Adam's Woods by Greg Walker Page A

of his bed to check on them, but then the fact that he was in his bed registered and he relaxed. In the dream, or vision, or whatever it had been - it felt so real - he recalled blacking out in the hallway. Maybe his father had gotten up and found him there, and tucked him back in. Or more likely he’d never left it in the first place, the whole thing only in his head like before. But it had never been like that before. He wondered if he was going crazy like Kenny’s sister from school that had to go away, and decided to tell his dad about last night. Mom would just be angry, he knew.
     
    As was his habit, the boy lay and listened. He liked the sounds of the night, or had before all of this, and he also liked to absorb the sounds of morning: his mother opening and closing cupboards as she prepared breakfast, some cartoon on TV where he’d find his brother laying on the couch wrapped in a blanket watching Bugs Bunny beat up Elmer Fudd or the Road Runner beat up the Coyote, his father still snoring if it were Saturday.
     
    He listened, but no sounds at all came from anywhere in the house. He felt a little apprehensive again, but the reason for the quiet was probably silly and he would look stupid if he ran out of the room screaming.
     
    “ Mom?” he called.
     
    Nothing.
     
    “ Dad? Jake?”
     
    No answer.
     
    He slowly slid his legs over the side of the bed, and standing up looked out the window, thinking maybe they’d all gone outside to get an early start on the leaves. No one in the backyard. No one in the field beyond that. As his eyes drifted to the woods - the final thing he could see on his limited horizon - he thought he caught the shape of a man standing in the shadows of the clearing that led to the paths. When he blinked and refocused, he saw only the shadows.
     
    The boy turned around, trembling, and moved towards the door. He leaned backwards slightly as if against compelling hands, and took short jerky steps with feet that barely left the floor.
     
    He peeked out into the hall and through the open door of his parents' bedroom. He saw the shapes of them under the sheets, and wanted to believe that they had slept in like him. But he could see one arm, his father’s, hanging over the side, limp and covered with something dark, a deep dull red, almost black, in the sunlight. The sheets were the same red color, and he knew they had been white.
     
    The boy slumped against the wall, the blood rushing through his veins now a palpable sound, and the dread and terror that had lived only in the night washed over him like rising water finally breaching the dam it had railed against. He didn’t want to go in and see. He didn’t want to go to Jake’s room either. He felt a scream building inside, building to a terrible force that would tear him apart if not released. He opened his mouth, began to take quick sharp breaths, each quick exhalation a wave stronger than the last, his despair and terror waiting to catch just the right one to ride and crest on his vocal chords.
     
    The screen door to the porch banged, and the pending scream downsized to a whimper, his body rigid, his instinct of self-preservation kicking in. He waited for more noise. Nothing indicated a presence in the house, but he did hear the sound of a vehicle start up from what sounded like the street out front. A vision of a police car or a neighbor flashed through his mind and he turned and ran down the stairs. Maybe they had knocked, but he just hadn’t heard. He needed to see and talk to and be held by someone alive.
     
    He reached the first floor and opened the door to step onto the porch. At the corner, a large white van idled with its turn signal on, though no other cars could be seen coming in any other direction. It remained stopped for a few moments more, and then the driver began a slow left turn. The boy didn’t know the van, and it looked to him like the kind that child molesters used to abscond with their unlucky victims. The