“I never told you about the things your uncle and I used to find out here, did I?” Billy asked his boy as they plodded along the forest path, the frozen, snow-covered earth crunching beneath their feet.
Andrew shook his shaggy, blonde head.
“People leave all sorts of junk out here. Porno mags, old clothes… stuff like that. What’s funny is that we always found stuff, lots of stuff, but we never found the people that left it behind. Ain’t that funny?” Billy continued.
Andrew knew that once his father started, there was no stopping him. Especially not after he began pulling from that pocket flask with the Don’t Tread on Me sticker emblazoned on the front. Andrew had smelled that burnt smokey scent so often that he could recognize it from a mile away.
Billy took another deep draw from the small, silver flask. Andrew watched him take a few swigs and heard the noisy gulps of the liquid trickling down into his gullet.
Billy was used to the way his throat burned every time he drank but he still wheezed like a broken vacuum. He couldn’t help it; this whiskey was the good stuff, and the pain was worth the pleasure. Soon, the liquor’s heat would push the winter chill from his body and the aches in his back would go away too. He gasped again, wiped a dirty sleeve across his lips, and slipped the flask back into his vest pocket. Then he slung the rifle over his shoulder again and turned towards Andrew.
“That’s funny, ain’t it?” Billy asked again, his tone more insistent.
Andrew nodded.
“No matter how far you come out here, you always run into someone else’s shit. But you never see the person or their tracks. Even during this time of the year!”
“The tribe that used to live in these parts, they had a local legend about a monster that used to live out this way,” Billy cleared his throat and wiped a few stray beads of spittle and whiskey from his lips again. “Now what was the name of it? The wampum, the why-oot? You remember, boy?” Billy glanced at his son, Andrew answered him with a shrug.
“Anyways, they have this local legend around here that there’s a spirit of something that lives out in the middle of the woods. It takes the form of someone you know. Then it leads you deeper into the forest. Where it takes you, God knows, but anyone who follows it is never seen again. Hell, maybe it’s real and it took all those folks that come out here after all. Maybe that’s why they left everything behind, I dunno. I ain’t never seen anything strange or heard anything either. My pal Randy, the park ranger, you remember him? He said he seen some shit out here too.”
Billy stopped in his tracks to think. “Damn, this’ll kill me, what was it called? The Way-oh, the Winnebago?”
Andrew knew his father would keep guessing until his buzz wore off.
Billy grunted and shook his head and the pair continued on through the forest, Andrew silently plodding through the snow and Billy plowing through like a bull in a China shop. In the fading sunlight, the forest around them began to take on a dark blue pallor and the shadows of the trees grew deeper and stretched their gnarled branches across the path.
Again, Billy slipped the flask from his pocket and took another swig. He could still feel the crisp December air sneaking its way into his camouflage Carhartt jacket and he needed to warm up fast. But then a wave of guilt crept into him as he realized how much colder his son must be.
“You cold, boy? You want a swig? Eh… on second thought you’re only 12.”
“I’m 14, Dad,” Andrew replied.
Billy quickly dropped his head, hoping Andrew hadn’t noticed the look of shame spreading across his face. The whiskey-soaked gears in his mind churned quickly, desperate to find something else to change the subject to.
“What the Hell did the tribe call that thing? It was their own version of one of them Skinwalker creatures. ‘Cept the thing I found most curious about it is that it never makes you do anything. You just follow it on your own… it talks you into following it deeper into the forest. I always wondered how it could do that.”
“It’s getting late, Dad.” Andrew broke Billy’s train of thought.
“We gotta bag a deer at some point, Andrew. We ain’t going home empty-handed.” Billy grunted, but Andrew could hear was beginning to slur his words.
“By the time we get to dressing it, it’ll be pitch dark!” Andrew protested.
But there was a shift in Billy this time and Andrew could see the frustration bubbling out of him like an overboiled pot of water.
“Alright, now listen. Your bitch mother asked me to take you out today so she could finally catch a break from your ass. So don’t be complaining when I’m doing her a favor. Ya hear?” Billy’s breath reeked of alcohol as he stepped closer and nearly jabbed his finger into his son’s chest.
But Andrew held his ground, cleared his throat, and muttered in a low voice. “We’re never gonna bag a deer if you keep bitching like that… Billy.”
Billy had started towards the path again, but his son’s words yanked him back and he spun to face Andrew. “What did you just say to me, you little shit?”
“I’m saying…” Andrew started, but Billy swiftly cut him off.
“You’re saying nothing! You don’t ever talk to me that way, and we ain’t leaving till we bag a deer!” Billy pulled out his flask again, and raised it up high, draining whatever swill was still left at the bottom.
“Mom left you because you weren’t man enough,” Andrew muttered under his breath. But as quiet as the words were, the sentence hit Billy like a slap to his face.
“What was that?”
“That’s what Mom said. She told me you weren’t man enough to ask for a raise, that you always stank of booze. That I needed a stronger man to raise me. And that’s why she took me and left.”
Billy was taken aback. He could only stand there, stunned. He felt as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning, but it had been his own flesh and blood.
“Listen…” Billy started, but then he began to whimper. He didn’t want his son to see him cry like this, but those words had stung his heart like a hornet and the alcohol had weakened the floodgates in his eyes.
He whimpered again like an old, wounded dog and Andrew took a step towards his father. His firm, cold hand reached towards Billy’s large calloused one.
“It’s okay, Dad. We can still go bag a deer if you really want.”
But Billy didn’t hear him. He hadn’t expected to be punched hard in the gut like that. He understood his ex-wife’s frustration with him, but she needed to leave Andrew out of it. Billy’s mind began to swim, grasping for words like branches in a raging river.
“It’s fine, boy.” Billy finally said through tears. “We can go back now, watch some football. Whatever you want. I just want to do you proud.”
“I know, Dad. But let’s keep on. Us Coburns don’t quit, right? I know where we can find some deer, through the woods, right this way.” Andrew smiled, clutching his father’s hand with a firm grip.
Billy took one last look at the path they had followed through the forest and noticed that their snowprints had changed ever so slightly with each step. His own prints melted and flattened as the last of the sunlight blanketed the forest floor in that last gasp of light before nightfall. But at first, Andrew’s prints seemed to be disappearing more with each step, until the last few prints barely showed at all. It didn’t make sense, but Billy pushed the thought from his mind. It was probably just a trick of the fading light.
“I remember the name of it now, Dad.” Andrew continued and looked up at his father with his shining, blue eyes. Eyes that seemed, somehow, to pierce through the encroaching darkness.
“It was the Wechuge. The Indian tribe called it the Wechuge.”