In the Woods

by Carrie Jones

  I don’t know what to do. My stomach is squinched up like I’ve ripped all my abdominal muscles in a back twist that’s gone horribly wrong. I try to think out the sequence of what I have to do, like my actions are notes meant to be played, and if I play them in just the right order, all will be safe.

  I have to shut the window. That requires reaching behind the curtain. There’s a screen, but if some crazy guy is out there, is a screen really going to stop him? Is a window? I don’t know. I don’t know anything, but it seems logical to shut the window, right? People break into hotel rooms all the time. They look for easy-access things like ground-floor open windows. I can’t believe I left it open.

  One more step gets me close enough to reach it. I slip my hand behind the curtain, grab the wooden edge of the window, and pull. It thunders down.

  There. Good.

  I’m not going to lock it, because I’m too much of a wimp to risk looking out the window. I’m honestly that freaked out that I—

  Something bumps against the glass. I let out a little shriek and jump away, clapping a hand over my mouth. I can see a dark, thick shape, just a shadow behind the thin curtain. It seems to be pressing its face against the window. Then I hear … snuffling.

  A bear? Bears snuffle. Maybe it’s a rabid bear that’s doing this—no matter what Logan said about it walking away. A bear actually makes sense.

  I run out of the room and into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind me. I stand there for a minute, my back pressed against the opposite wall, not sure what to do next. Finally I run down the hall to the registration desk. A strongly-built woman with bleached hair is sitting at the desk, reading a romance novel. She looks up at me and I wonder why she’s wearing so much turquoise eye shadow.

  “Umm, someone was just outside my window,” I tell her.

  “Those damn peeping toms,” she says, slamming her book facedown onto the counter and jumping up. She pulls a baseball bat from somewhere down below and comes around the counter, her cotton dress swooshing as she heads for the door.

  “I don’t think—” She’s out before I can tell her a baseball bat might not be enough. Not if that thing is what I think it was. I can’t let her just go out there and die. I hurry after her and catch up as she rounds a corner of the building. There’s nobody there.

  “Move it, hon,” the woman says, pushing past me and hurrying back toward the front of the building. I jog after her and catch up to her again in the parking lot. She’s got the bat resting on her shoulder now. There’s nobody at the front of the building. She looks up and down the street.

  “Darn kids,” she says. “The Roper boys live up the road a ways. We catch them peeking in the windows sometimes. A pretty girl like you probably got them all worked up.”

  We watch as an old SUV passes along the street. The driver wears a straw hat and dark glasses and is looking back at us as he passes.

  “I hope they didn’t scare you,” the woman says. “They don’t mean no harm. Probably just hoping to catch you changing clothes. I’ll call their dad and tell him I’ll send the law if they do it again.” Despite the horrid makeup, she has kind eyes. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m fine. Do you ever get bears around here?”

  “All the time. They go dumpster diving, but this would be early for one. You never know though.”

  I watch as she trudges back to the hotel door, her bat still over her shoulder and her feet bare despite the gravel. She pauses at the door and looks back at me.

  “Coming in?” she asks.

  “In a sec,” I answer.

  She goes inside. I look around for a minute, then go back around the building.

  The back side of the Cherokee Country Inn faces pretty dense woods that seem to loom all dark and secretive about thirty feet from the brick building. Nothing’s moving, though. I think of what my dad would do in this situation. He probably wouldn’t think twice about something being in the trees. What about Logan? He would be holding that huge gun that was in his truck.

  I am not them.

  I am me.

  And I step forward. Another step, then another. I’m holding my breath. I let it out. Nothing is moving around me. I keep walking. Then I’m standing outside the window that I know is the one to our room. It’s in the right place in the building. And …

  I stare down at the ground. There is no grass in this shaded place between the building and the woods. There is only dirt. Loose, dusty dirt. And there in the dirt is a very clear set of very inhuman footprints. There are claw marks beyond the toes. It’s like an elongated bear paw maybe?

  A hoax.

  It’s got to be a really clever hoax. Right? But that poor Karen girl is missing. And Logan saw something out there.… Maybe a hoax by a sick serial killer, then. A deadly kind of crazy where the person doing it doesn’t just get off on the killing, but also on the fear.

  I’d almost prefer a monster.

  But either way, it’s dangerous and we need to stop it.

  My hand shakes as I pull my phone out of my pocket and snap a couple pictures of the prints. They don’t come out very clearly, but I send them to Dad anyway, then I head back for the door of the hotel, keeping my back to the building and my eyes on the dark forest that’s too quiet to be safe.

  9

  LOGAN

  Mom’s waiting on me in the yard when I pull up. She comes rushing at my truck even before I get the engine turned off, and yanks open the door. She kind of lunges into the cab and throws her arms around me. Her voice trembles a little as she says, “Thank God, you’re home safe.”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” I say, sitting patiently and waiting for the relief I know she feels to subside a little and for her to let me go.

  “Come on, let’s get in the house,” she says, pulling at me.

  I take my shotgun off the rack and walk beside her toward the house. Dad and the girls are standing on the porch. My sisters are watching us, but Dad’s eyes are roaming around the farm as twilight reaches out with weak gray fingers. Dusk and dawn have always been among my favorite topics for bad poetry.

  On the porch, Dad stops me and sends the women inside.

  “Seriously?” Kelsey says, hands on her hips.

  “Seriously,” Dad says.

  We watch them close the door on us. Dad’s still looking pretty haggard from worry and lack of sleep. “Your mom told you about the Ferguson girl?”

  “Yeah. Karen,” I say. The numbness and disbelief have made my stomach hurt. “I … I don’t know what to say.”

  “We’re doing search parties. Tonight. Now.” My dad’s voice is clipped and almost military. He doesn’t sound like himself. “One of us needs to help search. One of us needs to stay here with the girls.”

  My cell phone goes off, telling me I have a text. I reach into my pocket and silence my phone.

  “Now that there’s a human involved, the police are more interested. The sheriff is asking for volunteers to start a manhunt tomorrow. Manhunt.” He snorts. “Whatever. A hunt. I’m going along for that one definitely.”

  “I’ll come—”

  “No, Logan. I know you want to, and I know you’d do fine, but I need you to stay here. We have three women of our own to take care of,” he says.

  “That’s sexist!” Kelsey yells.

  Dad groans, rubbing his hands across his eyes, and mutters, “Probably is.”

  I’m disappointed. I’d much rather go out and hunt that thing tomorrow, and go out tonight and look for Karen, but at the same time I can’t bear the thought of Mom, Kelsey, and Katie being home alone. “Okay. I’ll stay with them.”

  Dad drops a hand onto my shoulder and squeezes. “You’re a good son, Logan. I couldn’t have asked for better. Thank you.”

  I was looking him in the eye just fine until he said that, but now I can’t. My chest gets all tight and my eyes almost water up. I duck my head, but say, “Thanks, Dad. I do my best.”

  “That’s all anybody’s got a
right to ask of you,” he says, giving my shoulder one last squeeze before dropping his hand away and heading down the stairs, asking, “How were our visitors?”

  There’s a moment of silence as I think about how to tell Dad what I did. Finally I just come out with it. “I told Chrystal they could come back out tomorrow morning and I’d talk to her dad then. Is that okay?”

  “That’s fine,” Dad says without looking at me. He’s squinting off toward the pasture, where we can hear the faint lowing of cattle. The herd sounds content. He puts his hand on the door to the truck. “Let your mom know. I’m sure she’ll want to feed them lunch.”

  “I will.”

  “They sound okay out there. Be strong, Logan,” he says, opening the door now and slinging his gun onto the seat next to him instead of putting it in the gun rack in the back.

  “Stay safe, Dad.”

  He nods, honks the horn, and backs out of the drive.

  I go inside and talk to Mom and the girls and then I feel restless, just full of energy and thoughts, and I go back on the front porch with my gun. Mom follows me, her lips pressed tightly together.

  “I think I’ll sit out here for a little bit, if that’s okay.”

  She nods and heads back inside. My feet on the wooden steps rouses the dogs sleeping under the porch. All three of them follow me back up to the front door. Our porch stretches across the front of the house and wraps around the south side to overlook Mom’s flower garden. I take a seat in a wooden chair not far from the crook where the porch turns, propping my shotgun against the rail.

  Galahad tries to jump up in my lap as soon as I’m settled. I push him down and he prances around me while Daisy crawls under the chair and lies down. Thunder sits patiently beside me. I’m afraid Galahad will knock over the shotgun, so I lay it down on the porch in front of me and tell him to calm down. Instead he brings me his tennis ball. I throw it out in the yard, then scratch Thunder’s head as we watch Galahad run for the ball.

  “Does he ever get tired?” I ask Thunder. He doesn’t answer, just rolls his sad brown eyes up to look at me. I throw the ball for Galahad three times before I remember my phone. I pull it out of my pocket and unlock it. At first I don’t recognize the strange number with its 207 area code, but when I read the actual message, I feel my pulse pick up a little. I text Chrystal back, YOU’RE WELCOME. SEE YOU TOMORROW.

  I wait a few minutes, hoping she’ll respond, but she doesn’t. Well, there wasn’t really anything to answer. I think about her, how she touched me, the tone of her voice, the earnest light in her eyes, and how she touched me. Yeah, I said that twice. If I concentrate, I can almost feel her delicate fingers on my arm still. That’s crazy. Or is it?

  I text David. DID YOU HEAR ABOUT KAREN?

  He texts back. I AM SEARCHING NOW. NO SIGN. THIS IS SOME WHACKED CRAP BRO.

  I reply. YEP.

  I’d really rather be out there looking. But what if something happened again here? No. It’s good. I fetch a notebook from my truck and return to the porch, writing and marking out lines. After a half hour I have a few lines I don’t hate, though they are free verse, which always feels like cheating to me.

  I wasn’t born until you touched me.

  I existed in limbo

  Going through

  The motions of life

  Without realizing I was flesh without a heart.

  It isn’t great. It’s a little corny, I suppose, but at the same time I kind of like it, especially the indents that show motion. I copy the lines to a fresh page, then turn back to the one I’d been scribbling on and make a few notes about Chrystal’s hair. Wavy. Dark. Thick and mysterious. How does it smell? That stops me. How would it smell? It’s a good question. I ponder it as I watch the sun sink below the trees.

  * * *

  After coming in from the morning milking and taking my shower, I see the screen light up on my cell phone. I check it and my heart does a quick double beat when I see I have a message from Chrystal. Then I read it and my heart thumps even harder. I THINK IT WAS OUTSIDE MY WINDOW YESTERDAY.

  I call her immediately. She answers on the third ring.

  “Chrystal?” I blurt. “Are you okay? It’s Logan.”

  “Hi, Logan. Yes, I’m okay. You got my text?”

  “Yeah. It was outside your window? At the hotel?” I ask.

  “Yes. Well, I mean, I think so. I smelled something, and something was definitely out there. When I went to check, there were huge footprints.”

  “You went outside?”

  “Yes. With the hotel lady. She had a baseball bat. Whatever it was was gone, though,” she says. There’s something in her voice. Not really fear, not now, but I can tell she had been afraid. “I’m okay. It was gone.”

  “That was pretty brave of you, I guess.” I want to yell that it was a pretty dumb thing to do, going outside with a woman with a bat to look for a monster that can tear the head off a calf. But that would be mean, and maybe just me being an overprotective guy telling a girl what she should and shouldn’t do. Kelsey would say I’m being sexist. She’s probably right.

  “So, umm, can Dad and I still come out to talk to you today? He’s pretty excited about it,” she says.

  “Sure. Anytime you want,” I tell her. “You can come right now.”

  “Okay. Actually, we’re kind of on our way. Sorry,” she says. I laugh and tell her it’s fine. “Dad was wondering if he could put motion cameras on some trees on your farm. Out by where you first saw the thing.”

  “Cameras?”

  “Yes. They take a picture whenever something moves in front of them,” she explains. “Usually we only get deer and stuff.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I guess. I don’t think Dad will mind that.”

  “Okay. Well, we should be there pretty soon. I’ll see you then.”

  We hang up and I go down to breakfast. Chrystal and her dad arrive just as we’re finishing, and I can’t help but notice how Chrystal looks from the living room to the dining room where Mom and my sisters are clearing the table. I ask if they’re hungry. “There’s still some bacon and biscuits and gravy,” I say.

  “I couldn’t eat a bite,” Mr. Lawson Smith says, standing there rocking back and forth on his heels.

  “I could,” Chrystal says.

  “Oh. Oh yes, I guess I haven’t fed you, have I?” her dad says, and his voice shows he’s surprised he’s forgotten. I lead them into the dining room and Mom brings them plates.

  Mr. Lawson Smith has me repeat my entire story, then asks if I’ll take him out to the place where the thing ripped off the calf’s head. I do it, leading him and Chrystal through the yard and into the woods above the house, carrying my shotgun. Mr. Lawson Smith chatters the whole time, but I’m thinking mostly about Chrystal, who walks on the other side of me. I can smell her perfume, and sometimes, as we move around trees and rocks, our arms almost touch.

  “This is it,” I say, pointing to the small clearing. The calf’s head is gone, of course, taken by the wildlife people for examination. The blood is gone too, probably licked up by coyotes or some omnivorous creatures of the forest. I show them where the monster was, where I was, how the dogs were acting … everything about that night.

  “Excellent! Excellent!” Mr. Lawson Smith says, then unslings a tan backpack and starts unloading equipment. He takes an army-green rectangular box with canvas straps to a nearby tree and is examining angles.

  “One of his motion cameras,” Chrystal explains.

  I nod and we watch him. I ask her, “Were you scared?”

  “Yes.” She moves a step closer to me. “The scariest part was after, though. When I was in the room alone and I knew that thing had been out there. Dad was gone.” She whispers the last part.

  “I have an extra gun. It’s just a .22 rifle, but it’s better than a hotel woman with a baseball bat,” I offer.

  She shakes her head. We’re both still watching her dad as he fastens his camera to the tree. “I’ve never shot a gun. I wouldn’t know h
ow. And wouldn’t want to.”

  “Oh.” There’s a long, awkward silence over the low sound of her dad humming happily. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

  “Searching for Karen.”

  “I hate that I can’t go.”

  “Yeah. I would too,” she says, and now we look at each other.

  “I promised Dad I’d stay here. He’s out hunting that thing. Most of the men around here are. I told him I’d stay home with Mom and the girls.”

  “I’m a girl,” she says, like I need any reminder of that.

  “A girl willing to face down Bigfoot outside her hotel room,” I say.

  She coughs. “Not Bigfoot. A bear. I’m pretty positive it was a bear.”

  10

  CHRYSTAL

  The police search for the “creature,” and since my father and I are able-bodied, they let us join.

  “We want everyone we can get,” says this tall blond sheriff’s deputy person. “I don’t care who you are as long as you are mobile and breathing and have two eyes in your head.”

  “And a cell phone,” another cop says. This one is short, dark, and looks like an ex–high school soccer player.

  “That’s right.”

  They give us numbers, assign us to groups, give us areas to search. Dad and I are with a boy named David and a couple other older people, two police deputies, and a waitress from the diner. We head out to some road named after a number and enter the woods, fanning out, looking for clues and signs. We have maps. We do not have a dog, like some of the other groups do.

  “Imagine if we find it,” Dad says.

  “Cool,” I say because he wants me to say it, but I seriously do not want to be the person who finds an alleged monster unless it’s a dead monster. “You stay safe.”