The Beast

A short story by Max Jones

Most who went in never came out, but those who did only escaped because they weren’t witness to anything, they never saw The Beast. At least that was the story of the forest by my house, a fairy tale, well, kind of. It was almost 50 years ago, long before I was born, but apparently there were a few groups of hikers and campers that went missing in the forest out of nowhere. There was no trace left of them either, all their belongings disappeared with them. The cases were never officially solved either. After the first two-ish groups of people went missing, “The Beast” was created and took off with the townspeople. No one has gone missing in that forest is probably 45 years. Nowadays people don’t actually believe in The Beast, but it’s still fun to make jokes about it. (At least that’s what we thought)

“Jenny, let’s goooo!” my dad shouted from the driveway as he loaded the ‘camping equipment’ into my truck. “It’s gonna be night before you get there!” he said sarcastically trying to get me into the car, my mother observing him struggle from the garage.

My mom wanted to make sure my friends and I had everything we could ever possibly need for this camping trip. To her, that was everything. She was the type of person to swipe her card first and look at the receipts later (or not at all). She got some massive like 4-bedroom tent for us all plus all the cooking supplies and food to feed an army. We were only camping for 2 nights! This was of course all funded by my dad, who runs some type of business, I’m not really sure what though.

I rushed out the door, quickly kissed my mom goodbye, gave my dad a big hug as he lifted me off the ground and spun me around, then jumped into my Raptor and headed to the forest.

“About time JJ,” Tommy smirked playfully.

“Last one…as usual” Schmitt added under his breath.

My whole group of friends was already at the forest’s edge waiting for me. Tommy greeted me first as I hopped out of my truck, followed by his annoying best friend, Schmitt. Standing behind them was Jessy, Morgan, and Elana. They all already had their packs and started unloading the truck bed of unnecessary items. Most of the cooking supplies we left just because it was too much metal to carry through the forest. I slung my backpack around my shoulder and started to reach for the massive tent my mom bought for all of us when Tommy trotted by and grabbed it before I could get to it. He turned around and headed towards the forest. “Let’s get active” he added to distract me from the fact that he was carrying the tent for me. He was always doing little things like that. Just like that we were on our way through the forest.

About 2 hours into our ’45 minute’ hike, “Which way JJ?” Tommy finally asked after the sun started to beam the bright orange of a set.

“Yea which way Jenny? Thomas obviously didn’t know the forest as well as he thought he did. Maybe it’s The Beast getting to his head,” Schmitt snarked.

“Shut the hell up Schmitt, you know that’s all BS, just stuff made up to scare people, I’ve been camping in this forest since I was a kid and I have yet to run into this so-called beast,” Tommy reassured the group.

I reached behind to the side pocket of my bag and fished out a map to hand to Tommy. Within another half hour we were at our campsite. The boys started setting up the tent while me Morgan and Elana started a fire. With my mom’s grade-A cooking supplies, we elegantly prepared our SpaghettiOs and gathered around the campfire.

“Does anyone wanna tell a scary story?” Elana asked, “And no more of that beast nonsense,” she added quickly. I could tell that she was kind of freaked out by The Beast. She doesn’t really do the whole outdoors thing very much either, so she was already out of her comfort zone, but Schmitt’s jokes had her noticeably on edge.

“Alright, alright, I got one,” Morgan said, “Its about a ghost. It was a night similar to tonight, a light breeze, clear skies, lightened by the shining stars. The moon was full, casting shadows every which way. Walking along a dark path in the woods, there was…”

“AHHH!! IT’S THE BEAST!!” exclaimed Schmitt.

“WHAT? WHERE?” Elana shouted as she jumped to her feet and started to run, tripping and falling, missing the bonfire with her head, only by inches.

“SCHMITT THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” I was furious. “She could have gotten seriously hurt or worse!”

“Calm down Jenny it was just a joke, and no one got hurt, everyone’s A-OK,”

He made me so angry sometimes. He was just so stupid. He lacked common sense and so often did stupid dangerous things without thinking. And the worst part about him is that he doesn’t even see a problem with the way that he acts, he thinks it’s perfectly normal. He thinks just because an extremely bad situation didn’t end horribly, there was nothing wrong with it. I honestly don’t know why Tommy is friends with him, or even Jessy. I got up and stormed into our castle of a tent.

“JJ! Wait up!” Tommy called after me while I unzipped the tent door. I didn’t respond and didn’t turn around or stop what I was doing. I was still extremely annoyed. “He didn’t mean to cause any harm, he was just messing around,” Tommy persisted.

“That’s the problem Tommy, he is so thick-headed that he doesn’t even realize what he does wrong most of the time”

“Come on, it was just a little prank, Elana over-reacted a tiny bit don’t you think? Either way I’ll talk to Schmitt, he won’t do it again”

I was still mad but the way he calmed me down gave me a sort of reassurance

“I’m still going to bed though, I’m beat, night” I slipped into the tent and on top of my king-sized air mattress in my corner of the massive tent. I was the only one in there and I passed right out, not to wake again until first light.

I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping and the warmth of the morning sun through the tent wall. By the looks of it I was the first one up. I looked around to check and was greeted by only snores. As I was rubbing my eyes awake, I noticed something that almost slipped my mind, but I barley caught it; There were only four other beds!

“Tommy, wake up,” I whispered harshly. His head shot up from his pillow. He stared at me dumbly from across the tent.

“Wha, what? What?” he stuttered.

“Why are there only five air mattresses in this tent? Did someone not come to sleep last night?”

“No, we all came in like 30 minutes after you, I was the last one in,” he replied.

“So, who’s not here?” I asked.

“HEY EVERYONE, RISE AND SHINE!” the change of emotion from how he was like a zombie not fifteen seconds ago to how loud and with so much power that he just shouted was absolutely amazing. It startled me so bad I jumped while still sitting on my air mattress. Heads around the tent started to pop up. Jessy next to Tommy, Morgan and Elana to my left. Schmitt! He was gone!

“Where’s Schmitt?” Morgan asked shakily.

“Oh my God, it’s just like the legend! He’s gone and so it all of his stuff! It was The Beast! He took Schmitt for all the jokes he was making and now he’s going to finish off the rest of us!” Elana cried!

“Chill out guys, he probably fine,” Tommy tried to reassure the group.

“He’s probably just playing another stupid prank,” Jessy added.

Tommy unzipped the tent door and looked out. Immediately I heard a deep hacking laughter. I rushed to the tent opening to see what was going on. There was Schmitt, perched on his air mattress out in the grass with all of his stuff sitting on the ground next to him. A giant, stupid, smile, slapped across his face.

“You should’ve heard yourselves, you definitely thought I was a goner!” he spit out through fits of laughter.

“You’re such as asshole Schmitt, you need to cut it out with these stupid pranks! Some of us actually care,” Morgan scolded him. He didn’t care. He shallowly laughed it off. I saw Elana slink back under her covers from where I was standing in the tent doorway. I couldn’t see her face, but I could tell that Schmitt’s prank had really hurt her, she was probably crying silently. She was a little gullible, but she was extremely caring, and I think he really hurt her feelings.

There was tension with the whole group for the rest of that day, everyone got set off by the littlest things. I saw Jessy, who is usually an extremely calm, easygoing person, snap at Schmitt when he tried to mess with the stick that Jessy was whittling. No one had any patience; I think it was the being completely away from society with no way to contact the outside world. Also, the fact that this whole beast folk tale has been causing problems with us since we stepped into this forest, and it’s not even real! It’s just a story!

At that moment the loudest, nastiest cross between a roar and a snarl rang throughout the forest. We all paused and just kind of stared at each other.

“Alright, that wasn’t me this time,” Schmitt blurted out.

“I was just the echo of a tree falling probably a mile or two away,” Thomas quickly responded, “Because of where we are at in the valley, each sound is extremely amplified, and echoes off the mountains.”

“Yea bull shit!” Jessy exclaimed, “That was The Beast, and you know it Thomas!”

Everyone just stood in silence. I didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, The Beast was just a made-up folktale, but then again, that sure didn’t sound like a tree falling in the distance.

We went on that day doing normal camp things; whittling sticks, throwing random things into a fire, gathering firewood, you know, typical things. When it was time for us to gather around the fire to cook our dinner, Schmitt was gone again.

“SCHMITT!! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE OR YOU’RE NOT GETTING DINNER! NO MORE GAMES!” Tommy screamed at the top of his lungs, echoing through the forest, “That should get him to either quit it or he’s going to be pretty hungry”

“It’s not like him to not come eat,” Alayna said.

“Come on Alayna, you’re really going to let him scare you, again, how many times is that now?” mocked Jessy.

“I know but it’s still weird,” she added.

We made enough stew in the industrial sized, compactable pot, one of the only pieces of kitchen ware we actually brought with us. Tommy and Jessy brought the rabbits they hunted while Morgan, Alayna, and I prepared the broth with a mixture of vegetables and spices. I didn’t like the thought of eating rabbit but decided to try it because Tommy swore it was the best thing in the forest. Turned out he wasn’t wrong, it was pretty good, it tasted a lot like chicken. We made way more than we needed too, but we were leaving the next morning, so we decided to dump it out so Schmitt couldn’t have any. Tommy and Jessie lifted it up and took it over to the edge of our flat campsite, where there was a slight downward hill. They dumped it, then shrieked, all color draining from their faces in seconds. The other three of us ran over to see what they were so worked up about. We peered over a bush to the puddle of rabbit stew, except it wasn’t a puddle. It was a headless body covered in the dumped rabbit stew, blood, guts, and veins were all torn out of the neck where the noggin was ripped from the body. Alayna hacked up all the stew she at right at that moment.

“Wait a minute,” Morgan started as she approached the body, examining the clothing of the headless victim. “Oh my god it’s Schmitt! Look at his clothes, it’s the same blue hoodie he was wearing. Where the HELL is his freaking head?!”

It was an awful sight, absolutely disgusting, and before I could even take in the whole scene, there was that same nasty roar. This time it was twice as loud and echoed twice as long. There was no mistaking it this time, it was The Beast, he had gotten Schmitt, and he was coming after us. I could head the snapping of branches and the ground shaking as The Beast thudded towards us. I looked up and about a quarter mile out I could see the trees bending and moving out of the way for The Beast. It was coming and it was coming fast!

“HIDEEEE!” Jessy franticly screamed.

We all scattered, and it was clear that we were all so ridden by shock and fear that we didn’t know what to do. We just ran aimlessly until we finally realized that we need to be out of sight when this thing came flying by. I ran for the tent and met Tommy there, Jessie and Alayna not far behind. Morgan was running the wrong way. She was completely out in the open!

“MORGAN! THE TENT!” I shouted!

Her head snapped towards me and she started to sprint. The ground shaking more and more, the sound of the breaking branches and tree trunks was ear piercing. I saw a dark blur fly past my face, what sounded like a yelp, quickly cut off, and Morgan disappeared. It was The Beast! It snatched up Morgan fight in front of me so fast that my eyes couldn’t even see it. She was here one second and gone the next. The forest was extremely quiet. The Beast was just gone, and Morgan with it. How was it that we could hear and feel it approaching, it was literally earth shaking, and then it disappeared without a sound? It made no sense and all that much more terrifying.

“HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT” Tommy repeated over and over again while pacing around with his hands on top of his head until Jessy slapped him across the face.

“Get a grip of yourself man! You have to focus if we want to make it out of here alive, get the map!”

It was a side of Jessy I had never seen before, he was assertive and extremely leader-like. I guess life or death situations really give you a reason to keep your head on straight.

“What. Was. That?” Alayna whimpered, “That’s nothing like the stories go,” she almost sounded disappointed, and she had a right to be. This was way worse than the stories! The folk tales forgot to mention the part about all of the…well any of it!

“Come on, Alayna,” Jessie said, “All you guys grab anything you think can help us on our hike back to our cars, leave everything else”

“What about Schmitt? We can’t just leave him here. And Morgan! We have to go find her! She could still be alive!” Alayna protested.

“Are you serious? If you want to die trying to save a corpse, be my guest, but I will not be waiting for you to go get yourself killed trying to find Morgan, who is most likely long gone!” Jessie turned around and stormed towards the tent to start gathering his supplies. “We walk in five!”

The now four of us gathered at the edge of our campsite and headed down the trail for the most dangerous stroll of our lives. It was just starting to get dark, and an eerie fog covered the treetops. Tommy was profusely studying the map to make sure we got out of that forest as fast as possible. We couldn’t afford to get lost again.

We were almost to the end of our hike; the cars were only about another half mile ahead. You could see the clearing in the tree line.

“Shhhhh! I think I feel something” Jessy stopped and bent down to put his palm on the ground. At that moment I felt it too. The slight rumble under my feet. Pebbles starting to bounce up and down.

Tommy turned to us, “Its coming back, we have to hide and hope it goes past us, it’s the only option, we won’t make it if we fun for it now, it’s too far”

I slunk into a bush, saw Tommy and Jessy slip behind a large rock. Alayna found a hollow log to slide into. We waited. The rattling got louder and again I started to hear the trees move. I took a deep breath in and held it, squeezing my eyes as hard as I could. It got louder and louder until… BOOM!

I opened my eyes in shock. The log that had been harboring Alayna had been smashed to pieces and two massive, hairy feet with long sharp nails stood in its spot, it was The Beast.

He wasn’t doing a drive-by this time. I peered up and my eyes were met with a twelve-foot-tall monster with some type of cross between antlers and horns on top of its head, drool dripping from its snarling mouth, the daggers in its mouth on display. But he wasn’t looking at me or the guys, he was looking around. He didn’t know where we were, just that we are close. I don’t even think it knew that it had just brutally murdered one of my best friends!

Jessy jumped out from behind his hiding spot bearing a large stick as a weapon, “THAT WAS MY FRIEND YOU…” It didn’t even wait for him to finish, as soon as Jessy showed himself, The Beast struck, not wasting a moment. Now that his hiding spot was given up, Tommy bolted away from the trail. I watched from my bush as The Beast tried to make up his mind on whether to continue his meal of Jessy or go catch a new one. After maybe thirty seconds, The Beast decided that Tommy would be a tastier snack and darted in the direction Tommy ran. Now was my chance!

I got up and ran. I didn’t look back, I didn’t look to see if I could see The Beast, or Tommy, I just put my head down and ran. I was so close. I could see the reflection of the sunset on my windshield! I heard an agonizing shriek in the distance, no doubt it was Tommy’s, but I didn’t even stutter, I just kept on running. The shaking ground started to get more prominent, and I knew The Beast was closing in on me. I didn’t look behind my shoulder because even if I did, there was nothing I could do but run. I fumbled with my keys as I approached my car, I could see all of our cars now. The booming footsteps grew louder and louder, only like fifty more feet! I heaved the burning air in and out of my lungs and all of a sudden something hit me in the back of my head that sent me tumbling to the ground, not ten feet in front of my car. I lifted up my dirt scraped face to see The Beast perched on top of the hood of my Ford Raptor, his eyes, cold as ice, staring into my soul.