The Woodwalkers

During summer, Clete always favored the night over the day; this was mainly due to the piss poor management of the humidity by the house. No matter how dark he made it, or how many window fans he set up, he just couldn't keep the humidity out. About the only time it did become cool was in the early morning hours, just before dawn. Over the years, he learned to deal with it by waiting until dark, stripping down to his underwear, and sitting on the front porch for a while.
Even though his front yard was right next to the road, it didn't bother him to be out in public like this. The tall row of pine trees that divided his property from his neighbor's extended far enough out to block the view the house from any oncoming traffic. The shrubs on the other side acted in the same fashion. Regardless of how visible he actually was, most people who used this road were kids racing to get to their next party, where they could get even more fucked up than they already were, and, in that state, a man in his underwear, was hardly a blip on their radar.
His neighbor behind the pines was some guy in his sixties named Dean Womodo. Dean was Asian, but able to speak perfect English-when addressing strangers, that is. Alone, with his wife, his speech was kept solely in the native. Dean dealt with the heat in much the same way, just not in his skivvies. His wife seemed to tolerate it a lot better than he did. Probably because of her age, she was half his-and American. He envied that about her-her age, that is-he was young, too, once, and he remembered how drastic changes in temperature never fazed him either.
This year, though, he was going to have to come up with a new plan. In all his forty years of living, never had he seen it so hot, so early in the season. It was still spring and already the area was in the middle of a bona fide heat wave. Not just any heat wave either, this was the kind only someone from the mid west could relate to. New England just doesn't get that kind of humidity-maybe, in July, for a few weeks, if the conditions are right, but never in May, and never for so God damn long. This was the fourth week, and from what he was hearing, it wasn't supposed to let up any time soon.
Clete leaned back and stretched out his legs. He took a sip of his beer, and gazed at the night sky.
Somewhere down the block a lawn mower started up. Ten at night and one of his fucked up neighbors was mowing the lawn? He supposed he couldn't be too judgmental, it was certainly too hot during the day to do anything other than lie down and dream.
From across the road, Clete heard something rustling in the woods. He took a long swig, stood up, and prepared to high tail it back inside if it turned out to be a bear, then came voices-to low to make out, though. He relaxed, and sat back down. The state park was just down the road-campers out for a midnight stroll, most likely.
He surveyed the woods with a smile, unable to picture himself living anywhere there wasn't enough forest for him to get lost in. A trait he undoubtedly got from his late grandfather. The old man even had a name for people who loved the woods as much as they did. He called them, "woods walkers," and what they did was, "woods walk."
His grandfather had thought that term through so meticulously that when Clete was taken down to the state park for the first time, and he pointed at a group of people, and said, "Look at all those woods walkers," his grandfather corrected him, telling him that woods walker was singular, the plural for many was woodwalkers.
Once again, Clete locked lips with his beer bottle, and smiled at the memory.
He just happened to be gazing at the dark where old lady Patton's house used to be, when four figures broke from the woods, right under the street light. Two males and two females, naked as the day they were born. They ran straight through Patton's property and into the woods out back. Clete ran to the edge of his house and peered into the tangled dark. Their clumsy movements and careless whispers were already receding far into the night.
His mind raced with fantasies of who they might be: collegians pulling a prank to see how far they could streak, or neighbors who were on their way to a swinger's party? By the time he was back on his front porch, he was seriously thinking of pulling out his dick and stroking it off. Out here? In the dead of night? Come on, who would know? Had he been a braver man, he would have, but, instead, he merely hung around a while longer to see if any more of them showed up.
After a while, when it was clear no more nudists were going to show up, he dragged his drunk, limp self inside. He put the late news on, and listened to a woman talk about the unprecedented heat wave the country was in, and how it was the result of global warming. He dozed off as she began to recount other notable heat waves. The summers of 1930 and 1972 he heard quiet clearly; 1995 was fuzzy, but easily recollected. Everything else after that was obliterated by drunken sleep.
When he went out to get the paper the next morning, he found the garage doors open, and his tan Buick covered in a single set of bare, muddy, footprints. A search of the garage revealed nothing stolen, and nothing else vandalized.
After lunch-and after cleaning the car up-he decided to go down and have a closer look at where they had disappeared into the woods. Clete couldn't believe they had gone through this swampy, thorn bush infested area, but, sure enough, all he had to do to confirm they had was to look at their tracks embedded in the mud.
A sly grin crossed his face. Maybe, if he followed them, he might be able to find out where they had gone. When he got back home, and looked at the thermometer on the back porch, and saw it was a hundred and three degrees, he reconsidered. Humidity that high had the potential to do some serious damage, killing not being out of the question.
Clete got himself a cold drink of water, sat on the back porch, and mulled it over. He quickly came to the conclusion it was worth the risk. Like always, though, he prepared himself by dressing in shorts and a tank top, covering himself completely in a sunscreen rated bug repellant, and filling his water bottle with ice cubes and a sufficient amount of water. After strapping a pair of binoculars to his belt, he took one extra precaution by drenching his head-wrap in cold water before putting it on.
Since he didn't have the foot wear to follow their path directly, he stayed on the swamp's border, where the ground was more firm, and tracked their prints using his binoculars. Unfortunately, he lost them once they reached solid ground.
"Shit."
He felt his head, the wrap was bone dry; he checked his watch, a half hour had passed; he checked his water supply, low, maybe, too low to continue. Clete swiped at the deerflies circling his head. They could look all they wanted, but there weren't going to find any breaches in the repellant.
He was starting to feel dizzy now, winded, and a little nauseous, signs that he should be heeding, but something in the distance made him forget all about his potentially dangerous condition. He used his binoculars and saw a very attractive-and very naked-girl weaving through the trees.
Clete shifted into skulking mode and followed her.
She was extremely fleet footed, for when he had reached her last location, she was already becoming an erotic blur in the distance again.
Maddened by how close he had just gotten, he decided to try again. Clete discovered it was relatively easy to trail a naked girl through the woods, in the gleaming sunlight her nude body stuck out like a sore thumb. One thing soon became evident, her wandering was totally random. She seemed to have no destination in mind, nor any purpose for being out here, unless he counted sightseeing as one of them. Finally, after two hours, she crouched down out of sight, making Clete intensely curious as to what had suddenly captivated her attention. Once he reached the spot she had been at, he found a pile of shit roasting in the hot sun.
It was a miracle Clete was able to make it back without succumbing to heat exhaustion. As soon as he got in the house, he tore his clothes off, stumbled into the bathroom, and started the shower. He laid himself under the cascading water and decided it was about time to shell out some money for an air conditioner. He also figured, while he was splurging, he might as well stop at the mall, and get some equipment for his new hobby. An eight hundred dollar Canon digital camera and a photo printer should do the trick. He then visited the nearest sports store to replace his single carrying water bottle belt with one that could hold two.
On the way home, he remembered what tomorrow was-and not knowing why, he stopped off at the local bakery and bought a birthday cake. This was highly unusual because Clete wasn't the type who celebrated birthdays, or any other holiday for that matter. It wasn't out of grief, or bitterness, or anything traumatic that had happened to him, he was just the kind of person who was simply indifferent to those kinds of occasions. In the past, he celebrated them only because his family made him, but ever since his father's death six years ago, there wasn't anyone left to coerce him, and until now, he hadn't realized how much he missed all that obliged hoopla.
The next morning, Clete went peeping, but couldn't find the girl again. The only significant find he did make, though, were more tracks, but these were different than the ones made by the girl. Disappointed as he was, when noon came, and the humidity worsened, he forced himself to go home.
After lunch, he relaxed for a while by cutting himself a small piece of his forty-first birthday cake, and flipping on the Weather Channel. As usual the triple digit temperatures would continue into the next week.
When he went back into the woods, his luck was better, but it wasn't the girl he came across, it was a strikingly suntanned old man, crouching on the ground, eating mushrooms. Hoping he would be able to lead him to the girl, or, maybe, even other girls, Clete made sure he didn't get out of his sight, so for the next hour he waited, and observed . . . and waited, and observed. Eventually, he began to note some interesting peculiarities, for instance, the man never sun burned. It was possible he could have been wearing sun block, but Clete couldn't see any sign of it; and he never seemed to perspire, despite being directly under the beating sun's rays.
Eventually, the man finished eating, and when he began to move about, it was in the same wandering fashion as the girl. Occasionally, he would glance in Clete's direction, and Clete would be forced to hide, but he was sure the old man had no idea he was being watched. The distance was too great, and the cover Clete was using to conceal himself was too thick.
Regrettably, he had to let him get away. Clete's peeping had brought him closer than he had realized, and every time he took a step, and snapped a branch, the man would pause, or glance about, or hesitate in his movements. He could've waited until he walked on, putting some distance between them, but, truth be told, the heat was starting to get to him again.
Clete returned home, undressed, had supper, and retired to his bedroom to watch TV. He was woken out of a sound sleep, at three that morning, by a creaking ceiling. There existed a walkway between garage and cellar that had its own separate roof, one that slanted so low to the ground any wild animal, or person, could use it to gain access to the top of his house. And, from the sound of it, that's exactly what someone must have done.
He pulled his underwear on, grabbed a flashlight, and slipped out the front door; the back door to the deck would've been better, but the hinges squeaked. Keeping his hand over the light, he looked up and saw the head and shoulders of a figure creeping back and forth on the backyard side of the house. Suddenly, a female voice called out, "Shit! Run!"
Exactly how many intruders did he have up there?
The instant he heard the intruders break into a sprint, Clete broke into his own. He heard something violently disturb the limbs of the great big tree near the deck, and when it finally came into view, he saw the limbs parallel with the roof still shaking. He kept his light trained on the tree as he rushed up to it, but it was obvious who ever had leapt into it was now gone. The footprints in the wet grass at the bottom, and the faint sounds of receding rustling in the field behind him indicated as much.
Before he went back inside, he inspected the walkway's roof, and found footprints leading up to the roof.
The next morning, he called his job, spoke to his boss, told him his father had just died, and that he would need some time off to deal with it. His boss grumbled, but, in the end, he was granted the impromptu vacation.
That day in the woods was frustrating and revelatory. Not only did he not find the girl again, but he didn't find the old man either-what he did find was other people-other naked people. But they were no where near as accommodating as the old man had been. Every time he spotted a naked body in the distance-and it was always at a distance-he would reach for his camera, zoom in with the telephoto lens, and they would either be gone, or be in the process of ducking out of sight, making it difficult to tell whether it was a male or female. And, when there was enough time to distinguish between the sexes, the figures in the shots he took were too blurred to be enjoyed.
Had the old man actually seen him? Judging by what was transpiring this day, he'd have to say so.
By noon, Clete decided to give up, and go home.
He stayed clear of the woods for a week, just to give these weird woodwalkers some confidence that he had given up. When he resumed his peeping the following week, he tried to rely more on patience than stalking, and was eventually rewarded with two decent shots of a pair of incredibly hot chicks. Not wanting to press his luck, he returned home the moment he got them, and started a photo album.
As the week progressed, he got better at peeping, using a combination of stealth, and patience, in allowing the woodwalkers to come to him rather than the other way around.
For the most part, it worked, by Friday he had quite a few photos to add to his album. He kept only the most attractive females, in the most provocative poses, including moments of pissing and shitting. Masturbation and fucking ware rare events to catch them in, even though, they were easy to find, for they fucked with total, ear-shattering abandon. Just not as often as he would have wished-he only had four photos of them engaged in such behavior.

His peeping also led to more insights. Except when screwing, they seemed to be solitary people, wanting to be alone much of the time. When he did see them grouped-or in pairs-they never spoke. Gestures and looks were shared, but not speech. They ate a lot-mostly mushrooms; loitered in the sun a lot, and roamed the woods a lot, doing it all with some degree of contentment plastered on their faces.
The most important thing he continued to note was how much they relished the humidity. The hotter it was the more luck he knew he'd have in photographing them. It was during these times that their most peculiar traits surfaced, like how they weren't bothered by insects; or how the ones with long hair weren't especially affected by the humidity; and how some were richly tanned while others remained pale as ghosts despite the excessive amount of time they dwelled in the sun.
And, when the sun went down, he discovered his encounters with them refused to end, leading him to believe that they were still aware of his presence. Apparently, turnabout was fair play, for night seemed to bring out their most prankish nature. Aside from those previous incidents of tracking up his car-which was a one time event-and walking on the roof-which they still got joy out of repeatedly doing-they also liked to wake him by tapping on his bedroom windows, or rapping the brass knocker on the front door. And they also liked to leave the garage doors open, for some odd reason.
One night at his computer, while he perused the photos he had acquired that day, he gazed out the window, and wondered whether his neighbors knew anything about them. A much better question to ponder was how well did he know his neighbors?
Clete liked to do a lot of bike riding in the summer; he thought about the Walkers he had seen, the people that drove by him, and the faces he routinely passed on the roadside, none of them struck a familiar cord, but then again he tried not to pay too much attention to others during his rides. That behavior also happened to extend to his neighbors. He couldn't even recall what half of them looked like much less what their names were. So, in retrospect, he could've passed a woods walker and never known it, and some of them could be living down the street, or right next door, without him ever being the wiser.
He'd spent a good portion of his life in this community, especially in these woods, and assuming that was the case, why hadn't he ever bumped into these people before?
Clete shut the computer down, grabbed his beer, and went outside. Christ, he'd almost forgotten how nice it was to be out and about after dark. That's the problem with technology sometimes; it distances you from the natural world. He sauntered casually across the lawn, peering through the trees to see if Dean was on his porch yet. Maybe, it was about time he introduced himself. Clete then remembered he was slightly drunk and in his underwear, and quickly nixed the idea. However, there might be another way to see if the Womodos were members of the woodwalkers club.
Clete walked back towards the garage, but instead of going in, he went to the trees separating their properties, and stepped through. He had to be careful, right behind the Womodo's, up on the hill, was the Blowbakkers, and the trees separating their property from Dean's weren't as thick. Fortunately, their lights weren't on, so Clete kept walking, right up to a window in back of the Womodo's.
Josie Womodo was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, without any clothes on, making what appeared to be a grocery list. Man, she had some body, but she didn't look like any of the woods walkers he had seen recently. Guess it was safe to assume she was in the clear.
Clete peered at the dirt road next to the house; it led up past the Blowbakkers to a dead end, but, if he recollected, there were several homes along it, and any one of them could be housing walkers. If the street light wasn't so bright, he'd try and sneak past, but he thought better of it, and remained where he was. If he wasn't getting so plastered, he'd realize this snooping could be done much better in the light of day, under the guise of a casual walk, or bike ride.
Startled by the sudden sounds of passion that began to emanate from Dean's house, he crept back to the window, and spied Josie spread eagle on the kitchen floor, with Dean grinding away between her legs.
As Clete jammed his hand into his underwear, and began stroking himself in tune with their sex, he noticed a knocked over shoebox of red-tipped mushrooms on the stove. Dean must have brought them in. This dubious connection between neighbor and nudist made him reevaluate his original assessment of them.
Clete caught movement from the corner of his eye, and glanced behind him. Stranding there, in all her naked glory, was that girl-the one he had first seen in the woods a few weeks ago. The moon came out and bathed her milky skin in a surreal aura, coupled with the dizzying effects of his sudden orgasm; Clete thought she looked more like a figment of a wet dream.
Not knowing what to do, or even what to say, he bolted for his property. When she managed to catch hold of his arm, his years of sexual repression exploded out of him. He went first to her parting lips, then to her swollen nipples, and then finally to the thickly settled patch of hair between her legs.
They fell to the ground; when he slid himself inside her, he began to recount all the times he'd had sex, and none of them could hold a candle to what he was experiencing at this moment. He thought of the decade long drought he had been going through, and was thankful to see it finally come to an end.
The only thing that ended up putting a kink in this whole fantasy made flesh was that if he allowed himself to surrender to the moment, there was a good chance he might get this girl pregnant. Clete never, ever wanted to be a father-hated the very thought of it, even.
Before he reach that point of no return, he tried to pull himself out, but she responded by twining her legs tighter around his, and clamping her hands down harder on his ass. Orgasm was inevitable now, and when he came, his body quaked all over, and stars exploded behind his eyelids-for a second he thought he was about to have some kind of religious epiphany, but whatever it was he thought he was going to know, vanished as he was swept suddenly into a kind of slumber he hadn't known since childhood-satisfying and complete.

The dreams he had been having of still being a kid slowly diminished as the late morning sun began to warm his back. Now mingled with reality, he easily dismissed the all too vivid sounds of whistling birds, and the sharp smell of the outdoors around him. Not until his mind had fully woken did he begin to find these things troubling, especially for someone who was inside his bedroom.
But Clete wasn't inside his bedroom-his last memory was having sex on the Womodo's back lawn, and that's where he thought he still was before he opened his eyes.
But, that wasn't the case, either.
What Clete saw all around him was the woods-"Holy shit!"
The girl was there next to him, curled up on her side. She moaned in her sleep, and curled up tighter. Up close, in the light of day, she was quite a looker-and a lot younger! Maybe, too young.
He gently touched her breast, she squirmed and rolled over. Not one twig, dead leaf, or speck of dirt came away on her back, where he could feel all sorts of things stuck to his. Even in his hair all kinds of debris fell out when he brushed it, while she had nothing tangled in hers.
He looked around and quickly figured he was a good twenty minutes from home. Perhaps, longer, now that he was barefoot, and without underwear. How the hell did he get all the way out here in the first place? He gazed at the woods walker again-her friends must've carried him. She drugged him somehow, and they hauled him all the way out here. What for-revenge for his peeping? Possibly.
She woke, rolled over, graced him with a warm smile, and a gentle caress. Perhaps, he was wrong; she didn't look like the malicious type.
"Sleep well?"
"So, you people do talk."
"Of course, we do."
Her caress moved to his belly, then to his tired cock. "We're not all a bunch of mutes, if that's what you're thinking. We talk, but only when we have to."
Clete shied away.
"What's wrong?"
"I feel weird, being naked and all, I mean. Your friends could be watching."
"So?" She continued to stroke his member. He allowed her to handle it, but not to maneuver him into more sex.
"What do you people do out here. Just walk around naked, or what?"
"With all that time you spend watching us, I'm surprised you have to ask."
"How old are you?"
"Is that what's bugging you? Oh, God, don't worry, I'm twenty-one." She scooted closer to him. As he anticipated her stroking turned more aggressive.
"Don't you go to school, or have a job? Does your family know where you are?"
She planted dainty kisses on his arm, and chest, and neck. "I don't have a job, I'll be going to school in the fall, and my family's around . . . somewhere."
"Your parents woods walk, too?! Good Lord."
She gave him a puzzled look, "Woods walk?"
"I mean, your parents are nudists, too? That's kinda weird, don't you think?"
"Only if you make it. What's with all the questions?"
Before her seduction had a chance to escalate into intercourse, Clete physically removed himself from it by standing up. "I've lived around here all my life, and never have I seen you people before. I'm assuming you're an out-of-towner.-you gotta be."
"No, I live here. Down in Harrow, I mean."
"You do?-what about the others?"
"They're local, too."
"I don't get it. Is this some new place you guys thought you'd start woods walking?"
"That's the second time you've said that."
"It's a long story. It's a word I use for someone who-never mind, it's stupid."
"Woodwalker sounds better."
"No-woods walker is how you say it. Woods walking is what you do. Woodwalkers is plural." He couldn't believe he just corrected her usage of that ridiculous term. "Forget it-it's just some stupid thing my grandfather kept telling me. You know, now that I think about, I don't even know your name."
"Kerry."
"I'm Clete."
"Clete, you gonna shut up and get down here and fuck me, or what?"
"I'd like to, but I don't have any protection."
"Didn't have any last night, and you still managed to nail me just fine."
"That was different, I was drunk-"
"Calm down, I'm on the pill."
Even though that's exactly what he wanted to hear, Clete was still leery of engaging in any more sexual activity with her. "You know what? Actually, I'd just like to go home."
"No problem, we'll fuck another time." Kerry laid back and closed her eyes.
"Got any idea what I did with my underwear?"
"Nope."
Clete gave her an uncomfortable nod, then walked off, paying close attention to where he stepped, and what he brushed his body up against. The deerflies and mosquitoes eventually found him and turned his life into a living, slapping hell. He knew where he wanted to go, but had to side step the more direct routes in favor of ones that were easier on his bare feet. Another insufferable problem he tried to avoid, but couldn't, were those wretched thorn bushes. If anything he could reasonably come to terms with the inevitable punishment most of his body would have to endure, but he was most adamant about keeping the family jewels out of their reach.
"How the fucking Christ do they do it?!" he uttered as he entered their prickly realm, his hands cupped firmly around his groin.
The thing he thought would give him the most trouble, and didn't, was the humidity. He may have been full of cuts and bites when he got home, but he wasn't the least bit dehydrated.
God damn, it was cold in the house today. He switched off the air conditioner and opened the windows. How puzzling was it then to see the thermometer on the back porch still reading in the low hundreds. He turned on the Weather Channel, and saw the heat wave hadn't budged and inch, and New England was still going to be just as humid today as it always was.
Clete made the decision, then and there, to have no more contact with the woodwalkers, and that meant no more peeping, no more casual walks in the woods, and, obviously, no more fucking that girl, Kerry.
A long refreshing shower was in order, after which he medicated his bites with peroxide, and rubbed lotion on the bottom of his raw feet. He suffered as long he could but had to take his clothes off once the bites started to itch. He dined in the buff, and then moved to the recliner for the final piece of his birthday cake.
When the night arrived, he didn't loiter outside; he locked himself in the house and kept his attention on the television. At least, that's what he originally intended to do-and did-until ten thirty. If there was anything Clete disliked about sex it was how much of a tendency it had to make an addict out of him, and, like all good addicts, even though he knew the consequences were going to be less than favorable, he tried to tell himself one more hit wouldn't hurt.
This time he had the foresight to keep himself sober, and to wear a pair of sneakers. A pallid figure stepped from the tree line the moment he went out on the back porch. Instead of wasting time by going down the stairs, Clete leapt over the railing. Kerry jumped into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist, the mosquitoes circling his head departed. He carried her like that back into the moonlit woods.
Like before, their intense lovemaking segued imperceptively into sleep. Clete woke feeling that good ache again, but also feeling ashamed that he had let himself become so weak willed. He didn't bother this time to see if she was beside him, he just got up and ran off-and got lost?!
He couldn't blame it on the different location he was in this time, for he could find his way no matter where he was. About the only thing he could blame his loss of direction on was his association with Kerry.
Beguiled would be the more correct term for what was happening to him. And, not just by her-although he was positive she was the instigator of it. The woods was partly to blame, for whenever he stumbled upon a familiar locale, it would counter by rearing up and displaying feathers he never knew it had. The sky would become bluer than he ever knew it to be, so would the greens of the trees, and the browns and blacks of the ground. All he wanted to do was stare, and touch, and taste, and to simply be in the company of this new environment. But he sensed another component involved in this beguiling process, something much more elusive, and insidious.
It acted like a voice in his head. "Stay," it spoke. "Forget about your life in the rat race, and be a part of a more infinitely rewarding one." It was absolutely right in what he stated, but fear wouldn't allow him to commit. Fear of losing the only comfort zone he had known since birth. This time when he ran, he finally knew damn well where he was going.
The stifling humidity energized him into being able to keep up a steady stride without succumbing to dehydration. In fact, he didn't even break a sweat.
Clete had no illusions about how the rest of this ordeal was going to play itself out. For whatever reason, he knew he had been bewitched by this strange girl, and had subsequently fallen head over heels in lust with her. Although, many times in the past he had confused lust for love; however, he had no doubts this time about what he felt. And, that one more encounter would undoubtedly seal his fate.
Every stitch of clothing he tried on felt wrong, his trusty underwear was about the only thing he could still tolerate. Food was also beginning to taste funny. He wondered what they ate up there beside mushrooms.
Already the lure of the humidity had made him shun the air conditioner in favor of keeping every window in the house open. Generally, he could count on television to distract him during trying times, but as he surfed through the channels there wasn't a single program he could keep his attention on, not even the Weather Channel. He tried turning to his vast collection of movies to prove he was still a part of the human race, but even they didn't have the power to entice him anymore.
Unable to reconnect with his old life, he shut the video cabinet, retreated to the back porch, and stared at the woods for the rest of the day. The glass on the windows shook at the approach of their wailing stereos. Those fuckin' kids again. A small part of him became enraged by the disruption their music caused, and a much larger but dwindling part was grateful they had come along when they did.

Clete could already tell something was amiss; the sun was barely up, and he was awake. Wondering if Kerry had anything to do with it, he peeked over at her, but she was still sound asleep. He rubbed his eyes, and looked around.
Ten yards away, a doe stood with his back to him. Clete stared at it, then slowly began to notice it wasn't like any doe he had ever seen before. It had no body hair, appeared deeply tanned, and the curves it shamelessly flaunted weren't at all reminiscent of the animal it was supposed to be representing.
Becoming more intrigued by the moment, he got up, and slowly took a few steps towards it. When the animal's dew drop shaped sex organ came into focus, he was startled by what it resembled. "Hey, Ker-"
The animal turned and looked at him.
"Good Lord," he whispered.
Its eyes were hazel-and they had pupils-like a person's.
"Kerry," he whispered louder.
The animal bolted-Clete went after it.
It was fast-real fast. He lost sight of it several times, but would always find it again, a short time later, standing with its back to him, head craned around, as if it were waiting for him to catch up. He knew damn well he was being deliberately baited, but he didn't care. He just wanted another peek at its sex organ, just to make sure that he had seen what he though he had seen-that it wasn't a trick of sleep, or the morning sun.
The doe led Clete to the road, where it raced into a field on the other side. He was hot on its trail when he heard the deafening sound of a car horn, and screeching tires. He cursed himself for having a one track mind, and not being aware of his surroundings. He dodged the car, made it to the other side, but abruptly stopped, put his hands on his knees, and panted in hard, rasping gasps.
"Fuck," he muttered.
By now he was too winded too keep up, and was forced to watch the animal disappear into the woods at the end of the field. Clete looked down at his erection, and felt disgusted by what he was thinking.
More cars drove by, their horns honking, the drivers giving him strange, shocked looks. How quickly he had taken his nudity for granted. When the road was clear again, he raced back to the other side.
The old suntanned man was waiting for him, leaning nonchalantly against a tree, arms folded over his chest, and grinning.
"Here, let me show you something." He went across the road, and faced Clete. When the next car came along, he grabbed his cock, and waved. The car didn't slow down, brake, or even honk its horn.
"Did you catch that?"
"I'm not sure."
"Keep your eyes glued to the driver next time."
At the approach of the next few vehicles, the old man stroked his cock until it was hard, and waved it at the drivers. He even flipped them the finger for good measure. No one even noticed. He rejoined Clete.
"I don't get it, what happened?"
"I clouded their minds."
"You people can do that?"
"Sure-and over time, you'll be able to do it, too." The old man held out his hand. "Noah Peck."
"Clete Peters."
"Oh, I know who you are. You're my granddaughter's current obsession."
"You're Kerry's grandfather?!"
Noah nodded.
Clete gestured across the road, "What the fuck was that animal?"
"Is that what you were chasing, an animal?"
"You didn't see it?"
"I saw you running like a mad man through the woods, but that's about it." Noah put his arm over Clete's shoulder, and walked him deeper into the woods.
"It was really weird. It looked like a doe, with a cunt-a human cunt."
Noah grinned. "A doe with a cunt?! Transitioning from the life you knew to the one you're currently in will sometimes produce strange effects. The subconscious doesn't want to let go of the reality it was initially born into. Some newcomers have been known to go completely insane; suicide is another unfortunate side effect. Hallucinations aren't out of the question either."
"I was hallucinating?"
"I don't see any other explanation for seeing a doe with a human cunt, do you?"
"Not really." Clete looked around. "Where is everybody? I thought I'd be seeing more of you people by now."
Noah bent down, plucked two red-tipped mushrooms from the ground. He popped one into his mouth and continued talking. "You're not actually one of us yet. The process isn't that fast. I shouldn't say that, actually, it's different for every person. I've known only one other that transitioned as quick as anything you ever saw. If you really wanna speed the process up- "he handed the Clete the other mushroom- "start eating these."
Clete took a small bite, and gagged. "Oh, that's awful." He spit, trying to get the rancid taste out of his mouth. "That's the worst fuckin' thing I ever tasted."
Noah chuckled. "Your taste buds haven't adjusted yet. Give it time, my boy, give it time. They're actually delicious. As for mingling with the rest of us, you probably won't for a while. We're a cagey bunch, and newcomers aren't easily trusted. But you'll know when you're getting there. More and more of us will approach you, like I have. Oh, and don't count on meeting Kerry's parents any time soon. They're not too thrilled with her involvement with you."
Clete spat some more, ran his fingers around his mouth as if he could literally dig out the mushroom's ugly aftertaste. "Why?"
"I don't get involved in my granddaughter's love life, so I can't really say."
"You gotta have some idea. Is it the age difference?"
"Maybe, but I really don't know."
"Not that close, hey?"
"No, we're close. We just don't discuss each other's love life. But, if it's any consolation, you've got my blessing. You seem like a nice guy to me."
"Thanks-I think."
Kerry was approaching, he could tell even though he couldn't hear any sign of her yet. "Take care," Clete said, suddenly ending their conversation so he could run off and find her.
When he finally spotted her, he hollered her name. She hollered back, and waved.
"Why did you run off like that?" she asked once they were together again.
"Thought I saw something, that's all. Forget about it."
He brought her down to the ground, bent her over and fucked her. Thoughts of that hallucinogenic doe fueled the sex. They collapsed onto their sides, and he held her.
"What was that for?"
"Just horny, I guess-and hungry, too, now that I think about it."
"For what?"
"A hamburger."
Kerry got up. "Come with me."
"What? You can actually get one for me out here?"
She led him around the woods by the hand.
"What are we looking for?"
"Sshh," she pointed, "right there."
Clete squinted; he could just make out the motionless body of a small speckled fawn.
"Stay here." Kerry didn't make any effort to sneak up on the animal, she just walked casually towards it, miraculously the fawn didn't budge an inch.
"Wait-what are you doing?"
"Ssshh, I said-you'll break my concentration."
"Kerry-no, I'm serious."
She stopped and looked back at him. "I'm getting you something to eat."
"Hurt that animal and I don't want anything more to do with you."
"You serious?"
"Yes."
"Look, Clete, it's either the fawn, or-"
"What about the mushrooms?"
"You know about them?"
"Yeah, I met you grandfather a few minutes ago, and he told me."
"All right, if that's what you want." She turned back towards the fawn, and said, "BOO!" It took off like a shot. "Were you serious about having nothing to do with me if I killed it?"
"Damn right. I don't like to see animals hurt."
"I didn't know you were like that."
"Do me a favor, if you have to kill something, don't do it in front of me. I don't wanna see it. He took hold of her, kissed her on the forehead. "Okay?"
"All right," she kissed him back, "let's get going, then."
"Where?"
"To find some mushrooms."
Clete now regretted ever voicing his desire for those disgusting things; one, because they tasted so bad, and two, because they would speed up his change, and he wasn't so sure he really wanted it sped up now.
When Kerry finally found a patch, he noticed something peculiar about them. Apparently, something he had noticed all his life, but never really thought about until just now. "That doesn't make any sense."
"What?" She knelt and began picking a handful.
"The ones in the sun are bigger and redder than those over there, in the shade."
"Oh, yeah, I know, mushrooms aren't supposed to be photosynthetic. These are, I guess. Weird, hey?"
"Very." Clete handled one, more curious about it now than he ever was before. "What happens if a normal person eats one of these?"
"Depends, some start woods walking, as you say, some don't. Why do you ask?"
"One of my neighbors is eating them."
"Who?"
"That house you found me behind, when we first had sex."
"Those two? I've never seen them before. They can't be too affected then."
"Too affected?"
"They're also considered an aphrodisiac, as you well know." There was a naughty smirk on her face. Clete raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Yeah, that I know."
"So, you gonna shove it in your mouth, or just stare at it all day?"
"Oh, God, Kerry, I don't know if I can do this. These things are foul."
"You've had one already?"
"When I spoke to your grandfather."
Clete popped it into his mouth, forced himself to chew, and swallow. He gagged again. "Fuck me!" But the effect was immediate. He could literally feel the mushroom interacting with his DNA. His mind flashed back to that news report about global warming. Was this mutation, or evolution? He wanted to voice this idea to Kerry, to get her opinion, but he couldn't find the inclination to do so.
No wonder they never spoke-they didn't have to. He could sense all Kerry's needs, wants, and desires, and no doubt it was the same for her. She was very family oriented, something he never knew about her until now. She also wanted kids some day. Oh, God, he thought. Kerry fed him another mushroom, and gave him a look like she knew what his reaction was to this idea. Again, the urge to talk came, then went.
"I gotta get going. Are you gonna be all right here by yourself?" Her lips didn't move, but her question was heard as clear as day.
"Where are you going?" He felt himself think the words, but never felt his mouth articulate them.
"I've got a life you know. We can't spend every waking minute together. Be real."
"Right, of course."
"I promised my friends we'd hang out for a while." She kissed him on the cheek and ran off.
Clete had two more mushrooms. Other woods walkers came into focus. Apparently, Noah's statement about them wanting to keep their distance wasn't just figurative. He tried his new found telepathy on them, but found they were quite adept at keeping him shut out.
Maybe, he'd feel more comfortable with his situation if he started wandering. As he did, those crazy colors the forest shined at him before came back. They were actually quite soothing to behold. During his strolling, he came across more walkers, and tried to break the ice by another approach. Perhaps, not the best one, but what else could he do? He snuck up on them, but before he could even get so much as a hello out, they would cloud his mind and slip into that weird brand of camouflage Noah had so blatantly demonstrated on the roadside.
He tried to use his own mind clouding on them but, the ability, being in such an infantile state was difficult to focus, and when he forced it, intense head aches resulted. Clete had no choice but to give up and accept his fate.
Someone came rapidly out of the brush behind him. At first, he thought it was Kerry coming back for quickie, but the moment he was knocked face down to the ground, and pierced painfully in the back by something, he figured it couldn't be her. As his unknown assailant started to repeatedly strike him, he instinctively went into survival mode, curling into a ball and covering his head with his arms.
Out of sheer panic, he lashed out with a kick that managed to connect and put the beating on pause, it also gave him a moment to see who it was. The two legs that were coming back at him seemed to belong either to the ugliest stag, or the most malformed person he ever saw. Unlike the doe's, these appendages weren't in the least bit erotic, being rather manly in shape, and covered in dark, course hair, much like his own legs were.
Clete didn't have a chance to get a good look at any other part of it, but from what his peripheral vision indicated, the rest of the animal was just as freakish. As he dodged the next few blows, he glimpsed a large pair of testicles flopping around underneath the beast's hind quarters. He decided to give them a swift kick and see what that did.
The beast let out a pained, almost human grunt, and ran off.
"JESUS FUCKIN' CHRIST!" How good it felt to be using his actual vocal cords again.
There was blood on his hands. He felt his back, "Fuckin' great! That thing stabbed me!"
"What happened?" The voice came from the abrupt appearance of a portly, long-haired woods walker, whose dick was buried behind so much pubic hair that had it not been for the deep tone, and bearded face staring down at him, he would've thought he was being addressed by a woman.
"That fuckin' thing stabbed me!"
There were others with him, six men and women. They hung back, expressions of concerned curiosity on their faces, but not one pair of lips moved to state it.
The man stooped next to him. "What fuckin' thing stabbed you?" His lips moved when he spoke, which was very comforting to see.
Clete remembered the hallucinatory effects Noah said becoming a woods walker would wreak upon him. Odds were he had fallen on something sharp. Fallen far, probably, down a hill.
"Nothing-forget it." Clete laid his head on the ground and held himself.
"Have you embraced the Kingdom of Pasha?"
"What?"
"You're a newcomer, aren't you?"
"Yeah?"
"Have you gotten acquainted with our religion yet?"
Clete shook his head.
"You should. We're going down to pray at the Legs of Eurydice, wanna come?"
Dear Lord, the Woods Walker version of the Jehovah's Witnesses!
"You know what? Just let me lay here for a while. Okay?"
The man crossed himself in an odd way. "Be well, and may Pasha and Eurydice go with you." He took his flock and left.
Clete sat up the moment they were out of sight, and took a good look around at where he was. Definitely far from home. In fact, he had only been this far out once in his life, when he was a sixteen. The pain in his back worsened when he moved.
"Fuckin' mushrooms."
What time was it anyway? By the gauge of the sun, he figured it was the middle of the afternoon, maybe, later. Where the hell was Kerry? He didn't like being on his own for so long in this state. Wouldn't be so bad if he could just congregate with the others.
The upturned ground all around him was covered in tracks. Do hallucinations generally leave behind evidence of their passing? Or, was he still hallucinating? The only way he could find out was to track them back to their source. He might as well; there was nothing else more pressing he had to do. Just on the off chance it had been real, he searched for a weapon along the way, and found a good sized limb he could use as a club.
The beast's trail eventually led him farther into the unknown-an area of the forest where the trees were dead and twisted into ugly, grasping shapes. Clete couldn't recall ever venturing into a place like this before. In a cramped, sunny clearing he found the stag, or a stag, he couldn't say for sure whether it was the same one. It looked different somehow. And, it wasn't alone. He counted four girls who were with it, who were gathered around this flat, slanting rock. A rock big enough for one of them to lie on her back, and narrow enough for the stag to walk over without having its stride impeded. With her spread legs at the highest angle, and gripping the sides of the rock, she held herself in place while the buck fucked her.
When Clete was in his teens, he had worked as a production assistant, and camera operator, for a man named, Kenneth Nixzmary, a notorious porn entrepreneur, who specialized in filming chicks having sex with horses. In those younger years, he had fostered a desire to explore human sexuality, and perversity, in all shapes and forms. But, the older he got, the more those desires mysteriously died away. Witnessing something like this, though, began to churn them up all over again.
Clete instinctively put his hand to his waist, where his binoculars would have been, and muttered, "Fuck," under his breath when they weren't.
The girls who weren't engaged in sex attended to the beast's body in foreplay fashion. One girl was unforgiving when it came to suckling something on its chest. Clete had to get closer to see that it was some kind of deformed nipple. Did the animal that attack him have nipples?
After it made the girl climax, the buck withdrew its now drooping sex organ, and waited for the next girl to get in place. Clete was horrified to see it was Kerry, and when she took up a position on her hands and knees, he looked away.
He tried to tell himself it didn't matter, that he hadn't known her long enough to become emotionally attached to her, but it was no use. Eventually his horror gave way to heart break. Clete crept successfully back the way he had come without drawing attention to himself. Unfortunately, his mortal enemy, the stag, was right there waiting for him, head lowered, human hazel eyes trying to bore a hateful hole into him.
"Sonuvabitch, two of ya-I knew it." Clete wasted no time in preparing his stick for combat. "Look, I don't know what you got against me, but I'm not the problem here."
The stag charged.
Clete swung it like a baseball bat-the hit was good-it connected right on the side of its face. Dazed, the animal staggered. However, the stick had snapped in half, leaving Clete with the smallest most ineffectual piece possible.
"Motherfuck!" He threw the useless hunk of wood down just as the animal recovered and charged a second time. His only recourse now was to grab hold of the antlers and pray he could wrestle it into a vulnerable position where he could kick the shit out of it.
Kerry's voice bellowed, "RIDGE, DON'T!"
Clete didn't have time to decipher. This bastard was strong as hell, and it wasn't long before those antlers had worked their points against his flesh so many times the build up of pain finally succeeded in weakening his grip. The beast wrestled itself away from Clete, reared up, and beat him to the ground.
Again, Kerry hollered, this time it was, "RIDGE, STOP!"
The stag bowed its head and rushed at him again. At the last moment, when Kerry's voice finally registered, it hesitated, and glanced in her direction. Clete took advantage of this opportunity; with its distracted head only a few feet above him, he slammed the heel of his foot as hard as he could into its ugly face. With the tide now turned again, he began kicking it in the head as hard, and as fast, as he could. And didn't let up, even when its legs began to buckle.
Kerry screamed again, louder, and more frantically. "CLETE, STOP!" Now, that strange word she had uttered previously began to make more sense. But Clete didn't want to stop; he wanted to reduce this freak to a bloody pulp first. It took Kerry's physically propelled body at him to make the man cease his onslaught.
"Get the fuck off of me!" He pushed her away, and staggered to his feet. The stag was on its knees, spitting up blood, head lolling to one side. When Kerry recovered she threw her arms over it and made it lie down on the ground.
"THAT THING'S GOT A NAME?!"
"It's my brother!" She began to cry; the animal grew infuriated, it tried to get up. "Stop, Ridge, it's over!"
"Who the hell were you fucking back there then, an ex-boyfriend?!"
She said nothing, choosing to look at her brother's battered face than offer an explanation.
"Or is that thing another member of the family?!"
The other stag was there, too. Pissed off, just like this one, snorting and stomping the ground, but Kerry's friends had it safely quarantined among their crowded bodies.
"Fuck you! You sick bastard!"
Clete chuckled incredulously. He wiped his face on the back of his arms, then looked around before shaking his head in resignation. "I can't do this-I can't be this way for the rest of my life."
Her anger suddenly slid into dejection. She regarded him with sad eyes.
"Why did you choose me for all this?" But Clete already knew the answer to that. "You thought we'd have kids, didn't you?" She looked away. "Normal kids, right?"
Ridge struggled against Kerry's arms again. He even heard the stag behind him put up a protest of its own at the veiled insult.
"Take care of yourself, Kerry."
"Where are you going? Wait-"
Clete hollered over his shoulder, "I'm going home."
"You can't!"
He ignored her, and kept walking.
No one tried to stop him.

Clete traveled back to his house, but it took longer than it should have. The woods walker affliction had done a hell of a job in screwing up his sense of direction, when he finally reached what he thought was his backyard, he stared at it for a long while. Eventually, he decided to go in and have a look around. He came across a waste basket of discarded mail; each and every piece had his name on it.
"She's right, I can't go home."
He thought of ending his own life, but before he could get too entrenched in that train of thought, a figure appeared at the bay window in the family room. It was naked-clearly a woods walker. The stranger had his hands cupped to the glass. When he spotted Clete staring at him, he said, "I know how you can be normal again."
Clete immediately went outside to talk with him. "Oh, God, please tell me."
"You have to leave this house. Stay away from any and all wooded areas. Get yourself a place in town, right in the heart of it. Make sure you're surrounded by nothing but buildings. If possible, get yourself a new career. Something in technology, electronics, computers, shit like that. Buy a cell phone-a big screen TV, too. It won't be easy-it's like being an alcoholic. You'll never be over it, but it can be treated and maintained."
Tears of relief clouded Clete's vision.
"I've got a place you can use. Stay there as long as you want."
"Why would someone like you need an apartment?" He wiped his eyes. "Isn't the woods your home?"
"The Opies don't live in the woods when the cold weather comes. They put their clothes back on, move back to their homes, grin and bear it until the summer comes again."
"The Opies?"
"O.P. Original People. That's what they call themselves."
"Why do you talk like you're not one of them?"
"Don't have time to go into that right now. You need to leave."
"But I'm starving."
"Eat regular food. It'll be grueling for a while, but your body will eventually adjust back. Do you know how to get to the Greenline Apartment Complex?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"It's apartment 311. Knock on 310, and tell the person who answers that you're a friend of Evral. She'll let you in."
When Clete turned around to go back inside, Evral said, "And, don't worry about those wounds on your back. Leave 'em alone and they'll heal up real quick."
Clete touched his side. "I forgot they were there. Funny, they don't even hurt anymore."
"Give it a day, or two-now, get outta here." Evral bounded off the deck and ran back into the woods.
As much as he hated to do it, Clete put some clothes on and fixed himself a proper lunch. The food tasted as bad as those mushrooms, but he forced himself to finish every last crumb. He then packed up the rest of his clothing, got in his car, and left.

The person who answered the door to 310 was a little old lady who came up to his waist and was more wrinkled than a prune.
"I'm a friend of Evral's."
She unlocked the door for him, and gave him the key without ever saying one word. The place was furnished in the exact fashion Evral had spoke of. The refrigerator was overstocked with food, making Clete instantly sick to his stomach-he puked in the sink.
Not able to tolerate his clothing any longer, he stripped, and left them lying on the floor. He sat on the couch and turned the television on, but the noise and picture made his head and eyes hurt. It made him want to go back to Kerry. He almost did, too, but when he thought of those horrid stags, he forced himself to weather the storm.
It was an entire week before that storm blew over. Up to that point, he suffered through extreme anxiety, profuse sweating, and intense shudders that would literally floor him. The nights weren't much better, sleeping only came from utter exhaustion, and the cold floor was the only place he could retire his wasted body to.
The second week, and thereafter, his affliction became less of a burden. He immediately had his mail forwarded to his new address, but he knew he'd have to eventually make a trip back into Raipin to collect what was in his mailbox. That, however, was a problem he would worry about later-much later.
First, he needed to get his weight back up; he had lost a good twenty pounds. Evral was right, it wasn't easy, but eventually he was able to keep his food down.
Television was the first piece of technology he grew more accustomed to, and, eventually, he was able to sit in front of it, and be taken away without having the desire to woods walk.
When he latched upon the idea of wanting to chronicle his ordeal somehow, the computer was next. He looked into creating a web page which he thought would be the ideal format to inform the rest of humanity about the unseen culture among them.
He remembered his photo album and thought those pictures would be an incredible asset, but, like the dilemma he faced with the mail, he just didn't have the courage yet to go back and get it.

The next month, Clete moved out, got his own apartment in another complex, and furnished it in the exact same manner Evral had done with his. He kept his old job, but sought a better one through Business School, where he signed up for a fall semester in repairing and upgrading computers. It was then and only then that he felt strong enough to take a trip back home.
A thunderstorm passed through the area early that morning, making Clete wonder what the Opies did when bad weather struck. It must've been an act of subconscious forethought that put him on that same road where Noah had demonstrated his mind clouding abilities for him.
His hands grew clammy. He slowed the car down, and stared fixedly at the woods and the field on the other side. Kerry intruded on his thoughts, and the urge to woods walk came over him.
"Fuck this." Clete sped the car up, focusing on a drive way a little ways up where he knew he could turn around. A deer bolted in front of the car. He slammed on the breaks-a naked man with an erection followed. For a brief moment their eyes connected. The man gave Clete a friendly before he bounded through the field.
"Jesus Christ-Dean!"
Hands trembling, he quickly continued on up to that driveway, turned around, and sped out of Raipin, like a bat out of hell.

Copyright © 2008 Shawn Francis