by Jack Kilborn
She felt breasts, and higher, closely cropped hair.
“Laneesha?”
“Sara!” The teen’s breath was warm on Sara’s face, and then she was rolling off. “Couldn’t find my way back, so I ran toward the flashlight. What happen to it?”
Sara tried to get her breathing under control. The darkness screamed at her. “It flew into the woods.”
“Shit. Dark as hell out here. Feels like we got swallowed up by somethin’.”
Sara sat up, heart hammering, squinting into the blackness all around them. “It’s a Maglite. Those things don’t switch off accidentally. It probably rolled under some leaves so we can’t see it.”
“How we find it?”
“Couldn’t have gone far. You stay where you are, keep talking to me. I’ll crawl around you and find it.”
“You gotta talk, too, or I’m gonna freak out.”
Me too. But I can do this.
Sara crawled off, slowly circling the girl. By judging where Laneesha’s voice was coming from, she should be able to cover the area in a widening spiral, without missing any spots or getting lost. In theory, at least.
“If y’all remembered, I voted for horseback riding for our last trip, not camping on some scary ass island. Sara, you there?”
“I’m here.” The ground was rough under Sara’s palms, sticks and rocks poking her, cold dirt wedging beneath her fingernails. She went counter-clockwise, gradually orbiting away from Laneesha.
“I don’ wanna go to juvee, Sara. I feel like I been making progress, y’know?”
Sara couldn’t hold the darkness back. She had to focus on something else. On finding the light. On finding Martin. On Laneesha.
Focus on Laneesha. Be there for her.
“You’re doing great, Laneesha.”
Laneesha was making progress. Sara had no doubt that when she was allowed back in society, she’d do well. After getting pregnant at sixteen, Laneesha began stealing to make ends meet. When she got arrested at a department store for attempting to steal several thousand dollars worth of jewelry, the state took her daughter. Since coming to the Center, Laneesha had worked hard, studied for her GED, and showed impressive determination to go straight and get her child back.
“You’ve only got a month left until your next hearing, Laneesha. It will fly by. You just stay out of trouble until then.”
“Y’all be at court with me?”
Sara touched a bush ahead of her, feeling through the branches, shaking them to see if they were hiding the light. They weren’t. The darkness seemed to get thicker.
“Of course I’ll be there.”
“Martin, too?”
“Martin, too.”
“Even though y’all are getting’ divorced?”
Sara stopped. “Divorced? Where did you hear that?”
“Didn’t hear it. Takin’ a guess. You both don’ look at each other like you used to. Figure now the Center is breaking up, y’all will too.”
Sara chewed her lower lip. She and Martin had been growing apart for years, but when the government cut the Center’s funding he withdrew completely. That was the definition of ironic; two psychologists specifically trained to understand human nature and communication, unable to save their marriage even though they still loved each other.
The only thing left was for Martin to sign the divorce papers. But he hadn’t yet. They arrived yesterday, but instead of getting it over with he chose instead to ignore them, and her.
Sara knew their marriage was over. Once communication failed, so did intimacy. But she still entertained the fantasy of miraculously patching things up over campfire stories and sleeping bag snuggling.
That fantasy faded when Martin pulled this stunt and disappeared into the woods. This trip could have been their chance to really connect, to talk it out, to mend. Instead, she was crawling around on all fours, sorry she ever met the guy.
Scratch that. She could never think that way about Martin. They might not be able to live together any more, but the love was still there. Sara knew the love would always be there.
But right now, she wanted to stab the bastard in the eye. Figuratively, of course.
“Sara? Where you at?”
“I’m here.”
“You sound far.”
“I’m only a few yards away, Laneesha. The flashlight has to be close. Shit!”
“What? Sara, you okay? Sara!”
“I caught a nail on something. Damn, I think I broke it off.”
Sara parted her lips reflexively, ready to suck her injury. She stopped before her hand reached her mouth, a horrible stench wafting up from the ground. It blanketed her tongue and invaded her nostrils, rank and vile and forcing her to gag.
The unmistakable smell of rot.
“Sara? You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Sara coughed, spat. The odor brought back memories of her college years, coming back to her dorm after Christmas break to find her goldfish belly-up in the aquarium. When she lifted up the tank cover, the smell of decay was so bad she gagged and spit up.
That was just from a tiny little fish. This stench was coming from something much bigger.
Sara backed away, and her other hand locked onto a large branch. She gripped it, instinct telling her a weapon would be good, and yanked.
The smell got worse, so bad it was like being immersed in spoiled milk. She could feel it in her eyes, her hair, all over her skin and on her clothes.
The branch broke free from the ground, her fingers clenching it tight.
And then the same instinct that made her grab it told her to throw it away, but she was too frightened to open her hand.
The smell was coming from the branch. Because it wasn’t a branch at all.
It was a bone.
When Tyrone was a little boy, he wanted to be a cop. But not a cop like the cops in his neighborhood. Everyone hated those cops. They hassled kids, and never came quick enough when they were needed, and everyone called them pigs and 5-0 and they got no respect at all.
Tyrone wanted to be a cop like the cops on TV. He watched a lot of TV. The neighborhood where he grew up had a bad element, his moms always said.
“Being poor don’t make people bad,” she would tell him. “But it makes some people desperate.”
He didn’t get to play outside very much, because desperate people might try to hurt him, so he watched TV all the time. His favorites were the cop shows. The cops on those shows, they got respect. They actually helped people, and people liked them, and no one on TV had to live in a house with bars on the windows like Tyrone did so the bad element couldn’t steal his stuff.
When he told his moms he wanted to be a cop, she patted him on the head and gave him a big kiss and said he could be whatever he wanted to be when he grew up, as long as he got out of the neighborhood. And Tyrone promised her he would, and every night, when he said his prayers, he asked God to make him big and strong so he could someday become a cop and take Moms and Grams out of the neighborhood and to someplace really nice, where he got respect, and no one had bars on the windows.
Tyrone frowned as he lost another marshmallow to the fire. It plopped onto a burning log and melted down the side, solidifying in the heat. He watched as it went from bubbling white, to brown, to black ash.
“This sucks.”
Tom was pacing again, but he paused long enough to ask, “The woods? Or the Center closing?”
“The woods.” Tyrone smacked at a mosquito on his arm. “The Center. Shit, both. Don’t wanna spend the rest of my sentence in no detention center. An’ I don’t wanna spend the night on no freaky ass island. I’m street, not woods. Holla back.”
Meadow tapped his fist. “Hells yeah.”
Tom laughed, but it sounded clipped and forced. “So you guys are scared?”
Tyrone felt the challenge and narrowed his eyes. “Ain’t scared of nothin’. You sayin’ I am?”
Tom squatted next to Tyrone. He picked a pine cone up from the ground and chu
cked it into the fire. “You don’t have to sell me. I know you’re all bad ass. But when you saw that guy get shot when you were eight, did you look into his eyes when he died?”
What was it with white people? Tyrone thought. Why do they feel the need to talk about stuff like that?
He shrugged. “Naw, man. My moms hustled me inside soon as the shots were fired.”
Tom stared at Tyrone. He had a pretty intense gaze.
“I was holding Gram’s hand when she died, looking her right in the eyes. I know this sounds shitty, but we weren’t really close. I mean, she was my Grandma. She was always there, for my whole life, giving me money and shit for holidays, babysitting me when I was a kid, going to church with us every Sunday.”
Tom seemed to be waiting for a response, so Tyrone said, “Me ‘n my gramma are tight. She’s a good lady.”
“So was mine. But we weren’t tight. When she got sick and moved into our house, my parents made me sit with her. I didn’t want to. She smelled, you know? Had diapers on and shit. Plus she was on so many drugs she didn’t know where she was most of the frickin’ time. Or who I was. Or what was going on. But right there, at the very end, she could recognize me. She knew who I was. And she said something.”
Tom looked around for another pine cone. Instead he found a small rock and tossed that into the flames.
“What did yo gramma say?” Tyrone asked.
Tom’s face pinched. “She said, ‘There’s nothing, Tommy. Nothing.’ Then, when she was still staring at me, her eyes went blank. I mean, they were still open, still looked exactly the same. But blank. Like something was missing. Like she wasn’t a person anymore.”
Tyrone stared at Tom. The skinny kid got busted for jackin’ a car and joy riding. No damn purpose to it. Wasn’t to sell it, or strip it for the parts. Just for shits and grins. Tyrone thought it was a real stupid-ass crime. But maybe it made sense. When people were scared on the inside, sometimes they did things to show they weren’t scared.
“My moms, and my grams, they say your soul leaves your body.”
Tom shook his head. “Naw. There was nothing spiritual at all. One minute she was a person, the next she was just, I dunno, meat. There wasn’t any soul.”
Tyrone didn’t like that explanation. He remembered having to say his prayers every night before bed. Soul to keep, and all that. If men didn’t have souls, what was the point?
“You can’t see a soul, dog.”
“It was scary, Tyrone. Like a light turning off. And her saying there’s nothing. I mean, she went to church every week, never missed it once, and she was about a hundred years old. I thought there was supposed to be a bright light, and clouds, and an angel choir. That’s how it is supposed to be, right?”
“Maybe there were,” Tyrone said.
“So why’d she frickin’ say that?”
“Tom, you said she was on drugs, acting funny. Maybe she saw all the lights ‘n clouds n’ shit, but her words were all messed up. You don’ know for sure.”
Meadow guffawed. “Man, this conversation is wack.”
Tyrone stared at Meadow. “Don’t you believe in God?”
“If there’s a God, what he ever done for me? Grew up poor, my moms spendin’ the welfare on drugs. I joined a gang just to keep my belly full. God? Bullshit.”
“God’s up there.” Tyrone looked skyward, up at the big orange moon. “He just prefers we work this shit out ourselves.”
“Ain’t no point in having a god, man, if he’s just a slum lord never does nothin’.”
Tyrone turned to Meadow. “How do you know? You ever pray for anything before?”
“Naw.”
“Maybe you should try it once, see if it—”
The scream cut Tyrone off. High-pitched, piercing, coming from right behind him. The scream of someone in absolute, complete agony, so shrill it seemed to burn into Tyrone’s head. Tyrone twisted around, feeling his whole body twitch like he did back in the day when something bad was going down. He automatically reached for his belt, his fingers seeking out a knife, a gun, a bike chain, anything at all to defend himself with. They came up empty. So he stood up and stumbled sideways, bumping into Tom, steadying himself even though his legs were jonesing to run him the hell out of there.
His eyes scanned the tree line, seeing only random shadows flitting across the trunks. Beyond that, a darkness so vast it seemed like the forest was opening its giant mouth to eat them all.
“The fuck was that?”
Meadow was standing next to Tyrone, also slapping his pants in search of a weapon he wasn’t going to find. Tom was on Tyrone’s other shoulder, holding out his weak-ass marshmallow stick like that would protect them.
Tyrone held his breath. Crickets and silence. This island was too damn quiet. Never got this quiet in Motown. Never got this dark, neither. Tyrone could survive on the street for weeks when he had to, but out here in bumblefuck he knew he wouldn’t last a day. Can’t B&E for duckets or pop in a homie’s crib for food when you’re in the middle of the woods. And if something was chasing you, where were you supposed to hide?
“It’s one of the girls, messing with us,” Tom said.
Tyrone felt a stab of concern for Cindy, then dismissed it. This scream came from the opposite direction. Tyrone didn’t know what it was about the girl that he liked, but he just liked her, is all. He never did anything about it. Never even said anything. Both he and Cindy were in the Center to improve themselves. That was a big enough job without adding all that relationship baggage to the mix.
Meadow shook his head. “Didn’t sound like no bullshit scream. Sounded real. And close.”
“Maybe we should go check.”
“You go check, white boy. With your little stick.”
Tyrone shushed them. “Quiet. I hear somethin’.”
He recognized the noise, because they all made the same noise earlier, on the hike to this clearing. It was the sound of people in the woods, trampling over dead leaves and twigs, pushing branches out of the way.
And the sound was moving toward them. Fast.
“Somethin’s comin’,” Meadow whispered.
The trampling was too noisy for one or two people to make. It sounded like at least half a dozen folks, rushing through the forest, getting closer.
The bushes at the treeline shook like a bear was caught in them. Tyrone couldn’t move. He couldn’t even swallow. He knew, knew, that some crazy Civil War cannibals were going to burst out and start chomping him, and he was too scared to do anything about it.
Then, all at once, the bushes stopped moving. The sound of approaching footsteps ceased. All Tyrone could hear was crickets, and the thumping of his own heart.
“Are they still there?” Tyrone had never heard Tom speak so quietly.
“Dunno.” Meadow’s voice was just as soft. “Didn’t hear them leave. Might still be there, staring at us.”
Tyrone’s back became really hot—he was standing too close to the fire. But he didn’t dare move away. He could feel eyes on him. Predator eyes. Something was in those woods, and it wanted to do him serious harm.
“Hey!”
They all turned to the right, Tom bumping into Tyrone, who backed into Meadow. Walking toward them, arms spread open, was Cindy. She smirked, and Tyrone was surprised how relieved he felt to see her.
“You guys look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Were you over there?” Meadow pointed in the direction they’d been facing,
Cindy jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I came from there. Did you hear Georgia scream?”
Tyrone managed to swallow, find his voice. “Heard someone, that way.”
“Georgia was going to try to scare you guys. But she ditched me. She’s in the trees there?”
Cindy walked past them, heading for the bushes. Tyrone caught her wrist.
“I don’t think that’s Georgia.”
“Why not?”
“It’s more than one person,” Tom said, his voice low.
Cindy stepped backward, next to Tyrone. Her hair smelled like shampoo. He relaxed his grip a bit but still kept hold of her wrist.
“Maybe she found the others. Maybe they’re all trying to scare us.”
“It ain’t them.”
Tom flinched, bumping into Tyrone, pressing against him. It violated all sorts of personal space, and normally would have resulted in a rough shove and a threat, but Tyrone didn’t move because he saw what Tom saw, just beyond the bushes, barely illuminated from the light of the fire.
A person.
Someone was standing in the darkness, watching them. It creeped Tyrone out so bad he finally uprooted his legs, sidestepping the campfire, backpedaling away while tugging Cindy along. Then that fool Tom came up fast, knocking into them, toppling everyone over.
The act of breaking eye contact with whatever was in the woods scared Tyrone even more, as if losing sight of the enemy meant it could suddenly be anywhere. He looked back at the bushes, seeking out the silhouette, barely noticing Cindy’s hand moving into his.
The dark figure was still there, features obscured by night. Tall, thin, silent.
The moment stretched to the breaking point. Even the crickets stopped chirping.
“You want some of me, mutha fucka?” Meadow was frontin’ now, sticking out his chest and slapping it with his palms. “I’ll cold rip you a new one.”
Tyrone watched as Meadow walked toward the figure. He knew he should be backing his boy up. Didn’t matter that they rolled with different crews when they was bangin’. Didn’t matter that Meadow was a pain in the balls sometimes. At the Center, Meadow was his brother. They were tight there, much as they were rivals on the street.
But this wasn’t the Center, and it wasn’t the street neither. This place might as well have been Mars. Throwing down in a gang fight was one thing, and Tyrone wasn’t scared of that. But scrapping in the woods with some crazy cannibal—that was horror movie bullshit.
So Tyrone stayed put, squeezing Cindy’s hand, watching as his friend clenched his fists and stomped toward the darkness.
The light came on, faint and yellow, shining on the bone Sara clenched in her hand. It was long, over eighteen inches, covered on one side with clumps of dirt. The other side, the side Sara stared at, had strips of dried brown flesh clinging to it.