Alone in the woods

“Suppose you hurt yourself…” Flora started with an awkward hesitation in her voice; she was standing against the kitchen table, a slender hand resting on her throat as though to wrestle the words back. “Who’s going to help you?”

               There was a silence that followed her question which was only broken when the kettle began to whistle on the stovetop. Flora’s hand fell from her throat and she turned away woefully to the stove; she poured the water into her teacup slowly until it was just about to spill out and then rested the kettle heavily, staring blankly at it.

               Darrin cleared his throat anxiously, watching her as she stood, then looked away just as he saw she was turning back to look at him.

               “You worry too much,” Darrin scolded, raising his arms above his head in a theatrical stretch. “I can take care of myself.” There was a hesitation which Flora felt, something that felt like Darrin was either making a mistake or was holding something back. She leaned against the table again and stared at him with a frown on her thin lips.

               Darrin sighed quietly. Just like last time, Flora was taking it hard, and it made him feel a pang of guilt which he otherwise wouldn’t have noticed at all. There was a sliver of a moment where he felt compelled to assure her, to keep her from worrying too much. He needed to get away for a few days on his own.

               “It’s only a couple of days,” Darrin said when he could tell he hadn’t broken her doubtful constitution. “I just need to be alone to think things out.”

               Flora’s only acknowledgment was a glance at the floor. She felt tired – tired of Darrin’s fickleness and his impulsiveness. He acted like a seventeen-year-old, not someone of thirty-seven.

               As she stood watching behind the dusty screen door, Darrin slid his duffle bag onto the back seat of his Plymouth and cinched his overcoat. He milled about beside the driver’s door, looking at the tall slender silhouette of Flora against the kitchen light. She only stared back, tired, and sad, thinking about the last time Darrin had left and then returned three days later. She watched as the last four years of her life backed down the driveway and slowly lumbered away through the cold, damp night.

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               The pavement was dry along both sides of the highway but was damp down the center, where the overhanging canopy of fir trees parted. The air through Darrin’s open window was brisk and thick; his cigarette smoke rolled neatly out into the night. The scent of rain and wet brush was pungent, a sweet aroma that wafted fragrantly through the car; it reminded him of his summers at Sebago Lake, before his mother’s nervous collapse.

               Darrin snubbed the remains of his Chesterfield in the ashtray and caught a glimpse of the butt of one of Flora’s Virginia Slims and imagined her sitting at the kitchen table just then, drinking her cup of tea and smoking one of the long, slim cigarettes. He glanced at the rearview mirror instinctually as though he might see her, but quickly looked away in a sheepish haze and scoffed at himself.

               “She’ll be fine,” he muttered out loud, uneasily.

               The pavement curved through the woods; the yellow headlights of the Plymouth cut across tree trunks and ferns dripping with raindrops. Deeper into the woods a thin fog developed, at first it was merely gray flashes across the windshield but soon it had turned into a heavy shroud hanging among the trees. He reached over casually to grab ahold of his cigarettes but as a sharp curve appeared out of the fog and he turned tightly, he forgot about the cigarettes and gripped the wheel, glaring intently at the winding forest highway rolling toward him out of the fog.

               Darrin felt comfortable enough on this road; he had driven it dozens of times before. In the summer he and Flora would spend long weekends swimming in the creek and drinking wine on the porch in the twilight, and in the winter they would ski and host friends, the brown lights of the cabin windows stretching across the powdery snow. It was easy to find – just across Wannacoltish bridge and the first driveway to the left, was how they explained it to friends; a rustic A frame nestled among pine trees and a dirt driveway littered with pinecones.

               In the fog the pilings of the bridge looked like black sentinels that slowly emerged out of a blanket of mist as Darrin approached. Instantly recognizable, he breathed a deep sigh of relief and once again reached for the cigarettes on the seat beside him.

               The weathered A frame seemed menacing under the headlights of the Plymouth though Darrin didn’t give it a second thought as he sat behind the wheel, finishing another Chesterfield. Large drops of rain fell sporadically through the headlights, and he thought about driving up the road to the service station to use the phone. His watch told him that Flora would already be asleep, though – there was a bottle of Ballantine’s in his duffle bag which he was looking forward to anyway.

               Through the cabin door, a musty wall of thick air overpowered Darrin and he grimaced. In the glow of the floor lamp by the door, the familiar wood paneling and green throw rugs felt inviting. He slid open one of the few windows and felt a cold chill inundate the room – a cold chill which carried the sound of the creek babbling close by in the dark. He frowned…Flora liked to sleep with the window open in the summer, to hear the sound of the creek. There was an infantile manner to it which made him shake his head. Some things about Flora he had never gotten used to, even after four years. He sat on the bed and took a sip from the bottle of Ballantine’s and closed his eyes; the whiskey burned on the way down.

               “Goddammit…” he exhaled.

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               The strange sensation of being watched made Darrin’s eyes flutter open. It was an ephemeral, mystical feeling but deep enough that it caused him to stir. Though the darkness made it hard to see, he could feel another person beside him; the familiar warmth of another body staved the chill of the air. It was not unexpected, though Darrin awoke with a start.

               “I hope you don’t mind I let myself in,” came a voice in the dark, “you were sound asleep when I got here and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

               Though she was covered by the bed sheet, Darrin could feel that Louise was naked; her skin radiated an unnatural heat, almost to the point of suffocation and he tried to scoot away from her to cool down but he found himself unable to move.

“I’m beginning to wonder,” started Louise, though now her voice was louder, harder, anxious… “whether you’re really serious about us.”

Darrin knew exactly which words he wanted to say, but he only managed to mumble incoherently. His pulse quickened – why didn’t he have control over himself? His arousal was acute but every movement he made toward her flailed about in midair.

 In an instant she was on top of him, pulling violently at his shirt as though she meant to rip it to pieces; Darrin reached out to place his hands on her breasts but a searing heat burned his palms and half in a daze, his hands fumbled about her body but everywhere he touched was burning with heat. Her nails dug sharply into his chest as she ripped through his shirt and he growled angrily, maddened by the pain and his inability to control his movements.

               “Admit it, Darrin!” Louise shrieked, “you won’t ever leave her!”

               Darrin’s mouth fell open to rebut. He tried to yell but could only gasp.

               “You told me you wanted to be with me!” Louise continued hysterically, forcing herself down on Darrin’s groin; he was frantic to get out from under her but his arousal wouldn’t allow it. “I know how to take you from her,” Louise whispered in a tone that was suddenly sinister.

               Panic welled up inside of Darrin as he neared his climax.  

               When his eyes opened, he was alone. The darkness was still filled with the sound of the creek babbling, though the mustiness of the cabin had faded. Smothered beneath the heavy down comforter and sheet, Darrin’s body was damp with sweat that soaked through his clothing. With a clumsy start, he sat up and looked about the cabin, but it was empty; rain pattered on the roof over his head and his shallow breaths echoed in the high ceiling, but otherwise everything was still.

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               A quarter of the Ballantine’s bottle was all that remained, it stood near the corner of the table with the lid on the floor below. A cigarette smoldering in his hand, Darrin gazed at the nearly empty bottle as he sat stooped over on the edge of the bed. His hangover throbbed ruthlessly in his temples; he had only taken one drag on the cigarette, but it had felt like one drag too many as the cabin spun around him. Still drunk, he felt his stomach beginning to lurch and without another thought he rose swiftly but gracelessly and stumbled in great leaps toward the door.

               On the short sloping path to the creek, Darrin was reminded of Flora with the sound of the rushing water. Louise had been fun, but he had grown tired of her, and his guilt was beginning to gnaw at him. In more sober moments he would fret about Louise ending up pregnant, but for now he was content to admonish her lack of personality as he spit callously into the wet ferns along the creek bank.

               The water gurgled among the dark and smooth rocks along the bank, inviting Darrin to drink from it – the alcohol had dried out his mouth and he felt parched. With some troubled effort he knelt clumsily onto the spongy grass of the creek bank and leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the swirling eddies just barely visible in the night. He drew closer until suddenly he lost his sense of space and for a moment he felt weightless.

               The sound of his forehead against a rock rung loudly in his ears and across his eyes flew hundreds of stars. Much deeper than he realized, his entire body was submerged beneath the surface and the shock of the cold caused him to flail wildly until his head broke the surface. In a daze, he was unaware that the current had pinned him to the side of the bank; the feel of grass on his face caused him to impulsively grope for anything he could grab.

               In a startled moment of clarity, he heaved himself out of the water, onto the bank, and his coughs echoed through the fog until he rolled onto his stomach a vomited. He laid motionless for a time, unsure of whether to worry about his forehead or his soaked clothing more. The pain of trying to move was as bad as the pain of not moving at all. Only a short distance away was the cabin; if he had been on his feet he would have been able to see a lit window. A fatigue swiftly overtook him, and his eyes gradually closed. He could see Flora standing in this very spot, though the sun was bright and filtering through the limbs of the trees. She was smiling at him, laughing about some private joke they shared, wading slowly into the creek as he watched.

               Then everything became cold and silent.