Adam's Woods

by Greg Walker

  “No easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. What’d you come back here for, Eric?”

  Eric expected his return would be a surprise to those that remembered him and his family, but had reasoned there’d been ample time to heal. But a hostility radiated from Fisk out of proportion to the time and distance of Adam’s murder. Anger stirred in response.

  “Mr. Fisk, with all due respect, it’s really none of your business.” He hated the defensiveness in his voice, didn’t want to begin his time here this way, but wouldn’t back down from this man, no matter how much his inner child cringed.

  “None of my business.” Fisk snorted almost in derision that suggested he had been elected to talk to the village idiot and gotten just what he’d expected. He shook his head for emphasis and Eric could see him working on spitting out his next thought. He didn’t plan to give him the opportunity.

  “As I said, I have a guest coming over and I really don’t...”

  Fisk interrupted with the stab of a finger at Eric and brow furrowed in intense concentration and said, “It might have been your brother that was killed, Eric, but it was this whole town that suffered for it.”

  Struggling to maintain control, determined not to get into a shouting match or God forbid a fist-fight that he doubted he could win, Eric answered in a measured tone, “You’re right, it was my brother. And you have no idea how much I’ve suffered, or my family. Pardon me, Mr. Fisk, but just where the hell do you get off coming in here and acting like it was one of your sons that died, and not Adam.”

  Mr. Fisk softened a bit, and Eric could see real pain in his face but he pushed on, determined to have his say, “It was terrible, Eric, and I don’t know what I would have done if Tony or Jeff had been killed. I prayed for your father and mother and yourself everyday, and still do sometimes. I was hoping to catch that bastard myself, might have run him through the saw over at the yard, and that’s God’s truth. But you’re right, it was your brother. I sure as hell don’t blame George and Maggie for leaving and taking you with them."

  Eric opened his mouth to protest, but Fisk put out a hand to stay him and continued.

  "But what happened, happened to us all, and we had to deal with it everyday long after that. Had to look at each other differently. When someone came to buy some lumber, I wondered if I was selling it to the man that killed Adam, no matter if I’d known him for years. It nearly destroyed everything we built here, was a long time coming where things could feel normal again. A long time. But it was never the same. And by you coming back here now, it opens up those wounds best left alone. I happen to resent that. And I’m not the only one.”

  Eric felt the heat rising in his face, “My family might have moved away, but I never really left. I couldn’t. So don’t presume you know anything about me. I can understand what you’re saying, but it’s been over twenty years. I bought the house, I’m here, and that’s it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m expecting someone. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  Fisk stared at the wall, the muscles of his jaw bulging out like a double chaw of tobacco as he clenched his teeth. Finally he turned to Eric, and said in a low voice, “You know, I always did think it strange that there was just that one murder. The only difference in the town after was that you weren’t here anymore.”

  He suddenly looked stricken, fiddled with his hat, said, “Eric,wait...I...”

  “Are you trying to say that I could have... killed my brother? You sonofabitch...Listen to me, Arnie. If you don’t get out of my house...my house... right now, I’m going to punch you. I don’t doubt that you can kick my ass, but I’m willing to take that chance.”

  Fisk nodded without raising his head, put the cap back on, opened his mouth to say something and closed it again, then walked out through the porch and down the sidewalk without a glance back.

  Eric watched him stride down the street and through the alleyway next to the old Grange Hall that Fisk now used as a warehouse until he disappeared into the dusk. He felt weak, the anger dissipating, stunned by this accusation that had never once occurred to him, that people could think it was him. He knew that John Thomas had been suspected, but him?

  The food lay untouched in the bag, a spreading grease stain making it nearly translucent. He sat on the couch with Mary, her hand on his, but the pleasure he would have taken from it stolen by Fisk and his words. He’d recounted the visit, and her thoughtful expression instead of outright denunciation troubled him.

  “Please, Mary, don’t tell me you agree with him. I couldn’t handle that. You knew me then, knew I could never have hurt Adam.”

  She waved his fears away with her other hand, the one not touching his, and said, “No. I don’t believe that. I couldn’t. And he doesn’t either, really. Arnie Fisk is used to pushing other people around and doesn’t like it when they push back. It’s just the other things he said that I’m thinking about. He does have a point, you know? You have to have considered what coming back might do to people...didn’t you? I mean, that was sort of implied in my hesitation when you first said you wanted to see the house.”

  Eric sat back, relieved at her denial but troubled by her remarks. He honestly hadn’t given that much thought to the village, their struggle and the scars. He had only thought of himself, something that seemed to be an emerging theme that made him ashamed. “I guess I didn’t Mary, not like I should have. I’m sorry. You had to deal with it, too.”

  “Thank you, Eric. Yes, it was hard. We couldn’t go out anywhere for a long time. After a while, maybe a year, maybe more, I really can’t remember...I mean it’s not like there was a time when we could say, “ well, it’s safe now”... we were allowed to go out and ride our bikes again, go swimming and things... but never alone. No one dared to go back into the woods, though. Wouldn’t have even if our parents had let us, which they didn’t.”

  “So do you wish I hadn’t come back? Wish I hadn’t called? Please, tell me the truth.” She withdrew her hand from his and his heart sank, saw it as a harbinger of the words to come that he didn’t want to hear.

  “It was a shock, and of course the first thing I thought of was Adam. And like I said, Mr. Fisk has a point...but only up to a point. It didn’t take me that long to look past what happened and see you as a person separate from the murder of your brother. It will always be there, but I can choose to dwell on that or I can choose to let it be part of the past and let the future be... what it will be.”

  She put her hand back on his, and Eric placed his other on top and lightly traced his fingers over it, marveling at the softness. She didn’t pull away. He brought his face to hers and kissed her. Mary sighed, removed her glasses and put her arms around him, returning the kiss with a passion that surprised him. He felt amazement, in this place of revelation, how a kiss could feel like the first so long after the actual event. But he realized that perhaps it was the first time a kiss was connected to more than just the machinery of his body. He found the thought both exhilarating and terrifying. But not enough of the latter to let go.

  Mary stopped it before things could get out of hand, and despite his heavy breathing and flushed skin, Eric was grateful. He saw another outcome if left to him, and though his body wanted just that, he knew it was too soon, didn’t want to ruin it. Or forget the reason he had come here. But he also didn't want to miss out on a good thing - good things were too hard to come by in his life - that would end up filed as another casualty to his brother's murder.

  “I’m sorry Eric,” she said putting her glasses back on as though a shield to ward against lust and its consequences. “I want to. You don’t spend five years married without getting used to certain things and missing them when they’re gone...but I'm not usually like this. It's been a year since my divorce, and I haven't been with anyone since then. If there could be something here...I want it to be more than just sex.”

  “No apology necessary, Mary. I was just hoping the same thing.”

  “Well, why don’t we try it and s
ee?” There was shyness in her voice, and a vulnerability he made himself mark well. She laughed then, a girlish sound, and said, “Who ever would have thought. You and me. I have to admit that I had a bit of a crush on you back then, before...well, you know. But I never thought I’d see you again, let alone end up on your couch making out.”

  “Truth is stranger than fiction, they say.”

  “Yeah, but let’s hope not any stranger than your fiction. I don’t think I could handle that.”

  Chapter 7

  The boy didn’t eat the breakfast set out for him, but instead just made it off the porch and outside to vomit into the yard. After, he sat in the grass that felt cruelly like normal grass on any normal day and began to weep. He cried for a long time, but didn’t abandon himself to it entirely, keeping watch for the van or some sign of life around him. His town never bustled with activity, but it felt like a cemetery now. Where was everybody? He couldn’t find even a robin hopping through the yard with an eye cocked for a worm dinner, normally so plentiful as to appear like mobile lawn ornaments.

  It occurred to him that he could call the police, and he ran inside to the kitchen phone and dialed 911. He’d finished punching in the numbers before putting the handset to his ear so didn’t hear the lack of a dial tone. But after the rings on the other end failed to sound, he hung up and tried again, this time hearing the dead silence through the whole operation. He had a vision of the man listening on the other end inside the empty void and slammed the handset back into the cradle and cried again. He forced himself to stop, calling himself a baby and urging action instead. He had to find somebody, and until he did and could turn over responsibility for this he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of being a scared child.

  The boy realized that the man might be out there, but he also knew it wouldn’t help to stay here. He might return at any time and correct the oversight of letting him live.

  He went back out onto the porch, and pulled his bicycle, a ten-speed mountain bike he’d gotten for Christmas, out from next to Jake’s BMX dirt bike. Opening the porch door and bouncing it down the steps, he got on and slowly rode up the sidewalk to the street. He stopped and stood on the road, straddling the bicycle, watching for the van, and then began a cautious circuit around the block. Cars were parked in driveways but no one was outside. A number of people had dogs, and normally at least one of them barked as if working shifts, but not today. He almost cried out, shouted just to hear something, but feared what that sound would be like in this auditory wasteland, and feared what that sound might draw to him.

  He came back around to his house, no better off than before, and kept riding. Halfway around the block was his friend’s house. He rode into the yard and parked the bike, then walked up to the door and knocked. The sound made him jump. Reluctantly, he knocked again when no one came. He put his hands to the glass but nothing stirred in his field of vision. The boy turned the handle of the door, and it opened.

  “Hello?” he said in a small voice that strangely angered him with its timidity.

  “Anybody here? Randy?” he called again only louder, trying to not to sound as weak this time, but willing to collapse into tears if his friend’s mom or dad should come around a corner.

  He stood in the living room. The silence of the house mirrored his own. He began climbing the steps, hearing the creaks not quite like the ones in his house, but close enough to make him tremble. Randy's parents' bedroom door was closed. As his eyes got used to the lower light levels of the indoors, he made out some sort of tracks that went right up to the door and stopped. The tracks were long lines as if someone had pulled a wagon through the house, and nearly blended in with the burgundy color of the carpeting. He turned around and followed them back to the stairs where they showed up as half-moon shapes on each step, until by the bottom of the flight they more or less disappeared. He lifted up his shoes and the soles were red, but not by any design of the manufacturer. The iron smell of blood came to him then, had been there all along he realized. He decided he’d missed it due to becoming too used to its scent, like when his family had visited the Laramies' at their dairy farm. The overpowering smell of manure eclipsed all on stepping out of the car, but was practically non-existent on getting back in to go.

  He went down the hallway towards his friend’s room, where they’d played with their Star Wars figures and built Lego trucks and talked about playing football for the Steelers someday, and saw the same sort of tracks on the floor, but narrower. He passed by the bathroom, went back and turned on the faucet to take a drink from it. He splashed cold water on is face and looked in the mirror. It felt good to see the face of a living person, even his own. He knew what he’d find in Randy’s room, but decided to go in anyway.

  The sheets and blankets and the wall were spattered and streaked with blood. But Randy wasn’t there. It came to him that the tracks were the marks left by heels coated in blood being dragged across the carpet. Dazed, he went back to the closed door and opened it. Nothing there but dark stains.

  The boy crept back down the stairs and out the door, leaving it wide open. He noticed more tracks outside, in the form of flattened grass. He got on his bike and rode, gained awareness of the hysteria building inside and regarded it curiously, like an extra appendage he’d just discovered, not quite sure what to do with it. For now he focused on feeling nothing at all, barely keeping the screams at bay, well trained by the months of lying in his bed marinated in fear; that terror was not quite this refined, but near enough to be kin.

  He rounded the corner on return his house and saw the white van parked out in front. The back doors were open, and he made out a pair of skewed bare feet disappearing into the utter darkness of its interior. The sun should have provided some light within, but he knew now that places existed where the sun never reached. After a pause, the man appeared, a piece of that darkness that detached and took shape; a man shape wearing a pair of boots, bluejeans, and a plain black t-shirt. He wore a ball cap that shaded his eyes, the shadow like a pair of dark sunglasses that revealed nothing. He jumped down and shut the doors, and then turned around to face the boy, watching with eyes he couldn’t see that burned a hole through him.

  He knew the man had taken the bodies from his house, just as he’d collected Randy and his parents, knew he’d witnessed the final swallow of the van consuming his father. The boy too understood the quiet, the magnitude of is origin amplified by the pressing weight of the silence filled with screams never uttered. Gone. All of them. All of them but him. But no, he did hear screaming, searched for its source before realizing it came from himself. His last remembrance, before collapsing into the middle of the intersection, was the wide grin and wave from the man before he turned around to get into the van and drive away.

  Eric strolled down the road towards the grocery store, hoping his attempt to appear casual wasn’t overdone. He waved to a few people met only since moving in, not residents at the time of the murder. They were all friendly enough, but there existed a reserve that told him that they knew. Of course they did. If they hadn’t heard from Arnie Fisk, there were enough others to fill the grapevine with gossip about all things Kane. He had decided just to let things run their course. He reasoned that with enough time, he could eventually be just another neighbor, that the day would come when he could be just “Eric”, not, “Eric...you know, the one with the brother that...”

  If he stayed that long.

  He had seen Arnie several times since his visit. On the first encounter, the older man had stared at him while riding his tractor mower in the lot that belonged with the Grange Hall, nearly across from Eric’s house, and then nodded once and looked away. It took Eric a few days to realize he’d been issued an apology, and that it was all he would get. The next time, when Arnie drove by in his truck, he stared straight ahead as though Eric weren’t there, demonstrating that the apology had limited provisions not covering the resentment felt at Eric’s presence.

  Eric could live with it, had even co
me to sympathize somewhat but still bristled at his accusation. He kept an eye out for the others that Arnie claimed felt the same, but so far no one had tried to run him over or taken a shot at him. He had kept close to the house, settling in with the few belongings retrieved from Pittsburgh, so still hadn’t seen everyone. Perry Rice, the man that had found him in the woods, still lived next door but was away in Arkansas visiting his son. Pastor Burroughs, amazingly still preaching at the Baptist Church though he had to be in his seventies, stopped by briefly and promised to have him over for dinner. Janine West, that ran the grocery store and also another childhood acquaintance, had come around the counter and given him a hug along with his change. She had tears in her eyes.

  For his part, Eric was determined not to mention the past unless confronted with it, would try not to stir up trouble even inadvertently or repeat the situation with Fisk if it could be helped. His career as a writer was all but unknown here, and that suited him fine.

  Plus there was Mary.

  Since the first kiss, they’d seen each other nearly every evening for a week. He’d been to her place in Drake City for dinner, they’d driven to Erie to see a movie and then take a moonlit boat ride on the lake with a fellow realtor and friend of hers, and spent a lot of time talking over coffee. At first the murder dominated the conversation, but eventually they worked through their lives beyond that and up to the present. He learned she had done a tour in the Army after high school and served in South Korea. He found out that she’d had a miscarriage she never told her husband about, already suspecting his infidelity. He wanted to know it all.