CHAPTER THREE

A SHORT HIKE

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My home was pretty far from town. My wife and I didn’t like people much, so seeing someone on my property had immediately offended me.

In my defense, it had been a bad day. A bad year, really.

I found out we couldn’t have kids in January. Well. I couldn’t have kids.

There were solutions. Rio could’ve gone to a sperm bank, or we could’ve adopted. There were ways around it. Those methods stung my pride enough that I wasn’t willing to commit to them, though.

I was angry. It wasn’t a loud anger. Not explosive. No. Instead, it was slow and insidious. Things that wouldn’t have irritated me before left me stewing in resentment. I yelled at traffic more. Day trips to town annoyed me, and staying home did, too. I just…

Rio was an angel about the whole thing. She was kind, supportive, and reasonable, even when I lost my temper and punched walls for no sensible reason.

She was never afraid of me, no matter how angry I got. Even at my most furious, I’d never even think to hurt her. Our kitchen cabinet had no such protection.

She said all the right things. Reassured me that this wasn’t my fault – wasn’t anyone’s fault. “Sometimes these things just happen,” she’d say. Occasionally, she’d follow that up with a quip about how god didn’t want her to get pregnant or some other inane tidbit that I would’ve laughed at only a few months ago but now found a bitter pill.

Yesterday though… Yesterday, I punched a wall at work. In retrospect, that was pretty stupid. I wasn’t exactly swimming in job offers. Finding another job would take months, and I’d probably have to drive into the city for a worse job than I’d had in town.

Fucking hell.

I still hadn’t told her. She wouldn’t be home for a few days, gone at school for her master's degree. I didn’t know how I would tell her either, but I had a funny feeling that even if I shouted it in her face, she’d still pity me.

I almost wished she would get mad. Well. She certainly would when she found out I had no job… Again. Even then, it would only be about the money and not the… disappointment.

Didn’t she deserve to be angry? I’d deprived her, hadn’t I? She had every right to be pissed. The man she’d chosen, spent years on, wanted to build a life and a family with… couldn’t provide that. Not properly, at least.

It was stupid. No one disrespected adoption and I didn’t feel like if we adopted – which we likely would – the kid would be any less my son or daughter.

But just… the crush of dreams unrealized. The loss of an anticipated joy. I didn’t have the words to describe it. It just wasn’t… well. Not what I’d wanted.

So when I saw some kid, their skin painted red, laughing, sneaking around on my property, I was just angry enough to be willing to grab a shovel and give them a scare.

It was stupid. I knew it was stupid as I walked outside, and it certainly wouldn’t win me any favors with my neighbors, all of whom I liked.

Anger isn’t exactly rational, though.

I was a city boy. Rio had convinced me to move to the country, and thus far, I hadn’t regretted it. There was something wonderful about being the only two people for miles… or well. Acres at least. So what if the movies were a twenty-minute drive? My wife sunbathes naked on our back deck.

Hell yes.

What this meant, though, was that despite living here for almost two years, I still hadn’t spent much time exploring the woods we owned.

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I’d poured a little gasoline on a paper towel and dabbed my wrists and the sides of my shoes with it. I’d only had to walk through a chigger-infested forest once before learning how important tricks like that were. It wasn’t exactly healthy, but better to have a little gas on your skin than itching for a month. Even now, after facing five goblins that were literally trying to kill me, I’m still more afraid of stumbling across a chigger nest.

After that, I’d stormed off towards the tree line, quickly spotting one of the ‘kids’ giggling and snorting like a buffoon as it ran off into the woods.

It led me on a merry chase down the mountain, revealing that there were at least a few of the little shits taunting me with words that didn’t sound like any language I’d ever heard. Like it was all some game.

I didn’t realize what they were until I finally caught up with them, and one of them was suddenly swinging a fucking dagger at me.

I stopped to rest on my trek back to the house. We’d gotten a lot further away than I’d expected. Knowing you own thirty acres and actually walking them are two very different things. I was pretty sure I was still on my property. There were a couple of little ravines with creeks at the bottom between my property and the neighbor, Mr. Sawyer’s cattle farm. Even so, he also had a good ten acres of wooded mountains between our property line and his cowpens.

I liked maps and had taken a weird pride in staring down at the land plots from Google Earth. I knew the area well, on paper. Regardless of where I came out, I knew I’d hit the road that led up the mountain sooner or later if I kept going east.

I saw no sign of the other two little creatures as I walked. I kept a wary eye out for them, but either they had fled entirely or were far more stealthy than I’d first thought. Still, I kept one of their daggers in my pocket, just in case.

The day was still bright for late afternoon and it was easy to tell which direction that was. It wasn’t even as far as I thought, but I was gasping for air when I reached the road. I wasn’t at the top yet, either.

I groaned, but the slope of the road was much easier than the rough mountainside, so I decided to be thankful.

I suddenly heard a vehicle from further up the road. It was only a moment’s warning before the truck turned round the corner and came into view. A white Chevy Cheyanne that was almost as old as me and definitely ran better.

The driver was Jill Norta. A teacher in the local school. She had bright blond hair that curled down her shoulders. She wore a ratty salmon-colored tank top and had on a pair of sunglasses that she lowered as she approached.

I thought she might drive by with a wave, but she stopped when she saw my sorry state.

“Theo? What in the world happened to you? Get in a fight with a paint bucket!?” she exclaimed with a laugh, rolling her window down as she pulled up beside me, gravel crunching under the tires.

“Yeah, Jill,” I said, unpanicked. “Had a bit of a tumble, but I’m alright. Looks worse than it is. As for the blue, I honestly don’t know. Kids must’ve been playing with paint or something.”

I’d always been a pretty good liar. There was blood on me, obviously, but the goblin’s blood was blue. I was sure it stank to high heaven, but It looked like paint, which I was suddenly thankful for. My cuts were as red as a sunset, though. Now that they’d healed, I didn’t know what I looked like.

Disheveled and covered in paint with blood spots on my shirt, I supposed.

“You sure?” She asked, eyeing my clothes dubiously. “I’ll give you a lift back up to your place if ya need it, but I admit, I’d rather not.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ll get home just fine. Hurt my ankle a bit, but I didn’t fully twist it, luckily,” I said with a chuckle. “Cut the hell out of my arm, though.”

Her eyes narrowed as she searched me for wounds. “What were you doing out there, anyway? Tell me you weren’t trying to hunt in that getup?”

I had no idea how to hunt, not really. This whole situation felt surreal. Not a half hour ago, I’d had a broken ankle and was lying next to a dead goblin, and now I was chatting with my neighbor like nothing had happened.

The truth was right out. Instantly unbelievable.

“I was just exploring a bit. I’ve been here for two years and barely even know my own woods. Didn’t seem right,” I said easily. “Listen though, Jill. You carry?”

“Not usually, why?” she asked.

“Saw something weird. Might’ve just imagined it, but I swore I saw some strange people down in the ravine. Gave me the creeps. Just… consider keeping a gun handy, okay?” I said.

We didn’t know each other very well, and I could tell the suggestion had confused her. Still, better she thought her neighbor was a weirdo than those goblins finding her defenseless.

“Huh. A’ight, Will do,” she replied, her accent showcasing her Alabama roots.

“Like I said, probably nothing. Anyway, it was nice seeing you!” I said with a wave as I backed away from her window.

She perked right up at that. “Likewise! Tell Rio we should get together sometime! Have dinner!”

I nodded at her and waved as she drove down the mountain towards the fork at the bottom and the sharp uphill curve that took her to her slice of the woods.

I turned and continued my long and arduous argument with gravity, mildly wishing I’d taken her up on that lift.

Fucking mountain.

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