The Boy in the Woods by Carter Wilson

Author:Carter Wilson [Carter Wilson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2014-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

Present day

Tommy looked down at his forearm and saw the faded white scar, the straight line left by Elizabeth’s blade that had existed as a part of him for decades. It was buried deep enough in his arm hair that no one had ever asked about it, not even Becky. But he saw it every time he looked.

On he walked through the woods, and ten minutes later Tommy found the grave. He hadn’t been sure he would be able to, as thirty years of memories had collected in his mind since he last stood here. Thirty years of thoughts, each new one eroding all earlier ones just a little bit at a time. But he remembered where it all happened. He remembered it perfectly.

Tommy stared at the clearing, the small path of scrub and dirt next to the dead elm tree. After all these years the dead tree still stood, crooked and defiant like an ancient tombstone.

The sky darkened as a bruise-colored cloud crept in front of the sun. A small gust of wind rustled the leaves on the floor of the woods.

Tommy looked around, expecting someone to come walking into the clearing at any moment and ask him what he was doing. The woods seemed silent and filled with noise all at once, and Tommy felt he could hear even the sound of a bird twitching its head. He would hear someone coming, he was certain, but it might be too late to do anything about it, especially once he started digging. He just had to hope for the best, which, as he had discovered in years of researching criminals, rarely worked out well.

Tommy’s steps grew smaller as he passed the area where the actual murder had taken place. The pile of rocks, the one they sometimes used as a make-shift fireplace, was still there. To Tommy, this was unbelievable, as if no one else had bothered to come out this way since that summer day. He walked over and picked up one of the rocks, feeling its cold heft in his hand. It was about the size of the rock Elizabeth had used on Rade, maybe a little smaller. That rock, of course, was no longer in the pile. That rock was buried next to Rade, along with the hunting knife with all of their blood on it.

We’ll cut ourselves, Elizabeth had said. On the palm, just enough to bleed a little. And then we’ll each put our blood on the knife, and that will make it official. Our secret forever. Our blood secret.

Tommy hadn’t needed to do it. She had already taken his blood, so he had stood and watched while Jason and Mark acquiesced at gunpoint. The Watcher hadn’t participated in the ritual. He had simply watched.

Tommy remembered the moment of panic, way back in the early 1990s, when he heard about DNA testing being used to solve crimes. He had thought about all their blood on the knife, sitting next to the corpse of a child.

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