A History of Wild Places(20)

I nod. “Our job as community security is never done.”

Parker waves a hand dismissively then turns in the doorway, stepping out onto the road. I listen to the sound of his feet thumping sleepily against the dirt, making the half-mile walk up the road into the heart of Pastoral, until they fade in with the dark and are gone completely.

My thumb traces the edge of the mug.

I peer out at the road, at the path that leads away from Pastoral to a world I’ve never seen.

I leave the mug on the desk and stand up, walking through the doorway onto the road. The gate beside the hut is rusted and locked in place—it’s been too long since someone new has arrived safely to Pastoral.

I breathe in the mild night air, the scent of lilacs blooming in the ditch beside the road, and stare out into the dark. Into the nothing beyond the road.

I take a step past the gate. Then another.

I push my hands into my pockets and think about Parker’s story, about chasing his dog past the boundary. Calla would be furious if she knew what I have been thinking for too long now, the notions crackling along synapses, the idea I can’t shake—that’s tugged at me for the last year. Maybe longer.

But she hides things from me too—buried thoughts beyond her water-deep eyes. A part of my wife she keeps hidden, a feeling I can’t put words to, but I sense it there all the same.

I look back at the gate, the tiny, cramped guard hut where I’ve sat nearly every night for too many years, too many seasons—snow and biting autumn winds and the heat of summer when not even a breeze slips through the doorway to cool my overheated flesh. How many hours have I spent in that room, drinking the same ash-coffee, staring out at this stretch of road, wondering.

I walk to the edge of the road and find a small stone in the tall reeds. I pick it up; my heart already beginning to batter my rib cage. With the stone held in my right hand, I walk away from the guard hut, down the dirt road, careful that my boots are quiet against the dirt.

I walk away from my post.

I leave Pastoral.



* * *




The border of Pastoral is marked by a wood fence along the right side of the road, and nailed to the last post is a hand-painted sign that reads: PRIVATE PROPERTY.

The sign is pointless—no one has come this way in over ten years. No one has made it through the dense forest. And if they did, they’d surely be sick with rot, and we couldn’t allow them through anyway. It’s not safe like it used to be. Still, I step across the boundary, and into the land that exists outside Pastoral: the place we do not cross.

But this is not the first time.

I walk five paces and stop at the misshapen rock placed on the road. The first time I set the rock here—over a year ago now—I remember my heart beating wildly and my breathing so loud I feared someone from the community would hear me. I crouched down and quietly placed the rock on the dirt road—marking how far I had made it—then I sprinted back to the safety of the gate and the hut. I didn’t go down the road for a week after that—I was too terrified. Instead, I would stare in the bathroom mirror each morning and lean close to the glass, examining my eyes, looking for something that wasn’t right: for the black of my pupils to expand like mud seeping up from the earth. I was looking for signs of the disease.

But it never came.

A week later, under a nearly full moon, I gathered enough courage to walk back down the road—my eyes darting into the woods, listening for the sounds of trees splitting open, bark peeling back—and when I reached the palm-size stone, I walked five paces past it, placing another stone in the dirt at my feet.

I’ve repeated this every night for the last year: walking five more paces up the road, then leaving another stone to mark my progress. I’ve been risking my life for something I’m not sure of, just to see a little farther, to know what lies beyond the next rise in the road.

And tonight, when I reach the last stone in the line, I look back at the gate, the little hut, both still visible in the dark. But ahead of me, the road makes an abrupt left turn, and I’ve never been able to see what’s beyond it. I squeeze the rock I plucked from the tall grass, and silently count off my paces. One, two, three, four… I swallow down a breath. Five. I’m not quite around the bend in the road, I can’t quite see what’s beyond it, but I set the stone on the ground at my feet—my heart a drum. I’m so close. In the trees, I hear a cracking sound, like someone running a hooked claw down the rough bark of a tree, peeling it away to reveal the soft white center inside. Like flesh. Like the parts of a tree you shouldn’t see.

The trees are separating themselves.

But I don’t run, I don’t turn back. I take another step forward, beyond the last stone.

Curiosity does this: It prods at the gut; it pushes fear aside and causes smart men to do stupid things.

I look back at the gate as it slips from view, and I round the bend in the road, my mind no longer counting my paces—my legs carrying me forward, one after the other—and then I see something ahead. Resting just off the side of the road.

A vehicle.

A truck.



* * *




There’s a feeling sometimes, when you wake up from a deep, deep sleep and your eyes flash open and for the briefest half moment you can’t remember where you are—the room and the movement of the curtains against the open window all feel foreign in that distant, not quite lucid way. Like you might still be asleep.