In the Heart of the Dark Wood

by Billy Coffey

  “What’d you say?” he asked.

  “The God of the sun. Wouldn’t that be nice, Zach? If that were really who He was, I mean? Everything would always be so bright. I wouldn’t have to be scared anymore, because I could see. I don’t think I’d know what to do. That’s probably why I’m stuck with the moon.”

  She smiled then, and in those white teeth and parted lips Zach saw a kind of budding madness that made the hurt in his lungs seem small. Streaks of grime covered Allie’s face. Her pigtails hung from the sides of her head like two muddy icicles. Puffs of air oozed from her nose like fog. She squeezed her shoulders, hugging the backpack against her.

  “I want the sun,” she said, still smiling. “I’m so tired of the moon.”

  “We’re making good time, Allie. Even with the cold. Bet we’ve already gone a mile or so.”

  Allie didn’t bother with a reply. She only gave Zach a grunting sound that could be taken as something negative just as easily as positive. He waited until she caught up before moving on. Sam divided his time between them, keeping to Allie’s shadow and then Zach’s, almost afraid to step into the sunlight. The dog remained watchful, though, and as minutes turned to hours, he became more relaxed, more himself. It was more than Zach could say for Allie, who continued to lag behind. Zach did what he could to coax her along, though he saved much of that effort for himself. His chest felt knotted and his fever burned, bringing with it a pain that sank into his forehead. Flakes of black danced at the corners of his vision. They were chased away only when he blinked hard.

  It was the trees back at the camp. He knew that’s what bothered Allie, and he understood why. Allie had never spent much time in the woods. That woods was too big and filled with too many stories, and the wind there sounded like something alive. Had her daddy spent more time with her out there than with his whiskey and beer, Allie would have known scratched-up trees were common in the wilderness. Rutting bucks, mostly, though sometimes bears did it too. Cougars—which Allie had said weren’t around anymore, but what did she know; she was the one wearing frozen tennis shoes stuffed with pine branches—could nearly tear trees apart sharpening their claws.

  Sure, there were big things in the woods. Things bigger and badder than even nearly grown men like Zach Barnett. But most of the truly bad things that once walked those woods were long dead and existed only in the pages of the dinosaur books Miss Howard loved for him to read. What beasts were left wanted little to do with people, especially in the cold winter months. That’s what Zach told himself as they wandered a wide expanse of trees taller than any building he’d ever seen. Yet Zach could tell Allie none of this, because doing so would feel almost like a promise. He kept the chunk of oak ready in his trembling right hand.

  It wasn’t far before the open woods sloped downward, making the way more treacherous. The sunlight ahead met another clench of darkwood and stopped, unable to penetrate the thick tangle of stunted trees and bare thornbushes. Allie’s talk of gods in the sun and the moon ended. Sam drew even closer, peeking through Zach’s knees. He let out a low growl.

  “That’s a bad place,” Allie said. “Sun don’t reach there, Zach. Bad place.”

  Zach took her words in silence. He only stared ahead, trying to see beyond the first layer of scrub. There was no telling how deep it all was, but he could see how wide. The wall stretched in a wavering line for what Zach guessed was a mile or so in either direction. Avoiding it would mean turning north or south. That would add hours to their walk once they skirted the brush and headed east again, and that was assuming the sun would still be high and not hidden by the thick clouds that always lurked come December in the Virginia mountains.

  Sam growled again, low and deep.

  There was nothing in there.

  Allie: “It’s a bad place, Zach. Momma’d never be in a place like that. Bad.”

  Just some scrub was all. Nothing at all different from all the scrub that had come before, and nothing so bad as some scratched

  (trees)

  arms and faces from the sharp branches and thorns inside. They could send Sam in first, like before. They could let him find the way to the other side, and Allie could call his name, turning him from dog to beacon. But Sam wouldn’t move from behind Zach’s knees, and Allie didn’t seem much interested in making him, and for as much as Zach told himself nothing at all waited in the darkness just beyond, his hand hurt from gripping the hunk of oak so hard.

  “Might not be much at all, Allie. Might be just a couple little steps through to the other side. Lots of times, darkwood like this means a river’s near. We find the river, we’re saved. Cuts right through town.”

  “We shouldn’t,” Allie whispered. “Know which god’s in there, Zach? It’s the one in the moon. He don’t care.”

  They couldn’t turn off, not after coming this far, and as the man it was Zach’s decision to make either way. He took a step forward. Another. Slow, so Allie and Sam could keep up and so Zach would not leave the safety of the open woods just yet. He no longer pretended the staff was anything other than a tool to maim and kill. He kept it raised in front of himself, holding it like a baseball bat.

  “Bad,” Allie said. The sound was far away. Zach didn’t have to turn to know she hadn’t moved from her spot, nor did he have to look down to know Sam had remained behind as well. Yet far from convincing Zach to turn away, their fear only emboldened him to step forward again—one final time, close enough that the tip of his staff could have touched the first fringes of a struggling old cedar. He opened his mouth to pronounce the way clear. A limb snapped somewhere in the shadows.

  Zach flinched. Allie muffled a scream. He backed away slower than he had approached, keeping his back to Allie and Sam and his eyes on the tangle, watching for movement inside. He felt neither chills nor fever, only the thrumming of his heart. A wheezing sound, high and uneven, escaped his chest. The darkwood fell silent again.

  He said nothing when he reached Allie’s side, only turned and began a slow walk along the northern edge of the scrub. She and Sam followed. Just a ways, Zach thought. Just for a while, then east again. No use fighting all that brush when there’s open woods to travel in. Best to save their energy. His posture began to slouch. His focus shrank to the ground beneath him. Zach offered no more comfort as to what good time they made, nor did he try to coax Allie on. The confidence that had carried him from their place by the pond faded, and there was a heavy pain in feeling it go. For Zach, though in his mind he was still a man of the woods, had been turned from where he knew they should go by the sound of a single snapping branch.

  3

  The woods were rendering the days as unrecognizable as the children’s worn faces. To Allie, there was now only Time to Walk and Time to Rest. They had done plenty of walking since leaving the frozen pond. They would have to do some resting soon. If they didn’t, she didn’t think Zach would last.

  The tip of his staff thumped in rhythm with each step of his right foot. With each step, the hunk of oak in his hand bore more of his weight. His eyes focused on the forest floor, squinting for every leaf and wayward rock, measuring the next pace with a precision that only left him more tired. His fever raged now; he’d already unbuttoned his coat and was now fidgeting with his shirt. Allie walked alongside. Twice she stretched out her hand when Zach began to wobble. Her fingers brushed his sleeve but never managed to grip it. Zach would pull away at the last moment, righting himself and furrowing his brow as if angered. He shook his head and mumbled something Allie couldn’t hear.

  Sam kept well away and did his best to keep up. He paused often, perking his ears at the tangle beside them. Allie noticed a slight limp in her dog’s walk and how his back stood humped. Briars and streaks of mud dotted Sam’s coat. His eyes looked swollen and tired. They had to find her momma soon. They had to get home.

  The darkwood thinned more. The woods opened again.

  “We should stop, Zach,” she said. “Take a break.”

  “Not yet,” he
wheezed, and thumped his staff on the ground again. The tip caught the edge of a rock poking up from the ground. Zach grunted again as the tip slid off, throwing his weight to the right. He blinked away the flecks floating in his eyes. Cold wormed its way through his clothes, making the skin feel hard and tight. He put on his coat again. “Gotta turn, Allie. East is the way. I know it is.”

  “You need a break.”

  “Don’t need no break.”

  “Well, then, I need one. And so does Sam. We’ve been walking a long while. Maybe we should go ahead and eat that last candy bar. Or the juice. Some fruit juice might make you perk up.”

  “Too cold to stop. Gotta keep moving. We can’t get too cold, Allie. We sit down now, we might not be able to get up again.”

  “Well, we need to try,” she said. “My feet hurt, Zach. I can’t walk no more.”

  He lifted his head, and in Zach’s red eyes and drawn face Allie saw a flash of anger. “We lost time, Allie. Time’s all we got now. It’s a race, and we’re losing. Don’t you see that? We had to turn north to get ’round this tangle. That cost us time. We gotta make that time up somehow, and the only way to do that is to keep moving.”

  Those last two words came out loud and sharp, ringing off the trees. Allie ducked, overcome not by Zach’s screaming (he’d done that often enough in the last couple days, but it was never as loud as Marshall’s yelling when he got in his cups), but by the prospect of that noise bringing Who’d been lurking in the darkwood behind them. She couldn’t let that happen. Allie didn’t know where they were or where they were heading, but she knew they had to stay hidden. She didn’t think He’d let them slink away again.

  “Please be quiet,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Something might hear.”

  “Who’s gonna hear us, Allie?” Zach asked. “Case you ain’t been paying attention, we’re the only ones out here.” He raised his arms high and wide, shaking his head. His hat (which was quickly going from black to dirty brown) bobbed left then right. Zach lowered his hands and straightened the crown, then uttered a phlegmy chuckle. “There’s some pines up yonder. We’ll stop there and rest for a minute. I wanna get away from this tangle and back on track. We got a long ways ahead.”

  The cold in the air was no match for the cold in the ground, one that sucked a bit more energy from Allie’s legs each time her feet landed. Her jacket was zipped as far as it could go, the scarf was tight around her neck, and the pine branches stuffed between her skin and sweatshirt still held. None of that was enough. She shuddered, thinking how much colder it would get later in the day. And that night, if Zach couldn’t get a fire going and they were still looking.

  They reached the stand of pines and crawled beneath a full one near the middle. Allie stared at the darkwood, thinking she and Zach would maybe have to add another bit of time to their days from now on—Time to Walk, Time to Rest, and now Time to Hide. A breeze whistled through the forest, making the branches bend and rub. Sam lifted his nose, reading the breeze like a letter.

  They ate the last candy bar. It was a PayDay, which suited Zach fine because at least there were peanuts instead of just more chocolate, so Sam could have some too. Allie sipped the water from the pond and let Zach drink all of the apple juice. Sam ate what both of them had left. The burping contest that followed was brief given their weariness but spirited nonetheless. Allie enjoyed it most of all, even if she came up the loser. Burping all that food up was like eating it twice. She hoped the taste would stay in her mouth a while. Aside from the small amount of water left in the other juice box, that was the last of their food and drink.

  Zach looked on beyond the trees. Slivers of the open woods peeked through the branches of the pines. To their left the sun, still rising. East. That was the way, Zach had said. He knew it. But Allie didn’t know the way to what.

  “We should’ve gone on in that thicket, Allie. It was the best way.”

  “Something was in there, Zach. You heard it.”

  “Weren’t nothing in there. It was a branch snapping was all. Listen to this wind. There’s stuff snapping everywhere. It’s cold, Allie. Cold snaps all kinds of stuff in the woods all the time.” A pause, then, “Feel like it’s snappin’ me.”

  “Wind wasn’t blowing when that branch snapped, Zach. I told you it was a bad place.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked. “You think you know more than me now?”

  “No. It was just a feeling, I guess.”

  “Like that compass pointing to your momma was a feeling? Or that we should go deeper and deeper into all these trees was a feeling? Or shoving me out of the way when that helicopter came was a feeling? You mean like that?”

  Allie lowered her head. Said, “I already told you I was sorry for that.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “No. Just like you weren’t sorry for losing my compass. It was protecting us, Zach. But you let it leave and now we’re marked.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You saw them scratches. You say they were there before but you know they weren’t. We’d’ve seen them, Zach, even if it was going on dark and we were so tired and scared.”

  “I weren’t scared,” Zach said.

  “We’d’ve seen them anyways,” Allie answered, ignoring him. “You been in the woods long enough. You’re the one goin’ up to the Holler to carve your name in the rusty gate, show everyone you got a spine. You would’ve seen those scratches, Zach, but you didn’t because they weren’t there. He came along in the night and made a big circle around the trees to show everything.”

  “Show everything what?”

  “That we been marked,” Allie said.

  Zach brought his knees to his chest and hugged himself. His body shuddered against the wind. “I don’t know which is worse—that I just heard the dumbest thing ever, or that I heard it coming from you.”

  “Zach?” Allie asked. She reached out for his sleeve, touched it this time. He didn’t pull away. “It’s okay to be scared.”

  “I ain’t scared of nothing,” he growled. “You hear me, Allie? Nothing. Because if I get scared, then we’re done.”

  Sam’s tail straightened. He barked twice and shot from under the pine. Allie crawled forward and poked her head out, calling him back. Sam had either had his fill of her and Zach arguing or he didn’t hear. He didn’t quite run toward the open woods on the other side of the brush, but he was no longer walking either.

  “What’s he doing?” Zach asked.

  “I don’t know. I think his nose caught something.” Then, toward the trees: “Sam, to me.”

  But Sam didn’t—wouldn’t—and Allie knew if she let her stupid old dog that she didn’t love at all go any farther, she might lose him forever. She pulled herself from under the pine, jerking the backpack free when it caught in the branches. “You stay here and rest,” she told Zach. “I’ll get him.”

  Allie rose to her feet (a task she’d probably done thousands of times in her short life, but one that now made her feel old and brittle) and lumbered forward, willing her feet to move quick. The pine shuffled behind her. Zach did not call out, tell her to wait or be careful. To Allie, hearing him follow was enough. It would have to be. Because Allie knew Zach was right—even if they found Mary that day, there was a long path back home. And whether that way was light or it was dark, the only way they would find an end was if they went together.

  4

  Sam found what was left of the body.

  It was east—where Zach had meant to take them—and only a few hundred steps on, past where the deadwood fell away and the open forest took over again. Sam didn’t run all that way. Allie thought he would have were it not for the cold that had wormed its way into her dog’s bones and the hunger that had stolen his once boundless energy. All he could manage was a lazy trot through the empty spaces between the trees. Even that was more than enough to keep Allie chasing at a distance.

  The scent must have swept over hi
m like a wave; Sam had no choice but to let it carry him away. Allie had followed as he sniffed and veered off, called in a voice she hoped was loud enough for Sam to hear but soft enough to go unheard by anything else. Zach followed a few steps behind, grunting and wheezing as his staff click-clacked over the hard ground. And just as Allie slowed, knowing the next three or four hard steps she took would be all her ruined feet would allow, Sam stopped. He stood at the base of a small hillock surrounded by a stand of young maples and cedars. He looked back once and then climbed, disappearing behind the trees.

  “He’s got something,” Zach said from behind.

  Allie turned around. Zach leaned his body over the staff and pushed his hat up, revealing a line of sweat beneath. His slick, brown hair made the pallor of his cheeks almost shine. Allie used those last few steps her feet had left to walk back to his side. They watched the white tip of Sam’s tail dart in and out of view. He neither barked nor growled.

  Don’t go in there, Allie. Please don’t. It’s a bad place.

  She didn’t want to leave Zach. Nor could Allie stand there and watch her dog walking away. Samwise was a mangy mongrel, and she did not love him at all, but she didn’t want him to go wandering off alone.

  “Can you make it up there?” she asked. “If he’s got something, we should see what it is.”

  Zach moved only after Allie did and nodded, trying to convince her that making it up there was his idea. They walked shoulder to shoulder, neither of them wanting the other to stray. The sun struggled through the canopy of trees. Rays of light hit the forest floor in jagged lines that looked like wounds that would never heal. The slope wasn’t steep, not nearly the slant of the hill Allie had climbed to rescue them from being rescued, but enough for them to struggle.

  Zach crept in front as they neared the place where Sam had passed from sight. Allie let him, hoping that by focusing on her steps she could quiet the voice inside her that kept screaming for her to turn away. East, west, south, north, it didn’t matter, just so long as it was somewhere else. Zach turned his crutch into a club again. He whispered for Sam.