[2014] Wildwood Shadows

by Scott McElhaney

  Niyeewi

  Whenever my dad wasn’t at work healing the sick and the maimed, he spent his time either hunting, fishing, or fiddling with his radio equipment in the spare bedroom. He had staked his claim on that room for his radios when we first moved here nearly ten years ago. What he did in that room was always a mystery to me, but just like everything else my father was interested in, it didn’t really interest me. He and I were complete opposites and I didn’t consider that a bad thing given my current feelings for the man.

  His radios and equipment still remained in the house along with everything else that my father loved. About a week after he disappeared, I discovered my mother sitting quietly at his desk in that room. Before her sat one of the larger Ham radios that never seemed to be turned off. I approached her quietly and noticed that she was crying, all the while staring at the radio. I started to walk out when she stopped me.

  “He wouldn’t leave this garbage alone,” she said, “One time I was bold enough to tell him that I was going to throw this all away. His reaction… he looked like he was going to hit me.”

  I walked over to the other desk where he kept a laptop wired to another radio. I pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down facing my mother.

  “He never hit me. Never,” she repeated, “But I knew this junk would finally be the end of us one day. And now, I should just turn it all off.”

  “How could a bunch of radios and computers be responsible for him leaving us?” I asked, confused by this revelation, “Was he… did Dad find someone else like on the internet?”

  She chuckled as she shook her head. Then she turned to me and said something I’ll never forget.

  “These aren’t radios, Charlie,” she said, wiping her eyes, “It’s a… it’s a special machine that your grandfather built. And your dad spent his whole life looking for his father who disappeared suddenly using this same equipment. He believed he could somehow locate him searching through some invisible fields or wavelengths or whatever-the-heck-it-was.”

  Although I was old enough at the time to comprehend my mother’s words, I somehow didn’t. I don’t think I even realized she had said “These aren’t radios” until this very day. And that’s why after eating the sandwich Mom had left for me in the dying fridge, I chose to come down here and have a look around.

  The room was completely silent, offering me no signs of electrical life whatsoever. The lights that usually illuminated the dials of what I’d called radios were now shut off forever. I placed the shotgun down on the crate just inside the door, then took a seat at the same desk I found my mom crying at two years prior. Although the room was somewhat dim, I could still read the markings on the internal wheels. Even up close, this still looked like a typical shortwave radio or a Ham radio. The internal wheels could be manually moved slowly past the red line on the plastic window by spinning the dials rapidly on either side of the unit. I tested this myself by spinning the dial to the right. Although I gave it three full spins, the internal wheel moved maybe two millimeters.

  Even though it was probably midday on this world, it was dark in the house. I got up from the chair and opened the curtains all the way, inviting in as much sunlight as I could. I then returned to the chair and peered into the “radio” window. I could now see that this was actually an adulterated version of a true Ham radio. Someone had taken it apart and covered the wheel inside with a sheet of yellowing graph paper. That paper had handwritten markings on it, replacing the lines that measured megahertz, gigahertz, or those other weird frequencies with different measurements only known by the one who changed it.

  Perhaps this really wasn’t a radio anymore. I glanced over at another tall radio that sat on the very edge of the desk. A hole had been drilled through the area that once contained a speaker to make way for the three blue wires that spewed forth. This particular radio was different in the regards that the act of spinning the dial moved the red pointer inside, rather than moving the background across a stationary pointer. This too had a handmade replacement graphing bar inside. Some of the markings were done with pencil and others with ballpoint pen. Whatever these radios were made to measure or search through, the markings were meaningless to me. I now wondered if these radios, or non-radios, were somehow related to the tall antenna that rose up from the chimney. I also wondered if these could run on battery power, being that most old radios did have room for several C or D-cell batteries.

  I rose from the chair and attempted to turn on the laptop he had wired to a large machine that could have been another radio. The laptop was fully dead. I mentally kicked myself for waiting so long to check out Dad’s secret room. And if this room had anything to do with my current circumstances, I had waited until it was too late. Had Dad created a wormhole in the spare bedroom? Was this a time machine? Did he rip open a doorway to Endor?

  I shouted an unfinished expletive to the empty room, angry not only at my father, but at my mother for allowing such a thing to happen. She knew that this contraption had made my grandfather disappear, then it had made my father disappear, and now apparently I disappeared from the world I used to live in. Except I was the only one who took the radios with me, saving my mother from experiencing the same exile as the rest of us.

  I kicked the chair on my way out of the room, then returned to snatch the shotgun off the crate. I felt that I now had every right to be mad at my father because both he and my grandfather were intentionally messing with unknown forces. I however was playing Mario Kart on the living room floor during a thunderstorm.

  I ran upstairs again and looked around the living room. The wrapper of my sandwich lay on the couch, reminding me of the many phone calls from my mom. I’d only been missing from that world now for a little over an hour. She wouldn’t be due back from work for yet another hour. What would she find when she got home?

  Half a garage?

  A crater?

  The portion of forest that this house traded places with?

  Whatever she discovered, I hope she realized that I had been an innocent party in this one. I hope she developed a deeper anger for the man who was responsible. I know that if I ever saw him again, I might have to shoot him… but not kill him. Maybe I’d shoot him in the leg. His abandonment might not have been intentional, but he didn’t need to ruin my life in the process. I had a pretty good thing going back home. I had a job interview lined up for tomorrow at the convenience store down the street. I planned to go to college someday. I might have gotten married, had kids, vacationed in the Caribbean, and retired with a nice pension.

  I opened and closed the refrigerator quickly, retrieving a bottle of Gatorade before all the cold air escaped. I returned to the couch and took a long swig of the grape beverage. I leaned back and stared at the wall. I had a lot to think about, not the least of which would be finding a way to return to my world. I wasn’t one to give up easily.

  Niyaalanwi

  I awoke suddenly to the sound of knocking. I don’t know at what point I fell asleep, but judging from the painful kink in my neck and the remnants of an Ewok dream swirling through my head, I had to believe that I’d been asleep for quite a while. After a moment to take in my surroundings, I also noted that it was getting dark both outside and inside my house. I must have slept for several hours.

  I sat up, feeling for the shotgun which still rested next to me. I now realized for the first time that I would be in need of some form of lighting. Otherwise, I’d be doomed to complete darkness for a large portion of every day. And since my sleep patterns were off now that I showed up in a daytime world while my real world had been fast approaching nightfall, I would probably not want to sleep my whole nights away.

  Someone knocked on the glass again. I leapt from the couch, fumbling for the shotgun. The sound came from the sliding glass door in the dining room – merely four meters away from me. If the person had a gun and if their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, they certainly had a clear shot of me right now which meant I was done for.


  I dodged quickly to the wall that served as a partition between the small kitchen and the dining room. Whoever was at the back door either didn’t see me or they didn’t have a gun with them. That didn’t make them any less dangerous. A knife or a club would be just as deadly, and coming up against a guy who had no experience with his firearm, they could still probably win in a skirmish.

  I heard a clunking sound on the back deck, followed by another knock on the glass. I quickly grabbed the rechargeable flashlight from the wall mount near the microwave and switched it on. I was almost overjoyed at the fact that it had a full charge, evidenced by the bright beam of light shining onto the cabinet door. I rounded the corner, knowing now that I had no choice but to face my enemy. I raised the shotgun in my right hand, aiming it toward the glass door as I held the flashlight in the other.

  The hero that I was, I literally screamed at the sight of the brown hairy alien staring back at me. I dropped the flashlight and cocked the shotgun, realizing suddenly that I should have made sure there was a round in the chamber before I even confronted the monster. Although the flashlight was no longer in my control, the beam still lit up my adversary. I was just about to pull the trigger when it turned its head and revealed true profile of my enemy. Two branches of its amazing rack of antlers knocked against the window and then scraped the glass as it turned to look somewhere along the side of the house. My enemy was a giant buck that had somehow navigated its way up the stairs and onto the back deck.

  While I might have found humor in the situation, I worried about how the beast would find his way back down the stairs. I certainly wasn’t about to go out there and assist him. I also worried about what may have happened had I fired at it. Sure, I would have killed the animal, but I would have permanently lost my back door in the process. There would be no replacement windows in this world. Assuming I could somehow manage to survive in this world until winter, gaping holes in my house could pose a serious problem. It was bad enough that my garage was now open to the wild.

  I knelt down and retrieved the flashlight. I wondered if there was a way to scare it down the stairs. But anything I did to cause fear could also provoke a retaliation. Given its size, I was pretty certain it could break the glass as easily as a shotgun blast. I was going to have to wait this one out.

  I returned to the kitchen and pondered my nighttime lighting situation. The rechargeable flashlight would probably last me only an hour or so. I’d like to conserve that as long as possible. After that was depleted, I would find myself at the mercy of the moon or bonfires ignited by a disposable lighter or mom’s candle Zippo. My eyes were suddenly drawn to the “Sun & Sand” candle on the kitchen windowsill. It wasn’t just the idea of an alternative source of lighting that caught my attention, but rather the concept that “Sun & Sand” was a Yankee Candle aroma. A guy shouldn’t know this sort of stuff, but when your mother works for Yankee, you can’t really avoid it. Those candles were everywhere and by everywhere, I mean they existed in probably every room of the house.

  Mom’s stash of discontinued aromas was kept in her bedroom closet. She not only got the clearance prices on these, but her employee discount made them impossible to pass up – or so she claimed every time she came home with a case of giant jars. I took one of the lighters from the back of the stove and immediately rushed to her room. As expected, I found three cases of the largest jars Yankee had to offer. While I might have to suffer through some horrible floral or fruity scents, I’d at least get the benefit of some lighting.

  I grabbed one of the cardboard boxes containing a dozen jars and brought it back to the living room. I don’t know why, but for some reason I considered the living room to be my domain now. I’d sleep there, eat there, and shoot the buck from there if necessary. Perhaps the buck was the reason why I chose the living room. From the couch, I could see most of the front door and every bit of the back door where the beast still remained. I also had a good view of the hallway, part of the kitchen, and the stairs leading down to the bottom half of the house.

  I pushed the magazines aside on the coffee table and set out two of the candles. I removed the glass lids and lit both of them without even checking the scents. All I knew was that one candle was blue and the other was green. It was good enough for me.

  I hadn’t checked the location of the sun, but I was fairly certain that it had now sunk beneath the horizon. Mrs. Buck was probably wondering where her husband was, but the beast was too stupid to figure out a way to get off the deck. I was seriously contemplating shooting him just to end the worries on both of our parts. A month from now, I’d probably do it just for the meat. But right now, I doubt I’d find it in me to skin the animal, bleed it, and then butcher it for steaks. Starvation could one day change my attitude though.

  The two candles were performing miserably in their attempt to dispel the darkness. It was better than nothing though and I could already smell the scent of old lady perfumes filling the room. I sat down on the couch and watched the flames dance in the jars as I pondered my next course of action.

  The deer, the buck, and the birds were all insisting to me that I was not on some other planet populated by Ewoks. The smell of the forest outside reminded me of the smells deep inside the metro park woods. To me, this meant that I was on Earth, but in a location far from other people and their vehicle emissions or other pollutants. I doubted the existence of any such places in the US anymore.

  The buck was still clunking around on the back deck, but at least his antlers weren’t knocking on the window anymore. I picked up one of the magazines, saw a Kardashian on the cover, and then tossed it aside. The magazine beneath it was a Scientific American wrapped in a paper cover that blasted its warnings to my dad that his subscription was about to run out. I leafed it open to the cover which showed an exploding alarm clock. The caption asked the question “Is time travel possible?”

  Time travel?

  I turned to the back door and watched as the shadowy figure disappeared down the stairs. Perhaps he wasn’t really stuck after all. I returned my attention to the magazine cover and stared at the exploding clock. Beneath the giant question on the cover were teasers offering evidence of time travel on a subatomic scale. I wasn’t much in a reading mood, so the teaser didn’t cause me to open it to page 58 as it suggested. It did however make me rethink my current circumstances.

  Dad and Grandpa disappeared forever. If they had simply run away, they would have taken a car or emptied the bank account. There would have been evidence of their continued existence on this planet. Instead, Dad’s iPhone hadn’t been used a single time since that day and it was nowhere in the house. Mom even had the police do a GPS trace on the phone and it truly couldn’t be found. Granted, he could have shut it off and smashed it to bits, but what about Grandpa’s disappearance in the same fashion? What about mine?

  If I was in the past but in the same location, then I had to be pretty far back in history. Munroe Falls… actually all of Ohio had people living in it back into the 1700s. The city was established sometime in the early 1800’s. The place I now occupied – right now in this moment – appeared to be untouched by European settlers. Munroe Falls was nonexistent.

  I stood up and looked out the living room window. If the moon was out, it offered none of its light to the front yard. I turned back to the living room and paced before the flickering candlelight.

  I could verify my location by going out the front door and following the woods to the right of my house. The Cuyahoga River should have been less than a half mile in that direction. I often rode my bike there, which in my day took me down my road four blocks before encountering the jog in the road that took me to the long hill that led right down to the little rocky falls for which Munroe Falls was named.

  As much as I feared the bears, aliens, or the Indians out there, I simply had to find out for sure where I was. At least this would give me something concrete to build upon. For now, I knew nothing whatsoever. I couldn’t formulate a plan for my future wit
hout knowing if I even had a future. And if I was stuck in the past, I wondered suddenly how I would even survive this era. My house no longer had heat or air conditioning. Winters in Ohio were harsh and the fireplace in the living room was more ornamental than anything else. It was too small to provide much heat at all even when we had the fire roaring in it.

  My stomach was knotting as I imagined my future. I really wondered suddenly if I could survive long enough to find a way back. I wasn’t educated in any way to survive like the cavemen once had.

  And then I wondered, did I even want to survive?

  Nakotwaathwi

  I spent the majority of the night either worrying about everything or catnapping. By the time daylight spread its colors across the sky again, I had probably napped half a dozen times and freed myself of any jetlag. I was officially on the timetable of this world now.

  I blew out the two candles that had burned all night. In spite of my wasteful action, the candles only burned through about an inch of their wax. It probably helped a little that I placed those fancy metal rings at the top of the jars. Those decorative rings were said to help the candle burn all its wax evenly instead of sinking a pit down into the middle of the wax. Again, a guy shouldn’t know these kinds of things, but my mom was a scented candle expert and I couldn’t avoid knowing what she knew.

  I rose from the sofa and took to the back deck where I relieved myself over the side. As I launched a nice arc of pee into my backyard, I couldn’t help but notice how noisy the birds were in the treetops. I had believed the birds were noisy in the summer mornings before, but that was nothing compared to nature’s symphony in this world. When I finished my business, I returned to the house and locked the door behind me.