Back On The Savage Trail

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Book excerpt

Chapter One 

The thunder storm roared outside and the rain beat against the singular window as Tamara lay in her hospital bed. She had an autoimmune disease that she barely understood and was in a relapse.

This time it was looking to be something of a bad one, the pain came and went, right now she was feeling a little better besides the usual, ever present pains she dealt with all the time.

Despite being so sick, looking at her you’d almost never know it if she weren't in a hospital bed. When she stands she is five feet eight inches tall, her skin is a light brown, her eyes match, and her hair is pitch black.

Even if she was so sick, most of the time she maintained a healthy enough weight to try and look as normal as anyone else.

The sickness had taken its toll on her insides over the years, however. She was supposed to be sleeping but the pain in her chest every time she took a breath wanted to be hellfire that was constantly eating away at her endlessly. The only time it felt better is when she controlled her breathing and took shallow breaths.

It hadn’t been this bad in years; she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be this sick in the first place. Tamara was watching some superhero movie the hospital offered at three in the morning, but she’d seen it before many times. It was serving only as background noise in an otherwise silent room was a thing that was desperately needed.

Without thinking she moved her left arm to scratch and itch and the I.V. needle tore out of her arm for the third time tonight.

“Damn it,” Tamara said in annoyance. She hated this thing with a passion. It was all she could say as the machine it was connected to began to sound its annoying alarm yet again. Never mind, she decided she hated this sound more than anything in the world.

She knew how to stop it but with her energy level completely gone, she figured that she was going to wait for Myranda to come take care of it. It would give her something to do, at least.

Myranda was bored out of her mind, the night shift was often uneventful. If it weren’t for her phone she would have gone insane she often wondered how nurses managed to get through the long night hours in the past without it.

With a body like hers there was no reason she couldn’t have married some rich guy and lived an easy life. She’d always grown up with a strong do it yourself attitude and decided to go into medicine when she was younger, now she regretted that choice.

No one ever told her how boring it would be. On occasion there would be crisis moments that would make the night fly by, tonight was not one of these nights. The thunderstorm was even keeping the crazy people inside tonight.

She was five feet nine inches and about one hundred and forty pounds, black hair and green eyes and the target of countless unwanted attention from less than desirable people. At this point it just came with the job and she was used to it.

The phone game she was playing was interrupted by the sounding of an alarm. She shook her head and looked at the monitor that was displaying that room six nineteen was where it was coming from.

“Tammy, why can’t you sleep like a normal person. It’s the third time tonight, girl that must be some kind of a record or something,” Myranda said to herself and got up. The room wasn’t very far away and getting there didn’t take very long.

“So, you just had to knock out the needle again, did you?” she asked her when she walked into the room.

“Well, the night isn’t over yet. I got bored and I just like the way you look,” Tamara said and smiled weakly, but it was about all she could do. Myranda smiled and carefully put the needle back into place. “Yeah, yeah you and everyone else, I guess,” she replied.

“I hate this,” Tamara said it was expected. “I am as good as dead laying here like this. I wanted to go so bad you know?” Tamara said, and she turned her head and Myranda could only sigh in response to this, as she had no way to respond to it, she knew what Tamara was talking about. She still thought the whole thing was insane, especially for someone in her condition.

The two of them here were friends for a long time, a secret they kept from the medical circles just to be safe from any ethical snags that might come up and be on the safe side.

Tamara had always been a fan of the weird and obscure things in the world and most of those things were out of reach, but then she found one on accident while watching the news about two people that had gone missing in a national park, one that was apparently home to a ghostly bear.

When she did more research into the subject sources said that two women were found near the river, one of whom had suffered injuries from the monster itself and lived, but the true story of what happened was never actually shared.

So when the actual story wasn’t given, people started making stuff up. People who read this stuff simply it called a bad kind of writing called a creepypasta. Stuff that that was made to sound real, but was all made up. Someone just got creative and spread the story, an internet legend and nothing more. Tamara, on the other hand knew how to dig deeper into the internet to find what she wanted.

.           “I know you wanted to go, but I don’t know why you wanted to go there of all places. You do realize they never caught who did that, right? Those maniacs are still out there, and you want to go there of all places?” Myranda said to her, still not entirely understanding what the appeal was to all of this.

“You still believe that it was evil hill people, don’t you?” Tamara said and rolled her eyes. “That story is about as real as the moon landing,” she said and Myranda was pretty sure the moon landing was a real thing, but it was pointless to bring that up.

“You wouldn’t understand, but I need to know for a fact that there is some kind of afterlife. Something that gets me away from all of this misery, sure I’ll miss you, but you’ll know I am in a better place. When the time comes you and I can drink tequila at heaven’s bar forever after and talk about literally anything else,” she responded to her. Tamara honestly believed in the idea of the afterlife, she just wanted to see it for herself.

“Some Ghost bear is going to prove it to you, really, some story made up to scare white people a hundred years ago?” Myranda said and sighed, it made no sense to her. By now all the pictures of ghosts on the internet should have been proof enough if she only needed to see a ghost. There was plenty of evidence.

“Yes, plus I’ve always wanted to see something like that,” Tamara replied to her. “Tammy, girl you have issues. But I can’t stand to see you in a bed like this, so if you get better I’ll take you to this damned festival myself. We will go see your monster, or at least go look for it. What do you say?” Myranda asked her.

She was sure Tammy wasn’t going to get too much better than this. But they had both been here before. If there was one thing Tamara was good at, it was surprise recoveries.

It killed her on the inside to think like that, but right now optimism was keeping both of them in check. In her job, she was supposed to remain professional. Being emotionally attached was the opposite of professionalism according to all the rules.

Right then and there that she decided that if Tamara got any better, she was going to take her on her that one last trip she wanted to go to so badly. Myranda looked out the window and noticed the light of the full moon streaming through clouds as the storm seemed to be taking a bit of a break.

Something about the sight of it chilled her to the bone talking about ghosts and monsters, the full moon always intensified the mood.

“I’d say thank you,” Tamara said to her and looked towards the moonlight as well. Praying to any God that might be listening to get better, well enough to take a trip into the unknown for the first, and last time.