A Not-So-Short-Storyllison found the box in a dusty corner of her grandmother’s attic.
On a warm day in July she decided she had put it off long enough. After all, the woman had
been dead for three years now, and Allison had been living in the old farm house for the better part of the last two. It was time for the cobwebs to come down, to let a little light into the heart of the house, and she was vaguely aware that the cleansing would probably include a little housecleaning of her own soul as well.
The first time she had ventured up to the mysterious room at the peak of the house she was only three years old. She had felt like Alice falling through the looking glass as she opened the little door at the top of the stairs, and looked into a room overflowing with the accumulated treasures of a lifetime. There were old leather steamer trunks, bearing stenciled witness to travels in faraway lands. Kuala Lampur. Shanghai. Bombay. Old playbills from Broadway productions. Tintype photographs of Paris, the Tower of London, Cairo, and a score of other unrecognizable, exotic cities. Here were boxes of letters bearing postmarks from even more remote locations. Over there was a rack of beautiful silk dresses that looked like they’d never been worn. On a table sat an ancient crank-up phonograph, and next to it a stack of the biggest records that Allison had ever seen. Opera glasses. Rice paper fans. A bamboo walking stick. Khaki shirts. A tiger’s paw.
It had become her sanctuary, an isolated island of a private reality that no one else could share. All through her childhood she would return to the little room and fantasize that it was her playing polo with the Duke of Ascot. And what a grand time she had sharing tea with that mysterious Indian rajah who had the most piercing black eyes. And what about that time she was captured by Pygmies while on safari, and nearly became the main course of their evening meal before being rescued by the dashing Lord Fontaine? She drifted through the canals of Venice while a gondolier sang Italian love songs to her, and slept in the shadows of the pyramids.
And now, here she was years later, all grown up and floating away on a sea of memories.
Allison was 25 and living in Massachusetts when her mother had called with the news that Granny Em had suffered a stroke, and it didn’t look good. She had flown back to Milwaukee the next day, rented a car, and arrived at the farmhouse just as the sun was setting. It had been three years since she had seen her grandmother, and as she approached the bed she was struck by how small and fragile the old lady had become. Yet, it was still the same woman lying there who always smelled of cinnamon and cloves, the one who loved to play piano and had an incredible memory for names. The world traveler who had married a shoe salesman from Toledo, and spent the last 35 years of her life feeding chickens on a small farm in central Wisconsin. Allison sat beside her bed, and was holding her hand when she died.
She had been a little surprised to learn that the farm had been willed to her, and surprised herself
further when she decided to quit her job in Boston and move back to the Midwest. But what the hell, she thought, you can be a CPA anywhere, and it wasn’t as if her life was such a rousing success that she couldn’t leave. The city was always a hostile place to her, and she missed the familiarity of small town life. So, she gave her notice, packed her bags, and returned to her childhood haunts.
She intended to turn the attic into an office eventually, but kept putting it off because of the enormity of the job of removing what looked like several tons of debris left over from of her grandmother’s early life. But, every journey begins with a single step, and the time for that step had arrived. So, she began sifting through the years. Out went the letters. The table she’d save. The copper spittoon would go. The dresses could be sold to a costume shop. And gradually the pile began to diminish, although it was seven days later that Allison confronted the last stack of crates.
About halfway through, she found a small box made of zebra wood, bound with golden chains and inlaid with ivory. A carved cobra with ruby eyes coiled its way around the lid, and a small padlock secured the hasp. “Now, why haven’t I ever noticed this before?” Allison wondered. As she was carrying the box over to the better light near the window, she felt a sudden stab of pain in her hand and was shocked to see two small drops of blood welling up on her thumb. “It bit me!” was her first thought, “Son-of-a bitch!” But that was crazy, wooden snakes didn’t go around biting people. She must have accidentally stuck her finger in the snake’s mouth, and sure enough, the little sucker did have two sharp golden fangs, now tinted red with blood. I’m going to have to be more careful, she reminded herself, and
gingerly set the box on the window sill.
“That’s better,” she thought, examining her find in the dusty sunlight. The box was obviously the work
of a master craftsman, covered with glyphs depicting half-human, half-animal forms that danced about the cover. In the shadows of the attic they seemed to move of their own accord, bobbing and weaving, prancing in time to some distant beat. Allison could feel the drums’ rhythm in her head, and could
actually hear the clacking of sticks, the staccato cracking of whips, and the clapping hands keeping time to chants in some foreign tongue. She closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth, lost in a dream of flickering firelight, swaying palms and jungle sounds. In her vision, she danced faster and faster, leaping and spinning and racing in circles, until she could dance no more and collapsed into a sea of gently caressing hands that lowered her softly to the ground. As she looked up, she saw the dark form
of a man silhouetted against the night sky, with stars shining in his eyes and a wavering blue light enveloping his hands. Allison could hear him laughing, a halting animalistic bark. And as he knelt by her side, he whispered, “Sleep now, my child, for you will soon have much to do.” Then he placed his palm over her eyes, and the world faded to black.
About this time Gabriel Oscarson was driving by, returning home from his nightly bull and beer session with the boys down at the Dew Drop Inn, and noticed the light in the third floor window. Little Ally’s
got herself a TV up there he thought, prob’ly got one of them dirty movies they rented down at the Kwik Trip plugged in, and wouldn’t he like to do a little plugging in himself. He pulled over to the side of the road, popped the top on a cold Grain Belt, and sat back to contemplate the house. Oh, how he’d love to introduce her to Monty Python, the amazing one-eyed trouser snake, and he thought wouldn’t she love it too. Ol’ Gabe might not have the education or the looks, but by God, he knew what a woman needed, and this one needed it more than most. Her, and her holier than thou Boston attitude. Two years she’d been back, and not so much as a how do ya do to him, and they’d practically been lovers in high school. At Donnie Pott’s prom party she’d gotten drunk on cherry sloe gin, and was shaking her ass in everybody’s face, but all the other guys were too chicken to do anything about it. Not Ol’ Gabe though, he’d waited until she staggered upstairs to go to the bathroom to make his move. Oh sure, she squealed a little when he followed her in, and even scratched his face a good one, but he liked it when they put up a little fight. He had her pants off and was just about to bring out Moby Dick for a little har-poon-ing, when Bobby G.D. Peterson came busting in and pulled him off. He would’ve kicked his ass good, but Frank and Tim Reed were there too, and it ended up being his ass that got the kicking.
Well, maybe tonight would be different.
Gabe finished the beer, pulled a second can from the cooler, and crushed the empty against his forehead. Oh yeah, tonight would be different, he thought. He had a hard-on a cat couldn’t scratch, a real diamond cutter, and this one wasn’t going to go to waste. He got out of the truck, closed the door softly and walked up the driveway.
As he approached the house he could hear the drums, shit, he could feel the drums. “Bitch has really got the volume cranked on the TV,” he thought. Well, so much the better, it just made it easier for Ol’ Gabe to raid the nookie jar. He drained the second beer, crushing the can as he’d done with the first, and tossed it aside. It was really too easy to do that with these wussy aluminum cans, not like the old steel can days when crushing a beer on your forehead was a true sign of manhood.
He walked around to the back of the house and tried the door, which was unlocked. “God bless country livin’,” he said, and walked on in. “Sheesh, that music’s loud- the way the windows are rattling in their frames, she must be deaf.” Well, you didn’t have to be able to hear for what he had in mind. Gabe passed through the dining room and ascended the stairs. “Second floor; dry goods, handcuffs, shotgun shells and crotchless panties,” he whispered.
Gabe stopped at the base of the third floor stairs for a moment and looked up at the door, blue light flooding out through the crack at the bottom. As his foot touched the first step, the drums abruptly stopped, sending silence crashing down on him. “Aw crap,” he thought, but then, “No way, there’s no damn way she heard me, not with that racket blasting away.” So, he crept slowly up the stairs, taking care not to make any noise, and paused at the top. His heart was racing with the thrill of the hunt.
“This time there won’t be a Bobby Peterson,” he said to himself, and licked his lips in anticipation.
Meanwhile, Allison lay unconscious on the floor of the attic, an angry red streak slowly rising from her hand toward her shoulder.
The following is excerpted from pages of Abby Lincoln’s notebook;
7 / 13 It’s now been seven weeks since my arrival in Blackduck, and the boredom is starting to set in. So, to counter the daily monotony I have decided to start a journal. When I first heard of the Project at the U of M it sounded really romantic, three months in the north woods of Minnesota tracking the movements of black bears- how exciting! But the reality is a little different. We spend most of the day driving around in a beat-up Ford truck sporting a little aluminum antenna, searching for the elusive beep of a radio collar. We have seven bears in our area collared, but they wander in and out of range, so the chances of running across one is fairly low. When we do make contact, it’s out of the truck and into the woods to try for a visual sighting. This isn’t as risky as it sounds, the bears aren’t a problem as long as they don’t feel threatened, and we don’t push it.
The real danger is that I may die from loss of blood to the omnipresent swarm of mosquitoes, clouds of which may block out the sun at times. They don’t seem to notice Gary, who doesn’t
even bother with repellent, being possessed of some strange body chemistry which renders him
distasteful to the little winged menaces. Instead they concentrate on me, and it doesn’t make a difference what kind of spray I use, although I have noticed that Cutters will cause them a
moment’s hesitation before landing for the feast. I fear that by the time I return to civilization
my body will be nothing but one large welt.
There is no shortage of other wildlife to be observed, mostly small game such as porcupines, deer, raccoons and your other assorted varmints, and every now and then we may catch a glimpse of a moose or two hustling across the road. Jeez, they’re big!
We’ll be camping out for the next few weeks in a remote part of the woods in order to get closer to the animals, so I guess I’d better get started setting up the tents...looks like a nice clear night, maybe I’ll see some shooting stars.
Gabe paused a moment with his ear to the door, but hearing nothing, threw it open and sprang through, ready for a struggle. He was momentarily confused by the empty room, “Shit, nothing in here but a pile of old boxes- so where the hell was that music coming from?” he wondered. But he let it slip- Ol’ Gabe didn’t have the longest attention span in the world, and seeing Allison lying crumpled on the floor, he turned to the business at hand. “Drunk again,” he said, a little disappointedly- this was going to be too easy. He took his belt off and used it to tie her hands behind her back- no sense being too reckless, he remembered the scratches from their last encounter.
Allison was floating in a darkly silent room, slowly spinning through empty space, but gradually
becoming aware of a growing globe of light at one end. She felt like she was swimming through syrup
as she attempted to reach the brightening glow, so near, yet so far away. And as she neared the light,
she became more aware of sounds and feeling, until she awoke to find herself pressed to the floor by some enormous weight. As her head cleared she realized to her horror that the weight was a sweating, drooling Gabe Oscarson, and for some reason her arms weren’t working like they should be. As she started to struggle he said, “About time you woke up, Ally cat, now we can have us some real fun.” and his lips parted in a gap-toothed grin. Allison’s response was to bite his hand. “Like it rough, huh?” he said, “Me too,” and he smashed his bleeding hand into her face.
Allison struggled weakly for a while longer, before allowing the comforting darkness of unconsciousness to claim her again.
When he was finished, Gabe lit up a cigarette, and leaned back against a trunk. “Not bad,” he thought, “a little too passive to be real fun, but still enjoyable.” He stubbed the cigarette out on the floor, retrieved his belt, and paused on his way out to write i’ll be back in the dust on the window.
Then he turned and walked out of the attic, chuckling to himself, unaware of the growing green glow that was filling the room behind him. And as he started his truck and drove away, thin tendrils of smoke began to curl up from the small wooden box by the window.
“Jersey” Bob Daggett replaced the receiver and wiped his nose in disgust. He’d just taken a call
from the emergency room saying some broad got herself worked over, and now he was going to have to go down and take her statement. Shitfire- only 40 minutes until the end of his shift, and now he was probably going to miss A Current Affair, and they were having some report on double-jointed Chinese hookers or something that he really wanted to see. He grabbed his hat and gun and headed out the door cursing the day he had decided to become a deputy in this one-horse town.
His mood had improved considerably after leaving the hospital, though. The woman was only semi-
conscious, but she was coherent enough to point the finger of blame at none other than one Gabe Oscarson, and that was going to present a special opportunity for Deputy Bob. He didn’t much care for the fat S.O.B., but they had been playing poker together down at Ruby May’s every Friday for the last eight months, and now the lawman was in hock to him to the tune of about 3500 bucks. Jersey Bob, who was never one to let a little thing like the law stand in the way of personal gain, saw the opportunity to make this particular debt fade away like a bad fart in a hurricane.
Gabe would be righteously pissed, of course, but given the option of relocation to a warmer climate of his own choosing, or incarceration in a state facility, Bob thought he knew which choice he would make. Gabe had seen Deliverance, and probably would have a sensible aversion to playing piggy for some of the big boys down in the state “pen”.
A month passed before Allison ventured up to the attic again, and though her physical wounds had healed, the mental bruises were still fresh and painful. The sheriff’s office had shown little inclination
to pursue her case, and that hurt almost as much as the original attack. It seemed that Ol’ Gabe had exhibited remarkable foresight in skipping the country, and it didn’t look like any major effort would be made to locate him.
Allison’s days were filled with a renewed passion for work, both the accounting jobs at the office and the tasks around her house. She didn’t want idle time that would allow the tapes in her head a chance to rewind and play back. So, her files had been updated and reorganized a dozen times, and the house had been cleaned ’til it squeaked. For the most part, her strategy was successful, but after the sun set it was a different story. Her nights were filled with alternating dreams of the rape and images of the dark man from her fevered vision. Allison would toss and turn all night, and would awake soaked in sweat, with anger burning like an ember in her chest. She dreaded going to sleep, but her growing exhaustion made it unavoidable.
And through it all, the attic called to her.
She felt an irresistible urge to return to the room that grew stronger with each passing day. And Allison was hearing the drums again, their rhythm matching the beating of her heart, urging her toward the third floor. Finally, the draw of the attic overcame her fear, and she found herself ascending the stairs and entering the room. Standing before the window, she felt a remarkable calm wash over her, warm as a tropical breeze.
Allison once again turned her attention to the zebra wood box, marveling at the intricate scrollwork that adorned its surface. From its perch on the lid the cobra gazed silently back at her through crimson eyes, and when she touched the delicate golden padlock it fell open with a soft click. Heart racing, she opened the lid and found a beautiful silver bracelet lying on a bed of black velvet. On its surface a dozen different animals were exquisitely engraved, a prancing wolf, a jaguar, an eagle in flight, a coiling snake, a bear- all with eyes of diamond. And, like the dancing figures on the box, they appeared to move, changing shape in the shifting light. Allison felt a strange electric thrill course through her body as she placed the bracelet on her wrist, and sat down, closing her eyes until the dizziness passed.
When she opened her eyes, she was walking through the woods, keenly aware of the smallest of sounds, with such a heightened sense of smell that she could identify a dozen different scents that swirled around her. But her perspective was all wrong, she was seeing the world from only a few feet above the ground. She looked around, and was amazed to find she was walking in the company of a pair of powerfully built wolves. In fact, after further investigation, Allison realized that she herself was looking at the world through decidedly canine eyes. Suddenly, a rabbit burst out of a bush, and they were off on an exhilarating chase through the brush, trees flying by in a rush of adrenaline. She soon caught the rabbit, and lay down, jealously guarding her kill. Allison closed her eyes, savoring the texture and smell
of fresh meat.
When she opened them again, she was once again sitting in her attic, the coppery taste of blood still fresh in her mouth.
From Abby Lincoln’s journal:
8 / 27 My stay in the woods has been extended for another month, and it looks like the time will be well spent. In the last few days something different has been happening. We have been noticing some unusual movement of the animals around here. Our bears seem to have cleared out of their normal range, and we are tracking four of them in a generally south-easterly direction, we passed Grand Rapids a few hours ago. This just doesn’t happen as far as I know, bears wander in and out of their home range, but generally follow their own rhythm. These guys seem to be on some kind of group journey, and there isn’t any reason for it. Food is plentiful this year and we haven’t had any major fires. We’re at a loss for an explanation. And it’s not just the bears, either. Gary and I have both sighted wolves in the last few hours, and this is getting pretty far south for them, although it’s not unheard of. Kinda weird, but exciting. I wonder where they’re all heading?
Gabe Oscarson turned the TV off and tossed the remote control across the room in disgust. He’d been living at his brother’s house in Tulsa for over a month now, and had just about had his fill of Regis and Kathie Lee, amazing no-food/ no-brain miracle diets, cheating husbands, cheating wives, cheating great-grandmothers, priests in drag, exhibitionist housewives and the Maytag repairmen who serviced their spin cycles, and all the other fodder so common on daytime TV. By his own count he had watched 27 marriages, 32 divorces, more illicit affairs than he could count, a circumcision, 87 murders, 634 commercials for tampons and other assorted feminine hygiene products, and was beginning to suspect that he was falling in love with Erica Kane of All My Children. Clearly it was time for a change.
He threw his clothes into a pair of grocery bags, grabbed a half empty twelve pack from the refrigerator, scrawled a hasty note to brother Dick, and was out the door. By 5:00 he’d finished the last of the beer, and was weaving past Joplin, Missouri on his way to Kansas City and points north. Gabe figured he still had a little unfinished business to conduct with a certain swine-loving deputy who owed him money,
and thought a return engagement at Ally’s house would also be in order. He reached into the glove
compartment, pulled out a battered .44 revolver and checked the cylinder for shells. Four out of six compartments were filled, and he reasoned that that would be more than enough firepower to put a
permanent end to two of his most vexing problems. He looked down the barrel, sighted in an
imaginary target, and squeezed the trigger. “Bang, you’re dead!” he said to himself, and laughing
wildly, tucked the pistol into the waist of his jeans. Oh yeah, this was going to be fun.
Jersey Bob shook his head sadly. Another empty trap! This was beginning to look like a wasted trip, and not the first one, either. He could remember walking this same trapline as a boy and barely being able to carry home all the pelts he had collected. Not any more, though. The animals had been getting fewer and farther between for the last ten years due to loss of habitat and over-hunting. Nowdays you counted yourself lucky to come home with a muskrat or two, forget about a mink or ermine, you just didn’t get ’em. He was just about to say screw it, and go home, when he saw a flash of movement up ahead where his last trap was set. “What the hell,” he said to his dog, “better check that one out, looks like we got ourselves something.” The dog wagged his tail in canine agreement, and bounded ahead to see for himself.
Allison was walking along the creek, still amazed by it all. The illusion of being in the wolf’s body
hadn’t been a hallucination at all, it had been real. Whenever she wore the silver bracelet, she was
able to see the world through the eyes of any number of animals, and even control their movements to a certain extent. She was getting better at persuading their unfamiliar bodies to do as she wished, but the effort still left her exhausted. The smaller animals were easy to control, and she laughed to herself, remembering the first time she had viewed the world from a mouse’s perspective, the house had seemed enormous! She was also getting better at choosing which animals she could project herself into, which at first it had been a rather haphazard affair. She soon discovered that she was limited to only those
animals that had been engraved on the bracelet, and seemed to be plugged into some kind of unconscious animal network, sensing where they were, and vice-versa.
This afternoon she was walking along the water in search of crawdads and small fish. She could see
herself in the calm surface of a small pool, and giggled at the ring-tailed, black masked reflection that looked back at her. She washed her face, and continued on along the bank, thinking life as a raccoon was pretty carefree. Eat a little corn, catch a few fish, sleep in a hollow tree. Nope, not too bad at all.
But as she was going to find out, there was a little more to it than that.
As she rounded a bend in the creek, Allison spotted Jersey Bob and his dog about a hundred yards away, their attention fixed on something at the man’s feet. She was a little surprised that she hadn’t heard or smelled them before this, but upon closer inspection, noticed that the wind was at her back. The dog was bobbing back and forth, growling and snapping at some unseen foe while the deputy stood on the bank laughing at its antics. But he soon grew tired of the game and pulled the dog back, removed the pistol from his holster, and fired a single shot toward the ground.
The raccoon decided he had seen quite enough of this triple threat of Man, Dog and Gun, but Allison wanted to find out what all the fuss was about, and using all of her will, kept the animal from turning tail and running away. She decided to climb a small tree to gain a better view, and from her wobbly perch was horrified to see the man removing a beautiful golden-brown fox from the jaws of a steel trap. Its head hung limply, and was stained red from the bullet wound’s bloody flow. Then, Jersey Bob began to taunt the dog with the fox’s body, thrusting it at him, growling and snapping it’s lifeless jaws, sending the dog into a barking, gyrating frenzy. After a few minutes of this new game, he reached into his pocket, withdrew a knife and slitted the fox’s belly, removed the entrails and threw them to the eagerly awaiting dog who wasted no time in devouring them. That was all that Allison could take, she was overcome with nausea, and head spinning, lost her grip on the branch and fell to the ground.
The deputy caught this flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and temporarily abandoning his newfound prize began to walk over to the tree to investigate. Suddenly, the raccoon sprang out from
the weeds, and began to high-tail it toward the nearby woods. “Aw, shit. Lookit that sucker run!” he exclaimed, and took off after the animal, calling to the dog as he ran, “C’mon Booger! We got another fur coat on the hoof! Let’s go boy!”
Booger really wasn’t too interested in the man at the moment, he had a pile of fox guts to deal with. But Bob was yelling, “Hey, you lazy bag o’ bones, he’s a-gettin’ away!” and when the dog finally looked up, he saw the fat deputy stumbling across the field, losing the race to an equally fat masked ball of fur. He looked reluctantly at the meat, decided it probably wouldn’t go anywhere, and began to lope across the field, joining in the chase.
As Allison raced through the weeds, gunshots rang out, and she felt the bullets zipping past her head, dirt exploding in black mini-geysers by her side. She looked over her shoulder and saw the dog closing fast. “We gotta get to the woods,” she told the coon, “Run!” She was almost into the trees when the
dog caught up to her, jaws snapping at her heels. When it became obvious she couldn’t reach the safety of the forest, she turned to fight. Although outweighed, the raccoon put up a good fight, snarling and biting, a brown and black whirlwind of fury. The two animals rolled across the ground, fur flying in all directions, blood drawn on each. When Allison bit down hard on Booger’s muzzle, the dog drew back yelping and she again turned to run for the brush. But the man was standing in her way, gun drawn, and the last thing she saw was a flash of light from its muzzle. The world exploded in a blinding flash of stars, lightning and thunder, and then there was nothing.
Back at her house, Allison fell to the floor of her living room where she lay motionless, eyes open,
chest still.
This whole display had been watched from the woodland shadows by several pairs of animal eyes,
and from the road by one pair of the human variety. “Gol-dang wonder the chubby little sucker didn’t have a heart attack,” Gabe Oscarson thought to himself, referring to Deputy Bob rather than the raccoon. He tossed the binoculars in the back seat of his car, checked to make sure the bullets were still in the cylinder of his revolver, tucked it into the waist of his pants, and got out.
Jersey Bob looked up in disbelief as he was skinning the raccoon. To say that he was less than thrilled to see his old friend walking across the field to him would’ve been the understatement of the year. “Now Gabe, what the hell are you doin’ back in town?” he asked, “I told you you’d have to lay low for at least a year before you could come back. You’re gonna screw everything up.”
“I guess this means you don’t got my 3500 bucks,” Gabe replied.
“You got that right, you stupid prick” Jersey Bob said, “Now you either get the hell on back to Oklahoma, or I’m gonna run your sorry ass right on down to jail. No fuckin’ around.”
“I thought as much,” Gabe said, and pulling the gun out of his pants, shot the deputy through his left eye, blowing a significant portion of the back of his head into the grass behind him.
“Ya shouldn’t-a messed with me, Jersey Bob.” Gabe said with a grin, returning the gun to its home in his pants. “You don’t mind if I take these do you?” he asked as he slipped the lifeless deputy’s handcuffs into his jacket pocket. “I didn’t think so. C’mon dog, you’re goin’ with me,” he said, and sauntered back to the car.
“One down,” he thought to himself, and laughed. “Whoa, baby, that was kinda fun.”
Allison moaned softly and rolled over on her side. Her head was throbbing, and she was so weak that she couldn’t even sit up. The cat was licking her cheek with a look of feline concern. “Did somebody get the license of the truck that ran over me?” she asked. Apparently the cat didn’t know, because it sat down and began licking its butt. That reminded Allison of the old joke, “Q- Why does a dog lick his balls? A- Because he can.” and she laughed, but stopped quickly. “Ouch, that hurts!” she said, and began to crawl slowly down the hallway to the bathroom. She filled the tub with steaming water, and spent the last ounce of her energy crawling over the edge, not even bothering to remove her clothes. “Ahhh, that’s better,” she sighed, and sank down into the suds. Within minutes she had drifted off to sleep, and never heard the soft click as the kitchen door was opened, then closed.
She awoke with a start to find Gabe sitting on the toilet watching her, and was distressed to learn that her right wrist was handcuffed to the shower pipe behind her head. “We meet again, Alley Cat,” he said, pulling a length of duct tape from its roll, and wrapping it around her mouth while holding her free hand in his. “Guess you’re not the only one who can take a bath with her clothes on,” he said, and climbed into the tub with her, sloshing water over the edge, and effectively pinning her under his weight. Then he pulled a pair of scissors from his pocket and began to cut her blouse away. “I wouldn’t struggle too much Alley Cat,” he said to the bucking woman beneath him, “It’d be a cryin shame if I was to accidentally slip and snip off one of your nipples. Oh yeah, there they are,” he said and ripped her shirt open the rest of the way, dropping the shears into the tub in the process. “So nice, gimme some of that,” he said and bent down and bit her breast roughly. Allison, taking advantage of the soapy water was able to free her hand, and felt around frantically, finally finding the scissors. Gabe leaned back in order to unbuckle his belt, and when he did Allison bent forward and plunged the scissors into her attacker’s shoulder.
“Shit!” Gabe bellowed, and lurched out of the tub, scissors firmly implanted in his back. “Oh, damn! You’re gonna pay for that one Alley, yes you are!” he shouted, but when he tried to stand up he slipped on the soapy floor and fell hard, striking his head on the sink as he went down. “Mmmm,” he growled, dazed, but he made no effort to get up again. Allison ripped the tape from her mouth, and gasped for breath, sucking in huge lungfulls of air. She could see the handcuff keys in his shirt pocket, and tried mightily to reach them, straining against the manacles, but they were inches beyond her grasp. She pulled the cuffs a little farther down on the pipe and tried again, almost enough- she could just about hook the key ring with her finger, just a little bit moore... Suddenly, Gabe’s eyes flew open and his hand shot up grasping her wrist in a vice-like grip. “I don’t think so, little Missy,” he growled, and stood up carefully. He reached behind his back and pulled the blood stained scissors from his shoulder. “I love it when you put up a fight,” he said, “but that was totally uncalled for. I believe that little trick will cost you your left eye,” he said and advanced with the scissors in his hand. Allison retreated to the back
corner of the tub, “Fuck you, Gabe,” she hissed.
“That too, Alley Cat,” he said with a grin, “but first you pay.”
From Abby Lincoln’s journal:
8 / 29 HOT! Hotter than hot. Looks like we’re going to set some kind of record for the end of August, it’s been flirting with 100 degrees for the last few days, and they said on the radio that it’s going to be 103 tomorrow. It’s not so bad as long as the truck is moving, but most of the time we spend by the side of some road trying to get a fix on our bears, and then it’s like we’re roasting turkeys in a pickup oven. I’m amazed at what these animals are doing, and still don’t have a clue as to why. We’re all the way into central Wisconsin, having traveled pretty much
non-stop since we started, and these bears haven’t ate or slept for days. Of our original four, we’re down to two that are still traveling, the heat and lack of food and water got the other two. I’m a
little worried about # 32 though, we haven’t been able to get a fix on him for hours. Now where did he go? Looks like I’m going to help push Gatorade and iced tea to new heights on the stock market in the next few days, that is, if I don’t sweat to death first.
Booger looked around and whined nervously. He didn’t like this, didn’t like it one bit. The man had gone into the house and left him alone in the yard tied to a fence post, and now he could hear things moving around in the grove of trees behind him. Strange scents drifted in on the wind to his sensitive nose, smells he couldn’t identify, and that spelled DANGER. He strained against his collar, trying to break free. He’d would’ve felt a whole lot better under the truck, he was much too exposed out here, no way to protect his flank. But there was no escape, so he adopted the best defensive posture that he could, back to the fence, ears down and hackles up, and waited for whatever was in the brush to make the next move.
Gabe grabbed a handful of Allison’s hair and bent her head back, scissors in front of her face. “Sorry ’bout this Alley Cat,” he sneered, “I know it’s gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.” Then he raised the point to her eye, and drew back.
Suddenly, an explosion of barks, yips and growls and ratting trash cans could be heard from the yard. Gabe paused, “Could be we got company,” he told Allison, “too bad for them if we do.” He turned to the door, and on his way out he said, “Don’t go anywhere Alley Cat, I’ll be back.”
Booger was really raising hell by now, and Gabe stopped on his way out to retrieve his pistol from his jacket pocket, then crept cautiously to the kitchen door. Just as he got there, he heard the dog give one last pained yelp and then all was quiet. When he looked out, he was surprised to see a fairly large black bear standing over the battered body of his erstwhile canine companion. Forgetting for the moment their rather brief association, Gabe lost it. “You son-of-a-bitch!” he yelled, “That dog was the only friend I had!” He raised the pistol and fired three shots at bear #32 which squealed in pain and ran off limping into the trees. He dashed out to the dog, but it was clear that he was quite dead. “Now that really sucks!” he said, holding the dog’s head in his hands. “Oh, somebody’s gonna pay for this,” he
whispered, and stood up turning toward the house.
“And what the hell is this?” Gabe asked, swallowing hard. Between him and the kitchen door sat one black, and three gray wolves, and when he looked around, he noticed a dozen more emerging from the brush. The wolf on the left looked him in the eye and licked its chops. “You’re ’spose to be
scared of me, dammit,” Gabe said, and raising the pistol, pointed it at the dark animal’s head and
pulled the trigger.
“Click,” went the gun.
“Oh, shit,” went Gabe, and now he was more than a little frightened. His hands were shaking, and
the sweat on his brow had little to do with the morning sun. Two more wolves joined the four by the house, who stood up and began walking slowly toward the man. He spun around, and saw he was nearly surrounded by them now, a slowly closing circle of black eyes and bright white teeth.
Near the edge of the lawn, about 30 feet from where he stood, was the small tin shed that housed the farm’s water pump. Gabe figured he didn’t have much choice in the matter, and began to back slowly away from the house and toward the shed, losing his nerve and breaking into a run when he was about ten feet from the door. The wolves took this as their cue and leapt forward, one grabbing Gabe’s foot, another leaping for an arm, a third clamping his powerful jaws on the man’s left hand, twisting his
head and tearing three fingers free. Blood gushed, Gabe screamed and stumbled forward, dragging the animals with him, and found an ax leaning against the shed. Another wolf tore a mouthful of flesh from Gabe’s thigh as he swung the ax into the animal’s head, but as that one fell, another took his place, and jumping up, ripped a chunk of the man’s face away. He heard, rather than felt the bones in his foot
crackling like Rice Crispies as he fought his way through a whirlwind of gray fur and snapping teeth,
and finally gaining the door managed to get inside the building and close the door.
The building was literally crawling with spiders, but Gabe barely noticed as he collapsed on the floor, bleeding from a dozen wounds, and began to ponder his situation. “Not good,” was his assessment as he split his shirt into shreds, wrapping his torn flesh as best he could. He could tell that it wasn’t going to be easy to stop the loss of blood.
It was a couple of hours later before the adrenaline wore off and the pain really started.
In the house Allison sat waiting in the bathtub. She had a pretty good idea what was going on outside, the bracelet’s sixth sense had told her that the farm was virtually crawling with wolves, and she had the feeling that Gabe’s reign of terror was pretty much over for her. She looked at the scissors lying on the floor and shuddered. “Looks like we might be here for a bit,” she said to the handcuffs, and slumped down in the tub, crying softly.
That day and night went by quickly, as she drifted in and out of fitful bouts of exhausted sleep, and the next afternoon she awoke refreshed, although quite stiff from sleeping on the tub’s hard surface. “Well, at least I won’t die of thirst,” she thought, although she was beginning to feel some nagging hunger pains. “I wonder how long it will be before someone misses me at work?”
She decided to take a look around outside, and closed her eyes, searching for the nearest animal eyes she could appropriate.
Gabe’s night had been a little rougher.
After baking in the tin shed for a day, and spending a sleepless night unsuccessfully fending off an onslaught of spider bites he was beginning to look like a human raspberry. The pain from his wounds was relentless, and he was still bleeding from the worst of them. He distractedly scratched at the flesh dangling from his face, sending a couple of spiders scurrying for cover. He was starting to hallucinate, and he’d had enough first aid to know that blood loss, dehydration and infection would kill him just as surely as the wolves would if he didn’t get to a hospital, and quick.
But, when he looked out through the dusty window he could see they were still there. A ring of wolves surrounding the little building, watching. Waiting. There was also a large red hawk sitting on the fence post where the dog had been tied. The black wolf walked over to the building and stood up on his hind legs next to the window, his face inches from Gabe’s. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” the wolf said to him.
“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin,” Gabe replied. He knew what happened to most of the pigs in that story.
As the day went by, the temperature climbed. 97. 98. 99.
By 3:00 in the afternoon it was 102 degrees in the shade, and about 140 in the shed. Gabe was barely conscious, and drawing his breath in short pants. He had gone beyond thirst, so far that drinking water now would probably hurt. His eyes were clogged with dust, and rosy red streaks were rising up the veins of his arms and legs, nearing his heart.
His mother sat on the floor next to him shaking her head. “Gabriel, Gabriel what have you done?” she asked sadly, “I thought I raised you better.”
“I fucked up, Mom,” he replied.
“And cursing at your mother, too,” she said sorrowfully, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be chastised, and rather severely. You know very well that good boys don’t fuck up.” Then she reached up to the side of her head and grasping a zipper, peeled her face away to reveal the eight eyes and hairy head of a Black Widow spider. “Give your mother a kiss,” the spider hissed, poison dripping from its fangs as it reached for him.
Gabe screamed hoarsely, threw open the door, and ran out of the building. He didn’t stop screaming for several minutes.
The wolves didn’t care.
They too liked it when their victims put up a fight.
When they were done, the hawk flew down to the tattered remnants of Gabe’s shirt, removed the keys from what was left of the pocket, and flew quietly off toward the house.
From Abby Lincoln’s journal:
9 / 15 Well school starts in a few days, and I have to admit it’ll be somewhat of a
relief after the hectic pace of the last month. I’m happy to report that most of our bears are back
in their home range again. We still don’t have an explanation for their little cross-country trek, but it should make one heck of a thesis for me. Bear 32 ran into a little trouble, probably a farmer protecting his chickens, or maybe just scared. Can’t blame him, bears don’t make an appearance in south-central Wisconsin too often. Anyway, we had to tranquilize the old boy and pull out a couple of slugs, luckily not in any vital area, so he should be o.k. Maybe Disney will make it into a movie- “The Travels of Bear 32” or something.
Guess that’ll do it. Bye journal, it’s been a fun summer.
Alec got out of bed and looked out the window of the cabin. “Snowing pretty hard,” he said, “should be plenty of fresh powder for skiing tomorrow. Oh, Jeez Louise. Will ya look at these bite marks on my neck? I look like I’ve been mauled! Cripes Ali, you’re an animal!”
Allison rolled over and smiled, “More than you know Alec, more than you know.”
The wolf loved the freshly falling snow, it muffled all the sounds in the forest, and made it harder for the smaller animals to move around, thereby increasing her chances of catching a meal. Tonight it was big game, though. The pack had been following a herd of elk for the last two days, and it was finally time for the attack. Silently, they stole down from the trees, flanking a late-born calf that was struggling to keep up with the adults, Hiding in the shadows until the last moment. And then, breaking from cover, the chase was on. Down through the valley they ran, scattering the elk in a flurry of snow. The wolf savored the bite of the wind in her face, the scent of prey strong in her nostrils. She didn’t even care if they caught it, tonight the thrill of the hunt was enough.
And in her bed, Allison twitched and rolled about, growling softly in her sleep.
Alec sat and watched her for a while. “Sometimes I wonder,” he said, “Sometimes I wonder.”
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