Steve wanted to flee, but he couldn’t even raise himself up on his elbows as the animal charged. He screamed, flailing at the air with his knife. He made contact, but couldn’t tell where.
The bear twisted its head sideways and opened its mouth. Steve’s head was encircled by teeth, and the inside of the creature stank of wet, decomposing soil. He screamed into the bear’s throat, but it paid no mind. The animal stood up, Steve dangling from it like a marionette whose strings had been cut. His eyes rolled into his head. He knew he was dying as he tried in vain to pry his head out of the bear’s mouth. He couldn’t breath, and the world around him started to fade away.
“Steve…” Carl wheezed, but could do nothing else.
The sound of broken bone was followed by moist, soft squishing when the bear finally put Steve out of his misery and crushed his head.
The bear got back down on all fours, huffed a couple of times and wandered off to the woods, disappearing into the shadow of the trees.
“Fuuuuckk!” Carl cursed into the air, finally catching his breath. He crawled to the rifle, his legs still unable to carry him yet. He took the weapon and reloaded it,glancing over at his dead friend.
Steve’s head was a lump of bone fragments and meat, and there was nothing Carl could do about it.
Using the rifle as a crutch he managed to get to his feet, just in time to hear the snap of a twig behind him. He turned around and saw someone standing on the edge of the shadows. The figure didn’t move, yet Carl got a chill as it stared at him with unseen eyes.
There was a sudden stirring of leaves behind the figure, but it didn’t move.
“Who the fuck are you?”
No answer. A smaller figure emerged from the depths of the forest and stood to the left side of the bigger one. Carl held his rifle stock on his shoulder, but the barrel was still pointing towards the ground.
“Say something!”
A third figure appeared from the trees. It was smaller than the first one, but bigger than the second one.
“Tell me who the fuck you’re, or I swear to Christ I’ll…”
“You’ll do what, Carl? Educate me some more?”
In an instant Carl lost control of his bladder, his jeans soaking with urine.
“Mackenzie? It can’t be. You’re…”
“Dead? Oh yes, I am. We all are.”
All three of them stepped into the clearing, and now it was Carl’s time to scream. The left side of Mackenzie’s face was caved in from the force of the hit that killed her, and there was no mistaking who he was seeing. They were his wife and two kids, Clara and James, but there was no way they could be here. It was impossible, because he had killed them and buried their bodies far from here.
“Are you going to hurt us again, Daddy?” Clara asked. She was wearing the pyjamas Carl had buried her in. They were covered in soil, just as most of Clara’s face was.
“No! I...I didn’t mean it…”
“Just like you didn’t mean to backhand me so hard that I dislocated my jaw when I was four?”
James’ face was distorted with the same expression of fear and disbelief that he had worn when Carl shot him. His voice was laced with anger, and the .375 entry wound was still wet on his chest. The guilt was crushing Carl from the inside, like he was being vacuum sealed. He gasped for air, his heart working on overdrive.
“You’re not real!” He fired at his wife without aiming, her left hand exploding into a cloud of pus and grey, flaky flesh. She didn’t even flinch.
“Remember our trip to Quebec, Carl? When Clara was just a baby? We went hiking in Taiga, and that was the last time you were a decent father and husband.”
Carl remembered, his eyes filling with tears.
“You promised to teach me camping Daddy, when I grow up. You never did.” The words dropped like mushy soil from Clara’s mouth.
Carl started sobbing. He aimed the gun at Clara, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Not again.
“And you promised to teach me how to hunt, how to shoot like you and Uncle Steve.” James chimed in. As James grinned Carl could see worms wiggling inside his gums.
“In a way you did. Kind of hoped I wouldn’t have been the target, but aim for the center mass, right Dad?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Mackenzie, please...when you told me you would leave and take the kids, I…”
“Did what every normal man would do? Shot your children and smashed your wife’s head in with a shovel, just because she came home from work early and caught you burying our children? What a man you are!”
The gruesome trio approached slowly. Carl couldn’t move, not even when James took a step and his leg deteriorated under him. It turned to soil and he fell to his belly, but he continued to crawl towards Carl on his hands and knee.
“Look Daddy, I’m all broken up. Hold me Daddy!”
“Please...I’m sorry.” Tears were streaming down Carl’s face and they mixed into the snot running from his nose.
Clara’s skin bulged and undulated. It tore open, and soil welled out. Clara emptied like a balloon, and soon she was just a heap of skin and dirt on the ground.
“See what you did, Carl? How’re you going to make this right? You can’t buy your way out of this with a bouquet, like you did after your nights of beer and battery.”
Suddenly James grabbed Carl’s leg. He recoiled, losing his balance and falling to the ground. James continued to crawl up his leg, and Mackenzie sat on Carl’s chest.
“C’mon love, let me help you.”
She grabbed the hand that was still holding the rifle and started to twist it towards Carl’s jaw, trapping his fingers in her fist. It was impossible to get the barrel under his chin from that position, but that didn’t stop
