The Answers Are In The Forest

by Katie Kaleski

  “Ahhh,” I screamed as I fell right into a large hole that was totally concealed by a bunch of branches and dead grass. I landed with a great whump, kind of on my hands and knees. Dirt and branches rained down on me. “Jesus,” I yelled, trying to get my bearings straight.

  The sky was above me and dirt surrounded me. The top of the hole was too high for me to reach. My hands and knees throbbed with scrapes covering the heels of my hands and my knees covered in mud. The sleeve of my zip-up was torn. I wiggled all my parts. It seemed nothing was broken, so I stood. I reached up with my right arm because my left one kind of hurt. There was a good several feet above my hand to the edge of the hole. “Crap,” I said, jumping up to see if I’d be able to grab the edge to climb out. No such luck.

  When I landed from my jump, I stepped on something that turned my ankle, almost taking me down. I looked at my feet, and there was a plastic doll arm. It looked like it could be the missing arm to the doll that was in my basement. I picked up the arm and slipped it into the little coin pocket on the inside of my shorts.

  Creepy theories started to fill my head when I heard cracking and snapping from above. “Oh god, oh god.” I knew something or someone was coming to finish me off. I cowered down and covered my head. I knew it didn’t hide me, but it was worth a shot.

  “Hey,” I heard a few seconds later. I was pretty sure if someone or something wanted to kill you, they wouldn’t say “hey” first, so I glanced up. Rusck Almeida looked down at me. My heart immediately lifted.

  “Thank God it’s just you,” I yelled.

  He scrunched up his nose. “You okay?”

  “Besides being in a hole, yeah.”

  Rusck nodded and let out a laugh. He then squatted and got on his stomach. “See if you can reach my hand.” He stretched his arm down toward me.

  I reached up but couldn’t quite make it.

  “Try to jump.”

  “I’ll pull you down with me.” It wouldn’t do us much good if both of us were stuck in the hole.

  “Nah, I’m stronger than I look.”

  “Okay,” I said, jumping. Our fingers brushed against each other.

  “Again.”

  I jumped again. His hand clasped around my wrist.

  Rusck grunted, trying to keep his body planted on the ground. He slowly pulled me up, his face turning a brilliant red. Eventually, he pulled me up enough that he was able to grab me with his other arm. My torso emerged over the lip of the hole. Rusck grabbed me in a hug, pulling me the rest of the way out. The two of us collapsed to the ground.

  I looked up at the sky and over at Rusck. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Rusck took in some deep breaths and nodded.

  We lay there in silence for a bit, and after all the adrenaline wore off, Rusck said, “We should get you home.” He climbed to his feet, stuck out his hand, and pulled me up to standing. I was sure the two of us looked like fricking messes. He had dirt, twigs, and other assorted forest gunk stuck all over the front of his jeans, blazer, and hoodie, and his face was flushed.

  Rusck slung one of my arms over his shoulder. I leaned on him, and we slowly started toward my house. I was sure I could’ve walked all by myself, but it was nice having somebody’s support.

  “Why in the hell is there a giant hole in the middle of the forest?”

  “Hunters, maybe, trying to trap an animal? Even though the only ones in these woods, really, are rabbits.”

  “Rabbits?”

  “Yeah, there’s, like, an overpopulation of them around here.”

  “Overpopulation?”

  Rusck sighed as if explaining was so strenuous. “Yes, they’re always getting hit by cars, and lots of times kids go back there with BB guns and shoot at them, and some with actual shotguns.”

  “Oh god, really? Poor rabbits.”

  “I guess,” Rusck said, pulling me along.

  After a while, we finally emerged from the forest and reached my back yard. We trudged across the crunchy grass to my front door—the back door looked quite untrustworthy—and I let us inside. Rusck dusted himself off with his hands before he came in.

  “Want me to wash those?” I asked, pointing at him.

  “Nah, let’s take care of you.”

  “Okay,” I said, sighing.

  We went back to my bathroom, and in the mirror, I saw a mess. Dirt smeared across my face, and my hair looked like some animal built a nest in it. I pulled a washcloth out of a bathroom drawer.

  Rusck leaned on the doorframe, watching me. He straightened and said, “Let me. You sit down.”

  I blew out a deep breath, handed him the washcloth, and sat on the edge of the tub. Rusck unzipped his hoodie, slipping it and his blazer off, letting them drop to the graying washroom tiles. The t-shirt he had on underneath had some quote on it, but I didn’t get a chance to read what it said because his eyes caught mine, and he smirked, a set of dimples popping up.

  He ran the washcloth under the faucet, scrubbing some soap into it. Then he squatted in front of me and started gently dabbing at my knees. I winced because I was a bit of a baby. Neither of us said anything. I just let him wash my knees for me. When he finished cleaning my wounds, he leaned in close and blew on each knee. God, this dude was hot.

  “Do you have any disinfectant or anything?” he asked.

  I was hesitant to say yes at first because I knew it would make my knees all stingy and hurty. “In the other drawer,” I said.

  He pulled out the disinfectant and some cotton balls and once again dabbed at my knees.

  “Ow,” I whined.

  He flicked his gaze up at me, and I shrugged.

  “Now take off your jacket.”

  I obliged and pulled off my zip-up. He dabbed at some scratches on my arms then took my wrist, turning my hand over so he could clean the heels of my hands, which were covered in cross-hatched red lines.

  “There,” he said with a nod, squeezing my wrist and standing.

  “Thanks, you’re the best.”

  “Just don’t go falling into any more holes.”

  “I’ll try not to.” I didn’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t come along.

  “You shouldn’t be running in the woods by yourself, anyway. It’s not safe,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  I looked at him and scrunched up my nose. “What were you doing in the woods?”

  Rusck’s face turned red, and he looked at the floor.

  “Well?” I asked.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Was riding around, heard you scream.”

  “Were you following me?”

  “No,” he said, letting out a sigh. “The woods aren’t safe, kids always shooting at rabbits and all, so it sounded like somebody was in trouble.”

  “What were you doing near my house again?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “In all honesty, even before you moved in, I’d ride by every day.” He shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories?”

  I nodded.

  “So, yeah, I don’t know…” He bit his lip and glanced at the floor.

  “Um…” I wasn’t sure what to say, so instead, I said, “Hey, would you mind going into my basement with me?”

  “Okay?” he said with his eyebrows raised.

  “It’s kinda scary, and I want to see if there’s a light, so if I have to go down there at night…”

  He nodded.

  I led him over to the basement door, thinking about how I did perhaps have some impulse issues. I barely knew this dude, and we were about to go into the basement together. After the court case, I had to go see a therapist, and she concluded I might’ve done some of things I did because I had a bit of an impulse control disorder.

  We descended into the basement, the steps creaking loudly under our feet, maybe a warning to turn back. Once at the bottom of the stairs, Rusck whispered, “You didn’t take me down here to shank me, did you?”

  I turned and looked at him. Half his face wa
s dimly illuminated by the light that slipped through the small basement window. “No, why would you ask that?”

  “Word around school is you’re an ex-con and threatened to shank the whole senior class or something.”

  I sputtered out, “What?”

  Rusck nodded and stared at me as if trying to figure out if there was any truth to what he said.

  “Oh god, me and my big mouth. No, one teacher wanted me to do a dorky intro thing, and I mentioned I had a brother. And she kept asking where he was, and I told her prison. And then I might’ve said that nobody should mess with me because he knows people on the inside.”

  Rusck let out a laugh. “That is classic.”

  We walked farther into the basement, looking for a light switch, a pull string, anything. Instead, sitting on the corner of a box, I found a massive red flashlight with a handle. “I think I found the basement light.” I held up the flashlight, which was actually quite heavy.

  I walked over to the pile of toys. It looked like somebody kicked it. The toys lay scattered all about. I saw the Burbimal up against the wall under the window and went over and picked it up. Rusck watched me from across the basement with his hands in his jeans pockets. He bounced on his toes, and his gaze darted around.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He nodded, but I didn’t believe him. It must’ve been weird for him being in my house. While I was still holding the Burbimal, I surveyed the basement. It was still creepy, but not nearly as bad as it was the night before. I thought a significant factor in that was I didn’t hear little girls giggling, which I was still claiming was the TV or the Burbimal, and also there was daylight in there. It helped a lot.

  The ceiling was pretty low. The top of Rusck’s head grazed it, and the cement floors were painted a dark gray, and the walls looked like cinder blocks that were at one time painted white but were now stained the color of dingy. Cardboard boxes stood in stacks all around, many covered with sheets.

  I refocused on the Burbimal, holding it up to show Rusck. He walked over with his nose scrunched, staring at me. He stepped in close and tilted his head, and he smelled so fresh, like clean laundry, unlike the soil, mildew-ish scent of the basement.

  “I woke up in the middle of the night because I swear I heard somebody down here, and all I found were these toys,” I said.

  Rusck looked at me with his beautiful brown eyes. “You thought somebody was down here, so you decided to check it out yourself?”

  “I charge into the face of danger or something like that. This thing was talking to me.” I wiggled the Burbimal. “Remember these?”

  Rusck took the Burbimal from me and flipped it over, prying open the battery compartment. He shook his head. “Couldn’t have. There are no batteries in here.”

  Goosebumps crawled all over my body, and my mouth went dry. “Dude, that thing went ‘ep op, ep op, coo coo’ at me. I swear it did.”

  “Okay.” Rusck slowly nodded. I could tell he didn’t believe me.

  “I’m going upstairs now.” I ran across the basement, up the stairs, and busted through the door into the hall, walking into the front, hugging myself. My body shook, and my heart raced. Rusck came into the living room and stared at me.

  “Wanna go somewhere?” I asked. “Let’s go. Let’s go now.” I grabbed my jacket from the plastic lawn chair it was strewn on and went out the front door, slipping it on once I got outside.

  “Hey.” Rusck walked out to me, putting his hands into the pockets on his hoodie.

  “Hey.”

  “So?”

  “There’s something wrong with my house.” We stood face to face on the front walkway.

  “Maybe it was something else you heard or a really vivid dream,” he said softly.

  “Maybe. Oh god, I don’t know. Sorry for making you go in there.”

  “That’s fine. You needed help.”

  “In the basement, you looked nervous.”

  Rusck scratched the side of his nose. “I’ve never been in there, and if Creed was kept in that house…I don’t know. It just seems like he would’ve been kept in the basement, and thinking about that, well…” His mouth dropped into a frown and his shoulders slumped.

  “That sucks.”

  Rusck shrugged. “Do you still want to go somewhere?”

  “I think I just needed to get out of there. Get some fresh air. Lots of fresh air.”

  “Okay. Do you plan on staying out here?”

  “Ugh, I guess I’ll eventually have to go inside.”

  “Want me to wait with you?” Rusck asked.

  “I won’t hold you up with my nonsense any longer.”

  “Sure?”

  I looked around. As usual, no one was outside, and there wasn’t a sound to be heard besides the few chirps of some birds. “Yeah. I’ll see you around school tomorrow.”

  Rusck waved and took off on his bike. And I stood on the sidewalk and stared at my house.

  Chapter Five

  Eventually, I got cold and went inside, but I stayed up as late as possible that evening because every time my lids dropped, they flew back open, looking around for someone or something making sounds that shouldn’t have made them. After a while, I zonked out, but it wasn’t a very deep sleep. I was dozing, tossing and turning, when I heard the floorboards out in the hall creaking. A lump formed in my throat.

  “Mom,” I called. Maybe she got off early or something. There was no response. I threw back my blankets and sat up, gulping down the lump in my throat.

  Creak, creak, I heard again. My heart started to beat about a hundred miles a minute. My first thought was to scoot back in the corner, pull my blankets over my head, and tremble, but that was my head, not my body. Instead, I got up and crept to my doorway, peeping out into the hallway. No one was there. Okay, maybe just the house making noises, settling. Then I heard the sound of somebody running down the basement stairs, but it wasn’t loud like an adult bounding down them. It sounded like something or someone light.

  On my tiptoes, I made my way down the hall. I whipped open the basement door, because if someone was messing with me, I wanted to catch them in the act. The stairwell was the same dark pit as it was the evening before. The blackness swallowed me whole. Reaching down to the first step, I picked up the jumbo flashlight I left there. Step by step, I followed the tunnel of light down. The stairs cried and moaned beneath me. When I reached the bottom, I shined the flashlight across the basement, and up against the boxes stood the shadow of a girl. My heart stopped.

  The shadow maybe belonged to a younger girl because it had pigtails and a dress. The shadow turned in my direction. My tongue stuck to the roof of my very dry mouth, and my body shook as chills ran down my spine. The shadow moved along the boxes, and I finally found function again and screamed. Stumbling backward, the flashlight fell from my hands. I scrambled for it and shined the light back over to the stack of boxes. The shadow disappeared.

  “Hello,” I called, taking small steps forward. I was glad there was no response. Glancing around the basement, the toys caught my eye. They were back in the pile, no longer scattered around like earlier. My hands shook, making it hard to hold on to the flashlight. I tightened my grip on it and studied the pile of toys The Burbimal sat proudly in front of the others, the tin car nearby, looking shiny and new in the gleam of my flashlight. The plastic one-armed baby leaned up against the pony, with the army guy and assorted friends gathered around.

  A rustling and a scraping sound came from the back corner of the basement. From between two boxes, a rabbit slowly emerged. I couldn’t really say hopped because it moved in what appeared to be a slow motion and very mechanical way. For a second, I thought maybe it was a windup toy like the tin car. As the rabbit crept over in its slow, stiff gait, a wave of horrific stench washed over the basement. It smelled like rotten chicken guts, sweaty feet, and mushrooms all balled into one terrible smell. The rabbit stopped a couple of feet in front of me. I shined my flashlight down on it and had to hold back a
n esophagus full of vomit.

  It was the most awful little rabbit I had ever seen. Besides its stiff, creepy movements, the one eye appeared to be gouged out, just an empty black pit in its place. Patches of fur were missing, replaced by scabs and wounds. The fur that remained was caked in dirt and flattened against its body. The right front paw was close to being severed. A deep, thick wound that seemed to be full of woodland debris ran across it. The rabbit then very stiffly cocked its head to one side. Then, with a cracking noise, the rabbit straightened its head and cocked it to the other side, moving it at small intervals. Once it was properly cocked, the bunny reversed the motion to get its head straight up again. The rabbit’s mouth slowly opened, and I finally turned and ran.

  With the flashlight still in hand, I raced back across the basement, almost tripping over my own feet, dashed up the stairs, and flew through the doorway. I slammed the basement door behind me and ran down the hall into the living room, grabbing one of the plastic lawn chairs that served as our furniture, jamming it under the doorknob to the basement door. It wasn’t much, security-wise, but hopefully enough to give me peace of mind. Walking backward away from the door, I almost expected the rabbit to somehow bust its way through to come and get me.

  Once back in the living room, I looked around as if trying to find somebody to hide behind and cower, but I was the only one there. My mom was at work, at her second job where she worked the graveyard shift, so she wouldn’t get home for hours. With long strides, I walked to my bedroom and sealed myself in there for the remainder of the evening. I did not fall back asleep.