Entry One-Hundred and Two

Here you go, avid readers. Another post for "The Bear Brook Massacre".

Mother told me that this is the story I should pursue. Funny, since it is the most morbid of all my current story lines. It's also the one that I know the most about...meaning it is the closest to my life...meaning I lived at Bear Brook with these people...NOT meaning that I have killed anyone.

Moving on.

You might need a reference since it's been a long time since you read my previous entry on The Bear Brook Massacre. The story starts off with me saying that I am in an interrogation room suspected of murder. But this is largely a flashback.

To be clearer, this STARTS back at the interrogation room and then goes backwards to remembering being in the hospital. From there, it goes back FURTHER to the day after the first night after the storm. Confusing? Maybe. But postmodern writing wouldn't be postmodern if it didn't involve a hard to follow timeline. So. Enjoy.

It is NOT polished, but I wanted to get it posted. I am TRYING to make some progress here.

With out anymore introduction, I give you:

Installment Two of the thrilling tale of death-The Bear Brook Massacre

They really mean business, these New Hampshire detectives. They don't have time for fooling around. That must be why it's only been an hour into the "interrogation" and they have asked me what I would like to eat for dinner (an Italian sub? Chinese?). One whole HOUR and they are offering me food. Their heartlessness is breathtaking.

I think they don't have an ounce of a clue what to do with this situation. Southern New Hampshire hasn't SEEN murder of this caliber. My police record is spotless. And honestly, I don't have the look of a mass murderer. But I guess homicidal maniacs look like everyone else (*snicker*-Wednesday Adams…). But I am getting ahead of myself. The first thing they did after finding me was take me to the hospital.

There, the people in soothing colors pumped me full of fluids and nutrients. They treated my injuries, which were surprisingly mild considering the situation. The blood on my hands wasn't even mine. I think I slept for 30 hours straight. When I woke up, the parents were there. So was this guy dressed in a nicely pressed suit. He was chatting it up with the doctor.

Mom was weepy. Dad was calm. The doc. was fussy and the suit was antsy. Anxious. Stony faced as a gargoyle, though. Only his constant fidgeting with his wedding band gave him away. The doctor asked him to leave.

Mom worried, dad consoled, the doctor spoke in crisp concise phrases. And I wondered: why was I here?

You can't blame me. YOU witness the death of 31 of your friends and companions and see how YOU react.

Dr: I'd like to ask you a few questions. Is that alright?

Me: *nods*

Mom and Dad: soundless, silent shadows listening in the corner.

Suit man: no doubt pressing his ear to the door.

Dr: How are you feeling?

Me: *pause* tired. A little sore.

Dr: Are you experiencing any serious pain?

Me: *thinks, then shakes head* No. Not really.

Dr: Do you know how you got here?

Me: *mouth twitching* The ambulance?

No one smiled. Not a good time for humor, I guess.

Dr: *clears throat* Do you know why you are here?

Me:*looks at bandages, thinks, pauses*

Why couldn't it have been multiple choice?

Me: *hesitation* I had some kind of accident?

Dr: *looks at parents*

Parents: *look at doctor*

Dr: Can you be more specific than that?

I began to feel uneasy. There was an obvious lapse in memory here. And I didn't want to admit it.

Me: I don’t understand.

Dr: *Pauses. Thinks* what is the last thing you remember?

Drat.

Me: The woods. Bear Brook State Park. I've been working there.

Dr: *nods* yes. Anything more specific?

Mom started to whisper urgently to Dad. I couldn't make it out but it sounded anxious.

Me: *pushing bad thoughts away. Far away* The storm. There was a big storm. It knocked the power out.

There was more than that. I knew it. My brain knew it. And before I could push them back further, dark and bloody memories started to seep in. I closed my eyes and pushed harder.

Dr: Nothing after that? You don't know how you got your injuries? You remember nothing of the past three weeks?

Me: *Clenching hands and eyelids shut* Three weeks?

Had it been that short a time?

Me: *heart racing* No. Nope. Nothing.

The tears started to come.

Me: Nothing happened. Nothing. They're all there waiting for me with their smiles and their jokes. I left them there and they're waiting. Nothing happened….Nothing….

And just like that I had no idea what I was saying but words were coming out through sobs. The room went all drippy and hazy. My face was inexplicably wet, my throat raw. Mom said words I couldn't hear and moved out of the shadows to embrace me.

We were like that for a while. Me babbling about how nothing happened. That they were all waiting…and Mom holding he in her arms. But I took several deep breaths and the room came into focus again.

Me: They're all dead…

***

The first was awful. Made worse simply because it WAS the first. Most of us had never felt the loss of a friend let alone SEEN death.

It was the first evening after the storm. The day itself has been chilly and gray. We'd all done our best to stay occupied. Our efforts were hindered by that fact that we couldn't leave. Usually, a power outage would have meant a fleet of gray 12 passenger vans could be seen driving out of the park and towards Manchester, or the movie theater in Hooksett. Not this time. We played cards, read books, cooked over the gas stove, and generally felt bored.

When night crept in, things got infinitely worse. Not being able to see anything in front of you can put a damper on things. Most of us went to bed early.

Not Steven, as we discovered the following morning.

The dawn brought new sunlight and the promise of a new day. Maybe the power would come back. Or at least someone could come to remove the fallen tree. A few of us volunteered to walk to the campground and survey the damage-see if there was anything we could do to speed up the process of cleaning things up. Lulu, Max, and I ate a quick, cold breakfast, hitched up our boot laces, and trekked up the road. We picked up the smaller fallen limbs and tossed them to the side of the road as we went. It felt good to breathe the air, to walk about. The three of us chatted about our plans after Bear Brook and were pretty cheery by the time we made it to the start of the campground.

There it was. The giant behemoth tree. It was just past the gate that kept the campers out of the SCA camp. Sharp branches jutted every which way. I know it sounds crazy, but I remember thinking that the tree looked like it died an agonizing death. We were so busy marveling at the size of the thing that none of immediately saw the form slumped against the horizontal trunk. But there he was: his blonde hair matted with dark crimson, a gray sweater we all recognized as AmeriCorps issued, and blue jogging shorts. The exposed part of his legs glistened with dew in the bright fall morning.

And protruding through his chest, surrounded by a ring of red, was a branch. As if the beech had stretched forth her hand to rip his heart out. Even then, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom flashed involuntarily in my mind.

I was the first to speak.

Me: Steven?

It was a tentative call. Questioning. As if I wasn't sure if it was him or not.

Lulu: Oh my God…

We all rushed forward, propelled by invisible pinball flippers.

Me: Steven!!

It was a scream that time. Why wasn't he answering?

We crowded around his form. Max stretched forth his hand to take a pulse at his neck.

Me: Don't…

The other words caught in my throat. His eyes were open. Dead and staring. Glimmering with a final laugh. His mouth was slack. A stream of blood had dried at the corner of it.

I wish I could say that I fell to my knees and bellowed a cry of grief. Or that I sobbed and called Steven's name as if he could hear me. But death is not as dramatic as it looks in he movies. It's cold, merciless, rank, and filed with bile. And so my breakfast found it's way out of my stomach and back up the way it came. My legs crumpled and I was sick on the ground at the dead Steven's feet.

Max: *Beep* (yes, I censor my own writing).

He came over to where I sat, vomit on one of my legs. He touched my shoulder. I could feel his hand trembling. Lulu just stared at the body.

Max: We have to tell someone. Get some help…

Lulu: *Nods blankly*

Me: *silence*

Max: Sarah, can you get up?

Me: *Shakes head*

Max *Thinks* Lulu, you stay here with Sarah. I'll go and get some help.

Lulu: *Nods blankly*

Me: *Silence*

I could hear the gravel crunch as he bolted away. I listened until everything was silent again. A breeze blew through the trees. I looked up. They were on fire, the trees. Blazing in red, gold, orange…

My HEAD was on fire. The wind became a roaring in my ears. I could hear Lulu's breath catching in her throat. She came to sit next to me.

My back was to the body, but I could feel his weight. A dead hand clutched my shoulder, begging me to turn and look.

I was shaking.

A mantra marched through my head. It went something like this: Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead…

It was like a blinking light at some terrible small town intersection. And all the roads were blocked. There would be no more life with Steven. I was stuck at this flashing light. I tried to comprehend what all this meant, but my mind kept coming up as a static TV screen with that one flashing word.

DEAD.

Who knew how long we were there. After a time, Max returned. By now, both Lulu and I were weeping. No sobs, only silent tears we couldn't seem to stop. With Max were the 4 leaders. All looking ashen faced. Marlee and Sue wore identical stunned faces, complete with open mouths sagging with all the words they couldn't bring themselves to say. Jeremy had turned away from the scene and was covering his mouth with his hand. Mike could only stare.

I looked at all of them imploringly. Willing them to say something that would make it alright. They offered nothing. After a time, Marlee and Sue came to me and Lulu. I felt a hand on my shoulder and another grip my arm. Someone was hoisting me up. I heard something which could have been words but I didn't understand them. I found that I was able to stand and the hands touching me became embracing arms. There were more soft words and then I was being led carefully away from that place. My legs moved, my eyes cleared a little, and I could hear again.

Somehow, there were birds singing.

Sue, Marlee, Lulu, and I all took the road back to the lodge. It was amazing to me that the sun was still shining and that light it cast was a beautiful silver and gold color.

How was it that things were not crashing down around us?

Then Sue broke the silence and voiced what we were all thinking.

Sue: I can't believe that he's gone. How did this happen??

***

There. Another entry, another day. Please let me know what you think. Especially about the dialogue and how it worked in that format. Should I not do it that way? Is it clear? Confusing? What about the timeline. If I hadn't explained it, would you understand? And what about the different tenses of the story. Do THOSE make sense? I have a problem with tense and making it consistent with the occurrence of events in the story in reference to the present. And then using that same tense each time with each different part.

Any other suggestions? I am a novice and would love to know what you think.

Sincerely,

The often busy, and slightly twisted author.

Entry One-Hundred & One

I miss the roundness of the number 100. But 101 has such a nice symmetry that I find it an acceptable change.

It's the number 102 that you gotta worry about. Maybe I will stop posting entries after this.

...


...


Naaaaaaaah.

So I know it would make sense to write more on the Bear Brook Massacre and post that here. Honestly I am working on the next little bit. I am also searching for the pages that held an account of how I was going to kill everyone. Until then, I will simply have to tide you over with something that I wrote while at the laundromat.

I feel like my random little writing entries are sometimes like my doodles. When I doodle, I start off with a shape. A box, a circle, a figure 8, a cloud shape, etc. From there I just start going. I'll draw another shape and based on what my doodle starts to look like I move on and create something. With no idea of what it was going to be in the first place.

And so with some of my writing, I start off with s sentence and all of a sudden my brain wants to go somewhere different with it. I don't want to write a square or a cloud or a bubble letter A. I want to write an abstract version of meiosis or an angry owl. That kind of thing.

I was at the laundromat and I was just going to write about how bored I was. I started with "I am stationed at the Park Street Laundromat" and all of a sudden it sounded like someone in the army talking about where they were stationed. From there, I wondered why someone would be stationed at a laundromat. And from there it turned into the following two front and back pages of writing.

It's not polished so don't judge too harshly.


Written 3-5-11 at the Park Street Laundromat in Rockland, Maine

I am stationed at the Park Street Laundromat. Sounds innocent enough, right?

Wrong.

It's located a couple of blocks from downtown Rockland in what USED to be the state of Maine. Rockland being a coastal town, they have a tendency to swarm there. So short of being in the town itself on the wharf, I happen to be holed up in one of the most dangerous locations in Mid-coast Maine.

On the outside, this particular laundromat may not look like much. It's an old, large colonial house. Inside it looks like even less. Dormant hulls of washers a and dryers, long since rendered useless, clog the space. All the metal rolling laundry baskets have been stolen and the change machines, detergent dispensers, and vending machines broken open. Their contents emptied. It's actually a relatively clean place. Since the military took it for themselves we rid the building of all squatters, excrement, trash, moldy mattresses, and rotting bodies. Of course we never could get rid f the smell. You could see the remnants of the rainbow wallpaper peeling form the strength of it.

And tonight? Along with the remnant stink of wormy flesh, feces, vomit, urine, and garbage, there's the smell of monster carcass. We've noticed that they are drawn to the dead of their own. Our hoity toity scientist says they learned that where there is a dead corpse of their kind, it means WE killed it and are likely to be nearby. Plus, they're cannibals and would never let a good corpse go to waste. So we usually burn the bodies, save a few. For this. For baited traps.

And that's what this is. A crazy suicide mission. An attempt to draw out their numbers and possibly even stretch our boarders a little bit.

Here's what we know (it's very little, mind you). Their skin is a semi-permeable membrane. Saline dependent. We figure they lived deep in the oceans before they ventured onto land. They need salt water to survive and fresh water is deadly to them. That's why the coasts are so dangerous. They've evolved from aquatic creatures to semi-aquatic. Like huge amphibians. You know how they said that the first land organisms were once fish, all that Evolution bull? I guess that's what THIS is. Only it didn't happen over hundreds of thousands of years. It happened so quickly, in fact, that we could hardly make a move before every island was overrun and every coastal community dominated. At least that's what we keep telling ourselves. That we had no time. Not according to our hoity toity scientist that I mentioned earlier. He's one of the few who realized that the signs were there and tried to warn everyone. Now he's one of the only leading experts on the monsters. And we have him constantly breathing down our military necks. As if he would know strategy if it bit him in the arm pit.

They venture out of their water colonies mostly at night, when the sun isn't there to evaporate moisture. They built these strange sand and mud hives just off the beaches. Where the water isn't too deep but they are able to stay moist even at low tide. They never come out when it rains. Like I said, they are saline dependent. If they get too much fresh water in their system, they die.

What do they look like? Picture an abnormally large Komodo Dragon except all gross and mucousy. Like a huge grotesque salamander even. They have long slimy bodies. Usually about 7 feel long but the big ones reach about 10 feet. They have 4 legs with webbed and clawed feet. No real heads. No eyes, ears, or noses either. Just these huge gaping sucker mouths at the end of a very short neck. Inside those suckers are these hooked teeth. Picture a lamprey's mouth but huge. It's enough to make the toughest solider squeamish. Mr. Science Guy says they sense smell and taste through chemical reactions in their skin. Like how our noses and tongues work only along their whole bodies. And they have these what he calls "lateral lines". He says fish have them and can sense movement in the water through changes in the waves against their bodies. I guess these monsters feel changes in vibrations in the air.

How they managed to adapt out of water so quickly, we have no idea. But they are wicked fast.

They secrete this liquid out of their skin. It's highly toxic. Direct exposure to the skin will kill you. Slowly and painfully. Chemical fumes are fatal from 15 feet away. At 30 feet it causes severe and debilitating pain. At 60 feet you're safe, but not for very long. And like I said, they move quick so you can imagine it's pretty tough to get close enough to one to get a good killing shot.

Well, I'll tell you. Tough don't begin to scratch the tip of the iceberg.

Impossible would be a better word to describe how difficult it is to kill them. They have three cerebral areas, or "brains". They're tiny and connected to a simple nerve system the runs horizontally through their body. Like an insect. They hardly feel anything and regenerate extremely fast. A bullet will go through them and their "membrane" just repairs itself. So shooting them anywhere on their bodies only pisses them off. Making sure all three "brains" are destroyed is the only way to kill them for good. Hitting just one will knock them out long enough for them to stop secreting their deadly goo and for you to go up in a hazmat suite and torch them. That's easier said than done. Two brains are located at the intersection of each front leg and the body. Their "armpits" if you will. Impossible to hit at close range so you can forget about it at any kind of distance. The third is halfway between the tip of their tail and where the tail meets the bod. This one is only marginally easier to hit than the others.

*****

That's all I got down before it was time to get my laundry out of the dryer and head home. I hope you enjoyed it because I don't think I will really go anywhere with this. It's just a little doodle of words from my brain.