The Woods Are Always Watching

by Stephanie Perkins

  Willie’s temper ruptured again. “Finish the damn job!”

  Lyman flinched. His knife hand trembled as it hovered over Willie’s chest. Maybe Willie was mad because they had revealed too much. Or maybe he was just mad with pain. Josie wished that Willie’s pain would kill him. Morgan, her boyfriend, the four hikers. Six people were dead, although clearly they were claiming more. Josie imagined Lyman slipping again. The knife plunging into Willie’s heart.

  Her fingers clasped around the object. Yes.

  “There were others, too,” Lyman said, resuming his work. Slicing and excavating. He’d hardened himself back into a braggart. “Whores we doped up and brought into the woods. If you’ve been arrested enough, the police don’t believe it when you actually go missing. Ain’t nobody miss them. Fucking addicts.”

  “You ain’t any better,” Willie said.

  “I’m better than them!”

  Willie shook his head in disgust before addressing the girls. “First time we met in prison, he was on that shit. Been on it since he was born.”

  “Those women have family and friends,” Neena said. “Everybody does. People who love them.”

  “My mama was a whore,” Willie said. “Ain’t nobody misses her.”

  The object slid out from Josie’s pocket. The tiny shard of her friendship ring had broken flat on one end, but the other end was sharp and jagged. Wriggling her hand into position under the rope, Josie began to saw.

  JOSIE HAD TO be careful. It couldn’t look like her arm was moving. The twisted nylon frayed slowly, strand by strand, the beginnings of a faint fuzz. Fearing the tip might break, she couldn’t push too hard.

  Lyman was done. Or, at least, Willie was. After Lyman’s hands were shoved away with finality, Lyman strapped on the gauze and bandages, sticking the white medical tape to Willie’s woolly chest. It wasn’t a good job. It couldn’t be a good job.

  But if Josie had lasted this long, Willie could last longer.

  Lyman cleaned the blood off his knife. Willie groaned and stood up, vertebra by vertebra. When he reached full height, he was larger than he had been before. Staggering aside, he undid his pants. Piss streamed into the bushes.

  Neena noticed Josie moving around, doing something with her hands. Hand, singular. Neena fought a nauseating wave of light-headedness. She owed it to Josie to stay strong. Josie, who was sawing. The action was suddenly, miraculously, recognizable.

  How many hours were left until sunrise? It surpassed logic, but if they made it to sunrise, it felt like they could survive. These men weren’t invincible; they were simply men. One wounded, both maybe intoxicated. Men made mistakes. What were their mistakes?

  “I thought you were worried about evidence,” Neena said.

  The men, finishing up, turned toward her with perplexed expressions, as if they’d forgotten that girls could speak.

  Neena sat up straighter against the tree. “Your DNA is all over that shot on the ground. You’ll never be able to find every pellet in the dark.”

  The fire sputtered. Woodsmoke suffocated the air.

  Willie slapped the back of Lyman’s head, and Lyman skittered out of further reach. “Don’t matter,” Willie said, contradicting his act of violence. “Only my blood. Nobody else’s.”

  “That first-aid kit looks new,” Neena said, keeping their gaze fastened to her so they wouldn’t look at Josie. “All of that equipment in there”—she coughed, smoke burning her impaired lungs, as she nodded toward the shelter—“is stolen. How is that different from taking a driver’s license?”

  Lyman crossed his arms. “That equipment is ours. Or it could belong to anybody. Or maybe we found it left behind after the murdering, and we didn’t know no better, so we took it.”

  “All kinds of reasons why we have it,” Willie said.

  “The rope burns on Morgan,” Neena said. “Those hikers at Hot Springs were bound in the exact same way.”

  “Yeah,” Lyman said, “so they’ll suspect the same missing boyfriend.”

  “No, they won’t,” Neena said, at the same time Willie expanded his chest and said, “Who says they’ll find her body?”

  “Why wouldn’t they suspect the boyfriend?” Lyman asked.

  Willie contorted with rage as he whirled on Lyman. “Why are you asking her? You think she knows something I don’t?”

  Lyman’s hands twitched upward protectively, reflexively. As he lowered them, they clenched into fists. “I just want to know why she thinks that. In case we missed something.”

  “Stop trying to be smart, because you ain’t.” Willie lurched toward Lyman but stopped with another grimace of pain. “Just do as you’re told, for once.” Cradling his shoulder, Willie receded into the shelter. “Call me when you’re done. And don’t take too long.” He gave a mean chuckle. “Then again, that’s never been a problem for you.”

  Josie’s sawing faltered. Halted.

  Fear stabbed Neena—and then detonated into anger. “What, you guys don’t like watching each other? That’s where you draw the line?”

  Lyman was stewing with fury, but this yanked his attention back to Neena. His posture righted itself. He made a show of sauntering over, his eyes glinting with the amusement of someone who knows more than the other person. “I like ’em alive.” He paused for a terrible grin. “Willie likes ’em dead.”

  The words repulsed Neena to her core.

  Harshly, Willie called out from the darkness. “It’s your turn this time.”

  The smile collapsed on Lyman’s face. A beat of silence blanketed the campsite. “Hey, man.” Lyman swiveled toward the shelter. “I don’t do that. That’s your thing, not mine.”

  Willie exploded like a pressure cooker. “You fucked this up, so it’s your goddamn turn!”

  The silence following the outburst was deafening. Neena’s terrified confusion over why they were still discussing turns upended, and her ears rang with the void of dread that opened around her. They weren’t talking about rape anymore. They were debating who had the task of killing them.

  Lyman’s cockiness had vanished again. He looked deflated. Aggravated.

  Lyman is afraid of Willie, Neena realized. Willie used threats and fear to control him, too. And even though Lyman seemed to be okay with murder, he didn’t want to be the one who actually committed it. It was Willie. Willie had killed them all.

  Neena glanced at Josie, trying to determine if her friend had reached this same conclusion. Josie was sawing frantically. Neena pivoted to a new tactic. Her heartbeat pounded through her skin, sweaty and palpitating, but her tone was calm and scornful. “Some friend, trying to drag you down with him.”

  Lyman’s beady eyes narrowed even further. “What did you say?”

  “He only wants you to kill us so that when you’re caught”—he tried to argue, but Neena talked over him—“and you’ll definitely be caught—you have no idea how hard my parents will look for you—you’ll be held equally responsible for these crimes. That’s a huge difference in sentencing, you know. Life versus capital punishment?”

  Lyman hesitated, wariness muddling his forehead. But then he scoffed. “What the fuck do I care about your parents? Did it help the cops solve the case when the parents of those kids from Hot Springs boo-hooed all over the damn media?”

  Neena imagined her own grief-stricken family on television, appealing for help in a press conference, all the distraught aunties and uncles of the local Bengali community supporting them in attendance. The clips would be recycled on crime blogs: Ma crying, supported in Darshan’s arms, while Baba trembled bravely into the mic and pled for answers. Begged for anyone who might know something to come forward.

  Neena’s fear hardened into resolve. She and Josie would fight until the end. And if they went down, they would leave behind so much goddamn evidence that their families would get those answers. These men would never have
the opportunity to kill again. Improv wasn’t Neena’s greatest strength, but she gave it a go. “Okay, but even if you aren’t worried about our parents . . . shouldn’t you be worried about Galen’s?”

  Josie’s sawing stumbled.

  “Galen?” Lyman seemed to echo whatever Josie was thinking. “Who the fuck is Galen?”

  Neena glanced at Josie. It was quick—quicker than the men’s intellect—but loaded with meaning. “I mean, you said you didn’t look at his license, but I thought that was a joke. You don’t need an ID to know who that was.”

  “That guy in the tent?” Lyman asked.

  “Galen Cooper?” Neena said. “Are you seriously telling me that you didn’t recognize the governor’s son?” Neena wasn’t even positive if Roy Cooper was still the governor of North Carolina, and she sure as hell didn’t know if he had a son named Galen. One of her loathsome coworkers had popped into her brain first.

  “That’s bullshit,” Willie said, reemerging from the shelter. Neena had hoped that he’d already passed out. But not only was he conscious, he appeared to have heard every word.

  “Yeah. You’re just fucking with me,” Lyman said to Neena. He glanced at Willie, but then his eyes bugged, and his hand flew to his forehead. His temper flashed again. “You’re trying to play tricks with my mind.”

  “You guys killed the governor’s son,” Josie said, neatly picking up the thread. Though Neena doubted her own improvisational skills, she was wrong. The girls had had years of experience together. Josie understood exactly what Neena was doing, and she sensed Neena perk up as she went on. “You don’t think the FBI will be all over you?”

  “The CIA,” Neena chimed in.

  “The ATF,” Josie said.

  “The EPA.”

  Josie shot Neena a look, and Neena shrugged. The moment was so strange and off-kilter that they almost laughed. Thankfully, the men didn’t catch it.

  “They’re messing with you,” Willie said to Lyman, as Josie recommenced sawing. “Have your fun, and then shut them up for good.”

  Lyman was pacing. “I didn’t kill nobody.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Neena’s crosshairs locked on Lyman. “But do you think the feds will believe that? You need us. If you let us go, we’ll tell them that you saved us. That Willie was the mastermind behind everything. If we turn on him, you might not have to go to prison at all.”

  Willie’s muscles coiled and released, and he lunged like a snake, but Lyman reached her first. He was screaming as Neena’s head smashed against the tree.

  * * *

  • • •

  Lyman’s scraggly fingers were gripped around her neck. Neena saw an addicted teenage mother who had given him up at birth. He was alone for the first three months of his life. His new mother, a Bible-thumping member of the Church of God, couldn’t have children of her own. She was controlling, worrying, smothering. Always taking him to the doctor. The doc assured her that her son was fine, but she didn’t believe him. Or the next doctor. Or the next.

  His overworked father died from a ruptured stomach ulcer when Lyman was four. Lyman always wondered what his life would have been like if he’d had a father.

  He made friends at school, but his mother chased them away. She chased away his girlfriends, too, so he married one of them at eighteen and moved out. Cayleigh was her own trainwreck, but she accused him of being insecure and immature and left him that same year. He went into the navy but was dishonorably discharged for sexual assault. While he was in prison, his mother—whom he both loathed and depended on—disowned him. When he got out, he was busted again several times for theft and possession.

  Then he met Willie.

  Willie had fantasies like he had. Willie had aspirations. Lyman felt lucky that Willie had even taken notice of him. Lyman would do anything for Willie.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Stop!” Josie said. “Let go of her!”

  Lyman released the stranglehold. His fingers transferred from Neena’s throat onto his own, crawling up his neck like an infestation of spiders.

  Willie shook his head in disgust at Lyman’s failure to follow through.

  “My father is a lawyer,” Neena wheezed. “He can help you. We can help you.”

  Lyman was incoherent and unhinged, raging and cycling rapidly between emotions. Unbelievably, he appeared to be considering their bait.

  “He’s been calling you the fuckup this whole time,” Josie said, “but he had me in a pit with no hand and no foot, and I got away. You’re the one who captured us. He’s the fuckup, not you.” She was contradicting her own argument, praising him for being the one to catch them while also telling him that he was innocent, but Lyman didn’t seem capable of catching the contradiction, so she pressed on. “We’ll tell everybody that he’s the murderer. That you kept us alive. Saved us.”

  “Willie will be sent to death row,” Neena said, “and you’ll be sent home.”

  The bark sloughed the skin off Josie’s bare arm as she sawed, but the rope began to give way. It didn’t matter how many times her ring had shattered; their friendship would always be powerful. Even the shards were strong.

  “They’re lying,” Willie roared.

  Lyman slapped his own head, trying to regain control of the chaos within. He was pacing again, agitated, unsure of what to do. Everyone was yelling at him.

  Willie shoved him aside and lumbered toward the girls.

  Maniacally, Josie sawed, bracing herself for the inevitable. Maybe she could stab Willie’s injuries with the shard—or stab out an eyeball.

  Willie’s nostrils flared. He had noticed what her hand was doing.

  “He was packing up to leave when we got here,” Neena shouted at Lyman, pausing every few words for breath. “He was abandoning you! He thought we’d escaped, so he was leaving you behind with the bodies for the police to find.”

  Josie struggled against the weakened rope, trying to push through it with her torso. The shard slipped from her fingers. It dropped uselessly to the ground as Willie’s eyes bore into hers with complete absorption, a pit that she could never escape.

  His hands reached for her throat.

  “You were leaving me!” Lyman yelled.

  He barreled into Willie, pinning him to the ground, punches swinging in frenetic escalation. Though hampered by his injury, Willie was bigger than Lyman. He kicked up, dislodged the wiry man, and rolled on top of him. Almost as quickly, Willie grunted in shock. He fell back, palm pressed against his side as blood spilled out from a new wound.

  Lyman’s hand was clutched around his hunting knife. He was shaking—with sobs or laughter, the girls couldn’t tell—as he crawled back on top of Willie.

  “Push!” Neena said.

  Josie strained against her ropes.

  Snotty tears dropped down from Lyman’s face onto Willie’s. Willie’s hand grabbed Lyman’s wrist, blocking the knife, but he was expressionless as he forced the knife upward toward Lyman’s throat. It was almost over. There was no doubt that if Willie won, the girls would not outlive Lyman by very long.

  Lyman released a keening wail.

  Willie huffed with steadfast determination.

  Neena shouted at Josie to push.

  Josie screamed as she burst through her bindings.

  And then a fifth noise overtook them—a bustling of foliage and a powerful exhale—as an unseen beast thumped into a charge.

  GIANT CLAWS TORE against the forest floor and whooshed through the firelit darkness. The bear was enormous. With an open jaw of gleaming teeth, it charged headlong at Willie, who released Lyman in shock. Willie’s hands rose to protect his head. Lyman rolled away, scrambling onto all fours.

  Time dilated.

  The animal landed hard against Willie’s chest, knocking him flat and pinning him down, tearing into his legs. Willie cried ou
t. Snorting and snuffling, the bear let go for a better grip—to get a better angle with its jaws, those drooling white daggers of teeth—and then clamped back on, thrashing the body back and forth.

  Lyman was shouting something, still crawling.

  Josie sprang on her good foot toward Neena’s wrists. Her teeth and hand tore at the binding as the bear backed its rump up against her. The bear felt solid. Its thickset muscles breathed and heaved. It smelled like a grassy wet dog that had rolled in pig shit, and, as she struggled not to be crushed, her fingers brushed its coarse and bristled fur. Willie was shrieking in abrupt bursts, but terror kept her muted as she clambered and tussled behind its haunches to free Neena.

  “Shoot it!” Willie screamed.

  Lyman lurched to his feet and grabbed the nearest weapon—Willie’s shotgun, resting against the shelter.

  The mauling was relentless, the biting and ripping. Willie flailed and punched, but the bear chomped down and tossed him as if he were a stuffed chew toy. Willie tried to scrabble away. A monstrous claw tugged him back.

  Lyman swung the shotgun and aimed at the bear.

  Behind the animal, Neena had a straight view down the barrel. It was still packed with mud from being used as a crutch. Lyman shouted as he fired. Neena braced herself, but the shot didn’t blast outward. Mud trapped the shot, blowing it out the top of the barrel. The spray hit Lyman full in the face, and he keeled over backward.

  Josie spit out the loosened knot.

  The rope fell away from Neena’s hands.

  The girls darted away from the bear, both of them hopping, wide-eyed in manic disbelief. Neena’s gaze snagged on the knife on the ground, near where Lyman had fallen, and she lunged. Blood gushed and pooled beneath him. Snatching up the knife, she sat down roughly to slice the bindings from her ankles. Lyman watched her, his face a surrealist nightmare. She couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed, or if he even had eyes anymore. His body was unmoving.