The Woods Are Dark

“Get going,” Lilly said.

Cordie clasped the dead girl’s arm, and pulled her to a sitting position. A fecal odor filled her nostrils. Holding her breath, she worked her way around to the girl’s back. She reached under the armpits and hugged the chest, locking her hands just below the breasts. She started to lift. The body felt leaden.

“Do you want me to help?” Lilly asked.

Cordie nodded.

“I get the head.”

“Huh?”

“You killed her, so you get first tibbies. So take the head. Everybody does, ’cause the brain’s the best part. So you take first tibbies on the head, and give it to me.”

“Okay,” Cordie muttered.

“It’s a deal?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. First off, don’t try picking her up. Too hard. We’ll each take a leg, and just drag her.”

Cordie nodded. She stood, spreading her tangled hair away from her face. Her fingers touched a cheek. She glanced at them. The tips were shiny with blood. Her face felt numb and swollen. She hadn’t realized it was bleeding, though. Looking down at herself, she saw that much of her body was scratched and bruised, and streaked with blood.

“Look at me,” she mumbled. “Jesus, look at me.”

“Look at her” Lilly said, nodding toward the body. “Come on.” She picked up Kigit’s right foot.

The boys started walking away. The chubby girl followed them, her dimpled buttocks jiggling as she walked.

Cordie picked up the left foot. She and Lilly leaned forward, and the body moved. They began to walk. It skidded along behind them.

The boys led the way back to the thicket. They picked up part of the bodies.

Cordie lowered her eyes, unwilling to look at their cargo of arms and legs.

God, how could any of this be!

Have they done this to Mom and Dad?

Maybe Mom’s alive. Maybe they raped her and let her join, like me, and we can run off together. But we’d have to find Dad, first. If he’s alive.

If he’s alive. But how could he be?

It’s possible, she thought.

Anything’s possible. None of this makes sense, so anything is possible, even Dad coming in with the National Guard and slaughtering all these bastards.

The body caught on something.

Without looking, Cordie jerked fiercely. It pulled free.

“How far to the village?” she asked Lilly.

“A ways.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Lander Dills, perched in a tree where he’d spent the past few hours in restless sleep, opened his eyes. The forest was bright with daylight.

He sidestepped away from the trunk. Holding on to an upper branch, he urinated into space. His stream glinted silver in the sunlight.

“Ruth and Lander sitting in a tree,” he recited. “P-i-s-s-i-ng.

He laughed, but his laughter died.

No Ruth.

Lost.

O lost, and by the wind grieved.

Wolfe. Thomas Wolfe.

You can’t go home again. No home to go home to. No Ruth, no Cordelia.

Just me.

There is a wolf in me.

He pulled his hatchet free of the branch where he’d left it embedded. He dropped it to the ground. Then he climbed down from the tree, careful not to abrade himself on its rough bark.

On the ground, he stretched. He ached as if every muscle had turned to stone. His arms and legs were bruised. Dozens of scratches crisscrossed his skin. He was lumpy with welts, probably from insect bites. He itched all over. Gingerly, he scratched a mosquito bite on the side of his penis.

A bath is what he needed. A dip in the stream.

A few minutes of quick walking took him to it. He put down his hatchet, and plunged in. The cool water felt good on his irritated skin. It made the itching stop. In midstream, he stood. He peeled off his vest and turned it, studying it in the morning sunlight.

The skin was dark and smooth, the tattoo stunning.

“Stunning,” Lander said.

The tattoo’s naked woman stood with her legs spread wide. Her red pubic hair was shaped like a valentine heart. Her big breasts had red nipples. Her protruding tongue was forked like a snake’s, and a nest of vipers writhed atop her head.

Medusa!

In the palm of each hand, she held a dark nipple of the man who had worn her on his chest.

Who wore her no more.

Well, his chest still wore her.

“But I’m wearing his chest,” Lander said. He put it on. It clung to his back with a clammy touch that made him shiver.

Suddenly, he heard a voice. A distant voice, but too close. From the direction of his tree. He stood motionless, listening. The whispering rush of the stream was loud. It hid all but the most obvious sounds. Good thing one had talked.

Blessed is he who speaks for he shall warn Lander.

He gazed along the shore, but saw no one.

He looked downstream. Twenty yards off, he saw a bend. If he could make it that far, he’d be well out of sight.

But so would the intruder.

Lander wanted to see him. Or them.

Fair game.

So he quietly sidestroked downstream. Halfway to the bend, he swam toward the shore. The bank, here, was high and steep. Roots of a nearby tree hung out the dirt wall and drooped into the water. Lander squeezed among them. He squatted so that only his head remained above the surface of the water.

At once, he heard splashing. He looked upstream through the cage of roots. There, just where he’d been standing a minute ago, a girl was plunging through the water.

A chubby thing, by the looks of her. She swam a bit, then waded out, skin shiny, ass jiggling. On the far shore, she turned around. A pudge, all right. With tiny, glossy boobs. And a spare hand hanging over her hairless slit.

It dropped from sight as she sat down and crossed her legs.

She called, using unknown words.

Male voices called back.

Then Lander saw three boys in the stream, carrying arms and legs. All teenagers. In the deep part, they