Chapter One
March 3, 2017
In a far off clearing at the southern base of Mount Mansfield, surrounded by an old growth balsam fir and sugar maple forest, sat an object not born of that forest.
Odoriferous this woodland was with the previous autumn’s shedding of waxy needles and amber and auburn leaves, wet and decaying they all were now, creating a melange of musky odours. It was a small trek up to this alcove, yet well out of sight of the radio tower Toll Road. The usual melee of tourists eager to climb Vermont’s highest peak not yet present in early spring, for the weather was a moody girl—crafting a low-ceiling, overcast sky, the air damp and cool—a visible mist swirling around the alpine space creating a world apart. The barren quartz bedrock and the crooked and wind-battered tree limbs shedding steady droplets of crystalline water from the recent melting ice and snow made the vista entirely reminiscent of the Algonquin Park “Group of Seven” paintings.
The atmosphere was calm, serene, yet heavy, the air filled with a dense kind of nothing, the quiet occasionally interrupted by the caw-cawing of a far off crow or the rustling of the odd hermit thrush in a nearby bush, the knock-knock of a downy woodpecker or the scrunching crunch of brush underfoot in the trek to reach the clearing. A constant, rather irritating hum of traffic noise off Highway Route 108 could be heard from the nearby valley, evidence that humanity, welcome and not, was certainly close at hand.
As low-lying branches were parted—the wood arthritic from the cold, groaning and creaking, threatening to break when bent—and side-swiping steps made over a set of snow run-off rivulets, the clearing came into sight, proving now that the alien object was not a hiker’s mirage but a real entity, a Thing Unknown. At first glance, maybe a baseball? Yet, with each approaching step, the object grew in size. No, a soccer ball? But why would such things be here? Closer and closer now, crunching over pine cones and twigs, wading through muddy depressions choked with moss and squirming worms—the combination slimy and slippery, danger with every footfall—both guesses were wrong.
The object, the entity, this Thing, was no ball at all.
It was ovular.
No, oblong, well rounded at the top, narrowing at the bottom.
Despite the grey light in the dying afternoon hours, the foreign Thing gave off a garish white glow when the odd shaft of sunlight would push its way through the clouds and seep in between the tree tops. The smoky-white rays landed as flickering spots of light onto the object’s well rounded surface.
As the distance melted, leaving only feet left to the goal, the buzzing of flies filled the ears, a seemingly random conglomeration of House, Flesh and Coffin, just the odd one at first, then a staccato sing-song, culminating in an orchestral swarm of winged vibration, a cacophony of swirling dive-bombing sound. That sickly sweet odour which comes from putrefaction, that suffocating smell of death, filled the nostrils, the gag reflex ignited yet vomiting remained suppressed. The sensory assault dampened the curiosity not.
The misshaped object turned out not to be a pristine white after all, but a dirty yellow and ivory hue with muddy streaks and trails of insect feces covering its zigzagging cranial sutures, the overall effect the result of exposure and advanced decay. Enough matter remained inside to produce a nest of sorts, a pleasant place to lay eggs that would eject shiny-wet black larvae, and a prodigious place to eat. The remaining strands of hair had been appropriated as a conveyor belt of sorts, used to enter and exit this bony hotel.
No vacancy. Its occupants, hundreds of American Carrion beetles (Latin term - necrophilia Americana - known in the entomological world for eating anything most other insects dare not), their yellow and black bumble bee-like hard shells entwined in a writhing and undulating sea of carnivore activity. Their home? The large upper cranium/eye socket cavity of a dis-articulated head laying on its left side. The mandible—still attached, hanging on thanks to a few remaining strings of sinew and muscle fragments—contained a full set of teeth, gleaming bright in the day’s dying light, soon to sparkle in the moonlight glow which arrived with a clear and starry night’s sky. The eviscerated mouth—did it boast an eternal laugh, or a frozen scream?
The knock-knocking of the woodpecker, the rustling of the thrush, even the hoot-hewing of a snowy owl which had just moments ago landed on a high branch to drink in this ghoulish sight—all those beautiful sights and sounds of nature killed in an instant by the ear-piercing screams and frantic footfalls of a terror-struck discoverer fleeing horror and seeking help.
Such is the inevitable result when a kill site is discovered.
