Hope.
A foolish emotion that was implanted in the genes of men. Michael still felt it as he rested against the trunk of a sycamore tree. His mind knew there was no paradise awaiting him, but somewhere a quiet whisper within him still cast his eyes forward, to keep going, to keep searching for the elusive place where he could find some comfort in a world that dreamed of his absence.
And in that quiet moment he felt something pulling at his soul, a mystic beacon through the trees.
There was something in the woods.
Michael wasn’t sure how far away it was, but it was there. He latched on to it and focused his mind, his thoughts, his wishes.
Out beyond the trees there was a place created by one like him. The pressure in his spine tensed, not out of fear, but akin to the anxiety of meeting an old friend and failing to recall their name.
He stood and brushed off the twigs and leaves that had stuck to his clothing. He would keep heading east, and with each step forward he felt the pull of this foreign place.
How long had this invisible pull been calling him? Had it compelled him unknowingly from the beginning of this ordeal, since the river, since Old Man Jackson’s? Had Will and Otis just been a distraction on his way to where he was supposed to be?
Michael walked, and as he walked, he became aware that he was not alone. That he was not an anomaly. That there was at least one more like him in the world, and that person was in these woods, and was calling to him like a lighthouse in the fog of a dead winter night.
He walked with purpose.
He walked . . . with hope.
forty-four
NO MATTER WHICH WAY THEY TURNED, Haywood and the boys couldn’t get within a half mile of the column of smoke. The dirt roads all skirted or wandered off from the direction they tried to go, and all they managed to do was drive in agonizing arcs in the dense forest. The mazes of the Minotaur would have a hard time competing with the two-tracks that meandered through the woods. The smoke signal would be before them, then on the right, then behind them. The SUV kept doubling back, and Haywood’s frustration was taken out on the dashboard more than once, Clinton giving him a dirty look each time the man punched the console.
After heading down the same two-track for what must have been the tenth time, Davis saw a small break in the brush and ordered them to halt the vehicle. He jumped out and ran into the woods.
Clinton and Haywood sat silently as they waited for him to return. It wasn’t long until he walked out from where he had entered and waved the truck back. Clinton reversed the short distance and put his window down.
“There’s a drive right here, past these logs. Looks fairly well used. Must have wanted to hide it or something,” Davis said, putting another cigarette in his mouth.
“Could be where the smoke is coming from,” Clinton said. He got out of the SUV and proceeded to move the debris from the hidden lane. Once it was cleared, the two got into the vehicle and Clinton drove them in.
The two-track wound back and forth deeper into the isolated area. The smell of burning material filled the car and overpowered the noxious fumes Davis was producing from the back seat, but the relief of finding the source of the pillar of smoke canceled out the grit that was scratching at their eyes and throats.
They pulled in next to an old trailer. Behind it, a smoldering heap of what looked to have been a garage sent ash and a gray haze into the air where it fell back to earth like a hellish snow. The place was deserted, and the men sat in the car contemplating their next move.
“So what you think?” Clinton asked.
“Don’t know,” Haywood said. “Doesn’t look like anyone is around.”
Clinton honked the horn several times, but no one emerged from the trailer.
“Hand me that gun,” Haywood said to Davis, who obliged. “I’m sick of waiting.”
Haywood stepped out and walked up to the trailer. He knocked on the door and it swung open of its own accord. “Hello?” he said.
Silence.
He looked around. The smell from inside was nauseating. The trash of humanity living in squalor beyond the purview of normal folk. The place was a mess. On several surfaces he saw the remnants of drug use, and every episode of COPS he had ever seen validated his suspicions. He stepped back outside and called to the truck.
“Nobody here. Let’s look around.”
Clinton and Davis got out, their rifles in hand, and the three of them approached the burned-down garage. They didn’t get more than five steps when they saw the charred remains of a person on the grass. The smoke obscured what was left of the building and the horrors it might hold inside.
“Is that what I think it is?” Davis asked.
Clinton didn’t respond as he approached the corpse and squatted down. The body was burned, the life scorched out of existence.
“A woman,” he said.
Haywood dared the smoke and heat and peered through the fog at the remains of the garage. Black soot mixed with white ash. An image of more bodies mixed with charred remnants of various materials.
“What you thinking?” Clinton asked.
“Drug lab maybe? I don’t know. You ever seen one up close?” Haywood asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Coincidence that this just happened, or you think it was Michael?” Clinton asked.
Haywood turned and walked past Clinton, tapped Davis on the shoulder, and headed back to the truck.
Davis stood still. Never much for words, he had none to give. The sight that lay before him left him numb.
Clinton rose. “Awful way to go,” he said, staring at the body on the ground. He turned to Davis. “Come on, let’s get going.”
“How much further? How much further we going with this?” Davis asked. “I’m not sure I want to end up like that.”
“We won’t.”
“You promise?” Davis asked.
Clinton didn’t answer. He walked to the truck, got in, and fired it up.
“That’s what I thought,” Davis whispered to himself, as the smoke floated up to the heavens.
forty-five
MICHAEL CAME UPON THE HOUSE from the western side of the property. The trees fell away in a perfect line and circled the house like a noose. Not a thing was growing in its radius. The place felt familiar but different. It was just as his piece of land down in Coldwater, only tended to by a more meticulous hand.
The house was hand built and not of randomly found material but planned, milled. Great care had been used in its construction. The owner must have been a craftsman. To its side and closer to where Michael sat in the woods was a barn with several animals roaming about. He could hear the sound of chickens and the braying of some small beast. There was an old trough and next to it a water pump. At the sight of the pump, Michael’s mouth began to water. He had gone through his supply too fast and now his thirst surged to the forefront of his mind. What would it matter if he just walked up and got a drink? Even if the owner came out yelling, he could be off into the tree line before he caused too much of a stir. This property was nothing like the meth addicts’ place that now lay in ashes. This was a home tended to by a constant and careful individual.
But what harm could Michael do? That was the thought that now tormented him. The blood stream from Will’s face haunted his thoughts. Even the seductive voice of the meth addict who walked into the furnace bothered him. He was responsible for all the deaths that lay strewn behind him the past couple of days. How many more would go on his record, would be added to his guilt list before this odyssey was over?
But thirst won out over apprehension.
Michael stood and walked toward the barn. The dry earth below him crunched under his feet and the smell of farm life filled his nose. He walked up to the water pump and worked the hand lever until there was a flow of liquid into the trough. It started out rusty but soon became clearer, at least enough to look like water. He stuck his hand in, it was cold and inviting.
“I wouldn’t drink that if I were you,” a voice from the barn said.
Michael looked up and saw a man leaning against the barn door, cleaning his hands with an old rag. The man was older but not ancient. He wore too much denim for anybody’s taste. He looked relaxed, and Michael assumed that he had been standing there watching him the whole time.
“That is, unless you want it coming from both ends for the next week.”
“What’s that?” Michael asked, his voice low and scratchy.
“That water, it’s bad news. Well is poisoned. It will flip your stomach inside out.”
Michael stopped pumping and looked at his hand, not knowing whether to trust the stranger or to give in to the coolness.
The man stopped the incessant wiping of his hands and started walking toward the house. “Follow me, I’ll get you something to drink from inside.”
Michael watched as the man went into the house and disappeared behind the screen door. He waited, not knowing what course of action to take next. He knew that the man’s fate would be sealed when he reappeared. A drink in hand, he’d live . . . a gun in hand and the whole house might collapse on top of him, the bad-luck shadow within Michael taking action to protect itself. Michael didn’t want to be too close when fate decided to cast its dice. Thankfully the man returned to the porch with a mason jar filled with what looked like tea. He placed it on the railing and then sat down in a chair and waited for Michael to approach.
Michael walked up the steps and grabbed the drink, chugging most of it down as if he would never get enough inside him. The man motioned to another chair on the porch and Michael had a seat.
“You been wandering out there for long?” the man asked.
“What?”
“The woods, been out there long?”
“Longer than planned.”
“You responsible for that explosion I heard earlier?”
Michael didn’t say anything but slowly took another sip of the tea. He felt the man’s eyes staring at him, but Michael didn’t give the satisfaction of eye contact and worked to change the conversation. The man’s confidence unnerved Michael. He questioned his easiness, his lack of reserve toward a stranger coming through the woods and, apparently, from the direction of a fireball that would have been heard for miles.
Michael looked down from the porch at the dead grass encircling the house, the tree line that seemed to noticeably recede inch by inch before him. “Nice place you have here.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m Michael.”
“Nick,” the man said. He kept rocking casually but didn’t extend his hand.
Michael finished the last of the tea.
“Property has been in the family for a long time. Grandfather built the house and barn.”
“Well, he did a nice job.”
“He let me come here after I got out. When he died, he passed it on to me.”
“Got out?”
“Prison.”
Michael’s interest grew all at once, and he noticed the man for the first time, as if he had gone from a blurry black-and-white figure to a being illuminated in Technicolor. Nick was big, not heavy, just thick all over. Neck, shoulders. He sat like a rock in his seat and kept his eyes on Michael.
“How long?” Michael asked.
“How long have I been here, or how long was I locked up?”
“Both, I guess.”
“Almost twenty.”
“Long time.”
“Yes it is.”
The sound of the rocking chair on porch boards filled the air. Michael put down the empty glass. Nick did not offer to refill it.
“So, where you headed?”
Michael raised his hand slightly to the east. “That way.”
“A lot out there.”
“It’s something.”
“You running away or running to something?”
Nick’s matter-of-fact questioning was an irritant under Michael’s skin. The man was too free with his history, and too free with his questions. Michael didn’t need to ask what Nick had done to be locked up, he already knew when he set foot on the property. The dead earth, the pressure he could feel in the base of his skull. It was as if he had stepped into his own presence but was observing it as an out-of-body experience. He could tell in the man’s eyes what he was, for he saw those same eyes whenever he looked in the mirror. Michael wondered if Nick could sense the same about him.
The sun began to dip below the tree line.
“It’s getting dark,” Nick said. “You need me to call to have someone pick you up?”
“No, there’s no one.”
“I figured as much. Well, you can sleep in the barn for the night if you like.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“You say that now. In the morning you’ll be cursing me and smelling like chickens.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”
“No . . . no they can’t.”
Nick got up and showed Michael to the spot in the barn where he could sleep. It wasn’t much, but it was out of the elements. There were some blankets and a small space heater. The man then walked to the house and left Michael to his own thoughts.
It gave him a strange feeling, this place. It felt so familiar yet eerily unwelcoming at the same time, like looking into a smoked-glass mirror and recognizing the blurred reflection of his own home. He was thankful to Nick for giving him a place to stay, for the drink. When generosity is shown to those who never receive it, they will rarely forsake gratitude. However, if prison taught him anything, it was that generosity was never freely given. There was always a motive. What could Nick’s be?
forty-six
THE BARN WAS A DARK MENAGERIE—within its walls, nature had been deconstructed and reassembled by a half-mad creator. Above the door hung a web the size of a blanket, spun in chaotic designs by a drunk spider, forgoing its evolutionary bent toward order and spinning a fractal trap in which to catch its dinner. Michael saw a chicken move against the far wall, masked in increasing shadow. Its feathers hung in molt clumps, falling off its body like a leper bird’s. The air reeked of decay and the things living there had grown like children raised near a nuclear reactor.
The isolation of the woods now seemed a better option to Michael, but he sat on the old mattress in the corner and tried to not think of the creatures that may reside within its springs.
This place, this whole place, was like a grand palace built for a man like himself. This was his existence writ large. Nick was very much of his own ilk, and as Michael sat here in the dark, he realized for the first time how the world experienced him . . . how it saw him, how it felt his presence. He had observed how the world hated him, how he had sickened it, but here in the barn he could actually feel how he pressed upon its senses. This farm was his own damnation aged and mature, poured in an old cask and fermented to a heightened state.
Nick was what he would become in time, the inevitable outcome of a life lived outside the realm of human fellowship.
Michael took off his shoes and examined his feet. His socks were stiff with sweat and grime, and blisters had sprouted up in abundance up and down his soles. The ground was cool to the touch and he let the air bathe his sores. He removed his garments and lay on the bed.
The chicken clucked in the darkness and scratched the dry earth.
From the bed Michael could see the farmhouse through a crack in the slat wall. The light in the upper window shone through drapes, and behind them a faint shadow moved back and forth. Rocking. It seemed rocking was Nick’s sole purpose, like a caged animal at a zoo that goes mad with captivity and paces back and forth at the front of its enclosure.
Michael’s eyes grew heavy as he watched the oscillating shadow in the window, slowly being hypnotized into oblivion. The chicken found an opening in the wall and disappeared into the night. The spider in the corner settled down to await what the night would bring her for dinner, and Michael drifted off to dreamless sleep.
Nick sat in the chair rocking, his motion a metronome in the dark. He stared across the bedroom and watched the dust float through the single beam of light that came from the lamp in the corner and rested on the baseboard across from him. He felt the message grow heavy in his mind.
The ticking cadence of his chair lulled him to a state between awake and asleep, his feet grinding the floor before him.
He could feel the presence in the barn, the specter that arrived in the human vessel.
He was of two minds.
Nick was filled with the anticipation of what was coming. For far too long he had sat here, isolated from the world with no recourse. Through the woods had come something that could free him from this prison. His rocking quickened with his heartbeat as he thought about it. All these long years living as an outcast of society with no means or method to ever regain acceptance had driven him to the point of madness.
Was he mad?
For too many days he had questioned this. But how could he know? The world is rational even to a madman. It was rational and reasoned and true. But crazy or not, he felt the desperation weighing on him as the years passed until the thought of being done with the seclusion became the sole point of motivation. The one thing his mind, mad as it might be, focused on. He would find himself lying in bed for days at a time, thinking through the puzzle of his own containment, for a way out. Alas, he would never discover one.
Failed attempts at escape scarred his body. From the burns on his neck, the cuts on his wrists, the broken and set bones of countless falls, they were all a testament and reminder that he was here and would be here until nature had run its long, winding course, for even nature would win out eventually.
From the back of his mind, he could feel the scrutiny of his shadowy companion. Sitting there, in the dark, chained to the part of his soul that his mind’s eye could never focus on. He could feel the pressure of its grip. It was aware of his anticipation and excitement and threatened to squeeze every last drop of hope from him before it could plant its seed in his heart.
Coldwater Page 13