The Woods: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I started looking back over to my leg. It was mostly numb, so I thought it would be the best time for me to look at the wound. As I took of the cloth, I also took off some of the scab that had grown onto the strip itself. It hurt a little bit, but it didn’t bleed. That was a good sign, I guess.

I started touching it with my bare hand. My fingers burned from the cold, and seemed to get warmed from the water. With every move, they seemed to warm even more. I don’t know if this was because they were numbing, or if it was because the water was legitimately warmer than the outside and air. I like to think the second.

The cut had bumps all over it. It wasn’t how I was used to scabs feeling. I was mostly sure it was infected.

I sat back against a tree, and blew a few strands of my hair out of my eyes. “What about the night?”

At night, this time of year, you could typically depend of it to drop below zero. That was usually fine, because I would wear about seven layers of clothes. But tonight I would have one. That would mean that I would have to find a way to survive.

I took my leg out of the water, as comfortable as it seemed. I stuck it toward an artery to help it warm up. I had to try and take as much of an advantage from the day as I could. I felt myself all over. Nothing was wet except for the foot I put in the water. That was good. Wouldn’t have to make something dry out.

I used to be a movie freak. When I was first stranded, I watched movies at this drive in, and the owner would never try and stop me. When the movie would finish, I would take my things and leave. It was a simple, easy thing to do. It would be fine the next day, too.

I remembered a fact from some stupid documentary I watched. Snow is always 32 degrees.

I was going to make an igloo.

It was starting to get late. I guess I woke up around 8:00 am. It was maybe five by this point. Getting dark. Real dark. Real fast.

I started shivering. More than I was before, at the very least. The snow was dense. I started to pick it up and stack it, trying to pack it into itself. Make the wall. Then the ceiling. Try and stay alive for one night. That was hard. My fingers became number than I have ever felt them. They felt like they were burning. But I had to keep moving. If I was going to survive.

I need to move faster. My old bones creaked as I picked up more and more snow. It was freezing my skin. I need to move faster. I started using both hands to pick it up. My feet were cold as fuck. I need to move faster. My knees were becoming weaker. The sun was down further and I wasn’t going to make it. I need to move faster. My elbows felt like they were going to lock up at any moment. I looked around for anyone who could help. A passerby. A person with the decency to take an old man into their car for just one night. A rescue team. But then again, who wants to rescue me. I need to move faster. At the rate that I was going in, I wouldn’t be able to make it.

That’s when there was a scuffle to my left.

“Who’s there?” I said, as I grabbed a tree branch off the ground.

I saw someone wearing a heavy winter jacket and ski pants. He stepped out of the woods holding a knife.

I knew he was from the cult. He stepped closer and closer as he prepared himself for a fight. Survival of the fittest. This is what he meant. This wasn’t just throwing me out in the woods to see if I would survive. They wanted to see if despite my old age, I was able to kill. To take another man’s life. I gripped the branch hard. I was going to have to do something drastic in order to survive. I was going to have to kill a man. And I was more than prepared for it too. I knew that this man was a bad person. He was worshiping murder of another man. He was worshiping the killing of anybody that didn’t believe in what he did.

We began walking in a circle facing each other. The only combat experience that I had was to beat other homeless people who threatened to take something that belonged to me. Fists. Pipes. We would fight until one of us ran away. But this was different. If I run away, he hunts me down and kills me anyways. He thought that this was a good thing to do. Anyone weaker than him should die. I guess it makes a slight amount of sense. But this isn’t a different species. He isn’t killing for survival. He isn’t killing because he needs their meat. Or their skin. Their bone to use as a weapon. He was killing because he wanted to. And what was it he wanted? He wanted another man to die by his hand. He wanted another man to die because he is weaker. Weaker than him. Weaker than someone he knows.

In my first winter in Colorado, I tried stealing from a homeless man. An old guy. He was sleeping, and I didn’t have a jacket. He had a couple that he wasn’t wearing. I tried taking them, but he was using them like a blanket. When I tried to pick one off his feet, he kicked me hard in the chest and knocked me on my back. He then proceeded to stand up, get on top of me, and punch me in the face. Repeatedly. I was knocked senseless. What was I supposed to do? He had me by the front of my shirt, and he was beating the shit out of me. I named it “old man power.” Essentially, it means that this old guy that you thought would be weak, is strong as shit. For the first few seconds. Then they get tired, and they can’t fight anymore. But when this guy stopped, I didn’t try and beat the shit out of him. I just ran away. I ran the fuck away.

Something about this asshole standing in front of me told me that he hadn’t learned much about old men. That he didn’t know how powerful the first few blows are.

He came at me, full force. One dodge, and he hit a tree. Face first. Like the stupid piece of shit that he is. I took a nice, hard swing at his head. I missed his head, but I hit his neck. He fell down to the ground. The wood snapped in half. No doubt it was because of the hit. I threw both pieces, one at a time at him. And they hit him in his back, hard. He groaned after each one. I walked to the place where he fell. The knife he was holding was sitting by his feet, and I picked it up. I walked the rest of the way up to his head. He was lying like he was trying to go to sleep. On his side. Arms out. I kicked him in the chest, and he coughed. Spit something up that I couldn’t see. It was dark though. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was blood. He lied on his back. “Come on, man. Just let me the fuck go.”

“Sure.” I said as I grabbed him by his shirt. I lifted him up, and made him stand up. Take off the pants.

He took off his heavy ski pants over his boots. I grabbed them and put them on.

“Now the jacket.”

He took of the jacket and gave it to me. I held it on my arm.

“Now the shirt.”

“Come on man. Just let me go.”

“Give me the shirt.” I pressed the knife on its side against his face. It slid down, and the tip of it nipped the bottom of his cheek, causing it to bleed.

He took off his shirt. I put it on, then the jacket.

“Take of the boots and the socks.”

He started tearing up. I started to see them drizzle down his face. He knew what was going on. He thought I was going to take his shit and throw him out into the woods. He was mostly right.

He handed them to me. I leaned in close to him. I put my mouth near his ear and whispered “you shouldn’t have tried to kill me.”

His own knife slipped into his stomach. I slipped it back out. Then back in. Then back out. I think his stomach had at least twelve new holes in it. Not pores. Not new areas for hair. Holes that looked like lines. Each went about 3 inches inside him. By the end, I pushed him to the ground, and he slid off the blade on more time. He made red snow.

When I looked down at him, it was like looking at a crime scene. It was almost like I could see the yellow tape up already. I could hear the police talking about the fact he was stabbed. “See, he was stabbed about ten times at least. We need to get the detectives in here, see.”

I walked toward where he had come from. There was a bag that looked mostly full. I guess it was just in case he had to spend a few days looking for me. I walked toward it, and opened it up. There was a gun, matches, a tarp, and a sleeping bag. The essentials.

With a gun, I could take more guys out. It would be kind of like I saw in Total Recall. Bang bang, you’re dead.

The tarp was made of plastic, good for keeping off water. If it rained, or if snow started to melt off a tree, I could hold it over me.

Sleeping bag is warm.

Matches make fire.

I started with fire. Put some stick s together. Put some dead grass in it. Boom. Fire. No hassle for the most part. I had to learn how to make fire, just so I could make it through winters. There would be paper in the city though. When you lit a fire, there would be more people that came over and held their hands over it. One winter, I got a whole bottle of whiskey. Just because I had a fire going. The guy felt like I deserved something. During the winter, whiskey, vodka, anything liquor, and fire. That was what I had going for me. I usually only had a little bit of cash. A thin little jacket. Not much at all.

I started thinking about my morals. Was murdering another person okay or not? Think about my circumstance. I was an old man who was thrown into the woods by a cult. A cult. Not just any cult either. A cult that believed that they were supposed to be the people that made natural selection happen. Like they were responsible for it.

People in wars have to kill. They have to shoot other people. Those people that they kill are people they have never seen before. They aren’t someone they have even seen before. Some of the people put up a fight, especially if they are being forced to perform hand to hand combat. They sometimes are forced to fight another person to the death, which can last anywhere from 30 seconds to a few hours. I had to fight to the death a few times too. I’ve killed young and stupid college students that had just gotten out of bars and were too drunk to fight back. Just for the $20 that they may or may not have in their wallets.