If You Go Down to the Woods

by Seth C. Adams

  I turned and faced Tara. Her face was pale and seemed to float before me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, grabbing hold of her hands without thinking about it.

  “Someone … grabbed me,” she said.

  She cast an anxious glance behind her. I looked that way too. Saw nothing but the darkness.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone … pinched me,” she said. “You know … on the butt.”

  I looked behind her again, balling a fist, but then she was pushing me forward once more. Alone there in the mirrors and dark and mist I lost my moment of bravery as quick as it had come, and let myself be propelled forward. We turned corners quickly but cautiously, our other selves imitating us in their distorted bodies, mocking us, and then there ahead of us, I saw Jim and Bobby, and ahead of them an exit sign glowing red, and an arrow pointing the way.

  “Come on,” I said as we moved up alongside them, wondering why they hadn’t moved towards the door. Then I saw the others, two silhouettes on either side of the door, one thin and one fat, both taller than any of us.

  Footsteps came up from behind me, moving fast.

  A metallic snik and something cool and sharp pressed against my throat. I froze, refusing even to swallow, afraid that one movement, that small ripple of flesh, would split my skin against the blade and a hot crimson wave cascading forth would be the last thing I felt.

  “Where’s the dog, fag boy?” Dillon’s familiar voice issued from behind me. I could hear the smirk in his words, even though I couldn’t see his face. A puff of breath, stale and heavy, whispered in my ear. “I see you and fatty have yourselves a slut and a pet nigger now.”

  Giggles from the shadow people guarding the exit door.

  “Quite a gang of fucking losers you have going,” he said, and I said nothing. “You know I’m going to fucking kill you, don’t you?”

  Here it was, then, I thought to myself. He’d promised me that night on the highway, in his black car like a slick rolling shadow. He’d said he would, and now he was going to.

  “But first let me demonstrate on your dolly,” he said, and I felt the plush Batman torn free from under my arm. I’d forgotten all about it with the knife at my throat, and now with it gone I felt the wetness of sweat under my arm. I sent out a silent apology to the Caped Crusader for bathing him in that most unfavorable of ways.

  The blade moved away from my throat, yet still I didn’t move. My limbs felt weighted by cement, my feet rooted to the ground. I wondered where all the other people were in the Haunted House. What had happened to all the people behind and in front of us? Then I thought of Dillon trailing us, maybe slinking along like an oily eel, and his buds, Stu and Max, in front of us. Could they have maneuvered in such a way as to make sure no new people came in, and waited for the rest to leave?

  I thought maybe they could do just that. They were just the sort of kids—not really kids anymore being in high school, definitely not the size of kids—that even most adults wouldn’t challenge. Just in the short time I’d known him, I could easily imagine Dillon lingering at the entrance to the Haunted House, directing patrons to come back later, his wicked smirk all the average person needed to take a hint and walk away.

  There was a harsh ripping and tearing, and I vaguely saw in the darkness Batman’s white cotton guts spilling out. More laughter from the shadow guards.

  Still I didn’t move.

  But Tara did.

  A passing of air and I felt more than saw her twirl. In my periphery I saw her kick out low and fast, the glint of a burnished sandal. A smack echoed loud in the small corridor and I thought of my sister throwing her sandals at me just a few days ago, and one of them sailing past me and hitting the refrigerator with a solid thump.

  This was louder.

  Sensation returned to my body, blood rushing to the extremities, and though it was gone I felt the haunting touch of the blade at my throat. That cool touch wasn’t something I’d ever forget.

  Turning in the weak light and the murk, I saw Dillon’s dark form hopping up and down, holding a leg at the shin. I thought of the things my dad had taught me, the punches and the kicks. How if you had to fight, if there was no option but to fight, then fight hard and fast, bring your opponent down quick.

  I moved forward, building momentum in the small space between us. As I darted forward I reached out with my hands, felt the leather of his jacket, snagged it and pulled him forward. My head shot forth like a piston, my forehead met his nose, and there was a sharp crack like a twig broken underfoot. A spray of warm blood sprinkled my head. Something gleamed in the darkness there, like ripples of water in the moonlight, and I saw it was the knife—he’d dropped the knife—and it hit the floor with a clatter. I pulled him closer and brought a knee up and into the softness of his belly, and felt the air go out of him in a whoosh like a vacuum sealed container being opened. I let go of his jacket and Dillon crumpled to the ground in a dark heap.

  Just two or three seconds for this all to happen, and yet it felt like an eternity.

  Remembering the shadow guards, I turned to meet them even as they were just moving themselves, hearing their leader and realizing that something was wrong. The not-quite-as-fat-as-Bobby, yet still pudgy Stu moved first, and I saw Jim’s dark form, a shadow in deeper shadow, dart forward, bent low, charging like a bull. He collided with the bigger kid, drove him back and hard against a wall. The room shook with the impact like a quake had passed.

  Seeing his friend go down, tall, lanky, and complexion-challenged Max moved next.

  I pushed Fat Bobby with all my strength and his greater weight overtook that of the taller guy, like a child’s wagon disappearing under a freight train, and now, moving, stepping over and on the figure under him, Bobby ran to the door, opened it. Colliding with each other, bumping and shoving, Tara and Jim joining us at the threshold, the four of us spilled out the door and into the night beyond.

  We ran until the Haunted House, its foam rubber graveyard now too realistic for my taste, was far behind us, lost amidst the people and the lights and the sounds.

  4.

  “Was that Dillon Glover?” Tara said. Fat Bobby and Jim both nodded. “What the hell does he have against you?” This last was directed at me.

  I explained to her about the day at the stream and coming upon Bobby. How the three guys had been throwing rocks and sticks at him, though I left out the part about Fat Bobby being almost naked. I glanced at him and saw the look of gratitude on his face and gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

  “Wow,” she said. “We should tell our parents.”

  Reluctantly I agreed, and I saw Jim nod too, though Fat Bobby remained silent. We walked the midway and kept close to other people and stayed in the lights. Remembering the sound of his nose crunching, I didn’t think Dillon would be feeling up to coming after us anytime soon, but it didn’t hurt to play it safe.

  Jim’s father was the first we came upon, him sitting at a table taking hunks out of a large hotdog and great gulps out of a big soda, so big it almost looked like a pail. He saw us approaching and rose to greet us and ushered us to the table. He asked if we would like anything to eat. Then he saw the looks on our faces, and his dark face took on this scrunchy scowl that made me think of a black hole in space, eager to swallow planets and devour them. Jim explained to his dad what had happened, and Mr. Connolly’s scowl deepened.

  “Those fucks,” he said, and followed with: “He really pulled a knife on you?” I nodded, and he repeated his initial words. “Well, let’s go find everyone’s parents, and then I think we’ll be calling the police.”

  Fat Bobby spoke up, and we all looked at him.

  “My dad’s not here.”

  “Well, then,” Mr. Connolly said, “you stick with me and I’ll give you a ride home. Come on, let’s get moving.”

  We walked around for awhile and came to my parents next, coming out of the exit area from the Ferris wheel. They were still holding hands and my mom w
as pressed close to my dad. Dad saw us, apparently read something in Mr. Connolly’s demeanor, maybe like the looks me and Jim gave each other and seemed to understand without words, and he came jogging up to meet us halfway.

  Dad and Mr. Connolly shook hands, and their eyes met and something passed between them. Mr. Connolly repeated what Jim had told him, and at the end of it my dad had given more than his fair share of “fucks” and “bastards” and “shits,” more in those few minutes than I’d ever heard from his mouth before. Quite a little gathering now, we all walked the midway until a few minutes later we found Tara’s father, whom I didn’t know from anyone else in the throngs milling about, but she pointed out for our benefit.

  The man was tall, taller than Jim’s dad, and slightly gawky, but not strangely so. His height and angular features made him seem like a bird of prey, and when he heard the story Dad and Mr. Connolly told him, he seemed only more so. His face settled into this passively hungry-like expression, his fingers curled like talons wanting to grip and tear something.

  The adults moved a distance away, Jim hung by his dad, Fat Bobby with them, so for a moment it was just me and Tara under the awning of one of the areas set aside for tables and the diners using them. Our parents were exchanging numbers, pens and scratch paper pulled out, scribbling and babbling, talking about the police and what would happen and all three men talking about kicking asses and busting heads. No one paid us any mind under the awning. The moon up above like a pearl seemed to shine its light directly upon Tara and I.

  Tara was holding my hand, I looked at her, and there was that crooked little smile that set my heart to beating like a drum. She said something, but my heart and my blood pumping drowned it out.

  “What?” I asked.

  She smiled and gave one of her little shoves.

  “I’m ready to collect,” she said, and I heard the words but they didn’t make sense for a moment. It was like I was hearing her through water. All I could think was: I’m here in the moonlight with a beautiful girl.

  She leaned forward and her lips met mine. I think I tasted the stars.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1.

  A deputy came to our house that evening and took an initial statement from me, jotting down the things I said with a little nub of a pencil on a little yellow pad of paper. The deputy said the sheriff would be by in the morning to hear everything himself.

  Mom hovered over me hen-like, behavior she normally didn’t indulge in. It was as if she thought maybe I had broken and just hadn’t shown it yet, as a teacup with hairline fractures will crumble with one ill-timed jostle. She made me hot chocolate, sat on the sofa with me, and occasionally pecked me on the cheek or forehead and ruffled my hair. Even Dad walked by a couple times and grasped my shoulder with a firm hand or clapped me on the back and said he was proud of me. I grimaced at these gestures, but didn’t complain too much. I enjoyed sneaking glances at Sarah sitting on the stairs, watching all of this with a frown and a scowl, like she’d won second place in a contest.

  I offered her little smiles.

  She offered me the bird.

  When it was time for bed, however, I went upstairs, climbed under the sheets and closed my eyes, only for the door to open a moment later. My sister stood in her pajamas, outlined in the threshold. She flipped on my desk light and walked in without waiting for an invite.

  “Sarah, please, not tonight,” I said, almost pleaded, covering my head with my hands to defend against the coming noogie.

  “Oh, stop whining.”

  She crossed the room and sat on the edge of my bed. She was silent for a spell but I knew she wanted to say something. From the firm set of her lips and the frown of concentration, it seemed like something important, too. This was strange because all she ever had to say to me were taunts when she was rubbing my head with her knuckles or pulling my underwear so far up my crack I thought it’d come out my mouth.

  I said nothing and waited.

  “Did you really get a knife pulled on you today?” she asked.

  I nodded, letting my hands fall off my head but keeping them at the ready.

  “And your friends were there too? That girl I saw with you at the fair?”

  Sarah had walked up with her new boyfriend just as the gathering of parents and the exchange of phone numbers on the midway had begun to dissipate. I nodded again.

  “You whooped that guy good, like you said?”

  I didn’t know if it was right to feel good about beating someone up. Dad said no, you did what you had to do to take care of yourself and your family, but when you started feeling good about violence it meant you were in trouble. Not legal kind of trouble or even trouble with friends or family. It was an inside kind of trouble, he said, in your heart and soul, that warned maybe you were losing a little of what made you different than those people that tried to hurt you. I thought of this, tried to hold on to it, but when I nodded again in response to Sarah’s question, I felt a little surge of pride and had to smile.

  Just a little one.

  “That’s good,” my sister said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How come you don’t fight back with me?” she asked, and I knew what she meant: the noogies and wedgies and Indian burns.

  “Because you’re my sister.”

  By the light in the hall outside my room, I saw my sister smile.

  She leaned down and gave me a hug. I didn’t know what to do, and I kind of froze for a second. Then, awkwardly, I put my arms around her and gave her a little squeeze.

  “I love you, Joey,”

  She kind of trembled for a moment or two, like she might cry.

  I’d never seen Sarah cry before. The closest was when I drove her near to tears of frustration with my jabs, like I had in the kitchen when she launched her sandals at me. I didn’t know what to do again, so I just held her tighter, and she squeezed me back and then stood up and walked out of my room, closing the door behind her. I was left confused, baffled, still not quite sure what had happened, so I turned over, buried my head in the pillow and tried to sleep.

  But the events of the day replayed again and again in my head: the sounds and sights of the fair, the confrontation in the Haunted House (the feel of the cool blade against my throat and the crunch of Dillon’s nose), and the kiss under the moonlight. Alternately terrifying and alluring, such thoughts kept me tossing and turning, and sleep was a long time coming.

  2.

  If I thought the morning would bring some reprieve from the chaos and exhilaration of the evening at the fair, like the rising of the sun would wash it all away with its golden light, my hopes were dashed right quick. Not five minutes out of the shower, striding downstairs in fresh blue jeans and a flannel shirt, my mom’s sausage and pancakes calling me with their smells and the sizzling of the frying pan bringing water to my mouth, the doorbell rang. Not yet having left for work, Dad went to answer it.

  Looking over my shoulder from the breakfast table, I saw a fat man in a tan and brown uniform filling the doorway. Overshadowing my father with his girth, I saw the bronze badge pinned to the breast of the uniform, and remembered about the sheriff. Dad stepped aside, letting the man in.

  The sheriff doffed his hat respectfully and wiped his boots on the mat. He had jowls like a turkey wattle, but as he followed my dad into the kitchen and to the table, I had to re-evaluate the sheriff as I was afforded a closer look at him.

  Yes, he was fat, but it was the kind of fat with muscle hidden beneath it, so that he seemed formed by barrel kegs stacked atop each other. His hatless head was bald and caught the light from the chandelier over the table, like an oiled bowling ball. He shook hands with everyone, his gaze seeming to hang on Mom and Sarah a bit long, and I wondered if Dad noticed this.

  The sheriff’s hand gripped mine a tad too hard when he offered it to me, and I knew that with a little more pressure he could snap my bones like matchsticks. He had a smile on his face that said: Hey, aren’t I a
friendly guy? and the smile was fake, plastered on like the frozen expression carved upon a mannequin.

  Bandit gave a low growl from under the table at my feet. I shushed him with a gentle hand around his muzzle.

  I looked over at Dad, saw his face was set and the tension there was obvious. I thought to myself: What did I miss here? With only Dad and the sheriff standing, the rest of us sitting at the table (Bandit under it), the sheriff spoke like he was on a stage addressing an audience.

  “Folks,” he said, gesturing with his hat like a teacher with a meter stick at the blackboard, “I’m Sheriff Glover. I understand there was some sort of mishap at the fair yesterday?”

  He looked at me when he said that last part, his eyes concealing something like contempt, as if he was studying a bug he wanted to step on. That smile was still pasted on his face, like he was trying to hide something beneath it, which was his true self.

  “Between you, young man, your friends, and some other boys?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  Dad spoke even as my head was beginning its bob up and down.

  “Mishap is one way to put it,” he said, and the flat tone hiding the anger beneath let me know that, yes, Dad had seen the sheriff’s glances at Mom and Sarah. He’d probably seen the jackal beneath the smile, as well. If I’d had the sense of something not quite right with the sheriff, then it was a safe bet my dad had also. “Someone pulled a knife on my son.”

  “I was getting to that,” the sheriff said, now facing my father.

  “And one of those ‘other boys’ was your son, Sheriff,” Dad continued, and I saw the sheriff’s bowling ball head go a shade of red as quick as a lava lamp. “Dillon Glover, right? Mr. Connolly filled me in on that little fact.”

  “Now, there’s no reason to get hostile,” Sheriff Glover said. One hand went to his holster and the gun there, like all he needed was a little prodding and he’d pull the piece out and start with the pistol whipping, or worse. “I was about to touch on my boy’s misdeeds before you interrupted me.”