This Deep Panic

by Lisa Stowe

  “I’m coming back,” she whispered to her child, her little boy, sleeping there in the roots of the tree, within the soft loamy soil. “I’m not leaving you forever.”

  She didn’t know if she spoke to her lost baby or to the lost young boy who roamed the woods with a bear.

  Either way, she would come home.

  The last thing she did was release her chickens. The others stood in a loose half circle around her as she opened the coop door she’d so recently repaired. She didn’t know when she’d be back and she couldn’t leave them cooped up indefinitely, even if wild animals might get them out in the open. At least they’d have a chance.

  When the chickens simply clustered in the doorway, she gestured. “Bird!”

  The dog jumped forward, scattering the chickens, then stood there wagging his tail. Anya turned away. “He loves scattering them. It’s how he got his name.”

  She started across the clearing. Bird and Ethan came up on either side of her.

  They walked in silence through the changed landscape in a loose single file with Anya leading and Ethan bringing up the rear. Both of them scanned the forest for movement that didn’t belong, for shapes that shouldn’t be there, for shadows of antlers. The early morning light was pearly, with low gray clouds trailing in wisps among the trees still standing. A few birds sang, tentatively, in the distance, as if not sure about their new world.

  The underbrush was still wet from the rain the day before and it wasn’t long before her jeans were damp to the knees. Anya glanced back at Rowan behind her. The girl’s hair hung in a thick, damp braid over her shoulder. She kept pace easily, watching the woods. But it wasn’t like she was scanning for danger like the others. Her eyes didn’t dart from shadow to shadow, her head didn’t turn quickly from side to side.

  “You don’t seem as scared as the others,” Anya said, holding back a branch from a fallen cedar so it wouldn’t slap back and hit the girl.

  Rowan started, as if surprised that Anya was there. She caught the branch and nodded her thanks as Anya turned away to continue forward. The silence stretched long enough that Anya didn’t think Rowan was going to respond. But then she heard an indrawn breath.

  “I’m good at forgetting where I’m at,” Rowan said softly.

  Anya picked up her pace in spite of the increasingly steep terrain as they neared the ridgeline. But Rowan kept pace easily and it put distance between them and Michael, who stumbled breathlessly behind them. Jennifer, behind Michael, offered him a water bottle, and Anya was pleased to see the small kindness.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, when Michael had fallen a few yards behind them.

  There were several more long moments of quiet, but this time Anya knew the words would come.

  “I look for things to draw,” Rowan said. “When I’m sketching, it’s like I’m in another world. I’m not here anymore. Sometimes…sometimes it helps me not hear or see what’s happening.”

  “Have you always drawn?” Anya asked, sensing something more behind the words.

  “No,” Rowan said. “Only since I was twelve.”

  Anya wondered what had happened to make Rowan need to escape her world when she was twelve. She wouldn’t ask though. One thing her way of life had taught her was to value holding one’s peace. Sometimes keeping your thoughts held tight was the only way to keep your sanity.

  “But you know what?” Rowan suddenly asked, her voice stronger as if defensive.

  “What?” Anya saw movement up ahead but recognized Bird trotting back to her. His tail was relaxed and wagging, and no hackles were up.

  “Everyone else? They all want to get home,” Rowan said.

  “Well, yeah.” Anya patted Bird’s head as he joined her. “They want to be home, a place safe without monsters. Seems obvious.”

  “I get that,” Rowan continued. “But sometimes monsters are right next to you. If you have to face monsters no matter where you are, I’d rather be out here on my own. Like you.”

  “It can be a lonely life, Rowan. And hard.” She glanced back but Rowan wasn’t looking at her. Her chin was up, watching a raven circling high above them. A week ago trees would have blocked the sky. They would never have seen the raven as he glided on currents of wind.

  Behind them, Jennifer walked next to Michael, talking to him. Anya saw him scowl at something she said, and the girl lifted both hands, palm up, as if asking him what his problem was. Behind them, Spike helped Nathaniel over a downed tree and then lifted Lucy over while Ethan waited, scanning back the way they had come.

  Rowan watched the raven, clearly done talking. Anya took up the lead again, stumbling over a rock covered in moss. She caught her balance and kept going, hearing muted conversations behind her but not paying attention to their words. She watched the angle of light through the trees brighten as they left the forest fringe for the open ridge. The going was easier now, and they were able to move faster.

  Anya’s goal was to get them to the power lines and the cell towers above the tiny town of Index. From there Ethan and his students would be on their own. She planned on turning around even though she wouldn’t make it back to the cabin before dark. There was safety in numbers, and part of her wanted to stay with them. But her thoughts kept going back to the boy with the bear. To Zack, dying alone in terror. And to her son, buried under the yew tree.

  She couldn’t leave any of them alone, as crazy as that sounded even to her.

  10

  Ethan leaned against a still-standing cedar and opened a fruit and nut protein bar. The others were scattered nearby, some sitting on damp ground, some standing, but all staying close. He’d agreed to a brief break but his whole body itched with the need to go. Anya stood the furthest from the group, shifting her weight from boot to boot, one hand on the head of her dog. He watched her study the woods ahead of them, shift to look over her shoulder, shift to briefly meet his eyes, shift again to watch the direction they were headed. Bird, too, was alert, ears pricked forward, silent and still.

  Watching Anya, he knew that she felt it, too.

  Something shadowed them.

  Ethan had felt it about an hour earlier, a sense that something wasn’t right. At first he put it off to all that had happened, to worry and fear for the kids. He watched the surroundings as they hiked and saw nothing but quake devastation.

  Jennifer took a bite of her granola bar and offered the rest to Michael. He was sweating heavily even in the cool forest air and Ethan wondered if it was more from fear than exertion. Lucy sat on a rock, swinging her feet slowly. She was still favoring her side. Spike handed her a bottle of water, and then went to Nathaniel and checked the other boy’s backpack straps. Payton talked without pause to Rowan, but Ethan wasn’t sure Rowan knew Payton was even at her side.

  All accounted for.

  He finished the last bite of fruit and nuts, wadded up the wrapper, and bent to stuff it in a pocket of his pack. When he straightened, Payton came over. “What’s up, kid?” he asked.

  “Do you, like, know much about being a teenage girl in high school?” Payton fidgeted with the sleeve of her bright pink coat.

  “No,” Ethan said, lifting his pack and watching the woods.

  “To be popular, you have to be pretty and flirty and make sure you show the right amount of cleavage. You know?”

  Ethan looked at her in surprise. “Is this really the time to have a conversation on the caste system of school?”

  “I’m pretty and flirty and have great cleavage.” She looked down at her chest, then up to meet his eyes. “And I work hard to fit in.”

  “Yeah? So?” Ethan spoke without really paying attention. He watched Anya stop fidgeting and turn north. He watched Bird’s hackles come up.

  Payton put her hand on his arm and slid it up to his bicep. “I just want to…I guess…apologize. I mean, if we’re all going to die out here, I just wanted to put it out there. That I know I’m a pain in your ass not being prepared and all that. I do it on purpose because the
guys like rescuing me. But I know you hate it.”

  “Apology accepted.” Ethan started to step away but Payton tightened her grip.

  “And…like…I know the boys out here can’t keep me safe. Not like you can. So I just, you know, want you to know the real me. To not hate me.”

  Ethan gently dislodged her fingers, seeing red flags flying in his mind’s eye. “What I actually hate are people who lie to themselves about who they are. Or who lie to others to manipulate them.”

  Payton turned pink but said nothing. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and walked over to Jennifer.

  Ethan joined Anya.

  “It’s pacing us,” she said, cradling her rifle. “Or something is.”

  Ethan looked back at the kids. “Come on,” he said, raising his voice. “Pack your shit and get up here.”

  “What do you want to do?” Anya asked. “Keep going or find some place to hole up?”

  “I suppose you can’t summon your pet grizzly?”

  Anya was startled into a short laugh. “Not hardly.”

  “Then unless you know some safe place real close, I guess we keep going.”

  “What’s going on?” Jennifer asked from behind them, her voice shaky. “That thing can’t be back already?”

  “We need to stick close,” Ethan said, pulling out his gun. “Anya in front, me in the back, like before. But keep it tight. Keep quiet and watch your surroundings.”

  “But…what do we do?” Jennifer grabbed Anya’s arm. “I thought it wouldn’t follow us this far!”

  “Calm down,” Anya said, shaking her arm free. She paused, something in her memory stirring. Something that didn’t fit. But then it was gone. “It may be pacing us but I don’t think it’s coming closer. Just stay behind me. We’re almost to the Wall above Index.”

  “We need to go back to the cabin,” Michael said. “We should never have left.”

  “That’s irrelevant now,” Ethan said. “Get moving.”

  Anya headed out and Ethan let the students pass him. Jennifer stayed close behind Anya, followed by Rowan, and then Lucy and Nathaniel, with Spike right behind them. Michael took a few steps back the way they had come, but Ethan moved into his path. They locked eyes for a moment then Michael gave an angry shake of his head.

  “We die, it’s on you, teacher.” He turned, stumbled over a tree root, and followed Spike.

  “Of course it is,” Ethan said, not sure if Michael heard him. And not caring if the kid didn’t. After all, he’d known that from day one.

  They went maybe half a mile at a fast pace, climbed over a few more downed trees and stumbled into an open swathe of land overgrown with brambles. Ethan realized it was a power line road but the towers were toppled, with heavy cable lines strewn over the warped metal.

  “We’re going to be electrocuted,” Lucy said in a small voice.

  “No way,” Spike said. “There’s no power. If there was, we’d hear those lines humming. We’d see all those blackberries and ferns and shit smoking.”

  Ethan went past the kids to step out into the clearing and scan the area.

  “He’s right,” Anya said, following him. “So this power access road will lead to the Wall above Index. Plus, you can now see anything coming up on you.”

  Ethan glanced at the massive downed towers and lines then waited as the kids trailed tentatively into the open to cluster around Anya. Spike had a hand on Lucy and Nathaniel’s shoulders, and Jennifer still stuck close to Rowan. Payton stood only a foot or so from him, watching him.

  Ethan looked back into the trees. “Hang on,” he called to the others. “Where’s Michael?”

  “He was just here,” Rowan said.

  Ethan didn’t answer. He turned and ran back the way they had come, searching the forest on all sides, terrified he’d find signs of yet another death. But after a couple hundred yards, he stopped. There was no Michael. Not even blood. And the other students were back there, exposed, with just Anya.

  “Shit!”

  He turned back.

  “How could he disappear like that?” Anya asked when Ethan rejoined her. “We were all standing right here. We’d have seen something grab him.”

  “Unless nothing grabbed him,” Rowan said.

  “What do you mean?” Jennifer asked, tears filling her eyes again.

  “She means, he wanted to go back to the cabin.” Ethan wiped sweat from his forehead and pulled in a deep breath, trying to blow out the fury that burned inside. “She means, he may have just taken off.”

  “I’ll look for him,” Anya said. “I was going to go back anyway, once you were safe on the power line road.”

  “No way,” Spike said. “You can’t go back with something following us. It’s too dangerous. That fat ass is on his own. He made his choice and he don’t care if it’s endangering all of us. Leave him. You go, and it’s just Ethan with his gun. It’s not enough.”

  Anya stared at Spike and Ethan saw the anger in her eyes.

  “I’m not your savior!” she said, voice rising. “I need to be home with my son! He’s unprotected, too. Or didn’t you think about that?”

  “Your son?” Spike asked. “Man, that kid has a grizzly bear to protect him. What the hell are you talking about?”

  Anya’s hand came up over her heart and she drew in a ragged breath. They didn’t understand. It was her baby that was alone and vulnerable, not the boy. That tiny baby, that tiny heart that had beat like butterfly wings under the palm of her hand for such a short, short moment in time.

  “Please,” Lucy said softly. “Please don’t go. We’ve lost enough friends already. Don’t make us watch you leave and never come back. Don’t make us face this alone.”

  “That’s not fair,” Anya said, swiping tears off her cheeks. “I didn’t ask you all to mess up my life. I was fine by myself.”

  “We didn’t,” Rowan said, putting an arm around Lucy. “That was the earthquake. And you weren’t fine by yourself. You were hiding in a boarded up cabin.”

  “Stay with us until we get to town,” Nathaniel said. “Until we know what is going on, what all of this is. Until it’s safe for us, and for you, to go home. Please.”

  Ethan moved away, scanning the ground. His kids knew what to say better than he did. And they meant their words. They weren’t just thinking of themselves, of their fear, of their vulnerability. There was an odd warmth inside that was suspiciously like pride.

  “I can’t,” Anya said, but her voice was lower, defeated.

  “You will,” Ethan said, his back to Anya as he stared at the ground. “Because otherwise I’ll throw you over my shoulder and haul you out of these damn woods.”

  “But Michael-”

  Ethan turned and held a hand up, stopping Anya’s words as relief loosened the knot in his stomach. “He may think he’s going back to the cabin, but his tracks go through here. Look. You can see the break in the blackberry vines. The idiot is going the same way we’re headed.”

  Spike laughed. “What a dumb ass.”

  Ethan came back to Anya. “So we’re going to catch up to him before anything grabs him. And you need to stay with us for your own safety. At least until this is all over. Then I’ll personally see you safe home. Promise.”

  “We all will.” Payton stepped between Ethan and Anya. “Like, you know, when it’s all over. Ethan and I will make sure you get home so you can go back to being alone.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Spike said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Anya met Ethan’s eyes, nodded slightly to him, and turned her back on them, taking point once more. Bird whined once and pushed his nose under her hand. She sank her fingers into the warm ruff of his neck, and walked away from her home.

  11

  Curtis’s stomach growled but he still felt too queasy from his night in the woods and finding the lone eyeball to eat anything he’d packed. Instead, he followed the trail through the damp woods until he came to a spot where a large boulder had come down and
taken out part of the trail above him. The boulder was now wedged against an old growth Douglas fir. Curtis stared at it, bemused that the tree held the rock, until he realized he was directly below it.

  He scrambled from the trail, plowing through wet Oregon grape until he was several yards away, then stood with a hand pressed against the hitch in his side as his breathing slowed. The boulder had taken out a big chunk of the upper trail as it careened down the steep slope, but he could see where it had come from. And above it, the trail continued. And better yet, the ridgeline was close. He was almost to the top of the Wall.

  He climbed through underbrush, staying well away from the precariously balanced boulder and was close to the top when he heard a voice. He froze, his heart tripping into overdrive. He slipped behind a tree, hugging up tight to the bark and straining to hear past the rush of blood pounding in his head.

  “You can die out here in the woods if you want, but I’m leaving.” There was a pause. “What’s that? You think you can force me?”

  Curtis drew in a soft breath, listening hard. It was a conversation, but he couldn’t hear the second person. Where were they?

  “You may think you’re a tough guy, teacher, but you’re not. No…wait…you may think you’re a tough guy, teach, but I’m the badass here.”

  Curtis relaxed his grip on a tree branch. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but this didn’t sound like a monster that ate eyeballs.

  “Yeah. That’s better. I’m the badass.”

  The words stopped but Curtis now heard the heavy breathing of someone ponderously working their way through the forest debris. Branches snapped and rocks tumbled, followed by a high pitched squeal. Someone seemed to have just slipped. Curtis sympathized.

  “Listen up Spike, you asshole. No…you fucker. Yeah. Listen up Spike, you fucker. You think you’re some kind of hero, but when this is over it’s going to be me Jennifer comes to, because you’re nothin’. I’ll be the one that saves her.”