THE WILDERNESS

by Jason Spadaro

Copyright Jason Spadaro 2015

http://jpspadaro.tumblr.com

This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
International License.

Spadaro / Wilderness / 2
It was the bones in the woods that made the
noise. It echoed past the trees, through the
forest. It boomed over the mountains and down
the valleys. It was a great drone.

Carter put his phone back into his pocket.

"And that's the end of our cell reception."

"What the hell was that?" Sam asked, looking

out the side window of her car as she drove.

"My phone."

"No, didn't you hear that?"

"Mountain noises," replied Carter, taking

the last drag off his cigarette, and discarding

the last drag off his cigarette, and discarding

Spadaro / Wilderness / 3
it out the passenger window. He pressed a button
on the door and closed the window.

"Mountain noises? What does that mean?"

"Noises that mountains make. You know,

mountain noises."

"That doesn't even make sense."

They drove about a half-hour longer, down

the main road then up a little dirt mountain
path to the campsite in a clearing. Last year
they went to a small campsite in a small park.
Sam hadn't been impressed. They had been close
enough to the other campsites that they'd been
kept awake by their neighbor's drinking all

kept awake by their neighbor's drinking all

Spadaro / Wilderness / 4
night, and could walk to a park building with a
vending machine within ten minutes. It had
seemed less like camping and more like renting a
fire pit for the evening.

Sam wanted something more authentic. She

talked to one of the rangers about it when they
left, and had been told about the site they were
settling in to now.

It was serene, quiet, and isolated. They set

up their tent, and cooked a campfire meal.
Sipping beers, Sam and Carter talked quietly.

"Isn't this better than last year?" she

asked.

Spadaro / Wilderness / 5
"Yup, no doubt. No noisy neighbors, nowhere
to go. We're outside civilization, drinking a
beer, with nothing to do tomorrow."

Sam smiled, absentmindedly playing with her

brown pony tail while looking into the night
sky. "Well not absolutely nothing. Let's take a
hike."

"That could be fun."

"Good, because it's happening."

"In that case, I'm turning in for the

night." Carter finished his beer, crushed the
can, and tossed it into the fire. Sam put the
fire out, and they both climbed into the tent

fire out, and they both climbed into the tent

Spadaro / Wilderness / 6
for the night.

A few hours of drunk sleep later, Sam woke.

Her bladder had decided some things were more
important than rest. She dressed quickly, the
bare minimum to avert the inevitable onslaught
of mosquitoes, and slipped out of the tent
without waking Carter. She walked quickly to the
outside edge of their clearing, and relieved
herself.

When she re-entered the campsite proper, she

froze. Across from her stood a massive animal.
It was like a buck, but glowed bright white and
stood on its hind legs. A deer skull covered its
face like a mask, making the massive pair of
antlers it sported appear like uninterrupted

antlers it sported appear like uninterrupted

Spadaro / Wilderness / 7
bone from one side to the other. It seemed to
blur with each slow, surreal motion; raising its
human-like hands it gestured at Sam, beckoning
her to follow it north. It turned and walked,
now preternaturally fast, away into the woods.

Sam stood there, shaking for a moment. Then

she screamed. "Carter!"

The next day they went on their hike as

planned. Carter had been dismissive about what
she'd seen; he wrote it off as seeing a deer,
half-asleep and half-buzzed from the beer before
they went to bed. Sam insisted they head north
for their hike, though.

She knew what she had seen, and despite the

She knew what she had seen, and despite the

Spadaro / Wilderness / 8
terror felt drawn to the north. Further up the
mountain. Following the mysterious beast. These
were imperatives.

They carried their backpacks, not stopping

for most of the day. Carter struggled to keep up
with Sam's pace, going through brush, eschewing
hiking trails. There was an internal compass she
followed, till they finally came to a flat,
grassy area hidden in the trees on the side of
the mountain. It was large, much larger than
their campsite. Massive stone obelisks formed a
circle around a deep pond at the center. The
location and stillness of the glade was unusual,
to the point of making Carter uneasy. There were
no animals, no birds nearby. The normal, quiet,
dynamic of the forest seemed silenced here.

Spadaro / Wilderness / 9

The bones in the woods made the noise. It

echoed, and snapped. The ground below pond
cracked, knocking Sam and Carter to the ground.
As the water in the pond drained, a stone table
was slowly exposed. It was made from a rose-red
granite, the size of a car resting on four
spherical legs the size of fifty-five gallon
drums.

Carter stood up. "Sam are you okay?" She was

transfixed, looking in the direction of the
table. Carter followed her gaze, and saw the
beast standing on the table. It was about three
times the size that Sam remembered from the
previous night, standing with its arms
outstretched towards them.

Spadaro / Wilderness / 10

Carter screamed and ran.

Sam began walking toward it.

By the time the Carter reached their

campsite it was dark. He'd ran the entire way
back. At the center of their clearing, the fire
crackled with a figure to its side in a large
fur robe sitting on a log. Carter couldn't see
its face.

"Get away from our campsite!" Carter yelled

at the figure. It shuffled, and tended to the
fire with a stick.

In a wispy voice, it said, "Come sit by the

In a wispy voice, it said, "Come sit by the

Spadaro / Wilderness / 11
fire with me. The fire is safety."

Carter was hesitant, but did what the figure

asked. The facts of the situation were beginning
to sink in; the mysterious beast had not been a
fiction made from booze and sleepiness in Sam's
mind. And he'd just effectively abandoned her.
What kind of shitty person was he...

The figure by the fire interrupted his

thoughts. "There are pacts, older than us.
Contracts older than mankind. The bones...they
cry out for tribute."

"Tribute?"

"They cry out for tribute, and the girl has

"They cry out for tribute, and the girl has

Spadaro / Wilderness / 12
been chosen by the Wild. You must do what has to
be done."

"What's that?"

The figure seemed to melt into the darkness,

leaving behind a knife made of bronze with a
bone hilt. Carved into its blade was an image of
sun, either setting or rising. He couldn't tell
which.

He grabbed up the knife and started walking

back to the stone table.

By the time he returned to the glad it had

begun to sprinkle. Storm clouds rolled in,
obscuring the moon and stars suspended in the

obscuring the moon and stars suspended in the

Spadaro / Wilderness / 13
night sky. The Wild stood by the table, its tall
antlers reaching into the sky towards the rain
clouds, while Sam sat at the table's center. He
raced towards them, pursued by a thunderclap.

The rain had begun to pour as he reached

Sam. She spoke first, yelling through the storm,
"The Wild told me. It told me what's going on,
and what will happen if you don't kill me."

"I'm not going to kill you. There was an old

man at our camp, and he said I should do the
same thing. I'm not going to do it."

"You have to. I can't do it, and neither can

the Wild. It has to be you. The thing needs a
tribute. It's the only way to keep the thing

tribute. It's the only way to keep the thing

Spadaro / Wilderness / 14
from coming through."

"What thing?"

Sam gestured at the fissure that had allowed

the water to drain from the pond. A giant,
lidless eye looked up at them. Its pupil was the
size of a boulder, and the deep green veins that
moved along its white were as thick as Carter's
arms.

Carter looked back at Sam. "I'm not going to

make you a sacrifice." Without hesitation, he
plunged the dagger into his own chest through
his shirt. His blood drenched the table, and was
slowly washed off in diluted drops by the rain.

Spadaro / Wilderness / 15
Sam put her face in her hands. The Wild
boomed, "Fool, the pact is now broken." It
disappeared, leaving Sam weeping.

The bones raised their mighty hands,

splitting the earth above it and casting the
table aside with no resistance. The thing pulled
itself out of the mountain to reclaim its place
after millenia of imprisonment.