Stray Woods Read online

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  Josh woke a few minutes later, dazed and disoriented. He was on his back now, and beneath him the ground was hard and flat. In fact it wasn’t the ground; it was the plastic platform of the playground equipment. He was lying stretched out, his wrists tied to the metal supports posts on either side of the platform. Farewell’s mind snapped back into focus as realized what this was. It was a makeshift sacrificial alter. He pulled at his bindings. Thin cords. What was that? Turning his head to look, Josh saw that the man had been desperate. In here with only trees and shrubs, the only materials he had to bind Josh with were his shoelaces. The knots were tight, and tiny. He’d never get enough torque with his fingertips to untie them. But shoelaces stretched, and Josh wondered if he could slip a hand free.

  Farewell turned back to look at the attacker, and finally got a look at him now that they were out of the woods and under the moonlight. He was pale, skinny, with black circles around his eyes and thin, pale lips. He wore something very dark, but it was so dim that Josh could only see in black and white. The man spoke, “You can’t leave. You belong here now. You and me and my girls.”

  Josh couldn’t believe the implication. This couldn’t be same man who had murdered those women thirteen years ago. He had never been caught, he had kept away. But had the place called to him; had it tempted him to return? Did he spend all his nights here, live here, sleep here? Josh doubted that this man was responsible for the pervading sense of evil and darkness here; he was sure it was the other way around. The darkness was responsible for the man being here. The darkness was in control.

  The man finally made eye contact with Josh, and when he did the wind blew the trees into a frenzy, the branches calling, “Ours.” “Forever” “Farewell” “Die.” And when he looked into those dark eyes, Josh recognized something. There had once been a boy, a little younger than Josh, who had loved to play tag.

  “Ronnie?” Josh asked. “Jesus, is that you?”

  The maniac’s cheeks sucked in, his eyes widening. The wind blew harder. “That’s not my name. Not anymore.”

  “You killed those women?”

  The man, who might have been a boy named Ronnie before the darkness got in him, adjusted his grip on the knife. Josh was trying to pull his right hand free, but without looking too much like he was fighting the binds. He needed a distraction, something to buy time.

  “Remember when this place had the old wooden equipment?” he asked Ronnie. “Remember the net of chains you had to climb to get to the top of the old platform? Every time you’d shift your weight the links would pinch your fingers.”

  It was a good memory, an honest one. It was something so specific he wasn’t sure where in his brain he had come up with it, since Josh hadn’t thought about climbing the old equipment in years. Ronnie took a step back, and the wind died. For the first time, Josh heard a cricket chirp. The sound made Ronnie turn his head.

  In that instant, Josh arched his back and pulled his right hand free. Immediately, he rolled left and his hand dug into his pocket, feeling for his trusty Swiss Army knife. Ronnie screamed and raised his own blade, lunging forward. The wind howled and the night seemed to call Farewell’s name in a ghoulish song. Flicking open the blade on the knife, Josh threw up a foot toward his attacker just as Ronnie swung his arm forward. The foot caught him in the left shoulder and rolled him right, tipping him off the lower platform. Josh cut his left arm free as Ronnie awkwardly landed in the sand.

  Within a heartbeat, Josh was on the ground and running, and for some unknown reason he could see the path now, and he ran at a full sprint, never once tripping on a root, although several branches scratched his face. Somehow, he felt like his fond memory of the playground had weakened the darkness, and allowed him to see the way out.

  Josh made it to the fence and yelled, but got the sense that no one would hear it. He was still inside Stray Woods, still consumed by its darkness. Through the chain-link he could see no people, no cars on the road. He was alone. He jumped to grab the top of the fence and swung his body over in a practiced, familiar move. In the years since Josh outgrew this park, he had escaped from many angry people, over many fences, many times and jumping them in a single bound was nothing extraordinary. His feet touched down on the sidewalk and immediately the world was brighter, and the dirt on his jacket smelled like earth instead of rot. The wind blew his hair, but made no sound. He was out.

  But the maniac wasn’t done. Ronnie hit the fence a moment later, the knife still in his hand. The streetlight shone on his face and Josh finally saw him: ugly, skinny, extremely pale. He was just a man, nothing supernatural, but had spent so much time alone with the darkness that there was very little left of him now. He wore brown cargo pants, a black jacket, and beat up old shoes, and smelled like death. The clothes were all too big for him, but they had likely fit at one point in time, before he came here. Now he probably didn’t eat, he just lived with the darkness. The maniac was only inches away. He jabbed the knife at Josh, but his hand wouldn’t fit through the fence, so the strike was useless. Sneering, he started to climb.

  Josh started to run away, but then turned back. The trees in the park were howling with the wind now, branches whipping side-to-side, the moonlight finally breaking through into the forest, and Josh guessed that the woods were probably calling to Ronnie, as if the darkness didn’t want him to leave the park. Josh turned back to watch as the maniac with the blade reached the top of the eight-foot fence. Ronnie tilted forward, leaning the top half of his body over the fence, holding the top of the chain-link with his right, the same hand that also held the knife, and reached for Josh with his left. He was horribly off-balance, and Josh saw his chance.

  Grabbing the man by his ragged black jacket’s shoulders, he jerked him hard over the fence, and straight down, spiking the man face-first into the sidewalk. Ronnie’s hands took some of the impact, but Josh heard his head hit the ground with a hollow thunk, and when his body followed him over the fence, slumping lifelessly to the sidewalk, Josh knew the maniac was out cold. He kicked Ronnie’s knife a few feet away, into the road, and took the time to close and pocket his own.

  A car came down the road now, and Josh ran into the lane to flag it down. The driver was a young guy, fairly big. After asking if the guy had a cell phone, Josh said “Call the cops and an ambulance. That guy on the sidewalk was a dangerous maniac, and he just tried to kill me inside the park. He said he killed the some other people, girls. His name is Ron Morris.” The young man nodded and pulled out his phone. Josh turned to run away.

  “Hey where you going?” the young guy asked.

  “Out of here,” he answered.

  Josh ran away from Stray Woods as fast as he could.

  Thinking back on it later that night, Josh realized he hadn’t won. He had only fed the fear that gave the place its power. There were certain spots in the world that represent happiness, joy, and love. And spots that represented the other. Stray Woods had welcomed the darkness—those things that whispered “”Ours” and “Die”—those things feasted on fear. The place would only become stronger and more powerful. He had fed it himself, by running away, and the fear would grow as word spread that there was a maniac there, as more people warned each other to stay away. They had all fed the fear, in their own ways, and now Josh had fed it too. Josh knew, deep down, that Stray Woods hadn’t always been a dark place. Not that it mattered, since the whole place was evil now. He just hoped that someday, somehow, it could be a place of innocence again.

  Josh hotwired a car outside a bar on the edge of town, and took off down the highway. The car smelled like sour old cigarette smoke, so he cracked the window to let some fresh air in. As it whistled into the car through the narrow crack, the wind whispered “Forever.”

  The End.

  Also by Shaun Tennant

  Right Behind You- A Short Story

  A college student walks home alone, in a town terrorised by a maniac killer.

  (Thriller)

  B
one Soup- A Short Story

  A young boy is exiled from his village, and turns to a supernatural heirloom for survival.

  (Fantasy/YA)

  For another Josh Farewell supernatural tale, read his debut in the first novel of the Farewell Reality series,

  Blood Cell

  (Horror, Jailbreak)

  In this genre mash-up, three-time prison escapee Josh Farewell is forced to escape from maximum security in one night, when something inhuman starts killing the prisoners.

  As a thank you for buying this story, here is a free sample of Blood Cell:

  Copyright 2011 Shaun Tennant