What She Found in the Woods

by Josephine Angelini

  Did Rob think I must have made up Bo because I am, and have always been, a liar?

  I turn to Amy. ‘Has anyone ever tried to convince you that you did something you didn’t do?’

  She frowns. ‘My big sister used to do something like that, but only when I was really little.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Amy shrugs. ‘I was so young, I can barely remember, but there was this one time she left the refrigerator open and all the food spoiled and she tried to convince me that I did it because she knew my parents wouldn’t punish me as bad. It almost worked, too. She told me how I did it so many times, I actually remembered doing it, even though I knew I hadn’t.’ She screws up her face and shakes her head. ‘Weird.’

  ‘How did you know you didn’t do it?’

  ‘I wasn’t tall enough to reach the handle,’ Amy says. ‘There was no way I could have done it. It still messes me up to think about it. Like, how could I remember doing something that I didn’t do?’

  I nod my head and look out the window. ‘I know exactly what you mean. Memory is a slippery thing,’ I mumble. I turn back to her. ‘But you couldn’t reach the handle. So you didn’t do it.’

  ‘No. She did it,’ Amy says bitterly.

  I nod. ‘And blamed it on you,’ I say, barely daring to whisper it.

  She doesn’t want to talk about her sister any more. Amy shakes herself and adopts a cheerful tone. ‘So, do you want me to drive you home?’

  ‘Actually,’ I say, ‘can you bring me to Taylor’s work first?’

  Her eyes widen. ‘Why? You’re not going to tell him I told you all that stuff, are you?’

  ‘Hell, no,’ I reply. ‘Taylor has no clue what’s going on. I want to go to the Outdoor Shop because I need to buy something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A GPS.’ I narrow my eyes at her. ‘You need to drive fast.’

  Amy fidgets as she takes me home. I make her nervous. Probably because I keep forcing her to run stop signs and blow through lights.

  She tries three times in seven minutes to put on the radio, and every time I shut it off like I’m waving away a fly.

  It’s her car, but she’s not the kind of girl to get into an argument with a guest. She’s a sweetie. The easiest kind of girl to get wrapped up in a pile full of other people’s bullshit and go down as collateral damage. I’m angry about that.

  When she pulls up to my grandparents’ house, she actually says, ‘Nice,’ she’s so impressed. Looking at the flowers out front, I see her too-skinny face light up and I can see a glimpse of the delightful young woman she really is inside, and I swear to God, I love this girl. I couldn’t love her more if I’d known her for years, and I don’t even know her last name.

  I take off my seat belt and face her, still thinking about what I need to say to her.

  ‘Amy. If you ever, ever, get high again, I am going to find you, beat the shit out of you, and lock you in my bedroom until you either drown yourself in my bathtub or you get clean. We clear?’

  She laughs like I’m kidding.

  ‘This isn’t a joke,’ I say. ‘I’m not your teacher. I’m not your mom. I’m not your friend.’

  Her face falls. It’s starting to sink in.

  I open my door and get out. ‘I’ll know if you use,’ I say, talking over my shoulder as I jog past Rob’s car parked in my grandparents’ driveway. ‘And I’ll find you.’

  Maybe she will get high again, because some people keep getting high no matter how low it brings them, but I doubt it for her. She’s still capable of feeling fear.

  And fear works. I learned that from Dr Goodnight.

  4 AUGUST. LATE AFTERNOON

  ‘I’m home,’ I call out as I charge through the front door.

  I hear my grandmother say something like, ‘There she is,’ as I enter the living room. Rob is sitting next to her.

  I don’t know what to believe, so first things first. I unfreeze my face and smile.

  ‘I thought you were going to call me,’ he says, straining to keep the frustration from his voice.

  ‘I know, but I got to talking with Amy – you know Amy, right? She’s Taylor’s girlfriend?’ Rob makes a vague gesture, and I plough on. ‘We got talking after our shift, and I had some things I needed to do, and she was nice enough to drive me.’

  Rob looks put out. ‘You still should have called. I was really worried.’

  ‘Well, I’m fine,’ I say calmly, despite the fact that I’m sweating.

  ‘You don’t look fine,’ he says. ‘You should take your medication.’

  ‘Right! I’ll be straight back down,’ I tell him when he tries to follow me upstairs.

  He lingers at the foot of the stairs as I vault up them. I don’t take my meds. I fill a glass with water. It clinks against my front teeth my hands are shaking so badly. I finish the water and look in the mirror.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I whisper. My reflection looks sceptical. I try again. ‘There’s another killer in the woods, and it’s not me. Dr Goodnight probably has Gina by now. You have to move.’

  When I come back, he’s still there, waiting.

  ‘I need a shower before dinner. Can I see you tomorrow?’ I say, walking towards the door to let Rob out.

  ‘Magda,’ he says, taking my arm and stopping me. ‘You don’t seem OK. Are you sure you want me to leave?’

  I smile at him warmly. ‘Yeah. And thank you.’

  He leaves. But the look on his face lets me know he thinks leaving is a terrible idea.

  I wave at him as he gets in his car. ‘Don’t worry,’ I shout after him. ‘I’m really OK.’

  I watch him drive off and go down the street. I listen to his car disappearing into the distance.

  Then I hurry inside. ‘Grandma? I’m probably going to nap after my shower,’ I tell her.

  ‘Do you want me to wake you for dinner, or is this another one of your long naps?’ she asks.

  ‘It’ll be a long one,’ I tell her.

  ‘It’s those drugs,’ she says, almost as if she’s on the fence about them, despite everything.

  I don’t have a reply for that. I go upstairs and turn on the shower while I change into hiking shoes and dark clothes. A metronome starts clicking in my head. Move, move, move, it demands, and I follow its orders without thinking. Is it strange that not thinking, only doing, soothes me?

  I’m not manic any more. I’m totally calm. I tuck the new GPS into my back pocket. I bring my phone even though there’s no signal where I’m going. If something happens to me, they can use it to identify me. I turn off the shower, wait for my grandmother to go out to the garden to pick vegetables for dinner, and sneak out.

  It’s after five o’clock by the time I get out into the woods.

  I have about three more hours of sunlight, but I doubt Gina has that long. I run until I hit that steep, upward climb through thick and tangled brush, and then I climb as fast as I can. There must be an easier way to Dr Goodnight’s lab, but I don’t know it. If I’d had time, I would have tried to find some kind of logging road that dates back to before this area was made a National Park. Dr Goodnight needs regular supplies, and I’m willing to bet he doesn’t move his product out this way.

  I don’t know exactly how to get to the lab. I don’t even know how close Bo and I came to it before the rain started and we gave up on Mila and turned around, but I’m hoping that once I get close enough, I’ll be able to smell it. I’ve heard the fumes are a dead giveaway. I don’t actually know what a meth lab smells like, but I’m sure it smells nothing like the forest.

  I still haven’t quite figured out how Gina finally put all the pieces together and realized that Maria was working for Dr Goodnight, but I really wish she hadn’t tried to follow her and find the lab. It definitely had something to do with me coming back. Maybe I’m on Dr Goodnight’s list, and Maria told Gina that I was dead already? No. That’s too flimsy.

  But something about seeing me flipped a switch in Gina, and she finally
saw the shelter for what it was – a processing plant for Dr Goodnight’s victims. Of course, there are plenty of people who live and work at the shelter who have no idea where the generous donations that pay for everything come from. Gina is one of them. Maria never was.

  Maria had to know. She’s the one who had to turn a blind eye to the fact that guests sell drugs to the volunteers in order for it to continue. And she’s the only one who sees the books. She’s the only one who knows where the money is coming from.

  I figured it out a few hours too late. It wasn’t until I saw Amy slipping into Mila’s place, like a new model coming off the assembly line, that it all came together for me. I could practically see the conveyor belt in my head. Picking up pretty young girls from town who had very recently acquired a habit and delivering them to Dr Goodnight.

  Mila’s death wasn’t an OD, though. Dr Goodnight didn’t kill her. She got off the conveyor belt, but she still died.

  Did I kill her? I search for rage in me. I try to blur Mila and Jinka together so I can concoct a grudge, but it doesn’t work. All I feel towards either of them is a softness that’s like love but soured a bit by the memory of all I’ve done wrong by them.

  This is the way she came. Bo said there were two sets of tracks, so I know she was following someone. She might have even been following Maria, just like Gina’s doing right now.

  After figuring out what the shelter was really about, Mila must have seen Maria entering the woods. She knew how to track, so she had time to go back home, get her gear, and then pick up Maria’s trail and follow it out here, hoping to find Dr Goodnight’s lab. I’m sure that she had a GPS in her gear. She was going to do exactly what I’m trying to do, which is come back with exact coordinates for the lab and give it to the police or the FBI.

  And Mila died trying. There must be traps out here, or maybe some kind of alarm system. Mila knew the woods. She could hunt. Bo said her tracks showed skill, and she still got caught. I haven’t figured that piece of the puzzle out, either, and I need to, so it doesn’t happen to me. Like it’s probably happening to Gina right now.

  I climb faster, but even if I get there while Gina is still alive, I don’t know if I can save her. If she’s been caught, I don’t know if I should save her. If I do, Dr Goodnight will know he’s been found out. He’ll torch his lab and disappear. The GPS coordinates will be useless. I’ll have no proof that he really exists. And after a few months of lying low, he’ll build a new lab, and the killing will begin again. Starting with Gina, most likely.

  That’s what I’d do if I were him. And as sick as it makes me to admit it, I know I’m a lot more like him than I am like normal people. He and I are both on the other side of that fixed line. I may have never actually cut a person to shreds, but there’s plenty of blood on my hands.

  But not Gina’s. Not yet. Rachel died because I didn’t show up. That’s not going to happen to Gina.

  I run.

  4 AUGUST. NIGHTFALL

  I get a whiff of something like rotten eggs, but there’s a burnt-plastic edge to it, so I know I haven’t stumbled across a random sulphurous spring by chance.

  I circle the smell as it moves on the breeze, fully aware that by doing so, I am increasing my chances of getting caught. As the sun lowers, the sweat on my back chills. Without light, the chances that I’ll be able to find the camp today lessens.

  Finally, I discern the crisp edges of human-made structures through the trees. I don’t know what I was expecting. Probably a series of sheds or huts, but what’s out here is much more high-tech than that.

  It took me so long to find the lab because it’s camouflaged. There are several soft-sided shelters that look like military tents or barracks right out of some jungle war. They look light and easy to move – ready to go in a moment if need be. No single shelter is excessively large, but there are several of them. I realize that, as I circled the area, I may have drifted too close to one without seeing it and already been spotted.

  There are no dogs, though. I’d wonder why, but the stench probably answers that question for me. It’s a painful smell. I can feel it burning the inside of my nose, so I can only imagine what it does to a dog. Maybe it ruins their sense of smell? While it’s a relief that there are no dogs, it still leaves the question as to how Mila got caught.

  I crouch down. I listen and wait. I hear a mechanical humming. Generators, I think. Behind that, I hear people – the thrum of voices, not the sound of bodies moving through leaves or the impact of footfalls. I take the opportunity to memorize the GPS coordinates.

  I should go, but I stay. Darkness can only benefit me from this point on. I slip my pack off my back. When I’m sure no one is waiting for me to stick my head out so they can shoot at it, I move towards the voices. Stupid, I know, but I can’t leave Gina without knowing if she’s alive or dead.

  When I hear her voice through the sides of one of the smaller barracks, my heart leaps with relief, then it falls. I should go. I should get the GPS location to people with badges and guns and the ability to stop Dr Goodnight. Stopping him is more important than both our lives.

  But I don’t go. I’m not leaving here without Gina. I’m going to show up for her.

  I skirt the outside, but there are no windows. I’m vaguely aware that I am afraid. My heart is pounding. I calm my rasping breath enough to hear what’s going on inside the tent.

  ‘She didn’t tell anyone,’ Maria is saying to someone else.

  ‘I don’t snitch,’ Gina growls, her words garbled like she’s drunk.

  ‘What about that bitch? The hot one,’ says a male voice. I can’t quite place it, but for some reason I think I’ve heard it before.

  ‘I don’t think Gina had a chance to say anything to Magda,’ Maria tells him. ‘Besides. We can’t touch her. Goodnight wants her.’

  ‘Yeah, but we should still find out if she knows anything,’ he argues.

  ‘She doesn’t know shit, Longmire,’ Gina spits.

  Officer Longmire. I always hated that guy. Now I know why no one questioned me, even though I was the last person to see Mila alive. The police already knew who killed her. I guess you can’t get away with something this big without inside help. I wonder if the FBI are in on it, too.

  That seems unlikely. But for all the talk of them being in town, I never got questioned by the FBI or heard about them coming to the shelter to interrogate people after Mila went missing. Just Longmire. Maybe he kept the FBI away.

  ‘Where does she live?’ Longmire asks.

  ‘You can’t touch her,’ Maria repeats loudly. ‘Goodnight will kill both of us if you do.’

  ‘Fine,’ Longmire says, backing down. ‘What are we going to do with her?’

  ‘Go get Goodnight. He loves doing this shit himself,’ Maria replies tiredly.

  I hear the plastic door swing open and close itself with a soft smack. Keeping low, I watch Longmire’s figure move through the trees. He keeps going and going, towards one of the outlying buildings, I’m assuming.

  Dr Goodnight must stay far from the labs themselves, which makes sense. They don’t just stink. Sometimes they blow up.

  I watch Longmire disappear in the darkness. If I’m going to do something, I have to do it soon. Maria isn’t going to conveniently leave so I can rescue Gina unchallenged. And the only way in is through the door, so I can’t try to sneak in and take Maria by surprise somehow.

  ‘It never keeps you up at night?’ Gina says, baiting Maria.

  ‘Shut up, Gina,’ Maria says, like she’s not having any of it.

  ‘How many girls have you sent out to him?’ Gina persists.

  I hear the thunk of a fist hitting a body, and a heaving sound, like Gina’s about to throw up. Then the sound of clanking, like a chain moving.

  ‘Just shut up, OK?’ Maria says.

  ‘I’ve been shut up for twenty years,’ Gina groans. Then she starts laughing, but it’s a wheezing kind of laugh through pain. ‘Can’t just be for money,’ Gina continues. �
�It’s because you’ve been managing a habit all this time, haven’t you? You traded all those girls for your high.’

  I hear the thunk of another hit, but this time a scuffle comes right after it. I hear cursing and the sound of toppled furniture. I stay down as I dart in through the door.

  Gina and Maria are rolling around on the floor. Gina is handcuffed to an overturned chair by one hand, but she’s managed to get a hold of Maria’s neck. Maria is reaching up, trying to scratch Gina’s eyes out, while Gina chokes her and curses at her.

  Strangling Maria will take too long. I look around. There is all kinds of equipment in here – stainless-steel bins and gauges and tubing. Nothing I can use to end this quicker, though. Maria is flailing her legs, and the cuff of her jeans has rolled up enough for me to see a knife strapped to her ankle. I jump on her flailing leg and manage to get the knife out, but when Gina feels another person next to her, she startles and lets go of Maria.

  ‘No!’ I snarl, reaching after Maria while she scrabbles to her feet.

  Gina recovers fast. She swings the chair still cuffed to her wrist over her head like a mace and knocks Maria down with it. Then Gina stands over Maria and thrashes her with the chair over and over, every blow accompanied by the name of a different girl.

  ‘No time,’ I snarl. I grab Gina to make her stop. ‘Where’s the key?’

  Maria lies on the ground, bloody and unconscious, but still breathing. Gina spits on her.

  ‘Longmire has it,’ Gina replies. She looks at me. Her face is a mess. She sighs like she’s sad to see me. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I shake my head – no time to explain – and start trying to pull apart the damaged chair. Gina motions for me to stand back, and then she holds her bound wrist as far out of the way as she can while she stomps on the armrest. I take a moment to get the ankle sheath off Maria and strap it to myself, and then I go to help Gina. Stomping together, we manage to break the chair enough to get the cuff off.