Cabin He awoke…almost suddenly. After a moment of immediate confusion, he open and closed his eyes a few times to shake the sleep away. It was still dark outside, and would be an hour or so longer, it was early morning. He lay in his cot a while longer to gather his thoughts. This was not a rare occurrence for him at all. There was something seeking out his attention, something deep down and obscured. As much as he thought about it he could never figure out just what it was. Among the more obvious things there was still something more…something that was hiding from his conscious mind. “Is is that bad?” He always thought, “Is it something so unsettling that, from somewhere deep inside, I cannot bear to allow memory of it?” He felt the irritable sense of frustration creeping in. It was too early in the day, he thought, to continue this self involving interrogation.He arose from the cot and walked to his deck side door. He opened the door and stepped out into the wilderness. Early dusk was beginning to threaten his world as he spied peeking rays of lavender in the distant horizon. He walked to the far side of his simple ground level deck and stopped. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the near-dark setting and looked out toward his crude woodshed. The deer he took early the night before was still hanging there. It appeared untouched by any scavengers and he felt a simple form of relief by that connotation. He scanned the tree line and listened for any signs of life. Aside from the few insects and a distant inquisitive owl, the world was still asleep. Before he turned away, there was something else, he felt eyes looking out on him. He couldn’t see anything, but nonetheless, there was something else there. He inched back into his cabin. He had enough mystery for one morning. His attention now was focused on his busy day ahead. 2 His parents named him Jake. His last name, he felt, was not so important anymore. His parents split when he was just nine years old. Jake’s mother reassumed her maiden name and denounced her prior life spent with his father. As much lingering bitterness as there was, Jake loved both his parents the same…and hated them just as equally. His childhood was an up and down affair. This never really did much harm to him until just recently. Before his present day reality, Jake was a man known for his unbridled virtues. He worked hard for his accomplishments and never gave up. Sure, like many children, his aspirations were of a grandeur nature. Like many people who grow up, Jake became a realist. Gone were the dreams of flying through space, or working from an oversized desk in the Oval Office. Replaced by the harsh realities of life, Jake worked a number of different jobs. Jake never really got far in any of them as he preferred the blue collar lifestyle. It was because of this that his buddies coined him the “Jake-of-all-trades”. Jake had a pretty diverse sense of knowledge in spite of his blue collar tendencies. A lot of people learned to rely on Jake because of that. Even when he couldn’t do so in himself or others, people looked to him for the answer. When he was 25 he met Amy. She was a spectacular girl from a white collar upbringing. They developed a very passionate loving relationship and fell deeply in love. They married a year later and could have never been happier. Their life seemed promising and full of many opportunities. Jake reflected on that a lot now and thought it was strange how fast things could change. After almost a year of marriage things began to spiral downhill. The catalyst of it all, Jake could never pin point, was disputed by both of them and never really solved. Jake reflected on his adulthood a lot nowadays. He retreated to a life of solidarity in his secret getaway in the wilderness. He had started to build his hunting cabin a while before he met Amy and finished it during their short marriage. He couldn’t really bear it any other way…as strong as he was…he was even weaker inside. His marriage to Amy lasted only that one year and ended quite abruptly. There were a few things that caused strain on their marriage. The biggest factor, Jake considered, was his time away from Amy. Amy had always lived a comfortable lifestyle growing up and she expected Jake to provide that to her as well. For Jake to provide her that reality he worked hard, long, enduring hours. He made the most amount of money any sub contractor could ever possibly make. Despite all that, it was never enough to satisfy her, and the long hours away distanced them even more so. She left him a little over a year ago, quite suddenly, he felt. He realized their marriage was empty long before the separation. Although he worked diligently to repair things even a contractor finds things in his life he’ll never be able to build. Jake had great ability in building things, always had and always would, and he took to his cabin to find escape from it all. 3 He awoke again. He must have dropped back into the cot after he retreated to his cabin in the early morning. By now dawn had broke the horizon in great fashion. He rolled out of his cot and stood up. He was slightly irritated, he had a lot to do today, and he wasted valuable time already. He wasn’t really looking forward to cleaning his deer but it had to be done. He walked to his kitchen window and peered out to the shed. He couldn’t exactly comprehend what he saw. Where he had hung the deer by its hind quarter, there was nothing. He turned away and thought for a second. When nothing obvious came to mind he grabbed his 30.06 and went outside to investigate. He walked cautiously around the cabin at first with his gun at a ready position. There wasn’t any lurking animal or signs of the deer. This really started to puzzle him and the slight feeling of uncertainty began to settle in. He walked over to his shed and investigated the surrounding area. The hanging rope had been ripped apart at the loop and no piece of the deer remained. The ground didn’t appear disturbed by signs of any predator or pieces of the dead deer. He ventured out into the edge of the forest brush and didn’t spy any disturbance of the brush. If something had claimed the deer as its own, it had apparently done so by carrying it away off the ground. Jake knew there were grizzly bear and moose in the area. He couldn’t imagine a moose had the ability to take the deer without a trace and even if one did, they weren’t much of a carnivorous animal. This left only a grizzly, which was definitely strong and big enough to carry off a deer. But this also raised a question on how one could do so in this fashion. Grizzlies could stand off their hind legs, but how many could do so and walk around with an adult deer in hand, and leave no trace of it?He really began to feel disturbed by all of these revelations and he struck out further into the wilderness to investigate. His cabin was situated near a lake shore deep in the forest. His cabin was bordered by slight elevation changes and ridgeline on all other sides of his cabin. This left many possibilities and places for different forms of wildlife to find a home. If there were any kleptomaniac grizzly in the area he was going to find one. With his 30.06 in tow he would be sure to kill it and use that bear for sustenance as well. What began as irritability and uncertainty now rested intense motivation. His unfortunate loss of food offered up the possibility to track down the thief and claim it for food now too. He didn’t have a very strong lead on where this grizzly may have gone with his deer but he kept walking. He continued onward deeper and deeper into the thick forest. He made his way through the myriad of pine trees and brush and stopped suddenly. Caught, at about shoulder length of him, was a thick tuft of deep dark brown hair, or was it fur? It obviously didn’t belong to a grizzly as this was much darker in color and smelled beyond that of what he experienced with grizzlies in the past. He reached out and grabbed it away from its scraggly captive and rolled it around in his fingers. It was very coarse, oily, and thick. Something about the fur felt odd to him and he dropped it to the ground. He stood still for a moment and after a thought raised his 30.06 to a high ready position. There was something further ahead which lay on the ground. He walked up and recognized a right hind deer leg torn at the hip joint. It lay there separate of the rest of the body which lay nowhere in sight. Jake assumed he was about a half mile from his cabin now and with nothing else in sight he grudgingly began the walk back. 4 He lay in his cot fighting for sleep. It was late night maybe after midnight by now. He had drifted in and out of sleep the past few hours trying to find slumber. He was somewhat agitated by the loss of his deer. He now had to waste the time and energy to hunt for another one before winter time set in. He figured that it would be best to have two, as last winter was cold and harsh making it difficult to hunt big game. He was able to survive off one deer as well as some rabbit and fish he caught over the winter, but it had been somewhat miserable. He found himself thinking of Amy tonight as well, which made it just that much harder to fall asleep. He missed her; he tried to suppress the feelings but never could, and wondered what she was doing right now. This was a depressing game he played and he always thought about trying not to be a pawn of his own device. He never won the game and on the really bad losses, he chalked things up with some of his homemade whiskey; that was also a bad decision. His thoughts turned to his parents now and he felt a little pang from inside. He had drifted away from them over the years and didn’t really look back. His dad was out on the open road somewhere driving truck. It was his father’s way to escape his past Jake had always figured. Jake had stopped blaming his father for that as he himself was guilty of the same. His mother, well his mother was working some odd job somewhere. She never really settled down long anymore always moving to the next possibility at a better life. In a way he felt sorry for them, but they were adults as was he and it was of their own choice. He hoped the best for them as he did Amy and he rolled over on his side to search out the sleep that was hiding from him.He awoke a few hours later at what he assumed to be 3 a.m. It was an unfamiliar noise that woke him from his much desired sleep. It had stopped now but he lay still hoping it would reveal itself again. Quiet sounds of nothing, and then…near the deck he heard something ruffling about. He rolled over and peered through the window overlooking the deck and searched out. His eyes scrolled back and forth and he saw nothing. He sat up and controlled his breathing to optimize his listening ability. There was another noise of something struggling near the backside of his cabin now. He bolted up out of his cot and moved toward the cabin door and stopped. Thinking back to the day’s events he went over to the woodstove and grabbed his rifle. He stepped out onto his deck with his rifle leveled at his eye and scanned the wood line. He figured whatever he was hearing was related to his deer’s disappearance. He stepped down off the deck and started around his cabin very cautiously. He circled the cabin and found nothing, and he stopped next to the deck. Something crept in on him, a feeling of familiarity. Even though it felt that way he felt that nagging feeling again, the one he could never discover on those early morning interrogations he had with himself. It was then Jake realized another thing. He had been known to sleepwalk in the past and it was this that scared him most. All of this was familiar for a reason that he was now aware of. This wasn’t the first time he had gone out into the night in search of something.
He didn’t feel very comfortable right now and he raised his rifle again. He looked about the surrounding area and heard a noise of commotion from the other side of the cabin. His canoe landed hard with a thud on the ground and something large broke through the brush. He started off in pursuit rifle ready. He pushed through the brush and into the forest at a heavy jog. Whatever was running was, by the sound of it, 50 yards ahead of him. He jumped over fallen logs and continued this harrowing pursuit unsure of what lay ahead. About a half mile away he recognized the separated deer leg still laying where he found it earlier. He glanced at it very briefly knowing the culprit was dead ahead. Whatever had taken his deer went along this unmarked path, and what lay ahead in a hasty retreat was on that very path. He carried on keeping the same pace regardless of the dense brush that cut into him at times. On a whim he stopped fast and steadied his body. He fired off a quick shot and listened for any clues of a shot on target. He only heard heavy sounds of brush and small trees snapping away a path for some unknown creature. He started off again at a faster pace to cover lost ground. About a mile into the pursuit he began to tire but continued on. He was thankful for the moonlight as he had not thought to carry a flashlight with him. He heard loud sounds of the creature changing direction to the left of his path and he adjusted his direction accordingly. He continued on even though his lungs were now screaming out for more oxygen. His heart was pumping hard with adrenaline and fatigue, almost thrusting out of his chest. His pace began to shorten to a trot and he stopped for a much desired breath. He almost considered turning back but knew he was too close now. Whatever was running had slowed too, and he sprinted off after it. He ran even though the sounds of the creature had stopped now. Running hard and fast to catch the thief of his deer, he forced through some thick brush. His lungs began to scream out in protest and he ignored them. Something hard struck his shins and he flailed down to the ground hard and clumsily. His rifled came out of his hands and rolled away. Pain rushed through his body, his ankle protested the most. He lay on his back and looked up into the night sky. He gathered himself and sat up, a dark motionless form lay in the path he was on. He focused his eyes on the form and recognized the deer, his deer. It appeared untouched besides the missing leg and he kneeled next to it without any thought. He was looking upon the deer in confusion when he heard the brush rustle behind him. He quickly looked for the rifle and found it knowing it was too far out of reach. The brush rustled a little louder this time and he turned toward it. He considered the idea he had been sleepwalking these woods in the past and all the familiar confusing thoughts came pouring in. Whatever his mind had been hiding from him was about to reveal itself to him now. He sat back on his hands and began to inch toward the rifle as he saw branches parting for something. He reached the gun and looked down upon it. He closed his hands around it and pulled it to his chest. Whatever he had been chasing cleared the brush and stopped behind him now. He stay kneeled down considering his options. The smell was incredible all of a sudden, his nostrils insulted with a smell he never experienced before. The creature moved closer to him breathing heavily. It stopped short of three feet behind him and his heart began to race. His adrenaline kicked in heavier than it ever had before in his life and he closed his eyes trying to escape. He stood up and turned toward the creature now with his eyes still closed. Jake was rather tall, about 6’4”, something he inherited from his father’s side. This was the first thing he thought when he opened his eyes. He was looking into a solid wall of deep brown fur. His eyes scanned up the creature and rest upon it. The creature looked at him blankly the moon harboring reflection in its eyes. Jake didn’t know what to think about what he was peering. This was no grizzly, and was in fact no animal he ever saw in books or on TV. He was certain the 30.06 would not really do anything to this creature. Jake and the creature stood looking upon each other in study. There was something else though, something more, more noises in the brush. Jake sunk down to his knees in intense fear now as the creature moved toward him. He only left his eyes open long enough to see that they were not alone…others were now joining…
Copyright 2008 Nicholas Fox
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