Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles 1)

“You scared the crap out of me,” said Prue. She stepped off his body, and Curtis sat up, dusting off his pants.

“Sorry, Prue,” said Curtis. “I didn’t really mean anything by it, I was just curious.”

“Well, don’t be,” said Prue. She stood up and began to walk away. “This is none of your business. This is my mess to deal with.”

Curtis scrambled to his feet. “L-let me come with you!” he shouted, following after her.

Back at the railroad tracks, Prue pulled her bike up from the gravel and started walking it toward the bridge. “No, Curtis,” she said. “Go home!” The riverbank sloped in toward the first abutment of the bridge, creating a kind of peninsula, and the track followed a gentle slope to meet the lattice of the bridge. Prue led her bike up the middle of the tracks while she balanced on the rail. As she climbed, the mists began to clear to reveal the first spire of the bridge. The spires housed the pulley mechanism that lifted the middle section when taller boats crossed under it, and they were topped with flashing red beacons. Prue breathed a sigh of relief to see that the lift span was down, allowing her to cross.

“Aren’t you worried that a train’s going to come?” asked Curtis, behind her.

“No,” said Prue, though in truth it was one thing she hadn’t really considered. Between the track and the truss of the bridge there was barely three feet of space, and the loose gravel was not too friendly to pedestrian traffic. As she arrived at the middle section of the bridge, she looked over the edge and gulped. The mist sat heavily on the river basin and created a floor of clouds that hid the water below, giving the illusion that the bridge sat at a tremendous height, like one of those delicate rope bridges spanning some cloudy Peruvian chasm Prue had seen in National Geographic magazine.

“I’m a little worried that a train’s going to come,” admitted Curtis. He was standing beneath one of the spires in the middle of the track.

Prue stopped, leaned her bike against the bridge truss, and picked up a rock from the gravel bed. “Don’t make me do this, Curtis,” she said.

“Do what?”

Prue threw the rock, and Curtis leapt out of the way, nearly tripping on the rail of the track.

“What’d you do that for?” he yelled, couching his head in his hands.

“’Cause you’re being stupid and you’re following me and I told you not to. That’s why.” She bent down and selected another rock, this one sharper and bigger than the previous one. She juggled it in her hand as if gauging the weight.

“C’mon, Prue,” Curtis said, “let me help you! I’m a good helper. My dad was den leader of my cousin’s Webelos group.” He let his hands fall from his head. “I even brought my cousin’s bowie knife.” He patted the pocket of his coat and smiled sheepishly.

Prue threw the second rock and swore as it glanced off the ground in front of Curtis, missing his feet by inches. Curtis yelped and danced out of the way.

“Go HOME, Curtis!” Prue shouted. She crouched down and selected another rock but paused as she felt the ground give a sudden tremble below her. The rocks began to clatter in place as the bridge gave a long, quaking shudder. She looked up at Curtis, who was frozen in place in the center of the track. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, as the trembling began to grow stronger, the steel girders of the truss lowing in complaint.

“TRAIN!” shouted Prue.

CHAPTER 4

The Crossing

From the quick glance that Prue was afforded of the train, she could tell it was not a long one, but it was moving at a fairly steady pace, puffing up the incline of the hill they had climbed minutes before. She turned and bolted for her bike, lifting it from where it rested against the side of the bridge and tossing it between the rails of the track. She vaulted the seat and jammed down on the pedals, sending the back tire into a free spin against the loose rock between the railroad ties.

“Wait for me!” screamed Curtis from behind her.

The metal of the bridge was now heaving and rattling under the weight of the oncoming locomotive. Prue was already in motion and threw a fast glance over her shoulder to measure the distance between her bike and the train. Backdropped by the ominous iron face of the train bursting through the mist, Curtis was running toward her, his arms swinging in frantic arcs. The bike frame jolted with every wooden tie she crossed, and she had to keep a studied eye on the space in front of her in order to keep the bike upright on the unsteady ground. The Radio Flyer in tow hopped from tie to tie, threatening to upend at each pedal. “Jump in the back!” shouted Prue over the deafening hiss of the train.

“I can’t! You’re moving too fast!” shouted Curtis.

Prue swore under her breath and pumped the handle brakes, her back tire fishtailing in the gravel. The train, now reaching the middle section of the bridge, let out a staccato burst of whistle, the tracks audibly groaning under its weight. Curtis dove for the Radio Flyer and let out a bone-numbing “OOF!” as his body met the metal floor of the wagon. He grasped the sides of the wagon and hollered, “Go!” and Prue was off, peeling a wake of shale from the track and firing down the far side of the bridge.

On the other side of the bridge, the tracks split into a Y at a dense, deep green bank of trees. Prue was picking up speed on the gradual incline as the end of the bridge came into view, and her bike leapt and kicked against the pounding of the tires on the ties. The wagon, now freighted with Curtis’s writhing body, held to the ground much better, though Prue was panting to keep her momentum up. The train was getting louder behind them. She couldn’t bring herself to steal a glance to mark its progress; her eyes were intent on the far side of the river.

“Hold on, Curtis!” she shouted over the din as she reached the spot where the tracks split and angled away from the bridge in either direction. She shoved her right foot down on the pedal and hopped her front wheel over the track, sending the bike over the rail and into the deep, loose gravel of the ditch that fell away from the track at the bridge’s end. The back tire and the wagon followed quickly after, and the whole bike pitched forward in a violent spasm, sending both occupants over the handlebars and into a dry bed of scrub brush on the other side of the ditch. The train went screaming by, the steel rails wailing under the weight of the train as the engine rolled southward into the bank of clouds.

Prue lay flattened against the cold ground, rapidly panting. Her every limb felt charged with electricity. She pushed herself onto her knees and spat, wiping a smear of mud from her cheek. She looked around her; she was sitting in a shallow culvert in a drab field of dead grass. Just beyond stood the Industrial Wastes, a bizarre and imposing neighborhood of windowless buildings and silos; beyond that lay the first rise of a steep hill, blanketed thickly with a dizzying retinue of towering trees. They were on the borderlands of the Impassable Wilderness. She shuddered. A grumble issued from the bed of grass beside her, and she looked over to see Curtis struggling to his knees, the red Radio Flyer wagon obstinately clinging to his back like a turtle’s shell. He threw it off and rubbed at the nape of his neck.

“Ow,” he said. He looked at Prue mournfully and repeated, “Ow.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have followed me, then,” said Prue, bringing hersel

f to her feet. The wreckage of the bike and wagon lay in a crumpled mess next to them. Prue grunted as she pulled the frame of her bike from the grasp of the culvert’s sticker bushes and studied the remains: Most of the bike had withstood the impact well enough, but the front wheel was irretrievably bent, its twisted spokes jutting from the rim at desperate angles.