Other Side of the Woods

by Koontz, Dean

  I open the door to him.

  “Cubby,” he says, “clean up your act, kid. You’ve got a string of snot hangin’ out of your nose.”

  When I wipe at my nose with a sleeve, he laughs, plants a damp icy palm against my face, and shoves me aside so hard I almost fall.

  Closing the door, he brings the gun out from under his long coat: a compact, fully automatic rifle, essentially a short-barreled submachine gun capable of single-shot or continuous-fire action.

  He grabs me by the hair and pulls me with him into the archway between hall and living room. Then he shoves me forward while he remains straddling the two spaces.

  People see the weapon and shy back, but they do not at once try to flee, as though openly acknowledging the threat of violence will precipitate it.

  The guests are distributed throughout the four main rooms of the lower floor, but Uncle Ewen happens to be in the living room when his errant younger brother appears.

  “Hewey,” Tray says, “how’re they hangin’?”

  Ewen remains cool. “What do you want, Tray? What do you need?”

  “I don’t know, Hewey. Maybe … two million in coin inventory?”

  As it unfolds, Tray has heard a rumor—or has fantasized—about his brothers splitting their inventory between the walk-in safe at the shop and a secret safe in Ewen’s newly restored farmhouse.

  In truth, their inventory is only a fraction of what he imagines it to be, and the safe at the shop contains all their holdings.

  Tray professes not to believe Ewen on either point. A short discussion ensues between them.

  I cannot take my eyes off the gun. The weapon gleams like a magic object, like a sword once frozen in stone but pulled free, except the sorcery in this case is a dark variety.

  Yet I do not realize that it might be used. The weapon is an object of wonder, magical because of its appearance alone, and does not need to function in order to cast a spell.

  Because of the through-the-house music system and many lively conversations, the guests elsewhere do not hear the quiet drama in the living room. They do not remain out of the loop for long, because Tray soon makes some noise.

  Kenton’s sixteen-year-old daughter, my cousin Davena, stands beside an armchair.

  After calling Ewen a liar, Tray says, “Hey, Davena, you’re all grown up and pretty. When did that happen?”

  Davena smiles nervously, not sure what to say. When she smiles, a dimple forms in her right cheek. Her ears are delicate and smooth, like blown glass.

  Tray shoots her twice, and she falls dead over the footstool, her face in the carpet and covered by her hair, bottom in the air, skirt tossed up and panties revealed.

  Although the word “dignity” is not in my vocabulary yet, I know this is wrong. I want to pull her skirt down, lay her on the floor, on her back, and smooth the hair away from her face.

  Strangely, I do not think of her as dead, not right away. That is a recognition from which I rebel.

  I do not want Davena to look foolish or clumsy, because she is in fact smart and graceful. No matter how much I feel that I should attend to her, arrange her in a more suitable fashion, I cannot move.

  The gunfire draws shouts of surprise from other rooms.

  Some people try to flee.

  But Tray has come with two friends. They kick through the back door into the kitchen, through the side door into the dining room.

  People scream, but the farmhouse is far from any neighbor.

  My father, also in the living room, must realize the time for effective resistance is quickly fading. He seizes an eighteen-inch bronze statue of a farm boy and his dog, and rushes Tray, winding up the art work to swing it when he is close enough.

  Tray shoots him in the face. And shoots him twice again as he lies dead on the floor.

  I watch it happen, turn away.

  Resorting to the magical thinking that children use to cope with trauma, I tell myself that my father will be okay until the ambulance arrives. The medics will rush him and Cousin Davena to the hospital, where both will be revived in the nick of time—revived, healed, home soon.

  In the nick of time. The right thing always happens in the nick of time. Every storybook says so.

  No one goes out through any window before the three gunmen have control of the residence.

  They herd the family into the living room and dining room. They make everyone sit either on the furniture or on the floor.

  Tray goes to work on Ewen again, demanding the location of the secret safe, the fortune in coins that does not exist.

  Ewen offers to take Tray to the brothers’ store and open that—the only—safe.

  Tray thinks the risk is not worth taking when a Midas trove is hidden in this very house.

  I am not listening to much of their argument, and I am so young, with the limited perceptions of an ordinary child, yet I sense Tray does not really believe in the secret treasure room. This is a story he invented to induce his buddies to come there with him.

  In truth he has one and only one intention: to kill us all. Some atavistic part of my brain, afire with primitive wisdom older than I am, brings me finally to the recognition that two are dead and that others will be killed soon.

  With Davena and my father murdered, the men who came with Tray have nothing to lose. As accomplices and kidnappers, they are already candidates for death sentences or life in prison.

  Later, police will determine that Tray and the other two were amped on methamphetamine—and in a mood to make a sport of violence.

  In frustration, Tray uses the butt of his weapon to smash Ewen’s face, then shoots him in the stomach.

  By this time, I am no longer turned away from what is happening. I am so afraid, but for some reason I feel that I must watch.

  Tray no longer has any interest in the secret trove of inventory that he has known does not exist. He is Fate, and exhibiting the cold enthusiasm of a serpent going egg to egg in a henhouse, he moves deliberately from one seated relative to the next.

  He greets each of them by name, sometimes calls them an ugly word or makes an obscene suggestion, sometimes offers a compliment. Regardless of what he says, he shoots each of them to death.

  Two curious things happen in that farmhouse, and this is the first: Even after the initial deaths, there are enough people in the living room to rush Tray and overpower him before he can shoot them all, yet no one makes a move against him. They see him kill each of them in the order they are seated, and those still alive weep or beg, or sit in a silent daze, but they offer no resistance.

  We see this occur on other occasions in the twenty-eight years since the Durant killings, but on that night it is a new phenomenon.

  Are the victims so committed to a reasoned disbelief in the existence of Evil that, when face-to-face with its agent, they are incapable of acknowledging their error?

  Or are they capable of recognizing Evil but unable to believe there is a power opposed to it that stands ready to give them the strength— and a reason—to survive?

  Perhaps it is the nurtured narcissism of our age that leaves some unable to imagine their deaths even as the bullet is in the barrel.

  This is the second curious thing that happens in that farmhouse: I survive. How I survive is easy to describe. Why I survive is beyond my ability to explain.

  After watching Tray kill three more people where they sit, all fear lifts from me, and I know what I must do.

  I do not run. I do not hide. Neither option crosses my mind.

  First I go to my cousin Davena and restore her modesty by straightening her skirt. And that feels right.

  As carefully as I can, I roll her off the footstool over which she has collapsed, and I get her onto her back. I smooth her hair away from her lovely face.

  I say, “Good-bye.”

  My father’s face is broken and fallen inward. Over the arm of a chair is Aunt Helen’s shawl. I arrange it to drape my father’s ruined countenance.

  “Good-bye.�
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  Tray proceeds through the room, killing people one by one, and I follow several deaths behind him, restoring where I can some small measure of dignity to the deceased.

  A psychologist might say these are the actions of a boy in a dissociative state, but that is not correct. As I minister to the dead, I remain at all times aware of what I am doing, of where I am, and I know that the killings are proceeding beyond my control, in this room and subsequently in the next.

  Not only has fear been lifted from me but also horror, and for the purpose of completing my task, I seem to have lost the capacity for repugnance. These are members of my family, and nothing about them in death can disgust me, just as nothing about them in life disgusted me.

  To each, I say good-bye.

  I am conveyed across the bar of grief, that I might do this service, and though the day will come when I will find myself on the harder side of that bar, for now I do not weep.

  Cousin Carina, one week short of her twentieth birthday, sits on a chair with a cane back, head lolling against the wall. Before being shot, she lost control of her bladder. Her skirt is soaked, and her stockings.

  As I move toward the sofa to get a camel-colored cashmere throw, with which to cover Carina’s lap and legs, I step aside to let one of Tray’s friends pass.

  He is a pale man with a mustache. An ugly cold sore mars his lower lip. He is looking for women’s purses.

  While I arrange the cashmere throw to cover Carina properly— “Good-bye”—and while I examine the remaining victims to see if there is anything I can do to make them more presentable, the man with the cold sore rummages through the purses for money and takes the wallets from the dead men.

  He does not speak to me, and I do not speak to him.

  Tray enters and says to his friend, “I’m gonna see what shit they might have upstairs.”

  “Be quick about it, this is so goddamn off the rails,” his friend replies. “Where’s Clapper?”

  “In the dining room, doin’ what you’re doin’.”

  Having done what I can for the twenty dead in the living room, I proceed to the dining room to continue with my mission.

  Tray’s other friend, Clapper, is a large bearded man. On the dining table are gathered the purses and the wallets of the eighteen victims in this room. He is stripping out the folding money as he half mutters and half sings “Another One Bites the Dust,” which had been a hit for Queen a couple of years earlier.

  My brother, Phelim, who is twelve, sits on the floor in a corner, his back to the junction of walls. His legs are straight out in front of him, arms at his sides. Except for the hole in his throat, he looks peaceful. I cannot see anything to be done for him.

  “Good-bye.” I do not whisper the word but say it openly.

  Apparently the people on the dining-room chairs were instructed to put their arms behind them and to hook them between horizontal backrails. They are not only sitting in their chairs but also hanging from them. This prevents the limp bodies from collapsing onto the floor.

  My cousin Kipp’s wife, Nicola, has been humiliated before being murdered. Her sweater has been pulled over her head, hiding her face, and her bra has been torn off.

  I am an easily embarrassed boy. With great care not to touch her breasts, I work the sweater off her head and gingerly tug it down over what should not be exposed.

  While I struggle with the sweater, Clapper finishes searching purses and wallets. Fists full of money, he goes to the living room.

  He and the man with the cold sore are talking, but I am not interested in what they have to say to each other.

  In the last chair, I find my mother.

  I very much want to do some small thing for her.

  After a moment, I see what it must be. She is proud of her dark glossy hair, but now it is tangled and disarranged, as if someone has seized it and twisted it to force her into the chair.

  Among the purses on the table, I recognize hers. I take from it a comb, and I return to her.

  Her face is lowered, chin on chest. As I am deciding how to hold her head to raise it, the more easily to comb her hair, Tray returns to the room from his search of the second floor.

  He has his gun, which no longer seems magical, and I wait to see what he will do.

  As he crosses the room toward me, I know that I should be afraid, but I am not.

  He passes me, proceeds to Nicola, picks up her bra from the floor, and works it in his hand. Frowning, he stares down at her covered breasts.

  Shreds of skin hang from his chapped lips, and he chews on them absentmindedly.

  After a moment, he throws the bra aside and calls out “Clapper,” as he goes into the living room.

  I wait with my mother and the comb.

  All three men return to stare at Nicola, at her sweater as it should be.

  Raising his gun, warily but with some urgency, Clapper pushes through the swinging door into the kitchen.

  The man with the cold sore disappears into the hall, and Tray into the living room.

  I wait with my mother and the comb.

  From overhead comes the sound of hurried footsteps. In the cellar, a door crashes open. For a minute or so, every corner of the house produces noises.

  The three meet in the hall. I cannot hear what they are saying, or I choose not to hear, but judging by the tone of each voice, Tray is angry and the other two are alarmed.

  Their voices and footsteps recede. A door opens, slams shut, and I am pretty sure it is the door with the frosted-glass clouds and the clear-glass moon through which Tray’s eye once winked at me.

  The house is quiet.

  Outside, a car starts. I listen to the engine noise as it fades down the driveway.

  I put a hand under my mother’s chin and lift her head. I comb her beautiful hair.

  When her hair is as it should be, I kiss her cheek. Every night, she tucks me into bed and kisses my cheek. Every night until now.

  “Good-bye.”

  I ease her head down as it was. She appears to be slumped in sleep. She has gone to another place but still loves me, and though I am staying here, I still love her.

  After returning the comb to her purse, I cannot imagine what comes next. I have done what I could to spare the dead embarrassment, and I am no longer needed.

  Suddenly I am more exhausted than I have ever been. Climbing the stairs in search of a bed, I almost stop to sleep on the landing.

  I forge on, however, and choose the bed in Colleen’s room, onto which I climb without remembering to take off my shoes. Head on the pillow, I am too tired to worry about being scolded.

  I wake during the night and see a frosted moon in the window. But it is far beyond the window, and it is real.

  After using the bathroom across the hall, I return to Colleen’s room and stand staring at her telephone. I have the feeling that I should call someone, but I do not know whom.

  A few months earlier, my mother helped me to memorize our home-phone number, all ten digits, in case I am ever lost.

  I am in Uncle Ewen’s new house, so I am not lost. Strangely, however, I feel I am somewhere I do not belong, and I feel alone.

  Deciding to call home, I pick up the phone. No dial tone.

  I am not afraid. I am calm. I go to Uncle Ewen and Aunt Nora’s bedroom. I try their phone, but it does not work, either.

  Descending the stairs, I am overcome by an expectation of a big discovery, whether good or bad I do not know, but something huge. I hesitate on the landing, but then continue to descend.

  The house is as silent as a soundless dream. Never before in the waking world have I encountered such stillness.

  When I try the phone in the living room, it proves to be out of order, like the others.

  Standing before the grandfather clock, I decide the monkey is not time, as Uncle Ewen said. Instead, the monkey is stealing time.

  Previously, the creature’s face was impish, its expression playful. Now it is a monkey from a different jungle. It
seems to sneer, and in its eyes I see a threat that I cannot name.

  Backing away from the clock, I think I hear a woman laughing in the dining room. Indeed, this is my mother’s contagious laughter, but for once it does not inspire as much as a smile from me.

  In the dining room, I do not hear the laughter anymore, and there is no phone to try.

  The brass griffins still fly in the fireplace, but the logs they carried on their backs are ashes now, and embers.

  Silence settles once more, and I am unable to hear the hinges on the swinging door or even my footsteps as I go into the kitchen.

  The telephone on the wall beside the refrigerator is as useless as the previous three.

  At a kitchen window, I stare into the moonlit night. No one is in the backyard, either.

  They have all gone away.

  I wander through the house, downstairs and upstairs, and down again, feeling lost and alone. Twice, I think I hear footsteps in the distance, but when I stand quite still and listen, I hear nothing.

  Eventually, I am in Uncle Ewen’s study for the third or fourth time. Previously, I did not notice the telephone.

  Putting the receiver to my ear, I am surprised by a dial tone.

  As I will later learn, the phone-service cable was cut outside the house. But in the interest of business security, because of his sensitive financial discussions conducted by phone, my uncle Ewen required an entirely separate, dedicated private line to serve his study, and that one was overlooked.

  Using the keypad, I enter 1 plus the ten digits of our home number that I have memorized. It rings until the answering machine picks up. I hear Mother’s recorded voice.

  Following the beep, I can think of no message to leave. Although I have said nothing else, I say “Good-bye” before I hang up.

  After further thought, I dial 911.

  When the sheriffs-department operator answers, I say, “They all went away, and I’m alone here.”

  In response to her questions, I tell her my name, that I am six years old, that I am at Ewen Durant’s house, and that I have been alone since before eight o’clock the previous evening.