Out of Season

Kevin sank weightily into the seat of the wooden chair he'd carried into his living room from the kitchen table. He let out a deep, warm breath from behind his lips as he leaned back in the rickety old chair, turning his head up to face the ceiling with his eyes closed. A funny(?) thought suddenly occurred to him: three additional chairs remain situated around the perimeter of his  kitchen table, yet there were no asses around to fill them, aside from the one beneath him now. 

The chair in which Kevin presently sat was the only one of the four that was ever used. It wasn't something he did on purpose but simply out of habit. He supposed he could establish some kind of alternating schedule so that each seat got a little bit of Kevin's ass time every fourth night, but how ridiculous and sad would that be? At this thought, the 28-year-old bachelor grinned, shaking his head as he leaned forward in the chair now, reaching around the telescope mounted on its stand in front of him to grab his Coors can he'd set on the windowsill. 

He settled back into the seat and took a sip of his beer. Warm. "Made to chill," the TV ads proclaimed, but apparently whatever entity controls the weather in southwest Washington state didn't get the memo. Kevin always keeps his beer supply out on the back porch of his trailer, and that usually keeps the mountain peaks on his cans frosty blue just fine throughout most of the year, but during the mid-July hotstreak? Not so much. He knew he could move some or all of it into his refrigerator at any time, but the back porch storage was just another thing he did out of habit.

“T.G.I.F.,” Kevin uttered aloud to nobody before throwing back half of his lukewarm pisswater in one colossal gulp. T.G.I.F. — I’d like to hear Katy Perry singing about this Friday night, he thought to himself and chuckled. Thinking of Katy Perry made Kevin decide that he ought to put on some music. Typically, he was partial to the greats of classic rock and heavy metal, but tonight he decided to find a Spotify playlist of relaxing classical music instead. He just needed something to help him “zen out,” as he put it. He felt a bit trepidatious actually putting this stuff on, but he felt he needed it. He did, however, go to the length of turning on his “Private Session” setting—after all, I couldn’t risk having any of the guys at the construction site seeing this shit in my history on Monday. 

Kevin needed to relax; his new counselor had told him so (another subject that would make me die of embarrassment if my coworkers knew about it). She had told him, “I think you should find a hobby—something you can do to unwind and relax once you’re home from work, to help clear your mind—and not drinking.” Well, Kevin thought now, how about this compromise, Christine? I’m gonna have a beer or two while I try out a damn hobby for size. What he was really interested in was not looking through a telescope but hiking, to bask in all the glory of nature’s beauty. He had a feeling it would have the power to really center him. However, when Kevin got home after ten hours of hard manual labor under the hot July sun, he didn’t exactly feel like going out of his way for more physical activity. So again he’d made a compromise: he decided to bring this old telescope home from his parents’ house, and he could bask in the glory of nature’s beauty from a distance, through the high powered lens. 

His parents had gotten it for him as a gift when he was in the sixth grade. His class was learning about space and all the planets in the solar system. The boy was fascinated by the subject, and for a hot minute even determined that he would be an astronaut someday. Needless to say, his current construction job wasn’t exactly a rung on the ladder leading to “head of NASA”. My dreams of being an astronaut may have died, but this shitty old telescope still lives! He never was able to see much in outer space with the thing, but it still worked great for getting good looks at whatever may be going on in the distant tree-covered hills, which surrounded the rural valley in which Kevin’s double-wide bachelor pad sat.

Kevin took one last pull from his Coors and unleashed a mighty belch as he set the empty can back on the sill. Then he scooted his chair forward and leaned in to look through the old telescope. Its view was directed out of his living room window toward the hills that, luckily for Kevin, had not yet been ravaged by Weyerhaeuser for their timber (at least not in the last several decades). This was a new ritual for him, having just been initiated on Tuesday evening of that same week. He was content to simply admire the trees as he daydreamed of being up there, perhaps in a pleasantly shaded grove, hearing nothing but the natural song of the forest and his own breathing while just a few rays from the summer sun shone like spotlights through the trees above. Occasionally, however, Kevin was granted the opportunity to glimpse something a bit more lively than the trees alone. He enjoyed watching the eagles with their chests puffed out arrogantly as they stood tall on their perches. If he was really observant, he could even spot a great horned owl and watch its mouth producing hoots that he swore he could almost hear. 

The best show of the week was, of course, reserved for Friday night. As Kevin scanned the tree-covered hills through the lens of his telescope, he doubled back when he thought he saw— “Yep,” he spoke aloud to no one, “that there is one purdy elk,” in an exaggerated country accent. It sure was, too. “And would you just look at the size of those damn antlers, good God.” 

Something was off, though—multiple somethings, really. For one thing, this elk appeared to be entirely alone, as Kevin was unable to identify any others nearby. It seemed to be meandering along on its own, evidently in no particular hurry. Although he didn’t spot any other elk around, as he searched the area, Kevin did happen to espy something else perched on a thick tree limb overhanging the lonely bull, and it wasn’t any measly owl this time. The long-distance voyeur blew a long whistle and said, “That’s one big kitty you’ve got watchin’ you, Mr. Elk. Looks like I’m about to see some live action National Geographic shit.” 

Kevin licked his lips as he anxiously adjusted the focus of the telescope. He wanted to ensure the best view possible. It’s not everyday you get to see this shit unfold right before your eyes, he thought. Now he swore he could almost see the great round butterscotch eyes of the cougar as they watched the bull moseying beneath it, waiting for the right moment when some primal instinctual impulse in the cat’s brain would signal its gigantic body to leap down onto the back of this poor, unsuspecting bull. 

As Kevin awaited the inevitable strike, that’s just about when a “something’s not right here” signal started going off in Kevin’s own brain, and he was suddenly struck by a wave of confusion. He focused back in on the elk to double-check his previous observation and, “Yep, that boy is sure as shit carrying some major horns alright,” but in mid-July? Kevin completed the thought not aloud but in his mind. He noted now also that the bull was covered in a heavy coat of thick winter fur. “What the hell kinda time-traveling elk am I lookin’ at?” He couldn’t help but speak this question to his empty living room, regardless of how ridiculous he surely sounded.

Just as Kevin was beginning to think that “This shit could not get any weirder,” the cougar made its move. It must have been insanely swift. Kevin did not see it initiate its pounce, but suddenly it was on the elk’s back, clawing into its flesh and rearing its head with jaws open wide, baring its saber teeth. The bull reacted by jerkily thrusting his head backwards with a force that only survival instinct can conjure, and a point of his antlers pierced the cougar near one of its shoulders. 

The cat recoiled as the elk bolted away, attempting its escape from becoming eventual feline shit. The cougar gave chase, and Kevin’s tremulous fingers worked to dial down the magnification on his scope a bit, so as to better follow the quick action of the two animals running to the leftward edge of his view. It didn’t take but a few seconds for the cougar to gain on the bull. It was as good as over, when suddenly the bull moved behind the view of a tree, and never re-emerged back into Kevin’s view on the other side.

Now, the elk’s odd appearance Kevin could try to explain away. He had been drinking after all (You’ve only had two beers is a thought that he tried to push away). But this sudden disappearance out of thin air was impossible for him to reconcile with himself. 

Kevin was telling himself he must have been mistaken, his heart now pounding in his chest, when the enormous cat came grinding to a halt just before it reached the tree itself. It must have come within inches of crossing the barrier past which it would go behind this tree and out of Kevin's line of sight. 

"What the hell is back there?" Kevin couldn't help but question aloud (to whom? the powers that be?). The cat’s gaze appeared to be transfixed on something (someone?) that Kevin couldn’t see, and it very gingerly, without averting its line of vision whatsoever, laid down on the ground, right where it was. The cougar did not move a muscle for at least a full minute, though it felt to Kevin more like an hour. And then it finally began to crawl backwards, ever so slowly, still without averting its gaze from the thing beyond the tree.

Kevin was suddenly assaulted by a sharp stinging sensation in the back of his right thigh and he fell back into the seat of his chair with such force that one of the wooden legs splintered and he collapsed down onto his living room carpet, ass-first. “Damn cramp!” Kevin grunted as he rubbed his leg where a ball of muscle was throbbing. He hadn’t even realized that he’d left his seat, but he deduced that at some point during his rapturous nature-watching, he apparently must have leaned forward in his chair to the point of floating in a squatting position behind his telescope lens.

Kevin reached for the splintered segment of chair-leg on the ground beside him. He held it up for examination. “Well,” he began to announce, “it looks like some other chairs will be getting some quality Kevin’s ass time after all!” He laughed in spite of himself, but it wasn’t long until his grin faded into a pensive frown. Looking up at the green hills through his window, Kevin asked himself, “Seriously, what the hell was goin’ on up there?”

The man couldn’t help but become hyper-fixated on the dilemma. There were too many factors that he wasn’t able to logically reconcile: the out-of-season appearance of the elk, its little vanishing act, the hunting cougar suddenly scared shitless to the point of bailing… Sleep did not come easily that night, as the thoughts continued to roll over and over again in Kevin’s mind.

He woke with a jolt just about every hour. He couldn’t get what he saw on the hillside out of his mind. He kept dreaming that he was up there himself. In sleep his mind was transported to that place, but somehow it seemed to be more than a dream. The setting felt more real than his bedroom where he slept. Up there, the sun was just setting, and it was still warm under the shade of the trees. The sinking sun turned the sky into a burning gradient of red, orange, and pink. His shirt stuck to his sweaty torso, and sometimes the breeze would separate cotton from flesh in a pleasant gust that felt heavenly. 

From here, Kevin looked down into the distant valley below. He identified his trailer, and almost felt that he could actually see himself watching through the living room window with his telescope. (The tree—where is that tree that seemed to devour the winter-coated elk?) Kevin swiveled his head to his right and his eyes instantly locked on to one tree in particular, as if by instinct. He just knew that this was it. Upon further inspection, Kevin thought that perhaps his immediate fixation to this tree was initiated not simply by intuition but rather by the strange markings it bore on its massive trunk. Carved into the bark of the tree was a massive X that must have been Kevin's height or taller from top to bottom. Each of its two intersecting lines appeared to be about three inches wide. The strangest aspect was probably just how uniform the whole thing looked, as if the mark were made with some kind of giant bladed stamp. 

Dream-Kevin stepped toward the tree and only stopped when he stood about a foot away from its trunk, the central intersection of the massive X at his eye level. He reached out his arm to touch it. With his fingers he traced along one of the lines toward the center, and as he approached the center his fingers, hand, and arm appeared to be shrinking before his eyes. His limb was somehow falling into itself and becoming smaller the closer it got to the X’s center. When he backtracked, it seemed to protract back to normal. 

As he was marveling in terrific horror at this bizarre phenomenon, Kevin heard the creak of weight shifting in overhanging tree limbs behind him. He wheeled around anxiously and was not surprised to see the culprit: the cougar he had seen through his telescope. Only this time, there was no elk around, only Kevin, on whom the cat’s golden eyes were locked. Presently the cougar leaped down to the ground, landing lightly, approximately ten feet away from him. Kevin was suddenly aware that his knees were quivering. He felt the warmth of urine running down his leg, and was somehow certain that his “real” sleeping self was also evacuating fluids into his bed. But he didn’t wake up—not yet.

“I am not going to die in my own dream, dammit!” Kevin shouted. The cat winced at this rebuff but quickly shook it off and took another step forward. I have got to stand my ground, he thought, dream or not. Kevin locked his quivering knees and made himself tall, raising his arms as high as he could over his head while shouting at the cat. It didn’t budge. He took things a step further by literally taking a step forward, and as he did so, Kevin felt as if he grew larger. He proceeded to take another step, and felt larger still. 

The cat then came to have a nervous look in its eyes, but it wasn’t looking at Kevin anymore. It was looking past him. X marks the spot, Kevin thought, certain that the unusual marking behind him had something to do with what was happening now. Much like it did when Kevin watched it through his telescope, the cougar began to take delicate steps backward, until it finally turned and fled. Kevin was glad to see it go, but he was not quite relieved. I don’t want to know what’s behind me, he thought to himself. Wake up now, please!

He could feel a presence—sense it profoundly. The air felt heavy behind him, and he realized that it had become dead quiet. Not even the distant sound of chirping birds broke this silence. All was still—all but Kevin’s heart, which he was sure would explode right out of his chest at any moment, whether it be from beating so damn hard or from the physical force of whatever was behind him. 

Kevin took a deep breath and turned around slowly. What he saw behind him was the tree with the X, only it was as if he were seeing it through a sort of lens. I’m looking through someone, Kevin thought but didn’t really understand. He thought he could make out an outline—a silhouette of a massive figure that dwarfed him—but throughout the silhouette he could see everything behind this figure, which Kevin estimated to be at least three whole feet taller than himself. The thing shifted and Kevin just about jumped out of his skin. He could sense it was moving back, closer to the X. 

Kevin was impelled to follow, and he did. Again, as he closed the distance between himself and the tree, he could tell that he was becoming smaller and smaller with each step. The lens-silhouette disappeared into the X when it should have collided with the tree. Kevin still followed. He stepped directly into the tree. Everything went black, and he was jerked awake in his sweat-and-urine-soaked bed.

At dawn’s light, come. This was Kevin’s first waking thought, but it was not exactly his thought. It was just in his head, as if somebody had reached him telepathically. He was impelled.

Kevin didn’t show up to work that Monday. His truck was eventually found parked on the side of a logging road up in the hills, but no trace of the man himself has ever been discovered.