Ashton Daigle

The red fox growled, low and gurgling, as blood frothed and bubbled from its nose and mouth. For all intents and purposes, the steel-spring bear trap should have cleaved its leg cleanly off. However, its complete hind end had somehow been caught in the trap.

Still, it tried to stand ground as Ryan and Max approached.

The two men hit the grounds at first light in, searching every square inch of the grounds, looking for any evidence of an exploded gas canister. Thus far, the search had turned up fruitless.

It was the mournful, pained yelps of the fox that brought them to the fence near the gully. In between its wounded snarls, the fox looked at them half pleadingly and half defiantly.

“I thought foxes were supposed to be sly,” Max said, as he leveled his M-16 and fired a single round, putting the animal out of its misery.

“Guess not,” Ryan said, wishing he had a drink. “Should we move it?”

“We’ll get it up when we get back,” Max said. “Come on, let’s go have a look.”

With that, Max made his way into the gully, got on his hands and knees, then flattened and crawled under the fence. Ryan followed and in seconds, they were on the other side of the fence.

“Just look for anything out of the ordinary,” Max said.

“Didn’t you say you’ve searched back here before?” Ryan asked.

“Only about twenty yards deep from the fence line,” Max said. “I think we should go a bit deeper if we can. The woods get thick, but they’re passable.”

Ryan suggested they work outward in the shape of a V and Max agreed. With that they began to move forward.

Ryan’s insides felt like mush. After returning home last night, he poured a drink. The first was to just calm his nerves. However, an hour later he’d put a decent size dent in the bottle of Wild Turkey. He woke disoriented and ashamed, but only minimally hung over.

As he moved through the woods, he felt the undigested whiskey still swishing around inside him and he swore to himself he couldn’t let it happen again. Meanwhile, his eyes scanned the terrain around him. He looked for anything, any sign that people had been in these woods, a drink can or cigarette butt. However, he didn’t find anything.

He’d lost sight of Max, but could still hear him. He moved on a couple paces forward when Max called out to him.

“Hey Ryan, come check this out,” Max called out.

Ryan jogged through the woods and was, again, breathing hard by the time he reached Max.

“What is it?” Ryan asked.

“Look down there,” Max said, pointing at the ground.

Ryan didn’t see it at first, but realized what it was when he looked down, but outward from where Max was pointing.

“Is that what I think it is?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah,” Max said. “It’s a trail, made by something with four wheels. What’s more, look at the ruts, the tracks.”

“The water is muddy,” Ryan said.

“It should be clear if it’s just been sitting,” Max said. “Someone’s been out here fairly recently.”

“Do you know where this leads to?” Ryan asked.

“Nope, I never even knew it was out here,” Max said. “Something else too, look at the distance, the space between tire tracks. It’s not from one of those ATV’s that kids and hunters use. It’s from a truck; a big truck too. My guess is a Hummer or something along those lines.”

“The tracks just stop here,” Ryan said.

“Yes but look over on the side their,” Max noted. “Those grasses are smashed flat.”

“That’s where they turned around,” Ryan said. “What should we do?”

“Fuck if I know,” Max said. “Lets follow it, see where it leads to I guess.”

Ryan nodded and they began walking, with the safety switches of their M16’s flipped to the off position.

—– —– —— ——

Trisha Ellis stood near hear sliding glass door watching as wisps of steam hovered over the pool in the back yard. She’d only slipped into a fitfull sleep for a couple of hours before being awakened by Jason’s snores.

After closing herself in her bathroom and crying for twenty minutes, she decided to take a shower. She wasn’t sure why she was so sad. The sex with Jason had made her feel more alive than she’d felt in a long time. Nor was she sad out of some sort of stray sense of guilt for cheating on her husband. No, with reflection, she realized she was probably sad because the evening with Jason had made her feel so alive - and sadder still that her husband no longer was able to.

Now, she stood, smoking a cigarette and sipping from her bottled water as she watched the morning unfold outside.

Eventually, she walked to the kitchen and put her cigarette out. Then , she untied Jason’s little baggie of cocaine and poured a little bit onto the counter. Overall, she wasn’t a huge fan of cocaine. However, she was, after all, a senators wife, and the stuff made its rounds through after-hour cocktail parties and campaign fund-raisers. She’d tried it on occasion, but hadn’t cared for it before because it made her feel too tense. This hadn’t been the case last night though.

She crunched up the cocaine with her AmEx gold card, and then snorted a few lines. She was in mid snort when she felt a pair of arms encircle her. She’d heard the movement behind her, so it didn’t completely startle her. But the warmth of the embrace, as Jason slid up behind her and kissed the back of her neck, unnerved her a little. Despite this, and very much against her own will, she felt goose bumps rise along the nape of her neck, trickling all the way down her back to the base of her spine.

“Morning sexy,” Jason said. “I see the party is starting early this morning.”

“I’m just trying to wake up,” Trisha said, which was partially true.

“We did a lot last night,” Jason said. “We better save the rest of it for the trip.”

“Can’t you get any more?” she asked him.

“Probably, but there’s a little problem with that,” Jason admitted. “I owe the guy some money.”

“How much?” Trisha asked.

“A thousand,” Jason said.

“I’ll cover it,” Trisha found herself saying, surprised.

It wasn’t an exorbitant sum for her by a long shot. However, her yearning for more of it, made her wary. She prepared a line for Jason and watched as he leaned over the counter to snort it.

God, he was beautiful, she thought.

He rose, looked at her and grinned. And then he gently opened her robe, leaned forward and took one of her nipples into his mouth. A tiny gasp escaped her lips as he slid his hand down her panties and thrust his finger into her.

—— ——- ——- ——

Victoria Davenport was also up early that morning. She was still unhinged by the nightmare she’d had about her late husband.

While the nightmare had been so real, there were elements about it that just didn’t adhere to any reality she ever knew. For one thing, Michael had never ever used a harsh word against her, even during their arguments, which for the most part were few and far between.

She knew in her heart of hearts that Michael would not begrudge her moving on and, that he’d probably also approve of Ryan.

She figured the dream was about her own reservations, her own fears. She knew she was nervous about her date (which was tonight) with Ryan. But until that awful nightmare, she didn’t know how conflicted she really was.

And yet still, deep in the very primitive recesses of her soul, she also knew that that thing in the tub from her nightmare was not her husband. And it was this that posed the most disturbing question of all.

If the thing in the tub from her nightmare wasn’t her husband, who was it?

——- ——- —— ——

The sun had begun to beat down heavily as Ryan and Max continued to follow the truck path silently.

Max paused for a moment, removed a bottle of Gatorade from his hip pocket and drank.

“You got something to drink?” he asked Ryan.

“Yeah, but I’m good,” Ryan said.

“You’d better drink, I can smell the whiskey sweats coming off of you in waves,” Max said.

Ryan looked ashamed, but Max nodded.

“I’m not going to say a word,” Max said. “I drank a half bottle of rum myself last night after all was said and done.”

After a long pause Max continued.

“Look, there’s something I wanted to mention,” he said hesitantly.

“Go on,” Ryan said.

“Look, I know things got tense last night, but your “traitor” remark to William was not…unnoticed by me. I know about William and My Lai.”

Max breathed heavily, as if he’d been holding this information to himself for a very long time. Ryan could see the tension ease out of Max’s face.

Ryan simple nodded and said, “Well, not many people do.”

“No,” Max said. “The information was never classified.”

“That wasn’t for lack of trying, though,” Ryan said.

“No,” Max said. “It wasn’t. I know that too. Look, I also know about you and your gig too.”

“Oh,” Ryan said. “Again, not classified.”

“Look, I know it wasn’t the most fun thing to have to do, to persecute our own soldiers,” Max began. “But even in war time, if that’s what you’d even call what we’re involved in today, there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. I just wanted you to know, you’re okay in my book.”

Ryan was touched. He hardly expected this from Max. And when he looked at Max and nodded he could tell there was still something more to come.

“Thanks,” Ryan said. “I do appreciate that. It’s not necessary, but I appreciate it nonetheless.”

“There’s also something else,” Max said. “It’s been hanging around the back of my mind like an itch I can’t reach, but I need to just put it out there. I don’t think it means anything, but…”

Max’s voice trailed off.

“What?” Ryan asked.

“Well last night,” Max said. “The first camera outage, I didn’t see that. William called me into the room, but by the time I got there it was normal.”

“Okay,” Ryan said.

“Well, when you and I went out last night, the only person watching the camera was William,” Max said.

“What exactly are you saying Max?” Ryan asked.

“Fuck if I know, just that William was the only one that was watching the cameras while we were out,” Max said.

“You think he made it all up, just to test us or something?” Ryan asked. “That would be easy enough to check. Just go back and rewind the surveillance tapes.”

“I tried that,” Max said. “The tapes were gone.”

“Gone?” Ryan asked.

“William took them,” Max said. “He told me. He told me after the fact, but he told me. He said he wanted to review them himself. I didn’t argue with him. Look, like I said, it’s probably nothing. We’re all a little on edge. I’d ask that you keep this to yourself.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Ryan said. “But what else should we be doing? What about these tracks? Should we tell him?”

Just as Ryan asked this, they rounded a bend in the trail and, through the woods, could see a highway. They crept forward and saw it was the highway that led to the entrance drive to Piedmont.

“Now that you mention it, no,” Max said. “Let’s keep this to ourselves, just for tonight. I’m going to try something. If nothing comes of it, we can go out tomorrow and find this trail. In the meantime, I think we should keep an eye on William.”

“Agreed,” Ryan said. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

“Yeah, come on,” Max said. “It’s quite a little jaunt back to campus. Let’s get a move on before we’re missed.”