The North Woods by Douglass Hoover

Author:Douglass Hoover [Hoover, Douglass]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

18

Siggy

SIGGY COULDN’T sleep. The light patter of rain against the canvas tent filled his ears. He glanced over at his injured friend, who lay only a couple feet away. Doc’s regularly loud snores had been replaced by a staccato of shallow wheezes. He was unconscious, at least. And he was dry and stable. That was more than Siggy could have hoped for that afternoon.

Doc’s first scream was one of the most horrifying noises Siggy had ever heard in his life. It started as a deep bellow for just a few seconds before breaking into a high shriek. He swore he could almost feel the pain in it from across the apple grove. The bear trap was devastating, to say the least. Its rusted release mechanism had been filed away, so it had taken him at least a couple minutes to pry the bloody jaws far enough apart to withdraw Doc’s shattered leg. After that, everything was a flurry. Siggy normally cringed at the phrase, but it was true: the training kicked in. Unfortunately for Doc, Siggy and Wyatt’s training was limited to immediate trauma care. Together they’d maintained just enough emergency medical knowledge to stabilize Doc for transport. But there was no medivac to get him out of here. They were on their own. Despite setting the leg and stopping the bleeding, they had no idea what exactly to do with him next.

And that bear trap hadn’t been the only one.

After he’d freed Doc’s leg, Siggy almost stumbled straight into another one. Only Wyatt’s sharp eye and quick reflexes saved him from a similarly gruesome injury. In total, they discovered seven more traps surrounding the apple grove. A veritable minefield that had them watching their every step as they constructed a stretcher from two large branches and their jackets.

Now the makeshift stretcher leaned against a pine tree outside, only somewhat protected from the drizzling rain.

Wyatt was out there too. Huddled over the fire, no doubt. Keeping watch until it was Siggy’s turn to take up that mantle.

Fuck.

Siggy needed to sleep. His turn at watch began at 2AM, and the last time he checked, it was nearly midnight.

He rolled onto his back, settling his head on his pack and looking up at the darkness. It was a complete black. The clouds overhead had blotted out the moon even before he’d racked out. Now, entombed in Crossman’s musty canvas tent, the lack of light was so absolute that he couldn’t even tell if his eyes were shut.

Somewhere deep down, a horrifyingly familiar fear roiled. This was exactly the situation he’d spent his life avoiding. The darkness. Nothing but pure, utter darkness. No distractions, no escape from his own thoughts. Even as a teenager, before it all, he used to sleep with the TV on as a welcomed distraction from himself. As a man, though, the TV wasn’t up to the task. For a while, drinking helped. When that stopped working, pills took its spot. But the pills became weak, even the strong ones, and eventually the needle became the final stop on that devolving railroad.

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