Rubber Bracelets

Chapter One: Rubber Band Man

Fingers grasped strands of hair and pulled them tight. He raised the blade of a knife to his hair and began to saw it off. After sawing the strands of hair, he let them float to the ground and grabbed a fresh set of hair to saw off. Although he was alone, surrounded by nothing but dead, gray trees, he kept his face placid, though the pull of his hair caused by the sawing was an irritating, dull hurt.

Silence surrounded and threatened to engulf Grhey, the only sounds being caused by the trickling of the tiny stream and the sawing of hair with a blunt combat knife. Grhey finished sawing his hair and all that remained was a short and wild array of dark brown hair. Grhey held his knife, point facing away, in front of him and looked at the small compass built into the bottom of the hilt.

The needle pointed North. Grhey turned to where West should be, but the needle didn't move. Grhey raised his other hand and tapped the compass twice with his forefinger. The needle remained pointing North. A slight frown touched the corner of Grhey's mouth before lifting the canvas sheath, which dangled from string tied to a loop of his blue jeans, with his left hand and slide the blade in with his right. He took each finger in turn and gave it a sharp, cracking pop. 

Grhey turned slowly, taking in the vast emptiness and silence. He exhaled deeply and his breath came out white and cloudy. He bent down and unzipped his backpack and took out his canteen and shook it gently, feeling its emptiness. He stood straight and walked the couple of feet to the side of the stream and bent down again and stared at the water for a long moment before shrugging to himself and dipping his opened canteen into the stream.

The canteen full, Grhey lifted it to his lips and took a single gulp before screwing the top back on his canteen and walking over to his backpack to put it away. After zipping his backpack, he lifted it by a strap and slung it over his shoulders as he stood straight once more. He looked around himself in a half circle once more, and once more let out a long exhalation of white cloudy breath. He reached his hands up and gripped the hood of his black cotton jacket and lifted it over his head to keep the cold off of his ears.

Grhey patted himself over the pockets of his jeans and jacket to make sure nothing was missing as he began to walk down stream, looking for a way to cross without getting water in his shoes. He rested his hands in the pockets of his jacket, fiddling with their content.

Grhey walked down stream, his eyes searching for movement constantly. Barely any time passed before he saw a way to cross the stream, a white and gray stone jutting out of the stream. As he got closer he saw the details of limbs. Mangled and in awkward angles, but human limbs. Grhey stopped walking and listened. The familiar silence of the long dead forest pressed against his ear drums. He gripped the front of his hood with his right hand and slid it off of his head and looked around, moving his head only slightly then letting his eyes search, then moving his head again. After deciding he was alone with a corpse he finished closing the distance between them.

It was a male. Grhey guessed five or six years older than himself. A tan leather satchel tried to be carried away by the stream but the strap was securely wrapped around the corpse's neck. Grhey knelt down and reached his hand out, grasping the strap and pulling it towards himself, causing it to slip from the corpse. Once the satchel was free, Grhey set it on the ground and unclasped it. He looked inside then upended the satchel so its contents fell to the ground. More water than substance. Grhey tossed the leather satchel and began poking through the content. A soggy book with a missing cover and smeared print, a plastic bag filled with water and moldy bread, a single shotgun shell, a blue pen, and as Grhey thought he accounted for everything, a piece of white among the dirt caught his eye.

He pinched the white with his left thumb and forefinger and lifted a rubber band to his face as it turned into a smile. He pulled back his left jacket sleeve to reveal three rubber bands already on his wrist in addition to a red rubber bracelet and a black bracelet made from the same string that held his knife sheath to his pants. He put the rubber band around his fingers and rolled it onto his wrist to join the rest of his collection. Then he shrugged his backpack off of his shoulders and unzipped a side pocket, then placed the single shotgun shell and the blue pen in the pocket before zipping it back up and replacing the backpack on his shoulders.

Grhey stood straight and looked around once more, observing the undisturbed stillness and silence, then replaced the hood of his jacket onto his head. He stretched his foot out towards the corpse and nudged it. Deciding it was sound footing, he stepped on its chest then jumped to the other side of the stream, avoiding getting wet, then began walking away from the stream, deeper into the nothingness.

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Rays of sunlight pierced their way through limbs and dead tree tops, slanted from the setting of the sun. Grhey remained alone with only silence as company. For hours there was nothing but flat forest floor, filled with dead trees and dirt, and no sign of shelter from the fast approaching night.

From a distance Grhey saw where there were some downed trees and quickened his pace to reach them. As he got closer he saw the two trees, crossing each other in the middle. Grhey remembered something he had read on a brick wall years ago, “X marks the spot.”

He reached the crossing trees and stood on the thick gray trunk which rested on the ground, and searched with his eyes, scarcely moving his head. Deciding he was once again alone, save the company of his dead trees, he hopped off the trunk and let his backpack drop from his shoulders. He crawled under the tree which was elevated from laying across the thick one and decided it was the perfect fit for the night.

Laying on his back, he reached out and pulled his backpack to him and unzipped it. He pulled out a notebook which had a black pen inside the spiral, a can of green beans, and a plastic spoon, then moved the backpack under his head for support. Grhey unsheathed his knife and stuck it through the lid of the can, cutting a half circle into the aluminum. He replaced his knife and stuck his finger between the rim and the sharp metal and pulled the lid back.

The lid bent up leaving plenty of room to stick his plastic spoon in. Grhey wiped the spoon on his dirty jacket, stuck it in the can, and removed it holding two green beans, then placed them in his mouth and chewed them slowly.

By the time he finished savoring his only meal of the day the sun was nearly fully set. He set the can on the ground, licked his spoon clean and stuck it behind his head, into the backpack. Then he moved the notebook which had been resting in his lap and removed the pen from the spiral, then opened it to a fresh page. He sat up and moved over so his head was not under the log which would be providing him shelter and set pen to paper.

Journal Entry #47

The compass broke today. Perturbed. Maybe leaving the roads to avoid Them was a bad idea. Uneasy. At this rate I may have to eat the canned salmon I was saving for my twentieth birthday. Regretful. Not a big deal, I suppose, considering I lost track of the date months ago. Annoyed. Drank unboiled water from an open stream today, but I feel fine. Apathetic. Came across a corpse and I'm not sure where he came from or how he died but I don't know how far out I am, maybe They are in these woods too. Perturbed. Found shelter just before the sun set, just enough to stay hidden. Relieved.

Grhey.

Oh, I found a rubber band to add to my collection. Ecstatic.