Grimm Woods

by D. Melhoff

  Scott had no choice but to look away this time. He studied the two support timbers on either side of the well—the ones connecting the roof to the base—and saw a pair of handcuffs latched around the closest slat.

  Don’t do it. You’ll be as good as dead.

  “Hurry up,” Charlotte yelled, swinging the arrow around and touching the tip to Brynn’s cheek. “Or I’ll start adding scars to Ms. Gately’s collection.”

  “Don’t hurt her! You’ve got me, all right. Let her go.”

  “Get in the cuffs.”

  Scott took a deep breath and knelt beside the well. He grabbed the claw of the open handcuff, holding it to his wrist, and looked at Brynn. You came back because you had to, he told himself. And you failed. Do whatever this sicko says, and maybe she won’t hurt anyone else.

  Brynn shook her head violently, but Scott’s mind was set. He clamped the cuff together and felt the click-tick-tick of locking metal.

  Charlotte lowered her bow, and a shadow of triumph crossed her face.

  “Happy?” Scott shouted. “Now let her go.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte replied, “but I’m afraid that’s up to you. Go ahead. Try your key.”

  Scott’s fist—the one that wasn’t handcuffed—turned over and revealed the golden key in his palm. Then, as if another person was manipulating his hand, he watched it come down and slide the key into the last lockbox, releasing the clasp with a dull pop. He peeled back the lid and removed a slip of parchment, unfolding it with his trembling fingers.

  “Robin Hood’s Death (Ballad 120).”

  He peered into the chest again. Instead of a gold key, there were two peculiar objects: a ceramic bowl and a brass box the size of a Rubik’s cube. The box was dented and tarnished; it had a small crank on one side and a button on the other.

  “What, no key?”

  “Oh, there’s a key,” Charlotte said. “But how about a story first?”

  “How about you let Brynn go, and then we can sit around sharing stories until we’re blue in the face?” Or at least until the cops show up and cart your psychopathic ass to maximum security.

  Charlotte snickered. She sauntered closer, seemingly enjoying his suffering.

  “Did you know,” she said, louder, in control, “Robin Hood was originally a yeoman? Isn’t that interesting? Not a vigilante. Not some marginalized peasant fighting for economic justice or plotting schemes with his Merry Men to take from the rich and give to the poor. He was an average joe. A common bandit. The lower class loved him, of course—I mean, this is fifteenth-century Europe we’re talking about, who didn’t like a little rebellion?—and he played by his own rules. Theft, ribaldry, high adventure…”

  As she made her way across the grass, Scott only half-listened. He tested the individual links of the handcuffs, hunting for weaknesses, and felt around the base of the well for loose stones. It’s too sturdy. I can’t even swing on my back and kick out the posts—the cuffs are too short, and she’d shoot me before I got free.

  “But times changed,” Charlotte continued. She was only fifteen feet away, then ten. “The Victorian era turned him into the hero people recognize today. They actually lifted this criminal up and made him a model citizen. Just like I’m going to do to you.”

  Scott squirmed on the grass. Ignore her, keep looking for a way out. His eyes raced around the enclosure, searching for some faint glimmer of hope that he could manufacture a miracle out of, but the space was empty, save the woodpile, the wishing well, and the picnic table.

  The picnic table. He examined the bank of Mason jars lined up in a precise row. Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. Twelve red jars. But the jars weren’t red themselves, he realized. They were filled with something red.

  Charlotte’s shadow crossed over him. He squinted up, and the sun cast a fiery corona around her silhouette. “Do you know what happened to Robin Hood, Scott?” She leaned over and took the parchment out of his hand.

  “He was chained to a wishing well by a demented cunt?”

  “He got sick. And back then, medicine wasn’t anything like it is now.” She reached down, calm and unaffected, and touched Scott’s shin with her arrow. He shivered as she traced a vein with the point. “They used to believe the body’s fluids consisted of four humors: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. If you were sick, your body wasn’t balanced, and the only way to get rid of those built-up bad humors was through bloodletting. So Robin Hood went to his cousin—a prioress, a bloodletter—who was supposed to heal him. Her lover, however, convinced her to drain too much blood, and she ended up murdering poor Robin.”

  The arrow flicked up, and Scott flinched.

  Smiling, Charlotte bent over and picked up the brass box lying on the ground. “This device is called a scarificator. Very popular in nineteenth-century Britain, and not cheap to come by, I’ll have you know. See the slits in the bottom? Phlebotomists would place them on top of a vein and press this button, which releases the spring-loaded blades. The bloodletter collects the blood in a measuring bowl and stops when he’s satisfied. Can you tell where we’re going with this?”

  Scott stared at the slits in the insidious box, imagining the razor blades snapping out and slashing across his skin. “You’re gonna let Brynn go,” he said, swallowing a lump in his throat, “and then—what’s it called—scrifficate me?”

  “No.” Charlotte’s voice contained zero humor. “You’re going to do it yourself.” She leaned closer, forcing him into a hypnotic headlock with just her eyes. “Robin Hood was nothing but a murdering bandit whom people forgave for doing a few selfless deeds. That’s what you’re going to do right now, Scott. A selfless deed.”

  Charlotte drew herself to full height and started toward the picnic table. “The tenth key is tied to a fishing bob at the bottom of the well. It’s not deep, but it’ll take more than a few drops to raise it up. For every half-pint of blood you put in, I’ll add another half. If you get it out, you can unlock yours and Ms. Gately’s handcuffs and go. Scott free.” She cocked an eyebrow at her own pun but didn’t smile.

  “How do I know it’s down there?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “And if I don’t try? Gonna slice open my arteries anyway?”

  “Not sure. I suppose I’ll consider my options while we sit back and watch our blonde-haired friend burn to death.”

  Charlotte strode toward the woodpile, and Scott hollered, “No!” He reefed on the handcuffs and pounded the stout post. “Let her go. You’ve got me. Just kill me and call our score even.”

  “Oh no. Noooo, no, no.” Charlotte reached the stack of burning wood and picked up a fiery branch. Brynn screamed, launching into a fit of twists and jerks. “You still don’t see the whole picture, do you?”

  “What picture?” Scott spat. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m reminding the entire world of what they haven’t thought about since they were six years old. I’m seizing everyone’s attention with the only method that works these days—a tragedy on the six o’clock news—and getting through the old-fashioned way. With blood, fear, and honesty.”

  “Stop it,” Scott yelled. “Take it out on me, but Jesus, leave her alone. She didn’t do anything—this isn’t fair!”

  “Fair? Our little arsonist here is just as guilty as the rest of those disgraceful excuses for role models.”

  “Our unfinished business isn’t her fault—”

  “It’s everyone’s fault,” Charlotte bellowed. “Just look at who your generation puts on pedestals. Hollywood starlets drowning themselves in sex and alcohol problems; the selfish one percent, the wolves of Wall Street, who toss people off their career ladders and fly back and forth between bailout hearings and resorts in Monaco; anorexics and Botox Frankensteins; the ostentatious thugs who profit off people’s vices and turn packets of crystal meth into Ferraris and Ray-Bans and Rolexes. Pathetic. Most people don’t even think about morals anymore, let alone develop them. They abuse their bodie
s and sleep around and give zero thought about anybody but themselves. How is that fair? How is it fair that ungrateful assholes like you lead immoral lives when my angel is dead?!”

  Tears of resentment spilled down Charlotte’s face in long, hot rivulets. She thrust the flaming stick into the logs at Brynn’s feet, and it crackled, sending a burst of sparks exploding into the air.

  “No!”

  “When people see what happened this summer, Scott, they’ll remember it for a long time. And if I can take some attention away from their glossy, insipid fashion magazines and meaningless one-night stands, even for an hour, or make them reconsider their drug habits or abandoning a partner—if I can make the world a better place by broadcasting bloodstained storybook messages with a handful of delinquents’ lives—then it’s worth it.”

  Don’t listen to her anymore, Scott told himself. Get out of these cuffs. Save Brynn.

  He stuck his neck over the hole of the well and peered inside. It wasn’t deep, but the water must have been at least a foot below ground—and out of reach. He saw a wink of metal, but whether it was the key or his imagination, he wasn’t sure.

  His brain raced through as many alternatives as possible—dive in headfirst, use the scarificator to smash the cuffs open, scream for help—but all of them were futile. The diameter of the well wasn’t wide enough to squeeze inside; the scarificator was too fragile to use as a hammer; and even if he started yelling, there wasn’t anyone capable of coming to help within a hundred miles.

  “I’d hurry if I were you,” Charlotte said. “The fire’s catching fast.”

  Scott saw the smoke winding around Brynn’s body and into her face. This was worse than any night terror, he realized—it was hell on earth.

  He reached for the scarificator, sweating, and wondered how much blood it would take to get the key. “If you get it out,” Charlotte’s voice echoed, “you can unlock yours and Ms. Gately’s handcuffs and go.” He rubbed his thumb over the slits. She’s lying. She’d never let you walk free.

  Brynn screamed again—a muffled, throat-tearing ululation.

  Scott clenched the box harder, affirming his only option, and planted it against the inside of his arm. Bracing himself, he turned his head and jammed the metal button.

  CLACK.

  The rusty blades snapped through the slits in the blink of an eye. Holy cocksuckin’ shitballs sonofabitch. Pain seared through the left side of his body, and runnels of blood began gushing out of the cuts. His good arm shot for the ceramic bowl and placed it under the crimson streams. Mary mother of Jesus.

  Charlotte strode to the picnic table and retrieved the first Mason jar. “Half a pint would be the middle notch,” she said.

  Scott examined the bowl and saw a series of concentric lines carved along the inside. “Then you better get here fast,” he said, watching his blood throb out at an alarming rate with both horror and fascination.

  Charlotte approached the opposite side of the well. Scott held up the dish, and she judged its meniscus like a mother checking to see if her child had finished his bowl of tomato soup. She nodded, and he tipped the blood into the well’s maw, hearing it plunk into the water below.

  Charlotte unscrewed the Mason jar. “To Roddy.” She cheers-ed the air and tipped the container over the well.

  For the first time, Scott noticed Roddy’s name on a strip of masking tape around the jar. His eyes jumped to the picnic table.

  Twelve dead counselors. Twelve jars.

  “That’s right,” Charlotte said, reading the expression on his face. “All of their blood is on your hands. Remember that.”

  Dizziness clouded Scott’s mind—both from the realization about the jars and the rapid loss of blood. “How much is it gonna take?” he asked, repositioning the bowl under his arm. And how much blood can a person lose?

  “I suppose we’ll see.”

  “And if I faint?”

  “Then you’ll probably bleed out. If you don’t, feel free to use these.” Charlotte reached into her cloak and withdrew a fistful of purple Band-Aids, throwing them in Scott’s face. They seesawed through the air and landed on the grass.

  “Good thing Mom makes me pack ’em, huh?”

  He flashed on Desiree’s round face, her darling smile, her crooked teeth—

  Her skull crushing against the concrete.

  Her mangled arm, hanging by a strip of flesh.

  Her dead eyes.

  Suddenly, Scott’s leg stung like hell, but not from any recent wound. It was a memory of a gash, burning like new.

  “MMPPPHHHGGH.”

  Brynn thrashed against the stake with high-pitched screams rending her vocal cords. The smoke at her feet had darkened into a black, swirling cloud.

  Scott’s arm drained to the middle notch of the bowl again, and Charlotte fetched the second jar, pouring both his and Erin’s blood into the well with an audible plonk. He checked the narrow cylinder. The water level seemed a bit higher, but not much.

  The bowl went back under his arm and began filling up a third time, his veins pumping out plasma in strong, flowing brooks.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “I didn’t,” Charlotte said. “Not at first. Like everyone else, I thought it was the three cretins the witnesses saw driving away. Bystanders, plea bargains. The dots connected. But even then, a mother doesn’t stop grieving. I went to those tracks every day for six months, leaving flowers and walking along the rails for hours and hours, wondering why in the world a couple of thugs would force a little girl against a moving train. And for six months, I told myself it was just drugs. That’s what they pleaded guilty to, right? But you know, in six months, I never checked the station. When I finally did, guess what I found? A strip of purple poking out of the dirt. A Band-Aid—imagine that. Now what are the odds someone else had purple bandages on the site where my daughter was murdered?

  “All it took then was a quick prison visit and presto, those stooges were singing in perfect three-part Baptist harmony. ‘Scott Mamer,’ they said. ‘Scott Mamer’s the one you want. He’s the guy we were tailing for money. If you see him, tell him he owes us interest too.’ I said I would. And you know the last thing they asked before I left? They asked if I was going to turn you in. You know what my answer was? ‘I’m going to turn him inside out.’ Let me tell you, those boys are probably still smiling.”

  Floaters showered Scott’s vision. He looked down and saw his blood was almost to the bowl’s rim, past the second and third lines and approaching the fourth.

  “That’s a full unit.” Charlotte sounded impressed. She retrieved the jars labeled Chase and Kimberly. “How romantic, they get to go together.”

  The jars tipped. The blood drizzled out.

  Now Scott was really feeling it. Two pints—gone. That was double the amount they collected in one sitting at blood donation clinics.

  “Let them breathe, Scott. Let your veins breathe.”

  Suddenly, a yellow flash caught the corner of his eye, and he saw a streak of flames leaping out of the wood at Brynn’s feet. She wasn’t flailing as hard anymore; her panic had dissipated, bogged down by lungfuls of smoke and ash.

  Scott slumped against the well and nestled the bowl back underneath his arm. The blood trickled out slower than before. Don’t faint, he told himself, wiping his forehead with his shoulder. Don’t fucking faint. Faint and you’re dead. Don’t faint, don’t faint, don’t faint.

  “What’s the matter?” Charlotte asked. “I thought the scarificator was a kind touch. Kinder than a fleam, at least. You should see some of those bloodletting devices. They ought to crown me Miss Humane.”

  The fourth bowl took as long to fill as the first three combined. By the end of his next half-unit, Scott’s blood had gone from gushing to pulsing to a light dribble. He glanced over the edge of the well and reached inside—stuffing his good arm as far as it would go—stretching…stretching deeper and deeper and deeper…

  He caught the wink of metal again, and
his heart sank. It was at least six inches away.

  Charlotte returned with another jar—Cynthia’s—as Scott repositioned the bowl under his rubbery arm.

  “How you feeling?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Oh.” Charlotte tipped the jar and watched Cynthia’s blood ooze into the water. “There’s something I forgot about Robin Hood. Just before he died, he shot an arrow into the woods and told Little John to bury him where it landed. Shall I do the honor?” She dropped the empty Mason jar on the lawn and swung her bow off her shoulder, selecting an arrow. “Beside your girlfriend sound good? I’ll even scatter her ashes on top.”

  The arrow sailed through the air and landed at the edge of the woodpile. Through his haze, Scott realized that Brynn wasn’t screaming anymore. He squinted, blinking away his blurred vision, and saw her wilted against the pole. The fire closed in around her—it must have been unbearably hot on her feet.

  He looked at the bowl below his arm, only a quarter full, and adjusted himself, angling his arm lower and letting gravity draw the blood out. When that wasn’t fast enough, he squeezed the skin around the gashes and milked the capillaries to the second notch…then to the third…then…then…

  “Ahh.” He panted, pounding the bowl on the well. One more unit.

  “Very nice,” Charlotte said. She matched the pint with Lance and Dominique’s blood. “Only five jars left.”

  Five? Scott’s head was swimming. I can’t.

  His mouth hung open, crusted with dried-up saliva. Every breath he took came slower than the last. Even though adrenaline surged through his body every time he caught a glimpse of the growing fire, he knew he couldn’t do it.

  “You don’t know how much I’m enjoying this.” Charlotte moved closer, bringing her eighth jar and setting it on the well. “You’re getting everything you deserve.”

  “I can’t wait until you get yours,” he slurred.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said, smiling. “In fact, I think I’ll be fine. Just fine. I’ll need to declare bankruptcy, of course—the lawsuits will see to that in a hurry—but money can be made again, names can be changed.” She regarded the shock on Scott’s face. “Oh, you mean prison? No. No, I don’t think that would suit me very well, not at all. That’s why I took extra care. Want to hear something interesting? None of the kids witnessed any of the murders. In fact, when I tell them you were the one behind this, I expect them to come around eventually—and probably sooner than you’d think. There’s been so much flip-flopping, they won’t know who to believe anymore. But I’ll keep them inviolate. I’ll bring them home to their mommies and daddies, and they’ll thank me ’til their dying days. You’re the one who will haunt their nightmares, I’m afraid.”