Blood in the Woods

by J. P. Willie

  “No.”

  “Thank you, so now you see my point.”

  We stood there in silence, letting the situation run its course through our young minds. The sounds of an early summer could be heard, and the heat coming from the asphalt smelled of melted tar.

  “Remember what the guy at Taco Bell told us?” Jack asked.

  “Which part?”

  “If we stick together, we’ll be fine,” Jack reminded me.

  “I really hope so, Jack. I really, really hope so,” I sighed.

  ***

  By the time I made it back to Memaw’s house, I had conjured up a story about what had happened to my foot. I was going to tell Momma that I was in the creek, swimming around innocently, and cut my foot on a broken glass bottle buried in the mud.

  It was somewhat truthful, so when I told the fib, Momma took it hook, line and sinker, then loaded up into our ever-faithful Geo Metro and drove me to the hospital. On the way I remained silent, my thoughts spinning with what may happen next, and wondering if we really should’ve called the police. I didn’t know what to do, but I wish I had said something to Momma instead of keeping it inside – because that turned out to be one of the biggest mistake of my life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DANCING THE NIGHT AWAY: 1993

  It was the day of the dance, as well as my last day at school, and I woke up with my foot throbbing with pain. I’d received several stitches, and I wasn’t sure how much dancing I would be doing. I got up, brushed my teeth, got dressed and went to eat breakfast. After I was done, I made my way out to the road to catch the bus for the last time.

  When the doors swung open, Mrs. Kenton was sitting in her seat and looking the happiest she had all year. I said good morning to her as I boarded, but she didn’t respond, just looked at me with a loose grin plastered on her face. I made my way to the back of the bus, where Jack, Krystle and Angela sat, and planted myself down with them. This was the first time Krystle had ridden our bus, and since she had stayed the night with Angela, she was soon to experience Mrs. Kenton’s rage – and would probably be happy that she didn’t have to ride this bus ever again.

  “How are you feeling?” Jack asked me.

  “Alright I guess. I didn’t sleep good last night.”

  “Me either.”

  Krystle and Angela sat beside us in the last seat on the left, looking as if they hadn’t gotten their forty winks either.

  “You think they told Angela’s parents?” I whispered into Jack’s ear.

  “I don’t think so,” Jack said, speaking in his best church voice. “I think our secret is safe.”

  “Did they ask if we called the cops yet?”

  “They haven’t said a word,” Jack told me as he glanced over at the girls.

  The bus ride was fairly quiet the rest of the way, except for Mrs. Kenton going ape-shit crazy on a kid for playing his Gameboy so early in the morning. When we got to school, the bus doors opened up and we all went our separate directions. Angela and Krystle, to my surprise, moseyed over to us.

  “Did you call them yesterday?” Angela’s face was pale.

  “Yeah,” I lied, “we told them everything.”

  “Good,” Krystle said, “I hope they catch that lunatic.”

  “Me too,” Jack agreed.

  “What did you guys tell your parents, Angela?” I asked.

  “Krystle told them that when we were swimming in the creek, Shadow got swept away by the current and drowned,” Angela said gloomily.

  I knew it was hard for her to talk about losing her dog, but I wanted to make sure our story was concrete.

  “They believed us, too,” Krystle said.

  “Perfect,” Jack said. “Now just make sure you don’t say a word to anyone else.”

  “Don’t worry, guys,” Krystle said. “The secret is safe with us, but you guys need to lay low for a while.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t be playing in the woods or swimming in that creek anytime soon,” I reassured.

  I heard more bus engines revving as they pulled up to drop more kids off. Laura’s bus was here, and I had to go greet her when she alighted. “I gotta run, guys,” I made my excuses as I made my way toward my girlfriend’s bus, “I’ll see ya’ll later.”

  “Later,” Krystle and Jack replied.

  Angela just stared at me, emotionless. I knew she was upset that I was going to Laura after what had happened between us at the creek. We’d had a moment, a good moment, but a mad man had interrupted it; and I wanted to walk over to Angela, kiss her and ask her to be my girlfriend again, but I knew she was forbidden fruit to me, as I was to her. No matter how much we wanted to be with each other, we both knew it would never happen. She was destined to be the first love that had escaped me, slipped right through my fingers like sand sifting through the ocean. I would have done anything just to hold her one more time, but I guess the universe had other plans for us.

  Dutifully, I sauntered over to greet Laura; she immediately grabbed my hand and held it tight as we walked toward one of the entrances to the school.

  The day went by quicker than any other; probably because it was my last at the school. The big secret of me moving away really wasn’t that much of a secret anymore, so everyone and their brother made an effort to come to say their goodbyes, even though I would see a majority of them at the dance. Nevertheless, they still felt the need to say farewell, even the kids who I thought hated me, which came as a shock.

  When the bell rang at the end of the day, we lined up like cattle and herded ourselves back onto the school buses. My last bus ride home was like a college party, but on wheels; kids were throwing their notebooks out the windows, spitballs flew everywhere, fights broke out and Mrs. Kenton screamed out in vain for everyone to knock it off. Finally, I got off at my stop, walked as fast I was able, no thanks to the cut on my foot, and went inside Memaw’s house to get ready for the dance.

  “You and Jack still plan on riding to the dance with your foot like that?” Momma asked, concerned. “Me and Renee can give ya’ll a ride up there.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Momma. I’m not gonna let a dumb cut stop me from going,” I told her as I unwrapped the bandage from around my wound. “Jack’s going to let me ride on the handlebars most of the way anyway, so it won’t get aggravated that much.”

  “Ya’ll aren’t taking separate bikes?” Momma sounded surprised.

  “When’s the last time you’ve seen Jack on a bike?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “That’s because he’s been riding on my handle bars for the last year. He never got a new bike after his last one got all messed up from ramping.”

  “Well excuse me then, Sir,” Momma said playfully. “Then ya’ll go ahead and do what ya’ll gotta do to get to the dance. Just make sure those stitches don’t pop out.” Momma walked away and headed toward the kitchen, while I limped over to the bathroom to take a shower.

  When I was done scrubbing myself from head to toe, I dried off and began re-wrapping my bandage. When it was on I didn’t limp as much, as it provided good support to my foot, as well as a decent amount of pressure to the wound; I was definitely going to have to keep it on if I wanted to try dancing tonight.

  As I entered my room, I checked the clock and realized I still had a few hours before I had to start getting ready, so I played video games and listened to The Cranberries – their song “Zombie” is still one of my personal favorites – blasting it loud on the stereo.

  As I tried to focus on beating my game, I suddenly found that I couldn’t concentrate. I felt a weird pressure, like someone was sitting on my chest. I turned off the game and threw myself on my bed, The Cranberries still playing in the background. My pillows welcomed me with their cool, soft faces, but even they were unable to comfort me.

  In a flash, I began to shiver and shake, my mind racing with the events of the day before, and then the time before that... and so on. Images of the harelip man danced around in my memor
y like a bibulous vapor floating about in an empty room. My mind was trying hard to put the pieces of terror together to see if any of it made sense; everything from the drums in the woods, the murdered calves, the mall, the day Jack and I saw someone skulking next door from the trampoline – to Scarlet, and lastly, the events from yesterday.

  Of course, I didn’t know who the hare lip guy was, and I’d never seen him but twice in my life; and both times he was trying to kill me. Jack mentioned a woman being there at the creek, helping the guy drag something towards the water, but I didn’t have a clue to who she might be. As I thought about all this, somehow, I slowly drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  I jolted awake, sending my stereo remote falling to the ground, as Momma came busting into my room.

  “What are you doing sleeping, boy?” Momma asked me, surprised. “You need to get dressed right now, ‘cause the dance starts in a few hours, and I don’t think you and Jack will make it there in time if you don’t leave now.”

  “What?” I asked, still groggy.

  “I said you need to get going. Here,” Momma said, throwing me a purple, collared shirt and a pair of black Marithe Francois Girbaud jeans. “That’s what you’re wearing to the dance.”

  “I hate that purple shirt,” I whined, rolling onto my stomach.

  “Shut up, son. You look good in it, and those jeans ain’t cheap! Now get dressed. I’ll go give Renee a call to make sure Jack is ready.”

  Momma then left the room and I got up to get dressed. I looked over to the clock built into my CD player; six o’clock. I had been asleep for almost three hours! I got dressed, spiked my hair with gel, sprayed some cologne and off to the bathroom I went. I had shit breath from my nap, so I brushed my teeth and gargled with some mouthwash. Soon as I was done doing all this, I carefully put on my black Reeboks, trying my best to avoid aggravating the gash in my foot, and then went into the kitchen, where Momma and Memaw awaited.

  “Wow! You look so handsome,” Memaw gushed.

  “Look at Bubba,” Momma boasted. “All dressed up and ready to go.” She was smiling from ear to ear, in that way parents do when they see that their kids are growing up.

  “Pepaw would’ve loved to see you dressed so nice,” Memaw sounded happy.

  “I know,” I really didn’t know how to reply to that without bursting into tears. “Is Jack ready, Momma?”

  “Renee is bringing him down in a few minutes. Go get your bike ready.”

  “Okay,” I said, and went out the back door.

  As soon as I’d brought the bike around to the front porch, I saw Jack pulling up in our driveway with Renee. I went back in through the front door and waited for my friend to come inside. Jack looked sharp, wearing a buttoned up white shirt with Levi blue jeans and sporting a combover that he didn’t look too happy about.

  “Did your Mom make you wear that shirt?” I asked him.

  “Yep,” Jack said. “Did your Mom make you wear yours?”

  “Yep.”

  “I hate button up shirts. Nerds wear buttoned up shirts.”

  “Well, do you want to wear this purple nightmare?” I asked him.

  Jack took a good look at my shirt. “I’ll keep this one.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “At least you’re not wearing a shirt that looks like you skinned Barney and made a shirt out of him.”

  “True, but if I had a calculator and some pens in this pocket, I’d look worse than you.”

  “Well, I have those in my room; you want me to get them?” I joked.

  Jack responded by punching me in the arm.

  Momma and Renee sat us down and gave us one of their speeches. We were told not to fuck up, not to stray from the route we had told them we were taking, not to go anywhere other than the dance, blah, blah, blah.

  “We’ll be at the gym at ten o’clock to pick ya’ll up,” Renee announced.

  “What!?” Jack and I exclaimed.

  “Ya’ll heard us. We’ll be at the gym to pick ya’ll up. Ya’ll ain’t riding back during the goddamned nighttime. You could get hit by a car or something,” Renee said.

  “Aww,” I whined.

  “Jody,” Momma snapped. “We’re letting you ride up there, but not back. So, don’t press your luck, son, or we won’t let you ride up there at all. Just be outside the gym with your bike, so you can load it up in Mr. Shawn’s truck, by ten o’clock. Me and Renee will be waiting out there for ya’ll.”

  “Aww – alright,” I grumbled.

  “Now ya’ll boys need to get going,” Renee told us.

  We got up from off the couch and walked over to our mothers to give them a kiss.

  “I love you, Bubba,” Momma said as she planted a kiss on my cheek. “Now you be safe and have fun.”

  “I will,” I said, and then Jack and I were gone.

  ***

  Thirty minutes into our bike ride, we were already a little over halfway there. We cruised up and down the backcountry roads to the school, excited, happy, and full of ourselves. We passed houses and trailers of all shapes and sizes, and low-slung trees hung over the roads, and provided us with shade as we made our way to our destination.

  Jack had brought a SONY FM radio tape player along, and it played music loud enough for us to listen to as we rode along. I grasped the radio firmly in my hands as I sat atop the handlebars, enjoying the warm wind rush across my face. We listened to the radio stations at first, B-97 FM mostly, and when a song came on we didn’t like, Jack had me hit the play button to start the mixed tape inside. As the tape played, Stone Temple Pilots’s song Plush blared while we sat back and enjoyed the bike ride, making rapid progress toward the school.

  We only had about three miles left when Jack asked if I would switch with him. I could tell he was beat, so I traded places, in hopes that I would actually be able to do it without my foot hurting too badly. As I started pedaling, the pain shot through my entire body and I thought I wasn’t going to be able to carry on, but after a few minutes, my foot went numb and the pain drifted away. As we made the right onto the street that brought us into Tickfaw, I remembered that there was an overpass ahead.

  “You, ass!” I yelled to Jack.

  “What?”

  “You get to ride down the other side of the overpass,” I complained.

  “So what! I rode your crippled-ass over more than halfway.”

  I couldn’t really argue that, Jack had ferried me on the handlebars for over four miles, so I had no recourse. I sucked it up, pedaled us up the overpass and pulled over to the side once we reached the top.

  “Man,” I said, wiping the sweat from my brow. “That was a smoker.”

  “Take a breather, then. We don’t have much further to go anyways.”

  “I’m gonna be all sweaty when we get to the dance. Laura probably won’t want to dance with me.”

  “Everybody’s gonna get sweaty eventually,” Jack said. “The gym is gonna be filled with damned near every kid in school tonight, and you know it stays hot as hell in there.”

  “You’re right about that,” I agreed, stretching my back out until it crackled.

  Jack walked over to the guardrail and peered down onto the highway. I put my bike down and joined him to take a peek for myself. Below us, the traffic flowed like running water in both lanes. Down in front of us, on the right-hand side of the highway, was a sign that said HAMMOND-10 miles, this was the interstate that took you in and out of Amite and up into Mississippi. I watched as an eighteen-wheeler approached and then disappear under our feet, shaking the ground beneath us. I looked over at Jack, who was busy spitting over the side into oncoming traffic, and that’s when I noticed a small red pick-up truck making its way up to the overpass.

  “Stop that, Jack,” I barked, “a truck’s coming.”

  Jack stepped away from the guardrail and put his back to it. We put on our best innocent faces as we heard the truck approaching.

  The red pick-up sped to where we were standing with loud
rock music echoing its way out of the cab – I do believe it was Alice in Chains. We watched as the truck flew past us and made its way across the overpass, where it came to a sudden, screeching halt. The smell of burning rubber invaded my nostrils, and the unexpected halt in the truck’s motion arose my suspicions.

  “What the hell?” Jack was nervous.

  “Maybe they saw you spitting over the edge.”

  “They were too far back to see that.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” I said, and my heart sped up.

  The reverse lights for the truck came on, and it rolled backwards. I swallowed a lump of dry nerves as I watched the vehicle make its way back towards us. Then, without any warning, the brakes were hit again and the truck came to another screeching halt about sixty feet away from us. Jack scooted closer to me as the pick-up sat there with its engine running. Stickers – everything from radio stations to funnies were plastered over the back window, making it impossible to see inside the truck, let along who was driving the thing.

  Seconds passed, and then the reverse lights shut off and the truck slowly began to drive away. Jack and I looked on as it continued down the overpass, and didn’t move from our spot until the truck had become a small, red dot in the distance.

  “I don’t know what that was all about, but we need to get to the dance – fast.” I said.

  “Do you think it was him?” Jack was panicked.

  When my friend’s words sunk in, fear paralyzed my body.

  “I don’t know, but we don’t need to find out,” I said. I picked my bike up from the ground. “Now, get on and let’s go!”

  Jack hopped on and we made our way down the overpass, free-rolling along at breakneck speed. When we reached the bottom and our momentum died down, I resumed pedaling.

  “Keep a look out for that truck,” I said. “If we see it again, we’ll ditch the bike and run to someone’s house for help. Okay?”

  “Got ya.”

  Jack remained on constant vigil the rest of our trip, and I was a bag of nerves the whole time. Every street we turned down, every cross street we went through, I expected to see the red truck parked to the side of the road with the hare lipped man leaning up against it, waiting on us. That thought made me pedal faster and before we knew it, we were at the dance.