Stranger in the Woods

by Geof Johnson

  “What’s the matter?”

  He took two short breaths and ground his teeth, then gestured at the screen. “Nobody’s sending me any messages. Not a one.”

  “Do they usually?”

  “They used to, before I moved away. I don’t have a cell phone so they usually message me on Facebook. But they’re not doing it, for some reason.” He slumped in his chair and let his arms hang straight down. “If I had a phone they’d text me all the time, I bet. I’m getting one at the end of the summer if I keep working hard for my mom. That’s what she said.”

  “At least you have a computer and you can do Facebook and stuff.”

  “You don’t have a Facebook page?”

  “No.”

  “You want to make one on this computer? You’re over here a lot anyway.”

  “Can I?” She raised her narrow eyebrows. “I mean, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “We don’t have anything else to do.” Zach stood and gestured for her to trade places with him.

  She sat in the chair and fluttered both hands. “What do I do?”

  He stood next to her and walked her through the process, explaining each step as they went, but when it came to the part where she had to upload a profile picture, her chin fell. “I don’t have one.”

  “You don’t have a picture you can use?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing? You don’t have one on a camera at home or anything?” She rolled her eyes up to him, her expression pitiful. He scratched his head and wrinkled his brow. “We can take one here. Where’s my mom?”

  “She’s making dinner.”

  “Mom?” he called. “Can we use your phone for a sec?”

  “It’s in my purse in here,” she answered through the open doorway on the other side of the room.

  He went to the kitchen and retrieved the phone, then hurried back to Shelby, waiting at the computer desk.

  When he neared her, he held the phone up to take her picture but she put her hands in front of her face. “Wait. I want a good one. One with a good background.”

  “What’s wrong with this?”

  “Can we use your library?”

  She stood in front of the tall bookshelves and Zach snapped her picture, then turned the phone so she could see it.

  She twisted her mouth back and forth and then gave her head a tight shake. “Can we do another one?”

  “What’s wrong with it? It looks just like you.”

  “Please?”

  He took another, but she didn’t like it, either. They tried again, several times, but she wasn’t satisfied with any of them. He pointed at her face and said, “Let’s try one without your glasses.”

  She slipped them off and set them on the nearest shelf, then stood stiffly for another shot.

  “Can you do a better pose?” Zach said.

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Like somebody from a magazine or something.”

  “Like this?” She raised her chin slightly to one side, put one hand behind her head and the other on her waist, and smiled mysteriously.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” He snapped the picture and checked it. He was surprised by what he saw. “This one’s good.” She’s kinda pretty here. He’d never noticed before. He looked up at her and compared her to the image on the screen. Strange. He turned the phone again to show it to her, and her face lit up.

  “I like it! Let’s use that one.”

  They went back to the family room and uploaded the photo to her page. Zach considered it, rubbing his chin as he did. “You look better without your glasses.”

  “I know, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “You can’t get contacts?”

  “Too expensive. I thought about saving the money I got from your mom, but I need new clothes for school.”

  There was long silence as they stared at the monitor. Shelby sighed and said, “Am I done?”

  “You need to make some friend requests.”

  “Who am I going to ask?”

  “Friends from school?”

  “I don’t really have any.”

  “None?”

  “Well, one, Petra. Petra Petrovich. She’s from Croatia, and she moved here late last year. She doesn’t hardly have any friends either because she’s a foreigner and all. Her English isn’t so good and she’s not exactly pretty or anything, so the other girls…well, you know how they can be.”

  “So send her a friend request.”

  “I don’t think she has a computer, either.”

  “Are you sure? Try anyway.” He pointed at the search box. “Type it right there.” She did and three results came up, none of them the right one.

  Shelby stared miserably at the screen, then she mumbled, “This is a mistake. Let’s just delete the whole thing.”

  She seemed so dejected, and Zach realized they were in the same situation, in a way. He briefly wondered which was worse, being abandoned by your friends or hardly having any in the first place.

  He slapped the top of the chair and nodded once. “Don’t give up so easily. It takes a while to get friends, you’ll see. You just need one to start with.” He gestured at the monitor with one hand. “I’ll friend you.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Send me request.”

  She did, and he leaned over her and logged onto his page. There was a tiny red alert at the top of the screen. “See? That’s it.” He confirmed the request, then clicked back to her page. “There you go. You have a friend now. Your first one.”

  She studied it for a long moment, then looked up at him and a smile flickered on her lips. “Thanks, Zach.”

  “It’s nothing. Somebody had to be first.”

  “I’m glad it was you.”

  For some reason he was too. He wondered why.

  Chapter 19

  During Monday morning’s breakfast, Zach’s mother said, “I have a chore for us today.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Zach said unenthusiastically.

  “It’s one you’ve been wanting to do. I thought we’d start going through the trunks and boxes in the basement.”

  He sat up straight. “Yeah?”

  “Your grandfather is coming over in a few minutes so he can help. There may be some things in there that he wants, so I need him with us to say what’s worth keeping.”

  Twenty minutes later they were downstairs. Zach’s mother had brought three empty cardboard boxes and some plastic trash bags with her, and they each had a folding chair.

  Grandpa sat down by the closest trunk and blew the dust off the top of it. “This is going to be interesting.” He opened the top and the strong odor of mothballs wafted out. They all peeked inside. It appeared to be full of old clothes.

  Zach’s mother lifted out the topmost piece and unfolded it, a large, green afghan sweater. “This must be Aunt Winnie’s. You can tell because it’s so big.”

  “I didn’t know she was big,” Zach said.

  “She was nearly as big as me,” Grandpa said. “I’m six-three, and she must’ve been around six feet. My mother’s side of the family ran tall.”

  “Then how come I’m not?” Zach said.

  “You’re not finished growing, yet.”

  His mother folded the sweater and laid it in the empty box beside her. “I’ll probably have to give all these clothes away, unless you want them, Dad.”

  “I have enough old stuff already. I don’t need any of Winnie’s.” He pulled another box closer to his chair and opened it. After a glance inside, he thrust up his hands and cried, “Bingo! I think I hit the jackpot.” He took out a large book. “Photo albums.”

  “I want to see,” Zach’s mother said, and she and Zach got up and stood next to him as he flipped the front cover open, revealing four black-and-white pictures held in place by a thin film of plastic.

  Grandpa viewed them for a few seconds and said, “I don’t recognize anybody here. Maybe there’s something written on the back of them.”
<
br />   He started to slip one out but Zach’s mother put her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s save that for later. We can take them upstairs and look through them at the kitchen table where the light is better.”

  He quickly turned the next few pages and nodded as he went. “Lot of ’em in here. Some of these must be Winnie’s. She was always the one with the camera, being the oldest and most responsible.” He stopped at the next one and his face pulled into a grin. “Well, lookie here. It’s my mother with Uncle Nicholas. Looks like it was taken right outside this house.”

  Zach leaned closer to see. The old photo showed a woman and a man standing side by side in front of the familiar porch steps. The woman was nearly as tall as the man and had Grandpa’s strong chin and smile. The man had a short, dark beard. His face was expressionless. “That was your uncle? The guy who built the laboratory?” Zach cast a quick look at the closed steel door on the nearby wall.

  “That’s him. Aren’t many pictures of him that I know of. Maybe there are some more in one of these albums.”

  Zach’s mother considered the photo with a nostalgic look on her face. “Grandmama sure was tall, wasn’t she? But she was always smiling. I remember that about her. That and her cooking. She made the best fried chicken and caramel cake.”

  “She was a good cook.” Grandpa leaned back in his seat and smiled, too. “I still miss her sometimes. Her and Daddy both.”

  The basement turned quiet and stayed that way until the blower for the air conditioning unit in the corner turned on, shaking them out of their reverie. Zach’s mother gestured at the boxes and said, “Let’s try to get through some more of these before we stop for lunch.”

  Zach turned his attention to a nearby box and began pulling out the contents one at a time — mostly ancient, folded newspapers and a few framed certificates — and he stacked them on the floor beside him. Near the bottom he came upon an extra-large manila envelope with something heavy inside. A hand-written note was taped to it that said, “For Richard — Nicholas.”

  “Grandpa.” Zach offered the package to him. “I think this is for you.”

  He took it and read the note. “This is from my uncle.” He slipped his thumb under the flap and tore it open, and inside was another book, similar in size to the photo album, but twice as thick. He flipped through a few pages while Zach and his mother watched silently. Grandpa looked up and said, “I think it’s one of Uncle Nicholas’s research logs.” He held it closer and squinted at it. “But dang, he sure did write small. Can’t hardly read it without a magnifying glass.”

  “Can I see?” Zach stood beside him again and examined the yellowed page. It was densely covered with black ink, tiny cramped letters that ran together in nearly unreadable lines. “How do you know it’s a log?”

  Grandpa pointed to the first block of text in the left hand corner. “There’s a date, November 22, 1961, and then the first part says something about testing some piece of equipment or other.” He squinted at it again. “Hard to tell in this light. I need to take it home and go through it to see what all is in here.”

  “Do you think he wrote about his experiments in it?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Can I look at it when you’re done?”

  “I suppose. You can probably read it better than I can.”

  “Zach has good eyesight,” his mother said. “I get him to thread needles for me when I want to sew.”

  “I couldn’t thread a needle if my life depended on it.” Grandpa glanced at the other boxes, unopened and dusty, and he exhaled heavily. “Well, we got a lot of work to do still, if we’re gonna finish by lunch.” He pulled another trunk closer and opened it. “Let’s see what other treasures we can find.”

  Chapter 20

  “That’s him?” Justin pointed at the photo of Zach’s two deceased relatives posing in front of the steps, which his mother had placed on the fireplace mantle in the living room. “That’s the mad scientist who used to live here?”

  “He wasn’t mad,” Zach said for what seemed like the thousandth time. “We found that picture yesterday morning in one of the boxes in the basement, and my mom stuck it in this frame.”

  “Who’s the lady with him?” Jason said.

  “My great-grandmother, Grandpa Rick’s mom. I never knew her.”

  “Wow.” Shelby said, standing next to Zach with the dog leash in one hand. “They sure were tall.”

  “That’s why Grandpa is so tall. Mom said that means I might be tall, too, someday.”

  Jason smirked. “You ain’t, now.”

  “Well, I might be, if I have a growth spurt.”

  Beepee barked impatiently at them and jumped up against Zach’s legs, her sharp nails digging into his thighs like little knives. “Ow.” He winced and pushed her off. “All right already. We’re going.”

  Shelby lowered her voice and said, “Do you think she knows we’re going to see Bo?”

  “I don’t see how, but she knows we’re up to something ’cause you have her leash. Is everybody ready?”

  “Hold on.” Shelby pulled her inhaler from her pants pocket. “I need to do this first.”

  “Why?” Zach said.

  “Just in case. My lungs have been bothering me this morning, and I feel a little wheezy right now. It might only be a cold, but I don’t want to take any chances.” Before she could put it to her mouth, Beepee jumped up on her, too, and Shelby giggled. “You are an impatient pup. Hold on a sec.” She set the inhaler on the mantle and knelt beside the dog, then slipped the leash around her neck. Beepee licked her face and Shelby giggled again.

  “Can we go, now?” Jason said. “Bo’s probably wonderin’ what’s keeping us.”

  They got on their bicycles in Zach’s front yard and Zach’s mother watched them from the porch, her usual spot for last-minute nagging. “You’ll be back by dinner?”

  Zach looked over his shoulder at her as they began to ride across the grass toward the sidewalk. “Yes ma’am.”

  “I’m glad you have your helmet on.”

  Zach didn’t answer.

  “You’ve got your watch?”

  He held up his left arm to show her the black plastic band around his wrist.

  “Try not to get any poison ivy.”

  Zach narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Or get eaten by a bear.” She grinned briefly and Zach turned away.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Webster,” Jason said. “We’ll bring him back in one piece.”

  They rode off, Beepee trotting beside Shelby on the leash, and when they were out of earshot of Zach’s mother, Justin said to Zach, “You didn’t tell her about the bear, did you?”

  “You think I’m crazy? She’d never let me near the woods again if she knew. Didn’t tell her about Bo, either. She thinks we’re building a treehouse. That’s all.”

  Jason threw him an angry look. “You told her about the clubhouse?”

  “Not exactly. She guessed that we were making a treehouse so I let her think that.”

  “Shouldn’t a’ said nothin’.”

  “Had to tell her something. Otherwise she might not let me go with you.”

  They followed their regular route through the old neighborhood to where the last street dead-ended at the woods, then maneuvered around the barricade and continued along the dirt trail, alert for any sign of the white-haired giant.

  “Anybody see him?” Justin’s head twisted from side to side as they pedaled up the path.

  “I don’t think we can,” Shelby said, riding in the rear with Zach. “You heard him. Hardly anybody can unless he wants them to.”

  “I thought he wanted us to. It’s been five days, hasn’t it?”

  “He’ll find us when he’s good and ready,” Jason said, and led them onward.

  They made it to the spot where they always left their bikes, but there was still no any sign of Bo. Zach’s disappointment was growing, and he peered through the trees while his friends stood with him. “I don’t think
he’s gonna show.”

  “I am here,” came a deep voice behind them.

  They all turned to see the mysterious man step from behind a tree. He wore his usual rough clothes.

  “We came back,” Shelby said, “just like you told us to. Are you going to show us something today?”

  “You wanted to see where I grow my crops. I will take you there now, if you are ready.”

  Without another word, he began leading them deeper into the forest, moving quickly down the trail so that Zach and the others had to jog to keep up. When they reached the new bridge over the creek, Jason said, “Did you build this, Bo?”

  “The tree that you were using to cross the water seemed unsafe. You might have slipped and fallen.”

  “Well, thanks, I guess. How long did it take you?”

  “One afternoon.”

  “By yourself?”

  “I do everything by myself.”

  “You made this whole thing in half a day?”

  “Does that seem like a long time?” He paused on the far bank and waited for them to reach him, walking single file over the sturdy wooden structure.

  “Half a day seems fast. Really, really fast. You carried the cross beams by yourself? They must weigh a ton. I don’t think all of us together could lift one.”

  “I did not have to move them because I used the tree that was already here. I split it into the two support beams and managed to fashion some of the planks from what remained.

  “How did you get the planks to stick to the beams like that?”

  “I asked them to.”

  “Huh?”

  “I know that it is a concept that is difficult for you to understand. Dr. Sizemore had trouble accepting it, even after many years.”

  Zach glanced at the bridge one last time before they resumed their hike. “Can you teach us how to get wood to do that?”

  “I tried to teach Dr. Sizemore, but he was unable to learn.”

  “So who was this guy, anyway?” Justin asked. “Was he a medical doctor?”

  “He was a professor of literature.”

  “Why did he call himself a doctor, then?”

  “He said it was his name, so that is what I called him. It seemed important to him, as a mark of status.”