Forest Fighter
By Robin Zemek

The cuffs of my pants were damp and the ocean of grey leaves and thin maples stretched out before me.
I had been chasing it for three days. It was starting to slow down. I paused and felt the claw marks etched into a nearby tree. They went deep. It was leaving a trail.
On purpose?
Perhaps.
I shouldered my rifle again with resolve. A fine mist of rain was settling into the forest and water dripped down from branches unimpeded by leaves.
They crunched under my feet: bones and branches and soggy leaves.
This was it’s forest. I shouldn’t have followed it here.
I should have stayed home and mourned.
I should have waited for it to come to me.
I should have sat by my broken bay window, scanning the trees with the sight of my rifle and hearing only the flapping of the curtains in the wind. Not the sound of my son playing, or my wife’s gentle heartbeat as we sat on the porch, but the sound of silence.
Of death.
Not the sound of screams or coughing and crying or fingernails scraping down the hallway hardwood.
Just a slight flapping, whenever the wind came up.
But I was in its home. Its forest.
I had managed to shoot it once before, but it hadn’t bled. I had scared it away. It had taken my son with it and left my wife bloody on the railing of the stairs.
As I held her in my arms she had but one request.
“Save our son.”
“I will. Don’t leave me.”
Its claws had left her stomach in ribbons. The small of her back was drenched in blood.
“I love you.” I had said.
She had slipped into unconsciousness.
The rain water mixed with my tears and I peered through the gun’s sights.
“Roland?” I yelled. “Rolly?”
The echo pitched around the forest.
Each step, crunching. Each raindrop, an embrace of cold.
The rain became heavier, striking my cap with force.
Up ahead the trees were closer, and under them were brambles and bushes.
Tears had washed her blood from my face. Her last moment, she reached out and touched my cheekbone with red fingers. They slid away lifeless.
Nothing stops the passage of time, only death.
A soft cry came from the thorns ahead.
“Roland?” I yelled again.
His sobbing I heard again.
I inched closer to the patch of brambles. I used the muzzle to push them to the side.
There was my boy, his face black with blood and his eyes red. He sniffled.
“Roland.”
He reached out his hand.
The pain dug into me from the back and pushed its way under my ribs. I felt the skin lift from my sternum. And then the claws were gone.
A trap.
I stumbled around to face it: the monster.
Its fur was matted with blood and water and ran wiry around its thin arms, puffing them out. Its claws were long and sharp and yellowing at the tips.
I looked up at its face, a face that could be mistaken for human if it were not so disfigured and cut and dark. Its fur twisted around its head, making a long beard.
Its eyes were a solid white ivory. They stared down at me. Its black and twisted frame crooked over me.
Roland was crying.
I lifted the rifle and fired. The crack of the gun pushed me backwards and shook the trees. I had hit it in the shoulder.
Under the fur of its face I could see its teeth baring. In the silence after the shot I heard the low growling, like distant thunder.
It lashed out with its good arm and scraped along my chest.
I pumped the rifle and prepared to fire again. It took all my strength.
I fired again, hitting it in the neck. Blood sprayed from the fur and it stumbled backward.
In the brambles and the bushes I slumped over, holding my stomach, checking the blood. It was oozing out of me. I could feel it running down my back, a warm contrast from the rain.
Lightning cracked the sky and I looked up from under my cap at the beast.
It was like me, crouching and cradling its neck.
My fingers fumbled for the gun and grasping it I propped it on my knee.
I didn’t see where the last shot hit it. I dropped the rifle.
A small hand felt the stubble on my chin.
The rain hammered hard on all forest. It bleached the bones and the trees and the leaves. It slid with resolve from branch to branch. It bounced across the forest floor. It dripped into my eyes. It fell on the corpse of the monster and on my son and on my wife’s shallow grave in my backyard.
This forest was where I lived, a thousand miles from anywhere.
I turned to my son, his eyes wide. Blood dripped from my nose.
“I saved you.”
He breathed quick shallow breaths.
Lightning startled both of us.
“I love you Roland.”

Hmm...

I wonder if I should start renaming emails 'Roman Faxes.' Would that catch on?

These seem like the the kind of things twitter would answer... Maybe I'll sign up later, if I can muster a following...

But in other news, I haven't updated in a while. That will change soon. There will soon be chapters of my novel going up on here. Yay!

-Mahalo
Robin