The light of the hunters

The cabin sat on the edge of a lake with a large, wooded area behind it, which went on for several miles with marked trails and wild animals and a lake in front of it. A woman who was just recently divorced from her husband for being too overbearing had decided to take her twin kids, one a boy and one a girl on an old-fashioned camping trip. The kids had the option of swimming or boating in the lake, but they wanted to go exploring in the woods.

“Just don’t go too far,” Mary, the mother of the two kids said, “and stay on the marked trails.”

“OK,”

“And make sure you have your phones with you, that way if you do get lost, you’ll be able to find your way back.”

“OK,”

“And be back in an hour.”

“OK.”

“And don’t forget to put some insect repellant on.”

“OK.”

“And--.”

“MOM!” the two kids groaned out in unison. Both just turned 13 and were beginning to get a mindset of their own, they looked at one another and spoke the unspoken words that only twins were able to communicate to one another. They turned and followed the main path into the woods.

“And watch out for wild animals!”

“Lady,” a large hunter complete with a full beard, camouflage pants and a shirt on, “the only wild animals in those woods are rabbits, deer and racoons,” he chewed on his stump of a cigar, “and maybe the stray grizzly bear who will eat those kids in one gulp.”

Mary’s face turned as white as a sheet, she turned to call the two kids back but found the grizzled old man letting out a laugh.

“Just kidding about the bear,” he said, just to make Mary feel more at ease, for there really was a grizzly bear out there that he’s been tracking for the past few days.

The twins found themselves chasing around the rabbits and racoons for quite some time until they got tired of doing that, then found an old tree they could climb. Jack was the first one up the tree, but Jill seemed to be a bit warry of the tree. She had noticed that the tree had a bit of a split that began at the stump went up the middle and ended at the branch where Jack was sitting on.

“Come on up,” Jack called out, “you can see the cabin from here.”

“I don’t think that branch is going to be able to hold the both of us!”

“Don’t be such a sissy,” Jack cried out, he found himself bouncing on the branch, “the branch is plenty strong.”

Jill heard a loud and distinct cracking sound as the branch broke, sending Jack dropping straight down into a pile of musty old leaves.

With no bones broken, Jack began to giggle, and roll around in the musty old leaves, after all he only fell a little over 10 feet.

But the tree wasn’t done coming apart, the split that Jill had noticed started at the base and that’s where the tree split apart, it decided that was the moment it was going to topple over, it fell straight down right onto Jack pinning him to the ground.

Jill immediately tried to help Jack, but he was pinned under the tree, which was bigger than she first thought when she saw it and was certainly a whole lot heavier than she could lift.

“Help me!” Jack cried out.

“I can’t,” Jill cried back, and she was literally crying, “are you hurt?”

“Not really,” Jack was able to move his hands and feet around, wishing he could do so without the tree pinning him to the ground, “just stuck underneath this tree. Can you call for help?”

“The phone, I can use the phone,” Jill remembered having the phone with her, she looked at it, it said LIMITED SERVICE, “I think.”

Mary watched the sun set over the lake, and as soon as the sun went down, it started getting dark really quickly, and she was getting worried. She had given the twins an hour to explore the woods and come back home, that was three hours ago.

She heard the phone ringing, it read as Jill’s phone, she put it on speaker so she could hear better. “Hey, where the ‘ell are you guys at, you should have been home a while ago.”

“I’m not exactly sure,”

“Well, you guys better get home in the next few minutes or there will be trouble!”

“We can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Jack tried to climb a tree and it fell on him,”

Ben, the old hunter, couldn’t help but overhearing the conversation. “Where are they at?”

“Somewhere in the woods,” Mary said, “that’s all I know.”

“Listen, I know these woods like the back of my hand,” Ben said, “let me talk to the girl.”

“Someone’s here who is going to help us find you,”

“OK,” Jill said.

Ben pulled out his cellphone, he called up his GPS navigation on his phone. “First I’m going to need the girl’s phone number, so I can connect with the GPS on her phone.”

“You hear all that?” Mary asked.

“Yes,” Jill called out her phone number.

“Great,” Ben said, “and I can see you on the map. Are you OK?”

“Jack is trapped under a tree; he can’t get out.”

“OK, I’m going to bring a couple of guys with me, is he hurt?”

“No, he’s able to move around, just pinned.”

“OK, stay with him, I should be at your location in around 10 minutes or so.” Ben reached into his cabin and pulled out his flashlight and a few other things.

“Hurry,” Jill cried out, “I can feel something looking at me.”

“OK, probably nothing to worry about,” Ben said as he also grabbed his hunting rifle then added, “just don’t make any sudden moves and if you can try to find a place to hide where you won’t be seen.”

“But,” Jill was confused, “if I hide, how will you be able to find me?”

“I’ll find you,”

Jill sat on the ground next to her brother Jack, “Help is on its way.”

“I hope so,” Jack looked over and saw the pair of eyes peering out of the darkness at him.

“I think if we don’t move, we’ll be OK for a few minutes,” Jill could hear a slight growl.

“Do you think it’s that grizzly bear that the hunter guy was talking about?”

“Let’s not think about it,” Jill remembered reading somewhere that while most animals have a good sense of smell, you could confuse that sense by masking your own scent, she got onto the ground and began to cover herself with the musty old leaves.

Dan led the small group of men through the woods as he shown his flashlight around, it had a green lens over the light, which seemed to help him when he was night hunting, as the green light wasn’t as apt to startle the animals and make them run off when he shown the light on them.

He looked at the GPS, it indicated they were less than 100 feet away from the kids. “They should be somewhere around here.”

The bear had found Jill’s hiding spot, but she was very still, and the smell was very bad. Bears usually liked fresh meat, but the body that was under the leaves smelled rotten.

Jill could see the green light piercing through the darkness like a beacon of hope, and she could hear the old hunter calling out her name. “Over here!” Jill said softly.

The grizzly bear looked at the source of sound, directly at it, it let out a loud, angry roar, as if it were scolding his prey for trying to trick him. He raised his paw ready to come down and swipe its prey with one swipe.

Ben heard the roar, and the grizzly bear he was hunting for the past three days was in his site. He raised his hunting rifle to the bear and fired off a single shot through the heart just before that immense paw came crashing down. The bear fell to the ground like an old sack of potatoes.

Jill let out a scream as the bear collapsed right onto her its immense weight pinned her down, but the hunter already seemed to have it covered, as soon as the bear fell, they were ready to roll it off of her. She got up and immediately began to point towards her brother with a incoherency to her voice.

Ben got the gist of what the girl was saying and looked at the tree that had fallen on the boy jack, he could see why the tree hadn’t completely crushed him when it fell; the top part landed on top of a rock that was just high enough to stop the tree from landing full on the boy. Just hard enough to pin him down.

It took him and three other men only around a minute to lift the tree high enough for Jack to be able to scoot out from under the tree, then with him out, they left it lie where it fell. They didn’t let the bear lie there, to be sure, there was enough bear meat to go around, there was an old fashioned cook-out with an open fire with the skinned bear cooking over the fire and the skin, well after a few days of curing in the sun, it made a beautiful rug for inside Ben’s cabin.