The Boy in the Woods

by Carter Wilson

  Tommy stood and walked over to the desk, barely able to keep his eyes open but wanting to see the results of his efforts. Scrolling the pages on the screen, Tommy was surprised by how much he had actually written. He couldn’t resist stopping on one of the pages to read, and soon found himself absorbed by his own words.

  This is goddamn good, he thought. Why do I need horror in my life to write like this?

  Over four thousand words. Four thousand words in three hours. That was a record. One time, when writing the basement murder scene of The Blood of the Young, he knocked out nearly three thousand words sitting at the kitchen counter.

  But this was something different. It was as if he had been possessed. Tommy thought back to mere hours ago, his fingers crawling over the keyboard in a controlled frenzy, his brain dumping on-screen everything that had happened, every mote of fear and angst, every wave of nausea, every hope and every crushing disappointment.

  Every drop of blood.

  The sudden memory of the homeless man’s open neck seized Tommy and he fell back into the desk chair, squeezing his forehead with his hands. Then he peered through the slit of his fingers and saw the one thing that made the memory more horrific: the bloody knife. He’d left it out on the open desk. At the time, it seemed right.

  The knife had been his muse for the night.

  Now, in the harshness of daylight, Tommy had to face the black blood on the blade.

  I have to get rid of it, he thought. Now.

  His cell phone screamed, making Tommy jump. He reached over and looked at the screen.

  Mark.

  God, he thought. What do I tell him?

  ‘Hello?’ he answered.

  ‘Tommy, it’s Mark. How goes it? Sleep well?’

  Tommy closed his eyes and grumbled into the phone. ‘Like a peach.’

  ‘You sound like shit. Tie one on last night?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, good for you, I suppose. Can you meet this morning?’

  ‘Um … of course.’

  ‘Great. My schedule’s tight. I can be there in about an hour and can stay for thirty minutes. I might have some more time tomorrow …’

  Tommy stared at the knife. ‘Can you do something later today instead?’

  ‘No can do. It’s this morning or maybe tomorrow, but no guarantees on tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine,’ Tommy said. ‘An hour.’

  Mark hung up the phone without saying anything else.

  OK, Tommy told himself. You have to get rid of that damn knife. You can do it now, or stash it somewhere temporarily and do it later, after Mark leaves.

  Tommy looked at the sunlight coming through the drapes. He walked up to them and pulled the drapes to the side, looking at the bright, normal day outside. The day was just starting, and was certainly just another day to most people. But not to Tommy. No, this day—

  There. Opposite side of the street, walking east. Two cops. Foot patrol.

  Tommy pulled enough of the drape in front of the window so that just a sliver remained, enough for him to watch the movements of the two cops briefly. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry, nor did they seem without purpose. They swept the street with their gazes, looking, assessing. They walked slowly but without stopping, and moments later they were gone from Tommy’s view. He didn’t want to pull the drapes back to keep watching them. Watching got people caught.

  Tommy had no idea if foot patrols were common in Charleston, or if those two were out canvassing the crime scene periphery from last night, searching for clues. Information. Suspicious activity.

  Now, Tommy told himself. Get rid of the knife now, before Mark comes over. And don’t go out. Hide it close, but hide it well. Don’t be sloppy. You’re a smart guy. You research crime all the time. Don’t be stupid with the murder weapon.

  Tommy grabbed the bent knife and took it to the kitchen, spending several minutes scrubbing every millimeter of it with dish soap and scalding water, watching the blood turn from a dirt-brown to pink under the running water. He placed the cleansed blade in the sink and rinsed it one more time before using a paper towel to pick it up, while leaving the hot water running in the sink a while longer, making sure it washed away any residual traces of blood from the pipes.

  Tommy turned the faucet off and looked at the knife in his hand, contemplating his next move in the silence of the kitchen.

  Should I hide it in the house? Perhaps under a loose floorboard, or in the attic? It doesn’t have any blood left on it, so if someone finds it they won’t be able to prove anything, right? Maybe I should just throw it away. That’s innocent enough. A bent knife is useless, so of course it should be thrown away. It’s just garbage.

  So many books about crime and criminals. So many scenes written about death and the evidence thereof. Tommy had spent so much time trying to keep his writing fresh and creative he had never really stopped to consider the What would you do? aspect of covering up the evidence of a murder. But in this moment, it was obvious. Adrenaline and fear consumed creativity. Panic swallowed up logic and decisiveness. In this moment, Tommy understood what Elizabeth wanted of him.

  The image of broken earth suddenly flashed in his mind.

  Bury it somewhere. Somewhere no one will find it. Bury it in the earth, where the soil will further destroy any evidence.

  Backyard.

  Tommy went to the back of the house and into the covered porch. The air still held some of the weight from the night, a hint of moisture. The backyard was small, almost non-existent, just a strip of manicured sod, peppered by fallen leaves from an ancient oak that separated Mark’s house from the one just feet behind it. It wasn’t ideal for hiding a murder weapon. It wasn’t the woods.

  Then he saw it. A small vegetable garden, measuring no more than four-by-six feet, at the far end of the backyard.

  Tommy wrapped the knife in the paper towel and went outside, scanning the windows of the adjacent home for faces peering down, scrutinizing. No matter how well he hid the knife, it wouldn’t do him any good if someone witnessed him burying something. The witness was the greatest enemy of all criminals. His need to bury evidence outweighed his fear of someone seeing him do it, and he briefly wondered if this kind of thinking was exactly how murderers were caught.

  Still, he saw no one. He would have to move fast.

  Tommy placed the wrapped knife under his shirt and made his way out into the backyard, keeping his head down. Once he reached the vegetable garden, he studied the soil, inspecting for recent disturbances. Nothing was growing and most of the plants had been culled, leaving nothing behind except for small metal markers – the shapes of insects – telling the world what had grown there that summer. Squash. Strawberries. Tomatoes.

  The remnants of a withered tomato vine assured Tommy the garden wasn’t tended every day, at least not at this time of year.

  He knew he couldn’t put the knife where seeds would be planted in the spring. Too easy for someone to find, even if he dug deeply.

  In the corner of the bed sat an unpainted cement rabbit decoration, its eyes wide and blank, hunched in a frozen state of chewing, looking like something cast from a Pompeian mold.

  Tommy lifted it and considered the dirt around it, concluding in an instant the rabbit hadn’t been moved in a long time.

  It would have to do.

  But he didn’t want to use his fingers.

  He looked around, and a small shed stood like a sentry in the back corner of the yard. It was tiny, not much larger than an outhouse would have been at some point in time, and Tommy guessed there were gardening tools in there.

  Unlocked. The door opened and Tommy immediately saw what he needed: a collection of trowels and hand rakes standing handles-up in a large bucket of sand. He grabbed a trowel and considered his good fortune. Well, that’s a break in my favor, he thought. Maybe that’s a good omen.

  This, he soon realized, was exactly the kind of thought that got murderers caught.

  Back to the
rabbit statue. Tommy used the trowel to claw into the soft earth, making a small mound to the side with the excavated soil. He continued digging until the hole grew and he could feel the cold from the deeper soil breathing against his skin. Once he reached about a foot down he decided it was deep enough.

  Tommy dropped the knife in the hole and quickly replaced the dirt, sprinkling on the last layer so the soil didn’t appear recently disturbed. After putting the rabbit back in its place, he stood and surveyed his work.

  Good.

  He returned the trowel to the potting shed, sticking it deep into the sand. Back outside, he crossed the small yard and headed back to the kitchen. Something caught his eye. He shifted his gaze from his hands to the second-story window on the neighboring house. A slight movement. A flutter.

  He couldn’t be certain, but he thought a drape just pulled closed. Had someone been watching him? Did someone see him bury some object under the little bunny statue? Tommy’s mind spun with the possibilities, creating a cause and effect scenario for each one in a matter of seconds.

  If someone saw him, should he move the knife? Or would they watch him doing that as well, creating further suspicion?

  The longer he stood outside the more exposed he felt, and Tommy realized he could very easily drive himself insane with second-guessing. He needed to trust his instinct, and his instinct told him all was fine and the knife was perfectly hidden where it was.

  His instinct also told him to get the fuck inside the house.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Mark Singletary pressed his hand deeply into Tommy’s grip. Tommy’s flesh was still warm from a fast, hot shower, which, combined with a fresh set of clothes, made him feel more distanced from the last night’s killing. Tommy looked over Mark’s shoulder and saw the Escalade double-parked on the street, the driver looking down at a newspaper.

  Mark stepped inside. ‘Did you hear about the murder last night?’ It was the first thing he said. Not hi or good to see you. ‘My driver just told me on the way over. Some homeless guy, downtown.’

  Tommy was able to retain eye contact, and in doing so he noticed that Mark’s eyes actually seemed to brighten as he mentioned the killing. ‘No, I didn’t hear about that. Is that unusual?’

  Mark picked a piece of lint off the lapel of his smoke-gray suit coat. ‘Every city has crime,’ Mark said. ‘But when someone gets their throat slashed, it makes the news. You were downtown last night, weren’t you? You see anything?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’ Except for the cops patrolling the street this morning.

  ‘Where’d you go?’

  Mark was probing, meaning he knew something. For all Tommy knew, Mark knew exactly what had transpired with Elizabeth during the evening.

  ‘I forget the name of the place,’ Tommy said.

  ‘Hate to say it, but last night’s murder is the kind of thing that only bolsters my campaign. My opponent is anti-death penalty. Probably the only opponent left in these parts.’

  ‘Him and Jesus,’ Tommy mumbled.

  Mark shot him a look but said nothing further on the subject. Instead, he put an arm around Tommy and started walking him toward the kitchen, a gesture that felt insincere and borderline uncomfortable.

  ‘And you, Mark? What did you do last night?’

  Mark seemed surprised by the question, as if only he retained the right to interrogate.

  ‘Campaign dinner. Fundraiser.’

  ‘In Charleston?’

  ‘Hilton Head. Why?’

  Because there’s something you’re not telling me. ‘Just curious.’

  ‘You met with her last night. Didn’t you, Tommy?’

  Tommy folded his arms against his chest. ‘I think you already know the answer to that.’

  ‘I know far more questions than answers, Tommy.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  Mark squinted at him, then took a step away and looked up at a painting on the wall above the living room fireplace. It was a portrait of an ugly man in a stiff gray uniform, his Ichabod Crane nose and weak chin somehow accentuated by the gleaming brass buttons on his jacket and impossibly long sword resting from his hip to the ground.

  ‘That’s Mara’s great-great-grandfather,’ Mark said. ‘Isaiah Blackstone. Colonel in the Confederate army. Died in a tiny skirmish known as the Battle of Grimball’s Landing in 1863.’ Mark now had his full attention on the painting, and Tommy followed suit. He was trying to recall if he had ever seen a less impressive figure in an officer’s Civil War uniform.

  ‘How did he die?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘Crushed by a horse.’

  ‘Who won the battle?’

  ‘Inconclusive. In the end, the whole battle really amounted to nothing. Yet here he is, larger than life, always looking down at anyone who enters this room.’

  ‘This bothers you?’

  Mark shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say it bothers me. I would say Mara’s family places a little too much stock in false idols. If anything, for me it always underscores the idea that some men are destined in life to make a difference in this world, and some are destined to be crushed by a horse.’ Now Mark turned and faced Tommy. ‘Every time I see it I get inspired to do more with my life. Not to be a victim. Not to be known for the things I didn’t do.’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t intend to die that way,’ Tommy said. ‘I’m sure he would rather have been a hero.’

  ‘Wanting and doing are different games,’ Mark said.

  Games. Just like Elizabeth had mentioned. Everything’s a game.

  ‘Is that what Elizabeth represents to you?’ Tommy asked. ‘Does she make you feel victimized?’

  Mark ignored the question. ‘Listen, Tommy. I’m going to be straight with you. I said I’d tell you what Elizabeth said when we sat down. Well, it wasn’t much. She said she was going to bring you out here, and then she was going to meet you. What does she want from you?’

  Tommy suspected Mark already knew the answer. ‘She wants me to write about her in a way she approves of. And if I don’t, she’ll tell everything.’

  Mark soaked in the information with a stony face, revealing nothing.

  ‘Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?’

  Tommy walked a few paces away from Mark and stared at the portrait of Isaiah Blackstone, who wore a sneer like a badge of honor. ‘Sometimes I think it would just be easier to tell the police everything. I’m tired of letting her have all the control.’

  He could hear Mark sucking his breath in. ‘That’s the worst possible thing you could do, Tommy. Please don’t be stupid. We’d both be destroyed.’

  Tommy turned. ‘But we’d finally be free, Mark. Free of this nightmare. And isn’t that what good Christians are supposed to do? Confess our sins?’

  ‘I’ve confessed all my sins before Christ. I don’t need to do it for the police.’

  ‘And what about Rade’s family? They just get to die never knowing what happened to their son?’

  ‘It’s not our fault, Tommy.’

  Tommy walked back to Mark, noting the man’s perfect posture and politician’s half-smile.

  ‘What else did she say to you, Mark? She just wanted you to bring me out here?’

  Mark remained silent on the matter for a few seconds. Then: ‘She wanted to make sure I understood my life would be over if you didn’t do as she said.’

  ‘Literally or figuratively?’

  ‘I assume the latter.’

  ‘So that’s it, then? She wants to scare you to put pressure on me?’

  ‘Yes, I assume that’s right.’

  ‘That doesn’t make a lot of sense. What kind of pressure can you add that I don’t already feel?’

  Mark locked his gaze in. ‘The pressure of friendship, Tommy. Knowing you would be hurting a friend as well as yourself if you didn’t do what she said.’

  ‘Is that what we are, Mark? Are we friends?’

  ‘I think we are.’

  Tommy studied him. It was time to jolt the man out of his pre-
fabricated shell. ‘Do you think about how she went down on you after the killing, Mark? Can you still feel her lips on your cock, even as Rade’s blood spilled from his head?’

  Mark’s entire body tensed and his eyes squeezed shut. ‘Shut up, Tommy.’

  ‘Why did you do it? How did you let her do that?’

  His eyes opened. ‘Tommy, you have no idea what you’re talking about. You denied her. I didn’t. You can’t possibly understand what that did to me.’

  Tommy studied his old friend, reading his body language. The stiffness was so posed, so practiced, that it effectively concealed any true thought or feeling.

  ‘What does she really want with you, Mark? Or, maybe the better question is, what do you really want with her?’

  Mark pulled his hand back. ‘Tommy, I want what you want. To move on with my life, and have her out of it.’

  Tommy took a chance. ‘I have to admit, Mark. As horrible as all this is, there’s something a little … exciting about it. Don’t you think?’ Tommy walked away from Mark as he spoke, circling the room, not wanting his face to be read. ‘Gets the heart pumping in a way I’m not used to. Here is this woman we only knew thirty years ago. A girl murderer. Now she’s back, and we’re left to try to understand her motives. We’re left to wonder what other horrible things she’s done in her life. And on top of it …’ Tommy took a deep breath and forced the words out. ‘She’s pretty goddamn sexy. For a monster, that is.’

  Tommy kept his back to Mark, but in the silence of the room he could hear Mark breathing. It was faster than before. Tommy turned and faced him. He saw true conflict in the man’s face, and Tommy knew he had sparked something in him with his words.

  ‘She still excites you, Mark. Doesn’t she?’

  Finally, Mark said, ‘She represents an element of my life I’d rather bury.’

  ‘You mean the past, Mark? You want to bury the past? Or does she represent a side of you that you don’t want revealed?’

  ‘Tommy, she needs to go away. For your sake. For mine.’

  ‘What did she really say to you, Mark?’