In the Woods

by Carrie Jones

  He doesn’t say anything back, just heads into trees, personal GPS in hand. The deputy looks at me. His eyes squinting from the sun, sweat rolling down the side of his face. I don’t know how he can stand wearing that uniform with a bulletproof vest in this heat, poor guy.

  “It will be okay,” he tells me. “We don’t have a hot area. Plus, I’m pretty sure that we’re not looking for a creature.”

  “You aren’t?” I ask.

  “Nah. We’re looking for a psycho. And even if it was a creature? It seems nocturnal. We’re in broad daylight. We’re safe.”

  Dad starts to say something, but I elbow him to be quiet. I also decide that I like the way this deputy thinks.

  To the left or the east or something a mile away is a farm where some pigs were taken three months ago. They don’t even know for sure the monster took them. The trail is cold, really cold, which is probably why we were assigned here.

  David and I walk together, which is nice because it gives me a break from my dad. No offense to him. David tells me that he’s best friends with Logan. I’m not sure why he’s telling me this.

  “Yeah?” I try to make my heart rate steady, but it doesn’t work.

  “He mentioned you,” David says all casual as we step around a big tree toward a patch of dirt.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did he mention?’

  “Stuff.”

  Sigh. Oklahoma boys are not wordy when you want them to be.

  “Look at this.” David squats down and points at some tiny marks in the dirt. I squat down too, but I can barely make out anything.

  “See this?” he continues. “This is from a squirrel. Squirrels hop like hare. But there are two paired track sets. The bigger ones from the hind feet are actually in front. There are four toes in each of the rear footprints.”

  I have no idea what he’s saying.

  “A squirrel was here,” he concludes.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You don’t talk much, do you?” He cocks his head and squints at me. “No wonder Logan thinks you’re hot.”

  I raise my eyebrows and stand up. “He thinks I’m hot?”

  David stands up too. He doesn’t answer my question. “You like him?”

  I don’t answer his question.

  “You have calluses on your fingers,” David observes. “That from guitar?”

  “Bass,” I correct him, smiling. “You have dirt on your nose. That from picking it?”

  He stares a second, laughs, and shakes his head. “You’re okay. I like you. No wonder he does, too.”

  We stand there a second. “So a squirrel was here, huh? But no monster? No psycho guy?”

  “No monster. No psycho guy.”

  I groan and rub my hands over my face, which is so hot and sticky. It’s like living in a sauna here. “I want to find whoever is doing this. I mean, I don’t—because I’m scared of him, but I do because…”

  “Because it’s hurting people now.”

  “Exactly. It isn’t just cows. It’s getting more daring. Like it’s … like it’s taunting us or it’s bored, which is why I don’t think it’s a monster.”

  “It’s not human.”

  I groan. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the violence is escalating. And it will escalate more, I bet.”

  “Damn, I hope not.” David’s eyes are wide and scared.

  “Yeah, me too.” I sigh. “Kierkegaard says that ‘Purity of heart is to will one thing.’”

  “That means this monster’s pretty pure of heart, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “So, this Kierkegaard, your boyfriend?” he asks.

  It’s all I can do not to laugh. “Closest thing I have to one right now.”

  Something catches my eye, just off to the left. Something that doesn’t fit.

  I step toward it, off our path.

  “Chrystal?” David’s voice is a flat note in the chittering noises of the woods and I only barely notice it. I’m too focused on not losing what I see. I don’t want to blink. I don’t want to lose what I think I’m seeing.

  One step.

  A twig breaks beneath my foot.

  Another step.

  I move through some underbrush and reach up to the branch of a tree. Pink. Cotton. A piece of something bigger.

  Looking down, I see it. A bone.

  A bone.

  The world around me stills.

  I part the twigs of the bush, trying to see it better, and I’m almost gentle trying to move them, trying to figure out what it is, how to do this, how to see what I think I’m seeing.

  “Chrystal?” David’s behind me now. Close, so close.

  The hairs on my arm prickle and stand up. Tiny little sentinels telling me what my brain refuses to accept.

  I’ve found Karen.

  Or someone.

  Or what’s left of someone.

  “Ah, mother of God.” The deputy has moved David aside and he breathes over the top of me. He smells of pizza and soda. He smells of fear. His hand lands on my shoulder while his other hand keys his radio, calling for backup, calling for help when help is obviously way too late.

  In the distance, among the thudding footsteps of the searchers, the chatter of the police officer’s radio, the shrill of birds, I think I hear it. A laugh.

  * * *

  Dad’s standing at the end of the driveway, squinting up at the Jenningses’ farmhouse like it’s some sort of big puzzle. I bring him some water and stand next to him as he sips it absentmindedly. All his focus is on the house and not on me or the fact that I just found pieces of a dead person who is probably Karen.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “A woman has been taken.”

  “Right, Dad. I just found her.”

  “No. Another one. He’s getting more violent and risky.”

  Another one.

  “You make it sound like it’s a deliberate choice, like he’s choosing to escalate the violence,” I say all calmly, but in my head I’m thinking, Another one. Another one. Another one. I recycle the thought over and over like it’s going to eventually be comprehended. “I don’t get this. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  He makes some sort of humphing noise. “People like to think they can understand evil.”

  “And…?”

  “They want to understand motivations, causes. We think … We think if we understand the monsters, then we have a defense against them. We think, Oh, the mass murderer was bullied. Or the killer had a bad childhood or was unhinged or misguided.”

  I shudder. “Dad. You going somewhere with this?”

  “I’m not sure if we can understand it.” He clears his throat, takes another sip of water.

  I don’t have an answer. He swings toward me. His thin face changes expression and he seems determined. “I’m going to visit my professor friend. The one who sent me the files.”

  I try not to twitch. I hate visiting professors, but I don’t want to be alone right now and I want my dad to feel—to feel loved. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  His eyes twinkle. “Really?”

  I loop my arm through his. “We’re a team, Dad. When all of this is over, it’s still going to be you and me, right? We’ll stop this guy. Maybe we’ll even understand him, but either way, we have to stop it, and the best way to do that is to gather the data, the information, right?”

  He hops on his toes. “Right.”

  “It’s not a monster, Dad. It’s a man.”

  “Sometimes men can be monsters.”

  * * *

  Dr. Martin Borgess is a smaller man, sort of my size, and he’s not tweedy at all, but wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt tucked into some dad jeans. He pulls my father into a big hug and then pulls me into one, too.

  “Chrystal! It’s so nice to finally meet you.” He lets go of me and smiles into my face. He smells of mint toothpaste and has a faint accent, maybe somewhere from Eastern Europe? “Sit down! Sit do
wn!”

  He motions to chairs opposite a desk. Unlike my dad, his papers aren’t anywhere to be seen. There are no random book stacks, no signs of mad genius.

  “Your desk is so neat,” I say as Dad and I settle into chairs. Dr. Borgess remains behind us somewhere.

  “Ha!” he laughs. “Neat space. Neat mind.”

  Dad coughs. Dad’s desk is five thousand books, crayons, teaching books, and random hair samples stacked on top of one another. My friends always tease him about it.

  “Your father isn’t so neat, Chrystal?” Dr. Borgess asks. He’s in my space all of a sudden, far too close to me.

  “Not really,” I admit.

  “Do you take offense at my insult?”

  For a second I have to figure out what he means. “About neat space, neat mind, so therefore my dad’s not neat-minded?” I raise an eyebrow because I like to do that when people are annoying me. “No. It takes a lot more to offend me.”

  “Like what?” he asks.

  Dad’s blowing us off. I swear he isn’t even listening.

  “I don’t like being ignored.”

  “I can’t imagine you get ignored often.”

  “I don’t like people hurting other people on purpose,” I add. “Or scaring them.”

  “You think this is a hoax?” he says, backing away from me towards his desk.

  “Potentially,” I say.

  Dad has stopped leafing through a book he’s picked up off a shelf. “Chrystal is a strong-willed human being with a well-activated suspicion response, which helps with her self-preservation. Always good for teenagers.”

  “That’s almost offensive,” I announce, and smile in an attempt to ratchet down the tension. “How about you, Dr. Borgess? What offends you?”

  “Being ignored.” His answer is snappy and quick even as his body language is casual. He leans on the desk. “Being underestimated. Doubted. People who don’t like to inquire. Now, what can I do for you two today?”

  “The situation is escalating,” Dad says. He sits in an oversized chair, tilts forward, and tells the professor what’s going on. “It began, as you know, with the boy’s suspected Bigfoot sighting.”

  “He seems a credible witness,” Dr. Borgess says.

  “He is, but people try to make truths out of things they don’t understand. Weather balloons become UFOs, smudges and shadows become ghostly reflections,” I say.

  They both stare at me for a second.

  “There is nothing wrong with chasing down possibilities,” Dr. Borgess says to me, and then goes and sits behind his desk before saying to Dad, “Continue.”

  “There were footprints. Nothing like a Bigfoot’s. More canine, but elongated.”

  “People think it’s the devil,” I scoff.

  Dr. Borgess clears his throat. “What do you think it is?”

  “A prank. Someone without a lot of cryptozoology experience pranking everyone.”

  “So the killing was a prank?” Dr. Borgess taps his fingers on his desk.

  “No,” I say. “But we don’t know they’re connected. The killings could be one thing. The footprints another.”

  “That would make no sense.” Dr. Borgess sits up straighter. His voice is a bit higher. “All logic would link those two events.”

  “The world doesn’t run solely on logic. I would think that someone who studies the things you do would know that.”

  Dad starts talking again, doling out the details. I refute a couple, saying things could be a man not a monster, and then I tune out a bit and scan the office, which is sort of Pinterest perfect, dark leather-bound books in neat rows on shelves. Plants, leafy and green, make their homes by the windows that overlook the campus. Dad and Dr. Borgess start debating what the monster could possibly be. Werewolf? Bigfoot? Devil? Chicken man? Deerman? The Lawton Werewolf from the 1970s?

  “It’s a person,” I say.

  They ignore me.

  “It could be deliberately misleading us,” Dad says, standing up. He strides to the window and looks out.

  “That would suppose that this is a sentient monster capable of preplanning,” Dr. Borgess says after a moment. “Which points to a werewolf or a devil. Not Bigfoot.”

  Dad doesn’t respond. He’s so deep in thought that I’m not sure if he even heard. I get up and join him at the window, gently touching his arm. He startles a bit. “I think it is a werewolf.”

  “It’s not a Bigfoot. It’s not a werewolf. It’s not a monster at all,” I insist. “It’s a person. An evil person.”

  “A person can’t rip the head off a cow.” Dr. Borgess stands up, too.

  “A strong person with a weapon could,” I say.

  “You are struggling too hard to make this fit your world view, Chrystal.” Dr. Borgess asks, “Why is that?”

  I say, “Kierkegaard said that ‘There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.’”

  Dr. Borgess suddenly grabs my wrist. His hand is thick for a small man, and strong. “Do you like mysteries? Or just philosophy, Chrystal?”

  “Philosophy is a delving into mystery,” I say, resisting the urge to rip my wrist out of his grip.

  “Oh! She’s so quick. So quick.” He lets go of me. Leaning forward, he says to Dad and Dad alone, as if I’m not even here, “Is her mother so strong?”

  Dad clears his throat awkwardly. He’s paying attention again, but not answering.

  “Mom’s not strong,” I answer, demanding that they listen to me. “You know that this could be a man. You two just want it to be a monster because it would prove that monsters exist.”

  The professor’s eyes twinkle. “Oklahoma is a state that seems dead or dying to a lot of people. The strip malls are destitute. The cars that go to the auto body shops never seem to leave.”

  I glare at him. “Do you have a point?”

  “Chrystal!” Dad warns.

  Dad never warns.

  “I’m just saying that we’re here trying to find out about some sort of killer that has taken cows and now women. And our best source of information is talking about the plight of the Oklahoma economy? Which is important, yes … but…” I say and lose track of my sentence.

  “It doesn’t seem relevant,” the professor says. He frames my face with his hands like I’m a portrait. “You’re an interesting girl, Chrystal. Very interesting.” His hands shake the tiniest of bits. He closes his eyes for a second and whispers something to himself. While Dad and I are exchanging a look, he opens his eyes again and announces, “I don’t think it’s a Bigfoot. The feet don’t match.”

  “People say it looked like cloven feet. Then they said like a dog’s,” Dad says. “There’s no uniformity in the accounts.”

  “Maybe it is a hoax?” the professor says. “But I don’t think so. No … I don’t…”

  He goes back to his desk and sits in his chair like he’s done with us.

  “What do you think it is?” Dad asks.

  “I’m not sure. If I were you, I’d look into creatures that enjoy vengeance.”

  “It’s not a vampire,” Dad says.

  “Seriously?” I throw up my hands in disgust and turn to Dr. Borgess. “If you think it’s a monster, then you need to help us. More women could die.”

  “And cows,” Dad adds.

  The professor smiles. “I’ll help you.”

  “How?” I ask. “Do you know what it is? Do you know how to stop it?”

  “I don’t, but I do think … vengeance … that’s the key.”

  “So, he’s angry at cows and random women?” I ask.

  “Maybe, he’s much smarter than you think he is.” Dr. Borgess smiles in such a calm way that I don’t quite know what to make of it. “It never pays to underestimate your enemies. Monster or human.”

  He promises Dad that he will look for some more resources, do some more research, blah-blah-blah, but we leave there no better off than when we entered his office. Honestly, I don’t kno
w what I was expecting from one of Dad’s friends. They’re all weird and almost uniformly non-helpful.

  When we get back in the car, I announce, “I don’t like him. Also, please put on the air conditioning. Damn, Dad.”

  Dad turns on the car. I turn on the AC.

  “He’s a bit peculiar,” Dad says as he backs out of the parking lot. “And disappointing. I expected him to be more excited by the events. But he did tell us to think about vengeance. That is interesting. We do tend to think of monsters as lacking the skill to plan, particularly Bigfoot.”

  “Dad, you’re a bit peculiar. That guy’s just an all-out butt face.”

  Dad starts laughing like this is the best phrase ever. And after a second I start laughing, too. Because sometimes you can’t do anything but laugh.

  * * *

  I take careful aim, lining up my shot, try not to think about how I do some kind of weird little prancing skip-step on my approach, then release the ball. The black-and-red bowling ball glistens under the fluorescent lights as it rolls down the shiny blond lane toward the innocent pins. It hits the headpin just to the right. There is a clatter we can hear all the way back at the score machine, and all the pins are swept away. I turn away to see little Katie jumping up and down and cheering for me.

  “Yay, Chrystal!” she shouts, her doggy-ears hair flopping crazily around her face. Before we started the game, Katie had declared I was on her team against Logan and Kelsey.

  Kelsey gives me a high five and Logan shakes his head, grinning, as I slap Katie’s hand and we bump hips twice, twirl, bump one more time, then say “Hunph!” in a deep grunt. It’s a victory dance she made up for us. I slide onto the plastic seat beside Logan.

  “You didn’t tell me you’re a hustler,” he teases.

  “I didn’t say I’ve never bowled before, just that it’s been a while.” I watch as Kelsey hefts her pink ball and steps onto the lane. This is my fourth non-parent encounter with Logan in the past two weeks. If you can call an afternoon of bowling with him and his sisters an encounter. Nobody will let us go out at night. Most of our time together has been him picking me up at the dreadful hotel to play board games at his house or eat at the Greasy Hog. It’s soooo much better than following my dad around while he talks to people, measures footprints, looks for hair samples, or whatever.