The Yaak House, Part Four

(Originally published on my main blog, Andi and I Write, on October 12, 2020)

It took everything in Thaz’ra not to scream, but her gasp sounded like a gunshot in the tent. The creature's head snapped up, and Thaz'ra’s breath shuddered as she silently rested one finger on the rifle's safety, the other a hair over the trigger. 

The exposed jawbone and leathered hide were void of hair but much too alive. Eye-shine came from the void within the eye sockets before the moon had even had a chance to gasp through the trees.

The longer she looked at it, the less it looked like a deer.

It lowered its head to sniff the leaf litter. She saw too many vertebrae in the neck as it did so, and none of the legs looked… right.

If it wasn’t a deer, she found that she didn’t want to know what it was.

The click of the rifle’s safety coming off made the huddled masses behind her quiver and tuck in closer against Hazel in the center of the tent. Thaz'ra willed the creature not to come any closer silently, mortal beast or not, she would defend her party. 

The creature tilted its head, looking at the tent, somehow, she knew it was looking specifically at her. 

The creature before her flinched as wind whistled through the trees, thunder rumbling from further down the mountain, as if the forest had given a sigh, had found relief in the flinch of the beast. Thaz'ra clenched her jaw, but forced her hands to be steady, relaxed so as not to interfere with her aim, futile though she sensed it would be against it.

The not-quite-a-deer lowered its head to the leaf litter as it walked on. She couldn’t afford to miss. 

It was sniffing the remains of their fire when the warmth in her thundering veins was replaced with a chill, adrenaline. The wind rushed outside the tent as she drew in a breath, as if the woods themselves rejected the horror before her and rushed into her lungs to use her as a mouthpiece.

She raised her rifle, whistling. 

Her friends flinched back but dare not utter a word, though she heard someone’s breath shudder; her whistle had been a shattering glass in the silence of the wood. The chill in her chest raced down her spine, up her neck and across her back as the creature looked in her direction. 

It was just enough like a deer, and it took a step towards her.

The gunshot split the air with a flash. Before her tent, the creature staggered back, but did not fall.

Gerald’s half-formed warning was lost, dying unuttered on his lips as she barged out of the tent, his form quickly blotting the view of the creature from the rest as he moved to grab at the back of her sweater, his hand falling slack at the sight of the thing.

Thaz’ra stood in the moonlight mere feet from the thing, her hands working the bolt action like clockwork; like the way her father had taught her. The spent brass in her palm was warm.

The rifle's open sights remained fixed on it as she fired again. 

This time the thing stumbled back, bone cracking and flying from the skull before it turned and ran. Had it been a deer, she’d been hunting long enough to know it wouldn’t go far on a broken shoulder.

Gerald’s hand was shaking against her back as she watched the thing retreat through the moonlit woods, hobbling as it ran.

"You said it was a deer…" his words trailed off as Thaz glanced to the sky. The moonlit sky was clear, the woods bright. She heard a deer, a real deer, whistle from somewhere far down the mountain, the most sound she'd heard from natural wildlife in hours. 

She clicked the flashlight in her pocket on; a jawbone lay in the ashes.

“Was,” Thaz’ra murmured under her breath, grabbing the jawbone and tucking it in her coat. Gerald was waiting at the flap of the tent with bated breath. Thaz’ra shivered as she retreated into the tent after chambering a new round, putting the spent shells in her pocket. She didn’t answer the question she saw in Gerald’s eyes by the moonlight as she clicked the flashlight off.

“So, we’re going to stay-?!” Hazel asked.

“We’re miles from the jeep,” Gerald interjected, “it would do no good to get lost or worse right now.”

“We don’t even know what we’re up against!”

“Hazel Mae,” Thaz’ra’s calm voice was enough to hush Hazel; she’d heard it but once before, shortly before she had seen Thaz’ra take down a mountain of a man with one swing at a bar; she had broken his jaw in three places. Gerald cleared his throat softly.

“Thaz and I will get all of you through this, I promise,” he said. Hazel scoffed at that.

“You don’t believe in promises,” Jasper said warily. Beside him, Boris sighed.

“Is simple,” he murmured, “they will; no other option …” he trailed off mumbling in Russian and Hazel crossed her arms over her chest in the darkness.

“I don’t like the idea of staying in the tent with something that can survive a round from that gun,” she murmured.

“Considering it was already dead to start with…” Rin muttered under his breath. Thaz’ra tensed, and Gerald turned toward the sound of his voice.

“You saw it too?” he asked.

“I didn’t have to,” he murmured, “It’s the only other thing we have seen up here.”

The silence hung thick in the air like moss for what could have been a minute, though it could just as easily have been an hour.

“Thaz,” Gerald’s voice broke the silence, “You know how I have bad timing?”
“Boy if you need to go take a piss I swear-”

“I love you.” 

Another silence, broken by Thaz’ra’s shaking laugh, “I… You…” she tripped over the words, “I mean… I love you too, but also, we’re… we’re kinda… you know,” her voice wavered, but the joy was a soothing balm to the frayed nerves, “we’re in a situation here bud.”

“I mean, yolo?” Gerald said in weak defense. 

“Rin,” Thaz’ra sighed.

“On it,” a soft thump sounded as Rin bonked his rolled sleeping bag off the back of Gerald’s head.

“With such poorly timed declaration… might not live long,” Jasper said, imitating Boris’ accent.

“My accent is not thick,” Boris scolded Jasper, though his smile in the dark softened the words, “Your skull, yes. My accent? Not so much.”

“Would the husky ruski like to buy an article for a dollar?” Jasper teased.

“Are we going to ignore the fact that Gerald declared his love to Thaz’ra when we’re trapped on a mountain?” Hazel said, her laugh bubbling up in the darkness like a sunrise, “and she said it back!?” Thaz’ra thought about it with a shaking laugh. Her and Gerald had danced as friends, lovers, strangers, then as friends and lovers again... He felt safe, like home.

“Yeah, because we don’t know why it surprises you,” Jasper mused.

“To be on the safe side, say it again when we’re not in a crisis, okay?” Thaz’ra laughed weakly.

“As you wish,” Gerald said, wrapping an arm around Thaz’ra’s waist and pressing a kiss to her shoulder through her sweater as she returned her watch to the gap. The forest was silent, save a sighing breeze that rustled the pine needles and aspen as the moon began to rise behind the crest of the hill atop the scarred clearing; she could just make out the crooked chimney of that godforsaken cabin against the halo of light that preluded the moon proper.

She vowed to burn the place to the ground.

She didn’t know who in the tent fell asleep first, but soon she heard the familiar lull of Gerald’s breathing. He’d dozed off sitting up.

“Jaz?” she asked softly, hoping the other insomniac of the group was still awake.

“I’m still up,” he murmured, “Everyone else is out,” she heard shuffling within the tent, “I’ll lay him down.”

“Okay, remember not to-”

“Jostle him too much, I know Thaz,” his voice was gentle, calm as she settled back into her position.

“I don’t know how I forget you two dated for so long,” Thaz’ra hummed. Jasper had taken Gerald’s spot behind her, having laid the blond down and draping a blanket over him, “Hell, weren’t you two practically married…?”

“Hand-fast,” Jasper clarified in a soft, thoughtful hum, “it wasn’t recognized, we never filled out the legal paperwork, but you know how he can be when he gives his word,” Jasper draped a blanket over Thaz’ra’s shoulders, rubbing them absently as she sat looking out into the forest, “but that was back in… those days, you know?” Thaz’ra shuddered.

“I don’t know how you’re still so kind to me,” she whispered, “the things I did-”

“You’ve always done what was needed to survive, to protect us,” he felt her tense.

“Those things may be why we’re in this situation,” she murmured.

“Oh?”

“You remember Clipper?” it was Jasper’s turn to tense, it was all the answer she needed, “That was a stupid question… we all remember the bastard,” her hands clenched into fists, knuckles cracking absently as she did so, “I lied about the last time I was up the Yaak… he brought me and Rin two years ago, we took a different route, a bunch of forest service roads-”

“Thaz…” Jasper’s hand found one of hers, “I don’t want to know what or how. He’s never going to hurt anyone again, that is enough for me,” Thaz’ra gave a shaking sigh and squeezed his hand, and he put an arm around her.

“…I’ve been in that cabin before Jaz. There’s something wrong with it now though,” she didn’t need to see the tilt of Jasper’s head to know the inquisitive look on his face.

“Oh?”

“It’s older now,” she felt him settle in better behind her, “far older than it should be,” she watched the silhouette of the chimney mark the rising moon, now just over halfway risen over the ridge, “Rin was drugged, I don’t think he remembers what happened, what I did… I pray he doesn’t.”

“Were the woods weird then?” Jasper’s question went unanswered for a long moment before she gave a shaking sigh.

“I wasn’t concerned with the woods then,” she felt Jasper’s gaze on the moonlit sliver of her face; the light tracing over her eye like a scar etched against her soul, “…I did something foul Jaz.”

“He deserved-”

“He didn’t,” her hands trembled on the stock of the rifle, “Not… not what happened in there…”

“I didn’t feel any sinister energy there,” Jasper noted.

“You’re used to me,” Thaz’ra’s counter was soft.

“You’re not sinister.”

“Not to family, not to my boys-” twigs snapped in the woods and she raised the rifle, “Gerald,” her tone, even though her voice was lowered, wrenched the man awake and he took Jasper’s place, “Twig snap, three o’clock,” she could feel the color draining from his face behind her, “wake everyone Jaz,” she added, her voice a whisper in the breeze as the air shuddered into stillness, a cloud obscuring the moon.

“What-” 

“Do it,” Gerald’s voice was hard, a far cry from the firm and guiding sound it had taken just hours before in the daylight. Jasper hesitated, but turned his attention to the others, waking them quietly.

Outside, the moon crept imperceptibly higher in the sky behind the gauzy cloud as the leaf litter rustled and Thaz’ra closed her eyes.

There was an unsteady shuffling in the leaf litter, muffled by the dampness the rain had provided; shuffling… more shuffling… and then the faintest sound of creaking leather. 

She opened her eyes to find the moon had broken through the clouds.

“Boris.”

“Da?” he questioned, lapsing into Russian absently. The nerves in his brassy voice were a more foreign sound for the anxious habit.

“We need the mag light,” she breathed. An uneasy silence met the request. Gerald shifted behind her, she heard him proceed to tap Boris’ knee in rapid Morse code, relaying the request, “Right, fuck,” she kicked herself mentally, hearing Boris dig in his coat for the light, “I’m sorry,” more soft taps.

“Is fine; I forget too. Has only been a year with issue.”

“Oh?” Hazel’s soft curiosity went unanswered as Gerald tapped Thaz’ra’s side with the light.

“Rin,” Thaz’ra said softly, “Your mission is to get Hazel and Boris to the Jeep. I know Jaz is too stubborn to leave me and Gerald here.”

“I’d say damn straight but-” Jasper’s humor was cut short by rustling in front of the tent.

“Be ready to cut the back open,” Gerald breathed to Rin. Rin wasted no time. The sharp, though muffled, sound of his pocketknife clicking out assured Thaz’ra he was ready in less than a heartbeat. Behind her, she heard Jasper cocking his pistol beside Gerald, and she knew the blond had a hand on his own pistol.

“Gerald, twelve o’clock with the light in four,” Thaz’ra raised the rifle, “three… two…”  the moment hung heavy in the air between the beats of her heart for what seemed like forever, “one.”

The breath left her breast in slow motion as Rin cut the back of the tent and rushed out, gripping Hazel and Boris by a hand each as light flooded the clearing. Thaz’ra heard him as if from a distance, screaming at the two not to look back no matter what.  

A queasy feeling in Thaz’ra’s chest suspected that he had remembered everything in that moment as the moon and the mag light illuminated what was no longer a just deer before her; for skeletal human arms hung beneath what should have been merely the front legs of a deer. They were reaching from within the once concave chest, which were now spread open like the wings of a macabre and unholy moth as it stood upright on the once deer’s hind legs. Adjoining these human arms was a human torso within the yawning maw of bone, head still attached and tucked high up in the ribcage. 

The flesh of the human face was withered but recognizable to the veterans of human horrors behind Thaz’ra as it charged. She fired; the shot shattered the lower jaw of the still cervine skull and knocked the creature back, a chunk of the jawbone landing at her feet. She scooped it up without thinking as she became aware of the horrified sound of Jasper’s voice while Gerald; in a moment of raw and overpowering fear, turned tail to ran after Rin and the rest.

“What did you DO?!” Jasper shouted at Thaz’ra as she shoved the piece of jaw in her pocket and the two began their retreat with a few backward steps before Thaz’ra fired again, aiming low and shattering an ever so vaguely Cervidae hind leg.