The Forest Read online

  Sammy was dead.

  Sammy was lost.

  But Sammy was here.

  Sammy was found.

  Alex climbed. He didn’t look up, he kept staring down. Not at the ground – it was already lost in the mist. He stared at the toy he held so tightly he could feel warmth seep out of its stuffing and fur.

  Blood.

  That should have disgusted him. But it didn’t. He held it all the harder, clutched it all the closer. The blood was Sammy’s and it was real.

  Wasn’t it?

  He climbed fast, and barely noticed that he was high enough to die if he let go. He didn’t notice at all that the fog still clung to everything. The fog went on forever. There was no rising above it.

  But there was rising above the level of the ladder. He hadn’t looked up, so he screamed and almost did let go when the hand fell into view.

  “Grab on!”

  Alex looked up. Julie leaned out of an open trapdoor that must lead into the room atop the tower. She was half out over the edge, so far that Alex wondered how she wasn’t falling out. He saw one arm close to her side, the hand out of sight beyond the limits of the trapdoor opening. She must be holding onto something that anchored her to her spot.

  “It’s tricky,” she said. “Even if you’ve done it before.”

  Alex didn’t understand. Was she talking about losing a child? Did she know what that was like? And done it before? Had Julie lost a child of her own? Did she understand that loss not once but twice?

  She waved her hand. Reality snapped back into focus, if only a bit.

  She wasn’t talking about Sammy. She was just asking him to give her his hand for the last few feet of the climb.

  He didn’t. He didn’t want to let go of the toy. She didn’t see it, he supposed: it was held so tightly that anyone looking probably saw only his bloody hand. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have understood why he was holding a child’s toy given all that was happening.

  He held it tighter. He didn’t want her to see. Julie must have seen the determination in his eyes and misinterpreted it as some macho need to make his own way up the ladder. She sighed and said, “Suit yourself,” and moved out of the way.

  Alex shook his head. He climbed the last few rungs one-handed, and realized abruptly how high he was, how far he had climbed. He risked a look down. The rungs of the ladder, the tower’s struts and supports all disappeared into fog at least thirty feet below. But he knew he had climbed much higher than the fog allowed him to see; high enough that a fall would be fatal for sure.

  He still didn’t let go of the toy, even when he discovered Julie was right: it was a lot harder to negotiate his way up than he would have thought. He tried to continue in the same way he had come this far. He moved one foot up at a time, both on the same rung, both heels hanging out over empty space. The rung he stood on was close enough to his single hand’s grip that his body bent into a “C” and his butt hung dangerously out into nothing. Then he let go with the hand holding the ladder and quickly grabbed the next rung up. It meant for a nanosecond he was weightless as the third necessary body support disappeared, for another nanosecond he fell backward before catching himself by grabbing the next rung up with his climbing hand.

  Only this last bit didn’t work that way. He lifted his feet, planted them. All good, all according to plan. He let go with his free hand. Weightlessness, a fall. He reached for the next rung up, and discovered what Julie had been talking about: there was no rung. There was just a smooth surface – what felt like a metal plate, perhaps even the trapdoor itself. Nothing to hang onto. He scrabbled for purchase.

  He began to slide. The falling sensation continued beyond its allotted time.

  Alex almost dropped the unicorn. The hand that held the toy reflexively opened so he could use it to help arrest his fall. He almost dropped it again as he jerked to grab it, the thing bobbing and bobbling as he fought with gravity for possession of the toy.

  He grabbed it. Secure.

  But he was still falling.

  The hand holding the toy went upward, determined to help its fellow even if that meant that it had to do it while holding something.

  He found purchase.

  Around him, a dim flash lit the fog.

  Oh no.

  The flashes came with the whisperers, the attacks. The ghosts and the madman. This time, though, it came with a scream. A high-pitched, banshee wail of terror so intense and so shrill it hurt Alex’s ears and heart in equal measure.

  He flinched away from the unexpected sound, which seemed to be coming from the guard tower. The flinch released the tenuous grip he had managed to get, and he slid backward into space. He would have fallen this time, would have plummeted into space and fog and then splattered all over the ground fifty or a hundred feet below.

  Julie saved him. She had reappeared with the sound, leaning over and grabbing his wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. He expected her to start sliding out, too, but she was still anchored to whatever she had been holding before. She gritted her teeth and grunted, but held him until he could get his hands back onto the smooth surface above and then inchworm his way up the last bit until he lay, panting, on the floor of the lookout room.

  The scream kept up the whole time. It got louder, if that was possible, until it consumed every other sound. If Alex hadn’t been so worried about not falling, he might have screamed himself.

  He wondered where Trish was. Why hadn’t she come to help him? But as he rolled over he saw that she was kneeling next to the girl they had found, cradling her as she screamed. The shrieks continued until her voice became raw, hoarse.

  Alex realized that it was the girl he heard screaming when he saw Sammy below. He thought it was Trish, but that was just another distortion of the fog and the forest. The girl they had found was screaming, not his wife. Trish hadn’t been calling out, because she hadn’t seen what he saw. Of course not – she couldn’t have seen through the fog at that distance, any more than he had seen the ground when he ascended, or the watchtower until he was only a few feet away.

  So Trish didn’t know that Sammy had been down there. Alex wasn’t sure if that was a gift or a curse.

  Alex watched his wife, and how she cradled the girl who was in pain. It reminded him of how she had held Sammy. She had already been a loving woman, but their child had nurtured that love, and grown it ever larger.

  Alex waited for the girl’s shouts to end, and that was when Trish finally looked at him.

  Alex held out his hand. The hand that held the toy. The hand that held tight to a past long gone. The hand that held, in a way, the last vestiges of their son.

  The hand that was empty.

  30

  (When Tricia Had Grown)

  The climb up the ladder had been terrifying. Not as terrifying as what came next, but Tricia didn’t know that as she climbed. She knew she was in danger, and had been since the fog rolled in.

  Maybe since the first time we came here.

  Memories surged. That had been one of the points in coming here, hadn’t it? But in that moment where she almost saw what she sought, almost glimpsed the reality her mind had hidden, she wanted nothing more than for it to be gone again.

  Some things might be better forgotten than remembered.

  She turned her attention back to the climb. She found herself hoping for the first time that the fog would do what it had done so constantly in this place: steal away her sight. Maybe if she couldn’t see the ground, then she wouldn’t be so afraid of falling and hitting it with a velocity that would not just shatter her bones but pulp them and then splash them across the forest floor.

  She looked down and saw Julie, following behind and saying, “Go, go, go,” with a regularity that spoke of terror or shock or both. Beyond her, Alex stood on the ground. He looked up, then looked around, then looked up again.

  He dwindled a bit with every rung she ascended. He faded, and disappeared. There was nothing below but fog, and when she looked up s
he saw no destination, either. Just rung after rung ascending through mist, into cloud.

  Just above her, the girl they had found was climbing. Tricia finally realized that the sheriff wasn’t in shock: she was speaking in sync with each time the girl above reached for a new rung or lifted her feet a step. Julie was keeping the girl going.

  “Keep it up, sweetie,” said Tricia. She didn’t know if the girl could understand her, but she seemed to go a bit faster.

  Just when the climb seemed like it would last forever, a shadow fell across her. Only it wasn’t really a shadow after all, for there could be no such thing in a world where the only light came from a luminous mist that pervaded everything so evenly and completely that no shadows could be cast.

  For a moment, Tricia wondered at that. No shadows. Were they being pursued by shadows and wraiths, or were she and Alex and those they met in the forest the real ghosts?

  Am I dead? Am I alive? Neither? Both?

  Then her attention shifted to the thing that was not shadow. A dark shape above, that spread out over them as they climbed and eventually became the bottom of whatever room they were climbing up to. Likely a tower for forest rangers, or the police like Sheriff Julie Azakh –

  (What’s she doing here, anyway?)

  – or maybe even some kind of research station. Tricia had had friends in college – going into different fields eventually, but still facing some of the same math and science classes she herself had bested, if a few years earlier than the average – who went into the field during summers, and a few had reported stints in towers overlooking fields or mountains… or forests.

  No matter which the thing above them turned out to be, though, it should have one thing for sure: communication with the rest of the world. A CB radio or maybe even a cellular setup with a repeater that would extend the range of any phones used up there.

  Above Tricia, the girl stopped. “Keep going, sweetie,” said Tricia. But the girl didn’t, and after craning her neck a bit Tricia saw why: she couldn’t. There was a trapdoor above them, closed securely and with what looked like an electronic lock.

  “Keep going,” said Julie.

  Tricia looked down. “We can’t.”

  The sheriff muttered something under her breath. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot about the lock.” She laughed, a surprisingly normal sound. “Can’t seem to think why.” She let go of the ladder, pushed back her hat, and passed the back of her hand over her brow. She tucked the hat back down, re-covering her short, gray hair. “The code’s 5153552.”

  Tricia’s affinity for and enjoyment of mathematics meant she didn’t have to ask for the number to be repeated. Indeed, if she came here again in ten years she would likely remember it. She also noted the code was an unusual one – most electronic locks had even-digit unlock codes: they opened with four digits, or six or eight or occasionally ten. This one was seven.

  And all that was irrelevant. “I can’t reach it.” She looked back up, hoping that she would see the girl they had found, already tapping the numbers on the keypad. But she wasn’t moving. She didn’t look like she was going to fall anytime soon, and had a tight grip on the ladder. But that was all. No movement, no awareness. She was looking straight ahead, peering between the rungs at something no one else could likely see.

  Julie sighed. “You can’t reach it at all?”

  “No,” said Tricia.

  “You’ll have to climb over her.”

  “There’s no way,” said Tricia.

  “I know you’re scared, but –”

  “It’s not that. I don’t think my arms are long enough to reach around her and hold on tight and still key in the code.”

  The sheriff cursed below her. Tricia looked down, worried the sheriff was going to fight her on it. “Me, either, probably,” said Julie. “Didn’t think of that.” She squinted up. “I’ll switch to the other side of the ladder and climb up past you, then –”

  “No, that’s stupid,” said Tricia.

  “It’s the only way we –”

  “I know, but I’m closer.”

  Julie opened her mouth, obviously to protest. Before she could, Tricia swung around the outer rail of the ladder. Nausea swept over her for a moment as she hung around the outside, her left hand and left foot swinging loosely for a moment before finding purchase on the ladder. The right side was worse, but once she had a firm grip on the other side of the ladder she felt better. Not good, but better.

  She climbed. Again, a moment of sickening vertigo as she realized that the girl above her had wedged her feet on a single rung, both of them at an odd angle that did not permit Tricia to grab the rung at all. She had to stretch extra. Not a nice feeling.

  Once past, though, she kept climbing. She drew even with the girl. Whoever it was, she was in a place where the forest did not exist; where maybe the entire world was nothing more than the memory of a dream.

  Tricia could reach the keypad now. She keyed in the numbers, murmuring them as she did so, mostly to let Julie know that she remembered them. As soon as she did she heard the sound of a lock hasp sliding back, and there was a small pop as the seal around the trapdoor let go.

  “Uh… new problem,” she said.

  “What?” said the sheriff.

  “I’m at a bad angle to open the door.”

  Again, not waiting for Julie to take action, Tricia swung around the ladder. There was room between the girl and the trapdoor. Tricia thought she could squeeze in.

  Another round of stomach-churning as she slid back to the side she had started on. She was bent almost double, her heels directly in front of the girl she and Alex had found, arms bent sharply, one shoulder against the trapdoor. She push/climbed, moving up as the trapdoor did.

  After a foot or so some kind of spring activated, and the trapdoor opened the rest of the way with a thud.

  “Should be a handle – it was on the outside of the trapdoor, and you can use it to brace yourself when you pull up,” said Julie.

  “Got it,” said Tricia. The move from the ladder to the floor of the room atop the watchtower was surprisingly difficult, but after a moment she lay on the door, holding the handle that the sheriff mentioned to pull herself up. Then, still holding the handle, she motioned for the girl to follow.

  The girl hesitated, and Tricia saw doubt flicker in her eyes. If her experience in the forest had been anything like Tricia’s, she couldn’t blame her for that reaction.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m a friend. I’ll help you, cross my heart.”

  And I hope we don’t die.

  The girl nodded slowly, then slapped her hand into Tricia’s outstretched one. Tricia pulled her up, and a moment later Julie had scrambled through the trapdoor.

  Tricia took a quick look around. Four walls, mostly made of glass for observation; a pair of tables; two folding chairs; a few boxes on the floor; a map tacked to a bulletin board that leaned against a table; a small generator; and some kind of radio that looked like it was probably high tech stuff around World War II.

  She didn’t care if the radio was powered by mice on a wheel, though, so long as it worked. She had to resist the urge to run to it and start punching buttons until help came, but then she heard Alex. His voice slashed through the fog, and she automatically leaned out through the trapdoor, trying to see.

  She had thought he would be closer, would be up the ladder. But of course, that was ridiculous. Alex would have stayed on the ground as long as possible. He would have guarded her from the rear, watching as long as he could to see if danger lurked nearby.

  Which meant he stayed that much closer to danger himself.

  Brave, wonderful, stupid man. If you die, I’ll kill you.

  In the middle of that insane, panicked thought, she shouted, “Alex! Alex, what’s happening?”

  He didn’t answer. Just kept screaming. A moment later, his voice cut out. “Alex!” she shrieked. “Alex!”

  No answer.

  She kept staring into the fog
. Nothing.

  She leaped to her feet and ran to the windows, hoping that she was above the fog. She knew that even if she was, even if she spotted a police station with a national guard unit standing in front of it, it wouldn’t help Alex. But she couldn’t just lay on the floor staring down and hoping to see him. She had to do something.

  The windows allowed a three-sixty view all around the tower. And through them: nothing but silvered, glowing fog.

  Something flashed. Nearby, but slightly below her. She knew that was where Alex was; where he had to be.

  Tricia called again. Of course she heard nothing from Alex. But there was another flash, and this time it was joined by the sound of whimpering.

  The girl. She still wore her backpack, even though she had wedged it between one of the walls and herself. She had hugged her knees to her chest, trying to rock backward as she sat on the floor. But she couldn’t; there was nowhere to go.

  She whispered something, but Tricia couldn’t make out what it was.

  Alex was down there. Out there in the fog. What was happening to him?

  She didn’t know. She thought she might climb down, but realized that unless she found Alex waiting at the bottom of the ladder all she would probably accomplish would be to get two people out there, lost and in danger. Besides, she felt an odd responsibility for the girl they had found.

  We lost two boys.

  Don’t lose someone else.

  Tricia crossed to the girl. She put her arms around her. The girl stiffened, then sagged and almost melted into Tricia.

  Tricia stiffened, too. This was how she had held Sammy on nights when he was afraid. This was how she had comforted her son when lightning flashed, when thunder rattled the windows in their frames.

  “It’s okay,” said Tricia. “All okay. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

  She didn’t know in that moment if she was speaking to the girl she held now, or the teen boy she had so long held in her heart, or the toddler she would never hold again.