Adam's Woods (2 page)

The drive would only take him a few hours. He didn’t know what he’d do when he got there. The village of Lincoln Corners, Pennsylvania took up about two blocks of rural real estate. It had no post office of its own but instead each address was the same rural route. It didn’t matter. The postman knew where to find everyone. The town had a Baptist church, a hair salon annexed to the stylist's home, a small grocery store and a lumber yard, and a few dozen houses and that was it. He could cruise by his old house, but that would take all of ten seconds if he went slow. He would certainly attract attention. Strangers might as well hold a neon sign and wear a cowbell. Not that he was a complete stranger, but his unknown car would have telephones ringing throughout the close-knit community if he did anything but drive through, if it was anything like he remembered.

He approached the exit for Meadville and took it, and chose a fast food place amongst a good showing of its competitors in which to eat lunch and think about the trip. If he’d stopped closer to Pittsburgh he might have just turned around and gone back, even found a new story line to pursue if it came to that. But from Meadville he had maybe forty-five minutes to go, and he would at least do the drive through. He could always visit Adam in the small cemetery on top of the hill afterwards.

Sitting amongst the other diners - truckers eating alone and staring vacantly at the highway, families with small children and frazzled parents, businessmen looking at newspapers and watches - he wondered who else here had been touched by the murder of a relative or friend. He wondered who had been abused, who would go home and hit their wife or child again, or if there were any murderers at large enjoying a combo meal. Most of what people displayed in public was bullshit, he believed, as fake as the pictures of the food above the counter.

A young woman walked his way. He knew the look on her face and put his head down and tucked into the burger, hoping she’d see him chewing and leave him in peace. He liked meeting fans, but didn’t feel up to it right now.

“
Excuse me…I’m really sorry to bother you…but are you Eric Kane?”

He glanced up and studied her blue eyes and long brown hair that shimmered as a tress fell over her shoulder when she leaned forward expectantly: maybe twenty-four, conservatively dressed in a long skirt and a blouse with a floral print, probably a Republican that loved Jesus. Nothing wrong with that. So had he, once upon a time.

He nodded to her, his mouth still full, trying to decide whether to take another bite and send a message for her to get lost, or finish chewing and smile and answer. He finally decided he felt lonelier than irritated and chose the latter.

“
Yes, I am.”

Her eyes lit up, and he found himself entranced by the beauty and innocence that co-mingled in her smile and trusting expression. Only in rural America, at state fairs and small but generally full churches and the potluck dinners after the service could you find reactions such as these. His city “friends” would snicker behind their hands at these backwoods people, he knew. But they were generally smart and shrewd and so much less jaded than those that chose to jam themselves into concrete and steel structures and receive a magnified dose of human nature that produced cynicism as an antibody. They laughed at innocence because they couldn’t find it in themselves anymore, and called this paucity of the soul sophistication. Of course there were the rednecks that perpetuated the stereotypes, but every culture had a poster child, and usually it ended up being someone exemplifying the traits most wanted to deny.

“
Hi, my name is Katy, and I’m a big fan, especially of “Shadow Lake”. I know you’re eating, and it‘s probably rude, but I actually have it here in my backpack and it would mean so much to me if you’d sign it.”

An apologetic but hopeful smile finally cut through his reluctance and he returned it genuinely. And at the same time Eric caught himself wondering if he could seduce her and felt ashamed.

“
Sure, Katy, I’ll sign it.” He had a hard time meeting her eyes, did not want her to see his discomfort or guess at its reason. He feared most seeing a flicker of interest if she did. But that was wishful thinking. She’d probably denounce him as a pervert and throw the book in the trash on the way out.

She pulled out the hardcover book, well read and worn, from her backpack. He opened it up to the title page and wrote, “To Katy. Thank you for journeying with me to Shadow Lake. May it haunt you forever. Eric Kane.” Maybe cheesy, but the best he could come up with on a half-eaten burger and struggling with his own ghosts.

Katy smiled brightly after reading the inscription. “Perfect, thanks so much. What I like best is the depth of your characters, especially Molly. She’s so conflicted but brave in facing the unthinkable. Her struggle is so poignantly written it just broke my heart the first time I read it. I’ve always wondered, I know this personal and you don‘t have to answer, but have you…just from some of the things you write…are you a believer?”

His good will faltered a bit, but he managed to keep a smile and after a brief glance out the window answered, “I was once, I guess. But Jesus and I went our separate ways years ago, and I don’t think he’d like what he found if he came around looking for me.” He surprised himself with the honest explanation.

She laid his hand on his, and he marveled at the audacity and looked at her delicate fingers but didn’t pull away, heard the gentle sincerity in her voice as she said, “He‘s never stopped looking, Mr. Kane.”

He did pull his hand away then, firmly but he hoped not too rudely and held her gaze and answered, “Maybe, but I’m not the one that took off, Katy.” Anger rose in his breast and he refused it. Now wasn’t the time and Katy wasn’t the enemy. But it was time for her to go. He forced a smile and said,” It was so nice meeting you. I’ve started a new novel, and hopefully within a year or so it will be on the shelves. Check my website for updates.”

She nodded, and he could tell she wanted to say more but wisely nodded in parting and said, “ I’ll do that. God bless you.”

And he knew she meant it.

He watched her go, the skirt hiding her lovely figure but not entirely, and then forced himself to finish the meal for which he had lost his appetite. He guessed that if he hung around Lincoln Corners for any period of time, there wouldn’t be anywhere to get hot food later. He wanted to call Katy back over and ask if she had any sisters, ask whether, if she’d seen her sister at the age of eight gutted like a deer by a murderer never punished let alone caught, she would still possess faith to carry her through. But he didn’t. He just unclenched hands that had somehow balled into fists and took a few deep breaths and blinked back the tear that had formed in memory of his brother.

The town seemed like a miniature version of the place he'd grown up, had heard this phenomenon related from the accounts of others but had not returned to experience it first-hand. Appoaching Lincoln Corners from the east, he had driven over Willow Creek, over the bridge from where he and the neighborhood kids had jumped into the water below, always so cold no matter how hot the day. He had stopped the car and got out and remembered his first time, standing for maybe ten minutes on the concrete railing searching for courage to leap. Each moment delayed built a case for cowardice and a motion for stepping down, but he couldn’t do that either. His peers had at first urged and encouraged him, but had grown bored with his inertia and resorted to taunts.

Chicken
(and a few chickenshits from those bold enough to try cursing).

Baby.

Come on Eric. If you aren’t going to jump then get out of the way.

He could hear them as if fresh echoes, the words spoken only moments ago.

And then he’d just done it, stepped out into nothing while watching someone else’s legs directed by someone else’s brain, but his body that fell and splashed into the water, feet driven down into the gravel creek bed by his momentum. He had surfaced whooping with joy and triumph and pleased with the knowledge gained of himself and jumped a dozen more times before walking home accompanied by backslaps and cheers.

The drop didn’t seem so far now, but he did notice that the gravel had piled up at the point of impact and doubted anyone could jump without breaking a leg. From there it was only a twenty-second drive to his house, a distance that seemed like a long hike to a weary but satisfied boy of eight. He had been eight on the first jump, the same age as Adam when he’d died. Adam, six then, had been in awe of him. The pleasure of the memory faded with the intrusion of his brother, sucked into that vortex as all of his childhood memories invariably were. He wondered just what the hell he was doing here again but got back in the car and continued on his pilgrimage.

His mother had chosen the color of the boxy two story house, called goldenrod that must have held some appeal as a swatch in the paint store but looked like something a baby produced when applied on the actual structure. He was surprised to see it still bathed in that color. He was more surprised to see the For Sale sign in the front yard.

Eric drove by, past the house and several others with mature maples and oaks fronting the road, down to the corner where the grocery store was still open and started around the block, lost in thought. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering calling the number on the sign. What could he possibly want with that house? Peace of mind, his mind answered. For the same reason he was writing a novel that touched on his crippling fear over two decades ago. To reach back and maybe grab the parts of him lost here to patch them up and fit them back in as best as he could. It wasn’t like he had to actually live here, or at least not all of the time.

He came around by the church, where a right would repeat his route past the house and instead went left, up a small incline that had required standing and hard pedaling to summit on a child’s bicycle and pulled into the dirt lot that bordered the cemetery. There were a few houses up here. He didn’t see anyone but did catch the rustle of a curtain as he got out and weaved through the headstones. He stopped before Adam’s grave, grateful to whoever pulled the weeds and kept it presentable. Adam Kane, 1978-1986. The modest marker sat a little apart from the others. Most of the dead here represented families, generations interred in territorial blocs of hallowed ground. Adam was the only Kane in attendance. Their father had worked for a furniture manufacturer in Drake City about ten miles away, where they had been bused to school, and had bought a house here for the peace and safety that a close knit community offered to families with young children. The tragic irony of this philosophy lay six feet below ground in front of him.

Whoever killed Adam hadn’t been caught. No one had seen anybody that shouldn’t have been there. No other kids disappeared or died or reported seeing a stranger. The boy who had found him, John Thomas Grove, fourteen at the time and a friend of Eric’s, had been suspected then and maybe even now by some. Eric had never believed that and still didn’t. It was if Hell had opened up, disgorged a monster to tear away his brother’s life, and then swallowed it back down into the depths without leaving a trace.

The horror writer in him imagined his brother’s body in the coffin, tiny and desiccated and skeletal, but he quickly shut it off and instead thought of him living, his mischievous smile and the plans that got both of them into trouble that his parents always assumed originated with Eric. He was small for his age but afraid of nothing. He would have made the jump into the creek that same day or even before Eric, if their father hadn’t said he was too young and threatened punishment that would fall with the certainty of sunrise if invited. But living always circled back round to dead, and he felt the memory stir of that day. Sometimes it threatened to surface at the oddest times. At the grocery store, while brushing his teeth, and even once while making out on his couch with Mandy. He always refused it, beat it back down into the hole in his mind in which it lived. But today, so close to where it happened, to where it even now seemed to hang low and heavy in the air like an unseen fog, he couldn’t stop it. And he didn’t know if he wanted to. The stories didn’t seem to be venting enough of the pressure anymore. And so he remembered.

“
Eric, you’ve got to come out to the cabin. I just got a whole stack of new comic books for us to read.” John Thomas winked at him, its meaning ambiguous, although he suspected it wasn’t comic books JT had. The older boy didn’t like to be called JT, but Eric thought his name that way and usually said it the other.

“
Mom, can I go out for a while with John Thomas?”