top of page
Tag Cloud
Featured Review

The Halloween Project 2024 - Story 6: Spoor




“Keenan! Run! Now!” his father shouted.


”Dad, I can’t! I don’t know the way! I can’t!”




They had entered the “deer woods”, never just the woods, a little after lunch. Father and son had driven in on an old logging road in the Jeep for about a half mile over ruts and overgrown weeds popping through the center line. Leaving the vehicle, Keenan, 14, carried a backpack with water, a couple of healthy snacks because Dad insisted on apples, bananas, and, in a soft moment, beef jerky, which Keenan loved, and his Bessamatic Deluxe camera. Dad carried his deer rifle just because he loved the heft and feel of it. John F. Kennedy would still be president for one more week.


They were on the search for a spot to build a new tree stand for next year, looking for a perfect perch above the forest floor. Dad had an idea where to place it: an overlook, that when the leaves were down he’d have a good view for 50 yards or so down a wash. A deer run, a path through the trees that was clearly a trail the deer frequented, was obvious. Last summer Dad came upon the rocky height and he was checking it out again. Hunting season would begin soon.


The November sky had etched into grey. Black limbed trees soared in the canopy, and even deeper grey. Clouds rolled in and the starkness of the heavy oaks and maples could never tell of the bright yellow, orange and red leaves that had dropped just a couple weeks earlier. They walked quietly, nearly silent footsteps placed carefully, the slightest crunch of leaves underfoot.


Keenan loved accompanying his Dad into the Catskills. They fished in the spring for trout when the streams were cool and bright and for catfish in murky ponds in the summer. The smell of it, the sights, the hiking, the change of seasons, he enjoyed it all.


But Keenan didn’t like hunting. Dad had bought him a 22 Magnum rifle with bullets as long as his little finger. Target shooting was exciting. The blast, recoil and accuracy all captured him. But when he shot and killed a couple squirrels and one watchful rabbit, that left him cold. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t hunt. But he still loved the deer woods. His father and mother must have conspired because the Christmas just passed they bought him a Bessamatic Deluxe camera with zoom and he brought it every time they went anywhere, but especially into the deer woods.


”Keenan, look!” Dad said with whispered excitement, pointing to the ground. “It’s spoor,” Dad said. Keenan’s eyes lowered to see the distinctive hoofprint, two adjacent marks coming to a point in the front, several of them. A number of deer had passed on the soft earth. He understood the prints, but asked, “Spoor?”


“It means signs for tracking. Prints in the ground, or the droppings of an animal, even broken branches where they’ve passed by,” his dad answered.


”Got it,” Keenan replied, and they began to follow the run. Dad knew how to track and was good at it. He knew how to “drive” or “push” deer, forcing them this way or that by walking in one direction or the other and making just a bit more noise. He could tell where they slept in small groups and the plants they liked best to eat. After ten minutes, Dad stopped abruptly, staring at the ground. He remained still for a protracted minute.


”There’s something wrong here, Keenan. Something wrong with the spoor. The tracks,” he grew quiet, then began again, “The tracks have changed somehow. It’s not deer. I mean, there are deer tracks, but they seem to be jumping about or running, but there’s something else. Something with three or maybe, no, four toes and deep in the ground. Here’s some with,” he stopped again. “Seven?” Keenan pulled his Bessamatic from the backpack and took a few photos of the strange markings.


”Bear?” Keenan asked.


”No,…no, this is definitely not a bear. But it must be something big and very heavy. And it’s footprint is wide,” Dad said. “Not only the foot but the stance. Look, it’s three, maybe four feet apart,” he pointed left and right with the muzzle of his rifle. Then he turned to Keenan.


”I want you to stay right here. This oak, this huge one,” and he patted it like an old friend. “I’m just gonna follow this trail a bit more, and then I’ll come right back. You’ll be able to see me most of the way 'cause I’m walking down this run just a bit further,” he pointed straight ahead, “You’ve done this lots of times before when I push the deer to you, and I just want to have a look. Ten minutes, O.K.?”


”Can’t I just come with you?” Keenan asked. There was a moment of silence between them.


”Not this time, K,” he sometimes called Keenan “K” with an affectionate tone. “I just want to take a look.” Then Dad turned and walked down the run. Keenan raised the Bessy as he called the camera and took a photo of Dad’s receding back.


He watched his father descend the path, dad continually looking down, head swiveling, until he finally passed through a patch of mountain laurel and was gone from sight. Keenan sighed and waited. He had actually done this many times, and often, his father would push deer to him within just a few feet. It was more than 10 minutes when he heard shots crack through the silent forest.

First one bark of a rifle then the echo of three quick shots, and then another, muffled. Keenan jumped and looked down the path yelling as loud as he could “Dad! Dad!”


A quick scream joined a clamor and loud rustling in the distance. Branches tossed or broken. One final rifle report. Keenan’s mind raced. “A bear, it must be a bear,” he murmured. Silence returned until exploding through the laurel Dad came stumbling, hobbling up the deer run, closing the space between his careening gate and Keenan. He was clearly hurt. When Dad was only 10 yards away and grunting heavily, Keenan looked beyond.


Just outside the laurel, incredibly large and erect, was an animal. Not an animal that Keenan had ever learned about, imagined, or conjured in a nightmare. It clearly stood on two massive legs set wide apart. It carried arms flailing wildly against the green. Perhaps two arms, perhaps more. Down along it’s torso were other appendages, rising and falling, sharp edged and taloned. Arms, legs, tentacles, Keenan had no idea. It’s conical head rose eight feet into the air ending in three huge serrated horns. The eyes, large and bulbous, were set so wide apart they seemed to be looking only to the side. No nose was visible, ears tall and pointed, and its body seemed covered with scales and fur. It was clearly not an animal. A monster.


Keenan in a reflex he had come to innately raised his camera, zoomed, and snapped four quick shots. Then three more. Re-focused and another two. His father approached him panting.


”Keenan! Run! Now!” His father shouted.


”Dad, I can’t! I don’t know the way!”


”Yes, you do! Follow the sun to the west! Just run and aim for the sun! You’ll come to the old logging road! Go left, you’ll get to the Jeep. Here are the keys. Lock yourself inside! I’ll come. I promise.”


”But your leg?!” Keenan blurted in anguish, looking at the blood-soaked darkness of his father’s orange hunting pants.


”I know, I know! It cut me,” Dad said.


”Where’s your gun?!”


“It’s gone,” Dad responded, “but I hurt it and I’ve got my knife. Now go! GO!!”


Keenan looked over Dad’s shoulder. 50 yards away the creature bellowed a high-pitched scream that fell arched beyond a shriek and howl. It took one faltering step, then another, and a third, coming for them.


“Go!” Dad ordered. “GO!!”


Keenan turned and ran, He ran crashing through the forest as fast as a 14 year old could run. Keeping the sun always directly ahead, he swept through branches and underbrush, snagging his arms and cutting his cheeks, down slopes and up embankments. His mind raced along with his legs. The deer woods, dad, and that thing; the monster. He never turned to look back, gasping for air with hands on knees only when he broke out onto the logging road. Turning left he walked the surprisingly short distance to the Jeep, jumped inside, locked the doors and waited.


And waited.


For Dad.


It was an early dark, just past sunset, when he heard the loud but scuffling noises. Something was coming. But not Dad. Something dragging and perhaps whimpering in a low guttural anguish.


Keenan jammed the keys into the ignition and started the Jeep. He pulled the high beams and caught his last vision of the living nightmare. It was gruesome and horrible and bleeding. Bleeding everywhere. Then he raised the Bessy and took two photos as the monster staggered forward.


When the Jeep was found two days later, the front windshield smashed open and spidered, there was blood. Blood on the ground, in front of the Jeep, on the Jeep’s hood. On the driver’s seat was a camera. A perfectly intact Bessemer Deluxe.

Comments


    © 2021

    bottom of page