Fantastical Ramblings (10 page)

He managed to draw a picture of a big grizzly bear, using
some photos he found on the internet as a guide. The lines just weren’t right,
he couldn’t get the shape of the head the same as his memory, though his
picture did match the National Geographic photo pretty good.

Mom and Dad listened to the news three times a day for
reports. The local independent station mentioned that a rogue bear had rummaged
through their campground, made a mess strewing loose things all over. Not one
word about how big and ugly it truly was or how mean.

Maybe the phasing and blurring of Ben’s vision made it seem
bigger than it really was. Maybe his imagination had tricked him.

By the end of the two weeks the whole family talked as if
they’d all just had the same nightmare because they’d told ghost stories around
the campfire before going to bed.

Three weeks after the aborted camping trip Ben went back to
the computer. He had to try one more time to draw the beast. He had to find
some way of giving it definition.

“Mom, why did you delete all the pictures from our camping
trip?” he asked as he stared at all the blank folders.

“I didn’t do anything with those photos,” Mom replied
absently as she studied a recipe for dinner.

“Did Dad move them to a different program, like maybe he was
going to edit them?” Ben opened the editing program. He found lots of pictures
from last year’s trip to the same campground—they’d had the same space the same
week in June every year for as long as Ben could remember. The only difference
was in the size of himself and his sisters in the photos, and what kind of car
they drove. Christmas and Easter photos were all pretty much the same.

Why did Dad delete all record of the beast? Maybe he was
deliberately trying to forget it. Maybe the beast was magic and part of its
magic was making survivors forget it had attacked.

Ben contented himself with going on line for grizzly bear
studies. He lucked out and found pictures of skeletons both on all fours and
rearing up on hind legs.

He printed them out and headed back to his room and his
sketch pad. Slowly, layer by layer, he added muscle and flesh to the bone
structure, trying to make his drawings into real bears. That was easy.

Their fur always looked like fur instead of dried fern
fronds.

More internet photos and he overlaid the greenery on the
bear.

Closer to his memory. Still not right.

After dinner he started over and tried to put the camp beast
onto the bear’s skeleton.

It didn’t work. The head was wrong, the legs too short, and
the body too square. Reluctantly he gave up and went to watch a DVD with the
rest of the family. He barely tasted the popcorn as he tried to puzzle out how
to draw what he had seen.

“Can we watch that old SciFi movie, you know the one about
the weird creature aboard an abandoned space ship?” he asked. He thought that
was the one that resembled the creature they’d seen.

“We rented that one and returned it,” Dad said.

“Besides, it’s too scary for your sisters,” Mom added. She
fixed Ben with a stern gaze.

He knew that look. He needed to drop the subject. Completely.
Now.

Ben settled down on the big pillow on the floor with his
back to the sofa, between Mom and Dad. They all watched some inane story about
an American school girl suddenly discovering she was really a foreign princess.
Yawn. Dumb. Boring.

“I heard on the news that the park service is re-opening a
dozen campsites on the Clackamas River after last year’s mudslides,” Dad said
when he paused the movie so everyone could take a bathroom break and replenish
the popcorn.

Ben held his breath.

Did they dare go camping again after...

But then, his family seemed to have forgotten all about the
beast that interrupted their last trip.

“That sounds nice,” Mom said. “I’ve heard there’s great
fishing in the river behind the dams and a bunch of hiking trails.”

“Have we camped there before?” Jennifer asked.

“No, this is on the other side of Mt. Hood, from Mirror
Lake,” Dad said. “I’ve got more vacation time I need to use or lose. Let’s go
next week.”

On the other side of the mountain. Maybe they’d be safe.

Ben had a bad feeling about this. He excused himself to
charge the phone and sharpen a bunch of pencils for his sketch book.

The following Monday they loaded all the neatly refolded
camping gear into the back of the SUV. Dad also packed his hunting rifle in its
special locked, hard plastic case. He placed it in the hidden compartment
beneath the carpet and set a heavy box of food on top. The ammo went into a
separate box, packed into a different corner.

They chose a camp site at the base of a cliff, across the
road from the river rapids. A trail started just behind Ben’s tent. It skirted
the cliff and climbed rapidly along a chuckling creek. He wasn’t sure he liked
the idea of being so close to the trail, but his sisters wanted to sleep nearer
to the car, and Mom and Dad liked the level spot between the fire pit and the
road.

Signs all around the campground warned people of recent bear
attacks. They needed to keep food inside heavy, lockable plastic tubs or inside
vehicles. Preferably both.

Ben did notice that Dad parked the SUV as close to the
campsite as he could get it. And he left it unlocked.

For three days Ben and his family did all the things they
normally did on a camping trip. They found a meadow on a plateau above the
cliff face and watched deer graze. They swam in the artificial lake created by
a nearby dam. Mom fished and prepared her catch for dinner.

Ben took a lot of pictures and spent his evening translating
them to the sketch pad. He almost forgot that he needed to keep an eye out for
anything unnatural.

Then on the fourth evening, the next to the last they
planned to stay, the wind came up and the moon rose full and bright. Jennifer
wanted to tell ghost stories by the fire as the moon bathed them in soft light.

Mom and Dad looked at each other anxiously and started a
singalong instead. Marie was still little enough she enjoyed clapping to the
simple songs more than telling stories. Ben didn’t want to take a chance that
their stories would bring an unwanted visitor.

It came anyway.

Ben had just fallen asleep when the wind came up and
partially roused him. He peeked out, to make sure his tent pegs were secure and
his sisters were snug in their own tent.

He watched fir branches high up in the canopy sway gently. They
rattled a lot louder than they should for so little movement.

He ducked back inside and opened the camera function on the
phone, then tucked into the chest pocket of his T shirt. He also made sure his
sketch pad and a fresh pencil lay ready for him to grab.

Clomp. Clomp. The ground shook under the weight of something
moving down the path along the creek.

Shivering in fear, Ben pulled on his jeans and hiking boots.
He wanted to be ready for anything.

Seconds later he heard a tree branch break and crash to the
ground. He peeked through the screened window.

Sure enough a blurry black shadow tinged in red and silver
with leafy fur shuffled forward. Again he saw the phasing in and out movements.

Click, click, click.

The creature roared so loud, the rocks on the cliff shook. Small
loose pieces trickled down to strike Ben’s tent.

He gulped and took several more pictures in rapid
succession, wondering when a boulder from the cliff would crush him. Was he
safer here or out in the camp with the... the nightmare.

It grabbed a Douglas Fir trunk, two feet across and uprooted
it, throwing it into the river across the road.

“Everybody into the truck. Now!” Dad yelled.

Ben didn’t wait for a repeat of the order. He grabbed his
sketch pad and hightailed it to the SUV.

Once more they huddled together and watched the monstrous
beast shamble through the campground, knocking over tents and picnic tables,
roaring with displeasure with each blow.

Other campers scrambled for the dubious safety of their
vehicles.

Marie and Jennifer cried. Mom and Dad held the girls, eyes
huge with fear.

Ben kept blinking his eyes, trying to get them to focus. Every
time he tried to fix the outline of the beast, it blurred and phased even
worse.

“Ben, climb over the back seat and hand me my rifle. And the
ammo,” Dad said. He sounded grim and determined.

Ben did as he was told, handling the weapon with the respect
and caution Dad had taught him. Shooting that thing out there might be the only
way to save themselves.

Dad unlocked the case, loaded the rifle, and opened his
window just wide enough for the muzzle to poke out. The beast came closer,
roaring and reaching for them. Its claws seemed to have grown to twice the
length Ben remembered.

The beast phased in and out with each movement.

Dad squeezed the trigger. Everyone covered their ears against
the explosion of sound. The beast was so big that at this range he couldn’t
miss. The bullet passed through the beast as if it wasn’t truly there, plunking
into the twisted table top. No blood, no wound. Nothing.

Ben had seen it penetrate the leafy fur. Ears ringing from
the rifle blast, he watched the beast shudder as it absorbed the impact.

Desperate to understand what was happening he resorted to
his sketchbook. Without looking at what he drew, he kept his eyes fixed on
where the creature had just been. Afterimages of its movements lingered and
projected forward with each step and gesture.

“Is... is that what it really looks like?” Dad asked. He
sounded on the verge of tears. Everything he’d done to protect them had failed.

He fired off another round. It struck the cliff wall
directly behind the beast, sending a new cascade of rocks and dirt into the
campsite. It had to have gone through the beast to get there.

Still no effect on the animal.

“Huh?” Ben looked up. The creature seemed less blurry. He checked
his sketch. In his mind he saw the line of the jaw, and the shape of the nose. He
drew them in.

The same features solidified on the beast outside.

I think maybe I
created this thing and only I can make it go away
, Ben thought.

Biting his lip in concentration he drew the fingers and
claws (much shorter and duller than he’d seen), the markings on its fur.

Bit by bit he added detail to his drawing. Bit by bit the
animal took form for real. The phasing went away.

“It’s still mighty big and dangerous,” Dad whispered. Another
shot went right through it as it began shaking the SUV.

Ben got an idea. He pulled the gum eraser out of his pocket
and removed an arm from his drawing. Then he re-drew it on the ground some
distance away.

The creature turned a half circle and screamed in pain. Its
right arm flew off its body and landed several feet away.

Then Ben erased and redrew the other arm.

The roars turned to whimpers.

With a few quick lines, Ben drew duct tape around and around
the muzzle, making sure his shading made it shine a little bit in the
moonlight. Just like the real thing.

Silence as the beast clamped its mouth shut.

It shook its head frantically, trying to dislodge the
invisible clamp.

Then Ben erased the entire picture.

With one final muffled roar, the creature dissolved into a
pile of dust that looked like erasure debris.

“Magic!” Mom gasped.

Ben couldn’t get a word around his very dry mouth.

“By... by defining the thing, Ben gave it limitations and
vulnerabilities,” Dad said. He looked puzzled.

“It’s sort of like being afraid of the monster under the bed
until you discover it’s really just a mound of old toys covered in dust,” Ben
choked out.

Then he gulped, realizing he’d just admitted to where he’d
swept all the junk in his room when Mom told him to clean up.

“I can’t believe you dragged us out camping again after the
first attack,” Mom said, a little too loudly.

“Me? You were the one who couldn’t wait to have fresh fish
for dinner.”

“How could you endanger the children...”

Ben knew the argument would go on forever. Marie started
crying again. Jen looked like she’d start wailing too.

He cringed inside. Then he got an idea. On a new page of
paper he drew Mom and Dad hugging and kissing.

Mom stopped yelling in mid-sentence. Dad clamped his mouth
shut. They stared at each other in a long moment of silence. Then Mom started
chuckling. Dad burst out in loud laughs. They fell together with their arms
about each other and locked into a forever kiss, the kind of kiss that usually
got Ben and the girls sent to bed early.

Ben flew through a quick sketch of their house with the
truck parked in front of it.

“Let’s pack up and go home,” Dad whispered.

“That’s a good idea, Dad,” Ben answered. “I’ll start pulling
the tents.”

“Um, Ben, leave the sketchbook and your phone in the car
while we pack. We can make our own decisions,” Dad said firmly.

Ben gulped and nodded.

~THE END~

This is another story I used to feed the insatiable maw of
new free fiction on the front page of the Book View Café website. In part I
used the writing to work through my grief when my Mom passed—see the dedication
at the end. In part it just needed to be written. Thanks also to Lea Day for
some of the inspiration, a good friend and the best researcher I know.

<<>>

“Peel me a watermelon, Jenks,” I called to my servant.

“Peel it yourself, Your Monstrousness, Madame Lea,” the
pixie sneered back at me.

With that attitude, he should have been a gnome. I threw a
book at him, the newest in a cozy mystery series I had just finished reading. Jenks
flitted up into the cobwebs at the top of the cave. I sent a dribble of flame
after him. Any more and I risked the danger of setting fire to one of the
stacks of books piled around me.