Confronting The Terror

Flashback Series: Tales From The Flat, Part 3

 

Confronting the terror.

 

During this paralytic horror, my only comfort was the assailants were on the same side of the tent as my dozing partner. However, my shameless security in using my partner as a human shield vanished when one of the snorting monsters shifted itself to the back of the tent (right where our heads were) as it began to tear at the grass! I was no longer safe. A two-pronged attack is always harder to defend against. Imagine my heightened distress when another one started ripping up grass at the front of the tent! These attackers were definitely not browsing deer. The weight of these assassins caused the ground to shudder as they moved. Whatever they were, they were huge.

 

Having nothing to lose now, I reached over and shook my partner. He came awake with a slurping gurgle, and he asked me if he’d been snoring again. I shook my head, but at the sound of his voice, the snorting, snuffling, and tearing of grass immediately halted. The night was deathly still. Using agitated hand signs, I relayed my concerns.

 

From under my pillow, I flicked on a tiny penlight, then made my way to the front of the tent where I kept a large, halogen flashlight. As I picked it up, the snorting, snuffling and tearing started again. Turning around to check on my partner’s progress, my light lit his panicked, bulging eyes. His hair stood on end! (It didn’t matter it always looked that way; it was perfect for the mood at that moment.) Rushing past me, he flew to the foot of the bed and yanked his 30-30 from its scabbard. The new noises he made caused the outside noises to stop once more.

 

Gathering all of my courage, then nodding to each other to be ready, I unzipped the front of the tent, and we stepped outside.

 

I quickly panned my bright halogen beam left and right. Multiple, malevolent eyes were instantly lit in the darkness. I was thunderstruck by their number. We were besieged by an invasion force; evil eyes blazed hotly in the boreal darkness. And then, those demonic eyes, in those huge heads, jerked up from the ground. Massive blasts of exhaled, steamy breath, fogged, and then filled the air.

 

Regardless of the horror, and somehow finding a reserve of inner strength, I continued moving the light and fully illuminated that host of bodies. I watched in transformed terror as the nocturnal beasts’ claws turned to hooves, their imagined humps to manes, until as one, with a great blowing and snorting, off they all ran.

 

I have never been so terrified by a herd of wild horses.

 

We found out the next day that throughout the summer there was a herd that worked its way up and down the connected series of canyons above and below where we were camped.

 

Of course we both had a good laugh (a hysterical, counterfeit kind of a laugh for sure), and we both uttered macho statements about how silly it was to get all worked up about bears, when in reality it was only horses after all. Clearly, it was the kind of jittery conversation that accompanies the complete and utter loss of every shred of manly dignity.

 

Oh, the everlasting shame . . .

 

All the best,

 

Lanny

 

(P.S. In the last instalment of this “Tales From The Flats” series, I will relate another disturbing black and midnight event that plagued our seemingly cursed sleep.)

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