The Northern Apes (preview)

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It was an unusually warm, late October that seemed finally imperiled by an approaching storm of cold and snow.  Wether the cold would stay or move on was impossible to forecast as the world had become more unpredictable than ever.  A full frosting had come and gone already twice only to be baked back to life when the thermometer tilted remarkably back into the 70’s.  The ground softened again with a wetness that in the waning daylight, lasted for days beneath a gathering of soggy fallen leaves.  The leaves that still hung from branches had long stiffened and staled in color and feel. Scarlets, yellows and orange bled out leaving browns and russets shriveled and rattling from grey stands of Oak, Aspen and Maple. They chattered noisily in defiance to a fickle wind. Voluminous clouds freighted overhead indifferently, gathering against a pale blue sky until a thick overcast pal fully enveloped it. They seemed determined to stay anchored until spring but over and over again they were up-moored in the changing winds.

The animal kingdom had grown anxious and many species were on the move only to be stymied by indecision.  Sandhill Cranes chortled and spun in disarray high above, unsure of their plans for southern migration. Hawks left and then returned. Nuthatches and Chickadees, Jays and Finches all darted worriedly back and forth from pines to feeders uneasily hoping to not be detected by the ever-harassment of raptors sweeping down on them.

People too seemed overly laden with unease. Like leaves, fictions and falsehoods swept violently through the air until finding rest in collections settled deep on doorsteps. Blow it away and it was there again the day after.  There was no more room to stuff it away in a refuse bag and there was no where to go with it anyway. Society was straining at the seams.  There was no getting around it.  No avoiding it.  The only way was through it. And if you were determined, like the Anderson’s were, you might push through far enough, well into the north country before finding some respite.  

And so they did. It was hunting season after all and Kirsten had found a farmstead for rent near as far north as one can get before running into the impenetrable forests and waterways that separated Minnesota from Manitoba. The upshot was that it was remarkably affordable which justified the distance they had to travel to enjoy it.  But also it got her husband, Tom, away from all the incessant political banter that enveloped him and eroded away his sense of kindness and optimism he once moved through the world with.  Time away in the woods might restore him to the person she’d fallen in love many years ago. 

To facilitate that restoration, she needed more than just the woods.  More than just one-on-one time with him.  She needed the ‘old times’.  She needed family.  Her son, Dean, was newly discharged from his tour of service with the Navy and wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to go hunting with his dad for anything. But family alone wasn’t enough either.  Families too were reeling from the times.  Severed and silenced, estranged.  What they needed was reconnection to the larger family unit they once were. That connection took the form of young Matthew, her brother’s son who at present, from the sound of the door closing, was moments from following a nearby woodland path that led away from their little rented farmhouse. 

Matthew was an easy choice.  His eyes were big and hopeful and expressed a genuine connection when they were directed at you in conversation.  He was resilient. It took a lot to sour him on anything and for that everyone enjoyed being in his presence.  His nature was to flow with effortless continuity like the way water flows gently contorting itself to fit the course on its journey. She desired so much for just an aspersion of those waters to touch Tom.  That just a drop might lead to a sea-change in him.

She remembered with fondness, just before the pandemic forced families into hiding and politics further forced families into feuding, how Tom took to little Matthew’s interest in their getting ready for duck hunting.  Dean was struggling to fit himself into an orange camouflage bib and Tom laughed from the tailgate of his truck, “I think you’re getting bigger since the last time we went hunting!”

“I guess so.  That sucks because this is my favorite bib,” Dean said.

“Matthew, come over here. Try Dean’s bibs on.”

Matthew wandered over with excitement brewing in him.  He took the bib and a seat on the tailgate and a moment later erected himself straight and perfect in it.  

“Look at that,” Tom beamed.  He reached behind him and grabbed his shotgun and pressed it against Matthew’s chest. “Wanna go hunting?”

“Serious?” Matthew asked, almost seized with stillness with the sudden invite to hang out with the men in the family.  

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Tom said.  “Let’s ask your dad.”

That was four years ago already, when everyone got along and Kirsten’s biggest stressor was Dean’s looming departure for the Navy. Everything was different now, including their relationship with her brother.  She was relieved that with some pressure he finally relented to allow Matthew to at least partially reunite them in this long awaited hunt. She felt satisfaction, then coiled tightly against Tom in bed for just a few minutes more before she’d rise up to greet the day.

Walking the trail today, Matthew smiled remembering the moment he asked his dad about going on the hunt; “Aim for the toe-nails,” his dad responded in a moment of lightheartedness.  As a vegetarian who had no interest in his son taking up hunting. But not unlike the consumption of meat, he had an aversion to consumption of all things virtual. Worse, he hated the consumptive power of online gaming and the growing discord in social media that this younger generation was unwittingly being sucked into.  Particularly with the growing sensation around wearable technology.  The thought of his son donning goggles to interact with society was horrifying.  To be sure, Matthew’s ears echoed endlessly his dad’s blathering-on about the fate of our nature when nurture goes awry.  ‘What do we become when we can’t use our noses, eyes or ears the way thousands of years of evolution intended for us?’ ‘What come of us when we longer can process intellectually and emotionally how we might have hurt someone and the ensuing pathways to repair?’ ‘How does a millennia of perfecting humanness survive what technology seeks to disassemble in nano seconds?’ ‘What is left to do when we collectively discover the unrecognizable thing we devolved into?’ Finally, Matthew served up exactly what his dad hungered for which was to develop relationships with people— family, in the real world, even if that meant hunting an animal. 

What Matthew did not do however was extricate himself from gaming.  Instead, he immersed himself in it.  More so than anyone knew. It was his little secret that after everyone retired to their beds for the night, he’d set up camp on the downstairs couch and embark on a digital killing spree.  He’d creep in and out of the woods, leap fences, ease silently into ponds and rivers stalking his prey like a creature that having found the taste of blood, it’d stop an nothing to acquire it again.  He never swung a real hammer.  Knew no difference in screwdrivers.  Didn’t know the difference between a nail or screw for that matter. But if the game environment didn’t have what he needed for concealment or cover, he could manufacture an elaborate structure in seconds in tapping a controller button in rapid succession.  Eventually, sometime just before dawn, he’d tire of all the murder, turn the computer off and zombie-off to a bed where he’d collapse. In sleep he’d morph back into the sweetness the real world thought of him.

Now, a kind of impossible doppelgänger moved through the real world, moving with a swagger not unlike his cousin.  He even adopted something akin to the look in Dean’s eyes— the kind of look that bespoke of having been places and done things that only going places and doing things could impart.  Dean was newly minted a man after four years of service. The transformation in Matthew however was immediate and all it took was the addition of a real gun. 

Matthew knew the gun he was now holding, he used it often in gaming during sniping situations where a long-range, single-shot was needed.  But now it was real and strangely unfamiliar.  The gun had weight to it. Texture. Rigidity.  The metal was cold to the touch and also had something he’d not expected to find when at last he took hold of it— it had seriousness to it.  Almost too serious.  A voice called up from deep inside him asking if he was really ready for this moment. Boys play computer games.  Men kill things he told himself and the voice quieted.   All the while, the morning dew soaked through his bib until the voice returned to nag about the cold, clingy feeling on his skin.  Maybe hunting isn’t for you it retorted.

Soon he came to the tree that Tom and Dean had scouted for them earlier.  It was an old oak tree whose main trunk had the shape of a hand reaching up and out of the ground, just past the wrist.  From there, it’s trunk forked into 3 large limbs splayed wide horizontally before angling skyward.  It was here in the hand of the palm that a platform of 2x4’s and spike nails had been installed some years before. The decking was grey and old and in some places, so weathered and rotten that a foot might break through with the rest of the body to follow.

He nervously ascended to the deck using the make-shift ladder which was nothing more than leftover 2x4 pieces double-nailed in skewed directions directly to the trunk.  With each grasp the holds twisted in the soft bark. Once on top, a testicle-tingling glance down gave rise to a choral of revolt inside him.  

Having calmed and situated himself, Matthew scanned about and gathered that he was well concealed.  Woodland flanked his position on the edge of a field enveloped with a thick blanket of lifting fog. He also learned immediately that he wasn’t alone.  There was something moving about in the ghostly cornstalks some fifty yards away. Now and then he glanced its hairy hump just piercing the top of the fog.  He was careful not to make any sound that might disturb it. The breeze was blowing down the field which was in his favor, excepting for the rancid smell emanating from whatever the animal was or was eating. The coloring made him think it to be a bear which excited him except that he’d never seen a bear nor knew what danger it might present him.  All he knew was that bears were not a thing to agitate.  Follow that rule, and everything would be ok.

After a few minutes, he spotted movement off to the west side of the field.  A large buck with a full rack on its head was emerging from the wood line.  Matthew’s heart skipped a beat with anxiousness.  It was the largest deer he’d ever seen and the side of its torso was wide open for a shot to the heart.  He was new to hunting still but not so new as to not recognize the gift that stood there before his eyes. His mind was racing, thinking about bringing this bounty back to the cabin. He’d fill the meat freezer of two households! And better yet, in just a few seconds his hunter credibility would jump to the highest in outdoorsman ranks.  The kind of stature occupied by veteran and elite hunters.  This was a trophy!  He couldn’t wait to pose wrestling the head of the dead animal into frame for the picture!    

He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and panned around until the deer came into view.  His raging adrenaline was giving him the shakes all over.  It occurred to him he was holding his breath and the crosshairs lifted and fell with each pump of his heart.  He had to calm himself again.  Exhale, inhale, exhale...  Just like he did when sniping his foes in his on-line gaming community.  He had to relax or he’d pull the shot and miss altogether and betray his location.  He learned from Dean that when firing a weapon, you had to wait for precisely the moment of respiratory pause when the exhale has left your lung, and before the next breath started.  That’s when you ease the trigger back. Slow and steady.  

Next, he quickly micro-adjusted his gun support. He was seated cross-legged with his elbows resting in the inner-fold his knees made between his thighs and calves.  He flickered his eyelids and found that he was perfectly sight-aligned on placing the bullet in the animal’s heart.  His breath emptied out of him, he’d just started putting pressure on the trigger when suddenly he felt a change in the environment. The buck in his scope had frozen completely still as though it had just been alerted.  And strangely, it seemed like nature itself was also stunned and stilled. It was a sudden dead-silence.  It was ominous as though he himself was now the prey and he’d just been found. It seemed the moment in a game when instinct said to strafe just as your fingers said to fire. But Matthew didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he disengaged from the buck and drew the barrel and crosshair down to his right towards where the bear-thing was. Any notion of nabbing a prize buck had simply vanished from his thoughts.  What now existed in its place was a kind of preternatural survival response that even triggered the deer, sending it leaping back into the woods. 

Panning the lens across the field, he expected he’d see the creature this time.  The veiling fog was dissipating, revealing that the fields themselves were mostly denuded of corn crop cover.  What remained were only narrow strips of standing stalks.  Hardly enough to hide even a field mouse.  He noticed that the hairs on his skin were similarly erected and that he too was entirely revealed in a hunter-orange bib that flamed more and more bright as the fog cleared out. He was holding his breath again with the trigger half-squeezed.

Then, there it was.  A large dark mass motionless in the grey-vapor mist peeling up from the ground.  Exactly what it was he still couldn’t tell.  All definition of the animal was mostly obscured yet and it seemed it was hiding, hunched in a ball and secretive about what it had been doing.  What was discernible however from what lines of bodily definition Matthew could make out was that it was much bigger than a bear.  Perhaps as big as a moose. It had to be a moose.  

By now Matthew was shaking. The lens was jittery all over the animal.  He couldn’t hold anything in view long enough for his eyes to conclusively determine what he was seeing but the words for what appeared were popping into his mind nevertheless.  Logic was mutinous.  He couldn’t really be seeing fingernails, fingers, hands on an animal. Those were not forearms, biceps, shoulders, chest.  They couldn’t be— unless he was looking at a man— a man fully covered in dark hair.  Then there was the face!  It had eyes brilliant white with a gold iris like that of a lion.  It was staring straight into his soul.  A face with an expression that suddenly rumpled with anger.  Nostrils flaring wide.  Lips rolling up and silently flashing a set of gnashed teeth.

Matthew was thrown backwards before he knew what was happening.  The rifle had kicked against his shoulder without even knowing he’d pulled the trigger.  Now it was laying on the ground fifteen feet below him having caught him so off guard in his panic that he’d not even had a proper grip on it. Had he just shot a man?  He quickly searched for any movement in the corn, any sign of anything.  But there was nothing.  His ears muffled and ringing from the blast of the rifle, if there was a screaming, he wouldn’t have heard it anyway.  You’re in danger! The voice warned from within him.  It was just enough of a prodding to break him of his shock and uncontrollable trembling of fear that had seized him. He jumped from the tree and sprinted back towards the cabin without a glance back.

Back at the house, Kirsten was now up out of bed and annoyances had beat back any tranquil feelings she had initially stirred awake with.  She didn’t sleep well hearing voices all night being broadcasted from a radio set up out in the shed.  When they’d arrived yesterday, they discovered that Arlo, the owner of the place, had left a note on the counter indicating that they may hear it from time to time depending on which direction the wind was blowing.  Having it on was necessary to keep the animals away from eating the chickens.  But as far as she could tell, there were no chickens.  The adjacent coop was in shambles, seemingly for some time.  Perhaps ol’ Arlo, being an old man had just lost touch with some aspects of reality, she allowed.  But the house too seemed more in shambles then she was lead to believe and that was almost unforgivable.  It smelled like mold, no doubt owing to the old furniture and shaggy carpeting that seemed as old as the farmstead itself. The thought of sitting in the little living room was revolting to her.  Even standing in it was enough to send her running for the shower, but then again, there wasn’t any hot water to cleanse herself without first boiling it on the stove. She was on the verge of calling the whole escape to the north woods off and demanding a refund, if it wasn’t for the skip in the step she witnessed in Matthew as he bolted out the door early this morning.  

Despite the house’s austerity, she was able to make things work, especially in the kitchen which was most important because nothing suited her better than cooking a breakfast for the boys.  With her working the stove, it was assured that their plates were coming together with great care.  Eggs from their coop back home fried over-easy with not a single yolk broken, grizzled with the juices of their handmade venison sausage.  Similarly, potatoes grown in their backyard, lightly boiled before fried and smothered in butter and sausage gristle and thyme. Tom came up along her, topped off her black coffee before servicing his own mug.  Dean nibbled on a piece of toast smothered with honey and banana from the table. Then they all heard a shot off in the distance and threw looks of surprise at one another.  

“I think someone might have got their first deer!” Kirsten said, arranging the last of the potatoes from the skillet to their plates.  

Tom didn’t respond and it was Dean that noticed it.  Tom finished his pour, sipped it carefully with the heat just short of burning his lips.  The steam rolled up his face not unlike the fog that lay across the landscape outside the window.  The woods had a kind of baleful appearance which lended to the feeling of unease that Tom had.  And it didn’t help that he’d already spent most of his time awake second guessing whether he should’ve let Matthew out there alone.  Dean was wired the same way where he could just seem to read things from the air.  He’d been wrestling with the urge to run out there and just check on his cousin. There seemed an obligation to oversight that they both just let slip this morning. Hearing the shot suggested the hunt might be over but strangely, it did nothing to ease the guilt.

The two of them had been Matthew’s sole trainers after all over the last year, introducing him to everything from shotguns to handguns, rifles and bows. This is where things got under Tom’s skin and set to flame what had been smoldering in him for some time now. They’d been careful every step of the way to toughen the boy but what’s ripened on him since that first invite to come hunting was the notion that Matthew was still too soft and always would be.  If something had happened out there to little Matthew, Tom would be blamed, but it was his dad’s fault in the bigger picture.  He seemed to encourage softness in the boy.  Like men should be embarrassed for their innate masculine qualities. Shamed into touchy-feely, rainbow flag waving eunuchs.  The problem wasn’t limited to just his brother-in-law’s cultural view, it was endemic in society.  What the Andersons represented together was ancient— from the time of hunter gatherers.  They did what they did not because it was a fun hobby but because it was necessary to put food on the table when laboring daily with callused hands wasn’t enough.  High-minded progressives and liberals looked down on their kind, on their world.  It’s become more evident than ever to Tom these last couple years how different— how flawed and weak we were becoming without men of strength running things.  No— Matthew wasn’t cut like them.  He was growing up without hardship in a pampering well-to-do household.  Never had to mow lawns.  Never had to repair a thing. Never had to figure things out on his own. Never had to put a dog down. His hands were soft too, just like his dad’s.  Smooth still like the skin on a newborn baby’s ass which suggested he’d never had to work a hard day his whole life. He felt that for Matthew, this was all still a game that he could play and put away when it suited him as the mere mention of having to field dress a kill drained the color from his skin.  No matter what they might introduce to the boy from their world, the closest he would ever get to really needing to hunt for sustenance was seeking out grass-fed beef in the meat aisle at a natural foods co-op with his dad.

Dean was watching his dad in all his rumination when he noticed a slight change in his stance staring out the window. Concern amplified on his face.  His eyes became intense.  His jaw tensed.  Dean turned around himself and looked out the window and saw what figured to be a ghost moving swiftly towards them from what he could make of a trail that evanesced from the fog and a tunnel of trees.  Nearer and nearer Matthew came and Dean swallowed hard when on his cousin’s face he saw terror and tears.  

“I shot someone!” The boy pleaded in agony throwing the door open.  And for what seemed an eternity, no one had words for a response.  It was Tom who at last spoke.

“Drive into town and get the sheriff, dear.  Or at least near enough to town where you might get some cell reception.  Dean, let’s go have a look.”

But Kirsten faltered and instead moved swiftly to embrace the boy and calm him.  

“What happened out there, Matthew? What is it?” She asked in as soothing a voice she could muster while the whole of her being was shaking with panic.

His retelling was as equally shaken.  Fragmented. Broken and incoherent.  “I don’t know.  There was a buck, and I— And then there was this, this— I thought I was looking at a bear.  It was just laying there in the fog.  Eating or digging in front of me.  I didn’t mean to do it, I’m telling you!  It’s true!  He scared the buck off and when I looked at him— When I looked at him— Looked at him through the scope— It wasn’t a bear.  No!  No! It wasn’t a bear!”

“What was it honey? What did you see?” Kirsten coaxed, pulling his face and directing his reddened eyes to meet hers.

“He was big!  Bigger than a bear.  He had hair, like a moose.  Then I thought that’s what it was. But I saw his hands.  I think they were hands.  And then I saw—,” he froze.  The words wouldn’t come for what replayed in his mind’s eye.  He just stood there, trembling, staring blankly at Kirsten.  

“What, honey?  What else?” Kirsten pressed.  But there was nothing else. Matthew was simply stuck there in that moment, his vision turned inwards seeing that growl-face flash at him.

“The oak stand?” Tom asked the boy, and Matthew after a long moment nodded before burying himself in Kirsten’s arms again.

“The smell,” Matthew said with a trance-like stare that gripped Dean.  “It was bad.  He smelled like— he smelled like death. And he growled angrily at me like he was very, very angry that I found him.  And he was going to kill me for that.  And then I killed him.”

Anger flared in Tom.  This was exactly what happens when softness caries a gun.  

When Tom and Dean came upon the tree, Dean found the rifle laying on the ground and reached for it.

“No,” Tom said sternly and Dean knew what was said without it being articulated.  This might be a crime scene.

They moved forward into the field swiftly but carefully. He hoped what Matthew shot was a bear or anything but a man.  And scanning about, it seemed improbable that a man would be out here anyway.  There was nothing out here for a man to simply be wandering about in the early morning hours.  But if it was a man he shot, he prayed he was still alive. It was all he could do to stave off the cascading thoughts of Matthew having to carry the weight of killing someone’s for the rest of his life. A part of him clung to the hope that the fog had just confused the boy and none of it really happened. But then, there it was. Tom was puzzled instantly by what he was looking at. A hunter most all his life, he’d never seen anything like this.  It was so foreign to him that his mind said that what he was seeing wasn’t real. The man’s chest had been splayed open with the ribs protruding in bright white spears. All his innards gone. The eyes and tongue too.  Most of his skin was peeled away. Even his cranial had been broken open and cleaned of all brain matter leaving a bright white empty bucket for a head.

“Is it him?” Matthew cried from behind, surprising the two that he’d followed.

Dean knelt down in front of his dad and the two of them exchanged looks of confusion.

“Matthew, you didn’t shoot at a man,” Tom said.

“I did! I killed him!”

“No.  Listen to me.  This wasn’t your doin’.  Just relax and stay back. This man’s been dead for a long while. You shot at something that was eating what remained of him.”

“A bear?” Tom asked Dean quietly.

Dean shook his head searching the ground and finding no tracks of a bear.

“Wolf?”

Dean continued to scan but all he found was blood on some corn stalks and the bare footprints of the man. They were huge, sixteen inches or more in length and substantially wider than he’d ever seen in a print.  

“He shot something but all I can find is this guy’s footpri—” he stopped and stared at the boots the dead man was wearing. “Only they’re barefooted and much larger.”

Tom rose back to his feet, curious of what Dean was tripped-up with.  He saw the large bare-footed prints that led in from the forest and back again and saw they didn’t belong to the corpse.  In disbelief, his eyes returned back to the woods and stayed there.  

“On second thought, grab that rifle,” Tom directed and again Dean knew.  Something was wrong.  Something different. “Let’s get back to the house.”

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