The Chief didn’t want to turn back. He felt that the storm breaking was going to make hunting and fishing even better. Walking back to the Bronco they see the devastation of the storm. It was brutal to the trees and infrastructure of the forest service trails washed away, tunnels choked with dead trees and bridges torn from their footings. Driving deeper into the hills the Chief was drinking coffee and Whiskey sweetened with cream and honey he found in the ranger station that was abandoned during the night. ET found a whole stack of Deaths Head II and the new Ghost Rider comic books that he knicked. Arriving at the base of a trail into the woods, they see a couple abandoned cars that looked like they were being scrapped in slow motion by passers by.
All the way up the mountain they got a good streak of Modern Roc” which was already on its way out. The top 40 button hole between “Post Punk,” “Hair Metal” and what ever New Wave was. Basically safe bands that still had some streetcred for intellectuals tired of Post Punk before the “Grunge / Alternative” wave washed away bands like Bad Religion, Rem and U2. ET always felt like these bands were for mousy substitute teachers and edgy librarians but still had some good songs. He was more into Nirvana, Sound Garden and Alice in Chains if he was going to sit through radio on a road trip.
He loved the classic rock and thrash metal the Chief had on cassettes but no matter how much you love Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Billy Squire there was only so much you could take. There was also a ZZ Top tape somewhere lost on the floor. He remembered his mom loved college radio bands from the early 80s like The Cure, Joy Division and The Smiths but those made him sad. Something about the gothic vibe that turned him off. It was hot on chicks but his life was dark enough with out putting on makeup and sulking in churchyards. He was always looking for something unusual to listen to and wasn’t above Summer of Love, Motown or modern R&B if the vibe took his mind away from his shitty life.
He tried to get the Chief to listen to Mr Bungle and Ministry but he couldn’t make it through a whole song with out ranting about yuppie scum and their bogus music from radio stations in the big city. He had some deep seated contempt for people he saw as trying too hard to be cool. The chief did like a lot of cool stuff, beyond Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Ted Nugget… he also had some secret stuff from Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep and Roky Erickson that was on the play list for sure. Progressive and Hard Rock had its moments. ACDC, Motorhead and Frank Zappa were more his dads speed so on the outside edges of whats cool.
This backcountry was called Twilit-Glass Mountains. Was an odd name but has something to do with natural rock deposits that look like the night sky. Deer and Elk had good populations and the foraging for berries, nuts and mushrooms made this a native favorite for vision quests and hunting trips. Leaving the tent they plan a shorter trip to see if the good spots where taken before unloading the gear. Following the trail along the ridge for a few miles they soak up the warmth of the early morning light. Seeing the usual camps along the Snake Tooth river full of garbage and messy camps, they move deeper into the woods. Maybe they don’t need to stay over night if they can catch a Buck or Moose early and be back home by dark.
ET notices some odd growths along the rock face as they move into the shadow of the mountain. Something slimy and irregular fungal patters. The Chief errs on the side of caution and doesn’t allow ET to touch any thing he doesn’t know from generations in these mountains. Walking down to an unnamed stream they hear a jet above them and as soon as they see the chemtrail disappear into a cloud a violent downpour breaks with lightning. ET and the Chief unroll plastic ponchos to wait it out. The rain is odd, gelatinous and harmful to exposed skin. ET feels an instant revulsion to the rain that is hitting the ground so hard its bouncing into his face, getting in his nose and eyes. He feels something unpleasant under his eye lid, like a hair.
Chief doesn’t seem to notice, he is about 15 feet away under a camo tarp and messing with his portable tv-flashlight while the rain stops suddenly. What came down was enough to raise the level of the stream into a wider pond, still choked with downed trees and now floating animal life. ET walks down to the stream to rinse his eyes and just as he stoops down to drink the Chief stops him. In the rocky terrain there are indentations where just the rain has collected and something translucent on the surface is squirming around, a fleshy layer of goo on top that looks like one celled organisms under a microscope. The Chief doesn’t say much but looks disturbed. They decide to steer clear of the watershed and try to track game on the upper meadows.
Stolen story; please report.
Coming to a trail of strewn equipment on the path they took to the ridge, they both pause as this could be a bear attack on unexperienced campers. Pots, kettles, canteens and several rain coats all discarded don’t seem to have any blood signs of struggle. Sounds of violence come from beyond the line of sight. Chief checks his gun and chambers a round, pushing ET back. Stalking the noise to a high point they look down and see a bunch of teenagers fighting in a circle. They are laughing and its likely horse play but Chief is annoyed so he fires a shot in the air, causing the rowdy group to break and run.
From this vantage they can see a good place to wait for some game to cross their line of sight. Normally human activity is enough to scare off deer, the scent of hair products, cologne, human food can all cause a dry run on a hunt. This doesn’t seem to be a problem, with in minutes a doe and fawn wander into the meadow. Shooting mothers and their young is illegal and the Chief may be a rebel but thats not how he does things. In the scope the doe and her calf are startled by something off to their left.
Passing the rifle to ET, Chief takes binoculars and looks far off into the edge of the meadow and doesn’t see any thing big. ET jumps back from the rifle and Chief peers down the scope. A large Black Tail Buck has attacked the Mother Doe and her Fawn, trampling and biting them. The Buck has something wrong with its face, some serious injury to one eye and the flesh ragged against pink bone. The Chief fires a shot hitting the Buck in the shoulder and like something he has never seen, it lets off a roar like a Bear and charges them. Chief isn’t one to panic, he chambers another shot and misses, hitting the dirt. Trying again he nails the Buck right in the heart but it doesn’t go down. Takes a shot between the eyes to down the animal.
The Chief reaches the Buck. It smells like poison. It has some bulbous growth coming out of its throat, breathing out something noxious like ammonia or some other caustic chemical. The growth is full of black veins and is a strange color like an internal organ or some rare jellyfish. The sky seems like its vibrating, tumultuous violence above the visible layer makes it seem like its boiling, black clouds lit from above by spiderwebs of lightning. The thunder is so high that it seems to echo off the valleys and mountain tops long after its visible light… an anomaly that makes ET pause and the skin on the back of his neck and arms break out in goosebumps.
ET heads to the Doe and her Baby who are mutilated and kicking wildly. ET is hesitant to approach, kind of in shock. Before he knew what was happening the doe bit into his shoe and the mother smashed into him from the side. Sending him tumbling head over heals down the slope. The Chief came running and clubbed the mother with a cruel thud, sending the baby streaking off into the woods. Today seemed as if getting any game was in the cards but the Chief hacked off the Bucks head to show the local Vet in town.
Back on the road, they must have got turned around. The Chief knows these mountains from birth but where the main highway was has long since eroded, which is impossible because they came this way hours ago. Feeling the earth tremor and hitting the brake from a slamming road rising to meet them. They didn’t have time to brace or curl up before the sideways inertia took them into a tumble. Spinning like a top until coming to rest against an abandoned train car out in the woods. Crawling from the wreaked 1970 GMC K2500 Super Custom pick up they are bloody from superficial injuries to the face and hands but nothing broken.
ET feels a chill in the air as he gasps at the bizarre place they landed from rolling down the hill. It was a clearing in the trees full of shipping containers and endless mountains of black body bags. Among rows of grey military tents there are wraiths standing in a circle around a long trench in the ground. The wraiths wear florescent yellow hazmat suits and lifeless grey gas masks with black round eyes. The men in rubber suits barely notice the crash or the wounded survivors who are stumbling up to them. ET sees a helicopter trailing smoke from its engine struggling to stay straight, its tail out of control flapping like a panicked fish before it disappears behind the trees in an fireball of bright orange.
The Chief walks a few feet and with out a sound collapses. ET never saw the soldier in the gas mask smash his head from behind with the stock of an M16. After that the world becomes etherial, sounds feel like they are spinning, his head feels like its speeding and his heart is dropping. He has a dream about sirens, flashing lights and roaring animals in a flooded zoo. He feels an iv being jammed in his arm and his clothes being cut off. He thinks he sees his father and several doctors discussing his status. ET is so delirious he can’t make out a since word. The room is tilting and they inject some new drug into his arm. He has glimpses of changing seasons out the window and a dozen different roommates whimpering behind the curtain.
He has an itch in his toes and next to his balls that is so strong he wants to scream. Something like an insect bite or spark from a blazing camp fire in his eye. He hears wind chimes, dogs howling and an EEG machine monitoring his brainwaves as he wakes up in a dark hospital room closed off behind blue rolling curtains between the beds. He wants to call someone but a tube in his throat prevents it. He gags on the hard plastic forced down his larynx. He hears laughter in the hall of women and some kind of strange 50s tv show is strobing his eyes with washed out scenes of people recoiling from some stalking fiend of b movie stardom.