The Damned of Lost Creek

by Danae Ayusso

  I didn’t lie.

  I did see the woods, and I have come to the conclusion that it’s the woods in general that want to eat me so it’s a bending of the truth, but the truth nonetheless.

  He nodded. “Was there anything in particular that you saw in the woods?”

  Why would he ask that?

  Hell if I know.

  Damn it.

  “Squirrels, a deer, well, a very frightening and scary deer,” I said and shivered. “It looked just like Bambi with rabies, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want someone shooting it. I don’t know how that hunting thing works around here, but I’m pretty damn sure seeing Bambi’s brains get splattered across some trees would really mess with my head.”

  “Very well,” Price said, his eyes flickering to the woods for a fraction of a second before they returned to mine. “Let’s turn in. Since you don’t know what you want from the mall in Missoula we’ll try something else to get you prepared for school and settled in at the house.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but as long as he wasn’t pressing the ‘what was in the woods subject’ anymore, I was down for anything.

  “That isn’t how hunting works,” Shep assured me and Price nodded his appreciation for something, maybe for running interference.

  “Enlighten me, Jedi Master,” I said, making a face as I stood up, ignoring his offered hand.

  A smile consumed his face. “Well, Jedi Youngling, during hunting season, which isn’t right now, they go into the woods away from houses, people, ranches and farms, and they have to have a license.”

  “A license to kill?” I mused.

  “Exactly that!” he beamed.

  Hey, I thought my James Bond impression was good.

  No, it wasn’t.

  “What did it look like? Other than Bambi, there are different kinds of deer.”

  I shrugged. “Long shaggy white hair, red glowing eyes, razor sharp claws, fangs that rival those of a saber tooth tiger, sparkling in the sun… Come to think of it, it might have been a ‘Twilight’ yeti. Is there a license or season for those?”

  “No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Mikey, let’s get back before Ellie kicks all of our butts for staying out after sundown.”

  The walk back was awkward, by far the most awkward thing I’ve experienced since stepping foot in Montana. Stranger than the family channel game night, the Sunday dinners, breakfast in bed, Cinder Dick and his power trip and hogtying routine, the delusions in the woods, and Cujo and her attempt to rip my throat out.

  This was a million times worse.

  I was forced to walk between the silent twins back towards the house. Shep was walking in front of me, and I clipped his heels more than once by accident. Price was walking behind me. Not us, but me specifically. There was some space so he wasn’t trying to ride my ass—ew, awkward way of wording that—but it’s more than obvious that he’s moving with me. And his eyes are constantly roaming, every little chirp from a bird caused his head to snap towards the source, and every rustling in the brush made his back stiffen.

  Usually I let people have their secrets. Everyone has them. The Devil only knows how many I have, but this is really freaking me out, and I think that I should be nosy for once.

  When the house was in view, and the cascading of water created a calming, tranquil, ambiance, I ruined it.

  “Are the woods haunted like the house or something?” I blurted out, causing everyone to stop in mid-step, and I smashed into Shep.

  Shep nervously laughed. “Why would you say that?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I warned you, Misha. I can read people, and right now you all, even the silent ones, are furious and slightly scared, but you’re all scared for me. Why? What’s up?”

  And as I thought would happen, everyone turned to Price.

  “Mikhail,” Price said softly, in a low voice that was slightly urgent, but pleading at the same time, “the woods are very dangerous. There are things in them that could hurt you, possibly kill you. I just found out that I have a daughter a week ago, not just a daughter, but a seventeen-year-old. I just got you in my life, and I can’t risk losing you. Yes, I’m most likely being ridiculously overly protective, but you have to understand where I’m coming from.”

  I nodded. “I understand and respect that but–” I paused, nervously licking my dry lips. “Price, I promised not to lie to you, and I expect the same from you. I know that you’re keeping something from me.”

  He started to interrupt so I put my hand up to stop him.

  “Let me finish,” I said. “I know things from simply observing in the few days that I’ve been here. I know that something bad happened that brought the twins to your doorstep.”

  They looked at each other before they shrugged.

  “They silently communicate,” I explained, “and through a single glance, much like what you do when you’re silently barking out directives, they can hold an entire conversation. It’s cool, and it doesn’t freak me out. It’s a twins’ thing, I’m sure. Is it just in my head?” I shrugged. “Maybe, but it wouldn’t be the only thing up there.”

  Don’t bring me into this.

  “You know I’m not a stupid person,” I continued, ignoring Justice, “regardless of how discombobulated my words come out and my lack of ability to properly articulate myself and what I’m feeling and thinking. But you have to give me the benefit of the doubt. I know that something far more sinister is going on, and that’s really the reason behind your concern. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to become bear shit, and I’ve heard, or I made up, I can’t remember which, that bears like city folk better than flannel clad backwoods hicks, so I’m on the menu with a nice Chianti and fava beans. But be straight with me, what’s up?”

  Price motioned with his chin for the others to go in the house.

  Once we were alone, he waved me towards the barn.

  Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.

  You just couldn’t let it drop. Could you?

  Obviously not.

  I hadn’t actually been in the barn yet, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it will be my midnight home away from home when I need some stress relief… Not that it’s important at the moment.

  “People,” Price said softly, pulling my attention, then he sat on a bale of hay and studied his callused hands, “go into the woods and are never seen again. Each year there are between fifteen and thirty-five homicides…disappearances, in the area.”

  I snorted. “Price, that’s like a three-day weekend in Harrowgate.”

  He nodded. “Yes. In an urban city with a population of almost six-million people, the sixteenth most populous city in the entire country, that’s nothing more than a holiday weekend or the body count if the Eagles ever won the Super Bowl. But when you look at our little city, one of the ten most populous in the entire state with just under nine-thousand people, that’s significant and very concerning. It’s still tourist season, and that makes it worse.”

  Wait.

  “Why would that have anything to do with it?” I asked.

  That’s what the French delusion in my head said… Something like that at least. I know he said tourist.

  What French delusion? Are you seeing someone else when my back is turned?

  Shut up. You know whom I’m talking about; the hot French guy with the shitty boyband hair.

  Yeah, I don’t like white guys.

  Price continued to look at his hands, trying to find the words. “The tourist months are the worst. Nearly all of the incidents occur during the tourist season, mainly to tourists, and it scares me, especially with you being new in town. I’m not saying that the woods are safe after the tourist season, not at all… I’m sorry, Mikhail. I can’t tell you what you want to hear because I don’t know what it is that you need or want to hear.”

  I looked at him with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”

  A smirk pulled at the corners of his lips. “Where do you think you got
the ability to read people from?” He looked up at me. “It sure in the hell wasn’t your mother. You aren’t buying what I’m telling you, but at the same time you know it’s the truth. There’s a small part of you that doesn’t really care the reason why, and you intend to do as I ask regardless, but being a genius, a teenager that is curious and conflicted about something, you want answers but I can’t give you those answers.”

  Holy shit.

  That sucks.

  I guess I can’t lie to him even if I wanted to.

  Lovely.

  “So where does this leave us?” I mumbled, slumping down on the bale of hay next to him.

  “That’s up to you.”

  Of course it is. He’s scared. I can sense it.

  “We’re cool,” I said.

  “We are?” Price looked at me, surprised, and I laughed, nodding. “Huh, okay. Mikhail, I know I promised that I wouldn’t ask questions and would wait for you to tell me, but there is something that has been bothering me greatly.”

  I laughed.

  I had been waiting for this.

  “You mean the fact that I’m so chill and accepting of anything and everything regardless of how ass backwards and jacked up it is?” I clarified for him.

  “Exactly! The house alone I thought would have caused you to run.”

  “Can’t run when I’m dropped in the pantry,” I pointed out and he chuckled.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “I can only imagine the horrific things that you’ve been through, and yet you have this amazing, easygoing, laidback personality that is very hard to find in anyone, let alone someone that has been through what you’ve been through. It’s refreshing, but worries me at the same time.”

  That isn’t good. I don’t want to turn him prematurely gray.

  Want me to handle it?

  No.

  “When I was eight,” I said, looking at my hands, “I was running home from school, being chased by these cholas that thought they rolled with MS-13… Not that I was part of any of that crap. But I was friends with the little brother of a member from a rival gang so they were trying to…I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Anyway, they cornered me and before they could throw the first punch, a baseball bat came out of nowhere and slammed into the side of one of their heads. They took off running and Estelí picked me up and pulled me into the building I was cowering against then proceeded to make me lunch in her tiny white and blue kitchen.

  “I had never met the woman before, our paths had never crossed, but she was there protecting me for some reason, and I felt safe with her. After that, Estelí became my surrogate grandmother and mother when mine was missing for days at a time. The curvy Haitian woman was well known on the block, and no one messed with her or else you’d find yourself cursed by one of her many voodoo spells.” I laughed. It’s hard not to when thinking about her. “Estelí effortlessly gave me love and protection, warm meals, and words of wisdom that I find myself unconsciously applying to my everyday life. ‘Never run if you cannot see the adversary in front of you. When you stand your ground you have the advantage, and they will not be prepared for it. Life is too short to get worked up about anything and everything, so chill and go with the flow, that way you will not miss the subtly of intention which could possibly float past you. We all are fearful, but it is what you allow that fear to do to you that will cause the fear to become rooted in your heart, thus dictating your life. Sometimes you have to take life by the balls, squeeze and twist them until you are inflicting as much, if not more, pain on it than it has inflicted on you.’”

  Price shivered at that one, and I laughed.

  “She sounds like a very wise woman,” he commented.

  My smile fell. “She was. Estelí gave me something that I could never repay her for: hope. In all of the shit that I had to wade through on a daily basis that was called life, there was something in the distance that I focused on. It was never within reach and I couldn’t see it clearly. It was just a little dot of white light on the horizon, and no one could tarnish it or take it from me because it was hope. Hope for a better life. Hope for a better future with safety and happiness. Hope for an end to the craziness and a chance at a normal existence. Out of everyone I have met in my life, Estelí was the only one that gave me hope. And the funny thing is, it wasn’t hope in her or anything that she promised to give me or anything like that. It was simply the courage I got from her to look within myself for the strength to have that hope and to finally visualize it.

  “It really is an easy thing to have and do, but I think I was too scared to look past the crumbling walls around me in order to see that there might be something more beyond the existence and life I found myself in. I mean,” I stammered, sensing how extremely irate the man next to me was becoming, “I didn’t think that I was better than anyone else or that I deserved more or anything like that, it just felt like, and I’m sure everyone says and feels like this, that I was somewhere that I shouldn’t have ever been. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like this is home. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m home. That could be why I’m so calm and chill about everything. I don’t want to rock the boat and lose the only place that has ever felt right to me.”

  Great, now I’m a stammering, nearly crying chick.

  Damn it.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “Usually I’m not such an emotionally busted bitch that cries and spazzes out and rambles like an incoherent asshole. That’s what Justice is supposed to step in and keep me from doing, but she’s slacking, obviously.”

  Sure, blame me because you’re fucking broken.

  Wait, saying it aloud, talking about someone I haven’t talked about in a while and that always made me feel at ease… I don’t know. This is how I felt around Estelí when I was younger. Maybe this isn’t a bad thing after all, and I should roll with it.

  Price chuckled under his breath. “It’s okay. Estelí sounds like a wonderful person and is very important in your life. Do you know where she lives? I’d like to send her a thank you gift, a small something to show how very appreciative I am of her and everything she did for you.”

  Whoa, that is…huh?

  I’ve never heard of someone doing that before, but it’s nice of him to offer.

  It’s a suspicious offer, you mean.

  “3822 Ridge Avenue, at the Laurel Hill Cemetery in her family plot,” I said.

  “I’m so sorry. What happened?” he whispered.

  These father-daughter moments are really kicking my emotional ass.

  “When I was nine,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat, “Estelí helped me with a project for the inner-city youth science fair. The woman was smart, not as smart as you, but she was the smartest person I knew. She’s the one that got me hooked on Jeopardy… Well, I always loved it, but she played along with me and the television, and it made it so much better to watch. Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked,” I said. “Anyway, I placed first. Out of all of the thousands of students that entered, I took the top prize. Fifteen-hundred dollars and a cool crystal trophy in the likeness of a DNA double helix. I ran to her place as fast as I could. My face hurt from smiling so wide. I had never felt happier or more proud of myself! When I got to the door, it was locked so I used my key. Yes, the woman trusted me enough to give me a key to her place. Another first: trust.

  “When I hurried into the kitchen, where she usually was waiting for me with a sandwich and milk or juice, I skidded to a stop. The only thing I remember hearing was the crystal trophy shattering against the floor, and it was quickly followed by me screaming. The coroner said that she died from natural causes, complications from undiagnosed and untreated diabetes.” I wiped my eyes off on the back of my hand.

  You conveniently left out the part about the claw marks that tore her body to shreds and the blood that was seemingly painted across every surface of the kitchen.

  No one else saw it so it’s not worth mentioning.

  “The state was goi
ng to cremate her,” I whispered, “and dump the ashes since she had no kin or money to cover private cremation. I used my prize money to cremate her, that way she could be placed in her family plot since that wasn’t an option with the ghetto cremation. A couple of weeks later, Mom saw that I had won in the paper and that I had money and she demanded it. She never said way to go, I’m proud of you or why didn’t you tell me? No, none of that,” I spit through clenched teeth.

  This time, the irate man on the bale of hay had irate company.

  “I told her what I did with it, and she beat the hell out of me and kicked me out for six weeks until she needed to use me when it came time for her welfare review from the State, not that any of that matters now. But I think I keep Estelí’s words in my heart and apply them to my life as a thank you to her and to keep her memory alive. It’s the least I could do.”

  Price nodded; his jaw was clenched and hands rested on his lap in balled fists.

  “Price,” I whispered, and he reluctantly looked at me, but I couldn’t look at him. “Can we attempt to keep these father-daughter bonding moments to a minimum for the rest of the week? They’re really starting to kick my ass. And as much as I’m enjoying them, I really am, they are resurrecting many happy memories, but as you’ve found out, each of those happy memories ends tragically so the happiness is invalid. Please?” I whispered.

  “Of course,” he said, forcing a smile, unclenching his fists. “I think I know what might help cheer you up.”

  Now I’m scared.

  “What?” I reluctantly asked.

  “Shopping online with my credit card,” he said with a sheepish smile, and I choked out a laugh of amused relief. “Kieran will help you with it. Use his laptop and order whatever you want, and have it sent overnight or express mail. Get yourself some clothes, a computer or laptop or both, MP3 player and whatever else you want and think you would like or need. Ellie already took care of the cell phone; it should be here tomorrow. Bleu is the person to ask about electronics though.” He laughed when I rolled my eyes, getting his subtle joke. “They’ll help you. Shep will just order you pink everything to be a smart ass, and you don’t really remind me of the pink type.”