In the Woods

by Carrie Jones

  Two seconds later he falls backward. Black foam comes out of his mouth. He heaves it up again and again. His eyes roll back into his head and he shudders all over. I scoot backward, against the tree, sliding down to a sitting position. I take the mug in my hands, clutch it to my chest.

  There is too much noise. It’s like a pack of werewolves are all around us. But I have to stay focused on the one that is right in front of me.

  Foaming and snarling, he gets to his knees. He sways, but forces himself to his feet, where he stands towering over me, unsteady but huge and sick and very, very angry.

  Then a whisper hisses through the air and makes a loud, wet thunp as it slams into his shoulder. The werewolf screams in agony and claws at the arrow—Logan’s arrow—protruding from his shoulder. He falls to his knees again.

  I watch him turn back into a man, a naked, ugly man.

  His hand reaches toward me.

  “You’re a killer, just like the rest of them,” he whispers. “I knew it the first time I saw you in the office with your father. Before then. I knew. I knew when he sent me that email, a picture of him and you in the icon. You had death in your eyes.”

  He collapses at my feet.

  “You’re the killer,” I say.

  “We both are. What did your dead philosopher say, Chrystal? ‘Purity of heart is to will one thing’? My heart is pure. Yours is divided. It makes you weak. You want too many things, do too many things.”

  “Kierkegaard was not perfect. He was just a man, Professor Borgess. I know that,” I gasp out. “But he makes me think. I wish he had made you think too. You’ve wasted your life, hurting people for what? Hurting me for something my ancestor did? I thought you were smart, at least.”

  “I am smarter than you.”

  I shrug. “You have lost yourself.”

  “So have you.” His words are quiet now, still full of anger, but not … He’s dying. I know he is.

  His eyes close.

  I step away.

  Have I lost myself?

  Who is he to say? Who am I to listen?

  Kierkegaard said, “The greatest hazard of all, losing the self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss—an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc.—is sure to be noticed.”

  There is barking and howling all around me. Deep inside my mind it registers that this canine noise is not a threat. Tree branches fight to stay attached to their trees as the wind picks up more and more. Rain will fall soon. And I can’t let it get in the blood. I put my hand over the top of the mug, protecting it from pending rain, and sit there, watching, waiting, but still he doesn’t move.

  “Chrystal!” Something is crashing through the brush nearby.

  “Logan,” I whimper. He can’t see me. He might think I’m already dead.

  I manage to pull myself back into a standing position and stagger a step away from the body.

  “Logan,” I call again, without volume. “Logan.”

  Something is howling.

  Something is calling my name.

  Stopping to check behind me, I see Borgess is still not moving. The wind is swirling pine needles and old, dry leaves all around him, a sea of decay. I totter a bit. I don’t trust myself to carry the mug, so I bend to put it down again, thinking I’ll put some leaves over the top to protect the blood inside.

  “Chrystal!”

  It’s Logan. He is so sweet, so kind. Nothing like the wolf. Nothing. I should have just liked him for real right away. I wasted so much time.

  35

  LOGAN

  I’m close to the place where Chrystal and I first saw the three trespassers and the other man who turned out to be the werewolf. I’m halfway up the slope that leads to one of our ponds and there, fifty yards away from me, is the monster. Something’s wrong with him. It looks like the thing is vomiting.

  He’s on his knees, trying to stand up. I stop and put an arrow to the string, pull the string back until the tension is released. I hold it, watching. The thing rises and stands there, wobbling, growling. I tell myself to concentrate. To breathe. To aim for the head.

  I hit him in the shoulder.

  But he goes down again, and out of sight behind some shrubs.

  Then I see Chrystal. She stands up, leaning against a sycamore for support, one hand against the white trunk while another holds something … a cup? Then she begins walking. Not toward me, but down the slope to my left, carefully holding something in both hands.

  “Chrystal!” I yell to her, but she doesn’t acknowledge me. I go crashing through the brush after her. Behind me, I hear David veering off in her direction too.

  My side is sending sharp stabs of pain all through my torso from running so long and hard. I watch as Chrystal bends over, then stands up again with empty hands. Then I’m there with her, taking her hands in mine and calling her name.

  Her eyes find me, but they’re empty at first. Then, slowly, recognition fills them. She smiles. “Logan?”

  “It’s me, Chrystal. It’s me. Are you okay?”

  “I killed him,” she says. “And I got the blood. Your family can be whole again. I got it.” She bends over and picks up a cup. It’s my camping mug, the one that collapses down to fit in a pocket. It’s full of dark-red blood with bubbles around the edges.

  “What’s that?” David asks.

  “Werewolf blood,” Chrystal answers.

  “Is he really dead?” David asks.

  “Yes, I said I killed him. You never listen,” Chrystal says, but she didn’t see him staggering up behind her when we shot him again.

  “Monsters tend to come back to life,” David says, “Plus … um…”

  I give him a signal to shut up. He actually shuts up.

  The dogs are still barking.

  “Let’s go have a look.” I watch Chrystal. She nods once. The three of us start walking. From the bottom of the hill, Mr. Davis calls to us. I wave him forward and he starts laboring up the slope.

  Professor Borgess, stark naked, is lying on his stomach in the dirt. The wind is blowing leaves around his body and whipping his hair. The loose wolf hair blows away from his skin. Black foam is drying around his mouth, and a thick black fluid oozes from a gaping wound in his arm. A trickle of black leaks around the shaft of my arrow.

  “So is he dead?” David asks again. “Really dead?”

  “You really have trust issues,” Chrystal says. “Or is it belief issues?”

  “It’s a monster. I want to be sure,” David wipes at the end of his nose with his shaking fingers.

  “One way to be sure.” I take another arrow and nock it, then aim at his back, where his heart should be.

  “No!” Chrystal grabs my arm. “No, Logan.”

  She kneels beside the body and puts a hand to his throat, holds it there, then looks up at me and David. “No pulse.”

  I clip the arrow back into the quiver and help her up. That’s when I see the wound on her hand.

  Her face is pale and she’s sweating. It’s hot outside, but we’re in pretty deep shade. Something is definitely not right.

  “You’re hurt,” I say.

  “It’s nothing,” she lies.

  Mr. Davis joins us, huffing and puffing. “What’s wrong?”

  “Chrystal’s hand is hurt.”

  “Look, nothing’s wrong, okay?” Her voice is short, cranky. “He’s dead. I got the blood we need to treat your dad. Let’s get back to the house and make the cure. We have to—”

  Mr. Thompson calls in the distance. He comes running, pulling along another man who has duct tape hanging from his wrists and clothes. It’s Mr. Lawson Smith.

  “Dad?” Chrystal yelps. Her hand comes out to me and she passes off the cup of blood.

  “Chrystal!” Mr. Lawson Smith yells, then charges at her and throws his arms around her. Chrystal puts her arms around her dad’s neck and that’s when I get a good look at her wound.

  It’s a long
gash on her hand.

  “You’re hurt and bleeding,” I say, almost accusingly.

  “What? Where?” Mr. Lawson Smith asks, pushing Chrystal away to look at her.

  Chrystal puts her hand behind her back. “It’s nothing. I cut it on a branch. We have to go. We have to hurry. For Logan’s dad.”

  “You’re pale, Chrystal,” Mr. Lawson Smith says. He puts a hand on her sweaty forehead. “You have a fever, too. That was no tree branch.”

  “Dad, come on. We have to go. We have to hurry … For Logan’s—He’s such a nice man.… Their family … So perfect.… We have to go save them.” She turns around and stumbles, catches herself, and looks back at us as if to say something.

  Then she collapses at our feet.

  * * *

  Chrystal is lying on our couch. She’s pale. She’s sweating. She is unconscious and moaning in her sleep. Sometimes she has minor convulsions. I want to be with her, holding her hand. Any minute, I know, Mr. Lawson Smith is going to send me out of the kitchen.

  “Is it boiling yet?” I ask.

  “No,” he answers.

  I go to the doorway and look at Chrystal, then hurry back to her dad, looking over his shoulder at the pot on the stove. “How about now?”

  “Logan, please go check on Chrystal,” he tells me. “Put a cool, wet cloth on her forehead. Tell her I’m hurrying, but that it has to be exact. Can you do that for me?” His eyes meet mine, and we both know he’s really just getting rid of me because I’m bothering him.

  “Yeah.” I go and do just what he says.

  It seems like an eternity before I smell the sharp, acidic scent of the wolfsbane flower being dropped into the boiling water. I have to really struggle to stay in my place sitting on the coffee table, holding Chrystal’s hand. I want to go back to the kitchen and check on things.

  Mom would get on me for sitting on the table like this.

  “That’s the wolfsbane,” I say to Chrystal. “Can you smell it?”

  I don’t know if she can.

  Out in the barn, David and Mr. Davis are doing the afternoon milking. Rain, shine, blizzard, or werewolf attack, the cows have to be milked. Farming isn’t a Monday-to-Friday job. I wonder what they’re saying out there, if anything at all. The wind has continued to pick up. It’ll rain before dark.

  “Fascinating!” Mr. Lawson Smith says from the kitchen. I assume he must have poured the blood into the water and seen that same weird reaction Chrystal and I saw last time. “That is just incredible. I have never in my life seen anything like this.”

  I can’t help myself. I give Chrystal a quick kiss and return to the kitchen. “Is there enough?”

  Mr. Lawson Smith gives me an annoyed look. I’ve never seen him look annoyed before. “I can’t say yet. What you gave your father earlier, it was just like this?” He waves at the pot.

  “Yeah. Just the blood and water we’d boiled the flower in.”

  “And he recovered?”

  “Yeah, partially. It was really quick. He was sitting up and talking last I saw him.”

  “How about since then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Call your mother. Ask how your dad is.”

  Is this another ploy to keep me busy? I don’t know. His face is pretty serious. I whip out my phone and call Mom. I can tell from her voice that things aren’t good.

  “He relapsed,” she says. Her voice is so tired. So defeated. “Logan, what was that stuff you gave him? The doctor took it away. He thinks it has some kind of poison in it. What was it? Did your father ask you to poison him to end this?”

  “No, Mom. It was a temporary cure. He was better. It made him better. Did he drink more of it?”

  “No. He was sitting up, having his lunch, when his whole body stiffened up. His heart stopped for almost a minute. They found the bottle while they were resuscitating him.”

  “How’s Kelsey?”

  “Fine. In shock about everything, like the rest of us. No. Worse. But physically fine. She was dehydrated. They gave her an IV.”

  While she talks, Mr. Lawson Smith turns down the heat on the stove. Using a spoon, he gently stirs the liquid in the pot. He was lashed to a tree so close to our house. I don’t know why the werewolf would keep him so close. To taunt us? As bait for us? Who knows? Who knows why the twisted do the things they do?

  “I’m going to be there pretty soon, Mom,” I say. “We killed him. We killed the werewolf. But Chrystal got his blood first, so we can make the real cure. The permanent cure. But she was bitten too.”

  “Chrystal was bitten? She killed that monster? Little Chrystal did it?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know how. She got sick and passed out before she could tell us about it. Her dad is making the cure right now. He was tied to a tree. He looks okay. Dehydrated, maybe. As soon as it’s done I’ll come to the hospital.”

  “Logan, they’re not going to let you give Dad anything else. They might not even let you back in.”

  “I have to go, Mom. We will make this work. We will get Dad the cure. Bye.” I hang up before she can respond.

  “The drink you gave your father was too diluted,” Mr. Lawson Smith says. “I am sorry to say it, but after that temporary respite, it has made his condition worse because it simply put more werewolf blood into his system. Come, take a gander at this.”

  What he is stirring is much thicker than what we had. It looks almost like tomato sauce.

  “We have to keep stirring this over low heat until it has the consistency of pudding,” he says.

  “But…” I don’t want to say it. “But the water is boiling away and there isn’t as much of the stuff.”

  Mr. Lawson Smith nods. “I realize that.”

  “Will there be enough?”

  He looks at me and I can’t read his expression. “How much does your dad weigh?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe…” I think about my own weight and how much bigger Dad is than me. He’s gotten a little soft around the middle, but not too much. “Maybe about a hundred and ninety, two hundred.”

  “We’ll see,” Mr. Lawson Smith says. He waves at an open book on the counter beside the stove. It’s one of the books we’d looked at earlier, open to a page with text and a drawing of a cauldron over a fire. “We need about one ounce for every fifty pounds of body weight. Your dad is, we’ll say, two hundred. Chrystal is about one fifteen. That’s about seven ounces.”

  We both look back into the pan. The dark-red brew is thicker than before, more like tomato paste, and now there’s even less of it.

  * * *

  There is actually almost a quarter of an ounce extra. Mr. Lawson Smith uses a measuring set he has, along with little plastic tubes he says are for specimen samples, to hold the extra and the dose for my dad. He holds the white tube with the extra up to the light and smiles.

  “I have a friend in New Hampshire who will be very happy to have a look at this,” he says.

  New Hampshire.

  East Coast.

  Maine.

  Chrystal’s home.

  Better home in Maine than dead.

  “Are we ready?” I ask.

  Mr. Lawson Smith slowly puts his prize away in a black nylon bag. He doesn’t look at me, though. He just stands there, holding the bag.

  “What if she doesn’t want it?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “What if Chrystal doesn’t want the cure?”

  I gape at him. I can feel my eyes blinking as I try to comprehend this. “What?” I ask again. “Are you crazy?” That’s horribly disrespectful, I know, but come on!

  “Would it be so bad?” he asks.

  “Chrystal doesn’t want to be a werewolf,” I almost yell at him. How can he even think it? He finally turns to look at me, and I can see the fear on his face.

  “What if this is wrong?” he asks me. “What if the book is not factual? What if I did something incorrectly?”

  I see where he’s going. I nod at him. “I understand. Bu
t, Mr. Lawson Smith, I know Chrystal. Yeah, I mean, I’ve only known her this one summer, but I think I know what she would say. We talked about evil. Chrystal could never live like that. She would hate herself.”

  “She’s my little girl.” His voice cracks as he says it.

  For a second, seeing him break down is just really uncomfortable. Nobody wants to see a grown man cry. But we both love the same girl, in different ways. I know what he’s feeling. I feel it, too. I put my arms around him and we hug each other tightly.

  “You have romantic feelings toward her, don’t you?” he says into my shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “Does she, toward you?”

  “I think so. She said she does.”

  He pulls away from me and now he’s smiling, but it’s a little sad. “I always hoped she’d find a nice boy like you. And yes, you’re right. She could never live like Dr. Borgess did.” He takes a deep breath. “Let’s cure my little girl.”

  36

  CHRYSTAL

  Pain. It’s like my body is a black hole, but in a black hole nothing exists, right? I’m not sure. But the pain exists like some sort of never-ending explosion in every single one of my cells. The pain makes me into nothing. I become it.

  Logan’s hand holds mine.

  My father’s voice murmurs.

  Open.

  But I don’t want to open. I want them to kill me. I want … I can’t turn into that thing. I know that’s what’s happening. I can’t …

  Open.

  Then Logan’s voice: “Please, Chrystal.”

  Something presses against my lips. Pudding? They want me to eat pudding? I can’t even move my lips and they want me to eat pudding? The men in my life make no sense.

  Chrystal, for me.

  For Logan.

  My head swims backward into some sort of dream, but it’s real: Dad swinging me around and around at the Blue Hill playground. The grass swirls beneath me, the blades of it blurring into one mass of green. My mother laughs, sitting on a swing, watching. We were perfect.