by Greg Walker
He stepped towards it, eager to finish now that he understood. When he touched the trees, he saw what they had witnessed so long ago. He didn't want to know the end, but this boy deserved remembrance. The presence had gone, and he allowed himself to believe that perhaps his progress might be easier now.
He stepped onto a fallen log, and his boot sunk as the rotten wood crumbled. He cried out as his ankle twisted and sharp pain traveled up his leg. Sitting in the snow, he pulled back his foot and a rush of movement flowed from the hole in the wood. Several summers ago, Sean had played Cowboys and Indians with Randy and some other boys in a field of tall grass and weeds. He had taken an imaginary bullet to the heart and dutifully fallen dead, only to be surrounded by a flurry of tiny yellow blurs. Yellow jackets. He recognized them now, and felt the first sting on his cheek. He yelped in pain as another crawled into his glove and bit him on the hand.
Approaching panic, he stood up on his throbbing ankle and flailed his hands around his head. Another sting from inside his jacket. Tensing to run, he spied the wood, nearly buried but the depth of the snow holding it upright. He reached down and grabbed it. His breath came in ragged hitches, and instead of terror, he felt anger. The stings burned and the wasps' frenzy increased as they circled him as one entity. He closed his eyes and held the wood above his head, felt their movement and sound subside. When he opened them up again, the yellow jackets lay dead around him in the snow in a circle. Hundreds. No, thousands of them.
The pain began to fade where they had gotten to him, and the swelling under his glove lessened until nothing remained of their work. Triumphant, he took a step and winced. His ankle still hurt. He took another step, and he had to walk gingerly but he could bear it. He had to. He heard a wail in the wind, the inhuman sound of the man, and this time he smiled. He could do this. He could win.
He reached the next tree and nearly embraced it, as much to get its part of the story as to brace himself and take weight from the ankle. The current came, and now the boy was standing alert, aware of the presence in the woods but unsure of its intent, innocence blinding him to the monsters that walk among us. The picture disappeared, and Sean felt a churning in his gut, knowing that soon he would see the rest, already knew what the boy would soon learn.
He searched for the next sign, and he sensed an unknown energy seeping through the woods. First, the forest lightened, as though the sun had risen but through the screen of an overcast day. He watched the snow melt before his eyes - a time-lapse video in real time - watched it drain into the ground. He looked up at the tree, and buds appeared and then grew and unfurled into leaves. Sean forgot his mission as the amazing spectacle continued. The leaves took on a fresh, pale shade of green, then flooded with the darker hue of summer and expanded to maturity. He waited, awestruck, wondering if the green would drain in turn and reveal the colors of autumn. But the changes slowed and then stopped. He felt moisture beneath his coat, sweat forming beneath his armpits and trickling down his spine. He unzipped the heavy jacket, and then wrestled the backpack to shrug it off. The gloves and scarf followed. He kept the wood in his hands the whole time, or set it down quickly to retrieve with a particular maneuver in the shedding of his clothes completed. But he wondered if he even needed it anymore. He took a deep breath, inhaled the overwhelming scents of a thousand different plants filling the air all at once. The man's power had broken. What else could explain this awakening? But still no click or buzz or call from insect or animal penetrated the unnatural silence, and that troubled him. The sudden fullness and warmth of the woods felt at first a balm to the biting winter air, then became a heavy, suffocating blanket. The light faded, until he stood in the dark again.
Sean searched desperately for the next tree but could no longer make out their individual shapes, just a dark mass above his head, all visibility constricted to a dozen paces if that. The man had done this, then. Taken away his sight. Silas had said the winter would help him, and now winter was gone. He sank to his knees and tears forced their way down his cheeks. It wasn't fair.
"It's over Sean. You tried. You've gotten further than anyone ever has. I'll give you that. But I can wait forever, boy. Keep you out here until you don't have any more strength to hold on to your precious scrap. Did you like the wasps? There are more. And things you can't imagine. I can call them up from the deep to keep you company while I wait. Or you can put it down and come to me. It will end the same. I'll even let you be with Silas, and keep the others away. They hate you, Sean. Oh, they hate you for being stronger and braver than they. But only if you come now. Or I'll let them have you for a thousand years. I don't want to do that, Sean. Out of all of them, you've been my favorite. But they know that, too." The words were delivered almost gently, a near apology for what had to be.
He turned his head, and the man stood ten feet away, a black void but the pinpricks of red light in his eyes glowing as embers in a fire that never died. His body felt heavy and numb, the hope in his heart fading to a memory; he had always lived in the dark, the light a foolish rumor believed by stupid children. He was old, ageless, a wraith needing only to take his rightful place in the abyss. Maybe the man would let him forget everything he had once loved. When the light was cut off entirely, the tomb sealed shut, the sun burned out, there might be peace of sorts...if he never had to remember. He was so tired, didn't want to be afraid anymore, only wanted to go home but his home had been overrun by death and grief and pain.
Sean nodded his head slowly, and raised the wood to his eyes, looking for something, a burst of light maybe like in the comic books, but it did nothing. One last time he thought of God, while standing on the precipice of darkness even He couldn't penetrate, and thought, "Please. Please help me."
Only silence. In defeat, weary beyond measure, Sean drew back his arm and flung the wood away with a cry of anguish and closed his eyes. He felt the rush of the man as he closed the distance impossibly fast preceded by the cold that radiated from his being, heard the mad cries of the children, thirsty to have him and he knew the man had lied. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and sucked in a breath to scream.
A sound penetrated the forest, the single bird call first heard from the cabin, now nearby, and his eyes opened in surprise. The man had stopped an arm's length away, frozen, his head cocked to the side, listening. Sean noticed the blurring of the edge of his being again. The bird sounded a second time, a sweet sound of sunlight and children's laughter.
Sean moved first, bolting towards where he thought the notes emanated from.
"NO! YOU'RE MINE!" the man bellowed, and his arm lashed out and caught Sean by the wrist. Sean's body went rigid, charged with the cold and utter despair that the man's touch transmitted. He opened and closed his mouth, unable to make a sound, the breath forced from his lungs as the dark squirmed in like maggots to consume his life. He convulsed in shock and horror and knew that once inside he would never forget, but relive his memories of life above ground until he went insane, and then find only infinite degrees of madness that no mind, that of a child or otherwise, was built to endure. His hand twitched and made contact with the man's wrist, and a shriek erupted not from where his mouth should be but from somewhere deep within. His hold broke. Sean fell to the ground and dragged himself away, screaming in pain and fear, expecting the darkness to regather and strike, then swallow him whole. But he knew one thing now. He would fight with every bit of strength he had left. The wood. He needed to find the wood. The man continued to scream, and Sean risked a glimpse back while struggling to gain his feet. The man slapped at something on his arm and Sean wondered if the yellow jackets had found him, that maybe a survivor had stowed away in his shirt. But what damage could they do to something so monstrous and inhuman? He didn't care, just wept in gratitude for whatever hindered this devil, and struggled on.
He heard the bird again, nearly stepped on it. It was a sparrow, but shone with the luminescence of a firefly. It cocked an eye to him, and in its light he saw the wood next to it on the
ground, and snatched it up. The bird flew up to perch on the opposite end, its weight adding nothing. Sean noticed blood on his finger, and felt for the first time the throb of a small wound as the effects of the man's touch receded. A splinter. As he watched, it worked its way out and fell to the ground. A portion of it must have embedded itself in the man. He laughed through his tears. His respect for the ugly scrap increased tenfold and he clutched it to his chest. He turned, expecting an attack, held his weapon like a baseball bat ready to swing. The sparrow fluttered down to his shoulder.
The man's cries had morphed to a low groan. He put a trembling hand out in front of him and slowly brought it to the arm that had held Sean, then pinched his fingers together and withdrew the fragment, flinging it away with a final shriek of rage. He stood motionless, facing Sean.
"Come on!" Sean yelled. "Are you scared of me? I'll shove this right through you, you sonofabitch! COME ON!" The bird chirped as if to punctuate his challenge.
"It's not over, Sean. You have to make it back to the cabin, that is if you can find the little dead thing. I'll be waiting for you, stupid boy. But I've changed my mind. I won't let them have you. You're mine alone, forever." And then he was gone.
Sean breathed a sigh of relief. The war might not be over, but he had won this battle, if just barely. "Thank you," he whispered to the sparrow. It regarded him with intelligent eyes, and then hopped into the air and flew away.
"Wait! Don't leave! What do I do now? Please!" But the bird traveled on, dipping and rising through glides and bursts of its wings, a tiny light in the gloom. Sean sat down, exhausted, hungry and thirsty. He remembered the water and pop-tarts, and ate and drank, hoping the bird would come back, swiveling his head constantly for a sign of the man. He put some crumbs on the ground to entice the bird, in case it watched from a nearby branch, but he finished his meal alone.
He stood up and looked around, unsure where to go, and equally unsure if he could find his way back. He knew these woods, but the growth created by the man had filled it in far beyond his experiences of walking the trails with his brother. But if he kept going, deeper in, he might stumble beyond the man's reach, to safety where ordinary people lived their lives unaware of this place where hell had breached the surface. Yes. Why did he have to do this any more? Because, his conscience whispered, he'll do this again. And again. And he'll eventually come back for you. You can't hold a piece of wood forever.
Sean looked for the previous tree, but now couldn't even find that. He listened again, as before, hoping that the forest might speak, that now maybe he could hear it, now that he believed. The bird called. His heart leapt and he looked to the direction from which it carried. A glow came from the canopy and he walked to it, struggling through some thorns and not even feeling the scratches; a pathetic, almost petty attempt to slow him and he sneered at the man, hoped he could see it from wherever he watched.
He reached the tree where the sparrow waited patiently. Without hesitation he touched the bark, and now the boy stood with his killer, but no fear showed on his face yet. He knew him. Had to have known him.
The bird led him on, tree by tree, signpost by signpost, until the scenes indicated that the next would contain the final act.
He would have known this final tree without the bird, but was grateful for its presence and the light it created. But it didn't sing, and didn't land on the almost bare branches but lit in a bush nearby to wait in somber silence. The tree was twisted and gnarled, but not ugly; rather, beautiful in its misshapenness, a natural sculpture depicting the weight of evil bearing down on innocence, and that innocence bowed but never broken. The few leaves still populating it seemed to grow in defiance. Sean's hand trembled as he reached out, not only in fear of what he would finally see, but in reverence. On contact, he felt the current, and real pain that resided in the tree's heartwood. This time he didn't receive a burst of an image, but a record of the event.
Sean watched and wept: for the boy, for choices that allowed hands that might have built bridges and machinery or healed to instead steal the life of a child, for all of the children that the man held captive. He grieved for and pitied them, had dipped his fingers briefly into the waters of their baptism, knew their horror enough to understand he couldn't fathom it and didn't want to.
When it was over, when he could breathe again and see through the blur of his tears, Sean found himself on one knee, his hands resting on the end of the wood - the other end sunk into the ground - and with his head bowed. I'm like a knight, he thought, at first an absurd image but then he accepted the rightness of the pose. After all, there was no one else.
He stood up with his wood, more potent than any weapon of forged steel, and continued on. He didn't have far to go. Again, the scene was obvious to one that had followed the trail this far. He found the boy's bones in a shallow grave surrounded by a stand of thin white birch trees. They had a noble air to them, and he entered their sanctuary with respect, would have whispered had he something to say. Lush green grass grew within, except in one small place in the center. There, on sunken soil covered with moss, rested a rock decorated with orange and green lichen, the most striking headstone he had ever seen. He gently removed the stone, wondering how it had traveled there, but guessed that no human eyes had or would ever know.
He dug gently, finding the small bones easily and transferring them to his backpack. The sparrow began to sing from one of the birches, a sad, sweet song repeated over and over until Sean had the melody and hummed along. A dirge and a celebration all in one. The bird's light shone brighter now than before.
When the hole was empty, he took the rock and put it inside, then replaced the small pile of dirt. He drank the rest of his water, and stood up. The sky was lighter, he noticed. Like the hour before dawn. He wanted to lay down and sleep in the grass, but knew he couldn't. It had to end now. Silas was waiting, needed him. He walked quickly to the boundary of the grove before he could change his mind.
He found the small boy again, standing just outside. Sean looked beyond him and saw them all. They stared back in silence, their malice palpable, and he wasn't sure anymore if they wouldn't hurt him. Maybe they always had that ability, but the man had held them in check. No more.
"Sean...Sean...Sean..." He heard his name whispered over and over, overlapping, then all at once in a whispering roar and then subsiding, a smattering of raindrops before the storm; spoken as an obscenity, in perverse glee, in hatred as if he, and not the man, had caused all of their suffering.
He felt only ten again, felt as if he had stepped onto the playground to confront a student body comprised solely of bullies minus any teachers to intervene, bullies that intended to tear him to pieces. The grove, like the cabin, seemed to hold a sacred power that kept them out. And as with the cabin, staying here could only delay the inevitable. His only comfort was that, before he had to pull his eyes away from their unblinking, hateful stares, he didn't see Silas among them.
In desperation, he yelled,"I'm not your enemy! He did this to you! You should help me!" Confusion rippled through the crowd, in some of the children that might have been the more recent additions and less saturated by darkness, but then the small boy mimicked him.
"You should help me...You should help me..." he said in a mocking, sing-song voice.
Soon they all joined in, and the chant morphed into "We should kill you...we will kill you..."
Sean became angry. He seethed at their stupidity, even though he knew the hell of their prison, and pitied them, too. But he hadn't come so far to back down, and hated the man more for sending them instead of coming himself. The act of a coward. And an act of desperation. The image of the knight came again, this time not absurd at all. So he did what knights do. He charged. First making sure the backpack was secure, both the zipper and the straps, he shouted his best battle cry, ran forward, and thrust the wood into the space occupied by the small ghost boy.
The boy's face twisted into something only remotely human, and Sean shuddered a
nd fell back to within the grove and its protection. The boy gnashed his teeth and reached for him, but his translucent hand hit the space between the trees and bounced back as though striking a solid barrier. Then his small wicked grin returned, and Sean despaired. If he stepped out of the tree's protective circle, they would have him. If he stayed here, his bones would replace the ones taken from the grave.
The boy's face changed. The grin remained, but the evil drained away, until it was real and not formed in a mocking parody by something with no business behind a child's smile; just the expression of a kid. The boy looked around, back at the other ghosts that had quieted with all eyes on their leader, and then back at Sean. Sean noticed that he could see less of the other children now through his form.
He said, "Thank you, Sean." and vanished.
The sparrow chirped from the trees, and then flew out over the gathering. The children watched it, fear and confusion and hatred in their expressions.