Friday, May 11, 2018

A Gift To Myself

69.

Gilbert slung the cast into the water. The sun was shining, the heat was still pleasant and there was a slight breeze enough the extra gear for his fishing trip was not too cumbersome. It had been a month since his trip to the succubus and after a week of feeling bad he was back to mostly good health. He rewarded himself with a fishing trip on his birthday. He loved to fish in potholes for bass, and Clarissa promised him she'd take no jobs or do anything while he was gone. The fish were even biting that morning. He'd caught two earlier and let them go, Gilbert never much liked eating fish, he just loved fishing something that always caused people to give him the side eye. For him he could think of no better thing than to spend the day fishing, go home and then have a steak, a perfect day.

"Good morning." And then it was ruined, he heard the voice and saw the man with the glasses coming his game warden badge gleaming in the sun.

"I got my license, somewhere." Gilbert reeled in his line and went looking through his tackle box.

"Take your time, beautiful day right?"

"The best, its actually my birthday." Gilbert felt a bit of panic setting in, he couldn't find the license he had bought one that morning, he must have just left it in his van.

"Well happy birthday, having trouble finding that license."

"I swear I bought one, must have left it in my van." The warden who's name tag said Simmons rolled his eyes.

"Mind if we have a walk back to your van then." Gilbert sighed, he knew this was going to ruin the day. He managed to walk back to his van in 15 minutes, which felt faster than it took to walk in, but he assumed that was based on him having to find a path originally and that he was taking his time just enjoying the day off.

"You're an exterminator?" Gilbert went looking through all the paperwork in the van, he was surprised at all the garbage that had accumulated.

"Yes Sir."

"GD that stand for something?"

"Gilbert Dunkley, me." He found the license and handed it over to Simmons.

"Gilbert Dunkley? The Gilbert Dunkley?"

"If there is more than one that's news to me sir."

"Well I feel like an asshole for hassling you," He handed back the license without even really looking it over, "You're a myth a legend in the parks service, I thought the guys were just making you up, always one of those lowered eyes looking around 'let me tell you about a real scary thing I saw' type story." Gilbert had done quite a few jobs locally over the years, he never assumed he'd become a name to anyone.

"Well that's flattering, always tried to do right by your sort, especially when something from my line crossed lanes with someone in yours."

"Are bigfoots real?"

"Yeah, real nasty, like actual wookies, but intelligent enough you can talk to them if you aren't threatening, though its the kind of negotiation I'm not exactly fond of."

"So I'm sure you've heard of the problems we're having."

"I had not actually, been having some troubles of my own recently, something you think I could handle?" Gilbert didn't want to work on his birthday, but as a curious person, he also didn't like to just leave things as they are.

"I don't actually know, like at first we thought maybe just cougars or something, people went missing who knows right? Then we started finding pieces of them, parts of them, its actually what I was doing when I ran across you, I found something and was on my way back to my truck when I saw you, was about to warn you actually."

"All right you got my curiosity Mr. Simmons, can you take me to where you found the piece?"

"Have the Gilbert Dunkley investigate my mysterious shit? Oh hell yeah." Gilbert was still flattered by the adulation, but he also knew the park service could pay well if he was successful.

****

The sun was high in the sky, the beauty of the day overridden by how hot it was now, especially with the trek to the remains. Gilbert felt sweat beading up on his brow uncomfortably. There was also a smell in the air, like wet garbage, it was even worse than the rotten flesh from the mismatched body parts in front of him. The parts were coated in a slime, they didn't look so much as chewed as having been partially digested.

"Clarissa, yeah Gilbert, I'm going to need you to come down to Moses Lake, yeah and bring my brown bag, no not that one, ok not that one either, yes that one, I know I have a lot of brown bags, ok see you in a few hours."

"You know what we have?" Gilbert looked down at the parts again, looked at the sun's position and figured he had a couple hours before dark when Clarissa got there.

"Nope not a fucking clue."

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