Backwoods

by sara12356

  Her voice faded for a moment. “I felt like I had disappeared. Like there was nothing left of me, the person I’d been before Tonio, before the kids. And I missed that, you know? Having something that was my own, a life that was mine. I wanted that back. Not for always, not instead of my kids, but just a little bit of it.”

  She cut him a glance. “When I got sent to Iraq, I realized just how big a mistake I’d made,” she said. “I missed Max and Eme so bad, it hurt inside. I’d look at their pictures or think of their little faces or hear their voices over the phone, then lay in my bunk and just cry and cry. I must’ve cried myself to sleep every night I was there. And then, being called up again to come here. They weren’t supposed to, not for active duty again, not this soon.”

  Her eyes were glossy again, swimming with tears. “You must think I’m a horrible person.”

  He shook his head. “No. Not at all. Of course not.”

  Again, she turned her face away, her lips pressed together as she proudly tried to compose herself. After a moment, she turned to him again, swatting once at her cheek with her fingertips and managing a shaky life. “Enough boring you with my life’s story. Tell me yours.”

  He laughed. “I’m not bored.”

  She folded her arms, cocked her brow expectantly and he laughed again. “Alright, alright.”

  For the next twenty minutes, he talked, until the sun sank low in the sky, dipping behind the tree-covered mountains, sending shadows spreading in thick, fast-moving fingers through the room.

  “I’m sorry they hurt you,” Dani said after he’d told her about the incident at the Pagoda Chinese restaurant. “What a shitty thing your dad did.”

  He managed a smile. “My mom told me everything happens for a reason. Even when it hurts, even if we don’t understand, it all happens for a reason.”

  He fished his wallet out of his pocket so he could show her the letter from his father. “He left my mom for Lila. I haven’t seen or spoken to them since that night at the restaurant.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Seven years. He still tries to call me, send me letters, gifts at Christmas. I never listen to his messages, and send his shit back marked ‘return to sender. ’ Maybe one day he’ll take the hint.”

  “Why do you carry that letter with you?” she asked.

  He managed an unhappy laugh. “So I won’t forget what he did to me. Or my mom. He’d been married to her for twenty-five years, then just pissed it all away, all for Lila.”

  Her hand fell against his, gentle, comforting, drawing his gaze. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was telling you the truth. Maybe he really is happier now.”

  Andrew smirked. “At least one of us is, then.”

  “Hey, I know how it is, how hard it can be,” Dani said. “Tonio and I, we’ve been married seven years. I can’t imagine what it’s like after twenty-five.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You miss that sometimes, the way it is when you’re first together, when you first fall in love. Because it’s exciting. It makes you feel…I don’t know. Alive somehow. Didn’t you feel that way about her once? Lila, I mean. Haven’t you ever felt that way since?”

  He didn’t answer. He looked into her eyes, all too aware of a pleasant tension that filled the silence, the narrow margin of space between them.

  It’s like a date, he thought. A first date, where you’re trying to figure out who’s going to kiss who at the end.

  Andrew drew his hand to her face. God, her skin was soft and warm, and he used the pad of his thumb to brush a light line following the curve of her bottom lip. He could have sworn she trembled at his touch and he leaned toward her, tilting his head.

  “Andrew,” she breathed, then he kissed her, letting his lips settle softly, gently against hers. Though she didn’t lift her head, she didn’t draw away, either. Her breath had drawn still, her body had gone rigid, that slight tremor he’d felt as he’d caressed her cheek now thrumming through her like an electrical current through a live wire.

  He brought his free hand up to cradle her face, lifting her mouth to meet his more fully. He let his lips part, drew the tip of his tongue along the seam of hers, easing them apart to let him inside.

  “Andrew,” she whispered again, her voice ragged as she turned her face away. She pushed him and he immediately sat back, ashamed of himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as she scooted off the bed, stumbling to her feet. “Dani, I’m sorry.” He reached for her, but she backed away, shaking her head.

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, helplessly.

  “It’s late,” she mumbled, drawing her arms around herself in a fierce embrace, closing him off as effectively as Alice whenever she’d fugue out of conscious awareness.

  “Wait,” he pleaded.

  “I should go.” She bolted from the room, letting the door slam shut behind her.

  Shit. Andrew sighed heavily, shoulders hunched, as he shoved his fingers through his hair. Way to go, Romeo. You just lost your only friend in this place.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Well, well, well,” Suzette remarked Andrew approached her and Alice along their regular walk the next morning. “Look who’s out at the crack of dawn again.”

  He’d been hovering outside the bay door of the compound’s garage while Dani worked inside, trying to muster the balls to go inside and talk to her, apologize for what had happened the night before. But when he’d seen Suzette and Alice coming, he’d been nearly grateful for the chance to escape and had abandoned his post, cutting across the yard to meet them headlong.

  “Hey, Suzette,” he said. She’d sounded snide in her greeting, a thinly veiled sarcasm he didn’t understand. Coming to a stop in Alice’s immediate path, since this was the only way to get her to stop, he squatted down to the girl’s eye level. “Morning, Alice. How are you doing?”

  Alice blinked at some indistinct point beyond his shoulder, as if taking no notice of him. The only way he knew with any certainty that she was aware of him at all was the fact that she’d stopped walking.

  “Where were you last night?” Suzette asked. “I sat in the rec room for at least an hour waiting.”

  “Sorry,” he said, looking up at her. “I got roped into KP duty.”

  “KP duty,” Suzette repeated, using her thumb to flick a column of ashes off the tip of her cigarette, sending it tumbling to the grass. She arched her brow and snorted. “Since when did you start talking like them?”

  “Like who?” He frowned slightly. “That’s what it’s called.”

  “That’s what they call it, the grunts,” Suzette said. “What, did you eat with them in the dee-fack, too?”

  “I was invited, yeah, and I accepted,” he said, glowering. So I wasn’t imagining her bitchiness a minute ago. What the hell’s her problem?

  “I waited for you,” she said again, her brows narrowing. “In the rec room. With dinner. I thought you were going to join me again.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  That little furrow between her brows deepened. “I thought you were going to join me after that again, too.”

  “Look, Suzette,” he said again as he stood. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me since I’ve been here, your hospitality and—”

  She uttered a sharp bark of laughter. “Is that what you call it?” Shooting a withering glance at the garage beyond his shoulder, she added, “Let me guess. You’re getting your hospitality from someplace else now.”

  For a moment, he stood there blinking, caught off guard and feeling somewhat trapped before it occurred to him that he had no reason to feel that way. It’s not like anything happened with Dani, he thought, then the furrow between his brows deepened. And it’s not like Suzette is my goddamn girlfriend.

  “Wait a minute,” he began.

  Dropping her cigarette onto the grass, she stomped on it, snuffing it. “Why? So you can give me some other pathetic kind of excuse?�
�� She clapped him on the chest as she walked past. “Go fuck yourself, Andrew. Because you sure won’t be getting any from me anymore.”

  ****

  O’Malley hadn’t ever turned up for dinner the night before, and by lunchtime, was still missing. None of his barrack mates had seen or heard from him in nearly twenty-four hours.

  “I’m worried,” Dani told Andrew, pacing restlessly in the corridor outside of the mess hall while inside, the rest of the company ate lunch. He’d expected her to avoid him altogether, or even ream his ass verbally, as Suzette had done, and had been surprised instead when she’d sought him out back inside the barracks.

  “About last night,” she’d started, but he’d cut her off, plowing full-steam ahead with the apology that had been on the tip of his tongue all morning long.

  “I was an asshole,” he’d told her. “What happened was totally out of line and I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I mean, I was, but I had no right to think that way, or to even think for one second that you might not have minded. Because you did mind, and I know that now, and I’m sorry. I mean, I knew that last night, too, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking at all. I just…I mean…”

  He’d sputtered to a flustered, frustrated stop and looked up from his toes—where he’d pinned his gaze to that point—to find Dani regarding him with her head cocked, her brow raised, the corner of her mouth curled in a slight smile.

  “You’re laughing at me,” he’d said.

  “Only on the inside,” she’d assured.

  “I just…the past couple of days have been really cool, nice even,” he’d said, trying again. “I like spending time with you and I’d like to continue. Spending time with you, I mean.”

  That hint of a smile had widened, melting that awkward tension that had lingered between them. “I’d like that, too.”

  “I’m sure O’Malley’s fine,” Andrew told her now, watching as she continued wearing a path into the floor outside the dining room.

  “This just isn’t like him,” she insisted. “I’ve looked everywhere. I knocked and knocked on the door to his room, but there was no answer. He’s not in the building and I’ve asked around. No one has seen him since yesterday.”

  “Didn’t someone mention last night that Major Prendick had been looking for him?”

  Dani nodded. “Yeah. But Prendick hasn’t seen him, either. I asked. Thomas was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder after he came back from Iraq. He told me he’d just gotten out of some kind of hospitalization program with the VA. I’m actually surprised they deployed him here.” Her brows lifted, her eyes round and worried. “What if he’s had a blackout or flashback? What if he wandered off into the forest, thinking he’s back in Fallujah or something? He could hurt himself or someone else or…or…”

  “You want me to go?” Andrew cut in gently and she stopped stalking long enough to blink at him in surprise. “I’m a pretty good hiker. If you’ve got some maps of the area, I can probably scavenge some gear from my Jeep.”

  “That would be great,” she said. “You sure you wouldn’t mind?”

  He laughed. “It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do this afternoon.”

  The rear compartment of the Liberty had a distinctive odor, Andrew discovered as he popped the back hatch.

  “Eww.” Dani wrinkled her nose, fanning her hand in front of her face.

  He recoiled momentarily, wincing as the pervasive stink of mildew silt struck him. Though most of the interior had dried, a thick dribble of sludge plopped down from the edges of the hatch door to the garage’s concrete floor.

  “You’re not going to find anything worth salvaging in there,” Dani said, keeping a modest distance, out of smelling range.

  “My bag should be okay,” Andrew said, making her laugh.

  “What is it, a submarine?”

  “No.” He found the pack now, wedged in the aft compartment against the rear seatbacks. Grasping it by a shoulder strap, he pulled it loose, grimacing as more sludge splattered. “It’s a class five bag, fully submersible. It should be fine.”

  After checking the contents and finding everything dry, he drew the padded straps of the backpack over his shoulders. Cinching the waist strap into place around his midriff, he shrugged a couple of times to get everything situated comfortably. Meanwhile, Dani stripped and scrubbed down the .22 rifle he’d kept stowed in the Jeep, cleaning the bolt and chamber, bore-brushing out the barrel.

  “Think it will be okay?” he asked as he slung the .22 over his shoulder. “It was pretty jammed up with mud.”

  “Hopefully you won’t have to shoot it and find out,” she replied, not instilling him with confidence.

  She followed him to the garage bay door and watched as he started off for the adjacent woods. “Andrew,” she called out, and he paused, glancing back at her. “Be careful, okay?”

  He smiled. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Pine needles whispered as low-lying limbs swung and swished back into place behind him. It was cool outside, but not unseasonably so. Rain clouds, heavy and grey, draped down toward the tree crowns, and the air felt humid with a lingering haze of moisture. It had rained overnight and the ground beneath his boot soles was soggy, his feet sinking deeply into the mud and fallen leaves.

  “Any ideas where to start?” he’d asked Dani as they’d looked over the maps together.

  “Try here.” Sweeping her fingertip on the page, she’d indicated a broad circumference of space. “That’s where we’ve been having some tactical maneuvers these past weeks, so it’s someplace he’s familiar with.”

  The area looked to be about an hour’s hike from the compound, by Andrew’s estimation. Dani had given him a general idea of where the soldiers had blazed a trail to these training grounds, and presently, Andrew came upon a crude but clearly delineated footpath winding into the woods. As he followed its steep, crooked trail deeper into the forests, he breathed in the moist fragrance of the forest air—pine sap and dried leaves—and listened to the familiar sounds of pine needles and tree branches snapping and crackling underfoot.

  At which point, he drew to a curious halt, his head cocked, his brow arched.

  There are no other sounds, he realized.

  On the day he’d wrecked his Jeep, he’d been trekking through basically these same woodlands, and the air had been thick with the sounds of wildlife—the last waning cricket songs as summer shifted into fall, the fluttering coos of mourning doves, the resonant tap-tap-tap of downy woodpeckers, the distant, overlapping cries of ravens and blue jays, chattering from chickadees and sparrows, sweet refrains from warblers and mocking birds.

  Where are all the birds? Frowning, Andrew looked up, panning his gaze through the trees. Other than the sounds of his own footsteps, which were now silent, the woods lay shadow-filled, mist-draped and quiet.

  Something’s out there.

  “O’Malley?” Slowly, cautiously, he pivoted in a circle, studying the terrain surrounding him. “Corporal O’Malley, is that you?”

  Because he received no reply, his next thought was unequivocally predator. As he stepped, he gave his shoulder a subtle little shrug, letting the strap of his rifle droop, the gun lowering so he could take it in hand. All at once, he had a nagging hunch this was no bear. They were opportunistic feeders, not stealthy hunters, so he doubted one could lay low and quiet in the underbrush for long if it was near.

  But with cougars on the other hand, stalk-and-ambush was pretty much their forte. The cats preyed on a variety of species, including mule- and white-tail deer and would thus not have been particularly intimidated or dissuaded by Andrew’s size. Not the sort for a trial by combat, they preferred to overpower their prey using the element of surprise, attacking from behind and delivering a suffocating and potentially crushing bite to the neck.

  Moving slowly, Andrew spared a downward glance, making sure he had a round chambered in the rifle. He gripped the weapon deliberately, car
efully, his index finger slipping against the trigger. He turned in another circle, then drew still and held his breath, listening.

  Snap!

  A twig breaking beneath the weight of some unseen passage to his right immediately drew his gaze. When this was followed by a soft, but distinctive, rapid-fire rustle-rustle-snap-SNAP from this same direction, Andrew brought the rifle up, trailing the sound with the barrel sight.

  However, he didn’t fire. The sound disappeared and when it didn’t immediately recur, he relaxed, releasing his breath in a long, slow huff. Lowering the gun again, he studied the shadows and trees, frowning thoughtfully.

  Had it realized his awareness and run away, whatever it was? He waited, counting in his mind.

  One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi

  He counted to sixty then started off again, but that heavy, peculiar silence lingered. Even as he ventured more deeply into the forests, it was like the birds and other woodland animals knew something he didn’t—or at least, of which he was only dimly aware.

  Twenty minutes later, and a good half mile further along the trail, he heard another distinctive series of rustles. These were quiet enough that he might have ordinarily otherwise missed them had it not been for that oppressive lack of any other sounds. He’d opted to keep his rifle in hand and was glad for it as he turned in a startled semi-circle, eyes flown wide.

  “O’Malley?” he called. There was no reply, but out of his peripheral vision, he caught a sudden hint of movement and swung again. “Who’s there?”

  There was no answer, only that permeating stillness, devoid of any rustling, any bird songs, any life. This time, when Andrew started to move again, he broke into a broad, swift stride, weaving among the trees, ducking to avoid low-lying limbs.

  From behind him: Snap-snap-SNAP

  He turned, rifle readied, but saw nothing. Then, from his right, the crackling of leaves under heavy foots; from his left, the staccato patter of breaking limbs. He whirled around, rifle raised, his heart racing. They’re all around me.