The Gay Man and the Butcher’s Boy: Death Stalks Jack

The Bear and the Slaughterhouse Boy, 8

“No!” screamed Jack! “Get out of here! All of you! Get away from me!”

The roars outside mounted into shrieks. Jack sank to his knees, hands over his ears, praying the log walls would hold against the massive bodies of the furious bears.

Blow after blow shook Jack’s bones and threatened to shatter the pine-slat door.

Not thinking, he kicked a chair aside and thrust a hand under the wooden table and into his pack. He grabbed his camping knife. It flexible blade was more suited to gutting a fish or slicing into a pack of hot dogs than frontal assault, but he ran screaming at the window anyway and plunged shiny steel into the razor-clawed hand.

He felt a shock of metal hitting bone, tried to wrestle the blade back, but it was stuck in gristle. He heard a scream, then the claws disappeared, snatching the knife with them.

Waving his powerful flashlight out the window, Jack tried to frighten the bears into running off.

Instead, his stomach twisted and threatened to spew green fear out his mouth.

Everywhere he looked, dark masses blocked his light beam. Screams mounted as dozens of bears cried in fury. Another set of claws slashed at Jack as he leapt back to the center of the cabin just in time to save his flashlight, his only remaining tool.

But he needed stronger light to scare them away!

An idea smacked him. He shouted out loud. “I DO have another tool!” But as he rooted around inside his pack, he couldn’t find it. “No! I must have left it out by the fire pit!”

He forced himself to breathe deeply as more bodies slammed into the door. “There!” His bottle of lighter fluid was in the pack after all. Jack picked up the pine table and threw it against the back wall.

Thud!

Not hard enough. He threw it again, screaming his frustration.

Crack!

Jack tore into the table, ripping off the leg he’d loosened, using that to pry the whole flimsy structure apart. He cracked planks over his knees and broke the wood into pieces.

He grabbed the bottle of lighter fluid and groaned to realize it was less than half full. He soaked the end of a chair leg with as little as he could and still hope to succeed. He grabbed his lighter out of his jeans and clicked.

Blue flame erupted briefly but did no more than char the wood. “Come on! Catch, dammit it! Catch!”

“Ow!” shouted Jack as the lighter burned his thumb. His table-leg torch finally took off, crackling and pine-snapping.

Praying, Jack ran at the door and drew in a sharp breath. “Please work! Please work!”

Before fear could freeze him, he cracked the door open just a sliver, then thrust the torch outside. The banging stopped, the bears as afraid of the fire as he’d hoped they’d be.

But the screaming grew louder and stayed so close Jack could smell the rancid breath it swam in on. He thrust the lighter fluid bottle out with his other hand, squeezing with everything he had. He heard a splattering sound like piss on pine needles.

Just before he emptied the bottle, he thrust his torch around in wide circles. “Get away from me! All of you! Get the fuck out!” Then he thrust it straight forward. “Die!”

Whoosh!

Blue light exploded, and Jack saw a bear erupt in rippling flames right in front of his eyes. In less than a heartbeat, the fluid-soaked bear jumped and fled, joined by countless shadowy figure running after him toward the lake.

When Jack heard the crashings of a dozen bodies hitting the water, he threw himself at his firepit and started gathering the wood he had collected the day before. Then he threw it at the the cabin. “Get it through the door, Jack!” he chided himself when he missed. “This is your last chance! Get it in there!”

Within seconds, he heard snuffling and rustling. Furious, he waved his torch in a wide circle. “Get out of here now! I’ll burn you again!”

He dove and slid inside the cabin, scrambling on hands and knees to pile wood just outside the door. He soaked it with all the lighter fluid he had left and lit it with his torch just in time to see fangs and claws rush straight at his face.

Flames roared up at that instant to stop the bear short. He blinked and growled, looking puzzled. Then he shuffled backward, eyes locked into Jack’s, angry and hungry. He retreated three feet, five feet, then ten. He sat there on his haunches, staring. Soon, more bulky shapes joined in, shoulder to shoulder, ringing the cabin.

Waiting for Jack’s fire to die.

“They’re waiting for dinner,” Jack told himself. “You’re going to get eaten tonight. Unless you can figure something out!”

He spend the remaining hours until dawn feeding his fire, shivering and nauseated. Just enough to keep safe. When the flames started to lower, the bears would creep closer, and Jack would throw another tiny piece on the blaze to force them back.

As the eastern horizon started to glow, Jack began to lose hope. As the sun cracked over the forest, he almost threw up. He could SEE them now. Their red eyes, more intelligent than they had any right to be. Their chocolate and ebony fur. Ripples of fat covering massive muscles.

Jack thought of Greg and their cozy apartment back in Chelsea. Their wine collection and theatre subscriptions. Greg’s carefully curated Picasso prints. Most of all, he thought of Greg and the pain Greg would feel to get the call. To learn Jack was never coming home.

“No!” screamed Jack! “There has to be a way!”

He stared across the lake, a mere three or four hundred yards across to the trail that switch-backed up to the top of the ridge — to the ranger station and his truck.

To hike around the lake to the trail would take hours. Even if he could outrun the bears for a few minutes, he’d never make it that far. But ACROSS the lake. That was CLOSE.

Jack jumped up, peered out the door and gasped as he and spotted the canoe leaning against the wall. “Yes!” he shouted as he ran around the cabin gathering small items to stash in pockets.

His heavy pack had to stay behind.

He gathered up the rest of the table and threw it on the fire. He broke up the chairs and threw them on too. He piled on all the firewood he had left, including two heavy logs.

Within minutes, flames roared into the sky, sparks flying, pine sap spitting and hissing.

The bears backed off, further and further, looking angrier and angrier.

He picked up the unburning ends of flaming pine limbs and started throwing them. “Get out of here! Go! Shoo before I burn you up!”

A few bears ran and crashed through the forest. A few ran and stopped at the edge of the woods. Two massive beasts didn’t retreat even that far, no matter how many flaming torches Jack hurled at them, no matter how loudly he screamed.

He drew in a sharp breath. If he ever wanted to see Greg again, now was the moment. His best and last chance.

To a chorus of pine resin snapping and popping, he crept out the door, torch held out like a sword. He skirted past the fire, eyebrows singeing and curling. He reached for the wall with his other hand and tipped the canoe over.

There! The paddles still rested tight in the oarlocks.

He flung his torch in the direction of the bears, wrestled the canoe into position over his head, and sprinted toward the water, toward home, toward life.

His legs pumped like turbo charged pistons. He breathed in gasps as his muscles exploded, driving him forward. In all his 30 years, he had never run so fast, never knew his body had that kind of strength.

He caught sight of something black and brown flying at him. He jumped, pushing himself off the ground as he thrust the canoe forward like a spear, twisting it around, willing it to land upright. He heard it splash, then he was in the water, shocked by intense cold, unable to breathe, swimming as hard as he knew how.

He grabbed the edge of the boat and pulled, heaving, panting — flinging himself in just before it took on too much water.

He heard a roar, grabbed the oars, still on his knees, and thrust them into the water. He pulled with every sinew of his body, so hard he almost ripped his shoulders out of their sockets.

The canoe shot forward like a bullet.

Another hard stroke, then another, and Jack finally dared look back— just in time to see a swimming bear reach out for the stern, to grab and miss by less than an inch.

But now Jack was skimming over mirror-smooth water, faster and faster. He pulled two feet ahead of the bear with the next stroke, then 5 feet, then 10.

Looking back again, he saw a mob of black, chocolate, chestnut, and silvered bodies mulling about the shore. One by one, they plunged in and started to swim, straight at him like machines.

The first bear, the one that almost got him, was moving too fast. Jack knew he’d win the race to the far shore. He’d be there in minutes. Then what? How would he stay alive?

The face of the butcher’s boy rippled in front of Jack like a pale nightmare. “I told you,” whispered the apparition. “Why wouldn’t you believe me?”

Next and final chapter!

What you just read is fiction loosely based on a hunting trip I took to Michigan’s deserted upper peninsula several years ago. But we’ve left reality far behind as we build to a spooky/scary climax. Hold on tight as I unleash some fun Halloween terror!

Miss the first parts? Click here!

James Finn is a former Air Force intelligence analyst, long-time LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Queer Nation and Act Up NY, an essayist occasionally published in queer news outlets, and an “agented” novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].