The Woods

My mother never liked the woods. She filled our heads with all kinds of scary tales about the woods, in hopes that we would never go into them. Of course, she didn't tell us these things when we were little. That would have been wrong. Nope. She told each of us when we were eight. Old enough to play outside without her.

My friends and their parents told us that she was crazy. That nothing bad had ever happened in the woods. That she was just making things up in that crazy mind of hers. Telling tales, some said.

She told my oldest brother first, and me just last week. I was so scared when she told me, but the neighbors said not to worry. Nothing bad would happen if we went into the woods. But here I am, laying on the floor of the woods, bleeding.

As I look around me, I can see my brothers and sister surrounding me, bleeding to death. It looks like I am the only one awake. Maybe the only one alive. The neighbors were wrong. The woods are scary. Out of the ten of us - six girls age 17, 15, 13, 12, 11, and 10, and four boys age 18, 15, 9 and eight - I am the only one moving. I can't hear anyone breathing, and I can't move.

I lay here, crying at first, then sobbing, now quiet and wondering. Will I die? I think they are all dead.

The trees are so tall, or at least they seem to be from where I lie. I can see vines growing up some of the trees, and I wonder how far out I am. I cannot see the sun, though I know it is daylight. It may be starting to rain, as I feel a drop every so often.

I wonder where our mother is. What day it is. She went on a weekend trip with her boyfriend, leaving on Friday, to be back on Sunday night. She left our oldest sister and brother in charge. She had never done this before, but decided that since I now knew the dangers of the woods she would go. Mom didn't even work outside the home, because she said that she had to protect us.

Now, I lie here wondering if she had been telling me the truth. The things that she said hadn't made sense. They didn't seem real, somehow.

You must never go into the woods, and I will tell you why. Bad things happen to boys and girls and men and women when they go into the woods, and they aren't usually seen alive again. Sometimes, though, someone will live to tell the rest of us about it.

I remember asking if they told on the bad people who had hurt them, but she said no. She said that they did not know who had hurt them.

A boy escaped once, and he said that they had cut him and starved him. And that they had hit him. Sure enough, when the doctor checked him out, he had been beaten and cut.

I wasn't sure I believed her. Who would do that to a person?

One day, Mrs. Cambridge got too close. Someone grabbed her and dragged her deep into the woods. He had her way with her, beating her up, but she did actually escape. It took her two days to find her way out of the woods.

The neighbors said that Mrs. Cambridge hurt herself to make it look like someone had hurt her. That she was cheating on her husband and had gotten pregnant, and she didn't want to get caught. Then she told everyone that the baby was born premature '˜cause it had only been six months since the incident . My mother said the neighbors were lying.

Tell that to all of the people who went into the woods and never came out. Tell that to all of their families who still miss them.

Maybe the neighbors are crazy. After all, I am laying here with my dead sisters and bothers because we were stupid and decided to go into the woods while our mother's gone. Yes, they are definitely dead. All but me.

I can move. I sit up carefully, because it hurts. I look around a bit, there is so much blood. Then I hear something. People are coming. I lie down again, and pretend to be dead. What if it is the people who killed my sisters and brothers?

I can hear them talking about how we all died while they were away, and that they have no one to play with now. Not for a long time anyway, because no one will go near the woods again for a long time. Their voices sound familiar, so I open my eyes just a little bit to see who they are. I can't believe my eyes!

They are our neighbors. The ones who always told us our mother was crazy and telling tales. No way! They talk about burying our bodies and then decide against it because no one will ever come out here anyway. Good fertilizer , one says as he laughs.

Then I hear someone scream, and another person is hollering at our neighbors. I am being saved! As they struggle with the neighbors, I sit up. Hey! That's my mother and her boyfriend. We had been out here all weekend.

My mother and her boyfriend attacked the neighbors. It was a blur, and I don't remember much. Her boyfriend carried me out of the woods and put me into the back seat of his car. They didn't have time to get anything from the house, because more neighbors would come soon.

He drove a long way, stopping at a store to quickly get bandages. My mother doctored me up as best she could as he drove. It was hours before we stopped at a hospital.

I didn't really remember that much from before I woke up in the woods, so I couldn't answer their questions. Even when the police came. My mother was crying when she and her boyfriend told them the stories about the woods, and how they had found me. They said that they had better get someone out there, because they had hurt the neighbors quite badly.

I was in the hospital for three whole days. This was when my mothers boyfriend went back home with the police. He only took what he could fit into the car when the three of us were again in it. We were moving. I didn't have to go back. It was okay that I didn't have much of my stuff.

I missed my sisters and brothers, and so did my mother. We cried together. She said that we would never go back their, though, and that her boyfriend was finding us a new home.

When we got there, it was just a little home in a trailer park. I had my own room though, so it wasn't so bad. We got to bury my sisters and brothers just up the road from the trailer park, so that we could be close to them. We would move into a better place as soon as we had the money, after my mother's boyfriend had a job. We would always stay around here, though, to be close to my sisters and brothers.