Coldwater

by Samuel Parker

  Frank thought for a minute. Earl wasn’t dumb all the time.

  He put the truck in gear and drove to a more secluded part of the road but still kept the house in sight. He turned the truck around, feeling a little more at ease to be facing toward Coldwater than pointed away from the main road back to town.

  “How long do we wait?” Earl asked.

  “As long as it takes, I guess.”

  “What he say about all this dead earth surrounding Michael’s house?”

  “Said he seen it before.”

  “And?”

  “Just said it’s proof that Michael’s very presence is a cancer.”

  Earl shook his head and looked out the window. “We never should have done this.”

  “I know,” Frank said.

  “Never should have listened to Haywood.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are we still?”

  Frank sat silently and looked out the windshield. Nope, Earl wasn’t dumb all the time.

  thirty-two

  SO HOW LONG YOU BEEN ADVENTURING?”

  Michael came out of his daze and returned to the conversation in progress. Will and Otis had come that morning bearing more gifts, more snacks that would rot the teeth of the strongest jaw, but Michael’s stomach was in no position to argue. They sat in the dirt in front of the dugout entrance. Otis spent his time chasing shadows in the dying underbrush.

  “For a while, I guess.”

  “You live out in these woods?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Coldwater. Was. Am.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  “Well, you could say that it was time I got out. Go adventuring.”

  “You going back?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. I guess I’m still thinking about it. There’s nothing good going to come from me going back.”

  “Can I tell you something?” Will asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I always like going home. Don’t tell my mom that, but I’m always ready to head back. Otis, now he could stay out here forever, but me, I always feel a sense of relief when I get home.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. The world is a scary place.”

  “You got that right.”

  “You’re a wise boy, Will.”

  “Thanks.”

  They sat quietly again. The conversation had flowed back and forth between silence and idle talk. Michael’s thoughts drifted to the events of his capture, his mind analyzing every detail, trying to identify faces in the dark haze of a drug-fueled memory. There were seven of them that night at Gilly’s. Each one staring at him as the room spun into darkness. Each one silently watching as the poison coursed through his veins.

  The two men on the road he knew. James and Kyle. They had been faces in his world but not part of it. Kyle was younger by several years. He would see him in Coldwater whenever he dared to venture into town, and he recalled his boyhood face from the school yard all those years ago. His thoughts of James were similar. Loud, large, cocky. They were all superficial caricatures he’d created. He knew no one in Coldwater intimately.

  The wind blew and the rustling of dead leaves filled the silence. The clearing of dead plants was creeping ever wider by the hour. A perfect dead radius around the cave.

  Michael knew that he could not stay here long. Soon the creeping would spread up the ridge and expose his hideout. Then there would be no reason to stay in the cramped quarters. This dying would follow him as it always did and he would have to move on. But move on where?

  He was enjoying these odd get-togethers with Will and Otis. Even the dog had seemed to come around and tolerate his existence. Not entirely, but he would at least sit across from him and not growl.

  He looked over at Will and watched him throw another piece of candy into his mouth. The boy caught his gaze and smiled back, his teeth covered in chocolate. Then Michael saw it.

  From the boy’s left nostril, a small bead of blood started to run down toward his lip in a slow serpentine crawl. It pooled slightly and then ran into the boy’s mouth. The salty taste surprised the boy, and he wiped his nose with his sleeve. The sight of blood on his cuff startled him.

  “Uh-oh!” Will exclaimed.

  Michael stood up, an icy shock filling his limbs. The thought that he was slowly poisoning Will convicted him to the quick. “I think it’s time you got going now.”

  “Just a bloody nose.”

  “No. You need to leave.”

  The boy’s face twisted in a look of confusion. “But I just got out here,” he said.

  “Will! Go!”

  “But . . . but . . .” Will’s voice was a mix of surprise and hurt. The blood running from his nose added to the portrait of confusion and gore.

  “Will. It’s for your own good. Please!”

  Otis returned from the brush, alert. He started barking at Michael.

  “Okay, okay. Sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Will. You just need to get home. You need to get that taken care of.”

  “It’s no big deal, I’ve had bloody noses before.”

  Not like this, he hadn’t. Desperation clawed at Michael. “Just trust me . . . please.”

  “Okay.” The boy swiped his nose, packed up his bag, and called for the dog, who ran up to him and seemed eager to push him up the ridge. Will stopped at the top and turned back, the look of childlike eagerness stabbed Michael’s heart. “See you later?”

  Michael nodded a disingenuous assent and watched the boy climb up to the path and disappear over the hill. He pushed aside his roiling emotions and went into the dugout to gather up his things.

  It was time to go.

  thirty-three

  THERE ARE STILL PLACES on this earth where you can get lost. Michael was happy to be in such a place as he headed east through the woods. Apart from the occasional two-track or overgrown snowmobile trail, he was alone in a vast wilderness.

  He was going to miss Will and Otis. It wasn’t often that he talked to anyone, and now, after the attack, he was sure that those moments would become even rarer. But he knew that he couldn’t stay in the dugout nor could he stay in their company. For the moment, he’d let himself be fooled by his desire for companionship, even if it was the naive ramblings of a ten-year-old boy. But when he saw the effects that his presence was having on the encampment and the blood starting to drip from Will’s nose, he knew that he had fooled himself long enough.

  He was a wanderer. Cursed to be alone.

  He knew this, but he was also human and humans forget. Humans wish. Humans desire company.

  Now, trudging through the forest, he wanted the opposite. He wanted to vanish. If he couldn’t break bread with Will, he didn’t want to see anybody. Even Otis with his puppy growl.

  Michael knew he couldn’t stay out here forever. The nights would be growing longer and colder. He had to get back to his cabin and at the very least get supplies that would help him on a more determined trek away from Coldwater. By his estimation, heading east would bring him to State Road 42, which he could follow south and get back to familiar territory. He knew the general area he was in, having come north from Old Man Jackson’s, but the north woods was still pristine, even on its outer edges. The boundary road acted as a barrier to further encroachment by Coldwater residents. It’s where the world terminated. It’s where James and Kyle had terminated.

  He was off the grid. And while he was off the grid, he was safe from his pursuers in Coldwater, but he wasn’t safe from the elements. He had to get home eventually.

  Though he’d spent his early years in the area, he didn’t really know it that well, just the cursory knowledge one would get from casual observation. Since his return last year, his hunting and fishing took place within easy distance from his cabin, and any supply runs into Coldwater were done hiking down Old State Road, or even to Jackson’s store if he was up on the river. The north woods were as mysterious to him a
s they’d been in his youth.

  Michael kept walking, his breath mixing with the crunching leaves underfoot and the call of birds in the canopy overhead. After an hour or two, the wind brought to him an odd odor that stung his senses and stopped him in his tracks. It was an unnatural aroma, not of the forest, but manufactured in the stew pot of hell and damnation.

  Michael looked around, fearful that he had walked into a camp or someone’s property. He saw nothing. Stooping down and covering his face to fight off the stench, he moved forward until he could see the trees start to clear. Far ahead he saw an old trailer. Next to it was a metal garage with its door open and a faint mist of smoke pouring out of the interior. There was nobody around.

  Deep in the woods someone had staked a claim and was brewing up something vile.

  Michael crouched behind a tree and observed. He saw a woman come out of the trailer, walk across the clearing to the door of the garage. She stood there for a minute and then slowly made her way back. Her gait was unsteady, like she was drunk on the fumes belching from the outbuilding into the clearing. She disappeared back into the trailer and the metal door slammed behind her.

  From the garage a large man in overalls stepped out. He had a mask of some sort over his face to protect him from the stench, and gloves up to his elbows. The man stood staring at the trailer and then disappeared into his dark laboratory.

  As it slowly dawned on Michael what he had stumbled into, he felt a boot step onto his back, pushing him hard against the ground, and the barrel of a gun press against the back of his head.

  “Have you seen enough?” a voice said.

  thirty-four

  MELISSA STEPPED out of the decrepit house and back onto the dead soil. She looked out onto the landscape and let the current state of her childhood home overwrite her memory of it. Desolate. Quiet. It was a burned-out remembrance. She turned away from her car and walked to the back of the house. She noticed a fire pit in the back with charred ash in it. It hadn’t been used recently. Farther back in the trees, she saw the remains of a deer hanging from a tree. It appeared that it had been dressed, but wild animals had rendered it grotesque. It was little more than a bone ornament now. There was an assortment of old junk and rusting metal scattered around the house.

  Dead.

  Everything dead.

  Farther around the back, she saw an old battered Aljoa trailer, its two wheels flat, its seafoam coloring stained. She raised her gun and walked toward it.

  Her footsteps seemed louder than they had ever been.

  She reached for the trailer door. It was unlocked.

  She stepped in and saw that the inside was lived-in but clean. It was as if she had stepped through the looking glass, the interior not matching the slow decay outside. There was a small stove and icebox. In the back, the bed took up half the trailer but had not been slept in. The comforter was a solid color, cheap but fairly new. This must be where Michael lived. The house was all but falling down, but here, hidden away in a tin can, is where he spent his nights.

  A space that would drive a normal person to insanity, but perfect for a person who had been conditioned to a prison cell.

  What kind of life was this? She thought about how good she had it when her aunt had come and taken her away from this place. Even on those odd nights before her father died and when her mother would drift back home, it felt lonely. It was never a house of love after Michael had destroyed it. Just coldness. Three people living in the same confined space.

  Her mother hadn’t bothered to come out of the house when she left. Hadn’t even ventured out of the bedroom that day. Melissa couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen her mother’s face, and now she couldn’t remember her face at all. When she thought of her, she could see only her silhouette, her face blurred, deleted from her memory.

  There was nothing here now.

  Her eyes glanced around the trailer, looking for nothing in particular, when a reflection caught her eye. Hanging from a lanyard on a nail over the stove was a key. A bright, newly fashioned key. She picked it up and examined it, then put it in her pocket.

  Melissa turned and stepped back out into the parched yard.

  She walked around to the front of the house, up to the porch, through the kitchen, and stopped in front of the locked door to her old room. She pulled the key out and slid it into the door handle. It fit perfectly.

  She took a deep breath, as if she was about to expose a part of her life that she had kept buried from all prying eyes. This was the room that she had shared with her brother, where she had played with her dolls and had set up tea parties with imaginary friends. The room that held her last remaining happy childhood memories of her life here. Once she opened the door, she doubted she would be able to recall them again. They would be replaced by a cadaver of wilted recollection.

  She gripped the handle and opened the door.

  What she saw inside threatened to derail her plans entirely, and destroy the construct of the monster she had come to slay.

  thirty-five

  THROUGH THE NORTH WOODS the SUV drove the dirt roads slowly, the men inside scanning the countryside for any other living creature. But the air was still, the sunlight struggling to break the canopy, and the forest was gray and dark and morbid.

  Clinton was behind the wheel, Haywood in the passenger seat. Davis was in the back, his hand out the open window nursing the latest in his endless chain of cigarettes.

  They had stopped at several trailers and cabins that morning, but most were deserted or boarded up for the fall. They had caught one old-timer who was packing up his car to head south, but the man said he hadn’t seen anyone, and yes, he would mind very much if they searched around his property.

  How far could Michael have traveled from the scene of James and Kyle’s accident?

  It was hard to tell. Haywood thought it could be ten miles tops, but he didn’t know how much the fear of deadly pursuit could add to that number. Plus, Michael was used to walking, walking in and out of Coldwater, so he might be more capable of putting miles behind him than the average man.

  The men drove north until they came to a crossroad.

  “Ain’t no way he made it this far,” Clinton said.

  Haywood pointed to the right. “Turn here, let’s just see what’s down here.”

  They drove east.

  The first mile brought nothing but the endless continuance of trees. A private drive gouged its way through the scrub, and Clinton turned onto it. A trailer sat back about a quarter mile from the road. They pulled in.

  A man was putting a duffle bag into the trunk of a beat-up car, while a woman sat on the steps, her arms cradling a small boy. Her hand was holding a rag and dabbing at the kid’s face. Haywood noticed the blood. The boy was bleeding, and by the looks of it, severely. A small dog was lying next to the woman’s feet. The man stood straight and watched as Clinton parked the vehicle.

  “Can I help you?” the man said.

  “Everything alright?” Haywood asked, pointing to the boy.

  “Taking him down to South Falls. Not sure what he got into. Won’t stop bleeding. Was his nose, now it’s coming out his ears too.”

  The woman rocked the child, oblivious to the newcomers to her house.

  “Conscious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I won’t get in your way. Just wanted to ask if you seen anyone cross through here today.”

  The man shut the trunk and the noise echoed through the forest. “Ain’t no one ever cross through here. Not until you all.”

  “A man broke out of South Falls jail, we were just doing our part looking out for folks,” Haywood said. “They said he was headed north. We thought we would check on some of the summer cabins out here.”

  “You guys police?”

  Haywood didn’t answer. His eyes darted around the property, searching for any clue. He was becoming more and more desperate as the day went on and his mind started playing tricks on him. Several times he had sworn t
hat he saw Michael in this ditch or behind that tree. But to no avail. As his eyes wandered, they fell on the boy, whose bloodied face was now turned to him, staring at him as if he had a piece of knowledge he was holding so tight that it was filling him to near bursting.

  “Maybe your boy seen something?”

  “My boy needs a doctor.”

  Haywood approached the woman. “Can you speak, son?” he asked.

  “Get away from him!” the man yelled, but Clinton stepped up with a look in his dark eyes that convinced the man to take it down a notch.

  The boy looked at Haywood and nodded his head.

  “You see a man around here? A stranger?”

  The boy nodded again.

  “He do this to you?”

  “No,” the boy whispered.

  The woman looked at her husband with a desperate gaze.

  “Where’d you see him?”

  The boy lifted his arm and pointed away from the trailer, toward a trail that led off east into the blackened forest.

  “How long ago?”

  “This morning.”

  The boy’s father now directed his rising anger to the unknown man in the wilderness. “I’ll kill him . . . I’ll kill him,” he mumbled, his fists clenching at his sides.

  The woman looked back down to her son and started crying.

  Haywood turned back to the man. “You need to get your boy down to the hospital. We’ll find him. Believe me, we’ll find him.”

  “And what are you going to do to him?”

  “Best if I didn’t tell you.”

  The man gathered his wife and son and got them in the car. Before he got in himself, he looked back to Haywood, Clinton, and Davis, who were standing in the drive, watching him leave.

  “I don’t need to know what you guys have planned,” the man said, “but whatever it is, feel free to make it twice as bad.”

  Haywood nodded and watched the car as it turned onto the road and disappeared. He looked down the trail and started walking, not knowing what they would find.

  thirty-six