail back through Owl Creek – fighting for every inch as he pulled the carcass behind him – the library once again came into view. The once-inviting doorway opened like a dark, hungry mouth. Michael stared into the darkness, any sense of magic he thought he’d find within the books inside was gone. Now, he just saw another ruined building struggling to stay standing over a rubbish pile of make-believe. There never was any escape, no book would permanently take him away from this world. They were all dreams, nothing more; temporary – like his parents – like him. He dug into his backpack and pulled out the novel. He bent the book and let the pages flit past his thumb, blood staining the edge of every page. With one last look, he threw the book into the mouth of the library, losing sight of it in the dark. Sliding the backpack loops over his arms and strapping the rifle over his back, he grabbed the rope and continued his trek to the Bronco.
The Bronco’s engine shut off in front of Charlie’s trailer and Michael stepped out, the car keys jangling in his hand. He tugged on yellow straps stretched taught across the roof, making sure the carcass was still firmly in place.
Satisfied with the setup, he hopped into the snow and walked to the trailer, the initials he carved on the birch tree catching his eye. He thought about HER for the first time since his dream, for the first time since carving her initials right here. The morning before the hunt felt like a dream, a haze of something he did in a past life. The knot in his gut curled again. He unsheathed his knife and carved into the flesh of the tree once more.
M. H.
&
N. P.
Back at the trailer, Michael unlocked the door and stepped inside, leaving the door open for the extra light. From his father’s bedroom he took a set of wire hangers and an old box of photos. In his room, he picked the belt up from the bed, curled it up, and stuffed it in a pocket. In the bathroom he took the stick of deodorant and put it in the box with the photos. Then, with the box and hangars in one hand, he dragged the air purifier from the front room and to the Bronco.
He entered the trailer once more, this time retrieving the cooler from the kitchen and hefting it to the truck. He lifted the lid and pulled out a few chunks of the gray meat, slipping them into his pocket.
Closing the hatchback, he found Lou standing several yards ahead of the Bronco, his mouth agape at the carcass. Lou stood in shock as the boy approached him in a ruddy stained jacket wearing a cloth mask smeared with blood. The gun Lou had in his coat pocket seemed miles away and he stood there with his arms limp at his sides, the power he held over Michael that morning depleted by the sight in front of him. Michael stopped in front of Lou and reached into his pocket, pulling out a strip of meat and handing it to the man. He could feel Lou’s eyes follow him as he walked back to the Bronco.
He turned the key in the ignition, and as the engine turned over his stomach growled loudly. He pulled another strip of meat from his jacket and paused, staring at it. A thin strip of meat worth more than gold – worth more than his family. The tribal leaders back home were willing to sacrifice every one of them just to feed themselves. They were as gray as the meat in his hand. The sickly salty meat hit his tongue and he started to chew, thinking of the fresh carcass above. He wouldn’t return to them, would never let them see the desperate prize they made him sacrifice so much for. It was their turn to sacrifice something. To hunger. Michael only wished he could see them fight over every scrap until they would tear the meat from their own bones. He could picture it vividly, like the story from a book he once read. Michael smiled, shifting the Bronco into gear and driving out of the trailer park, sucking on a piece of dried meat, thinking maybe he was just as gray as everyone else.