The Woods
by Joseph Strauss
Griff’s looking at me like I owe him something, arms crossed and foot tapping on the soft leaves. He’s a couple years older than me, and the hair on his jaw’s looking less like peach fuzz and more like a real man’s. Not mine, though––I still got that damned fuzz hugging my upper lip, the kinda thing that makes a boy look stupid. Griff starts stroking at that red hair he’s got on his chin like he’s trying to make an ass outta me and my stupid little lip-hat.
“What are you waiting for, Billy? Wanna formal goddamn invitation?”
We used to be the same height, me and Griff, but now I gotta look up at him whenever we speak. And his voice is getting deep like a real man’s, too—like Dad’s was. Makes me sound like a damned woman.
I make my voice sound lower than it really is. “Not sure if I wanna go,” I say. I already know that I don’t.
Griff smiles a wicked little smirk. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re afraid, Billy,” he says through his teeth. “Buncha trees gonna hurt you?”
Just might, I wanna tell him, but then he’ll think I’m some kinda sissy.
We’re standing on the border right now, where the edge of Old Earl’s farmland meets the big woods. It’s nothing but tall grass and cow dung on one side, and nothing but towering red pines and birch trees on the other. It’s still kinda sunny on Old Earl’s farm, but it’s dark in those woods. Real dark.
Griff cocks his head and looks at me like I’m pathetic. “Don’t be a goddamn sissy, now.”
“I’m no sissy,” I tell him, and I feel my face getting all red. “Watch who you’re calling a sissy, Griff. Last thing I am’s a damned sissy.”
“Then let’s go,” he says, and he’s already going. I got no choice but to follow.
I live about two hours away from one of them big towns with a couple hundred people. But out here, shoot, we’re in the goddamned center of the middle of nowhere.
Quite a while we’ve been walking, now, and Griff’s telling tales about his girls and how he shot a great big stag between its dumb brown eyes right here in this brush. The trees are swallowing us whole, and I realize I wouldn’t know which way is home if I decide to turn back.
Tall and skinny trees shoot up everywhere like arms of a man being buried alive. There’s a cool wind making them sway, and some of the leaves on the ground––the lucky ones, I’d say––float in the air for a short while during the gusts. The whole ground is covered in leaves like it’s one great big carpet of fire and rust. Soon enough the red and gold ones are gonna rot just like all the others, though. They always do.
“...Amy’s her name,” Griff says as he ducks under a low branch. He’s talking over the crunching of our footsteps. “Pretty like a pup and sweet as honey.” I bet Amy’s one of them older girls who’d look at my little lip hairs and hear my girly voice and laugh. “...So one day we’re getting a little more comfortable, you see, and we’re out in the middle of the field, so not a damned soul could hear us…”
I’m nodding and saying, “Right,” so he thinks I’m listening, but really my mind’s on its own trip. The deeper we plummet into the woods, the darker it gets, and not because it’s getting later.
Then the wind breathes through the trees, and I swear I can hear Dad’s voice blowing those dead leaves around. He’s saying something he used to say to me: “Now, Billy, don’t be goin’ into them woods behind Old Earl’s farmland. You hear me? Nothin’ good in them woods, Billy.” He told me that when I was nine, then again and again and again till I memorized it, and then again and again and again till he left for a hunt in these very woods and never came back.
“Hell, Griff, we gotta head back,” I say all of a sudden. “We’re never gonna find the damn thing.”
He frowns then crosses his arms. “What’s the big hurry?”
“Momma didn’t say I could leave home for a damn week,” I say, trying to sound tough. “I haven’t seen any sonofabitchin’ cabin, and you got no idea where to look. So let’s just go.”
He thinks on what I say but he’s too damn stubborn. “You’re welcome to leave whenever. But I’m not going till I find it.”
He’s sure got me there––only destination I could guide myself to is a tree, and there’s about a million of those every which way.
I’m looking up at the trees, trying not to trip on any roots. A few leaves are still falling. The branches look like an old lady’s gnarled fingers, reaching out to each other for comfort for the winter. I stumble, but Griff’s too lost in his own story to even notice.
“D’you remember where you saw it the first time?” I ask. Might as well try to help if I can’t talk him out of it.
“Buncha deer shit everywhere, I remember, and then sweet Sally Lou prances over and stares right down my double-barrel,” he says, and starts to chuckle. “So I shoot her and walk over to the dead dumb thing thinking about the juicy Sally Lou venison I’m gonna have that night––then outta the corner o’ my eye, there’s this tiny little wood cabin, real tall and skinny, stickin’ out like a sore thumb in these here woods. Looked older than Earl himself.”
I sigh like Momma does when she can’t make any sense outta what I’m doing. “Why do we have to find the damn cabin, Griff? It’s just an ol’ hunk o’ wood.”
Griff runs his hands along the rough trunks as he leads me deeper into these woods than I’ve ever gone, deeper than I even knew existed.
“Cause I wanna go inside,” Griff says to me. “Went back home afterward and told about the cabin to everyone, and not a goddamned soul believed me. Maybe we could bring back something from inside.”
“Didn’t you go inside the first time?”
“No,” Griff spits like he hates the taste of the word.
“Well why not?” I ask him. “Was there a door?”
He stops suddenly and looks at me like he’s real cross. “I didn’t go inside,” he says hastily, then keeps on walking, this time real quick. Maybe he was too spooked to go in alone, but I’d never dare accuse him of something like that. He’d probably knock my teeth out and leave me with them in the leaves.
The crisp autumn wind starts howling again, and Dad’s voice is back, too. “Now, Billy, don’t be goin’ into them woods behind Old Earl’s farmland,” he’s saying for the umpteenth time. “You hear me? Nothin’ good in them woods, Billy.” I wanna say something back to him. I wanna say, “I know, Dad, but I don’t have no choice! Griff’s gonna think I’m some kinda sissy, and I don’t know which way’s home anymore.”
Dad’s voice calms me. I can picture him in front of me in his red plaid shirt and dirty blue jeans, and he’s got that shotgun and revolver he always takes with him on a hunt. The gusts usually die down after about fifteen seconds, but this time they start picking up, and Dad’s raising his voice. I look uneasily at Griff, but he just keeps going forward like he don’t even notice.
“Pretty windy,” I say, trying to make my voice deeper.
“I guess.”
Just when it feels like the wind is about to give in, it picks up again and makes that last gust feel like nothing. The giant trees are leaning like drunkards trying to balance on one foot, and the dying leaves are getting tossed around like a bunch of tiny tornadoes. And Dad’s starting to scream now, louder than I ever heard him scream when he was still around. He’s not saying words anymore, just screaming like he’s trying to scare me enough to turn back.
The sky’s still blue, but only in the kinda way that a lake is blue. The way that if you look closely at it, it’s really just a transparent, bleak, cold grey.
“What in the goddamned hell is going on?” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. Griff don’t even turn around––maybe he can’t hear me over Dad’s screaming.
There’s leaves smacking me in the face now, getting in my eyes. I’m fighting my way through, swatting at the leaves like a madman in a swarm of mosquitoes in July.
That wind’s picking up even more, and Dad’s screaming as loud as loud can be right into my ears. The wind’s so strong my feet ain’t even on the ground, and I’m just twisting in the air like one of them millions of dead leaves, trying to keep pace with Griff.
And then quick like a clap of thunder, the wind dies down to a calm breeze and the trees sober up, and the leaves hit the ground again and so do I, and Dad’s voice is back to a whisper, saying the same thing he was saying before: “Now, Billy, don’t be goin’ into them woods behind Old Earl’s farmland. You hear me? Nothin’ good in them woods, Billy.”
I gasp a little. “Son of a bitch, there it is!” I yell, pointing a skinny finger to a dark shape in the distance.
Griff looks at the cabin, then looks back at me and bursts into laughter. He’s nearly skipping when he says, “Everybody said I’m a liar or a dumbass or just plain nuts, but here it is, by God!”
I didn’t even wanna find the damned thing but now I’m nearly skipping like a jolly schoolgirl, giggling with Griff at our found treasure.
We’re closing in on that dark shape beyond some of them trees and it’s looking bigger and bigger till finally, it’s right there.
“How come no one ever heard tell of this?” I ask.
He shakes his head and rubs his red beard. “Nobody comes out this far to find it, I guess. Needs some fixin’ up, alright. Hey, right there’s where I shot Sally Lou,” he says, pointing near the base of a big tall pine.
The ground is glinting with shades of red and gold, but them trees are staring down at me like I done something wrong. And there’s something about that cabin, and I can tell now that Griff’s feeling what I’m feeling.
It’s an odd-looking thing. The cabin’s about twenty feet tall and six feet wide, and it’s got the steepest roof I ever seen, starting all the way from the leaf-covered ground to a big point at the top. Not a hell of a lot of room in there. And there’s no windows––just walls of wood and nail that look ready to crumble if they don’t get no help. Thing’s got webs all over it, and a bunch of moss, and there’s a wooden plaque on the door with some writing. The plaque looks new, a few shades of green-brown lighter than the rest of the cabin.
“What’s that say?” I ask Griff, pointing at the plaque.
Griff looks at me like he don’t wanna say it, but he goes up to the thing and does anyway. “This is my home now,” he reads slowly, “so please don’t trespass.” He pauses for a second and I think he’s finished, but there’s more. “You shouldn’t be this far into the woods. There’s nothing good in these woods.”
I must be making some kinda weird face, ‘cause Griff looks back at me and gets all worried. “You alright?” he asks me for the first time.
“Sure I am,” I stammer, trying to even my voice.
“You look kinda pale, Billy. You sure you’re doin’ okay?”
I try to make a joke to calm myself down. “Nothing good in these woods?” I say. “How d’they explain prancing Sally Lou, then?”
Griff chuckles but I’m not feeling any better. The more I look at this cabin, the more it looks like a goddamned mausoleum in the middle of a forest.
“Let’s go in,” he says.
I wanna tell him no, but then he’ll know I’m a sissy, the way he was the day he shot that deer. But he was alone that day, and I ain’t got that kinda excuse.
“Alright,” I say, and with every tiny step I take, the wind picks up stronger and Dad’s voice gets louder. My heart’s pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. The leaves are swirling around again and hitting my face, and the wind’s carrying me with them, floating me toward the ancient-looking door. I think maybe Griff’s saying something to me as I step in the cabin, but I can’t hear him over Dad.
It’s dusty in here, and there’s not a lotta light, but there’s not much to see in here anyway. In fact, there’s nothing but four walls and a few rats getting some exercise.
Then I see something on the floor. Spread across the small floor is a red plaid shirt and a dirty pair of blue jeans, laid out like someone was wearing them. There’s something in them, too. I recognize the clothes, but the shape inside them is unfamiliar. It’s a bunch of bones, put together like a jigsaw puzzle. And on the side of the skull there’s a big old hole, and a dark stain on the floor beneath it. There’s a shotgun next to the sprawled arms of the skeleton, and next to those skinny bones that were once the fingers of a man’s right hand, is a familiar- looking revolver.
I’m not a damned sissy, I wanna scream, but there’s hot tears welling up in my eyes, and I’m afraid I’ll set them loose if I start talking.
“Jesus Christ!” I hear Griff say when he sees the bones.
“Let’s leave,” I say with a graveness I’ve never had before. “We should’na come here, Griff. There’s nothin’ good in these woods.”
Griff looks plain old stunned. “I… I don’t know the way home,” he says with the voice of a boy, and in this light, his red beard just looks like fuzz.
I look outside and can’t find the sun between the trees. It’s getting real dark in the woods, and home’s a long ways away. I hope Dad won’t mind if we spend the night with him.
I wanna hear him again. I wanna hear him tell me the same damn thing he always told me about these here woods, but I can’t remember his voice.