July 4th, 2024

9:05 AM

Morning had come and I found Penny sitting on her chair, snoozing while holding her rifle between her legs, hands on its barrel with her head down. Thinking better than to wake her up, I decided to get myself ready to start the day. I had only made noodles once since I got here, so I figured now was a good time for it. The inside of the tent was pretty organized, all things considered, but I didn’t want to just leech off her the whole time if I could help it. I wasn’t some kid who couldn’t take care of himself, after all.

More than once she could have snapped at me, or condescendingly pointed out my flaws, but she was very patient with me so far. Clearly I was holding her back from progressing in her endeavors, and I knew that, but if it bothered her I hadn’t seen anything that gave it away.

The sight of the morning sun on the water was beautiful. A feeling of belonging or euphoria washed over me. I felt a calmness settle as I took in the fresh scents, the gentle ripples of the lake, the sounds of birds and the occasional insect. It was definitely a sight to behold. It only made me look forward to the rest of the day, but one thing crossed my mind, threatening to ruin everything prior.

I wondered what he would have thought of it.

And just like that, my mood had gone from refreshing to depressing. I was used to suddenly feeling this way, however. It surprised me how easy it was to push it back. To keep it at bay, despite it making its presence known over and over again every so often.

If I were back at my room in the college dorms, I might have given in. But I wasn’t alone right now. I had… a friend? Was Penny my friend? No, she wouldn’t want to be friends with someone like me. Would she? I had but to ask. Yet if I were to ask her that, I’d need courage. Why did it matter? Why would I want to be her friend? It’d only hurt to realize she wouldn’t agree with the sentiment. I was getting ahead of myself. We’re merely strangers who happened to pass by each other… right?

This was how it usually went when I tried to break past my insecurity. Why I was stuck in place. Asking Penny such a simple question would likely result in a simple answer. Why was I afraid of what I would hear? I couldn’t possibly know what she’d say. I hadn’t known her all that long. Yet there was something about her that I felt was worthy of some consideration. Perhaps she could help me. The way only a friend could…

I had only ever truly had one friend in my whole life, despite being the only child of two middle-class parents. When I was growing up, I had Peter. At the recollection my eyes began to sting and my throat became somewhat clogged at the onset of what was likely a bout of crying. I managed to stop the grief again, however. It was getting easier.

I had to acknowledge it. I had to accept it. It had happened. The longer I kept it buried, the longer it would keep holding me back… So I thought back to the final day I spent with my brother.

***

The sound of the bell ringing marked the start of a rush all over the school. I never bothered to join in on the shoving and pushing. Day’s end for classes was always a welcome moment. After school we’d have an hour or two to mess around.

“Hey Bishop, did you do your homework for science?” asked Peter with his raspy voice.

We had been walking on the sidewalk past the convenience store next to school and were making our way around town, just killing time until we felt like going home. There was no rush. If anything, we enjoyed spending our days outside more than staying cooped up.

“Yeah. Did you?” I replied.

“Nope. Can you let me see how you did yours? I’m having a bit of a hard time getting it.”

It wasn’t unusual Peter asked me for help. Despite being half a head shorter than him, I was the smart one. Sometimes our mothers would joke about how we had a friendship not unlike a cat and dog. I could be pretty sly and cunning when I wanted to get my way, but I’d always follow him around and usually we would just end up playing outside. Peter wasn’t very fond of studying and neither was I, but he loathed it.

“You won’t learn anything if you don’t try it yourself, you know. Maybe if you read the textbook instead of using it to collect dust you would keep up with me,” I told him, a smirk on my face before I lightly shoved my shoulder on his arm and ran off.

“Hey! Not fair! Just lemme copy your work!” he would shout before breaking into a sprint to catch up with me. He always caught me, and I liked that. It felt good to have someone I could be completely comfortable with and not feel inferior to in any way.

Despite the usual jostling and playful remarks, we never hurt each other’s feelings. At least, I don’t think we did…

Before the day ended, we came to stop at the docks where the boats stayed, swaying in the waves that came off the sea. Sometimes we came here. It was quiet and bums usually stayed far away from the area due to the smell coming off the waters. They tended to just be drugged out of their minds in the city where they set up tents and makeshift cardboard houses. Even as kids we found it really weird to see them nodding off to one side while their eyes remained wide open. The sight and smell of them was dreadful.

One time, Peter stepped on a syringe and had to go get checked for shit at a hospital. That was the only incident we needed to stay away from druggies and the homeless for good.

On a bench after we’d had a talk about who our least favorite teachers were, he suddenly brought up something that I found… unusual.

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“Bishop… Where do you think we go after we die?”

The question made me consider a few things, but I often answered before I gave it too much thought, just trying to say whatever first came to mind. That’s how casual I felt around my best friend. I never stopped to consider what he truly meant at that moment. If only I had…

“I don't think we go anywhere. We just go to sleep and don’t wake up anymore.”

Peter stopped to consider that for a few beats before he nodded. “I think that’s fine, then.”

I looked at his face. He wasn’t smiling, instead, his eyes were halfway closed, and his chin was pointing downwards. He looked… somber. The few times I tried looking back at this exact memory, I would always wonder if I had said the wrong thing. If I should have said anything else. If that would have been enough.

“Why do you ask?”

He returned my gaze and simply said, “Because at some point, we all go, and I’d like to know where I’m going.”

I was no sage. I had no answers to give. Nobody truly knew what happened when one died, but I knew one thing. When you’re gone, you’re gone. That’s it. Game over.

So when I didn’t see Peter at school the next day, I told my parents. We didn’t think anything of it at first, but I had a bad feeling. The next day he failed to show up again. At that point, I went over to his house myself and found that his parents had moved. Peter didn’t ever mention they were considering it. I called his phone, but there was no answer.

It wouldn’t be until a week later that the news covered it. I remember that moment, as burned into my mind as anything could be. My father was sitting on the couch, my mom was cooking dinner. I was just coming down the stairs to ask her if we had any soda. Anxious as I was, I was doing my best to pass the time and try to focus on other things, when I heard his name from the living room and turned to see what the news lady had to say.

“Local teenager Peter Ingray sadly passed away as the result of suicide. His mother shared with us how he had been the victim of bullying at his school and how that led to him taking his own life. The boy was in the middle of finishing his third year of high school when…”

Slowly, sound became muffled as I heard the words. My mother’s touch upon my shoulder came as a horrible shock of electricity through my entire body, and when I quickly turned to see, she had the same shocked expression on her face as I did.

My father couldn’t believe it, either. He merely said, “… Bullying?” before turning to glance at me with a look of searching, as if my pale face had any answers.

Expressionless, I slowly shook my head. Peter had never been bullied. We had spent our entire youth together. I could count on a single hand the number of hours a day we were apart from sunrise to sunset.

Bullying?...

I didn’t believe it. Peter was alive, I told myself. Someone had to have lied about it. But why? What was happening? “… Spoke with us on the tragedy. Teachers and students alike shared how shocking it was to hear about their friend’s passing.” The news lady showed a reel of what several other kids at our school said. None of them agreed with the bullying. It was completely out of character. That wasn’t what gripped me, however. My friend… My brother. He couldn’t be dead. Not him. It didn’t make any sense whatsoever. This had to be a lie.

It took me seeing the death certificate to accept that I had lost a part of my soul.

Why… Why did this happen?

***

Looking at the fish swimming under the water, I could feel the hot tears streaming down my face. The uneven breathing and labored whimpering coming out of me unbidden. Then she was there, both her arms wrapped around my torso, not saying anything. Just letting me settle.

Eventually I did ask her, more a whisper than anything else.

“Penny… are we friends?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Of course we are.”

If Penny had asked me to tell her why I was crying, I would have, but she wouldn’t try to pull anything out of me. She had made it clear that if I needed to get something off my chest, she would be there to listen. That was enough for me to calm down and realize that I wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

After Penny had her breakfast, we finally decided to plan out the rest of the day and she went around collecting her memory cards from all of the trail cams. I was actually very curious about what they had picked up last night as well. I had a restful sleep, but she looked like she still needed a few hours. I felt a little guilty, thinking I woke her up with my less than manly display…

The more memory cards she went through, however, the more consternation I could see building in her features. She slipped the last one into the USB port, and I came to stand behind her to watch it, too.

It showed a night-vision camera looking down over the trees, directly at our tent from the southern view. I heard a crack and an odd noise, but there was nothing there. It was subtle, then there were two more cracks, but again, nothing to be seen. The lights in the tent turned off, and the sound seemed to die down significantly. After a few moments, there were two more cracks before silence claimed the night once more.

“I don’t understand…”

I didn’t either. Penny’s confusion was plain to see, but I had no insight to offer… However, I did notice one thing, or rather, its absence. “That’s weird. I expected to hear more of that soda can opening sound to go along with it, but I guess not this time.”

She whirled around to face me and asked me to elaborate in detail.

“Oh, uh… when I first put up my tent along the road, back when you offered to drive me up to the lake and I said no, I slept in my sleeping bag. That night, I heard cracks like those along with this ‘Psshhh’ sound before I went to bed.”

She mulled that over, asking me to explain further what it sounded like. I explained it was just the same as in her video-feed. “Oh, and I also heard it before you shot your rifle the other night.”

That got her attention twice-over. “You heard the cracking?”

“Yeah. Why? It’s just twigs snapping, isn’t it?”

Penny’s face went pale. “Bishop. I think you’re lucky to be alive.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, incredulous.

“The reason I came out here, the real reason, is to hunt down black bears. I think they’re the ones who have been making hikers disappear. There’s most likely a very aggressive and bloodthirsty bear rummaging through the woods killing people in their sleep. It probably comes out at night. In case you don’t know, not a single creature on earth has as good a sense of smell as a bear. Not even wolves or hounds.”

That made a shiver run down my spine. “But… what about the other sound?” I asked her, and she merely waved it off. “Probably just its exhalations. I’m telling you, it’s a black bear. A nasty one.”

But we hadn’t seen it on her trail cam. So where was this black bear? Even I was aware we hadn’t seen any tracks along the ground to prove this theory of hers yet, but then again we had explored merely one section of the woods so far. “I’m sure we’ll see it one of these nights, trust me. I know it’s out here somewhere.”

She got up and went to set up the memory cards inside the cams again, but I wasn’t sure. Penny knew more about hunting than I did, of course she did, she even knew how to use a rifle, but I’d believe it when I saw it. Still, chances were that she was right on the money. Who was I to argue?

We went inside the tent and picked out another spot to search. In a dozen minutes, we were ready for our second exploration of the woods, only now, I was a little more on edge and paid just a little more attention to my surroundings…