The dead boy lies curled on his side, head resting on one
arm. His bare feet are blue, nearly purple, his eyes closed, lashes long and
dusty against his pale skin. Dressed only in a black T-shirt and faded jeans,
his abandoned body lies in stark contrast to the rest of the forest.
Dawn draws nearer, the first faint rays of sunlight
filter through the trees. Birds are beginning to sing, and the first hungry
ants venture out from their nests. As
the day heats up flies will arrive to perform their mating and propagating
rituals, lovingly depositing their eggs into the soft parts of the body.
How did the boy come to be here, lying so peacefully in
the grass? A closer inspection reveals that perhaps he is not so peaceful after
all. His brown hair is matted and much darker on the back of his head,
noticeably not from poor hygiene.
It’s a shame, really. Such a good-looking boy reduced to
a pathetic bit of motionless flesh. Surely someone, somewhere, wonders about
this striking teenage boy, maybe a skinny girl with a gap in her teeth and a
flutter in her belly whenever he passes in the hallway oblivious to her
existence because he’s one of the beautiful people and doesn’t waste his time
with mere mortals.
An unfair assessment, perhaps.
Two boys enter the woods. The dead boy wants only a walk
through the forest, time with nature in the peaceful quiet. His friend has
another agenda, his heart filled with more than mischief. Jealousy has taken
root, crowding out any friendship he might have felt for the dead boy. It’s a
girl of course, a lovely smooth-limbed girl with butter yellow hair and moss
green eyes. It’s always a girl, isn’t it?
The friend lets the dead boy take the lead, following him
carefully over fallen trees, their sneakers crushing ant nests and scurrying
beetles. He waits for the perfect opportunity. His belly churns with excitement
and dread, his hand continually checking the pipe wrench in his back pocket.
It’s not hard to visualize the next moments. The dead boy
will stop, leaning against a tree, ask his friend where to now? He likes the
woods, likes the deep silence that reminds him of the time he spends with the
girl, because she too, likes the forest. In fact, that’s where they shared
their first kiss, an innocent fumbling of lips and tongues.
All this passes through the boy’s mind as he gazes up
through the canopy of leaves. It seems fitting that his last sight is of the
blue sky, doesn’t it?
His shoes, though. What happened to his shoes? Perhaps it
wasn’t a jealous friend after all. Maybe the boy was kidnapped, snatched as he
walks home after school, his mind full of the girl or baseball practice or what
he’s going to eat when he gets home, because his stomach is growling.
The blue van has been following the boy for two blocks now,
its occupant waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect opportunity to perform
his devilish deed. It starts to rain, the water sheeting down in ridiculous
amounts, a veritable flood.
Of course the boy accepts a ride, why wouldn’t he? It’s a
small town, a safe town, nothing bad has ever happened here, and never will.
It’s this delightful innocence, this wholesome ignorance that works in the
evildoer’s favor, and dooms the handsome boy.
When the evildoer has finished performing his evil deeds
in the back of his blue van deep in the woods the boy loves, he gently lifts
the dead boy in his arms and carries him even deeper into the forest.
The dead boy’s head lolls, his eyelids shut tight against
whatever terror he experienced in his last moments. Blood soaks the murderer’s
sleeve, blood from the boy’s crushed head. When the murderer at last places the
boy on the forest floor, he carefully arranges the body, his fingers lingering
one last time on the smooth cheek.
Horrifying, yes?
The dead boy cowers against the kitchen door while the
beast foams and roars at him, for once
again the boy has done some perceived wrong, although he truly has no idea, can
barely understand the incoherent ranting.
Then it happens: the beast grabs the dead boy and slams him
against the doorjamb, his head bouncing off the wood with bone crunching force.
He tries to fight, but it’s no use. The boy slithers to the floor, his eyes
sliding shut, his bare feet stark white against the dark linoleum.
The beast stands above him, glad for an instant that the
brat is finally quiet, then afraid when the boy doesn’t move or make a sound,
not even when it kicks his shoulder with its steel toed boot. This is a
problem. Despite the mother’s constant bitching about the boy and the messes he
makes, he is her child. The beast realizes he must dispose of the body, cover
up his crime (but was it even a crime? Even a stepfather can discipline, can’t
he?). Working quickly, the beast finds a ragged towel and wraps the boy’s
splintered head, then picks him up and carries him outside to his rusty truck.
It has to hurry; the mother will return soon from the bingo games at the
church, and it wouldn’t do to for her to see this.
The beast cleans up the stain on the linoleum, tosses the
bloody rags into the trash barrel as he passes by. It has a plan, a foolproof
plan, it believes. The dead boy is known for spending most of his time in the
forest, so it won’t be much of a stretch to leave the body there.
By the time the beast is driving back home, it’s
whistling and thinking about the baseball game in town tonight. Perhaps it will
go.
Poor dead boy. Is there no one who loves this poor thing?
Is he disposable? Forgettable? Regrettable?
The girl with the butter yellow hair. What of her? Will
she miss the boy she kissed in the forest? Maybe she’ll keep her memories of
him in her heart, pull them out when she feels especially lonely, close her
eyes and feel his mouth on hers again while the wind blew her hair across both
of their faces. I love you, he said, his eyes so soft. You’re the only one who
understands me. That memory, yes, that’s the one that she’ll cherish forever.
Or at least for a while.
The drunken mother. Is it possible she will ignore the
fact that her only child is missing, and her husband of a few years avoids her
eyes when the subject comes up? Perhaps it will be easier to pretend the boy
has run away, taken a Greyhound to another town where he can do what he wants
and she can drink all she wants without feeling his judgmental eyes every time
she picks up a bottle. If he could have just minded his own business, kept his
mouth shut, kept his hands off of crap that didn’t belong to him. She doesn’t
blame the beast for his anger at the boy, and is secure in her knowledge that
of course the beast would never actually hurt
her son, not really, not beyond a swollen lip or a broken arm but that was an
accident and it doesn’t count. The boy is hard to get along with, always
wanting something to eat, new shoes, paper for school, so annoying all the
time. So when she comes home from bingo,
twelve dollars richer, she slips a little on the damp linoleum as she hurries
to the cabinet for her vodka, a question flitting through the back of her mind
(who mopped the floor?) and then it’s gone. The clink of ice cubes in a glass
is as comforting sound as the noise of the television in the family room where
her husband slouches on the broken down couch with a beer in one hand and the
remote in the other.
After a few days, a week maybe, the mother will rouse
herself enough to wonder where the boy is, spurred along by inquiries from the
school and even the yellow-haired girl, the bravest thing she’s ever done,
stopping by to ask about him. Another day or two of dithering before the mother
calls the police to report him missing, and then she must answer as to why she
waited so long, the chances are not good to find him alive after this long, the
first 24 hours are crucial.
Now the dead boy is hardly recognizable, the insects
having done their work with the help of rain and sunshine, and one night a
hungry coyote who sniffed around before escaping with a bit of flesh. Soon the
dead boy will join the dark forest, finally at peace.
