The Boy from the Woods
Harlan Coben
To Ben Sevier
Editor and friend
Twelve books and counting
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From the North Jersey Gazette
April 18, 1986
ABANDONED “WILD BOY” FOUND IN THE WOODS
Huge Mystery Surrounding Discovery of “Real-Life Mowgli”
WESTVILLE, N.J.—In one of the most bizarre cases in recent history, a wild-haired young boy, estimated to be between six and eight years old, was discovered living on his own in the Ramapo Mountain State Forest near the suburb of Westville. Even more bizarre, authorities have no idea who the boy is or how long he had been there.
“It’s like Mowgli in the ‘Jungle Book’ movie,” Westville Police Deputy Oren Carmichael said.
The boy—who speaks and understands English but has no knowledge of his name—was first spotted by Don and Leslie Katz, hikers from Clifton, N.J. “We were cleaning up from our picnic when we heard a rustling in the woods,” Mr. Katz said. “At first I worried it was a bear, but then we caught sight of him running, clear as day.”
Park rangers, along with local police, found the boy, thin and clad in tattered clothes, in a makeshift campsite three hours later. “At this time, we don’t know how long he’s been in the state forest or how he got here,” said New Jersey State Park Police Chief Tony Aurigemma. “He doesn’t recall any parents or adult figures. We’re currently checking with other law enforcement authorities, but so far, there are no missing children who match his age and description.”
For the past year, hikers in the Ramapo Mountain area have reported seeing a “feral boy” or “Little Tarzan” matching the boy’s description, but most people chalked up the sightings to urban legend.
Said James Mignone, a hiker from Morristown, N.J., “It’s like someone just birthed him and left him in the wild.”
“It’s the strangest survival case any of us have ever seen,” Chief Aurigemma said. “We don’t know if the boy has been out here days, weeks, months or heck, even years.”
If anyone has any information on the young boy, they are asked to contact the Westville Police Department.
“Someone out there has to know something,” Deputy Carmichael said. “The boy didn’t just appear in the forest by magic.”
Part One
CHAPTER
ONE
April 23, 2020
How does she survive?
How does she manage to get through this torment every single day?
Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.
She sits in the school assembly hall, her eyes fixed, unseeing, unblinking. Her face is stone, a mask. She doesn’t look left or right. She doesn’t move at all.
She just stares straight ahead.
She is surrounded by classmates, including Matthew, but she doesn’t look at any of them. She doesn’t talk to any of them either, though that doesn’t stop them from talking to her. The boys—Ryan, Crash (yes, that’s his real name), Trevor, Carter—keep calling her names, harshly whispering awful things, jeering at her, laughing with scorn. They throw things at her. Paper clips. Rubber bands. Flick snot from their noses. They put small pieces of paper in their mouths, wad the paper into wet balls, propel them in various ways at her.
When the paper sticks to her hair, they laugh some more.
The girl—her name is Naomi—doesn’t move. She doesn’t try to pull the wads of paper out of her hair. She just stares straight ahead. Her eyes are dry. Matthew could remember a time, two or three years ago, when her eyes would moisten during these ceaseless, unrelenting, daily taunts.
But not anymore.
Matthew watches. He does nothing.
The teachers, numb to this by now, barely notice. One wearily calls out, “Okay, Crash, that’s enough,” but neither Crash nor any of the others give the warning the slightest heed.
Meanwhile Naomi just takes it.
Matthew should do something to stop the bullying. But he doesn’t. Not anymore. He tried once.
It did not end well.
Matthew tries to remember when it all started to go wrong for Naomi. She had been a happy kid in elementary school. Always smiling, that’s what he remembered. Yeah, her clothes were hand-me-downs and she didn’t wash her hair enough. Some of the girls made mild fun of her for that. But it had been okay until that day she got violently ill and threw up in Mrs. Walsh’s class, fourth grade, just projectile vomit ricocheting off the classroom linoleum, the wet brown chips splashing on Kim Rogers and Taylor Russell, the smell so bad, so rancid, that Mrs. Walsh had to clear the classroom, all the kids, Matthew one of them, and send them all out to the kickball field holding their noses and making pee-uw sounds.
And after that, nothing had been the same for Naomi.
Matthew always wondered about that. Had she not felt well that morning? Did her father—her mom was already out of the picture by then—make her go to school? If Naomi had just stayed home that day, would it all have gone differently for her? Was her throwing-up her sliding door moment, or was it inevitable that she would end up traveling down this rough, dark, torturous path?