Cabin Fever

Cabin Fever

A Story by david jones
"

Five men go on an annual hunting trip in the UP. But in the darkest of night something evil is stirring, something that the earth has never even seen before.

"
1.

Dan Bowers lived a rather quiet life in small town America. He lived in a small town known as Burdingham, a place just outside of the rather larger Grand Rapids Michigan. He was the type of guy who did everything he was told; he didn't get in trouble with the law, none of that, since he had always been a goodie too shoes. The only excitement he really got was when him and his pals went to the UP each year for their annual hunting trip. There he could get some bonding time; talk about sex, use vulgarity, and all of that around the guys whenever the hell he wanted to, since his wife said that he couldn't swear in the house. She wouldn't allow it because of the baby they had together. His wife, Linda, didn't improve of the idea of him going on the camping/hunting trips, but she understood time with friends, so she let him go. The thing about Dan though was that he had no balls. On the contrary he really did, but he always let his wife make his decisions, so if he suggested something and she said no, he would not do it, not enjoy his life, not live it to the fullest. Linda was like a mother to him; cooking him meals, babying him, and in fact she kind of enjoyed it, though she did get a bit annoyed. And plus, Dan didn't argue with her either. He just took it whenever she yelled at him.
Dan was on the couch, reading the paper, dressed in blue, faded jeans, a ripped green Bulls shirt, and a dirty, camouflage coat over his shirt. He flipped through the pages before setting down the paper and glancing at the time. 8:50. His friends would be here any minute.
"I'm gonna miss you hon," Linda said. She was dressed in a pink tank top and blue jean shorts that fit to her body. 
"I'm gonna miss you too babe," said Dan. He stood up from the couch and grabbed Linda, embracing her. She rested her head on his chest. The horn ran from outside. They were here.
"Bye honey. Miss you. Come back safe." She kissed him full on the mouth, a wet kiss that felt pretty good to him. They parted ways, Dan stepped out of the front door, down the porch, and into his friend Dales car, before taking off for the UP.


2.

"This camping trip is going to be wonderful," said Dale. He was the type of guy that was completely opposite of Dan. Dale was the type of dude who wouldn't take no for an answer, who would do all the stupid s**t everyone else was doing because he was such as dumb a*s. He never let a woman tell him how to run his life. He just did whatever the hell he wanted, not caring about the consequences. He was a dirty man who rarely showered...he said he liked to smell like the rugged out doors which in fact was his favorite place. His hair was ruffled and fair, greasy, and it was stringy as well. His face was smeared with dirt. He didn't have a woman in his life now, but once, as a boy of sixteen, he had gotten a girl pregnant, and then he had married the girl. She had the baby, and they stayed together for 2 years, and when he was eighteen, he was a single father. His ex had given him the baby, saying that he could take care of it because she didn't give a s**t anymore about him, about his habits, and she heartlessly said she didn't give a s**t about the well being of the baby either. Dale had raised the little girl for a few years, before putting her up for adoption. Someone adopted her. He had never seen or heard from his ex wife, or his daughter for the past years.
"Yes it will Dale. One of the best trips that we have truly ever taken!" cheered Mark. He wore a blue shirt, khaki shorts which looked ugly on everyone, with black rimmed glasses that perched on his nose. Mark was a nerd; but he was also good with the ladies, as well as a great guns man. He had several rifles, all of which were high powered, three of which he had brought with them for the hunting trip. 
"Where we don't have to worry about a single thing..." said Peter. He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up in the car. It was a 1997 mustang convertible, and everybody thought that it was awesome. The car belonged to Peter, but he was letting Dale drive. Peter continued to stand in the seats like an idiot. Dale saw this. He pulled the car to the side with a sudden ferocity. They drifted into the other lane. Peter nearly fell into the seats, but he managed to pull himself up, giving Dale the middle finger and laughing. Dale turned around. He suddenly heard the honking of a horn and twisted around, seeing the bright flashes of headlights ahead of him. He turned the car back to the right lane, nearly hitting a car that had merged with traffic.
They continued to drive.
Peter was still standing in the car. "Get down Peter," said Mark.
"Why? I'm havin me some fun!" shouted Peter.
"We don't want the cops to come now do we. Get down!" shouted Dale. He moved one hand from the steering wheel, pushing off Peter and he fell into his seat. "Now put a damn seat belt on you fool!" Peter scolded at Dale, but he listened.
"How much longer?" asked Dan.
"Like maybe another hour or so. We are nearing Mackinac now. But we will need to look for a wooded area where we can hunt." Dale stopped the car. There was a huge traffic back up. And before them lie the Mackinac bridge. He had only been on it once, as a boy, when he had went to the Island. The Island was a fun place to be; there was amazing fudge, no cars so you had to walk everywhere, and many historical sights, which at the time, interested him greatly. He moved forward as the traffic did. Before long they had reached the toll booth. Dale paid twenty dollars to get on the bridge. He went on it and drove down the bridge, crossing it, entering into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The three buddies didn't know what horrors they would encounter once they reached their camping spot.


3.

The car turned onto a dirt road. Dust kicked up. They turned onto a trail in the midst of the woods...the trail was a winding, abandoned road that lead into a wide, open, desolate area where a pit was lying in the very middle. It was the campsite. Dale stopped the car and stepped out of it, walking around, surveying the area. There were still charred logs in the fire pit from previous users. He unloaded their stuff; three tents, three guns and some food. The chairs and whatnot would have to wait. He set up one of the tents, the other two guys set up another one.
"Are we gonna try to go hunting tonight?" asked Dan.
"Yes in fact we are," said Dale. "Just til sunset. We are all beat...I just wanna see if we find anything." He grabbed his rifle. Dan and Mark grabbed theirs and they decided to go out into the woods for fifteen minutes to see if there was anything there that they could get. They walked for like five minutes before Dan heard a rustling sound in the trees.
"Over here," said Dan. He moved forward, thinking that a deer would appear in the brush and that Dan could shoot it. But there was nothing. He advanced again and then stopped. Something was there. On the ground. Right in front of him.
He looked at it.
It looked like human hair...the back of a human head. Everything was quiet. Mark and Dale were getting worried. Dan nudged the figure with his foot and turned it on its back. He gasped. The smell was rancid. A man lie there. Dead. Blood streaking his slit throat. 
Dan kicked the body and it rolled back on its face. He whipped around and ran toward Dale and Mark.
"The hell was that?" asked Dale.
Dan replied, "a dead body...throat slit...blood still fresh along its carved neck." 
"Ewww," said Mark. 
"We need to figure out where the..."
"Not tonight. We are going back to camp and falling to sleep. We can find out about this tomorrow." They walked back to camp. The sun dipped below the horizon like a chip dip. They slid into their tents, greeting each other goodnight, ready to put everything else up in the morning.


4.

It was morning. The campers still hadn't woke up yet. The sun beat down on the tents, soaking in, making the sleeping campers sweat through their clothes. Dale was the first to get up. He grabbed a chair from the back of the car and set it up, sitting down right in front of the lake. The blue water glistened in the sunlight that pierced the closed off branches. Dale began to drift off, to wonder, to think about his childhood, how poorly he had been raised. He had never went camping. He never went anywhere. His dad controlled every aspect of his life. He remembered a time when he was at home, watching his brothers and sisters, and his father came out, stark raving mad and drunk as usual. 
He backhanded Dale in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground, blood trickling down his lip. But, even though the experiences with his father were rough, they helped make him who he was today. He was a strong man, able to take anything. He was still drifting off, staring into a dark oblivion. He had another vision, another memory. This one was stronger, and progressively sadder than the one he had just thought of. It was when his uncle, a fairly old man with graying hair, a thick bush of a mustache, always wearing Polo shirts and long, dirt smeared, blue jeans, had died...passed away at the age of sixty. He had had a heart attack earlier that day and he stayed in the hospital for several hours, before the doctors said they could do nothing more for him. So, on July 6th 1995, his uncle and slipped out of the consciousness, floating around in the bright light at the end of the tunnel, being greeted by a chorus of God's angels into the next, perhaps better life. Dale had cried about it for days and days, as did everybody else in the family, until after about a week his mother told them to stop, that he was gone, and that he was never coming back and to just forget about him. But nobody could forget about him, not even his dad, who showed little to no emotions in things like this. He had coped with this by being pissed off at everyone, telling everyone to shut the hell up, to go f**k themselves, and other stuff like that. 
He could be heard in his office whimpering, sometimes cry, sometimes wailing like a goddamn baby, and then he just stopped. He packed up his stuff and for whatever reason left. And he never came back.
So many heart wrenching things had happened to Dale as a teenager and child, most of them including his father. He continued to think and think and suddenly a tear trickled down his cheek, trickling his face. He sat in the chair, looking at the ocean, how it moved, and continued to think about his piss poor childhood. He knew he would never get it back. He thought of his father again, the good times he had had with his father (which weren't many) as well as the horrifying moments he had with him, such as the time his father had beat him so bad, Dale had to go to the hospital. That time his father had been detained by the police, thrown into a jail cell, and he didn't get out for thirty days. When he did get out he nearly tried to kill Dale's mother, placing a sharp, shiny blade to the front of her throat, demanding something, something that Dale, in his moment of nostalgia, couldn't quite recall. He continued to think of that, the bruises on his arms, the blood on his face, the looks students gave him at school when they saw the....
A sudden scream interrupted his moment of nostalgia and he broke back into normal. He heard a door slam and Mark ran toward the scream, a rifle in his hands. There was a sudden rustling noise. Another scream. It sounded like someone was dying. Dale stood up, grabbed his rifle, and raced toward the scene.


5.

Mark was the first on the scene of the scream. He had heard it first, dozing in and out of consciousness. He had grabbed a rifle from the truck and raced toward this place, jumping over the heavy brambles of tangled roots. He heard the scream replaying in his mind. He placed a bullet into the gun. A rustling sound. There was another scream. Mark fired into the brush, wasting one of his bullets. He moved forward cautiously, unsure of who or what he would find. Dale and Dan arrived a few minutes after, their rifles at the ready. The rustling in the trees grew loud. Then someone sprung. There was a flurry of blurred motion. Mark fell back. A man landed on him, trying to wrestle the rifle away from him. Mark kicked the man in the groin, sending him reeling back in pain. The man grabbed a pistol from the waistband of his jeans and fired, shooting Mark in the leg, causing him to scream. Blood poured down his leg. There was an explosion. Dale had fired his rifle. The bullet caused a gaping hole in the back of the man. Blood splashed onto the ground, painting it a fine crimson color. 

© 2012 david jones


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Added on May 27, 2012
Last Updated on May 29, 2012

Author

david jones
david jones

Grand Rapids, MI



About
I like to read, write, play video games, chill with friends, listen to music etc. more..

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