Beast Read online

  Beast

  A short (horror) story by

  JOHN SILVEIRA

  Riley Creek Books

  This story is a work of fiction. But let’s face it, anyone who claims that people, places, and incidents in their lives didn’t influence the characters, locales, and situations they put their characters in, in their stories, is full of shit.

  Also, I worked very hard on this story. It’s copyrighted, so don’t go stealing my shit. However, you are allowed to use portions of it in reviews to say nice things about me (I’m a nice guy) and my work (it’s good).

  Published by Riley Creek Books

  Copyright © 2017 John Silveira

  All Rights reserved

  For information, please contact:

  John Silveira

  Riley Creek Books

  P.O. Box 1646

  Gold Beach, OR 97444

  [email protected]

  Cover photo:

  O.E. MacDougal

  (He used my camera.)

  Cover design:

  Sammi Craig

  [email protected]

  Fred took his foot off the gas and let his Wrangler coast the last hundred yards to the top of the hill where a pickup and two cars were parked on the gravel.

  “There are some people up here,” Henry said.

  Bennett was in back looking over Henry’s shoulder. “Thanks for stating the obvious,” he said.

  Henry ignored him.

  Fred stopped next to the pickup.

  The windshield on one of the cars was busted and had a gaping hole in it. “What the fuck?” Bennett said.

  “What do you think happened there?” Henry asked and looked at Fred.

  Fred didn’t answer.

  Henry opened his door and stepped down onto the gravel. He didn’t like the swollen grey clouds above. Then he saw the blacktop road ahead was blocked by a steel gate that was chained and locked. “What’s with the gate?” he asked.

  From the backseat, Bennett yelled, “Hank, move the front seat forward, so we can get out.”

  Henry wasn’t listening. “You think maybe we’re not supposed to go down there?”

  He turned to Fred, but Fred had walked to the edge of the parking area and was taking a whiz.

  “Hank! Move the fuckin’ seat,” Bennett yelled.

  “Oh.” He reached back in the Wrangler, lifted the lever, and the passenger’s seat slid forward. Bennett got out and Lucius got out behind him. After being cooped up in the backseat, they both stretched.

  Behind them, the Explorer came up the road and parked beside Fred’s Wrangler. Mike, Cory, Rob, and Tom got out.

  “Shit,” Mike yelled when he saw the chain on the gate. “We’ve gotta hike an extra mile and a half each way because they’ve locked that fucking gate.”

  “It’s a mile each way,” Fred said.

  “Why’s the gate locked?” Rob asked.

  “They do it every year,” Fred said as if that were explanation enough. Fred had organized the trip.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Cory asked.

  “Why do they close it off?” Rob asked.

  “Ask the forest fairies,” Fred replied.

  “Forest fairies?” Rob asked.

  Fred and Bennett started laughing.

  “The forest rangers,” Mike explained.

  Rob turned away. He didn’t know most of these guys and didn’t like them having a laugh at his expense.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Cory asked again.

  Fred ignored him. He went to the back of his Wrangler and opened the rear door. “Let’s get the packs out,” he said.

  Henry went to the F-150 and looked in the windows. Then he peered in the windows of the Civic. Last he looked in the Malibu with its busted windshield. “Think the guys that belong to these are up here camping, too?” he called to Fred.

  Fred wasn’t listening again. He was pulling the packs out of the Wrangler and placing them on the gravel.

  Mike opened the back of his Explorer. “Come on, get your packs so we can get this horse and dog show rolling. We’re already late getting up here.”

  Rob rummaged through the back of the Explorer, stopped, and asked, “Cory, did you bring beer?”

  Cory snapped his fingers. “Shit! I knew there was something…”

  “What the fuck? You only had one thing to do,” Rob yelled.

  Rob was a small, thin, nervous, redheaded Irishman with a pinched face, from the streets of Boston who’d moved to California ten years before. The rest of them thought he was about thirty years old and prematurely balding, but he was almost forty.

  “All you had to do; remember the beer.”

  “So I forgot.”

  “So I forgot,” Rob aped. “What a fucking asshole!” He kicked up the gravel in disgust.

  “If you’re not happy, drive back.”

  “If you’re not happy, drive back,” Rob repeated.

  “You should have asked him this before we got on the road,” Mike said.

  “So, it’s my fault?” Rob said to Mike. “Fuck you!”

  “Look what I brought,” Bennett yelled and pulled a bottle of Pendleton out of his pack. Then another. Then a third.

  “Holy shit; Pendleton. You brought Pendleton?” Rob yelled.

  “I wanted it to be a surprise when we reached the hot springs.”

  “Let’s hear it for this bastard,” Rob shouted.

  Bennett smiled and bowed to the cheers. Even Cory, who’d seemed sullen since first meeting the others applauded him. Bennett had gotten him off the hook.

  “You’re still an asshole,” Rob told Cory.

  Henry was still looking at the other cars. “How do you think it got a broken windshield?” he called to Fred. Fred ignored him. “Think there are more people up here packing in to go camping?”

  “What’s that?” Fred asked. He was tall and dark haired with a thick black mustache. He was twenty-five years old and one of the two with backpacking experience. The other was his brother-in-law, Mike, who drove the Explorer.

  “The people from these cars; do you think we’re going to run into them at the hot springs?”

  “Maybe. Not likely. Not in this weather. We’re the only ones crazy enough to do that. Might just be some people down there cutting mistletoe.

  “Mistletoe?”

  Fred was back to putting the packs down on the ground and didn’t answer.

  “Mistletoe?” Henry repeated.

  Fred ignored him.

  Henry looked down the hill. He was forty-one and the oldest in the group. Born in Michigan, he’d left when he was eighteen. Three years ago he’d retired from the Navy, now he lived with his wife and three teenaged kids near the Navy base. He, Fred, Bennett, and Lucius worked at Hawker & Shoal Marine and did contract work for the Navy. It was he who had prompted Fred to organize the trip after reminiscing about the hikes and hunts he’d been on as a kid on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The guys at Hawker & Shoal were surprised, they’d never thought of quiet, old Henry as the kind who had once hunted, hiked, or camped.

  Once they started planning the trip, Fred invited Mike, and Mike invited his friends Tom, Rob, and Cory.

  Suddenly, Fred said, “Mistletoe grows wild up here.”

  It was a few seconds before Henry realized he was talking to him.

  “Lots of people come and cut it from the trees. They sell it.”

  “Think this guy’s cutting mistletoe?” Henry asked and walked toward the Malibu with the smashed window. Fred and Mike joined him.

  Broken glass had showered the interior of the car and some lay on the hood.

  “I don’t want to be leaving my rig here if there’s people breaking into them,” Mike said.

  Fred tried the doors on the ot
her two cars. They were locked. “No one’s breaking in. They’d have broken the windows on these ones, too.”

  “How do you think it happened,” Henry asked peering in through the break.

  “Probably went over the side and got towed back up. Happens on occasion up here,” Fred said.

  Henry took a step back and scanned the car’s body. “But there aren’t any dents. Wouldn’t there be some if there’d been an accident?”

  Fred didn’t answer.

  “Looks like blood on the seat,” Mike said when he looked in through the break.

  Rob joined them and looked in the car.

  “Doesn’t make any sense to lock the doors with a hole this big in the windshield,” he said and pointed to the locked doors.

  Fred tried the driver’s side door. It was locked. “Nope,” he laughed.

  “You think the window was broken in or out?” Henry asked. “There’s glass all over the seat, but it’s on the hood and the ground, too. Looks like blood on the hood,” and he touched a spot with his finger.

  “You’re going to get fucking AIDs,” Rob yelled and, though the blood was dried, Henry wiped his hands on his jeans.

  “Who knows?” Fred said. “Looks like it was some kind of accident.”

  “But there aren’t any dents,” Henry repeated.

  Fred blurted out, “Hey, I don’t know what the fuck happened. I don’t even care. Is it important to you?”

  “I guess not,” Henry said. But he didn’t like puzzles.

  They went back to their packs. Tom was spraying Scotch Guard on Cory’s and Mike’s blue jeans.

  Cory was a small nervous man about Rob’s size and a chronically unemployed auto mechanic who lived with his girlfriend in town.

  Lucius was a tall, overweight black man, the biggest guy in the group and worked as a tech writer for Hawker & Shoal, like Bennett, Fred, and Henry.

  Though Cory seemed uncomfortable with everyone but Mike and Tom, it was clear he didn’t like Lucius because he was black.

  Lucius acted like he didn’t notice Cory, but Fred caught on to Cory’s attitude right away and realized it could ruin the whole trip.

  “God, what’s that smell?” Fred asked.

  “Bennett,” Tom said.

  They all looked at Bennett. He was eating a can of sardines. “Want some?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Rob said and walked over.

  “Not me,” Fred said. “How the hell can anyone eat those? They’re gross. Get downwind, will you?”

  “I like them when I’m sleeping alone,” Bennett said smiling. “Remind me of women.”

  “You’re gross,” Fred said.

  “Women?” Lucius asked. “Let me have some of those.”

  They all laughed — except for Cory who mumbled something about blacks and white women. Henry hoped Lucius didn’t hear it. He also hoped Bennett hadn’t heard it. For all the riding Bennett and Lucius gave each other, they’d known each other for years and you didn’t talk shit about Lucius around Bennett. But Bennett talked shit about Lucius.

  “What did you say?” Bennett asked Cory.

  Cory fumbled with his pack as if he didn’t hear Bennett’s question.

  “Just keep ‘em away from me,” Fred said. He was trying to bring the conversation back to the sardines.

  “What’s the matter?” Mike asked Fred. “Don’t you like pussy?”

  “You guys can all take a can of sardines into your sleeping bags tonight while you choke your chickens, but keep ‘em away from me.”

  “So why’s the gate locked?” Rob asked.

  Fred looked back at the gate. “I don’t know. There are washouts up here during the winter. Maybe it’s to keep campers and RVs out. If it’s important to you, there’s a forestry office in town, you can stop by and ask them, when we get back.”

  “That’s an extra mile-and-a-half in each direction that we’ve got to cover, and it’s all hill,” Mike said.

  “Fred said it’s a mile,” Henry reminded him.

  “Wait’ll you start hiking it with a pack,” Mike snapped. “The shape you’re in, it’ll seem like ten miles.”

  Henry shrugged and turned away. Time of day? The weather? Rob? Cory? Bennett? And now Mike. Everyone seemed to be on a short fuse. He felt like they were getting off to a bad start.

  “Listen, guys,” Fred said, “we don’t have to hike all the way into the hot springs. We can go up to Crawfish Creek Camp as sort of a shakedown hike the first time out. It’s going to be a long hike from here to the springs, and I can guarantee it’ll be long after dark when we get there.”

  “No,” Henry said. “I came up here to see the springs.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said.

  Fred shrugged. “The hot springs it is. But I don’t want to hear bitching when your legs give out.”

  Lucius asked, “You guys said there were nudies out there at the hot springs, didn’t you?”

  Fred suddenly realized that’s why they wanted to go to the springs. “Not at this time of year,” he said

  “Probably not in this kind of weather, either,” Mike added.

  Lucius and Mike looked disappointed. Even Henry’s heart sunk a little, though he didn’t show it.

  Cory mumbled something about race again. Henry didn’t know what it was, but it made him uncomfortable and Bennett was glaring. Even Lucius seemed uncomfortable, now.

  Bennett said, “Hey, Lucius, I’ve got plenty of sardines. They’ll make up for the lack of women.” He stared at Cory as he said this.

  “That’ll have to do,” Lucius said and smiled.

  “You two are gross,” Fred said as the others laughed.

  Cory mumbled again and Henry was sure Lucius had heard it. Shit, he thought to himself.

  That’s when Lucius walked up to Cory and the others held their breaths. Cory looked frail next to Lucius. “You don’t have to mumble that shit. You can say it out loud. Then I can let you know how I feel about you.”

  The other six were relieved when Cory turned away, but no one else really moved until Henry broke the silence. “What’s the Scotch Guard for, waterproofing?”

  “You Navy guys always surprise me when you actually know something,” Bennett said. “You want to do the legs of your jeans, the seat, and your packs. Spray kind of lightly, we’ve got to stretch two cans.”

  “What about our shirts? What if it rains?”

  “Probably will from the look of the sky. You brought a poncho or something, didn’t you?”

  “I just brought my jacket,” Henry said.

  Fred shook his head. “You’re going to get wet and be uncomfortable.”

  “Wanna kiss?” Bennett asked Cory and held out some foil-wrapped Hershey’s kisses.

  “Fuck you,” Cory said and walked away as the others laughed.

  “Keep those two away from me,” Fred said to Henry and smiled, but he didn’t want Bennett baiting Cory just when things were quieting down.

  “Come on, have a couple,” Bennett said and held them out, but Cory walked away.

  “Hey, I’ll take some kisses,” Lucius said. “Even from somebody as ugly as you.”

  Fred rolled his eyes and made Henry laugh.

  But as Lucius took two kisses from Bennett’s hand he whispered, “Lay off him. Let’s just have a good time.”

  “I brought a bunch of them,” Bennett said. “Got cookies, granola bars, and raisins to eat until we make camp.”

  “Good. We’ve got somebody who’s come prepared,” Rob said. But the way Rob looked at him, Henry knew the comment was directed at him.

  “Just don’t breathe in my direction with your sardine breath,” Fred said.

  “It’s not sardine breath,” Bennett said. “I kissed your wife on the lips when I said goodbye to her.”

  “Watch it,” Fred warned. “I’m the only one who’s allowed to talk about ole tuna crotch like that. Which reminds me, what did you bring for supper?”

  “Freeze-dried chili and stew,” Bennett said. �
��What about you?”

  “I brought a few cans of Dinty Moore’s Stew. Told these guys to do the same.”

  “Lot of weight,” Bennett said.

  “I can handle it,” Fred said.

  “I brought four cans of Spam and a can of stew,” Mike said as he finished off his last kiss.

  “Lot of weight,” Bennett repeated. “What are you going to cook it in?”

  “Rob’s carrying my cast iron skillet,” Mike said.

  “Cast iron skillet?” Fred and Bennett asked simultaneously and Lucius and Tom laughed.

  “You got a microwave in your pack, too?” Bennett asked.

  “With eighteen miles of extension cord,” Rob replied strained, but good-naturedly. He was still guarded about humor directed his way.

  “Gotta watch that weight,” Bennett warned again ignoring Rob’s attempted joke. “It’s going to make you tired and you’re going to have to carry it a long way.”

  “Don’t worry about what I’m carrying,” Rob said.

  “What have you got there?” Lucius asked and they all turned to look at Cory. He was putting a holster with a revolver on his belt.

  “What’s the gun for? There’s no shooting up here,” Fred said.

  “I always take a gun with me,” Cory replied.

  “A fucking gun?” Rob exclaimed. “Hey, I’m not hiking with a guy with a gun.”

  Fred rolled his eyes again and shook his head.

  “Having a gun’s good,” Henry said, but no one was listening.

  “Yeah, I don’t want none of this gun shit either,” Lucius said.

  “What are you expecting, wild animals or a hold up?” Rob asked.

  “Probably afraid big ole Lucius here will crawl into his sleeping bag once he gets sardines on his breath,” Bennett said.

  “Probably afraid big ole black Lucius is gonna try to mug him,” Mike added.

  “Black?” Bennett yelled. “What’s this black shit? Are you black? Are you one of them, Lucius?”

  Lucius looked surprised for just a moment. Then he started to laugh. “No, Massa Bennett, I ain’t no nigger, I’m a honky. Das what ole Lucius boy here is.”

  “Okay, you don’t need the gun. Lucius is white. So leave it.”