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Send to FriendFriday, October 29, 2004
Missing Girl Still Not Found
It has now been three days since the mysterious disappearance of nine-year-old Jennifer Harrison, who somehow vanished without making a sound from her bedroom window Tuesday night. The entire city of Portland still searches for her whereabouts, but hope that the little girl will be found alive dwindles with each passing day.
“I still can’t understand how this could’ve happened,” says Lynette Harrison, Jennifer’s mother. “Jenny’s never been the type to just run away like this. She’s always been an angel, and very responsible for her age as well. I still can’t understand how this could have happened, but no matter how bad it looks, I still try to hold out hope that we’ll find Jenny soon, and that she’ll be alive and everything will be okay.
The police are still investigating whether or not Jennifer Harrison might have been kidnapped or if she ran away on her own, but thus far, there are still no signs indicating foul play. Fliers have been distributed throughout the Portland area with Jennifer Harrison’s face on them, and the Harrisons have offered a reward of $1000 for any information leading to the discovery of their daughter’s location…
* * *
A cellular phone conversation between Cherry Lynch and her college roommate Susan Adams that took place at 4:45pm on October 29, 2004
Cherry: Yeah, I promised I would go out with Brad tonight, so I guess I’m going to go out with him, but you know the last two dates you chose for me weren’t exactly the best pick of the litter, you know.
Susan: Yeah, I know, but you know what they say, Cherry: third time’s the charm.
Cherry: I just wish that you’d give me more time and let me start dating when I want to, instead of playing matchmaker all the time.
Susan: It’s been almost a month since you’re breakup.
Cherry: Yeah, and I went out with John for over three years now. Besides, you wanted me to get back “into the swing of things” two weeks ago, trying to send me on these blind dates, both of which didn’t go so well.
Susan: Look, I’m sorry about the other two, but Brad didn’t seem to be the least bit obnoxious, and he’s actually pretty cute, so you should give him a chance.
Cherry: I’m sure he is. I just still miss John, that’s all.
Susan: Of course you do. He was a great guy, but you both agreed that you couldn’t deal with the long distance relationship anymore. It’s time to move on. The sooner you start dating again, the sooner you’ll be happy again. And besides, Brad’s a great guy, too.
Cherry: Yeah, I’m sure he is. Look, the light just turned green, so I’m going to have to let you go now. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes and we can talk then. Bye, Sue.
Susan: Talk to you later.
* * *
Eighteen-year-old Cherry Lynch hadn’t been having any luck at all with the blind dates that Susan had set up for her.
Glen Lucas had been the first, and Cherry couldn’t possibly understand what her college roommate had been thinking when she set her up with that loud, obnoxious nutcase. She could only reflect that it had been way too late in the year for an April Fool’s prank. Glen claimed to have Tourette’s Syndrome, which was meant to explain why in public places, such as restaurants and the movie theatre that they had eventually been kicked out of (much to Cherry’s humiliation) he had been constantly shouting a stream of profanities, drawing a great deal of attention to the young college couple wherever they went. That night had been trying on Cherry’s patience, yet as she always did, she bottled up her anger rather than snapping at her date and biting his head off, which often times she seemed incapable of doing. At times, she felt a sting of guilt for being so angry with Glen’s sudden outbursts, since they were due to a mental illness that he was unable to control, and so it wasn’t his fault. As embarrassing as it was to with someone like this, she tried to be more compassionate to his plight rather than being annoyed by it. At the end of the date, however, Glen confessed that he didn’t really have Tourette’s Syndrome, and it was just a game he liked to play for his own amusement. The reality was that he could easily control his sudden outbursts of obscenities, but he got a thrill out of drawing that kind of attention to himself while out in public and cared not a bit for the embarrassment it might cause the person/people he was with.
Last week had been the second disastrous blind date for Cherry, who had been set up with Larry Singer. Throughout the date, shouting so he could be heard above the roar of his music, he went on endlessly about the hardships he had endured while growing up in the projects, being raised on the streets and being subjected to a constant barrage of drugs, violence, and decadence. His upbringing had actually been a lot less grim, however. He had been raised in an upper-middle class crime-free neighborhood and while having a rebellious streak, he hadn’t been subjected to a great deal of violence in his childhood, other than seeing it in the media, as well as the occasional fistfight at school. Granted, Larry Singer was nowhere near as obnoxious or embarrassing to be around as Glen Lucas, but he was still an annoying jerk in his own right, and Cherry easily concluded that he wasn’t right for her either.
The third time’s the charm, Susan had said to her on the phone earlier.
Cherry wished only that Susan would cease her matchmaker games and leave Cherry in peace to work out the issues revolving around her breakup with John. It hadn’t been a bitter breakup, and they still tried to remain friends and to keep in touch on the phone, or to at least exchange emails from time to time. Both Cherry and John agreed that in the end, it was for the best that they see other people, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Even now, Cherry felt the ache in her heart, a yearning for things to be as they had been with John for three years while in high school, that they could someday find each other once more and rekindle the love that once sparked between them.
Cherry wondered now about the foundation that supported their relationship, for it had failed the test of distance. She hated the fact that he had joined the military for she loathed even thinking of the direction it had been taken over the past few years. Had John been sent into combat, which could happen as soon as the coming year, he would be fighting in wars that Cherry was vehemently opposed to, though she was never vocal about her opposition. What she had been vocal about in her letters was concern for his life and wellbeing, not just in the war, but in basic training as well.
The summer of 2004 had been the summer after her high school graduation and served as the transition between high school and college life, which would quite an adjustment, but in time she was confident that she would get used to all the changes. All in all, she wanted to believe that she had enjoyed herself that summer. She had gotten a summer job during the day to earn some extra cash, and spent a lot of her free time at the beach or amusement park with her friends. There was no denying that Cherry had derived some enjoyment from those activities, yet it was disappointing at the same time because John wasn’t there to enjoy it with her.
Instead, she thought of him as being willfully detained two thousand miles away in a prison that was the reserve camp, located two thousand miles away. He was prohibited from keeping up with current events and had no idea what was going on in the outside world, and for the first month of his basic training, he wasn’t even allowed to exchange letters with his friends and family. In time, though, he was allowed to send and receive letters, but they grew increasingly infrequent and only served to dishearten her further. Cherry saved all of the letters he had sent her even now, despite how badly they depressed her, for it was some contact at least. But it wasn’t the same as physical contact; it wasn’t the same as having him right there with her, being able to kiss him, having him hold her in his arms as they made love in the back seat of his car.
Through the letters, Cherry noticed that John was changing, but not in ways she would have liked. Through his basic training and from the nationalistic propaganda they subjected him to; he became patriotic to the point of fanaticism. While thoughts of her crossed his mind from time to time and while he still had bouts of homesickness, he often focused solely on his training, and through it all, the urge to kill a filthy rag-head sand nigger intensified to the point where had he been confronted by an Arab he would have been nearly unable to hold back his homicidal urges. Through these letters, she felt her old life slipping away beyond her grasp, for her boyfriend was changing, transforming into a hardened man with only violence and death on his mind, where before his heart had been full of hope, love, and an innocent, perhaps naïve outlook on the world. As she read each of his letters, Cherry wept sorrowfully, wishing only for his safe return so things could go back to the way they had been before he had been recruited.
In August, John had returned, and despite all of her misgivings, Cherry had to admit that her man looked very sexy in a military uniform. At the same time, however, he seemed distant, as though his soul were sucked out of him and molded into the killing machine that they needed him to be, should another war break out. Before, while he supported what the military was doing, he had joined the services mainly so they could help pay for his college. Now he believed in the military and was willing to lay down his life without hesitation for his country no matter what the cause, even if the country were not in any imminent danger. Cherry was saddened by these changes, particularly because she loathed the direction this country was heading, but she gave no outward indication of it for fear of upsetting him. She was just pleased that he was finally home and preferred to simply leave it at that, no matter how loopy and obsessed over political matters (particularly with his hatred for liberals) he became. She told herself that their seemingly endless separation was over, for he was here finally, and she wanted to believe with all her heart that everything would be okay.
And then the school year began once more, and the two of them were enrolled in college—sadly, in different colleges that had been close to a thousand miles away, John had been accepted into Princeton. This development had placed yet another dagger into Cherry’s already breaking heart. It meant that they could only see one another on weekends, provided they could afford the plane fare, which would be impossible most of the time since they were both poor, struggling college students. At most, they could see each other once a month and even that would be pushing their financial limits. They could talk on the phone and she could hear his sexy voice as they both lamented the growing rift between them, yearning to be in each other’s company once again. They had even tried phone sex a couple of times, but Cherry—while she had no problem with actual sex, so long as she loved the man—was much too bashful and awkward to get any enjoyment from it. The whole thing—like cyber sex—seemed rather pointless and stupid to her anyway.
In the end, the long-distance relationship became unbearable both for Cherry, and as it turned out, for John as well. Both of them longed for each other’s company, but neither was willing to sacrifice their dreams or ask the same of the other. There was no other choice but to break up, at least temporarily, though both knew that they would probably never get back together again. As much as it hurt to admit this grim fact, as much as even thinking about it brought tears to her eyes, Cherry knew that it was probably for the best for both of them.
* * *
The third blind date for Cherry was Brad Lyons, who seemed much less insane than the previous two, much to her relief, and she even indulged in the small hope at the beginning of the evening that he might actually be normal. That was until around 9pm when he turned his car off the main road and began driving into the woods, saying nothing as he made the turn. Throughout the ride, they sat in silence as static spewed from the radio, drowning out the rock station they had been listening to.
While chilly, the night had been clear and the stars sparkled brightly in the sky as a crescent moon hovered above them. A breeze rustled outside as they drove onward, and the branches of the pine trees swayed as the headlights of Brad’s Dodge Neon cut through the blanketing darkness. They passed a few DEER CROSSING signs, yet Brad seemed not to pay much heed and continued making his way down the two-lane blacktop at a steady forty miles per hour, sparing Cherry a glimpse from time to time, but otherwise keeping his eyes glued to the road in front of him in eerie silence.
“Where are we going?” Cherry finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Just gonna take a little hike, that’s all,” Brad answered, grinning.
“A little late for that, don’t you think?” replied Cherry with a growing uneasiness about the whole prospect of what this night would lead to. You’re not gonna rape me, are you? she wanted to say, but didn’t, for despite her mounting panic, she still didn’t want to offend him, just in case her fears were unwarranted. She wasn’t the most trusting person in the world, despite being easily manipulated and still wanting to at least give people a chance and believe that there were some decent people in the world.
Brad looked at her and laughed, as though he could read her mind and could sense her growing unease. “Don’t worry, Cherry, I’m not gonna rape you or anything. Sure, I’d like to have sex with you, but I’m definitely not gonna force you into anything. I’m not some sicko pervert, you know.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. It was sincere, but his words hadn’t allayed her fears and already the frantic urge to bolt out of this car and run off was building within her. Cherry was usually awkward around people she didn’t know anyway, and now she was truly terrified as the semblance of Brad’s normalcy quickly faded and she saw Brad as an even bigger perverted freak than her previous two dates combined.
“I just got this fantasy about having sex in the woods, that’s all,” he explained. “I hope this isn’t too much information, but I can’t really get off unless trees are around. I know it sounds weird, but hey, takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round, and I’m not ashamed of who I am.”
“Well, I don’t usually have sex on the first date,” Cherry said truthfully but meekly. And I don’t want to have sex on a first date, and I won’t do it in a place where we might get caught, she wanted to say to him, but she knew also that if she spoke up, it might upset him. She thought of sex as a private activity, shared between two people who loved each other (they didn’t have to be married, but at the very least they should get to know each other better than a first date would permit), not some spectator sport to be performed in front of the eyes of the whole world.
She thought of a million things she wanted to say. She imagined herself ordering Brad to take her home this very instant, her voice firm, raised, and bordering on aggression. Damn it, Brad, that’s it, she would say, the image so vivid that it almost seemed like it was actually happening, I don’t want to have sex in the woods and I refuse to have sex at all on a first date. No means no, and I’m saying no now; I’m not having sex with you, period. Now take me home right this very instant! These words flooded her mind and she grew excited in anticipation, hoping vainly as she had in the past that she might finally be able to stand up to someone instead of getting pushed around and manipulated as she always had. Yet when she opened her mouth to voice her thoughts, her chest tightened as the words fled from her lips and she sighed once more in deep resignation, feeling weak and pathetic.
“I know it might not seem like a great idea now, but trust me, you’ll love it.”
“It’s pretty cold tonight, though,” Cherry said softly, having to struggle even to allow those words to escape from her lips as her overactive inhibitions once again took control.
“Once we get started, the cold will be the last thing either of us has to worry about,” he said laughing. “This is gonna be so much fun. Trust me!”
Cherry blinked, breathing heavily, as the phrase He’s gonna rape me! echoed again and again through her mind, becoming louder with each passing second. Her heart thumped madly against her chest as she pressed her side against the door, trying to muster up enough courage to force it open and throw herself through and then closed her hand around the buckle of her seatbelt, her thumb tapping against the release button. For a moment, she wished that John were here—for he would protect her from this sicko—then banished the thought from her mind as an errant teardrop rolled down her cheek.
“Please take me home; I don’t feel good all of a sudden,” Cherry said softly, trying to sound queasy but only sounding scared as she faked a cough that hadn’t sounded the least bit convincing to her own ears.
“Don’t worry, babe, once we get there, everything’ll be okay.”
“Isn’t this the forest where they say the spirits of that Native American tribe still reside?”
Brad threw his head back, laughing not as if Cherry had told a joke, but instead laughing maliciously at her expense. “Jesus Christ, don’t tell me you actually believe in that shit!”
“No, I don’t,” she said, blushing fiercely. She wanted to finish by saying: But it is close to Halloween and everything, so it is kind of creepy, but was unable to do so.
Brad scoffed: “There’s no such things as ghosts, period. The only thing we gotta worry about here is bears, and since they’ll be hibernating by now, I don’t think they’ll be a problem. Now just sit tight and everything’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as the bleak darkness outside overshadowed her face and her hands clutched ineffectively at the door handle.
Conversation ceased entirely from there and the Neon quickly picked up speed.
* * *
Taken from the archived reports of paranormal investigator Michael Hudson
Case #355
Report filed on Thursday, June 17, 2004
While the city of Portland is for the most part safe—and perhaps dull, particularly for the younger crowd, except for on local campuses—it still possesses its own dirty secrets and dangerous mysteries. There are quite a number of these secrets and occurrences here in Portland, but the one I will focus on now is the evil presence that is said to reside within the forest directly north of Portland.
For the most part, the Portland forest is generally safe to venture through, though it is highly recommended that one does so in a large group and stay on the path. During the summer, one may encounter bears, just as you would probably freeze to death in the winter if you got lost. Aside from that, nothing out of the ordinary is likely to happen to one who hikes in these woods.
The forest is said to be haunted, nevertheless. While people hike and drive through the forest everyday without incident, some have claimed to have encountered the spirits of the Sekonkwo Native American tribe, who inhabited this land a thousand years ago.
The Sekonkwo are believed to have been a warrior tribe, who mysteriously vanished without a trace in the Portland Forest around 1000 AD. Not much is known of their culture, yet we know that the hunt was revered by their people. They hunted animals such as the buffalo for food, while hunting members of other Native American tribes for sport. While they might have admired war, it was the hunt that was considered the most honorable. Stalking their prey was just as important, if not more so, then the actual kill itself, which was usually carried out quickly by shooting an arrow into their victim’s heart. At times, they would spend days stalking their prey before moving in for the kill. Hardly anyone was safe from the wrath of the Sekonkwo, whether it be men, women, and children of other tribes, or even fellow tribesmen. In fact, it was considered honorable to kill a fellow tribesman through hunting them, provided it was done only in the winter months, for to hunt a fellow tribesman in the summer was considered a grave sin punishable by death, as was killing another member in the winter without first hunting them. The reasoning behind this is unknown, but those who violated this rule would be remembered only with disgust by the rest of the tribe, including members of their own family. After hunting and killing his quarry, the tribesman would behead his victim and take the skull as a trophy, while cannibalizing the rest of the body with his family and making adornments out of the bones. An individual’s value as a human being was based entirely on his body count, and should one hunt and kill a fellow tribesman, his victim’s kills would become his own. No matter how much prestige the victim may have had, his accomplishments would be quickly forgotten, and would be credited to his killer.
Women within the Sekonkwo tribe were subservient. While the men hunted, the women did all the chores and raised the children. Because women and children could not hunt, the men were forbidden from hunting them, though women and children from other tribes were fair game. Violating this law would be punishable in the same way as hunting a fellow tribesman during the summer would be.
Upon reaching age twelve, males were granted the initial rites of passage into adulthood by going on their first hunt, aided by the elders. Once they had completed their first hunt, they became fair game for other hunters within the tribe to hunt them during the summer. However, hunting the younger adults of the Sekonkwo was generally frowned upon and not considered a worthwhile endeavor, because they had so few kills to their name.
For a kill to be honored, the prey must have had at least some mean of escape. The quarry did not have to have been able to defend itself, and even when the prey was weak and unarmed, the hunt could still be considered honorable. However, the prey could not be detained and had to have at least been able to run away. Thus, only humans who roamed freely could be hunted.
I can only speculate on what might have become of the Sekonkwo tribe, or why they still haunt the forest to this day. Perhaps they had all perished through some kind of genocide perpetrated by another tribe, but many were oblivious to their own demise, thus their spirits still reside on this plane of reality to continue the hunt even after all these centuries rather than crossing over to whatever might lay beyond this realm of existence. Or perhaps something else occurred that is beyond human comprehension, which made it seem as though the Sekonkwo had vanished, all the while granting them superhuman powers and immortality in their spiritual form, so long as they remain in the forest. All I can say for sure at this point in time is that the Sekonkwo are still out there in some form, and anyone who enters the Portland Forest is in danger.
This is not to say that anyone who ventures into the Portland Forest is doomed, for ninety percent of the time people enter and leave the forest without incident. However, people have reportedly felt an evil presence within the woods, as though someone were stalking them, hunting them. From time to time, people have even claimed to have briefly caught a glimpse of one Sekonkwo tribesman or a small platoon of them, before they disappeared into the shadows of the trees, thickets, and underbrush. Most of the time, cars and trucks are able to drive through without any problems whatsoever. Once in a while, however, a car driving down one of the two-lane roads that runs through the woods just stops suddenly for no reason, while electronic equipment such as cellular phones and laptops temporarily malfunctioned. And every few years, someone hiking through the woods would simply vanish, never to be seen or heard from again. A few corpses have been found over the decades with arrows shot through their hearts; their murders remain unsolved. As rare as these occurrences are, there are still enough to draw attention to the Portland Forest, enough to dissuade some of the more superstitious residents from even setting foot into the woods, and certainly enough to warrant this investigation.
In order to gain firsthand knowledge of this phenomenon, I decided to spend the night at the Portland Forest yesterday, Wednesday June 16. I had no problems at all with my car, nor did I have any problems with the tape recorder that I could detect at the time. The night was very cold, but for the most part uneventful. My tapes are archived along with this report and they can be listened to, but I only once saw what appeared to be the apparition of a naked Native American whose body was covered in ritualistic symbols made in red and black paint. When I tried to take a picture of what I had seen, the Sekonkwo tribesman was gone, yet on the photograph from my Polaroid, I saw a darkened shadow, almost in the shape of a human, which hadn’t been there when I snapped the picture.
The only sounds I heard were mostly the howling winds and rustling of tree branches; yet at times I could have sworn that I had heard footsteps slapping against the road or rustling through the fallen pine needles in the soil, but that could also be attributed both to the wind and my imagination. Except for the one instance that I have already mentioned, no one approached me, nor did I feel that my life was in any danger, despite the feeling that I was being watched and stalked, which grew stronger at certain times of the night than during other times.
When I played back the recordings I made last night, I heard the distant murmur of a conversation in a foreign language, which I had not heard at the time I was making those recordings. Why my tape recorder had been able to pick up this dialogue while my ears had not, I cannot say for sure. I believe it is possible that the dialogue was held between two tribesmen of the Sekonkwo, spoken in their own language; perhaps they were discussing what should be done with me or arguing over who should be the one to hunt me. Without being able to make out the overall tone of their voice, or understand what they were saying, I can only speculate as to what they were discussing.
Based on what happened with my tape recorder, as well as the photo I had taken last night, I have every reason to believe that there is something up there in the Portland Forest: something that is possibly sinister and dangerous, very powerful, and beyond our scope of understanding. I have no other information at this time regarding the matter of the Sekonkwo Indian Tribe; however, further investigations and inquiries into the matter will be forthcoming.
* * *
“Aw, fuck!” Brad cursed bitterly as the Neon came to a sudden halt in the middle of the road. There was no gradual degradation of engine performance, nor any coughing or sputtering from any of the gears. The car was running smoothly at a steady speed of forty to fifty miles an hour one second, and then all of a sudden the engine simply turned off, letting the wheels roll slowly to a halt a few yards. The headlights continued to shine, cutting a swath into the heavy darkness of the forest, and the dash lights continued to cast a translucent green and red glow with none of the engine lights indicating a potential problem that might account for this.
“What happened?” Cherry asked, bewildered.
“I don’t know,” Brad answered as he brought his fist down like a hammer upon the steering wheel, blaring the horn loudly. “Fucking thing just stopped running. I don’t know what happened.” He looked at the dash lights again as his grip around the steering wheel tightened. “Couldn’t have run outta gas, because it says here there’s still a half a tank left.”
“Maybe the gas gauge is broken,” Cherry suggested.
Her heart continued thumping loudly inside her chest as she broke out in a cold sweat, still fearing the ramifications of being alone in the forest with Brad, but thinking still of the legends surrounding this forest as well. She thought of the Sekonkwo Indian tribe; she didn’t take such theories at face value, but at the same time she never scoffed at the possibility of paranormal phenomena either. Cars and electronic equipment had been known to suddenly stop working in this forest, and although that didn’t always happen, it was happening now, and it was said that that was a bad sign. It meant that the evil spirits were coming after you. Cherry shuddered, but gave no outward indication of her fears, for Brad would only respond with mocking laughter. She supposed it did sound absurd, and during the day, outside of the woods, she would not so quickly believe the stories either, but now, stuck in a broken down car inside the woods at night, such thoughts gave her the creeps to the point where she could swear now that she could hear footsteps and sense their evil presence.
Trembling, she unbuckled the harness of her seatbelt and pushed the car door open as Brad was exiting the vehicle and circling to the front after having lifted the hood. “Gonna be hard to see here without a flashlight,” he commented dismally with a sigh. “I don’t believe this shit, I don’t fuckin’ believe this!”
Cherry clutched her purse tightly to her chest, drawing hesitantly closer to Brad and wishing more than anything that she had come equipped with a can of mace. She sighed, knowing that the mace would probably be enough to defend herself against Brad’s forceful sexual advances, if it came to that, but it wouldn’t ward off the spirits of the Sekonkwo, if they were indeed real.
“Goddamn it, this isn’t even my car,” Brad grunted, slamming the hood of the Neon angrily, apparently giving up on the notion that his night vision would kick in enough to allow him to see and possibly fix whatever was wrong with the engine. “It’s my brother’s and he’s really gonna be pissed when he finds out what happened.” He slammed his fist against the hood of the car, screaming in frustration.
Cherry pulled her cellular phone out of her purse and opened it, ready to call for help, when she saw only one bar was blinking. “I can’t get any service on my cell phone either,” she said grimly as she returned her cell phone to her purse.
“Guess we’re stuck here for the night.”
“Or we can always walk home.”
“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen,” Brad scoffed as he advanced toward Cherry. “Well, if we’re stuck here, we might as well make the most of it.”
Get away from me, Cherry thought with a feeling of deep revulsion as Brad slipped his arm around her shoulder, drawing her closer. She shrank away, sickened, but wanting to hide it from him nearly as badly as she wanted to whack her purse against his head and kick him in the groin before running off.
Her thoughts turned to Susan, who had pestered her until she agreed to go on this blind date. Cherry hated herself for being so easily submissive, knowing that within minutes she would probably submit to Brad’s sexual advances now. Her timid protests were never enough to dissuade Susan, and in the end, Susan always talked her into doing things “for her own good” just as Cherry’s parents always had during her childhood and teenage years. For this reason, Cherry felt a bitter resentment toward them now, hating it when people pressured her for anything because she always gave in eventually, however reluctantly she might do so. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to actually hate Susan (or her parents, for that matter), knowing that her friend was only trying to help her out, even though it always managed to hurt Cherry more in the end. If only Susan could mind her own business, then things might not be so bad.
“Okay, if you don’t wanna have sex, how about just a kiss?”
“Please…don’t,” Cherry said, struggling to allow the words to escape from her lips as she inched away from him ever slowly.
For every small step away she took, he came that much closer to her until it seemed he had closed her in, towering over her like a sexual monster completely unable to control his urges. His arm shot out, groping her breast. His fingers were like pincers digging into her flesh even through the coat, shirt, and bra that she wore, and his touch was revolting. To her eyes, he seemed as though he were a leper intentionally spreading his disfiguring disease to anyone who caught his eye, solely for the thrill of it. “I love it when they play hard to get,” he moaned with a wry grin, exhilarated at the prospect of violating her. Cherry clutched her purse tightly to her stomach as she backed away another inch, wanting to use it as a weapon, to slam it over his head or perhaps take out her own keys and gouge his eyes out with them. Yet like her lips when she was about to say something that she feared may be offensive or may make her appear stupid, her entire body froze in its tracks. Her chest and throat tightened and her heart pounded madly as she frantically struggled to move her stiffened body and run away from the predator that stood before her.
Just as Brad was about to force himself on top of Cherry, a sudden twang sounded from behind where Cherry stood. She felt a rush of air sweep past her as something cut the skin over her brow very lightly, enough to sting her and leave a scratch, but nothing more. She looked once more at Brad, and saw his legs buckle as he backed away a few inches and threads of blood trickled from both corners of his lips. As he staggered drunkenly backward a few steps, then forward, his arms flailed madly until his hands closed around the arrow that had pierced all the way through to his heart, its end jutting outward. Cherry had just enough time to note the sharp feathers at the end, like fingernails which had lightly scratched her brow, before her mouth dropped open and she screamed shrilly in terror.
She looked behind, and a hundred feet away saw who had shot the arrow. It was no doubt the physical manifestation of a Sekonkwo tribesman, standing there, peering with pride at what he had killed. His lanky dark hair danced and flowed like billowing drapes down to his waist and his dark eyes remained locked in a predatory gaze, pinning Cherry down as his next target. He was completely naked, save for the body and face paint, which could not be seen clearly in the dark, but was noticeable enough to be distinguishable from his dark flesh as he stood there, his veins protruding like cords. He let loose a savage growl before his body began to disintegrate. The Native American’s body first appeared opaque beneath the moonlight, and then became a transparent apparition whose outline could just barely be seen, before he completely dissolved into the darkness altogether in a fading stream of light.
Despite the fact that he would surely have raped her had the Sekonkwo not intervened, Cherry knew that she couldn’t leave Brad here to die alone in this forest. She hated him for what he had put her through, but knew she couldn’t live with herself if she did not do everything in her power to save him, which meant she had to extract the arrow from his heart and put a tourniquet around the wound to stop the bleeding. If the arrow had pierced his heart as she suspected, there was little hope for survival, yet she had to at least try.
But when Cherry turned back to Brad, he was gone; vanished without a trace.
“Brad!” she called, her voice quavering both from the chilling breeze as well as from panic. She looked down on the pavement where Brad had been lying and saw that pine needles and some dirt blanketed the blacktop in the breakdown lane of the road, yet there was not a trace of blood to be found anywhere.
Never mind him, I have to get out of here, Cherry thought frantically.
The Sekonkwo tribesman had saved her from getting raped, but Cherry had read some texts on the tribe as well as how they related to this forest, and she knew that the move hadn’t been in any way altruistic. They were hunters and their quarry had been humans. They had no doubt taken Brad’s corpse, which would have vanished along with them to wherever they went, and were preparing his head to be mounted as a trophy while they feasted upon the rest of his body. Once they were done with that task, they would come after her as well.
Cherry pulled the door of the Neon open and threw herself into the driver’s seat before slamming it shut with such force that she could feel the door jolting at the hinges. Even through her panic, the thought had crossed her mind that Brad had perhaps suddenly turned the Neon off in such a way to make it look like the car had broken down. With such a ploy, he could easily make himself look more distracted by the sudden failure of his engine, lowering Cherry’s defenses so he could move in with greater ease, giving her less of a chance to escape. Cherry recognized the absurdity of such an idea, yet it offered her some hope of escaping quickly before the Sekonkwo came back to finish her off. Cherry’s shaking hand pinched the key, which was still in the ignition, yet as she turned it slowly, the engine wouldn’t come to life and not a sound was emitted. She twisted a second time and a third, and it merely turned loosely, without a spark of life.
“Come on, start!” Cherry cried as she brushed the fingers of both hands through her dark hair, pulling tightly as she squeezed her head. “This can’t be happening,” she panted, then pulled out her cellular phone to try to call for help, once more receiving no signal. Cherry screamed as she threw the cell phone back into her purse with tears welling in her eyes.
* * *
Cold winds whipped relentlessly against her body, making her shiver as gooseflesh broke out all over her body, as Cherry hiked through the woods, keeping to the right side of the road, with her purse clutched tightly against her breast. Her eyes watered, not from the tears she shed, but from the cold air that chilled her entire body and left her face and hands aching with numbness. She blinked the tears from her eyes, looking to her right, then to her left, then turning around, seeing no sign of pursuit, nor detecting the presence of another human being. Wisps of white steam plumed from her nose and mouth as she breathed. As the wind whistled and shrieked around her, she was startled from each sudden noise, stopping in her tracks momentarily; yet she pressed on, wanting only to leave this dreadful forest and put this horrible night behind her forever if she could.
For a while, she thought it prudent to make as little noise as possible. She sniffled intermittently from the cold and although she wore sneakers, the slapping sound of her footfalls against the cement road was much too loud to her ears, and was sure to betray her presence. The reality of the matter was that the amount of noise she made would make little difference, for she knew that they were already locking onto her position.
Every so often she could hear the sound of their footfalls as they shadowed her, watching her. She could feel the presence of the Sekonkwo tribe and imagined them both on the ground, hiding in the thickets or bushes, or hovering above her on the rustling tree branches, ready to make another kill. She felt as though she were in the scopes of thousands of sniper rifles, yet while the Sekonkwo tribe didn’t use guns or modern weapons, their bows and arrows were still very deadly.
Cherry shivered as she saw a gathering platoon of Sekonkwo tribesmen from a distance. Each looked almost identical, save for differences in height and weight, and they were all naked (Cherry wondered idly in her mounting panic how anyone could possibly survive being naked in such a bitterly cold climate) save for their body and face paint. Each had lanky hair, long, dark, and flowing below their waist. They marched, clustering in a huge mass, approaching Cherry. She feared as she stopped in her tracks that they were finally going to finish her off, and then they vanished as quickly and suddenly as they had appeared before her.
Just stay on the road, she told herself, pressing on as her heart continued to beat erratically and the cold sweat moistening her face chilled her further. All I have to do is follow the road and hopefully the Indians will leave me alone and I can get out of here unmolested. Easy, right?
Easier said than done, she thought morbidly and sighed.
* * *
Another hour passed and the road as well as the forest surrounding it stretched endlessly into the night. Cherry continued to shiver fiercely from the cold as she plodded through the darkness, fearing that she would eventually succumb hypothermia, and wanting simply to stop walking, but pressing on endlessly. From time to time, she continued to see apparitions of Sekonkwo tribesmen, but they continued to fade quickly from her field of vision and she wondered if she hadn’t just hallucinated their presence entirely.
Perhaps Brad had raped her after all and her mind had simply repressed those memories, too horrible to bear, and instead replaced them with fabricated memories of his demise and the disappearance of his corpse.
I can’t allow myself to think like that, she admonished herself. These guys are real—I have to assume that if I am going to make it out of here alive. It’s not just denial at having been raped, because I know that can’t be right. I saw Brad die with my own eyes and I saw those fucking Indians as well. They’re really here and I can’t let my guard down at all.
Cherry didn’t know what to believe anymore, and her thoughts grew even more distorted by panic. She jumped at every tree branch that swayed and every rustling breeze, sure that it was one of the tribesmen, returning to finish her off. Each tree within this darkened forest seemed to leer at her, taunting and laughing at her and perhaps ready to devour her as well, with each of the holes within the trees like grumbling and growling mouths equipped with razor-sharp fangs, ready to bite and chomp down upon her tender flesh.
Cherry was absolutely sure now that the memories of what happened hadn’t been fabricated within her subconscious to spare her of even more painful memories of being raped, for repression is said to be a coping mechanism to prevent the conscious mind from dwelling on painful events of the past, not to torture her more with fabricated memories of monsters, ghosts, and goblins looming about, haunting and hunting her like predators wanting to make her head into a trophy to mount against their wall.
I have to hurry, she thought, breaking into a brief jog before the strain became too much for her legs and lungs and she slowed almost to a halt, panting and gasping with a sharp cough that seemed to make her lungs swell painfully. Great, now I’m getting sick as well, she thought dismally, knowing that that was the last thing that should be on her mind as she walked, now at a snail’s pace down the road. Thickening clouds overshadowed the night sky, partially concealing the crescent moon that hovered above, as wisps of fog gathered below like translucent snow around her ankles. Her eyes still watered profusely from the cold air, making her see the world at times as though looking through a prism until she blinked the tears away, putting a hand around her sore throat and massaging it gently. Cherry sneezed twice, harshly, doubling over as the force of her sneezes wracked her chest painfully. She looked around once more, groaning miserably as she rubbed her nose and winced from her burning sinuses. I’m gonna die here, she thought glumly as she continued to press on, amazed at the fact that, no matter how meek and submissive she usually was, this time, her body simply refused to give up. No matter how badly she wanted to give in, she wouldn’t allow herself to do so and instead pressed on, as if her legs had a mind of their own and would not allow her to stop.
Cherry looked to one side and saw the root of a tree jutting outward and pointing like a finger in her direction. To her frazzled mind, it looked like a wooden tentacle reaching out for her, groping her to either choke the life out of her or to eat her. She recoiled, nearly losing her footing as she stifled a scream by biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, which seeped into her mouth and coated her tongue with its salty taste.
Just calm down, she thought, trying to console herself and found herself wishing once more that John were here to protect her. It’s just a tree. That’s all. Trees don’t hurt people; they just stand there. Yeah, nothing wrong with trees, no matter how scary they look at night. Trees are your friends. She sighed; laughing at herself in spite of her fear, then doubled over with a fit of coughing, wheezed, and pressed on.
From behind, she heard a set of soft footsteps approaching her, and immediately stopped in her tracks, once more paralyzed with fear. This time, the steps didn’t taper off. Cherry turned her head slowly and looked behind her, her heart hammering away behind her ribcage. Her mouth dropped open ready to scream again, but she coughed instead when she realized it was not one of the tribesmen that was coming after her, but a little girl instead.
The girl appeared to be about nine years old and stood at approximately four and a half feet. Her disheveled hair hung like seaweed against her scalp and her face was pallid, gaunt and had the same pasty white hue as that of a corpse. She walked slowly, as if in a trance as her dreary gray eyes peered blankly back at Cherry, completely withdrawn. She wore pink Minnie Mouse pajamas that were now little more than filthy rags, completely coated in mud and pine needles, now clinging loosely to her frail flesh. Despite her skin, clothes, and hair being sodden, and the punishing cold winds that whipped around her, the girl hadn’t shivered once, nor did she seemed to mind the cold, frigid air, nor have any emotion at all, but instead was a mere shell of a little girl, trapped in a vegetative trance which broke Cherry’s heart.
“You’re Jennifer Harrison,” she said immediately upon recognition as she approached the girl. The little girl hadn’t nodded or given any confirmation to her identity, yet Cherry recognized her features from all the fliers posted around the city these past few days, as well as the girl’s picture in all the local newspapers. Cherry ran up to her, fell to her knees, and hugged the girl tightly. But Jennifer merely stood there, her arms hanging limply, and her body was as cold and clammy as a fish. “My name is Cherry, and I’m gonna get you outta here, okay,” she said, smiling to reassure the unresponsive girl.
Poor thing’s probably in shock, Cherry deduced, greatly concerned as she noticed that Jenny’s lips were blue. Dark circles ringed the girl’s eyes. She’s lucky to be alive and is probably starving and suffering from hypothermia or frostbite. I have to get her to a hospital soon.
“I’m going to see if I can call for help, okay?”
The girl said nothing and gazed blankly at the moon.
“Wow! You’re even quieter than I am.” Cherry smiled amiably and giggled as she pulled her cell phone from her purse to see if she could get a signal, but still saw only one bar on the screen. “Okay, still won’t work,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Looks like we’re stuck here, and it’s gonna be a long walk.”
The girl remained completely unconcerned.
“You feel okay?” Cherry asked. “You’re not sick or anything, right?” When she got no response (nor was she expecting one, but remained hopeful that she might at some point snap Jenny out of the trance), she placed her hand lightly over the girl’s forehead, and found that the girl’s flesh was like ice, but tried to attribute that to prolonged exposure to the cold weather rather than an indication that something might be wrong with her. “Well, you’re not running a temperature, so looks like you’re not sick,” she said reassuringly, and turned away quickly to sneeze into the crook of her arm, and then giggled nervously. “Wish I could say the same about me.”
Jenny bowed her head and remained transfixed, staring at the ground.
“By the way, do you mind if I call you Jenny? It’s such a cute name.”
Jenny raised her head and looked at Cherry, blinking.
“I guess not,” she said with a giggle as she took off her coat and put it on the girl, zipping it up. Had she been moving, Jenny probably would have looked as if she was swimming in the coat, but it stayed on nevertheless. Cherry smiled, trying not to wince too noticeably from the cold wind, which now seemed to batter her shivering body even more relentlessly. “I know it’s a little big, but hopefully it’ll keep you warm.”
Jenny stood there, wearing the coat as if it were a dress whose hem dropped to her knees and whose sleeves were almost a foot longer than her arms, but the coat hung securely on her. She blinked again and licked her lips in an almost mechanical fashion.
“We have to leave now, Jenny. Get you looked at by a doctor,” she paused, interrupted by another fit of coughing which left her throat in fiery agony. “Get us both looked at by a doctor, and then take you home.” She closed her hand around Jenny’s wrist, squeezing tenderly as they both began to walk further down the darkened two-lane road. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay,” she said, forcing herself to smile for Jenny’s sake.
* * *
For the next few hours (which seemed to stretch like years) they walked sometimes quickly, sometimes at a snail’s pace, through the forest in complete silence, save for the howling winds, their footsteps echoing quietly over the blacktop, and Cherry’s intermittent coughing fits. Cherry thought she heard thunder rumbling in the distance and groaned miserably at the prospect of rain, then broke into another harsh fit of coughs and hacked up a tablespoon’s worth of phlegm. “Think I’m dying here,” she murmured with another congested cough as she put her hand over her forehead, which was very hot. Her other hand clung loosely to Jenny’s wrist as she swayed dizzily, barely able to retain her footing.
Jenny’s eyes never moved, nor had she shivered even once as the chilling winds whipped against her hair. Her eyes remained devoid of emotion, and if not for the steady rise and fall of her chest as well as her walking, one could easily mistake her for a mannequin.
Cherry’s heart sank, for she could only imagine the horrors that the child had been through over the past three days. Cherry had been spared the horror of rape due to the intervention of her malevolent “savior”, yet Jenny very likely hadn’t been so lucky. The things that her perverted kidnapper might have done (Cherry assumed this scenario to be what had happened) would be enough to leave the poor girl traumatized and in shock. Cherry felt appalled and enraged as she imagined the pedophile (whom she imagined to be an almost dwarfish, fat, middle-aged man with a receding hairline) breaking into Jenny’s bedroom, invading her happy and innocent world, and dragging the terrified girl to the forest, violently rape her, and leave her for dead. Or perhaps the Sekonkwo had gotten him the way they had killed Brad, shooting the sick bastard in the heart before Jenny’s eyes. Cherry wouldn’t mourn for the pedophile; the son of a bitch would have gotten exactly what he had deserved. But she was still saddened that Jenny might have had to witness such a grisly sight.
The poor, sweet little girl, Cherry thought somberly, beginning to weep.
“How are you holding up?” Cherry asked hoarsely, not expecting an answer, but still faintly hopeful; she mostly just wanted to break the agonizing silence. She considered asking Jenny how she had really disappeared three days ago, and what brought her into this forest, but even if she could expect an answer, she hadn’t the heart to force Jenny to relive such potentially horrendous events.
Jenny blinked and her lips parted slightly, but she said nothing.
Well, we’re making progress, Cherry thought dismally and broke into another agonizing coughing fit that made her lungs feel as though they were on the verge of rupturing.
Cherry was about to kneel and hug Jenny, but then questioned the wisdom of such an act. If she had she been molested, as Cherry suspected, then hugging her or showing any kind of physical affection was liable to do more harm than good. Upon reflection, she cursed herself guiltily for having hugged Jenny when she first found her, given the further damage she might have easily caused to the girl’s already shattered mind, despite wanting to comfort her. “I’m really sorry if I did anything to make you uncomfortable earlier,” Cherry apologized ruefully.
Jenny said nothing and continued to walk by Cherry’s side.
“Well, don’t worry,” Cherry said with a ragged cough, “I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you. I promise.”
Cherry could have sworn that she had seen a feral, golden glow just then in Jenny’s eyes. It flickered for a second, and then it was gone, and the girl’s blank features never changed. Just my imagination, Cherry told herself uneasily.
She shivered fiercely as another harsh chill swept through her, and turned away to cough harshly to the side, almost regretting having given up her jacket to Jenny. Her cold had now worsened because of it since she had only her sweatshirt to protect her from the freezing winds. Yet when she looked at the girl, she banished all regret, reminding herself once more that while Jenny hadn’t complained of being cold, it was because she was in shock, and whether Cherry was sick or not, she knew that Jenny needed the jacket a lot more than she did.
Just a little while longer, Cherry told herself as she coughed sharply, feeling her lungs filling with heavy fluids as her sinuses froze and the moisture on her cheeks from her tears ached with cold numbness. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will find us and pick us up. Hopefully not some psycho rapist.
Cherry blinked and her eyes wandered into the sky as the fog grew thicker. She saw one of the Sekonkwo tribesmen sitting on one of the tree branches, but when she blinked again, he was gone and the branches of the tree swayed with the howling wind.
He was there. I know he was!
With the howling winds came the murmuring chants of a foreign tongue in the dense darkness. Cherry could not see any figures approaching, but heard them taunting her from afar as the footsteps approached. Never in her life had she felt more vulnerable than she had this night. Despite her best attempts to stay strong for the sake of the child, she could feel growing panic building within her, rising with the scream that climbed her throat. She had to bite down hard to stifle it as the footsteps and chanting grew louder and the bushes rustled not from winds this time but because (it seemed) an invisible entity had been shaking the branches.
“Jenny, stop!” Cherry whispered frantically.
The girl stopped in her tracks and turned around, gazing up at Cherry with dim eyes.
“They’re coming,” whispered Cherry gravely as she crouched down, protecting Jenny. Her movements now were slow, hindered by her joints, which ached with numbness and frost, yet still she struggled, her determination redoubled now for the sake of the child as well as for her own survival. She wrapped her arms around Jenny as if to cover her, leaving her own body exposed to the cold and whatever else might harm her, knowing somehow that it probably would not do Jenny much good, but it probably would not hurt either. “They’re coming,” Cherry repeated, breathing heavily as her heart thumped rapidly in her chest and her mouth dropped open. “We have to hide!” she stammered as her eyes searched right and left for a bush or thicket to hide in.
You can’t hide from these things, a voice shouted in their head, laughing morbidly. There’s nowhere to hide so that they can’t find you. Hide behind a bush or a tree, and they’ll find you eventually. You can run, but you sure as hell can’t hide, and these people/things will catch up to you eventually!
“We have to get out of here now!” Cherry cried hoarsely once more, holding back a fit of coughs and feeling as though a giant needle had pierced her neck and was now tickling the back of her throat.
It was then that Cherry heard the all-too familiar twang of a bow and arrow from a distance, the same sound she had heard just before Brad had been killed (though it now seemed like years had passed since then). Cherry turned to look past her shoulder and saw the arrow flying toward her. She had time only to lunge forward, throwing out her hands to push Jenny to the ground to at least get her out of the way of the arrow’s path. A chilling breeze blasted by and the arrow arched downward, still flying in a straight path toward Cherry. Her entire body stiffened as she let out a shrill scream of terror, and then one of agony as the tip of the arrow finally plunged into her left foot, pinning it to the ground.
A hot sheath of agony washed over her foot, surging all the way up her aching leg as blood began to ooze profusely from the wound, soaking her sneakers and staining them a deep crimson as the blood soaked into the road below her as well. Even with her foot nailed to the ground by the arrow, Cherry lunged forward in an attempt to run away. The skin of her wounded foot stretched and tore with ripping pain as the bones in her foot snapped apart. She threw her right foot forward; it lost its momentum and then kicked into the air. Cherry threw her hands outward as she seemed to glide, feeling the sharp bend of her left ankle as her head thrust forward, and her hair flopping about on her head. She shrieked piercingly into the night, as the bone in her ankle snapped in two and her chest and stomach slapped against the pavement.
Cherry lay there, still hearing the approaching footsteps of the Sekonkwo, writhing in agony and a thick, syrupy nausea assailed her stomach, scaling up her throat, and she felt as though she would surely vomit now, yet nothing came but a few dry retches and coughs. As she lay propped on her side, her hip pressing down hard against the cold cement of the road, her left leg hung in the air, dripping blood, with the feathered end of the arrow jutting outward from the top, and the tip protruding from the sole of her sneaker. It was now like a bent outward in such as way that made it look somewhat like a pitched tent at the bottom of her blood-streaked sneaker. Cherry closed her hand around the end of the arrow, pulling it as hard as she could and feeling something tugging painfully along her foot, stretching the skin and bones even further as it hung askew on her ankle, grinding the shattered bones sharply against each other.
“Run,” Cherry whispered weakly to Jenny as she looked up at the girl. “Forget about me. Just save yourself and get out of here.” She coughed and wheezed as tears filled her eyes, yet her voice remained clear, save for a few fearful stutters as she breathed heavily. “Get out of here!” she cried, raising her voice as high as she could.
Jenny stood there, her eyes transfixed on Cherry’s wounded foot.
Cherry tugged once more at the arrow, as hard as she could this time, screaming shrilly as she did, and her temples throbbing as her gritted teeth pressed tightly together. The icy touch of the cold night air had weakened her muscles, as had the illness overtaking her lungs and her arms and hands felt as though they were encased in ice. Yet this time, as she continued to pull with all her might, her heart racing and her muscles convulsing, she was slowly able to pull the arrow out. There was a sharp ripping pain in her foot as she pulled the arrow free and a thin ribbon of blood flew into the air and splashed her cheeks.
Cherry absently held the arrow in her hand, her fist tightening around the wooden shaft as she lay on her back upon the cold cement, which now felt like a block of ice, her entire body trembling as though she having a seizure. She looked up at the moon, which danced before her, its ends rippling before her eyes, and coughed up another large wad of phlegm, which clung to her lips and chin. I’m gonna die, she thought dismally, moaning as she blinked, then looked up and saw that Jenny was gazing blankly down at her.
“I told you to run,” she panted and gasped.
Cherry rolled over on the ground so that she was now on her hands and knees, her head bent forward, lolling about on her neck as her hair fluttered in front of her eyes. Her mouth hung open as she wheezed. Her tongue poked out from her lips; she appeared almost to be panting and begging like a dog, sucking in dry, frigid air painfully into her lungs. Her left foot was now beginning to swell as the wound poured out blood, leaving her shoe now awash as it squelched wetly against the surface when she rested it ever so gently along the blacktop.
Jenny peered down at her.
And grinned.
“What’re you doin’?” Cherry slurred, weak and bewildered as she squeezed her teary eyes shut. Her body continued to tremble as her arms and knees buckled, and she feared she might collapse under her own weight. Yet what confused and disturbed her most of all was that Jenny was grinning and her eyes flickered with that feral glow once again. “What’s goin’ on?”
Jenny took a step back, and now her entire body emitted an almost radioactive glow as she stood before Cherry. Her mouth dropped open and she appeared to be calling out in a foreign tongue, and the voice was not that of a little girl, but of a grown man. It felt as though the sound was originating not from the girl’s lips, but from inside Cherry’s head, as though the girl was speaking somehow telepathically. Then Jenny closed her mouth and cracked her knuckles together. Her hair darkened as her skin took on a dark reddish hue; the same skin tone as that of a Native American.
“Oh my God, you’re one of them!” Cherry whispered, aghast and terrified.
The girl’s flesh lightened to its formerly pasty hue as her hair lightened to its original dirty blond color, yet as she stood there, her face completely expressionless, Cherry now saw something sinister within the girl. No longer was she the sweet and innocent victim of circumstance. She now took on a demonic quality about her, one which threatened and utterly frightened Cherry. Jenny stood back, and her grin resurfaced as the moonlight glared in her eyes.
Footsteps were now approaching, rustling in the fallen pine needles over the soil. Once more the tribesmen of the Sekonkwo were closing in on her from every direction. She could not see them, but she could hear them, and their movements grew louder and more menacing with each passing second. She could hear them chanting in tune with the howling winds; their songs of the hunt were a distant echo at first, yet they grew louder, although she could not make out the words. Although Cherry still could not see them in the darkness, it felt as though their presence was crushing her now as the sharp winds beat against her body.
“It’s you,” she cried hoarsely as she turned back to the demonic child and coughed. “You’re calling them somehow.”
The girl had not even nodded, yet the bestial glow of her baleful eyes provided all the confirmation needed.
The joints in Cherry’s shoulder seemed to swell as she lifted her left arm, bringing the arrow into the air, and she moaned as her bones ached, her arm trembling as her numb fingers threatened to drop the arrow. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked once more at Jenny, whom she had cared for and felt a fierce sense of maternal protectiveness for only five minutes ago—a girl she had been willing to die to protect. Betrayal stung her heart, leaving her distraught.
Cherry held the arrow firmly poised in her hand, hesitated only for a moment, and then with a sorrowful and rueful cry, brought it down like a knife into the girl’s head. The tip impaled Jenny’s eye and the arrow burrowed deep into her head, through her brain (or whatever might have been left of it), until it finally stopped along the inner wall of the back of her skull, the force of the impact sending tremors coursing all the way up to the shoulder of Cherry’s already aching arm. Her hand hadn’t released its hold upon the arrow, but instead it simply slipped out of her limp fingers, and her arm dropped against the cold surface of the road.
Jenny stumbled back a few steps, and she once more emanated a bright radioactive glow that absorbed her entire body. She threw her arms out in a warding off gesture as a sea of flames engulfed her body. There was an explosion of blinding white light, like a nuclear detonation, that consumed the entire forest, and Cherry only had time to scream one last time before she finally lost consciousness.
* * *
Excerpt from a front page article of the Portland Journal
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Missing Girl found deep within the Portland Forest
After going missing four days ago, the body of nine-year-old Jennifer Harrison was found by two hikers—Neil Watson (age 43) and Kim Watson (age 41) — on their morning hike. The girl was found lying face-down on the side of the road lying face-down after having been dead for three days. Investigators at the scene believe that the girl had been dead for at least three days, and that exposure was the probable cause of death. An autopsy will be performed to conform confirm cause of death, and to look for any signs of struggle or sexual abuse. The girl’s parents have refused to comment on their daughter’s death at this time. Memorial services for Jennifer Harrison will be held a week from today, on November 6, at 11:00am at the Saint Matthews Parish, and all are invited to attend.
* * *
The same middle-aged couple hiking in the woods that had found Jennifer Harrison had also found Cherry Lynch lying unconscious but alive, a few miles away from where Jennifer Harrison had been discovered. Cherry had been rushed to the hospital, and although her cold had manifested into pneumonia and the wound on her foot had become infected, doctors were very hopeful that Cherry would recover completely, even if she was now listed in serious condition. Her broken ankle had swelled and itched within its cast as she lay in bed, feeling weak and groggy, still trying to digest all that had happened to her.
She had heard that Jennifer Harrison had been dead for three days, but that only left her in a state of anxious confusion. She told no one of her ordeal in the Portland Forest, and when asked how she had gotten the wound on her foot, she simply stated that she couldn’t remember.
Despite all she had learned—that she wasn’t responsible after all for the girl’s death—she continued to ask herself how she could have brought herself to harm an innocent child. She wasn’t an innocent child, not anymore, Cherry told herself, trying to ease her guilt. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see herself back in the woods, with the arrow in hand, jamming it into Jenny’s precious eye. What happened next hadn’t been what had really happened, for in her mind now, there was no light show, but instead the horrified, bewildered gaze of an innocent girl, a trusting girl who had been betrayed and coldly snuffed out.
No, damn it, that’s not what happened at all, Cherry told herself, growing irritated, yet still remorseful. I didn’t kill her; she was already dead, and whatever it was I saw in those woods wasn’t Jennifer Harrison. Those sons of bitches got to her somehow and they changed her into a demon. They stole her soul, and I destroyed their hold on her, and saved myself. I did what I had to do, nothing more.
Cherry sighed and began to cry.
* * *
“Oh God, I was so worried!” exclaimed Susan as she entered the hospital room.
Cherry coughed softly and smiled amiably. “I’m okay.”
“How are you feeling?”
Cherry coughed again and groaned miserably as her chest tightened, her eyes watered, and her face felt hot. “I feel like shit right now, but the antibiotics should clear me up soon.” She broke into another coughing fit that left her feeling dizzy. “The sooner the better,” she added with a sigh and laughed humorlessly as her head sank deeper into her pillow.
Susan shook her head sympathetically and placed her hand over Cherry’s forehead with a look of concern. “You’re still running a bit of a temperature.”
“I know,” replied Cherry. “But the doctors said it’s going down.”
“What happened anyway?” inquired Susan.
“It’s a long story.” Cherry sighed as her trembling hand massaged her throat and she squeezed her watering eyes shut. “That guy you set me up with, though—Brad—he tried to rape me. I’ll try to explain the rest later.” She bit her lip, beginning to feel uneasy, yet noticing how bold she had gotten; for she never would have explained things so bluntly just two days ago. She sighed, and then added: “I’m not entirely sure of everything that happened, myself.”
Susan backed away as her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open, quivering, and her hand clutched against her heart. She looked appalled by what she had just heard, like an arrogant person facing the humiliating sting of defeat after having been proven wrong. Her eyes gleamed with tears of remorse, and for a few minutes, she appeared at a loss for words, until finally she stuttered: “Oh God, Cherry, I—I’m so, so sorry. I thought he was normal, I swear. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was just trying to help, honest. Oh God, I’m so sorry for what happened. I—”
Cherry smiled wanly. “It’s okay. I forgive you. But I want you to do me a favor.” She paused and coughed into her fist, then cleared her throat and blinked the watering tears from her eyes. “I want you to promise me you won’t try to play matchmaker anymore and just let me get over John at my own pace. If I find someone on my own, then it happens, but right now, I don’t care.” She paused, and then sighed morosely. “Just, please promise me you won’t try to interfere with that stuff anymore.”
Susan’s cheeks flushed as she bent her head shamefully. “I promise.”
* * *
That night, Cherry dreamed that she was back in the forest again.
Although the dream was set at night, the atmosphere was not as foreboding, nor did the trees appear menacing, and there was no feeling that she was being stalked by the Sekonkwo tribe. She was at peace here in the forest, warm and basking in the moonlight as the stars twinkled in the sky.
Jenny stood beside her, holding her hand, yet the girl’s eyes were cheerful instead of baleful or blank, and she smiled radiantly. Her hand was warm and held tightly against Cherry’s, and her skin was a healthy shade of pink. Jenny giggled and laughed, her innocence somehow magically restored, as she gazed up with loving eyes at Cherry and hugged her tightly. Cherry knelt and embraced the girl warmly and stroked her back tenderly, kissing her forehead.
“I’m really sorry for all the trouble I caused,” Jenny apologized, her smile faltering. She frowned and bent her head, blushing as she closed her eyes. “It’s my fault, but it wasn’t. It was them; they took control of me somehow.”
“It’s okay,” Cherry whispered, brushing her hand through the girl’s hair. “I know what happened now. I don’t know how I know, but somehow I do.” She kissed Jenny’s cheek lightly. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t help you like I wanted to. I’m sorry that I jammed that arrow in your eye.”
“Don’t feel bad,” the girl whispered back and smiled. “You saved me by doing it, and you set my soul free.”
“They’re still out there, aren’t they? The Sekonkwo?”
Jenny nodded solemnly. “Yes. But they can’t get you if you stay out of the woods.”
Cherry wiped her hand across her nose and shook her head. “I’m staying as far away from that forest as possible. You can bet on that, kiddo!”
Jenny frowned: “I’m sorry, I have to go now. Just wanted to thank you for all you’ve done.”
Jenny waved goodbye briefly, and Cherry did the same, before the girl dissolved into a prism of light, like a beautiful rainbow cutting through murky clouds after a massive thunderstorm, dispelling the gloom and replacing it with healing colorful light, which rejuvenated Cherry’s ailing body, making her feel reborn. Her entire body tingled blissfully with that fuzzy feeling in her heart as each bright new color blossomed radiantly before her eyes.
* * *
It was still dark when she awoke and her body was still fighting illness, yet Cherry felt wonderfully serene as she looked through the window at the twinkling stars in the clear night sky. One of the stars sparkled brightly and she knew that it was Jenny, smiling down upon her as she ascended to the next realm.
With deep elation, Cherry smiled and wept joyfully.
The End.
May 28, 2004
June 05, 2004