Bloodlust - Part 2

By Kim Bennerman

The tiny field squatted between thick copses of evergreens, and the mist from the morning still clung to the tips of its golden grasses, the swaying lower branches and the vascular huckleberry bushes. Two ridges rose, one in front and one behind, and to our left, the Dees River bubbled and chuckled just out of sight. This tiny spot was a blemish of flower-speckled pasture amongst verdant glades, and Crey surveyed it with his fists on his waist. "Perfect," he said. "We'll set up here."

It was like any other woodland meadow. I told him so.

He shook his head as he took the tripod from me and chose a spot in the shade of an ancient red cedar. "Near the water, a comfortable width across, not too open. The canopy almost closes up, see? But it still has good light." He took a black gadget from the bag and held it up to the sky to measure the level of illumination. "Yeah, this is great. We'll get some rays of sun through here; that'll be a fantastic backdrop. Now all we need are elk."

He was talking to himself now, but still I nodded.

We set ourselves to the task of raising the canvas blind. The musky tarp hung between two trees until the shredded fabric hung flat, each slash gaping like a salmon's mouth. I spread the blanket on the ground behind it and moved the tripod into the center, creating a little square of human comfort in the midst of the wild woods.

Crey sat, peering through the slashes at the empty meadow. "They'll come," he said. "They'll come."

"Sandwich?" I rummaged in the satchel.

He gave a muffled grunt of agreement, still watching.

A pause in conversation as we ate. I finished my half and said, "What's the biggest animal you've ever photographed?"

"A grizzly with cubs," he replied without thinking. "I came off of the trail towards Maple Lake, and there she was. Huge. Snuffling along the beach with two cubs in tow." He smiled at the thought. "She raised up her head and sniffed, and I guess she figured I wasn't a threat, because went back to scavenging. I took a roll of film, then bolted for my truck."

"Was that the scariest thing you've ever photographed?"

He paused. His eyes misted, thinking. "Yes," he said after a moment's consideration, rather flatly. "The scariest thing I've photographed."

There was something to the way he answered that caught my ears; I heard a lie. I leaned back on my elbows and watched him as I asked, "So what's the weirdest thing you've ever seen?"

The forest chilled.

"What do you mean by weird?" His voice held a tinge of suspicion.

"I don't know," I pressed. "Two-headed snake kinda weird."

His lips crooked into a faint grin. "I've never seen a two-headed snake."

"Okay, so what have you seen?"

He sat lay back until he, too, rested on his elbows. Crey studied my face for a hint of what I wanted. "A few odd things, now and again."

"Like what?"

He rolled on his side. "If I scare the hell out of you, your mother will kill me."

"No, she won't."

"Brian'll kill me," he added. "He'll wring my neck for telling ghost stories to his little girl."

"Dad won't care," I scoffed. "It's just a story. C'mon, what have you seen?"

He laid back and, pushing a wayward strand of sable hair from his face, folded his hands under his head. "Your dad and I were hiking at the north end of the Ueyosit Island, and we came across a cave filled with coffins. They'd been there for a long, long time; the casings were falling apart, the bones were scattered everywhere."

A chill skittered up my spine. "Where'd they come from?"

"There wasn't an information booth." He laughed. "I don't know. Someone had dumped them, years before."

I rolled onto my stomach and rested my chin on my hands. "What else?"

"What, that wasn't creepy enough?"

I shook my head.

Crey thought a moment more. "Well...people live up here. Little inbred communes of draft dodgers and felons." He rubbed his finger over his chin. "Once, I ran into a father and son gutting a deer." With a shake of the head, he arched his dark eyebrows and whistled a tune I once heard played on a banjo, from a movie I hadn't seen.

"That doesn't sound so odd."

"What, is this a contest? You wanted weird; believe me, it was." He tapped the finger against his temple. "They weren't quite right, those two."

I rested my cheek on my palms. "I thought, I da know, something more supernatural, ghosts or sasquatch--"

"No," he said sharply. "We won't talk about that."

The quickness of his answer made me snap to attention. "Why not?"

He looked back, towards the ferns and the slope of the ridge rising above us. "Because we're in the woods now, Ellie, and it's not the right place to tell certain stories. I've seen strange shit in these hills, but I’ll tell you some other time."

Hearing an adult swear without apology or humility was more frightening than any story. I paused, confused by Crey's strict denial. "Is this why dad calls you his 'crazy little brother'?"

Crey chuckled, but coldly. A moment of silence passed between us, but finally he tipped his head down and said in a low voice, "He thinks I'm crazy because I became a photographer instead of an architect. But yeah, I was fourteen, he was twenty-six, and when I finally reached home, Brian didn't know what I was babbling about."

"So? What was it?"

A flush of color rose to his face and his eyes lost their levity. Crey leaned close. I could smell the forest on his skin and feel his breath on my earlobe, raising a shiver in my limbs. "There are things that live in the wild spaces, Ellie, that can never be named," he said. "Are you sure you want to know?"

I nodded.

Sitting back, he assessed the eagerness on my face, and began in a voice no more than a whisper. "It was twilight. I was walking back to my camp from the river when I heard something thrashing in the ferns. Thinking it was a bear, I climbed an alder, wedged myself in the lowest fork and pulled out my camera. At that point, I hadn't photographed any bears and I was thrilled. I heard it coming closer, pushing aside the bracken, and here I am, getting more and more excited by the idea that it’s going to pass right underneath me and never know I was there.

"A musky stench filled the air, like old meat. I remember thinking how odd it was that an animal would stink so strongly that a boy could smell it coming."

He glanced away, wrinkling his nose at the memory.

"And then?"

Crey shrugged. "Well, it wasn't a bear." He looked towards the meadow. "Our talking is going to scare away any elk that come close, Ellie."

"Was it Bigfoot?"

"Maybe."

"Crey!" I exclaimed, goaded, punching him weakly with a girlish fist to the shoulder. "What did it look like?"

He dropped his gaze to the ground. "I'll tell you over dinner. I don't want to talk about it here, three miles from the nearest road." He held out his bared arm. "See? Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps."

"It really scared you?"

"More than anything else has since."

My eyes gleamed.

He turned back to the screen and the meadow. A bit too hard, he batted my calf and whispered, "Look, El!"

Five elk slipped through the bush, the bull with his flared nostrils held high and the cows with their foraging muzzles low to the ground. Their massive bodies moved without sound, gliding like galleons on a sea of green salal. That tremor of awe rippled through my blood as I watched, they in their element and me so far from my own. Crey held the camera in both hands, kneeling with his face close to the screen and rapidly clicking the shutter.

He dug his elbow into my forearm to garner my attention, and when I tore my gaze from the elk, I saw he was handing the camera to me. "Here," was all he said.

I'd never touched his camera before; it was his pride and joy. I took it, heavy and solid and cold, and set the viewfinder to my eye.

Line up the cross hairs.

Focus.

Snap.

The whir of the film and the staccato shutter kept the bull in agitation. The herd did not stay long in the open. In less than a roll of film they melted back into the bushes.

"I think they'll be blurry," I stammered. "I'm shaking."

"If I'm going to show you how to take a decent picture, we'll have to fix that," he replied when he took the equipment from my trembling hands.

"I didn't want to break it," I said in a rush. "I know it's expensive--"

"It's insured." he interrupted, grinning.

I mirrored his smile. "Should we go after them?"

"Naw," he replied, "other animals might follow their trail. We'll wait for an hour or so. Here, you take the camera," he said, handing it to me as he stood and brushed the loam from his jeans. "If you see anything, shoot."

"Where are you going?"

As he began to wade through the ferns to the top of the ridge, he said, "I drank too much coffee this morning."

"You’re disgusting, " I sneered. "There’s a little invention called a TOILET now, maybe you’ve used one?"

"I’m marking my territory!" he yelled back, and I dissolved into laughter. He reached the top of the ridge and disappeared over the rise of the land.

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