6:00 – 6:59 p.m.
From across the river, a coyote howls, and Kurt jumps, kneeing the plate on his lap. Kurt fumbles to catch it, but it continuously slips from his fingers. It lands face down, dumping its contents onto the ground. Not a big loss, in Kurt's opinion. Sebastian, watching from across the fire, bends over laughing, which turns into coughing, as he struggles to catch his breath.
Kurt doesn't like the sound of Sebastian's cough – raspy and wet, like water is collecting in his throat with every spasmodic burst and trying to choke him - but that concern gets overshadowed by the thought of how good one of his hidden Milky Ways is going to taste after his asshole boyfriend falls asleep.
"Really?" Kurt asks unamused, wiping bean juice off his hands with his napkin. "A ghost story? Isn't that a little cliché?"
"Ah, but this isn't just any ghost story," Sebastian replies, folding his hands in his lap. "This story happens to be absolutely and 100% true."
"Yeah. Sure." Kurt rolls his eyes. "Did the Easter Bunny tell it to you?" Sebastian chuckles, but it sounds worse than his cough. "Come on, Bas. You know I don't believe in that stuff."
"You told me you don't believe in God," Sebastian points out with a finger raised. "You never said you don't believe in ghosts."
Another eye roll. "It's pretty much the same thing."
"Nu-uh. God isn't real, but ghosts are," Sebastian argues. "Though to be fair, this is more of a monster story…"
"A-ha!" Kurt exclaims in triumph.
"But to make it even better…" Sebastian continues, voice going husky as he slides forward in his chair, "it's a story local to this area."
The coyote howls again, and Kurt jumps again, but not as skittishly as before, his fingers wrapped tight around the napkin in his hands helping keep him in his seat.
"Ugh," Kurt groans, dismissing his unease. "You're actually going to make me listen to this, aren't you?"
"Yes," Sebastian says with a nod. He looks better for a moment, not as miserably sick as he's been for the past hour, so Kurt can't say no.
"Alright," he concedes, relaxing back in his chair, "but if this story starts with the phrase Native Americans have a legend, I'm going to have to stop you right there, because that's insulting and racist."
Sebastian laughs darkly, that damned coyote howls, and Kurt wishes they could be telling this story anywhere else.
Kurt may not buy into ghosts and goblins, but he also has an overactive imagination. After a midnight showing of The Blaire Witch Project, he swore he saw dolls made out of twigs hanging out of trees for weeks.
Turned out they were just twigs.
"Actually this story comes from an even less reliable source," Sebastian says, wringing his hands together with anticipation.
"Yeah?" Kurt scoffs. "And what's that? Wikipedia?"
"Nope." Sebastian's eyes stay locked on Kurt, but his voice changes, becomes thin for a split-second. "My dad. It's a story from way back when he used to come up here camping with his dad."
Kurt sits up slowly, so stunned by Sebastian's statement that a playing card flicked in his direction could have knocked him over. A three-headed dog could have leapt out of the trees and attacked them, and Kurt wouldn't have been more surprised than he was at that moment.
Sebastian's dad is a private man. Mostly self-made, with an empire that, in this day and age, he can control entirely by computer, he rarely leaves the Smythe Family Estate. Kurt has met Sebastian's dad on numerous occasions. He isn't the warmest man in the world, but he's decent, kind, and tolerant of his son's wants and desires. Part of the generation of empty-nesters leaving their houses in search of adventure – bungee jumping, extreme sports, skydiving, parasailing, all as a defense against maturity (heck, even Kurt's dad gave inline skating a try) - Sebastian's dad, Andrew Smythe, is the epitome of the word reserved. He doesn't do anything frivolous, has no hobbies outside work, nothing that he does just for fun. He doesn't travel, doesn't go on vacation, though he has the money to circle the world multiple times if he wanted. Kurt can't ever remember hearing Sebastian's father laugh or see him smile. He is as straight-laced as they come.
Sebastian's grandfather, Bernard, is a different story. Or he was. He died before Kurt came into Sebastian's life. But from comments Kurt had heard around the Smythe Estate, things brought up in passing as inside jokes (mostly by Sebastian's mom and his great-aunt, may she rest in peace), Bernard Smythe had been certifiable from about the time his only son was born. Kurt often felt that contributed to Andrew Smythe's guarded behavior, his disaffected coldness at first blush. The poor man had seen some things in his life - things that he shouldn't have - though to Kurt's knowledge, he made it a point not to talk about them, not to anyone.
When would he have had a reason to tell this story to Sebastian?
"Okay," Kurt says, his curiosity seriously and completely piqued, "tell me the big scary story."
"Alright." Sebastian smirks. "But remember when you're clinging to me late at night, shaking like a leaf, you asked for it."
Kurt drops his head back dramatically since rolling his eyes no longer suffices. "I'll remember. I've been warned."
"Okay." Sebastian shifts in his seat, getting into better position to tell his story, a glimmer of excitement visible in his eyes. "This happened when my dad was about ten-years-old, so probably the seventies? Anyway, the point is my grandpa was considered still fairly sane back then, so grandma let him take my dad hunting and fishing on the weekends during the summer. And they used to come here, to this very spot on the river."
Kurt kinks an eyebrow up.
"Really?" he says sarcastically. "This very spot?"
"Yeah, well, give or take a few miles," Sebastian says, "but yes." He points to the ground. "Right here."
"And how do you know it's this…very spot?" Kurt asks, pointing to the ground, mocking his boyfriend.
Sebastian shakes off Kurt's ridicule. "Because what I'm about to tell you scared my father so bad he remembers every inch of this river, like it's written on the back of his hand."
Kurt wants to blow that off as exaggeration on Sebastian's part, and he would, if Sebastian's dad wasn't involved. Andrew Smythe isn't the sort of man you disbelieve. Even second hand, he can be taken at his word.
"My grandfather and my dad came up here one weekend, the way they usually did, but this one time they brought a friend of my grandfather's and his son. Well, he said it was a friend, but I think it was really, like, a gardener or something."
Kurt furrows his brow. "Why do you say that?"
"Because the man was Guatemalan, and my grandfather was one hell of a bigot," Sebastian explains. "He wouldn't have been friends with anyone who wasn't Caucasian straight down to his blood. And the way my dad remembers it, this friend carried most of their heavy gear up here, so he probably invited the poor bastard on the understanding that he was going to play pack mule or something. Anyway, so they get up here, they set up camp, the men take their boys fishing, all is well, but strange things start happening. Well, the guy seems to think they're strange. Grandpa doesn't really care."
A breeze weeds in between Kurt's legs and around his knees, and he crosses them at the ankles, one foot over the other.
"Like…what kind of things?"
"Nothing really," Sebastian says with a shrug. "To be quite honest, if I had been in my grandpa's shoes and, you know, not a total asshole, I probably would have thought the guy was over-reacting."
Kurt nods, choosing to overlook the not a total asshole comment, putting a perfect jab on the back burner. "But…but like, what exactly?"
"He said that the wind felt strange," Sebastian says, "and that the birds sounded nervous. He said that the water in the river was too cold for that time of year. Vague things, things that usually come from a lifetime of growing up with the fear of God and other contrary superstitions."
Kurt's left arm goes numb. The thing about the birds sounding nervous and the water being too cold sounds like nonsense, but the wind…
The wind has felt strange to Kurt all day long.
"Even my dad was getting tired of it," Sebastian says, unaware of Kurt's connection to his tale. "He didn't believe the man either, and his constant complaining was getting on his nerves. Until they saw the tracks."
Kurt starts to rub his numb arm, trying to bring the feeling back with his shaking hand. "Wh-what tracks?"
"Now this is where stories differ," Sebastian says, talking more with his hands. "Apparently my grandpa claimed they were bear tracks, according to my dad. Huge bear tracks, but just bear tracks. But my father saw them, and he said there was no way they could belong to a bear. He said they looked like two clawed feet walking on both sides of something being dragged. Something big. Like a body. He even took pictures."
"Well, did you see the pictures?" Kurt asks, nearly jumping from his seat, as if Sebastian might have the pictures and is teasing Kurt with them.
"Nope," Sebastian says. "When my dad tried to have the roll developed, they came out completely black."
"Yeah, well, what did he have?" Kurt asks, disappointed. "A 110 camera? My mom had one of those. She said that if you exposed even an inch of that film to a speck of sunlight the whole roll was trashed."
"No," Sebastian says, shaking his head. "The rest of the pictures came out fine. But the three photos he took of the tracks, smack dab in the middle of the roll, were completely black."
Another howl, another gust of wind, stronger, kicking up leaves and dirt, stirring up the fire, and Kurt's decided he's had enough stories. He just wants to stop and move on to something else, like campfire songs, or more sex, even disappointing sex, if it means they can hide inside the tent, zip it up, and end this story now.
"Seb…" He begs, but Sebastian puts up both hands.
"Wait, wait, wait. This is where it gets really fucked up," Sebastian says with way too much delight. "Night time comes, and there's no moon." Sebastian stops - pausing, Kurt figures, for effect, but whatever he's going for, Kurt doesn't quite get it.
"So," Kurt says. "How is that unusual? There's barely any moon out tonight."
"Yeah, except there was supposed to be a full moon," Sebastian says with a creepy grin. "They saw glimpses of it during the day. But the sun set…" Sebastian snaps his fingers. "And no moon. And no matter where they went – over by the river, up on the rocks, my dad even climbed a tree – they couldn't see it. So this other guy, he's had enough by now. He pretty much starts going nuts. He's yelling in Guatemalan, which my grandfather doesn't understand, and his poor boy is trying to translate, but they're only catching bits and pieces because the kid's crying so hard. My grandpa tries to get the man to shut up and ends up pushing him. They get into a fight, and the man punches my grandpa in the face, knocks him out cold. Then he takes his kid and leaves. Just splits and leaves my dad alone to take care of my grandpa, passed out in the dirt."
A bit of Kurt's fear siphons away as worry for Sebastian's dad takes over.
"What did he do?"
"They had the tent set up, but no one had built a fire, and my dad, he didn't know how to make one. He had no food because they were supposed to be super-roughing it, so they were only going to eat stuff they caught. They had caught a ton of fish, but my dad couldn't cook it without a fire. So he grabs a stick and my grandpa's lighter, he lights the stick on fire, and tries to cook the fish that way, scales and all." Sebastian's voice drops suddenly. "That's when he hears it."
"What?" Kurt asks, hands slapping nervously against his knees. "Hears what?"
"A rustling in the bushes," Sebastian says in a hushed voice. "My dad thinks it's a bear, and that it's got to be after the fish. So he drops the stick, leaves it smoldering, and he starts dragging my grandpa by the arms as fast as he can for the tent, thinking that if he can get the two of them inside, they'll be safe."
Kurt hiccups, since that's basically his plan.
"My dad gets grandpa to the tent, but then everything goes wrong. He can't get grandpa inside at first, and then when they're inside, he can't get the flap zippered up. He hears the rustling in the bushes get louder, he can see the bushes shaking all around him, and then snap! The zipper breaks in his hands. The wind blows, forcing the flaps open and suddenly, whatever's in the bushes walks out into the open."
The last part he says in a whisper, but the wind Kurt has started to hate picks up and carries Sebastian's words to his ears.
"Dad manages to grab hold of the flaps and he holds them down. He's peeking through a crack in the material, waiting to see the bear take the fish and leave. He's kind of chanting it in his head. Take the fish and leave, take the fish and leave. Please, God. Take the fish and leave. But what comes out of the bushes is not a bear."
"What is it?" Kurt asks, but he almost doesn't want to know what it is, because he feels that it's watching them, listening to Sebastian tell his story.
"To this day, my dad doesn't know for sure. He could only see it with his night vision, which wasn't that sharp considering the wind blowing dirt in his eyes and him trying to keep the tent flaps closed. But he said it was big - bigger than any living thing he'd ever seen close up - and dark, but not hairy. He said it walked on all fours like a lizard dragging an enormous tail behind it, but as it approached the fish, it stood up on its hind legs like a man. It had a huge mouth full of teeth - rows of them, its mouth so full of them it couldn't close completely, making it look like it had a permanent smile. And in the center of its face, it had one huge eye, except it didn't look reptilian. It looked human." Sebastian's description of the creature is so vivid, Kurt sees it right away, pictures it walking through their camp, searching for food – or maybe for them. Maybe it makes a screeching noise like an owl, and hides up in the trees. Kurt's afraid to ask. "It starts eating the fish," Sebastian continues, "and when it's finished, it looks like it's going to leave, but a hard wind blows, and the flap of the tent flies out of my dad's hand. The thing spins around…and sees him. It starts barreling toward him, but the stick my dad left had been smoking in the dried leaves. It starts a fire, and for some reason, that frightens the thing away."
Kurt looks at the campfire and changes his mind. Fuck going back to the tent. Kurt's going to stay right here until sunrise.
"How did they get out of there?" Kurt asks. "If your grandpa was knocked out and the camp was on fire?"
"A ranger saw the smoke and called the fire department. They came and rescued my dad and my grandpa. My dad said the rescuers questioned him about the animal he saw, but he told they straight out that he saw a bear. He figured no one would believe him. He said he barely believed himself. When my grandpa came to in the hospital, he was furious. Said he was going to find that asshole and have him sent back to Guatemala in pieces – not for putting his son in danger, mind you, but for punching him in the face after he'd been so gracious."
Kurt tries to swallow his revulsion for the man, but his mouth is dry – downright arid.
"What happened to the Guatemalan man and his son?" he asks. "I mean, did they make it out of the woods alright?"
"My dad said he doesn't know." Sebastian sits back in his chair as his story winds to a close. "They never heard from them again."
Kurt shakes his head, rethinking everything Sebastian said about some fantastical monster supposedly living in these woods – one that nearly attacked Sebastian's father. And that Sebastian's father told him this tale - Andrew Smythe, a man who's not prone to storytelling.
"When did your dad tell you all this?" Kurt asks with healthy skepticism.
"Do you remember a few years back, when my dad had that heart attack?" Sebastian asks, noticeably losing some of his energy as he sinks further into his chair.
"Yeah, I remember."
"He thought he was going to die. He was sure of it, especially when they were prepping him for his bypass."
"So, it was kind of like a confession?" Kurt asks.
"I guess," Sebastian says. "More like an apology, I think. He said that the reason we went up here all the time was because he was trying to prove something to himself. That it couldn't be true. That all he saw was a bear and nothing else."
Kurt nods. It doesn't make any sense, but it kind of does. "So, that story is true?"
"As far as I know, it's true," Sebastian answers.
"Do you believe it?" Kurt asks, needing Sebastian to say no, needing for Sebastian to pull the rug out and tell Kurt he's been had. He'll even accept Sebastian laughing in his face as long as he says he doesn't believe.
Kurt needs to know that Sebastian mentioning the wind feeling strange is only a coincidence.
"Kurt, have you met my father?" Sebastian asks, incredulous. "Is he the kind of man who makes up stories? For any reason?"
Kurt shakes his head. Sebastian's dad is a pragmatic man. White lies don't exist for him, even at the expense of other people's feelings (an issue Sebastian's parents had to overcome with regard to the time-honored question of, "Does this make me look fat?" when Sebastian's mom was pregnant.) Andrew Smythe doesn't make up anything.
"Okay, so bearing that in mind…why the hell did you bring me here, you ass!?" Kurt yells.
Sebastian's face goes blank. Why did he bring Kurt up here? He was having a hard time remembering. He had a reason. He came up here to ask Kurt to marry him, but why here? Why now? There was something he needed to know, too. Something he needed to prove to himself…
"Because," Sebastian says, "even if it's true…"
"But you said it was true!"
"Y-yes," Sebastian stumbles, "but do you know how long ago that was? Do you know how many families have been up here since then? This place has been so sterilized by family reunions, Fourth of July weekends, and Boy Scout Camporees that nothing lives up here. When my dad and I use to camp here, we'd see at least one bear fishing by the river. We'd have mule deer by the handfuls meandering in and out of camp. You and I have been here for a day, but we haven't seen anything. I mean, there was one time I thought…"
A loud screech sounds – the same one from earlier, the one carried in on the wind, but this time not miles away. Much, much closer. Kurt isn't certain, but it sounds like it could be coming from the opposite side of the river, where that damned coyote's been howling. In fact, Kurt hasn't heard that coyote for a while now. Where did he go?
Kurt's on the brink of nervous laughter, staring down Sebastian with an exasperated expression, waiting for a cocky retort. But instead, that sound seems to make something click inside Sebastian's head, and his face goes from pale green to ashen.
"Uh, you know, I think I'm going to head to bed," Sebastian says, standing up from his chair, leaving his plate of food on the ground. His leg twitches as he tries to take a step, but he doesn't move. His lips, shut around his teeth, start to tremble, but he doesn't say anything. His upper body leans forward, assuming his lower body will follow, but that doesn't work either. Kurt stands from his seat and walks over quickly, but not too quickly. He doesn't want Sebastian to know that he's noticed something's wrong. But something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.
"Sebastian?" Kurt says. "Sebastian, don't you think…"
Sebastian's eyes snap to Kurt's, and Kurt can see the whites tinged yellow. Kurt stares, but Sebastian smiles, turning his eyes away from Kurt's scrutiny.
"Come on, babe," he says with a strained chuckle. "I'm all right."
Kurt takes Sebastian's face in his hands, turning it toward the firelight so he can check his eyes again. "You don't look it."
"Well, I am," Sebastian says, wrenching his face away. "Jesus Christ, Kurt!" he growls.
Kurt crosses his arms and takes a step back.
"Fine," he says, bending to pick up Sebastian's plate, getting ready to clean up and pack it in for the night beside his stubborn boyfriend. "Far be it for me to worry when you look like you're about to barf up a liver."
Kurt turns sharply to walk back to his chair, but Sebastian grabs his arm, his clammy, cold hand locking around Kurt's wrist.
"I'll tell you what," Sebastian says, "let's get some sleep. If I don't feel better by morning, we'll go."
Kurt's brows shoot up. "You promise?"
Sebastian winks. "I promise."
Kurt doesn't want to spend the night. He wants to leave right now, but he has to concede. He can't push or Sebastian might change his mind. He hasn't checked his phone lately, so he doesn't know if he has any signal. What if he can't call for help?
"Deal," Kurt says, glancing down at his watch. 6:47. Technically, morning is less than twelve hours away. He can do this…provided he can actually sleep tonight after that fucking messed-up story.
Sebastian leans in to give Kurt a kiss on the cheek, but he misses, and momentum carries him past Kurt in the direction of the tent. He can't seem to stop and backtrack, so he decides to keep going. Kurt watches Sebastian walk away. No, walk isn't the word for it. He stumbles. He stops short. He lists from side to side. Then he sort of tumbles sideways until he reaches the tent opening and falls inside. It would be comical if it wasn't so fucking frightening.
Morning. Sebastian said wait till morning. Kurt can do morning. And who knows? Maybe Sebastian will sleep it off. Maybe he'll wake up and feel like a new man. Kurt cleans up the dishes, tosses the food in a trash bag, and then ties everything back up in the tree the way Sebastian showed him. He doesn't quite remember the knot Sebastian taught him, so he wraps the rope around the trunk of the tree and double-knots it about fifty times. Sebastian will hate it, but they can cut it and start over. Kurt's too tired to care.
He picks up the bucket of water Sebastian brought up from the river to extinguish the fire. Kurt pours it out gently, filling up the bottom of the fire circle, careful not to disturb the hot sticks and ashes. And just like that, the campsite goes dark. Putting the fire out sends a pillar of smoke up into the air, which shows up grey against the black sky, the only thing in the dark Kurt can see. Kurt isn't afraid of the dark. He doesn't mind not being able to see. He knows where the tent is, and even though this is a mostly moonless night - a small sliver of silver hides somewhere behind the trees - he can make his way those ten feet.
His problem is the feeling that someone or something else is out there, and that whatever it is has no problem seeing him in the dark.
Sometime around midnight…
"Kurt?" (shake, shake) "Kurt, wake up." (shake, shake)
Kurt whines defiantly as he's jostled awake. He hadn't been sleeping that great the past few hours. Too many things haunted his dreams – a moonless night sky, old photographs, three of them, black and imageless, a little boy crying, speaking in broken English as his father yells over him in a language Kurt doesn't understand, an eerie screech carried on the wind, and an eye – one large, human eye - on the body of a giant lizard with skin of black scales, and it's running for him, trying to catch him, opening up its smiling mouth full of razor-sharp fangs to get at him…
Okay, sleep has been horrific, but at least he's been unconscious and immobile, which is where he wants to be. His muscles have seized up on him since he hasn't been using them to fight another river, and on top of that, a chill crept in beneath the blanket, through a zipped seam that had opened up during the night.
"Kurt?" Another shake. Kurt pulls an arm out of the blanket to bat the intruder away.
"Go away," Kurt groans and rolls over, but a hand tugs him back.
"No, Kurt," Sebastian says. "I need you to wake up…now." He sounds on the brink of tears, so Kurt does his best to pry open his tired eyelids.
Kurt rubs the palms of his hands into his eyes, blinking slowly. His vision clears, but the darkness in the tent seems blacker than the darkness behind his eyelids. "What? What is…"
The beam of a flashlight appears in his view along with Sebastian's face. Coated in sweat, his skin has practically no discernible color. The whites of his eyes have gone bright yellow. His whole body shakes, and his lips - they actually look grey.
"Kurt?" Sebastian says through clenched teeth. "We have to…I think I need a doctor."
Kurt's eyes dart quickly to Sebastian's arm. Sebastian's hand moves automatically to scratch it, but he hisses in pain when he touches it. Kurt grabs Sebastian's hand and moves it away. The skin is so green it looks black, the limb swollen to twice its size from elbow to wrist with the scratch taking up most of it - a jagged crevice in the parched flesh, oozing pus. When Kurt sees Sebastian's arm, he bolts upright, throwing off his blanket.
"Get dressed. We're going," Kurt says, sliding across the air mattress to his bag on the other side of the tent. "We're leaving right now!"