Dark Woods (11 page)

As suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped and the skies cleared to reveal a bright crescent moon above the trees.

Cal shivered and tried to concentrate on walking as softly as he could. It reminded him of a game the other children played at school once in a while – Grandmother’s Footsteps or something like that. One person was chosen to stand at the front with their eyes closed and the others had to creep up on them without being heard. The only difference was, if you got caught, you had to go and sit on the side until the game was over and then you got another go.

Here, there would be no second chances.

So although Cal was exhausted, fear kept him alert. His hearing became sensitive to the smallest of sounds until every breath, every falling raindrop, became a piece of information that could save his life.

But it was Eden who heard it first.

‘Cal!’ she hissed, grabbing his arm. Cal heard the faint rustle of branches from somewhere behind him but as he turned, the sound stopped.

‘Did you hear it?’

Cal nodded. He felt as if they were taking part in some kind of cruel game which occasionally allowed them to believe there was hope of survival, when in fact there was none.

They listened for a time without moving, trying to locate the source of the sound.

‘Can you hear it now?’ Cal whispered.

Eden shook her head.

‘But there was definitely something there.’

‘I know. I heard it too.’

Another sound, like a foot scraping the earth. A slight tremor of the branches, less than five metres in front of them.

‘OK,’ said Cal quietly, keeping his eyes on the shadows beneath the trees. ‘No sudden movements.’ He touched Eden’s arm and realised that she was trembling. ‘We’ll just move back and go a different way.’

He stepped back and Eden followed, matching his footsteps as they slowly moved away. Unable to shake the feeling that something was watching them, Cal concentrated on staying silent and gradually increasing their distance from whatever was lurking in the shadows. He felt the branches brush against his head and knew that if they could just get a little further into cover they might have a chance.

But then he heard Eden whimper and turned to see her standing with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide open, staring straight ahead. As he followed her gaze there was a squelching sound and the ground broke open to reveal what appeared to be a dark hood emerging from a layer of soft mud.

‘What is it?’ Cal whispered as two deathly-white hands reached out of the hole, their fingers feeling around the edges for firmer ground.

‘They come for me at night,’ said Eden, her voice shaking as the figure pulled itself from the thick mud which oozed out onto the dry ground around it. ‘They’re the dark men.’

Cal watched the figure claw its way out of the mud and saw how the mud seemed to slide off it to reveal a figure dressed in a hooded cloak, its face almost completely hidden except for the dull red glow of its eyes.

‘Dark
men
?’ asked Cal, but as Eden nodded he saw that all around them the earth was rising, forming circular crusts which burst open to reveal more ghostly figures clawing their way out into the night.

Cal swore as the first one began running towards them through the trees. But before it could reach them the ground shook and a furrow of earth appeared on the surface, lengthening and speeding towards it. Then the ground erupted and Cal saw the huge worm coiling around the man’s legs, dragging him down to the accompaniment of grunts and screams.

As the other figures fell back, Cal pushed Eden through the trees and together they ran blindly beneath thickening branches towards the place in the woods where their nightmares had first become real.

‘There it is,’ said Eden as they stumbled through a gap in the trees. ‘I can see a light.’

Cal looked behind him and imagined he could hear the sound of breathing, of things moving steadily through the trees towards them.

‘We need to get inside,’ he said, ‘and we need to do it now.’

‘What about Jefferson?’

Cal looked at the house and saw that the only light was the one above the door.

‘Probably asleep. And he told me he never locks the doors. No need.’ Cal looked over his shoulder. ‘Until now, anyway.’

‘What if he hears us?’

‘Then maybe he’ll help us.’

Cal saw that Eden was still undecided.

‘Look, if he wakes up, we’ll deal with it. Otherwise we find the keys, you drive the van and we get the hell out. OK?’

‘OK.’

They ran across the clearing to the back of the house and opened the door. The house was in darkness but as Cal fumbled for the light switch Eden pulled his hand away.

‘There’s a flashlight in the kitchen drawer,’ she said. ‘I saw it when I was looking for the keys.’

Cal retrieved it and shone it at Jefferson’s door to check that it was closed. He made a quick sweep of the kitchen table, but the keys were nowhere in sight.

He nodded towards Jefferson’s denim jacket hanging on the back of the door and held the light steady while Eden checked the pockets, but they were empty. With increasing desperation they checked all the cupboards and drawers, Cal half-expecting the rattle of cutlery to wake Jefferson, but the door to his room remained firmly closed.

‘They’re not here,’ said Eden at last. ‘They must be in his room.’

Cal shone the torch at her.

‘You want to go and check?’

‘Not without some help.’

Cal swept the torch beam around the room one more time.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’

He walked towards Jefferson’s bedroom door, picking out the handle in a circle of light. Then he switched off the torch and slowly turned the handle, wincing as the mechanism creaked. When the door was open a crack he listened for the sound of breathing, but there was none.

‘Get ready,’ he whispered.

Then he pushed the door open and turned on the torch.

The first thing he noticed was the picture of Jefferson’s dog on his nightstand. The second was the skein of wires which ran across the surface of the walls before disappearing into the roof and beneath the floorboards. And the third was that Jefferson’s bed was empty.

There was an old dresser in the corner and Eden pulled open the drawers, but all she found was a threadbare sweater and a few crumpled T-shirts.

‘Do you think he’s still here?’ she asked.

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ said Cal, tossing her the torch before walking to the window and peering through the blinds. ‘And neither should we be.’

‘But what if he’s taken the van?’

They stared at each other for a moment and then ran back through the living room and out of the door.

‘I see it,’ breathed Cal with relief as they clattered around the side of the outbuildings to find the van half hidden behind some bushes. As they got closer Cal saw that beyond the bushes was a narrow dirt track, leading away through the trees.

‘That’s it,’ said Eden. ‘That’s our way out of here.’

‘But it could be miles,’ said Cal. ‘I don’t suppose they taught you how to hot-wire a car in the Girl Scouts?’

Eden stood on tiptoes and peered through the driver’s window.

Then she gasped.

‘Cal! Look!’

She pulled open the door, gave a little whoop of triumph and held up the keys.

‘They were in the ignition.’

She leaned over the seats and opened the passenger door.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Cal, shaking his head as he climbed in beside her. ‘He must leave them there the whole time. I mean, who’s going to come all the way out here to nick a van?’

Eden smiled and started the engine.

‘We are,’ she said.

For the first few minutes, Eden’s driving made Cal wonder whether she had ever been behind the wheel of a car in her life. The van juddered, the gears grated and whenever they got up speed she steered so close to the trees that Cal found himself pulling his elbows away from the window in case they were taken off along with the door.

‘Takes a bit of getting used to,’ said Eden, leaning forward and peering at the road ahead. ‘But I think I’ve got the hang of it now.’

The headlights picked out a fallen branch in the road and Eden swerved so violently that Cal banged his head against the side window.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said, pulling his seat belt tighter.

He checked the mirror to see if anything was following them but the road was hidden by the dark and the dust from the wheels.

‘We’re doing it, Cal,’ said Eden, changing up a gear. ‘We’re actually doing it. We’re going home.’

Cal could hear the relief in her voice, but as he looked at the glare of the headlights, he couldn’t help wondering if that was all this was – a small patch of brightness on a long dark road. He knew in his heart that the man with the shears was part of him, just as the dark figures that pursued them were a part of Eden. That although they had run away this time, there was a chance that those things would be waiting for them, somewhere down the road.

‘Are you OK?’ asked Eden. ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’

‘Just tired, I guess. It’s all been a bit . . . frantic.’

‘Frantic,’ Eden repeated. ‘Well, I guess that’s one word for it.’

She touched the brake and as they rounded a bend, Cal saw the twinkle of lights in the valley.

Eden took her hand from the wheel and laid it over Cal’s.

‘I think we made it, Cal,’ she said.

‘I think we did,’ said Cal.

He smiled then because he was glad for her. But part of him was already grieving, because she was the best friend he’d ever had and, one way or another, he knew their friendship would soon be over.

At the end of the dirt track the trees thinned out and Eden made a right onto a narrow road before taking a left which broadened out into a junction. They joined a highway with white lines down the centre and when Cal saw the electricity pylons with their wires rising and falling toward the distant lights, he knew that they were at the start of their journey home.

The town was a small, sparsely populated place that had grown up along the side of the road to offer beds to passing travellers and hopeful gold prospectors. Back then the streets and bars had been crowded with people looking to make a fast buck, but nowadays the only gold worth having was a hundred miles further south and you needed a licence to get it. So the town had died a little with every passing year, the young kids shipping out the first chance they got while the old folks sat around trying to figure out why they’d never got around to it themselves.

‘That place up ahead looks open,’ said Cal. ‘Maybe they can tell us where we are.’

Eden nodded.

‘I’ve got twenty bucks in my pocket says the first thing we do is get a coffee and something to eat. What do you say?’

Bobby’s Bar and Grill wasn’t the kind of place that usually stayed open much past midnight, although the regulars always tried to squeeze a few extra minutes in before closing time. Bobby generally allowed them only another quarter of an hour or so to finish their drinks because, although they might not have any place better to go, Bobby’s wife was sick and he didn’t like leaving her alone upstairs at night.

But tonight was different because Jimmy Simpson’s boy had got married and today was the day he was heading up north to work in construction. Jimmy’s wife had died last fall, and although Jimmy was proud and happy for the new life his son had made, Bobby had caught the look in his eye when the car drove away and in that look he saw all the football games and fishing trips that would never come again. And because Bobby was a good man, he knew that tonight was not a night for early closing.

‘You want another one in there?’ he asked, nodding towards Jimmy’s glass of bourbon.

Jimmy swallowed the last few drops, wiped his mouth and then slid the glass across the counter.

‘You’re a gentleman, Bobby,’ he said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

Bobby smiled and poured another shot.

‘Be sure and mention that to Sheriff Jobert,’ he said, ‘when he turns up asking to see my licence.’

‘I wouldn’t worry too much about that,’ said Frank Roberts, who’d been checking for storm damage on the overhead cables for Montana Power & Light and hoped Jobert wouldn’t notice that his ladder was still in place. ‘If Sheriff Jobert asks to see anything, it’ll be a bottle of malt whisky.’

Bobby chuckled. Frank was right, of course. Sam Jobert had been the town Sheriff for fourteen years, which was plenty long enough to know there was never any trouble at Bobby’s place.

Bobby looked at the clock and saw it was a quarter after one. He guessed maybe it wouldn’t hurt to share one more beer with the guys before calling it a night.

Cal jumped down into the parking lot and slammed the van door shut. There were a couple of cars parked near the entrance and a pick-up at the side with a few beer barrels in the back. The faint sound of country music floated through the open windows, the notes of a steel guitar sliding mournfully behind a woman singing a song about lost love. As Eden followed him in, the smell of stale beer rose from the floorboards, the legacy of a thousand careless drinkers.

Cal could tell right away from the bartender’s expression that they weren’t the kind of customers he was used to.

He stared at them and his hand came to rest inside the glass he was cleaning, like a small animal settling in for the night.

‘Can I help you?’

‘We were hoping to get something to eat,’ said Cal.

The bartender glanced at the other two men and then back at Cal.

‘Ain’t you a little young to be out after midnight?’ he asked.

It was a fair question. But all the same, Cal was glad they had parked the van a little way from the bar.

Some things were just too complicated to explain.

‘We’re new to the area,’ he replied, not wanting to go into the whole story. ‘We went for a walk in the woods and got ourselves lost. And we’re pretty hungry, to be honest. So you know, if you’ve got anything to eat . . .’

‘We’d be real grateful,’ Eden added, brushing pine needles from her sleeve.

The bartender set the glass back on the counter.

‘You must have been walking a long time,’ he said, looking them up and down. Cal could tell he wasn’t exactly buying their story. But behind him a row of cold drinks shone out from the chiller cabinet and Cal decided he wasn’t about to give up on them now.

‘You’re right about that,’ he said, giving the bartender one of his friendliest smiles. ‘And most of it was round in circles.’

Eden stepped up to the bar, took the twenty from her pocket and slid it across the counter.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Whatever you’ve got, we’ll be happy to have it. We ain’t fussy.’

The bartender put the tips of his fingers on the twenty-dollar bill, hesitated for a moment, then slid it back across the counter.

‘I reckon you probably need that more than I do,’ he said. ‘Besides, I’ve got some cold ham and cheese out back that ain’t gonna last much longer in this heat. Be a shame to waste it.’

Eden smiled.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

The barman’s gaze flicked to Cal and then back to Eden again. ‘I know he’s foreign and all, but you both look kind of familiar. Are you sure you’re not from round here?’

‘Definitely not,’ said Eden. ‘He’s English and I’m from Orange County.’

‘You’re not famous or anything?’

‘I wish,’ said Cal.

They sat in the corner next to the jukebox where they couldn’t be overheard and Cal tried to ignore the looks from the other two men at the bar.

‘Are you sure you haven’t been here before?’ he whispered. ‘The bartender seems to recognise you.’

‘Never been here in my life,’ said Eden. ‘You know what it is, don’t you? We’ve been missing for a couple of days and they’ve probably been showing our pictures on the news channel or something. Once we’ve had something to eat, we’ll put ’em out of their misery and tell them who we are.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then we phone the police and we get ourselves home.’

Eden saw Cal hesitate and frowned.

‘What? Don’t you want to go home?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, what, then?’

Cal shrugged.

‘Oh please,’ said Eden. ‘Tell me this isn’t about Jefferson.’

Cal didn’t reply. He picked up the salt shaker from the middle of the table and set it down again.

‘Cal, listen to me. Whatever Jefferson’s got coming to him is his own fault. We don’t owe him anything. Nothing at all.’

‘I know. It’s just . . .’

‘It’s just what?’

‘I don’t think he’s a bad person, Eden.’

‘You’re kidding me, right? You
are
kidding me.’

‘No.’

‘He abducted us, Cal. He drugged us, put us in his van and carried out his weird little experiments on us while we were asleep. You think that’s a good thing?’

‘No. But you don’t know what it’s like to be alone, Eden. You don’t know what it’s like to feel desperate. Sometimes life gets so dark that you can’t see straight. And when that happens you’ll do anything to find your way back to the light.’

Eden put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her palms.

‘Is that how you feel?’ she asked.

‘Sometimes.’

Cal stared out of the window at the lights and the darkness beyond.

‘What happened back there was terrifying. But I don’t believe that Jefferson meant for it to happen. He just wanted his dog back, that’s all. And we found it for him, Eden. Even though what he did was wrong, we gave him some light and I feel good about that. And it’s the first time I’ve felt good about anything in a long time.’

‘But what about the other stuff? All those things we saw?’

‘We need to forget about them, Eden. If we start talking to people about what we saw, we’ll never be free of them. We have to try and leave them where they are.’

Eden shook her head.

‘We can’t do that, Cal.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because what if he does it again? What if he decides he wants something else and abducts some other kid? And what if next time they don’t get away?’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because he found what he was looking for.’

Eden was quiet for a moment.

‘And what about you, Cal?’ she asked. ‘What are you looking for?’

Cal thought of Sarah, lying by his side in the dark of the camper van, wanting to be his mother.

‘I’m not looking for anything,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all.’