*****
For the rest of the day Rachel followed him hesitantly where she could, occasionally attempting to start a small conversation. Patrick tried his hardest to be cheery, but it always sounded hollow and half-hearted. The dark thing that was hanging over his head felt like it was growing bigger, and soon it cast a shadow over them both. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and she was obviously very confused. If only he could communicate that he was just as confused as she was…
When lunch came and most of the students left to buy food in town Patrick sat on his bench as he usually did, thankful for the quiet that fell over the quad. He didn’t look up and notice Rachel walking toward him until she was only a few feet away. He sat up and they smiled at each other, but she didn’t sit down.
“I promised my friend, Phoebe, that I would eat lunch with her today. So I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Patrick wondered if that were true. Nevertheless, he was relieved.
“Okay, cool,” he said lamely. “Have a good lunch.”
She noticed that he wasn’t eating.
“Where’s your lunch? Did you not bring one today?”
He looked at his bag and back to her.
“Oh, no, I’m fine.”
“Goodness, here, have some of my sandwich!” She took off her book bag and started to open it.
He should have just said he hadn’t started it yet, he realized a little too late.
“No, really,” he said, “My stomach’s kind of upset. I gave my lunch to some kid,” he lied. “It’s really okay.”
Rachel stopped opening her bag and gave him a curious look.
“Okay, well if you feel like you can, you should eat something later. I’ll save some apple slices for you.” She slung her bag over her shoulder again. “Come find me if you change your mind, okay?”
“Okay,” he said with a smile.
“Talk to you later,” she said, then turned and walked away.
Patrick didn’t even watch her go. He lay back down on the bench and stared up at the trees. He was too scared to close his eyes.
*****
Patrick expected to see Rachel one last time after the final bell rang, but as he walked down the hallway steps he couldn’t spot her anywhere. He wondered if maybe she had some plans after school. Or maybe she was trying to give him some space.
Or maybe in one day he had torn down this friendship just as quickly as it had been miraculously built.
He had originally dreaded the thought of maintaining a decent conversation with Rachel during the walk home, but now that she had obviously taken off alone he found himself feeling more lonely than he supposed he ever had before.
He trudged down the street, his mind a blurry mess, his eyes glazed over and down to the ground. He didn’t want to think anymore—was tired of thinking—but it was all that was left to do when he shut out the rest of the world.
A few blocks from his driveway he came upon the fencepost that the crow had sat on the day before. Behind it, the woods. The sight of it was almost unbearable. He could remember the crow staring at him, its black, beady little eyes trained on him in a way most unlike a bird. Then, the hazy memory of the dream, where it stared at him from the edge of the woods, coaxing him inside. Had the crow been a part of the dream too? Now it all seemed more like a very old memory than a dream, he could recall it so well.
Unnerved beyond belief and certain he would attempt to kill a crow with a rock were he to see one, he crossed the distance to his house quickly.
*****
That night he ate his dinner blankly, hoping that no one would attempt to make conversation or ask what was wrong. His train of thought was broken when his father began to speak very loudly and deliberately to the table at large.
“Yesterday… I... saw someone… walking home with… a… GIRL.
Patrick looked up as his mother and sister both gave exaggerated gasps. He couldn’t possibly imagine what could make dinner any worse than it was about to get.
“Oooooooooooh, Patrick’s got a girrrrrrrlfrieeennnnd!” Lizzy all but yelled.
“Why didn’t you say anything at dinner last night?” his mother asked, feigning indignance.
“I forgot, you and your hippo poop story!”
“It was a pretty good story,” Lizzy added.
“It wasn’t a story! Look it up on YouTube, it’s just how they poop!” his mother said, waving her arm in an upside-down windshield wiper motion, and Lizzy giggled.
“So, Pat,” his father turned to him and said at an uncomfortably loud level, “would you care to divulge a little information? Such as, possibly, a name?”
This was going to be a terrible night.
Patrick wished that he could just stare at his plate and not say anything, and that everyone would simply stop inquiring and continue with their own conversations. But people didn’t work like that, Patrick knew all too well, and they wouldn’t stop until they were satisfied.
“Rachel,” he said after a brief pause. Judging by the hot feeling in his face he guessed that he was probably blushing.
“That’s definitely a girl’s name, alright,” his father said.
“We’re just friends,” Patrick blurted out before he could stop himself. He had been teased this way all his life and knew statements like these were predictable and made it just that much easier to poke fun.
“That won’t hold up if your grandparents find out,” his father said.
His mother laughed.
“Grammy will ask you if you’re getting married in the fall like she did.”
When Patrick didn’t laugh or smile or even make eye-contact with any of them, they finally took the cue and stopped bothering him about it, to his enormous relief. He forced down most of his dinner to avoid worrying his mother and went quickly up to his room.
*****
The weekend was a very slow one. Patrick wasn’t quite sure whether he was thankful for the lack of school or whether he missed the distraction. He occupied his mind with unpacking, working with his father to arrange and furnish the living room on Saturday and helping his mother organize her office on Sunday, along with helping her make dinner. There was a great unease in his mind and he stayed mostly quiet, not daring to bring up the confusing and frightening dreams to either of his parents. They seemed to dismiss this as normal behavior and didn’t pry. He tried his best not to think about it all and failed miserably. He considered going into the woods during the daytime as he had originally intended, but somehow couldn’t even work up the courage to do that.
On Sunday night he tried to occupy his mind by organizing the books on his bookshelf, but soon found himself lying on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. As the long hours of the evening ticked by, Patrick was unable to focus his mind on anything. And as it did with the coming of each night’s sleep, the fear began to grow again.
He clicked off his light so no one would come in to say goodnight and listened as his family prepared for sleep and eventually retired. And as the final stirrings of his parents down the hall died down Patrick wondered how long it would be before sleep finally came.
His mind was as weary as ever, but the thought of sleep always scared him more than anything else. Twice he had had these terrible dreams. But they weren’t like normal nightmares; normal nightmares faded after time, the ridiculousness settling in fully by the time you got to school. But these… They were alternately so real that they were hard to deny and so strange and confusing that they were impossible to describe. It was like visiting some horrific planet or plane of existence that his mind could barely comprehend. Much different from simply being chased by a monster or caught up in an earthquake or locked in a small room, and so much worse…
Patrick lay in his bed for what felt like hours. He didn’t bother looking at the little black digital alarm clock he kept on his nightstand. He only stared at the ceiling. More than anything he wished that he had blinds or
curtains to cover his window, and noted that he should ask his mother about it. He could see just a sliver of branches and stars where his vision peeked through the top of the window and past the edge of the roof. All he had to do was sit up and he would see that which had been haunting him for days.
The edge of the dark woods would just be visible in the dim moonlight. Just a few acres of trees—streets and houses on every side. Yet it was as if there was something inside—something physically there within those trees that filled him with so much fear. For a mad moment he considered going in, but the idea was irrationally horrifying; he was too scared to even go during the day, let alone in the pitch black of night. That was how the dreams had started; he considered it one night, then dreamed that he had plunged right in.
But there it was again, that little voice of doubt that arose whenever he called it a dream. It seemed so real that he almost felt as if he could remember the exact thought process he had. It was like he had already made the decision to enter the woods in real life. But now he lay here, too scared to even look out the window.
Suddenly a tiny spark awoke in him; only it wasn’t that adventurous spark, and in fact there wasn’t an ounce of good feeling behind it. It was almost anger, a somewhat spiteful feeling—that piece of him that refused to accept that so many horrible thoughts and feelings should come from something so simple and harmless. That little bit of his consciousness that floated above his own body just long enough to see him lying in bed as scared and helpless as a child because he was afraid of his nightmares.
He thought about tomorrow. Would it just be Friday all over again? Would he lay awake for the rest of the night just to freak out Rachel for another day? Was he just going to wallow in his fear forever?
Rachel. He could see her sweet smile, remember all the horrible silences, recall every feeling and question she must have had while Patrick quaked silently in his boots like a coward. He remembered how she had offered to give him some of her lunch, and suddenly he was hit by how profound the gesture was. They had only known each other for a few days, yet she was still concerned about him not having something to eat. She was willing to give up some of her own lunch for him. And somehow he had been too caught up in his stupid dreams to notice.
He couldn’t do it anymore. He had to end this.
Fighting just about every instinct inside of him and following that mad little spark, he sat up and pulled on his jeans. He left his room quietly, shut his door with great care and crept down the wooden stairs. Every step took great mental effort; his mind pulled back at his feet as they brought him down into the darkness of the family room.
His skin tingled and flushed cold as he walked to the door that led into the garage. As he did, he glanced out the sliding glass door to the backyard.
This wouldn’t be like the dream.
He opened the door and switched on the light. He was hit with that odd, heavy smell of garage and forced to shield his eyes from the blaring light on the opening mechanism overhead. There were a few boxes next to the tall shelves on the left, and Patrick walked over and started to root through them. He dug around the first one for a while to no avail, but found what he was looking for right on the top of the second. He pulled out the big blue flashlight and gripped the handle. He clicked it on to make sure it had batteries, and the huge lens shot out a beam that shone white even in the brightly-lit garage.
He clicked off the light, returned the boxes more or less to their original positions, turned off the garage light and exited to the family room. He fetched his shoes from beside the front door and put them on, then walked back down the hall and through the living room to the sliding glass door. He unlatched it and slid it open slowly, again mindful not to cause the house-shaking rumble. It opened and closed without protest, and when he was certain he hadn’t been heard by his family he immediately started across the yard. As he walked into view of the upstairs bedroom windows he hoped greatly that his little sister didn’t happen to be awake and looking down on the yard at this very moment, though it was certainly doubtful.
Patrick’s insides grew tighter as the trees grew closer and he stepped quickly and purposefully, afraid that showing even the smallest amount of apprehension would cause his concentration to break and his body to involuntarily retreat. He stopped at the edge of the yard, almost breathless with fear. Beyond this point the trees were pitch black. In a gesture that he hoped wasn’t too quick or shaky he held the flashlight out in front of him and clicked it on. A white beam of light shot through the trees and he held it there for a long moment, as if holding the great beast at sword point, daring it to continue making his life miserable. His courage bolstered, he brought the light down to his side and stepped into the trees.
His hairs were on end, and it felt as though every beat of his heart was pumping ice water through his body, but he pushed forward, one slow step after another. His flashlight felt like a weapon against fear, the beam dissolving all mystery immediately in front of him in a brilliant splash of battery-powered light. But just like a sword, he could only hold it in one direction at a time. While it lit up the space ahead it left his back drenched in absolute darkness. The chill there was without a doubt the worst. Every bit of the woods that the light didn’t touch was all the more black, and long shadows rose and fell all around him with every small movement.
Though he finally had a weapon against the shadows, it still felt like being in a small bubble, deep in the middle of the ocean. The darkness around him pressed in like a tangible force, every brightened tree hiding a mystery in the pure black behind it.
The mental effort behind each step was so great that it was physically exhausting. All of his muscles were tense, his heartbeat refused to ease up, and the goose bumps arose with every snapping twig. The occasional falling acorn never failed to make him stop dead and shoot the flashlight off in every direction in a quick panic, and this only perpetuated the racing of his heart.
Patrick wondered how far he needed to walk in order to put his fears to rest. It seemed that he had traveled plenty far already, but some feeling that he couldn’t quite identify drove him further. It was almost as though he were actively looking for whatever would prove his search successful when he didn’t find it…
He was walking through a clearing, wondering if he had veered at all and if he would be able to make it back to his house without emerging onto some mysterious street, when there was a CAW to his left.
He spun his flashlight toward the noise and froze in terror.
A crow—the crow—sat on a thick, gnarled branch, staring at him with its black, beady eyes. The branch twisted horribly from a grotesque tree that jutted from the ground in the middle of the clearing like a demon’s horn.
Patrick could barely breath, couldn’t turn, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the awful sight before him. It was all true, every fear was upon him again and the dark wood around him was suddenly filled with faceless horrors as his nightmare thrust itself through the heart of reality and everything began to blur and melt together. The crow began to caw and the sound of the crickets grew louder and the sick, old smell of the tree bled into his nostrils.
The sleeping world merged into the waking one and the memories of those terrifying nights returned to him with a clarity that somehow sharpened in the deepening chaos.
Amidst it all, he thought of Rachel.
The sounds and smells of the woods grew, and where his body was freezing a moment ago it now felt both hot and cold, and every molecule in his bones seemed to be vibrating, but against all odds that tiny spark of defiance flared inside him for a moment, and he forced himself to calm down.
He wouldn’t be helpless this time. He wouldn’t run anymore. He stared at the crow and it looked back at him, still cawing.
As much as he wanted to run, to scramble, crying like a coward out of the woods and into the scarce moonlight, Patrick looked right into the crow’s eyes
and clicked off the flashlight.
Chapter 6
When Patrick turned off the light and dropped it at his side, there was a quick moment when he thought that it hadn’t been fully extinguished. The woods were supposed to be pitch black, yet somehow he could dimly see around him in muted shades of shifting color. That indescribable feeling filled his body, that stretching and shifting and great pressure. He soon found himself on his hands and knees, only they didn’t feel like hands and knees at all. He tried to take deep breaths and could only manage short gulps of chill night air. He fought the urge to panic that still had hold of him.
When the feeling stopped that terrifying barrage of indescribable color and sound once again reached its peak, and his mind teemed with sensations he couldn’t understand. But this time, he didn’t run. He only stood there, hunched to the ground, trembling slightly, taking it all in.
The cries of the crickets jumbled together in a dissonance that was actually painful. There must have been hundreds of them in the woods, but after an uncomfortable few moments he thought he could hear one that was closer than the others. He could almost see the vibrations that its call made in the air, and he focused on it as hard as he could. Soon the lone cricket separated itself from the chaotic din, and as it grew clearer its brothers grew quieter. After a while he was quite certain he could locate its exact position in the brush. It was off to his right, about ten feet, in a fallen branch that lay next to its tree.
He stood for several minutes, picking noises out of the chaos and focusing on them. Exhibiting even this small level of control brought him immense comfort, and soon even the shrieking of the bats in the sky above didn’t hurt his ears. He had also stopped trembling.
But of all his senses, the most different and confusing was what he could only assume to be smell. It was so intensified it hardly seemed like a normal sense anymore. Everything around him gave off such a strong scent that it truly was like actual colors were appearing in his brain; colors that he hadn’t even seen before.