"Shit!" Kyle lifted himself out of the dirt, spitting the flecks of grit from between his lips as he rolled over on his back and looked up some eight feet to the lip of the ledge he'd just blindly walked over. "Goddamnit. Goddamnit!"
He checked himself for injury and relaxed a bit when he found all was well. He lifted himself up and brushed the leaves from his unruly brown hair. Six hours; that's how long he had been lost, calling out into the cold darkness around him for his older brother John and hearing nothing in return but the sounds of night creatures.
He lifted a hand to his mouth and rubbed his drying lips, he was beginning to dehydrate. Looking left and then right he cupped his hands and shouted for the hundredth time, "Johnny! For fuck'sake answer me!"
The wind pitched some leaves around and then their came a sound of movement in the trees. Kyle froze, listening to the movement through the underbrush.
Why the fuck did I let that asshole bring me out here?
It had been the start of a beautiful Friday afternoon; the onset of a hassle-free weekend. Kyle had stripped out of his shirt and tie and hit the shower ASAP. Washing away the troubles of the office. He was 28, a lowly law clerk, and living for the weekend. No sooner had he worked up a good lather of sweat smelling ivory soap when head heard it, the distant thumping that grew more distinct as he shut off the water; Knocking, heavy knocking on his apartment door.
Kyle had managed to wrap himself in a towel and get to the door before Johnny had pounded it in. "Hey, little brother," his brother was massive, filling the door frame, his dark skin and prominent brow more like their father's every year. "Pack up. We're going camping."
Johnny was like that; spontaneous, insistent, and bigger than Kyle.
In fact, the two brothers had always been very opposite. Johnny was a jock; a linebacker from birth. He'd hated school and only gone as far as 12th grade before jumping into construction and getting his girlfriend pregnant. He liked drinking heavy and doing outdoorsy things like fishing, hunting, hiking, and camping. He also loved to force his "pussyfied" younger brother to go along with him once every few months. "Toughens you up," Johnny would say, slapping his younger brother's shoulder or pinching his cheek as they'd rocked down the highways out of greater Boston and into the Northeastern woodlands. Kyle had always been a city boy. From the first smack of the Doctor's palm at Boston General, he'd lived for the sounds of a big town with lots of people in it, ballgames, taxi cabs, city transit... He'd gone all the way in school, working his way through Harvard law by tending bar or hosting study groups for ten bucks a head.
Johnny had pushed his way into the little apartment, taking in the neatness of it. "You got yourself a woman?"
"No."
"Always look like this?"
"I have a maid service."
"Oh. Got a beer for me?"
Kyle tied the towel around his waist and padded into the kitchen, his wet feet making slapping sounds against the tile. He took out a bottle of Bud and handed it to his brother. "So, you ain't got a woman, huh?"
"Nope."
"Thought you were living with that lawyer chick you met at school."
"Broke it off, nine months ago."
"You didn't tell me that."
"Yeah, well..."
"You gonna stand there drippin' or are you gonna through some shit in a pack and come down to the truck with me? I'm parked on the sidewalk, you know?"
As usual it had proven futile to argue. Kyle was in his camping gear before the end of an hour and now, nearly 150 miles and 12 hours from home, he was lost, alone, probably miles from the camp he and his brother had set up, and listening to the sound of god only knew what sounds coming at him through the trees.
"Can't go camping this weekend, Johnny," he kicked a stone and sent it skittering into the high grass covering the dried creek bed. "Got to prep notes for a big case on Monday, boss is threatening upside-down crucifixion if I don't have it ready. Why didn't you just lie, Kyle?"
A twig snapped off in the distance and Kyle froze. There was movement in the underbrush off to his left and the creature responsible for the sound was moving closer. Kyle looked around for a way to climb back up the steep incline back to the higher ground all the while becoming aware of the heavy breathing in the underbrush.
***
From the bushes she watched him as he tried to jump and claw his way back up from the dry creek-bottom he'd tumbled in. It was almost comical to see him struggling, obviously afraid of her.
She of course had smelled him from several hundred yards, his machine made clothes, his sweatiness covering up the smells of beer and man-made campfire. She sniffed something else underneath all those scents... Something that made her very much at ease as she approached him, ivory soap.
Rugged outdoorsmen never used ivory soap,
Moving out of the bushes and into the tall grass she crouched down, almost letting herself come to rest as she watched the earth give way and the boy slide down, sullying his jeans and cutting his hands on the exposed roots.