Lost in the Woods

by Chris Page

  She turned back to Shelly, who’s face expressed a counter opinion. “Prettier than the trees it’s hiding?”

  The trees themselves did their own hiding. The fog was here to return them to sight. But no one listens. “They look nice together.”

  “I guess,” said Shelly. “Just wish I could see around me while I’m jogging. I know Willow Brook is safe, it’s one of the reasons I moved here three months ago, but still, you know?”

  Shelly didn’t know. She didn’t know about the murders, about the missing boys, about Benny. Of course, Carrie thought. Shelly was part of the wave, the water that rushed in through the town, pushing out so much of its heritage with its surge, replaced with new shops, new restaurants, new construction. She’d moved in after the last headlines gripped the residents with fear, then faded from front pages. Or, Carrie had once wondered, pressured by certain interests to disappear from the papers. “You have nothing to worry about,” Carrie offered.

  Shelly laughed once at herself. “You’re right. This is such a lovely town. I can’t wait to raise my children here.”

  Carrie politely smiled, but felt a grimace lurking behind. When she stared out into Shelly’s face, she saw a recognition of her layers, and wanted the young woman to disappear from sight. Shelly seemed to unconsciously hear her wishes. She said her goodbyes and headed off at a brisk pace down the path. Carrie watched the girl become enveloped with fog, then vanish from sight. Shelly was good-hearted, if she was oblivious.

  Carrie took one more breath, pulling in the cloud around her, before setting foot onto the path, pulling her maps from her back pocket.

  The rumbling jittered in her pocket once more. She stepped forward, but found the sensation distracting. She pulled the phone from her pocket to silence it, but found her thumb had accepted the call. She stared with a held breath for a moment until she heard the tiny voice emanate from the speaker. “Hello?”

  Carrie sighed, shutting her eyes as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Hey Jackie,” she responded. “Sorry I missed your call earlier.” She opened her eyes and began walking as she listened to her friend’s frustrated voice withhold harsher words in lieu of her present sympathy.

  “That’s alright, Carrie,” she said, “I’ve just been thinking about you lately and haven’t been able to get ahold of you.” Jackie took a belabored breath. “I’m just worried about you. I haven’t seen you in...a long time.”

  The fog drifted off Carrie’s cheeks, parted by her nose, swirled around her legs as they strode deeper. She pinched the phone between her cheek and shoulder in order to withdraw the printouts from her pocket. She unfolded the pages to trace a finger along the lines. She had identified the modern trailhead on the old map, she just had to find the intersection. “I know,” Carrie responded distractedly. “I’m really sorry Jackie.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Jackie responded, but her tone contained some anger. Like Carrie insulted her with an apology. Like she was making Jackie out to be rude in reaching out, but Carrie couldn’t offer the conversation much more attention. The old maps were complex, small, and the details intricate. She might have passed the intersection. She paused, turned, and peered back through the fog she had floated through. It was growing thicker. She could only see back fifteen or so paces.

  “You haven’t made any of our Wednesday night dinners in months, Carrie, and I think you could use some outside contact…” Jackie’s voice faded to Carrie’s thoughts of the trail. Her eyes inspected the edges of the trail beneath her feet, where the wood chips gave way to earth, seeking a natural part in the plant life, a narrow division between ferns.

  “I know, I know,” Carrie threw into the phone.

  Jackie paused, then inquired, “Carrie, where are you?”

  Carrie hunched as she proceeded down the path, the fog crossing rapidly between her eyes and the ground. She squinted while she stepped, watching for the break. “Errands,” she answered distantly.

  There was a held breath on the other end of the line. Jackie was listening. “Carrie,” she spoke again, lower. “Where are you?” she repeated.

  Carrie peered up. Visibility had shrank to a small circle surrounding her. A handful of trunks and the path beneath her cohabitated the space, intermingling with her thoughts, grafting onto those of the forest. She could feel it, the sensation was so strong. It dragged her vision again to her toes. She nearly collapsed, swinging her head down low, her inspection all-consuming. She felt the tiny pangs of wetness as the cloud coalesced on her skin. It was thick, the fog around her. She was losing herself to it. The forest was swallowing her. She envisioned herself descending the throat of a majestic beast. A twig snapped beneath the pressure of her left foot.

  “You’re in the forest again.”

  “I have to go.”

  Her thumb found the end call button and her hand plunged the phone into her pocket.

  She found it. There, between the ends of her shoes, a division within the lush forest. Thin, faded, but now emboldened to her eye, rested the old path. She’d found its intersection with the new. Carrie took a deep breath and the tendrils of the fog filtered down into her. She lifted a foot and planted a shoe into the old trail. She entered into the veinwork of the old forest, overgrown, but no less integral to the construction of its soul. She could feel the energy pulsating through her as it traced along the forgotten grooves where her young feet once tread. The world was erased and cleansed by the fog around her, replacing deep focus with an immediate canvass of milky white. It was the screen upon which her instructions would play. It just needed to speak to her. It just needed to tell her.

  “Tell me,” she whispered. “Show me.”

  Silence. The world around her became muted and a memory played like a film projected onto the fog before her eyes. She was in the film. Her tiny arms and legs swung through the chilly air at a pace beginning to slow. Exhaustion was setting in. She was sure she had lost the man, his grunts having long fallen out of earshot. But where was she? She listened, and in the faintest, smallest voice, the forest spoke again, telling her to keep going. She obeyed. Her feet, long past the point of discomfort, having grown numb to the aches and pains accrued from the previous miles, continued to slap against the earth. She could hear their contact as echoes drowning out all other noise. It was just her breathing, and the rhythmic steps of her own determined strides. Sunlight was receding, night was seeping in, it had been nearly a whole day alone, and she was beginning to doubt the instructions she’d been given by the forest. Hunger churned in her stomach, her tongue felt dry and ragged. Her eyes wanted to close and rest, but she forced them open with each step, slapping her boots harder against the ground to keep herself awake. She thought of crying, but it seemed moot. She’d wept earlier, and it only served to drain her. She looked up ahead and found another trail. She kept away from the trails, only crossing them, so as to avoid her captor. She figured if she tried to follow them out of the forest, she ran the risk of being found again as he stalked the exits. But with hope depleted, she assumed it would be the only way.

  She stopped cold. A voice. She could hear someone speaking. Immediately her frenzied mind jumped to the image of the man, wild and angry. However, as she listened, the voice’s quality came in clearer. It was a woman.

  “Help!” Carrie screamed. She began racing towards the trail, towards the voice, hoping it wasn’t too far, hoping she could catch it before it ventured off deeper into the forest. “Help!”

  “Did you hear that?” went the voice.

  “Sounds like a little girl,” a second voice sounded, this one masculine, but unfamiliar.

  “Help!” she screamed, until her voice went hoarse.

  She saw them in the distance, a young couple, out for a hike together on the forest path. They stood at an intersection. A waist high marker pointed each of two ways, labeling the routes “west loop” and “east loop” with 5 mile measurements each. It was just taller than Carrie as she reached it, throwing her arms aro
und the legs of the woman who immediately embraced the frantic little girl. As Carrie caught her breath, she heard the forest whisper in her ear, “You’re safe now.”

  The fog cleared slightly, a larger ring of visibility permitted Carrie to see around her, where the old trails still divided the trees in jagged fissures. She followed along as the memory receded, and her eyes found a familiar image. Out before her, some twenty feet, an old trail marker leaned to one side with arrows pointing east and west, two divergent trails each five miles long. It was the site of her rescue, when a young, newly wed couple discovered her and brought her out of the forest.

  The forest was quiet around her as she approached the marker, laying her hand atop it, reaching up to her waist. She shut her eyes and listened, opening herself. The air stilled, the fog held cool air about her. She inhaled and the scents, earth, pine, dew, reinvigorated her lungs, her mind. For a moment, she felt strange. Awake. Her eyes opened, but just before the darkness gave way to sight, upon the backs of her eyelids a frame appeared, something wholly incomprehensible. In the dark, in the dirt, underneath the trees, entangled in their scraggly roots, rested her son. Her breath caught.

  Then a movement pulled her attention to her side. Down the eastward trail, she spotted a figure, a man, with long, white hair, many worn layers, and a tall walking staff. He lifted a hand in greeting, accompanied by a wide, congenial smile. If it hadn’t been for the mist, the forest, and his smile, she wouldn’t have thought much of him, his greeting a dull interaction quickly disregarded. But instead, he did smile, and it was somehow tied into everything around him. Like a fairytale, he seemed to come out of his surroundings, a steward of the wood. In concert with a tiny, growing hole within Carrie, gradually hollowing out a space for doubt, the gentle presence of the hiker burrowed into her psyche. He etched into her obsessions.

  Carrie waved back before he turned and disappeared beyond the edge of the fog.

  10

  _________

  David Marko’s house was more a shack, in Jake’s analysis. Built entirely of wood and falling apart in every conceivable way, it sat precariously at the apex of a hill. Jake imagined it tipping over on a strong gust. What seemed to keep it standing was the solid concrete foundation it rested on. No dirt basement. No sleeping on graves.

  He lived surrounded by forest. David, Jake had surmised, was a recluse, for obvious reasons. The long driveway was dirt and rose up a slight incline as it wound away from the county road a quarter mile from the front door. When they each pulled up, Jake having retrieved his own car, the four headlights cast the facade in an ominous yellow that made Jake rub his back against his seat to stop the crawling sensation racing along his skin. It looked dirty. He could imagine all manner of filth residing inside.

  David’s large body stepped into the light of Jake’s headlights and turned to emphatically raise his forearm against its barrage. Jake quickly flipped off his lights and hopped out of his car. His dress shoes hit the dirt and he felt a mild squish beneath them. It hadn’t rained. The ground here was always moist. Like a bog. “What’ve you got?”

  David smiled. “What’ll you have?”

  Jake followed behind David towards the front door. “You telling me you’ve got a full bar in there?”

  David shrugged. “Can’t drink it faster than I buy it.”

  “Why do you buy it?”

  “It’s coming in handy tonight,” David answered, opening his door and stepping inside.

  Jake entered and bent down to untie his shoes.

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” David said.

  “No?” Jake questioned. “Ground was a little wet outside.” His eyes peered across the brown carpeting, couldn’t figure it for filthy or clean. Good choice of color, he thought.

  “Marshy around here, creek out back a ways. Don’t worry about it. But if it makes you more comfortable, suit yourself.”

  The ties were already undone. Jake slipped out of his shoes and placed them against one another beside the door. He stepped onto the carpet and instinctively arched his feet, thinking of the grime accumulated within its fibers brushing against the underside of his socks.

  “Have a seat, I’ll bring you a drink. Dealer’s choice.”

  Jake watched David disappear around the corner and a light flip on in the conjoined room out of sight, the presumed kitchen space. He made his way cautiously towards the couch, laid out along the wall opposite the door. Before it rested a rickety and stained wooden coffee table, rectangular, with musty armchairs on either side. He sat down into the end of the couch and looked forward into an old television set resting on the floor. On the screen, he saw the reflection of his feet beneath the table. A glint shined just above his ankle. He reached down quickly and tugged at the end of his pant leg, covering over the half inch of blade that became exposed. In so doing, he had pressed his feet into the carpet and thought to recoil them in disgust, but knew it would lift his pant leg again, uncovering his hidden weapon. He settled into his position, laying an arm across the back of the couch, the other in his lap. He put a smile on and turned towards the kitchen.

  David emerged with a pair of lowball glasses and two fingers of brown liquor in each. “My my,” said Jake, “what have we here?”

  David lifted his eyebrows, his rosy cheeks little balls beneath his glasses. “Single malt, eighteen year, very smoky, very peaty.” He sat into the opposite end of the couch and passed a glass to Jake, cradling the other against his chest. He smiled down into it before raising it to his nose. He sniffed it once, then dribbled a bit into his mouth. Jake watched this while he took his own first sip. The scotch was indeed excellent, the flavor lulled a part of Jake’s mind, content to down enough and render itself utterly useless. He hard swallowed and sucked the flavor away from his tongue as best he could. He gripped the glass, pressing it down into his thigh.

  “Damn good,” Jake reviewed. “Damn damn good.”

  David grinned and gave a soft chuckle before stifling a coughing fit. “Burns just right.” His eyes fell into the glass. “Just like my daddy used to say. Burns just right.”

  “It’s funny,” Jake said, baiting.

  David lifted his gaze to peer down the couch. “What’s that?” he inquired.

  Jake took a breath and sighed, smelling the aroma on his breath. “It’s funny how the best things in life do that. Burn, or hurt, or otherwise cause some form of damage. You know?”

  David’s face froze on the thought, his eyes glassy in a locked gaze. Then he replied in a low tone, “I absolutely do.”

  Jake shifted himself in the cushion, angling towards David. “It’s almost as if the pain is part of the point. Like we need it.”

  Jake watched David’s head bob in a trance. “Or if joy is birthed from pain.”

  Jake lifted his finger in a swift motion towards David. “Yes!” He nodded, biting his lower lip. “I think we’re onto something.”

  “Oh, I’ve been onto it for a long time now,” David uttered. Jake opened his mouth for reply, but David’s words stuck in his mind, jamming all others. In the ensuing quiet, David’s face curled into a nefarious grin, a monstrous display of his own shameless glee. Jake thought to speak again and end the silence, but David’s face unnerved him to the point of failing speech. Was that a confession? Jake blinked and wondered if the very topic he’d come to expose had leapt eagerly into light on its own. Had he been so convincing in his interest? A monster would only intimate his evil deeds to like company. He went to speak again and his throat clenched around his reply.

  But then he watched David recoil. Like a fearful child, the large figure receded as much into a ball as he could on the other end of the couch. His red face shown bright around glossy eyes that stared pleadingly at Jake. The monster retreated behind the child. No, Jake thought. Don’t. Stay. Get back here. “What have you been onto?”

  David remained in his closed posture, keeping silent.

  “What have you been onto, David?”

 
“I don’t think I should say, Jake.”

  “We both know the truth,” Jake spoke. Words ran past his filter. He barrelled through the shame of his momentary inaction. He owed it to himself—and Benny. He felt the cool blade against the warmth of his ankle, the sweat running along the tape securing it. “Don’t hide, David. Show me.” He felt manic. He was too close for persuasion, it was brute intimidation. He had to slam David with an onslaught of demand.

  David’s bottom jaw quivered as his mouth opened. “How can I be sure you know the truth?”

  Jake leaned forward. “Look into my fucking eyes, David.”

  He obeyed. “I learned it from a man when I was young, a man who took me out, showed it to me. I was scared then.”

  “But you’re not scared now.”

  David’s eyes dashed to the side. “I suppose not. I know it’s what I want.”

  Jake gripped the back of the couch. He twisted his leg and the blade made a small knick in the flesh of his left shin. He suppressed a wince. “What do you want?”

  David took in a breath, shaky, sharp at the end. He shut his mouth and steadily unfurled his spine from its shrunken posture. “I think it’s better to show you, Jake.”

  David stood, his large body grown before Jake seated on the couch. It side-stepped in front of him, eyes directed downward into Jake’s. Then it proceeded, and disappeared around the corner into a darkened room. Jake felt his heart slamming against his chest. He snapped the blade from his ankle and rose to his feet, turning his body to face the darkness. He took deep breaths and lifted the blade towards the black room. He ignored the sweat rolling off his nose and kept his eyes open against the sting of his own salt.

  David reemerged, naked, save a single item of clothing. An undersized pair of white briefs squeezed his penis against his lower belly, nearly eclipsed by his round, pale gut dangling over it. The man was hairless, and with his glasses absent, appeared like an aged cherub, a grotesque and unnatural product of some machinery unknown to Jake. Though, he didn’t think of its creator, didn’t ponder much but his own disgust, immediate and all-consuming.