{"id":3457,"date":"2012-06-29T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2012-06-29T06:00:07","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T11:00:07","slug":"the-death-ranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=3457","title":{"rendered":"The Death Ranger (Flash Fiction)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo from here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOkay, okay.\u201d I accept the plastic two-liter bottle signifying my turn to tell a story. I need to think about it, size up my audience a bit. I close my eyes and go \u2018round the fire:<\/p>\n

Beth – who I have always wanted to go to bed with – is to my right. I want to startle her. Give her the chance to reach out to me instead of George, her boyfriend and an acquaintance of mine for nearly twenty years.<\/p>\n

Todd was next, a friend of Holly. Yeah, she\u2019ll be the most frightened if I tell the story right. She said that Todd was just along for the ride because he had the pot.<\/p>\n

Directly opposite is an empty rock where Noah had been, but he was out gathering wood for the fire. We\u2019ve been friends almost as long as I\u2019ve known George.<\/p>\n

Janice, Noah\u2019s wife. A true stick in the mud.<\/p>\n

Carla is next to her and always game for a good story. She\u2019ll heighten the mood at the right time.<\/p>\n

Mike is off to my left. He\u2019s sullen tonight and drinking too much.<\/p>\n

On my left is Willow, my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. This trip had been planned for a while, and I don\u2019t want to break up with her before I\u2019d given our relationship – if you could call it that – one last chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you finally ready, o master storyteller?\u201d Todd is trying to be funny and already high as a kite. His pot is pretty good, and everyone except Janice and Willow have taken a toke.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I say, opening my eyes. \u201cThis -\u201d I hold out my hands over the fire and draw them apart, \u201c- state park we\u2019re in has a long history and there are lots of things out in the woods that\u2019ll take you to hell in a heartbeat if you\u2019re unwary. But there\u2019s nothing more terrifying than -\u201d I wait for effect, \u201cThe Death Ranger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood lord,\u201d Willow says and rolls her eyes. The fire crackles and sparks shoot upward. I ignore her. Carla claps her hands.<\/p>\n

Todd waggles his fingers. \u201cSounds cool,\u201d he says. \u201cHit us with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Death Ranger haunts this park,\u201d I say with mock seriousness, \u201cbecause he died here.\u201d<\/p>\n

George leans in and stirs the coals, sending up more orange fireflys. \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n

I continue, \u201cNo one can remember his name because it was over a hundred years ago that he died,\u201d I say, \u201cbut everyone remembers why he died.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were men in the woods just over there,\u201d I say and point behind Holly, \u201cstealing trees when the land deal for the park was being negotiated with the original owners. There was a dispute with a local logger who claimed the land was his by right of being here first. He cut down so many trees so fast that he made his fortune in under a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWas he clear cutting or something?\u201dMike takes a swig of his Jack and looks into the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething like that. Anyway, the Ranger was working for the state already and came out to try and scare the logging crew off. He knew talking wouldn\u2019t do any good because they were hopelessly uneducated and their logic wouldn\u2019t be swayed, so he played on their superstitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janice looked around and leaned back, searching the darkness. \u201cWhere\u2019s Noah?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s okay,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Carla says. \u201cHe just looking for firewood. He\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr maybe the Death Ranger got him,\u201d Todd says. He snorts a laugh.<\/p>\n

Willow says, \u201cShould we go look for him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s fine,\u201d I say and pat Willow on the thigh. She has nice legs. \u201cThe Ranger did things like make spooky sounds in the night while the sawmen slept in their impromptu camp, left dead animal carcasses in their wagons and scrawled cryptic messages in blood for them to find when they woke.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt worked, too,\u201d I say. \u201cAll but one of the sawmen quit. All but the biggest bastard of all of them, Prescott Sturbridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe sounds like some high society dink,\u201d Mike says. \u201cNot a rough and tumble logger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t pick his name,\u201d I say. \u201cAnyway, Sturbridge works through the next day after his crew quit and does all right for one man. He even continues to work after dark sawing and chopping on the biggest tree in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJeez,\u201d Beth says, \u201cno wonder they were trying to conserve the park. How did he see at night?\u201d<\/p>\n

I click my tongue and point at her. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t. He didn\u2019t care. He wasn\u2019t afraid of blood or dead animals, so he kept cutting on this enormous tree.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout an hour after sunset, right about this time, in fact,\u201d I lower my voice a little so that everyone has to lean in to hear me, \u201cSturbridge heard the tree trunk crack and he felt it move. It was ready to fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a thunk just beyond the light of the fire and everyone turns to look, but none of us can see anything. I go on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Sturbridge didn\u2019t know was that the Ranger was watching him and getting ready to arrest him for stealing lumber. Suddenly, the tree tips and cracks, and it\u2019s falling. Remember this is the biggest tree in the woods here at that time and they\u2019ve pretty well cleared an area where it can fall right to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no,\u201d Holly says. \u201cTell me it doesn\u2019t land on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does,\u201d I say with emphasis on the last word. \u201cIt does and the Ranger is crushed. Now he haunts the woods bringing his vengeance on anyone who\u2019s stealing wood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noah comes into the light carrying an armload of logs but he\u2019s stumbling. There\u2019s a dark line across his forehead and another that\u2019s dribbled down his temple.<\/p>\n

\u201cUh,\u201d he says and falls over his rock, spilling the logs and scattering the fire.<\/p>\n

Janice shouts, Holly screams and Beth grabs for me instead of George. Mike watches the whole thing and tips his bottle back. Carla shouts, \u201cLook!\u201d and Willow screams, too.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an axe sticking out of Noah\u2019s back and Janice is reaching for him, but Carla pulls her back. Todd is freaking out and muttering something incomprehensible.<\/p>\n

No one else notices the sound of a large tree cracking, the horrible sound of wood separating from wood and the groan that intensifies as the cracking sound gets louder. I look back where Noah came from and there is a figure silhouetted against the night sky, wearing a flat-brimmed ranger\u2019s hat.<\/p>\n

Branches are breaking and there\u2019s a shadow over us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOkay, okay.\u201d I accept the plastic two-liter bottle signifying my turn to tell a story. I need to think about it, size up my audience a bit. I close my eyes and go \u2018round the fire: Beth – who I have always wanted to go to bed with – is to my right. I want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[143,144,422,809,902],"class_list":["post-3457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-campfire","tag-campfire-stories","tag-flash-fiction","tag-parks","tag-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}