Lightning ripped through the midnight sky. Thunder exploded. Willard’s senses almost sent him hurling into his campfire on the riverbank. He didn’t want to be a lightning rod, so he decided to reel up his fishing line. Yet he knew it wouldn’t be any less stormy at home with the Mrs., just dryer.

Willard couldn’t shake the feeling that there were eyes on him from the trees. He knew no one else should be around. As far as he knew, only he and his Uncle Jed ever fished in this spot because you could only access the levy through his gate about five miles down river. Uncle Jed hadn’t come along this time.

He had come here to fish and think. He couldn’t please the Mrs. She was always nagging him about drinking and smoking. On the riverbank, he could do both in peace.

A branch broke and Willard turned to look behind him. “There’s nothing there you fool,” he said to himself. It was just Uncle Jed’s fishing stories getting to him.

Willard busied himself with loading his tackle and the catfish he had caught into his jeep. He swigged down the last of his beer, crunched the can, and tossed it over his shoulder. He didn’t hear it hit the ground. “Strange,” he thought as a forceful wind rocked him and his jeep as he tried to crawl in. His stomach rolled when the foulest stench he had ever encountered invaded his nostrils. As the gust subsided, his beer can landed at his feet.

Another slice of lightning split the sky. His heart skipped a beat. He rubbed his eyes. “Better give up drinking,” he smiled. His eyes had to be playing tricks on him. The air smelled so bad that he looked at the bottom of his boots to see if he had stepped in something.

Willard cursed Uncle Jed for his story telling as he put a cigarette up to his dry mouth. When his shaking hands lit it with his Zippo lighter, he nearly fainted. Stepping out of the timber was a stringy, hairy, beastly figure nearly seven feet tall. He dropped the Zippo. It singed his leg.

Rain began to pelt him and smother the campfire. Willard squirmed into the driver’s seat. No keys. He began to panic. He knew he had left them in the ignition. Every hair on his body sprang to attention when the beast let out scream so high pitched that he flinched in pain.

Frantically, he searched all of his pockets for his keys. He had no time to waste. The beast looked him in the eye.

The wind whipped. The thunder crashed. The lightning shattered. The rain drenched. The beast screamed. Willard ran. He ran faster than he ever thought his legs could carry him. He slipped along the levy, spinning in the gravel turned to mud and tripping over his own shadow. He prayed that Uncle Jed would be home. He felt the footsteps behind him getting closer. He didn’t dare look back.

Willard realized he would never make it to Uncle Jed’s. He darted off the levy and into the timber. With the lightning flashing around him, the climbed the tallest tree he would find.

The beast was in the timber with him. During lightning bursts, he saw it sniffing the air trying to glean his scent through the wind and rain. Willard stayed in that tree all night long. He waited for daylight before he talked himself into climbing down. He warily made his way down the levy and back to his jeep.

The keys were in the ignition. It reeked with the smell of the beast. His fish were gone. His Zippo lighter was lying on the passenger seat.

Willard got the heck out of there. As he stomped the accelerator, he heard one last blood curdling scream. He swore right then and there that he would give up drinking and smoking and be nicer to the Mrs.

Copyright by Creative Woman

This piece is dedicated to my brother. I wrote it for him before he passed.

CW