Emmen woods

The clouds hung pregnant with overdue rain, slightly reddened by the emerging sun. The first few drops signaled the fate of the morning as a downpour blanketed the sloping hills surrounding the house. Grey light leaked through the curtains wearying the kitchen. And …the rain stopped! The clouds were gone and a familiar figure stood on the nearest hill. A section of the window began to fog. A line emerged in the film, carved by an invisible finger and was joined by a second and a third till it formed a word. Then the word disappeared, and as if the breath had been taken back, so did the misty residue. The rain continued. The light dimmed. I smiled. It was done.
***
I held my breath and waited for the steam to condense and drip to the muddy platform. The stench of grease assaulted me as I was compelled to breath. Falling in line behind the others, I clambered up into the grey compartment. The train lurched forward and the concrete platform slid from view traded with the countryside. The pale greens and yellowy English browns picked up speed and melded forming a continually changing collage of foliage. Twenty seven minutes later the train made its final stop at Stadskanaal. From the station I took a cab to the forest. From there I walked.

The Emmen forest towered above me, the dense shrub between the white trunks made it impenetrable by foot. I found the logging track easily enough. When the department sent me, the instructions were relatively vague. Basically it entailed finding out what had happened to the six men. We had no leads. When the first three lumberjacks had gone missing, police had suspected some pissed off greenies were to blame. This idea was quickly dismissed when the next three disappeared. This was because one of them was not a lumberjack but a protesting greenie who had chained himself to a tree. I don’t think they expected me to find anything; they just wanted the public to see they were doing something about it.

Gradually the path widened till it opened into a small clearing. The first thing I realized was that it had not been logged. For some reason the trees and shrubs simply refused to grow here. The second yet almost simultaneous realization was that the canopy was much thicker here letting in only specks of light to dance on the forest floor. But then as I looked closer, I almost imagined I saw the flickering lights hovering inches off the grass. I stepped forward further into the clearing and they disappeared.

The air was beginning to chill so I lit a cigarette and backtracked down the path.
“Mister”
I snapped around, dropping the lighter, and focused into the clearing. A girl stood provocatively with her hair cascading gently over her shoulders. She looked no more than ten years old but her voice was mature and intentionally sultry.
“Hello?”
She didn’t reply; she turned away and disappeared down the path. I followed. Her steps were long, methodical and graceful like a pendulum, unhindered by the winding path. She moved with great speed and I began to fall behind by quite a distance. I lost sight of her and had to run to catch up. The path ended. The girl was gone.

The girl had led me nowhere and now the path refused to take me back. It seemed to have no end. Each new bend looked as unfamiliar as the last. The light was beginning to fade. I knew something was wrong, it had taken half the time following the girl to the dead end then it had coming out. The sky was almost black. Using a torch, I continued.
“Mister”
The light blinked off. I was left in the blackness surrounded by ghostly white tree trunks in a maze possibly with no end.

A speck of white light flew at me; hovered inches above my head then darted away. A second, this time blue light, did the same. Within seconds, I was enveloped by hundreds of tiny multicolored lights. They made no sound of their own but caused the leaves to play loudly on the forest floor. I was stunned. Their erratic movements became more and more synchronized as they spun in an upwards spiral around me. I felt weightless and happy. My feet had left the ground. Now my face was caressed by the cool night air. The moment my feet touched returned to earth, the lights disappeared. But now the moonlight, no longer choked by the canopy, flooded the grassy slope with pallid light.

“Mister”
The voice emerge from behind and inexplicably I couldn’t force myself to face it
“You shouldn’t have come here, now you will end up like them”
“Please…I’ll do anything”
“You have nothing to give me to ensure that you will keep your word. Just like the others.”
My pocket lit up. The torch had come back to life. Producing the pen torch from my jeans I turned illuminating a tree much wider than the ones in the forest. The pool of light traveled up the trunk. From one of the larger branches six pieces of rope hung, lodged in the white bark. Attached to them were the bodies of six men.

As I stood frozen to the spot, I felt a heartbeat, not from a chest but reverberating through the air. It became louder and more distinct till I could feel it moving my insides. Rope burnt my neck then my feet left the ground one last time. I felt my left side brush something cold. Then I felt nothing.
***
Only a few miles from that tree, two days later, in a cottage on the outskirts of town sat a man and his son. They had spent the morning restacking the woodpile and were now relaxing on the patio.

“That’s the seventh person gone missing in those woods. Something weird is going on. What you reckon?”
The boy shrugged his gaunt shoulders and looked contemplatively at the green weatherboards. It wasn’t often that his father asked for his opinion but when he did it was wise to give an answer or at least look like he was thinking about it.
“What ya say we check it out?”
Although this sounded like a question, James knew his father’s mind had already been made up about the matter and it was best that he went along with it.
“Can Pos come?”
“Yeah, but you’re carrying her food. Take enough for three days to be safe.”

James struggled quietly with his pack and followed his father’s long gait through the winding path. Pos followed dutifully behind the boy, occasionally running off to sniff a tree or dig a hole. They had walked for twenty minutes without exchanging a word when James finally suggested a rest.

“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing…just need a drink”
“Make it quick; have to set up camp before dark.”
“Yep”

As James lowered his pack, he noticed something on the ground. He fingered the object then quickly placed it in his pocket. The boy took a swig of water then spat a mouthful on the dry dirt to form a blob of mud.
“Don’t waste it”
He swallowed the rest.
“Ready then?”
The boy nodded. He lifted the pack onto his back and was about to catch up to his father when they heard a voice.
“Mister?”
Pos began to growl.
“Hello?”
The man’s voice broke on the latter part of the word. He motioned for James to stay as he ventured further down the track. James struggled with the buckle on his pack then waited.

The light was quickly fading and still his father had not returned. James lit a small fire. The forest was quiet. Only the flames crackled. Once Pos was fed, James lay down beside the fire and looked up between the thin gap of trees at the sky. It was dark when he slept.

The guttural growl of the Rottweiler brought James from his sleep.
“Dad?”
A log rolled in the fire. Sparks flew high in the darkness. They didn’t die. Instead, they gathered intensity as they rose higher and higher above the fireplace until they reached their apex then plummeted towards the boy. He sheltered his face. The impact never came. The sparks hovered around him, still spiraling clockwise, ruffling his hair. His feet left the ground and he gasped.

As the lights whizzed past his face, James saw that they were not sparks as he had imagined. Each individual light was slightly different in color from the last from pale blues to vibrant gold’s. He knew what they were but could not bring himself to say it. When he landed, the forest came alive and from the shadows emerged small figures. Their eyes were a kaleidoscopic confusion of blues and greens giving them an air of dignity amidst their well soiled bodies. Soon he was surrounded by a dozen of these midget men, lit up by the faeries. Entranced by this new world, he did not resist as these small human like creatures tied him to a tree.

In the distance he heard a voice. “James? Where are you boy? Can you hear me?”
His eyes ignited and he opened his mouth to yell. Nothing came. He tried to scream. Not a sound escaped his quivering lips.

The night resisted but soon gave in to morning. The boy blinked then moved uncomfortably in his dew covered clothes. The rope still bound him to the tree but it had loosened slightly during the night. He kicked something. Pos whined momentarily before resuming her sleep.

“Hello? Dad? Anyone?”
The trees talked amongst themselves. There was no reply.

It was midday before she came for him.
***
I left my son on the track and followed the girl. She led me down a track then disappeared at a dead end. I headed back in the dark with my dolphin torch leading the way. The path went forever. In the breeze I heard her voice again. It was like a whisper yet as audible as a scream. My torch went out and I noticed small lights on the ground. They spun around me, faster and faster till I was weightless inside them.

When my feet returned to the earth, I was not on the path.
“How much do you love your son?”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want you to answer my question.”
“Not until you answer mine.”
“You are in no position to negotiate Mr. Stein”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know a lot about you. I know that you would do anything for your son. I know that your son is not where you left him.”
At this, I sat and pleaded. “Don’t hurt him, I’ll do anything.”
The girl stood before me and held out her hand. I grasped it and she lifted me to my feet.
“You are lucky. You have something to offer. I will show you the way out. From the moment you leave these woods, you will have one day to kill him.”
“Who? Kill who?”
“Go home. She will tell you there. And remember, one day or James dies.”
“Don’t hurt my boy…” and as an after thought “…Who is ‘she’?”
There was no reply. The lights came back and took me out onto the path.

I waited for the lights to go, then I raced up the track to where I had left James. A patch of bent grass burned a green brown in the light of the glowing coals. I called out to him. There was no reply. Knowing I didn’t have any time to waste, I made my way home and waited.
***
I waited unaware. Not knowing who ‘she’ was. I stood at the kitchen window and looked out over the sloping hills. The rain stopped. Although it was only a light shower, the sudden absence of the tinkering on the tin roof caught my attention. The glass fogged and a name appeared. I knew exactly who he was. He had been all over the news in the last few months concerning the forest logging. People were outraged that he continued to send lumberjacks into the woods when seven people had disappeared without trace. I found his address and left for Sneek.

Five hours later I arrived. His house was just like all the others on Curaghmore Street. Towering linear giants, glowing white in the darkness. I knocked. Nothing. I waited. I raised my hand to knock again. I heard footsteps. I waited. A man answered the door. He rubbed his eyes then looked me up and down.
“Yes?” He drew out that one word in disdain.
“Um…Is Mr Lingerman here?”
The man continued to inspect me. Sizing me up for something. He then glanced at his watch.
“No, and if he was I don’t suspect he would want to talk to you lot at this hour.”
“I’m not a reporter. If that’s what you think. I’m a…colleague.”
“It’s two in the morning. What business can’t wait till a more agreeable hour?”
“Please, I must talk to him…”
“He’s not here. You might find him down at the Lorenz.”
“Thankyou”
The man grunted then closed the door.

I found him on the pier, alone. He was leaning on the rail under a puddle of yellow light, intrigued by the inky blackness that was the sea. The Café was occupied by a continual flow of customers even at this time of the morning and I knew I would have to wait. Around two in the morning, he left the dock. He walked slowly, stumbling once on the uneven boards. His eyes were merely black marks in a deeply creviced face. I nodded as he walked past then followed at a distance.
I could only think about my son when I pulled the trigger. After the shot, he stood still. At first I thought I had missed, but slowly he lowered himself to the ground till he was crouched in the gutter. Red painted the road in front of him. I ran.

Back in the kitchen I waited.

The clouds were pregnant with overdue rain, they hung thick in the sky, slightly reddened by the rising sun. The first few drops signalled the fate of the morning as a downpour blanketed the sloping hills. Grey light leaked through the curtains making the kitchen depressingly tired. And…the rain stopped! The clouds were gone and now James stood on the nearest hill. As I stood at the kitchen window I noticed a section of the glass fog up in front of me. A line emerged in the opaque film, carved by an invisible finger. This was joined by a second and a third till it formed a word. ‘Thankyou’. Then the word disappeared, and as if the breath had been taken back, so did the misty residue. The rain continued. The light dimmed. I smiled. It was done.