The Trail Read online

  Scott ran back through the rain and cracked open Susan’s door. “Are you sure you’re not coming in?” he asked. “It might be the last time we stop until we get there.”

  “No, I’m okay.” Susan said.

  He leaned in closer. “Is it Kim?”

  “I’m okay,” Susan said, and looked away.

  As she sat there, watching Jack through the store window reading magazines, she heard the clip-clop of horseshoes on concrete. The buggy they had passed on the road pulled up beside them. The pale boy stared at Susan.

  Susan lowered the window and rain rolled down the inside of the glass. Wet humidity wafted into the car. “Hi,” she said. “How’s your horse?”

  The boy grinned, flicked his tongue in and out, serpent-like, and whispered just loud enough for Susan to hear: “Fucking whore.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sheriff Adams pulled his patrol car off the road and swung into a gravel parking lot next to the trail head. He got out of the car, inhaled the heavy air, thick with fog, and peered down the rocky path. Dammit, he thought. He hated hiking. Hated the woods. Hated the Appalachian Trail. In fact, he hated pretty much anything considered “outdoorsy.” Give me a bottle of Jack and that little waitress from the diner. That’s what I call a good night. None of this hiking shit.

  He started down the trail. His black leather shoes slipped ineffectively on the rocks as he grasped at tree limbs to steady himself. He had been so busy thinking about Nicole that he had forgotten to stop by his house on his way to the trail and pick up his boots.

  Officer Bryson had often said that it was funny that a guy who hated the woods so much would choose to work in rural Pennsylvania. Bryson called it “ironic.” What Bryson didn’t understand was that Adams didn’t choose anything. Adams had wanted to be a big city cop. He had applied for jobs in Philly and New York. But then his mother got sick, and his old man left, and he had to stick around. Once his mother had passed away, he wanted to reapply, but somehow, at thirty-two years old, he’d lost momentum. He’d heard someone say, once, “if you don’t do something by the time you’re thirty, you’re never gonna do it.” How right they were.

  No question about it, the trail makers had been altered. Someone had painted over the white blaze markers with brown, and continued the white in a new direction.

  A few months ago, the same thing had happened about two miles up the trail. Sheriff Adams had followed the new trail for what seemed like an hour. After a while, the path narrowed and came to a perfect circular clearing. Each tree in the circle had an upside-down cross carved in the bark.

  Adams remembered looking at the center of the circle and feeling ill. Although he’d seen suicides and car wrecks before, nothing had prepared him for the carnage in front of him. A dead cow lay rotting in the sun, its belly split open from neck to groin, exposing fleshy organs to the light. A cluster of black flies swarmed above the ruined carcass. Maggots worked on the face, hollowing out the jaw. The genitals hung from a branch twenty feet away.

  Satanist, Adams thought, leaning against a tree for support. Some sort of fucked-up devil worshippers. He looked around the circle for clues, but found only scraps of food and a dead campfire.

  A week after the cow incident, a twenty-one-year-old college student out for a day hike had disappeared. She was never found. Passing hikers reported her last location as being a quarter-mile from the circular clearing. Although he had no proof, Sheriff Adams had linked the two events in his mind.

  He continued to scramble down the trail.

  Goddamn rocks. From his twenty-three years on the force in rural Pennsylvania, he’d learned a couple of things about the trail. The Pennsylvania section was the worst. The rockiest. The hardest on the feet. Every couple of weeks they’d rescue hikers with sprained or broken ankles. People just don’t know what they’re getting into.

  Adams looked down his black leather shoes and laughed. Neither do I.

  This time, the false markers led to a boggy section of the woods. Thick pine trees muted the sun. The soil smelled of decaying leaves.

  In a clearing ahead, he saw a shack.

  Chapter Twelve

  Scott continued driving westward.

  “Two hikers missing,” Kim said, reclining in the back seat of the Explorer and examining the paper Scott had purchased at the gas station. “It says they were last seen in this area.”

  “Are they chicks?” joked Jack, exhaling a thick stream of pungent smoke. “Maybe they’ll party with us.”

  Kim punched him in the shoulder. “It’s not funny, Jack. They could be seriously hurt. All alone out there in the woods. The woods can be a scary place.”

  Jack answered with a series of coughs, and finally managed to sputter, “I ain’t scared.”

  Scott was pissed. He’d told Jack not to light the joint in the truck, to wait until they’d reached the camping spot, but despite Jack’s assurances, he’d gone ahead and lit it anyway. Just a little poke, Jack said as he flicked the lighter and sparked the tip.

  Scott wasn’t against pot. He was against getting pulled over in some hick town by a vigilante cop on a religious crusade. He remembered the three crosses on the hill. Scott didn’t want to meet the owner of those crosses.

  “Listen to this advice column,” Kim said. The paper rustled as she folded it in half. “‘Recently I learned that our neighbor asked my husband if we wanted to join them for a swingers party. I was—’”

  “You’re shitting me!” Jack interrupted.

  “No. Listen. ‘I was initially hesitant, but my husband suggested that this party could add a much needed spark to our sex life. Do you think we should go, or will this party hurt our marriage?’”

  Scott and Susan exchanged glances.

  “Oh man!” Jack said. “Go for it! You gotta go for it!”

  Kim took the joint and inhaled deeply. “Yeah,” she said, in a voice that wasn’t quite her own. “Jack’s right. You gotta go for it!”

  She passed the joint forward between the center console, but Scott and Susan both waved it off.

  “What do you guys think?” Kim asked.

  Scott cracked his window and looked into the rear view mirror. Then he looked at Susan. “Ummmm…I don’t know. Tough call.”

  Susan stared out the window.

  “I’d go for it!” Jack bellowed again, the smoke circling his head like a ring of fog.

  Scott thought about the time in college when Susan’s roommate, a hot, athletic soccer player, had suggested a threesome. She’d had short brown hair, green eyes, and a perfect, lithe body. The three of them had been drinking all day, and at first, Scott couldn’t believe what he’d heard. It was the kind of question he’d only heard in porno movies. Stunned, Scott turned to Susan, who shook her head in disapproval. Scott could still recall his exact response to Susan’s roommate: “We don’t do those things.”

  Something inside of Scott broke every time he replayed the incident in his mind.

  After a while, Jack and Kim drifted off into a lazy nap. Scott looked in the rear view mirror and saw Kim’s legs curled around a blanket. He followed her legs up to the rim of her shorts, to where the delicate white crescents of her ass met the backs of her thighs.

  We don’t do those things, he thought. Scott looked at Susan. He realized for the first time that she hadn’t said much since the gas station. Hadn’t said much for most of the trip, really.

  Scott locked eyes with her, and then nodded his head towards his groin. Susan threw up her hands and shook her head no.

  “Come on,” Scott whispered. “They’re asleep.”

  “I said no.”

  “Come on. Don’t be so boring. Be spontaneous.”

  The spontaneous line was leverage Scott used on Susan often. He knew it got to her. She hated being perceived as a planner. A person that followed the rules. But that’s exactly what she was. And Scott knew it, and played it to his advantage.

  “Live a little,” he urged.

  Susan g
lanced in the back seat, stared for a good minute, and then slid her way in front of the steering column.

  Scott pulled back her blonde hair to catch the details. What would a hick cop say if he pulled me over doing this? he wondered.

  Scott’s thighs rocked and swiveled. He had a difficult time maintaining steady pressure on the accelerator, which caused the car’s speed to increase and decrease in odd modulations. He looked into the rear view mirror and studied Kim’s legs. Studied every detail.

  Finally, he flooded the engine with gasoline as his foot hit the floor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The hiker heard a knock on the shack’s door. So did the man in the red shirt. The man whirled and scampered to a hidden hole in the wall to inspect the visitor. He cursed and smashed his fists into his own face. He glared around the shack and shook his head as if realizing it was futile. There was too much to conceal.

  The hiker watched from his chained prison against the back wall. Dirty rags gagged his mouth and stifled his screams. When he heard the knock, a hope rose in him. He forgot about the boiling water. The rusty knives. The tortuous injuries so intense that he’d slipped in and out of his life many times during the night. He was grateful when he slept. Horrified when he woke. He had prayed for death, but now envisioned life.

  The knock came again. Harder. The man in the red shirt examined himself in a small, cracked mirror. He wiped blood from his face. He ripped off his blood soaked cargo pants and replaced them with a newer pair, concealing his leg wound. He strode across the floor, opened the front door, used his massive body to block the interior of the shack from sight, and quickly shut the door behind him.

  Soon the hiker heard the two men talking. He could not decipher their words, but the tone appeared calm. The hiker fought against the chains to gain footing, and managed to find a cracked plank to peer through. Behind the cabin he could see the man in the red shirt walk past, gesturing to a police officer. Joyful tears streamed down the hiker’s face. They stopped and he watched them point and talk.

  Through the shunt of light, the hiker stared as the officer inspected the surrounding area. The officer paused as he passed a tree marked with a carving of a crucifix. He ran his fingers over the wood and appeared to ask the man in the red shirt a question. Then, seemingly satisfied, he continued walking until he left the hiker’s field of vision.

  The hiker pulled at the stiff chains again, stomped his boots, and screamed into the rags. He looked down at the naked dead girl on the floor. Her skin color had changed from a florid pink to a sallow, yellow hue, like that of an old candle.

  The officer came back into view. He examined another tree. The officer pointed to blood at the base of the trunk and seemed to ask a question. The man in the red shirt replied, and the officer continued his investigation.

  He could hear two pairs of footsteps on the front porch now. The voices grew louder, and he listened as the officer inquired about the inside of the shack. Again the hiker twisted in the shackles. The voices continued. One voice went up and down, as though in growing agitation.

  Footsteps approached the door and the knob turned.

  Suddenly, the hiker heard a crackle of static from the officer’s walkie-talkie. One pair of footsteps shuffled away from the door, and he watched the officer hike awkwardly down the trail, leaving the shack behind. The man in the red shirt followed him to the trail, waved goodbye, and walked around to the back of the shack. He stopped to look in the small crack.

  The hiker stared back.

  The man in the red shirt smiled.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Susan brushed her hair, composed herself, and resumed staring out of the window. She didn’t want to look at Scott. She was ashamed by how easily he could manipulate her. How much power he held over her.

  Susan’s family all agreed that Scott was a catch. A hip, young writer for a travel magazine. Someone with trajectory, her father said. Her parents sure liked him, alright, but the more Susan thought about it, the more she realized that her parents liked just about anyone she liked.

  Her dad’s only request was that her boyfriend had a job. Her mom just wanted to make sure that he “treated her right”. On the surface, Scott fulfilled both requirements.

  Susan pondered the term treat her right. The phrase was a little hard to define. Scott certainly never hit her. Ever. That was what concerned Susan’s mom the most. Even Susan’s own dad had raised his hand to Susan’s mom once after a night of drinking scotch. No, Scott never hit her. Then again, Susan wasn’t sure that violence was the only form of abuse.

  The way Scott had toyed with her emotions in the truck a few minutes ago had to be a form of abuse. The way he had decided for the both of them that they didn’t want children—that had to be a form of abuse, too. The way he was coy about his past. Elusive, even. The way he could be unbelievably kind, and then suddenly cold as hell. His mood swings. His ego. His little career goals that didn’t include her.

  He never hit her, but Scott abused her on a whole different level.

  “A karate studio?” Jack blurted from the back seat. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “What the hell sort of need is there for karate out here?”

  Susan studied the shabby commercial district of the two-stoplight town and said nothing.

  “Yeah, Jack,” Scott joined in. “I wonder how a place like that stays in business.”

  Susan observed the inhabitants of the dying coal town and tried to imagine what it would be like to actually live here. A tremendously obese man stood on the corner simply watching cars, with no apparent intention of crossing the street. Another woman pushed a stroller down the sidewalk as she took puffs from her cigarette. Past the Five & Dime store, across the street from the tiny post office, slumped a bar in the shadows. The sign simply read “BAR.” An ancient stand-up video game machine was just barely visible through the hazy cigarette smoke.

  “You gotta be nuts to live out here,” Jack declared. “What do you do all day?”

  “I wouldn’t say nuts,” said Susan. “But it does take a certain type.”

  Susan thought about her grandmother’s trailer. Her grandfather had passed away when Susan was ten, and her grandmother, Nancy, had decided to give up city living and buy a trailer in upstate Pennsylvania. It seemed an odd move to some, considering that most of Nancy’s friends were moving to retirement “villages” to live out their remaining years in ease and comfort. But Nancy had always had an itch for the “country life”, and now she wanted to make that dream come true.

  The closest town to Nancy’s trailer had looked very similar to the town Susan drove through now. Susan had loved the trailer. She spent three consecutive summers with her grandmother, swimming in the lake, playing in the community game room with other children, and watching old movies in her tiny living room.

  The idyllic days were shattered when Nancy met a man named Garry. Garry was a slothful and sour smelling man. The whole family loathed their relationship, but agreed to mind their own business because Nancy had handled herself fine on her own thus far.

  Garry eventually gained access to Nancy’s financial information and stole everything. The trailer was lost and Nancy moved into a retirement village in the city. She was never the same.

  Neither was Susan. Her trust in people was shattered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hiker slumped against the shack wall. The chains pressed into his flesh. He’d been told not to hike the trail alone.

  “Bad shit can happen,” his friends had pleaded. “You could break a leg. Get attacked by a bear. Run out of food.” I’ll bet they could never imagine this, the hiker thought.

  Don’t hike alone. Don’t swim alone. Don’t live alone. He’d always shirked such advice, but not anymore. That is, not if he lived.

  He’d chosen to hike the Appalachian Trail alone because other people could be a pain in the ass. If he’d brought someone else, he’d have to hike at their pace and compromise his own. He’d have to comment on
every little thing, make jokes, keep up conversations. For the most part, the hiker didn’t go in for that sort of thing. He enjoyed the silence of the trail. The one-step-after-the-other monistic march. On good days, he could hike the trail while his mind floated miles away, reviewing his life and thinking about his future. Hiking the trail afforded a long period of reflection that he doubted most people had or wanted.

  Most people wanted cell phones to distract them from self-reflection. The hiker thought about his decision to not bring a cell phone. Sure, the signal was hit-or-miss on the trail, but there was always a chance he could have picked up a cell tower from one of the fringe towns that laced the path. Without a phone, there wasn’t even a chance.