The Forest

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  She was proud of her fish. She wanted them safe and well. But turning back she saw that her father still wore that same disgusted look on his face, only now he was staring at her.

  She decided she would feed the fish tonight; that even losing the fry would be a low cost for avoiding that expression or even worse, finding out what lay behind it.

  She turned back to the front door. Opened it. Took a step onto the porch.

  I wonder what Alex will be wearing today?

  Who cares?

  You do. A lot. Don’t lie to yourself.

  She turned around to shut the door, trying to shut the door on the thoughts as well.

  She grabbed the handle before she realized what she was looking at. The front of the door. The boring wood.

  And her guppies.

  Somehow, someone had stolen into her room in the night. The intruder had taken the guppies out of the tank and, with painstaking care, used clear packing tape to cover each one completely as the person taped each to the door. The dead things hung there, staring at her in glassy-eyed accusation, as though their ghosts were there with them, demanding how this could have happened, how she could have let it happen?

  Under the guppies, a piece of paper hung on the door, affixed by yet another piece of tape. There was a light breeze, so the paper flapped up and down too much to see what was on it. Feeling like someone else was controlling her body, she pushed the paper flat. A single word was written there, in heavy black lettering:

  Don’t

  Something else caught at the corner of her eye and pulled her gaze to it.

  The isolation tank, the one in which she had kept and protected the fry from the unwelcome attentions of their own parents. It sat on the ground beside the door. The fry were too small to be more than specks, really, but even at this distance she could tell they were dead: it was the only conclusion possible given what had happened to her other fish, and given the empty bottle of bleach that lay on its side next to the tank.

  She still didn’t scream. She wanted to, and deafening screams started ricocheting through her mind, but all she managed to vocalize was a strange, “Uhn, uhn, uuuuhhhhnnnn.”

  The last dissolved into a long, wordless moan.

  A moment later, she felt arms around her. She thought it must be Alex. It must be him, it had to be him, Alex had known what she was thinking, what she felt, he was so in tune and he knew, he had to know, it had to be him and he would make everything be all right in the –

  “I’m so sorry,” Dad whispered.

  For a brief, ecstatic instant, it was as though she was holding Alex. She could feel the same kind of love and attention Alex always gave her, but this time from the strangest of sources: her own father.

  Of course, as soon as she thought that, and thought how much she would love a life with a normal home and a normal parent who loved her the way she had read about in books, her dad’s arms went rigid. He shoved her away.

  “School,” he said.

  “But –” Whatever she thought to say next disappeared, swallowed by the look on her father’s face. The same look she had seen in the kitchen: disgust, revulsion… hate. And this time, she knew it wasn’t directed at some memory or whatever he’d been thinking about before, it was directed at her.

  Tricia stepped back, the force of his gaze a weight that drove her away and pushed on her so hard that for a moment she didn’t think of her guppies, didn’t think of the fact that someone had come in her room to do this thing. All she could think of was her father’s look, and all she could do was concentrate on breathing in air that suddenly felt thick and wet. She was drowning.

  “Dad,” she choked.

  Still wearing that expression, he turned away. “School,” he said again.

  “Someone… someone was in my –”

  “I know.” Even his voice sounded grotesque, whatever she had done to offend him coloring every aspect of his being. “Go to school.”

  “But I –”

  He turned on her, and said, “What’s done is done,” in a calm, almost relaxed voice. He might have been passing pleasantries with someone he had known forever, making small talk with an old friend. But his eyes blazed, and in them she still saw disgust and anger.

  The strange confluence of the two – the preternatural calm in his voice, the out-of-control rage in his eyes – pushed her back. She felt them like hands spinning her around, shoving her toward the school in steps that felt dizzy and out-of-sync with the rest of reality.

  She didn’t remember the walk. She didn’t remember coming onto school grounds. She seemed to wake up in Alex’s arms. She was confused, and her head hurt, and for a moment she thought Dad was holding her again. It felt like it had for that wonderful moment. Maybe it was all a dream, row row row your boat and wake up and start again and this time it would be right.

  “What happened?” came a voice.

  Who said that? Dad? He would say that, wouldn’t he? He loves me, doesn’t he?

  Then the voice echoed. It wasn’t a real echo, sure. But it sounded in her mind. It echoed, and distorted, and she recognized it for who it was, who actually loved her.

  She held Alex tight, and knew that she would never do anything to risk losing him. He was the closest thing to family that she would ever have, and whether they ended up capital-T-Together or not, she would always be with him, captured by the powerful force of love and shared pain.

  Other hands touched her shoulders: Sam. The other one who loved her, and the other one she loved. Not the same as she loved Alex – Sam was a wise brother, someone who knew much and would teach her all – but he was there, too, and strength flowed from him. Enough, at least, to get her talking.

  She told them what had happened. Both Alex and Sam wore looks of astonishment that grew as she hitched out the words between choking sobs. The bell rang and one of the office staff came out – no doubt to tell them to get to class or at least to confine themselves to their normal bench – but saw what was happening and turned around and walked back into the office.

  We’re all freaks. No one understands how to take care of us, and no one even wants to.

  But that was a lie. They were here for each other. That was what mattered. She loved Alex, Alex loved her, and they both loved Sam even though he was new.

  She didn’t love her father. Maybe she loved him before, even though he ignored or outright deterred her love with his actions every day, not anymore. The guppies were the final straw, and the reason that when Sam was taken she didn’t even think about talking to the person she lived with.

  Other than DNA and a place to sleep and eat, the only other thing that man ever gave her were empty expressions or, worse, looks of pure revulsion. She realized it on the day her guppies died, and that realization set her free to do what came next.

  If her father had been taken that day, she would have gone to the police. She would have informed the authorities, then waited as one was supposed to wait in such a situation. Because she didn’t love him, and could have let others find him or not as they saw fit.

  But it was Sam who was taken, and she actually loved him, so she followed him herself; and Alex loved and followed them both.

  That was just how it had to be.

  17

  (When Alex Was Young)

  Alex didn’t understand why someone would break into Trish’s house and kill her guppies. Not just kill, either – but murder them and display their bodies by taping them to the front door. He didn’t understand how something like that could happen in the house right next to his without him knowing about it. He didn’t understand why her dad didn’t call the police right away. It wasn’t just vandalism, it wasn’t even just a home invasion. It was straight-up-crazy, on a level that should have had cops crawling over it. Or at least cop, singular, since Sunrise had exactly one full-time police officer.

  “Your dad’s got to have some reason…” Alex began the sentence with no end in mind, and no end in sight when he reached the middle
. What possible reason could there be for any of this?

  “He does have a reason,” Sam said. He hadn’t left Trish’s side for a moment, just as Alex hadn’t. Alex was glad. He felt like he was out of his depth here, and would probably need to have Sam’s help. Sam was so smart, maybe he could say the right thing that would make all this coalesce into some kind of sense.

  And he did just that – though it was a horrible kind of sense. “He’s crazy,” said Sam decisively.

  “No,” said Alex. “He can’t be. There has to be some reason that he…” Again, he couldn’t finish the sentence. Sam was right, even though the idea that Trish’s dad had finally boarded the train to Wackoville, USA, terrified Alex. It was one thing to have your house broken into by a madman; it was another to actually live with someone who had so completely broken from reality.

  “He’s a shit,” said Trish.

  The word startled Alex. He had never heard her curse before.

  But thinking of what she had said, he finally nodded and said, “Yeah, he’s a shit.”

  “Definitely a shit,” said Sam. He grinned, obviously trying to jolly Trish out of her shock and terror. “Crazy, too.”

  “A crazy shit,” Trish agreed.

  “Don’t you mean a crazy poo-head?” Sam corrected.

  Trish laughed and sniffled at the same time. Alex felt a wet patch on his shirt where she’d been crying. “A ca-ca poo-head,” she corrected.

  “With a side of doody-face,” said Sam. He laughed, too; and just as with Trish, the laugh sounded an awful lot like a cry.

  “And a big heaping of wee-wee brain,” added Alex helpfully.

  Then they were all laughing. Laughing so hard that Trish kept crying, and soon Sam and Alex had tears streaming down their faces as well. Laughing so hard that a sharp pain stabbed Alex’s side. He grabbed it, and saw Trish and Sam grabbing their sides, all of them in such hysterics that pain had come along to see what was so funny.

  Alex vaguely heard a door open and then close, and a kid with buck teeth big enough to serve as industrial can openers said in a peevish voice, “Mr. Arkin wants you to quiet down. We’re taking a test.”

  All three of them gasped, stopping the laughter. Then they looked at each other and started laughing again, even harder. The buck-toothed kid sighed and went back into his classroom and a moment later Mr. Arkin came out. He was older than God and rumor had it he was having an affair with the principal, who wasn’t quite as old as God but had definitely seen the big bang first hand.

  “You kids want to have detention over the weekend?”

  Alex, Trish, and Sam looked at each other. Alex could tell they were all thinking the same thing: that wouldn’t be a punishment, it would be a gift.

  They all burst out laughing again. Mr. Arkin didn’t give out detention assignments, though. He just went back to his classroom and tried very pointedly to slam the door – a gesture which was dampened by the hydraulics on the hinge that slowed his “slam” to a slow crawl.

  That made them laugh harder still. They collapsed into each other, clutching hands and arms and bodies, hugging each other tightly and Alex couldn’t remember ever being so scared, and so happy at the same time.

  Three of them. They could fix whatever had happened to Trish. They could fix whatever was wrong with their lives. Three of them could do that, even if two had never stood a chance.

  Three wasn’t a crowd. It was family.

  There was a screech. Alex barely noticed, only the tiniest sliver of his mind thinking of the fact that someone had pulled up and braked hard enough there would be skidmarks on the asphalt in the school parking lot. He barely noticed the quick steps of someone running toward the school gates. Then through them.

  And then a third of him disappeared.

  That was what it felt like when Sam was abruptly torn away from their knot of friendship and laughter and safety.

  It all happened so fast, and yet seemed to dilate; instants pulled like taffy so they lasted far too long:

  A shout.

  A quick glimpse of a woman, long brown hair streaming out in unkempt knots behind her…

  Sam, his face pale, his red backpack half-fallen from his shoulder, pulling it back up like that mattered…

  Sam’s mouth forming a perfect “o” of shock and bewilderment before screaming, “Mom, what are you –”

  Time returned to something approaching normal as Sam’s mother yanked his arm so hard that his teeth audibly clicked together. She dragged him through the school gates, toward a beat-up blue sedan that idled at the curb. She threw open the front passenger door, then shoved Sam in before running around the front of the car and getting in the other side.

  Alex didn’t really get a look at the woman. She was moving too fast, her hair streaming out in ragged waves as she pulled/pushed/shoved/ran. More than that, his gaze was arrested by Sam, whose fingers pressed against the inside window of the car. He was shaking his head, his eyes wide with terror. Mouthing something, over and over.

  Help me.

  Trish and Alex ran through the gates, running after the car, trying to follow it as best they could. It was stupid, bordering on insane. What were they going to do? Even if they had caught the car, did they just plan on holding onto the bumper until they got the situation figured out?

  Sam was gone.

  They ran back into the school, both of them heading for the same spot, no words spoken. They didn’t just enter the school office, they exploded into it. Shouting at Mrs. Berkowitz, the secretary/receptionist/lunch monitor:

  “Sam! He’s gone! He –”

  “Someone just dragged him away and –”

  “– looked terrified and he –”

  “– I think it was his mom who –”

  Mrs. Berkowitz was in her thirties, and looked thin enough to blow away in a stiff breeze. But when she hollered – which she now did – Alex always felt like he was standing in front of an Army drill sergeant with an angry case of hemorrhoids.

  “Shut up!” she shouted. She looked over the tops of her half-moon glasses, then said, “Is this about your friend?”

  “Yes, it’s about him!” shouted Trish. “Weren’t you listen –”

  Again, Mrs. Berkowitz silenced them, this time with a sharp glance at the principal’s office. “Your friend was withdrawn from the school today, a few minutes ago.”

  “What?” Alex shook his head. “He just got here! And he didn’t tell us –”

  “Why would he?” asked Mrs. Berkowitz in a voice like honey laced with arsenic. “As you say, he just got here. Why would he bother telling you his plans?”

  “Why would he take off?” demanded Alex. “Isn’t it weird that he would just –”

  Mrs. Berkowitz sighed, as though this was a situation she dealt with a thousand times a day. “Yes, it is weird. But it’s also not against the law, and it’s happened before.”

  “When?” demanded Trish. “When has this happened before?”

  Another sigh, and Mrs. Berkowitz said, “There’s nothing new under the sun, my dear. After you’ve been around a while longer, you’ll understand that.”

  “Mrs. Berkowitz?” said Alex softly. The woman turned toward him, her own expression diminishing to something like sympathy when he said, “You didn’t see him. He was scared.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean, he was scared?”

  Alex thought about it, then shrugged. “Just that. He was scared. I don’t know why.”

  As soon as he said it, he knew he’d made a mistake. Mrs. Berkowtiz’s eyes narrowed, and she went back to filling out the form she had been working on when they burst in. “I doubt that very much,” she said.

  “You didn’t –”

  “And even if he was scared,” she said, steamrolling Trish’s concern, “what would you like me to do? Call the police? Say he was scared?”

  “YES!” shouted Alex. “Do that! We’ll talk to the cops if you’re afraid to and –”

  “That’s about e
nough, mister!” Mrs. Berkowitz delivered the words quietly, but the intensity she packed in each syllable stapled Alex’s mouth shut. She steepled her fingers, seemed to reconsider that – probably going through which hand-holding method would be most powerful in her mind – and then switched to clasping them on her desk. “We have – had – a student named Sam Jones. Mrs. Jones withdrew him from enrollment.”

  “But –”

  “She is moving,” said Mrs. Berkowitz. “She told us very clearly that that was the case when she called to inform us she’d be enrolling her son here, and also told us that she intended to stay here only a short while.” Mrs. Berkowitz shrugged. “When she called this morning to let us know they’d be leaving, she said she had just gotten a job offer in Chicago and she was on her way to pick up her son. The offer came just after he left, and she was going to let him finish out the day until she realized they had to do a lot in order to get to her new job on time.”

  “But the way he looked,” said Trish quietly.

  The soft voice seemed to affect Mrs. Berkowitz more than their shouts. Her gaze grew gentle. “She told us he wouldn’t want to go. She said he’d found friends for the first time, and moving away would break his heart,” she added, and smiled sadly. “I know it’s hard – more so for you three than for most – but people come and people go. It’s not pretty, but it’s life.”

  In other circumstances, Alex would have been amazed. That anyone had seen their relationship together as good – rather than a triumvirate of geeks and freaks – was a revelation. Even so, it was a revelation drowned out by fear.

  “That wasn’t it,” said Alex, speaking softly as well. “He was afraid. We saw him.”

  Mrs. Berkowitz nodded. “I’m sure he was. How would you feel, to finally find someone who was able to keep up with you mentally, connect with you emotionally, and then have them ripped away?”