“Leeches beat snakes though, right?” Angie snickered as we stepped through the gate and began our journey along the track. Breathing in through her nose and setting her gaze straight ahead, Lauren chose not to comment on that.
I was carrying a large bag stuffed with towels, two jumbo bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and enough drinking water (I’d made sure of it myself this time), and we all wore our bikinis beneath our clothes. Lauren, being Lauren, was also sporting green jelly shoes.
“This place really is in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?” I remarked, both admiring and feeling kind of intimidated by the endless sprawl of no-man’s land that surrounded us. Having been brought up in the city and not traveled much in my life, the largest stretches of nature I was used to seeing were city parks. This was something else. It made me feel small and insignificant, like a tiny piece of a far greater existence that really didn’t care about my life plans or problems.
“Ya know,” Angie said, her tone taking on a distant quality as she joined me in gazing out on our surroundings, “I wish we were here for longer than four weeks.”
A melancholic silence fell between us. Even Lauren didn’t remark. None of us had to ask why Angie wished for that. Despite our proclamations that our friendship would stay the same in spite of the distance, deep down I was sure we were all doubtful about how the next stage of our lives would really affect it. If I was honest with myself, I didn’t see how our dynamic wouldn’t change. It seemed inevitable that we would drift apart, no matter how much we loved one another. We would meet new friends, be exposed to different ideas, and the little quirks we’d come to know each other for would change along with our habits.
We would grow into different people; there was no escaping that. The friends Jean and Roger were closest to now, in their mid-forties, were not the same as those they’d had in high school.
The thought made me feel insecure, but also all the more fiercely grateful that we had come to this place, so stupidly cut off from everything that could distract us from us.
Glancing at my friends, whose eyes, like mine, had turned to the gravel crunching beneath our feet, a renewed determination rolled through me to make the most of the next four weeks that we possibly could.
I allowed a toothy grin to spread across my face as I set my gaze on the entrance to the woods, where the track was leading us.
“Last one to the trees is a roach dropping,” I announced, before rocketing forward. Lauren yelped as I caught her arm and dragged her along with me, her jelly shoes slapping on the ground. Angie didn’t need an assisted head start—she might have been the shortest of the three of us, but she was the fittest. She quickly caught up with us, and it was, predictably, Lauren who earned the unfortunate title, Angie and I just about tying in first place.
We skidded to a stop once we were over the woods’ threshold, and looked around. It was cooler and darker than I had expected it to be in here—I was surprised by how thick the trees were. Faint birdsong drifted down from the canopy of branches overhead, and the air was still, with very little breeze.
“Kinda creepy,” Angie said in a hushed tone.
“Beautiful creepy,” I replied, just as softly.
We walked on in silence, and I relished the peace, the woods’ quiet energy thrumming around us. Direct sunlight touched our faces only intermittently as we followed the path straight ahead.
Then Angie stopped abruptly. “Hey,” she whispered. “Do you hear that?”
Lauren and I halted and listened. I was confused at first as to what exactly Angie was referring to, but then I heard it—a distant thunk, thunk, thunk. Like the sound of metal against wood.
We met each other’s gazes, and I knew exactly what Angie was about to say from the triumphant gleam in her eyes before she said it.
“Lumberjacks!” she whispered. “Maybe I wasn’t imagining them after all! They could’ve spotted my head above the crops and just rolled off the logs before I took the picture, or something…”
Lauren frowned at Angie, looking dubious, but then shrugged. “I would’ve done the same if I noticed some perv watching me.”
Ignoring Lauren’s comment, Angie strayed from the track and began to creep through the undergrowth toward the noise, leaving the two of us staring after her.
Lauren’s thick eyebrows rose high above the rim of her glasses as she exhaled. “So, are we going dude hunting now, or to the creek? Because they’re in two opposite directions, and as much as I would—”
Lauren faltered as Angie turned around and held a finger to her lips.
The noise had stopped.
There was a pregnant pause as we waited another thirty seconds to see if it would start again, and when it didn’t, Angie let out a sigh and ambled back to us.
“Seems they’re shy,” she remarked with a droll smile.
“Okay, let’s keep moving,” Lauren said firmly, taking the lead. “Some of us have crap to scrape off our heads.”
As Mrs. Churnley had promised, the creek was easy to find. We heard gushing about five minutes before we reached it, and quickened our pace to arrive before a beautiful, gently flowing basin of water enclosed by stooping tree branches and bordered by bushes of white and purple wildflowers.
“Well, this is nice,” Lauren admitted, her expression almost suspicious.
We approached the bank, searching for the best place to set up. We found a little patch of grass, and I dumped the bag there before pulling out the items we needed. We stripped to our swimwear, examining the ground more cautiously now that we were barefooted, and then approached the water. It was surprisingly cold, but a welcome contrast to even the relatively cool forest air—we had all grown sticky during our walk.
Goosebumps ran along my skin as I waded deeper, the soles of my feet slipping along the smooth stones of the riverbed. Our eyes darted around the murky water, searching for leeches. When the water was up to our waists and we’d spotted none, I bit the bullet and submerged myself all in one go—Lauren and Angie following suit.
I billowed to the top, gasping for air. “Awesome!”
Lauren quickly set about scrubbing all the dried and cakey shampoo off her hair, and I moved back to the bank to grab the shampoo and conditioner bottles. After the three of us had completed the ritual—which actually took less time than it would have in a regular shower or bath, due to the movement and volume of the water—we started frolicking about like graceless mermaids, and things soon descended into an all-out splashing war. We were only vaguely aware of the time passing from the amount of sunlight that trickled through the treetops, and by the time I pulled away to check my watch on the bank, we needed to start heading back, unless we wanted to get trapped in the woods after nightfall.
“Oh, dang,” Lauren said as Angie and I were leaving the water. “Where’s the shampoo?”
We whirled around to see her pointing toward a stone jutting out into the center of the creek, where we had set down the bottles while we swam. Angie and I had totally forgotten they were even there, and now only the conditioner bottle remained standing.
“Oops, that sucks,” I said. “One of us must have knocked it accidentally. Looks like we’ll be stuck with Mrs. Churnley’s homemade shampoo for the rest of the trip…”
With that prospect ringing in her ears, Lauren surged toward the stone, snatched up the conditioner and threw it to me. “You two get everything packed up,” she ordered. “I’m looking for that shampoo.”
“Need your glasses?” Angie offered with a smirk.
“Just pass me a long stick,” Lauren muttered, staring down.
Angie and I left the water and hunted around for a broken tree branch until I found one that seemed thick and long enough to be useful. I chucked it toward Lauren, and then Angie and I turned away from the water and began drying off.
Lauren’s shriek a minute later made us whip back around.
“What the—” She swore.
“What?” Angie and I called, staring at he
r as she splashed toward us, her eyes set on a patch of water about five feet away from the rock where we’d kept the bottles.
“I dislodged something!” she panted, still backing away from whatever it was she’d spotted in the water.
I was expecting it to be a leech, or a group of them, but then I saw it. Something was rising from the depths of the creek. A long, dark shadow at first, but as it broke the surface, it was… My eyes bugged. It took my brain several moments to put a name to what I saw.
“A wing?” I blurted.
It was a huge, black, shimmering thing—several feet across—with protruding veins and a startlingly pointed tip. It looked like… some kind of giant, prehistoric bat wing.
Angie was already wading into the water for a closer look, passing Lauren and grabbing the stick. By the time she reached the thing, Lauren had climbed out of the water and snatched up her glasses so she could see in detail past more than a few feet. Angie used the stick to guide the wing to the bank, and once it was close enough, I wrapped the edges of my towel around my hands to act as gloves and kneeled over the edge. I gingerly got a hold of the edge of the wing and, in spite of how offputtingly heavy it was, managed to haul it up onto the grass. We gathered around it, our mouths hanging open.
“It must’ve been stuck between some rocks on the riverbed,” Lauren breathed.
“What is it?” Angie mused, bending down. She cautiously poked a bare finger against its leathery surface, and it gave way at her touch. Her nose wrinkled. “Ew… Feels supple.”
I hesitated to ask why that might be. Was there some kind of rare bird species inhabiting this area that could have shed such a thing? If there was, I sure didn’t want to come face to face with it. Now that the thing was out of the water and I was looking closer, I could make out the reason the tip looked so sharp—there was a gnarly hook attached to it… It looked predatory.
Our gazes slowly raised, in unison, to the treetops above the creek, as if expecting to suddenly spot the owner of the wing perched among the branches and glaring down at us with red demon eyes.
Lauren gulped. “I, uh, think Mr. and Mrs. Churnley should see this.”
“I agree,” Angie said, her voice slightly hoarse. “If there is some kind of weird animal living around here, they ought to know.”
Our eyes returned to the wing, and silence reigned once again. Judging by my friends’ expressions, it wasn’t just me who found the idea of lugging this back with us through the woods, bringing it back home, creepy.
I cleared my throat, realizing we had wasted too much time already. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but the atmosphere suddenly seemed a lot darker than it had only a few minutes ago.
“Let’s get going,” I mumbled.
I slipped on my shorts and top over my dry-ish swimwear, and we hurried to pack up our things—Angie and Lauren not bothering to waste time drying off, just wrapping a towel around themselves. That left my towel and two of the other spare ones we’d brought with us to use in carrying the wing. We wrapped them around our hands to prevent direct contact. Angie lifted our bag over one shoulder, taking her turn to carry it, and we gingerly grabbed hold of the wing and started to tug it away from the creek.
I knew I was stupid for getting spooked over this—there was probably some perfectly rational explanation for what the wing was—but somehow I couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes watching us as we trekked our way back home.
Chapter 3
“What on earth?” Mrs. Churnley gasped.
We reached the house just as the last slivers of light were disappearing from the sky. Panting and sweating, we lugged the wing into the center of the kitchen/dining room and dropped it on the wooden floor. My hands were aching from having clutched the thing for so long; extra strain had been applied from squeezing tightly to keep the towel in place.
“Yeah… We really don’t know,” Angie said, wiping her brow with a towel.
Mr. and Mrs. Churnley rose from the table where they’d been sipping iced tea and hovered over the wing, their faces set in utter confusion.
“Any clue what it is?” I prompted.
“It looks like a giant bat wing!” Mr. Churnley exclaimed, voicing my initial impression of it, his eyes bugging with awe.
“Where did you get it?” Mrs. Churnley demanded, bending down and slowly reaching out to touch it.
“Lauren, uh, excavated it from the bottom of the creek,” Angie replied, the shadow of a smirk on her lips.
“My, my, my,” Mrs. Churnley blustered. “I have absolutely no idea what it could be, or why it would be sitting at the bottom of the water. It definitely does look like a wing, though.”
“I’ll go visit Mr. Doherty tomorrow,” Mr. Churnley said, making his way back to his seat, his eyes remaining glued to the specimen. “Bring him here to take a look at it.”
“Good idea, cupcake,” Mrs. Churnley said. “Maybe he’ll have a better idea. In the meantime, girls, maybe stay away from the creek?”
Lauren let out a dry laugh. “I do think so, ma’am.”
We eyed the wing a few tense moments longer, before Angie made for the staircase. “Not sure about you, Lauren and Riley, but I’m pretty exhausted after all the fresh air and surprises we’ve had today.”
Lauren and I nodded, saying goodnight to the old couple before following Angie to the staircase. Once in our bedroom, we collapsed in our beds. I was exhausted after the day’s events, and all the physical activity I wasn’t used to, but at the same time, the last thing my mind felt like doing was shutting down. It was still downstairs, stuck in that kitchen, mulling over what the heck the strange wing belonged to.
“I wish we had internet right now,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead. I lay on my back, facing the shabby ceiling.
“Yeah. Could’ve Googled… “giant bats of Texas”, or something…” Lauren mumbled, trailing off. I could hear the fatigue in her voice. Unlike me, she did sound ready to drop off. I guessed that cool water had really gone to her head.
Angie, taking the hint, switched off the light, and we lapsed into silence, listening to the distant murmuring of the Churnleys’ conversation downstairs, then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. They were probably moving the wing to one corner of the room, where it would wait for us till morning… Then came the creaking of stairs, the Churnleys retiring to bed.
Lauren’s first snore of the night filled my ears, followed shortly by Angie’s, and I turned over on my mattress to face the open window, to which I was closest. The moon’s rays filtered through the thin curtains, casting pale light upon my face, and a gentle breeze caressed my skin.
I closed my eyes, hoping to begin coaxing myself to sleep, and slowly, my thoughts pulled away from the externals—from the weird wing, the creaky old farmhouse, and this crazy vacation I found myself on with my two best friends—and withdraw deeper into my subconscious, and the thoughts that I had locked away there, waiting for me just beneath the surface.
It wasn’t a surprise that my parents were the first among those thoughts. Their faces, drained, and looking… so much older than the day I’d left home. It was a memory of the last time I’d seen them face to face—a little over a month ago, before my eighteenth birthday, when they’d appeared illegally outside my school, claiming that they just wanted to see me. That they’d brought me a gift. Jean had already arrived to pick me up, so I hadn’t stood there behind those school gates, facing them, for long. But it was long enough to receive their little brown parcel in my two shaking hands, and the sight of them remained burned in my brain as if it were yesterday.
You should see them, a small part of me whispered, as it often did when the lights were out and the night was still. They’re your parents, and they won’t be around forever, especially given their lifestyle. If you deny them even a simple meeting after all these years, and something happens… you’ll live with that for the rest of your life.
My parents had conceived me late in life, and I was a sho
ck to them as much as I was to the doctors, when my mother checked into the hospital with a stomach complaint. My parents would both be sixty-one next year and were already riddled with various medical issues.
It was nights like this when I felt like a terrible person. I hadn’t even opened the gift they’d come all the way to my school specially to give me. It still sat under my bed at home, where I’d shoved it to try to forget about it… because I feared what it would hold.
Because I knew what it would hold.
Its contents were the same as the last little brown parcel they’d sent me, six months prior. I’d rattled it to check; it sounded like photographs. Opening the previous set had left me a trembling mess. There had been almost twenty of them, snapshots of a little blue-eyed girl, ranging from two to five years old, a toothy grin always plastered across her face—often eating ice cream or some other treat—and enveloped in the protective arms of her parents.
It was as if they thought sending me these photographs could rewrite history. Erase the childhood they had given me—everything that had happened in between the moments when a smile crossed my face for the camera—and replace it with the one they were presenting… and make me feel guilt. Make me seem like the monster.
The worst part was that it had worked. I hadn’t been able to sleep that night, and barely functioned the next day at school. I’d suddenly found myself battling with doubt. I hadn’t even remembered them taking photos of me as a kid, and I’d been nine when I left home. So very young. Could I have been exaggerating things, in my immature little mind? Could there have been another side to things that I just couldn’t see? They were my parents, after all. Surely they loved me? Why would they have bothered to take pictures of me if they didn’t care?
Thankfully, Jean had been there for me when I returned home from school that day. It had been a difficult conversation for her to have with me for sure, because on the one hand she didn’t want to demonize my parents, but on the other, she cared deeply for me, and she didn’t want me suffering further because of a toxic relationship. In the end, she had simply stated facts: the police had found them guilty of physical, alcohol-fueled abuse and consistent neglect of a minor. They had gone to jail for it.