Dead Woods

by Raylan Kane

  By god, this is crazy.

  Her head snapped around to the front again when a stern voice called out and from seemingly nowhere, four soldiers with guns trained on her advanced towards the front of the jeep. “You!” Barked the voice. “Put the vehicle in 'Park' and come out with your hands up.”

  She stared at the four soldiers and then the fifth who was the one behind them speaking to her. Army. I have no play here, she thought. I'm outgunned, and without options.

  “Did you hear me?” The soldier said, “get out of the vehicle. Now!”

  Marsh held her right hand out in front of her.

  “Both hands,” the man said, “let me see them!”

  “I can only move one of my arms,” Marsh said.

  One of the soldiers, while keeping the barrel of his weapon pointed at her head, reached out and pulled the jeep's door handle. “Get out,” he said.

  “I am, but you have to understand. I'm hurt.”

  “Move,” he said.

  Marsh stepped out of the jeep and as soon as she did two soldiers, a man and a woman, converged on her and grabbed her right wrist. When the female soldier went to grab for her left, Marsh balked. “Hang on,” she said, “this arm is broken. I can't move it.”

  “You can't move it?”

  “That's what I said.”

  “Calm down,” said the male soldier. “We just have to make sure.”

  “She's armed,” the female soldier said. “Look.”

  They pulled her weapon away from her.

  “Any other weapons on you?”

  Marsh shook her head. Sully came rolling out of the back and bounced up to Marsh's side. The soldiers aimed their guns at the dog for a split second, unsure.

  “Whoa! Hang on,” Marsh said. “He's harmless. He's not going to hurt you.”

  “Fine.”

  The soldiers finished searching Marsh's pocket and belt. They removed her knife and her holster.

  “Step over here, ma'am.”

  They moved Marsh to the side of the road and plunked her down in a seated position. A soldier approached with zip-tie cuffs that she wrapped around Marsh's ankles.

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “Just a precaution, ma'am.”

  “You,” the commanding officer said, speaking to Lindsay, “hands up. Do it now!”

  “She's severely injured,” Marsh said. “She's got an infection and she's feverish. She won't understand a word you say to her right now.”

  “That so?”

  “She needs to be treated right away.”

  “We'll be the judge of that.”

  “What is this anyway? Why are you treating us like we're criminals. I'm a cop for god's sake.”

  The comment caused the soldiers to look at one another with concern.

  “Police?”

  “That's usually what 'cop' means, yes. Shouldn't you be out here rescuing people rather than shooting at them?”

  “Who shot at you?” The commanding officer asked. “How did you come by this jeep?”

  “We've got weapons in the vehicle, sir,” one of the soldiers said that was dealing with the stalled jeep. “Looks like a couple of ours.”

  “Oh, they're yours alright,” Marsh said. “The people using them were trying to kill me. Trying to kill us.”

  “And now you've got them.”

  “That's right.”

  Sully walked away from the soldiers searching the vehicle and sat down next to Marsh, trying to nuzzle his way under her right arm.

  “You want to tell us how they came into your possession?”

  “Not right now, no,” Marsh said. “Right now I wanna get the hell out of these woods.”

  She looked at the raging forest fire the flamethrowing soldiers had set in motion and shook her head. “However much of this forest will be left by the time you all are done with it.”

  “We could've allowed that bear to keep coming for you,” the commanding officer said. “I would call that a rescue, wouldn't you?”

  “And yet, here I sit with zip-ties around my ankles.”

  The other soldiers worked together to lift Lindsay out of the jeep. They laid her down next to Marsh, her hands zip-tied behind her.

  “None of this is necessary,” Marsh said. “I'd have been more than willing to talk to you, you know? Who are you guys anyway? Military obviously. Army, right?”

  The commanding officer didn't answer.

  “What are you guys doing out here? I've had four of your people shoot at me, by the way. They've already killed or hurt a couple of my friends. Her included,” she motioned towards Lindsay. “That injury on her foot? Yeah, that's your fault.”

  The commanding officer frowned. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Well,” Marsh said, “then why don't you enlighten me.”

  “I'm not at liberty to do so.”

  “Considering you're operating on American soil in a capacity that I can well guess is out of your purview, I'd say as a citizen I'm owed some damn answers.”

  “You're owed nothing.”

  Marsh angrily pushed herself up with her right arm and managed to get on her feet, though she wasn't able to take a step given her ankles were being held tightly together. “Look! I have been through hell and back out here, you understand? I've already had to deal with you assholes all through this stupid forest and just when it looked like I might be making it out of here alive I get picked up by you and you're not going to tell me a damned thing? Seriously?”

  “Can somebody shut her up, please?” The commanding officer said.

  “No!” Marsh hollered. “There's no shutting me up! I want answers, damn you!”

  The female soldier who'd dealt with her a few minutes before stepped over and produced something from her jacket. “Nighty-night, sweetheart,” she said, smirking, and she zapped Deputy Marsh with a taser and held the voltage long enough that it caused her to fall unconscious.

  “Thank you,” the commanding officer said, “I was afraid she'd never shut up.”

  39

  Marsh opened her eyes with pain radiating from beneath her rib cage, more pain than from her broken arm. As her eyes adjusted to the white room she'd found herself in, she noticed her left arm was tightly wrapped and held in a sling. She was dressed in white medical scrubs and laying on a padded, narrow bed, the kind you might find in a doctor's office. The room was small, twelve feet by twelve feet, and windowless with irritating fluorescent lighting above providing a constant hum over what might otherwise have been deafening silence in the deputy's blown out ears. Though she did notice her hearing had improved slightly. The room's décor was sparse. The table-like bed, a metal trash can, a stainless steel toilet with a curtain hung on a track you could pull around it for privacy. Half a roll of toilet paper. Next to that was a stainless steel sink that looked as though it'd been melded with the wall, with two metal push-buttons for hot and cold water. A small stack of paper cups. What is this, Marsh thought, a hospital room or a jail cell?

  She rose up off the mattress pad, feeling the scratchy, over-starched sheet rub against her right forearm. The height of the bed was such that she had to lower herself to the floor and she balked at the cold white tiles against her bare feet. Marsh noticed two doors to her left. She tried the first door situated near the foot of the bed. It was a closet and contained the mangled clothing she'd been wearing in the canyon, though it'd been washed and no longer was caked with mud or grass-stained. Her service pistol hung from a bar inside its holster, and her tactical knife was sheathed and sitting on a shelf. Not too many prisons allow you to have weapons, she thought. So, this is definitely not that.

  Marsh tried the other door, expecting it to be locked, and to her surprise it swung open into the room and on the other side of it was a gray, concrete corridor with metal pipes that ran along the ceiling. A soldier dressed in camouflage walked by as she emerged from the room and didn't pay her much mind. As she surveyed the corridor in either direction,
she could see doors to other rooms on her side of the long passageway, while there was nothing but a blank concrete wall running along the opposite side. Thirty feet to her right the corridor turned a corner and disappeared from view. She opted to walk in that direction, conscious of her bare feet where she'd seen the soldier walking in combat boots. Outside of the white room, she felt very out of place in hospital patient attire and looking and feeling as though she'd just woken up from a really long sleep.

  Around the corner, the gray concrete gave way to more white tiled floor and pale walls that gave the impression of a temporary installment. What kind of building is this? Doors presented themselves on both sides of the narrow hallway that was only six feet across. The corridor itself was only about fifty feet long before it turned a corner and went out of view. Another soldier passed by Marsh without so much as a greeting, and the deputy could hear muffled conversations of all kinds emanating from behind the temporary feeling white walls. Marsh chose the second door on her right and heard a bit of a vacuum sucking noise as she pushed into it and walked into another white room. This one adjoined another room that was separated by a wood-framed glass door. Ahead of her, along the left hand wall, was a countertop with cupboards above and below, a kitchen sink installed in the middle beneath a paper towel dispenser. The opposite wall to Marsh's right was dominated by a long, rectangular window framed in gray metal with a countertop and cupboards that ran underneath. The glass door sat to its right. As she stood just inside the door, scanning the room, she noted two metal folding chairs on her immediate right. An observation room of some kind? Was that a two-way mirror?

  Marsh walked to the center of the room and her mouth fell open when she looked to her right through the large window and saw Lindsay laying in the center of the adjoining room on a table-bed pretty similar to her own. Her friend was hooked to an IV and she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, with her injured foot completely wrapped in white bandaging.

  “She's going to be fine,” a female voice that spoke from close behind startled Marsh.

  The deputy whipped her head around to see a woman dressed in Army green standing just inside the door.

  “Your friend there is pretty tough,” the woman said. “They weren't sure she was going to make it when they first brought her in, but, she's responded well to treatment. We'd gathered the dog we'd found you with didn't belong to either of you. You should know he's been placed at an excellent rescue facility in Anchorage.”

  “Anchorage?” The deputy noted how groggy she still felt. The woman's words were barely making sense. Snap out of it, focus, she told herself. Looking at the soldier, Marsh noticed she had the name 'Hutchins' stitched in black on her uniform. “Who are you?” Marsh said. “What is this place?”

  “You can call me Hutchins.”

  “Yeah, I noticed your name badge.”

  See? You can show her you're not as out of it as she thinks.

  The soldier grinned slightly. Marsh sensed some condescension in her manner. “Welcome to Hiller Alpha,” Hutchins said.

  “Hiller? Are we still in the canyon?”

  “We are.”

  “Why?”

  The soldier chuckled at the question. It was as though she was in on some joke to which Marsh hadn't been privy.

  “It's good to see you're doing better,” Hutchins said. “Really, I'm thinking now it might be best for you to see the Colonel.”

  Hutchins turned and walked towards the door.

  “But, wait,” Marsh said, “you haven't really answered-”

  Hutchins disappeared into the corridor without another word.

  40

  A man dressed all in gray had escorted Marsh back to the room where she'd first found herself. She'd asked him what she was supposed to be doing there, and he said nothing. He simply escorted her to the room and left. A few minutes later a woman also dressed all in gray arrived at the door with a blank expression and handed Marsh a crisp set of new clothes. Navy blue cargo pants, a navy short-sleeved button-up shirt with two breast pockets, black tube socks and a pair of navy sneakers adorned with a white stripe that fit her perfectly, even with her slinged left arm buttoned inside the shirt. All of it was brand new and sized just right.

  Creepy, Marsh thought.

  Once she'd changed into the new outfit there was a knock at the door, and another man all in gray led her to a room at the far end of the concrete corridor. He was no more forthcoming with answers than anyone else. The man opened the door to a ten by ten office. The office was almost entirely gray save for the white lights overhead. Gray floor, gray walls, gray ceiling. A gray metal desk sat in front of one wall, barely anything on it other than a broad paper calendar. A black leather chair was on the opposite side and to the desk's right was another door that led from God knows where. Two folding chairs sat in front of the desk and Marsh chose the one on the left. The man that had shown her into the office left her to sit by herself, and so she did for about ten minutes, staring in bewilderment at the blank wall behind the desk.

  Finally, she snapped back into focus at the sound of a door knob turning and an older man with perfectly manicured silver hair emerged from the door next to the desk carrying a file folder in his hand. He was dressed in an officer's uniform adorned with medals and other kinds of symbols or insignia about which Marsh knew next to nothing.

  “Jennifer Marsh,” the man said, taking a seat behind the desk and rolling his chair forward. He laid the file folder in front of him and opened it, barely throwing even a glance in her direction. “Says here you're well on the road to recovery. That's great to hear. I take it that arm isn't giving you much in the way of pain?”

  Marsh didn't know what to say at first. She tried to read the name on the man's chest, but the blue name pin etched with white writing proved too difficult for her to read in her groggy state. “How long have I been here?” She said.

  “A short while, but the good news is we're sending you home. In a little under an hour, actually. I've had Private Walsh gather your things for you. As soon as we arrange for a transport we'll have you back in Branson in time for dinner.”

  The deputy could feel the frustration growing within her. “Can't you at least tell me what's going on here? I was out in Hiller Canyon, struggling to survive, I lost a lot of friends out there.”

  “Yes, I'm well aware. You've also killed a few of my men.”

  “I defended myself. They were firing at me.”

  “Indeed, which is why you're being sent home and not to prison. You should rest assured we're not pursuing any charges against you.”

  “Against me? Maybe I should be coming after you for operating a military mission on American soil. You had your soldiers firing on a group of civilians. You nearly killed me and you definitely murdered my colleagues.”

  “I'm not certain you need to raise your voice, Ms. Marsh.”

  “Deputy Marsh,” she said. Her eyes glared at him defiantly.

  He smiled, a similar smile to the one she'd seen on the face of that woman, Hutchins. “Right, Deputy,” he said, a slight sneer in his tone. “Fact is, you don't know a thing about what's going on out here.”

  “Out here meaning, Hiller Canyon. I know this place is called 'Hiller Alpha', am I to take that to mean there's a 'Hiller Bravo'? Just how many temporary bases have you guys put out here? And why are you shooting at civilians. Why did you try to kill me? You should be out there killing those things. Those giant grizzly bears that threaten to destroy us all. Why aren't you dealing with that?”

  “What makes you think we aren't? That we haven't?”

  “I don't understand.”

  “That much, Deputy Marsh, is clear,” he drummed the edge of the folder on the top of the desk before pushing his chair back. “Now, you should count yourself lucky you've caught me in a good mood.” He slid the file off his desk and stood up. “Walsh will be here to collect you shortly, and as I'd said we will soon have you on your way home. No need to thank us now, of course, you can a
lways do that later.”

  “Thank you? You want me to thank you? You haven't told me a damned thing. I want some answers dammit! I'm entitled to that, given all I've been through, don't you think?”

  “That'll be all, Deputy,” the man said stepping over towards the door next to his desk. “You take care of yourself now.”

  A few minutes later, as promised, Private Walsh met her at the door and escorted her to the front of the building. Once outside she observed it was a concrete rectangle built into the side of a ridge. To Marsh it looked as though this base was built by retrofitting some utility outpost that had already been situated there near Hiller Canyon years before.

  Walsh loaded the bin with her belongings into the back of an Army truck, and gave her nothing in the way of answers in keeping with everyone else she'd dealt with inside the base. She climbed aboard the truck and found the driver just as non-communicative. The truck rumbled over rough road for about fifteen miles Marsh figured, before turning onto the paved highway that she recognized led into Branson. The entire time she'd been watching the mirrors and scanning out the windows for any sign of a massively oversized grizzly, and she found nothing. Perhaps more terrifying than that however, was the somewhat blasé attitude everyone she encountered seemed to have about the bear situation and all of the death and carnage that had occurred in the canyon. It didn't make any sense.

  Her meeting with the man in the office, the one Hutchins referred to as 'the Colonel', really rankled her. The nerve of him. The nerve of this whole operation. And the secrecy. It bothered her beyond almost anything else. And what about everyone that had lost their lives? Agent Winters? Where was the FBI on this? So many questions and not one person was giving her answers. The longer the driver sat there behind the wheel not saying anything, the more Marsh's fury built up inside. As the Army truck finally rumbled into town and up to the front of her townhouse, what should've been a feeling of relief, and safety, had instead boiled into an incandescent rage. She walked up to her front door carrying her bin of stuff wanting nothing more than to drop it and to hijack that military truck and tear down the whole operation to get to the bottom of things. And she knew they had no plan for getting rid of those monstrous animals.