by Etta Faire
She stopped the car suddenly right along the path. I fell into my seatbelt, my heart racing.
I hit my lock three or four times before looking around, trying to decide which was my best bet. Stay in the car and defend myself against the bony pink-haired girl who may or may not be about to murder me, or run screaming into the forest.
The full moon had illuminated the trunks and branches of the trees so they looked like skeleton fingers beckoning me to come in.
I decided to stay in the car.
Shelby continued. “A group of settlers way back when went in there. Legend has it they got disoriented and lost. Only one made it out alive.”
“Maybe they just needed a compass,” I said, trying to make my voice casual.
“Except, their bones were found a few weeks later neatly placed all along the perimeter.”
I tried not to look rattled.
“Then in the 1970s sometime, a couple stayed late after the drive-in closed. They were making out in the car when…”
“Is this going to involve a hook?”
She ignored me. “When one of them saw something in the woods. They thought they heard laughing, like their friends were playing a trick on them, trying to scare them. The boyfriend had a baseball bat in his trunk, so they went inside the forest to have a look.”
I didn’t interrupt her even though this was already very unbelievable. Why would they grab a bat if they thought it was their friends? And how had they not recognized this scenario, even in the 70s? This was Horror Movie 101. Never assume it’s your friends making the noise in the woods. It never is.
“The boyfriend didn’t make it out. Only the girlfriend did. And she had the same story as the old rancher. Disoriented as soon as they went in. They saw eyes. And laughing. Her boyfriend passed out and she remembered hearing his screams but she couldn’t help him or find him. She couldn’t tell where anything was coming from. Then, when she somehow got back to town, bloodied and crazed, the police discovered the couple’s friends were missing too. It had been them in the woods playing a trick on the couple. A few weeks later, all of their bones were found neatly placed along the perimeter. The boyfriend’s and the friends’. No one went to the drive-in after that. It went out of business.”
I looked over at the drive-in, which was just a dark, dilapidated mass of burned-down, graffiti-tagged boards.
And now, more than ten years after hearing that story, I was about to head into those woods with my own boyfriend. To find Shelby’s fiancé.
I pulled up next to Justin’s truck by the path in the Dead Forest that Caleb was pacing back and forth in front of, and checked my makeup in the mirror. Last week, after Bobby’s wallet was found, I bought $50 worth of “new stuff” from Shelby’s makeup business just to try to cheer her up. It hadn’t worked.
But I had ridiculously glossy lips because of it. I smudged the lip liner into the shiny lipstick so it wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard. Then, I scrunched my blondish brown curls into a ponytail to complete the “not-really-trying” look.
The old drive-in barely stood off in the distance behind us in a clearing that was overrun with weeds and thick grass, nature’s own weird shrine to “the incident.”
I gave my boyfriend a quick hug when I got out. He looked good in his deputy uniform. But I could tell the hug was awkward, like maybe I shouldn’t have come. This was official police business, after all. And I hadn’t even mentioned I was showing up.
Caleb motioned toward me. “What in the heck is she doing here?” His voice dripped with the kind of disgust you reserve for cockroaches. But then, Sheriff Caleb Bowman was my ex-husband’s cousin, and when my ex died without kids or siblings, Caleb expected to receive the entire Bowman inheritance. Instead, the cockroach had received it.
A cool wind picked up. The smell of grass and leaves took are with it. I pulled my jacket tightly over my skinny jeans and t-shirt, shifting my weight from foot to foot to try to stay warm.
Caleb was a thin, nervous man who always scratched at his dyed-black goatee. “The state police are gonna be here soon. We closed off the street. How did you…”
“I drove around the closure signs, same as the state police are about to do,” I said, matter-of-factly.
Caleb shook his head. “We can’t have this. Do you know how unprofessional we are gonna look, calling out the state police and then introducing them to a… a girlfriend? Carly Mae, you need to go.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Carly,” my boyfriend agreed.
Caleb’s feet crunched along the sticks and leaves as he smugly smiled at me and waved good-bye. He whispered to Justin as I opened my car door, but I still overheard. “I’d just feel a heck of a lot better about this if old George remembered what he saw last week. It could be… anything.”
About four days ago, George passed out in the Dead Forest during an unofficial search party for Bobby and his brothers. Apparently, the search party had formed a human chain to go into the first part of the forest in the area where Bobby’s wallet chain had been spotted. Just before George passed out, he pointed into the woods like he’d spotted something awful.
Everyone thought George had suffered a heart attack. They called 911, and attempted to get him out of the forest safely. It had taken five people to even lift the man up, and when they finally did, they noticed a black leather wallet directly under him with the initials BFF. Bobby’s full name was Bobby Furgus Franklin. It was actually Robert Furgus Franklin, but he hated the name Robert and refused to acknowledge it.
When they opened the wallet up, they confirmed its owner. Along with his driver’s license and debit card, that wallet had also contained more than twenty-five hundred dollars in it.
It was almost the same amount Shelby had reported missing from their mattress bank.
Fortunately, George was fine. It hadn’t been a heart attack. The official report was stress and anxiety, but I think it was fear. George said he couldn’t remember what he saw in the forest that triggered the incident. But he was probably blocking it out, or hiding it.
And now, the police were coming in. The big ones from upstate.
As soon as I got back into my car, my ex-husband appeared in the passenger’s seat beside me. He was a faded version of himself now that he was only here in spirit, which meant he was just as annoying but not as noticeable. His coloring was actually good today, a stark contrast to my gray leather seats. And he was grinning wildly.
“Did you really think they were going to let you hang out and watch their police work,” he said as I pulled out along the dirt path again.
“I don’t know what I was thinking, honestly.” Four unmarked police cars headed past me down the deserted road to the drive-in. I waved politely. Stoic faces stared straight ahead. No smiles. No waves. And I thought we Wisconsinites prided ourselves on friendliness.
I waited to talk to my ex again until all the vehicles had passed. “I can’t explain it. It’s just a gut feeling. But I know I am meant to be here. Maybe not to go into the forest, but I just feel like I’m needed.”
He tugged on his ghost beard that was just as pretentious in the afterlife. But at least he wasn’t combing, styling, and talking to it anymore.
“What you could be feeling is our newest client. She haunts at the Dead Forest,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“It could also be your delusional egotism kicking in again.”
I scowled at the man.
He continued. “Or maybe, your police officer boyfriend really needs your help to do his job.”
Two more police cars passed me. I slowed down and watched them zoom by. “Six cars? For a wallet.” I put my foot on the brake and peeked at them in my rearview mirror as they kicked dirt along the path, driving full speed to get to the others. “And they do seem to be in a hurry. Those hyper-focused police officers would probably never notice a Civic turning around, and parking far enough away to watch.”
“And we have our an
swer. The delusion knows no boundaries,” he said.
After waiting a good five minutes to see if anymore police cars came along the path, I quickly turned my Civic around and headed back toward the drive-in, slowly so I wouldn’t make too much noise.
The Dead Forest seemed fine in the day, or at least that’s what I told myself. The trees didn’t look dangerous or ominous. No paranormal mist circling through bone gray branches.
Just before the bend in the road that would reveal my car to the others, I stopped along the road, grabbed the bear spray I now kept in my glove compartment next to the regular mace, and got out.
“You are not serious,” my ex said.
“Just come with me and let me know if you see anything.”
“And to think I was worried you didn’t have a plan,” he said, sarcastically.
“And shut up at all other times,” I snapped, reaching for my key fob, about to hit the door locks. I thought better about it last second. The bee-beep from me setting my alarm would probably not be in my best interest.
I quickly checked the watch on my cellphone. It was 10:20. I’d need to head into work soon. I only had about twenty minutes to spy on my boyfriend. And I wasn’t even sure why I was spying.
After jogging down the short embankment that the road sat on, I realized I was very close to the forest. And that it seemed to want me to get even closer.
It looked like a normal forest, even though I refused to look into it too much. Instead, I walked about thirty feet from the path. But every once in a while, when I looked up, I’d notice I was closer to it than I’d intended, as if I was a piece of metal being drawn by an incredibly strong magnet.
I made a conscious effort to notice the distance and move away from the magnet every time I realized I was drifting.
The air was crisp around me, and my nose and eyes ran a little as I sniffed back a tear.
I peeked around the bend and saw them. More than ten police officers stood by the path that I suspected was where the search party had discovered the wallet. There were three German shepherds smelling an article of clothing. Cadaver dogs, I guessed.
Justin and Caleb didn’t seem to be contributing anything to the search, more than yakking and pointing, that is. Half the police officers and all three dogs went down the path, while the remaining ones stayed on the outskirts watching with radios.
I held my breath, hoping they wouldn’t find him. Shelby would be devastated. The baby would never get to know his daddy. (I tried not to let myself think that might be for the best.) And all because Shelby had given Bobby an ultimatum about his brothers leaving.
But why would that ultimatum mean running into the Dead Forest with 2,500 dollars?
While I was thinking of all the possibilities, I saw something, out of the corner of my eye, a black mass moving swiftly between the lanky trunks of trees in the forest just ahead of me. It was moving toward the police search. And it moved at a faster-than-human pace.
I held in a scream as I dropped my bear spray down by my feet. I scrambled to pick it up again and took off up the embankment and back over to my car. “What the hell?” I kept repeating under my breath as I checked the car over for a killer lurking in the backseat or anything else out of the normal before grabbing the driver’s side door and getting in. I mentally kicked myself for leaving the doors unlocked. After a complete inspection for hidden killers, I finally turned on the car.
“Did you see that?” I asked my ex-husband. “I don’t know what it was, but I should warn Justin.”
“Am I allowed to talk now?” Jackson said in his trademark snotty tone. He appeared in the passenger’s seat again. “I never saw anything except you freaking out over nothing.”
I turned my car around and pulled up the dirt road again, stopping briefly to text Justin.
Be careful. I saw something moving near you guys in the woods on my way out. Something short and dark that didn’t seem human, German shepherd like, or bear.
As I was about to pull onto the main road to get to work, I suddenly got the feeling there was more in this car than me and my ex. But I also knew I’d checked everything. That could only mean one thing.
I quickly turned around and pointed into the upholstery. “Show yourself,” I demanded.
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