Deep Woods

Cal counted out some bills and put them in my hand, motioning me over to the register. That woke me up to the fact that I was carrying probably a few hundred dollars worth of clothes. I shook my head. “I can’t let you pay for all this!” I thought about what we still had to buy: food and supplies, all of which we were using up faster because I was at the cabin. “This isn’t right—”

He shook his head. “It’s fine.”

I looked up at him helplessly. I didn’t like it but I didn’t have much choice: my purse was still at the mansion. “You know that I’ll pay you back when all this is over? Every cent.”

He nodded. And as he looked down at my serious expression, he smiled just a little. “I know,” he said softly.

I paid, and changed into some of the new clothes right there in the store’s changing room: my new boots, a green plaid shirt, and a pair of black jeans. We moved on to the General Store and I noticed how Cal’s tension increased as soon as we were back on the crowded sidewalk. The town was getting busier as the day went on: the bar served food and it seemed as if a lot of people were coming into town to eat lunch.

The General Store took a good hour, carefully picking out everything we needed, from spices for cooking to cotton thread for fixing clothes, coffee and matches, and a new potato peeler...everything that had been on the list.

I rejoined Cal and we double-checked we had everything. Then, in a quiet corner of the store, we carefully packed everything into our backpacks.

“Ready to head back?” Cal asked.

I thought for a second. I actually wanted to stay. After weeks of isolation, I was craving people: not even necessarily talking to them but just being around them, hearing voices. I wanted to see the rest of the town, maybe check out the bar and get lunch there. But I could tell something was wrong. I’d never seen Cal so unsettled and the longer we stayed here, the worse it was getting. I wasn’t going to make him stay here a second longer than he had to. “Ready,” I said.

I noticed he took a deep breath just before he stepped out of the store, like he was steeling himself. Then we were on the sidewalk, with Cal marching fast towards the end of the street and the path that led into the trees. I thought of an animal, speeding up as it gets closer to the safety of its burrow. Rufus, who’d had to wait outside the store, trotted happily alongside us. Another thirty seconds and we’d be into the trees.

And then Cal just...froze. He stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, a rock in the river of people, staring at something ahead of us.

I moved closer and followed his gaze. An SUV had pulled up ahead of us and he was staring at the mother, as she lifted a toddler out of her child seat. An older child was helping, a third one was clinging onto her mother’s skirt. Dad was hurrying around the car to help.

I looked at Cal. His keep away scowl had fallen apart and what had replaced it was heartbreaking. He was the biggest, strongest guy I’d ever known but right then, he looked utterly destroyed. His face was twisted into an expression of raw horror and his eyes were distant: he was somewhere else. And whatever he was reliving, it was tearing him apart.

27

Cal

ALL MEMORIES FADE. That amazing sunset, your first kiss...with time, the colors fade, the rough edges get smoothed by nostalgia, the pain dulls.

But some things never become memories. They’re too ugly, too painful. They live on in your head, a piece of the past that stays crystal clear forever.

I was there. Cicadas chirping, a warm wind rustling the trees. The scent of burning petrol crinkled my nostrils, roiling black smoke blowing in my face and catching in the back of my throat.

I leaned left and right as I approached the SUV but the windows were tinted: all I could see was my own face: younger, my chin dark with stubble. I reached for the handle but stopped just before I burned my fingers: I could feel the heat coming off it. The flames had left the metal too hot to touch.

I used the toe of my boot to pull the handle and open the door a crack. Then I hooked the edge of it and swung it wide—

I felt the world open under me and I dropped into blackness, guilt that crushed my chest and tore at my soul. What have I done?! And the realization, the horrible certainty that what you’ve done is irreversible.

Not the day I became a monster. The day I realized I’d become one.