The Hemlock

I grew up just North of the small town of Calfrey, nestled away in the basin of the Montana mountain range. I say town but Calfrey was no town by any normal means. It was more like a village, small even by those standards. I guess at some point it was a bustling logging community on the south western side of the Wheeling Mountains but with the invention of steel and plastics, like the old coaline towns you learn of; it died out. Calfrey consisted of a firehouse, lone sherriff and a lumber mill. Aside from the main street intersection, littered with abandoned houses and a Mayor's court that looked as old as the bricks that made it. It was still home to two farming families, a grocery store owner and about twenty other forgotten blood lines. It was.. A very close community.

            Now if you haven't heard of Calfrey don't worry. It's easy to miss. See, the only way in or out of the town are these old beaten down logging roads that, (unless you were a local) you'd get lost in and end up somewhere you didn't want to be, thousands of feet up the mountain. There's an ungodly amount of crossroads and intersections around the mountain. And Calfrey is so difficult to find that I never once remember seeing a stranger or passer-by during my time there..

      But I degress..

My parents owned a cabin North of Calfrey, I spent most of my childhood deep in the woods around our land. Usually out building a lean-to shelter or fishing in nearby streams. I was very free back then. It wasn't uncommon for me to disappear for two or three days. My parents knew how I was and well enough that if I didn't come home that night without so much as a goodbye? That I'd be fine.

          Well until one night when I was about 16..

So I had been tracking a stag on our property for about two days. I remember this because we hunted for our own food and when meals ran short, you rembered. Every morning when Id awake up, new prints would be around the cabin and I mean around. Like, this buck was running in literal circles, mudding up our front lawn and stirring the chickens in their coupe in the early morning hours.

    So after many failed attempts of tracking this fucking thing, I decided that the best thing to do was take a two or three day excursion up into the mountain, the trail seemed to lead up a trail i had cut a way that led to some hemlocks about a mile north. Now I've been there before. Many times in fact, but usually by the time I'd start getting into the thick of it. The sun would set and I'd head back, telling myself I'd come back the following day but never did.

      I packed up a small pouch of my Dad's trail bologna and a canteen and made my way north. Now I'm assuming walking a mile down a road or sidewalk only takes an hour or so but this terrain is dense. So dense in fact that visibility is about arms length and doesn't open up until your reach the massive trees and open spaces of the hemlock.

      The first day was normal as for tracking, I'd find a print here or there, pushed aside under growth and trunk scrapings from the bucks rack, and then i'd advance. It veered left, way left near sunset and eventually straightened back out by the morning of day two. It was odd.. See, I followed the trail North West until dark that first night and came into a clearing. I thought for sure I had found its bedding you know? Except it wasn't bedding at all. It was an old meadow, or it was at one point at least, for some reason this deer had trashed the whole thing, and it was a massive fucking area. Freshly beaten down, Like the stag had been running in circles again, but for days. Which couldn't be possible because it had been tearing up our property for the entire weekend. It may not seem that disturbing to you that this meadow was now a swampy mud pit, but when youre walking through thickets all day and abruptly come to something that resembles a destroyed football field sized circle with only one discernable animal track to be found..you begin to worry. But I brushed it off and powered through the area and ended up back in line with my Hemlock trail.

           The second day was when things got really fucked up..

  All morning morning I had meticulously followed these hoof tracks straight North, only stopping for a break here and there to take a bite from my jerky or sip from my canteen.

           Around noon I had come into an area that I had cleared out a few summers ago. Its where I would camp on my way back down the mountain so it does get frequent overgrowth and needs a proper dusting when I rarely swing through this area. But all in all it stays pretty open and clear of debri.

         When I realized I was approaching the area, I thought I would use it to sit down and take an hour to myself. At this point I was pretty tired and with the Hemlock only an hour away, it wouldn't be so bad to get a little behind. So I tromp into the camp site and fling my travel bag on the ground, just ready to plop down when I see these football sized pieces of fur all over the place..

         Curious I bend over and pick one up. I immediately jump back in horror when I see the dead eyes of the rabbit looking back at me. I took a second glance and my terror increases. The ground is covered in rabbit skins. The head still attached but the bones and innards are fucking gone. Like something held them by their head and ripped everything out by pulling the fucking feet. Bones and all.

         I could've ran home, I probably should have. But something told me to press on. If what I was following was a deer then this was just some locals sick joke. I grabbed my 12 gauge and marched up the path, furious at this point and wanting to finish this and then return to Calfrey to tell the Sheriff about what I'd found. But I was also freaking the fuck out and making it worse, see it was then that I realized, I hadn't even got a look at this deer I'd been tracking. I just assumed by the hoof prints what it was.

             An hour goes by and I crest the hill and emerge through the brush into the Hemlock, the trees seem to be more massive this time around but I know its my nerves. As I creep along it hits me like a brick that nothing is moving. The entire Forest is dead still. And off in the distance I hear a drum beat. Its fast and steady. But heavy like a bass, I swallow my fear and follow the noise. Growing louder and louder I follow the drum until its unbearable, I feel like my ears are going to bleed. I round a Massive spruce tree after about ten minutes, the noise is thundering. I whip my gun around. Expecting to find the asshole who destroyed my campsite instead of the deer.

        My jaw drops when I see this.. Thing. Its standing on its hind legs and has horns not antlers. Its fucking massive and has a dead fox in its hand. Its neck is broken and its stomping in circles beating this dead fucking fox corpse against the ground. Intestines are hanging out of its mouth like its a mid day snack or some shit.

      I scream and shoot my gun at it, unloading buckshot into its side. The thing howls and whips its head toward me. I panick and drop my shells and turn to run. When I'm hit from behind by something and fall to the ground. I roll over to see the foxes dead expression of horror and I scream again and scramble my way back up to my feet. The creature stretches his head around the corner and rushes me. I throw my gun at it in a frenzy and trip my way out of the Hemlock and down the trail as fast as I could screaming "what the fuck?!" Multiple times a m swear. I ran in absolute terror, I could hear trees moaning and branches snapping like twigs behind me for hours as if they were being pushed aside.

        I ran through the night, ended up lost... I didn't make it back to the cabin for five days.. The circles still happened and I started to picture myself being used to flatten the ground like the fox was... But after two or three springs I couldn't bare it and relocated for college..

I haven't heard from my parents in awhile, its not uncommon I mean. Calfrey has no post office.. Maybe I'm worrying to much..

       If this ever happens to you.. Please don't follow the tracks..