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ONE
It starts as a whisper, a story that children tell each other on the playground and at slumber parties to scare one another. There’s a creature in the forest. Or maybe it’s a man, seven feet tall, and as big as a tree. He lurks and watches, always there, just out of sight, but ready to pounce. If this mythical thing captures you, you disappear. Or you die. No one knows for sure. The story changes over time as the lore grows and spreads, as more whispers join the chorus, until it is more than a story. It’s a legend.
The legend of the Woodsman.
I hear people talking about it in stores, restaurants, the city park. Parents tell their children the Woodsman isn’t real. There’s nothing to worry about, they say in soothing tones. I can see in their faces that they’re fed up with this nonsense, with their children having nightmares over a stupid story. I can tell that they believe what they say. The Woodsman is not real.
They’re wrong.
I know this because I am the Woodsman, and I am coming for their children.
TWO
Josie was jolted awake by screams. Her body sprang to a standing position. It was part instinct, but she was also vaguely aware of being propelled to her feet by some unseen force. Her eyes snapped open to blinding daylight and she realized she had been jostled out of her seat by a crowd of people cheering. Blinking, she tried to get her bearings. Spread out before her was a baseball field filled with seven- and eight-year-olds in uniforms and helmets that looked too large for their heads. She was in the stands sandwiched between her friend, Misty DeRossi, and her former mother-in-law, Cindy Quinn. All the parents were hollering and pumping their fists in the air. One of the boys sprinted around the bases. Josie blinked again, trying to see if it was Harris, Misty’s son.
Beside her, Misty screamed, “Go, go, go, go!”
On the other side of her, his grandmother, Cindy, yelled, “Run! Run!”
The boy slid into home base. His helmet tumbled off, taking his hat with it, revealing blond hair with a whorl at the back of his scalp identical to that of Josie’s late ex-husband, Ray Quinn.
Misty let out a resounding whoop and then threw her arms around Josie’s neck, squeezing hard. At home plate, Harris jumped to his feet and began high-fiving nearby teammates and one of the coaches. Then he ran off the field and directly into the arms of Josie’s husband, Noah Fraley. As the crowd quieted, Josie heard Harris’s voice. “Did you see, Uncle Noah? Did you see?”
Noah’s reply was swallowed up by one of the coaches hollering for the next player to come to bat. He spun Harris around and set him back onto the ground, waving him toward the bench where his teammates waited with high fives. The smile on Noah’s face made Josie’s heart thump.
Harris wasn’t related to either of them, not by blood or marriage, and yet they both loved him fiercely. After Josie had separated from her first husband, Ray, he had started dating Misty. He died and later, Misty gave birth to Harris. Back then, Josie was grappling with a lot of complex emotions over the dissolution of their marriage and later, Ray’s death. She was ashamed to say now that she had taken them out on Misty. Until Harris was born. Josie hadn’t expected to love him so much but the instant she held him, she knew she would do anything to protect him. Over time, she and Misty grew closer. When Josie and Noah became a couple, Noah easily became part of the found family dynamic among Josie, Misty, and Harris. Now, Josie couldn’t imagine their lives without Misty and Harris. The ease with which Noah had come to love and dote on Harris had only made Josie love him more.
As Misty and Cindy sat back down, so did Josie.
“That was so exciting!” Cindy said.
Gleefully, Misty clapped her hands together. “It really was!”
When Josie didn’t add anything, Misty turned to her. “You okay?”
She managed a smile. “Sure, yeah.”
“You fell asleep, didn’t you?”
Josie felt a flush creep up her neck to her scalp.
Misty laughed. “How could you fall asleep here?” She looked around them. Parents and other family members were crowded into the bleachers, shoulder to shoulder. “There aren’t even backs to these seats!”
Josie opened her mouth to give some kind of answer, but more shouting erupted below near home plate. The father of one of Harris’s teammates screamed at the umpire. “Let him swing! You didn’t give him enough swings!”
The crowd bristled. Someone below them told him to shut up and sit down. Another man stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, “He’s out! He got six pitches! All the kids get six pitches!”
The father who’d started the dust-up turned toward the stands, searching for the man who’d called out and finding him instantly. They began shouting at one another.
“Not again,” Cindy muttered.
Noah and several of the coaches from each team intervened, trying to defuse the situation before any more parents got involved. Before Harris started playing organized sports, Josie had had no idea just how heated things could get among the parents or how quickly a confrontation could spiral out of control.
“This is ridiculous,” Misty sighed.
The knot of men that had gathered behind home plate quieted enough so that Josie could no longer hear what was being said, but the argument continued. The crowd grew restless as they waited for it to be resolved. Several people took out their phones to check messages and social media. By this time, Josie had formulated a response to Misty’s question. It was a tried-and-true excuse for her exhaustion: she was tired because of work. Both she and Noah were investigators for the Denton City Police Department. Denton was a small city tucked away in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. The center of it lay along the banks of a branch of the Susquehanna River but the city limits sprawled out from there, encompassing a lot of rural area. The city’s population had been growing steadily for the last ten years. Josie, Noah, and their colleagues often worked long and unpredictable hours. The last three months had been even more grueling than normal.
Before she could say anything, Cindy’s elbow bumped gently against her side. “Still having trouble sleeping?”
