Hot Dog

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window…that is until the truck tore right past the cabin, blew out the candle, and clipped the shingle. Rocking 50 in a road that hadn’t been driven on for years, it rolled down the end of the driveway, through a clump of trees and onto the right road where it nearly crashed into the campsite check in hut. It then tore down the road, past other cars in single parking spaces in front of dirt parks covered in other people’s garbage. It turned and twisted down the road, its raised body bouncing over potholes and uprooted asphalt. It then pulled into a single campsite at the very end and roared to a stop.

The door of the truck opened and two things happened at once. One happened to be a lot of screaming. The other happened to be a fierce battle between man and beast. The man in question was actually Henna, a girl with a foot in her mouth that wasn’t her own. This foot happened to belong to a dog… a dog or a large brown sausage with a head like a leaky brick which thrashed in the doorway.

Claws scrambled on Henna’s chest and face, stretching her cheek towards her ear and catching in her pink tank top. The screaming came from this dog who was practically trying to skin the girl, but she was not having it. With fury in her eyes she shoved the dog's warty jowls out of the way and forced its thick round body away with her own foot.

“Get. Back. You. Stupid. PIG”, she snarled through the side of her mouth which was slammed into the seatbelt strap. The other side was busy being abused by rough paws.The dog’s screaming grew louder and the dog clawed more. Henna grew redder and pushed harder to be the first out the door.

The resulting thud onto the rocky dirt decided the winner was…both of them.

“Careful Hen, he’s sensitive”, the truck driver, Brydyn, tutted as his dog took off, leaving Henna’s face down in the dirt with her feet still in the car.

Brydyn was the dumb beefy jock of the group. His muscles remained defined wrapped in a shirt suitable for a small woman. The shirt had given up around his abdominal muscles which were thick as lightbulbs leading down his small hips. His shorts looked like pants on his abnormally short legs which were also beefed with veins and muscle definition. He liked posting his muscles online, eating protein powder, and spent every waking moment watching videos of fellow beefed up men recommending better ways to get beefed up.

“Sensitive like a freight train, more like,” she scoffed and lifted her head out of the dirt. Blood red streaks covered her face. It was her lipstick drawn in Pitbull claws, in places where lipstick wasn’t supposed to be. The dirt that clung to her concealer sealed the fate of her makeup. Once perfect a minute ago needed a full redo.

“Ha ha, karma”, Lindon laughed and wiggled out from between the two front seats like a large eel with arms. He flopped onto the passenger seat, chest first and crawled out the door, stepping long legged past Henna who remained dignantly on the ground.

Lindon was extremely… fruity. He talked in exaggerated tones and had to have lavender in every outfit he owned. Everyone was “gurrl”, no matter what gender they identified as and it was absolutely offensive to people too dull to realize his head was in a cloud. Despite being the most flashy, loud and fashionable one of the group, he was actually straight as a pole. Brydyn was the gay one and had actually asked Lindon out a few times. Each time he was rejected punctuated with a loud sip of Acaii and thyme smoothie.

“What do you mean by ‘karma’ what have I ever done to you”? Henna demanded as her legs fell to the ground, finishing her rebirth from the truck. The slobber that covered her was enough to be amniotic fluid after all.

“Karma as in you didn’t have to see that dog’s butthole pop out every time he screamed… which was the whole ride here”, Minda added. “Who’s idea was it to have the pregnant woman in the back”? She seemed to be having more trouble than skinny Lindon in getting out from between the seats. After all, her massive bubble belly was tricky to maneuver with.

Minda was the more rugged of the group, the one who badgered all of them endlessly for a camping trip for YEARS. It was ironic that when they finally agreed to go on a rough adventure trip, Minda had fallen pregnant and had to be dainty and careful. Her camo torn up shirt and cargo pants were now replaced with a loose yellow dress that covered her basketball body and velvet maroon track pants.

“Gurrl, the same guy who bought a small truck. Who the heck buys a small truck, Brydyn”, Lindon jabbed playfully.

“Yeah when you said you had a truck, we were hoping for something more roomy than my subaru, not less”, Henna harrumphed. Her eyes fell from the trees around her down to a stump right next to their parking spot.

“Hey, she got you here in one piece, didn’t she”? Brydyn shrugged and patted the hood which was rainbow holographic vinyl full of enough creases and wrinkles to body shame a Michel Angelo painting.

Henna spotted something on the stump. Something that blended into the lover's initial clawed wood perfectly.

“We are in one piece, yes, but I do think I heard a rattling in the wheel over here. How about I get my tools and take a look”, Olgie wheedled Brydyn.

“Never. Touch. My. Truck”, Brydyn frowned down at Olgie with a darkness in his eyes like the abyss.

Olgie was a mechanic, a mechanic who was good at taking things apart, but not putting them back together. His talent had put him through trade school, where he took apart machines and sold the parts off on Ebay. His talent was also the reason why he passed trade school because the entire class failed that year due to their repairs always having mysterious missing pieces. He was a top student by default.

Henna finally made sense in what she was seeing. It was a large bug with six spikey legs and two shining black pincers. Rising above it was a knotted black tail tipped in a bulging barb. Henna screamed and yanked out her pepper spray. She doused the scorpion in a red mist and it ran away down the stump and out of sight.

Last, but not least, Henna was the last of the group. She was certified in Psycology, Biology, Preforming arts, Business, Finance and was half way through her Master’s in English if her psychologist hadn’t put a stop to it. She had the rare diagnosis of “addiction to school”. Her logic was that if she peaked in college, to stay at her peak all she had to do was stay in college. It wouldn’t hurt to have more degrees. She could get the best job once she was done with school.

Their campsite was high in the middle of nowhere filled with giant sequoias. The massive trees stood hundreds of feet tall in their glory which was blocked by several invasive and more boring plants that grew in every single spot available. The ground was grassless, covered in tree mulch and strange, soft pinecones. The group were provided a metal bin full of ash for the fire, a mailbox for food and a table which bore several messages ranging from cute to obscene.

They unloaded the truck with all of their camp gear… well… more like all of Minda’s camp gear since camp gear was the last thing any of them would buy. And if they were renting camp gear they needed to take out Olgie insurance and there was no such thing. Lindon and Brydyn were tasked with the tent, a great challenge for both of them and a patience exercise for Minda. Henna was tasked with putting the food away in the wood mailbox near the picnic bench. Since Henna was done first she also got to unload the wood and move the sleeping bags and unload the gas stove. Minda was tasked with sitting in her seat and slurping a brown drink that looked more like mud than Lindon’s smoothies. Olgie was in charge of setting up the fire in the fire trash can. It occupied his extraordinary attention span for the entire duration of Henna finishing all her jobs and attempting to help the boys. As she found out, they were not in fact idiots, the tent instructions were in German.

“I had no clue you spoke German”, Lindon called to Minda.

“I don’t”, She sniffed, “I don’t have a tent for five. That is my husband’s tent”.

“Does he speak German”? Henna asked, authentically curious, because Minda’s husband was a recluse of a person. She hadn’t even met him yet and she was Minda’s bestie forestie.

“No”, Minda shrugged and sipped her drink. Like a chameleon she turned green as she sipped the drink and returned to her normal color as she set it down.

“By the way, wasn’t he supposed to come? We could have fit four in the back”, Brydyn asked, trying to fit a rod into a rubber tent stake.

“He’s just running late. He’s got work out in the forest, he will be here in time for the kayak trip”, Minda explained.

“Maybe I can try helping with the tent”, Olgie suggested, tossing his thirtieth burnt out match onto the ever growing pile of kindling.

“No. If you touch my husband’s tent he will kill you”, Minda warned and glared dead at Olgie.

Olgie waved her off and tore at the match box again.

“Hang on. This piece looks like it might go in here”, Brydyn offered.

“No. Way, gurrl”, Lindon tutted.

Brydyn was right, it did go there. The rest of the tent was set up in the span of thirty minutes of gymnastics from all three of them and Minda watching in amusement. Olgie had nicked her drink. She didn’t look like she minded. He seemed to enjoy it better than she did… after he added some wine in it.

“What’s for dinner,”Olgie asked Henna.

Henna jabbed him in the back with her finger and he leapt high in the air with a screech that would make the dog proud.

“I am making hot dogs,” Brydyn revealed.

“Oh we should do it pioneer style. You know, stab it on a stick and cook it over the fire”, Minda suggested, “Or maybe we can do hot dog soup. I can really go for some tomato soup right now. That’s a good combination right”?

“No, that’s like combat boots with a prom dress”, Lindon scoffed and fell onto the table. “Ah, sweet dirt free seating, how I missed you”.

“Never thought I would see you this flippant about where you put your aaAAAAAAA”! Henna screamed and whipped out her pepper spray.

She blasted it at her folding chair where the scorpion was sitting instead of her. It leapt in the air and scurried away somewhere.

“Haha, Henna sprayed a bug with AAAAAA”, Olgie yelped as when he came up behind Henna he got a face full of pepper spray as well.

“Oh he so deserved that”, Minda said and lowered back into her seat, “Did we bring tomato soup? Do you think we could get some”?

“I’ll get the sticks”, Henna harrumphed, her face red with embarrassment.

“NO WAY. We can’t cook HOT DOGS like that. They will come out all uneven or someone would set one on fire. I will grill them, you guys just sit back and get the fire started”, Brydyn insisted. His dog was now tied to a tree, horking down the bowl of food provided to it. The sound of its slurping hard kibble made Lindon sit up straight with disgust.

“Hey Henna, you need to get better pepper spray. This stuff is crap”, Olgie smirked, tears streaming from his eyes which could probably make tomato soup.

“Oh and you are an expert on pepper spray”, Henna sniped.

“I’ve been hit a couple times. I shouldn't be able to see right about now. You need some stronger stuff, this isn’t going to incapacitate someone for long”, he explained.

To Henna’s exasperation he was probably right. It was a cheap pepper spray. As an attractive woman she thought she needed it, but so far she had only used it against Olgie and that scorpion.

“Oh maybe you should check my pepper spray. Make sure it's delicious”, Brydyn offered.

“No way. I already got… Oh you mean for cooking”, Olgie realized.

Brydyn chuckled and coated a set of corn roasting with the hotdogs.

The campfire took one match to start. Olgie had some outrage to express at that, but Minda barely cared. The paper and the used matches went up in a bright yellow show and the people beside the fire watched in baited breath as it grabbed onto a log.

“Hey no wood collecting”, Brydyn warned Minda.

“Relax, they are just pinecones. There are plenty here, the forest ranger won’t miss these”, She argued back and rose very carefully off the ground. She tossed them into the fire and sat back down in her seat.

The sun faded and the sky turned from blue to periwinkle behind the darker and darker trees. The fire despite its lack of tall flames was bright and hot. It made sure to fart smoke on every single person in the circle, one by one. It spit with joy each time it caused someone to cough and moved on as the subject got used to it.

Everyone secretly concluded that Brydyn was wrong about the hot dogs. It did not in fact matter if they were cooked or burnt to a crisp, cheap hot dogs were cheap hot dogs. Even a chef could not improve what the manufacturers had done to these sausages.

The dog screamed in its usual tortured manner as it had run out of food and wanted all of theirs. The air was full of their laughter and old memories and the dogs' wails of eternal suffering. Unfortunately for it, not even Brydyn cared for its plight.

“And then I went hiking last week, and then I took a boat ride AT NIGHT with my husband. Oh it was so romantic under the half moon. He caught a couple fish and gave them to me because I was hungry”, Mindy chuckled and gazed up at the dark tree branches above with adoration in her eyes.

“So sweet”, Henna agreed. Then she hiccuped. No one had been able to touch the wine except for her.

“Wait, did he cook it first or did he give it to you raw”? Olgie asked, “Did you have like a mini barbecue on the boat? If you do, can I look at it”?

“No, it was raw. Not my first raw fish though. I prepared it under a lamp and had it with some rice we took with us on the trip. Can’t get any fresher than that”, Minda winked.

“No kidding”, Brydyn laughed and took a sip of something that did not look like a beer, but should have been.

“Gurrl, at this rate, that baby will pop out of your belly a wild animal”, Lindon joked, “instead of crying they will go ‘awwooo awoo awwwwwwooooooo’”.

Minda laughed for an extended amount of time. That joke seemed to really crack her up. Henna chuckled drunkenly trying to keep pace with Minda.

“Hey, you guys want to try telling a scary story”, Brydyn offered and slapped his giant, coarse hands together.

“Not me. I’ve got to pee”, Minda breathed and got up, still giggling to herself. She left down the road towards the community restroom and repeated the joke down the road before restarting her laugh.

“I have one”, Lindon said, “So I was at the front of the grocery line a month ago and guess what. I forgot my wallet…”

“BOooOOO”, Henna spat and flopped over on her chair. “Not scary enough”.

“But it was HORRIFIYING. I was so embarrassed AND I had a huge cart of food”, Lindon complained.

“Like a real scary story”, Henna groaned, “Like one about Vancoucula or Murrrrbbleee duuuuuh”.

“I have a story about the time I found a rattlesnake in a car I was taking apart”, Olgie offered.

“Henna’s right. Do any of us have any good stories”? Brydyn asked.

“We can look online”, Lindon offered, “Who here has unlimited data”?

Brydyn raised his hand and pulled out his phone.

The night was silent as he scrolled through the feed, the blue light shining on his face contrasting the orange glow of the firelight. Even the dog had stopped screaming. It was whimpering in the shadow of the tree behind them.

“Found any”? Olgie asked.

“Just old creepy pastas. You’ve heard the one about the rusty iron door right”? Brydyn asked.

“Oh yes. I didn’t find that one so scary tho”, Lindon pursed his lips.

“I wonder if creepy pastas were actually created because someone had a really creepy pasta. That would be SO funny. Is there one about a creepy pasta. What would creepy pasta look like, maybe the sauce looks like blood or something”, Henna pondered, waving the empty wine bottle in the air above her.

“Try the news. The news is plenty scary”, Olgie offered.

“No kidding, gurrl. No shooting stories. Those are just sad, not scary”, Lindon waved daintily.

“OH here’s one”, Brydyn said, “You are right Olgie, the news is where to go. ‘Several bodies found in forest outside of the town of Torrington, Godric county’”.

“Gurl, wait really”? Lindon gasped.

“Doesn’t Minda live in Torrington”? Olgie asked.

“What about Torrington? I love Torrington, it's such a cute town. You know I live there”? Henna asked.

“Did you hear about the bodies then”? Lindon asked.

“Bodies? What bodies”? Henna snorted with a dumb smile on her face.

“Continue”, Olgie said and sat at the edge of his folding chair, wringing his hands nervously.

“Alright, ‘Several bodies were found in a forest outside of the town of Torrington, Godric county, on the fifth of July after the fireworks festival. They were discovered by a seventy year old hiker, Serendie Hallispurt, who was on her usual morning hike. Serendie states ‘I saw them from a distance and at first I thought it was a pile of fallen branches. Too curious for my own good I walked over and realized they were bones. I thought it must have been a dead deer or something so I poked around a bit with my walking stick. They were fresh bones, the flies were still buzzing around them and the ground was still dark. Then I noticed that there were way too many bones for it to be just one deer. I called the park service because, you know, it could have been poachers. OHHHHHHH the shiver that went down my spine’. The bones have been identified as three individuals, two male and one female however there might be more. Park rangers are currently on the look for any more bodies and two more patches of bones have been discovered and are currently being tested. One of the three victims have been matched with a Vincent Debrawn who was last seen at a Fourth of July day party with his friends”.

“Oh my goodness. AND YOU SAID THERE WAS MORE OF THEM”? Lindon squeaked. The forest suddenly felt claustrophobic, the darkness making the meager light of the fire the space and the shadows the walls.

“Did you know about this”, Olgie asked Henna.

“Hmmmm. No, but ooh I feel cold”, she said and rubbed her arms. The silence pressed against their ears. The flames hid under the logs, glowing yellow hot in the caves the wood made.

“Gurl, do you think it's a serial killer”? Lindon asked, hugging himself and pulling his knees together.

“Ewww I hope not”, Henna slurred, “Those guys are SO gross”.

“Relax, we have got nothing to worry about.” Brydyn turned off his phone.

“Yeah it's why we brought that dog, isn’t it? Isn’t that right boy”? Henna cooed over her belly.

Only, the dog was behind her, tied to the tree. Totally silent and strained backwards against his rope, eyes wide. He was not where Henna was looking. The group turned in their chairs and gazed into the darkness. Fire twinkled in a pair of eyes just beyond the firelight’s reach. It was not a pitbull.

“Holy SHI-” Olgie yelled and the shadows yanked him into the darkness. The forest made a sick crack sound and a dark shape descended on where he had disappeared.

Lindon shrieked. Brydyn jumped clear out of his chair and tore for the truck. Lindon scrambled in the dirt in the same direction, but with a deafening sound on his back he was in the dirt and the fire was beside him. Brydyn’s scream ripped through the campsite and something warm and wet sprinkled onto Lindon’s face.

Lindon tried to rise to his feet only to find his lower half wasn’t working. The screams were weaker, dying and gargled. Hopeless and losing to the slurping crunching sounds that wormed down the rest of Lindon’s spine.

Henna fell out of her seat and stumbled on her feet with her pepper spray out. Brydyn’s screams had faded to wheezing and the black tree behind her seemed to reach over her chair. It wrapped hairy arms around her and dug hand-like claws into her sides. She let out a yelp before jaws half as long as she landed over her head. Wolf teeth glittering black in the firelight closed over her chest and crunched. Two tall ears blossomed out of the creatures wheel-sized head and its eyes blazed a flickering red. It wrenched its teeth across her half a body and tore upward. Her torso fell to the ground with a thwump which shouldn’t have been so quiet. The creature flung its head into the air and the other part of her body fell down its giant pouch of a throat, covered in coarse black fur.

Lindon had no idea who was screaming as he tried to claw himself away. His fingernails bled from the hidden sharp rocks in the dirt. His body followed behind him, limp and broken.

The beast stepped over the fire, the flames brushing its shaggy underbelly, smoke rose into the sky as the hair curled bright orange. It moved slowly, taunting Lindon who couldn’t move any faster. His legs held him back, the fire slowly running up the middle of his back made it hard to turn around.

Next the creature’s fangs hovered over his eyes. They gently fell onto his face, right on his cheekbones and he looked on at the saliva and bloodstained black roof of the creature’s jaw. The last thing he remembered was the stench of death, like iron and mushrooms before it all ended for him in a shock of pain.

Minda was on her way back. She glanced at each full campsite, every campfire for a familiar face or the glimmering of a poorly wrapped truck. She had one hand under her belly, feeling the shifting skin on tissue beneath her shirt. She had been in the bathroom so long the little kids eating smores next door had disappeared and their parents sat exhausted in the chairs beside the fire.

She would be one of those parents soon. Her and her beloved raising the baby, maybe more after this one. It depened on how active they kept up their love life after the baby was born. The baby kicked her hand at the thought of it.

She finally found their campsite, not by the people or the stuff or the horrible screaming pitbull, but by the stump where a scorpion roosted, covered in red dust. This was definitely her campsite, but where was everyone?

The smell hit her first, burning hair and the heavy reek of iron. She stepped towards the fire pit, the only source of light in the camp. Everyone was gone. Their chairs were still where they had been a moment before, but now there was something on the…

She nearly stepped on a large beefy arm which lay alone in the leaves, the rest of the body it went with was gone. Half a torso sat spouting blood all over the leaves beside the fire.

The dog was cowering behind the tree, no doubt having not done anything to help and the only other thing left alive was gnawing on a large, tattered leg bone. Its jaws were longer than the femur itself and its teeth were as large as fingers. The eyes were brown and glowed in the firelight, round and wolfish. It was black as the trees and its fur swallowed the full moonlight.

Minda gasped and put her hands to her mouth.

“OH sweetie you came”, She cried and rushed into the beast’s fur. He smelled of rot and wet dog and his fur was warm and wet with blood. Her werewolf husband let out a low growl and nuzzled her shirt over her belly. He licked her skin, leaving a long dark trail of blood over her distended belly button.

“Aww, you Naughty boy”, she giggled, “Did you kill all of my friends? Did you”?

He let out a low grunt and grabbed her in his massive claws.

“I will miss them”, she sighed at the corpse of… she could no longer tell who that was. Minda knew her husband was talented at getting rid of clothes.

“But how can I when you are so HOT. I’m all yours, honey”.

She pressed her lips onto the werewolf’s. The werewolf licked back and she deepened herself into its breath. He lifted her off the ground, towering over the bloodstained campsite. He stepped into the forest on his hind legs and they were lost in the shadows.

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. And that night, the forest was filled with moans and howls.