An evening constitutional ends in fear for four hunters.
Evening Stroll
by Katt Dunsmore
(472 words)
He left for his nightly walk just before dark, moving through the woods surrounding his rural home. He took in the local wildlife as he wandered his usual path, pausing behind a tree and watching silently while a doe wandered along a forest trail with her two spotted fawns, blissfully unaware of his presence a few feet away. A little while later, he startled a rabbit from its hiding place and watched it run away, its white tail flashing in the twilight.
Just as the sun sank behind the mountains, enveloping the trees in darkness like a lover's embrace, he came upon a group of four hunters. They were sitting around their campfire, telling lies about the animals they had hunted down and repeating old local legends as they drank their beer. After listening to their boasts and alleged exploits for a few minutes, he decided to have some fun with these 'big game hunters.'
He stood watching from some thick bushes until the beer began to have its effect on the group, one after the other beginning to nod as the fire burned down. He began to move, almost silently, around their camp, occasionally breaking a small tree limb here and there. It wasn't long before one of them heard his movements and alerted the other three men. Soon, they were all standing, huddled close to the remnants of their fire, their nervous voices were carried clearly to him on the slight breeze.
"Whatcha think it is, Earl?"
"Hell, I dunno, Rodney, could be anything, out here."
"Well, what's it doin', goin' 'round our camp like that? I wouldn't think an animal would get this close to man like that," a fat man named Gary asked.
"Aw man, what's that smell?"
"How the hell should I know? What do I look ---"
"Shut up," the other man, Paul, said. "I think I see somethin' over there," he pointed, and the other three men squinted their eyes and tried to see into the darkness surrounding their camp.
As the men peered toward where he stood, he grabbed the bushes in both his hands and shook them and let out an unearthly howl that had the men scrambling for their tents and guns and the fat man named Gary peeing his pants. The men would be up the rest of the night, watching the woods around them and starting at any noise. He hoped nobody got hurt.
His wife looked up from her weaving as he came in a while later, still chuckling over the scare he'd given the hunters.
"What have you been up to?" she asked.
"Oh nothing much, just messing around with some hunters camped up on the ridge."
She sighed, "Every time you do that, we have humans tramping all over the woods for weeks, looking for 'Bigfoot'."
The End
Books 1 & 2 of Never Leave Your Monastery, both in one volume. This Collector's Edition features the ORIGINAL ART of the Author, over 25 hand-drawn illustrations.
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