Escape Characters

Three Caribou

So I'm younger, maybe.

I'm in my parents' boat, with my mother, father, and sister. I'm loading red cartridges into a peculiar looking shotgun.

"The caribou are extremely dangerous this time of year. They are fast, and they can charge at any time. We have to be ready to fully discharge, all of us," my father says, loading his weapon as well. Finished, I hand the shotgun to my sister.

"Some of these guns have magnetic triggers on them, how do we tell the difference between those triggers, and normal ones?" my sister asks, going unanswered. Just then, we came closer to the shore. A calf, weeks old, watched our approach on the bank. Less than fifty feet into the brush, three caribou were fighting together, ramming horns together, but at an incredible rate, almost like a lawn mower engine starting up.

We sat with weapons ready, listening to the mechanical rhythm of their collisions, waiting for them to notice us.

And then I woke up.