Beast

At dusk, he carried a small backpack into the park, unfurled a one-man pop-up tent near the ablutions of the main camping ground. The tent screamed vivid yellows and blues—jarringly incongruent with his craggy face and deadpan expression.

Until recently, it had been his son’s. From the many times they’d come here together. Way back when anything still mattered.

It was a warm day. Birds sang. The occasional deer presented itself as though contracted to add to the scene. In the distance, children swam in a mirrored lake, laughed. People were grilling meats—whiffs of sweet, smoky death. They spoke about things they cared about. They loved and hated and strived and celebrated. They clung to life and the world and all its ephemeral beauty.

The man had nothing in common with them. Not anymore. He couldn’t wait to get away from here.

The backpack held no clothing. Only matches, a bag of roasted almonds, two large water bottles, an old Swiss army knife, a bottle of whisky. It was all he needed for where he was heading. Soon, he would need even less, would need nothing at all.

The man started a fire, drank whisky straight from the bottle, scowled at the campers, hoping to convey his earnest desire not to be disturbed.

To no avail. Here she came. She always did.

Always a stranger. Always exactly the same person.

‘Hello,’ said a fat woman on her lumbering way to the showers. She carried a pink towel and a pink toiletry bag. She regarded him, the bottle of whisky, his tired, lined, desolate face. The look of a man lost and desperate and worn to the bone.

She probably considered herself a good person. Someone that was trying to help. They always do.

The man said nothing, took another sip of whisky, wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.

‘Are you hiking the waterfalls tomorrow,’ asked the woman, gave a limp little grin, gestured west to the hulking cloud-ringed mountains.

‘No,’ said the man, feeling like that single word was already more than anyone should expect of him.

‘Oh,’ said the woman, taken aback by his quiet belligerence. Her eyes narrowed with determination. She persisted. ‘Surely not the Shadowed Valley,’ she asked, even though there were only two paths from here, one east, one west, and his answer had eliminated the western way.

‘None of your business,’ said the man, watched her face contort with ire. Virtue never ran deeply, mused the man. Always a façade. Mostly for the benefit of the ostensibly gracious.

The woman took that as an affirmative. ‘You really shouldn’t,’ she said, exuding good intentions. ‘There are dark things there. Don’t know whether you’ve heard. It’s not a good place. People who go there never come back,’ she said, stating common knowledge like it was arcane. ‘I know sometimes things get bad and people want to give up, but there’s always hope,’ she added, putting a plump hand between her breasts. ‘I really believe that,’ she said.

‘Maybe you should mind your own business,’ said the man, took another swig.

‘Oh my,’ said the woman, her face betraying a procession of conflicting emotions.

‘I’m over there,’ she waved, after a while. ‘My husband’s a pastor,’ she said. ‘If you need someone to speak to.’

He gave her the finger, spat whisky at her feet.

‘Oh my,’ said the woman, hand to neck. She shuffled away huffily, hips swaying like a brown bear.

The man dreamed of the boy, his begotten beloved.

Every night, he dreamed of the boy.

Some of the dreams were memories, others a collage of impressions, not all factual, but all true.

Tonight, he dreamed of the boy running and hooting on a vast lush meadow while he stood by a barbeque flipping burgers.

In this dream the man was happy. The sun shone dazzlingly and birds twittered in surrounding woodlands. The air smelled sweet, herbaceous. Everything was picture-perfect, or his memories had made it so.

And she was there. His chosen beloved. Her hair caught fiery red as she threw her head back and laughed. Together, they watched their boy, grinning, sharing a beer and a joint.

Here came the boy, running toward the man, his face smeared muddy, his legs stained grass-green, his eyes bright, jubilant, made of light and life and everything pure and joyous. The man tousled the boy’s dirty blonde hair and felt like the luckiest guy alive.

He woke briefly in the night, listened to bats swoop, rubbed at his tear-stained face.

The next morning presented itself with harrowing beauty.

To the man, it seemed unnatural, disdainful, that the world could be this way. Bright, blue, verdant, full of cheerful carefree life. It grated against his inner realm. It seemed like a lie.

It was a world, a sight, he had once shared with his son over a cup of sweet tea, eating baked beans with hot sauce and soft salty fried eggs, excited for the day’s adventures.

An alien world. A fake world.

The man had a hangover, but had risen early. Sometimes the authorities came, he knew, tried to stop anyone intending to take the lesser route, the way east, the journey into shadow. Sometimes they brought a psychologist. Some simpering, bleeding-heart imbecile. He’d seen it before. Before he could even conceive why anyone would do that. Why anyone would venture into the Shadowed Valley.

He left the tent and what remained of the bottle of whisky, stalked away down the narrow path east. Like magic, in little more than a dozen steps, the world behind him fell away. Even the sounds. And its warmth.

The path was narrow, rocky, overgrown, arched over with limp tree branches and stringy sickly-looking lichen. It swallowed him. It was cool and shaded and soothing. The path sloped down. He wanted to go down. Going down felt natural. The way things were meant to be. Away from the light.

He longed for darkness. Darkness to soothe what light had scorched. Darkness to pull his mind farther and deeper, away from the world, away from his self. Away from memory. Away from humanity. Maybe even away from his shame.

At about midday, the man took a break, soaked his feet in a muddy rivulet, chomped away at his bag of almonds. He was not thinking about anything in particular. He was not feeling anything notable. In fact, he was trying not to think or feel. He’d concluded thinking and feeling were pointless, gave nothing in return but pain and despair. And this inner emptiness seemed easy here. As though quiet and calm seeped into him from the soil. He hoped the emptiness would deepen. That it would eventually erase him.

It was only later, in the twilight, that he started hearing the dark things. Whispers like broken breezes. The voices of things that gathered in the Shadowed Valley. Everyone knew of the dark things. Not what they were, but that they were. He’d heard it rumored there were dark things this far from the Shadowed Valley. Not many. Only occasionally. People said they were bestial, monstrous things, that they ate the flesh of dead hikers, that they hunted in the gloom, that they were fragments of shattered souls.

The man wasn’t scared of the dark things. He was scared of the world and the sun’s brightness. He was scared of children’s laughter. He was scared of hope and happiness and love. He wasn’t scared of dying, if that was what their presence forbode.

He slept well that evening. He lay in a hollow under the roots of a dying tree. The soil was moist and smelled of blood. It was cold and he had nothing to cover himself, but he figured he’d have to get used to being exposed to the elements anyway. Might as well start now. One went to the Shadowed Valley to be one with nature, thought the man. Not to fight it.

At some point he woke to a cold full moon blindingly on his face. He could feel them watching. He could hear them on the periphery of his vision. Dead eyes. Blinking in the night.

Do with me as you please, thought the man, fell asleep again.