Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 31

There's still more to see...

Sanford's thoughts whispered to him as he lay awake, staring at the ceiling in bed. It was 4:30; he'd only slept a few hours. He was so tired when he came in from Ava's he didn't remember climbing in bed at all. Sadie was sound asleep in the bed next to his, chirping little snores like a chipmunk. He looked around. There was a small television and the bathroom didn't have a tub, only a single standing shower. The carpet was thin and torch-light red.

You have to go back one last time. This time we go into the woods.

It scared him when his thoughts came in the third-person, but he knew he had to go back to the house one more time. And this time he couldn't have Sadie with him. He looked at her. She was peacefully asleep.

You'll be back before she wakes. She won't even know you're gone.

Quietly, he slipped on his clothes, put on his boots, grabbed his keys, and was gone.

The drive over was mechanical, automatic; he let his subconscious take control and bring him back in time. He parked a block away to avoid suspicion. Walking the road was eerily quiet. The sun had yet to rise.

The house loomed ahead, dark and muted like it was barely there. He walked alongside it and into the backyard, his fingers gliding across the siding as he did.

The toolshed was on his left, on the verge of collapse. It was slumped, rotten through with holes in every wall.

Good, he thought. Let it die slow.

A silhouette appeared in the window, but he recognized the illusion. There was his father, naked and pleasuring himself.

"Sanford!" the voice called out from behind the window. The cold prodded him as he stood outside of the shed, just like it was twenty-five years before.

He moved along quickly. Wet leaves from the freezing rain the night before squished under his boots. Up ahead was his father's old chopping block. The innocent face of Eric appeared in the snow, terrified. Their father, towering over them, wielding the axe.

"Don't lie to me boy! What did you see!"

"Please, Dad, I can't!"

Sanford shook his head free of the memory, his childhood voice trailed off with an echo.

He turned toward the woods.

The walk brought him back to a simpler time, where the forest became the land of infinite possibilities. The imagination of a child would transform the dark green surroundings into a fantasyland, where the heroes wore capes and the monsters had fangs, ensuing no confusion.

The path carved through the woods was still there. If it were spring or summer he imagined the overgrowth would make it barely visible. Bare branches hung low along his path, causing him to duck and maneuver. Ahead, he heard the sound of babbling water.

He came upon the creek. Back as a child, it had seemed large enough to drown him. As he stared at it now, it seemed puny, something he could jump across with one leap. The bridge was to his right, or rather what was left of it. Jagged pieces of rotted wood protruded from the water like a sunken ship.

With the water low, half-frozen, and only five feet across, he was able to step on rocks and make it to the other side. The first day he met Ava came to mind.

The frigid air sent shivers through his core. He got to where the path opened up to the circle of stones. There was still no growth around the circle where the makeshift graves were made. He used to imagine his father coming at night, unseen, and trimming the trees around it to make sure nothing would grow past the border. A landscaper for the dead. But now—in the middle of the circle again—he felt it was death that kept life away, as if there were an invisible line killing any living thing that dared to cross it.