After Actaeon

Please note: contains brief but explicit sexual assault and non-explicit but plot-central violence.

Fate is resourceful. The fates are resourceful, they have to be, with so little to work with: one eye shared between three, with vision that sees just barely into the future, not further than the end of your nose; no ears, unable to hear pleas sent to them; just enough fine spiderwebby thread to keep time moving forwards, as long as they occasionally unpick and reuse what came before. This is why history repeats, dead end stories spun back into yarn.

They’re spinning again this evening, the third week of October.

It’s Friday, and Aaron took the afternoon off work to get everything ready. He’s excited to take his boys on their first hunt. Duke turned twelve at the end of January, and he’s been hounding his daddy about it since, no matter how many times he points out the season on the calendar. Scout’s not twelve til tomorrow, but since they’ll be camped up overnight, it counts. Aaron’s told the boys they won’t have nothing to eat ‘less they bag a deer, but there’s a full duffel in their truck of snacks and a few MREs from the surplus store. There’s no chance his boys will go hungry.

He pulls up outside their school, later than most parents but not so bad anyone’s been called. He’s next to the red curb, so he leaves his engine on, just honks the horn until he sees his youngest come running. Scout’s barely nine months younger than his brother, Irish twins, but he never quite shook off that preemie fragility. If he weren’t such a little genius, Aaron would worry what else might not work right. No time to think about that now, they’re opening up the doors, Duke bullying his way into shotgun despite his brother’s birthday. The brat flicks on the radio without asking, volume all the way up. A brief snatch of “- LET THE DOGS OUT, WHO- “ nearly deafens the lot of them. A playful smack upside the back of the head and Duke’s mumbling a teenage sorry, turning it down and starting to flick through stations.

The drive out to deer country is long. For all Aaron’s camo wardrobe, rustbucket truck and don’t tread on me politics, he’s been a city boy for decades. He likes to say the wife dragged him kicking and screaming into civilisation, that he’d be happier out on his pop’s farm, but to tell the truth he couldn’t wait to leave. Bagging law school Barbie gave him a reason to leave and stay gone, but he was never comfortable in the place. Animals screaming like they knew what was coming for ‘em, shit and death on the air, dirty hands no matter how good the water pressure. He didn’t like to think about the man he’d be if he stayed, reminded him too much of pops. 

But a long drive isn’t a bad drive, not with two kids bursting with excitement, not yet self-conscious enough to be ashamed of expressing it. They pass the time with games, singing along to the 2010s tracks they all know on the radio, Scout pointing out different kinds of trees that all look the damn same, and Duke sarcastically reading aloud billboards. Do you know about the Lord dad, do ya? I’ve never heard of no hey-zeus dyin’ for us.

If their momma was here he’d be scolding Duke for taking God’s name like that, but Aaron doesn’t care enough to piss on his parade, not on their way out to his first hunt. The guns are in the trunk, packaged up neat and ready, and far outnumbered by all the safety gear he’s brought along. Hi-vis everything for the kids; hats, waders, jackets, even little snap on wristbands. Aaron’s grown, he’ll be fine with just a vest. There won’t be all that many hunters out, anyway, the serious hunters already had their fun the first couple weeks, the other hobbyists won’t bother with the overnight stay.

The turning he takes into the forest is nearly hidden, only paved a few yards off the highway before it’s gravel, then just dirt. You’d need to know where to look to find it, and to know what to do once you’re in. The unassuming building just looks like a private home, and it is a dilapidated pioneer cabin extended with all manner of materials over the years. Old Buck lives there perfectly comfortably off the $1.50 he’s been charging each car for access since Aaron was a boy. He sells supplies, too, for the hunters dumb enough not to bring all they need. He might sell other stuff, but if he does, that ain’t Aaron’s business. Aaron didn’t get change, so he shoves two raggedy dollar bills in the honor box, figures it’s better to tip than rip off an old guy. Especially Old Buck. Aaron’s never met him, but he’s heard plenty about the fella. Native, been old since anyone can remember, and rumors fly. The most interesting suggest he practices voodoo or some other folk magic, speaks to the animals, controls the weather on his little patch. Killjoys insist it’s just people calling a son by his daddy’s name, an educated man who knows how critters act. 

By the time they get to the old cabin, it’s too dark to let kids out and about with guns. Keen not to give them a boring evening, Aaron shows his hand right away on the MREs, and tasks Duke with gathering firewood. He lets Scout help him set up a target on a tree, and they pass the evening away with mushy food, campfire songs and target practice. He doesn’t check the time when they go to bed, but it’s early enough that nobody complains about being woken at dawn. Breakfast is granola bars around the still glowing embers, and Aaron bluffs that they really don’t have food for lunch, they’ll need to get a move on with this hunt. 

So after another safety briefing and stern warnings, the troupe heads out into the forest, kids bright enough orange it’s sure to spook the deer. It’s a tense hunt, constant questions and false starts, and as the sun’s reaching the top of the sky they stumble on an old bird watching hide. Aaron doesn’t remember that, and it looks too dilapidated to have been put up since he came out here with his friends last year. He leaves the boys and their guns to wait inside, while he ventures deeper into the woods, looking to see if he’s stumbled into someone’s property and if they can point him back to where he thought he was.

He walks straight east, calculated from the sun, but all his paranoia about getting lost is for nothing. It’s less than fifteen minutes before he hears voices, young women by the sound of it, and sees the roof of a modern metal pre-fab cabin. He slows down, picking past branches now to avoid detection, and as he reaches the treeline, he removes his orange, hanging it up on a branch. Peering out from behind a tree, he watches. About a dozen girls are in the clearing out the back of the cabin, staying warm in a hot tub. He should make himself known, ask for a map or a GPS, but he doesn’t. 

He watches, confident that he’s unseen. He stares at their skin, pale from winter and the light of the hot tub; their thighs, smooth, unlike his wife’s; their breasts, young, barley hidden by the thin, clinging material of their swimsuits. He doesn’t look much at faces, no higher than their lips, already starting to imagine his excuse for the boys. He got lost, he had to fix a car… He moves, quietly stalking the tree line, towards the house, but his eyes never leave the girls’ bodies in the hot tub. As if he’s been sent a gift, one gets out of the tub, shivering as soon as she’s in the cold air. She squeals as she runs around, tantalisingly close to him, towards the cabin’s side door, her friends laughing and refusing to follow her into the cold.

Aaron pounces. He breaches the tree line where he won’t be seen, running towards the girl. He doesn’t know his plan as he runs. She’s beautiful, he’s still young at heart, and he always had a way with the ladies. A decade of marriage can’t have totally killed that off. When he catches up with her, he grabs her, immediately covering her mouth, and presses his crotch to her wet, rapidly cooling thigh. It goes no further before he’s spotted, one girl leading the charge towards him as others don towelling gowns to follow. 

For a split second, he grins, his thinking clouded with lust and eyes trained on the bare wet skin of the girls. Then he’s grabbed from behind, then he’s punched, then he’s kicked, then he sees the phone and the number being dialled, and he comes to his senses and he runs.

He runs into the forest, he runs west, far away from the cabin and his vest and his choices, back towards the boys. He runs until his chest feels like sandpaper is working on his bones and his legs feel like something’s snapped. He can’t be caught, can’t explain to his wife and his boys why daddy’s getting arrested. He’s nearly back, he can see the hide, kid’s surely exactly where he left them.

In the corner of his eye, he sees a glint of metal, and he falls, momentum pushing him hard into the ground. The pain in his chest is worse, and has spread to his back, it feels hot and throbbing, then freezing cold. He can’t make his shoulder cooperate to push himself up. His stomach is wet and warm.

He hears Duke’s voice, laughing and victorious, and he hears twigs snapping and footsteps as the boys come to him, surely ready and excited to get on with the hunt. Their voices carry in the air, but seem to get fainter as they get closer,

..big one! Dad’s gonna be so jealous… without him…