In the Woods Under the Glass
by Mason Yates
He is from a small town in the Midwest, but he currently lives in Arizona, where he graduated from Arizona State University. He has interned with the magazine Hayden’s Ferry Review and has served as the fiction editor for ASU’s undergraduate literary magazine Lux during the 2021-2022 school year. His works can be found in magazines/webzines such as Land Beyond the World, Scarlet Leaf Review, Fabula Argentea, Idle Ink, Pif Magazine, and others.
To read more of his publications, go to https://linktr.ee/masonyatesauthor.
The truck engine rumbled as it fought the freezing cold. The tires crunched hardened snow on the narrow pathway, and the headlights were a bobbing stream of light into the dark sky while the old Ford maneuvered up the side of a steep ridge. The vehicle found purchase on a few rocks that jutted out of the white. It leapt forward with a low grumbling. In the bed of the truck, a blue tarp covering a massive object rattled before it slipped and revealed a pair of large antlers. There was a thud as the animal body shifted.
Dean Gibbons, on the other hand, sat inside the truck next to his rifle. He gripped the steering wheel and pressed his foot all the way down on the gas. And in response, the engine roared; and the tires spun like mad. The truck dashed forward, slid down, and turned to the right in an effort to find a better way up the side of the ridge. Another thump in the bed caused Dean to look over his shoulder. The deer was completely exposed to the cold and falling snow.
“Shit,” Dean said with a grimace and twisted the wheel. The truck found another place to grip and lurched again. The headlights illuminated the top of the ridge. So close.
He shouted an assortment of obscene words as he pushed the vehicle farther. The tires squealed, and the engine continued to rumble and moan and thunder its disapproval. Yet, the truck bounded forward. The red body sailed over the top of the ridge and landed on a flat surface. The machine bounced for a second, and while it did so, Dean whooped and hollered and beat his fist against the ceiling. “An old truck can just about do anything!”
In the rearview mirror, the landscape looked more like a painting than actual reality. The Alaskan mountains (no more than shadows in the night) towered in the background, and the lake, a large body of dark water beneath the mountains, reflected the starry night sky. The road that he had just traversed was also cut to pieces by tire tracks. But neither of those things caught Dean’s attention. Rather, he looked into the rearview to spot the uncovered deer in the metal bed. It was lifeless with its dead eyes gazing into oblivion, and its tongue was lolled out of his mouth.
“Poor thing,” Dean whispered and shook his head. He gazed at the deer for a little longer before he raised his hands to the air vent. A steady stream of warm air blew against his palm and went up the sleeve of his jacket. He breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed in his seat, then he went for the volume knob for the radio. Static erupted from the speakers, so he pressed the CD button. Johnny Cash’s voice replaced the silence, and the country artist sang about prison. Dean grinned as he listened and looked out the windshield. His headlights illuminated another gorgeous view.
“I’ll tell you,” Dean said to himself. “Life has always been better out in the wild. I don’t remember one damn thing about society that’s ever been good.” He grabbed his rifle and set it to the side all the while looking out at the vast landscape that seemed to go on into infinity. “Yup.” He nodded, reached for the coffee in his cupholder, and sipped it. His eyes never left the view of the magnificent forest below. “Ah, best coffee ever. Nothing better than a good cup of joe after a night hunt. Nothing better.” This time, he shook his head and looked down at his watch on his right wrist. It read six in the morning. He smiled and leaned over for the glovebox. He pulled a box of white pills out: Zyprexa. He popped one in his mouth, swallowed, then took a final sip of his coffee before he returned the thermos to the cupholder. Afterward, he took his foot off the brake. The truck began to slide forward, about to start its descent down an easier slope. It would take him straight back to the cabin. Then, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pressed the brake.
“Good morning, babe,” Dean said into the phone once he pressed it to his ear. “Sleep all right? Did you miss me? It must be different sleeping by yourself after all these years of me being right beside you.” He chuckled into the speaker and took his foot off the brake again. The truck went forward. Snow crunched underneath the tires. The engine whirred but did not rumble or moan or cry like a banshee. The descent was a lot easier than the steep incline.
“It was a bit harder to fall asleep,” his wife spoke on the other end of the phone, “but I’ve got to admit, it was kind of nice having the whole bed to myself. I might have to have you go on the couch to sleep from now on. I could take the whole bed.”
Dean chuckled. “Don’t dream now. Tonight I’m going to be at the cabin. Unfortunately for you, you have to sleep by me again.”
His wife giggled. “Oh, how unfortunate. At least I can wrap my arms around you.”
“You better,” Dean laughed.
“Did you take your pill?”
“Just did,” Dean said while he navigated the truck down the slope. The headlights did the job of illuminating the path very well. The snow glistened, and the trees were clear as day. “The pill is now in my stomach and dissolving. How does that sound?”
“Hmm,” his wife hummed. “Sounds good. Hunt go well?”
Dean flicked his eyes to the deer in the bed of the truck. “Very well. Poor deer is frozen, though. The tarp covering it came off while I was going up a tricky slope.”
“You’re on your way back, right?”
“Yeah. I’ll be at the cabin in like fifteen minutes.”
“Good. I miss you.”
“Me too.”
“How much longer until… sun… up?” his wife’s voice crackled over the phone.
“An hour,” Dean told her. “I think we’re starting to lose connection.”
“Ah,” she said. “Well… see… headlights pull…” The call stayed on for another minute, but there were no other words that came through. Dean took the phone away from his ear, and at the same moment, the call dropped. The message “Failed Call” was written across the lower half of the iPhone screen. He examined the words for a moment, then he put the cellphone down. An eerie sensation caused his skin to crawl. The hairs on his arms and back of his neck stood up like spikes. He examined his surroundings. He found himself on flat ground now, trees on both sides of the vehicle. It was a good explanation for why the call dropped. Nonetheless, the atmosphere felt electric. Somewhere, something hummed.
That’s when the truck stopped dead.
“What the hell?” Dean said seconds after the engine cut off. He reached for the key stuck in the ignition and tried to start the Ford again. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still, nothing happened. Around the truck, snow drifted out of the sky and onto the ground, the trees rustled in the icy breeze, and gray clouds were sweeping across the firmament. But Dean Gibbons was not able to see anything due to the lack of headlights. He tried the key one last time, then he gave up after getting nothing. The engine did not even try to chug on. Silence reigned upon Alaska. The radio had died with the car, the phone in his lap did not make a sound, and even the wind was not whistling. However, there was some sort of very low humming coming from somewhere. It was dull, barely audible, but still Dean could hear it. He perked his ears and listened. Then, he saw it in the night- well, maybe not it, but something that might have been causing it, at least. A bright, glaring blood-red light illuminated a distant section of the forest. Dean leaned forward in his seat and pressed his hand against the driver’s side window before pressing his forehead against it. An awful thumping noise replaced the humming. It sounded like a rhythmic beating of drums.
Dean opened the truck door and stepped out into the freezing cold. Goosebumps covered his arms and legs as soon as his foot hit the snowy ground. The blood in his veins chilled. Every part of his body screamed at him to get back in the truck, but he was put in a trance by the red. It almost seemed to beckon him forward. Dean moved. The hard snow crunched underfoot. There was no time to waste. He started to walk a little faster, but before he could get too far, the rifle in the truck returned to his thoughts. He went back for it, and when he had it in hand, he ran toward the red glow. It enveloped him.
In the glow of the bloody red light, Dean could see much better. He saw the bare trees on either side of him, their shadows long and dark, then he saw his footprints behind him. They had an ominous quality to them as they led into the darkness where the truck had died. He could also see the gray-blanketed sky better, too. It hovered low. Dean stumbled towards a tree and put his hand against it to catch his breath. Mist poured out of his mouth and disappeared. The thumping was replaced by the continuous humming again. He glanced around to see if he could spot…
A hundred or so yards from his position, Dean saw something glimmer against the snowy ground, something much different than the hard white ice he had been stomping on. He smiled a little, then he took off for it. His legs were moving by themselves at that point, urging him to the shining ground, possessing him to run deeper and deeper into the cold night. He breathed heavy, and his lungs started to hurt the more he ran. Still, he continued, not about to stop. Curiosity did a wonderous job for a man’s bravery, and Dean knew that more than ever as he reached the place he had seen from a distance. A piece of glass shimmered in the snow. He fell to his knees, and a hard thump sounded underneath him. He brushed away the snow, uncovering something that did not seem real. He had fallen on a thick slab of glass, and under the glass, something red and dark glowed. It looked liquid, like a sea of blood gurgled below.
“What the hell?” Dean said again and brushed away more snow. “What the hell is this?”
The more he wiped away from the glass, the more of what was underneath revealed itself to him. The dense liquid below him looked like lava. There were black chunks in there, too. At one point of pushing away the white ice, Dean thought he saw something move in the red, but he was unsure of what he saw. His tongue curled at the corner of his mouth when he paused to take in the sight. Something crawled over his flesh. The goosebumps did not leave his arms. Before he knew it, he grabbed his rifle and tapped on the glass with it. Three knocks. He wondered if a person would appear. But no man or woman came. Something else did.
Out of the murky red, a fish-like female being came into view. It pressed its fins against the glass, then it smushed its forehead there, too. She- it might be better to call it she due to its female structure- had big and curious eyes, and they were a sharp blue. She had gills at the base of her neck on either side, along with scales that covered her cheeks. There were human features, too. For example: her nose, her five-fingered hands, her ears, her eyes, and her brunette hair that flowed behind her. It would be an understatement to call the female being beautiful. A better phrase would be “a work of art.” The thing was a creation of God, though it did look a tad scary as well. Alien. Unknown.
Dean’s jaw dropped. He started to scuttle backwards, but before he could get far, he took a second to calm himself. He paused and breathed in deep through his nose.
“It’s just a hallucination,” he whispered to himself. “It’s just a hallucination. I forgot my pill, that’s all. I just forgot to take my pill.” But he remembered taking the little white pill like it had been a second ago. He had popped it in his mouth before his wife had called, and he told her he had taken it. He knew for a fact he had had it. Dean closed his eyes and stuffed his hands in a pocket of his jacket. His heart thumped like mad in his chest, and his thoughts were racing. That thing below him was not real. He kept telling himself it was not there. “It’s just a-” he started as he sat there, but when he opened his eyes, he still saw the fish-like thing. It eyed him, and it… it smiled like a human. Dean screamed. He scuttled back again, this time getting off the glass. An urge to run far away possessed him. He started to his feet, but due to the old age and the fear, the ability to jump up did not come easy.
“Where are you going?” the fish-like woman asked on the other side of the glass. “Please don’t go. You’re the first one to come across me. I’m alone.”
Dean grabbed the rifle for support and started to hobble away, but before he could get too far, the words of the mermaid creature tolled in his noggin. I’m alone. He stopped, glanced over his shoulder, and stared at the thick-glassed window on the forest floor. The red liquid under the glass sloshed like the waves of an ocean, and the mermaid stared at him with wide far away eyes. Tears twinkled on her scaly cheeks. She sure did not look like an illusion, but then again, lots of the hallucinations brought to him by his overbearing schizophrenia were very realistic. He felt at bay for a moment, though. His heart settled in his chest, and he frowned at the miserable lady on the other side of the glass. She pressed her five-fingered fin-like hand against the underside. An empathetic grin curved the corners of his mouth, and he shrugged before returning to the glass.
“What are you?” Dean asked. “Can you understand me?”
“Yes,” the creature said. “I’ve known your language after years of study. I’m Yola.”
“Yola,” Dean tasted the pretty name as it escaped his lips. “I’m Dean.”
“Dean,” the creature said. “You are human.”
Dean nodded. “Yes. What are you?”
“Foreign.”
Dean chuckled. “Well, that’s obvious. I mean… what are you?”
The mermaid raised an eyebrow, another humanistic feature she possessed. “I don’t have an understanding of what you are trying to ask me.”
“Are you from here?” Dean asked and tapped the butt of his rifle against the hard snow.
Yola shook her head. “No.”
“Where are you from?”
In response, Yola pointed a finger straight upward.
Dean investigated the night sky. “You’re from the stars?”
Yola nodded.
“This isn’t happening,” Dean said and chuckled. He took a step back. “You’re just all in my head, Yola. I forgot to take my Zyprexa. I must have hallucinated taking it, that’s all.”
“I’m not a figment of your imagination.”
“I think you are.”
“I can show you that I’m not,” Yola told him.
“Yeah?” Dean asked. “How’s that?”
“Come here,” the mermaid said and beckoned him to her with her scaly index finger. “If you come closer, I can show you.” She smiled, this time showing a hint of her teeth. They were sharp, especially her incisors. They were white daggers. Her eyes, on the other hand, were cold. They twinkled underneath the glass.
Dean edged closer. “How?”
“Closer.”
Dean did so. His feet were inches from the glass. “What now?”
“Squat down to me, Dean.”
“I’m not in my thirties anymore,” Dean told the mermaid. “I’m in my early sixties.”
“Try.”
Dean sighed and bent his crackling knees. His face was a couple feet from the glass. His rifle helped him hold his place. “Okay. Now, how can you show me?”
Before Dean could comprehend what happened, he felt a tug on the back of his neck. An overwhelming sense of weightlessness occurred, then it all disappeared as he crashed down. The warm red liquid enveloped him like goo. The humming amplified. The air felt more electric. In the goo, everything felt surreal. Something- well, not just anything- dragged him deeper into the abyss of red. The mermaid’s scaly flesh caressed his feet as she drowned him. Then, he felt pain shoot up his leg. Daggers dug into his flesh. He wanted to scream, but he knew if he did, the red goo would pour into his mouth and down his throat and into the rest of his body. He winced. An aching feeling screamed inside of him. Dean knew it was real now. Too real. His lungs begged to receive oxygen. His guts contorted. The mermaid creature continued to bury those needle teeth into his ankle. His eyes were wide open, watching as he sunk away from the surface to the darkness below. He flung his hands around. Then, he realized that he still had the rifle. It was gripped in his hands.
Dean swung the rifle down and pointed it into the murky liquid goo. He did not know the exact location of the mermaid beast, but by the way his ankle hurt, he had a good feeling where it was chewing on him. The gun jolted when the trigger had been pulled. The humming grew even louder, almost as if the goo was upset by the sudden booming of rifle fire. A scream emanated at the place where his leg should have been. The red darkened. Dean shook his leg free. He didn’t waste time in pushing himself to the surface. Out of pure luck, he breached the surface of the red in no time. He sucked air into his burning lungs.
But it wasn’t over. He put his rifle into the snow and grabbed the sides of the tank he had been pulled into. The outside world was much colder than inside the red goo. The freezing wind slapped his face as he pulled the rest of his body out of the mysterious liquid. Every single bit of his body was covered in the alien substance. It smelled like sulfur, and Dean winced as he took a breath of it. He immediately began to crawl away from the tank, but before he could get far, that beast managed to grab his ankle again. Pain roared in his leg. It felt like the damn thing had torn a nerve. He felt his body pulled back to the liquid. Dean dug his hands into the snow, but he felt the pull still. It took him a moment to wheel around for the rifle. He grabbed it, then put its butt against his shoulder. He never bothered to aim. As soon as he saw the horrendous beast halfway out of the red liquid, he fired at it. The rifle jolted for a second time. The Alaskan woods roared. And the beast’s head flung back as a bullet lodged itself into the thing’s brain. A gaping hole smoked where Yola’s left eye had been. She felt limp to the snow.
“Jesus Christ,” Dean gasped as he eyed the mermaid creature. “W-W-What the hell?”
The blood-red light from the tank painted his whole face as he stared at the dead creature, and the liquidous goo covering his body started to grow colder as the wind pushed alongside him at a greater and greater speed. The naked trees rustled, the air hummed, and the echo of cracking gunfire continued to boom in the distance. Dean gasped again, then he sucked in two tons of air. A chuckle escaped his lips while his chest rose and fell. A smile crossed his face. It did not turn out to be a hallucination. No, it had been real. Too real. He glanced at the dead creature. Yeah, it was real. The thing was halfway out of the red, deader than a doornail with a bullet in its head. Again, Dean chuckled. But when he saw his leg, the laughter faded.
“Shit,” he whispered. “Oh, Jesus.”
A pool of blood surrounded his leg. It had been cut badly by the beast. Huge teeth marks were imprinted in his flesh, and all the inner sections of his leg were dismembered. There were a handful of slippery veins trailing out onto the snow. The snow looked bright red at first, then the white darkened to a crimson color. Blood did not stop trickling down his leg. It was like a never-ending waterfall. But at least it did not hurt. He felt no pain at all, just a very faint and dull throb. Nonetheless, Dean winced at the sight and returned his focus on the mermaid. Yola- if that was even her name- bore a faint resemblance to the deer in the bed of his truck with one of her eyes open and staring into oblivion. Not to mention, her tongue lolled out of her mouth, too.
“Damn creature,” Dean mumbled under his breath and sighed. “You damn beast.” There was a thin cloud of mist that streamed out of his mouth after he spoke. It vanished not long after. On his back, Dean could see the naked tree branches rustling above him. They swayed in the ice-cold breeze, and Dean watched them for what seemed like a few moments. A smile stretched the corners of his mouth upward. For some reason, his muscles relaxed. Then, he knew what his next move would be: firing the rifle in the air three times, then wait for rescue. Surely, his wife would hear the gunshots from the cabin. Then, she would come. Or, maybe she was already on her way after hearing the other gunshots. He did not know. Nonetheless, he grunted and raised the gun into the eastern night sky. He fired three times at a star, then dropped it. It hit the snow with a soft thud. Now, he just had to play the waiting game… either blood loss would take him, or his wife would find him. That was when he felt the sharp pain in his leg. Dean winced. And he could not help but smile as well. It was real. Not an illusion.
© In the Woods under the Glass by Mason Yates. 2023. All rights reserved.
