As he dutifully inspected the plant, Alan saw that it grew everywhere around them—he even stood upon it—and he’d never noticed. Leave it to Casey.
“You could scour pots with this stuff.” Jenny kicked at a loose patch of lichen.
“The glands—the red spots—are sticky,” Casey pointed out, “for trapping insects.”
“I wish they’d trap some of these.”
He gave her an indulgent look. “There’s an almost complete lack of nitrogen in the soil.” Pausing for them to appreciate that, he smiled his slow smile down at Amelia as the child fearfully examined the pale bit of mossy green. At nine years old, she seemed a nut-brown miniature of Jenny, the dark eyes, now lined and nervous in the mother, adding an unusual depth to the child’s face. “That means the plants have to eat bugs to live,” he explained.
Jenny sighed laboriously at the lecturing drone.
“It’s going to be a long week,” Sandy muttered.
“This place…” A note of awe entered Casey’s voice, and he stood up, brushing damp sand from his sweating legs. “Think about it. A forest this size in the middle of the most heavily industrialized state in the Union!” He shook his head in wonder.
Grinning to see his taciturn friend so animated, Alan nudged Sandy.
“What’s really incredible is that nobody even realizes it’s out here. What do people see from their cars? Trees on the side of the road—just the tip of the iceberg! Most people have to think, a few yards in, there’s another road or some houses. They can’t grasp it! Can’t conceive of—”
“Ugly. Ugly little trees.” Jenny stood up and pinched sullenly at the sides of her binding jeans, while Alan helped her struggle back into her pack. “Trees should be pretty. You look at these, and all you’re aware of is their miserable little struggles to survive.”
“Yeah, it’s like they’re alive or something.”
“They are alive, Sandy,” Jenny sighed.
After passing around the canteen, they started moving again, at first plodding along in a tight clump, but quickly resuming the old formation with Casey pulling ahead. For the first time, the air began to stir noticeably about them. As he walked, Casey scuffed at the sand with his boots, the gesture oddly proprietary.
The things he could tell them. For instance, they were crossing the bed of a vanished ocean, an ocean sixty million years gone. The breeze had grown, and he savored the fleeting coolness. He listened as the gentle current of air stirred a strange whirring out of the pines, a low moan like the ghost of a lost sea, and it swept his memories to all those distant Sunday afternoons when, shin deep in collapsing mud shoals, he’d dug for fossils not all that far from here. The mud banks would crumble with soft splashings, and icy waters would ooze, bubbling up around his ankles, trickling down to join the creek, washing away the sediment of shell particles, millions of years steadily melting away beneath his feet. Innumerable generations of monsters had hunted these waters, and the denizens of the ancient seas had left their bones and shells and marks.
The rest of the group pumped along behind him, chattering among themselves, and he moved still farther ahead of them, the familiar thrill of wonder, almost of reverence, coursing through him. He discovered, somewhat giddily, that if he squeezed his eyes half shut the blurring pines resembled a prehistoric landscape. A hairy tentacle clung to a nearby tree, the dark rootlets of the parasite vine, biting deep into the bark, coiling like some obscene, furred serpent up and around the cedar.
Unnoticed, a moth the size of his hand settled weightless on his shoulder.
“…had to work, and I swear to God that’s the truth. Athena?” Barry depressed the speak button with his thumb. “Athena?” He glanced up as Steve returned to the car. “Damn, that radio of theirs is a real piece of shit.”
“Watch yourself. You’re broadcasting.”
“Huh? Yeah, sure.” At forty-three years old, Officer Barry Hobbs was a large man, almost burly. Though the scar that slashed the bridge of his nose was the sort that fossilized a wound and kept it perpetually on display, the lines of his face, the wide, square jaw, still showed firm and handsome. Until a few years ago, he’d been a state trooper—discharged for reasons he never cared to discuss.
“You were gone a long time. You sick or something?” While critically eyeing Steve, he continued trying to raise the ambulance. “What in hell did you do? Fall down and roll in the mud?” His own tailored uniform was immaculate. His wife pressed it every morning.
Steve slumped brooding in his seat while static and the ghost of Athena’s voice drifted from the radio: “…and profuse bleeding…”
“Goddamn, she’s on a call.” Barry lit another cigarette, and Steve watched, envying his steady hand. Noting the attention, Barry yawned ostentatiously. “Yes sir, real heavy night last night.” He smirked, waiting.
Steve turned his head away, killed another warm beer and stared resolutely into the woods. A slight breeze stirred the pines. Still smiling, Barry tapped cigarette ash on the windowsill.
Steve crumpled the empty can. “So, uh…you were with Athena last night?” he asked, trying his best to pretend only casual interest. The attempt was pathetic.
Barry sneered in triumph. He took a drag on the cigarette, slowly exhaled, and finally started to talk. Steve gazed into the pines, letting his eyes drift out of focus.
“…then she sort of turns on her hip and wets her fingers and…” Barry’s words drilled into his skull, stuck there and festered.
“…holds on to it, you know, and puts her leg around…”
Steve’s headache intensified in direct proportion to the straining against the front of his pants. He sank farther into his seat, banging his knee against the dashboard.
“…and then she sort of reaches behind to…”
Stop. He breathed heavily, sweat trickling down his neck. Make him stop. He glanced at his watch. Incredibly, only minutes had passed, but the pressure grew unbearable. “Did you check in?” he blurted.
Barry’s big face split in a victorious grin, and he eased off. “Say, I was running a little late this morning.” He grinned again, and for a moment, Steve thought he might wink at him. “Did you get a chance to…?”
Another ritual—keeping Barry informed about reports and directives he never bothered reading. It was a small thing. Steve shrugged. Back in Trenton, he’d always been so conscientious, so eager—a real pushover for this sort of maneuver. “Mister Nice Cop,” Anna used to call him. Always doing favors. He’d been an honest cop too, and remained one still, save for occasionally covering up for his partner’s philandering. He lied to Barry’s wife about night duty, lied to the boss, sometimes even patrolling by himself while Barry screwed around. And there were other things. Small things. “They found that little girl’s clothes—the one disappeared from Marston’s Corner. All bloody and shredded. No body yet, though.” He mopped his neck and face with a crumpled handkerchief.
“Sex maniac, got to be,” Barry pronounced.
“They’re talking about putting dogs on it. You remember that bulletin a couple weeks ago? About that guy escaping?”
Barry looked surprised. “From the penitentiary?”
“From the asylum at Harrisville. Anyway, turns out he’s a killer—took his whole family out in Camden. Hospital tried to keep it quiet.”
“Well, then there’s your sex maniac. I bet somebody’s gonna lose a cushy job over that.”