Once a year the Knox family would embark on their hiking trip in the Ocala Forest. April always seemed like the perfect time for such an adventure, considering the Florida temperatures would be soaring into the 90’s by mid-May.

Each year since Rob had turned 8, Candace and Rob would separate from their parents, keeping to the same trail they explored every spring to end up meeting their parents in the middle of the trail where their trail and their parent’s trail would fork together. They liked it better this way. They bored of their Father’s attempts to explain every living thing to them, especially when he went on a plant rampage. They didn’t care much for the scientific name of ragweed, they just wanted to look for snakes and the funny looking bugs that crawled across the Ocala Forest floor.

Candace skipped down the trail, glad to be rid of her parents. Rob wasn’t as enthusiastic. Since Candace’s 16^th birthday, she had become quite the witch, teasing Rob, insulting Rob and humiliating him every chance she had.

He recalled one time when he was at his locker at Forest High. He was retrieving his Physical Science text book and minding his own business when Candace and her friends approached from behind.

"Hey, dork!"

"Shut up, Candace," Rob replied, closing his locker.

"Don’t talk to me like that. You should respect your elders."

"What do you want?"

Candace smiled at Rob, while her girlfriends stood behind her snickering. "Oh, nothing. Just wanted to see how you were doing."

"Fine, now bug off."

Rob walked away from his locker and went to class. Sitting down at his desk, he couldn’t help noticing that his classmates were grinning at him. A few of the boys who preferred to stay hidden in the back of the room where looking at him and whispering to each other.

Looking around his desk and inspecting his clothes, he didn’t notice anything unusual. He decided it was best to ignore his classmates and pay attention to the ramblings of his teacher Mr. Droom, other known as, Dr. Doom to the Forest High school students.

90 minutes later, class ended. Sticking to his usual routine, Rob went to his locker to switch out his Physical Science book with his Florida History book and grab his Florida History paper, ‘Ponce De Leon and The Fountain of Youth’. He couldn’t stand lugging around more than 3 books at a time. He thought teachers were crazy making students carry around such huge text books, especially seven of them, one for each class. Even P.E. had a text book. Whoever decided to publish a book about nutrition and sit-ups was a fool he had always thought.

When he arrived at his locker, he realized what all the fuss was about. Sticking out from between his locker door and where the door met, was a pair of Scooby Doo Under-roos he hadn’t worn since he was six-years-old.

His face flushed with embarrassment, Rob opened is locker and stuffed the garments inside. It had always been tradition to pick on the Freshman class, but his own sister?

Since that day, things changed between the two siblings. He had lost all respect for Candace and frankly, she didn’t care.

Silently, they walked down the trail, neither of them caring about the bugs and snakes they used to enjoy so much.

"Oh my God!" Candace yelled. "A monkey!"

Quickly snapping his head to the right, he saw the monkey, covered in brown hair with beady little eyes and a snake-like tail, jumping up and down on a limb in a nearby tree, making a ruckus.

"Cool! It must have escaped from Silver Springs."

Silver Spring was one of two main tourist attractions in Ocala, Florida, the other being Wet N’ Wild water park. It was filled with wild animals, flowers and was known for it’s glass-bottom boat rides across the springs. It was very seldom a monkey would leave such an oasis, but apparently, this monkey had grown tired of people throwing bread at it, hoping to get it to strike a pose for their cameras.

"He looks mad. Should we keep walking?" Candice asked, slowly moving forward in hopes that the monkey wouldn’t jump on her an scratch her eyes out.

"Nah, it’s probably used to people. Someone had to transport it to this state. I bet he swung his way out of Silver Springs thinking he would find somewhere better to hang out. No pun intended."

"I’m going. He’s throwing a fit. You should follow before he attacks you or something."

"What is he going to do? Bite me?" he laughed, making clicking noises at the monkey with his tongue.

"Maybe. They do carry diseases, you know."

"Whatever. He’s cool. Just surprised."

The monkey carried on with his fit and crawled on a limb next to Rob’s head. He reached one of his tiny hands behind him and before Rob knew what hit him, a pile of monkey crap smacked him dead in the face, covering his eyes.

"Shit!" he yelled as his sister laughed.

"You bet it is! A huge pile of it."

His anger brewing, he reached out and punched the monkey as hard as he could with his fist, it‘s soft hair brushing against his knuckles. His eyes still coated with crap, he listened for it to hit the ground and jumped up and down on it until he heard a loud snap.

"How’s that, you little jerk!"

Taking the bottom of his Lollapalooza T-shirt and lifting it to his face, he rubbed the crap from his eyes and looked around.

Next to him in the tree was the furry, little monkey, sitting silently on the limb.

When he looked down, he gasped. Beside his feet was his sister, no longer laughing because her head had been bashed in with his feet. Her eyes had popped out of their sockets, sitting in a pool of blood next to her crushed skull.

The monkey moved forward and jumped on his shoulder, his eyes still plastered on Candace’s face which was caked with blood, strands of bloody, blond hair stuck to her cheek.

Suddenly it dawned on Rob that there would be no more teasing or smart remarks from his older sister and that he had acquired a new pet. He just hoped that the monkey would stay out of his underwear drawer and away from his locker.

©2003 Stephanie Simpson-Woods

Stephanie Simpson-Woods is the author of the 2-part vampire novel "IM~ Internet Message" as well as many short stories floating around in print and over the Internet. In her spare time she does book reviews for Castle Dracula and Psyzmacgrafs Print Zine. For more info, please visit her website at http://stephaniesimpsonwoods.com.