Behavior Report 18

Dearest Love,

Assessing life or death decisions from a tree branch a thousand feet in the air is an experience I never could have imagined happening. Then again, seeing a mountain come to life and throw bits of its body at a Kraut airplane is unbelievable too, but I promise you that it happened. I’ve never been more on the level with you. Has anyone ever put such sentences together?

The more I think about it, the decision I needed to make was not life or death. A more appropriate way to describe the decision was more like – what death was easier. I wanted to run. Run away. Run as far away as I possibly could. But how would I live alone in such a place? Where would I go? Would Alek chase me down? Would I become prey to some monstrous racoon or possum? Or worse. Would a rabbit accidentally step on me?

I also felt that I could stay with Alek. I wanted to see what else could be possible in the forest. But how would I live with him? All his talk of keeping balance in the forest was frightening. How could I ever stay vigilant with him by my side? His absolute lack of understanding of reality was certain to be a problem. I saw no weapon on him, but rage and insanity are worthy instruments to fear.

His attention was fully drawn to the plane and the crash and the mountain collapsing onto itself as it retired back to the earth. This is going to sound terrible, but I thought about charging Alek at that moment. I thought about pushing him backward until he fell over the edge. It would be a quick end. I had size and nourishment over him. All the cards were in my hands. But even if I tried, I couldn’t follow through. I couldn’t nudge my foot forward for that first step toward him. My Love, the one advantage I didn’t have was a killer’s instinct. That was something that I could see in Alek’s eyes.

Alek ran off while I was lost inside my head. He was crawling into his borrow before he stopped and yelled, “We must go. Now!”

Back in the tree, the torches remained burning as robustly as when they were first lit. Alek put on his cloak and then handed me my pack, helmet, and rifle. We did everything in silence. There was something in Alek’s eyes, a determination of sorts, that suggested he was preparing himself for a possible battle. He paced the floor as I finished readying myself.

“Are you ready yet?” Alek said, almost angrily.

“Why are we in such a hurry?”

Alek ran from torch to torch and snuffed them out until one remained. “Scavengers,” he said. “We must get to that thing before the scavengers do.” He led me through the cave we came in.

“What kind of scavengers?”

“Dangerous ones. Very dangerous. More dangerous than anything you have ever seen. We cannot let them get there first or they will get stronger.”

“What are they?”

Alek stopped and turned to me when he reached the door. “Vicious monsters with claws that can tear you into pieces.” He opened the door, snuffed out his torch, and then grabbed the axe and knife. “The more they take, the stronger they become. We need to move as fast as we can!”

An entirely different weather pattern embraced the forest floor compared to the branches in the sky above. Fog and dew clung heavily to the air. Leaves and debris on the forest floor were like ink spots against the greyness. We could see maybe one hundred feet in front of us before the lack of colors blended into a white sheet of nothing.

Alek ran off without another word. I didn’t immediately jump. Instead, I saw shadows appear that formed into some familiar faces.

“Follow him and pick a moment when you can lose him,” Lieutenant Talbott said. “Make sure he’s well ahead of you and use the fog to your advantage.”

George also appeared and added, “Then head back out of the forest. Keep your rifle at the ready. Get out of here.”

“How will I know when it’s the right time?”

Both men replied in unison, “You’ll know,” and faded out into the fog.

Alek had maybe a twenty-foot head start before I started to follow him at a slightly slower pace. We ran under leafy weeds, crawled over tree roots, and slogged through wet moss. Dew collected on everything with each drop as big a Junior. I did my best to avoid them or else get soaked. A man could drown from dew in the forest.

Alek appeared to know exactly where to go and didn’t have a care of running into any beasts along the way. I followed, rifle readied, and struggled to figure out the right moment to make my move. Every turn that seemed like it could lead to freedom became a dead end when I drew close. Some branch or hole or nefarious looking alley prevented me from making the leap to freedom. Alek also checked in on me. Whenever he got too far ahead, he’d stop and wait for me to catch up. He never said anything, although, his eyes said enough.

We crossed through a collection of ferns whose leaves could be used as ladders. Enormous dandelions grew in a sunny patch where a tree fell and rotted. The most interesting spot was a strawberry patch where the berries were as big as phone booths. A mushroom patch looked like a small village where people our size could burrow homes into the stems and live a decent life. Bones from a possum or raccoon or some other small mammal littered a field. The teeth on the skull were as long as I am tall.

An hour must have passed before we eventually came upon the Kraut airplane. The moment Alek saw it, he stopped and crouched.

“Get down,” he said. “We must make sure that there are no scavengers, absolutely no scavengers, before we get any closer.”

“Why?”

“Because they–”

He was interrupted by a loud tear of metal.

“We’re too late,” Alek whispered. “Too late.”

We quietly moved behind a giant ragweed for cover and then looked around the edges. Two creatures were standing upon the plane, tearing at the steel. They looked like buffalo, if they stood on their hind legs, with long messy brown hair caked in mud and a large lump between their shoulder blades. All their muscle gathered across the shoulders and in their arms and neck; however, they slumped forward as if their heads were too much of a burden. The two beasts purred a low growl as they went about their business. Their purring was like a cat, but in a deeper way that rattled the edges of the leaves by us. I could feel the vibrations in my lungs. My insides shook. One turned toward me to claw at another part of the plane. A thick dark brown hide, like the worn leather of a baseball glove, covered its forehead and nose. Two ridged horns curled downward from either side and pointed to a wide mouth full of long sharp teeth.

“What are those things?” I whispered.

“Scavengers.”

I peered out again and found only one upon the plane. The other was missing.

“Where did the other–”

Before I could finish my question, a low purr growled above us. We both looked up and found the other beast falling onto me, pinning my shoulders to the ground with its huge hands and sharp claws. I was helplessly stuck beneath the worst smelling creature imaginable. Unlike a buffalo or a cow, the beast’s eyes held a glint of intelligence and appeared to be searching me for some unknown reason. It opened a mouth full of teeth, each one several inches long and ready to tear me to shreds. Drool dripped slowly all over me.

“Be gone you fowl beast!” Alek yelled.

He swung his axe hard into the thick hide on the beast’s forehead. The blade left a wide gash, revealing a pink under skin. The buffalo monster howled in pain and swung one of its great arms at Alek, knocking him down. I used the partial freedom to grab my bayonet and slammed it through the beast’s other hand that still pinned me. I pushed the blade so hard that the tip went through the beast and into my shoulder. The monster wailed and stood up on its hind legs. Alek was back and took another swing of his axe at the belly of the beast and managed to only sink a small piece of the edge in. The monster sounded like a wounded dog yelping. My bayonet fell out of the top of its hand. Blood dripped everywhere. I kicked at what would be its shins if it were a man. Alek and I both did everything we could to attack the buffalo beast. We won the battle once Alek swung his axe with all the fury of his might into the beast’s foot, chopping it into two pieces. The scream was horrendous, like a train screeching to a halt, echoing through the forest. The monster ran away, trailing a line of blood. Its companion heard the cries and followed.

I laid still to catch my breath. A rage pulsed through Alek. He breathed heavily with a whistle every time he exhaled. His axe and hands dripped with blood. Red speckles splattered across his face and forearms. The whites of his eyes were a stark contrast to the spoils of victory painted on his face.

The whole event occurred so quickly that there was no time to panic. I laid on the ground to catch my breath, but in that same instant, I realized that my rifle was useless in the forest. The buffalo beasts were no bigger than us, but they had a presence, a strength, that was infinitely stronger than ours. I was certain that a bullet would do nothing more than annoy one of them. I needed something more.

“Those damned things,” Alek said between breaths.

I got up and checked my body for any more wounds. “Those are the scavengers?”

“Yes. They feed on anything. Meat. Leaves. Whatever they can fit in their mouths.”

The plane was bent into a ‘U’ shape from the mountain monster and torn to shreds from the buffalo beasts. We cautiously walked over to the crash site, keeping an eye out for any more danger, the least of which were the Krauts. I waited to hear the purr of those monsters again.

Alek went directly to the cockpit, climbing up the dented and shredded metal fuselage. “No. No. No!” 

“What’s the matter?”

“No. Oh no.” He began to look in every nook of bent metal. “See if you can find the pilot nearby.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look for the pilot. We must find the pilot. We must.”

I surveyed the surrounding forest from my spot. There was no scenario that I could imagine where the pilot survived the crashed. Broken branches marked a trail where the plane crashed through the canopy and led to a massive divot dug into the earth. Judging by several follow up divots, the plane skipped along the ground like a flat stone skipping on still waters. I affixed my bayonet to my rifle and started along the crash path. One of the wings broke off on the second divot. Wheels from the landing gears were wedged into the ground on the first impact.

“Why do we have to find the pilot?” I said. “I’m certain he didn’t make it.”

Alek looked like a dog digging up a bone. Every loose piece of fuselage he could find, he’d pull off and then stick his head inside to search for something. “Just find him. We must. We need balance.”

I knew at that moment that I needed to run. Pretending to look for the pilot, I started walking further and further away in the direction of where the plane crashed through. ‘Balance?’ I wondered. ‘Nonsense. The man is insane.’ I kept an eye on Alek from time to time.

“Wait until he crawls further into the plane,” Lieutenant Talbott said, hiding behind a stick that likely fell from the crash. “Then, when he can’t see you, run.”

“Why are you hiding?”

“That man seems crazy. Who knows if he can see me too?”

Alek hopped off the plane and then began digging underneath it with his hands. He grunted with each shovel of dirt. At times he’d stop, sit up and clear his throat with a voracious sound. Then he’d spit and go right back to digging. He talked to himself the entire time.

“The man is insane,” I said.

I heard brush move not far from me and found George, Roland, and Quint appear within the shadows of a leaf. They took turns lighting a cigarette. Emil, Troha, and Lafe appeared in another spot upon some moss. I kept turning and finding more of the boys. Bob and Walt sat on a piece of gravel, chatting up something that made them laugh. Surplis and Russel were exploring the trail of dirt dug up from the plane as it crashed down.

My Love, I didn’t know why all the boys appeared. They weren’t ready to fight or even seemed to take much stock in my presence. All I could gather was that they were showing themselves to remind me why I was there, why I needed to run. I took one more glance toward Alek, who had dug enough soil out from under the plane to have half of his body buried and I decided that it was time to run.

“Now!” Lieutenant Talbott hollered.

I leapt into a run, using the downed branches and leaves from the crash to cover my escape. Anxious pulses pinged in my thighs, reminding me of when I was a child running up the cellar stairs after turning the light off. Back then, I feared some monster that would leap up from the darkness and catch one of my feet running up. In the forest, I feared Alek would see me running away and try to catch me. His insanity was fearsome, and I imagined that he could run using all four limbs like a gorilla.

The problem with running in a forest where dandelions are as big as oak trees and thistles have thorns like swords, is that distances are deceiving. When I took off, I focused on a tree that seemed close enough that it could be my refuge from Alek. Its branches seemed low enough that I could get to it, climb up, and have an advantage over Alek if he gave chase. I marked the location with my mind and ran and ran and ran over leaves and under branches and through caves made by mossy stones. Excitement coursed through my strides when I first started. The wind howled past my ears. I could feel my body burning its anxiety as fuel to create greater and greater distances from Alek. But the problem is that the tree never seemed to appear any closer.

I knew that I could jog for miles on a relatively flat surface from our training back home. However, we never trained to run up leaves nor duck under branches nor slog through mossy patches. The back of my throat began to burn after a few minutes of running. Each breath got a little harder. But the tree did not get any closer. I pushed harder as I ran up a golden leaf. My footsteps set off small little crackles. The branches on my target called to me like a siren.

My Love, just when the excitement of running away faded and turned into frustration, I lost my footing and crashed through the leaf. Imagine being flipped over and over in total darkness for what feels like an entire minute. The span of time I fell was long enough for me to notice I was falling and to think about what was going to happen when I hit the ground. I remember thinking, ‘This is it? This is how it ends?’

I landed belly first on a moss patch. I couldn’t have asked for a softer landing. My only pain came from getting the wind knocked out of me and a snap to reasonable thinking. I lost track of my rifle during the fall. Everything else that was either strapped on or snapped inside a pocket stayed. I sat up.  

Sunlight beamed through the hole high above like a spotlight on the stage at Lafe’s Chihuahuan Desert Club. I was the entertainer, unknowingly. Darkness filled the rest of the underside of the leaf except for along some of the edges. I could feel something moving in the shadows, but there were no sounds. ‘My eyes are playing tricks on me,’ I thought. ‘I’m confused, that’s all.’ I shut my eyes tightly, hoping for them to adjust better to the darkness.

That’s when I heard something shuffling to my right. I couldn’t place the sound.

‘Did I fall into an ant hill?’

I opened my eyes to search for my rifle and the safety its cartridge and affixed bayonet could provide, but it was nowhere within my spotlight. All I needed was a glint from the steel to place it. I searched and turned and search more with absolutely no luck.

And then, it happened.

Something began to purr like a cat, but in a deeper way that rattled the edges of the leaf. The vibrations were deep enough to shake my soul.