My family moved out in the middle of nowhere, as rent prices were too high to stay in town. We ended up in the middle of the woods in Redding California. The suburban my mother drove pulled into a parsonage on the edge of town, kicking dirt from the road as it came. An old church sat in the same driveway and beside the street there was nothing but gravel, trees, and the I-5 freeway. My brother and I piled out of the cab, stretching our legs in the driveway. The youngest of us, fussed in a car seat from the long drive. My mother pulled the baby out and held him to calm him down. His name was Todd but every one called him bear on account of his favorite plush.
We all stood outside of the dingy, yellow painted house. It’s outside rickety and the shingles on the roof had curled yet none of us seemed to mind. A bad marriage and a worse divorce had my mom call in a favor with a friend of hers out of town. Next thing we knew, we all piled into Redding, California being told.
“Don’t worry, you’ll see your dad in a month or two when we got it all worked out.” Chris and I, being 11 and 14 didn’t have much to say. We just looked at the shack and hoped there was a place to plug in our games. “Julian. You and Chris get the stuff in the house while I feed the bear. Then I’ll get us some burgers from the shop up the road, sound good?”
I nodded and Chris helped with only a little complaining. We were both exhausted from the drive and having none of it. The last fight we got into had our mom wind up in an emotional breakdown and neither of us wanted to see that again. So we did as asked and started falling in.
The inside had the basics. A dusty carpet, working plugs. Water that tasted like it came from a hose. Apparently, the preacher who lived in here before us was involved in some kind of scandal. We didn’t know much but My moms friend was a member of the church and they needed someone to keep an eye on the place. We needed a place to stay so it was a match made in heaven.
I remember the place smelled of moth balls and the faintest scent of a dog now long gone. I was allergic as the smell made my eyes itch, but I always wanted one so I never said a word about it. The living room was sectioned off with a wall. The back half held a fireplace with an extra bathroom by the glass back door. That's where Chris and I would stay. Mom would have the room down the hall with the toddler in a crib. The next two weeks we unpacked.
My mom had a job doing online counseling, tutoring on the side in her room. I’d babysit the bear while she worked, all of us going to church on Sundays at least out of obligation. The people who ran the service were in their ‘Golden years.’ They made the occasional snide comment about my mother being unmarried. Most of it went right over our heads and my mom grinned and bore it stoically. After all it was this or back to Boise. In the beginning of June school wasn't an issue. We spent our days watching TV and swinging acorns at each other from tubes of PVC.
Everything was fine, until I saw Chris looking out the window after sundown. He’d sit in his bed, face against the glass window beside him and stare into the night. Day after day the habit stayed. One day I finally put down the lingerie catalog I stole from the mall and asked him what he was doing.
“We’re the only ones out here right? Chris asked not so much as looking in my direction.
“Except for the cars on the road, yeah.” I wondered what it was he was getting at until he pointed outside.
“You see that?” He asked me as I peered over his shoulder and sure enough, I did. Way in the distance of those woods there was a small flicker of light. Out in the hills where to our knowledge it was nothing but trees and Shasta Lake on the other side.
“It doesn’t happen every day,” Chris explained scooting over to give me room to see. “At least once a week the light comes on and all the birds in the woods go quiet.”
“They do not.” This wasn't the first time he tried to scare me with nonsense but the look on his face told me he was nothing but serious. No giggle, no poorly hidden smirk. Only the look of curiosity, and a little fear. After replying in disbelief, I peered into the darkness and tried to look again.
The light flashed with a rhythmic pattern. It would go on, and off again, over and over, strangest thing ever. Something told me there was more to it than that yet I was more concerned with what Chris told me a second ago. I walked to the kitchen, bagged one of our bins of trash and headed outside to the dumpster. Tossing it in with a clang to listen and sure enough he was right. The woods were always alive with the howl of coyotes, chirp of birds. Even the occasional screech of an opossum. Our mother warned us about this as on the road here from Idaho but there it was. Not a sound save the drone of vehicles bounding down the freeway, nothing else but silence in between.
I came inside and told Chris not to worry about it. He returned to his video game and I to my ill-gotten gains but the women in lace weren't as fun to stare at. Something bugged me about the flicker. Three flickers, three long strips of black and three again. Over and over in their pattern. I tried to keep it out of my mind but the feeling of something wrong stayed with me even as I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, I tried not to think about it. My mom went on feeding baby carrots to the kid who was now very proud of himself for being able to hold one. Chris set up the TV to watch Saturday morning cartoons and I began putting the dishes in the wash to soak. I’d have helped yet I never knew a thing when it came to electronics.
I reached in a box in my room and grabbed an old Louisville slugger I got from my dad. A few baseballs followed and I was off to go outside and practice my swing. If I got lucky and practiced, I heard I could join the JV team when school started. The backyard, despite being in the woods, was cut short by a ring of poison oak. The only other option was the front yard. Aim high and try not to hit the church. Facing the mountains I got into my rhythm. I tossed the ball in the air with a swing of my bat and heard the crack as it sailed across the sky. It was poetry in motion as something about the process just put my brain at ease. Staring into the woods, that itch grew in the back of my mind.
Crack. Another ball whistled through the air. I wondered why it bothered me so much, staring into the distance.
Crack. This one leered left field and I thought it was because the pattern seemed so unnatural.
Crack. I overcompensated and it headed right. I reached in the box to grab another. It was almost as if the flickers were trying to tell me something.
They were trying to tell me something.
A wave of pins and needles ran through me as I came to the realization. I ran into my room so fast I banged into the glass door. Rubbing my nose and swearing to myself, I pulled it open with a heavy creak and tore into my remaining boxes.
My mother yelled across the house bouncing bear to keep him calm. “You alright?” “I’m okay,” I didn’t even look up from my boxes. Old robot toys and Little League trophies flew across the room as Chris walked in looking at me like I was nuts. Then I found it. A JROTC Manual a church camp gave me when I was young. This was just past 9/11 at the time and the army was more pushy when it came to marketing to kids.
I flipped through the chapter on survival tips and call signs till I saw the answer. A chart explaining Morse code showed every letter in a series of dots and dashes. Sure enough I was right.
Three dots, three lines, three dots... SOS. I showed it to Chris and he turned pale. He adjusted the glasses too big for his head, reading it over and over trying to prove me wrong. Try as he might there was no getting around it. That flicker was a call for help. Mom would never take us but we never wanted her to be in danger either. We didn’t think to call the cops and as a couple of stupid kids thought we would save the day. I will never forgive myself for what happened next.
Nightfall came and the flicker made its call. The two of us came with our flannel shirts on and tools in hand. I brought my baseball bat and Chris had his flashlight.
Standing in the tree-line, I pulled out my compass and checked our direction. The light was due east so as long as we followed suit, heading west when it was over we’d make it back okay. I explained this to Chris who nodded with a smirk. “As long as we don’t end up Coyote food.” We giggled at his joke and off we hiked, eager for adventure.
I remembered the trees were different in the night sky. They weren't the white Aspen trees we were used to seeing in the cold but the twisted red of manzanita. Gnarled branches of reaching oak hung above us and I couldn’t help the feeling of being watched. Brave beyond his years, Chris marched forward with a grim determination. Truth be told I was more scared than he was yet that signal was a call for help, and we had to go and save them.
We hiked along those trees for what felt like an hour. Chris shone his light at my compass and working together we stayed in the right direction. Roots from the trees made us stumble yet no one really got hurt except a few scrapes and a bruise along my shin. We stopped to marvel at the lack of animal life and how loud the sound of our trek seemed as it alone could be heard. Every crushed leaf and branch echoed in those woods as we climbed ever higher up the hills.
With our legs tired and bodies sore, we saw it in the distance. The flicker and shine of a light. I grabbed Chris and made him cut the flashlight and we crept low towards the source.
The woods broke to a clearing. At the center on a small ridge was an old shack. I learned later it was an outpost for the surveyors who long since found a better place to work. The panels and boards that made the thing were splintered, rotted even to the point of crumbling to powder at the ends. I most remember it smelled of urine and a biting coppery scent as we drew near. Looking closer, we found what we came for. A candle lantern glowed in a filthy window and a lone hand waved between the light and glass.
Fear gripped us both yet we swallowed it down to press on. The iron door handle glimmered like ink in the moonlight. Chris stood behind me while I held the door with my free hand gripping the bat. Swallowing hard, I turned the handle and rammed my shoulder in. The lantern glowed in the darkened hovel, and in the corner sat a girl. She couldn’t have been much older than us at the time. In the dark with hair so blonde it was almost white, and freckles dotted a face in terror. She cowered in the corner, arms shielding her face as a pathetic cry escaped her lips. Her bare legs curled to her chest, she wore a one piece bathing suit with a chain around her neck. The choke chain made for dogs held her captive in that shack. The irons were bolted to the wall so she could barely make it to the window and nothing more. Compared to the rest of the place, the chains looked brand new. Someone had made the place just with her in mind. The hand shielding her from the light wore a band from a water park and her face wore a mix of bruises and fear.
“Please… don’t hurt me anymore.” She sobbed as we stood in the doorway. Our silhouette making us look like monsters. Her plea for mercy snapped us out of our shock and we immediately came to help. Chris removed his flannel while I looked around the house for a key.
“Hey, we saw your signal. It’s okay, we’re here to help,” Chris consoled her while I checked around the table and chair for a key. The place had all the signs of a regular stay. Beer bottles, canned chicken and jerky. A mattress in the corner covered in small glass pipes and empty baggies. A bucket and a bag of dog food were left beside the girl, an even clearer sign of her conditions.
“Ask her where the key is,” I whispered low across the room, searching around the counters for a way to get her free. She pointed to the top of a tool closet used as a coat rack. I climbed up the side and sure enough, as I reached my hand above me I felt the cold metal keys in my grasp.
I hopped down and we set her free. The rash and cuts around her neck must have burned but she choked a sigh of relief. She shivered in the cold, rubbing the wounds where the choke chain had been.
“How'd you get the lantern tied up like this?” I asked her as she got her bearings.
“He said if I was quiet I could have the light.” Her chest heaved with the panic attack brewing at the thought of her captor and she started to cry. “He hurt me.” She sobbed holding Chris’ shirt as a gift of decency to her chest, warding off the memories and trauma.
The sight made us want to cry as well but we held it together and got her to her feet. As we stood, a rumbling from an old engine came.
Headlights ripped across the night. A car door slammed and a man came running from a pickup truck that looked as ancient and beat up as the house. He stood in the door way cornering the three of us. A towering figure, obese with a second chin that wriggled as he spoke. He wore a grease-stained wife beater that stunk with malt liquor and filth. Off colored stains pooled around his neck and pits. A large belt buckle that peeked beneath the weight of his hanging stomach over jeans covered in food. His arms were thick and the hair that crawled from the sides of his balding head to his mustache was a slick oily black. His breath was hot and stunk as he swore at us demanding, “Where do you think you’re going with that.” His disgusting hand pointed a round, fat finger at the girl.
I couldn’t say a word. I did the one thing the synapse in my mind allowed and I threw my baseball bat as hard as I could. It spun through the room and hit his skull with a crack. He stumbled back enraged and I grabbed a lone chair in the room, smashing it against the window.
Chris and I grabbed the girl, tossing her through the hole. She landed in the broken glass and dirt with a thud yet adrenaline kept her going. I hopped over next with Chris behind me. I turned to catch my brother and help him land. His hands gripped the windowsill as his head and chest were free. His eyes widened, and I heard him scream as he disappeared, pulled back into the darkness. The man roared over him as the crack of my baseball bat cut my brothers screams short.
Again...
And again...
And again… Until a sound like a watermelon popped with a final swing.
I screamed. I screamed until my throat tore and tears ran down my eyes. As I wailed in the night for the brother I couldn’t save that girl pulled me to my feet and we ran. Coward I am we ran, leaving my poor brother far behind. The moon did little to light our way but we tore through bush and tree alike. The man chased after us, still holding the bat wet with my brother’s blood. Branches cut through our shirts. Blood trickled down the scrapes from our limbs as that girl and I retreated. Winding trails were no longer a question. The only way for us was down. Down and away from that monster who smelled of cheap booze. His voice roaring over two terrified children in the dark.
I pulled the girl up as she fell and she did the same for me. Our tiny bodies saving us from much of the climbing around the thicket our pursuer had to deal with to follow. The only reason I’m still alive. On and on we ran until finally we made it through. My knees hit the dirt road with the girl right behind me. I didn’t know what would happen next but the faintest voice in the back of my mind said, “Go home. Go Home.”
So I did. I grabbed the girl by my brother’s shirt, pulling at her to follow. We ran on the rocks that cut her bare feet but she didn’t care. What we’d do when we got home I’d no idea but we would make it there.
Around the bend to my gravel driveway, we saw police cars. Red and blue beacons of safety as we collapsed in my yard and cried. My mother ran to us calling for Chris. Where is my brother? She had to know. All I could do is sob, tears telling her I let him die.
The girl’s name was Allison. She went alone into a bathroom at a water park in Redding where the monster waited with a large rough hand and a rag full of chloroform. A light day of customers for the park so the minutes it took for her to pass out were free of prying eyes for him to work. Nobody raised an eye when an assumed father carried a sleeping girl to his truck outside. She was meant to be sold from that place and never seen again, the fifth missing girl in a month.
The police sent out a search party, dogs and all. They found my brothers body, maimed so bad it needed a closed casket funeral, paid for by the church. We moved a week later as I couldn’t sleep anymore and when I did, I woke up screaming. After a few months living in a friend’s living room life came close to a happy ending.
Allison grew up and left for Oregon and unfortunately, I'm still here, working at a gas station night shift. Now and again I’ll come to smoke at my brothers grave. I tell him how I'm sorry it wasn't me who died instead. Bear grew up and joined track and field and neither was a baseball or bat ever seen in my house again.
I got a job here and life moved on but sometimes I look out my window knowing they never found him.
Even worse I’ll peer into the dark of the mountain woods and I swear I’ll see that candle, flickering in the dark.