He bided his time, and then he decided to set this in motion, for reasons that only make sense to him, and you got caught in the middle; I’m so sorry, baby, I wish I could make it all un-happen…”
Ashley’s mouth was an ‘O’ of shock, horror rising in her eyes as she realised that she’d been caught in a trap set for our mother, and had paid for it by being raped in her place. I tried to hug her to me, but she pulled away from me, shaking me off and backing away.
“Don’t… touch me!”” she flared, looking at me with something akin to hatred in her eyes. “You’re his son, how do I know I’m not hooking up with the son of fucking Frankenstein? For all I know you’re as bad as that fucking maniac, so keep the fuck away from me!”
The hurt roared through me as she said that, and she knew that because she resolutely turned away from me, her arms clamped tight around herself as she sank to her knees. My eyes blurred as I realised I’d blown it with her, I’d tried to protect her and instead I’d shown her how to hate me.
Her shoulders were shaking as she sobbed silently, and all I wanted to do was hold her and comfort her, but I was the son of Satan right now, and she didn’t want to hear anything from me. I tried, anyway, though…
“Ashley, please…”
She stood up, turned, and glared at me, her face working, to stalk up to me and push me aside.
“Get out of my way!” she gritted, so I did, allowing her to climb back in the car. She slammed the door and I heard the locks go on as she leaned on the wheel. With one last hate-filled glare at me she started the engine and skidded away, spraying me with sour-smelling leaf-mould and leaving me standing there, alone, and pretty much lost in the woods somewhere around the reservoir. I had a sort of clue as to which way we’d come, so I started walking, but I didn’t know how far I’d get; darkness was falling, I had no money, my wallet with my ID was in my jacket, and my jacket was in the car, and I hadn’t seen any houses or other cars the whole time we’d been here; also, and just to make it easier, it was the dark of the moon, so I’d have nothing to give me any light once full dark set in.
After slipping and stumbling for two hours (according to the trusty ‘Transformers’ watch Barbara gave me when I was nine), I was pretty much completely lost. As night fell the forest had become first a deep gloomy wall, and then a deeper velvety blackness under the tree canopy, and oppressively silent, except for my yelps as I stepped in things, tripped over things, or walked into things. One of those things’ I walked into really hurt, and I did get some light then, big stars that bloomed and faded in front of my eyes as I smelled and tasted brass, and I could feel a sticky wetness seeping down my face and into my eye. Blood, I assumed, but I couldn’t tell, as I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face by now.
Eventually I came onto a cinder track, actually I tripped over something and landed on the track, which is how I knew it was there, more a country lane than anything, and where it led was anybody’s guess; I was so completely turned around in the dark that I could have been walking to Canada for all I knew. I mentally flipped a coin, and trudged in the direction indicated, again in complete silence. The cloud had been hazy and low earlier in the evening, and now it felt like I was walking in an anechoic chamber where the only sound was that of my breathing. I had never seen a night so black, or so silent, and if I had been of that turn of mind, I would have been freaked by it. At least I was going somewhere, though, even if I had no clue where. I walked along that track for over two hours, seeing no cars or signs of human habitation and by now I would have welcomed anything to break-up the pitch blackness, a house, a gingerbread cottage, three bears, anything. Scenes from ‘Deliverance’ were beginning to play out in my head when I heard a car in the distance and saw headlights splashing the trees when I looked back over my shoulder.
I stepped onto the verge, not wanting to be run down by whoever was gunning that car along this deserted track at this time of night; they wouldn’t be expecting me to be walking along the middle of it at dead of night. They probably wouldn’t even see me until it was too late. So, with a vague notion of flagging them down, perhaps begging a ride, or even just getting some directions, I waited on the verge, waving my shirt as it was light coloured, something to catch in a headlight.
I tried not to look at the headlights as the car approached. After so long in the dark the glare was painfully bright, so my eyes were slitted as I waited for the approaching car, not really knowing whether whoever was driving would stop for a battered looking stranger with no shirt in the middle of the night. The car slid to a halt and the door opened.
“NICKY!!” screamed Ashley, running at me full tilt and slamming into me, almost knocking me over.
“Nicky, I’m so sorry, I left you alone out here, oh God, you could have been killed, I went back and you were gone and I couldn’t find you and I’ve been driving for hours looking for you, I left you all alone, Oh Nicky please, I’m sorry, you could have died out here, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she gabbled, her arms locked around my neck. I was just so glad to see her, and apparently she didn’t hate me anymore, so no harm, no foul as far as I was concerned.
Ashley tugged me back to the car, and ran her gentle fingers over the nice big lump over my right eye. Now that I had light, I realised I could barely see out of that eye. She pulled down the vanity mirror so I could see the damage for myself; a three-inch gash ran across above my eyebrow, and the blood had caked the side of my face and limned my eye. She ran light, trembling fingers across my face, tears rolling down her cheeks as she looked at the cut, and the blood smeared across my face and forearms where I’d been using them to wipe the blood out of my eyes.
“Look at this Nicky, oh God, look at this, it’s my fault, I left you out here alone, you didn’t do anything and I just left you here, supposing you’d been killed…!”
I tried to laugh it off by telling her it was my fault for letting a tree bite me, but she wasn’t having it.
“Hikers go missing up here all the time, there’s sink-holes, dead-falls, or you could have fallen in one of the ponds or marshes, they’re everywhere, or fallen in a ravine, and I left you here, in the dark, oh God, you could have been killed, I just ran off and left you out here alone, oh God…!”
I held her close while she trembled and cried, and I have to say, holding her again was the best feeling in the world, after the way she left earlier.
When she’d calmed down, she told me we had to find the Ranger Station. I asked her why, and got an answer that surprised me.
“To let them know you’re safe; the Park Rangers, State Troopers, Doctor Nixon, Judy, Mom, they’re all out looking for you; this is Pittstown State Forest and we’re miles from where I dumped you; you were heading toward Vermont, but if you’d stayed in the forest we might never have found you again, and it would have been my fault…!”
She started crying again, and I held her some more, calming her, and letting her know it was alright. Eventually she started telling me what had happened after she left me.
After she’d gone a few miles she’d calmed down, and turned round and come back, but I was gone. Not knowing what to do, she’d gone straight to Judy, and told her the whole story. Judy had flipped when she heard Ashley had left me alone in the forest at night, and went and got her dad, who’d driven up to the Ranger Station and told them I was lost somewhere in Pittstown Forest.
Meanwhile, Judy and Ashley had gone to get Mum, and then the four of them had fanned out along the roads leading away from where Ashley had left me. Ashley got the road I was on by sheer luck. While she was talking, she took a packet of Kleenex from the glove box and wetted one from a bottle of water she found in there, and started cleaning that cut over my eye as well as cleaning off some of the blood from my face, arms and hands. When she cleaned the cut, that’s when I discovered how much pain I could take; if she hadn’t been sitting astride me I’d have launched right through the moon roof…
Once she’d cleaned the worst of it away, she made me put my shirt back on, and she put the car in gear, turning around to head back the way she came. We eventually got back to blacktop near some houses, and she pulled over and pulled out Judy’s spare cell phone, telling me she was calling Judy.
Ashley had a quick conversation with Judy, just telling her I was safe, and that I was going to need her father, no I wasn’t badly hurt, just a little dinged-up, as she put it.
We rendezvoused at Judy’s home; mum’s car was there, and a State Police cruiser, with David outside talking with the two troopers, before waving me in and following us. Mum jumped up when I walked in and her eyes filled when she saw my face, as did Judy’s.
“Poor Nicky, you keep getting hurt!” she whispered, and again I tried to laugh it off.
“Mum, I’m OK, really, a tree jumped out at me, but I fought it off, honest!” and I saw a quick smile flit across her face. David came in then and told me sit so he could examine my forehead. When I complied, he pulled on some examination gloves and gently prodded the cut, squeezing the lips together to check the extent of the swelling, and opened a bottle of some brown pungent stuff.
“This may sting a little, try and not cry, kick or bite please!”
He picked up a long curved hemostat and wrapped a length of cotton wool around the jaws, poured the liquid on it, then swabbed the cut. The pain was incredible, like being painted with acid, and I had to use all my willpower not to jerk away.