The Hunting Trip Incident

 It was my first time hunting and I was pretty excited. Naturally the rest of my friends were sure to give me a hard time the whole way up the mountain. I was the noobie, and I was paying for it. But I didn't really mind.

There was myself, Mark, Annie, and her husband Ben. The three of them had been hunting together for years, and though I'd known them the whole time, I had never taken them up on the offer until now. There was usually some reason: work, family, Netflix. You know how it is. I had been shooting before at a range, so I at least knew a bit about that part. What I didn't know anything about was camping, or how to skin and gut your catch. They didn't hunt for sport, and this was one thing they got serious about on the ride up.

"You respect what you hunt, Daniel," Mark said to me as he drove up the forest lined road. "If you don't kill what you hit, then you track it down and finish it. Don't let it suffer. When we clean up, you bury what you don't or can't use. Respect the forest, Daniel." Both Annie and Ben were quiet while he told me this, and I could tell he was serious. It made sense, especially as growing up I wasn't allowed to waste anything in my home. My parents weren't poor, but it was the principle of waste they hated so my siblings and I were taught well.

"Also," said Annie in an even more serious tone, "if you see a woman wandering through the forest shut your eyes and cover your ears. Count to fifty and don't stop until you hit fifty."

I looked back at her and Ben. They stared seriously at me. I looked over at Mark. Back at Annie. I was waiting to see who would crack first from the BS. Then they all started laughing. I rolled my eyes and shook my head, but I laughed too.

"But we're serious about respect." Ben reiterated. Annie and Mark made agreements.

"Right," I nodded. I knew they were.

The four of us got to the base camp parking lot in the late afternoon. We began unloading gear and as we did so I took in the world around me. The mountains loomed over us, and the thick cover of trees was impressive and daunting. Huge boulders littered around, and the trail head was flagged by a great wooden sign with the name and all sorts of informational papers and pictures.

We got our packs on and began heading up the trail. The plan was to live off of what we caught the next few days, apart from some food we were bringing in, and bring out the rest which would mean meat for the four of us for the next few months, if the hunting was successful. That's was Mark said anyway. When we got to our camping spot we began unloading, setting up tents, and putting the rifles together. Mark had two cases with him, and after he assembled his, he showed me how to put my rifle together. It wasn't complicated and I felt almost like a pro once I was done. Mark and I went for a brief hike and when we returned we had dinner.

Ben and Annie shared a tent, and Mark and I each had our own small one person tents. We went to bed late into the night when the fire was finally starting to die down. I crawled into my tent, into my sleeping bag, and shut my eyes.

It was then that I noticed every single sound around me. If you've ever been camping, especially for the first time, you can probably relate to this. The slight crackling of the dying fire coals, silence, and then the occasional and odd snap of a twig or scuttle of movement. I heard owls hoot here and there. A gust of wind would sometimes pick up and gently rustle tree branches into a whispering song. And the twigs would snap along. I couldn't sleep. It was too eerie and isolated. I lay awake all night listening to the sounds of the wilderness and forest, terrified of what sound I might hear next. But there was nothing terrifying. Finally dawn came, the tent starting to light up as the sun began to rise.

I got up and stretched, looking around the campsite. The sun was starting to just peak over the tops of the mountains in front of me. The air smelled fresh, clean, with just a hint of that wonderful smokey smell from the fire, which was now all but cold. I decided to start another fire to help warm up, and then to start cooking some breakfast for everyone. I figured the smell of powder scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee would make a nice alarm clock. They were all up within a few minutes of the food being done. We ate our breakfast and then Mark declared that it was time to pack up for the next trip. We would be hiking higher up into the mountain to start the hunt.

The hike was tough. Steep switchback trails up the side of the mountain for a good six miles, and a climb of about four thousand feet. I was in pretty good shape, but not in shape for this type of workout. I can't imagine anyone could be prepared for this unless they do hikes like it regularly. But I survived, and was constantly encouraged by my friends who were the ones who did it regularly. They seemed to breeze through it. I was relieved when we got to the mountain pass. A gray, rocky nothingness with patches of snow scattered about. When I say nothingness, I mean there was nothing but the rocks and the snow. Not a single plant grew here. There was a small spring that flowed down from a little lake. We refilled our water here. We then made our way down the other side until we came to our next camping spot.

We set up the same as the night before. We went to bed. I didn't sleep.

Much like the previous night I was hyperaware of every little or big sound around me in the woods. I had also managed to pitch my tent right over a little root that poked into my back no matter which way I turned. I thought about getting up and moving the tent a bit but I didn't want to disturb the others, so I just accepted it and did my best to get comfortable. But of course it was impossible.

Then there it was. The laugh. It was a woman's laugh for sure. It was sweet and happy sounding, and seemed to echo softly around the trees. I thought maybe it was Annie at first, but when I heard it again it really didn't sound anything like her. I then remembered what they had said to me in the car about seeing a woman. To shut my eyes and cover my ears. Got it. It was Annie, or maybe a recording or something. They were obviously playing a joke on me.

"Ha ha, very funny," I shouted out. The laughter stopped abruptly. I just listened. Part of me was still feeling a little uncomfortable. It was just a prank, but it was working. "Come on I'm having a hard enough time sleeping as it is!"

Smack

I nearly jumped out of my skin as someone hit the side of my tent hard. It jolted the tent and the sound seemed so loud in comparison to everything else. Then I saw, just barely visible, the outline of someone standing next to the tent. Then they laughed again, and the figure moved away, the laughter fading with it.

"Guys would you please knock it off!" I yelled, my heart still pounding furiously in my chest.

"What's going on?" I heard Mark mutter groggily from his tent next to me.

"Stop with the jokes please, it's not funny anymore."

"What jokes?" asked Annie from their tent.

I got up out of my tent, turning on a flashlight as I did so. The fire was just embers now and gave off very little light. I shined it around the camp. Mark, Annie, and Ben all began to emerge from their tents, looking sleepy but concerned.

"What's going on?" Mark asked again.

"You guys are messing with me," I stated flatly. "Can we be done now? I really want to try to get some sleep tonight."

"Dude, we aren't messing with you," said Ben.

"What happened, Daniel?" Annie asked.

I stared at them all. They were serious. They weren't great actors. I could usually tell when they were pulling my leg, and they were generally quick to admit it too so they could have a nice laugh. But this time they all looked very serious.

"The woman laughing? The banging on my tent?" They glanced around at each other. "Come on Annie that wasn't you?" She shook her head.

"Dude maybe it was just a dream," said Ben. "Just a nightmare." That would actually make sense. I believed it wasn't them. It must have been a bad dream.

"I guess so," I nodded. "Sorry to wake you guys."

"No worries," Mark laughed a little. "And I promise we won't be messing with you up here. Once we're in the woods things are a little more serious. Hunting isn't a game, and we don't want anyone getting hurt."

"Right," I agreed. "Well...goodnight again then." They all said goodnight and we all went back into our tents. Guess what? I didn't sleep that night either.

The next morning we ate our breakfast and then packed some snacks, ammo, rifles, and other bits of survival gear. We all put on some camo pants and jackets and headed out into the woods. Mark told me I'd have the first kill. We wandered around for a few hours until we found a large deer with some decent sides antlers grazing. We set up against a fallen tree. I looked down the scope of my rifle, aiming for the head. I swear it looked right at me. I swear it glared at me. I swear there was something wrong with it's eyes. I squeezed the trigger, and hit right between the eyes. A bullseye shot. They all congratulated me and Mark clapped me on the back.

I carried it back to the camp, feeling pretty damn proud of myself, until it came to gutting and cleaning it. I of course had never done that before, so I was more of an observer and helper while Mark did it. I wasn't fully prepared though and got sick as he pulled out the innards. We all laughed it off and Mark told me to go out into the woods a ways and dig a nice sized hole to bury the scraps. He was going to keep the fur and head and have the head stuffed and the fur tanned for me. When he was done cleaning the dear he brought all the innards over in a bucket. He then, one by one, placed them gently into the hole. Ben and Annie came over as we filled the hole up.

"Alright," said Mark, "This deer was provided in honor, and we are grateful. We are thankful for the food it provides, the warmth, and the sacrifice. Let it not be in vain, and may it's soul pass on to a better place. Now a moment of silence."

They stood and stared at the spot where we had buried the innards. I was slightly glancing at them. They weren't religious. Mark was agnostic, and Ben and Annie were spiritual at best. But they never acted like this about anything. This strange, solemn ceremony of sorts. I had never killed anything before, so this was new to me. But I had to admit that it felt right what they were doing. It was an honor to hunt, and you had to be respectful of what you kill. It made sense. We sat in silence for a few long moments.

"Alright," said Mark, "Who's up for a swim?"

We went back to camp where Ben, Annie, and Mark began taking off their clothes. I followed suit, and the four of us, naked, ran down to a nearby lake. It felt incredible. If you've never been skinny dipping you need to try it at least once in your life. It's the most freeing feeling ever. It was a beautiful day. I was with my friends, and even a lady who hiked by the lake was laughing and waving cheerily. We ended the day by cooking up some of the meat from my kill for dinner, and then went to bed. We would hunt one more day, stay over night, and then hike out.

That night, once again, was sleepless for me. This time it was the lack of sound. This time I heard nothing but the occasional breeze blowing. It was almost maddening. Then I heard the laugh again. It echoed through the trees the same as the first time I'd heard it, but this time it seemed much closer. This time it sounded right outside my tent. My heart was pounding fast again, and I was just waiting for the bang on the side of my tent again. It was just a bad dream though. I kept telling myself it was only a bad dream. That's all it was. The laughing continued and then there it was. The smack on the side of my tent. The laughing intensified and turned to giggling, and then there was another smack on the opposite side. Then it was all around. She was running round and round my tent, giggling and hitting it. But she wasn't real. She was only a bad dream.

Then the laughing stopped. The tent stopped getting smacked. I heard loud crunching footsteps coming towards the camp. It sounded like something large. There was a woman's scream as the heavy footfalls became louder and got closer. I grabbed my rifle and got up and ran outside. There she was. It was the woman who had hiked by the lake earlier. She was screaming and pointing. I looked and saw a massive bear running towards us out of the woods. I jumped a little, and then raised the rifle and fired. The muzzle flash blinded me for a moment. I heard yelling as Ben and Annie came out of the tent.

Annie screamed. Ben swore.

My vision returned to me. Mark was lying on the ground. Right in the spot where I had shot the bear. Blood was soaking the earth. I looked around for the woman but she was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened?" Ben shouted at me as he ran to Mark.

"I don't know," I stammered in utter shock. "There was a bear.."

"I...had to...go to the...bathroom," Mark said through raspy shallow breaths. Ben was gently holding him up and was putting pressure onto the wound with a t-shirt.

"Annie get the sat phone and get some help!" Ben shouted. Annie was crying but she nodded and ran into their tent to get the phone. I still stood there frozen in place.

"The bear though," I kept muttering. There had been a bear, I had seen it. And the woman.

By the time the helicopter got there Mark was gone. He had bled to death. The helicopter took the rest of us out and when we landed below in the parking lot there were police waiting. I wasn't put into handcuffs, but I did have to go in the back of a cop car. Ben and Annie were instructed to follow us to the police station.

But as I was walking to the car, I saw her. She was standing just behind a tree at the trail head. She wasn't laughing now, but crying. I think she just wanted a friend. She was just having fun. It was all a mistake.

I was charged with 3rd degree murder, but due to the fact it was a hunting accident, and I was deemed "unfit" for such an outing I was only put under house arrest and have mandated psychiatry and psychology screenings weekly. No one of course believes me about the woman or the bear. They think it was all in my head or some typical excuse like that. But I know what I saw.

I did some research and eventually found a case from about thirty years ago where a woman was playing tag with her children when a bear came out of the woods and mauled her to death. The husband shot the bear, and he and the children survived. She was just trying to have fun. She was still out there, just trying to have fun.