The Man Outside the Tent
You never know who's watching...
The hot smell of the plastic, the artificial rustling of the cover slipping from the folded tent. The shine on the poles, still cool to the touch, but soon to be warmed by fingers, then heated by the sun. The pristinely white ropes, waiting to be coiled around the pegs.
He watched intently, tears forming over his dry eyes, begging him to close his eyelids, to take a break from the spectacle. But he tried to keep them open for as long as he could, although he knew there was no real benefit in doing so. It just tingled, an unpleasant, raw tingle that blurred his vision and forced him to concede anyway. Then he did it once more, willing himself to resist one more second with each try. One more precious second of seeing the four long, shapely, tan legs jumping around the tent, or the thin arms stretching and pulling and hammering.
Short, shallow breaths tore through him, giving him the unsatisfying reward of a few more seconds of air before he had to release it through his mouth with a slight moan. He hated breathing through the mouth, yet he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help many things, such as the beads of sweat pooling in the sharp angles of his bones, like rainwater at the foot of miniature skin tents. He couldn’t help the excitement rushing through his body when he saw them set up camp so close to him, just meters away from the foliage that served as his shelter. He couldn’t help staring at the two girls, listening in to their cheery conversation, an unknown participant to their lives. He couldn’t help the desperate need to get closer to them. To touch them. But he couldn’t do that.
They must have been new to camping, he had concluded soon after they came. They were ill-prepared, with trendy sneakers instead of hiking boots, and shiny new equipment that had never been used. He couldn’t see their faces, as they both wore bright red caps atop their perfectly curled hair, but he could guess they were very young. The sun reflected brightly on their toned legs, or the phones they held carelessly in their hands, blaring music. When he first heard the distant tune approaching, followed by girly giggles, he was excited. His breath had quickened, his fingers flexed as a rush of adrenaline flushed through him. Then, as they got closer, he became annoyed, stressed. The never ending sound almost drowned their voices, although they spoke quite loudly. It must be why they couldn’t hear his moans. Maybe it was better this way, he decided. He wouldn’t want them to hear him, get scared and run off. Not yet. His purpose wasn’t to shoo them away but to get them to come closer. He needed more strength, too. He wanted to get closer to them, to touch their warm skin and hold them tight, so they would stay put. To whisper in their ears what he had prepared to say. But he wasn’t strong enough. Not yet. Minute after minute, however, he got stronger, and by night time, he could maybe do it. He closed his eyes, tasting the sweet promise of release on his dry, cracked lips.
The girls vanished at some point, after tossing their backpacks in the tent, leaving the zipper half open. He wondered if he should try to crawl in, open their bags, look for anything he might need. Wait for them there, on one of the soft, clean sleeping bags. No, he decided. He would scare them off. He didn’t want them to run off. He needed them here.
When the girls returned, they had tied their hair up in messy buns, sweat – or maybe water – trickling down their thin necks, down the rounds of their breasts, leaving dark marks on their tight tank tops. He swallowed hard, trying to subdue his desire. He had to wait. But it was becoming hard, unbearably so. Then, a glimmer of hope.
The taller girl, and the most relaxed of the two, let her shoulder bag drop to the ground and a water bottle rolled out, towards him. Neither of the girls noticed, too wound up in their trite conversation about a TV show. He waited, unsure whether he truly was that lucky, or if perhaps it was just a cruel joke. Even after the girls had left, swallowed by the abyss of the tent, and closed the zipper, he still didn’t dare move.
At first, he tried to see if the effort would be worth it. After all, his energy should be kept for later. For what truly mattered. Straining his eyes, he looked at the bottle, caressing its curved surface with his eyes. It was a single-use plastic bottle, its label slightly torn. There wasn’t much water left in, about a couple of gulps. He furrowed his brow. There was a mark around the top, poking out from beneath the bottle cap. Dirt? No, it couldn’t be dirt. The colour was too intense, too bloody for that. Lipstick. It was lipstick. He chuckled, even though it hurt his ribs. They wore lipstick on a hiking trip.
He wanted that bottle, he decided. He would try to crawl towards it, slip his shaking fingers around its body. Squish his lips against the lipstick mark and drink it all in one gulp. He hoped the girl had left something of herself on the bottle, like a magical mark. There was nothing more he wanted now than to feel her youth in him, spreading in his body like a disease. No. Not a disease. A sin.
However, he knew he had to wait. The day, with its sun, and heat, and light would be the enemy. He was too weak to fight against the all-powerful day. The evening, smooth, and frail, would be a more suitable opponent. So he waited, although that was the last thing he wanted to do. Waiting was a sharp, searing pain rising in his body, from his legs to his chest. But waiting was also hope and fulfilled wishes. So he waited, drinking in every glimpse of the girls, every sliver of fabric stretched across their bodies, every inch of skin. He revered them, worshipped them. Soon he would escape this torment, and they would be the way to freedom. To bliss.
When twilight finally came, painting the trees in deep blues, and greys and black, and the stones in red, he was ready for his move. The wind blew the leaves from around his face, a blessing from above, an encouragement. Take what’s yours, the wind whispered.
He stretched his left arm out of the bush and shivered when the wind touched his skin once more. Then shivered more, even when the wind stopped. Was it the desire in him? The fear of failure? Perhaps. But he didn’t have time to ponder now. He had to act. Slowly, deliberately, but without stopping. If he quit now, he might not get a second chance. They might leave the next day, taking with them the thing he wanted most.
After a shaky breath, as deep as he could take it, he dragged himself out. Eyes on the prize, he told himself, willing his body to ignore the pain, the branches, the cold air. The shiver in his arms. The numbness in his legs. He clawed himself closer to the tent, or maybe to the bottle. It didn’t matter. They were both in the same direction, and he would get both.
He had been afraid to get out until now. That wasn’t exactly true, he thought. At first, he couldn’t. His brain, fogged, dried up, screaming, kept going in and out of consciousness. He had tried to stay awake, but couldn’t. The darkness covered him again and again, stealing from the limited time he had left, and from the little energy he tried so hard to muster. After a while, however, he managed to stay awake for longer. He’d managed to lick the leaves in front of his face for water, tried to chew on a few for food, but they tasted bitter, and he couldn’t swallow. He wondered if he could try to shout for help, but decided against it. There was nobody around to help, and he had very little energy left, which he wanted to preserve. But preserve for what? He couldn’t answer. Well, he tried to explain it to himself, if he did scream, Alan might hear him, and come back to finish the job. He knew it wasn’t true. Alan had left him there, in the middle of a bush, half-dead, on purpose. So he could suffer for longer, so he could hope someone would come and find them, and fall in despair with every minute that nobody did. Alan, certainly, wasn’t here anymore. He had gotten back into his Jeep, slipped his sunglasses back onto his nose, and driven back home. Alan was a busy man. He didn’t have time to watch someone die of thirst, starvation, blood loss.
But he wasn’t going to die. He thought he would, in the back of his mind, yet he willed himself to hope. He had managed to wrap his shirt around the knife wound under his collarbone, and he kept himself awake as much as he could by talking to himself. Not aloud. His reserves of water were too scarce to dry his throat by talking out loud.
Then the girls came: young, carefree angels, sent from the heavens. He didn’t dare hope they would settle close to him, but they did. He had watched them all day, in a trance, too weak to shout for help, too nervous to scare them away. If they ran, it would mean death for him. Of course, scratching at their tent in the middle of the night wouldn’t scare them any less. On the contrary.
But the evening was softer than the day. It was cooler, easier on his collapsing body. He would drink the water from the fallen bottle, so he could speak, explain. Beg for help. And the evening was not as dark as the night, so he hoped he would look less like a ghoul. He rehearsed what he would say as his fingers reached for the bottle, coiled themselves around the plastic. He sipped, sucking the full contents of the liquid into his body. The plastic crinkled.
“Is someone there?” a voice shouted from inside the tent. They had turned on a light, and he could see their shadows, visible on the canvas. They could have been a painting, the most beautiful painting in history, enclosed in the zippered frame of the tent. Title: Hope.
He raised his head more, and spoke: “Help me.” His voice came out as a croak. Weak, breaking in the soft twilight. He gathered all fragments of strength sprinkled through his body and spoke once more: “Please help me.” Then he collapsed, his temple crushing the plastic bottle. He had done everything he could have, and could only hope it was enough.
A flurry of whispered voices came from inside the tent, then the zipper whoosh-ed open. He looked up and saw two shadows emerging from the cascade of light. The painting had come to life. He closed his eyes, exhausted by the beauty of them. Or maybe he didn’t want to be awake in case they decided not to help. If this last resort was going to lead nowhere, he’d rather not be conscious of it.
His eyes sprung open, then closed once more immediately. There was too much light. Was it day? Had he lain the whole night in front of the tent? Or maybe that was a dream, and he was still trapped, kneecap obliterated, lips dry, lungs empty.
“Take it easy,” he heard a voice. Female. Calm. Professional.
He took a sharp breath, filling his lungs with oxygen, letting it flow through every crevice of his body. When he exhaled, he tried to open his eyes again, but it was still too bright.
“You’ll be okay,” the voice promised him, and a hand touched his.
So he let go. He let himself drift off, he let his eyelids rest over his eyes. He saw them red against the light, and he painted two figures in the middle, with his mind. This was a new painting, of the same people. The canvas was his skin, the frame – his eyelashes. The title: Saviours.
Author’s note: I initially named this story “Tent” before I realized that nobody will every think: “Oh, wow, that sounds like a thrilling story!” This is another of my favourite pieces. I absolutely hate that horror stories have a knack for victimising their female characters with sexual violence, as it often feels cheap. This story is my way of turning that idea on it’s head a little bit. What if we think a person has disgusting intentions, when it was really a cry for help? And yes, I know a lot of killers and so on abuse people’s willingness to help to more easily manipulate or hurt them, but wouldn’t it be nice if for once it wasn’t the case?
❀ Have you ever gotten a bad feeling about somebody who turned out to not be that bad in the end? ❀
Aww I really liked this. It was vividly written and I enjoyed having my expectations thwarted. I felt bad for misinterpreting him!