Dark Woods

by Steve Voake

  ‘This tree is real. So is the rain, and the lightning, and the forest, and the whole of this crazy world that we’re in. That man back there might have stepped out of your dreams, but he was real enough to hurt us, that’s for sure. And like you said, Cal, we’re going to get out of here. We’re going back to a place where no one tries to hurt us any more. OK?’

  Cal rested his head against the tree because he wanted to know that it was still solid, that the world had not dissolved.

  ‘We’ll never make it down to the valley in this weather,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should try and find our way back to the house.’

  ‘Cal, we’ve just escaped from one psychopath. Let’s not go looking for another one.’

  ‘Jefferson’s not a psychopath.’

  ‘Don’t even start,’ said Eden, running a hand through her wet hair.

  ‘I’m just saying we should go back and get our bearings. See if we can find out where we are.’

  ‘Oh, like he’s going to let us do that. Just walk right in there and help ourselves to his map collection.’

  ‘Maybe not. But you’ve seen his place. The binoculars, guns and all the rest of it. He goes out, Eden. And when he does, that’s when we go in.’

  ‘And do what, exactly?’

  ‘And find out where we are. You said you could drive, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, but we tried that, remember? I couldn’t find the keys.’

  ‘But maybe that’s because they were still in his pocket. Maybe now we’ve gone he’ll have put them back in a drawer or wherever it is he keeps them.’

  ‘That’s a lot of maybes, Cal.’

  ‘No, it stands to reason. He’s not going to take his keys out hunting with him, is he? He’s not going to risk dropping them somewhere in the middle of the wood.’

  ‘But who says he’s going out hunting?’

  ‘He has to eat. Look, I know there are no guarantees, Eden. But at some point he’s got to go out. And I seriously think it’s our best chance of getting out of here.’

  Eden chewed her lip and shivered.

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe. But I don’t like the sound of the hunting part. I mean, you know who he could be hunting for, right?’

  ‘All the more reason for us to be out of these woods. The stream was on our right when came down the mountain, so as long as we keep it on our left, we should be heading in the right direction.’

  In spite of the rain, Eden smiled.

  ‘Are you sure you weren’t in the Girl Scouts?’

  ‘Dyb, dyb, dyb,’ said Cal, grinning and making a three-fingered salute.

  ‘OK, now you’re just being weird. Sometimes I think you’re completely—’

  But Eden stopped mid-insult as a look of pure terror crossed her face. Beneath his feet, Cal felt a strange vibration in the earth.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  But Eden just shook her head and clutched at his arm.

  ‘It’s coming,’ she said. ‘It’s coming for me.’

  Thirty-Two

  ‘What?’ asked Cal. ‘What’s coming?’

  ‘Shhh!’ hissed Eden, staring around like a frightened animal. ‘We have to be quiet or it’ll find us.’

  Cal wanted to ask again what would find them, but he could see she was almost out of her mind with terror so he followed her gaze to the source of the tremor, which appeared to have moved a few metres in front of them. The earth trembled like a railway platform before the train arrives.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You’ve had your nightmare,’ said Eden. ‘This one’s mine.’

  Cal saw something move in the trees and then a young mule deer emerged from the shadows with its nose twitching. As the earth shuddered again the deer pricked up its ears and stamped nervously, breath steaming in the damp night air.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t move,’ whispered Eden. ‘That’s what it’s come for. It can sense the vibrations through the earth.’

  Cal was still trying to figure out what she meant when the ground behind the deer suddenly cracked in two and a line of earth streaked across the forest towards it, like an invisible plough carving its way through the soil. As the frightened animal turned to run, the ground beneath it erupted and a long, worm-like creature with white, sightless eyes came squirming out of its newly formed burrow, testing the air with its head until it brushed against the deer’s leg. Immediately, the creature’s face split open to reveal slime-covered jaws that snapped shut on the animal’s hind leg and dragged it struggling down into the earth.

  It was over in seconds.

  One moment the deer was there; the next it was gone, leaving only a dark hole and the sound of rain, dripping from the trees.

  Cal stared at the line of earth and turned to Eden in disbelief.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘I’ve been having nightmares about it ever since I was a kid,’ whispered Eden, unable to tear her gaze from the dark hole beneath the pines. ‘But it can’t be real, can it? I mean, it was just a dream.’

  ‘I think we know the answer to that,’ said Cal. ‘But what was it?’

  Eden put her hands over her eyes.

  ‘I don’t even want to think about it.’

  ‘You have to,’ said Cal, ‘and then you have to tell me. Because if we’re going to get out of here, we have to figure out a way of dealing with it.’

  ‘But you saw what it did,’ said Eden, close to tears. ‘How the hell do we deal with something like that?’

  ‘All right,’ said Cal, ‘just calm down and breathe.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder and took a deep breath, encouraging her to do the same.

  Eden leaned against the tree and looked over her shoulder, as if half expecting the creature to resurface.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s gone,’ Cal said. ‘The deer will keep it busy for a while.’

  He was aware that he sounded braver than he felt. But he knew that he had to try to control his fears for both their sakes.

  ‘So, come on. Tell me about this dream.’

  Eden wiped her eyes and Cal couldn’t tell whether it was because of the rain or because she had been crying.

  ‘It started when I was about six years old. I’d been watching this cartoon on TV, something about some kids who were exploring a jungle where no one had ever been before. And I remember thinking it was kind of cool, because there were all these colourful plants and it seemed like such a beautiful place.’

  ‘Sounds OK so far,’ said Cal.

  ‘That part was fine,’ said Eden. ‘But then the music changed, you know, to those creaky violins, and I could tell right away something bad was going to happen. And I wanted to go and find my mom, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the TV. So I just kept right on watching.’

  She stared into the distance as if she was watching a movie, replaying the whole thing in her mind.

  ‘Then they came to a garden with a goat tethered to a tree in the middle, and it was surrounded by high stone walls. And the oldest kid pointed to a little pile of earth next to the wall, like a mole had been there or something. But then the camera zoomed in close and it started to grow real fast, and there was this rumbling sound …’

  ‘Like just now,’ said Cal.

  ‘Yeah, just like that,’ said Eden. ‘And then it suddenly drilled its way across the yard and pulled the goat down into its burrow. It was the scariest thing I’d ever seen and I’ve had nightmares about it ever since. I must have had one at Jefferson’s place, what with the drugs and all. That’s when Jefferson must have lifted it from my mind.’

  ‘But what happened in the end?’ asked Cal. ‘How did they deal with it?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Eden. ‘I just remember it was able to track them down by sensing the vibrations when they walked. Which is what scared me more than anything. Because there was nowhere to hide.’

  They listened in silence for a while, but all they could hear was the ra
in and the distant rumble of thunder.

  ‘The storm’s moving away,’ said Cal, looking up at the sky. ‘If we’re going to make it to the house, then maybe we should get going.’

  ‘Cal!’ hissed Eden as he started to walk away. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to the house,’ replied Cal. ‘Like we agreed, remember?’

  ‘But didn’t you hear what I said? That thing can sense us. You saw what it did to the deer. If we start walking it’s going to hear us and hunt us down. Do you want to be torn apart?’

  ‘No I don’t,’ said Cal. ‘But neither do I want to stay here for the rest of my life.’

  ‘So you’re just going to walk out there and let it kill us?’

  Cal looked at her.

  ‘Honestly?’ he said. I don’t know what I want to do. But I do know that we’re going to die if we stay here with no shelter and nothing to eat or drink. So I say we have to take our chances and go for it.’

  ‘But I’m scared,’ said Eden quietly. ‘I’m really, really scared.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cal, walking back to her. Then, as she began to cry for the first time since he had met her, Cal put his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘Hey, come on,’ he said. ‘That thing just ate, remember? By the time it’s ready for dessert, we’ll be long gone.’

  Eden pressed against him for a while longer until he added, ‘Am I right?’ and then she nodded and pulled away.

  ‘I guess so,’ she said, and Cal could see that she was still afraid but trying to be brave. ‘Thank you, Cal.’

  And although Cal was afraid too, he felt stronger than before.

  ‘Just take it slow and quiet,’ he said. ‘We’ll be out of here before you know it.’

  Thirty-Three

  As the storm raged outside, Jefferson placed the oil lamp in the middle of the table before pulling the faded brown photo album out of the bookcase. He sat down and tried to remember a time in his life when he had been happy.

  Starting at the back, he looked at the pictures of him and Tansy, the last episodes of his life ever to be captured on camera. He was smiling then, but his happiness had been merely a rainbow of oil on the surface of dark waters. It was tempered by the knowledge that, in all probability, Tansy would die before him and he would be left alone in the world once more.

  Turning to the front of the album, he saw the photograph of himself with his mother, the one he knew so well. The pair of them were standing together in the garden with a backdrop of roses and apple blossom, her wearing a straw hat and carrying a basket of flowers, him clutching a crumpled copy of New Scientist.

  He knew, looking at the photograph, that just two days later he would be the happiest he had ever been in his life and that, like everything else in this world, his happiness would turn to dust.

  He was seventeen years old. He had always been a loner, always the last one to leave the library at the end of the day.

  ‘Time to go home now, Jefferson,’ the librarian would say as the caretaker put the chairs on the tables and swept the floor around him. ‘The books will still be here tomorrow.’

  She was right, of course. Which was probably why Jefferson liked books more than people. Books were dependable things, full of facts that said this is how the world is. They never tried to confuse you by hiding what was inside. Books had no secrets. You could just open them up and look right in. And when you went back to them again they were always there, exactly where you left them.

  Besides, Jefferson didn’t need friends because his mother had told him that they would only distract him from his studies.

  ‘Hard work and dedication. Those are the only things that will get you anywhere in this world,’ she told him. ‘Make me proud of you, Jefferson. Make me proud of who you are.’

  And on that day, that summer day when the sky was bluer than the ocean and the handrails in the school yard were too hot to touch, he had walked out of the Principal’s office with a smile on his face and a letter in his hand that told him the future was his for the taking.

  He had run down the drive then, past the library where the librarian had adjusted her bifocals and tried to discern why he had not taken his usual path past the carefully planted shrub beds to the library entrance. She had half wondered to herself whether he might be sick, but the uncharacteristic smile on his face suggested otherwise, so she contented herself with the task of cataloguing the non-fiction section, reassuring herself that tomorrow everything would be back to normal. She would speak to Jefferson as he painstakingly scribbled his notes in a cheap, dime-store notebook and no doubt discover some ordinary, mundane reason for his unexplained absence.

  But the reason was neither ordinary nor mundane, and as Jefferson walked out of the school gates and through the suburban streets with their carefully tended lawns, their white picket fences and their back-yard basketball hoops, he had a sense of a world rearranging itself around him, all the pieces clicking neatly into place.

  Looking back on it now, Jefferson saw with sudden clarity that this was the one moment in his life when he had been truly happy. The moment when all the setbacks and difficulties in the years leading up to it had suddenly seemed no more than tests; obstacles along a winding path that had led at last to a straight road, stretching far ahead of him. A road that would lead to a place where no one would ever laugh at him again, where people would marvel at his achievements and everyone would agree that Jefferson Boyd was a person who was going places.

  And his mother.

  His mother would be so proud.

  Clutching the letter to his chest, Jefferson had stopped at the store to buy his mother some flowers. It was, after all, a celebration, and as he paid for them he imagined her fussing over their arrangement, picking out her favourite vase before placing it on the dresser by the window.

  Taking the short-cut through the park, past the women who watched the swings tick the days of motherhood away, Jefferson hurried down the street and saw that the screen door was open and the front porch was empty. He thought this unusual because his mother was always there looking out for him, waiting on the porch swing for the moment when he would turn the corner and come back into her world again. But then he remembered, of course, that she wouldn’t be expecting him yet because he always stayed at the library until late. It was unseasonably hot, even for July, and she had probably gone inside to prepare a jug of iced lemonade.

  The door creaked on its hinges as Jefferson pushed it open, bluebottles buzzing around the screens. He heard the swish of the ceiling fan and the hum of the refrigerator.

  ‘Mom?’ he called, placing the flowers on the drainer and reaching for her favourite vase. ‘It’s me, Jefferson. I came home early.’ He wandered into the living room and saw that the cushions were all straightened up, same as they had been when he left that morning. Figuring she must be in the bedroom, he went into the hallway and called up the stairs.

  ‘Mom, come on down, will ya? I got something to show you.’

  Still no answer.

  He smiled to himself, guessing she’d gone upstairs for a nap and fallen asleep in the heat.

  Even now, more than thirty years later, Jefferson could recall every detail: the worn carpet, the smell of her perfume, the ticking of the clock in the hall.

  He found her lying by the bed. She looked as though she was fast asleep, although according to the paramedics who had arrived within minutes of his frantic phone call, she had been dead for several hours. It was a heart attack, they explained, apparently brought on by a combination of the heat and the effort of climbing the stairs. ‘I’m sorry,’ said the older paramedic as they carried her out of the house for the last time. ‘It must be a terrible shock.’

  After he had watched the ambulance drive away, Jefferson had walked back into the house that suddenly seemed so empty and sat down at the kitchen table.

  He had stared at the letter for a long time, the letter offering him a scholarship to Harvard, the letter that she w
ould never see. And it was as if at that moment his heart, like hers, became something solid and unmoving; calcified in an instant by the realisation that he had been cast adrift on an endless sea, and there was no one left to save him.

  Jefferson closed the photograph album, opened the door and walked out into the storm. He didn’t mind that it was raining, or that he was cold, or that his clothes were soaked through. As lightning crackled and thunder rumbled around the mountains, he walked across to where Tansy was buried and fell to his knees beside the fresh mound of earth. He thought of all the years he had spent, working alone in the early hours, trying to bring back what was lost. But the only thing his efforts had brought him was isolation and ridicule. And now, now that he had actually found a way of doing what everyone had told him was impossible, his chance of happiness had been snatched away. And not only that, but in his excitement he had opened a dangerous gateway and filled the world with things that did not belong.

  Suddenly the years of frustration and sadness rose up inside him and he cried out to the sky in anger and in sorrow.

  ‘It’s not my fault!’ he shouted. ‘I only wanted to make things better!’

  But he knew in his heart that he had only succeeded in making them worse.

  ‘It’s not my fault!’ he shouted again. ‘It’s not – my – fault!’

  He stared at the soil that was already turning to mud and, as the rain ran down his face, his sorrow became anger instead.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll see about this. We’ll just see.’

  Then he went back inside the house and opened the shoebox where he hid his .38 revolver. He took out six bullets, loaded them into the chamber and snapped it shut.

  Then he opened the door and walked outside, only this time he didn’t stop.

  He just kept on walking, through the rain and into the shadows of the forest.

  Thirty-Four

  As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped and the skies cleared to reveal a bright crescent moon above the trees.

  Cal shivered and tried to concentrate on walking as softly as he could. It reminded him of a game the other children played at school once in a while – Grandmother’s Footsteps or something like that. One person was chosen to stand at the front with their eyes closed and the others had to creep up on them without being heard. The only difference was, if you got caught, you had to go and sit on the side until the game was over and then you got another go.