Big Woods

by May Cobb

  Details from Lucy’s life are offered up: she comes from a caring family, her parents aren’t under suspicion, and she was last seen on Friday, September 29th, the morning she walked to the bus stop and never made it.

  There are comparisons between Lucy’s case and the cold cases, and even a quote from one of the murdered kid’s parents: “Please, for the love of God, find these monsters.”

  The same unnamed source comments on Lucy’s case, “At this point, we’re following all leads, but we’re worried about this suspicious activity, and we’ve increased patrolling in Big Woods. If anyone out there has any information, please call us.”

  I look down again at Lucy’s face, one of her eyes engorged from the wet paper, and I know what I have to do.

  30

  Leah

  Halloween

  Tuesday, October 31st, 1989

  Lucy missing 1 month, 2 days

  UNDERGROUND.

  BY THE WOODS.

  Even though the screen is blank, the orange letters flash like neon through my mind. I want to scream, to shout up to Mom’s room but my mouth is dry, like it’s filled with sand, so I follow the trail of moonlight to the bottom of the stairs and let the rail guide me up toward my parents’ bedroom.

  Their room is dark so I click on the bedside lamp, waking Mom up. She rolls over and looks up at me, concerned.

  “What is it, sweetie?” she says, her blond hair frizzy with sleep.

  “Mom, Lucy is trying to talk to me. I had a dream—I—”

  But Mom cuts me off. “Oh honey, come climb in here with me.”

  I stand there, not moving. “No, Mom, I’m serious. I just had a dream about Lucy, it’s my second one, actually, and she told me where she is. She was typing to me through the computer. She said she misses us. She’s underground somewhere, by Big Woods.”

  Mom sits up in bed in her faded baseball t-shirt. Her eyes are searching mine, but then she just looks down at her hands. “Leah,” she says, “I am so sorry, sweetheart. I know this is hard for you, it’s just … terrible … but … ”

  Anger rises in the back of my throat. “The dreams are REAL, Mom! Get up! Let’s go find Dad and go out there!”

  She shrinks into herself and tears form in the corner of her eyes, but she shakes her head and wipes them away. “Come here, sit down,” she says, scooting over and patting the wrinkled spot next to her. “We can talk about this more in the morning.”

  I look at her with a steady gaze, but then turn to leave. My eyes burn with tears and I go to my room, slamming the door behind me.

  31

  Leah

  Wednesday, November 1st, 1989

  Lucy missing 1 month, 3 days

  I wake up in a ball, still dressed in my clothes from the night before, on top of my unmade bed. My pillow is soggy with sweat. I’m jerked out of sleep by the sound of Mom clanging dishes around downstairs. I rub my cheek; there’s a deep groove in it from my watch. I stayed up late last night compulsively checking it, hoping that Dad might come home.

  When I wake my first thought is of Lucy, of how to get to Lucy. Last night I considered grabbing Mom’s keys and trying to drive the Honda myself, but I was too afraid to go out into the night alone, and the Accord is a stick shift; I haven’t quite mastered that yet. I’m just one month away from getting my hardship license. In Texas, you can apply for your hardship license when you’re fifteen and both parents work. This was our plan so I could drive us to school. We had already picked out the car over the summer, a Ford Tempo, and Lucy chose the color—sky blue—and had a plastic tray of cassettes she couldn’t wait to play on our drives: The Thompson Twins, OMD, and Michael Jackson.

  “We can take turns who gets to play DJ,” Lucy had said, but she knew she’d be the one picking the songs.

  I get dressed for school and go downstairs.

  “Pop-Tart’s in the toaster. I’m going to shower,” Mom says, emptying the remains of the coffeepot into her metal-green thermos, curls of steam rising from it like smoke signals. Her mood is chilly.

  “Okay.”

  “And honey, please don’t mention any of that stuff from last night to your father. It’ll just make things so much worse,” she says without meeting my eyes.

  I’m running late, so I snatch my Pop-Tart out of the toaster and fold it into a paper towel and walk outside to wait for the Weavers, my carpool ride.

  I’ve been carpooling with the Weavers since middle school. Their youngest daughter, Becky, and I have known each other since kindergarten. We aren’t all that close but she lives nearby, so they’ve always given me a ride.

  They pull to the curb and I climb into their burgundy Lincoln Town Car. The upholstery is pulling away from the roof and sags, looking like hundreds of deflating maroon balloons. Mrs. Weaver is always smoking and when I climb in and sit on the spongy back seat, ashes float up and pepper my jeans. Mrs. Weaver has five kids and always seems spacey and distracted, her frosty, white-blueish hair always whipped up in frantic waves on top of her head, so that’s probably why I blurt out the request before I’ve even fully thought it through.

  “Mrs. Weaver?” I say, leaning into the front seat.

  She fiddles with the radio dial, turning down the sports station she keeps cranked up. “Yes, hon?”

  “Can you drop me off at my Dad’s office after school today?”

  “Sure, no problem,” she says, “Just remind me at pick up.”

  My morning classes drag by. I sit in second period History tracing ink-filled initials on the side of my desk and absentmindedly picking at a wad of dried gum stuck next to it. When I bump into Scott in the hallway just after class, I think about asking him to drive me to Big Woods, but he is still sulking and this makes me not want to share anything with him. And I can’t wait to tell Dad. I know he’ll believe me, and I spend the rest of the day picturing the two of us bumping along Seven Pines Road in his truck, the road that leads to Big Woods.

  Mrs. Weaver parks in front of Dad’s office and leaves the car running. I grab my backpack and hop out.

  “Want me to wait for you, in case he’s not here?” Mrs. Weaver asks through a cracked window.

  I hadn’t considered this a possibility. “Okay,” I squeak back.

  The office is dark, the front blinds are pulled shut. I use the key on my lanyard to unlock the front door. I step in and the smell of stale beer and Corn Nuts hits me in the face. My face flushes with frustration. The receptionist desk is empty—Dad hasn’t used a secretary in years, he prefers to do his own books, take his own calls, work in solitude. I gulp and walk down the narrow hall, following the river of industrial pea-green carpet that leads to his office.

  His back is to me and his feet are propped up on the desk. Willie Nelson’s “Stardust” (Dad’s favorite) is playing on the 8-track.

  “Dad.” My voice is strained. He doesn’t answer. I keep talking to the back of his head, hoping to get through. Empty amber beer bottles teeter out of the top of a brown plastic trash can and an open bottle of Jack Daniels sits open on his desk, most of it drained.

  “Dad, I know where Lucy is. I’ve been having these dreams about her, and in the last one she told me she was in Big Woods.” He doesn’t move. I walk over to him and shake his shoulder. His boots slide off the drafting table and he slowly spins around in his buttery tan leather chair to face me. His eyes look like they’ve been stung by chlorine and when he sees me, his mouth forms a sloppy, lopsided grin. “Ahhhh, Looo-see,” he says and shuts his eyes.

  I realize how lost he is. I can’t reach him, so I kneel down and tug his boots off and pull on his arm until he is alert enough to let me guide him over to the couch. I cover him with a blanket and walk down the hall, biting down hard on my bottom lip so Becky Weaver and her mom won’t see me cry.

  32

  Leah

  Thursday, November 2nd, 1989
<
br />   Lucy missing 1 month, 4 days

  The next day after school when the Weavers drop me off at home, I’m walking up the driveway, wading through a pile of crispy, ruby leaves when I spot Dad’s lemon yellow truck. A warm feeling spreads across my chest.

  I walk along the side of the house and pause at the dining room window. I can see Mom and Dad in the kitchen, standing shoulder to shoulder over the sink; I see Mom give him a playful bump with her hip and I hear laughter. I open the side door, dropping my backpack with a thud to announce my presence. Dad rounds the corner and drapes a damp kitchen towel over his shoulder and walks to me with his lanky arms open.

  “Hey, sugar,” he says and kisses the top of my head. Then he lifts me up and twirls me around like he used to when I was little. “I’m home, and I’m staying home,” his voice buzzes in my ear. He sets me down and looks at me level with his crystal blue eyes. A smile spreads across my face and I burrow my head into his arms.

  Mom is humming a happy tune in the kitchen, and when Dad steps out to take the trash, I go to her with my palms up and shrug. “Well?”

  “I don’t know, he just showed up at school today with a bouquet of flowers, and took me to lunch and apologized,” Mom says, her cheeks flushing pink. “Says he hasn’t known how to deal with any of this. I didn’t go back to work; we came home together to talk,” she says, glancing out the window, making sure he’s still outside.

  While Mom slides a roast out of the oven, Dad and I set the table. His olive-toned skin is gleaming, he’s freshly showered, and he’s whistling as he neatly folds the napkins and presses the silverware on top. I keep checking his eyes—looking for a sign that he remembers me stopping by his office last night, that he remembers what I told him about Lucy, and I almost whisper to him to ask, but I swallow it back down. I don’t want to spoil his happiness and I don’t want him to leave us again.

  Also, a murky, gloomy feeling has begun to tug at me: I’m beginning to wonder if my dreams about Lucy are just my imagination.

  Last night, when I got home from Dad’s office, I waited until Mom went upstairs and then I snuck into Dad’s study and tried to write to Lucy again on the computer. I sat down and typed on the chocolate brown keys: Lucy. Lucy, if you’re out there, I need to know. I need to know if this is real.

  I trained my eyes on the blank space beneath my words, willing Lucy to write me back until my vision went fuzzy. I sat back in the chair and pulled my knees into my chest, rocking back and forth, waiting. But nothing. No answer. The pain of it made me want to smash the keyboard and kick the monitor, but instead I went over and threw myself down on the loveseat. I formed myself into a tight ball and a heavy sadness poured over me as thick as mud, pinning me in place for hours.

  33

  Sylvia

  A lot of our patients were escorted in by the police—if they had been picked up in public, for instance—and this was how we got Delia.

  It was a Friday night, just before midnight. February 23rd, 1979. The police had picked her up on the side of Highway 80, and two sheriff’s deputies were holding her by the elbows as they brought her in. She was shaking, dirty, and disheveled. It looked like she had been dragged across the ground. Bruises covered her arms like tattoos and her eyes kept darting back and forth. She kept looking over her shoulder when there was no need: we were in a locked unit.

  She was talking really rapidly as if she was in a manic phase, saying over and over, “You have to hide me! They are going to kill me, you have to hide me, they are after me. They know everywhere to look.”

  Even in the state she was in, I could see that she was beautiful. She had long, raven hair and perfect teeth. Her eyes were black discs, like obsidian, smoky and deep. She was stunning, and I would have the strange thought later: I can see why they took her.

  Hattie was in charge of the intakes and in Delia’s chart, under possible diagnosis, she scrawled down paranoid schizophrenic, possible drug abuse. Before they left, the police told us that a trucker had picked her up ten miles out of town and had given her his trench coat, but that she had gotten scared and jumped out of his truck a few miles away from the hospital. Under the dirty coat, she only had on a torn slip. She had no personal effects, no ID, and when Hattie asked for her name, she looked back at the police and just shook her head, so Hattie marked down Jane Doe.

  “Alright, we’ll take it from here, thank you,” Hattie said, dismissing the officers. She put me in charge of Delia, and together we escorted her down the dimly lit hall to a room, the other nurses casting glances at her.

  Once we were in the room, Hattie gave her a thin gown and asked her to change behind the flimsy cotton curtain. While she dressed, Hattie got the shot ready—a high dose of Valium—but when we tried to give it to her, she folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. “No, no, no!” she shrieked at us. “I’m not crazy. But you have to hide me.” Her teeth were chattering and she kept talking fast and wouldn’t calm down, so Hattie nodded her head at me and I held her arms down as Hattie slid the needle in her vein.

  Almost instantly, this calmed her down, and I stayed with her until she drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  34

  Leah

  Friday, November 3rd, 1989

  Lucy missing 5 weeks

  Mom has been frying chicken since she got home from work, dropping flour-coated pieces into the cast-iron skillet that glistens and pops with grease.

  Dad tosses a salad of crunchy shards of iceberg lettuce with carrots sliced so razor-thin they are almost translucent. He coats it in a creamy layer of ranch dressing, and sets it in the fridge to chill.

  My stomach groans with hunger and by the time we finally sit down to dinner, I’m so ravenous that Mom passes me a steady stream of chicken legs. My teeth tear into the crunchy skin and I let the grease dribble down my lips.

  Mom reaches over and grabs Dad’s hand. “Honey, your father and I thought it might be nice if we went to the park tomorrow for a picnic,” she says, both of them beaming at me.

  Saturdays at the park used to be our family ritual, especially in the fall. Mom would spread out a checkered blanket and we’d picnic next to the pond under swaying cypress trees. We’d always bring a sleeve of stale bread to feed the ducks, and we’d spend the afternoon playing tag football until Lucy and I called time, our lungs burning and our cheeks ruddy with wind. We’d wander off, leaving Mom and Dad sprawled and lazy on the blanket while we built fortresses out of the orange pine needles that blanketed the ground.

  “Sure, sounds good,” I say, nodding and reaching for more chicken.

  “Great! We can take the leftover wings and I’ll make potato salad and pie!” Mom says, cheerily. Dad adds something about making a thermos of hot chocolate, but I’ve tuned them out. Their voices now sound distant and the edges of the room go soft as a plan to get to Big Woods hatches in my brain.

  35

  Sylvia

  The next night when I came on, I went straight to Delia’s room to check on her. I pulled her chart and saw that she had been given Valium all day. There was an order to give her another high dose, but I didn’t rush that. Something about what she said last night had stuck with me. Her fear had seemed real, and I wanted to see if she would talk to me.

  I rapped lightly on the open door and said, “Hello, dear. How was your day? Did you get enough to eat at supper?” She had been staring blankly at the mute television, but she turned her head and her eyes found mine. They were still dilated from the meds, but she was becoming more alert, her body ready for the next dose.

  In her chart, there were instructions to bathe her, but the daytime nurse had marked down Patient refused. Her hair was still a rat’s nest and I couldn’t imagine a girl that pretty feeling good like that, so I gently asked her if she’d like a bath. She nodded yes. While I was filling the basin with tepid water, she peeled the covers back and sat on the edge of the bed lik
e a toddler. I walked over to her with a towel and when I looked down, I could see through the open gown that there were black marks—bruises like a crow bar on the inside of her thighs. I went to shut the door to the room, and turning back to her, I asked, “Who did these things to you?”

  You think abusive husband or boyfriend, but when I asked her that, she just slowly shook her head.

  She pulled her knees into her chest and began rocking back and forth, biting her lower lip. “There’s no safe place, everywhere I go they find me.” She was crying now, her voice turning shrill. “They are powerful and they are the law, they will get away with this. They will kill me and get away with it.” She kept saying this over and over and muttering other things under her breath, and moaning, and was becoming agitated again like she was going to hyperventilate.

  “Who? Who are you talking about?” I asked. But she wouldn’t answer, she just kept rocking back and forth.

  I shut the water off and drained the tub. I brought her a warm washcloth instead and helped her sponge off, then gave her a clean, fresh gown. I filled the syringe and she held her arm out for me. Once she was calm, I took a brush and gently teased out the knots and tangles in her hair and tucked an extra blanket around her.

  36

  Leah

  Saturday, November 4th, 1989

  Lucy missing 5 weeks, 1 day

  I open my eyes and it’s early. I can tell by the light; my cherrywood floor mirror hasn’t yet grabbed the sun and sent it splashing across my room. I check my watch: 7:25 a.m.

  Soon I hear the muffled sounds of Mom and Dad coming out of sleep. Last night I waited until Mom and Dad had turned in before I crept back downstairs and filled my backpack with supplies: two packages of Fritos, a can of Coke, a pair of gloves, and Dad’s Swiss Army knife. When I got back to my room, I shoved my backpack underneath my bed and laid out my clothes for the next day.