Janice fell backward to the forest floor, falling hard as if she’d been clothes-lined. She lay there with a deep gash in the center of her forehead, looking up at the dark clouds, which seemed to consume her. Filling her eyes until there was nothing but darkness.
19
A
m I dead
? Janice opened her eyes, but there was nothing. No bright light ahead of her, no fluffy clouds lined with angels. It was pure blackness. She lifted her hand up off the ground and waved it an inch before her face, but it might as well have not been there at all. There was no light, wherever she was. No stars above, dim lamps, or halos. If not for the hard jaggedness of the ground beneath her, Janice would have thought for sure she was floating. Her entire body felt warm and light as a feather. Every few seconds a wave of joy washed through her, carried through her bloodstream like a child at a water park, laughing as it went spreading good cheer. But underneath this overwhelming peace, there was something lingering. A dark thought floating about in the back of her mind. What was it?
The more Janice tried to focus, the more pain she felt. Every clear mental picture pushed the good feeling from her system. The warm joy was replaced with aching, shivering arms and legs. The smell of baked goods and freshly washed sheets pushed back by the stink of rotting meat and mold, damp leaves and something she’d never smelled before. Something so foul and overbearing it made her vomit. The pain from tossing out the small amount she’d eaten for breakfast was unbearable, pushing all the previous good feelings from her insides with every painful dry heave. When the last of it had left her system she simply collapsed, crying out in pain as something sharp dug into her back above her right shoulder blade. She reached behind her and gripped a small stick, the tips sharp and jagged. She tossed it away into the darkness with a heavy sigh.
“Hello?” Janice yelled, her voice echoing back to her from a dozen angles.
Marco. She’d been with Marco. Had he slipped her some kind of drug and raped her? Is that why she was feeling so good when she first woke up? No, it wouldn’t make sense. She had planned to let him have her. In fact they were just about to have sex when…when what? An explosion of pain radiated out of the center of her forehead, and she felt as if someone was stepping on her head with a high-heeled shoe. The darkness, Marco, everything was overshadowed by the pain in her forehead. She gripped her head and closed her eyes, rocking from side to side on the ground. It took a good ten minutes before the pain had finally subsided. There was a deep cut in the center of her head, still bleeding. So this wasn’t just some asshole’s prank. How had she been hurt so badly? The creature’s eyes flashed before her eyes, filling her memory with all the missing pieces. Rushing at her until she’d hit the tree head on and then blacked out. Janice sat up and gripped her throat, gasping, unable to breath. The situation was so unbearable she couldn’t take it. Finally, after felling dizzy and lightheaded, her throat allowed in some oxygen. The air itself made her gag, tasting like smoke.
A loud roar bounced off the walls, echoing all around her like a racquetball. She cradled her head and lay there, waiting for the savage noise to cease. After a few seconds it was gone, replaced with a slow, harsh breathing that wasn’t hers. She tried to stand, but her left foot exploded in pain. Janice fell back to the ground, more sharp and uneven pieces of rock or wood stabbing her. She swatted them away and gripped her ankle, trembling as she felt the torn dampness of her own flesh. There was nothing below her ankle bone but a few dangling strips of flesh, the tip of her femur protruding a few inches beyond what was left of her leg.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Janice repeated the phrase over and over again, shaking violently. The thought of some creature gnawing on her leg as she lay there made her scream. She couldn’t take it. She grabbed both sides of her face and screamed her head off, increasing the volume until her throat went hoarse and she could taste blood. “Help me,” she whispered, letting go a stream of tears.
This creature had taken her from where she lay in the forest and dragged her down into its lair. What was she then, its midnight snack? Janice began to cough, her throat burning with the taste of smoke. Knowing she’d die if she just lay there and waited for this creature to come back, Janice thought back to a time when she’d been happy and in control. She searched through her limited mental faculties to find a memory to hold onto and cling to to avert the pain. She remembered her senior present from her dad; a vacation for her and her girlfriends on the Big Island of Hawaii, Kona, the boys, the swimming.
“I’m at the beach,” Janice told herself, coughing hard as she rolled onto her stomach. “I’m with my friends.” Her lungs burned with every syllable, but it got her moving. “I’m having a drink with my friends.” A good memory, blocking the pain as best as she could while dragging the bloody stub that had been her foot over the uneven ground.
Even chanting herself along, she’d only traveled five feet in three minutes. Any faster and she’d pass out from the agony. It was hard to move over such an uneven surface. The ground beneath her was constantly shifting, crunching and sliding beneath her weight. And without light, Janice had no way of telling which way she was going. She could be travelling in a circle for all she knew.
“I see a man on the beach.” Janice began to cry, unable to pull herself forward. “Come on.” She reached out and grabbed something slimy. It fit in her palm and felt metallic. She dropped it and reached out again, the unmistakable texture of cloth between her fingers. Her fingers ran over the fabric and came to a hole, no a pocket - this was someone’s pants. “Oh thank the lord.”
Janice pulled a Zippo lighter from the pocket and ran her thumb down the flint-wheel, gasping in ecstasy as a flame emerged. The darkness pushed back only a few feet, her vision extremely limited by the thickness of the smoke. The pants were tattered and soaked, lying in an inch of water. The skeleton wearing the pants looked dried out and old. But it was a dead person. Janice took her first real look at her surroundings and began to hyperventilate, her chest rising and falling far too quickly. The uneven ground was caused by layer upon layer of discarded bones; the skulls of a thousand animals, hooves, antlers, even human legs and hands. Janice’s warm memory of the beach was now lost in a rant of terror, her mind unable to string together a rational thought amongst so much death. Janice lifted her head and looked directly into the creature’s glowing eyes as it fell on her. Her life, much like the flame of the Zippo as if fell to the ground, extinguished forever.
20
J
oe hadn’t wanted to make the call. It was the last thing he did in a hopeless situation, whether human or animal. He’d thought that if he let another day pass, maybe those two kids would come back. But they hadn’t. So he’d called Jackson and told him to meet him at the campsite with the tow.
Joe pulled up to the campsite at around eight, the forest dark, save for the ominous red glow to the south. He parked his truck behind Rowena’s and placed a hand on the hood. Despite what Stew thought of him, he actually did care. He cared a great deal. If that sassy prick hadn’t reminded him so much of his son he would have been more willing to help them. Instead he’d retreated back into the bottle before he could fall victim to another panic attack. Mostly he was just angry for being called out by some snot-nosed punk. Stew had been completely right about him, calling him a drunk. Joe just didn’t want to admit it had gotten so bad. Was this case really as confusing as it appeared, or was his mind just succumbing to the toxic fumes of his nearly hourly sip? Joe knew that wasn’t the case. The flask had nothing to do with that slime-covered watch he had back at the office. Or the single drop of blood on the boy’s sleeping bag.
Joe was slightly disappointed to see the campsite had been cleared. He should have been happy about it, as it was his job to keep people from leaving their crap in his park. But he wanted to look it over again. Each time it seemed there was more to find, like an Easter egg hunt with puzzle pieces in place of an egg. But there was nothing left except the truck and he’d taken care of that. Two days had gone by since it had been left there and it was his job to remove all dead vehicles from the park. If they did happen to stumble out of the trees by some miracle, it was only a few hundred yards to the main road.
Joe turned toward the road as a pair of headlights came around the corner. A truck pulled up behind Joe’s and stopped.
“You need to move your truck, genius,” Jackson yelled from the driver’s side window with a laugh.
“Sorry.” Joe hurried to his truck and started her up, moving just enough to allow Jackson to pull up from behind and attach the hook and chain.
Jackson backed up and put the truck in park, coming around the back to hook up the belt lift. He pressed a lever, and the boom winch lifted the truck up to be towed on its other axle. With a check of the chain, he smiled at Joe and gave him a thumb up.
“What happened with this one? Stupid drunks forget where they’d parked?”
“That is a possibility.”
“That doesn’t sound all that promising.” Jackson got behind the wheel of his truck and lingered a moment. “You know, this is my second ‘dead tow’ this week. Now from my usual duties, I’ve come to determine that most tourists still take their cars with them when they leave. So is there something going on here I should know about?”
“If there is, tell me when you find it.” Joe gave a weak smile and headed back to his truck. “Take her over to Fishing Bridge,” he yelled back over his shoulder.
“Will do, chief.” Jackson gave a wave and took off down the road.
Joe waited beside his truck, watching him turn on the main road and disappear from view. He leaned against the truck and turned toward the campsite, reaching in through the driver’s side window to turn off his headlights. He stood there in the dark, watching and waiting. What he was waiting for he didn’t know. A few minutes passed and he shook his head, knowing full well this would get him nowhere. The smoke from the fire had drifted over on a strong breeze, irritating his eyes. Joe opened the door and got behind the wheel, leaving the site.
21
D
ale was up hours before the sun. The bed in his cabin was uncomfortable enough, but mixed with the anger over the loss of his man, it made for one restless night. He left the discomfort of his bed around three in the morning and drove south of Old Faithful to where Paul had disappeared. There’d been no sign of him since; not a glove or footprint to be found, other than the ones they left while searching. Dale poured himself some cheap coffee and sat for a moment, the window rolled up despite the absence of smoke. It had become clear that the fire was beginning to let up, news that would have brought him great satisfaction on any other day. His entire unit would be up soon, ready to walk out into the wilderness and push back the flames from the Inn’s front doors. They’d installed a sprinkler system on the Inn’s roof last year. And given the distance of the fire, Dale didn’t foresee any damage to the historic building. But if that’s where they were needed, that’s where they’d be. But that was two hours and fifteen minutes off. He’d gotten up long before his men to take this drive. He needed to try and find some kind of logic in what had happened. Dale didn’t want to tell Paul’s young wife and their infant child that he was lost in the woods; not just lost but disappeared right beside Dale.
Dale got out of his truck and walked across the road, stepping sideways down the embankment to keep his footing. He’d only had to inform the family of a fallen comrade once before; the summer of eighty-six. It was a fire he could never forget, because he’ll carry the physical and mental scars with him until the day he dies. They’d been called out to a fertilizer plant to contain a fire, a really roaring blaze. They hit the exterior with three streams and felt it was safe to do a sweep for employees. Once inside, Dale and an older man, Dexter Espinosa, had taken point. A barrel full of chemicals exploded beside them. Dale had been temporarily blinded by the brilliant flash. Dexter had shielded Dale from most of the explosion, save for Dale’s right arm up to the shoulder. Dexter died on site, lying there in agonizing pain for no more than a few minutes before his body gave out. Dale had been taken to the hospital and had his arm dressed for minor burns. That night he’d been dismissed, his arm killing him. He felt he owed it to Dex for saving his life, however unintentionally. He sat outside Dex’s house for over an hour, trying to squeeze some courage from his steering wheel with his one good hand. Finally he’d approached the door and knocked, greeted a moment later by Dex’s plump wife. Dale hadn’t uttered a single word before she’d known, her face contorting from a warm greeting into a breakdown of tears. Her mouth hung open as she’d dropped to her knees, asking God why he’d done this to her.
That had been worse than the pain in his arm. Watching her fall to pieces on the doorstep at his feet made it easy to set his own pain aside. At least he was still alive.
“Paul!” Dale cupped his hands and yelled into the woods. Greeted with nothing but a faint echo. “Answer me, Paul.”
A strong gust of wind was pushing the smoke from the trees, filling in all around him as if the forest itself were trying to push him out. Visibility went from clear to hazy, trees now dark shapes without discernable features. Dale covered his mouth with his hand and turned, lingering a moment as the smoke encased him. Maybe the forest wanted him as well. Dale lowered his head and hurried up the embankment to the road. The sun was beginning to make its way into the sky, maybe five or six in the morning from the position. Dale got behind the wheel of his truck and started the engine, holding a moment with his hands on the wheel. The red flames were no longer visible from the road, an excellent sign, but something troubled him. The unnatural emptiness of the woods maybe? The lack of animals, birds and squirrels, deer? Had they already fled the smoke? Dale shrugged it off—it was not his area of expertise. He wasn’t a ranger after all, and didn’t know shit about the traveling patterns of wildlife. Dale turned in a wide arc and headed back toward Old Faithful. He pulled into the parking lot of the Inn and saw his men loading up their equipment.