by Chris Page
The phone drifted further from her ear again, not consciously, but out of necessity. She needed her arm for balance while climbing over downed trees, dead logs, sidestepping poison ivy. “I’m fine,” she returned.
“Carrie?” The phone was out of range for her voice.
The phone came back with a slap against her cheek. “Yes!”
There was a pause, then Jackie replied in a small voice, “You don’t have to yell at me.”
Carrie sighed, pausing one foot atop a turned over tree, its scraggly roots upended and reaching towards the sky. Little bugs ran the length of the soot dusted branches, racing south into the rotting base. Carrie imagined their network beneath her feet, feeding off the wood, making a home. She had a cozy sensation.
“Look, Carrie, I know you lost your job.”
Carrie exhaled and her breath obscured the little insects. She watched the white dissipate into the air, then her eyes fell into a distance. “How did you hear about that?”
“Willow Brook may be growing, but it’s not big.”
Carrie shook her head, then leapt over the downed tree. She faltered on her left foot, bending her ankle without spraining it. She gritted her teeth, but withheld a cry, retaining composure. She released a measured breath. “It’s none of your business, Jackie.”
“How are you supporting yourself?”
“Jake does just fine.”
A clearing opened up. The trees stood around a circle of thick fern coverage. The cloud filtered sunlight lit up their foliage as Carrie strode through them with reverence, slowing her pace. The phone was flush with her skin. “I miss my friend.”
Carrie peered up through the hole in the forest towards the sky. The clouds rolled thinly beneath the white orb shining through. She hadn’t seen the sun directly in weeks. Rain was in the forecast. Too much of it made the forest floor difficult with mud. She looked down at her boots, worn and falling apart. She would need a new pair. A good pair ran eighty to a hundred. She would have to run Jake’s credit card for it. He had yet to notice its absence. She didn’t know the limit. She’d kept to small purchases. She wondered how much room remained.
“The forest is dangerous, Carrie.”
Carrie’s mind broke with its line of thinking to scoff into the phone. “What are you talking about?”
“A jogger went missing.”
Jackie left the statement in Carrie’s ear a moment, allowing it to settle in. Carrie’s eyes had already begun tracing the way forward, where she would exit the clearing and continue towards her destination. But then Jackie’s words caught up with her and her focus returned to the breath that burst from her lips. Missing jogger. When was the last time she saw Shelly?
“Authorities are considering it foul play, what with...well,” Jackie stopped herself from saying the obvious. The dead boys. And the missing one. Benny. She felt a chill race through her body like she was naked and an early winter wind snaked through the trunks to find her. There was a maligned specter in the chorus, spoiling its timbre. She hadn’t heard it now for weeks. It was silenced by the same spirit bent on its wicked agenda. The one, the man, the killer, the threat. The forest was held now in its grip.
“You shouldn’t be there,” Jackie warned. “At least, not alone.”
Carrie watched several breaths expand and disseminate into the air. All was quiet around her, save her own breathing.
“Can we get lunch again?”
“Sure,” Carrie acquiesced.
“Thank you.”
Carrie hung up the call. She lowered it into her pocket slowly, her eyes fixating on the swaying branches. She had the urge then to speak, in contrast to the desire not to speak during the call. But she didn’t speak. A growing part of her knew there was no point. It didn’t believe the forest was a captive. It believed it was voiceless. This part of her could view her paranoia as if at a remove, the risen hairs on her neck, the shallow breathing, the beating heart. She joined with it, dragged out by its grip into the air above her. She observed her body, she did not inhabit it. From the unique vantage, she saw her walk was unaccompanied, without connection to the forest, to the trees, to anything. She looked down upon herself and saw she was alone.
But then a sound came slithering into her ear and sank her perspective from its height high above back down into her bones. It was a wisp of voice, a faint murmur, and her eyes sought the leaves for its origin. They whistled with the wind, thrashing against it. She followed down along the branches. She peered into the woods. Her feet drew her closer, following the voice. With haste, and without thought, she bounded for the sound, eager for it. She crossed the edge of the clearing into the shadowed interior. Stumbling over the uncleared forest floor, she kept her eyes directed on a spot out in front of her. She stayed the course, throwing her body over the obstacles. She felt a barb draw through the flesh of her calf. A pointed branch caught the shoulder of her shirt. She pressed on, permitting the woods to leave marks on her skin, to tear at her clothes. It—something was speaking. She was compelled to pursue. In the absence of direction, it beckoned.
She found herself upon the pathway again, there, where it intersected at the sign post. And the little voice had grown. It was not around her, but beneath her. She peered to her left, down where one of the paths dipped into a little valley, and there she found him. Staged exactly as they had been before, they met each other’s eyes. He paused for an identical greeting, though instead of returning it, Carrie froze in place. Her heart slammed against her ribcage trying to break free and reach him, but her body stayed in place. In the cataclysmic reaction between self assurances and actualization, the consumption of her resolve by the event rendered her body immobile, her mind childlike in its bewilderment. She could make as much sense of things as when she was eight, and the nice couple saved her. She wanted that again. That wish was inside her body. Another part of her was outside it, a bit of her displaced above to peer below again, but that part did nothing to release her. She remained locked.
The man turned to face her. His expression twisted into concern. He waved once more, as if asking whether she was alright. Tears streamed over her cheeks. Then the adrenaline fled. Carrie fell to her knees, then over to her side. In a canted view, she watched the man rush up the hill to drop down beside her. She felt his warm hand against her face. It was both rough and soft, dark with filth, but somehow pure. It was dirt from the forest, a clean sort of dirty.
“Are you alright?” His voice, now close and tender, broke the spell that had seized her body. She felt sore in her limbs as they sprawled out on the ground. She looked into his eyes and found an amalgam of colors, green, with blue, and gold, swirled around the small dots of his pupils. His eyes were large and collected her into them, levitating her on the swell of their sympathetic attention. His brows were grey and scrunched up next to each other over his long, slender nose, which ended with large nostrils. A few short hairs extended out from them towards the mustache of his beard, which covered the bottom half of his face with white engulfing a thin remainder of black. He wore a ragged coat, something aged and brown. It appeared heavy, draped over his entire body down to his knees. His feet were bound in homemade shoes and he wore a leather backpack with the straps pulled tight.
Carrie exhaled a cloud of breath that broke against the toes of his shoes. Then she inhaled and forced herself onto her elbows. Her body was sore, her brain throbbing. Like a hangover, she kept her eyes on the ground to keep her vision from pain.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
The man lowered his face into her sight. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
She stole a glance at his eyes before dropping hers again to his folded knees. “I’m fine,” she said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“It’s why we cross paths,” he said with a smile. “To elicit emotion from one another.”
She felt the pain slowly subsiding. She tilted her head to meet his gaze. The strangeness of his response was only a moment questioned. Then she be
gan to feel as though her intuition to seek him was correct. A bout of dizziness seized her and she gripped his shoulder. He acted in kind, wrapping one of his large arms around her back, holding her in place with his outstretched fingers.
Then it passed, yet she kept her hand on him, as his remained around her. She didn’t want to let go, afraid he might be caught on the wind and flitter off. Yet she was afraid to ask. She hadn’t even formulated the question. In her quest to capture him, or be captured by him, or to follow him, she lost sense of her mission. She wanted to ask him what she should ask him, but the thought of that caused her to blush.
The man gave a light-hearted chuckle, as though peeking into her thoughts. She laughed in turn. “Thank you,” she said.
He simply gave a slow nod.
“I heard your voice,” she told him. “I followed it.”
His eyes passed between her two in a close inspection. She wanted to open them wide for his entrance. “What did you hear?”
Carrie shook her head. “I didn’t, none of the words.”
“Hmmm,” he sounded. The vibrations from his throat settled Carrie’s nerves.
“What were you saying?”
The man shifted in place, placing his knees into the dirt and seating himself on the heels of his shoes. “It was a communion. I speak it to the forest everyday. I walk this path and share in it with the air while I contemplate.”
“I do something similar,” Carrie admitted, blushing slightly again.
“Mm, you know the secret then, don’t you? Between us and the trees.”
It felt dreamlike, listening to him, the paternal quality in his voice, his manner of speaking with a storyteller’s command. “What do you contemplate?”
He smiled again. The wrinkles around his eyes scrunched above his reddened, sooty cheeks. “Would you like to join me?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Please.”
He offered his free hand to her and she took it, guiding her back to her feet. He kept her hand in his as they headed down the little hill, into the valley. Her first steps felt unbalanced, but as the ground leveled off, she regained composure. Her body felt aligned, her posture was corrected in a way it hadn’t been for years. So it felt, at least, pulling in the chill autumnal scents, walking hand in hand with the man.
“Repeat after me,” he instructed. “Thank you for the air.”
“Thank you for the air.”
He took a deep breath. She did the same. He released, and she did so in turn, watching their breath collect together in the space in front of them, before stepping through it.
“Thank you for the shade.”
“Thank you for the shade.”
She could feel the caress of the shadows of the branches passing over her face. The space darkened, the sun dimmed.
“Thank you for the quiet.”
“Thank you for the quiet.”
The breeze, the birds, and the frogs entered a lull in their conversation.
“Thank you for the stillness.”
“Thank you for the stillness.”
Suddenly, the forest was immobile all around them. They were the only things in motion, proceeding through the air, the shade, the quiet, the stillness. A shiver ran along Carrie’s back. The man tightened his grip around her hand and she looked up to find him staring down at her. He wore his smile, to no avail. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her.
“I’m not afraid,” she contested.
He tilted his head. “The forest is always listening. You may believe that it doesn’t hear you in spare moments, but now you see, it’s always here, and it’s always listening.”
She could feel tears well in her eyes and in her mind blamed it on the wind, though there was none. She kept walking while the forest grew dark. The man watched over her, holding her hand. She squeezed his back, anticipating protest, but he retained his composure, as well as his steady pace. The branches curled in on themselves all around them, reaching overhead like arms clasping wrists, pulling together and forging a tunnel.
They entered.
15
_________
The line at the burger joint around the corner from the office had taken fifteen minutes to bring Jake to the cashier. He felt frustration mount, but caged it. For himself, a number one. For his company, a number three, sloppy style, which meant slathering the fries in chili, and adding an extra patty and cheese slice to the burger. Jake paid happily, passed one tray of trash food to an ungainly man standing beside him named Henry and took the other in hand as the two of them made their way to a booth in the back of the restaurant.
They settled in across from one another. Jake watched Henry take to his meal without hesitation. He stared down at his own, disinterested. He would probably wait, hold off until he was drunk after work, eat something to stem the sickness. He had to mitigate the effects now, after the blood.
Henry paused a moment to push the black, plastic frame glasses up the bridge of his nose. He muttered in the break between bites, “Thanks, Mr. Holiday.”
“Holloway.”
Henry had already stuffed his mouth, probably didn’t hear over the sound of his own chewing.
“I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“What’s that?” Henry inquired between chews, his open mouth displaying the mashed contents to Jake. He watched with ambivalent eyes. It was all at a remove, anyway. Everything was at a distance, a small screen at the end of a long hallway.
“Security.”
“Hm?” Henry replied, sipping his cola.
“Cyber security.” Jake raised his voice.
Henry went to work on the last few bites. Jake was surprised when Henry chose the fast food burger spot. He told Henry he’d take him wherever he wanted. Watching how he interacted with the garbage set before him, the choice seemed less perplexing. It was an addiction, there was little joy to it. It simply had to be consumed. So long as it happened at even intervals, like all addictions, it could be managed. “What about it?” Henry wiped the remnants from his face with a paper napkin, crumpled it, and released it over the mess on the tray beneath him. He finally directed his attention across the table at Jake, whose food remained untouched.
“I wanted to talk to you about cyber security.”
“Right,” Henry said somewhat impatiently now, “what about it? Trinity Mortgage has one of the most comprehensive systems in the industry.”
Jake leaned forward on his elbows. “There was another company recently that thought the same. Until they had their entire database compromised, borrower data hemorrhaged through a massive leak.”
Henry eyed Jake curiously, squinting one eye at him. “Hemorrhage? Like, multiple hacks?”
“What?”
“That’s not exactly how it—”
“I don’t know the specifics of the breach, I just know they were known as one of the most trusted providers and now their reputation is crippled because they didn’t protect themselves from the most up to date criminals out there.”
Henry cackled. “Up to date criminals. Mr. Holiday—”
“Holloway.”
Henry paused with his mouth open. Then he sighed. “Look, we’re totally safe as it stands. There’s no reason to get paranoid because some other company hired second rate security guys and got themselves fucked. What company did you say this was, anyway? I’m sure my guys would be interested to know, one of us probably knows the jackass that ran their system.”
Jake shook his head and reached his arms further across the table, leaning his upper body inward. “It doesn’t matter, I just want to ensure we’re not going to be broadsided by some super hacker out of the dark web.”
Henry stared dumbfounded for a prolonged moment. Jake felt a tension in his gut, an anger rising. “The dark web,” Henry repeated.
“Yeah,” Jake replied.
“Mr. Holloway,” Henry began, then stopped himself. He peered down. His fingers, dangling from his upturned wrists, began dancing over the table. Jake im
agined an invisible keyboard floating there, receiving code. He imagined all IT interacting with the world like a computer. The fingers stopped, Henry’s eyes lifted. “I can teach you about the dark web.”
Jake lifted his chin and observed Henry with eyes staring down the length of his nose. “For the security of Trinity—”
“I’m going to need money.”
Jake crossed his arms before his chest.
“If you want to learn about...security threats, from the dark web, it’s not exactly something we’re allowed to go traipsing through, get it? It would have to be on the side.”
Jake placed his hands on the table on either side of his untouched tray of food. “Alright,” he said. “How does that work?”
Henry took a breath. “Five hundred. Up front.”
“Okay—”
“And each week.”
Jake narrowed his gaze. “How many weeks?”
“How quick can you learn?”
Jake stared down the IT guy he’d only just met, having entered their quarters in the basement of the office building. It suited them, living and working in the dark, without windows, save the ones they opened and closed on their screens all day long, windows into the lives and workstations of their superiors. Jake had never used his work computer for porn. He knew men that did. He would hear their names uttered by the IT personnel in the kitchen, snivelling to themselves. Jake felt the dryness of his tongue as it dragged along the roof of his mouth and he wanted a drink to burn off the growth.
He leaned to the side and retrieved his wallet. He opened it and peered into the folds. Something was missing. He looked over the cards and found one less than he was used to, yet couldn't identify it. He made a mental note to review the charges on all his cards, one he knew wouldn’t be committed to memory as he thought it. He plucked the cash out and began counting it before Henry’s hungry eyes. One, two, three hundreds, twenty, forty, sixty, seventy, five, six, seven. He thought he’d had more.
