Another of those abominations lumbered lazily out the tree line, sniffing the air and the ground. A small mushroom grew on its back and less moss covered its form than the last beast Neil smashed in the face. Once its glowing savage eyes locked onto the boy, the bark on its body tensed like flesh. The eyes narrowed; its mouth opened with a toothy scowl. A low growl crept from its musty throat. Another freak joined in from the thicket, responding to the animalistic warning of its pack mate, followed by another, and another. Suddenly, one beast blossomed into a pack of five xenomorphic predators, glaring and snarling at the outnumbered boy with vicious intent, a five petaled flower of inextricable death and inconceivable alienage.
Still sitting, Neil's face ran pale and cold sweat beaded upon his clammy skin, eyes locked onto the savage force now strategizing their assured victory over him. He clinched the newfangled stone knife hard enough that his hand shook with terrific pressure. Petrified, he realized he wouldn't stand a chance against five of those monsters, after barely surviving one. They would attack; he could counter and perhaps even kill one; but, he would ultimately lose and meet a grisly end. To fall thousands of feet from the sky and survive, only to be torn to shreds by aliens later that day, Neil almost laughed at the morbidity of his situation. Life has a strange sense of humor.
With eyes closed, he prepared for the inevitable. Reopening them to meet the grim touch of the reaper, the pack of creatures vanished. Neil's eyes widened at the sudden change of the situation with shock, confusion, trepidation, and relief. What? Where...? He quickly checked his surroundings in all directions and found no sign of the threat he believed existed, which exacerbated the situation further.
Did I hallucinate that? Neil's mouth dropped open, aghast that his sanity might be slipping, which could turn his position from desperate to impossible. Then, in a sudden flash, he remembered Ms. Abernathy's lecture on the First World War in history class a month before. She mentioned the unique type of psychological trauma the soldiers suffered fighting the War to End All Wars: she called it Shellshock. This disorder caused, among other things, paranoia, and sudden terror inducing hallucinations. I'm suffering from Shellshock. The traumatized boy realized the beast he battled left both physical and psychological scars before retreating into the shadows with a nasty wound of its own.
Suddenly, movement caught his gaze. He trained his sight on its origin and spied a smaller version of those creatures, standing near the tree-line where the pseudo-pack had gathered. Unlike the phantasms from before, this creature was real, tangible. It was small in comparison to the last beasts, the size of a pup, or youngling even. The petite wolf looked up at him, its small mossy head down cast, fearfully, while hiding the tail between its quivering legs. Instead of the sharp menacing eyes of its matured kin, the pup's eyes were large, rounded, and not at all intimidating; even its ocular glow was softer. Neil found the creature strangely cute; regardless, it was clearly petrified of him; and, he was afraid of its parents, which had yet to reveal themselves.
Both stood in place. One shaking on its paws, and the other sitting and praying, each stared at each other in complete silence, unwilling to move: the pup not wanting to provoke the big scary thing, and the poor shell-shocked boy afraid of dealing with the pup's parents by vexing it to call for them. This standoff lasted for several minutes. Neil remained in one piece, no angry mother or father appeared.
Taking in a breath to calm himself, the boy took his crutch, stood, and placed one step forward. The pup squealed a loud pitched whimper and barked at him. It was more like a torrent of sharp squeaks than proper barks; but, Neil got the message. It didn't like him getting close one bit, which was completely understandable. Even though Neil was just a boy, he must've been nightmare fuel for a pup no more than three or four weeks old.
Still, Neil knew exactly the stakes of having the offspring of a predator remain nearby. If the parents found it in his camp, the repercussions would prove deadly. He didn't survive falling from the sky just to get mauled in his sleep during the night. Life's ridiculous humor be damned! Neil had no choice but to remove the pup as fast as possible, preferably, by scaring it away. Neil tossed a stone at the pup with the intention of missing just enough to frighten it. The rock hit a bed of leaves near the youngling's footing; it whelped and stumbled on itself as it wobbled away from the scary noise; however, the pup remained stubborn and just stared at him, sitting back on its legs.
Neil rose from his seat and flailed his crutch like a madman, yelling, "Get out of here!" The pup cocked its head at the odd noisy thing swinging a stick. The creature remained put and Neil sighed, his blood beginning to boil. "That's it!" The agitated boy, hell-bent on scaring that puppy away, limped as fast as he could toward the young wolf. "I'm going to throw you out!" He sharply inhaled and screamed, scaring the poor thing into a frenzied retreat as it fumbled back into the bushes. Neil stood his ground, glaring at the small hole in the leaves left behind, seeing if it attempted to return. It didn't.
Neil released his breath, relieved. He hoped the youngling found its parents at a safe distance from him. He returned to his tool making and finished fashioning both a proper hunting and fishing spear. The difference being the former had a flint blade tightly wrapped and glued to the shaft; whereas, the fishing spear had its tip split into four sharp prongs held open with two secured wedges. With the work finally done, Neil looked at his raw hands and winced upon closing them. They stung and ached; the muscles and tendons begged him for a rest. The boy agreed, gifting their hard work with a quick dip in the brook and a good while of sweet motionlessness. He perched himself under his tree, apparently it was, since he gravitated to it whenever he rested.
As his mind wandered, Neil watched the thoughts dance around for a moment. Typically, pictures of home, and Trisha, primarily the look on her face as he fell into the portal with Helen, assaulted his mind. Helen. Neil repeated mentally contemptuously. The emotions rushed in like a flood, anger, frustration, disappointment, hate. This is all her fault. He spit on her mental image. If Helen didn't suck at portals, he would still be home, still be with his family, his studies, and with his one and only friend.
The spiteful boy looked around the emptiness surrounding him; and there, the loneliness found him. He said to himself he was alone not long ago; but, to say something is one thing; to live that something is entirely different. While Neil was so immersed in his chaos, his aloneness didn't have time to mature. Here, under the large dead tree, the lonely boy sat, hands raw, leg disabled, arms and face torn up. Disease was a serious factor now, what with all his modern comforts having been stripped away from him at the speed of gravity, like great hygiene being a possibility.
To the list of troubles, Neil added gathering, eating, security, tool making, navigation, and keeping warm to the odds stacked against him. First of all, he must deal with the more serious and immediate problem of infection. It was a lot for an injured boy to handle in one midday. How can I do all this before nightfall? His head fell back, resting it on the rough bark of the tree. Its texture was smooth as silk compared to the objectively rough road ahead. Even if I survive today, Neil reasoned, one wrong step later, provided I don't die of a fever first, and I end up dead, one way or another.
Neil was not a religious boy, and made no attempts in his life to satisfy the dogmatic gods of his world. He held little hope for a place in heaven for himself, nor in hell. Neil was far too busy studying to spend his hours before a cloister. Yet, he never followed the belief that an inherently good being would punish his child for enriching itself with knowledge rather than grace. In fact, to Neil, knowledge was just another form of grace, for learning had comforted him more than the prospect of salvation. What would a mortal do with salvation anyway, if he didn't have the knowledge to use it properly? Neil always felt that salvation would have to wait until he learned how to save himself first.
Nevertheless, the philosophical boy digressed his thoughts on the motions of salvation and the opinions on knowledge versus grace; his thoughts turned to a more nostalgic place. Neil remembered his younger years, when he read his first book on the stone age while at the local library. It hooked him immediately. So immersed was the boy in its riches, he took it and all its sister volumes home. During his research, he discovered the loneliness naturally present in the pursuit of knowledge. It seemed, the more he learned the less people he knew or the less the other children at school gravitated to him. Yet, this brought him no harm. Since he was an only child, his experience of life had been one of loneliness; he took recess in the school's library, then played by himself at home after school, and ate in his room accompanied only by his books, where his fantasies rarely trailed to having sleepovers. It was not until he met Trisha Morgan did this behavior change. Neil remembered the moment he met his best friend as crisply as the titan Epimetheus remembers molding humanity from clay.
Neil recalled when his family had just moved to the quaint town of Ashtabula Ohio; and, there he started the first day of his last year of grade school. In the brisk morning, disembarking the bus, he took his first of many steps up to the entrance of the school. It was there, at the edge of the top step, did his brown eyes meet these deep green orbs staring back at him. Her freckled face held a smile that could melt permafrost and her red hair trailed in the playful gusts of the wind. She held her hand out and introduced herself as Trisha Morgan. Their friendship was immediate that day and they remained together ever since, that was, until Helen ruined everything seven years later.
Suffice it to say, before Trisha, Neil had no use of friends, nor of the concept. His books were all he needed and wanted. Knowing and understanding were all the friends he required. The other children were just a distraction from his mission to know the stone age; but, the more Neil saw Trisha and got to know the strange and wonderful girl, the more he wanted to see her and learn about her. She was like an infinite book that wrote itself. Every new page was freshly written and it added to a greater story. The involvement of the two friends in the story was an adventure where Neil found himself not only in the journey, but a part of it. He was in a role as pivotal as the sun was to the day, and Trisha's role as essential as the moon was to the night.
She always defended him when he got picked on by his peers for his hermit like behavior; and, slowly, Neil began to change and open his shut heart and concrete mind to his new friend. Trisha taught the boy hermit what true friendship was with her strength, intellect, kindness, and imagination. Trisha and Neil became extensions of each other's families. Thus, true friendship is the extension of family, not merely knowledge, tolerance, or activity between two beings, but a bonding of their souls. That kind of knowledge, Neil realized, no book could teach. That is, of course, if one didn't consider life itself as a book. It was a gem of truth he would never forget.
Digressing further in the surrounding savage ambiance, the nostalgic boy stared up at the passing sky, renewing his contemplation on the immediate issues of survival; then, Neil noticed a peculiarity above. The sun was over him, right in the middle of the sky, oddly enough. School normally ends around 4 P.M. in the afternoon. It's been at least three hours since and it should be dark soon. So, why is the sun acting like it's still midday? Just as he wished he could check what time it was, Neil chuckled at himself for almost forgetting his watch. The boy looked at his wrist and, amazingly, it was still strapped on, but smashed and useless. However, the arms pointed to 4:40 P.M. It is summer; so, the days are longer than in the winter by several hours. Yet, the sun shouldn't still be that high. The boy shook his head and let the subject go. He must have made a mistake somewhere. It's not like the sun's broken, that is, provided it was the sun he knew.
Possible extraterrestrial solar mysteries aside, his stomach growled, exacerbating his troubles further by reminding him how hungry he was. Yet, the stabbing stomach pains did little to inspire in the injured boy any motivation of catching dinner. He was so tired, so dreadfully exhausted; all he wanted was sleep. He almost dosed off upon thinking it, then violently shook himself awake. Focus, he commanded himself; despite fatigue, there was much work left to be done. Yet, he didn't have the time to do everything. He chose only the bare minimum tasks. Neil used one of the text pads, or notebooks if you will, and wrote a check list:
1: Treat wounds,
2: Make a shelter,
3: Build a fire,
4: Catch dinner,
5: Fall into a food coma.
The plan seemed decent enough, considering the circumstances. As far as the infection issue was concerned, Neil needed a means to sanitize his wounds. Without antibiotics, that would likely prove a herculean effort, which is why people in ancient times were more likely to die of infections than most other fatal causes. The higher life expectancy of modern man is due in large part to antibiotics. This knowledge worried the boy further, as he checked the contents of his first aid kit to take stock.
One 4oz bottle of hydrogen peroxide,
Several band-aid packs in three sizes, small, medium, and large,
Four small packages of triple antibiotic ointment (to his relief),
Six packs of aspirin,
Four alcohol preparation wipes,
Three pairs of medical gloves,
One Hot/Cold thermal pack,
Two metal tweezers,
Two proper gauze bandage rolls,
One bandage scissor,
A small roll of duct-tape,
A small role of medical tape,
And a small pamphlet on emergency care procedures.
Neil weighed out the options for sterilizing his wounds. The immediate life sustaining item in his possession was the hydrogen peroxide. It would clean his leg; but, to fight infection over time, he needed the triple antibiotic ointment. He had so little of it, which worried him deeply. If he decided to try and smother his leg injury in a thin layer of precious ointment, there was only enough to do it once, maybe twice. What then? The wound was far too horrific for a single application of peroxide and ointment to have lasting protection against the elements, especially since the boy possessed no means of staying clean. His hygiene options were limited to sun bathing, dirt baths, and rinsing in the brook, the last two being obvious breeding grounds for infectious pathogens, waiting for anything squishy and vulnerable to root into. The thought made Neil's skin crawl with goosebumps of disgust.
Regardless of the future for surviving his wounds, there would be no future to survive if he didn't act immediately and clean his leg and bitten arm. He had to apply the peroxide, which the apprehensive boy knew would hurt badly. Neil took a deep breath, and readied himself, his back firmly pressed into the hard bark of his tree. He opened the peroxide bottle and poured a little on his hands. The fizzing liquid stung his raw palms as he rubbed them clean. Not so bad, he thought, as he gathered the gauze, scissors, tape, and antibiotic ointment. Neil took a stick and bit down on it to help the coming pain. He applied the ointment lightly to the gauze. He would place it over the wound then wrap and quickly tape it secure. The plan was clear, he only required the strength to see it through.
Finally, he steeled himself, then untied the ad hoc bandage around his leg keeping the blood loss at bay. When blood resumed flowing from the wound, the boy immediately felt his stomach sink. His breathing quickened and sweat beaded on his forehead. He felt cold as he fought through the sudden lightheadedness. He poured the peroxide right onto the pooling puncture. His whole body tensed in such pain he couldn't scream; the cry pushed in his closed throat, eliciting a harsh gagging rasp out the mouth. He bit the ends off the stick, leaving a wooden fraction trapped inside the locked shut mouth.
Mere moments passed, which seemed like hours. Everything slowed to a crawl, a painful sluggish drawl of the mind. The boy remained put, locked in a perpetual purgatory as darkness threatened him from the corners of his mind. He nearly fainted, just before the pain subsided enough for his wits to reboot themselves. Neil's mind regained its strength and he looked down to his leg; his eyes widened, the bleeding wasn't as bad as before. He spat the twig out his mouth and applied the fresh genuine bandage. It cradled the injury and sealed his life essence with a precision no impromptu dressing could match.
With that chore dealt with, Neil treated his arm using the same method, which hurt less by comparison. He marked treat wounds off his list. Next was building a shelter. Slowly, gently, he eased himself to his book, On Becoming a Caveman, by Manley Irons, and turned to the chapter regarding shelters. He chose the simplest thing on the list of possible builds, a lean-to. He read the intro:
Chapter Two: Building Shelters:
When faced with the threat of night before a proper settlement was possible, our stone age ancestors erected the humble lean-to, a simple and clever solution to their immediate shelter issue. Lean-tos ranged from a simple branch angled over a tree with a leaf roof supported by sticks, to more complex builds out of beams and stone. Make no mistake! The lean-to may seem trifle compared to the towering superstructures of modern housing; but, in the nakedness of the wild, the line betwixt what is trifle or life sustaining blurs into these simple aspects:
1: Is it warm?
2: Is it dry?
3: Does it shield from the wind (or, is it sturdy)?
4: Does it conceal?
Neil skipped over the greater part of the lengthy introduction of this chapter. He simply didn't have the time to read everything but the bare necessities. He read the instructions for building a lean-to, carefully taking in each depiction of the steps required. For the simplest build, he needed one large branch, several handfuls of large sticks, some roofing material, like twigs and leaves, and something as a wind break, like cedar or pine limbs, in addition to twine for lashing the structure together. Fortunately, there was plenty of twine left from making the tools, as he would just recycle his ruined shirt for this purpose.
Neil marked twine off the list and slowly stood up, crutch under his arm. He decided to get all the easy stuff first. The boy waddled around the clearing. Watching his surroundings carefully, he gathered all the sticks he could carry and placed them at the build site near his tree. He raked leaves with one arm while balancing with the other on his crutch. A dead pine branch made an acceptable rake. Soon, the leaves lied in a neat pile near the sticks. Now, Neil had to tackle the hard parts: amassing some fresh tree limbs, and one large branch.
Neil spied just such a branch several feet away. It looked perfect; unfortunately, the matter of carrying it would prove bothersome. He took a deep breath, leaned to grab it, and pulled. It moved, but his leg and arm cried to stop. He renewed his task by slowly bending his leg just enough so all his pressure was on the crutch, and using the bitten arm as lightly as possible. He was practically a one-legged pirate at this point, a pirate marooned in a vicious woodland, far from his native sea. The thought humored the boy privateer as he realized just how useful a cutlass would be about now. Neil slowly limped, tugging the branch along, hanging as much as he could on his crutch, taking the journey step by step. After a good while of effort, he stood by the build site and set the branch in place. "Thank god." He grimaced, letting his leg down to give it a rest, which rewarded him a shock of pain for his consideration. "Ah! you bitch!" He cursed through his teeth at his new neighbor, anguish, who was proving to be a right bastard.
Sighing, he took the hammer and chisel, whilst wishing he possessed the time and strength to make a stone adze, an axe, or anything more efficient. He gathered low growing pine limbs near the forest edge. Wiping sweat from his head, he noticed these black dots moving up his arm. His eyes widened in horror realizing they were insects, ticks to be exact. "Aaaahh!" He screamed as he furiously flicked the tiny vicious creatures off with his fingers.
Neil deeply scowled in contempt, seeing the pine limbs crawling with the little abominations. "I hate ticks!" He cried out with force, "I hate fucking monsters trying to eat my face! I hate this forest! I hate everything about this place!" The stressed boy sharply inhaled and belted out, "Everything!!" After stripping his clothes as best he could to remove any remaining ticks, he delivered the last of the materials to the build site, and took some time to shrug off the shock of a dozen parasites crawling on his skin and sticking to his wounds.
After calming down, he had to build the thing. Neil looked up to the sky and sighed sullenly. The sun fast reproached his efforts, as it fell with haste; for, the hours run quickly through the busy mind. Time was of the essence. Neil cracked his knuckles and used a stick to dig a small hole for each post. He placed the sticks in the hole and laid them on the branch at a 45-degree angle just as the book suggested, which allows drainage during the rain. Neil used the protractor to ensure accuracy. After tamping the soil around each post with a rock, he thatched the roof with twigs, dead leaves, and the misbegotten fresh pine branches.
Finally, after lashing and double checking everything, Neil beheld his first finished shelter. The relief washing over him felt intoxicating. He was really doing it! He promptly checked his time status, it appeared to be sixish, as best he could tell. He still had to build the fire and catch dinner.
Despite the shelter's boon to his morale, dread renewed in tired little Neil. He was not a religious boy; but, considering he had little more than four hours of daylight before the dominion of night took him, he found a reason to pray. This tenebrous place was hellish enough without the dark cloaking its patient horrors. Even if the pains of his stomach grew unanswered, the boy's endangered life needed the protection of fire.
Wasting no time, he quickly scrambled for his book. Although he built fires by hand before, he didn't have the time to remember, only to be reminded. Turning back to the chapter on shelters, he skipped over the introductions regarding the campsite and the art of fire making. He read only the instructions. There were four methods of primitive fire making discussed in this work: fire sticks, flints, the cord drill, and the pump drill.
Neil drew the strength to carry on from deep within himself, and stood up pitifully. As quickly as possible in his condition, he gathered stones to make a circle on a bare patch of soil. Setting the fire circle, he placed sticks in a tipi shape over a bed of hand crushed dry leaves, as per the book's instructions. Neil shaved up some dry bark and leaf material. He formed it into a nest for an ember, once he made one. The cord or pump drill methods were out of the question at present, that left knocking two flints together, or using fire sticks to make fire. Neil used all his flint to make the tools, and what was left didn't fit the requirements. Since Neil didn't have the time to fumble about the brook for more flint under the darkening shadow of the canopy, he had no choice but to make fire with sticks. He glared at his hands with a sour expression of dread. As if my hands didn't hurt enough. He sighed.
The boy took a few dry sticks befitting what was listed in the book. He scraped the bark off both and split one to form the friction board. He whittled spots in it with a flake for the stick itself, then cut notches on the spots so the punk, hot wood dust, could escape. It was the punk that formed an ember. For the punk to light it, he needed to set the friction board over the tinder nest, while allowing enough space for air flow. He blunted the tip of the stick and simply needed to spin it on the hole in the board until an ember formed. The trick was speed over force to save the hands from injury. It was a little too late for that; but, any respite for the boy's ravaged hands was worth its weight in gold at this point.
Neil held the stick and got to it. After a few passes down rubbing his hands together, a thin wisp of smoke creeped from the board as punk formed. He smiled, remembering how the technique worked as he continued. Once the punk smoked by itself, signaling the presence of an ember, he ceased. Quickly taking the nest, he gently blew the ember to life. He laughed as it took the tender with gusto. "Yes! Burn, you magnificent bastard! Burn!" He promptly fed the tiny fire the bed of crushed leaves in the fire pit. Before long, he had a proper healthy campfire.
It was the Titan Prometheus, brother to Epimetheus, who took fire from the heavens for the benefit of men. With this divine jewel in hand, man rose to prominence in the wilds at such a staggering rate, his power over the Earth rivaled a god. Even though the God principle itself separated Fire from Water for the use of gods and men, Zeus, jealous, afraid, and angered, punished Prometheus for giving man a power equal to a god. Zeus was right to fear this power. Fire not only burned in the hands of men, but also in their minds. It is in the womb that men are born, but thoughts are birthed from the mind, a procreation unbound by physical gender. It is in the mental Fire that truth is distilled from fiction, that true ideas are given life and become the children of any reasoning being. Once man realized this connection, there grew from the slime of primordial thought the Sages and Wise men of the ages. From their minds a child was born, Science.
The superstitions of men where cast into their mental Fire; and, Science saw to the ultimate demise of the old gods in their hearts, for Fire is illuminating, and light its progeny. Where ever man looked for the gods, this light exposed not the scorn of an immortal, neither their games and childish grudges over the imperfect ephemeral things below them, nor their spotty logic, but only nature, only primordial law, only unfoldment. Men only saw the fleeting garment of lady Truth upon the solar winds, of which to this day he hazards to grasp. So, men buried flawed Olympus, trading the hateful gods, their bloodied temples, and their undeserved sacrifices, for the alembic, the telescope, and hard data. The bigotry and vague shadows of the past gave way to the unbiased rule of law. Science, once the child of men, became his god. No Greek god lives today. They are now but ashes in the Fire of the minds of men and dust under the feet of his new god. It seems, the martyred Titan had the final laugh over the mighty Jove, leaving his Fire bearing children to live on and forge their own destinies, limited only by the Fire of their minds.
Neil pulled up a log and sat before his creation, a boy and his fire. The heat of its embrace, and its memorizing movement, allured him into a blissful trance. Within the newly born fire, Neil found hope, and a friend. He couldn't believe the power of such a simple and common substance; it was like he had fallen into a pit, only to find a haven amongst its horrors. For the first time since the incident, he felt optimistic.
Still, only one task remained undone: catch a fish. Again, Neil wished to anything listening for a fishing rod; he could make a pull rod using a stick, floss for line, and fashion a hook via a needle from his first aid kit; but, he didn't think wasting floss in a land devoid of dentistry was a wise idea. No, he had his fishing spear, for what it was worth. He will make it work; he had to. Time was growing shorter by the second.
Neil rose again weakly to his sore feet, the pressure of the old tight shoes encasing them intensifying the pain. You know what? Neil returned to the ground and took his shoes and socks off, which felt incredible. He didn't fully realize how much he's grown since last year until now. He suspected his favorite shoes didn't fit anymore since last month. He should've donated them then; now, trashing them seemed more fitting; however, he set them aside instead, thinking their materials may prove useful later.
Finally, Neil thought, something that doesn't hurt. The cold bare grass and dusty soil felt great as he limped to the brook side. Fishing spear in hand, he watched the darkening still surface of the brook's pool. The low-pressure zone of the eroded soft sandy soil of the stream side gave purchase to a host of brook trout, big and small.
All the hungry boy had to do was wait for them to swim closer. One trout of acceptable size braved the shallows to feed on the crawdads scurrying over the creek bed. He readied his four-pronged spear, poised to finally quell the stomach pains. Seeing the spear tip angled on the fish's image reminded him that spear fishing was more art than science, with trial and error being its main technique. Unfortunately for the famished boy, this may mean he could go hungry for anything hardier than berries tonight. He hadn't trained in spear fishing beyond that one time two years ago on that camping trip. He didn't catch anything then, which only added to the stakes of the moment.
Patience he told himself, as he felt his hunger nearly force his hand prematurely. The trout, whether knowingly or not, proceeded to tease the boy by swimming closer only to dart away, then return and retreat again. This fish continued to dance this way about the limits of his spear's effective reach for an excruciatingly prolonged time. This display of aquatic mockery almost pushed him into a frenzy, where the boy seriously had trouble fighting the urge to throw the spear at the damned thing.
Come on, Neil, keep it togeth-" he ceased his thought midway as the trout darted towards him to gobble up a crawdad just feet away. His eyes widened. His pulse quickened. Time slowed as he took aim at the fish's image, and he thrust the spear into the water. Scales flashed silver just before a cloud of muck and sand exploded from the point of impact. Neil held the spear in place; but, he had a bad feeling about whether his spear had connected. To his exasperation, the suspicion proved correct. The muck cleared, revealing an empty, dulled, fishing spear. "Damn it!" He cried out in frustration.
The night can be a savage and cruel beast for a child of the sun, when surrounded by an ever-salivating green sea of ferocious ambiance. Neil would soon face the fiendish night unfed if he didn't catch something within the hour. This he could not allow. The campfire had been burning for over an hour, its stony edges before thronged brilliantly in lapping flames, now reduced to a smoldering coal pile awaiting its next meal. The sun lost its dominion over the heavens. Only twilight remained to caress Neil with worries and promises of the coming terrors birthed by moonlight. The insects clicked and sung, beasts belted, and howled in the wild distance. Before the strategically cornered boy, the twilight left just light enough to see the vague shadows of aquatic life in the cool stillness of the pool . With a sigh, he wisely conceded that dining on fish tonight was no longer an option. Instead, he carefully gathered several crawdads and drew some water from the brook to boil in his lunch box.
He placed a large rock in the coals to set the lunch box on, then fed the fire to heat it faster. It wasn't the best tool for cooking, his lunch box; but, it did the job. Soon, he had a handful of fresh cooked crawdads and drinkable water. He frowned while sipping the musty crawdad water after devouring the tails like it was his religion. The food was sparse, didn't offer much nutrition, and tasted fairly foul; but, it was better than starving. Hunger is a truly powerful spice.
He stared into their shells and saw this yellow green soup within. He heard of this stuff. Some people say the cooked soupy guts within crustaceans were edible; however, those people eat strange things. Curiously, he smelled it and recoiled. It smelled just like the school's basement, musty, and gross.
Figuring he wasn't in a position to complain about food, he at least tried it. Dipping his finger in, he sampled the repulsive yellow goop. Once it touched his tongue, his eyes widened as a dingy basement taste coated his mouth. He spat out the rancid vile stuff. Quickly, he ate a fruit roll and rolled it around his mouth to murder the unholy flavor assaulting his senses with extreme prejudice. "Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, that was disgusting!" Neil threw the cooked crawdad remains into the fire. "Evil spirits be gone!"
As the excitement of unsavory curiosity waned, the night grew from twilight to darkness. Now engulfed in the sinister shadows, Neil gathered himself by the tenuous fire light. The forest by day held an intimidating aura; but, at night it transformed into a hideous presence. From the corners of his vision, the boy swore he saw movement, only to look and spy nothing tangible. His nerves began to crawl with paranoia. Neil was not superstitious; yet, the presence of these eldritch frights encroaching him from the shadows felt as real as the beast that tore his arm. Their sudden and abrupt visit perturbed him more by the second. Suddenly, the forest had become horrifically transcendent, with its own psychological hunger.
Were those green eyes in the tenebrous thickets he spied? Of course, upon further scrutiny, these taunting apparitions vanished, leaving only more fear behind. Neil hugged the flint tipped spear and backed away towards his lean-to for asylum.
The feral night of the woodlands offered no clemency for the fears of the injured, forlorn survivor. Neil listened, gripping his weapons tightly. The nocturnal beasts reanimated at the call of the shadows; cloaked in fresh darkness, the grotesque hell spawn announced themselves with ungodly howls, belts, grunts, muffled steps, and displaced rustles of desiccated vegetation. Neil heard things from the dark woods he's never heard before, unnamable animals with alien voices.
Poor frightened Neil, before, merely wounded and stranded in some strange untamed place under the sun, now held hostage and encircled by the searching mouths of the expanding night. Tears flowing down his eyes, Neil the terrified, hunkered down in his lean-to. Hoping the fire would keep whatever creatures were making those sounds at bay. He clung to his ephemeral empire of leaves and pointy sticks for cover from the animate horrors shuffling outside, searching, smelling, waiting, watching. The boy wished he could go home, to abandon this evil place.
Neil realized he'd made his bed within a living nightmare.
The boy concealed the entrance to his shelter with a stick and pine limb cover suggested in Manley's book, then tried his best to rest. Sleep did not come to Neil easily, despite how heavy his eyes felt. The forest had spared his body; but, it did not spare his soul. The young tender thing was besieged by imaginary terrors within, which outstripped the tangible ones lurking just outside. Neil continued in a bitter purgatory between sleep and desperate, timorous, wakefulness; but, sleep eventually took his mind from the abomination cannibalizing itself beyond the thin pine cover.