Blind Rage - Chapter 10

Monday July 20, 1997, 10:06 pm

Boerne, Texas

Dave Carson poured himself another mug of chicken broth, though he kept his gaze focused across the pasture, where a salt lick had been left for the deer. He was pouring by feel, gauging when to stop when the plastic cup warmed under his middle finger.

Balancing the cup on his knee, he picked up the thermos cap from his other leg and closed the top. Leaning over, he deposited the thermos back into his duffle bag, and never once did he look to check. He’d hunted the same way so often that the motions were all automatic for him.

He sat in a bucket seat that was bolted to a platform on top of his truck. The rolled steel cage served as an effective hunting blind. The front, back and top were closed by sheets of corrugated steel bolted to the tube frame, but the sides were open save for a pair of bars welded near the middle of the cage to give it better structural integrity.

The perch was also modified to allow him to drive without climbing back down into the cab. Through the roof of the truck, a long secondary steering column was bolted to the bars of the cage. The huge black steering wheel had been salvaged from a friend’s old rig. It was ugly as hell, but he could reach it to steer from either of the two bucket seats inside the perch.

Rather than use foot pedals for the clutch and gas, the accelerator was a cable remote with a spring-loaded thumb trigger. The ignition button was connected to the bottom of the switch, and the clutch handle was mounted on the side, an old bicycle brake handle.

After practicing, he’d mastered using the clutch and thumb switch without rabbit starts or stalls, so the only two holes in the roof of the cab were for the steering column and gear shifter.

When he didn’t need the remote, it hung by the brake handle from the bottom of the steering wheel.

He’d built and designed the blind on his meager budget, and he felt rather proud of his hunting truck. He would have liked to have someone along to brag about how great his design was, except he was hunting illegally. It was best not to bring company along for such trips.

The property he was parked on wasn’t his, but the people it belonged to were “snow birds,” and at present, the roving retired couple had driven their motor home to visit with their grandkids in Oklahoma.

It wasn’t hunting season either, but Dave’s deep freezer had been empty for most of the month, and he didn’t have a regular job like his fancy deputy dispatcher cousin. He had to make do with whatever odd jobs came up, and at present, there was only enough work to cover the payments on the double-wide for the time being.

So it was either bag a deer to cover meat for a few months, or he could stand in line with the deadbeats and ask for food stamps. Hunting out of season sounded like a better option.

 He heard something big coming through the woods, and he set aside the cup of broth on the “dashboard,” a plank of untreated plywood that was mounted to the top structure support bar beside the steering column.

He leaned across to grab his shotgun, propped against the driver’s side seat, and he flicked off the safety switch.

The stag that walked out of the woods at that exact moment was clearly not the animal making all the noise, but Dave decided to take the shot first. Then he could turn on the spotlight and find out what was making such a dreadful racket.

He cocked the shotgun and set it on his shoulder. The deer looked around at the sound of the shotgun, ignoring the growing din in the woods.

He was still lining up the shot when a giant black bear crashed into the clearing. The stag had just looked around at the bear, and by then it was too late. The deer started, its body flinching and then freezing with indecision over which way to flee.

The bear jumped, covering an impossible length of distance. It hung high in the air, slamming into the stag at a blurring speed.

Dave sat with his gun trained on both animals, his mouth hanging open while he gawked at the somersaulting jumble of fur and legs.

Look at the size of it. I could give away half of that monster and still pack my freezer. He shook his head, correcting himself. Damn, I could keep one leg and stock my freezer. What breed of bear is that?

Regardless of the breed, the buckshot loaded in the shotgun was the wrong choice of ammunition. Dave looked down, his eyes falling on the box of slugs inside his duffle bag. He glanced back at the bear, thinking, Maybe a slug could work if I got closer.

He’d never had bear meat before, and he wasn’t sure if he would care for it. But he needed to eat, and the deer certainly wasn’t an option anymore.

Dave pumped the shotgun to expend the shells into his lap. He leaned over to grab the slugs, able to keep his eyes on the feeding bear while he grabbed the box.

He settled the stock on the floor and worked the choke sleeve out of the barrel, dropping it in the chest pocket of his red flannel shirt. Five slugs went into the tube magazine before he rested the gun across his lap.

Now, the hard part, starting the truck. Dave pulled the accelerator remote off of the steering wheel and thumbed the ignition button.

As soon as the engine rumbled to life, the bear spun and growled with a volume that stunned Dave. The bear loped toward the truck, and Dave raised the gun, sighting it for less than a second before he pulled the trigger.

The slug bit through the bear’s shoulder, but the beast didn’t slow down. Aside from growling louder, he didn’t acknowledge getting hit.

The effect was the same for each round, and Dave felt his chest tighten with panic when the trigger clicked on an empty chamber.

Dropping the gun in his lap, Dave leaned over to grab the gear shifter, and the clutch ground uselessly while he searched for the reverse gear. He was still searching in vain when the bear slammed into the truck and flipped it.

The world went black, but the bear’s roar pulled Dave back to his senses fast. Opening his eyes, he looked up at the rolled steel cage. The groaning tubes held, but the welded metal joints creaked, threatening to break.

The bear’s head pushed between the support bars on the driver’s side, and then Dave had bigger problems to worry about. His slick hands fumbled with the seatbelt, but the clasp wouldn’t release with his full weight bearing down on it.

Dave’s breath became a panicked hiss as he fought with the belt and watched the bear’s head looming closer every second.

But with Dave on the passenger side, it couldn’t reach him, and the bear’s head retreated quickly. The bars on the driver’s side were flexed in, but the frame held. Dave was almost going to let go of a relieved sigh.

But the head was replaced by a swiping paw with shockingly long fingers that reached in to grasp his arm.

Desperate, Dave pulled his boot knife and stabbed the limb. He attacked again and again, shouting while he stitched the blade into the black, blood-clumped fur. Every stab brought a roar and a painful squeeze, but the final stab caused the bear to squeeze so hard that Dave’s arm snapped.

Dave’s agonized roar almost matched the bear’s.

The bear released him, and through slitted eyes Dave saw the hand rise. He knew it was a hand, and not a paw, and he turned his head away when he realized the bear was going to try to crush his head.

He leaned hard to the right, and the bear’s smallest digit curled along the side of his cheek before a claw sank into his eye.

Bellowing, Dave sank his knife into the wrist of the bear and shoved hard. The blade cut a jagged ugly hole into the forearm, and the beast’s pained cries drowned out Dave’s.

When the limb retracted again, Dave turned the knife on the seatbelt, sawing himself free. He fell and hit the ground, just rolling onto his back before the bear slammed the side of the truck to vent its anger. The cage collapsed, and then the bear staggered away, roaring a furious challenge to everything within range to hear it.

For the time being, that did not include Dave, who had passed out from shock.

***

Monday, 10:26 pm

Dave woke up and coughed, his face tensing in a pained scowl when his involuntary spasm triggered an explosion of pain from his broken arm. His sticky face reminded him that he had lost an eye, and when he tried to open both eyelids, pain burst from the mangled socket far faster then the congealing liquids inside could leak out.

He winked, suppressing the urge to press his palm into the socket to massage the throbbing ache.

But it didn’t matter if he had both eyes open or closed, because he couldn’t see anything. Panic sped up his pulse to a machinegun rattle in his ears, and he tried to raise his head.

His forehead clanged the heavy steel floor three inches above him. He was trapped under the perch, and no matter which way he tried to move, he found metal.

He used his good arm to explore the dark above his head, and he found no way to escape past the collapsed passenger seat.

Casting for ideas, he thought how his feet were sticking straight up. If they were under the roof, every bone in both feet would have been broken.

Raising his head, Dave sucked in his chest and gut. This gave him enough space to see his legs.

The driver’s seat had bent back toward the tail bed during the collapse. Had the seat folded forward like the passenger side, Dave’s legs would have been mangled, or worse, amputated.

Dave drew his legs up, finding that he had three inches of play, maybe four at most. It could still be enough, if he shifted around some dirt.

He carved a pit into the soft soil with the heels of his work boots. The process took hours, and  he was sweating by the time that he was ready to test his exit.

Using his heel and his good arm for traction, he squirmed inch by inch, trying to get his legs far enough out to bend his knees.

It seemed to him that the process took another few hours. But his desperation to be free moved him far faster than he realized, while his shocked condition made time drag at a crawl.

He raised his legs, getting ready to pull himself out from under the roof with a much faster pace.

The truck groaned, and Dave froze, his eyes widening while he thought, Oh shit, oh god, oh fuck, just...just don’t fall. Not now.

 He heard nothing else, and he raised his arm, testing to see if he could bend it out to the side. He could, and he set his hand and his feet, shifting out from under the truck up to his neck.

Something groaned, and the roof sank. A rolled lip of metal touched Dave’s chin, pushing it up and tilting his head to expose his Adam’s apple.

All the while, the damned metal groaned with an almost human sound of hunger.

Dave froze, closing his good eye while he let go of a frightened moan. In his mind’s eye, he saw his head in the mouth of a giant metal bear, and the jaws were hinging shut to nip off his head.

The truck stopped moving, and the groan faded into silence. Dave couldn’t pull his head out, and he uttered a hoarse cry of terror. He was so close to the limits of his sanity, and anything, the slightest push could send him screaming away from his senses.

He pulled back from the edge, berating himself, Keep it together.

Turning his head, he gripped the ground and dug his fingers into the damp soil. He counted to three and pulled.

The metal lip grabbed his ear, tearing the skin and pouring blood down his cheek, his neck, and the back of his head. The pain evoked another cry, but his throat was so raw that his voice came out as a squeak.

Dave didn’t care. He clamped a hand over his ear and sat up to pant for air in deep, heaving gasps.

Then, behind him, the cab collapsed. Dave barely flinched at the sound, but he turned around to survey the damage and confirm that he’d barely avoided dying under his truck.

I said I wanted to be buried with it, not under it. Despite how stupid the thought was, Dave rasped a peal of relieved laughter until he was choking.

***

Monday, 10:28 pm

Jobe became aware of his surroundings just as a bear dropped to bite him. He rolled away from the snapping mouthful of teeth and drove the point of his elbow into the lower jaw of the bear.

Enraged, the bear reared back for another strike, and Jobe curled his legs to his chest, driving his heels into the bear’s throat.

The bear fell over and started convulsing while he made a choking sound.

Jobe tried to sit up too fast, and his body protested with what felt like a hundred new aches and pains. He felt like he’d been mauled by a bear, and considering his present company, this analogy made perfect sense.

Moving with more care, he got to his feet, looking around the yard while he backed away from the bear. In the back of the truck was a ball of black fur that he couldn’t identify. To his right was a werefox, and a loud rumbling purr drew his attention to another ball of black fur sleeping on a low branch of the magnolia tree in the side yard.

Rubbing a throbbing knot on the side of his head, Jobe said, “Uh, okay...I missed a meeting, I think. There was only supposed to be three werekin.”

His body froze mid-step, and his voice dropped in pitch, becoming gravelly as the berserker took over. “Oh, good, you’re awake. I was afraid you might miss out on all the fun.”

The berserker smirked at the bear as it wheezed and coughed, fighting to breathe in spite of a crushed larynx. “Funny, Gavin doesn’t seem happy to see you awake.”

Jobe’s face pulled into a look of shock. “That’s Gavin? I thought he was supposed to become a weasel.”

The berserker laughed, kneeling to lay his hands over the werebear’s throat. He rubbed, trying to massage the bruised area.

“No, he was way off with his guess. George wasn’t too far off with his, though.” The berserker hooked his thumb around at George’s truck, but Jobe saw nothing of the black ball of fur from where he knelt. “Well anyway, he turned into a big mutt.”

The berserker pointed to the magnolia tree. “Rosa is the panther sleeping on the branch, and that fox to your right is Rachel.”

Confused, Jobe asked, “Rachel Lin?”

“Yeah, Wagner sent her out with supplies to avoid admitting that he’s betrayed us.”

Jobe listened to the berserker explain the new arrangements made with Mark. Unsure of how to react, he decided to put the problem away for the time being.

Turning to look at Rachel, Jobe smiled. “I would have figured her for a gopher.”

Rachel growled, and the berserker matched her tone with his gravelly voice. “He was joking. We kid sometimes, all right?”

He sighed when she flipped him off with her tail again. “Be careful with her, all right? You say the wrong thing and we’ll be facing her and Gavin at the same time. Or we will after Gavin recovers from a crushed windpipe, that is.”

Jobe nodded, leaning over to look the bear in the eye. “Hey, Gavin, are you okay?”

“No dumb-ass, he’s dazed,” the berserker said. “I didn’t expect you to wake up and take over in the middle of the fight, but that was awesome. What do you call that?”

“Basic street fighting,” Jobe said. “I would have thought you’d know how to fight already.”

“Right, because I had time to train where?” the berserker asked.

Jobe shrugged. “You know how to talk, so excuse me for assuming that you might also be able to tap into my other memories.”

The berserker was about to make another flippant remark when he had a thought. “Wait, I should be able to fight like you. We’re talking to each other now, so shouldn’t I also be a better fighter?”

Jobe shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you could try borrowing experience from me now that we’re both awake, but I don’t think you’ll find any challenger to test it out.”

Which was true. Rosa had no interest in the fight, and she had climbed the tree to sleep off the rest of the sedatives once her stomach had been filled.

George had climbed into the back of his truck. When Jobe turned to look at the truck again, he found a shaggy swaying back and one hind leg visible from his position.

The leg rose straight up out of the tail bed, waving in slow circles. Judging from the sounds coming from the dog, he was cleaning himself thoroughly, and perhaps with a bit too much enthusiasm.

Rachel sat on her haunches, her ears twitching while she watched the aftermath of the fight with what looked like amusement. Jobe assumed that either her fox face always made her look like she was smiling, or she was just easily amused.

Gavin’s breathing became softer, and he stirred, his brown eyes opening fast.

Taking over the body, the berserker backed away, staying low in case the bear tried to charge again. “Now look, Gavin, we can wrestle all night, but we still need to find the other member of our pack. You remember him, right?”

Gavin did. He sat on his haunches.

Jobe took over, looking around at Rosa sleeping in the tree in the side yard. “Should we leave her here?”

“Nope,” the berserker said. “She needs to learn how to function as a werekin. If we leave her here, then she’ll start to feel like she isn’t part of the pack.”

Jobe smiled and shook his head. “Admit it. You’re making this shit up as you go along.”

“Yeah,” the berserker agreed. “But it sounds about right, doesn’t it?”

Jobe snorted and started walking toward the tree. “Let’s just call you the expert on these things.”

Taking over, the berserker made a smacking sound by placing his tongue against the back of his teeth. “Rosa, wake up. I’ll take you for a run around the lake to clear your head, and then we’re going to look for the orc.”

The black cat hissed, and then curled more tightly into a ball.

Jobe asked, “What else did I miss while I was out?”

“A lot.” The berserker gestured back toward the house. “This is Rosa’s house.”

“Right, you told me about staking her place out this morning.”

“Well since then, I’ve discovered that Rosa has a berserker too. One of these days, we’re going to have to sit down and play therapist for her, like you did for Wendy.”

“Damn, I did miss a lot.” Above him, a thin branch snapped, and Jobe looked up, leaping back just in time to miss the werepanther dropping on him. “Oh, she’s awake—whoa, what happened to her eyes?”

This was a poor choice of words, and the run around the lake started with Rosa’s earnest efforts to chase down Jobe.

George heard the ruckus and jumped out of the truck to join in the “game,” and Gavin and Rachel followed behind at a more relaxed pace. They were motivated by morbid curiosity, and both hoped to see what would happen if Rosa caught Jobe.

Frequently, she almost did, but Jobe veered to one side or the other at the last second. Rosa needed time to stop and listen for his footfalls before she could take off again, and each time, Jobe was afforded a slight head start for the next leg of the chase.

Then in a moment which could have been scripted in a horror movie, Jobe tripped. He never saw what caused him to stumble, but it was all the delay Rosa needed to overtake him.

She slammed into his back with the finesse of a defensive linebacker, and Jobe slid fifteen yards through pebbles and sticker-infested grass.

Rearing back her open hand to swipe Jobe’s back with her claws, Rosa was struck by George. The shaggy weredog had apparently decided that the name of the game was dog pile, and once he’d landed on top of Rosa, her ire shifted to the hapless mutt.

The ball of hissing and growling fur rolled across the shoreline, moving perilously close to the water.

The berserker shouted, “Rosa, ease up!”

Which worked about as well as a verbal command works on any cat. “Fuck,” he grumbled, kicking at the ground to vent his frustration.

The grappling animals hit the water, and George went one way, the right direction to get to the shore. Rosa went the wrong way, rushing into deep water before she panicked and started to thrash.

The berserker rubbed his forehead in agitation. He looked at George and shouted, “You, fetch!”

George stared at him, but the comment didn’t register properly in the weredog’s mind. The berserker pointed at Rosa and repeated the command, which caused George to look very intently at the berserker’s finger.

Dropping his hand, he growled, “Fucking mutt!”

The berserker heard something else splash much farther away, but he couldn’t see anything.

Squinting, he spotted a round head as it broke the surface. The head bobbed, slicing through the water to cross the lake quickly.

The berserker said, “Is that—?” His voice broke in a growled chuckle. “It’s the orc!”

Jobe took over to frown. “Is that a good thing or not?”

“Good thing, I hope,” the berserker said.

The orc-werebear gripped Rosa’s tail and dragged her out of the water, walking upright. Rosa went limp, but she howled her displeasure at having her tail pulled only a moment later.

The orc-werebear was out less than a few seconds before he noticed the berserker and started growling.

The berserker watched the black bear advancing on him, and he swallowed, remembering his last fight with the brutish monster. “Jobe, do you know any orc words for ‘we surrender?’”

Before Jobe could answer, George put himself between Jobe and the giant bear. The dog’s wet hackles rose on his neck and back, and all the good cheer was gone from the mutt’s expression. His lips rose to furrow his muzzle in a ferocious snarl, and when the orc-werebear took a step forward, the weredog went into a frenzied bark that almost split Jobe’s eardrums.

“Hush!” Jobe hissed. “Do you want to wake up everyone around the lake?”

George stopped barking, but he continued to make a menacing growl in the back of his throat. Even that was frightening enough to raise a cold sweat on Jobe’s back.

Gavin moved to protect Jobe’s left flank, and Rachel moved to sit on his right side.

For once, her smile was missing.

The berserker looked around at the animals. “I’m having a crazy thought, Jobe. Should I stop?”

Jobe said, “Try it out. If I don’t like it, I’ll let you know.”

The berserker moved his hand over Gavin’s neck to feel for the collar. “Erick will bring you a new one someday, all right?”

Gavin remained still as the berserker stripped off the collar.

Tilting his head back to make eye contact with the orc-werebear, the berserker curled his fist around the chain. He took a few quick breaths while he tried to decide how he would climb all eleven feet of the towering beast to get the collar on.

Rosa solved the problem for him. A complete ingrate for being rescued, she bit a chunk from out of the giant bear’s right leg, and the pained animal dropped over onto its front legs.

The berserker only needed to jump back with the rest of the pack to avoid being hit. He stepped around George, and then he leaned forward to loop the chain over the bear’s head.

He’d just let go of the collar when he got batted away by a swiping back-paw attack, sliding him through another patch of stickers.

This caused the pack to go into a growling frenzy, and the orc-werebear backpedaled toward the shoreline. Facing four-on-one odds, it tried to take the fight to the water.

The pack wouldn’t follow him. They stayed on the shore, growling while they tracked the larger animal.

Jobe got up, smiling when he discovered that his threshold for pain was higher than the berserker’s. The berserker had retreated to the back of Jobe’s mind to escape the pain of the hundreds of stickers buried in his shoulders and back.

Jobe’s limbs lost much of their swollen size within seconds, and his face shifted from red back to his normal pale alabaster tone.

“Wimp,” Jobe commented, rolling his shoulders to resettle his torn flannel shirt.

The stickers pinning the fabric to his skin slipped free in a burning ripple, but shifting his collar had the opposite effect, driving the stickers in his neck deeper.

Despite his sarcastic comment, Jobe hissed in a pained breath. Nausea pushed his stomach into his throat, and he tasted bile.

Speaking as a reflection on the surface of the water, the berserker’s voice was full of glib mirth. “I’m so glad it’s you processing pain right now.”

Jobe laughed and said, “That’s still much nicer than being tossed from a van.”

The berserker said, “Yes, not all of us can be so lucky. I just had to suffer an hour of abuse by a bear before you woke up.”

Jobe laughed. “Just one hour? I took two days of torture from some really twisted bastards.” He stopped walking, stuffing his hands in his pockets while he watched the orc-werebear swim back and forth in a fruitless effort to shake the pack.

Looking down at the water, he smirked at the berserker, who was still red and swollen in the hallucination that Jobe’s mind projected.

Jobe asked, “Honestly, what qualifies you to take over, anyway? You get angry, and then you punch stuff. The only thing you can claim credit for in your whole life is, you almost killed your sister. Your kid sister. Boy, that’s some accomplishment, isn’t it?”

“I couldn’t help that,” the berserker said. “I can’t help this either, you know. I’m supposed to fight things like this, not train them to behave.”

“You aren’t doing a half bad job of getting them in line, but you almost got mauled in that fight with Gavin,” Jobe said. “You’ve got no technique, other than to throw a lot of punches. That might work on an untrained human, but with anyone else, you’re a sad joke.”

The berserker said, “Shut up. You sound like the reflection now.”

The berserker’s image rippled in the water, dividing into two indistinct forms. The swirl of blurry colors sharpened, revealing one form as the berserker; swollen, red and scowling.

The other looked like a proper reflection of Jobe’s present battered and tattered condition. The reflection’s smirk also matched Jobe’s before he said, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The berserker nodded, glaring at the reflection. “I wondered when you would speak up.”

“It’s a given, seeing as how you’re crazy,” the reflection said.

Jobe nodded. “He’s got a point. You can’t claim that the medication is making you sane if you have a constant overriding desire to throttle anything that you don’t like. If it’s so easy to demonstrate that the medication doesn’t work, why are we still taking it?”

“Because Stephen telepathically compelled you to do it,” the reflection said.

Jobe nodded. “Yes, and then Wagner—wait, what?”

The reflection said, “He sent you a psychic hallucination that made you think that I told you to take the pills.”

 Jobe walked closer to the water, kneeling down to frown at his reflection. “Why didn’t I notice before?”

“You can hardly be blamed with your head packed full of cotton.” The reflection tapped the side of his head. “The berserker didn’t have access to your memories under the medication, so he couldn’t sort out why he was taking the pills either.”

The sounds of splashing stopped, and Jobe looked up to check on the pack. They sat on the shore, and the orc-werebear sat in the water, panting heavily.

Jobe waved at the reflection. “That’s very fascinating, buddy, but you’ll need to save it for later. Check back with me the next time I pass a mirror, okay?”

“Sure, no sweat,” the reflection said.

Walking down the shore, Jobe said, “Okay, berserker, you’ll have to stay in the back for now. That means no more bulking up and going ultra-violet unless I give you permission. You don’t have to shut yourself off. Just don’t bug me so much, all right?”

The berserker nodded his consent. “Sure, I’m out of ideas anyway.”

“I don’t have much either, but maybe we’ll design something by committee that doesn’t suck.” Jobe got closer to the pack, and he put his fingers to the corners of his mouth and whistled. “Guys, back up. Let him go for now.”

Three heads swiveled to face him. Rosa’s head remained turned the other way, her short black ears perked to listen for the sound of water splashing. Three of the animals moved back, while the werepanther remained crouched in preparation to attack.

Jobe wasn’t sure what to do, but the berserker said, “Let me handle her.”

He took over to walk closer to the shore. “Rosa, the orc didn’t attack you. He smells similar with wet fur, but it was George who dropped on you. He didn’t mean anything by it, darlin’. He was just being playful.”

The cat growled, swishing her tail.

The berserker moved closer, kneeling to lay his hand on Rosa’s back. She howled her displeasure, and he made another soft sound, this time a tsking. “Come on, now, Rosa. He saved you from drowning twice, so try to show a little gratitude.”

The tension melted from the cat’s knotted back muscles. The berserker stood up and backed away. “Come with me and I’ll find you a nice fat steak to take that anger out on, okay?”

Reluctantly, the panther slunk away from the shore. The berserker let control of the body go back to Jobe, who tapped his foot to give Rosa a sound to hone in on. She moved around behind him, and the rest of the pack closed ranks a moment later. Gavin took point, while George and Rachel covered Jobe’s sides.

Jobe watched the orc-werebear stumble tiredly out of the water, and he pointed across the lake. “Food.”

The orc couldn’t understand English, but it wandered after the pack, curiosity overcoming its anger.

It watched Jobe feed the other animals, but it remained close to the lake, ready to make a quick escape.

Jobe didn’t expect the orc-werebear to stay with the pack that night, and he wasn’t disappointed when it chose to journey back into the woods.