Free Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel Page B

boulder to get a better look. The pool’s water was black in the shade. On a flat rock beside the water, she could see one pale body bouncing up and down on another.
    â€œHe said he loved me. Don’t words mean anything anymore?” The woman wiped her tears on Cheryl’s sweatshirt and tried to hug her. Down on the rock, the couple humped away.
    Cheryl was not thinking of Paul when she picked up a stick and tossed it in a blind arc. It spun around down onto the man’s clenched buttocks, causing him to yell and roll off the woman. He fell into the swimming hole with a quiet splash.
    â€œPerverts!” the naked woman shouted, pointing at them. She was scrambling for her clothes. “The woods is full of perverts!”
    Cheryl felt relief flow through her. She turned and smiled at the woman next to her, her new sister in a world of shitty men.
    â€œWhy did you do that?” the woman said. Her face scrunched up as she stepped backwards.
    â€œI thought that’s what you wanted,” Cheryl said.
    â€œYou have to let me confront things on my own terms,” she said.
    The naked woman was running deeper into the woods, and the man was staring up at Cheryl.
    â€œHey!” the naked man said to Cheryl, clothes clutched to his crotch. “Aren’t you in my yoga class? Charlotte, right? Or Charlene?”
    Cheryl left them all there shouting and tried to find a path without people. She followed the curve of the valley and then ascended on the far hills. Bright lichens covered everything.
    Before Paul there had been Theodore, and before Theodore there had been Christopher, Jeremy, Karl, Andy, and Abraham. And there was another horrible line of them waiting in the future, with even worse names like Kevin and Camden. She could feel all of them groping her with endless clammy palms.
    That was not to let women off the hook, especially not mothers like Paul’s, who would back her against the kitchen sink, stab a finger into one of Cheryl’s ovaries, and ask, “When are you going to stop letting these go to waste?”
    The sun broke through a fist of clouds. Cheryl was looking up at the treetops when she felt a stick smack against her shin. “Shit!” she yelled.
    A small girl and her even smaller brother were standing in front of her. The boy was whirling a stick around and making zapping noises with his mouth. The girl was staring up at Cheryl with a broken stick in her hand and a pout on her face.
    â€œYou broke my wizard stick,” the girl said.
    â€œAnd you said the s word,” the boy added. He whacked his sister’s jacket and said, “Shazam!”
    The girl didn’t acknowledge her brother. She kept looking at Cheryl and made her eyes start to water.
    â€œOkay, okay,” Cheryl said. She walked into the woods and tried to rip a thin branch off a sycamore. It clung surprisingly to life. Eventually she just picked an appropriate-sized stick off the forest floor, which the girl grabbed without even a thank-you.
    â€œYou want to see a Death Fire Spell? I’ll show you a Death Fire Spell!”
    The two ran off down the path. Cheryl was feeling tired and leaned against a large tree with dark red leaves. Maybe Paul could be the end, she thought. She did love Paul during certain hours of certain days. How many hours did you have to love someone to be in love?
    She felt something crawling on her neck. Ants poured out of the bark.
    Cheryl ran up a pathless hill, swinging her arms around to ward off branches and small plants. She thought if she got to the top she would be able to spot Paul.
    There was a plastic bag full of Chunky soup cans tied up at the overlook. The large rocks were piled up with deep cracks, and Cheryl wondered what kinds of beasts or snakes might leap out at her. She climbed to the top of the rocks and looked out across the valleys and toward the shrunken town. Autumn was spreading with crackling orange and red leaves, like the