by Elizabeth Fisher
Jar Fly
An estranged couple take a vacation into the wilderness for a last ditch effort at meaningful connection and end up confronting far more than their relationship problems.
“Come on, Flora. It won’t be that bad. We’ll just go up top to that ridge there and camp for the night.”
Flora’s face fell. They’d been at it for hours meticulously trudging through the unusually thick September air. She could feel the stick of sweat on every inch of her sun-tired body.
“Can we not stay down here by the water? It’d be nice to get in and cool down for a while.”
“Think about the view up there! It’s just a short climb, Babe.”
“Don’t ‘Babe’ me. Nothing about that looks short, Judge!”
“You’ll be glad you did it.” He turned away from her and began the ascent towards the rocky overpass ahead of them. “Trust me!”
Trust him.
That was the overarching theme of this excursion. He’d lured her out here on the promise that they would finally get to spend some quality time together outside of the usual drudgery of their evening conversations over twice-heated leftovers and the occasional empty platitudes inspired by their rare exchanges of physical intimacy.
That first year of marriage had been full of all the carat-heavy bliss of fresh ‘I do’s, but the four-and-a-half after had rolled themselves out in a row of nothingness that almost felt worse than hatred. After they’d burned off the newness of their relationship, the burdensome reality was that Flora and Judge didn’t much care for each other underneath the surface of giddy new-love pretenses.
When Judge had suggested the trip upstate to go camping for the weekend it had seemed a genuine and novel solution to the mounting tension of the mundane. As of yet though, nothing had felt very different from the usual routine. Flora had dozed off listening to true-crime podcasts on the car ride while Judge listened to the baseball game he was missing. They had barely spoken at all since they’d started on the trail unless it was to half-heartedly argue over which direction to go.
So much for quality time together.
Flora picked her way along the bank of the river taking deep breaths of the infinitesimally cooler air drifting upwards from the running water.Judge was already a dozen or so paces ahead of her staring eagerly up at the destination he’d chosen.
It was beautiful enough down by the river.
A steep incline wove nearly straight up the side of a monolith on either bank. The two sides were connected at the top giving the impression that the river had once taken the form of a large water snake and drilled forcefully through the center of a once solid mountain in a bid to make it to the ocean. A long soak in the water shaded from the sun in that hard-earned stone tunnel sounded better than any view from up high to Flora.
She sighed and began the ascent.
Judge had made it to the top by the time Flora met the halfway point. Evening was beginning to creep into the day, and the singsong of crickets cut into the gradually thinning air. Flora stopped and threw her pack off her back sitting down hard next to it. She was not going any further. She’d set up her own spot on the side of the mountain. Being alone right where she sat was better than putting any more effort into meeting Judge at the top of the overpass for the flimsy reward of being alone together.
Flora took a canteen of water from her bag and sipped on the tepid liquid while she watched the river run below her. She felt at ease for the first time since she’d walked into the woods with her erstwhile partner. Birds flitted lazily from tree to tree, and a small movement in the brush at the edge of the water made her zero in, hoping to catch sight of a deer or rabbit.
She squinted her eyes and stared down at the spot intently.
The foliage shook and the hairs on the nape of her neck stood at attention as she watched the ground by the river begin to gurgle.
Something was digging its way out of the dirt. Something big.
“Judge! Come here!”
“What?” He appeared at the top of the incline, a popped bottle of beer already in hand.
“Just come here! I don’t know what.”
She heard him huff as he started back down the side of the mountain, “I thought you were tired, Flora, what are you . . .” he stopped short as he reached her side. “What the . . .”
An arch of pale muddied skin was just beginning to become visible at the break in the earth. A long, slender appendage shot up through the dirt and clawed towards the river bed clinging hungrily to a chunk of slimy stone and moss.
Flora jumped to her feet, “I think it might be a person. We have to help them. We have to . . . call somebody . . . or something?” Her voice tilted up questioningly as the clawing arm continued to extend uncannily from the earth stretching further from the gurgling mound of its rapidly emerging body.
Judge grabbed her hard at the elbow making her jump.
“That doesn’t look human to me, Flora.”
“What else could it be?”
“It’s probably just . . .an animal or something. C’mon leave it alone.”
Flora shook off Judge’s grip and stared back at the figure at the river. She could see the top half of its body pulled free from the ground. It was undeniably humanoid. A matted head of tufted red hair was visible from Flora and Judge’s perch halfway up the mountain side. A too-long neck corded the head and broad, bony back together. The entire thing was colored like a cicada nymph, a sickly yellow-white.
“I don’t like this,” Judge said, but he remained rooted next to Flora ogling the creature as its bottom half suddenly broke the surface. One of its antena-like arms reached into the dirt to aid in the release of its legs, and, with a final burst of effort, the creature released itself from the earth’s womb. It lay still for a moment, long enough for Flora and Judge to wonder if the thing they were watching had ever moved at all or if the ground itself had spit the monster free.
“Is it dead?” Flora leaned forward.
Judge reached for her again, taking her arm more gently than before.
“I don’t think we should find out.” He stepped back and stumbled over Flora’s discarded pack. He jerked Flora’s arm as he fell backwards bringing them both tumbling to the ground.
“Jesus, Judge!”
“Excuse me for not wanting to wait around and see if the weird fucking river zombie is dead or alive!”
Flora huffed and sat up, rubbed at her arm, then stopped suddenly
“Listen,” she whispered.
“What?”
“There’s nothing. There were crickets earlier and birds. But now. . .”
She let her words hang in the still air. The earlier heat of the day had almost entirely dissipated, and in its place was an eerie, stone-silent chill that froze the sweat on Flora’s skin. Judge’s eyes widened as he took in the too-perfect silence, and they both redirected their attention towards the creature by the river.
It had managed to flip over on its back to reveal a swollen countenance. Its features seemed an anthropomorphic take on the disproportionate face of a beetle. It reached a hand out for the water and its eyelids shot open, revealing two large red orbs that seemed to glow in the low light of the building evening dusk. Its small mouth ripped open, its back arched, and a sharp cracking echoed throughout the dead-quiet of the woods as the creature’s bones snapped into place. A dry, voracious inhale ballooned the creature’s thorax, and as it released its breath it sent out a deafening, high-pitched buzz.
“Go!” Flora urged as the monster’s cries rattled the bones of the mountain underneath her.
Judge and Flora ignited, scrambling up the mountain leaving Flora’s pack and judge’s beer behind. As they neared the crest of the mountain, Flora lost her footing and rolled sharply on her ankle. She grit her teeth hard as she felt a nauseating snap.
Judge heard her fall and turned.
“Get up!”
She tried.
“Fuck. Judge, I think I broke my foot.”
“Like hell you did! Let’s go.”
They could hear the rustling of leaves as the creature began its descent up the mountain behind them.
“Fuck.” Judge came to her and pulled her up. “You can do this. Let’s go. You can do this.”
He pulled one of her arms around his shoulder, and they hobbled together the rest of the way up the mountain. The clearing at the top of the two-sided monolith was every bit as beautiful as Judge had promised, but neither of them had time to notice as the upright bulk of the creature burst from the woods seconds behind them.
“What are you?” Judge whimpered more to Flora than to the thing chasing them.
Its body was bigger than they’d thought; Uncurled, it stood at least seven feet tall. Its limbs hung forward, stick-like and distorted.
“Keep moving,” Flora pushed.
The couple stumbled forward and began crossing the top of the stone tunnel as dusk became night. A dry rush of stale air hit their backs and the crescendoing rasp of papery shuffling made them glance back at the creature. Its legs hadn’t moved, but even as Judge and Flora stumbled further from the creature, they could see the ominous fanning of a set of sheer, fast-moving wings emerging above its pustule-like head.
“No!” Judge yelled and pulled the bulk of Flora’s weight up on his own body to hasten their pace.
“It flies! My god, it flies,” Flora screamed.
The couple moved united in a single purpose for the first time since they’d taken their vows five-and-a-half years earlier, but the monster’s shadow loomed over them, gaining ground with its reawakened wings. The creature took flight and landed heavily in front of Judge and Flora, buzzing low and blocking any forward bid for escape. Eager, bulging eyes zeroed in on the couple as the two fell as one against the rush of the monster’s still-fanning wings.
Flora grabbed Judge on either side of his face and turned him towards her. “Look at me. Please, just look at me.”
He faced her and put his forehead to hers.
“I loved you,” he cried. “Whatever you might think. I did. I really did.”
“I loved you too,” she said, and the creature struck.
From it’s too-small mouth shot a long, pointed tongue. It latched first to Flora. She grabbed at her neck as the thing pierced her skin, pale and grotesque against the blanket of darkness around it. She could not scream as the monster took her blood; Judge closed his eyes against the horror and waited to be next.
—
The creature uses its contorted limbs to grasp the bodies of its spawn.
It piles them on its bony back and takes flight.
A spot.
Somewhere nearby.
It only gets one night.
But two have come for this chance at rebirth.
It flits down by the river and lands on the opposite bank from its own reincarnation.
Good.
Water will come through the ground here.
Animals will die here.
Plenty of fuel for new life here.
The flaccid carcasses of its drained young watch the sky emptily as it digs the cradles.
It lays them gently in its hard-worked holes.
As dawn rises, it buries them.
The sun emerges.
The birds return.
The creature crumbles back to the dust from which it came.
And Judge and Flora rest to be born again.
—
Seventeen years later, two plots of earth gurgle as one.
. . .Ready for new bodies to amble towards the breeding grounds. . .
