Page 104 of Mazywood

Imani’s glove.

Johnny gave such a harsh exhalation of relief that his shoulders hunched as he reached to touch the glove. Was it real, or was he only imagining it like he kept imagining his uncle? He tugged the glove from the branch. The label from a black marker inside read IMANI W. in Tasha’s precise block handwriting. Imani often lost track of her belongings, so Tasha had labeled almost everything she owned. The glove sat like a portal to his old life in his palms.

Imani had left her glove as a marker. For him.

Uncle Ricky had led him to the glove after he collapsed only yards away. Gooseflesh rolled across his skin as he wondered if Uncle Ricky was only a hallucination. Uncle Ricky had saved him from the tree well, and now the glove too? Johnny had never believed in ghosts, but he had never believed in monsters either. Until today.

“Thank you, Uncle Ricky,” Johnny whispered as he clung to the glove, willing his voice across time. The only answer was a light thunk as a branch near him released its burden of snow.

As he turned to try to see signs of Imani’s tracks, his snowshoe caught on something solid, with a sharp, shiny green corner. A large hardcover book! He leaned over to pick it up, and gooseflesh bloomed again. Soothing green waves and a Windsurfer on the cover. He knew this book well from hours of forcing Imani to let him help her with her math homework. California Mathematics: Concepts, Skills, and Problem Solving: Grade 7. Johnny heard his own mad laughter as he hugged the book they both loathed.

He brought the cold cover to his lips and kissed it. He flipped through the book’s pages to smell traces of the true world outside, not this nightmare prison in the woods. Unless he was imagining it (And let’s face it, you probably are), the book smelled like Tootsie Rolls. Imani’s favorite candy.

And still no blood anywhere in sight.

“Thank you…” Johnny whispered again, grateful to a ghost, or God, or both.

He hadn’t lost the trail. He might be close now. His mouth ached to call for them.

(But when did they start shooting?)

Johnny tossed the textbook aside, remembering vigilance. He shoved Imani’s glove in his back pocket and held his ski pole defensively, sharp point first.

Remnants of the trail were preserved in the grove, both boot prints and snowboard tracks. The boot prints were pointing in the opposite direction, heading back uphill. Right here, they had decided to take off their snowboards and turn toward home, probably when it started snowing. Could they be at home? Hope flooded Johnny. Could a day that had begun with such mindless evil take such a good turn?

But why had they fired the rifle twice? Johnny didn’t see the monster’s trail here, although he saw traces of his own snowshoe tracks leading to the tree where he had collapsed. He was passing himself, and his daughters, like they were specters haunting this spot.

He followed his daughters’ boot prints, hoping they would continue all the way back to the lodge. The tracks winked out of sight in clearings, covered by snowfall, but he saw the trajectory well enough to keep sight of them without having to backtrack. As soon as he thought he might have lost their tracks, evidence of their passage emerged under a tree’s expansive branches. (Though he kept far away from any possible tree wells and hoped they had too.)

But the boot prints’ uphill motion stopped abruptly. Sharise and Imani had paced in confusion here, unsure and frenzied. And the snowboard tracks began again, veering in a different direction, back downhill. Why?

A rutted snow disturbance ahead of Johnny showed him why. The monster had been here. They ran right into it. The snowboard and monster tracks converged downhill. The monster chased them. Johnny’s ribs squeezed his chest tightly enough to make him groan, but he couldn’t help quickening his pace as if the pursuit were happening before his eyes. Whispered, unintelligible promises and entreaties spilled from his mouth with every step.

He knew how fast that monster moved. He knew his daughters could not have matched its speed even on snowboards, especially with such level ground. They would have had to…

The tracks stopped. Johnny saw the snowboard trail swoop back, a snapshot of the instant they decided to stop running. He imagined himself in their place, turning to face the creature with the rifle…

A pale pock in a pine trunk twenty yards away stared back at him, evidence of a rifle shot. Here. This was where they had fired.

Johnny stared down and saw glimmering in the web of his snowshoes. He stepped back and picked up a spent rifle shell. “Good girl, Imani. Good girl.” The second casing might have been buried, but he had heard the second shot. And then what?

The snowboard tracks continued downhill… but the monster’s trail hared off, heaps of displaced snow veering far wide of the snowboards’ ruts. The rifle shots had scared it off, at least temporarily. Johnny’s chest loosened. Relief helped him breathe again.

“You didn’t like that, huh, you sonofoabitch?” Johnny said, rejoicing.

But then what? Where had Sharise and Imani gone next? The trees in this grove were thinner and didn’t protect the tracks as well from the snowfall. You know where they went, Uncle Ricky had said, but how would he know? Was he supposed to recognize this landscape after fifty years? Johnny surveyed the area quickly, longing for landmarks. Beyond the woods, more distant, a rocky escarpment climbed toward the mountain.

Johnny saw what he thought was a straight dark branch lying across the snow that would help his balance with his ski pole. As he trudged closer, the branch took its true shape: Uncle Ricky’s rifle!

“Shit,” Johnny whispered. The Winchester was here, exactly where he needed it to be. Maybe Imani had left it behind when she emptied it and left it for him to reload like a runner in a relay race. For the first time since he woke up at the lodge, Johnny felt like he was following a plan instead of flailing.

He remembered the gun well because Uncle Ricky’s lessons had been thorough. Whether or not his ghost was still here, or ever had been, Uncle Ricky’s presence flowed through Johnny’s fingers as he checked the chamber, confirmed it was empty, and carefully loaded five tarnished rounds from the old cardboard box. The cardboard had frayed, so a few of the sharp-tipped cylindrical rounds rolled loose in his pocket. He counted twelve total. Twelve chances.

Johnny had never picked up a gun since his winter visit to Bear Creek Lodge, except for prop guns on set. He had never held a gun to defend himself, until now—and the weight of the rifle in his hands, loaded and ready to shoot, awakened a primal assuredness in him. He felt like the predator now, not the prey, and he embraced his role with manic relief.

“Come on…” he heard himself whisper, not to his daughters, but to the monster. “Come on out. You won’t surprise me again, fuckface.”

Still shivering, yes. Still alarmed by the tightness in his chest. But he was ready.