In the Heart of the Dark Wood

by Billy Coffey

  “The river,” he said. “Allie, it’s the river.”

  She kept her hands in place and rolled her head, peering from behind Zach’s arm. Before them stretched a wide and swirling ribbon of gray, flowing left to right. The noise behind quieted and veered off, as though the water itself had formed a barrier It could not cross. Zach stood so overcome by the beauty that he’d temporarily forgotten what had driven them there. He turned at the sound of one more cracking tree—this one so close he actually saw it being struck—and stumbled on upstream.

  “Allie?” he called.

  “What?”

  “Get your hands off my butt.”

  “What?”

  “Your hands.” Heaving against the weight. His lungs searing. “Are on . . . my butt.”

  She released the backside of Zach’s jeans as though they were covered with fire.

  “Put me down,” she said.

  “You can’t run.”

  “Neither can you, holding me and Sam. Put me down.”

  Zach did, grateful to be freed of the burden. Allie’s feet landed on the wide bank and nearly slipped on the rocks. Sam found better purchase thanks to his claws and two extra legs. He growled and leaped forward, toward the spot where they’d come out.

  “To me, Sam,” Allie yelled.

  This time he turned, as though not wanting anything at all to do with what had chased them but needing to at least pretend. It was a sentiment Zach understood.

  “Is He still there?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Probably lost us for a minute, but It’s there. We need to move.”

  “Where?”

  Zach’s mind still buzzed from the cold (as did his head from the wound and his chest from the sickness), making everything foggy. The darkwood stretched on to their right. It was only a matter of time before It caught their scent again. He thought of the doe again, and the way those honeyed eyes had been frozen in a look of horror.

  “Zach,” Allie said. “What do we do?”

  He looked upstream, where the current bent in a dogleg to the left. The air along the water was even colder than in the forest, pushed on by a constant blowing down from the mountains that went unhindered by trees. Zach shuddered against that feeling, but he welcomed it as well. The river assured them life, and what he now saw ahead assured them safety.

  “This way.”

  They moved faster than either of them believed possible, but then danger sometimes has a magic of its own. Allie could only hobble. Her left foot had feeling enough left to know when to pick itself up, but her right had petered out all together—a blessing, since that was the one she’d twisted along the path. She leaned on Zach and hopped as the rocks crunched beneath them. Sam moved to a spot between them and the end of the riverbank. His eyes kept to the darkwood. Zach had no need to wonder what the dog sensed.

  Where the river narrowed and bent rested the rotting carcass of a fallen tree, and that was where Allie thought Zach was leading them. Its bottom had been shorn and blackened by lightning (The Storm did that, Allie, Voice said, just like it’s done all of this), leaving only jagged splinters of wood that lay rotting in front of a lonely stump. A brittle canopy of spider-webbed branches extended nearly to the other side. The limbs there had been plugged with the river’s detritus and a clump of brown foam. Bridging the sides was the trunk—thirty feet of it or so, propped by the canopy in a slow, descending slant to their side. The gap between the trunk and the current ranged from nothing along their side of the bank to nearly three feet where the canopy lay.

  “We gotta cross,” Zach sputtered. They were close now, and hurried when the bushes in the darkwood rustled. “Trunk’s too narrow to walk, so we’ll have to go hands and knees. Keep your eyes down and ahead, Allie. And don’t fall. You’ll be swept away.”

  Allie nodded. What choice did she have?

  They reached the tree as the darkwood fell silent once more. Zach made Allie go first so he could keep her steady. She called Sam and sat him on the trunk, pushed his hind forward. He took a long look to the opposite bank and then back, as if making sure his master wasn’t joking.

  “Can’t carry you this time, Samwise,” Allie said. “You gotta go on your own. I’ll be behind.”

  The trunk may have been too narrow and too shaky for even children to walk, but it was plenty wide and solid for a pup. Sam started off slow, one paw at a time. He reached a third of the way and stopped, turning his face in profile. That was as far as Allie’s dog would go without her.

  “Go,” Zach said. He looked into the bush. “Hurry. Don’t get wet. It’ll freeze us all the way through.”

  Allie climbed on. The tree felt as cold as an iron railing. She pushed herself an inch at a time, trying to settle her eyes on the wood and not the water. The rounded part of the trunk left room enough for one hand and one knee. She traded rights for lefts as the current smacked against the wood, sending spray into her face. The wind buffeted her, shuffling the backpack. Allie felt Zach right it. Even above the gush of the river, Allie heard Zach’s fingers crinkle the pads inside.

  She had no need to worry. Zach was more concerned with making sure neither of them rolled off into the water. The tree shook and bucked with each movement they made. The canopy began to shift. How the tree had managed to lie so long against the current was something Zach didn’t consider. He only prayed it would stay a few minutes more.

  Sam reached the halfway point, Allie and Zach right behind. The current there ran faster, deeper. Much deeper, Allie thought, than she was tall. That knowing stopped her more than the cold. Zach pushed against the backpack, telling Allie to keep moving; they were almost there. She forced her hands and knees to push on and cast a brief look back. In the scrub, a shadow moved.

  “He’s coming. He’s right there, Zach.”

  “Faster.” Not looking, can’t look. “Go fast, Allie.”

  She did. Allie covered the remaining half of the log so fast that Sam was nearly trotting at the end. Zach stopped her there. The water at the canopy was shallow, reaching just to the tops of his boots, but his knees buckled against the undercut. The water felt like ice.

  “You can’t get wet,” he said. “I gotta carry you.”

  He lifted her onto the bank. Sam didn’t wait. He jumped from the tree and splashed in the water, then shook himself dry when he reached soggy ground. Zach waded back in. He found what he judged to be the strongest limb and pushed against it.

  “What’re you doing?” Allie shouted.

  “Gotta move it,” he said. “Can’t let It cross, Allie. We gotta keep the river between us and Mr. Scary.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Scary,” he said again. “I figure namin’ it might make it less horrible. Help me push.”

  Allie did. The tree wouldn’t budge. “It’s too heavy, Zach.”

  He shook his head and strained as more black snow filled his eyes. The tree barely budged. From the other side of the river came one final crash. Allie ran to the edge of the water and bent forward, grasping the first thin branches. She pulled. Zach pushed. Sam wailed at what he saw peering from the darkwood across the water.

  Two children could not possibly move such an object. Even with the rot and wear, the tree lay fifty feet end to end and weighed hundreds of pounds. But something other than a shadow had accompanied Allie, Zach, and Sam through those nearly twenty miles of woods, something beyond the magic Allie believed she had found and lost. There were bad things in that endless forest, and there were good things as well, and perhaps it was more the good and less the children that caused the ruined tree to give way. The trunk slipped only inches, but it was enough for the current to catch it. It swung away from Zach in a series of snaps and crackles. He let go and yelled for Allie to do the same. They watched as the water took the tree in a slow descent downriver, far from sight. Their side of the river looked no different from the place they’d escaped. It was still the same narrow bank flanked by a rising clench of darkwood, but

  “We’r
e safe,” Zach said.

  He staggered out of the water and met a smile on Allie’s face that almost felt worth the trouble they’d endured. Yet to Allie, hers was more than a simple grin. It was a look of love for the boy who had saved her and Sam, and of thanks for a hope kindled once more. That beam only faded a little when she saw Zach’s shaking body and how his jeans looked. They were soaked from the knees down and dry everywhere else, save for the wide, damp oval at his crotch.

  9

  Allie’s lips went slack and slid down until her teeth disappeared. All that remained was the blank hole of her mouth gaping at him in a look that was equal parts disbelief and mortification. Zach didn’t know how such an expression could grow there so quick and looked back across the river, thinking the demon had decided to come into the open and make Itself known. But nothing was there and Sam had gone quiet. Zach turned back to find Allie’s mouth had closed, but her face had gone even more pale. Her eyes gaped out swollen and moist.

  “What’s the matter?” Zach asked.

  Allie’s jaws clenched. Zach shook his head and grinned (Girls, they always get so uptight), and decided it best to get out of the river before his boots went from waterproofed to waterlogged. He looked down, still grinning, even as his heart beat so fast he thought it could very well leap from his chest, and paused before taking the first step. The stain was centered at his zipper, where it flumed out to his thighs. It looked like an evil smile staring up and mocking.

  “Look away,” he shouted. “Don’t look at me, Allie.”

  Allie spun away with such force that she almost turned herself all the way back around. Her arms shot out to stop the momentum. She landed on her bad foot anyway and buckled. Sam cocked his head, trying to understand, but Allie couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see anything. She’d shut her eyes again.

  Zach stared at his crotch, trying to understand how it had gotten so drenched. No, not how. He knew how, at least in the sense of how it had happened. What he didn’t know was how he had let himself. The demon was still somewhere across the river and they were still lost and in trouble and probably dying, but all Zach could concentrate on was hiding his humiliation.

  He did the only thing he could and plunged his hands into the water, splashing his legs and waist. Allie clenched her eyes at the sound, trying to deal not only with Zach peeing his pants but with his now soaking himself to hide it. She nearly spoke up, reminding him how much he’d warned against getting wet and frozen all the way through. Allie held her tongue as tight as her eyes instead. To a boy who fancied himself a man, dying of cold would be one thing. Dying of shame was quite another, and far worse.

  She peeked when the splashing was over. The legs and waist of Zach’s jeans had been soaked in streaks of black that radiated from his zipper. If anything, he had only succeeded in making it look like he’d peed himself more. He walked out of the river, past Allie to where Sam stood, and concentrated on the far side of the river. The demon of the woods could have backflipped out of the brush just then, and Zach wouldn’t have noticed. His body shivered, drawing up three deep hacks. He swallowed what his lungs brought up. It was only after the thick wad of something slid down his throat that Zach thought he should have spit it out instead. It would’ve given Allie something else to look at. He pulled his legs to his chest and hugged them. Sam padded over and pawed at Zach’s sleeve.

  Allie didn’t know what to do. Going over there and pawing at Zach’s other sleeve didn’t feel right. She kicked at the rock nearest her Chucks. Her right foot throbbed as it took her weight. Normally that would be a good sign, but then Allie realized the hurt wasn’t in her toes at all. It was in her ankle. She watched the stone skitter and plop into the water, then took another step, skittering another. Getting closer. The last rock skipped away and she sat. Zach didn’t notice her at all. He was too busy thinking what Lisa Ann Campbell and Tommy Robertson would start calling him once they found out what he’d done. It was the first and only time Zach thought never getting out of those woods wouldn’t be an altogether bad thing.

  “You okay?” she whispered.

  Nothing from Zach at first (Pee-pee Zach, he was thinking), then a nod that was not convincing.

  “It’s okay, Zach,” she said. Sam nuzzled against him as if conveying that very sentiment. Sam, after all, peed everywhere. “I mean, it was probably water was all. That tree we pushed in, it was real slick. Shoot, got me soaked through too.”

  In fact it hadn’t. Strangely enough, the tree had been dry as a bone the whole way across. But she hoped Zach wouldn’t think of that. More, Allie hoped he wouldn’t look at her jeans to see for himself. She drew her legs in as well, matching Zach’s posture, and tugged her jacket down.

  “I won’t tell no one,” she said. “Not ever, Zach. Even if it wasn’t water, I mean. Which I’m sure it was.”

  A long stretch of quiet followed that only allowed the cold to sink into them more. Zach stroked Sam’s head as Allie searched for the more behind Zach’s silence. Not that there had to be more (in her experience, humiliation was enough to shut anyone up), but it was the way Zach had fallen silent. Like he was dealing with more than what he’d done; he was dealing with why it had happened as well.

  “Zach? It’s okay to be scared sometimes.”

  Zach’s head shot up. Allie saw his pale cheeks turn crimson. His mouth quavered and his lips parted, and what flew out smelled like the death on Marshall Granderson’s breath and sounded like the roar of what had chased them down the trail.

  “I ain’t scared, Allie Granderson. I ain’t scared and I never was.”

  Sam jumped away as Zach stood and stormed off. Allie’s eyes prickled at the corners, that dam of sadness pushed to near bursting by his fury. She could do nothing but sit there. Sam made to follow him. She said, “To me, Sam.” The dog settled beside her but kept his eyes to where Zach walked.

  Zach would have gone far enough to lose sight of Allie and Sam altogether—would, in fact, have followed the river all the way to its beginning—but his body gave way. He stopped at the water’s edge and peered in, thankful the current was so quick that he could not see himself staring back. But he could see something. Something so impossible that Zach had to blink to make sure it wasn’t his mind playing tricks.

  “Allie,” he said.

  She couldn’t hear, not with the noise of wind and water. Zach called again and looked away only long enough to make sure her head had risen. He made a come-here motion with his hand, not wanting to risk too much noise. Allie and Sam limped Zach’s way.

  “What?” she asked. “You gotta get warm, Zach.”

  He shook his head and pointed. She followed the finger. There in the shallows rested three bass, each as long as the distance between her elbow and wrist. Monster fish, bigger than anything either of them (not to mention their fathers) had ever pulled out of Boone’s Pond. Sitting there just beneath the water, penned in by a ring of smooth stones, as though offering themselves as a sacrifice. What water still lay in the corners of Allie’s eyes shot from there to her mouth.

  “I’m gonna get ’em,” Zach said.

  “How?”

  He didn’t know. Had he still worn his hat, Zach figured he could try scooping the fish out. But the only thing on his head now was a bloody hole and a girl’s scarf.

  “Gonna grab it,” he said.

  “You can’t. You’ll just scare them away.”

  “No I won’t. They’re trapped. I’ll go slow.”

  “Zach—”

  “Hush,” he said, already bending down.

  Two of the fish were turned away, toward the middle of the river. Zach’s hand came from behind. He dipped his fingers in slow and at an angle so as not to disturb the current. The cold reached from his hand to his shoulder. Sam had come so near that his front paws brushed the water. Allie took hold of his collar and eased him back. Zach’s hand, closer. The tail on the first bass swished and the gills flexed, but still the fish did not move. Zach clenched his fingers
into a fist at the last instant. The three fish erupted into a fit of spasms, trying to make for deep water. Zach tried to hold on, knowing he couldn’t. The water was too cold and his fingers were too weak. Just as the bass was about to slip away, Zach shot his arm up and flung the fish as high and far behind them as he could. It landed with a smack along the rocks and flailed, drowning in the air. The remaining fish whipped at the water. Allie plunged her own hand in, scooping out another, tossing it over her head. Zach retrieved the third.

  Sam struggled against Allie’s hand, sensing food. She gripped his collar as Zach ran for the fish, scooping them in his hand. He formed them into a pile away from the edge of the bank and found the largest rock he could, bashing their heads. Their flailing stopped.

  He picked the first bass up, running his fingers over the slick scales. Allie let go of Sam. He ran to Zach and sat, tail wagging as he yipped. Zach raised the fish to Allie as she approached. It was even bigger on land than it had been in the water, longer than Zach was wide. Ten pounds at least. The other two were smaller, though not by much. Blood leaked from the spots on their heads where the rock had killed them. Their mouths hung open and their eyes bulged. Allie tried not to think of the doe.

  “Lunchtime,” Zach said.

  Allie shrugged off her pack, reaching for Zach’s bow drill.

  “No,” he said. “We can try later with the other two. We’ll eat this one as she is.”

  “Raw?”

  “No other way, Allie. We need to eat. I can’t get no fire now.”

  “I can try,” she said. “I can do it, Zach. I’ll get you warm.”

  Zach said, “I ain’t cold” through two blue lips. “We gotta eat and we gotta move. I’d make us do them both at the same time, but we could use the rest. River’s between us and Mr. Scary. Ain’t no way to come across since we washed that tree down. Water’s too deep, even for a demon. We’re okay now.”