The Bones of the Forest Read online

The Bones of the Forest

  By Rachelle Reese

  “The Bones of the Forest” by Rachelle Reese. Copyright © 2006 by Rachelle Reese

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law.

  Late July – not sure of the date and can’t look at my calendar

  I was angry when the power went off at quarter after four. I’m anxious to be finished and rejoin the world I exiled myself from three months ago so I could finish this novel. The novel is close – so close I can taste the closing words on my tongue. Bittersweet, the way I like them.

  Amanda flipped through the pages of the red leather-bound journal, looking for a name, a year. She found nothing. She had found the book and two nice ink pens under a floorboard in the crumbling house near the edge of the property her parents had bought last year. Her father had gotten a job in the mines nearby and they were hoping for a fresh start away from the addicted city. That was what her father called all cities. He had been raised in the country and hated the traffic and the rude neighbors honking their horns and then smiling their fake smiles at each other over four-foot fences. Hated the identical houses that stretched endlessly side-by-side with exactly twenty feet between them. Hated the mind-numbing, vitamin water that flowed from every drinking water tap. So when scientists discovered that the tiff rock in the Undiscovered Foothills could be ground and processed to create an anti-anxiety medicine, her father was one of the first to sign up.

  Amanda’s mother had not been happy. “You know you’re a hypocrite, don’t you? You know they’ll put that medicine you’re mining right into the water.”

  “I’ll be mining it, not drinking it,” her father had replied. “They’ll do what they want with or without me. I plan to build a house with a well.”

  And so their arguments went. But in the end, her father got the job, they bought ten acres of land, and, five weeks ago, they moved in.

  They had lived in the new house just over a month when Amanda discovered the crumbling house. “Why do they call it the Undiscovered Foothills if people lived here before?” Amanda had asked at dinner that night.

  “People never lived here, Amanda,” her mother had said. “Not in my lifetime.”

  “They did live here once though. I found a house.”

  Her mother had become visibly nervous. “Don’t go near it. Terrorists might have lived there. There might be bombs, chemicals, and who knows what else.” She’d glared at Amanda’s father. “I told you it was a bad idea to move outside of civilization.”

  Her father had shrugged, “It’s probably harmless, Julie. There were lots of people who lived in rural areas before the terrorist attacks. And most of them were just normal people.”

  “Still.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Amanda had learned that it was sometimes easier to just go along with her mother’s worries than to argue with her, especially since they’d moved. “I won’t go back there. It’s too long a walk, anyway.”

  Of course, Amanda had gone back. There was nothing better to do. She had three more weeks before she could enroll in school. That was the rule when you moved out of the safety net – seven weeks of quarantine. It was the same way going back inside. That’s why most people who lived in the cities never left. Who could stand sitting at home and doing nothing for seven weeks?

  So Amanda had spent most of last week exploring the house. From what she could tell, a woman had lived there alone. The clothing was mostly rotted away, but she could tell it was old by the style. Pre-terrorist more than likely, maybe even older than that. There were stacks of books, but most of them were too moldy to read. There were dishes stacked in cupboards and piled in an old-style sink. There were even a few old cans of food. Amanda could barely make out the expiration dates, but she was pretty sure they had all expired before she was born.

  She had noticed the loose floorboard yesterday and it had bothered her all night. Her imagination ran wild. It could be just a loose floorboard or it could be a passageway to a secret world or a tomb. Or a room full of bombs, her mother’s voice interrupted her daydream. Amanda pushed it aside. After all, her father had come from outside the city and he wasn’t a terrorist. So first thing in the morning, Amanda had taken the crowbar from her father’s toolbox and gone back to the house.

  And now she had a book and two very old pens. At first she’d been disappointed, but then she’d realized that the book might help her solve the mystery of who had lived in the crumbling house and what had happened to her.

  I’m hoping the power won’t be off long, but I can’t see a reason it’s off at all. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the winds are still, unusually still for this time of year. And I’m sure I paid the bill. Well, if it’s not on tomorrow I’ll drive down to Kyle’s Gas and Grocery and use the pay phone there to call. I knew I should have kept that old wire phone. You never know when you’ll need one.

  Next morning – still no power

  And today promises to be ghastly. I didn’t sleep much last night. The air was so warm and still I couldn’t breathe. It was even hot outside. Tornado weather, they call it. Maybe that’s why there’s no power. I never realized how dependent I am on electricity. I’m out of practice writing with paper and pen and I can’t even get a glass of water because there’s no power to run the pump. So here I am drinking yesterday’s coffee cold. This would happen two days before I’d planned to make a supply run. Well, off to Kyle’s. If nothing else, I can buy some bottled water.

  Same day, afternoon

  I’ve spent my whole life writing novels, trying to make them suspenseful, yet realistic. If I’d written about today my editor would have sent it back as too far-fetched. Well, I’m writing it now. And it is reality, not fiction.

  I went to Kyle’s to call the electric company and buy a few things to tide me over until the power comes back on. When I pulled up, I knew something was wrong right away. Kyle’s is never empty. There are always a couple old men out front whiling away the day and at least a person or two at the pumps. Kyle charges more than anyone in town, but he’s a good ten miles from any other station, so he gets plenty of business. Got plenty of business. I parked right in front and went inside. There was Kyle, face down next to the cash register in a pool of blood. From the smell, it seemed he’d been dead a day or two, but you never know. As hot as it is, a body would rot pretty fast. And wouldn’t you know, the power is out there too. Well, I went to the pay phone. First I tried to call 911. It rang and rang without an answer. Next, I tried the power company. This time I got the after hours recording. I pressed 2 to report a power outage and eventually a person with a heavy Indian accent answered. “I need to report an outage,” I said.

  “We are aware of the problem, mum. But we cannot contact the office. We think it might be …”

  “What do you mean you can’t contact the office? Where are you?”

  “Mumbai. India.”

  “Great. Just great. My power is out in the middle of the United States of America and my call gets answered in Mumbai, India. Where the hell is Mumbai, India?”

  “It used to be Bombay, mum.”

  I hung up the phone. Just my luck. I’d have to drive all the way to Park Hills to get answers. And I only had a quarter tank of gas. I took three bottles of water from the warm refrigerator and started to put a ten dollar bill on the counter, then changed my mind. Kyle didn’t need the money now and someone would probably just steal it anyway. When whoever he l
eft the store to reopened, I’d settle up then.

  I grabbed a couple bags of chips and a candy bar and stepped back outside. Then I noticed the stench. It was bad inside, but it was almost worse outside. And the sound of crows was deafening. I thought about leaving, and probably should have, but I’ve always been dangerously curious. So I followed the squawking and found the bodies just in time to see a crow tear a piece of flesh from one old man’s face and hop to the side to eat it. The other body was unrecognizable, so much flesh had been torn away. But from the clothing, I figured he was probably the other old man who always stood out front. Killing Kyle, I could almost understand. He was a greedy man who watered down his gas and shorted people change. The two old men were harmless characters who’d like nothing better than to tell you the rambling story of their lives. I couldn’t imagine someone killing either one of them.

  At this point, I was anxious to leave there. I planned to drive to the police station in Park Hills to report the murders and ask them if they knew anything about when the electricity would be turned back on.

  I drove back down the curvy roads, past my house, and the other way. I passed no one, which is not unheard of but a little odd. When I got to the highway, it was a different story. It was clogged with cars and trucks – and every single one of them was standing still. Their engines weren’t even running. And then I saw the people – hunched over steering wheels, lying at the side of the road, some in pools of blood, others with their faces contorted in unexplained agony. I stared at the carnage, trying to disbelieve it all. It was heatstroke, not real. I took a swig from the water bottle I’d opened when I left Kyle’s. As I threw back my head, I heard something smack across my windshield. I jumped, spilling half the bottle of water in my lap. But I didn’t even notice that until later because a man, very much alive, was clawing at my windshield. His face was distorted, pressed tight against the glass, his fingers left bloody smears, and he was shouting something I couldn’t make out.

  I panicked, threw the car into reverse and backed down the country road as fast as I dared. He still clung there, screaming his incomprehensible scream. I slammed on the brakes. The screaming man flew threw the air and hit the ground. I backed down the road until I found a driveway I could turn around in. I thought about going back to see if the man was dead or alive. But something about his screaming mouth terrified me. I decided to stop by Kyle’s for more supplies and just go home. I’d take enough to last a week or two.

  So that’s what I did. Now I just have to wait it out. I’ll try to go to town again in a few days. By then maybe the National Guard will have cleaned up the mess.

  Amanda’s watch warned her it was lunch time. She put the book and the pens carefully back where she had found them and replaced the floorboard. They were safe there for all this time, they’d have to be safe for longer. If her mother found the journal, she’d never hear the end of it.

  As she walked through the woods back to her house, her mind raced so fast, she didn’t notice the chiggerweed until she came out of it and realized her skin was crawling. Chiggerweed was one of the only things her father had warned her about. “You’ll have no immunity to them,” he said. “They’re bad enough for an old country boy like me, but for a city girl like you they’ll be hell.” She tried to brush them off, but by the time she got home, she knew that some had bitten into her flesh. Fortunately, her father was at the table when she walked in.

  “Dad, I did something stupid.”

  “You didn’t go back to that house, did you?” her mother asked.

  Amanda ignored her mother’s question. “I wasn’t paying attention and I walked through chiggerweed.” She held up her ankle, which was just starting to blister.

  Her father ran his finger over on of the bumps. “That might be a chigger bite. You’ll know soon enough. For now, you’d better go take as hot a bath as you can stand and try to get them off you.”

  “If it’s chiggers, what’ll they do to her?” Amanda heard her mother ask as she ran off to the bathroom.

  “Itch like a mother-fucker.”

  “Luke! I hate it when you talk like that.”

  “What? It’s the truth. Have you ever had a chigger bite?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well I have. And they itch like a mother-fucker.”

  Amanda hurried off to take the hottest bath she’d ever taken.