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Fools' Creek
By Daniel Hines
Click here if you'd like to exchange critiques
When you're cruising along at 80 mph and your tire
blows out, you accept your death
immediately. You accept the death of your wife riding shotgun, and the twins in
the back. With that out of
the way, your mind has the ability to totally concentrate on getting the car
under control, out of the
sidewinder skid that will certainly roll it, over to the shoulder and stopped.
When this feat is accomplished,
you realize that you are indeed not dead, the twins are in fact alive and well,
and that dead wives certainly
don't scream that their idiot husband just tried to kill them. Fred Hunter was
contemplating all this as he set
the jack under the rear axle and started to crank away.
It all began with a television commercial advertising the utopia that Walt
Disney has managed to
build. It boasted the perfect week, fun for the whole family, not just the kids.
Before long, that seemingly
single entity called "the twins" started in with the "please, dads" and the "why
not, dads" and finally the
"then we don't love you anymore, dads". Things came to a head when Marilyn,
growing tired of the twins
and their constant threat of the revocation their of love, and not thinking it
was to bad of an idea herself,
cornered Fred in the garage one evening.
" Ya Know, Honey-pie, we could really use this vacation too. You've been
stockpiling off-time
at work for two years now, which in itself sounds like a good reason to take a
vacation, and I just know that
I could get a week off from the clinic." She said this while she hopped up on
the hood of their new sky
blue Firebird, straight off the assembly line and bought at a discount through
the employee plan. Damned
right, a discount, Marilyn thought often. At least they got something for the
slave driving hours that Ford
imposes on all their electrical engineers, not the least her own Fred. Next to
the sports car sat an older
Chevy wagon, that undying symbol of a young family. The Hunters were not quite
wealthy, but between
Fred's position at the Ford plant and Marilyn working as a nurse for some well
to do doctors and their
fashionable clinic, the Hunters were comfortably adrift in the upper middle
class.
Well, Fred thought, I may not have won the battle, but at least it's over. He
knew that if Marilyn
wanted to go, we'd go. It's not that he was opposed to taking a vacation, and he
knew that he could sure
use one. It just wasn't his nature to make quick decisions that most likely
involve thousands of dollars,
time off work, and a glare from his boss Ned, who, if the rumor is to be
believed, hasn't taken time off in
twelve years. But they did in fact have the money and the vacation time, and
personally Fred Hunter
thought that if there were an asshole club, his boss would be president. This
would be their first family
vacation, not counting the trip to Marilyn parent's house three years ago, and
that didn't really count
anyway because the twins were little more than babies, still goo-gooing and
spitting up. He knew this
vacation would come, had been looking forward to it in fact. He was a family
man, by god, and if it was
time to take a family vacation, then this one was going be hard to beat, if he
had something to do with it.
Which he did, he thought with a grin.
" What do you think, Mar" Fred said as he pulled up a spot next to her on the
firebird, " Busch
Gardens or Disneyland?
The Hunters lived right outside Cincinnati, so be it Busch Gardens or
Disneyland, they had a long
car ride ahead of them. They chose Disneyland in Florida, and even though it
meant two long days
cooped up in the car together, Disneyland had the best ring to it. He especially
liked the grimace of pain
it brought to Ned's face when Fred mentioned their destination. Yup, a whole
week. No, I can't make it in
the following Saturday. Disneyland.
It was a nice day when they started out; blue skies speckled with white puffs of
cumulous clouds.
Good driving weather, Fred speculated with joy, and in the mood he was in now,
he supposed that a tin of
tuna would draw a like response from him. He was in a good mood, his wife was
smiling broadly, and the
twins were behaving in back, staring out the window and naming things like
5-year-old tour guides.
" Look daddy, moo cow" one twin exclaimed, as if he had been responsible for the
phenomenon himself.
The whole car immediately erupted in a load chorus of moos, and of course the
twins thought that this was
the greatest joke ever.
"Looks like we have found our game for the next two days" Marilyn said with a
smile. She was
happy simply because her family was happy. If things stay like this, I think
we're in for one hell of a good
time, she thought. Fred had come from a family that rarely took vacations, so
she alone knew the tightrope
that every family walked out onto when embarking on a trip. Her parents had had
five kids no more than a
year and a half apart from one another, and even the shorter trips in the car
could go horribly wrong. Mom
would end up yelling at dad to watch the road while dad would be yelling at the
kids in the back, who had
been sitting quietly a moment ago but now seemed to be fighting to the death.
Dad would, of course, make
that age old threat to turn this car around, right now damn it, and once in a
while he would make good on it,
slamming on the breaks and informing everyone that another family vacation was
down the tubes. Marilyn
never understood how it started, but she knew the feeling of that pressure
rising and could, thankfully, not
feel any of it at the start of her own families trip to Disneyland
So southward the aging Chevy drove with its band of vacationers. The family had
proceeded for
a full three hours without the twins having to go to the bathroom, so it came as
no surprise when Fred heard
from the backseat the request to go "pee pee".
" The next rest stop's only eight miles ahead, little guy. Do you think that you
can hold on for that
long?" Fred questioned with doubt. One of the things Fred had learned from being
a parent is that when the
little guy has to go, he has to go. That's why it brought a surprised smile to
his face when the twin, citing
his rank as a "big boy", answered that he could indeed hold it to the next rest
area, but hurry, dad.
" No problemo," Fred replied, "didn't I ever tell you guys that my real middle
name is "pedal to
the metal?" "Yup, Fred "pedal to the metal" Hunter."
The twins both erupted in laughter. " Pedal to the metal, daddy, pedal to the
metal!"
Fred grinned. Well, why not inject a quick touch of excitement into this car
trip? With a wink to
Marilyn, Fred steeped on the gas until he was living up to his middle name.
"Weeeeeee" cried the twins and Marilyn, although Fred felt his wife's hand grab
on to his leg with
not a little pressure.
Fred looked down at the speedometer and saw the needle twitching in between
eighty and eighty-
five. Well, he thought, the old girl still has some balls left in her yet. But
better slow'er down some, with
my luck I probably just past a state trooper who hasn't filled his quota for the
month.
Just a few minutes before and a couple miles ahead, Alan Stiller, philosophy
major at Tennessee
State, head of the pep team, and campus renowned party animal, tossed his mostly
drained Rolling Rock
from the window of his VW Rabbit and reached for the cooler in back to grab
another. He was on his way
to watch "his guys" trounce the tar out of Virginia Tech. Not only to witness a
good trouncing, he thought,
but also to party like it was 1999. He liked this thought so much that he yelled
it out at the top of his lungs.
" Nineteen Ninety Nine, Baby!" The empty bottle of rolling rock flew through the
air at 75 mph
and crashed into the asphalt, instantly shattering into hundreds of pieces.
What happens when a bottle breaks is kind of like what happens when a snowflake
forms, in that
its outcome is never the same. This particular bottle's round base ended up
being spared, and protruding
from it pointed a piece of glass no more than an inch long, but wicked looking
none the less. It was the
kind of piece of glass that, if you see it while walking along the road, you
immediately pick up with a look
of horror and chuck it into the nearest available trash can, where it can do no
evil. It is also the kind of
piece of glass that can puncture a tire like it was warm butter, which is
exactly what it did as the Hunter
family flew over it.
"Why the hell were you going that fast anyway?" Marilyn yelled from inside the
stopped car.
"Your families' lives are not toys that you can play around with!" She had
almost dropped one in her pants
when the tire blew and the car started to skid, so Fred understood her angry
remarks. But they weren't
exactly what the doctor ordered for his fragile temper, which had just been
delivered a sharp blow as he
pulled the piece of glass out of the Chevy's rear tire.
" Fuckin littering animals" Fred growled, which provoked a collective gasp from
inside the car.
" Don't you dare use that kind of language in front of the twins", Marilyn
admonished, "They'll
turn into bad seeds like that good for nothing nephew of yours, Toby."
" Well I just found a piece of glass in the tire, that some dipshit threw onto
the road!" Fred roared. His face had turned red and a vein running across his
forehead looked about ready to bust. He
grumbled his way through removing the useless tire and putting on the spare. As
he was about to climb
into the driver's seat he was informed that they did not make it to the exit in
time and not one , but both of
the twins had had "accidents" in the back of the car.
" Goddamnit!" Fred yelled, and Marilyn thought for sure that the vein on Fred's
head was going
to burst, covering them all in blood and dropping poor Fred to the ground in a
heap. Without another word,
Fred hopped into the car, threw it in gear, and took off down the highway where,
3 miles ahead, he took the
exit and pulled into a gas station. Nobody moved as he went inside, talked to
the attendant for a minute,
got back in the car and pulled out.
" Where are we going" Marilyn said in a guarded tone.
"State Park; we're done for the day", the red-faced man next to her replied.
"Camp there for
tonight."
They took a series of right and left turns, pulled into a dirt road and drove
under an archway made
of twigs, with a wooden sign declaring that the Hunter family had entered
Whispering Firs Recreation
Area, in the Hickory Creek Wilderness. Camping is free. Please do not feed the
bears. The campsites
were no more than parking spaces with a rectangle of grass for your tent (the
Hunters had a new LL Bean
Dome Tent, delivered from Santa Claus last Christmas and taking a pretty penny
out of Fred's wallet, so he
was determined to use it on this trip, explaining to Marilyn that it would then
pay for itself in saved hotel
fees) and a picnic table off to the side, with peeling red paint that threatened
any picnicker with an
assortment of splinters (where would you like it then, in the fleshy palm of
your hand, or should we just go
directly for the ass?) The car pulled into one of these campsites, idled for a
second, and died. The
Hatchback popped open, and the family slowly exited the car, the twins and
Marilyn painfully aware that
Fred's face was still as red as their peeling picnic table.
"I'm gonna go for a little stroll down that trail there" Fred said, pointing to
a trailhead with a sign
reading "Fools' Creek". "It's still mid-afternoon, I'll be back by 4 or 5". With
that, Fred strolled over to the
sign and disappeared down the trail.
Thanks for offering to help set up the tent, Marilyn thought with a frown, but
she took it back a
second later. Just the idea of Fred trying to figure out which pole goes where
and which strings tie down
what, swearing through the entire process with that vein becoming bigger and
redder was enough to make
her glad that he had went for a walk. Maybe he'll blow off some steam, although
Marilyn already had her
doubts about resurrecting the vacation. Fred was a good man, she loved him more
than she could explain,
but she knew and recognized his weaknesses. It wasn't that Fred had an
especially bad temper, it was that
once he was upset, it was very hard for him to get over it. She remembered last
November that the
neighbor's dog had taken care of its business on their front lawn. Fred was
running out of the house
because he was late to work, running across the lawn, and it happened. If you've
ever steeped into dog
poop while running, you know that you don't simply step into it, you actually
slide through it, and the
feeling is so unique and out of place that, without even looking down, you know
what has happened. So
maybe it was that Fred was running especially fast, or perhaps because the pile
on the ground was
unusually large, but whatever the reason, when Fred hit it, he slide through it
and just kept right on going,
down flat on his back and laying there in a heap of dog shit. Fred still hasn't
forgiven his neighbor, or
accepted the explanation he got from next-door, that the big German Shepherd had
gotten loose the night
before, and must have defiled their lawn before he was caught sniffing Fred's
garbage and hauled inside.
Marilyn had been watching from the big picture window which looks out to the
street, and in her minds eye
could still see Fred screaming and shacking his fists at the neighbors house, a
long swath of brown
decorating the back of his white button down. Mentioning the neighbors since
then around Fred is sure to
provoke an ugly look and an uglier remark. Marilyn had tried to reconcile that
situation and failed, which
is why she had low hopes of Fred recovering soon from the litterbugs-unknowing
attempt on his families'
lives.
There's something about the woods that draws the discontented, the angry, and
the fed-up. Those
who feel that they are being swept away by the tide of modern life come to the
woods to take a deep breath
and simply be. They come to forget what pizza tastes like, what cars sound like,
what smog smells like.
They come to get chased by bears, bit by snakes, tormented by deerflies and
mosquitoes. They come to see
who they really are, judged not by our modern rat race but by nature, good old
unbiased, unforgiving
nature. They come to see if they can survive. Not their cars or their jobs or
even their families, but they
themselves. This is why they feel the pull of the unknown, and head off starry
eyed into the nearest forest,
up the nearest mountain, or down the nearest stream. Most don't think this as
they head into nature, but it's
there all the same.
Fred's' mind wasn't thinking about such things as he went trudging down the
trail to Fools'Creek.
His mind was; however, deep in his head, trying to vent all the anger and
stresses that resided there. He
saw himself a violent man now, exacting revenge on those who cause him pain. He
saw himself confront
the litterbug whose mindless action had almost hurt his family. Who's' mindless
action had stolen control
away from Fred. He saw himself step up to this faceless entity and smash his
head with a baseball bat until
it was a mass of gore sitting atop a neck. Whoa, that felt good! He hit the
mental rewind button and did
the gruesome act again. Messing with me, are ya? Messing with Fred fuckin
Hunter?! The last swing
finally felled the image, but he didn't yet seem satisfied. He switched then to
Ned. He saw his boss
approach his desk, swagger up to his desk, a thin smirk plastered on his face.
You'll have to come in
Saturday and Sunday, Hunter. You don't mind, do you? The words felt to Fred now
like a soft pitch lobed
over the plate and just waiting to be crushed beyond the fence. He saw himself
jump out from behind his
desk and deliver an open handed slap to Ned's face, instantly reversing the
momentum of the swing and
following up with the backhand. Thawp, thump. Thirty / Love, Neddy old boy. What
do ya got to say to
that? Nothing? That's what I thought! Fred was starting to enjoy himself in
there, where his actions had
no repercussions and he could beat the crap out of anybody he chooses. Next he
was on his neighbors
porch, using the blue barrel of a 30/30 Remington to ring the doorbell. The door
started to open, and he
slowly raised the barrel of the rifle and prepared to make Swiss cheese of this
idiot when he suddenly fell
flat on his face.
"What the." Fred looked up from the ground and found himself facing a large
boulder, one that,
if he did not trip and fall when he did, he would have walked right into. Man, I
was really going on
autopilot, he thought as he got to his feet and brushed off the leaves and dirt
that had stuck to his shirt. He
shot an accusing look at the boulder, wondering what the hell it was doing in
the middle of the trail. He
walked around it but found no trail on the other side. Then he returned to where
he fell and looked down
the way he had come, and although he wasn't exactly a seasoned hiker, he could
see that there was no trail
that way either. I must have been so entirely spaced out that I lost the trail
and have been walking in who
knows what direction for who knows how long, a voice chipped inside his head.
Fred looked at his watch
and saw that it was half past three. He started down the trail around two, so he
figured that he was not
much more than a mile away from the trailhead. He distinctly remembered walking
along a wide trail for
quite a while, but then his mind went blank. Not entirely blank though, Fred
thought with a grimace, as he
remembered just what he had been daydreaming about. Holy cow, Fred thought to
himself, you're a sick
puppy, walking along a trail thinking about beating and killing people. He
suddenly hoped to god that he
had not passed any fellow hikers, himself walking along with a strange grin on
his face, his eyes filled with
blood and gore. Fred wondered at the force of his own mind, and the acts it was
able to perform with such
ease and pleasure. Human beings are messed up, he thought with conviction. Then
he thought to hell with
that, dreams are dreams, real is real, and right now I might be really lost, so
time to come back to Earth,
Captin, and see what we can see.
Large maples and cherries grew up toward the sky, their crowns so wide and
interwoven that little
sunlight made it down to the forest floor, and to Fred Hunter. He started to
walk back the way he came,
deciding to let his instincts take over land, him back on the trail. He walked
for a couple minutes,
becoming more uneasy with each step. He saw how he could have kept going, the
forest floor was very
open, with little undergrowth to slap at the face and knock the daydreaming
hiker back to consciousness.
After he walked over a couple of rises and dips, he started expecting the trail.
Another couple and he was
yearning for it. As he crested an especially steep little rise, he was begging
the trail to show itself and
transport it's good friend Freddy out of these woods. He halted his march at the
top of this rise and looked
around. Panic set in immediately when he saw ahead of him not the trail, but
more woods with its ups and
downs making waves through the landscape. Ok, don't panic, he told his panic
filled mind, we must have
strayed slightly off course, so we'll just walk in a big circle from this point
and we'll hit the trail. Deciding
to follow his own advice, Fred took a hard left and began his circle, but dread
had burrowed into his heart
and he was no longer walking and looking for the trail, but lunging through the
woods and trying to look to
all directions at once. He started to trip every few yards and he could taste
the coppery tang of fear. He
then started to second guess every step he made. Finally, while simultaneously
running full boar down a
long slope and looking back up at it over his shoulder, wondering if this was
indeed the right way, he hit a
root protruding in an arch from the ground and flew. He knew it was going to be
bad as he was sailing
through the air; I mean, he was sailing . He hit the ground hard, heard, or
felt, a heavy crack, and flipped
painfully several times before he came to a rest at the base of a huge oak tree.
His entire body was in pain,
and as he lay there in the lengthening shadows, his panic peaked and he accepted
his own death for the
second time that day. Then darkness took him, and he welcomed it, floating away
into nothing.
Marilyn looked at her watch and was not surprised to see that it was going on
five o'clock. Time
goes fast when you've got twins around, she had learned. Not an idle moment to
be had, no sir e bob. It
wasn't like she had a choice in including the twins to help set up camp, so it's
to say the least that she was
kept on her toes. She was hoping Fred would be back soon, and hoping even more
that his little walk had
settled him down a bit. At least calm his nerves enough to let him realize that
he shouldn't let a little thing
like a flat tire ruin their first family vacation. She doubted this last thought
because. well, because she
knew Fred. It would be a stroke of luck if he got over this by next month, never
mind tomorrow. But she
still hoped people change and grow, don't they? After they had cleaned up the
little accident in the
backseat of the Chevy with some upholstery cleaner (that every parent who had
the least bit of foresight
kept in the glove box) and some paper towels, they had set about the task of
erecting the new, and never
before set up, dome tent. Marilyn wanted to make quick work of this one, because
once it was up she
figured that she could zip the twins in the "fort" and go about unloading the
ice chests and start making
sandwedges for dinner unfettered. She got the tent sack from the back of the car
and beckoned her children
to come on over and help mommy set up the tent.
"All righty, guys, first we take the tent out and unfold it like this, see?" She
quickly unfolded the
tent and lay it on the grass. The twins were watching with rapt attention.
"And next we unwrap the rain fly and put it, for now, right beside the tent." So
far so good, she
thought. The twins were starting to fidget, one inspecting a fly that landed on
the other ones shoulder.
"OK, now we dump out the poles and start putting them together to make really
long poles, See?"
Marilyn demonstrated to the twins. The one had tried to slap at the fly on the
others shoulder, and had got
a slap on his shoulder in return.
"You guys see if you can do that with the rest of the poles while I go look for
the tent stakes in the
car" She went for the car while the twins eyed the poles with interest.
"Oh, here they are, right were they should be, in with the ham and chees. Hey,
what are you guys
doing?" The twins were now in all out battle with the tent poles, chasing each
other around the flat tent and
swatting at each other with their "swords".
"This, I think, is going to be a process," Marilyn said to herself before
jumping into the fray and
seizing the twins' weapons. With a look at her watch and a curious glance at the
trailhead, she continued
the task of putting up the tent and entertaining the twins.
Fred opened his eyes and realized for the second time that day that he was not
dead. He also
realized that he was still lost and in a great deal of pain, especially in his
head. He reached a dirty hand up
to his temple and felt a fresh surge of pain, and as he expected, his hand came
away red with blood. Oh
man, Oh man he mourned, I'm lost and bleeding, it's getting dark, and didn't I
read somewhere that wild
things, yes, wild things in the woods, can smell blood and fear.
"All right, enough is enough already," he said to himself out loud, just to make
sure that he got the
point, "If were going to get through this and get the hell out of these woods,
were going to have to just
settle down."
He got slowly to his feet, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pushed it
up to his wound on
his forehead. Dizziness came to him suddenly and almost overwhelmed him, but he
braced himself against
a tree and road it out, head hanging beneath his shoulders and feet spread wide.
After a minute, the feeling
subsided and Fred breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at his watch, Totally
expecting it to be cracked, just
like in the movies, but instead saw the second hand cranking away, and the
others telling him that it was 5
o'clock. That meant that he had about two hours of daylight left to make it
back, tonight. He couldn't
stand the thought of spending the night out here, with no sleeping bag, no tent,
and not even a match to start
a fire, for cryin out loud. We'll just push that thought right from our head,
wont we. Fred started walking
back up the slope that he and fallen down, thinking that it was peculiar that
his mind should turn to this odd
form of schizophrenia while in this time of need for rational thinking, talking
to himself and referring to
himself as "we" But what the hey, he thought, the more the merrier. He got to
the peak of the rise and took
stock of his situation. He had been circling around this area, looking for the
trail and expecting (or hoping)
it would be there. He thought about it and decided that he was right in an
earlier assumption that that he
had strayed slightly off course from the boulder to here, and following that
assumption, he figured that right
now, he must be somewhat close to the trail. A plan hatched in his head, and it
brought a smile to his face.
Plans meant action, action meant a chance of getting out of these damned woods,
and that meant getting
back to his family and kids. Oh, how he longed to be at the campsite, wrestling
with the twins or helping
Marilyn cut cheese and pour wine, sneaking a kiss in to the small of her neck
and taking in the smile she
would shoot him. All right, all hands on deck, he ordered himself, time to get
busy hiking.
When he first realized that he might be lost, Fred had been angry with himself.
Exactly what kind
of fool goes into the woods for a short stroll and ends up sleepwalking himself
into a predicament that
could cost him his life? What kind of fool indeed. It was the middle of
September, and although the days
have been warm and sunny, you could already smell winter coming after the sun
has dipped below the
horizon. Fred remembered watching a segment on the discovery channel about
hypothermia. A stern
voiced man said that even temperatures well above freezing, under the right (or
wrong) conditions, could
kill a man stuck out in the elements. Fred had smirked at this, sitting in his
easy chair with a cup of piping
hot green tea in his hands. With a worldly sigh, he remarked to Marilyn that
anybody that has found
himself in that particular position probably should have been put out of their
misery the day they were born.
And even as he was sailing through the air, a second away from introducing Mr.
Head to Mr. Rock, he was
thinking, Boy, what kind of fool indeed.
There was no time for any of that now; the voice in his head let him know. It's
time to forgive
yourself already, and forgive the woods that you're in. Forget about the
litterbug and Ned and the
neighbors dog, they're not worth your time. Are they going to get you out of
this mess? Heck no. Will it
solve anything if we dive back in here and give them all another thrashing? Heck
no. It's time to let all
that go now, out of your mind and wisping up into thin air, and think about Fred
Hunter. Your right, Fred
agrees with the voice, they aren't going to get me out of here, and the woods
doesn't give two bits whether I
live or die, so it's me or nobody, and nobody counts for just about diddly in
the place I'm in now.
Fred's' plan called for him to find a recognizable landmark in the immediate
vicinity. He was on
top of the slope that he had earlier fallen down, and after a little looking
around found a large boulder
shaped, he thought, like a huge ass (the psychiatrists would have a field day
with that one, he grinned. " I
see, Mr. Hunter" they would say with eyebrows raised in alarm). This is my
starting point, Fred thought,
this is my home. With that he placed some sticks on top of the rock and arranged
them in an arrow,
pointing to the way that he would proceed. He quickly went over his plan in his
head again, and tromped
off in the direction the arrow had foretold. He walked in as straight a line as
he could, and every couple of
yards he paused, looking back the way he had come and making sure that he could
still see his home. After
he had gone maybe two hundred yards, he looked back and could no longer see the
rock. Panic set in, but
Fred pushed it away from himself; it would not help him now. He walked just
twenty yards back and could
again see it, barely. He took a look around and noted that he was not back on
the trail, nor could he see it
in the area he was in, so he trudged back to his rock. We'll call that one
south, he decided, even though he
didn't have the faintest clue if it really was south, just that when he bent
over the arrow from the direction
he had come, it pointed "down". Another arrow, this one pointing "west" was put
atop the rock, and Fred
went off to see if this was indeed the way.
Marilyn had just past worry and was now headed directly into frantic. It was
six-thirty by her
watch, and her husband had yet to emerge from the woods. At this point she would
have been happy even
if he came strolling up red-faced and bulge veined, ranting and raving about the
litterbug and the doom that
he shall receive when Fred Hunter caught up with him. The twins were secure in
their fort drawing in
coloring books and trying hard to keep the color within the lines, and she was
sitting at the picnic table lost
in thought. Pretty soon, she realized, I'm going to have to spark up the little
battery powered lantern. A
vision of Fred came to her then, lying on the side of the trail with a broken
leg and semi-conscious, and she
got to her feet and summoned the twins.
" Come on guys", she said in a trembling voice, "were going for a little car
ride". Just before they
had pulled into the campground they had passed through a small town, and that's
were they were headed
now, to the police station to get somebody in those woods and looking for Fred.
Marilyn placed the glowing lantern on the picnic table, for although it wasn't
dark yet, it would be
by the time she got back. She put a little note under the light telling Fred
that if he was reading this, they
were all going to have a good laugh later. With twins piled into the front seat
she took off down the dirt
road, under the archway and headed towards town. She hoped ferverently that she
was freaking out for
nothing, Fred was fine, just bit off more than he could chew on his hike and was
making his way slowly
back to the campsite. They arrived into town, a little green sign dubbing it
Fernville, and pulled into the
police station, which looked to be no more than a one story hut, the only
evidence of it's nature being the
word POLICE posted on the building, and a rusty Ford Bronco with colored lights
on top. Marilyn and the
kids got out of the Chevy and walked up to the building, opened the door labeled
police, and walked inside.
Ya get all kinds, don't ya, officer Nash remarked to his coffee cup, which had
an amusing
portrayal of cartoon doughnuts with wings, flying around the sides of the mug.
His little niece had given
him the cup for Christmas, and Pete Nash thought it was cute. If it came from
anyone else, he thought,
anyone a little more adult and with a little more smirk on his or her face, he
would have told them exactly
what they could do with their flying doughnuts. Cops will probably never live
down the fried pastries, he
thought, especially with him slouched in his chair and his feet up on the desk,
a sliver of pale beer-bellie
peaking out just above his belt, and sipping coffee from a mug adorned with
flying doughnuts. Oh well, it
was a present from his niece, and anyone that had something to say about it
could write it down and send it
to someone who cared. Pete liked being a cop, especially a cop in a one-cop
town. He liked that he was in
charge, he was the man. But it also meant that he had to deal with every little
problem that happened in the
small town of Fernville. Just today he's had to chase a loose dog, run some kids
off of "old man" McCrees
farmland, and, just an hour ago, he had to break up a domestic squabble in a
supermarket involving a
couples heated disagreement over weather to get roasted garlic and chive, or
just plain tomato sauce. That
one, if you can believe it, had almost come to blows. Yes sir, he thought with a
sigh, you get all kinds. But
he was off in a couple off minutes, and was looking forward to going home,
eating a big dinner with his
wife, and afterward, sitting on the back porch and putting down a cold one or
two. Hell, he thought, I'm
off now. I am the boss, after all. He was just putting on his coat and hat when
an attractive women he had
never seen before came into the office followed by two kids, twins from the
looks of it, and informed him
that she was short one husband, and could the good officer be of any assistance?
Every year the Hickory Creek wilderness gobbles up several tourists, and spits
them out with all
sorts off misfortunes. There were broken legs, broken arms, twisted ankles, and
a hundred other injuries,
sometimes even death, although it had been about 10 years since that has
happened. Pete had just started
on the force, which he sometimes calls himself , and the death had happened to
occur in his neck of the
Hickory, right down by Fools'creek. A tourist had found the body, he remembered,
under a jumble of
branches that belong to a mammoth maple that had been blown over by an
especially strong gust of wind.
An instant death, the guy probably never even saw it coming, just a case of the
old wrong place at the
wrong time. So a couple times a year Pete is called into service to go extract
the lost tourist from a mile
down the trail and certain death; by a family member that is sure that his or
her significant other is at this
very moment making a tasty treat for some blood thirsty bear. Which is exactly
the situation that he has
here, Pete thought as he hoped into the Bronco and drove towards Whispering Firs
Campground. This was
a part of the job he enjoyed, actually. It gave old Pete Nash a chance to
stretch out the legs and go for a
walk in the woods, more often than not coming back praised as a hero by the lost
person and their family,
and finding himself the modest recipient of their pickles and cold beer back at
the campsite. He followed
the blue Chevy to the woman's' campsite and parked in beside it. The sun had
just slipped below the
horizon and the temperature had begun to drop, so Pete pulled on a heavier coat
and strapped a headlamp to
his head, getting out of the truck and heading for the trail.
"Just stay put and keep that lantern shining, Mrs. Hunter," He said over his
shoulder. " I'll be back
with Fred in a jiffy" and off his disappeared down the trail, only the bobbing
of his headlamp visible from
the peeling picnic table on which Marilyn sat and worried.
The panic started in again as Fred stood in the growing darkness, 200 yards from
his boulder and
on his last compass point. He had gone through the seven directions before this,
and each time ended with
the same results as the first try; no trail beneath his feet, no trail in sight.
And as he stood there, on the
crumbling security of his plan, with no trail in sight, he began to cry. Fred
stood there and watched the sky
grow dark through tear-filled eyes. I am going to die here, He thought, and with
this, he started to blubber
and sob and mumble incoherently. It was a pitiful sight, and his friend inside
his head spoke up and yelled
to Fred that he was acting like a big baby. You're not going to die, Freddy old
boy. Sure, you might spend
the night in here, shivering your butt off and scared as hell, but your not
going to die. If your wife were out
here, lost with you, would you still be on your knees acting like a schoolgirl?
Well than don't do it now,
either. Have some respect for yourself, man. It's a certain thing that you're
going to come out of this, so
you've just got to decide how. Like a blithering idiot, or like a steady bloke
that can take a punch and keep
right on rollin. Am I right or am I right? Fred tried to control his sobs. What
the little guy in his head
said sounded right, and he realized that he liked that little guy, liked him a
lot. He was steady and sure, and
probably took his coffee strong and black . Fred felt a bit better, and didn't
even waste time berating
himself for braking down in such a way. He had just begun to question whether he
should bed down against
the cold now or keep trying to find his way in the dark, when he heard a sound
in the woods very similar to
the sound that he himself was producing just a minute before. It was like a deep
burble, and he suddenly
realized that it was the burble of a stream. Not a stream, Fred thought with
joy, but a creek; and most
likely Fools' Creek. He ran in the direction of the sound, and just like that
found himself standing on the
muddy bank of Fools'creek. He knew it was this creek because he had glanced at a
topo map posted at the
trailhead, and had noted that Fools'creek was the only blue line on the map. The
trail Fred had taken
intersected with the creek a mile down, the sign at the trailhead proclaimed, so
Fred deduced that he must
be very close to the trail indeed. He started to hike upstream right on the bank
of the creek, the water
flowing like black lava to his right. After a short while, which seemed like an
eternity, he began to feel
panics ragged talons reach for his heart once more, but now they couldn't grip,
and slipped off the hard
sheen of his resolve. Fred fought down a desire to rush. Slow and steady, he
told himself, slow and
steady. Almost immediately after he voiced these instructions to himself his
foot caught on a fallen log and
he stumbled over the slippery bank of the stream and slid on his belly into the
ice cold water. His head was
submerged just for a split second, until he got his feet under him and stood up
in the knee-deep water.
"Holy Shi." he only got that far in his scream when a bright light blinded his
eyes and filled his
heart with sweet relief.
"Little late to be taking a swim, wouldn't you say , Fred", Pete Nash called
from the trail, and then
bellowed a short laugh, which became a long laugh as Fred, covered with dirt and
blood and standing in the
frigid creek, joined in with a deep bellow of his own.
Fred was standing in the restroom at the campgrounds, washing up the cut on his
head, which was
really not much more than a scratch, and changing into some dry cloths. Marilyn
was out at the campsite,
sitting next to the fire that she had made, heaping praise on Pete Nash and
filling his stomach with goodies.
She had looked horrified as Fred had come walking out of the woods, looking like
hell warmed over, and
had jumped on him with a sort of flying bear hug, and boy did that feel good.
She offered to pick up camp
and go to a hotel this instant, and then straight home in the morning. Fred had
looked at her gave her a
smile, about the last thing she had expected to get after his ordeal, and told
her that we're on our way to
Disneyland, dear, and its going to be the best damn vacation ever, If I have
anything to do with it.
Which I do, he thought silently, which I do. He looked up from the sink into the
mirror and
stared into his own eyes. He liked what he saw there. The person behind those
eyes was steady and sure,
and probably took his coffee strong and black. He stared at his reflection and
smiled, and it tipped him a
wink in return.
