Savage Beasts - 10. If You Go Down to the Woods Today

Gary had driven the boys about two hours away from the Academy campus to the Nathaniel Mountain Wildlife Management Area. That was the best place around for true wilderness camping, and it also had several fresh mountain springs so that they would have plenty of water for drinking and cooking.

He pulled the van into a parking lot for the primitive wilderness area and was happy to see that there were no other vehicles in the lot, so he might not have to worry about their group running across anyone else that week. It wasn’t hunting season, but there was always the danger of running into off-season poachers, and Gary hoped that he wouldn’t have to cover that lesson as part of the curriculum this week.

Gary had each of the boys line up with their backpacks in front of the van. He made sure that each boy was standing with their buddy, and that they were all wearing their whistles. He then explained what they would be doing that day.

“When we start out, we’re going to have to complete a five-mile hike through the mountains to reach our camping spot. I want each of you to pick up your backpacks right now and really think about whether you’re going to be able to carry it that far, or if it’s too heavy.”

The boys each picked up their packs, and Gary could tell from the expressions on their faces who had packed a bag with too much extra stuff. He had those boys open up their packs and he went over the contents with them. Anything that wasn’t essential was left in the van. By the end of that exercise, the seats of the van had quite a pile of handheld video games, cans and two-liters of soda, bags of junk food, and other miscellaneous teenage stuff they weren’t going to need for the next week. One boy had packed giant economy-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner in his backpack, so Gary dug through his stash of extra supplies and had him pour a little of his shampoo into a small travel-sized bottle and leave the rest in the van.

“Now, you need to strap your tents to the top of your packs. There are two bags for each buddy team, one bag with the tent, and the other bag containing the poles, ropes, and stakes. They both weigh about the same, so you can each take one bag, and strap it on top of your pack.”

The boys completed that task quickly, and once Gary had confirmed that they all had a full bottle of water for the start of the hike, he locked up the van and led the boys out into the wilderness.

As they hiked through the woods along the marked trails, Gary couldn’t help feeling that he was being watched. He shook his head and focused on keeping track of the boys instead, but he kept his wits about him just in case.

Since they were in the mountains, and they were hiking up steep grades and along switchbacks, Gary allowed them to take short breaks every mile and a half. At the three-mile mark, they stopped for lunch. Gary opened his pack and retrieved a summer sausage, sleeves of crackers and squeeze tubes of peanut butter and jelly. He carved the sausage into slices and explained that these foods were easy to carry and high in protein and energy for hiking. Gary showed them where there was a natural spring nearby and they refilled their water bottles. As they snacked, Bill sneakily opened a pocket on his backpack, and poured a little packet of flavored drink mix into his water bottle and shook it up. When the other boys looked at his bottle of orange drink with jealousy, Bill grinned and pulled out a handful of the powdered drink mixes and shared them with the rest of the cadets. Gary looked on and nodded to himself with a smile.

After their lunch break, they continued their hike and stopped again at the four-and-a-half-mile mark at the base of a fire tower.

They boys asked Gary if they could climb it, but he told them no, that it was dangerous, and only to be used by professional fire-watchers.

“If I let you climb up there, and you horse around and fall off the railing, what are you going to be…?”

“Fucked,” the boys all responded with a little less enthusiasm as they had said the word the evening before. The lesson was sinking in that it wasn’t just a fun word to say, but there were real-world implications involved that drove the seriousness of it home.

“Right,” Gary said, “And good job asking me first. I’ve had groups of cadets just try to go running up there without asking when we get to this rest stop, and I’ve had to ream a few of them brand-new assholes.”

The boys all laughed and were proud that they did the right thing in their hero’s eyes.

After the break it was just a short half-mile hike to their campsite for the week.

Once they had gotten their packs off and caught their breath, it was time to start the next lessons. Gary had each buddy team work on setting up their tents, and once that was done, he handed out small camp saws and had them forage for firewood.

After Gary was satisfied that each team had contributed enough wood to cook dinner and get them through the evening, he showed them how to lay out pieces of wood and kindling to start a campfire and instructed them to each get a handful of dried grass to use as tinder. Once each team had a little pile of tinder in front of them, he looked around the group with a sly smile and opened a small airtight metal tin that he took from his pocket.

Gary opened the tin and handed each team a small square of dark brown cloth from inside. He explained that this was “char cloth” and that it started out as regular pieces of white cotton, but that he’d put them inside the tin with a tiny hole poked in the lid, and let it sit in an earlier fire until the smoke stopped coming out of the hole. Char cloth wasn’t magic, but it would seem like it once Gary demonstrated.

Gary, put his piece of char cloth in the center of his nest of tinder, and held a piece of flint just over it. He struck the flint with his fire-starting steel a couple of times and bright sparks fell out onto the piece of char cloth. Immediately, the char cloth began to glow red. Gary leaned in to blow on it and the char cloth glowed even brighter. He picked up the nest of tinder with the glowing char cloth in the middle and continued to blow on it until the tinder grass caught aflame. Gary then placed the burning tinder ball into his prepared campfire wood and sat back as the tinder flames spread to the wood, and within a minute, Gary had a nice little fire going.

He passed out sets of flint and steel to each team.

“Okay, guys,” Gary said, “As soon as you and your buddy get your fire going, you can cook your dinner.”

Bill and Sean were the first to get their fire started, of course, and once they had a roaring fire going with some nice hot coals, Gary had them fill a pan with water from the nearby spring and showed them how to set it on two logs over the coals to boil. He then passed out their packets of dehydrated camping food and showed them how to prepare it to eat.

One by one, the teams were getting their fires going as well, and the moment of truth came when the last team left still struggled to make a spark with the flint and steel and get their char cloth glowing. Instead of teasing the two stragglers, the other boys rallied around them, led by Bill, and gave them helpful suggestions based on what they’d just learned themselves. When they finally made sparks and their tinder ignited into a little ball of flame, the whole camp erupted in cheers for them.

Gary was proud.

After dinner was done, and Gary had made sure all the boys had cleaned up their messes and told them tales of what would happen if they left any food sitting about the campsite. He demonstrated hanging his pack from the branch of a tree far off the ground and suggested that if any of them had food in their packs, that they should do the same.

Gary took their collected wood and made a large fire pile in the middle of their campsite area. He had each team carefully take a burning log or branch from their small cooking fires and add it to the large pile so that they each had contributed to starting the camp’s evening fire. They sat around their fire for a couple hours after dark, not knowing or caring what time it was, but enjoying being together out in the woods. They talked about teenage boy things, and about girls that they had seen or talked to on their infrequent trips into town. Some of them talked about the trouble that they had gotten into before they came to the Academy, and if it were a different group of boys, that may have turned into bragging, but for these cadets it was more as if they were admitting their most shameful moments to the people who could understand them best.

Some of the boys asked Gary questions about being gay, and he did his best to respond to them honestly without getting too graphic in describing the answers to the more sexual questions.

When Gary saw eyelids starting to droop, it was time to send them to their tents to get some sleep. As he sent them to their tents, he explained that sleeping bags are designed to hold in their body heat and keep the temperature just right while sleeping, so they all should strip down to their undershorts before getting into their sleeping bags for the night.

“You guys aren’t embarrassed to get undressed in front of your buddy, are you?” Gary asked.

“No sir,” the boys all responded, but they didn’t seem extremely excited about it either.

Bill followed Sean into their tent and Sean immediately started to strip out of his clothes. Bill tried to focus on getting himself undressed, but he couldn’t help stealing glances at Sean here and there especially as Sean was pulling off his pants.

To Bill’s shock, Sean didn’t get into his sleeping bag right away, he instead laid down on top of his bag, stretching out in just his tiny bikini underwear. Bill used all his willpower not to stare at the nearly nude athletic teen, the captain of the Academy’s football and basketball teams, not to mention the star of many of Bill’s late night masturbation fantasies.

“Hey Bill,” Sean said, lounging comfortably with his hands behind his head.

“Yeah, Sean?” Bill replied, taking his pants off quickly and scrambling into his sleeping bag before Sean could see the tent that Bill had pitched in the front of his white briefs.

“I’m really glad that you agreed to be my buddy on this trip,” Sean said, “I just wanted you to know that it means a lot to me.”

“Really?” Bill said, “You could have had anybody you wanted as your buddy. You’re the popular jock and I’m just the little shrimp. If we were in public school, you’d probably be giving me swirlies in the restroom toilets and taking my lunch money every day.”

Sean laughed a little.

“See, that’s why you’re so great, Bill” Sean replied, “You’re the coolest guy here, but you don’t take yourself seriously and don’t try to act like you’re better than everybody else. You’re smart and funny and just fun to be around. Look how you thought ahead today to bring all those drink mixes for everybody, and how we were the first ones to get our fire started! You say I could have had anybody I wanted as my buddy and you’re right. I had to throw my weight around quite a bit last week to let the other guys know you were going to be my buddy for this trip so hands off!”

“Wow,” Bill said, “I never knew that everybody liked me that much. I’ve always thought that I had to sort of keep a low profile so that guys didn’t want to pick on me for being the smallest.”

“Are you kidding?” Sean said, turning on his side and looking at Bill, “Everybody in the Academy would walk across hot coals to be your friend. I was kind of hoping that after this week, you and I could… be best friends.”

Sean was a little embarrassed after saying that, and he lay on his back again and turned his head away from Bill.

“Sean, I…” Bill started to say, holding back tears, not wanting to cry in front of the boy he was so infatuated with, “I’d really like to be your best friend. Thank you!”

“Thank you, Bill,” Sean said, turning his head back to look at Bill with a big grin on his face. “We’re going to have a blast together this week. You’ll see. Good night, buddy.”

“Good night, Sean,” Bill said and laid down on his pillow, excited to for the next day to arrive so that he could spend it with his new best friend.

****

On a nearby mountain top, Christopher and his grotesque children watched the campsite. They watched as Gary taught the boys to make fire to boil water and cook their dehydrated dinners and they watched as they sat around the big fire after dark to talk and laugh about the things that are of interest to teenage boys.

Christopher’s gaze never left Gary as he started at him with fury, imagining the argument that might have been if he had just woken up the night Gary made the decision to rob and abandon him ninety years ago.

The more agitated Christopher became, the more his children growled and whined, expecting the Papa to tell them to storm the campsite, kill and eat everyone there.

Christopher finally broke away from staring at his ex-love long enough to glace around at the look of wild anticipation in the eyes of his monsters.

“Hush my lovelies,” Christopher said to them, stroking the closest on top of its head. “Not yet. Tomorrow we will pay those happy campers a visit and you will taste the most succulent meat yet, but you must be patient and quiet tonight!”

The creatures ceased their whining and they curled themselves into balls on the ground to sleep until morning.

Christopher stretched his legs in front of him and practiced bending them at the knee. There was still a good deal of pain from the broken bones, but in just one more day he would be fully functional again. He wondered if Gary would recognize him immediately, or if he would have to remind that sorry loser that they had spent sixty fucking years together as a loving couple before Gary’s betrayal.

Everyone in Christopher’s life that he thought he cared about ended up betraying him in one way or another until he began creating his children. They would never leave him or betray him like all the others. It was only fitting that they were the ones to make the others pay for their sins.

Christopher smiled and leaned himself back comfortably against the body of the nearest sleeping monster. He drifted off to sleep practicing the speech he wanted to give to Gary tomorrow night before killing him and all those human boys that he seemed to care about so much.

****

A gray SUV pulled into the parking lot outside of the trailhead to the Nathaniel Mountain Wildlife Management Area. There were two vehicles in the lot, a fifteen-passenger van with the name Allegheny Mountaineers Academy painted on the side, and a large white pickup truck pulling a long horse trailer.

The doors of the SUV opened and two Atikokan werebears emerged. This was their territory to patrol and guard on their sentry duty, and the horse trailer was suspicious to them.

They approached the trailer and scented the air around it. They detected a strong smell that was almost like werebear, but with a deep undercurrent of rot and decay. It was exactly what Thomas and Sam had described encountering at the werebear village in Tennessee.

They quietly walked around to the back, and flung open the doors quickly, ready to fight if the trailer was full of sleeping monsters, but it was empty. Or almost empty. There were eight nests composed of blankets and cushions arranged on the floor of the trailer, and each of these stank with the smell of the dababbi creatures.

The werebears explored the truck attached to the trailer and noted the scent of the werebear who was driving it, most likely the monsters’ creator and cause of all this misery.

They moved to the van and scented the area immediately surrounding it. They picked up the scent of many young male humans and the distinct scent of another werebear.

One of the bears pulled out his cell phone to make a call.

“Joel, it’s Rodney and Marcus. We’ve found them and I think we may know who their next target is.”

“Give me the details,” Joel replied from his location at the camp around Thomas’s cabin.

“We’re at a parking lot outside of the trailhead for the Nathaniel Mountain Wildlife Management Area. It looks like Christopher is hauling his dababbi around in a long horse trailer pulled by a big white pickup truck. It’s parked in the lot here and the trailer has the scent of the dababbi all over it.”

“How do you know who his next target is?” Joel asked.

“Well, he parked the truck and trailer right next to a big passenger van that looks like it’s from some sort of private school. We picked up the scent of a bunch of young human boys, probably teenage, and the scent of one werebear. If I had to make a guess, I’d say the bear is a teacher or instructor from the school and he’s taking a bunch of boys on a wilderness camping trip. My fear is that this bear is also Christopher’s next target, which means that he’s in danger along with his group of young humans. We need to move fast before the dababbi develop a taste for human flesh!”

“Good job, Rodney. Send me your GPS coordinates. I want you to hold your position there. We’re going to have all the other sentry teams converge on your location, and the rest of us at camp will be on our way too. Wait for reinforcements.

“Do not, I repeat, do not try to engage the dababbi or their master on your own without backup.”

“Ok, boss. Sending you the coordinates now. Get your asses here fast.”

Rodney ended the call and looked over at Marcus.

“What did Joel say?” Marcus asked.

“He’s sending everyone. We’re supposed to sit tight and wait for everyone else to get here before we move in.”

Rodney looked at Marcus.

Marcus looked back at Rodney.

“Fuck that,” they both said at the same time, and took off into the woods following the scent trail left by the monsters and hoping they could find them before the monsters found the human kids.