Brocken John

This story has some violence (not gory) and a scene where someone commits suicide (also not gory).

2002:

Hidden among the wreckage of winter were hints of spring, clues leading to a thriving landscape where warm days and abundance would soon heal the landscape. Big John thought this lost on Jenny. But she saw it, and she appreciated it. The truth was, she enjoyed nature more than she let on. Her father didn’t know she and her friends would drive up the winding Santa Cruz mountain to Castle Rock on the weekends; during the day, they would explore, and after it became dark, they would get a fire going, drink, and listen to music. Being out in nature wasn’t terrible to her, but the cold, this biting cold, was awful. 

“Why did you bring your rifle?” asked Jenny. 

“Why didn’t you bring one?” said Big John with a smirk. 

“Are you planning on shooting something? If so, I’m going to go back to camp. You know I’m not into that shit.”

“Just because we’re roughing it doesn’t mean you can use rough language,” said Big John. “I’m not planning on firing it. It’s strictly for protection. There are wild animals out here.” He didn’t tell his daughter the real reason he was carrying a rifle; sure, there were wild animals, and he would have brought a gun for safety regardless, but the truth was, he brought his rifle so that he could kill it. The thing that’s haunted Big John’s mind since he was a child. 

The flames licked at the marshmallows. Jenny’s face, a circle of white peaking out from inside the hood of her jacket, stared into the fire. Big John looked at his daughter through the flames. Surrounding them was the end of the world, a darkness so deep that Big John couldn’t even find the right word. Was it pitch? No, it was nothingness. It was the thing that existed before existence, before the Big Bang. Jenny walked over and handed her father a s’more. 

“Dad, can I ask you a question?” 

“You just did,” said Big John, extending his hands toward the crackling fire. 

Jenny rolled her eyes, then took a bite of her s’more. “Why did we come here?”

“Why are we camping? Because I thought it would be fun for us to spend some time together. Is that so bad?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Why are we out here? Why the six-and-a-half-hour drive? Don’t get me wrong, these are nice trees, but what makes them any better than the trees closer to home?” 

Big John stood and placed a log across the top of the fire, quickly bending his body back as the sap hissed and spit.

“I’ll show you tomorrow. I’m going to start getting ready for bed. That drive took it out of me,” said Big John. The firelight created black crescents beneath his eyes. “You can let the fire burn out.” 

If the night had been frigid, Jenny wasn’t sure what to call the chill of the morning, but she didn’t care for it. 

“There she is,” said Big John. “Want a hotcake?” 

Jenny staggered toward the fire, hugging herself to keep warm. 

“Dad, this is horrible—it’s freezing out.” 

Big John nodded his head in agreement and handed her a cup of coffee. 

The hot mug felt nice in her hands. She didn’t tell her father she never cared for coffee. 

“It should warm up a bit this afternoon,” said Big John. “Feel like going for a hike after breakfast?” 

Jenny was on the verge of complaining, but then she thought, What else was there to do in the woods but hike? Sit and stare at the fire? She had the nights for that. “Sure.”

“Great, we’re close to the summit. It’s only about an hour north. It’ll be a climb, but I think we should do it. When I was a kid, your grandpa and I saw the Brocken spectre there.” 

Big John had his back turned to Jenny, but even so, she sensed the unease on his face. 

“What’s a Brocken spectre?” she said. 

“It’s supposed to be a moving experience, spiritual—maybe even religious? Not really how it was for me, but maybe this time…” 

“Ok, but what is it? What is the Brocken spectre?” She was annoyed. Despite the distance, her father always needed to take the long road to the point. 

“I’m getting to it. It’s hard to put it into words. Remember when Peter Pan chases his shadow? The Brocken spectre looks like your shadow has become its own thing, something a part from you.” Big John turned back around and smiled. “Need to rub some soap on your shoes or something.” 

She searched her father’s face. She hadn’t noticed until now that his eyes were red. She wondered if he was having trouble sleeping. “Sounds interesting. I’ll go get ready.” 

1972:

John placed his hunting knife into the side pocket of his pack. He knew his mother wouldn’t approve of him having a knife, but his father wouldn’t say anything, John was sure of that. Besides these annual trips, he wasn’t sure his dad even knew his name, this was the joke that he’d go on to regularly tell his daughter Jenny, and his wife Kathy, thirty years later. 

“Johnny, in the car in five minutes or I’m leaving without you!” said his father. Within twenty minutes the car was gassed and father and son were barreling down the highway toward roasted weenies and the scent of dirt and trees. 

The tan ford pickup truck smelled like an ashtray, but John couldn’t think of anywhere else in the world that he’d rather be. With a tight circular motion of the crank his window came down. The air whipped his hair and cut around his face. He closed his eyes and imagined himself flying. 

“It’s a long drive, but I think it’ll be worth it!” His father needed to shout over the loudness of the wind and road beneath them. John rolled up the window, smoothed his wild hair back, and put on his Giants cap. 

“Why are we going so far?”

“You know that game that you sometimes play where you spin the globe and put your finger down to stop it?” said his father. “Wherever that globe stops, wherever your finger is, that’s where you’re going to live when you grow up, right?” 

John placed his hand on the dashboard of the truck, he let the warmth permeate his hand. He loved these rare moments with his father. These seemingly casual, shallow talks, that burst at the seams with significance and wisdom.

“So you put your finger down on a map?” said John. 

“Sort of, I found a hand drawn map behind an old photo of your great grandpa. It had the latitude and longitude of this mountain. Go ahead and take a look, it’s right there in the glove box.” 

Inside the glove compartment was a yellowed piece of paper that looked like it had been torn out of a paperback novel. The drawing of the mountain was crude, and John had to read the text several times to comprehend what his great grandpa had written. “He didn’t have the best penmanship, did he?”

“No, he surely did not,” laughed his father. 

“I see the latitude and longitude here, but over at the top where that arrow is, what does it say? It looks like it says, “Broken spocktre” or something.” 

“Brocken spectre.” His father smiled as he watched John try to make sense of these words. “It’s a phenomenon where your shadow is seen on mist, or cloud, sometimes it looks like you’re wearing a rainbow halo. It’s supposedly very rare to see it. I figured it could be fun to attempt to retrace his steps.” 

John smiled back at his father feeling whole.

2002:

Big John fell into his memories as he and his daughter ascended the mountain. He thought about the last time he had been here, in this forest, on this summit. He looked down at the dirt, the roots, the occasional patch of snow. He searched for clues left by his past self and his late father, his mind returning to their struggle as they worked their way to the top. 

He wanted to be redeemed. That’s why he had come. But why he had brought Jenny, Big John couldn’t say. A witness, perhaps? If she could see them and then tell Big John why and what they were, then maybe Big John could be done with this. The world needs to make some sense, Big John thought, and if it doesn’t, we need to smash it up, then glue it back together in a way that fits. 

“What are you thinking about?” said Jenny. 

“Just gathering wool.” 

“What does that mean?” Jenny laughed. “Is that some sort of old person speak?”

“Yes, guess what? I’m an oldie. It means daydreaming.” 

As they neared the mountain’s peak, the trees and foliage began to make way for a craggy landscape, and the biting cold had become unbearable. 

“Dad, I can’t do this. We need to head back.”

“See that ridge, that’s where we are headed,” said Big John. 

Jenny opened her mouth to protest, but her father was already on the move again. She climbed on, angry and concerned. Why was her father so driven to see this Brocken spectre again, when according to him, it hadn’t been a spiritual experience? 

Jenny thought her father looked scared, his cold red hands, knuckles white, gripping the rifle like a rope from which he dangled off of a ledge. 

1972:

John and his father made their way up the mountain. They had already seen a buck and two doe.

“Tomorrow morning we’re going hunting. I’m not sure that the Brocken spectre will be able to top the feeling of hunting on a beautiful spring day, but we’re going to find out. I think we’re getting close to the top,” said his father. 

“Dad, this other word at the top of the page, what does it say? I can’t read it.” 

“It took me some time to make that out too. I think it says doppelgänger.”

“What’s that mean?” said John. 

“I had to look it up. In German it means something like double walker. It’s a mythology—a doppelgänger is a fake version of you, an imposter. I don’t know who would believe this sort of thing—your great grandpa I guess. He always had a mind for the phantasmagoric. You know he claimed to have see his dog Chauncey running around the neighborhood after that dog had been dead for at least twenty years?”

2002:

“Is that another mountain or the same one we’re on?” said Jenny. 

Big John looked at her with wild eyes. He shook his head as if Jenny had spoken another language, and he was searching for clues in her dialect. 

She looked down from the ridge where they stood. It looked as if it had been cut like a slice of cake, the wall of the mountain a flat, vertical drop into a misty frosting of nothingness. Directly in front of them stood an identical mountain with the same vertical cut, like God had thrown a lightning bolt down the center of the mountain.

1972:

“Is he ok?” said John’s mother. The doctor nodded, then walked over to the kitchen table to sit down. 

“I won’t lie to you, this is going to weigh heavily on John for a long time. He maintains that this was not a hunting accident and that his father was killed by a doppelgänger. If this is how he needs to cope with this accident, then we should let him believe whatever he’d like—for the moment. It was a terrible, terrible accident. No boy should have to watch his father die like that. We’re just lucky that he had the courage to make his way back—to drive his father’s car. Brave young man.” John’s mother pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and wept. 

2002:

“There, near that rock!” said Big John. “Do you see them?” Big John was pointing across the expanse toward the crest of the other mountain. 

“Them who? Dad, you’re scaring me. I want to go back to the campsite. It’s cold and—” Then she saw something move. Was it an animal? 

Big John ducked behind a rock, pulling Jenny down beside him. 

“Dad, you have to tell me what is happening right now!” Then, there wasn’t any need for her father to explain: she saw them come out to the ledge of the ridge. 

“Dad, those aren’t shadows. What the fuck—” 

“I don’t know what they are,” said Big John. 

“It’s us, but how is that possible?” 

The Big John from the other side of the expanse dove behind a rock. Moments later the other Jenny did the same. 

“He’s got a rifle. I think he’s come to kill me,” said Big John. “Jenny, you need to stay down no matter what happens. Do you hear me?” 

“Dad, this makes no sense. How is this even possible?” 

“I said, do you hear me?” 

Jenny could only recall seeing her father like this one other time, she was four years old, and the neighbor’s Chow Chow had run at her. Her father had stood before the snarling beast and yelled a big hollow yell that made the dog whimper and retreat. His intensity and resolve made her feel proud, and scared. 

“I hear you, but Dad, why would you shoot—whatever that is?” 

“Because I am me, not that thing. It’s an imposter.” 

Big John moved around the side of the rock, aimed, then fired a shot. There came a mournful wail from a teenage girl, followed by a hollow grief-stricken moan from a man. 

Big John looked across the ravine at his double—his doppelgänger—his nightmare. The thing was standing at the ledge of the bluff, his rifle held loosely by his fingers. Then, Big John’s doppelgänger let the gun fall from his hands. It crashed against the harsh cliff before disappearing into the misty nothingness. 

“You killed her,” cried the doppelgänger. “I was here to ask you for forgiveness, and you killed her.” 

Then the doppelgänger let himself fall forward. 

Jenny covered her face.

Big John sat in the snow, wondering what he’d done. 

2017:

Little John dragged a branch, which reminded him of a wizards staff, through the snow. “Why are we going up this hill, Mom? And why are you bringing flowers?” 

“They’re just for me, Johnny. Just for Jenny.”