The Bones of the Forest

  ***

  “Dad, what were the terrorist attacks like?” Amanda was helping her father burn off weeds so they could plant some grass. What she really wanted to do was go back to the house and read more of the journal, but there was no getting out of helping this afternoon.

  “I was just a little boy, Amanda. And they didn’t strike where I lived.”

  “Then why did you move to the city?”

  “The government put up the nets a few years after the attacks started. They said it was the only safe place to be. My parents believed them, like most people back then. And so they sold their land to the government and moved to the city.”

  “What happened to the land?”

  “Like this, I imagine. Just wasted space until some pharmaceutical company finds a resource on it.”

  “Do you think they’ll strike again?”

  “Who?”

  “The terrorists.”

  “They’re all long dead, Amanda. The government rounded them all up and injected them with some concoction. Humane execution, they called it.”

  “What if some escaped?”

  “Well, if they did, they must not be interested in terrorism anymore. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in over twenty years.”

  “Do you think there was a terrorist strike here?”

  “Here? No, that’s doubtful. All the strikes I heard about were in big cities. That’s why they blamed us rural folk for the outbreak.”

  “Outbreak?”

  “The terror outbreak. That’s why your mother’s so paranoid about that old house. The government convinced people that all the terrorists were from rural areas. So you’d be safer inside the net. Believe me, quarantine back then was not the piece of cake it is now. You had to be careful what you said. I know several people who never made it out of quarantine.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Dead, I imagine. Or in some asylum. I never tried to track them down. Some things you’re just better off not knowing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Amanda’s father just shook his head and lit the gasoline on fire. The fire spread fast. It had been a hot, dry summer. “Man the hose, Amanda. Don’t let the fire break through!”

  Amanda watched for embers and hosed them down. She made sure every little flame was out.

  Another hot morning

  I sat on the back porch all night and watched the full moon creep across the motionless tree line. It was too hot inside to sleep, so I surrounded myself with citronella candles and braved the mosquitoes. It’s been two nights now with almost no sleep and I’m beginning to wonder if the horrific events of yesterday were only a waking nightmare caused by exhaustion and heat. Something that awful cannot be real. So today I will worry only about surviving until the power comes on. I’ll drive back down to Kyle’s and fill my tank and some gas cans with gas. If the heat continues, I can at least sit in the car with the air conditioning on for a short time.

  Early evening

  The heat broke this afternoon – at last – with strong winds, lightning and rain. I stood in the rain and felt almost clean for the first time in days. Tonight I’ll celebrate by barbecuing the steaks I had in my freezer. I checked them and they were still cool to the touch, so they should be fine. Tonight, for once, I’ll sleep.

  It’s a beautiful night. The world is bathed in pumpkin light. The sun is falling, falling. I will sleep.

  Morning

  A good night’s sleep and I’m convinced that nothing I saw was real. I will drive to Park Hills today and get the power restored.

  Days later

  It’s real. There. I said it. I killed the crazy man and the cars were still there, all backed up on the highway and going nowhere. And it’s all too fucking real. Crows and other predators had eaten on most of the corpses, so even if the government did find them, they’d be hell to identify. So what have I been doing? Crying mostly. Crying because there’s a pretty good chance that no one will ever read what I’m writing, let alone the novel I hid myself away to finish. But for some reason, I’m still alive. Alone. And when I die, that will be the end.

  Early autumn

  It’s been some time since I wrote. I figured it wasn’t worth wasting the ink if there was no one left to read it. But, to hell with that. I’m a writer. It’s what I do. And who knows…there might be someone out there, somewhere.

  It’s amazing what you can hear when you listen to the woods and there are no cars, no airplanes, and no helicopters. For example, I hear a bird whistling, high and strong, and crickets chirping, and frogs singing because it rained today. It probably won’t be so bad being the only person left alive. As long as I survive, of course. And if I don’t, well there’ll be no one around to bury me, so I guess I’ll be crow food like all the others.

  Anyway, I’ve decided to try to tell the story of what I think happened. I’m a strange one to tell that story, since I was outside of the world when it happened, but looking back there are some things that should have served as a warning.

  First, there were the helicopters. Some nights I’d be up late writing – I miss writing at night – and I’d hear a helicopter flying low. Sometimes it would fly so low, I’d be afraid it might clip the treetops. It was dark, after all. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but looking back now it does seem odd. Why would a helicopter fly low across the forest in the middle of the night? Unless it was doing something illegal. Drugs, maybe? Weapon smuggling? I’m not sure. And what does that have to do with what happened? Maybe nothing. We’ll see where the story goes.

  It was getting hard for Amanda to read the words. At first she thought maybe the ink was smeared or the page was dirty. But then she looked up from the book and realized the sun was low in the sky. She’d better go. As it was, it would be dark when she got home. Her mother would be hysterical. She placed the book carefully back in its hole and put the floorboards over it.

  Then she started home. Her ankles felt like they were on fire, which reminded her to go around the chiggerweed. It was a longer path, but she really didn’t want more chiggers. All around her, the world was pumpkin-colored and a bird with a high-pitched squeal sang in the trees as she walked. She guessed the chirping sound might be crickets and made a mental note to ask her father. There were crickets in the city, but nowhere near as deafening as these. As she hurried down the trail, the world changed from pumpkin to rose and then to violet. Luckily, she could see the lights of the house up ahead. She’d really hate to get lost in the woods in the middle of the night. Besides, she could hear thunder rumbling in the distance.

  When she walked in the door, her mother was pacing. Up and down the kitchen floor, she walked. “It’s all your fault that terrorists kidnapped her!” she yelled at Amanda’s father.

  “There are no terrorists. Relax,” he said. “Calm down. It’s just the water. You’re not used to it yet.”

  “You and your water. That’s why we’re here in the first place, isn’t it. Because you had to have your vitamin-free water.”

  Amanda closed the door. “I’m here, Mom. Relax.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Just out walking. I lost track of time.”

  “How can you lose track of time? You have a watch. And you have eyes. Couldn’t you see it was getting dark?”

  “I was listening to the crickets and they put me to sleep.”

  Her father ran to the door and stuck his head outside. “Those aren’t just crickets singing, Amanda. Hear the deeper sounds? And the higher giggling answer? Those are frogs. It’s going to rain. Isn’t that wonderful? The frogs are telling us it’s going to rain. You don’t get that inside the safety net. Come, both of you. Listen and smell.”

  Amanda walked over to her father and he put his arm around her. She took a deep breath. “Smells like a shower, only cleaner.”

  “That’s little droplets of water.”

  “Water has a smell?”

  “Rain has a smell.”

>   Amanda looked over her shoulder and noticed her mother had left the room. “Why is Mom going crazy?”

  “I’m not sure, Amanda. I think it’s a withdrawal symptom. Remember, for her whole life she’s drank water inside the safety net. Now she’s drinking pure, fresh well water. No added chemicals. I think her mind is just overwhelmed.”

  “Will she get better?”

  “I hope so. If not, maybe she can find a doctor who will give her pills. But I hope it doesn’t come to that. I really want us all to be alive here. Do you feel alive, Amanda?”

  “More than ever, Dad.”

  “Not bored any more?”

  “Not bored at all.”

  “Good.” He kissed her forehead and the two of them stood in silence and watched the storm.

  After it was over, he asked, “What did you think?”

  “Beautiful,” she replied. “Beautiful, but frightening at the same time. I was afraid the trees would snap in half.”

  “They do sometimes. But this storm was mild. They can get much worse. I’ve seen trees pulled out of the ground, roots and all.”

  “Is it the lightning that causes the power to go out?”

  “What a funny question. There haven’t been storm-related power outages since I was a boy. See, these days they run the wires underground. Back then, they ran them above ground so trees could fall on the lines and knock out the power. What have you been reading?”

  “Just a book I found.”

  “You’ve been to the old house, haven’t you?”

  “Don’t tell Mom.”

  “Of course not. Is there anything interesting there?”

  “All kinds of stuff! Clothes, dishes, books. The person who lived there was a writer.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I found her journal. That’s what I’ve been reading.” Amanda shut up suddenly. She wished she hadn’t said anything about the journal. She remembered her father saying ‘Some things you’re better off not knowing’ and wondered if he believed it. If he did, the journal definitely fell into that category.

  “What does it say?”

  “Oh nothing much. Just stuff about her life.”

  “Well, maybe when you get done with it, you’ll let me read it.”

  Amanda shrugged, “Sure, Dad.” She kissed her father on the cheek and excused herself to go to bed.

  Amanda fell asleep easily, but woke in the middle of the night. She could swear she heard a helicopter flying low over the trees. She got out of bed and went to the window, opening it wide. There was no helicopter light, but she could swear she heard the whirring of the blades. And she no longer smelled rainwater. Instead she smelled something that reminded her of vitamins.

  I’m not really sure how much time has passed since the power went out. I know it was hot then, I think late July and now the leaves are starting to turn yellow and red. I can almost see them turn. It’s amazing the things you notice when you’ve got nothing much to do. Last night I watched the sunset change my world – because it is my world now – from bright blues and grays to deep amber, then to rose, and then finally to twilight blue. A rainbow in succession. And through it all, black dragonflies darted back and forth, resting briefly on a blade of grass, and then darting off in a different path. It was watching that sunset that made me realize I needed to write again. If only to recapture my world so that someone else knows I existed and that the dragonflies existed and the monarchs and the crows.

  The crows are very much still here. One laughs at me every afternoon. I think it’s waiting for me to die. But I’ve made up my mind not to. The main thing is to drink and eat. I’ve found a spring where I can gather water. I started drinking there some time ago. At first just a little to make sure it didn’t make me sick. But now I drink exclusively from the spring. Food is another issue. I’ve eaten nearly everything from Kyle’s. But I can fish. There’s a lake nearby and there are poles and lures at Kyle’s. There were also some vegetable seeds on a sale rack at the feed store down the road from Kyle’s. I’ve taken some and started lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes in pots. I’ve never had a green thumb, but perhaps given the necessity, I’ll be able to keep them alive.

  I’ve considered learning to hunt too. I’m sure I can find guns and ammunition if I search other houses. I shot a gun once at a target. I needed to know how it felt to shoot a shotgun so that I could write about it correctly. I’m not accurate, but I’m sure I’d get better. That’s one thing I definitely don’t understand. Most of the people who died were murdered – beat up, strangled, shot. The highway was like a battleground where neither side survived to claim the victory. What made all those people kill each other? I struggle with the idea of killing a squirrel or a wild turkey for sustenance. I can’t imagine killing another human being.

  On the way home, Amanda played close attention to the leaves of the trees. Very green – that’s how she’d describe them. Greener than anything she’d ever seen.

  After she got home, she found her father. “When do the leaves turn colors?”

  “Another month or so. Why?”

  “The writer told about it in her journal. I wanted to see it.”

  “It’s beautiful, Amanda. You’ll love it. The air has a different smell then, too?”

  “Like vitamins?”

  “No. Why would it smell like vitamins?”

  “Last night something woke me up and when I went to the window, I smelled vitamins.”

  “It must still be that water working its way out of your system. You still have another week of quarantine, you know. You’re body’s still flushing out the poison.”

  “Dad, why do they call it vitamins and you call it poison?”

  “I just don’t think people need it, sweetheart. That’s all.”

  “How’s Mom tonight?”

  “Better. I think the withdrawal might be ending.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Me too, Amanda. Me too.”