In the Woods

by Carrie Jones

  “Thanks, Mom.” I tell Chrystal what Mom said and listen to her relate the information to her dad.

  “Is it safe?” he asks. “Shouldn’t we stay in town, closer to the police station?”

  “They have guns,” Chrystal tells him. “I don’t want to stay in town. It isn’t much of a town, anyway.”

  “Okay. Okay. We still have to save my books and everything,” he says.

  “Logan, my dad says yes. We have to pack up some things, then we’ll be there. Thank you so much!”

  I nod at Mom, who immediately goes into motion. She heads for the stairs, probably to tell Dad we’re having guests, then to get sheets and blankets for the hide-a-bed in the couch.

  “We can’t let you stay there,” I tell Chrystal. “You don’t really know anybody else here, so we have to help you.”

  “Is that the only reason?” she asks after this incredibly long pause.

  “No,” I answer quickly because it sounds like I might have hurt her feelings. “Just, you know … Well, I think I’ll like having you here.” My face flushes because my sisters are watching me closely.

  “Oooooo,” Katie says from her spot on the floor. She makes hugely exaggerated kissy faces while Kelsey laughs at her. I turn my back on them.

  “Thanks, Logan,” Chrystal says. “We’ll see you soon.”

  “Okay. Call me when you’re close and I’ll meet you outside with a flashlight and my gun.”

  She promises to do that, then we hang up.

  “You didn’t say ‘I love you,’” Kelsey teases.

  “Shut up. I barely know her.” My face reddens even more, though. I go outside to grab my notebook and gun. When I come back in, Mom has put a stack of linens on one end of the sofa and is telling my sisters they better behave.

  “She’s a pretty girl, and nice. You can’t blame Logan if—” She suddenly realizes I’m standing, like, three feet from her, and stops. She looks at me and smiles, but she’s a little embarrassed to be caught in the act of talking about me.

  “If what?” I say.

  “Well, it’s just a shame she lives so far away,” Mom says, and that somehow hits me really hard.

  Chrystal does live halfway across the country. She’ll go home when her dad is finished with this monster investigation, if she even survives this monster investigation. I will not think that, or about her leaving, or …

  Mom sees that she’s hurt me. She takes me by the arm and says, “You just have to enjoy every day you have, one at a time, and trust God to work things out.”

  “Yeah,” I say, but I’m not at all sure I’m going to like this Sunday school lesson. Mom doesn’t usually bring up God, but when something goes wrong, she’ll always say it was God’s will. “Why’d you say they could stay here, Mom? I mean…”

  I’m not sure what I mean.

  My mom brushes dandruff or something off my shoulder. It’s probably nothing. It’s usually nothing. I think she just needs to touch and think I might consider myself too old for a random hug. “It’s the right thing to do, Logan. I’d want people to take care of my family in a time like this … and … well, I like that girl. I feel for her. Her father’s a lovely man, I’m sure, but she needs some mothering and … it’s just right. That’s all.”

  I lean my gun against the front doorframe and sit in a chair in the living room to wait. I wanted to work on my poem some more, but it seems pointless now. I stare vacantly at the TV as Selena Gomez’s character causes more trouble in her parents’ restaurant.

  Midway through the third episode in what seems to be a marathon of the Disney show, my phone rings again.

  12

  CHRYSTAL

  “Why do you think the creature was stalking you, Chrystal?” All of my dad’s quirkiness seems to have drained away and been replaced by something I’ve never seen. It’s almost like fear. Maybe it is fear. His voice is tight and tired-sounding.

  The blacktop back road rolls by, monotonous under the Subaru’s tires.

  “Today wasn’t the first time he’s been there,” I say. “I smelled him the day we checked into the hotel. In the parking lot. But then a Jeep pulled in. I might have seen his eyes in the woods. I’m not sure. Then, another time, I smelled him again and he bumped into the wall. Remember, I sent you a picture of the footprints in the dirt?”

  “That was outside our hotel room?” he asks, looking at me. The Subaru drifts over the dotted yellow line. No other cars are around, but I still reach over and take the wheel, helping my dad ease back into our lane.

  “Yeah, it was,” I tell him. “Plus, Dr. Borgess said all that weird stuff about it being about vengeance, maybe. Remember?”

  He hangs his head and I have to grip the steering wheel hard to keep us going straight.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I never should have brought you here. I should have stood up to your mom.”

  He looks so sad. Sad and beaten. “It’s okay, Dad. It’ll be okay. We’ll be safer with Logan and his family. Now, please pay attention to your driving.”

  Our hotel room is a crime scene now. So is my head—it’s full of images of violence and gore, blood and horror.

  I’m pretty sure that I never really truly believed in monsters before. All the evidence? The unexplaineds my dad collects? I figured that they could one day be explained. Now, though, the reality of a monster is too big to push away again.

  There’s this theory that we see monsters all the time, but our brains choose to ignore them. A dark, hulking form by the side of the kitchen, we turn into a shadow. A large, troll-like creature on the side of the road, standing by a mailbox, we turn into a homeless woman or a tree or something—anything—that our mind can accept and so that we can go on living.

  I can’t do that anymore.

  There are no streetlights on the 720 Road. Everything is dark. Anything could be hiding in that darkness. Monsters. Creatures. Wolfmen. Hell. I think about the deputy in the hotel room, wonder if he’s still alive. My cell phone vibrates with a text. It’s my friend Zoe. I ignore it. I can’t deal with positive affirmations or plans right now—I just can’t. I wonder if that makes me a bad friend.

  Dad keeps talking. “This one is too dangerous for you. It isn’t like Brazil.”

  “We didn’t find any monsters in Brazil.” My seat belt is on, but my knees are pushed into my chest and I hold them there with my arms. “I could have died. That sheriff’s deputy was really hurt.”

  A little sob escapes his throat. His hand goes around my shoulders and he drives with just his left hand.

  For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then he sort of chokes out, “I couldn’t live with myself if anything ever happened to you, Chrystal.”

  “I’m okay, Dad.”

  “But … but … I put you in danger by bringing you here. You didn’t even want to come. I should send you home. You could stay with Zoe, maybe.”

  This is all true, but saying it isn’t going to make either of us feel any better, really. So I resist the urge to do the five-year-old temper tantrum where I say he loves his crazy quests more than he loves me, because:

  1.  I don’t think this is really true.

  2.  It wouldn’t change anything.

  3.  Having a temper tantrum isn’t going to help save anyone.

  “Who wants a life without danger?” I say instead, trying to make my voice very jolly and rah-rah team. It almost works. “Plus, I didn’t die, and I did see a monster. I’m sure I’ll think that’s cool as soon as I stop being so freaked out about it. But first—”

  “But first?”

  “We have to find a way to keep these people safe, Dad. That thing—he was evil.”

  We drive a little more and eventually I get my breathing back to normal. He pulls his arm away just as we turn into the driveway of the farmhouse. I take out my phone to call Logan, but before I do, my dad puts his hand on my arm.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he says. “You were a warrior in that hotel room. You must get that fr
om your mother.”

  Thinking about how devastated he was about the divorce, about how he insists that there are things unknown in the darkness and how he stands up to ridicule as he tries to prove that his beliefs are real, I shake my head.

  “No, Dad,” I say. “I actually think I get that from you.”

  * * *

  As soon as I call Logan, he and his dad rush onto the porch with their guns. They each take a side, eyes scanning the darkness, ready to provide us cover from the monster that could be waiting in the night. The three dogs come out from hiding under the porch and bark at the car until Logan and his dad call them back. Reluctantly, the dogs back off. I know all their names now, thanks to Katie showing me photos at the bowling alley. Thunder goes up onto the porch and sits next to Logan. Galahad sits on the ground in front of the porch, and it’s easy to see he’s just itching to prance and bark at us. Daisy, the older hound, disappears back under the porch. I feel kind of sorry for Daisy, and make sure I give her extra petting whenever I can.

  “Do you think I should tell them that we aren’t sure it’s a Bigfoot?” my father whispers, leaning over.

  “Not yet,” I say, patting his knee. “Let’s try to keep the monster talk to a minimum tonight. Everyone’s a bit spooked.”

  “All the more reason to give them as much information as possible,” he insists.

  “Dad … trust me … people can take only so much in a twenty-four-hour period.” I unlock the car door.

  “True,” he says, looking like he’s in deep thought as he pulls the keys out of the ignition. “I wonder if—”

  “They’re signaling for us to come,” I interrupt. “We have to run, okay?”

  “Should I bring my books?” he asks.

  I grab the bag of toiletries and my bass, which survived the attack because of its nice safe place under the bed. My clothes were all ripped apart. “Just one bag, Dad. And your stuff for sleeping. We’ll come back out to the car when it’s light. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  We run toward the house, past the flowers, over the thick grass, and up the steps in record time. Still, I swear I can smell the monster despite the odor of cow and manure and night woods, and I swear I can hear something snort in the darkness, almost a laugh but not quite.

  “In the house. In the house,” Logan’s dad says as he motions us forward and we rush inside. Logan and his dad follow us. Mr. Jennings locks the door behind us, leaving the porch light on, and mumbles, “Not sure what good that’s going to do.”

  “We find safety in routines,” Dad says. Then he clears his throat and extends his hand. “I can’t thank you enough for helping us, for letting us stay in your house. It’s really exceptionally kind.”

  Tears sprout in Dad’s eyes.

  Logan’s father shoos the words away. “It’s nothing. Anyone would do it.”

  Logan and I make eye contact as he leans his giant gun against the wall. He smiles just the tiniest bit, but his eyes fill with worry. I keep staring at him even as his mom rushes forward and starts hugging me.

  “You poor, poor girl!” she exclaims. “You’re so lucky you survived. Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll take good, good care of you.”

  She’s soft to hug and she smells good, like dinner and dish soap and kindness. Tears spring to my eyes now. I haven’t cried about this, though. I refuse to cry.

  “Logan,” she says, letting go of me but rubbing my arms and looking into my face. “You show Chrystal upstairs. Honey? Do you want your own room or to share with one of the girls?”

  “I’ll share with her!” Katie pipes up. She rubs her hands together like she has evil things in store.

  “Oh, no, you won’t,” Mrs. Jennings says. “How about you stay alone tonight, Chrystal, see how that goes? If you get too scared, you tell one of us and I’ll send Kelsey in to sleep with you.”

  “Thank you,” I murmur as she lets go of my arms. Logan takes me up the stairs. I pad after him, trying not to stare at his butt, which looks really cute in his shorts. He turns around, grabs my bag and bass, smiles at me, and keeps walking, past the stacks of books and ponies that are crammed onto the edges of the stairs.

  “Smoochie, smoochie,” Katie murmurs.

  Everyone starts laughing and then her mom scolds her.

  They are so nice. I can’t believe people are so nice, but I’m really glad they are. It’s funny, really, how I can now believe in monsters, but I still have a hard time believing in nice.

  * * *

  The room must be Kelsey’s, because there are pictures of sparkly vampires on the walls and a lot of middle-grade and teen books on the bookshelves. The walls are light yellow and she’s put giant flowers all over them. The flowers are cut from construction paper and have glitter-glue designs. It’s really cute and really homey.

  “Here you go,” Logan says. “Is this all you brought?”

  He leans my bass up against the desk and puts my bag on a pink flower rug that covers part of the floor.

  “Yeah. He—I— The—he—he ripped apart most of my clothes. All my clothes,” I say, trying to find the words while not actually remembering the sounds of him tearing things up while he tried to find me.

  “So that’s all the clothes you have?” His eyes go wide.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll get you some. You can borrow some of my T-shirts. My mom’s pants would be too big for you, and my sisters’ are probably too small. Maybe there are some shorts?”

  “I’ll be okay,” I say. “I can probably go shopping tomorrow or something. Clothes aren’t important. Trying to figure out how to get this thing. That’s important.”

  I plop down on the bed. The world suddenly seems very dangerous and very difficult. Logan sits down beside me. The bed moves from his weight. He grabs my hand in his and holds it tight. I stare at our entwined fingers. There are a couple blisters on the tops of two of my fingers, and the side of my index finger, from the fire. That’s going to make it so hard to play bass. The blisters are tiny, though, so nobody will notice them, which is good, because I don’t want anyone to make a fuss. I still haven’t texted Zoe back. Guilt pulls inside me and makes it so I can’t even really enjoy the fact that Logan is holding my hand for a super-extended amount of time. He has such nice hands. They aren’t furry. They are so human.

  I stop thinking.

  “I feel like I’m losing it,” I whisper.

  “I felt the same way … after … you know…”

  “I’m really sorry I doubted you.”

  “Sometimes even I doubted me.”

  The digital clock on the bookcase flashes the wrong time. There must have been a power outage before or something. I look away from it. The flashing wrong numbers remind me too much of my head—how I seem to have what happened in the hotel stuck on repeat and it’s a wrong image. Any image that involves a cop bleeding, a monster howling, burning fur … That’s got to be wrong.

  “We’ve both seen him,” he says really slowly. “I figure that binds us together somehow, you know? We’ve both seen him and survived him.”

  I nod really quickly and turn toward Logan so I can see his face. His eyes make little sad circles in his rugged, sunburned face. The hand that isn’t holding mine reaches up and tucks some hair behind my ears.

  “You must have been so scared,” he says. “I know I was, but I wasn’t trapped in a room and I had the dogs, and you … You were just so brave. You know that, right?”

  I shrug. “I don’t feel brave. Now I just feel scared. I just keep seeing him in my head, smelling him … What if he finds me here? What if my being here puts you and your sisters and your parents in danger, Logan?”

  It’s too horrible to think about.

  “We’ll handle him. We’ve got guns and lights. He’d have to be pretty fast to get all the way here tonight, unless, you know, he drives a motorcycle or something.”

  He lifts his eyebrows, which is so endearingly cute that it makes me want to laugh.

&
nbsp; “I can totally see him on a scooter,” I say.

  “No … a Segway.”

  We both start laughing really hard.

  “A skateboard.”

  “A unicycle.”

  “Skis.”

  “Tricycle.”

  “Sow.”

  “No. He’d eat it halfway here.”

  We crack up even more. It’s not even actually that funny. It’s more just absurd, trying to imagine the hairy, evil, clawed thing traveling on all these different transportation devices. I start hiccupping from laughing so hard and this makes Logan snort, which makes me laugh harder.

  Right then Katie appears in the bedroom and screams at the top of her lungs, “THEY ARE KISSING! THEY ARE KISSING ON THE BED!!”

  I leap away from Logan and flatten myself against the wall. He jumps up and starts walking in a frantic little circle.

  Katie makes smooching noises while I hide my face in my hands.

  “Stop it,” Logan orders.

  This inspires her to just giggle more.

  “Katie, go to bed, or something.”

  I peek out from behind my fingers. Logan’s face is all fire-engine red. Katie runs, still giggling, out of the room.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, turning toward me.

  “It’s okay. It’s kind of funny. We need funny.” Out the window, the field with the cows is lit up like a Walmart parking lot or something. “Do you think lights will scare him away? Because my hotel room and the parking lot was lit and it wasn’t … It didn’t keep him from coming in.”

  “Honestly?” He stands behind me. We aren’t touching, but I can feel his body just inches away from my back.

  “Yeah. Honestly.”

  The voice that answers isn’t Logan’s. It’s my dad’s, and he’s standing at the door. “Nothing will.”

  13

  LOGAN