Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
FOREST
The tires of the motorcycle spit water into the air as I race down the dreary highway. The deep summer greens of the forest are trapped by low-hanging clouds that suffocate the mountains ahead.
A sharp stabbing pain pierces my left ear first, popping from the pressure. And then when the same happens to my right ear, it’s a little softer. A little more quiet.
I’ve been on the road for six days now, stopping each night at the cheapest, most run-down motels dotted along my path.
I’m going nowhere in particular because I don’t know where the fuck this place that’s haunted me for eight years is.
I have a vague idea and that’s about it.
The place I used to call home is somewhere up in the mountains, cut off from the rest of the world.
These roads seem familiar enough, but I’ve only seen them once before, and it’s not like I was able to write them into memory.
I was running for my life, adrenaline at an all-time high.
I barely remember anything about the day I left.
My life before that? Never stepped foot outside the walls.
It was too dangerous for the chosen one.
Only a select few were ever allowed to leave, to go into nearby towns for supplies.
They were the lucky ones, but looking back, they had to have known it was all bullshit.
Touching the outside world meant experiencing it, which meant seeing the world for what it was and not what we were told it to be.
It’s the only gas station for miles, and of course it looks like it’s been ripped out of a backwoods slasher.
I pull up to the pump and kill the engine, climb off the side of the bike, and set my matte black helmet on the leather seat.
There’s a bunch of stickers stuck over the credit card slot on the pump.
I let out an exhausted sigh as I make my way to the convenience store that’s painted white, but the lower half is stained with dirt.
The paint on the paneling is scraped raw in places, and the windows are covered in rust. There’s a sign duct-taped to the window on the front door that reads Cash Only!
Storm clouds gather on the horizon, but for now the sun shines bright upon the gas station, like I’m standing in the eye of a storm.
A bill clangs against itself as I hurry through the squeaky glass door.
A man stands behind the counter, glancing down at a magazine. As I approach, he shuffles the magazine to the side, but not before I can see it’s an old porno magazine that looks decades old. The red-headed model on the cover has her bare tits exposed and a nether region flanked by a curly forest.
The cashier punches his tongue against the inside of his cheek as his hollow eyes lift to meet my presence. He’s gruff, big and stocky, with slicked-back hair that’s more grey than it is black. “I read the articles.”
What this man does is no business of mine, so I greet him with a polite enough nod as I slap a twenty on the counter. “Can I get fifteen in gas?”
“Which pump?” he huffs.
Are you fucking kidding me? I twist to my side and gesture out the window. “The bike out front.”
You know, the only other fucking vehicle out there?
He mumbles something under his breath as he takes the cash into his hand, shoves it into his back pocket, and retrieves a five-dollar bill from the register.
He slides it my way and when I reach to grab it, his hand doesn’t budge.
My eyes meet his, and I see something else in them.
An emptiness, a look torn between dread and confusion.
He finally relents, pulling back his hand.
I stuff the money into my wallet and make a quick retreat, but I don’t make it very far. With the door half open, the bell above clanging, I turn back to him with an uneasy feeling in my gut. I don’t think this guy is going to know shit about shit, but there’s no harm in at least asking.
“I’m looking for a place,” I say quietly.
“You found a place,” he says with a barely there chuckle.
“A specific place.” I step back towards the counter, the door coming to a squeaking close behind me, the bell ringing once more. “A community in the mountains.”
He cocks his head over his shoulder, glancing out the window behind him. There’s nothing but endless foliage back there, where the mountains tower into the sky. He turns back to me, eyes sunken. Points at the door. “Blue Falls is about twenty miles up the road.”
“Not the place I’m looking for.” I shake my head. “It’s a small community.”
“Yeah, I don’t know that place.” He reaches for a stack of maps, grabs the top one, and slides it over the counter. “Maybe this will help you find what you’re looking for.”
I take the map into my hand and wave it around. “Maybe.”
I leave the man to himself.
Fifteen dollars is enough for almost a full tank, and should be enough to get where I’m going, assuming I can find my way. I walk the bike away from the pumps and park it on a small lot of gravel.
I place a cigarette between my chapped lips and grab my Zippo lighter.
It takes three flicks to spark the fire, filling my nostrils with the alluring smell of butane.
I raise the lighter to my face, cupping a hand around the fire.
The end of the cigarette burns bright and fast—the tight-packed paper at the end doused in an inferno.
The first inhale singes like the warmth of a baby blanket pressed to the back of my throat.
The second calms me.
The third clears my mind.
I snap the lighter closed and catch a glance at the engraved words on the side, Can’t Go Back.
Strange.
With the cigarette safely tucked between my lips, I sprawl out the map on the leather seat of my bike. It amazes me that at some point in time, everyone used these to get anywhere. I honestly can’t believe people traveled at all before modern technology.
But out here in buttfuck nowhere, technology doesn’t work.
It takes a good minute to figure out where I’m at on the map, which is a good minute too long because there’s a fucking star symbol etched in red Sharpie. There aren’t many highways on the map, but there are endless side roads and tiny villages.
The map is fucking useless.
I grab the cigarette from my mouth with two fingers and ash the long tail at the end. A sudden gust of wind blows the ash onto my left arm. I shake the ashes away and see a familiar visage.
Right there on my arm.
I drop the cigarette onto the ground and grind it into the gravel with my boot.
I take a quick look at the map, and then my arm again.
“No fucking way,” I whisper to myself as I lower my arm onto the seat right beside the map.
The evidence is indisputable.
The very highway I’m on is etched into my skin, flanked on both sides by a never-ending forest. I can’t remember why I got this tattoo. I barely remember when. I follow the road with my eyes, tracing my way home to where there’s a small X on my skin.
I rip the map into my hands and pull it closer to my face. Based on the guide at the bottom, I’m about forty miles south of a ravine that cuts beneath the highway where there looks to be a narrow road to the west.
Thunder roars as the dark, heavy clouds crash together in the sky, flashes of sapphire blue stabbing through the eerie visage above.
The storm that once simmered as if it weren’t a threat now breaks open, a sudden onslaught of torrential rain pounding the earth.
I can barely see five feet ahead on the road.
The fog rolls from the forest and creeps across the highway.
Droplets of rain drip down the visor of my helmet, blocking my vision of the road ahead.
I pull over to the side of the road, kill the engine, and remove the helmet from my head.
The rain feels cold against my buzzed head as the wind rips across the highway.
To my right, there’s a ravine that flows through a tunnel dug beneath the road.
I climb off my bike, my feet splashing into a puddle of water, and peer over the rusted guardrail.
The creek rages with an anger that can only be summoned by the Wilds, if I were to believe in such an entity.
I don’t. Not anymore. Not for ten years.
I swing one foot over the guardrail and then the other, landing on the other side of it.
There’s a rugged path built of large, mossy rocks that leads down to the water.
I carefully climb down into the ravine and look to the side where water rushes through the tunnel.
And in that tunnel, I see myself running for my life.
Dirty, sweaty, and exhausted after having run all night.
It’s the tunnel that led me to my freedom and now the tunnel leading me straight back to the place I know I shouldn’t return.
But someone tried to kill me, and I have to find out why.
I make my way back up to the road, get back on my bike, and coast across the road where a narrow, gravel road peeks out from beneath low-hanging branches.
It’s a slow drive up the mountain, the rocks slippery beneath the tires. About an hour into the drive, the gravel gives way to a muddy disaster. I pull the bike off the side of the path, hiding it behind a fallen tree, and leave my helmet sitting on the seat.
Every step feels equally weighted between the familiar and the dreadful. I’m tired, exhausted from my journey across the country, but alive. I know where I’m going, but not the exact path.
Another few hours go by, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to dredge through the mud that’s now filled the inside of my boots. My feet sink into the mud with every step, like I’m sinking into the goddamn Earth.
Up ahead, I notice a gate hidden behind the fog. As I draw nearer, a watchtower appears. Directly off the path is a gravel parking lot with a truck and a van parked. Something tells me those vehicles won’t be going down the mountain any time soon.
I peer up to see a man drawing a bow and aiming downward.
“Announce yourself,” he yells.
I wave my hands in the air. “Hello.”
“Holy fucking shit.” The man lowers his weapon. “Forest Wilde?”
I laugh uncomfortably. “Somehow you recognize me with all these tattoos?”
He pulls a hood from his head, drooping it over his shoulders. He’s tall and slender, with dark brown hair and a pale face. “I swear I’m looking at a ghost.”
He has no fucking idea. I just wish I knew who I was looking at.
The man runs along the wall-walk and spins the crank, forcing the gate walls to open outward. He doesn’t crank it all the way. Instead, he cranks it just enough so that I can walk through the narrow passage. After I’m through, he closes the gate behind me and joins me on the ground.
He’s out of breath by the time he reaches me. “I swear my eyes are lying to me. I never thought I’d see your face again.”
“Same,” I say lowly, my eyes searching over the man’s facial features, many of which he shares with me. Sharp, angular jawline with prominent cheekbones and eyes that match the forest behind us.
He places two fingers in his mouth, emitting a whistle that pierces through my ears. Up on the wall-walk, another man in a hood appears. “I’m going to guide our visitor to the manor. I’ll be back.”
The strange man who I absolutely should remember guides me up the increasingly narrow path where trees hang overhead, blocking out any and all sunlight. He doesn’t talk much, but from what I can remember, that doesn’t seem too out of the usual.
He bows his head and laughs. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Sure I do,” I lie through my teeth.
He stops and turns to me. “What’s my name?”
“Something… woodsy.”
“I’m Bashian.” He reaches out his hand to shake mine. “It’s nice meeting you again after all these years. I’m your cousin.”
A flashback tears into my mind, that of Bashian, Tucker, and I standing beside a burning fire, the sounds of a screaming woman trapped inside.
“I remember.” I resume walking forward, further up the mountain. “You have two siblings, right?”
“Darius and Zena. They’re going to shit bricks when they see you.”
I don’t plan on making a grand tour, but the less I say the better. “How much longer?”
He smiles and points ahead.
The fog retreats back into the wilderness as the sun shines down on Wilde Manor, the home I grew up in. There’s one door on the back side of the mansion, and no windows on the ground floor. Above, there’s a balcony flanked on each side by rows of stained-glass windows.
I know it’s not too late to run.
I know I could take out Bashian and the man in the hood back at the gate.
I’m well-versed in running, but my feet are stuck in place.
There’s a magnetism to this place that pulls people in and never—ever—lets them fucking go.
Something draws my attention back to the balcony, where a man stands.
It’s Tucker fucking Wilde, my unhinged stepbrother.
He stands with his arms stretched out wide, his hands gripping the railing. His smile is even wider, torn like the cracks in a wall. “I knew you were coming. I was out huntin’ and I could hear your voice in the pines.”
”Bullshit,” I mumble under my breath.
“Welcome home, brother.” He throws his arms out to the side. “Your kingdom awaits.”