The Box in the Woods

THE DAY WAS FADING FAST. BY THE TIME THEY DRIFTED INTO ALLISON’S driveway, there was little light left, and she and Nate were sweating and heaving.

“When . . . we . . . get in . . . there,” Nate said between breaths, “I . . . am drinking . . . whatever . . . is in . . . the fridge. Don’t care. Maybe it’s . . . stealing. Don’t care.”

Stevie nodded heavily.

“We should probably hide the bikes,” she said.

“Why? There’s no one around.”

“In case anyone comes by. Because it’s still . . .”

She decided to omit the words breaking and entering. Nate regarded his friend with a look that walked the line between weariness and terror. They rolled the bikes into the trees and set them on their sides, then walked the rest of the way up the dark lane and into Allison’s driveway.

“She could have a doorcam or something,” Nate said in a low voice.

“Well, she’s not monitoring it now,” Stevie replied.

Even though there was no one around, it seemed like a bad idea to go through the front door. There was a side one, which was a bit more private. Stevie guided Nate in that direction as she dug around in her bag and pulled out the nitrile gloves.

“Snap ’em on,” she said, handing a pair to Nate. “Feels good.”

She got out her wallet. She had a debit card, which she needed. She had a credit card, which was largely a joke; still—better to preserve it. Her Ellingham ID was sturdy, and she would be getting a new one anyway in the fall. She pulled this one out and wiggled it into the crack in the doorway.

“It’s really that easy to open a door, huh?” Nate said.

“You’ve seen me do it before.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to think that’s because the Ellingham locks are old and shit. I wanted to believe houses are more secure.”

“The theater of security,” Stevie said. “Believe what you want.”

The lock popped open gently, and Stevie opened the door, and then the two of them stepped into the darkened house. Stevie had crept through private spaces before, even ones recently vacated by people who had met unfortunate ends. She hadn’t done this a lot, but that she had done it at all was notable. Ellingham Academy had afforded her many bespoke experiences.

The last time Stevie had entered this house, she had come in through the kitchen. This doorway led into a lower level of the house, a furnished basement that Allison had turned into a home gym. From here, they headed up the steps, emerging in the hallway with the many framed photographs. Outside, the first pops of fireworks sounded in the distance.

“Happy Independence Day,” Nate said.

The Sabrina room, as Stevie was now calling it in her head, was behind the closed door at the end of the hall. She considered turning on the overhead light but opted instead to use her flashlight out of an abundance of caution. She shone it around, trying to find the large turtle. It wasn’t where it had been. Nate, meanwhile, was looking along the shelves.

“What is this?” he said. “Hairbrushes? Old pencils? This is—”

“The work of a grieving sister,” Stevie cut in.

“. . . from a horror novel.”

Stevie did a full three-sixty, scanning every surface.

“The turtle is gone,” she said. She considered for a moment, then it hit her. Allison’s reaction had been profound when Stevie had shown her the list of art supplies—she’d been so touched that she immediately took Stevie over to Paul Penhale’s veterinary office.

“She figured it out,” Stevie said. “She moved the turtle. We have to find it.”

They began upstairs, since they were already there. The bathroom was easily eliminated. Allison’s bedroom was perhaps the most awkward place to go, but Stevie pushed down any discomfort. Surfaces first—the turtle wasn’t on any of the bedside stands or bureaus. She had a quick look in the closet, where everything was tidily hung or shelved. No turtle. Nate looked under the bed and otherwise peered unhappily around the room. They gave the linen closet a cursory go-through. Nothing.

They headed back downstairs as the fireworks were starting in earnest outside. They could see trails of light past the tree line outside. Nate was sent to check the living room, while Stevie headed back into the kitchen. She found what she had come for soon enough—the turtle was pushed back into the corner of the countertop space, where a cookie jar should go.

“Gotcha,” she said, lifting it up and sitting with it on the floor behind the kitchen island. “Nate! In here!”

Nate joined her in the kitchen and sank down next to her on the floor.

“Keep a light on it,” she said, setting down her phone to pry the jar open.

It did not open.

“Cookie jars have rubberized sealing rings,” she said. “You have to . . .”

She grabbed the edge of the turtle’s shell and pulled harder. Nothing. She pulled once more. She felt something give ever so slightly. Once more and she got another wiggle.

“Maybe it’s rotted or something,” Nate said.

Stevie sat back and considered the turtle for a long moment. It was cheerfully painted in bright greens and yellows and had a small, satisfied smile. It was a nice turtle, made by someone who cared for it. Which was why the next part was unfortunate but necessary.

“Sorry, Sabrina,” she said.

She stood up, glanced along the countertop, opened a drawer or two, and found a marble rolling pin. She brought it down on the turtle’s back, hard.

“Or you could do that,” Nate said.

The shell broke into three large pieces. She removed them, revealing a decayed rubber ring and a hollow space for cookies. But instead of cookies, there was a small, soft-backed red book with the year 1978 written on the front in gold script.

“The truth in a shell,” Stevie said quietly.

The diary had curved into the shape of the jar with time and it was stuck when Stevie tried to get it out without damaging it, so she had to break the turtle’s head and one of his legs off for wiggle room to get it out. Once you start to break precious ceramic turtles, you might as well keep going.

Aside from bending it, the airless jar had kept the diary in good condition. It was dust-free, dry but not brittle. Stevie opened the cover with care. The first page made it clear what they had found.

PROPERTY OF SABRINA ABBOTT

“I’m never questioning you again,” Nate said.

Stevie turned the curved page to the first entry.

JANUARY 3, 1978

Welcome, 1978. Nice to meet you. Time to crack open this fresh new diary I got for Christmas. I like that this one has a plain red cover this time. I liked the Snoopy one from last year because I will always love Snoopy and nothing can stop that, but this one is more of what I’ve got in mind for the future.

“We’ve got it,” Nate said. “We should take it and go. We’ll read it back at camp.”

She read on a few more sentences.

We went back to school today after the holiday break. There was talk about delaying the opening because of Michael Penhale, but apparently it was too complicated so we went back at the normal time. I can’t believe it’s been two weeks now since Michael died. I went in with a few student council people.

“Stevie . . .”

“Yeah,” she said, shutting the book and putting it in her backpack. “Yeah . . .”

He put his hand over her mouth. She widened her eyes in confusion, then she realized why he had done it. There was the unmistakable sound of someone opening the front door.

People in mystery and suspense novels were always talking about how their heart was in their throat. Stevie now understood precisely what that meant—she was experiencing something that felt exactly like that, a big, throbbing knot wedged right in there, making it feel like she might barf or breathe blood or choke. Nate had, for some reason, pancaked himself on the ground, like he was pretending to be a kitchen rug. Then, realizing this was not the move to make, he got up on all fours. Stevie put out her hands in a don’t move position and listened to see what she could understand from the noises.

The door opened. There were footsteps as someone entered. It sounded like it was one person who paused by the door, like they were listening back, which she did not like at all. The person walked through the living room, down the uncarpeted hallway, and then stopped somewhere beyond the passage into the kitchen. There was a pause that was hatefully long, then the footsteps moved back toward the steps, creaking up them.

Stevie swallowed, checked to make sure she was still breathing, examined Nate for signs of life, and then tilted her head toward the kitchen door. She got up, moving first to her knees, then up to her feet, tiptoeing over to it. It had a deadbolt, plus a twisty thing above the knob. She turned both of these gingerly. That went well, but as she pulled the door open, the door made a strange rattling noise. The footsteps overhead stopped moving.

There was no time to be precious now, no time to pretend they weren’t there. She grabbed for Nate and yanked him through the door, only barely concealing the sound of their leaving. Outside, night had fallen, and fireflies twinkled around the warm garden behind the house. If they ran straight out, whoever it was would be able to see them from the windows. She gestured for Nate to follow her, creeping close to the house. They went around to the front, which faced the trees and the driveway.

“Go!” she whispered to him.

The two of them tore off, running as fast and as quietly as they could down the gravel driveway. The moon was unfortunately high and bright and there were fireworks going off overhead, so there was no cover as they hurried away, but they were soon through the opening in the trees and down into the wooded part of the drive, away from the view of the house. Once they reached where it met the street, she turned back.

“Wait,” she said, catching his arm. “Wait, wait, wait . . .”

Stevie turned around and was taking a few steps back up the drive toward the house.

“Stevie.”

“Look,” she said. She remained there until he came up beside her to see what she was indicating.

“What?” he hissed. “There’s nothing.”

“Right. There’s nothing. There’s no car.”

Nate had nothing to say for a moment.

“What does that mean?” he finally replied.

“It means someone came here on foot.”

“But what does that mean?” he said again.

“Something,” she said. “Probably bad. Come on.”

They hurried back down the lane. Nate went ahead a bit and ducked into the trees. He emerged a moment later and stood there until Stevie reached him.

“The bikes are gone,” he said simply. “Must be the wrong spot, but . . . we put them by this sign right here. . . .”

On some level, once she had noticed there was no car in the driveway, Stevie had expected this. When things go bad, they tend to go bad all over.

“Come on,” she said, pulling him into the trees. “We’re going to walk back, but we’re going to stay off the road. We’ll go around the lake.”

She pulled out her phone as they walked and thumbed open a map. It was slow to load. The signal was poor. It finally opened the map, but it was of no use.

“It thinks we’re in the middle of the lake,” she said, shoving the phone in her pocket. “We’ll have to get to the lake somehow and follow it around. It’s got to be this way.”

“So we’re going to wander around the murder forest in the dark when there’s someone at the house we broke into.”

“Unless you have another plan,” she said.

“Just making sure I was up to speed.”

She reached for her keys. One of her keychains was a small pill container. She unscrewed this as they walked and shook out the tiny pill it held. She always had one Ativan on her, in case of a panic attack. Being lost in the murder woods was a pretty good occasion to take it. At home, it would make her sleepy. Here, in the woods, it would keep her under control in case her brain decided to spin out. She swallowed it dry, which wasn’t too hard as it was a small pill. She was putting the keys back in her bag when she noticed a small glint of light behind them. In one movement, she pushed Nate behind a tree. He nodded, indicating that he wasn’t going to speak.

A crunch of a step. Crunch, crunch.

Nothing. The person stopped moving.

There were two choices here. One, they could accept that whoever it was who had been at the house had followed them into the woods for completely sensible reasons. They had come to the house to do something, suspected someone was inside, looked around, seen two figures going into the woods, and followed. So they could simply step out from behind the tree and see whoever it was and fess up.

But this person had come with no car and had taken their bikes. This left option two.

“We need to run,” she whispered in his ear.

They ran straight out onto the cedar-chip path that rimmed the lake. This was good in terms of informing them of where they were, and bad in terms of being seen. But at this point, that didn’t really matter anymore. They could run faster on the path and they would know where they were going. She could hear the person following them and glanced behind once to try to catch a glimpse, but the person was out of sight. Stevie ran like she did in dreams—furiously, almost flying through the dark. Nate was just in front of her, ripping along.

She felt the bullet go past before she heard it, which was odd. It was this little whizzing thing, like a dragonfly. It landed in a tree nearby, sending out a spray of splinters.

“Holy shit,” Nate yelled, spinning around. “Shit.”

They both instinctively left the path, cutting between the trees, dodging and weaving in the dark. The ground was a tangle of roots and pits, giving way in unexpected places. Stevie was dimly aware of the branches that slapped and tore at her skin, of the way her ankles twisted from under her as she hit a snag or a hole. There was no telling where they were now—the woods had consumed them. Maybe they were heading toward camp; maybe they were running in circles. Trees all look the same in the dark. Up ahead, though, there was a peephole of a clearing through which she could see the fireworks crackling in the sky in happy red, white, and blue. She used the sparks as a guide point, making her way toward them, ducking behind the trees. From the tension in her legs and knees she could tell they were moving higher, which at least indicated a different, new direction.

Whizz. Another object cracked nearby; Stevie felt its explosive force. She could tell Nate was yelling and swearing, but she couldn’t hear him anymore, not over the blood in her ears and the crescendo of fireworks. The ground got rockier, easier to move on . . .

And then, the tree cover was gone. The forest opened up and the sky was all theirs. She realized that the opening she had been using to guide them was, in fact, Point 23. She backed off and tried to continue on through the wooded area, but the ground was impenetrable from here on out, cascading down in a perilous slope. She’d lost track of where their pursuer was as well.

“We have to,” Nate said, breathless, pulling at her arm.

“What?”

“We’re cornered. Jump out when you go. As far as you can. Feet together.”

She could see the lake below, silent and dark, like a black mirror, reflecting the moon and the fireworks. She had been in bad positions before—down in tunnels at Ellingham, trapped in the snow. This was different. This required action—a calculated leap into the unknown. She was too terrified to be merely afraid.

“Out as far as you can,” he said again. “Go in straight, feet down and together. Back up and run for it. Now!”

She didn’t know how. Her feet wouldn’t move. She willed them to go, but they wouldn’t.

A shot made contact with the tree she was next to.

Time moved very slowly over the next few seconds. Nate was yelling for her to go, go go. She pressed herself back, crouching toward the ground. Nate did the same, then he pushed her on the back. She felt the ground for what may have been the last time, and then launched herself forward.

The edge of the rock was there to welcome her, and as she jumped out and made contact with the sky, she wanted to close her eyes but found she was unable to. She was tumbling. The mirror was coming up fast, and then . . .