by Rod Redux
She yelped as the passenger side tires slewed into the ditch, and then the SUV bottomed out, gravel scraping against the belly of the vehicle with a sound like fingernails on a blackboard. The vehicle lurched, throwing her hard against the seatbelt, and then the engine died.
“Oh my god!” Jane exclaimed.
She righted herself and pushed her hair out of her eyes. The SUV’s last lurch had almost thrown her into the passenger seat. She heard a trickling sound and looked down. The soft drink she’d bought after leaving the historical society had overturned. Thirty-two ounces of cola were sloshing in the floorboard.
“Oh, great,” she murmured.
The GPS made a strangled sort of double-chime and said what she could have sworn was, “You have arrived at your destiny.”
Destiny, instead of destination.
“Well, that’s creepy,” Jane remarked.
And by the way, Janey, just what WAS that thing? she thought, and her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. She pulled herself up and scanned the dark forest.
Trees, trees and more trees, but at least there were no shaggy man-beasts staring at her from the wilderness, eyes shining like lamps, saliva dribbling from their fangs. Just a cloud of dust drifting through the vehicle’s high beams.
Thank God.
She’d had quite a bit of trouble finding the turn off to Forester house. A few miles out of Cypress, the GPS unit had started acting funny, chiming and giving her directions she knew weren’t right. The graphic display on its LCD screen had malfunctioned shortly after, the 3D map spinning first one direction and then another, then flickering like the power supply was faulty. Who knows? Maybe it was. Electronic devices malfunctioned all the time. They were like an alcoholic uncle; you couldn’t quite trust them.
After doubling back a couple times, she’d finally spotted the turnoff, and she’d steered the SUV off the highway onto the roughest, hilliest and most washed out country road she’d ever driven on.
The road wound serpent-like through the rugged hills, bouncing Jane around the SUV until her kidneys began to throb.
Sawtooth Hills reminded her of Aokigahara Forest, a dense woodland that lay on the northwest slope of Mount Fuji in Japan. The place, called the Sea of Trees by locals, was reputed to be the haunt of demons, and was a popular destination for suicides. So many desperate Japanese went there to kill themselves that the government posted signs encouraging death’s supplicants to think about the good things in their lives—their family, their loved ones. She had visited while on vacation three years ago, thinking it would be a rare adventure, sort of like going on a funhouse ride, but the silent, brooding forest had unnerved her, and the thought of all those poor souls, stealing alone into the forest at night to hang themselves, had filled her with an unbearable sadness. She had found a woman’s pump on one of the forest paths, shriveled and cracked by the elements, the inside caked with leaves and pine needles, and she had fled from the forest, horrified with herself. It had spoiled her vacation. She had taken an early flight home.
The trees arching over the road, enclosing it completely, reminded her of Aokigahara. The woods here on Sawtooth Hills were incredibly dense. It was like driving in a tunnel. Worse, the way the headlights swept through the trees as she turned first one direction and then another, following the winding lane, made it appear as though shadowy things were slipping in and out of sight between the tree trunks, keeping pace with her.
Just like Diane had said.
“You catch them out of the corner of your eye. You tell yourself it’s just shadows cast by your headlights, but when you see them for yourself, well… If you’re headed out there, you’ll find out what I’m talking about,” the museum curator had told her, and she hadn’t been kidding.
The sight of all those slinking shadows was disconcerting, to say the least. “Just keep it together, girl,” Jane had murmured to herself, trying to concentrate on the road, ignore the malfunctioning GPS. “You’re almost there.” Then one of those shadows had leapt across the road in front of the SUV, landing in a crouch and looking at her, and she’d gone into the ditch in surprise.
It hadn’t been a deer. She was sure of that. The GPS was having an epileptic fit, and she had glanced away from the road the very same instant it jumped out of the woods—but she could have sworn it was… human-shaped.
It had burst out of the underbrush on her left, landed in a crouch just a couple feet in front of the SUV, then bound into the woods on her right.
“Frickin’ Springheel Jack or something,” Jane hissed under her breath, then she wondered if it was still nearby, hunkered down in the woods. Crouched in the darkness just outside the glow of the SUV’s highbeams, maybe, watching her…
She made sure the doors were all locked.
Her heart raced for a moment, a quick little gallop of panic, making her feel breathless and a little bit dizzy, then she got her nerves under control again and shifted the gear lever to park.
“Maybe it was a bear or something,” she muttered as the keys jingled at her fingertips. She was a city girl, born and bred. In her imagination, rural America teemed with strange and deadly wildlife of all sorts. Bears, wolves, snakes…
“Or bigfoot!” she said with a snort as she turned the key in the ignition.
If this was a horror movie, the engine won’t start, she thought. But, of course, it started.
The SUV’s engine roared to life, gulping great drafts of gasoline, and Jane shifted the vehicle back to drive. She pressed down on the accelerator, turning the wheel to the left to steer the big beast out of the ditch, but the front wheels spun without gaining any traction. There wasn’t enough weight on them to pull the vehicle out of the ditch.
“What?” Jane whined. She checked to make sure the transmission was in drive, that she hadn’t accidentally put it in neutral. But no. It was in drive. “No!” she cried, frustrated.
She pumped the gas pedal, cut the wheel back and forth. She shifted to reverse and tried to back out of the ditch. She even rocked her upper body to and fro.
Nothing worked.
The wheels spun, kicking up dust and loose gravel, but that was all.
She was stuck.
“Frack!” she snarled, throwing the gear lever into park. She pushed her hair behind an ear, tried to calm herself. “You’re going to have to call Raj,” she advised herself. She certainly wasn’t getting out of the SUV and pushing. Not in these creepy woods. Not after seeing that thing, whatever it was, jump across the road. Nuh-uh… No way! Call the guys, tell them you’re stuck, and they’ll come running to the rescue, my heroes--
That’s when something slammed into the side of the SUV.
It hit hard enough to rock the vehicle, and Jane cried out in shock. An instant later, claws raked down the back passenger window. She saw them skate down the glass in her rearview mirror, accompanied by a high-pitched squealing sound.
Jane didn’t bother trying to rationalize anything after that. She just started screaming.
2
“Where are you, Jane?” Raj shouted. The cell phone crackled loudly. A moment later, it lost connection.
NO SIGNAL.
Jane wasn’t paying any attention to the cell phone’s tiny LCD screen, however. She was staring into the rearview mirror, eyes wide, her entire body trembling. Right before her call to Raj was cut short, Jane had glimpsed something gray and misshapen blur across her line of sight. It had startled another cry out of her, and she had pleaded, child-like in her terror, for Raj to come save her. Now she sat stock still, waiting for whatever it was to launch itself at the SUV again. She wasn’t hysterical, but she was very close to it, closer than she could remember being in a very long time.
Tears of fright glimmered in her eyes, but she forced herself to take a deep breath. Bring it down, girl, she said to herself. Get control of yourself.
Jane Rivers had ventured into countless haunted houses in her time with the Ghost Scouts. She’d sat alone in derelict morgues, tr
ying to commune with any spirits that might still be lingering there. She had traipsed through the dark in the Winchester Mansion, Alcatraz, innumerable cemeteries and sanitariums and abandoned insane asylums, and she had never lost her cool.
But this wilderness was something altogether different.
Ghosts couldn’t physically harm the living. That had always been her experience. They could scare, they could work on the psyche, make you question your own sanity, but they couldn’t physically hurt you.
But out in the woods, there were bears and wild dogs and snakes—not to mention, crazy fucking hillbillies. There were things that could run you down, rip you apart, and drag you back to their lair for leftovers.
And how many redneck cannibal movies had she watched in her lifetime? Too many, that was for sure! Movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wrong Turn and I Spit On Your Grave. There were so many of them, they had to have some basis in reality. It couldn’t just be urban paranoia, right?
Jane pictured some backwoods deviant crouched down out of sight behind the SUV’s bumper-- some sicko with crooked brown teeth, wearing his mother’s tanned face for a Halloween mask-- and she felt her stomach twist itself into another knot.
Sure there’s a basis for them, the neurotic part of her brain affirmed. Ed Gein, for one. Remember him? He’s the guy they based the Texas Chainsaw Massacre on. When the cops finally caught him, they found all kinds of female body parts in his house: heads in sacks, a belt made out of nipples, nine vulvas in a shoebox…
They always want to crawl back inside, don’t they? she thought, despite her best efforts to stay calm. They rape you over and over or they hang you up on some rusty meat hook in their smokehouse and make clothes out of your skin. They sew your tits into earmuffs and wear yours scalp for a wig…
STOP IT, JANE! she shouted in her head.
She forced herself to calm down, and then slowly began to turn in her seat.
If there’s some deformed giant in dirty bib overalls standing back there, I am going to pee my pants, she thought.
No sex-crazed redneck was grinning through the back window at her, shotgun in hand. There was nothing out the back window but what looked like a dead tree branch, leaning against the glass.
The headlights of Raj’s SUV leapt over the hill then, and Jane felt her heart thaw in relief.
Here comes the cavalry!
The other SUV slewed to a stop just six feet away. The doors flew open and her fellas jumped out—Raj and both Dans, and a man she’d never seen before, who she assumed must be Robert Forester, the house’s owner. Raj hefted a tire iron as he kicked his door shut behind him. Little Dan and Big Dan both leapt out with balled fists. All three men looked like they were ready to kick ass and take names.
Jane rolled down her window to warn to them.
3
“What is it, Jane?” Raj asked as he trotted toward her. “What’s the matter?”
Jane leaned her head out the window, eyes wide, and whispered urgently, “Be careful, Raj! It’s on the other side of the car!”
Little Dan and the Forester fellow dropped back, looking to the rear of the SUV apprehensively, but Raj and Big Dan charged forward. Jane twisted around in her seat, hand at the collar of her blouse, and watched the two men trot around the back end of the SUV. They skidded to a stop, eyes down. They looked at something on the road behind the vehicle for a long time. Finally, Jane couldn’t contain her anxiety anymore and shouted, “What is it? Raj? What’s back there?”
Raj peeked up at her through the rear window, his face devilish in the red glow of the brake lights. He lowered the tire iron and smiled.
“What is it?”
Raj gestured for her to get out of the vehicle and come look.
Oh God, she thought, already feeling her cheeks begin to burn. What is it? A raccoon? A squirrel? The way they were all smiling now—all four of them—she knew it was going to be something harmless. She was going to have a hard time living this down.
Jane opened the door and stepped out onto the gravel. Her knees were still trembling a little, and she felt weak and nauseated from adrenaline, but she forced herself to walk as steadily as she could to the end of the SUV.
“What is it?” she asked.
She peeked around the corner of the vehicle and saw a dead tree lying on the road behind the rear tires. There was a sizeable dent and several grooves in the side panel where the tree had struck the SUV and scraped down it. She must have dislodged it when she went into the ditch. It had toppled over and bashed the back end of the SUV. Her imagination had taken care of the rest.
Jane groaned in embarrassment, putting her hand to her forehead.
“It’s all right, Jane,” Raj started to say. “Anybody could have—“
All four men hopped back, surprised, as Jane broke a limb away from the rotten trunk and began to beat the fallen tree with it.
“Stupid! Fucking! Tree!” Jane snarled.
“Jane--!” Raj cried.
“Oh, that makes me so mad!”
“Jane…!”
Jane quit beating the tree. She threw the branch down and stood straight, pushing her hair out of her face.
“You all right?” Raj asked.
“No,” she panted. “I’m mortified.”
As the men chimed in, assuring her there was no need to be embarrassed, it would have scared any of them, she began to feel a little better. But there was still the issue of the thing that had leapt across the road. It might still be lingering near the road, watching them as they spoke!
Jane started to describe what had happened, how the shadowy creature had bound into her path and caused her to swerve into the ditch, but as she struggled to communicate just how strange the thing had looked, she noticed all four men cutting their eyes toward one another and smiling, and she felt herself getting furious all over again.
“I didn’t imagine it!” she snapped.
“No one said you did,” Raj said soothingly, putting his hand on her upper arm.
She jerked away. “Don’t patronize me! I hate that!”
“Nobody’s patronizing you, Jane,” Big Dan said. He sounded sincere, at least.
She fetched a sigh, said, “I don’t know what it was, okay? I saw something jump across the road and I jerked the wheel to dodge it, but it’s gone, and the SUV is stuck now so all four of you big strong men are going to have to push it out for me.”
And they did. All four put their backs to the task, and the SUV jounced out of the rut the first time they pushed. Jane waited while they piled back into the other SUV, grinning and proud of their manliness, then she followed Raj as he reversed up the road.
They returned without incident to Forester House.
4
Jane didn’t get a chance to see the interior of the Forester House that evening. Her little woodland adventure had put the kibosh on those plans. As soon as they parked in front of the Forester House, Raj announced that it was getting late. They’d all had plenty of excitement for one night, he said, and they needed to head back to the hotel and get some rest.
Jane was disappointed, but she couldn’t in all honesty say she was that disappointed. Her fright on the drive out had sapped her batteries. It had been a long day.
She looked at the infamous house as the group loitered beside the cars, having an informal powwow, but she wasn’t tempted to venture inside. She was exhausted by her little misadventure, not to mention the long drive to Illinois, and she would be quite satisfied if all they did the rest of the night was return to the little town of Cypress, check into their rooms, shower and get some sleep. There would be plenty of time to explore the house, and document its peculiarities, in the morning.
“Is that all right with you?” Raj asked Jane. “I know you were eager to have a look at the house this evening.”
She nodded tiredly. “I’m all for getting a fresh start in the morning, babe. Believe me.”
Raj turned to Forester. “Will you be staying here tonight?�
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Forester squinted at the house’s glowering façade, then shook his head. “No… not tonight. Not until you guys have investigated it.” He dropped his gaze, sheepish. “Too many bumps in the night,” he added.
“I suggest we all return to town, then, and find a warm bed to crawl into,” Raj said.
“I second that emotion,” Big Dan yawned.
“Watch out for falling trees!” Little Dan grinned as they climbed into their cars.
Jane gave him the finger.
Departure
1
Allen dreamed of falling and woke with a start. He reached over in the dark for his wife, but Sharon’s side of the bed was empty. His fingers found only pillows, cool now, and the comforter he’d kicked off during the night.
Allen rolled over, checked the alarm clock. It was 4:37 AM. He was wide awake, though, no going back to sleep, so he threw off the sheet and swung his feet to the floor. He rose, stumbled to the bathroom and drained the main vein—blinking blearily in the bright glow of the fluorescent light—then traipsed downstairs to see what his wife was up to so early in the morning.
He passed his luggage, parked neatly beside the front door—he had packed for his flight to Illinois last night—then crossed the living room into the kitchen.
Smell of fresh brewed coffee. Yes, please! Allen grabbed a cup from the cabinet and filled it with hot java. He spooned in some sugar and creamer and headed for the office he shared with his wife, slurping with a sigh.
“Good morning,” he called.
Their office had matching desks and computers, a big window that let out onto the back garden and wall-to-wall bookshelves. The shelves were crammed full of Sharon’s paperbacks and awards and memorabilia from his television show.
Sharon was sitting at her computer, smoking a cigarette while perusing a social network site. She was wrapped in her housecoat, wearing fuzzy pink slippers, her hair sticking up on the left. She finished whatever she was reading, then glanced at him and said, “Morning,” with little interest.