The Woods: The Complete Novel (The Woods Series)
Page 22
“Great, now you're both hallucinating.”
Owen squinted his eyes, seeing a break in the trees ahead of them. “Oh yeah? What about that? Does that look like a hallucination, wise guy?”
When Jack saw the clearing, he smiled and nodded. “That isn't, at least.”
Once they reached the break in the trees, they found themselves in a large open circle with a huge one-hundred-foot metal tower standing in the middle.
“Oh I know what this is!” Jack said excitedly. “It's a cell phone tower!” He quickly pulled out his phone but there was still no signal. "Damn, nothing.”
"How the hell do you have a huge cell phone tower in the middle of the woods like this and not have any cell reception?" Owen asked.
"Maybe it's not a cell tower?" James suggested.
"No, it definitely is," Jack's eyes squinted as he traced the height of the structure, "my dad works on stuff like this. I've seen a whole bunch of these before. It looks really old."
"Okay, we're getting close to civilization at least," James said looking around, "but there's still trees all around it."
"Maybe if we keep heading north we will be out of the woods and just have to break through some trees before hitting the countryside again," he opened up the compass app to check the direction again but the compass needle just spun wildly around the compass. "What the hell?"
"What?" James asked. Jack held up the phone so he could see.
Owen grabbed the phone from Jack and held it up in the air then down on the ground. "What would cause that?"
Jack shrugged and took the phone back. "Strong magnetic disturbance maybe? I don't know, maybe that's why this cell tower doesn't work and there's no signal anywhere out here."
"Well, we still need to make sure we're heading north, what if we've headed off course?" James asked. "When's the last time you checked our direction?"
Jack frowned. "About an hour ago."
"What?” James looked upset.
"I didn't know the compass was going to fuck up!"
"Okay," Owen interrupted, "we just have to do it the old-fashioned way. What about that thing? We can climb a little and look. Is it electrified?"
Jack shrugged, "I don't know. It obviously doesn't work anymore, but that doesn't mean there isn't power going to it somewhere."
"Your idea," James said to Owen, "you climb. I'm afraid of heights."
Owen sighed and then walked over toward the cell tower. He looked back at James and Jack who watched him nervously. He grabbed a stick and tossed it at the tower, watching it bounce off without any reaction. He looked back at his friends again and shrugged. He put one hand on the small ladder that ran up the side of the tower and took a deep breath. "What the fuck am I doing?" he asked himself. He was afraid of heights, too.
He slowly started climbing the ladder one small step at a time. As he climbed ten feet, then twenty feet up, his arms and legs began to tremble. It was the craziest thing he had ever done.
"Can you see anything yet?" Jack yelled.
Owen was too afraid to look around. He stared at the ladder and wrapped his arms around it, hugging it tightly as the wind blew so hard his hat almost came off. "I don't know," he yelled, "hang on!" He gradually built up the courage to look around but the trees were too tall to see over. "Fuck," he said, "I have to go higher."
He started climbing again, each step feeling heavier and harder than the last. The wind was blowing constantly as he climbed up to forty feet up, bringing with it the smell of smoke once again. He peeked and could barely see the tops of the trees, but he couldn't see over them. His hands were sweating and making the steel rungs slippery. As he wiped one of his hands off on his shirt he accidentally looked down and then closed his eyes before yelling, "Oh my fucking God!"
On the ground, Jack and James watched on helplessly. "How high does he have to go?” James asked Jack.
"I don't know, the tower could be like a hundred feet, and my dad once said that some trees can grow up to eighty feet and are a bitch to work around."
"Jesus Christ," James said, "maybe this was a bad idea."
The butterflies had left Owen’s stomach and we're now fluttering in his chest like they were dying to get out. His limbs were nearly numb as all the blood fled them. His body went into the fight or flight response. At seventy feet up, he opened his eyes and was able to clearly see over the trees and nearly the top of the tower. He took a quick look and gasped, then carefully started climbing back down. His stomach squeezed vomit up his esophagus as he struggled to step down to the next ladder rung below him. Every time the wind blew hard he squeezed the ladder and screamed. He slowly descended to the thirty-foot mark successfully when his foot slipped. His arm stuck through the ladder as he caught himself and screamed. James and Jack screamed from the ground as they watched helplessly. Owen wrapped his arms and legs around the ladder and cried into the open air, taking a minute to recover before continuing.
“C’mon, you can do it. Don't be a baby,” he told himself as he descended. As he got closer to the ground he moved faster, and once he was within ten feet he jumped down and ran back over to his friends.
"You're a fucking hero," James said.
Owen went to speak but put up a hand and then turned and threw up all over the ground. His friends gave him a minute to collect himself as he spit out the rest of the bile in his mouth and wiped the dripping snot from his nose. He took a few deep breaths then returned to his friends.
"You didn't see me puke," he said pointing at them.
They nodded.
"What did you see?" James asked.
“Trees everywhere. I didn't see any houses or anything the way we were going. But there was smoke—a lot of smoke coming from that way,” Owen said pointing.
“That's west, I think,” Jack noted. “What kind of smoke?”
Owen shriveled his nose. “What? I don't know, smoke! Like from a fire smoke. Looks like a big fire.”
“We need to keep going then,” James asserted, “if you're right and that is fire then we’re in trouble.”
“Which way are we going to go?” Owen asked again, “There are no houses that way like you said!”
Suddenly there heard noises in the woods behind them. They turned and heard pounding and rustling coming from somewhere deep in the trees. Further back they could see trees moving as the rustling got louder. A large group of deer appeared and ran from the woods toward them. The boys screamed as the deer darted around them and ran past the cell tower and into the trees on the other side.
"I've never seen so many deer in my life," Jack yelled to James, "there had to be at least twenty of them!"
"They were running away from something,” Owen said.
Jack had a sudden realization. “Either fire or monster,” he said.
A single snapping sound from beyond the trees was enough to spook them.
"Hurry, run!" James yelled.
Without looking back, they ran as fast as they could around the cell tower and back into the trees on the other side in the same direction the deer had gone. Jumping over logs and dodging around trees, Jack was lagging a little behind. He could hear the pattering of something running on the ground behind him. He screamed as he ran over another fallen tree and down a small hill. Vines and roots running across the bottom tripped him up and he fell. He immediately crouched into the fetal position and screamed as several more deer jumped over top of him. James turned around and ran back to him. After helping him to his feet they ran further, trailing behind the deer until the trees broke again. Coming out of the trees they stopped just in time not to slip down the eroded bank into the rushing water of the large creek.
“Holy fuck,” Owen yelled, watching the deer run down the back with the current.
“Where do we go now?” James asked frantically.
“I…I don't know,” Jack stammered, “let me check the compass.” He adjusted his footing to make it easier to put his hand in his pocket, but doing so adjusted his weight in
a way that compromised the mud beneath his feet. Jack let out a terrified yelp as the bank gave way under him and he slid helplessly into the creek.
“Jack!” Owen and James screamed in unison.
Owen looked at James in a cold-sweat-panic. “What're we going to do?!?”
They watched as the muddy brown creek water swelled over Jack, throwing him downstream.
“There’s no time to think!” James screamed. He took off his backpack and hugged it as he jumped into the creek after him.
Owen couldn't believe what he was seeing. He ran down the bank alongside the creek as fast as he could while Jack and James were swept away by the current. “Hang on,” Owen screamed. He knew that Jack couldn't swim, but neither could he. As he ran his heart slammed against the back of his throat and his eyes burned with tears.
James, although never taught properly, could swim. He used his backpack to help keep himself on the surface as he pumped his arms and legs furiously. He watched between swells as Jack bobbed helplessly with the rushing water, his arms flailing and his tiny voice squealing between mouthfuls of water. “Hang on, Jack!” he screamed as the current dipped and pushed muddy water into his mouth.
As Jack spun and flailed frantically, he saw a log floating several feet away from him. Not a believer in fate or faith, he surrendered to the water as it threw him around, and as he bobbed up with the swells he held his breath before the next punch of brown liquid crashed over his head. He dipped into the dark and then back to the surface with his arms stretched out instinctually. As he bobbed up like an empty bottle, his hands contacted the log and he felt the slippery bark on its surface. The log was large enough to stay afloat under his weight and as he was able to catch his breath for the first time since he fell in. He saw that James was coming downstream fifty feet behind him and Owen was scampering clumsily alongside them on the bank.
James didn't have the privilege of a log to keep him afloat, and after several minutes of pumping his arms and legs he was becoming too tired to continue. He had to stop every few seconds and let himself swirl with the water just long enough to let the burn from the lactic acid in his muscles settle to a sizzle. As he returned to the air from under the water the muffled sound of Owen’s voice became clearer.
“Jack, grab one of those and hang on!”
James looked downstream toward Jack and a large tree that had fallen across the creek which they were approaching. Owen yelled to James but he couldn't hear it as his head was forced back under by another large swell of water pushing off some large boulders on the creek bed.
Jack rode the log as he got closer to the fallen tree that stretched the span of the creek. The massive trunk laid across the creek from bank to bank with its branches reaching into the water in defeat. He pushed his feet in front of him and leaned back, kicking as hard as he could to try and slow himself down against the current. Owen struggled to keep up and reach the fallen tree as Jack flowed right into it, letting go of the log and wrapping his arms around a small branch. The branch snapped under the force, flipping him around and making him scream. The water drowned his voice into a gargled groan as the top loop on his backpack got caught on another smaller jutting piece of wood where a branch had broken from the tree’s fall.
“Jack!” Owen screamed as he reached the foot of the tree with its roots bent and twisted into the air. “Jack!” he called again as he carefully climbed the trunk and began pulling himself across it.
“I'm okay,” Jack screamed from against the tree. The cold water rushed under the tree and across his neck. Only his head was above the water thanks to the tight straps on the backpack. “Where’s James?”
Owen looked up and saw James approaching the tree much faster than Jack was. “James! Reach for the branches!” he yelled.
James heard him and garbled out, “Okay!” He dug deep and pushed his arms and legs harder to keep him as high in the water as he could be as he came up to the tree. He timed it the best he could, stretching his arms to his side to grab one of the branches that hung down into the water. The branch was slippery but his grip was firm and as the branch recoiled from his weight it pulled him up out of the water and back against the current. Time slowed for James as he flew up away from the water and saw the surprised expression on Owens face in slow motion. Everything seemed so under control and he felt so cool and heroic. His mind flashed the idea of how he would act once they were all safely back on the trunk of the tree. He would play the whole thing off as no big deal, cementing his place as the group’s leader and resident bad-ass for the rest of time. But the gravity of reality would literally bring him crashing down instead. As the branch worked through the kinetic energy and James returned toward the water’s surface, the force was too great and the branch snapped. James flew into the water just as fast as he flew out and spun underneath the current, thrashing through the water in sheer panic. Without knowing the branch was going to break, he hadn't taken in a breath and so he struggled to get back to the surface as his lungs burned without any oxygen. Given the swiftness of the current, he thought he had cleared the tree but he was wrong. He swam back to fresh air as fast as he could but he was still under the tree. As he came up and broke the water’s surface, the back of his head slammed against the tree trunk so hard it knocked him out cold.
Owen watched helplessly as James’s limp body washed out from under the tree and continued with the current.
“James!” he screamed, but it was too late. The current was swift and had already swept him away, stolen and lost to the swells of the flooded creek. Owen struggled to help Jack up onto the trunk with him, soaked and in tears. They stared down the creek silently, but it was just too late—James was gone.
31
Owen ran across the trunk back to the bank and down the edge of the creek without making a sound. Jack trailed behind slightly, keeping his eyes open as Owen did for any sign of James. The creek continued to curve but showed no signs of slowing down. Owen finally stopped, out of breath and bent over with his hands on his knees.
“Owen,” Jack said softly, “we need to go.”
Owen just looked at him with watery eyes. There was nothing more he could say. The sight of watching his friend crash into that tree and then float lifelessly away with the water had stolen every word from him.
Jack placed his hand on Owen’s shoulder and forced him to look at him as he spoke. “All is not lost. If we can get help quickly then James has a fighting chance. We can't give up hope.”
Owen just looked at him, the ability to think and feel lost somewhere behind ghostly eyes.
Jack nodded slightly. “It's going to be okay.”
Owen may have been lost for the time being, but the direness of the situation had only sharpened Jack.
“You said that you saw nothing but trees to the north, and smoke to the west?” He looked back at Owen who just stared at nothing. Jack’s eyes rolled upwards as he recalled what Owen said to him just minutes before they fell into the creek. “If you saw nothing but trees in every direction except the smoke, then we must've been going the wrong way the whole time.”
This realization seemed to bring Owen back to the world. “What do you mean we've been going the wrong way? James said his dad’s house was north.”
The more Jack thought about it the more he realized that James had been wrong. “If we have been going south this whole time, then James was right about his dad’s house being north. He was also right about it being south of Bugby but there’s something more important that he didn't take into consideration.” Jack drew a small map of in the dirt with his finger. “We didn't pay too much attention on the way to his dad’s house the first time, and why would we? We didn't know we would ever get lost. But did you notice something interesting about his dad’s house?”
Owen thought for a second but then just shook his head.
“He has no neighbors. There's a couple house along the road but there’s none around him.”
“So?” Owen asked.
Owen looked confused because he wasn’t putting together what Jack was saying.
“Okay, you don't get it. Look. The front of his dad’s house doesn't face north or south as it would if it were on either side of the road, but being on the end of the road in faces west instead. That means the woods behind the house would be east, and the further we went into the woods the more east we went.”
“Then why the hell were we going north?!?” Owen yelled. “You should've figured this a long time ago! Then maybe James—
“I'm sorry,” Jack interrupted him. “I don't think James was completely wrong. I think we were south, at least a little. I remember the sun being on my right side as we walked along the creek before the storm.” He took a deep breath and pulled out his phone. He looked up at Owen but they both knew it probably wouldn't turn on. Jack had been in the water way too long with it in his pocket. That wouldn't stop him from trying, though. He pressed the power button but the screen stayed black. He tried smacking the bottom against his palm the way he had seen older kids around the city smack packs of cigarettes. Every time it hit his palm more and more water fell out of the speakers and charging port at the bottom.
“C’mon…” Owen whispered in desperation.
It didn't help. Jack pushed the power button again but the phone refused to respond. He just sighed quickly in frustration then put it back in his pocket. “Let's get walking. Maybe it'll work as it dries out.”
Owen slumped against a tree in defeat. “Which way do we go? We've walked all over for hours and haven't even seen anything but these God damn trees. And with the phone broken, how are we going to know which way is which?”
The answer came to Jack without words. His intuition was finely tuned and in high gear yet he didn't know why. “We’ll head into the smoke.”