The dogs were barking at the plow. No police. Not yet.
Snow-plow drivers, Terah surmised, heart sprinting, had tunnel vision. He based this on experience. Once, when waiting for a predawn February bus, a set of three overlapping plows came down the snow emergency route where the bus stopped. A hooker for capitalism, he stood under the streetlight near the stop. The plows didn’t swerve. Or even slow down. Onward they came, duty foremost. Finally Terah leapt backward as a rooster tail of scraped snow taller than himself showered down from the blade scraping the asphalt. If he hadn’t jumped, he’d have been baptized with dirty frozen water. Tunnel vision.
So he assured himself as he tried to climb the hill with the heavy pack on his back. He leaned forward attempting to launch himself upward to a nearby trunk. He’d then pull himself to it and try to repeat the maneuver. He reckoned he’d be out of sight by the time the lonely truck trundled by, its heavy blade shoving slush aside. The effort forced him to realize just how tired he was. Awoken by Lindsey’s screams, he never did get back to sleep. He had no idea where she was, or even if she’d look for him. She had her pack. Although lighter, it had necessities. Had he somehow frightened her off with the word “savages”? She hadn’t said a word after that. He knew she was heading toward St. Grossetestes, but he dared not ask directions. Scotrun, she’d said, was near.
Terah had to stop to catch his breath. The plow would remove any evidence, but he wished he’d put more distance between himself and the house before ducking into the woods. He could go back down to the road, but then he’d have to climb again. He really needed sleep.
What goes up, they say. Giving in to gravity, and reason, Terah lumbered back down to the road. The plow would eventually come this direction again to clear the right side. The dogs raged at his approach, although the house was set back. Once again seeking shadows, he headed as far down the road as he could before trekking once more into the woods. His limbs heavy, his thoughts dull, he had to sleep. Even if in the open. Even if right here. He forced himself to move.
A large oak tree loomed. Ancient, it had seen better days. A substantial cavity ate into its base. Pulling off his pack, Terah insinuated himself, pulling his bag to him, making an ersatz door. He remembered no more.
Morning found him stiff and cold. But alive. Or so he believed. Mornings were increasingly like that. When you’re young you take waking up for granted. Pushing his pack from its role as plug, he saw it hadn’t snowed in the night and the sun was actually shining. He couldn’t be all that far from the garage they raided, so he wanted to add yet more distance. Walking on the road would make him obvious if the homeowner had discovered their tracks, yet he couldn’t break his own trail since leaving the road. And there was the not insignificant matter of finding Lindsey. He couldn’t call out for her and he wasn’t sure she was looking for him.
A granola bar and luxuriant piss set him right and he decided that walking in the gully along the road would be his best option. He could hear cars coming and could duck down if they did. The pattern of well-spaced houses on the left and woods on the right continued. The fact of the streetlights out here told him he wasn’t terribly far from a town. He’d never bothered with the geography of eastern Pennsylvania, so without roadsigns or maps he couldn’t guess which town it might be.
The air was chill and silent. The road wasn’t busy. Terah kept a sharp eye out for tracks leading into the woods, but he knew Lindsey was smart. When he drew abreast of a pine grove, he thought he’d take a chance.
Growing closely together, the pines kept bare ground beneath, while holding the snow in their green arms. Sure, dogs could track them, but a visual survey wouldn’t. It didn’t seem likely they’d bring dogs out for a few measly cans and peeing on somebody’d sleeping bag. They’d left a goodwill offering anyway. He ducked under the trees and began to work his way back from the road on a carpet of needles. The grove continued up the hill, which was less steep here. How would he find her if she didn’t want to be tracked?
The hill ran out of energy so Terah topped it to the side opposite the road. Following the military crest he could see down into the valley but wouldn’t be silhouetted against the sky if spotted from below. Without any prints venturing into the snow, however, he didn’t know which way to go.
In the short time they’d been together he’d grown fond of Lindsey. Yes, he missed Danielle, but that seemed so long ago, especially now that there were no markers of time such as Mondays or weekends. His mind wandered back to the ghosts in the asylum. They seemed fabricated now. Long years of not believing in the spiritual world would take a long time to undo. He’d grown up religious, of course. Why would anyone major in religion if they hadn’t? Instead of getting him closer to Heaven, though, college had only cast doubts on everything.
His inexperience with girls was evident as well. Grove City College still had segregated dorms. Men and women, unlike Eden, kept apart by a spotless quad where walking on the grass could lead to a fine. He’d trained himself, courtesy of Saint Paul, not to look at girls. He never noticed breasts or behinds. If he talked to a female he looked her in the face, but he’d started to realize that even that would cause impure thoughts. It was at camp that he’d met Wendy.
Unable to admit it with the Bible between them, he’d been smitten. Assigned together during a week of Evangelism Camp—who’d send their tween to a camp for evangelizing?—they’d had an odd group of kids, including one (Billy) who saw ghosts. It was on a hill not unlike this one, but with fewer trees, that Billy had tried to wander away from camp, telling Terah that he heard the voices of the dead calling to him from the valley below. Wendy and Terah had bonded that week, and although she wasn’t exactly pretty, Terah went back to college thinking of her all the time.
Now, coming back to himself, he realized he wasn’t alone in these woods.
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