The Woods Are Dark

  The words frightened Neala.

  “I love you.”

  She looked at Sherri, stunned. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. And when I saw you, this morning, standing out there in the sunlight…I just couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop watching.” She made a sour laugh. “You probably thought I was hankering after Johnny, huh? Surprise surprise.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “Believe it, Neala.”

  “But those guys you’re always talking about—Jack and Larry. Wesley…”

  “I’m bi.”

  “Bi?”

  “I go either way.”

  “I know what it means. I just never…” She shook her head. She felt disgusted and afraid.

  “I’d hoped you might be that way, too. I thought, you know, I’d find out on our camping trip.”

  “What were you going to do, seduce me?”

  “Only if you…You’ve got to believe, I never would have forced myself on you. I love you. I’d never do anything unless you were willing.”

  “Boy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “All these months…”

  “Sorry,” Sherri said. She stepped away from the wall. “This would be a great time for an exit, but I think I’ll pass on it.”

  Neala watched her move across the room, and lie down in a corner. She turned again to the wall. She peered out the crack.

  I love you.

  The words were like a heavy stone in her stomach. She felt betrayed. As if her friendship with Sherri had been a nasty trick. Not a friendship, at all, but a game Sherri had played to stay close to her. To sneak intimate moments: a glimpse of her body, a casual touch, sometimes a quick, happy hug.

  Her face felt on fire as she remembered their weekend in San Diego, last month. After a day at Sea-World, the motel room. Calling to Sherri from the shower because she’d forgotten her shampoo. Sherri’s little joke. “If I was a guy, I’d climb in and lend a hand.” Not such a joke, after all. A suggestion.

  God, she must’ve prayed I’d ask her to come in, anyway.

  It must’ve been torture for Sherri.

  The whole weekend. Being so close to her, but never close enough.

  She remembered other scenes from that weekend, now. The times they changed clothes in the same room. The night Sherri had given herself a breast examination, probing and massaging herself as she chatted with Neala, urging her to do the same.

  If she’d offered to perform the examination herself, Neala would’ve been suspicious. Sherri’d been too smart for that. She played the game well.

  She hadn’t been subtle, but she’d misdirected Neala like a skillful magician.

  “Get a load of this number,” she’d said, pulling a sheer, black negligee from her suitcase. “Wesley picked it up at Frederick’s. Horniest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.” She dropped her bathrobe onto the bed, and slipped into the negligee. “Cute, huh?”

  “What there is of it.”

  “Well, it’s the only nightgown I’ve got, kiddo. I just brought it in deference to your modesty. I usually sleep in the raw.”

  “Don’t let me stop you.”

  Sherri did a lot in the raw, that weekend. Neala just assumed she liked the free, natural feel of it. Now it didn’t seem that way at all. Sherri’d been displaying herself, trying to entice her.

  Well, she hadn’t been enticed.

  Sherri had a fine body, big and firm and nearly flawless. But it had one flaw, for Neala.

  It was the body of a woman, not a man.

  She just couldn’t get worked up about it, and that must have been terrible for Sherri. The weekend must have been a torment. All the time they spent together, for nearly a year, was obviously filled with pain and frustrated desire and hope. Constant, unfulfilled hope that Neala would finally respond.

  God, the misery Sherri had put herself through!

  Neala looked across the dark room. She saw Sherri in the corner, lying on her back, an arm over her face.

  She went to her.

  She sat down beside her.

  “My turn on watch?” Sherri asked.

  “No.”

  “What’re they doing out there?”

  “Just waiting.”

  “Gonna starve us out.”

  “Hey Sherri.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You? What for?”

  “I’m just sorry I couldn’t be what you need.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  Neala reached down, and took her friend’s hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  They stripped Cordie. Then two boys held her to the ground while another tried to mount her. She twisted and kicked. He battered her legs away, got between them, and clutched her thighs to hold her still. He thrust against her. The head of his erection prodded, missing, missing, then finding the split of her vagina and plunging in. She cringed, and closed her eyes tightly.

  “Look at him,” Lilly said. “They don’t like it when you shut your eyes.”

  She kept them shut. The boy pounded into her with quick, hard strokes.

  “You’ll be sorry,” Lilly warned. “It’s an insult, shutting your eyes. You want them to kill you?”

  Cordie opened her eyes. The boy’s face was above her. He watched her with narrow eyes. His bloody lips were drawn back, baring his teeth. He grunted loudly with each thrust, blowing putrid breath into her face.

  She turned away. Lilly was squatting beside her, next to the boy who kept her right arm pinned. Another girl, this one chubby but small breasted, stood behind them. Her pubic hair was shaved. As she watched Cordie, she rubbed herself with the knobby end of a bone. The bone looked slippery and fresh. Its end disappeared inside her. Cordie quickly looked away, back to the face of the boy gasping above her, then away.

  The boy pinning her left hand was younger than the others. He watched her with eager, wild eyes. Behind him stood a slender girl with a stump where her elbow should have been. A small, dried hand hung around her neck on a thong, its brown fingers curled as if about to clutch something.

  The boy was pumping harder now, about to come.

  Cordie stared at the girl’s withered hand. She tried hard to concentrate on it, to figure out whether it was a left hand or a right hand, to keep herself from thinking about the boy grunting and sweating on top of her, dirtying her insides with his filthy cock, his…

  A left hand.

  The girl’s left arm had the stump.

  Therefore…

  The withered horror dangling between her breasts—was it her own severed hand?

  The boy suddenly thrust deep and stayed, tight against her, head thrown back and mouth wide, his body twitching as he throbbed inside her. Cordie was sickened by the feel of his jerking cock, the spilling seed. She gagged.

  The boy pulled out of her. He stood, pointing at his shiny erection and making a comment in a language Cordie didn’t know. Then he stepped back, hands on hips.

  The boy on her right let go of her arm.

  Cordie whimpered.

  “It’s part of the test,” Lilly said.

  When he was on top of Cordie, about to enter her, she clenched her fist.

  “Hit him,” Lilly whispered, “and you’re dead meat.”

  So she lay beneath him, her free arm tense but montionless at her side, as he rode her to a climax.

  He stood. He pointed at his dripping cock, said something and stepped away. He stood at the side of the first boy, and folded his arms.

  The one at her left released her other arm. Cordie glanced at Lilly, kneeling close by. Lilly was flushed and breathing hard. The girl behind her was writhing on the bone she held in both hands. The one-armed girl stood motionless, her bare skin glossy with sweat, her fierce eyes meeting Cordie’s.

  Jealous!

  She’s jealous, Cordie thought. Of me.

  The young one climbed onto her. He pushed his penis into her. It was
smaller than the others. His mouth went to one of her breasts. Sucked the nipple. Gnawed it. Wincing with pain, Cordie clutched the grass. Then the pain streaked through her. She grabbed the boy’s hair and jerked his head away.

  He snarled like a raging dog.

  Cordie heard a sharp laugh. She glanced at the one-armed girl, and saw a vicious smile on her face.

  “You blew it,” Lilly said.

  The words struck Cordie with sudden, cramping fear. She pulled the boy’s face down to her mouth and kissed it. She darted her tongue into his mouth. She stroked his back. She clenched his buttocks, digging into his smooth flesh, pressing him more deeply into her. The boy moaned with pleasure. She eased his head away from her face, and pushed his mouth to her breast. His teeth clamped it, chewed it. She cried out with pain, but kept thrusting against him, kept squeezing his buttocks, and finally pushed a finger into his tight sphincter. He shook with spasms, moaning and gasping as he came.

  He looked haggard and pleased when he climbed off her. He pointed to his erection, spoke, and joined the other two boys.

  Cordie sat up.

  The three boys began to walk. They nodded. They pointed at her.

  The one-armed girl suddenly shouted. She jerked her knife out of her skin belt, and flung it to the ground. Strange words spat from her mouth.

  The boys nodded.

  “Tough,” Lilly said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Kigit says you’re shit. She doesn’t want ’em to let you in. Says you’re weak and yellow. Says she wants to fight you.”

  “Fight me?”

  “Yeah. She’ll get her way, too. She’s gurlaw, one of the honored.”

  “What?”

  “She gave an arm during the last famine.”

  “Gave it?”

  Lilly nodded. “That’s her own hand she’s wearing around her neck. A very big honor. Must’ve hurt like hell. You’d never catch me doing that, you can bet.”

  “Oh geez.”

  The boys were nodding, agreeing with Kigit. She turned away from them, and walked toward Cordie.

  “You’d better stand up.”

  “I have to fight her?”

  “You better try.”

  Cordie got to her feet as the girl approached. Her legs felt very tired and weak. She hurt inside from the assaults. Wetness spilled from her, rolling like syrup down her thighs.

  She backed away from Kigit. She moved past the side of the thicket, wondering if she dared to turn and run.

  Kigit smiled strangely. She pointed behind Cordie.

  Cordie didn’t look. She continued to step backward until her bare foot slipped on a patch of wetness. She took a quick step, trying to catch her balance, and tripped on an obstruction.

  She fell onto her back. Sitting up quickly, she found herself in the midst of severed human limbs. They were scattered all around—legs, arms, two mauled torsos. The kids, she realized, had been feasting before they found her.

  Kigit picked up a glob of loose meat and tossed it underhand at Cordie.

  She screamed as it landed on her belly. She rolled. The thing slid off her. Then she scrambled to her feet.

  Kigit picked up a severed arm. She held it to her own stump and waved it in a parody of her own missing arm.

  Cordie turned and ran. She heard the girl behind her, drawing closer. She lunged sideways. Leaped over a dead trunk. Darted through bushes that flailed her skin. But Kigit kept getting closer.

  Where were the others? The boys? If it’s just this girl, this one-armed girl…

  Cordie plunged forward as Kigit shoved her from behind. She landed hard, facedown, twigs and thorns tearing her flesh. As she started to get up, Kigit pounded on her back. The weight drove her down. Kigit’s arm crossed her throat, choking off her wind. Using both hands, Cordie forced the arm away.

  They rolled, but Kigit came up on top. Straddling Cordie’s chest, the girl shot a punch between her upraised arms. The fist felt like a hammer smashing Cordie’s nose. Her arms dropped heavily. Kigit’s knees pinned them to the ground. One blow after another crashed against her face. Finally, they stopped.

  Though she kept her eyes open, Cordie was too dazed to struggle. She watched the girl above her, grinning down, then leaning forward so the withered hand dangled above her face. The hand lowered. Its dry fingers dragged across her forehead.

  Cordie whimpered at the touch of the clawlike hand. She felt the scrape of its fingernails along her cheek. Kigit used her living hand to guide it toward Cordie’s mouth. The fingers hooked her lips. She kept them tightly shut. The fingers pressed, working between her lips, tearing them. She tasted blood. She felt the nails against her front teeth.

  Lilly knelt beside her, and she suddenly realized that the others had caught up. They stood in a close circle around her, watching in silence.

  Suddenly, Kigit jabbed the dead hand at Cordie’s right eye. She jerked her head sideways. The fingers raked the side of her face. Twisting frantically, she worked her arm out from under the girl’s knee. She grabbed a breast and wrung it. Kigit cried out, falling sideways as Cordie pulled. Cordie kept her grip. She climbed onto the writhing girl, whose single hand battered her arm, trying to free the tortured breast. Turning, she dug her elbow into Kigit’s throat. She put her weight on it. Something crushed, and her elbow punched deeper. The girl bucked, eyes popping, mouth agape, arm swinging wildly. Cordie blocked it. She crawled off the convulsing body, and got to her knees.

  Everyone watched Kigit until she died.

  Then a boy, the one who’d been first to assault Cordie, spoke.

  She turned to Lilly for an explanation.

  “He says you’re okay, but you’ve got to pick up Kigit and bring her along.”

  Cordie crawled to the body. She tore the thong away from the neck. She held it up, the severed hand swaying below it, and flung it into the bushes.

  The chubby girl ran after it. She came out of the bushes holding the hand. She sniffed it. Then, dropping her bone, she tied the hand to her knife belt so it dangled between her legs. As she began touching her self with the curled fingers, Cordie turned to the boys.

  “Get going,” Lilly said.

  Cordie clasped the dead girl’s arm, and pulled her to a sitting position. A fecal odor filled her nostrils. Holding her breath, she worked her way around to the girl’s back. She reached under the armpits and hugged the chest, locking her hands just below the breasts. She started to lift. The body felt leaden.

  “Do you want me to help?” Lilly asked.

  Cordie nodded.

  “I get the head.”

  “Huh?”

  “You killed her, so you get first tibbies. So take the head. Everybody does,’ cause the brain’s the best part. So you take first tibbies on the head, and give it to me.”

  “Okay,” Cordie muttered.

  “It’s a deal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. First off, don’t try picking her up. Too hard. We’ll each take a leg, and just drag her.”

  Cordie nodded. She stood, spreading her tangled hair away from her face. Her fingers touched a cheek. She glanced at them. The tips were shiny with blood. Her face felt numb and swollen. She hadn’t realized it was bleeding, though. Looking down at herself, she saw that much of her body was scratched and bruised, and streaked with blood.

  “Look at me,” she mumbled. “Jesus, look at me.”

  “Look at her,” Lilly said, nodding toward the body. “Come on.” She picked up Kigit’s right foot.

  The boys started walking away. The chubby girl followed them, her dimpled buttocks jiggling as she walked.

  Cordie picked up the left foot. She and Lilly leaned forward, and the body moved. They began to walk. It skidded along behind them.

  The boys led the way back to the thicket. They picked up part of the bodies.

  Cordie lowered her eyes, unwilling to look at their cargo of arms and legs.

  God, how could any of this be!

  Hav
e they done this to Mom and Dad?

  Maybe Mom’s alive. Maybe they raped her and let her join, like me, and we can run off together. But we’d have to find Dad, first. If he’s alive.

  If he’s alive. But how could he be?

  It’s possible, she thought.

  Anything’s possible. None of this makes sense, so anything is possible, even Dad coming in with the National Guard and slaughtering all these bastards.

  The body caught on something.

  Without looking, Cordie jerked fiercely. It pulled free.

  “How far to the village?” she asked Lilly.

  “A ways.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Lander Dills, perched in a tree where he’d spent the past few hours in restless sleep, opened his eyes. The forest was bright with daylight.

  He sidestepped away from the trunk. Holding on to an upper branch, he urinated into space. His stream glinted silver in the sunlight.

  “Ruth and Lander sitting in a tree,” he recited. “P-i-s-s-i-n-g.”

  He laughed, but his laughter died.

  No Ruth.

  Lost.

  O lost, and by the wind grieved.

  Wolfe. Thomas Wolfe.

  You can’t go home again. No home to go home to. No Ruth, no Cordelia.

  Just me.

  There is a wolf in me.

  He pulled his hatchet free of the branch where he’d left it embedded. He dropped it to the ground. Then he climbed down from the tree, careful not to abrade himself on its rough bark.

  On the ground, he stretched. He ached as if every muscle had turned to stone. His arms and legs were bruised. Dozens of scratches crisscrossed his skin. He was lumpy with welts, probably from insect bites. He itched all over. Gingerly, he scratched a mosquito bite on the side of his penis.

  A bath is what he needed. A dip in the stream.

  A few minutes of quick walking took him to it. He put down his hatchet, and plunged in. The cool water felt good on his irritated skin. It made the itching stop. In midstream, he stood. He peeled off his vest and turned it, studying it in the morning sunlight.

  The skin was dark and smooth, the tattoo stunning.

  “Stunning,” Lander said.

  The tattoo’s naked woman stood with her legs spread wide. Her red pubic hair was shaped like a valentine heart. Her big breasts had red nipples. Her protruding tongue was forked like a snake’s, and a nest of vipers writhed atop her head.