In the Heart of the Dark Wood

by Billy Coffey

  “You hear that?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “That sound. You hear that sound?”

  Allie listened. There was only the gurgle of water over the rocks and the faraway sound of a crow longing for spring. Not even the wind blew there at the base of the hill.

  “Zach, I don’t he—”

  “Shh,” he said. “Listen.”

  She concentrated as much as a hungry girl with two busted feet could. Allie closed her eyes and stopped her breathing. She heard it then. Distant, but getting closer: thumpthumpthump.

  Allie may have promised herself five hundred and forty-five days ago that she’d never cry again because crying meant it was over, but she’d been okay with fear. Fear had come to rule her life ever since her momma left. She was scared of the wind and scared to love, scared of going on with her life and remaining behind in it. She was scared of the woods. But none of those things frightened her more than that sound coming over the trees and the thought of what Zach would do next.

  “Helicopter,” he said. Sam barked and swished his tail. “It’s a helicopter, Allie. It’s Daddy. I know it is.”

  Allie couldn’t order her thoughts fast enough to speak them. Her bare foot hung off the log like a piece of meat.

  The thumps turned deeper. Allie looked up, straining her eyes into the thin crescent of sky that had been carved out between the trees.

  “They won’t see us,” Zach said. “Not here. They’ll fly right over.”

  He jumped into the brook and didn’t flinch as freezing water covered his knees. Three leaps was all it took him to cross. He bounded up the other side, grabbing hold of what trees and roots he could to help him up the steep slope. Sam barked again, this time at Zach, though he didn’t follow.

  Allie called out, “Zach, where you going?”

  “They’ll see us up there,” he yelled.

  “Don’t leave me, Zach. Zach!”

  But it was too late. Zach was nearly gone. The trees at the top of the hill grew thinner and shorter than the ones in the forest below, bunched in clumps that rendered a good part of it nearly bare. The helicopter was so close and the thumps so deep that Allie felt its vibration in her bones. She pulled on her sock and shoe and ran past Sam, into the creek.

  Cold water rushed over her feet and knees and splashed her jacket, punishing Allie’s body with what felt like bolts of electricity. Sam barked and chased her across. The water was shallow, but it nearly swallowed him.

  Allie’s legs felt numb and heavy as she climbed out on the other side. She forced them to move and grabbed what she could—a hanging branch here, a clump of frozen ground there—to pull herself up the slope. She yelled for Zach, begging him to wait.

  The sound of heavy rotors filled the air. Zach reached the top of the hill and disappeared. Sam fell behind, struggling on the slick incline. Allie fought her weariness and the heavy weight of her feet and climbed on. From above came the sound of Zach shouting, “Hey!” and “Over here!”

  She reached the top of the hill and followed the sound over her left shoulder. The helicopter wasn’t far off (Allie thought maybe it was two miles or two minutes away, but time and distance were things that only existed back in the world), heading straight for them.

  Zach stood at the far edge of a small clearing, jumping in the air. He had removed his coat and hat and was now waving them both high over his head. He screamed for help and for his daddy, stopping only long enough to cough. Allie ran as fast as her feet allowed. Zach’s voice cracked and gave out, but his arms kept waving. He looked to Allie as she neared.

  “We’re—” was all Zach managed. Later, he couldn’t remember how he’d meant to finish that sentence, whether it was We’re saved or We’re gonna be okay now or We’re gonna be home for Christmas. It didn’t matter. Before Zach could say a word more, Allie gathered every bit of strength she had left and dove. She caught Zach in the stomach with her shoulder and hurled him backward into a small stand of cedars. What snow was left on the needles tumbled over them in a short but violent storm. Branches snapped and stuck their skin. Zach’s eyes bulged. He heaved, trying to get air.

  “What . . . are you do . . . ing?” he screamed.

  “We can’t, Zach,” Allie said. “We can’t.”

  Far away, Sam barked. The sound was all but eclipsed by the whumping noise of the helicopter drawing close. Zach pushed Allie away and tried crawling into the clearing. She leaped on his back, using all of her weight to pin him there. He fought, but the quick climb up the hill and the syrup in his lungs had sapped him. Allie grabbed for Zach’s coat and hat. She threw them behind her, farther into the trees.

  “We can’t go back, Zach,” she begged. “We gotta keep looking. We have to find her.”

  The helicopter, closer. The olive-green body banked toward them. Allie saw two faces peering from the windows. Zach struggled to free himself, couldn’t. He screamed, “It’s just a stupid statue, Allie.”

  She screamed back, “We’re not looking for a statue. We’re looking for my momma!”

  Allie hadn’t planned to tell him the truth that way, but it turned out to be the perfect time. The shock froze him. Zach’s body sank into the snow. He struggled no more. The helicopter didn’t cross over the hill, but it flew by so close that Zach caught a glimpse of his father’s stricken face peering through the glass. He called out once more, though this time the sound of his voice carried no farther than Allie’s ear. It was one word:

  “Daddy.”

  The thumping faded quicker than it had come. Allie rolled off Zach’s back. He stumbled into the clearing, waving and calling again, but it was too late. A blank look covered his face, as if every emotion a boy could experience had flooded him at once, leaving him numb. Zach’s only thought as he stared at the emptying sky was that this was all Allie’s fault. Everything—every almost-tear and every word she’d spoken, every bat of her long lashes over two grief-filled eyes. All a trick. Sam finally reached the top of the hill. He sank into the snow, panting. Zach lowered his arms as the helicopter banked again and disappeared.

  “Why’d you do that?” His voice was tired and sounded far away.

  Allie held her wrist up slow, turning the compass to him. “It ain’t pointing to the statue, Zach. It’s pointing to my momma.”

  “You can’t think that, Allie.”

  “It’s true.” She took a step to him. “I told her to send word, Zach. The night before last, when you came to the house. I told my momma to send word and she did. She’s here, Zach. Momma’s in these woods.”

  Zach shook his head, pleading as tears welled in his eyes. “No, Allie. She ain’t.”

  “She’s here.”

  Zach screamed, “She’s dead!” Loud and shrieking and full of the hurt that can come only through betrayal, making Sam raise his head. “The Storm took her, Allie. Your momma’s gone.”

  He coughed again, this time so hard that it bent him over. He spat a glob of mucus into the snow.

  “No, Zach.” Allie shook her head. She tried smiling. Zach always liked her smile. “Momma ain’t gone; she’s just lost. She wants me to find her.”

  She walked to him, wanting Zach to understand, wanting him to trust. They would make it home, yes. Not all three of them, but all four—she and Zach and Sam and Mary. Allie was strong enough to believe that. But that belief wasn’t strong enough to convince her she hadn’t just murdered something in Zach’s heart, some special part of him that would never rise again. And when Allie turned and followed his eyes to where the helicopter had gone, she knew that special part had been Zach’s hope. The view from the hill told Allie that she may have just saved her mother, but she had also cost them their best and maybe only chance of rescue. Below them lay a sea of trees and mountains that extended in every direction, stretching on into what looked like forever.

  5

  Zach couldn’t remain there long. Not because the air there was colder (which it was) or because they were once again too far from wa
ter (which they were). It wasn’t even because the longer he stared at the small dot of white sky into which his father had disappeared, the heavier his body felt. Any of those things would have been enough for him to turn away from Allie and begin the slow and slick descent back to the stream, but none of them was the real reason Zach did just that.

  It was what he saw from the hill. That endless forest all around them. The way the trees looked so dead. So bare. Zach tried telling himself it was the season and nothing more, that in December everything in the world looked lifeless and gray. But from their vantage point that gray looked more like ash, as though everything around them was the remains of something once beautiful but now stale. Zach believed he could stand atop that hill in the height of summer and be given that very same view—a grim wood dotted with pockets of green pine and wide clutches of shrubs and fallen trees that he and Allie had come to call darkwood. It was a part of the world where there may have been people once, but the only thing left of them now were signs warning beware. It was a land of long nightmares and slow death.

  Had they covered so much ground in the last day that all trace of buildings and roads was gone? Was such a thing even possible? Zach didn’t know. He could only go by what his eyes told him, and there on the hill his eyes said they’d gone too far to find their way back. Even if they knew the way, they wouldn’t make it. Not with the snow and the cold. Not without fire and proper food.

  So he turned away from Allie and climbed down the hill alone. She called out for him, wanting to explain, reciting all the stories she’d read about people who’d gotten whisked away by tornadoes only to later be found alive. Zach raised his hand, telling her no, don’t bother, good-bye Allie. Sam whined and raised his head as Zach walked past, hoping for a pat or a rub. Zach offered no affection. He had none to give.

  It should have been easier going down than up. It wasn’t. Gravity pushed at Zach’s tired back, trying to make him tumble forward. His chest felt thick and heavy. The more he struggled against the trees and snow, the harder his heart worked. A spot behind his left eye began to throb. Twice he reached out for handholds—one a pine branch, the other the slender trunk of a dead cedar—that existed only in his mind. The tread on his boots was thick and jagged (not like Allie’s stupid Chucks, guess she didn’t think about that before she went and got us lost, huh?), but they soon became clogged with snow and mud.

  Halfway down the hill, his feet slipped. If there was a bright spot to his morning, it was that Zach fell on his back instead of his face. He landed so hard that what little air remained in his lungs burst out in a loud huff. He managed to wrap his arms around what may have been the only healthy tree on the slope and hold tight, trying to catch his breath. The wad of snot he coughed into the snow smelled rotten.

  It was ten minutes later when he finally reached the bottom. By then he was soaked and exhausted. He made the trek back through the water and paused to fill his hat before collapsing once more against the fallen oak. The cold water felt good going down. Zach tried to imagine it washing through his body, cleaning him out.

  He should have told Allie how bad he felt. It was her fault they were still there, her fault they’d gotten lost in the first place, but Zach understood now that he should’ve said something. He should have confessed how he’d woken the night before with a pain in his stomach so unbearable that tears had grown in the corners of his eyes. How he’d barely managed to scuffle out from under the pine before suffering through the worst case of diarrhea ever in the history of the world. How he’d vomited twice that morning after Allie had taken her backpack into the woods to do whatever was so secret, and how it had come out watery and tasting like death. He should have confessed that he couldn’t get warm no matter how much he sweated.

  But Zach had chosen to keep all of this bottled inside because that’s what men did. They stayed strong and didn’t complain. They were too busy watching over the people they loved to get sick.

  There was also this to consider: Would Allie have done what she did atop the hill had she known those things? Would it have made a difference at all? Zach wanted to believe no to the former and yes to the latter. Even after she’d lied, he wanted to believe if Allie had known how bad off he was, she would’ve been standing right beside him, waving and yelling for that helicopter and thanking the God she hated and feared. She would have done it for him, if nothing else.

  He looked up to see Allie making her way down. She held Sam against her chest with one arm and used the other to hold them both steady. Her eyes remained on the ground only long enough to find the next safe step. She looked at Zach and then moved, looked at him again. Town shoes or not, she never stumbled.

  It was only when she reached the bottom of the hill that Allie looked worried. Sam struggled, wanting another drink. She couldn’t look at Zach from that close distance, knowing how much she’d hurt him. Zach glared and sat the hat back on his head. The freezing water in the band both soothed and punished him. He felt as dead as the land they’d gotten themselves lost in, but he couldn’t let Allie cross that creek again. Not with the way her feet looked.

  He rose and crossed through the creek. His feet grew colder in the water but stayed dry inside his waterproofed boots. Allie tried looking when she heard the sloshing sound of his approach, but Zach’s scowl scared her off. He turned and bent without a word, exposing his back. Allie climbed on. Her only words were to Sam, telling him to be still.

  Zach’s act of chivalry was nearly all for nothing when his legs gave out midway to the other side. He sank to his knees as the water flowed over his legs and most of his left arm, soaking Allie’s sore feet anyway. She let out a cry and gripped Zach’s neck, choking him. Sam wriggled himself free and jumped into the water. He waded to the other side on his own and shook himself, releasing a cloud of spray.

  The three of them gathered at the fallen log once more. The commotion from the helicopter had long since passed. The quiet of the woods returned. Not a word passed between them. Sam curled at Allie’s feet. Zach propped his elbows on his knees and laid his head in his hands.

  He was almost asleep when Allie said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t tell me that, Allie. Tell me anything but that, ’cause I know you ain’t sorry at all.”

  Her hand was close to his, and Zach thought he would go mad if Allie touched him just then. He would scream and yell and cuss until his lungs burst, leaving whatever smelly stuff that had grown inside them to leak through his mouth and nose. They sat there shivering, holding themselves because otherwise their bodies might have flown apart, like a child’s toy wound too tight. Allie’s pigtails hung wet and limp against the sides of her head. Her lips had gone a pale blue.

  “You wouldn’t have come,” she said. “Not if I told you the truth.”

  A whisper, all Zach was able: “Your momma’s dead, Allie. Storm took her, just like it took all the others. I thought you understood that. You told me you did. You told everybody.”

  “I always hoped,” she said. “You can be fallen away and still hope. Plenty of people’re like that. What was I supposed to do? If I’da told anybody, they’da locked me up in the loony bin and taught me how to make birdhouses. It’s just a shoe buried at the cemetery, Zach. Momma ain’t in there.”

  “You think she’s alive because of that?”

  “It’s happened. This guy in Missouri, he got taken away by a tornado. Flung him nearly fifteen hundred feet, and all he got was a knock on the head.”

  “Allie, we’re miles from town. Miles. And it’s been near two years. You really think your momma’d still be out here walking around after that long?”

  She nodded. “My compass started working, Zach. Momma sent word.”

  “That’s crazy,” Zach said, and he didn’t care what Allie thought of him using that word. He’d been the one to take up for her with their friends in the months after The Storm, telling them sometimes hurt could change a person but Allie would pull through once all that hurt had gone away.
Now Zach thought whatever wound lay inside Allie had somehow gotten sunk in her heart and grown there like a vine. Choking her. Turning her crazy. He coughed and thought maybe Allie really should be down at the loony bin. He’d rather have her learning how to build birdhouses than getting them marooned in the cold wilderness.

  “It ain’t crazy,” she said. “Maybe she got hurt or lost. Maybe she ain’t come back because she ain’t able. That’s why she sent word, Zach, like I asked her to. There’s no other way.”

  “And you think she sent word through that compass.”

  “It ain’t worked since the day she left. Then it did, just when I needed it most. Because something important’s happened.”

  “What happened?”

  Allie’s eyes fell away. “I can’t say.”

  Zach shook his head. “What are we supposed to do now, Allie? That helicopter might not ever come back. Even if it does, it might fly right past us. I seen lots of ravines from up that hill, but the next tall place was whole miles away. Almost to the mountains.”

  “We keep going. Needle’s pointing yonder up the stream. That’s where we gotta go.”

  “No way. I ain’t getting us more lost than we are.” Zach said it loud enough that Sam stirred and Allie flinched. It was the first time either of them had used that term. Not turned around. Not confused. Lost. Sometimes you had to call a thing what it was. “You can’t walk, and I’m having trouble enough.”

  “We ain’t lost, Zach. That’s what I’m telling you. My compass wants us to go on. If we don’t, I think we might die. If we go back, I think we’ll just end up back here. Like we ended up back at the meadow yesterday. Because we’re supposed to keep going, Zach. I don’t have a choice. You can stay. Sam too. But I can’t, because I’m going to find her. We’ll come for you when I do.”

  Her clothes had gone ragged and her face was smeared with the woods, but the steel in Allie’s eyes told Zach she meant her words this time, and there was no deceit in them. She would go on because her stupid compass said so, even if it led to a dark place. And Zach would go as well, because it was up to him to keep her safe. He was as sure of that now as he’d been at the beginning. The only difference now was that Zach had believed at the beginning that his purpose was to protect Allie from the world. Now he believed it was to protect Allie from herself.