The Woods
MICHAEL KELLY WAS BORN in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He currently resides near Toronto.
A rising star of Canadian horror, he is the author of two short story collections, Scratching the Surface, and Undertow and Other Laments; and co-author of a novel, Ouroboros. Apparitions, an anthology he edited and published under his own literary imprint, Undertow Publications, was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award.
About the first of two stories he has in this volume, the author reveals: “‘The Woods’ was written for an anthology seeking regional horror and ghost stories. I’d just read Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephant’s’. Now, in no way am I comparing myself to Hemingway but I wanted to write a similarly brief tale, with only two main characters, and where the horror was off-stage. As well, the setting had to be distinctly Canadian. What, I thought, could be more Canadian than the frozen north and allusions to mythical beasts?”
IT HAD BEEN SNOWING FOR DAYS. Icy needles of teeth tumbled from the ash-flecked sky, clotted the woods. The thick shroud of snow shifted, moved with the weeping wind, pushed against a cabin. A bug-bright snowmobile rested near a leaning woodshed like some alien invader, its engine cooling, ticking, though the two men inside the cabin could not hear this. They could hear nothing of the outside world but the wind and its ceaseless winter lament.
Inside, logs crackled and smouldered in a fireplace. A black cast-iron pot hung above the small fire, suspended from a metal rod attached to stanchions. A spicy tang permeated the cabin.
The old man in the old rocking-chair, who had a face like tree bark, blinked crusty eyes, looked up at the younger man (who nonetheless was near retirement himself but was still much younger than the old man in the chair) and gestured to the only other chair in the cabin. “Have a seat, Officer Creed.”
The younger man grinned weakly. “How many times I have to tell you, Jack, you don’t have to call me that. It’s just the two of us. We go back a long way.”
The old man blinked again, nodded, stared at the younger man’s uniform; the gold badge on the parka, the gun holstered at his side. “Well, Ned,” croaked the old man, “it looks like you’re out here on business, so it’s only proper.”
Ned clutched a small, furry, dead animal, fingers digging deep. He sat on the proffered chair, laid the dead thing on the floor, where it resembled a hat. “We go back a long way,” he repeated, wistful.
They were silent for a time. The old man rocked slowly and the pine floor creaked. Ned stared at his wet boots, glanced out the window at the swirling sheets of grey-white.
Jack stopped rocking. “Get you some coffee, Ned?”
“No, thanks. Can’t stay long. Have to get back before the storm comes full on.”
A sad chuckle came from the old man. “You may be too late.”
“I fear I am, Jack.”
Another brief silence ensued. Jack rocked slowly and Ned brushed wet snow from his pants.
“You still trapping?” Ned asked. “Still getting out?”
Jack paused, as if carefully considering his words. “Course I am. I’m old, not dead.” Another brief pause, then, “Man’s got to eat.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“I see.”
“We go back a long way, don’t we, Jack?”
The old man blinked, nodded.
“I mean, you’d tell me if you needed anything, wouldn’t you? You’d tell me if anything was wrong?”
The old man leaned forward. “Checking up on me, Ned?”
“You might be snowbound awhile, is all. Just doing my job. You’re like a ghost out here.”
Jack eased back into the rocker. “Pantry is stocked. Plenty of rabbit in the woodshed.”
Ned grimaced. “You were always a good trapper.”
“Been here a long, long time, Ned. You do something often enough you get good at it.”
“True enough.”
“You learn about things,” Jack said. “By necessity. You learn how the world works. The good. The bad. All of it.”
“Hmm, yes.”
“I know things,” Jack said. He was staring hard at Ned. “But . . . tell me, what do you know, Ned?”
Ned fidgeted, returned Jack’s look. “Not as much as you, Jack. That’s the gospel. I know certain things, that’s all. And other stuff I’m not so certain about. Trying to figure things out, is all.”
“Oh, you’re a sly one, aren’t you, Ned?”
Ned turned away, sighed, gazed at the window. “Not so much. No.”
“What do you see?” Jack asked.
“I can just make out a few trees. Nothing else. The woods and nothing.”
“I know these woods like the back of my hand.”
“I bet you do,” Ned said.
Gusts of blowing snow swept past the window, a curtain of ice. The cabin door groaned. Each man sat, staring at the other, stealing glances at the window, then the door, expectant, as if waiting for a visitor.
Ned broke the silence. “Tom Brightman’s got a spot of trouble.”
Jack’s face creased into a sneer. “You don’t say.”
“Wendigo,” Ned whispered, as if afraid to say it aloud.
Jack sniggered. “That old saw again?”
“I’m afraid so.” Ned scratched his head. “Every year. The same old superstitions. We’ve heard them all, me and you. We go back some ways.”
“Stop saying that.”
“It’s true, though. There’s not much between us. Is there, Jack? There are no secrets in these parts.”
“Yes,” Jack said.
Ned stretched his legs out, crossed them, uncrossed them. A log in the fireplace popped, split. The room smelled of spice and meat and wet fur. He turned toward the fire.
Jack followed Ned’s gaze. “Get you something to eat? To tide you over?”
“No.” Ned squirmed. “You hungry, Jack?”
“All the time. Seems the older I get, the hungrier I get.” Jack stared off into a far corner. “It’s not something I can explain. Not something you’d understand.”
Ned gestured to the pot. “Don’t mind me. Help yourself.”
Jack smirked, swung his gaze around to Ned. “It’s okay, I’ll wait. I’ve some manners still.”
“You’ve got a nice little set up out here, Jack. All by yourself. No one around for miles. Must get mighty lonely at times, I’d imagine.”
The old man shrugged. “Not really. A man can find plenty of things to occupy his time. Idle hands and all that.”
“That’s what worries me, Jack. This place, this solitude, this . . . nothingness. It does things to people.” Ned leaned forward, nodded toward the window. “You ever spot anything out there, in the woods? Anything . . . strange?”
“Ha.” Jack’s tree-bark face glowed orange from the fire, a winter pumpkin. “Stealthy man-eating beasts, Ned? Slavering cannibals? Wendigo?”
Ned blinked, watched Jack, said nothing.
“Tom Brightman is a damn fool,” Jack said. “Every year it’s the same damn thing. Can’t control his dogs so he blames everyone else. Myths. Legends. Old wives’ tales. Easier for some men to cast blame than take responsibility.”
“What do you know about such things, Jack?”
“How many, Ned? How many of his sled dogs have gone missing this year?”
“None.” Ned straightened and leaned forward. Rigid and intent. “It’s the youngest boy. Johnny. Been gone a week now.”
Jack was quiet. He began to rock slowly. Then, “He’s a damn fool.”
“May very well be.” Ned scratched his chin. “You positive there’s nothing I can get you, Jack? Nothing you need?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t suppose,” Ned asked, “at this point it’d make a lick of difference if I peeked into the woodshed on my way out? To make sure?”
“Not a lick, Ned. Not at this point.”
Ned picked up his hat, stood, let out a heavy breath. “That’s what I thought.” He pulled the hat over his head, went to the door, opened it a crack and peered into the gathering white nothingness. “I’ll try and swing by later in the week, Jack. Watch yourself.” He shoved through the gap, into the outside, pulled the door shut.
The old man rose from the rocking chair and scuttled across the worn pine floor. He went to the window, pressed his face against the frost-veined pane and spied the younger man, a blurry black smudge, trudging through the blizzard. The younger man stopped at the woodshed, pulled open the door and slipped inside.
Jack watched. Waited. It had been snowing forever. Glassy shards struck the ground, formed an icy shell. He thought surely that the world would crack, that something would crack.
Ned exited the shed, paused, gazed back at the cabin, shambled over to his snowmobile. Soon, the white swallowed him.
Jack turned, walked to the cupboards, grabbed a chipped bowl and a spoon, and went over to the fireplace and the pot. Stew bubbled and simmered in the pot. His stomach grumbled, empty, always empty. It wasn’t something he could explain. Wasn’t something that he understood. A vast emptiness inside him. Nothingness.
He ladled stew into the bowl, spooned the hot meal into his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. His thoughts turned to Tom Brightman, his dogs, his son . . . and his daughters.
Jack ate. The emptiness abated. Then he didn’t think about anything except the woods.
The woods and nothing.