Lost in the Woods

by Chris Page

  A cold feeling crawled up from her fingertips until it reached her chest and prodded her heart with an icy needle. Benny had been.

  Carrie lifted herself from the floor, the pages gliding from her thighs into the air, cutting back and forth and losing order while she made her way to the garage, intent on her mission.

  29

  _________

  “Any special way?”

  The man leaned back on his side of the booth, casual in his demeanor, which made Jake feel foolish hunched forward over the table between them. The bar around them was small, sparsely populated, but its few denizens seemed wholly disinterested in the dark booth in the back left corner. They cracked peanuts at the bar, gave the tender a hard time, and bothered each other with loud interjections. They might as well have been stools themselves, just as fixed in their placements. They weren’t so different from the bar flies in Willow Brook, perhaps a little rougher, shadier, crass. Harrison, the town around them, barely merited the title, a small cluster of buildings falling apart along a main drag that at one time hosted traffic, commuters serviced by its gas station, convenience store, restaurant. Now, by some new transportational design that took shape—by the looks of it, twenty years ago—the town lost all purpose. Instead, it seemed more valuable for its marginal existence, offering itself as the meeting ground between a seedy element and those that sought its services. This business centralized around the 1800 block of Market Street, beyond which little else remained. On his way in, despite the midday sun hovering directly overhead, women teased open their coats and propositioned Jake. Opposite the dive, as Jake peered over his shoulder before entering, he spied a duo in an alley conducting illicit commerce with a man lacking footwear.

  Inside the bar, though, he seemed transported, as though in any rundown watering hole he’d frequented. This commonality did little to dissuade his nerves. It might also have been the hangover, a headache coupled with bodily weakness and shakes that began a week ago as likely as yesterday. He drank from the stiff pour of blended scotch he ordered and pulled back from the table. In a few moments, it would take effect, sooth the pains with their antidote. As the liquor descended, however, he felt new pains in their place, patches that burned in the pit of his stomach. He clenched his jaw while awaiting their lull.

  “Special requests, that is,” the man said, reiterating his question. He was older, Jake estimated around sixty, with grey, thinning hair and leathery skin. His neck was red and featured almost scar-like rings, but were only signs of years spent unprotected in the sun, creases worn deep. His eyes were dark, made more so by the bar, and thus difficult to read. He wore a short sleeved button up and a pair of jeans, which struck Jake as peculiar, not that he expected an all black suit. What doubts Jake had of the man’s capability were assuaged by his fists, two monstrous instruments which he laid on the edge of the table. It wasn’t only their size and apparent strength, but the surprising grace displayed when the man lifted them, waved his fingers occasionally as he spoke. When they closed into balls they appeared as two stones, but in motion like a collection of snakes bound together by a wide palm.

  The pain in Jake’s gut subsided. “Requests,” Jake repeated.

  The man exhaled through his nostrils. “For the job.”

  Jake furrowed his brow. “No,” he replied, sounding somewhat offended by the suggestion. The professional narrowed his eyes and drew back his head.

  “Look, if he’d done something illegal, you could turn to the law. It’s not like folks such as yourself have a difficult time getting justice the traditional way.” He leaned forward. “I’m around for extras, you see? For what you know you won’t get from a judge.” He leaned back again, waving one of those meaty appendages elegantly through the air before him. “That’s the difference, they dole out justice, I deal in vengeance.”

  Jake could feel an ache sourced behind his eyes, an effect of his persistent scowl, though he didn’t relent. The thought of joining pleasure with murder seemed deviant, an imposition of self on circumstances now beyond the interests of one man. Jake had come to an understanding about the whole thing, found the frame surrounding it all, himself, his son, Aaron Burrell, now the hitman to be employed. It had taken time, especially since Jake hadn’t been grasping for it. Instead, it struck him as he stewed in his part. In the fetid shed he had subdued his physical senses in part to escape his own degeneration. It also served the attunement of his mind with his task, and in one flash of revelation, his mind leapt away from him and in its dissociation he viewed himself in the context of a broader machine. That was the word for it, naturally, the function of it as conscious as the moving parts of a modern factory, a solar system, a cell. Jake was the human spearhead of a force driven at the representatives for other universal energies, themselves bound in characters such as Aaron Burrell. In their interaction, the friction produced wrinkles in the fabric, ridges like waves sweeping up a collection of susceptible creatures. Like a bedsheet, they would be smoothed, made pristine again by the propensity of existence to strive towards balance. Jake was no more a grieving father bent on revenge as he was an arrow released from a bow now soaring inexorably towards the matter’s conclusion.

  “I’m not seeking pleasure,” Jake replied.

  The man scoffed, a bit of phlegm catching in his throat. He coughed to clear it, lifting his balled fist to his lips. Then it opened, the digits splaying in the air, vacillating back and forth. “Spare me,” he told Jake.

  “One thing,” Jake told him. If he was to serve his purpose, he would need confirmation. “You do it in front of me.”

  “Now we’re talking kidnapping, transporting a hostage…”

  “I’ll pay extra.” Jake retrieved a pen from his pocket and drew out a map on the back of a napkin, an X resting on the side of a road that split the forest west of Willow Brook. “Bring him there.”

  The professional reached forth, planted his fingertips against the napkin, then twisted it towards him on the table. He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Cost isn’t a concern,” Jake told him.

  The man lifted his eyes from the napkin to Jake without any adjustment to his pose. “Alright,” he said.

  Jake then finished his drink and left. The scotch did little to warm him as it once had, though the cold no longer affected him either while the winter wind struck him in his walk back to his car.

  30

  _________

  The journey to the forest blended its parts like a dream so that when Carrie was driving she didn’t recall entering the car, and later when she marched breathless through the forest, lost track of the path behind her. It lasted forever and an instant, time now conspiring with the forest to obstruct Carrie by disorienting her. Yet, the stupor did not dissuade her, compelled by the mission she refused to abandon. Thoughts spun around her, melding into the branches, bare overhead. Her son, sweet Benny, the forest, its soul, the man, a tunnel—she reached out towards the images trying to grasp them, hold one against her chest until the terrible spinning ceased so she could examine it, begin piecing the world together. Carrie’s focus waned, her breathing shallowed, little stars sparkled around the edges of her vision.

  For a moment, she lost track of herself, disappearing into the maelstrom that encompassed her. Instead of seizing a thought, she broke apart into several more, and suddenly Carrie didn’t exist. The tension that lived within her dissipated while her parts drifted away from one another. For a moment, she felt release. Then, she felt nothing at all while the collection of memories and ideas that had once bundled together within her gave flight like feathers from a shot bird.

  The forest, too, dissected itself, the trees falling away from one another to expose the lightless, empty space hidden by them. Into this the pieces of Carrie went, like satellites in space breaking away from orbit. Nothing.

  Then she tasted peat. Dirt, wet and rich, clung to the side of her face and lips. She smelled its freshness, then coughed. With each heave of her lungs, the tension reintro
duced itself into her being, stretched taut between her and the world. She felt pain in her joints, most especially her knees. I’ve fallen. Carrie planted one palm against the wet soil and pushed against it, rolling her body onto her back. The stars disappeared, the forest coalesced into its trees again. Her breathing, slow and steady, seemed to accomplish what her frantic mind attempted in her clumsy race through the forest.

  What had she been chasing? It seemed foolish then, watching the branches sway on a breeze from the flat of her back. She recalled the sudden panic that gripped her, brought on by something at home. What had it been? The past became hazier each passing day, her mind shedding it in favor of the future.

  Then, as she thought about the past, an urgent need to weep overcame her. Laid out on the forest floor, Carrie sobbed. Tears streamed from her eyes along her cheeks to her ears. Her chest ached, her throat was sore, but the crying fit continued until it spent the last of her energy. When there was nothing left in her, Carrie became silent, settled into the wet earth like a stone. She was still, the pulse throbbing in her neck and the subtle rise and fall of her rib cage the only movement.

  What was left of her? she wondered. The past dissolved, a process unbeknownst to her that began and finished sometime over the preceding months. The future evaded her, taking her dreams and trading nothing for them. She lay marooned in the present, hollow and useless in her endeavors. She trusted in the forest, withdrew her investments from time and placed them in the trees, the spirit, the force held within their collective.

  A droplet struck Carrie between the eyes, then rolled back towards her hairline. A second followed, landing against the back of her hand. It was icy cold and stung when it struck her. More followed, a light rain fell from the darkened sky, unencumbered by leaves to reach the forest floor. Carrie remained still as it pelted her, noisy against her nylon jacket.

  At first, she was unbothered. Then, a sudden flood of aggression rose up from deep within her and she screamed out with a hoarse and desperate voice. She screamed at the forest, screamed for her son, the one thing that would return all to order. Without him, nothing made sense, her life fractured into meaningless pieces. In him remained the last of her heart, and with it returned she might reconstitute herself, but without it would shrivel into nothingness.

  Carrie rolled over, squirming in the mud while sheets of rain came down. What must I do to earn him? she questioned. Don’t tell me—her breath hitched. She paused, then took a slow breath, inhaling the wet scent of the dirt caked onto her cheeks, nose, lips. Don’t tell me he’s dead. The rain collected in the ground and Carrie felt herself sinking into it. Beneath her palms, she felt the rising earthworms wriggling to the surface. She could lie here indefinitely, eventually feed herself to the worms. Did they know the taste? Would it remind them of her son?

  “No,” she cried. With balled fists, she beat against the forest floor, splattering black mud into her hair. It clumped into balls which swung as she turned her head towards the branches, struggling to keep her eyes open against the rain. “Please,” she begged.

  She turned back to the soil. Buried within the ground were the roots of the trees. She planted her lips into the mud and kissed, lifting to breathe, then pushing her face into the mud once more, pleading in her thoughts for the boy, the child that would make the world right again. Tears mixed with the rain, her body clenching with each sob, but she continued to kiss the floor, the roots, the feet, waiting for the forest to take pity.

  The rain slowed to a trickle, then stopped. Silence returned except for the noise of Carrie’s lips kissing the dirt. She heard herself and paused. She became rigid and within the quiet that followed the brief rainstorm, she listened to the sounds of her body, the gastric rumbling, the whistle of air through her nose. She shifted her hand and heard the squelching of her palm’s removal from the mud. Against a mute backdrop, these were unbearably loud and humiliation crept over her. A question, posed from an imagined observer, sought explanation for her behavior. In her mind, they stood somewhere behind her, watching her lie in the mud and weep and kiss the ground, and wondered to themselves the question which she would not ask of herself, would not engage with, refused to address.

  Instead, she waited until the question abated, leaving her belief intact. Her body held position, arms planted into the mud holding her muddied face inches away from the worms, until she felt the humiliation ebb. Then she rose onto a pair of shaky legs and began marching back towards her car, already feeling the memory of the event dissolve, and planning to return tomorrow, when she hoped the forest would speak, as it had done with her before.

  31

  _________

  The contract was set. It’s terms were these: ten thousand dollars cash, to be paid once services were rendered. Jake had unloaded their joint savings account, money originally intended to send Benny to college. In exchange for this sum, the hitman, whom Jake knew as Larry, would bring Aaron Burrell six miles west of Willow Brook. Larry would drag the bound Aaron Burrell into the forest where he was to meet Jake. All three would proceed into the forest until they arrived at a depth Larry deemed sufficient. Then Larry would shoot Aaron Burrell in the head, collect his money, and depart.

  When Larry inquired about an alibi, Jake dismissed the subject. However, Larry demanded Jake conceive of one, lest he be nabbed and provide information about Larry to the authorities. Jake made up nonsense about logging into his work computer at home before leaving for the woods, that the loan system would register work completed in advance with time signatures within the murder window. Larry accepted this without question, which surprised Jake after the hitman’s insistence, but he didn’t dwell on that matter. The deal was finalized, an agreement made, a plan of execution in place.

  There was only time to kill until the date arrived. It would be a Friday evening, a time during which Larry identified an opportunity in Burrell’s schedule to kidnap him. When Aaron came home drunk from his usual Friday evening ritual, a series of beers and shots with his fellow loan officers at Redstone Bar and Grill, he would enter his home to find Larry lying in wait. In his stupor, he would present no challenges to Larry and become the professional hitman’s bound bounty.

  Jake spent many of the hours in the days leading to the murder daydreaming the capture. Aaron’s face, the fear, the shock. Would he be surprised? Perhaps a part of him, like Jake, felt the machinery driving towards the inevitable conclusion. He pictured Aaron’s features animating with fright, then slumping into recognition. That was most likely, that he would recognize his fate when he saw it.

  Work became a dream, not idealized, but surreal and intangible. He struggled to ascertain its concepts, the hours in which it was conducted, the screens on which it was completed, the purpose of which he gave no interest. The shed retained the only qualities recognized as life, or his own, specifically. There he stored the remainders of his will, desire, emotion, each bound together by the mission that consumed him. It was his faith, and in its shadow his squalid existence became ritual. In his drinking, there was spirituality. In the retching that often resulted, there too was a deep sense of religion, insofar as these things, all behaviors, joined together in a cycle perpetuated by the mission, which was divine. Supplanting all prior gods, any reason or logic Jake subscribed to, his new purpose constructed its own tenets.

  Distinction between good and evil was meaningless.

  However, the universe required balance between the two, and would use anyone in whatever capacity necessary to achieve it.

  Yet neither would inevitably triumph over the other, instead ebbing and resurging inversely to one another.

  According to this set of principles, Jake would counterbalance the evil visited upon his son through similar means, and in the wake of his retaliation, a calm. A tempest of evil subsumed by a countervailing force, a friction to slow and cease its torrent. Jake was neither, only an actor within whom both hands worked. Or he was the headwind that rushed to meet the wicked front. Yet also a partici
pant in its surge. Or