Halloween Short Story: Van Duzer Man
Van Duzer Man
By Tom Peterson
In the Oregon coastal range, there is a road you know well as it makes up a stretch of Highway 18 and takes many in respite to the crashing shores of Lincoln City.
A seemingly innocent stretch of asphalt, that under fairer circumstances of sun and hope, provides a wooded corridor unto the beauties of the Oregon Coast.
Called the Van Duzer, it winds for more than 20 miles through sharp turns with a creek to one side and cut steep mountains to the other. It is a tight stretch to drive - no place to go but down that road.
And while seemingly pleasant in the acrid sweet days of summer, it can funnel oceanic winds with such fury as to lay trees uprooted and treacherously crossing pavement in cooler months.
It was here that the Van Duzer also revealed itself to me in another perilous darkness, one of which I shall never forget.
I was 25 and traveling the dark highway late at night with my wife in the midst of January, as I was to start a new position with a publishing firm the very next day.
We had struggled the miles in a heavy rainstorm in our Volkswagen Bug to come into Grande Ronde. We were fatigued to see the last, most difficult 30 miles still lay before us as we passed the hour of midnight.
The ancient headlight of the Bug provided a minimal degree of vision as the windshield wipers struggled to keep up with the massive pelting drops of rain.
My white tight hands on the steering wheel struggled against the forces outside the Volkswagen. Giant puddles gripped our tires and attempted to pull us beyond the guardrails.
We struggled deeper into the dense forest corridor, trees growing into a total blackout of all light save the few reflectors at the road's edge.
Upon the turn of a blind corner, up ahead at the end of a short stretch, a massive Fir at 6’ wide at the base was falling in the direction of the road.
I jammed the brakes, and the Bug skidded as the tree continued to fall and come closer to us in the thinly lit view out the windshield.
We both shouted out in terror as we imagined thousands of tons of bark and branch crunching through the rooftop and cutting us in half.
The car halted after a slide, and we watched as the tree slammed the pavement 20 feet in front of us, the impact sent sticks flying and branches splintering and slamming the thin metal of our fuselage and breaking the windshield.
We sat stunned in the slow-motion of the crash.
I gathered myself and stepped out the door to inspect the damage.
And through the howl of the winds, I could hear the whine of a chainsaw.
Behind me.
I turned to look to see the bright orange and white case of a chainsaw and a three-foot bar perceptible in the darkness. Its massive chain and blades spun and threw chips as it cut through the bark of another massive tree some 100 feet in the air behind us.
It was held by a creature of which I had never seen the like.
Its massive arms held the saw as a toy, and its head twisted and contorted, with greasy hair and a countenance that bared sharp teeth and eyes that reflected orange. A maniacal laugh cut through the sound of the saw as the blades cut deeper into the wood.
The massive Doug Fir began its lean as the meat of the wood was cut, and the orange of the eyes and chainsaw disappeared into the forest like the sun falling behind the horizon.
The tree snapped and popped and began its descent in a slow heavy catastrophe.
I shielded myself behind the front of the car, frozen in fear. My wife’s muffled scream echoed in the cab.
The crushing sound of the tree hitting the pavement thundered. Wood debris shot from the tree and a branch shot sideways impaling the rear tire of the car.
The car now sat trapped and wounded between two massive logs now, laying to and fro of the vehicle.
I stood to understand. Impossible.
Nowhere to go and nowhere to go.
But I neither needed to wait nor flee.
For the Van Duzer Man was at my back, the STIHL sputtering in idle, bar swinging and cutting my leg. My wife’s face went ashen grey with the visage of the massive orange-eyed beast behind me in flannel.
And with icy breath, it spoke shivers into my wet ear.
“Deadwoods, don’t move but to be burned,” it said.
And I was alight in fire. My body in flames.
And it burned me to the ground.
Nothing but ashes remained.
---
In the light of day, a road crew cleared the tree, bucking massive logs and using a crane to remove the pieces of fresh-cut wood.
Their feet trampled the muddy ash, and the car was eventually towed off.
My wife sat roadside, shoulders wrapped in a blanket, an offering from a police officer.
And we left together on foot, walking the Van Duzer Corridor and into the beckoning comfort of the town and a new life.
---
In the years that have passed, we have never spoken a word of the Van Duzer Man, of its penetrating orange eyes and its incalculable ability to appear at any given moment in that Corridor.
But when we look at each other, we know it’s still there waiting with an idling saw.
