Darkest Part of the Woods

by Ramsey Campbell

  Sam found that no more unappealing than the prospect of the talk itself. "Will you drive us over?" the doctor suggested.

  Sam walked to the Civic and opened the door for him. The doctor was silent as Sam maneuvered the car across to the Arbour. Perhaps he was waiting for Sam to volunteer his problem or give some inadvertent sign of it, a thought that made Sam feel scrutinised, and not only by his passenger. As the car swung through the gates he saw the woods spring into the mirror while feigning stillness.

  The reception desk and the pair of staircases that rose like outsize horns behind it were deserted. So was the stubby corridor that led to the doctor's office past framed landscapes that struck Sam less as abstract than on the point of transformation into some unimaginably fluid state. Dr Lowe hung on the back of the fat black chair behind his desk the tweed jacket he'd retrieved from the road, and moved to the window. "We'll have this open, shall we?"

  Since Sam couldn't tell how loaded the question might be, he confined himself to a shrug. Surely the doctor wasn't raising the sash to enable the forest to listen in, though as he stepped from behind the desk and gestured at a chair opposite the one he took, he brushed a stray lock of hair away from his left ear as if readying it to receive instructions audible only to him. He placed his fingertips not quite together, short of praying, and advanced his gently quizzical face an inch. "Are you recovered enough to talk?" he enquired.

  That made Sam feel worse than defensive. "What from?"

  "Why, from your grandmother's accident. I thought you seemed the most upset of anyone."

  If that was true, Sam wondered what else he mightn't realise about himself. "I can talk,"

  he admitted. "I just..."

  Dr Lowe gave an intent sympathetic look time to help before saying "Is it something to do with just yourself?"

  If anyone besides Sylvia and Sam knew their secret, the woods and whatever they concealed did. It surely followed that if Dr Lowe was in league with them he wouldn't need to be told the secret. For a moment

  this felt like a profound insight, and then Sam became aware of the sly imprisoned unfamiliar way in which his mind was working. It frightened him so deeply that he blurted "Suppose I caught it from my grandfather?"

  "What do you think you might have?"

  "I can't go away and I'm afraid to stay here. My dad fixed me up with a job interview last week and I didn't even get as far as London."

  "Your parents are divorced, aren't they?"

  "So what if they are?"

  "I understood from your grandfather that your mother felt she had to stay while your father needed to move because of his career."

  Sam saw where this was leading, and it was wholly irrelevant. "Right," he muttered.

  "This interview, would it have been the first one he's arranged for you?"

  "Right."

  "Do you think you may be afraid you'll estrange one of your parents whether you stay or leave? That kind of conflict can be paralysing if it's not faced."

  Wasn't he meant to allow people to talk towards the truth? Sam was beginning to wonder if the doctor simply wanted to get rid of him- he wasn't a patient, after all. "It's worse than that," he said desperately. "If you knew how bad you might have me in here."

  "What do you feel that would achieve?"

  "Maybe you'd find out my grandfather, I don't know, infected me, passed something down to me."

  "Could that be what you're most afraid of?"

  "Suppose

  it

  is?"

  "Then by all means admit it to yourself, because it isn't possible. What happened to your grandfather was the result of a drug he wasn't in contact with till after your mother was born."

  "Unless they set off something that was already in him. If you've any chance of being schizophrenic that kind of drug can trigger it, can't it?"

  "I don't believe that occurred in his case. There was nothing in his history to suggest any tendencies of the kind."

  "Maybe you didn't go back far enough."

  "I don't see how I could have gone back further."

  Neither did Sam, nor indeed why he'd made the comment except to break any silence that would leave him alone with the knowledge of how little the doctor could help him. He was about to conclude that he'd done as much as he could to comply with his mother's request when Dr Lowe said "I should have thought there was a question you'd need to answer."

  "What?" Sam felt forced to respond.

  "If we're talking about problems that have to be triggered, what set them off in you?

  Have you been experimenting with drugs?"

  "No." Sam was almost desperate enough to admit to his first encounter with Sylvia in the forest but found the disclosure too shameful to contemplate. "I wouldn't after what they did to my grandfather," he heard himself declare.

  "I'm sure that's entirely wise, but I wonder if you're often afraid of following in his footsteps."

  "Sometimes."

  "Perhaps that fear exacerbates the conflict we've discussed and vice versa till you're unable to separate them in your mind."

  Even if that was a possibility, it only made Sam realise how little of his experience he'd managed to communicate. He was seized by a dread that more of it was dormant, awaiting words or something else to rouse it-something that loomed at the edge of his perception like the woods brandishing their greenish antennae beyond the window. He was hardly aware that the doctor was saying "Do forgive me if I've covered all this too quickly. I hope I've given you some food for thought at least. Unfortunately with all the demands of this hospital I'm not available for consultation, but I'd be happy to refer you to one of my colleagues in Brichester if you feel the need."

  "I'll let you know if I do," Sam said, which was the opposite of a promise.

  "I'm hoping that means I've been some help, does it?"

  "All you could have been."

  "That's the most any of us can ask of ourselves." If Dr Lowe suspected any ambiguity on Sam's part, there was no hint on his face, which managed to appear steeped in concern and at the same time bland. "So I gather your aunt's on her travels again?" he said, standing up as Sam did.

  In the midst of the released creaking of their chairs Sam thought he heard rapid stealthy footsteps retreating from outside the door. Dr Lowe either didn't notice or had trained himself not to react; he made no especial haste to open the door on the deserted corridor. By this time Sam had muttered "She went this morning."

  "Do you think you might take that for an omen?"

  Sam had to swallow a sour taste of guilt before he could demand "How do you mean?"

  "Perhaps not the best choice of word. For an example, then, do you think if she feels able to travel freely even in her condition you might see if you're up to it? Perhaps"-the doctor raised a hand towards his left ear as though he was receiving an inspiration-"you could go to your interview if it's still on and tell yourself it doesn't matter if you succeed or otherwise, only that you tried."

  Sam had lost count of the points Dr Lowe was missing. "That sounds like an idea," he said as a way of making his escape.

  He was bracing himself to be met at the stairs by whoever had been in the corridor, but the stairs were deserted. As he hurried down he saw the woods lowering themselves beyond the open front door to greet him as though they were sinking out of the sky. He'd almost reached the doorway when a woman came through it in what was meant to resemble a stroll, widening her already protuberant eyes in far too much surprise. "Mr. Price," she cried.

  "Hello," Sam said as conversationally as he was able, and dodged around her, fumbling his mother's keys out of his pocket so hastily that he almost dropped them. He was nearly at the Civic when the woman he'd last seen at his grandfather's funeral darted ahead of him to pat and stroke its roof. "Nice car," she said as she might have addressed a pet. "Doing well for yourself."

  "It's my mother's."

  "Ah," said the woman, and adopted a lopsidedly knowing look. "I'm Delia, you know."


  "I didn't." That said, Sam could think of nothing to add except "Good."

  Delia rolled her eyes upwards while she considered that, then fixed her gaze on him.

  "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

  "And yours. Now I've really got to-"

  It was her knowing look that made him falter before her words caught up with it.

  "We saw you in the woods."

  The resurgent taste of guilt would have kept his lips shut if he hadn't needed to find out how much she knew. "When?"

  "Just before the old lady, Lennox's wife was in the crash."

  So she wasn't talking about Sam and his aunt. It was only to him that everything seemed to be about them, he reminded himself. "No you didn't," he said, trying to hide his relief. "I wasn't there till after it happened."

  "It looked like you. The face did, anyway." Delia scrutinised him, tugging at her cheeks with her fingertips to let out more eye. "Maybe it wasn't," she granted at last. "You couldn't have been behind that many trees at once."

  Sam's relief was dissipating, and he reached with the key for the door of the Civic.

  "Anyway-"

  "How's the thin girl? Not so thin any more, eh?"

  He mustn't take that as an accusation. Swallowing, he said "She's gone away."

  "Can't be far."

  Sam thrust the key into the lock. "Why not?"

  "She's like us."

  He felt as if there were increasingly fewer words he dared speak, and regretted demanding "Who?"

  "You and me and the rest of us. All the ones who can't leave."

  For a moment he wanted to accuse her of having eavesdropped outside Dr Lowe's office, but that would only delay the question he was afraid to ask. "Why can't we?"

  At once her face looked about to crumple-whether with dismay or hysterical laughter he couldn't judge. "Don't you know yet?" she said in a voice driven high.

  She was mentally ill, he found it necessary to point out to himself- never mind politeness, she was mad. Nevertheless he couldn't help almost pleading "Tell me."

  She leaned towards him, and he fancied something vast and dark as a denial of the sunlight leaned with her. "The woods," she whispered, her gaze flickering from side to side.

  "Your grandfather's in there, and my mother."

  Sam wondered why he'd thought she could be any help to him. He was twisting the key when she said "And lots that are older. Everyone who's been that close is part of them."

  That needn't include him or be true, Sam attempted to convince himself. He snatched the car door open, and Delia lurched across the front of the vehicle at him. He felt as if something beyond darkness was descending towards him-as if it was about to part the pale blue sky. "We'll be like them. We'll all be the same," Delia said.

  She was running her fingertips spider-like over her cheeks. Sam had an appalled notion that she was checking her face hadn't been somehow transformed. He was about to take refuge in the car when she looked abruptly sympathetic, which was yet more disturbing. "Don't worry," she said.

  He had the impression of stepping over an edge into worse than blackness by asking

  "Why not?"

  "We're the lucky ones."

  "You think," Sam said, unable to laugh at the idea even inside himself.

  "We are, because we're what people call mad or whatever they say we are these days.

  They don't know that means we'll be readier than they are. We're already on our way, so it won't be such a shock. Just imagine being Dr Lowe and the rest of them when it happens."

  Sam's question was more an admission of despair at having to ask or at learning the answer. "What?"

  "You should have asked Lennox. You still could. He knew the most of any of us." Delia smiled and stepped back, fingering her lips in case they'd changed.

  Sam had succeeded in starting the car when she waved her left hand and arm, stiff and contorted as a branch. He assumed she was bidding him adieu, though he would have made it a farewell, until he heard her belated answer to his question. "What called Lennox here in the first place," she said.

  32

  Sealed by the Past

  HEATHER almost managed to refrain from saying any of the things she'd vowed she wouldn't say to Sam, but it surely

  couldn't hurt to accompany him as far as the front door and wish him good luck. The words earned her only a grimace, however. "What?" he said as if he didn't see how they applied to him.

  "Try feeling lucky. No harm in that," Heather said, determined not to exert pressure on him and hearing herself continue to do so. "Sorry. Don't let me tell you how to feel. You feel whatever helps."

  "Like what?"

  She was beginning to wish they'd talked this through after all, though before it was time for him to leave. "Forget me," she said. "Forget your father. Just go because it's you that wants to.

  It still is, isn't it? You still want to try for the job."

  "I've got to go where I'm going."

  "You keep telling yourself that. And listen, I shouldn't think your father's friend would have rescheduled the interview if she wasn't biased in your favour, but there's no need to stake too much on it. If you don't get the job there'll be others, and the main thing is you'll have gone for it. You'll know you can."

  "Dr Lowe said something like that."

  "Well, there you are. What do they say about great minds?"

  "Don't know."

  She could have felt disparaged, but she was too concerned with his mental state while he was driving to London. "Are you worried about anything else, Sam?"

  When his lips parted she tried to be prepared for whatever revelation he'd decided to entrust to her, but they closed again before releasing his apparently favourite word of the day. "What?"

  "If it's your grandmother, the hospital would have called if there were any developments. I told you they said she has a pretty good chance of getting about on sticks when she comes home."

  "She didn't seem that bad when they took her to the hospital."

  "Her bones are old, Sam." Heather thought he sounded not unlike a child whose trust in the rightness of life had been betrayed. She reached to hug him, murmuring "Try not to have her on your mind too much. I'm sure they're doing everything they can for her at Mercy Hill."

  She was disconcerted to find him unresponsive as a tree-trunk. It felt as if he'd formed himself into a barrier against some or all of her encouragement. "Isn't it just Margo?" she guessed.

  He didn't answer until she let go of him and stepped back. Again she had the sense of an impending revelation, but couldn't be sure that wasn't to do with the gathering heat, which felt like the threat of a January storm. "Maybe," he muttered.

  "Is it Sylvie?"

  "Maybe."

  His voice was well on the way to withdrawing into itself. He dropped his gaze as his bad leg gave a jerk that suggested it was eager to bear him away, but Heather didn't think she should abandon the subject now that she'd raised it in his mind. "She must be too busy to let us know where she is, that's all," she said, almost as much for her own benefit as his. "She's always been a bit like that. I know we'd expect her to keep us informed now there isn't only her to wonder about, but that's my sister, I suppose. I'm certain we'd have heard if anything was wrong."

  His head appeared to be weighed down by her insistence or his thoughts. "Anyway," she said, and paused until he looked up. "Here I am using up oxygen when you should be on your way and make sure of having plenty of time."

  She wouldn't have minded seeing agreement with that, but his thoughts were too deep in the dark of his eyes for her to read. "So long as I haven't made you feel worse," she risked saying.

  He shook his head so rapidly he might have been attempting to dislodge a notion and nearly succeeded in hauling up the corners of his mouth. "Go on then," she said and restrained herself from delivering another hug. "You show the world."

  It was simply a form of words, but as he limped to the Volkswagen she was left with the impre
ssion that she could have chosen better. She opened the gate for him and watched as the car, having elaborately cleared its throat, chugged away. He saw her waving in the mirror and raised one stiff hand without glancing back. She held back from stepping into the road to watch him as long as she could, and closed the gate. She heard him brake at the corner of Woodland Close as she returned to the house.

  The interval until she next saw or heard from him was bound to feel stretched close to snapping, but she didn't mean to spend her day off work in worrying about him and her mother and sister. The house had stored up plenty of tasks-if she attacked them vigorously enough they might even leave her no spare energy for thoughts. She was making to release the vacuum cleaner from its cell beneath the stairs when she was halted by a smell so faint she was tempted to dismiss it as imagination. It was the secretively decayed odour of Selcouth's journal.

  Heather didn't want the object in her house. It would be better kept at the university, available to anyone who needed to consult it-she couldn't imagine who or why. It could wait until tomorrow to be