The rain has become just a little drizzle by then and it’s starting to get dark and this guy gets up and staggers out from under the pavilion. Oh, I almost forgot something. In addition to a lot of beer there were a few gallon jugs of moon shine someone brought and the fat guy had been drinking a lot of that.”
“Moonshine? You mean like rednecks make?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, I've had some before. It tastes like shit but has a kick like a mule. That shit will get you drunk really fast,” John said and laughed.
“If it was the really powerful stuff, that could even run an engine,” Peter adds, but resists the urge to tell his buddies how his dad sometimes bought some from his buddies at work.
Michael only nods and says, “Oh yeah. It's some bad shit.
So the fat guy staggers out into the rain and starts to take a piss while leaning on a light pole. The light overhead is flickering and buzzing, but no one's paying attention to him except my cousin. He had his phone out and was using the camera thing to take a video of the fat guy.”
“Your cousin is weird,” Michael pointed out with a laugh.
“Yeah, he is, but then the fat guy starts shuddering and makes these heaving noises. You know like he's about to puke. My cousin moved closer to record that too. And later the cops took the phone for evidence.”
Michael and Peter exchange confused looks.
“The fat kid starts puking on the light pole but didn't see the access plate thing on the metal pole was missing. There were blue and white sparks as the puke went in through the hole where the wires were. Then a stream of burning pure grain alcohol moonshine shot back out from the hole and straight into the fat kid's mouth.”
Michael and Peter look grossed out but nod.
“So, the fat kid's not just spewing out moonshine that's on fire, but being electrocuted at the same time. He can't pull away from the frigging pole as the flames shoot into his mouth, because he can't let go. I didn't know you could puke while being shocked but I guess you can.
So the fat kid can't even scream as his face and mouth burns. My cousin said you could actually see steam coming off the kid as the stench of puke and burning flesh filled the air. That's when other people turned and saw it and everyone starts yelling and screaming as the lamp on top of the light pole goes dark. The only light was coming from the poor fat kid as he puked fire and finally ran out of stuff to throw up.
He was just this big smoldering dead thing when he finally fell to the ground.”
“I call bullshit. It was a good story, but there's no fucking way that's true,” Michael said.
“Look it up online sometime when we get home and can get a damn cell signal. It doesn't go into all the gory details but it's all true. I just hope the poor fat fucker was already dead when his dental fillings melted.
Anyway the cops get there and most all the kids had left by then. My cousin was dumb enough to hang around and showed the cops the video and they took his phone as evidence. I heard they ran the video at the trial when the dead kid's parents sued somebody for like two or three million bucks. And even heard a few of the jurors puked when they saw the video.”
“Okay, that definitely beats my story,” Michael said while yawning.
“Yep, and it’s a lot better than mine, Peter announced and yawned as well as if the yawn had been contagious.
“Not so fast, birthday boy. You owe us something. You gotta have a gross story,” John said and yawned as well.
“I think it’s more funny than gross, I guess. My dad told me about a friend of his who fell asleep at work.”
The other boys nodded and smiled sleepily.
“Well it's not a really long story. This guy was leaned way back in one of the office chairs and snoring pretty loud. My dad went over really quiet like and got his ass lined up like an inch from the snoring guy.”
The boys grinned expectantly as they warmed their hands over the mostly just glowing red coals of the campfire.
“And the sleeping guy was snoring with his mouth sort of hanging open. Anyway, my dad just let loose a long foul nasty fart right into the guy's mouth.
He ran back to his own chair as the guy made these choking noises. Gagging and gasping for air, he finally wakes up and sputters a bunch of cussing. My dad was sitting at his desk trying to look innocent when the guy glares over at him and gives him a dirty look.”
The boys all laughed and Peter heard faint sounds of crackling leaves somewhere behind him, on the far side of his dad's tent. He smiled and tried not to react to the sound.
“This was the same guy that once went with my dad on some business trip and fell asleep in the passenger seat as they were driving home. He's got the seat reclined way down and it was a long trip so he was pretty zonked out, snoring again. My dad said it was like two or three in the morning and he was getting sleepy too, plus his friend's snoring was just making it harder to stay awake.
So, he glanced over and made a fist. He swung it down and slammed it as hard as he could in his buddy's balls. Just WHAM!”
All three teenage boys laugh loudly at this point and it takes almost a minute before things calmed down again.
Michael stood up first and stamped his feet to get the circulation running and scooped up his laptop. “Happy Birthday, Pete. I really thought going hunting would blow, but it has been kind of cool. I'm going to go try and catch some sleep. Can't hardly keep my eyes open.”
John nodded and stood up next. “Yeah man, your dad was cool to bring us along. Happy B-day.”
Peter asks loudly, “You guys aren't really going to sleep already, are you?”
Michael whispers back, “Dude, quit yelling. You're going to wake up your dad.”
“Yeah man, that's just rude. Show some respect,” John said and joins Michael as they cross over to the tent they were sharing.
Peter didn't hear anything behind him in the woods any longer and wonders if his dad changed his mind about going ahead with the prank. Reaching down as his friends went into their tent he picked up his flashlight and turned to see what's going on.
After unzipping his dad's tent he saw it was empty and the back flap exit was standing open.
That's weird. I hope he didn't have a heart attack or something wearing that heavy goofy looking big foot suit, he thought turning back in the direction he heard the leaves rustling a few minutes earlier.
The plan had been his dad's idea. Every time he and his buddies took a new guy out hunting, someone would wear the homemade fur suit and jump out of the dark to grab somebody and drag them off into the woods; usually flailing and screaming like an idiot. But it always worked. The uninitiated would scream and in general act like a freak until the other guys laughed.
The Big Foot suit was made out of half a dozen old ratty looking fur coats they'd found over the years at thrift stores and stitched together.
When his dad showed it to him back at home, Peter doubted it would fool anyone but agreed it would be fun to try and freak out his friends. His dad assured him it would look much scarier in the woods, especially at night.
There was nothing left to chance when it came to pulling off the prank. After the one time a new guy had brought along a handgun no one knew about and almost killed the guy wearing the Big Foot suit, they always made sure all the guns were both unloaded and stored away inside one of the tents before the 'attack' took place.
“Dad?” Peter called out softly as he stared into the woods. There was a faint sound of leaves rustling in the distance but that was all.
He heard his friends laughing inside their tent and grumbled to himself about his dad screwing up a great prank as he started toward the sounds in the woods. About twenty feet from the campfire he saw his dad's pack of cigarettes, a plastic bottle of blood (made out of corn syrup and red dye) and a flashlight lying beside a stump. He scratched his head and shined the light in a circle before walking a few feet further along, whispering, “Dad?”
There was a grunting noise further ahead and
he swore angrily before following the sound. “Dang it dad, it won't work trying to scare me. I saw the stupid suit, remember?”
A big hunk of ratty looking fur was lying in the leaves a few feet further along. Peter kicked it over and saw the big stitches inside where it had been connected to the rest of the suit and stood uncertain. He shined the light all over the piece of fur and saw something that might have been blood on the inside at the same moment there was a faint sound from up ahead.
It could have been his dad's voice calling out, “Help.” But the voice was very soft and a second later there was a much louder grunt and the sound of something being hit hard.
“DAD!” Peter yelled, starting forward at a trot. “Dad! I'm coming!”
His yells echoed through the mostly silent forest and a few seconds later his friends back at camp realized something was wrong when they discovered Mr. Evans tent was empty and there was no sign of anyone. John pointed his flashlight at the floor of Sherman's tent, saying, “Grab the rifles and let's go find out what's going on.”
“Mr. Evans told us not to fool with them unless he was around,” Michael noted and looked toward the sounds of distant yells echoing through the forest.
“Don't be dick all your life. Pick them up and follow me. I really don't think they're fooling around.”
Within seconds, John was quickly leading the way into the trees as Michael followed right behind him, carrying two rifles while muttering, “Why didn't I just stay home?”
Peter spotted light ahead and ran faster down a deer path toward it. He saw his dad's flashlight propped up in between a branch and the trunk of a large pine tree. There was blood covering the flashlight's barrel and plastic lens. Trembling and more afraid than any time in his entire sixteen years of life, he turned to follow the light beam's direction. He didn't make it more than a few steps before he heard running footsteps coming up from behind.
Turning around, he shouted, “Dad!?”
John called back as he hurried over, “What's going on?”
Michael looked at the flashlight stuck in the tree and the ashen white face of Peter, before saying, “Goddamn it, Pete, if this is a joke it has gone far enough.”
Peter took a rifle from his friend and turned back toward the direction he'd been going, without answering.
The boys lined up with John holding a rifle on the left, Peter on the right, and Michael gripping two flashlights in between them and crept forward.
A strewn out figure that looked like Mr. Evans was several feet ahead lying in piles of leaves next to a sapling pine that had been hit by lightning sometime in the past and splintered about five feet from the ground. All three boys remembered Mr. Evans pointing it out as they hiked up the hill at dusk. It had been blackened and pointed at the sky like a spear point.
Michael was shining both flashlight beams down at the body, and it was clearly Mr. Evans. Blood covered the man's pants and the few remnants of fur he was still wearing.
“Dad? Are you okay?” Peter whispered, before growling at Michael. “What are you doing? Shine the light on my dad, not the stupid trees.”
But Michael had spotted something on top of the lightning struck pine and desperately needed to disprove his fear of what it was.
The flashlight beams landed on something stuck on the tree's tip that had hair and was roughly shaped like a human head coated in blood. It wasn't until the metal frames of his dad's broken and mangled eyeglasses reflected back from the object that Peter finally started screaming.
All three boys shouted in confused shock and terror as John spun around trying to keep his eyes on every direction simultaneously.
Peter collapsed to his knees beside his father's body and screamed, “No!”
Michael felt queasy and was afraid he'd puke if he kept the flashlights aimed at what was left of Mr. Evans' head. He shined the beam of light in a circle as John yelled into the darkness.
“Come on out, you fucker! Try ripping off my head! I'll blow your shaggy ass straight to hell!”
It went on like that for almost a minute. Peter crying at his father's side as his friends continued turning in a circle shouting into the darkness and waiting for Big Foot to come back.
Then there was a giggling sound that grew quickly into a coughing wheezing laugh. Peter felt his dad's body shaking beside him and snatched one of the flashlights from Michael. He shined it down and saw that his dad still had a head attached to his neck hidden under some of the leaves. It was a head with an infuriating grin on its face.
It took another five minutes before they were all calmed down and convinced it had just been an elaborate if not equally nasty prank.
Mr. Evans explained he'd taken the shells out of the guns when one of the boys asked, “What would have happened if we'd shot someone?”
“It was still a shitty thing to do,” Peter said while glaring at his dad.
“Think of it as a rite of manhood, son. Come on, guys, you all passed the test. You should be proud of yourselves. What if there had actually been a furry monster out here? None of you knew it was safe and yet all of you showed some serious guts going out there. I'm damn proud of you fellas,” Sherman said and retrieved his flashlight from the crook of the tree.
Michael followed him saying, “I guess you're right. Considering we didn't know what was going on, I guess we were pretty bad ass.”
John laughed and patted Peter on the shoulder. “Your dad may be a dick, but he's a lot cooler than mine. He only comes home from work, sits in his recliner and watches TV all the time. Besides, you can't be too mad, or at least you shouldn't be. You wanted him to do the same thing to us. Remember?”
Peter hated it when his friends had a good point, especially John. He nodded and chuckled as they carried the fur coat pieces back to camp.
A tall shaggy creature watched them leave then crept forward bent down low, sniffed the ground where Mr. Evans had been lying, and then stared at the paper-mâché human head mounted to the lightning stuck tree. It listened to the voices heading back to camp and squinted at the distant beams of flashlight before growling softly and following.
###
Southwestern Road Trip
“You're lost,” the woman with a grumpy tired expression on her face said to the grinning man sitting behind the steering wheel.
“Nope, I'm pretty sure we're still in New Mexico,” he answered as the SUV kicked up a plume of dust behind it. “Besides, you can't find scenery like this riding down the interstate let alone anywhere in California. On the interstate all you ever see are billboards and big tractor trailers that always fly by like bats out of hell. Besides, I dare you to tell me this isn't simply gorgeous.”
She looked at the canyons and peaks of mountains with their palettes of rich browns and bright red hues and yawned before grudgingly admitting, “Yes, it's all very pretty, Henry, but the kids have been zonked out for the last half hour. When you said we'd take in the sights of New Mexico I didn't realize you meant to see every dang desert and big hole in the ground that there is.”
“They fell asleep? How could they do that with so much unspoiled natural beauty unfolding in every direction for as far as the eye can see?”
“Because eight and six year old children need their rest, just like their mother's do,” she said, pointing at the sun as it dipped steadily toward the horizon then added, “We've been wandering the desert like the lost tribe of Israel since nine this morning. How much is enough for you?”
He sighed and nodded before saying, “First of all we are most certainly not lost. But you win, Janet. Check the GPS gizmo and tell me which way to the nearest town.”
She fiddled with the screen on the navigation system on the dashboard and said, “It says Albuquerque is about sixty miles southeast of here. It would be a lot simpler if you'd stayed on the main roads or at least the paved ones.”
“Sixty miles isn't a problem. Besides, out here we can do a hundred miles an hour without attracting the cops. Try that on a highway a
nd we'd be pulled over before we even got close to eighty.”
“Henry, for once in your life, please, don't be a horse's ass. You go a hundred and I'll never sleep with you again. I think sixty is as fast as these roads... ha... 'roads', I mean donkey paths can handle,” she said while yawning.
He glanced up at the digital compass mounted near the rear view mirror and saw a turn off half a mile ahead that looked like it went more or less in a south easterly direction. “Why don't you take a cat nap? And when you wake up we'll be back in civilization,” he said the last word with a notable hint of contempt.
“Alright, but no more detours. I know you. You're one of those wanderlust types. If we get back to a hotel early enough and manage to get the kids to fall asleep maybe we could do something fun later,” she said with a mischievous smile before reclining the passenger seat back.
He turned onto the south easterly heading dirt road and had to slow down quite a bit to avoid the biggest ruts and pot holes. After a few minutes he heard Janet snoring and took another sip from his bottle of warm diet soda. He had a difficult time focusing on the road as his eyes were continuously drawn to the plateaus and canyons with their colorful and almost magical windblown shapes.
A thin somewhat mangy coyote watched the dust covered black SUV from its hiding spot in a patch of scrub brush. Its eyes were nearly shut to keep the bright sunlight from blinding it. The animal knew humans rode inside things like the SUV and sometimes when they spotted her they'd fire loud things.
Her mate had died a few weeks earlier when humans had noticed them drinking from a creek that ran down from the mountains and shot him.
She didn't like people.
Using her mouth, she picked up the remains of the jackrabbit she'd killed and watched the plume of receding dust for a few more cautious seconds before trotting toward her den where her three hungry pups were waiting for their mom to bring them dinner.