by Nate Gubin
The dark night suddenly lit up. The stars were replaced by the flicker of fluorescents on the ceiling of his dorm room.
The county hospital didn’t have a reason to keep him any longer. They had detoxed him and he was refusing further treatment.
Ben had checked Harold’s record, nothing, not even a DUI. He was a ward of the state up until his eighteenth birthday and there was no record of juvenile offenses, but there wouldn’t be, Ben thought. If Harold had committed crimes in his youth they were expunged from the record. Ben and Mike had both jumped to conclusions about Harold. A boy two counties over had runaway from his mom’s trailer more than half a year ago. He was eleven and last seen wearing a white hooded sweatshirt. But Harold could have picked up that information anywhere. Bulletin board at the Sure-Fine foods or the back page of the monthly Sauk Shopper. When they picked Harold up they were both thinking he had something to do with it. Forty-something male living by himself in the woods with out a stack of Hustler’s next to the bed. Harold had to be a child molester, had to know something about the boy. They had nothing on him.
Ben picked Harold up at the county hospital in his personal car. Harold didn’t have anyone to drive him home, no friends, no family. Harold’s shotgun was in the trunk and Ben had carefully staged the inside of his Ford sedan. In the back, next to the child seat, was a pamphlet from Alcoholics Anonymous resting on top of a brand new bible. Contemporary hymns were loaded onto his iPod, cued up and ready.
“How you feeling?” Ben asked as Harold got into the front seat of his car.
“Tired.” Harold sat stiff and stared out the windshield.
“You hungry? My wife baked some bread for the trip.” He offered Harold a tupperware container, “It’s good, it’s got dates in it.”
“No,” Harold waved it off.
Ben started to drive, “I was going to drive you home in the sheriff’s car but I thought you’d be more comfortable with out the handcuffs. I wasn’t kidding about that. State law, passenger in a squad has to be handcuffed and belted in.” Ben smiled. “Mind if I play some music?”
Harold hunched his shoulders. He was wary of Ben’s tone. It was the same one all the case workers used. He stared out the window and focused on that drink waiting for him at the cabin. A big drink and some sleep, that’s all he wanted.
“I talked with the boy’s mom this morning. They haven’t seen or heard from him in almost eight months. You really think you saw him on your property?”
Harold thought to himself for a moment. What was the answer that would lead to less questions? He cleared his throat, “Dunno, I was drinking a lot. All cooped up in that cabin... Just trying to write. Stuck up in my head all day. Imagination started going to crazy places.”
“You were in rough shape when we picked you up,” Ben nodded. “Think maybe the drinking might be causing you some problems?”
Harold stared out the window.
“I think once you get headed down the wrong path it’s pretty easy for your mind to get sick. I mean, maybe you saw the missing persons poster when you were gassing up your car, kind of put that in the back of your head. Mind gets poisoned with the alcohol and does strange things. I know, I had a real bad problem with drinking.” Ben nodded and looked over his shoulder at the pamphlet in the back seat. “But you know, there’s someone who can help.” He smiled at Harold.
Harold had heard this pitch a dozen times. It was an endless game of gentle questions, none of the answers he could give would lead to him winning, just to more questions. It was going to be a long car ride, he tried to change the subject. “Why did he run away?”
“He got into a real bad fight with his mom’s boyfriend. Everyone sort of figured he’d get cold and hungry, eventually come home, or wind up in town at the McDonalds. But he just vanished.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“I don’t think it’s good. Chances are he got lost in the woods. Tough part is, there’s just so much wilderness out here, slim chance to none that somebody will stumble on his remains.” Ben swallowed hard. “Just real tough on the mom not knowing one way or the other.”
“Could he have hitched a ride, maybe he’s in another state?”
“I’m just going off the statistics they give us. When an eleven year old boy is missing for more than seven months...” Ben shook his head.
“Could someone have grabbed him?”
“It’s a possibility. But I mean, what are the chances that the first person to come across a runaway is a child abductor? You know, statistics again, we have these bulletins with all the crime reports. Watching the news you’d think kids get grabbed by strangers all the time.” Ben shook his head, “There’s no boogeyman, especially not out here. Kids just get lost in the woods... die.”
Harold sat up, “There’s no chance he could survive in the woods this long?”
Ben looked at him and then turned up the stereo, “Sure I couldn’t interest you in some of my wife’s date bread?”
The sun was almost down and Harold stood glassy-eyed behind his cabin staring into the woods. “If you’re lost, it’s okay,” he yelled. “I have a phone. I can give you a ride.” His voice echoed in the empty cold. “Sorry if I scared you.”
He went into the cabin and came back out with four slices of sausage pizza and a can of root beer. He set the meal down on a large oak stump in a clearing. “Here’s some food,” he yelled into the dark. “Soda and pizza. There’s more, I got plenty of food...” He searched the woods for a flash of white, “I’m not mad at you... my name’s Harold.” He waited and searched a little longer. Under his breath he whispered, “Where did you go?” He shivered with cold and went inside for a drink.
It was morning and the pizza and soda were still on the stump. Harold nodded then went inside the cabin and made a phone call. His bags were packed and the cabin was clean.
“Hi Mr. Peck? It’s Harold out at the cabin. Listen, I had a change of plans and I’m not going to need the cabin anymore.” Harold stared out a window as he listened to the voice of his landlord on the other end. “No the place is fine, it’s me, I just can’t seem to get any work done out here.” He paced in the kitchen and looked out the window above the sink. “I got it pretty cleaned out, fridge is empty, I’ll leave the key under the cap of the propane tank... Okay then, I’ll talk to you soon.”
He packed his bags and boxes into the car and closed the doors. He took a moment to size up the landscape, breathe in the last of the forest air. He thought back about the first day he rolled in to the place, the feeling of promise as he started a new chapter in his life.
A flash of white darted through the trees. It was the boy.
“Hey?” Harold trembled and chased after him.
The boy darted down the rough trail that started outside the bathroom window. Harold stumbled and followed, catching up behind him. With his back to Harold, his hood up and his hands in his pockets the boy made his way quickly into the woods.
“Hey, wait. It’s okay, I know you’re lost.” Harold caught up to within twenty yards of him. The trail twisted and turned its way up a rocky hill of cathedral pines. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise...” Harold stumbled and the boy rounded a bend and disappeared.
Harold scrambled up the crude trail and into a grove of white birch. Up ahead, near the top of the hill, the boy walked into a clearing ringed by giant oaks and stopped. He stared down at the ground.
Harold made it into the clearing. The boy didn’t move, he just stared at a pile of rocks in front of him. Harold slowly walked up behind him, close enough to touch him. The boy was thin, his sweatshirt was two sizes too big and hung off his boney shoulders. This close he was so small, barely as high as Harold’s chest.
“It’s going to be okay...your mother is looking for you... She’s not mad, she’s just worried about you.” Harold spoke calmly.
The boy didn’t move, he kept his back to Harold, his hooded head bowed to the pile of rocks at his feet.
“It’s okay, I know what it’s like. I had a lot of bad stuff happen to me when I was your age. I ran away from home too.” A painful ache swelled in Harold’s chest and grew into a panic. He stumbled a step back and tried to push a buried memory away, tried to push it back down in the dirt. That one memory he never wanted to deal with. That one moment from his childhood that had caused him to get hung up on Chapter 7. Writing and rewriting Chapter 7 for more than twenty years.
Light flurries floated down from the tangle of bare branches. “You should come back with me, to my car, I’ll give you a–” Harold choked as he looked down at the pile of rocks. In the heap of fist sized boulders was a scrap of white fabric.
“No,” he shuddered.
He fell to his knees and started pulling rocks off the pile. “No, no, no...” he cried, tearing at the pile until he uncovered the decaying body of the boy. “Oh my god...” He clawed at his chest, “I did it... I did it...”
He turned and looked up at the boy standing over him, but instead saw a different version of himself. Sober, clean cut and freshly shaven. He was dressed neatly in a cardigan sweater over a button down shirt. He spoke with a grin to the pile, “I guess there’s no use in pretending Harold.” He bent over and picked up a rock to toss on the pile.
Harold drove west along county highway C in South Dakota. For the past month he had wandered the back roads of the northern plains completely clean and sober. He was looking for an out of the way place where he could get some work done on his book. Up ahead a young boy in a dirty blue jacket was walking by himself along the side of the road. Harold pulled up alongside and rolled down his window with a smile.
“Need a ride?”
