The Hike (4 page)

“But . . .”

“My favorite part of the party is when the party is over. When I don't feel obligated to have a good time, and I can just sit and chill with whoever's left to chill with, you know?”

He nodded like a simpleton. “Totally.”

The last time you saw her, she was a senior, wasn't she? One class ahead of you. Remember how nice she was to you? Nicer than girls usually were. She had that boyfriend, remember? Dave. Dave was all right, except for the fact that he had her and you didn't. And then, her final week at school, she ditched that boyfriend. Remember that one night? She was out at a party, now single and available. You stood near her that night as the stereo blared out through the frat house living room, and she scooped your hand up in hers. You never expected her to make a move. You never expected something that good to ever happen, did you, Ben? And you never expected to be so shitfaced at that exact moment. You could barely stand. So nothing happened. When you woke up the next morning, you had to go back home while she stayed on campus for graduation. That wasn't long ago. You remember her hand, don't you? Why don't you take her hand now? Why don't you get a taste of what a second chance feels like, kid?

He took her hand. She gave him a playful squeeze to let him know she liked it. She was wearing a friendship bracelet and the frayed ends tickled his wrist.

“Did I fuck up with you?” he asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“You took my hand that one night, and I didn't do anything with it. I think I fucked that up.”

“Oh, I've fucked up worse. I was in a bar once, and I saw this cute guy, so I went to drag him out to the dance floor without realizing that his leg was in a cast. I dragged him ten feet before letting him go.”

“No, you didn't.”

“Honest to God.”

“Where are you living now? Do you have a job or something?”

“No, I'm just hanging out.”

“That's cool.”
“That's cool”? That's all you can think to say, you idiot? Stop talking before you fuck up again.

Ben felt so hot next to her and the fire, but it was that wonderful, toasty kind of body heat that never gets uncomfortable. It was like sinking into a feather bed that only gets softer and warmer and more pleasurable to lie on.

“How did we get here?” he asked her.

“The path.”

A brief silence. All he could think to say was, “I wish I hadn't fucked up with you.”
So typical. Guys always get too serious too quickly, and they never realize it until it's too late.

But it was all right tonight. Annie wasn't scared off. “You didn't fuck up anything,” she told him. “Sometimes the moment gets away from you, and that's it. Doesn't mean I ran away from you. Doesn't mean I don't
like
you, Ben.”

She laid the guitar on the ground next to her and smiled at him. She looked stunning in the firelight. He leaned in and kissed her and holy shit, was she a good kisser. Soft and warm as sex. He never wanted to stop. She threw her fleecy arms around his neck and they reclined to the forest floor, his hands feeling everywhere around her. He wanted every inch of his skin to touch every inch of
her
skin.

“Let's go in the tent,” she whispered. And she got up and led him to the flap. The best part of having sex with a girl was when they led you to the sex. Ben wanted to be led forever, to some bedroom a million miles away. It was all young joy.

 • • • 

He woke up a few hours later in the tent. Annie was gone. It was only him, barely covered by the pathetic square red blanket he had found. He looked quickly at his knee and saw the scars. Thirty-eight years
old. Teresa. The kids. The dogfaces. They were all there. They were back. It was a dream, and yet it didn't feel that way at all. He very much remembered Annie leading him into that tent and doing everything to him he ever wanted her to do. He remembered his hands were gripping her soft hips and she was rocking back and forth on top of him, naked and sunny and giggling. He was there for that. It made him want to throw up.

He got dressed and opened the flap. The fire had died. Beyond the pit he saw the guitar and the empty beer cans and wine bottles. Those were all still there.

What the fuck?

He was still lost, and now maybe a philanderer on top of it. Bile gurgled in his stomach. He put the jerky and hot dogs and the water bottles and the blanket into the backpack, which still seemed quite light, and he ran out of the tent to pick up the beer cans and feel them, to make sure they were real, tangible objects. On top of the guitar was a little envelope with his name written in polite script across the front. He quickly opened it and found a small stationery card inside, with the same script handwriting:

Stay on the path, or you will die.

Off to the side, he saw two black lumps resting under the trees. There were flies buzzing around them. He only needed to take a couple of steps before realizing what he was looking at: two dead, black Rottweilers, their faces skinned clean off.

T
he flies had eaten out the dogs' eyes and all Ben could see was a layer of white subcutaneous fat slicking their skulls. He was definitely gonna throw up now.
Yep, time to barf.
He turned away from the dogs and let out all of the previous night's potato roll supper.

Maybe if I smash a rock against my head . . . if I just bash the crazy out of my skull, I'll wake up somewhere, strapped to a gurney, and everything will be terrible but at least it will make sense.
Instead, he wrapped himself in the blanket, put his filthy socks and shoes back on, threw the backpack over his shoulder, and ran away from the campground as fast as he could.

And he screamed. Or tried to. His voice had dried to a croak.

“Help! ANYONE! Teresa? Kids?” He took out some jerky and chewed it on the run before seeing a house on the path in the distance. It looked real. It had a stick-style exterior, with jolly puffs of white smoke piping out of the chimney.
A house!
He ran so fast he barely had time to chew. Outside the cottage was a little wood fence that enclosed a lush green lawn and a garden with rows of little flowers (in November?) and gooseberry bushes and vines ripe with fresh tomatoes.
Maybe it was a trap. Maybe there was a witch living there. No matter. Ben made it to the thick oak front door and pounded as hard as he could, not caring if he scared off whoever was inside.

The door swung open and there stood a short old woman with bobbed hair, wearing a long, thick skirt and a white blouse with a red shawl over it. Wooden clogs peeked out from under her frock. She looked familiar to Ben, although he couldn't put a name to the face.

“Please ma'am, I need help!” Ben pleaded.

“Who are you, my dear?” she asked. She had a British accent.

“My name's Ben and I'm lost and two people have tried to kill me and they're still out there. I need to use your phone.”

“Phone?”

“Yes, your cell phone. Or a landline if you have one.”

“Landline?”

Oh shit, I've run all the way to Amish country.
“A phone! Do you have a phone? Do you know someone nearby who has a phone? Does anyone live near here? Is there a town nearby?”

“Oh, the town is miles down the path.”

“And what town is that?”

“Courtshire.”

“What is Courtshire?”

She was puzzled by the question. “It's . . . It's Courtshire! The town!”

“Am I still in Pennsylvania?”

“Pennsylvania?”

He may as well have been speaking Japanese. Every answer of hers seemed to make things
less
clear.

“Is there someone in the town who can help me? A policeman? A doctor?”

“You can find help there, yes. I don't like the idea of murderers and thieves running loose. I can help you get to Courtshire.”

“My goodness, thank you. Thank you so much. Do you have a car?”

“A car?”

“Okay, a horse or something.”

“Oh, ho ho! No, I'm afraid I'm much too poor to afford a horse, but I can help you get to Courtshire still. But first, I'll need you to weed my garden.”

“What.”

“I've grown old and weak and you look like a fine, stout young man. Pull the weeds in the front of the cottage and I'll get you on your way to Courtshire.”

“I don't think you understand. I am in grave danger.
You
are in grave danger. We have to leave for Courtshire.”

“Now? Oh, I'm not going anywhere.”

He grabbed her. “You have to come with me!”

“Take your hands off me, young man.”

He stepped back. “I'm sorry. I'm not a violent person, but these men killed a little girl. It wasn't that far away from here. They killed two dogs as well. I can show you the bodies.”

“You can go where you like, but I feel safest here, in my home. Not out there in the forest. If you want me to help you get where you need to go, you'll pull my weeds.”

She stuck her hand out to consummate the deal.
Has the universe lost its fucking mind?
But there were no other offers to consider. He shook on it.

“The weeds are small but pesky,” she warned him. “Finish by noon and I'll be sure to feed you before you go on your way.”

She shut the door and now Ben was confronted with a morning's worth of tedious labor. Between the rows of tomatoes were little arachnid weeds that sprouted out instead of up. He knelt down and his right knee—the bad one—flared up from the impact. After taking a
moment to wince, he thrust his hand into the soil, which was surprisingly warm for this time of year. He figured the weeds would come up easily, but when he went to pull, they stayed firmly rooted. He grabbed at the base of the shoot, but all that did was rip away the shoot, leaving him with a tiny stump to yank out of the ground. The only way to get the weed out was to grab the whole hunk of soil around it and pull. The first weed came loose and the thin, tensile roots stretched down one foot, then two, then five, then ten. It was like reeling in a fishing line. The roots seemed to have no end. By the time he was finished with the first weed, there was a coil of root sitting in the dirt, long as a garden hose. Down the row, there were hundreds more to pull. More punishment.

After an hour, he had cast off the blanket and sweat was running in torrents down his face. What he would have given for fresh clothes. A bright red tomato hanging down in front of him beckoned. He plucked it and ate it like a peach, the seeds and juices dribbling down his chin. Best tomato he'd ever eaten. The oak door swung open.

“NO EATING FROM THE GARDEN!”

“All right! All right!”

“Can I make you some tea, dear?”

“Can you make it iced?”

“Iced? Where would I get ice?”

“Regular tea is fine, then.”

The sun ticktocked over the forest as he toiled, nervously scanning for dogfaces every few minutes from the demon garden. They were still out there. Maybe they were still hunting him.

At last, he yanked out the final nasty little shit weed and piled all of them in a compost heap outside the fence. The garden was lovely now, and the cottage door swung open once again. The old woman stood next to Ben, her hands clasped over her tummy. She looked delighted.

“This is magnificent. It looks better than it has in years!” She took his arm. “Come inside. I have some things for you.”

She led him inside the cottage. It was just a single room, with a wood stove over in the corner and a bed of hay on the other side. In the center was a heavy wooden table laid out with fresh pies and jams and piping hot loaves of crusty bread and big hunks of hard cheese that looked like cliff faces. In the center of the table was a trivet, on top of which rested a bubbling pot of beef stew. The old woman went over to the table and poured him a cup of hot tea.

“Come eat.”

He sat down and began eating everything immediately. His appetite had no attention span of any kind: a little bit of stew, then a roll, then a slice of pie, then more stew, then a hunk of cheese and a sip of tea. Even if the food was all poisoned and the old lady was just waiting to skin his face off, it was all very real and very tasty. Within five minutes, he was full and bursting.

“How was it?”

“Excellent. Thank you, ma'am.” He stared at her for longer than was comfortable. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“Well, you do now!”

“No, but I mean from before. Have we ever met?”

“Oh, I doubt that. Now, I didn't forget my promise to you.” She took a small leather pouch out of her apron pocket and slid it toward him. He peered inside and saw three hard brown seeds. “You're a good, hardworking lad, and you've done well today,” she said. “Those seeds will get you to Courtshire.”

He pulsed with anger. “How is that?”

“The first one you throw down on the ground will become an iron tower. The second, a wolf. And the third, a wall of flame.”

“Are you kidding me? I just worked in your stupid yard for five hours.”

“Take the seeds. But please note: They'll only grow at the exact moment you need them.”

Ben had to restrain himself from throttling her. He pressed down on his fury like a spring and wedged it into the corner of his psyche as best he could. He prayed that his unhinged mind was giving him a series of clues: a way out of his own lunacy.

He grabbed the seeds, silently fuming at the old crone.

“You won't reach Courtshire until nightfall,” she said. “Take some of my food. I don't have clothes for a boy your size, but I can feed you well enough.” She filled up a bunch of porcelain jars with stew and jam, then grabbed the backpack from off his shoulder and stuffed them in, along with some loaves of bread and pieces of cheese. She also snuck in the cheese knife, in case he needed something sharp. Again, everything fit. When she gave the backpack back to him, it felt as light as when it had been nearly empty.

“Are you really not coming with me?” he asked.

“I told you I would help get you to Courtshire, and I have. I'm certain of it.”

“Where am I? Just tell me, please. What's happening to me?”

She said nothing and instead beckoned him over to the door and pushed it open. The path was waiting for him.

“Tell me your name, at least,” he begged her.

“It's Mrs. Blackwell.”

“Where is Mr. Blackwell?”

“Gone,” she said, looking darkly out to the road. “He left the path.” That was all she would say.

“That's pretty messed up.”

“Never leave the path,” she told him.

“I've been told that before.”

“You were told correctly.”

“Who are you, really? Do I know you?”

She said nothing. He stepped out the door and through the garden, back out onto the leafy path, and watched Mrs. Blackwell close the door behind her.