by Dylan Peters
“How long did you say it’s been?” I asked.
“Some of the survivors have been counting the days,” Anna answered, and then looked down. “I haven’t. It doesn’t really seem to matter anymore, but… I think it’s been maybe a month since the Demise.”
“How have I lost that much time?” Tears welled in my eyes, but then shame kept them from falling. I couldn’t cry in front of Anna.
“You really don’t remember being in the Nullwood at all?” Anna asked.
“No.” I couldn’t remember a thing. “Where are we now? I mean, what parts of Flagler County are Nullwood now?”
“The Nullwood starts about where Belle Terre Parkway used to be,” Anna said. “The scouts say the tree line sort of runs north and south. I’m guessing you lived west of Belle Terre.”
I nodded.
“So you’ve been in the Nullwood for a month,” Anna said, looking as pale as I felt.
I nodded again.
“You can’t tell anyone,” she added. “Ever.”
“Why?” I asked, tears threatening to return.
“They’ll kill you, Arthur,” Anna said.
“I know that.” I was getting angry now. “I saw that. But why? Why? There might be millions of people still alive in the Nullwood who need help.”
“Some bad things come out of the forest,” Anna said meekly. “People are scared. No one knows what to do.”
“Bad things?” I asked. My anger faded because Anna seemed genuinely afraid.
“Monsters,” she said, and I could see she felt foolish saying it that way. “Mynahs, we call them. They come out of the Nullwood at night, and they kill people. Sometimes they take people. David says that people who go into the Nullwood eventually turn into mynahs. So he thinks we should kill everything that comes out of the Nullwood… even if it’s people.”
Stupidly, it only now occurred to me that I had come out of the Nullwood, and Anna had not killed me. She had helped me. She had protected me.
“You don’t agree with David, do you?” I asked her.
Anna shook her head and paused before speaking. “My parents always used to say that when people don’t understand something, they get afraid, and then they get dangerous. We don’t understand what happened to us, but that doesn’t mean that our decisions should be made in fear. It doesn’t mean we should kill people just because we’re afraid.”
A tear fell down Anna’s cheek.
I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t. I wanted to thank her. I didn’t do that either.
“Why were you near the Nullwood?” I asked.
Anna brushed her cheek with the back of her hand, and then grabbed the wheels of her chair.
“We have to get to Esteban’s Bar before the sun goes down,” she said.
“You mean that old bar on the beach that always has a special on crab legs?”
“It’s where I stay now,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The sun had almost set and only dim light remained, but even in the twilight the familiar sound of the waves breaking against the shore and the smell of salt in the air would have let me know where I was. My mother and I had come to this beach hundreds of times over the years. I grew up here. So it was devastating to see the state it was in now.
Restaurants I had eaten at dozens of times were leveled. Even the road along the beach was missing massive chunks, like a hurricane had swept through and eroded the land. It felt like a foreign place when contrasted with my memories. I used to read books on the other side of the dunes. I used to draw sketches of the crabs that came out of their holes to try to scavenge a meal. I used to watch people play in the water with their dogs, or walk along in the wet sand, hand in hand. I used to hear the music coming from some of the patio restaurants and bars. I used to smell the fried fish.
It was all gone now, but Esteban’s still remained.
I had never been inside Esteban’s. I was too young to drink, and my mother didn’t like crab legs. She said it was a dive, and I think one time she used the adjective scummy. Honestly, all I remembered about Esteban’s was that everyone except for my mother raved about their crab legs. Well, that and the old wooden sign they had over the front awning that had the name of the bar painted in big white letters. It was pretty ugly, really, but at this moment it was something familiar and comfortable to hold onto in a world that had turned into a nightmare.
At the service entrance to Esteban’s, Anna knocked on the red metal door. She said the front doors were barricaded, and the only way Jim and Kay would know it was her was to knock four times on the back service entrance. Anna had been staying with Jim and Kay since the Demise.
The door swung open, and a big guy with wavy blonde hair and a decent tan stood in our way.
“We were wondering where you had gotten off to, Ann– whoa, whoa, whoa.” The big guy reached for something just inside the door, and then the spade end of a shovel was thrust right up under my chin. “Who are you?”
“He’s obviously with me, Jim,” Anna said in annoyance. “Would you put the shovel down and let us in?”
Jim looked me over with caution before slowly lowering the shovel. “Who is this guy?” he asked.
“His name is Arthur, and I found him on the beach to the south,” Anna said. “He must have fallen and hit his head because he doesn’t remember anything. He doesn’t even remember where his shirt and shoes are.”
That sounded prepared, I thought.
“That sounded prepared,” Jim said.
“Would you just let us in,” Anna griped. “It’s getting dark out here.”
Jim stepped out of the way, and Anna wheeled herself inside Esteban’s. It was odd to see Anna regard Jim with such scorn. She had been gentle and compassionate with me. Her change in attitude was unexpected. I made to follow but Jim barred my way with one of his massive arms. He turned and stood over me, and I had to look up at him. Jim must have been at least six-foot-five.
“If you try to hurt her,” he said. “I will break you in half.”
Jim dropped his massive arm after his threat and shot me a fake smile. I wanted to say something witty and condescending to him. But I didn’t think of anything, and I probably wouldn’t have said it even if I had.
I walked past Jim into Esteban’s and followed Anna as she wheeled herself down a hallway. When I caught up to her we moved through a side door into a large room. It was the bar room, and all of the tables and chairs had been pushed up against the doors and windows as barricades. The sun was setting outside, so there was a small fire in an iron bowl sitting in the center of the room. A girl sat next to the fire, and she looked up at me as Anna and I approached. She had pretty blue eyes that stood out in the dim room, and suddenly I felt very aware that I wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“We’re taking in strays now?” she asked with a crooked smile.
“His name is Arthur,” Anna said. “Arthur, this is Kay.”
“He has amnesia,” Jim said sarcastically from behind me. He appeared out of the darkness and tossed me a white shirt. “Here. I’ll get boots for you in the morning.”
“Thanks,” I said and quickly put the white tee shirt on. It was much too big for me. I assumed it was Jim’s.
Jim sat down next to Kay and crossed his legs. He was barefoot, in red shorts and a white tank top. He looked like the stereotype of a good-looking blonde guy at the beach, sitting down next to his girl to roast marshmallows on an open fire. When he casually put his hand on Kay’s thigh and she barely reacted to his touch, I realized my guess wasn’t too far off.
“You really have amnesia?” Kay asked.
I nodded.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “There are things I’d certainly like to forget.”
Kay’s eyes grew wistful, and Jim put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her. Though he was very tan, his arms were pale in the firelight against Kay’s brown shoulders. She looked up at him and his tough facade melted at her gaze.
I realized everyone
here must have lost quite a bit recently, and then I thought of my mother. My breath caught and I couldn’t believe myself. How was this the first time I had thought about my mother since waking up? Was I that terrible of a son? Before I could shame myself into stopping, I ended up crying in front of three strangers.
Silent minutes passed as the small fire flickered before us. Outside the wind whipped off of the ocean and against the front of Esteban’s. It howled as night fell, as if in response to my sadness.
The guilt of not looking for my mother immediately stung, and was compounded because I had been so cold to her during our last night together. Why couldn’t I just have had a real conversation with her? I never told my mother anything that would have mattered to her, at least not the way she would have wanted to hear it. She wanted to know that she had done all right by me. She wanted to know I appreciated her. In our last night together on the back porch, she was giving me another chance. Now, I might have lost my chance forever. What if I couldn’t find her again? What if she was…
I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand and then realized I wasn’t the only one crying. Jim was red in the face, and wet in the eyes, but he refused to let his tears fall. Kay leaned against him sniffling, staring into the fire, her cheeks wet. Anna’s glasses were on her lap, and she was rubbing the wetness from her eyes just like me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m worried about my mother. I don’t remember anything that happened after the sky opened. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“She was all you had?” Jim asked.
I nodded.
He stood up and left the light of the fire, but only briefly, returning with four rolled sleeping bags. He dropped two next to Kay, tossed one to me, and then walked over to Anna. There he held out the last rolled sleeping bag.
“Can I help?” he asked her.
“No,” Anna answered curtly. “I wish you’d stop asking me that.”
“Sorry,” Jim muttered, seeming sheepish for the first time.
He turned and walked back to Kay, and then everyone laid their sleeping bag out. It was obvious they were finished talking for the night. I was hungry and thirsty but didn’t want to talk any more. In truth, I wanted to close my eyes and be done with the day more than I wanted to eat or drink, so I followed suit and stayed silent.
I’d never prayed before, but as I lay in that sleeping bag, in a world that had almost completely been destroyed, I prayed for dreamless sleep. I prayed for a never-ending dreamless sleep so I would never have to deal with this changed world, so I would never have to think about the things I had lost, and so I would never have to figure out what came next. I prayed because, in a world that had grown so dark, I didn’t know how I would ever find a guiding light again.
Laying on my side, I stared at the flame in the center of the room. I watched as it flickered and shrank, and as I did, I slowly fell asleep.
2
I found myself being slowly dragged through the Nullwood. I found myself in a dream.
I knew it was a dream because I should have been feeling pain or discomfort, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t feeling anything. I tried to move my limbs and found I couldn’t. It was one of those dreams. So I came to terms with it and allowed myself to become calm. There was no need to panic because I knew none of what was happening was real.
On my back, I stared up through the twisted black branches of the Nullwood at a dark gray sky. I considered the idea that this could be a memory but thought it was far more likely my mind was fabricating an image of what being in the Nullwood might have been like. Dreams can do that; they can take something real and twist it. They can sprinkle our grandest hopes over what’s real or superimpose our gravest fears. We usually don’t know which until it has already happened.
I supposed I was about to find out if my dream was a good which or a bad which.
In my dream, I was dragged by something that had me by the leg, or the foot, or maybe both feet. I couldn’t tell. I tried to look at my legs, but I couldn’t. In my dreams it was never a physical struggle, always a mental one.
I looked to my left and then to my right. For some reason, I was able to do that. On my left, the Nullwood was thick, too thick. There was nothing to see. It was so dark the woods were almost completely without visual depth. On my right, it was the same thing. Suddenly, movement in my periphery drew my attention to the sky and I saw a silhouette of what looked like a large vulture landing upon one of the tree branches. Though I reminded myself I was dreaming, I found the silhouette alarming.
Then another large silhouette landed in a tree, and the dragging stopped.
My legs thudded against the ground, and there was shuffling near my feet, yet I still couldn’t look down. Instead, I stared at the silhouettes in the trees, thinking that if these were indeed vultures they were larger and bulkier than any I had seen before.
Then yet another silhouette appeared in the branches, this one much closer than the others.
My mind filled with dread. Somehow the knowledge that this was a dream was not helping me any longer. Something primal and subconscious took over, and I wanted to yell at the shadows in the trees. I wanted to scream and writhe. I wanted to escape. I tried, but I couldn’t move or make a sound. Held hostage, the panic mounted. I tried to yell again, but my words came out muffled. If I was in a dream it no longer mattered. My subconscious was a psychopathic echo chamber; a downward spiral…and still, the shadows in the trees were coming closer.
Suddenly, a terrible roar ripped through the Nullwood, and the silhouettes in the trees leaped into the air and flew away.
It was something close to me that roared. Though the shadows in the trees had left, I was now somehow more panicked. Then my legs lifted, and again I was dragged. I looked toward my legs (of course I could look now), and I saw a large bear. His fur was as black as the trees of the Nullwood, almost as if they were one and the same. His large white teeth were clamped on my pants, and his eyes were red—deep red. They flared in the dark like a demonic beacon.
“Stop!” I screamed, and my words finally came out as more than a moan. “Don’t hurt me!”
The bear dragged me onward. I tried to shake free, but I couldn’t. Then I noticed a small light just past the bear’s massive bulk. I fixated on it. It was small, but not far into the distance. The light flickered and I could tell it was fire, I could tell it was a flame.
“Don’t hurt me! Don’t burn me!” I screamed again.
Suddenly, I felt a dull pain in my ribs, and somewhere I heard someone yelling, get up! The bear dragged me closer and closer to the flame, all while the pain in my ribs grew.
“Get up!” a voice yelled, now so loud it was as if it came from directly next to my ear.
I bolted up in my sleeping bag, suddenly awake. I breathed heavily with pain in my ribs and saw Jim standing over me with serious anger in his eyes.
“Now I remember you,” Jim said to me, and then turned to Anna. “You heard what he was muttering in his sleep, Anna.” Jim looked to Kay who sat up in her sleeping bag. “We all did. He was muttering hurt, burn, hurt.”
“So what?” Anna yelled. “Don’t kick him again.”
Jim looked back down at me. “I knew I recognized you when you walked in here earlier. I just couldn’t place it. You’re Creepy Kage.”
No, I thought as my heart sank. Please, no. I wasn’t dreaming anymore, but somehow I was still in a nightmare.
Jim continued to reveal my past, a past I wanted desperately to forget. “You were a few years younger than me in school, but I remember hearing about you. Arthur Kage, the kid who got kicked out of school for writing horror stories about his classmates. Everyone heard about it. They called you Creepy Kage. You had to be removed from school because you were dangerous.”
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t dangerous. I’m not dangerous.”
“You were,” Jim said. “You are. You had a diary you wrote in. The school found it in your locker, and you had written all of these
horror stories in it, and the characters in the stories were named after kids in the school. They brought in the cops and your mom. Then you got kicked out of school.”
“Oh, my god,” Kay said, and raised her hand to her mouth. “I remember that too. You were a freshman when we were seniors. Afterward, they had an officer come to every class and talk about reporting suspicious behavior if we saw or heard something.” She looked at me and the fear in her eyes hurt a lot more than my ribs. “That was really you?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, it was me, but those were just stories. I would never hurt anyone. I’m not dangerous.”
“I bet,” Jim said sarcastically. “You think we’re stupid, Creepy? The cops and the school thought you were dangerous enough to get rid of you. I don’t know what kind of horror stories you wrote, but if you think we’re gonna trust you, then you are out of your mind.”
“No,” I said, on my knees now, looking around at their faces, pleading with them. “No,” I said with my heart in my throat and tears in my eyes. “They were just stories. They were just stories. I should never have brought my notebook to school. I should never have let anyone see it. I-I-I would never hurt someone. I could never hurt someone. Those stories were just a way to cope.”
“Cope with what, you little creep?” Jim sneered.
“You wrote horror stories about the kids who bullied you,” Anna said, sitting up in her sleeping bag. “I remember it, too. You were a year ahead of me in school. I wasn’t at the high school yet, but my parents talked to me about it. You wrote those stories to cope with bullying.”
I nodded. “It was just writing. They were just stories.”
I looked up at Jim, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes were fixed on Anna, and he didn’t look angry anymore. He had a strange look, a distant look, a look I didn’t understand at all. It was almost as if he were lost in a trance.
