by Chris Page
It was unbearably exhausting, yet unrelenting. Jake toiled with the meaning, his mind churning the thoughts long past the point of incomprehension. At its heart, that was the truth. Meaninglessness. From that basis, he began anew, rebuilding the faith, inebriated at the altar of his design, the chaos of his shed. Pillars of understanding arose and collapsed, each time leaving behind a little more rubble, a little more dust littering his consciousness so that Jake lost sight of what once lied beneath it.
Under a layer of trash that covered the floor of his shed laid the single page he had discovered then forgotten, the introduction of two fishermen produced from the mind of his son. Unwittingly, he trampled over it and in a matter of weeks its text disappeared, pencil fading away, erasing the pair from existence.
32
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Carrie sat behind the wheel of her car at the trailhead while the sun cast an array of colors across the sky. Shortly, they would recede, following after the sun, handing the sky over to night. She knew she’d been home since yesterday’s trip, but the hours were missing from memory. Seated here, eyes lost to the latticework of the naked branches, it almost felt as though she hadn’t left, had only returned to her car, had waited until her mind cleared away the preceding events like a goldfish ready to explore the far end of the fishtank it had just come from.
But she could feel the absence of the memory, and because of it became agitated. Agitation replaced all emotions, only subtle variations of degree distinguishing one expression of it from another. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she didn’t feel anything anymore. It would be the end of her ability to sustain. The completion of her mission. A flicker of brain activity concluded this was precisely the sacrifice the forest demanded, like Job, to exceed the bounds of her endurance. For this, a reward.
What was the reward?
The question echoed faintly in her thoughts until it unearthed the image of a stringy boy, qualities of sweetness and tenderness grafted onto him. Were these the traits of his character? She couldn’t know, distressed by her inability to feel connection with her former existence. What remained was a diminutive kernel of awareness stationed at the center of her mind, a vantage to observe the dissolution of the faculties that surrounded it, pieces of Carrie swept out with an undertow into an uncaring sea of void. It would almost have been pleasant had it not been for the entrenched goal written into even the last trace of mind.
It was why she was here. Carrie took a deep breath, expelling it against the inside of the windshield. A small circle of fog contracted as quickly as it appeared, obscuring the forest for less than a second.
The mission was all that remained. All other needs fell behind it, inaccessible until the mission’s end. Carrie would enter the forest for the last time, placing her body down in the darkness of its heart and await its verdict, her fate tied to that of her son’s. She would neither beg nor curse the forest, resigned to accept whatever decision it came to. The case, as far as she could present it, was made. What it chose would not be swayed by the outbursts of an otherwise hollow woman.
The seat was comfortable, the interior of her car warm. If she could only to shut her eyes, shut out the world—
Carrie wrapped her fingers around the handle and popped open the door, inviting a gust of icy cool air to clear out the stored heat surrounding her. She took it into her lungs, pain swirling in her chest. Now the car was no better than the forest. Keep going, Carrie. Her body accepted the final marching orders of her waning mind, to deliver her into the depths of the forest, only collapsing when the effort of a single step exceeded its capability.
The kernel of awareness watched from a recessed place as she crossed into the woods, listened faintly from a distance as her shoes tread wood chips. Her legs carried her along the familiar path, turning off the main trail at the intersection with the overgrown dirt one. Down along the old trail, made easier by the lack of vegetation in winter. Over logs, around trunks. Emerging into the clearing, finding the trailhead. Turning down the slope, stumbling, but avoiding collapse. Almost. Then into the enclosed tunnel, spindles of branches creaking forth overhead to meet one another, entwining, tugging, shutting out the light. Into darkness and weightlessness, the disappearance of trees from sight. Darkness so dense it consumes limbs. All sound falling away, her own breathing, her heartbeat. Replaced by steady breathing of the forest, its low rumble. And on, proceeding through the nothingness in its heart, the endless, blank terrain. And on, until she could go no more, until she collapsed, and either the forest saved her or consumed the remaining parts of her she had not already given it, all she had left to give, a little meat and some bones.
33
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Jake waited a short distance from the trailhead, watching his breath billow out before him, eddies of white clouds swallowed by the night. Within the forest, the dark felt more nefarious, as though teamed with the trees in some sinister alliance. Elements of a nightmare conspiring to terrify the dreamer. Quaint, to imagine such malevolence. He entertained himself with monstrous inventions stalking the woods around him until a burning pain in his gut caused him to double over. He lifted a fist to his lips while he coughed, trying to expel the irritation, only making it worse. A wetness struck his knuckles. He lifted it to the moonlight. Dark, trailing down the back of his hand. The taste in his mouth confirmed his suspicions. More blood. Rising in greater quantities now, no longer traces. It had been a steady progression, the balance between phlegm and blood tipping gradually over time. All through the center of him, running down from his throat into his bowels, he felt a persistent fire chewing away at the linings of his guts. Before long, he supposed, it would eat its way through, breaching the wall of his esophagus, or intestines, or stomach. Then it would wreak havoc, disintegrating his innards in short order. The last of the agents at work in this cycle, neutralized. Within him, as with Burrell, and Benny before him, the conflict endured. Balance would win out, resolving the disturbance. It only awaited the final action, as did Jake, dutifully watching the entrance to the forest. Just beyond it, his car sat quietly, moonlight faintly tracing its body, reflected in the paint.
Then a flood of yellow light washed out the white, two headlights crossing over from trunk to hood. Beside his sedan a truck pulled in, blasting the forest with its disruptive high beams. Jake felt his pupils shrink, but he didn’t falter in his watch. The engine sputtered out, the lights shut off. Two bright, blue orbs floated in Jake’s vision. As he blinked them away, he saw a large man step out from behind the wheel onto the gravel of the parking area. He heard better than he saw the man approaching the forest path, the crunch of his boots meeting with stone transitioning to wood chips.
Jake stood at attention while the silhouetted Larry approached him, stomping down the path until he arrived within a yard of his employer. “Good evening,” he greeted. “That my payment?”
Jake turned his head down to the leather satchel at his side, regarding it with surprise after having forgotten about it dangling there. He slipped it from his shoulder and handed it to Larry.
“Where’s Burrell?”
In the dark it was difficult to discern, but Jake could just make out a grin rising on Larry’s face between the residual ghost images of his headlights. “Where’s Burrell?” Jake repeated.
Larry only stood there, smiling at him, as if giving him a chance to put the pieces together on his own. The last of his whiskey buzz was leaving him, and the resulting headache made thinking less clear. However, as the silence between them dragged on, the dawning realization struck Jake in his chest. Burrell wasn’t here. Larry hadn’t retrieved him. He never intended to.
The glint of a silver pistol’s barrel flashed as Larry withdrew it from the back of his pants, leveling it on Jake. His fingertips danced around the grip in a readjustment while he tongue crossed over his bottom lip. “Let’s take a walk,” he said, shaking the end of the pistol out to the side.
The excitement of the moment drained ou
t of Jake, turning to obey the order, marching further into the forest, into the night. While he trudged along the path, his heavy footsteps quieting the animal life around them, he thought to himself how this part, at least, was going according to the plan. And, he assumed, its next stage would still see Larry carry out an execution. And after that, even, he would collect his payment, leave behind a body, and drive back to Harrison or whatever shithole he crawled out of. With grim countenance, Jake observed that indeed most of the plan would proceed, and in this realization he felt himself incredibly stupid. The hole of it sat right in its middle, a perfect opportunity to exploit an unwitting mark. It was his insistence that he watch, the thickheaded inclusion of himself as audience. Through ignorance, he had rewritten the contract, as valid now as it was when he presumed its favorable outcome, an unspoken, unwritten, but nevertheless effective clause indemnifying the hitman from injury as a direct result of the client’s foolishness, even and especially in the event that the injury be perpetrated by the hitman. Jake could hardly be angry with Larry. He was familiar with the tropes of crime fiction, it couldn’t be said he didn’t know better.
Despite leaving his coat unzipped, the cold didn’t reach him. Jake saw each of his breaths fill the space before him with fog, but he felt no internal heat, save the burning pain of his insides. Even as the wind blew against him, no effect registered. He imagined the bullet would interact with him in the same way. When it entered, his nervous system might alert him to the intrusion, but it would arrive without pain. When it ripped through his organs, it would only cease their functions, failing to exceed the anguish he already experienced and had grown numb to. While his blood spilled into the dirt, his heart pushing it through the wound with diminishing pumps, it would only be the cessation of all experience, Jake surmised.
The path continued through the forest, turning gently left and right. After a distance Jake estimated to be two or three miles, he felt Larry’s fist grip the back of his jacket, halting him. “Off the path,” he instructed, and Jake obeyed, having little reason not to. In a sense, he cosigned his fate by way of his oversight and perhaps, in his resignation, the will of the universe was done. Or it didn’t matter, and the event of his death would rightfully contain no ceremony. But in this perfunctory end, there was grander resolution illustrating the inanity of the entire affair. Yet for its meaning to be meaninglessness seemed a paradox, and this set two sides of Jake’s mind at war with one another, a preexisting violence finding new cause to perpetuate itself.
A rustling pulled Jake’s attention to the side. With his head turned, he viewed the pistol in his periphery, momentarily redirected into the darkness. Jake could turn, throw himself against the hitman, or chop at his arm to loosen his grip on the weapon. Maybe a swift kick to the groin would be more effective. An upward jab of the palm against Larry’s nose. Jake recalled hearing how that had killed people before, thrusting a bone into the brain cavity. Myriad attacks suggested themselves, none of which Jake seized upon, his body too worn down to attempt them. Instead, he peered into the darkness towards the rustling, as did Larry, awaiting its reveal. With a handful of Jake’s coat, Larry forced him towards the noise, wielding him like a shield.
It rustled again, closer, louder. “Hey!” Larry shouted, his voice hoarse. Jake felt spit droplets spray across his cheek.
No reply came.
Larry repeated his call, his assumption made clear. There was someone out there. It made little sense, but then, a random event had set the chain in motion, the vulnerability of a teenage boy intersecting with the whims of a murderous pervert, the pair meeting at the crossroads of two otherwise benign streets that connected between school and home.
Out of the darkness a figure emerged, low, crawling along the ground, its limbs grotesquely slender, their motions unnatural, akin to one of Jake’s monstrous inventions. Larry fired on it, the report ringing in Jake’s ear. He winced, lifting his hand to his head, but in the movement lost his balance. His foot slid forward and his body collapsed onto his back. Larry fired a second time, ostensibly for Jake, though the aim was careless enough that the bullet flew through the forest a quarter mile before embedding itself in a tree trunk. By the time it had, Larry turned and began his flight away from the perceived danger, his thoughts crowded with panic.
On the ground, Jake laid beside his wife, catching sight of her features once she rolled onto her back and enough matted hair fell away from her face. When Carrie’s eyes found those of her husband, the qualities of the forest’s heart stripped cleanly away from her such that this moment felt indistinguishable from the previous. In concert with Jake’s resignation to happenstance, the effect ensured neither treated their chance meeting with any special recognition. Instead, they used one another’s bodies to rise from the earth, each leaning in towards the other to climb upward. When they stood again, they remained against one another, simply breathing. At a distance, at that hour, they might have been mistaken for another trunk, their bodies combined forming the average width. Against a backdrop of tree silhouettes, their minds emptied, their bodies only breathed, as the leaves would come spring. Their lungs extracted the oxygen from the air, infused their blood with its properties, and eventually enough circulated that the activity of thought returned, compelling them to move. They uprooted their feet from the sinking mud and wordlessly made their way through the forest, seeking an exit. In their search, they remained bound together by their hands, fastened tightly.
In spite of their exhaustion and malnutrition, they walked through the forest for hours, until the first signs of dawn appeared. Light slowly began to fill the air, changing black into blue, illuminating the forest. It aided their journey, allowing them to quicken their pace, each step more assured.
Trails eluded them, but at one point they spied a clearing, and as they approached it, perceived a structure in its center. For lack of other directions, they went forth to investigate. Arriving at the clearing’s edge, the structure revealed itself to be a shed. Rickety in construction, it was made of wood, and leaned threateningly to the side despite looking like it had stood here for decades. Carrie turned from the shed to a tree beside her. Its bark was dark grey, but curving lines of white contrasted its natural complexion. She placed a finger against them and traced it, a large, misshapen heart encircling lovers’ initials. The letters were bold, fattened by years of growth, and made nearly illegible. The heart around them was nearly just a circle, only a small dent at its top remaining. While she busied herself in a trance-like infatuation with the carving, Jake proceeded towards the shed. He approached the door and discovered a new hasp bolted into the aged wood. His fingers lifted the padlock, examining the luster of its metal. Then he placed his hand against the door, feeling the brittle wood. For no other reason than curiosity, he stepped back and thrust his foot against the door, finding it would break under one man’s force.
Carrie turned her head from the tree to watch Jake kick against the door a second time. She drifted over towards him, watching from behind as he splintered the wood with each successive kick. On his fifth, the door swung open and a putrid stench burst from within. Both Jake and Carrie grimaced, but the smell did not dissuade their curiosity. With a hand lifted to pinch his nostrils, Jake stepped into the shed, panning his vision from one side to the other.
His hand fell away from his nose. Both arms swung lifelessly at his sides while he stared into the corner of the shed. Carrie stepped up beside him and her shoulders flinched towards her ears. Quiet and perfectly still, Benny’s body laid curled into a naked ball, the protruding bones of his spine pressed against one wall with the back of his head pressed against another. It was as though he had done his best to stuff himself into that corner. The skin over the nubs of his spine had been rubbed raw and scabbed over several times over, a line of pebbles embedded into the flesh. All of him was filthy, dirt obscuring countless scratch marks across his ribs, arms, neck, face.
Carrie’s fingers crawled up Jake’s arm until they
reached his shoulder and gripped. He turned then to face her inquiring eyes. Within them, for a moment, a strange vision appeared. Jake saw two grey, misshapen comets in tight orbit around one another, heavy bodies dragging each other closer. Every time they wrapped around, it seemed they would break away and free themselves. But then they descended inward again, repeating the cycle as spelled out in natural law. Except, in the darkness at the center of Carrie’s eyes, he watched them finally strike. Two uneven spheres meeting, and from their collision, dust. A cloud of particulate matter, glittering with starlight, suspended in space. It was a vision shortly interrupted, but at the same time he experienced it, Carrie saw in his eyes its completion. It was the forest around them, but elongated as it swirled into the blacks of his pupils where all of it disappeared and left nothing but her reflection. They were two halves, senseless on their own, and swiftly ended by the sound of dry coughs emanating from the shed’s corner.
Jake and Carrie rushed to Benny, one on either side of him, as they coaxed him back to life.
34
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The boy slimmed considerably, having subsisted on scraps tossed onto the floor of his cage. When he viewed himself in a mirror for the first time in nearly a year, he could envision his skeleton. It showed through his flesh, ribs like dunes casting shadows between them. His skin pulled back over his skull, chin and cheekbones protruding. His eyes fell into their sockets, and he imagined them receding until they were no more, leaving two empty cavities. Though his captor had trimmed his nails, his hair formed one, massive clump in the back of his head, and elsewhere it matted into filthy spindles. It was removed, buzzed clean off. One lengthy bath conducted by hospital staff cleared away the fecal matter and soot caked into his crevices. Then he rested, laid out in a bed with an IV line and heart monitor announcing each beat with disruptive beeping. His body made a gradual recovery while he spent most hours asleep.