Walking in Circles - 3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I have to pee. God, please tell me I’m not still in the woods. Damnit, there’s Sean, I really just wanted to wake up at home. Even though, before this happened I was sick and tired of my brother and sister always breathing down my neck. I even told Dillon to fuck off. Dad was a better man than Dillon, after dad died Dillon thought he had to watch out for me. Mom kept him in check until last year. She was driving home from work and some drunk fucker smashed into her, head on, and killed her. Mindy who’d barely come around after dad died started practically living in my house. Even with all that shit, I’d rather be there than here.

Man, Sean, he looks so tired. Alright, little dude deserves to get his sleep with some real peace. “How was it? Anything out there?”

Sean turned around as I was getting out from my sleeping bag. “Not, really. There was an owl making some creepy sounds, pretty sure it caught a rodent based on the screams of something dying. I heard something bigger, maybe a bear, but it stayed pretty far away and sounded like it went off that way.”

“You didn’t get scared?” I was thinking this dude is braver than I thought.

“Not really, but it does make ya pay more attention.”

“Why don’t you get some sleep and I will keep watch till morning.” I tried to be comforting and friendly by squeezing his shoulder and pushing on his back as he handed me the knife and smaller spears. “Zach, I hate we are going through this, but I am glad I am here with you.”

Oh yeah, he got me a little choked up, but I just did my patten nod.

I put more wood in the fire and I did a quick walk around our circle. It was pretty quiet for now, but I want to be on my toes. So I am going to make a pattern of checking the area. I would walk out to the edge of the light to change my pupils to be able to focus in the dark. I kept my weapons ready and would squat every few steps around our circle. After each complete circle I would check the fire and go sit by Sean.

I saw his eyes open as the sun came up just beyond the trees. “Hey dude, did you sleep?” He nodded and wiped his face and eyes.

“Anything out there?” He asked as he stood.

Holy shit, little dude had a HUGE morning wood! Good for you little dude. “No, but it’s nice to have company now.”

“I gotta pee, I’ll go over there.” He actually just went a few steps that way and whipped it out. From my angle I could tell he was waiting for his hard-on to go down. The head was big enough for me to see clearly, but I ain’t looking!

“Zach, I was dreaming about that night at the Frat party. Thing is I think I remember a girl. You know, real pretty model like. She had on a miniskirt and big boobs. She kept looking at me and later she brought me a drink, said she wanted to go for a walk.” Sean just stared at me, but honestly it was like he was looking through me. “Zach, I can’t remember anything after that.”

When Sean said that I felt like the temperature dropped 30 degrees. I shuddered because I think it’s the same girl. “I think the last thing I remember is making out with a girl named Caira. I met her earlier that day and she was wearing a miniskirt and had big tits. We were going at it pretty heavy but I think everything got dark. Dude, I don’t know, but she might have set us up!”

Sean started pacing. He was acting all frustrated again. “I don’t understand why I would have been taken. What would I possibly have done to deserve this? I am not a threat to some dude, who’s trying to take his girl. For Christ sakes I’m.... “Sean just sat down and started crying.

Fuck, what am I supposed to do, or even fucking say? I think he was going to say gay. By the way he stopped he’s probably afraid of what I’ll say. “Hey, just because you’re short, you can still get a girl.”

Sean just looked at me and shook his head. “Is it because you have a tiny dick, cause some girls like little dicks.” Oh my God I’m funny.

“No ASSHOLE, because I’m GAY you stupid Fuck.”

“Oh that! Well you know some girls like that, too, you know.” I wiggled my brows up and down.

Shaking his head Sean looked at me, “What?”

“Look dude, from my perspective anyway, you look like a pretty decent kinda guy. So you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.” Hahaha, I stumped him, I love it. “Sean,,,,I’m fucking with you. I knew were going to say gay, I just wanted to lighten up the mood.”

Sean glared for a minute then started chucking uncontrollably. “I don’t get you, I thought you would kick my ass.”

“That’s fair, and maybe in the real world I would have. I don’t really know, to tell you the truth. But, what I do know - is here, I need you, and I hope we can help each other stay focused and not get all fucked up in the head.”

“I will do my best for you. I am not very good at keeping friends though. I mean I thought I was, but I either fall in love with guys who couldn’t deal with it or I tried to hard to not seem ‘gay’.”

I stared at him for a while, “I never been good at keeping friends either. I mean, I make friends pretty easy, but I don’t trust anyone. I push people away, or do fucked up shit that they cut me out of their lives.”

“Zach, I think we should probably move camp closer to the creek. We need water and food. Mostly, I think we need to try to leave this place. I, I don’t feel safe here.”

We both looked around and I nodded my head.” We need the fire. I will make something to transfer it, could you gather up the sleeping bags?” Sean nodded and we got to work.

After I walked around for a bit I decided to get two good sized pieces of branches, tie them together at one end with some vine I yanked out of a tree. I had enough to make a crisscross like basket. Then I put some mud on the crisscrossed vine with a hand full of lose stones. I dug through the fire and took 4 reasonably large chunks of hot charcoal. I stuffed my pockets full of leaves and twigs to be able to feed the coals to keep them hot. After testing it a couple times I showed Sean. He was amazed how well it worked and honestly I was too, Hahaha.

I lifted my t-shirt so it was only around my neck. I instructed Sean to wedge a sleeping bag in the arm hole. After rerolling it twice he got it in. The rerolling the other he was able to do the same in the other arm hole. He got the bike started and I got carefully on. Reached my right arm far around him to grab the other stick while I held the V to the to our left. Sean helped keep from blowing out the heat by going super slow. We stopped a couple times to get it a bit hotter, than got on our way again.

As we got to the creek we stopped short and then I saw why. Someone or something had pulled the other bike out and really tore it up. Parts were scattered and we were in shock.

I got off first and tended to our precious fire. But we were ready to fight any mother fucker who’d try to come at us. We scrambled to get some rocks in a circle to help contain our growing fire.

We agreed to stay together and search the area. Reasonably sure we were alone we went about the business of gathering everything we could from the bike. I managed to break the seat from the only bolt holding it to the frame. I peeled the pleather off the metal and set the foam cushion to the side. The metal seat structure seemed like a pretty good bowl and/or fire container.

I saw Sean working on releasing the battery and I started trying to rip or pry every wire and cable I could get. While gathering everything we clearly saw teeth marks. We think a bear must have attacked it.

We set about catching a fish and drinking some water. I gathered up some strong branches and dragged them up to span between two trees then another tree to make a triangle about 15 feet off the ground. I used strong thick branches to go from the corners towards the middle. I used smaller ones to fill in the gaps and stacked some stones in the center with mud on them. I used one corner to stack sticks and branches on for the fire and put the sleeping bags on the other 2 corners.

Sean seamed a little nervous about the ashes whenever a breeze blew through so I gathered more stones and mud to make walls around the fire with an opening between our corners.

On the other side of the creek and further down we had made another fire after I caught another fish. We buried the remnants in the embers and covered it all with mud.

After we got the bike and the parts under our platform we got into our beds. I made a surprise for Sean that he didn’t see till he opened up his bag. I used my t-shirt, that I’d been wearing under my pullover polo shirt, and wrapped it around the foam cushion from the seat to use as a pillow.

With tears in his eyes Sean looked at me as he held it to his cheek, “I love it, thank you.”

Yeah, that’s what I wanted , he had a real smile on his face and it made me feel good. He offered to take the first watch, so I got comfortable leaning against the tree.

“Psst.....Pssst..... z-a-ch.... wake up....”

“Huh, What’s up?”

“I see the bear. Look towards the creek about 20 yards out. “

No shit, I see it, fuck it’s big. “Is it looking at us?”

“Yeah, he was standing on his hind legs about 15 minutes ago trying to see us better. Oh shit, he’s coming closer.”

“Alright, lets try to stay calm. Sean, slowly hand me the knife and your spear.” That huge fucking man eating bear is coming towards my side. I looked over at Sean who looks just as scared as I do.

That fucking Chubaca bear got on his hind legs again about 10 feet away so I could look him in the eyes. Fuck, what should I do? I can’t just let him eat us! Chubaca got on all fours growled showing his gigantic teeth.

Chubaca started coming up to me and as he started going from all fours to trying to get on his hind legs I lost my fucking mind and jumped onto his back! No shit, I couldn’t even believe it myself as I was doing it. Like, WHAT THE FUCK.

As I landed on his back I drove that knife right behind his earand as far as I could into that HUGE fucking head. But, it didn’t kill that Chubaca motherfucker, it really just pissed him off more. He shook me off like I was a wet towel and opened his mouth to swallow me hole. I think God must have lifted my hand with Sean’s spear still in it and stuck right in the back of that hairy fuckers throat. At the same time I see Sean landing on Chubaca’s back then slamming a rock into the back of it’s head. I think little dude hit him two or three times before that spear came out the backside of his fucking HEAD. Holy FUCK!

Chubaca slowly collapsed to the left laying across my legs and I saw little dude just kinda jump off, looking like a warrior who does this all the time. “Zach, are you alright.”

I had closed my eyes, I think I was just freaked out or something, but I heard Sean starting to panic. “Dude, I’m alright, my legs are pinned under Chubaca though!”

“CHUBACA? What? You are NUTS!” He started laughing so hard he had to drop to his knees. I did too, you know some people’s laugh makes you laugh hader? That’s exactly what we were doing. Tears streaming and stomachs aching. “Sean, help me get out!”

Still chuckling we kinda just wiggled my legs till they came out from under it. My right tennis shoe was still under Chubaca though, which we broke out in hysterics again. “Sean, come here a second.” I put my arms out showing Sean I intend to give him a hug.

Sean simply leaned into me. Ok, well this is more than I bargained for. I guess I had it coming asking some gay dude to come in for a hug. Ha, so what, let’s give little dude a cheap thrill. I run my hand up and down his back then I squeeze him pretty tight. “Dude, that was so brave of you to jump on a real fucking bear with a rock in your hands. I probably wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.”

“I don’t think that’s true, you had already stabbed it in, wait, how’d you say it? In the MOTHERFUCKING THROAT!” I had to laugh at that because I actually did say that and because he sounded funny saying those words.

I backed out of the hug and started explaining how I want the bears skin. I also want to try to eat some of the muscles. We figure it’s going to be messy and maybe attract predators. So, Sean and I decided the best thing to do first is to gather all the long branches we can find. We cut them into 5 foot long segments and make a point on one end. We used rocks to pound on the blunt end and then set about sharpening the other end of all of them. We had also managed to drag every pricker bush we could find to make a wall about 8 feet tall. Sean had a great idea to dig a pretty big hole with a trench leading to it to capture the blood and bury the unwanted parts.

I made the first cut from Chubacas front legs across its stomach to the hind legs. As the guts spilled out we had to hold our noses from the smell. Sean went to work sending everything into the hole, and he modified the trenches to move the blood better. I just worked to separate the skin from the body. Section by section. I would even try to get as much fat off as I could. When we had all the skin peeled except what Chubaca was laying on, we set about cutting pieces off to put on the fire and cook. We chose manly from the back and the rump. We decided we would try to save the leg bones as possible tools or something later, and the teeth for poking holes or at least a cool necklace. Ha

When much of the exposed side was mostly removed we could flip it over easier. Removing the remaining skin was quick. We worked different ways to stretch the skin using images we’ve seen about Native American techniques. We settled on using straight sticks to bind together pinching the skin on opposite sides then tying them to trees that we can pull tight. It worked well enough.